The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Post-mortem of a pardon

    Post-mortem of a pardon

    NO event has been this tendentious in recent history. Not even the President’s handling of the deadly Boko Haram insurgency. Nor the reckless fuel subsidy removal of last year and the criminal negligence of our roads and hospitals; the novelty of governors just taking off on “well deserved” holidays and the emotional sight of old men and women protesting their unpaid pensions. None.

    The presidential pardon handed DSP Alamieyeseigha, a chief, former governor of Bayelsa State, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart, ex-convict and – thanks to his munificence – governor-general of the Ijaw nation – has put the Presidency under fire since it was packaged and delivered eight days ago.

    No doubt, President Goodluck Jonathan must have reviewed the situation with his friends, aides and associates. What was his conclusion? Regrets? Triumph? Who said what behind the scene? Are more pardons coming? Who are the VIP ex-convicts clamouring for pardon? Editorial Notebook’s reportorial skills have been pressed into action to resolve these and many other questions to which readers are seeking answers.

    Thankfully, I ran into an uncle of mine in Sangotedo – the tiny beach town on the outskirts of Lekki, the Lagos home of the rich – whose friend’s brother claimed to have met a senior official of the Presidency who swore that he attended one of those post-mortem sessions. The source, I was told, pleaded not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, and the fact that he is not authorised to speak to the press.

    Here is his unconfirmed report of the aftermath of what has been described by some critics of the presidential action as the alarming pardon:

    Dr Jonathan sits down on a sofa, the national flag resting behind him. He is surrounded by some aides, friends and associates. He whips out a handkerchief to rub his face, smiles and adjusts his position. They all greet him.

    Thank you, gentlemen. You’re all welcome. And, if I may ask: How do you people see this pardon for those they called coup plotters and the other people?

    The aides keep quiet. But before the President could go on, a leading businessman, who is a regular visitor to the Villa, cuts in.

    My President, you know I won’t deceive you. That was a great decision. The critics have not been fair to you. They say your chief target was your former boss, DSP, and that you only used the others to pad the list and make it look national and sincere. Don’t bother yourself about busybodies. A great leader must take decisions – popular or unpopular – but history will not be kind to any leader who refuses to take bold decisions.

    Thank you, chief. You see, I don’t give a damn. The question is: don’t I have the right to pardon anybody that I wish to pardon? Doesn’t the Bible say ‘I will have mercy on who I will?’ Here is a man who has helped me; no; a man who has been so helpful to this country. The creeks are quiet, oil production is rising; do they think it’s their noise? Honestly, I don’t give a damn!

    You’re right sir. There has been so much jubilation in Bayelsa. Big celebration. I saw it with my two eyes on television. I saw Alams on an open roof vehicle, waving to the cheering crowd. In fact, as I was coming here, somebody called me to tell me how this boy, em…em… James Ibori, received the news. He said the guy was lamenting, saying: “Shoo! See Alams o. E don free. Dem say he fit contest again to be senator or whatever. Why me I run comot? Even Lucky dey enjoy now, after coming back from court. Ha…I don yab. I fall my people hand.”

    Really? You see, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. As far as I’m concerned, I have taken a decision, approved by the Council of State, a body of our most experienced people, including elders and giants in law. So, what are they talking about? I’m here to take decisions and I have taken a decision. If you’re not pleased with my decision, you’re free to go to court.

    I agree with you sir. You see, a decision that is not popular with some people is being celebrated by others. It’s all politics. A friend of mine has just told me that you’ll soon be getting applications for such pardon. I understand Tafa Balogun is interested and I said, ‘why not?’ He was a damn good police officer; only the money problem. They said he stole, but his friends are saying he got no fair trial. This is a government of rule and law. And it must be seen to be so. Then, one crazy fellow was crying that Abdulrasheed Maina should come out of hiding.

    Another, who claims to be an economist and financial expert, said he heard from a reliable source that Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi would not seek another term. You know who he suggested as Sanusi’s successor? Shettima Bulama, the former Bank of the North chief and beneficiary of the pardon.

    Thank you bo. If the only thing I can do to help the man is what I have done, I have no apology. God used him to draw me into politics. The man has gone to jail. He has lost weight. He has lost property. What else do they want; make he quench? They say his pardon will undermine the war against corruption. But I ask, how? Just one man? Did he not serve? Abeg make I hear word.

    And somebody was saying Baba ,the one in Ota, that he was scorning the whole thing, that when he saw it in the newspapers, he screamed: “Alams pardoned…I dey laugh o!” When his boys asked him, “Baba, what’s the matter?” He started grumbling: “A man I sent to jail kulee and he came out jeje. Now, he’s pardoned. If that is what they want to be doing now, dat na dem toro. Alaremu has done his own. I started the EFCC. They said I was using it to grab my enemies. I wonder who I should have been using it to catch; my kids? Now they are free to be using it for their former ogas. Me I don do my own.

    (The President, pointing to one of his aides, a suppressed smile on his dry lips).What is all this talk about clemency, amnesty, pardon and all those gymnastics.

    Sir (an aide springs up to his feet, adjusts his jacket and straightens his bent tie). Mr President sir…em…emm. I don’t see the point they are trying to make. It’s all grammatical gymnastics, as you have rightly observed. In fact, there is so much ignorance about this matter and I have told them that the critics are suffering from sophisticated ignorance, which has heightened their anger. And they need some remedial tranquilisers for mollification of the situation.

    Hmm…I trust you! When people are ignorant and they see politics in everything, they won’t learn. As for us, we must refuse to lose focus. We must.

    (Another aide is struggling to rise onto his feet, the leather seat screeching, as if it’s crying to be freed of the weight that has been dumped on it. He eventually stands up, a file in his hand).Mr Presden sir. I went on television the very next day after the Council decision. And I told all those armchair critics to stop it. You ask a thief to run; he runs. You ask him to drop what he has stolen; he drops it. What else do you want?

    (The room burst into laughter, sparked by the strange allegory of the aide. In this lighter mood, another aide stands up to talk). Sir, the joke in town now is playing on the word “Alams”. They say: “Latest entries in Nigerian Urban Dictionary”: 1. Alams (noun). (i) An oga at the top who is much higher than a mere political godfather; he is generally believed to have the swagger of a tribal deity.

    (ii) Anyone who is intimate with oga at the top

    2. Alam: verb. To pardon someone of corruption e.g: “ Our accountant has been sacked for embezzlement of company funds but the board has alamed him.”

    Everybody was seized by laughter. The session closes as the President turns to the staircase, saying: “Good night, gentlemen.”

  • Letter to Malam Umar Musa Yar’adua

    Dear Malam Umar Musa Yar’adua,

    Your Excellency Sir, Nigeria has undergone systematic transformation since you departed from us. Most of these are not good; hence it is not my intention to take you through all the calamities. However, I will crave your indulgence on some present political happenings and our expectations come 2015. You took over in 2007 from a leadership that was dictatorial and corrupt; what you inherited was an inept administration, a deteriorating polity and a functionless civil service.

    Those who know you and what you stood for were happy that, once again, God has done something great by honouring us with a focused, independent-minded and honest leader. You promptly displayed your independence on all national issues: you were steadfast in reviving decayed infrastructure; sanity was already returning in all arms of government, courtesy of your due-process attitude. You were patriotic, revolutionary, exhibited inbuilt concern for Nigeria and Nigerians. The fruit of what you stood for was maturing, in some instances getting ripe, when you answered the call of Allah.

