The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Constitution review: A dangerous oversight

    He passed through this road before. But we seem not to have learnt any lesson from what happened then. The country faced a constitutional crisis following the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s long absence from home, leaving the ship of state rudderless. We had a vice president in person of Dr Goodluck Jonathan, but the late Yar’Adua crowd did everything to stop him from acting for his boss.

       And they found a justifiable ground for their position in the Constitution. Now, we are travelling the same road again, with Taraba State Governor Danbaba Suntai taking a somewhat forced leave of absence from work following his plane crash on October 25. The only difference this time around is that the issue is restricted to the tiny state of Taraba. But treating it regionally instead of nationally will be taking a myopic view of the issue.

    The issue at stake is the same as that of 2010 when the late Yar’Adua left home in a hurry and did not return until about six months later in the heat of the constitutional crisis caused by his absence. Now, Suntai too has left his state for treatment in Germany just as the late Yar’Adua went to Saudi Arabia late in 2009 and did not return until May 2010. For now, we don’t know when Suntai will return. This, I daresay, is the crux of the matter.

    When will Suntai, who was flown out on October 27, return? When he returns will he be medically fit to return to work? Should his absence lead to a vacuum at the Government House, Jalingo? For how long can a governor be away on medical treatment before his office can be declared vacant? All these questions have become necessary because of the political bent his absence seems to be taken. Remember, this was how  the  Yar’Adua case went until providence intervened.

     With the Yar’Adua case still fresh in mind, we need to do things the way they should be done before the Taraba matter becomes something else. Right now, we are all pretending that everything is normal, when we know that they are far from being normal. It is almost two weeks now that Suntai left the country and there is no way that by now there are no matters calling for his attention.

     As we all know, in his present condition, Suntai cannot attend to state matters. The most important matter he can attend to for now is his health, which should also be of utmost concern to all those who truly love him. As we pray for his speedy recovery and await his return home, one thing, however, cannot wait and that is governance. The government of Taraba must continue to run with or without Suntai.

    Governance cannot pack up all because Suntai was involved in a plane crash. We thank God that he is alive. What if he had died in the crash? Won’t his deputy have been sworn in by now as governor? We should not be sentimental about this issue at all. What has happened has happened. We cannot close down Taraba because of this unfortunate incident as some people are suggesting. For how long will we have to wait for Suntai to get well in order to return to office?

    The Constitution, which foresaw a situation like this, unfortunately did not make clear-cut provisions for a deputy governor to take charge immediately the governor is indisposed. This is the lacuna the supporters of Suntai are exploiting to stop the deputy governor, Alhaji Garba Umar, from taking charge.

    The framers of our Constitu

    tion, in their wisdom, did all

    they could to prevent a vacuum in the absence of the president or a governor, but our politicians have devised a way of circumventing the constitutional provision on this issue.

    With what we saw in the Yar’Adua case and what is about to happen in Taraba, we need to take a look at Sections 144 and 189 of the Constitution in order to stop political hyenas from reaping from where they did not sow. When the late Yar’Adua was away for months, these political interlopers seized power from the righful person, the then Vice President Jonathan, turning him into a sissy in his own administration. Then, the National Assembly through the Doctrine of Necessity, saved the day.

      With that, we can say we have a precedent to fall on to avert the brewing constitutional crisis in Taraba. As is often the case, the crisis is instigated by those who believe that by their action, they are being loyal to Suntai. Others are doing it for the fear of the unknown. They don’t know whether the governor will survive or not and as such they don’t want to be caught on the wrong side if he pulls through.

      The issue is beyond Suntai or even any one of us. The question we should ask ourselves is this : is it proper for a state to be without its duly elected governor for 13 days, the number of days that Suntai has been out of the country as at today, counting from October 27? This is where I think the Constitution did not do well. But we cannot blame the framers for this, rather we should blame our politicians, who are always looking for a loophole in any thing in order to have their way.

    The loophole they are cashing in on can be found in Section 189, which similar provision in Section 144, the Yar’Adua clique used for long to stop Jonathan from coming to office in 2010. Section 189 reads : The governor or deputy governor of a state shall cease to hold office if – (a) by a resolution passed by two-thirds majority of all members of the executive council of the state, it is declared that the governor or deputy governor is incapable of discharging the functions of his office; and (b) the declaration in paragraph (a) of this subsection is verified, after such medical examination as may be necessary, by a medical panel established under subsection (4) of this section in its report to the speaker of the House of Assembly’’.

      With this provision, Suntai can stay in Germany for as long as he wishes because neither the Taraba State Executive Council nor the House of Assembly will initiate such a move. Who will bell the cat?

    This is a long shot, but having seen what happened in the Yar’Adua case, let all men of goodwill appeal to the good conscience of the executive council members and the lawmakers to do what is necessary. It will be in the best interest of their state to allow Suntai’s deputy to step in, pending the governor’s  return from his medical trip.

    Making Umar acting governor will not detract from the fact that Suntai is the governor because it is not an impeachment. It is better to have an acting governor in place rather than leave the state without a constitutionally recognised leader as it is now.

    Doing this will not amount to disloyalty to Suntai because his supporters will be doing him a world of good in his most trying moment.

     While at this, let me quickly submit that the planned Constitution review will be incomplete if nothing is done about Sections 144 and 189. It is time these sections were amended to state specifically how long the President or a governor can be away before the vice president or deputy governor steps into their shoes in acting capacity. I will go for seven days.

    If this issue is not factored in, then I am sorry to say, we are not serious about amending the Constitution. We cannot afford to keep quiet over this sensitive issue after seeing what happened in 2010 and the lie now being led in Taraba.

  • State police

    The recent report that the President of the Nigeria’s Senate, David Mark is now in support of state police calls for some comments. We do not know the PDP’s position on state police but it seems most of the northern PDP governors are opposed to state police. I have never understood their reasons for this except that they will want the federal government to remain awesomely powerful.

    Supporters of over-concentration of power in the centre see nothing wrong in it being overused. This has been the practice in the past that even a genial and gentle person like Shehu Shagari used the federal police to bulldoze his way in the states of the country that were under the UPN, GNPP and the NPP during the second republic. But times have changed and the security problems in the country have increased geometrically and the Nigerian police and even the Nigerian army have not been able to do much about it. This calls for a total overhaul and a review of the organs responsible for peace keeping and enforcement.

    In the past, we had native authority police (yandoka) and even local government police in the North and the West. It was only in the East that for cultural reasons that there was no local government police during the first republic. It is true that there were attempts to misuse this local police against political opponents in the North and in the West and this was the reason why these forces were abolished and their members absorbed into the Nigerian police force after the coup of January 15, 1966. But a lot of water has passed under the bridge since that time. We now have 36 states and Abuja and the population of Nigeria has grown from the initial 36 million in 1956 to a purported 160 million now. About 50% of Nigeria’s population now lives in urban areas with attendant growth in criminal activities. The economy of Nigeria has more than quadrupled and Nigeria is now closely linked to the international communities with consequent increase in international crimes. Nigeria has also become more sophisticated and the wealth of the country is equally more concentrated in a few hands thus creating problems of inequity and inequality with attendant growth in envy and crime. The number of the proportion of the young under 35 to those above 35years is probably in the ratio of 60 to 40 and many of the young people are unemployed and unemployable thus swelling the population of the disgruntled elements in the society.

