The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Elusive Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen

    For President Goodluck Jonathan, experience counts for much. It was probably because of what he saw as unparalleled achievements of Anyim Pius Anyim as Senate President for about two years, the superlative performance of Dr Doyin Okupe as Obasanjo’s public affairs manager and Nigeria’s giant strides in the economic sector presided over by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala under Obasanjo that must have greatly endeared them to him. The President similarly found Aliyu Gusau’s celebrated experience as Nigeria ‘spy catcher’ simply irresistible. Convinced that he was the only one with magic wand to Nigeria’s security problems, he had to reserve for him the defence portfolio of a nation at war for close to a year. The experience of police commissioner Mohammed Abubakar in Plateau, the epicentre of a decade-long bloodletting between Fulani settlers and their Berom hosts must have equally convinced the president he was the best man for the position of IG. He was not only promoted above six of his seniors, the president was unrestrained by a campaign of calumny against Mohammed Abubakar, by a faceless group called ‘the 1960 collective’. Their objection to Abubakar’s appointment was his alleged indictment by the justice Niki Tobi–led ‘Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Civil Disturbances in Jos and its Environment’. The same group had earlier claimed without proof that the president promoted Hafiz Ringim above nine senior officers because of his personal relationship with Ringim as Balyelsa State police commissioner when the president was governor of the state.

    Gusau’s new coming to a familiar terrain has been very challenging. He first had a running battle with the Generals even before Boko Haram administered their baptism of fire. Before he came on board, Boko Haram restricted themselves to bombing facilities like churches inside military barracks or isolated parts of Borno airport. Now they dared Gusau by seizing a military barrack along with some women hostages according to ‘busy body’ BBC which also reported it took serious military engagement before our soldiers, let down initially by malfunctioning equipments, could take back their barracks. Fifty-nine children of Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, and Yobe State had been callously massacred while sleeping in their dormitories. Bombing of busy Nyanya Motor Park has taken place with accompanying harvest of death of 75 and over 200 injured. Now, 230 female final year secondary school girls have since been picked up with relative ease by Boko Haram insurgents dressed in military uniform. Parents of about 190 of the students still in captivity have since lamented not meeting any soldier while in the Maiduguri forest for 12 hours with sympathizers looking for their abducted daughters. Poor parents, because of their grief, we should forgive them for insinuations capable of demoralizing our highly motivated military. For every 230 girls abducted, Okupe has said nine other attempts must have been stopped by our military.

    But for an administration that has warned Borno State governor and others not to demoralise our fighting force, sacrificing their future for our collective safety, an administration that has continued to admonish us to take heart because our experience is not different from other nations fighting international terrorism, and for a president about whom Senator Smart Adeyemi had prophesied victory on account of his faith in God, four months is a short period to measure the success of a treasured minister of defence.

    We had thought things were bad under bungling Ringim. With Abubakar, we seem to have lost focus. Two years down the line, and in spite of his celebrated expertise in mediating between Fulani settlers and their hosts, he has not been able to tell us precisely whether those engaged in indiscriminate killing of our compatriots with sophisticated weapons are Fulani herdsmen or ghosts. Governor Suswan after surviving an ambush during his sympathy visit to Gbajimba Local Council headquarters in Benue said he would like to believe the atrocities being perpetrated against his people are not coming from the Fulani herdsmen.

    But survivors of the attack on Nzorou Ward in Iyordye Akaahena village and Akuroko village in Guma Local Government Area of his state which left about 34 dead insisted the marauders were Fulani herdsmen. In the latest case of Unguwar Yargaladima village in Dansadau Emirate of Maru Local government area of Zamfara where over 215 were killed while holding a vigilante meeting, the Emir of Dansadau, Alhaji Hussaini Adamu claimed the attack which lasted for about three hours during which the entire town was burnt down without help from the police was carried out by fulani armed herdsmen.

    Survivors of an attack on Tarawa village on April 19 which left about 77 dead similarly pointed accusing fingers at Fulani herdsmen. The traditional ruler of Wukari, (Aku Uka), His Royal Highness Shakarau Angyu also told his state’s Acting Governor, Alhaji Garba Umar, that crisis in his domain was ignited by Fulani herdsmen. The simultaneous attack between April 1 – 2, which left 20 dead in Yobe, 32 in Plateau and 30 in Kaduna were also alleged to have been carried out by Fulani herdsmen.

    As if to give credence to all the claims of victims, Alhaji Sadiq Abubakar, Director-General of Niger State department in charge of Nomadic Affairs, told reporters that for security reasons, the Niger State government deported 200 Fulani herdsmen from Gunu village in Shiroro Local Government Area of the state to Rijana, their ancestral village in Kaduna State. The North Central Zone Chairman of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, Malam Ismaila Rebe, confirmed the development.

    But the federal government that lacks the political will to stem the dangerous tide has continued to play the ostrich. On the one hand we are told a Presidential Peace Committee was led by the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), Michael Zoukumor, and the state Chairman, Conflict Resolution and Peace Building Committee, Brigadier General John Atom Kpera (rtd); with the National President Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Alhaji Bello Abdullahi Bodejo and all members of the peace committee agreed on a cessation of hostilities by Fulani herdsmen and their host communities in Benue State in Government House, Makurdi.

    Yet the same National President Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Alhaji Bello Abdullahi Bodejo was on a national television last Sunday warning Suswam of the consequences of repatriating Fulani herdsmen from Benue adding for effect that not even the Sultan of Sokoto can send people out of Sokoto because everyone is allowed by our constitution to operate freely anywhere in our country. Bodejo is yet to be questioned by the police. As the criminal impunity continues, the police under IG Abubakar seem to be telling Nigerians they are not sure who the perpetrators of heinous crime against the people they are paid to protect are.

    As for the minister of defence and the IG, it is only president Goodluck that can actually say whether he has been lucky with their appointments. But it is not too much to expect our highly motivated and heavily funded military to prevent the abduction of our innocent school-girls. Such laxity does not happen even in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nigerians also expect an IG who relocated to Ondo State during the re-election battle of Mimiko and an IG who demonstrated his toughness by installing Mbu Mathew Mbu as alternative governor of Rivers for months, to at least tell us, if those engaged in criminal impunity in the north central states of Nigeria are aliens or Nigerians. At least that will enable us know from where to seek help.

    Nigerians expect nothing from their leaders beyond the basic duty of government—protection of life and property. They do every other thing for themselves. A government that pretends not to know those openly committing heinous crimes against its citizens despite its control of awesome apparatus of state power opens itself to suspicion of being an accomplice in the prolongation of the nightmare of the people. Nigerians know those who stand to benefit from the ongoing senseless killings in the north central geo-political zones can only be those who have always exploited our ethnic and religious differences for political gain.

