The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Mass failure in WASSCE: Who is to blame?

    Mass failure in WASSCE: Who is to blame?

    SINCE the release of the last School Certificate Examination results, there have been many arguments on what went wrong. Some have blamed the mass failure on the West African Examinations Council (WAEC). Others have disagreed, saying the umpire should not carry the can when a team plays badly. So I think.

    Over the years, WAEC has mastered its role. It has the muscle to hire experienced and damn good hands to run its programmes. Besides, it has always striven to ensure that its papers are not leaked, maintaining the integrity of its examinations, even as it has a foolproof marking scheme that ensures fairness.

    There is no way we won’t have mass failure when parents have surrendered their role to teachers, many of who are overstretched and underpaid. Students no longer find any virtue in studying; the Internet has simplified it all for them. Why study when you can simply “Google it”! Rather than read a good book, they watch movies on their telephones and ipads. Their ears are permanently wired up to pop music. They are the Azonto generation. Facebook has become a veritable companion of many.

    In any case, why is the noise so loud in Nigeria, which is just one of the countries that write WAEC exams? Got a message from a student recently?

    How will mass failure not occur? When last did you buy a book for your child? Don’t we all get those short messages from students on our mobile phones? See how they write those messages that hit our mobile phones. Sample: “Hi uncle! Good a.m. Howz work? Wasup? It’s bin a while. Plz send me sum money. God bless you gud.” Awful.

    Is the zeal with which our students work at reality shows the same as the one they deploy in studying for their examinations? How many corporate organisations put their cash on the best student at school? They would rather splash money on “the best dancer”. Etisalat, the mobile giant, offers N7.5m cash plus a car and a multi-million naira recording deal to the winner of its Nigerian Idol. Glo Naija X-Factor is worth $150,000 and an SUV. MTN’s Project Fame is N5m plus a car. Gulder Ultimate Search is N10m. Now compare: Cowbell Mathematics competition attracts five desktop computers, printers and all expenses paid vacation. For the junior category, the cash prize is N250,000 and the senior category N300,000. Spelling Bee is N1 million.

    You can see how guilty we all are in this matter. Please, leave WAEC out of it. It is all about our fast changing values and orientation. We must arrest the slide. Now.

  • Our soldiers’ burden

    Soldiers bear heavy load. Those of us who know nothing about soldiering see them as super human. We expect them to perform gigantic feats just because they are soldiers. Yes, as soldiers they know that much is expected of them because, as a nation, we have given them much to be able to defend our territorial integrity when the need arises.

    This is precisely the point. Have we given our soldiers much to  demand that they put down their lives for our country? In the last five years that  Boko Haram has been killing, maiming, looting and burning, our soldiers have been in the news, all for the wrong reasons. It is either that they are fleeing from battle or that they do not have enough arms and ammunition. In some cases, it may be that their bush allowance has not been paid. Yet, allocation would have been made for  payment.

    On some occasions, we have heard of our soldiers’ refusal  to fight over the non-payment of their allowances. Whenever  they take such action, they are  accused of mutiny and court-martialled. In the army, it seems it is a cardinal sin to fight for your right even when  your superiors deliberately deprive you of your entitlement. What these superior officers forget  is that  only a well catered for soldier will do justice to his calling in times of war. So, when we see our soldiers in rubber slippers instead of boots and in tattered iniforms we know those to hold responsible.

    To get the best out of our soldiers, we must give them the best in terms of kitting  and equipping them for battle. We have heard stories about our soldiers in recent times that are not palatable.  If these stories are true, it means that we are in trouble as a nation because we cannot say that we have  an army in the real sense of the word.  The army of a nation should be its pride. It should be a standing force that can be called upon at anytime to defend the nation and it should be able to rise to the occasion.

    Our soldiers’ exploits in the ongoing battle with Boko Haram does not seem to  show that we have such a force. If our soldiers have  been finding it difficult to cut Boko Haram to size all these years, then we are in trouble; serious trouble. To say that they are not trained to fight an ‘enemy’ like Boko Haram, as the Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Kenneth Minimah, said some weeks ago, will be begging the issue. To a layman, a soldier is a soldier and he  should be able to live up to that name, anywhere and anytime and against any opponent, whether a militia or soldier.

    Nigerians who have  been looking forward to  our soldiers  finishing  off Boko Haram never imagined that they were putting too much faith in their soldiers. To them, it was a matter of national pride to have had such expectation of their soldiers, a fighting force which they could hide under in times of trouble. So far, Nigerians have been disappointed by their soldiers. This disappointment is fast giving way to fear in case of attack by an external aggressor. Many are asking can these soldiers save us from an  external army   when they cannot fight Boko Haram?

    I share their apprehension because Boko Haram seems to be having the upper hand in its encounters with our soldiers. Whether we like it or not, Boko Haram is determined in its bid to reduce our troops to nothing. So, the sect  seizes every opportunity to paint our soldiers as sissies before the world. How does it do this? By deliberately attacking our soldiers and pushing them out of their strongholds as we  have witnessed in Damboa, Gwoza and Bama, all in Borno State, which is supposed to be under emergency.

    As at today, Boko Haram is exercising suzerainty over Gwoza, where it has declared a caliphate, meaning an Islamic republic right under the nose of our soldiers. With its flag flying in Gwoza, Boko Haram is inching towards capturing more towns in that troubled state. On Tuesday, it succeeded in its bid when it overran Bama, the second largest town in the state, which became famous in 1991 when former Petroleum Minister Prof Tam David-West was jailed there. The battle for Bama was fierce, with the sect losing no fewer than 40 militants on Monday.

    Their loss did not deter them as they returned on Tuesday to resume fighting. Their targets were said to be the Mohammed Kur Barracks and the police station in Bama, a town said to be strategic to the sect because most of its leaders have their base there. If our soldiers could repel Boko Haram on Monday, how did the tide turn overnight? Is it that we do not have what it takes to sustain such advantage? How was the sect able to rout out our soldiers? Were they better equipped than our soldiers? Do they have more men than us? If our soldiers cannot keep  a territory seized from Boko Haram elements, a band of loose fighters, I am afraid of what may happen if we fight  a trained army.

    The prayer of many Nigerians today is that Nigeria may not have cause to go to war with another country. The Boko Haram insurgency has exposed so many things about not only the army, but our military in general. There is need to overhaul our armed forces to meet the exigencies of the time. If it takes our experience with Boko Haram to reinvent our armed forces, the nation will be the  happier for it

    But first, we must reverse the Gwoza and Bama losses before Boko Haram becomes  so emboldened as  to attempt an attack on Maiduguri, the Borno State capital,  which is said to be about 64 kilometres to Bama. What we are witnessing today is highly disturbing. It is a shame that Boko Haram is running rings around our soldiers. I do not know why our soldiers, who are known for their outstanding performance  in peace operations abroad, can allow themselves to be so treated by Boko Haram?

