The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • A nation fit for heroes

    Today, we deconstruct our spurious psyches. Nigerianness, an ambitious dream – now turned enduring fantasy – lugged on to the global stage by our founding fathers in the twilight of 1960, meets its nemesis in the contemporary youth. It meets its waterloo in you and me. Today, we reduce the Nigerian dream to a myth; together, we smash its shiny core to smithereens, each splinter representing a creepy portrait of you and me, and several elements of our youth divide.

    The Nigerian youth is traumatized. We have lost our head; that is why we speak incoherently. That is why our sentences trail off in dissonance and confusion every time we open our mouths to protest an ill. That is why we fail to set our knives’ needlepoint where acuteness could enter astride the prick of pain; until the death…death of statesmanship, death of power, death of citizenship as we have learnt to breed it.

    We speak of falling apart, breaking up, cleansing our bloodied neighbourhoods, burying our dead and uprooting the roots of discord and devastation from our clans, often in one breath. But our actions prolong the tragedies we wish to flee. What our founding fathers struggled to salvage from the British colonialists, we as youth, return, bloodied and badly mutilated, to its savage origins.

    Our descent presages that unbounded degeneracy that heralds the fiery storm of our perdition.

    Murderous hate disintegrates our fatherland; humaneness and love depreciate by our lust for heartwarming riches. Honesty dies a gruesome death and diligence gives to the lure of gratifying deceit; and within the haze of such grotesqueness and vile, we seek a true hero, a Nigerian hero.

    How can we dream of having a hero without the crutch of a virtuous and enabling world? We do not need a hero but a nation fit for heroes; and having created such nation, we would be in no dire need of sacrificial idealists and pragmatists we love to call heroes. Let everybody be a hero. Falcons hunt for their young; crickets make their own music, and the untended herd determines the course of its own pasture; let you and I become our own heroes.

    Arrogance and contemptible naïveté makes our craven and insolent ruling class contend that we are incapable of such noble enterprise. Cowardliness and incurable servility goads us to uphold the ‘truth’ as they love to see it. Who would have thought that at this time and age, we would be caught in the tangled thickets of greed, self-centeredness, retrogression and deceit?

    Today’s youth like their forbears are given to bigotry…we perpetuate the worst kinds of ethnic chauvinism and idolatry you could ever think of. Driven by greed and inordinate lust for the good life, we seek the shortest possible bypass to riches. “Money talks, bullshit works,” becomes our hallowed creed; it leads us to revere criminals as our best of men even as it informs our tireless quest to circumvent the universe’s definite but slow, steady order.

    We are at war with ourselves and the future of our dreams thus in spite of our fervent and inexorable clamour for change and everlasting progress, our enthusiasm is borne of the perverse, and our advancements of exasperating duplicity; never had an entire generation being so treacherous and full of ill-will against itself as ours.

    Goaded by platitudes and ideals that do very little to improve our circumstances and worth, we engage in a maddening march for the future of our dreams even as we become the cogs in our wheels of change; every time we get to the crossroads of change we could believe in, impotent will emasculates our zeal.

    There is something wrong with the Nigerian ideal; makes it difficult to chart our way out of the bedlam of the past, turmoil of the present and barrenness of the future. Let no man, as Schiller says, too querulously “measure by a scale of perfection the meagre product of reality” in this poor world of ours. Without doubt, Schiller envisioned the futility of such lofty expectations we have of ourselves even as we battle our inner demons. Any individual seeking such perfection shall in no way be deemed a wise man; he shall be deemed sickly, unrealistic and innately foolish.

    And yet, on the other hand, it is worth remembering that ideals do exist. Even the villainy perpetrated by our venal and dishonourable ruling class is perpetuated on the strength of ideals they hold very dear to their hearts. To every individual, his heartfelt ethic. There is no man without an ideal, however dormant or active it is, something drives an average man towards his choice of conduct as part of a human society.

    Truly, without the rampart of ideals, it would be impossible for our pioneer statesmen to fight for and attain the independence we so carelessly diminish today. Spurred by heartfelt ideals, officers of the Nigerian army staged the first military coup and subsequent ones. Incensed by ideals, the country plunged into a bloody civil war at the end of which over two million civilians and soldiers lay dead from starvation and “enemy” bullets.

    It was on the steep planes of ideals that the country was continually thrust through sporadic military and civilian experiments until 1993 when Nigeria’s last military head of state handed over to a civilian administration. And spurred by earnest ideals, the executive and legislative arms of government have led Nigeria from one sorry pass to another. Enter President Goodluck Jonathan, the man whom many amongst us deemed the “ideal” man for the job. Many thought because his name is “Goodluck,” he must have good luck which would automatically rub off on us immediately he attains power. Goodluck Jonathan is in power and what manner of good luck he brings has been felt by all.

    Like you and I, Mr. President is a man of ideals; thus it was from the moral ground of ideals that he budgeted about N1billion for presidential meals, removed fuel subsidy and allows a very “interesting” security situation on his watch. Being a man of ideals, Mr. President has surrounded himself with great men and women of ideals thus we have within his team, Reuben Abati, a very brilliant journalist who from a moral ground of ideals chose to smother reason and honesty to serve Mr. President, my bad, Nigeria; lest I forget Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Allison-Madueke et al; men and women of presumed worth and intelligence who are currently ruling Nigeria because it is not yet idyllically expedient to serve Nigeria.

    And then we have you and me; human integers continually forced by the most expedient of ideals to endure such ruling class as we have now. It is on the strength of ideals that we evolve into what quality of youth we are now. Shall we begin to nurture such ideals that would trigger our oft hackneyed ‘revolution?’I speak of unimpeachable values and character that dwarfs our several cosmetic enterprises like our bungled “Occupy Nigeria” protest. There is little to cheer about such movement; the best we can do is to look back lustfully as shipwrecked mariners might at the disappearing shoreline while they are hurled and submerged beneath the fury of the surliest sea waves.

  • Russo-American relations softly, softly

    The on-going civil war in Ukraine in which the Russian federation is directly and indirectly involved is a cause for global worry. America and its allies in the west have also personalised the crisis by trying to put all the blame on the Russian President, Vladimir Putin who is being isolated and treated almost like a pariah at global conferences.

    His government is being subverted at home through economic sanctions imposed on it by the west especially the European Union and United States and Canada. In recent years, apart from armaments, Russia has been reduced to almost a primary producer of gas and petroleum from its vast oil fields stretching from the Caucasus to the wilderness of Siberia.

    This makes it easy for Russia’s economy to be undermined because unlike countries in the west, it has almost become a mono-cultural economy depending on exploits of hydrocarbons but Russia remains a great country with its possession of nuclear armaments that is capable of burying the whole world a few times over if pushed to the wall and forced to embark on a suicidal mission of using nuclear weapons against its enemies which would in retaliation destroy it. This is the danger of mutual annihilation which the world now faces. We all thought that we had moved away from the cold war.

