The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Who killed Funsho Williams?

    THE public was outraged at his killing.  It still is and it was looking forward to the bringing to justice of the perpetrators. Nothing would have pleased Nigerians, especially Lagosians more,  than the unmasking of the killers of Anthony Olufunsho Williams, the engineer-politician, who was cut down in his Ikoyi home on July 27, 2006. He was killed in the heat of preparations for the 2007 elections in which he had interest as a governorship aspirant.

    In fact, he was believed to be the one to beat for the governorship ticket of his party – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – but with his death, things changed. To compensate his family, some leaders of the party tried to get the ticket for his widow, Hilda. Things did not work out that way as the ticket eventually went to Musiliu Olatunde Obanikoro, who is now Minister of State (Defence).

    The circumstances surrounding Williams’  death showed that he was murdered. The job was clinically executed by those who carried out the operation. They left no trace whatsoever of their dastardly act. The police were expected to untie this Gordian knot, but they have failed to do just that. Last Monday, Justice Adeniyi Adebajo of the Lagos High Court freed those charged with Williams’ murder for want of evidence. According to the judge, there is no evidence linking the defendants with the murder.

    The defendants were on trial for seven years, meaning that for all those years the state wasted time and money  prosecuting a case it was ill-prepared for. According to the law,  a murder case  has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt to earn a conviction against the defendant, who is presumed innocent until otherwise proven. The prosecution’s inability to prove  the defendants’ guilt  led to their acquittal by the court.

    Williams was killed about the same time this paper was planning to hit the newsstand eight years ago. My first column which bears the same title as this one was on him. The column wondered if his murder would not end up unresolved like that of Dele Giwa, who was killed 28 years ago. Till today, the killers of Giwa have not been found. So also are the killers of Chief Bola Ige, former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation; Harry Marshal and Aminasoari Dikibo yet to be found. What is wrong with us as a nation that we cannot resolve the cases of  murder of eminent people?

    Last year, we asked the same question : Who killed Funsho Williams? following a witness’ testimony that some evidence in the murder case had been destroyed. They were said to have been destroyed doepileptic power supply. The destroyed evidence were the blood samples and the virtuous humour of the eyes of the deceased. In the light of this depressing evidence,  we warned against allowing anything to truncate the defendants’ trial. The warning went unheeded. It is apparent that some people somewhere wanted the case to go the way it ended last week.

    I am not saying that those who stood trial killed Williams. What I am saying is that the police and the prosecution did not do their homework well before rushing, as it were, to trial. Did they gather the necessary facts before coming to court? Did they preserve the perishable evidence, such as the ones destroyed, well? Did they make alternative provision for the  preservation of  the evidence whenever public power supply failed? It is the failure of the police and the prosecution to do their jobs diligently  that led to the defendants’  acquittal.

    Their acquittal has got the people  worried. Their interpretation of this development is that the state cannot be relied upon to protect them when they are deprived of their rights.  Williams was deprived of his right to life as guaranteed under Section 33 of the Constitution by those who stormed his residence in the early hours of July 27, 2006 and snuffed life out of him. What should naturally follow is for the state to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to book. But, eight years after, what do we have? The acquittal of those tried for the offence. Mind you,  these people  may not have even known anything about the murder.

    It was apparent from the outset that the police were going to  mess up  the case, despite their promise to ensure that no stone was  left unturned in getting the perpetrators. They had all the time in the world to investigate the case and gather all the evidence to avoid the kind of unimpressive showing the prosecution put up  in court. For God’s sake, this was a murder case and the police and prosecution knew that it must be proven beyond reasonable doubt to get a conviction. Any doubt, according to the law, is resolved in the defendant’s favour.

    It is to avoid a miscarriage of justice that the law  allows  1,000 criminals to go scot-free than to punish one innocent person. I do not seem to understand why the police and the prosecution bungled this case. Is it that they were not prepared? Did they arraign the wrong defendants? Where then are the killers of Williams? Will they ever be brought to book? Something Justice Adebajo said in his judgment is worth reproducing here:

    ”The prosecution did not make any effort to tie the cause of death to the action of any individual or set of defendants. I am satisfied that the deceased has been shown to have died, but it remains at large after the conclusion of prosecution’s case as to the person or persons who caused his death. The pathologist who said the deceased died by strangulation did not allude to any of the defendants as having carried out the act, he was never asked. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the death of the deceased resulted from the act of any of the defendants”.

    It beats me  why the prosecution will handle a sensitive case such as this with levity. If the killers of Williams are still walking the streets free  today, we have the police and the prosecution to blame. If they had been thorough,  the case would not have ended the way it did – without the killers paying the price for their dastardly act. It is a shame that the police and the prosecution failed to be alive to their responsibilities.

    But, the killers should not rejoice yet. Wherever they are, the long arms of the law  will get them. If not now, certainly in future. That is the law of retribution.

  • Current National Conference

    The current national conference has been going on now for almost three months. At the onset of the conference, many people were of the opinion that nothing good would come out of it. Some people even felt it was a deliberate government attempt to divert the attention of the country from serious problems of underdevelopment and insecurity plaguing the country. A major political party like the APC even decided to boycott the conference but it later softened its stance by conceding the rights of representation to states under its umbrella. Right at the beginning of the discussion on the conference, it was my considered opinion that the conference was worth supporting and that everything should be done to encourage participation by everybody who had something to say either as representatives or as opinion leaders particularly in the press. The government in nominating the retired Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kutigi and supporting him with Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, erudite and distinguished professor of Political Science, former Director-General of Nigeria Institute of International Affairs and former Foreign Minister brought credibility to the indaba. Although some of the conferees are people who have been in politics and governance and public affairs for such a long time that many people felt what new things can they really offer? I do not think we can buy experience. The Bible says old men shall dream dreams and young men shall see visions; perhaps, there are too many old men in the conference that is why many of them were sleeping at the onset of the conference. Initially, I felt that there were too many people at the conference and the allowances that they were going to be paid I believe were a little too much and some of them also insisted in eating sumptuous and exotic lunches at the expense of the state. This brought a lot of criticism to them and justifiably so. Some of the members in response to public criticism announced that they were going to donate their huge allowances to charity and I sincerely hope they are going to fulfil their promises and announce the charities they have donated their allowances to. The serious work of the conference was done at the committee level and some of these committee work was apparently excellent and the committees have now reported to the plenary. Unfortunately it seems there now exists irreconcilable clash of interests of members of the conference which the plenary is unable to resolve. It is unfortunate to note that this disagreements are taking the form of north-south dichotomy and sometimes, super-imposed on this are religious differences. Perhaps this should have been expected in a country where people are driven by self-interests and religious hypocrisy. Poverty knows neither religion nor region. A poor person is a poor person no matter which part of Nigeria he resides in, he comes from or what religion he practices or how insecure he is. The duty of government is to make provisions for all people including the poor and to ensure all citizens are assured of their security and guaranteed freedom of worship. These are universal aims of government. I believe that this should have been the first platform to establish so that unnecessary and primordial sentiments are not introduced to serious discussions of state.

