The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Rivers : Elections as war

    Whenever it is time for elections, Rivers State goes into war mode. Port Harcourt, the capital, and environs come under tension. Movement is hindered; people stockpile food at home out of fear. Do not blame them, they are only taking precautions in order not to be caught on the wrong side when hoodlums and other miscreants hired for the election start their thing. The state is now on edge as it prepares for a rerun election on Saturday. The ruling party in the state does not want to lose, while the opposing party, All Progressives Congress (APC), which is ruling at the national level, wants to win.

    This has been the case since Governor Nyesom Wike took over from his former political godfather Rotimi Amaechi on May 29, last year. For years now, there has been no love lost between Wike and Amaechi. They used to be bosom friends and political soulmates before they fell apart. Since they became estranged, the state has become their battle field. Now that they are in opposing camps, they see every election as a battle for supremacy and they approach it as  such. Saturday’s will not be different and the signs are already there. As in the past, the signs are ominous. The drums of war are being beaten and we can all hear the sound, but how do we stop this impending bloodbath?

    This is the challenge before the police, which have promised to do all they can to ensure free and fair election. We should not have our hearts in our mouths whenever election is coming in Rivers. Elections should not be seen as war not only in Rivers, but in all states of the federation.

    If our politicians truly love us and not just our votes, our lives will matter to them. They are using us as cannon fodders to attain power. It is 48 hours to the legislative rerun, yet the country has known no peace because of the election that will hold in only a fraction of Rivers. The din over the poll is deafening. Because of its determination to keep its turf come what may, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is throwing everything into the election. Led by Wike, the party has been accusing virtually every institution of state, beginning from the Federal Government to the police and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of plotting to rig in favour of APC.

    During a campaign at Khana Local Government Area of the state on Monday, Wike, who will not allow any opportunity to go by without blaming his arch-political foe Amaechi of one thing or the other, was as usual unsparing in his criticism of those he believes are out to deprive him and his party of victory on Saturday. The rerun is a contest between Amaechi and Wike on who owns the state. Who is more popular between them? And in a free and fair election who will carry the day between them? In their days in PDP, they fought elections together and always won. But since their relationship became sour, they have personalised elections and other matters.

    In their characteristic manner, they want to use this rerun to prove a point about their strength. Their positions are reversed today. During the last general elections, Wike had federal might on his side because his party was then in power. Today Amaechi is enjoying federal might with his party in power in Abuja. Wike has been making noise all over the place for the fear that Amaechi, who was President Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign chief, may use federal might against him.  Wike is used to having federal might on his side and deploying it in his use as we saw in the 2015 governorship election when former First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan relocated to the state to give him maximum support. He won hands down.

    Why should he now be afraid of the same federal might? Your guess is as good as mine. He knows that you cannot beat the federal might no matter how powerful you may be. Wike is afraid of being given a dose of his own medicine. He believes that he should cry out now in order to have something to hold on to if his party loses the election. There were governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states with minimal fuss. So, why has Wike suddenly turned megalomaniac over a rerun? He and others interested in the rerun should allow peace to reign so that the election will be free and fair. He is alleging that his life is in danger. The governor specifically accused the police of planning to kill him. What will the police gain by doing that? He has also accused INEC of planning to rig the election in favour of APC.

    The police and INEC have denied his allegations, describing them as unfounded and baseless. Police Commissioner Francis Odesanya said Wike lied about his claim that 200 policemen were withdrawn from the Government House, telling reporters : ‘’Go to the Government House, the policemen are there…if the governor said I have withdrawn his police personnel, then it is the work of an investigative journalist to find out the truth in the allegation…’’ In its reaction, INEC accused Wike of instigating violence ahead of the rerun. Wike should stop blowing hot over this election in order not to send the wrong signal to the outside world. He should, like other  politicians interested in the election,  work towards its peaceful conduct. There should be no room for trouble makers this time around in Rivers over this rerun. Enough of bloodshed during elections in that state.

    The police must provide adequate security for INEC workers, election monitors and voters. It is their job to ensure that everything goes well during the exercise in order not to give Wike and his ilk something to hold on to if anything goes wrong. They must see to it that trouble makers are kept at bay during the poll. Anything short of this, the police would have failed in their duty and also opened themselves to public scorn and ridicule. We cannot continue to lose precious lives to elections in Rivers. This cycle of bloodletting must stop.

     

    The NYSC way

    No matter how hard hearted a person may be, the story of the late Ifedolapo Oladepo will melt his heart. She was deployed in Kano for the one-year mandatory  National Youth Service. Ifedolapo left home hale and hearty. But on getting to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Camp in Kano, she took ill. Everything was said to have been done to save her life, but she died. Since her death, the social media has been abuzz, with many commentators blaming the NYSC for not doing enough to save her life. The NYSC has since denied that it was negligent in the handling of her case. It said it did all it could to save Ifedolapo. At a briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, NYSC Director-General Brig Gen Sule Kazaure said the camp doctors battled to save Ifedolapo’s life, all to no avail. The doctors probably did not know what the first class Transport Management graduate was suffering from beyond the rashes she complained of having on some parts of her body. The autopsy, according to the NYSC,  showed that she died of kidney infection. What happened to the medical test Corps members are expected to undergo before being allowed into camp? Did she do that test? What is the result? Perhaps, if the NYSC had known that she had such serious condition, it might have exempted her from service on health ground, to enable take care of herself. What has happened has happened. I hope that we have all learnt a lesson from this so as  to avert a recurrence in future.  My heart goes out to Ifedolapo’s family, especially her grandmother. May her soul rest in the bosom of the Lord.

  • How Yoruba governors mortgaged our tomorrow

    First, an ode to politicians. Being a politician itself is a major nightmare. Because politics accommodates the cheat, the egoist and the unscrupulous, even those driven by noble objective are often tarred with the same brush. But politics is not all about intrigue. It is also about service and without the versatility and brinkmanship of those driven by noble objective to meet rising expectations of those without hope, society will descend to in to chaos. Those who chose to spend their time, talent and resources to serve society therefore deserve our gratitude. It must also be added that politics is even a more hazardous profession especially in our own multi-ethnic society where as Governor Ajimobi put it during the governors’ parley initiated by the Development Agenda For Western Nigeria, (DAWN), ‘We were coerced by the British overlords in the evergreen magical marriage of inconvenience called amalgamation of 1914 with nationalities and their different worldviews, different ideologies, different cultures, different political beliefs, soldered into one component by the British colonial masters’.

    This heterogeneity fortunately was acknowledged by the majority of our founding fathers except Zik who said our ‘cultural differences had been exaggerated by accident of colonial rule’.  That was why they settled for federalism with each group mapping out a socio-economic blueprint informed by the innate ingenuity of their forebears. To build on the ‘cultural welfarism’ which defines the world-view of the Yoruba, the starting point for Awo and his group was the result of a commissioned survey of Eastern Region which showed that the East had between 1934 when Zik returned to Nigeria and 1951, caught up and outstripped the Yoruba that was once ahead in area of education, with more secondary schools, more hospital bed spaces per thousand and more mileage of tarred roads. This informed the AG manifesto ‘of free education, free health and full employment’.

    Sadly, 64 years and 17 years into the fourth republic, after a group of Yoruba youths first exploited our uniqueness to build a secured future for their people, Ajimobi and his current governors of the Yoruba states are just coming to the realization that “the key to leveraging our uniqueness is the regional approach to dealing with our afflictions, overcoming our difficulties, as well as creating sustainable pathway to progress together”. Unfortunately this belated acknowledgement is coming after so much harm has been done that not a few including Dr. Olapade Agoro, the chairman, National Action Council (NAC), who says ‘the parley portrayed ambient culture of self-deceit, and insincerity   for deviating from western region self- sufficiency’, have much faith in the governors’ new initiative.