    It is no longer tactical  for them   to hold their peace against Boko Haram, which does not deserve to be treated with kid gloves. If a loose band of soldiers feels that it has what it takes to confront trained soldiers it should be prepared to pay the price for its action. Boko Haram has made its choice, so it should be ready to live with it.  We can no longer watch while the sect treats our soldiers like a bunch of fighters, who do not know why they are donning their uniform. It is time to make Boko Haram stew in its own juice.

    If Cameroon can mount an assault against  Boko Haram,  why are we shy of doing the same? Boko Haram cannot take on the Nigerian Army; no never. So, our soldiers must wake up from their slumber  and redeem their image that has been sullied by Boko Haram. As the mirror image of our nation, they cannot afford to fail us.  Enough of running away from these insurgents. They should take the fight to the sect and flush its members out of Gwoza, Bama and of course,  Sambisa Forest and bring back our girls.

  • Unequal wars in Ukraine and Palestine

    Wars are terrible things to happen in the lives of anybody. Human beings right from the time Homo sapiens evolved from ape men have been in a struggle of survival of the fittest. Stone Age men fought with stones and sticks but from the Iron Age onwards, wars have become destructive to the point of the nuclear age when wars between nuclear powers would lead to the total annihilation of life as we know it. Albert Einstein, the father of the atomic age famously said he did not know what would be used to fight the Third World War but that he knew that the fourth would be fought with stones and sticks, indirectly affirming the fact that nuclear holocaust would end human life as we know it. Some scientists have argued that rats could survive a nuclear holocaust and they will inherit the earth after man must have willingly or unwillingly self-destruct. During the 19th century, the century full of wars in Europe, there began an argument about “just” or “unjust” wars. This was in reaction to certain ideas of some philosophers who argued that wars were a cleansing process for national resurgence and that triumph of a victorious country over another constituted an advance of civilisation and that this was the march of God on earth. Of course, it can be argued that wars of defence were just wars whereas wars of aggression were unjust wars but then military strategists would argue that offence is the best form of defence in which case the margin of difference between wars of aggression and wars of defence is very thin. But at the same time, there are wars that are unequal between bullies and weaker countries. American invasion of Panama, Grenada or even Vietnam was unequal war between the combatant nations. Whereas, wars between the British Empire and the German empire in the early 20th century between 1914 and 1918 were wars between equals. In fact it used to be said that a war between the British Empire and the German empire was like a struggle between a hippopotamus and an elephant. The British were supreme on the sea and the German on land. When the forces of the third Reich invaded Russia in 1941, the two powers were equally matched.The Germans had an edge over communist Russia and Germany seemed to have bitten more than it could chew by fighting wars on two fronts- the eastern and the western fronts.

    The nuclear age has led to proxy wars in which surrogates backed by rival powers fight each other without the nuclear powers being directly involved. In spite of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1994, the spirit of the cold war is still much alive. The Russian federation always appears to take a position opposed to whatever position the western powers take on any given issue and conflict. In Syria and in Libya, these antagonistic positions are manifestly clear. Russia supports the Bashir al-Assad’s regime in Syria while the west is opposed to that regime. In Libya, Russia was slow to make its position clear thus allowing the west to walk over the Colonel Muhammad Gaddafi regime. The ideological differences in today’s global conflicts are not as sharp as before. The Russian federation is no longer a communist state. It is practising some form of guided democracy in which Vladimir Putin is acting like a Romanov Czar wanting to recover all the so-called lost territories of Russia. This is the only way one can understand why Russia annexed Crimea and it is prepared to dismantle what is left of Ukraine. Russia is arming the rebels of Ukraine with lethal weapons one of which has been used to bring down the civilian Malaysian plane killing almost 300 souls most of who are from Holland and a substantial number of these are children. This terrible disaster has happened to the Malaysian airline, the second such disaster within six months. The search for the disappeared Malaysian airline in the Indian Ocean is still on-going. The tragedy that has befallen the Malaysian airline would definitely lead to the bankruptcy of the airline, because it is inconceivable that anyone would board that airline again. While it is understandable that Russia may want to protect the rights and lives of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, it is dangerous for Russia to make the protection of Russians in all former Soviet bloc countries a state policy. A policy of this sort will lead to wars in almost all the 15 republics into which the Soviet Union dissolved. A full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine will be a tragedy because it will be an unequal war and the result will be so horrendous and there will be nothing anybody can do about it because western intervention will spark a nuclear war. The wars in Iraq and northern Syria with so-called Islamic caliphate of Iraq and the Levant for now can be seen as an internal war with possible serious consequences for peace and security in the entire Middle East.

    But the war between Israel and Hamas calls for sober reflection. This is a human tragedy of immense proportion. The war is totally unequal and by the time this war is brought to an end, hundreds of Palestinians would have been murdered while a few Israelis would have died. The Israelis have total control of the sea and the air.They are shelling from the sea and bombing from the air and lobbing artillery shells into a piece of territory in which human beings are packed like sardines. Palestine for almost a decade has been totally hedged in by Israeli blockade on one side and surprisingly by Egyptian blockade on the other because Hamas and the dreaded Muslim brotherhood are allies. Israel claims it is fighting a just war because since its creation in 1947, the Arabs were committed to its destruction. Most of the Arabs have backed away from this position but the Palestinians particularly Hamas have refused to recognise the right of Israel to exist in old Palestine. While their position is understandable, it is not realistic. Israel has come to stay and any force on earth that is determined to bring Israel down would go down with Israel in a nuclear incineration. But at the same time, should humanity just watch Israel using mostly American weapons and political support from the USA to slaughter hapless and helpless Palestinians who driven to the wall have been sending to Israel, ineffective crude missiles from the Gaza strip. For every Israeli citizen killed, the Jewish state is not only able and willing to inflict retribution based not only on an eye for an eye, but the life of an Israeli for hundreds of lives of Palestinians. Ideally, a two-state solution which the superpowers say they are committed to would be the best way out but the fear in Israel is that if a viable Palestinian state were to be created with full right of sovereignty over its waters and airspace, it will perpetually arm itself for a future showdown with Israel. On the other hand, a totally disarmed independent Palestine would be an easy target for Israeli aggression whenever there is a problem between the two countries.Yet a way must be found out for these two ancient suffering peoples to live together. Some have suggested a secular state of Palestine bringing back old Palestine in which Jews and Arabs live together which would be an ideal situation. This kind of proposition is not based on political realism yet Israel and Palestine is home to the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam with the holy sites of the three religions in the two countries. The eternal city of Jerusalem is also claimed by the two communities. The international community must step in and find a way for future peace between Israel and Palestine and if the problem is left to fester, the wound being inflicted on the Palestinians may again lead to a major confrontation between Israel, the Arabs, the Persians and other Muslim powers one of which is now a nuclear power thus cancelling out the nuclear advantage of Israel

  • These Catalans are admirable!

    I have fond memories about Barcelona, the leading city of the Catalans of north-eastern Spain. Without knowing anybody in the whole of Spain, and without having any friends or acquaintances on board the plane on which I was flying, I landed in Barcelona in July 1957. I was young (a young UCI student) and I was eager to use my first trip to Europe to know as much as possible of Europe. I had been attending a student conference in Switzerland and, instead of simply flying back home to Lagos, I managed to amend my flight ticket to fly to London, Amsterdam and Barcelona – and then Lagos.