    The issue of federalism if properly articulated and discussed and understood, should take care of the divisive and fundamental issue of resource control. If we agree to continue to stay together, it should be clear to everybody that the states that are the Cinderellas of Nigeria today could in future become the rich relations. If this is so, whatever economic and constitutional paradigm established today should be good enough to apply at all times in the future. So if well argued, we can find a formula for sharing of God’s given bounty in such a way that those whose land produce it are taken care of while those who are not so lucky are also accommodated in a just and fair way. If twenty percent derivation is offered to the hydrocarbons producing states, I see no reason why this should not be acceptable to all because in the whirligig of time, states that are poor today could become rich tomorrow following the discovery of hidden treasure under their soil.

    I personally feel that it is the structure of government in Nigeria that is the main problem. This is why I find it extremely surprising that the conference should recommend creation of additional 18 states to bring the total number of states in Nigeria to 54 even more than the states in the United States which we foolishly compare Nigeria with, not realising that the state of California alone is bigger and a hundred times richer than Nigeria. Every thinking person was hoping that what we will have in this country should just be six states or zones with political and economic power extensively devolved to them so that the centre would no longer be as powerful as it is today and an object of do or die politics. Reasonable people had thought that once these zones are constitutionally enshrined, they should be left to create whatever number of local governments they wish to have and that the present states should be seen as nuclei of provincial administration. What the conference has now recommended would ruin Nigeria economically and lead to bloated governments with 90 to 95 percent of resources going to political administration with little left for capital development. If this happens, the serious youth unemployment and consequent insecurity will be exacerbated. It is also surprising that the simple issue of policing has become contentious.There is no federation that I know of that is centrally policed like Nigeria. Every state and even cities and local governments can have police of their own and in some countries even university campuses have police. Those who are in favour of a centralised police without knowing it or perhaps deliberately are preparing grounds for dictatorship in this country. Finally, as it has been argued by many before me, there is no legal basis for the conference itself, one would have expected that the recommendations of the conference would be so formidable and reasonably argued that by popular demand for its adoption, the federal legislature and the executive would have been forced to embrace them and be forced to put in motion legal processes to make their recommendations the new grundnorm for a new constitutional order for Nigeria.

  • Lesson from Singapore’s success story

    In 1976, as president of the Nigerian chapter of the World University Service (WUS), I had to go and attend a seminar in Hong Kong, and the international convention of WUS in Manila, Philippines. I discovered that, with a little addition to my flight ticket, I could visit a few more countries in Southeast Asia. Many small countries in that region weremaking great progress in economic development. These countries were similar to our country, Nigeria, and to the other countries of Africa, in many respects. Like our African countries, they were former European colonies. But they were doing very well indeed, becoming technologically developed and growing rich, while our own countries in Africa were all engulfed in political turmoil and becoming poorer and poorer. I decided to see the Asian economic miracles.

    As I tried to learn about the countries that I should visit, I found that I must, at all costs, include Singapore. Singapore had an almost unbelievable story.  Singapore had been a federating member of the Malaysian Federation until 1965. But Singapore had been desperately poor then; crimes and violence were rife there; and massive riots were always taking place – riots by masses of unemployed youths.  The federal government frequently had to send large police and military forces there to tackle riots. One great riot in 1965 went on for three months. As a result, the Malaysian federal parliament voted unanimously in 1965 that the federation could no longer bear the burden of Singapore; and they expelled Singapore from the federation.

    Left to find its own way as a suddenly independent country in 1965, Singapore found itself in a terrible situation. It had no natural resources – no minerals, no farming land, no forest resources. The poverty was stifling. The youths milled nosily and violently in the streets. Food supply was in trouble. Businesses were fleeing the country. The man who suddenly found himself as leader of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew, wept as he addressed his sad country. He said, “For me, this is a moment of anguish…“

    Yet, 10 years later, Singapore had become an unbelievable success story. I didn’t have enough money to see it for more than two days when I visited it in 1976. But I had a chance to visit it again in 1982, in the company of my colleague, Senator Lere Adesina. By this date, Singapore had become famous worldwide as one of the strongest economies in the world, one of the best places for investors to go and invest, one of the safest and cleanest places on earth.

    How did Singapore people achieve this revolution, this miracle? How did they do it in only about 10 years? First, Singapore was fortunate to have the right kind of leaders. I have studied Lee Kwan Yew’s story as leader of his country. I find that, in many respects, he was very much like our own Obafemi Awolowo. In these two leaders of men, the central secret was unswerving, undistracted, unstinted, devotion to the task of building a rich and great country. Neither of these two men allowed himself to be distracted by any desire to become rich. The unyielding focus of each was on progress, improvement, success of the fatherland. Like our Awolowo, Yew had the almost supernatural belief that any leader can build a great country from scratch in only a few years. In the years when we, under Chief Awolowo, were putting together the wonderful plans of the UPN for Nigeria – in moments of intense thinking and planning – Chief Awolowo used to say to us, “Look, we don’t need more than four years; in less than four years we can put Nigeria’s foot firmly on the path of stability, prosperity and power!”  Those words were like magical words. Many of us became imbued with the powerful faith that we could make our Nigeria a great country in just a few years.

    Obviously, that is what happened to the leaders and rulers of Singapore under Lee Kwan Yew. As they set out to embark on their economic miracle for their country, they firmly agreed upon one fundamental fact – namely, that to make their economic miracle possible at all, their country must have dependably orderly and stable political life. The political leaders must be disciplined, strictly respect the law, respect the legal boundaries of power, and have the greatest respect for due process in all actions of government. They went on to lead and rule in obedience to those principles. Orderly governance naturally stimulated an atmosphere of law and order, so that the security situation improved rapidly.

