The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Proposals for reduction of diplomatic missions

    Proposals for reduction of diplomatic missions

    One of the main challenges facing President Muhammadu Buhari is the urgent need to reduce the overall cost of public administration in the country. This has soared over the years. There is a national consensus that the bureaucracy at all levels of government has become too large and that a reduction in its size and cost has become imperative. The current sharp decline in oil revenues, which have fallen this year alone by over 60 per cent, leaves the governments of the federation with no choice but to begin to think seriously about how these much needed cuts in the cost of public administration can be achieved. President Buhari is well aware of this challenge and has alluded to it publicly several times. But he has not yet taken any practical or concrete steps to address this lingering problem. It is a difficult and painful task, which requires great care and circumspection, particularly at a time of mass unemployment.

    However, there were recent media reports that while being briefed by the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Lulu, President Buhari expressed his concern about the large number of Nigeria’s diplomatic missions abroad, and the huge number of its overall diplomatic workers.  Ambassador Lulu told the press that the President informed him that he intended doing something to reduce the number of our foreign missions. It is also possible that the overall staffing of the Foreign Ministry itself will form part of the review being proposed.

    There is no doubt that the number of Nigerian diplomatic missions abroad has increased significantly in recent years. At independence in 1960, Nigeria had less than a dozen diplomatic missions, mainly in Africa and Western Europe. In 1964, when I entered the diplomatic service, this had increased to about 30, in response to the need to have diplomatic representation in the newly independent African countries. By 1976 the number of our diplomatic missions had increased to 65. The civil war had ended and the need was felt for more missions to be opened abroad. From 1970 to 1976, over 100 new Foreign Service Officers (FSO) were recruited to staff both the expanded Foreign Ministry and the new diplomatic missions abroad. There was also a surge in oil revenues that made the increase in the number of missions and diplomatic workers possible and sustainable.

    Today, we have 119 diplomatic missions abroad and it is becoming increasingly clear that in our present dire financial situation, it is going to be difficult to sustain such a large number of diplomatic missions and workers. In 1964, the overall cost of our total diplomatic establishment, at home and abroad, was only 33 million pounds sterling. Since then, the cost of running both the MFA and our diplomatic missions has continued to rise inexorably. According to an official document issued by the MFA in 2012, by 2006, the total MFA budget appropriation was N25.2b, of which over N20.2b, or 81 per cent, was spent on running our foreign missions. In 2011, budget appropriation for the MFA had increased to over N40b, with our foreign missions still accounting for over 81 per cent of the overall cost. This is where the major operating cost of the MFA is incurred. Average personnel cost of the MFA is less than N4b. Huge as these figures may appear to be, they account for an average of only one per cent of the total federal budget. In fact, it was only in 2007 that budgetary allocations to the Foreign Service reached 1.34 per cent of the budget of the Federal Government.

    Two issues arise from this analysis. First, is the state spending more on its foreign representation than other public agencies? Relative to other agencies of the Federal Government, can we really say that the cost of running the Foreign Service, with its enormous global responsibilities, is too much. It is by no means clear that is the case, except that most of the cost incurred in running the Foreign Service and our diplomatic missions abroad is in foreign currencies. It is this that leads the public and the government to demand a reduction in appropriations to the MFA.  For example, defence and national security take an average of 10 per cent of the budget annually, education about seven  per cent, home administration over 12 per cent. So in real and comparative terms, the overall cost to the nation of its Foreign Service is not as high as it seems. The second issue regarding costs is where the cuts, if necessary, are to be made. Is it in the cost of personnel or the number and size of our diplomatic missions abroad? I raise these questions because previous efforts to cut the cost of running the Foreign Service have on the whole focused on the senior staff of the MFA rather than on the large number of our foreign missions, which account for over 80 per cent of the overall cost of running the Foreign Service. As a matter of fact, in 1976 and 1984 when there were purges in the Foreign Service, more diplomatic missions were opened after. This showed that the purges were political and not motivated by any demonstrable need for cost reduction. Only a few years ago, a new diplomatic mission was opened in Juba, South Sudan, and our embassies in Caracas, Belgrade, the Vatican and Prague, which had been previously closed, were all reopened. Even the MFA complained officially about these inconsistencies in the manner our missions are opened, only to be closed later for lack of funding.

    The fact of the matter, often ignored by the government and the public, is that some of Nigeria’s diplomatic missions were opened to accommodate failed politicians and hacks who demand diplomatic postings as compensation from the government. Of Nigeria’s 119 diplomatic missions, about 60 have non-career ambassadors. But only a handful can be said to have what it takes to be a good ambassador. Many of them go abroad to serve themselves and not the nation. A few years ago when I visited Argentina and called on our embassy in Buenos Aires, I met a junior staff there who told me the Ambassador had been absent from his post for over three months. Again when I served in Ankara, Turkey, in 1975, with concurrent accreditation to Iran, I could not understand the reason for having our diplomatic mission in Ankara at the time. Subsequently, I learnt that the two missions were opened to accommodate Brigadier Kurubo. When I went to Teheran, I discovered that Kurubo was not even known in the Foreign Ministry. Our Mission in Teheran was being run by a junior attaché who had not been paid for six months. I duly recommended that one of the two embassies be closed as our residual interest there in those days did not warrant us opening full-fledged embassies there. In fact, I requested a posting back to Lagos after only a year in Ankara.

    Many critics of our foreign representation have pointed out to the lack of resources in running our missions abroad. This is, in fact, the critical issue. For lack of funds most of our missions cannot be run properly and professionally. The Foreign Service is costly and cannot be run on shoe strings as is the case now. For instance, the total MFA budget in 2009 was only US$306 million. South Africa’s budget was US $702 million. In 2010, while Nigeria’s Foreign Service budget fell to $232 million, South Africa’s was US$634. In 2012, our MFA budget was only US$317 million that of South Africa was US$720 million. Yet, South Africa’s GDP is only a third of Nigeria’s. As acknowledged by the MFA publication of 2012, ‘Our diplomatic missions continue to suffer needless and painful embarrassments arising from  disconnection of utility services, ejection of staff from rented apartments, ejection of children from schools for failure to pay school fees and arrears of salaries of the diplomatic and other staff’. In 1989, after verification, the Federal Government settled an accumulated debt of $100 in our diplomatic missions. In 2005, a similar exercise took place with the missions being bailed out again.

    It is up to the government to determine how many diplomatic missions our country should have. A preponderant number of these diplomatic missions are in Africa, our primary area of strategic and political interest. It will be difficult to close any of them. The number and size of our diplomatic missions should reflect the government’s foreign policy objectives and strategies. Nigeria’s global responsibilities and obligations have continued to increase. Yet, in our present challenging financial situation, with oil revenue falling steadily, and the  GDP growth rate projected to decline this year to roughly 2.5 per cent, it is obvious that something concrete and urgent must be done to reduce the cost of governance. As far as MFA is concerned, it is now inevitable, though regrettable, that the number of our foreign missions should be reduced. But it is going to be a difficult exercise. We have over 125 foreign diplomatic missions in Abuja. Exchange of embassies and ambassadors is reciprocal. Foreign countries from which we withdraw our embassies will not take kindly to it. They will almost certainly retaliate by closing their own diplomatic missions too.

  • Immigrants and Europe’s hypocrisy

    Overwhelmed by unprecedented number of immigrants from Syria Afghanistan,  Eritrea, Darfur, Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria, fleeing dictatorship, religious extremism and poverty, Europe, the wealthiest continent which made her fortunes through the sweat and blood of others across borders is now fighting to protect its own borders. Europe seems to have suddenly forgotten, the world was told sovereignty was dead a long time ago, that it is perfectly normal for the political and economic policies of new colonial states to be controlled offshore by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and World trade Organisation (WTO) and that the world has become a globalised stage where globalization their new god ‘guarantees free trade, (albeit of unequal partners) mobility of capital, technology, information and people. And now, all immigrants asylum seekers ask of European leader is that, in tandem with the tenets of the new god, they are allowed into Europe to sell their labour in a world we are told is borderless.

