The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Africa’s humiliating relations with the world

    Recently, President Muhammad Buhari went to India to participate in an Indo-African summit. This was the first of its kind and we were told it will be an annual meeting in which the Indian Prime Minister will meet all the 53 heads of government of African states in New Delhi. The precedence for this humiliating conference was laid by France and China and later followed by the USA. Who knows what other country will summon all African heads of government and states to come to its capital for a conference? These leaders like school children whose names and countries are announced in a public address system always  step out to be recognized and led to the smiling emperor who will condescendingly shake their hands telling them to stand by for a group photograph. This humiliating experience in which African leaders dressed in local attires of their host willingly participate is totally unjustified and unacceptable. In international relations, there is sovereign equality of all states.

    Diplomacy operates on two wings of bi-lateral and multilateral  relations. If there is need for any country to talk to Africa as a continent, then such a country should come to Addis Ababa during the annual African Union summit. The UN also provides a forum for multilateral meetings if necessary on the sidelines of UN annual General Assembly meetings.

    This humiliation started with the neocolonial relations between France and la francophonie when all former French colonies in Africa which were heavily supported militarily and financially by France had to visit the élysée palace to get approval for their budget and policies. Interestingly, the former French colonies in Asia did not allow themselves to be submitted to this humiliation. It was most surprising when the same policy was extended to the whole of the continent and our people sheepishly accepted this treatment. Imagine Nigeria, a country of 170 million groveling before the French president. If we have anything to  discuss with France, do we have to follow 52 other African presidents who apparently have nothing to do at home? We must put an end to this humiliation. The situation where African presidents are dressed in Chinese or Indian apparels like clowns about to go on stage is not funny at all. The justification for this is that we need foreign investment and market for our goods. Yes we do and this can be sorted out bilaterally. Some apologists for this new way of relations with Africa may suggest that all Africa put together are about  500 million people whereas India and China are each over a billion people. Yes this is true. But it will still not justify lumping together of a whole continent this way. Inter tate relations is not based on demographic size even though population size counts as an important element of power. I do not see any gain in Africa exhibiting its weakness and poverty the way we are doing. Respect begets respect. If we do not respect ourselves, no one will respect us. It is not that Africa is totally helpless. The continent is sitting on resources that the world needs and without begging, those who need our resources will come begging us to sell to them.

    We do not have a union government in Africa so why are we being treated as if Africa is a country? Why is South America not being treated the same way?

    If our founding fathers were to see what is going on in the various countries they laboured to liberate from European colonialism, they will be horrified. Those were the days when a Kwame Nkrumah would  go to China or India and be feted by Chou en Lai, Mao Zedong and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru respectively as equals. Several years later, the whole of the continent is treated as if it is irrelevant. President Nkrumah spent the better part of his political  life preaching about the desirability for Africa to unite. He wrote a book with the title Africa Must Unite. He made the point that individually African states are too small and that to make an impression globally, they must unite. He was correct. There are too many puny states in Africa. Most of them are unviable politically and economically. But the point is that not of them are this way. Certainly Nigeria cannot be described as too small to be viable. If the other countries are ready to troop out and be presented on a stage by foreign powers in the name of summit with that country, Nigeria should be sensitive and sensible enough to opt out. If Africa must unite, it must come out of Africa’s effort and not dictated from outside by China, India, France or the United States. While unity is desirable, it must not be at the expense of our continent’s dignity. The existence of the European Union has not led to the USA or China ignoring the bilateral relations between them and individual European countries. What is good for the goose must also be good for the gander. I suspect South Africa demurely and hesitatingly goes along with other African states on this issue in order not to appear ungrateful for the support of Asian states during the struggle against the apartheid racist regime in South Africa before 1994. Nigeria does not carry this burden and we must resist this humiliation as the foremost Black African Country. The Arab-speaking African countries are cleverly spared this disgraceful diplomatic treatment. This is, if one must say, some kind of racism where in global reckoning, Africans are seen as being of lesser importance than whites, Browns and yellow people.  Nigeria cannot be campaigning to be recognized as a potential UN Security Council member and be subjecting itself to this ridicule. If Nigeria as a result of maintaining its dignity will not receive technical aid or assistance, so be it. All the so-called technical assistance of the past 55 years since independence has not translated into prosperity  for all our people and missing out a few pennies from international donors will not undermine our development trajectory if we are a serious country. It is even better to develop on our own and not to depend on western or eastern or Asian paradigms of development. Never again must our country go to Paris Washington, Beijing, New Delhi or London as part of a continental summon to Africa by a non-African country. If we continue to do so, our children’s generation will not forgive us. How does one explain 90 year-old Robert Mugabe  and other geriatrics routinely going to India and China on these merry go round when at Mugabe’s advanced age, he should be playing with his great grandchildren at home?  The problem and solution to African development is at home not in the hands of development partners. If we do not know this by now, then it means our leaders have not learnt any lessons from the failure of these decades of development assistance. What we need is trade and trade will go any where there are commodities or articles of trade for exchange. Besides, this is better left in the hands of private entrepreneurs and not in the hands of presidents.

  • Mockery of justice

    IN COURT, lawyers hold sway. They do all the talking, while the rest of us watch them in action. But takes individual style to win a case. every lawyer has his own style. He adopts the style that best suits his case at any particular time. He may not use the same style in all the cases he handles. He varies his style when there is need to do so. But whatever style a lawyer adopts, his goal is to win the case at hand. No lawyer takes up a case in order to lose. He goes into court with the mind to win, no matter how bad his case may be. Despite knowing that he has a bad case, a lawyer will stop at nothing to win.

    He will throw everything into the tussle to enable him prevail. The lawyer’s  prowess is one thing; having a good case is another. No matter how good a lawyer is, he will either win or lose on the strength of his case.To know the law like the back of one’s hand is good, but without a complimentary good case, the lawyer will be like fish out of water. He will be gasping for breath in court without anybody to come to his aid.

    Lawyers can be terrible when they know they have a bad case. Rather than tell their client that he has no chance in court, they will give the poor fellow the impression that all is well and that the case is as good as won. Do not get me wrong. There are times that a good lawyer can make a bad case look good and end up winning in court. If that happens, it is not that the case is bad as such,  it is just that it requires the lawyer’s expertise to turn things round, if not in the court of first instance, then on appeal.