    With that, they emphasized work. A lot of the youths were educated, but most had no job skills. The government went massively into training programmes for modern job skills. Steadily, Singapore’s youths became a skilled work force.

    At the same time, the government devoted  efforts to promoting a business culture – various programmes to teach and encourage entrepreneurship;  to promote and assist small businesses;  to make loans and loan guarantees available to businesses through banks; plans (such as tax incentives, export incentives, etc) to attract investors to come and establish businesses in Singapore. They placed special emphasis on businesses that would produce high quality goods in Singapore for export to the biggest and most advanced markets in the world. Tax and other incentives ensured that Singapore’s businesses could export their high quality goods at low prices to the outside world. One of their ministers summarizes these policies as follows: “We are a small country with a small internal market… Our economic goal…is to create good jobs for our people by enabling Singapore’s businesses to take advantage of opportunities around the world. We are constantly asking ourselves what the markets (of the rich big countries) need, and how we can develop the capabilities to meet them. We want local as well as international companies to find it worthwhile to establish a presence and invest in Singapore”.

    The economy began to grow rapidly. Investors from the rich countries of the world hurried to go and invest in Singapore. Great banks, manufacturing establishments, commercial enterprises, arose. Singapore became able to embark on great infrastructural developments – great highways, bridges, water supply systems, massive sewage systems, port development, etc. By 1975, Singapore was already famous as one of the most successful of the world’s small countries – known around the world as “Asia’s success model”.

    As we sat under Chief Awolowo’s leadership in 1976-79 planning mightily for the UPN and Nigeria, we were sure we could achieve greater development for our country, and faster too. Well, we all remember what happened. We were denied the opportunity.

    I believe that most Nigerians would now agree that Nigeria is just too incoherent and too complex to allow any leaders to achieve this kind of progress for Nigeria. I am sure many would agree that it can be accomplished in smaller and compact countries like Yorubaland (what some youths are already calling Alafia Republic or Kajola Republic), Igboland (or Biafra), a carefully negotiated federation of the Delta, and even Hausaland. Why not try these – instead of continuing in poverty and conflicts?

  • Institutionalising impunity

    What went through my mind last weekend as I watched Abba Moro, the minister of interior as he inspected a guard of honour mounted by a contingent of immigration officers is the sense of helplessness of Nigerians who come under daily assault from government’s various acts of impunity  Subdued prayerful and miracle seeking Nigerians have come to accept  all government  foibles and eccentricity which have  attracted strident criticism from our  neighbours and  the international community with a sense  of ‘it is God’s will’ since they are coming from Goodluck Jonathan, whose leadership our religious leaders claimed was ordained by God. We have been told to ignore ex-President Obasanjo’s recent confession that he immorally imposed him on Nigerians after dismissing a clause in the PDP constitution which disqualified Jonathan’s candidacy for the 2011 presidential election.

    Moro, supervised the March 15 immigration recruitment exercise which some cynics described asa swindle organized by PDP swindlers who feed on the blood and sweat of the weak. In the exercise, about 1.5m application forms were sold to fill 4500 vacancies and the ensuing organized anarchy at various stadia across the nation led to the death of 20 job seekers. DREXEL Technologies Limited, the outsourcing company engaged by the Nigerian Immigration Service, (NIS), for recruitment was according to umbrella body of outsourcing companies in Nigeria, Human Capital Providers Association of Nigeria, HuCaPAN was an unregistered company. Political enemies even libelled the senate president claiming without proof that the company belong to his wife. While not a few called for the sack of Moro, students of Jonathan presidency predicted he would survive the scandal because as Senate president’s former aide, his nominee and a PDP stalwart, who like Princess Oduah, a former aviation minister who knows how to mobilize people for electoral victory, he is beyond reproach. Typical of President Jonathan, he set up a committee headed by the chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Deaconess Joan Ayo. It has been business as usual afterwards. In fact Moro has been receiving all manners of awards of excellence from all manners of bodies just as Stella Oduah was recently celebrated by her Akili-Ozizor community of Anambra resident in Lagos for her outstanding performance as minister.

    But to be fair to President Jonathan, he was not responsible for the institutionalization of the culture of impunity He might have found it an effective political tool among miracle-seeking Nigerians who attribute all acts of inhumanity of man to man including exploitation of our fears and anxieties to God. The credit should go to his godfather, ex- President Obasanjo. It was in fact the act of impunity of Obasanjo who often tries to play God that produced Jonathan. If the president is guilty of anything, it is that impunity has thrived under him. And I am not sure if anyone can blame a man who was never given a chance for cultivating a political strategy that has served him well in the race for nomination as his party’s candidate, and the landslide victory he secured from his miracle-seeking compatriots who in their various churches and mosques successfully secured God’s intervention on behalf of Obasanjo and Jonathan who undermined their party’s constitution, dismissing their act of betrayal as ‘an act of God’.

    President Jonathan has continued to pile up victory after victory through what many have described as his politics of impunity while the landscape is littered with carcasses of critics of this winning policy. Obasanjo who accused the president of impunity by his imposition of Buruji Kashamu, a man he alleged has criminal cases to face in the US as the leader of PDP in the South-west has become the latest victim. To spite Obasanjo, Kashamu and President Jonathan in turn imposed Ayo Fayose whose impeachment was organized by Obasanjo  and who, in spite of criminal cases still hanging on his neck on Ekiti PDP has gone ahead to win an unprecedented landslide victory over a highly rated incumbent governor.

    While Obasanjo is still licking his wounds, Fayose is already threatening to have him expelled from PDP if he fails to toe party line. The governor elect told The Punch over the weekend: “It doesn’t matter whether you are a former president or former governor; if you disparage the party again, we will take you out….. If former President Olusegun Obasanjo wants to join the APC, let him go to APC…Obasanjo should stop making uncomplimentary statements about the party, if he continues, we will suspend him; nobody is bigger than this party”.

    Who now says impunity does not pay?

