The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Odigie- Oyegun’s emergence as first APC national chairman

    Odigie- Oyegun’s emergence as first APC national chairman

    Last week, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, a former UPN Governor of Edo State, emerged by consensus as the first substantive national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), replacing Chief Bisi Akande who, until then, had been the interim national chairman, in which position he succeeded in holding the party together, by no means an easy task. The two other contenders for the post, including Tom Ikimi, a former Foreign Minister, were persuaded to step down for John Odigie-Oyegun. The post had been zoned to the Southsouth. Odigie-Oyegun is Edo from the zone.

    Many local observers will be quite happy with the choice of Odigie-Oyegun as the national chairman of the party. He is a veteran politician. An economist by training, he is highly regarded in political circles and will bring to the party his considerable wealth of experience in administration at both the federal and state levels. After obtaining his A-levels in 1960 from the old Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology at Ibadan, where he and I first became acquainted, John Odigie-Oyegun entered the then University College, Ibadan, where he read economics, graduating in 1963. In a bright set, among his classmates at Ibadan, were Chief Olu Falae, Osunsade, who went off to the UN after a brief stint in the federal civil service, and Abangwu, probably the brightest in the set, who died tragically prematurely only a few years after graduating from Ibadan. They were carefully nurtured by the late Professor Ojetunde Aboyade, the former legendary head of economics at Ibadan, who continued to show interest in their careers after leaving Ibadan.

    All four of them started their public service career in the newly established National Planning Commission, where they were spotted quickly by Mr. Allison Ayida, who was then the Permanent Secretary in the federal Ministry of Economic Development. Mr. Ayida watched their progress very carefully and sent them on various training courses abroad to hone their skills in economic analysis. Eventually both Oyegun and Falae, on their professional maturity as sound economists, became federal permanent secretaries. It was in this position that they both first came to the public spotlight and acquired a reputation as first class civil servants and administrators, highly respected in top civil service circles.

    On retiring from the civil service, Oyegun and Falae were drawn into politics, with both of them becoming quite prominent in the circle of progressive politicians dedicated to fighting military rule in Nigeria, which they both detested. Significantly, both of them joined the old Unity Party of Nigeria, now defunct, to which they  made substantial intellectual and organisational contribution. Eventually, John Odigie-Oyegun, who had also been quite active in the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a movement hated by the military authorities, was elected the governor of Edo State. But his tenure in office was soon aborted by another military intervention. Since then, he had been on a sort of political limbo, but had stayed with the progressives throughout his entire political career.

    Odigie-Oyegun’s election as the chairman of the APC is thoroughly deserved. It is in recompense of his consistent loyalty and support for liberal and progressive politics in Nigeria. He is a focused, determined, and uncompromising politician, who will fight for what he believes in, and will not be dissuaded by blandishments of material opportunities. As a former high level civil servant and a former governor of Edo State, he has wide political connections in the country that should stand him in good stead as the new chairman of the APC.

    But, as chairman of the party, he faces formidable challenges both inside and outside his party. All the major parties are in a state of flux with constant defections from one party to the other. There have been several defections from the PDP, the ruling party, to his own party, and a few defections from his own party to the PDP, particularly in Edo, his own state, where the leadership of the Governor, Adams Oshiomole, is being increasingly challenged. His first task will be to reunite the party at all levels and make it a more formidable political machine, in preparation for next year’s general elections. If his party loses the presidential election next year, it will be difficult to hold it together again, as many of the supporters of the APC will simply drift to the ruling party, the PDP. As elections are usually won or lost in the North, Oyegun will need to pay very close attention to political shifts and developments in the region. The political momentum and focus must remain on the North where political loyalties tend to be more fluid and unpredictable.

     Since its inception only a few years ago, the APC has emerged as a formidable party, an alternative government to the PDP, whose legitimacy to govern, it has increasingly challenged. But more grassroots support is necessary if the APC hopes to win next year’s presidential election.  It must intensify its campaign in the country, particularly in the North where most of the votes are. With its enormous financial resources and the electoral advantages of incumbency, it will take a lot of planning and organisation to beat the PDP at the elections. The APC must prime itself to achieve this feat by clearly articulating its alternative programme and party manifesto, and by presenting itself to the electorate as a better party, one that is more committed to resolving Nigeria’s increasing challenges at all levels of governance.

    The number one challenge is the appalling state of insecurity in the country, particularly the unchecked rampage of Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria. Second, it must commit itself to fighting public corruption in Nigeria at all levels. Third, the problem of poor social and physical infrastructure has to be squarely addressed. These are the three main challenges that are dragging the nation down. The APC must seek to convince the electorate that if elected it can and will solve these problems. Odigie-Oyegun has a wealth of organisational experience that should help the party in steering it to victory in the presidential elections, if he leads a united party. Unity in the party is of paramount importance to its electoral victory. It must keep itself above petty religious and ethnic divisions.

      Now that Chief Bisi Akande is stepping down finally from politics, we should wish him well. He is now 75 and has been in active politics for over 50 years, since he was first ‘discovered’ by Chief Obafemi Awolowo in Ila, Orangun. He has paid his political dues, seen many political battles, been jailed by the military several times, and been in the eye of the political storm throughout his entire political career. It is time for him to retire finally from politics. He has fully earned his rest. We all wish him well in retirement.

  • Goodnight ‘GOC’

    IN the newsroom of the Daily Times those days, the reporters were a close-knit family. We bonded together and at the same time  left room for healthy rivalry. At play and at work, we were reporters first and foremost. It was not unusual to see us rushing to the newsroom to write our stories, refusing all entreaties by those who do not have stories, to join them across the road for a bottle or two.

    It was normal to hear  old boy, where you dey rush to; you no go join us  for White House (which houses Calabar Kitchen). Which story you  want go write self.  Na front page. Yes, as  reporters we  placed premium on our  stories making the front page. So, we fought tooth and nail to ensure that our stories not only hit the front page, but also made the lead.

    Byline, as those who worked in the Daily Times then will tell you, did not come cheap. It  was precious. You can only be sure of having a byline if your story made the front or back page. If it is inside, forget it, there is no miracle that can make your story carry a byline. Reporters fought against what they perceived as a  discriminatory practice for years, to no avail. Byline was at the discretion of the subeditors and they gave it only to their ‘friends’.

    Because in the Times subeditors seemed more powerful than in other newspapers then, reporters courted them in order to get bylines. For those who joined the Times from other newspapers we found this practice strange. In The Punch from where I joined the Times in 1991 every story carried a byline, no matter how brief it may be. In the Times, it was not so, both lengthy and brief stories never carried a byline except the subeditor decided to do the reporter a ‘favour’.

    Those we met in the Times were used to this system. So, when we the Johnny Just Come (JJC) started complaining they just giggles at us and I bet in their subconcious mind, they would have said una never see anything. Una no know say this na Daily Times. The Daily Times had a larger-than-life image in the industry then. It was the baba, not only in age but also in terms of quality of personnel, wages and the other things that make a viable company tick.