    I landed in Barcelona having almost no money.  I spent all day seeing the lovely city, bought inexpensive snacks and soft drinks along the streets, and, when night came, managed to get a room in an inexpensive motel. Next morning, I continued my sight-seeing. By the time I headed for the airport in the afternoon, I was starving, but I knew they would serve some food on the flight home. I had achieved my purpose.

    I have visited or passed through  Barcelona a couple of times since then, but it is that first visit – as a poor and starving student who was determined to see and learn – that I remember most about  Barcelona and the homeland of the Catalans. Since then, I have followed avidly the story of Catalonia. And, in recent times, I have particularly found it very interesting that the story of Catalonia and the Catalans as part of the country of Spain is uncannily similar to the story of my own Yorubaland and Yoruba people as part of the country of Nigeria.

    Catalonia, the homeland of the Catalans, occupies the Mediterranean coast of north-eastern Spain. It is one of the most beautiful provinces of Spain. Their experiences in Spain, and the experiences of the Yoruba in Nigeria, are very similar. Just as the Yoruba of south-western Nigeria have an old tradition of hospitality to strangers and foreigners, the Catalans have an old tradition of hospitality towards non-Catalans. As a result, considerable parts of Catalan population can trace their ancestry to non-Catalan origins. In most of modern times, Catalonia has been one of the most industrially developed, one of the economically most prosperous, parts of Spain. Throughout the existence of Nigeria since 1914, the homeland of the Yoruba in south-western Nigeria has been the most economically developed , the most industrialized, and the most prosperous part of Nigeria.

    But the similarities even go further. Politically, Catalonia has experienced much repression from the central government of Spain. When Spain was ruled by a dictator in the 1930s and early 1940s, Catalonia came under particularly serious repression. Their provincial autonomy was taken away, and their indigenous language was even banned. The Yoruba have generally experienced much the same kinds of repression in Nigeria, especially since independence. Only two years after Nigeria’s independence, Nigeria’s federal government launched an attack on the predominantly Yoruba Western Region, suspended its regional constitution, imposed a federally appointed dictator over the region, and proceeded in various ways to destabilize the region and slow down its development. Since then, especially under the military regimes that ruled Nigeria for nearly four decades, Yorubaland has been steadily, though mostly subtly, marginalized and repressed, and most of its pre-independence achievements have been brutalized or even destroyed.

    However, the responses of the Catalans and the Yoruba to these repressive experiences have been widely different. On the whole, beyond the immediate reactions of Yoruba youths against the painful experiences of 1962-5, and their periodic revolts against electoral fraud by federal agencies in the Yoruba homeland, the Yoruba elite have proved surprisingly inept in responding to the experiences of their nation in Nigeria. In the political, economic and business life of Nigeria, the Yoruba elite prefer to be generally submissive and docile, apparently operating on the philosophy that it is better to submit, adapt, and survive than to stand up for their integrity and just entitlements. Even when the situation has clearly demanded Yoruba national unity and solidarity, the Yoruba elite have preferred to emphasize freedom to differ and to oppose one another – often claiming that the freedom of choice characteristic of Yoruba political and societal life is the most important thing in all situations. As a result, most of the fire in Yoruba politics in Nigeria is usually directed by Yoruba against Yoruba – with the result that Yoruba politicians have been known to hurt one another quite seriously in Nigerian politics. And even though the Yoruba, from the sophistication of their traditional political system, often have ideas and proposals that can greatly benefit Nigeria, they never unite to push such, and they are usually ready to surrender and accept compromises –claiming that such compromises are “in the interest of Nigeria”. Among them, working for different Nigerian political parties tends to be regarded as more important than working for the good of their Yoruba nation. Leading Yoruba persons in high governmental positions (elective and non-elective), and in successful business,  fear to be associated with nationalist aspirations among their people – as a result of which a recognizable and open Yoruba nationalist expression does not exist in Nigeria.

    The Catalans are different. The Catalan elite do belong to different Spanish political parties too.  But, even against the most fearsome dictatorships in Spain’s history, they have capably stood up and fought back. Therefore, in recent decades, they have demanded and won more and more autonomy for their region in Spain. Today, the Catalan regional government commands great autonomy over the affairs of its region.

    In recent times, the Catalans have been demanding separation from Spain – that is, demanding a separate country of Catalonia. Virtually all Catalans in leading positions in the Spanish political parties openly support Catalan nationalism and independence. Over a year ago, Catalan nationalist leaders decided to hold a referendum to assess popular support for independence. The Spanish government opposed the move, and got the Spanish Constitutional Court to declare that such a referendum was illegal and must not be held. The Catalan leaders responded that their referendum was to be a “non-binding” referendum – that is an affair only of the Catalan people which the Spanish government would not be asked to accept or act upon. And so, they went on and held their “non-binding” referendum. Over 95% of those who voted supported independence for Catalonia. Even among the people whose origins were from other parts of Spain, the vast majority voted for independence for Catalonia. Such a strong showing at the “non-binding” referendum immediately became a mighty tool in the hands of the Catalan nationalists; it made it possible for them to claim categorically almost all their people want independence.

    Now, they have scheduled a final, “binding”, independence referendum for November 2014. Again, the Spanish government opposes. But all parties are united for it, and the regional president is calling on all Catalans to fight democratically and peacefully for it.  The Catalan President says, “If you fight, you can win and you can lose, but if you do not fight, you have already lost”. These Catalans are admirable!

  • Jega: Dousing cynics’ doubts

    Jega: Dousing cynics’ doubts

    Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Attahiru Jega does nothing by half measures. He has established a reputation for approaching all engagements with passion. For this reason, it is difficult to doubt his commitment to his current assignment. His valiant efforts, last week, to disabuse the minds of cynics during the lecture titled “Stakeholders and the electoral process in Nigeria”, organized by the Department of Sociology, University of Lagos is in character.  He used the occasion to celebrate some of his achievements, let us into his plans to tackle identified challenges and douse the doubts of cynics who believe ‘he who pays the piper dictates the tune’.  For him, INEC”s last Osun outing was a success, a verdict which many may disagree with. He also celebrated INEC efforts to reduce the $8 current cost of funding per voter which he said compares favourably with international standard by $1. Here also, many believe such a drain cannot be justified especially if there are other cheaper means in a nation where 75% of the people live below a dollar a day. He also seized the opportunity to announce INEC’s decision to use card reader for the 2015 election.  According to him, “If you buy voter cards, you can’t use them on voting day because the INEC mechanism put in place in every polling unit will detect fraud  and whoever that is involved will be arrested on the spot for electoral fraud and prosecuted.”

    He also told his audience that “the consolidation and-duplication of the biometric register of voters has been completed, as a result of which the register of voters  now has the tremendous integrity – much better than the one with which the 2011 election “ was conducted.