  • Failings of three largest nations: Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba

    Recently, a group of younger academics asked me to contribute a chapter to a book they were writing together on the travails of Nigeria. After much thought, I decided to write a chapter on the failings of our three largest nations (Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba) – the failings of theirs that have contributed decisively to the failure of Nigeria as a country.

    As I worked on my chapter, I found that I could not make the needed statement conclusively without including the role of the British – the founders and colonial moulders of Nigeria – in the picture. To trace Nigeria’s failure, one cannot avoid an account of how the British designed and built Nigeria to stumble and fall. So, I had to delve into how the four major nations in Nigeria’s history – the British, Hausa-Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba – contributed to the making of Nigeria’s failure.

    Though the British had ruled Nigeria since 1914, it was not until 1946 (the years following the Second World War of 1939-45) that they seriously began to build Nigeria as one country. And as they embarked on the task, certain powerful conditions directed their choice of policies. The British economy and British cities had been ruined by the war; the cost of rebuilding was enormous; Britain was in heavy debt; and the danger of national bankruptcy was real. Though Britain must prepare for Nigeria to become independent (because of the pressure of nationalism in Africa and the world), Britain must depend quite considerably on help from Nigeria and her other colonies – but especially on Nigeria, her largest and richest colony. In fact, the potential capability of Nigeria to help was greatly being increased by the knowledge that Nigeria was an oil-rich country.

    Britain must therefore find ways to hold on to the Nigerian economy after Nigeria’s independence. And that meant, simply, that Britain must put the control of independent Nigeria in the hands of a “friendly” Nigerian people. The Yoruba and Igbo were too educated and too world-wise to be depended upon for such a role. On the other hand, the Hausa-Fulani were far less educated, were fearful of being dominated by the Yoruba and Igbo, needed British help, and were therefore more amenable for friendship with the British. The outcome was that the British guided Nigeria into a federation of three regions in which the Northern Region ruled by the Hausa-Fulani had more population than the Igbo-dominated Eastern Region and the Yoruba-dominated Western Region together. This easily translated to Northern dominance in the federal parliament, and Hausa-Fulani dominance over the Federal Government. Nigeria’s future was sealed.

    As Nigeria entered into independence, then, the Hausa-Fulani rulers of Nigeria had to be focused on one central mission – to subdue and rule the other peoples of Nigeria. Sir Ahmadu Bello spelt it out succinctly: we Hausa-Fulani must ruthlessly prevent our loss of the control of the Federal Government; we must never let the others unite; we must treat them like conquered peoples; and we must never let them control even their own affairs or their own future. And, for sure, the Hausa-Fulani have made an admirable success of that mission – ruling Nigeria more or less continuously for nearly 50 years, entrenching their men in the Nigerian military and in nodal positions in the federal bureaucracy and judiciary, suppressing virtually all local drive and morale, and successfully selling to most other Nigerian elites the mentality that the Hausa-Fulani are the source of all power, authority, opportunity, and wealth in Nigeria.

    But, unfortunately, such a mission as that has nothing to do with building a harmonious country; or a politically stable country with democratic aspirations; or a modern country with a modern economy based on modern technologies. Nigeria bogged down into a politically and economically chaotic and obscure country, a land of strenuously crooked and contentious politics, of comprehensive corruption and generations raised in corruption, of poverty, hopelessness, insecurity and vileness. Can this monstrosity of a country change and improve? Well, nothing is impossible. But some things are beyond the power of man to ameliorate – even with the best of good intentions. Unfortunately, even the tiniest rudiments of good intensions are not easy to discern in Nigeria even now. It is always easier to drag down than to raise up.

    The Igbo and Yoruba together commanded the capability to change the situation. Both were led into independence by some of the most educated men in the world. But to effect worthwhile change, they needed to join hands and work together at it – and that they have proved incapable of doing even till this day. In the mushrooming chaos and cloud, the Igbo political and bureaucratic elite developed a nebulous doctrine of “Igbo dominance”, and even promoted the idea of a unitary government for a brief while. Accepting a subordinate placement in the Hausa-Fulani-dominated federal government, in order to outpace their Yoruba rivals, became for them a fanciful existential philosophy. They also fed to the large numbers of simple decent Igbo folks who were spreading out to take advantage of the opportunities in other parts of Nigeria a mindset that, since Nigeria was all theirs, they owed their hosts anywhere in Nigeria no gratitude or even ordinary politeness for any favours. Professor Adiele Afigbo, in my view one of Nigeria’s best historians of our times, took some look at this mindset – and concluded with a note of caution for his Igbo kinsmen. Thus, one of the most outgoing, one of the most modernizing, of Nigerian peoples, rather than becoming a factor for unity and modern progress in Nigeria, became the most painful casualty of the Nigerian disaster.

    The modern Yoruba political elite came onto the Nigerian scene with a solid cultural heritage that could have contributed enormously to the building of a successful Nigeria. Living for over a thousand years in well-ordered kingdoms and cities had imbued the Yoruba with strong sensitivities for orderly governance and leadership. From the late 1940s, their elite came forth with clear ideas that the various peoples of Nigeria, large or small, should be respected, that Nigeria should be organized as a federation, and that Nigeria’s peoples should be the basis for the federating units. In their Western Region in the 1950s, they became the pace-setters in democratic politics. But the Yoruba message has never had the effect that it could have had. And the reason is that, in Nigerian politics, the Yoruba have never found sufficient unity among them to make their great message accepted by others.

    Unhappily, these tendencies continue to direct Nigeria’s life, as well as the ongoing National Conference. The vibrations from the National Conference are that the Hausa-Fulani want to continue to dominate and therefore oppose any change; that though the Yoruba and Igbo basically seek the same lines of change, they shy away from working emphatically together; and that though the Yoruba bring their great message of orderly and progressive federalism, they do not seem to know for sure how to wrap up, in their own ranks, the kind of forceful unity that would sell the message to all. The question must continue therefore to be asked: Is this country a viable entity?

  • A tribute to Professor C.O. Taiwo (1910-2014)

    A tribute to Professor C.O. Taiwo (1910-2014)

    The death was announced a couple of weeks ago of Professor Cornelius O. Taiwo, a former distinguished and accomplished Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Lagos. He was aged 104. A few newspapers carried the news of his death. But since then, I have not seen in the newspapers any public tribute to him. Yet, Professor Taiwo was for many decades one of the most celebrated figures in the field of public education in Nigeria. He certainly deserves tributes from the public, particularly from those who had the privilege of either having been his students or his colleagues in public education in Nigeria. I would expect the authorities of the University of Lagos to acknowledge his leading role and contribution to the development of education in Nigeria.

