The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • How really bad is public corruption in Nigeria?

    How really bad is public corruption in Nigeria?

    This article by me on public corruption in our country was first published in this column sometime in March 2014. President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was then in power. But he was swept out of power in May by the electorate in reaction to the vast corruption in his government. President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the presidential election because the electorate were fed up with the corruption-infested PDP Federal Government. He has vowed to tackle this festering problem that has brought our country to its knees. We must hold him to his promise to save our nation from descending into utter chaos and deeper mass poverty.

      The article is being published again, unedited, to remind the new APC Federal Government of its promise to the nation to wipe out public corruption in our country. President Buhari must start with the NNPC, the publicly-owned corporate behemoth that has sapped the energy of the country, with its unbridled and extensive corruption. In fact, I think the country will be better off if the NNPC is scrapped altogether. We do not need it. The recent arrest of the former Petroleum Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison- Madueke, in London, for money laundering shows the enormity of the challenge in the oil sector. The funds allegedly laundered, over US$20 billion, or N4tr, are about the size of the annual budget of the Federal Government. Lose money and lose financial controls in the NNPC made this vast financial sleuth possible. The NNPC is a massive conduit tap, the main source of public corruption in our country. It is so big that it cannot be successfully reformed. I am convinced that, before too long, it will be laid to rest by a future government.

    There is growing and justified local and international concern about public corruption in Nigeria. But how deep is corruption in the country? Most Nigerians, including public officials, who are at the centre of corruption in the country, know it is pervasive and that, to a large extent, it is directly responsible for poor service delivery and mass poverty in Nigeria. Public corruption polarises the state and constrains economic growth. But President Jonathan pretends it is not all that bad. While addressing the Nigerian community recently in far away Namibia, he said media reports about corruption in Nigeria were exaggerated, and that his government was tackling it. The Nigerian community in Namibia will not believe him. It has easy access to the Internet and is well informed. Most of our nationals President Jonathan met in Namibia left Nigeria in the first place to escape the crushing poverty at home, brought about by mass corruption in Nigeria. In fact, President Jonathan’s rebuttal of the full extent of public corruption in Nigeria was in direct response to the damning comments by President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the week before, about widespread corruption in Nigeria.

    The Nigerian public too will find President Jonathan’s denial of the full extent of corruption in Nigeria bemusing, if not downright irritating. Internationally, Nigeria is notorious for its massive corruption. The global anti-corruption organisation, Transparency International, has, in its annual reports, consistently ranked Nigeria among the lowest in the global country league of transparency. It is estimated by respected financial experts that corruption accounts for over 40 per cent of public expenditure in Nigeria. Vital public projects cannot be completed because of official corruption. All branches of the government are hugely corrupt. Of three high court judges recently sacked, one, a female, owned over 20 properties and other assets. If it were not for its vast oil resources, very few foreign investors will seek to do business in Nigeria where, because of public corruption, the cost of doing business is one of the highest in the world. As Mr. Yakubu, head of the NNPC, confirmed last week, even the international oil majors, the biggest investors in Nigeria, are getting less enthusiastic about making further investments in the Nigerian oil sector. They see Angola, which is less corrupt, as a better investment destination than Nigeria.

    The fact is that, on a daily basis, Nigerians are made to live with horrendous massive corruption in all facets of their lives, ranging from the corrupt police, the pensions scam, to the petty and corrupt local and state government officials. Issuance of official licences, permits, approvals for land and property development require the payment of bribes to public officials. Houses and markets built by the state for the poor are corruptly snatched from them and sold to the rich. President Jonathan cannot pretend not to know this. The Grandmaster of this cesspool of corruption is the Federal Government, the biggest spender and controller of the largest financial resources in the country. It is at the centre that corruption takes place on a scale that cannot even be imagined by the Nigerian public. Public corruption in Nigeria was rife before President Jonathan came to power. But it has since grown worse during his tenure as President. It is now systemic, and the President appears unwilling, or unable, for reasons of political expediency, to tackle it effectively. Recently, the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was reported as saying that Nigeria’s vast oil resources had become a curse to the nation. She was badly misunderstood and sharply criticised for her comments. But she was right. If we did not have so much oil, we would be compelled to manage our resources better, like other African countries, such as Botswana that are not so richly endowed with natural resources. Nigeria would be less corrupt. The truth is that our oil wealth has fuelled corruption in the country. It has made the rich richer and the poor poorer. It has polarised our nation.

    A few days after President Jonathan downplayed the extent of corruption in Nigeria, there was a stampede in Abuja and other cities in Nigeria over recruitment by the Immigration Services. Nineteen people died in the stampede. But as it turned out, the recruitment exercise was unauthorised by the Board of the Immigration Services. The candidates, over 700, 000 of them, were made to pay N5,000 each as so-called ‘processing fees’ for 4,000 jobs that did not exist or, if they existed, had already been filled by the same authorities that advertised those jobs, and stood to make N3.5 billion, or more, from the fatal recruitment exercise. The collection of N5, 000 as ‘processing fees’ by a consulting firm was plainly illegal and fraudulent. Application for recruitment into the civil service is free. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Alhaji Abba Moro, who masterminded the massive and fatal fraud of which he would have been a beneficiary, was aware of this. But he has neither resigned as minister, nor has he been fired by President Jonathan. He was not even remorseful over the loss of 19 innocent lives during the Immigration recruitment exercise, which he blamed on the victims. How callous can Nigerian officials be? It is the impunity with which public officials are treated that accounts for their brazen corruption.

    As I write this, the riddle over the missing $20 billion oil revenue, which is more than the annual budgets of most African countries, remains unresolved, with both the Federal Ministry of Finance and the NNPC blaming each other and trying desperately to cover up the massive financial leakage and fraud involved. It will probably be swept under the carpet by the authorities in the end, after a perfunctory and inconclusive investigation. Instead of fully probing the allegation the whistleblower, Lamido Sanusi, the loquacious former Governor of the CBN, has been effectively fired by the President. Sanusi has since claimed that the charge of ‘financial recklessness and mismanagement’ made against him by the Financial Reporting Council regarding the intervention funds was baseless, as the President himself had often requested for such interventions by the CBN and had approved them. The President has not denied this and was aware of it as far back as March last year when he first received the FRCN report indicting the Governor of the CBN for ‘financial recklessness’. He waited nearly a whole year before acting on such a scathing report about the sleuth and sleaze in the CBN. Some of the so-called beneficiaries of the intervention funds, a veritable source of massive corruption, have denied receiving from the CBN the funds allegedly donated to them. So, the CBN, the major financial institution in the country, the so-called ‘bank of last resort’, has proved to be a major source of corruption as well. In effect, all major public institutions in Nigeria, including the major financial institutions, are corrupt. The fact of the matter is that very few, if any, public institutions and agencies in Nigeria can stand a vigorous audit of their financial operations. Many of them have not been audited for years.

    Nigeria loses about 20 per cent of its oil production and exports to massive oil bunkering and theft. President Jonathan is fully aware of this, but he appears unwilling or helpless in tackling the problem in spite of the massive loss of revenue involved. The NNPC is known to be a cesspool of massive corruption, but the President is under some inexplicable constraint that makes it difficult for him to tackle the problem headlong. It is as if he is simply overwhelmed by the vast scale of public corruption in the country. How about the Abacha loot, the allegations regarding the private jet of the Minister of  Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison- Madueke, and the prevarications in sacking the former Minister of Aviation, Ms Oduah? How about the fraud and scam discovered in the oil subsidy in which companies that did not even import oil received in 2012 subsidies, unbudgeted for, totalling N1.3 tr. from the Federal Government, or the NNPC? How about the issue of unresolved discrepancies in the funds of the SURE-P which the government has simply swept under the carpet? These are only a few of the reported scams that President Jonathan has refused to tackle expeditiously. In the circumstances, how can he be taken seriously, either here, or abroad, when he says media reports on corruption in Nigeria are exaggerated and that he is fighting it? Where is the evidence that he is doing so, when he has been hesitant to move against public officials facing charges of corruption? Instead, the President has become increasingly hostile to public criticism, threatening that governors of states that criticise him on corruption should not expect federal projects in their states. But he is president of the whole country.