    Unfortunately, unable to face up with their demons, European leaders have suddenly become incoherent. With the exception of German Chancellor, Angela Merkel who recently warned that “if Europe fails in the question of refugees, its close connection  with universal civil rights will be destroyed”, others have been busy building border wall, barbed -wire fences, and dispersing migrants with tear-gas in total disregard of what globalization preaches. The authoritative Financial Times of London, an advocate of a borderless globalised world announced with undisguised regret the collapse of European borders. Britain, the greatest imperial power of our age which sadly falls behind all European countries including impoverished Greece in her response to the immigrant crisis, finding no more excuses for her ambivalence now says her problem is with African economic migrants, who according to Philip Hammond, the British foreign Secretary are “marauders who would soon hasten the collapse of European civilization”. She forgets European civilization is a product of the exploiter, the exploited, Africans, Asians, and Judaism, Ifa, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam. If Cameron and Hammond are in doubt, they should consult Prince Charles who in a recent interview admitted Islam contributed immensely to the European civilization.

    The past also seems to have been lost on European leaders. They forget their forebears outwitted the rest of the world preaching Christian virtues of ‘being our brothers keepers’ through Roman Catholic and protestant priests. Of close to a million asylum seekers in 2014, Europe accepted only 626,000. And with all the antics, the United Nations projection for Europe, the richest continent in 2016 is one million migrants. With the scale of human tragedy we daily witness on television, Amnesty International’s condemnation of European governments for “negligence towards the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean” and its warning that EU must not “turn its back on its responsibilities”, European leaders have continued to look for justification to preserve the fortunes immorally appropriated for themselves and their children.

    European fortune seekers hardly trade in morality. ‘What heart could be so hard, as not to be pierced by piteous feeling to see the other company?’ wrote Zurara, in ‘Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea’, during the slave raids of 15th century. But I think we can at least remind the prosperous western nations, their right wing parties  and some of their over-pampered children, described as ‘a disgrace to humanity’ by the German iron lady, of the source of ill-acquired wealth of Europe whose leaders in character today remain indifferent as 2,500 lives including the 1,200 deaths recorded from the boats which sank in the Mediterranean, the 71 migrants found dead in an unventilated food truck near Vienna on August 27, and the hundreds of  women and children drowned while making desperate efforts for new life in Europe.  Anti-immigrant Europeans hardly know that the wars and misery currently forcing people to flee European-created nation states of  Nigeria, Sudan, Kosovo, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and  Bangladesh are direct consequences of colonization and Europe’s self-serving policies in these ex-colonies.

    But how did we get to where we are? Basil Davidson has shown in some of his works that most parts of the world were at the same level of development until Europeans, forced out of their hostile environment where life was the survival of the fittest, in ‘Search for gold, God and Glory’ struck fortune through the exploitation of the wealth of other nations. Walter Rodney, killed by a bomb in his car at 38 has shown in his 1972 classic ‘How Europe underdeveloped Africa”, by building fortunes on the misfortunes of other nations.

    Before 1300 AD, it was almost inconceivable that Europe could conquer the world. But taking advantage of their discovery of gunpowder, military weapon and improvement on shipping, they effortlessly enslaved most parts of the world including Africa from where Europe between 1492 and 1870, shipped 10 million blacks to their plantations in America. Slavery which was the source of Europe’s wealth was later replaced with colonial rule, an ideology which presupposes ‘a superior, civilized and smarter group ruling a devious, lazy and immoral tribes’, with the help of Roman Catholic and protestant priests and Islamic clerics.  At the Berlin Conference of 1884, driven by economic and military interests, they divided Africa among European member states, by drawing ‘borders without consideration for pre-colonial ancient tribal boundaries and social history’, merging different cultural groups at different levels of cultural development. Spain took over the Philippines and Cuba; France: Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia while Britain took over most part of Asia, Burma, India, and Africa. Just as it was in slavery, the colonised new states produced cash crops and mined minerals as raw materials for European industries. Europeans determine the price to be paid for labour as well as the price the laborers paid for Europe’s processed goods.

    Following agitation for independence, they forced different groups at different levels of cultural development together even after admitting it was their presence alone that had ‘prevented a disastrous descent into turmoil of warring sects’. Nigeria with about 16,000 communities and about 350 distinct language groups shares similar fate with other colonized nations. Congo, the most endowed nation on earth in terms of mineral resources after centuries of Belgian rule had at independence about five university graduates and about 600 Roman Catholic priests. Patrick Lumumba, Congo’s independent Prime Minister who was later murdered in the presence of Belgian soldiers over Katanga mineral deposits had only four years of formal education. Mobutu through whom Europe pillaged the resources of Congo or Zaire for over 30 years was a cook in the Congo army. Today Congo remains one of the poorest nations of the world. European over pampered children must be told the prosperity of Belgium and the rest of Europe was piled up at the expense of those they now claim are coming to ‘destroy their civilization’

    Then Europe and its allies in America decreed globalization is the new god we must all worship. Globalisation, we now know is another name for slavery. It has continued to increase the gap between the rich and the poor nations. What an average Ethiopian ‘earns in a year is what an average Swiss citizen earns every 24 hours’. A pastoral cattle farmer in Europe gets a government subsidy of $2 per head of cow while about 1.5billion people in the rest of the world live below $1 a day. By the logic of globalization, Europe’s unjust god, the life of a cow in Europe is worth two human lives in the impoverished and pillaged third world nations.

    Now children of impoverished nations are opting to worship the same god in Europe and America, risking their lives through precarious voyage through the desert and seas, guaranteed with nothing beyond clearing sewages and working in old peoples’ homes.

    What crimes, if one may ask the European leaders, have immigrants, worshippers of Europe’s unjust god committed by opting to sell their labour in a world we are told is borderless? Europe sows the wind. Europe must reap the whirlwind.

  • In the eye of the law

    AT LAST, Senate President Dr Bukola Abubakar Saraki had his day in court last Tuesday after his unsuccessful attempts to stop his trial. He did virtually everything to stop the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) from trying him for the 13-count charge of false and anticipatory declaration of assets preferred against him by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB). To Saraki, the charge was not properly brought because it was not filed on the instruction of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF).

    It was a technical issue and many lawyers are wont to rely on technicalities, if that will help their case. Saraki took offence to the charge against him because it was not initiated by the AGF as stipulated by the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act. Knowing full well that there is no substantive AGF, the Saraki legal team thought it had found a loophole to knock out the case without the Senate President being formally charged – that is to take his plea while standing in the dock.

    All the Saraki team wanted to avoid was seeing the proverbial African big man in the dock. Big deal? No, it is not. The law is no respecter of persons. The law says that an accused must take his plea from the dock, no matter his status. Saraki may not have had things his own way, but the development is good for our democracy. It shows that those in power can no longer see themselves as being above the law.  Let us look at aspects of this judicial rigmarole.  Last Thursday, Saraki through his lawyer, Mahmud Magaji (SAN),  urged Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja to stop his trial slated to begin the next day. The judge refused, directing the respondents – CCT, Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and Office of Attorney-General of the Federation to appear before him on Monday to show cause why Saraki’s prayer for interim injunction should not be granted.

    On Friday, the matter took a dramatic turn when CCT Chairman Justice Danladi Umar issued a bench warrant for Saraki’s arrest because of his absence in court. Justice Umar rebuffed all entreaties by Saraki’s lead counsel Mr Joseph Daudu (SAN) not to order his client’s arrest, promising to bring him to court on Monday. Daudu, who said he was also challenging the tribunal’s power to try his client before the Federal High Court, urged Justice Umar to be cautious about how he handles the case because of its political implication. This is the problem with this case. The defence seems to believe that the charge against Saraki has political undertone. Saraki shares similar sentiment. He has been dishing out statements to the effect that he is being persecuted and trying to link his travail with how he emerged as Senate President last June 9. These are two different issues. Saraki may have his differences with the leadership of his party – the All Progressives Congress (APC) – but those are political matters, which should be sorted out at that level. I find it hard to believe that the party leadership could have within just four months got the CCB to investigate Saraki and file a charge against him for false and anticipatory asset declaration.  I do not think  CCB could have concluded the investigation into this Saraki case in such record time.

