The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Union Bank vs. Citizen Tejumade Adeyemi (2)

    (Trader’s savings mysteriously disappears from bank account as pensioners accuse bank of withholding their pension)

    Without prejudice, there is something gnomic about banking at Union Bank; late American business executive, Sarnoff, would describe it as the art of passing currency from hand to hand until it finally disappears. It is. Ask citizen Tejumade Adeyemi. She cried helplessly, as her account got pilfered and drained of all her savings, on the bank’s watch. This makes Union Bank look like an ordinary pick-pocket. Is it?

    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. Not even the intervention of Lagos-based lawyer, Adejumo Omobolaji, could guarantee a refund of Adeyemi’s missing cash. Omobolaji intervened in Adeyemi’s interest after reading the first installment of this article about three weeks ago. But despite his intervention, the situation looks bleak for Adeyemi. 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?

    At this juncture, it becomes imperative to restate the facts, according to Adeyemi.  Adeyemi allegedly received SMS alerts from the bank on May 4, 2015, notifying her of unauthorised withdrawal of the sum of N30,000 from her account through ATM. Worriedly, she rushed to the Iju branch of the bank to report the matter and was advised by officials of the branch to report the incident at the Oba Akran, Ikeja branch where her account was domiciled. On her visit to the Oba Akran branch on May 5, Adeyemi said she was shocked to discover that the illegal withdrawals actually started on May 2nd  and May 3rd and that she was never notified by the bank.

    She said: “On May 4, 2015, I received an alert indicating that the sum of N30,000 had been withdrawn by unknown persons from my account. I quickly went to the nearest branch of Union Bank at Iju Road, Ifako-Ijaiye, from where I was advised to visit the branch where I opened the account on Oba Akran Road, Ikeja, after I explained to the officials of the bank that my ATM card was with me and that its details were not in any way compromised by me. The next day, May 5, I visited the Oba Akran branch and I asked that further transactions be suspended on the account until further notice. When I asked for the details of the transactions, I was shocked to discover that the illegal withdrawals started between May 2nd and May 3rd, wherein about N45,747.35 had been taken from my account and no alert or notification was sent to me till date. I also discovered that there were other illegal withdrawals totaling N180, 000 made on May 4, yet the bank did not notify me.”

    According to Adeyemi, she was assured by both the Manager of the bank and the Head of Customer Service that further transactions on her account will be suspended including ATM withdrawals. “By then, I was having about N25,190 as balance in my account. The money was still in my account as at May 14, when a statement of account was given to me but I was surprised to receive further notification of illegal withdrawal of the remaining balance a few days later. Immediately, I called the secretary to the manager of the branch on his mobile phone and I was assured of prompt remedy that has not been fulfilled to date. In all, N251, 447 was illegally withdrawn from my account and I strongly suspect an insider in the bank is behind the illegal withdrawals from my account. The bank has refused to take blame for its complicity in this fraudulent withdrawal of my money and I am going to consider a legal option if the bank refuses to refund my money,” she said.

    When The Nation’s Chief Correspondent that handled the story, contacted the Head of Media and Special Projects of Union Bank Plc, Francis Barde, via an email, his reply was cryptic and muddled in officialese; that is, unclear, pedantic, verbose language characteristic of shady official correspondence.

    Nothing is so fatal to enterprise as indifference to customers’ worries and pains; for Union Bank to willfully and disdainfully shirk responsibility for Adeyemi’s plight translates to a cruel and unusual sort of grotesqueness. But if you are taken aback by Union Bank’s shabby treatment of Adeyemi, you just might be mystified by the bank’s alleged mistreatment of pensioners. Amid the flurry of tragic testimonies of inconveniences suffered by customers of the bank, the case of pensioners dealing with the bank rankles a melancholic note. One such message reads thus: “Sir, I loved your write-up captioned ‘Union Bank vs. Citizen Tejumade Adeyemi’ in The Nation of June 12, 2015. We, the pensioners of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc nationwide (pensioners from 2006 to 2012 of which I am one) have been maltreated, pauperised, traumatised, dehumanised and some have been sent to their early graves.

    “For over two years, Union Bank has refused to pay our legacy fund/accrued pension rights to our various Pension Fund Administrators (PFA). It is impossible for us to access our pensions. After many entreaties to both PENCOM and Union Bank and despite the directives by PENCOM to Union Bank to payus, the bank remains adamant and unperturbed; this is sheer impunity. We are in a dilemma and this is our plight for you to intervene and help us. I have been making frantic efforts in this regard  but to no avail…We have facts and evidences to support our claims and pursuits.”

    The writer of the message subsequently called to lament the impunity by which Union Bank visits interminable hardships and financial constraints on him and his fellow pensioners. It was disheartening listening to the poor old man as he gave vent to his grief over Union Bank’s perceived iniquities and intransigence to their plight.

    It is pitiful yet instructive to see Union Bank severally betray the trust reposed in it by its customers. It is even more enlightening to note that the bank perpetrates such perfidy despite legal and moral expectations that it protects its customers from fraud committed by its agents, directors , partners in making  payment orders and so on; perhaps the bank is aware of this crucial obligation, it simply chooses to flout and pervert it.

    There is something seriously wrong with Union Bank’s management and operational culture. And the situation calls for the urgent intervention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

      To be continued…

  • Only the truth can liberate us

    Reacting to my pieces Ekweremadu’s opportunism and Atiku’s apostasy, and June 9: Fallout of clash of cultures, many readers accused me of being fixated with the Igbo and their leadership’ as if there were no leadership problems in Yoruba land. Others accused me of bigotry, xenophobia, dismissing both articles as ‘hate filled orchestrated campaign against a people’. The relief however was that it is not hard to imagine that such comments like –  ‘’You are a fool to say the Igbo thrive more in other peoples country; Have we taken over your fathers village or is Abuja a Yoruba country” could only have come from an uninformed mind.

    Alas, little did this critic know that the Igbo have indeed become a threat to women in my village who are in fact now gearing up to re-enact the first women protest in Nigeria when Calabar women embarked in popular uprising against the Igbo women who took over from the natives in the sales of bush meat in their remote villages. The difference is that while the Calabar women confronted Igbo women,  the targets of the planned women uprising from my village are  able bodied, heavily built and physically intimidating Igbo young men who have taken over the sales of yam , corn, okro, pepper – all hitherto exclusive preserve of our women and mothers. And if my insolent critic really wants to know: our mothers don’t care if Igbo take over Abuja. They care more about their villages. They are also worried about Igbo disrespect for our traditional rulers. The other day, they took up arms against our revered Oba of Lagos whose only fault was threatening those who would work against the interest of Lagos with ancestral curses. And but for his quick intervention,  they would have used Igbo block vote to snatch Lagos for PDP just as they did in Abuja recently when they used their block vote to deprive APC the clear majority given to them in the National Assembly by the electorate.

    That is not the only reason why we cannot but talk about the Igbo. They have claimed to be descendants of the Jews.  And like the Jews, they are not only very stubborn, they are very resilient. They don’t like enjoyment. They detest our ‘owanbe’ parties. They love ‘suffering and smiling’ (apology to Fela). Like the Jews, they control the commerce of wherever they settle. Even in bad behaviour, they excel. When they dabbled into ‘danfo’ driving in Lagos, they outwitted the traditional insolent ‘danfo’ drivers in bad behaviour. When they took over ‘okada’ business in Lagos, they became more aggressive, threatening motorists on the roads. They mobilized their members against the Lagos APC government who quickly relaxed some of its laws shortly before the election. In far away Ekiti, Governor Fayose is said to be in love with Igbo Okada riders. They came in very handy during his war against his state lawmakers. Igbo Okada riders along with the local thugs manned the borders to prevent the marooned lawmakers from sneaking to town to do their jobs.

