The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • The Nigerian Dream

    The Nigerian Dream

    IT has all the ingredients of a damn good movie. A box office hit. Suspense, cash, power and passion as well as incredibly salacious details.

    But, no thanks to the vicissitudes of these recessionary times, the story and the little debate it inspired have been elbowed to the background by other contending issues – budget padding, Boko Haram and its contentious videos, assets sales debate, Niger Delta bombings and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) as well as the biting hunger in the land.

    Now it is being mentioned in whispers – in newsrooms, staffrooms and restrooms – as if it is some blasphemous stuff that could attract a mob action.

    Apologies, dear reader, for the rather long and circuitous preamble. This is not about some innocuous matter, which may have slipped through your memory. No. Nor is  about the muffler – that new addition to the dress code at the House of Representatives. The green scarf made its debut on Monday when Hon. Abdulmumin  Jibrin was asked to face a committee for bringing the House into disrepute by alleging (with facts and figures) that Speaker Yakubu Dogara and others loaded – sorry, a wrong word there – padded the 2016 budget with extraneous estimates from which they planned to reap bountifully. Many lawmakers, giggling like kids visiting a zoo for the first time, garlanded their stocky necks with the scarf to show that they stood with Dogara in this test of integrity. And yesterday, Jibrin was suspended for 180 legislative days. Honourables.

    Again, my apologies. Now to the matter(s) at hand, which as I had earlier said you should be familiar with, despite all attempts by other matters to crowd it out of the front page. Former First Lady Patience Faka Jonathan  is claiming to own about $15.5m found in the accounts of four companies, which have pleaded guilty to money laundering charges.

    The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is yet to question Dame Patience. Some have argued that the former First Lady shouldn’t have owned up to the ownership of the cash, which she said her husband’s former Special Adviser on Domestic Affairs, Waripamo Dudafa, put in those accounts against her wish. Others, led by Ijaw youths maintain that it is not out of place for the former First Lady to own such a little fortune.

    We were told that Her Excellency acquired the cash through gifts from some cheerful givers, who obviously knew how dull and drab the Office of the First Lady could be without cash to run its all-important projects. Before we could digest that, we learnt that it all came from her late mother’s estate, which the old woman wisely bequeathed to her loving daughter.

    Some bystanders, who obviously knew nothing about how sensitive investigations of this nature are carried out, pounced on the poor woman. Gifts?  I hear you o. From where? Why didn’t she open the accounts in her own name? If she was too busy to ensure that the accounts bore her name, why was she unable to order Dudafa to fetch the documents for her to do the needful? Those, I need to stress, were her sympathisers.

    Others, latching onto her humble background, were asking: “was she not a mere pepper soup joint proprietress? Was she not the ice cream vendor? She must explain how she made the money.”

    An old friend of mine smiled as he announced that indeed “an ice cream vendor” could become a millionaire in whatever currency. Why? The Nigerian Dream, of course, he said with a mischievous chuckle.

    Before one could intervene to stop what looked like a parody of the “American Dream”, the concept that anybody can attain any height he wants, irrespective of colour or race or background, the lanky fellow, a don whose hair could do with a visit to the barber’s shop, went on to list some other compatriots who, according to him, have found and are, indeed, living the “Nigerian Dream”.

    Yahaya Bello pursued his ambition  to be governor of Kogi State like a star athlete preparing for the Olympics. He put in everything he had, but the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) eluded him. Gripped by anger, fuelled by a consuming ambition, he dumped the APC. Bello joined the corner of the party’s vicious opponents as soon as the battle was joined.

    Former Governor Abubakar Audu looked good to carry the day in the November 2015 election. He was leading the poll. Victory songs were already being composed. Then, suddenly, fate supervened. He fell ill and died. Suddenly. Naturally and logically and legally- many insist – his running mate James Faleke was expected to step in, but APC National Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun (the same Oyegun of those NADECO days?  Lord have mercy) had another plan.  Bello was from nowhere vaulted on to the podium to take the party’s ticket in an election for which he never campaigned. The race had been run. He was brought in to collect the trophy. Today, His Excellency Yahaya Bello is the governor, after the Supreme Court affirmed his election.

    To what do sociologists ascribe this strange phenomenon? The Nigerian Dream, of course.

    There is also another fellow whose bizarrre story is well known. He announced his arrival on the political scene by fetching water for the residents of a state capital. He had no political capital whatsoever. He was goaded on by his wife’s dream that he was destined for the Government House. The elite scorned him. He was derided and reviled as a joker and an illiterate who had no certificate to show for his assertion that he got some education.

    Some said he was a motor spare parts vendor and bus conductor who graduated into running his own bus (danfo), ferrying students from a polytechnic’s lecture rooms to the hostel.

    In no time, the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), defying a huge opposition, gave him its ticket to run. Today, our man is a two-time governor, who is threatening to run for vice president in the next general election. Always brusque, he excoriates the first family at will, speaking like a possessed Bar Beach charlatan of a prophet.

    No prize for guessing right who this poster boy of the Nigerian Dream is, dear reader.

    Another fellow who had no record of any legitimate undertaking, whose only means of livelihood was violence in the creeks of the Niger Delta where he acquired the title of “General” has also found the Nigerian Dream.

    He was hunted like some game by the authorities, who accused him of heading a group that blew up pipelines to sabotage the oil industry – the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy. From the creeks, he issued threats and carried them out with military precision.

    The government was disturbed and confused. Some said it should come down heavily on the militants; others preached peace, saying Nigeria must not be seen to be fighting Nigerians. Reason prevailed. The amnesty programme of the Umaru Yar’Adua administration was born. An army of boys from the creeks were handed cash monthly like some dutiful workers after being persuaded to surrender their arms. Some were sent to school overseas. Their former commanders became big time contractors and power brokers in the Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration that succeeded the late Yar’Adua’s.

    Now, one of those prominent “Generals” flies his own jets. He roams the waters in his own luxury yachts, living like a Hollywood star. Needless to say, the chief rides posh cars that move in convoys. A true VIP. The other day he was declared wanted for shunning the EFCC. He was later seen at a ceremony, decked out in his chieftaincy regalia – big beads playing around his neck- and guarded by the very police mandated to seize him. Ah!

    Fairy tale? No. It is the Nigerian Dream.

    Soon, the season of awards will be here. Bankers will, as usual, top the list of distinguished professionals who will be decorated with all manner of awards. Banker of the Year. Most Innovative Banker of the Year. Women Friendly Bank of the Year. Agric Friendly Bank of the Year. And more.

    The fellows to be honoured will turn out in the best from Oxford Street. All smiles. Not even the recent Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revelation that they had been dealing the naira deadly blows by their round tripping game will change anything. Factories are closing abruptly. They are starved of forex to get raw materials and banks are charging incredible rates for loans.

    Despite all these, our bankers will be celebrated as they continue to enjoy the Nigerian Dream.

    So much for a bad dream.

     

  • The integrity of brutes and eternal wildlings

    Nigeria is not the greatest country in Africa. ‘It’ is not the greatest country in the world. ‘It’ is a creature borne of incest. But it is hardly the ‘contraption’ frequently alluded to by generations of revolutionary poseurs and armchair Trotskys – it is piteous and ideologically shallow of them to wish our problems away simply by calling for an end to the ‘forced marriage’ of cultures and ethnicities, an enterprise which blame they lay solely at the feet of the country’s colonial predators.

    Nigeria fails as a nation because we fail as a people and progenitors of African civilisation. Rather than project a superior culture of nationhood and society, we choose to curate the worst that our forebears dared espouse, coating it as the ‘Nigerian factor,’ and our flamboyant code of conduct.

