The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • A judge’s parting shot

    At a time like this, it is easy to overlook certain issues in the polity. This may not be deliberate though; it may be caused by the importance attached to the unfolding events. In the past few weeks, things have been happening at a frenetic pace, especially on the political scene. The biggest political event so far is the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) election and its fall-out. Since that May 24 election, the NGF has not been the same.

    Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi was returned as chairman of the Forum, but his Plateau State counterpart Da Jonah Jang is contesting that. As a father, which his prefix, Da, stands for, Jang does not seem to be fatherly in his disposition on this matter. As one of the elderly governors in the Forum, Jang should be seen promoting peace and good conduct and not what can divide the Forum. He has the right to be the chairman of NGF, but the question he should answer honestly and truthfully is did win the May 24 election?

    Although, he claimed to have won, but the figures say otherwise. According to the poll, Amaechi won by 19 votes to Jang’s 16. It is quite disturbing that an election among 35 governors, who were at the May 24 meeting, would become this messy. It is more worrisome that those who should be the embodiment of democracy are the ones working against the outcome of a free and fair election. What example are they trying to set? From the look of things, the parties are not ready to sheathe their swords. Another domineering political event was the Obasanjo stinker on the capability of President Goodluck Jonathan to run the country. On the social plane, we have the ongoing military onslaught against Boko Haram; the series of kidnapping and robbery.

    When events happen at dizzying pace like this, it is possible to miss out on some of the actions and one of such events was the parting shot of a former judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Okechukwu Okeke. Justice Okeke bowed out of the Bench last month on attaining the retirement age of 65. About 13 days to his retirement on May 19, he got a letter from the National Judicial Council (NJC), reprimanding him for alleged misconduct. He was ‘’seriously warned’’ because he was on his way out of service. If he was not about to retire, chances are that he might have been suspended or recommended for retirement for ‘no just reason’ as we have now been made to know by Justice Okeke.

    When the NJC took its decision, Justice Okeke could not talk because he was still in service eventhough he was not happy with the action. He burned with rage in silence because of the ‘injustice’ done him. Justice Okeke felt the NJC was not fair to him, but he could not go to court to seek justice because he is a judge, which must bear whatever is thrown at him, whether true or false in silence. Let’s face it, many of us do or say things against judges which are not true and get away with it because by virtue of their jobs they are to be seen and not to be heard. By so doing, we tend to forget that these judges are human. All we need do is to put ourselves in their position and see how it feels when people malign us at will and we are unable to fight back.

    With their hands tied by the nature of their jobs, many judges suffer in silence for things they didn’t do.If we the unlearned, and I used that word advisedly, can make wild allegations against ‘’learned judges’’, what do we say when learned brother – judges make such allegations against each other. Dogs, we are told, don’t eat dogs, but in some cases, judges have been known to sacrifice their learned fellow judges where such judges refuse to do their bidding. In most cases, such bidding is to pervert justice. A judge, no matter his relationship with parties in a matter before him, is expected to uphold the scale of justice.

    The scale of justice is a blindfolded lady wielding a sword within a dangling pendulum. What this means is that a judge must be blind to the parties before him to be able to do justice with the sword. The sword will be applied on the offending party no matter how powerful; influential or connected he may be. A judge is expected to be blind to a fellow judge if that judge has a case before his learned brother in order to be fair to the other party. But in our society where anything goes, our judges seem to find it difficult to uphold justice without fear or favour; affection or illwill as demanded by their oath. Why? Because of extraneous matters.

    The truth is a judge who cannot look his own wife or son in the eye and do justice is not fit to be on the Bench. If a judge’s wife or son commits a crime and she or he is brought before His Lordship, the best he can do is to recuse(excuse) himself from the matter rather than break his oath for his family’s sake. If judges are not expected to break their oath for their families, can they do so for their fellow judges, whether senior or junior to them? The answer is no. If that be the case, why then did former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Alloysius Katsina-Alu allegedly ask suspended Court of Appeal President Justice Ayo Salami to influence the judgment on the Sokoto State Governorship Election Petition Appeal case? Justice Salami refused.

    Justice Katsina-Alu as then NJC chairman used his privileged position to get Justice Salami suspended and the learned justice is suffering from that injustice till today. Justice Okeke may have met with the same fate if he was not due to retire last month. He got away with a warning, but the decision irked him because he felt he didn’t do anything to warrant it. This made him to spill the beans at the valedictory session for him in Lagos on May 27. Justice Okeke claimed that he got into trouble because of his handling of a case involving the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) and former Oceanic Bank Managing Director Mrs Cecilia Ibru. An order he granted in the case affected a daughter of Supreme Court Justice Clara Bata-Ogunbiyi.

    He claimed he was informed

    by the Chief Judge of the

    Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, that Justice Bata-Ogunbiyi was not happy with him over the order. The justice later sent her daughter to see him over the matter, he said, adding that he informed her to file the necessary papers if she was not satisfied with the ruling which led to her ejection from her Ikoyi, Lagos home. This, he claimed, informed one of the petitions against him before the NJC. He said he responded to the petition and challenged the NJC to publish his reaction. The NJC has not taken up Justice Okeke’s challenge. Rather the Council is behaving as if all is well. All is not well at all.

    The NJC owes it a duty to clear the air over this matter. Did Justice Bata-Ogunbiyi try to influence Justice Okeke to pervert justice as he alleged? Was Justice Bata-Ogunbiyi invited by the NJC to react to Justice Okeke’s allegations? Was she investigated by the NJC in order to verify Justice Okeke’s claim? If she wasn’t, why did NJC overlook the matter? Is it that Justice Bata-Ogunbiyi is above the law? Can Justice Okeke’s response be made public for all to see? If CJN Mariam Muktar Aloma is serious about her ongoing reform of the judiciary, this should be a test case for her. Justice Okeke is willing and ready to talk (or is it testify?) on the matter because he believes he has been wronged. He wants justice and the only way he can get that is to reopen this case and let the parties appear before the NJC. Anything short of this will amount to sweeping the matter under the matter.

    As for what the Supreme Court Chief Registrar Sunday Olorundahunsi said in response to Justice Okeke’s allegations, the man should know that this does not involve the apex court per se. It is an issue between two individuals, Her Ladyship and Justice Okeke, so he should let them sort things out on their own terms. When the court is attacked, Olorundahunsi can speak for it. But in Okeke versus Her Ladyship, he cannot speak for the justice except if she hires him as her lawyer. I rest my case.

  • London’s broad daylight murder

    When the BBC and CNN reported that a 25 year old British soldier had been killed in Woolwich, South of London, by Muslim fanatics, my mind immediately went to Arabs or Pakistanis as possible culprits. When the photographs of two blacks were shown without their names being mentioned, I immediately felt they must have been West Indians who converted to Islam. I came to this conclusion because as a graduate student in London, I sometimes witnessed violent eruptions from West Indian young men. Then when the news report said these two young men were of African descent, I could not in my wild imaginations guess that they would be Nigerians. Eventually, when they were said to be people of Nigerian descent and with the Abdulmutalab experience in mind, I immediately felt they may be my compatriots from the north. This is a story of prejudice because that is what it is, and it is unpardonable. Eventually, the truth came home and the two of them were Nigerians of Yoruba Muslim descent. Even this last statement would not be correct because the two of them were born into Christian middle-class background and both were named after the Angel Michael.

