The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Rambling thoughts – 1

    I first went to the UK in 1964 at the age of 22. I was then at the University of Ibadan. Without my planning or lobbying to spend my penultimate year in the University of London, I was called by my Head of Department, Prof. J. C. Anene to proceed to London with a female colleague Margaret Okonkwo. She must be several times a grandmother by now. Nigeria was then a bride and many countries in the world wanted to befriend us. It was part of the programme to make us Anglophiles that the University of London decided to begin a student exchange programme with us in Ibadan. Just as we left Ibadan for London, students from London came to replace us at Ibadan. It was a seamless exchange programme. We had no problem fitting into the academic programme at the University of London and those who came from London had no problem with fitting into the University of Ibadan system. In those days, our food was good, our hostels were excellent. We had water in the toilet and showers came out of the baths in our bathrooms. After a year in London, I returned home to graduate at the University of Ibadan. Needless to say, the programme succeeded beyond anybody’s wildest dreams. It has turned me into an Anglophile forever.

    As a young man, London was like paradise to me and everything looked different and wonderful. I attended three colleges of London University for lectures, namely School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University College (UC) and QueenMary’s College at the eastern part of London in Mileend. After graduating from Ibadan, I went to Canada to study for a PhD in 1967 just at the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War. After a year in Canada, I had to go back to Europe in 1968 for field work and archival research in London, Hamburg, Berlin and Paris. After getting the PhD in 1970, I then picked up jobs first at the University of Western Ontario in Canada and later the University of the West Indies, before returning home. My experience there made me a global citizen and I am at home anywhere in the world with contacts in Canada, the West Indies, Germany, France and Great Britain. Since then, I have always found myself visiting these countries and others where I did not have direct academic contacts.

    I have also had opportunity to visit several African countries and countries in Asia, Latin America and Australasia; and wherever I go, I am always tempted to compare them with my home country of Nigeria. As a young person, I always felt unhappy when I was discriminated against for being black and sometimes I was very aggressive in my resistance to racism. Nowadays, when I go abroad, I try to be oblivious of racism because I have a choice of staying at home. But because of the circumstances of my earlier life, my children were born abroad and even though they grew up in Nigeria, they seem to suffer from identity crisis of not knowing exactly whether they are Africans or Americans, Canadian, English or whatever; and because of the dwindling opportunities in west Africa for young people, they also prefer studying and living abroad and settling down and getting married and having their families there. My unfortunate circumstance of losing my wife also makes it imperative for me to go to my children and grandchildren for fellowship. This means I have to travel long-distances to see them and my grandchildren. In the process, I suffer all kinds of indignities that would normally not come my way. I have noticed that when I am flying, the moment the airline staff, especially abroad see my name, they of course recognise it as an African name and make sure they put me in a corner of whatever class I am flying or on the wing of the aircraft and generally in the most undesirable places of the plane, irrespective of what kind of ticket I bought.

    When I use the underground or the tube as they are called in London, people generally would not want to sit near or when one gets there before others, people would prefer to stand than sit near you. This can be very irritating and there is nothing you can do about it. When you go into a shop to buy things and you give a one hundred dollar bill or a fifty pound note, the supervisor would be called to look at the currency and the person presenting it as if you are from outer space. It can be very humiliating that even the money you have does not confer respect on you and it makes me sometimes swear not to go to their countries again. But as long as you have children and grandchildren living in foreign lands what do you do? When I think about all these and wonder about the harrowing experience my children generally have to live with, I feel terribly unhappy because this doesn’t have to be like this. In my time, when you go abroad, and you graduate, the pull of home is so strong that you immediately want to return home, but now where is the home that these young people can return to? There are no jobs and if my highly educated children were able to get jobs in their professions, the tools would not be there for optimal performance. For example, I have been to hospitals abroad and in Nigeria and I always wonder on what basis patients are treated here without equipment for proper diagnosis of their problems.

    The point I am making is that the professional frustrations of highly skilled people in Nigeria is enough to kill young people and to turn them into cynics. I see every day examples of this and the unnerving frustration of young people and I see young people who have abandoned their training and their ethics to run after money. Yet, we have resources in Nigeria, but they are just not being applied well. This is because of leadership problem and the fact that many of our leaders are just totally oblivious of the racial factor in international politics. Yet all we need to do as a black people is to do well and we would be respected all over the world.

    I am old enough to remember when Japanese, not to talk about Chinese were treated with contempt in the western world, and when Indians were seen as nobodies along with us Africans. All these have changed today. Japan has the third largest economy in the world and it is a global economic power and in another decade, China would eclipse the USA as the numero uno of the global economy. India in recent times, inspite of its overwhelming domestic and cultural problems has just sent a probe to Mars to show the rest of the world that they are right there with the leaders in space exploration.

     

  • These interesting times

    At times like this when things happen at dizzying pace, a reporter is left with no choice than to go with the flow. In the past few days, so many things have happened in the polity that will naturally interest a reporter. But before he has the chance of writing on one, another may have happened, throwing him into a quandary on how to tackle the subjects. Does he take them one by one or lump them together as one to ensure currency?

    It is a matter of the writer’s choice and style because there is no hard and fast rule to the game. The general rule is that the issue or issues must be current and topical. Thus, this reporter’s approach this morning is to look in totality at some of the issues that cropped up this festive season. Already our leaders have sent us goodwill messages to mark Christmas, which was yesterday and will repeat the ritual next week to mark the New Year, but do they do what they preach?

    Some of our leaders speak in a roundabout way. They say one thing and mean another. That is the way of men. We talk as we think. The scripture puts it succinctly : ”For as a man thinks in his heart so is he”. This much was reflected in the exchange of letters between President Goodluck Jonathan and former President Olusegun Obasanjo. In the letters, both men did not pull punches; they fought hard and dirty. Obasanjo accused the president of so many things.

    Jonathan denied all the allegations, putting Baba, as lawyers would say, to the strictest test of proving those claims. The president did not stop at that. He also levelled his own allegations against Obasanjo. Among others, the president said corruption, which Obasanjo accused him of encouraging, did not start under him. ”That corruption is an issue in Nigeria is indisputable. It has been with us for many years. You will recall that your kinsman, the renowned Afro – beat maestro, the late Fela Anikulapo – Kuti, famously sang about it during your stint as head of state… Even in this Fourth Republic, the Siemens and Halliburton scandals are well known.

    ”The seed of corruption in this country was planted a long time ago, but we are doing all that we can to drastically reduce its debilitating effects on national development and progress”, Jonathan said. The president washed his hands of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) crisis, accusing Obasanjo of leading those who instigated the feud. Baba, the president added, cannot extricate himself from the problem of general insecurity in the land. ”In terms of general insecurity in the country and particularly the crisis in the Niger Delta, 2007 was one of the worst periods in our history.

    Jonathan also denied asking four presidents in Africa to prevail on Baba to support him for another term in office in 2015. ”Your claims about discussions I had with you, Governor Gabriel Suswam (Benue State) and others are wrong, but in keeping with my declared stance, I will reserve further comments until the appropriate time”. Interestingly, Baba has resolved to cease fire. Having said what he has to say, Obasanjo says he is moving forward. Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi picked up the gauntlet from there. Even though the president has denied placing about 1000 people on ”political watch list”, Amaechi claims to be on that ”list”.

    At the All Progressives Congress (APC), ”mother of all rallies” in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Monday, Amaechi declared before a crowd of his supporters : ”I read the president’s letter and he said ex – President Obasanjo should prove the 1000 names on the watch list. I am number one on the list. They want to kill me, but they have no God. The God we worship will protect me…” As governor, Amaechi must know what he is saying. He may not be in the good book of the president, but that is not to say that he will not be privy to certain privilege information. And no other person than those expected to be monitoring him will be passing such information to him. As we asked last week, we are constrained to ask again today, are Nigerians safe under this president?