    Before your funeral in the ancient city of Katsina and at the famous Danmarna Cemetery — oh sorry, even when you were lying sick, months before your departure — the country was already drifting to your predecessor’s era. They started by squandering the foreign reserves you painfully saved, and then racketeering of the nation’s Bonny Light. Before you left, government agencies had compromised their ethics and pledge to serve Nigeria diligently, with truth and honesty. These unfortunate trends continue. The effect is so devastating that it has affected all strata of the society.

    Nigerians are now being challenged with a leadership that lacks capacity: provision of even the lowest form of basic infrastructure is still a mirage. Needless to say, even in the Federal Capital city, inhabitants resort to patronising the ‘mai-ruwa’ for their water needs. These new occupants have made corruption a way of governance: there is stealing in the energy, transport and pension sectors of the economy. Their vandalism has also swallowed the nation’s foreign reserves; we are now indebted to the tune of $7 billion and N8 trillion foreign and domestic debt respectively.

    Security-wise, the English man is short of words to describe the present situation, but surely it is safer to live in the jungle of Animal Farm in faraway Russia than the Nigeria territory in this century. Killings are a daily occurrence; nobody is safe, with prime target mostly primary school pupils, females and sometimes the aged. Recently, this issue necessitated an amnesty call which the government rejected, arguing that if JTF wiped out communities somewhere, mere killings and breeding of orphans should not be reciprocated with an amnesty.

    Sir, you’ve tested leadership; you knew about the total control of the nation’s purse; you have worked with praise singers that believed a leader should be worshiped, and, of course, the unnecessary and lofty protocol associated with the office. For these reasons, they are bent on elongating their tenure by all means. This is made clear by their desperate moves to pocket the party so as to give way for a single candidate at the primaries. Even if a promise is a promise – so what? After all, he was a signatory to a two-term zoning agreement which he dumped in the dustbin and Nigerians still call him ‘Excellency’. So what’s the big deal being un-honourable? Their members are optimistic that government apparatus would be employed to make sure our votes do not count.

    The Obasanjo group that promoted your candidature is on the political field. They felt alienated by all the regimes and so needed some relevance again. After all, the PDP is theirs, hence newcomers should stay clear. They have one of the governors as their only sucker. Governors Muazu, Lamido, Shema and possibily Kwankwaso are already in line for this adventure.

    Another interesting group jostling to occupy Aso Rock come 2015 is that of the governors. They have made it a tradition that only one of them should be there for corruption to continue. Their ways include cornering of delegates, intimidation and rigging of votes, which you knew very well. These governors are already in secret alliance with OBJ, since their supreme criteria is to have one of them in Aso Rock; Baba’s choice is therefore perfect; but, as expected there will be political gimmicks before the primaries while a shameless concession and unification is intended minutes to the elections, of course, to the astonishment of the government group.

    I know you will be wondering why I did not mention that previously powerful IBB group. They are in agony for being the architects of the ship but now completely lost out of the power game. If you remember, they were uncared-for passengers in OBJ’s regime; you did not harbour them because of your independence. They are not on the Jonathan train and now not part of the so-called elongation. Their only option is either to surrender or engage in anti-party activities. We believed the general was still combatant. From the above analysis, coupled with governors’ influence at the PDP primaries taken into consideration, PDP merger with the NNPC, Pension Fund, etc, and INEC’s professorial ability to rig election, the Katsina governor may be gradually ascending to the exalted seat.

    I am sure you know about the progressive merger and the formation of the All Progressive Congress (APC). Already, this milestone is causing sleepless nights to all the PDP groups. We are confident you would have been in this team, were you to be alive today and not in position of leadership. Your memories and radical contributions during our good old days in the PRP, PDM and lately the SDP are still fresh with us. Comrade , Sir, ALUTA CONTINUA, VICTORIA ACERTA.

    We are proud of you, you are a role model; you served sincerely and with all your strength. You left us without anything worldly but an enviable legacy of empirical honesty, humility and commitment to serve.

    The APC is now positioned to provide the required challenge to the ruling party. Already, the progressives have a crack team — solidly aggressive and with a termite-like unity. You know united we stand, divided we fall. The vote-protection techniques used in previous elections is now improved to actions from the polling units to the supreme courts if need be. Our flag-bearers are already in shape – vibrant, blunt, mobile and with the courage, commitment and foresight of the like of the late Hugo Chavez.

    Your excellency, please permit me to use this medium to appeal to the founders of APC to, as a matter of urgency, include the office of a vote protector in the executive offices of this new party at all levels. The occupant should be next only to the secretary of the party in hierarchy — fearless, aggressively wise and also unable to use all known and unknown means to protect votes and at all cost. I repeat: at all cost.

    No stupid errand boy will dare tamper with progressive votes when the like of the Oshiomholes, Al-Makuras, el-Rufais or even the combatant and the no-nonsense Sam Nda-Isaiah is occupying the office of national vote protector. If you are not comfortable with my harsh language, I’m not sorry and no apology: this time round, it’s victory or nothing else.

    The Nigerian masses have pledged to elect candidates based on their integrity, track records and sincere commitment to serve their cause, while the APC leadership is on hand to provide an all-encompassing flat form for institutionalising genuine democracy devoid of vices for the interest of the common man.

    Finally, Sir, our consolation is further strengthened by our total conviction that leadership at whatever level is beyond human power, the control of the nation’s purse, command of the armed forces and INEC notwithstanding. No government succeeds with injustice; whoever doubts that is surely not among the wise and the enlightened.

    May I conclude, Your Excellency, by saying, ‘O Allah, forgive Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and elevate his station among those who are guided. Send him along the path of those who come before and forgive us and him. O Lord of the worlds, enlarge for him his grave and shed light upon him in it.

    Yours sincerely, Garba Dankani

  • Celebrity trash, trashy journalism and everyone (2)

    This minute, conversation degenerates into mere gossip and heartfelt dreams manifest as perfections of perversity, everywhere. Everybody is a sucker for “high-society.” Like heat-maddened farm rats, ordinary people are persistently yearning for the madness of “high-society.”

    It’s the little packets of madness that we need to fear. How unforgivably foolish the society becomes in its lust for celebrity gossip. The news we read, for the most part, is too paltry for the human genius. I do not know why our news should be so trivial.

    It is the stalest repetition. Yet we madden and lust for celebrity humdrum to the point that one is tempted to wonder why too much passion is squandered in pursuit of too little substance. We live for idle amusement and thus the nature of our daily news.

    Our facts appear to spiral in the atmosphere, insignificant as the spores of the toadstool, and yet impinging on the surface of our mind, poisoning it, till it becomes not much in expression and thought. Superfluities meet superfluities; when our life ceases to be inward and absorbed, interaction degenerates into mere tittle-tattle and humanity relapses into the filthiest of averages.

    No thanks to celebrity journalism and an innately perverted public, the Nigerian mind has become a public arena, where the shenanigans of the rich and the idiocy of “high-society” are passionately celebrated.

    Every celebrity is a media creation; I repeat. While some may be deserving of the exaltation liberally accorded them, not a few celebrities are undeserving of the hero worship they receive and so desperately seek. It is hardly the fault of the celebrity however, that the press and the society in general have chosen to accord them immeasurable hero worship despite their glaring idiocy and deficiencies.