    But because of the Ukraine crisis and apparent Russian desire to assert itself globally and to defend the interests of ethnic Russians in independent countries that are the successor states of the Soviet Union. Her interest in this regard will also put her on a path of conflict with the rest of the world especially the western world. This problem can only be solved not by sabre-rattling but by dialogue and diplomacy and by respecting the mutual interest of Russia and the west.

    Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union rightly feels that it is being ignored and being relegated to the status of a minor global player and sees the military adventurism of the United States in the current uni-polar world in which American power is largely unchallenged.

    Russia is particularly irked by American military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and in the expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia especially the incorporation of states in the former Soviet bloc into the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The intended desire by Ukraine to join NATO and to become a member of the European Union was seen by Russia as an unacceptable provocation. The annexation of Crimea which was part of Ukraine but largely inhabited by Russians was Russia’s reaction to the provocation in Ukraine. Crimea for centuries had been the major warm water port of Russia.

    If Ukraine had fallen into unfriendly hands, Russia felt that its interest would be challenged and threatened. This is why when Russia annexed with Crimea, Europe and America apparently understood Russia’s desire to protect its national interest and they were not in the position to do anything that would have precipitated the military conflict with Russia.

    The west is angered by continued Russian support for rebels in Luhansk and Donesk, two areas that have declared themselves independent of Ukraine and that are 90 percent inhabited by Russians. Russia continues to deny its involvement in the fighting in eastern Ukraine but there is no doubt that Russia is directly involved. Many high-ranking Russians do not see Ukraine as an independent country.

    They can not envisage a situation in which their forces would be fighting Ukrainians. They see such a scenario as reminiscent of Nazi created Ukraine during the Second World War. For example, the mother of Mikhail Gorberchev was a Ukrainian and she is buried there. So also are the parents of many Russians to the extent that it has become a psychological problem to see Ukraine looking west rather than looking east to Russia.

    It is not in the interest of Ukraine itself to have Russia as a permanent enemy because the long arm of the United States, short of going to war, cannot protect Ukraine and it must therefore establish a modus vivendi with Russia that would guarantee its autonomy while having a friendly relation with Russia and normal diplomatic relations with the rest of the world. This is not to suggest a policy of finlandisation for Ukraine but it must exercise restraint in its policy choices and take the interest of Russia into consideration at all times.

    This is what is called real politik in international relations. What is ideal is not necessarily real. The ideal of total and untrammelled independence of Ukraine irrespective of Russia’s interest is not realistic. Peace in Europe cannot be guaranteed through Russian isolation and treatment of Vladimir Putin as a non-person rather, his friendship has to be cultivated and Russian economy has to be assisted to prosper and it is in her prosperity that political liberalism would thrive in Russia.

    Because hardship created by sanctions would no doubt lead to rabid nationalism in Russia arising out of hardship and frustration. The current western policies of pushing Putin into the warm embrace of rising China has thus replicated the alliance formation that led to the division of the world after 1945 into two rival camps armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. The world does not need this again but unfortunately, this is what current policies in the west and in Russia are leading to.

    The danger we now have is that the Obama administration is being pushed to embark on bellicose and military policies towards other competitors for global influence and power particularly Russia and China. This is at a time when the situation in the Middle-east is becoming more and more complex following the creation of a blood-thirsty Caliphate which America sees as a direct threat to it and its allies.

    The spread of the nuclear weapon states to unstable countries like Pakistan, North Korea and possibly Iran in the future poses enough threat to the world and requires solidarity among the established nuclear weapons states particularly the United States, Russia and China which unfortunately do not see eye to eye on most issues facing the global community.

    If the world is to have peace, America must ensure that its interest harmonise with the interests of Russia and China without America sacrificing the interest of its allies. I believe this can be done as Putin has publicly called for dialogue along this line. America should take the gauntlet and welcome Putin into the dialogue while exercising its right to ensure that Putin respects international law as it concerns national sovereignty of all nations.

  • No longer a numbers’ game

    Politics worldwide is a game of numbers. There is nowhere the numbers’ game is at play than during elections. Elections are won and lost on the strength of votes. What is usually required to win is simple majority except otherwise stated. Contestants know this rule well. This is why they strive to get the highest number of votes cast in order not to create doubts about the winner of an election.

    In any transparent electoral process, knowing the winner is not difficult since the results will be declared in the open. But in some cases, losers find it difficult to accept defeat. They do all they can to upturn the result. Where they cannot have their way, they turn their loss to ‘victory’ by laying claim to an office that does not belong to them.  This is at the individual level. At the institutional level, they use their minority to oppress the majority.

    What then is democracy if we cannot play according to the rule? What then is democracy if the majority cannot have its way? What then is democracy if the minority cannot bow to the majority? What is happening in the polity calls for concern from all people of goodwill. If we keep quiet because what is happening favours us  one way or the other,  we will be doing damage to the bodypolity.

    Democracy should not be a matter of life and death. It is high time  our politicians changed their attitude towards the game. They should not be desperate to win at all costs. When they lose, they should concede defeat and congratulate the winner  rather than try to destabilise the country through their tantrums and wild allegations of rigging and all  what not. It is only those who have come to see politics as a means of livelihood that behave this way.

    ”If I do not have it, nobody will”, this is what their body language usually says. This is why a governor will lose an internal  election and fight tooth and nail to retain his seat as the head of the group. The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) is an association of governors cutting across party line. The 36 state governors meet under its umbrella, with one of them as chairman. Who becomes chairman used to be by agreement and not by  election until the Presidency started interfering in its affairs.

    The group became an object of interest to the Presidency following its Chairman, Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s spat with the First Family. To get back at Amaechi whose first tenure was then expiring about two years ago, the Presidency infiltrated the NGF to get him voted out, counting on the support of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors, who are in the majority. Amaechi carried the day because he enjoyed the confidence of his colleagues irrespective of party affiliation.

    He won by 19 votes to Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang’s 16. Till today, Jang continues to parade himself as NGF chair despite losing woefully in that election. He is being encouraged by the Presidency, which recognises him as NGF chair, but treats the validly elected Amaechi as leper because of his feud with the First Family. What kind of democracy are we practising if our leaders cannot abide by the outcome of such a minor election? Will they allow the people’s will to prevail in the forthcoming general elections?

    This kind of absurdity is also playing itself out in Ekiti State where the minority is lording it over the majority in the House of Assembly. Power changed hands in the state last October 16 with the swearing in of Governor Ayo Fayose, who won the June 21 election. The 26-man house is controlled by the All Progressives Congress (APC); while Fayose is of the PDP. Since he assumed office, he and some of the lawmakers have been having issues. There have been allegations and counter-allegations. Whatever the problems are, we pray that they sort them out soon.

