The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • This age that we live in

    In time, what youth deems to be crystal, age will find to be dew. Apology to Browning, but at no time has his rational thought attained greater realism than the present age. This age that we live in, we claim, is the age of the Nigerian youth. Thanks to the “wasted generation,” they have learnt to tell us what we love to hear: that we are the proverbial bastions of hope and sureties of a better tomorrow – even as they abort our dreams of bliss and we feed on the fetuses as hope, today.

    Such is the magnitude of duplicity we excite. In spite of the falsity we inflame, we have learnt to live for the benefits of the trifling and maleficent. And when the glitter begins to dim and the applause of the gallery begins to peter out, we recline to do what we have learnt to do best; we mount our soap boxes and curse the times; we blame everybody and everything but ourselves for the emptiness we personify, always.

    Just so hollow and ineffectual are our lives today that for the most part, our wantonness and insatiable lust for wealth smothers that towering humanity that we ought to live for. “Wealth at all cost…Craftiness above sweat!” becomes the mantra and mighty levers by which we seek fulfillment and perpetuation of the Nigerian dream. Thrift and toil and saving that were once unimpeachable sureties to dependable hopes and fresh possibilities are today, guiding principles of the “weak” and “slothful” according to the 21st century Nigerian youth.

    Today, we seek the benefits of the chase and scorn the chase, except in infinite circumstances in which we pervert the context of the pursuit to chance on success. We elevate material prosperity as the touchstone of all successes and already the fatal might of this persuasion consumes us overwhelmingly, replacing the finer type of Nigerian youth with vulgar fortune hunters.

    That is why today, our banks are riddled with youthful bankers adept at stealing and fleecing poor, unsuspecting customers of their hard-earned savings. That is why today, our offices are plagued with promising youths able at adding limitless zeros to the back of every numeral with a Naira sign. That is why today, our podiums reverberate with the footsteps and platitudes of cunning and undeniably lazy youths remarkably versed at regurgitating stolen anecdotes to their intellectually challenged peers at random.

    Today the promising youths that we are, parade ourselves as willing muscles for devious politicians and criminal masterminds with a “master plan.” Such promising youths we have amongst us whose ministries traverse “Advocacy,” “Mentoring” and whatever fancy title aptly befits their “Ministry.” What are they advocating? Who are they mentoring? In pursuit of what? Money…maddening stacks of craftily earned money. Need I mention the doctor, nurse, journalist, internet scammer, accountant, policeman, and student whose hearts dangerously skip at the mention of every speedy shortcut to the good life?

    The tragedy of today’s youth lies not in our catastrophic unity in pursuit of devastating fortune and self-destruct, but in our perpetual inclination to delude ourselves by subscribing to the farce that we are the next best hope to happen to our ailing fatherland. A broad wave of disillusionment and darkness yet hangs above the silver linings we desperately hope to succeed our darksome clouds. Yet with precision and unfaltering devotion, we work ourselves up into such a state in which we can only see the volcanic flare of our destructive acts as glitters of grandeur.

    Just some few months back, during the April general elections to be precise, certain characters were erroneously identified as youth leaders amongst the nation’s youth and they were therefore, courted by the ruling class. The objective was to win their support and eventually, the overwhelming goodwill and patronage of the Nigerian youth. They did win their support and apparently, the patronage of a major percentage of the Nigerian youth.

    Today, we reap the benefits of self-deceit. It hardly matters if President Goodluck Jonathan and company are everything we thought they would be or they promised to be – we get what we deserve. We deserve the incumbent administration. And come 2015, we shall elect such characters that we deserve.

    Today it makes little difference what we think or dream, we lack the will and beaming brightness of morality to actualize it. The ferment of our striving towards self-realization is to the order of the universe like a cog within a wheel: beneath our brazen display of will are smaller but like problems of ideals, of tact, of leaders and the led, of poverty, of courage and cowardice, of tribalism and corruption, of order and subordination, and, through it all, the problem of self-deception.

    Very few of us know of these problems, and the few that are intelligent enough to know are too unintelligent to do anything about it; and yet here we are, awaiting a miracle, a messiah or another martyr to sacrifice on our altar of hollowness and self deception. In the thick of it all, we suffer the slow, steady disappearance of a certain type of Nigerian,—the hopeful, faithful, dependable patriot with incorruptible honesty and dignified humility.

    Never in the history of this potentially great nation have we witnessed such decadence as we have now. The Nigerian youth, despite our clamour for change, are caught in the vicious grip of our innate will. Our agitations for change are simply whimsical, their cadences and deployment for change are wholly determined by the promontories of our vanities, the ancient axe of fate and nemesis of humanity.

    Like the “wasted generation,” we seem to accept and joyously celebrate the ridiculous and passionate belief that somewhere between men and cattle; God created a tertium quid, and called it Nigerian. But uncomplicated as they are, our wanton inclinations have become virtually intolerable by even you and me. Our clownish, simple strivings that at the outset, made us tolerable within our limitations, have manifested as excruciating yokes choking us all, to the death. Hence we cry out and predictably direct our anger and grief at the wrong culprits: the ruling class.

    Why should we continue to attack and blame President Goodluck Jonathan and company for the shamefulness that our lives depicts? We should be ashamed to lay the death of our hopes, unalterable poverty among other things at their doorsteps knowing that like us, they are caught in a similar vortex of wantonness, mental and psychological handicaps. Even the whole world knows that the ruling class as we have it now, merely constitutes a tangle of thorns and forest shrubs; in time, they will wither and die off – if we cannot man up and clear them over.

    Our talk and dream is to become such men and women of character that Nigeria is yet to herald but behind our talk and fantasy lurks an afterthought and unavoidable reality of our inability to become the men and women of character that Nigeria deserves.

    We are no better than our “wasted” elders. For all the genius and vaunted depth of our self-styled youth leaders, the best we could do is rehash the idiocy and incapacities of our ruling class. Surface meets surface.

    • To be continued…

  • On the memoirs of Pa Victor Adetunji Haffner

    On the memoirs of Pa Victor Adetunji Haffner

    I should like to join previous speakers in commending and offering Pa Engineer Victor Adetunji Haffner my warmest congratulations on the public presentation of his remarkable and interesting memoirs, including his reflections on Nigeria from independence to 1999. He was a living witness and major player in the epochal events he so vividly describes in the memoirs. I have had a preview of the book and, at his personal invitation, I am delighted to make the following comments on his memoirs. In inviting me, he said I should speak for only 10 minutes. That is going to be difficult. But it is a measure of Pa Haffner’s modesty and disregard for humbug and protocol, despite his outstanding service to the nation as a telecommunications engineer of international repute.

    Pa Haffner’s antecedents are quite remarkable. He is a thorough bred Lagosian of creole descent. He was born at Haffner Street in Central Lagos on September 1, 1919. When he turned 95 last September, I gave him a copy of my own memoirs, not knowing that he had written one himself. The chairman of this occasion, Pa Akintola Williams was with him to celebrate the happy occasion with h8im. Pa Akintola Williams, is only a few weeks older than him. They were classmates at the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, from 1933-38 and have remained close friends. I think that of the 1938 class at the CMS Grammar, that also included the late legal icon, Chief Rotimi Williams, only the two of them are still alive alive. My late father, Chief Olagunju Asaolu Fafowora, who was their classmate at the school, passed on in 2003 at the age of only 88. It is a remarkable feat and achievement for him to have written his memoirs at such an advanced age. Unbelievably, his memory of the major events in his life, spanning nearly a century now, is still remarkably good. He has been blessed with good health, which he attributes to his genes. When he and his family were attacked by armed robbers in his Ikoyi home, he single handedly fought them back, wrestling their leader to the ground. In the process, he was shot and lost his left eye.