    In short, our society is primed for crime and the challenge is for our government to react appropriately to this. Nigeria is a federation and like all federations all over the world, maintenance of peace must be concurrently pursued by the states and the federal government. In most civilized parts of the world, policing is not only a matter for government at the center but it also involves regional, local, city and county authorities. In the United States that we like to compare ourselves with, there is the Federal Bureau of Investigation; there are state police, county police, city police and sometimes campus police in many of their universities. These organizations work hand in hand in order to preserve peace and they have their jurisdiction properly demarcated. Interstate crimes are handled by the FBI while the local crimes are handled by the state police or city police. They all share information and work hand in hand for the interest of the people. I do not see why the same thing cannot happen here. State, local and city police would of course recruit people with the knowledge of the local areas and local language. This would give them intelligence advantages that are fundamental in policing.

    Critics of local police and advocates of federal police on the grounds of funding are totally mistaken because right now most states contribute equipment and money in support of the federal police assigned to their states. Recently I had an experience in the problem of federal policing. There was a crisis in Ekiti State University. We had information that students might riot and destroy university properties. We alerted the state police commissioner who said he could do nothing unless the Inspector General of Police orders him to. We had to alert the state governor who in theory is the chief security officer of the state and he had to call the IGP to give orders to the commissioner of police to protect his state. While we were going back and forth, the students invaded the university and destroyed facilities worth hundreds of millions. If our governor was in control of the police in his state, this unnecessary chaos would have been avoided. This is a practical example of how our current policy is not working. Lives are being lost in the process of this bureaucratic rigmarole while our leaders are busy disputing the limit of power of federal and state police.

    On the question of misuse, we have the judiciary to rein in any attempt to misuse state police. In fact, we are more in danger of misuse of centralized police power as has been done in the past and is still being done today as I write. We are supposed to be a federation. A situation in which police federally recruited and consisting in most cases of people not speaking the language of the areas where they are deployed is totally unacceptable. It is the continuation of the divide et imperia of the old colonial system where southern soldiers and police were deployed in the north while northern police and soldiers were deployed to the south so that there will be no sympathy for the locals by the colonial police and army. Is this what we want to continue in the 21st century of heightened awareness of cultural nationalism? This is not working in Nigeria and the more we bind ourselves together by force, the more resentful people will get. The result is the kind of resentment leading to problem against non-natives every time there is a misunderstanding or accident involving people of different tongues. We have to be realistic in this country. Our founding fathers knew the fundamental differences of our society and that was why they opted for the federal system of government with all that goes with it, namely separate and coordinate police, judiciary, civil service etc.

    In the words of Sir Ahmadu Bello, ‘‘we cannot forget our differences, we must understand them”.

  • Ribadu-led petroleum task force

    Ribadu-led petroleum task force

    As it has once again turned out, the PDP administration from 2001-2011, according to Ribadu draft report, presided over the theft of N10 trillion worth of crude oil. In all, the entire nation lost about N16 trillion through all sorts of shady deals by PDP and its associates.

    Other findings include the loss of $29b from 2001- 2011, the theft of 250,000 barrels of crude oil daily within the same period and also the loss of a total of $183m in signature bonuses paid by oil companies to the federation.

    There were also reports of indebtedness of foreign oil firms to the nation such as Addax, now a unit of China’s state-owned Sinopec, which owes Nigeria $1.5 billion in unpaid royalties, part of a $3 billion black hole of unpaid bonuses and royalties owed by oil bonuses. Shell, the report also says, owes Nigeria’s government N137.57 billion ($874 million) for gas sold from its Bonga deep offshore field while oil majors owed $58 million between them for gas flaring penalties. They were also not adhering to newer higher fines.

    Among other recommendations, the Ribadu committee want the NNPC re-organised or be scrapped.

    Alison Madueke who sat on the KPMG report for months has also acknowledged receiving the draft of Ribadu’s report over a month ago without any action. She has however now disclosed that a committee had been set up by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to look into the “differences in perspective on the Ribadu committee report” and make an “input”.

    Dr Doyin Okupe’s heartache on the report however was that the report was illegally and prematurely released. According to him “what was irregularly released prematurely to the media is a draft copy which still requires full assent of all members of the committee and clarifications and due process from the originating ministry before the official handing over to the Presidency”. Like Dr Reuben Abati, who also found it strange that the report found its way to the pages of newspapers even before it was officially presented, he has once more reassured us of the president commitment to fighting corruption. There is however a curious parallel of views between the minister, the two government spokesmen, and the duo of Oronsaye and Otti who have tried to discredit Ribadu’s report.

    While no one can begrudge the president’s men for their views on their principal’s commitment to fighting corruption, Doyin Okupe’s attempt to distant the Jonathan administration from the monumental stealing going in government is an assault on Nigerians. Was it not under this government that the number of fuel importers jumped from about two dozen to over 140 out of which 25 are currently facing legal actions for swindling the nation of about N3 trillion? Even if Okupe thinks Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia, Nigerians could not have forgotten so soon the revelations from Lawan Farouk report which the government tried to discredit, or the findings from Aig Imokhuede-led technical committee set up by the government itself.

    On the current Ribadu findings which those who have just secured plum government jobs are trying to discredit, Ledun Mitte, chairman of National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG) of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) said would not have been necessary if the successive findings of the NEITI had been implemented. In fact in his opinion, the Ribadu’s committee report only reiterated the revelations that had come out of the successive NEITI reports that had shown that the nation was losing about $9.8 billion or N1.373 trillion in outstanding recoverable funds due to the federation account from oil companies.

    NEITI has so far conducted three different cycles of industry audits spanning the period 1999-2004, 2005 and 2006-2008. The statement stressed that each of the past NEITI audit reports clearly identified financial, physical and process lapses, and revealed a loss of some $2.6 billion due to underpayments, under-assessments, poor judgment in the computations of volume of crude sales and other leakages. Another round of comprehensive audit of the oil and gas sector for 2009- 20011 which began early in the year is expected to be concluded next month, December. In the light of the above, it is perhaps only government functionaries like Okupe and Alison-Madueke that have faith in government commitment to fighting corruption.

    Instead of addressing the cynicism of the governed, PDP that has proved over the years that it doesn’t just give a damn about the governed is busy attacking the opposition for performing its constitutional role of holding the ruling party accountable. What in a democracy is disrespectful in ACN’s argument that “both Orasanye and Otti should have resigned their membership of the committee the moment they were given the plum jobs to avoid the apparent conflict of interest. The fact that they stayed on, only to disparage the report of the task force so openly and ferociously at the end, is the clearest indication yet that they were meant to play that exact role of spoilers’’.

    In fact, that was the argument of Ribadu who was pained by the turn of events. According to him, most of the members saw their appointment as a call to duty when appointed in February, and therefore worked round the clock during the first three months. Steve (Orosanye), according to him, “never participated in any of the meetings for this work. And during the course of the committee work, Steve became a member of the board of the NNPC. And Mr. Otti became a director in NNPC. They chose to remain as members of the committee instead of resigning”.

    But as usual, government has an ally in Tribune that has always been too quick to help it identify its enemies. As part of effort to discredit the report, Tribune alleged that some politicians have hijacked the report. Quoting sources close to security, the paper claimed ‘A report in the custody of government indicates that a former presidential aspirant, who is still hopeful of contesting the 2015 election met on Saturday with a chieftain of one of the leading opposition parties in Abuja where the plot to hijack the Ribadu report as a launch-pad for the 2015 election was said to have been hatched.’

    PDP on its part, instead of showing remorse for the greed of its members is diverting attention from the issue at hand to pillory the opposition which is doing its job of keeping the government on its toes. As if the party forgets we are running a democracy, it is accusing the opposition of disrespect for the presidency.

    The Ribadu Draft Report is destined for the same fate as the KPMG report whose non-implementation, Olisa Agbakoba had described as a national embarrassment; like Lawan Farouk fuel subsidy scandal, about which Okonjo Iweala said “we are going to be very aggressive in recovering money owed government and block all revenue leakages”; and like Imokhuede’s technical report being half heartedly implemented.

