The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Exodus

    THERE is a mass movement of people across the globe today. Many of them are refugees seeking solace in countries where they will be far, far away from the suffering in their countries. Others are those the western media dubbed economic migrants. These people are fleeing their countries to seek greener pastures in territories where they feel their lot will be better. No matter the status of these people , one thing ties them together – the hardship they have to endure to get to their promised land, be it Germany, Britain or France.

    Many of them, especially the Europe migrants prefer Germany and Britain. But Britain is not ready to open its doors wide to them. The European saga is being replicated in other parts of the world. There are millions struggling to enter the United States (US), Canada and other countries where they think the grass is greener to escape the crisis in their own fatherland. It is not the wish of some people to leave their homeland, but circumstances have forced them to do so.

    Syria is burning; Iraq is on fire; the Middle East is forever sitting on a keg of gunpowder. In Africa, the situation is even worse. Poverty is ravaging the population in countries where there is no crisis. Asia too is not left out. The world is in turmoil even though there is no global war as we know it on the scale of the Second World War, which ended in 1945. Seventy years after the war, the magnitude of its human catastrophe seems incomparable to what we are witnessing in Europe alone today. People have been moving in droves from war-torn Syria, Libya, Iraq and Africa into Europe in search of asylum.

    They risk everything on the journey. They travel on the sea, using rickety vessels that cannot withstand strong wind. When the boats capsize, many drown, going down with their dreams of a better and improved life in exile. Exile is not the best place to be; many are forced into it by circumstances beyond their control. If such people have a choice, they will prefer to remain at home. But where your safety is at stake, the next option is to opt for exile. An exile is like a beggar, who lives at the mercy of others. In the country where he finds himself, he is treated as a nobody. He has no rights, forget what the United Nations (UN) says about treating exiles as the human beings they are.

    In the past few weeks, we have been witnesses to what is happening in some European countries, especially Hungary, which thousands of migrants tried to pass through to reach their destinations. It was hell on earth for those migrants as the Hungarian government hemmed them in under the guise of taking their data before they continued on their journey. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who said his country was carrying out the order of the European Union (EU) in dealing with the migrants, became bad guy in the eyes of the world.

    To the migrants, he was the devil incarnate because of his stand. Orban added insult upon the migrants’ injury when he advised them to remain in Turkey, which he described as safe, instead of trying to cross over to Greece before getting to their final destination in Europe. For days, the migrants and the Hungarian authorities engaged in a battle of wits. The migrants refused to disembark from an Austria-bound train when it was diverted to a camp in Bicske, about 12 miles from Budapest, the Hungarian capital. They endured heat and hunger inside the train for days. At a point, they resorted to trekking – this was how desperate they were to get to Germany – before buses came from Austria to convey them on the remaining leg of the journey The world watched in awe as this drama unfolded.

    The most shocking of it all was the accompanying human tragedy. Many died in transit. Even at that, others were undeterred. A survivor of a boat mishap from Damascus, the Syrian capital, was quoted by The Mail on Sunday of London, as saying : ‘’Even if we are banned 10 times, even if we sink 10 times, we will definitely get to Europe’’. Getting to Europe was a matter of life and death for many of the migrants. The indisposed were ready to get to their destination even on  wheelchairs rather than return to what they considered the Egypt they have left behind.

    The face of this global horror remains the heartrending image of the body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi. The boy died while trying to cross from Turkey to Greece with his family. He was with his father, Abdullah, mother, Rehan, and brother, Galip. Only the father survived when their boat capsized in the Mediterranean sea. Aylan’s body, which was washed ashore a Turkish beach, was beamed across the world by the Cable News Network (CNN). It sparked global anger and Europe was forced to wake up to the reality of the human calamity waiting to happen at its doorstep.

    For the Kurdis’ death not to be in vain, the world must act to fast to ensure that peace reigns globally. If Syria had been peaceful, the Kurdi family would not have embarked on the disastrous journey to Europe. Abdullah Kurdi wanted a better life for his family, which he could not get in war-torn Syria. His case is not different from that of many others also streaming into Europe, the magic continent, which to them is filled with milk and honey. With the throng of people heading towards their continent, European leaders must by now realise that they have a big role to play in finding solution to what gives rise to refugees and ‘’economic migrants’’. If this problem is not urgently addressed, Europe will continue to bear the burden of accommodating these people.

    Back home, we are faced with the same problem, though on a small scale. Those displaced from their homes by Boko Haram and Togolese asylum seekers abound all over the place. The Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and refugee camps are virtually bursting from the seams because of the heavy task of taking care of them. One thing is, however clear – the world cannot,  afford to stand aloof in the midst of this human suffering. It must act now or it will go down with the crisis.

  • The tragedy in Syria

    The tragedy in Syria

    The tragedy of the civil war and horror in Syria has continued unabated. Last week, the picture of a three-year-old Syrian boy, found dead and lying face down on a Turkish beach, went viral. It was shocking and heartbreaking. His father had been trying to take his family out of Syria in a dinghy boat to Greece, en route hopefully to Canada to seek a better future for them there. It was his third attempt to flee Syria. The family had applied for a Canadian visa and was hoping to join a relation there from Greece. But no Canadian visas were granted them. Desperate, the family decided to leave Syria at all costs. The venture ended in a complete disaster as the overcrowded dinghy in which they were sailing to Greece sank. The three-year-old toddler was buried last Friday in Syria from which he and his family had fled. Also reported dead along with the little boy were his mother and older brother aged five.

    Tears welled in my eyes as I watched the horrifying tragedy on CNN, the American global news network. I could not bear to continue watching this incredible horror and switched my TV off the whole day. I am still saddened by the image of that innocent little boy lying face down dead with his clothes and shoes on. His body had been washed off by the sea ending on the beach. That image will be etched in my memory for ever. It highlighted with greater poignancy the tragedy of the civil war in Syria and its human sufferings. It should stir the conscience of the world to do something concrete to end the civil war in Syria. Even the Prime Minister of Turkey, Mr. Erdogan, was moved to angrily and bitterly denounce this inhumanity to man caused by the civil war in Syria. It reminds one of the Nazi concentration camps in Germany and Poland during World War II in which millions of Jews were gassed to death and the American My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

    But that horror was only the latest in the long drama and tragedy of the civil war that has been going on in Syria for over four years, with no end in sight. Syrian families are being torn apart daily with millions of Syrians seeking refuge and safety abroad. There are now millions of Syrian refugees in the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, imposing a crushing burden on these countries. Most of these refugees are children and the aged. The children can no longer go to school. The conditions in which they live in these countries that have offered them a refuge are pitiable and almost indescribable. In most cases they have no water or food in their makeshift refugee camps. Many have taken to begging on the streets for alms.

    We have seen on TV in recent weeks how these Syrian and other migrants have tried desperately and unsuccessfully to cross over to Western Europe after a long and difficult trek for days from Syria. In most cases they have met in varying degrees with hostility and opposition from the European countries. Italy has been supportive, while France and Germany have shown some understanding of the plight of these Syrian and other migrants. Britain is less compromising and has continued to shut its doors to these desperate and hopeless migrants. Prime Minister David Cameron of the UK was reported as saying that, accepting migrants into Europe was not the solution and that the origins of the crisis lay in Syria and other countries from which the migrants are fleeing. While the EU countries laud the increasing global economic integration from which they profit, they are less willing to accept the idea of a global cultural integration, which is ultimately inevitable as it is a component of the global economic integration. They should show more compassion and do more to offer these migrants and refugees some hope of a better future

    It may be true that it is the Arab spring and the collapse of many states in the Arab world, particularly in Syria, that is directly responsible for these mass migrations from the Arab world. But the Western powers cannot totally absolve themselves from some blame over the continuing crises in the Arab world. It started with the Anglo American invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Sadam Hussein, its President, from power. The excuse given then was that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In the end this claim proved to be due to false intelligence information. The ouster of Sadam Hussein from power in Iraq removed a stabilizing force and a source of stability in the region, which sparked of a revolution of some sorts in the Arab world. The Americans could not quite hold the place. It was too costly and wisely President Obama decided to pull out American troops from Iraq, as he did from Afghanistan. The attempt of the Western powers to create client states in the Arab world failed and it is the consequences of this failure that we are now seeing in the Arab world, including the migrations to Europe. Deplorable as the ISIS insurgency is, it has to be understood in the context of the rejection by the Arab world of western domination and influence in the region for over a century. It is a deliberate and irreversible revolt against foreign cultural and religious influences in the Arab world.