    It was a conglomerate then in the real sense of the word. The Times Publications Division (TPD) at Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos, the publishers of Daily Times, Sunday Times, Business Times,  Times International (later Timesweek), Sporting Record, Lagos Weekend, Headlines, Evening Times, among others,  was at the heart of the business empire, which the late Alhaji Babatunde Jose left  behind following  his exit in 1976.

    Other companies in the Daily Times Group  were Times Press Limited, Times Books, Times Leisure Services (organisers of Miss Nigeria Beauty Pageant), Times Property Limited, and  Times Newspaper Training Centre (TNTC). which later became  Times Journalism Institute (TJI).

    For years, TNTC   served as training ground for in-house reporters. It later became a full-fledged fee-paying school, where the best graduating students were given automatic employment. In 1986,  the two best graduating  students in the Diploma and Certificate classes,  Gbenga Oni-Olusola, and Ebohon Ikhurionan, who died last May 24 in Abuja were the beneficiaries. Gbenga and the late Ebohon went on to prove their mettle as reporters in the Daily Times. Gbenga edited the Sunday Times before he left the company.

    The late Ebohon, who covered the telecomunications and defence beats, Timothy Okorocha (Maritime), Festus Obi (Education), the late Kate Okoronkwo (Lagos State Secretariat), Emeka Nwosu (Politics), Gbenga Adesina (Politics), Babatunde Faniyan (Judiciary), Aliu Zubair (Dodan Barracks),  the late Josephine Izuagie (Judiciary) and Basil Obi (Politics), among others. were already entrenched in the system when people like us joined the Times. We quickly took to one another as some of us had been friends on our respective beats.

    It was fun working together after having known one another from a distance, so to say. In no time, our friendship blossomed and we started sharing food and drinks across the road. At those  joints, which became an extension of the newsroom, we were always discussing stories and thinking of getting the lead story for the next day. It was a competition of sorts among us on who will lead the paper. Even though the late Ebohon covered two beats, he never missed a story from his beats. He was on top of events on his beats. And this reflected in the way he handled other matters outside his official duty.

    If we had problems with our phone lines, it was the late Ebohon that would liaise between the company and the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), the sole operator then. His interventions usually yielded results. He was also not a pushover on the Defence beat, where he held his own against his colleagues. The late Ebohon knew virtually all the officers that mattered  in the military then and the year they entered the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA). Mention an officer’s name and he will tell you ”he (the officer) is of course so and so”.

    This was why he was called ”GOC”. The late Ebohon was a ”GOC”, though not in the military sense, but in our newsroom, where he exhibited  the traits of a dutiful and obedient  soldier. A soldier could not have comported himself  better than the way ”GOC” did. He treated his bosses as the superior officers they were. When any of them called him, he always answered ”all correct sir, with his chest out”. You knew if ”GOC” was in the newsroom. His voice always resonated all over the place. He was a lovable person because he mixed with the  young and the  old. He was indeed The General Officer Commanding (GOC), Newsroom Division, Ikeja.

    One thing you cannot take away from him is that he was respectful, very respectful. He carried the command structure of the military into the newsroom. Like military men, he revered his bosses and obeyed their orders. ”GOC” was not someone to look those in authority in the face and dare them, even when they are wrong. Like all mortals, he passed on when his time came last May 24. From what I gathered, he was not seriously ill. He got home and complained of bodyache and before he could be rushed to the hospital, he gave up the ghost.

    Our mutual friend Chris Agbambu of the Nigerian Tribune, who I called to confirm the death of ”GOC”,  said it was a sudden development. ”So, ”GOC” is gone”, I managed to say. ”Yes Lawy, he is gone”, Chris replied. ”GOC” was buried in his Eguaoliha Ewatto, Edo State hometown, last Friday. May God grant his  family the fortitude to bear this great loss. Rest in peace, ”GOC”.

  • Ministers, advisers and President’s private battles

    Last week’s vicious attack by the duo of Labaran Maku and Jelili Adesiyan, ministers of information and police affairs respectively on Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso on  what now appears a federal government contrived crisis  over the selection of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi by Kano kingmakers and ratification by the state government has once again raised the question of whether the nation needs a motley of 40 mostly unproductive ministers many of whom serve as the president’s attack dogs in a situation where the most advanced economies of the world such as Germany, Britain and USA have just about 20.

    For instance, with the Polytechnics and Colleges of Education all over the country paralysed for almost one year, what exactly is Nyesom Wike the supervising minister of education doing in government beyond waging the president and his wife’s private wars?

    Long after the president dropped a number of ministers purportedly because of their interest in 2015 elections, Wike, already publicly endorsed by the president’s wife as Rivers PDP governorship candidate for 2015 is in Port Harcourt every weekend mobilizing youths and ex-militants, according to him, “to prevent the president from being disgraced in 2015”. In the wake of the abduction of the Chibok girls, the minister spent the first two weeks conducting an inquisition with officials of his ministry and WAEC officials providing evidence to prove that it was Shettima, the governor of Borno State who should be held responsible for the abduction of the girls and not President Jonathan.

    Minister Olajumoke Akinjide was on hand to assail Nigerians with the tales of how President Jonathan promptly reacted to the abduction of the Chibok girls contrary to what Nigerians and the international community observed as government sloppy reaction to the abduction during the first two weeks of the tragedy. And shamelessly trying to outdo others in the defence of the president, she asked the grieving parents to direct their demand for the release of their children at Boko Haram and not the president and commander-in-chief. Before then Dr Doyin Okupe another adviser had assailed the nation with tales of how well equipped and highly motivated the soldiers were.  With the international community now coming to our aid, Nigerians can see beyond Okupe’s hot air. But the heroic exploits. of these ministers as combatants in President Jonathan’s personal wars paled in significance to the outing of the duo of Maku and Adesiyan who set aside the function assigned to their ministries and went all out as the president attack dogs.

    The Kano governor’s thesis was that the Kano crisis was contrived by the president who is at war with the governor over his defection to APC and the suspended CBN former governor Sanusi who had raised what government dismissed as false alarm about unremitted US$20billion by NNPC to the federation account. First, the president’s PDP point-man in Kano mischievously sent a congratulatory message to the Ciroma of Kano, the first son of the departed emir and one of the contesting Kano princes. Kano State government believed this was what prepared the ground for the riot which followed the official announcement which contrary to federal government expectations favoured the embattled Sanusi. While the federal government followed up by ordering the police to lay a siege on the emir’s palace ostensibly to prevent potential arsonists, it curiously, allegedly ordered the reduction in the number of security personnel attached to the governor at a period he actually needed more men by virtue of being the chief host of new emir who needed protection since he, according to the federal government, was not the popular choice of the people. Putting all the drama together Rabiu Kwankwaso alleged he could feel the hand of Esau while hearing the voice of Jacob. He therefore asked Nigerians to hold the president responsible should something untoward happen to him and his family.

    Then ministers as prosecutors of the president private wars waded in. Maku says to blame President Jonathan or the Federal Government for the crisis is ‘the height of delusion and irresponsibility’ on the part of Kwankwaso  He wants Kwankwaso to explain to  the people of Kano the role he and APC leaders played in the selection of Sanusi as the new emir. He then veered off, accusing   the governor ‘of one man rule in Kano’ and of ‘denial of freedom of choice for the people of Kano by imposing local government chairmen and councilors on them’. I think by bringing up these extraneous matters, Maku rather than exonerate the president and PDP has only confirmed the reasons for the federal government’s subtle interference in a purely local politics of Kano.

