The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Nigeria’s scapegoats

    The journalistic cult of poverty has a supreme theme – the morally-deficient journalist. This theme is pitifully projected by journalism’s highly celebrated ambassadors in the corridors of power and the public space. Rather than evolve as heroic shiners of light and purveyors of truth, speaking to keep all savagery in straits, in the true tradition of modern, high-cultivated men of letters, they choose to manifest  like accidents to society.

    Picture a severely skewed news story bearing the newspaper Daily Editor’s byline and the curious tag: “With political intelligence unit reports.” Picture how ridiculous it must be to witness the metamorphosis of presumed intellect into dimwittedness. At first glance, his touted investigation rankles an ominous note. His heartfelt truths wander in logic and polemic like an untamed gypsy, burnishing a world in which he ought to serve as a bastion of love with hate – urging it into bitterness and everlasting darkness. Severely compromised by greed and lack of pride, he served former President Goodluck Jonathan’s propaganda train like a junkyard dog with neither tact nor freewill. His brief was to impugn the name of Muhammadu Buhari now President Muhammadu Buhari. Unfortunately for him, Jonathan lost the elections and the desperate editor shamelessly switched sides to court camp Buhari, in frantic bid to reclaim his mindless and lucrative servitude to the ruling class. As you read, the tedious character is without a brief. Few weeks ago, he was given the boot by his employer. It didn’t matter that he served both the interests of his employer and the ruling class unquestioningly. When time came to play politics and shed dead weight, the desperate editor was cast away, like a disposable integer.

    As you read many more newspaper editors and their reporters are manifesting at the ruling class’ bidding and your bidding, into the stamen that lets down the azalea, the comforters that bring grief, the emissaries of needless hate orchestrated in the interest of the ruling class.

    Today, tyranny attains ultimate refinement in the news columns; this brings to mind that memorable jest by Norman Mailer that “Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists.” Journalists are still the butt of the most demeaning jokes and premeditated put-downs in the social arena. Nobody thinks much of a journalist; in the eyes of big business and the ruling class, the journalist whatever his designation or job title, is the manipulable pawn and necessary evil that has to be courted and tolerated.

    This resonates badly for the Nigerian mob; the nation’s critical mob to be precise. Mob culture requires that he who would adorn the cloak of defender of the masses’ rights should be upright and flawless in character, work and personal ethics. Such admirable traits are rarely attributable to the Nigerian journalist manager and the press in general.

    The Nigerian mob, like every other rabble, seeks fulfillment of tyrant fantasies; such fantasies often vary between the destruction of an unpopular government, despot or worn-out civilization. Reality however, affirms the impotence of the Nigerian mob. The latter is continually tamed and kept on a leash by a ruling class that capitalizes on its obvious handicaps: its impulsiveness, insensibility to reason and judgment and overt sentimentality.

    Despite its handicaps, the Nigerian mob conveniently picks on a scapegoat for its infinite timidity and cluelessness: the press. The journalist is expected to serve as the conscience and moral compass of the society, challenging the government and checking the excesses of the ruling class, uncompromisingly and selflessly.

    As utopian fantasies go, these are noble expectations of the journalist but the Nigerian mob ignores the cultural shift of the society from conventional morality to unbridled hedonism. It assumes, hypocritically, that the press will continually give it honest and developmental news even as every segment of the society strive to unmoor the journalist from his role as a crucial appendage of the nation’s critical mob. The public, comprising big business, the government, and civil societies among other mob segments, vilify any journalist or news medium that seeks to educate and engage rather than entertain and perpetuate their biased definitions of reality.

    Contemporary Nigeria embraces the emotional pageant that has turned news into paid publicity and mindless entertainment and the journalist in response kowtows to lusts and vanities of modern society. Beneath the mindless glamour and cultural decline however, an insidious reality festers in the death of hope and incandescence of tragedy. Prevalent socioeconomic tragedies necessitate the emergence and elevation among the citizenry of the bungling and sadistic, and the beginning of a differentiation cum tyranny of social grades.

    At the centre of the turmoil is the journalist whose fate is so critically bound with the country’s but he obviously does not know that hence the cluelessness, treachery and brazen recklessness that characterizes his work. Consequently, the Nigerian journalist manifests as an accident to society. He perpetually loses his grasp of the issues at stake; fundamentally hollow and benumbed to valor, he resigns to the powers that be, blaming the tyranny of the ruling class and the proverbial ‘system’ for his inability to fulfill his professional and moral obligations to the society.

    Rather than pose a challenge to the system that domesticates and enslaves him, he chooses the easiest way out and plays junkyard dog to tyrant cabals and the predatory bunch constituting the nation’s ruling class. He assumes the role of a poseur and pretends to fight for the interest of the public. This sad charade is continually perpetuated across esteemed leader-writers’ polemics in foremost newspapers’ columns.

    The contemporary journalist trades in all manners of truths, deploying sophistry and shades of impressive fallacies in the interest of whatever social divide fulfills his lust for relevance and economic survival. We can blame the society and advance all forms of isms and ostentatious arguments to justify our descent the steep slope of amorality and socioeconomic expediency – it wouldn’t excuse our treachery to our calling and the Nigerian citizenry.

    If Nigeria chooses to exist as a land of savages, it’s our responsibility to nudge her back on to the path of humanity and progress – for only in such clime can we positively evolve and prosper.

    The traditional, conscientious journalist is going extinct today along with true, dependable news culture because Nigeria obsesses and migrates to the pseudo-reality of the internet and reality shows. It is no doubt ironical that the masses would turn around to blame the press for not fulfilling its roles to the society.

    It’s about time we stopped narrowing the debates and spotlight to the shenanigans and petty differences of the ruling class and instead aspire to serve as a true voice to the voiceless. There is no magical antidote to our decline and death as a crucial part of the nation’s critical mob.

    Real progress will manifest in the country when we start demanding that the ruling class march in virtual lockstep with promises they make. Whatever the tone and dialect of intellectualisation that characterizes our news culture, posterity will judge us by how truthfully we fulfill our roles as conscience and watchdog of the society.

  • On the troubled states’ finances

    On the troubled states’ finances

    For some years now, the finances of the state governments have been in a mess. They have become largely insolvent and financially bankrupt, and this sad state of affairs is a major source of public concern. Of the 36 state governments, some 27 owe salary arrears and pensions of four to five months to their workers. If these bankrupt states were private companies, they would have been legally required long before now to wind up their affairs. This deplorable situation is unprecedented in Nigeria’s fiscal history. The grim financial situation, which has had the predictable effect of deepening mass poverty in our country, has been blamed on the 70 per cent fall in oil revenues on which all the governments of the federation depend. Oil revenues account for over 80 per cent of the revenues of the federal and state governments. The structural diversification from oil dependency needed has not happened.

    But that is not the only reason why the various state governments, as well as the federal government, are in such a financial mess. To this lame excuse must be added the reckless spending of most of the state governments, as well as the prevailing lack of financial accountability and looting of the public treasury. In most of these states, the governors cannot be held to account for public expenditures by the legislatures. Current EFCC financial investigation at the centre has shown how under the Jonathan PDP federal government vast sums of money, running into billions of naira and the US dollars, (over half of our total foreign reserves), including funds meant for arms purchases for the military, were frittered away and simply diverted to private pockets to keep Jonathan in power. The political project failed but it left the nation financially prostrate. Now, if the financial searchlight were turned on the states, as it should, the findings would be no less as frightening as those at the centre.