    The failure to recognise his role in public education in Nigeria is certainly due to the fact that he outlived virtually all his colleagues, even some of his students. A senior media executive to whom I pointed out the lapse told me he had read the news of Professor Taiwo’s demise but that he knew nothing about him and that it did not occur to him that he merited a tribute by the media. He was right, as this particular senior journalist was still quite young when Professor Taiwo retired from the University of Lagos in the early 70s, some forty years ago. Nonetheless, I personally think that he merits some tribute from those who, like me, had the privilege of being acquainted with him, even after he had left the University of Lagos and retired from public life, or his fellow parishioners at Archbishop Vining Memorial Cathedral at Ikeja, where he worshipped regularly.

    Professor Taiwo was born in 1910 in Oru, near Ijebu-Ode, and had his primary school education there. He taught in the school for a couple of years after which he proceeded to the famous St. Andrew’s College, Oyo, for his teacher training course. At St. Andrew’s, he established himself as one of the best students. It was from St. Andrew’s that he entered the new Yaba Higher College, where he read mathematics, coming out with flying colours. On graduating from Yaba Higher College, he joined the staff of the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, the oldest secondary grammar school in Nigeria, in 1940 as a tutor in mathematics and assistant master of the boarding house. At the time, the Revd. (later Bishop) Seth Irunsewe Kale was the principal of the school. The era of Kale at the school was one of the best, turning out many brilliant students, many of whom went into engineering later. This was no doubt due to the diligence of Professor Taiwo as a tutor in mathematics in the school.

    It was from the school that Professor Taiwo was awarded a colonial government scholarship in 1944, or thereabouts, to read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, a rare feat in those days. Among his contemporaries at Cambridge were Chief Rotimi Williams and the late Justice Fatai Williams, both of whom read law. On graduating from Cambridge in 1944 with his honours’ tripos in mathematics, Professor Taiwo proceeded to the Institute of Education of the University of London for a post graduate diploma course in education. He was one of the first Nigerians to have done that course in London.

    On returning home, he was offered appointment as an Education Officer in what later became the old Western Region. There, he equally distinguished himself and taught in several government secondary schools in the region. He eventually became the first Nigerian to head Edo College, Benin, a government secondary school. This was also a rare feat as, in those days, only expatriates were thought fit to be appointed as heads of government colleges, even though Dr. Henry Carr had been appointed by the colonial government as the Chief Inspector of schools in the 1920s, and the late Sir Samuel Manuwa, the Chief Medical Adviser to the colonial government in 1947. It was from Edo College that Professor Taiwo returned to the Ministry of Education in Ibadan as the Chief Inspector of Education, an assignment he carried out with much aplomb and distinction. He was one of the brilliant administrators carefully groomed by Chief Simeon Adebo, then Head of Service in the Western Region. As premier of the region, Chief Awolowo soon discovered and was determined to give these dedicated and brilliant officers greater administrative responsibility. The others were Chief I.O. Dina (administration), Dr. Arbisala (agriculture), Dr. S. Franklin (health), Professor Taiwo (education), and Dr. T.M. Aluko, the veteran novelist (works). They were all professional heads of their various departments, but were eventually appointed by Chief Awolowo, against tough opposition from the administrative class, as permanent secretaries of their various ministries. It was a decision that was unprecedented, but which opened up the appointment of permanent secretaries to all men of talent. They did not disappoint him. In the case of Professor Taiwo he played a critical role in the establishment of the University of Ife.

    But when Chief Akintola came to power in 1960, these men became disillusioned by unjustified suspicion about their loyalty to the new premier and were obliged, one by one, to leave the services of the Western region. Dr. Aribisala went off to the FAO in Rome, and Dr. S. Franklin to the WHO in Geneva. Dr. T.M. Aluko and Professor Taiwo sought academic refuge in the University of Lagos. In fact, at an advanced age, Aluko went to the University of Strathclide in Scotland to complete his Ph.D, after which he was appointed a Senior Fellow in Engineering at the University of Lagos. Professor Taiwo was first appointed a Fellow in the Faculty of Education and was thereafter promoted to a full professorship in the faculty. While in the university, he studied privately and obtained a law degree from the University of Lagos and was called to the bar. It was after he had retired from the University of Lagos that he wrote his seminal work on fifty years of education in Nigeria.

    When, after graduating from the University College in 1964, I entered the Western Region civil service as a young administrative officer, Professor Taiwo and his colleagues had already established a formidable reputation for themselves as first class administrators. But I was not privileged to work directly under any of them and only knew of them by their reputation. I admired all of them immensely. They were immensely confident and ran their various ministries very competently.

    In fact, it was not until the mid-1990s that I became acquainted personally with Professor Taiwo. I had just been elected President of the Old Grammarians’ Society, the old boys’ association of the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, and received a note from Professor Taiwo that he would like to come and see me in my residence. I called him immediately and told him, out of respect, that I would instead like to call on him at his Ikeja residence, to which he agreed. That was how my association with him began. For years, I visited him quite often at his Ikeja GRA residence. It is said that old men forget and Professor Taiwo was already over 80 years old then. But his memory of events, particularly of his days as a teacher at the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, was quite remarkable. He was very proud of the school and told me a lot about it which, even as an old boy, I did not know. He fully supported our efforts to get the Lagos State government to return the school to its private owners, the Anglican Diocese in Lagos. Later, the school honoured him as an honorary Old Grammarian. He told me later that it was a memorable event for him.

    Professor Taiwo was predeceased by his wife, but is survived by many accomplished children who will carry on the enviable legacy of their father.

  • Fantasy of thieves, perverts and blinkered murderers

    Someday, death will become more than an unexplainable mystery to the incumbent ruling class. Every public officer will die; their family members too. Despite their inhumanity, they are human after all. They breathe and bleed just like we do. At their demise, they shall discover what manner of life they deserve in the afterlife. They shall find that money and rank they covet are useless after the last howl had fallen silent, at their funeral. They shall learn that currency-activated prayers their clerics hoist above them shall serve like raincoats under a blitz of cannon balls, at the end.

    In the wake of their demise, how shall they be remembered? How do we remember men who summon our joys to harness it with a sable bind? Shall we remember them with rage and rant? Shall we wish they burn in the earth, like splinters of wood fed into the hearth to spite the fire? Shall we wish that they lie in plagued repose low down with the worm and ant?

    How shall we be remembered? How shall posterity remember the ones who have perfected the art of letting their voices trail off in confusion at decision time? What will our children think of our desperation to keep the worst of our kind in power? What pantheons or dungeons shall we inhabit in the annals of Nigerian politics?

    The troubles of our world are unwieldy like a storm. By our perversions, we impregnate and corrupt history and civilization 54-years old. Great evil lies in you and me, and by our perpetuation of it, we make history the way of the diabolic, who decapitates his newborn to satisfy his hunger pangs. Too many threads of heedlessness, woven of gluttony and lust, of racism and fear, inequality and blind hate of the stranger, form in our souls, a thick network.