    Good lawyers are rare to come by these days because it is difficult to sift the chaff from the wheat. Every lawyer believes that he is good even when he knows that he does not merit the certificate he is carrying. Donning the wig and gown is not all that makes a lawyer. As they say, the hood does not make the monk. But, once some lawyers are robed, they see themselves as all-knowing, an attribute that belongs solely to God. Inside the court, they turn themselves to something else. Everybody, including the judge, who is the high priest in the temple of justice, amounts to nothing before them.

    For all they care, His Lordship can go to blazes. As long as they appear before him, they must do so on their own terms and in their own way, without recourse to the rules of court. Yet, they are in the temple of justice, where they should play their role as ministers with decorum, decency and civility. To them, the law must take a back seat for them to get their way. Their attitude is “what is the law where people like us is concerned?” They arrogate to themselves the power they do not have. They want to be the advocate and the judge at the same time contrary to the well known maxim that a man cannot be the judge in his own case.

    This is not in defence of Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) Chairman  Justice Danladi Umar before some people misconstrue my stand; it is stating it as it is since Senate President Bukola Saraki’s case started before him. The defence, from all indications, seems not ready for the case. It may have its reasons (or is it strategy?) for taking that position, but it should do so with utmost respect for the court. And the court, as we all know, is the judge. There is danger in disrespecting a judge and a lawyer who disrespects a judge is not worth his wig and gown. No matter how big or famous a lawyer is, he cannot be bigger than a judge sitting in his own court. Let that lawyer be a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and a Queen’s Counsel (QC) all rolled into one, he must respect the judge, no matter how junior His Lordship may be to him at the Bar.

    By respecting the judge, the lawyer is respecting the judicial institution which tie them together as ‘’learned men’’. After all, a judge is first a lawyer before being a judge. The way the Saraki trial is going is not good for the judiciary. Yes, judges and lawyers do disagree, but they do so with mutual respect; they disagree to agree and not disagree to disagree to disagree until everything becomes messy. The defence could have adopted a better strategy in  withdrawing  from the case last Thursday. Of course, there will always be better ways of doing things, but those options were not taken last week when the lawyers stormed out of court.

    In law, there is a procedure for a lawyer’s withdrawal from a case. Where there is disagreement between a lawyer and his client, in most cases over money, the lawyer will come by way of a motion to withdraw his services. He will state his reasons for doing so and the judge, after listening to him, will  grant his request and give the litigant time to look for another lawyer. But where a lawyer is dissatisfied with the court’s decision, he can excuse himself from the case without casting aspersion on the judge’s integrity as Saraki’s counsel did last week. It is not every time a judge rules in favour of a party and it is not every time the court also rules against a party. So, to expect a favourable ruling always will be asking for too much.

    Lawyers know where to go when a ruling does not favour them. They go on appeal, without storming out of court, mocking,  taunting and deriding the judge with such legalese as : ‘’I wish to withdraw from this case in view of what I call judicial rascality’’. Pray, who is the rascal here? The jury is still out on that.

  • Stop resistance to restructuring of federation

    I have just re-read the written message brought by a distinguished delegation of Northern leaders, representing the Arewa Consultative Forum, to a meeting of the Yoruba Unity Forum holding at Ikenne on December 15, 2012. Arewa Consultative Forum is the topmost organization of the Hausa-Fulani political leadership of the North; and the Yoruba Unity Forum is one of the topmost organizations of the Yoruba political leadership of the South-west. The said document is therefore a message exchanged between two organizations representing the two largest nationalities of Nigeria – the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba.  That makes it a truly historic document. What the prestigious delegation of the Hausa-Fulani leadership had to communicate to the august gathering of Yoruba leaders that day at Ikenne says much about our country.

    But before I come to the core of the ACF message, I take some liberty to comment on the delegation from the North and the way they handled their message. I must give honour where it is due. The ACF message was very expertly and carefully worded. It was printed, with late Sir Ahmadu Bello’s picture emblazoned on it. And the ACF representatives thoughtfully made some copies available for distribution at the YUF meeting, and generally delivered their charge with great dignity – dignity appropriate in the communication of one great nation to another great nation. I read this document a day or two after its message was delivered at Ikenne and I was highly impressed then by its form and formalities. I am still impressed by the same today.

    Even so, I find the core proposition of the message shocking and embarrassing. The central proposition of the message was that no real change is needed in the way that Nigeria is organized and managed today! That proposition is summed up in the following staggering sentence: “Today, we have reached a point at which certain groups are calling for a re-negotiation of many settled issues in our nation”!

    What does ACF mean here by “many settled issues” – that “certain groups are calling for a re-negotiation of”?  Surprisingly, as they spell out quite unmistakably in their message, they mean the structure that the Nigerian federation has today – the structure that, gradually and deliberately between 1966 and 1999, the Federation of Nigeria was given by a succession of northern military dictatorships punctuated now and then by northern-led civilian presidencies.

    The ACF message urges that, in discussing the issues relating to Nigeria’s decline and near-failure, we should eschew recriminations. I agree with that. And I am sure that most Nigerians would agree. Recriminations will not solve the titanic problems of our country.

    But I am sure too that most Nigerians want Nigeria’s political leaders to be sincere and open in discussing Nigeria’s problems. Our country’s situation is desperate, to put it mildly. The war on corruption by the present Buhari presidency is a step in the right direction; but the most important step in the right direction would be to restructure our federation properly. Corruption is one of the symptoms of Nigeria’s decline; the warped and distorted structure of our federation is the root of our country’s decline.

    Any group that continues to insist now that our federation’s structure as it is today is “settled” and not open to discussion obviously needs to rethink in the interest of us all. In the interest of Nigeria’s recovery, orderliness and prosperity, we should all tell the ACF and its principals that continued resistance to a proper restructuring of this “federation” by a prestigious nation like the Hausa-Fulani nation is dangerous to Nigeria.

    The stakes are simply too high to allow for continued evasions and dogged stonewalling. This country must sincerely and seriously sort itself out. Our country is a country of many nations. These nations had evolved over thousands of years before the British came along and used their stronger technology to push all of us together into one country. In spite of 100 years of living together in Nigeria, these nations are still alive and strong. Even in similar multi-nationality countries where the nationalities have lived together as one country for many centuries, the general tendency today is to give each nationality some local autonomy to manage its affairs in its own way and to make its own kind of contribution to the country it belongs to. Britain, India, Switzerland, Indonesia, Spain, and others, are doing just that. I repeat that even the British who forced all our nationalities together to create Nigeria are now pursuing the policy of “Devolution” – which means giving each nationality (the Scotts, English, Welsh and Irish)  the freedom to design its constitution, control its own national government, and develop its own economy – in the context of the oneness of Britain.