    The heartache of Adesiyan, his counterpart in Police Affairs was that ‘Kwankwaso was abusing Mr. President’. He questioned ‘the governor’s audacity to abuse the president’. For him it was ‘rather unfathomable that Kwankwaso could insult the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria the way he likes’. He says ‘It is only in Nigeria that those who lack patriotism like Kwankwaso can insult the President at will’. And like Maku, he alleged without evidence that ’Kwankwaso’s outburst against Mr. President was an indication of a failed governor who acts against the will of the people’. And as if he lives in another planet, the minister asked rhetorically, “Have you ever seen the opposition party insulting the President of the United States of America, or the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, or Chancellor in Germany”?

    The above is the picture of ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria…Unfortunately; many of the other ministers and advisers are not any better. For instance, Obasanjo was quoted to have said on a BBC Hausa service  last Thursday, that he could help reach out to the insurgents for the release of the girls, but regretted that the federal government had not yet given him the green light to act. Instead of Mike Omeri, chairman, National Information Centre, encouraging the president to take up Obasanjo’s challenge in spite of his well known mischief, he says Obasanjo has unfettered access to the president. But from the exchange of letters between the godfather and godson, we know this is not true. In any case, Nigerians now know that Obasanjo once secured conditionality for cessation of hostility by the insurgents which government found not implementable. Government loses nothing by engaging Obasanjo to open another window of discussion with Boko Haram except adviser’s relevance.

    If the president and his advisers saw mischief in Obasanjo’s offer of help, we cannot say the same of the claim by Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop who insisted her country had made an offer to help in the search for the abducted girls since May, 20, through its High Commissioner Jon Richardson in Abuja. According to her, “They have thanked us for our willingness to be involved in trying to rescue the girls but we haven’t had any specific acceptance of the offers that we made.” Even if “There was no specific offer from the Australian government, but an informal offer of a general kind” as Mike Omeri had claimed, what do we have to lose if one of those ministers trying to outdo each other on who best fights the president personal wars or those of his wife followed up the lead?.

    We now also know while these ministers were trying to outdo each other as to who best prosecutes the president’s private wars, none of them had the presence of mind to prevail on the president to consider an American offer of help shortly after the abduction of about 300 girls by insurgents. Infuriated Senator McCain recently told his colleagues in the American Senate that America ought not to have waited for permission from a non-existent government or government where little governance takes place before embarking on humanitarian effort to rescue the abducted girls.

  • Putin and the burden of history

    The study of history is so crucial in understanding global affairs and international relations that it is unthinkable for any practitioner in the field not to be solidly grounded in the study of history. This is why graduates of history are in high demand in the ministries of foreign affairs in civilised countries. They are what are called generalists as distinct from those who may specialise in economic, legal, commercial or scientific areas of foreign relations.

    The happenings in Russia and Ukraine in recent times can only be understood if one has a solid background in Russian history. It is a truism in international relations that national interests are permanent while the means to protecting this national interest may vary from time to time and from personalities to personalities. Right from the time of Peter the Great, the Romanov Czar of Russia (1672-1725) to the present day, Russia has always had territorial ambition of being both a European and Asiatic power.

    Europe, stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals, has always been as important to Russia as the Siberian wilderness stretching up to Viladivistock. One of the enduring interests of Russia whose Baltic ports are frozen almost half of the year is to have an all year round warm water ports on the Black Sea. It has also been the policy of enemies and opponents of Russia to keep the Russian navy frozen in the Baltic for at least half of the year. It is in this respect that one can understand the Crimea crisis of recent times. Russia fought France and Great Britain and Ottoman Turkey over the Crimea in 1856 and succeeded in maintaining her hold on Sebastopol. Depending on how far back in history one wants to go, Russia’s influence in the Crimea has always been a reality.

    This reality itself came out of Russia’s superior weapons over the Ottoman Empire because the indigenous population of the Crimean, the Tartars are a Turkic people as well as Muslim in religion with allegiance in the distant past, to the sublime Porte, that is the Ottoman Sultan. International relations is of course a study in power relations. The decline of the Ottoman Empire, the proverbial sick man of Europe changed the fortune and ownership of the Crimea forever. This is how the world has been forced to recognise Russian suzerainty over the Crimea.

    The Crimea was of course part of the old Soviet Union and when in 1954 Nikita Kruschev transferred the Crimea to Ukraine, it was merely an internal administrative restructuring, because at that time, the demise of the Soviet Union was unthinkable. Of course when the Soviet Union collapsed in1994 and Ukraine became one of the successor 15 republics of the Soviet Union, what was an internal restructuring then took on a permanent form with Crimea becoming part of an independent Ukraine in spite of the fact that 60 percent of the population was Russian. This did not pose a serious problem because the rights of the Russian navy were recognised and protected.

    This status quo sufficed at that time because nobody ever thought that Russia and Ukraine could ever come into conflict. In 1994, the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia put pressure on Ukraine to hand over the nuclear weapons on its soil for de-commissioning with the proviso that the independence of the country would be guaranteed by these great powers. The Ukrainians gladly did this in exchange for economic assistance.

    The dissolution of the old Soviet Union into 15 republics left millions of Russian speakers in the new republics stretching from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to other states in the Caucasus. Even though the Soviet Union has disappeared, the new rulers in the Kremlin still hanker after the Old Russian imperialism to the extent that it sees itself as protector of Russians wherever they may be in the former Soviet Union.

    To prove this, Russia went to war with Georgia in 2008 to protect Abkhazia. Recently, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov made a wild and dangerous declaration that any attack on Russians anywhere would be seen as an attack on the motherland. This is a rather dangerous doctrine because if Russians are attacked say in Nigeria or the United States, Russia then would attack in retaliation? This was not a well thought out declaration before it was made. It is understandable for Russia to want Russians to be protected in the successor states of the former Soviet Union. The Russian annexation of the Crimea is totally illegal in international law but may have been justified on the basis of self-determination because the ethnic Russians who constitute the majority of the people in the Crimea voted to join Russia.

    The danger in this is if the ethnic Russians in all the other territories of the former Soviet Union were to do the same, the entire map of Eastern Europe may have to be redrawn. Pro-Russian rebels in eastern and southern Ukraine have since held a referendum to join Russia following the precedence of Crimea. If this were to be allowed, Ukraine will be reduced to the size of the territory occupied by ethnic Ukrainians.

    This certainly will not be in the interest of  Russians because it will permanently alienate the new Ukraine from Russia and history will be repeating itself of a Ukrainian enemy state of Russia somehow similar to the Ukrainia created by the Nazis as in 1941 during the Second World War led by such fascists like Stepan Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko and Kost Levitsky. The violation of Ukrainian sovereignty by Russia could not have been done without risk if Ukraine still had nuclear weapons. The unexpected consequence of this is that countries like Iran and others that have nuclear weapons ambitions as a deterrent against big power intervention would be difficult to persuade to give up their ambitions. This unintended consequence of the Russian action would have long lasting effects on global politics.