    We now have a bizarre and paradoxical situation, a convergence of interests that has led to a western military coalition joining President Assad of Syria to fight ISIS in the region, with Saudi Arabia also joining in the fray. Iran, the long time friend of Assad of Syria and the bitter enemy of America and Saudi Arabia, also finds itself joining the US-led military coalition to fight the ISIS in what is now looking increasingly to the US like a military quagmire with no end in sight. The use of force and foreign intervention will not end the conflict in Syria. There must be a resort to high level diplomacy by the major powers and President Assad of Syria.

    To end the Syrian crisis and bring the civil war there to an end, it is imperative to stop foreign meddling in the affairs of the Arab World. Whatever foreign powers may perceive as their national interests in the region, these will not be achieved by open intervention in the internal affairs of these countries. The emergence of ISIS is just the symptom of a much deeper malaise, the open and inevitable rebellion against foreign cultural influences and the presence of foreign military forces in the Arab world. African leaders should learn from the Syrian experience and guard their countries’ independence  more jealously.

    As for the migrants’ crisis the EU countries should, on humanitarian grounds, be persuaded to accept more refugees from Syria and other parts of the Arab world. The UN should play a greater role in this regard. Since World War II and the gassing of Jews by the Nazi regime in Germany, the world has become a global village. We can no longer hide or pretend to be unaware of the plight of these migrants, or abandon our moral responsibilities to them.

  • Yes, ours are respectable nationalities

    Last week we considered the Hausa-Fulani and the Igbo. Today, we consider the Yoruba. The Yoruba are the largest nationality in the tropical forest country south of the valley of the River Niger. In land area and population, they are larger than most of today’s countries in the world. Their distinguishing characteristic in their history has been their urban civilization. Much more than any other people of Black Africa (indeed more than most other peoples of the world), the Yoruba have lived in towns and walled cities throughout the past 1,200 years.

    By the time the first European explorers navigated the sea passage to the coast of West Africa in about 1450, most of the large Yoruba towns were already flourishing. In the 19th century, some more towns were founded – like Ibadan, Abeokuta, Shagamu, Modakeke, new Oyo, Aiyede-Ekiti, Oke-Agbe in Akoko, etc.

    The first Europeans to penetrate into the interior of Yorubaland did so in the early 19th century. In 1825-6, the English explorer, Hugh Clapperton and his team entered Yorubaland from Badagry and travelled north to the great city of Oyo-Ile near the Niger. What they found surprised them, because it was considerably different from the rest of tropical Africa. Towns existed at short distances from one another in all directions. According to the explorers, many of these towns were “densely inhabited”, and were “remarkable for their cleanliness”. Most were “clean habitations’, were “delightfully situated”, and were approached “through a beautiful walk of trees” or “through a spacious avenue of noble trees”. Very good roads connected town to town. The explorers recorded that the roads were, in many parts, “a long broad and beautiful avenue”, were “as level as a bowling green”, and were well protected and “carefully watched by overseers”.

    In the context of this urban civilization, the Yoruba had long developed a very rich economy – in agriculture, artisanship, crafts, manufactures, commerce and the arts. All along the roads, the Yoruba people’s strength as farmers was obvious. The countryside was  richly farmed – with “fields of Indian corn”, “plantations of cotton”, “extensive plantations of corn and plantains”, “rich plantations of yams”, “acres of indigo”. The explorers summed up their impression by writing that the Yoruba were indeed “an industrious race”.

    Yoruba crafts and manufactures were highly sought in many parts of tropical Africa. The Yoruba also had the greatest art culture in Black Africa. In every town, the Clapperton group saw large numbers of sculptures decorating public buildings and family compounds. They remarked that the Yoruba people “appear to have a genius for the art of sculpture” and that Yoruba artistic productions “rival, in point of delicacy, any of a similar kind” that they had seen in Europe.

    In every town, the explorers saw large and crowded marketplaces where innumerable kinds of merchandise from various ends of the earth were spread out for sale. They counted as many as seven large marketplaces in one large town. On a busy market day, the collective swell of bargaining in any of these marketplaces could be heard from many miles away like the roaring of the sea. Some market places specialized in night-time trading, with every trader using an oil lamp to illuminate her merchandise. When one approached one of such marketplaces in session, it was as if one was heading towards a sea of stars.

    Other European and American explorers later in that century confirmed all that the Clapperton group had seen. In particular, these had much to write about Yoruba trade. They were greatly impressed by the ancient Yoruba institution of trade caravan (made up of many traders and their porters travelling together). One British Anglican missionary estimated that a caravan that he travelled with near Ibadan in 1854 consisted of “not less than 4000 persons”. The American missionary, William H. Clarke, who travelled all over Yorubaland in 1854-8, wrote:

    “The trade in native produce and art keeps up continual intercommunication between the several adjacent towns, the one interchanging its abundance of one article for that of another. Thus on those smaller routes may be seen caravans of fifties passing almost daily from one town to another, acting as the great reservoirs of trade. (On the longer routes) a network of trade is carried to a distance of hundreds of miles, and with an energy and perseverance scarcely compatible with a tropical people. Hundreds and thousands of people are thus engaged in the carrying trade”.

    Clarke added that whenever some caravans happened to merge, “a correct idea of the extent of trade may be found in the imposing numbers that stretch over several miles in length” on the road.

    Most of the trading happened in the marketplaces, but there were various types of travelling traders – the owners of the caravans. Two of the richest traders in Yorubaland in the century were women – Madam Tinubu in Lagos and Chief Efunseyitan Aniwura, the Iyalode of Ibadan. The Iyalode owned not only one of the largest commercial businesses in the country but also a large farming enterprise which, in the 1870’s, employed more than 2000 workers. In the port towns of Lagos and Ajase (Porto Novo), very many rich merchants grew up, and some of them even owned shipping lines.

    According to the Clapperton group, the Yoruba people lived under very respectable government and paid “the greatest respect to the laws”. Yoruba people were also happy and wonderfully hospitable. “We experienced as much civility from them as our own countrymen would have bestowed upon us in our own native land.” In every town or village, the explorers were thronged by inquisitive crowds who “were, generally speaking, neatly dressed…and very clean in their personal appearance”, and “pleasing in their manners” and self-respecting. The explorers wanted to pay money to young men to carry their ailing leader (Clapperton) in a hammock, but found, in town after town, that no Yoruba youth would do such a thing for anybody; the boys always responded that it was “a task fit only for horses”. However, rich Yoruba folks as well as the chiefs and kings were always ready to help the explorers and to lend them the use of horses.

    At the bottom of all this prosperity, order and peace, was Yoruba cultural unity. Though the Yoruba lived in many sovereign kingdoms, they were united by a common culture in language and patterns of life, powerful traditions that “proved” a common national origin and identity, and a common national pride as a superior civilization.

