The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Kabiyesi Okunade Sijuwade Waja, Erin wo ajanaku sun bi oke (1) 

    Kabiyesi or kabio kosi means nobody can query the decision of an Oba. This is to say the ruler is an omnipotent and powerful ruler whose actions are beyond question. Oba Waja means the king has escaped to the roof. This is to suggest an Oba never dies; he merely escapes to the hereafter. Obas in those days of yore were deified, kabiyesi Iku baba eye. Alaafin Sango was worshipped and deified as God of Thunder. Obas were regarded as rulers only second to the gods. Erin wo ajanaku sun bi oke signifies the almighty nature of the Oba who when he falls he cannot be woken up because he is like a hill that cannot be moved. The passing on has also been described as the tiger going into the forest. A few months ago, the royal palace in Benin said the tiger is hunting in the savannah in reference to the apparent indisposition of the Benin monarch. In the case of the Ooni, it is said the tiger has gone to hunt in the forest. In Yorubaland and neighboring Benin kingdom, Obas are usually referred to as children of the tiger, signifying the dangerous beauty of the tiger. It is interesting that the use of lions as symbols of royalty was hardly used in Yorubaland, yet tigers are not native to Africa unless one decides to translate amotekun(leopard) and Ekun(Tiger)  interchangeably

    The centrality of Ile – Ife , Or Ife ode aye ( the place from where land spread to other places)in Yorubaland , Benin and the forest kingdoms of west Africa up to Ghana cannot be overemphasised . The influence of Ife was not based on political conquest but on its spiritual and religious significance .This significant role lies in historical antiquity. As far back as the 9th century to the 12th century, Ife was home to a civilization that produced the famous Ife terra cottas and bronze figurines which were made using the cire Perdue or (lost wax) process only found among Ancient Greeks which made an itinerant German explorer Leo Froebinius to suggest that this technology may have diffused from Greece through the Mediterranean and across the Sahara to Ile -Ife! This is, of course, nonsense. Earlier on, the Nok culture of which Ife was possibly a successor had existed in the area of southern Kaduna and current areas of Plateau State. What is significant is that the Benin, Ugbo-Ukwu in present Anambra State,  Bida in Niger State and Idah in Kogi with Ile – Ife form the same artistic cultural tradition which Ile -Ife spearheaded.

    Until recently when some nationalist historians of Bini history have tried to dispute the exact relationship between Ife and Benin, it was generally agreed that the Benin monarchy is from the house of Oduduwa, the eponymous ancestor of the Yoruba people.  Jacob Egharevba,  in his history of Benin, made this assertion .The new Benin revisionism suggests that Oduduwa was a fugitive Benin prince of the  Erkhaladenhan  dynasty who ran away  for fear for his life and lived in the forest of Ile -Ife until as a result of the political disarray in Benin he was sent for to come back home . This fugitive prince was conveniently called Ideduwa who then sent his son,  Oranmiyan,  in his stead . After a brief stay, Oranmiyan after fathering a son, Eweka, left Benin back to Ife and later went to found a new kingdom in Oyo.. There is a convergence of Benin and Ife oral traditions on the emergence of Oyo which with Benin became the two most powerful empires in West Africa between the 15th and the 18th centuries. This is not the place to interrogate these myths of origin of peoples. What is important to state is the connection of Ife to Benin to the extent that even to this day the standard greetings in the palace of the Oba of Benin is how goes Ife ?(uhe ) in Edo language . The Portuguese were told in the 15th century that the Oba of Benin pays homage to his father the Oghene who lives north west of Benin . It is significant to note that the Edo generally refer to God as oghene(urhobo) .

    The late Professor Ade Obayemi raised the question of whether the present Ife is the Ife of historical antiquity since there are currently seven or nine  Ifes . Professor Alan Ryder also suggested that ancient Ife may have been north of its present location and may be somewhere in the Benue valley near Ife -olukotun in Kogi State. This is not far-fetched because migration and replication of original settlements and kingdoms is a common phenomenon in African history. The artifacts found in Ife would then have been carried from the original Ife to the present location. Many centuries of development passed on between these beginnings and future growth  in Yorubaland

    No matter how powerful Oyo and Benin later became, and the two empires shared borders in Eastern Yorubaland,  it was forbidden for them to violate the  sacrosanct  nature of Ile Ife . It was the violation of this sanctity of Ifeland when the Alafin’s forces invaded Apomu part of Ife kingdom towards the end of the 18th century that precipitated general wars in Yorubaland that lasted for a century in which a war of movement became a war of attrition in the Kiriji war. During these wars, Ife was constantly evacuated or destroyed but the stool of the Onirinsa was always restored. In those hectic days the Ooni continued to enjoy his influence in Yorubaland;  of course, at the mercy of the Alaafin whose relationship to the Ooni was akin to that of the pope and emperor in medieval Europe with the Alafins enjoying suzerainty over most of Yorubaland before the military imperialism of Ibadan in the 19th century. The coming of the British stabilized the traditional political institution not only of the Alaafin and Ooni but also in the far north of Nigeria in the beleaguered Sokoto Caliphate where there was a revolt in Satiru to replace the leadership. The British consolidated the position of the Ooni as spiritual head of the Yoruba and repository of Yoruba tradition and culture while accepting the predominant position of the Alaafin as political supremo in Yorubaland . In spite of this division of power, the Oyo-Ife axis which would have been beneficial to the whole of Yorubaland has remained at best tenuous.

    Kabiyesi Okunade Sijuwade came to the throne well-prepared. I grew up knowing him as Public Relations Director of Leventis Motors. He later founded National Motors  on behalf of the government of Western Nigeria, selling British  Leyland vehicles before he founded his own company,  the West African Technical Company (WAATECO) selling Soviet Union vehicles and equipment , somehow mirroring the shift in the Action Group party’s rapprochement towards the Soviet Union .This was obviously to the discomfiture of the then Federal Government that dreaded relations with the Soviet Union in spite of its avowed policy of nonalignment . The then Prince Sijuwade made a huge success of it and that began the story of his success in business  spanning so many other businesses from construction to trade relations with Israel and Britain.

  • Centenary City, centenary cut

    They touted it as a city to be built on virgin land; a city on the hill, so to say. But not comparable to the holy city of Jerusalem, which the Bible talks about. However, the promoters of the Centenary City had a similar city in mind; a city that will blow our minds and punch a hole in our pockets. In the pockets of those that can afford it, that is.

    The Centenary City was conceived as a monument to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1914 amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates from which present day Nigeria emerged. It was a lavish celebration on which billions of naira were spent. Then Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Anyim Pius Anyim, was at the helm of the planning committee.

    Abuja was virtually locked down for this once in a lifetime ceremony, which started in February, 2014 and ended  in February, 2015. The idea behind the city’s conception may not be bad, but was it done with the purest of motives? This is the question now being asked amid the controversy over the city’s status. The Centenary City is not just a city, but a city within a city carved out of the capital city of Abuja. Some villages were sacked for the city. These are the villages of  Baruwa, Kpaikpai, Gosa, Daiynna, Toge and Ruga.