    To address this horrible financial situation in the states, the federal government, which is itself facing a financial crisis, has rolled out a series of financial bailout plans to salvage the financial mess in the states. First, it offered the 27 insolvent states huge loans, in billions of naira, to meet their outstanding debts to their workers who had not been paid for upwards of four to five months. This has turned out to be a mere palliative. As a recent ICPC report has revealed, some of the indebted states diverted the bailout loans to other purposes. Most of the 27 states are still owing their workers months of unpaid salaries. Some payments were made to the workers, but these only covered outstanding arrears, and not current payments due. As it is now, the states involved are now back to where they were before they received the bailout funds from the federal government. Some of the bailout funds were, as usual, misappropriated by the governors, some of whom after leaving office, have continued to receive from their state governments, huge amounts of money as salaries and pensions. Some of the states’ bailout funds were used to repay huge bank loans recklessly taken to fund unproductive capital projects, most of which have now been abandoned for lack of funds.

    In recent weeks, and in response to the dire financial situation of the states, the federal government has announced additional financial bailout for the states. These include the deferral of the repayment of state debts to the federal government. The deduction by the federal government of such states’ debts, running into billions of naira, is to cease immediately. In addition, the federal government has offered to assist the state governments in restructuring their huge and outstanding bank loans. Such state loans are to be guaranteed afresh by the federal government.

    It is perfectly reasonable and understandable that the federal government should come to the immediate assistance of the states with these large financial bailouts. Its options are severely limited. The alternative is to allow the states to collapse. But this will be catastrophic. It is in the states that much of our economic activities and employment take place. It is where our GDP is generated. Without these financial bailouts, the states will simply collapse. As a matter of fact, the states are already in a state of financial paralysis. Many of their workers no longer report for work. A few do once a week. They simply cannot afford the transport fare to their offices. In some of the states, no commissioners have been appointed. They are being run by the governors and the permanent secretaries, a situation that undermines financial accountability and probity. In effect, there is virtually no government in most of these hugely indebted states. The federal government is rightly concerned about this deplorable state of affairs in the states and hopes the bailout funds will return the states eventually to fiscal and budgetary balance. But it is a forlorn hope that may not be realised.

    Already, Labour is demanding that the minimum wage, now N18,000 per month, be increased to N56,000 per month. Many will consider this demand justified in view of the massive public corruption, the current inflationary pressures, and the rapid rise in the cost of living. House rents and food prices have on the average increased by over 30 per cent. But if this demand is met, the states will simply collapse. The arrears of unpaid salaries will increase and cannot be met. The states will be forced to resort to layoffs and this has serious implications for the political and social stability of the nation. The workers’ unions have warned that they will not accept any retrenchment of workers. But layoffs are some of the practical measures now badly needed to restore states’ finances to financial stability. Nigeria is looking increasingly like a civil service state, one in which most of the workers contribute very little, or nothing, to our economic growth. To reduce this huge cost of governance, something drastic has to be done to our bloated bureaucracy.

    It is unlikely that the states, without fundamental financial restructuring, including cost reduction, can recover financially, even with these bailouts from the federal government. They cannot generate any significant increase in their IGR, as the few businesses in the states are collapsing fast. Revenue from solid minerals is a matter for the future, not immediately. Massive financial investments will be required over the years in the exploitation of non-oil minerals. It is not clear where these huge investments will come from in the current climate of global economic uncertainties. Besides, the volatility of commodities’ prices, including non-oil minerals, will make such huge financial investments less attractive globally.

    The financial handouts from the federal government are in the long run unsustainable. The present financial situation of the federal government is just as bad as that of the state governments. Its revenue has fallen by over 70 per cent. Its current budget deficit is nearly N2 trillion. It is currently borrowing N600 million monthly to pay its own workers and pensioners. Its SWF of $1billion has been virtually depleted. The foreign reserves are down to barely $27 billion. Oil exports and revenues are recovering slowly, but they are unlikely to hit the mark of over $100 per barrel for some time. Inflation is rising steadily and job losses are on the rise. All this means that the federal government will be hard put to continue offering the states financial bailouts on the current scale for much longer. But even if it could, it is not in the long term economic and political interest of our country. It negates the basic principle of federalism in our country. Over dependence of the states on financial bailouts by the centre makes the states too weak and the centre too strong.

    The governors were reported recently as warning President Muhammadu Buhari that their financial problems will not be resolved unless their share of the federally collectible revenue is increased. At the moment, the states receive just about one per cent each from the total revenue, while the federal government gets about 51 per cent. This powerful argument is one that has been made over the years without any success. It has polarised our nation. Though it has considerable merit, it has been hugely politicised and has no appeal for the federal government. With its enormous financial responsibilities for defence, national security, external affairs and infrastructure development, the federal government too is short of funds. Though it makes sense the persistent call for fiscal federalism is not yet clearly defined by its proponents. The crux of the matter is the source of the oil revenue. If fiscal federalism means allowing the states to wholly retain revenues derived from their states, what happens to both on shore and off shore revenues, which constitute over 80 per cent of total revenues? If the oil rich states keep revenues accruing to them totally, both the federal government and the states that are not oil producing will be worse off. Only the oil producing states will have the potential of being viable. This will lead to economic chaos.

    The long term solution to the financial problems of the states is to compel them to return to fiscal and budgetary responsibility and stability. In other words, they should be made to understand that they must bring their finances under greater control, and that they cannot continue to depend indefinitely on federal bailouts. States that are unable to cut their expenditure should be made to bear the consequences of their financial profligacy. In fact, the National Assembly should start thinking of how the large number of states can be constitutionally reduced from 37 to 18, or to a more manageable figure. This is going to be politically difficult. Even now, there is a continuing demand for more states to be created. But a change in the number of states and their finances is necessary now. The states have become a financial albatross on our country. We must find ways of controlling this financial monster, or else the whole country will soon face economic and financial disaster.

  • The herd instinct

    I saw a traumatised community in shock and despair. I saw a dead body. I wept. I wondered what has become of our quest for a united, peaceful and prosperous nation. —Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.

     

    The Gonernor was visibly pained as he relived his efforts to nip in the bud the herdsmen gruesome attack on Nimbo in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State on April 28. Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi battled not to betray emotion as he read his speech last Friday while constituting a judicial panel of enquiry into the dastardly act. As I watched him on television I felt his pains as he recalled all he did to stop the attack as soon as he got wind of it. According to him, he mobilised the security agencies to forestall the attack and they assured him that everything was under control.

    It turned out to be otherwise; nothing was under control. Rather, everything had spun out of control not because of lack of resources and logistics, but because of the failure of some security agents to discharge their duties. Why were the security agencies caught flatfooted in the wee hours of April 28 when the herdsmen struck in Nimbo? Were they outgunned or outnumbered? Or is it that they just decided to look the other way when some of their compatriots were being massacred? As Ugwuanyi noted when he asked a similar question while constituting the probe panel “only the security agencies can provide the answers.”

    But, it is quite revealing that our security agencies failed on that crucial occasion. The nation has been battling with the menace of herdsmen for sometime. There is virtually no part of the country today that they have not struck, leaving death and destruction in their trail. But, Benue, Plateau and Nasarawa states seem to bear the brunt of their attacks. In one fell swoop, herdsmen killed over 500 people and rendered 7000 others homeless when they invaded Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State on February 29. Herdsmen were never known to be this vicious. At least, the herdsmen that I grew up to know were not killers; they were genial, lovable and friendly.

