The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • PMB: Respond to calls for restructuring

    The call for the restructuring of the Nigerian federation is being raised from most directions across Nigeria. Very many informed men and women with strong desires for the success and prosperity of Nigeria, former high public officials of Nigeria’s federal and state governments, other people with the most exalted experiences in the governance and management of Nigeria, some of Nigeria’s most respected intellectuals, professionals and businessmen, and countless civic organizations and youth organizations –all are raising their voices and calling for the restructuring of this federation, out of love for this country. All are warning that if the restructuring of this federation continues to be delayed, Nigeria could soon break up.

    Even the most radical among the youths of our country, the ones who have gone so far as to demand secession for their ethnic nations out of Nigeria, and even the ones who are engaging in blood-cuddling destruction of assets in their part of Nigeria in order to enforce their demands, all nevertheless indicate from time to time that they still have room for compromise and settlement if the Nigerian federation were restructured.

    The call for restructuring never ceases coming these days. And the warning that Nigeria could soon break up if restructuring continues to be delayed never ceases to come these days too. The chance to save Nigeria still exists. But the probability that Nigeria could implode and break up is mounting fearfully.

    And most developments and emerging realities are adding to the awful probability that Nigeria could soon disintegrate. The weakness of the economy is accelerating almost out of hand. Even the national chairman of the ruling party has now told Nigeria that his party is baffled by the depth to which Nigeria’s economy has fallen. Some months ago, there was sudden news that America and India had stepped up to resume buying Nigeria’s oil, thereby saving Nigeria from the crushing circumstance that the world was no longer buying our oil. But now, a reverse news has come that both America and India are again reducing purchases of Nigeria’s oil; that Nigeria is offering deep discounts in order to attract buyers and that buyers are not forthcoming. And, meanwhile, the source of the oil is sinking into deeper and deeper trouble as various Delta militant groups continue to destroy oil platforms and pipelines, and as the major oil-mining companies are forced to relocate their activities and investments to other oil producing countries – especially to Angola. Even if the Nigerian army does invade and overrun the Delta, the military victory is distinctly unlikely to produce a quick revival of the oil industry there, as a full scale war there would certainly result in greater damages to oil producing assets.

    Meanwhile, the attitudes of the international community are tilting against Nigeria. After Buhari was sworn in, and especially when he embarked on war against corruption, the international community felt warm towards him and Nigeria. I was in America when he paid his first visit as president to that country and addressed a gathering of Nigerians in Washington DC. We Nigerians felt good as our president was received with a surge of warmth and optimism by the American ruling class, business class, the media, and the general public. After all the gloom and doom of the last years of the Jonathan presidency, Buhari seemed to be inaugurating a new era of light, hope and growth. As a Nigerian elder resident abroad, I wrote a very optimistic article for this column in those days.

    But most of that optimism and hope has now dissipated, thanks largely to Buhari’s show of lack of understanding of the economy, thanks to his perceptible ineptitude in managing anything (including even his war against corruption), thanks to his tendency towards excessive loyalty and submissiveness to the ethnic and religious wishes and desires of his Hausa-Fulani nationality, thanks to his obvious disrespect for the party that got him into power and for political parties in general, thanks to his apparent spite for democracy – and his obvious spite for the voices of his countrymen. Informed voices in the international community are now more and more talking about fears of inevitable collapse of the Nigerian economy, of mounting poor human rights record, of lack of respect for the lives and rights of citizens, of likely mass reactions to economic distress, and of possible national collapse. Altogether, the Buhari presidency is putting Nigeria into a dark corner – a dark corner where Nigeria would steadily lose goodwill worldwide, where Nigeria would steadily lose the inflow of investment capital, and where Nigeria would find it extremely difficult to get help and support if the feared big trouble were to come.

    President Buhari needs to stop now, take a good look into and around him, seriously consider what Nigerians and foreigners are saying about his presidency and about his country, and begin seriously and resolutely to chart a different path for his presidency. As things stand today, people talking seriously and people joking on the worldwide social media are already wondering whether this man would be the last president of Nigeria, the president who would preside over the dissolution of Nigeria. That fate does not have to befall him or Nigeria. If he so chooses now, he can turn around and yet fulfil the best promises of the beginning of his presidency.

    One step that would very powerfully inaugurate the turn-around would be a new and serious attention for the demands for a restructuring of the Nigerian federation. That is where the true battle for the future of Nigeria now lies. The deciding battle no longer lies in the hands of a powerful military. Rulers tend to be blinded by their possession and control of military power. And President Buhari seems to reside most of his hope these days in the assurance that the Nigerian military can crush all dissidence, all revolts, and all attempts at secession. He is mounting troops in the South-south, South-east, and even South-west – in addition to those already in the North-east. What he does not seem to know is that crushing dissidence, revolts and attempts at secession today is no longer exactly equivalent to preserving Nigeria as one. This is not 1967-70. Nigerians have grown in knowledge and skills – especially in the awareness that they are not really weak in the world of today, and that even if they are vanquished by the army of the country to which they belong, they may still not lose their war for self-determination.

    People belonging to Buhari’s class in Nigerian society and politics, and people belonging to other levels of society, are urging him to lead our country into a restructuring of our federation without further delay. They are warning that our country could soon break up if he continues to ignore their calls. Even from his Fulani nationality where the orthodox belief has been since 1960 that only an all-powerful  and all-controlling Federal Government can serve their interests and take care of their fears in Nigeria, some leading citizens are now conceding that concentrating all power in the centre has hurt all sections of Nigeria very disastrously, and that the only way to save Nigeria now is to review the making of the states of our federation, and give to the new states the power to promote their own socio-economic development and defeat poverty among their own people – and make their own kinds of contribution to the success of Nigeria.

    Mr. President, the true need of any Nigerian people now is no longer about victory in establishing dominance over Nigeria. That has become grossly anachronistic. It has been blown away by the grinding power of poverty and the people’s determination to free themselves from poverty – poverty in the midst of plenty. You can only make yourself truly relevant by responding positively to the true need. Your destiny, Mr. President, your place in history, is in your own hands.

  • This fugitive quirk we have no word for

    If I should hesitate to say these things, it will not be because they are untrue but because I cannot speak of them without betraying my imperfection. Let us leave religion out of humanity, the Nigerian heart confounds even evil. We have become that fugitive quirk we can find no word for.

    How curious a land this is? Like a veteran virgin with a history of abortions, our hearts and privates are full of scars – scars of tragedy, scars of laughter, scars of luxury, scars of want…every scar a luscious testament to our poverty of life.

    Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever gives. Beneath the parks and groves we lay out, within our mansions, shanties and worship houses, a lot we do is sordid, a lot we do is forced; a certain feverishness and unrest varnishes our world. And all our show and tinsel are built upon a groan.

    Lest you begin to think that I’m inclined to spurious generalizations, I have searched carefully and I find that there is nothing barbaric and savage about anyone in this nation except that everyone gives the title of barbarism to everyone else and every thought that are not in consonance with truth, as they would like to see it.