    The very sophisticated Yoruba political and governmental system had a significantly democratic character. Unlike among most other monarchical peoples, Yoruba kings were not automatically succeeded by their biological sons, but were selected by their subjects from the pool of eligible princes of the royal lineage. The chiefly lineages also selected the chiefs.  The culture demanded serious respect for the right of speech for all, and had a uniquely strong kind of respect for women. Rich Yoruba women traders were regularly among Yorubaland’s richest and most influential people. And every Yoruba kingdom had traditional women chiefs. All these made the individual Yoruba a confident and freedom-loving person.

    The Clapperton explorers noted repeatedly that Yoruba rulers were dignified, professional and highly respectable. William Clarke wrote that, surprisingly, the Yoruba had long mastered the principle and practice of “balance of powers” in governance – probably better than many European peoples.

    Then in the second half of the 19th century, the strengths of the Yoruba nation were powerfully reinforced by new, non-indigenous, cultural assets. European Christian missionaries had started to bring the Gospel message and Western education to Black Africa by the middle of the century – and the Yoruba had immediately jumped far ahead of the rest of Black Africa in taking advantage of the Western education. Yoruba language became a written language. By the 1870s, a Yoruba literate elite (of lawyers, doctors, engineers, journalists, accountants, etc) had risen and was expanding, and Yorubaland already had newspapers. Among other things, the literate elite initiated a movement of Yoruba Cultural Nationalism which promoted studies and writings in Yoruba culture and history, and which greatly added to Yoruba national unity.

    All in all, the Yoruba nation was a large Black African nation absolutely able and ready to evolve into a nation-state or country of its own in the modern world. European imperialism did the horrible harm of pre-empting that. Nigeria is now engaged in the horror of attempting to suppress and destroy the Yoruba nation and other Nigerian nations. Denial, by Nigeria’s so-called “federal” centre, of the existence of the Yoruba and other Nigerian nationalities, and banning the teaching of their languages and histories in the schools, are abominations that can only boomerang someday – to the huge detriment of Nigeria.

  • Akpabio, South-south ‘star’ governor

    Senator Godswill Akpabio, Akwa Ibom’s immediate past governor had a close shave with death a little over a week back. He was said to be in a rush to catch an international flight to visit his wife and children abroad when his SUV Mercedes ran into a convoy of some US embassy officials while trying to beat the traffic light. He left the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja aboard a regular private jet that he usually travels with the following day to receive medical attention abroad. From his London hospital came good tidings six days later. He thanked Nigerians for their prayers while appreciating “President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President, Bukola Saraki and others for their calls.” For his detractors and political foes, he equally had a message: “I will rise again; though down but not out”.

    Senator Akpabio, perhaps besides ex-President Jonathan has been the face of South-south politics in the last eight years. He was perhaps the greatest influence on Jonathan presidency. As a dyed in the wool PDP stalwart, he knows how to cut deals and how to acquire friendship. As a cheerful giver, those whose lives he has touched love him with passion. With Akpabio, the media can find no fault. From Thisday newspapers came an award for what the paper described as “Emerging Tiger”; to the Daily Times, he is ‘the Uncommon Transformer’. The Sun newspapers named him its “2011 Man of the Year,” while the Abuja based Leadership newspapers named him the ‘2012 Leadership Governor of the Year’.

    Outside the media also came a deluge of awards. The African Church named Akpabio “Nehemiah of our time”, for “rebuilding Nigeria”.  The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) named him “the Best Governor in Nigeria”. Honours also came from such institutions as the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, the Nigerian Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru, the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE). The most valuable, I suspect must have been the one from Ekaette, his wife who gave him an award for making Akwa Ibom “a state with limitless opportunities, and for delivering over 3,000 projects’.

    This deluge of awards and honours did not come cheap. Apart from the Ekaette’s 3000 projects, Akpabio was said to have commissioned over 165 projects during his last week in office. Some of his mega projects include the 15-floor 250-room 5-Star Hotel with Galleria with 10,000 seater-dome, multiple cinema halls and shopping malls; and the Akwa Ibom International airport with maintenance, ‘first of its kind in West and Central Africa”. His star project however was the N30 billion world-class specialist hospital. The 308-bed international specialist hospital, ‘with an ultra-modern medical facility such as six fully integrated modular theatres, 640 slides CT scan, digital mammography, endoscopy surgery, highly sophisticated intensive care units and medical gas plants, paperless and fully automated laboratories’, all hooked up to a global system for best practice. It also has a helipad to facilitate easy emergency movements. The hospital, according to Akpabio, is the answer to “the billions of dollars, we lose every year to medical trips abroad.” “We are starting with 150 expatriates all at once and, we are in agreement with a Swiss hospital group and an Arab healthcare group in partnership with Cardio Care in Lagos, which is a group of cardiologists”, he added. The commissioning of the ultra modern hospital was wildly celebrated by the media only in May this year.

    Having to be flown abroad to seek medical attention following his last week accident seemed to have now emboldened his detractors to raise fresh questions about the deluge of awards and newspaper celebration of achievements they claim did not reflect the quantum of naira accruing to a governor who earns in one month what many non oil-producing states earn in one year.

    Jetting abroad in a private aircraft to seek medical help instead of taking advantage  of the N30b specialist hospital with its celebrated state of the art facilities, Akpabio seems to have played into the hands of political opponents, who hitherto could only tackle him over his alleged profligacy such as donating  two Prado SUVs valued at  N30m as wedding gift,  alleged acquisition for self an exotic multimillion dollar bullet-proof sprinter luxury vans from US-based Texas Armoring Corporation (TAC), N230 million donation on behalf of PDP Governors’ Forum towards ex-President Goodluck Jonathan’s Otuoke church, N50 million to Nollywood, and alleged multimillion donations  to journalists and unscrupulous party and government officials.

    Following his failure to live by his own precepts, his detractors are in fact now asking what value the sitting of ‘a 15-floor 250-room 5-Star Hotel’, an International airport that is the ‘first of its kind in West and Central Africa’ in Uyo will add to the lives of the ordinary people. Would it not have made a more economic sense to invest in 5-star hotels in Abuja and repatriate dividends home to address social problems of the people?  If Akpabio has no faith in his state of the art hospital, who will?

    What, they ask is the family of a governor with a double award for “uncommon transformation of his state with quality infrastructure” and for ‘transforming his state from an unknown rural area to one of the most beautiful cities in Africa.” looking for in an atomized society like Britain and the US with their hostile environment? And now they openly ask if the African Church wrongly credited Akpabio, for ‘building Nigeria’ and named him the “Nehemiah of our time”; would that not amount to an affront to ex-President Jonathan and his transformation ambassadors who  claimed to have solved the nation’s energy crisis, modernized railways and making the second Onitsha bridge a reality?

    The questions are endless. Should a governor who has acquired a double award as “the Best Governor in Nigeria for “the institutionalization of free and compulsory education” not lead by example by keeping his children in the government celebrated schools instead of sending them abroad? I do not pretend to have answers to this and other concerns expressed by Akwa Ibom stakeholders about the wisdom of some of Akpabio’s policies or his compatriots who alleged most of the honours were purchased from newspapers in the habit of hawking honours which stopped only after the kidnapping of their chieftains, their car and undisclosed transport fare collected from Akpabio during their visit to Uyo some two years back.