    This question is borne out of the fact that if some top Nigerians could fear for their lives, there should be general cause for concern before things get out of hand. We should not wait until the harm is done before we take action to prevent loss of life. Jonathan may have been put on the spot, but what do you make of Baba’s precious daughter, Iyabo’s letter to her beloved father? Senator Iyabo tore her dad apart in that letter. If she was not known to the public, we may have been tempted to say that she could never have been Baba’s daughter because no child dare address his father that way.

    Senator Iyabo is not saying anything different from what her younger brother, Gbenga, once said about their father. This shows that there is a big problem in the Obasanjo family. We all have problems in our families. The only difference is that we do not make ours a public issue like the Obasanjos. It is not too late for the family to mend its cracked walls. Another letter writer, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Lamido Sanusi, was hard put to prove his claim that $49.8 billion of oil money was ”missing”. At a reconciliation meeting in Abuja involving him, Finance Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo – Iweala and others, the parties came to the conclusion that the money was not missing, but that certain amount of money could not be ”accounted for”.

    Dr Okonjo – Iweala put the ”unaccounted for” amount at $10.8 billion; Sanusi said it was $12 billion. Whether $12 billion or $10.8 billion, there is something oily about this oil business somewhere and only the CBN, the finance ministry and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) can lead us out of this cul de sac. Where is the ”unaccounted for” amount, whether $12 billion or $10.8 billion? Or don’t we deserve to know where our money is?

    The Apo killings keep haunting us despite our security agencies’ plan to make it an open and close matter. No fewer than eight persons were killed when a combined team of soldiers and State Security Service (SSS) operatives stormed an uncompleted building in Apo in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), where the deceased were squattering. The Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Azubuike Ihejirika, has just told us that his men killed those people in ”self defence”. Unfortunately, the deceased, who should react to his claim, are dead. But I find it difficult that those people fired at the soldiers and others knowing full well that they had been surrendered.

    The army chief is saying this now to justify these extra – judicial killings. The SSS, which began this story of these men being Boko Haram suspects, has since piped down, probably after seeing that it did not handle the assignment in an intelligent manner. There was no reason for these people to have been killed in the first place, if our security men had enough intelligence before embarking on that mission. The deceased, who were described as migrant and menial workers, had lived in that building for at least two years before they were killed. Where were our SSS and soldiers all this while? Our security men should do more of intelligence to prevent crime and not to take rash action of killing people and later tag them as criminals.

    Instead of looking for excuses to justify their action, the army and SSS should apologise to Nigerians, especially the bereaved families, while the government should explore ways of compensating their people. Can the Senate now see that it acted hastily in putting a seal on the Apo killings?

    I cannot end this without wishing you compliments of the season and thanking you for being there for us. May we have a fulfilling and rewarding 2014.

  • Obasanjo’s fatal attraction

    There is something mysterious about Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo’s attachment to the party called the PDP. There is also a suicidal angle to it – a certain resolute dig-in that has robbed him of much of the recognition and acclaim he deserves in political life.

    As far as the world knows, Gen. Obasanjo’s earliest relationship with the PDP was in 1998-9 when the party picked on him to be their candidate for the presidential election of 1999. Nigeria was tottering on the edge of total collapse in those months, thanks to the horrendous misrule of the preceding years. Most of the country was seething with anger over what was called “Northern domination”. In response, the barons of the Northern political elite, also founders and barons of the PDP, decided to find a “compromise” candidate from the South – and they zeroed in on Obasanjo. And from that point on, Obasanjo has stuck like a leech to the PDP, sacrificing and dissipating a lot of value in the process.

    As president, his first major mission was to “conquer” his own homeland and people – the Yoruba South-west of Nigeria, for the PDP. The voters of the Yoruba South-west– and even his own home state of Ogun – had rejected him completely in the presidential election. A party like the PDP was not the kind of political entity that the Yoruba people of the South-west could fraternize with. It was so manifestly and aggressively structured to uphold the “dominance” of a section of Nigeria in Nigerian affairs. And it was so arrogantly a cabal of the those elements that Nigeria needed to fear – former military brass who had through political offices become the richest Nigerians alive, and their cronies and fortune-seekers whose wealth-acquisitive objectives in politics were not easy to hide. But the PDP, controlling the powers of the federal establishment, was impossible to beat in any election and, by doing their thing for Obasanjo, they made him the winner of the election.

    So, as Obasanjo came into the presidency, his greatest observable political objectives included conquering the South-west for the PDP. I use the word “conquer” deliberately, because that was how the functionaries of the PDP often categorized their escapades in the South-west. Endearing their party to the people of the South-west was not part of their game. Fortunately for them, most of the boys who had won elections as governors of the states of the South-west in 1999, and who would have easily won again in 2003, allowed themselves to become soft-headed as the 2003 elections approached – and so allowed Obasanjo to pull a hood over their faces. For Obasanjo, it was almost a clean sweep of a conquest and, naturally, it was followed by four years of the typical PDP brand of governance.

    But it was only the South-west’s favourite political boys that had been swept aside. As for the overwhelming majority of the people of the South-west, they were unconquered and unbowed. Obasanjo knew that re-conquering the South-west in 2007 was going to be a much tougher proposition. He actually declared that the election of 2007 was going to be a “do-or-die” war. And he was true to his word. Most of the do-or-die battles, not surprisingly, took place in the South-west. Crowds of international observers saw some of the battles and were aghast at what Nigeria’s public officials were doing to the common people of Nigeria in order to rig the elections.

    Obasanjo’s PDP claimed victory in the presidential election and most of the lower elections, but most observers who were interested in Obasanjo now agree that, as a result of the brutalities and crookedness of the Nigerian 2007 elections, this very capable man threw away all the political image he had acquired before 2007. Most Nigerians don’t know much about this subject, and therefore it is somewhat difficult to explain – but I will try.

    In the wider world, for many years, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo was one of the most admired African political figures, and perhaps the most watched. His stock had begun to rise in the world in 1979 when he, as military ruler of Nigeria, had peacefully handed power over to a new civilian government. We in Nigeria had a quarrel with the crookedness introduced at the last minute into the presidential election of 1979, but, in the eyes of the world, that was a little thing compared with the gigantic accomplishment of handing over smoothly to civilian rulers in Africa’s greatest country. Obasanjo’s stock rose so high in the years to come that many influential people in the international community believed that he would someday become Secretary General of the United Nations – something that would have boosted the image of our country greatly in the world, and something that many Nigerians who knew these things were excited about.

    And then, as president in the first years of this century, Obasanjo added a great deal to his image in the world. He became one of the makers of the African Union founded in 2002, and indeed about the leading spokesman for the new Africa that the African Union seemed to promise. Then, Nigeria struck out as the hope of Africa when political disasters befell country after country in West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ivory Coast) and Nigeria forces became the principal agencies of peace and restoration in country after country. Without any doubt, Obasanjo was the chief architect of this new role for Nigeria in Africa and the world. In the wider world, interest in Obasanjo soared. A friend of mine witnessed a speech which Obasanjo delivered at Columbia University sometime during these years – and he later told me excitedly that our man was on his way heading for the stars.

    But in 2007, in his unreasoning determination to use his enormous capabilities and the powers of his position to procure victories, at any price, for the PDP, Obasanjo more or less wiped out all his image, and all the prospects attaching to his image. In his own homeland in the Yoruba Southwest too, he virtually lost everything. In state after state in the South-west, the boys who had been robbed at the 2007 gubernatorial elections went to court, and after nearly three years of fighting in the courts, were vindicated. In state after state, the Obasanjo governors who had been fraudulently declared winners in 2007 were booted out by the courts.