    Eventhough these communities initially kicked against the acquisition of their land for the project, they later acquiesced after being compensated.  Then Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Bala Mohammed,  also initially reportedly refused to buy into the project, claiming that the city is not captured in the Abuja masterplan. He also later changed his mind and signed the certificate of occupancy (C of O) following orders from above. Whether it was done on orders from above or not, the time for asking questions is here. And those behind the project are afraid that they may be called upon to give account.

    Questions could not be asked in the past because we were under a government of anything goes. Former President Goodluck Jonathan was and still is a happy, jolly fellow, who did not want anything to disrupt the good life he was having in government.  He allowed his lieutenants a free hand to do whatever they liked as long as his own interest was not affected. And some of these lieutenants used his name to perpetrate evil under the guise of working in the national interest.  To rebuild the nation, we must probe the sordid deeds of the past to deter our future leaders. Otherwise, we will continue to move around in circles – all movement and motion.  But they would have none of such probe; they want us as a people to pretend as if nothing went amiss under their watch. We know that a lot went wrong under Jonathan. The former president also know that many things went wrong under him, but he did not have, as they say, the liver to act.

    With the Buhari administration determined to clean the Augean stable, these yesterday men have been running to the Abdulsalami Abubakar-led peace committee to help save their necks. The panel’s brief, I beg to say, does not include interfering in the due process of getting past public officers to account for their stewardship. The panel has done its best by getting President Muhammadu Buhari and former President Jonathan to accept the outcome of the March 28 election. It should not see this selfless service as a licence to dictate to the Buhari administration how to run the country. The panel has no hold over Buhari because it brokered peace between him Jonathan before the poll. If the government has decided to probe Jonathan, so be it.

    Didn’t Jonathan tell the world before leaving office that he was not afraid of being probed? His plea, however, was that the probe should be extended to the governments before his. That was only a suggestion, which the present government can either accept or reject. His suggestion is not binding on Buhari. If Jonathan is so much interested in the probe of the governments before his, why didn’t he initiate it? He should not use this as a ploy to accuse the Buhari administration of witch hunting him. Why should the government do that? He needs not be afraid if his hands are clean.

    The truth is there was nothing clean about the Jonathan administration and this is why those who served in it are jittery about being probed. No amount of blackmail should stop the Buhari administration from going ahead with the exercise. One of the projects that should be looked into is the Centenary City. Was due process followed in the acquisition of the vast land for the project? Were the displaced villagers duly compensated? How did it acquire its free zone status when it is not purely a commercial venture? Are such projects worldwide given such status? How do they acquire it? The project looks good on paper, but deep down it smells of a scam. Like everything Nigerian, some people have used it to con us. They have made a cut from the project and will still make more, if the government does not act fast to stop them.

    There is something fishy about the Centenary City. If not, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Vice Chairman, Southsouth Cairo Ojougboh will not be crying foul. To Ojougboh,  the Centenary City, which is expected to be completed in 10 years, is a scam. Why? He submits : “It is an elaborate scheme cunningly conceived to defraud the government and the good people of Nigeria”. Ojougboh should know because he was Nigeria Export Processing Zone Authority (NEPZA) Chairman when the city acquired its free zone status. Could the Centenary City have got that status without the NEPZA chairman’s knowledge? That is impossible except if it was done behind his back. If this is so, those who did it should answer for their actions.

    Ojougboh, who is enraged that Anyim has taken him to court over the  matter and also organised a protest, which he calls ‘’a show of shame’’ against him,  insists that the project is “crime personified” because its C of O was obtained under false pretence. He adds that it was cunningly contrived to look like a public private partnership (PPP) management. The city, he maintains, was also “cunningly incorporated as a free zone without any authority whatsoever to do so. It is public knowledge that the only agency with the authority to designate any area as a free trade zone is NEPZA, where I served the nation as chairman. It is, therefore, inevitable that being a man of conscience, who would have no traffic with impunity or corruption, I would reveal this scam to the authorities and the general public.

    “The Centenary City is indeed a project devised to trick the authorities into giving a huge chunk of land to one man under the guise of PPP”. What do those asking the present government to let sleeping dogs lie say of these allegations? Swept under the carpet? Is that what will ensure that the peace we now enjoy endure? No, it will rather shatter it because where there is no justice, there can be no peace. If we want peace, we should embrace justice first. Otherwise, what we will have, will be peace of the graveyard.

    As for me, I cannot wait for Ojougboh to make good his promise to initiate “legal proceedings by way of sending petitions to the appropriate authorities as regards this issue”. It is only those whose hands are not clean that will be afraid of the impending probe of the past government, an exercise which many Nigerians are eagerly waiting for. Heavens will not fall over this probe whether some people like it or not.

  • Message to Obasanjo

    I make it a point of duty to be respectful of President Olusegun Obasanjo, whether I happen to mention his name in public or in private. I am sure that is part of my respect for my country. For me, it is not a small thing that a person has once been head of the country of my birth.

    In the past few days, President Obasanjo has been widely reported to have made some thought-provoking statements about the issue of leadership in the Yoruba nation. I see no need to probe into his motives for making these statements – and I will not so probe, out of respect. Whether he is out to shoot barbs at some person or persons among the Yoruba people is not unimportant, but I choose not to step into such considerations. It is quite possible to look into the statements themselves on purely objective basis, and that is what I would rather do.

    Broadly, his statements deal with two periods of Yoruba history – the long pre-colonial period and the short modern, Nigerian, period. His views concerning both periods are, I believe, summed up in the sentence in which he said: ”Just as there was no single Oba having sovereignty over the whole of Yorubaland, there was no individual as leader of the Yorubas in Yorubaland. As it was then, it remains till now.” With all due respect, I think he is not exactly correct about either period.

    His mistake concerning the long period of the history of Yoruba kingdoms and their Obas (from about the 10th century to roughly the end of the 18th century) arises from his obvious confusion of the two concepts, “leadership” and “sovereignty”. Yes, no one Oba ever held sovereignty over the whole of Yorubaland; each Oba held sovereignty over his own kingdom. But that does not mean that the concept of leadership, or the concept of prominent influence, was totally non-existent in this long period of Yoruba history. Claims commonly made by various Yoruba circles today for the Ooni or the Alafin as “leading” father of the Yoruba nation is not without some historical foundation. The problem is that those of us making these claims do not try to differentiate between the eras when one or the other had more influence in Yorubaland.

    Historians would now say that there was an early era when the Ife kingdom was widely revered in Yorubaland and that, though the reverence for Ife never totally vanished, there was a later era when the Alafin ruled a large and proud empire consisting of much (though not all) of Yorubaland plus some non-Yoruba peoples, and when the Alafin had very high influence among Yoruba people. There was an era when Yoruba kingdoms that fell into political troubles resorted to the palace of Ife for traditions and rituals for sorting out their troubles. And there was a later era when high officials of the Alafin were commonly sent by the Alafin to go and settle disputes, and prevent conflicts, in totally sovereign and independent Yoruba kingdoms that were experiencing political troubles. The traditions about these things are unambiguous features of our history.

