The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Crisis of unemployment and underemployment

    The crisis of unemployment among the youths is a global problem. The United States that seems to have the capacity to create jobs and to absorb young people into industries, services and public sectors of its economy is also not spared. Unemployment in the United States in recent times ranges between six and eight percent. In Europe, the rate is higher and varies from one country to another.

    In northern Europe, the rate is just slightly higher than that of the United States but in southern European countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece, the rate is bewildering. In Greece in particular among young people from 17-35 years old, unemployment is almost 50 percent. In the vast continent of Asia, unemployment is also a big challenge and in Arab North Africa and the Middle East, the rate of unemployment is also a serious threat to political stability in that region. Central and South America with the exception of Brazil and Chile is in serious trouble in terms of unemployment especially among the youths.

    Africa is almost a hopeless case. Unemployment in some parts of Africa among the youth is almost 80 percent in some cases. In Nigeria, the situation is serious and we are all sitting on kegs of gunpowder ready to explode at any time. Sixty percent of the graduates of universities and polytechnics annually troop into Lagos in search of jobs that do not exist. The manufacturing sector in Nigeria that should absorb young, willing and educated youths has collapsed where they existed or they do not exist at all. Since 1999, our economic policy has been the removal of the role of the states in economic development and job-creation under the slogan of allowing the market to take care of economic development.

    Centralised development planning that was popular in the 50s, 60s and 70s has been discarded as unfashionable because of poor management of public companies and corporations. Many of these companies have therefore been privatised and sold to people who instead of investing in them to create more jobs have themselves become scavengers, dismantling many of the plants and carting them away to be sold as spares outside Nigeria. Under the World Bank/IMF economic orthodoxy, creation of jobs now belongs into the province of private entrepreneurs and foreign investors.

    The role of the state is now restricted to the provision of private sector friendly environment while the lot of the unemployed has become a private affair of the individuals concerned and not that of government. It is true that state intervention in economic planning and development can sometimes be a deadweight on the state but we cannot always leave the fate of our young people to market forces and private investment. There may be a need as advocated by the late Lord Maynard Milton Keynes for massive state investment and intervention in job creation because without jobs, there can be no stability and if well managed state intervention by putting jobless people to work can lead to increase in national wealth in spite of whatever temporary inflation that may accompany it. A situation in Nigeria where young graduates are roaming the streets, riding okada or doing domestic jobs is a situation of unacceptable underemployment.

    In a developing country like ours, there are so many aspects of our lives that are crying for development; we do not have good roads, pipe borne water, electricity supply is fitful inadequate and unsatisfactory. Our primary and secondary schools’ buildings are a disgrace when compared with similar schools in southern Africa, we do not have adequate housing for our people, we do not have decent and functional ports and yet we have a coastline begging for development if only to decongest Lagos and save the people living there from their miserable existence. Our communication and transportation infrastructure is totally inadequate for our population. I can continue to mention areas of inadequacy in our lives.

    We have a huge population of about 170 million if we are to believe our census commission. With this huge population and with the highly developed manpower, we can do something in this country. Nobody is going to help us build our country; we have to do it ourselves. We should forget about such fanciful ideas like NEPAD, APRM and other strategies anchored on foreign investment. China that is now the second biggest economy in the world and is primed to overtake the United States very soon did not develop on World Bank/IMF’s advice but looked inwards and put its people to work and today, China is the most sought after destination where America and European leaders are queuing up to seek for economic cooperation.

    We may not have the Confucius ethics driving the Chinese people towards frugality and hard work but we certainly have natural resources and the population as well as the West African market if we are serious and determined to develop. We cannot stop educating our people because I have heard people saying, universities are turning out graduates when they know there are no jobs outside there. What we need to do is to declare a national emergency on employment and under-employment and also embark on the mission of physically building our country ourselves. We can do this by buying equipment, tractors, caterpillars and putting our young people to work on building our roads, railways, modern farms, houses, schools and ports with the supervision of experts, both local and foreign.

    The end product may not be as good as the ones built by expatriates but it will be the works of our hands. Anyone visiting India would notice that their roads and buildings and buses are a little rough on the edges but they can be proud that they built them. The problem of unemployment and underemployment is so serious in Nigeria that we must take unorthodox methods to tackle it. Those of us who are in employment are daily overwhelmed by the demands on our time, purses and generosity by young people seeking for jobs.

    We find it extremely difficult to send people away without providing some words of encouragement but this would not do. Self-preservation is the first law of nature. If young people cannot survive, they would do whatever is necessary including committing crime to survive. Young people are also not getting married because both young men and women have no jobs and this is destroying the moral and social fibre of our society. We are a nation that seems not to have a future because if the young people are not getting married and having children, then what future do we have? Even the Boko Haram insurgency is not unconnected with the apparent hopelessness of young people. Our leaders particularly our political leaders do not seem to understand or appreciate the seriousness of our situation.

    They are all bogged down by the politics of re-election. If we are not careful, there may be no country to govern after election. This is the time therefore for the federal government to summon a summit to discuss the problem of unemployment in our country. If salaries have to be cut especially among those who are earning well to fund Build Nigeria campaign, we have to do this. If we block economic seepage and leakage and the corruption at every level of government, there should be enough money to back this campaign to build Nigeria. I appeal to all those in position to take drastic measures to do this before we are all swept away in a sea of youthful fury.

  • On the Osun governorship poll

    On the Osun governorship poll

    Despite widespread public concerns of possible rigging and violence, the Osun State governorship election was successfully held last Saturday.

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) incumbent Governor Rauf Aregbesola was overwhelmingly returned to office, recording 394,684 votes as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) -over 60 per cent of the votes cast. His main opponent, Mr. Iyiola Omisore, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) obtained 292,750 votes; quite impressive, but still a distant second. He was comprehensively beaten and has conceded defeat.

    As expected and because of the huge stakes involved, the election was closely fought by the main contenders in a long, hard and often bitter campaign. Tension was high in the state and there was a real possibility of violence breaking out during the election. But it turned out to be quite peaceful and, by and large, the results reflected the electoral choice of the electorate. The observers adjudged the actual voting to have been free and fair.

    Governor Aregbesola deserved to win the election. His performance in government has been quite impressive, with an astonishing development of infrastructure. His schools’ reforms have also been widely acclaimed as innovative. Despite reservations in some enlightened quarters, his populist and charismatic style of government earned him a huge electoral victory in the election. But he also campaigned very hard, leaving nothing to chance. He and the APC leaders had learnt some hard and useful lessons from the Ekiti governorship election, which Governor Kayode Fayemi lost to his PDP rival, Mr. Ayo Fayose.

    In contrast to Governor Aregbesola, his opponent, Iyiola Omisore, had little or nothing to offer the electorate. When he was in office as deputy governor in the Bisi Akande administration, his record was really appalling. It included his determined and prolonged effort to organise Akande’s impeachment as governor. The source of the friction which paralysed the government was Akande’s refusal to meet his financial claims for a fraudulent contract Omisore had purportedly concluded with the previous military administration. I tried to resolve his differences with Governor Akande, but failed as Omisore wanted his financial claims met. In addition, there is still a considerable public speculation that he may have been involved, or implicated, in the assassination of the late Alliance for Democracy (AD) leader and Federal Attorney-General, Bola Ige, a case which has remained unresolved since 2002. Soon after, he defected from the AD.