    We ran and sang after them as they herded their cattle through the streets without any fear of molestation or attack. At times, they even laughed at our jokes which they did not understand. But because they saw us laugh, they also laughed. That was the Nigeria of the good old days where everybody was his brother’s keeper. This was what Governor Ugwuanyi was seeking answer to when he asked : ‘’I wondered what has become of our quest for a united, peaceful and prosperous nation?’’ Really, what has become of the Nigeria where we looked after one another’s interest? Where did we miss it? What went wrong and when did things go wrong?

    Why is it that herdsmen have suddenly become killers? Are they being treated as outcast in their host communities? When did such hostile treatment begin? Something must be behind the sudden transformation of these herdsmen. If they had been living peacefully with their hosts for ages, why is it now that they are unleashing terror on the communities that have been home to them? Their progenitor also lived and did business in those communities. Something must have transformed the hitherto simple and easy going nomads into monsters. We must do something to tame this monster of herdsmen killings before it consumes us.

    Irrespective of where we come from, this is not the time to look at this matter from an ethnic prism. If we do that, we will not be able to find lasting solution to the problem. As things are now, something can still be done to salvage the situation. But if we start to talk from both sides of the mouth, we will achieve nothing. Rather, we will exacerbate the problem. The Fulani are known to be cattle rearers, a trade they have been into for eternity. If you go round the country today, anywhere you find a herd of cattle, a Fulani will not be far away. I have never seen an Ijaw, Bini, Itsekiri, Igbo or Yoruba herding cattle. I have never seen it. I may be wrong; but until I am proved wrong I will maintain my stand.

    We cannot deny what is obvious and this is clearly what the northern governors attempted to do last Friday when they met in Kaduna. When a finger brings oil, according to a local adage, it stains the whole hand. The herdsmen atrocities have portrayed the Fulani in bad light; but that does not mean that the race is evil. No, far from it. I know where Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima was coming from when he said in Kaduna : ‘’We want to unequivocally condemn the recent killings in Enugu and other parts of the country. But, we equally condemn the politicisation or permit me, the ethnicisation of the whole crisis. It goes beyond Fulani. If anything happens, they say Fulani herdsmen. To me, it is an insult’’.

    I beg to disagree sir. Nobody is pointing finger at the Fulani. It is a well known fact that the herdsmen are Fulani. Nobody is trying to give the Fulani a bad name in order to hang them. It is the northern governors that are trying to ethnicise the whole thing by their position, which is not good for the stability and unity of our country. Rather than speak the way they did they should join hands with other leaders to stop these killings before other groups start hunting down the herdsmen. The governors should be mindful of their exalted office and not inflame passion with their utterances. They should not pour petrol into a fire which is threatening to engulf the country.

    Because President Muhammadu Buhari is a Fulani does not mean that we should close our eyes to the evil being perpetrated by the herdsmen. Neither the president nor the northern governors sent them on those deadly missions. Our leaders should condemn what is bad and the perpetrators of such evil even if they are their kinsmen. That is the hallmark of a true leader. I know that blood is thicker than water, but the unity of Nigeria should be paramount and non-negotiable.

     

             Never say never

    Leicester City Football Club aka the Foxes are today the toast of English soccer having won the Barclays Premier League. Nobody gave the Claudio Ranieri-managed team a chance in the 2015/2016 season. With their chances put at 5000-1 at the  beginning of the tourney, they were not expected to do better than they did in the last season when they escaped relegation by whiskers. This season they shocked the soccer world including themselves with their feat. Leicester had never won a major title since it was founded in 1884. By winning the Premiership, they have written their name in gold in a way that some football legends, such as the gentleman Gary Lineker, who passed through the club, never did. It is the can-do spirit that saw the Foxes through. When everybody wrote them and their coach off they believed in themselves and today they have made history. All hail, the new soccer kings. Will it be an encore next season?

  • House of Lords Nigeria @ 50 – 1

    The House of Lords Nigeria just turned 50 and to mark this auspicious occasion, a book entitled NIGERIA: THE CHALLENGES OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT was presented to the public and the guest of honor was his Excellency the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Professor Yemi Osinbajo. The House of Lords Nigeria was formed by young professionals in the 1970s. These were mostly young university dons, civil servants and other upwardly mobile professionals. The name House of Lords was a jovial mimicry of the exalted House of Lords in England which is the upper house to the House of Commons and its judicial committee is the highest court in England.

    Over the years, some of its member had passed on but their memories continued to linger on and in some cases, these founding fathers have been replaced by their sons and in my own case, my late brother Professor Kayode Osuntokun had apparently been replaced by my humble self, without prejudice to my nephew Segun joining us in the House of Lords as soon as he is invited. The House of Lords Nigeria is a social and public-spirited association devoted to the services of man and country. They generate ideas that are in the public space which government can take a look at and see what can be done to put these ideas to use for the good of the country.

    The name House of Lords has sometimes created problems for those who think that the house is a secret society. I remember when a member passed on and the officiating bishop said that he would not allow the casket of a member of a secret cult to be brought into the church, he was however told and persuaded that the House of Lords was not a secret cult.

    There was also another occasion when the leader of the House of Lords Nigeria was being conferred with a chieftaincy title, members of the House of Lords went to felicitate with him. The officiating cleric announced to the entire church that the town was so blessed that members of the House of Lords had flown in from England to celebrate the occasion with them. This was a cause for big laughter afterwards. Members of the House of Lords Nigeria, are so distinguished that they compare favourably with its counterparts in England.

    I had the distinction and privilege to review their publication which was presented to celebrate their 50th year anniversary. The book NIGERIA: THE CHALLENGES OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT is a must read.

    This is a sequel to an earlier book of the House of Lords Nigeria entitled Bumpy Ride to the 21st Century. This new book like the previous one is a collection of lectures presented by distinguished Nigerians during The Lords annual May Day luncheon and lecture. The current book is made up of 11 chapters. Writers include late Professor Emeritus J.F. Ade Ajayi: “Towards African Renaissance in the 21st century”; Professor Itse Sagay: 3 Anatomy of Federalism with special reference to Nigeria”; Chief T.A Akinyele 3 Before the sun sets”: A glimpse into life in retirement in Nigeria”; Professor Emeritus O.O Akinkugbe CFR NNOM: “The wages of curiosity”; Chief Folake Solanke SAN, CON: “Women in Politics”.

    Engineer V.I Maduka: 3 P&T, GSM, and beyond”; Professor Adigun Agbaje: “Interrogating the future: Past, present and the architecting of tragedies”; Professor Peter Okebukola, OFR: “Rhyme Reason and Rhetoric of Education”; late Professor Emeritus T.N Tamuno NNOM: “Quo Vadis Nigeria”; Professor Emeritus Akin L Mabogunje: “My Lords, what is the state of your manors”; and finally, Professor Oyewale Tomori NNOM: 3 Transforming Nigeria into a changed Nation”

    Some years ago my son who is an electrical engineer based in Atlanta Georgia Unites states came home on a short visit during which time he kept asking me questions about our apparent failure as a country. The most apparent failure was in the area of power generation and distribution, among others. Like a typical historian, I tried to place our failure in the context of our political evolution as a country. I did not want to bore him with too many details. So I started from 1959 federal elections. I said the failure of Obafemi Awolowo’s Action Group and Nnamdi Azikwe’s NCNC to form a coalition government was the beginning of our problem. If this had happened the better prepared leadership of the country would have emerged to lead us on a faster trajectory of modernization. This interpretation may be disputed by those who genuinely believe such a government would have alienated the larger part of the country. This may be true and in the social science to which history belongs there are no answers with mathematical exactitude. This was not even the point of the story. After one or two days of power cuts and why we have not developed becoming a recurring decimal in my sons discussion with me and I then kept talking about Awolowo, Azikwe, Ahmadu Bello, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, my son said dad “who the hell is this Awolowo you are talking about?” I was shocked. I said “so you have never heard about Awolowo before?” He answered “no”. I forgot he was born in 1976.  “So who have you heard about?” He said “Buhari and Idiagbon”. Then he challenged me to write a short and readable political history of Nigeria which any intelligent scientist could read and understand. I promised to do so time and electric power permitting!