    Yesterday, we suffered violence and bloodshed by militants in our creeks, down in the Delta. Today, we suffer violence and bloodshed by Boko Haram. Every day, we suffer greater violence and bloodbath by murderous and incompetent ruling class. The most remarkable characteristic of the Nigerian ruling class, according to Prof. Itse Sagay, “is its complete and total insensitivity to the public outcry and outrage over the percentage of our resources that the members appropriate to themselves for their own consumption.”

    Sagay, in his lecture on ‘Good Governance and Enforcement of Law and Order’ at the Nigerian Institute of Management’s 2013 Management Day, lamented that while Nigerian Senators and House of Representative members earn $1.7m and $1.4m respectively per annum, American Senators and British parliamentarians earn 174, 000 and £65,738 respectively per annum.

    Yet income per capita for the US and UK is $46,350 and $35,468, respectively, while that of Nigeria is $2,248. Simply put, Nigerian legislators pay themselves the highest salaries of all legislators in the world, even though their country is amongst the least developed in the whole world.

    More worrisome is the government’s inequitable distribution of benefits and punishments meted out to people from different classes and professions, along with the asymmetrical distribution of respect and dignity. Eventually, you get the feeling that some people don’t count and never expected to count in the Nigerian State.

    In the wake of violence and bloodshed by successive terrorist groups, mostly constituted by youths, in the country, Mr. President, legislators and governors simmer in frustration and moral outrage. Jumping on to the bandwagon of these elected representatives’ deceitfulness and officialese, monarchs, clerics, newspaper columnists and other bastions of society pay lip service to the degeneration of the Nigerian youth and State.

    It is hardly astonishing that the government and cohorts resort to explanations of criminality, a feral underclass, and dysfunctional parenting. These are easier explanations for which the government does not need to accept responsibility. However, a careful assessment of the situation reveals that a greater percentage of the culprits are motivated by poverty, illiteracy, dysfunctional parenting, unemployment and inequality induced by unfair government policies, insensitivity and oppression by the ruling class.

    But such cruelties by the most insidious leadership as we currently have do not justify the descent of the Nigerian youth into barbarism or bloodthirstiness of any kind – but they do anyway. Insensitivity and bloodlust enjoy sweet repose in the psyche of the Nigerian youth thus habituating them to all manners of savagery and triviality.

    Hence it wasn’t surprising to see the Nigerian youth, the media and the general public descend on Shema Obafaye, former Lagos State Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) as violently as a mugger, as frighteningly as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man, over his gaffe when he featured as a guest on a breakfast show on Lagos-based private television, Channels Television.

    For Obafaye’s “My oga at the top” slip-up and his inability to accurately state his organization’s internet address, he became an object of nationwide ridicule. Footage of his blunder went viral on the social media making him an object of malicious jokes and caricature on Facebook, Twitter, Blackberry Messenger, T-shirts, and rascally musical medley by local disc jockeys (DJs).

    It was one gaffe that Nigerian youths particularly, couldn’t forgive; consequently, branded mugs, face-caps and T-shirts with the inscription: “My oga at the top!” were produced and sold at a profit in merriment over Obafaye’s gaffe.

    Several celebrities cashed in on the madness and donned the branded T-shirts to major public events in pitiful desperation to replenish their dwindling acclaim. A smart movie producer attempted to cash in too on the national ridicule of a man and public servant while it lasted by hastily putting together and releasing a film titled, “My oga at the top.”

    Nobody cared what sorrow or misery burdened Obafaye’s heart nor did anyone pause to imagine what shame and disillusionment his wife and kids are forced to relive and suffer daily long after the mockery had quieted to a murmur.

    If the Nigerian citizenry, the youth particularly, could be so coordinated and methodical in their perpetration of such “good-natured” ridicule and hate, would it not do Nigeria immense good to have us unite in more coordinated and disciplined revolt against the oppression and cruelties of the incumbent ruling class?

    We are past the novelty of coordinated mockery and moral outrage. The most powerful indignation we could express exceeds the pages of acerbic columns and social media; it subsists in latent courage and will we haven’t yet summoned the courage to express.

    Until we mature in grace and learn to apply ourselves to passionate pursuits for the love of the good, our pains shall run amok where we seek ease and bliss, always. It’s a matter of choice; to which system of thought should we commit our lives to? Is there anything in our norms worth saving? Shall we define the Nigerian dream in the language of humanity? Shall we begin to officiate for posterity’s sake? Shall we begin to affect the honesty and decency to which we pay lip service? Shall we choose the right candidates and vote them in at election time?

    It’s about time we refined the subtleties that make the Nigerian dream the fantasy of thieves, looters and blinkered murderers.

  • A commentator’s nightmare

    A commentator’s nightmare

    NIGERIA is a commentator’s nightmare. Just before you start putting your thoughts together on an incident, another falls upon you like a piece of brick on a construction site, leaving you numb and dumb. You pull yourself together and settle down to pour out your thoughts, then, another hits you with a greater force that leaves you devastated. Suddenly.

    I was to join the revelry of the rebasing miracle that has overnight turned our dear country into an economic super power. Suddenly, all those arm-chair theorists and old school academics who mock our economy as poor, are taking back their word. By a stroke of the pen, our economy has become the biggest in Africa, knocking South Africa off the top of the ladder on which it thought it was comfortably seated.

    Nobody ever thought it was this simple. Since 1990, Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had been static. From a modest $305b, it has now leapt up to about $488b. South Africa’s is about $384.3b. Now, the G20 will be inviting us to take our seat. Won’t the UN Security Council be forced to create room for the new economic power house?

    The rebasing feat that we are celebrating is simple. Many sectors, such as telecommunications and financial services as well as Nollywood – Aki and Paw Paw, Mr Ibu, Osuofia, Mr Latin and Baba Suwe – never featured in past calculations. Even now, some sectors are left out. When the last rebasing was done in 1990, our cities were not this flooded with commercial motorcycles and tricycles battling for right of way with rickety buses and smoking cars. Their contributions to the economy, I am sure, are yet to be calculated.

    Instead of congratulating the government on this feat, some off-form economists and lazy politicians, who obviously think GDP is the name of a new political group associated with the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are saying it is all a joke. They say it is all on paper and that the figures do not reflect the reality – of insecurity, hunger and disease – that Nigerians experience. Cheeky fellows. They do not seem to understand that in Nigeria, everything must be made to look good and great – in the spirit of the perception war among our politicians. No matter how sour a meal is, it doesn’t matter so long as it is dished in glittering china.

    But the government seems to have developed a shock absorber to withstand the pressure as every inventive step it takes in its Transformation Agenda (TA) is pilloried by its opponents. The other day when the President approved that the families of those who died in the Immigration jobs stampede should get three jobs – those injured got automatic employment – the idea was scorned to no end by those jobless critics who would do everything to scupper any creative initiative. Now, what they derided as death-for-job has been tested in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, where an unemployed graduate went flat right in the middle of a busy road, an envelope containing his documents on his hand, waiting to be run over. Unconfirmed reports said he got a job after newspapers splashed his photograph on their front pages.