    But what cannot take away from Akpabio is the fact that he has distinguished himself as proud and adequate representative of the South-south in the Fourth Republic.  Unlike ex-President Jonathan who claimed ‘stealing is not corruption’, his benefactor, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Governor General of the Ijaws, charged to court by  Britain Metropolitan police over his portfolio of foreign assets with five banks in the UK, banks in Cyprus, Denmark and the United States; four London properties acquired for a total of £4.8m; a Cape Town harbour penthouse acquired for almost £1m, assets in the United States, almost £1m in cash stored in one of his London properties, etc; James Ibori who had his 170-EFCC-count charge of money laundering struck out by Justice Marcel Awokulehin of Asaba High Court, only to be prosecuted and sentenced to 13 years jail term by Britain Metropolitan Police and Lucky Igbinedion who has since been indicted and others who are still in court battling to clear their names, Akpabio’s only weakness is being generous to friends. He remains the only shining star in the midst of ‘vultures’, (apology to Saro Wiwa).

  • Loot recovery, an existential imperative

    It does not appear to most Nigerians that  our country is broke and in financial mess. If this were so, the kind of talk coming from some people about recovering as much as possible common patrimony appropriated by a few would have been unthinkable. How can any priest worth his robe be pleading justice for treasury looters? This is an abuse of priestly privilege. We have to be careful in this country not to drag the name of God in the mud. Rule of law is good but must be accompanied by justice and public good. We are all for rule of law but in the Nigerian case, what is rule of law when cases of corruption have been in the law courts for up to a decade without resolution and some of those charged have come back to occupy executive positions as governors and legislative positions as senators? One is not surprised that these so-called legislators within three months have expended N31 billion on themselves while meeting for only 15days. It does not appear that these legislators know the precarious situation of our national finances. How on earth can members of parliament be paid N23 million per month after the public had been told that they were going to cut their budget by 30 percent? An ad hoc committee in the senate that suggested salary reduction was peremptorily dissolved by the leadership of that body following a rejection of its recommendation. Those who had earlier suggested that the legislative branch has been cornered by remnants of the ancien regime has been proved right by the financial shenanigans going on  in parliament. The Buhari administration would have to be prepared for a fight or else all its  ranting  against corruption would amount to to a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. If it has records of corruption, it is in its interest to quickly take those involved to court and prevail on the Chief Justice to direct his colleagues to dispense justice quickly  and transparently without cases being bogged down with innumerable adjournment and legal technicalities.

    It is really a pity that even before the campaign against corruption begins, hired hands have begun to raise the dust of possible ethnic persecution. I cannot understand why anybody should justify corruption because it is perpetrated by one’s ethnic cohort. I am yet to see anybody in Nigeria sharing the proceeds of corruption with members of his or ethnic groups. This kind of argument is the flimsy defense by the weak and guilty party. The fight against corruption must start somewhere. It is no use saying we must begin in 1960 or some other date. Wherever there is evidence of corruption, whether in recent past or any time in the past should be dealt with without statute of limitations. We of course know that judgement on corruption should begin with the sordid deeds of recent past and if anybody stole money for his ethnic group, let him or her come out and name those of his or her ethnic group who benefited from the loot. I sincerely hope the emphasis of the anti-corruption campaign should be recovery after which punishment may be considered.

    The price of crude oil on which the economy largely depends has fallen below $50 a barrel and it is not likely to recover soon. It is therefore imperative on the Buhari administration not to count on possibility of oil bonanza. It will not happen. Those who manipulate global pricing of commodities will ensure that oil and gas are kept at this level for the foreseeable future. The western economy is benefiting hugely from low energy cost while India and China that used to guzzle oil are also benefiting from the slump in oil price. Developing economies are also benefiting. It is countries like Nigeria, Venezuela and Russia that have become hopelessly dependent on a mono product that are in for a shock. This is why the effort of the CBN to conserve foreign reserves should be applauded. We ought to be sufficient in food production. We should eat only what we can grow. It is as simple as that. Imagine what the hundreds of billions of naira spent on rice and wheat imports can do for our farmers and those who may want to take to farming. Our economy which for years has encouraged buying and selling must now focus on agricultural and industrial production at home. All the young men hawking all kinds of Chinese and Indian goods and fried plantains and so-called  pure water must be redirected back to their villages to cultivate the land or as gangs engaged in building  roads and houses which our country needs. Economy based on retail of other people’s goods is no economy. It is merely exporting Nigerian jobs to India and China. I am for encouraging local industrialists and foreign investors. But one is unhappy seeing Indians and Lebanese people coming to our country and borrowing billions from our banks without bringing their own money into the country. This has been going for a long time to the detriment of the economy. These people are able to do this through the corrupt connivance and collusion of of our banks. This will call for government oversight of the banking sector. It is not only in government that corruption is rampant, it is also prevalent in the private sector.

    The upshot of what one is saying is that Buhari is not lucky coming at this lean time because those who ran the economy at the time of surplus and plenty did not save for a raining day like we are witnessing now. This rain will not stop soon unfortunately. This is why there is a need for radical transformation of our approach to governance. We must not only conserve funds through prudent management of funds, we must also find other avenues to generate funds. People have glibly talked about solid minerals. We have heard this noise before. This was touted as money spinner during the Abacha regime. Not much came out of it except for the diversion of government money into the bottomless chasm of unprofitable ventures. If this sector is to be encouraged, it must be done transparently and with the private sector at its vanguard. We also need to conclude whatever privatization regime the government may have in mind as well as resuscitate the textile industry while banning importation of cheap textiles from Asian countries. Nigeria made a mistake of over-reliance on oil and gas while neglecting other areas of our economy. We now need to encourage companies that can add value to our agricultural products to go into production . While one is not suggesting state enterprises  that proved our undoing in the past, we must not be doctrinaire about private sector led economic development especially now that this government is seized with the problem of tackling unemployment. There may be need for state intervention in a few areas such as the development of vast plantations of such produce like cocoa, cotton, palm oil, rubber, cashew soya been wheat and even groundnuts. Local governments could be financially empowered to do this and get local youths employed in the process. We must not be encumbered by economic orthodoxy. Whatever can work in our clime should be experimented with. These are difficult times and this government must not be shy to try things that may not have been tried elsewhere before. We must put on our thinking caps and work ourselves out of this economic doldrums.

    The starting point is the recovery of the loot. This will show  the world not only that we mean business and that we are serious about cleaning the Augean stable of corruption, it will also show that we realize that this task has become an existential imperative for our country.

  • Babatunde Fashola as the APC’s broken idol (2)

    Babatunde Fashola as the APC’s broken idol (2)

    Babatunde Fashola’s descent shows politics as a barbaric ritual drama where the performers periodically trade masks. His frightful demystification presage the capitulation of hubris to karma’s tyranny. At the beginning of his term as Lagos governor, the perceived dominance of Bola Tinubu, as his godfather and puppeteer seemed so complete and absolute. Fashola, to cynical opposition parties and apathetic citizenry, was inert human matter, a pitiful puppet manipulated by an omnipotent godfather, Tinubu. The latter allegedly controlled Lagos while Fashola served as a pitiable front. Critics of Fashola substantiated their claims by tracing his subservience to Tinubu to the period when he served as the two-time governor of Lagos’ Chief of Staff (COS).

    Fashola was severally dismissed as a stringed instrument plucked by Tinubu. However, under the latter’s imposing stature, Fashola forged an enviable identity, his bid reinforced by his brilliance, infectious optimism and natural biological authoritarianism. Fashola thus proceeded to serve against a bulwark of antagonism by Lagos elite class and struggling human segments of the backwaters. Governor Fashola proceeded by seemingly tested ideological apparatuses, brandishing a pieta, where the old guard becomes a virgin bustling with bleeding youth and buoyancy. But few months into his administration, one thing led to another and the chummy relationship he shared with Tinubu reportedly deteriorated. The ‘subservient’ godson allegedly sought freedom from his godfather and subsequently challenged the latter to a joust in apparent bid to tame him and cast him in a bind. The disconcerting test of might and will raged through Fashola’s first and second terms as Lagos governor; in the ensuing melee, various interests emerged and several people took sides, the media inclusive.