  • Prodigals’song

    At the end, our vanities shall ruin us and our truths shall attain clarity of sort. I speak of that moment when lies we tell shall evolve into half-truths and the grotesqueness we swore to escape begin to thrive on our watch.

    The beaming brightness of good shall be visible to all but we shan’t appreciate it even if we tried; because we shall be too blinded by deceitfulness and greed to do that. Thus our descent. As we descend, sophistry and trite banalities shall no longer serve us. Nothing will improve; we shall remain pitiful prey for pathetic predators to plunder, to the death.

    When we protest, riotous court sessions shall be mooted to silence our rancor even as plea bargaining is furnished to protect our light fingered leadership and thieving industry titans. But we shall continue to sit back to watch the news, read the news and curse the times.

    And when self-pity and deceit can no longer serve us, we shall grope through the lattices of personal disaster into the ruins of national disaster. We shall be puzzled how genocide found its perch past corruption and greed, in our hearts – even as we burn and blaze in the name of self-determination, ethnicity, mammon and “God.”

    The language of our madness shall still not be understood by all even as our madness is enabled and patronized by all. From our madness, our vanishing neighbours in the ‘first world’ shall nourish and thrive. Nigeria shall become that perfect prey for the ‘first world’ to rip off.

    We who should be aid-givers shall tirelessly scream and plead for aid. In the name of aid, more weaponry shall arrive our shores than the deplorable glucose and rice rations. Every Nigerian, a revolutionary soldier; every Nigerian child, a gun-totter.

    Secession shall offer no solution. But we shall have it anyway. The South-south shall go with her oil; the South-east with her Achebe-confessed supremacy and monopoly of entrepreneurship. Northern Nigeria shall go with her nuts, itinerant herds and religious fundamentalism; and the South-west shall go with her tottering agriculture, exaggerated sophistication, double standards and arrant complacency.

    In our new republics, civilization shall improve our houses and husks no doubt but little shall be done to improve the men that are to inhabit them. Our government houses shall dwarf the most grandiose Persian castles even as we fail to create statesmen to inhabit them.

    In our Biafra Republic, Oodua Republic, Niger-Delta Republic, United States of Arewa, to mention a few, the “civilized” citizen and elitist’s pursuits shall be no worthier than the savage’s.

    We shall all get the leadership we deserve; our quality even as newly emancipated people shall be reflected in the nature of our leadership. But neither violence nor spite shall rid us of treacherous leadership, corruption in high and low places.

    In the spirit of the revolt, the Nigerian working class and breadlines shall turn on one another, brandishing steel upon steel, bayonet against bayonet, shooting, maiming and decapitating our lavish spirits in the interests of the ruling class; until we become too bloodied to go on.

    Every national treasure and cash-cow shall become principal targets of assault. Every personal asset shall become a spoil of war. Cars, houses, certificates, jewelry, enviable marriages, careers and everything that everybody has ever labored to achieve shall vanish in pillage and devastating bomb blasts.

    We shall watch the deployment of arms to our lost and brainless youth. Having seen too much bloodshed and suffered it; we shall learn to think with the machete and speak with bullets. We shall hound and hack to death, people with whom we used to be next door neighbours, in-laws and “best friends forever (BFF)” simply because they are Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Itsekiri, Ibibio etc. We shall watch our mothers and wives get raped to the death. Our daughters and sisters shall become “comfort women” and hyper-active courtesans to at least, four or five soldiers and revolutionaries at a go.

    Within such stew and stink, President Jonathan and company will be nowhere near the scenes of ravage nor would every technocrat, industry leader and self-acclaimed political leader on whose watch Nigeria depletes by pilferage and sabotage. As they do in our state of prewar, they shall be comfortably tucked away in their safe houses abroad, while they monitor and direct the carnage back at the home front.

    And after the bloodbath is over, they shall re-emerge from their safe havens abroad to continue excitedly where they left off; knowing there would be greater chances for consequence-free pillage, murder and fraud. It wouldn’t matter if we are forced to reassemble to rebuild a more broken and battered Nigeria nor would it ever matter if every tribe eventually secedes and attain its nirvana; we all shall be forced to endure the same brutes at the reins of power. Corruption and death shall eclipse the rising sun of Biafra; it shall bury hope in the Federal Republic of Oodua; make more militants in the Niger Delta and silence dissent among the Arewa.

    We do not for instance foresee that terrible thing called betrayal, and chaos, do we? We do not prevision that this heady fantasy of ours will become an everlasting nightmare. When we get to breaking point, fat shall thin on our bones and our skin shall hang loosely on our sketchy skeletons. We all shall become bonier than the Tilapia; with the exception of our elder statesmen and their scions, who shall continue to feed and fatten like the fabled hog, off the hides of us commoners.

    After our battles have been fought and won, we shall live at a loss about how to manage the prize for which we ruined our lives, back when we used to be Nigeria. Our people shall go hungry and since we dare not denounce the oligarchy, we shall vent our venom on one another. The middle class would have died with this era; and all we would have shall be the haves and have-nots. There shall be nothing in between.

    Unemployment will worsen. The plum jobs shall only be for the children of the ruling class and their thug-associates. Today, our local government chairman is a park-thug. Tomorrow, our Senate President will be an outlaw – a professional cultist, arsonist, robber and assassin to be precise – and Mr. President shall be puppet to worse thug-fathers than we have now.

    We should be inching towards freedom but we aren’t. We should have attained freedom, but we haven’t; makes me wonder what manner of patriots we have become. It is our so-called intellectuals, labour leaders, social media activists and human rights activists that amaze me; add to the mix every mercantile journalist, columnist of note and substance, and you have a perfect blend of Nigeria’s worst enemies.

    It will no longer do to excuse our idiocy and greed as significant elements of political and socio-economic expediencies; everybody knows that every one of us seeks to feather his own nest. Yet we who ruin Nigeria are dying to break Nigeria. We who couldn’t love Nigeria enough to save her will ruin the seceded lands of our dreams with all manners of love.

  • The election in Ondo state

    The election in Ondo state

    The gubernatorial election in Ondo state has come and gone. Dr. Olusegun Mimiko and his Labour Party have won. In spite of the protestation of the PDP and the ACN, it seems that the people have decided. This is the spirit of democracy. The people have foolishly or wisely chosen who their leader for a while should be. Most of us independent observers are convinced that the economic integration platform of the ACN is in the longer interest of our people in the South-western part of Nigeria. I have a feeling that Mimiko himself would not be opposed to integration and I do not see how Ondo State can avoid integration with the rest of the Southwest even if Ondo state is not in the same party with its neighbours.

    In politics, one can choose his friends, but one cannot choose his neighbours. It’s like in life generally; one can choose one’s friends, but not members of one’s family. If this is a given position, both Mimiko and leaders of the ACN would have to get used to each other. If they do not, it is our people who would suffer. It is not necessary for elders to jump into the affray between the two contending ideologies in the South-west. Statesmanship should dictate that reconciliation is the way forward. Our interests are permanent, even though the strategies to attain these interests may change and there is no need to reduce political contestation to struggles between individuals and to personalize issues as it is being done in the story of Ondo State. There is absolutely no need to demonise and denigrate Bola Tinubu who by all accounts and yardstick has been a positive force in Yoruba politics. Whether we like it or not, Tinubu for the foreseeable future, will remain a relevant and constant force in Nigerian politics.