    Thus we covet an incestuous relationship with self – the dark, chthonian parts of our innate nature. We mould our clan where racial foolery fraternizes with vile. Senior citizenry molest our young in a never-ending cycle of sleaze and moral pedophilia. But the young are hardly the prey we think they are. Every second, they morph from starry-eyed victims to eager participants in our dehumanising ritual of violence, mental and biological aberration.

    Ours is a classic tale of Darwinian waste and mayhem, the squalor and rot of Nigerianness; a distortion of African civilisation. But we block the true import and consequences of this hideous cycle on our psyches and our future as a nation, that we might retain our integrity as brutes and eternal wildlings.

    Western science and cultural aesthetics predictably become apparatus in our frantic attempt to revise the Nigerian horror into imaginatively palatable form. Notwithstanding our frantic lunge for substance and acclaim on frontiers where the world’s more advanced civilisations project their race and oneness, Nigeria remains hideous in name and status. While we make exaggerated gestures in fields of space science, information technology, industry, sports, and so on, Nigerian children die at birth and thousands of mothers die in painful labour. The youth are unemployed. Public officers loot public coffers with impunity and disregard for Rule of Law. Law enforcement officers turn violent affliction on the citizenry and society they are meant to protect. The executive, legislative and judicial arms of government mesh in a fetid whirl of strife and plunder. Anarchy rules our hinterlands and metropolitan Nigeria.

    Within such stew and stink, Nigeria ranks 152nd of 188 countries in the 2016 African Human Development Index (HDI) according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Thus we are back at the crossroads of vile and extinction. There has been no improvement in our plight.

    While this piece too, resounds as hackneyed howl and lamentation; a regurgitation of grotesqueness we inflict on our fatherland and the towering monstrosities we have become.

    Our ultimate nemesis is the Nigerian youth. The youth epitomise the nub of discord and deathly rally ripping the tide and march to progress of our fatherland. But why do promising youth evolve like brutes and loathsome trolls? How did our once incandescent spokes of dawn erupt in moonshine?

    Many have attributed the afflictions of the Nigerian youth to bad leadership, nonstop dominance of the predatory ruling class and tiring recalcitrance of the younger generation to engage in communal and national politics in a beneficial manner. Many more would readily diagnose the maladies of the nation’s youth to structural banes and the perverse culture of citizenship by which they are weaned and ushered into adulthood.

    In the wake of plausible and often farfetched analyses, too many ‘patriots’ conveniently excuse themselves from the nexus of blame and severally propound the sad realization that Nigerians are innately incapable of self-determination and self-governance. Many have recommended the American example, the British palliative, the Chinese abracadabra and Malaysian ingenuity to mention a few, as the ultimate measures to resolve the nation’s ills. How?

    These arguments have overtime, attained a language of their own and thus evolved as a dialect of dissent and exaggerated self-abnegation. The nation’s academic elite, political and economic ruling classes frequently marshal clashing precepts as solutions and justifiable putdown of the ruling class and the lower working class as their politics dictate.

    A more damning view identifies the breadlines’ persistent ‘claims to victimhood and sense of entitlement’ as whiny and symptomatic of a dense and irresponsible citizenry. Between the conflict of hyperboles and sentimental vituperation, Nigeria suffers the affliction of intellectual miscreants and promising youth-turned-foetal-adults.

    As youths, the coordinated tragedies afflicting our consciousness daily append the only real structure to our lives as impoverished Nigerians. The burdensome reality of fast slipping youth, the recurrent rites of bigotry and ethical quandary of coping with the strict moral code of adulthood and ideal society, obscures our understanding of life’s ultimate purpose and meaning. It spurs millions of misguided Nigerian youth to engage in a mad, desperate pursuit of fast and fleeting riches even as ripples of their actions keep hundreds of millions more in the doldrums and binds of despair.

    Consequently, the revolutionary dissent that sprouts from oppression is pitiless and unbending. It radically splits our world into ‘insensitive ruling class’ and ‘clueless lower class,’ ‘elite’ and ‘downtrodden,’ ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ It fosters even more fragmented discord that continually pits Nigerian Christians against Muslims, Hausa against Igbo, Igbo against Yoruba, Yoruba against Ijaw. It fosters spurious segmentation of our society into moral and amoral,  good against evil, and apostates versus believers. Within this poisonous clime, the Nigerian child is born. If he survives birth hour, he is violently thrust into adolescence and misshapen adulthood.

    From Boko Haram and Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) terrorism, internet fraud, cyber-terrorism, financial/bankers’ terrorism and political terrorism emblematic of the ruling class, recent developments in the country present a sad prologue to a heinous and wider conflict between the nation’s rich ruling class and the impoverished majority of the breadlines and disappearing middle-class.

    A bloody and protracted war thus ensues: this war, caused by diminishing resources, chronic unemployment, substandard health facilities, rising food prices, big business and government conspiracies against the Nigerian state, manifest at alarming proportions daily and by the second.

    Thus our society is flung rudderless on a seething sea of sleaze. Now that our world as we have made it, begins to collapse, we withdraw from the possibility of rebirth, and choose to exploit ‘infinite possibilities’ in our fragility and doomsday predictions.

    The youth predictably become prominent actors in the theatre of ruin and discord. They become the muscle to actualise the ruling class’ blueprint of collapse. But if we consider our plight deeply enough, we would find that no child of the ruling class is co-opted in the drama of violence and bloodshed. They are tucked safely abroad.

    Picture the NDA, Boko Haram, MASSOB, IPOB, OPC, and so on without youth drawn from the breadlines and society’s boondocks. Will our governors, legislators, the presidency and aristocratic divide people these groups with their sons, daughters and wives?

    It’s about time we shunned the politics of retrogression, spurious militancy, bloodshed and devastation to embrace growth and immense possibilities achievable in progressive endeavour, like a youth movement cum political platform mooted by the youth, for the youth and Nigeria’s future.

  • Political stability in Africa and Middle East

    Recently, US Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump said he admires Saddam Husain the late president of Iraq who was judicially lynched by the successor Shiite government of Iraq during the American occupation of the country. People were aghast at his comment. He also said he sees no reason for America to be an eternal enemy of Russia and that even if the USA does not like Russia, it should cooperate with Russia to defeat ISIL (Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant) and that the USA fought along with the brutal dictator Joseph Stalin during the Second World War to defeat the axis powers of Japan and Germany. One may disagree violently with Trump on almost everything but in this particular instances cited, I can see some sense in his usual madness.  I am convinced that the likes of Saddam Husain maintained some kind of peace in the Middle East in spite of the brutality of his regime. Even though he came from the minority Sunni population and treated all opposition Shiite or Sunni with brutality, he ensured that there was peace which was what the generally apolitical ordinary people of Iraq wanted. The mistake people in the West made was wanting to graft democracy on a traditionally autocratic conservative Arab environment.