    Now there is talk in official circles of removing the so-called oil subsidy. The Federal Government says it is not sustainable. But the high cost of imported refined oil is also due to the massive fraud in the oil sector. Public resistance to the proposed removal of the oil subsidy is justified in the circumstances. But whatever one’s reservations might be about the oil subsidy, it is better to remove it, once and for all, as it has for long, been another veritable source of massive corruption in the country.  It was not the public that was benefiting from the oil subsidy, but the fraudulent oil importers, and the fat cats in the Ministry of Finance and the NNPC. Let us close this window of massive fraud and scam in the Nigerian oil sector.

    So, Mr. President, public corruption is alive and well in Nigeria. It is, in fact, becoming increasingly acceptable socially. Denial by the President of this fact, known locally and internationally, will not do him or our country any good at all, as it will dent both the image and credibility of our President and the entire country.

  • Taming the shrew

    TO HER, everybody else was a nobody. She looked down on others as if they were not God’s creatures. She was too full of herself and she went about her job – a public office at that – as if she was her own boss. In a way, Dame Diezani Alison-Madueke was. Her boss, former President Goodluck Jonathan could not call her to order. Rather than rebuke her for her excesses, he took sides with her. Because she knew she had a hold on Jonathan, Alison-Madueke began to see herself as untouchable.

    There was nothing she did not get away with under Jonathan. She was the minister in whom Jonathan was well pleased. As a favoured minister, she strutted the land like royalty, though she is not a blue blood. She enjoyed uncommon favour even when she did not have anything to show for holding the petroleum resources portfolio. Alison-Madueke’s sun began to rise long before Jonathan came to office in fortuitous circumstances in 2010. She started out as Transport Minister under the late President Umoru Yar’Adua in 2007. She was subsequently moved to the Solid Minerals Ministry.

    When Jonathan mounted the saddle in 2010, she found herself in the Petroleum Ministry. From then, she became uncontrollable. Alison-Madueke became law unto herself. People amounted to nothing in her eyes. She was the queen of the manor, before whom all must bow, including the lawmakers, who tried unsuccessfully to call her to order. The National Assembly could not do anything to her because she enjoyed executive cover. Through her haughtiness, she missed a great opportunity to leave her mark in office. She so much believed that the Nigerians she was supposed to serve are beneath her.

    I have never stopped wondering how Alison-Madueke scaled Senate screening to become a minister of the Federal Republic. But then, under a government of anything goes, such as Jonathan’s, such things are bound to happen. Since the executive and the legislature were on the same page, ministers’ clearance was done haphazardly and by the time people like Alison-Madueke assumed office, they became tin-gods and the lawmakers saw her in her true colour. If she had acted that way before her clearance, the Senate would not have thought twice before rejecting her nomination.

    By the time she started showing the lawmakers that she was more powerful than them, it was too late to do anything about her. All they could do was to ask Jonathan to remove her, a request they knew the former president would not accede to. While in office, trouble was Alison-Madueke’s second name, but she survived it all with Jonathan’s tacit support. Will Jonathan be able to help out now in London, where she may soon face trial for alleged bribery and money laundering? Alison-Madueke was arrested in her London home last Friday by the National Crime Agency (NCA), the British outfit that leads law enforcement against serious and organised crimes.

    But isn’t it a shame that Britain is doing our job for us? Alison-Madueke should be in the dock here and not in London to account for her deeds while in office. What an irony! Alison-Madueke ran to London for succour not knowing that the long arm of the law will catch up with her there. It was just a matter of time before she ran into bigger trouble. Nobody behaves the way she does without paying the price. Alison-Madueke is not being witchhunted; those thinking along that line should perish the thought. Were we not in Nigeria when the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) accused her of  granting prospecting rights on oil mining licences 4, 38 and 41 to a firm without following due process? Did he appear before the committee when she was invited? She did not and nothing happened to her.

    Last year, the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts accused her of spending N10 billion on chartering a private jet. She was invited to explain how that came about. Again, she shunned the lawmakers. Rather than call her queen to order, Jonathan, during the May 4, 2014 Presidential Media Chat, upbraided the lawmakers for performing their oversight duty. Jonathan said on national television : ‘’I am not aware that the minister (Alison-Madueke) went to court to stop any investigation…the minister has appeared before the parliament more than 200 times.

    ‘’In fact, some of my ministers attended 25 percent of the sittings in the parliament. No country can progress when a minister spends most of the time appearing before the parliament. The Minister of Petroleum has not gone to court to stop them…I am not trying to protect anybody. Some people talk about jet or no jet. The Ministry of Petroleum Resources is one ministry that  people pay attention to because of its activities… when somebody wakes up and says the Ministry of Petroleum Resources is making use of a jet; the ministry has always been using jets’’. That was all Alison-Madueke needed to stick to her guns not to appear before the panel.

    Taking a cue from Jonathan, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which board she chaired as minister, also rose to her defence, saying : ‘’This practice (jet chartering) is common and acceptable in the local and international business environment in which it (NNPC) operates. There is nothing prohibiting NNPC from owning or chartering an aircraft. The law establishing NNPC empowers it to hold, manage and alienate moveable and immoveable property and enter into contracts and partnership with any company and person”. So, why didn’t Alison-Madueke go and say this to the lawmakers?

    The answer is obvious. She could not go because she has something to hide and she had Jonathan and a public utility to hide it for her. Will they be of help to her in her London travail? Let’s wait and see.

  • Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu and the burden of genius (1)

    In few months, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu will be seen as a national boon or disaster. He will be hailed as a round peg in a round hole or tirelessly maligned as the fig that lets down the leaf, the affliction that has to be concealed or expunged. Until then, Kachikwu will stew in metamorphosis. The Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) dissolves into multiple identities characterised by the oil industry’s familiar bogeys, even as you read.

    His transformation is akin to Daniel Orowole Fagunwa’s mythical forest ghommid’s. Other beings pass through him  as if he were a wraith. He is like Fagunwa’s ghommid, who transforms into a tree, an antelope, a raging inferno, a bird, water and a menacing snake. While Fagunwa’s mythical creature assumes more or less the characteristics typical of its new category of being, Kachikwu struggles to preserve his individuality, mostly the capacity to think and act humanely, against the power and intimidation of Nigeria’s oil cabal.

    Yes, Kachikwu, despite his brilliance and touted vigour, is hardly a match for Nigeria’s predatory band of oil Turks and cliques in the energy sector. But his office demands that he assumes a front thus his frantic posturing and pretension to purpose and valour. It would be delightful however, to see Kachikwu succeed where his predecessors failed woefully but he needs generous doses of forthrightness to do that. The NNPC’s GMD needs to be a man or the best form of the man that his employer, President Muhammadu Buhari wants him to become. Can he?

    Despite his initial braggadocio or what is known in street parlance as Initial Gra Gra (IGG), Kachikwu seems woefully handicapped to effect the needed turnaround in the nation’s oil sector. Perhaps he isn’t, he simply glamourises the knack for making uninformed commentaries and pledges before assessing his capacity to deliver on his words.

    Take for instance, his circus acts in the nation’s oil sector; a recent report by The Cable, an online medium credited Kachikwu with the information that the nation’s refineries are currently working at 30 percent capacity as against the minimum 60 percent required to generate profit.