    The reason for cynicism is obvious. Our governors with exception of few since the fourth republic have behaved like locusts eating and sharing the proceeds of efforts of a more visionary generation.  Many believe the poor quality of leadership they give is but a reflection of lack of preparation for leadership. Unlike those Obasanjo (he once boasted of achieving what his better educated Yoruba compatriots could not achieve) picked from the streets and made governors, Awolowo paid his dues before becoming the Premier of the West. He was surrounded by men with quality education and of solid character such as Adekunle Ajasin, Ladoke Akintola, Remi Fani-Kayode, Bode Thomas, Rotimi Williams, Olaniwun Ajayi, Ayo Adebanjo, Abraham Adesanya, Oduola Osuntokun, etc. They were assisted by a think-tank consisted equally of men of solid character and of excellent academic achievements such Professors Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, Samuel Aluko, Banji Akintoye, Oluwole Awokoya etc.

    These young visionaries  set up the Western Regional Marketing Board in 1954 which  developed the cash crop industry in the west and together with other regional boards “became the dominant economic system in the Nigerian economy controlling 63% of the foreign exchange earned by the country in 1961”.

    They established the National Bank. They later bought Nabani Estates, a fully owned subsidiary of the bank and turned it to WEMABOD which became the biggest property builders and estate managers in the country. They went on to set up the National Investment and Properties Company Limited (NIPC). They also set up the Odu’a Investment Company Limited, which became Nigeria’s biggest conglomerate in the post-independent years with Ikeja Hotels Ltd, Vegetable Oil Nig. Ltd. and the Great Nigeria Insurance Company as some of its subsidiaries.  They did not only establish industries, they empowered entrepreneurs irrespective of political leanings.

    Tragically between 1985 when Babangida started his liberalization programme and 1987 when Obasanjo completed the sharing of Nigeria’s $100b worth of investment at a giveaway price of about $1.6b, many of the investments built through the blood and sweat of Western Region cocoa farmers and taxpayers were sold. Between 1999 and 2007, under Obasanjo’s new privatization policy similar to his “Commodity Boards Decree 1977” which destroyed the Western Region’s economy, Yoruba governors presided over the sale of some of the companies.  Equally taking the advantage of the Obasanjo’s government monetisation policy with which the political class confiscated our national patrimony at the federal level, some of the Yoruba governors descended on choice properties built by their predecessors. In the dying days of Adebayo Alao-Akala as governor of Oyo State, the Alaafin of Oyo reminded him that such malady was unacceptable within the Yoruba culture.

    In total disregard for the entrenched Yoruba culture of check and balance which had existed long before the advent of participatory democratic system, there emerged a new generation of Yoruba  governors who behave like sole administrators or sometimes as outlaws, locking up Houses of Assembly and chasing lawmakers out of town, governors who publicly fought over who was to buy government banks they did not establish, entangled in the Ikoyi choice government property sale scandals or hunted by EFCC for acquiring choice properties with stolen funds. Yet this is a region where neither Oduola Osuntokun (later died a school teacher) who  as a minister, supervised the building of the Bodija Estate , nor Awo, Akintola or Rotimi Williams have mansions  within the estate or within the Ikeja GRA also built by their government .

    Bola Tinubu, in spite of his personal political travails remains our political leader. As our revered Pa Adeyinka Adebayo reminded him not too long ago, “fate has put him in a prime position to determine to a large extent the direction the Yoruba people will go”. He must now deploy his political genius to mobilise those who have quietly and selflessly served the cause of the Yoruba race such as Wale Oshun, General Alani Akinrinade without leaving out ex-President Obasanjo (the “ebora of Owu) since in Yoruba cosmology, we can achieve nothing without first pouring libation to Esu the god of confusion. Tinubu was able to manage Obasanjo before the last election; he can do this again for the peace and progress of our people.

    And the time for action is now. The Yoruba, of the three dominant groups in the country, as Pa Adebayo reminded Tinubu, remains the weakest link. While our governors groom area boys and political thugs, the West’s economy has been taken over by the north and the east through Dangote and the Igbos; while our governors build airports, governor’s mansions and flyovers, industries are springing up in the East. While we once harnessed the energy of our youths through farm settlements and became self -sufficient in food production, we today depend on the north to feed ourselves. It is time to implement the DAWN agenda painstakingly put together by Yoruba professionals and intellectuals.

  • Yoruba and burden of history in the politics of Nigeria – 3

    Restructuring of Nigeria. It is this feeling that makes the Tinubu faction of the APC to be favourably disposed to some form of restructuring of the country and designing a new political, administrative and financial architecture, including fiscal federalism to remove the bogey of domination of one group by the others. The modern political history of the Yoruba, starting appropriately with Awolowo is known for its contribution of the federal idea to political discourse in Nigeria.  Implicit in this is that no one group or state should be big enough to dominate or overwhelm all others put together. This is basic to Professor John Wheare’s ‘Principle of Federalism’. The federal principle has now been bought even by some segments of the northern political leadership. The Igbos who were previously deluded about national unity and unitary government, have now bought into the federal idea and the minorities, especially those in the Niger Delta, seem to be on board for selfish economic reasons.

    The force of our history in Yorubaland compels us to lead the way of restructuring along proper federal lines, because it is good for the Federal Republic of Nigeria and it is good for Yorubaland. Chief Awolowo, while pushing the federal idea during the struggle for independence, said one can be a Yoruba patriot and Nigerian nationalist at the same time. I agree that there should be no conflict between patriotism and nationalism. What shape the restructuring should take, will have to be negotiated. Awolowo wanted all Yorubas including those in Kwara, Kogi and Edo to be in one state. It is a good idea but it is apparently unrealisable. What is possible is not reversion to the old three or four regions but a restructure based on economic viability and not the present states of misery and beggary, where salaries are not paid and all resources are gulped up by administrative excesses and political extravaganza. Perhaps we should go back to Gowon’s 12-state structure with a heavy dose of economic viability, and superimposed on it should be the principle of fiscal federalism where each state would survive on its own economic bootstrap.

    The present situation of the centre, creating states and local governments is not only absurd but an anomaly which contradicts the essence of federalism. In normal federations like Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and the United States, it is the states that create and fund the federal government and not the other way round. When we embraced the federal idea in Nigeria in 1957, the states funded the federal government and this was so until the military took over government and shaped the country in its own military- unitary way of command. Peace has eluded us since then and we must go back to the period of correct relations between the centre and the periphery in terms of viable state structure. This is the challenge facing Yoruba and Nigerian politics now and in the future. All stake holders, including traditional rulers like our Obas must be engaged in finding a path for the Yoruba in the politics of Nigeria.

    Role of Obas and traditional institutions

    I have once described Nigeria as a republic of a thousand kings which sounds contradictory, because monarchies ordinarily should not co-exist with a republic. When faced with this problem, India simply abolished the various kingdoms ruled by powerful Maharajahs, but left them with their considerable wealth. No one can do the same and survive in Nigeria. In the past, politicians have removed powerful rulers like Alaafin Adeyemi 1, by the Awolowo government in western Nigeria in 1954. Sarkin Kano Muhammad Sanusi was in 1962 removed by the Sir Ahmadu Bello government and General Sanni Abacha’s government removed the Sultan of Sokoto, Ibrahim Dasuki in 1994. Some of the Obas suffered their salaries being withheld or reduced to pennies during the time of Chief S.L Akintola’s government in western Nigeria. It is however unlikely that any Nigerian ruler at the centre or the state will be strong enough to abolish an institution which the people still support and venerate. In fact, many of the new rulers are eager to bid for the traditional thrones whenever there are vacancies.

    Traditional rulers still provide rallying points for the people’s mobilisation especially in the rural areas. They also provide channels of communication between governments and citizens. They are also in some cases religious leaders of their communities. This is more apparent in the Islamic Emirates of the north. But it is no less obvious in Yorubaland, where in spite of whatever monotheistic religion an Oba may profess, he still has to carry out religious obligations binding him to the land, the people and the ancestors. In Ife in particular, no single day goes without the Ooni or his priests propitiating the local gods for one thing or the other. In times of danger, people are more likely to look towards the palace than to an elected politician. The Oba’s position is so formidable that politicians know that their support is necessary for electoral success. Obas are regarded as vice-regal to the Almighty. They are not to be argued with or questioned, “Kabio kosi” Or Kabiyesi. They are in the case of Oyo, supposed to have power of life and death (Iku Baba Yeye). This awesomeness of power and influence are most noticeable and glaring in modern Bini, where the Oba is virtually worshiped. Even in an apparently republican Ibadan, the influence of the Olubadan is growing incrementally. The considerable power wielded by Obas in Yorubaland must also come with responsibility.