    It takes more than newsworthiness to create a celebrity. The vast, interlocking web of resources and institutions involved in creating and maintaining a single celebrity is astounding. From media outlets to fan clubs and agents, from media products to gossip columnists, a star is never solitary, but often the result of hundreds of backstage orchestrations and player deals.

    It is even all the more disturbing to watch our fascination with celebrity gossip slide into precisely the kind of ruthless pursuit of its subject to which we claim to be ostensibly opposed; it is disheartening to observe the infringement of morals and humaneness at the heart of our inquest. Yet despite the evils of our maddening lust for celebrity tittle-tattle, not a few tattlers gladly explain their obsessions away as some kind of virtuous curiosity.

    There is no such thing as virtuous curiosity. In respect of the subject matter, our curiosity oftentimes does violence to its object. On the flipside, it leaves the society stuck in a revolving cycle of spectatorship that believes in its own virtue even as it corrupts itself – a perfect representation of Jacqueline Rose’s the “perverting of curiosity in motion.”

    And even our so-called superstars have learnt to profit albeit fraudulently from the society’s perverse curiosities about their affairs. From Chaucer’s early poem, “The House of Fame,” whose hero-poet wrestles with the fame bestowed on him by society to Martin Scorcese’s film, King of Comedy, in which an amateur comedian jokes to a national television audience that it is “better to be king for a night, than schmuck for a lifetime!” celebrity worship continues to fester.

    Not to forget Nigerian actress, Genevieve Nnaji’s illuminating response to a CNN interviewer’s poser about her celebrity status, “Oh yeah, I don’t even need to wake up. Just sitting down sometimes, I’m like (sighs), sometimes I hate my life, but I can’t complain” — these celebrities and their works speak to us, even give voice to our own desires, as they reflect back to us the realities and illusions of today’s celebrity culture.

    Celebrities who insist, often with apparent desperation, that they do not court publicity, who try to hide from the public gaze on which they are totally dependent, are either naive or unapologetically fraudulent. With respect to Nigerian celebrities, being fraudulent and then, infantile, comes easy. Not only are most unable to discern that this is the balancing-act they are required to perform, they believe –erroneously so – that by virtue of their claim to stardom, they should have both the press and the public subjected to their whims.

    Therefore, the juveniles that they are at heart fail to realize that they are never functioning quite appropriately as befits their status; never perpetuating so perfectly the drama and duplicity on which celebrity thrives, as in the moments when they make that exasperating and utterly deceptive claim.

    If truly they do not crave media and public attention, let them desist from making their affairs known to the public. Let them desist from scorning such attention only to divulge news of their purported “best kept secrets” to the media surreptitiously. Celebrities who do that while making a show of their distaste for the limelight embody the worst form of infantilism and narcissistic tendencies.

    The vanity of their renunciation contains its own disavowal. It is a blatant hypocrisy that they perpetrate claiming that they do not want to be seen or become the subject of public attention; it simply says very much about their impoverishment in character and worth.

    It is even more disturbing to watch the society’s curiosity translate into precisely the kind of ruthless pursuit of subjects perpetrated by celebrity journalism. It is about time Nigerian journalists learned to focus on the issues that truly matter. How is news of the “high-octane” wedding of a telecommunication company proprietor’s daughter’s wedding, a Reality Show contestant’s current boyfriend, a professional hip-hop dancer’s pregnancy – outside wedlock – and the likely father of the child more beneficial to the youth and the society than a report about the dwindling culture of scholarship on the nation’s campuses and outside them? How is such news more beneficial to the public than the lack of functional local government authorities at the grassroots and the deplorable state of vocational and public primary schools across the country?

    It should be the media’s job not to give equal time, not to give 12 inches in a newspaper story to the idiocy and eccentricities of Nigeria’s middling rich trash and their spoilt kids. It is apparent that a passion for celebrity gossip has become the next illogical evolutionary step of journalism and readership in the country.

    Basically, it is in the media’s best financial interest to pervert its principal role as “Status-Conferrer” according to the public’s yearnings. This bespeaks a deeper perversion of the journalism ethic particularly, its “Agenda-Setter” function.

    But the fault is hardly the media’s alone. Now that it has been confirmed that the Nigerian press is fundamentally a trash can cum sounding board for the psychosis and perversions of celebrity trash and their families, the public’s role in their perpetuation of such depravity is undeniable.

    Given the public’s fascination with celebrity trash and their world, everyone remains complicit in the societal perversion. In essence, the Nigerian society is being ruled by base desires and voyeuristic inclinations for accounts of celebrities’ lives. This has led us to the point where we are not getting the journalism we need but rather the journalism we deserve.

    • To be continued…

  • Where is the Jonathan one-term pact?

    The 2015 presidential race has begun. Those interested in the election and their backers have launched a battle for the diadem. The presidency is a coveted job. As the highest office in the land, it requires those who believe in themselves to step forward for the plum job. It goes without saying, therefore, that only one person can occupy the office at a time. But in a society riven by religious and ethnic strife, whatever we do is always determined by where we come from and the faith that we profess. It is even worse in the matter of who becomes president.

    The battle for the presidency is usually a do-or- die between the North and the South. For years, the North colonised the presidency. The region held the reins of power for years, leaving the South with what its people believed to be sinecure positions. The South complained for years about a power structure, which seemed to have turned its people to second class citizens in their own country, but its cry went unheard.

    To keep the South perpetually away from presidential power, the North resorted to chicanery and if you like, bribery. During an election, rather than back its own, the South (or should I say some people from the region) is always ready to go with the North once the price is right. And what is this price? It could be either juicy political posts; contracts or cash.

    This is the trick the North has deployed for years to keep the South on the lower rungs of the political ladder. But since there is a time for everything, the tide turned in the South’s favour in 1993. Despite running on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, the late newspaper mogul Moshood Abiola won the June 12, 1993 presidential election, but the Gen Ibrahim Babangida (read as the North) regime annulled the poll, throwing the country into turmoil for years.

    Long after his exit from power in August of that same year, Nigeria remained in crisis until June 1998 when former Head of State Gen Sani Abacha died in his fortress in Aso Rock. Unfortunately, Abiola died the following month in detention.

    Abiola fought to reclaim his mandate but the late Abacha got him arrested and kept him in solitary confinement for years. Rather than back Abiola, his kinsman, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who later benefited from the late business man’s travails, said the deceased was not the messiah that Nigeria needed. That is the South for you. Obasanjo never told us, but I believe he later saw himself as that messiah when he became president in 1999. The current problem between the North and the South over the 2015 presidency can be located in the 1999 arrangement that brought Obasanjo to office.

    The North, it was said, backed him then on the condition that he would serve one term; he did two and was even ready for a third term if the National Assembly had not scuttled his ambition with the rejection of his tenure elongation bid which wars disguised as a Constitution Amendment Bill. Today, President Goodluck Jonathan is toeing that path by purportedly reneging on an agreement to do only one term. Did the president enter into such agreement? Was it a verbal or written pact? Those who should know say that it was written. If this is so, where is the agreement? Who are the signatories? Those who have the document will be doing us a world of good if they can release it for public consumption. The release of the document will lay to rest all this hue and cry over an issue which does not warrant the drawing out of our swords.