    The fear of the self-professed Igbo descendants of Jews is the beginning of wisdom because when they sneeze, the nation catches cold. But as argued earlier, the fault is not in the Igbo man but in his culture. It was not an accident that Ekweremadu celebrates unscrupulousness as shrewdness and an amoral behaviour as politically right. He has even tried to draw a parallel between his opportunism and similar events in our past history such as the self-serving coalition between the NCNC and NPC in 1959, and NPP and NPN alliance in 1979 both of which collapsed over sharing of perks of office. I am sure, Ekweremadu, the usurper, would be delighted to know that Richard Sclar in his Nigeria Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation and Trevor Clark’s autobiographical work – Sir Tafawa Balewa ,The Right Honourable Gentleman’ have helped him to document some other parallels.

    Zik, according to Sclar, was the only Igbo man during the inaugural meeting of NCNC shortly before it transformed into a political party in 1944 and assumed the leadership of NCNC following the death of Macaulay in 1947 without a whimper from the Yoruba majority. But Zik saw nothing wrong in ceding the NCNC presidency to Okpara when he vacated the position as against Fadahunsi, the candidate of TOS Benson and his Yoruba group. Similarly when Zik also vacated the Senate Presidency in 1960, he ceded the office not to any of the Yoruba NCNC stalwarts but to Dennis Osadebey. Trevor Clark also documented another parallel. Dr O Ikejiani had just lost his appointment with the University College Ibadan because his PhD turned out not to be in the requisite area of Microbiology he had claimed before his appointment. But Raymond Njoku immediately took a memorandum to the Council of Ministers suggesting Dr. Ikejiani as successor to Emerson, the outgoing chairman of the University Council. Upon becoming Governor General, ‘without receiving ministerial consent and against the advice of the collegiate council which voted 8-2 against Ikejiani’s choice, Zik unilaterally approved his appointment as chairman of University Council that had just dismissed him’!

    Trevor Clark also documented the power struggle for the succession to the British out-going head of the Nigerian military, Welby-Everard, who had recommended Brigadier Ogundipe as an officer who could hold the military together. His second choice was Brigadier Ademulegun. His only reservation about Ogundipe was on account of his politics. He had led the Tiv operation and was the Sardauna and the NPC candidate. By his assessment, ‘Aguiyi-Ironsi of a Sierra Leonean father and an Umuahia mother was the least equipped militarily with narrowest background’. But Ironsi was Zik’s candidate.  Zik along with Mbadiwe, Okotie-Eboh and Mathew Mbu and Pius Okigbo lobbied Ribadu on behalf of Ironsi. Finally, Maitama Sule was flown to Kaduna on the order of Balewa to go and persuade the Sardauna who accepted with a warning that ‘Nigeria will regret it’.  Ironsi’s promotion was announced in March 1965, the Sardauna was killed in the January 1966 coup under the leadership of Ironsi. But it must be noted that anthropologists however have warned that all these actions sometimes considered  reprehensible by some groups, do not make Igbo culture which has sustained peaceful coexistence in their communities for centuries, inferior to other cultures.

    It was perhaps for this reason that to the British – “It was clear that Nigeria if it was to be a nation, must be a federation with as few subjects reserved for the central government as would preserve national unity”. Thus following Oliver Lyttleton suggestion of May 20 1953, representatives of the three dominant Nigerian regions were invited to London to redraft the 1951 constitution in such a way as to provide for greater regional autonomy and the removal of the power of intervention of the centre in the matters which will be placed within regional competence between July and August 1953. This was the elixir for the monumental achievements of the federating units between 1953 and 1960, the golden era of our nation.

    For instance in 1960, 60%of our Gross National Product and 85% of our exports were agricultural. We were the world’s largest producer of groundnut and oil palm and seventh in cocoa. Each region managed its own affairs. In 1960-61 financial year, the West with a population of seven million generated 29 million pounds and decided to spend 16 million on capital expenditure and 17 million on recurrent while the East with a population of eight million  generated 16 million and opted to spend seven million on capital and 15 million on recurrent. The north with a population of 18 million spent 10 million of her earnings on capital and 18 million on recurrent.

    Truth is the only thing that can liberate us. Like the Indians, Russians, Canadians, and even Britain that gave us a template almost 60 years ago, we must come to terms with our own demons. Unfortunately those behind our travails these past 60 years have continued to label all those that call attention to our missed path to greatness including the late sage, Awo a ‘tribalist’. What they have been unable to do however is invalidate the British thesis, or suppress the self-evident consequences of ‘the path to Nigeria greatness’ not taken.

  • State finances after federal bailout

    We must give thanks to President Muhammadu Buhari’s rescue package for all the states of the federation that could no longer discharge their financial obligation to their employees following the drastic reduction in federal allocations consequent upon the drop in earnings from crude oil sales. With the exception of a few states, most of the states of the federation were under stress and acute distress. I visited the secretariats of Oyo and Osun in Ibadan and Osogbo respectively when both states were on strike I was struck and saddened by what I saw.  The two places were virtually lifeless and deserted presenting a scene that I had never experienced in Ibadan where I had practically lived all my life. The situation reminded me of glory departing from Israel as a result of sin and conquest by its enemies. Ibadan which has withstood enemy conquest since its foundation circa 1830 presented a sorry situation. Osogbo was also a sad reflection of what I saw in Ibadan. Yet these two state capitals had never witnessed the kind of stupendous development that governors Abiola Ajimobi and Rauf Aregbesola had accomplished since their creation. The road networks in Ibadan put to shame all previous governments in the state since independence. Aregbesola has definitely transformed Osogbo not only in terms of roads but by building modern and  up-to-date mega-schools in the state as well as feeding school children once a day a phenomenon that states collecting jumbo federal allocations have not been able to replicate or match. You can blame this young man for too much optimism but certainly not for corruption or squander-mania

    My prayer particularly for Aregbesola is that through internally generated revenue he will  be able to finish all the projects he has embarked on especially the dualisation of Akoda to Gbongan which will lead to the emergence of a conurbation stretching from Osogbo through Ede, Ode-omu to Gbongan  with common services for all the towns brought together and increase in the tax base and springing up of  industries enjoying economy of scale  because of the size of the new market. While still on Osun, I wonder why there has been so much negative focus on the state as if it were the only state lagging in payment of salaries. Perhaps this has something to do with the over-exposure of the governor or perhaps people have come to expect too much from him. Whatever the case may be, there has been all kinds of do-gooders demonstrating more enthusiasm than wisdom offering help and even food to the so-called starving population of Osun State!

    It is of course true that the APC states in the South-West borrowed money for infrastructural development following hostile treatment by the PDP-controlled federal government. With the decline in the value of the naira, these states may in future be the better for the loans they took. If they had waited longer, the kind of work done with minimal allocations one sees in Ekiti under Fayemi,  Osun under Aregbesola , Ogun under Amosun, Oyo under Ajimobi and the giant strides in Lagos under Fashola may never have been accomplished. It is only when one visits neighbouring states of Kogi and Kwara in the same cultural environment that one can appreciate what has been accomplished in these states.