    Goaded by such erroneous belief, every Nigerian considers himself the quintessential patriot capable of the fairest truth and reason. And from this perception emerges the contemporary Nigerian with the perfect politics, perfect economics, perfect religion and the most exact and accomplished approaches to all things.

    Thus our nation abounds with perfect tyrants and looters, our homes with perfect batterers and paedophiles; our industries pulsate with perfect quacks and the slovenly, our schools with perfect dullards and numbnuts. Lest we forget the perfect rapists, kidnappers, hooligans and assassins prowling our streets, baiting the unforgiving second, when ruthless neurosis pulsates with will, for a price.

    Our much vaunted norms have begun to peer above our ego. The harder we flaunt, the more carelessly we reveal the swollen belly of our pride. Our talk is of the Golden Fleece; goaded by greed and spurred by desperate tendencies to stand out, we traverse our land and foreign lands spreading degeneracy, insolence and vile.

    In search of the Golden Fleece, crime has become our cotton field; it sprouts frightful stamens of violence and blood. Thus this minute, a gubernatorial hopeful pounds a day old child in a mortar for goodluck charm. Next minute; a European widow will lose her life-savings to a street-smart, internet-activated Nigerian kid. The widow will slit her wrists and her scammer would retire to the blessings of his parents and family pastor.

    Our factories die but crime remains a major industry in Nigeria. That is because it’s the surest path to the Nigerian dream. But what is the Nigerian dream? Swift, sudden reprieve from all that pathos, all that bathos ever gave? Comfort taken for granted because it comes too easy and cheap?

    For whom is the good life? The insane market women of the sidewalks? Child-thugs and teen-rejects dying to be park thugs? The veteran who becomes drunkard and jester in our court of random realities? Perhaps the faithless who keeps the empty store on the lonely road, by the crossroads where the best of hopes lay famished. Maybe the privileged for whom the paths turned rose-beds, ever before they startled to a second pat.

    What would you do for the good life? Everything and anything that gets you to sleep at night happily and fulfilled, perhaps. Now that everything and anything amounts to nothing, we do everything and anything to sustain the life that pleases.

    We who have become treasury looters, armed robbers, advance fee fraudsters, mediocre teachers, unconscionable journalists, doctors and law enforcers, have learnt to espouse morals birthed where deeds run afoul the mouth.

    Every Nigerian is a moralist even as we sow sodden seeds of decadence at sunrise through sunset. And still we manage to misunderstand the true essence of our mystery; the tragedy of the picture, and all that treachery as well as folly ever gave.

    We who couldn’t handle the truth profess to seek it. Here is the shadow of truth: our dreams have murder in the eye and we fete murder in the heart claiming to be “only human;” as if being human requires that we are inhuman. And thus is the kernel of our folly; that blind, savage, ghastly unreality that inspires our maddened souls to debris.

    Nothing works still, because we are incapable of making anything work. Politicians make hard calculations in the interest of the ruling class; multinationals depart our killing fields for lack of security, basic infrastructure, and desperately sought “excellent” returns.

    Capital and operating costs belie hope and prosperity as we have learnt to have it. But even doom has nuances. In our motherland, it has a thousand layers of meaning. Hence we cry for separation, true federalism and insurgencies contrived where the blood froths hottest.

    Forget our platitudes; many would die not to be part of the bloody revolutions they incite. I moot no bloodshed folks for it is hardly the path to the epoch of our dreams. For all our troubles, it is the tenor of our thoughts that sickens. We seem to be defective in reason. And the solutions we propound can neither loosen nor bind tragic knots we blow on the threads of history…our history, back when it used to be golden.

    Now we trust our hopes to prevail violence and malevolence we espouse even as you read. Truth has become a cliché, when it’s spoken, our ears hurt. Truth has become what we wouldn’t say to get our hearts to lighten. And so do our hearts harden.

    Bet you are beginning to wonder: “Where are his solutions to our crises?” Let it be known at this point that, I seek to profess no mean truth neither do I portend some wild and infernal analysis; the solution we seek defies logic and grit as we have learnt to flaunt it.

    Education is the only thing that should wholly never fail but we have learnt too little and we have too little to pass on, save Ivy League mediocrity, insolence, and greed. For all the honours we flaunt, the knowledge we affect is shorn of insight.

    Until we mature in grace; until we learn to live the cliché and 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 and humanity’s sake? Shall we begin to affect the honesty to which we pay lip service? Shall we begin to reject the same old intrigues, same old analysis, every minute, every hour, everyday?

    Perhaps we would learn to refine the subtleties that would make the Nigerian dream something more than the dream of thieves, prostitutes and looters. The Nigerian dream: dream of assassins, arsonists, urchins, human parts dealers, child traffickers, religious fanatics, ethnic warlords, internet fraudsters…hypocrites.

  • We can save Nigeria

    Nigeria’s prospects look bleak today. The economy is in serious trouble.  The federal revenue has fallen by as much as 60% in the past year. Oil sales, the pillar of the Nigerian economy, have declined from about two million barrels per day to about 1.2 million barrels. The Niger Delta Avengers, currently the most powerful militant group in the revolt against the Nigerian Federal Government in the Delta, are pushing the most extreme claims – namely, a separate Delta country – as they continue to blow up the oil platforms and pipes upon which the Nigerian oil exports depend, thereby forcing the oil exports to decline further and further. Meanwhile, world oil prices continue to fall, and even Saudi Arabia has had to cut the price of its oil. Oil’s long-term prospect does not look promising, as worldwide investments in non-oil energy sources are rising.

    The Federal Government has been forced to announce that some high priority projects in the 2016 Budget are now impossible to implement. Even federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies are experiencing underfunding, and federal investment in the economy is not happening as it should. Monthly allocations to the states have dwindled drastically. One state governor is reported as saying that he needs now to combine three months of his state’s allocations to be able to pay his state’s workers’ salaries for one month. In spite of emergency bail-outs by the Federal Government, most states cannot pay workers’ salaries. The Governor of the Central Bank was once reported as saying that if the situation continues as of now, even the Federal Government may not be able to pay federal workers’ salaries by October.

    The naira continues to fall in value vis-a-vis main foreign currencies, causing serious declines in imports. Declines in the importation of industrial raw materials are reducing industrial production. Unemployment, already disastrously high, is escalating. Inflation has surged to about 19%. Food prices are rising drastically in the market, putting more hardship on most Nigerians.

    In spite of this frightening down-turn, the Nigerian Federal Government is still having to increase expenditure on the military, in order to respond to various areas of terrorism, revolt, and troubling crime in parts of the country. The military are still fighting Boko Haram in the North-east. They are also standing ready for war in the Delta – in case, according to the high command, the Delta militants continue to frustrate the president’s attempts to resolve the Delta revolt peacefully. In the Delta also, where the president had earlier announced an end to the amnesty payments to the militants, he now appears under pressure to offer a resumption of the amnesty payments – in an effort to buy peace. Radical pro-Biafra activities have made some military build-up necessary in the Igbo South-east, while serious crime imported from the Delta to the traditionally peaceful Yoruba South-west has made some military build-up necessary in the Yoruba South-west.  If actual war should ensue in some of these places, in addition to the old war against Boko Haram in the North-east, it remains to be seen how the Federal Government will be able to find the funds to fight such wars.