    But before Fayose, there was Boni Haruna, also a former governor of Adamawa. Reprieve came his way after being drilled in court for about seven years by EFCC over corruption charges when he switched allegiance to PDP after denouncing Abubakar Atiku his godfather. It took just three days to get an acquittal and another one week to become a minister. Before both was a convicted former governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha who secured a presidential amnesty while still on the run from justice in Europe. He is today a distinguished member of the ongoing Confab.

    It will also be recalled that the President’s Christian  fold  hailed him when he openly embraced Pastor Jonah  Jang who lost a governors’ forum election by 14 votes to 16 as a winner as well as when Oduah, embroiled in armoured cars deal with Coscharis,  went as an advance member of the president’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Today, Muslim faithful among Kano PDP stalwarts are also hailing him for his recent presidential order to withdraw all criminal cases against Ibrahim, a scion of Abacha family over parts of about $4 billion siphoned from the Nigerian state by his father. It is said Abacha is being groomed to confront Governor Rabiu Kankwaso, the president’s estranged Kano political ally.

    As 2015 draws nearer, Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria and Protectors of Nigeria Posterity have reminded us of the qualities our president share with President Obama, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. They have insisted Nigeria’s energy crisis is over even when it was only late last year the minister for power said “only 25 per cent of Nigerians have access to electricity” a nightmare he said was “caused by human beings used by evil forces”; his Minister of State, Zainab Kuchi, would say that “We have 160 million Nigerians now and we are only giving power to 40 million of that population”.

    Perhaps with the string of successes chalked up through various acts of impunity including the Ekiti miracle where an impeached former governor without an agenda, ran and secured a landslide victory, the president seem to have become persuaded that that performance, issue-based campaign and public perception of candidates are distractions that don’t guarantee victory in elections in Nigeria. This probably explains the impunity displayed by the president’s promoters who stormed Unity Fountain Abuja where grieving parents have kept vigil for about 10 weeks over the abduction of Chibok girls with ‘customised vehicles and giant electronic billboards, with engraved achievements of the president, his picture and that of his vice, Namadi Sambo’. They seem determined to finally dislodge the irritants that the ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ campaigners have become to government after an initial stand-off to a sponsored group, who according to Oby Ezekwesili “came in a bus and turned the Unity Fountain into a joke”.

    A people deserve the leadership they get and a society where leaders and the led pray for miracles trying to reap from where they have not sowed is a nation of 419ners. Even exasperated foreign friends of our nation have now left us to our fate. The British Deputy High Commissioner said over the weekend that they ‘expect the federal government to double its efforts’ to bring back our abducted girls. The New York Times, reacting to our president’s bored celebration of his administration’s achievements in an op Ed page in Washington Post simply wished Nigeria ‘good luck’.

  • Promotion storm in Immigration

    THERE is disquiet in the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) over promotion. Some officers are not happy that they were bypassed in the exercise. They claimed that their subordinates were elevated above them. The officers are accusing the Internal Affairs Minister, Mr Abba Moro, of being the brain behind the promotion of junior officers above their superiors. The minister was said to have approved the promotion of those due for such in 2010, leaving a backlog of those who should have been elevated before them. There is anger in the Service, according to sources, who blame the minister for having ethnic agenda. The exercise  was carried out three weeks ago at the expense of those who  have been due for promotion since 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2008. Moro was lucky to have escaped being axed over the Immigration recruitment disaster a few months ago. Now, he is swimming in another trouble water. Many of those who claimed to have been shortchanged are raring for a showdown until, according to them, ‘’justice is done’’.  How will the matter end? Time will tell.

  • Like dogs on a leash

    Idiots as fragile as clay toys evolve into outsized heroes and gods, on our watch. But even gods grow out abandoned, held the late Christopher Okigbo; I would say, journalists too, but not your quintessential citizens, like the late Chinua Achebe. Achebe died and Africa mourned.

    The novelist whose engaging literature taught the world to read and understand from an African perspective died at 82 and his demise was felt across literary tropes and political cultures.

    In Nigeria, Achebe’s death reignites a seductive dirge; a ritual culture of requiem and colourful superlatives. Politicians froth with doctored and hardly-felt regret around their fattened lips and literary buffs compose tributes with obscene and overwhelming lyricism. Yet none is perhaps as impressive as the mainstream media’s glorification of Chinua Achebe.

    At his death, Achebe not only made “cover page,” he commandeered the first five pages of many a flagship newspaper. And he didn’t have to spend a dime to achieve such impressive feat. What height politicians and conglomerates burn a fortune to attain, he used mere words and a fertile imagination to ascend.

    Alive, Achebe lightened many a thunder by his words; in death, he commands seductive shrieks of wonder and appreciation. Such is the quality of life and manhood of Chinua Achebe. It doesn’t matter how skewed or alluring he was in politics and candour, everybody remembers Achebe as one good thing that happened to Nigerian literature. In his death, the world relives his quality as a man and African.

    How do journalists die? How do journalists live to be precise? Do we merit such honour and appreciation like we confer on Chinua Achebe? Do we at least merit the passing tribute of a sigh at our demise? Is there such person amongst us that excites interminable tributes, poetry and superlatives like Chinua Achebe?

    The time for pleasuring ourselves will soon be over and like failures eternally condemned to self-fellate on ego and all that vanity ever gives; many of us will pass in spasms of insignificance and self-love. The world has seen the swollen belly of our pride; it is nothing to write home about. Nothing excites, nothing moves, nothing encourages anyone to go to bat for our cancerous pride.

    We have failed to become worthier than our bylines. And our bylines aren’t really worth much to be precise. Yet every time we see it, we feel like some gift. Gift to whom? Gift indeed. How narcissistic can we get? We, whose answers to national riddles have become trite. We, who bandy inappropriate cliché as solution to avoidable conflict, pretend to be worth more than disposable pawns in the scheme of things.

    A simple lust is yet our woe; the lust for unearned riches and self-love. It drives many a practicing journalist beneath the bounds of ethics and above it. But no matter how significant we pretend to be, we are actually worth nothing in the eyes of our benefactors and “friends in high places.”

    This is some truth we love to ignore simply because it’s therapeutic to do so. Every journalist on the beat is on a string to some puppeteer. Be it on Crime, Politics, Business, Aviation, Entertainment and Society beat, everybody kowtows to the wiles of some contemptible deep-pocket, to the detriment of society and journalism practice.