    Now, this is hardly about the cause of conflict between alleged godfather and godson – as most of such stories widely perpetuated across the political circuits and media space often turn out to be lies embellished to serve the interests of warring parties – it is about the metamorphosis of Fashola from APC’s poster idol to a broken toy. So, if you are hell bent on establishing Tinubu or Fashola as a monster of sort, you can drop this page right now to seek other writers amenable to your quirk.

    Predictably, Fashola exulted in the subtle and often rabid cheers accorded him by his ragtag army of loyalists comprising disgruntled, hungry politicians, civil servants and journalists, all desperate to make a fortune via sycophancy and goading of the former Lagos governor to his doom. Loyalties switched on the political plane . Deceit flared and floundered in the intense political drama. Pride too. Fashola’s brazen challenge to the ‘wailing wailers’ and ‘pigs,’ his perceived political foes eventually, incited backlash that devastated his strut and seeming invincibility with choreographic ritualism. It’s like a parody of ancient turf battles where the weaker clan buckles after launching preemptive strikes to tame and crush stronger opposition.

    A flurry of allegations severely rattled him, stripping him of his confidence and characteristic hauteur. His fate is energized by explosive requiem of the repressed citizenry of Lagos, those whose dreams lay buried in the cavernous chasms of infrastructural lack and perceived maladministration by the immediate past Lagos governor.

    It doesn’t matter if this segment of the citizenry comprising the impoverished human integers of the backwaters, struggling working and professional classes among others, are responsible for whatever grievous fate they suffer, it is trendier for them to blame the ruling class for their predicament rather than own up to certain bad choices and quirks of character.

    In some cases, this segment of the repressed considers itself justifiably outraged at been unduly shortchanged by their leader. Market women of the sidewalks in Alimosho Local Government Area (LGA) of the state for instance, perpetuate news about the former governor’s recent travails like some urban legend to which they are contentedly disposed. Park urchins, jobless graduates and muscles for hire roaming Alimosho’s bad lands argue that but for their bias for the APC machinery and lack of better alternative, they would have voted against the party. According to them, the district produces decisive votes in the interest of the APC yet it grovels in abject lack  compared to Lekki, Victoria Island, Yaba, Surulere and other parts of the state considered major recipients of the former governor’s mega city agenda.

    Fashola was and is still variously seen as a governor of the elites or rich upper class by these segments of Lagos populace. While they are entitled to their views, such impressions about the ex-governor may peter out to more favourable testimonies and commendations for his service in parts of the state allegedly favoured by him in his megacity plan.

    This undoubtedly negates the argument by Fashola’s media team that he was a governor of the people. What manner of people? What segment of the people? I, for instance, was appreciative of the former Lagos governor’s refusal to compromise as he cleared Oshodi of miscreants, squalid shanties and market settlements. But that decision was severely frowned at by the unemployed, commercial motorists, park urchins and market women of the sidewalk that erstwhile profited from the township’s squalor – these human elements no doubt constitute the decisive segment of the Lagos electorate.

    There is no gainsaying the government of Fashola took purposeful steps to set Lagos on the path to irreversible progress but at what cost? Recent disclosures by the state under the incumbent administration of Governor Akinwumi Ambode allege financial improprieties against his predecessor hence eliciting shrill cries from Camp-Fashola of perceived witch-hunt by his successor.

    Lending his voice to the debate, Tinubu condemned the attacks on his successor claiming Fashola would emerge victorious at the end. He said: “I for one will not bend to the artificial provocation of those seeking to tear at what we have painstakingly built over the years. In my mind, Governor Fashola and I are and shall always be political allies and fellow travelers on a vital journey; that alliance is unshakeable and our journey must not be interrupted. I would no more attack his character or his administration than I would attack myself.”

    Apparently, the former Lagos governor and APC leader has dissociated himself from what he termed ‘rancid’ attacks against his successor. Perhaps this would put to rest insinuations that Tinubu sponsored this piece. Nonetheless, some frivolous boob would read this and call it an attack on Fashola. I would rather you call it premeditated assault on the vanities and vaingloriousness that gradually nibbles at the core of Fashola’s acclaim, diminishing it, stripping him naked and vulnerable to the charge of random radicals lusting for his ruin in real time.

    Considering the huge allocation and Internally Generated Revenue available to him, Fashola didn’t do enough regarding the level of performance expected of his administration. He must come out to convincingly affirm or dispel the insinuations of financial impropriety levelled against him by the obviously over-exuberant incumbent administration.

    I do not care what trenchant undertones are ascribed to this as long as Camp-Fashola understands that he was the architect of his misfortune. Brilliance may serve him in oratory and political grandstanding but the incidences leading to the ‘rancid’ disclosures about him could have been better managed with tact and maturity.

    Yet the imagery of Fashola as the quintessential APC mascot is merely sullied, not destroyed. If he could learn from his recent predicament and reestablish himself as the citizenry’s true advocate, his ‘indestructible record’ will cease to mesh with his indestructible ego to impede his ascent the rickety ladder of power.

    • To be continued…
  • Of love, lust and justice

    Of love, lust and justice

    LET’S forget about politics and politicians – just for a while. Let’s take our minds off the crashing oil prices and the battered Naira, the dizzying figures of the cash laid at the foot of the demon of corruption and the row sparked by President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointments, a harmless action that has been hijacked by ethnic warriors to feather their nest. Let’s turn our gaze off Sambisa to other forests that are as dreadful as that evil redoubt of the redoubtable Boko Haram terrorists. Just for a while.

    I don’t expect you to hail me for raising the alarm: sexual crimes are on the rise. We all know this. What is unclear is: how many of us are worried? The stories range from those of deranged minds in mindless assault on minors, rape and sexual peccadilloes of celebrities. All in August.

    I tried my all to ignore them all, but the subject kept coming up like the phoenix. How do we, in a family newspaper such as ours, deal with salacious matters, especially those bordering on concupiscence, eroticism and, in some cases, sheer rumpy pumpy, without offending the reader’s sensibility? How?

    Many homes have been broken since the shocking unveiling of the Ashley Madison adultery website. Some women, unable to stand the reality that their husbands could philander with other women, quit their marriages, hacked to marital death by those merciless hackers. There have been reports of suicide and company chiefs stepping down.

    The revelations have been earth-shaking. Now, Alabama has been described as the adultery capital of the United States after it was found to have the highest levels of credit card movements on the extra-marital cheating website among the 50 states. In the United Kingdom, Cambridge –yes, Cambridge, the university city –  has the highest number of potential cheats. One in 20 of its adults, including  many academic giants – men and women – are registered on the website.

    What is the relationship between learning and technology for which Cambridge, home of a world famous university, is known and extra-marital indiscretions? I am sure researchers will soon let us into this amazing secret.

    In South Africa, the police announced that a case of assault had been opened against a grandson of the late statesman, Dr Nelson Mandela. The young man had earlier been accused of raping a 15-year-old girl. He was allowed home on a R7,000 bail by a Johannesburg magistrate. He spent a week in custody.

    A relation of the suspect denied rape. He said it was all consensual and that the girl was of age. Do rape victims always get justice? Hardly. Any doubt is often resolved in the favour of the accused. The complainant is subjected to so much questioning that she would regret ever bringing up the matter. The burden of proof is often so heavy that cases get abandoned. The result is that many victims of rape would rather suffer in silence, sink into depression and, in some cases, take their own lives.