    The story is that they converted to Islam in London in 2008 and that both of them came under the same tutelage of a violent Muslim cleric as was the case of Mohammad Umaru Mutalab. This case is very embarrassing. The Nigerian community in London and presumably our High Commission, rightly issued statements that Messrs Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo were born of Nigerian parentage in London and that they have never visited Nigeria before and that they are British and that Nigerians should not be tarred with the brush of terrorism as demonstrated by these two madmen. Their statement included several names of people of Nigerian parentage who are British and who had been representing Great Britain in European and Olympic competitions. These are celebrated British heroes and heroines. They argued that the British should then accept the wheat with the shaft and that Nigeria and Nigerians should not be blamed for the errant behaviour of these two murderers.

    One cannot but agree with this statement, and it is noteworthy that our government has remained correctly speechless, even though embarrassed by this crime. This is a case of premeditated murder. Michael Adebolajo a few years ago visited Kenya with the sole aim of enlisting in a jihad against western interest led by the murderous terrorists Somali Al-Shabab. He was apprehended and handed over to the British High Commission which arranged for his deportation to London. The behaviour after the murderous act in London of these criminals was totally unheard of. Instead of running away from the scene of crime, they waited to be photographed while haranguing the British passersby and shouting that they committed murder because their Muslim brethren were being killed everywhere in the world. When the police finally arrived, instead of surrendering and facing the music of British justice, they crazily rushed at the Police who of course brought them down in a hail of bullets. The British police then took them to the hospital where they received apparently first class treatments that saved their lives. They are now going to be taken to the Old Bailey to face justice. I wish the death penalty were still in the English Law book, so that these two pit bulls can be put down.

    It is going to be hard for Nigerians or people of Nigerian descent to be treated gentlemanly in England as from now on. One only hopes that British sense of justice would prevail at all times so that people do not suffer unnecessarily for other peoples’ crimes and that no one should be made a victim because of similarity of names. Nigerians and people of Nigerian descent all over the world have been thoroughly embarrassed by this murderous and criminal behaviour of these two young men. The British press has not been very helpful in this particular case. They have tried very hard to create the impression of Nigeria as a violent country by linking these young men’s behaviour with the Boko Haram terrorist group, whereas there is no connection whatsoever. The behaviour of these two people is due to the over liberal tendencies in the western world where violent people are treated with kid gloves.

    I did part of my undergraduate studies in Queen Mary’s College in East London and whenever I am in England which is quite often, I tend to go on a trip of nostalgia by visiting the old school and I am often amazed on how the whole area seems to have been taken over by Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. Not only that, at the tube stations along the way, you sometimes hear young radicals talking about declaring the Sharia in England and making every person subject to it. These young people are never cautioned and those of them who publicly embrace Al-Qaeda are allowed to roam the streets without any challenge. I am of course in agreement with the British Law of Freedom of Speech, but sometimes, this can often be taken for license. It is this kind of licentious environment that allows young people to be brainwashed to the extent of playing revolutionaries on the streets of London. In his recent broadcast to the American people on the use of drones to the take out Al-Qaeda leadership, President Obama said that the challenges posed to security in the world is going to come not from foreigners, but from home grown terrorism. What he said would also apply to Great Britain. While foreign terrorists should continue to be monitored and prevented from creating havoc, those born in Western countries and who as a result of this enjoy basic freedoms, should be equally watched in order to prevent a repetition of this terrible incident.

  • Useful idiots (4)

    Useful idiots (4)

    We are a cliché. The want of bread disturbs our peace, but in pursuit of bread, we gun for gold and perverse glamour. Modesty succumbs to vile, honesty deserts our hearts and the beaming brightness of good forsakes our bothersome neighbourhoods. The injustice and tyranny we claim to seek an end to have only just begun. More than an end, we perfect their beginnings.

    The demolition of Nigeria is ongoing. And it is being perfected by the most useful agents of hope or destruction; the Nigerian youth. But as Nigeria ruins, we ruin too. Our overtly cherished and over-celebrated lives fall apart and the promise of our generation manifests as a pathetic lie we inherited from our fathers and forefathers. Today, we tell it to each other in the thick of despair for false hope and cheap comfort.

    The history of our generation will be one continuous disaster from one timeline to the next, if we do not change. But change is what dream of it. It is what we make it out to be. Change is what we make of will. Have we such will that ignites dying embers to scorching hearths of hope and unquenchable ardor?

    We blame the ruling class and the”wasted generation” for the coldness in our hearts and their insensitivity to our plight. We claim they do not give a hoot what becomes of Nigeria or what becomes of us. But are we not deserving of evilness they visit on us? Do we really care what becomes of Nigeria? What do we care about? What excites the passion of the Nigerian youth? What would we die for? What do we die for?

    We who value craftiness above sweat and continually die to get money at all cost, wish for peace and everlasting prosperity. We shan’t get what we seek but we shall get what we deserve. And we do get what we deserve, like endemic poverty and a predatory ruling class. Today, we deserve the scourge of religious extremism and the affliction of currency-activated racists and warmongers. Today, we deserve to dwell in squalor and extinguishment of our heartfelt dreams. Today, we deserve to live like paupers in our land overflowing with riches that even the so-called developed nations could never boast of.

    We get what we deserve. That is why President Goodluck Jonathan and company epitomize the perfect leadership for our kind. Were we deserving of a better ruling class, we would elect better leadership at election time. But leadership we have now is a mirror of the Nigerian psyche. It is the best we could produce, to our ‘pleasure’ and the amusement of our malicious and covetous neighbours.

    In the face of such daunting reality, I choose to believe in the Nigerian youth. I choose to believe in the immeasurable benefits of the ballot box. Bullets may serve the means and ends of revolutionary savages for a while but at the end, its electoral votes that count. Tyrannies will fall and despots will die; no degree of savagery outlasts the passion and strength of a people speaking with one voice, stoically, and quite peacefully, by their votes.

    Yet it is sad to note that despite the ills we suffer and are forced to endure under the incumbent ruling class, Nigerian youths are determined to keep them in power. As you read, professional activists, racists and self-acclaimed youth leaders amongst us are repositioning themselves and strategizing to pitch their tents with our usual candidates with power of incumbency or deep pockets, come 2015 general elections.

    Many are spoiling for war and secession. Some are merely mounting the soapbox to incite and talk the talk, but a great deal more are threatening to speak with bullets, machete and meat cleavers. They are vowing to go all out to realize their dreams of genocide and violent secession. The permutations are rife in the scariest elements and details of discord: Boko Haram is on the run and the Joint Task Force (JTF) struggles to uproot its tentacles of violence and destruction even as some slapstick comedian from the south promises to unleash more terror on Nigeria if President Jonathan does not retain his seat come 2015.