     Considering his distinguished family ancestry, one could say that he was born with a silver spoon and that with such a privileged background personal success for him was inevitable. But he has had to work very hard for his professional success as a telecoms engineer in a remarkable career that took him to the top as the first Nigerian Managing Director of Nigerian External Telecommunications (NET). He has an excellent pedigree of which he remains very proud. His father, Mr. Frederick Mathew Haffner, was a civil servant in the Lagos City Council during colonial rule. As he says in the memoirs, the family originally migrated to colonial Lagos from Freetown, Sierra Leone, after the abolition of slavery, when many of those who had been freed from slavery traced their roots back to either Lagos or Abeokuta. His grandfather was the brother of the distinuguished John Otunba Payne of the Orange House fame, a brilliant lawyer, the first African Registrar of the Supreme Court in Nigeria, and a church warden at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, Lagos. He was also the publisher of the famous Lagos Almanac, which was very much in demand in those days. His mother, Victoria Adepeju, was also a niece of John Otunba Payne. Remarkably too, Dr. Henry Rawlinson Carr, who graduated from Durham University at the tender age of only 19, and had such a brilliant career in the colonial civil service, was his grand uncle. When Pa Haffner was at the CMS Grammar School, he lived with Dr. Henry Carr, his grand uncle, at his mansion at Tinubu Square, Lagos. Dr. Carr was never married and regarded Pa Haffner as his adopted son. For a young lad, and given the fame and reputation of Dr. Henry Carr, this was a rare privilege which, no doubt, had a profound effect on him. Though an engineer, he is one of the most cultured professionals it has been my pleasure to know. This trait must have been passed on to him by Dr. Henry Carr. The old federal Ministry of Finance, now abandoned, was the site of Henry Carr’s residence. I knew it when I was growing up in Lagos. In 1928, at the age of 9, Dr. Carr encouraged and inspired him to join the choir of then Christ Church, Marina. That was when his love of music began. It was Dr. Carr that moved at an Anglican Synod in Lagos that Christ Church be elevated to a cathedral, and he became the first chancellor of the Anglican Diocese in Lagos

     To digress a bit, Dr. Henry Carr was a brilliant administrator in the colonial service and was appointed Inspector of schools, and later, the Resident for Lagos colony. In fact when the colonial Governor of Lagos went on leave, Dr. Henry Carr acted as the governor of Lagos. In his time, he was the highest ranking African in the colonial civil service. Because of his brilliance, the white colonial officials grudgingly accepted him as their intellectual equal and, in some cases, as even their superior. It is a pity that Dr. Henry Carr left no memoirs but he bequeathed his large library to the University College, Ibadan.

    Pa Haffner is a pioneer of the engineering profession in Nigeria. After his brilliant career at the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, the oldest secondary grammar school in Nigeria, having been founded in June, 1859, he proceeded to Northampton College, London (now City University), where he did the first part of his engineering course. After that he studied at the famous Regent Street Polytechnic (now Westminster University), graduating as a Chartered Engineer, and a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, specialising in telecommunications, the first in this field. He remained in England for a while, gaining further useful professional experience as a telecoms engineer with the British firms of Cable and Wireless and Standard telephones. It was from there that he was recruited in November by the colonial government in Nigeria as a Pupil Engineer in the old P&T

     In 1957, Pa Haffner married Grace Olubunmi Majekodunmi, from the well known and highly respected Majekodunmi family from Abeokuta. Regrettably, she predeceased him in 2007 at the age of 81.

    Now, these memoirs have to be seen in the context of the manner Nigeria evolved after its independence from colonial rule in 1960, and the role of the first generation of Nigerian engineers and other professionals in Nigeria’s development.

  • Lagos School of History: An exploratory discourse – 2

    What the Ibadan School of History was largely interested in was establishing the fact that Africa had a past that was worthy of study. In other words, they were following European tradition of history for history’s sake. Most of those involved in the development of this school were not concerned with functionality or application of the study of the African past to solve present problems. It is, however, fair to suggest that exponents of the Ibadan school believed in the continuity of human experience from the past to the present and that the past certainly informs the present and that the present can only be totally understood by studying the past and that the present will have an impact on the future. It will be unfair to say that the Ibadan School of History was only interested in the study of history as an intellectual and academic exercise only and that it was not concerned, with the use of history in solving problems that may face society. However, the question of relevance was not a major question. Critics have also accused the Ibadan School of History for not having been concerned with social and economic analysis whereas its main concern was Islamic and Christian proselytisation and colonialism generally and political issues especially the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires. Publications ascribed to the “Ibadan School” include the following; K.O. Dike Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830-1835 (Oxford, 1956), Akinjide Osuntokun Nigeria in the First World War (1979), B.O. Oloruntimehin The Segu Tuklor Empire (1972), Murray Last The Sokoto Caliphate (1977), T.G.O. Gbadamosi The Growth of Islam among the Yoruba 1841-1980 (1978), Fred I.A. Omu Press and Politics in Nigeria 1880-1937 (1978), Akitoye S. Adebanji Revolution and Power Politics in Yorubaland 1840-1893: Ibadan Expansion and the Rise of Ekitiparapo (1971), Tamuno Tekena N. The Evolution of the Nigerian State (1972), Omer-Cooper J.D. The Zulu Aftermath: A Nineteenth Century Revolution in Bantu Africa (1966), Freund Bill Capital and Labour in the Nigerian Tin Mines (1981), Ryder Alan F.C. Benin and Europeans 1485-1897 (1977), Cookey S.J. Sodienye Britain and the Congo Question 1855-1913 (1968), Adewoye Omoniyi The Judicial System in Southern Nigeria 1854-1954: Law and Justice in a Dependency (1977), Adeleye R.A. Power and Diplomacy in Northern Nigeria 1804-1906: The Sokoto Caliphate and its Enemies (1971), Yahya Dahiru Morocco in the Sixteenth Century (1981), Ajayi J.F.A. Christian Missions in Nigeria 1841-1891 (1965), Asiwaju A.I. Western Yorubaland under European Rule 1889-1945 (1976), J.A. Atanda The New Oyo Empire: Indirect Rule and Change in Western Nigeria 1894-1934 (1973), P.A. Igbafe Benin Under British Administration: The Impact of Colonial Rule on an African Kingdom (1978), A.E. Afigbo The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in Southeastern Nigeria 1891-1929 (1972), J.C. Anene The International Boundaries of Nigeria 1885-1960 (1970) and E.A. Ayandele Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria 1842-1914 (1966).

    The Ibadan School has been successful in its task of establishing the fact of African history and developing a body of literature to be used in historical pedagogy by teachers and providing literature for the reading public.

