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Category: Thursday

Where will you be on May 29?

I have been asked this question several times since Muhammadu Buhari won the March 28 presidential election. Not because the enquirers really need an answer that will be of any benefit to them, as I later found out. It is mere rhetoric emanating from the excitement of the moment – a feeling of being part of history.

But, talking seriously, dear reader, where will you be tomorrow? I take it for granted that you know what is on in town. Buhari, soldier, farmer, administrator and politician, will take the oath as President at the Eagle Square in Abuja. Millions around the world will watch on television the ceremony, which will symbolise the change Nigerians voted for on March 28.

Just before the big show, it is fitting and proper to revisit this innocuous but loaded question in relation to some of the actors in the President Goodluck Jonathan administration. Where will Dr Jonathan be tomorrow? Eagle Square? No. I guess he will be somewhere watching it all on television or taking a rest after all those long sanctimonious farewell and thanksgiving services.

For those debating his future, Dr Jonathan gave them more than a clue last week when he said he would be a “peace ambassador”, a statesman preaching peace. Will he be going to Iraq? Syria? Kenya? Somalia? Burundi? I really don’t know.

Sir, not so fast and cheap, a cheeky reporter said. “Your wife, we recall, recently proclaimed herself Mama Peace and before the nickname could stick, she had mounted the rostrum to tell your supporters to stone your opponents,” said the fellow, adding rather insolently: “Is statesmanship a fedora (Resource Control) hat to be snatched off the rack and decked just like that? Is it petrol that can just be bought at the black market? No.”

In his warped view, Dr Jonathan should return to the classroom to oblige students of his experience, telling them how a man of humble background, a man not many gave a chance and a man not given to struggling for anything was catapulted to the dizzying height of the highest office in the land only to bungle it all like a novice, beg for forgiveness and dare the new administration to probe him. He said yesterday that Buhari should extend the probe to previous administrations, how “oil wells, marginal fields and oil fields” were allocated. Easy, Mr President, easy. Statemanship beckons.

In the alternative, said the fellow, Jonathan can simply go back to rustic Otuoke, relive those shoeless old days and revive the family’s age-old trade of boat making.

Incidentally, Elder Godsday Orubebe – remember him? The one who became the subject of beer parlour jokes after his thuggish attempt to disrupt the collation of the presidential election results failed – had last week advised the Ijaw to return to their God – given trade of fishing and gin making. Words of elders are, indeed, words of wisdom. He spoke at a seminar organised by the Ijaw Professionals Association in Lagos.

Where will Femi Fani-Kayode be tomorrow? Thankfully, it is a public holiday. The courts will be closed. He won’t need to be there in pursuit of his desperate battle to stave off jail for alleged money laundering. I guess he will be watching it all on television even as he rues the day he took up the job of a presidential Rottweiler. Forget all the I-have-no-regrets braggadocio in newspapers. A little bird tells me he has been in a foul mood, frowning, flouncing and floundering since Jonathan lost the election.

Fani-Kayode’s partner Dr Doyin Okupe – where in the world has he been? – must have calmed down now, dazed by the reality of a Buhari presidency, after he had sworn that the man would not take the prize. He too will most likely be sitting in front of his television set, cursing his poor luck. Or be busy in a gym, according to a close associate who pleaded not to be named because of what he described as the confidentiality of the information.

Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the one with the bombastic title of Finance minister and Coordinating minister for the Economy, probably has a first class ticket tucked away in her handbag. She will likely be set to return to Washington for a handshake, a pat on the back for playing it by the book. On her way to the airport, she is sure to be confronted with crowds and queues of people tearing at one another in a suicidal bid to get petrol. She will find long rows of jerry cans and people, among them some of the proud owners of the N5b stoves – ah! What a great investment – just delivered to the Presidency, struggling to buy kerosene. Apocalypse? Not quite.”Petrocalypse”? Yes.

So much for the champion of rebasing and all those exotic and esoteric obfuscations.

But, trust Nigerians; in the pains of the fuel shortage the fecundity of their minds has found hilarious expressions.

I have seen on the Internet a picture of movie star Funke “Jenifa” Akindele holding a bicycle on one hand, a helmet on the other and saying: “Thank God for my bicycle. Wonder how I would have got to church today.” And somebody passed a comment: “In these high heel shoes?”

In yet another posting, there is the picture of a man sleeping in the night, his right hand on a jerry can full of petrol and the other on his power generator, the type popularly called “I better pass my neighbour”, chained to his bed.

In another posting, an Alsatian dog stays on guard over a jerry can of fuel that is chained by the owner to his window’s iron burglar proof. Another had a big padlock on his car’s fuel tank cover.

A fellow suggested cynically the other day that petrol will soon be part of the items to be demanded at marriage engagements by some wily in-laws. You never can tell.

Jonathan, said a colleague of mine, has decided to turn us all into trekkers for Buhari – a curious parallel to those who have embarked on trekking to Abuja to mark Buhari’s victory. Many have queried their integrity. How were they feeding on the way? Were there no robbers on the highway? No sore feet? No wild animals crossing the road? Anyway, isn’t this an unusual season of unusual actions?

Former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Adamu Muazu is somewhere in Singapore where doctors have been telling him to take it easy. I am told he has no life threatening ailment, just a post-electoral defeat trauma which the doctors have assured him will not lead to long-term neurosis.

Those who are anxious to rebuild the PDP have forced him to throw in the towel. Muazu is not likely to return tomorrow. The mere sight of Buhari on the podium, taking the oath of office may cause a fatal relapse.

Chief Tony Anenih has surrendered his chairmanship of the PDP’s Board of Trustees (BOT). I am told he was yielding the position to Jonathan, who is said to have turned it down. His admirers have said “the fixer” should have tarried a little longer before taking what they describe as a precipitous decision. They are wrong; the chief is experienced enough to know that when a blind man ceases to hear the noise at the market place, it is all over; he will pack and go home (apology to the late Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola). Will he be watching the TV? I really can’t say.

Where will Interior Minister Abba Moro be tomorrow? A source tells me how busy the minister has been, supervising the jobs and promotions bazaar at the Immigration Department. Those who got injured in the March 15, 2014 jobs stampede in which no fewer than 18 youths died, have lost out in the scramble for space in the department, despite a presidential directive that they should be employed. They have been dumped for those who have the right connections.

The minister, many have suggested, should be made to explain whose idea the huge cash-for-jobs scam was. Have they refunded the cash they got? How do we prevent this kind of mass murder in this era of change? Remember it was a major campaign issue during the general elections.

Moro will surely look morose tomorrow as he follows it all on television.

When Buhari was proclaimed winner of the election, a friend of mine, an accountant with an exceptional culinary skill and taste, called a party at his Magodo, Lagos home. I understand another jollification is afoot. I hope to be there as we celebrate CHANGE, just before the serious business of clearing the mess to pave the way for the great future Nigeria deserves.

Where will you be tomorrow, dear reader?

May 28, 2015
The king is dead; long live the king!

I remember President J.F. Kennedy’s famous and everlasting inaugural speech on that wintry morning of January 1961 when as the youngest President of the USA said among other things how the work of government is never done not in one term or even according to him in our life times. It was a prophetic statement because he was soon cut down by an assassin’s bullet even before he finished the first term. Of course he said other things like ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. He idealistically said that America’s foes and friends alike should know that the baton of the defence of freedom has been passed on to a new generation of Americans nurtured in war and ready to pay any price in the defence of liberty and freedom where ever they are threatened. Americans lapped it up especially coming from the mouth of the dangerously handsome young president. No American president can say that today and be applauded unless of course those Americans on the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party and their running dogs in the so-called Tea Party.