    Another fellow who can hardly afford one decent meal daily has been chuckling confidently all over the place, saying in rebasing he has found an answer to his poverty. He says excitedly: “I will simply sit down, trace my past activities that those who call me poor may not have noticed, rework the whole thing and cry to the world: bye to poverty! Simple.”

    Even before the rebasing wonder, the National Conference had taken off with great excitement. There were some teething problems. The manner of voting was an issue. There was also the culinary complexity. Delegates grumbled that the feeding arrangement was inadequate. Many would like to have their choice dishes and not just anything dished out by the kitchen. Some wanted Chinese rice with shrimps, butterfly prawns, hot and sour soup, spare ribs with spicy sauce, chicken satay, crispy fried won ton and such stuff. Others wanted simple Nigerian dishes, such as ogbono and pounded yam with bush meat – to hell with Ebola – and all that. All with nice wines for full effect. It was later discovered that after the culinary battle had been fought and won – thanks to the gourmets in the house, including Mrs Josephine Anenih – many delegates spent the afternoon sections dozing off.

    Photographers were having a field day, trading their lens on those snoring off the day. This, a source told me, was part of the reason for some delegates’ suggestion that the media should either be barred from covering the conference or be told how they should cover the show.

    There was also the question of grammar. Many delegates were quick to point out errors in the minutes. Besides, names were wrongly spelt. A traditional ruler said he should not be addressed as “His Royal Highness”, but as “His Royal Majesty”. Remember, it is no longer fashionable to be a “chief”; you must be a “high chief”.

    Nevertheless, the conference has offered a cornucopia of ideas, thoughts and feelings. Besides, it has kept busy many of those busybodies who had time to lampoon the government for its seeming inadequacies.

    Another traditional ruler flared up. Suddenly. The Lamido of Adamawa warned that his people should not be provoked to denounce their Nigerian citizenship and head for Cameroon where, according to him, his kingdom stretches. Then, he came under attack for promoting disunity and bringing bad feelings into a conference that had gone on under remarkable conviviality and camaraderie.

    Till date, nobody has asked the Lamido of Adamawa why he spoke the way he did. As they say, there is no smoke without fire. What sparked the royal anger, expressed in so pugnacious a manner? We may never know.

    An Ondo State delegate urged the conference to proclaim the castration of rapists. It was not immediately clear why Dr Yemi Mahmud- Fasominu made this seemingly bizarre suggestion. An insolent fellow asked in bewilderment: has he been raped before? I am surprised that our advocates of women’s rights – some of them are at the conference – have not seen the potential of Mahmud-Fasominu’s suggestion to stem the tide of rape in the land. Nobody – old women, housewives (some raped by their men), students and infants – is spared of this social aberration.

    Those who have been saying the conference will make or mar Nigeria should, by now, know that they are merely justifying their participation in what many perceptive observers have condemned as a grand deception and diversion. It will neither make nor mar Nigeria. But, one fact is clear: it will rob the treasury of no less than N7billion – in the first instance.

    The serenity of the conference hall was shattered on Monday when the news of the Nyanya suicide bombing was broken. No fewer than 150 died in that incident. The government said 75 died. The victims were poor Nigerians struggling to make a living in the city. President Goodluck Jonathan visited the scene. He was also at the hospital to see the injured after putting off a trip to Ibadan for the centenary birthday of the Olubadan, Oba Samuel Odulana, Odugade 1. It was a national calamity.

    The scene was a huge canvass of blood and human flesh, symbolising man’s descent into Satan’s abyss. Horrendous. Many were crying. Hospitals and morgues were jammed. It was hell on earth. Apparently unwilling to waste precious presidential time on mourning the dead, the very next day, Dr Jonathan was off to Kano to receive former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau to the PDP. Before the Kano trip, the news was broken of Boko Haram’s abduction of more than 100 girls in a school hostel in Borno State. From Kano, Dr Jonathan hit Ibadan to join Oba Odulana in cutting his birthday cake. Nothing, it seemed, could get in the way of politics. But, Mr President, when will politics give way for sane governance? When?

  • Jonathan vs Kwankwaso

    Jonathan vs Kwankwaso

    PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan and Kano State Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso have been locked in a bitter war of words. The governor said he regretted voting Dr Jonathan to become president. The President said Kwankwaso never voted for him. In fact, said Jonathan, the cash he gave the governor for Kano delegates during the primary was not delivered.

    Kwankwaso chided Jonathan for embarking on “merry-making trips” and “gallivanting round the country in the name of PDP unity rally” when he should be mourning those who died in the Nyanya suicide bombing. He said if he contested the presidency with Jonathan, he would win even with only PDP votes.

    If all was well, it would have been some comic relief, if our leaders are hurling barbs at one another. Yabis, said the late songster, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, “ is no case.” Nigeria has been seized by the throat in a season of unequalled fiendishness. Boko Haram. Fulani herdsmen against farmers . Kidnappers and armed robbers. Ritualists and other killers.

    Our leaders should be more inspiring now or keep quiet.

  • The Boko Haram burden

    In this business, the chances of being misunderstood are high.  Of course, not everybody will agree with what we write, but when people leave the issue at stake and impute other motives, there is a need for clarification. Last week, this column looked at the report of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on the September 20, last year killing of the Apo 8, which indicted the State Security Service (SSS) and the Army.

    My position was clear. I concurred with the NHRC Report, but that did not say that I am in support of the activities of Boko Haram. For the sake of emphasis, what the article said was that there is need for our security agencies to get their acts right before embarking on any operation, which may result in the loss of lives and limbs. Our security agencies are not paid to waste people but to enforce law and order. The article was clear on that.

    Expectedly, there were reactions, some in support and some against. One of those who felt bad about the article went a step further on Monday after the suicide bombing in Abuja by calling me. The reason for his call is to know what I have to say about the bloody incident in which scores died. “What do you have to say about this Boko Haram attack?” I pretended as if I did not hear him. “Answer me now I am the one who sent you a text message on the article you wrote last week… What will you write now with this attack? Are you happy that Boko Haram has killed a lot of people? Answer now, I am ….”(mentioning his name). He cut off the call when I did not answer him.

    Whenever or not I got this call, I would still have written on Monday’s senseless suicide bombing in which over 70 people were said to have been killed. Although, my caller feels that Boko Haram is behind the dastardly act, which I also do not put beyond the sect, but until it claims responsibility it may be too early to hold it responsible for the tragedy. However, the attack has the imprimatur of the group. It is likely that Boko Haram is behind the bloody attack. It is something you cannot put beyond the group.

