The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Black Africa’s deadly curse

    Some United Nations agencies, as well as some other voices in the international community, have for decades been making optimistic predictions to the effect that “the 21st century could be Sub-Saharan Africa’s century” or “Sub-Saharan Africa is showing signs of recovery and growth”. As a Black African, I wish sincerely that these things were true. But, at the same time, as a Black African, I know I must not lapse into self-deception about my own homeland – and that I must not lead any of my people into the folly of self-deception. This is our home and we know it is not doing well – that, in fact, it is in serious trouble.

    A few days ago, I spent a couple of hours watching a video on the current situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (or Congo-Kinshasa). The political storm that started in this country at independence, leading to the assassination of its first Prime Minister, to a major civil war, to a viciously corrupt military dictatorship, and then to an even larger second civil war, is by no means over. The rebel forces in this country are countless; most of them entrenched in the distant eastern provinces. The second major town of the Congo, the town of Kisangani in the eastern provinces, is in serious decline. In these places, all there is to see is nothing other than the stark face of poverty and barbarism. Camps of countless thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) tell stories of human deprivation at its most extreme. These eastern provinces are separated from Kinshasa, the capital city of the Congo in the west, by thousands of Africa’s thickest forests. The Congo occupies a territory larger than the whole of Western Europe. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that the government based in Kinshasa can do to bring order to the distant eastern provinces. The only arrangement that sustains the tenuous connection holding this country together is the presence of United Nations peace-keeping forces. If the justification for a country is that it ensures to its citizens life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then the Congo does not qualify to be called a country at all.

    But on the political map of Black Africa, the condition of Congo-Kinshasa is not unique in kind; it is only unique in severity. Virtually all countries of Black Africa are in serious political troubles manifesting in various horrible conditions. Somalia completely lost hold on orderly governance in 1991, and it continues to live in that disorder till today. Only last week, the United Nations and the African Union agreed to increase the number of international peace-keeping forces in Somalia. After the earth-shaking horror of genocide in Rwanda in 1994, less and less is being heard about that country, and that makes a lot of people in the wider world assume that Rwanda has stabilized – but the world needs to look out. The military junta that took power after the 1994 genocide has continued to hold on to power by authoritarian means, and even some original members of the regime have had to flee from the country to save their lives – all of which cast a shadow on the future of this country. In Uganda, the military ruler who came to power in 1986 continues to hold on to power, intent on eliminating opposition and dissent by doing everything to weaken and break up the kingdom of Buganda, Uganda’s most developed nationality. Since 2011, Buganda and some other groups have been suing for secession, and confrontation between the government and these groups is increasing. In West Africa, United Nations forces were needed to restore some modicum of governance and political stability in the Ivory Coast in 2011, and that country is by no means showing any appreciable progress towards democratic and stable government. A military coup shattered the fragile stability of Mali Republic in late 2011, opening the gate to a secession move in Mali’s northern provinces, and then the emergence of a base for terrorism in those northern provinces – a terrorist base that potently began immediately to threaten most of West Africa, and that then called into action some serious French military intervention.

    The political hurricane goes on and on all over Black Africa, generating horrific destruction, loss of lives, and blood-curdling human deprivation and suffering. We Black Africans are only 15% of the population of the human race, but we consume probably up to 70% of international peace-keeping efforts on earth. Our sub-continent is the home of most politically displaced persons in the world – the largest refugee camps and internally displaced persons’ camps, where deprivation, starvation, sheer barbarous conditions, and death, reign supreme over the shattered lives of countless millions of our kinsmen.

    Some Nigerians hate to hear the truth; and they go into all sorts of intellectual gymnastics, and all sorts of romantic nonsense, in their attempts to reject the fact – that Nigeria’s history too is just a page in the destructive rampage of this Black African political hurricane. The Nigerian Federal Government set in motion the Nigerian phase of the horror story in 1962 when they embarked on an ill-advised venture to subdue the Western Region and stop its rapid march to progress. The disaster they set in motion did devastate the Western Region and stop its progress. But the hurricane they thus unleashed has swirled virulently over the face of Nigeria since then, producing military coups after military coups, assassinations after assassinations of important public officials, a sanguinary civil war that took the lives of millions of innocent folks, a long succession of ignorant and corrupt military regimes bent on promoting an ethnic agenda, and total destruction of all sense of proportion, all sense of order, and all sense of decency in the management of Nigeria’s affairs. Today, the chances are that Nigeria will break up – soon, probably very soon. More and more Nigerians are expressing the wish that Nigeria should break up, rather than that they and their children should continue to suffer in the hell that Nigeria has become. Even those politicians who are fabricating situations aimed at preserving Nigeria know that their efforts may soon be simply futile.

    When one considers this horrific political history of all of Black Africa, one cannot but ask two important questions. First, what is at the root of this Black man’s incapability to hold and properly manage the countries that European colonialists created and bequeathed to us? And second, what does the future hold in store for the Black man in Africa, and for these countries that we are messing around with? I intend to attempt answers to these questions in my next message.

  • Equal (life) and justice • Letter to Senate

    To an extent, Shakespeare was right. Often times when commoners die, they pass away unsung, it is only in rare cases that their death make the front page. When that happens, you know immediately that something extra – ordinary must have happened. Whatever it is, it is usually not palatable. So, it was on September 20 when eight persons were killed in Apo, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Abuja during a raid by a combined team of soldiers and State Security Service (SSS) officials.

    The outcry over the Apo killings was deafening not because it was the second time in eight years that such a thing was happening in the capital city, but because it was becoming routine for our security operatives to wittingly kill their compatriots. It seems our security operatives take delight in killing their civilian brethren just for the fun of it. At the drop of a hat, they are ready to shoot to kill without taking into consideration the consequences of their action.

    They are apparently quick on the trigger because they know they will get away with their despicable act. All they need do is to tag their victims robbers. And in these days of Boko Haram, their alibi is made stronger. They know that once anybody is associated with that group, he will not enjoy sympathy from the people. The SSS was counting on such support when it went to town over why it embarked on the dawn raid along with soldiers on defenceless civilians living in an uncompleted building in Apo that September.

    Most of the inhabitants were doing menial jobs. Some were commercial tricycle operators, some shoe shiners, some washer men and so on and so forth. Because of the acute accommodation problem in Abuja, they were lucky to find such a place to hide their heads for a paltry N200 or N300 per night. Undoubtedly, in a situation like that, it is quite easy for those who do not mean well for the country to find their way into such a place. It is also easy for such evil – minded people to get new converts there. But this is not to say that everybody there will harbour evil intentions or will be criminals.

    Unfortunately, this was how the SSS labelled all the occupants of the building before it set out on its mission in September. With such a mindset, the security operatives went to Apo to kill, no more no less. It was a predetermined action because they had already made up their minds about those poor fellows. As a layman in security matters, I have not ceased wondering whether the rules of the game allow security men to behave in such irrational manner when they are not sure of how to classify their target.