    But amidst these efforts aimed at assuaging people’s fears, his discussion about the difficulty his body is having about defining what constitutes party expenditure and what constitutes electioneering campaign by the political parties (the electoral law provides only three months for the political parties and their candidates to sell their wares to the electorate) clearly show INEC is haunted by the dictum of ‘he who pays the piper dictate the tune’. And of course added to this was his strident defence of militarization of the electoral process, undertaken by one party to a contest over which he serves as an arbiter.

    But before advancing self-evident reasons to support the above thesis, we must observe first that those who operate under the philosophy of ‘there are other means to kill a hen other than slitting the throat’, who sought out Jega for his current assignment merely wanted to exploit his integrity and naiveté. It was not out of a desire for free and fair election. If that were their objectives, Jega’s appointment by an interested party to a dispute as an arbiter defeated that. The Uwais report which was whimsically jettisoned by PDP and President Jonathan would have provided a more credible response to electoral fraud.

    Jega’s answer to what he described as  “several security threats that now characterize the electoral process such as physical attacks on INEC staff and facilities, attacks on security personnel on election duty, misuse of security orderlies by politicians, attacks on political opponents” is the deployment of about 75,000 heavily armed security personnel, with a number of them hooded under the control of rabidly partisan minister of defence and his counterpart in police affairs  moving around freely with Chris Ubah, a self-confessed election master rigger of Okija/Anambra fame on election day after opposition members had been driven out of town or to seek refuge in  their mother’s room as was the case of Isiaka Adeleke, former governor of the state.

    It cannot be any less depressing that the security men are not under the control of INEC chairman but under the control of those with questionable past who as we have now discovered, went around supervising the arrest of their political opponents in their homes on the eve of election. Jega’s optimism could only have been justified if he were in control of the security men in his capacity as the chairman of INEC whose responsibility it is to conduct a free, fair credible election. Not many are persuaded that those who had used power of state to rig in 2003, 2007 and 2011 will not do the same in 2015 when they seem to have been officially licensed to do so. Their outings in Ondo, Ekiti and Osun have not shown otherwise.

    Jega who like his employers share common sentiments that the militarization of the electoral process is dictated by today’s reality has not  told us why the  1993 election considered as the most credible and least expensive in our nation’s history was without violence  or why the 1999 election was relatively devoid of violence. The federal government has similarly not bothered to ask because a mirror cannot see itself. We couldn’t have suddenly forgotten that it was PDP under Obasanjo that institutionalized massive rigging or what he called ‘do or die election’ in 2003 to retain his threatened presidency. The 2003 electoral fraud was to become a preamble to the massive rigging of the 2007 election. Thoroughly embarrassed and scandalized by the massive electoral fraud, the late president Yar’Adua promptly set up the Uwais commission. The President and his party that suppressed the report now want us to accept as an alternative, massive deployment of security forces under their control.

    Sadly for Jega, many believe he bought into that crooked logic because he cannot confront those who appointed him. It was for the same reason, Jega will pretend not to know that when President Jonathan, his vice president and the senate president and other PDP stalwarts flew three jets, bought and fuelled by taxpayers to entertain decamping politicians in Kwara, Sokoto and Kano; they had breached the electoral law by embarking on an illegal campaign as well as fraudulent deployment of the nation’s resources to advance their own electoral fortune. For the same reason, Jega and his INEC pretend not to know billions expended on prime-time television slots and in buying space in newspaper by TAN and other shadowy organisations reminiscent of Babangida and Abacha era constitute a breach of the electoral act. We are all waiting for Jega to tell us what to call the on-going rallies across the nation by TAN on behalf of the president.

    This is not to doubt Jega’s commitment and sincerity in a nation where even elected leader see themselves as doing the people a favour, where when a president is challenged to act his office as commander-in-chief, he threatened a governor; where admirers of some high-achieving governors like Oshiomhole of Edo, Uduaghan of Delta and Godswill Akpabio of Bayelsa think they should be canonised as saints for routine implementation of their party programmes especially when compared with some of their predecessors who stole their states blind, Jega has done exceedingly well when compared to Prof Maurice Iwu’s disgraceful outing in 2007.  But for the military and PDP that have tried to drag the nation down to their level, we should be comparing Attahiru Jega with his counterparts in other commonwealth countries such as Britain, Canada and Australia. That was the standard by which our nation was rated before the locust years, a golden period of our nation when UCH Ibadan was rated as one of the best three teaching hospitals in Commonwealth.

  • ‘My truth is truer than yours’

    There is nothing more pathetic than a critical mob; gangs of columnists, journalists, hatchet writers and career critics may stir up strife but their efforts eventually pass like the hum of mosquitoes seeking to make a noise like thunder. Like the rest of the Nigerian mob, the social media critic, newspaper columnist and journalist symbolize a tiresome mercenariness of complacency, avarice and inertia. However, unlike the rest of the Nigerian mob, this critical mob epitomizes the tragic manifestations of the pious frauds of citizenship, like microbes hastening the decomposition of corpses.

    Nigerians love being conned and the Nigerian ruling class knows that; so does the Nigerian critic. The latter knows that, if you can deceive the citizenry in grand and entertaining styles, you will get away with it more often than you could count thus the continual deception, impoverishment and murder of the Nigerian masses.

    Like the masses or totality of the Nigerian mob, the critic suffers exposure to pain and humiliation for too long in the hands of the ruling class thus ending up in a pitiful state evocative of a condition of enthrallment in which the hypnotized individual finds himself in the hands of the hypnotizer. Careful observation would however, suggest that foremost crusaders of the critical mob variously suffer paralysis of the intellect as does every hypnotized subject; consequently, the latter becomes enslaved to an object, a need, money, a perversion or an idea by which the hypnotizer (oftentimes the ruling class) directs and belittles him at will.

    It’s a shame that I belong to the journalistic segment of this pathetic societal divide; as a journalist and newspaper columnist cum social critic, I am not in any way distinguishable from the rot emblematic of my colleagues in the Fourth Estate of the realm. However much I try to absolve myself of blame; the society is wired to see us all journalists as a bunch of unrepentant liars, pawns to tyrants and die-hard fortune hunters.

    We essentially epitomize a style of living which cultivates sincerity and is at the same time a fraud. We arrogate to ourselves rights to nobility and free speech by twisting truth into relative truths and true lies in an existence we have learnt to rationalize as gracious and irrevocably necessary. This has to be odious; it is.

    Despite the cowardice and duplicity of Nigeria’s critical mob, it is amusing to see other constituents of this mob divide tirelessly chastise and identify the Nigerian journalist as a bane to progress and monumental disgrace to the society. To this, many a journalist and newspaper columnist have responded that the society essentially wishes that the journalist do not effectively fulfill his responsibilities to it. Likewise, I have corroborated such argument claiming that big business and politicians’ ownership of mainstream media gives them intimidating capacities to influence and set the agenda for the media and society in general.

    This is an intimidating reality no doubt; it is obscenely silly and self-serving of the Nigerian society to continually muscle in the media’s job and prevent it from discharging its duties effectively and yet turn around to identify the Nigerian press as fraudulent and disgraceful.