    He was quoted thus: “Personally, I will have chosen to sell the refineries, but President Buhari has instructed that they should be fixed. After they are fixed, if they still operate below 60 per cent, then we will know what to do…The 90-day ultimatum for the refineries to be fixed will end in December and Port Harcourt Refinery looks like the only one that will meet the deadline, but we will wait and see what happens at the end of the 90 days.”

    If you take the pains to skim over the folds of officialese and doleful cliffhanger nuggets contained in his disclosure, you just might find that Kachikwu is tacitly preparing our minds for one of his several failures or his only failure perhaps. Earlier, he said that in view of the nation’s low refining capacity, there was need to establish more refineries in the country. “I am pushing to build new refineries next to our existing plants in order to boost the nation’s refining capacity for the common good,” Kachikwu stated, explaining that the new refineries will be developed by private investors and that NNPC’s role will be just to provide them with space close to the existing refineries to enable them share key facilities such as pipelines and storage facilities.

    If you consider this in light of his alleged preference for selling off the refineries, you could be forgiven for getting lost in the NNPC head honcho’s maze of double speak and embarrassing retractions.

    Following his recent cancellation of the oil swap deals instituted by the immediate past administration of President Goodluck Jonathan and his Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, the NNPC boss did a cartwheel to tactfully rescind his decision. Apologists of Kachikwu claimed he was only doing the president’s bidding but critics of the NNPC boss earnestly aver that President Buhari couldn’t have taken the decision without the knowledge and approval of the NNPC boss. Whatever the case, Kachikwu is either a force that the presidency reckons with or an pitiable mascot, negligible human sound bite employed to unquestioningly rubber-stamp Buhari’s caprices. Is he?

    It would be recalled that major oil tycoons became jittery and desperate to save their businesses in the wake of the NNPC’s cancellation of Offshore Processing Agreements (OPAs) and Crude Oil Swap (COS) deals entered with them. This was because their businesses plummeted in the absence of the several shady deals entrenched by the immediate past corrupt regime. Likewise, the federal government placed a ban on 113 oil vessels for perceived infractions. The presidency has since lifted the ban on the 113 tankers and the NNPC has tacitly reinstituted the controversial OPAs and COS, it would seem.

    It would be recalled that the Ahmed Joda-led Presidential Transition Committee had recommended to the Buhari administration to carry out a comprehensive audit of all OPAs and COS deals entered by the NNPC. The committee said the audit would help government identify and claim any reimbursements for excess crude oil lifted under the controversial OPA and swap arrangements to establish the quantity of products delivered based on a fair and transparent audit process. The GMD of the NNPC subsequently hinted that all Production Sharing Contracts, (PSCs), Joint Venture Contract Agreements (JVCAs) and all other contracts between the NNPC and its various partners would be reviewed to reflect actualities in the global oil and gas industry. He stated that as part of the measures to optimise the marketing of Nigeria’s crude oil and secure new market potential, the number of off-takers for the proposed 2015/2016 term contracts, which would emerge after a planned rigorous competitive bid had been pruned from 43 to 16. The corporation however, extended invitation to few oil companies affected by the cancellation of the deal.

    Despite Kachikwu’s celebrated show of running the process in the spirit of transparency, fears abound that the NNPC boss is impotent against the intimidating clout and pressure from certain quarters that he favours the same corrupt oil firms responsible for the misfortunes bedeviling the nation’s oil sector.

    Given his sterling achievements in academia and the private business sector, Kachikwu seemed every inch capable for the onerous task of sanitising the grossly corrupt and ailing oil sector, at his appointment as NNPC boss. A doctor of Law, Kachikwu graduated with distinction from the University of Nigeria (UNN) Nsukka and he was the best graduating student from the Law School, winning seven of the available nine prizes in 1999. He holds the LLM Harvard Distinction and was best graduate in 1980 with specialisation in Energy, Petroleum Law and Investment. Kachikwu has more than 30 years experience in policy- making positions in the petroleum industry serving in various capacities thus he seems well equipped for the job but for a snag, he is a Nigerian genius. Nigerian genii seldom fluorish in public office. Ultimately, they serve as puppets or clueless characters rubber-stamping and enabling the greed of their principals or associates in corridors of power.

    Kachikwu, like such genii, has betrayed little character or justifiable individuality so far in his position as NNPC boss. Is the high office gradually nullifying his fabled genius as it did the smarts of former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala? It is often said that a public officer assumes and reflects the character of his superior principal or employer; if that be the case, the presidency becomes the teat from which Kachikwu sucks his new identity. The impact so far, has been enlightening.

    • To be continued…
  • Falae, Saudi stampede and UNILAG bedbugs

    Falae, Saudi stampede and UNILAG bedbugs

    WHEN the news of Chief Oluyemisi Falae’s abduction broke, a feeling of incredulity pervaded the land. But it took no time for the reality to hit us all as his abductors demanded N100m ransom, which his family could not raise – for obvious reasons.

    As they dragged the elder statesman through bushes and creeks, threatening to kill him if the ransom would not be paid, the family regretted that they could raise only N2m. Then the abductors, in a strange exhibition of magnanimity, reduced the ransom to N90m.

    President Muhammadu Buhari, just before he flew out to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, ordered the police to rescue Falae. As if that was all that was needed, from the blues, the old man showed up on the Owo-Ifon Road, got picked up by the police and hussled off to the Government House in Akure to be presented, like a big trophy, to Governor Segun Mimiko. Excited police chief Solomon  Arase, his face wreathed in smiles, announced with hysterical glee, that his men had wrested the chief from his tormentors. No ransom was paid, we were told.

    The former Finance minister and presidential candidate has spoken of his ordeal. “We all slept on leaves. Unfortunately, it rained in the night and I was drenched. One of them brought a small umbrella to cover my head, but the rest of my body was not,” Falae said.

    He went on: “They offered me bread but I told them I could not eat it. I demanded for a bottle of Coke, which was what I drank everyday to have energy and to continue with the march because we were always moving.”

    To Falae,77 – he was actually snatched away on his birthday – the ordeal he underwent should not be allowed to go on. “It is not because of me. I am a very humble person, but by virtue of what God has made me and the status He has given me, it is an insult to our race that a man like me could be abducted by a bunch of hoodlums,” he said.

    But the abductors did not let go until they fired a warning. One of them told the old man: “Baba, if you leave us, you talk nonsense, I will come and catch you again.”

    Falae was said to have been abducted by Fulani herdsmen who had been troubling him on his farm. When did Fulani herdsmen become abductors? Is that part of cattle rearing for which they are famous? Are these criminals truly Fulani herdsmen? Will they ever be arrested? Can the police see the security implication of this incident, which could turn innocent people into targets of hate actions? Will the Fulani community come up to clear their name?

    If the victim said his family paid ransom, why are the police arguing that they rescued Falae without anybody shelling out some cash? Why couldn’t somebody just be honest and consistent? Now the police are going to investigate how the ransom was paid – through the bank? By hand? Who paid? Funny.

    This is not the first time abductors, who are never caught, have got cash to free their captives. The victims and their families would keep quiet, perhaps because they have lost confidence in the ability of the police to protect them and are scared the abductors could return to grab them again. This fear is the oil that keeps the wheel of this odious crime turning. Why are abductors not usually caught and taught the lesson of their lives?

    Before the Falae abduction shock could subside, the news of the Saudi Arabia calamity hit the airwaves, tearing through our hearts.

    No fewer than 244 Nigerians have been declared missing in the stampede in which 64 are said to have died, trampled on by desperate fellow pilgrims struggling to stay alive or got suffocated. The Nigerian toll is part of the global 1,100. This is not the first time pilgrims have died at the hajj, but this year’s figure is the highest since the 1990 disaster that took 1,426 lives.