    Because of all these, public perception of him as a politician has been quite negative. His character, or lack of it, has not matched his lofty and remorseless political ambition to be governor of the state at all costs. He tried the Ekiti strategy of ‘stomach infrastructure’ but this did not work. He was rejected. His election as governor would have been a terrible set back for the state.

    Though the election was largely devoid of any serious violence, this was due largely to the remarkable and commendable restraint shown by the electorate in the electoral process, particularly on the voting date. A week before the election, the PDP Federal Government deployed a large number of military forces, including the Police and the State Security Service, evidently to intimidate and harass the APC and its supporters. There were palpable fears that the security forces would be used to rig the election, which the PDP was determined to win, after its victory in the Ekiti State governorship election.

    Scores of APC leaders, including its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, were arrested on the eve of the election. What was even worse and totally unacceptable was the deployment by the PDP Federal Government of hooded armed men that were not even part of the regular armed forces of the country, with the clear intention of intimidating the electorate. This is reminiscent of Hitler’s storm troopers, the infamous SS, used by the Nazis to subvert democracy in Germany. Not a few innocent German heads were broken by Hitler’s SS men in his quest for absolute power in Germany. Are these not the men that former President Olusegun Obasanjo warned the nation about in his attack on Jonathan last year? Has he not been proved right in raising the alarm?

    Those so arrested and detained by these armed men included my youngest brother, Folarin Fafowora, a member of the State House of Assembly. It was claimed that ballot papers were being stamped in his house. But the house was not even searched by the DSS in the first place. In fact, as he has since told me, he was riding an Okada in Osogbo when he was picked up by the DSS officials. He was only released on Tuesday after four days in illegal detention. I have asked him to sue the DSS for his illegal detention and denial of his rights. We cannot continue to have the security forces acting illegally so brazenly against innocent citizens. This is provocative and designed to subvert the electoral process in the state. But undaunted by the heavy military presence, the voters refused to be intimidated and cast their votes in a peaceful manner. They displayed admirable and exemplary courage that the voters in other states should show in future elections to restore electoral integrity.

    Next year’s general elections, including the presidential, are crucial for the future of free and fair elections and the survival of democracy in our country. We cannot accept the continued use by the PDP Federal Government of military and illegal para-military forces to intimidate the electorate. That was why a substantial number of voters simply decided to stay away rather than risk intimidation and illegal detention by the security forces, including hooded and unidentified armed men. The role and use of security forces in future elections in our country should be clearly spelt out and defined by the INEC. Armed forces, regular or irregular, should not be deployed unless asked for by the INEC, or by the contending political parties themselves. When deployed, such security forces must be plainly neutral between the contending political parties.

    The Federal Government cannot arrogate to itself the right to deploy its security forces anywhere in the country, except where a situation of emergency has been declared, and duly approved by the National Assembly. What happened during the election in Osun State was farcical, disgraceful and plainly illegal. The APC must ask the courts to pronounce on the legality, or otherwise, of the use of the military by the Federal Government during the elections when a state of emergency has not been declared. The Federal Government must not be allowed to unleash a reign of terror in the country, particularly during elections.

    Even among senior military and security officials, there is a serious and growing concern regarding the deployment of armed soldiers in elections in our country as we saw during both the Ekiti and Osun states elections. These officers are concerned that the Army is being illegally used to determine the outcome of elections in Nigeria. This will inevitably lead to the military becoming more politicised and less professional. It is a road we have often taken in this country in the past with disastrous consequences. It destroys the professionalism and political neutrality of the military. There are enough security challenges for the military in our country without them being further dragged into the vortex of politics.

    Now that he has been deservedly returned to power, Governor Aregbesola will be well advised to review and reflect on some of his controversial policies and strategies which have created divisions in the state. I refer here, specifically, to his education policy to which Christian leaders have raised strong and determined opposition. He may have good intentions on this issue, but there are serious concerns that he may have unwittingly fuelled religious tensions in the state. Osun state is multi-religious with both the Muslims and Christians living together peacefully for over a century. The governor must keep things this way and not create among the electorate the impression that the government is in support of one side or the other of the religious divide. His electoral victory would probably have been more comprehensive had the religious factor not crept into the consideration of Christians in the state, most of whom probably voted for Omisore, despite his several shortcomings and lack of electoral appeal.

    In addition, the quality of governance in the state should be elevated. Governance is a serious business. It should not be handled in a cavalier style as is the case now. The governor must reach out to all sections of the civil society in the state, particularly the workers and teachers. No matter the support and attraction that a populist strategy may generate for the governor, sight should not be lost of the need to ensure that the state is not polarised economically, or religiously.

  • The Ebola war

    THE world is  at war. Before you say the  Third World War!,  let me quickly add that it is not a war between nations, but a war by man to save himself from extinction. It is  a war to save the human race from being wiped out by the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), which hereinafter shall be referred to as Ebola.  Until a few days ago, Ebola seemed so  distant  from us.  It was something  we heard about in  other countries.

    To the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea (DRC), Zaire, Sudan, Sierra Leone and Liberia, Ebola is not something strange. They have been living with the deadly virus, which has killed hundreds of people in those countries for years. Ebola kills within the twinkling of an eye if the victim does not pay attention to his health in good time. It can kill as fast as within three to 21 days.

    Ebola took the world like a storm in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in Nzara, Sudan and Yambuku, DRC. Yambuku is close to the Ebola River from which the disease got its name. These countries still experience seasonal outbreaks of Ebola, the latest of which has spread to Nigeria, Spain and the United States (U.S). Ebola was imported into Nigeria on July 20 by a Liberian, the late Patrick Sawyer, who flew in through Lome, Togo, to evade being stopped at his home country’s airport since he knew he was an endangered specie.

    The late Sawyer, who was also an American citizen,  deliberately brought the disease to Nigeria. We do not need to be diplomatic in expressing our feelings over  this matter; I believe we should say it as it is because the late Sawyer did not mean well for this country by travelling down here in his endangered  state.  It was sheer wickedness for him to have done that.

    He knew that he had Ebola and was therefore, literally,  carrying death in his luggage.  He knew that he was not supposed to travel in that condition, yet he did. He knew that he should not have contact with people, yet he sat comfortably with others in the plane.   The late Sawyer, as an  educated man, knew all these, yet his conscience did  not prick him.

    What is so important about the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) conference he was coming to attend in Calabar, the Cross River State, that he sneaked out of  Monrovia, the Liberian capital, for in his killer state?  We have not been told the whole truth about how he left Liberia.

    Through his despicable act, over 160 million Nigerians are today at risk of Ebola. Anywhere you turn today, the fear of Ebola is palpable.  The young and the old have nothing else to discuss, but Ebola – and its cure(s). This is why we have heard of the bitter cola and salt water therapies, among others.

    These therapies are no match for Ebola, experts have said. Despite experts’ advice, I can boldly say here  that many will not report to hospital if they take ill, but will try out  these therapies first before going to the hospital as last resort. That is the way we are as Nigerians. But for the sake of our families and neighbours, this is the time for us all to, more than before,  be our brother’s keeper. Let us report all known cases of ill health before they get out of hand. By so doing, we will be saving lives and will not be carrying death all over the place like the late Sawyer.

    Through the late Sawyer’s inhuman act, we have lost a nurse, while a doctor, another nurse and others who had primary contact with him are in hospital for Ebola infection. These people contracted the disease while trying to save his life when he was rushed to the First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, Lagos, last July 20. They were infected in line of duty by a patient, who knew what he was suffering from, but intentionally kept quite. What a callous and cruel act. Scores of others also came in contact with him at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Ikeja, Lagos from where he was rushed to the hospital.