    As we prepared for independence in the 1950s, our political leaders were in no doubt that our nationalities should be given the recognition and the development freedom that they deserved. That is why they agreed to a federal structure for Nigeria. And that is why they allowed each of the regions of the federation to manage itself in its own way. The regions made commendable achievements in development, and at independence, our country was a land of hope and pride, a country that the world viewed with great expectations. All that was needed was to take the regional autonomy lower to the level of the nationalities – to grant the petitions of the group of minority nationalities in each region for a region of their own.

    But, unfortunately, after independence, the northern politicians who controlled the Federal Government decided to themselves that the Federal Government must control all things in Nigeria, and that the federating units must all be subject to the whims and caprices of the controllers of the Federal Government. By the beginning of the present century, our country had become a battered and broken entity on the edge of a precipice. An overwhelming majority of our citizens, in all regions of our country, are wallowing in poverty and hopelessness. Even the North was beginning, as at independence, under Sir Ahmadu Bello’s highly respectable leadership, to make impressive economic and social progress. In a group of youths visiting the Northern Region from a school in the Western Region in 1961, I had the privilege of visiting this great premier of the North in his office, and of listening to him for a few minutes as he told us, his sons, what he was doing for the people of our Northern Region. I left his presence very proud of him, and very proud of my country and myself.  Now, the North is sunk and sinking in poverty, and countless youths of the North are reacting to their hopelessness by giving their energies to callings that are dedicated to destroying, killing and wrecking. And yet, some of the men whom God has elevated to high positions of leadership in that same North are telling us and the world that the distortions that have led our country to these disasters are “settled” and not open to discussion? It is unbelievable!

    Most Nigerians are saying that the present structure and situation of their country is untenable and unsustainable. The Yoruba nation, the Igbo nation, the nations of the Delta, the nations of the Middle Belt, and the Kanuri and related peoples of the Northeast, all speaking through countless voices and organizations at home and abroad, are saying so. It is time the Hausa-Fulani leadership come forth to say so too.

    The dream of a Hausa-Fulani domination (or of a Yoruba or Igbo domination) of Nigeria is anachronistic and unattainable. Striving for it is chasing shadows – and chasing shadows in a manner that only generates Nigeria’s decline and promotes ever-increasing poverty and hopelessness for the millions of Nigerians. The dream of a prosperous and great Nigeria is attainable. We can make Nigeria prosperous, and we can all prosper together in Nigeria.  That is the goal worthy to strive for.

  • Restructuring as answer to MASSOB’s nuisance

    PDP, like NPC/NCNC and NPN/NPP, its forebears is a party embraced largely by the majority of those who share Hausa/Fulani and Igbo mainstream political tendencies. The party suffers a common affliction with her grandparents- intolerance of opposition.  In 1962, NPC/NCNC destroyed AG, sending Awo the opposition leader to prison in Calabar. Following pressure from well-meaning Nigerians, the ruling coalition gave Awo an option between renouncing politics and relocating to the UK or the US for a couple of years or being in prison while they run the country according to their world view without opposition. Awo rejected both options claiming such opportunism would amount to betrayal of his supporters in the West and among the marginalized minorities across the country. He chose to remain in prison until war over sharing of offices between the Igbo elite and northern elite who had separately approached the military for support ended in a military coup that swept the warring allies away in January and July 1966. In the Second Republic, the warring partners metamorphosed into NPN/NPP in 1979. As it was in the First Republic, the coalition was destroyed by haggling over the sharing of offices and resources. To outwit NPP, its main rival and ally, NPN massively rigged the 1983 elections awarding itself landslide and ‘seaslide’ victories even in opposition strongholds.  It is also on record that the massively rigged 2003 and 2007 elections supervised by PDP and Obasanjo were the worst conducted elections in our nation’s history. Yar’Adua the beneficiary of the 2007 massive rigging was so scandalized that he had to set up the Justice Uwais Commission to review the electoral laws.

    But Stalwarts of PDP who publicly swore their party would rule uninterrupted for 60 years, as part of their strategy, seized control of restive groups’ agitation for justice, fairness, and equitable share of the resources of the state, all of which were fallouts of the betrayal of our nation through the dumping of the 1963 republican constitution and the running of an heterogeneous society like a unitary state by the military. Thus MEND whose stated goals ‘are to localize control of Nigeria’s oil and to secure reparations from the federal government for pollution caused by the oil industry’, became an ally of PDP with its leading members cornering of mouth-watering multi-dollar contracts.  The Oodua Peoples’ Congress, formed by some Yoruba elite for the actualisation of the 1993 annulled MKO Abiola’s mandate after securing contracts to monitor oil pipelines also became an ally of PDP. Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State recently asked Chief Ralph Uwazuruike ‘to tell his audience why MASSOB went to bed throughout the period Jonathan was the President, only for MASSOB to wake up from their deep slumber now that Buhari is the President.” Echoing similar sentiment, Ohaneze has also alleged that ‘those sponsoring the latest agitation for the creation of the state of Biafra are corrupt Igbo politicians who are trying to hide under the agitation to avoid prosecution for their alleged crimes.’

    Greed, dishonesty and desperate bid to hold on to power which underlined the above action of PDP leaders also explains the motive for unleashing those ex-Governor Suswan of Benue described as ‘Fulani mercenaries going around with AK47 wreaking havoc on Benue people’ on behalf of Fulani real owners of the cattle. It is instructive that while in the last six years, Nigerians wake up daily to reports of orgy of killings of scores of innocent women and children, torching of their houses by so-called Fulani herdsmen, a situation that led to open lamentation of ex-governor Gabriel Suswan of Benue that his “people have congenially been displaced from their homes by these Fulani herders on a daily basis’ and that ‘some of our children have not been to school in the last two years’, none of these heavily armed herdsmen has been arrested , successfully prosecuted neither has their sponsors be found.

    Yet while Jonathan and his PDP pretended to be helpless, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN in February 2014 , as the election drew near argued in a letter to Jonathan that their free movement across the country with their cattle is guaranteed by Section 41, Subsection 1 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which states “every citizen is entitled to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof and no citizen of Nigeria shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereof or exit therefrom.” They also referred to Section 42, Sub-section (1) (a) which ‘forbids the imposition of any disabilities or restrictions on any citizen by any executive or administrative action against any citizen of any ‘community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion…”

    A segment of the Fulani political elite who make fortunes from the misfortunes of their less privileged compatriots as owners of the cattle heads on whose behalf the armed Fulani herdsmen operate suffer the same affliction with a segment of the Igbo elite, with whom they  jointly ruled the country since independence until Buhari’s emergence this year. This dishonest and greedy segment of the Igbo political elite also unleash poor largely uneducated Igbo youths on the streets of urban centres hawking imported substandard and sometimes banned items. The uneducated Fulani herdsmen and their Igbo street traders counterparts often serve as canon fodders for their dishonest and greedy elite who egg them on to pillage other peoples’ land in Port Harcourt or desecrate other peoples’ culture in Lagos citing section 41, subsection1 and section 42 subsection 2 which are aberrations in a federal constitution.