    In the meantime, we are bothered by the impunity going on in the state under the guise of legislative work. Seven of the lawmakers, who are members of PDP, have been ‘legislating’ on behalf of the house, while the majority has been chased out of town . To have their way, the seven lawmakers are being protected by the police. They are given cover to sit and perform other ‘legislative’ duties suitable to the needs of the governor. First, the seven removed the speaker and other principal officers at an awkward hour. We leave them to the court to determine the propriety of their action.

    With the coast clear, Fayose promptly sent a list of would-be commissioners to the house, sorry his seven sidekicks. Without wasting time, they confirmed the commissioners. A few days ago, they approved the 2015 budget. Fayose is riding on high with his men in control of the house. But, has he stopped for a minute to think over the legality or otherwise of what the seven lawmakers are doing? Does it portray Ekiti State, the land of honour and fountain of knowledge, in good light that seven lawmakers are running rings around their 19 other counterparts?

    We hear of the majority having their way and the minority having their say. But, in our clime,  the reverse seems to be the case. Is politics still a game of numbers?

    Malala’s country again

    MALALA Yousafzai survived a gun attack on October 9, 2012,  to become the poster-child for girl education globally. When Taliban gunmen shot her in the head in a school bus, they never knew that they were changing the course of her life through their dastardly act. Today, Malala is a Nobel laureate having won the the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.  Rather than repent, these mad men, like their Nigerian counterparts, Boko Haram, have continued to wreak havoc on school children. Tuesday’s attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Northwest Pakistan, in which 145 pupils were killed,  is despicable. Why will any sane man shoot a pupil? For going to  school? Is it a sin to seek knowledge when Prophet Muhammad, in his life time,  admonished Muslims to seek knowledge and to go even as far as China for it? We pray that God touches the hearts of these self-styled jihadists to know that what they are doing is evil. Like Malala said in her reaction, the world mourns these children, ”but we will never be defeated by terrorists”. Never.

  • Jonathan’s ‘PRESSID’

    President Jonathan’s ‘Presidential Special Scholarship for Innovation and Development’ (PRESSID), a laudable programme with  potential to transform our educational sector by raising standards in our universities has unfortunately received little attention from columnists saddled with the responsibility of interpreting government actions to deepen the knowledge of the people about their government. The whole endeavor has also, in the season of election, been overshadowed by the noise of  over 17 million Nigerians TAN  claims earnestly want Jonathan to continue in office to build on the gains of his transformation agenda including the energy sector where we now generate about 2900MW, down from 4500MW despite President Jonathan and Dr. Doyin Okupe‘s assurances that Nigerians with generating set would  no more have need for them as the nation would have joined the leagues of nations with uninterrupted power supply by December 2014.

    ‘PRESSID’ is a scheme designed to provide opportunity  for “graduates who obtained first class degrees from recognised and approved universities in the areas of sciences, medicine, basic medical sciences, engineering, economics, special aspects of biology, nuclear physics, quantitative genetics, medical biochemistry, aeronautical engineering, among others” to pursue graduate studies in the Top 25 universities around the world. We do not exactly know the criteria employed to pick those selected from a long list of first class graduates to participate in the computer based aptitude test. But we know however that of the 1,300 qualified candidates who applied for the scholarship in its first edition, 449 were invited for aptitude test out of which 101 were accommodated. For its second edition, there were also 100 lucky recipients. For its third edition, Professor Olurotimi Tayo, a member of implementation committee told reporters few days ago that of the 2,000 applicants, 943 participated in last Monday exercise. We also learnt from Dr. Joshua Attah, the coordinator of the examination that it took place concurrently in London and some hours later in Washington DC, United States of America (USA).

    The policy thrust as unfolded on the occasion of presentation of the awards to the first set of beneficiaries by Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufaa, the then minister of education was “to develop a critical mass of professionals who would serve as catalysts of change and agents of scientific and technological advancement, as well as sustainable economic development”. This is a noble endeavor except that it is doubtful if there is anyone in or outside government who does not know that our challenge is not about how to develop a critical mass of professionals. We already have thousands of Nigerian youths, trained both at home and abroad in all the identified departments currently roaming the streets without jobs even as the President’s chorus boys celebrate creation of millions of imaginary jobs on television and on the pages of newspapers.

    This perhaps explains why those who have closely observed the body language of the President in the last six years have tried to dismiss this laudable scheme as another strategy to find ‘jobs for the boys’. Matters are not helped by the appointment of Professor Julius Okojie, until recently JAMB boss as chairman. And instead of allaying peoples’ fears, he has been projecting himself as a salesman for Jonathan transformation agenda. As against the explicitly stated policy thrust by government, Okojie now says the programme is “part of the efforts to achieve the goals of President Goodluck Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda”

    PRESSID has also come under serious threat from politicians and political jobbers. For instance, to pick about 100 first class degree holders, a function that can be easily performed by a department in the ministry of education, we have now created another heading for annual appropriation of billions in the budget. We currently have a chairman, an implementation committee made up some professors, and a coordinator of exams among many other positions already created. We have also inadvertently created credibility problem for the programme by involving JAMB, a body whose inability to conduct credible examinations led to the current arrangement whereby admission seekers incur additional expenses for post-JAMB exams handled by each university. JAMB’s involvement in last week’s aptitude test which many participants alleged leaked and where accounting firstclass degree holders aspiring to go to one of the best 25 universities in the world were asked such questions as “who won the last African magic comedy award”?; Or which is the largest ocean in the world?” clearly demonstrated JAMB has outlived its usefulness.

    In a nation where government officials are never held accountable even after the tragedy of immigration recruitment exercise where desperate job seekers were robbed and lured to their death by government officials who turned around to accuse their victims of being accessories to their own deaths, it cannot be any more shocking that some unfeeling government officials  directed 943 first class degree holders out of which only 100 stood a chance to move to Abuja from all corners of the country ignoring the vagaries on our roads for  a one hour computer based aptitude test . The decision becomes even more questionable when it is realized that Chams, a computer firm that provided the Abuja facilities have similar ones in Lagos, Port Harcourt and many other state capitals in the federation. Many of the applicants who have never been to Abuja before got there in the night either as a result of flight delays in our ‘transformed airports and roads’, including the uncompleted Abuja-Lokoja, Enugu-Onitsha, Enugu Port Harcourt and Uyo-Calabar highways, launched under Obasanjo but which remain as deathtraps. Besides, many had to borrow as much as N70, 000 to cover costs of transportation, hotel bills and other incidental expenses.

    But whatever the motives of those who sold the idea to the President and the misgivings associated with its implementation, focusing on first class graduates from our universities is a laudable idea. All that is required to make the initiative work is to steer it away from those who want to turn it into one huge expenditure centre with annual budgetary appropriations. With government existing policy which makes PhD the minimum entry for those who wish to pursue academic career, paying attention to first class graduates may be an answer to the crisis of manpower development in our universities. Currently only a few of the first generation universities can meet NUC requirements. And where they do, unlike what obtains in some of the best universities abroad where the ratio of lecturer to student is about 1-5, ours is about 1-200. And even with such scandalous disparity in lecturers–student ratio, thousands of qualified candidates can still not secure admission. For instance an institution like the University of Lagos admits less than 6,000 out of over 100,000 qualified candidates that sit for its post-JAMB examinations.