    Do you label the target a criminal before or after an operation? How do you know that he is a criminal without interrogating him? Do you label someone a criminal by the company he unintentionally keeps or for sharing unknowingly the same quarters with suspected criminals? In this instant case, the SSS went to the Apo building based on what it called the intelligence it received that Boko Haram suspects were hibernating there. All the security men had in their heads as they went for the mission was that they were going after Boko Haram. Since the fear of Boko Haram is the beginning of wisdom, they were prepared to kill.

    In their haste to shoot anybody they came across, they forgot their rules of engagement. No matter the intelligence they might have gathered, they should have had it at the backs of their minds that those they were going after were civilians, whether Boko Haram or not. If they chose to forget that, our senators should not have made the same mistake. The SSS men may have a score to settle with Boko Haram and other insurgents, going by what happened to some of their colleagues in the hands of the Ombatse cult in Nasarawa State a few months ago, but that is not enough reason for them to behave like those people.

    If Boko Haram and other militias are losing their heads at will, our security operatives are expected to keep theirs to show that they have what it takes to do their kind of job. If we remember we got to this pass because the police lost their cool and killed Muhammed Yusuf, the Boko Haram leader, after he was arrested and handed over to them by soldiers in 2009. If soldiers could do that despite being trained to kill, why couldn’t the police, that are trained to be civil, restrain themselves in like manner? This is why I am shocked that some senators could defend the SSS’ action in killing in cold blood the Apo 8 on September 20.

    In defending the SSS, Chairman of the Joint Senate Committee on National Security and Intelligence and Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Mohammed Magoro, who retired from the army as a general, said majority of the occupants of the Apo building cohabited with Boko Haram elements ”unknowingly”. In one breath, he described the SSS raid as ”necessary and timely” and in another, he said :”The conduct of the operatives leaves much to be desired”. Magoro was not done in his paradox of contradictions. Hear him : ”The death of eight people was not a case of extra – judicial killing but the action of an hastily executed operation”.

    I pray when you hastily execute an operation, what do you get? By now, with what happened in Apo on September 22, we all know the answer. It is sad that the Senate adopted the committee’s report. It is obvious that it did so because it felt that the lives of some of its principal officers were at risk, with the so – called Boko Haram elements as their neighbours. That is a wrong way to look at the issue. The Senate should have called the SSS to order instead of giving it the latitude to do something worse in future. The Senate, by its action, has unwittingly armed all our security agencies to engage in extra – judicial killing under the guise of ferreting out suspected criminals.

    The Senate should remember that a life is a life whether that of a prince or pauper. If the Senate deems it fit to protect its own why can’t it extend the same gesture to the commoners who voted its members to power. By its action, what the Senate is telling us is that we are only good at voting for them, but do not deserve to be protected when our lives are in danger from the very people we pay to secure us. May I commend to the Senate, these lines from Justice Chukwudifu Oputa’s verdict in a Supreme Court case in 1986 : ”In our system, it is better that nine guilty persons escape than that one innocent man is condemned”.

    Neither the Senate nor SSS gave the innocent in the September 20 tragedy the benefit of doubt. The SSS killed them and the Senate sanctioned the extra – judicial killings under the guise of fighting terrorism. Was he Magoro panel asked to look into acts of terrorism or to probe the Apo killings?

  • Black Africa’s deadly curse

    Some United Nations agencies, as well as some other voices in the international community, have for decades been making optimistic predictions to the effect that “the 21st century could be Sub-Saharan Africa’s century” or “Sub-Saharan Africa is showing signs of recovery and growth”. As a Black African, I wish sincerely that these things were true. But, at the same time, as a Black African, I know I must not lapse into self-deception about my own homeland – and that I must not lead any of my people into the folly of self-deception. This is our home and we know it is not doing well – that, in fact, it is in serious trouble.

    A few days ago, I spent a couple of hours watching a video on the current situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (or Congo-Kinshasa). The political storm that started in this country at independence, leading to the assassination of its first Prime Minister, to a major civil war, to a viciously corrupt military dictatorship, and then to an even larger second civil war, is by no means over. The rebel forces in this country are countless; most of them entrenched in the distant eastern provinces. The second major town of the Congo, the town of Kisangani in the eastern provinces, is in serious decline. In these places, all there is to see is nothing other than the stark face of poverty and barbarism. Camps of countless thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) tell stories of human deprivation at its most extreme. These eastern provinces are separated from Kinshasa, the capital city of the Congo in the west, by thousands of Africa’s thickest forests. The Congo occupies a territory larger than the whole of Western Europe. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that the government based in Kinshasa can do to bring order to the distant eastern provinces. The only arrangement that sustains the tenuous connection holding this country together is the presence of United Nations peace-keeping forces. If the justification for a country is that it ensures to its citizens life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then the Congo does not qualify to be called a country at all.

    But on the political map of Black Africa, the condition of Congo-Kinshasa is not unique in kind; it is only unique in severity. Virtually all countries of Black Africa are in serious political troubles manifesting in various horrible conditions. Somalia completely lost hold on orderly governance in 1991, and it continues to live in that disorder till today. Only last week, the United Nations and the African Union agreed to increase the number of international peace-keeping forces in Somalia. After the earth-shaking horror of genocide in Rwanda in 1994, less and less is being heard about that country, and that makes a lot of people in the wider world assume that Rwanda has stabilized – but the world needs to look out. The military junta that took power after the 1994 genocide has continued to hold on to power by authoritarian means, and even some original members of the regime have had to flee from the country to save their lives – all of which cast a shadow on the future of this country. In Uganda, the military ruler who came to power in 1986 continues to hold on to power, intent on eliminating opposition and dissent by doing everything to weaken and break up the kingdom of Buganda, Uganda’s most developed nationality. Since 2011, Buganda and some other groups have been suing for secession, and confrontation between the government and these groups is increasing. In West Africa, United Nations forces were needed to restore some modicum of governance and political stability in the Ivory Coast in 2011, and that country is by no means showing any appreciable progress towards democratic and stable government. A military coup shattered the fragile stability of Mali Republic in late 2011, opening the gate to a secession move in Mali’s northern provinces, and then the emergence of a base for terrorism in those northern provinces – a terrorist base that potently began immediately to threaten most of West Africa, and that then called into action some serious French military intervention.

    The political hurricane goes on and on all over Black Africa, generating horrific destruction, loss of lives, and blood-curdling human deprivation and suffering. We Black Africans are only 15% of the population of the human race, but we consume probably up to 70% of international peace-keeping efforts on earth. Our sub-continent is the home of most politically displaced persons in the world – the largest refugee camps and internally displaced persons’ camps, where deprivation, starvation, sheer barbarous conditions, and death, reign supreme over the shattered lives of countless millions of our kinsmen.