    The charge covers the period when Saraki first declared his assets in 2003 and his last declaration in 2011. In all, he was said to have made four declarations. Could the CCB have investigated all these within four months and move swiftly to charge him to court? What those claiming that Saraki is being witch-hunted should know is that the offence for which he is charged is not statute barred. The CCB or any organ so authorised could decide to bring a charge against him even 20 years after he might have left office if it so wished. What if all these years EFCC had been investigating the matter to enable it present a watertight case against him? I am not commending CCB for moving against Saraki; no far from it. What I am saying is that we should not impute motives to what the commission is doing because Saraki is at the receiving end. I strongly believe that CCB  should have acted before now, not only in the Saraki case, but in similar other matters that may even involve many of those who escorted him to the tribunal on Tuesday.

    What is happening today is good if we are serious about building a new Nigeria, which will hold its head high in the comity of nations. To build that Nigeria, we must clean our country from the top. Did Saraki commit the offences in the charge against him or not? This is the question that should engage the minds of his lawyers because at the end of the day that is what the tribunal will look at in determining whether he is guilty or not.  The tribunal will not look at their political shibboleth because that is not the issue before it. As Saraki said before pleading not guilty to the charge, ‘’we are all before the world and not just before Nigeria and we ought to be seen how we conform to due process’’.

    It is noteworthy that he submitted himself to the rule of law by appearing before the tribunal (whether willingly or unwillingly that does not matter). As the nation’s chief lawmaker, he has no choice than to so act. By virtue of his position, Saraki should not only lead by example, he must also be seen leading by example. May it not be said of him that as Senate president, he used his office to trample upon the judiciary, the third arm of government.

    Adieu, Mama

    WHEN the sage, Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Awolowo, died in 1987, many did not give his ‘’jewel of inestimable value’’, Hannah Idowu Dideolu (HID), any chance to live long. They feared that she would not be able to bear the loss of her husband. But she lived for 28 years thereafter. Mama lived to the ripe, old  age of 99. She was looking forward to her 100th birthday on November 25 when she died last Saturday. She was a true mother and a woman of valour who stood by the legendary Awo through thick and thin. I was touched by her statement on the loss of her son, Oluwole, in 2013. When former President Goodluck Jonathan visited her in her Ikenne, Ogun State country home, mama lamented that in her old age, she is witnessing the death of some of her children. Wole Awolowo died shortly after her sister, Mrs Ayo Soyode, passed on. Rest in the Lord’s bosom, mama.

    Free Falae now!

    IT WAS Chief Olu Falae’s birthday last Monday, a day when he should be in the midst of friends and family members sharing the joy of the occasion. But what did he get? Some bad boys abducted the septuagenarian on his farm at Ilado village in Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State. The kidnappers first demanded N100 million ransom to be paid within 24 hours. They have cut the ransom to N90 million. What do these people want from this 77-year-old man? What will they lose by releasing him today?

     

     

  • Mr. Adesina, Buhari is hardly all that…Not yet (2)

    The presidential media adviser had flawed gender because he had no real self or moral substance, in the last dispensation. Ultimately, he played errand boy and court sycophant to Mr. President. He could be likened to the celebrity hairdresser, boudoir confidant or presidential lounge lizard perpetually nodding in affirmative to the caprices of his principal, the president. He was constantly engaged at the feet and filth attic of the president. Flattery and malice leapt from his forked tongue as he attacked the president’s perceived detractors.

    Last dispensation, the Special Adviser to the President on Media Affairs was pliable and servile, a deformation of Castiglione’s courtier. He projected with slavish plasticity, the president’s whim and wile. His identity was self-evacuated as he persistently opened himself like a glove to the presidential palm. Like Castiglione’s male harlots, his shameless self abasement was unmanly and amoral; he elevated bum over forelock in a flagrant rite of political sodomy. This should not be Femi Adesina.

    The former editor and director of The Sun newspapers until his appointment, flaunted no trait of the fawning page nor was he ever the smooth flatterer and intellectual thug, twisting and turning with changing circumstance. Femi Adesina was never insanely reactive. He was never a parody of masculinity whose words and deeds boomed as cloying mime of a politician’s desire. My former editor was never a perversion of male bonding neither was he a spectacle of submission and ideological sodomy. He was Femi Adesina, widely respectable, poster icon of quintessential journalism.

    Then he became Special Adviser on Media Affairs to President Muhammadu Buhari and every virtue he was known by, is constantly put to the test, by the second. The jury may be out on his capacity to stem the tide of journalism’s most abhorrent malady, the intoxication of power and money, but I am keeping faith in Mr. Adesina’s incontestable virtues.

    His new office shouldn’t corrupt him or cause him to mutate into a clueless sounding board for Mr. President or a massager of his ego. That is why his recent article: “A new sheriff is in town,” gives serious cause for concern. While most journalists would sheepishly egg him on and cantankerously aver that he was simply doing his job, Mr. Adesina should be wary of such freeloaders who would always urge him to toady up to Mr. President, “As long as it is lucrative.” They only care what free money they may make from him as kickbacks for “making his work easier for him.”

    Mr. Adesina’s piece was verbose with flattery ; his use of exclamation marks and aggressive bid to portray President Buhari as a hero was uncalled for. Nigeria sailed past that bight few months ago. We are done propping Buhari up as our hero, it’s time for him to truly match his heroic promises with actions that will resonate positively in the life of the average Nigerian.

    Heroes grow into outsized monsters, in a republic of villains and court sycophants. This minute, President Buhari is our hero, tomorrow, he may become the brute in our recurring nightmares, if we do not take care. Perhaps the statesman from Daura possesses the essential ethics and character to resist the lure of ‘enlightened self interests,’ ‘economic and political expediencies’ characteristic of the Nigerian ruling class. Perhaps not, but in the next few months, Nigeria would know if she was fortunate to return Muhammadu Buhari as President-elect at the last presidential elections.

    There is no gainsaying Nigeria is afflicted by political profiteers comprising the ruling class and various segments of the poor, struggling masses. In the ensuing degeneracy of politics and cultural ethos, the hero we know today may morph into a dreadful monster. Given that power is the brandy of the turncoat, there is need to scrutinize President Buhari uncompromisingly.

    Mr. Adesina needs to know that President Buhari’s touted anti-corruption fight is simply noise-making at the moment. When the ‘corrupt’ get prosecuted and sent to jail for their misdemeanor, Nigerians will believe him. And despite his touted reduction of his salary and that of his deputy, President Buhari is not working pro bono. He is being paid for the work he does. And it’s an open secret that his cozy allowances among other frills of being President and living in Aso Rock are the stuff the finest fantasies are made of hence no matter how vociferously he announces the cut in his salaries, his apologists and most virulent critics will continue to see him as the luckiest, richest and most powerful Nigerian alive.

    Buhari has been cuddled enough, by the media and his most ardent supporters. Nigeria needs him to work now. And no matter the floweriness and duplicity of spin accorded his first 100 days in office, very little has changed since Buhari became President. Of course, Nigerians discuss with mixed feelings his performance so far; his critics persistently call him “Baba go slow,” a pun on his perceived snail pace even as his diehard apologists cite steadier electricity supply, more decisive military onslaughts against Boko Haram terrorist sect, sack of corrupt public officers and renewed anti-corruption fight as worthy achievements of his administration.

    Truth is, Buhari is yet to do anything extraordinary; if electricity supply has become steadier, it was never meant to be unsteady in the first place. Part of his duty as President is to facilitate and guarantee stable electricity supply. If fuel is being sold at N87 per litre, Nigeria pays Buhari to ensure that the pump price of fuel is affordable to most Nigerians.