    “Nigeria will break by 2015,” many of us shamelessly croon like deranged parakeets. We echo ill-will and predictions of doom mischievously bandied to us as thorough “security report,”by our perverted neighbours from the “developed world.” We are past such conditioning and “covert psychological operations,” today, we are at the threshold of combining arrant madness to malicious predictions. But the fault is never our perverted neighbours’ nor is it our predatory ruling class’. You and I are to blame for every ill that befalls us. We are to blame for violence and bloodshed we continually perpetrate in the name of politics, tribe and religion.

    At the centre, a wasteful cabinet of dubious necessity grinds on while scarier candidates with hustle in the wings to take over power from our incumbent government of brutes and dunderheads. Racism consumes our souls and thousands die by the whims of malevolent politicians and godfathers. Corporate plunderers grab an ever-growing share of profits while workers’ salaries dwindle. The price of oil skyrockets, and we shamelessly import the oil we have in overabundance in our backyard. More youths are beginning to learn that a commoner’s dream is an extravagant enterprise. They have learnt to bury their hopes for a secure future.

    Yeah, bad news is in the air. We worry and gripe about it. Bloggers rant about it. We have even learnt to joke about it. But it’s time we do something about it. We should endeavour to rescue our world. It takes so much effort to be cynical and vengeful, let us channel such efforts into more profitable enterprise, like visionary politics, honest labour and reorientation.

    It’s about time we projected more progressive views of our world. Let us begin to seek the upright amongst us. They aren’t so hard to find. They are the paltry few we love to haze and deride for being too “conservative,” “stupid” and “pretentious.” They believe in justice, equality and the rule of law. They are pious without being self-righteous, they are responsible, tolerant, and in many ways, more evolved.

    I propose an agenda for our generation, a blueprint of things to be done that serve our common need for conscientious leadership, sustainable jobs, peace, security to mention a few. We need a practicable and all-inclusive plan; a proposal of shared targets and intentions with broad based support and the moral and political will to implement its mechanisms and ends.

    Pamela Braide, Babatunde Olusegun (Mode 9), Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri, Tolu Ogunlesi and company, it’s time to breathe life into familiar gripe and protestations. We have the common need of a future worth anticipating and living.

    Majority of our founding fathers were only in their 20s and 30s at the time they put Nigeria positively on the world map. There was no magic to their strivings; they simply towed the slow, steady path of honesty, perseverance, irrepressible pride and nationalism. They never sought hand-outs on a platter of lies and loser mentality. They simply chose to become their own heroes.

  • Ife – Benin – Bida – Idah complex of relations: A reflection – 1

    The Yoruba, Edo (Bini) Nupe and Igalla people of West Africa (there are Yorubas outside Nigeria) are related peoples historically linguistically and culturally. The relationships are sometimes easily recognized by common words in their languages. In any case they all speak the KWA sub group of the Niger-Congo broad linguistic group. They share common myths of origins particularly of their rulers and not necessarily the people as is the case of Ife, Oyo and Bini dynasties.

    There is also a myth among the Nupe that they and the Yoruba are related. The Oyo king Sango is said to have been born by a Nupe woman and the place of this king in the religion and cosmology of the Yoruba is very formidable. The cultural remains of terra cotta, wooden carvings, bronze and brass among the Yoruba, Nupe, Igalla and Bini point to a common origin. Instead of putting emphasis on what unites them than what divided them, some of their people for political correctness and contemporary advantages of belonging to politically dominant groups prefer to deny their historical ties. But this serves no useful purpose.

    In the autobiography of the Oba of Benin Oba Erediauwa he claims that an expelled prince of Benin of the Ogiso period named Ekalederhan who after wandering for months or years in the bush surfaced in Ife and that it was him the Ife people called Oduduwa. It was this same Oduduwa/Ekalederhan who later after a generation sent his youngest son Oranmiyan to Benin to found the Oduduwa dynasty there. How convenient! What is certain is that the dynasties in Ife and Benin have a common origin.

    The myths of the world being created in Benin and Ife are like most creation stories including that of the Jews, myths that have no proofs but can only be believed by those who wish to believe them. The idea of some Eastern origin of these dynasties is not restricted to the Yoruba and Edo, but is common to most West African dynasties, be it those of the Yoruba, Hausa, Kanuri and other peoples of this area. For example among the Hausa, Bayajidda is said to have come from the East to Daura and killed the snake called Sarki before marrying the Queen of Daura and fathered the founders of the Hausa Bakwai states (seven original Hausa kingdoms).

    It is well known by students of world civilization that Ife and Benin were centres of African civilization before contact with the outside world. It has been suggested by historians that ancient Ife was established around 8th Century A.D. and flourished remarkably around the 12th Century A.D. when the famous Ife terracotta and bronze heads and other artefacts were produced. The (lost wax process) or cire perdu through which these famous artefacts were produced were only found in ancient Greece and ancient Ife which led some European explorers like Leo Africanus during the 19th Century to suggest that perhaps the ancient Ife civilization was produced by a lost and wandering Caucasian group, a theory which was prevalent at this time and called the Hamitic theory of African civilization. This period in Ife history is associated with the Oduduwa myth of origin. Oduduwa in some account came from the Middle East and was followed by supporters of a losing battle for the throne to found a new kingdom in what is now Nigeria. There is of course the other myth of Ife being the place of the origin of man and Oduduwa coming from heaven to establish Ife. This last story can be dismissed as some clever persons’ imagination. In any case survival of the previous potentates such as Obalufon survives in the political nomenclature of Ife till today.

    In African history there is confusion between the origins of people and origins of kingdoms and dynasties, this should not be so. Immigration and emigration are characteristic phenomenon not unique to African history alone but to the history of mankind. It is generally known by historians, archaeologists and physical anthropologists that man evolved in Africa from where it migrated to other parts of the world. Before the founding of the Oduduwa dynasty in Ife there were definitely autochthonous people there. This myth of Eastern origin and the so-called Kisra legend is found among several African peoples.

    Some historians such as the late Professors Ade Obayemi and even A.F.C. Ryder have suggested that Ife of antiquity may have existed in several locations, seven of which have been identified, before finally settling in the present location. Alan Ryder suggests original Ife may have been near the Niger – Benue confluence after analyzing oral traditions from Benin and from Idah and Bida. One thing is clear to most historians, this is that the manifestation of Ife cultural excellence and ascendancy predated that of Benin by some centuries. It has even been suggested that the art of bronze casting in Benin diffused from Ife. Sometimes the name of the purveyor of this diffusion is mentioned.

     

  • Governors without character

    Governors without character

    Precisely because President Jonathan fights with might and means and because PDP is notorious for undermining the spirit of our laws including its own constitution, I predicted a few weeks back that Governor Rotimi Amaechi, despite his acclaimed superlative performance in office, the goodwill of his people and the support of the opposition was not likely going to survive the combined forces of an unforgiving president and a party that loathe the democratic process. That came to pass this Monday when Amaechi, an elected governor, was suspended by his party. This was coming shortly after the suspension of elected members of his state legislature.

    PDP and its elected or selected governors despise the democratic process in spite of their professed commitment to democratic rule. Their reaction to Amaechi’s victory in the NGF election and his subsequent suspension from the party has only but confirmed this lack of faith in the democratic process. Beyond this, the PDP governors have by their irresponsible outbursts, infantile lies and unnecessary heating up of the polity just to please the president, demonstrated their weakness of character.