    The other day at the Police College, Ikeja, Lagos, a female police officer and her lover, apparently seeking a way out of the regimental camp life of rigorous exercises, parades and examinations, went inside a parked car and carried on as if they were home in the bedroom. A senior officer on routine checks, a flash lamp in his hand, found a stationery car moving rhythmically. Curious, he decided to check. And what a spectacle. An eyeful. He ordered  the show stopped and subjected the panting actors to some grilling. Unable to take it anymore, the man, who claimed to be a police officer, fled the scene. His companion lost a rank for indecent conduct  unbecoming of an officer.

    Is that fair? Well, it is neither here nor there. I waited for our army of women rights activists and Beijing champions to take up the matter and fight for the poor woman’s rank to be restored but they did not seem to be interested.

    When does an unrestrained lustful desire become a crime? Is such an act done in the night in a car by two consenting adults and away from public glare an affront to public sensibility and decency? Isn’t this why our people say bodi no be wood? Is the police chief’s action not a brazen assault on the female police officer’s copulative rights and privileges? I really don’t know. Where are our legal experts?

    In Anambra State, women of easy virtue went on the rampage, razing a market because the brothels in which they practise their trade in Amansea, Awka North Local Government, were demolished by the Urban Development Board, which claimed that the place was a haven for criminals. That was on August 14.

    It has been suggested by some analysts that instead of taking the law into their hands, these women should have gone to court to demand damages. The question, however, remains: in what capacity? Do they have an association? What will they tell the judge? Isn’t there a difference between human rights and the liberty to practise an illegal trade? Can they ever get justice?

    Also in August, a University of Lagos (UNILAG) teacher was accused of raping an admission seeker. The university disowned the randy teacher who reportedly denied the accusation. The matter, I learnt, is still being investigated.

    Of all these cases, none has been as sensational as that of Mrs Emily Richard-Obire, who petitioned the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) to complain that Justice Olamide Oloyede of the Osun State Judiciary – remember her? Her Lordship was the one who petitioned the  Assembly to impeach Governor Rauf Aregbesola  –  had snatched her husband. An Ashley Madisonian stuff, the story attracted a flood of comments.

    How? Her husband and Justice Olojede were co-habiting, she alleged and urged the National Judicial Council (NJC) to issue a perpetual injunction restraining Justice Oloyede, her agents, privies, servants and others from snatching her husband.

    Apparently realising the urgency of the matter, Chief Justice Mahmoud Mohammed asked Her Lordship to defend her integrity in 14 days. A source said she did with dispatch. Did Her Lordship deny all the concubinary exploits ascribed to her by the petitioner?

    I do not know yet how this matter will be settled. As I said, it drew an avalanche of comments and an army of emergency experts – family lawyers, psychologists, psychoanalysts, physiologists and all manner of charlatans who have lunched into exotic theories on the matter of Her Lordship’s yet unproven concubinary adventure.

    They have been asking: When does co-habitation become snatching? Can there be snatching without violence? Any sign of violence in this instance? Why will a  man leave his family to warm a strange woman’s bed? What is the attraction? Is it normal? What is the other woman doing better – culinary adventurism? Copulative virtuosity? Erotomania? Mere romance?

    Said Mrs Richard-Obire, a mother of four: “I have evidence that she has been addressing my husband as ‘my husband’ and my husband has been addressing her as ‘my beautiful wife’.”

    It is incredible how this matter of co-habitation and all the corollary of such actions has been blown out of proportion, leaping straight out of the inner recesses of a home somewhere in a city to the streets where some strange rights activists have seized upon it as a weapon to fight their battle against Aregbesola – all because workers are owed salaries.

    A hitherto unknown Civil Societies (sic) Coalition for the Emancipation of Osun State joined the fray, nestling like a dutiful coach in Justice Oloyede’s corner. It suggested that the NJC was usurping the functions of a magistrate’s court by entertaining Mrs Richard-Obire’s petition. Her husband, said the coalition, is free to fall in bed –sorry, a slip there – in love with whomsoever he chooses. In fact, the fellows went on, the man had filed for divorce. The activists added other details, which I would rather leave out here, again because this is a family newspaper.

    The emergency experts, aforementioned, would also not rest. They keep probing.  When does fantasy end, giving way to adultery? Is co-habitation adultery? What proof is Mrs Richard- Obire going to present – pictures of late night inner-room hot kisses or just a pat on the buttocks in the kitchen? Or the gentle touch on the chin? Does she have a video/audio evidence? Has she been involved in some voyeurism?

    A little bird tells me this story is just unfolding, waiting to blossom in typical kiss-and-tell manner. For instance, we are yet to hear from Mr Obire, the man at the centre of all this. What kind of man is he? Seductive? Quiet? Active? Handsome?  Will the NJC summon him? Will he be asked to choose either of the two women? If so, who will he like to go with?

    Whichever way the NJC resolves this delicate matter, which those who know nothing about law and its practice said should have been left for a magistrate, our jurisprudence would have been richly enriched at the end of the day.  It may well turn out that indeed, not only justice is blind, love also shares that attribute; it is blind.

    C-o-u-r-t!.

  • The Jonathan circle

    They had everything cut out long before they left office last May 29. At a secret meeting in Abuja, former President Goodluck Jonathan and his ministers mapped out strategies on how to react to criticisms after their exit. They knew that they were leaving the country in a mess, which will become so glaring after their exit that the people will call for their heads. How to avoid the people’s wrath became their headache. The meeting decided that the only way out is for them to continue to bond together after their exit.

    Truly, since May 29, these men of yesterday have remained together. They and their principal have held series of meetings in the last three months amid the clamour for a probe of their tenure. In one of its sessions, the meeting advised Jonathan to seek the help of the Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar-led peace committee to reach out to his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari. The meeting felt that the president is breaching the understanding he reached with Jonathan and that only the peace panel could intervene to remedy the situation.

    What is this understanding they are talking about? It all has to do with the agreement signed by Buhari and Jonathan to accept the outcome of the March 28 presidential election. The essence of the pact is to ensure that there was no breakdown of law and order over the election result.The parties complied with the terms of the agreement because the election came and went without violence. But does this imply that Buhari would not call Jonathan to question for his deeds in office? Of course, it does not. But those who want the immediate past administration to get away with all its atrocities want to tie Buhari’s hands with that pact, which centred mainly on a peaceful, free and fair election. With the elections over, the peace panel should automatically close shop and allow Buhari  to do his job. But, Jonathan, his ministers and others who want to use it to achieve their aims will have none of that.

    The former ministers’ thinking is that if things continued like this, Jonathan may end up being a villain in the people’s eyes. So, to avoid that, they felt it was expedient for the peace panel to do something before it is too late. That informed the meeting the panel had with the president last month. But the panel met its match in Buhari, who insisted on probing the Jonathan administration for leaving the country in a mess. The panel’s argument that a probe may rubbish Jonathan’s good deed of of conceding defeat to Buhari in the last election did not cut ice with the president. He was said to have told the panel that all those who abused their office must pay the price for their actions.

    Jonathan also met with Buhari, who stood his ground on probe. As if he knew things would turn out this way, Jonathan had at the valedictory Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting held on May 27 said he was not afraid of probe but that it should be extended to the administrations before his. ”Anyone calling for probes must ensure that probes are extended beyond the Jonathan administration otherwise it will amount to a witch hunt”. This has been the line of the former ministers, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its senators that have been accusing Buhari of being selective in his anti-corruption war.