    He has endangered the lives of all these people who did not know that he had Ebola and were genuinely helping a man who they saw was ill. It is so painful that our people showed him so much care in order to save his life, but in  the end got what they never bargained for. Since the Liberian government knew about the late Sawyer’s status why did it allow him to leave the country for Nigeria?  I do not buy the argument that he ‘escaped’. How  could he have escaped if he was in isolation. The thing is that the government left the late Sawyer  to his own devices  despite being aware that he lost a sister to Ebola.

    If other countries allow Ebola victims to leave their shores, where will the world be today? Ebola cases will abound all over the place with the risk of the entire world being wiped out. But the late Sawyer’s evil  plan was not against the world but against Nigeria. But he forgot that Ebola knows no boundary once a victim is let loose like the way he sneaked out of his country to  come to  Nigeria where  he died on July 25. There was nothing for the late Sawyer to come and pick here. So, he should have remained in his country to manage his ailment. And who knows, he might have survived if he did not take up the additional burden of travelling in that his very weak and sick state.

    We have an emergency on our hands as the government has noted. People who caught  the virus in line of duty should not be abandoned to their fate. This is not a job hazard that they should be left to bear alone.  There are job hazards and there are job hazards, but this  hazard is a different one entirely.  Although the government has risen to the challenge so far, more still has to be done.The government must ensure adequate  protection of health, airport, Customs, Immigration and allied workers if we are serious about containing Ebola. These are the people that will do the job and if there is no protection for them, they may abandon work  and we all know what that means.  The late Sawyer put us through all this stress because of his evil intentions. Why did such an urbane man behave that way?

    This is why I agree with President Goodluck Jonathan that the late Sawyer was a ”mad man”. If he was not mad, he would not have brought Ebola here and kept mute when he fell seriously ill.   If he was not mad,  he would have  opened up at the hospital   when his condition worsened that ”look this is what I may be suffering from having lost a sister to Ebola”.  Our people say the dead does not shield himself from those that will bury him. At that point there was nothing for him to hide again.  If he had no ulterior motive that was what he should have done as a gentleman. My fear is that those who came with him from Liberia for the Calabar conference are on the loose.  If they have the virus, they might have infected other participants without knowing.

    The problem is how do we trace these people and  those  they came in contact with. We have a hell of a problem on our hands. Because of the callousness  of one man, a nation of over 160 million people is being threatened to be wiped out  by Ebola. If this is the intention of the late Sawyer and his collaborators, they will not succeed. Nigeria will overcome Ebola, come what may.

  • Youth like dried leaves (3)

    Bloodthirsty Shekau will not be the final nemesis of the Nigerian State nor would his terror-mongering Boko Haram terrorist sect and its faceless masterminds. And our nemesis hardly lies in President Goodluck Jonathan and company. The portentous ruin we dread do not entirely subsist in the shenanigans of Mr. president and senior citizens with whom he contrived the inglorious national Confab; men and women hastily contracted at a sullied N12million each, to hazard worthless remedies to our timeless tragedies.

    Our ultimate nemesis is the Nigerian youth. Youth we have now manifest as the kernel of that inveterate ruin and eternal damnation cunningly marketed to us and surreptitiously programmed in us by global ‘super powers’ and aid merchants we have learnt to trust, often to our detriment as a nation and potentials as leader of the African race.

    In this premeditated lunge for Nigeria’s jugular, the nation’s youth that ought to serve as the bridge and bastion to our prosperous future, sadly, become the nub of discord and deathly rally currently ripping the tide and march to progress of our fatherland. But why do promising youth evolve like brutes and loathsome trolls of a dark order? How did our once incandescent dawn erupt in moonshine? Why is the Nigerian youth, like the proverbial doornail, half-dead from the top?

    Many have attributed the afflictions of the Nigerian youth to bad leadership, nonstop dominance of the predatory ruling class and tiring recalcitrance of the younger generation to engage in communal and national politics in a beneficial manner to the Nigerian state. Many more would readily diagnose the maladies of the nation’s youth to societal banes and culture of citizenship by which they are weaned and ushered into adulthood.

    A more damning argument is however, advanced by neocolonial niggers pretending to be Nigerian. This pitiful band of colossal disgrace, having acquired PhDs among other choice honours in esoteric and professional fields; having secured plum jobs in global conglomerates or multinationals, turn around to glower at their roots and its recurrent ills with contempt even as they identify Nigeria’s problem as a recurrent affliction of the African race. In the wake of their sometimes, plausible and often farfetched analyses cum diagnosis of the Nigerian malady, they conveniently excuse themselves from the nexus of blame and severally propound the sad realization that Nigerians are innately incapable of self-determination and self-governance. Clinically, they recommend the American example, the British palliative, Chinese magic wand and Malaysian ingenuity to mention a few, as the ultimate measures to resolve the nation’s ills. How?

    These arguments have overtime, attained a language of their own and thus evolved as a dialect of dissension and exaggerated self-abnegation. The nation’s academic elite, political and economic ruling classes frequently marshal its precepts as justifiable putdown of the lower working class and breadlines’ persistent claims to victimhood and sense of entitlement which they at once identify as whiny and symptomatic of a clueless and irresponsible citizenry. Between the latter and former segments of the citizenry however, Nigeria suffers a preponderance of intellectual nitwits and promising youth turned foetal adults to the detriment of the Nigerian state.

    As youths, the coordinated tragedies afflicting our consciousness daily append the only real structure to our lives as impoverished Nigerians. The burdensome reality of fast slipping youth, the recurrent rites of bigotry and ethical quandary of coping with the strict moral code of adulthood and ideal society obscures our understanding of life’s ultimate purpose and meaning. It spurs millions of misguided Nigerian youth to engage in a mad, desperate pursuit of fast and fleeting riches even as it keeps hundreds of millions more in the doldrums and binds of despair.

    Consequently, the revolutionary dissent that sprouts from oppression is pitiless and unbending. It radically splits our world into ‘insensitive ruling class’ and ‘clueless lower class,’ elite and downtrodden, haves and have-nots. It fosters even more fragmented discord that continually pits the Nigerian Christians against Muslims, Hausa against Igbo, Igbo against Yoruba, Yoruba against Ijaw; it fosters spurious segmentation of our society into moral and amoral,  good against evil, and apostates versus believers. Within this poisonous clime, the Nigerian child is thrust into adolescence and misshapen adulthood.

    From Boko Haram’s terrorism, internet fraud, cyber-terrorism, financial/bankers’ terrorism and political terrorism emblematic of the ruling class, recent developments in the country present a sad prologue to a heinous and wider conflict between the nation’s rich ruling class and the impoverished majority of the breadlines and disappearing middle-class.

    A bloody and protracted war thus ensues: this war, caused by diminishing resources, chronic unemployment, substandard health facilities, declining crop yields and educational standard, climate change and rising food prices, big business and government conspiracies against the Nigerian state, manifest and escalate at alarming proportions daily and by the second.

    Consequently, our society is flung rudderless on a seething sea of sleaze and we flounder vulnerably, horror-stricken waiting with baited breath for that defining moment when we will drown in the storms of our self-wrought perversions. Now that our world as we made it, have begun to collapse, we withdraw from the possibility of rebirth, and choose to exploit ‘infinite possibilities’ in our fragility and predicted collapse.