    For years, we have been at the mercy of the group because it seems to know when to strike and hit, so to say, the bull’s eye. Any time it strikes, it leaves death and destruction in its wake. The sect, it seems, is more adept at intelligence gathering than those trained for that job. If it is not so, it will not be catching our security agencies flatfooted whenever it strikes. By now, the security agencies ought to be conversant with the sect’s modus operandi. The sect bides its time before it strikes as shown by Monday’s invasion of the Nyanya Park in Abuja.

    From my little assessment of the sect, its targets, in the main, are churches, mosques, schools, parks and at times vulnerable individuals. The sect knows what it is doing. By its action, it seeks to deceive the public that it is after “soft targets”. But, so far, what is “soft” in the way it has killed thousands of people since it began its murderous campaign about five years ago. I don’t know what Boko Haram is fighting for, but whatever it is it is not worth the shedding of blood the way it has been doing. Only the group knows what it wants and what it is fighting for because all efforts to get it to come to the roundtable have failed.

    Boko Haram listens only to Boko Haram. The situation has become so dicey that we cannot continue to allow it to operate freely as if it is law unto itself. The government must find a way round this Boko Haram threat because things have got out of hand. For many Nigerians today, Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states have become no go areas because of the fear of Boko Haram. Graduates can no longer be posted to these states for the mandatory one-year Youth Service; pupils can no longer go to schools and traders dare not venture to these places.

    Must Boko Haram hold us to ransom? The answer is no. We must find a way of containing the sect now. We can no longer wait to take drastic action against the group. It has shown that human life means nothing to it. If it can take lives in a callous manner, the government too should not hesitate before descending on it, except if it is saying it has no capacity to do that. If we wish to give the sect the benefit of doubt over the Nyanya bombing, we cannot do so in respect of the abduction, barely 24 hours after the Abuja incident, of over 100 school girls in Chibok, the boundary town between Adamawa and Borno states.

    The abduction is the handiwork of the sect, which name translates to “western education is a sin”. Before the abduction, it had warned parents to withdraw their children from school. What I do not understand is what is the business of Boko Haram with the way a parent decides to educate his child? Is it the sect that will determine how parents want to bring up their children? It is sad that this Boko Haram nonsense has been allowed to last this long. Yes, we know that security is a collective thing but government should not hide under this assertion to shirk its responsibility.

    It is its job to make the country safe not only for the citizens, but also for the foreigners in our midst, who no doubt will be sending reports of what is happening back home. As we have always maintained in this space, Boko Haram cannot be bigger than the government. No matter what it takes, the government must bring Boko Haram down to its knees in order to make the country safe for all. Enough of the tough talks, it is  time for action.

    But whatever we do. we should not shed the blood of the innocent under the guise of tracking Boko Haram. If our security agencies get the Boko Haram elements and bring them to justice, they will hailed. But, they will not get our support if they kill the innocent.  The security agents are not immune from the Boko Haram terror. They have suffered losses in men and materials. So, they too feel the heat like every other Nigerian. In this fight against terror, we are with them. But, let them discharge their duties with the highest sense of responsibility. As for Boko Haram and its sponsors, I leave them with these words: “Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with him”.

  • The APC team for 2015 Presidential election

    The emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has given Nigerians for the first time in recent times, the chance for a true two party system namely: a party in government and a party in waiting. Democracy as a system of government offers the electorate the possibility of change especially if the party in government is not performing well. Since 1999 at least at the federal level, one party has been in government and it does not matter whether the party performs or not, it has remained in government either through the free will of the people, or as a result of manipulated poll. It reminds me of what happened several years ago when the European Union told the Kenyan government that it would no longer grant economic assistance to it if the one-party rule in Kenya was not changed. I remember what a funny colleague of mine from Zimbabwe jokingly said about Kenya and his country that they were practising “one-party multi-partism”, of course everybody laughed. Nigeria is too important to be subject of ridicule of one-party government.

    This is why the emergence of the APC is a positive development in the political life of Nigeria. In other words, Nigeria has an opportunity for peaceful change of government from one party to another party in the next election all things being equal. This opportunity does not mean this will happen. It is left to the sagacity of political leaders in the opposition party to make this happen. In other words, in next year’s election, it is for the APC to lose and not the PDP to win. No matter how badly the PDP government has performed, the APC must still offer a winning team for the electorate to find it attractive to vote for. If we were a normal country the PDP will lose the election of next year but we are not a normal country. The ethnic and the religious plurality of Nigeria make it incumbent on the APC to find a winning formula through the choice of its presidential candidate and his or her running mate. Since adoption and embrace of the presidential system in Nigeria, we have had a combination of Shagari and Ekwueme, Moshood Abiola and Baba-Gana Kingibe, Obasanjo and Atiku, Umaru Yar’Adua and Jonathan and Sambo and Jonathan. The pattern in these combinations has been a north-south combination and a Christian –Muslim ticket except in the Abiola and Kingibe combination. The conclusion from the above is that, to win, there is a need for religious balance as well as regional balance. The only exception in the religious combination is Kingibe and Abiola ticket which in spite of that exception still won the election simply because their opponents were weak and unattractive. If the APC wants to be taken seriously it must present a Christian-Muslim ticket. If it does something different, then it is not serious about taking over power in Nigeria. It is a shame that one should dwell on religious and regional backgrounds of candidates but we are talking about reality; the ideal thing may be to ignore ethnic and religious identities of candidates but it’s not realistic in the Nigeria of today. This is why the APC must perish the thought of a Muslim-Muslim ticket. The victory of Abiola and Kingibe was due primarily to the personality of Abiola who had over the years worked himself into the hearts of Nigerians, Muslims and Christians alike through his generosity of building mosques and churches for the adherents of the two religions of Islam and Christianity. Abiola was educated in a Baptist secondary school and was comfortable attending church functions, singing hymns and chanting psalms; there are not two people like him. So to predicate the future of the APC on Muslim-Muslim ticket is totally politically stupid. If the APC does this, it will destroy itself and that is the truth. Having said this, the APC must look into various options for the 2015 election. Because of the existing tradition of alternating the president of Nigeria between the north and the south, the presidential candidate of the APC must necessarily come from the north. Where in the north would depend on who the party feels can draw the maximum vote across the north. Since the last two elections in this country, I have always voted for General Muhammad Buhari. My reasons for wanting him to be president are as follows:

    First, I believe things are so bad in Nigeria that we need somebody of his character and persona to fix it. This I believe is in the collective interest of Nigeria and in the interest of the future of our children. This is a man who has been a state governor of what is today the entire north-east of Nigeria, Petroleum Minister and Head of State and he is not known to have vast amount of money through corruption unlike others who have held these posts before. Corruption eats deep into the body politique of Nigeria and we need nimble hands of a surgeon like Muhammad Buhari to operate it. In the process of surgery, you have to cut through the body. The patient may get hurt but at the end of the day, the patient may get cured.