When a king or Queen dies in England, the continuity in government is captured by the saying the king is dead long live the king. Amongst the Yoruba the same sentiment is contained in the statement Baba ku Baba ku meaning father has died but he lives on in the next oldest member of the family. All these preambular statements are to emphasize that the work of government is continuous and is never completely done by any regime. This is however not an excuse for inertia or clueless performance.

The government of Jonathan now belongs to history and when the dust has settled and the healing hands of time have passed over the events of recent times, the judgement on his regime may or not be severe. The usefulness of such historical judgement will serve as a warning or compass to the successor regimes. What we can call instant history is that the Jonathan administration has fallen below expectation. This apparent failure can be seen in the collapse of the economy less than a year after the current reduction in crude oil price. What this means is that we were eating our fruits and seeds at the same time like a foolish farmer. Many critics including this writer had warned ad nauseam that the drunken financial fashion the country was being run was not sustainable. The stupendous salaries and allowances paid to members of the executives and legislators at local, state and federal levels were heavy enough to sink the ship of state. Now chicken has come home to roost. There is no fuel to run our homes and the national economy. Power generation is now just over 1000 megawatts and with no diesel the country would soon grind to a halt. Recently I went to Abuja and in the absence of aviation fuel, I had to return to Lagos by road something I had not done in 20 years. Most states of the federation stopped paying salaries since January with the consequence of parents being unable to pay their children’s school fees. Since quite a large percentage of parents now send their children to fee-paying private primary, secondary and tertiary institutions many young people are at home idling their lives away. The result of growing unemployment and underemployment is armed robberies complicating the already existing insecurity problems associated with Boko Haram and cattle rustling in the northern part of the country. Even the apparent reduction of militancy in the Niger Delta creeks is still early to be celebrated and the spreading spate of kidnappings for ransom constitutes reason for worry. The infrastructural deficit on our roads, rail, sea ports and the danger of inadequate aviation infrastructure are enough to overwhelm any government.

Does it then mean that the outgoing administration was an unmitigated failure? The answer is not clear cut. What is clear is that the administration is not ending well in view of the fact that the country has ground to a halt. There is no electric power from the companies allegedly fronting for political big-wigs and there is no diesel to power individual generators and even those who have not been paid for six months by their governments have no money to buy petrol and diesel if they are available and they are not. I feel sorry for the outgoing president that he is ending his regime in a whimper and in an anti-climax. The only positive thing this government will be remembered for is the Almajiri schools inadequate as they may be in number. Certainly not the mushroom universities established for political considerations and the welter of private universities for profit licensed by the Jonathan administration.

But what is to be done? The Buhari administration cannot be expected to perform a miracle when it is burdened by local and foreign debt of over $60 billion. It can at the same time not fold its hands and do nothing. It must not take on too many things at the same time but should tackle the problems one at a time unless where the problem has interlocking relationship for example the problem of power has bearing on appropriate pricing of petroleum products. Security and infrastructure are related and so is security and employment. Money, lots of it will be needed to tackle the myriad of problems facing the country. We must move away from a situation where only salaried workers alone pay taxes while the rich and the famous hardly pay taxes. If people do not pay taxes, then they won’t have a sense of ownership of the government. No matter how small, people would have to pay something to fund their government. Value Added Tax (VAT) must also be increased substantially because these are in most cases luxury taxes on the class most able to bear them. I have said this before: states should be advised to levy property and land use taxes to run their governments rather than relying on federal allocations which are really unearned petrol commissions.

It is very gratifying to note that the incoming government says it will focus on agriculture and solid minerals exploitation. I will want to enter a caveat here. We heard this before. If we are going into agriculture, it must be massive agricultural business through loans to young graduates who want to go into the business as well as loans to existing farmers who have proved their ability and seriousness. Government must prohibit imports of agricultural products where we have comparative advantage. We should not be importing vegetable oils and rice. We should stop importing wines, champagne and hard liquors in order to conserve our foreign reserves and restore sanity to our country especially our youths who are on slippery slope to drunken degeneracy. We must ensure that our concentrating on solid mineral exploitation is not another Abacha freebies given to powerful and well connected people in the name of solid mineral exploitation In this regard let big foreign companies be invited and provided tax holidays to encourage them to get involved in our new plans.

Let the new administration recover as much money as possible from what have been stolen and use the proceeds to embark on massive public works by direct labour of our youth. This will generate enthusiastic support for the government and reduce youth anger and unemployment. The first 100 days will be crucial and government must ensure that it is not business as usual. We can no longer afford this and we have lost so much ground already and the people can no longer wait for action to tackle the problems of this country. We are down and it can not be worse than this and we can only go up. The best way to start while the iron is hot is to eliminate the so-called oil subsidies that have ended subsidizing the lavish and opulent life styles of politicians, plutocrats and oil oligarchs in our country. Everybody is fed up with the humiliating scarcity of fuel in an oil producing country and if the only way to solve this problem once and for all is to throw importation and sale of refined petroleum open to all who have the capacity while fixing our refineries, then that is the reasonable thing for government to do and the question of subsidies will be gone forever.

Finally, what is left for most of us to do is to wish our former President Jonathan, good luck in the years ahead and President Muhammadu Buhari Godspeed in the journey of piloting the ship of state.

May 28, 2015
Agent of change

TOMORROW, the much-awaited change in national leadership will take place in Abuja, with the swearing in of President-elect Muhammadu Buhari. If they have their way, many would have preferred that the ceremony took place long ago. The reason for that is obvious: they have gone through hell in the hands of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which held power for 16 years.

The clamour for change began long before PDP lost the last elections. Many had long been tired of PDP and were just waiting for the right time to kick it out. When Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) emerged, they saw it as the vehicle of change and promptly came on board. What is more, the party chose change as its slogan. And with the support of the electorate, a change of government was effected at the polls during the last elections.

To champion this change is Buhari and from tomorrow, he has the arduous task of making the changes that will turn things around for good in the country. It is not going to be easy, but it can be done. Buhari knew what was at stake before signing on for this job. What he may not have known is the magnitude of the rot the nation is in. By the time he settles down, he will come to terms with the trouble with our country.

Change is the only constant thing in life and it is instructive that APC chose it as its slogan. It is a word that suits every situation because no matter what we are and do today, change is inevitable and it will come when it will come. That it championed the change to remove PDP from power should be a constant reminder to APC that its job is only half done. The other half is to fulfil its promise to the people. The party should realise that it is not immune to being changed too by the people if it does not meet their expectations.

How can Nigerians truly experience change as preached by APC? It is by ensuring that they do not suffer under Buhari’s administration as they did under the PDP government. As president, Buhari has a lot of work to do because he will take the glory or the blame for how the government turns out. If the government serves the people well, he will be cheered, if otherwise, he will be jeered. The Presidency is not a bed of roses. True, it is the highest office in the land, but it is not all about glamour. It is about working to your bare bones to make life meaningful for the citizenry.

The APC cannot be a champion of change and not be ready to work to change the country for good. Buhari is pivotal to the much envisaged change under the APC government. In fact, he is the agent of that change. The other arms of government and those working with him are just there to complement his efforts. The APC should learn from what happened to PDP if it does not want to go the way of the self-styled ”largest party in Africa”. It is not about size, but about service to the people. PDP had all the resources at its disposal to make the country great, but it chose to do otherwise. See, how it ended up.