    To go on to the modern aspects of President Obasanjo’s statements, we find him saying very heavy things. He says that there has never been a Yoruba leader in modern times, that it was Chief Awolowo’s supporters who “fixed” the title of Yoruba leader on him during the Nigerian crisis situation in the 1960s, and that there is no need for a Yoruba leader.

    The statement that there has never been a Yoruba leader in modern Yoruba history is simply untrue. In general, in all parts of Black Africa, whenever any nationalities face uncertainties or difficulties in the countries to which they belong, their usual practice has been to generate a leadership to protect their interests. There is no known Black African nation that has never done this. In Nigeria, the examples are legion. In the late 1940s, in the general uncertainty accompanying British deliberations to formulate Nigeria into one country, many Nigerian peoples founded leadership groups for themselves – notably, Ibo State Union, Egbe Omo Oduduwa, etc. One of the most influential forces in Nigerian politics today is the Hausa-Fulani leadership organization called Arewa Consultative Forum.

    Egbe Omo Oduduwa and its leadership spoke very capably for the Yoruba nation and promoted Yoruba interests expertly. In various crisis situations in Yorubaland, it employed its influence effectively to broker peace. And, even in spite of the presence of two powerful political parties, AG and NCNC, in the Western Region, Egbe Omo Oduduwa continued to do these things until the regional crisis of the early 1960s. Is it possible that President Obasanjo does not remember these things?

    During the very troubling months leading to the Nigerian Civil War in the 1960s, prominent Yoruba of all political orientations formed the Yoruba Leaders of Thought, which met frequently to chart our nation’s path through the growing Nigerian nightmare of the time. Most other Nigerian nationalities did the same. We even set up a standing delegation which went to Gen. Gowon many times to present Yoruba positions and make Yoruba demands. Chief Awolowo, first Premier of our Region, and undoubtedly our nation’s highest political assets at that point, chaired the meetings and was appointed by us to lead the delegation.

    I remember the very meeting at which we suddenly chose him as leader of our nation. Nobody had planned any such thing. I know, because I was one of the young academics and professionals who served as organizers and messengers for those meetings of Leaders of Thought. Our nation was under enormous stress. During the days before, there had been a lot of fear all over our Region, because some of the Northern soldiers stationed in our Region had been reported to be threatening to kill members of our delegation. The Western Regional Military Governor, Gen. Adeyinka Adebayo, had appointed some Yoruba military officers to accompany our delegation. And we simply did what human groups do in such circumstances – we appointed a leader and prepared to stand for our nation. The talk that anybody among us opposed, or could have dared to oppose, what we did in that meeting, is totally untrue. President Obasanjo should not let anybody sell to him manifestly untrue twists of important historical facts.

    Also, during the Abacha dictatorship of the 1990s, when state terror was directed against the Yoruba nation, the Yoruba nation threw up a leadership group named Afenifere, which served the Yoruba nation’s interests, and mobilized the Yoruba people, very effectively. Afenifere called up the old warrior, Chief Adekunle Ajasin, to lead the nation; and when Ajasin passed on, they called up Senator Abraham Adesanya. A lot of people still remember that the then Gen. Obasanjo had dealings with either or both of these leaders in their status of Yoruba leader. Sure, many people now lament the fact that Afenifere made a serious mistake in choosing to be closely identified with a political party when party politics returned. But very few would contradict the assessment that Afenifere did, before then, lead the Yoruba nation very effectively. Can it be that President Obasanjo has totally forgotten these things?

    In the light of the above historical experiences, does it make sense to say today that no leadership is necessary among the Yoruba? These days, the Yoruba nation’s situation in Nigeria is more complex, and demands vastly more serious responses than ever before. The challenges are political, economic and cultural, altogether capable of threatening the Yoruba nation’s integrity. I can understand President Obasanjo, as a partisan politician, saying that certain other politicians do not deserve to be appointed as leader of the Yoruba nation. But to say that no leader or leadership is needed in Yorubland is a different thing altogether.Has he ever told the Hausa-Fulani elite that Arewa Consultative Forum is unnecessary and should be disbanded? Or has he ever preached the same to any other Nigerian nationality? Why should he seem to want the Yoruba nation to be different from, and weaker than, others?

  • If our world is ruined, we are to blame

    We speak in several pitiful tongues. And every tongue reels a different story of identical loss and misery. And so one comes to callousness, a savage ruthlessness and culture of protest that drives us to ruin our world; dateline Boko Haram, MEND, Ombatse and the complex bigotry, avarice and bloodlust characteristic of all. Yet this page will not contain the genocide, amorality and grotesque body count we have learnt to perpetrate not because they are too horrendous and unwieldy to keep tab of but because there is neither wisdom nor tact in rehashing the consequences of our towering silliness and bloodlust.

    We blame the older generation for everything. We claim they created a very difficult world for us to live in; a world that is rigged to booby-trap our efforts to survive and that is why many of us fail. We also accuse the ruling class of keeping us unemployed, prone to corruption, exploitation, crime and the devastation of our economy and social infrastructure. We accuse them of denying us access and right to the Nigerian dream.

    What have we done with such world that they have given us? What are we doing to make it better for you and me and the generation that will succeed us? Nothing. Rather than evolve in thought and attitude, we choose to rant impotently and wallow in self-pity. And when we choose to productively engage our faculties, our conscious quest is marred by our inclinations to self-destruct.

    If our world is ruined, we are to blame for it. This is because we are major actors in every tragedy and perpetrators of every calamity that accentuates our ruin. We are the hoodlums causing chaos at random, according to the whims of benevolent godfathers. We are the policemen mounting road blocks to fleece hardworking compatriots of the little money they manage to make, everyday. When they refuse to cooperate, we simply shoot them to death.

    We are the bankers pilfering the lifesavings of the poor. We are the bank chiefs stripping Peter to pay Paul and robbing the downtrodden to feed our wantonness and greed. We are wives to the thieving governor, and gigolo to the rogue bank chief. We are the journalists who sold out, the watchdog who became lapdogs and then, dung-dogs. We are armed robbers and thieves. We are the activists exploiting the downtrodden to perpetuate our grand schemes of greed.

    No matter the ills visited upon our generation, we lost the right to howl and cry ‘foul!’ the moment we agreed to do everything and anything to make money, including serving as instruments for the attainment of the perverse goals of the criminal ruling class.

    Shame that we have to look unto the same generation that we accuse of ruining our world to take measures necessary to save our world. The current ruling class won’t save us. They can’t. And that is because like you and me, they are held captive by greed, irrationality and base immoralities.

    Every generation considers itself uniquely challenged like we do and each generation truly is, in different ways. But I don’t buy into over-generalizations and self pity. Like we accuse older generations before us, successive generations will accuse us of ruining their world claiming we had better chances to resolve our crises and recreate the world that they would inherit from us.