    When people in the West were hailing the so called Arab Spring, I had the sneaky feeling that things will not turn out well. This was when I listened to the ambassador of Syria to the UN sometime in 2010 at the plenary of the UN General Assembly pleading for understanding of his country’s problem. He had argued that Syria was a delicately balanced country of Alawites, (Shiite) Sunnis, Christians, Kurds, Armenians and Aramaics and that backing Sunnis who want to overthrow the Bashar -al-Asad regime would bring all sorts of external forces and complications which will not augur well for the future of Syria and the Middle East. After more than a decade of warfare and a whole country with an old civilization destroyed, there has neither been democracy nor peace in Syria; rather a murderous group calling itself a caliphate has emerged bridging the frontiers of Iraq and Syria and imposing its draconian rule and will on a helpless and hapless people leading to the largest migration of a destabilizing horde of people since the end of the Second World War. But for the tenacity of the Sharifian dynasty in Morocco and the FLN government led by the old and infirm Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria who were able to resist the forces of the dissidents particularly FIS (Front Islamique de Salut), the so-called Arab Spring would have engulfed the whole of the Maghreb. The situation in Libya was unfortunately not the same for several reasons. NATO wanted Muamar al Ghadafi to be removed from power because of what was considered as his dangerous ambitions in the past especially wanting to develop nuclear and chemical weapons on the other side of the Mediterranean which Europe considers a European lake. Even though he had given up the ambition, he was never trusted. So when the occasion for his removal presented itself, NATO was not going to allow it to slip from its hand. Their forces instigated a local rebellion which it joined to murder without trial an incumbent head of state. But what has replaced the years of stability in Libya is chaos and the take-over of part of the country by forces pledging allegiance to the Caliphate. The situation in Libya is like the case of Humpty Dumpty and everybody is waiting for which forces will secure the vast country of Libya. Whatever anybody may say about Ghadafi, he secured the country for decades after the overthrow of King Idris -al-Sannusi . Egypt is back in the hands of the military after the initial hoopla of getting rid of President Mubarak. He was replaced by Mohammad Morsi for about a year before he was overthrown by General Muhammad -al-Sisi. It appears that the Egyptians would rather have stability than some wooly democracy or chaotic rule by the Islamic brotherhood of Morsi. The effendiyyah in Egypt is just too sophisticated for that. It is only in Tunisia where the Arab Spring has brought in some form of constitutional regime albeit under an 82 year old president! Yemen is in turmoil and the Saudi army is there fighting a proxy war with Iran that is backing the Houthis who are Shiites. Oman and the other Gulf States including Saudi Arabia are maintaining some precarious peace with their Shiite subjects cowed down by overwhelming Sunni forces. Iran continues to pose existential challenge to the gulf Arab states and even far afield to Sunni domination or threatened domination in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Egypt which could have provided Sunni counterweight to Iran is held down by a collapsed economy and terrorist challenge in the Sinai. The chaos in North Africa and Middle East has reverberation in Africa where the Al Qaida in the Maghreb and West Africa, Boko haram in Nigeria, Niger and the Cameroon and al Shabbab in Somalia and Kenya constitute variants of the same Middle East Islamic terrorism. The direct effect of this is the proliferation of weapons of precision that are fuelling insurgency all over Africa.

    One common denominator to the Middle East and Africa is their sit-tight presidents in Museveni’s Uganda, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Bashar’s Sudan   Paul Kagame’s Rwanda and other dictators in the inter-lacustrine state of Burundi as well as virtually all the Francophone states of the two Congos , Central African Republic and the Spanish  speaking Equatorial Guinea. Even the new state of Southern Sudan is torn by ethnic war because of the sit-tight syndrome. While this goes on, there is neither growth nor development of the economy. On top of this is the rising population of young people who have no hope of employment. Even countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia and Tanzania to mention a few are also afflicted by unimpressive economic performance and joblessness of their ballooning youthful population. This a time bomb in both Africa and the Middle East. The situation is so bad that young people are ready to die crossing to Europe by leaky dinghies and boats across the Mediterranean Sea.

    What is to be done? It seems to me that Africa has largely accepted that the democratic way is the way forward. There may be debate about what style of democracy. It is obvious that the western model may have to be modified to suit the peculiar condition of each African state.  This is not the same as supporting any bastardized democratic contraption called home grown democracy which is a euphemism for dictatorship. The market-driven economic prescriptions of the West may not work because of paucity of foreign and local investors. The state would have to intervene through direct investment by state corporations side by side with private investors like it happened in South Korea. The enforced orthodoxy of market economy will have to give way to practical solution that would also generate employment for the teeming masses of the people.

    But as for the Middle East and North Africa, democracy may not work there for long time to come. The Middle East will only survive if a way is found to satisfy its young people who are suffering from unemployment. This problem would worsen with the decline in the price of gas and oil which will make it impossible for the gulf countries to continue to bribe young people with generous perks because sooner or later they will run out of cash. The future of the almost 350million Arabs is uncertain unless realistic solution is found to the economic and political conditions of those countries. There will also have to be reconciliation between Iran and the Arab states as well as between Sunni and Shiite sectarian traditions in Islam. Finally the question of war and peace with Israel must be resolved by accepting the existence of two states, Israel and Palestine, in old Palestine. Inability to solve this problem may drive Arab youth to extremist tendencies which would not augur well for peace in the Middle East an absence of which could pose a threat to global peace.

  • Abduction at dawn

    IT has become routine for them to rise at dawn and gather at a nearby makeshift structure for early morning exercise every Saturday. These days, we have all caught the bug of exercising, which we are told is good for our health. It has become a pastime – men, women and children engage in it. It is now common to see people jogging around their neighbourhood or on the road as you drive out early in the morning. To them, jogging is life and they will do anything to go jogging.

    Gone were the days of lazing around for want of something to do. At any given opportunity, the exercise buffs take off to indulge in their pastime. Sometimes you find them in company of twos, threes or more sweating it out together on the street. Last Saturday, some landlords from Oshorun Heritage Estate in Isheri North Local Government Area of Lagos State gathered at their usual spot near the Lekki Gardens Estate for their weekly exercise. Theirs is an organised aerobics class taken by a coach.

    That fateful day they were with their trainer, simply named Coach Oni. Hardly had they settled down at the end of Channels Television Avenue, which leads into Lekki Gardens Estate, that they saw some strange faces. These were people that do not normally attend the class. Could it be that they have heard about the class and came to join? That could not be because this is an exclusive gathering of landlords from the Oshorun Estate. So, no outsider can come in except he or she is invited by members. They did not have to wait long because the men showed their true colours.

    Armed to the teeth and hooded, they wasted no time before they made their intentions known. The landlords immediately sensed danger as the kidnappers said to be in military camouflage shouted that ‘’nobody should move’’. By now many of the landlords had become transfixed to the spot they stood. But, before the gang’s leader finished giving his order, some of them had taken off, running into the wild bush. They did not know where they were running to, but they knew that wherever it is, it will be better than being caught by the kidnappers. So, three of them escaped, but four were not so lucky.

    The kidnappers took away the coach, Kennedy Ucheagwu, Dr Omololu Bello and Fidelis Essang. Criminals will always look for an opportune moment to strike and in most cases that will be when they know the police won’t be nearby. Criminals are humans; they are flesh and blood like us. In that wise, they too are prone to fear, notwithstanding the brave look they put on because of the arms they carry. If they know they will be challenged by the police or even the people they will develop cold feet. But, in this case, the kidnappers had a free rein and went away with their victims. A chase by the police could have led to their arrest. The police did not consider it a matter serious enough to deserve immediate action as they argued over whose jurisdiction the case fell while the criminals escaped.

    Policemen from the Lagos and Ogun Commands passed the buck on who should handle the case. Those from Ogun said the kidnap happened in Lagos, while their Lagos counterparts said it happened in Ogun. Is it in such situation that the police will be fighting over jurisdiction? Their main job in that circumstance should have been how to stop the hoodlums from escaping as they got there early enough to do just that. They were also there in large number. If only they had chased those kidnappers, the story may have been different today.

    Yes, some lives would have been lost, but all the kidnappers would not have escaped. Today, the kidnappers are demanding N300 million ransom on each victim, amounting to N1.2 billion for the quartet. Where do they expect the victims’ families to get such money from? It is not their fault but that of the police which allowed them to slip away. As I write this on Tuesday night, one of the landlords was said to have been freed.  This is good news, even though it is at a price. May the others also regain their freedom soon. As for the police, they should bury their heads in shame for not doing enough to rescue the landlords last Saturday.