    The intellectual erudition of the exponents of the Ibadan School was noticed at home and abroad and many of the older scholars found themselves in the editorial boards of many overseas based distinguished journals as well as in councils and academic bodies on education including at one time Professor J.F. Ade-Ajayi serving as Chairman of Council of the United Nations’ University in Tokyo, Japan. Apart from Kenneth Dike who became the first African Vice Chancellor of the University Of Ibadan, others like J.F. Ade-Ajayi, Emmanuel Ayandele, Tekena Tamuno, S.J. Cookey, Omoniyi Adewoye became vice chancellors of Lagos, Calabar, Ibadan, Port Harcourt and Ibadan respectively. Others became federal ministers and state commissioners not necessarily in the areas related to the history in which they specialised. In other words, those who were appointed into political post did not bring any special knowledge arising from their research into the ministerial departments to which they were posted.  The Department of History of the University of Ibadan became a victim of its own success. The Ibadan scholars did not replicate or reproduce themselves and the department became denuded as a result of a high profile appointments of the academic staff to the extent that at one time the history programme at the fountain head of the Ibadan School of History suffered de-accreditation in the hands of the National Universities Commission. This was the greatest tragedy that could happen to Ibadan which in the 1960s and 1970s was designated centre of excellence in African history. Although things have changed for the better in Ibadan but the lingering effect of what happened to the School is still apparent even till today to the extent that Ibadan School of History has become history and hardly does anyone talk about it today.

    The Lagos School of History seems to have learnt some lessons from the Ibadan School. It did not deliberately set out to be different from the Ibadan School since in any case some of its leadership came from Ibadan and were initially those of its weakest link in the Ibadan School. But as time went on and because of its proximity to government, the academic staff of the University of Lagos, Department of History were individually and severally called upon to advise government on policies which government felt they had expertise and over time the academic staff in the University of Lagos’s Department of History began to see sense in applied history.

  • Mubi tragedy and PDP Abuja’s mockery of democracy

    President Jonathan, unlike PDP hawks and ethnic irredentists that have captured him is on the surface a complete gentleman whose words will be his honour. And unlike a politician, a man of many words to whom the end justifies the means, he cuts the picture of a pastor. He is patient, a rub-off virtue from his virtuous wife, Dame Patience Jonathan. He seduces everyone with the coy smiles of an innocent shoeless school boy. It is precisely for these reasons PDP needs him more than he needs PDP. And it is for this reason most people think he is unlikely to survive the wiles of PDP, the nemesis of his better gifted godfather, ex-President Obasanjo who realised too late after his third term fiasco the evil influence of sycophants and appropriately admonished his godson to stay clear of them. But tragically for the nation, President Jonathan has been captured by the same forces that destroyed his predecessors who were first persuaded to believe that without them, there would be no Nigeria. He now truly believes he is the best that has ever happened to Nigeria, ‘the embodiment of the combined virtues of our founding fathers’, as Ebenezer Babatope recently claimed. Like Babangida, Abacha and Obasanjo, he now believes Nigeria will disintegrate without him. He has been conditioned by PDP to see anyone that tries to wake him up from this illusion as enemy envious of his achievements and set to derail his 2015 ambition. Elevated to a status of an oligarch, he like all oligarchs even in democracy now believes he is wiser than any other person in the nation. Worse still, even as the insurgents are perfecting strategies to dismember Nigeria, he believes he has fought it into a standstill and that grateful Nigerians are begging him to continue with the good work…He now sees what he wants to see-his own invincibility

    This much is what one can draw from the mockery of democracy which best described the president’s act of picking up of PDP’s only available nomination form in Abuja last week. After picking up the only available application form, the president thanked Nigerians and PDP for the confidence reposed in him by giving him the right of first refusal. He promised to achieve greater things for the country. He went on to ‘thank PDP Governors Forum for providing the N2 million for the procurement of the expression of interest form and the N20 million for the procurement of the nomination form. He was silent on the fact that the generous PDP governors also secured the right of first refusal. He concluded by thanking ‘TAN for providing N22 million for the nomination form, as well as  youths groups, women groups and students for their contribution for the procurement of the form’

    The farce was captured by The Guardian on page three of its October 31, edition by a resourceful production editor who juxtaposed the celebration of the president victory with the gory story of anguish, of sorrow and of pain; of destruction of homes, of families who cannot find their loved ones, of bodies strewn around the streets ,of helpless men and children lying helpless without help in the bush; of soldiers allegedly escaping to Cameroon leaving the residents of the city to face the wrath of Boko Haram brutes.(Cameroon has already admitted having in their protective custody about 300 soldiers).

    But first, the president’s victory.  The path to his victory like that of Boko Haram in Mubi last week was strewn with carcasses of vanquished political enemies. Prominent among them is Obasanjo, his estranged godfather. His hollow cry that it was the turn of the north to produce the president going by PDP constitution to which both he and Jonathan were beneficiaries, was ignored. The price for telling Nigerians his own side of the story was his substitution as South-west PDP rallying point with the president’s trusted friends- Buruji Kashamu, Segun Mimiko and Gbenga Daniel who recently crawled back to PDP from Labour Party after four years of EFCC harassment and of course Ayo Fayose who has threatened to expel Obasanjo from PDP if he fails to desist from his criticism of the party.

    Also listed among his vanquished political enemies was the Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF), whose leadership had in July issued October deadline to Jonathan to bring back the abducted Chibok girls and put a stop to Boko Haram and other violent killings or forget about 2015. Jonathan had dismissed the threat insisting ‘he needed no ultimatum from anybody to live up to his responsibilities to the Nigerian people.’  Similarly ignored is the body’s insistence that “it is the turn of the north to produce the president.

    Another loser is the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF). The body’s allegation  that “most of the crisis plaguing the North is a deliberate ploy to weaken the region economically and politically’  has  been controverted by another body from the north- The Transformation Agenda Solidarity Forum, (TASOF) led by a former chairman of the Federal Character Commission, Alhaji Muhhamadu Gwaska. According to him, “TSAOF has noted with revulsion the unguarded utterances of some mischief makers who masquerade as northern elders and pretend to speak for the entire North regarding the political future of this country.”

    But then a critical look at the crusaders behind the president’s victory. Leading the crusade is Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) which claims its objective is ‘to celebrate Jonathan’s sterling human qualities, democratic credentials and landmark accomplishments that are currently under marketed and under advertised’.  It defines itself as a non-governmental organization made up of “individuals of impeccable character”. A leading member of the amorphous group as speculated by the media is Patrick Ifeanyi Uba whose Capital Oil and Gas firm was recently taken over by AMCON following a debt of about N65billion. That was after his running battle with EFCC and Cosmas Maduka’s Choscharis over business deals that went sour.

    Others known members include billionaire oil magnate and PDP chieftain, Arthur Eze, who declared during a meeting of the Elders’ Advisory Council of Goodluck Support Group in Abuja last week that ‘President Jonathan reelection is not negotiable’. On the list also is Innocent Chukwuma, a businessman and owner of Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company Limited, who donated 24 vehicles to Goodluck Support Group during the same ceremony.

    Now let us return to The Guardian’s record of events for history. According to the paper, as at 2pm Thursday October 30, when, the president and PDP were celebrating the farce in Abuja, Mubi had been under Boko Haram siege for two days. The paper reported over 200 killed, the torching of Mubi central market, 19 police stations, banks and the Mubi central prison where over 400 prisoners were liberated. It reported that the bridge linking the emir’s palace with Cameroon was blown off.

    In a globalised world where millions saw the video recording of how Obama and his cabinet members monitored from the White House the killing of Osama Bin Laden in his hideout in Afghanistan,  the only plausible explanation for the October 30 mockery of democracy could only be that the president was shielded by PDP from October 29-30  Mubi tragedy.  Even if the president does not know what is in his own interest, how about those paid by the taxpayers to shield him by protecting him from himself?