    The Saudi authorities have launched a probe into the incident, the second in Mecca in less than two weeks. A crane collapsed on September 11 – what a date – killing 111 people and injuring 394. Nigeria lost some of its prominent citizens, including Justice of the Court of Appeal, Abdulkadir Jega, renowned Islamic scholar Prof Tijani Abubakar El- Miskin, foremost journalist Hajiya Bilikisu Yusuf, a traditional ruler, Alhaji Abbass Ibrahim (Panti Zing) and his two wives.

    Niger State Accountant – General Alhaji Shehu Kontagora and a member of the state’s Assembly, Mr Faisal Musa, also died in the stampede.

    The incident occurred as the pilgrims were performing the ritual of stoning the devil. This provoked some morbid jokes back home in Nigeria. One goes thus: “If Buhari would not release money for hajj, Nigerians should not worry. There are many devils waiting to be stoned here at home. Don’t ask me who they are. Barka de Sallah.”

    Another tells of a man calling a member of his family who was on pilgrimage after learning that the Saudi authorities would pay the family of each victim N70m. When the pilgrim pick his call, he hissed and said: “So you are not dead? Yeye man; we have just lost N70m.”

    It is worrisome that the Saudi authorities are yet to evolve a foolproof crowd control system. Iran, which is said to have the highest number of pilgrims, is angry. It insists that the Saudi authorities should take responsibility for the bloody show. An eyewitness spoke of people dying of thirst. Why was water not enough? Were the emergency services actually prepared? What measures were taken immediately to stop the disaster? Could there have been some laxity all because it is a privilege to die and be buried in the holy land?

    As we mourned these compatriots of ours who died on their journey of faith, my mind went to Boko Haram, the evil sect that has been killing and maiming in the name of Islam, a religion it obviously abuses – to the consternation of the truly knowledgeable.

    A new Boko Haram video has hit the social media. It shows a huge crowd of people worshipping on Sallah day and interviews of supposed leaders of the terrorist sect, glittering AK-47 rifles in their hands, boasting about their grip on the Sambisa Forest. Could that be real? Will such a huge crowd of insurgents gather anywhere within Nigeria and be safe? Were the Chibok girls part of the worshipping crowd? Are the military authorities aware of the video? Are they studying it?

    These terrible events were enough to make us all sober. We were, in fact, hobbled and humbled by them. But, as they say, different strokes for different folks.   As we nursed our wounds, a strange kind of protest broke out at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) where  students were up in arms against the authorities on Monday. Reason: there are bedbugs – yes, bedbugs – in the hostels. As from 3am, they shut the gates, stormed the homes of some principal officers and laid their mattresses on the road leading to the campus. And what a spectacle.

    One of the students had been bitten by a bedbug while he was asleep. He screamed, as the story goes, and his colleagues felt they could no longer take that after they had reportedly complained to the authorities that their hostels needed to be fumigated. The bedbugs, said the students, had developed resistance to their commonly used insecticide, Sniper.

    The students demanded that all their mattresses be replaced, the fittings removed and the hostels fumigated. All in seven days. But Deputy Registrar Olagoke Oke absolved the management from any blame, saying: “Are we supposed to be telling university students to wash their clothes and clean their rooms? The students need to take care of themselves, otherwise, no amount of fumigation would eradicate the bedbugs.”

    This bedbug protest  raised many questions. Is a bedbug bite strong enough to send a sleeping adult screaming? Is it more painful than a mosquito bite? If Sniper can’t keep the pesky pests in check, which insecticide can do the job? How about that for a research? Will UNILAG fund an academic giant’s intellectual probe of these matters of bedbugs, mosquitoes and old mattresses as their breeding grounds? Wouldn’t that be some groundbreaking exertion for a foremost centre of learning?

    To many social scientists, the big bedbugs tearing away at the heart of our nation are security and economic challenges. As a corollary of these are unemployment, decaying infrastructure and corruption, which have made Nigeria, the black man’s hope, a mystifying paradox of a country.

    We, however, have not lost it all. No. So, it is fitting and proper to wish ourselves a happy 55th independence anniversary. Cheers!

  • The list

    IN the beginning, there was no list, but we all knew that sooner than later, there will be one. Many thought that the list will be made public shortly after President Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration on May 29. But after the first two weeks and there was no list, they started wondering what was happening. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) especially cashed in on the non-release of the list to upbraid the government. To the party, the president is not ready for governance if he cannot release such a vital document within weeks of coming to office.

    In no time, those eagerly waiting for the list tagged the president Baba go slow. Was that an appropriate name for the president at that point in time? Is there anything in the book that says that the list must be released within a specific time? What is it about the list that makes heads turn at the mention of it? The list has always been something to look forward to at the coming of every administration because of its content. And speculations are usually rife in the media about those on the list.

    So far, Buhari has managed to keep the list or better still his list, that is what it is anyway, close to his chest. The media have done all they could to scoop the list, but no organisation seems to have succeeded. Some are already being seen as prospects, but the president has refused to give anything away. He seems to enjoy the Baba go slow tag because during his first visit to the United States (US), he told the Nigerian community about the appellation, saying : ‘’They are calling me Baba go slow, but I like to go slowly and steadily because slow and steady win the race’’.

    Why is the list a hot item? It is hot because it contains the names of would-be ministers – the men and women who will assist the president in running his government. Though he is constitutionally empowered to pick these ministers, he needs to play his political card well in doing so. This is the dilemma  our leaders face when it comes to making oppointments. In order to satisfy some political interests, the president must carry his party and its leadership along in order not to rock the boat.

    But for a government, which is championing change, the Buhari administration cannot afford to do things the way they were done by past governments. If it does, where then is the much-talked about change? This, it appears, is why Buhari has been extremely careful in releasing the list. He would not want to be associated with people without character, that is men and women with dark past. If such people should find their way into his cabinet, the list will be dead on arrival because of the way Nigerians will receive it.

    They will dismiss the list out of hand and such an image will not be good for the Buhari administration. The president knows his compatriots too well and he is doing everything to sustain their trust. The president knows that he cannot afford to betray this trust which earned him victory at the March poll. The list! the list!! the list!!! Well, the long wait for it may have been over by the time you read this piece. The president told us that he will release the list by September 30, which was yesterday. On Tuesday night in New York, he gave an insight into what to expect. He said he would hold the Petroleum portfolio. If the presdient keeps his word, you are likely to have read about those who made the list on the front page of this paper today.

    With the release of the list, the questions that may arise are: was he fair in his selection? Did he reflect federal character? Did he satisfy constitutional provision? As we await the Senate’s screening of the would-be ministers, our prayer is that may they be men and women, who will have the love of their country and compatriots at heart.

    Ah! we can now take a breather with the release of the list.

      Nigeria at 55

    Today Nigeria turns 55 having attained Independence on October 1, 1960. As a nation, we are older than 55. Nigeria has been in existence long before it attained Independence from its British colonial masters. We may not have shot a gun to gain independence, but we have gone through a lot since 1960. Shortly after independence, we fought a civil war in which no fewer than one million people died. Thousands were maimed. Independent Nigeria has not had it good. Over 120 million  of its 170 million population are living in abject poverty. Graduates are roaming the streets without job, while top government officials are going about with fat tummies. Our leaders’ lifestyle is sickening. It is a recipe for a revolution, but for the docility of the people.

    This is the first Independence anniversary to be celebrated by the Buhari administration, but the president is no stranger to the rot in our society having held office as military head of state between January 1984 and August 1985. So, President Muhammadu Buhari knows where Nigeria is hurting. Our country is haemorrhaging from the official misconduct of our leaders, who are interested more in their own pockets than in making Nigeria great. Leadership has been our problem. We have not been blessed with leaders with the love of the nation at heart. This is why at 55, we are still crawling. If Nigeria were to be a child, I am sorry to say, its parents would have been forced to do something terrible about it. If a child at 55 cannot walk, when will it do so? At 60? 70? 100?

