The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Nature and dynamics of insurgencies (III)

    Nature and dynamics of insurgencies (III)

    The 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria was a sham. It was certainly unpopular in both Northern and Southern Nigeria at the time. In the North, the powerful Moslem Emirates were opposed to it, as it was feared that a centralized administrative system would weaken their authority, while in the South the fear of the Lagos based educated elite was that it would lead to the extension to the South of the obnoxious practice associated with indirect rule, and the curtailment of the few political rights that they enjoyed under the legislative council system. Lord Lugard and most of his successors as governors were committed to the maintenance of the existing aristocratic Emirates and social order in the North. They admired the Islamic way of life in the North. Northern Nigeria seemed more orderly and stable. Why disrupt this order by bringing in foreign cultural influences, including western education? While allowing the Christian missionaries to start schools in Southern Nigeria, the British colonial authorities did little to encourage education in the North. Churches were virtually barred by the British colonial government from starting schools in the North. The practical effect of this basic commitment by the British colonial authorities to maintain and protect the Islamic way of life in the North was that a yawning gap between the North and the South in western education began to develop rapidly. This gap in education between the North and the South is one of the major sources of conflicts and instability in the country, even today. It is directly responsible for the emergence of religious sectarian groups in the North such as Boko Haram. The pre-independence political process in Nigeria has also contributed to sectarian violence in Nigeria. On the surface, the constitutional framework at independence appeared flexible enough to permit compromise, adjustment, and change. It seemed loose enough to satisfy regional aspirations and at the same time to accommodate conflicting national interests. What it did in reality, however, was to conceal the essence of the Nigerian political process which, in practice, showed that there was a basic incompatibility between the formal side of the system and the political needs of the country. As one observer of the post independence situation in Nigeria rightly remarked, “the organization of power in Nigeria for the creation of political stability, whether for democratic or non-democratic purposes, is extremely weak’.

    Economic and social factors account for some of the friction between the largely Moslem North and the largely Christian South. The lack of a consensus over societal values, including a division over religion, is also a major source of the frequent religious conflicts in Nigeria as exemplified in the Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria which, despite years of political domination of the country, continues to lag far behind the South in terms of economic and social development. The North is far poorer than the South. Per capita income in the North is less than half of that of the South where, until recently, economic progress had created a small but rapidly mobile middle class. Some of the educated Southerners have migrated to the North for jobs and commercial enterprise. Most of these Christian emigrants in the North have been largely successful financially as their education has given them an advantage over their Northern Moslem brothers. There are vast economic opportunities in the North. But the Northerners are ill equipped to take advantage of these opportunities because they lack access to education. They are simply unable to compete with the better educated Southerners who dominate commerce in the region. The Northern Moslems resent this development for which they blame, not only their own selfish leaders, but Christians who have lived with them for generations as well. Even without religious differences, this situation of economic inequality was bound to generate some hostility against Southerners living in the North. The grievances of the Boko Haram insurgents range from religious and cultural differences with the South to their inability to take advantage of the economic opportunities available in the North. Over time, they have seen how their hopes for a better society and living conditions have failed to materialise.

    The progressive breakdown of the old and powerful Emirates has also created an opportunity for these insurgents to challenge the old traditional authority in the North. The old and powerful emirates no longer have any power of coercion and rely on state security forces for the maintenance of law and order in their domain. Over time, they have also lost the moral authority that they enjoyed in pre-colonial times. Even though the process of modernization has been slower in the North, the hold of the Emirates on political and economic power has declined significantly. They have lost their political stranglehold on the people. Recently, there have been physical attacks by the sect on some of the Emirs. The insurgents want a return to the old values of a society governed under Islamic laws. They want to establish an Islamic theocracy in the North as they believe that this would provide them with equal opportunities for social and economic development. They believe it will end the corruption of their own Northern leaders and make the Northern ruling class more accountable to the talakawa, the poor. Their vision is that of a strict Islamic society in which their basic needs would be met by the state. This is the religious nexus binding the insurgents to one another. The widespread poverty in the North has provided the Boko Haram insurgents with a formidable instrument for seeking the overthrow of the existing order in the North. This order has not served the people well.

    When the Boko haram insurgency first came to light in 2009, it was a weak, poorly organized, and inchoate movement. Since then, it has been transformed into a powerful organization posing a serious threat to national security with an impressive strategic strike capability. This transformation has been made possible by a more determined, better educated, and committed leadership.