    We can recall it is the same PDP enemies of our country and enemy of the president who once goaded him on to commandeer three aircrafts bought and fuelled by the nation’s taxpayers to ferry PDP members to Ilorin, Sokoto and Kano to welcome defecting politicians shortly after Abuja Inyanya  bus terminus bombing that killed scores of Nigerians. It is the same self-serving PDP men who appeared on television blaming everyone else except government for the abduction of 300 girls from their dormitory and driven over a distance of 200 kilometres within a state under emergency laws. These are the men who persuaded the president to deploy 12,000 security personnel to intimidate and brutalise the opponent of the PDP candidate during the recent Osun governorship election. These men serve neither Jonathan nor Nigeria.

    I don’t think it is too late for men of good will to save our nation from the impending doom. Credible members of the Council of State like Gowon can for a moment take a break from endless prayers bearing in mind God’s admonition that we will all reap what we sow. He can mobilize other credible leaders like Emeka Anyaoku, Theophilus Danjuma,  Maitama Sule, Shettima Ali Mongono and  Ayo Adebanjo, to talk truth to power and see how we can reclaim our nation back from those who have no state in Nigeria. And time is running out. With Boko Haram controlling nine local councils area in Borno State, we should not wait until the fall of Maiduguri from where Boko Haram can launch aerial attack on any part of the country.

  • Cry, raped country! – 2

    Nigeria is revving itself up for something big and earth-shaking – something that does not look good at all. We Nigerians can change it; but we will not. From all directions, the holders of irreconcilably extreme positions are beating the war drums.

    A former Head of State, General Buhari, arguably – and in fairness – one of the best of Nigeria’s former Heads of State,and a well-known Muslim leader in his own right, signs up to seek his party’s nomination for the 2015 presidential election. Surprisingly, even from his own home base, mighty guns are booming to shoot him down. From there, significant members of the ethnic and religious elite violently reject him, and call on the powers of heaven to push him off from running for the presidency. The loudest of their feared ulama, the renowned Ahmad Gumi, favours us Nigerians with an exposition of the philosophy behind their rejection of Buhari. Gumi says that a major part of their reason is that, though corruption is a bad thing, Buhari’s ousting of the Shagari presidency for its corruption, and Buhari’s war on corruption thereafter, offends God and cannot be forgiven by God!

    “Don’t be surprised” Gunmi tells Buhari. “You may need to understand that Islam being a pragmatic religion allows the use of Zakkat and public wealth as an instrument to pacify and lure influential people for the sake of righteousness, peace and stability. In modern governance today it translates into the security vote.Thus men are also controlled by money. So if your policy of governance is obsessibly centered on sealing tight the use of money you will have great problem with men”.

    In short, God opposes Buhari’s candidacy because Buhari is prone to seeing corruption as an evil that must be eliminated, instead of seeing it as an evil that can be used to “lure” men into the ruler’s religion and into submission to a designed order of control. The military governments, all led by Northern Muslims, that created Nigeria’s present institution of “security vote”, he says,  did so in order to give Nigeria’s rulers large amounts of money to use to convert and subdue Nigerians – without having to fear any auditing. Since Buhari is very likely to “seal tight” the use of money for corruption, Buhari is very likely to “have great problem with men”.

    Thus, the opposition to Buhari’s candidacy among the inner caucus of the Arewa North elite is too ideologically rooted and too solid to be willed away – in fact, too solid to be dispelled by Buhari’s victory in an election. At the heart of what they obviously want is a full return to unlimited Northern control – to a president like Shagari or Babangida, in the hands of whom corruption will be used powerfully to subvert and emasculate the elite of all parts of Nigeria, while the government goes on diverting resources unfairly to the North, using the powers of the federal government to subdue the rest of Nigeria to Fulani control, to pursue an agenda of “full Islamization” of Nigeria, to further weaken the principle of federalism, and to further reinforce  federal control over every aspect of our lives and our country’s resources.

    They are in effect serving notice that if Buhari wins, they will give him “great problem” – and Nigeria knows what that can mean from past experiences. Those who have been threatening war and mayhem as means to the solution of Nigeria’s problems, and who have been serving notice that they will “kill, maim, and destroy”, must be counted upon as meaning what they are saying.Some of them admit, at least indirectly, that Boko Haram is an instrument of theirs; others say that, in addition, a Mujaheeden militia is ready to go into action. These are no ordinary times; leaders who count only on success through politics-as-usual in the coming situation are preparing a feast of suffering and pain for their own people.

    The same Northern inner caucus that absolutely rejects Buhari also rejects Jonathan absolutely. In fact, Jonathan is, for the purpose of the 2015 presidential election, their Great Satan. The only kind of presidential candidate that will be acceptable to them is a Hausa-Fulani Muslim candidate selected on the platform of their old PDP before Jonathan – rather than one selected on the platform of the APC. In bits and pieces, information is coming out in the open media about their preparations for the moment when Jonathan secures the nomination of his party for another term – preparations including massive legal challenges of Jonathan’s candidacy in the courts, massive riots and attacks on southerners resident in the North, Boko Haram and Mujaheeden strikes across Nigeria, and even an attempt at a military take-over.

    Quite naturally, these extreme demands are forcing opposing extreme responses to evolve. Stories of an arms build-up in the South-south have surfaced repeatedly in the media for over three years. Many prominent citizens of the South-south have warned seriously against any attack on the Jonathan presidency, or insisted that, for 2015, it is either Jonathan or ‘No Nigeria’ – and warned Jonathan not to think of giving up or caving in. And hardly any informed or observant Nigerian doubts today that the South-south peoples, plus perhaps the Igbo who have been the principal beneficiaries of the Jonathan presidency, are ready to fight it out this time.

    Some of Jonathan’s men have tried feebly to widen his support in the South, and to nurture an all-Southern solidarity. But he has never invested any serious loyalty into the effort. For the most part, about the only peoples he wants in critical positions in his government – especially positions relating to the management of Nigeria’s economy – are, first, the Igbo and, second,  the South-south peoples. Even some among the South-south elite are said to be complaining about this imbalance. Some Yoruba (like Dr. Adesina Akinwumi, Federal Minister of Agriculture) are known to be giving excellent service in their positions, but, on the whole, there is not much reason for the Yoruba nation to feel  welcome in the Jonathan presidency – a situation that leaves many able Yoruba who would have wished to rally around Jonathan impotent.

    As the hostile divide between the hostile warriors of the two extreme positions grows and threatens to destroy Nigeria in 2015, the Yoruba position holds the only possibility of peaceful resolution and Nigeria’s survival. As a nation, the Yoruba want a secular modern Nigeria in which religion shall be kept out of governance, the individual shall be free to hold and propagate the faith of his choice, the nationalities shall be respected in the making of the states of the federation, the allocation of powers and resources shall enable each state to promote its economic development competently, and the federal government shall ably supervise inter-state relations, represent Nigeria in the world, and defend Nigeria.

    Obviously, what Nigeria desperately needs is that this Yoruba position be accepted by all Nigerians. Among the two extreme sides, whichever side accepts and adopts this position is likely to win the overwhelming adherence of the Yoruba – and more likely to win the 2015 presidential election and save Nigeria. But – that is not likely to happen. Confusion, conflict and disaster are more likely. It is sad.

  • This shameful thing that is happening…

    As you read, a shameful thing is recurring; men in their teens are meeting to determine the fate of the Nigerian State. Apology to teens, for many a teen have been proven to possess the intellect and soul of a man of 40 and above. It is amusing to see the so-called best amongst us: career youth leaders, activists, journalists, actors, musicians, artisans, professional associations and so on, court the devils we swore to divorce.