    With proper husbandry of our resources, there is no reason why government should not be able to give scholarships to 943 screened first class degree holders. This can easily be achieved just by closing leakages in only NNPC where government admitted USD10 billion was yet to be accounted for months after setting up a forensic investigation and whose supervising minister was recently shielded by government over allegation that she frittered away about N10 billion on aircraft charter to junket around the world.

    Government can also play less politics and become more creative since no government anywhere in the world funds education alone.  NUC for instance should be able to direct universities that produce first class products to offer automatic scholarships to their products as was the case before federal government took over all institutions. And since, government whose officials stole pensioners funds cannot be trusted with funds from education tax levied on organizations, a more viable option will be to revert to the practice that was in place before and after independence whereby companies were encouraged to participate in staff development efforts. The Daily Times, Nigeria Flour Mills, Lever Brothers, UAC and many others were active in this regard up to the seventies. Of course churches (orthodox and Pentecostals), today’s most thriving commercial enterprises must be encouraged to invest part of the huge resources they control in preparing our gifted youths for the challenges of tomorrow.

     

  • Letter to Gen. Buhari

    First of all, I congratulate you warmly for winning the nomination of your party for the presidency of Nigeria.

    Though you and I are different in ethnicity and religion, we have many important things in common. I am about two years older than you – which means that if you and I had been Yoruba boys  born in the same Yoruba town or village, we would have belonged to the same age-grade association ( with us Yoruba, age-grade loyalty is traditionally a very important factor of life).  Moreover, you and I were young adults in an era, the 1950s, when our up-and coming country of Nigeria was a source of great pride to its citizens, and an emerging titan eagerly awaited by most informed people all over the world. The three regions of our federation (East, North and West) were engaged in an ambitious rivalry for progress and for improvements in the quality of life of our people. They were able to do that and achieve considerable successes because our constitutional structure gave them much leeway to manage their own affairs within the common Nigerian family. We arrived at independence in 1960 believing that our country was set on the path to becoming the Blackman’s world power of modern times.

    Unhappily, now that you and I have arrived at our grand age of near 80, there is nothing left of our country’s ambitions and pride – indeed, there is hardly anything left of our country itself. Relentlessly crooked up, violated, robbed and depleted since 1960, our Nigeria seems now to be stumbling towards its demise.

    As you prepare for your election, I decided to write you this open letter concerning our country, because I know you will understand the pain and expectations behind my words. The purpose of most of Nigeria’s rulers since 1960 has been to weaken and even destroy regional and local initiatives in order to gather all power, control and influence together at the federal centre. Their success in doing that has enabled them to remove the management of development far away from our people, and to institute at the federal centre a viciously corrupt,wasteful and incompetent monstrosity.  Reduced to the status of beggar clients of the federal robber barons, the state governments, as well as the local governments, collapsed and fell in line as submissive incompetents and mini-robbers.

    In the process, real and productive enterprise quickly declined among our people, as the best and most ambitious rushed to join the ranks of the sharers of fraudulently acquired wealth from the public coffers. Our schools and universities, our public service, our police force, our military, our judiciary, all our governmental agencies (electoral commission, secret service, central bank, ports service, immigration service, public examination bodies, etc) – all collapsed under the weight of crooked control, massive corruption and generalized disloyalty. Poverty descended mightily into our country and became the lot of the overwhelming and increasing majority of our people. Our government itself admits that, today, about 70% of our citizens live in “absolute poverty” and that that percentage keeps increasing. With the growing poverty have escalated horrific crimes, a culture of dishonesty, a rush of our youths to Salafist fundamentalist terrorism, and mass flights of the educated to other lands – all of which are compounding the poverty.

    From your well-known record as a leader of our country, I know that you are not only aware of these things, but that, in common with many members of our generation, you are seriously pained by them. I confess that I was very angry with you during your brief stint as military ruler, 1983-5. First, you seemed to me to be power-drunk at the time – because you made no distinction between the corrupt who had been stealing and sharing public money under Shagari and those who were known to have been resisting the robbery. I belonged to the frontline of senators who were well known to have, on the floor of the Senate,  resisted the mass corruption, and yet your military government detained me (and many like me), and I languished for four months in prison without any accusation – even without being asked any question by any official.

    And then, you and Idiagbon expended most of your obviously shining  capabilities in pursuing nebulous and amateurish programmes like WAI (War Against Indiscipline), when what our country really needed was (after you had fiercely shot down corruption as you did)  to massively divert our enormous oil revenues into investments in the lives of our people – through programmes for expansion and diversification of education, modern job skills development, entrepreneurial  development, small business development, promotion of modern farming, policies for improving the quality and reputation of our labour force and thereby attracting investments and businesses into our country, policies for promotion of exports, etc. Put a people to work and persistently multiply the economic opportunities available to them, and the attraction to prosperity through competitive enterprise will gradually suppress indiscipline in their land. Fanciful programmes like WAI can have no lasting benefit or future – as I hope you must know by now. That is why the man who ousted you, Babangida, was able quite easily to wipe out all the patriotic gains of your regime.

    Furthermore, I though t it was a pity that you did not appear to recognize that the over-centralization that was being given to our federation was the foundation of our ills as a country. You were wrong in thinking that punishing the corrupt leaders would destroy corruption abidingly. What is needed is to change the system into which corruption has been built. In our country’s case, we needed (and we need) to reduce the magnitude of our federal government and empower our lower levels of government, nearer the people, to bear most of the burden of development. Then we need to give recognition and respect to our various nationalities in building the system – which should mean that our larger nations would each constitute a state, and contiguous groups of our smaller nationalities would be assisted to form states, just as the Indians sensibly and profitably did in the 1960s.

    By refusing g to go that route, Nigeria has abysmally depressed its nationalities. For instance, my Yoruba nation came into Nigeria in 1914 as easily the fastest modernizing nationality in Black Africa; and we entered into independence with Nigeria in 1960 as the development front-liner and pace-setter in Africa. Today, we are a battered, poor, and disoriented nation, and most of our achievements have been wrecked, thanks to our being part of a Nigeria that destroys its peoples. Every other Nigerian nationality has similar stories to tell. My brother, I am, by nature and by upbringing, averse to merely lamenting an evil development; I act to change it.  My potential urge, even as I write this, is to exert myself with others like me towards pulling my Yoruba nation out of Nigeria if Nigeria will not change course – and that is something that we Yoruba are perfectly capable of achieving if we start upon it. And the same is true of some other persons and nations.

    In short, let’s not ignore or minimize the danger of Nigeria’s dissolution. I know you have what it takes to save Nigeria. I wish you luck in your election – and I wish Nigeria luck.