    •To be continued

  • Readers’ parliament 19

    You have addressed a matter which bothered my heart greatly. Celebration of motivational speaking is founded mainly on the get-rich quick malady of our time. The lack of depth by most of them is reason why they cannot even tailor foreign opinion to meet present challenges. Motivation works for those who have found their bearing; it is not for the blind. How do you motivate a young man who has no vision but wants to be a millionaire? This is part of the decadence of our time. 08037128706. Steve Aiyanyo. Abeokuta. Ogun State.

    Mr. Olatunji Ololade, I have just finished reading your piece on motivational speakers. I enjoyed it for the bitter truth contained therein with regard to our misguided youth who are forever looking for shortcuts and props rather than face the realities of life and living. It’s a must read for my students next week. 08034027080. LKJEJE, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile Ife, Osun State.

    Yes sir, most of the motivational speakers are shallow but no sir, they shouldn’t be done away. You are clearly not an entrepreneur so won’t be able to understand that a modicum sometimes will make the difference. Please advocate instead for regulation of the trade. Ultimately, a five per cent success rate is okay.From Funso Patrick. Abuja.

    Expensive folly…just gone through your write-up. With people like you around, there is hope for Nigeria. Keep it up. From Sunday.

    Olatunji, thanks for your article today. I have never trusted my faith in motivational speakers at home and abroad. They are worse than used-car salesmen. Listening to an Aliko Dangote for instance can only encourage me better. There are too many unknowns in this world for mathematical deductions to be trusted. I tell my children: Work-pray-work hard. From Engineer Tunde.

    Very good write-up, many true facts but not sensitive to others’ views and religious inclination. You ended with describing favourite pastors’ literature as some retrogressive crutches, that’s not good enough. Read through some of the books and you will be shocked at the depth. Do better next time. From Dr. Silvanus Owei.

    Ololade, you spoke my mind in your column. I thought I was the only one that was concerned with the fraud that the so-called motivational speakers are committing in Nigeria. All they do is regurgitate quotable quotes from foreign stars and they make money for this. I pity young Nigerians that fall for this cheap fraud. From Suraj.

    Hello mate! Quite a while! Very good outing…just going through. Please keep it up. No disagreement on this. 08063521699. Dr. Omotoso SIB.

    Expensive Folly refers: simply put, you are gift to the nation by transcendental enlightenment and liberating courage. I only wish our drowning youth would ever read and accept your precept. I have written you before when you wrote about what should be the true honour our women should seek. Hope to meet you some day. From Chris. Auchi, Edo State.

    I just read Expensive Folly (1) and I can’t help but agree with everything you said. It’s high time we youths stopped searching for relevance where there is none. Anonymoys.

    RE: Expensive Folly. You are not just a writer, you are an institution sir. Our main problem in Nigeria and Africa is not corruption, but “quality” ignorance across board. From ART.

    You are ahead of this generation. Your lingua and lexical gusto is immense. Just hope more people appreciate this talent. We need more of you in journalism. Anonymoys

    Please my friend, your Expensive Folly (2) on the stable of Reality Bites is wonderful. Are you aware that those motivational speakers are also in churches as pastors? There, they deceive the congregation that prayer in tithe is the only ingredient to actualizing their earthly dreams. A girl who lacks those essential matrimonial qualities runs to a church with the belief that such pastors can command husbands from the sky for her and pathetically, the pastor accepts the role knowing full well that it’s not possible. Don’t you think this is another religious fraud? From. Victor. Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

    Thanks for revealing the ultimate realities of life. As for the youth…those that have ears, let them hear. Keep up the good work. God bless you. Anonymoys

    Olatunji, you forgot to add to your list of fraud: modern day “pastors” in various “churches” who preach prosperity daily as if that’s the sole reason for which Jesus came. From VIC IBE.

    Your article, Expensive Folly is the best I have read in a while. You spoke the hard truth. I hope other Nigerians will get to read it. Keep up the good work. From Nwachukwu. Ibadan, Oyo State.

    Great write up. I appreciate it. Anonymoys.

    Blame it on gullibility being a prominent aspect of the Nigerian culture. From. S.A. Alawode.

    Dear Olatunji, your write-up is the gospel truth in the face of the reality we have on ground in our present day Nigeria. I believe every individual has a path in this life, it’s just for him to trace the path and pray for God’s guidance and protection every step of the way. Life has no manual. Anonymoys.

    Hello Olatunji, your article exposed a group of fraudsters and “foetal adults.” But I know that our young ones and even many mature adults suffer from “Hurried Life Syndrome” and this must be addressed. I think that Robert Frost calls on all who really want to make a contribution to humanity to choose to service and live with universal and timeless principles. I think there are genuine and authentic trainers who live their talk…It’s ridiculous to see a young person talk about life when he hasn’t seen anything. Well, I guess we will always have the tares and the wheat growing together, and like you said, life itself is the greatest teacher. Keep up your good work until we meet. Yours for the best of humanity. From Mrs. Ofovwe.