    There is also the feeling in the west of succumbing to Russian threat and a repetition of the appeasement policy towards Adolf Hitler leading to the outbreak of the Second World War. This is why NATO has decided to beef up the security of its member countries including the three small Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia that were formerly part of the Soviet Union and now member states of NATO. NATO has also in recent times, even if in a token form, sent troops to Poland.

    The world is entering a dangerous phase, a re-enactment of the cold war when huge amounts of money were spent on military expenditure in order to maintain some kind of military balance as a condition for global peace. The only good thing in what is going to be a new arms race is that it is not ideologically driven. Nevertheless, geopolitics and nationalism could be as dangerous driving forces as ideological division.

  • Battle line for the Nigerian patriot!

    Some of us Nigerians think that all that is needed to preserve Nigeria as one is to love it as it is, and to proclaim our love as sincerely, romantically, and persistently as we can. Such Nigerians mean well – but they are wrong. If the roof of your family house is leaking, the ceiling is caving in, and the walls begin to wobble, you are a nice and admirable person if you constantly and sincerely say that you love your family and the house you grew up in. But all that is not going to save the dear old house. You people who own the house and live in it would have to repair what needs to be repaired in it. Otherwise, it will collapse – you will lose it.

    This past week, in the public domain, I stumbled upon the following lovely passage, written by someone whom I must confess I admire very deeply: “Let me profess and proclaim” he wrote, “ that, in spite of the passing phase of poor and naive leadership,abjectly deplorable governance at all levels and the moral vices of cancerous corruption,unbridled excesses in our lifestyle, its slow development at all areas of its life and the lack of finesse in our private and public life which have been plaguing Nigeria, I still love my country. I will not trade it for any other. I have no other country than Nigeria. The Lord’s purpose for locating me to Nigeria, which is to share in its blessings, work with others to build it to the country of my dreams and rid it of its weaknesses and vices, fully participate in its development, rebirth and progress and enable it to be positioned as a worthy member of the comity of nations, shall not be defeated. I will discharge my duties to my country. I have no reason to abdicate my responsibilities to Nigeria, abandon it at the hours of its needs or forsake it because things are at present going awry. I will, for as long as I live, cling psychologically, morally and patriotically to Nigeria. For me, Nigeria is home, my home, my country, my fatherland, my root and my land of birth!!!”

    Wow! Isn’t that a lovable declaration of patriotic passion? I admire this writer, furthermore, because he is honest. He is able to see that Nigeria is beset by various serious ailments. I can see that he is capable of becoming a serious warrior for the survival of his country. All he needs is to identify, beyond the plethora of ailments, the core weaknesses of Nigeria, and become a dedicated and consistent fighter in that direction. That is the only way to win the war for Nigeria.

    I am sure that there are very many Nigerians out there like this man. They recognize, and are unhappy about, Nigeria’s poor leadership, deplorable governance, cancerous corruption, unbridled excesses among our rich and influential, the consequent poverty of most Nigerians even though our Nigeria is one of the naturally richest countries of the world.

    But it is not enough to recognize and lament this pattern; it is crucial that one should understand the root of it. There are people who say that the root of it is that we Nigerians, as nationalities and individuals, are by nature crooked and incompetent. That is not true. We are not by nature crooked or incompetent. Most of the nationalities that today make up Nigeria developed respectable cultures of their own, and were led by capable rulers and leaders, long before the coming of the British. They are able today to prosper in the modern world if given the chance. And the individuals who lead us in politics and other areas of life today are not naturally crooked and incompetent.

    The big mistake we have been making – the very root of our country’s troubles – is that we do not sufficiently give respect to the central truth of our existence as a country. That central truth is that we as a country are not one nation. We are a country of many different nations – each with its own history, its own culture, its own way of responding to the challenges of the modern world, and its own expectations and desires even in our one country of Nigeria.

    Of course, we know that we are a country of many different nations – that fact is self-evident. But, in trying to build our one country, we do not pay enough respect to that great fact. Paying enough respect to it would have led us to design our country as a proper federation – with a federal government responsible for our country’s joint services (like our foreign relations, defence, inter-state relations, etc) and respected by us all; and states based on our nationalities – meaning a state for each large or sizeable nation, and a carefully negotiated combination of small contiguous nationalities in each area to form a state. It would have meant that each state would control and develop its own natural resources, and that there would be well-considered arrangements for federal taxes and levies over such resources, and the sharing of certain parts of the federal revenues to the states. It would have meant that, in addition to federal police and security forces, each state would have its own police and thus be able to maintain security in its own domain. We would have consciously promoted a culture of decent respect for the cultures of our various nations and for the cultural differences in our country.

    Instead, what have we done? Since independence, the people in control of our federal government have pulled all powers and resource control in our country into the hands of our federal government, and gradually made the states impotent and incapable of promoting development in their domains. They have destroyed all local initiative and morale. To make the states amenable to control by the federal government, they split our country into smaller and smaller states. They set up a system of federal rigging of elections all over our country, so as to be able to decide who will rule our states. Even worse, with the endless ocean of cash in their control, they promoted a culture of corruption and unearned wealth among our leading citizens so as to subvert them and thereby easily control all of Nigeria. They have thus nurtured poverty in our land – with all its attendant evils.

    For the true Nigerian patriot who wants his country to survive and thrive, the battle line is clear. It is to reverse the crooked distortions of our federation and create a new and true federation. Fighting corruption is honourable. But corruption is not the root of Nigeria’s sickness; it is only a symptom. With power and responsibility for development restored to our states and their local governments, and with our federal, state and local governments respected in their various spheres, weNigerians would have a much better chance to fight and beat poverty, corruption and crimes.  Our country can be saved; it can be developed into a great country in the world – by organizing it as an orderly and stable federation.

  • Slaves eternally (1)

    Isha Sesay is adorable. The management of Cable News Network (CNN) must love her; the youngster undoubtedly measures up to and glamourizes the news organization’s established style of grilling perceived and verified nincompoops or nitwits amongst African leaders. And gradually, Sesay, is perfecting her skills at showing up fellow Africans as nitwits and predominantly ‘black monkeys’ incapable of self-governance and leadership. My bad, Sesay would never identify herself as an African. Though of Sierra Leonean parentage, she is “Briton.” But this is hardly about Sesay; this is more about Nigeria’s crop of contemporary public officers and their irascible lust to appear on CNN.

    The motive is always clear, being interviewed by CNN is expected to bolster their political and social profile. Hence in the wake or heat of any topical happenstance, it has become fashionable for the Nigerian President, Ministers, Governors, Ambassadors and even Special Advisers to pose and speak for the camera during interviews with any CNN anchor or correspondent.

    It becomes instructive to note that while the nation’s ruling class hustle to be interviewed by any CNN or BBC news anchor, they treat with disdain, requests for similar interviews by local journalists and media. This is why it is exceedingly difficult to read and watch interview sessions granted by the Nigerian ruling class to local journalists or media.

    In rare instances, when the nation’s president decides to hold the familiar charade of the “Presidential Media Chat,” participants, comprising a docile and fawning panel of pro-government media practitioners are carefully selected by Mr. President’s media advisers. Throughout such interview sessions, the nation is subjected to a boring and highly patronizing ‘media chat’ devoid of the essential requirements of professional media practice and truthful disclosure by Mr. President.