    I have read comments glamorizing one group while demonizing leadership of another group. There is no doubt that the leadership of the ACN has been largely successful in mobilizing people in the South-west and asking them to begin to look inwards, so as to find salvation from collective efforts, rather than looking towards an external saviour from Abuja. This trend has always characterised politics of people in the South-west over time and anyone who goes against this tendency would eventually find out that he has backed a wrong horse. This is the evidence of history and the political history of the South-western part of Nigeria is clear on this. This is also in tandem with global trend where cultural awareness accompanied by local autonomy is the order of the day. This is why I find it ridiculous for anybody to accuse the leadership of the ACN of tribalism. Politics is about defending group or collective interest and political parties are organised for this purpose especially in a situation of competing and conflicting interests as we find in Nigeria. Politics is war by other means. Instead of resorting to violence to defend one’s interest, one is involved in organised party politics. This is the real meaning and advantage of party political organisation.

    In advanced countries like the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, Denmark and Belgium, political parties exist specifically to defend regional or cultural interests and they don’t have to be apologetic about this; and anybody who feels defending regional interest is against the national interest is living in a fool’s paradise, because after all, the national interest is the aggregation of the interests of all.

    Dr. Mimiko should settle down and face the reality of the need to relate positively with the main political force in the South-west and he should avoid being used to fight intra and inter ethnic battles. He has enough on his plate at home and he must understand that his support in Ondo State is statistically very weak. He should concentrate on the task of development and creating jobs and economic opportunities at home. And that should take all his time, so that he doesn’t have time for indulging in self-adulation and praises from his A-men corner. Mimiko is an intelligent man and personally likeable, I have respect for his sense of judgement. He should avoid being used as a Trojan horse or bridgehead of those who may be opposed to progressive development in the region especially at a time when it is obvious the region is under intense and programmed marginalisation.

    The ACN as a political party needs to be seen as a mass movement that is ready to work with other mass movements in other parts of the country in preparation for 2015 election. The party must therefore be structured in such a way that its leadership is collective and not domineering. There is also need for internal democracy within the party so that candidates who contest elections command the support of the electorate. This is not a time to apportion blame, but this is a time for reform and democratization of all party organs. This is the bitter lesson that it must learn from the Ondo election.

    Political parties grow when challenged. Parties without opposition tend to ossify. This is why I believe the ACN has no reason to feel discouraged or despondent, after all, it made a good show in Ondo in spite of the loaded dice against it. The electoral process must be transparently fair and not subject to the shenanigans of party hawks who would like to use federal might and muscle to win elections. We have seen this before and it has not always been in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians. If this country is to progress, we must allow a contestation of ideas from which the right way forward would evolve.

     

  • Hell of a country

    Hell of a country

    NATURE seems to be furious nowadays.

    The floods in Nigeria have spared neither the rich nor the poor, submerging homes and businesses, turning many into refugees and scavengers. Canoes are gliding over flooded asphalt lines that used to be roads. People are dead. As the fear of an apocalypse stalks the land, many are rushing to check the holy book, asking: the days of Noah and his ark again?

    But Nigeria is not alone in suffering this anger of the elements. Super storm Sandy has been pounding some parts of the United States, killing people, uprooting trees and smashing them on cars, flooding streets to submerge homes and disrupting power supply. The cataclysmic effect of it all has strengthened the spiritualist’s thought of a world coming to a grievous end and many are screaming: “Oh no; not now, Lord!”.

    There is, ironically, a comical side to the furious floods. Nollywood’s old kids, the naughty Aki and Pawpaw, visited the displaced people’s camp in Asaba, Delta State, shaking hands with the people who lined the road to welcome them. It was hilarious seeing the “kid stars” carrying kids they are barely taller than.

    Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan said he brought them to the camp to address the displaced people because of his experience when he once visited in the night. He said the people never bothered about his presence as they stayed hooked onto the television, watching the pranksters, Aki and Pawpaw. So he decided to bring them to the camp to address the people. It was a hit.

    With the disturbing news of storms and floods have come stories of human disasters and wickedness, of graft and greed. Those who have got an insight into the Ribadu Committee Report are shaken at the level of corruption in the oil industry. There is no trace of $183million signature bonuses paid by oil companies. Shell is said to be owing N137.57billion for gas sold. Addax’s debt is reported to be $1.5billion in royalties. Between 2002 and 2011, $5billion is said to have been lost in oil sales to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

    Petroleum Resources Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke has said the “final” report, which was compiled by a 21-man revenue task force, is not final because it needs the government’s input. There are also Governance and Control and the Refineries task forces, according to the minister, who said a team had been set up to examine the various reports. It is after the team is done that the issues in the Ribadu Report can be addressed. Now, what is that?

    Why has the rot in the oil industry taken this long to uncover? Who are the big cats feeding fat on this? Isn’t this a case of leadership deficiency? Who supervises the NNPC?

    The Presidency, after lashing those commenting on the report, has said it is yet to get the document and that nobody indicted will be spared. Good talk. But, can we match our talk with action? Can we really go all the way and clean up the rotten system?

    Even as we examine the Ribadu Report, the Halliburton scandal – remember this? – has suddenly resurrected. President Goodluck Jonathan is said to have directed that the book be reopened, two years after the investigation was surreptitiously dumped. The fresh probe is said to have been initiated because of the United States’ insistence that those indicted in the $240million bribe-for-contract scandal must be punished before Nigeria can recover the seized $180million bribe cash. But, there are unconfirmed reports that the President is under pressure from two former heads of state not to reopen the case.

    Will Dr Jonathan go ahead with the case? Who are the people asking him not to? Why should it take America to nudge us to action, even as we make a huge noise about fighting corruption? Why do we always allow corruption to slap us in the face before we start boasting of fighting back?

    After a brief lull, the suicide bomber returned last Sunday, striking at a Kaduna Catholic church. It was like a Hollywood movie scene; full of action, deadly action, but real. Kids were the worst hit. Eight people died; scores were injured.

    The implacable Boko Haram sect is believed to have been the architect and executor of the violence. The world keeps wondering what Boko Haram’s anger is all about. Perhaps there would have been no Boko Haram, if the police had not executed its leader, Mohammed Yusuff. Perhaps.

    The sect has the right to demand justice. In fact, there can’t be peace without justice. This is the point that many of our leaders got wrong in their Sallah messages. They urged us to embrace peace and pray for the unity of our dear country. Can there be peace without justice? But, this is not to say any group, no matter how versatile in violence, should take the law into its own hands. No. I think it’s time for Boko Haram to change its tactics.

    The wickedness continued in Plateau State where unknown (?) gunmen killed six patrons of a drinking bar enjoying the local brew, burukutu. A week before last Sunday’s attack, two men had been killed in the community, Gindin Akwanti, in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area. They were on their way from the market when their assailants pounced on them.

    In Onitsha, a four-man gang shot dead a car dealer, Chief Emeka Ekwerendu, in broad daylight; 7.30am. The gang trailed their victim to a school where he dropped his kids. They shot his vehicle’s tyres, taking it off control. It hit a parked vehicle and got stuck. The assailants then shot Ekewerendu, opened his car’s boot and carted away a huge sum of money.

    Why do people kill for money? Would the chief have resisted his assailants, if they had asked him to surrender the cash? Was it robbery or assassination? Will the police get the killers?

    And talking about the police. They lost five men in Ogun when robbers ambushed a team responding to a “distress” call. How will the police differentiate a fake distress call from a genuine one? Poor guys.

    In Abuja, a senator and a former governor are quarrelling over who wears the father of Boko Haram crown. The State Security Service (SSS) is questioning Senator Ahmed Khalifa Zanna about his relationship with a suspected commander of the sect, Shuaib Bama. Zanna says the man, his nephew, was not arrested in his Maiduguri home, but in former Borno Governor Ali Modu Sheriff’s. The ex-governor fought back, saying the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senator is “the engine-room” of Boko Haram, which, according to him, the lawmaker nourished through his hajj-by-road programme.