    However, this does not in any way ennoble the shamefulness and irresponsibility of the Nigerian press. Journalists, unlike the social media critic, delusional citizen or online journalist, press secretary or special media adviser to the ruling class, are expected to fulfill more sensitive and crucial roles to the society.

    The Nigerian journalist should be the hero that perpetually cramps himself into demanding roles of watchdog. It is shameful however, that the contemporary journalist takes unpardonably dense and gruesome human elements for gods and worships them as such; by enslaving himself to such characters, the journalist is duly taken for some idle, nondescript human integer, extant in the world to entertain tyranny and have a few naira and demeaning errands thrown at him that he might get to enjoy a taste of the good life or a semblance of it.

    Be it as Special Media Adviser to the President, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Personal Assistant to the MD, Corporate Affairs Manager or any other title created for an enslaved press intellectual within public or private sector, the journalist shirks his role as societal watchdog; he becomes lapdog, dung-dog or junkyard dog of the ruling class. In the strict slave system in which he works, there can scarcely be such a thing as crime; whatever his principal does is fair and justifiable – his ultimate aim is to keep his employer happy and thus guarantee the security of his meal ticket. It is no surprise therefore that the journalist and newspaper columnist who ought to serve as a check on the bestiality and excesses of the ruling class eventually become the defender and justifier of such vile.

    Those who are not yet lured into the loop of schemes and largesse of the ruling class painstakingly become gadflies to the ruling class. They taunt and condemn every measure, utterance and action of the country’s leadership in desperate bid to bully whatever government excites their greed and duplicity till they include them as recipients of crumbs of the proverbial “national cake.” Eventually they are deployed by all manner of characters to perpetuate a My truth is truer than yours’ mentality.

    As crucial appendage of Nigeria’s critical mob, the press has mutated into a contemptible factor, trollopy in conduct and pitifully cast in the stormy waters of Nigeria’s sociopolitics. Far flung in the murky waters, many have drowned, a paltry few struggle to swim against the tides while many more hang suspended, to be forced up or down by the chance currents of a sleazy, vicious world. How can such human elements fulfill the roles of watchdog and moral compass of the society?

    For too long, the Nigerian journalist has tirelessly fulfilled the role of criminal constituent amid the nation’s critical mob divide. So doing, he becomes blamable for every ill and any ill symptomatic of the country’s steady descent the slope of amorality and currency-activated self-destruct.

    What is however, true of the journalist is peculiarly true of other human elements of the Nigerian society; contemporary happenstances attest to the fact that the current generation of Nigerians, the youth in particular, is afflicted by an intense tumult of self-interest, gluttony and intricate trashing of spirit that destroys whatever nerve could be mustered in pursuit of truth, personal and societal progress.

    Poverty and job insecurity are ascribed as our reasons for betrayal; true, the society betrays the journalist by the hour but it’s about time we stopped repaying perfidy with perfidy. It’s about time we evolved dependable and practicable means of creating and instituting a leadership, society and media practice we could trust.

    We could begin by ditching our familiar whining and blame-mongering to evolve a culture of truthfulness and conscientious citizenship. It is no longer permissible to contend that the journalist is only a reflection of the society he serves. By advancing such argument, we box ourselves into straits of sophistry and frantic rationalizations. This is unacceptable of purported men of letters and conscience of the society.

    Truth is what we should speak. Truth is what we should be guided by. But what manner of truth should be the watchword of the Nigerian journalist and critic?

  • Chief Samuel Olatunde Fadahunsi, CON (1920- 2014)

    Chief Samuel Olatunde Fadahunsi, CON (1920- 2014)

    The death has been announced of Chief Samuel Olatunde Fadahunsi, CON, on August 12. He died peacefully after a brief illness at the Lagoon Hospital, Marine Road, Apapa, Lagos, in the company of his adoring wife, Chief (Mrs.) Elizabeth Iyabo Fadahunsi, his children and family. He was 94 and his death marks a watershed in the engineering profession in Nigeria, of which he was a pioneer and an icon. His contribution to the development of the profession in Nigeria is immense.

    Chief Fadahunsi was one of Nigeria’s most accomplished and celebrated civil engineers. In a public career spanning over 50 years after graduating in England in 1954 as a civil engineer, Chief Fadahunsi established for himself an enviable reputation as Nigeria’s leading water engineer. He initiated and was actively involved professionally in the building of water dams and supply all over the old Western Region. All these dams are still in existence today. In a fitting written tribute to him in 2009, his old friend and equally distinguished professional colleague, the Ven. Engineer P.B. Oyebolu, now deceased, described him as “a legend of our time, an astute and forthright Nigerian, a man of many parts, a great professional engineer, a man of principle and a deeply religious person”. No one who knew Chief Fadahunsi intimately will disagree with that estimation of him.

     Chief Fadahunsi was born on March 17, 1920, in Ora, a village, near Ila-Orangun, into a well known Ijesa family with royal lineages on both sides. His father hailed from the Loro family, one of the ‘warlord groups’ of the Ijesa Council of Chiefs that assisted the Owa in running the Ijesa Kingdom, while his mother was a direct descendant of the ruling Owa, of the Bilaro royal family. It was he who founded the village of Itagunmodi, now famous for its rich gold deposit. Chief Fadahunsi was the nephew of the former governor of the old Western Region, Sir Odeleye Fadahunsi. Among his numerous cousins were Professor Femi Fadahunsi of LUTH, Professor Akin Fadahunsi of Ahmadu Bello University and Olu Fadahunsi, a lawyer. All of them, though younger, regrettably predeceased him.

    Chief Fadahunsi’s early life in Ora revolved around the local church. As he said, this was to have a profound influence on him throughout his life. The family’s life and activities centred mainly on the church where his father was a prominent leader. He remained a devout Christian and, until age related infirmities took hold of him, he worshipped regularly with his family at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, Lagos. His professional service and contribution to the church are invaluable. At Ilesa which he often visited, he worshipped at St. John’s Cathedral.

    After primary schools in Ilesa, Osogbo, and Ibadan, Chief Fadahunsi’s early promise and brilliance took him to the prestigious Government College, Ibadan, in 1937, where he joined other equally brilliant Ijesa students. Among these were the late Professor Olu Mabayoje, the outstanding physician, the late Dr. Timothy M. Aluko, the well known writer who, like Chief Fadahunsi, later distinguished himself in civil engineering, Obi Obembe and Chief M. Apara, now 94, who read economics at Hull University in England, and later became the Chief Accountant of the old ECN. Mention must be made in this connection of another outstanding Ijesa Engineer, Chief Teju Oyeleye, who also passed on recently at 88. This first generation of Ijesa engineers dominated the engineering profession in Nigeria for a long time. All of them remained close friends for life. The Ijesa excel in engineering, law, medicine and religious evangelism, turning out some of the most distinguished professionals in their various fields.