    The way forward is a return to ‘Path to Nigeria Freedom’, with the coming together, for the first time in our nation’s history, a segment of the northern political elite represented by Buhari’s CPC and the mainstream Yoruba political tendency represented by Tinubu’s ACN who share a common view of society. They must first seek the kingdom of politics as Kwame Nkrumah would have put it. It is only after that the ongoing economic war can find meaning.

    We must restructure. There is no alternative with the failure of all the social engineering efforts of the military such as establishment of NYSC scheme, creation of unviable states and LGAs, establishment of federal government secondary schools and universities and quota systems of admission to federal institutions and civil service. Except for those benefiting from our nightmare, we have seen how a workable federal arrangement liberated people and groups from the tyranny of the state in the defunct Western Nigeria , India, Canada, Russia, former Yugoslavia, and Europe after the horrors of two world wars. Enemies of restructuring are those who instead of investing in the future of their impoverished compatriots want to live on their sweat and blood by condemning them to 12-14 months in the forest herding cattle they do not own or hawking smuggled goods whose labels they cannot read on the streets of our major cities.

  • Gov. Ibikunle Amosun, the people are not smiling (2)

    Ogun State looms like a gothic platitude of pain and death from its transit townships but the “Gateway State” is Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s bower of bliss. There, in his stately Eden, he lives immune and insensate to the ravages of ill-will and pent-up fury tearing the natives apart from inside out. Governor Amosun must be having a blast inside the Government House at Oke Mosan. He does not have to rise and retire to his bed everyday wondering if he would die along the deadly stretch of Lagos-Abeokuta highway, particularly at the spots where innocent children, mothers, fathers – dependants and breadwinners – die like stray fowls, accidentally or by installments, in his administrative landmine.

    Governor Amosun’s loved ones are extremely lucky; unlike the mother who left home with her three children only for them to be brought back as mangled corpses from an accident, caused by bad road, to the deceased’s husband. Amosun is certainly favoured by the ‘gods,’ unlike the bereaved families who sent their wards to school only to receive news that they had been crushed to death by a steel container in a gory accident along the Sagamu-Benin expressway. Is Governor Amosun neglecting that death trap because it is a ‘federal road?’ If that is the case, is Governor Amosun solely remunerated from revenue he makes from Ogun State or from the ‘federal purse?’

    Governor Amosun is one lucky dude as he does not have to live up to the promise he made to the poor, hopeless pupils of the Community Primary School, off Agoro road, Owode-Titun, Ota, Ogun State. One year and six months after they lost their classrooms to a violent rain squall, most of the 740 pupils have been learning with tears, under a crooked shed held together by wooden poles and corrugated iron sheets. The school’s Parents Teachers Association (PTA) constructed the shed last year when it was clear that the state government will not come to the children’s rescue. Although Governor Amosun promised to rebuild the school when his campaign train visited the area to seek re-election, he has since forgotten his promise and the area.

    Thus through scorching sun blaze and violent rain squalls, the pupils huddle together helplessly, in futile lunges for comfort and cover from the ravages of nature, tearing at their fragile frames. For the only public primary school in the community, the descent into decay started in May last year, when a rainstorm blew off the roof of the block of six classrooms and the staff room. The storm also tore off the entire side of the building. Yet Governor Amosun conveniently forgets the sad fate of the poor pupils of Community Primary School in Owode-Titun, Ota.

    Some cratered meters from the school, the stars are still a backdrop for the inhuman condition at Owode junction, just before you get to Ifo. Is Governor Amosun waiting for that expedient moment of disaster or road mishap of immense magnitude to occur before he swoops in with a bereaved mien and overzealous aides, to misappropriate anguish where he feels none?

    The natives of Ijoko, Agoro, Ijako, Iyana-Ilogbo, Ilepa, Ijoko, Alade, Oju Ore, Ilo-Awela, Elekunmefa, Imise, Onihale, Singer, Lusada, Ewekoro, Atan-Ota and Igbesa to mention a few, are still dying slowly and accidentally, from the perils of plying their muddy and badly cratered roads and there is still ugliness in Lafenwa, Aiyetoro, Olugbode and various communities along Itele road.

    From a distance, the piercing and indiscriminate glare of sunlight and moonshine desecrate these townships like tombs slipshodly carved along the graying highway that leads to Abeokuta, Ogun State’s capital city. Closer, the people and houses in the communities take shape like a stream of accidental shadows, their hard noises striking one’s face and making the senses numb with jarring clarity. It is their noiseless undertones that however, evoke intense feelings of awe and curiosity. Sad desperate glances of the natives inspire a thirst for buried narratives that they miserably learn to endure as unreal jests made by death.

    Guess his Excellency in Ogun State, has learnt to glance without flinching at the straggle of human suffering emblematic of the pale ghost of his “Gateway State.” Wonder if he is unaware of the deaths and squalor across the townships; wonder if he knows that there are schools with better structures, histories, progressive and ideological foundations that deserve as much attention and support as he is currently giving his model schools’ phantasm; wonder if he simply chooses to ignore the descent of the tourist tracts where decay and death spit venom at the hapless citizenry, like Siamese cobras every day.

    Governor Amosun is probably unmoved to affect heart-felt responses to the malaise. Perhaps he is making spirited gestures even as you read to extend citizenry-centred governance cum democratic dividends to the disillusioned natives of the state. Perhaps he just doesn’t know how to go about it.

    Ignorance is not an excuse for denying the citizenry good governance and their fundamental human rights. It is no longer tenable to hoodwink the citizenry by chants of ‘Change’ and platitudinous avowal to abolish squalor and foster general prosperity; time has revealed what section of the citizenry such ideological ‘life boat’ solutions are meant to deceive. It shall no longer be “politically expedient” to neglect a class of the governed just because, by will or circumstance, they inhabit parts of state the ruling class would rather not lose sleep over; except at the time of election or re-election.