    Why did Sheriff wait till now before speaking? When will the SSS question him, in the light of the new allegation? Could this be why some people insist Boko Haram is all politics?

    Also in Abuja, there is the seemingly needless quarrel over the oil benchmark for the budget. The executive says it should be $75. The Senate says no; $78 is appropriate. The House insists on $80. I doubt whether the common man knows how this row will better his lot.

    Amid the natural and human calamities, Nigerians continue to see everything as a joke. I don’t blame them. There is so much to cry over; they may have been losing gradually that human feeling that provokes tears. Now, they laugh at their leaders. Consider this sent to my mobile by a colleague:

    “Three former leaders – from UK, US and Nigeria – went to hell. The first asked the devil to allow him make a call to London to inquire about the country’s welfare. He spent five minutes on the telephone. Satan billed him $5million. The ex-US leader also made a call and spent eight minutes. The bill: $8million.

    “Then, the ex-Nigerian leader called Abuja. He spent two hours. ‘How much be my bill?’ he asked Satan. ‘$1,’ he replied. Surprised, the former leader said: ‘But I stayed longer than them.’ Satan smiled, saying: ‘Calling hell from hell is not expensive; it’s a local call.’”

    So long!

     

    A governor and his hobby

    GERMAN doctors are battling to save the life of Taraba State Governor Danbaba Fulani Suntai, who crashed an aircraft last Thursday. His five passengers are begging to also be flown overseas.

    When Suntai got his licence at the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) in 2010, this newspaper splashed his “initiation” pictures on its pages. His Excellency, decked in a shirt and a tie with a pair of brown trousers, stood erect like a soldier as an official emptied a bucket of water on him. What a ritual!

    People have been wondering what may have happened. Was the weight of office too much for the mind to concentrate on the risky but exciting business of flying? Who owns the aircraft; another of His Excellency’s toys? Will Suntai fly again?

    I often wonder how things that are made for man’s comfort easily become agents of pains. May the Almighty restore Suntai’s health. And may the authorities listen to the distress call to fly the others out for treatment. Amen!

  • Behind the glitter…

    Behind the glitter…

    A glance behind the glitter usually reveals something more than a colourful paradise. It invalidates the deceptions of fame. It is akin to what Saul Bellow likened to picking up a dangerous wire fatal to ordinary folk or rattlesnakes handled by hillbillies in a state of religious exaltation, in his novel, Humboldt’s Gift. Many who grasped these super-charged wires and serpents have been found to incandesce in acclaim for a little while and then they wink out  which leads to a more profound suspicion of celebrity and acclaim, writes OLATUNJI OLOLADE, Assistant Editor…

    Everybody knew Joe Layode. Then everybody hated Joe Layode, and loved him, just as his characters demanded. Either as the ambitious upstart alongside American movie greats, Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in the 1951 epic, The African Queen; or Teacher Garuba, the enfant terrible character in rested family soap, The Village Headmaster, Layode captured the subtleties of fiction effortlessly and quite impressively, thus making his simplest interpretations memorable. Like pieces of a shared life, an intimacy between him and whoever cares to remember and appreciate. No eulogy would perhaps depict the essence of the actor whose latter interpretations coincidentally mirrored his shattered end. Perhaps he dreamt a better fate; that, no one would ever know. Critics and movie enthusiasts can only admire what was seen of him and imagine what might have been of the foremost actor whose existence and demise still implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

    Layode, for all his artistry and renown, died wretched at 87. Following a protracted ailment that left him virtually blind and sapped of strength, Layode cut a sorry picture of lack and unappreciated talent often eliciting sympathetic gasps from visitors and neighbours in his Iba Housing Estate neighbourhood. Layode was practically living from hand to mouth as he could barely raise enough money to feed and maintain himself. At his death, he was almost denied a decent burial as he was initially buried in a shallow grave, because there wasn’t enough money to buy him a decent resting place.

    Late Dejumo Lewis, one of his colleagues on The Village Headmaster set, was furious over what he termed shabby treatment of Layode’s body at the supposed venue for the lying in state. Layode’s body was allegedly rejected by the National Theatre. It was also reportedly taken to the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) office at the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) but it was also rejected. Eventually, his casket was returned to the ambulance and taken to the Atan Cemetery, Yaba, where he was buried. But for his daughter, Sade Aladejuwon; veteran artistes, Eddie Ugboma, Elsie Olusola, the Late Dejumo Lewis and National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP) Lagos chapter, the seasoned actor might have suffered a raw deal, even in death.

    And then there was Ahmed Oduola. Popularly known as Dento, Oduola died a few days ago at 66, after suffering a debilitating stroke and tuberculosis. The ailment which left him emaciated inflicted upon him partial paralysis; at some point he was also bedridden and unable to talk. The late actor and his family could not raise the sum of N250, 000 reportedly needed to get him proper medical treatment, thus they had to seek financial assistance from the public.

    Expectedly, well-meaning Nigerians responded to calls for assistance for the late actor. He eventually passed away even though his condition was said to be improving steadily.

    Oduola hailed from Olusunle compound in the Idi-Arere area of Ibadan in Oyo State. Although he brought smiles and laughter to many homes, courtesy his trademark comic character, Dento, he departed the world in a very sad state, dying impoverished in his father’s house despite his long years of service and devotion to Nigerian television and film acting. Oduola began his acting career performing with Lere Paimo’s Eda Onileola Theatre Group, where he acted the role of Aderinto – from where his popular sobriquet, Dento evolved. However, due to lack of fulfillment and stark impoverishment by his chosen profession, Oduola quit acting in his later years to survive by his other skill: tailoring. Unfortunately, he died just before he could chance on survival. He left behind, six wives and eight children, although none of the wives was living with him at the time of his death.

    Although, he passed away before Oduola, the case of James Akwari Iroha a.k.a Gringory, actor and creator of the rested Nigerian Television Authority (N.T.A) family sitcom, The New Masquerade fame, also incites pity and disillusionment in the Nigerian entertainment industry.

    Iroha gave 40 years of his life to acting. But at 70, he died with very little to show for years of dedication to the field. Although newspaper reports alleged that he lived and died in penury, his family members have since mounted vehement protests denouncing the reports as untrue and unfair to a man who contributed so much to Nigeria’s entertainment industry.

    More saddening, however, was the fact that Iroha battled an affliction of the deadly glaucoma his eyes, for which he had undergone several operations both at home and abroad with no success. He later developed high blood pressure and other undisclosed ailments in the course of treating the ailment.

    The 1966 graduate of University of Ibadan spent four days in the hospital in his final battle with an ailment he had been battling for about a decade. No doubt, the fate of Nigeria’s pioneer artistes oftentimes provokes feelings of disillusionment in both the government and the arts industry. A careful perusal of Late Iroha’s disclosure about the state in which they were forced to work emphasizes the desolation that characterizes the world of Nigerian actors, particularly the pioneer generation.

    According to the late actor, “Government, ab initio, was projecting us and said we ought to have been paying them. According to them, that they gave us a medium to express ourselves was good enough; so they were even asking us to pay. They were paying us N250 per episode of The New Masquerade. Some of us got N2; others received N10 only, and even at that we kept praying and hoping that we would appear the next week. So unlike now, we were not paid any professional fees.

    “A time came when I thought the government discovered that they had skeletons in their cupboard. They thought, perhaps, we were going places and at the end of the day we may end up destroying them, exposing them too much in The New Masquerade.