    Of that brilliant group, only the late Justice Kayode Eso was not at the Government College, Ibadan. He attended Ilesa Grammar School instead. But all of them, including Dr. F.A. Ajayi, who took a first class honour’s degree in law from the London School of Economics remained very close, and inspired a lot of younger Ijesa students, including this writer, to strive for the best always. But what is even more impressive about this distinguished Ijesa professionals was their intense loyalty to one another. Through my late father, I was privileged to have been acquainted with all of them and personally held them in high esteem for their professional integrity, humility and sincere friendship, all virtues that are now in short supply in our country.

    In 1943, during World War 11, Chief Fadahunsi entered the newly established Yaba Higher College to read civil engineering, along with nine other students selected from all over colonial Nigeria. This fortuitous situation was to make him develop a healthy relationship and respect for other Nigerians. Yaba offered only a diploma course in engineering then. In 1946, Chief Fadahunsi graduated from Yaba with a diploma in civil engineering and took up appointment in the colonial Public Works Department (PWD). His first assignment as a trainee assistant engineer was at the Osogbo-Ede water supply, an experience that led him later in his professional career to concentrate on water engineering in which he was to excel. In 1948, two years after he left the Yaba Higher College, he won an open scholarship to study civil engineering at the Battersea Polytechnic in London.

    After graduating in 1952 from Battersea with an honour’s degree in civil engineering, he spent two years working for Cubits, a well known British engineering company. He returned home in 1954 and was appointed a full engineer at the Public Works Department, from where he had won a scholarship to Battersea. He had wanted to serve in either the old Eastern Region or the North. He was instead posted to Ibadan from where he was transferred to Osogbo as the District Engineer. Two years later, he was appointed the Town Engineer at the Ibadan City Council, succeeding an expatriate engineer. It was as the Town Engineer in Ibadan that he began to attract a lot of attention as a competent professional engineer. He returned to England in 1957 for post graduate training as a water engineer in which he began to develop keen professional interest. On returning home in 1958 he served as a Senior Engineer in various towns in the old Western Region, including Ibadan, Abeokuta and Benin, and was soon after appointed the Chief Water Engineer in the old Western Region. His senior colleague and close friend, Dr. T.M. Aluko, was appointed the Controller of Works, and later Permanent Secretary.

     In 1959, he married his beautiful fiancée, Miss Elizabeth Iyabo Jonah, who was a senior staff of Shell and, soon after, left the Western Region public service to join the newly established Lagos Executive Development Board (LEDB), first as a deputy, and later as the CEO of the agency. It was in this capacity that his reputation for professional diligence and competence soared beyond the confines of the old Western Region. It was under his watch at the LEDB that the reclamation of Victoria Island, the demolition of slums in central Lagos, and the redevelopment of Iganmu in Lagos was intensified. He was also responsible for the development of FESTAC and Amuwo Odofin later. In 1972, he left the LEDB out of frustration, as he put it, following the series of probes of the agency by the military government of Lagos State. He was never found guilty of any financial or professional misconduct. He was subsequently appointed the Chairman of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), and later the Chairman of the Osogbo Steel Rolling Mills. On retiring from the public service, he set up his own engineering consultancy, the Comprehensive Engineering Consultants, with his cousin, Engineer Femi Fadahunsi, now deceased, as a partner. The company has been hugely successful. He was a former president of the Nigerian Society of Engineers and a former president of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN). For his service to the nation he received the award of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), and several other national and international awards.

      Chief Fadahunsi has been aptly described in the following words by his old friend, the late Justice Kayode Eso, JSC, himself a celebrated jurist: “He is, by every letter of the word, an aristocrat….but of the humblest piece of humanity. His kindness is proverbial….as he seeks to help others, a strange combination in a highly principled, soft spoken man”. His aristocratic bearing and impeccable manners, at home and in public, endeared him to many, including his professional colleagues. He was a man of deep conviction in what he believed in, and this often led him into trouble with the military authorities during the long period of military rule in Nigeria. In 1976, while working for a private engineering company on a water project in Abeokuta, Lt.-Colonel Oladipo Diya, the military governor of Ogun State, had him arrested and detained for a week on trumped up charges. He fought him to a stand still and had to be released as he was innocent of all the charges leveled against him by the military governor. Details of this ugly episode in his life and his frequent confrontation with the military have been given in his autobiography, ‘Reflections on the Events of my life’, published in 2010 when he was 90.

       He had a fulfilling and very happy family life. His wife of over 55 years, Chief (Mrs.) Elizabeth Iyabo Fadahunsi, nee Jonah, a dutiful and devoted wife, was always at his side. They were virtually inseparable socially, even unto the end when Chief Fadahunsi had become quite frail due to old age. She was a gracious hostess who made everyone welcome in their comfortable home off Marine Road, Apapa. They have five children, all of whom are professionally accomplished. Our hearts and prayers go out to his widow, children, and family. A Commendation Service for him will be held at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, Lagos, on September 4 at 10 am, after which his remains will be taken to Ilesa for interment. The funeral service will be at the Cathedral of St. John, Iloro, Ilesa.

  • Ode to Adadevoh

    THE was a physician, who knew her onions. She proved this by  the way she handled what has  now come to  be known as the index Ebola case. Through the yeoman effort of the late Dr Stella Adadevoh,  the index case, the late Patrick Sawyer, was not allowed to slip away into  the night to spread the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). As we said here a couple of weeks ago, the late Liberian-American, who brought Ebola here from his country had evil intentions.

    It was as if the late Dr Adadevoh knew what the late Sawyer was up to. Call it instinct or what, she refused to discharge him despite pressure to do so and by that singular action, she saved countless lives.  The late Dr Adadevoh knew that a walking Sawyer on the streets of Nigeria would be sowing  dead and destruction. So, she was resolute that she would not discharge him. Those who wanted the late Sawyer discharged  may have  even attempted to bribe her to look the other way in their desperate bid to spirit him out of the First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, Lagos.

    Since many have the erroneous belief that with money you can get any Nigerian to do anything, including selling  his or her conscience, the late Sawyer and his  friends would have been disappointed by the late Dr Adadevoh’s resistance. Just imagine what would have happened if the late Sawyer had been allowed to leave hospital in his condition. With what we have been experiencing since his death on July 25, we would have been confronted with an epidemic, the kind of which had not been witnessed since Ebola first hit the tiny countries of Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976. We were saved from that epidemic by the late Dr Adadevoh.

    If she had not stood her ground, I shudder over what we would be going through today. This woman of courage, this woman of character, this woman of valour, this uncommon human specie died on August 19 after battling the same ailment she saved millions of her compatriots from contracting by stopping the late Sawyer from spreading the deadly virus. The late Dr Adadedoh did what many of us  wouldn’t have done if we were in her shoes. In a society where people believe so much in money and influence peddling, the late Sawyer and his cohorts would have had their way with a covetous Nigerian. That is just the truth.

    We were simply lucky that they met an Adadevoh, a woman, who was more than a match for their wily ways. Those who wanted the late Sawyer out of the hospital at all costs under the guise that he had a conference to attend in Calabar, the Cross River State capital,  knew that he was terribly ill and yet wanted him discharged under such condition. To be discharged so that he could go and die ‘peacefully’ at home or what? To be discharged so that he could go about spreading the deadly virus that he knowingly brought into our country? I just don’t understand why they were so desperate to get him out of hospital in that condition.