    In such a dire situation as this, a widely popular government might still be able to inspire some hope and confidence among its countrymen. Unfortunately, President Buhari, who started his presidency in considerable popularity just over a year ago because of his promise of change and his immediate start of an anti-corruption war, has lost much of that popularity. Citizens in most parts of the country criticize him today for appearing to be engaged in a bid to revive the futile and disruptive attempts by his Arewa North to dominate Nigeria, and for outright nepotism in his appointments of officials into the Federal Government. He has also caused much outrage by not speaking up openly to the country about his kinsmen, the Fulani herdsmen, who have been killing farmers and destroying farms and villages in rural areas in most parts of the country. Above all, he is attracting much unpopularity for seeming incompetence in the management of the economy.

    In these circumstances then, Nigeria, whose stability has always been shaky since its independence in 1960, appears now to be headed into probably a terminal crash. Most of the country’s instability springs from its terrible inability to manage its ethnic and religious diversity appropriately. Those who have ruled Nigeria since independence have been strangely incapable to recognize that Nigeria is a country of many different nationalities, each of which lives in its on ancestral homeland, cherishes its own cultural heritage and its own pride, and desires to be reasonably free to manage its own unique concerns in the context of Nigeria.

    One of the nationalities, installed by the British colonialists in control of federal power at independence, aggressively strives to hold federal power indefinitely, to subdue the other nationalities to federal control, and to use federal power to impose its own kind of Islamic religion on all others. The end result of their striving is now a constitution which concentrates all power and resource control in a so-called federal government that is really a unitary government. In the process, Nigeria has experienced inter-ethnic and religious conflicts, rigged elections and violent protests, a major civil war and smaller civil wars, mind-boggling public corruption, steady escalation of poverty and steady decline in Nigerians’ quality of life, terrorism, pogroms and acts of genocide. For over a decade now, informed observers in many parts of the world have increasingly predicted that Nigeria could soon break up. Today, those predictions seem near fulfilment.

    But even in this gloom, we Nigerians can still find ways to hold our country together, and to make it progressive and prosperous. One sure way is to establish a proper federation for our country. Most Nigerians who want their country saved are increasingly demanding this – and they call it ‘restructuring’. The basic fundamental principle behind restructuring and a rational federation is that we Nigerians must respect our indigenous nations and their cultures and their self-pride, and build upon that, in our country’s constitution, the pattern of interrelationships among our nationalities in our one country.

    Restructuring consists of two basic steps. The first is to create states based on respect for our nationalities. We have about 300 nationalities, and we cannot have that many states. So we need to let some large nationalities (like the Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa-Fulani) be states, and help groups of the smaller nationalities to join to form states. We must not let any nationality be split between states. In this whole way, India, with about 2000 nationalities and a total population of over one billion gave itself 28 states. We might end with about 20 states; if we choose to have fewer states, we could have a Yoruba state, an Igbo state, and a Hausa-Fulani state, and three other states each combining contiguous small nationalities – a total of six states (that is, our six zones become states). Each state organizes itself in its own way and writes its own constitution accordingly.

    The second step is to give each state much power to manage its economic life, promote its own development, maintain its own security, and make its own kind of contribution to our country’s progress. This means that many of the things now done by the Federal Government shall be done by the states. It also means that the states will control the development of their God-given resources as part of their economic development. The Federal Government shall still control the high points of our country’s economy (currency, foreign exchange, central bank, inter-state economic regulations, taxation over all resources, etc.), as well as our country’s foreign relations, military service, etc. On the whole, the Federal Government shall be much smaller than at present and our politicians will no longer fight to death to control the Federal Government.

    That is it. India had our present trouble of instability and near collapse before, and they overcame it by the kind of restructuring described here. We too can do it and save our country.

  • Tribute to Bankole Olayiwola Bolodeoku (1940-2016)

    The news of the sudden death last month of Venerable Bankole Olayiwola Bolodeoku was devastating to his family and all his friends. He would have been 76 this month. News of his demise came to me as a rude shock as well as I was totally unaware that he was even ailing. He always looked hale and hearty. The last time we met socially in Lagos a few months before his death he never looked healthier. My wife Bose and I were in total disbelief that ‘Layi (as his close friends called him) had indeed gone.

    Our thoughts immediately went to his beloved family in their grief, particularly to his siblings and his loving wife, Abimbola (nee Egerton Shyngle) to whom he was married for nearly 50 years. It was a blissful and happy marriage, blessed with five lovely children, all of whom are doing well in their various careers. To those who knew the couple well, the Layi Bolodeokus were a model and truly Christian family, whose beautiful and friendly Christian home in Idi Ishin, Ibadan, was always filled with laughter, much happiness, generosity, peace and love. It was always open to their family and numerous friends. Their warm hospitality was legendary and admirable, and their generosity to their friends and family was unstinted and quite remarkable.

    Layi had a distinguished Ondo ancestry of which he was immensely proud, with wide family connections to many prominent Ondo families, including the Akinkugbes.  But he lived in Ibadan virtually all his life. Ibadan was good to him. He had a successful career there and brought up his own large family there. After their own marriage Layi’s parents had settled down in Ibadan where they were hugely successful in business and in bringing up their large family. They were both devout Christians and I remember them worshipping regularly at St. James’ Pro-Cathedral Church in those days.

    My friendship with Layi dates back to 1953 when we first met as pupils of St. James’ Primary School, Oke Bola, Ibadan, where I was a year ahead of him in standard six. I had been sent to the school from All Saints’, Oshogbo, when my father, a civil servant, was transferred to Ibadan.  Layi’s elder brother, Ade, was my friend and classmate there. He is now a successful and retired chartered accountant. Layi was one of the few students to whom I was easily drawn in the school. He was very friendly and immensely likeable, a trait of character that stood him in good stead later in his long, outstanding and varied public career. Although we both attended different secondary schools later, we remained friends and met often socially in Ibadan during the schools’ holidays. Later, we met again at the then University College, Ibadan, where I preceded him by a year and renewed our old friendship. It was at the university that he and Bimbola, my favourite maternal cousin, met and soon entered into a romantic relationship. I knew they were both very much in love and encouraged them. There was another suitor, but Bimbola and I contrived to get rid of him. Soon after they both left the university they got married. This made the bond between Layi and me even stronger.

    I was sure Bimbo had made the right decision in marrying Layi. I knew he would make her a good husband and friend. He had a profound sense of duty and responsibility to his friends and family. From the early years of our friendship, Layi impressed me as someone who had a focus in life. He was diligent, hardworking, determined to be successful, very charismatic and charming. As he was not over bearing he made friends very easily with people. He was complemented in this regard by his wife, Bimbo, a woman of noble character. She is one of the most graceful, gracious, kind and charming ladies I have ever known, and with whom I have had a special relationship, not just as cousins, but as genuine friends.