  • New strains in Nigeria-US relations

    New strains in Nigeria-US relations

    A fortnight ago, new strains (never too far away from the surface) emerged in relations between Nigeria and the United States. The US Embassy in Abuja and the US military training mission in Nigeria issued public statements that the Federal Government of Nigeria had suspended the third phase of the agreed military training programme for the Nigerian Army.

    Two phases of the programme, initiated by the two countries to counter the current Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, had been completed. In the circumstances, the US military training mission understandably expressed its regrets that the third phase, which it considered crucial to the success of the entire programme, had been unilaterally cancelled by the Federal Government.

    The announcement by the US of the cancellation of the training programme was obviously intended to embarrass the Federal Government. The Nigerian government had not announced the cancellation. It should have been more appropriate for any announcement of the cancellation of the programme to have been made by the Federal Government, rather than by official US sources. It is a serious breach of protocol on the part of the US military training mission to have pre-empted the Federal Government.

    If it became necessary to cancel the third phase of the programme, or review the entire programme itself, a joint statement by the two parties involved should have been made, instead of a unilateral statement by the US military mission. Since the entire US military training programme was not popular in Nigeria in the first place, and it has not really had any positive impact on the war against the insurgency, it is doubtful that any serious damage was done to the Federal Government by its cancellation. From its independence in 1960, the Nigerian public has never actively supported defence agreements with foreign powers. In 1962, the Balewa Federal Government was similarly forced to cancel Nigeria’s defence pact with Britain, its erstwhile colonial master, due to widespread domestic opposition to the pact.

    In its own defence of the decision to cancel the third phase of the military training programme, unidentified spokesmen of the Federal Government claimed that the training programme was cancelled in response to the refusal of the US to agree to the purchase of arms, particularly US military helicopters by Nigeria, weapons which, they claim, are badly needed by the Nigerian military to successfully prosecute the ongoing war against the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria. It was also claimed that the US military training mission in Nigeria had demanded that some of the military hardware being used in the war against the insurgents be transferred from the war front to the sites of the training programme. This, the federal authorities considered absurd and unwarranted at a time of serious military engagements with the insurgents.

    The federal authorities also claimed that the recent mutinies by some elements of the Nigerian Armed Forces were encouraged, if not directly sponsored, by the US military training mission in Nigeria. This claim is absurd and the US has denied it as spurious. If true, it would be a grave charge that would justify the cancellation of the entire programme by the Federal Government. We cannot have foreign training missions in our country encouraging mutinies in the Nigerian Armed Forces. That is not the reason they were invited here in the first place. But the military doctrine imparted by the US military training programme is quite capable of creating in the minds of the Nigerian military doubts about the integrity of their officers. This could easily lead to a mutiny by the soldiers. The US Army represents an advanced industrial and democratic country. Nigeria is different and, whether intended or not, American military doctrines can easily become subversive of discipline in the Nigerian Armed Forces. It should also not be forgotten by the US authorities that Nigerian leaders have become increasingly suspicious of the US as a result of non-official reports from the US that Nigeria could break up in 2015. These reports, though not official, are resented in the country, and have had a negative impact on US-Nigeria relations.

     On the question of the refusal of the US to authorise the sale of specific military weapons to Nigeria, the US authorities have stated that this refusal was in compliance with the American Congressional decision that arms sale by the US should not be made to countries listed by the human rights organisations as being in serious breach of human rights, particularly by the use of torture. Nigeria is so listed, and it is common knowledge that torture is freely used by the Nigerian security agencies to obtain intelligence from suspects. This practice is reprehensible and cannot be tolerated in any decent, civilised and democratic society governed by the rule of law. It has been widely condemned by the media in Nigeria as well. The Nigerian public is totally against the use of torture on suspects. It is true that the Boko Haram insurgents are just as guilty of the resort to torture and other violent means in pursuing their military objectives in their war against Nigeria. And it is equally true that Nigeria is involved in a non-conventional war in which it would be difficult to fully apply the rules of the Geneva Convention on military engagements of the kind we now face in Northern Nigeria.

    But, though condemnable, it is not only in Nigeria that suspects are subjected to torture. The US is equally guilty of this reprehensible practice. The recent report of the US Senate on the widespread use of torture by the American CIA shows that the US is also seriously involved in the use of torture to obtain intelligence from suspects. The US Guantanamo military base in Cuba, in which prisoners detained by the US have been subjected to severe torture underscores the complexity of this matter. In this respect, the US cannot claim to be better or ‘holier’ than other countries practising torture, particularly in a war situation. The Americans should also not forget the use of torture by their armed forces during the long war in Vietnam, or in Iraq and Afghanistan in which combatants and non-combatants detained by the US have also been subjected to torture to obtain intelligence considered vital by the US Armed Forces.

    The US refusal to allow the sale of arms to Nigeria allegedly because of its breaches of human rights is within its competence. But the US has not been consistent in its application of this rule, which ties arms sale to human rights records of countries seeking to buy US arms. In 1982, when I chaired a session of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, I could see quite clearly the hypocrisy of the Western powers on the issue of human rights. Despite strong and persistent African opposition, the US sold arms openly to the apartheid regime in South Africa, which was guilty of complete disregard of the fundamental human rights of the Blacks in South Africa. It sold arms openly to Iraq when it was evident that there were serious breaches of human rights by the Sadam Hussain regime in Iraq. The Egyptian military have, until recently, received considerable arms supply from the US during the long period of military dictatorship there. Right now, Israel, a country notorious for its appalling human rights record, in relation to the Palestinians, is the largest recipient of US military aid and sale in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, a country that is openly disdainful of human rights, buys virtually all its weapons from the US. If the US authorities want to sell arms to Nigeria, they would easily find a way of explaining to the US Congress that it is necessary to do so because of the strategic interests of the US in Nigeria. Nigeria has made it clear over time in its foreign policy that it does not want to become a ‘client-state’ to any foreign power. That was why in Angola in 1975 Nigeria rejected overtures from the US that Nigeria should support the FLNA in the Angolan civil war, instead of the MPLA, which had the support of virtually all African states. American policy makers have not forgotten this episode when Nigeria decided to act in defence of its national interest by according the MPLA government its recognition. It was the most popular decision ever in foreign policy by a determined Nigerian government.

    From the Nigerian perspective, a number of lessons should be learnt from this distressing episode in US-Nigeria relations caused by the refusal of the US to sell arms to Nigeria. It was not the first time that the US had refused arms sale to Nigeria. During the Nigerian civil war, President Nixon of the US refused Nigeria’s request for arms sale, pleading the neutrality of the US in our civil war. The first lesson is that like India, Nigeria should develop its defence industries to reduce its dependence on foreign arms supplies. After over 50 years of independence, Nigeria should be self-sufficient in arms supplies, and should not have to depend on foreign powers. It cannot adequately defend its national interests if it has to continue relying for its arms supplies on foreign powers. The second lesson we should learn is that we should not entrust the training of our armed forces to any foreign power. If our military officers require any further specialised military training, then they should be sent abroad, instead of inviting foreign military training teams to Nigeria. As we have seen, this could easily compromise Nigeria’s military security. The third lesson is that Nigeria should diversify the sources of its arms supplies and not rely on only a few foreign powers. We did this successfully at independence when both the training of the Nigerian military and its sources of arms supplies were diversified. We should revisit that strategy that served us well in the past.