    It need be acknowledged however, that his globally acclaimed honesty and integrity as a man, ex-soldier and politician exerts reasonable influence and pressure on erstwhile corrupt individuals and institutions to do a cartwheel in pursuit of the good of all. That is appreciable and commendable of the retired general. But there is a limit to what his integrity and personal ethics prior to his emergence in office can do for him.

    Integrity is not enough to resolve the nation’s economic woes. It is not enough to transform Nigerians into law-abiding citizens overnight. At the moment, Buhari is still the president of the rich. And that is because he is yet to evolve policies that will liberate the economy and citizenry from the stranglehold of certain influential and powerful characters. And maybe he is busy with the blueprints of  the ‘change’ he promised; the ‘change’ we can believe in. Who knows?

    The banking sector, oil sector, political sector, cement and grain industries are still under the vicious yoke of characters whose selfish interests continually clash with the best interests of the impoverished masses and struggling middle class who braved bullets and cudgels of the same elements, to vote for Buhari.

    I am sure President Buhari is aware that hardly any bank director, oil and cement entrepreneur, politician, royalty, militant and junkyard-dog-journalist is in love with him. Many worked and prayed assiduously for his failure at the polls and no sooner did he win than they began to pray and work against the success of his administration. At his emergence, they understood like Adeshina intoned, that ‘a new sheriff is in town’ and their shady deal regime under former President Goodluck Jonathan was over.

    If it was and still is Buhari’s wish to transform Nigeria into an Eden of sort, it would be heavenly of him to succeed. But let him know that, in heaven, saints don’t become ‘God’ and an angel is nobody in particular. It is the job Femi Adesina to play the devil’s advocate and make him understand this fact.

  • Lexical matters

    Lexical matters

    The soothing wind of change sweeping across the land seems to have affected public discourse. The words we use and the way we use them have,  no doubt, conveyed, deliberately or otherwise, the change that our leaders are preaching so much so that I am damn sure that language experts must now have their hands full.

    But, before we proceed, a clarification. The idea of this column is not original to me. Respected journalism teacher Olatunji Dare patented it in his Rutam House days when he was Chairman of the Editorial Board/OPED Editor, with  his “Matters lexical” passing comments on vital issues of those days when soldiers were in charge. Thankfully, the  “khaki boys” – as our then leaders were derogatorily referred to by “bloody civilians” who detested the way they ran the show- are back in the barracks.

    Consider President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech at the yearly Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) conference in Abuja in which His Excellency urged lawyers to stop defending “crooks” and “looters” so as to strengthen the war against “corruption”.

    Of course, we all knew the battle that raged endlessly among the elite over the seemingly simple definition of  “corruption” and “stealing” in the recent past. So complex were the intellectual duels the matter generated that till now we can not say for sure who carried the day.

    Pardon the digression. Unknown to President Buhari, he had set off a huge debate. “How do we know ‘crooks’ and ‘looters’ before they are so labelled by the courts?” some lawyers asked dejectedly.  “Isn’t an accused presumed to be innocent until he is proven guilty? Ei incumbit protatio qui dicit non qui negat.”  “Isn’t everybody entitled to defence, in the principle of fair hearing?” “How do we earn a good living if we presume that all big clients are “looters”? “Where is the age-old principle: he who alleges must prove?”

    Others argued: “If a public official is living above his means, do we need to go to court to establish that he is a “looter”? When does a “looter” become a “crook”? Is it after he has stolen billions and he is able to hire an army of Senior Advocates when he is called to account? What maketh a “thief “ and a “crook”?  What constitutes “loot”? Millions? Billions? In dollars or naira?

    The fireworks are still on, I am told. But, learned gentlemen, should there be any obfuscation? The President was simply reacting to situations in which lawyers go to court to ground the wheel of justice, filing motions upon motions and securing perpetual injunctions as well as long adjournments that make corruption cases conclusively inconclusive, thereby obstructing justice and fuelling “graft”.

    The word “corruption” seems to be yielding space to “graft” in the newspapers. Why? Is it for its length or ease of pronunciation? I really do not know now. My worry was compounded the other day when embattled FIFA President Sepp Blatter insisted that there was no “corruption” in football even as several officials of the organisation had been arrested as part of the massive probe into how hosting the World Cup may have been bought.

    The phrase “hit the ground running” has also dominated public discourse since Buhari mounted the saddle on May 29. Some critics have called him “Baba Go Slow”. He acknowledged this but insisted that he would rather go slowly and get it right than rushing things and failing. It has since been discovered that some of those shouting do not know the meaning of the expression. Imagine somebody saying the other day that “should Buhari hit the ground and hurt his foot, how will he run?”

    The fuel queues have disappeared. Electricity has improved and Boko Haram is feeling the heat. Many corruption cases have been investigated and suspects taken to court. All in about 100 days. How else do you “hit the ground running?” Has Buhari not worked hard and successfully at governance?

    A newspaper headline yesterday read: “How Wike hits the ground running in Rivers”. Does Wike “hit the ground everyday?” The writer listed some of His Excellency’s achievements, including a housing project and roads. He forgot to add the probe of former Governor Rotimi Amaechi. Is that not a  landmark achievement of a governor who has hit the ground running?”

    In the same newspaper, right opposite the Wike story another writer assessed  Cross  River State Governor  Prof. Ben Ayade’s 100 days in office, “declaring that the governor has hit the ground running”.

    Among today’s popular words, “quiz” and “grill” number. The anti-graft agencies, held down by stronger powers, seem to have found their long-lost form. Suddenly.  Many high profile cases are being filed and heard. Former Head of Service Steve Oronsaye has had his day in court. So have former governors Ikedi Ohakim, Murtala Nyako and  Sule Lamido.

    Former Immigration chief  David Parradang has been “quizzed” over the bloody jobs scandal, which many thought had been killed and buried. By the way, “interrogation” seems to have lost its potency to “grill” and “quiz”. Again, I do not know why. I leave it all to lexicographers and etymologists.

    Does the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) actually “grill” its guests like fish tossed into the oven? Do they sweat? Do reporters use the word “grill” when a guest spends hours at the agency’s office? Does “quiz” apply to those who stroll in, escorted by a crowd of busybodies, and come out a few minutes after? I really can’t tell.

    Talking about the anti-graft war, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been howling that   its members have been the target. In fact, the other day, PDP spokesman Olisa Metuh accused Buhari of running a “dictatorship”.  But, needless to say, that was no popular view. Before the anti-graft agencies began to pick up suspects, Buhari, to the PDP, was slow. Now he is a “dictator”. Who knows, Metuh, who now has so much time for a research,  may be teaching us a few things on the etymology of the word “dictatorship”. Whoever says being in opposition has no gain.

    You will recall that as soon as Buhari took office, he declared his “assets” in the way and manner specified by the Code of Conduct Bureau. But some critics insisted that he should make the declaration public. His spokesman Femi Adesina said the President would do so within 100 days.

    Buhari has kept his word. So has Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Among Buhari’s belongings are two mud houses, 270 head of cattle, 25 sheep, birds and trees, among others. Now, the critics, obviously those who still feel the pains of losing power, are crying that Buhari and Osinbajo should also “declare” their liabilities. Is that what the law says? To what purpose will that be? How about asking our PDP chiefs why they never made public their “assets”? Can they do so now, if for nothing but to show their sincerity and strengthen their claim that they never shortchanged Nigerians?

    Senator Shehu Sani, following Buhari’s and Osinbajo’s example, made public his “assets”. Among them were his two wives. He immediately set off a debate. Wives? Why “declare” their number, thereby widening the scope of this exercise to a seemingly uncomfortable level? If the electorate insist on knowing how many wives our politicians have, will they not think the size of an aspirant’s harem will dictate how prudent he will be if he gets elected? How many politicians can “declare” their women as “assets” and not “liabilities”? Are our women-activists comfortable with a politician declaring his wives as “assets” as if they are some property or commodities?