    About the Obasanjo-PDP marriage, there are questions that nobody will probably ever be able to answer.What is the chemistry of his resolute attachment to this party? How did a man with the discipline of a military education sink himself into the depths of this kind of party? You might answer that he owes the PDP a debt for adopting him, out of the blues, as presidential candidate in the 1999 presidential election, thereby giving him a chance to be president of Nigeria for eight years. But –does a man in his position, a man with his kind of background, have to throw away everything for that kind of favour?

    Even today, unbelievably, Obasanjo is still fighting for the PDP. Read his recent published letter to President Jonathan – and you will see that this highly privileged citizen, this highly knowledgeable Nigerian, continues even now to equate the PDP with Nigeria. How could it be, one is forced to ask, that a man like Gen. Obasanjo fails to see that most of his countrymen identify the PDP as one of the worst things that ever happened to Nigeria, and one of the reasons why most Nigerians have now lost love for their country? Can this eminent citizen ever wake up, and thereby make himself the real source of wisdom that he can be for his country?

     

  • Kwankwaso’s silent revolution in Kano

    Poverty is a common affliction of our people. It strikes you directly on the face whether you are in Ughelli, Owerri, Ekiti or Kano. And the consensus of experts and friends of Nigeria including Britain and the US is that poverty in Nigeria is government-induced either through its policies that have no direct bearing on the lives of the people, or as a result of mindless looting of the nation’s resources by those who have access to power. What this therefore means is that the battle for poverty alleviation will have to be led by few in government ready to offer selfless service. I think when we see some that are making efforts at implementing policies that have the potential to reduce poverty among our people, they deserve to be celebrated.

    One such creative response to the scourge of poverty is Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso’s ‘organized mass marriages and empowerment of women’ in Kano, which he initiated at the onset of his administration three years ago. If his initiative received any attention at all, it could only have been in form of severe criticism by uninformed non-indigenes of Kano. In fact it was the scurrilous attack on the person of the governor in the social media by professional mourners who weep louder than the bereaved that compelled me to take another look at Rabiu’s initiative. It turned out in my view that the governor’s ingenious response to poverty alleviation in Kano which focuses on women training and women empowerment is a silent revolution. This is because the UN as a body has long established that the neglect of women in terms of education and empowerment, described as ‘feminisation of poverty’ is partly responsible for poverty in the Third World nations.

    The forth phase of Kwankwaso government’s ‘divorcees, widows and spinsters mass marriage’ programme of 1,111 including 60 Christian couples took place last week, at a cost of some N278.270 million to the government. This meant that government is investing an average of about N250, 468, on each couple. The amount according to the governor covered procurement of furniture, textile materials, foodstuff as well as grants for the brides and other essential items. Kwankwaso who wears the shoe and knows where the shoe pinches also stressed that ‘the marriage programme would help ‘people strengthen the family institution and halt social crimes in the society, most of which were as a result of erosion of family values.’

    The governor has also initiated a special ‘family orientation programme aimed at preventing and minimizing the rising cases of divorce in the state in addition to evolving capacity building programmes especially for women to enable them support their families.’

    The governor did not stop at that. His administration refurbished 20 cottage industries and handed them over to women co-operative groups accompanied with empowerment packages to the beneficiaries.

    With these measures in place, the governor has gone ahead to perform what was considered impossible in the history of Nigeria and West Africa,- signing in to law ‘the Street Begging Prohibition Bill 2013’ which prohibited children and adults from begging on the streets, motor parks and other public places. To give the law a human face, the state government would train 2,205 people with disabilities in various entrepreneurship skills that would suit their individual capacities. He has also promised to absorb those so trained into the public service while ‘’the state government will give N10,000 monthly to those with disabilities that lack the wherewithal to engage in any trade.”

    I think we must salute the governor for this bold and creative initiative. It will most likely succeed because of its focus on women who, studies have shown, will spend about 80 per cent of their earnings on their children. Rabiu initiative will also appear to have better prospects than the federal government nomadic school project which was a reaction to Boko Haram insurgency. As we have seen in the case of federal government involvement in ‘unity schools’ and federal universities, funding may dry up for the nomadic federal government initiative. In any case mere provision of school building and facilities to shelter those picked from the streets will not automatically turn those who are already hardened into good citizens. What we all know is that the socialization processes that will enable children imbibe positive values starts at the family level.

    I think Rabiu’s modest initiative can serve as a model for many of the states in the north currently battling the social malaise of almajiris who often become easy tools for violence and other crimes. Empowerment of over 1000 women in Kano has the potential of grooming about 10,000 children yearly for a secured future.

    Of course other states outside the north also have much to learn from Rabiu’s initiative. What some of the virulent southern critics of Rabiu initiative have failed to see is the parallel between the social malaise called almajiris and thousands of young men who cannot read and write hawking smuggled substandard products on the streets of Lagos and other southern major cities. If this southern equivalent of northern almajiris are not taken off the streets and trained, they are going to become a threat to those we are currently investing on as leaders of tomorrow in our various universities. And already in Lagos, it is the focused leadership of Governor Fashola that has invested heavily on security, which has reduced incidences of gun totting ‘hawkers’ holding up motorists inside traffic demanding for money, trinkets and telephone handsets.

    Besides Kwankwaso’s modest efforts at attacking the root course of poverty and securing a better future for Kano children, he is said to be setting the pace in other areas such as leadership by example, transparency and accountability in governance. Dapo Thomas in a piece in last Sunday edition of The Nation called attention to Kwankwaso’s unique attempt at removing the myth of secrecy surrounding governance by advertising the minute of his state Exco meetings every week, spelling out in details, debates on government policy initiatives and policy implementation for everyone to see. Cited in one of such advertised minute of Kano exco meeting by Thomas was the approval of Kano State Scholarship Board’s recommendation and government approval of N320, 000 to each of the 53 Kano indigenes that qualified for Law school.

    Kwankwaso’s modest efforts are aimed at reclaiming the soul of Kano, a beautiful city of life, energy and humanity, a city with paved ways, uncharted safe alleys and ever bustling Kirki market where the heterogeneity of our nation is in full display daily as one encounters a Christian Yoruba woman trader momentarily take over the wares of her Hausa co-trader observing one of the five daily mandatory Muslim prayers. But it is also a challenge to not only his brother governors but also the federal government where we hear stories of missing N500b SURE-P funds, NNPC unremitted $48b now negotiated down, to $10.8b, N500b missing kerosene subsidy payment etc.

    There was a report by a committee set up by President Jonathan to look into issue of abandoned projects early this year which stated that, if no fresh projects are initiated, it will take three years of annual capital budget to implement abandoned projects on which substantial payments had been made. These contractors are Nigerians and some of them are in government. The 2014 budget proposal was presented to the National Assembly early this week, yet not even the constituencies have been told what percentage of the constituency projects supervised by the lawmakers was implemented.

    Kwankwaso is set for the battle for the soul of Kano. Talk to Kano tomato retailer or orange hawker in Lagos, they will tell you of a cousin in Malaysia or USA on scholarship. But beyond this, he has also hinted at the source of pervasive poverty in our nation and has demonstrated by his own personal example that it can be eradicated by a leadership style that removes the myth of secrecy about governance.

     

  • The power of letters

    The power of letters

    IT is easily our most exciting season. The weather may be a bit nasty- cold, dry and dusty, clogging our nostrils and impairing visibility. The travel chaos. The shopping spree and the upsurge in crime. Never mind them all. Consider the revelries. Rejoice.

    Carols. Streets festooned with flowers. Blinking lights from giant Christmas trees. And those colourful greeting cards with moving words. The messages are sometimes lyrical, expressing deep emotions. Other times, they come in simple, everyday language, signed by the sender and tucked in bright envelopes that we are tempted to keep rather than trash. How I love reading those soothing messages. At the end of it all, I sometimes ask myself if the emotions expressed in those cards are actually reflective of the senders’ true feelings.