    Today, such characters parade themselves as representatives and spokespersons for the Nigerian youth. They are meeting with representatives of the ruling party and its rivals. They meet to chart a game plan; an almighty formula by which the ruling class may enslave us, for the umpteenth time.

    That has to pale in the face of logic; it does. Things are supposed to be different now but they aren’t. As the 2015 elections draw near, familiar trolls are joining hands with the devious and sly amongst us; their intent is to use us against us in their customary plot to rob us silly. The end result of course, can be better imagined.

    Money changes everything. It vitiates the soul of the Nigerian youth. Although the need of it makes us human, loving it could be practical but an obsession with it drives us to the brink, it shows us up, upside-down and inside-out; as men of vulpine souls and intellect, eternally forsworn to despise honour for the love of mammon and associated luxury.

    Many have argued that we can never sell out by playing muscle to the ruling class. “We are only enjoying our share of our collective wealth that they steal from us,” they claim, even as we get ready to be courted and plied with easy money and other inducement, by the same politicians that habitually treat us with disdain, until the elections approach.

    Whatever justification we choose to give to it, a bribe is a bribe. And more often than not, it changes relations. Once accepted, it vitiates a large chunk of the essence of the recipient, making him inferior, like a man who has paid to lie with a skunk the same way the impotent pays to be sodomized by a horse, thinking it would cure him of his impotence and aid him to sire by a woman, a blessed child.

    The folly of our ways shall soon dawn on us, as it did, few days after we installed the current dispensation. The meek and humble leadership we thought we had installed evolved to become one of the worst tyrannies Nigeria would ever produce. It’s worse than any other, given Mr. President’s manipulability by the murder of crows he has surrounded himself with.

    A brilliant tyrant could be trusted to a certain degree of depth and capacity to lead but a manipulable tyrant is infinitely more dangerous, as he cannot be trusted beyond his blandness, intellectual handicaps and devious plots of his coven of cronies, advisers and kitchen cabinet.

    Sadly, in the corrupted currents of the world such men have foisted upon us, we can only devise more alluring ways to play dumb and project our generation as easy marks for the ruling class to exploit. The current liaisons between the ruling class and the so-called representatives of the Nigerian youth portend an ominous development.

    It presages the continued enslavement of the Nigerian youth and our incapacitation by obscene inducements and gifts of grandeur; the perpetuation of a system in which the youth are psychologically confined and broken by financial inducements, dubious segregation and manipulative politics; a situation in which the sentimental fops amongst us are programmed by rumors, innuendo and outright falsehood to shun the path to progress and tow the fast lane to destruction.

    Many argue that the major problem afflicting Nigeria is the dearth of inspired leadership drawn from the nation’s youth. A converse view advances the presence of eminently capable persons out there, many of whom have failed to altruistically and responsibly apply themselves because like every other Nigerian, they are too busy looking out for themselves. Potential heroes we could rely on have learnt the wisdom in keeping silent. They tactfully scoff at our romanticized wish to abolish the status quo, knowing that, as usual, we would settle for an opportunistic contract between our exploiters (the government) and a part of the exploited (labour and youth leadership), at the expense of the rest of the exploited (you, me and everyone) – something Noel Ignatin aptly identifies as “the original sweetheart agreement.”

    I recommend as usual, peaceful revolt guided by probity and a conscious quest to achieve the collective good within the ambit of fairness, equity and unflinching morality. Without such humane attributes, every measure we adopt will fail. Policies and practicable solutions are mere words on paper; they can only be activated by our conscious efforts to actualize them.

    Mr. President, the National Assembly, the judiciary, our 36 State governors and political parties are indisputably worthless and impotent without the support of the Nigerian youth. These societal creatures depend on our goodwill to survive. It’s about time we stopped playing disposable muscles and junkyard dogs to them.

    Money and other inducements they dangle before us shall be exhausted sooner than we can ever imagine. If we are indeed serious about installing visionary leadership capable of steering us from the threshold of ruin to the portal of hope and social renaissance, we have to start now.

    The Nigerian youth needs a platform. We need a more concrete forum than Facebook and Twitter. We need to create a rallying point by which we could sit to determine a bloodless path to a promising future. Yes, the current leadership won’t relinquish power easily hence our need to act. Let us identify and vote into power that particular breed whose idealism and pragmatism capably understands our painful silences and heartfelt dreams in order to speak and actualize them.

    Let us begin to ignore those who would desert us no sooner than they regain their hold on power. I speak of men and women that would recoil into their exclusive homes in Banana Island, Lagos, their palatial estates in Abuja, and fashionable neighbourhoods in Europe at the barest sign of chaos. There, they isolate themselves from the tragedies that mar our world by indulging in unrestrained hedonism and extravagant consumption of their ill-acquired wealth. We, the suffering masses are however, repressed with greater ferocity every time we protest.

    Our resources are being depleted; soon they will be exhausted. And then our hollowed-out edifice shall collapse. Impoverished and severely robbed of optimism, we, the hopeless masses will rise against the ruling class in a premeditated and very savage strike – of which we shall suffer the worst consequence.

    Like in all such uprisings, Nigeria will plunge into a canyon of blood and maniacal murders, in the name of the “revolution.”  The Roman and Sumerian empires fell this way. The Mayan elite became, at the end, as the anthropologist Ronald Wright notes in A Short History of Progress, “…extremists, or ultraconservatives, squeezing the last drops of profit from nature and humanity.” This is how all civilizations ossify and collapse.

    Today, we tow a similar path.

  • A pilgrim’s supplication

    A pilgrim’s supplication

    And it came to pass on the 24th day of the month of October in the year of our Lord 2014. President Goodluck Jonathan, who is also known as Ebele Azikiwe (JP), embarked on spiritual peregrination in Israel.

    His itinerary was unknown, except to the small group of Pentecostal giants and cabinet members on his entourage. Trust Nigerians. They are not satisfied with the television clips and pictures of the pilgrimage. Ever so curious, they have been asking questions about the trip, a purely private matter.

    Why travel to the holy land now? Was it to seek some ethereal sanctification for his political future? Was it to petition the Almighty to take over the battle against Boko Haram, the sect that has committed murdersand rights abuses on a scale beyond human comprehension, even as there seems to be no let-up in its bloody campaign? What did His Excellency discuss with God?

    So many were the questions that “Editorial Notebook” decided to seek answers from usually reliable sources. One of such sources, a man who claims to be versed in telepathy and necromancy, but who has never really proved himself, swore that he could by his strange trade, which many have described as utter charlatanism,  relay the events of the last few days in the holy land. He dwelt, particularly, on what he described as Jonathan’s petition to God.

    There was no independent confirmation of the story as all members of the presidential entourage declined to comment on the events, claiming that it was all a private matter. It was as if they swore to an oath of secrecy.

    In any case, here goes the account of our man, the Oyingbo necromancer, who dared anybody to fault his details:

    And the Lord appeared to Jonathan in a dream by night: And God said, ask what I shall give thee.

    And Jonathan said: Thou hast shown unto thy servant great mercy – from an unknown teacher to deputy governor, governor, vice president and now president. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people, a great people, great in number and greater in intrigues. Now, many of them are saying I should quit the throne which thou, in thine infinite mercy, has given unto me. Ehm…ehm…I don’t need to hide anything from you. Things have not been easy at home. When I took office, I thought it was going to be smooth and easy all the way, but, Father, it is rough o; too many challenges.