    In this turbulent clime, the ruling class predictably retreats into their illicitly acquired mansions and safe-houses in Europe, Nigeria’s Banana Island and other palatial havens in Abuja and Lagos. There, they indulge in unchecked hedonism, vulgar display of ill-acquired wealth and extravagant consumption. Outside the walls of their palatial mansions, the suffering masses are repressed with greater ferocity. Resources of the collective are depleted and misappropriated for the privileged few until they are virtually exhausted. And then the hollowed-out edifice collapses.

    At the backdrop of this festering national catastrophe, presumably ‘well-meaning’ neighbours cum ‘global super powers’ like the United States of America (USA) in premeditated fits of exultation predicted the end of the Nigerian enterprise, touting a dismal and inescapable end to the country’s recurring tragedies in 2015. Several disasters since the USA’s worrisome and very suspicious prediction, the country maniacally nurtures and perpetuates forms of madness and grotesqueness that basically substantiates the USA’s ‘heartfelt’ cry and doomsday prophecy.

    The USA, just like every other nation possesses inalienable rights to visions of doom and delusions of grandeur – it would have been better though if the country chose to look inwards and focus its gift of clairvoyance in resolving its burgeoning sociopolitical and human crises spanning immigration/border problems, terrorism, economic depression, endemic poverty, escalating gun violence – a record 280 million of its about 300 million population are gun wielders – to mention a few.

    The opinions of the US or any other so-called ‘super power’ is at the end, inconsequential to the survival of  Nigeria; the best they could do is progressively advise us or assist with true aid, twin-good which they are fundamentally and inherently programmed to avoid, but the pitiful bands of Nigerian niggers do not know that. Sadder that these pathetic gangs of intellectual and sentimental fops latch on to every touted ‘insightful analysis’ and ‘security report’ from abroad on the Nigerian state and feverishly glamourise and actualise its predictions of doom in a desperate play to a script of global conspiracy and home-spawned plots to devastate and bury the Nigerian dream.

    • To be continued…

  • Council of State’s unworkable resolutions

    The Council of State, made up of the President, Vice President, the Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, all living former Heads of State, all former Chief Justices of Nigeria and all state governors rose from an emergency meeting in Abuja last week and resolved to ‘support President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure that the current spate of terrorism in parts of the country ends before December’. This is an ambitious undertaking when from experience, such target dates set by the commander-in-chief only brought more daring raids from initial soft spots like churches and mosques to military barracks and fortified prisons and airports.

    The council also resolved to end all discriminatory practices in states including the registration and “deportation” of non-indigenes as well as different school fees for indigenes and non-indigenes in state-owned institutions among others. The council did not also say how it hopes to achieve this within a federal set-up where some states earn from the federation account in a month what some others with greater responsibilities earn in a year. Finally the council resolved to ensure that the predictions by some foreigners that Nigeria would cease to exist as a united nation beyond 2015 remained a wishful thinking. The council did not disclose its strategies for achieving that noble and patriotic objective. For this reason it is difficult not to see the council as a body that has continued to live in denial.

    He who comes to equity, as they say, must come with clean hands. The tainted records of some members of the council while in office have deprived them of the much-needed moral voice to check the current drift. Like the current PDP, Shagari NPN’s desperation to hold on to power through fraudulent ‘landslide and sea slide’ victory in opposition strongholds in 1983 brought in the military. In a failed attempt by Babangida to prolong his regime described by Obasanjo as “deficit in honour”, after the longest transition programme in the nation’s history, he annulled an internationally adjudged free and fair election that produced MKO Abiola as President-elect. Ernest Shonekan, another prominent member was an interloper used to subvert the victory of his kinsman. Obasanjo as president, destroyed opposition, supervised the rigging of 2003 and 2007 elections and ended imposing ailing Yar’Adua and an ill-prepared President Jonathan on Nigeria following his own failure to secure an unconstitutional third term. Jonathan’s five years remains the most divisive period in our nation’s history comparable only to the civil war period by his own assessment. David Mark was an active participant in the 1993 debacle. Apart from Muhammed Uwais whose valiant efforts to sanitise our electoral process was sabotaged by the PDP, governors without character who for political expediency proclaimed 13 to be greater than 16 cannot be regarded as democrats or patriots.

    It is therefore not a surprise that their resolutions are a lesson in denial. We are not inventing the wheel. The state had existed for over 400 years where they became agents of modernization and industrialisation in western societies long before our own experiment at state formation. The role of the state in a democracy has been clearly defined. Citizens live and breathe through the state that keeps records of everyone in the society from -your finger print, your blood group, the salary you earn and your mortgage arrangement to ensure your children complete repayment if you die. The state dictates by its economic policies the time to procreate and the number of children you can have. The state keeps a tab on you every minute to ensure you don’t become a danger to others or threaten the system. The state even controls your thoughts through the media and making funds available for academic pursuit in areas that have impact on their society. For the state, information is power to mould society in its own image.

    Here, we are not sure whether we want the modern state or a reign of warlords that preceded them. Because of the greed of inheritors of power in our new emergent states, we operate without facts and figures. In the last 14 years, thrice multibillion dollars contracts were awarded for ID card project to end planning without statistics. Thrice the money was misappropriated by PDP buccaneers who constitute the majority of the current council of states. The sabotage was also aided by those who claim to have half of their empire spread across Nigerian borders that can be ferried in during census headcounts and elections. Today, the Nigerian state has no idea whether those herdsmen armed with sophisticated weapons, engaged in mindless killing of our compatriots in the trouble spots in the north are Fulani herdsmen or not. Yet the council of state now says the self defensive measure taken by Niger State in deporting hundreds of herdsmen who descended on their state is unacceptable.

    Then we are not told how the council resolutions fit into the quota system of admission policy into the federal universities without which all the available positions in Nigerian universities can be filled up by qualified candidates from Delta and Imo states. Some of the resolutions also ignore the existing federal character policy which guarantees states have equal opportunities of representation at the centre. What the council seem to be advocating by deemphasizing indigene-ship clause in our constitution is a negation of this policy.

    We have chosen to run a modern democratic state with federal arrangement for development and to resolve some of our crisis of cultural cleavages yet live in denial that we are a multi-ethnic society with different world views. For instance, the Yoruba wherever you found him on the planet will readily admit “ile ni abo isimi oko” meaning they dream of returning to their roots. Chinua Achebe put the Igbo worldview better when he said something to the effect that “we are strangers in this land, when calamity befalls the owner of the land we go home leaving the owners of the land who know how to appease their own gods”. If the Fulani that spread across West Africa have no primordial attachment to a particular place, it is because it is part of their culture to adapt by marriage and through economic relationship with elite of their host communities or conquered territories. But today we run a modern state with federal system, where Fulani herdsmen cannot justify their lawlessness of invading other’s territories since their 200 years membership of Nigeria multi-ethnic society does not confer any superior advantage over those who have inhabited their land for centuries.

    Like the marauding Fulani without borders, the Igbo with over 60% of its people outside their ancestral home want indigene-ship clause expunged from the constitution so that like the Fulani, they can also control the political power of their host communities. Our council of state members that live in denial forgets that it was the greed of Fulani political elite that was at the root of ongoing bloodletting in Plateau and Benue which started with a popular uprising shortly after independence. And behind the mutual suspicion between ordinary Igbos and Yorubas was the greed of Igbo elite’s attempt to take over the rein of political power in Yoruba nation, a move resisted by Yoruba elite in 1952. And contrary to the claim of the national security adviser the civil war was as a result of registration of non indigenes but more by northern elites’ desire to avenge the elimination of their political leaders by Igbo who they accused of taking over political power through unconstitutional means.