    All I have said is  of course no excuse for poor planning and not saving money against  lean times. But when faced with absolute and abject underdevelopment, does it really make sense to postpone responding to the development yearnings of our people? This is the question we should ask ourselves.

    The answer lies in each state becoming self-sufficient and not depending on revenues accruing to the federal government that itself, unhealthily in economic sense, depends on hydrocarbon sale and taxes levied on multinationals involved in their production. We must as a people and a country move away from dependency on oil and gas. Our country is blessed by God. We are in the tropics where we can grow crops all the year round unlike in the temperate regions of the world where for half of the year, the land is too cold to support agriculture. With a population one ninth of that of India and vast arable land lying fallow, we should not be importing rice from India Thailand, the USA and Bangladesh of all places! We should not be importing vegetable oils from Malaysia and Indonesia or textile from anywhere when all our textile mills are mothed up and moribund due to lack of use. We should not be importing any kind of wines including champagne of which we are the largest consumer outside France. We should refrain from eating or using whatever our ingenuity cannot produce. The only concession I would make is industrial machineries, industrial inputs, transportation and electrical grid and maybe, chemicals and drugs. We should do away with our indulgent lifestyles of conspicuous consumption .This was the strategy the Chinese adopted that leapfrogged their economy from the laughable level it was a few years ago to the fastest growing economy in the world. This prescription is at the macro level of the nation.

    But at state level, we must allow the people to own the government. The situation at present where only salary earners pay taxes is one of the reasons why the people do not care if state officials are corrupt or clean. The unearned income from oil and gas is a curse and this is why we suffer when their prices like a yoyo go up and down

    We must bring back the regime of flat or poll tax on all adults. Jangali or cattle tax should be levied road tax should also be paid. The federal government should allow states to collect VAT and VAT which is actually luxury tax which need not fall on the poor should be increased to 20 percent . We should not wait until our economy goes the way of the Greek economy and international caretakers are called to impose unbearable conditionalities on us before we can access development assistance. States must also levy commodities tax on cash crops and recreate commodities boards that used to exist before the craze of market forces determining price of commodities. This will help stabilise prices paid to producers who will be protected from the vagaries of rise and fall in the world market. All the states of the federation should be asked to explore charging annual land use and development tax on home owners in such a way that the least able to pay are excluded. Transparency will be the watch word. If the people see what is being done with their taxes, they will respond positively to these changes. All this will be unpopular to begin with but it is the duty of government to explain to the people their responsibility. This is the meaning of representation based on taxation which is at the core of democratic governance. Dependence on oil and gas revenue will not last and the earlier we get used to paying for the services we need the better and the less painful it will be in the long run.

    Finally, the federal and state governments should stop meddling in the financial affairs of their universities. There is no where in the world not even in the richest countries in the world where university education is free. Councils of universities should be allowed to draw up their budgets and spread the cost to users of their services so that they can operate maximally and efficiently. The present situation where salaries are not paid particularly in the state universities leads to poor graduates and inability of these tertiary institutions to contribute to the pool of knowledge and consequently to industrialization and wealth creation. A situation where school fees in universities are pegged at N25,000 or N50,000 a year is not just laughable but very sad and shows us as an unserious country. States that cannot fund one university as in the case of Ondo goes ahead for purpose of vainglory to establish three! And before you know it all other states will join in a race to establish funny institutions and call them universities.

    If only we will be honest with ourselves and be less selfish and ego driven, I doubt if there is anybody in government in this benighted country who does not know that we are punching bellow our weight both nationally any internationally.

  • An anti-graft war advisory

    An anti-graft war advisory

    Poor Sule Lamido. After an eight-year remarkable tenure as governor of Jigawa State, which he, by sheer grit, transformed from a rustic community of farmers, building roads, schools and a beautiful airport, he has been arraigned before a court for alleged corruption. His fans- and foes- are wondering how and when he crossed the line – if the allegations are, indeed, true.

    He was asked to be remanded in prison custody. Apparently exasperated by it all, Lamido exclaimed: “So I’m now a prisoner?” The Jagoran Talakawa (friend of the poor) is, thankfully, now on bail.

    Lamido is not alone. Former Imo Governor Ikedi Ohakim, former Head of Service Steve Oronsaye and former Adamawa Governor Murtala Nyako have all just returned from the court.

    Apparently scared that this could be their lot, considering the reconnaissance of the Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration by the tactful Muhammadu Buhari presidency, many dignitaries have bombarded “Editorial Notebook” for a confidential advisory on how to go through it all. It will, in my view, be unfair to make such a critical document secret, considering the sheer number of our compatriots who will soon find it exceedingly useful.

    Here we go: Merely taking you before the court – if you fail to get a perpetual injunction against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), its agents, privies, officers, operatives or whatsoever called, who may wish to investigate you from so doing – does not make you a prisoner. Be ready to shell out a fortune – obviously a small fraction of the cash they claim you have stolen – to get a damn good lawyer, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). There are many of them in town nowadays. Your adversary, the tempestuous EFCC, cannot afford them.

    When you are remanded, don’t panic and give your traducers a chance to say: “Oh; he’s finished.” Remember, the offence, no matter how huge the cash involved, is bailable. In fact, the charges may be as long as the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Never mind; as the case progresses, they may be withdrawn, amended or consolidated into one or two.

    Bail will come in very liberal terms: N400m and a surety who must be a senior civil servant. He or she must own a property in Abuja (Is there any senior government official worth his seat who doesn’t own a choice property in that seductive city?) or be a National Award recipient– there are all manner of people (leaders and looters) who are proud honorees, you know. If the judge is the liberal type, he may just let you go on self-recognition.

    When the case proper begins, your lawyer will tell the judge he has no jurisdiction to entertain the matter. The judge could be stubborn. He may fix a date to determine his jurisdiction and, in actual fact, rule that he is fit to hear the matter. Don’t fret. Your lawyer will simply head for the ever-busy Court of Appeal. This, no doubt, will take months to resolve. The appeal may be decided, most likely against you. Be strong; it is a temporary setback (if you see it as a setback o). Remember, it is basic in law that you are innocent, until proven guilty. In fact, your lawyer should tell you that Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea (The act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty).

    Another judge will naturally take over the case. A plea is taken – “Are you guilty or not?” Be firm in replying: “Not guilty at all, my Lord.” Your SAN will then raise a preliminary objection, saying again that His Lordship has no jurisdiction to hear the matter. “The offence was not committed in Abuja,” he will tell the court, “and the money involved is, after all, not the Federal Government’s.” Besides, no prima facie case has been established against you, the lawyer will say confidently.

    As the case wends its way through, never forget you’re a politician, not a criminal. Never. Fight for your party’s ticket to run for governor (don’t mind the cost). If you win the election, the case automatically goes into the cooler for at least the next four years. If you are the considerate type, you can listen to the pleas of the good people of your dear state to serve for four more years. By the time you finish – you can run for Senate o – the case file would have been missing. Don’t arrange for the judge to get beaten up and his robe torn and the court documents shredded and the court premises shut down. No need for all that as people will call you, a honorable man, names.