    Buhari has been given a chance to turn things round and all eyes are on him to see whether he will deliver. He has so far shown that he knows that the country is in deep mess. It is good that he knows, but it will be better if he corrects things. The people see him as a goodly and godly man, who is not corrupt, an attribute, which aided his election into office. In just three months, we have seen what can be done if a good man is in office. But Buhari needs to sustain the tempo. Will politicians allow him to sanitise the country in a way that will accelerate its growth into the club of elite nations? Many will agree that the president has started well, but it is the end that matters. There should be no hiding place for those who do not mean well for the country. At 55, we should be proud to say that things are working in our country – stable power supply, a functional real sector to drive the economy, availability of fuel all-year round, a thriving middle class, jobs for the teeming young population and wealth creation opportunities, among others. We have the resources to put all these in place, but unfortunately a few people have cornered our common wealth at the expense of millions of others. Is that how to be the giant of Africa? Look at what is happening in South Africa, a country which broke the apartheid yoke off its neck about 25 years ago, and you will weep for our country. Mr President, to make Nigeria great is a task that must be accomplished, no matter what it will cost.

  • Nigerian Diasporas families

    Since 1995 I have had to visit my children abroad and in recent times and as my children got married and settled down the urge to visit them has become almost a family imperative. Everybody in their old age likes to bond with their children and grandchildren. What I am describing has become almost a common experience of people of my generation. Some of us are lucky to have their children living and working in Nigeria but others including myself are not so lucky. In the past, living abroad was seen as being most desirable or admirable and those having children living and working abroad were celebrated. Of course there are things to say for living abroad such as financial stability for those who are highly educated and who have jobs to do. Currencies do not lose value as our own. I remember the 1970s when our naira was at par with the pound sterling and was almost two dollars to a naira. The naira today is in downward spiral of 260 to a dollar. There is relative physical security abroad. The standard of life, good transportation, education and health infrastructure are much better than what we have in Nigeria. We can also humor and cajole ourselves by saying we are in a global village where ideally there should be mobility of labour and free movement. But there are several consequences of moving from one’s native country and moving abroad. The obvious one is for a black person becoming part of a visible minority in a white, brown or yellow country. I include yellow and brown countries since our people are no longer restricted to Europe and the Americas but increasingly go to countries in Asia particularly India and China even if on a small scale. There is obvious discrimination against so-called people of colour as they say in the West. A black person would have to work harder and perhaps be more qualified than a white person to attract the same attention and consideration. When a highly qualified African applies for a job sometimes he or she is told that he or she should not contribute to the brain drain from his or her country, thus an act of racism is couched as an act of concern for development in poor countries forgetting that everybody has one life and should be able to live that life to the fullest wherever he or she chooses to live.

    Of course those who argue like this have a point in that people with highly needed skills should be encouraged to stay and foster the development of their underdeveloped countries. But what is usually forgotten is that the corrupt political leaders of our country make it impossible for people to function optimally thus leading to frustration and in some cases depression and even mental breakdown.

    On a macro national level we are told Nigerians abroad send about $20 billion home every year. This is second to our earning from oil which is greatly endangered in these days of oil selling at $40 a barrel. No one can be categorical on the size of Nigeria’s diaspora. But it seems we may have about a quarter of a million in the UK and perhaps over a million in the USA and Canada. Some have foolishly suggested we may have up to 10 million in the Sudan. I disagree with this  estimate. The so-called fellata in the Sudan were migrants from West Africa either left behind on the way to or from the hajj or those West Africans who went to work in the cotton fields of the gezira scheme. They are now Sudanese and have cut their ties with their ancestral homes and hardly send money which they obviously do not have to Nigeria.

    On a micro level of individuals and particularly me, it is not very easy for me to get along with a situation where all my children are living abroad. I am sure many Nigerians will glibly say they will like to have the kind of problem that I have. I know some of our people in Edo and Delta states have had to sell their homes to send their female children into prostitution in Italy or to the Gulf states in the Middle East. I do not know why the incidence of this type of trafficking is pronounced in these two states but that is the truth and reality. Of course I sympathize with them and their parents. No one having seen these young people on the highways and city streets in Italy, will not be overwhelmed by this tragedy. Thank God my children do not belong to this category of Nigerians in diaspora. I suppose this digression is a different kettle of fish.

    In my case I have to travel thousands of miles annually to see my children and their families at considerable cost to me physically and financially. I may be able to handle this but the fact that my children are all married to foreigners make my situation a bit difficult. I have no in-laws in Nigeria that I can socialize with. I have also not received the traditional gifts of yams and prostrations from the parents of my sons in law! My Igbo friends would have demanded the cost of educating their daughters from kindergarten to university from their prospective in-laws! There is also the fact that my grandchildren, sons-in-law and daughter-in-law operate on a totally different cultural level from mine. God knows of course that I have been exposed to western culture as a student and assistant professor within western educational milieu and I have had the honour to represent my country one way or the other at very high levels in the West thus bringing my living in the West cumulatively to 15 years but I remain an African essentially. My children unfortunately now share more with people in the West than they have with Africans. My children and their spouses all work making it impossible when visiting to be catered for appropriately. My daughter- in-law does not know how to cook and does not cook at all and unless my son cooks then I will either eat bread, cereals or bland food from restaurants.  I have never complained and I really have no right to do so. I am a long-suffering civilized old man. My daughters do the best they can but combining the care of a visiting old father with work is also not easy. I am not sure the situation would have been different if my children were married to Nigerians abroad. The situation would only have changed if my children were married to Nigerians living and working in Nigeria.

    As one grows older it may become increasingly difficult for me and people like me to annually travel thousands of miles to visit our families abroad. In spite of what our children consider as unsafe Nigerian environment, they will have to be visiting their old folks at home. I hope from what I have said above it will become clear that while in favour of global freedom of movement, it is not the best thing for families to be split by wide and long distances. I am usually aghast at Africans taking great risks to get to Europe and America and to stay anywhere but home! Foreign countries are not what they are cracked up to be. One is happier at home than abroad. The extended family network can come in as a cushion against hard times as well as support in times of difficulties. When I am abroad I always like the anonymity but hate the feeling that I am perceived as just another Black man on the road needing white sympathy. I do not know how my colleagues relate to their grandchildren in Nigeria but in my case I cannot discipline my smart alec grandchildren who are totally disconnected from my culture.

    But on the whole it is still a good world but can be better if my children and their children were a telephone call away from me. I have been with my children in the last few weeks but as we have always related to each other on the basis of candour and honesty my children particularly Fola will not be surprised by my views since I have always opened up to her and my views should not be considered as a criticism of my present family reality. In fact I have been blessed by wonderful sons-in-laws namely James, Owen, Ralph and my adorable daughter-in-law Heather and my brilliant grandchildren Finn, Morenike, Abiodun and those still expected.

  • Pope Francis’ America crusade and Nigeria

    It was the humble submission of this column last week that if slavery, through which Africa was first integrated into the world economy succeeded in its set objectives of ‘controlling  life, liberty and fortunes’ of conquered territories,  globalization which confers legitimacy on European neo-liberals political leaders’ use of instrumentalities of multinational corporations, international economic organisations  and International Financial institutions to increase  the gap between the rich and poor nations of the world from 9-1 at the end of slavery in the 1870s  to 60-1 today, is a worse form of slavery.

    Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General not too long ago described this development as ‘an affront to our common humanity’. Unable to fulfil his campaign promises to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor as a result of resistance by his republican neo-liberal apostles of globalization, frustrated President Obama reminded his political opponents that he was sure the war of independence by American founding fathers was not fought to replace the tyranny of kings with that of a few wealthy Republicans who have cornered more than their own share of America’s resources.