    The more I think about this sad episode, the more I feel pained because it was a deliberate act of man’s inhumanity to man. The late Sawyer, we have not been told otherwise, was not possessed.  I want to believe that he was also in full control of his faculties, except if they had been damaged by Ebola, which he contracted before leaving Monrovia, the Liberian capital.  We have heard different stories about what he did for a living. Some said he worked in a mining firm; others said he was a diplomat, citing the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) protocol officer, who came to receive him on arrival in Nigeria on July 20 to support their position. That protocol officer has since died of Ebola after being infected by the late Sawyer.

    Before coming here, the late Sawyer was in a good frame of mind except, of course,  for his illness. He was mentally alert and was said to have avoided contact with people at the airport in Lome, the Togolese capital.   Did the illness make him lose his senses to the extent that he forgot he should not come in contact with people when he got here? The late Sawyer knew how gravely ill he was and this was why he sneaked out of Monrovia to come here through Lome.  I still don’t understand why he did what he did to us? Was he sent? Who sent him?

    These are the posers we must unravel after we must have put behind us this Ebola saga. Thank God that Sawyer died before he could spread the virus further than he did. We owe a debt of gratitude to the late Dr Adadevoh for saving our country from being sunk by Ebola. We are eternally grateful to her. How can we leave out the illustrious Adadevoh family in all this? Without the family, there would not have been the late doctor. My heart goes out to this family, which has through its late daughter showed us what it is to be a patriot.

    Patriotism is not by words of mouth; it comes by our actions, which will speak louder than any voice. The late Dr Adadevoh rose when it mattered most for her country and through her efforts she saved over 160 million Nigerians from the risk of dying of Ebola. For her country, she gave her life. What will you give for your country? Instead of giving, aren’t our  leaders  stealing the country blind? They loot and loot and loot and stash fortunes abroad. Money meant for healthcare delivery finds its way into their pockets, while they go abroad on medical expedition.

    It is not all about our leaders alone. We as followers also have a role to play  in making our country better by following the path beaten by the  late Dr Adadevoh. We owe her big time. She deserves a monument in her memory so that generations unborn will know of her noble deed. Here was a Stella Adadevoh! When  comes such another?

  • Being realistic about Nigeria Part 2

    Last week, I wrote on the topic, ‘Being Realistic About Nigeria’. I concluded with the following paragraph:  “While trying to find explanations (to Nigeria’s stubborn and irreversible crookedness, decline and failure), I must reject the explanation often proposed by those who despise the Blackman in the world – the explanation that Nigeria’s decline and failure are the product of inherent or genetic faults in Black people, and in us Nigerians.  We are not inherently or genetically incompetent or crooked peoples.  The builders of our various precolonial civilizations and states were by no means incompetent or crooked. The trouble, I believe, is most probably from the nature and making of the country which was forced upon us. Being together in one county like Nigeria does not seem to be the way we really wish to live. Doesn’t our dignity as humans demand that we should realistically consider this?”

    I have read and re-read that troubling conclusion many times in the past many days. In particular, I have read and re-read it in comparison with other things that I am reading about other peoples or nationalities in our world. And the comparison has led me to fearful questions about us Nigerians, and about all the Black peoples of Africa – since what we see in Nigeria is true also of all Black African countries. .

    Here are some of the things that the whole world is reading today – about some other peoples and nationalities of the world. By nationality is meant a human group with its own culture, ancestral homeland, language, etc – like the Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Edo, Ijaw, Kanuri, Tiv, etc.

    First, about the different nationalities that make up the country called Great Britain. (We Nigerians know Britain very well. Britain is the country that used force to push all of our nationalities together in 1914 and gave us together the name Nigeria. For many hundreds of years, Britain has been made up of the English nationality of England, the Scottish nationality of Scotland, the Irish nationality of Ireland, and the Welsh nationality of Wales). But most of these nationalities or peoples have been saying more and more in recent times that they want separate countries of their own; that they do not want to continue to be parts of Britain; that, as separate nationalities, their true destiny is to have separate countries of their own and rule themselves according to their own unique national cultures and ways.

    These agitations started only a few years after Britain forced our nationalities together to create Nigeria. The Irish people were so insistent that they were allowed to go on and hold a referendum in 1921 to determine whether they really wanted a separate country. The Irish people voted massively that they did want their own separate country. And so they were allowed to have their separate country – the Republic of Ireland.

    The Scotts and Welsh have also increasingly demanded their own separate countries. In fact, for some years, some Scottish youths resorted to violence and terrorism to push their demand. However, the violence has long been given up, and the Scotts have persistently used open, peaceful and democratic methods to advance their demand. Now, they are close to their goal. Next month (specifically on Thursday, September 18), they will hold their “independence referendum”. Of course, no big country wants to lose any part of its territory and citizens, and the British government has been very busy trying to persuade Scottish people to vote ‘No’ and reject independence. But the voices of the Scottish nationalists have been much stronger and louder, and they appear set for a great victory for independence for Scotland on September 18.  Note that Scotland’s total population is only 5.3 million.

    The Welsh nationalists are moving too, though not as fast as the Scottish nationalists. For years now, they have set up a commission to work on developing their native Welsh language as the language of their future independent country. They are also busy working on developing their city of Cardiff as the future capital city of their future independent Wales. And they are saying that they too will soon be ready for their own independence referendum. Note that the total population of Wales is only three million.

    Secondly, here is what the world is reading today about the peoples that make up Spain, another leading European country. Spain is made up of three nationalities – the Spaniards of native Spain (who constitute the large majority people in Spain), the Catalans of Catalonia in North-eastern Spain, and the Basques of Northern Spain. Catalans and Basques, led by Catalan and Basque nationalist movements respectively, are strongly demanding separate countries of their own. For some years, some Basque nationalists resorted to violence and terrorism, but they have given up violence in recent years, and the Basque nationalist leaders now confidently say that they expect to have their own separate country soon.

    As for the Catalans, they intend to hold their independence referendum on November 9 this year. The Spanish government is trying to stop them from holding their referendum, but the Catalan branches of all of Span’s political parties have joined ranks to announce that they will go on with the referendum as planned. (That is like if the APC, PDP, Labour and all other parties in the Yoruba Southwest were to suspend their rivalries and join hands to decide to hold a Yoruba independence referendum). The outcome of this referendum is a foregone conclusion. Spain is likely to lose Catalonia before the end of this year.

    The huge question then is this: Why can’t we the nationalities of Nigeria have nationalist movements that are as focused and determined as the Scottish, Welsh, Catalan and Basque nationalist movements? Our political leaders, once elected into public office (or even when only seeking election into office) all keep far away from any talk of national independence and avoid their national countrymen who are nationalists. Why is this so? One answer is sure: It is not because these politicians are satisfied with the way Nigeria is brutalizing and destroying their various nationalities. Join any group of prominent Yoruba or Igbo or Ijaw folks, etc, at any gathering, in Nigeria or abroad, and you will find everybody to be talking of the terribly destructive effects of being part of Nigeria on their various nationalities. Why then don’t we have really strong nationalist movements openly and resolutely demanding separate countries out of Nigeria? Why do we as peoples, young and old, educated and not so educated, prefer to suffer in a monstrous country like Nigeria, and only complain and grumble, rather than strike boldly out to try and have separate countries of our own?