    But many of us would never admit this much; rather we love to argue that we “operate on a higher level.” We have learnt to claim that by virtue of “quality journalism” that we practice, we get to hobnob daily with “the crème-de-la-crème of Nigeria’s high society.” And thus is the ultimate fulfillment to many of us.

    It is however, fascinating to note that many of us are actually kept on a leash by our so-called “high society,” like dogs. Our so-called “clients,” benefactors or friends in high places do not think much of us.

    That is why they agree to an interview and request for the interview questions in advance. They think many of us are incapable of normal conversation and informed questions and follow-up questions hence their robotic repetition of what their “personal assistants” or “media person” tell them to say. That is why they prefer an email interview but get their “media person” to write the answers. That is why they agree to a two-hour interview session and shorten it to 15 minutes on the spot.

    Our so-called “big friends” in high society liken the Nigerian journalist to scum of the earth, that is why they invite journalists to their offices for an interview session only to keep them waiting for two or three hours in order to tell them that they can only do the interview if they can grant full copy approval before publication. That is why they invite journalists to their events only to tell security operatives on site to prevent them from getting into the venue. The embarrassment and shame will encourage humility and show the journalist who’s boss.

    I do not know why an average journalist needs to blindly believe that he can attain relevance only by courting and serving as publicity pawn to his so-called “friends in high places.” It’s amazing to see journalists engage in heated altercation and fisticuff over accusations of “stealing” and “courting” of each other’s “friends in high places.”

    Many of us are a pathetic fraud. We make a show of friendship and intimacy with our so-called privileged friends although the latter do not consider us worthier than vermin or intolerable hacks. Many of us have nothing to say, do we? We have no more stories to tell or hope to offer to folk who still wander to the newsstands hopes aglow, every day, seeking answers to timeless conundrums on the pages of our colourful prints.

    What answers can we give? What remedy can we flaunt past the trite banalities we haughtily couch as columns, and most times, “Our Stand?” But the readers hardly know better. They never know better and those that think they do would buy into our finest delusion as long as they can identify with it and as long as it fetes their vanities while they do the spirited waltz in the intellectual trash can of public discourse.

    Talk is still cheap. It is yet the proverbial staple that keeps compatriots who know no better, glued to our sensational news prints. Still they seek answers but we have no answers to give, do we? Just more sensation and rhetoric.

    Nobody actually learns from us anymore. Every journalist is seen as an attack dog or junkyard dog for a variety of interests and “high society.” Having pretended to have answers to everything, we have no more answers to give. And our usual alternatives are tainted by our vanities and grief; twin-miseries for which we have no tongue.

    Every day we see that we are not ready for the travails of the inflamed distance. We know the darkness of our practice and the perversions in our hearts and yet pay lip-service to evolving a practice worthy of the humane and the heroic. This is not to deny the existence of the few good ones amongst us but their paltry band isn’t enough balm to soothe our practice’s festering sores.

     

    • To be continued…

  • Replicate Ekiti template in Borno

    Nigerians may have misgivings about President Jonathan’s strategy for fighting Boko Haram insurgency and other forms of terrorism in our land, but not even the most virulent critics of his administration will fail to acknowledge his success in his war against electoral violence and other electoral malpractices in Nigeria. He has been very consistent in this endeavour and his commitment has paid off. This is why I think in spite of the gloom that has enveloped our nation, following the continued incarceration of about 200 girls by Boko Haram insurgents, their  mindless violence  and  the atrocities perpetrated  by those described as Fulani  herdsmen against innocent Nigerians, we can still spare a moment to join the president, his vice and other PDP heavy weights who have been clinking glasses in Abuja to celebrate  this great feat. I think we should not allow the election of Ayo Fayose, one time impeached governor of Ekiti who still have criminal cases to answer in court, to diminish the president’s achievement. I think we owe our nation a duty to  let the president know that those of us who share his passion for free and fair elections are more than those against him.

    It is however ironic  that the  president’s victory has been achieved through the efforts of our security forces  who in spite of their great sacrifices have come under intense criticism for their  prosecution of the Boko Haram insurgency.  But their celebrated success in Ekiti which followed earlier ones in Ondo and Edo, has clearly shown that with sufficient motivation, our security forces can also deliver on their primary mandate which is security of lives and property of Nigerians.  Success, they say, have many fathers. Even the Inspector General of Police (IGP) whose voice has been subdued for some time by Boko Haram insurgents, who freely kill his ill-equipped men and routinely sack their police stations without resistance, is now celebrating. As if the police have suddenly become INEC, he now says the police was in Ekiti “to showcase that it is possible for Nigerian security agencies to conduct a peaceful, free, fair and credible election”.

    The Ekiti success was the result of meticulous planning by the presidency, the Minister of State for Defence, Musliu Obanikoro, and the Minister of Police Affairs, Jelili Adesiyan, the 35,000-strong security team which according to The Punch report was made up of “officers of the Nigerian Army, the Nigeria Police, the Department of State Security and the National Security and Civil Defence Corps,” was properly kitted and well motivated. Giving credence to this was no other officer than the Ekiti Police Commissioner, Felix Uyana  who confirmed that besides “200 counter-terrorist officers, two DIGs, AIGs, sniffer dogs, horses and two aircrafts, that were  hovering to monitor, there were no fewer than 12,000 police men”. The welfare of the team was also a priority of those who put them together. Punch also confirmed this when it told us that “the security men had occupied most of the hotels in the state a few days to the election.” Except those drafted for election, police hardly have enough to transport themselves to follow up investigations.

    Besides motivation, the strategy was unassailable. First, the 35,000 security team shut down the state for three days. Apparently taking a cue from Senator Arise’s boast on Channel Television programme a few days to the election  about his party’s readiness to  match APC ‘rice for rice and money for money’, the special team supervised distribution of PDP rice, Okada and other items as well as APC’s last minute distribution of its own rice.

    Precisely because of the value the president attached to the Ekiti battle, the highly motivated security team was more than enthusiastic in executing their well scripted brief. They harassed and threatened Governor Fayemi. They disallowed Oshiomhole’s helicopter from taking off from Benin. Amaechi’s chartered aircraft managed to land in Akure but he was stopped on his way to Ekiti by gun-wielding security men who advised him to go back and face his own demons in Port Harcourt.