    Last week, Pope Francis seized the opportunity of his official visit to the US to add his moral voice to this debate by pointing out the evils of globalization.  He started the crusade in the American Congress, known for serving only interest groups. There, he told the politicians that ‘the chief aim of politics is to defend and preserve the dignity of (their) fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good’. He pointed out to them the evil of ‘plundering of the natural resources of poor countries who have no legal means to fight back’. He condemned the “all-powerful elite” whose ‘selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged,”

    He carried the crusade, on behalf of the poor and the deprived, from Washington seat of power, to the Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where he reminded American neo-liberals of the American founding fathers’ assertion “that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”, and that governments exist to protect and defend those rights. He reminded temporary custodians of power in America that most Americans are immigrants who at one point or the other faced resistance from the earlier settlers. While admonishing the 30million plus Latin American immigrants, ‘never to be ashamed of (their) traditions’, he reminded them of their obligations to their host community.

    And finally, Pope Francis says religious freedom is ‘the right to worship God, individually and in community, as our consciences dictate.’ This according to him is a ‘fundamental right which shapes the way we interact socially and personally with our neighbours whose religious views differ from our own’.

    Although Pope Francis’ Eclicical Laudate Si”, on climate change and his crusade against globalization are directed against the US, the greatest abuser of the environment  and major beneficiary of the enslavement of the less developed nations through globalization, his message as the leader of a universal church has a universal appeal. For instance, it was as if his crusade during the visit was about Nigeria’s national question or our crisis of nationhood.

    Let us start from the last. Nigeria political leaders, more than American leaders, need lessons in religion tolerance. Whether it was the failed attempt by some selfish Yoruba leaders to create social disharmony by exploiting religious differences during the last Osun gubernatorial election or some self-serving Igbo leaders who fraudulently claimed Buhari was going to islamise Nigeria, politicians who had nothing to offer the underprivileged who look up to them for direction, were at the background. In the north, self-serving politicians have since the death of Ahmadu Bello in 1966 exploited religious sentiments to further impoverish the northern poor. Suddenly an area celebrated as ‘one north, one people’ degenerated into a turmoil of religious conflicts with Muslims torching churches and killing their Christians brothers in Kano, Kaduna and other parts of the north.

    The current battle against Boko Haram insurgency was not totally unconnected with the ‘political sharia’ introduced by northern governors who also between 1999 and 2003 sponsored scores of northern youths to Sudan for spiritual development. Many of them became radicalized after encounter with Osama Laden who at the period had his Al-Qaeda headquarters in Sudan.

    When Pope Pius sermonised about an ‘all-powerful elite that hoards wealth and resources’ and whose ‘selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged’, it was as if he had PDP leaders, dealers and wheelers that have held the nation down for 16 years in mind.

    When Pope Francis reminded American lawmakers of the reasons why they are in politics, one cannot resist the temptation to assume he had Nigerian political leaders like Dr Bukola Saraki who traded off the victory of his party because he wanted to be senate president or Ekweremadu who after being a two-term deputy senate president could not resist the temptation to usurp the position that by convention belongs to the ruling party.

    Of course there are many others who will benefit from Pope Francis’ counselling on politics as a noble calling. Some of such political leaders include personalities like Lucky Igbinedion who was accused by EFCC of embezzling N19billion, Dr. Bukola Saraki who was before his current travails dragged to court for alleged embezzlement of N90billion, Orji Uzor Kalu, former Governor of Abia State, accused by EFCC of diverting N5billion state funds to his Slok Airlines, Rev Jolly Nyame accused back in 2007 of embezzling N1.3billion, Samiu Turaki, former Jigawa State Governor docked over allegation of a theft of N36billion. Others include Boni Haruna, a former Adamawa State governor accused of a theft of  N16million and Gbenga Daniel, Ayo Fayose, Princess Oduah and others who still have pending cases in various courts. (Joseph Jibueze, The Nation, September 25.) . While some have been acquitted, some discharged after a pat on the wrist and some still having dates in courts, nearly all of them are however back in politics either as governors, senators or party leaders.

    And finally besides Pope Francis’ sermon on the ‘pursuit of the common good’ and  the evil of ‘plundering of the natural resources of the poor, Nigerians will also benefit from his sermon about the commitment of immigrants to their host communities. This is one problem that has not been properly articulated by our successive political leaders.  Our crisis of nationhood is compounded  when a bunch of criminals as cattle farmers engage in mindless killings of members of their host communities as we have in the Middle-belt states or the kidnapping of respected local leader and an elder statesman  from his farm as experienced by Chief Olu Falae in Ondo last week.

  • Expensive folly

    • (Ignorant youth, motivational speakers, youth leaders…con-artists)

    Like captives, our youth are shackled by webs of ‘brilliant’ arguments. They are smitten by random sound bites and quotations by professional ‘life coaches’ and ‘motivational speakers.’ It doesn’t matter that anecdotes they retail are not much expression than sound.

    It doesn’t matter that characters by whom they are spellbound, are ultimately foetal-adults with no honest livelihood and relatable experience to their name. Young, fresh graduates and undergraduates; rich, spoilt brats without the least anecdotal work and life experiences mount the podium at random, hawking clichés and mesmerizing sound bites to teach clueless, idle youth to tread paths even they would rather not tread. Sublime, isn’t it?

    It is our tragedy today that Nigeria parades ‘promising’ youth with the heart of a lion and wit of a hyena. It’s our tragedy that our youth talk the talk of champions and walk the walk of cowards.

    A simple lust remains our woe. Now more than ever, we are desperate to harvest sugarcane where we planted thistle. That is why we become easy prey for rampaging motivators to rip off.

    Their talk is of ‘seed.’ Bet their unfortunate, middling, ignorant audiences do not know that every session they attend, they plant no seed; rather they present as fertile earth for their crafty motivators and ‘youth leaders’ to sow in and reap from.

    Let us not dwell on their usual fallacies; there are no universal solutions and approaches to life that are practicable by all and applicable to all. Peculiar problems beget peculiar solutions. Individual remedies lie in the hands of individual man. They are usually relative and self-taught, as different circumstances dictate.

    Which is why, I maintain that our ‘motivational speakers’ and ‘youth leaders’ are fraudsters – particularly the child-adults role-playing wise adults. What is it that gets to you? Their clean-cut suits or passionately belted pick-me-ups, and psycho-babble they steal from more reputable frauds or reliable role-models every day?

    Today, the Nigerian educational system fails: the western model and our indigenous, religious, cultural models inclusive. The evidence abounds in the quality of our middling youth. Were we as promising as we are deemed to be, we would understand that the so-called regenerative words of Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Brian Tracy, Stephen Covey would sound just as lame springing from the lips of the lazy, scheming brats parading themselves as Nigeria’s array of “upward, mobile, promising youth leaders and motivational speakers.”

    Were you as intelligent as you claim to be, you would understand that even Ziglar goofed when he said that “Success is dependent on the glands – sweat glands,” for success hardly depends primarily, on hard work. There are other essentials including attitude, perseverance, doing what you love and loving what you do. After all, a person may be a passionate artist, and be successful – just because he loves what he does, nothing feels like “work,” let alone, hard work.

    You see, motivational phrases that are based on one person’s experience don’t really work for the vast majority of people – successful or not. At least, you could quote the likes of Ziglar, Covey et al. You could hardly glean appreciable anecdotes from Nigeria’s band of ‘motivational speakers.’

    It’s about time you saw them for the fraud they have become – for what promising youth  in their prime would abandon medicine, law, journalism, education, engineering for ‘motivational speaking’ even before they earned their first keep?

    It’s the lazy, fraudulent type that does that. It’s the scheming, greedy kind that does that. True motivation, wherever it is truly given, requires neither a fee nor payment of any kind from the recipient. It need not be seen as a money-making venture.