    But I haven’t got many cards this year. Could this be a function of the troubled economy? Are people tired of expressing love amid so much hate in the land? Are cards more expensive than they used to be? Are people tired of weaving together those refreshing words? Are they hamstrung by the vicissitudes of fortune? Is sending greeting cards dying? I really don’t know. It is neither here nor there. After all, did we not think the beautiful art of letter writing was facing extinction, until recently when it suddenly barged into our consciousness?

    Letter writing was great fun. I recall sitting on the wooden chair, neck bent down and eyes stamped on the A4 paper on the little all-purpose table that hosted my mum’s meals and served as my study desk, writing as she dictated in Yoruba. All those letters that began with “My dearest son” and ended with a tinge of sentimentalism, such as “ I am your mum in truth and in deed” or simply “ Your worthy mother”.

    Or consider those ones written by love-struck – or lustful, if you like -youngsters, the type in which a youth displays his poetic skills and shows off his vocabulary acquisition. “My dear paramour,” he begins. “You know that you’re the sugar in my tea, my sunshine and the owner of my gentle heart,” he goes on and ends it all with a catchy phrase, such as “your sweetie” or simply “yours in the ocean of love”.

    No more. Love letters are dead. Today’s youths use the short message service (sms), shortening words and crippling English language in a manner that will make the original owners of the language weep. No idioms. No proverbs. No language elements that smoothen communication. No elegance. No grammatical puritanism. Words are mangled. Consider this that I got recently: “Good morning sir. Ow ws ur nit and ows d family? Jez tort of checking to remind you sir of wot we tlkd about. Fenk you sir.” Teachers are helpless.

    But, this is not to say that letter writing, assailed by the brevity of the new media and the ubiquity of the mobile telephone, has lost it all. No. It has been fighting back. Lawyers, instigated by landlords, still write letters to tenants, asking them to “give up the apartment and all its appurtenances”. They also write to editors, saying “we have instructions and we have been briefed by” a certain Mr, Chief or General, “hereinafter referred to as our client that an article that appeared on page 46 of your widely circulated newspaper contained words that portrayed him in the eyes of right thinking individuals as a corrupt and unworthy fellow, a common thief who is not fit to hold the office of a minister or any public office.”

    “You will agree with me that this is not true. Our client is the Bobajiro of Jandukuland, the Ogbologbo of Jibitiland, a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and a renowned philanthropist. We demand an apology on the front page within seven days of the receipt of this letter. If you fail to act or neglect this demand, we shall have no other option than to institute a N25billion action to reclaim our client’s hard earned reputation, which you have damaged. Take note, a word is enough for the wise.”

    Those who contend that letter writing may have fallen on hard times are, obviously, referring to the use of this elegant art as a political weapon of sort. Prince Tony Momoh’s “Letter to my countrymen” evoked some measure of excitement. Momoh, journalist, lawyer, politician and former Information Minister, used his letters to engage the citizenry in debates on the workings of the government.

    The late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, wrote former President Shehu Shagari, warning that the ship of state was heading for the rocks. Shagari fired back, painting the picture of a rosy economy. He later introduced the much maligned austerity measures to save the situation.

    A veteran in the game, then Head of State Gen Olusegun Obasanjo once engaged the critic Arthur Nwankwo in exchange of epistolary fire. Former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chair Audu Ogbeh wrote Obasanjo, telling him that Nigerians were suffering.

    That was then. That era has become part of our history. Not many of such letters that tear open a dam of public reactions have been written since then. But letter writing has staged a comeback, with former President Obasanjo’s epistle to President Goodluck Jonathan. Since October 1, 2010 when the first bomb went off in Abuja, the Jonathan presidency has not been this rattled. It is as if a missile was launched into the seat of power.

    Dr Jonathan was enraged. He railed at people who think Nigeria is their bedroom. People were asking why the President was troubled. They soon found out as the venomous 18-page Obasanjo letter became a public document. See how some words set on pieces of paper could provoke presidential rage and public anxiety? Some commentators said any time Obasanjo wrote a letter, dire consequences manifested. They cited some scary examples.

    The letter contained monumental allegations. The President was accused of training snipers, having 1,000 people on a watch list, celebrating a former murder accused and embracing corruption, among many other allegations that are as weighty as the stature of the writer.

    For days, Jonathan held his fire. He did not reply the letter. Then the questions started flying. Could it be true that Jonathan is training snipers? Is he going the Abacha way? Who are those on the list? Will Obasanjo write if he did not have the facts and figures? All this because of 2015?

    Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi also wrote the President, saying $48.9billion oil cash was unaccounted for. A reconciliation revealed last week that $10.8billion was actually yet to be accounted for. Whether it is $49billion or $10billion: should there be any loose end?

    Enter “the Iyabo letter”. As the nation waited anxiously for Jonathan’s reply, another letter suddenly leapt onto the scene. Purportedly written by a former first daughter, it was acidic as it was acerbic. It took Obasanjo to the cleaners. Many refused to believe that Iyabo, no matter the depth of her resentment at being unfairly treated by her dad, could pen such a diatribe against him.

    It was doubtful she did. If she must write such a letter, why now? Why would she be the one to man the opponent’s corner in a fight against her dad? Is this her language? Where is her signature? Was there really any issue between dad and daughter? If so, is it strange? Was it a case of using a disease to fight its effects?

    As the “Iyabo letter” went through forensic tests of authenticity, the newspaper that broke the story was battling to justify its verity. It hurled in a former governor’s chance meeting with Iyabo in the United States and launched into interviews with people who knew nothing about the letter, asking if they would intervene and claiming to have spoken to Iyabo, who reportedly proclaimed the letter her own. Why not check with Obasanjo? The paper called the former President, who called the reporter “a bloody idiot” who should be waiting for Iyabo’s lawyers.

    Before the brouhaha could subside, the President released his much awaited reply. Somehow sober and temperate – some insist timid – the letter touched on all the points raised by Obasanjo. Perhaps in an attempt to match the Obasanjo epistolary in length, it listed 10 points why the letter deserved to be replied. Any need?

    It is fine that some of the allegations are to be probed. This should be without delay. Besides the report should be made public.

    There is a redeeming feature in the sumo wrestling – letter writing has reestablished its place as a lethal weapon in politics. Now, people threaten to write one another letters. See how a once moribund art has been propelled to national prominence in a matter of days by the ingenuity of our leaders?

    So sad Obasanjo has said he will not comment on Jonathan’s reply. So whence cometh another letter?

     

     

    The president’s fury

    THE President had a tendentious Christmas Day package for his opponents yesterday. At the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Lifecamp, Abuja, Dr Goodluck Jonathan threw jabs at politicians who think they own this country, “doing what we ought not to do, making statements we ought not to make and writing letters we are not supposed to write”.

    C’mon Mr. President. The church is no platform to settle political scores. Besides, where is statesmanship in this whining and whimpering?

  • Money ruins everything (2)

    Money ruins many men. It impairs the moral fibre thus making the average human inhumane but that is because man often fails money. The Nigerian man in particular, fails money and so doing loses his right to lord over it and own it.

    Money, like a wild mongrel needs to be tamed. It requires firmness, chariness, deliberate conservatism and modesty of a full man to tame it, own it and control it. But that is hardly the case; many a man is owned by his money. The Nigerian man, woman and society in particular, are owned by money; that is why contemporary Nigeria worships money.

    Like fire, money becomes a bad master due to our incapacities at taming its flare and controlling it; consequently it consumes us. Money corrupts the brightest amongst us and renders the most promising man and woman worthless; it consumes all who would do anything and everything to acquire it, whatever the consequence.