    If the authorities dare to revive it all, your lawyer will simply make a no-case  submission, insisting that the prosecution has no case against you and that you, ipso facto, should be compensated for the ordeal of being brought before the court.

    If your lawyer  is the theatrical type, he can muddy the waters. He will spring up to his feet, adjust his gown, frown, gesticulate like a Nollywood wannabe and tell the judge: “Objection, my Lord. I have an objection. We have filed a motion, which is fundamental to the very essence of this case, from which we believe you should excuse yourself. We can smell some bias, with due respect, my Lord.”

    Shocked, the judge will begin to put up a defence. “Me, biased? How?” He will then fix a long adjournment date. Again, you have been saved by the bell. When the date comes, his lordship will simply announce that since your lawyer has raised the issue of bias, he has returned the file to the Chief Judge for reassignment. Go home and relax as the court, which has its hands full of urgent matters, will not give a date so soon.

    Outside the court, your supporters will bear big placards attesting to your integrity and notifying the world that you are being persecuted because of your political beliefs. Some of the placards will read: “Leave our hero alone. He is not a thief”; “EFCC, is your money missing?”; “Our man is not guilty. This is politics taken too far”; “It is better for 1000 criminals to go free than to have an innocent man punished”.

    Of course, an army of television cameramen and newspaper photographers will be there to record the scene for all, especially your supporters who may not be able to join the solidarity bus to Abuja and those political enemies of yours who pray fervently for your downfall.

    As the case progresses (with another judge taking charge), if your lawyer perceives that it could be against you, he will so inform you. “Be strong and courageous. Do not be petrified, do not be discouraged.” Isn’t that what the holy book demands of us? Besides, there is a way out.

    Your lawyer will seek your permission to go into settlement talks with the prosecution. It is called plea bargain. An agreement will be drawn up. You will be required to give up some of the property you have acquired in exchange for your freedom. A filling station here, a mansion there and a shopping complex in the heart of the city. Just a few.

    The judge may also ask you to pay a fine, usually the kind of cash you can easily ask your driver to whip out of the car trunk. Your detractors  will call it a slap on the wrist, never mind; that’s their problem.

    Freedom–at last. Get some rest and at the weekend storm your hometown in a long motorcade of exotic vehicles. A grand reception should be awaiting your arrival, with the community’s best musician on the band stand. Push the boat out. Flood the gathering with choice drinks. Let there be plenty of food as if it is Christmas Day.  Remember the sumptuosity of it all is a reflection of your status.

    Deliver a moving speech, thanking your people for standing by you all the way. All are not thieves whom the dogs bark at, you will say in an emotional voice. To your opponents, be magnanimous. Tell them you have forgiven all, that you harbour no malice against anyone and that you see your ordeal as the price you needed to pay for agreeing to serve your people. I assure you there will be a deafening ovation from the appreciative crowd of youths, elders and common folks.

    On Sunday, storm the church with your army of supporters for a welcome/thanksgiving service. The sermon is quite predictable. The man of God will admonish the congregation to always embrace truth and service, adding that no matter how rough things are, the truth will surely prevail.

    When it is time to dance up to the alter for the priest’s blessings, you can request for a popular local song, something like this: “O ti mu mi gbagbe o, ibanuje igba kan, A se were ni’se Oluwa, oba ti mo pe t’onje. A se were ni’se Oluwa, oba ti mo pe t’onje.” (He has made me to forget the sadness of the past. God’s work is timely. He is the king that I call and he answers.)

    To shame those who mocked you, you can then request to have that chieftaincy title you shunned because of your modesty.

    All rights reserved. No part of this advisory may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright holder.

  • Wike’s tricky visits

    By virtue of their office,  governors do not move anyhow. Their schedule is planned in detail and everything is done according to protocol. Without the protocol say so, a governor would not move out of his home or office. So, whenever a governor moves, it means all loose ends have been tied. The all-clear  to go is critical because of the governor’s safety and security.

    A governor is not supposed to visit any place on the spur of the moment. To do so will amount to disrupting  the security arrangements for his movement. In an impromptu change in a governor’s itinerary, his security aides may be stretched in order to ensure his safety. A governor is a charge of the state, which is responsible for his welfare and security. But some governors, out of mischief,  dump protocol and insist on doing things their own way.

    And when the bubble bursts, they try to defend the indefensible. They make up stories to cover their self-serving action, forgetting that the people are wiser than they think. I have not ceased wondering since the story broke why a governor with a case at the tribunal would go to the Supreme Court to see the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Mahmud Mohammed. Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike called at the CJN’s office not once, but twice. With a petition challenging his election before a tribunal sitting in Abuja, where the CJN has his office, there is more to that visit than meets the eye.

    If The Punch had not broken the story of the inexplicable visits, chances are that Wike and his aides would have pretended as if nothing happened. As a lawyer whose wife is also a judge, Wike is expected to know that you do not visit a judge, whether in your private or official capacity, when you have a matter in his court. Even if he has a matter before his wife, she is not expected to discuss the case with him at home because like her fellow judges, she is expected to dispense justice without fear or favour, affection or ill will to all manner of men.

    Wike may argue that his case is not before the CJN, but he should not forget that the tribunals were set up by the CJN, who while inaugurating them warned that they should shun corruption. By trying to see the CJN, Wike’s intention was to go right to the top to pull strings in respect of his case.

    Wike knew what he was doing by embarking on those two visits in three days – between July 6 and 8. He knows that the CJN wields enormous influence over the tribunals. So, he thought by sweet talking the CJN, his lordship could be made to get the tribunal to play ball.

    The governor will never admit that he had ulterior motive in going to the CJN’s office without appointment; no he will never. He will defend his visits with the last drop of his blood, if need be,  because what he went there for is not for public consumption – it is not something the ears should hear. His reasons for the visits are puerile. He said he went to see the CJN to thank him for sending Bayelsa State Chief Judge Justice Kate Abiri to swear him in on May 29 and over the vexed issue of a chief judge for Rivers.

    ‘’I didn’t go there to lobby for anything cynical. If I was going to lobby for anything like that, would I go in the afternoon? You may wish to know that we have an acting chief judge in my state, and the judiciary is already on vacation and that the National Judicial Council (NJC) may also be on vacation. So, I needed to do a letter to the NJC on the need to extend or approve the appointment of the acting chief judge in my state. I went there on the two days in daytime; and see Nigerians, they are already imputing another meaning to the visits’’, Wike said.

    Yes, we are already talking because he did not exhibit utmost good faith. The governor did not act honestly under the circumstance. Who were those who followed him to the CJN’s office? If he had met the CJN would he have limited himself to issues of his inauguration and the renewal of the appointment of his state’s acting chief judge (ACJ)? Would he? Nigerians are no fools; they can see through Wike’s visits, whether or not he comes out with the truth.

    With due respect to him, the issues he listed for his visits are what the governor should not have broken sweat over  because they have been constitutionally settled. The CJN was not doing Wike any favour by asking Justice Abiri to swear him in. The CJN was only interpreting Section 185 (2) of the Constitution, which stipulates that the chief judge; or grand kadi of the Sharia Court of Appeal; or president of the Customary Court of Appeal of any state can swear in a governor, where nobody holds those offices in the elected governor’s state. Moreover, immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation Mohammed Adoke (SAN) had asked Justice Abiri to take up that job last May 29, a directive, which the CJN later confirmed. Has he visited Adoke too to thank him? Must Wike visit the CJN personally to show his appreciation? Couldn’t he have written to thank the CJN?