    Some Nigerians hate to hear the truth; and they go into all sorts of intellectual gymnastics, and all sorts of romantic nonsense, in their attempts to reject the fact – that Nigeria’s history too is just a page in the destructive rampage of this Black African political hurricane. The Nigerian Federal Government set in motion the Nigerian phase of the horror story in 1962 when they embarked on an ill-advised venture to subdue the Western Region and stop its rapid march to progress. The disaster they set in motion did devastate the Western Region and stop its progress. But the hurricane they thus unleashed has swirled virulently over the face of Nigeria since then, producing military coups after military coups, assassinations after assassinations of important public officials, a sanguinary civil war that took the lives of millions of innocent folks, a long succession of ignorant and corrupt military regimes bent on promoting an ethnic agenda, and total destruction of all sense of proportion, all sense of order, and all sense of decency in the management of Nigeria’s affairs. Today, the chances are that Nigeria will break up – soon, probably very soon. More and more Nigerians are expressing the wish that Nigeria should break up, rather than that they and their children should continue to suffer in the hell that Nigeria has become. Even those politicians who are fabricating situations aimed at preserving Nigeria know that their efforts may soon be simply futile.

    When one considers this horrific political history of all of Black Africa, one cannot but ask two important questions. First, what is at the root of this Black man’s incapability to hold and properly manage the countries that European colonialists created and bequeathed to us? And second, what does the future hold in store for the Black man in Africa, and for these countries that we are messing around with? I intend to attempt answers to these questions in my next message.

     

  • Constitutional dialogue: We need an arbiter

    He have passed through this way before. It is often the last resort of our past deceitful leaders. Motivated often by predilection for perfidious politics, they often come up with the idea of a national conference as a diversionary measure. It is a weapon freely used by Babangida, Abacha and Obasanjo not to enrich constitutional development, but to commit fraud. The nation got little joy from the conferences of 1988, 1994/95 and 2005. It is not therefore difficult to understand why President Jonathan, confronted with five months ASUU strike, facing local and international criticism over his corruption-ridden administration, and an intra-party PDP crisis that threatens his 2015 ambition, he has after four years of initial resistance to a call for a sovereign national conference to resolve the national question, suddenly changed his position without explanation.

    And for now the debate about the composition of delegates has pitched credible Nigerians with genuine concern for the health of our nation against government apologists and contractors. While Wole Soyinka has for instance suggested only elected representative of the people should be delegates, Dr Fasehun, leader of OPC militant group wants government and political parties exempted. While Ohaneze, the umbrella body for the Igbos wants equal representation of ethnic groups, the Arewa Consultative Forum has rejected the suggestion saying ethnic groups are not equal. While the Convener of the Yoruba Assembly, Gen. Alani Akinrinade (rtd), has suggested the adoption of the Pro-National Conference Organisation (PRONACO)’s 18 nationality region-structure for drawing the list of delegates, others have said the conference will be enriched if we have representative of NADECO, a body that is responsible for our current democracy.

    And still to tie the hands of President Jonathan who has publicly claimed he is never moved to action by public opinion, and who is known for tucking reports such as the Uwais electoral reform report and the Ribadu report of monumental fraud in the oil industry, that he and his party cannot exploit for political advantage, under his locker, others have suggested the involvement of United Nations representative, Britain, our ex-colonial master and other lovers of our country like ambassador Omowale Walter Carrington.

    And my sympathy lies with the last group. History is on their side. In the absence of the colonial master with a big stick, we have in the last 53 years proved incapable of producing an acceptable constitution to manage our affairs. And I think the time to stop hiding under sovereignty that died long before the age of globalization, the god the world worships today, and admit we need help is now.

    The starting point is to examine where we are coming from. Let us remember that at the height of our nationalist struggle to take over from the colonial masters, Britain had warned that it was their presence that guaranteed a measure of stability and that their departure ‘would mean for millions, a descent into the turmoil of warring sects’. This has long become a self-fulfilling prophesy. We have fought a civil war. We are currently engaged in another with Boko Haram. We are under the assault of ethnic irredentists’ sponsored militants. We are daily assaulted and assailed by armed robbers, kidnappers and thieving government ministers and lawmakers, all taking the form of warring sects as predicted.

    We can also note from insight that the golden era of our constitutional development was between 1946 and 1959. That was when the colonial masters held a big stick to ensure we behaved ourselves. The 1946 constitution which heralded in regionalism provided for unity in diversity and opened the way for participation of the nationalists and traditional rulers. The 1951 Constitution which they supervised created House of Representatives of 136 elected members, 68 from the north, 31 elected members and three members of the House of Chiefs from the West, and 34 elected members from the East. There was not just parity between the north and the south, provision for a bicameral legislature for the West and the North, was made, while the East was contented with a unicameral legislature.

    Similarly, with the supervision of the colonial masters, the 1953 London Constitutional Conference was without rancour as it allocated specific powers to the centre leaving the residual list for the regions. The 1957 Constitutional Conference paved the way for self-government for the West and the East without posing a threat to the North that was not ready. At the end, the British gave us a written constitution patterned after their own unwritten constitution that has endured only on convention for centuries.

    The question is why our written constitution collapsed in less than five years. The fault, we will discover, is not in our stars but in the character of our leaders like Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Awolowo some of whom were motivated only by greed using their ethnic groups as cover.

    Of the three dominant groups, that have been used by the political elite to hold the nation to ransom since independence, the west and its true leaders have remained faithful to its preference for a federation of ethnic nationalities where each group can develop at its own pace without posing a threat to other federating members or to the overall health of the greater Nigerian nation. As for Ahmadu Bello and Balewa, the North would only be part of a federation where they could control 50% of member of the House of Representatives and the north remains unrestrained from imposing feudal control over areas conquered during the early 19th century jihad. They got everything they wanted under the British.

    The East and its leaders have remained the most ambivalent. Zik first canvassed for a unitary system. After becoming a late convert to federalism, Zik and the political elite from the East against the spirit of the 1951 Constitution attempted to take over the West through NCNC. After the first coup of January 1966, the East and its leaders attempted imposition of unitary system through Ironsi and when that also failed, it demanded a confederal arrangement with the East controlling the oil rich minorities.

    It was the greed of northern and eastern political elite to hold on to claimed conquered territories or areas mischievously regarded as ‘no man’s land’ that brought them into coalition in the first republic. It collapsed over sharing of booty from their adventure into Mid-west following NCNC’s takeover of the new region, which was followed by NPC dumping of NCNC as a coalition partner in favour of a fringe political party also from the same Mid-west region. It is the same greed that informed their coalition in the Second Republic which also collapsed over sharing of resources that rightly belong to others. It is the same greed that has sustained the East and the North in PDP in the last 14 years.

    From the discussion so far, it is obvious Nigerians don’t trust President Jonathan, the convener of the new conference, who has continued to behave as if he is elected to serve PDP.

    And what Nigerians have for their legislators who according to the president will decide the fate of the conference, is disdain. Widely regarded as the highest paid legislators in the world, Nigerians think they serve none but themselves.

    Cynical Nigerians think without the threat of a big brother, the outcome of the conference will be more of the same. And some have even predicted if the list of nominees for the proposed conference comes out tomorrow, it is likely going to be peopled not by Nigerian national icons like Soyinka, the Nobel laureate sought after by great nations of the world to proffer solution to mankind problems, Emeka Anyaoku, the world respected former Secretary General of the 53-nation Commonwealth, and our highly principled Col. Kangiwa Abubakar. In their places, they predict we will likely have entertainers like ubiquitous Ebenezer Babatope, Ojo Maduekwe and Jerry Gana.