    Hence the domestication of yesterday’s ‘heroes’ and corruption of the shrewd – men and women by whose citizenship and wisdom we aspired to freedom and progress have being tamed, house-trained, like hunt dogs and pastoral cattle. Eventually, we suffer the transmutation of such established, self-acclaimed defenders of the people’s rights into despicable lapdogs, attack dogs and junkyard dogs of the ruling class.

    Little wonder Sunday of Isabo, Abeokuta, Ogun State, ditched his noble job as foremost columnist and chairman of a national newspaper’s editorial board to become the attack dog and junkyard dog for President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. Many of his readers and fans bemoan his ‘betrayal’ but from Sunday’s perspective, it is unarguably selfish of anyone to expect him to cling to the drudgery and emptiness of his former job and scorn a-chance-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of Nigeria’s high-society, be it as errand boy or disposable ‘bingo.’

    Who would have thought that the unrepentant critic of inept and oppressive ruling class would dump his pen and cape of honour to become an attack dog for the ruling class that erstwhile incited his vitriol? Today, Sunday is speaking from every side of his mouth; he currently patrols Aso Rock corridors as the greyhound would the premises of its master. It must be lucrative being an errand dog.

    In Sunday’s descent subsists the irony of a contrived metaphor; the former columnist’s desertion of his sanctimonious high ground and renunciation of his self-touted activism and crusade for justice, government accountability and morality aptly illustrates contemporary Nigeria’s self-love and enslavement to mammon.

    An inordinate lust for money drives this generation to self-destruct. Having perverted the natural order that places man above money, the animate cowers to the inanimate; Nigeria submits to mammon, and science, technology, power, property and other bastions of materialism own and controls us. The consequences are rampant and discernible for all to see.

    Our lust for money has put paid to that staunch historic adherence to a cultural value system that supposedly distinguishes the Nigerian in the larger comity of nations and universal citizenship. Gone are our touted values; incontestable code of personal and societal ethics that supposedly humanizes the average Nigerian and moulds him into a fuller and better breed of mankind than any other in Africa and across continental divides.

    The current generation, the youth especially, manifests a dissonance with future bliss and progressive leadership anticipated of it. This generation is not only the most knavish but also the most effeminate of all generations; I will not bother over the shortcomings and atrocities we inherited from preceding generations lest I tow the oft beaten path and glamourize our claims to victimhood and base sentimentality. If the Nigeria we inherited is truly shorn of values and promises of a brighter tomorrow, must we aggravate the circumstances that foist upon us such hopelessness?

    One of the most curious kinks of this generation is its sustenance and obeisance to the cult of the ruling class. Take the incumbent administration of President Jonathan for instance; men and women that erstwhile professed to champion the people’s rights have united to defend Jonathan’s honour and justify defiantly, the unceasing ineptitude and mindlessness of his administration.

    They conveniently forget that the incumbent administration’s insensitivity, clumsiness and gluttony have cost Nigeria thousands of lives till date. Evidences of the government’s incompetence and tactlessness abound in its appointment of men and women unfit to run a roast corn kiosk to man the nation’s finance, aviation, health, defense, foreign affairs, education, works and housing ministries to mention a few. Inefficiency of such characters fosters corruption, violence and deaths across the country.

    This anomaly incites harsh criticisms and disillusionment among the citizenry, however, as had always been the case, the leading critics take no part in the pursuit and actualization of majority will beyond lip service; nonetheless they proceed with the most vulgar extravagances courting power and projecting it, irrespective of the nature of men and women that wield it.

    It is incontestable that many of such men, including Mr. President’s media attack dogs, attract to themselves much that lies on the threshold of psychosis and common crime. This minority parading themselves as Mr. President’s apologists riotously cackle like a coven of unbalanced enthusiasts, seeing every illicit and sentimental act of bestiality as cause for political theatrics and hysterical spinning.

    Renowned turncoats like Sunday of Isabo for instance, are very useful to the ruling class; wobbly in intellect and infinitely handicapped by greed, they repeatedly parade themselves as pirates amenable to crimes and accessible to venal enterprise. These purchasable characters eventually shed their pretensions to heroism and honour to unite with the ruling class in its savage war against the citizenry.

    We have fought many wars in Nigeria; wars for Biafra and Niger Delta, the ongoing war for and against the soul of the Northeast currently asphyxiating in the grip of terrorist sect, Boko Haram; these wars are ultimately triggered by our failures with money and its innumerable material vestiges. Yet these wars are never enough; every day, we embroil in fresh wars for self-actualization but the wars of the underdog, Nigeria’s impoverished lot, has a greater significance than all of the others.

    This daily battle for the soul and survival of the struggling working class and barely existent middle class is merely an episode of the universal war that constitutes the true nature of humanity and history of the world—the war of good against evil, ruling class against working class, the haves against the have-nots.

    These wars however, are lost on all fronts even before the masses march on to the battle field every day. This is a consequence of the knavery of men entrusted to serve as our moral sentinels, custodians of culture, value and hope for a brighter tomorrow. These men, contrary to their touted crusades in the interest of the citizenry, unconscionably mutate into more savage destroyers of hope and forms of life than the ruling class they were known to despise. But rather than call them out for the savages and murderers of hope that they have become, the Nigerian masses continually rationalize their betrayal arguing that they were only being smart. Hence perfidy and greed become noble enterprise, in the Nigeria of our dreams.

     

    • To be continued…

  • Mandela: The man of destiny

    Mandela: The man of destiny

    Nelson Mandela, the great freedom fighter and first black president of South Africa, was buried last Sunday at Qunu, his remote birth place, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. His death on December 5, after a long illness, evoked an almost unprecedented global outpouring of grief and sadness. Virtually all the world’s leaders, including leaders of countries that had once denounced him as a dangerous Communist and terrorist, mourned him as a global icon, and paid him homage as one of the most outstanding political figures of the 20th century. Through his exemplary life and epic struggle for freedom he touched so many lives, cutting across race, colour, creed, and nationality. Millions of people, rich and poor, all over the world mourned him and felt a profound sense of personal loss at his demise. Not since the assassination of US President John Kennedy in November, 1963, in Dallas, USA, has there been such an outpouring of grief and sadness at the death of a political leader.

    Nelson Mandela was a man whose entire life was shaped by destiny. In so many ways, he was a man of destiny. Born in a remote part of South Africa, his father was a minor tribal chief. If he had not ventured out of Qunu he would have ended his life unknown as a minor tribal chief. No one could have predicted that he would in future emerge as the leader of the epic and bloody struggle of the South African blacks against apartheid South Africa and eventually emerge as South Africa’s first black president. But throughout out his difficult life and harrowing personal experiences under apartheid South Africa, destiny beckoned him towards greatness. As he wrote in his memoirs, ‘Long Walk to Freedom’, not satisfied with the prospect of being a minor court official in Qunu, he fled with his cousin to Johannesburg, the prosperous South African gold city, and the country’s commercial capital, and worked in the mines there. It was a back breaking, poorly paid, and humiliating job, with black workers huddled together in shacks and horrifying conditions. The white mining officials exercised their authority over black workers with unspeakable brutality.

    When it was discovered that he had fled from home to seek employment in the city and was wanted back at home, he was fired. But instead of returning home, he chose to remain in Johannesburg where he suffered terribly. It was in that city that he encountered the horrors and personal racial humiliation suffered by all non-whites in apartheid South Africa. To borrow the famous words of William Gladstone, a 19th century liberal British prime minister, the apartheid racial system was a ‘negation of God erected into a system of government’. Next to Nazi Germany, it was the most vicious and evil system of government ever devised by humanity. The blacks were treated by the Boers in their own country worse than dogs. They had absolutely no political or economic rights. They were segregated and made to carry passes in their own country. Blacks who had university education were denied jobs in the government.