    The Lord replied in a deep, clear voice that only the deep and the privileged few could decipher: My son, what exactly would you like me to do for you?

    Jonathan: Simple, my father. My tenure will soon expire. I want another term. There are so many unfinished matters. There are many hurdles here and there – security issues, which I am confronting; corruption, which everybody knows that I hate but my opponents insist I have refused to fight; poor infrastructure – I have been repairing our collapsed roads and I have awarded contracts to ensure that the airports are glittering – and many other problems.  My people are so difficult to please; they ganged up against the woman I put in charge of the airports, accusing her of buying a N255 million bullet proof car. Poor woman. I was forced to sack her.

    Please, tell the people to realise that I’m trying my best; they should give me another chance.

    Have you put your house in order? Are your people happy? Why seek another term if the current term is so turbulent?

    Thank you, Lord. My people are insatiable. It is all politics. I am trying my best. See the way I have been fighting Boko Haram. The way those boys started, if not for my agility, they would have moved beyond the Northeast, where they are occupying just a few towns and some villages. Now I have got the go-ahead to borrow $1 billion for weapons. Some of my people, who will always see politics in everything and nothing good in my administration, have started crying that the money is for 2015. Please, tell them to have patience.

    Patience, your wife? What has she got to do with this?

    No, father. I don’t mean the First Lady. Nigerians should take it easy with me. They are always accusing me of politicking while, as they say, many are hungry and angry. These are people who know how much I have spent to encourage cassava farmers o. They know that we will one day stop importing rice, with the kind of programme that I am putting in place. Cassava bread, which they claim is only seen at the villa, will soon be available to all. So, I don’t see why they should deny me another term.

    There are so many problems. Too much blood. Boko Haram is at its peak of savagery. Instead of releasing the 219 innocent girls they have abducted, they have been taking more hostages. These are people you swore to protect. Kidnappers are back. Robbers are on the loose. Who will save my people?

    Lord, you are the one that appoints kings. Power belongs to you and you give it to whosoever you favour. Give me. There are Goliaths everywhere; very terrible Goliaths, the ones that can even kill their father, their mother, their children in order to stop government. And they are willing to do it, but surely with you, God, we will conquer them.

    Every Goliath has an exposed forehead; all the Goliaths that are stumbling blocks to the development of this country. You will expose their foreheads for the stone of David.

    My security people have assured me that they know where the girls are and that they will bring them back home. The problem is that we don’t want any casualty. That is why I have begun talks with the insurgents. That one too has brought up another problem; they say I am negotiating because I want to declare my intention to contest next year’s election, that I want to use the girls’ matter as a campaign issue and that I used to say that Boko Haram was faceless. See how cynical my people can be?

    How do I explain that it is to you that I have given power again? You have not pleased the people I have asked you to rule over. Search thy heart; have you done well?

      For me, and I believe for the governors that are here with me, we are mere mortals. As mere mortals, we are not insulated from errors. There may be faults or failures. But, one thing that I know is that you, God, will not allow me to do anything that will not be in the best interest of the country.

    Some Nigerians still want the President to be a lion or a tiger. I don’t need to be a lion. I don’t need to be a Nebuchadnezzar. I don’t need to operate like the Pharaoh of Egypt. And I don’t need to be an army general. I can change this country without those traits.

    By the way, why did you not stay in Nigeria to pray to me? I am everywhere. I am the Lord. I can do all things. Didn’t I save you from Ebola? Instead of being grateful, you turned it all into another political debate.

    No, my Lord and Saviour. I did not. My aides, those whom you have given me to work with, did. I never did. I swear.

    Never you swear. Just make your point. Remember, you are now a Justice of Peace (JP).

    In fact, I told Nigerians that we should be united, that if we unite and fight all our problems the way we fought Ebola, all will be well with us, but they won’t listen.

    Behold, I would have done according to thy words. But, here is the truth: Another tenure need not thee, but a wise and understanding heart. Wisdom, as I gave my servant Solomon. There was none like him before him and after him has none arisen. Will you listen?

    And Jonathan awoke; and, behold it was a dream. And he returned to Nigeria.

    Tambuwal’s smart move and PDP’s tears

    IT was long expected. But the long expectation did not mitigate the effect. It came not with a whimper but a bang. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is left reeling, like a careless farmer stung by a band of bees. Dazed.
    There is no need for the PDP to mourn House Speaker Aminu Tambuwal’s defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC). It is an opportunity for some introspection. Wasn’t the PDP implosion long predicted? Why are the party’s best taking flight? Ideological incertitude? Plain insincerity? Frustration?
    The cycle seems to be closing on Africa’s biggest party and its dream of ruling for 60 years is melting away like ice cream under the scorching sun. The yoke has become so unbearable for Nigerians – impunity as state policy, insecurity, corruption and all that mess – and the wise have seen the sign. It is as white as snow. Clear.
    Under Tambuwal, the tempestuous House has been stable. The Executive has been put on its toes. Talk of good leadership. The PDP should stop bragging; it should nurse its wound in peace. Any attempt to scupper Tambuwal’s House will draw more sympathy for him. A word is enough for the wise, as they say. But how many are the wise?

  • Lagos School Of History: An exploratory discourse – 1

    The Lagos and Ibadan Schools of History are not as definable as the Marxist School of economic determinism or historical materialism. Both Schools of History are rooted not in ideology but in pragmatism and historical methodology. It should be clear from the above statement that neither the Ibadan nor the Lagos Schools of History is a building that one can see in Ibadan or Lagos; they are also not totally synonymous with the academic departments of history in the universities in both towns. They are however, the academic approach to the purpose of history or what John Tosh in his book Why History Matters (2008) calls applied history. There was no deliberate attempt to create schools but the end products of their research and their utility value was what for better choice of words, have become known as either the Ibadan or Lagos Schools of History. The two schools are also not sharply divided and there are overlaps because even some of the prominent exponents of the Lagos School came from Ibadan or from outside Nigeria. And just as the Ibadan School influenced the Lagos School, the Lagos School in recent times has reciprocated the favour. But over time, just as in Ibadan, the approach to historical scholarship in both schools has taken on separate characters of their own. The Ibadan School is not distinguishable from the Western historical approach which it strains very hard to break away from. The reliance on multidisciplinary approach and the use of oral sources are now embraced by Western historiography which hitherto had been nurtured on written documentation. The Lagos School is in fact a melange of the Ibadan School and its own functional and applied history and policy relevance. But there is no doubt however that while the Ibadan historical orthodoxy is dying, the Lagos functional approach is thriving and attracting more students and policy attention because of its relevance. The Lagos School does not go out to conduct research with the aim of applicability of its findings ab initio but the outcome of its research and writing present policy makers paradigmic options not in terms of history repeating itself but in terms of comparison with what happened in the past. The modernity of historical research in Lagos also provides allied disciplines in the social sciences particularly economics, political science and sociology foundational basis from which to see the problems facing Nigeria. The Ibadan School’s success is basic to the new approach in Lagos to research, writing and methodology but the approach and choice of research topics in Ibadan in the past until recently is seen more as antiquarianism in Lagos where relevance seems to be now an article of faith.