    Had it been that the country’s public officials accord local journalists and media the kind of obsequious deference they accord Sesay and her ilk, the country’s lot may improve remarkably; particularly in its need and use of vital information in times of tragic social and political crisis foisted on the country by terrorism masterminds like Boko Haram.

    In the wake of the crisis, particularly the terrorist sect’s recent abduction of over 200 secondary school girls, the Nigerian leadership, predictably, has behaved true to stereotype; President Goodluck Jonathan, his aides, Doyin Okupe and Labaran Maku, have granted interviews to CNN’s Sesay. During such interviews, it was amusing to see Sesay summon her element to rip President Jonathan and his aides’ farcical invisibility and dignity to shreds. Her latest victim was staff of a Nigerian consulate in the United States; Seshay treated him the same way she treated Mr. President and company.

    While they struggled to answer vital and significant questions asked by her, Seshay bullied them with frequent interruptions and forceful emphasis on veiled insinuations in her questions that suited CNN’s agenda. More horrifyingly, she rolled her eyes and casted side glances to chuckle and sneer at their desperate and futile attempts to answer coherent and sensible answers to her questions. Of course they could muster none and Seshay wasted no opportunity to show them up for the ineptitude as leaders and timidity as interviewees. That was quite pathetic.

    Seshay’s body language, her tone, manic sneer and dismissive manner of cutting them off chanting: “We do not have time. We do not have time anymore, we will probably invite you back later,” revealed among other things, CNN’s gross disrespect and disdain for Nigerian leaders. And like an over-excited predator closing in for the kill on hapless preys in its sight, Sesay pounced on the Nigerian public officers and made mincemeat of them all.

    I am happy for Sesay, for with such brutish elegance and approach to her job, she will rise on the totem pole of CNN’s celebrity news anchors and correspondents, until she hits her head on the glass ceiling. Yet I cannot help but feel sad for the exuberant CNN staff. Essentially, Sesay epitomizes and perpetuates the kind of slavish mentality that drove black African, my bad, “African-American” slaves of old to betray and despise their fellow workers on American slave plantations in previous centuries.

    Sesay and the Nigerian leadership epitomise everything that is wrong with the black race. So pronounced is their inferiority complex that the tragedies of their civilization perpetually wail in its littlest details: like the Nigerian leadership’s desperate quest for approval of the Western world in its shoddy handling of the nation’s terrorism affliction and Sesay’s maniacal, feverish quest to measure up to her employer’s expectations and institutionalized disdain for African leaders.

    Who will uninvent the Nigerian as a pitiful nigger? Who will unschool Seshay’s mind and forelock of the retrogressive ideals she has learnt to bandy as knowledge and survivalist tactic in her mad, desperate search for applause and political correctness?

    Sesay and her victims amongst the Nigerian leadership could be likened to fellows gifted with the mentality of the hyena and the sensibility of the guinea fowl. The same may be said of those who approve the misguided CNN staff’s attitude among the country’s citizenry. Their lust for unearned dignity, acclaim and the west’s approval clearly illustrates their shallowness and ignorance among other weaknesses symptomatic of their awfully preadolescent, or to be more candid, undeveloped minds. It reiterates a very shrill cry for help that’s at once self-seeking, infantile and retrograde.

    It is what makes Nigerian leaders pilfer and deplete the nation’s treasury to embark on idiotic trips abroad to learn western-european governance styles to be ineffectually applied back home. It is what makes Nigerian leaders throw their doors open to every visiting foreign cub reporter even as they deny seasoned journalists back home, similar opportunities even as they persistently expose themselves to ridicule, presenting themselves as inveterate idiots by their comportment and utterances which are tailored to glorify the disturbing plots and agenda of the foreign newshounds.

    The citizenry is guilty of the same inanity as indicated by the widely broadcast documentaries on Niger Delta militancy, the insidiously “professional” and manipulative “This is Lagos” and “Law and Disorder in Lagos” documentaries on Lagos which glorifies the city’s shanty and street ‘area boys’ malaise. Such media fare reveals contemptible plots to fulfill derogatory news agendas to the delight and pitiful acquiescence of the news subjects.

    I am yet to see a Nigerian journalist travel to the United Kingdom or the US for instance, to enjoy similar courtesies and stupidity from the countries’ leadership and citizenry. It is even more worrisome to note that the incumbent leadership has never enjoyed and will never enjoy the kind of respect accorded the late Tafawa Balewa, Obafemi Awolowo and their ilk at independence due to their inexplicable greed, complacence, degeneracy, shallowness of thought and character.

    The kind of inferiority complex projected by the ruling class and passed down to generations of Nigerian youth affirms the western belief that we are not as mentally proficient as they are. Consequently, they see us as irredeemably ignorant, inept, corrupt and susceptible to inexplicable violence and inferiority complex. Unfortunately, the average Nigerian’s prodigal nature manifests to further serve as evidence of a collective idiocy and inferiority complex of a crude race that recognizes and accepts and glamourizes its intolerable limitations.

  • Jonathan’s futile media war

    But everything President Goodluck Jonathan promised not to be, he has become in the countdown to the 2015 elections. A lion, a general, a Pharaoh  and Nebuchadnezzar, all rolled into one.  All the president seems to have in mind these days is the election.  Do not forget he told us last year that in  2014  he will let us know whether or not he will contest the election.  Now 2014 is here, but the president cannot  declare his stand  because of recent developments in the polity. What has really stopped him from making his position known is the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls.

    It is also because of these same girls that the media may have incurred the president’s  wrath. In the past five days, the media has been under siege from a government, which naturally should protect it. By virtue of his position, President Jonathan is the father of the nation. He may be in power because we voted for him, but as president he is not expected to be partisan. His office transcends party politics. Sadly, he views everything from the narrow prism of party politics.

    This is why today he is waging a war against the media. I do not know of  those who ever  fought the media and won.  His cannot be an exception. So, it would be advisable for Jonathan and his men to retrace their steps before it is too late. Some people may be deceiving him that he should go all-out against the media. Those who are giving him such piece of advice  do not love him. They are only talking like that because of the benefits therein.  Frankly, what has a good leader to fear about the media? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Only leaders  with skeletons  in their cupboards are afraid of  the media. Is Jonathan such a leader? Is that why he has set the army against the media to search distribution vans under the guise of looking for bombs?

    The media  does not deliberately set out to probe anybody, not even a  leader. Its job is to report events and to comment on them as it deems fit. The media is all about people and their activities. Since leaders are accountable to the people, it is the job of the media to let the people know what their leaders are doing. In doing that, the media must have unfettered access to information and also be free to circulate its products. This freedom is being threatened by the Jonathan administration under the pretence  of maintaining security.