    Power goes with responsibility!

    This is going to be the greatest challenge to the institution of Obaship in these days of modernisation. Some of the young Obas coming to the throne must learn to keep intact the mystic and mystery surrounding the institution. They must avoid being seen at every party and social events behaving like ordinary people. Once this becomes the pattern, they will lose all respect and loyalty of the people. This behoves on them to maintain a reasonable distance from the Hoi polloi of the land and stay away from the corrupting influence of money and republican ethics of trade and commerce. Obas, no matter how young are regarded as fathers of the people in yorubaland. This is why older people must bow, prostrate and kneel down before rulers young enough to be their children. Respect is not to the person of the ruler but to the institution. I remember visiting my cousin, the Oba of our town and prostrating for someone who was a friend, cousin and school mate of mine but who in return wanted to hug me, I however told him he could no longer do that. He asked me why? I promptly told him he carried all the power of our ancestors the moment he went through the process of coronation. He smiled and understood me.

    In conclusion, I have pointed out how the history of Yorubaland has affected and is affecting Yoruba politics internally among the people, and externally with the rest of Nigeria, especially the North. It is suggested that the excision of Ilorin from the rest of Yorubaland has been a sore point, but that we should let bye gone be bye gone and realistically deal with the issue politically by forging links with the Kwara and Kogi modern political leaders, instead of harking back to the past. We must not allow the burden of history to wear us out and weigh us down and to determine the trajectory of our future politics and political alignment at the centre. We have also suggested that the ideology of progressivism should help in breaking down north/south dichotomy in Nigeria, as is the case in the current APC party imperfect as it may appear. We are also suggesting that no matter the political differences in Yoruba land we must conduct our politics with tact, civility and decorum characteristic of an ‘Omoluabi’. We have also suggested that for a long time to come, traditional political leaders, as constituted by the Obas will continue to have a role to play in Yoruba politics and that for the institution to endure, those occupying the traditional thrones must preserve the mystic and the mystery of their posts, lest familiarity breeds contempt.

  • Conclusion of a 2012 letter to Gen. Gowon

    Your Excellency, we urge you to see this perspective. Trying to heal Nigeria’s diseases with a supposedly almighty Nigerian wand has never worked, and it will never work. Military regime after military regime thought that the way to solve Nigeria’s problems was to pursue a centralizing, forced-unifying and forced-integrationist path. Well, they succeeded in centralizing, but that made the problems of Nigeria enormously worse. In the place of the locally based leaderships and local loyalty and passion that had moved the regions forward fairly strongly in the 1950’s, they strapped on all parts of the country a leadership with a pseudo-national orientation, a leadership divorced from the ruled in all localities, a leadership with no empathy for, or loyalty towards, the ruled. Then, as civilian politicians, using all their political power and influence, and the huge wealth that they had acquired in political offices, they proceeded to institutionalize the new brand of leadership by creating a powerful political party, the PDP, to encapsulate it all. And the outcome is that this super-party is able to force its candidate at election time on any state or local government, rig him into position, and demand of him loyalty to the culture of the party and not service to his own people. In the process, public corruption, already mountainous and all-pervasive, grew greatly in stature and confidence – and the common people for whom the state and local governments were established could only watch helplessly as they are robbed and raped. To be able to get any share at all, most ordinary Nigerians began to worship the robbers and rapists. Things could not be worse even if Nigeria were conquered by a horde of foreign bandits.

    In short, Your Excellency, the solution is not more centralization, or the fostering of more, or other, super-powerful political groupings. The solution is to restore control to the people – to empower the people to nurture again a leadership that is produced by the people and that serves the people. And there is no other way to accomplish this than by empowering each ethnic nation to call out its traditional ethical norms and laws and cultural influence for the guidance of its own affairs. There is no other conceivable way to get it done. There is some news as this is being written, that some super-powerful politicians are working on creating another super-powerful party to seize power from the PDP. Even if this new group manages to achieve the seizure of power, there can be no real change. The supermen of the defeated group will only stream to the party of the new holders of power – and the country will then return to square one. In the end, it will only be like replacing the leopard with the hyena as gate-keeper to the animal farm; neither will do anything other than steal the goats. It is because more and more Nigerians are coming to see these truths that the volume of voices is growing for either the replacement of the 1999 Constitution by another constitution that restructures our federation, or the outright dissolution of Nigeria.

    Your Excellency, we are distressed that, in your statement, you would castigate the Nigerians promoting these demands as “idealists who cannot wait to see a “perfect” Nigeria,” and who “agitate for the cancellation of the 1999 Constitution on the premise that there was too much concentration of power and resources at the centre”, and as “demagogues and other anarchists who will sooner take Nigeria back to the chaos of the 18th century”, who want “to see the country balkanized into small territories to be headed by tribal leaders”, who “desire the country’s break-up into “geo-political territories, whereby big ethnic groups may swallow up small ones without a challenge”, and who are “asking for a new constitution that will allow them keep 100 per cent of money derived from the sale of oil that is extracted within their territories”.

    We really must urge you, Your Excellency, to rethink these sentiments. “Chaos of the 18th century”! Is that the way a leading son of Africa like you, sir, should describe the history of your people? What was the chaos of the 18th century? The Hausa kingdoms? The Sokoto Caliphate that came later to unify most of the Hausa kingdoms? The Yoruba kingdoms and the Old Oyo Empire? The Kanem-Bornu Empire? The kingdoms of the Edo, Igala, Nupe, or Tiv? The kingdoms of the Western Igbo or the village democracies of the rest of Igboland? The states of the Ibibio or the city states of the Ijaw?   Are these and other significant cultural and political creations of our history the chaos of the 18th century?

    In a way, it is greatly valuable that you voiced these sentiments – valuable because you thereby highlight a very important weakness and flaw in the way many leading citizens of Nigeria view their country and handle its affairs. For such citizens, our past as peoples was generally one of barbarism, chaos and oppression; it was the white man, the British, that brought civilization, order, peace, and law to our lives. Therefore, why should we even think of examining what they created and gave to us? Why should we ever think of looking closely at the Nigeria that they gave us, and why should we ever want to strive to mould  it, or the management of it, to suit our own cultural ways? We had no culture!

    Your Excellency, please ponder these things, and it will strike you what terrible consequences this way of looking at our past has wrought in the corporate life of Nigeria. Do you see in the rulers and leaders of Nigeria and its various states today the same near-sacred devotion to the public good, the same dignified joy in service to their subjects, that characterized the rulers and chiefs of the Yoruba kingdoms? What researchers are finding is that Yoruba kingdoms were ruled according to certain pan-Yoruba ethical norms that limited the power of rulers, respected the dignity of the individual in society, promoted the welfare of all in society, and provided a high code of conduct for rulers, chiefs, and other prominent persons (a code of conduct that was fiercely enforced through powerful ritualized institutions). According to these researchers, this political culture had the effect of making the Yoruba person a citizen who values his freedom of choice in society, who expects to be decently respected by those holding authority in society, who expects probity and accountability in his rulers and chiefs. On the basis of these standards, can those who lead and rule the Yoruba in Nigeria today be really called Yoruba leaders? Of course, the Yoruba are being used here only as an example. Many other Nigerian nations have much to be proud of too.

    The noise of anger, desperation, resistance, conflict and turmoil are audible all the time from every part of Nigeria. What those noises mean is widespread rejection of the prevailing conditions of governance and leadership among all the peoples of Nigeria. Even the common people of the Arewa North, whose leaders have ruled Nigeria much longer than leaders from other regions, have seen very little that is aimed at the improvement of their quality of life. In all regions of Nigeria, it is the political leaders that are doing well for themselves; the welfare of the masses of the people is no longer a factor in government at any level. Create constitutional arrangements and systems that empower each nation to produce and control its leadership in its own way, and the quality of leadership and governance will improve dramatically across Nigeria.

    Finally, we ask you to note the conclusion enunciated by Karl Meier in his book on Nigeria entitled: This House Has Fallen. He stated that the only long-term solution in Nigeria to the crises that arise in a multi-ethnic state is for the various Nigerian nationalities, however many they may be, to “sit down and negotiate how they want to govern themselves and how they want to share their resources, and to decide whether they want to ultimately live together. Until they begin that process of internal reconciliation, at best Nigeria will lurch from crisis to crisis. At worst, it will fall apart”.