APC can stay in power longer than PDP if it serves the people well. This is what Buhari should champion as president and leader of his party. To do otherwise may lead to the people dumping his party. As long as he remains the agent of change, he and his party will have nothing to fear. The party has started on the right note, rallying its elected members to support him in the bid to restore our country’s glory. At a meeting with House of Representatives’ members-elect on Tuesday, APC Chairman Chief John Odigie-Oyegun noted that his party was called to service at one of the most challenging periods in the history. How true. This much was said in this space last week.

He said: ”The coming days will be rough and tough choices will have to be made. This is not intended to scare but rather to frame the magnitude of the challenge that confronts us. This is because to reposition our country for growth and development hard choices concerning the way we managed our business in the past and our attitude to public assets have to be undertaken. For many of our fellow citizens, by May 30, a day after the swearing in of our president-elect, all fuel queues will vanish, corruption will disappear and all arrears of salaries paid and all our roads paved, while electricity will become stable”.

This is the challenge Buhari is going to face from day one. Our people are full of expectations that under Buhari, they will enjoy better life. I pray that he will meet their expectations.

Taking Lagos higher

LAGOS remains the most enchanting and enthralling state in our country. It is home to every Nigerian. There is no ethnic group that is not found in Lagos. Though some of us are not from the state, we have come to see it as home. This is why the state is so fascinating; everybody mixes without thinking about tribe, tongue and religion. What binds us together is our humanity. It is only in a state like Lagos that other ethnic groups can contest and win elections as it happened in the last elections. It shows how accommodating the state is. No matter where you come from, you have a stake and a say in it. In the past 16 years, the state has been lucky in having astute leaders. Between 1999 and 2007, Asiwaju Bola the pathfinder Tinubu was at the helm. He laid the foundation which outgoing Governor Babatunde the actualiser Fashola built on.

Tomorrow, Fashola will bow out as Governor-elect Akinwunmi the consolidator Ambode is sworn in. I do not envy Ambode because he will be stepping into big, but not oversized shoes. Tinubu and Fashola have done a good job and left their marks. He has a huge task at hand to ensure that Lagos continues to excel. From what I have seen of him so far, he has what it takes to do the job. His picture in this paper last Friday at his desk working shows that he knows that he has to roll up his sleeves to ensure that Lagos remains the number one state in the federation. Ambode cannot afford to fail. He contributed quietly from the background to the progress of the state before he resigned as accountant-general few years ago, not knowing that one day the mantle of leadership will fall on him. So, he is not new to state matters. But, he should bear in mind that many, especially those who believe that they are more politically qualified than him, will be envious of him. Naturally, they will not see any good in him or in what he does. This should be expected.

But he should not bother. All he needs do is watch his back; face his job and let his work speak for him. He cannot afford to waste precious time on political fights; he should not allow any form of distractions because the job at hand requires full concentration. Something tells me that what we saw nothing under Tinubu and Fashola compared to what Ambode will do in the years ahead. With his rich resume, the consolidator can surpass the achievements of Tinubu and Fashola. May it yet be consolidation on creation day for Lagos.

May 28, 2015
Season of agenda setting

It is the season of agenda setting. Even members of Jonathan administration that ran the nation aground could not resist the bait. The Minister of Finance, from far away New York, set her own economic agenda for Buhari. Not even the pummelling by her political adversaries who accused her of presiding over the depletion of our foreign reserve, running a deficit budget of N1trillion while federal and some state workers are owed salaries arrears of about N700b, paying N1.6 trillion as fuel subsidy to those who never imported a pint of fuel, frittering away billions through indiscriminate granting of import tax waivers, and leaving behind a debt portfolio of $60b, could restrain her. She is not alone. The Minister for Power who doubles as Aso Rock prayer warrior has advised the president not to revisit the unbundling of PHCN even though we today generate a miserable 1321MW down from about 4500MW before the lucky 18 new distribution companies took over with government N50b subsidy. For Danjuma, Jonathan administration must be probed and stolen assets recovered. Obasanjo just wants the president-elect to level up with Nigerians and avoid playing the ostrich. Malam Yusuf Ali (SAN) wants Buhari to ‘summon the political will to tackle the problems of corruption’. For the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry {LCC}, Buhari must ‘block of all fiscal leakages and waste in government’. NLC on its part wants the president to solve all employment problems. These goals are not unattainable for president-elect who according to Obasanjo ‘is a tested hand’. Besides, politicians are supposed to be miracle workers.

Unfortunately the most important item is conspicuously missing. If I were Buhari’s adviser, conscious of the brevity of time and knowing for a fact even without the morbid wish of an embarrassment called Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti, that Buhari has only one life, I will simply say: restructure, restructure, restructure. The reason is simple. Buhari has a unique opportunity to leave a lasting legacy by putting an end to our nightmare which started in 1966 when half-educated soldiers destroyed the foundation upon which our nation was built. We have watched with dismay as power-drunk half-educated soldiers who did not even understand the framework of the independent constitution bequeathed on to us by the colonial masters and our founding fathers, took advantage of restive ethnic groups, deprived of justice and freedom by new inheritors of power during the First Republic, to carve our nation into an unviable and unwieldy 36 states and 774 LGA. Buhari has something else going for him. Like some of our founding fathers who worked assiduously along with the British impartial arbiters between 1946 and Sept-Oct 1958 Lancaster House constitutional agreement, he is forthright, honest and fair-minded. He is therefore in a position to confront the beneficiaries of current anarchy fraudulently described as federal arrangement who trade in the name of ‘one Nigeria’, to acquire political power or political patronage in form of huge contracts and oil blocks.

It is true that our nation came under severe strain and threat by various ethnic groups that have always wanted a nation of their own within the greater Nigerian nation. It is true that by acts of omission or commission, the new inheritors of power betrayed the promises of independence and the ideals of federalism. It is also a documented fact of history that the dominant ethnic groups, the Hausa-Fulani, the Yoruba and the Igbo had at different times threatened secession just as some minorities notably the COR states of Calabar, Ogoja and Rivers, led by Isaac Boro and the Tiv and the Birons led by Joseph Tarka organized popular uprising s which were only suppressed by the military.

But the cause of friction and ethnic suspicion has always been about the quest for justice, freedom and self-actualization by those who consider themselves marginalized. The dominant ethnic groups are aware they need Nigeria no less than the oil-producing Delta who in the absence of a federal cover could be enslaved by their more aggressive Igbo neighbours or even by the Hausa-Fulani, their traditional ally who recently threatened to go to war over sharing of revenue from oil which they hilariously claimed actually belongs to the north from where it seeped down to the Niger Delta.

At the end what most groups want is a Nigeria where the nation-state performs its traditional role of ensuring fairness justice and liberty for all. And this is exactly what federalism sets out to accomplish as a social philosophy that strives to ensure the state does not limit the freedom of individuals and its constituent units. And this was why Hugh Clifford, the colonial Governor-General stated in 1945 that the objective of British policy on Nigerian federalism is “to see the various peoples of the various territories develop themselves along the lines of their own culture and their own tradition”. As if to underscore the soundness of the logic of the British arbiters, Awo in 1947 admitted that “Nigeria is a geographical expression” while Balewa during a debate in the House in 1948 admitted that “Nigeria is a British intention”.