    Between last Friday and Monday, the media came under siege, the sort of which was last experienced under the Babangida and Abacha juntas.  Distribution vans were  waylaid  by military men across the country. It was a premeditated and clinically executed act, which caught all the newspapers offguard. The soldiers seized the vans for the better part of the day. By the time they released the vans, it was too late to distribute  the newspapers they were carrying. What do you do with such a product, which by then, had become perishable? You count it as unsold and that means a huge loss in revenue. Who should be responsible for that loss? Your guess is good as mine. Newspapers are not like edible products, which can be on display for as long as the vendor wants. It is time-barred and once that time  is up the newspaper becomes as good as a tissue paper.

    It is all over for a newspaper, no matter how rich its content may be,  which is not distributed within time. If there are no vendors to collect the paper at the appointed hour,  forget it, it will be returned to the publishers as unsold. The soldiers, who ambushed the vans of The Nation, The Punch, Vanguard, Leadership and Daily Trust,  among others, knew what they were doing by holding on to those newspapers until about 5 pm or 6 pm before releasing them. They knew that at that  hour, the papers can no longer be distributed to vendors not to talk of selling them.

    As expected, the military defended its action. According to the Director, Defence Information (DDI),  Maj. Gen Chris Olukolade, the onslaught was launched after security agencies received ”intelligence reports indicating movement of materials  with grave security implications across the country, using the channel of newsprint related consignment”. Yes, the military or any arm of the security agencies has the right to enforce security, but it should not be at the risk of depriving the citizenry of  their means of livelihood.

    If it was true the soldiers   were looking for explosives, why didn’t they release the vehicles after searching them and finding no incriminating evidence in them? Why detain the vehicles until very late in the day when their contents – the newspapers – could no longer be distributed for sale? Does that not show that the government had ulterior motives, and only  made up  its claim that it was looking for bombs, to justify what clearly is an illegal action?  That jester called Doyin Okupe added insult upon the injury when he also  spoke on the matter. ”If the security of the country is at stake, some segments may have to undergo some discomfort. This is what we have to face because our country is under siege”.

    Our country did not come under siege today. It has been under siege for years and the media has been playing its role to ensure that things return to normal. If our leaders have been as concerned as the media things would not have  become this bad. Are the troops now hunting for newspapers’ delivery vans all over the place not in the country when the President said there were Boko Haram elements in government? What have they done to fish out these Boko Haramites?

    They can go after vans on the roads of Ibadan, Ilorin, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Abuja, Benin, Ekiti and Lokoja, but close their eyes to the President’s revelation that Boko Haram has infiltrated some  government offices. Let the soldiers go and search those offices and even themselves for bombs.   Lest we forget, the matter  of the abducted Chibok girls is also still there. How far have these soldiers gone in their search for the girls? They should keep busy at that and let the media be. As for Jonathan, he should stop venting his anger on the media over what he perceives as a delay in making known his second term bid.

  • The truth about Nigeria

    It never stops coming. The truth – the lesson – about Nigeria never keeps coming and striking us in the face. It never stops coming too – our uproarious reactions to the pains inflicted by Nigeria’s truth.

    The Nigerian truth came upon us strongly again last Saturday in Ado-Ekiti. And it will keep coming, no matter how loudly we scream our pain. One more mother among us lost a son –the last of the thousands of Yoruba mothers who have lost sons to violence caused by Nigeria’s culture of violent electioneering and election rigging. And more and more mothers among us will keep losing sons in the same circumstance. That is the inescapable ramification of our nation’s membership of Nigeria.

    In a speech by Prof. Banji Akintoye to a large gathering of Yoruba leaders in Lagos on April 26, 2010, I find the following words:

    “In Nigerian politics, the controllers of federal power will never cease rigging the elections, and will never cease using federal resources and power to (do it).

    As long as we Yoruba are in Nigeria, there will always be some of our men and women who will be recruited, and some who will think it is smart to take advantage of the things being offered (by the rigging of elections). The majority of our Yoruba  people, on the other hand, will always detest rigged elections and reject the insult that the rigging of their elections represents. What this has meant is that many of  our young men have been dying violently and needlessly in the course of elections.

    It also has meant that some of our most educated and most productive men and  women of all parties have routinely had to waste their trained and productive lives  before so-called election courts  – and that those who find themselves in state governments are never able to settle down and govern properly. For us as a people,  it is an awful prospect of “head you lose, tail you lose”. For how long should any people surrender its life to this debilitating bleeding? All our political leaders are forever blaming one another. But as a perceptive elder in our nation, all I see is that they are all to be pitied – because our whole nation, like other nations in Nigeria, is trapped in a debacle and is not sure of a way out. I see all of our politicians, strong and strongly nurtured men and women, compulsively acting on a stage that we their people did not choose and do not want but cannot quit – like a pet tethered to a post, circling the post perpetually”.

    The only way to get out of this terrible prospect, of course, is that more and more of us should commit ourselves to finding the way out of it. As Chief Awolowo often used to say, if you want to go to the moon (no matter how difficult that may be), the first step is to take the firm decision that you want to get to the moon; that way, you create for yourself the problem of finding how a person can get to the moon. People who do not so decide, who do not commit themselves to reaching a goal, cannot reach any goal. All I see and know about the Yoruba nation convinces me that the destiny of a nation like the Yoruba nation cannot possibly be to sink forever in a country like Nigeria. As the ancient Greeks used to say, “One may not be able to prevent the birds of misfortune from flying over one’s head; but one is certainly able to prevent them from settling and making nests in one’s hair”. The Yoruba nation needs to stop and consider the path it finds itself upon. The Yoruba nation needs to stop and take stock – no matter what any Yoruba persons might have gained, may currently be gaining, or may be hoping to gain, from the corruption, confusion and mess that is Nigeria. The Bible says that it is only a fool that trades without stopping to take account. The Yoruba nation is not a fool – and Yoruba people are no fools.

    To return to the Ado-Ekiti incident in particular,and to the probability that such incidents will soon multiply, not only in Ekiti State but also in Osun State, I would wish to counsel the president of Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan. As we Yoruba are accustomed to doing, we have been watching you intently, Mr. President. Your attitude to, and relationship with, the Yoruba nation have developed in ways that can only be described as weird.

    Hardly any of us Yoruba knew anything about you when your boss, President Yaradua, died five years ago and there arose a strong demand that he be succeeded by another Northerner – according to established agreements in your political party. Yet, out of principle (because we are a people dedicated to principles), we arose stoutly to support your right to become Acting President on the basis of the Nigerian Constitution. While some of our leading citizens at home led great demonstrations in the streets to support your right, some of us abroad spoke out boldly. You became Vice-President, and later President.

    Throughout your tenure in these exalted offices, you have generally treated the Yoruba people with disrespect – in fact with a kind of petty disrespect unusual to the Nigerian presidency. If you are convinced that you are president of all of Nigeria, then you have never, in your appointment of people to high offices in the presidency,regarded the Yoruba people as part of Nigeria. Concerning this, some of our topmost rulers and leaders visited you again and again, all without much effect.

    Now, the fear has grown among the masses of our people that, for unknown reasons, federal powers will be used to generate conflict and confusion in the Yoruba South-west. The calculation, it is said, is that a state of communal collapse in the Yoruba South-west will somehow help your re-election bid in 2015. Certain recent changes of senior federal personnel in Ekiti and Oshun States, where state elections are due in June and August respectively, are said to be part of the federal preparations for this scheme. And the Ado-Ekiti incident, in which the federal Mobile Police reportedly employed excessive force to break up a peaceful rally, resulting in the death of a citizen, is regarded by most of our people as the kind of federal behaviour to expect in the South-west in the months to come.