    Why then should we be ashamed to seek help after groping in the darkness for over 50 years (1963-2013) – those who believe we need the help of Britain have asked. If you ask me, I will say why not?

  • Kokori deserted as JTF, Kelvin’s gang battle for control

    Kokori deserted as JTF, Kelvin’s gang battle for control

    The Joint Task Force (JTF), Operation Pulo Shield, has uncovered an armoury of the suspected kidnap kingpin and leader of the Liberation Movement of Urhobo People (LiMUP), Kelvin Ibruvwe (aka Oniarah), in Koko, Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State.

    The discovery of the weaponry followed an intense push by men of the Sector 1 Command of the JTF to rid the Urhobo town of remnant of the ragtag army purportedly led by Ibruvwe, who was arrested in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on September 25.

    The Nation learnt that no fewer than 10 of Kelvin’s gang members, including his second and third in-command, Mr. Rufus Ovwigho (aka Don Jazzy), who succeeded Kelvin after his arrest and Ezegbe Ogheneruno (aka Commander Kelly) had been killed since the operation to rid the area of criminals began.

    Also, 12 members of the gang, including a member of the team which abducted a security expert, Dr. Ona Ekomu, have been arrested.

    A dilapidated storey building located off Market Road in the heart of the town was captured by the JTF during a bloody shootout, which lasted from the early hours of last Thursday till Saturday.

    The volume of arms and ammunition recovered from the building could not be ascertained, but our visit to the town yesterday showed that troops have taken over control and secured it with no fewer than 10 military checkpoints manned by stern-looking soldiers in strategic locations.

    The Commanding Officer of the 3 Battalion, Lt.-Col. Ifeanyi Otu, who spoke with reporters in the deserted town yesterday, said the internal security operation to rid the area of criminal and ensure security of life, property and to create a conducive environment for lawful activities had been carried out.

    He said: “This internal security role has been carried out by the synergy of officers and men of the services, mainly the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Department of State Services (DSS).”

    Although Lt.-Col. Otu was silent on the number of casualty, if any, resulting from the bloody duels, a source in the team, which confronted the gang members, told our reporter that they were armed with sophisticated weapons and ammunition.

    “They (youths) took position on storey buildings and fired at us for several hours. It was clear that they wanted to regain control of the community. We overpowered them and tightened our hold,” the military source added.

    A community source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said at least two members of the gang were gunned down, while others, who sustained gunshot injuries, were taken away from the scene by their members.

    However, the JTF boss lamented the activities of some of the community’s leaders, who he accused of encouraging the criminal activities of the group, stressing: “The conspiracy of silence maintained by the community leaders and especially its elders fanned the embers of these criminals. It also encouraged the establishment of a kidnap/militant groups led by Kelvin Ibruvwe.”

    The Nation’s visit yesterday showed that Kokori had become like a ghost town as over 95 per cent of its inhabitants had fled the community in the wake of the recent bloody clashes between troops and members of the armed gang. Nearly all the houses in the communities’ main quarters were empty.

    Scenes of destruction and carnage dotted the town: windows and doors were smashed. Over 50 cars and motorcycles were either destroyed or burnt. One of the victims was said to be a visitor, who drove his girlfriend to the town on Friday. His car was burnt as used to barricade the main road leading to the Egba Shrine in the centre of the town.

    The shrine was still smouldering yesterday. JTF sources said troops were engaged in an hour-long gun fight with the gangs, who took cover at the shrine before they were overpowered. The shrine was believed to render the militants invincible and bulletproof.

    The masterminds of the latest destruction were a subject of debate between the community leaders and the JTF authority.

    Residents accused troops of looting shops and houses in the wake of the abandonment of the town by residents and criminals. One of the leaders, who spoke with our reporter, said his house was among those looted.

    However, Lt.- Col. Otu debunked the allegations, saying: “The allegation of destruction and looting of property by the troops is not true. The daily administration is closely monitored by five officers; discipline is maintained as one is not unaware of the possible fallout in an operation of this nature.”

    He said the allegations were meant to draw sympathy from those who knew nothing about what was going on in the town before the current situation, adding: “It is an attempt to undermine the good work the troops are doing in Kokori, aimed at restoring law and order in a community, which hitherto drifted towards anarchy.

    “The headquarters of Sector 1 under the command of Brig.-Gen. Pat Akem has the backing of the state government to maintain law and order and restore normalcy in Kokori. It is on record that the rate of kidnapping and armed robbery has reduced in Edo and Delta states following the ongoing operations,” he added.

    Otu appealed to the indigenes to cooperate with the troops in the ongoing operations to restore normalcy.

  • Another class story (1)

    We do strange things. Like crickets gone nuts, we chirp in riotous indignation at the whirlpool of tragedy that has become the Nigerian dream. But we will do nothing about it. Thus when opportunity beckons for us to gird our loins and change our stars, we swallow discontent like a sweet pill and entrust our destinies to familiar undertakers committed to devastation and plunder.

    Back when we aspired to be adults, we attempted to do such stuff that higher animals are made of; like democracy and bloodless revolutions – even in the face of abject truism that there could never be a revolution without bloodbath.

    The democracy we declared has recoiled into a spent shadow. Fourteen years on in the grip of blood-drenched mascots, it pilfers our sweetest fantasies like the proverbial slut making a surreptitious exit with her drunken lover’s wallet.

    With a little more deliberation in our choice of character, we could essentially become something more than shriveled capillaries for familiar vermin to suck from. But we have not yet gotten a hang of the process of choosing an outlook and creditable character – which serves to reinforce that sincere and passionate belief that somewhere between men and cattle, God created a tertium quid and called it ‘Nigerian.’ Sincere apology to God.

    Nigerian – a clownish, simple creature, at times even enchanting within its limitations but ultimately foredoomed to fulfill a prophecy of folly, blind pride and insatiable lust. It is never my wish to subject our kind to such reckless deprecation but even as you read, the average Nigerian, working class and enfant terrible elite alike, are perfecting innumerable plots to self-destruct; by the second.

    As usual, behind those suicidal plots lurks a postscript; and predictably, regret – emotive shingles that constitute our second nature. And so do we stand ignorant and confused, half-conscious mutter of men that we have become; craving the essence of humanity and freedom only to forsake it for a token, a sentiment or fleeting vanity at election time. Just like we did last April.

    We have become such recipients of freedom that are yet unsure of their right to enjoy it. This is the tangle of witlessness and resignation that requires us all to become better patriots and rejuvenators of the Nigerian dream. If we look carefully inwards, we will find that beneath our passiveness and utter cowardice agitates a quest for self-preservation and gruesome airs – which further perpetuates our fate as a stalwart labour force foredoomed to specious dreams and profitless endeavours.

    Time and over again, a few critics and self-styled leaders of thought have decried our unabashed idiocy, fraudulence and lack of guts; such curious kinks of the Nigerian mind and society unfortunately do exist at a grievous price, and must be reckoned with. Yet these shameful twists to our psyches make us even more vulnerable as fair game to Nigeria’s gangs of vicious, ruling elite.