    And to ensure the president’s brief was carried out to the letter, his PDP point man for the election Chris Uba, the Minister for Police Affairs,  Adesiyan and his counterpart in defence, Musliu Obanikoro were on ground to supervise their men who went around with their sniffer dogs arresting APC members who, as Showumi, a PDP mobiliser from Ogun State alleged on a channel Television program, ‘carried millions in their pockets’ to induce voters.  The Ekiti experiment was such a success that the IG has now said its template will be adopted for the Osun governorship election in August.

    This is where I disagree with the IG. I think instead of rendering the 35,000-strong winning team idle until August, it can be put into a more productive use now. The Ekiti template can be replicated in Borno State today. We must not forget our abducted Chibok girls have been in captivity for almost 80 days. Neither the government nor the Americans we had hoped would help have an idea of where the girls are or their travails that some experts say may lead to loss of memory or permanent anger against themselves and the society that has let them down.

    Besides we all share a collective sense of guilt, of pains, and shame, for letting our children and their grieving parents down for so long. We also know the president is no less troubled. If we needed any evidence, the president provided that when last Friday in an Op Ed article in Washington Post told the American audience and their lawmakers that his “government and our security and intelligence services have spared no resources, have not stopped and will not stop until the girls are returned home and the thugs who took them are brought to justice.”

    I think the president who added that he was however “deeply concerned that his silence as he works to accomplish the task at hand is being misunderstood by partisan critics” now has a joker in the 35,000-strong winning team to shame his virulent critics who never see anything good in his administration.. Having made the president and the nation proud, Adesiyan and Obanikoro, who are yet to visit any part of the north-east in their capacities as ministers of defence and police affairs will wipe away our tears if they are directed to lead their 35,000-strong security team to Chibok without delay. They will put an end to weekly harvest of deaths in Chibok local government which has experienced no peace since April 14.

    Only last Sunday, Kautikari, Kwada and Nguragila villages near Chibok were sacked while scores of security men as well worshippers who were locked up in their churches before being sprayed with bullets, lost their lives.

    At a press briefing on Monday, the irrepressible Doyin Okupe, was a subdued man. Unable to look up, he kept on talking to himself: “we don’t know what they want…these people killing innocent people…” Two days ago, Chris Olukolade, Director of Defence Information revealed that one Babuji Ya’ari a member of Youth Vigilante Group also known as civilian JTF has been arrested for being the coordinator of deadly attacks in Maiduguri since 2011 along with a woman. Hafsat Bako another member   who was said to have admitted they paid N10, 000 to their members.

    I am sure Okupe as a successful PDP stalwart may not comprehend why educated men mortgage their future or a Borno woman risk her life for tN10, 000. But his brief is brief. Prevail on his principal who understands the politics of stomach infrastructure. With N18b (the figure credited to PDP strong man in the west), in two months pacification of Borno will be completed. It took less than that in Ekiti where teacher as stomach warriors got only N10, 000.

     

     

  • Ekiti Poll: The ugly face of democracy?

    Ekiti Poll: The ugly face of democracy?

    The stunning but totally unexpected defeat of Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Governor of Ekiti State, by Mr. Ayo Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has led many observers and analysts to ask questions. No one gave Fayose any chance to win the election. A former discredited, impeached and disgraced PDP governor, he was still standing trial for all kinds of financial misdemeanours, including the multi- billion naira poultry project that never saw the light of day and murder charges when he was declared the winner of the election.

    Presumably, these legal charges will now be dropped, including the ongoing investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of financial misdemeanours. He will claim immunity from prosecution while in office.

    Many observers were initially sceptical of Fayose’s sweeping electoral victory, but were left in a quandary when Dr. Fayemi promptly conceded defeat, congratulating Fayose. This was most gracious of him and reinforces widespread public view of him as a decent person. It was commendable, as this gesture probably saved the state from post-election violence. The scope of Fayose’s electoral victory was stunning and surprising. The turnout in the election was rather low. Of the nearly 800,000 voters validly registered for the election, only 360, 000 actually voted. Fayose was recorded as winning 56 per cent of the votes, while Fayemi could only win 33 per cent. So sweeping was Fayose’s victory that he won in all the local governments, including that of Fayemi. The low turnout for the election may account in part for the scope of Fayose’s victory. Many of Fayemi’s supporters probably stayed away from the election, either because they were confident of his victory, or because they feared an outbreak of violence. This was probably the most sweeping victory in Nigeria’s recent electoral and political history.

    Since Governor Fayemi has not contested the results of the election, we must consider them free and fair, and a genuine representation of the electoral wishes of the people. We must accept the results in the spirit of democracy in which the best candidates may not win always.

    But in the aftermath of the election, several questions have been raised concerning the unexpected outcome of the election. First, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, while acknowledging the right of the Ekiti electorate to vote for a candidate of their choice, in this case Fayose, has expressed concerns that we may now be entering a new phase of politics in Nigeria, specifically one in which financial inducements determine the results of elections. Here, he was referring to media reports that Fayose won the election by giving the voters financial and other inducements. As he  asked in his recent interview in The Nation: “Is it a  logical human behaviour for a land of so many intellectuals to reject so overwhelmingly an incumbent that was a respected family man, a devout  Catholic, a gentleman and an urbane representative, even in his own ward?” He rightly expressed regrets that ‘stomach infrastructure’ has now replaced real development in Ekiti State, which is what is needed. It is the ugly face of democracy.

    Governor Fashola was quite right in raising this pertinent issue as it is crucial for democracy in our country. There has, so far, been no response to this electoral poser by the Ekiti elite, who were probably as much in support of Fayose as the poor in the state. Only Femi Orebe has written in defence of Dr. Fayemi. Other Ekiti leaders appear to be in hiding. Ekiti may be the poorest of the Yoruba states. But its people had a reputation for political doggedness and for fighting for what they considered right. That reputation is now in tatters. The Ekiti vote is a throw back to the horrible days of Adegoke Adelabu and Lamidi Adedibu, both of Ibadan, who used financial inducements and free food to win elections in Ibadan, the so-called Amala politics.