    Mr. President, I would urge you to reconsider this whole situation, and to use your great power and influence to ensure free, fair, and peaceful elections in Ekiti and Osun states. In spite of the usual lines separating citizens belonging to different political parties, Yoruba people know their interests and their friends. And Yoruba people have acquired, worldwide, an enormous capacity to defend the interests of their nation against any person, no matter how high in Nigeria, who may try to hurt their nation. As a friend, I wish you good success, Mr. President.

    Needless to say, I speak for, or against, no political party. I speak only for the well-being of the Yoruba nation.

  • Ekiti: Recce time in Abuja

    Ekiti: Recce time in Abuja

    AFTER dithering for weeks, President Goodluck Jonathan finally made it to Ado–Ekiti last Saturday.

    Dr Jonathan, I am told, felt to be accused of gross insensitivity so soon after dancing with turncoat former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau in Kano while the nation was mourning the Nyanya bomb victims would have been too much to take. He would rather not repeat the offence. Besides, some of his henchmen thought the journey could be a wasteful venture, considering many factors.

    The governorship election, which Vice President Namadi Sambo described as a war – his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with police backing, has been prosecuting it as so – is now nine days away. It was time the other day in Abuja to review the battle plan, a kind of reconnaissance – in line with the PDP’s language of war.

    It was a long meeting. Jonathan presided. There were party chiefs, including an elder statesman whose counsel – opponents see it as foxy and wily – many have found useful in times like these. His bag of tricks seemed exhausted after the PDP lost major elections in his Southsouth home state. But, to many in the PDP, he remains the fixer. Pardon the digression. Also, there were presidential aides and top politicians of the conservative mould, those to whom politics is war and an election a battle in which heads must be smashed and limbs broken. All is fair so long as the prize is secured.

    Details of the meeting remain the subject of a conjectural indulgence. There was no communiqué. An unconfirmed but usually reliable source, who swore to me that his uncle’s friend met at an Abuja pepper soup hang-out an influential fellow who claimed to have shared a drink with the son of one of those at the meeting, related what went on at the talks. Here is his account, which, as I said earlier, Editorial Notebook could not confirm:

    The President walks in briskly, an aide bearing a lean file in tow. No cap. All smiles, he shakes hands with the group of men who are all standing, muttering greetings. He then sinks into a seat adjusted by the aide, the national flag resting behind him. He opens the file.

    “Gentlemen, I greet you all. I thank you for finding the time to attend this all-important meeting. I’m sure you all know why we are here.Ekiti. We want to take Ekiti. Can we do it? Are we ready? What is the situation on ground?”

    All is quiet for a short while as the message sinks. The old man stands up to speak. “Sit down, chief; sit down.” The chorus rings through the gathering. The man speaks softly, his voice inaudible. He then clears his throat, summoning from the pocket of his white ‘agbada’ a white handkerchief with which he wipes his mouth,

    “Mr President, thank you for calling this meeting. I was going to call it, but you beat me to it. You see, an election is not an owambe party. Neither is it an obito where you call people to eat, drink and make merry. No. It is a serious business. A battle. Are we ready? And this is crucial as the election will say a lot about 2015, which concerns me more than any other thing. I suggest we fight the election with everything.

    “You are the President. I don’t have to teach you what to do, but I will like to tell you that my style is not to lose elections. Some people may say, ‘but this is not a presidential election’. They are right and they are wrong. In case you don’t know, this is a fight between you and that man in Lagos. I don’t want to mention any name. I don’t have to.

    “Give me the go-ahead to take charge. Logistics and all that. This is a battle we must not lose. Thank you.”

    An aide struggles to stand up, rocking sideways before he eventually makes it to his feet. His seat moans as if in pains. It goes quiet as it is relieved of the massive frame.

         “Your Excellency, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander-in- Chief of the Armed Forces, Dr Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, our leaders here present, my colleagues. I thank you for giving me the floor. My position is simple. Whatever we do, we must carry the media along. Public opinion should be on our side. We must be seen to be in a position to win clean and clear so that we don’t face any backlash after the election. I would like to be assigned that role.”

    The old man stands up again. The President shifts in his seat. His chin resting on his right hand, he listens as he takes notes on a little jotter provided by one of the attendees.

    “Your Excellency, there is no need to start going up and down. There are three options before you and our great party. We can choose to go in there and use the federal might. We can get the military to put up a big show of force on the eve of the election. Armoured tanks will be positioned in strategic towns where our opponents are strong. Soldiers can storm the major towns, singing war songs and shooting into the air several times. There will be so much fear. Who will come out to vote the next day? Nobody. We can then have the ballot all to ourselves.

    “Even before our man is announced as winner, you issue a message, congratulating him and our great party. INEC must be told in clear times where we’re going and that we won’t tolerate excuses, like that rerun in Ondo. No. There will be some noises. Opponents will remind you of Chibok, Nyanya, Jos and others. Well, you can’t stop people from doing that.  In fact, the place may be on fire. You allow the military to do their job, with the police providing some back-up. Our goal is simple; the prize or nothing. Remember you’re the President; you must not fail.”

    He goes on to paint what he described as the second option, which he says is less strenuous.

    “My President, you can also choose to allow a free and fair election in which the better side wins. Chikena! That way, you will be hailed at home and abroad as a statesman who allowed democracy to blossom. Fine. It’s up to you.”

    Jonathan takes his eyes off his notes, shakes his head and sinks into a moment of reflection, a thousand thoughts rushing through his mind. The chief resumes his postulation.

    “The third option, my President. You may wish to cut a deal with the incumbent ahead of 2015. You need only 25 per cent in Ekiti. That’s all. Tell him you won’t interfere and in return he should support you to have 25 per cent in your own election, which is what is uppermost in my heart. I rest my case, Mr President.”

    All is quiet for a while. Jonathan drops his pen and the sound reverberates all over the room. He launches into a moment of deep contemplation.

    “I thank you all. Honestly, I have been thinking about this election. Did we get the right candidate? Almost all the other aspirants have quit the party. Many Ekiti indigenes have told me we got it wrong. The other day I read the security report on our man; full of murders and other atrocities. Corruption. There are cases in court. They said he stole N1.3billion poultry fund. And I said to myself, na wah o!. Some of you here insisted that he was the kind of man we needed. Anyway, I have gone there to campaign for him. I have played my own part.”

    The party chair, who has also been taking notes, stands up to speak. He adjusts his dress as if to ensure he is looking smart before the audience.

    “Mr President, my elders and colleagues. If I got the President right, we need to mind the image of our great party. We can’t continue to be called a party of thieves, thugs and touts. I’m not saying our candidate is any of these o; get me right. But fee dee fee needs a new image. The party must wear a new dress. And this is where I come in. The President will eventually decide whatever we do in Ekiti.

    “The other day I saw the video of how our man’s podium collapsed during his campaign. The story all over the place is that he didn’t spend the money he got to build a good podium. A village carpenter cobbled the podium together. I was disturbed. Where is the trust? He is said to be running the campaign all alone. There is so much bitterness in the party.”