    After graduating from Ibadan in 1965, Layi had a brilliant career, straddling the old civil service in the then Western Region, where he served as the Private Secretary of the military governor, General Adebayo, the Ibadan Polytechnic of which he was the Rector, and finally as the CEO of Evans Publishing Company in Ibadan for over 20 years. In all those places he rose to the top effortlessly and left an enduring legacy. If he had any tribulations in his varied career, he overcame them easily with the support and steadying hands of Bimbola, his wife, the granddaughter of the legendary Revd. Benjamin Ilowu Manuwa of Badagry fame. In her own right Bimbola also had a distinguished career as a university administrator, rising to the enviable post of a Registrar/Secretary in the College of Medicine at the UCH, Ibadan.

    After retiring from Evans, Layi decided with the full support of his wife to enter the priesthood, eventually becoming a senior vicar (Venerable) of the All Souls’ Church, Bodija, of the Anglican Communion in Ibadan. This did not come to me as a surprise at all. I had always thought of him as someone who was always searching and probing the source of personal fulfilment and happiness in life. He found both in the church where he and his wife, Bimbola, touched many lives positively. He was versatile and multi-talented. He was not one to shirk his responsibilities. He threw himself into this new task and challenge as a priest with characteristic energy and vigour, prompting his wife to complain sometimes privately to me that he was neglecting his health. But Layi remained undaunted until the very end.

    Layi was a good family man. His love for his family, particularly his wife, Bimbo, and their five children, was unstinted. His love for them was fully requited too. As they are now left to mourn his death, we his numerous friends pray that, in this their period of grief, God will comfort and continue to bless and protect them.

  • Rising nationalism and world peace

    As a student of history it is a matter of concern to see incipient nationalism rising all over the world. The connection between this and war is crystal clear to me. In Europe, the then political centre of the world during the period of European imperialism, the clash of interest and the struggle for world domination led to the First World War. That struggle was underpinned by the clash of cultures and ideologies of pan-germanism, pan-slavism and what can also be described as pan anglo-saxonism signifying the desires by Imperial Germany, czarist Russia and imperial Britain to assert their superiority over their rivals. There was also what one can loosely call some kind of racism in the struggle. The argument then usually centred around which country had the largest army or the biggest navy. The strategy then was to ensure no one country had superiority in both arms of the military. The Air Force was still not in the equation then neither were there any strategic forces as constituted today by nuclear armaments. This was going to come into the equation after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    The unresolved issues of the First World War led directly to the Second World War which exposed the vulnerability of human civilization to self-destruction unless care was taken. Clash between super powers armed with nuclear weapons has become inconceivable and unthinkable. But this has not eliminated the outbreak of proxy wars as had been the case in Korea, Vietnam, the liberation wars in Southern Africa from the Congo to Angola, the two Rhodesias (Zambia and Zimbabwe) Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa itself. Some kind of proxy wars were waged in Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Columbia by factions supported by different global military and ideological patrons. We have not seen the end of this trend even after the collapse of global communism. National interests previously camouflaged by ideology has now reasserted themselves in places like Ukraine where a supposedly democratic regime under Vladimir Putin has severed the Crimea peninsula from independent Ukraine and has virtually divided the country into two by supporting ethnic Russians to lay claim to the eastern half of the country as part of Russia abroad. This has led to sabre-rattling by NATO in its preparedness to defend its new members in Poland and the Baltic Sea against resurgent Russia driven by nationalist pride.

    The Chinese too are no longer manifesting proletarian brotherhood in their relation with Vietnam over rival claims in the South China Sea. China is striking out to put feet down in the area by reclaiming land in the sea and building military bases and challenging even the United States in international waters in the South China Sea.   This has led the United States selling advanced fighter bombers to Vietnam with which it fought a bitter war in the 1960s. Shinzo Abe in Japan is seriously thinking of expunging from its constitution the clause against a big military imposed on Japan by the Allies after the Second World War in view of threat constantly posed to it by North Korea under its erratic and irrational young leader. Japan also has its eyes on reclaiming the Kuriles islands seized from it towards the end of the Second World War by the then Soviet Union. No one can predict the future of peace in Asia because of several flash points and the fact that the nuclear weapons states of North Korea, China India and Pakistan may be joined by the technologically advanced countries like Japan and South Korea if the opportunities present themselves.

    The republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently said he would not be averse to South Korea and Japan having their own nuclear deterrence by becoming nuclear weapons states so that they can defend themselves apparently in a thermonuclear war as envisaged by Trump. India and Pakistan are so much against each other that if there is a place today of likely possible use of nuclear weapons, it will be the Indian sub-continent. The rising nationalism and antagonism there between the Muslim fundamentalist government in Pakistan and the Hindu nationalist government in India  does not augur well for the future of peaceful relations between these largely poor countries of almost one a half billion people in their combined population.

    The most frightening situation is in the USA and Europe. The rise of Donald Trump, an unprincipled megalomaniac who will tell any lie to be elected president of the most powerful country presents urgent and immediate danger to world peace. This is a man who lied about something as simple as the ethnic origins of his parents when he claimed they were swedes when in fact they were Germans. A man who sets up a so-called university simply to rip off unsuspecting poor people he deceived about making them instant millionaires like himself. A man who inherited millions of dollars from his father yet claims he started from nothing and self-made himself. This is the man who claims he wants to make America great again by seeing all previous international treaties like the ones setting up the WTO, NATO and NAFTA and the Paris climate change protocol as chiffon de paper only good for the waste paper basket. He is preying on the discontent of blue collar workers who have lost their jobs because of movement of some manufacturing industries to China and Mexico. His trump card is immigration and Islamic terrorism. He said he would deport all illegal immigrants numbering about 11 million people and build a wall to shut out migrants from Latin America whom he sees as rapists, drug peddlers and criminals taking jobs from Americans. He would bar Muslims from coming to the USA. He also says he would put tariff of up to 40 percent on goods entering the United States. His tirades seem to be good music to the ears of largely white working class Americans who fear that they are being overwhelmed by immigrants thus reducing the relative population of white people to that of non-white peoples. This demographic trend made the former President George Bush to say he feared that he may be the last republican president of the USA. Nativism and nationalism are driving Trump to advocate for fortress America turning its back on the rest of the world in a policy shift of isolationism not seen since the end of the Second World War.

    If Trump wins and disrupts the global economy and existing Defence architecture, then the entire world will be up for grabs by the most powerful countries thus taking us back to a politics of war-lordism seen in places like China in a previous era.