    The giver, is at best, honest and iconic; an indisputable champion and veteran in whatever discipline he is practiced. He inspires the youth and elderly alike without being aware or having to force it. And many of such role-models would neither hawk nor vend any magic formula to attaining success or self-actualisation.

    The best they could do is to share the adventures of their souls in the stormy and pliant realities called, ‘life.’ And the best you could do is to excite by their fortitude and faith in the universe’s steadiness in process of retribution and rewards, as determined by individual human’s endeavors and contributions to the global enterprise.

    There are no top 10 secrets to getting rich. Once you’ve solved your current problems, you’ll be rewarded with a whole new set of harder problems. There is no free lunch. No psychic to tell you the winning lottery numbers.

    That book you read? Well, that’s just some narcissist’s story that had to be embellished a bit so that you might be excited to buy it. There are no easy answers.

    This is the cold hard truth that you’d pay to avoid. Covey and Tracy et al may not be frauds but Nigeria’s increasing band of psycho-babblers constitute the worst form of fraud. The reason why these foetal-adults and lazybones thrive is because there is a strong demand from an audience desperate for the illusion they sell. You.

    The truth is otherwise too painful, and no one wants to pay good money for it – they are already living it. That is why they fake escape from it. Do you too? Remember, there is no luxuriant path to success. The lanes are strewn with hindrances and so on.

    You are a fraud if you are more interested in getting ahead than doing what is right – like following the slow, steady path of honest industry to progress or something like it. Bet this is where you get to say: “Keep spewing rant and whatnots, those young girls and boys are smiling to the bank every second.”

    Well, what can I say; the universe always corrects every imbalance and deceitfulness to its equilibrium. That is why those thriving, scheming ‘youth leaders’ and ‘life-coaches’ you see in Nigeria today, could fall into irrelevance, bankruptcy and disrepute tomorrow by a subtle twist of fate.

    It’s about time you lived life by your own terms. It’s about time you repossessed that quiet confidence and steadfast belief in your innate ability to confront and solve challenges as they arise. You need no master plan or magic formula–just a general direction in which to proceed, content that confronting some bit of vicissitude in the road less traveled might better allow your inimitable aptitude to flourish.

    You need not the heart of a lion and the wit of a hyena to navigate the shoals of objective reality and perceptual delusions. You could try the slow, steady path.  Or you could seek direction by serving as sound-boxes for the emptiness and fraud your favourite ‘motivational speakers’ perpetuate. If you choose the latter path, knowing that having attempted every perfect formula you pay them to oblige you, you will find suddenly, that obvious yet ignored pointer to the path you ought to have traveled.

    Then you will realize how dismal your life has become. You will find you have squandered your youth on impotent saws and debilitating sound bites. You will find you have avoided harsh, unalterable reality for the love of pick-me-ups and sugar-coated shortcuts, only to encounter it in its most vindictive temper in your twilight.

  • Some lessons from other people’s history

    I wrote this article last Friday, September 18, for another purpose. That was three days before Chief Olu Falae was attacked and kidnapped on his farm by persons suspected by police to be Fulani cattle herders. Written before the unthinkable outrage against Chief Falae, this article proves surprisingly prophetic.

    The country named Yugoslavia in southeastern Europe broke up in 1990. While it existed, it was similar to Nigeria of today in many ways. Like Nigeria, Yugoslavia consisted of many different nationalities – the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Albanians, etc. Britain had thoughtlessly pushed many nationalities together to create Nigeria in 1914; Britain and France also thoughtlessly pushed many nationalities together to create Yugoslavia in 1918.

    Like Nigerian leaders, Yugoslav leaders were never able to manage their inter-ethnic relationships amicably. Like Nigeria therefore, Yugoslavia was always unstable. Under a dictator, Josip Tito, in 1945 to 1980, Yugoslavia’s ethnic hostilities were forcibly kept under control. But after Tito died in 1980, the instability returned in full force.

    Most of Yugoslavia’s ethnic leaders did try to save the country. Throughout the 1980s, they held national conferences to find a settlement. But the Serbs (the largest of the nationalities) foiled all the attempts – because the Serbs would not accept any agreement that did not guarantee their dominance. The country slipped on – until it exploded in 1990.

    The final break-up started when some of the nationalities announced secession. The Serbs mobilized a large army and tried to suppress them, but more nationalities announced secession. Yugoslavia descended into a horrendous conflagration.

    We must now note the particular experience of one of the nationalities – Bosnia. While the other nationalities had attended to their own homelands in the 1980s, the Bosnian nation had been very careless about its own homeland and its future – just as the Yoruba are today in Nigeria. Like Yorubaland in Nigeria, Bosnia had attracted many immigrants from the other nationalities of Yugoslavia, as traders, job seekers, and settlers. The leaders of the Bosnian people had paid no attention to that development. Just as the Yoruba are doing today, the Bosnians had let the immigrants do as they wished. Bosnian politicians gave all their attention to Yugoslavian politics and did nothing as troubles openly brewed in their own homeland – exactly as Yoruba leaders are doing now in Nigeria.

    When the Yugoslav conflagration finally came in 1990, and Bosnia announced secession like the other nationalities, the Bosnians immediately found themselves in hell – real hell. Some of the immigrant groups claimed parts of Bosnia as theirs, and tried to create small countries of their own in such places; and armed groups came from their homelands to help them. Serbian armies also came to suppress Bosnia’s secession. In the confusion, Bosnian people were killed in their tens of thousands, and their women were raped and killed. Bosnian towns and cities were devastated. This horror continued until NATO and the United States mercifully intervened, stopped the carnage and destruction, and helped Bosnians to have their country.

    Yes, the Bosnians did get their country. In addition, many of the persons who had brutalized them during the secession confusions were later arrested by international authorities, hauled before the International Court of Justice, tried, and harshly penalized. But the Bosnians are still living with the scars and the painful memories of their horrific suffering, and they will live with such forever. Had Bosnian leaders been more dutiful to their nation instead of expending all their energy in partisan political wrangling in the 1980s, Bosnians would never have suffered as horribly as this.

    The lesson here is clear. When different nationalities, each living in its own homeland, different in culture and religion, are forced together into one country, dark forces of rivalry, envy, fear, ill-will, hatred and domination can sometimes be generated in the hearts of some of the nationalities against others. That is what happened in Yugoslavia. It has happened in many Black African countries too. It is the duty of the leaders of each nationality to ensure that their people are not left unprotected.

    Signs of these dark forces are manifest in Nigeria. Sure, Nigeria enjoys some fragile peace. Many Nigerians desire that Nigeria should become a harmonious and peaceful country and thereby exist for long as one country. However, for that to happen, Nigeria would need to be structured into a proper and well-ordered federation – with all of today’s over-centralization eliminated.

    Much will also depend on how much Nigerian nationalities respect one another. Those who migrate to other peoples’ homelands and choose to be disrespectful of their hosts, and to indulge in aggressive and unruly claims and behavior against their hosts, and those who seek to dominate others, must know that they are essentially making Nigeria impossible to keep together.

    Also, very importantly, each Nigerian nationality owes the duty of making inter-ethnic relationships in its own homeland orderly and healthy. Nearly all Nigerians relocating from their homelands today are heading to Yorubaland and, already, the coming of many of them is disorderly and unhealthy. Yoruba leaders need therefore to remember the experiences of the Bosnians. Like the Bosnian leaders, today’s Yoruba leaders may be preparing the grounds for the suffering of Yoruba people too. These Yoruba leaders may also be unknowingly strengthening the forces that can break up Nigeria – since it is impossible that the masses of common Yoruba people will forever tolerate being insulted and trampled underfoot, no matter how much Yoruba leaders may be committed to Nigeria.