    The first generation of academic historians in Nigeria led by Kenneth Onwuka Dike and including Professors Saburi Biobaku and J.F. Ade-Ajayi and supported by their colleagues particularly in the University of Ibadan’s Department of History and later by sister Departments of History in the then University of Ife and later by some of the staff of the Department of History in Ahmadu Bello University and the University of Lagos were seized of the task of creating and defining African history. There were also centres of academic study of African history in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) led by Professors Rowland Oliver and Richard Grey. Other centres for the same purpose exist in the University of Wisconsin at Madison led by Professor Phillip D. Curtin as well as the Centre for West African Studies in Birmingham led by Professor J.D. Fage. Even within apartheid South Africa especially at the University of Cape Town were people engaged in academic pursuit of African history. Various journals such as the Journal of Historical Society of Nigeria (JHSN) and the Journal of African History (JAH) published by the Cambridge University Press sprang up to provide medium of expression for cutting edge research in African historical scholarship. In later years, the study of African history took its pride of place in many European and American universities particularly in such places as the University of Hamburg in Germany and the University of California (UCLA) in Los Angeles. Excitement about African history can be correlated with the emergence of sovereign African states in the global community in the 1960s. It was then fashionable for African history to be taught in the unlikeliest places including Oxford University, the same university where Hugh Trevor Roper had arrogantly declared that there was no such thing as African history. Unfortunately, the promise of Africa has remained unfulfilled and consequently there has been a wane in the study and teaching of African history in many countries. Secondly, African history is more or less a victim of its success because there is no point any longer in declaring that Africa has a history because this is now an accepted fact.

    The pioneers of African history at the University of Ibadan were driven by the mission to assert the fact that Africa had a past that was worth studying in universities. On the eve of independence and immediately after independence the curriculum of the Department of History at the University of Ibadan was largely the same as that of the University of London because the University of Ibadan started as a constituent college of the University of London. Most of the courses taught were European and English history and what was called European expansion overseas as well as the history of the Commonwealth. Even American history was hardly taught. But in the drive to give confidence to the new leaders of the country, the development of African historiography became an imperative necessity. Furthermore it sounded a little bit out of place for a department of history in an African university not to be totally involved in researching and teaching the African past. The problem of reconstructing the African past lay in the fact that there was scarcity of written documents apart from travellers’ accounts of Arabs and a few Dutch and Portuguese explorers and the Ajami scripts found in Islamic part of the West African Sudan as well as Arabic scripts in the Eastern Sudan, the Maghreb, and Egypt. Ethiopia of course had documents in Ge’ez and Amharic from which the past of Ethiopia could be gleaned. Black Africa generally did not have a written civilisation and this presented historians a challenge especially since Western historiography on which the academic historians in Ibadan were trained was based on written documentation. Hence, the challenge was a challenge of adaptation of their training to the elucidation of the African past based on oral tradition, archaeology, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, ethno-zoology and ethno-botany and other sciences that could be enlisted to throw light on the African past. The approach therefore to the writing of history in Ibadan was multi-disciplinary. It was based on collection of data from different sources and subjecting them to rigorous analysis. The post graduate school of the department of history at Ibadan was based on this tradition. The teachers who established the school were Western trained historians who decided to apply their training to the creation of what J.D. Homer Cooper and Love Joy have described as a “nationalist school of history”.

  • Cry, raped country!

    For my column last week, I chose the title: “Nigeria refuses to take heed”. I opened with the paragraph: “In the history of the world, there must be very few countries that have been frequently and persistently warned about their impending collapse as Nigeria is being warned. At home and abroad, very many persons, including statesmen, intellectuals, journalists, ordinary citizens of Nigeria at home and abroad, etc, some of them people of goodwill who are interested in Nigeria’s well-being and success, are warning that Nigeria could soon disintegrate”. And I closed as follows: “Unhappily, and very unfortunately for Nigeria, the men and women who guide the Nigerian ship of state choose to ignore all the warnings – determined to continue to manage the affairs of their country in their accustomed, destructive, ways…It is as if a huge and malevolent force has grabbed Nigeria in its grip and is pushing or pulling Nigeria through an evil whirlwind towards some sort of predetermined cataclysm!”

    In the background to my writing those words and these – in the background of all our lives as Nigerians these days – the unbelievable drama of influential Nigerians raping and degrading Nigeria goes on unrestrained. It is surrealistic. It is as if we Nigerians are a sub-human sub-species of the human species – incapable of recognizing, appreciating or desiring the higher values of human life, and confidently absorbed in snatching at, and scrambling for, whatever is low and degrading, and only appetite-satisfying, in the making of man.

    “Cry, Raped Country” will be my theme in this column in the next few weeks. I am starting today by calling on Nigerians to cry over the inhuman ways in which our leaders have brutalized the lives of the people of our Niger Delta, the source of almost all our country’s income today.

    From the general picture of rape and bestialities, a photograph displayed on the worldwide web grabs and holds my attention this morning. It is a photograph taken in our oil-rich Niger Delta in 2012, near the village of Nembe in Bayelsa State. The earth and the vegetation in all directions are black from oil spillages that have, apparently, been going on repeatedly for decades. The stream through the scene carries a surface layer of black crude oil. It is lifeless and serene, because the oil has long killed the fish, the frogs, and all other aquatic life. Dead trees stand like ghostly witnesses to the devastation that we have done in this place. In the distance, a wild fire rages on –most probably from some natural gas being destroyed by flaring.

    Thus in one single snapshot, this lone photograph captures the multi-faceted picture of our brigandage and shame as a country. Our Niger Delta produces virtually all the enormous revenues that keep our Nigeria alive. But we are content to let the Niger Delta die, and to let its inhabitants perish. From privileged positions as a Nigerian Senator and member of the Senate Committee on Petroleum and Energy in 1979-83, I saw some of the beginning of the environmental degradation of the Niger Delta in 1982, and I was horrified. From all accounts, the situation has grown progressively worse since then. Worldwide economic experts and international agencies say that the Niger Delta probably experiences more oil spillages than all the other oil-producing countries of the world put together.

    Because our leaders and rulers are too busy salivating at the sight of the enormous cash flowing daily form the oil revenues, and too engrossed in schemes for stealing the money, they have no room for concern for the destruction that is going on in the Niger Delta. Various courts, Nigerian and international, have judged at various times that some of the major oil-exploring and oil-mining companies engaged in the Delta do too little to prevent oil spillages, and do virtually nothing to clean up after oil-spillages have happened – things they would never dare in other parts of the world. They leave the oil pipe-lines which they have constructed across the face of the Delta to age, corrode and break, spilling countless barrels of crude oil per minute – sometimes for months. Nigerian government sources have it that more than 7,000 spills occurred between the years 1970 and 2000. In a report issued in the 1980s, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) admitted, “We witnessed the slow poisoning of the waters of this country and the destruction of vegetation and agricultural land by oil spills which occur during petroleum operations. But since the inception of the oil industry in Nigeria, more than twenty-five years ago, there has been no concerned and effective effort on the part of the government, let alone the oil operators, to control environmental problems associated with the industry”.

    The situation has hardly changed today. Moreover, more and more in recent times, the impoverished folks of the Niger Delta have been pushed into contributing to the oil spillages – through the practice known as “bunkering”. To find ways to survive at all, daring youths from the villages started to risk their lives to venture into the dangerous terrains in order to steal crude oil for sale, usually having to sabotage the oil pipe-lines to achieve their purpose.According to some reports, this practice has grown into a big underground industry, and is still growing.