    The Nigerian ruling class, despite their brutishness cannot be wished away or successfully weeded out by violence or bloodshed even if we tried. And yet they must not be allowed continual access to leadership and power. It’s about time we accepted them as the grotesque manifestations of the Nigerian factor; monstrosities standing in the way of civilization, progress and common decency.

    They can only be confronted and eliminated by an expansion in breadth of human reason, catholicity of will and culture. The native aspiration of such men to loot our coffers and feed their greed must not be encouraged any further. Nor should we persist with our pitiful complacency and eagerness to acquiesce to their boorish enterprises, for the love of a token.

    It’s about time we dealt decisively with such degenerate elite that we sheepishly endure as Nigeria’s ruling class. But how? How can we stage a peaceful but decisive revolt without bloodletting? Is the current crop of youth identifiable as Nigeria’s working class and future leaders capable of such challenging and fundamentally noble exploit?

    No. But we could be soon. The Nigerian working class indeed personifies some ponderous metaphor: to stimulate our wildly weak and untamed minds is to ignite a ravenous and uncontrollable fire; and to persistently impede our rudderless enterprises is to incite our volatile minds to a harvest of violence and bloodletting.

    To these bothersome questions and contradictory tributaries of thought, the potent and yet inadequately explored panacea of Education towers above all others. We live in dire need of such human training that will awaken our minds to the timeless knowledge inherent in the ideal and the practical, the realistic and the fantastic, the permanent and the contingent, in a workable equilibrium.

    The Nigerian working class as we have now comprises of two fractions of inconsequential beings: the cantankerous, irrational illiterate and innately savage kind constituted by menial workers, police officers, petty traders, street urchins and appallingly, students among others.

    The other fraction consists of the so-called articulate, cultured and progressive breed comprising young, upwardly mobile professional doctors, engineers, journalists, lawyers, and teachers to mention a few. Members of both divides constituting the nation’s working class are appallingly invested with bitter cynicism, jadedness and despondency.

    They exhibit as much bestiality, irresponsibility and irrationality as the much despised ruling elite particularly in instances demanding inviolable tact, sensitivity and maturity. Fans’ reaction to national team performances in the highly competitive game of soccer for instance presents a worthy yardstick by which the degree of humanity and maturity of the Nigerian working class may be judged.

    Not too long ago, Nigerian soccer fans launched a violent attack against the national team over perceived irresponsibility and lackluster performance of the team which cost the country a place at an African Cup of Nations tournament. That wasn’t the first time Nigerian soccer fans conducted themselves as lower brutes, for the love of football. And it wasn’t the first time either that Nigerian journalists and the high and mighty intellectual court of public opinion would excuse such behavior – thus applauding it – as some form of “highly emotional” and worthy response to the national team’s plodding and disappointing performance.

    Yet we fail to mete out similar treatment to the country’s ruling class even as they rob the nation blind and foredoom us all to everlasting poverty and decline. It is no doubt obvious that we are incapable of certain vital rational, cognitive and affective sensitivities. A secondly, hourly and daily appraisal of Nigerians chosen randomly across both classes for instance, “revealed glaring abnormalities in their psychological constitution” according to recent sociological finding by a team of university researchers.

    How could such vitally impaired characters be trusted to conduct their affairs appropriately and judiciously? This brings us back to the significance of an ingenuous process of human training in the struggle to build a progressive and formidable movement of the people for the people and by the people.

    Democracy is simply never enough. Nigeria will never become that model nation of our dreams until we learn to evolve a social process that enables sufficient nurturing and guidance of thought and fundamentally adroit coordination of deeds – prime sureties to the path to true freedom, peace, equality, justice and national progress.

    This brings us back again to the issue of quality education.

    •To be continued…

  • Needful hangover from above

    Needful hangover from above

    WHAT will President Goodluck Jonathan do to please Nigerians?

    Even a brief illness – a routine for millions of Nigerians who throng the hospitals when our easily provoked doctors are not on strike – has become a subject of scurrilous attacks on his integrity.

    Dr Jonathan fell ill the other day in London. In the spirit of the openness and transparency that have characterised his highly successful but much maligned Transformation Agenda (T.A.), his spokesman Dr Reuben Abati issued a statement, saying his principal was “ indisposed” and had sought “precautionary” medical attention.

    That was all the President’s traducers needed. They pounced on him with the ferocity of a hungry lion. They said Jonathan was not ill, but battling a big hangover after hitting the bottle so hard on his birthday, which coincided with the London trip. Hangover? How? All attempts by Abati to ram it into the heads of the purveyors of this treasonable rumour that his boss is a teetotaller failed.

    What kind of drink can induce a presidential hangover – if any has ever occurred anywhere in the world? Johnnie Walker? Bicardi Rum? Scorpion Vodka? Scotch Whisky on ice? English Whisky? Cognac on the rock? Brandy with soda or plain Brandy?

    The debate on the etymology of “hangover”, its politics and social impact has been raging in boardrooms, newsrooms and varsity staff rooms where idle teachers-beer glasses in their hands – have been coming up with strange and scary effects of alcoholism. Teachers have so much idle time now – no thanks to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike – to propound esoteric theories, some of which could actually be treasonable but for the characteristic magnanimity of the Jonathan administration.

    When is a man (or a woman) said to be having a hangover? Does a hangover indicate a state of recovery from bingeing? Can’t a hangover result from the stress of office? Or a six-hour flight? Do presidents have hangovers? Is a hangover a medical condition? When should a man visit the doctor as a “precautionary” measure?

    Unknown to his traducers, Dr. Jonathan was already fit as a fiddle after a few hours rest – as prescribed by his doctors. He then went on to attend the Honourary International Investors Council (HIIC) meeting, the opening of which he missed. They, those idle fellows apparelled in critics’ garbs, then launched into another round of wicked speculations. If it was no hangover, how come he recovered so fast? What was the nature of his illness? Waving the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, they demanded to know Jonathan’s health status.

    Even when he returned to Abuja and told reporters that he actually had some health “challenge”, the questions did not cease. Wetin be challenge? Tell us if na hangover or no be hangover; chikenah, some said scornfully.

    Thus, “hangover”, an ordinarily harmless word that is commonly used among beer parlour patrons, pepper soup joints clients, night clubbers and excited street revellers, has found its way into national reckoning as part of our presidential lexicon.

    But, dear reader, today’s column is not about “hangover” and its complex theories. It is all about those words and phrases that have been etched indelibly in our minds this year because of how they have been deployed by some key personalties.

    By now, those civil servants of old must be ruing the way officialese has been battered by the very people who should be its custodians, all because the civil servant has been relegated to the background by the political appointee. The other day in Abuja, a minister told of how she got a memo for the purchase of two bullet proof cars. In the memo, there was nothing like this: “ I have been directed to inform you that after a careful deliberation and in consideration of the fact that there are security challenges in the country, it has been well advised and it has been so accepted that the ministry should buy two armoured vehicles for the Honourable Minister… . Please, accept the assurances of my esteemed highest regards. Your obedient servant… .”