    Hospitality to strangers is a well-established icon of Yoruba culture. Moreover, welcoming people from other lands is something that can add greatly to prosperity in Yorubaland over time.  However, the large-scale immigration into Yorubaland today creates many serious problems – problems that Yoruba people, Yoruba leaders, and especially Yoruba governors and legislatures, need to find answers to.  Yoruba leaders should establish some modicum of unity in their own ranks, at least for the purpose of facing these serious problems together. The six governors of the Yoruba South-west, and the six legislatures, should establish ways to put heads together to find and implement answers to these problems.

    The problems are many and complex, but they as soluble. The leading problem is that Yorubaland is not generating enough economic development, and enough jobs, for its burgeoning population. Among the Yoruba people themselves, in spite of their solid education, enough businesses are not being created – because the governments are not developing their people. As a result, most educated Yoruba youths are unemployed, and most of the immigrants are unemployed too. Huge numbers of the immigrants struggling for survival, as well as many of the Yoruba youths, take to petty peddling on the streets, which is a classic example of “under-employment”.  In their frenetic hurrying around, they make the main streets of most Yoruba cities look like trash-dumps churned by whirlwinds.

    The state governments must arise to this situation. Obviously, what the governments need to do is to create programmes of human development – improved basic education, job-skill development, entrepreneurial development, small business promotion, modern farm programmes, and well-managed micro-credit systems, for all (indigenes and immigrants alike). The objective must be to achieve the purpose of the old Yoruba adage – “that the owners of the home and the strangers in the home may all have plenty to eat”. That “plenty” must also include housing space – meaning that public authorities must aggressively build housing estates.

    Another problem is the serious shortage of shopping centres in Yoruba towns. The old marketplaces are still there, but more shopping centres and malls are urgently needed. Also needed are proper licensing of traders and stores, introduction of sales tax, and prohibition of street peddling in designated residential zones of every city. Laws should also be made to prohibit the existence of exclusive “tribal” marketplaces or shopping centres, and to make all marketplaces and shopping centres the common property of the community, equally open to all. Provisions also need to be made for the proper observance of law in the commercial life of Yorubaland, as well as laws for the prohibition of ethnic-based, or other, monopolies or cartels.

    Yet another problem is that, though Nigeria’s laws vest the management of the land of every state in the state government, Yoruba states have evolved no land policies and no land transfer systems. Therefore, land acquisition and land transfer are occurring on a massively chaotic scale – obviously threatening indigenes and immigrants alike (and the whole society) with mightily confused land problems. These need to be corrected.

    Yet another serious problem is that, in many rural areas, migrant Fulani cattle herders from across the Niger, pushed south by drought, and by attacks by cattle rustlers, are increasingly clashing with Yoruba farmers on their farms, and becoming more dangerously armed and more aggressive  – resulting in serious harm to farmers and cattle herders alike. Yoruba leaders and governments must find sensible and sustainable answers to this situation.

    There are more problems, but we will stop here. Altogether, the impression must be eliminated that the Yoruba homeland is a “no-man’s-land”, a land without rules or order or leadership, where people from other parts of Nigeria can do as they wish. The core need is that Yoruba leaders and state governments must urgently rise up to their duties of ensuring orderly progress in their homeland.

  • Emerging political leadership in the western world

    The recent election on September 12, of 66 year old Jeremy Corbyn as the new leader of the British Labour Party has made many people to take critical look at emerging trend in western democracy and its leadership generally. Jeremy Corbyn has been in parliament for 32 years representing Islington North, a borough of London. He studied in a London polytechnic and made a career for himself as a trade union organiser before being elected into the House of Commons. He is cast more in the image of a previous Labour leader Michael Foot, a member of the remarkable Foot family that included the famous lawyer, Sir Dingle Foot,  MP, and their brother Hugh Foot, Baron Caradon, Governor of Cyprus and later ambassador and permanent Representative of the UK at the UN and John Foot MP, later Lord Foot and their sisters Margaret and Elizabeth.

    Like Michael Foot, Jeremy Corbyn is a political iconoclast who never voted along party lines in parliament and disobeying party whips 500 times. Up till two months ago the man never even thought of contesting for leadership of the party until some friends nominated him to broaden the debate on leadership of the party. Ironically those who nominated him claim now that they did not vote for him. So what kind of man is Jeremy Corbyn? He appears to be an idealist who believes in global justice, peace and development. And at home in the UK, he would work for equality of opportunities, and strengthening of the welfare state so that nobody is left behind in the race of life. He feels there is too much inequality in the UK and that every Briton should have free access to higher education and affordable housing. He does not believe in the free market and he will roll back nationalization particularly of the railways and public transportation and will ask the Bank of England to print money to reflate the economy rather than follow the austerity programme of the Tories which Corbyn claims has impoverished the Britons particularly the poor people. He is saying everything that reasonable people can associate with but when he says he will remove British nuclear deterrent by abolishing the Trident and withdraw from NATO, people who are willing to tolerate his idealistic socialist programmes begin to get worried that he may be risking the security of Great Britain.

    The reality now is that Corbyn has been elected and he won in all the critical groups of the unions and affiliated members, regular members, and new members who have recently paid to join the party. The parliamentary party apparently distanced itself from him but any attempt to remove him will destroy the party because 59.5 percent of registered members voted for him. The question now is can this unconventional politician lead Labour to victory in 2020 when the next election is due? The answer is in the air. Many pundits feel Labour has signed its death warrant by electing Corbyn. This is the feeling of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown two former Labour leaders and prime ministers of the UK. But others feel Jeremy Corbyn has energized the politics of Britain to the extent that young people who were disinterested in politics are now flocking to the banners of the Labour Party. If this is true then the emergence of the new Labour Party leader may usher in a new trend in the politics of Europe where the typical lying politicians are shunted off and replaced with politicians who are honest, truthful and authentic and not those telling the people what is apparently palatable for the moment.

    Unlike in the UK, the outsider who wants to lead the Republican Party and become president of the USA is Donald Trump a loud-mouth billionaire who is saying the wrong things and yet is riding very high in the polls. His solution to illegal immigration through Mexico is to build a high wall running for thousands of miles across the southern border of the USA with Mexico and somehow make the Mexican government pay for it. His solution to the ISIS insurgency is seizing the oil wells in Iraq to deprive the caliphate source of income. He would also force Japan and China to buy as much from the USA as the USA buys from the two countries. As for Putin’s  Russia, Trump will build up the United States armed forces that  the whole world would be trembling before it and even Putin, the Ayatollah Khamenei or anyone else will not mess with the USA again. There is of course Bernie Sanders who has declared himself a socialist running against Hilary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination. He is attracting a lot of crowd of people but it is probably out of curiosity for the elderly man who has committed suicide by declaring himself a socialist in the USA where socialism is like original sin.

    Compared with what is happening in the UK, the American situation is not only pathetic but laughable. One hopes a man like Trump or any one like him will not become president of the USA with his hand on the nuclear button. We have seen this before in 1965 when the Republican Party nominated Barry Goldwater, a rabid Cold War warrior who said extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice and moderation in the defence of freedom is no virtue and threatened to use American nuclear arsenal to overawe American enemies. The Americans rightly voted against him by electing Lyndon Baines Johnson.

    The point that comes to my mind is the general decline in the quality of political leadership in the West generally particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world including even Germany where Angela Merkel does not really inspire much enthusiasm thus the grand coalition between the Social Democratic Party and her own Christian Democratic Union/Christian Socialist Union ruling Germany in a grand coalition without a party in opposition.

    For me these people hardly compare with people like John F. Kennedy, General Charles de Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, Nikita Khrushchev, Harold Wilson, Chou En-lai, Mao Zedong, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Ahmed Sukarno, Josip Broz Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Sekou Toure , Abubakar Tafawa Balewa , Jomo Kenyatta and Julius Nyerere to mention a few. I may be a bit nostalgic but it is difficult for me to accept the current leaders are on the same pedestal as those of yester years.