    In Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela went back to school and eventually studied law part time, after which he worked for a while as a clerk in a white law firm. He lived in a one room apartment in Soweto, the fabled shanty town for the blacks. His wages were so low he could barely support himself financially. Even though he was qualified to be an attorney, he and other black lawyers were denied that opportunity by the apartheid system. In the law firm, he continued to encounter the brutal nature of apartheid. The white office assistant employed in the law firm would not serve him tea at lunch break because he was black. Only his white colleagues could be served.

    It was the personal humiliation he suffered in Johannesburg that led him to join the African National Congress (ANC), then agitating for an end to racism in South Africa. He started a law firm with Oliver Tambo, his lifelong comrade in the long struggle against the apartheid system. He married early in 1946, but his first wife, Evelyn, who was the cousin of Walter Sisulu, a veteran of the struggle, left him because she could not share his unyielding commitment to the struggle. She was an adherent of the Jehovah Witness, a religious movement that forbade the participation of its members in politics. She could no longer stand his complete dedication to the struggle which left her lonely with four young children to bring up on her own. She did not understand the import of the great struggle and the long time spent away from home by her husband in pursuit of his political objective.

    The breakup of the marriage had a devastating effect on Nelson Mandela. By his own account, he returned home one day to an empty house, and found that his wife had packed out, taking the four children of the marriage with her. Even the curtains in the house had been removed by his wife. She had asked him to choose between his family and the anti-apartheid struggle. Though painful, as he admitted in his memoires, he chose the latter and continued with the struggle. Most men would have chosen their family. A few years later, he met and married, Winnie, who, unlike Evelyn, shared his commitment to the struggle. But after five years of marriage he was sent to life imprisonment for treason after the famous Rivonia trial in which he said he was prepared to die for his freedom. He could have been given the death sentence, but was spared by the strong international reaction to the 1963 Sharpeville massacre of unarmed and fleeing 67 blacks, shot in the back by the South African police for carrying out a peaceful demonstration. It was while he was in prison that he became the acknowledged leader of the black struggle in racist South Africa. He refused to compromise the struggle despite blandishments of possible reprieve by the racist regime if he abandoned the struggle. When his first son by Evelyn died, he was in prison and was not allowed to bury him.

    After 27 years in prison he was finally released by the apartheid regime. So much had changed in South Africa during his incarceration. The struggle for freedom had become bloodier and international support for the black struggle for freedom had increased. Economic sanctions against the regime had begun to bite. Fearing a total collapse of the South African economy, the white business community in South Africa, led by Oppenheimer, openly called for negotiations with the ANC. This paved the way for Mandela’s subsequent release and a review of the racist South African Constitution. In the ensuing elections, the ANC won and Nelson Mandela emerged as the first black president of South Africa. He served only one term as president. His job was done and he retired into private life, pleading that his successors should not call him. Jointly with F.W. de Klerk, his white predecessor in office, he received the Nobel Peace award. As president, he reconciled all the races of South Africa and laid the foundation for a rainbow country. He unified a once bitterly divided nation. He was the only leader who could have kept the country together and end racial bitterness and violence in the country. He made enormous personal sacrifice for the nation. He gave everything up for his country’s freedom, including his marriage to his second wife, Winnie, and his children and grandchildren. He never had a normal family life. Soon after his release from prison, he separated from Winnie. The long period of his incarceration had, regrettably, destroyed the marriage irreparably. As he said when announcing his separation from Winnie, it was the destiny and lot of freedom fighters not to enjoy a normal family life.

    Africa has produced other outstanding political leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Sekou Toure of Guinea, Abdul Nasser of Egypt, and Nwalimu Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. But they all pale in political and global significance to Nelson Mandela, a truly global phenomenon, who, defying all odds fought courageously for his country’s freedom. As President Obama observed rightly, we may never see the likes of him again. The values for which he fought so bravely in South Africa are eternal and enduring. The anomalous situation in South Africa produced this great man of destiny, a truly global icon, now laid to rest in his home town, Qunu.

  • Crocodile tears on the grave of Mandela

    The death of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918-2013) has attracted a lot of emotions, comments and tributes from many current leaders and past leaders of several countries in the world. Some of these comments are genuine, others are insincere and amounts to crocodile tears. About 100 global political players, both current and those who have held positions of power in the world, including President Barrack Obama, current American President and three former Presidents- Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W Bush, and the heir apparent to the British throne Prince Charles as well as our own President Goodluck Jonathan and David Cameron, John Major and Gordon Brown, current and former British Prime Ministers respectively attended the official funeral ceremony held at a big stadium in Soweto South Africa. This must have been a security nightmare for the South African authorities. Mandela who initially embraced the non-violent philosophy of Mochandas Ghandhi-Ji later abandoned non-violence and was largely responsible for forming the Umkhonto we Sizwe (the Spear of the Nation), which was the armed youthful wing of the African National Congress (ANC). The young revolutionaries in South Africa by the 1960s were already getting impatient with the conservative and non-violent approach to African liberation espoused by the ANC. Members of the Pan African Congress (PAC) were already critical of the non-violent campaign of the ANC. We can therefore say Nelson Mandela reluctantly took to armed struggle because as he argued nobody can kill a wild beast with bare hands.

    In the history of the liberation of South Africa some attention should be paid to the PAC and Azanian People’s Congress’ roles as alternative platforms for the liberation of South Africa. A comparable situation is what happened in the US where the existence of militant youthful groups such as Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) led by Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown, as well as the Black Panther Movement of Huey Newton and Eldrige Cleaver, and the Black Muslims particularly the faction led by one of its charismatic leaders, Malcom X with their cry burn baby burn made Martin Luther King nonviolent campaign largely acceptable to the white folks. Even though the situation was not exactly the same, white folks saw Mandela as somebody they could ultimately do business with.

    This does not diminish the achievements of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela but it is important to put the two global icons within their historical context. The two share many things in common especially their ability to forgive their oppressors. Martin Luther King’s tolerance is firmly rooted in Christian religion while Mandela’s ability to forgive is rooted in political reality. He wanted to build a non-racial majoritarian democracy in South Africa and he came to the conclusion that the only way to do this was by forgiving his racist oppressors who had built in South Africa a first world infrastructure and economy albeit on the backs of the blacks. If he had adopted the Mugabe approach of land expropriation, he would have destroyed his much loved country of South Africa for which he paid huge price of 27 years imprisonment. Since 1994 when he became president and now after having been succeeded by Thabo Mbeki and the current President Jacob Zuma, the vast majority of black South Africans have remained largely poor. Of course centuries of Black marginalization cannot be removed within a few years but young black South Africans are not prepared to wait indefinitely for the fruit of majority rule. This is the challenge facing South Africa today. And some of the militant youths have been known to issue militant statements about the conniving and apologetic leadership of the ANC who are only ready to tinker with the white economic structure of South Africa without radically changing it. This is why incredibly as it may sound, Robert Mugabe is perhaps the most popular political figure in Southern Africa today. This also accounts for the tumultuous ovation he attracted when he entered the stadium during the funeral mass for Mandela.

    I had the opportunity to meet Mandela in May 1990, when he came to Nigeria, and the University of Lagos conferred on him an Honorary Doctorate degree after leaving prison and before becoming president of South Africa. Professor Nurudeen Alao who was Vice Chancellor asked me and Dr. Tunji Dare to prepare a citation for the great man. We independently wrote this and after comparing notes, Dare said my citation captured totally the essence of the man, and he subsequently published his own draft, I believe in The Guardian. I remember that one of the things the great man asked us was that he wanted to learn how Nigeria has been able to create a forum like the House of Chiefs in the old regions for traditional leaders to participate in governance so that he could do the same in South Africa. I do not know what became of his interest in this regard.