  • Governors, lawmakers and Fulani herdsmen

    Last week on these pages, we talked about Yoruba governors who wear Awo’s cap without imbibing Awo’s character and philosophy. I think they have their parallel all over the country especially in the north where Ahamadu Bello, Awo’s contemporary, with an annual budget of 44m pounds, lower than what each of the 414 LGAs in the north today collects as allocation, according Nuhu Ribadu, “maintained law and order and ensured effective security of life and property, built Ahmadu Bello University, Ahmadu Bello Stadium, NNDC, the largest black-owned conglomerate in black Africa;  built many textile factories, good roads, marketing boards, efficient water supply etc” while the 19 northern  governors sadly  have nothing to show for the N8.3 trillion they  got from the federation account between 1999 and 2010″.

    While Awo and Bello as Premiers, stayed  at home,  studied and proffered solutions to the problems of their people, many of today’s imperial governors spend more time in Dubai, Britain, US, Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia purportedly sourcing for investors or shamelessly using taxpayer money to fulfill their religious obligations. Some even chose South American islands as their own destination. But we now know from the Panama papers that some governors use some of the Islands as safe havens to avoid payment of taxes on alleged stolen state allocations badly needed to checkmate the menace of Fulani herdsmen that have turned part of the Middle Belt into a killing field in the last seven years.

    Unfortunately, northern governors and their lawmakers believe the federal government is the answer to all their problems. This is probably the only reason why 19 northern governors whose major reason for being in government is the protection of life and properties, will last week disingenuously claim the Fulani herdsmen problem have to be resolved by the federal government. Speaking on behalf of Northern Governors Forum, Kashim Shetima, their chairman insisted ‘the crisis goes beyond Fulani herdsmen and as such, the country must collectively work towards a solution’. He did not forget to introduce an odious comparison between Fulani herdsmen’s atrocities and kidnapping in the South-east  without making a distinction between the target of the latter which are  Igbo victims of the tyranny of their own leaders who made fortunes by bargaining in their names and the target of the former who are victims of state tyranny with an unjust land allocation Act which has reduced them to subsistence farmers in small parcels of land not yet confiscated by government to satisfy the rich.

    Now the patrons of Fulani herdsmen, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Associations speaking through Nuru Abdullahi and Ardo Ahmadu Suleiman, their leaders in Plateau and North West Zone arrogantly say the federal constitution which allows land to be taken from the poor for the use of the rich, gives them access to any land in Nigeria. To show there is unanimity of thoughts on the issue by northern politicians, Hon Sadiq Ibrahim (Adamawa APC) on April 13 sponsored the National Grazing Routes and Reserve Bill which seeks the establishment of a commission to control and manage grazing routes and reserves in all parts of the country. The commission will be expected to undertake a physical/geographical analysis of land use in each state in order to ascertain the best and most appropriate place to locate the federal government reserve and route within the state.

    Defending the bill during a Channels TV programme, Sadiq warned of the consequences of not passing the bill which include but not limited to the possibility of northern farmers driven by search for water overrunning the south in a matter of decades.  He forecloses the possibility of the north taking its fate in its own hands even after pointing out that Saudi Arabia a desert nation, has the largest cattle ranch in the world.

    Sadiq also attributed the mindless killing of farmers and armless children and women by AK47-wielding Fulani herdsmen to the fact that  most children sent out of their homes as early as their ninth birthday to herd cattle not necessarily owned by commercial cattle farmers but by uncles and cousins spend their formative years bonding, not with man but animals.

    The fundamental question to ask northern governors and their federal lawmakers, beneficiaries of the foresight of Ahmadu Bello who 60 years ago went round towns and villages of northern cities selecting underprivileged children including President Buhari for schools, is why they have not seen it as a challenge to end the lives of misery of nine-year-olds hijacked from their poor parents and forced to spend the most critical formative years  in the bush looking after cows owned according to Sadiq by ‘uncles and cousins’, who most certainly have their own children in the best schools in and outside the country?

    Shetima’s Borno State before the outbreak of Boko Haram insurgency had only about 30% of children of school age in schools. It was not markedly different in many parts of the north where when nine year olds are not uprooted from their families to spend the rest of their lives in the bush, they are roaming the streets of northern cities as almajiris. Until the bold step taken by the former Kano State governor to provide an alternative choice to Kano street urchins and the introduction of ex President Jonathan’s nomadic schools, we have no records of efforts made by other northern governors to stop labourers siring labourers.

    But the northern governors don’t have to look far to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Israel where desert regions produce enough food to feed themselves and parts of Europe. Many of the governors who are now in APC should ask Tinubu, Fashola and even newly elected Ambode how they have been able to manage the peculiar problems of their state without federal government support.

    While the northern governors exploited the defective federal constitution to unfairly corner more LGAs and more federal allocations, Lagos State went on to create more Council Areas. The state in spite of a vindictive federal government creatively increased its IGR from pre- 1999 N600m to about N16b. The state set up LASTMA to tackle the traffic gridlock associated with urban centres in spite of a vindictive federal government that set up a parallel body made up of political thugs to confront Lagos State officials on federal roads. The state was the first to set up an Independent Power Plant. The pilot scheme took three years instead of three months because of a vindictive federal government fearing ‘Lagos might become like London”. Lagos State wanted state police to address peculiar urban problems as obtained in all federations in the world. The 19 northern governors that equally needed state police to address their own peculiar challenges of porous borders joined the federal government to kill the initiative. Lagos State did not give up. It went on to creatively make use of the same Nigeria Police to tackle the problems of violent crimes in the state. Fashola started the miracle of Oshodi; Ambode has completed it. Today, if you are caught loitering in Oshodi, you will be picked up by the police. And finally to ensure food security as well as prevent jobless immigrants taking on to crime, Ambode went to Osun State to lease land for agriculture. Two weeks back, he signed a Memorandumý of Understanding to establish a commodity value chain that will boost food processing, production, and distribution with Kebbi State.

    The 19 northern governors who are busy passing the buck, their lawmakers who are sponsoring bills to shift their responsibilities to others, and Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Associations who are threatening to unleash armed Fulani herdsmen on poor farmers must be reminded that in a federation, states have the constitutional duty of defending their citizens. And states who like Lagos cannot creatively do that through LASTMA or the police are at liberty to employ the services of vigilante groups because states exist primarily to protect lives and properties of their citizens.

  • Money ruins everything (2)

    Money ruins many men. It impairs the moral fibre thus making the average human inhumane but that is because man often fails money. The Nigerian man in particular, fails money and so doing loses his right to lord over it and own it.

    Money, like a wild mongrel needs to be tamed. It requires firmness, chariness, deliberate conservatism and modesty of a full man to tame it, own it and control it. But that is hardly the case. Too many men are owned by  money. The Nigerian man, woman and society in particular, are owned by money – that is why contemporary Nigeria worships money.

    Like fire, money becomes a bad master due to our incapacities at taming its flare and controlling it. Consequently, it consumes us. Money corrupts the brightest among us and renders the most promising man and woman worthless. It consumes all who would do anything and everything to acquire it, whatever the consequence.