    Anyway, why will

    someone like Niger

    State Governor Babangida Aliyu say that there is such a pact if none exists? Why will a senior citizen like Chief Edwin Clark deny the existence of such a pact if really there is one? Why can’t the presidency come clean with us on the matter by telling us if the president signed such a pact or not? The answer to the issue is not to dismiss it offhandedly by saying that the talk of a pact is to distract the president. What is distracting in that? The question needs a simple yes or no answer. Yes, I signed the pact; or no, I didn’t sign the pact. Chikena

    Alleging that there is a pact in a radio interview, Aliyu said: “I recall that at the time he (Jonathan) was going to declare for the 2011 election, all the PDP governors were brought together to ensure that we were all in the same frame of mind. And I recall that some of us said given the circumstances of the death of President Umaru Yar’ Adua and given the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) zoning arrangement, it was expected that the North was to produce the president for a number of years. I recall at that discussion, it was agreed that Jonathan would serve only one term of four years and we all signed the agreement. Even when Jonathan went to Kampala in Uganda, he also said he was going to serve a single term’’

    In denying the existence of such a pact, Clark, who accused Aliyu of lying, said: ‘’It is unfortunate and disappointing that you could engage in such bare-faced lies and false propaganda simply because of your inordinate ambition to seek election as president come 2015, and the only qualification you think you have over the incumbent is that you are a Northerner who must rule at all times. As a rebuttal to your statement, I wish to repeat that there was no agreement between the governors of the 19 Northern states and President Jonathan. You are a very well educated person, but it appears you do not understand the correct meaning of agreement”

    But a Northern leader, Dr Junaid Muhammed, insists that the pact exists. He claimed to have “sighted” a copy of the agreement with a friend. Can he do the nation a favour by getting us this copy from his friend so that we can end this drama of a pact or no pact? Many will be willing to part with millions of naira to get this ‘pact’ and many will also be willing to double that to ensure the ‘pact’ remains hidden. Dr Muhammed seems to have the ace. Will he get the pact for us?

  • Centenary of Ibadan Grammar School

    Soon, Ibadan Grammar School will be celebrating its centenary. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since Ibadan Grammar School came into existence. The school started as a community effort predominantly by the Anglican Christian community. In this regard, the man who became the first Ibadan-born Bishop of the Anglican community Bishop Akinyele played a significant if not overwhelming role in the establishment of the Grammar School. Over time, Ibadan Grammar School became a solidly Anglican Grammar School and the first Anglican Grammar School in the entire Ibadan division. Sister schools such as St Anne’s partly Anglican and Methodist and Yejide Girls Grammar School. solely Anglican came after the establishment of Ibadan Grammar School. The school was patterned after the older CMS Grammar School in Lagos which was founded in 1858 through the instrumentality of Mr. Macaulay a son-in-law of Bishop Ajayi Crowther.

    Ibadan Grammar School was first domiciled at Oke Are before moving to its present location across the bridge on Kudeti River in an Anglican environment harboring St Luke’s Teachers College and Ibadan Grammar School itself. This was supposed to have been in a virgin forest where for many years farmlands surrounded the school. Today the city has caught up with Ibadan Grammar School and the school is now almost in the middle of the town in Molete. Unfortunately, the road linking the town with Molete has witnessed a lot of degradation and for some years the bridges over river Kudeti were swept off by the rampaging floods that afflicted Ibadan some years ago.

    Ibadan Grammar School belongs to the “AOINIAN” schools. A confederation of schools of the Anglican Communion in some parts of the old western region including Egbado College Ilaro, Oduduwa College Ife, Abeokuta Grammar School, Ijebu Ode Grammar School, Ondo Boys High School, Imade College Owo and so on. These schools competed with each other in games and athletics every year and champions in these games were highly applauded. The school attracted people from near and far including students from Eastern Nigeria and the Mid-west which we know today as Edo and Delta. Because of this, the school usually had a formidable soccer team. The school was largely a boarding school but there were sprinklings of day students among the students population. The most famous of the headmaster of the school was the legendary Arch Deacon Emmanuel Alayande who was a son-in-law to the founding Principal of the school, Bishop Akinyele. Alayande was a prominent member of the National Union of Teachers and he used his influence with the Western Nigeria Government to secure the license to recruit the best of teachers including men and women from abroad. Because of this, the school was very popular in the old western region and outside it.

    When I was a student in the school in 1961 and 1962, the only son of Sir Francis Ibiam who was the Governor of Eastern Nigeria was a student there. During my time, names of students read like names of who was who in the old Western Region and Lagos. Arch Deacon Alayande was not only a great teacher but he was also a great man. He treated every student as if they were his children and as a professional teacher, he did not spare the rod. He was a very influential man in Nigeria at that time and he carried the honorific title of chaplain to the Action Group, the party in power in western Nigeria. Arch Deacon Alayande was also on the board of West African Examination Council (WAEC) and was therefore in the position to determine the course and curriculum of secondary school education in Nigeria.

    Of course Ibadan Grammar School was not a government college. It did not have the kind of facilities government colleges in Ibadan, Benin and Ugheli had; nevertheless its students never felt inferior to their counterparts in Government College, Ibadan except when the girls of the three famous girls schools, St Anne, Yejide and St Theresa favoured the boys from Government College over them as boyfriends! The school was a training ground for leadership because of its cosmopolitan nature. Every student had to learn fast in order to survive in an atmosphere dominated by boys from Lagos who were exposed to the cut throat competition of Lagos life. It is therefore not surprising that some of the products of the school have done really well in the corporate life of Nigeria. People like Chief Bayo Akinnola an industrialist and Lisa of Ondo, the Ibru brothers – Alex and Goddy, Mike Adenuga and Patrick Dele Cole to mention a few.

    Ibadan Grammar School has been a victim of vicissitude and tragedy that have afflicted education in the country. During the administration of the UPN government of Chief Bola Ige who incidentally was an old boy and a senior prefect, all the schools in the old Western region were taken over in a leveling process by which all schools were opened to all and sundry. This affected standards and since school fees were abolished, the school went into a total decline. This ideologically driven programme of free education at all levels was a disaster in the whole western region. Ibadan Grammar School is no longer what it used to be. The road leading to the school has been washed away by rain and it remains practically un-tarred. Roofs of most of the building have been blown off by howling wind and it seems to me that the boarding houses are no longer in operation because most of the boarding houses appear to be totally deserted. The classrooms are in shambles. I used to be the school librarian while I was there but I am sure there is no library there at the moment. To put it biblically, God has departed from the house of Israel.

    The story of decline in Ibadan Grammar School is also replicated in Government College Ibadan. The school I understand has been returned to the Anglican Communion but the level of its collapse is so great that it will require wholesale rehabilitation to put it right. This is where the government of Oyo state and the old boys and girls of the school would have to do something. With the calibre of some of the old boys, it should be possible for them to use some of their tax deductible income to fix the school. Ibadan Grammar School shall rise again. A 100years old school, with a great tradition must not be allowed to die.

    The tragedy of Ibadan Grammar School epitomizes in a glaring way the decline of everything that was good while I was growing up. Thank God for my alma mater Christ’s School Ado Ekiti which has somehow managed to survive the buffeting of time and political and policy somersault in educational planning and development in Nigeria. Christ’s School owes its survival to the engaging interest of its alumni and alumnae who over the years have paid unusual attention and interest in the affairs of the school. Without being immodest, the set of 1956-1960 to which I belong blazed the trail by donating a block of classrooms to the school several years ago. Others have since emulated us. Ibadan Grammar School should borrow a leaf from Christ’s School which is after all, a sister Anglican School.