    Governor Amosun is spending his second term in office which makes it even more dangerous for the APC to maintain dominance in Ogun State if he fails. When the party eventually presents its candidates for public offices in 2019, what glowing achievements will it point to as Amosun’s legacy and reasons why it should be given the people’s mandate again? The oft over-hyped and derided bridges and roads in Abeokuta? Or the equally contentious model school projects? These familiar arguments have gotten too old now and they are infinitely strange to the poor citizenry braving the perils of the state’s townships every day.

    Life in Ogun State’s townships is in grave decline. Together, these neglected tracts constitute an ambiguous ‘sick rose’ accentuating Ogun State’s descent into a food for worms even as you read. Though a sick rose, Ogun State is manouvered to mimic a growth cycle in the hands of Amosun and amid the rabid PR blitz launched and managed by Camp Amosun.

    That is why the state government will do nothing even if foreign investors  cum fortune hunters like cement giant, LafargeWAPCO Plc, subjects its host communities to terminal death, by its dangerous production activities, in desperate pursuit of profit. (It is instructive to note that LafargeWAPCO perpetrates in Ogun State, atrocities it wouldn’t dare commit in France and other European nations but that is a discussion for another day.)

    Ogun State’s manifestation as a sick rose satirizes Governor Amosun’s preferred portraits of it as a bower of bliss. It reveals an inner hostility; the governor’s flirtatious art of concealment necessitates that truth’s approach must take the form of a rape. If not, the people of Ogun State will continue to die by the onslaught of the conqueror maggots of hypocrisy, neglect, arrant betrayal and underdevelopment afflicting the state.

    Does Governor Amosun, like too many of his peers, consider truth as he hates to see it, as a perverse fetish? Does he believe that any critique or contradiction of his gospel of ‘Change’ is a swerve from goodwill and fruitfulness? If so, his much celebrated ‘Change’ project is diametrically opposed to the APC’s gospel of ‘Change.’

    • To be continued…

  • The fight over Nigeria

    IT IS quite interesting that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is fighting, note not for, but over Nigeria. PDP? Wonders shall never end! Since losing out in the power game in the last elections, the ruling party, as it then was, has been trying to endear itself to the people in order to improve its chances at the poll in 2019. It has been criticising the President Muhammadu Buhari-led  All Progressives Congress (APC)  government for, according to it, running the economy aground and demarketing Nigeria.

    Is Buhari killing the economy? Is he demarketing Nigeria? As a stakeholder in the Nigerian project, PDP is entitled to talk when it sees things going wrong, but as the party, which held power for 16 years, it should back whatever it says with facts and figures. The party should provide proof that Buhari has done what it is accusing him of doing, if it wants to be taken as a serious opposition. Being in opposition does not mean that the party should engage in cheap talks. No, the hallmark of a virile and vibrant opposition, is the quality of its interventions on national and international issues.

    PDP believes that its 16 years in power were years of plenty for Nigerians. So, in its assessment of the first 90 days of the Buhari administration on August 29, it descended on the APC government for ruining the economy in three months. ‘’The last three months under the APC-led government have brought a sudden decline in the gross domestic product (GDP), with attendant losses and hardship to the citizens. Our nation’s economy, which before now, held the record as the largest in Africa and one of the fastest growing in the world, suddenly plummeted as officially evidenced in the lull in the capital and money market sectors…’’, the party claimed.

    PDP was saying in essence that things were better under it than they are now. Is that true? No, says the Presidency, which fired back thus: ‘’The excruciating hardship experienced by Nigerians under the PDP misrule was unprecedented. It is ridiculous for any sane government to artificially rebase the economy and claim to transform Nigeria into the largest economy in Africa as the PDP administration did. The economy was gasping for breath under the egregiously corrupt PDP administration and the country was witnessing an acceleration of poverty which united Nigerians for change’’.

    A nation will rise and fall on the strength of its economy. So, it is understandable why APC and PDP are trading tackles over the economy.  Because Nigerians believe that PDP’s economic record is poor, the Buhari administration has been crowing about its achievements in that regard since it came to power last May.

    The economy, the President argued last week in India, was killed by corruption, which he said, thrived under the PDP government. For this statement, the party accused the President of demarketing Nigeria.

    Can a president demarket his country? Why will he do such a thing knowing full well its implication for his country in the international arena? Does saying the truth about your country amount. Which is worse, talking about the rot in your country or to be responsible for the rot? Should PDP have taken offence over Buhari’s statement in India?

    ‘’Nigeria cannot pay salaries. The country was materially vandalised and morally so. Of course, Nigeria is broke. Where is the money? You must have known that the Federal Government had to help 27 of the 36 states to pay salaries. The stumbling blocks are big, corrupt Nigerians that have the capacity to compromise the integrity of a lot of people… to make sure that they discourage the government from pursuing and recovering public funds from them’’, the President said. To PDP, that statement was too much and it tagged it ‘’demarketing’’ Nigeria. Coming from a former head of state that statement should not be taken lightly.

    Did what he say demarket Nigeria in anyway as claimed by PDP? You do not demarket yourself by bringing your problem before others; you are letting them know what you are worth so that they will not expect too much from you. What we need is help and we cannot get it if we continue to pretend as if all is well. Things are tough for our country and the earlier we let the world know the better.

    To me, PDP demarketed Nigeria by allowing corruption to thrive under its government, thereby killing foreign direct investment. So, it should not distract Buhari, who is trying to correct the wrongs of the past 16 years.

  • Metuh and gains of judiciary under PDP

    As it is often said, no legitimate child deliberately sets his father’s house on fire. It is still inexplicable that those who for 16 years behaved as if they had no stakes in Nigeria are not remorseful. These men pillaged and plundered the land ‘materially and morally’ like colonial invaders. They shared our common patrimony through fraudulent privatisation and monetization policies. It made no difference to them that they were sharing what they did not build but what was built by visionary leaders. They introduced ‘political Sharia’; they unleashed Niger Delta militants and Boko Haram on Nigeria. They tamed Obasanjo who ended up squandering away with both hands, the goodwill of Nigerians and the international community he took into government in 1999. They hastened the death of ailing Yar’Adua. For about six years, they pushed naïve Jonathan around while shamelessly lying to Nigerians. The only decision Jonathan ever took as president was conceding defeat after losing the election without first consulting David Mark, Uche Secondus, Tony Anenih, Femi Fani-Kayode, the weeping Ifeanyi Ubah, errant Elder Orubebe, Pa Edwin Clark the President’s father and Olisa Metuh. Voted out of government by determined Nigerians, they still don’t think they owe Nigerians an apology.