    The President looks up from his note-taking, smiles a little and closes his notebook.

    “Gentlemen, I thank you, once again, for your time. The candidate will be here to see me. And whatever I decide, I will let you know. Goodnight.”

  • Ekiti: Those who want to bring back our nightmare

    Ekiti is a land of honour. The enduring characteristics of the people are hard work, loyalty, integrity. and fanatical opposition to any form of injustice. Their nightmare started in 2003 with PDP’s subversion of these cherished values. The coming election is therefore between forces of darkness that is determined to bring back the nightmare we experienced between 2003 and 2010, and forces of light which Fayemi’s administration represents.

    Let us remember where the rain started beating us. As a people who never play Brutus, Ekitis don’t betray friends and benefactors. To them honour is everything. In contemporary times, two of our illustrious sons used by forces of darkness retraced their steps and demonstrated they were, above everything else, men of honour. In 1983, NPN capitalized on the bitterness expressed by marginalized restive Ekitis who although constituted over 50% of the population of the old Ondo State but allocated only a third of available distributive resources, to sponsor an ambitious Akin Omoboriowo to undermine Governor Adekunle Ajasin his boss. He was subsequently awarded a stolen mandate in the 1983 election. The Ekitis who believe you cannot build justice on injustice denounced his action and rejected him. But it is on record that as a man of honour, Omoboriowo rejected a ministerial appointment offer by NPN and died a poor man in his son’s rented apartment in Lagos. Ex-Governor  Segun Oni who was used to prolong our nightmare for almost four years,  has according to Governor Fayemi, chosen honour in spite of opportunity to cut deals as a former governor with the presidency’  and like other PDP members make billions to build palaces among the peoples’ squalor. Oni was said to have unconditionally opted to support Fayemi in order to produce the leadership our children can look up to as role models.

    The often mischievous ‘sociological explanation’ for what many other Nigerians consider as a ‘strange behaviour’ of the Ekitis by my colleagues in the Department of Sociology here at the University of Lagos  is that the Ekiti people are poor  and they can as well say the truth since they cannot fall below poverty. Conversely they say the Egbas are rich and have sworn never to be in the rain again (apology to Chinua Achebe). Thus inarguably illustrious men in their own rights such as Dr Majekodunmi who was used by the Balewa government to legimise illegalities in the old West, an Ernest Shonekan used by Babangida to subvert MKO Abiola’s victory and an Obasanjo who has behaved without grace after becoming the greatest beneficiary of an injustice done to Abiola who would have been treated with contempt by Ekitis were celebrated as icons.

    But this probably explains why Obasanjo who was celebrated for act of treachery back home showed such disdain for the Ekitis and their cherished values through his imposition of an ill-equipped Ayo Fayose on the peace loving people of Ekiti. He was to become the scourge of the people as violence took over an otherwise peaceful land with prominent and highly educated indigenes and traditional rulers capriciously assassinated.

    Even after the impeachment of Fayose, Obasanjo who always want to play God thought he knew what was best for Ekiti. He exploited the intra party feud within Alliance for Democracy (AD), brought in General Olurin from Egba to ensure decamping aggrieved members of AD were rigged into office as PDP senators and members of the House of Representatives and Segun Oni as governor. When a rerun was ordered by the court following persistent protest by the people, another of Obasanjo’s confidants, Madam Ayoka was brought in from Abeokuta to conduct a rerun election that had been programmed to fail. It was the Appeal Court that finally put an end to a prolonged nightmare by restoring Fayemi’s stolen mandate.

    Now, it is this nightmare that President Jonathan and those Obasanjo described as ‘criminal elements that have taken over PDP in the South-west’ intend to bring back. We must ask ourselves why Ayo Fayose with his antecedents, current disabilities including record of impeachment and pending criminal charges hanging on his neck in the court, is the only credible candidate PDP identified among a motley of about 20 aspirants. Obviously for the president and PDP, this election is not about agenda, it is about who is best suited to reenact the era of Fayose. And Fayose with his temperament, disposition and empty bravado is the only one who fits that bill.

    President Jonathan and PDP do not give a damn. That probably explains why they didn’t give a damn about performance in picking a man whose tenure was an unmitigated disaster to face an high achieving sitting Governor Fayemi who has received accolades from home and abroad for the faithful implementation of his eight-point programme in the last three and half years. Honours have come from his grateful Ekiti compatriots who gave him the title of “Ilufemiloye” for faithful adherence to promises made. Independent and credible voices have scored him high. Akin Oyebode, who we all know calls a spade a spade says he has done well. Chief Afe Babaloa, a PDP sympathizer and the chairman of a group Obasanjo used to recruit Segun Oni as governor has since praised Fayemi for his achievements.

    Endorsements for Fayemi on the basis of his performance have come from those we all know will never hawk praises to undeserving elements.  Professor Tunde Fagbenle, Professor Segun Gbadegesin, and Professor Olatunji Dare who writing on Fayemi phenomena says “under Fayemi, Ekiti is thriving in ways it has never known; there, transformation is not a slogan; it is a lived reality,” asserting that “Unless it is too far gone in its delusion, the PDP must know that it cannot win a free and fair election in Ekiti, much less with a candidate who has nothing to offer.”

    Mohammed Haruna, a veteran columnist you can hardly be faulted on facts even when it involves his religion and Hausa/Fulani, his weak points, predicted that despite the desperation of PDP , “Fayemi will retain his job in a free and fair election because for a state with such a meager revenue allocation (N3 billion month compared to Balyelsa’s N24 billion)  it is a miracle that Fayemi had been able to achieve most of what he promised nearly four years ago, especially in the areas of education, infrastructural development and social security”.

    Even outsiders like Ikechi Emenike has also observed that “While Fayemi speaks of and works towards a future of transparency, good governance and prosperity, Ayo Fayose evokes retrogression, a fall-back to the bad old days of brigandage the intelligent citizens of Ekiti would rather forget” adding that “Try as they may, it is hard to see how the people of the Land of Honour will not queue behind a man who has been so faithful to his promises, come June 21”.

    Similarly another outsider, Phil Aragbada has called our  attention to what he described as “Fayemi’s palpable empathy for the grassroots, his proximity to the rural dwellers , evinced by his novel State Assisted Community Projects Initiative acronym-ed SACPI in contradistinction to one of his opponent’s ‘Boli and guguru’ –roasted plantain and groundnut eating shenanigans”.

    I have always thought one doesn’t need to say the obvious. But the Fayemi has embarked on vigorous campaign in the media and romped through 132 Ekiti towns saying the obvious because his opponents who are yet to unveil their agenda nine days to election are busy spreading messages of fear and hate. As the people of land of honour file out to vote on June 21, we must remember the battle is against detractors who have nothing but disdain for our values; that we are up against those who by our standards are half-literates but now insist their standard is good enough for us; that those who, for a pot of porridge, subvert the truth fraudulently proclaiming 14 to be greater than 16, cannot be role model for our children. Let us remember those who betray friends, their party leaders and their benefactors will betray the people. Never again must we allow our land of honour be desecrated by those to whom honour means nothing.