    Our sense of entitlement goads us to believe that we are entitled to a good, fair life but for the ruling class and older generation that continually thwart our dreams of bliss. When the older generation claim that we are ill-educated and unemployable, we respond in kind, claiming that they render us so with visionless leadership and substandard education. Truth is, school is a bore to many of us. And artisanship doesn’t quite do it for us. We breeze through school and apprenticeship unenthusiastically, thinking that somewhere or somehow, something would give and we would chance on bliss. Ill bliss to be precise.

    Notwithstanding, some of us enter the labour market thinking it wouldn’t hurt to be exploited a little. Having being raised on the mantra that “Slow and steady wins the race and tiny drops make an ocean,” we subject our will to the grindstone and stoically tread the path of obedience and honest labour. But the path of industry and honesty hardly ever pay off in the long run.

    Eventually, we realize that the system is designed to thwart our dreams while enabling the dreams of the exploitative one per cent at the top, and we get mad. We get mad because our leaders do not see us as human beings with cosmic value and rights anymore. But despite our dissatisfaction, we keep them in power and keep asking them for handouts. Our rage and rant hardly ever articulates our towering need for realistic opportunities.

    We do not choose to be treated with dignity. That is why the government and our employers become entitled to take away our dignity. That is why we are entitled to expect nothing from our politicians anymore. We should be ashamed of our sense of entitlement. We should be embarrassed by our failure as a generation. We should be ashamed that we go through life thinking the world’s a sweepstake.

    We believe the world is for the taking by a lottery; this is understandable as a carrot on a stick that the top one per cent – comprising government and big business – perpetually dangle before us. Thus the Nigerian dream has evolved from a promise and belief that every Nigerian will get to have a good life, a job they enjoy, a generous paycheck, affordable housing, healthcare and transportation and a secure retirement, into some reality show fantasy and a pipedream.

    Today, the Nigerian dream comprises a tall fantasy that every Nigerian will get to live a charmed life. It offers attractive fantasies of palatial residences in exclusive neighbourhoods home and abroad, fancy cars, easy money, consequence-free indolence, sex, fraudulence and violence to mention a few. The Nigerian youth consider these perks their birthright and they heartily pursue them on the streets and now ubiquitous reality TV shows where parents and their children from relatively humble backgrounds engage in funfest of foolishness and inordinate lust for unearned riches. The tragedy of this development resonates in the number of ‘has-beens’ and reality show runners-up still loitering the red carpets for the barest chance to hug the limelight for no justifiable reason or attainment.

    Each generation has a responsibility to wisely develop itself and become indispensable to the world despite all odds. It is the only way we could equip ourselves to take over the country’s leadership and use the resources and power available to us to provide this generation and the next, a secure, sustainable country that will be stronger than the one inherited.

    We need to stop whining and begin to take action now to reverse the rapid decline of our country. If we wait until we are older, it will be too late. Life in the future will be worse.

    Our hubris and sense of entitlement is sickening and truly mind boggling. It’s about time we seek our Nigerian dream not because we are ‘special’ but because we truly deserve it.

  • Buhari hosts Obasanjo

    Buhari hosts Obasanjo

    It is no longer news that former President Olusegun Obasanjo visited President Muhammadu Buhari at the Villa in Abuja. Reporters were eager to find out details of the meeting. They got little.

    There was, however, a general agreement that it was a friendly visit because, according to an experienced reporter with a remarkable perspective in such matters, Obasanjo would have fired a letter instead of visiting, if he was up in arms against the President.

    What did the two leaders discuss? One week after the meeting, there is still no statement about the details, giving room to speculations, some of them modest; others wild and clearly off the mark. Never one to leave its loyal readers in the lurch, Editorial Notebook went in search of its sources. One of them, “a usually reliable source” who swore by his new pair of trousers that he got his information from an uncle of his who is close to the aunt of a gardener who once served at the Villa, recounted the encounter. There was, however, no independent confirmation of his account, which, nevertheless, goes thus:

    A group of presidential aides welcomes Obasanjo, who walks in briskly, holding his agbada with one hand. The President comes out to receive him. Buhari stops as soon as he gets close, standing erect, his two hands firmly clasped by his sides.

    “Moin sir. You’re welcome. So good to see you.”

    Obasanjo: Relax, my president. It’s so good to see you again. You’re looking so fit. The work load is not showing at all. I’m happy to see you.

    They stroll leisurely into a living room. Buhari announces that the duo would like to be left alone as this is a private meeting. The room cleared, they begin to talk.

    Obasanjo: Hmmm…hum (He clears his throat, his eyes gleaning with satisfaction). My President, once again, I thank you for giving me this audience. My God will honour you. I have come to – in fulfilment of my promise not to leave you alone – listen to your experience so far and offer some advice, some tips on how to get it right. But, let me confess to you, so far so good. That is my verdict. And that is the opinion of many Nigerians, reasonable Nigerians o; the ones that I have met here and overseas. Thank you.

    Buhari: Sir, I thank you for finding the time to come. It is my pleasure to welcome you. I had thought you would be here before I travelled to the U.S, but it’s okay. It was a very rewarding trip. The Americans are willing to help us recover all the money that was stolen, but they insist we must punish the thieves and stop impunity in all areas of our lives – the public sector, the military and all that.

    Obasanjo: That’s good. Somebody, one reporter was telling me the other day that you were told to ensure that those indicted in the Halliburton scandal are punished. The stupid boy was saying it was during my time that that happened. I told him “yes; it happened during my time. Was I involved; what’s my own?” I don’t even know what Halliburton was doing here. He was saying the only gap was that I didn’t bring the officials involved to justice. Ah! See me see trouble o. Is it my duty to take people to court? I almost got angry.

    You have spent a few days in office and they have started calling you Baba Go Slow. Don’t mind them; take your time and get it right. Nobody can please us.

    Buhari: My predecessor, Dr Jonathan was also here the other day to talk about all these issues. I think people have seen the direction of our government, that we are ready to recover all the stolen money. They have seen the operation we are doing in the oil sector and they are worried that …

    Obasanjo cuts in. Mr President, you are right o. I read that Jonathan came in here in the night. What was he looking for in the night? I heard that he came to plead with you to spare some of his people, his former aides, ministers and the rest of them. Please, apply wisdom o. There is no need to have mercy when you’re fighting corruption. If you drop your guard, you will be ambushed. Corruption will surely fight back and when it does you’ll be powerless.

    You know I started it all. I put that boy there…eemm …emmm …Nuhu. Ribadu. But then he got consumed by the politics of the job and later the job of politics got the better part of him. See what we have today.

    In fact, I read that Jona said he was hearing some of the cases for the first time. I laugh. Didn’t I tell him that people were misbehaving? What did he do? Instead of facing the reality, he was talking about elders who speak like motor park touts. You see, any young man who says an elder’s mouth is smelly, e go see wein.

    Today you say people are not stealing; they are only corrupt. Tomorrow you lecture us on the difference between stealing and corruption. Haba! Now, the chicken has come home to roost and people are running up and down.

    Buhari: It is true he was here Sir. We had useful discussions. I think people are afraid that they will be persecuted. And I have said it several times that we will not witch-hunt anybody.