  • Life on a sweepstake

    (Tragedy of the youth’s entitlement mentality)

    We speak in several pitiful tongues. Every tongue reels a different story of identical loss and misery; and so, one comes to callousness, a savage ruthlessness and culture of protest that drives us to ruin our world: dateline Boko Haram, MEND, Ombatse and the complex bigotry, avarice and bloodlust characteristic of all.

    Yet this page will not contain the genocide, amorality and grotesque body count we have learnt to perpetrate not because they are too horrendous and unwieldy to keep tab of but because there is neither wisdom nor tact in rehashing the consequences of our towering idiocy and bloodlust.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

    •To be continued…

  • Honours 2014

     LET’S get it right from the outset. This is no attempt to undo what the National Awards have done. Nor is it a bid to denigrate the yearly show at which some of the nation’s best get decked with medals by no less a personality than the President himself. No.

    But then, even the best of systems has its errors. Here then, dear reader, is a tribute to those men and women who may have been erroneously left out of the national honours list even as their various actions –and inactions – affected the polity one way or the other this year.

    We begin with – what else if not – politics. Who is the Politician of the Year? You want to guess? Not House Speaker Aminu Tambuwal who gave the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) a kick in the groin, causing so much commotion after dumping the ruling party for the All Progressives Congress (APC). Not Tom Ikimi, the chief who was left huffing and puffing after building a castle in the air about becoming chairman of APC. He whined to no end until he returned to the PDP. He was last night supervising the coronation– sorry, convention– of President Goodluck Jonathan. Nor is he (the winner) Peter Obi, who shockingly dumped the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) for the PDP – an action many swore would make the late Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the Eze Igbo Gburugburu, turn in his grave, but which the former governor justified, apparently to the satisfaction of his fans.

    He was relatively unknown, until the battle to displace Otunba Gbenga Daniel  from the leadership of the PDP in Ogun State began. At the mention of his name, many would have sneered: “who is so called?” Not so now. Prince – sorry, a slip there – Alhaji – I got it wrong again – Dr  Buruji Kashamu, the Lagos car dealer and hotelier, is the PDP Southwest Contact and Mobilisation Committee Chairman – an amorphous group to which the party owes its ability to prosecute the war it waged in the name of elections in Ekiti and Osun.

    When PDP chiefs begged former President Olusegun Obasanjo to start participating in  activities, he told them: “A drug baron indicted in the U.S. can’t be my leader.” He mentioned no name, but Kashamu, a man whose capacity for taking on daunting tasks amazes his associates, picked up the gauntlet. “I wasn’t indicted,” he said, adding: “Even if I’m to be repatriated, there are processes, which are not subjected to the whims and caprices of any individual, including Obasanjo.”

    Shortly after, The Cambridge Graduate University came all the way from the United States to honour Kashamu with a PhD, Doctor of Philosophy in Humanities. A source told me that the politician accepted the honour not because he covets such laurels but just to send a message to those who say he is a fugitive wanted in the United States.

    But his critics seem not convinced. “Get on the plane and fly to the United States, if you actually want to clear your name,” they said.

    The other day in Abuja, Kashamu got a court to stop the public presentation of Obasanjo’s book in Lagos. The former president went on with the ceremony, saying the judge erred in law to have granted the order. Now, Kashamu is threatening to sue him, in a bid to reclaim his reputation, which is said to have been shattered by the book.

    For his resilience in the face of rock-solid opposition, Kashamu is Politician of the Year.

    Exuberant police chief Suleiman Abba would have easily snatched away the Policeman of the Year prize, considering his remarkable excesses. Within the short while he has taken office, he has not just shown that he is the law enforcer-in-chief, but he has also taken on the duties of the courts, interpreting the law in a manner that has left judicial officers gasping for breath. He withdrew Speaker Aminu Tambuwal’s guards and ordered the National Assembly shut – an action that forced many lawmakers into a rare show of agility, scaling the gate.

    We seem not to have seen Abba’s best yet. Before he grabbed the headlines, there was Mbu Joseph Mbu, who brought so much drama into the job. He, at the least provocation, confronted Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi. Even after leaving Rivers, the Police Commissioner would allude to his tour of duty in that state, describing himself as the leopard who tamed the lion. As he did in Rivers, he has been troubling Abuja needlessly.

    He warned the BringBackOurGirls campaigners to stop their protests or face arrest. He was actually going to pounce on them, but a court held him back. A reporter who described Mbu as controversial was detained and bundled before a court. For his strange zealotry, Mbu is Policeman of the Year.

    No argument about this; President Jonathan gets the Gaffe of the Year prize. The other day in Abuja, he said the Chibok girls had been kidnapped for three months when indeed they had been snatched away for five months. Many were asking: “Is the matter not on his mind?”

    Before the mammoth crowd that gathered to watch the Super Eagles play their Ghanaian counterparts at the new Akwa Ibom Stadium, twice Dr Jonathan referred to the national team as the Green Eagles. Some of his aides swear that he is an ardent fan of the team.

    Talking about soccer. Eagles coach Stephen Okechukwu Keshi is the Coach of the Year. He took the team to its peak, winning the Nations Cup. As Nigerians were rejoicing over the feat, he resigned during a radio programme in South Africa. Government officials were on their knees, begging Keshi not to go. A magnanimous fellow, he had mercy on this soccer crazy nation and returned to his job. Then dozens of other countries began to woo him with indescribable emoluments, the type that would have sent Jose “the Special One” Mourinho rushing out of Chelsea, I learnt. But Keshi, a patriot, rejected them all.

    Ever since, the Eagles have been struggling to regain their form. Then they got shoved off the Cup of Nations train, losing miserably. Keshi got the boot. The Presidency, knowing how to reward patriots, reversed the sack. Keshi is back in the saddle. Who else can pull off such a feat?

    We have been told that South Africa has returned the $9.3m and $8.7m its authorities seized from two Nigerians who flew in to buy arms. We may never know who these duo are. We may never know the details of these strange transactions, which almost won the Deal of the Year but for another extraordinary signed, sealed and almost delivered contract. I speak of the N9.2b stoves coming in from South Africa, the ones that will teach our rural women the beauty of modern cooking.

    After a successful first degree, Obasanjo, the most popular National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) student, has signed up for a doctoral degree. He was in Ibadan a few days ago to see the co-supervisor of his thesis. Jonathan and all those PDP governors seeking his attention should show some understanding; Obasanjo doesn’t need those distractions now. A scholar is at work. Studying for a PhD is serious business for a septuagenarian, more serious than 2015. Take a bow, Baba, Student of the Year.