  • Newswatch vs. Jimoh Ibrahim

    Recourse to memory will show it is not often you see Nigerian editors running a newspaper/magazine as a successful commercial enterprise. Newswatch and its editors therefore deserve some credit for running their newsmagazine as an ongoing successful business concern for an unbroken 28 years until they were finally outwitted by Jimoh Ibrahim, a veteran of Nigeria brand of crude capitalism.

    This feat is unmatched in the history of newspaper and magazine publication in Nigeria, The trend has always been either the collapse of editor-managed publications because of incompetence as business managers or as often the case, being outwitted by their more business savvy and ruthless partners.

    And when the end finally came on May 5, 2011 for Newswatch, started in 1984 by the late Dele Giwa and the trio of Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese, and Yakubu Mohammed, it was as a victim of two factors: incompetence as business managers and the editors over-reliance on idealism as against pragmatism of their adversary whose sole objective as a ruthless capitalist is reducing the weak to servitude that the strong can continue to flourish.

    Jimoh Ibrahim in fact claimed during the signing of memorandum of understanding that based on the reports submitted by members of his acquisition team, “the principal problem of the magazine was that of finance and therefore his new team would concentrate on the managerial aspect of the company”. Under the new arrangement, the backlog of seven months staff salary owed by the old out-going management will be paid by the new management while all debts being owed by the old management will also be paid by the new owner.

    But Ibrahim failed to pay salaries as promised. He also did not show interest in expansion such as building of a new headquarters as recently claimed by Mohammed during the last court proceeding. But Ibrahim dared the ex-editors and rested the news magazine insisting it was “due for corporate surgery”.

    But the truth is as told by Jimoh Ibrahim who now has all the aces it is no more in dispute that he offered N1billion for the control of 52% of Newswatch. It is a fact the ex-Newswatch editors/directors resigned after collecting mouth watering severance packages. Ray Ekpu has at least admitted collecting N79m with an outstanding of N30m Jimoh Ibrahim still held on to.

    The law also seems to side with Jimoh Ibrahim. As Justice Okon Abang who dismissed the case of the Newswatch minority share holders has argued, “since the defendants who had resigned as directors are still claiming to have the right to declare a trade dispute, this is likely to affect the right of majority shareholders, and that gives the majority shareholders locus standi to bring the suit”.

    But besides Ibrahim’s moral and judicial victories, I think it is fruitless fighting against a man that is always ready to fight with might and means and sometimes in public when anything impinges on his rights.

    The other day when Sanusi, the CBN governor lumped his name together with those he claimed contributed to the collapse of many banks as a result of their non-performing’ loans, it would be recalled, Jimoh Ibrahim spent several millions of naira, close to the amount credited against his name on advertorial pages to tell the public that he was not indebted to Oceanic Bank or any bank for that matter.

    When the senate made uncomplimentary remarks about airline operators after the crash of DANA Airline that killed 153, Ibrahim alone hit back at senators he claimed “know next to nothing about aviation but chose to pontificate”. “Just because we elected them”, he thundered, “does not mean they can just talk any how…Let them come to the industry and see if they can successfully manage one aircraft”.

    I also expect my friend Ray Ekpu and his ex-editors to be wary of an adversary who admitted when he started secondary school, he was always the second last in his class. “There used to be 24 pupils in a class. I always got the 23rd position”, he recently told a reporter. Ibrahim today describes himself as a “corporate surgeon specializing in buying sick corporations”. But the available records indicate Ibrahim instead of surgery has often performed autopsy.

    Ray Ekpu also seems to have ignored Ibrahim’s subtle threat who upon being criticized for closing down the Newswatch said: “When God got angry with the Israelites, he unleashed fire on them. I should be praised not criticized. …. I’m not unleashing fire but simply suspending the magazine.” Surely there must be a more subtle way for Ray Ekpu to collect his outstanding N30m without inviting the wrath of Ibrahim.

    I cannot imagine how Ray Ekpu and his colleagues who were dazed by Jimoh Ibrahim’s N1billion will now see themselves as a match to a man who said “I am bigger than Richard Branson”, or who told the governor of his state after an encounter at the airport that “visiting a private aircraft without invitation, when he is not an airport official, is a security risk and amounts to conduct unbecoming of a governor.”

    Above all, Ibrahim has little to lose in terms of reputation in spite scurrilous attack by his political, business and now media adversaries. For doing exactly what he knows how to do best – buy distressed companies that “are assets rich, which he then uses as collateral to borrow more money from banks”, he has been described as “the proverbial business pirate who destroys and kills any business he gets his hands on, while enriching himself”.

    He has been libelled by enemies who alleged he diverted N35b aviation fund meant to support his now dead airlines to NICON Investment Limited claimed to be jointly owned 100% with his wife.

    Jimoh Ibrahim’s envious enemies are not done; they wickedly alleged he converted N10 billion paid by the Accountant-General of the Federation to NICON Insurance Plc for the payment of pensioners to buy himself a Bombardier Challenger 625 private jet.

    Ray Ekpu must note that with all the assaults from different directions, Ibrahim has continued to wax stronger.

    The Newswatch editors have nothing to be ashamed of. They have done well for themselves when one remembers that after being out-witted by British and Nigerian business men that owned the Daily Times, Ernest Ikoli, the editor that gave the paper a character, died in a hotel room with no severance package or a roof over his head. We cannot say the same of Newswatch multi-millionaire former editors.

    Uncle Sam Amuka Pemu aka ‘Sad Sam’ did not get much when he was outmanoeuvred out of The Punch by late business mogul- Aboderin after giving the paper a character. Dr Stanley Macebuh, my boss at The Guardian, gave the newspaper its character but got no severance package after late Alex Ibru, the paper’s financial backbone pushed him out accusing him of divided interest for allegedly selling sugar. Lade Bonuola, his successor did not fare any better; I’m aware he has no mansion in any of Lagos GRAs or anywhere in the country for that matter.

    The ex-editors were given a bloody nose by a veteran operator in Nigeria economic jungle where there are no rules, where those who contributed to the collapse of government owned thriving business concerns such as airlines, hotels, banks’ turned-around, under government’s fraudulent privatization and commercialization programme. They took control with state money, and where, to quote Professor Bolaji Akinyemi my teacher, most Nigerian billionaires cannot account for the source of their wealth.

  • Aftermath of the 1914 Amalgamation

    Aftermath of the 1914 Amalgamation

    Lord Lugard arrived in Lagos in 1912 as the first Governor General of the British colony of Nigeria. He introduced the so-called amalgamation of the colonial territory in 1914, and left the country finally in 1918. In effect, he had only four years to give effect to the amalgamation and introduce a central administration which was claimed to be the central objective of the amalgamation. He failed dismally in this respect. He had limited time for the task. But he also had some preconceived and erroneous ideas about how the ethnically diverse people of the territory were to be ruled. This undermined the basic objective of his administration.