And despite our differences, the federal arrangement worked until the intervention of military adventurers and ‘an army of anything is possible’. Asked why he was the only governor not found wanting among Gowon’s 12 military administrators after his fall from power in 1975, Brigadier Oluwole Rotimi, the then military governor of the defunct Western Region was reported to have attributed his good fortune to the professionalism of the region’s bureaucracy, rated at the period, as the best in Africa. As our political elite and mainstreamers who cornered all the funds for teaching hospitals move in droves to India for their ailments, few Nigerians today remember UCH Ibadan was once rated one of the best three teaching hospitals in the Commonwealth including Britain, Australia and Canada. Even our police have not always been like this. Because some of our founding fathers thought ‘‘its regionalization would make it extremely difficult for a totalitarian regime to emerge in Nigeria”, it wasn’t until 1958 the AG accepted concurrent jurisdiction over the police. The Sept-Oct. 1958 constitutional agreement to have a single police force under Inspector General of Police responsible to the federal government’ according to Awo ‘preclude exclusive centralization and ‘provide the regional government with the executive instruments under its immediate control for discharging its responsibility for law and order”.

If Europe after two world wars is employing the value of federalism to accommodate disparate groups ranging from France and its sexual licentiousness, Greece and Spain’s indolence and German fastidiousness, for us there can be no alternative to a viable federal structure. Fiscal federalism which for instance allows the oil-producing states to take control of 50% of oil revenue is preferable to the current anarchy which allows those Charles Soludo, the former CBN governor described as ‘faceless thieves,’ pocket about $40m a day or $60b or N12.6 trillion in four years from proceeds of stolen 400,000 barrels per day. This is in addition to the unspecified amount the nation spends on amnesty programme and as government patronage in form of contracts to identified enemies of the state. Fiscal federalism will only mean the oil-producing states will be made to earn their pay by ensuring there is an uninterrupted supply of gas to the five other geo-political zones to turn turbines for the purpose of generating electricity to power industries or for irrigation.

With adequate power for the textile industries in Kano, irrigation in the cotton, groundnut and tomato belts of the north, we will not be addressing the crisis of unemployment and the problem of insecurity. Those sponsoring armed Fulani herdsmen to perpetuate evils, hiding under grazing ground at an age when it is cheaper to import beef meat from Europe because of government subsidy will be thrown out of market.

But this is exactly what the ‘faceless thieves’ and their backers who are opposed to restructuring detest. The huge chunks of money they steal go into importation of the labour of other societies while our youths roam the streets. They just don’t give a damn.

May 28, 2015
As Buhari steps in

Today, Thursday May 28, is the eve of the swearing in of Muhammadu Buhari as President of Nigeria, and of Yemi Osinbajo as Vice-President. Something tells me that our country, Nigeria, is about to step into its most formative era ever. I have therefore chosen today as my day to start to speak face to face with Nigeria – after many past months of speaking as Gbogun Gboro.

First of all then, I warmly congratulate the incoming president and vice-president of Nigeria. I rejoice with Nigeria that, against countless predictions, the presidential election of last month did not degenerate into conflicts, blood-letting and disaster. And I applaud outgoing President Jonathan for bowing out dutifully to the voice of Nigerians after their verdict had become clear and unambiguous through their votes.

But above all else, I look forward today into the immediate future of Nigeria. All I say here today about our country’s past is really to provide a guide to our future. I know that our Nigeria can make it, and that it can thrive and prosper – if we sincerely determine so. The knowledge, the confidence, that Nigeria has all it takes to prosper and become a great power in the world was the determinant of all my involvement in Nigerian politics in my youth (and in my University College Ibadan student days) from the late 1950s on, and after. In the years when we prepared for independence, our three regions were advancing quite strongly, and indeed proudly, in various directions of development. Each region took strides forward in its own way and at its own pace, and made its own kind of contribution to the overall progress of our country.

The only serious weakness in this promising picture of the late 1950s was that the ‘minority’ ethnic nationalities in each region wanted to be constituted into a small multi-ethnic region of their own (a Calabar Ogoja Rivers Region out of the Eastern Region, a Midwest Region out of the Western Region, and a Middle Belt and North-eastern regions out of the vast Northern Region), but that our British rulers rejected their demands. However, there was good reason to hope that, after independence, our country’s leaders would attend properly to those demands – and that our country would then have even better chances to progress and prosper.

Unfortunately, our leaders who controlled our Federal Government at independence bluntly refused to deal with this matter in a spirit of statesmanship and love for all our country. They thus set the stage for conflict, confusion and disorder in our country. Coming mostly from the Northern Region (with Eastern Region’s leaders as junior partners), these controllers of our Federal Government chose to approach the affairs of our country in a manner that immediately pushed our country onto the path of disaster. Determined to humble the Western Region which was the pace-setter region in most fields of development, they employed the powers of the Federal Government in 1962 to destabilize the Western Region – to suspend its elected government and appoint over it a sole administrator. Subsequent attempts to employ federal power to rig elections in the Western Region soon plunged the Western Region into a revolt; and this led to the first military seizure of power in Nigeria. The military in power then went on and distorted Nigeria’s federal structure completely, and turned Nigeria into a country ruled by a Federal Government that controls virtually all power and all resources, and that presumes to be able to promote development in all corners of Nigeria. Made smaller and smaller (until their number reached 36), the states of the Nigerian federation became impotent entities incapable of doing much for development and security in their domains, dependent on federal allocations, and constantly subject to federal bullying.

In the context of this chaos, prosperity deserted Nigeria and poverty took over. Under federal management, Nigeria’s enviable agriculturally based exports (cocoa in the Western Region, palm produce in the Eastern Region, and groundnuts in the Northern Region), more or less disappeared. Petroleum from the Niger Delta became almost our sole export, and it poured increasingly large revenues into our economy. But it only increased the urge in the Federal Government to take over all resources. The Federal Government became abominably inefficient and corrupt, and public corruption became Nigeria’s pervasive culture. Most influential Nigerians abandoned productive enterprise and found ways to join in the scrambling for shares in the corruption. At lower levels in the Nigerian society, the escalating poverty destroyed almost all of productive orientation, and most Nigerians who could do so found some way to benefit from the fruits of corrupt politics. Increasingly harassed by their ever-demanding constituents, Nigerian politicians became more and more blatant in turning public offices into sources of graft and of indefensible remunerations.

I am happy that Buhari has strong anti-corruption credentials, and I trust his promise to suppress corruption. I am sure that Osinbajo will be his kindred spirit and strong partner in the fight. But corruption is only a symptom of the deep-seated disease in the management of our country’s affairs. A president may suppress corruption, but unless the real disease is healed, corruption will return. Nigeria’s real disease inheres in the fact that we are neglecting, or evading attention to, the obvious fact that ours is a country of many different nations – nations different in culture, in history, in territory, and in culturally determined modes of response to issues and to the demands of modern development. Being different in these ways does not mean we cannot become a stable and successful country; what it means is that we must truthfully and even humbly accept that our nations are different, and we must pay due respect to those differences.

The acknowledgement and respect of our differences must be clearly written in our constitutional structure, our practice of politics, and our inter-group relationships. When any of our component nations, especially any of our larger nations, chooses to disrespect our nations’ differences, the outcome can only be some wrong-headed attempt to dominate others, or a disruptive crudity in relations with others – each of which can only make our country unstable or even a failure. A relentless attempt by some to dominate our country and all its peoples has been a constant factor in our history since independence, and it is towards that end that resolute attempts have been made by some to accumulate power and resource-control at the federal centre – the outcome of which has been massive inefficiency and public corruption, widespread hostility among our nations, attempts by federal authority to rig elections across our country, and our country’s sad decline across board.