    Hence the domestication of yesterday’s ‘heroes’ and corruption of the shrewd – men and women by whose citizenship and wisdom we aspired to freedom and progress have being tamed, house-trained, like hunt dogs and pastoral cattle. Eventually, we suffer the transmutation of such established, self-acclaimed defenders of the people’s rights into despicable lapdogs, attack dogs and junkyard dogs of the ruling class.

    Little wonder Sunday of Isabo, Abeokuta, Ogun State, ditched his noble job as foremost columnist and chairman of a national newspaper’s editorial board to become attack dog and junkyard Labrador for former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. Many of his readers and fans bemoaned his ‘betrayal’ but from Sunday’s perspective, it is unarguably selfish of anyone to expect him to cling to the drudgery and emptiness of his former job and scorn a-chance-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of Nigeria’s high-society – be it as errand boy or disposable ‘bingo.’

    Who would have thought that the unrepentant critic of inept and oppressive ruling class would dump his pen and cape of honour to become an attack dog for the ruling class that erstwhile incited his vitriol? Through his spell as former President Jonathan’s media aide, Sunday spoke from every side of his mouth. He patroled Aso Rock corridors as the greyhound would the premises of its master. It must be lucrative being an errand dog.

    In Sunday’s descent subsists the irony of a contrived metaphor; the former columnist’s desertion of his sanctimonious high ground and renunciation of his self-touted activism and crusade for justice, government accountability and morality aptly illustrates contemporary Nigeria’s self-love and enslavement to mammon.

    Add that to the contemporary ruling class desperate politics and their philosophy of public office and power as means to systemic fraud and embezzlement of public funds and you have a perfect portrait of the Nigerian in the vice grip of money.

    An inordinate lust for money drives this generation to self-destruct. Having perverted the natural order that places man above money, the animate cowers to the inanimate. Nigeria submits to mammon, and science, technology, power, property and other bastions of materialism own and controls us. The consequences are rampant and discernible for all to see.

    Our lust for money has put paid to that staunch historic adherence to a cultural value system that supposedly distinguishes the Nigerian in the larger comity of nations and universal citizenship. Gone are our touted values – incontestable code of personal and societal ethics that supposedly humanizes the average Nigerian and moulds him into a fuller and better breed of mankind than any other in Africa and across continental divides.

    The current generation, the youth especially, manifests a dissonance with future bliss and progressive leadership anticipated of it. This generation is not only the most knavish but also the most effeminate of all generations; I will not bother over the shortcomings and atrocities we inherited from preceding generations lest I tow the oft beaten path and glamourize our claims to victimhood and base sentimentality. If the Nigeria we inherited is truly shorn of values and promises of a brighter tomorrow, must we aggravate the circumstances that foist upon us such hopelessness?

    One of the most curious kinks of this generation is its sustenance and obeisance to the cult of the ruling class. Consider the former administration of President Jonathan for instance; men and women that erstwhile professed to champion the people’s rights united to defend Jonathan’s ‘honour’ and justify the unceasing ineptitude and mindlessness of his administration.

    They conveniently forgot that the administration’s insensitivity, clumsiness and gluttony cost Nigeria thousands of lives and public fund till date. Evidences of the government’s incompetence and tactlessness abounded in its appointment of men and women unfit to run a roast corn kiosk to man the nation’s finance, aviation, health, defense, foreign affairs, education, works and housing ministries to mention a few. The citizenry’s election of shady men and woman into the nation’s legislative chambers and their defiant justification of the emergence of such individuals in the country’s hallowed chambers was equally instructive in the nation’s descent the steep slope of institutional corruption and decadent culture. Inefficiency of such characters fostered corruption, violence and deaths across the country.

    This anomaly periodically incites harsh criticisms and disillusionment among the citizenry. However, as had always being the case, the leading critics take no part in the pursuit and actualisation of majority will beyond lip service. Nonetheless they proceed with the most vulgar extravagances courting power and projecting it, irrespective of the nature of men and women that wield it.

    It is incontestable that many of such men, including the former president’s media aides functioning as attack dogs, attracted to themselves, too much of every ill that lies on the threshold of psychosis and common crime. Like the minority parading themselves as Jonathan’s apologists – even as you read – they cackle like a coven of crooked enthusiasts that see every illicit and sentimental act of bestiality as cause for political theatrics and hysterical spinning.

    Renowned turncoats like Sunday of Isabo for instance, are very useful to the ruling class – wobbly in intellect and infinitely handicapped by greed, they repeatedly parade themselves as pirates amenable to crimes and accessible to venal enterprise. These purchasable characters eventually shed their pretensions to heroism and honour to unite with the ruling class in its savage war against the citizenry.

    We have fought many wars in Nigeria. Wars for Biafra and the soul of the Niger Delta. The ongoing war for and against the soul of the northeast currently asphyxiating in the grip of terrorist sect, Boko Haram. And the never-ending war against thieving governors, legislators, and a corrupt judiciary. These wars are ultimately triggered by our failures with money and its innumerable material vestiges. Yet these wars are never enough. Everyday, we embroil in fresh wars for self-actualisation but the wars of the underdog, Nigeria’s impoverished lot, has a greater significance than all of the others.

    This daily battle for the soul and survival of the struggling working class and barely existent middle class is merely an episode of the universal war that constitutes the true nature of humanity and history of the world—the war of good against evil, ruling class against working class, the haves against the have-nots.

    These wars however, are lost on all fronts even before the masses march on to the battle field every day. This is a consequence of the knavery of men entrusted to serve as our moral sentinels, custodians of culture, value and hope for a brighter tomorrow. These men, contrary to their touted crusades in the interest of the citizenry, unconscionably mutate into more savage destroyers of hope and forms of life than the ruling class they were known to despise.

    But rather than call them out as the savages and murderers of hope that they have become, the Nigerian masses continually rationalise their betrayal arguing that they were only being smart. Perfidy and greed thus become noble enterprise in the Nigeria of our dreams.

  • The budget brouhaha

    It is almost a year since we had a change of government and yet we do not have a budget. This is simply embarrassing and totally uncalled for. In any civilized country, the minister of budget and national planning should have resigned long ago when it was discovered that what our president was made to present was poorly prepared and was not vetted before the president was told the budget was ready for submission to parliament. Ministers and heads of departments one after the other disowned the figures and projects in their departmental and ministries budget. The public was told that some people, presumably bureaucrats, had deliberately smuggled items and heads of expenditure without the knowledge of government. This is an act of sabotage and some people should be held responsible. This was also an act done to ridicule a president who means well for the country and who is doing everything to rescue the country from the abyss of stinking corruption the previous regime left us. I cannot imagine that anybody would have the kind of courage and audacity to frontally confront the president and his government in this way. This is why something must be done publicly to punish the culprits.

    The budget fiasco raises several points in my mind. I think people are trying to test the resolve of President Muhammadu Buhari. They are hiding under the pretext that we are in a democratic regime and Buhari dares not act as a military man and that if he does they will enlist the support of their bevy of lawyers to challenge him. We may yet borrow from the book of late Justice Kalu Anya who said in the 1980s that a time may come in this country when a defence counsel may be jailed along with the accused in cases bordering on national political or economic security. It seems the president’s hands are being tied and he seems to be going along with his traducers. If this goes on indefinitely without the president wielding the enormous powers of his office, people will lose interest in his reformist agenda and he will be perceived as a toothless bulldog or a bedraggled old soldier full of sound and fury signifying nothing. This apparent refusal to use the power of his office for the good of the silent majority has led to the National Assembly and particularly the Senate with its corrupt and compromised leadership blocking the moves of the president at every turn without consequences. Many people have suggested that there is a need to have special anti-corruption tribunals to try the innumerable cases of corruption being daily exposed. If this is not done, the culprits would use their loot to hire lawyers who will collude with the apparently compromised judges to delay the cases by issuing one injunction after another to frustrate the cause of justice as they have been doing since 2007. The result is that this crowd of treasury looters would come back next election and buy themselves seats in the Senate and the House. They will continue to rule us and award humongous salaries and perks to themselves. In the meantime, the work of government is being held hostage and poor people in the cities and rural areas are beginning to take laws into their hands by attacking ordinary people doing their own businesses or minding their own affairs.