    Not anymore. We are in the age of Short Message Service (SMS). The minister – no prize for guessing who she is, dear reader – simply replied: “Do the needful.” You can imagine what the reply would have been in those days.

    Until the Dependent –sorry, a slip there – Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deployed it to break the tragic news that was the Anambra State governorship election, nobody really cared about the word “inconclusive”. It had no place in our political lexicon. It barged in on us like “annul” did in 1993 when the military regime of the self-styled president, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, halted the announcement of that year’s presidential election – Nigeria’s fairest and freest ever – which frontline businessman Chief Moshood Abiola was set to win.

    INEC agreed that the Anambra election was rendered inconclusive by a cocktail of irregularities – late arrival of materials and officials, voter register confusion (many names were missing), thuggery and sheer sabotage (as in the case of Idemili North) – but refused to cancel the exercise. Why? Any logic here?

    There is no need for INEC to hang on to its unpopular decision, like a Premier League referee. If it insists that the inconclusive election will stand, does it not imply that the exercise had been compromised ab initio?

    INEC chair Prof Attahiru Jega is a man of integrity, but this Anambra show has failed all tests of integrity. He need not be scared to do the needful. He should apologise to the electorate for letting them down, pull the brakes on the planned supplementary election – you can’t supplement a doomed venture – and get set for a fresh poll. No need for grandstanding. No need for arrogance. No need for deceit.

    They called themselves the Group of Seven (G7, for short) but the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) labelled them “rebels”. The seven governors said they were fighting for reforms in the party, threatening that should they not have their way, they would leave. Five of them quit on Tuesday.

    The PDP leadership thought it was all a joke. Why label them rebels; to bring back memories of the war? Will PDP keep Nigeria at war perpetually? Now, the PDP’s rebels are heroes of the All Progressives Party (APC), which is fighting to save our democracy from the brink to which the PDP has recklessly taken it.

    As the PDP battled to rein in its “rebel” governors, it got support from the Presidency and the police. The police, following “orders from above”, smashed a ceremony at which new teachers were to be presented letters of appointment in Port Harcourt. The New PDP’s offices in Abuja and Port Harcourt were sealed off after the police got “orders from above”. A meeting of governors at the Kano Governor’s Lodge in Abuja was invaded; the police had “orders from above”. The police should not be deceived; Nigerians know that finding among them a spiritual giant who may be getting heavenly instructions is like finding a needle in a hay sack. Many Nigerians will readily proclaim that “above” is the Villa. Can’t the police be more creative?

    There are so many other fascinating words and phrases, thanks to the inventiveness of our talented politicians. If they build a public toilet and give youths motorcycles, they call in television stations to beam to us all their “giant strides”. And when it is time for elections, they buy cutlasses and axes for youths–all in the name of “youth empowerment”.Whatever they do, they say it is to “move the nation forward”, even as they, by their actions, engage the reverse gear.

    No matter what you say about the Nigerian politician, you can’t accuse him of not being creative, most of the time in the negative sense. He knows how to choose his words and use them to the fullest effect.

    A bloody nose for PDP

    Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chair Bamanga Tukur says he is “shocked”– I hope his doctors are on the alert for any eventuality– that five of its governors have fled like rats from a sinking ship. The party should, by now, be ruing the day it decided to enthrone impunity over justice and division over unity, setting one group against another and mixing personal interest with party interests, even as it paid little attention to governance. Its loss of five governors –more to follow – to the All Progressives Party (APC) will surely hurt its foolish dream of ruling Nigeria for 60 years.

    The APC has been called a party of strange bedfellows. But its leading lights have said that the guiding principle is to save Nigeria’s democracy from the political barracudas in the PDP, which has made a mess of almost all the sectors –economy, education, security and more. The government has been fighting corruption with all its might, but corruption keeps growing. It has been crying rule of law, vowing to respect the constitution, yet impunity rules. It has been sloganeering about free and fair elections, yet ballots get battered.

    There is no need to cry for the PDP. It has all the opportunities to make life comfortable for us all, but it lacks the tools – leadership and character. Isn’t that what politics is all about?

  • Politics in Ekiti in 2014

    In the last three years, unlike before, Ekiti has experienced stability in governance and politics. This was something that we never had before and it is my hope and the hope of all our people that this would remain the same in 2014. We have been lucky to have a governor and legislature that are performing as expected by the people. We are of course in a democracy and no one is perfect and democracy is based on competition of ideas and personalities. But in any democracy that is worth its name, there is no need for changing a winning team. In the last three years, Ekiti has witnessed tremendous transformation in its infrastructure. Where there were no roads, roads have been built. Where roads were not completed as in my hometown of Okemessi, they have now been completed.

    The capital city of Ado-Ekiti has also witnessed a transformation that was beyond normal expectation. Secondary school students are being trained in the use of computers and are being given laptops to assist them in their education. The social welfare sector has witnessed changes for the better. Hospitals are being revamped and new ones built. The water sector is also receiving attention. All these things are things that we all can see. We would of course want our state to be put on the pedestal of the most developed state in the country inspite of our limited resources. Ekiti has not reached that level yet, but if we maintain stability and peace as has been the case in the last three years, we would get there.

    Under Governor Kayode Fayemi, the tertiary education sector, has witnessed great strides in its march towards excellence. A visit to Ekiti State University and the College of Education in Ikere would show the tremendous physical transformation that has taken place in the tertiary education sector. More can still be done in every aspect of our life in Ekiti, but it would be unkind for anybody to dismiss what has been achieved. Visitors from outside the state always marvel at the excellent network of roads linking our various towns and villages. I myself saw this in a new road between Ikogosi and Efon Alaaye which was hardly traversed by many vehicles, but which also demonstrates that the current administration is well and alive to its responsibilities.

    There can be no development in an atmosphere of chaos and instability. This is why any attempt to disturb the peace of Ekitiland should be decried and resisted by all right thinking people. While political competition should be welcomed, we should never allow bloodletting and thuggery to prevail in our state. I’m not a politician but I can see with my eyes and hear with my ears and I know for sure that Ekiti people are favourably disposed to the current administration of John Kayode Fayemi. Our people have a saying that ‘when your masquerade dances very well in the public, one’s head is bound to swell with pride’. This present governor is dancing well and representing Ekiti in the outside world of Nigeria and abroad, creditably. We are known for our academic prowess and intellectual erudition and Fayemi represents all these in human physical form. It is always a matter of pride for me to listen to him make presentations or to read what he has written or to hear the comments of even his fellow governors about how lucky we are to have a scholar governor. A prophet is without honour but in his own country. We are now living under grace and our prophet should have honour in their own countries. This man Kayode Fayemi should have honour in his own state of Ekiti.