    Must he also go to Abuja over the renewal of the appointment of his state’s ACJ? All he needs do is to write the NJC, seeking its approval to renew the ACJ’s appointment as contained in Section 271 (5) of the Constitution. Did Wike visit the CJN before he appointed the ACJ shortly after he assumed office in May? His wife is a judge; so if he is confused about these matters, why didn’t he seek her opinion instead of embarking on a mission that could have destroyed the judiciary.  Thank God that he didn’t meet the CJN during those visits. The governor would have ended up tarring a man, who is doing all he could to uphold the integrity of the judiciary.

    This shows that our judges must be extra careful with politicians who will stop at nothing to ensure that they have their way. If Wike had met the CJN during those visits, the public would today have been calling for the nation’s foremost justice’s head because of fear that his lordship may compromise his office. Milord, there are many Wikes still out there looking for men of honour like you to destroy; so, be careful.  To remain safe, the catchword  for the CJN and his men is beware of politicians and their tricky visits.

  • Nigeria’s greatest visit to America

    President Buhari has done Nigeria proud in America this week. Everywhere during his three-day visit, the American media welcomed him with great warmth, enthusiasm and optimism. For a change, here is one Nigerian leader who is re-assuring the world very convincingly about Nigeria.

    Known or unknown to us Nigerians, the world has, for years, been gradually giving up on our country. The stories, and the plain evidence, of public corruption in Nigeria have been simply overwhelming. They have been so overwhelming that a foreigner who wrote a book on Nigeria gave it the title This House Has Fallen. An American journalist, Richard Dowden, who visited Africa a number of times wrote a book on Africa and titled his chapter on Nigeria, “Look out world, Nigeria”, as if warning the world that a dangerous predator called Nigeria was on the prowl. Then, he wrote in dismay:

    “Nigeria has a terrible reputation. Tell someone that you are going to Nigeria and if they haven’t been there themselves, they offer sympathy. Tell anyone who has been to Nigeria and they laugh. Then they offer sympathy. No tourists go there. Only companies rich enough to keep their staff removed from the realities of Nigerian life do business there. And big companies rarely mention Nigeria in their annual reports for fear of what it will do to their share price. Journalists treat it like a war zone. Diplomats regard it as a punishment posting.”

    Dowden adds that, in fact, Nigeria’s popular image falls short of the reality – and that Nigeria is a failed state that somehow manages to keep standing. An American young man who took part in a Christian missionary group drilling water wells for poor villages all over Africa returned home and told his friends that he believed that God is probably using Nigeria for an experiment – that God is probably gathering the worst human beings into Nigeria in order to see what would happen if the worst human beings were gathered in a country. He added that he found in Nigeria something that cannot be classified as ordinary corruption – village heads demanding bribes from the missionaries as a condition for allowing the missionaries to drill the well for the villagers. A well-informed agency of the American government wrote in a report in 2004 that Nigeria could break up in 15 years.

    Of course, we Nigerians know that these images are not fair to most of us. The influential citizens who have given us these images are only a minority among us – but they are the most visible ones among us. The foreigner who comes to Nigeria for some business would inevitably encounter our immigration officials, customs officials, police and security officials, may be military officials, then various levels of civil servants, Central Bank officials, ministers of state – and perhaps our President. Predictably, all of these men and women of our country’s frontline are likely to demand or take an illegitimate something from the foreigner. If the foreigner is a journalist or researcher of some kind, he will see most of the above; he may also see, during an election, high public officials grabbing and taking away ballot boxes in broad daylight in order to rig the election – and he will see police, military, and security officials helping the high public officials. If the foreigner happens to be a senior bank official in his own country, he very probably will encounter some Nigerian high public officials who have stolen huge amounts of Nigerian public money and who are seeking help to hide the loots in secret bank accounts. If he happens to be a realtor in his country, he will probably encounter clients who are Nigerian public officials seeking to invest large amounts of stolen public money on expensive real estate properties.

    These are only a few examples. The manifestations are legion. And in reality, many of us too who are not public officials do cut corners in order to survive the poverty that our governments have foisted upon our country. Still, it is not fair to say that Nigerians are all thieves and takers of bribes – as lots of foreigners who come into contact with our country say (innocently or maliciously) about us.

    However, fair or unfair, the image hurts. It has hurt us Nigerians, as well as our country, terribly. We live today in a world in which capital owned by investors from various parts of the world is crucial to development in every country. Most of that capital is searching for the best countries to invest in. We live in a world in which commerce – the exporting and importing of goods – builds most of the wealth of countries. And we live in a world in which tourism is one of the generators of the wealth of countries. We have a country that is wonderfully rich in resources, and that should be one of the world’s largest focal points of manufacturing, commerce, tourism, movements of finance, etc, but our country’s awful image inhibits our share of these things. What this translates to is poverty. We Nigerians live in undeserved poverty, and much of that poverty is generated by the terrible image that we have acquired in the world.

    But now, with Buhari, new prospects are opening up for our country and us – new possibilities, new glimmers of hope. No Nigerian ruler has ever had the quality of image and perception that Buhari has acquired in only seven weeks. From the few steps he has already taken, nobody doubts that this is the real fight against corruption in Nigeria – and not just another one of the endless and empty promises of fight against corruption. And what that can do for our country and us is incalculable. Buhari is inviting the world to trust us and come, and the vibrations strongly indicate that the world will respond. From my home in a distant country abroad, I speak this message to my people back home: Buhari is putting together something big and good for our country.

    This is a war for all of us Nigerians to fight; it is not Buhari’s alone. We must all join hands and fight it. I hereby offer some contributions of my own. One of the things that have made corruption easy in our country is that, since the mid-1960s, we have removed the old civil service rules, regulations and processes that protected access to public money. Today, our president and governors more or less go about with all of our public money in their pockets. We need to revive and retool the measures that guarded public money before 1966. In addition, we need to establish watch-dog agencies that oversee budget performances and the movement of public money. And we need to make ethics laws that all must obey, and establish enforcement processes from which no public official is exempt. We did not have massive “security votes” before 1966 – security votes that nobody can audit. It is a poison from Satan’s own hand. We must review it.

    Finally, as I have said repeatedly in this column and elsewhere, the search for and recovery of stolen public money, the punishment of the culprits, and the establishment of rules and processes for protecting public money – all are just the surface battles of the war against corruption. In addition to them, we must deal with the fundamental root of corruption. When our military rulers robbed our states of their powers, resource control, and development initiative, and pooled all together in the federal centre, they created a super-corrupt federal government, the mother of corruption, the dispenser of corruption all over our country. President Buhari must not leave this unattended to.

  • APC, softly softly

    There is a  strategy I adopt in writing my columns. When the issue is current  and tempestuous,  I always like the good historian that I am, allow the dust to settle before I get involved in the debate. Until recent times, documents on matters of national importance  in Great Britain were not released to researchers until after 100 years. The same was the case in most western countries. I think the practice now is 50 years. In some really sensitive cases,

    they may never be made available to researchers. The reason for this is national security and the protection of those who may have done something unethical in the service of the nation. For example, the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has not yet been fully disclosed especially why it was used in Japan and not in Germany although the bombing of Dresden towards the end of the war was equally devastating and some will say criminal.