    I just do not understand how members of the Senate would abandon discussing and passing the budget and troop down to the court where their so-called president has been arraigned for corruption. They say it is political persecution. Is the Nigerian government also involved in the Panama papers where the same money guzzler has been mentioned? We of course know what is going on. It is not that they love Bukola Saraki; what they are trying to prevent is so that the example of Saraki is not used as a template for their own treatment when the time comes. I wish these people know how angry the masses are with their shenanigans and irresponsibility.

    The president must not be seen to surrender to the evil forces in the land without a fight. There must be some emergency powers the president can invoke to prevent a civilian coup d’etat against his government. This is what the inability to pass a budget in a year is.

    The serious economic problem the country faces is being compounded by this inertia on the part of the legislative branch which instead of doing what is right for the people is nevertheless going on spending spree, buying jeeps whose prices are inflated by 100 percent and forging standing rules to permit all kinds of illegalities and untoward actions unbefitting of the status of the hallowed assemblies they temporarily occupy. The mistake Buhari made was allowing renegades take over parliament without the party whip. Once the leadership that emerged without party control was ensconced in office, the president lost all influence in parliament. If the president does not fight back, all will be lost and it will be goodbye to good governance. Instead of being sorry for their misdeeds, operatives of the regime that brought us to this economic pass are boasting that they will be back in 2019. If nothing is done quickly, their prophesy may just come true. The campaign is on.  Imagine the man responsible for the Boko Haram insurgency not only being appointed party chairman but also presumably gunning for the presidency itself! They are already blaming Buhari for the crash of oil price. The uninformed and even those who should know are saying things were better under the previous regime. They dishonestly give the impression that Buhari is wickedly withholding release of money to reflate a depressed economy. The myriad of problems arising from the collapse of the oil market does not allow President Buhari the luxury of being nice to those who want to bring down his government. He must confront them headlong. We did not elect him because of his democratic credentials or gentlemanly disposition to opponents, in fact we elected him because we want him to be tough to those who will sabotage the present and the future of Nigerians. We know one cannot make omelette without breaking eggs. What this country needs is not a pussy-footing leadership but a strong leader with clear conscience, incorruptible credential with the constitution in one hand and a whip in the other. Sometimes in strategy, it is not the actual use of force that does the trick but the threat of it.

    President Muhammadu Buhari stand up to be recognized, sir.

  • Why Nigeria is never sure of its future?

    It is difficult – extremely difficult – for Nigeria to hear well or to hear the truth. And most of that is because the multiplicity of the political elites of Nigeria’s multiplicity of nationalities and cultures have so distorted and polluted Nigeria’s basic truth. They are all so focused on their personal political and material gains that they no longer can hear or perceive anything else about Nigeria. They cannot hear any message clearly, and they make it impossible for Nigerians to hear any important message clearly, or to benefit coherently from it. If Nigeria has been declining for decades, that is the most fundamental reason.

    Two days ago, I was privileged to be invited by an organization of Nigerian youths to a meeting in Lagos. The purpose of the meeting was to bring youth leaders from as many Nigerian nationalities as possible together to discuss how to prevent further inter-ethnic violence in Nigeria – how to promote and sustain inter-ethnic peace. It was immediately clear that the Nigeria that these youths perceive is vastly different from the Nigeria that the political elite perceive. Unlike the political elite, these highly educated youths know that Nigeria is a country of hundreds of ethnic nations, each of which deserves to be respected in the building of Nigeria. They know that the refusal to enshrine such respect into the structure of the Nigerian federation is the cause of many of Nigeria’s ills –inter-ethnic disharmony and conflicts, public corruption, and horrific poverty. They know that the politicians hardly ever pay serious attention to the needs and suffering of their ethnic nationalities. Above all, they want to proceed to establish avenues for contacts and exchange of views among youths throughout the country, in the interest of their various peoples and of Nigeria.

    These youths are right. The basic FACT and PROBLEM of Nigeria’s existence is that Nigeria is not a nation – a nation being a people group with their own homeland, their own culture and language, and their own self-image, and therefore their own unique expectations, ways of doing things, of enforcing their own national moral laws, of rewarding or penalizing their members, etc. A multi-nation country like Nigeria, to survive for any length of time, must be very thoughtful and careful in managing the inter-relationships among its component nations. If the country’s management of those inter-relationships is poor, unduly demanding and aggressive, and generates stress for some of the component nations, then the country cannot possibly be stable or peaceful – and it runs the risk of quickly breaking up.

    That is the basic summary of the history of independent Nigeria since 1960. By aggressively pooling all powers and resources together in the hands of the Nigerian Federal Government, we have created a powerful demon that could destroy Nigeria. In this column and in other writings, I have said these things repeatedly, and as clearly and loudly as I possibly can. Now, I say them again. Without restructuring Nigeria, without basing our states on the realities of our nationalities, and without taking away many of the powers and resource-control now held by the Federal Government and vesting them in the state governments, Nigeria will break up – probably violently, and probably very soon.

    Everything of significance emphasizes the truth that Nigeria is being destroyed by us Nigerians. As an important example, look at what is happening to our economy. The sharp falls in crude oil prices of these days are having a devastating effect on Nigeria because, according to the moulding of our economy by the Federal Government, the income from crude oil is the alpha-and-omega of our economy. Before crude oil started to become important to our country in about 1970, our country was doing quite well on some cash crops (cocoa from the South-west, palm produce from the South-east, and groundnuts from the North). We were also, on the whole, fairly productive peoples in food-crop farming, livestock farming, fishing, etc. From the 1950s, we were also beginning to develop as an entrepreneurial and gradually industrializing country.  But just as crude oil was beginning to emerge as a main contributor to our economy, our cash crops were transferred to federal control. The Federal Government, hugely over-impressed by the growing oil bonanza, focused its attention on the oil alone and, through inattention, allowed the cash crops to perish. Discouraged and lacking the governmental support systems that had been helpful to them under regional control, our farmers turned away from producing the cash crops. Nobody noticed this disaster as it developed – but it was a process of submitting the lives of our people to poverty. By the 1960s we were the largest exporter of groundnuts in the world; but by the 1980s, we had disappeared as a serious exporter of groundnuts. The same disasters befell our cocoa and palm produce exports.

    We became the poor country that we are now – the country in which 70% of us live in “absolute poverty”, where true enterprise has become unpopular, where dishonesty and crookedness threaten enterprise, where all state governments and local governments subsist only on monthly federal dolls from the oil revenues, and where most prominent citizens live on hand-outs or outright robberies from the oil revenues.  It is a country in which the Federal Government has seized control and destroyed education at all levels, and wrecked the universities that we proudly owned in the early 1960s. It is a country from which industries are fleeing, and which investors mostly avoid. At the youth meeting, I learnt a new word. One of the speakers said that we started as an “underdeveloped” country; then we rose to become a “developing” country; and now that we have declined and are declining, we are an “under-developing” country. “Under-developing”! That is a new word. World-wide, we have become notorious as a viciously corrupt country – a country to be avoided by decent humans.