    First, he did very little to bring the territory under a single central administration. The territory continued to be governed separately as the colony of Lagos, and the Northern and Southern Protectorates. There was no serious attempt to bring the huge territory under a single central administration. Lugard did not have the financial and human resources he needed for this purpose. In addition, the First World War that started in 1914 diverted attention from British colonies in Africa. And then in 1939, another world war broke out. It was not until after the Second World War that Britain began to turn its attention to its African colonies, particularly Nigeria, the largest. From amalgamation in 1914 until 1946, there was no political or administrative interaction among the various peoples of Nigeria. The three colonial territories continued to be governed separately as if they were three countries. It was only in 1946, under the Richards’ Constitution, that a feeble attempt was made to bring representatives of the various administrative units together at an assembly in Lagos.

    But then the new Constitution also created regional councils for the three provinces in colonial Nigeria. Richards justified his regionalism on the ground that the North wanted little or nothing to do with the South. So no Northern members were elected to sit in the Legislative Council in Lagos. This moved Margery Perham, the Oxford don and friend of Lord Lugard, to complain that ‘British colonial officials had become more northern than the northerners, fostering the local sense of difference, even of superiority towards the South’. The Lagos meeting was a disaster and broke up with all sides protesting British administrative style in Nigeria. It was at this meeting that the Northern leader, Ahmadu Bello, protested that ‘the mistake of 1914 has come to light”. His sentiments regarding the amalgamation were shared by his Southern colleagues, including the Lagos educated elite, once dismissed contemptuously by Lugard as ‘the trousered natives’. In those 32 years after amalgamation the various territories had diverged a lot making any form of political unity more difficult.

    Secondly, Lugard had extended to the entire territory his obnoxious system of indirect rule, which was strongly opposed in the Southern Protectorate. The situation he met in the North was considerably different from that which he had left in 1906 as Governor of the Northern Protectorate. Under the decentralising influence of his successors in the North, the British Residents had become autocratic within their semi-autonomous Emirates. There had grown in Whitehall a mistaken feeling that the classical pattern of native administration in Africa had been discovered; a sort of magic formula outlining an organic relationship between indirect rule and semi-feudal African political institutions. But the circumstances associated with the foundation of the Southern Protectorate and its problems were far different from those of the North. The South had been penetrated gradually, not by conquest as in the North, but by treaties, most of which were actually obtained under duress and false promises. With its proximity to the coast, the South had for long been subjected to Western influences. Even before the acquisition of Lagos in 1861, there were already educated natives there. Christian missionary schools had been established in the South for well over fifty years before amalgamation. Southern Moslems had free access to these missionary schools. The CMS Grammar School, Nigeria’s oldest secondary grammar school, had been founded in 1859 by the Anglican missionaries. The products of this missionary education disliked the extension of indirect rule to the South. There was no unifying religion in the South, such as Islam, which could transcend tribal loyalties. The powers of the Chiefs and Obas in the South differed profoundly from those of their Northern counterparts. In certain cases, particularly in the Southeast, society was lacking in a strong, highly centralised political organisation. As Lugard saw it, in this respect, ‘the first step is to find a man of influence as Chief, and then group under him as many villages or districts as possible”. This is the origin of the ‘warrant chiefs’ in the Southeast. It was to prove an administrative disaster, the consequences of which are still with us today.

    Lugard considered the Yoruba Obas as overlords of centrally organised Kingdoms like the Northern Emirates, ideally suitable for his indirect rule system. Furthermore, since indirect rule had developed in the North among the despotic Emirs, he concluded that a powerful chief was indispensable to the system. There was thus a tendency to create chiefs when they could not be found, or to exalt them where they did not seem sufficiently powerful. In effect Lugard and some of his successors as Governors General committed the folly of seeking to make, as it were, a crown or a king at the top and then try to find something underneath on which it might appropriately be placed. This was a monumental error as it was to lead to semi-autocratic rule and lack of accountability by post-colonial governments in Nigeria. For instance, Abeokuta had in 1893 established a semi-independent state by treaty with the British. Lugard was opposed to this. Determined to remove this anomaly, Lugard took advantage of disturbances in 1914 over direct taxation in Egbaland to abrogate the 1893 treaty with the Alake who had requested for British colonial troops. In the East, the introduction of direct taxation under the system of indirect rule led to a rebellion which Lugard put down brutally with the death of some 500 protesters.

    Before British colonialism in Nigeria, neither the Obas nor the Emirs enjoyed such autocratic powers as they did later under British colonial rule. There were checks and balances in both before colonial rule, after which they were elevated to the status of semi-gods. Of course, colonial rule was itself autocratic. It was not based on checks and balances. The essence of indirect rule, through the Emirs and Obas, was that loyalty to a tribal chief must be given unhindered and be free from outside interference. This practice led to the creation of feudal monarchies that actually had no place in pre-colonial Nigeria. This was what our current political leaders inherited, and it explains their lack of commitment to the rule of law and public accountability. In effect, the 1914 amalgamation in Nigeria destroyed an indigenous political and administrative system that was far more democratic and accountable, and replaced it with a colonial system of government that was wholly undemocratic and lacked any kind of accountability. It laid the foundation for autocratic government in Nigeria, virtually without any checks and balances in the system. While in traditional society there were means of checking and curbing abuses by the Emirs and Obas, indirect rule tended to encourage illiterate, conservative, and often autocratic Emirs and Obas. One critic of the system observed that ‘the Emirs today are maintained by British bayonets, so that there are men holding these positions who would not last one week once these bayonets were to cease’ Dr. Miller, the noted Christian missionary in Zaria, condemned British colonial rule in Nigeria for its failure to use the system of indirect rule as an instrument of progress in the North. Lord Lugard’s administration was hostile to the Christian missions and schools in the North for fear that their ‘revolutionary’ ideas might create a body of opinion to challenge British colonial rule and the authority of the Emirs. This is the source of the existing wide gap in education between the North and the South in Nigeria with profound political and economic implications for the country. Boko Haram is a direct consequence of this lapse.

    In the long run, the question we should ask is where amalgamation and the consequent system of indirect rule were supposed to lead. Lord Lugard and British colonial rule in Nigeria gave little or no thought to this question. As a means of leading the people of Nigeria to self-rule, the system was a total failure. Feudal chieftaincies created by the system were not compatible with a modern progressive state. In her study of British colonial rule in Nigeria, titled ‘The Colonial Reckoning”, Dame Margery Perham, the distinguished colonial historian and Oxford don, came to the conclusion that British colonial rule did some good in Nigeria, but that it did some harm too, not least of which was its failure to adequately prepare Nigeria for future development as a united, democratic and progressive modern state. This is why I think we should mark the 1914 amalgamation and not spend a whole year celebrating it. It was, at best, a partial success. The indirect rule system that followed amalgamation remains the major source of ethnic and tribal politics in Nigeria today.

  • Cowards’ anthem (4)

    The night has murder in the eye, and the day, murder in the heart; every promising dawn drips with blood. One ill begets another, and our successive maladies, a great deal more.

    The solstices of sanity have sagged; we have become indiscriminate pawns in the theatre of the absurd. Thus today, we find“virtue” in the insanity of the rampaging hordes of Maiduguri and Jos. If you look closely enough, you will discover the politics that excite the madness they incite. Perhaps you would get to understand why peace-loving neighbours become blood-thirsty brutes and the average human becomes subhuman.

    And now that we have found honour in the novelty of explosives, Nigeria has awakened to the reality of the situation…our situation. It doesn’t matter whose loved ones died in the last bomb blast neither does it matter what towering hopes we extinguish by undesirable detonations, we too have found bombs, and we shall use it whichever way pleases us. We shall exterminate whoever we deem fit.