    We also ask you to acknowledge that there are countless Nigerians of your calibre who believe that Nigeria, like other multi-nation countries in the world, may, or even will, (or perhaps even should), dissolve into many smaller nation states. Given that, our continuing to follow the path we have followed since independence – the path of nation-building through a highly centralized state structure and the depression of our ethnic nations – holds a high potential for a violent end. Even if the ultimate fate of Nigeria will be dissolution, let us work to make it peaceful – let us make a violent parting unnecessary.

  • This year…as all others 

    •Portrait of the Nigerian journalist in 2016

    This year as all others, we pretended to have answers to everything. Did we? This year, we continued to spit words and eat them, like the dog that waddles back to gobble its vomit.

    This year, we quoted Nietzsche, Plato, Disreali among others to garnish our columns while we did all we can to silence true-born dissent on our news pages and news networks, lest we incur the ire of irate benefactors.

    This is the year we ennobled the thieving statesman and denied the patriot the plaudits we save for noble compatriots. This is the year we celebrated underachievers as the best of overachievers. This year, we celebrated the vanities of dim-witted celebrities on front-pages of our national newspapers.

    Here goes the year we exhausted newsprint and priceless airtime to glamorize the shenanigans of “society bigwigs and small wigs” although we cannot tell and still cannot tell, the simplest manifestations of our news practice, on say, the vendor who markets the newspaper or the child-labourer to whom Universal Basic Education (UBE) remains an everlasting fantasy.

    This is the year we feted the northern mafia, eastern cabal, western gerontocracy, and south-south uprising, as usual, even as they undermined our collective dreams and everything that nationhood and ambition had ever bestowed us.

    Beyond our elegant words and brazen manifestations of high character, our practice is modeled after some greedy few’s cartography of citizenship than by any internal dynamic of allegiances. Hence our misinterpretation of the social contract between the Fourth Estate and every other estate charged with the administration and supervision of our nation-state.

    Thus this year as all others, we hid behind interviews, ‘big interviews,’ to abdicate our responsibilities to the Nigerian public. This is the year we taught the public to feast and digest perversion because we believe it’s what they love to do best; because we know if we treat them to more depravity, they will become more willing participants, and we would get more adverts and keep smiling to the banks.

    This year as all others, we turned a blind eye and conveniently lost our voice as creatures running the three arms of government squandered public fund to feed their gluttony. This year, as all others, we watched unperturbed as most of our colleagues ennobled and defended with their lives, the rights of the ruling class to pilfer our chests and rob us silly because leaders of men like them deserve to eat and dwell like no ordinary man.

    This year, the ruling class afflicted our lives with ineptitude and savagery. In response, we cried ourselves hoarse, twisting logic and lip service for and against our favourite public officer; eventually, we lost our voices to racism and confusion.

    This is the year in which our brothers in the north-east tirelessly blew to death, our mothers and daughters, sons and fathers, in the market place, schools, on the playground, in our bedrooms and houses of worship in the name of politics and religion. This is the year in which our brothers in the south-east determinedly kidnapped our wives and daughters, mothers and fathers, sons and heirs apparent, for a ransom, in pursuit of unearned affluence. This is the year in which our brothers in the southwest habitually mortgaged our future on the altar of politics, personal and sectarian greed. This year as all others, we refused to dissect these maladies, in the interest of our nation and thus helped the world to understand why we are regarded as the inheritors in whose hands the heritage dies and everything fails.

    This year, we affirmed those dreadful points our internal and external publics love to make; that we have become inept, mediocre, irredeemably shorn of truth and uprightness in our work. This year, we affirmed that we are amoral and somewhat intellectually challenged by our ethnic and intellectual bigotry.

    This year, we failed to actualize press freedom because it was socio-politically incorrect to do so. This year as all others, we failed to acknowledge that our survival or death as a nation is undeniably entwined with the tenor of practice and citizenship of the Nigerian press.

    This year as all others, I make a case for re-sensitization of the Nigerian media. It is time we dismembered our clan of the shameless breed. I speak of the almighty charlatan who believes that the status quo should be sustained ad infinitum because characters like him deserve the right to unquestionable practice.

    I do not wish that the press be gagged; I suggest no such arbitrariness – even if I do, it would hardly matter because we go through the practice, gagged.

    We are our worst enemies. In spite of everything, we choose to play god. That is why “dogs don’t eat dogs” in our Fourth Estate although it’s okay if we choose to eat the entrails of a few ordinary Nigerians and almighty benefactors, like the unfortunate adulterer caught pants down even as we underreport thieving bankers stealing from wretched folk to enrich their privileged peers.

    I hope we find the courage to report; “The Rot in the Media.” I hope we find the courage to report that for every kobo looted by government, in our public and private sectors, the press gets to have its share however meager it is. Dateline: media parleys, press conferences and governors’ roundtables.

    If we could passionately and conscientiously monitor our affairs daily that we may not digress and put to shame our practice, wouldn’t journalism be much better? Were we humane enough to improve our welfare and conditions of service, wouldn’t our journalists be dignified and our practice nobler?

    It’s time we asked: “Who is a journalist?” and aspire to an untainted definition of it. It’s time we redefined what level of knowledge, qualification and professionalism is expected of a journalist. It’s time we ascertained what manner of passion channels the direction of our news practice.

    It’s time we refused to humour such society that continually disrespects us and treats us as disposable pawns in its grand scheme of themes. Come 2017, shall we continue to service the depravity of folk for whom our pens write maladies at the expense of melodies impoverished folk would die to have us write about – that they might fare better?

    Will 2017 mutate like today and our immediate past? Shall we remain intellectual hit men of every hoodlum with deep pocket? Shall we become cliff-hangers to take the portrait of every looter and celebrity nincompoop with a promising smile? Shall we remain the media managers that pay poorly even as we label expatriate firms, slave-drivers?

    Next year, will the masses stare at our cover pages resignedly, knowing they would never hear or feel the infinitesimal clangor of freed hope because we are, as usual, an aberration of their desperate circumstances? Shall we continue to speak from both sides of the mouth? Shall we continue to eat like idiots at the feast of the one who calls us “idiot?”

  • Another season of goodwill

    Another season of goodwill

    Is santa coming this way soon? I really can’t bet on that. The recession has sparked hunger and anger. Shut factories and cracked roads that guzzle blood everyday. An electricity crisis that has sent the cost of running businesses flying out of reach.  Job cuts and foreign exchange trouble. High cost of drugs that keeps patients depressed. The mood is unusual. Dull and drab. Oh, what a season.

    How will Santa Claus cope with tearful kids struggling to tug at his snow-white beards?  Who will console the elderly in this otherwise season of goodwill?

    Resilient as ever, Nigerians have been struggling to put up a bold face against the recessional depression. They are taking it all on the chin. Some homes have set up Christmas trees with lights that wink all-night.

    Despite the tyranny of these times, I have embarked on my yearly ritual of drawing up a mailing list of those prominent Nigerians who deserve to get gifts from me. I have been scouring the web for great gifts.

    Who tops my mailing list? And there is no price for guessing right, dear reader. Being a firm believer in protocol, I won’t skip President Muhammadu Buhari for  other prominent but less powerful Nigerians. No.

    With just about 16 months into his administration, the President seems to have touched the nerves of some Nigerians who have been asking: “Is this the change we voted for?” “Na change we go chop?”They point at rising prices of food and services. Some, apparently in frustration, have even suggested that “corruption should return”, as they draw up comparisons with the Dr Goodluck Jonathan era when they got crumbs that fell from the tables of government officials and their friends who were living like kings and partying like Hollywood stars.

    Buhari, of course, denounced that cosmetic era. The veneer of prosperity was all vestige of a golden era that no longer exists. He went after corrupt individuals who ganged up to rape the treasury on a scale beyond imagination, even by our weird standards. There have been revelations of people collecting a fortune for contracts that were never executed.