    Preventing disintegration of a state is not by the council’s wishful thinking but by the state performing its responsibilities to its citizens which is today not the case when we have no idea who Nigerians are, and federating units are prevented from taking responsibility for those who inhabit their territories.

  • The battle for Osun

    The battle for Osun

    WHOEVER had any doubt about the strength of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State should, by now, be convinced that he was damn wrong.

    But, can the APC be beaten on Saturday? No. Some latter day pundits and rogue bookmakers may continue to tell us that rallies are no indicators of political muscle, but we all know they symbolise acceptance and solidarity, if not affection, even if it is superficial. After all, the Yoruba say a o fe o lawujo o n darin: t’o ba darin naa ta ni o gbe? (You can’t call a song in a gathering in which you’re unwanted. Who will sing with you?).

    Tuesday’s APC rally at the Osogbo Township Stadium was unprecedented in its size, impact and import. The panegyrics on Aregbesola’s sterling performance in education and infrastructure. The frenetic displays of excited youths and old men lining the roads, waving brooms and screaming “Ogbeni!” in a town that had been groaning under a heavy security presence.  And the obstinacy of the sea of people who would not be deterred by the threatening rain. It was cloudy all through.

    I wasn’t surprised. Whoever has joined the monthly Walk-to-Live programme won’t be surprised at the governor’s charm.

    Aregbesola doesn’t need to grub gari in public and tear at roasted corn with both hands for him to “connect with the grassroots”. No. His is natural.

    Men and women of the Directorate of State Security Services (DSS) in mournful dark dresses and dreadful hoods had been parading the streets, shouting, shooting into the air and shutting down traffic – without provocation. That, I am told, is their own way of maintaining peace. Strange.

    After one of such scenes last Saturday in the town, an old man wondered why we couldn’t retrieve the snatched Chibok girls by simply sending the DSS men and women to Sambisa Forest where they are believed to have been held in captivity by the fundamentalist Boko Haram sect. A driver said the way the operatives were firing into the air, there was no way President Goodluck Jonathan, who incidentally was leading his party’s rally less than five minutes away, would not need another $1billion loan to buy bullets, bombs and boots for the Armed Forces.

    Pardon the digression. The crowd at the Aregbesola rally started gathering as early as 7 a.m. By the time the man of the moment and other party chiefs arrived at the stadium late in the afternoon, the scene had become electrifying. The crowd outside the throbbing arena was bigger than the one inside. It was a great spectacle. There were many groups in uniforms. There were many itinerary musicians, but K1 the Ultimate, the Fuji maestro, was on the band stand, dishing out acerbic messages to Aregbesola’s opponents.

    It was Aregbesola’s show quite alright, but there was no doubt that former Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola snatched away the star performance prize. He consolidated his rejection of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a party under which he ran the state for about seven years. The Okuku prince danced like a prince on his birthday, waving a broom excitedly and raising high his new party’s flag – to the admiration of the crowd, who yelled and yelled as Oyinlola shuffled and wriggled to the music.

    The former governor advised would-be voters to reject Otunba–sorry, a slip there, Dr, as he says he should now be known and addressed– Iyiola Omisore, the PDP’s candidate, at the poll. He listed many reasons why PDP should not take the reins of governance and mesmerised the crowd with details of why he parted ways with the PDP, spicing it all with anecdotes that sent the crowd reeling. Jonathan, he said, outfoxed former President Olusegun Obasanjo who helped him to get to the office, dismantling his influence in the party. He, Oyinlola, was denied the PDP’s national secretary, even after a court had pronounced him the rightful owner of the seat. The Ogun State arm of the party had its executive disbanded and handed over to men of questionable loyalty, he said. He was also bitter about the marginalisation of the Yoruba, saying none occupied a position of influence in the Jonathan administration.

    “Chief Bisi Akande is a former governor of this state. Isiaka Adeleke is a former governor of this state, just like me. We are all here with Aregbesola. So, who is left on the other side? We are all waving a final bye to injustice,” Oyinlola said in impeccable Yoruba–to the admiration of all.

    Party chair Chief John Odigie-Oyegun warned the PDP not to rig the 2015 general elections, saying if it did, the APC would simply form its own government. He sent the crowd into a moment of emotional depression when he asked that a minute’s silence be observed in memory of the late Chief Bola Ige, the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice who was murdered by unknown gunmen in his Bodija, Ibadan home on December 23, 2001.

    Oyinlola had wondered how some of those indicted in the Ige murder are the ones now holding leadership positions—courtesy of the PDP. Ige, a frontline politician with consummate oratory and caustic tongue that hit his opponents more than a million bullets, was from Osun.

    The rally was an opportunity to deliver a damning verdict on the Jonathan presidency, which Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu described as incompetent. He urged the youth to see the election as theirs because, according to him, it will define their future. They should, he said, be brave in the face of intimidation. “Soldiers can’t shoot you,” he told them, adding that they should protect their votes.

    A source told me that soldiers the people need not fear; the trouble is contending with fake soldiers who bear arms, even as their identities remain a secret.

    A rally for Aregbesola was stopped yesterday by “soldiers”. Are these genuine soldiers who swore to defend Nigeria? I doubt it.

    My advice to all those who are trying to turn the military against the people is that they should stop it; such indiscretion is costly.

    But Tinubu wasn’t done with his blistering assault on the Federal Government’s integrity, chiding her for not doing enough to free the Chibok girls, more than three months after they were abducted. He said: “They keep saying they know where the kidnapped girls are kept. If truly they know, let them bring them out and if it is the enemies that are keeping them and they know, it means they are saying they should be taken away.”

    Aregbesola brought back memories of those days of ideological politics, of colourful rallies, wisecracks and stinging remarks. He was pragmatic in his approach as he–in an open allusion to the Ekiti State election–exhibited how would-be voters should handle the ballot paper, which many believe could be compromised.

    Omisore and his camp have been boasting that he will beat Aregbesola in all the local governments. Only a major calamity, such as damaging the integrity of the ballot paper, could make such an empty dream come true. But, will Osun people allow that? I doubt it.

    Aregbesola’s talismanic acceptance is due to his performance–the massive road construction, the beautiful schools, feeding of thousands of pupils free of charge, the social security system for the elderly, provision of security equipment for the police, ambulance services, jobs for the youth and his sheer integrity.

    A friend once joked that Osun’s  monthly allocation is not enough for some of those battling to rule the state and their friends to fund their champagne life. Of the 36 states, Osun is 34 on the revenue allocation ladder. Despite this obvious financial inadequacy, Aregbesola has embarked on projects that are the hallmarks of progressive governance that the APC is striving to enthrone nationwide.

    Aregbesola has always said that in this election, there are only two options for the PDP-led Federal Government: it should allow the people’s will to prevail or be ready to kill as many people as possible and go down in history as the most draconian government ever. Whoever doubts that should go back to the video of the Tuesday rally.

     

    THE EBOLA CHALLENGE

    BAD news. A nurse at the Lagos hospital that treated the Liberian-American Ebola virus victim, Patrick Sawyer, is dead, the government announced yesterday. Doctors are battling to save the life of their colleague who treated the late Sawyer.

    Nigeria has now recorded seven cases of the lethal disease, which has sent the world scampering for help. Liberia and Sierra Leone have declared an emergency, with the former shutting down schools. The attention the Federal Government and the states are paying to the matter is commendable, but doctors are seeking assurance that they will get adequate protection as they join the battle to save lives that are threatened by the virus.