    Anyway, the verb “declare” is fast yielding its use as an expression of interest in an office, such as “declare for governor” and “declare for Come and Chop Party of Nigeria” to the phrase “assets declaration”. In  the immediate past administration, it was never used in relation to “assets” or “liabilities”. But that is not to say it never featured; it did so often when military chiefs were not sure whether to “declare” just a “war” or “total war” on Boko Haram–as they threatened several times before getting the push.

    And talking about the war, Boko Haram now knows “a new Sheriff is in town”. Oh yes!

    LET TOYIN NWOSU GO TODAY

    IT has been some three harrowing days since Toyin Nwosu, an employee of Amuwo Odofin Local Government and wife of The Sun Deputy Managing Director Steve Nwosu was forcibly removed from her home in Okota, Lagos, by gunmen who smashed their way in the dead of the night.

    Steve has been traumatised. So have been the kids. So have been all of us who have encountered Toyin. The abductors are said to be demanding N100m ransom. Where will a professional get N100m in a country where salaries are poor and many workers, including journalists, go on unpaid for several months, driven only by the passion they have for their trade? Where?

    Despite the various steps taken against abduction, the evil trade thrives.  Criminals find it so lucrative, probably because of the secrecy surrounding the resolution of any such incident. A ransom is collected and the victim is let off. Quietly. Then the next victim is grabbed. We all seem so vulnerable and helpless. We are at the mercy of gunmen. Lord have mercy!

    Toyin is harmless, always in high spirits, ever-smiling, humble and friendly – as her abductors may have discovered. I plead for her unconditional release today. May the Almighty touch the hearts of her abductors. And the hearts of those leaders whose action and inaction have brought the economy to this pitiable level, driving into crime those who see no future in our future.

    Won’t you say “amen”?

     

  • Yes, ours are respectable nationalities

    In the past two weeks, I have highlighted the distinctive existence and virility of the many nationalities that make up our country. The reason for this is that the central government of Nigeria since independence has operated on the dangerous agenda that our nationalities should be subdued and destroyed in order to build a united Nigeria. For this reason, we often hear some prominent Nigerians telling us that we should detest our identities as Yoruba, Igbo, Urhobo, Kanuri, Nupe, etc, and identify ourselves only as Nigerians. For this reason also, the federal government has followed policies aimed at destroying our nationalities – by, among other things, accumulating all power and resource control in the federal centre, by turning the states of our federation into impotent entities, and by banning the teaching of our nations’ histories and languages in our schools. The thinking behind these policies is that when our nationalities’ languages become extinct and we forget our nationalities’ histories, our nationalities will die out and Nigeria will emerge united and strong.

    But assuming that we can build Nigeria upon the ruins of our nationalities is a false and dangerous assumption. Countries that are homes for many nationalities are many in the world – such as Britain, Spain, Belgium, India, Switzerland, Indonesia, etc. In some of these countries, the nationalities have lived side by side for hundreds of years. In not a single known case has any of the nationalities died out. In every case, the wise policy pursued is to let each nationality enjoy some freedom or autonomy to manage its life according to its culture – and thereby make its own kind of contributions to the prosperity of the country to which it belongs.

    Part of this wise policy is that India restructured its federation properly after independence, allows much autonomy to its states, recognizes 22 national languages and supports their being taught. Even the Union of South Africa has now recognized 11 national languages. Britain pursues a policy of devolution – meaning, giving much autonomy to each nationality. It is only in the countries of Black Africa that the rulers are trying to destroy their indigenous nationalities – and the result has been conflicts and bloodshed. Those who think that destroying our own nationalities in Nigeria is the way to build Nigeria are trying to create a time bomb that may someday destroy Nigeria. It is in the interest of our posterity to resist and stop this evil agenda and make our country pursue the path of sanity.

    To show how virile and worthy of respect our nationalities really are, we have looked at our three giant nations – Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. But virility does not belong to these giants only; very many of our smaller nations are strong and respectable too. Today, we will highlight the Kanuri and the Edo.

    The Kanuri people in the Lake Chad valley had, by as early as the 14th century, evolved into a large empire, the Kanem-Bornu Empire, ruled by emperors who bore the title of Mai. Very successful farming in the lands of the lake and its rivers made this empire a land of prosperity and thick population. To this prosperity, long distance trade contributed enormously. Northwards, trade routes connected the empire with the Mediterranean territories to the north, and with the lands of the Nile and Arabia to the north-east. With such connections later came the religion of Islam, and with it came literacy in Arabic. Westwards and southwards, trade routes linked this rich empire with the lands of the Hausa and of Mali and, later, of Songhai, and, across the Niger, with the countries of the Yoruba and other forest peoples of West Africa. Before the 16th century, probably most of the trade of the peoples of the country now known as Nigeria with the outside world through the Mediterranean passed through the lands of Kanem-Bornu as centre of exchange. By the late 16th century, the government of Kanem-Bornu maintained regular diplomatic relationships and embassies with the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean world. The court officials of one Mai who ruled in the first years of the 17th century gave the world perhaps the earliest history book written in the interior of West Africa.

    This empire suffered some decline in the course of the 18th century. In the early 19th century, the Fulani-led jihad movement in Hausaland made a bid to conquer Kanem-Bornu, but the old empire defended its territories successfully. While defending itself, the empire revived much of its old strength and glory.

    Without doubt, by the late 19th century when the European imperialists began to come, this empire of the Kanuris was a coherent and strong state, a state with a lot of proud history. But the British and French empire builders came in the last years of the 19th century, seized the area, set up boundaries of their own making, and created new countries. The heart of the old Kanem-Bornu kingdom was ultimately incorporated into British-owned Nigeria and the rest into French possessions to the east and north. European imperialism thus snuffed out a strong and beautiful nation-state that had existed for many centuries.

    Next, we will look at the Edo nation in the deep forest country to the southeast of Yorubaland. Here, the old Edo kingdom of Benin was, by the 19th century, a rich land of commerce, culture, power and pride. Its capital city boasted broad streets, great market centres, a splendid palace and collections of art, gorgeous royal ceremonies, and an impressive system of city walls. Its central province was the homeland of the Edo nation, and its subordinate provinces the territories of Edo-related peoples (like the Ishan and the Afenmai). Altogether, territorially, it was larger than many of today’s nation states of Europe – such as Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and the Republic of Ireland. It undoubtedly commanded a first-rate capacity to become a prosperous nation-state or country in the evolving modern world.

    The Benin kingdom had been one of the foremost centres of trade with Europeans along the West African coast since as early as the late 15th century. Benefiting massively from the trade, the kingdom had evolved into a powerful commercial empire, with commercial tentacles reaching out for hundreds of miles in neighbouring counties.

    Alarmed by the news of the activities of European imperialist agents in other parts of West Africa in the course of the 1890’s, the Benin kingdom adopted a defensive mode. While still fully welcoming trade with the Europeans, the Benin authorities tried to limit contacts with agents of European imperialism operating on the coast. But the British were already active in seizing territories in West Africa, and were determined to seize the Benin kingdom.

    In 1897, the British asked for permission to send a delegation to the Benin palace, and the Benin government refused to grant the permission. In defiance of the explicit Benin refusal, the British sent envoys from the coast to the palace of Benin, accompanied by some troops. Benin’s security forces ambushed and wiped out the intruders. Seizing on that as declaration of war, the British mounted a massive invasion, and overran the Benin kingdom. This proud kingdom was ultimately forced into the British Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, and then into Nigeria – where it became one of the many small nationalities in a large multi-nation country.

  • Power show

    JUDGES wield enormous power. They behave like kings when they hold court. In one word, they can do and undo. But in using their wide powers, they are expected to do so with the fear of God. A judge cannot say because he has the power of life and death, he should just send people to the gallows for the fun of it. Before arriving at such a decision, his lordship must have heard the convict and satisfied himself that the man actually committed the offence for which he is being condemned.