    Now there seems to be some order, but the government is stuck in the mud of a poor economy, fuelled by low oil prices and worsened by the new wave of militancy in the Niger Delta. Many states can’t pay their workers. Nigerians’ faith in the country is under attack. Pro-Biafra agitators have added to the dicey security situation. Boko Haram, sequestered in Sambisa forest from where it launches  devastating  occasional attacks, seems to be playing the snake with a slashed tail – vicious.

    The only thing that has not been questioned is Buhari’s integrity. It is not too late for the government to set its hand to the plough, be creative, pull us out of this recession and set rolling the good times he promised.

    Our situation is not new. Nor is it peculiar. For the President, I have ordered a copy of Roger Matuz’s “The presidents fact book”. It is a compilation of “the achievements, campaigns, events, triumphs, tragedies, and legacies of every American president from George Washington to Barack Obama”. He will surely find it a great resource material from which he can draw inspiration to tackle the problems we face.

    As I pulled the book off the shelf, the bookshop manager, a cheeky fellow who is obviously struck by a strange type of childish exuberance, asked me: “Who are you ordering this for? Do they read?” Not being one to be found among people of unconscionable conduct posing as “radicals”, I quickly summoned my legs for a dash outside the shop.

    Just when we thought the noisy controversy generated by his scurrilous trilogy, “My Watch”, in which he portrayed everybody as unworthy in character, we thought former President Olusegun Obasanjo had hit the peak of his egocentric tendencies. How wrong we were.

    Obasanjo, without provocation, last week, suddenly lashed out at Buhari, asking him to stop whining and face the economy. He called the National Assembly a den of unarmed robbers who should get the kind of treatment to which the judiciary has been subjected in a desperate bid to rid the institution of corruption. He was harsh and brash, taking no prisoner.

    The lawmakers, of course, defended their integrity. They described Obasanjo as the grandfather of corruption and accused him of plotting against Buhari. The former President has since held his fire. A colleague remarked that he must have had memories of his days in the Abacha gulag flooding back to him.

    For Obasanjo, I have ordered a copy of “The life plan study Bible”, edited by John Hagoe. He should pay attention to Luke 6:42, Psalms 10:4 and Proverbs 8:13.

    It is fine that Dr Goodluck Jonathan has shaken off the moroseness that comes with a major calamity, such as losing the presidency. He has since hit the lecture circuit, turning it all into a great advantage. He is now an apostle of good governance, leadership and democracy. The halls, I am told, are throbbing with people.

    But Jonathan still owes the world the story of his presidency. Besides a pack of the highly rated multivitamin Pharmaton, I plan to mail His Excellency a copy of  Judith Barrington’s “Writing the memoir”.  A president caged in a demonic villa will surely have a lot to tell.

    Poor Kemi Adeosun. The more the Finance minister tries to explain the government’s handling of the economy, the more furious her critics get. The other day she said about N750b had been pumped into the economy to tackle the crippling recession. From many angles came a flood of questions : “Where is the money? Who got it? How was it spent?” Some have even questioned Mrs Adeosun’s competence.

    I hope the woman still finds time to sleep. From me she will get a brand new M2 Basic Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor, the OMRON brand. She needs it, no doubt.

    Former police chief Solomon Arase has opened his law office. Those who expected him to open a car shop after his predecessor Ibrahim Idris accused him of leaving office with 48 exotic vehicles must have been disappointed. Arase advised Idris to stop crying over cars and face his tough job. From me, Idris is getting a list of companies willing to donate cars to the police, but they have put a caveat-  kidnappers and robbers must be reined in.

    Senator Dino Melaye has made the list again. He remains as pugnacious as ever after being vaulted from street activism – rent-a-crowd, as some would insist – to the Senate. Hyperactive and easily excited like an over pampered kindergarten undergraduate , Melaye seizes the floor to make wild allegations and disturb the peace of the chamber with his inanities. By now, the distinguished senator must have run out of “Kalms”, the herbal medication that aids sleep at night and clear, calm and reflective reasoning during the day. That was what I mailed him last year. He gets a full pack – in the spirit of this season of goodwill.

    Chief Tony Anenih has quit partisan politics after presenting his memoirs, which have enjoyed good mention in the media. He no longer wishes to be called and addressed as “Mr Fix it”, the sobriquet he earned by what many thought was his rare ability to turn things around during elections. His critics – as well as his admirers – ascribe to him either rightly or wrongly the unusual skill of turning  a loser into a winner and vice versa. For this quality, he was loathed by some, respected by many and feared by all.

    Many believe that with his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) losing the 2015 election after threatening to rule Nigeria for 60 years non-stop and former Governor Adams Oshiomhole troubling him at home with his vociferous campaign against godfathers, it was time the chief quit politics.

    From me, the Iyasele of Esanland will get a massaging machine and a year’s supply of the refreshing drink “Lucozade” to keep him as active as ever, even in retirement. Who knows, the old man may some day be pressured to lend a hand in saving the troubled party.

    Even before fate thrust onto his laps the governorship of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai was a cantankerous fellow. Temperamental, conceited and overrated, El-Rufai has been jumping from one battle to another since he mounted the saddle as governor. He ordered beggars off the street in a manner that infuriated the poor. He forged a division within the local All Progressives Congress (APC), fighting Senator Shehu Sani. Communal clashes are common. The Shiites, whose leader has been in detention for months, he has accused of planning an Iranian type of revolution in Nigeria, just to justify the hammering of the sect that lost many of its members in a bloody encounter with soldiers.

    There are rumours that El-Rufai was a major influence in the internecine feud that saw the APC going into the Ondo State governorship election a divided team. He is said to have his eyes on being president in 2019, a claim he has refused to admit or dismiss.

    Whatever his critics may say about him and his fairy tale rise to stardom, El-Rufai has been lucky; his past has refused to haunt him, unlike many of his former colleagues who are either answering questions on what they did while in office or hustling contract papers in Abuja.

    I have ordered for His Excellency a copy of the Holy Quran. He should pay attention to  Quran 7:146 and Quran 16:23.

    My mailing list remains open to accommodate any omission that may have occurred.  Feel free to contact me should you notice that any of our deserving compatriots has been left out of this list.

    Compliments of the season.

  • A 2012 letter to Gen. Gowon

    Nigeria seems to be crumbling in every way imaginable. The country’s economy is shrinking agonizingly. The masses of ordinary Nigerians are being crushed by a run-away inflation. The Naira has lost as much as 85% of its value in just two years, and it continues to fall. The supply of electricity, poor in the best of times, seems to be dropping towards an absolute zero. Productivity is being destroyed at a fearful pace and unemployment is sky-rocketing. The sharp declines in crude oil prices in the world starting in late 2014 forced the Nigerian economy into a nose dive, and since late 2015, nationalist revolts in the oil-bearing Niger Delta have blasted much of the oil exports and the economy. The folly of basing the economy only on crude oil since the 1970s, ignoring other obvious assets of the economy, and discouraging local resource development initiatives, now stares a helpless Federal Government in the face. Recession deepens, and there are alarms about a coming depression.

    We see staggering incompetence and rigidity in the management of our country – at a time when nothing short of courageous change can avail anything. Our President, who cannot find the funds for implementing his budget, is trying to beef up the armed forces in order to fight wars against those sections of our country that seek some sort of regional resource control or autonomy. Some influential countries in the world are preventing Nigeria from procuring the destructive weapons for such wars, and that the image of Nigeria, poor in the world at most times, is declining further abysmally.

    As I ponder these depressing thoughts, my mind flashes back to a letter which I and some other Nigerian patriots, resident abroad, wrote in 2012 to General Yakubu Gowon, former military Head of State of our country. It is a long letter – too long for this column. So, I will reproduce a part of it today, with some space-saving modifications, and use the rest in future:

    “Dear General Gowon: We write this letter in response to a speech delivered recently on your behalf by Alhaji M. D. Yusufu, at the second anniversary seminar of the Arewa Consultative Forum earlier this year. It is our hope that you will view the contents with the consideration they require and deserve.

    First, Your Excellency, please note, that of all the Nigerians who have had the privilege of serving Nigeria as Heads of State, your tenure is generally regarded most favourably. You are about our only living former Head of State not known to be a billionaire, and that endears you to a lot of Nigerians. Whatever you say about Nigeria deserves to be received and considered with the utmost respect.