It is therefore imperative, if we sincerely desire the best for our country, that we must consciously try to evolve a Nigerian culture based on respect for our nations’ very real differences. Constitutionally, that calls for properly restructuring our federation; it also calls for giving back to the component units of our federation the task, resources, and strength for development. In all respects, it calls for respectful contacts and relations among our nations. Without these, it will be impossible to make Nigeria successful, or even to keep Nigeria as one country. Focusing mostly on suppressing corruption while leaving our federation in its present chaotic structure may appear to succeed for a while, but it will fail in the end. I wish President Buhari – and I wish Nigeria – not a superficial and transient success, but a true and lasting success.

May 28, 2015
The strains of transition

When President Jonathan formally hands over power to the President-elect, retired General Muhammadu Buhari on May 29, in Abuja, it will be the first time ever in Nigeria that such a peaceful handover of power has taken place at the centre between a defeated ruling party and the opposition party. At the states level such transitions have successfully taken place in Osun, and Ekiti states, among others, but not without some acrimony and rancor.

In the case of the current transition from the PDP Federal Government to the incoming APC Federal Government , it has gone on better than most people would have imagined, or expected, but not without some strains. This should not be altogether surprising as the presidential election was bitterly fought and hateful. The stakes involved were very high. But once Jonathan conceded defeat to Buhari it reduced political tension in the country and mitigated any fears that Jonathan might find a way of not handing over to Buhari, even if the handing over is grudging and rancorous on the part of the outgoing PDP Federal Government . But, despite the current strains between the two parties over the transition, steady progress is being made towards the handing over. The PDP Federal Government should not be expected to hand over its ‘black box’ and financial secrets to the incoming APC Federal Government . These will be concealed as much as possible and Buhari will have to go looking for them by the necessary probes after he has been sworn in. But as far as President Jonathan is concerned there is really no evidence that he is reluctant to hand over to the President- elect, Buhari. As I write this piece, it has been reported that President Jonathan and his family have moved from Aso Rock, the president’s official residence, to the adjoining Glass House, to enable the necessary refurbishing of the residence to be done. So, the transition is on course.

However, there have been some complaints from the APC, particularly by Lai Mohammed, its spokesman, that the PDP Federal Government has been dragging its feet on the transition and has not extended to the APC the cooperation needed and expected for a smooth handing over of power. Specifically, Lai Mohammed was reported last week as saying that only two meetings had been held between the two transition teams, and that the transition process was not as cordial as it should be. Basically, the transition process should involve the outgoing PDP Federal Government handing over to its APC successor the critical information required about national security and the state of the economy. The APC incoming Federal Government needs to know the true state of the national security and the economy to enable it fully comprehend the challenges ahead of it. If this vital information is being withheld from it barely weeks before it takes over, then the APC has every right to complain, particularly as the state of the economy now appears to be worse than was known before the March elections. Buhari will inherit a terrible economic legacy.

President Jonathan has also been widely criticised for making some hasty and morally questionable appointments on the eve of his departure from office. Among these are the confirmation of the appointment of Mr. Solomon Arase as the new Inspector General of Police, in replacement of Mr. Suleiman Abba, and the new CEO of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mr. Sanusi Lamido Ado Bayero, two powerful public institutions. Let me add that I have absolutely nothing personally against these two gentlemen whom I have never met. But I consider the timing of the appointments questionable. In addition, it was reported that President Jonathan had directed the relevant Federal Government agencies to relocate the $500m LADOL oil and gas project in the Lagos Export Free Zone to Agga in Bayelsa State, even though it is really a private sector project. A federal high court has ruled against this order; an embarrassment to the President which he brought on himself by the unjustified order.

These hasty and spiteful decisions by President Jonathan and his inflammatory comments at a recent Church service in Abuja that he expected that he and his ministers would be persecuted by the new APC Federal Government on leaving office at the end of May are deeply regrettable as they send the wrong message and signals to his officials involved in the transition arrangements. The loss of power can be traumatic particularly where, as in this case, it was not really expected. In that situation his officials would be led by the President’s comments to withhold from the APC Transition team information vital to the success of the incoming APC Federal Government. They would try to cover up financial and other misdemeanours for which they could be punished or held responsible by the new government.

As far as the recent critical public appointments by President Jonathan are concerned, the PDP has argued that, until May 29, when he officially hands over power to General Buhari, he is in charge of the Federal Government , and still enjoys the power and privilege of making such powerful appointments. That constitutional position is correct. It is within his purview and competence to make such appointments. But his critics will be right in arguing, as they have done, that making such critical appointments a few weeks before leaving office, is improper. If Buhari is so disposed such appointments by Jonathan can be easily reversed after he assumes office in two weeks time. It will equally be both legitimate and constitutional and it is only the officials concerned that will suffer the consequences involved.

However, such blatant and politically motivated public appointments by Jonathan, and Buhari’s probable response by reversing them, tend to undermine the integrity of public institutions and the public’s confidence in such appointments. For instance, in justifying the removal of his former IGP, Suleiman Abba, Jonathan was reported as claiming that Abba could not maintain discipline in the Nigeria Police. But he only discovered this lapse in Abba after he lost the presidential election. When the PDP won the state elections in Ekiti and Ondo with the blatant help of the Nigeria Police Abba kept his job. Jonathan was highhanded in this particular case, as in several others, in removing senior public officials in such a cavalier manner. Public officials are there to serve the public interest, and not the personal or political interests of those who might be in power temporarily.

Nigeria needs strong state institutions. Despite its enormous resources, Nigeria is still a weak state with weak public institutions. It is a weak state because of the fragility of its public institutions, the integrity of which is constantly being undermined by its leaders for reasons of political and personal expediency. A modern state has to be based on the rule of law which requires the stability of its public institutions and respect by the politicians for the professionalism and security of its officials. As shown by the recent regrettable actions of President Jonathan, this vital lesson has not been learnt by Nigeria’s leaders over the years as they continue to bend public institutions to their own political preferences and predilections. In this matter, I write with some experience and authority as I have watched sadly over the years how the Nigerian diplomatic service, in which I spent a greater part of my public service, including serving as Ambassador at the UN, is being progressively weakened and destroyed by one Federal Government after the other, both civilian and military. A once proud and competent diplomatic service, the envy of many African states, has been brought to its knees by persistent political interference and humiliation of its key officials. The new APCFederal Government will have to start thinking of how these state institutions can be rebuilt in the coming years.

But the strains observed in the current transition process are also due partly to the absence of an agreed standard procedure which the two parties are obliged to observe during the transition. Part of the difficulty here is that while Nigeria has adopted the US presidential system, its bureaucracy still runs largely on the lines of the British civil service that it inherited at independence. For instance, in Britain, unlike in the US, an outgoing government is not under any real obligation to prepare any handing over notes to its successor. British succession of political power is surgical and brutal, without any intervening period of handing over. Once a government is defeated, the prime minister immediately tenders his resignation to the Queen, who promptly invites the leader of the party that appears to her to have a majority in the House of Commons to form a new government. If he is able to do so, he moves immediately into 10, Downing Street, the official residence of British prime ministers. There is no formality about handing over by the outgoing or defeated prime minister who simply disappears through the back door of 10, Downing Street, while the new prime minister enters the residence through the front door.

Moreover, before elections, the official records of the outgoing government and its ministers are kept sealed in the archives by the heads (permanent under secretaries) of the various ministries. The incoming government and ministers are actually denied access to them. They cannot be compelled, except by a court ruling, to release these records and documents to an incoming government. Instead, the new government is given briefs based on its party manifesto and programmes on which the heads of departments will have prepared a critique. The whole idea is to let the new government make its own decisions and mistakes as the old one and to protect the confidentiality of advice previously given by the top civil servants to the outgoing government. This is the source of the integrity and great powers enjoyed by top British civil servants who remain in office while the politicians come and go. This is what accounts for its famed stability.