    The recent BREXIT by Great Britain falls into the same pattern of nationalism of blaming other countries and peoples for one’s national problem. Inward looking sometimes leads to lashing out against other people in a rising tide of negativism and nationalism. The most dangerous part of this trend in Europe is that it is spreading and manifesting itself in France where Marine Le Pen, leader of the French right is threatening to take France out of the European Union if she wins the presidential election in France next year. If she tears the EU apart, then the architecture for peace in Europe would have been destroyed. Already Germany’s right wing party is rearing its ugly head and condemning what it calls Angela Merkel’s wilkommenkultur, a reference to Germany welcoming over a million refugees from the Middle East. This Merkel’s policy, in my view, was really an unwise policy by the German government in a country which has not completely assimilated the three million Turks who migrated to the country after 1945. If the right wing parties take over in the European continent and begin to expel unwanted nationals of other countries, there is bound to be reaction. Compounding this problem is the increase in terrorism fuelled by fundamentalist ideology being exploited by some fanatics claiming to be Muslims where as they are simply anarchists with strange agenda. This impending Armageddon may yet be avoided if these right wing elements lose in the elections that are coming up soon or if world leaders realizing the futility of possible conflict begin to rein in their supporters or begin to moderate their rhetoric and instead of policy of hate and division begin to practice and advocate politics of international interdependence, tolerance.

    We in Africa delude ourselves if we think the gathering storm will not affect us. No part of the world will be spared from global melt down occasioned by political differences mercantilist economic competition and policies fuelled by racial or national hatred. This is why we in Nigeria should get our act together instead of dissipating our energies in unending political debates and planning to tinker with the constitution instead of seeing our inability to make any system work as the reason for our seeming developmental inertia. This is the time to build a virile country with a strong economy and defence. We must see beyond our national horizon because we as a country whether willingly or not carry the burden of defending Africa’s interest on our back

  • Is Dogara a judge?

    House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara may yet be fighting the toughest political battle of his life. Since the House went on recess last July 20, Dogara has not been on break because he is under fire from a friend and an ally, Abdulmumin Jibrin. The Speaker and Jibrin come a long way. They were in the Seventh House where they served as committee chairmen. Dogara was House Services Committee chairman, Jibrin headed the finance committee. They interacted well in those capacities and became pally.

    They carried their friendship over into the Eighth House where Jibrin worked to ensure that Dogara became Speaker. Jibrin was the linchpin of the campaign to get Dogara elected as Speaker against their party’s wish that the presiding officer should be from the Southwest. Jibrin virtually carried the Dogara-for-Speaker campaign on his head. He took on those who accused him of flouting party directive, saying the All Progressives Congress (APC) could not decide for the lawmakers who their leaders should be. For effect, he added that the country is practising presidential and not parliamentary system of government.

    Jibrin and his group had their way. Dogara became Speaker with the help of people like Jibrin and the grace of God. Dogara showed appreciation by making Jibrin the appropriations committee chairman. Jibrin played a significant role in the passage of this year’s budget. His committee was the warehouse of sorts for everything concerning the budget. He had the powers, so he thought, to do whatever he liked with the budget because it was still a proposal. He tinkered with the proposal, calling on colleagues to submit what they wanted so that he could insert such items into the budget

    He misused his power to oversight the budget as appropriations panel chief. What Jibrin did not know was that his office did not give him the power  to treat the budget as his personal property. This was a national budget submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari to the lawmakers in line with the provisions of the Constitution. The lawmakers job is to go through the budget and ensure that it meets the needs of the people. How will they do this? By calling the ministers and the top bureaucratic officials who prepared the document to come and defend it. The budget was not prepared at a whim. A lot of job went into it. Several budget sessions were held by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

    The Ministry of Budget and National Planning also had sleepless nights working on it. I remember that the Minister, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, invited Vice President Yemi Osinbajo ‘’to see what we are doing’’. All these efforts seemed not to have cut any ice with the appropriations committees of the Senate and the House. They still felt that they should insert something into the budget from which they will benefit. That is wrong. They padded the budget for selfish reasons. It was not done in utmost good faith because if it were, it would have been to the benefit of the masses.

    Padding may not be a legislative lingo; it may also not be known in law. But when you are padding with the intention to steal public funds, that is no longer mere tinkering with the budget, but abuse of position which amounts to corruption. Those involved in this shameful deed are so eager to exonerate themselves from it because of their belief that there is nothing like padding. But they seem to forget that it takes two to tango. If that be the case, can we then say that no offence has been committed when two or more people decided to pad the budget for pecuniary gain just because they have oversight power over the document?

    Some of us are laymen when it comes to law, but that does not mean that we do not know what is right or wrong. What the lawmakers did was not in exercise of their functions to oversight the budget. They deliberately padded the budget in order to make money and not to provide projects for their constituencies as they are now claiming. All the noise being made over the issue today shows that it was not done with the best of intentions. If it was, Dogara and Jibrin will not have become sworn enemies. If it was, Dogara would not have removed Jibrin as appropriations committee chairman. If it was, Jibrin will not be shouting all over the place that Dogara, his deputy Yusuff Lasun, Chief Whip Ado Doguwa, Minority Leader Leo Ogor and nine others padded the budget with N284 billion.

    Their squabble shows that the padding was done with criminal intent and to that extent, it is an offence. It is where padding is done with honest intention by the legislature that we can say no offence has been committed. So, padding in some cases may be an offence and in other cases it may not be an offence. So, in this instant case, is padding an offence? My answer is capital YES. From the actions of the key players in the House saga, something is certainly not right with the way the 2016 Budget was padded by the Jibrin committee without, perhaps, the knowledge of the executive, which still believes that it signed a clean budget. We will know how clean the budget is in the days ahead.

    For now,  Dogara should keep his gun powder dry. Whether padding is an offence or not, he will soon have all the time in the world to educate those of us seen as ‘unlearned’ by lawyers when he takes his turn before the panels looking into the case. It is too early for him at this stage to say ‘’padding is not an offence’’. Hear him : ‘’What is budget padding? I don’t know, educate me. I am a lawyer and speaker and I have never heard of the word padding. What does padding mean? What is padding? You haven’t told me. Ask Jibrin what is padding. I studied Law and I have been in the legislature and all this period I have never heard of the word padding being an offence under any law…’’

    Yes, he may not have heard of the word padding all his years in the House before now because it was done then with the cooperation of all, with nobody feeling cheated. Padding has become a public issue today because the ‘padders’ fell out. If they did not, we would not have heard about the case. But can Dogara be judge in his own case?

  • Battle over Abuja prime plots

    What turned Abuja into one of the most expensive cities in the world is greed of our political elite. The vicious battle over Abuja priceless land by politicians who are ready to deploy stolen national wealth into building of mansions, estates and farms where they rear crocodiles has become more vicious in recent years. If we needed any further proof to show how greed has turned a beautiful concept of a city meant for all Nigerians by Justice  Akinola Aguda to a city hijacked by men without character, the planned trial of Mallam Bala Mohammed, the immediate past Minister for Abuja Territory provided just that.

    Following close examination of petitions against Bala Mohammed, some dating back to 2013, initial findings, according to EFCC showed that “the ex-Minister used fictitious companies to award contracts worth N1 billion in FCT; allocated 12 plots of land to his son and 37 commercial plots of land to his business front called Tariq Hammoud”, from which he reportedly made N8billion. They are also re-visiting the controversial N1 trillion Abuja land swap.