    It is for these reasons that very many Nigerians feel very deeply about the opinion you expressed in the speech under reference, in which you say that Nigerians demanding change in the structure and management of Nigeria consist of “four groups” trying to destabilize Nigeria:

    a). “idealists who cannot wait to see a perfect Nigeria … (who) agitate for the cancellation of the 1999 Constitution on the premise that there was too much concentration of power and resources at the centre.

    b). those who want to see the country balkanized into small territories to be headed by tribal leaders . . . made up of demagogues and other anarchists who will sooner take Nigeria back to the chaos of the 18th century.

    c). those who desire the country’s break-up into “geopolitical territories, whereby big ethnic groups may swallow up small ones without a challenge”.

    d). those who demand “a new constitution that will allow them keep 100 per cent of money derived from the sale of oil that is extracted within their territories.”

    In short, Sir, your opinion of all who challenge the status quo in Nigeria today is wholly negative. As far as you are concerned, all who challenge the status quo or who ask for a serious look at Nigeria as it is, are despicable elements who are simply impatient with the pace of Nigeria’s evolution, or are demagogues and anarchists whom no system of order can satisfy, or ethnic chauvinists who want their own large ethnic groups to dominate smaller ethnic groups or who simply do not want the resources of their own ethnic territories shared with the rest of Nigeria. Sir, please look deeper. When you do, you will find that probably most of the persons who are actively asking for change for Nigeria, or who are intensely dissatisfied with Nigeria as it exists today, are motivated by very positive and commendable purposes – persons who seek meaningful order out of the near chaos that Nigeria now is. Such persons deserve not opprobrium but acceptance and encouragement from all far-sighted Nigerians. Another Nigerian, Peter Ekeh, in a paper titled “Urhobo and the Nigerian Federation: Whither Nigeria?” demonstrated a clear understanding of the realities of today’s Nigeria when he said: “It is an indication of the stress and turbulence of our times that Nigerians are everywhere re-examining the purpose of the Nigerian state and the relationships between their ethnic groups and the Nigerian federation”.

    The truth, Sir, is that most informed Nigerians, and very many friends of Nigeria in the world, are intensely worried about the way Nigeria has turned out to be. That is why speeches, articles and even books about Nigeria’s future are being churned out increasingly. And that is why the pages and editorial columns of Nigerian newspapers are continually filled with the evidence of the stress and the turbulence raging in the minds of thinking Nigerians concerning Nigeria.

    The most important question, then, is this: What are the roots of Nigeria’s very profound sicknesses – Nigeria’s intractable political instability, intense criminality, fraud, and violence in Nigeria’s political processes, the political assassinations, the all-pervasive and resolute corruption in the management of Nigeria’s public resources, the disregard for law, etc. There are some who would opine that the causes of these aberrations are simply human greed, the lack of adequate leaders, or even a weakness in the make-up of the moral consciousness of Nigerians. This is tantamount to saying that, before the British came and favoured us with the creation of Nigeria, we were all morally, socially and politically depraved and incapable peoples, intrinsically unable to produce solid and respectable leaders of men or to manage orderly political entities.

    But people who hold such opinions must ask themselves certain important questions. The Hausa people, long before the 19th century, created a number of splendid kingdoms, and their rulers ruled those kingdoms with dignity and poise. In the course of the 19th century, as a result of a revolution, Fulani emirates replaced the Hausa kingdoms in an inclusive Caliphate whose leaders promoted scholarship and commerce. In European mediaeval times, the Kanuri people on the Lake Chad built a large empire which held sway over expansive territory, commanded enormous commerce and established diplomatic relations with the then centres of civilization on the Mediterranean. The Nupe on the Middle Niger and the Tiv on the Benue, though not very large peoples, were very strong peoples, each of whom built a strong kingdom and managed with distinction the trade, and the channels of trade, across its own river.  In the forest country of the south, the Yoruba built the most advanced urban civilization in tropical Africa, established well-ordered and gorgeous kingdoms  – all of which were already far advanced before the first European explorers came to the coast of West Africa in the 15th century. The Edo had also established one of Africa’s most prestigious kingdoms before the 15th century. If these peoples were depraved and incapable, how did they achieve these great things?

    No, the true explanation for Nigeria’s huge, stubborn, and perpetually worsening diseases is to be found not in any inherent flaws in us as peoples, but in circumstances created by the very existence of Nigeria itself. To understand, one needs to look at what has happened, and what is happening, in countries similar to Nigeria in the world – countries comprising two or more ethnic nations, each with its own language and culture, and each living in its own homeland: Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Spain, Britain, Canada, India, etc. And then, one needs to examine seriously how Nigeria is being ruled and managed

    First, in all parts of the world, the inter-relationships of ethnic nations in multi-ethnic countries tend to generate and promote conflicts, weakness, corruption, slow growth, etc.  On all continents, ethnic nations – even the smallest ethnic nations – are waking up and demanding the freedom to have autonomous and independent countries of their own. The observable reality is that as each ethnic nation becomes more and more literate, more and more educated and informed, it tends to become more conscious of its cultural heritage, more emphatic about the differences between it and other nations, more defensive of its interests, and more desirous of managing its own affairs and controlling its own destiny. There is nothing bad or condemnable about that. It is just the way that humans tend to behave, and all we need is to manage it appropriately in our Nigeria.

  • Another season of goodwill

    Another season of goodwill

    Is santa coming this way soon? I really can’t bet on that. The recession has sparked hunger and anger. Shut factories and cracked roads that guzzle blood everyday. An electricity crisis that has sent the cost of running businesses flying out of reach.  Job cuts and foreign exchange trouble. High cost of drugs that keeps patients depressed. The mood is unusual. Dull and drab. Oh, what a season.

    How will Santa Claus cope with tearful kids struggling to tug at his snow-white beards?  Who will console the elderly in this otherwise season of goodwill?

    Resilient as ever, Nigerians have been struggling to put up a bold face against the recessional depression. They are taking it all on the chin. Some homes have set up Christmas trees with lights that wink all-night.

    Despite the tyranny of these times, I have embarked on my yearly ritual of drawing up a mailing list of those prominent Nigerians who deserve to get gifts from me. I have been scouring the web for great gifts.

    Who tops my mailing list? And there is no price for guessing right, dear reader. Being a firm believer in protocol, I won’t skip President Muhammadu Buhari for  other prominent but less powerful Nigerians. No.

    With just about 16 months into his administration, the President seems to have touched the nerves of some Nigerians who have been asking: “Is this the change we voted for?” “Na change we go chop?”They point at rising prices of food and services. Some, apparently in frustration, have even suggested that “corruption should return”, as they draw up comparisons with the Dr Goodluck Jonathan era when they got crumbs that fell from the tables of government officials and their friends who were living like kings and partying like Hollywood stars.

    Buhari, of course, denounced that cosmetic era. The veneer of prosperity was all vestige of a golden era that no longer exists. He went after corrupt individuals who ganged up to rape the treasury on a scale beyond imagination, even by our weird standards. There have been revelations of people collecting a fortune for contracts that were never executed.

    Now there seems to be some order, but the government is stuck in the mud of a poor economy, fuelled by low oil prices and worsened by the new wave of militancy in the Niger Delta. Many states can’t pay their workers. Nigerians’ faith in the country is under attack. Pro-Biafra agitators have added to the dicey security situation. Boko Haram, sequestered in Sambisa forest from where it launches  devastating  occasional attacks, seems to be playing the snake with a slashed tail – vicious.

    The only thing that has not been questioned is Buhari’s integrity. It is not too late for the government to set its hand to the plough, be creative, pull us out of this recession and set rolling the good times he promised.

    Our situation is not new. Nor is it peculiar. For the President, I have ordered a copy of Roger Matuz’s “The presidents fact book”. It is a compilation of “the achievements, campaigns, events, triumphs, tragedies, and legacies of every American president from George Washington to Barack Obama”. He will surely find it a great resource material from which he can draw inspiration to tackle the problems we face.

    As I pulled the book off the shelf, the bookshop manager, a cheeky fellow who is obviously struck by a strange type of childish exuberance, asked me: “Who are you ordering this for? Do they read?” Not being one to be found among people of unconscionable conduct posing as “radicals”, I quickly summoned my legs for a dash outside the shop.