    But is that the case? No, says the All Progressives Congress (APC), which points out that some of its members have also been caught in the anti-graft war web. But Jonathan and his ministers believe that they are the target. This is why they have resolved to fight back with all they have. After their last meeting in Abuja, one of them, the former National Planning Minister, Dr Abubakar Suleiman, was appointed the group’s spokesman. It is part of their larger plan to ensure that none of them goes down alone. They want to fight as a group. But there is danger in that because each person must answer for his own deed. Was the treasury looted as a group? No. The ministers might have worked together in Council, but every individual must give an  account of his stewardship, given as we all know that they did not all hold the same portfolio.

    Could it be that they are afraid and so, are seeking solace in a group? The failure of the peace panel to secure a soft landing for them may have heightened their fear that eh, this is prison! If they have no skeletons in their cupboards, they need not fear, but if they do, they should be prepared to face the consequences of their actions. Performing his first duty as the group’s spokesman, Suleiman, in a statement, claimed that lies were being peddled about the Jonathan administration, submitting : ”But such sensationalism may achieve the unintended effect of de-marketing our country within the international community”. How can?

    Suleiman is wide of the mark. Rather, Nigeria is enjoying its best time ever in the comity of nations. The president has been to the United States, where he stayed in President Barack Obama’s guest house; he has attended the G7 summit as an observer and last week, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon was in Nigeria. I don’t know what Suleiman is driving at with such a claim. Is he saying that Nigeria will be de-marketed because we want to ask our past leaders questions? Has he ever heard of any country being de-marketed for looking at its past in order to shape its future? Were countries that jailed their leaders for corruption and other misdemeanours de-marketed?

    Jonathan and his men need not fear since they say they served the nation with all their hearts. ”We are proud to have served Nigeria and we boldly affirm that we did so diligently and to the best of our abilities. The improvements that have been noticed today in the power sector, in national security and in social services and other sectors did not occur overnight. They are products of solid foundations laid by the Jonathan administration…the Jonathan administration did not encourage corruption, rather it fought corruption vigorously…for the benefit of those who may have forgotten so soon, it was the Jonathan administration that got rid of the fraud in fertiliser subsidies, which had plagued the country for decades…”

    Huh! This will be sweet music in the ears of the probe panels. Suleiman and his colleagues should go and sing it there. But will they have the courage of their conviction to appear before such panels when the time comes?

  • Why Buhari must ignore, Nwabueze, Clark, Okunronmu

    I think President Buhari should worry more about how to keep his own side of the social contract with Nigerian voters. Elders who claim to speak for Ohaneze and old Afenifere, associations of less than ten veteran politicians, saw no evil and heard no evil. Now that the chickens have come home to roost, elders who behaved as if they didn’t have stakes in Nigeria are using their control and influence of the media to jam our earlobes with howling newspaper headlines such as  ‘outrage grows across Nigeria’, ‘more outrage over Buhari appointments’, ‘Buhari’s lopsided appointments’ split the north’, ‘Buhari’s war against the south’etc

    And why is the country being heated up? The APC spokesman Lai Mohammed and Governor Adam Oshiomhole made some disturbing disclosures. They claimed  N3.8 trillion of the N8.1 trillion  earned from crude oil between 2012 and 2015 was not accounted for  by NNPC; they spoke of $2.1b unauthorised withdrawal from the excess crude account; missing N109.7b royalty from oil firms;N6b allegedly looted by ministers, 160b barrels of crude worth $13.9b lost between 2009 and 2012.; $15m from botched arms deal with South Africa and N183b yet to be accounted for in NNDC, $700m taken from the Sovereign Wealth Account for the second Onitsha Bridge without any bridge and the money-gobbling Onitsha-Owerri-Enugu dual carriage that is leading nowhere. Added to all these are ‘a mind-shattering $2.2billion-arms scandal and an alleged $6.9 million fraud by chief of security (CS)) to ex-president Jonathan committed under the guise of buying three mobile stages for Jonathan’s campaign

    But these are all mere allegations which according to Olisa Mentuh, PDP spokesman are ‘irresponsible, reckless and provocative ‘bandied imaginary figures’. But while one would have expected our respected Nwabueze to wait for the judicial process to start, he chose to issue a statement titled ‘Corrupt Practices: “Igbo leaders position on probe of past governments’, where he argued against limiting the probe to the administration of Jonathan which according to him ‘would be ‘selective, unjust and unfair’. He speculated that such a probe will be used to humiliate political opponents of government. The question to ask is why Prof. Nwabueze has chosen to fight for those who have neither been accused nor charged. As for Chief Edwin Clark, ex-president Obasanjo who he alleged is corrupt must first be probed.  But for many, that Chief Clark is only just discovering that Obasanjo is corrupt after he had single handedly promoted Jonathan from deputy governor to governor, vice-president, and President with grateful Jonathan describing Obasanjo as the third most important influence on his life after God and his parents is a measure of the quality of his advice to Jonathan who ended up describing Obasanjo as a ‘motor park tout’.

    And those who have taken up arms over appointment forget we run a presidential system where the buck ends on the presidents table. As soon as  Buhari  named  Dr  Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu as the Group MD of NNPC, an institution that controls over 75% of the nations earning, Dr. Ezeife, who had openly expressed lack of faith in Buhari, said the position was not enough for the Igbo. But with the filling of some 30 positions, ranging from his chief of staff, national security adviser and SGF, a post he gave to a pastor from one of the minority ethnic groups in the north, perhaps as an answer to Dr Eziefe and others who said they mobilised against Buhari for fear of Islamisation of the country, these permanent Igbo office seekers have decided to heat up the polity. They now say the SGF position recently vacated by Anyim Pius Anyim ought to have been ceded to Igbo by a president they said they don’t trust. Didn’t he say he “belongs to all and he belongs to no one”? –  they reasoned. And suddenly Kachikwu ceased being an Igbo man but a Delta Igbo. And those who have suddenly forgotten South-South and South-East cornered 30 out of the forty most important parastatals in the country only yesterday, ostensibly on behalf of the Igbo poor are now set to wage war against Buhari for appointing those he trusted. The thousands of offices yet to be filled, they openly argue, is not as important as being a member of the kitchen cabinet of a president they said they would mobilise against if another opportunity comes up tomorrow.

    Self serving Igbo leaders who fraudulently swear in the name of their people to secure positions have their counterparts in the Yoruba country. The self-styled Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNPA) hosted by Mimiko  in Akure last week where President Buhari was criticised for what was described as “his lopsided appointments and selective war against corruption”, was the same group which in January this year endorsed Jonathan for reelection in Enugu. Unfortunately at the Akure gathering, Mimiko and his relevance-seeking group spoke not for the Yoruba but for themselves. Yoruba are often more concerned about a leadership that will guarantee fairness and justice for all. As Bode Thomas argued during the constitutional debate leading to independence, Yoruba quest for regionalism was to prevent the country from being subjected to the rule of a one-eyed-king. During the 1959 elections, Awo offered to serve as Zik’s deputy. He voluntarily resigned as Finance Secretary and de facto Prime Minister under Gowon after the civil war.  If Yoruba supported MKO Abiola in 1993, it was because he was the best material in that election, a fact confirmed by his landslide victory all over the country including military barracks and in Kano where Tofa was floored in his constituency. Yoruba rejected Ernest Shonekan the impostor and was literally chased out of power through the judicial process. It was for the same reason Yoruba rejected Obasanjo who lost his Abeokuta ward election in 1999 when the military and those who constituted themselves into the hegemonic power bloc in Nigeria graciously decided to allow a Yoruba man become president. In the not too distant past, the Yoruba supported Tambuwal to become the Speaker of the seventh assembly against a Yoruba candidate. It is therefore a disservice to the Yoruba nation for Mimiko to give a wrong impression that the Yoruba are fighting Buhari’s government they helped to put in place over appointments.