    But the travail of Bala Mohammed is a case of who should cast the first stone among our new breed politicians that breed nothing but corruption. If we ‘shine our eyes well’ (apologies to Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State), we will see that land profiteering dates back to 1999 when with PDP assumption of power, the Abuja land policy thrust like all other PDP government policy thrusts such as privatisation, monetization, fuel subsidy and even vehicle plate number modernization were designed and implemented for the benefit not of the people but of those in government and their fronts. Bala Mohammed is therefore no less guilty than past presidents, ministers, lawmakers and governors who have with stolen public funds turned Abuja to the battle ground of who erect the greatest number of mansions, hotels, private estates and private farms.

    What gave us an insight into the recklessness of the political class was the crusade embarked upon by an NGO called Purpose Driven Initiative (PDI), the whistle blower for Abuja land grab by ex-President Jonathan and his Minister for Abuja Territory.  In an advertisement titled: “Let us talk about corruption”, the NGO had regaled the public with the tales of how “A sitting President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, incorporated a company, Ebele Integrated Farms Limited in which he is a major shareholder on December 30, 2011 and applied for and was granted 94.04 hectares of land – Plot 1689 in Cadastral Zone EOS Aviation Village, Abuja on January 13, 2014. Apart from the fact that this was a breach of the code of conduct for public officers, the  whistle-blower claimed: “The farm house which sits on a hill top overlooking the airport at the nation’s capital with rest chalets and presidential conference rooms, and probably managed by Israelis  was said to be worth about $500m.” It was further claimed that crocodiles are some of the livestocks being reared at its aquatic farm.

    Rising in defence of President Jonathan and his minister, a pro- government coalition, New Generation Coalition, justified the breach of public trust by claiming that ex-president similarly also incorporated a company, Obasanjo Farms Nigeria Limited, applied and was granted a 100.12 hectares of land, Plot No.1 Cadastral Zone E09 Kuje, Abuja on June 27, 2005. But even among thieves, there is supposed to be honour, but it is not so with the PDP where Jonathan apologists claimed that, by allocating and signing Certificate of Occupancy for his boss, Bala Mohammed was only following the foot-steps of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, Obasanjo’s FCT Minister who allocated land and signed Certificate of Occupancy for Obasanjo Farms Nigeria Limited on July 24, 2006″. If Obasanjo immorally grabbed 100.12.hectares, why can’t Jonathan also immorally grab 94.4 hectares, they seem to be saying.

    As it turned out, Obasnajo and Jonathan, the greatest tragedies of our time merely created a pathway for their ministers and lawmakers who after confiscating their official residences under dubious monetization policy jointly embarked on massive padding of the budget which started when Dr. Bukola Saraki, fresh from medical school with no relevant experience, was appointed by an all-knowing Obasanjo as special assistant on budgeting in 1999.

    If only for the breach of public trust, Nigerian would have wished the Certificate of Occupancy given to Obasanjo and his godson in respect of the land they grabbed be revoked and the duo sanctioned. But I think cash-strapped President Buhari should just re-evaluate the 200 hectares of prime land and mandate father and son to pay the appropriate economic rate plus the interest that would have accrued to government.

    And following in the footsteps of President Jonathan, the whistle-blowing group also claimed, Bala Mohammed, in clear violation of the 1999 constitution, incorporated Bird Trust Agro-Allied Limited on May 31, 2012. Minister Bala Mohammed was said to have also allocated a modest 40.4 hectares, Plot 1683 in Cadastral Zone E05 of Aviation Village in Abuja on April 11, 2014,” to Minister Mohammed’s company.

    The Secretary to Government, Anyim Pius Anyim was not left out. He and some powerful people in President Jonathan’s government according to Daily Trust investigation were behind the Centenary City Plc, a private company which set out to build a mega-city to commemorate Nigeria’s centenary celebration. The company grabbed for itself 1,262.27 hectares of prime land.

    Again confiscating a prime land three times the size of Maitama or Asokoro districts for private use by those in government and their fronts is greed at its worst form. But we desperately need money and since we are in an era of plea bargaining, government should just play the Shylock by insisting Anyim Pius Anyim, the chief promoter, Abdul Salami Abubakar, the chairman and Dr Ike Michaels the Managing Director, pay the N63 billion in land fees for the Centenary City project which Daily Trust claimed was waived by federal government.

    First ladies were similarly not left out in the vicious battle over Abuja prime plots.  Mrs. Turai Yar’Adua once went to court asking she ‘be paid N1.5 billion as general damages, N100 million as exemplary damages, N100 million as aggravated damages in addition to N261 million already paid for Certificate of Occupancy as well as N454 million paid for building designs’ over her revoked land which was reallocated to Mrs. Patience Jonathan ostensibly for public interest. Mrs. Jonathan also went to court through the Ministry of Justice. In the end Turai floored her rival when the court ruled “The defendants failed woefully to adduce any shred of evidence before this court to support their claims that the allocation of the land was revoked on overriding public interest”.

    But government in desperate need of cash must ascertain if Turai paid the correct charges. This call has nothing to do with the integrity of Turai or her husband under whom she secured the prime Abuja plot. It is just that Nigerians cannot trust any of the FCT ministers.

    And finally since we are cash strapped, government should revisit the illegal and immoral sharing of 29 plots of land in the Maitama District which according to Dino Melaye fell within an area designated for erection of tourist structure for foreign visitors. He listed as beneficiaries President Jonathan, former Justice Minister Muhammed Bello Adoke; ý former Bauchi governor Isa Yuguda; and former Acting National Chairman of PDP, Uche Secondus among others. Since many of these men already have mansions in Abuja, they should be heavily taxed if they must convert land earmarked for public use into private use.

    If we cannot take our nation’s capital back from veteran budget padding lawmakers and ministers who have pumped billions into turning it into the exclusive preserve of the rich, they should be made to pay heavy tax not only to maintain the city but to solve social problems of other cities especially in an age of dwindling economic fortune.

  • Varsity unions as threat to security and development

    Those who contend that Nigeria is a country of impunity certainly know what they are saying. From the crowded and unsightly streets to the spick and span corridors of power, impunity and lawlessness reign unfettered. This ruinous culture from the long years of the misplaced foray of the military into the business of governance has continued to inform the behaviour of both the ruled and the led towards bald-faced disregard for order and decency. What is more worrisome is that this virus of impunity attacks the core of many of the country’s critical public institutions and hamstrings them from functioning in ways that enable them to stimulate meaningful progress and sustainable development. Nigeria’s tertiary institutions markedly stand out among the country’s institutions that are being increasingly disabled and effectively beached in the peat bog of retrogression due to the unchecked reign of the culture of impunity, that malignant bug that ensures people get away with organised lawlessness and disconcerting infractions without appropriate retributions. Nigerian lighthouses of knowledge and learning are struggling to fulfil their lofty objectives of building round and sound minds for the development of the country because the cankerworms of impunity – in cahoots with other formidable but solvable challenges – are ruthlessly besetting them.

    From experience and careful observations, I have identified university unions like the Non-Academic Staff of University (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU) as constituting terrible threats to the smooth operations of our tertiary institutions in the same manner that they are becoming real threats to the security of the institutions’ host communities. The horrendous impunity and brazen lawlessness often displayed by these unions in the name of protesting certain injustices done to them by egoistic school managements do much to slow down the march of our higher institutions to the orbit of innovation and knowledge production to enhance viable development for the country.