    Last week, those who threatened Pa Bisi Akande with sedition for criticizing Jonathan’s government forgot that the law is still in our statute books.  Without remorse, they now again threaten to unleash Niger Delta militants on Nigeria because an election tribunal nullified an election described by local and international observers as ‘war’. According to Olisa Metuh and Wale Oladipo, “PDP is not willing to and will never surrender the mandate freely given to us by the people in states where we won in the last general election, neither are the people of those states willing to allow sectional invaders to exert influence on those to be in charge of their affairs”. That, after a court’s verdict, is a call for insurrection.

    After a vicious attack on the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, they accused President Buhari without proof of ‘undue interferences’ in the activities of the judiciary using the Department of States Service (DSS). This they say, threaten the 16 years ‘gains of the judiciary’ without defining what constituted ‘gains of judiciary under PDP. Fortunately, Joseph Jibueze, a very resourceful reporter, in a piece titled ‘How sabotage, blackmail, undue delays are killing the Judiciary’ listed some of the legacies of the judiciary between 1999-and 2014 to fill the gap. They include such cases as those of Ayo Fayose whose  trial for alleged financial misappropriation as a former  governor had dragged on for eight years before winning a controversial election in 2014 even while  facing eligibility case in court. In a bid to stop the case from being heard, Fayose unleashed thugs on judges, lawyers, and court officials. According to Justice Daramola, the Ekiti State Chief Judge: “The thugs invaded my court…tore the Record Books, beat the court officials…descended on Hon. Justice J. A. Adeyeye, the presiding Judge in Court No. 3, beat and dragged him on the ground”. After inauguration, Abuja kept its peace while Fayose with the help of thugs chased out 19 opposition lawmakers out of town and ruled like a garrison commander with seven PDP legislators.

    Another ‘gain’ of the judiciary Metuh probably had in mind was the Halliburton case. While the company officials indicted for bribing Nigerian officials were jailed after conviction in the US, Nigerians indicted for receiving the bribes walked away free. Although they did not mention it, but one can help PDP add as parts of ‘gains’ of the judiciary the Ibori case. Accused of stealing US$250million from the public purse, he pleaded to 10 counts of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud, and was sentenced  to 13 years on April 17, 2012, by the Southwark Crown Court in London .That was after the 171-count charge of money laundering, fraud and corruption filed against Ibori at the Federal High Court, Kaduna was discontinued in his favour by the Court  of Appeal that  held ‘his trial in Kaduna was illegal as the alleged crime was committed in Delta’ and was discharged and acquitted by Justice Marcel Awokulehin, when he was eventually arraigned in Asaba.

    While the trial of Erastus Akingbola, former owner of Intercontinental Bank has dragged on for five years due to conspiracy of judges and SANs, a civil suit instituted against him in a British court by Access Bank Plc has been disposed of by ‘a London, court which ordered Akingbola to pay the bank £654million allegedly diverted from the bank illegally’ in August 2012. Also listed as a possible ‘gain’ was the case of Bukola Saraki v. Inspector-General of Police (Unreported Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/231/2012), where Saraki  sought to restrain the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) of the Nigeria Police Force from  investigating an allegation of N9 billion fraud leveled against him. After reporting for investigation, Saraki filed a fresh suit seeking to stop the police from prosecuting him. He got the relief. The case of ex-Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State is similar. In March 2007, he secured a Federal High Court injunction restraining the EFCC from investigating his tenure.  Justice Ibrahim Buba gave an order that the EFCC had no power to “in any manner howsoever, investigate the account or financial affairs of a state government.”

    We can also add Dariye’s case whose British associates were jailed in London for laundering more than £1.4million of public funds found to have allegedly been stolen by the governor. Dariye in spite of EFCC 14-count charge for money laundering went on to win an election as a senator.

    In the Mohammed Abacha case numbered SC.40/2006 Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), simply ordered the withdrawal of the N446.3billion theft charge instituted against him to pave the way for him to contest as PDP governorship candidate for Kano.

    Again, we cannot blame Metuh and his PDP colleagues for describing all the above baleful legacies as ‘gains’. The judiciary has not changed much over the years. Because of the dishonesty and greed of its leading lights before independence, it backed the colonial masters’ grabbing of Lagos choice lands hiding under the treaty of cession of 1861 until Herbert Macaulay’s appeal on behalf of Chief Oluwa and the Eleko’s to the British Judicial Council in London was upheld in 1913. For the same reasons, S. L. Akintola’s Supreme Court 1962 victory was overturned by the British judicial council which ruled he was constitutionally removed.

    In 1966, because of dishonesty and greed, senior members of the judiciary advised Ironsi to take over the reins of power instead of swearing in Zanna Bukar Dipcharima, the next most senior minister as acting  Prime Minister as provided for in our constitution. Similarly driven by nothing but dishonesty and greed, senior members of the judiciary, who knew the implication of turning a heterogeneous society from a federal to a unitary state drafted for Ironsi Decree 34 of 1966 that sparked off rioting by ABU students that inexorably led to the mindless killing of innocent Nigerians. For the same reasons, leading lights of the judiciary helped Babangida  with his illegal interim decree after annulling the most credible election in our nation’s history.

    But how do we tame the greedy and dishonest senior members of our judiciary? I think there is something to learn from Metuh’s lamentation over the modest achievement of the DSS in the last few months following the removal of PDP infiltrators. It only shows that devoid of political interference, the DSS has the capacity to cage senior members of the judiciary who have turned it to cash and carry enterprise, turned politics to a noble profession that places emphasis on service to a game of brigands, and provider of legal cover to criminals in government houses.

  • Living in traffic

    FOR those who use the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway regularly, these are not the best of times. In the past few days, it has been hell on that road. Whether in the day or night, the road is jam packed. Driving on either side of the road is a nightmare. Traffic is virtually at a standstill throughout the day. There is no time you get to the road that it is free. When we are going out in the morning, it is chaotic; when we are coming back in the early hours of the next day, it is a nightmare. We struggle for right of way with heavy duty trucks, some of which are laden with containers. What is the cause of this traffic gridlock, which has turned the portion of the road between the popular Berger at the Lagos end and Warewa near the Arepo junction in Ogun State into something else? It is some potholes, which have now turned to huge craters. On getting to these bad spots, motorists are forced to stop, creating a traffic bottleneck, which stretches and stretches until the eyes can see no more. Whenever I want to leave home for work these days, my heart skips because I do not know what I will meet on the road. On Tuesday as I got ready for work, I heard about what was happening on the road. Those moving out to connect the express from the Journalists’ Estate could not do so. The road leading into the estate became chaotic. Many who could not brave it, returned home in anger. I could not get to work until 11.30am despite leaving home at 8.45am to enable me attend a meeting at 10. I could not go home that night because the traffic was still as terrible as it was in the morning.  Some colleagues whose movement I monitored in order to know whether I should start coming too did not get home until 2. 23am yesterday. On Thursday last week, this paper’s Deputy News Editor, Bunmi Ogunmodede and I did not get home till about 2am. It was the same thing on Monday. Is this how we will continue to live on this road? Yet, all that needs to be done to ease motorists’ pains is to patch these bad spots pending when the road will be rehabilitated? Will our cry move the government to do the right thing?