    The court is a temple of justice and not injustice. It is not a forum for judges to abuse people’s right with impunity just because they have the power to do so. The power judges wield is given to them by the Constitution. So, everything they do must be constitutional. As conservatives, judges view things from a tiny prism. To many of them, any other person cannot be trusted. They perceive people, except those close to them in bad light and before you say judge, you may end up in jail when you come across a judge on a day he is in foul mood. If you think I am  wrong,  ask The Nation Ogun State Correspondent Ernest Nwokolo and his colleagues what they went through in the hands of a judge in Ota on Tuesday.

    Should judges who sit in judgement over others be hasty in drawing conclusions about people? The answer is no. But in many instances, some judges have been known to let their emotions get the better of them in their dealings with others. They just look at you and feel that they should deal with you, perhaps, because they do not like your face. Judges should have it at the back of their minds that no matter how powerful they think they are, there is a Judge up there more powerful than them and once that Judge speaks, there is no appeal. Their job does not entail that they should play god, but once in a while, they tend to do so forgetting that God is inimitable.

    Once God speaks, that is the end of the matter. No judge on earth can question His action. But when our earthly judges vibrate, we the lesser mortals can still query their actions if we feel they have encroached on our right. Judges are expected to be defenders and not abusers of people’s rights. They are judges in order to make society work, and not to turn things upside down with actions unbecoming of their exalted position. If court clerks and registrars do not know their right from their left, judges are expected to know better. They should guide these people and not join them in abusing the rights of those who come to court.

    For all the years that I covered the courts, I was never accosted by any judge for having the temerity to come to a ‘’private place’’, which was how the Ota, Ogun State High Court judge defined the court to Nwokolo and co. Is the court a public or private place? The court cannot be a private place, by any standard because it is where parties take their disputes to for adjudication. It is open to litigants and non-litigants alike. People are allowed to come to court to watch proceedings as long as they comport themselves. If they do not, they are made to pay the price for their contemptuous act. Is it contemptuous for journalists to come to court to cover proceedings? It is not. If it is, we will not be reading about many court cases in the papers.

    Are journalists expected to register their presence in court before covering a case? I do not know the practice now, but when I was a judiciary reporter, I just went in and out of court, covering cases that caught my fancy. And I was not for once harassed by court officials. But whatever the practice may be today, it cannot approve of the kind of treatment meted out to Nwokolo and his friends, who went to cover a case at the Ota High Court on Tuesday. Nwokolo, Daud Olatunji (Vanguard), Samuel Awoyinfa (The Punch),  Abiodun Taiwo (Daily Times), Sulaiman Fasasi (National Pilot), Wale Adelaja (TVC) and Johnson Akinpelu (Alaroye) were in court for two cases. The first was on victims of a demolition in Pakoto community and the other on killings in Oke – Ore community.

    Shortly after their arrival, the female Assistant Court Registrar reportedly accosted them, demanding their mission. She wanted to know if they had a letter from the chief judge or a senior judiciary officer to enter the court. Does it mean that everybody, including litigants and members of the audience, must obtain permission before entering the courts in Ogun State? For three hours – 11.45 am – 2.44pm – this all-powerful woman caused the reporters to be detained in a room on the judge’s order. Before releasing the ‘insolent’ reporters, the judge, in his imperial magistracy, dressed them down, while delivering an  homily :

    ‘’I put you under arrest. You are under arrest. You will discover that this compound is fenced round; is that not so? It is not on the major road that you can just come in. If you are representing the public interest, you must know we have a head in this court. I am a judge; I have unlimited jurisdiction in the state. I can even say somebody should be arrested without question, but in exercising my power, I have to enquire into many things. You cannot say because you are representing public interest, you can just burst into my compound or burst into my house. You have a right as a journalist, but where your own stops,  my own starts. And if I am the owner of a house, I have a right to my privacy, fundamental right to privacy. I want to educate you. If you want to infringe on my right that is where your own right stops…

    ‘’What I am saying is that judiciary has its own right too. You are infringing on our own right too. You don’t know? A report came to me that some people invaded the court, claiming that they are journalists, filming the whole place. It is not a local market and it is not an open market. You are approaching the court. If you are interested in a particular matter in a company, will you just go into the place and start filming and then say you are a journalist? That is what I am telling you. You don’t just go into a place and start filming and then say you are a journalist. If we said you are trespassing into our land, do you have any defence, answer me now? I am telling you it is not a public place; I am telling you, the court is not a public place.’’ After the 25-minute sermon, his lordship set his captives free.

    Was there any need for the show put up by his lordship? The Ota High Court is not his lordship’s private property and the courts generally can never be the private property of any judge. Courts are built with public funds for public use, but if a judge wishes to hear a matter in private, he can do so without venting his spleen on innocent members of the public. Why will a judge receive a report that journalists had ‘’invaded his court and were filming the whole place’’ and just order that they be detained without hearing from them? What happened to fair hearing, a principle, which his lordship must uphold in the discharge of his duty? I rest my case.

  • Ade Adefuye (1947-2015)

    This is one of the most difficult tributes that I have ever had to write as a columnist. I have lost my wife, members of my family and close friends, but this is the first time I have lost a close academic colleague who is also a brother, a friend as well as a diplomatic colleague. The difficulty arises out of the culture of the Yoruba of an older person not participating in the burial rites of a younger person, yet Ade was too close to me for me to remain silent at the transition of this relatively young man. As the Yoruba will say, death neither talks of the day it will strike nor does disease say of the month of its affliction. I know also that death is an inevitable end of our earthly sojourn and it will come when it will come. In spite of this when death comes it is still unacceptable to those of us on this side of the earthly divide. I have been reconciled to the reality of death a few times when I watched my loved ones in agony during sickness and silently talking to God and saying if it His will to take them home and knowing they would not survive the sickness then I pleaded to God to take them home. I did this during the sickness of my most beloved wife and my illustrious brother Kayode. In my church we always glibly talk of making heaven but of course nobody is in a hurry to go to heaven. Death is always a difficult topic for man yet it is a journey we will all have to take. In my home town of Okemesi, during the annual masquerade festival the egungun used to say heaven should not be too hasty to receive us since we are all coming there.

    I left the University of Ibadan before Ade Adefuye entered there. I first met him in 1974 when I left the Jos campus of the University of Ibadan for the University of Lagos. As a young man, he naturally gravitated towards me being the second youngest man in the department and from that time on we remained brothers until I heard the terrible news of his death. When the news broke on August 27, my children not wanting to upset me kept the news from me until the next morning when my son was driving me to the airport in Atlanta on my way to Toronto Canada. The whole thing hit me like lightening strike.  I tried to call his wife and children who on hearing the news took off from London to be with Sola their mother in Washington. I finally reached one of his children Tolu. What is most terrible about death is its finitude and its irreversibility.

    Of course I have asked myself whether Ade had a pre-existing cardiac problem. All I can say for sure is that Ade worked himself to death serving Nigeria and humanity. In 1988, he was appointed High Commissioner to the Commonwealth Caribbean Island of Jamaica and he gave the assignment all the energies he could muster. After two years on the job, he was well known not only in Jamaica but in the entire Commonwealth Caribbean islands. He was on first name terms with their prime ministers. He brought the weight of his academic scholarship as a historian of Africa to bear not only on his diplomatic assignment but also on historical pedagogy in their schools where the contribution of Africans to world civilization had been deliberately suppressed to justify slavery and the legacy of white domination even in so-called independent island countries of the West Indies. I had myself taught for a year in the University of the West Indies Barbados in 1971-1972 and had witnessed how the black man was at the bottom of the racial hierarchy in the West Indies. His success in the Caribbean more than justify my firmly held view of the place of the historian in diplomacy as well as the place of carefully chosen professional as a leaven to the sometimes over ritualized diplomatic corps.