     

    The ongoing battle among the factions of APC in both houses of the Nigerian parliament may not compare with the global events cited above but for us in Nigeria, if not properly handled, it may pose existential challenge to us as a people. We have enough problems coping with serious economic problems and it will be foolhardy to add serious political problems to the brew.

    Politics is about people in society and the eternal question has been the way to conduct ourselves so that the good of the community can be realized. In the process, individuals sometimes equate what is good for them as what should be good for the people. This eternal question was postulated in Jean Jacques Rousseau’s idea of the general will. Which in fact may be known to a few or even one person who could then force the rest of us to obey. Of course the smart philosopher that he was protected his flank when he argued that if it is truly the general will, it will be beneficial to all and through this we will know that it is truly the general will. This is the kind of argument Plato marshaled in his Republic where the omniscient philosopher king would rule in the interest of all humanity. We know of course that there is no such utopia anywhere; Karl Marx’s workers paradise remains a failed  idea after the collapse of communism in Europe and in Cuba; and China where it  is still the political dogma it has been reduced to centralized gerontocratic autocracy.

    We know this about foreign countries but what is going on here? I dare ask. It seems to me that our system is political warlordism masquerading as democracy. This is why contest for legislative positions are seen  as contests between individuals who are not even in the parliament. The media has been particularly irresponsible in this case. In any presidential or parliamentary system, leaders of minority parties automatically become leaders if and when their parties become majority parties. In the case of Nigeria therefore, Senator George Akume and Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila should without argument have become senate president and speaker respectively. But what did we see here? The two gentlemen were simply portrayed as candidates of Tinubu and consequently deemed unacceptable. Even when  Senator Lawan, candidate of the President was proposed, he too was cleverly manipulated out of the position for president of the senate on the grounds that he has the support of Tinubu. It now seems the only way to have support of a faction of the party  is if Tinubu is against you. Yet Tinubu is one of the leaders of the party and was critical to coupling the disparate parties that came together to form the APC.

    Mistakes have been made all round and we need not complicate the situation by dwelling on the past. President Buhari must assert himself from now on and give marching orders to the rank and file of the party. I remember when my friend, General Ike Nwachukwu wanted to be Senate president against the wish of President Obasanjo  in 1999. We campaigned throughout the night. I bumped into Haroun Adamu, a friend who was special assistant to Obasanjo on the morning of the vote. He jokingly teased me about my friend’s ambition knowing quite well the position was sewn up  so to say through presidential power. I was in the  senate chamber when the vote was called. To our horror, nobody nominated my friend not to talk about winning!

    I respect Buhari for his stance of not wanting to meddle in the parliament’s affairs. But from privilege of hindsight his strategy was wrong. What he has to do now is to ram the party’s candidates for other posts in the parliament down the throats of the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate. The power of the President of Nigeria is awesome and nobody would like to stand in front of an approaching train. Buhari should  not hesitate to use this power to save his party and his presidency.

    This is the only way forward  if we are to have peace in the party and in the parliament.

    I want to appeal to my brotherhood of the pen to leave out Tinubu from every and all future disagreements in the party. Tinubu’s place in history as the giant killer is settled. He does not need anybody to make enemies for him. Tinubu belongs to everybody  if I may borrow part of our president’s quote. Some have been trying to draw a wedge between Tinubu and even Fashola, Tinubu and Kayode Fayemi, Tinubu and Niyi Adebayo. Tinubu has enough political enemies in old Afenifere, he does not need new ones. Bukola Saraki must come down from his Olympian height and play politics of accomodation. Whatever ambition he may have cannot be realized by bruising opponents. Nigeria is not Kwara State and without peace in Nigeria, no state can thrive. Politics of north-south dichotomy is old fashioned and we must do whatever it takes to eradicate it and try to cultivate others. The south-west APC faction must see Saraki as a brother because that is who he really is in spite of whatever appearance that is momentarily advantageous. For goodness sake, we need not misuse our past history to vilify any present player on the national political stage. We in Yorubaland easily fall victim of our history of vindictive tendencies and unforgiving spirit which has plagued our land since the 19th century and we need not relive it, rather we should learn from it and not dwell on it.

    Finally, some of us have invested so much in the coming to power of Buhari and we do not want him to fail. He does not need distractions of any sort. Time is also of essence and we need all hands to be on the deck because if Buhari’s salvage and rescue operation fails, then it is goodbye to responsible and good governance in this much-abused and looted country. We cannot always get what we want in politics and we should avoid falling easily to victim-hood arising out of our different nationalities. It is the easiest thing to do  when we do not get  what we want but when we get plum jobs and contracts, we do not remember what nationalities we belong to; all we remember are our families and bank accounts.

  • Can Senate screen Service Chiefs?

    It was one of the things many Nigerians expected President Muhammadu Buhari to do immediately he assumed office on May 29. By the evening of his inauguration, they were waiting to hear that he has sacked the Service Chiefs. There was no such news until last Monday when Buhari gave the Service Chiefs the boot. Also sacked were the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, and National Security Adviser (NSA) Sabo Dasuki. The public was so much interested in the military chiefs’ fate because it believes that they were partisan under former President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Indeed, Dasuki and Badeh, who were sacked along with Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lt Gen Kenneth Minimah, Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Vice Admiral Usman Jubrin and Chief  of Air Staff Air Marshal Adesola Amosu had unwittingly played into politicians’ hands with the way they discharged their duties. The military is known to be a non-political institution, which primary duty is to protect the nation’s territorial integrity. It has to be above political fray to discharge its constitutional responsibility.

    It can only be above the fray by not straying into political matters, which are better left in the hands of politicians. But at a stage, the military or better still its leadership, allowed itself to be used by politicians. The military leadership kowtowed to the immediate past Jonathan administration in everything for what many believe to be filthy lucre. But, why it did what it did is best known to it. Without any qualms, the military took sides with the ruling party in elections without regard for its operational rules, which state that it should distance itself from such matters. At best, it could only help the police in maintaining law and order.

    It was under the guise of maintaining security during elections that the military helped then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to rig the Ekiti State Governorship Election on June 21, last year. Till today, some military personnel are still aggrieved with what happened in Ekiti. One of such officers is Captain Sagir Koli, who spilled the beans on how the military rigged the Ekiti poll for PDP. To save his life, Koli fled the country.

    There is a lesson to be learnt in all this by the new security topshots – Maj Gen Babagana Monguno, NSA,  Maj Gen Abayomi Olonishakin, CDS, Maj Gen T.Y.Buratai, COAS, Rear Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas, CNS and Vice Marshal Sadique Abubakar, CAS. They should strive to ensure that they are not used to fight political fights that do not concern them. They should leave politicians to their wily ways and concentrate on how to save the nation from Boko Haram’s stranglehold. If they cannot defeat Boko Haram and rescue the Chibok girls the change of guards would have been in vain. The sack of their predecessors will only have meaning if, in the discharge of their duties, they meet the people’s expectations.