    Secondly, in this country, both the leadership and the followership lack discipline. We need a leader who by example will show the way for the people to follow. Buhari and Idiagbon did this before so the man has a track record of discipline. The combination of discipline and honesty which we have in this man will lead us to our promised land. I do not know anybody in Nigeria who has this combination. I have heard that Buhari is a religious fanatic and a northern regional hegemonist. He may be this, but in a democratic regime he will be constrained by the constitution and I personally do not see anything wrong in being a strict Muslim or Christian and as for being a northern regional hegemonist, if we are honest with ourselves, don’t we all feel comfortable with people of our region? This is why we have a constitution and we can take care of these problems if we devolve power like it used to be under a proper federal system so that developmental activities will take place at the regions or zones while the centre in a restructured constitutional architecture will only deal in common services such as defence, customs and immigration, aviation and shipping, finance and currency and Foreign Affairs in a carefully calibrated constitutional design.

    The candidates of the APC is not for me or anybody to dictate but if the party wants to win, it must have a winning combination of candidates and there is no shortage of the right calibre of people within the APC. It is the duty of all of us who are interested in a multi-party democracy to advise a government party in waiting not to throw away its chances. The big wigs in the APC must borrow a leave from the Ahmadu Bello political book of the first republic and stay at home while their younger lieutenants go to the centre with their advice and political support. A dream APC ticket therefore will be either Buhari and Oshiomhole or Amaechi while Tinubu contests the senate with the aim of becoming senate president in 2015. Another possibility is Kwakwanso and Oshiomhole or Amaechi whilst Fashola contests for the senate for the purpose of becoming senate president whist Okorocha sponsors somebody from Imo State to become speaker. Anything short of this will not be ideal but anybody thinking of a Buhari-Tinubu ticket should perish the thought because the voters will not accept this. This is not because the two gentlemen are not good but what is ideal is not usually realistic. We need to have a breath of fresh air in the political terrain of Nigeria. Fifteen years of one-party rule is enough and Nigeria should not throw away the chances of another party coming into power because of the political unwisdom of its leaders.

  • Value of restructured Nigeria

    Lamido of Adamawa owes no one an apology for appearing to demonstrate his loyalty first to members of his Fulani ethnic group located in Adamawa and Cameroon before Nigeria. After all, the whole essence of federal arrangement is to liberate individuals and groups from the tyranny of the state. For me, the real enemies are the self proclaiming crusaders for the elusive Nigeria common vision, a lucrative enterprise that carries rewards such as political appointment, import duty waivers, allocation of oil block and even getting nominated by the presidency to the confab without representing anyone.

    I also think he was right to have pre-empted some of his colleagues who could not wait for the actual debate to commence before expressing righteous indignation about the current revenue sharing formula by disclosing that the north has no objection to the oil producing states holding on to their oil 100 per cent provided the non-oil producing states also own their land including Abuja where most of the stolen fuel money is dumped, 100%. His sidekick to his ‘civilized’ colleagues from the South-west who have for 50 years strived to export their unsolicited superior values of representative democracy to mind their own business is a legitimate demand in a nation with federal arrangement.

    I think the Lamido’s deft handling of his presentation of Fulani/northern agenda has only reinforced the argument of those who have said the most important assignment of this confab is the restructuring of our country to reflect the aspirations of the various federating nationalities. Our structure, everyone agrees is the bane of our society. All our country woes – crisis of revenue allocation, corruption, infrastructural decay, collapse of educational sector as well as religious intolerance, stem from the unworkable federal arrangement selfishly imposed by the military and sustained by those benefiting from the anarchy especially the parasitic federal government whose major preoccupation is sharing what does not belong to it, cornering in the process over 50% of what others produced.

    With the First Republic structure of four regions, designed to ensure each group developed at its own pace without interference from others or the six geo-political zones structure canvassed by well meaning Nigerians, the recklessness currently associated with an insensitive federal government that behaves as if it owes no one any explanation for its irresponsible behaviour becomes impossible. For instance the late Olusegun Agagu, a former minister of energy claimed the nation generated 4200MW of electricity in 2002. Twelve years down the line and an expenditure of between $25 and $50 billion dollars, we today generate less than 4000MW; yet the government caries on as if it is not accountable to anyone and in fact has been busy going around the country campaigning for re-election.

    First, the Lamido was right. The Fulani tribes located all over West Africa are said to be defined by their locations, occupation and dialects. The Adamawa Fulani in Nigeria are therefore the same with about two million Fulani who live across the border in Cameroon and Chad. With a restructured Nigeria, we don’t need to argue about who the Lamido owes his allegiance. Under a federal arrangement, it is first to his people. But then he also carries his own responsibilities as well as the consequences of failure of leadership in the manner President Jonathan recently asked the governor of Borno State where only 27% of children of school age go to school thereby providing fertile ground for recruitment of insurgents, to face his own demons.

    A restructured North-east will enable Nigerians know who the Lamido whose allegiance to his two millions kinsmen in Cameroon and Chad has never been in doubt speak for. Does the north he speaks for include the current Hausa farmers , and other non Fulani ethnic groups who are currently victims of mindless killings by Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram insurgents who drive in unchallenged from Chad and Cameroon ?

    I am sure with a restructured North-east, the Lamido would have had to find explanation for how Boko Haram breezed in from his brethrens in Chad to kill his subjects’ 58 children in their dormitories in Yobe or how armed men from Cameroon, his second home, laid a six-hour siege on Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa State looting and burning Michika, Gulak, Shuwa communities. With a north eastern region, the Lamido and political opinion leaders of the area such as the Bamanga Tukurs, the Danjumas, the Ribadus, the respected Adamu Ciromas along with other influential leaders of the zone, would have also been asked to confront their own demons because it is they and they alone that know how to appease the angry members of their families from Cameroon and Chad or Sudan which hosts eight million Nigerians.

    Restructuring will also answer the question of who in fact own the 72% of land of Nigeria which Ahmed Bugaje and the Lamido claim belong to the north. What percentage of the land belongs to the Hausa and their Fulani conquerors that came to Nigeria about 200 years ago? What is the share of the minorities who have since independence, wanted liberation from their feudal overlords? Does this also include chunk of land in Kwara, and Kogi unilaterally ceded to the north by the colonial masters? Restructuring will expose those parasites that have continued to impoverish the real owners of the land in the name of the monolithic north whose ghost was laid to rest with the creation of a 12-state structure by General Yakubu Gowon in 1967.

    Restructuring will also solve the crisis of indigeneship and settlers by modern day Nigerian nomadic cattle farmers who move around with AK 47 and other sophisticated weapons confiscating their hosts’ farmland, declaring them no man’s land. And with Lamido’s suggestion, it will also end the unwholesome activities of those who impoverish their people of Niger Delta, creating an army of angry militants through the theft of oil revenues meant for development to buy off other peoples land in the name of federal land without paying compensation.