    His influence in the West Indies became extremely useful to Nigeria when Chief Emeka Anyaoku decided to succeed Sonny Ramphal as Commonwealth Secretary General in 1989. Each commonwealth country had a vote, with India of over a billion people having the same one vote as a small Caribbean island of a 100,000 inhabitants. Through Ade’s influence, the entire 15 votes in the West Indies went to Anyaoku even though on its own his candidacy was a formidable one. Without   Adefuye corralling the whole of the West Indies, the outcome may have been different bearing in mind that  Anyaoku’s  opponent was  Malcolm Fraser, a former Australian Prime Minister who had the support of many south African countries which felt a white Secretary General would be more effective in confronting apartheid South Africa and its white minority regime.

    Adefuye’s success with the election of Anyaoku led to his being cross posted to London as Deputy High Commissioner, a position he held with much aplomb, dedication and loyalty. After leaving London for home in1993, he was appointed Deputy Director and later substantive Director for Africa in the Commonwealth Office in London working directly with Anyaoku until the latter retired leaving Adefuye behind. His schedule and brief involved travelling all over Commonwealth countries particularly in southern Africa settling political problems and civil strive. He was constantly travelling sometimes at short notice. I once asked him if his constant travelling had any adverse effect on his health. He said it did not but I am aware from well established studies that after a certain age, I think 55 years, even pilots are asked to retire. For 10 years Ade was always on the road or in the air until he reached the age of 60 and having served for 10 years he retired from the Commonwealth Secretariat making this his second retirement having retired from the University of Lagos earlier on in the 1990s. He then subsequently joined ECOWAS in Abuja as a director doing the same trouble shooting job of a peace maker in the ECOWAS sub region. It was from there that President Umaru Yar’Adua through the good offices of Governor Gbenga Daniel appointed him as ambassador to the United States.

    As usual with Adefuye, he more than discharged his responsibility as a worthy envoy seeing in particular the establishment of a Bi-national commission between the USA and Nigeria to facilitate closer cooperation between them. He had a difficult job persuading the USA to assist Nigeria in selling arms to us in the fight against Boko Haram because of the USA’s perception of Nigeria as a hopelessly corrupt country and  because of our army’s alleged violation of the rights of civilians during its military operations in the north-east of Nigeria. Adefuye constantly travelled home at short notice and was many times grilled by officials of the State Department who while recognizing the sterling quality of Adefuye felt he was badly let down by his home government. He was recalled by the new government after serving more than the normal term of posting but had to wait to facilitate the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari in July. It was while he was packing to return home that tragedy struck.

    I have followed Adefuye’s activities in the 40 years and there are two things that stand out in his character. These are loyalty and hard work. He was an indefatigable worker who was absolutely loyal to any course he embraced as well as being totally loyal to those who helped him along in his career which will include the late professors J. F. Ade Ajayi, Akin Adesola, both former vice chancellors of the University of Lagos, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu , General Ike Nwachukwu and Chief Anyaoku.

    I believe that the place of Adefuye in the history of Nigerian diplomacy is settled. His family can justifiably be proud of his achievement and take solace in the fact that he served his country well. Ade was a good and loving husband to Sola and a good father to Bunmi, Tolu and Baba.  His place in his family is definitely irreplaceable. He worried to no end to see his children achieve their potentialities and to settle down in life. Thank God he left two lawyers and a computer genius behind and it is my prayer that God will perfect the ways of these children even beyond what Ade would have wished for them. Rest in perfect peace, dear brother and most beloved colleague.

  • Boost for proposed national carrier

    In spite of the notoriety and lack of character often exhibited by a few of our governors, it is still hard to believe that some would divert part of the bailout meant for clearing arrears of unpaid salaries of their workers towards maintaining private aircrafts as was reported by some newspapers last Sunday. If this were true, the planned national carrier has got a boost. A few of the states listed as having either aircrafts or helicopters include Rivers, Taraba, Akwa Ibom, Osun and Lagos. Altogether, the states are proud owners of eight aircrafts and three helicopters with a net worth of about $200m. If we however add the potentials of other states the newspaper did not mention to that of the federal government which has a presidential fleet of about 10 aircrafts including two Falcon 7X jets, two Falcon 900 jets Gulfstream 550and and a Gulfstream iVSP, Boeing 737 BBJ (Nigerian Air Force 001 or Eagle One), Cessna Citation 2 and a Hawker Siddley 125-800 at a total cost of over $350m, the nucleus of the proposed national carrier is already in place.

    It is an open secret that cruising around in private jets by wealthy Nigerians including governors, and prosperity prophets became a fad in the Yar’Adua and Jonathan years. Nigeria, according to Bombardier, the Canadian aircraft manufacturer ranks behind the United States, United Kingdom, and China among countries that top their orders for the supply of its aircrafts. The figure of privately owned jets according to a Forbes publication some two years back, jumped from 20 in 2007 to 150 in 2012. The Guardian on its part, quoting a top official of the NCAA claims that the ‘ownership of the state-of-the-art jets in Nigeria had grown to over 200 in 2012 from 50 in 2008’.

    Of course I don’t think anyone should begrudge Nigerians whether politicians or prosperity prophets who are wealthy enough to regard aircrafts as toys. What should agitate our minds is the source of the wealth of some of the names on the list of private jet owners published by the authoritative Forbes. By strange coincidence, it also happened that some of the proud owners of these private jets are also those indicted by the House of Representatives committee probe on privatization which recommended some privatized firms they fraudulently bought be returned to the state. Also on the list  are some of those involved in the theft of N1.7 trillion through the fuel subsidy fuel scam who have been shielded from prosecution by government in the last three years on the excuse that ‘the wheel of justice grinds slowly in our country’. Similarly featured are prosperity prophets and ‘merchants of grace for sale’ who claim their private jets were gifts from unidentified benefactors.

    In the Jonathan era when ‘stealing was not corruption’ and when implementation of court ruling and House probe recommendations were routinely ignored, government saw nothing abnormal with elected governors and appointed public officials clogging our air space with their shining private jets. Not even the near fisticuff between Governor Mimiko of Ondo and Jimoh Ibrahim, a PDP stalwart at the Akure airport tarmac over who was flying the most expensive private aircraft attracted more than a passing attention from Jonathan government whose only worry was compliance with flight regulations. Thus during the grounding of Amaechi’s jet due to his disagreement with President Jonathan, Ahmed Gulak, his adviser on political matters issued a statement saying “If you are a governor and you are flying a private jet, you must do it within the extant laws…because you are a governor does not give you the license to flout the laws governing your country”. Obviously Jonathan who sometimes moved out for party mobilization along with his vice, the senate president and other PDP stalwarts using four presidential jets did not see anything wrong in governors attending burial or marriage ceremonies using state-funded aircrafts.

    Now, we have been told there is a new sheriff in town who believes ‘stealing is corruption’, declares his readiness to step on toes if that is the only way to implement House probe recommendation that those who confiscated our common patrimony give them up, and who also says keeping a presidential fleet of 10 aircrafts even when leaders of advanced economies fly commercial flights like the rest of those they are elected to serve is an economic crime against the people.

    Part of his campaign promise was to sell off the presidential fleet. That will no more be necessary with the inauguration of a 12-member Ministerial Committee on the establishment of a National Carrier which according to government is justified not just by “economic considerations, but also strategic national interest, national pride and job creation potential”. Since the proposed national carrier will be based on the Public Private Partnership, nine of the 10 aircrafts can be converted to equity in the proposed national carrier. Some of the states that recently took a bailout to pay salaries at 9% interest repayable over 20 years should also be forced to convert their jets to equity on behalf of the taxpayers of their states that currently bear the burden of maintaining them.

    The proposed national carrier will also benefit from a possible confiscation of the shining private aircrafts of those who after benefiting from government bailout of N300b went on to pile up toxic debt of $700m currently being held in trust for our children by AMCON. Governance is all about justice and fairness. And since the new sheriff has said he is answerable to Nigerians and not wheelers and dealers, retrieving parts of our national patrimony confiscated by those elected to keep them in trust for our children through the exploitation of our weak institutions is the reason we have government in place. The alternative will be the law of the jungle which is ‘the survival of the fittest’, which Jonathan and PDP applied in the last six years without ‘giving a damn’.