    The Middle East is in turmoil, with many, including women and children, dead. The fate of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 370 remains hazy, five months after the plane vanished with 239 on-board. Malaysia Airlines MH17 was brought down in Ukraine. All 298 on-board died. And now Ebola.

    Is the Apocalypse here?

  • Arab Spring and the West

    About three years ago, I had the privilege to go to the UN General Assembly as a delegate of Nigeria. This was at the height of the so called Arab Spring. During the session, the incipient conflict in Syria was under discussion. All the western countries that spoke from the podium of the UN at the plenary session condemned in unmistakable terms, the current president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad describing him in the vilest of terms calling him the butcher of Damascus and that there must be regime change in Syria and that there will be no compromise.

    The ambassador of Syria to the UN responded calmly to the accusation levied against Syria by the West. At that time, most of the one 170,000 souls that has now been lost were still alive. What the permanent representative of Syria told the world was that Syria was a delicately balanced country comprising the Shi’as, Christians, Armenians, Kurds, Sunnis, and a little Aramaic speaking group. The Syrian ambassador argued that the central government headed by Bashar Al-Assad even though belonging to the minority Alawite sect, part of the Shi’ites group provided the unifying cement binding Syria together and that instead of regime change, the West should support reforms.

    His message landed on deaf ears, the West was intoxicated by so called successes of the Arab Spring that had led to regime change, first in Tunisia then in Egypt and then the NATO powers intervened directly in Libya through massive aerial bombing, one of which wounded Muammar Gaddafi mortally before the so-called Libyan insurgents finished him off. There were manifestations of trouble and protests against the Sharifian monarchy in Morocco and the autocratic regime headed by Abdul Azeez Bouteflika in Algeria and there was massive Shia protest in the emirate states especially against the Sunni dominated monarchies by their Shia majority subjects.

    There were flickers of protest even in non-Arab Persian Iran, Saudi Arabia and in the Sudan but this did not constitute serious threats to the regimes there. The massive protest in Yemen led to changing of musical chairs from one dictatorship replacing another one. The removal of President Mubarak in Egypt by the massive protest against his regime gave everybody the impression that the Arab world was in the spring of a democratic change but what has now happened has not borne out his expectation.

    The Sharifian dynasty in Morocco has consolidated its hold on power, the FLN regime in Algeria has been able to put down at least for now, the Islamic movement for salvation (La front Islamique du Salut) and the so called revolution in Egypt after the initial victory of a party of the Islamic Brotherhood has now resulted into the dictatorship of Field Marshall Mohamed al-Sisi. Even in Tunisia where the so-called revolution started, the Islamic forces have triumphed over liberal democracy. The result of the military intervention in Libya is a tragedy unfolding. There is no peace in Libya and the weapons acquired by the Gaddafi regime are now in the hands of different militia forces.

    These weapons are also being used by forces of the Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb and possibly by Boko Haram. It is difficult to see what the West and the rest of us have gained from the promotion of democracy in North Africa and the Arab world. After two invasions of Iraq by the West, first on the grounds of Iraqi aggression on Kuwait and secondly on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Iraq remains totally torn apart and into pieces among the Shi’as, the Sunnis and the Kurds. The patchwork of a democratic regime left in Iraq after the withdrawal of American forces is now in total collapse.

    Iraqi Kurdistan is virtually independent of the rest of Iraq and the Sunni Arab northern part of Iraq from Mosul stretching all the way to Syrian Allepo hasnow been declared the nucleus of a new Islamic caliphate. Young Muslims all over the world who are looking for action and adventure are rallying to the flag of the new caliphate. This is a caliphate that believes in taking Muslims back to the period of pristine Islam of the Caliphs after the death of Prophet Mohammed.

    America and the rest of the west are faced with a difficult choice of what to do, poor President Barack Obama under attack of the Republican Party of the United States wants to flex American muscle but does not seem to know how to do it. America is now fighting the so-called Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant along with a curious combination of forces from Shi’a Iraq, Iran and Hezbollah (the party of God) apparently from Lebanon and Syria. America and the West are apparently afraid that the so-called Islamic caliphate may become an abode of terrorists who may threaten the interest of the West in the Arab world and Arabian Peninsula as a whole.

    The problem America will now have to deal with is how to convince Saudi Arabia, its main Arab ally and a staunch Sunni power to go along with it in fighting the caliphate which apparently is a Sunni creation. The situation in the Middle East is a very serious situation, dividing the Islamic world into two-armed coalitions one Shi’a and the other Sunni and behind the Shi’a is also non-Arab Persian-Iran with ambitions of nuclear weapons.

    On the Sunni side, is Saudi-Arabia and Egypt and if threatened, one of them may feel obliged to develop its own independent nuclear force to deter Iran. And not too far away from Egypt is of course nuclear weapons-armed Pakistan which is largely a Sunni country. The Islamic world has not faced this kind of division for a long time. What even makes the situation more serious is that the Shi’a has an organised clergy from grand Ayatollas to small ordinary Imams whereas on the Sunni side, there is no hierarchical organisation of the clergy.

    America may be tempted to stand aside from the internecine religious conflict in the Middle East after withdrawing from Afghanistan in December 2014. America also does not need Middle East oil as it used to do because with the Shale oil and fracking gas, America is going to be energy sufficient within the next five years.

    But even so, can America withdraw to fortress America leaving the Middle East to stew in its own juice and yet still remain the number one power in the world? These are going to be the issues for the presidential elections in the United States in 2016. In the meantime, Arab humanity will continue to suffer in Syria, in Palestine, in Yemen, in Libya and in Iraq. Even where there is some semblance of stability in the Arab world like in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the Gulf States, the stability there is not solidly rooted on the wishes of the people without which there would be no regime endurance.

  • South-west: Emulate Singapore’s economic miracle

    Four weeks ago, I described Singapore’s economic miracle – how Singapore started off as a poor country without natural resources in 1965, and became one of the richest countries in the world in less than 10 years. My purpose is to show the South-west something to emulate.

    The South-west is supremely ready to achieve the Singapore miracle. Sixty years of free Primary Education, and over 30 years of free Secondary Education, have made the South-west the most educated part of Africa. In the plans of the originators of the educational progress (Chief Awolowo and his colleagues), the mass education was meant to be the base for the building of a great modern economy.

    Unfortunately, however, the South-west is not a country on its own. It is part of a much larger country in which purposes are diverse and different, and  ill-will and animosity among peoples are powerful influences over central policy. The controllers of the Nigerian central government at independence regarded the South-west’s economic ambitions as over-ambitious, divisive, capable of weakening the central government and possibly even breaking up Nigeria. Since then until now, pulling the South-west down has been an unspoken but constant purpose in the operations of Nigeria’s central government.

    In the midst of this “pull-them-down” experience, the rulers of the Yoruba South-west have lost both confidence and focus. They know what their people need and desire, but they usually try to play it safe by behaving like the rulers of other parts of Nigeria. On the whole, in all fairness, the South-west governments  still tend to outperform the governments of other regions of Nigeria, but, unfortunately, much of their performance misses the point altogether.

    Here is the point: All phases of a people’s modern development are parts of one and the same package of development. Educational development is not an end in itself; it is a means of preparing and strengthening the people to carry out all the other facets of development. At the present stage in the development of the massively educated South-west, the prime development programme must be to put the people to work. Putting the people to work is not a side issue; it is not a haphazard action of a governor, an action aimed at winning electoral support. This does not mean  that other aspects of development (like building of roads, beautifying towns, etc) should stop; what it means is that putting the people to work must be the NUMBER ONE priority of the government.