    This brings me to the next election in 2014. The struggle is between the main opposition PDP which nationally is in disarray and doesn’t seem to pose much challenge to the incumbent administration in Ekiti. Opeyemi Bamidele, technically an APC member of the House of Representative who says he wants to contest for governor in spite of the fact that his party has endorsed the incumbent, poses no risk to the government in power and I believe he knows it. There is no need for violence. The sky is wide enough for a thousand birds to fly and as Chairman Mao said “let a thousand flowers bloom.” Opeyemi Bamidele’s entry into the gubernatorial contest should be welcomed without any acrimony. It is unfortunate that some people driven more by enthusiasm than wisdom have been arrested for being involved in murder of an opponent. We pray that this would not happen again and our elders should speak out that this is not the way of Ekiti people. We are known for our honesty and forthrightness and truth and courage. We should let all these attributes guide our action. Violence is against all we stand for in our state and anybody involved in violence should be sanctioned.

    Inflammatory statements should be avoided especially for people in the opposition because no government would want to unleash violence on his people. The onus is on the opposition and those who are being manipulated from outside and from Abuja to cause violence in Ekiti with the hope of unleashing violence and might of the federal government on our progressive state. Politics is not war and all things foul and fair should not be permitted in politics. Deceit and lies and promises that cannot be met should be deprecated. One should avoid throwing stones into one’s own father’s house. A man who wants to be governor can only be governor over a peaceful state. And we should not throw away the peaceful achievement of the last three years which outsiders have always envied us for as the most peaceful state in the country. Any young man who has ambition of being governor should wait for his time, but it is not likely that Ekiti Central Senatorial zone that has produced two civilian governors since 1999 would produce another one in 2014, no matter the resources available to him from a neighbouring oil-producing state. Ekiti people may be poor individually, but we are not for sale.

  • Troubling thoughts on the national conference

    Chief Ayo Fasanmi, former Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, spoke a few days ago, in an interview, about the National Conference which President Jonathan has initiated. In summary, his opinion is that President Jonathan’s calling of a National Conference is merely diversionary. I am sure that if Chief Fasanmi met me and we talked about this, he would want me to comment publicly on what he has said.

    To that end, here is how I would start. I believe that most Nigerians, and citizens of the Nigerian Southwest, who read Chief Fasamni’s reported comments some days ago know him only as one of the NigerianSenators of the Second Republic (1979-83) and, perhaps, also as a major actor in the dangerous politics of the Abacha era. I, however, know him deeper in the politics of our land. I know him as a major actor in a tougher chapter of our history. In my last column (last week), I wrote briefly the story of how we the youths of the Western Region erupted in late 1965, after the powers controlling Nigeria had blatantly rigged our Western Regional election of that year. Well, Chief Fasanmi was our highest man in that fight – a fight in which we, young men and women of the Yoruba Western Region, bluntly rejected the huge insult of the rigging of our Regional election, and pitched our little strength determinedly and unyieldingly against all the powers of the Nigerian state – against the Nigerian Federal Government, our own Regional Government, the Nigeria Police and secret services, and even some sections of the Nigerian Army. As President of the Action Group Youth Association, Chief Fasanmi was the leader of our central command, the coordinator of the minds that shaped and moved that glorious struggle. I cannot let pass the opportunity to say that those of us who worked by his side in that high command remember him forever as an indomitable and dependable warrior and leader, a man dedicated to the highest and best in our nation’s values.

    As for the National Conference, I agree totally with Chief Fasanmi that President Jonathan’s sudden conversion to the need for a National Conference is a diversionary political move. I am absolutely persuaded that that is so. The PDP party that brought President Jonathan to the presidency was in shambles. Slowly but surely, it seemed to be stumbling towards total dissolution. President Jonathan’s chance for one more term which he desired seemed to be crumbling. In spite of his earlier statements opposing a National Conference, he and his advisers could see that most of the peoples of Nigeria desired, and would gratefully embrace, a National Conference. So, the President converted – and he announced that he was calling a National Conference.

    A major Nigerian party, APC, has been saying for weeks, like Senator Fasanmi, that President Jonathan’s National Conference is only a diversion. I believe that most Nigerians areagreedwith the APC in this matter. I don’t believe that it is difficult to see that President Jonathan saw the issue of National Conference as a political life-line and grabbed it. Even among PDP stalwarts whom I have chanced to engage in conversation on the National Conference issue – I mean those PDP stalwarts who still belong to the Jonathan fragmentof the PDP and who strongly back his re-election bid –many have no illusion that their man’s sudden call for a National Conference was a political move aimed at saving his politicalambition. They say it is a smart diversionary move – and I agree. But it is a diversionary move nevertheless.

    However, the biggest thing now is thatwe, the nationalities that make up Nigeria, are desperate for a major change in the manner in which our common country has been crooked up. The situation calls for serious – nay, desperate – urgency. Our so-called Federal Government has become a demolition crew violently wrecking our country. Under its battering ram, our states have become dangerously impotent. Most parts of our country are retrogressing. Even the Federal Government itself admits that 60.9 percent of us Nigerians now live in absolute poverty. More than 75 percent of our youths are unemployed. In the more literate parts of our country (such as the Southwest) countless families are housing and providing for their young men and women who graduated from universities up to five years ago. Recently, I met one husband and wife whose five children are university graduates (two of them with Masters Degrees), all of whom are unemployed. Under these conditions, various species of sophisticated crimes are flourishing in our country – kidnapping for ransom, murder-for-hire, superior electronic frauds, outright terrorism, etc. More and more Nigerians are erecting barricades around their homes, and we are becoming a people living in self-imposed prisons. We are breeding a whole generation immersed in the culture of desperation, crookednessand deep-seated vileness. Nigerian nationalities are, more and more, becoming enemies of one another.

    That all these may result in the breaking up of Nigeria is no longer in doubt. No country whose society is being pulverized the way the Nigerian society is being pulverized can possibly live as one country for long. In fact, the greater fear now is this: Even if Nigeria scatters into many different countries, will the human materials now being generated in Nigeria be able to build any decent countries out of the fragments? In the context of Nigeria, is our whole future as peoples not being totally destroyed? Should we not now quickly dissolve Nigeria before Nigeria totally destroys us and all our future – before it is too late?

    Therefore, our nationalities as nationalities must seize every and any chance to re-order this country. We have no choice other than to grab the Jonathan National Conference and struggle together to use it to carry out needed changes. We must restructure our federation in a hurry. Either that or total disaster. No third possibility exists.

    Since independence, our nations have shown in various ways that they reject the excessive weight being given to the Federal centre in the life of Nigeria. Their reactions and resistance have created various difficult situations in our history. The Ijaw peoples of the Delta have been resisting might and mane, and sacrificing many of their youths, since virtually the day of independence. The Igbo led a secessionist move that provoked a terrible civil war and took the lives of millions of people. The Yoruba have, since even before independence, urged persistently that the Nigerian Federation be properly and rationally structured. Virtually all major political movements among the Yoruba, even if they disagree on other things, have come out clearly in support of a rational structuring of the Nigerian federation. In the course of the 1990s, the Yoruba came close to seeking secession rather than continuing as part of a federation that is destroying its component peoples.