    The story was that election for the position of chairmanship of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), was held in which 35 governors participated. The communiqué after the election by the NGF Director-General, Asishana Okauru, confirmed that “The governors of the 36 states of the federation at the sixth meeting of the year elected … for the next two years: chairman, Rt Hon Rotimi Amaechi, governor of Rivers State; and vice chairman, Alhaji Abullaziz Yari, governor of Zamfara State. All the governors present participated in the election except the governor of Yobe State who was not present”, Okauru concluded.” He later told journalists that Governor Amaechi won the election with 19 votes as against 16 votes scored by Governor Jang. He also stated that Governor of Zamfara State Abudlaziz Yari was elected vice-chairman of the forum after Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko stepped down for him.

    But without invalidating Okauru’s claims, PDP governors who as we have always said, behave like gangsters, told journalists that 17 governors had chosen Governor Jang as chairman of the NGF while Mimiko would serve as the vice chairman. Their crooked logic was that before the election, Jang had been endorsed by the 19 northern governor’s forum. These bad losers cannot even see the parallel in the triumph of Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the current speaker of the Lower House over the South-west PDP endorsed candidate for the position, ably supported by ex- President Obasanjo and President Jonathan.

    Tragically, the battle to discredit an election in which they actively participated was led by Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, the governor of Ondo State who himself has credibility problem. Critics of the very resourceful governor elected on the platform of Labour Party but now openly wears the cloak of PDP, speaks of his serial betrayal having dumped his benefactor, Adefarati, played Brutus on Dr Olusegun Agagu and used Tinubu to retrieve his PDP stolen mandate, only to cross over to President Jonathan, the highest bidder who was in a position to deploy the IG, an army battalion and a contingent of police to Ondo to ensure his victory during his re-election bid last year.

    He caught a pathetic picture as he tried to justify the perfidy of desperate PDP men trying to play on the intelligence of Nigerians. According to Mimiko, “Amaechi did not step down as chairman before the election in which he was a candidate; he produced some papers that he called ballot papers, there was no way we could trace the source, we don’t know whether they were pre-marked or whatever”.

    Mimiko’s attempt at misleading Nigerians is not in the character of forthright and proud people of Ondo he leads and who are known for calling a spade by its name. But more damaging to Mimiko’s testament is the testimony of his good friend, Dr Kayode Fayemi of Ektit who confirmed the election as free and fair, describing, with his usual grace and depth the outcome as ‘a vote for democracy’ and not as an endorsement of Amaechi or a vote against the president. Nigerians are more likely to believe Fayemi’s account of events than that of those the Yoruba call ’ko se eku, ko se eiye’ (neither rodent nor bird). Above all, the voting process during the NGF election, as shown by some television stations did further damage to the credibility of Mimiko and his PDP forum of bad losers.

    The graceless outing of Jonah Jang of Plateau also probably explains why he has for about eight years supervised bloodletting in his state. He knew he lost ‘fair and square’, yet demonstrating ecstasy after being declared winner by 17 governors on Saturday, he told journalists on arrival to Jos his state capital that “As far as I’m concerned I have been given an assignment and by the grace of God I will do my best to unite the forum and make sure the forum provides the right leadership for the people of Nigeria…”.

    But charity begins at home. Jang, who was not graceful enough to accept defeat, is obviously also deficit in tolerance and compromise, the two most important ingredients of democracy. He needs these attributes to stop the bloodletting between the Fulani and their chief hosts, the Berom. The Fulani have nowhere else to go. Asking them to go back to the Futa Jallon area where their great forbearers migrated from over 200 years ago is like asking the Jews and Arabs to go back to Ur in Iraq, where Abraham their great grandfather was given a vision of a land flowing with milk and honey. Even when in God’s mysterious ways, the land turned out to be hilly desert full of craters and valleys of death, rather than abandon the land to the Philistines its owners, they have turned it to a land flowing with blood of their children. What Plateau need to avoid such fate is compromise and Jang by his actions has proved he is deficit in honour.

    As for the chairman South-east Governors Forum, Peter Obi, “we in the South-east have always worked together as governors… the South-east together supported the candidacy of Jang.” Of course the position of the leadership of the South-east is well known to Nigerians. Their leaders often worked for themselves, feathering their own nests while shouting from the roof top about marginalization of the Igbos after trading off the presidency.

    The Chairman of the South–south Governors Forum, Governor Liyel Imoke said: “As chairman of the South-south Governors Forum, we also participated in the process that led to the emergence of Governor Jonah Jang. “Of course” the South–south has always stood behind this administration…” Imoke ‘s freudstian slip confirmed what everyone knows-that the PDP governors attempt to turn the truth on its head is all about president Jonathan 2015 ambition.

    The vice chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Governor Gabriel Suswam, also confirmed the adoption of “a new leadership led by Jang and supported by Governor Mimiko, the Iroko” during a meeting of northern governors. But Suswam did not make mention of the earlier election in which he participated.

    Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State said: “we were contestants but stepped down for Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State to be our consensus candidate of the 19 Northern Governors Forum.” But except under feudalism, such an act cannot automatically transform Jang to NGF chairman.

    The chairman of the PDP governor’s forum, Governor Godswill Akpabio said: “Yesterday (Friday, it was agreed the chairmanship of the NGF be zoned to the PDP which is the party with the largest number of governors in the forum.” Since Amaechi won the election as a PDP governor, his suspension three days later, meant the script was written well in advance. And finally, if we stretch Akpabio’s logic, what then qualified Mimiko, the only Labour governor, as vice chairman when there are parties with higher number of elected governors?

  • Paul to Saul: all in his master’s service

    The Bible tells the story of Saul turning into Paul on the way to Damascus, after encountering God.  Could there be an evolving Nigerian story of a Paul turning Saul, somewhere between Owo and Ife, after an encounter with mammon?  I just wonder!

    This musing came after reading “South-West: Lest we forget regional integration”, a piece by Bola Bolawole, in his “Turning Point” column on the back page of the Wednesday May 22 issue of Daily Newswatch.

    Normally, it is trite in logic that leaving the message to attack the messenger is bad writing and bad thinking culture.  Indeed, that fallacy is called ad hominem.   In this case however, engaging the writer, in the context of his writing, is both logical and legitimate, since he ab initio, smuggled himself into the write-up in a most supine, abject and illogical manner, that suggests his readers must be fools.

    Wrote he: “In Osun State, I wish Governor Rauf Aregbesola would not be returned for second term but that PDP would take over the state in next year’s election.”

    To start with, that was absolutely presumptuous and without rigour.  As far as I know, democratic choices are past the realm of wishes.  If wishes were horses, goes the saying, every fool would ride – and perhaps break his neck!  Democratic elections are made of more rigorous stuff – at least they should be, since man is supposed to be a rational and pain-avoiding animal.  So, on what account might Governor Aregbesola lose the next election, when in two years he has done more than Olagunsoye Oyinlola and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) power scavengers did in almost eight years?