    As Singapore’s economic miracle should teach us in the South-west, putting the people to work should consist of various programmes. First, we must give our people the kinds of skills that a modern economy demands, starting with basic skills and quickly expanding to more sophisticated skills. For us, this should include, first, snatching our educated and jobless people from the streets and giving them various training in productive skills, as well as strong work ethics. This is like a remedial programme. To get it done, a state government will need to respectfully involve our business people in it, in order to establish skill-training facilities of various kinds, public and private. Involving the business people from start will ensure that business people will see the improving skills as an opportunity for them to expand their businesses. This will also encourage new businesses – and, altogether, result in the expansion of businesses.

    The state government must then intervene in various ways to encourage businesses. First, provide all sorts of facilities that can attract businesses to the state –for example, well planned industrial estates and shopping centres well served with roads, water supply, and electricity. I said electricity because it is an absolute essential. In Nigeria where poor access to electricity is a damaging problem, investing state funds for regular local supply of electricity to an industrial or shopping centre can generate a big boost to a state’s economy, and thereby create jobs. Secondly, help the owners of certain local businesses to upgrade their businesses – such as owners of restaurants, inns and motels, mechanic workshops, recreation centres, group homes, private retail outlets, etc. Thirdly, encourage and help business starters. Singapore did this by creating various facilities and centres for training educated and skilled people in the basics of business, and various aspects of business management. She also did it through various financial supports to businesses. Some of our state governments have given small loans in the past; but they have done it in unproductive ways, and have usually linked it to politics. We must learn from a country like Singapore, Taiwan or South Korea how micro-credit systems are properly organized and managed to boost the economy.

    Fourthly, set out to attract foreign businesses to come and invest and do business in your state. Learn from a country like Singapore the many ways it did this successfully. But I can say now that one cardinal step is to ensure that your politics is predictably orderly and stable. The rulers of Singapore tell us that a predictably orderly and stable political life is NUMBER ONE STEP in attracting business people from other parts of the world. In this matter, being part of Nigeria is a big problem – since every Nigerian president believes that it is his right to rig elections in any part of Nigeria, no matter how much turmoil that may cause. How should our South-west states handle this unpredictability? We should learn to deal with it as best we can – and strive towards having a separate country of our own soon.

    Fifthly, while raising up businesses among our own people and attracting foreign businesses to come, we must give special emphasis to businesses that produce goods for export to other countries. Experience has shown that such businesses are the leaders in quickly building a country’s prosperity. When your workers produce goods that are exported, the income they earn is essentially from abroad – it means the people of other countries are providing good jobs for your people, and that is a great thing. Exports can be from our farmers, all the way to our workers employed in the most sophisticated technological businesses. To make our goods acceptable all over the world, we must ensure high quality in our goods.

    Snatching our educated people from the streets and quickly turning them into skilled workers and business owners is the first stage of our development – the “remedial stage”. The next is the long-term stage. In this stage, we reorder our educational system so as to prepare our children to grow up to be mostly skilled workers, businessmen, managers, etc. It is a new ball game in education. We will need to give totally new emphasis to mathematics, science, language and civics in early elementary schools; and,  later,more mathematics, science, technology, knowledge of trends in the wider world. To achieve these, we must sharply raise the training, competence and prestige of our teachers, and make our schools proud centres of learning and exploration. This stage is the real gateway to our future greatness.

    All these would be easier in our own separate country, but we must start now.  And we must integrate our states’ development agendas to improve our chances of success.

  • Political miscalculation

    UNDER the Constitution, the legislature is empowered to check the executive, just as the judiciary is there to ensure that these two institutions do not misuse their powers. In this wise, the National and state assemblies have the powers to deal with the president and governors if they misbehave. Such misbehaviour, the Constitution notes, must be fundamental  to warrant initiating their  impeachment.

    In the past 15 years of democratic rule, we have witnessed the impeachment of some governors. In some instances, the process was faulty and it was reversed by the court. The impeachment of then  Governors Rashidi Ladoja (Oyo), Joshua Dariye (Plateau) and Peter Obi (Anambra) was quashed by the court because their  Houses of Assembly abused the process.

    To achieve their aim of removing the governors, the lawmakers were found to have gone too far. They sat either outside their states or at ungodly hours when the stipulated time for sitting is 9a.m. How do you explain a House of Assembly sitting at 3a.m., or 4a.m., all in its bid to impeach a governor? This is the sort of things we have been witnessing  under this dispensation and they were rampant  during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure.

    Despite his own serial breaches of the Constitution, former President Obasanjo survived eight years in office because the National Assembly was too timid to move against him. The impeachment of a president is not as easy as that of a governor. Where only the House of Assembly can decide the fate of a governor, the Senate and House of Representatives must concur to impeach the president. So, removing the president will be an uphill task where both Chambers of the National Assembly do not agree.

    What counted in Obasanjo’s favour is also playing to the advantage of President Goodluck Jonathan, who despite his claim to being soft, has done what tough  leaders like Gen Yakubu Gowon,  Obasanjo, Gen Muhammadu Buhari, Gen Ibrahim Babangida and Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar could not do in their own time. Although moves were made by some members of the House of Representatives few months ago  to make the President answer for some of his misdemeanour they were not enough to rattle him.

    But, then impeachment is not a piece of cake as 24 members of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly have come to realise. About two weeks ago, the Assembly initiated the  impeachment of  Governor Tanko Al-Makura, for you guessed right, alleged  gross misconduct. The Constitution stipulates that a governor can be removed on the grounds of gross misconduct and it  defines  what amounts to gross misconduct under Section 188 (11) thus : ”Gross misconduct means a grave violation or breach of the provisions of this Constitution or a misconduct of such nature as amounts in the opinion of the House of Assembly to gross misconduct”.  To suit their  case, many of the Houses of Assembly prefer to use their own opinion of what amounts to gross misconduct and drop the constitutional definition of it which is ”a grave violation or breach of the provisions of this Constitution”.

    It is easier for the lawmakers to get a governor using their own definition of  gross misconduct because they and only they know what they are looking for. A governor can only escape their wrath if he is lucky to be cleared by the panel that investigates him. In many cases, the panel, which is expected to be non-partisan and independent, dances to the lawmakers’  tune. I do not know the hold they have over these panels, which according to the Constitution, are set up by Chief Judges at the instance of the Speaker.

    To me, the panel is the linchpin in the process. Despite the much touted power of the Assembly to remove a governor, it cannot exercise that power if the panel does not give it the go ahead. The Assembly’s impeachment  power may have been deliberately  curtailed by framers of the Constitution, who in their wisdom brought in the investigative panel to check the lawmakers’ excesses. The panel may have been introduced to stop the lawmakers from being the accuser, the prosecutor and the judge in their own case.

    Let us look at the Nasarawa scenario again. If the lawmakers, who were the accusers  had also  been the investigators, Al-Makura would have been removed by now. Unfortunately, some panels do not know the power they wield in this impeachment business. Many of them prefer to go with the lawmakers without looking carefully into the allegations levelled against the governor. They seem to have made up their minds from the outset that the governor is guilty and so rule without considering the merit or otherwise of the case against him.

    The Constitution allows the panel three months to do its job and this provision may have been adopted to ensure thoroughness in the process. Many of the panels are nothing but thorough. They do a shoddy job without being mindful of their place in history. Many governors have been sacrificed on the altar of our lawmakers’ greed.  It is refreshing that Al-Makura’s case did not go the way the lawmakers expected. They were determined to remove the governor for no just cause,  but failed in their mission because of the investigative panel’s  vigilance.