  • Whither is Buhari really taking Nigeria?

    President Buhari, and many spokespersons for his presidency, are saying that the Buhari presidency will eliminate corruption and strengthen the unity of Nigeria. That Buhari is seriously set against corruption is not in doubt. That he is already weakening corruption in significant sectors of the public service is self-evident – and that is a commendable accomplishment. But the millions of Nigerians who wish that Nigeria should attain true unity, survive as a country, and go on to prosper, are waiting to hear what President Buhari intends to do about a sustainable basis for the unity of Nigeria. I am sure that most Nigerians regard this as more important than the war against corruption.

    For a start, by appointing nearly all the non-ministerial officials of his presidency from the North and virtually excluding parts of the country, Buhari has aroused fears among very many Nigerians about his true intentions for Nigerian unity. Anyone who wants to know how worried Nigerians are becoming about this should just look in the media, especially the social media on the worldwide web. This is not a partisan issue at all; as many members as non-members of Buhari’s party are voicing concern. Even some northerners are voicing concern. The growing question is this: Is Buhari leading us back to the same old path of “unity” that was designed to be enforced by an Arewa North domination? Certainly also, it does not help that the formal organization of the president’s party, the APC, is given scant regard in the president’s actions. Does this portend that the president will be leaning mostly on some hidden back-door advisers and organs of his own, rather than on the political party that procured the votes of Nigerians, the party that promised CHANGE to us all? Does the quest for unity, for democracy, and for accountability, not demand that the open, constitutional, and formal establishments and processes of governance be openly upheld and employed for our country’s government?

    But there is a much more important issue – namely, the constitutional structure of our federation. I mean the need for restructuring our federation in such a way as to ensure harmony among our various peoples, and in ways to ensure that each federating unit of our federation shall be able to develop its resources competently, provide for its citizens, conquer poverty among its citizens, and make its own kind of contributions to the overall prosperity of our country. I am not urging President Buhari to implement, or not implement, the decisions of the National Conference that his predecessor organized. What I urge him to do is to recognize that this issue of sane restructuring of our federation is the issue that will determine whether Nigeria shall be stable, and whether Nigeria shall survive as one country; and then I urge him to do something about it immediately. In all his public utterances, including his address to the country on its 55th anniversary, he has artfully evaded making any kind of statement on this issue. He must not continue to evade it. His whole legacy hangs on what he does about it.

    The basic truth of our country’s existence is that ours is a country consisting of many different nationalities – each living in its homeland, with its own culture, desires, and self-image. In recognition of these facts, the founding fathers of our country bequeathed to us at independence a federation in which the federating units (called regions) commanded the powers with which to develop their domains. By using those powers, those regions pushed our country admirably along the path of progress and prosperity.

    Unfortunately, the political leaders controlling federal power at independence wanted the Federal Government to have unrestrained control over the regions – because they wanted their own particular Hausa-Fulani ethnic nation to control all of Nigeria. They started by disrupting the Western Region. They did succeed in disrupting the Western Region, but the effort generated unexpected side effects, and Nigeria’s whole governmental system more or less crashed. That gave the military the audacity to take over. Under the mostly northern military command, a northern political and military axis gradually distorted the federal structure, subdued all powers and all resource control to the federal establishment, and subdued the federal establishment to northern control. The Federal Government became a ponderous, incompetent and hugely corrupt entity presuming to micro-manage all aspects and all corners of Nigeria, and the states became mostly impotent entities incapable of doing much for the well-being of their citizens. In the context of this monstrosity, corruption took over the life of Nigeria, and poverty and hopelessness became the lot of the overwhelming majority of Nigerians. And this is how matters still stand today.

    The demand for the restructuring of our federation is therefore a desperately important demand. It is about how to restore progress to our country and give all Nigerians a chance to hope again. Ultimately too, it is about whether our Nigeria will, or will not, survive as a country.

    Those who are involved in this mission of saving Nigeria by demanding federal restructuring must never cease pointing out the example of India, a country that is very similar to Nigeria in ethnic composition. At independence in 1947, inter-ethnic conflicts threatened to break up India. The far northern provinces seceded and became independent countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the rest of the country seemed to be headed towards disintegration. Large numbers of Indians who wanted their country to survive embarked of a vigorous demand for a proper structuring of the Indian federation. The Indian politicians gradually yielded to these voices and saved their country by sensibly restructuring their federation on the basis of ethnic nationalities, and by devolving a lot of powers and resource development to the states. The larger nationalities became states; contiguous small nations joined hands to form states. India became a union of 28 states, each state designing its own internal structure and constitution. India then redistributed powers between the federal and state authorities, giving to the states control over their resources, and much more to the states than to the union in all revenue allocation. India did not only survive; it began to prosper.

    Some of those who oppose the restructuring of the Nigerian federation usually voice the accusation that a desire to break up Nigeria, or to secede, is the real motive behind the call for the restructuring. Many who make such accusations are just “smart” politicians playing clever games – politicians who are using these accusations to hide their secret personal or ethnic agendas and vested interests. They are merely trying to obstruct.

    However, there are some Nigerians who honestly and sincerely fear that using our nations as basis for the states of our federation could lead to secessions and the breaking up of our country. Some prominent Indians had the same kind of fear about India in the early 1950s too; but those fears have never materialized. Instead, India stabilized and grew stronger, because the nationalities became more comfortable about being part of India. Most Nigerians who want their nations to secede from Nigeria today are simply tired of Nigeria’s confusion, insane inequalities, corruption, and conflicts. If Nigeria becomes a more orderly and stable country, most of today’s desires for secession are likely to vanish – similar to what happened in India.