    Again, Obasanjo cuts him, raising his right hand and shifting in his seat.

    You’re right. Many of them have come to Abeokuta to see me. They would like me to intervene on their behalf. And I looked at them and smiled. I am no more a politician; I’m now a statesman. They just won’t understand. And as a statesman, Nigeria is my party. I can’t protect you if you have hurt Nigeria, I am ready – if you’re ready –to go konko bilo with you. If you must face justice, dat na your toro. Soon, I will start walking them out.

    Buhari: Dr Jonathan himself is surprised at the magnitude of the corruption we are talking about. He said he didn’t know that so much was going on. He said he was always warning his people to stay away from corruption.

    Obasanjo (shaking his head and smiling): They should stay away from corruption and embrace stealing? If you, as the head, are not aware that your people were having a bazaar, then you don’t know anything. Now alarm don blow and you’re running like a headless chicken. What nonsense is that? I have always said it, that girl …emm …emm… Ngozi; Okonjo-Iweala, who worked for me is different from the one who worked for Jonathan. I knew how to manage her.

    People have accused me of not apologising to Nigerians for, as they say, giving them Yar’Adua and Jonathan. And I have always said, ‘me, apologise? Apology my foot. I am not an oracle. Besides, you can get a job for a man,  appointed, elected, selected or any how, but you can’t do it for him’. There is a good saying that if you want to know how anybody will perform, put him in a position of power or put money into his hand. Then, siddon look, watch him.

    (Buhari keeps nodding – obviously in agreement. He frowns, his closed lips shrunk in a manner that shows disgust).

    And the Boko Haram matter?

    Buhari : We are doing fine sir. I think the group is losing it. Now they attack remote villages and use suicide bombers. We are finding a way round that and very soon our efforts will begin to yield fruits. We are on course. I am still trying to find out how an army that was well respected became a weakling that couldn’t handle this domestic issue. Allah willing, we will crush the insurgents.

    Obasanjo: When I told the other man to be systematic about this matter, he was angry, saying all sorts of jagbajantics. I said, ‘listen to me, young man. You may have been small during the war, the civil war. So, take our experience and use it. You have to use carrot and stick’. He didn’t listen. His boys went after me; they ignored the message and started crying like foolish housewives: ‘What does Obasanjo want?’ They thought they could embarrass me; nobody can embarrass Obasanjo. Never.

    Buhari: We have no intention of embarrassing any Nigerian. We have done a lot of work and very soon the trial of all those who stole money will begin. We  must recover every kobo.

    Obasanjo (he stands up, ready to go): Once again, I thank you for this audience and I pray that God will give you wisdom to run this show well well. Sai anjuma.

       Buhari: Asoka lafia. Safe journey, sir.

     

     

     Fanks WAEC

    Some bad news from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) – 61.32% failed to pass English and mathematics in the last School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).  Of the 1,593,442 candidates who took the examinations, only 616,370 got credit passes in five subjects.

    Without a credit in English and mathematics, going to the university will be a mere dream. Who carries the can? Not WAEC. Definitely.  So, where lies the fault? English is the only language in many homes, including where the parents never went to school. This, in my view, is the problem.

    I am sure Prof. Wole Soyinka, the Nobel laureate, would not have been such a fantastic writer if he had not been well grounded in Yoruba. Neither would the late Prof. Chinua Achebe have been great if he had no deep understanding of Igbo language and culture.

    For today’s kids, the Azonto generation, knowledge begins and ends on Facebook, Wechat, Whatsapp, 2go and all that. They– many of them, I dare say – speak English effortlessly, but, given a pen to write, they start sweating. They watch movies as if their future depends on them. Their ears are permanently wired to pop music – Shakiti Bobo.

    Many have sought solace in the wide corruption of the English language to which the Smartphone offers a platform. Consider this from a friend’s younger brother: Hi. Gud am. Howz work? And fanks for the other day. May dis wk bring joy nd blessings 2ur home, family and luvd 1s.May Almighty grant your innermost @ desire. Oluwa is highly involved. Plz don forget to roja ya kid bro o. Luv uuuuu!

    To WAEC, I say fanks for giving us, once again, a wake-up call on the need to tackle some of the problems of our children’s education. Thanks.

  • 70 years after the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan

    Earlier this week, the world marked the 70th year of the first and hopefully the last time of tactical use of the atomic bomb in warfare. This incident changed the course of history. Ironically, the use of such destructive arsenal has helped to prevent global war since the end of the Second World War in 1945. It has not brought universal peace because there have been several proxy wars such as the Korean, Vietnamese wars, several military confrontations between the forces of global capitalism and socialism in Latin America and the various liberation wars in Africa  and the current wars in Ukraine following other wars in Georgia and in the Caucasus areas of Russia where national groups are justly struggling to be free of Resurgent Russia.

    Following the successful development of nuclear weapons towards the tail end of the Second World War, it was left to President Harry Truman and his advisers to take the decision of if or when nuclear weapons will be deployed in the titanic struggle between the Axis and the Allied powers. It was not an easy decision. The forces of the Nazis were on their knees in Europe and American forces were closing in on the Japanese after rolling them over in the Philippines  and were on their way to take Okinawa in the Japanese homelands. The Japanese were still fighting ferociously in the name of their God-emperor  Hirohito. Each soldier rather than surrender was prepared to commit hara-kiri.  And to knock out Japan, America decided to use the ultimate weapon in their arsenal, the nuclear bomb.  The argument then was that this act would save the lives of American service men and put an end to the suffering of everybody including the Japanese! Once the decision to use the bomb was taken, the Pentagon awaited the go-ahead to drop the fat boy from President Harry Truman.

    It is now known that when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima about 125,000 people mostly civilians were incinerated while more were to die later from radioactive fallout. A few days later another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki which also wiped out about 70,000 souls not counting those who died later from their injuries. If the import of the first bomb was unclear, the second quickly led to Japan’s surrender. Their war leader Hideki Tojo and others were tried and hanged and there were demands for trial and execution of the emperor himself but good sense prevailed and the frail old man was spared while all his powers were taken away from him and a constitution imposed on Japan forbidding it to rearm.

    The effect of the atomic weapon was dramatic globally. Movement for nuclear disarmament sprang up especially following the ability to split the atom by Russia on the heels of the American success. Even many top nuclear physicists like the famous Albert Einstein began to fear for the survival of the human race. Einstein once said if nuclear weapons were ever used in the Third World War, the 4th world war will be fought with sticks and stones, meaning human civilization would have been wiped as a result of nuclear holocaust.