    KSA at 70

    CALL him KSA, King Sunny Ade, Sunday Adegeye or simply Sunny, the public will instantly recognise the person you are talking about. KSA is a household name. People like me grew up to know the man and the artiste through his music. It was in the days that Juju musicians were virtually at war with one another – call it imaginary war, you may not be wrong because it was what their fans imagined. Whenever KSA sang, listeners believed that he was taking a jibe at Commander Ebenezer Obey and vice versa. Though it was all in our imagination, the artistes themselves fueled it with the kind of songs they sang. The Yoruba call it orin ote. Whether orin ote or not, we enjoyed it and sang along with them. To disabuse people’s minds, the guitar wizard (anjonu onijita) sang: Bi Sunny Ade ba nkorin wa ni Obey lo banwi, bi Obey ba nko ti e, wa ni Sunny lo banwi… The song did not douse tension. Their fans continued to shout wolf where the musicians claimed there was none.

    Speaking musically, the late 1960s and 1970s belonged to Sunny and Obey on the Juju scene and it is  a credit to them that they are still standing tall today despite the challenge from other stars. Sunny and Obey were not the only stars in the firmament, but they overshadowed others to make their mark. They remain a success till today because first luck smiled on them and second they did not rest on their oars. They did not allow their success to get into their heads. KSA did not start as a musician. He was in the theatre group of the legendary comedian Moses Adejumo aka Baba Sala when fate changed the course of his life for good. Baba Sala encouraged him to take the plunge by telling him: lo try e wo, with a caveat that he could come back to the drama group if things did not work out fine. As the master guitarist said in a recent interview as part of activities to mark his 70th birthday, he is still on that lo try e wo, some 45 years after. As he celebrates the biblical three scores plus 10 today, we wish him many happy returns of the day. May his fount of music never dry.

  • Battle to bring Edo back to N/Delta fold

    There is too much at stake for Adams Oshiomhole in the coming September 28 Edo election. As if his life depends on its outcome, he has embarked on a vigorous campaign across the state dancing, jumping and advertising his achievements. He says his is a battle for continuity against return to the Igbinedion and PDP years of the locust.  The governor’s battle unfortunately is not just against the entrenched interests in Edo State but against all those with a sense of entitlement in the Delta region  beginning with the militants,  their sponsors, who Ken Saro-Wiwa described as ‘vultures’,  who after impoverishing their people by converting the commonwealth to private use, move over to the courts to secure  perpetual injunctions as a shield against prosecution in a region where successive leaders since 1966 believe  ‘stealing is not corruption’.

    The recent shift in date of the election has led to fierce attack and intensification of hostility between the combatants. But if you asked me if Oshiomhole and his party are vulnerable in spite of his sterling performance, my answer will be in the affirmative. Beyond the bravado and shout of “PDP is dead in Edo and we are waiting for its burial”, Oshiomhole knows the outcome of electoral contest has never been decided on the basis of outstanding  performance or faithful implementation of party manifesto since rigging was introduced by ‘mainstreamers’ to the Western Region in 1964.

    Detailing how that election was rigged, Mr. Esua, ex oficio chairman of the western regional electoral commission in a letter to Governor Fadahunsi dated November 20, 1965 enumerated the strategies: “Refusal of electoral officers to accept nomination papers or failure to report for duty; announcements of candidates ‘elected unopposed’ without the commission’s prior clearance;  revocation of the appointments  and replacement of electoral officers; leakages of voting slips; refusal of returning officers to read the certificates of votes  counted at the place of counting”.  Akintola refused to back down when he, along with Akinloye, Ayo Rosiji, Akinjide and Fani Kayode met with Sardauna over the massive rigging insisting “what happened in his region was not different from what happened in other regions”. The method was improved upon by NPN to sweep away high performing UPN governors in 1983.  Obasanjo further modified it to sweep away ANPP and AD governors in 2003. Jonathan modernized it with an injection of $1.4b.

    Besides ex- President Jonathan whose ego was bruised by Oshiomhole’s refusal to demonstrate his loyalty by acting in the manners of Obi and Mimiko, the governor has also stepped on powerful toes in and outside Edo State. Starting from his Edo base, he has Chief Tony Anenih, ‘Mr. Fixer’, to contend with. Here is a man who was already an ‘institution’ long before Adams Oshiomhole manoeuvred his way into the textile unions where he made a living by shouting ‘aluta’.  He was by 1983, Edo State chairman of National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and took credit for helping Chief Samuel Ogbemudia take power from a very resourceful Professor Ambrose Alli in the days of NPN’s curious “land slide and sea slide’ victories in opponents strongholds.  By 1993, he was the chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which secured victory for MKO Abiola, a victory Anenih later traded away. He was Obasanjo’s Minister of Works accused by political enemies of expending over N300b budget for roads on the 2003 election during which PDP defeated ANPP and AD in their strongholds. He recently admitted to EFCC the disbursement of N260m from Office of National Security Adviser on behalf of President Jonathan to groups and individuals to influence the 2015 election. I present before you fellow compatriots, a great Edo man of ‘timber and calibre’, Oshiomhole has consistently taunted since President Jonathan in his magnanimity reined in his militants and allowed him win the 2013 election. Now with Anenih and Jonathan, a man who hardly forgives, joining forces, Oshiomhole knows the day of reckoning has finally come.

    Oshiomhole also has Chief Tom Ikimi, a former chairman of NRC, who rather than concede defeat of his party settled for General Abacha’s foreign minister as another home based  formidable foe.   He recently moved back to PDP from APC which he helped to put together when he lost the contest for the chairmanship of the party to Chief Oyegun. Ikimi saw the hand of Oshiomhole in his defeat.

    Another sworn enemy of Oshiomhole in Edo is High Chief Raymond Dokpesi, a media mogul and a former business partner of the late MKO Abiola and late General Shehu Yar’Adua (President Yar’Adua’s elder brother). He and his Daar Holding and Investment Limited has since  December 9, 2015 been charged to court for partaking in the sharing of money budgeted for weapons procurement for the Nigerian military but allegedly diverted by Dasuki Sambo, the then National Security Adviser, to Dokpesi’s Daar Holding and Investment Limited. Someone has to pay for the humiliation of one of the Edo untouchables. And the only person that fits that bill is Oshiomhole, the face of APC in Edo.

    Of course Oshiomhole’s greatest foe in Edo is Lucky Igbinedion who he had accused of stealing from the people. Although he merely addressed him by his new status of a convict, conferred on him by the court, his supporters even at that think Oshiomhole who made a living shouting “aluta’ before becoming governor should have some respect for an untouchable Benin ‘icon’.  Matters are not helped when Oshiomhole went on to boast about his recovery of over 200,000 hectares of land illegally dashed out to Chief Gabriel Igbinedion by his son, Lucky when he was governor. Oshiomhole has climbed the cliff. Civil society groups have demonstrated in Benin insisting Oshiomhole who has brought such a dishonor to a revered Benin family must be replaced by Ize-Iyamu who was Igbinedion’s Chief of Staff when Benin City looked like a war-ravaged city as a minimum condition for a truce.

    As if these are not enough domestic problems plaguing one small man of slight build, whose weapon is his caustic tongue, from the larger Delta came other formidable adversaries such as Princess Stella Oduah  and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala  both at the receiving end of Oshiomhole endless diatribes on corruption and incompetence.  Both women of means and influence are feverishly working to ensure Oshiomhole is roundly defeated on September 28 if only to teach him a lesson that ‘no man ever wins a woman’s war.’

    Ifeanyi Okowa and  Nyesom Wike, Oshiomhole’s Niger Delta brother governors,  both of whom he had advised to pay arrears of workers’ salaries in their states instead of mobilizing N2b to support Ize-Iyamu or sponsoring 8,000 militants to destabilise his state during the elections  are not amused. But they are resolved on one thing: Edo State must be brought back into the Niger Delta fold. This is a task that must be accomplished even if it involves applying the “Amaechi treatment’ which forced his supporters to run for their lives instead of coming out to vote for Dakuku Peterside, his candidate. All is fair in war. The objective is to ensure Ize-Iyamu rides into power even if it means on the blood of the people as Wike, according to Itse Sagay, did in Rivers.