    The lawmakers saw the handwriting on the wall after the Chief Judge, Justice Suleiman Dikko, constituted the seven-man panel headed by Yusuf Shehu Usman. They claimed that the panel members were members of political parties and asked Justice Dikko to disband it. Of course,  the judge ignored them because having set up the panel he had become functus officio (i.e performed his official duty) and could no longer interfere  with the panel. On Tuesday, the panel cleared Al-Makura, who appeared before it on Monday to defend himself.

    His accusers, the lawmakers,  stayed away that day, only to put up a ”protest  appearance”  through their counsel, Ocha Ulegede, on Tuesday. The lawyer  said his clients had no confidence in the panel, claiming that two of the panellist  were Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members,  four, All Progressives Congress (APC) members and the last, a worker of the State Christian Pilgrim Welfare Board. The lawmakers’ allegations cannot be taken at their face value. They must substantiate their claim  because in law ”he who alleges must prove”. Without such proof, their allegations would remain what they are, mere  allegations.

    For once, let these lawmakers stew in their own juice. ”He who digs a pit”, the scripture says, ”will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone, it will come back to him”. Let them stop whining and face the job of lawmaking because the panel  has spoken and, according to the Constitution vide Section 188 (8),  ”where the panel reports to the House of Assembly that the allegation has not been proved, no further proceedings shall be taken in respect of the matter”.

    But, will they let go? Your guess is as good as mine.

  • Just me…being self-righteous (1)

    We belabour the ‘Nigerian dream.’ We abuse the idea that life will get better, that progress is assured if we keep faith, obey the rules and work hard, that prosperity is guaranteed if we continue to tread the slow, steady path to progress and a prosperous future. And in pursuit of these lofty ideals, we pervert the steady, measured, impartial course of the universe; hacking pliant paths to our dreams, from the crossroads where gluttony fosters depravity and vice.

    Eventually, we awaken to a cold, bitter truth: We are being sacrificed. The Nigerian dream we are sold is not worth our sacrifice. And the individual dreams we pursue, aren’t worth a smidgen of what we make them out to be. By the time we all struggle to achieve our dreams; Nigeria will be finished. Given that each tribe may finally achieve its dreams of nationhood via secession, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw to mention a few may establish their new nations.

    When we do, the swollen belly of our idiocy and pride shall become clearly visible to us. When it does, it shall suddenly dawn on us that, all along, we had been blindly acting to a script prepared by career predators from Western nations of Europe, America and our ruling class.

    The truth shall become clearer to us in intensity and impact and we shall hopelessly realize that we are being sacrificed. We will all be sacrificed; some of us much quicker than others. As it is now, so shall it be in our new nations, the Biafran youth, Ijaw youth, Oodua youth and Arewa youth to mention a few, shall become disposable indices in the scheme of things.

    But until then, we will continue to have today and squander it on the altar of racism and greed. Today, it’s impossible to see any offspring of our ruling class engage or become embroiled in the familiar tragedies that mar our lives. It’s always the children from the breadlines, struggling middle class and backwaters that are involved. We are the youth divide traditionally expected and required to function and serve as unquestioning muscles and ordinary cannon fodder in the ruling class’ blueprint of pillage and destruction.

    The decline of Nigeria is a story of gross injustices by the ruling class to the citizenry. But that is only an aspect of it, the greatest injustice is that meted out by individual citizen to self – the youth particularly. And this predominant malaise often plays out in our corruptibility and disinclination to foster a more humane leadership and society.

    Today, we suffer devastation by Boko Haram, declining standards of living, stagnant and falling wages that are hardly paid at due time; we suffer curtailment and absolute denial of our basic wages, long-term unemployment, slave labour, escalating crime wave, among other ills.

    Together, we perpetuate gruesome realities of the weakest being crushed decisively and maniacally by the affluent and strong. Together, we perpetuate a story of unbridled sectarian, ethnic and corporate power that has taken our government hostage, overseen the dismantling of our cultural heritage, societal and entrepreneurial values.

    But if the ruling class, in connivance with predatory nations and institutions from the so-called ‘first world’ is responsible for plundering our natural resources and bankrupting the nation, we, the youth, are responsible for even worse atrocities.

    We serve as the tools by which the ruling class and its cohorts overseas plunder and destroy our nation. The virus of political corruption, the perverted belief that only political and material profit matters, has spread to distort our thoughts and understanding of right and wrong. Today, it manifests in endemic proportions plaguing our communities with religious and political terrorism, economic and cyber-terrorism to mention a few.

    Today, the Nigerian society dies a gruesome death basically because we lay to waste, our youths and we, the latter, by our suicidal actions and thoughts, submit ourselves as hopeless prey to the Nigerian ruling class and their cohorts overseas.

    Everyday encounters with gluttonous gangs of struggling youth reveals among other things that many of us are the same social products as our peer from the aristocratic divide. Conditioned by life’s harshest vicissitudes to survive at all cost, we lay in wait, striving and bidding our time until we are ably positioned and strong enough to serve or rob the rich whose lives we earnestly covet and decry.

    A visit to any night club, party, religious organization or office still attests to this fact. Ambitious and upwardly mobile youth from the breadlines or struggling working class families engage in a variety of excesses to the applause of mates yearning to be in their shoes. Either as advance fee fraudsters, bankers, journalists, accountants, secretaries, factory hands or ordinary clerks, youths from the breadlines daily engage in a bitter, desperate struggle to chance on the shortest possible cut to sudden and stupendous wealth.

    We are beset by a greater and unexplainable fear beyond the fear of poverty amongst other harsh realities of life. Fear plays a greater part than hope: we are infinitely buoyed and obsessed with thoughts of the money that we could make or the possessions that might be taken from us or elude us, than of the joy and value that we might add to our own lives and to the future of our fatherland.

    Most of us, like our more privileged peer crave the best of everything without actually sweating for it. And when we do sweat for it, our industry is tainted by vigorous dashes of impatience and duplicity. In our work, we are haunted by jealousy of competitors, and a fleeting interest in the actual work that has to be done. We spend greater time and passion defending unjust privileges that we are desperate to enjoy.

    Such appalling youth constitute a greater segment of the human element expected to salvage Nigeria from eternal ruin and bloodbath. Consequently, our society becomes more rudderless and unstable and vulnerable on our watch. Now that Nigeria as our fathers, ‘the wasted generation’ made it, and we the youth, aggravate it, have begun to collapse, we withdraw from the possibility of rebirth, and instead choose to exploit the infinite possibilities in our fragility and predicted collapse.

    It’s about time the Nigerian youth started postponing immediate gratification and endure hard sacrifices spurred by conviction that the future can be better than the past. Beyond the politics and inanities of our existing ruling class and political parties, we face far more difficult questions at our moment in history: How do we reconcile reality with promises that have been made to us? How do we make the best of our circumstances at the backdrop of indefensible leadership failure and disillusionment of the citizenry?  How do we evolve and nurture to fruition, a new vision to help us deal with our gruesome realities, even as we rewrite a promising story of the future? How do we divorce ourselves from the pains and disappointments of the past – particularly those that many amongst us had no stake in but yet internalize and perpetuate unexplainable miseries thereby?

    How do we redefine “Peace, Unity and Progress” with our lust for “Life, Liberty and Happiness?”  How do we become more human and humane than we are now?