    It is saddening to note that the violent, disruptive approach of many branches of these unions to resolving issues of allowances and welfare has turned them into clogs in the wheels of progress of our tertiary institutions as sites for the production of transformative knowledge. It so often happens that when these unions stage their substantively barren protests, they cripple normal academic and legitimate business activities. In many instances, to forestall total breakdown of order, the schools are shut down. The students are sent home to waste away only to be recalled to have their frustrated minds laden with weak education which moulds them into docile, ignorant, and parasitic citizens.

    For many weeks of June and July, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, was all over the news because of the violent, disorderly, and lawless conducts of the members of the university’s NASU and SSANU. Those unions claimed the process that threw up Prof. Tale Omole’s successor, Prof. Ayobami Salami, was improper. As a matter of fact, midway into the process, which neither of the unions have a say in, the unions’ leaderships went to court in a bid to secure a restraining order against the Governing Council of the school. But instead they got a notice to be served on the respondent.

    Rather than allow the court to decide the matter, the unions went berserk and took laws into their hands. First they disrupted a meeting of the Governing Council and locked up the members in a room. The Ooni of Ife secured their release the following day. Second, they abandoned their works and pugnaciously insisted they would not change tack until the Governing Council was dissolved and the new VC removed from office for an Acting VC of their fondness. Their violent disposition caused the management to close the school. And since the Federal Government is deficient in crisis management and alien to the logic of justness, it acceded totally to the strange demands of the unions without conducting any investigation. The workers are back to work; none was punished for lawlessness; they have got the salaries they did not work for, and, sadly, the students have been called back to be rushed through the session. Hurray to impunity!

    Similarly, at the time I was composing this piece, NASU and SSANU members in the premier University of Ibadan were staging their own drama of impunity. Actually, they started this on the last Friday of July. They locked the main gates and other entry points to the university. They bivouacked behind the main gates threatening to make the entire university ungovernable.

    One of the things their leader, Wale Akinremi, said to their rapturous applause was that it was insulting and shameful that their colleagues in OAU were the first to remove a VC from office. He went on to assure the members that their national executives had approved their decision to paralyse activities on the campus until their allowances were paid. OAU was a copious reference in all his disjointed speech. Nothing would happen if they disrupt activities on campus, he thundered. He even ordered that the Headmaster of the Staff School be dragooned to the protest site. It was done, with unimaginable humiliation to the elderly man.

    Now is the time for security agents to take serious interest in the disruptive activities of NASU and SSANU across our tertiary institutions. Boko Haram and other hinderers of people’s freedom began through what appeared to be lawful gatherings. Rarely was attention paid to the dangerous philosophy the groups inculcated. It is doubtful whether the next three generations can recover from the hell Boko Haram created in the Northeast of this country. NASU and SSANU during protests act with nearly total disregard for the law and the wellbeing of others. They not only always vocalise their intentions to make their schools ungovernable, they also press into disastrous actions, daring anyone, including security agents, to check them. They revel in indiscipline and justify it with the claim that they have the right to protest.

    The truth is that the madness of these unions on our campuses has no method and as such it is capable of dooming us all if security agents do not take serious interest in their activities. Many branches of NASU and SSANU on our campuses do not believe in resolving problems through the instrumentality of rigorous dialogue. They subscribe joyously to the oppressive logic of using violence and lawlessness as a means of resolving industrial disputes. They think the whole world should stand still when they are demonstrating lawlessness under the false guise of protecting their interest and exercising their right. Had those who lawlessly locked up the Governing Council members in OAU been duly punished in adherence to the law, the crude and antediluvian ones in the UI NASU/SSANU axis would not see them as models of exemplary behaviour. The deterrent lacking as a consequence in the OAU case made it possible for the brigands in the UI arm of the unions to find the path of lawlessness and impunity easy to walk.

     It is high time security agencies took good interest in the protest actions of NASU and SSANU on our campuses before these unions morph into nihilistic terrorists that will be difficult to contain. Already they constitute grave threat to the peace of our tertiary institutions and their ability to contribute to the development of the country.

    May I equally call on our tertiary institution managers to develop more functional capacities for crisis management. The truth is that the manners in which many of these administrators mind and respond to the issues involving the welfare of their workers have the potential to radicalise the workers and motivate them into becoming pitiless agents of calamitous disruptions and nasty destructions. When sensible, sensitivity, and humane leadership is lacking, the gate of progress will be stormed and unhinged by barbarians.

    Ibitola, a national affairs analyst resides in Bodija, Ibadan.

  • Parable of the grifter calling the con-artist, fraud

    A cursory look at our families excites the creepiest form of marvel. The Nigerian family unit today parades the worst form of savagery. Mothers are mightily pleased to see a child hurt an annoying neighbour’s dog or cat; and such wise fathers we have now that consider it a notable mark of martial spirit when they see their son domineer his weaker peer. And there are those whose parents raise righteously, breeding them in their images, to conform to and perpetuate the worst forms of religious bigotry and inhumanity, according to the holy scriptures.

    Ultimately, our parents look upon it as a sign of great wit and astuteness to see us cheat and oppress our peer by some malicious treachery and deceit. It gladdens their hearts to see us evolve into ‘lovable’ brutes at a tender age. They claim it’s a worthy demeanor for the very tough world out there.

    Thus from adolescence through adulthood, they greet every dishonesty we perpetrate with cheer, as long as it translates to stupendous wealth, higher status and the comfort of knowing that their children are “smart” and inured in the ways of the world. These are the true seeds and roots of cruelty, tyranny and treason. Our parents nurture vile in us and we perpetuate it in attitude, learning from their misconduct, till we start procreating and perpetuating within our lineage, grosser forms of grotesqueness and bestiality.

    It starts from the very little things, like nurturing us to be brutes through childhood and grooming us to be fraudulent through adolescence. Hence the multitude of “peaceful, hardworking and God-fearing” families engaged in desperate pursuits to enroll their wards and university hopefuls in “special coaching schools” while they purchase for them, seats at “special centres,” as they write the S.S.C.E and JAMB exams.

    Such wards, dutifully trained to circumvent the straight, moral path to progress and self-actualization, eventually mature into foetal, perverse adults. All through their lives, they navigate the depths and shoals of challenging realities with the courage of a weevil and the wit of a hyena, if I may insult the poor animals by comparing such with them.

    Eventually, the seeds of indolence and monstrosity sown in them grow to prodigious bulk, cultivated by society and custom; at the end, we have brutes and savages running our lives and determining our future. At this juncture, I guess, many would dispute, claiming such shameful lot constitute just a minor fraction of the country’s 170 million-strong families or thereabouts.

    I whole-heartedly disagree but if they insist, I hereby reiterate that, such wonderful families we have now that blesses us with the current ruling class. Such wonderful families we have now that blesses us with thieving bank chiefs and corrupt law enforcers.