    The mood of the nation today allows Buhari to ignore the noises of errant elders, and if he so desires, seek from his Daura village a minister for Abuja Territory who would not cede prime Abuja land to a sitting president, his wife and a Secretary to government, Ministers of Petroleum and Finance who will not jointly preside over the theft and disbursement of N1,7triilion to fuel fraudsters, a Minister of Defence who will be loyal to Nigeria instead of fighting the president’s dirty political  wars in the colours of ‘Ekitigate’, pacification of Oshun and disruption of public work with soldiers in Lagos, a Minster of Education who will not be too engrossed mobilising militants for the president’s reelection bid while universities and polytechnics  shut down for close to a year and a Minister of Internal Affairs who will not fleece young job seekers of over N1b and end up supervising state murder of some of them through sloppy arrangement. And if it is from Daura he can find a replica of ‘Kashikwu’, said to be a round peg in a round hole for NNPC, to clean up other stinking parastatals, he has the support of Nigerians.

  • Yes, ours are respectable nationalities – 1

    A number of times in this column, I have urged caution and common sense in the way we handle our many nationalities in the course of our efforts at building Nigeria. I have urged that we can build a harmonious, stable and prosperous country only if we build everything upon a culture of respect for all our nationalities, large and small, and if we structure and manage our country according to that culture. Repeatedly, I get compatriots who ask me whether I am right in comparing our nationalities – Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Kanuri, Ijaw, etc – with European nationalities like the English, French, Germans, etc. I am asked whether our nationalities are not too primitive to be compared with these European nationalities.

    The answer is NO. Our nationalities are like any other nationalities in the world. Every nationality has its own uniqueness. On every continent, different nationalities have survived for many centuries as members of large countries (for example, the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh in Britain, or the Spaniards, Basques and Catalans in Spain). Therefore, we must assume that our nationalities will most likely be alive for many centuries to come in Nigeria (if Nigeria lives that long). It is extremely foolish to behave as if we are sure that our nationalities will meld together and disappear as distinct entities. To bequeath a stable and peaceful country to our descendants, our only sensible option is to handle our nationalities carefully and make each confident that its interests are protected in Nigeria.

    In answer to those who believe that our nationalities are primitive entities that we can deal with anyhow and treat anyhow, my answer is to describe a few of our nationalities – especially our three largest nationalities – Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo. In population and land area, each of these three is larger than most nationalities of Europe. I need to give some space here to each of the ones I choose to describe, and therefore I may have to extend this answer into next week. I start with the Hausa-Fulani and Igbo today.

    The Hausa nation is the single largest nationality in the broad West African grassland north of the Niger valley and south of the Sahara Desert. The Hausa had lived in their homeland for thousands of years, and had developed into a number of kingdoms (each with a main town) many centuries before the 19th century. Though separated by vast grasslands, the kingdoms had the same national culture and language, and were interconnected by powerful traditions. The Hausa country was copiously interconnected by trade, and had culturally and commercially rich contacts with non-Hausa neighbours in all directions. Located immediately south of the Sahara Desert, the Hausa country benefited greatly from the trans-Saharan trade with the Mediterranean world, and some of its towns ranked among the leading trading centres in the West African Sudan and Sahel. With this trade also had come Islam, with the result that the Hausa kingdoms and rulers were mostly Muslims, with the important cultural asset of literacy in Arabic.

    Another ethnic group, the Fulani, a mostly nomadic people, who had for centuries migrated slowly from the grasslands far to the west, had become part of the Hausa towns and countryside by the 18th century. In the first years of the 19th century, some of the town-settled Fulani started an Islamic reform movement, and launched a jihad against the Hausa kingdoms. The Fulani immigrant people were very few in comparison with the Hausa, but their call for reforms in Islam won the support of the masses of Hausa Muslim folks. The jihad quickly subdued the rulers of the old Hausa kingdoms and replaced them with Fulani rulers with the title of Emirs. Loosely federated, Hausaland became one large Fulani-ruled empire or sultanate.

    This homeland of the Hausa (more correctly Hausa-Fulani from the early 19th century) then grew more rapidly in commerce and wealth, as well as in Islamic literacy and scholarship. There is no doubt whatsoever that this sultanate, as it stood by the late 19th century, before the coming of the British, commanded the capacity to evolve into a dynamic and prosperous modern country of its own  in the heart of West Africa in our times. This was one large nation-state with clear attributes of a nation-state – a commonly accepted government, reasonably clear boundaries, common language (the Hausa language), a culture of writing, and a well-developed economy in agriculture, animal husbandry, very ancient and far-flung commerce, and a rich multiplicity of crafts and manufactures in iron and other metals, in leather, wood, otton, dyes, etc.

    Then, let us look at our Igbo nation. In the country east of the Lower Niger, the Igbo nation had evolved probably 6000 years before the coming of the British. They had early evolved a rich and artistic culture, mostly in small village polities that were parts of larger entities such as clans. All were however united by one cultural heritage, language, religion and customs. By the 19th century, the Igbo were a great trading people, and the available evidence indicates that they had been a trading people long before then. They were a major contributor to the very substantial trade that evolved with the outside world along the Lower Niger in the course of the century.

    Probably more than that of any other major Black African people, the image of the Igbo nation has, since the beginning of the 20th century, suffered much distortion and downgrading at the hands of European colonial agents, colonial scholars, and colonial propagandists. It has also suffered the same in the hands of even some Nigerians who believe that building Nigeria requires that the various nationalities in Nigeria be pushed down and suppressed. In general, the tendency among such writers has been to take the absence of large political structures (kingdoms, empires, etc.) among most of the Igbo as proof that the Igbo were a primitive people – or that they were not even a definite people or nationality at all.

    Happily, however, in more recent times, though that tone has not been completely silenced, stronger and more scholarly voices have arisen to restore to the Igbo nation a more balanced picture for its image. It would be difficult to doubt today that the Igbo nation had the cultural attributes that might have transformed their nation, on its own, into a virile and dynamic nation state in the modern world.  But then, in the last decades of the 19th century, the Igbo were forcibly incorporated into the evolving British Empire in West Africa, ultimately becoming part of Nigeria.

    In the course of the 20th century, the Igbo have proved to be a very dynamic and modernizing people. They command a kind of national uniqueness that would have built a restlessly exploring, experimenting, and pushful country in the eastern part of West Africa. The Igbo nation is an indisputable example of an African nation denied the chance, by European imperialism, of growing into a prosperous country on its own in the modern world.

    Once, in Obafemi Awolowo University in the mid-1970s, in one of the introductory Nigerian History classes that I loved to teach, one of my young Igbo students asked me a touching question. “I strongly believe, sir”, he started, “that if we Igbo people had been allowed to have our own country from the beginning of the 20thcentury, even if we had been a British colony, we would be easily competing with a country like Japan today in technology, industries and world trade. What do you think, sir?” I answered that I agreed absolutely with him, and I could see that he was surprised that I would agree so promptly and so definitely. The truth is that nobody who has spent a whole adult life learning the history of our Black African peoples, as I have had the privilege of doing, can deny that any of our peoples (Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani, Kanuri, Edo, etc), is a proudly achieving nation that commands the native and intrinsic capability to make a success of its life in the modern world.

    I believe that we should, and can, stop the crudely integrationist policies, and the destructive centralization of power and resources, that we have been pursuing since independence.  I repeat – we need to make everyone of our nationalities feel belonging. Such steps are crucial to making Nigeria live long in stability and prosperity.