    The immediate result of the use of nuclear weapons was that it stopped the war as was predicted. It is also clear that if the Japanese had developed it first, they would have had no qualms or scruples in using it against their American enemies. Adolph Hitler would probably would have used it if he won the nuclear race before the Allies. This is however not to downplay the doubts raised by the use of this war changer of a weapon. Nowadays with new morality people are asking if the use of the atomic weapons on civilians was not a war crime. Some people have even read racial motives into its use on Japanese – a non-white race while the Germans were spared of this horrific consequence of the use of this revolutionary weapon. There is evidence that tens and tens of Germans were deliberately targeted by aerial bombing by the British carpet bombing of the city of Dresden towards the end of the war in Europe with apparent no strategic significance than to punish German civilians and to carry the war to them so that there will be no question that they lost the war unlike in the First World War when Germans saw no enemy troops on their soil but rather thousands of German troops had to withdraw from enemy territories after the armistice of 1918.  This led the Germans to feel that it lost the First World War because it was stabbed in the back by internal enemies. Anti German feelings in Britain was so high that if it had the bomb it would have used it against the Germans while with a preponderance of German descendants in the USA using nuclear bombs against them was out of the question. The use of atomic weapons in tightly packed Europe may also have had unintended consequence on other people other than the Germans. Whatever the case may have been, 1945 was a watershed in military history.

    It meant that wars would have to be fought with either conventional weapons or nuclear weapons with a range of strategies including  use of tactical neutron bombs in war theatres, strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, consideration of second strike capability  and even possibility of deployment of anti-missile systems in space to prevent being hit by enemy nuclear weapons. The futility of this has however made the use of nuclear weapons unthinkable by rational human beings. The fear of these weapons in the hands of rogue or unstable states led to the signing nuclear non proliferation treaty which unfortunately has not prevented determined states such as Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan acquiring the weapons. The fear of Iran following suit has led to the recent signing of an international treaty with Iran with the hope that the Islamic republic can only use its nuclear know-how for peaceful purposes and not for making atomic weapons. What is clear is that some countries now see nuclear weapons possession as the ultimate deterrent against possible attack by enemies. It is now seen as the ultimate symbol of equality in the international system. They are probably right. It is inconceivable that a nuclear power will ever be attacked but this is not the same as putative nuclear power taking on a global power.

    The saddest part of the possibility of the use of nuclear bombs is that if it is ever used, it is likely to be in South Asia where India and Pakistan face each other with both countries possessing nuclear weapons and hating each other so much that they would use these weapons in the face of a conventional military defeat. Furthermore religion which is sometimes irrational has been brought into the cauldron with Pakistan claiming it has the Islamic atomic bomb and evidence that it shared its knowledge with North Korea and Iran in the past. One can only imagine the dangerous consequences of introduction of nuclear weapons into the tinderbox of Middle East politics. The prognosis is not too good.

    Even now the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, dancing to the tune of Japanese nationalism wants to remove the peace clauses in the Japanese constitution preventing the country from rearming. One cannot blame him in the face of growing militarism in China and provocation by North Korea which regularly tests missiles across Japan. This is why the world needs to listen to the plea of the Japanese government for universal nuclear disarmament. Nigeria and the rest of Africa should support and embrace the Japanese position. We in Africa should not be smug about our continent being  a nuclear weapons free  zone because in the event of a global nuclear holocaust, we would not be spared. We may not be hit directly but mankind would wither away as a result of radioactive fallout. This is the scenario President John Fitzgerald Kennedy meant when he said in 1962 that in the event of a nuclear war the living will envy the dead!

  • The artful forgers

    If things had gone well, the process should not have generated acrimony. But long before the June 9 inauguration of the Senate, its members were already divided. The division was and still is over the filling of its top  positions, especially the Senate presidency. As the majority party, which is expected, to produce the presiding officers, the All Progressives Congress (APC) settled for Senators Ahmed Lawan and George Akume as Senate president and deputy Senate president (DSP).

    The party’s choice did not go down well with a group of senators rooting for Senator Bukola Saraki. The battle line was thus drawn between the Like Minds comprising Saraki’s loyalists and the Unity Forum, to which Lawan and Akume belong. It became a game of wheeler dealing and the sort ahead of the June 9 inauguration. On the inauguration day, the Unity Forum members were not in the Senate chamber, making it easy for Saraki to emerge Senate president unopposed with the support of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) whose senators were there in full force. PDP through Senator Ike Ekweremadu got the DSP to the bargain.

    Since then, the Senate has not known peace. The Lawan group has refused to recognise Saraki’s leadership, insisting that  he came to office through a ‘’forged Senate Rules’’, which stipulate how the Senate president should be elected. The Saraki group counters that the Rules were not forged. According to the Like Minds, the Rules were amended by the last Senate before it wound up last June 4. The question that arises from the group’s submission is : can outgoing senators set rules for incoming senators, many of who will be coming to the Senate for the first time?

    Assuming that all the old senators will be returning to the Senate does it make sense for them to set rules for a Senate, which life had not yet begun? The matter eventually landed in court. Rather than address the matter, the court resolved to play the ostrich by burying its head in the sand. The court said it could not look into the matter because it is an internal affair of the Senate, which could be addressed by its Ethic and Privileges Committee.

    It is not debatable that the Senate is an arm of government which has its own regulations. But under the doctrine of  Separation of Power, the judiciary can look into whatever the executive and legislature do to ensure that it is within the purview of the law.  The judiciary cannot shirk this responsibility under the guise that it would amount to ‘’undue interference” in either the executive’s or legislature’s ‘’internal affairs’’. What the court cannot do, in my lay man understanding, is to undo what has been properly done by these institutions. But where they appear to have done  wrong, it is the judiciary’s duty to whip them back  into line.

    Not to do so will amount to condoning illegality and enthroning lawlessness. If the court cannot look into an allegation of forgery because it happened on the floor of the Senate isn’t that saying any offence can be committed there and the suspect will go scot free because he is a lawmaker? As powerful as the Senate is, it cannot try criminal cases; only the courts can. The question then arises, is forgery a crime?

    According to the ninth edition of Black’s Law Dictionary, forgery is a crime. It states : In essence, the crime of forgery involves the making, altering, or completing of an instrument by someone other than the ostensible maker or drawer or an agent of the ostensible maker or drawer. It added: Though forgery was a misdemeanour at common law, modern statutes typically make it a felony.

    Thus, the courts cannot and should not close their eyes to certain developments in the legislature under the pretence of non-interference. If they do, they will be paving the way for our lawmakers to get away with anything, including murder.  What did the court make of the police report that the Senate Rules were forged? Nothing, it dismissed offhand the  report, which should have aided it in reaching a considered decision on the matter.

    The court missed the opportunity to pronounce on the matter judiciously and judicially when it threw away the baby with the bath water. But the police are not keeping quiet; they are fighting back. In a preliminary objection to a case filed by Senator Gilbert Nnaji, they are insisting on their right to investigate the forgery allegation and bring the perpetrators to justice. The police, in a counter affidavit, notes that the forgery allegation borders on ‘’issue of criminality, and not simply an issue on the floor of the Senate”. Investigating the allegation, the police claim, cannot be undue interference in the Senate’s affair. To the police, every Nigerian can be investigated for crime. How true and one only hopes that the police will live up to this averment always.

    The police made valid claims in their deposition. This case is of public interest because it involves the second arm of government, which is charged with making laws for the country. But when lawmakers become lawbreakers,  the law should be applied against them like any other person caught in a compromised position.