    The battle line is drawn between  vultures, militants, men as ‘institutions’ and one small man of light build who arrogantly calls himself a ‘giant killer’, swearing by the lives he has touched and communities he has served diligently for eight years. The epic battle is set for September 28. The umpire and the security personnel, we hope will provide a level playing ground by guarding against the repeat of chaos and anarchy that accompanied the Port Harcourt war wrongly described as election.

  • Recession: Is the worst really over now?

    Recession: Is the worst really over now?

    Recently, the Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, had to admit what had long been known to both local and foreign analysts that Nigeria was technically in a recession. For an economy that was growing at over 5 per cent only two years ago, the recession, an encircling gloom, is much worse than expected. It was courageous of the Finance Minister to have made that admission, as captains of a sinking ship do not normally admit that their ship is sinking. Recent data from the Federal Bureau of Statistics showed that in the second quarter of the year, the economy declined by 2.6 per cent, making this possibly one of the worst recessions in Nigeria’s recent economic and financial history.

    The Buhari APC federal government says it is doing all it can to tackle the recession. Leading spokesmen for the federal government have been increasingly upbeat about the efficacy of the fiscal and monetary strategies being adopted to end the recession and how soon this objective can be achieved. However, I was startled by the overly optimistic forecast last week by the Finance Minister that the recession should bottom out in the second half of 2017. In fact, echoing the optimism of the Finance Minister, the beleaguered Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, was reported as being equally upbeat about the prospects of ending the recession sooner than thought possible by most credible financial and economic analysts. He was reported in The Nation of Monday, September 19, as saying that the worst of the recession was over. If by ‘over’ he means that the recession has bottomed out and that the economy can now return to growth, I have to say that his optimism is premature. There is still a lot of work to be done and more ground to cover before we can say the recession is over. We have to wait for the release of the economic data in the last quarter of this year to make that judgment. I personally do not think that the recession will end in the time frame being projected. Even with the most efficient strategies there is a time lag involved in the process of economic stabilisation, particularly as the basic problem is structural.

    Some of the commendable economic and financial measures being introduced by the federal government to end the recession include a stimulus package of which, so far, some N420 billion has been injected into the economy to provide it with an impetus. The Finance Minister has announced that another sum of N374 billion will be injected into the economy shortly in the hope of jump starting it. Other financial measures include an impressive social spending programme that could act as a catalyst for the depressed economy. But it is doubtful that in the short run these measures have the capacity to end the recession and bring the economy back to growth. The reason is that Nigeria’s recession is not merely cyclical but structural as well. Nigeria is not only wholly dependent on oil exports and revenues. It is also largely import dependent. Right now the external sector is weak. Until the global glut in oil supply and falling prices for oil exports end, Nigeria’s revenue from oil imports will not increase significantly in the short run. With the exception of China and India, the rest of the world is still in recession. In the EU, the average growth rate is less than 2 per cent. So, for Nigeria, improved oil exports and revenues remain a critical factor in its efforts to end the recession. As for food imports, there is obviously a need to reduce these, as it is putting pressure on Nigeria’s foreign reserves. But I do not think the way to handle this is to place a ban, or restrictions, on some food imports and industrial raw materials. These restrictions and bans are not likely to work. The goods banned will still find their way into Nigeria through large scale smuggling. The revenue that Nigeria should earn will go instead to corrupt Customs officials. Instead of the bans, high tariff instruments should be used to reduce our food import bill. Other countries use this strategy to great effect. But, like the MPC of the CBN, I also have some reservations about the possible negative consequences of injecting such a huge amount of money into the economy in so short a time. Nigeria, no doubt, needs a stimulus package. But it is important to calibrate and moderate this large cash injection into the economy as this will, no doubt, fuel the already high inflation rate, now averaging 17 per cent. And this could undermine growth. The proposed emergency spending bill, which seeks to short circuit the existing procedure for the award of public contracts, will also add to the rate of inflation. It can even fuel public corruption.

    There are other equally critical issues that have to be addressed urgently if we are to end the recession as swiftly as possible. The first is how to reduce the huge budget deficits to a more manageable level. Of course, Nigeria needs to increase its IGR urgently to address the huge budgetary deficits. But the country’s financing gap is about $30 billion annually and this financing gap is increasing steadily because of its inability or failure to widen its revenue base. The recent $I billion capital inflow is welcome. But it will not solve Nigeria’s basic economic problem. More funds should be generated internally. In this regard, the VAT, now 5 per cent, should be increased to 10 per cent to bridge some of the deficits. Because of global financial uncertainties, we cannot continue to rely indefinitely on foreign loans to finance our capital projects. At a time of a global economic and financial recession as we have now it will become increasingly difficult to raise such funds abroad. And successive federal governments are to blame for this difficult financial situation. When President Obasanjo left office in 2007, he left over $60 billion in foreign reserves, and this was after he had successfully renegotiated our foreign debts and paid the balance off. As reported by the Governor of the CBN, the foreign reserves stood at $68 billion in 2008. Today our total foreign reserves are down to only $25 billion, despite record oil exports and revenues accruing to the domestic economy. According to the Governor of the CBN, $62 billion was simply frittered away by Obasanjo’s successors, principally by the wasteful and corrupt Jonathan PDP federal government. It is being suggested by some analysts, including the Governor of the CBN, that some of the assets of the federal government in the NNPC and the NLNG be sold off to raise additional revenue for the government. In fact, the Governor of the CBN was reported as saying that had this opportunity been taken six months ago, the federal government would have made about $40 billion from the sale of these assets. But now, it will not make more than $20 billion. Much valuable time has been lost. But I do not support the idea of selling at these uncertain times such valuable assets. Much of these assets will only be sold to the government’s cronies at below their real market price. In any case, it is unwise to sell these strong financial assets now simply to reduce the budget deficits or finance the importation of unnecessary goods into our country.  Ultimately, the NNPC will have to be scrapped altogether. It is a major source of public corruption in our country

    A major critical imperative in the economic recovery programme of the Buhari APC federal government is the urgent need to restore stability in the macro economy. At the moment there is volatility in the naira exchange rate, banks’ lending rates (now 20 per cent) and hyper inflation (now 17 per cent. Unless we get our economic fundamentals back on track and restore the macro economy to stability, it will be difficult for the Nigerian economy to return to a stable, sustainable and modest growth rate. A kind of coherent structural adjustment programme is now urgently needed. Tougher measures to arrest the economic drift and recession are badly needed. President Buhari should not flinch from taking them. In fact, these tough measures should have been taken in the first 100 days of his government. But the government dithered and wasted much valuable time by refusing to bite the bullet when it became clear that the economy was in disequilibrium. Decisions on the naira exchange rate adjustment and the timely removal of the oil subsidy were some of the issues over which the government dithered. For any structural adjustment programme to have the desired impact, its sequencing must be absolutely right. In 1986 the Babangida military regime got its sequencing right. That was the reason for the impressive growth of the economy in the late 1980s when it recorded an average of about 6 per cent, about the highest in Nigeria’s economic history. Of course this high growth rate was also made possible by the significant increase in revenue from oil then selling at $120 per barrel. But the growth rate later fell due to policy slippages and flip flopping by the Babangida regime.

    I have to say as well that I have some reservations about the decision to allocate 60 per cent of the available forex to the manufacturing sector. The banks are already circumventing this. While I fully understand the reason for this, which is to enable the sector improve on its capacity utilisation and create more jobs, my view is that this measure undermines a liberalised foreign exchange mechanism, essential to our economic recovery strategy. It is all the more disturbing as the total contribution of the sector to our GDP is less than 10 per cent. The Lagos Chamber of Commerce, a member of the OPS, has already expressed its strong objections to this strategy. And if we have to fully exploit the opportunities and potential for growth in the mineral resources and agricultural sectors, then they need to be treated with special consideration also in the allocation of forex. These are the sectors in which real growth can be expected.