    It will also allow the acquisitive Igbos who take pride in thriving in other people’s land to plough back some of their wealth to their own land to end the revolt of the poor who are in the business of kidnapping for ransom of those who venture home at Christmas to display their wealth or to build ‘a place of the people’ among the squalor of the poor and the deprived as the great Ozunba Mbadiwe did.

    And for the South-west, restructuring will put an end to the mischief of our gifted and talented Yoruba leaders who dabble into other ethnic group affairs in the guise of exporting Yoruba values of liberalism and participatory democracy, which often result in the devastation of Yorubaland by vengeful feudal reactionary forces. It will encourage our leaders to devote their time and talents to the unfinished Awo and his compatriots’ crusade to create an egalitarian society that support free education, free health services, full employment and life abundance for our people. And for their own good, it will put an end to their coming back as body bags after venturing to the centre where they are not welcome.

    Restructuring rather than an elusive search for national character or common vision is a win-win situation for all. For instance it will be sweet justice for some northern states’ ex-governors like Sani Yerima of Zamfara State who according to retired ambassador Olu Aina ‘underwent indoctrination and exposure in all the training camps of Osama Bin Laden,’ before coming to launch his political sharia with fanfare supported by some northern leaders and others who sponsor some youths to Al-Qaeda training camps, if products of their political perfidy opted to take over the running of government of their states with strict application of Sharia law. After all, is it not said a people deserve the type of government they get?

  • Nigeria: Pillars of success

    From my life-long studies of the countries of Black Africa, I want to bring, with all humility, the following thoughts to the benefit of the National Conference. If we really desire to make a success of Nigeria, we must honour certain building pillars and proceed carefully to build upon them.

    The first and most important is an acknowledgement that our country is a country of many different nationalities, and that each of these nationalities, large or small, deserves to be respected by all the rest of us and by the ways in which we manage the affairs of our country.

    The second is that we must show deference to these nationalities in the ways we constitutionally structure our country. Not only must we opt for a federal arrangement, we must be respectful of the identity and sensitivity of each nationality while delimiting the federating units of our federation. We must not split up any nationality with any state boundaries, and we must not nonchalantly push any small nationality into any state. Where some nationalities have to join to form a state or region, they must all negotiate the constitution of their state.

    We must also evolve a culture of respect for each nationality and its culture in all aspects of the interactions and interrelationships in our country. Thus, if boundary disputes should arise between two neighbouring nationalities, there should a federal agency designed to deal with it cautiously and respectfully. And if any citizens go to live and do business in the homeland of another nationality, it must be part of Nigerian culture that they must show respect to their host nation. The kind of noise being heard today from some immigrants to other people’s homeland that they are conquering their host’s homeland must be strictly forbidden in the culture of Nigeria. And it should be part of federal policy to make sure that Nigerians can live wherever they choose in their country – that the other peoples of Nigeria will be encouraged to develop the Yoruba culture of openness, hospitality, and inclusion of foreigners. To these ends, those who are now proposing that Nigeria should establish rules granting immigrants the rights of indigenes should give it up. Such rules arise from the belief that Nigeria should ‘integrate’ us. They are unnecessary and unenforceable; they threaten every nationality, particularly the smaller nationalities, and they are sure to cause our nationalities to become unduly defensive of their homelands.

    Thirdly, in determining the share of development responsibilities, and resources, between our federal authority and our state authorizes, we must make the state authorities the main bearers of development responsibilities, and share powers and funds accordingly, and vest resource control in the natural owners of the resources – with the federal authority having the power to levy tax thereon. For our kind of country, a trim and efficient federal government would be the best choice.

    Finally, we need to prefer a system of government which emphasizes the sharing of responsibilities and the spirit of collective leadership. The excessive control of government by a president or governor is bad for our country. The parliamentary system will serve our country’s interests much better.

    I must now briefly state the thought processes that led me to all the above suggestions for my country. When marriages fail, it is often because one or other partner refuses to accept the other as he or she is –because one spouse is set on changing the character of the other, ignoring the fact that by the time they were old enough to decide to marry, each was already mature in his or her character. As my Yoruba people say, it is impossible to change the shape of a dried fish.

    Almost all countries of Black Africa have, since independence, been going through disastrous conflicts and various kinds of failure. I know virtually all these countries intimately. I have been to most of them – over and over in some cases. Studying these countries is a major part of my life’s pursuit. In fact, I have just finished writing a book on the subject of the almost uniform failure of Black African countries among the countries of the earth.

    Though many causes can be adduced for the failure of these countries, there is always one central, cardinal, cause. And that cardinal cause is a foolish refusal, especially among the dominant political elite of each country, to accept that each of the nationalities whom they have to rule in their new country is an ancient ethnic nationality – with its own ancestral homeland, its own culture, worldview, self-image and pride, its own way of responding to challenges, its own mode of dealing with the rush of changes in the modern world, and its own desires and expectations. Ruling a country with this kind of composition cannot be easy. It requires vary cautious handling, and calls for the best in statesmanship.

    Unfortunately, in none of our multi-people countries in Black Africa have we been able to muster this high level of carefulness and statesmanship. In every country, our rulers came into power at independence believing that they had a ready-made answer – namely, to “integrate” our many peoples, meaning to crush their identities and give them all, together, a new identity.

    Since 1960, we in Nigeria have been foolishly trying to accomplish this impossible outcome. We have been striving to enforce a Nigerian identity on all, and going to great lengths to deny that each of our nationalities has a life of its own. Sometime in 2002, a member of the Urhobo nationality made a statement saying that the land over which the Nigerian federal government was stampeding in the Urhobo homeland was a land of the Urhobo people; that the land had belonged to the Urhobo people for 6000 years, whereas Nigeria was less than a century old. In answer to that, scholars in the employment of the federal government launched out with fiery writings asserting that an Urhobo nation did not exist – that, in fact the various nationalities of Nigeria did not exist, and that the only entity and identity that mattered in Nigeria was Nigeria!

    Of course, the Urhobo man was right and the “federal’ luminaries were wrong. All the best scholarship on the subject agree thatalmost all the nationalities that now belong to Nigeria had evolved into distinct ethnic nationalities as far back as 4000 BC – about 6000 years ago. However, the luminaries had the much bigger voice, and so they were able to proceed from their initial position of folly to construct for us what they called “the Nigerian mainstream”.

    Following these aggressive integrationist paths, and loading our federal government with all powers, responsibilities and power over money and resources, we have relentlessly led our country into hideous poverty, deprivation and corruption, terrible conflicts, and now, very probably, towards total collapse. I believe we can change these trends. That is why I keep addressing these messages to the National Conference.