    In the process, we have destroyed all love among our various nationalities, and spread confusion over our youths. Read the letters posted by Nigerians on the world-wide-web daily, and you will be horrified at the perpetual drivel of hate and venom that Nigerians spit against one another’s nationalities. In the past few years, let us not forget, some leading Nigerians have been importing and storing weapons – so as to be prepared to arm their own particular nationals to kill masses of other nationals when the time comes. Where do the Fulani herdsmen, mostly illiterate nomads, get the sophisticated weapons which they seem to now have aplenty? How did they get the training to use these weapons? We are ready for the Rwandan kind of genocidal insanity – only, if it comes, it will be thousands of times larger and more horrific than in Rwanda.  We also seem to be preparing for Sudan’s Janjaweed kind of terrorists. What respectable reason do we still have left for regarding ourselves as countrymen? We are destroying a country that had so much promise at independence.

    Can we possibly revive our country and guide it again onto the paths of stability, progress and prosperity? Can we possibly regenerate love and respect among the various nationalities of our country? In a few more months under President Buhari’s leadership, we are likely to find definitive answers to these questions.

  • Let our senators be

    Let our senators be

    Whenever the story of this republic is told, the Eighth Senate will surely occupy a big space – for what is generally believed to be its intransigence and utter insensitivity to its environment. But, is this true?

    Our senators have been savaged by a highly combustible social media mob for flimsy reasons, including incredibly their pay, which many who have little or no knowledge of lawmaking and its hazards have described as unnecessarily huge. Thankfully, those who have assigned themselves the sensitive task of knowing exactly how much our distinguished senators take home monthly have not succeeded in laying their hands on this highly flammable information with which they could set the country on fire and imperil our future.

    But for the hard times, our distinguished senators would have been pressing for all those privileges and allowances that they have graciously not awarded themselves. They include allowances for their wives, who some of them declared as part of their assets forms, their concubines, pets, gardeners, cooks, stewards, designers, who conceive those kingly dresses, the tailors who sew them, the washer men, who make the fanciful dresses always crisp and smart as befitting of a senator’s wardrobe, drivers, shoe shiners, barbers and – I almost forgot – their armies of thugs. Don’t they pay for these and more? Yet some people scorn them for being spendthrifts and undeserving of the little they take home.

    It is this same group of fastidious people who have been purveying the rumour that the National Assembly has refused to join the Treasury Single Account (TSA), which is being hailed for retrieving trillions of naira that would have been shared by ravenous public officials feeding fat on the system.

    Their proof is that if the TSA was embraced by the lawmakers, it would have been difficult for them to have spent without recourse to the budget N1.314b on glistening Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) at a time when many are out of jobs and hunger stalks the land. But let’s be fair: when has buying some choice items become seasonal, like planting maize?

    In vain did Senate Services Chair Ibrahim Abdulla Gobir (Sokoto East), the distinguished senator who handled the deal, explain that it was a testimony to the exceptional prudence of the lawmakers that only 36 Land Cruiser VXR V8 SUVs were bought at N36.5m per unit and not 109 units for each member of the Upper Chamber.

    He said: “Come to think of it, there is no minister that hasn’t got about three to four cars. One Land Cruiser, maybe a back-up and two Hilux cars. There is no director in the civil service that hasn’t got a car; there is no permanent secretary that hasn’t got a Land Cruiser. In fact, every House of Assembly member has either a Prado or a Land Cruiser and here is a senator you say he cannot have one Land Cruiser.”

    Poor man. His explanation, despite its lucidity, was like water off a dock’s back. It was as if the distinguished senator had committed treason. The pundits and self-appointed commentators descended on him. Some, obviously the decent crowd, said he was blabbing like an overfed baby. Others, the usually pugnacious and envious few who will never mind their own business, called him names as if he was a Lagos pick pocket caught in the act. Ah. Just because N1.314b was spent on cars?

    Don’t our senators deserve some respect? How do we expect them to go about their oversight duties – in rickety molue, Keke NAPEP and tuketuke, buses?Haba! Shouldn’t there be a limit to frugality and prudence ? How do we expect these people who have humbly agreed to serve their fatherland to do so like paupers, being senators of the “Giant of Africa”, “the largest democracy in Africa” and the continent’s biggest economy – a trophy that South Africa was clinging onto until former Finance Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala devised the magical formula Rebasing with which we snatched it away.

    At the  peak of the intensity of the bitter criticisms against the purchase of the vehicles, some envious fellows, who obviously would do anything to set the people against the senators, obtained many of the lawmakers’ telephone numbers and mounted a desperate campaign to get their constituents bombard them with calls to drop the deal.

    “Don’t take that car. People are suffering and you guys want to buy jeeps? You represent me in Ekiti and we are watching. Ile ni apoti n joko de idi o(the seat waits patiently at home for the buttocks,” one told Senator Biodun Olujimi (Ekiti South).

    Apparently not one to shy away from a street fight, she replied: “Sit anywhere. If you voted it was not free. I paid every inch of the way. Get a job and earn a living, so you don’t keep issuing threats that you can’t enforce and you don’t keep invading the privacy of people. Only dirty people do that.”

    Mrs Olujimi has told of how her phone rings every minute. If indeed she paid her way to the Senate, will her constituents be fair, if they keep monitoring how she is exercising the mandate they sold to her? What right do they have to do that? Did she give them a receipt?

    Just a few days before they were accused of being insensitive to the ordinary Nigerian’s feeling, our senators rejected a motion to ban used tyres, sponsored by Senator Shehu Sani.

    Senators rejected the motion because the measure would compound the hardship in the land. Not everybody can afford new tyres, they said. How else can a group be compassionate? Yet, senators are pilloried for being greedy, lacking human feeling and discipline as well as a sense of service.

    The critics are not done. They have accused the distinguished senators of padding the budget with extraneous items, spiking some key projects, such as the Calabar-Lagos rail line, delaying its passage and, thereby, extending the fiscal and economic hardship that has gripped the land. Really?

    If a senator suddenly remembers that the public toilet in his town is crumbling and the roof of the town hall is leaking, what crime has he committed if he puts these key items in the budget to show that he is enamoured of his people?

    But it was never like this. Ministers used to lobby for their budgets to be passed and lawmakers obliged them with remarkable excitement. In fact, a former Senate President once told a permanent secretary who came to defend his ministry’s budget on behalf of the minister: “Your minister is not here? OK. Tell him last year we did not see his Coke. Even Mirinda we no drink. Tell him that when coming here he should add that of last year to this year’s. Then we will pass the budget.”

    Needless to say, the fellow’s ingenuity did not last. He was fired some months after for some financial malfeasance.

    By the way, where is former Senate President Adolphus Wabara; remember him?

    Since the trial of Senate President Bukola Saraki for alleged false declaration of assets began, his colleagues have been following him to the Code of Conduct Tribunal. This, say the critics, portrays the lawmakers as busybodies and idle hands who are unworthy of their seats. Won’t we be carrying our oversight duties too far when we tell our senators where to go and whose company to keep? Where are the fundamental human rights, including that of movement, to which we all subscribe?

    When the Senate Committee on Ethics summoned Justice Danladi Umar before whom Dr Saraki is standing trial over a petition in which His Lordship’s integrity was questioned, the lawmakers were dazed by a hail of attacks. Some people said the timing of the invitation was wrong: others said it was contemptuous and immoral. Being respecters of public opinions, the lawmakers withdrew the summons. Needless to say, the attacks are yet to cease.