    Many will not forget in a hurry the meeting summoned by First Lady Patience Jonathan to confirm whether the Chibok girls were indeed missing. Disturbed that some people deliberately shunned the meeting and that the whole thing was to undermine the President, she launched into an elegiac expression : “Chai! Der is God o o…All this blood you’re sharing.” The statement became the fulcrum of many jokes on the Internet and elsewhere. Thank you Mama Peace for some laughter amid so much pain. Thank you for the Joke of the Year.

    For Speech of the Year, there is no doubt that Ekiti Governor Ayo Fayose’s inauguration  speech stands out. He told the excited crowd: “I am the governor that eats bole with you. I am the governor who drinks jedi with you. I will not leave you.”  Can you beat that?

    There are many contenders for Minister of the Year, but two stand out. Rise up for recognition former Minister of State for Education Nyesom Wike and Police Affairs Minister Jelili ‘King Kong’ Adesiyan. For months, university teachers were on strike. All attempts to get the campuses reopened failed. Panicky parents cried out as many students turned wayward. A weakling of a minister would have been distraught. Not so Wike. He saw in it all a big chance to oil his political ambition.

    But the prize goes to Adesiyan, under whose watch the police have become all that the ruling PDP wished they could be – an election fighting force. Remember Ekiti and Osun. And recall that Adesiyan once told reporters that he never beat former Osun Governor Isiaka Adeleke, the one called Serubawon (hit them with fear) – as alleged. “If I give him one upper cut, he will die,” he said, adding: “Ta lonje ode aperin loju apaniyan.” (Who the hell is the hunter of elephants in the presence of the hunter of human beings).

    The list is, by no means, exhaustive. More awards are on the way as the nominations stream in.

    JUDE UCHE ISIGUZO (1971 -2014)

    AM yet to recover from the devastating death on November 29 of Jude Uche Isiguzo, this newspaper’s amiable Crime Correspondent. Jude was an editor’s delight. He knew his beat like the back of his hand. He never missed stories and he never grumbled whenever he had to move at short notice.

    The death of a young man is always like a Tysonian blow to the nose. It is so hard to agree with spiritualists who believe that it is all a call to higher responsibility. All we should do, they insist, is wish the dead a safe journey.

    Farewell Olopa, chairman, my friend. Greet Baba Mac ‘the journalist’ Alabi, vivacious Mrs Oluremi Oyo, resourceful Ben Akparanta, who got embedded with policemen chasing robbers and Edo Ugbagwu (the police are yet to find his killers). Godwin Agbroko. Dimgba Igwe. Opeyemi ‘Akewi Oodua’ Fajemilehin. Ngozi Agbo. Find out how they are all faring.

    We find our shattered peace in the words of the famous journalism teacher, Prof Ralph Akinfeleye: “In heaven, there will be no need for doctors as nobody will fall ill. Estate agents won’t be needed because there will be free mansions. Pilots will have no job because nobody will be travelling. There will be no need for soldiers; all will be peaceful. The only profession that will be needed is journalism because the man in the east will like to know what is going on in the west. So with the man in the south and the one in the north.” Farewell, my worthy colleague.

  • Fall of the mighty

    Their exit from the cabinet was announced with fanfare. At the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on October 15, President Goodluck Jonathan took it upon himself to tell the world that the ministers would be leaving to contest election. It was the last meeting the ministers would attend since they had only five days left then to resign to pursue their ambition.

    These men have since pursued their ambition and known their fate. They are former Information Minister Labaran Maku; his counterparts in Health, Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu and Labour, Emeka Wogu. Others are Minister of State for Defence Musiliu Obanikoro and his counterparts in Education, Nyesom Wike, Trade and Investment Samuel Ortom and Niger Delta Darius Ishaku.

    These president’s men thought their party’s governorship ticket was theirs for the asking. They miscalculated. Forces on ground in their respective states had another plan. These were the ones playing local politics. They were determined not to yield ground to anybody, be he a former minister or not. Many of them asked : ”When they were ministers what did they do for us?”

    Rather than see the handwriting on the wall, the former ministers plunged headlong into the race, believing that with their wealth and connection, they will win. No doubt, they may have  got the President’s  blessing to run, but they needed more than his blessing to win. More than anything else, they required the support of party members, many of whom they  abandoned while in  office, to get the ticket.  Moreover,  they had no political structures to fall back on.

    Those who had structures had to contend with the intrigues of some leaders who do not like their faces. It was a battle royale between these ministers and the leaders, who were determined to stamp their authority on their parties. There were snide remarks such as ”they cannot come from Abuja and take over our parties from us”; ”They have enjoyed themselves in Abuja, now they want to come and continue their enjoyment with the party we slaved hard to keep going”; ‘Where were they when we were building our parties?”; ”Now, they want to come and reap where they did not sow”.

    The animosity against the ministers was strong . As soon as they declared their intentions for run for governor, they ran into trouble with chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in their states. Why? Is it that these ministers never touched base with their people while in office? Politics is all about people and seasoned politicians know too well that they can not survive without people. It is just like fish out of water; it will asphyxiate to death.

    Politicians also suffocate to death when they abandon the people. Ask Maku, Wogu, Chukwu and Onikoro. These are the faces of the President who lost in the race for the governorship tickets of Nasarawa, Abia, Ebonyi and Lagos states. What their loss shows is that the political race is about being close to the grassroots and having the ability to carry those who matter along. No politician can be bigger than those that will determine his fate at the poll. And mind you, the true worth of a politician is known at the poll and not the amount of money he has.

    It is good to have money, but that money will not vote for you. It is how a politician uses his money to win people to his side that separates the men from the boys. No matter how influential a politician may be, his ability to deploy his resources to good use will determine how far he goes. As our former honourable ministers have come to realise, not even the federal might can save a politician, who is distant from his people from losing an election. The ministers are stewing in their own juice.

    They cannot eat their cake and have it. They cannot spend months ministering to themselves alone and now think they can ride on the backs of the people into office as governors to continue their self seeking agenda. Politicians, who always think of themselves first, will always meet with the kind of defeat suffered by these former ministers whether in the primaries or real elections. So, tell it in Lafia, sing it in Abakaliki, mime it in Umuahia  and publish it in the streets of Lagos so that the people will rejoice over these ministers’ loss.

    Oh, how the mighty fall; and their wealth and connection come to nought.