    After Mandela’s death, I have been thoroughly amused by the comments of our leaders. Some of these leaders have hailed him as a great man, a great African icon and a great world leader that is worthy of emulation. Yet some of these so-called African leaders held power for years without leaving any remarkable or worthwhile imprint on the society. It is surprising that those who overstayed their welcome in office are now acclaiming Mandela as their friend and as someone from whom they learnt something. One only hopes that our current leaders and those after them will learn from this great man’s example, that it is not the amount of money that one has that matters, but that it is the enduring and unforgettable legacies that one leaves behind that really matter.

    The former American President George W Bush also went to South Africa to pay his last tribute to Mandela; I believe his sincerity. But we should not forget that his Vice President Dick Cheney regarded Mandela as a terrorist. And according to General Colin Powel, a former American Secretary of State and his successor Condoleezza Rice both of whom are blacks claimed that they were hugely embarrassed to find Mandela’s name on America’s terrorist list. It is surprising that the Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin and the Chinese President Xi Jinping were conspicuously absent in South Africa to pay their last respects to Mandela; they will not be missed of course. And the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found a lame reason about security and the cost of the trip not to go to South Africa. Of course, the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was there because Mandela was a supporter of the Palestinian cause and liberation. Let it be remembered that Israel and the United States under President Ronald Reagan assisted South Africa to acquire nuclear weapons in the late 1970s.

    President Jonathan in some kind of homily during a funeral service for Mandela said that Nigeria is not likely to have a man of Mandela’s stature. I disagree and I say General Yakubu Gowon remains the greatest Head of State of Nigeria with high moral stature on a comparable level with Mandela. Gowon’s case is that of a prophet that is with no honour in his own country. Here was a man who governed this country for nine years and ended up not having a single house or billions of naira, and oil blocs in his name but was responsible for most of the enduring physical infrastructure in the country. Here is a war leader who fought a civil war and ended it without show trials and executions of those on the other side of the conflict. Gowon represents our own Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela rolled into one. Since leaving office, he went back to the university and earned himself a doctorate degree in Political Science and has never soiled his hands with filthy lucre. He has used his moral currency and goodwill to attract funds for good cause such as guinea-worm eradication and has spent along with others, years in praying for the peace of Nigeria. When he was in power, Gowon was a pan-Africanist and extended the reach of Nigeria’s foreign policy to the black Diaspora in the Caribbean. History will be fair to Gowon, he may not have had the press and publicity and international acclaim that Mandela has but Gowon among our leaders certainly made a difference. And he deserves to be celebrated now and in the future.

  • Nigeria: Why don’t we do the right thing now?

    If we refuse to learn a lesson from India, Switzerland, Britain, etc (countries that make a policy of sensibly respecting their nationalities), we shall surely lose Nigeria – may be very soon. The coming national conference offers us Nigerians a chance to change our country’s direction. Will we sincerely and sensibly grab that chance?”

    That is how I ended this column last week. I have since been following comments related to the Nigerian situation on the popular media as well as on various internet outlets. I find that the overwhelming majority of Nigerians who have made those comments have serious doubts that Nigeria can chart or follow a different direction ever. The overwhelming belief and fear is that the persons who direct Nigeria’s affairs have fixed the path of Nigeria too powerfully in its present direction, and that nothing can now change that.

    Among other things, that means that even if President Jonathan were to put his best efforts into the making of a national conference, no effective outcome can come out of it. Some of the most influential Nigerian leaders from the North are telling us that their sole and fixed objective is to get the presidency back to the North in 2015, and some of them are being honest by informing us that once they have the presidency back in the North, they will never let it go. Certainly, no perceptive Nigerian needs to be educated about the purport of such statements – namely, that certain sections of Nigeria religiously believe themselves to be the God-ordained overlords of Nigeria, that the rest of Nigeria must learn to submit to the overlords, and that the overlords will do anything to assert their will.

    Now, into this cauldron of Nigeria’s political life, feed the hideous patterns of inter-relationships that have evolved, and that now exist, among Nigerian peoples. In ways that did not exist at the time of independence, Nigerian nationalities are now inveterate enemies of one another, and the enormity and viciousness of the enmity and hostility are worsening in all directions across the face of Nigeria. Beyond that, almost everywhere in Nigeria, multiple species of hostility are escalating fearfully –hostility between indigenes and immigrants, between persons of different religions, between northerners and southerners, between peoples of the far North and the peoples of the Middle belt, between persons of the Igbo of the South-east and some of the multiple nationalities of the South-south. Sadly, desperate Igbo folks forced to migrate from their battered homeland into the homelands of other peoples are increasingly heard claiming to be conquering those other peoples’ homelands. Even the Yoruba, traditionally known for their acceptance and inclusion of strangers, are now, for the first time ever, heard speaking against some of the immigrants in their homeland. Since the 19th century, Ijaw folks have been migrating into the homeland of the Ilaje-Yoruba people in the creeks and lagoons of what is now southern Ondo State, and the relationship between the two peoples has historically been amicable. But today, the hostility between these peoples is almost touchable, and life in these lagoons and creeks is becoming increasingly dangerous. In general, the language of inter-ethnic communication gets more and more ugly all over Nigeria. Even from the highest functionaries of government, all that one can see, since independence, is special consideration for this or that nationality, and special animosity, spite and insults, towards some other nationalities. The probability is increasing fearfully that this dangerous brew will someday, soon, culminate in a horror-soaked implosion.

    As Nigeria was entering into independence in 1960, we Nigerians were mostly buoyed up with high expectations and hope. Today, all of that is gone. Nothing of any importance works. Most of our key highways are in ruins, and horrific accidents on them account for rivers of blood daily. After our government had publicly announced billions of Naira on projects to improve our electricity supply, we are, in most parts of our country, less sure of electricity today than in 1960. Capital is fleeing from Nigeria; even international oil corporations are divesting their investments in Nigeria; and unemployment has simply become an intractable monster. Life has become so uncertain and so brutish that each of us is now focused on instant gratification before we would do anything for any other person. Basic loyalties, and basic sense of duty, are vanishing. The citizen who approaches a public office for the meanest service (like merely obtaining a form) must be ready to bribe public officials first. Fraud and cheating have become our common character, and blood-curdling crimes our regular experience. Public officials and private contractors regularly collude to steal and share funds voted for public projects. Nigeria no longer exists as a country loved by its citizens. The fabric of our society has fallen apart. And in the wider world, Nigeria is now hardly ever mentioned among countries that decent people would want to do business with.

    Into this whole situation has flashed, in the past few days, the thunder-clap represented by the letter written by ex-President Obasanjo to President Jonathan. I know that many of us cannot resist the itch to hit at Obasanjo, but the biggest issue about this letter is what it contains. Under what condition would a former Head of State of a country write four different letters to a current Head of State without any acknowledgement? What greater proof can there possibly be that the dissoluteness wrecking Nigeria holds even the highest councils of Nigeria’s life?

    Moreover, is it true that our government is listing some thousands of Nigerians for some sort of hostile targeting? Or that our government is training some assassins and sharp shooters against us? Is this today’s face of the culture of assassinations that has produced so many unsolved murders in our country – to mention only a few, of Chief Bola Ige (Nigeria’s Attorney-General), Chief Alfred Rewane (industrialist and democracy movement leader), Madam Kudirat Abiola (wife of Chief M.K.O Abiola, winner of the 1993 presidential election), Dr. Marshall Harry (National Vice-chairman of a political party), Theodore Agwatu (Principal Secretary to the Imo State Governor), Odunayo Olagbaju (member, Osun State House of Assembly), Chief Ogbonnaya Uche (one time Senatorial candidate), Ahmed Ahman Pategi (Kwara State chairman of a political party), Barnabas Igwe (Anambra State chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association), Honorable Uche Nwoke (one time senatorial candidate), Madam Suliat Adedeji (Ibadan woman society leader), Dr. Funso Williams (Lagos State gubernatorial candidate), Dr. Niyi Daramola (Ekiti State gubernatorial aspirant)?