    “That’s why they supported our being yanked off the air. That was how we were rested. I’m sure Nigerians still want the programme, even till tomorrow. If we start it again, it would still be as wholesome and entertaining as it was in the beginning. Even in Nollywood, we have seen all sorts of video productions, but we have not seen anything better than The New Masquerade.”

    Despite inspiring reports about the rising fortunes of the Nigerian film industry – according to CNN and industry statistics, the industry is the second highest revenue earner in Nigeria today with a revenue figure of N9 billion – the lives of many Nigerian actors and actresses contrast negatively with any such phenomenon.

    Reality unarguably dispels claims to riches and stardom perpetuated by many Nigerian actors according to numerous stakeholders. “Most of them earn far little than they claim to earn. If any actor or actress tells you that he or she earns as much as N1.7 million or N2 million per flick, that person is a liar,” claimed a costumier and make-up artist who simply identified herself as Preye.

    Corroborating her, Afolabi Odunjo, a movie producer and editor, disclosed: “Many of them (artistes), in abject desperation to measure up to the hype and expectations of affluence that comes with their fame, influence the media to misinform the public by spreading tales of their mind-blowing salaries and wealth,” he claimed.

    The Nation findings revealed that while artistes in hot demand earn between N500,000 and N300,000, seasoned actors earn a paltry N200,000 or thereabouts for appearances in traditional epics and between N100, 000 and N150, 000 for appearances in contemporary-themed movies.

    Surprisingly, many notable actors earn between N50, 000 and N100, 000 for movie appearances. That is why many of them seek appearances in as much movies as possible – the idea is to improve their net-income per month. If an artiste features in four movies at N80, 000 per flick, there is the likelihood that he or she would earn as much as N320, 000 in a month. However, despite the likelihood of recording such earnings, not a few artistes groan over inability to receive their fees in full, even after fulfilling their part of the contractual obligation.

    Many artistes have been known to storm movie locations to demand their outstanding fees from movie makers. And then many more artistes are forced to barter their appearances in movies for fellow artistes’ appearances in their own movies. This practice is sustained by an unwritten rule of engagement that makes an artiste beholden and morally bound to reciprocate gestures of free appearances in his or her flick by fellow artistes. This professional barter system is blamed for the stark impoverishment of numerous artistes and their inability to measure up to expectations of fame and affluence that they enjoy by their numerous appearances in various movies.

    The deceptions and grand delusions of artistes laying indefensible claims to wealth and breathtaking fees is as prevalent in a particular movie sector. Many artistes in that film industry like their other counterparts, derive satisfaction in faking reality. In fact, the delusion is even more prevalent in the sector as not a few artistes have been known to plummet to obscurity in the wake of their crass showiness and desperate claims to affluence.

    Many actors, according to movie pundits, have plunged to infamy in their desperate bids to keep up appearances and sustain a larger-than-life reputation. “That is why many of them resort to even more desperate measures like serving as drug mules for crime syndicates. That is why certain artistes who dominated the news in the past have dissolved into obscurity despite their numerous appearances in movies today,” according to movie critic and photo-journalist, Olajumoke Ayinde.

    Stories of artistes behaving badly have become almost a sub-field of journalism. However, decorum was preserved by presenting these as having genuine “human interest,” a euphemism for voyeuristic appeal. Till date, many artistes desperately seek to scandalise themselves in a frantic bid to accommodate the demands of fame.

    The mission to illuminate and expose the “real self” behind the screen or stage façade, meanwhile, galvanised journalists. One of the effects of the ever-more intrusive media’s reportage of the private lives of the famous was in promoting the notion that success, happiness and self-fulfillment had little to do with material goods or social status – a comforting thought for people to embrace in a society increasingly characterised by stark inequalities of wealth and power.

    Poverty and the Nigerian artiste

    Some artistes simply choose to remain poor or live within their modest means rather than soil their name and reputation that they have painstakingly built over the years. Think Joe Layode and other pioneers in the field. In fact, the poverty of the Nigerian artiste is an undeniable phenomenon; with numbers increasing dramatically among Nigeria’s surviving generation of pioneer artistes. Those who are not impoverished keep a virtually modest lifestyle. Scared of ending up by their financially disadvantaged predecessors, many contemporary artistes resort to keeping second jobs, particularly those who are too principled to grovel before politicians and criminal masterminds or resort to crime.

    In economic terms, this suggests an oversupply of artists, but unlike other sectors of the economy, artistes hardly quit. That they seemingly “cannot do otherwise”, leads to the notion that the economy of the arts is exceptional. In the sector, the usual mechanisms of supply and demand suffer a dysfunction, according Prince Emeka Nnaji, a lecturer in Film Studies and self-acclaimed movie entrepreneur.

    The problem

    It has become a source of major concern that Nigeria’s artistic heritage is under pressure because most artistes and entertainers end up destitute after they have spent considerable time of their lives entertaining their people. Consequently, many talented artistes are quitting the industry after years of unfulfilled service to practise other vocations as illustrated by the case of Oduola who quit acting to practise tailoring at some point.

    This is thus leading to the extinction of African Artistic heritage. Because of the lack suffered by the passing generation of pioneers, many contemporary artistes are today motivated by the commercial gains derivable from the expression of their talents rather than the love it. Moguls and self-styled godfathers of the entertainment industry who have the power and money to make things happen are beginning to influence the message of the African movie or social documentary. And producers, writers, and directors to mention a few are finding themselves in situations where they sacrifice or substitute the true substance of African cultural heritage with commercial and oftentimes, Western-themed messages aimed at appealing to vanities and making quick money. The common excuse for this new age money driven motivation of some African artistes is that they have to make a living and acquire riches in order not to end up destitute after the fame departs and they are left at the mercy of feeble old age and posterity.

    Unappreciated old glories

    Joe Layode, Hubert Ogunde, Eddie Ugboma, veteran movie maker and one of the first African international actors/directors, among many others helped to put Nigeria and Africa on the world map of artistic reckoning. However, many of these artistic gurus are yet to be appropriately appreciated and institutionalised in the annals of the country’s artistic greats, according to Oliver Mbamara, a United States-based actor/producer and lawyer.

    “Worse still, it is very disheartening to note that such great talents like the famous Claude Eke a.k.a. Cief Jegede Shokoya of The New Masquerade fame did not get any befitting assistance from the people and government of the country when they retired or began their descent from the hill of popularity…Entertainers like these invested all their time and life into entertaining their people. They did not have time for a second job. They did not get any endorsements or have enough money to set up major business ventures. Their names were praised but hardly paid for. No brand name companies that brought returns for using their names in businesses like designer shoes, clothing, cologne, etc. Actually, most of these artistes were barely paid their salaries, yet they continued to be in the entertainment world due to their love of it, and when the salaries ended, they found nothing to live upon,” he lamented

    Lust for the American dream

    “It is no secret that most contemporary Nigerian artistes would die to play the role of a minor or extra in a Hollywood flick. The situation has currently degenerated to the extent star actors and actresses in Nigeria oftentimes reveal, albeit shamelessly, their dreams of acting alongside prominent Hollywood actors. But how would this translate to better fortunes for the Nigerian film industry and better fate for the Nigerian artiste?” wondered Theophilus Onimise, a video store owner and movie enthusiast.

    However, Oyindamola Oluyinka, an actress, disagreed with him. According to Oluyinka, acting alongside prominent Hollywood actors will give Nigerian artistes better exposure and favourably position local talents to a greater world audience.