In the case of Nigeria, it is now necessary to review the transition process to determine the range of records and information that an outgoing government should make available to the incoming government. It is not necessary or desirable that this should be done by law or legislation. Instead, it should be done by convention developed over the years.

May 21, 2015
Lame duck activism

I have been bewildered by the sudden excitement and activities of the outgoing administration in the last two or so weeks. Letters of sacking of people and appointment of their replacement have been coming out of the presidency with amazing rapidity and frequency as if this was the beginning of the Jonathan administration. I can understand the president saying he remains in charge of the country until the night of May 28. Nobody can dispute this. What is disputable is the sense in giving out appointment letters of four years on the eve of the end of the president’s term. This appears to me as a sick joke.

What is surprising is that people are turning out in their Sunday dresses to be sworn into jobs which all sensible people know will be cancelled by a single statement by the new administration saying all councils and boards of parastatals are dissolved with immediate effect. When I asked a friend why apparently sensible people are travelling long distances to assemble in Abuja to be sworn into councils and boards at this late hour in the life of the current administration, his answer was that the appointments would boost their curriculum vitae no matter if the appointments last only a week.

The question really is that should state affairs be dealt with so cavalierly? I read the letter of General Adeyinka Adebayo to the president complaining about the rude way he was removed as Pro-chancellor and chairman of the Governing Council of the University of Ibadan. I felt very bad and sad for two reasons. I did not think my beloved General should have accepted the job in the first place. But having accepted it, he should have been treated with the dignity that a man of his status and previous exalted positions he held in this country when many of the current players on Nigerian stage were in diapers. Placing an advertorial in newspapers to remove a man like General Adebayo was rude, indecorous and unflattering especially without giving reasons and allowing the imagination to wander away conjecturing all kinds of scenarios.

The directive to a foreign company setting up manufacturing business in Lagos to move to Bayelsa State by somebody who has been in the presidency, first as vice president and later as president for eight years and then waiting for the last weeks in office before realizing that charity begins at home and then depriving one of his constituencies manufacturing jobs is what can be described as double jeopardy against the person of the president because he ends looking bad in Lagos and Bayelsa. The people in Bayelsa will say so he just remembered us while those in Lagos will say look at the man who was running around here some weeks ago telling us we are all brothers! No matter the economic rationale, the timing is bad. President Jonathan should be concerned about his legacy and what his place will be in the history of the country and he must not let last minute poor judgement ruin his legacy.

Right now problems are piling up towards the end of his tenure. An oil-producing country is lying prostrate because there is no fuel at the pumps for people to buy. This in a country that has four refineries which for lack of vision are not working. Dangote in 2011 offered to buy, I believe the refineries in Port Harcourt and Kaduna but this government refused and kept paying trillions to party men as fuel subsidies. Now, the chicken has come home to roost. The country is broke. The president is therefore handing over to his successor a bankrupt country. Not only that, the insurgency in the North-east is still active. This is in spite of hiring Boer mercenaries from South Africa to fight along Nigerian troops, the very type of people who used to shoot Africans as wild game during the days of the obnoxious apartheid racist regime. One of them was interviewed recently in England about the mercenaries’ treatment of Africans in Nigeria’s North-east, he merely demurred and said they treated them well! Coming from a people who recently felt Africans were untermenschen or sub humans, one can imagine how we who fought against the racist South Africans played into their hands while also paying them handsomely for our humiliation

This president can go down into history as one that helped the country to overcome its wasting its oil revenue on consumption by the elite. Let this president carry the burden of cancelling the so-called subsidies on petroleum products. We are already buying the stuff at 120 or 130 Naira a litre. If this is what the price should be, let the president tell us and remove the burden from Buhari. I mean the president is not running for office again, he can afford to help us bite the bullet of deregulated petrol price. He will be remembered for his sacrificially bearing the burden of a policy that may not be palatable to most Nigerians but has become necessary in the peculiar circumstance we find ourselves.

The president’s activism should not be confined and restricted to personnel changes in the dying hours of his administration; it should extend to a policy he genuinely believes in but was afraid to implement because of politics. He tried this earlier in his administration. We should not mind his sudden reduction of the price of petrol as part of his electoral politics. The time has now come when the statesman of a president comes forward with the right policy on deregulated price of petrol before the curtains come down.

May 21, 2015
Letter to Buhari

WHAT a time to come to power! Some will say that it is a wrong time; others will contend otherwise and argue that you knew what was at stake before you sought the highest office in the land. No matter which side of the divide one is, the truth is that not many will pray to be in your shoes, at least under the present circumstance. I do not envy you for the cross you will carry from May 29 when you formally take office. I call it a cross because you are coming to power at a time that nothing works in our country.

Things are so bad that many are wondering where you will start from. There is a lot to be done and considering the legendary impatience of your compatriots, you will have your hands full from day one. Permit me to say that a nation as blessed as ours should not be where it is today. Our country should be at the top, considering our natural endowments, but painfully the reverse is the case. We are on the lowest rung of the Human Development Index (HDI).

The question is: how well have we managed our God given wealth? Rather than use these resources for the development of our common patrimony, our leaders have been diverting them to personal use.

I will be putting it mildly to say that you will be inheriting a mess. Our people know that you are one president that will be coming to power with the odds so stacked against you. No president in our history ever came to power with things so bad like this. Even in 1983 when you took over power from President Shehu Shagari, things were not as bad as they are now. Compared to what we are seeing now, things were far, far better then, even with the profligacy of the Shagari administration. We said the Shagari administration was corrupt. Ha-ha! Nigerians will eat their word with what is happening right before their eyes now.

Everything points to a hard time for you in office; not the kind of hard time outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan predicted for himself and his aides after their exit. Yours will be the hard time of meeting the expectations of our long suffering people, who through thick and thin, absorbed all that was thrown at them by the government. They were asked to tighten their belts; they did. But those in government slackened theirs to have more room to stash away their loot. This is why today nothing is working. Security has collapsed. The economy is in tatters; electricity has gone kaput; fuel, especially petrol and kerosine, is scarce despite the billions of naira spent on subsidy; education is in a shambles. The real sector, the economic live wire of a nation, is comatose; agriculture is ensnared in the politics of waivers.

These, indeed, are not the best of times for anybody, not even a lion heart like you, to take power. The picture of the economy painted by All Progressives Congress (APC) governors when they met with you last May 5 is scary. We knew all along that things were bad; we didn’t know that they were that bad until the governors spoke. Outgoing Minister of Finance/Coordinating Minister of the Economy Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who had all along rated the economy high, also finally came clean with us by stating the obvious : the economy is in doldrums. Why did it take her this long to confirm that ‘’Nigeria is facing a serious cash crunch’’.

Because of the severity of the problem, she said, the country was forced to borrow N473 billion to finance recurrent expenditure. Such borrowings, as even a lay man would know, is not expected to yield any returns. Rather, the government will offset the debts at a very high interest rate. It is simple economics that you do not borrow to pay salaries. But that is what the federal and state governments have been doing, to prevent a collapse of the public/civil service because of the non-payment of salaries. Despite these huge borrowings, the Federal Government and many of the states are still owing workers’ salaries.