    Since senators occupy an exalted position, they should not do anything unbecoming of their office, which could bring them to public ridicule. But if they do, they should be ready to pay the price. The law, they say, is no respecter of persons. So. these artful forgers should be brought to book.

     Their leaders’ sins

    On Monday, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) released the May/June 2015 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results. Those who passed have been rejoicing, but not so those with poor results. But what do you say of those whose fate is hanging in the balance?  They do not know whether they passed or failed because their results were not released. Their results were withheld for no fault of theirs. They were not involved in examination malpractice; no they were not.  Their results were withheld because their states are owing WAEC.

    To avoid this kind of embarrassment, WAEC warned before it released the results that it would withhold those of candidates from the 13 debtor-states if the debts were not defrayed. The states probably thought that WAEC was joking as they pretended not to hear the warning,  even after they had been written to pay up. Must these pupils be made to suffer for the sins of their leaders whose children may not be schooling in the country. How much is the WAEC fee compared to the millions of dollars they pay on their own children abroad? It will be unfortunate if these pupils miss entering the university this year because of this problem. If these pupils were their children, will they abandon them like this? May God touch the hearts of the chief executives of these debtor-states to do what is necessary and needful before it is too late.

  • Self-serving vs. selfless service

    When they took power, the soldiers, matched out on a straight path towards their vision of a good society, but the mission became more elusive, the closer they came towards it – Robin Luckman.

    The Action Group at its Executive and Parliamentary Council of July 1953 attended by Bode Thomas,  SLA Akintola, Rotimi Williams, Obafemi  Awolowo, Anthony Enahoro and others agreed  that the ‘extreme confederalist eight-point demand of the north be accepted in order to guarantee the independence of the regions and allow the north to discover secession doesn’t pay’. Enahoro and Okodudu had argued against confederal arrangement.  Awo, a federalist who however toed his party line reasoned that the problem of the country was not regionalism but the interference of the centre in the affairs of the regions. That became a self-fulfilling prophesy in 1962 when Ahmadu Bello, who according to Trevor Richard, at the height of his power presented a gift of a horse to Zik and the Holy Koran to Tafawa Balewa declaring, he has like his great grandfather, divided the country among his trusted children, coerced the duo to remove one leg of the tripod that had held our nation together. This was done through an illegal declaration of state of emergency in the West and imposition of SLA Akintola who had been disciplined by his leaders as Premier without election. He also had the backing of the centre when he went on to declare himself premier against the wishes of the majority of his people in 1965. Rioting and violence quickly followed.

    That was the excuse an ill-equipped albeit patriotic Nigerian military politicians who saw themselves as custodians of our constitution that was under attack needed to intervene ostensibly to save Nigeria from self-serving politicians who had betrayed the spirit of our constitution. Without requisite educational training, the needed compass in the management of society, the soldiers tried to navigate an unfamiliar terrain. As Luckman observed above, their disastrous outing in January and July 1966 were missions in self-destruction.  From 1967 to 1970, they plunged the nation into a civil war. The achievements credited to the military under Gowon like the Lagos second bridge, the Onitsha Bridge, expansion of net work of roads were all conceived before independence in 1960.

    The bungling soldiers, burning with patriotic fervour once again descended upon themselves in 1975. This time around, ill-informed and ill equipped Murtala  Muhammed and Olusegun Obasanjo destroyed our universities and the bureaucracy, the two institutions that sustain society.  And tragically, instead of looking at 1962 when the rain started beating us, we simply replaced the parliamentary system inherited from the British with American Presidential system ignoring the fact that our problem was not the constitution but the men who would operate it. Obasanjo, playing god has since publicly admitted supporting the presidential bid of Shehu Shagari whose ambition was to be a senator in 1979. By 1983, Shagari smoked away while Akinloye and NPN wheelers and dealers once again brought the nation to it’s knees through profligate consumption.

    Babangida, Gusau and Abacha, as ex-President Shagari has since revealed, carried out the coup against his government and only brought in Buhari because of his integrity. But Buhari took responsibility for the crudity of his ill-informed military junta’s retroactive laws that resulted in the murder of some Nigerian drug pushers and the obnoxious Decree Four that led to the imprisonment of Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor of Guardian newspapers for reporting and publishing the truth that they claimed embarrassed government. And without understanding the forces at play in our society, the junta went all out for politicians without making a distinction between governors who used state funds to build universities for their youths, governors who expended state resources to build new houses and marry new wives, and those governors who took foreign loan which never got to Nigeria but kept in banks in Europe. As it was in 1966 and 1975, they waged war against their superiors.

    But once again in the night of many knives, Buhari was deposed by those who put him in power. He was clamped into prison for three and half years. From prison, he had an opportunity to watch, obviously in disbelief as members of his junta now at the helm of affairs released jailed journalists, appointed others senior advisers and ministers. He watched as those who only yesterday supported his rejection of Nigeria membership of OIC, the IMF loan and its conditionalities  declared ‘there was no alternative to SAP’ (Structural Adjustment Programme) which later resulted in ill-advised privatization and the sharing of the nation’s wealth among soldiers and their fronts. He watched in pain as Babangida and Abacha took the nation through a fraudulent 13 years of ‘transition without end’. And he has since 1999 observed from close quarters how PDP pillaged our land like a conquered territory.

    Motivated more by a desire to serve, he contested the presidential election as the candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) in 2003. He was defeated by President Olusegun Obasanjo.  He didn’t have money to buy justice. Before the end of 2007, nearly all politicians who rode on his back to power had deserted him for PDP. Again in 2007, he was outfoxed. Frustrated, he abandoned ANPP and in 2010 formed CPC, according to him “as a solution to the debilitating ethical and ideological conflicts in the former party.” In 2011, the over 12million votes he garnered without money and a national platform but just on account of his integrity was not enough to match Jonathan’s over 22million votes. And realizing elections are never won on the basis of righteousness, he joined forces with ACN, ANPP, a faction of APGA and a faction of PDP, groups he would have ordinarily dined with using a long spoon. He secured an historic victory by defeating incumbent ex-President Jonathan in four of the country’s six geopolitical zones on March 29.

    To paraphrase Joanna Baillie, a 19th century British poet, ‘there is always a survivor in the destruction of a noble line’. Buhari seems to have been specially prepared for the task ahead. By an irony of fate, Buhari once confessed that but for Ahmadu Bello who in the cause of his selfless service to his people picked him up from the village without any connection, he would never have had the advantage of joining the military. Fate beckons on him today to see where our nation derailed in 1962. He is adequately equipped for the onerous task. Joking during his recent visit to Prime Minister Cameron of Britain about those the junta he headed jailed unjustly 30 years ago, he had made reference to his own unjust incarceration.  He has been betrayed by his military colleagues. He has equally been betrayed by politicians. He has been a military governor, a minister of petroleum and a Head of State. Unlike 1984, he today has a deeper knowledge of Nigeria and her diverse cultures. He is conscious of the baleful legacies of the Hausa Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba parasitic elites who were only out to serve selves rather than provide services to the people. He can attach weight to the advice coming from Obasanjo, Danjuma, Babangida and others who have been beneficiaries of an aberration we call a federation. Nigeria is the only federation in the world where the centre gets involved in education, health, agriculture, and decides how local councils manage the affairs of their remote communities.