  • Fantasy of thieves, looters and blinkered murderers

    Someday, death will become something more than an unexplainable mystery to the incumbent ruling class. Every public officer will die; their family members too. Despite their inhumanity, they are human after all. They breathe and bleed just like we do. At their demise, they shall discover what manner of life they deserve in the afterlife. They shall find that money and rank they covet are useless after the last howl had fallen silent, at their funeral. They shall learn that currency-activated prayers their clerics hoist above them will serve like raincoats under a blitz of cannon balls, at the end.

    In the wake of their demise, how shall they be remembered? How do we remember men who summon our joys to harness it with a sable bind? Shall we remember them with rage and rant? Shall we wish they burn in the earth, like splinters of wood fed into the hearth to spite the fire? Shall we wish that they lie in plagued repose low down with the worm and ant?

    How shall we be remembered? How shall posterity remember the ones who have perfected the art of letting their voices trail off in confusion at decision time? What will our children think of our desperation to keep the worst of our kind in power? What pantheons or dungeons shall we inhabit in the annals of Nigerian citizenship?

    The troubles of Nigeria are unwieldy like a storm. By our perversions, we impregnate and corrupt history and civilization 54-years old. Great evil lies in you and me, and by our perpetuation of it, we make history the way of the diabolic, that decapitated his newborn to satisfy his hunger pangs. Too many threads of heedlessness, woven of gluttony and lust, of racism and fear, inequality and blind hate of the stranger, form in our souls, a thick network.

    Yesterday, we suffered violence and bloodshed by militants in our creeks, down in the Delta. Today, we suffer violence and bloodshed by Boko Haram and Niger Delta Avengers.

    Every day, we suffer greater violence and bloodbath by murderous and incompetent ruling class. The most remarkable characteristic of the Nigerian ruling class, according to Prof. Itse Sagay, “is its complete and total insensitivity to the public outcry and outrage over the percentage of our resources that the members appropriate to themselves for their own consumption.”

    Sagay, in his lecture on ‘Good Governance and Enforcement of Law and Order’ at the Nigerian Institute of Management’s 2013 Management Day, lamented that while Nigerian Senators and House of Representative members earn $1.7m and $1.4m respectively per annum, American Senators and British parliamentarians earn 174, 000 and £65,738 respectively per annum.

    Yet income per capita for the US and UK is $46,350 and $35,468, respectively, while that of Nigeria is $2,248. The figure have grown more outrageous over time. Simply put, Nigerian legislators pay themselves the highest salaries of all legislators in the world, even though their country is amongst the least developed in the whole world.

    More worrisome is the government’s inequitable distribution of benefits and punishments meted out to people from different classes and professions, along with the asymmetrical distribution of respect and dignity. Eventually, you get the feeling that some people don’t count and never expected to count in the Nigerian State.

    In the wake of violence and bloodshed by successive terrorist groups, mostly constituted by youths, in the country, Mr. President, legislators and governors simmer in frustration and moral outrage. Jumping on to the bandwagon of these elected representatives’ deceitfulness and officialese, monarchs, clerics, newspaper columnists and other bastions of society pay lip service to the degeneration of the Nigerian youth and State.

    It is hardly astonishing that the government and cohorts resort to explanations of criminality, a feral underclass, and dysfunctional parenting. These are easier explanations for which the government does not need to accept responsibility. However, a careful assessment of the situation reveals that a greater percentage of the culprits are motivated by poverty, illiteracy, dysfunctional parenting, unemployment and inequality induced by unfair government policies, insensitivity and oppression by the ruling class.

    But such cruelties foisted on us by the most insidious ruling class, do not justify the descent of the Nigerian youth into barbarism or bloodthirstiness of any kind – but we choose to be savages anyway. Insensitivity and bloodlust enjoy sweet repose in the psyche of the Nigerian youth thus habituating them to all manners of savagery and triviality.

    Hence it wasn’t surprising to see the youth, the media and the general public descend on Shema Obafaye, former Lagos State Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) as violently as a mugger, as frighteningly as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man, over his gaffe when he featured as a guest on a breakfast show on Lagos-based private television, Channels Television.

    For Obafaye’s “My oga at the top” slip-up and his inability to accurately state his organization’s internet address, he became an object of nationwide ridicule. Footage of his blunder went viral on the social media making him an object of malicious jokes and caricature on Facebook, Twitter, Blackberry Messenger, T-shirts, and rascally musical medley by local disc jockeys (DJs).

    It was one gaffe that Nigerian youths particularly, couldn’t forgive; consequently, branded mugs, face-caps and T-shirts with the inscription: “My oga at the top!” were produced and sold at a profit in merriment over Obafaye’s gaffe.

    Several celebrities cashed in on the madness and donned the branded T-shirts to major public events in pitiful desperation to replenish their dwindling acclaim. A smart movie producer attempted to cash in too on the national ridicule of a man and public servant while it lasted by hastily putting together and releasing a film titled, “My oga at the top.”

    Nobody cared what sorrow or misery burdened Obafaye’s heart nor did anyone pause to imagine what shame and disillusionment his wife and kids are forced to relive and suffer daily long after the mockery had quieted to a murmur.

    If the Nigerian citizenry, the youth particularly, could be so coordinated and methodical in their perpetration of such “good-natured” ridicule and hate, would it not do Nigeria immense good to have us unite in more coordinated and disciplined revolt against the oppression and cruelties of the incumbent ruling class?

    We are past the novelty of coordinated mockery and moral outrage. The most powerful indignation we could express exceeds the pages of acerbic columns and social media; it subsists in latent courage and will we haven’t yet summoned the courage to express.

    Until we mature in grace and learn to apply ourselves to passionate pursuits for the love of the good, our pains shall run amok where we seek ease and bliss, always. It’s a matter of choice; to which system of thought should we commit our lives to? Is there anything in our norms worth saving? Shall we define the Nigerian dream in the language of humanity? Shall we begin to officiate for posterity’s sake? Shall we begin to affect the honesty and decency to which we pay lip service? Shall we choose the right candidates and vote them in at election time?

    It’s about time we refined the subtleties that make the Nigerian dream the fantasy of thieves, looters and blinkered murderers.

  • Equity and clean hands

    FOR too long, our leaders and their families have taken us for a ride. They treat the commonwealth as their personal property and do not give a care in the world about the led. As far as they are concerned, the people can go to hell as long as they live well. The welfare of the led is not their priority, yet they were elected to take care of the people. They do not believe that they should aspire to be the people’s leaders; they are satisfied being leaders of their families, feeding and meeting their needs with public funds.

    Our leaders are our greatest enemies. The nation is where it is today because of them. They had all the opportunities in the world to make the nation great, but they did not do what was expected of them. The nation made money – tons of it – from oil under their watch, but the cash was not well spent. The money found its way into their pockets, while the people groaned in poverty. The money meant for millions of Nigerians was pocketed by our leaders, their wives and children.

    Since this administration came on board on May 29, last year, we have been regaled with reports of how these leaders milked the nation. By leaders, we are not referring to the former president, vice president, governors, deputy governors and leaders of the legislature only, but all those who held key positions in their administration as well as the military chiefs. The military brass, especially turned out to be a big disappointment. We have heard of how some service chiefs used their positions to acquire wealth in the immediate past administration.

    Money meant for the acquisition of equipment to combat Boko Haram was diverted. The military brass converted the money into their own use, acquiring houses, cars and other properties as if those things were going out of fashion. They were not bothered about the men they sent to fight Boko Haram in the Northeast; they were more interested in pocketing the billions of dollars meant for the prosecution of the war. They expected the soldiers to fight with their bare hands. When these people rebelled, they were court-martialled. Yes, a soldier signed to die for his country, but not to commit suicide. But his superiors wanted him to commit suicide by not providing him with the equipment to fight.