    But the billion naira question is, is their appointment subject to the Senate’s approval? The answer is capital NO. The Constitution does not confer such power on the Senate. Although, Justice Adamu Bello of the Federal High Court in Abuja on July 1, 2013, in his verdict in a suit filed by activist lawyer Festus Keyamo, held that the appointment of Service Chiefs is subject to the Senate’s approval, he may not have attuned his mind to the provision of the Constitution in arriving at that decision. His verdict was based on Section 18 (1) of the Armed Forces Act, Cap A20, Laws of the Federation, which states :

    The president, may, upon consultation with the Chief of Defence Staff and subject to confirmation by the National Assembly, appoint such officers (in this Act referred to as ‘’Service Chiefs’’) as he thinks fit in whom the command of the Army, Navy and Air Force, as the case may be, and their Reserves shall be vested. Was the judge right to have used this provision without recourse to the constitutional provision, which grants the president power to appoint his Service Chiefs without seeking the National Assembly’s approval? Again, in my layman’s view, the answer is no and in support of my submission, I cite Section 218 (2) of the Constitution, which reads :

    The powers conferred on the president by subsection (1) of this section shall include power to appoint the Chief of Defence Staff, the Chief of Army Staff, the Chief of Naval Staff, the Chief of Air Staff and heads of any other branches of the armed forces of the Federation as may be established by an Act of the National Assembly. From the foregoing, we can see that there is a conflict in both provisions. The Armed Forces Act says that the president may consult the CDS and subject to the National Assembly’s confirmation, appoint the Service Chiefs.

    But the Constitution states that the president will appoint the CDS and the Service Chiefs without recourse to any other authority. Service Chiefs are not ministers, who the Constitution, in Section 147 (2) says can only be appointed by the president subject to the Senate’s confirmation. Being the nation’s supreme law, what lawyers call the grundnorm, the Constitution supersedes any other legislation. Where there is a conflict, the constitutional provision prevails. And in this instance, it cannot be different. The Senate is not constitutionally empowered to confirm Service Chiefs.

    We cannot blame former President Jonathan for sending the names of the immediate past Service Chiefs to the Senate for confirmation based on Justice Adamu’s verdict. He acted in accordance with the exigency of that time. But we can save Buhari from making the same mistake two years after that verdict or we will continue to live a lie – that the Senate is empowered to confirm Service Chiefs, while the president is duty bound to send the names of Service Chiefs to the National Assembly.

    It is in our collective interest for the Attorney-General of the Federation, whenever he is appointed, to challenge Justice Bello’s contentious judgement at the Court of Appeal and if need be, the Supreme Court. We will be expanding the law, rather than allowing this contentious verdict to remain the law, if the attorney-general, who was a party in the Keyamo suit, takes this matter ‘’upstairs’’ as lawyers would say. Otherwise, the Senate will continue to exercise the power it does not have, while the president will continue to act contrary to the Constitution.

  • June 9: Fallout of clash of cultures

    Sometimes, even an adversity is not without an advantage. One painful lesson from June 9 National Assembly (NASS) disgrace and APC disaster is that we are once again reminded that we are a nation of many nationalities with different world views. What the Fulani see looking at June 9 from their own cultural prism is different from what the Igbo see. What the Yoruba see is different from both. Where the Fulani see pragmatic politics in action and the Igbo, business deals, what the Yoruba see is treachery and outright theft. The fault is not in their stars but in their cultures.

    Bukola Saraki’s father claimed he was a descendant of a powerful Fulani hegemonic ruling class that migrated from Mali some 150 years ago. And for the Fulani, struggle for power is an obsession. And for its pursuit, as in war, all is fair and foul. This perhaps explains why Saraki does not see trading off the victory of his party to satisfy his ambition as a national disgrace and personal tragedy for a politician with eyes on the future. He does not believe he owes the nation an apology, or his party an explanation. He has in fact moved on to consolidate his hold on power by ignoring the directives of his party on the composition of National Assembly (NASS) principal officers. In this regard, not even the fact that his father became senate leader in a house where his father’s NPN had only 35 of 95 senators in the Second Republic counted for much. Saraki shares a common bond with Abubakar Atiku, another Fulani whose pursuit of power makes him move with the winds behaving like a woman with five husbands with loyalty to none. As a pragmatic Fulani trader of power and influence, Atiku has already reminded his APC colleagues that politics, as war, may not always produce the expected result. Despite strident denials by his aides, his eyes are already set on 2019.

    For the Igbo for whom everything is business, June 9 fiasco is an opportunity to do business which allows for reaping from the sweat of others. Ekweremadu was in all his elements telling Nigerians how the deal to usurp what rightly belongs to others was negotiated in the dead of the night by well known PDP dealers and wheelers. For him and his Igbo nation, immorally snatching the deputy senate presidency was just another successful business deal which called for celebration. And indeed, drums were rolled out while Enugu was shut down to celebrate what they described as ‘snatching victory from the jaw of defeat’. Neither the Ohaneze nor any notable Igbo man has publicly condemned Ekwerenmadu’s opportunism. If anything, the rank and file of Igbo people who have nothing to show for Ekwerenmadu’s eight years as deputy senate president have declared anyone that asks him to drop what he has immorally taken, an enemy of the Igbo nation.

    For instance, the South-east caucus (55 federal lawmakers, including all the Senators and members of the House of Representatives,) after rising from ‘a crucial meeting ‘noted with a deep sense of concern the orchestrated attempts to malign and undermine the highly esteemed person and office of the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu”. They accused his critics of pursuing ‘narrow political interests over and above the larger interest of peace and equity in the country’.

    The youths are not left out. From Umuahia, the national president of Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC), the youth wing of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro has issued a statement asking the All Progressives Congress National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and other “anti- Igbo forces in APC” behind the plot to remove Ike Ekweremadu as the deputy senate president to retrace their steps or face the wrath of Igbo youths. Similarly Comrade Patrick Afuberah, Secretary General, Ndigbo Youths Organization (NYO), a pan-Igbo youth group has in a statement said “The calls from some APC Senators and leaders for the resignation of Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President is unacceptable to us and in fact an insult to the Igbo race.”

    From far away Jos came a statement signed by Dr. Ugo Ihekuna and Chief Elvis Chukwu, President and, Secretary General of another Igbo socio-cultural organition – Izu-Umunna Cultural Association, and a think-thank of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, saying ‘it will hold President Mohammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress responsible should anything happen to the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu’.

    But as against what the Fulani north and the Igbo east saw, looking at June 9 from their own cultural prism, what the Yoruba west saw was markedly different. Where the Fulani saw real politics, the Yoruba saw treachery. Where the Igbo saw business deals, they saw outright theft. The wages for the former is banishment and the later contempt. Were Saraki to be Yoruba, he and his off springs face the prospects of sharing the fate of Afonja, who driven by his ambition sold out to Alimi who later  upstaged him  leading to the loss of Ilorin to the caliphate. But as indicated above, the fault is not in their stars but in their different cultures.

    WE are back to where we were 85 years ago when the white man first asked us to look at ourselves in the mirror. We claimed our cultural differences had been exaggerated by accident of colonial rule. We chose to live in denial. It was the white man who reminded us that ‘Just like the Scandinavian of the Baltic, the Slavs of Bulgaria are different from the Semitic people of Egypt and Morocco, the Hausa of Zaria are different from the Bantus people of the Benue Valley,’   the 200,000 Ogonis who escaped from the tyranny of South Africa Chaka the Zulu, the Effiks, Ibibios, the Igbos, and the Yorubas, all of who were at different levels of cultural developments. They spoke of ‘the cannibals of the mama hill, the unsocial Mumuyes of Muri Province and of naked warriors” of the inner eastern tropics.  They even at the period dismissed the idea of one Nigerian nation as dangerous.