    Indeed, the United States of America (USA) remains the dream country mostly because many individuals eventually get to realise their aspirations in the American environment but this is mostly with the help of the socio-cultural and economic structure of the society, which strongly rest on the theories, and practices of capitalism. Successful artistes of Nigerian parenthood currently making waves in US and the United Kingdom include Sophie Okonedo of the Hotel Rwanda fame, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje a.k.a Mr. Eko of the Oz and Lost, H.B.O series fame, Caroline Chikezie of the Supernatural fame, Tunde Adebimpe, Chiwetel Ejiofor of the Amistad, American Gangster and Dirty Pretty Things fame.

    Beyond talk…

    “We may write as many essays and deliver as many papers, but one sure way to go beyond theory,” according to Mbamara, “is for the heads of African government to appoint ministers and commissioners from established and experienced artistes who have the love of the arts and the interest of the culture at heart”.

    Many more pundits have made a case for direct grants to artistes. According to them, such grants must be made truly available to the actual stakeholders in the nation’s film industry – unlike the mythical $200 million largesse President Goodluck Jonathan claimed to have given to the local film industry. According to many artistes, they are yet to receive or benefit from any such money.

    Direct grants or subsidies to artistes are expected to make it possible for an artiste, at a particular point in his or her career, to devote every available time to the production of excellent art work. It is expected to remove the necessity to maintain a day job and assist an artiste in acquiring a critical resource or asset that has longer term returns such as a marketable artistic output, knowledge and skills, marketing and promotion, staff, representation, a piece of equipment, a studio, state of the art gadgets, among many other things. And often direct grants, particularly if competitive or associated with awards, send a signal to other gatekeepers, that is, funders, donors, producers, and the press that a particular artiste is worthy of time and support and may result in more resources and attention flowing to that artiste.

    It may be worth noting, however, that this ‘signalling’ effect can contribute to the ‘winner-takes-all’ phenomenon that sometimes exists in the arts and entertainment sector and thereby make it even more difficult for new entrants to emerge and find resources.

    Notwithstanding its likely gains and demerits, government grants and direct subsidies to artistes simply constitute a measure among many others required to salvage the local film industry and fashion a better fate and work atmosphere for Nigeria’s league of extraordinary artistes. The government and stakeholders need to go back to the drawing board to devise viable and sustainable means to resolve the problems of the local film industry and institutionalise a culture of appreciation of Nigeria’s old glories, stated Idris Shomide, a film critic and script writer.

    Until then, Nigeria will continue to rue the disappearance of its league of extraordinary artistes. That has to be saddening. It is. Even at the verge of obscurity and feeble old age, seasoned artistes like Layode and Iroha still managed to skim that dazzling trope of individuality and excellence that is the soul of acting. Whether as minor and major characters, these Nigerian ambassadors of art told the story fluently, sharing different degrees of intimacies with their fans and critics, with numerous beginnings and ends; a sense of birth and death, while their heartfelt interpretations cheat their fast-dwindling fans of a sigh and charm them to a tear.

  • Readers’ parliament 21

    Sir Ololade, the picture you paint in your “The End 1” is too scary but true. Like a movie, you recreated the dreadful pictures of the civil war and the horrors that television brought into our living rooms from other lands. Shall we be allowed to see 2015? And will they allow us elect the ones you envisaged? I am waiting for the second part! E.U. Ukairo. FSTC Uromi, Edo state. 07032345312.

    Only pain! Only misery! Only five years of hell as a graduate in Nigeria. Only hope and prayer that this prophecy is averted because it will be bloody. But that’s what satan their master want from us. Maybe it’s a necessary evil. Phillip. 08033817094.

    Mr. Ololade, are you a prophet because I can see you are seeing a vision in “The End (1).” Do we need to sit down and watch those things happen? Chinedu Osumili. 08130239474. UNN.

    Hi, Olatunji, just read your article: “The End 1” and it is a terrific read. I look forward to your articles. Very firebrand and passionate. Thumbs up. 08180661079.

    Re: The End (2); fine piece. It frightens me that I am not the only one thinking along these lines. Akinyode. 08033705338.

    Behold Nigeria’s Nostradamus! You sound between a prophet and a perfect prognosticator. I have been keenly following your lamentation right from “The End 1.” Do we need to go to the planets to verify the authenticity of the truths that are tormenting you to explosion? You are speaking of what even our western neighbours know as the inevitable truth. But you err by aiming straightforward for the truth. Winston Churchill said you don’t do that. I however encourage you to keep on telling the truth. Soji Ojediran. Ibadan. 08063939858.

    Did Jonathan read the piece titled: “Farewell Umaru, Jonathan has come to us at last” of May 14, 2010? The answer is “no!” I think the Egyptians are more politically conscious than the oppressed Nigerians. PDP and Jonathan are one ideologically. Thank you. Amos Ejimonye. Kaduna. 08039727512.

    Sir, I am a passionate reader of your “Reality Bites” indeed. And I must commend your journalism prowess and equally pray for you not to be lured by better pay to the presidency like some people we know. 07067416008.

    I love your “Reality Bites” column. No doubt that a thoughtful and committed group of people can re-strategize Nigeria and give voice to the silenced. 08062704585.

    We are very bad people (1)

    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.

    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.

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

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

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

    You said it all. We are indeed very bad people. None could be worse. 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. Zuby from 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. 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. Paul Vingil. Abuja. 08035880838.

    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. Henry Oputa esq, Port Harcourt. 08033125515.

    We are very bad people (1) says it all. Keep telling the truth. You are superb. 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. 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.

    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

  • Racial factor in US election

    The election of Barak Obama four years ago was a victory for non-racial democracy. Obama is therefore a transitional leader that is taking America from its racist past to a glorious future where it will be the quality of one’s mind and not his race that would be the objective measurement of one’s character. In the 1920s, President Harding was virtually driven out of office because rumours had it that his skin colour was changing and that he probably had black blood in him. Whether true or not, the poor man died apparently in frustration and desperation.

    It would have been unthinkable some decades ago for someone with Obama’s look to even aspire to be a senator not to talk about being the President of the United States. In the 1960s, Obama would not have been able to freely have a cup of coffee or a meal in a restaurant in the southern part of the Unites States unless he went to a black restaurant. He would not have been able to sit anywhere in a bus except at the back because the front rows were reserved for whites. If he was pressed, he would not have been able to ease himself in any toilet in a restaurant as whites would normally be able to do.

    When James Meredith was admitted to the University of Mississippi, he had to be protected by federal troops sent in by the Kennedy administration because the then governor of Mississippi said James Meredith would only be admitted on his dead body. In short, as a result of President Lyndon Johnson’s reforms of the 1960s and the activism of the supreme court of the United States, Americans of all colours do not only have rights under the law but these rights are justiceable. What the Obama elections represents is the triumph of reason over imbecility in American social and political life.

    There is still racism in the United States sometimes this is hidden and sometimes this is open. The so called Tea Party Movement within the Republican Party is openly racist and sometimes depicting Obama as a monkey and asking him to go back to Africa where he can have as much bananas as he likes. Sometimes the expression of freedom of speech in America can go to the extreme, the kind of extreme that makes it possible to ridicule Islam on the recent film on Prophet Mohammed that created a lot of problems globally for the American government.

    The former President Jimmy Carter said that white Americans have suddenly woken up and realized that they elected a black man as president and they are very scared and many of them see the coming election as a way of changing the situation. This is an uncomfortable truth but it is no less the truth. The Financial Times of London owned by the Murdock group that also owns the rabidly conservative if not racist Fox network in an editorial opinion sometimes in August 2012 said that this coming election is the last chance for white Americans to take back political power. It came up with some crude statistics that the number of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and native Americans by the next decade would outnumber those of the whites and that a coalition of this visible minorities may in the foreseeable future dominate American politics.