    The generals were lucky that the soldiers did not turn on them. Elsewhere, soldiers have mauled their generals for cheating them. But in our own case, our generals had the temerity to court-martial soldiers that they did not provide arms and ammunition to do their job. Citing military law, they said it was a cardinal sin  for a soldier to refuse to fight. We all know that. But what do we say of the generals, who embezzled the funds meant for arming the soldiers?

    The cheek of it is that some of them are claiming that they did not do anything wrong despite the overwhelming evidence against them. They are contending that the billions of dollars found in their accounts belong to them. They also claimed that the multi-billion naira properties found in their names were legally acquired. The question is: how much is their salary that they would own such fat bank accounts and plush houses? They have even gone to court to enforce their fundamental rights! Can you beat that?

    In this league is the immediate past First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, who is battling the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in court for freezing her accounts with Skye Bank. The court is the last hope of the common man, as the saying goes. The courts are there to uphold the scale of justice and ensure that an aggrieved party is fairly and justly treated. Thus, parties who go to equity must do so with clean hands. How clean are the hands of those seeking to enforce their rights against the government? Can a party claim for a wrong, which raises more questions than answers?

    Dame Patience is seeking N200 million damages from EFCC and Skye Bank for the the freezing of her four accounts containing $15,591,700 (about N4,926,977,200). Since the story broke Nigerians have been wondering how she came about the money. $15.5 million is no chicken change. I do not know the work she did besides being the first lady for about six years to have made such money. Oh! I forgot, she was also a permanent secretary in Bayelsa State. We all know the salary of permanent secretaries. Except, she was placed on a special salary, there is no way she could have made $15 million for the four or so years that she served as permanent secretary.

    As first lady, I do not think that she was on salary because the office is not recognised in the Constitution. But being a powerful position with a lot of patronage, she could have used it to make money. Which may have been the case in this instance. If that is the case, is her action defensible? There must be something that Dame Patience knows that we do not know to have come out boldly to fight for this money. As things are, she should be ready to tell the world how she came about the money in order to get it back.  Is the money from her salary as a civil servant? Is it from a contract? What kind of contract is it? Was the contract bid for? Under what name did she bid for the contract? As our former first lady, we are entitled to know the source of the money. It is when she is able to explain how she got the money that she can legally make a claim for it.

    We do not expect our former first lady to be poor, but we do not also expect her to be stupendously rich without telling us the source of her wealth. Since she is laying claim to the money, the onus is on her to tell us how she made it. If she cannot do that then she should forfeit it to the state. As the legal maxim goes : ‘’He who comes to equity must come with clean hands”.

  • Limit of ethical revolutions

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday,September 8,launched the National reorientation campaign ‘Change Begins With Me’. It was a call ‘for attitudinal change in both our private and public life if we are to attain ‘a better society we will all be proud of.’ The new initiative according to government is a response to some of the problems bedeviling our nation which include ‘cultism, vandalisation of pipelines and other oil facilities corruption by public officials, thuggery and vote-stealing during elections,’ all of which government believes is responsible for ‘the total breakdown of our core values over the years’. John Odigie-Oyegun, the APC chairman while felicitating with Muslim faithful over the Eid el-Kabir season last Sunday also appealed to Nigerians “to be part of this campaign which according to him “will institutionalise the best practice and time-honoured values of honesty, hard work, patriotism, abhorrence of corruption, accountability and integrity in our everyday life,”as part of government bold move to repair our value system that has been badly eroded over the years’.

    I sympathise with President Buhari. There is no doubt that the author of ‘Nigerians have no other place to call their own’ wants the best for our nation. As the hope of Nigerians, impoverished through 16 years of mindless looting of our national resources by the political class, some of whom in some Asian nations would have been publicly executed for their crime against our nation, failure is not an alternative. I am sure the new modification to his change mantra which now insists the promised change will now start with the people, will not affect his rating by Nigerians who see him as a messiah sent to right the wrongs of the past. These high expectations of Nigerians, I think has however placed additional challenges on Buhari who can no more afford the luxury of his predecessors that failed to properly articulate our crisis of nationhood.

    From insight, we now know such wrong diagnoses was what led to the inauguration of President Shehu  Shagari’s ‘Ethical Revolution’ which did not stop his National Party of Nigeria(NPN) from wrecking the buoyant economy he inherited from Obasanjo in 1979 within four years through gluttonous consumption of foreign goods especially the ‘Akinloye brand’ of Champagne,  Babangida’s MAMSER, which turned out to be an ingenious strategy for institutionalisation of corruption by a self-styled ‘evil genius’,  Obasanjo’s Heart of Africa Foundation, and the Dora Akunyili’s directionless ‘rebranding Nigeria’ under Yar’Adua which did not stop  PDP men who publicly insisted on recouping  the funds expended on election  from aborting Obasanjo’s initiatives  in the energy sector and modernization of the rail system. The above initiatives along the President’s own 1994‘War Against Indiscipline’ (WAI) never achieved the advertised objectives because they were all directed against symptoms rather than the cause.

    Our crisis of nationhood requires political solution and not ethical revolution. Playing the ostrich by pretending otherwise is responsible for our economic crisis, infrastructural decay, and the collapse of the education and health sectors as a result of sabotage by those who have no faith in the nation. As it is often said, no true born deliberately sets out to destroy his father’s house. The question we should therefore ask ourselves is why the political class and the military elite have become the greatest threat to the survival of the nation. Why would elected lawmakers award themselves humongous salaries, embark on profligacy even in the midst of economic hardship, engage budget-padding to raise funds to buy personal estates in Abuja, convert our inherited patrimony to personal use, short-change the nation by supervising the sales of national assets that cost tax payers $100b for less than $1b, etc. – actions which they all know are injurious to the health of the nation.

    The answer is lack of faith in the nation by the political class. Unfortunately for us as a nation, not even the military, once the symbol of our unity  which first lost its innocence in January and July 1966 when it became an army of warring NCNC and NPC, an ‘army of anything is possible’ under Babangida and Abacha between 1985-1998,  an army that unilaterally tampered with the 1999 constitution and imposed Obasanjo as President, and an army where by 2014,  Generals shared allocations budgeted for procurement of arms to fight insurgency to acquire choice properties for themselves in Abuja while condemning their priceless assets – fighters to their untimely death, can be said to have faith in Nigeria. In other words, with the betrayal of the nation by the political class and the military elite, the nation became an orphan.  And unlike the long established nation-states of Europe where the hegemonic class, the owners of the state protect their states because of their stakes, what we have are parasites who do not give a damn whether the state collapses or not.  Awo likens the Nigeria state to a cow held down and milked by a privileged few to the detriment of everyone else in the society.

    All we have done in the last 50 years has been to focus on the symptoms of our crisis of nationhood, deploying such palliatives as NYSC, Unity Schools, quota system of admission to federal institutions and recruitment into the federal Civil Service and federal allocation of revenue generated by others resulting in disenchantment of restive segments of the society. We have also tried to play the ostrich by periodic resort to appeal to ethical revolutions which only served as diversionary tactics to allow the political class and the military that have lost faith in the nation to continue pillaging our resources. If 50 years in the journey to nationhood, we still cannot find our direction, we should at least have an idea of where we are coming from.