    And these too are “simple measures” to be had, “survival strategies – to be precise,” if you can learn to analyse the matter from the perspective that pleases. The wars we make are only the beginning of something else: mass murders, famine, rape, interminable hate and sorrow everlasting. Today, fear’s moon flower spreads across our clans. We ought to fear tomorrow but we don’t.

    If we leave today as we have made it, tomorrow, our children shall smart diarrheic, with distended tummies and skeletal limbs until their final gasp in our theatre of death and genocide. Our toddlers shall lust for dried egg yolk and cornmeal, even when stale; it shall become the staple diet to die for, and kill for. We shall learn to grovel and die and kill for measly fruits and rations, even if rotten.

    Our neighbourhoods shall be bloodied by carcasses of friends and family we have learnt to love but would betray whenever providence displeases our dark, desperate desire for survival. Those child soldiers whose stories offer amusement on the watch of international news media shall become the source of our greatest worries. The cherubs for whom we shed sweat everyday shall become little angels of death at the behest of heinous godfathers and warmongers.

    Our children shall man our streets armed with AK-47s, fishing harpoons, machetes, kitchen knives, and hand grenades. They shall take turns to decapitate you and me if we are unfortunate to belong to the divide that displeases.

    Our mothers shall become comfort women, our daughters too. Our sisters shall become vessels of wanton delight to occupation forces and militia of various shades and honour; and we shall support the decadence painfully, and whole-heartedly.

    The chastity we love to protect shall become the staple by which we quell our dark, dark desires; the currency by which our mothers, wives, sisters and daughters purchase and repossess everyday, their right to life, at the mercy of the elements of the order that be.

    And this is just a glimpse of the meltdown; the revolution that you seek would bring greater bloodshed than you think. The secession that you seek would hardly profit you, and me.

    Forget the folly of the misguided newspaper; it is not enough to propagate disunity in the interest of deep pockets. It is not enough to moot murder or “necessary sacrifice” or whatever you choose to call it, selectively. It is not enough to dispense death daringly to the households of those we deem fit.

    At whose behest do we exterminate those that we deem expendable? Who decides the lives to be extinguished, the futures to be snuffed out like candle-light in the course of a tempest? What politics, what philosophy excites the madness to which we play native?

    Is this the revolution that we dream? Is this the prologue to the order of our sweetest fantasies? I see nothing but death, sorrow, and death. And we are in the thick of it.

    Carcasses of friends we had known, relatives we had loved and neighbours we shared with, shall line our streets and sidewalks with unparalleled stench and dire breadth.

    And we shall all be held accountable; you, with your AK-47, fresh-filed dagger, sword; me, with my in-depth analyses, riotous pen and wit.

    Together we play puppet to the designs and fantasies of despicable hate emissaries and war-mongers. Tell me, these tragedies that we incite, at whose doorsteps are the black flags hoisted? Who gets to be on the receiving end?

    Kindly show me a Governor’s child, Senator’s wife, Minister’s sibling among the mangled and decomposing corpses in mass graves we dug in Ife-Modakeke, Borno, Bauchi, Kaduna, Jos, to mention a few.

    Show me the corpses of the ruling class and all those that we hold answerable for the tragedies our lives have become. I wish no evil on our incumbent leadership but their corpses are nowhere in the scenes of genocide; it’s the ordinary citizen that gets to die – defenceless folk like you and me.

    Yet we blame the ruling class, curse the times and kill each other; tell me, what madness commands our wanton sprees? What platitudes, what tokens incite our hearts to such bestiality and senseless murder?

    It’s our neighbours, family and friends that we decapitate in the thick of night and break of daylight. How can that be the uprising that we dream? Tell me, who would enjoy the fruits of our mindless bloodbath after we exterminate neighbours, friends and family in whose interests we claim to make the revolutionary cry?

    The ruling class is on to our game. That is why they use us against each other. Painstakingly, they master the art of misdirection by experimenting on you and me.

    The noise has quietened on familiar monstrosities that betide our land; we have got more pressing issues to deal with. Now, we dream of secession. Let us begin to secede if in the new order, leadership we currently endure shall be kept miles from our corridors of power. Let us begin to secede if our women shall suffer no abuse and peace shall remain to blossom undisturbed in our front yards and backyards. Let us begin to secede if our broken parts shall exist without racism and discord.

    Let us begin to secede if we shan’t re-enact tragedies we invoked by Federal might and Biafra. Let us begin to secede if evils that incited our clamour to separate shall disappear in the new lands of our dreams.

    If you take the pains to see through our scholarly rhetoric and sensational headlines, you will see that nobody can resolve the tragedies that persist in our motherland until we rid our government houses of the minority holding the majority hostage. Hopefully we shall get to understand that sophistry we propagate about the futility of further coexistence shall come in handy still, in the orders of our dreams, for we who fail to tread the path of wisdom now shall persist in folly even when left to our ‘separate’ devices.

    A grown up thing has happened and it requires that we respond as adults but even adulthood confounds us. Thus we respond the easiest way we deem, as cowards.

    • To be continued.

  • ACN governors and infrastructural development

    If a foreigner were to come to Nigeria and wonders how to identify which party is in government in any state in Nigeria, the best information to be given to him would be watch out for road construction, drainages, youths mobilization as a distinct mark of ACN administration in the states under the party’s control.

    This distinction began in Lagos first with Governor Bola Tinubu and further dramatised by the stupendous efforts at the reconstruction of the state by Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola. His example has now become a yardstick of measuring performance of ACN administered states.

    In this regard, the whole sale reconstruction of city roads in Ado-Ekiti and Ibadan is a miracle to behold. I went to primary and secondary school in Ado-Ekiti many years ago and now, I am a regular visitor to the city, the Kayode Fayemi administration has so much changed the face of the city that I can no longer recognize anywhere unless I am told where I am.

    The crisscrossing of the city by dualised roads has definitely given Ado-Ekiti the much desired appearance of a capital city. What the city needs is for individuals especially those whose houses border on the highways to rise to the occasion and give their homes face-lift so as to synergize with the newly constructed roads of the city.

    Ado-Ekiti is much smaller than Ibadan. Ibadan is definitely the largest city in tropical Africa even though through manipulation of figures by the National Census Board, we are now told Ibadan is the third largest city coming after Lagos and Kano. I totally reject this claim on the grounds that there has been no epidemic that has wiped out people of Ibadan and that the population of the city could not have contracted dramatically the way the National Census Board claims; that is of course another issue for another day.

    Governor Abiola Ajimobi has done what nobody believes could have been done to bring Ibadan, a largely traditional African city to modernity. He has removed or he is removing all the shanties that constitute an eye-sore to every visitor to Ibadan. If the Governor can finish all the projects that he has embarked on in modernising the city, his name would go down in history along with those of Lagelu, Oluyole, Ogunmola and Latoisa as the builders of Ibadan. I cannot but celebrate Ajimobi because Ibadan is my second home. I completed my secondary school in Ibadan and I am an alumnus of the University of Ibadan and I reside in Ibadan, so, I am an Ibadan man by any definition and I should therefore be happy if Ibadan is doing well just as I am very happy that Ado-Ekiti, the capital city of my home state is doing well.