    Not so long ago, Bolawole had in his column in the Nigerian Tribune, rubbed in the sand the nose of Iyiola Omisore – he of the sinister scowl, violent politics and push-and-mug mentality.  He claimed Omisore had so many questions to answer and that he would have nothing to do with him.

    Barely months after, however, he was inviting fellow journalists, particularly seasoned columnists whose voice have influence, to come have close tete-a-tete with Omisore who claimed he had acquired some PhD on some newfangled area – and needed right thinking members of the society to help validate his claim.  Bolawole probably succeeded with some.  But he gloriously failed with not a few; and for his and continuing impiety, his principal remains a pariah to decent and respectable society.

    So, why might an Owo native that Bolawole is, be so obsessed with a governor from a neighbouring state losing an election; and a PDP, that had, beyond any reasonable doubt, proved its incompetence and uselessness, win?  Apparently between Owo and Ife, a former Paul of the Nigerian media, bristling with propriety, decency and justice, had turned to a Saul, in the service of the pig-and-muck manor of Omisore, the decency-challenged enforcer nursing the delusion of being governor.

    Well, Bolawole has a right to pick his camp.  He also has the right to ally with God or with mammon. But he does not have the right to unleash blatant presumption on readers, hiding behind South West integration, and making outlandish claims against Governor Aregbesola who, by the dint of focus, commitment and hard work, would continue to be the nemesis of Omisore and his Osun PDP freeloaders, even with their illicit and so-called federal might.

    Bolawole opened his piece with a fallacy: because Labour Party won the Ondo gubernatorial election, the battle for the soul of the South West was lost and won!  That might be fine logic in the Omisore rigour-challenged political pepper soup joints.  But it is clearly asinine in cultivated circles.

    To follow the Omisore tradition of extreme contempt for readers, Bolawole went on to inflict another blatant lie: since the loss of Ondo election in which the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) made South West integration a campaign issue, and of which Aregbesola was prime driver, nothing had been heard of the project again.

    Yet, at a four-day South West Expo: Grassroots Business and Investment Forum 2013, from February 6 to 9, an event to practicalise South West integration organised by The Nation newspaper and Ceedee consultants, and hosted by the State of Osun in Osogbo, newspapers widely reported Aregbesola’s personal invitation to Governor Olusegun Mimiko to join his brother governors on the South West integration project.  He added that since election was over, it was time to join hands to develop the region.   Prince Bola Ajibola and Dr. Omololu Olunloyo and other distinguished guests from this clime graciously attended the event.

    Besides, participants after the event agreed on a 17-point resolution, Number 4 of which declared: “Ondo State should, as of right, take its place in South West integration programmes and activities.”  Indeed, Dipo Famakinwa, director-general of the DAWN Commission, the policy implementing arm of South West integration, with its headquarters at Cocoa House, Ibadan, was even one of the resource persons who delivered papers at that event.

    So, where comes Bolawole’s yarn that nothing had been heard of the project since the Ondo election; or that Aregbesola, in Bolawole’s view, “the acclaimed coordinator of regional integration for ACN … has not said a word about regional integration since his party lost in Ondo”? It is of course the empty gas that comes from the Omisore sinister house of push-and-shove politics.

    That brings the matter to Bolawole’s reasons for his “wish” that Aregbesola lose the coming election: that the governor played politics with everything – religion, education and regional integration.

    From this piece so far, it is clear that Aregbesola playing politics with regional integration is a fiction of the jaundiced imagination of those whose stock-in-trade is emotive blackmail, not reasoned discourse.  As for playing politics on education, if scaling up educational infrastructure in terms of new school buildings, Opon Imo, the computer tablet for senior secondary school pupils, free school uniforms that also provides jobs for local tailors and designer, and free meals for junior pupils are politics, I think the Osun people would have been glad Omisore and his exuberant party played such politics when they were in power for almost eight years of stolen mandate!

    As for Bolawole’s charge on politicking with religion, it is a classic example of giving a dog a bad name to hang it.  But any right-thinking person knows that Aregbesola’s religious policy is based on equal access, equal opportunity and fairness.  Even the Hijab issue epitomises just that; and the access to traditional believers even more epitomises this equal access and equal opportunity policy, which is however beyond the ken of irrational rabble rousers, whose forte is stark ignorance.

    The good thing though is that our people have left that Egypt of ignorance and are cruising toward the Promised Land of development and prosperity under the charge of Aregbesola. Not a billion Omisores and his misguided chorus singers and court jesters can stop that.

  • When governors go gaga

    When governors go gaga

    THEY were in an unusually foul mood. Puffy faces. Red eyes. Lips firmly wedged together in a desperate bid to block the anger threatening to tear through their stomachs and the dam of tears battling to burst through their eyes.

    Why would governors be in such a mournful mood, like kids whose lollipops have been snatched by a discourteous elder? One of them was facing a battery of reporters, blubbing, blabbing and swearing that their man had been rigged out of the Governors’ Forum election. The others surrounded him. They were like an overrated school soccer team that had just lost a crucial match, lining up behind their captain to get some whacking from a distraught headmaster. Humbled. Hobbled. Humiliated. The governors were outfoxed by their own foxy indiscretion in a simple exercise that required the spirit of sportsmanship and not a do-or-die affair as advocated by their elders.

    For this set of governors, it was indeed a time to mourn. But they were not short of ideas. They suborned Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang, a honourable man, to humbug the public by insisting that he won the election in which the incumbent, Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi, carried the day.

    The script was clear. There was to be no election to prevent Amaechi from retaining the seat. But Akwa Ibom Governor Godswill Akpabio, another honourable man, the engine room of the massive anti-Amaechi scheme that turned awry, in his stark naivety, assured the Presidency that all would be well. He was armed with a list of 19 governors whom he said had voted for Jang – sorry, His Excellency Jang. It turned out that the list had been compiled in April when governors were summoned to the Villa to extract from them a commitment to back the President’s candidate. Now, there are claims of forgery to which Akpabio and his gang are yet to reply. A governor who was absent was said to have been part of the process. How? Even if indeed 19 had put pen to that paper, was it in anyway an indication of how they voted?

    Like flood victims desperate to salvage their belongings, the losers, with bold faces, presented Jang to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leadership as the chair of the Governors’ Forum, the winner of the much coveted prize. If you thought the comical road show would tail off, you were wrong, damn wrong. Jang returned home to Jos with his questionable prize, waving excitedly to a small crowd of people who had come to welcome him. He spoke of a national assignment – to use the Governors’ Forum for the benefit of all, and stormed a church to thank God, with the congregation singing high praises for what He had done. Merciful God!

    Shouldn’t comedy have its limits and limitations even in a country that has been a long running theatre of the bizarre, where reality is often blurred by the inanities of its leaders? Anyway, not so here. The Amaechi camp warned the “dissenters” to take it easy or face the ignominy of having the election shown on television. Apparently hooked on their mission to self-destruct, they kept fuelling the charade.