    Such wonderful families we have that blesses us with slothful civil servants, light-fingered bank clerks, desperate, treacherous journalists and lawyers. Such wonderful families we have that blesses us with prostitutes, armed robbers, Yahoo boys, and currency-activated clerics to mention a few.

    One degeneracy gravitates into the other and we have for ourselves, a nation of finely bred brutes, idiots and foetal adults, pitifully programmed to self-destruct. I do not apologize for my abrasive choice of words. Were it acceptable, I would depict the average Nigerian with more colourful choice of words. We are very, very bad people.

    Driven by greed, selfishness, indolence and appalling inclinations to play “God,” we embark on a never-ending quest to ruin Nigeria… righteously. The argument that it’s the lack of good leadership that forces us to be corrupt does not hold much substance anymore; let each one of us be accountable for his actions.

    How many leaders do we have? If we count the number of politicians and every hoodlum plaguing our industries, politics and occupying our seats of power, will they add up to a million? Let’s assume that they add up to a million; there are 170 million Nigerians or thereabouts, of this lot, should a paltry million lead about 169 million astray?  Is the fault not with the 169 million?

    Our nation perishes by our gluttony and lust for fleeting and perishable vanities. It was greed and a disgraceful strain of cowardliness that drove our touted “men of god” to endorse former President Goodluck Jonathan’s candidacy, claiming his emergence was sanctified by their “god.” It was gluttony, cowardice and an unconquerable strain of prejudice that drove millions of Nigerians to troop to the polls to endorse the worst form of the ruling class.

    Bestiality, like blood, seems to run perpetually in the veins of the Nigerian ruling class. It is not that the working class is any wiser. Age is of no value within our clans, likewise experience. Our old have no important advice to give to our young. Their experiences have been so partial and fraught with fraudulence that at the end, they pass off as miserable failures.

    Indeed, it is good to be bad and bad to be good in contemporary Nigeria. Let us consider for a moment the caliber of leadership we have; the Nigerian ruling class tirelessly appropriates for itself what is meant for the benefit of all. Likewise, the poorest constituent of the breadlines is capable of meaner grotesqueness were he opportune to play with money and power. As it is with the rich, so it is with the poor. Poverty and affluence brings out the worst in us.

    Every Nigerian considers himself the quintessential patriot capable of the fairest truth and reason. And from this perception emerges the contemporary Nigerian with the perfect politics, perfect economics, perfect religion and the most exact and accomplished approaches to all things.

    Thus our nation abounds with perfect tyrants and looters, our homes with perfect batterers and paedophiles; our industries pulsate with perfect quacks and the slovenly, our schools with perfect dullards and numbnuts. Lest we forget the perfect rapists, kidnappers, hooligans and assassins prowling our streets, baiting the unforgiving second, when ruthless neurosis pulsates with will, for a price.

    Every Nigerian is a law breaker. The rich believe they are above the law and the poor believe they could sneak under it, through it and away from its grasp. I would like to believe that the worst of our kind constitutes just a minor fraction of 170 million of us but as you read, our ruling class is busy pilfering our coffers even as it plays Russian roulette with our lives. The rich still connives with the ruling class to impoverish us further. The poor still curses the ruling class and curse the times even as they die daily to serve the whims of the ruling class.

    As you read, parents are purchasing seats and liberties to cheat for their wards at JAMB and SSCE “special centres.” Our bankers are pilfering our accounts 50 kobo, N1 to N1000 by the second. Motorists are hastening off their normal lanes to face oncoming vehicles on the wrong lanes. Public administrators are stealing pension funds meant for elderly retirees. Journalists are receiving money to doctor and tilt stories according to the whims of shady politicians, business class and criminal masterminds. Doctors are forgetting surgical knives in helpless patients; lawyers are twisting the law to serve the whims of the worst creatures ever and you are reading this thinking I am just another ‘grifter’ calling the con-artist, ‘fraud.’

  • N5.5b housing scam: IGP promises to punish erring officers

    N5.5b housing scam: IGP promises to punish erring officers

    Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris yesterday vowed to deal with officers indicted in the N5.5 billion unfulfilled police housing scheme.

    He gave the assurance while responding to a question by a chief superintendent of Police (CSP) during his interactive session with personnel at his maiden visit to Lagos.

    The CSP said officers in 2006 paid N510,000 each, amounting to N5.5 billion for housing slots at the Police Estate, Idimu.

    He said 10 years after, the subcribers were yet to either get their accommodation nor money back.

    Idris, who expressed displeasure at the development, promised that investigation will be conducted, and those found culpable will be prosecuted.

    “We are going to run a transparent government. Nobody is going to be shortchanged. As a transparent institution, we have responsibility over you. Do not keep quiet when you are being shortchanged. Complain.

    “The money belongs to you. It is your right. So, you should not keep quiet. You needed the house than most of us because you are the one doing the work. You are the one in the streets, working under rain and shine.

    “So, you are the face of the police, not us because most times we are in our offices. You are the police, that is the reality. It is our duty to give you what belongs to you.

    “I can assure you that this will be investigated. We will look into it and deal with everyone indicted. They will also be prosecuted.

    “A policeman should own a house. We are going to provide affordable houses that you can pay up the mortgage within six years.”

    On stagnated promotion, the IGP advised officers on same rank for 10 years to write officially for elevation to their rightful positions.

    “If you have been on a rank for 10 years without promotion and have met all requirements, please, apply for your promotion. It is your right and it means the system has shortchanged you.”

    On the menace of militants, the IGP said plans were under way to ensure visibility policing on the waterways, from Lagos to Calabar.

    He said the Lagos State governor promised to provide gunboats and logistics for the marine police.

    “We want to adopt visibility policing. It is not just in Lagos but also down to Calabar. I spoke with the governor and he talked about providing gunboats. We discovered that there are not enough policemen on the waterways. We are going to enhance the Marine Police and we will deploy more officers on the waterways to serve as deterrence.”

    The IGP said he mandated all commands and divisions to establish Eminent Persons’ Forum (EPF) to meet once in three months and share ideas on how to improve security in their areas.

    “Policing is everyone’s business, that is why we are soliciting the support and cooperation of the people. The ratio of police to the people in Nigeria is quite low and so, we expect all to act as policemen where there’s no police.

    “The EPF is a community approach to solve security problems in communal crises. We believe it will assist us because most communal problems are based on suspicion and lack of trust.

    Idris also directed divisional police officers to treat petitions to them within 30 days.

    “It is compulsory for petitions to the division to be treated within 30 days. Any petition against an officer should be investigated.

    “We are going to reactivate the X-Squad. We have to restore the respect of the police. We must be an accountable police force and responsive. A police force that has no integrity it is not a police force. That should be our watchword.

    “You must be contented with what you have and manage it well. Do not use your power to arrest people because anyone who does that has violated the oath he took as an officer. It is compulsory for the police to partner the community because through partnership, issues are resolved. We must know that we are servants to the people. We are being paid to protect the people, and not to hurt them.

    We must be humane, accountable to the law and our creator.”

    The IGP warned policemen not to meddle in land matters, and protect the vulnerable populace, especially women, children and the elderly.