    Our founding fathers realised that beyond protection of life and property, people will freely trade their freedom and liberty only to states that can also protect their culture and values. As a compromise, they settled for three regions and later four each with its own collection of minorities  even though Awo according to Trevor Clark, Tafawa Balewabiographer, would have preferred a federation based not on “four regions but on ten major ethnic groups made up as follows:  13.6m Hausa and Fulani,(within which there were 32 northern minorities) 13m Yoruba, 7.8m Igbos,(within which there were 9 eastern minorities) 3.2m Efiks and Ibibio, 2.9m Kanuri, 1.5m Tivs, 0.9m Ijaws, 0.9m Edos, 0.6m Urhobos and 0.5m Nupes , as a reflection of our pluralism”.

    We cannot change inherited customs and beliefs. An attempt to forcefully do this through Ahmadu Bello’s 1964  and  Obasanjo’s 2003  ‘mainstreaming’ led to election rigging, violence, massive corruption and militancy. We are  a nation of many nationalities where everyone group want its own nation within the greater Nigerian nation-state where they will have control over their own lives, language, values and customs and resources . A state that chooses to remain tyrannical faces crisis of political participation and crisis of legitimacy as our country has witnessed over the years.

    There is a limit to ethical revolution. If we are genuinely desirous of finding a solution to our crisis of nationhood, we have the template of India, a more heterogeneous society to adapt with some modifications.

  • How you dey?

    How you dey?

    IT is a common Nigerian locution, rendered as a matter of routine and not because of its semantic depth. An adaptation of the English phrase, “how’re you?” it used to attract a warm reply, such as “I’m good”, “I’m fine” and “cool”.

    Not anymore. Ask a Nigerian in the typical street lingo popularly described as pidgin English, “how you dey?” He will reply you in a low voice that carries a tinge of disenchantment: “I just dey.”

    There is so much despondency in the land. Many are hungry and ill. The economy is stricken by a debilitating disease that seems to have suffered a bad diagnosis in the hands of some amateur doctors. They seem to be applying the wrong medicine. There are job cuts and investor lethargy. Factories are being shut. The naira has become a problem child, an ogbanje, the troublesome child that keeps dying and coming back.

    Our compatriots who groan about not seeing the change promised by the Muhammadu Buhari administration may be right after all. They may. That is neither here nor there. Little wonder it is the biggest debate in town.

    How objective are we if we say there is no change, especially if we look at it all in terms of bread and butter?  Consider the economy. Some have said that President Buhari has no economic team. Fine. But what Buhari lacks in such a team – if it is true he does not have one – he has made up for in his sincerity, which is a key element in human affairs and leadership. The government has cried out that the economy has been driven into a recession – Nigeria’s first since the downturn of 1986 when the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was introduced.

    In those days of the ravenous locusts, the team of experts who were so dexterous in the art of deception and obfuscation, in deformation as information would never have agreed let alone tell us that we are, indeed, in turbulent times. The truth is we are – just a few months after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its rainmakers and witchdoctors masquerading as experts announced gleefully after juggling some esoteric figures that ours is Africa’s biggest economy. We clapped for Rebasing (Does anybody still remember what it was all about?).

    Were they to be in charge now, they would have found another formula to bamboozle us that all is well. They would have embarked on all those money guzzling programmes that lacked depth and creativity. SURE-P, You Win I Win and such scatterbrain ideas that sounded like some casino stuff.

    Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun has come out boldly to break the sad news, even as she says it will not last long and  that measures are being planned to make us survive the pains. President Buhari says it will soon be over, praising our resilience. Let’s be a bit generous; isn’t this change?

    Amid the recession, its pains and pangs, the fecundity of the Nigerian mind has been at play. It is as if the bard himself had us in mind when he penned those evergreen lines, “sweet are the uses of adversity”. There seems to be nothing our compatriots will not joke with. Consider this sent to me by a friend: “The National Association of Housewives has written a letter congratulating the Federal Government on the economic recession.

    “According to the association, husbands now return home in the evening, straight from the office as they no longer have money to visit nkwobi and isi-ewu joints, staying there till late in the night.

    “Also, the association said they are having a good laugh at the expense of their husbands’ side-chicks who have been abandoned. Their husbands no longer have enough money to spend at home let alone on side-chicks. Many husbands have opted to be faithful to their wives. Who says there is nothing good about this recession?”

    The other day when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) postponed the Edo State governorship election following security advice, a big row broke out. Some said it was proper for the security agencies to have alerted the nation to the threats they saw. No fewer than 54 suspected militants, allegedly bearing arms, have been arrested. Others insist that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), scared of defeat, corralled the security agencies to issue a scary report of the situation.

    We really can’t say what went wrong, but the security chiefs seem to have justified their advice, with the arrest of this army of suspects.

    In the days of the PDP, there would have been no need to postpone the election. The voters list would have been tampered with. The  opponents’ leaders would have run out of town on the eve of the election. A prominent businessman whose forte is actually touting and thuggery, would have unleashed an army of fake soldiers on the state to emasculate the opposition whose agents would have been driven away from their beats. Results would have been written in party chiefs’ bedrooms. The opponents would have been dared to go to court.

    Didn’t we learn of how General Aliyu Momoh was being inveigled by former Minister of State Musiliu Obanikoro (now a graduate of history in the United States) to enforce the PDP’s evil devices during the 2014 Ekiti governorship election? What of the flood of blood that paved the road to the Rivers State Government House after former First Lady Patience Jonathan issued a decree that the opposition should be bloodied and bludgeoned?

    Days before the election, PDP supporters would have been singing:

    Bee dibo a ti wole

    Bee tie dibo a ti wole

    If you vote we have won

    Even if you don’t vote

    We have won

    The ruling party’s candidate, smiling like an excited bride on her wedding day, would have been used to being called “Your Excellency” several months before the election. Why not? The PDP ticket was as sure as death; having it was as good as winning an election that was yet to be contested.

    Not anymore. Change.

    If there was no change, would it have been possible for a former Air Force chief to be arraigned like a common Lagos pickpocket for alleged corruption? How about politicians confessing to sharing the cash that would have gone into the purchase of arms to fight Boko Haram? Wouldn’t they have shopped for and obtained at whatever price a perpetual injunction from being questioned?

    A former First Lady kept in her handbag many credit cards worth millions of dollars as if she was on a trip to purchase another  country. Not anymore.

    When Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg visited Abuja, there was no noise, a colleague observed the other day. In the days of the PDP, he noted, there would have been a big street party organised by a  Local Organising Committee (LOC), formed by a ministerial committee following instructions from a presidential committee. Another committee would have organised groups of traders and youths wearing a uniform dress to receive the visitor. The Atilogwu dancers would have been deployed in the airport days before his arrival.

    Billboards would have sprouted like mushrooms all over Abuja and Lagos proclaiming the visit as part of (what else?) the Transformation Agenda. The billboards would have carried photographs of eminent men, including Mandela (of blessed memory), President Obama, Gandhi, Zuckerberg and, of course, our dear President, his face wreathed in smiles.

    There would have been rallies and rallies. There would have been dinners at which choice wines, the best from France, would be served and the visitor, beaming after he would have been conferred with chieftaincy titles, such as Eze ndi Omenka orezeuzu, Omowale and Tafidan Konduga. He will, of course, be decked in any of those flamboyant dresses of ours.

    Besides a chieftaincy title, he would have got a damsel as a gift or a sturdy horse–all in the true spirit of our renowned hospitality. The National Bureau of Statistics and those experts, aforementioned, would have hammered out some figures to show that Nigerians are the indisputable champions in terms of number of  Facebook users.

    Nor will that be all. After the visit, there would have been “thank you all” advertorials in local and international newspapers for the successful hosting of the visitor. Not anymore. Change.

    The government says it is tackling the recession. The Council of State has approved its approach to the battle, but we ordinary mortals are not privileged to know what the government is doing so as to be sure that indeed “all this too shall pass”. We just hope the government will pull through before our sense of humour gets blunt. Meanwhile, I doff my hat to the average Nigerian who is going through it all with remarkable stoicism. May it not last too long. Amen.