    In summary, there are two options facing us Nigerians.  If we leave our federation as it is now concocted, with an irrational states structure and a federal authority that controls all aspects of our lives and virtually all our country’s assets, the obvious contradictions, and the inevitable deprivations and conflicts, will break up our country sooner or later. If we courageously do what the Indians did, and restructure our federation, using our nationalities as basis for state formation, and giving significant amounts of responsibilities, resources control and funding to the state authorities, the chances are that our country will survive and thrive.  This is a matter over which every Nigerian must step forward and speak up. President Buhari must take the lead.

  • Nigerians and their love of titles

    When the new Ooni arrived in a motorcade in Ife, an excited commentator on radio started calling him, His Imperial Majesty. And I told myself here we go again. What is wrong with calling him the title  he has just acceded to as Kabiyesi Ooni of Ife, Oba Alaiyeluwa Adeleye Ogunwusi. Why dress him in borrowed robes of imperial majesty when there is no empire on which he will be ruling!

    Even the British crown that had an empire on which the sun never sets stopped referring to itself as imperial majesty. Sometimes we make ourselves the object of ridicule. Nowadays some chiefs ruling over villages are sometimes referred to as majesties or royal highnesses to the embarrassment of everybody. In the same vein, speakers of various houses of assembly  and the National Assembly are referred to as Right Honourable. This a British title that refers to members of the British Crown’s Privy Council. This is a title conferred on prime ministers and would-be prime ministers in Great Britain. Here in Nigeria, an African country, we have appropriated these titles without  knowing the import of it and reduce ourselves to miserable mimics of British parliamentary practice.

    We have gone to the ridiculous level of referring to people by their professional calling. Now it is not unheard of to hear somebody being referred to as Architect Lagbaja or Pharmacist Lakasegbe. There are so many of such ridiculous practices such as Engineer Jegede, Barrister Akinyemi and Accountant Olatunji and so on. The practice whereby a physician is addressed as Dr. Olawale is just to separate certain professionals working in one hospital from other allied medical workers. This simple device has now been copied and bastardized in Nigeria that we will soon have people’s names prefaced by their professional titles. We may have Bricklayer Johnson, Carpenter Dare or journalist  Akaraogun. We even have a situation where the same person is prefaced by several titles such as General Senator Alhaji Usman or Alhaji Chief  Dr. Ambassador Lamorin. All this smacks of vanity. A rose called by any other name will still be a rose. There is no need to acquire tittles without the temperament and dignity that go with them. Will it not be better if one comports himself in an exemplary way and as a result of this one is accorded respect than carrying about meaningless titles? I always laugh when I see a governor addressed as senator so and so. Is being addressed as governor not enough recognition?

    Of course we are not the only country where this social affectation exist. In Germany you can come across Professor Medical Dr. Ludwig or even Professor Historiker Fritz Fischer. Of course in the United States, you could have one addressed Secretary Clinton because one had previously served as Secretary of State. And once a senator,  congressman or ambassador,  you carry those titles to the grave. Since we do not have any tradition of our own, we sheepishly follow the practice. Our senators want to be addressed as Distinguished Senators. I was at the airport in Abuja sometimes ago and I heard one man shouting to the amazement of all of us – Distinguished Senator;  distinguished senator! I almost told him keep his voice down and stop making a fool of himself. Several years ago, members of the National Assembly, because of the love of Estacode allowance used to come to the USA as soon as they were elected to ostensibly learn legislative practices and procedures. Those of us then living there were always embarrassed. I will never forget an incident involving a member of such a delegation coming out of his hotel room chewing a long chewing stick in the morning calling loudly on Honourable somebody on top of his voice waking up other lodgers who had no choice but to invite the police. Ask me whether this honourable or distinguished parliamentarian was not a disgrace to himself and his country. Things were so bad during the Shagari regime that Americans told us they were tired of the innumerable members of parliament coming to learn from them. This was because as soon as the federal MPs left, state MPs would troop in to learn from the Americans. One cynical American told a delegation that they should do something in their own country that Americans could learn from. I hope  this gallivanting has stopped and that the country’s money is not being wasted on fruitless learning process.

    Unfortunately, this affectation for titles has spread to the spiritual realm. An owner of one small church calls himself not only Bishop but Archbishop. Some call themselves Cardinals mimicking the Roman Catholic Church. There are as many churches as there are titles. The bad eggs have given the house of God a bad name. A woman told his son living for a long time in the USA that she has just built a church on his father’s plot of land. When the young man asked his mother when she became a preacher, she shamelessly said she was not a pastor but she will give the church to a pastor and at the end of the month they would share the proceeds! In Nigeria anybody who goes to Mecca immediately goes around addressed as Al-haji or simply Hadji while their female counterparts are addressed as Hajia or Al-Haja. One then wonders how many Hadjis and Hadjias one will find in Saudi Arabia itself the home of the hajj. I am told Nigerians and other West Africans are the only ones who call themselves Hadji or Hadjia after the hajj. Their Christian counterparts would not be easily edged out of the competition. So we have people going around with JP  attached to their names. When I first saw this, I innocently asked the person when he became a Justice of Peace. I could not understand our penchant for titles when I was told JP meant Jerusalem Pilgrim!

    The one that I find most annoying is the proliferation  of academies. In France there is only one L’Academie  Francais to which all distinguished scientists  artists  and academics of distinction belong. It is the same in the former Soviet Union and now Russia. In Nigeria there were two academies of Letters and the Sciences. But as everything Nigerian, we now have academies of Engineering, of Education, of Admnistration, Social Sciences and recently of Pharmacy  as if all these could not be subsumed under the sciences and letters. We are not a serious people. You just do not wake up to set up an academy and begin to award fellowships. These are meaningless because to be fellows, you need to be associated with certain original contribution to knowledge or national life in your field. These mushroom academies can learn from the Academy of Letters to which belong giants in the field of literature, modern languages, history, philosophy, religion African languages and classics. There is no  reason why scholars in politics, economics, mass communication and education cannot be admitted into the Academy of Letters. In the same vein, there is no need for academy of medicine, pharmacy, engineering  when there is an academy of science. In fact legislation should force all these academies into Nigerian Academy.

    And as for our penchant with titles, musicians have rightly joined the game by calling themselves either names from academia or the church. Thus we used to have Cardinal Rex Lawson, a musician; or General Adekunle, another musician. There are several magicians calling themselves professors. I once met a Dr. Somebody who could not string words together to make a sentence. I later found out that there was one religious institute in Ikorodu or Otta near Lagos awarding doctorate degrees presumably to those who could afford the price. There is no level Nigerians will not descend to have a title. At the end of the day, water will find its own level.