So, you can understand where the governors were coming from when they appealed to you to come to their aid when you resume duty next week. ‘’One of the issues of concern to all of us’’, said APC Governorship Forum Chairman and Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha, ‘’is the state of the economy, which is already in a bad shape and we have come to notify the incoming president of the challenges ahead of him. As it stands today, most states of the federation have not been able to pay salaries and even the Federal Government has not paid April salaries”.

To Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria got into this financial mess because of the falling oil price. She forgot to add that government’s inefficiency is also a contributory factor. The solution, Okonjo-Iweala claims, is for Nigeria to sell off some of its assets or use them to borrow money to manage the economy. Knowing how Nigerians will react to such a move, Okonjo-Iweala said the decision has been left to you to take. So, if you decide to take her advice, you may take off on the note of borrowing to sustain the government and then run into trouble with Nigerians, who will not applaud such move at all.

If the economy is bad, as you well know, everything is bad about a country. A country is as good as its economy. For rebasing our gross domestic product (GDP), which merely enhanced the basket of goods and services in the economy without any attendant benefit to the people, Okonjo-Iweala attempted to pass it off as an economic masterstroke when she knew it was not. If the rebasing actually amounted to anything, we will not be complaining that we are broke today, while a whole Federal Government cannot pay salaries. So, where is the gain of their much vaunted rebasing?

It is clear that what you are going to inherit is a debased and not a rebased economy. The importance of the economy to any nation cannot be overemphasised. But it is sad that you are being handed a weak economy. Even though Nigerians know that, what they are interested in is how you will grow it and make life better for them after all these years of waste. They are not ready for excuses on why things cannot be made better within a short time of your assuming office.

It is just unfortunate that you are coming to power when the people’s patience has been so taxed by those who did not mean well for our country. Please, do not see their impatience (which should be expected though) as antagonism; it is not. It is an expression of their frustrations with the system over the years.

You do not have anything to fear because once you start well, you can be sure of winning over the people, who have for long being taken for granted. We look up to you to make the difference in our lives and bring the much desired change to our country. May God help you.

May 21, 2015
Osibajo and Awo’s inherited burden

If what federalism sets out to achieve is ‘individual and group rights defined in form of language, culture, and religion or socio-economic status’, the Yoruba by their history and temperament are federalists. Unfortunately, out of sheer mischief, the Hausa Fulani, who according to Richard Sklar settled for confederacy in 1953, (ostensibly because their region was 70 years behind the south in educational development and because of the south’s disrespect for their culture), and the Igbo and NCNC that opted for unitary system in 1959 (because of their mobility and educational advancement since they stand to gain more from a unitary system) have often turned around to accuse Awo and the Yoruba of tribalism for insisting on a workable federal arrangement.

A workable federal arrangement that will guarantee freedom, liberty and equality for every linguistic group from the unfriendly inhabitants of the Mama Hills and the unsocial Mumuye of Muri Province became a lifelong pursuit for Awo who once accused his political opponents of carousing around while he burnt the midnight oil proffering solution to Nigeria problems. He started his crusade with the publication of “Nigeria: Path to Freedom” as a student at the age of 36 in 1945.

As a 39-year old Yoruba representative at the 1948 Ibadan General Conference on the Review of the 1946 Richard’s Constitution, he canvassed vigorously for a federal structure based on ethnic nationalities as against the northern delegates’ insistence on a loose federation, with the centre controlling only Defence, External Affairs, Customs and the eastern delegates’ advocacy of a unitary system. Awo, accompanied by the late Alfred Rewane, his dependable ally and a pillar of Action Group took the crusade to Ahmadu Bello’s house in Kaduna. The meetings yielded no fruit because the Sardauna, according to Rewane reminded Awo that those whose freedom he sought were once his ancestors’ properties. Awo remained undaunted. Two other meetings were held at different times at the Ikorodu house of Alhaji Gbadamosi and in Awo’s Ibadan residence. Awo’s pursuit of freedom for the people of the Calabar, Ogoja and Rivers (COR Province), the Middle Belt and the North Eastern Nigeria, attracted little or no support from his Yoruba party members like S. L. Akintola, Bode Thomas and Rotimi Williams who did not mind confederation as canvassed by the north or any system for that matter as long as it guaranteed that the West was not ‘ruled by a one- eyed man king’.

At the 1958 Lancaster House constitutional conference where October 1, 1960 was announced as the date for Nigerian independence by the British Secretary for the colonies, Chief Awolowo was the only delegate that stood up to insist that independence for Nigeria as a corporate entity was not enough. “People of Nigeria”, he had argued, “must as individual citizens enjoy liberty, prosperity and equality under the law and Nigeria constitution”.

Probably as a result of the rivalry between Zik and Awo or out of envy for his unrivalled achievement in the West between 1952 and 1959, the Igbo ‘unitarists’ found a willing partner in the ‘confederal’ Hausa Fulani feudal lords desirous of protecting their fiefdom from contamination by Awo’s endless talk of freedom and liberty which partly precipitated the Tiv insurrection in early days of independence, to throw the advocate of freedom and justice into prison barely two years after independence. They labelled Awo a tribalist and coup plotter on the strength of an entry in his diary where he stated he had a dream that he became the Prime Minister of Nigeria. He was jailed for 10 years by political opponents who swore he would be too old if he ever survived his prison years to question how they govern Nigeria. Unfortunately, having removed one leg of the tripod, (AG in the West) the dispute over the 1963 census crisis between the east and the north which was settled in favour of the latter by the courts was all that was needed for the collapse of Nigeria’s edifice consuming in the process, most of those who had betrayed the spirit of the Nigerian constitution in 1962.

The coming of the military in 1966 was a continuation of the bitter war between the Igbo and Hausa Fulani political elite. Both President Azikiwe and Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa had made overtures to the military over the disputed 1964 elections. A segment of the military that was sympathetic to Zik and NCNC used the 1966 coup as a cover to clear out those who opted to support Balewa in deference to the constitution. The July counter coup and reprisal mindless killing of Igbos by northern soldiers was an answer to the January selective killing of non-Igbo political and military leaders. An ill-equipped and ill-educated military and their selfish Igbo and Hausa Fulani politicians later plunged the nation into an avoidable 30 months civil war (1967-1970), replaced a workable structure with an unwieldy 36 states and 776 LGAs. Igbo and Hausa political elite are the beneficiaries of the current anarchy which allows the almighty powerful federal government to undermine the authority of weak states through local governments. This and other calamities that befell our nation in the last 50 years could have been averted if we had not rejected Awo’s ‘Nigeria: Path to Freedom.”

Now for the first time in our nation’s history, the mainstream Yoruba political tendency embraced by Awo and his supporters is partnering with the Hausa-Fulani north to provide an alternative developmental paradigm to that which the coalition of Igbo and Hausa Fulani political elite had adopted since independence in 1960 to pilot the affairs of the country which has only left a legacy of thousands of underprivileged illiterate Igbo youths who roam the streets of our urban centres hawking substandard imported goods and their northern counterparts who according to Alhaji Kashim Shettima, became ‘victims of mass hunger and anger, mass unemployment, bad infrastructure, mass illiteracy and ignorance and general hopelessness’. Today, Osibanjo has an unenviable burden of working closely with Muhammadu Buhari who incidentally had restructuring in his manifesto in 2011 and 2015 to take us out of the woods after 50 years of rejecting the boundless possibilities contained in Awo’s “Path to Nigeria’s freedom’.