    This is of course nonsense but it is remarkable that a prestigious newspaper like the Financial Times would give vent to this crude racism. Mitt Romney, the republican candidate dismisses Obama’s supporters as government dependents, that is, those who cannot do without government support while his own supporters he will want us to see as the real Americans of the traditional American dream. That is those who build themselves up by their boot straps. Ordinarily if Mr Obama were a white person, he will easily be re elected especially running against a man who is a bishop in the church of the Latter-day Saints otherwise known as the Mormons, a sect that many Americans see as strange.

    Apart from that, Romney has a lot of skeletons in his wardrobe especially centring around sharp business practices and underpayment of taxes. Obama inherited from President George Bush two wars and a doddering economy that was on the verge of collapse. The iconic motor industries of Detroit particularly General Motors and Chrysler had to file for bankruptcy before the Obama administration intervened and saved them. If they had collapsed, millions of American jobs would have gone down the drain. The same thing can be said of American banks and insurance companies involved in the mortgage scandals that were rescued by the Obama’s administration yet 8% of Americans are unemployed but it could have been worse. In the area of foreign policy, Obama is winding down the war in Afghanistan after he had done that in Iraq. He is trying to avoid being sucked into another war in Iran and Syria and his use of drones has saved many American lives who would have had to be sent across the boundary of Afghanistan to Pakistan to fight the Taliban. His administration has managed to stay on the side of the people in the so called Arab Spring Movement.

    He has not been able to bring peace to Israel and Palestine but if re-elected, he may be able to do this because he will no longer be constrained by the power of the Jewish lobby.

    Personally I wish he will be re-elected. This is for psychological reasons from seeing a black man in the most powerful position in the world. But in reality, we Africans have not benefited much from the Obama presidency. The only benefit if at all is psychological.

  • Nature and dynamics of insurgencies (III) (part 2)

    Nature and dynamics of insurgencies (III) (part 2)

    Some of the leaders of the insurgency have University education which accounts for their vastly improved organization. They are familiar with the terrain in which they operate and have wide social connections in the region. In addition, there is some evidence of both local and external support in terms of funding and training for the insurgents. Some senior government leaders and politicians in the North are under investigation for giving the insurgents financial and logistical support in their operations. The full extent of such collaboration by a few of the leaders in the North is not known. But there is little doubt that some Northern leaders secretly support the insurgents for political reasons. These leaders want political power at the centre to return to the North.

    The skills of the insurgents in producing lethal home based bombs, and other weapons of mass destruction used in the massive suicide bombings of their targets indicate some external support as well for the sect. One of the fallouts of the Libyan war is the proliferation of arms in the Sahel, some of which have found their way into Nigeria and other states in West Africa. The recent attacks on Mali were facilitated by the easy access of the insurgents to some of the weapons from the Libyan war. The insurgents do not seriously appear to lack access to arms and ammunitions or to considerable financial and logistical support. The open terrain in the North and the wide dispersal of the local communities are conducive to the type of insurgency being waged by Boko Haram in the region. There is some evidence that the insurgents enjoy the support of some law enforcement and security agents. This accounts for their good intelligence which keeps them a step ahead of the security forces. The Churches, main targets of their attacks, are clearly visible and, in view of their large number, cannot be fully protected by the security forces, already overstretched by the security challenges they now face.

    Some of the leaders of the insurgents are believed to have received their military training in the use of arms in Pakistan and the Yemen. Certainly, the insurgents have received considerable financial and logistical support from Al Qaeda, the formidable terrorist group based in Pakistan and the Yemen. Mutallab, the University educated, well bred young man, involved in the attempted bombing of a US bound plane is a good example of young educated Northerners who have turned their back on the Northern establishment into which they were born, but from which they have become totally alienated as a result of the social and economic inequalities in the region, far exceeding those in the South where education provides the basis for social and economic advancement, including access to job opportunities. These young educated Northerners despise their Northern leaders for the widespread corruption in the country, including the North. They have a vision of a society based on the Sharia, the Islamic legal doctrines. Boko Haram is also able to recruit easily from the ranks of the poor, the talakawa, who abound in the North. The talakawa have nothing to lose by joining the insurgency which promises them a better life and equal economic opportunities. It is from this group of the poor that Boko Haram has continued to receive its local support. The insurgents seek the overthrow of the established authorities for political reasons. In most cases, this type of insurgency is tribally or ethnically based. It is a product of a colonial legacy in which different tribes and ethnic groups were brought together under colonial rule.

    At the moment Boko Haram is not known to be operating outside Nigeria. It is local in origin and outlook, with a single specific objective; the destruction of the old established order and its replacement by a new order based on Islamic laws and strict Islamic doctrines. It is limited to the Northern part of Nigeria. Al Qaeda, the fundamentalist Islamic movement, based in Pakistan, but with tentacles all over the Arab world is an example of an insurgency whose operations and activities cut across the entire Moslem world. Nigeria is a multi-religious country. The country’s constitution guarantees to all its citizens the freedom of association and freedom to practice their religion. Boko Haram is opposed to this. Where the North is concerned it wants the creation of Islamic states. This is why Churches and the Christians are the main focus of its attacks. The insurgents resent the spread of Christianity in the North. They want the Hausa- Fulani North to be wholly Moslem, to be governed strictly according to Islamic laws. The problem is that it is not only the immigrants from the South that are Christians. There are large numbers of the Hausa-Fulani who, over the years, have converted to Christianity. The new generation evangelical Churches in the North have achieved remarkable success in extending Christianity to the largely Moslem North. The fundamentalist Moslems in the North feel beleaguered by this development which they fear threatens their way of life.

    So far, the Nigerian security forces have failed to effectively tackle the Boko Haram terrorists. They have stepped up their activities and operations in the North. The authorities have attempted without much success to counter Boko Haram by the application of military force. Dialogue may offer a way out of the insurgency but Boko Haram has not yet committed itself to this. At the moment, there is very little room for maneuver on either side of the dispute. The issues involved in the insurgency are so fundamental that any negotiations at this point in time are unlikely to succeed. There is a distinct lack of trust on either side. The group has persistently ignored the pleas of the Northern leaders to abandon their terrorist acts and operations. Instead, Boko Haram has intensified and widened its insurgency. There is a complete deadlock between the two sides. What is likely to happen is that the insurgency will gradually run out of steam and external support. This will make it easier for the Nigerian state to manage and contain the conflict. The federal authorities need to be more proactive in tackling Boko Haram. A sustained programme of public enlightenment on the danger to the state of Boko Haram should be started. This should be complemented by a more sustained and determined effort by the federal government as well as the Northern governments to invest more in providing easy access to education and jobs in the North.

    The security forces will need to do much better in intelligence gathering to pre-empt terrorist attacks by Boko Haram. A greater infiltration of the sect by the security forces for intelligence gathering is also called for. In this regard the federal authorities are looking for international support and assistance in intelligence gathering and equipment. The US government has been reported as being willing to offer some assistance on this. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was reported as making this offer during her recent official visit to Nigeria. Britain and other western countries will also be disposed to offer similar assistance.

    It is doubtful whether the Nigerian state has the capacity to neutralize the insurgent groups. Ethnic and religious divisions compound the security problems of the Nigerian state. Poor police and army intelligence makes it far too easy for Boko Haram agents to operate in the North. But it has to be admitted that there is also some support in the North for the principal aim of the sect, which is to make most of the North theocratic, instead of being secular.

    It will also be necessary to take practical and effective measures to cut off the local and foreign financial and logistical support for the insurgency. The CBN and the local banks have a huge responsibility in this regard. Without funding and logistical support Boko Haram will lose local support and become less effective.