    Are these bestialities then what our rulers must practice in order to keep this country together, this country that is obviously not working, this country in which we are all being reduced to abject paupers, and in which we are all being turned into fierce enemies of one another? Why would we continue to allow some people to keep treating us in these sub-human ways?

    It is time that we Nigerians firmly demand some categorical change in our situation. If President Jonathan sincerely believes in beneficial changes in the structure of the Nigerian federation (as he should, being a ‘minority’ man), and if he sincerely desires to champion salutary changes in the management of Nigeria, this is the time he must make his definitive statement. After the Obasanjo letter, he cannot afford to continue to keep silent over these mighty issues. If he does not believe, and does not desire the needed changes, then there is no sense in his proceeding with a national conference, and there would be good reason to begin measures for the peaceful dissolution of the troubled Nigerian federation – instead of measures for the president’s controversial decision to celebrate the centenary of the 1914 Amalgamation.

  • Baleful legacies of godfather and godson

    Details of Obasanjo’s 18-page letter to President Jonathan are already in the public domain. If you ask me, I will say Jonathan’s only sin is attempting to outperform his godfather in all the departments identified by a ‘godfather who never sleeps’, such as undermining principle of separation of powers by holding in disdain, both the legislature and judiciary, selective war against corruption, politics of subterfuge, vindictiveness etc. If Jonathan is presiding over outright looting of our resources as insinuated by Obasanjo, it is perhaps because there was little left to share following the fraudulent privatisation and monetization policies of the PDP that he implemented with religious fervour. If Jonathan assembled contractors and sitting PDP governors together in Lagos and blackmailed them to part with about N7billion for building church and recreation centre in his Otuoke village, it was perhaps he was trying to outdo his godfather who also collected about half of that amount in similar manner to build a private library in his town. If Jonathan within his first year in office was frantically dumping money in a swamp in Otuoke village in the name of building a university for his fishing community, he was perhaps trying to emulate his godfather who built a private university in his Ota village.

    It will appear Obasanjo’s objection to President Jonathan 2015 ambition is predicated on the provision of ‘federal character, zoning and rotation’ clause in PDP constitution. But both father and son ignored the same clause in 2011, to immorally pave the way for the emergence of Jonathan as PDP presidential candidate.

    Obasanjo is accusing his godson of being behind some disgruntled PDP members going around to recruit people into the Labour Party to enhance his electoral fortune during 2015 election. But Jonathan has merely improved on OBJ strategy of fuelling intra-party conflicts within the opposition and inducing disgruntled members with money, cars and security support to decamp to PDP where they were ultimately rigged into elective offices through flawed elections.

    Ex-President Obasanjo has also accused his godson of ‘providing presidential assistance for a murderer to evade justice and presidential delegation to welcome him home’. If indeed Jonathan played such role, there was a precedent. Under Obasanjo, Bola Ige, the then justice Minister was assassinated inside his house. Iyiola Omisore, who was given state support to destabilise his party before decamping to PDP, was the only suspect according to the police. From prison detention, Omisore was awarded a senate seat by PDP in a flawed election, a feat he couldn’t repeat as a freeman after serving as a senator for four years. Although Omisore was later to be acquitted by the court, Ige murder like many other high profile murders under Obasnjo has remained unresolved.

    Ex-President Obasanjo lamented about ‘the serious and strong allegation of NNPC non-remitting of about $7 billion from NNPC to Central Bank occurring from export of some 130,000 barrels per day’. But it has been alleged the process of shielding NNPC started when Obasanjo added the portfolio of petroleum minister to his office as president.

    If indeed an ’African Development Bank Director informed Obasanjo that the Federal Government is putting the water project for Port Harcourt in the cooler because of Amaechi-Jonathan face-off, Jonathan copied that from his godfather who sat on Lagos state Local Government Allocation despite judicial pronouncement that Obasanjo lacked such power.

    Unfortunately, Obasanjo out of office is discovering too late that ‘attack dogs’ are more dangerous than identified adversaries. His advice is however too late for a godson who has followed his godfather’s footstep of deploying hungry attack dogs on political adversaries. And tragically for ex-President Obasanjo, one of his sons who also doubles as media adviser to President Jonathan has asked Obasanjo “to shut up forever and go down in history as spineless coward, driven by sheer greed and indecency,” if he cannot provide evidence for alleged existence of snipers. Such language and impertinence are not unusual during PDP perennial family squabbles.

    The last of the 10 reasons Obasanjo gave for writing his 18-page letter is in my view the most important. His expression of concern over the inability of an overwhelmed and clueless Jonathan to respond to the nation’s current predicaments is probably not born out of patriotism but out of concern by Obasanjo for his continued relevance as a leader who is obsessed with controlling the present and the future. Unfortunately, this is an impossible task as Leo Tolstoy has tried to prove in his theory of history through his epic novel ‘Law and Peace’. It is the actions of others that in reality define leaders’ legacies.

    For instance emerging as an ill-equipped accidental leader as military Head of State, Obasanjo in manner of oligarchs started to see himself as the wisest and the best to have happened to our nation. He thereafter arrogantly said the best didn’t need to win the 1979 election, preferring Shehu Shagari, who was only interested in the senate, as he has now admitted in his epistle to Jonathan, to a tested Awo or an Adamu Ciroma that had been groomed by Kaduna Mafia for leadership. The legacy of Obasanjo’s first opportunity to govern Nigeria was defined by the collapse of second republic due to the mismanagement and incompetence of Shagari. Obasanjo has written many books “My Command”, “Not my Will’, ‘The Animal call Man”, etc, to justify his claim to intellectualism and the right to control our present and future as well as sustain what was unarguably an error of judgment in 1979.

    Obasanjo claimed God used him to make Yar’Adua president. But God is not mocked. Yar’Adua was so scandalized by the flawed election that produced him that he had to set up the Uwais Electoral Reform Commission whose report Jonathan administration sat on. Apart from the depletion of our foreign reserve within two years, Yar’Adua derailed Obasanjo’s power project policy conceived to generate 20,000Mw by 2010. Today we generate 4,600Mw. Of course we don’t need any other proof of God’s reproach of Obasanjo’s immoral imposition of Jonathan on Nigeria in the name of ethnic balancing than his current 18-page letter alerting Nigerians about the threat Jonathan has become to the health of our nation.

    The premature rendering of a dirge in the past by Obasanjo, the (oracle of Owu) has always signalled the imminent collapse of regimes Obasanjo has fraudulently built on porous ground. I think it is time the opposition starts preparing a blueprint for the salvation of our beleaguered land that has been repeatedly raped by PDP, the godfather and his godson this past 14 years.

    And finally since Obasanjo who takes joy in calling himself Mr. Nigeria has admitted charity for president Jonathan can begin at his Ijawland, let me also appeal to our new Yoruba political leaders to plan a response to Obasanjo’s alert and warning that Jonathan is sponsoring disgruntled and selfish Yoruba politicians to derail the modest gains made in the last three years.

    He has cited Ekiti where Opeyemi must have been assured he could become governor in spite of Ekiti electorate in typical PDP fashion. He cited the case of Ondo where we already know Mimiko is trying frantically to smear the good people of Ondo with PDP’s dishonourable activities alien to Ondo people. Obasanjo also made indirect reference to our respected Dr Fasehun who now finds common interest with President Jonathan. While advancing some vacuous reasons which was an insult to the people of Kano for accompanying Al Mustapha home, his action nonetheless found parallel with that of President Jonathan who Obasanjo accused of granting ‘presidential assistance for a murderer to evade justice and presidential delegation to welcome him home’.