    Apostle of evil

    I watched bemused on Channels Television, last weekend,  as Police Affairs Minister Jelili Adesiyan defended Inspector-General of Police Suleiman Abba, who treated the office and person of Speaker Aminu Tambuwal with scorn the other day before the House of Representatives  Committee on Police Affairs. Adesiyan said Abba was right by refusing to recognise Tambuwal as Speaker because the matter is in court. So, when a matter is in court one can no longer hold his office? It is a shame that this is the kind of person we have as a minister; a man, who does not know that a court case does not automatically strip you of your office until judgment is delivered. But, what do you expect  of a man, who once referred to himself as a killer of persons (ta nlo je ode aperin niwaju ode apa enia). Besides,  Adesiyan also attacked the All Progressives Congress (APC), bashing the party for always ”complaining” when it loses election, but hailing the process when it wins. ”When they won in Edo, they gave INEC credence (sic); when they won in Osun, they gave INEC credence (sic)…” Did I hear you say what does that mean? That is a Minister of the Federal Republic (MFR) for you.

    In his character

    IN defiance of a court order, former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday launched his three-volume book, My Watch, in Lagos. He also cast aspersions on Justice Valentine Ashi, who stopped the launch. As it were, Obasanjo has sat on appeal in a case in which he is a party. Can he do that? The answer is no. He should not have gone ahead with the launch after being stopped by the court, no matter how he feels about the order.  But, I am not surprised. What do you expect of an ‘institution’ like Obasanjo? It is left to the court to do the needful over this obvious contempt.

  • The trouble with Nigeria

    Leaders of the Western world never cease urging the countries of Black Africa to embrace “democracy”. For instance, when President Obama, a man of African descent, stood on the soil of Africa in Accra, Ghana, he took the opportunity to speak the message of democratic governance to all of Africa – and in a strong and family language that no white leader of the Western World can ever do.

    Most informed members of the Black African elite understand the goodwill behind the message. The modern history of our world has demonstrated very definitively that human freedom, reliably democratic political life, and strong institutions that have integrity, are the only really sure way to bring order, success and prosperity into the lives of countries and peoples. As Obama put it in Accra, what Africa needs is not strong men but strong institutions. “We must recognize the fundamental truth that…development depends on good governance”.

    Unfortunately, there has persisted in the West’s message of democracy a very serious flaw. Even many of the best voices from the western world seem often to say that democracy comprises not more (or perhaps not much more) than elections and elected governments. Often, elections are treated as proof of democracy. But, in many cases in Sub-Saharan Africa, elections are designed merely to address the concerns of the international community. And what that commonly results in is that, while pundits in the western world may go on applauding a country for holding elections, the country’s rulers may actually go on actively preserving and practicing seriously undemocratic governance – including bluntly refusing (in a country of many different peoples) to yield to the desire of the component peoples for some measure of local autonomy that would enable them to manage some of their unique affairs, systemized rigging of elections,concentration of all power and resource control in a central government.

    No other African country practices this split-personality governance more than Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and home of one-fourth of all Africans. In 1999, the series of Nigeria’s military dictatorships which started in 1966 came to an end, and since then Nigeria has been ruled by elected governments. Even so, successive elected governments have upheld in this unfortunate country, a determinedly undemocratic and crooked system of governance, controlled by a political party which can only be described as fascist. Founded in 1998-9, the PDP declared that its mission was to rule Nigeria forever. In regions of Nigeria where the people have human-rights, religious tolerance, and democratic, traditions (especially the homeland of the 50 million Yoruba people of the Nigerian South-west), PDP chieftains declared that the people must be “conquered”. And the process of conquest has continued relentlessly since then.

    Especially over the Yoruba, who are regarded as unbreakably stubborn in defence of their traditional values, the process of conquest by the PDP has been unbelievably brutal. The PDP-controlled Federal Government makes no secret of its belief in its right to rig federal and state elections, and to impose its cronies over state and local governments throughout Nigeria. In the 1999 elections, the Yoruba rejected the PDP massively and gave the control of their six states to another party. In response, when elections came in 2003 and 2007, the PDP Federal Government went wild, declared that the elections were a “do-or die battle”, and massively cooked up the outcomes. The rigging of the 2007 elections at federal and state levels was so blatant that international observers who saw it published a report which stated that the elections, “in the view of Nigerians and the many international observers alike, were the most poorly organized and massively rigged in the country’s history. In a bitterly contentious environment, outgoing President Obasanjo and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) acted with unbridled desperation to ensure sweeping, winner-take-all victories, not only in the presidency and federal legislature but also in state governorships and assemblies. Characterized as a “do-or-die” battle by Obasanjo, the campaigns and elections also witnessed extensive violence, including over 200 people killed”.

    The brazenly falsified results gave the PDP presidential candidate 70% of the votes – a victory “bitterly disputed by many Nigerians, including broad-based, religious and civil society groups”. “It has pushed the country further towards a one- party state and diminished citizen confidence in electoral institutions and processes…undermined Nigeria’s capacity to manage its internal conflicts…badly damaged the country’s international image…thus diminishing (Nigeria’s) credibility to serve as leading force for peace and democracy throughout West Africa’. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), “vigorously manipulated by the presidency, virtually abdicated its responsibility as impartial umpire. Inefficient and non-transparent in its operations, it became an accessory to active rigging. Similarly, the massively deployed police and other security services helped curb violence but largely turned blind eyes to, and in some cases helped in, the brazen falsification of results”.

    That is Nigeria’s brand of democracy – as concocted by the PDP. Behind it at its foundation was a phalanx of retired military officers (all billionaires from stolen public money), and a major part of the northern Nigerian Islamic leadership who are bent on using the power of the Federal Government to impose a jihadist brand of Islam, as well as the dominance of their essentially small Muslim nationality, on all of Nigeria. PDP’s mode of recruiting members in all parts of Nigeria has, from the beginning, been to enrich members of the elite in all regions with public money, and to assure them of electoral victories through election rigging.

    It therefore does not matter what region, or what nationality, a PDP president comes from; he will rule as a PDP corruption manager, and as a staunch defender of the excessive powers of the so-called Federal Government over all of Nigeria and over all of Nigeria’s resources. He will revel in his power to treat the state governments as clients of the Federal Government, to brutalize any nationality that he chooses to despise, and to unduly and unfairly empower and enrich his own nationality among the nationalities of Nigeria. The current president, Goodluck Jonathan, proves all this mess most profoundly. Even though he comes from the South-south region whose citizens have always led the opposition to federal excesses, he refuses to touch any effort to curb those excesses, but revels in them. Though he no longer enjoys the support of most of the founders of the PDP, he nevertheless keeps the PDP corruption heritage going strongly. For him, the Yoruba nation has been the nation to despise and marginalize.

    The system of public corruption controlled by the PDP is impossible for any Nigerian opposition to do anything about. It has destroyed the moral life of Nigerians, and turned Nigeria into a country in which even the best and brightest citizens must turn away from real enterprises and wait on crumbs from public corruption. It has destroyed any trace of professionalism and integrity in all public agencies – the electoral commission, the police, the secret services, even the armed forces, and the courts.

    There is no question that the PDP will rig the presidential and other elections due in 2015. The big question is how different Nigerian peoples will respond this time.