    And there it was on Tuesday, the counting of the ballots and the announcement of the winner, Amaechi, right on television. It was exciting. Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi had hinted of the contents of the video, saying Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan – please, feel free to add the prefix His Excellency – was the Returning Officer. Uduaghan, a doctor and a honourable man, denied that he played such a lowly role. It turned out – thanks to the revealing video – that His Excellency was right. He was no Returning Officer. He was the Supervisory Officer. Or better still, the Presiding Officer. His Excellency stood by the Returning Officer, Asissama Okauru, while the counting and sorting of ballots were on. When it was all over, he walked away dejectedly. Poor guy.

    Ondo State Governor Segun Mimiko – sorry, I keep forgetting the prefix, His Excellency; you may wish to put it before the name too – and Jang’s running mate let us all into the world of governors running a 36-man election. He said the tension was so high that only providence averted a fisticuff. Oh no; c’mon gents; that’s not good enough; you should have gone all the way. Isn’t it all part of the system? Ever seen a Nigerian election without blood, blows and bullets? Aren’t they the badges of a great election, which you all proudly wear?

    That was a great disservice to Nollywood. Imagine an Akpabio – bulgy tummy, cheeks and all – facing an athletic Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, a physical exercise freak, in a no-holds-barred session, with all the other Excellencies by the ring side. Imagine. That would have been an instant box office hit, premiered on Democracy Day. I was told that Akpabio objected to Aregbesola filming the show, but the Osun governor, as inventive as ever, told Akpabio to stay off his camera and found a way of bringing what has been a huge success on YouTube and the local television stations.

    The Presidency, apparently seeing that it had backed a misbegotten mission, washed its hands of it, saying President Goodluck Jonathan had no interest whatsoever in the matter. Haba! They can say that a million times, but who will believe them? Who?

    Now when governors pray at their meetings, will they find it easy closing their eyes and not feeling that somebody will draw a dagger?

    The Villa made no pretence about its objection to Amaechi’s vision for the forum. He insisted on true federalism and fiscal responsibility as well as strict adherence to the rule of law – a much abused concept on which this administration anchored its image, but which has become an irritant sloganeering – and became a thorn in the flesh. He was persecuted. His state’s aircraft has been grounded on questionable excuses. Some Rivers oil wells have gone to Bayelsa on grounds that are still being contested. The PDP leadership in the state has been changed in rancorous circumstances. The House of Assembly has suspended a local government’s officials for alleged fraud, but the PDP has blamed the action on Amaechi. He has been suspended. Is he the Assembly?

    It is all part of the growing fratricidal war in the PDP in the run-up to the 2015 election. The self-acclaimed biggest party in Africa is obviously jittery that many of its leading lights may have seen the light and would not want to be on the wrong side of history. So, they are jumping ship to the fledgling All Progressives Congress (APC).

    For the PDP, the cycle seems to be closing. Most of the 36 governors belong to the party. They have just shown the world how they have been winning elections, but even the best of magicians, tricksters and pranksters know that no show can last forever. The PDP, by overheating the polity and confusing governance with politics in a country that is so desirous of great leadership, is writing its own obituary.

    Nigeria, a country that seems to be perpetually at war – Boko Haram, corruption, hunger, disease and decaying infrastructure, among other ailments – deserves a better leadership, considering its situation.

    Many have questioned the rationale behind the formation of a Governors’ Forum. They say it has no constitutional backing and nobody should lose sleep over its leadership. In official circles, it has been derided as a mere trade union, like the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW). Whichever way we look at it, the crisis has elevated it to a big prize, a smashing beauty desperately desired by the Presidency, yet so far from its long reach.

    To some, it is all part of the huge joke that our leaders are turning Nigeria into. Consider this sent to me by a friend: “New movie premiere. How three PDP governors ‘ported’ Akpabio. Now showing at Nigeria Governors’ Forum. Action-packed. Don’t miss it. Tickets free, courtesy of Aso Wreck Inc.”

    I do not believe the governors should apologise for causing so much embarrassment to us all. Where is our sense of humour? After all, was it not all in the spirit of Children’s Day?

     

     

     

     

  • The Amaechi saga

    The Amaechi saga

    In the last one week, the country has been on edge over a minor election. Yes minor, in the sense that it involved a few people. Just 35 persons went to the polls and all hell was let loose over the outcome some minutes later. The row, which is yet to subside, led to the suspension of Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) four days ago. The countdown to the election was as interesting as what happened during and after the exercise.

    Amaechi was the man to beat in the election and everything was done by the powers that be to incapacitate him before the race.

    Long before his tenure as chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) lapsed on May 24, there were moves to ensure that he did not return to the post. Before now, the governors conducted the Forum’s affairs without let or hindrance from the Presidency. The Forum served as a club for the governors where they could gather not only to discuss the problems of their states but also of the country. After all, they are also Nigerians.

    In their meetings, it is possible that they might have also broached other issues, such as the Excess Crude Account (ECA) and Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), which the central government may not be comfortable with. With the PDP also having the highest number of governors in the NGF, the party leadership would have wondered why the Forum is giving its government a hard time. To the PDP, the NGF should be a rubberstamp body, which should take anything that the Federal Government throws at it hook, line and sinker.

    The party does not believe that the NGF should be independent. What independence are we talking about when we are in power? the party may have wondered, forgetting that the Forum is a club of equals, with the chairman as the first among equals. This does not, however, make him superior to his colleagues. As the head, the chairman should tread a bit gingerly so that he is not seen as using his position to promote his party’s ideals and programmes. He occupies a delicate position and he must be able to strike a balance between his job and his party’s expectations.

    Most importantly, he must not be perceived by his colleagues as treating them as second fiddle, all because they made him their chairman. Yes, they made him chairman and can remove him if they think he is using his office to pursue selfish interest. Amaechi is not the first NGF chairman, but he is the first to come under this kind of fire all because some people suspect that he is using his position to promote his political ambition. These people believe that he is interested in the 2015 presidential election.

    As I have argued in this space in the past, I don’t see anything wrong if he has such ambition. But the man has consistently denied nursing such ambition, yet they do not believe him. Amaechi’s travails began almost a year ago, if not even earlier. Before those with plans to do him in started planting his posters and those of his Jigawa State counterpart, Sule Lamido, on the streets of Abuja and some other states in the North, Amaechi had a run in with the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, an Okrika, over the demolition of the Port Harcourt waterfront, said to be populated by her kinsmen.

    The waterfront is not being demolished for the fun of it. The governor says his intention is to create the Greater Port Harcourt City from the rubbles of the water front. Must we play politics with development? The answer should be no, but those in Abuja do not see it as such. Months later, the real reason why the First Lady took on Amaechi emerged when Niger Delta Affairs Minister Godsday Orubebe accused him of using his position as NGF chair to attack Jonathan. What Orubebe saw as Amaechi’s attack on the president was the governor’s principled stand on the Forum’s opposition to the ECA and SWF. To people like Orubebe, Amaechi is using the Forum to feather his political nest and so must be stopped, at all cost, from getting a second term.

    Indeed, everything was done to stop Amaechi from returning as NGF’s chair last Friday. The Presidency, which is today denying having any interest in who becomes NGF chair, was involved in the stop – Amaechi – plot when PDP governors were invited to a meeting at the Villa in March. At that meeting, the president made it clear that he could no longer work with Amaechi as NGF chair. He directed the governors to pick another person among them to lead the group. It was at that meeting that the PDP Governors Forum was born. Its mandate, among others, was to search for a ‘suitable’ candidate for the NGF chair.