    Just when we thought the noisy controversy generated by his scurrilous trilogy, “My Watch”, in which he portrayed everybody as unworthy in character, we thought former President Olusegun Obasanjo had hit the peak of his egocentric tendencies. How wrong we were.

    Obasanjo, without provocation, last week, suddenly lashed out at Buhari, asking him to stop whining and face the economy. He called the National Assembly a den of unarmed robbers who should get the kind of treatment to which the judiciary has been subjected in a desperate bid to rid the institution of corruption. He was harsh and brash, taking no prisoner.

    The lawmakers, of course, defended their integrity. They described Obasanjo as the grandfather of corruption and accused him of plotting against Buhari. The former President has since held his fire. A colleague remarked that he must have had memories of his days in the Abacha gulag flooding back to him.

    For Obasanjo, I have ordered a copy of “The life plan study Bible”, edited by John Hagoe. He should pay attention to Luke 6:42, Psalms 10:4 and Proverbs 8:13.

    It is fine that Dr Goodluck Jonathan has shaken off the moroseness that comes with a major calamity, such as losing the presidency. He has since hit the lecture circuit, turning it all into a great advantage. He is now an apostle of good governance, leadership and democracy. The halls, I am told, are throbbing with people.

    But Jonathan still owes the world the story of his presidency. Besides a pack of the highly rated multivitamin Pharmaton, I plan to mail His Excellency a copy of  Judith Barrington’s “Writing the memoir”.  A president caged in a demonic villa will surely have a lot to tell.

    Poor Kemi Adeosun. The more the Finance minister tries to explain the government’s handling of the economy, the more furious her critics get. The other day she said about N750b had been pumped into the economy to tackle the crippling recession. From many angles came a flood of questions : “Where is the money? Who got it? How was it spent?” Some have even questioned Mrs Adeosun’s competence.

    I hope the woman still finds time to sleep. From me she will get a brand new M2 Basic Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor, the OMRON brand. She needs it, no doubt.

    Former police chief Solomon Arase has opened his law office. Those who expected him to open a car shop after his predecessor Ibrahim Idris accused him of leaving office with 48 exotic vehicles must have been disappointed. Arase advised Idris to stop crying over cars and face his tough job. From me, Idris is getting a list of companies willing to donate cars to the police, but they have put a caveat-  kidnappers and robbers must be reined in.

    Senator Dino Melaye has made the list again. He remains as pugnacious as ever after being vaulted from street activism – rent-a-crowd, as some would insist – to the Senate. Hyperactive and easily excited like an over pampered kindergarten undergraduate , Melaye seizes the floor to make wild allegations and disturb the peace of the chamber with his inanities. By now, the distinguished senator must have run out of “Kalms”, the herbal medication that aids sleep at night and clear, calm and reflective reasoning during the day. That was what I mailed him last year. He gets a full pack – in the spirit of this season of goodwill.

    Chief Tony Anenih has quit partisan politics after presenting his memoirs, which have enjoyed good mention in the media. He no longer wishes to be called and addressed as “Mr Fix it”, the sobriquet he earned by what many thought was his rare ability to turn things around during elections. His critics – as well as his admirers – ascribe to him either rightly or wrongly the unusual skill of turning  a loser into a winner and vice versa. For this quality, he was loathed by some, respected by many and feared by all.

    Many believe that with his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) losing the 2015 election after threatening to rule Nigeria for 60 years non-stop and former Governor Adams Oshiomhole troubling him at home with his vociferous campaign against godfathers, it was time the chief quit politics.

    From me, the Iyasele of Esanland will get a massaging machine and a year’s supply of the refreshing drink “Lucozade” to keep him as active as ever, even in retirement. Who knows, the old man may some day be pressured to lend a hand in saving the troubled party.

    Even before fate thrust onto his laps the governorship of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai was a cantankerous fellow. Temperamental, conceited and overrated, El-Rufai has been jumping from one battle to another since he mounted the saddle as governor. He ordered beggars off the street in a manner that infuriated the poor. He forged a division within the local All Progressives Congress (APC), fighting Senator Shehu Sani. Communal clashes are common. The Shiites, whose leader has been in detention for months, he has accused of planning an Iranian type of revolution in Nigeria, just to justify the hammering of the sect that lost many of its members in a bloody encounter with soldiers.

    There are rumours that El-Rufai was a major influence in the internecine feud that saw the APC going into the Ondo State governorship election a divided team. He is said to have his eyes on being president in 2019, a claim he has refused to admit or dismiss.

    Whatever his critics may say about him and his fairy tale rise to stardom, El-Rufai has been lucky; his past has refused to haunt him, unlike many of his former colleagues who are either answering questions on what they did while in office or hustling contract papers in Abuja.

    I have ordered for His Excellency a copy of the Holy Quran. He should pay attention to  Quran 7:146 and Quran 16:23.

    My mailing list remains open to accommodate any omission that may have occurred.  Feel free to contact me should you notice that any of our deserving compatriots has been left out of this list.

    Compliments of the season.

     

  • The fear of padding

    Never before was a budget so embroiled in controversy like that of 2016. For sure, what happened during the processing of the budget must have happened before. The only difference is that whatever it was, it was kept away from us. Unknown to us, a cabal had always been at work in the preparation of the budget. In the days of the military, those in the Ministry of Finance, the Budget Office and the National Planning Commission (NPC) just gave us figures which we lapped up.

    The bureaucrats in the civil service know how to doctor (read as pad) a budget. Ministers who do not know their onions do not stand a chance with them. The more they looked the less they saw whenever these bureaucrats came with their abracadabra when computing the figures. Any minister of finance must be a step ahead of them in order to beat them in their own game. But they know how to win those ministers to their side.

    They tell them stories of how things were done in the past with everybody smiling home at the end of the day. ’’Oga, abi you come count bridge for here’’, they will tell a gullible minister. In no time, he will join them and become a pawn in their hands. They will commit all sorts of atrocities in his name and he will not be able to call them to order. The preparation of the budget was and may still be a means of stealing public funds. If we did not know in the past, we now know that budgets were never prepared with the best of intentions, at least going by the 2016 standard

    All those involved in the process had their own agenda and that was what is in it for them. What happened during the preparation of this year’s budget during this time last year was an eye opener. Being the first budget of the Buhari administration, the government did all it could to come out with a budget that will pass the integrity test, but the cabal still had its way. Even before the estimates were sent to the National Assembly, we had started hearing about padding here and there. The various ministries which were to forward their proposals to the Ministry of Budget, which is the clearing house, had doctored the figures to suit their own  needs.

    They put in irrelevances and allocated money to them, which they expected to cash once the National Assembly approved the budget. The assembly too has since become wiser to the ways of civil servants. Its members know how to handle such matters and can even beat the civil servants at their own game. They know what the civil servants had done in compiling the budget. So, they wait for them at the budget defence stage. By the time they ask one or two questions, the ministers and their coterie of aides will be looking askance. Then, they will be told to go back and take another look at the estimates, which is euphemism for them to go and add the lawmakers’ cut, if they have not done so. This thing has been on for ages and those involved have been doing it to the detriment of our collective will, while they have been smiling to the banks.

    The harm done to the budget by these padders is enormous because the money allegedly allocated to some projects is not eventually seen. The projects just appear on paper while the money ends up in the pockets of individuals. The most painful is that of the lawmakers, who are expected to protect the people’s interest. They too are on the take having been brought on the groovy train by unscrupulous bureaucrats. The lawmakers have perfected the act of making money with the budget. Since, according to them, they did not come to Abuja to look at the Eagle Square, they have found it profitable to pad the budget than to make appropriate funds for the people’s needs.

    We have heard from former House of Representatives Appropriations Committee Chairman Abdulmumin Jibrin how the lawmakers padded this year’s budget for their own gain. Jibrin was not saying anything new. It had for long been in the public domain that our lawmakers are corrupt. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said so many times while in office, but we did not listen to him. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to see the end of Jibrin’s allegations as his colleagues hurriedly suspended him before he could release more details about budget padding and corruption generally in the House. But the nation has learnt a big lesson from it all. Once beaten, they say, twice shy. With the benefit of hindsight, President Muhammadu Buhari has warned that he would not allow next year’s budget to be padded. Apparently still smarting from what happened to this year’s budget, he said in Abuja last weekend that he would prevent the padding of the 2017 Budget.