    In an address to the Nigerian Council on December 29 1920, Hugh Clifford, the then Governor General of Nigeria asserted that the British policy was to support ‘the local tribal institutions and the indigenous forms of government based on the ‘social institutions which have been evolved for it by wisdom and by the accumulated experiences of generations of its forbearers’. As if Clifford saw our today in 1920, he added “if suddenly the impossible were feasible’, that those separated by difference of history, traditions, social, political and religious barriers were indeed capable of being welded into a single homogenous nation’, it would be a disservice to the concept of national government which secures to each separate people the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality Today, eighty five years after this warning, and forty three years after our selfish and greedy new inheritors of power derailed the workable federal arrangement  that held so much promise for our nation at independence, we are confronted by clash of cultures which Clifford predicted would become a threat to the concept of national government if not well managed.

    It is a shame that without the towering figure of the white man, we have been unable to manage our affairs since 1962. Our parasitic ruling class who shared among themselves and their family members the conglomerates set up by regional governments in the 50s and the federal governments since independence have continued to promote the current unworkable system that produced a Bukola Saraki as Senate President. With the experiences of Canada, India and even Europe to copy from, it is time we face our own demon.

  • Can we really hold and build Nigeria?

    I am still excited about President Buhari’s pre-election promises to suppress corruption and to effect change in our country. I believe he has the honest inclination to accomplish these things, but as I watch his presidency in the weeks since his inauguration, I am gradually being compelled to wonder whether the fundamental realities of our country are not just too powerful for anybody’s urge for change. I hope I am wrong – but I doubt that.

    In the circumstance, I find myself having to revisit universal thoughts about the feasibility of a country like ours – about the possibility of orderly and harmonious growth, progress and prosperity in a country like Nigeria. Of course, my strong desire has always been that Nigeria should survive, thrive, and prosper. But, even the little girl who is buying biscuits on one street to go and sell for a little profit on other streets must ask herself the question at every turn whether it is possible for her little transaction to yield her desired outcome. Questions of that nature about a huge enterprise like a country may not necessarily yield a “Yes” or “No” answer, but it can help to identify the fundamental problems and how to tackle them.

    Our Nigeria is a country of great diversities, but the most significant diversity is the ethnic national diversity. Nigeria is a country of about 300 ethnic nationalities large and small. Each ethnic nationality is identified by its own homeland, culture, acceptance of itself as a group, possession of its own image and pride and, having managed its own life somehow for probably thousands of years, desirous of managing its own life and destiny. For such a nationality, large or small, having to live with other nationalities in a country, sharing the sovereignty of one country with other similar nationalities, or even having to accept any sovereignty above its own ethnic national sovereignty, has never been easy in human history.

    Actions of the most powerful nations in recent history  ignored that vital fact and produced many of today’s countries in which many weak nations are combined together with one another, or subsumed under more powerful nations – such as the creation of  Belgium in 1831 by the Concert of Europe, the creation of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, etc., by the victors of the First World War, the inclusion of many small nations with Russia in the Soviet Union, and the creation of many multi-nation countries in Asia and Africa by late 19th  century European imperialists. In the course of the 20th century, nationalities included in these modern arrangements, and even nationalities similarly involved in earlier periods of history (like the Irish, Scotts and Welsh in Britain, the Basques and Catalans in Spain, the French Canadians in Canada, etc.) have increasingly sought to free themselves in order to establish their own autonomous and separate countries.

    In our modern world, the general growth of literacy and education has served, and is serving, as a dynamic stimulus to the growth of the phenomenon of ethnic nationalism and demand for ethnic national autonomy. Universally, education tends to enhance ethnic national group knowledge, pride and desire for self-rule.

    Another factor boosting the desire for ethnic national separateness in our time is the observed tendency of multi-nationality countries to be slow in socio-economic development. Among developing countries, those that comprise diverse nationalities have tended to suffer significantly slow socio-economic development. As one Gerald Scully points out in a report for a policy agency in the United States, “Culture standardizes relationships by allowing people to make reasonably confident assumptions about the reactions of those with whom they interact. Even if different groups live together peacefully (in the same country), the lack of a common language and common norms reduces cooperation and increases the costs of transacting.” And the consequence of that is usually the enhancement of inefficiency and waste in the economic system – resulting in slow development and poverty. Stephen Lampe in Building Future Societies argues that development finds a fertile ground in an atmosphere of homogeneity: “The more closely development projects reflect the circumstances of a people, the more the projects can be said to have conformed to the Law of Homogeneity; and the more sustainable such projects are likely to be”.

    Also, the growth of every culture has its own unique trajectory – the direction in which its customs, laws, economy, political traditions, and its system of rewards, are growing. When the diverse cultures of diverse nationalities cohabit and compete in a country, especially an underdeveloped country, confusion and inefficiency are usually the consequences. The common experience is that a dominant nationality (whether the dominance is numerical or political), is prone to structure economic and political opportunities to the benefit of itself and its members – with the usual result of conflict, economic inefficiency, and increased chances of poverty for the country. A report by Japan’s Institute of Comprehensive Studies asserts that without a strong national spirit and confident identity, a country cannot efficiently take advantage of development assets in the world and rise to high levels of development.

    Two Japanese economists with considerable experience in the study of the Japanese development model in the years after the Second World War, Yujiro Hayami and Yoshihisa Godo, assert that the development efforts of a culturally homogenous country are likely to be more productive than the development efforts of a culturally heterogeneous country – that the more development efforts, assimilation of technology, and transformation of institutions, are correlated to the culture of a people, the greater are the chances of success.

    Furthermore, experience in most countries indicates that a country, especially an underdeveloped country, comprising diverse nationalities, is less likely to adopt institutions of freedom, or to run them sincerely and with integrity. In such a country, the endless jostling of the component nationalities for advantage, and the manoeuvres of the dominant nationality to sustain its dominance and allocate the most advantages to its members – all these usually tend to result in distortions of the political process, the manipulation of elections, the falsification of vital records, the appointment of poorly trained and ill-equipped ethnic national favourites to vital public jobs (even when more educated and better trained citizens may be available), the padding of important institutions (like the courts, the police, the military, the regulatory agencies, etc.) with persons dedicated to ethnic-sectional missions, discrimination in the allocation of public appointments and economic opportunities, and so on. All these detract from human freedom and dignity. In the report earlier referred to, Gerald Scully opines that “a lack of personal freedom is correlated with the degree of cultural heterogeneity in many non-Western societies”.

    National heterogeneity in a country also fosters inefficiency in the political and economic systems in some other ways. There is no question that economic freedom and rule of law are fundamental requirements for the achievement of high levels of economic growth in the modern world.  According again to Scully, scholars are coming more and more to the recognition “that the key to economic transformation of the Third World is to move toward freer institutions, and that cultural heterogeneity is the major barrier  to such transformation”.

    In short, countries comprising diverse ethnic nationalities have very serious troubles. On all continents, the nationalities that are parts of such countries are agitating, and challenging in various ways the continued existence of the countries to which they belong. The poorer the quality of the governance of a multi-nationality country, the greater the chances of ethnic national conflicts in it – and the greater the chances of secessions and even total break up.

    The needed change of direction won’t be easy; but Buhari can lead us to accomplish it if he sincerely tries. Will he? Or, will they let him?