    The general situation in the Delta is made worse by the practice of gas flaring. Natural gas is commonly associated with petroleum in the ground, and is commonly released when the oil is mined. In most other oil-producing places in the world, care is taken to tap the gas for sale or to re-inject it back into the earth. Oil fields in Europe take care of 99% of the associated natural gas in these ways. But in Nigeria, all the associated gas is destroyed by flaring away. It is estimated that, in this way, Nigeria loses about $2.5 billion every year. But gas flaring also increases the poisoning of the country and constitutes a serious threat to the people’s health. Both the Nigerian government and the oil companies readily agree that oil flaring is bad, wasteful and dangerous, but no effective step has ever been taken to curtail it.

    The destruction of much of the Delta’s farming land, and the poisoning of the rivers and creeks, resulting in the wiping out of fish in large parts, has destroyed much of the traditional means of livelihood of the people. It is estimated that over 10% of the ecosystem has been thus destroyed – and that the destruction may reach 40% in the next few decades. An international agency, Amnesty International, estimates that more than 70% of the citizens of the Niger Delta live on less than one US Dollar per day. The oil spills do not only destroy farmlands, crops and fishing places, they also contaminate drinking water sources. And such contamination poses very serious dangers of disease (especially cancers) to the people.

    In summary, Nigeria is grossly unfortunate in its leaders and governments. God gave Nigeria abundant means to prosper; but the Devil hijacked the persons who rose to leadership positions among Nigerians and turned them into monstrously greedy self-seekers – and destroyers of their people.

  • Between Jonathan, Mimiko and Obi

    Politics either as a pursuit of power to establish order and justice, or to resolve conflicts over cultural differences and the sharing of scarce resources in society, is a noble calling. Unfortunately because of the distasteful activities of some members of Nigeria governing elite since the outset of the fourth republic, many have come to regard politics as an ignoble vocation where principles and honour are routinely traded for political expediency and where the end justifies the means. The events in the last one week tend to give ammunition to those who erroneously view all politicians as scoundrels who wallow in corruption and other forms of immoral behaviour. For instance, after two years of playing the ostrich, President Jonathan has finally admitted that he was going to contest. Similarly, a serial ‘cross-carpeter’, Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo whose re-election Obasanjo had alleged, was supported by President Jonathan at the expense of his party’s candidate as a trade-off for future support for his ambition, exhibited an art he has perfected – trading for positions Then Peter Obi, erstwhile APGA governor of Anambra who boasted of having installed another APGA governor, an installation many Nigerians know was aided by the president, decamped to work for the president’s re-election.

    Most Nigerians were not taken by surprise when newspapers’ reports late last week claimed that “President Jonathan has moved to formalise his re-election process with the constitution of a declaration committee” in order to beat an ultimatum from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the party that had already adopted and endorsed him as its sole candidate. The endorsement followed a circus show around the country during which about eight million signatures (half of which came from South-south and South-east) of Nigerians who earnestly yearned for Jonathan’s re-election, were claimed to have been secured. That also was preceded by TAN’s deployment of billions of naira for subliminal media campaigns for the battle for our minds and to tell the public-about the president’s imaginary giant strides in the departments of power generation, rehabilitation of roads and rail lines and his war against Boko Haram which we were told he had fought to a standstill, even with over 200 girls abducted from their schools six months ago still marooned in Sambisa caves.

    This was followed by further assault on our sensibilities. Mimiko who was a health commissioner in the Alliance for Democracy government of Adebayo Adefarati before defecting to PDP to serve as secretary to government of Olusegun Agagu from where he defected to Labour to become a governor, has like a trader haggling for the best bargain once again decamped. This was after swearing many times he would not join the PDP, publicly proclaiming “We are irrevocably committed to the true ideal of progressive politics which the (Labour) party truly represents”, and in fact went further to tell newsmen after the Labour National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting, in Abuja on Wednesday, September 10, that his reported plan to defect to the PDP, was a rumour. The same politician on October 2, twenty-two days after this solemn declaration, turned up in the presidential Villa, Abuja to make a formal declaration of defection to PDP at an event presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo.

    And finally, Peter Obi whose spirit was with PDP while publicly adorning the cloak of APGA to fulfil all righteousness while Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu was alive dumped the party. Without any feeling of remorse, he went on to remind the PDP team that came to induct him that “I have in the past worked closely with all of you and you know my belief about our zone working together. I assure you that we will continue to work even closer as a team in the interest of our people.” Hise followed up that confession of having led a double life, by telling Bianca Ojukwu, the wife of his benefactor that he was defecting to PDP, “a place where his contributions towards proper representation of the Igbo will have the level of impact that will make Ikemba rejoice in his grave”.

    But when Obasanjo, the oracle of Owu who is today probably laughing us to scorn foretold the tales of these politicians who have defined politics in their own image, we left the message and attacked the messenger. Many Nigerians have probably forgotten that Obasanjo told Jonathan that it would be immoral for him to seek re-election in 2015. He had anchored his argument on PDP constitution as well as the understanding the president reached with northern governors. According to Obasanjo, Governor Suswam first told him that President Jonathan “had accepted a one-term presidency to allow for ease of getting support across the board in the North”. Obasanjo also claimed Jonathan confirmed to him that as ‘a strong believer in a one-term of six years Presidency’, the unexpired time of his predecessor and the four years of his first term, would have almost made up six years and would not need any more term or time’. On the account of this, Obasanjo had justified his stand in his famous letter to his godson on the importance of ‘trust and honour as important ingredients of character’.

    We must not allow the noisy sound beats from the drums of those engaged in the business of drafting the president to stifle the quest by a few for the president’s explanation He is at liberty to renege on previous agreement if indeed there was any in the face of new realities. But in an election season, he owes those cynical Nigerians who have always insisted Nigerian politicians have no souls some explanation if only to show he is different.

    And now that the President will need the support of all Nigerians beyond his Ijaw nation, I also think in the same spirit, he will need to disabuse the minds of all Nigerians by debunking Obasanjo’s claims that he has been  exploiting ‘sentiments and emotions of religion and ethnicity’ which he said ‘ was self-serving, unpatriotic and mischievous,’ and would amount to  ‘preying on dangerous emotive issues that can ignite uncontrollable passion and destabilise if not destroy our country”.  Today except during the crisis leading to the civil war, Nigeria has never been more divided along the lines of religion and ethnicity. President Jonathan and his party have curiously given the impression that PDP, made up of dealers and wheelers who would not even consider an aircraft owned by CAN president too sacred to, as government detractor’s claim, launder, US$15 million to South Africa while labeling the opposition APC as the party for Muslims and the sponsors of Boko Haram. It is most unlikely the president can win a re-election contest with only the votes of his Christian supporters; it is also not likely he can achieve the same objective with South-south and South-east votes where economic parasites and militant warlords-turned government contractors have been acting as if they alone can secure victory for the president.

    Beyond this, the president, also needs to be reminded as 2015 approaches, that surrounding himself with leaders without character will be counter-productive. I think it is a myth to assume that in a free and fair election, such men can mobilise votes in places where people have always been known to exhibit independent voting behaviour. The outcomes of the last election in both Ondo and Anambra, whose governor and ex-governor have been falling over each other to secure a place in the presidential election committee have been adjudged heavily flawed even by INEC. A repeat of what happened in the two states or deployment of thousands of military, police and other security personnel to intimidate and arrest opposition leaders on the eve of election as was done in Ekiti and Osun will only undermine the legitimacy of the outcome of the exercise.