    The senators, not given to sentiment, ploughed on. They announced that they were reworking the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and the Code of Conduct Tribunal Act. The attacks got more intense and hit a crescendo that forced the Senate to pull the brakes on the amendments. It was all  to please those who felt, again, that the timing was wrong, coming during Saraki’s trial. The question is, when will the time be right? Whose exclusive privilege is it to determine the right time?

    The other day at the Senate, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu was in his office when a senior official of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) showed up to decorate him with the badge of a partner in the anti-corruption war. The simple ceremony sparked a bitter row between him and the agency, which minced no word in saying that the official did not get its blessing to honour Ekweremadu. The senator swiftly told the EFCC that he never lobbied for the honour that was dropped on his laps.

    Surprisingly, that little matter was the impetus those revisionists needed to pounce on Ekweremadu. They lashed him as they would a wayward school pupil for what they called legislative profanity. They claimed – apparently without any proof whatsoever, let alone some ironcast evidence – that Ekweremadu and others forged the Senate Rules to gain undue advantage in the controversial election of officers. They did not stop at that; they called for his trial. Is that fair?

    One would have thought that after conceding so much, our senators will be allowed to do their mentally demanding job in peace. Wrong. Now there is the “OCCUPYNATIONALASSEMBLY “ campaign and many are suggesting the seeming extremism of scrapping the Upper Chamber. I disagree.

    Let our senators be, if for nothing but for those periodical displays we see on television. Is it easy to find an assemblage of such eminent citizens entertaining us ordinary folks?

  • Yoruba governors and Fulani herdsmen

    There are some discernible parallels in the response of Nigerian Police and the Yoruba governors to the menace of Fulani herdsmen. The only difference is that while the former has been hypocritical, the later has been comical. For instance the Inspector General of Police, after almost seven years of mindless killing of armless men, women and children without anyone being brought to book, now says the police will “continue to monitor them, degrade them and continue to amputate them whenever they come up”. Perhaps now that the police have pledged to do the job for which they are paid, it will not be out of place to remind IG Arase that if the report of the judicial inquiry instituted under Jonah Jang of Plateau in which a former IG was indicted cannot be revisited by the police, he has the latest Agatu massacre as a lead. At least the Gan Allah Fulani, which is the umbrella body, for Fulani herdsmen, has taken responsibility for the Agatu killings.

    For the South-west governors, their response has been as absurd as it has been comical.  While the battle rages, Fayose who seems incapable of appreciating the challenge facing the Yoruba people is amusing himself sharing “ponmo” (cow skin) with his grassroot supporters in local markets. Mimiko has been holding clandestine meeting with aggrieved farmers and elders who are preaching secession.  Aregbesola is said to be targeting production of 10,000 cows per annum while his counterpart in Ibadan has been dissipating energy on the biggest abattoir built in Ibadan by his political rival. The feelings one gets from the discordant notes is an absence of a coordinated effort at responding to the challenges of meeting the demand of those, who like the Epicureans, consume 10,000 heads of cows daily in case forces of demand and supply force the principals of the embattled Fulani herdsmen, driven only by profit motive, to seek a more profitable market.

    But first an ode to our South-west politicians. Being a politician itself is a major nightmare. It is often a call for rejection of candour, honesty and acquisition of special skill for the exploitation of our common infirmities. It also calls for brinkmanship to balance the interest of those impoverished by their class members without endangering the health of group members or posing a threat to their ill-acquired fortunes if they are to avoid  ‘the Saraki treatment’ after becoming the whistle-blower in the N1.6trillion fuel subsidy scam. To be a successful politician is to be faithful to Adedibu’s precepts which include engaging in public brawl or swearing falsely by the Holy Koran.

    How many of us who pontificate on the pages of newspaper are like Bode George, prepared to go to jail for helping party members? How many can, with the help of thugs attack a judge in his court premises, chase out elected law makers of town, take over the House of Assembly to pass an unread budget ? How many critics have the guts to collect $34m of taxpayer’s money from a president who says ‘stealing is not corruption,’ for the purpose of rigging an election? How many of us can, with Awo cap delicately balanced on our heads, join ‘PDP governors without character’ to publicly declare 16 greater than 19?  How many of us can, like Fayemi, Opeyemi and Oni, men whose dressing is incomplete without Awo’s cap delicately balanced on their heads, engage in a brutal war of attrition over the governorship seat  and after losing it by default  move to Abuja, seat of power as champions of Ekiti cause? How many can like ex-Governor Daniel of Ogun lock up the state House of Assembly and rule like a sole administrator?

    Our new political leaders are no doubt versatile, daring, courageous, adventurous and very ambitious.  It is just that their best is not good enough for the Yoruba. In this regard, they have the records of their predecessors who regarded public service as sacrifice to contend with. They are being challenged by the standards set by Awo, Bode Thomas, Rotimi Wlliams, Adekunle Ajasin, Osuntokun, Adesanya, Enahoro etc, all honourable men who cooperated to form a formidable class with faith in a common destiny and a single purpose of creating a more egalitarian society in the Yoruba country. They served selflessly. When Oba Adesoji, the then Ooni of Ife was rejected by the colonial masters as representative of Yoruba, no other Yoruba was ready to step into his shoes until the colonial government was forced to swallow its pride. When Akintola, who Awo said could debate the same topic from both sides and win, became a thorn in the flesh of the colonial masters and those he then regarded as northern feudal lords, was asked to be replaced, Awo said he had searched without finding any more competent man to represent the Yoruba. Akintola retained his seat. This is precisely why many believe the struggle for power and influence by many of our today Yoruba politicians are not motivated by service and altruism.

    And one way of validating this thesis is the ongoing menace of Fulani herdsmen and the challenge of 10,000 cows a day. Rewind back to 60 years ago. Awo and his group encouraged their compatriots who wanted to eat cow to domesticate one. They imported cow adaptable to the Yoruba environment from Argentina. In the Second Republic, Ajasin a leading member of that set of visionary Yoruba leaders established the Otun Cattle ranch. Ex-Governor Segun Oni was the only person who had the presence of mind to have revisited the project. But half of the cows he imported from South Africa died while the project collapsed under Fayemi.   Our new leaders seem to prefer the philosopher’s cap to his philosophy.

    The current Fulani herdsmen incursion to the South-west is an economic war by the elite and the response can only be economics. We run a capitalist system which is about the survival of the fittest. A group of privileged northern elites and others from the rest of the country invested heavily on cattle farming with the aim of harvesting huge dividends. Instead of establishing ranches, they opted to maximize profit by hiring and arming underprivileged children who must graze the cattle until they get to their designated market in the South-west. Within the capitalist system we operate, the Fulani’s herdsmen share a common fate with underpaid factory workers or underpaid journalist.

    When there is a demand that cannot be met locally, there must be supply usually in the form of imported labour of other people. The answer to the menace of Fulani herdsmen is therefore local production to meet demand and not secession. What the Yoruba want is a more organized federation without the tyranny of a centre trying to decree the education of our children, the water they drink and the air they breathe. Yoruba is receptive to other Nigerians who live by the rules and equally thrive among strangers in far away Sokoto, Kano, Jos and Minna.

    Our governors are not doing enough. We must be able to feed ourselves. As suggested on these pages not too long ago, Tinubu must return to Lagos to coordinate the activities of governors who unfortunately have been made Leviathans by the Nigerian constitution. His first responsibility is to the Yoruba. Awo who was a mere regional premier and Ahmadu Bello who rejected the option of becoming the Prime Minister in order to serve his people today live in the hearts of their people.