    Of course, the new sheriff in town must expect vicious attack from apologists of privatization who have for 16 years engaged in wars of attrition among themselves over how to keep what they have immorally confiscated. Kema Chikwe in an effort to outwit Atiku Ababakar who was alleged to be interested in buying off the  Nigerian Airways established in 1958, came up with ‘Air Nigeria’ using two Pakistanis who according to Chris Aligbe, an aviation consultant and an insider, came ‘without even an Air Transport License, let alone an aircraft’ as fronts.  Her “Nigerian Global” alternative failed just as Yuguda’s attempt to bring in South Africa Airline collapsed. Branson of Virgin Atlantic was frustrated out leaving a debt of $260m for Nigerian taxpayers by those who fraudulently claimed to be fighting our battle. Then Jimoh Ibrahim bought Nigeria Airways after claiming liquidation of the N35b owed UBA only for his Air Nigeria to collapse shortly after taking his N35b share of the government N300b aviation sector bailout. PDP hawks did not even allow Princess Oduah’s Air Nigeria One to take off.

    In the weeks ahead they are going to deploy resources towards discrediting the new sheriff’s efforts. They don’t want a national carrier but their own private airlines which will be declared bankrupt after partaking in government bail-out, leaving their toxic loans for AMCON who will keep same in trust for Nigerian taxpayers and their children. What they want is buying off the energy sector after government investment of taxpayers’ money only for them to go back requesting for government bailout and appealing to government for equity participation in companies freshly unbundled by government based on their recommendation. But since Buhari has made a choice to stand by the Nigerian people, he should remain steadfast as the people according to Abraham Lincoln are always right.

  • Mr. Adesina, Buhari is hardly all that…Not yet (1)

    (The perils of being Special Adviser on Media Affairs to Mr. President)

    The Nigerian infatuation with moral personae is reflective in the trending fascination with President Muhammadu Buhari. Be it positive or negative, the opposition and public’s fixation with the retired Army General is recipe for recrudescent theatre. The dictator with unpopular morals eventually emerges as the country’s best hope (at the moment) of navigating its lattices of disaster and death to safer clime. How instructive.

    At Buhari’s emergence, various segments of the country experienced radical re-awakening to the severity of his moral character. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), major opposition to Buhari’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), consider him bad news; they cringe from his crusader mentality and imminent gale of prosecutions and corrective measures accruable from his much hyped anti-corruption campaign.

    Pro-Buhari movement, comprising Nigeria’s impoverished and fading middle class however, cheer him on; even when his action (s) reek dangerously of injury to certain interests or sociopolitical divide. This is not to lampoon the president as most of his actions till date, seem absent of premeditated intent to gall or punish anyone or group unjustly. My view though, given the public’s predilection to read infinite meanings to everything and anything deemed political.

    At his second shot at power, Buhari also experiences a rude arousal; his heartfelt dream of presiding over 173.8 million Nigerians or thereabouts has suddenly come true. An adult thing has happened, now he has to respond as a fully evolved adult. His virulent critics believe he is set up for a disastrous spell, his ardent loyalists ceaselessly affirm his competence yet Nigeria and the world depends on the Spartan conservative from Daura to affirm or dispel the wanton speculations and insinuations about him. Can he?

    Buhari seemingly restores frantic theatricality to governance and leadership. What would have been impossible and unacceptable in previous regimes is suddenly becoming the public language of personae. The APC’s ‘change’ ideology meshes with the retired general’s anti-corruption stance in a dramatic dance of whim and political maneuverings.  Governance becomes a stage and Buhari is chief performer. Will he be hero or villain?

    Buhari until his ascendance to power was a work of self-sculpture. Then he assumed power and became a statuette; everybody’s unfinished model. By becoming President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Buhari assumes an incompleteness. Innumerable expectations and traits seep into him by his personal and implied contact with loyalists and foes, in person and on the traditional or new media space.

    The new Buhari will become what we intend him to be. It is beyond his will. His innate constitution is not enough to ride the tide of our collective degeneracy or sterling citizenship. Having played degenerate for too long under previous administrations, it’s about time we attempted the pursuit of noble citizenship in the interest of our fatherland. While we embark on such noble enterprise, Nigeria deserves the partnership of a humane and humble leadership. Is Buhari really such man?

    In the run up to the March 28 presidential elections, the PDP persistently pitched former president, Goodluck Jonathan, as the ‘devil’ we know, advising haughtily, that we kept faith with his ‘transformation agenda’ even as it ushered us down the steep plane of disaster. The APC however, identified Jonathan as irredeemably less than, and passionately dismissed him as the faithful would, a rowdy wine god, or the abstemious would, the chronic tippler or mirth maker.

    No doubt, Nigeria urgently needs a traditional moralist whose convenient morality would ultimately serve as a bridge and extinguisher of decadence but while we set Buhari up for such arduous and usually under-appreciated task, there is need to monitor him and the men seemingly responsible for inputs into his manifestly popular and unpopular acts.

    Hardly anyone knows what the portfolio of “Special Adviser” signifies under President Buhari but going by its implied connotation, one could not be too wrong in assuming that the holders of such title wield immense influence in the presidency.

    If that be the case, there is urgent need for Mr. Femi Adesina, former editor of The Sun newspapers to tread gently and fawn sparingly irrespective of the intensity of his love and admiration for President Buhari.

    In a recent published article, he said of the incumbent president, “But what is bred in the bones never goes out through the flesh. Immediately after Buhari returned on May 29, Nigerians knew that discipline was back. Stealing is now corruption…And this one! Even our foreign reserve knows that a new sheriff is in town, and has responded appropriately. In June, just one month into office, and with the plugging of some leakages and loopholes, foreign reserve surged from $29 billion to $31.89. Holy Moses! Just in one month. Well, that is what a new sheriff can do. He brings sanity, confidence and probity to the system. And you would agree that Nigeria needs such shot in the arm, if we consider recent past experiences, when our treasury was like a bag filled with holes.

    “President Buhari has spent time trying to clean the Augean stable he inherited. And he is succeeding. Sheriffs can either come in with guns blazing, shooting malefactors to kingdom come, or simply stamp their authority on the situation by sheer force of personality and presence. The Nigerian sheriff seems to have opted for the second option for now. But we should never forget that sheriffs are licensed to shoot. And those shots can be lethal for lawbreakers. In a matter of months, you can ask those who had bled our treasury to the point of death. They’ll have stories to tell.”

    Mr. Adesina sure has stories to tell, at the moment. The details however, rankles with ominous note for the new Special Adviser on Media Affairs and the president. The presidential spokesperson’s recent article reads like a deep tissue massage of President Buhari’s ego. Agreed, certain details in the piece, barring embellishment, could be substantiated but the job of a Special Adviser on Media Affairs, I believe, should be ennobled beyond what it was in the time of Reuben Abati and what Mr. Adesina seem to be making it out to be.

    I would love to believe Mr. Adesina commands the respect of President Buhari; that with him the Nigerian presidency would desist from seeing the average journalist as nothing more than an errand boy or obsequious pawn to be played in pursuit of selfish objectives.

    Power infinitely generates and attracts sycophancy. The blasphemous flattery of Nigeria’s past presidents by their media advisers was not a mere culture of survival but a sign that the position is persistently regarded as an end in itself. Mr. Adesina as representative of the nation’s fourth estate should never be involved in the production of such fawning literature about his principal. His job is to caution and pitilessly offer harsh but constructive criticisms from a patriot and the media’s perspective of the president’s intended policies or actions before they are made public.

    That was hardly the conduct of past occupants of the office in previous administrations. The former occupant of the office for instance, issued flattery like secular prayer and worship of his principal, Goodluck Jonathan, to the latter’s detriment. Mr. Adesina should never morph into such grotesqueness. Until he assumed the post, he was never an insincere flatterer. He wasn’t a leech nor was he a polluter of language and media integrity. Unlike his predecessor.

    • To be continued…