    The president was said to have settled for Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State. Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State later joined the race, barely 36 hours to the election, indicating that the anti-Amaechi group still had a lot of homework to do. It became glaring that the group had not got its act together when Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang entered the race, four hours to the election. How can a man win an election that he stood for some hours to voting? What magic did Jang think he could perform in four hours to defeat Amaechi, who had prepared well and long for the race? Except, of course, if he was relying on other means of winning.

    What is happening in NGF

    today is not good for our

    fledgling democracy and it is sad that those who should grow it are the ones working against its growth. What is it about being NGF chair that our leaders want to turn the country upside down for? Why have we turned the issue to a matter of life and death? There is no point in overheating the polity over an election as minor as this when we have the major one coming up in two years. How prepared are we for that election when we cannot conduct a simple election among 36 governors just to pick their chairman?

    If governors cannot hold free and fair election among themselves, how are we sure that those entitled to a second term among them will ensure transparency of the process in 2015? It is sad that our governors are behaving like this; what lesson are they imparting to their followers? Telling them to go and rig in 2015, come what may? Let this shenanigan stop now because no man locks horns with a man whose name, Amaechi means ‘’who knows tomorrow?’’ and wins.

    NG, one year after

    How time flies. It is one year since we lost Ngozi Agbo, our former Campus Life editor. NG was down to earth and always wore a smile, even when annoyed. She was such a lovely and pleasant person. Hardly will you know that she was in the newsroom whenever she was around because she concentrated on her work. She sat at her corner quietly working on the stories of her mentees (the budding journalists) in our various higher institutions, who are the contributors to Campus Life. Campus Life was NG’s baby and she treated all the student-contributors as her children. She called them “my boys and girls”. She was a mother hen who took her brood under her protective feathers. My dear sister, you did a good job. When I look at Wale Ajetunmobi, who now coordinates Campus Life, and Hannah Ojo, I see the marvellous job you did in grooming them. I almost wept when I read their pieces on you (see the Campus Life section). Your husband, Agbo, is keeping the flag flying, running the column which you stopped writing on May 28, last year. And your boy too is doing wonderfully well. I saw his picture on his dad’s phone the other day. NG, continue to rest in the Lord’s bosom.

     

  • Readers’parliament 22

    Readers’parliament 22

    Your analysis is correct. Some parents are boastful of their ability to purchase seats for their wards to cheat at JAMB and SSCE centres. It is sad to see what our country has degenerated to. God will help us. 08023137600.

    Haba Tunji. This your piece was too harsh to Nigerians. I am sure you are not residing in Nigeria. 08033754830.

    Olatunji, I agree with you totally that, ‘We are very bad people.’ If Mr. ‘Integrity’Lawan Farouk could fall the way he did, then hope is not in sight for this society of ours. Look at the appointment of Dame Patience as Permanent Secretary. Very absurd. 08034053328.

    Remain blessed for saying the truth. All men need to be forcefully castrated, so that we can stop breeding baboons and then let the country return to stone age.08037967898.

    I wish you continue with this line of write-up. You strike a definite chord in our psychology and sociology with the message. I wake everyday with these foreboding realities of the basic Nigerian psyche. I fear for the future of this race and generation…I totally agree with your thesis. 08054967602.

    Excellent piece of writing. I agree with you 100 per cent. We need to change ourselves because we are indeed very bad people. 08079890367.

    “It is good to be bad and bad to be good in contemporary Nigeria,” truer words I have never read in Nigerian newspapers. Brilliant article today, Mr. Ololade! Please keep up the good work. And the truth shall set us all free. 08178675967.

    Thanks a lot dear. You did very well in your piece. May God bless you with more knowledge and wisdom. Amen. 08063675643.

    May Almighty God bless you for telling the truth the way it is, ‘We are very bad people.’ 08037036487.

    Olatunji, what you are saying cannot be disputed. What has eluded us is the way out of the quagmire. From Cyril Chinweike Eze. 08037907122.

    And Patience Jonathan is now a permanent secretary. Only in Nigeira can such happen. We are very bad people indeed. 07035347838.

    I have never read a more honest description of you and me. We are very horrible people. From Ehimare Ehoho. 08081322995.

    May God bless you for telling us the truth. Please keep it up. From Luka Jos. 08081767426.

    Of course, we are very people Olatunji. In Port Harcourt where I live, it’s really the picture you painted. Success through hard work is no longer the way of life. What of teachers known b ydear patience, they are now the vampires that devour their wards. Thanks. Good piece. From Ray Port Harcourt.08056666484.

    You said it all. We are indeed very bad people. None could be worse. From Barrister Obi Anierobi. 08031157593.

    Olatunji, I like your write-up. Let us be accountable for all our actions, let us stop blaming our leaders. An average Nigerian man is a criminal. From Zuby Port Harcourt. 08051603828.

    Your article is a very good one. Unfortunately you are talking to people who have long chosen the path of amorality. The assertion that the followership is as bad as the leadership is true. But in all climes, it is the leadership that sets the pace either for moral degeneracy or righteous living. The theory of the vital few cannot be wished away. The elites, opinion moulders and policy formulators who develop the framework for policy implementation and are supposed to enforce compliance are the first culprits. No society has only good people; what deters people from wrongdoing is the arm of the law which is supposed to be enforced by the leaders. That’s why foreigners come to Nigeria and beat traffic lights. Let’s get good leaders and things will fall in place. From Etokowoh Owoh Uyo. AKS. 08037975031.

    Your ability to put reality in pure perspective is outstanding. Until Nigerians move away from pretence, egoism, deceit, avarice, hate, etc, I wonder where our religious disposition will take us. From Paul Vingil. Abuja. 08035880838.

    I honestly agree with you and I pray that God endow you with wisdom, knowledge and blessedness to tell the nation the root of our problem. God bless you bro. From Wellington Sango, Ogun State. 08060244044.

    Mr. Olatunji Ololade, your write up, ‘We are very bad people (1),’ I must confess, is the best write-up ever in this morally bankrupt and unholy entity called Nigeria. More of it, please, my brother. They will surely meet the people’s justice in 2015. May God keep more of your type for the battle ahead. From Henry Oputa esq, Port Harcourt. 08033125515.

    Nice piece Olatunji. We need more of your type. Self tendencies have destroyed us all. I think that Nigeria can only be better when Nigerians think better. Indeed, we are very bad people. 08036851612.

    Your write-up captured the sad reality of the contraption called Nigeria. You mirrored the true state of the inhabitants of this country and as sad and fearful the truth is, we are all culpable in the mess our dear country is in. More ink to your pen. From Tapshak Armstrong. Jos. 08166032757.

    We are very bad people 1 says it all. Keep telling the truth. You are superb. From Kehinde Olalemi. 07063504030.