    ‘’I am waiting for the 2017 Budget to be brought to us in Council. Any sign of padding anywhere, I will remove it. I have been in government since 1975, variously as governor, oil minister, head of state and chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF). Never did I hear the word ‘padding’ till the 2016 Budget’’, he said, adding that such would never happen again under his watch. Well said sir, but what did we do to those who padded this year’s budget beyond relieving them of their jobs? They should be brought to book to deter others who may wish to toe the same path.  If we do not do that, it will amount to paying lip service to the anti-corruption crusade.

     

    Cuba after Castro

    Cuba’s strongman, the irrepressible Fidel Castro, died last weekend at the age of 90. His death marked the end of an era in that island nation. Castro was a communist to the core. Even when communism was dying worldwide, he remained committed. He ruled his country with iron hand and called the bluff of many world powers, including the United States (US), which he railed against for years.   The Bay of Pigs episode will forever define his sour relations with the US. Cuba gave the US a bloody nose in that bitter enterprise following the failure of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to topple him between April 17 and 19, 1961. Since then, Cuba and the US have been fighting a cold war. There is no doubt that Castro loved his country, but he loved power more. This is why he did not allow democracy to thrive. He ran a one-man government and when he became ill few years ago, he handed the reins to his younger brother, Raul. The younger Castro, who was his elder brother’s defence minister and head of the armed forces, has been running the show for eight years now. At 85, age is not on his side. With his brother gone, he should be thinking of what Cuba will look like when he too eventually goes the way of every mortal.  The Castros have done their best for Cuba, but their best legacy for their country will be to leave it in the hands of capable people after they are gone. This is now the task of Raul Castro. Will he let go and allow the country to rediscover itself and chart a new course before the end comes?

  • Protecting Obasanjo from his troubled PDP children

    Like many concerned Nigerians who are apprehensive about the adoption of military social engineering method as one-time antidote to social dislocations created by our military institution, I have railed and thrown tantrums at the military and Obasanjo, unarguably one of the most talented of his peers for close to 30 years starting with a piece titled ‘Generals and the ordinary man’ in The Guardian issue of December 12, 1987.

    However in view of the present stand-off between him and his troubled PDP children – the military ‘New breed politicians’ that breed nothing but corruption who today populate National Assembly – I have chosen to stand by Obasanjo, a veteran of many wars, starting with the battle over the still-born Biafra where he chased boastful Ojukwu of ‘no power in Africa can defeat us’ from Ihiala to Ivory Coast. He survived the drunken Dimka who assassinated Murtala Mohammed, his boss. He survived Abacha. He outwitted Atiku who in desperation to become president mobilized some governors described as ‘thieves in government houses’ by a British judge. He survived his carbon-copy daughter and her satanic verses in support of drowning ex-President Jonathan, who, lionized by Edwin Clark, the fair-weather self- proclaiming ‘president father’, stepped on the tail of a vindictive cobra of a god-father. I believe Obasanjo, whimsically dismissed as the ‘grandfather of corruption in Nigeria’ by a bunch of self-serving uncultured children whose National Assembly, in the words of their injured grandfather, ‘is a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers’.

    But first, let us critically examine the issues. In his January 13 letter to Senate President Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara, Obasanjo had accused the lawmakers of reckless spending and abuse of office, daring the lawmakers to open their financial records for external audit as the first step to returning to the path of honour. He advised against their proposed plan to purchase vehicles for oversight functions especially after obtaining car loans. One of the grandchildren he first appointed an adviser on youths, Dino Melaye, now chairman of the Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT), spoke on behalf of his colleagues. It was the view of Saraki’s Senate that ‘it was Obasanjo who introduced corruption into the legislature’ while Dino, tongue-in-cheek asked: “I hope this is not an attempt to cover up and distract attention from the Halliburton and Siemens corruption allegations”.

    Last Friday, about 11 months after Obasanjo’s first warning, he once again told the lawmakers the truth they were not ready to hear. The National Assembly, according to him ‘stinks and stinks to high heavens. It needs to be purged. With appropriate measures, the budget of the National Assembly can be brought down to less than 50% of what it is today”. And finally, he reminded his PDP grandchildren that ‘The National Assembly cabal of today is worse than any cabal that anybody may find anywhere in our national governance system at any time. The National Assembly is a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers.”

    Responding on behalf of his colleagues this time around, the chairman, House Committee on Media & Publicity Abdulrazak Namdas said “the list of his (Obasanjo) corrupt acts while in office is endless; unquestionably, he is the greatest corrupt person ever to hold office in Nigeria. He remains the grandfather of corruption in Nigeria”.

    Here, dear compatriots, is the verdict of Obasanjo’s PDP grandchildren on whose behalf he staked everything, his credibility, goodwill of Nigerians and those of respected personalities in the international community.  They have now been told that Obasanjo        ‘lacks the moral authority to discuss corruption or indeed abuse of office in Nigeria as he remains the most corrupt Nigeria on record.’

    I think, in our culture, it is only uncultured children that disrobe their fathers in the public even when they are wrong and the children are right.   Unfortunately for the lawmakers, they are wrong in this case. As proof of their grandfather’s corruption, they alleged he bribed lawmakers from day one as President in 1999; that he offered N50m to each lawmaker   in pursuant of his failed third-term agenda and that the floor of the National Assembly was littered with ‘Ghana must go bags’ filled with money. While Nigerians must be wondering what manners of children feel comfortable admitting receiving bribes from their fathers, it is on record that none of those who alleged they were offered N50m or a former Senate President who admitted between N10-N14b was raised for the failed third term agenda, told Nigerians the source of the funds since only appropriated funds was available for spending by the executive.

    They might have been right to stick to their argument that the National Assembly budget is high because the presidential system is expensive to run. But even then, they are the only people empowered by the constitution to change the system if, in their view, it has become a threat to our survival as a nation. They however betrayed their real intention through the Freudian slip of “The Budget of many agencies in the Executive Branch such as CBN, NNPC, NCC and allowances of junior staff in such organisations are higher than that of legislators”.

    And here also, they are at liberty to appropriate the CBN and NNPC budget and their salary structures. After all they have demonstrated they have regard for neither public opinion nor that of their grandfather who had advised against huge expenditures on expensive cars at a period when about 26 states of the federation owed salaries arrears of between six and eight months.

    Compared with his warring grandchildren, I think Obasanjo is a man of honour.  He has never denied being the father of PDP and by extension father of corruption. He took responsibility for their excesses. Adopting the strategies he finds convenient – intrigues and coups, he has tried to rein in some of his wayward children. He made Fayose but was the first to call attention to his alleged fraudulent poultry project. With the help of his friends in the international community, Alamieyeseigha, the late ‘Governor General’ of the Ijaw was hunted from France to Britain and finally Nigeria where he was indicted for corruption. He masterminded the impeachment of some of his thieving PDP governors in spite of impediments put on his way by of human right advocates.

    I think Obasanjo, a military genius imbued with a great deal of native intelligence, deserves our support in the battle against his misguided grandchildren who think the essence of politics is ‘who gets what, when and how’, and are ready to bite the fingers that fed them. Besides, Obasanjo has carried on his burden with philosophical equanimity (apology to Ray Ekpu). He has never for once denied he sired or spared thieving PDP children and grandchildren who believe stealing government money is not corruption. His method might have been unorthodox, but under Obasanajo, neither the National Assembly nor state houses provided refuge for criminals. Today we remember Obasanjo with nostalgia as those responsible for death of millions of Nigerians or condemn millions to refugee camps in their own country enjoy human right privileges not extended to such criminally-minded individuals in the advanced democracies we try to copy.

    And finally, in the face of unwarranted assault by his troubled children, I think Obasanjo needs protection from his PDP children and grandchildren responsible for the squandering of tremendous goodwill he took to government, who undermined his war on corruption by running Nuhu Ribadu out of town and derailed his power sector reform that was projected to give us 40,000MW in 2016 as against the current less than 5000MW.