    It is not Ado-Ekiti alone that is being opened up by Fayemi, every part of Ekiti is feeling this infrastructural revolution. The road linking my home town of Okemesi with other towns through Ita-Awure was abandoned for more than a decade but it has now been reconstructed and opened up to traffic. Okemesi is a border town and according to Prof. Anthony Asiwaju, my colleague at University of Lagos, all border lands whether of state or country should be given special preference and attention in order to encourage the feeling of patriotism and loyalty so as to avoid developing a feeling of separation, alienation and attraction towards their neighbours on the other side of the boundary.

    I think Prof. Asiwaju’s theory is correct and my governor has done something about the apparent neglect of border towns in our state. What is good for Okemesi will be good for Moba LGA, Effon- Alaaye and Omuo. But in the meantime, all praise should go to our amiable and indefatigable governor.

    In 1967, I was a graduate student in Canada and one of my professors, one Professor Farley was coming to Nigeria for a conference at the University of Ibadan, I decided to send him to my folks in Nigeria and on his return, I wanted to find out his impression, he did not think twice before telling me that Ibadan was the biggest slum that he had ever seen!

    Ajimobi’s efforts in Ibadan would change the face of Ibadan forever and I pray that he would have the resources to complete the Ibadan road revolution he has embarked upon. When one looks at what is going on particularly in Ekiti, Oyo, Edo, Osun and Ogun states, the question one asks himself is whether there were no governments before the advent of these ACN governors. It is like foundational infrastructure is newly being built and I hope our people would be sensible enough to continue to elect and elect these governors who having put their hands on the plough would not look back until the work of development is done. Our people should realize that you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. In the process of urban renewal, some properties would necessarily have to be pulled down. We should not whine and complain too much because government is only seeking the greater good of all.

    Alfred Graf Von Schlieffen, Field Marshal and Chief of Staff of the Imperial German Army in the 19th century developed a defense strategy which envisaged the possibility of Germany being attacked from the East and the West and in readiness, instigated the construction of fast-moving railway lines and roads to move troops back and forth from warfronts in the East and the West so that once an enemy is knocked out in either direction, troops could be moved to where they are needed. Adolf Hitler, the German Chancellor (1933 – 1945) added the building of autobahnen (express roads) to the Schlieffen plan. In war time, the efficient transportation network was remarkably decisive.

    After the collapse of Germany in 1945, this efficient network of transportation grid and German ingenuity proved decisive in what the Germans called “wirtschaftswunder” (economic miracle) of the German recovery. A country or state that is not in permanent motion is a dead country or state. Transportation is key to economic development and once the ACN states complete their transportation revolution, rapid economic development is bound to follow.

    Yoruba land ko ni baje; o baje ti ! Nigeria ko ni baje o; o baje ti !

  • Will they ever be found?

    It is painful when we lose our loved ones. We mourn; we weep, but in our hour of bereavement, we are consoled by the fact that at least, we know that they are dead. We also know where their remains are buried and can visit their graves, if we so wish. But the reverse is the case if a loved one goes missing. The pain becomes skin deep because we long to see such a person, but don’t know where to look. In our waking and sleeping, one question keeps nagging at our minds : where can this person be? Is he dead or alive?

    This is a question that can drive people crazy because of the pain they feel inside. I can only imagine what people who have had this kind of experience would have gone through because it is just inexplicable. How do you explain it that a grown man just stepped out of his house and never returned. Is it ordinary for such a thing to happen or is there a sinister motive behind it? In a society where we believe that things just don’t happen but are propelled by certain esoteric forces, it becomes harder to explain. We are ready to make allowances when children disappear.

    We try to rationalise such disappearance as one of those things that the youth engage in. “He will soon return home”, sympathisers will tell the family, until it becomes crystal clear that he may never return after a long futile search for him. Is it possible for a man to leave home and decide never to return? What could have pushed him to take such action? Is it marital problem? Is it poverty or inability to discharge his responsibility as head of family? Is it because of a terminal ailment? We could go on and on because it is a mystery yet to be unravelled.

    It is a mystery because as those considered to be frustrated with life disappear, so do those believed to have no woory in life. So how do we explain the disappearance of a man satisfied with life? Is it that he just became suddenly frustrated and decided to end it all? Yes, some may have planned their disappearance, but I believe that many would not have wished to vanish into thin air just like that if they could help it. If that is the case, where could these people be? Have they been killed? Were they used for money rituals? It is hard to say what has become of these people, but are the security operatives up and doing in finding them?

    The police may have hit a brick wall in their investigation, but these are not cases which files should be closed just like that. They should not be treated as open and close cases. They are matters that should be kept in view because we don’t know when the break that will give the police the desired lead will come. In the past few years, many Nigerians have disappeared; some prominent and some not so prominent. On Tuesday, this paper carried the story of a Army lance corporal, who disappeared about 30 years ago.

    Lance Corporal Fredrick Uwerhiavwe left home on a fateful day in January 1983 and never returned. His family is looking for him till today. His wife said she went looking for him at work at the 1 Infantry Division of the Nigerian Army in Kaduna, but rather than assist the poor woman in her search, she was reportedly ejected from their quarters. Since then, we have heard about other disappearances. Razak Gawat, a television presenter, went missing last year. So were Aminat Saibu,15 and Olaide Shittu, 38.

    Thirty years is a long time

    for a person to be

    missing. By now, you will say the family should be coming to terms with the reaslity of this fact. It is not that easy because Uwerhiavwe disappeared when it seemed there was nobody to ask questions about his disappearance. His children were small then. There was nothing the little brats could have done except to bid their time. The time, to them, has become ripe to demand what happened to their father from his employers. I pray the Army will cooperate with them. A man, the Yoruba say, does not ask for what killed his father until he is strong enough to do so.

    It is a good thing that Uwerhiavwe’s children have launched a search for their father, because no matter what, they deserve to know what happened to him 30 years ago when he told his wife that he was going to work. Did he get to work? If he did, was he involved in an accident? What happened to him in the accident? Doesn’t his family deserve to know if anything untoward happened to him? Thirty years after his disappearance, we ought to help his family members answer these questions and more in order to help them overcome this trauma. While at that, the police should step up investigation into the other cases too.

    Readers’ TURN

    RE : Before Maina is sacrificed
    Can the press tell us that it has investigated all the claims by Maina and where the recovered pension funds are being kept? FROM : 08094431394.
    The piece was awesome. Now, I am convinced that we still have objective people in this nation. FROM : 08069401317.
    A preliminary report of the task team was presented to the Economic Management Team on October 23, last year. We, however, await the court to interpret the legality of the Senate’s action against Maina. Why couldn’t the Senate wait for the task team to finish its job before embarking on the Upper Chamber’s so-called investigation? FROM : 07026340888.
    It was a touching piece. Poor Maina! Or is it youthful exuberance or poor sense of history that has brought him all this trouble? He should just have submitted his report quietly without opening his mouth too wide in self-glorification, knowing that no panel report, no matter how important to the public has ever seen the light of day in this country! As things have turned out, we may never know the truth, yet our senior citizens are suffering as they cannot access their pension after retirement. FROM : Pensioner, 08059932631.
    What is clear is that it is impossible to fight corruption and win under the existing social system. This is because the system protects the corrupt in high places. The way out is to change the social system. Which class will undertake the task? The exploited? FROM : Amos Ejimonye, Kaduna, 08039727512