Osinbajo is starting where Awo stopped in 1962. Yoruba want for others what they want for themselves. His mandate from the Yoruba is therefore very clear and unambiguous. It is not about sharing offices. The Yoruba was after all, the worse for Obasanjo’s presidency. The Yoruba lost nothing conceding PDP Speakership of the current Lower House to the northwest. The Yoruba want a restructured Nigeria with constituents power over law and order, education and public information; a restructured Nigeria where there is freedom and justice for all; a restructured Nigeria that protects the right of indigenes as enshrined in the UN charter; a restructured Nigeria where it will be impossible to climb the palm tree from the top by becoming a President without representing anyone or making billions from allocation of oil block just because you claim to be a Nigerian.

It is restructuring that can end the orgy of killing of hundreds of helpless women and children at night in the Middle Belt region by unidentified ‘Fulani herdsmen’. Categorizing all forms of fraudulent activities ranging from the peddling of fake drugs to hawking of smuggled substandard goods as ‘business’ can only be stopped by restructuring. It is also the answer to corruption as there will be less to steal in Abuja while the government of South-south states especially Bayelsa where most of the state past chief executives have been accused by EFCC of converting over 70% of state allocations to personal use will be forced to face its own demon within a South-south zone or region or let off if the zone accepts President Jonathan’s thesis that ‘stealing government funds is not corruption’. Finally, it is the answer to Boko Haram who will be free to close down all schools and hospitals and revert to the cave age where services of doctors and engineers would not be needed.

I am sure Prof Osinbajo and Buhari, the president-elect have no illusion that their mandate or their capacity to confront the social problems facing the country is the answer to the structural problems that have bedevilled Nigeria since 1962. Their mandate and ultimate success in tackling social issues only provide a historic opportunity to study development in other societies such as India, Canada, Russia and even Europe and develop the political will to put an to the man-made structural problems bedevilling our nation since 1962.

May 21, 2015
gods and other soundbites

Think continuously of those who are truly great, men and women who by their deeds fight for fairness and the good of all; think of those who wear on their hearts’ sleeve and domicile in the inner recesses of their souls, irrepressible zeal to make our lives better and worthy of our dreams …there are no such men and women alive, are there? For if there are, Nigeria would be 21st century version of Eden or Al Jannah and men and women on whose watch our country so evolve would be everything and anything, even gods.

Our people are quite derisible, they wouldn’t know how to create a heaven or sustain the like of it but they create gods by the dozen. I do not speak of divinity that manifests only in far-fetched miracles and dreams; I speak of individuals that we desperately and misguidedly deify as our vanities dictate.

Being rich is the closest you get to being god in Nigeria. Add an impressive root and very intimidating academic record to the mix and you have yourself a 21st century hero or god. Of what calibre are our idols? Who really, is the Nigerian god? Who is an example of a quintessential idol? Allison-Maduekwe? President Goodluck Jonathan? Godswill Akpabio? Reuben Abati, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala or the rampaging governor-elect of Rivers State? Do their deeds make them worthy of hero-worship or blind deification?

To what would these individuals owe our reverence of them? Some would say it is their brilliance and extraordinary achievements in their chosen callings. Anyone could be brilliant from time to time but intelligence is what we have to affect all of the time. How intelligent are our ruling class? How intelligent are President Goodluck Jonathan, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Godwin Emefiele? How intelligent are other members of the Nigerian ruling class?

By their citizenship, do they provide the pathways to empowering the Nigerian youth…the disillusioned school drop outs of Umukegwu, Akokwa, Urualla, Apongbon, Idumota, Agege, Agbor, Sankwala, to mention a few? Do they teach the youth particularly, to evolve beyond the greed, selfishness and idiosyncrasies of their generation? Do they teach us to accept truths we cannot change, like the fact that we collectively make our world as gory and burdensome as it is by turning a blind eye to their tedious politics? Do they teach us to make peace with our guilt and conquer our riotous demons? Do they teach us that at the end, we get to choose what to make of our own lives and our own world?

The answer lies as much in their utterances as their deeds. Alas! Transcendent moments and heroic acts are rather deeds of an exalted intelligence, something which Nigeria’s incumbent ruling class pitifully lacks. But despite its protests and dissatisfaction with the status quo, the Nigerian citizenry equally lacks that towering immensity of intellect and strength of character that remains prime requirements in the constitution of a progressive race.

Our lust for heroes and gods illustrates a fable; it is not of latent strength but disintegration, it reveals the weakness and shallowness of the Nigerian adult’s awfully preadolescent mind. Such mind is inherently incapable of creating leaders worthy of being deified as gods of unconditional love and compassion. All we are capable of creating today are gods of impoverishment and gods of war.

The Nigerian hero is a human sound bite. He is essentially a half-formed mammal, animal to be precise. Take for instance gods and goddesses we have created as our ruling class; they are no longer exclusively Nigerian or humane. Rather they have been turned upside-down and inside-out; they have been scrambled, corrupted and fertilized by ghastly manifestations of self love, tribalism, wantonness, perverted education and sense of worth.

“All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours,” says Aldous Huxley, English writer. However, the manner in which the Nigerian electorate worships its ruling class and celebrates its bestiality makes it impossible for the latter to affect the necessary humaneness, tact and humility that are prime requirements of occupants of exalted public office. Having made super humans of them, they begin to delude that they are untouchable and unquestionable. They begin to parade themselves as gods and see the electorate on whose strength they ascended to their exalted positions as lesser creatures.

They seek the exaggerated safety and coziness of fortresses they build around themselves to protect their ill-gotten wealth and ostentatious lifestyles. Suddenly it becomes taboo for them to hobnob with the working class. It becomes abominable for their wives, daughters and cooks to visit the same grocer or shop in the same market as the masses.

Shamelessly, they clear our public coffers of our collective fund without any inhibition and in response; we celebrate them and grovel at their feet for crumbs of what is rightfully ours. Whenever they intrude our world, they leave behind pungent memories and pains. Whenever they come to town, we must be kept in traffic for them to move freely; whenever they are ‘guests of honour’ at our functions, we are treated with little or no honour. Apology to Kayode Oteniya.

The chief quality of a true leader is the apparent sincerity in his manners. The speeches he makes are never mere platitudinous enterprise and his developmental programmes are never extraordinary elephant projects; his politics and humanity are not only heard but concretely seen and felt.

Really there is prime merit in everything about him, and his life generally, radiates truth. His life is what we may call a great sober sincerity. A sort of temperate authenticity that is not only blunt but uncompromising. His fervor is undomesticated, bordering on the wild and forever wrestling naked with the elements that be for the love of the good and the truth of things. In that sense, there is something of the savage yet humane in him like all great men.

He is one in whom one still finds human substance. He relishes no opportunity to tell any colourful story of himself anywhere; usually, he stands bare and grapples like a giant, face to face, heart to heart, with the naked truth of things. ‘That, after all,” according to Thomas Carlyle “is the sort of man for one.”

And such is the type of man we should value above all others. He is the man who as American writer, Norman Mailer, puts it, would argue with gods and awaken devils to contest his vision. When he dies, his death would be felt nationwide as something more than a historic calamity; women would weep and men would fight back tears as if they had heard of the death of a very dear friend or Saint.

The creation of such honorable man and god would be our noblest work. But we seem incapable yet of such honorable task. We could start by stripping ourselves of the greater vanities and portentous contradictions. Unhappy the land that has no heroes, says Andrea; No, unhappy the land that needs heroes, responds Galileo in Bertolt Brecht, late German playwright and poet’s “The Life of Galileo.” Regrettably, the meaning is lost on all.

May 15, 2015