    Governor Fayemi’s immense contribution to the development of the state during his tenure has not been denied even by the opposition. He built roads, schools and hospitals. He left the state with a far better infrastructure than ever before. He ran one of the most competent and effective governments in Nigeria. Under his leadership, there was no financial scandal or scam in the state. He was not being investigated by the EFCC or other anti-fraud agencies. But despite his impressive performance, he was spitefully voted out of office. The only thing he has been accused of is that he did not hand out cash gifts to the voters before the election. But the impressive physical transformation that took place in Ekiti State under his watch is of immense benefit to the public. It will endure long after the cash gifts from Fayose to the electorate must have been spent. That is the road to poverty alleviation and real economic development.

    The second issue concerning the future of democracy in the country was raised recently by the distinguished American scholar, Prof. Larry Diamond, the Director at the Centre on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. In his inaugural Freedom House Lecture on Monday, in Lagos, in apparent reference to the Ekiti election, he observed that the electoral process was badly flawed. “You cannot have the police and the military blocking the supporters (not to mention fellow governors) of one party from moving about in a state and campaigning, and call that a fully free and fair election”. In effect, what Prof. Diamond was saying is that the electoral damage to the APC in Ekiti State was done in the weeks before the election when the ruling PDP Federal Government deployed its military, police and other security forces to ensure the defeat of Governor Fayemi, whose supporters chose to stay at home rather than face violence on the part of the security forces. This was no level-playing field. The dice was stacked heavily in favour of Fayose. Actual voting in Ekiti might have been free. But the entire electoral process was badly flawed. It is the tactics the PDP intends to employ in the forthcoming state and federal elections.

    Now, what are the lessons to be drawn from the Ekiti elections?

    First, the APC, and indeed all parties,  must fight against the improper use of financial inducements in elections. Ideally, the INEC must monitor election expenses and disqualify any candidate spending money through cash gifts to the voters to win elections. This is subversive of democracy and should not be encouraged, or even tolerated. The APC should refrain from resorting to this despicable means to win elections. It cannot match the resources of the ruling PDP.

    Second, internal democracy must be strengthened in the parties through the fair conduct of primaries to ensure fairness. The existing rancour in the parties is the perception that unpopular candidates are being imposed on supporters by the leaders. This practice will alienate the majority of those who will normally support the party.

    Thirdly, as a progressive party, the APC must, despite the electoral setback in Ekiti, stand by its principles and programmes to win elections. It must stay the course and fight for what it believes in. The Ekiti defeat is only a temporary setback, a Pyrrhic victory for Fayose. The state can be regained in the next elections.

  • The right path for the Yoruba today

    Some statements which I made in this column last week now make it necessary for me to explain certain things more fully. I refer to the followings statements:  “We cannot be producing streams of educated citizens from year to year without putting forth the kinds of programmes that can create opportunities for their education and skills… After turning ourselves into a very educated people, what we have needed for decades and have not been doing is to consciously turn ourselves into modern business folks”.

    We Yoruba have succeeded greatly in educating ourselves. We are universally recognized as Africa’s most literate people. We owe the success to our national tendency to seek education and enlightenment, and the very heroic efforts of our leaders in the 1950s to make education available to all our children. Today, most Yoruba families can boast of university graduates.

    But the intention of our leaders of the 1950s was not to stop with educational development, but to use education as the foundation for wider fields of development. In this regard, I remember some things that Chief Awolowo said in a conversation with a small group, including me, in December 1978. He said that, after providing access to education for all our children in the 1950s, the next step intended by our leaders was to provide opportunities for our increasingly educated people to use their education to serve themselves, their families and their society. That, he said, meant that the government of the Western Region needed to embark on programmes that could turn our educated people into modern skilled workers, modern entrepreneurs, modern businesspeople, modern farmers, etc. Unfortunately, the Western Region crisis started at that point in 1962, and it stopped our progress. As a result, in the years that followed, even the most patriotic of our leaders have tended to concentrate only on education – leaving the wider fields of development unattended to.  It is this failure that is responsible today for the very high rate of unemployment among our educated youths, and for terrible poverty in our South-west.

    The governments of our states must return to the things we have not been doing – or that we have been doing sufficiently. We must consciously nurture a modern business culture among our people. The way to do that is very well known in the world today. Many countries in East Asia have done it successfully and in short periods of time. Japan started it all. Then some other countries of the region – like Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and others – followed Japan’s example. China is doing it. Israel is doing it very successfully in the Middle East. The basic ways to do it are as follows:

    First, emphasize a culture of work among our people. For us the Yoruba nation, with our great history of work, enterprise and achievements, and with our well-known love of the beautiful life, this ought not to be difficult at all. Our state governments must find ways to do it, and to discourage the typical Nigerian dependence on hand-outs, hustling and begging.

    Second, improve the work skills of our people – through emphasis on technical skills in our whole educational system, through well-established apprenticeship systems, and through technical schools and colleges of technology. Some of our existing schools and universities can, with the help of our state authorities, be easily modified for these purposes. We must also nurture good work ethics among our workers. For modern farming skills, we will need to have farm centres and institutes.

    Third, establish various kinds of institutions (schools, institutes and colleges, university programmes, short-term training centres, etc) for developing entrepreneurship, business management, etc.

    Fourth, and very importantly, a rich variety of ways to provide financial helping hands to businesses – well-managed micro-credit loans systems, business loans guarantee systems, etc, for business starters, capital interventions. These must be professionally structured and managed and must be free from the influence of partisan politics. In short, our states must invest in our people.

    Fifth, we must set up a conscious programme for encouraging and assisting exports. This will include encouraging all our producers to emphasize high quality in their products, so that the products may be acceptable in markets worldwide. Achieving a great and growing amount of exports must be central to our whole economic objectives.

    Sixth, we must encourage a culture of research and development – through financial assistance to research, inventions and product development; and through laws that protect inventors.

    Seventh, we must create various means of attracting investments to our region from the outside world. The volume of investment capital seeking places to invest in the world is very large and is constantly growing. We must set out consciously to attract much of it to our region. Being part of Nigeria, we are not totally free to do all we might want to do in this matter, but we must find creative ways to achieve our purpose.