    Of course Nigerians that voted for Buhari have faith in his ability to ensure those who stole the country blind through fraudulent fuel subsidy deals, crude oil theft, and fraudulent privatization and monetisation policies return their loot. But the major challenge lies in the political will to tamper with the structure that supports and sustains self service as against selfless service as we once had it. As Edmund Burke, in a manner of speaking says, we cannot climb the palm tree from the top. Unfortunately that exactly is what Nigerian politicians and their young multi-billionaires’ fronts have been doing. If the current system where politicians without character in Abuja decide who from Daura secures admission into the military school in Zaria was in place during the first Republic, President Buhari  by his own admission would have remained a herdsman in Daura and the cause of history would have been different.

  • 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.

  • Banks, billionaires…as Nigeria’s Black Death

    The Nigerian bank is diseased; a contemptible ogre in the mould of the bubonic plague, or Black Death of 1348 if you like. Like the bubonic plague – which killed up to 40 per cent of Europe’s population – banking operation in the country presage our gruesome death as a republic and careworn economy. It foreshadows the traumatic realities that ruined Europe by devastating every aspect of civilisation and vestige of humanity. Boccacio describes the breakdown of law and government, the desertion of child by parent and husband by wife in the wake of the Black Death. A noble woman who fell ill was nursed by a male servant: “Nor did she have any scruples about showing him every part of her body as freely as she would have displayed it to a woman…; and this explains why those women who recovered were possibly less chaste in the period that followed,” notes Boccacio. The Black Death apparently wore human will and weakened social controls. It had a glacial effect, pushing some toward debauchery and others, like the flagellants, towards religiosity.

    Like the Black Death, Nigerian banks are out for the kill. However, unlike the bubonic plague that afflicted both rich and poor, nobleman and commoner, Nigerian banks by their operations, choose to discriminate. Banks in the country are smitten by a mad lust to obliterate or destroy those segments of their customers and the citizenry that are classifiable as ‘commoners.’ Ask Tejumade Adeyemi. The latter cried helplessly, as her account with Union Bank got pilfered and drained of all her savings, on the bank’s watch. Adeyemi accuses Union Bank of complicity in the alleged illegal withdrawal of the sum of N251, 447 from her account with the Oba Akran, Ikeja branch of the bank. Still smarting from the vileness of the attack carried out on her account, Adeyemi threatened to take legal action against the bank if it refuses to refund her money but the bank has called her bluff.

    Union Bank persists in misdemeanour riding on a wave of presumed invincibility and disdain for customers that probably fall outside its classification of deep-pockets. Union Bank has denied liability, blaming the victim for the fraud. According to the bank, Adeyemi’s savings got stolen because her account was used to make purchases online. Union Bank attributes the victim’s plight to possible compromise of her confidential card details.

    Union Bank’s reluctance to admit culpability no doubt flies in the face of reason, in the estimation of the lawyer and his client. Why did the bank refuse to suspend further transactions on the account as instructed by Adeyemi? Was it such a hard order to carry out?

    Consider too, the on-going fraud perpetrated by Nigerian banks in response to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s directive that they publish the names of chronic debtors in a “name-them-and-shame-them” exercise; several bank chiefs, afflicted by terror of what misery may come in the wake of their shady liaisons with chronic billionaire debtors by whose bidding they plunged the financial sector in its current mess, have resorted to desperate measures.

    To protect themselves and their billionaire cohorts from shame and prosecution, bank chiefs in the country have severally scorned the CBN’s directive, publishing instead, fictitious lists of presumed chronic debtors in the media. There is no gainsaying the country’s bank chiefs are in cahoots with their billionaire friends and chronic debtors. And the reason is hardly far-fetched; many of the country’s bank chiefs are on the leash of the country’s so-called superrich or ‘billionaires.’ In exchange for various goodies and freebies ranging from exotic automobiles to posh apartments in exclusive gated communities; membership of exclusive clubs for the rich and admittance into periodic orgies and other guilty pleasure fests, Nigerian bank chiefs facilitated the acquisition of several multibillion naira non-performing loans (NPLs) to the detriment of the financial sector and the country’s economy.

    Consequently, banks in the country have been plunged in a financial crisis that has them contending with the scariest surge in bad loans since 2011. Economic pundits warn that the trend suggests banks in the country will eclipse the CBN’s minimum non-performing loan (NPL) ratio target of five percent at the backdrop of random fears that the NPL ratio could increase to seven per cent by the end of 2015. Another desperate tactic adopted by the banks is to arbitrarily increase the interest rate on lending by its struggling, less privileged customers. For instance, a customer whose loan attracted an interest rate of 22 per cent at the time it was taken, is currently paying 25 per cent interest on the loan in the wake of his banker’s  arbitrary hike in interest rate. Many banks afflict their helpless, loyal customers with such ridiculous charges in desperate bid to raise money and make up for losses suffered by bad and non-performing loans they had granted their billionaire friends.

    The decision to publish the names of serial bank debtors was taken at the 322nd meeting of the Bankers’ Committee in July. The conference set a deadline of August 1, for every bank to publish the names of its chronic debtors but the bank chiefs rather than comply with the directive, are collaborating with the culprits to avoiding repayment of the loans.

    Tokunbo Martins, CBN’s Director of Banking Supervision, claimed the measure is in response to mounting non-performing loans, which he said had risen to N490 billion sector-wide. The deteriorating macro – environment indicate that some loans may go sour for lenders. The uncertain macro – economic environment may lead to a rise in credit losses for banks in 2015, according to Standard and Poor’s analysis. Banks’ reduced profitability will consequently, lead to rapid loan growth in sectors where risks are not fully understood, including small and midsize enterprises.

    Banking operations in the country, like the plague of 1348, certainly works in reverse; giving birth to a renaissance of poverty and ill bliss, by destroying the middle and lower classes to perpetuate the epoch of the Nigerian billionaire. This epoch of the contemporary billionaire is forged in the crucible of Nigeria’s equivalent of the Black Death.

    The poor and the working class in the country know what it is to be afflicted by an equivalent of the Black Death. They what it is to be financially handicapped. They understand what it means to be so endangered. They know underemployment and unemployment. They know what it is to live through each day without dependable livelihood. They know life without pension. They know existence on a few naira a day. They know getting their kids kicked out of school because of unpaid tuition. They know the crippling weight of debt. They know being sick and unable to afford medical care. They know the profound despair and abandonment that come when schools, libraries, neighborhood health clinics, day care services, roads, bridges, public buildings and assistance programs are neglected or closed. They know the financial elites’ hijacking democratic institutions to impose widespread misery in the name of austerity. They, like the unfortunate Europeans of 1348, know what it is to be afflicted.

    And they, not the rogue billionaires and banks, should inform the bedrock of humane and progressive palliatives proffered by the CBN and President Muhammadu Buhari to the country’s financial crisis.