    Why are we, as nationalities in Nigeria, like this? Among the British who forced all our nationalities together into Nigeria, various nationalities have now realized that every nationality should live in a sovereign country of its own, are demanding separate countries, and are breaking up their Britain into separate countries. And they are using open, democratic and peaceful means to do it. Why are we not seeing the same in Nigeria? What is wrong with us?

  • APC: Party oligarchy Vs governors

    What will I do when fraudulent people drove me away from the party they claim belongs to them?” Those were the words of Chief Tom Ikimi, a founding member of APC who played a leading role by working tirelessly to ensure its registration by INEC. He is presently at war with the party over what he described as ‘unresolved fundamental issues’ he had raised before and after APC convention that produced Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as party chairman

    We know APC was not a party of angels long before it was joined by all manners of people from the ruling PDP some of whom were haunted by their past and have since retraced their way back. Nuhu Ribadu, a man who should know better as former EFCC boss, told us that much shortly after decamping to PDP last week. Looking for saints among Nigerian politicians will be an arduous task. And of course Tom Ikimi, who as the chairman of Babangida’s decreed NRC, lacked the grace to concede defeat after MKO Abiola of SDP had won ‘round and square’ (apology to Adamu Ciroma) cannot by any accounts  be said to be an angel. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt by attributing his failure to assert himself to apparent threat from the owner of the party he headed, he lost that sympathy by going ahead to become the foreign minister of Abacha murderous regime. He was junketing around the world, justifying the state murder of Saro Wiwa just as he did of the incarceration of MKO Abiola, the winner of the 1993 election. Twenty years is a long time in a nation where our children are not taught history in schools and where the elders often suffer from collective amnesia. But I think one of the best things to have happened to APC despite its current challenges was that Ikimi did not emerge as the party chairman. That would have brought the past to pain to those who believe today is but an extension of yesterday.

    Of course Ikimi knows political parties have to be owned by stakeholders who as guardians of the ideals of the party are often saddled with providing a moral voice and direction. The idea that a political party can be an association of ‘equals without joiners and founders’ was a fraud sold by the fraudulent Babangida military regime and its state house professors of political science that took the country for a ride for eight years of ‘transition without end’ (apology to Professors Larry Diamond and Oye Oyediran), frittering away in the process N40 billion, ostensibly on building of political party headquarters, teaching democracy and breeding a hybrid of ‘new breed’ politicians in a laboratory who would have no relationship with the past. It was this fraud that produced short-lived SDP and NRC. It was a fraud carried over to the Fourth Republic where President Obasanjo, using military tactics, hijacked PDP from its original stakeholders and turned it to a personal instrument for running the country according to his instincts following his public declaration that he was on a messianic mission ordered by God while in prison. He shuffled PDP chairmen as if they were cards. When Audu Ogbe resisted being treated like an errand boy, he effortlessly replaced him with a retired military officer, Ahmadu Ali while Ogbe was honouring an invitation for lunch of pounded yam and bush meat inside Aso rock seat of power. That process was replicated several times over during his presidency.

    Building on his godfather’s legacy, Jonathan saw the office of PDP chairmanship as personal tool for his own political survival. This found expression in the unceremonious removal of Ogbulafor over his insistence on adherence to PDP constitution which barred President Jonathan from contesting the 2011 election and the imposition of  Bamanga Tukur as part of the calculation for the 2015 election despite resistance from PDP elected office-holders and party officials many of whom were frustrated to joining the opposition to find expression for their ambition.

    In a democracy, political parties are not the properties of individual temporary office-holders be it president or governor but that of the party oligarchy. This is the trend among the long established political parties that have operated as modernisation agents for close to 200 years in America and Europe  And crisis between the party oligarchy often constituted by founders or former office-holders and current office-holders and ambitious younger elements of the party is also a common phenomenon The challenge has always been finding a compromise position between both groups whose interests are not always altruistic as quite often the former is driven by a desire to remain relevant because of their initial sacrifice and services to the party and the later by ambition.

    Nearer home, we saw this played out in the First Republic when SLA Akintola resisted control by the AG party oligarchs. But for the interference of outsiders, the owners of the party who were in effective control would have been able to sanction its erring premier. In the Second Republic, the oligarchs in UPN were equally in effective control sometimes sanctioning erring governors. In the run up to the 1983 presidential election, an attempt to revolt by younger and ambitious governors of the party such as Alhaji Jakande and Bola Ige was effectively checked by the towering figure of Awo who had the unalloyed loyalty of the Ajasins, Akinsanyas, Fasorantis and Ayo Adebanjos among many others.

    In the Fourth Republic, the Afenifere oligarchs were in effective control of Alliance for Democracy (AD) until they shot themselves in the leg by dining with Obasanjo to whom all is fair in war. With his 2003 re-election threatened by Vice President Atiku supported by the ‘South-south’ governors led by James Ibori of Delta, Obasanjo had sought the help of Afenifere, the owners of AD. He reneged on the terms of agreement leading to the routing of the AD governors in the South-west with the exception of Lagos, which ignored the directives of the oligarchs. The younger elements abandoned Afenifere and AD to form their own AC party and an Afenifere renewal group.

    But what goes round comes around. The new oligarchs, who are now in charge of APC in the South-west, are facing their own demons as the governors they helped into office are resisting their control. This probably contributed to the overrunning of Ekiti by PDP, a development ironically blamed on the masses who because of apathy look up to party leadership that on that occasion failed them. The same war of attrition is currently raging between local oligarchs and their governors in Ogun, Oyo and Edo. We have seen this play out in Sokoto, Kano and Borno states.

    These party squabbles are normal in competitive liberal democracy. This was why this column suggested to APC shortly after its registration about a year ago that the stakeholders should take the control of the party away from the governors. The idea of presidents and governors taking over the control of political parties that produced them by virtue of access to state funds that could be used for mobilization is a carry-over from an ill-equipped military that destroyed the natural evolution of our party system. A situation where an elected governor claims superiority over the party that fielded him is an aberration. It only undermines party discipline.

    The emergence of Odigie-Oyegun whose reputation for integrity, ‘resoluteness and forthrightness’ is widely acknowledged as APC chairman gives the party oligarchs an opportunity for a much-needed moral voice and leadership by example. The tragedy of Ekiti which was the failure of leadership and not so much of those who voted against the governor, should enable the new chairman see the urgent need for compromise and if need be sanctions in the on-going war of attrition between governors in Ogun, Oyo and Edo and those who provided the platform and the support for them to attain their current positions. The oligarchs quite often have greater stakes in their party. Current actors who today lead must also be taught some lesson on how to follow.