    Above all, we must ensure political peace and stability in our region. Investors want predictable peace, stability, protection, etc, for their investments – and they want these to be so for long in the future. Without this, we cannot achieve much. The Eastern Asian countries recognized this early and seriously controlled the nature of their politics, and their political stability is one of the principal reasons why they are able to attract most of the investments coming from the developed world to the developing world. Unfortunately, Nigeria is already too notorious worldwide as a country forever disturbed by rigged elections, violent electoral and political conflicts, ethnic and religious conflicts and terrorism, etc. In spite of this, we can still get most of what we want if we control the quality of politics in our region.

    We will have to nurture a culture of political discipline in our region – including cautious politicking, free, fair and peaceful elections, and respectful surrender to the will and voice of the people as expressed through their votes. Since our six states are likely to be controlled by different political parties, we must establish institutions that bring our governors together responsibly for the good of our whole region. In recent times, some of our governors have promoted the idea of integrated regional development for our region. We must now try and develop this – or even better still, we might unite as one region (plus, of course the Yoruba in Kwara, Kogi, and our Itsekiri people).   In our elections, we must reject the cantankerous and overly noisy kind of politician – because our prosperity depends on our political peace and stability.

    In summary, I write all this on the assumption, and the faith, that we Yoruba can develop and become as prosperous as we wish even in the context of Nigeria – and that any other Nigerian nationality can do the same. Of course, our having a separate country of our own  would be much better; but, while we are still in Nigeria, it is wrong for us Yoruba as a nation to continue to operate on the debilitating belief that Nigeria necessarily limits out progress and prosperity. It does not. Everything depends on our own choices, our discipline, and our seriousness.

  • Profile in courage

    For, in the final analysis, our most common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal. – John F. Kennedy.

    I would have titled this article  The Mama Boko Haram job or What Mama Boko can do, but neither  of these titles   would suffice for you. Many Nigerians did not know you  until President Goodluck Jonathan raised  a peace panel to talk with Boko Haram. Even at that, we still did not know you because all  we saw of you was a photograph in which you were dressed in an Islamic  attire. You were covered from head to toe, leaving two tiny slits in the cloth for your eyes.

    Till today, none of those who saw that photograph in April, last year,  can see you on the street and identify you because you left no  room for such identification. It has been over one year since the inauguration of the Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North, yet nothing has changed in that part of the country. The worst hit is the Northeast, where Boko Haram  has been on the rampage in the last four years.

    My dear Hajia Aisha Wakil, your  membership of the panel was informed  by  your closeness to the sect. You were expected to leverage on this special relationship to get the  ‘boys’,  if I may use that word, to cease fire. I know that you would have put in your best to get these ‘boys’ to see reason, but then for their own safety they would  require some assurance that they will come to no harm if they drop their weapons.  They may not see you as being in the position to give them such assurance. This, I believe, is your dilemma. I feel for you madam.

    As they say, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since the inauguration of the panel  and the submission of its report. Your panel recommended amnesty for members of the sect, who are willing to renounce violence. I strongly believe that the sect can still renounce violence, if properly handled. It is not going to be an easy task, but I know that it can be done. And Hajia, you are the one to do it.  You are the woman for the job because you are their ‘mother’.

    You may not be their biological mother, but you wield a motherly influence over them. They will listen to you because they trust you even more than they trust their own mothers.  Hajia, so far, you have shown that you are a courageous woman.  I salute your courage. As a mother yourself, I am certain that you cannot be happy with what is happening in the three Northeast states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. As a resident of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, you are aware of the atrocities committed by Boko Hram. No day passes without the sect wreaking havoc on one village or the other. How long will this continue?

    I am pained that 80 days after the Chibok  schoolgirls were abducted, they are yet to be released by your ‘children’, who have claimed responsibility for the act. The government says it is working covertly to get back the girls, but to me, nothing seems to be moving, even with the intervention of the so-called super powers. Hajia, our destiny lies in our hands in this matter and people like you have a vital role to play if we must get back these girls safe and sound. I  am appealing to you to do all you can to bring back these girls, who as it were, will be going through psychological trauma wherever they are.

    Their parents too will be psychologically troubled. We do not know what these people are going through because we are not the ones wearing the shoe. We can only feel their pains but cannot suffer the same psychological trauma they have been going through in the past two-and-a-half months.  Let us  imagine  that our own children are forcefully taken away from us just as these schoolgirls were abducted, how will we feel? If these girls were to be the children of those in power will they be treating this matter like this?

    I want us to bypass even the government in this matter, if possible, because it has not done enough in getting back these girls. It did not act promptly when the news of their abduction broke, rather, it was waiting for proof that ‘’over 200 girls can be abducted like that?’’ Now that it has the proof from its panel on the Chibok girls abduction,  has  the government become convinced? It is the politicisation of the girls’ abduction that brought us to this pass. If we had not delayed the rescue effort, the girls would have been back home by now. Hajia, you can still do something to redeem the situation.

    The government keeps on saying that it is working covertly to get them back, but there are no signs that we will see them soon , if people like you do not intervene. Last week, our President was the butt of a scathing editorial by the New York Post following his letter carried by The Washington Post in which he wrote about his secret plans to get back the girls and how he will get the United Nations to establish and coordinate a system to share intelligence . To the New York Post, the government’s secret plan to get the girls back- which the President says he has to ‘’remain quiet about’’ – isn’t much impressing Boko Haram. Of course, it has not because the sect  has not ceased killing, maiming and looting since the April 14 abduction of those children.

    Hajia, your interview with Al Jazeera, shows that you can prevail on Boko Haram to release these girls in this holy month of Ramadan, in which Prophet Mohammad  told us that no true Muslim should fight. I know that you are also worried by what is going on and have been doing all that you can quietly to help. Now, is the time to step up that effort and Allah will crown your effort with successs.  In the Al Jazeera interview, you recalled how you got to know the late Boko Haram leader, Mohammed Yusuf , and also spoke of how he and members of his group enjoyed your cooking.

    ‘’He(Yusuf) prayed that Almighty Allah would reward me because so many were eating from my pot, and that was how we established a close relationship. The boys called me  ‘mum’.  Many of them didn’t have mothers’’. Hajia, you have become the mother that they do not have. What these ‘boys’ need is motherly love and care , which you have been providing them in the past five years. Please, talk to them  like a mother to her sons  and let them  see reason why they should let the girls go. Hajia, you can do it. May Allah grant you the wisdom  to handle this national assignment.