    Thus, we Nigerians confront two truths concerning the Jonathan National Conference. The first truth is that President Jonathan’s calling of the National Conference is a diversionary political move, aimed at keeping his bid for another term alive. It is unlikely that he had any other intention beyond that. And the second truth is that we the nations that constitute Nigeria so desperately need to carry out very major changes in the structure and life of our country that we must accept the Jonathan National Conference and work mightily with it.

    The ball is therefore in President Jonathan’s court. Irrespective of his intentions for calling the National Conference, he must now work with our nationalities to make the conference an outstanding success. This may be the last chance left for Nigeria.

  • Adebanjo Vs new Yoruba leaders

    Pa Ayo Adebanjo’s interview in The Punch last week confirms why whatever he says has an attentive audience among his Yoruba people whom he along with other revered elders have served creditably for upward of 50 years. As was in his character, he stated without ambiguity the unanimity of thought on the recurring issue of the national question by his Yoruba people. According to him, it is “only a mad man who will oppose dialogue”. Yoruba position has always been that the national question can be resolved only through a national sovereign conference.

    However, some of his admonitions: that his Yoruba people should trust President Jonathan; that Awo never went into coalition with strange bed fellows; that ACN ought not to associate with Tom Ikimi who served Abacha’s despicable regime as well as Muhammadu Buhari who although is incorruptible but a non-progressive religious fundamentalist; that the Yoruba will not vote APC because of APC leaders’ visitation to Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar who should be jointly held responsible for the killing and prevention of a Yoruba son from ruling the country.

    I think Pa Adebanjo’s above declarations did serious damage to the Yoruba cultural advancement and political consciousness.

    Adebanjo no doubt knows that trust is earned among the Yoruba. But here we have President Jonathan who seems to be at war against Nigerians since his election, who provides refuge to corrupt elements, whose open display of politics of ‘the end justifies the means’ is on display at both the national and state levels; this is a president who has tucked away inside his locker, the reports of past dialogues, the Uwais electoral reform report, the Ribadu report among piles of others from the National Assembly unattended to. I am sure Pa Adebanjo knows that as much as we hold our leaders in high esteem, they are incapable of influencing who the Yoruba people trust. Awo himself as far back as 1952 said that the Yoruba will not vote for you because you are Yoruba if they cannot see an added value you are going to add to their lives.

    But the Yoruba knew Abiola, who used the old western state scholarship to study accountancy in Britain, but was to later deploy his newspaper to mislead and wage war against Awo the leader of the progressives, was an enemy of the progressives. The Yoruba knew the difference between him, Babangida and Abacha, and other military apologists who made their fortunes through the state was that unlike others, Abiola ploughed back what he took to solve social problems across the country, a strategy that earned him a landslide victory in the 1993 election. Yoruba that contributed to that victory and fought to defend his mandate on principle can be trusted to make an informed judgment if and when confronted with making a choice between PDP and APC in 2015.

    Yes from hindsight we can say Awo was right to have resisted marriage of convenience in 1959. At least Pa Adebanjo accepted in the interview under focus that he along with our other respected elders (Afenifere) were misled by Babangida and Abdulsalami to support Obasanjo. As it turned out, Obasanjo and his self-serving mainstreamers only used Yoruba to build private empires and private universities while destroying the public institutions our revered leaders including Adebanjo put in place. The South-west mainstreamers used our people as stepping stone to join their counterparts in the east and the north who according to Alabi Isamah have jointly ruled our country since independence.

    But it is doubtful if Awo who applied a lot of intellectual rigour to finding solution to Nigeria’s problems will in 2013 still stick to a 1959 failed experiment as being canvassed by Adebanjo. Were he to be faced with similar choice of canvassing true federalism where each group can control her own destiny as against marriage of convenience as occurred between NPC and NNNC, he would most probably be compelled to embrace today’s Afenifere Renewal Group option, designed to achieve the same objective without danger to the health of the Yoruba people who can look up to a pan Nigerian national party that can serve as a balance of terror to desperate PDP hawks interested only in self preservation.

    And finally perhaps as a result of Pa Adebanjo’s unhidden war with the Afenifere Renewal Group that was accused of removing the carpet from under their feet, he would rather endure PDP than support any group ACN is linked with. For instance while insisting he “has no good word for the PDP,” which for him “are intolerable”; he also says he cannot ask PDP to be thrown away because like PDP, APC is an amalgam of strange bedfellows. Since according to him APC is a coalition designed only to uproot PDP from power, “he is not ready to move from frying pan to fire”. In other words, Pa Adebanjo is by inference saying we should allow PDP to continue its 14 years of mismanagement, of corruption and of national and international embarrassment. If this represents the view of the old Afenifere that Adebanjo speaks for, then it is clear there is a disconnect between our revered fathers and the over 40 million Yoruba whose today’s tenor, tune and tone they are unable to decipher.

    Now as it was in the first and second republics, the omen is potent. PDP is deploying state resources, logistics and security apparatuses to undermine the efforts of the governments of the Yoruba states that pose no threat to the party’s ongoing looting but only want to be left alone to manage their own affairs. PDP Abuja headquarters that has been busy suspending elected PDP governors for alleged anti-party activities have been fueling intra-party feuds in Yorubaland. They recently hailed Opeyemi Bamidele’s efforts at destabilising his party in Ekiti. In Ondo, Mimiko who was aided to retrieve his stolen mandate from PDP by Ahmed Tinubu has today become more PDP than PDP. Because of the strategic importance of Ondo State and its capacity to destabise South-west, Mimiko, a governor on the platform of Labour Party, had the singular honour of nominating PDP minister from Ondo. In line with PDP and the President’s perfidious brand of politics, in place of PDP candidate in the last Ondo State election, it was Mimiko that got massive Abuja support. Three days after his victory, Mimiko was in Abuja celebrating the birthday of the president’s wife. Dr. Frederick Fasehun who was recently engaged in public altercation over pipeline monitoring contracts with its other splinter Oodua group seems to be going ahead with state support to register his Unity Party of Nigeria in spite of existing decrees and laws banning use of names of banned political parties.

    Response to our unresolved national question requires new approach beyond hiding behind principles, philosophy ideology within a system where other actors behave like gangsters, guided by neither rules mores nor culture, and where even the judiciary has come under severe assault. Adebanjo has already expressed joy that PDP was uprooted from Yoruba land, without asking for the methodology the new generation of Yoruba political leaders like Chief Bisi Akande, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Wale Oshun, Niyi Adebayo, Segun Osoba and other young Yoruba intellectuals adopted to achieve the feat.

    Without resorting to “operation wet e” they have retrieved stolen mandates in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun from Obasanjo and his PDP Yoruba mainstreamers. They have gone ahead to mobilize, winning elections in Ogun, Oyo and Edo states. The young men at the helms of affairs in these states are said to be setting the pace of development for other states to follow. What more can our revered fathers ask for? If protecting this new achievement requires cohabitation of the new political leaders with our yesterday’s perceived enemies or those without the progressive badge, they have earned our trust to decide on our behalf. I am sure Awo in whose name the old and ‘renewal’ Afenifere fathers and sons swear will be happy in his grave that “in the destruction of the noble line, there is always a survivor”.