    Tunji my brother, I totally agree with you. I fully understand your angst. Our society is largely populated by monkeys and baboons in human garb, primitive in thinking and bestial in deeds. I have never seen or heard of a society so depraved as ours. Until we, as a people, embrace those things that are truly important in life and jettison the mindless and blind accumulation of vanities, we are eternally doomed as a people spiritually and naturally. From Gerard Ifeanyichukwu Okonkwo. Onitsha. 08023656124.

    What do you have to say about the south-east of the country where people are kidnapping fellow human beings including new born babies in the name of money? And all of us claim to be Christians. 08160149957.

    In fact, you have said it all and I totally agree with you. What can we do now to stop this menace and attitude of ours because each time? From Shakiru. 08030699828.

    Olatunji Ololade, since I was born in this feeble but very wicked and perverse country that is called Nigeria in 1953, I have never discerned anybody’s heart like I’ve just did yours…having gone through your humble and earnest dispositional topic, I thought I were you but of course, I’m not. This is to erase the unscrupulous position of the doubting Thomases that will oppose your write-up in anyway because Nigeria is just simply negative to the core. I’m in this position because some agents of negativity will want to counter the message of good people to this. They will want to smother this great message by which you teach all of us about how bad and wicked we are in this hopeless and worthless country we live in that is called Nigeria…A people that hails criminality are very bad people. A people that condones wicked preachers that pray for government officials who steal public money are very bad people. A people who allow their previous leaders to walk the streets with their loots, even after these leaders have lost immunity are very bad people. A people that have made their generation a thieving one are very bad people. 08036925729.

     

  • State at war with itself

    The primary responsibilities of a state include security of life and properties of its citizens, protection of their rights and reconciliation of differences that naturally exist between groups. The task of the state is made relatively easy because of its monopoly of coercive use of force. But the Nigerian state has in the last 14 years been hijacked by PDP war lords, and their militias including the Niger Delta militants, Boko Haram, state sponsored assassins and ‘kidnappers for rituals and kidnappers for ransom’. The state which is today at war with itself because PDP and its gangs thrive more under anarchy, has lost its invincibility.

    We spent about a billion dollars a day on security. But it is with grief and deep sense of shame we watch 12 ill-equipped police officers allegedly deployed by the state to provide security for a repentant militant gang leader burying his mother in the creeks of the Niger Delta, brutally murdered, bodies burnt and remains buried in shallow grave by a rival gang. Several days later, no arrest has been made.

    In Bama, Borno State, Boko Haram militants freely moved around setting police stations on fire, and liberating jailed criminals from prisons. From there they moved unchallenged into a military barracks where they were finally repelled but not without a harvest of 55 deaths.

    Barely 24 hours later, the scene shifted to Elakyo, near Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital. An ill-conceived mission to “arrest members of Ombatse, cult including their priest, Baba Alakyo, reputed to have “ mysterious powers which could make him vanish into thin air within seconds” left over 60 ill-trained and ill-equipped police officers packed like sardines in nine vehicles murdered. We have not been told anyone has been arrested.

    Before these latest national embarrassments, Boko Haram had bombed the Abuja United Nations building, the Abuja police headquarters, churches, mosques, markets, motor parks, police stations and military college in Zaria killing scores of highly trained military officers. The president himself had relocated all his official public activities from the Abuja national stadium to the presidential palace. The harvest of deaths arising from Boko Haram’s mindless indiscriminate killings is put at about 3,000.

    The truth is that Nigeria is at war with itself. It is now an open secret that the ex- Niger Delta governors gave political, economic and intellectual backing to the Niger Delta militants. It is also on record that the Obasanjo administration funded and armed a faction of the Niger Delta militant groups. His successor, the late president Yar’Adua granted amnesty and gave huge state resources in form of bribe to known enemies of the state

     

    We now also know, courtesy the Financial Times of London how President Jonathan has been empowering PDP sponsored enemies of the state with state money. Leading members of the groups were awarded multi-billion dollar contracts to secure of our water ways and protect oil pipelines while the navy remained under-funded and ill-equipped. And as for Boko Haram insurgency, we also have it on the authority of late General Owoye Azazi, former National Security Adviser to President Jonathan that Boko Haram was a product of PDP’s gang war.

    By sponsoring and sustaining lawless armed gangs, PDP undermines the role of the state as a neutral arbiter that guarantees ordered society through laws and rules. This is perhaps because PDP buccaneers thrive more under anarchy. The president himself became a PDP candidate by subverting his party’s zoning policy as enshrined in their constitution. He overcame resistance from political rivals from his geo-political zone such as Timipre Sylva, the former governor of Bayelsa and Rotimi Amaechi, the embattled governor of Rivers by abusing the spirit of the laws.

    We have seen manifestation of an abuse of the spirit of the law by the persecution of Justice Isa Salami for ruling against PDP’s serial election riggers, government’s handling with kid gloves, the children of PDP big-wigs who should be in jail for allegedly stealing billions from the state, the non-prosecution of criminals indicted by various probes but who instead of returning the loot they took from the state, are now scrambling to buy private jets and armoured cars. We can add the indicted PDP chieftains who have gone ahead to become senators or have been granted state pardons to give them an opportunity to contest for election into the senate in 2015. These are all manifestations of a state of anarchy.

    Other manifestations of PDP conspiracy against the state finds expression even in the policy thrust of successive PDP governments. The minister of finance for instance is an influential member of a government that awarded multi-billion dollar contract to sworn enemies of the state-repentant militants, to secure our water ways and guard our oil pipe lines.

    But two weeks back, the minister told the international community in far away New York that Nigeria was losing about 400,000 barrels of fuel to bunkerers in the Delta creeks resulting in the loss of about N1trillion, a quarter of our annual budget.

    Lamido Sanusi the CBN governor and chief executor of government monetary policies that have contributed to loss of job in the banking sector was lamenting about loss of jobs in spite of noticeable growth in the economy. The president on whose table the buck ends echoed the same sentiments a few days later.

    Granted the problem of unemployment which economists predicted when we swallowed the IMF pill under Babangida was not Jonathan’s making, but his reluctance to bring to book those indicted for the derailment of the privatization and commercialization IMF inspired policy that failed to generate the projected seven million jobs make him culpable.

    While some of those involved in this assault on Nigerians are either part of government as advisers, ministers, contractors or lawmakers, government has maintained a criminal silence on the recommendations that some of the companies be returned to the state.

    The President and PDP decide who the enemies of the state are. By actions of the party and the body language of the president, they don’t seem to include those who allegedly stole privately raised funds in aid of a better equipped police, those who derailed the multi-billion naira ID card project twice and are now awarding another set of contracts; and those who colluded with a Chinese firm to rip Nigerians of billions from ill-executed Abuja and Lagos CCTV multi-billion naira project.

    On the other hand, people like Nuhu Ribadu who put Tafa Balogun, the former IG in chains, forced him to regurgitate the billions of police equipment and welfare funds he stole; made him account for his sins against his people after rejecting his $15million bribe is enemy of the state. Consequently, the late President Yar’Adua, Jonathan and Okiro, the then IG demoted Ribadu, retired him and chased him out of the country. But Okiro has been compensated for being a friend of the state by being recycled back as the new chairman of the Police Service Commission. The president and PDP action is a bizarre demonstration of a state against itself.