    Re: Expensive Folly (2). Before now, I thought I was the only one that saw the danger in what these so-called motivational speakers are doing to the society. Thanks. Anonymoys.

    Olatunji, thanks for your rescue mission. I hope all the parties involved in the “Expensive Folly” could find time to read your piece. Though I just read the second part of it, I think you did not go the full hug by noting that these “life coaches” have permeated the churches. You now hear “everything you want, He will give you” with no room for God shaping your life the way He wants. From Pastor Chudi.

    “Once you’ve solved your current problems, you will be rewarded with a whole new set of harder problems,” I have not read a crisper, more honest stuff in a long while. We have a youth population with a searing reality of intellectual poverty, folks reeking of pleasure inebriation and materialistic rum. Thus even hollow orations sound off as extraordinary, demanding the spectacle of mentally barren youths. You rock! Anonymoys.

    Olatunji, Expensive Folly is wonderful and thought–provoking. Problems don’t have prototype solutions. I am sorry for we hapless unemployed (often tagged: unemployable) youths of this country that get ripped off those so-called motivational speakers. From Dan. Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

  • Brief memo on constitutional review

    Brief memo on constitutional review

    Let me say right away that I do not believe in President Goodluck Jonathan or anybody setting up a small committee to review the constitution of Nigeria. The President or the National Assembly was not elected for this purpose it would be ultra-vires for them to do the work of a Constituent Assembly. I sincerely hope that our bright lawyers would not allow any constitutional imposition on hapless Nigerians. If they succeed in doing this, it would not be different from the constitutions the military imposed on Nigeria since 1979. Because nature does not allow a vacuum, we must continue to operate our present constitution while the government should put into process the mechanism for electing a constituent assembly. Whatever the constituent assembly arrives at would become the basic law or constitutional grundnorm of Nigeria. This is the process advocates of a sovereign national conference have in mind and nobody can argue that this is not a democratic process.

    The basis of a constitutional order is that the people are supreme. All powers must emanate from the sovereign will of the people. Whatever the constituent assembly passes, either good or bad, and approved by a referendum of the people, becomes almost immutable and not subject to frivolous review or constant tinkering. Whenever a constituent assembly is convoked and if I’m lucky to be a member, I would be guided by the following brief:

    Structure of Government

    Our country Nigeria shall be a federation and the constituent members of this cooperative federation shall be states. The Federal Government shall have power over the following enumerated functions:

    1. Currency 2. Immigration 3. Defence 4. Customs and Excise 5. Foreign Affairs 6. Post and Telegraphs

    7.Railways 8.Aviation 9.Shipping 10.Intelligence

    11. Ports 12.Air space 13. Exclusive Economic zone

    Whatever is not enumerated shall belong to the sphere of authority of the federating states of the union. But I would make provision for areas of concurrent jurisdiction such as:

    1.Policing 2.Higher Education 3.Highway development

    4. Taxation 5.Revenue collection, particularly federal taxes where applicable. 6. Health 7.Power generation, transmission and distribution.

    All other areas not enumerated as above shall lie in the purview of the states. These would include:

    1. Primary Education 2.Secondary Education 3.Agriculture 4. Highways 5. Inland Water transportation 6. Local Government 7. Minerals 8. Land 9. Forestry, etc.

    All other things not enumerated as belonging in the purview of the Federal Government shall be under state’s jurisdiction.

    Once the number of units of political organization known as states is set down by the constituent assembly, we would lay to rest forever, the question of state creation. The number of states in the federation should be determined by the constituent assembly, which would have the power to merge or split existing states but state creation must be based on rational principles such as contiguity and economic viability.

    No state would be created on the basis of sentiments or political convenience. The late Chief Obafemi Awolowo believed in creating state on the basis of common ethnic identity. This principle would suffice for the Yoruba, Igbos and the core Hausa states but would do no such thing for the remaining 250 odd ethnic groups and sub ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. Small ethnic groups living next to each other would have to be lumped together in viable political entities based on the principle of economic viability. With these divisions of powers, there would be no room for conflicts

    NO THIRD TIER OF GOVERNMENT

    Local government would not constitute as it is now a third tier of government. The Federal Government would have no hand or power in creating local governments. The principle of subsidiarity would apply and there would be complete devolution of power to the states and the states would be left to determine how many local governments they want in their areas.

    Each state would be encouraged to maximally develop its resources both mineral and agricultural resources in a rather co-operative and competitive rivalry.

    Funding of Federal Government

    Funding of the central government would be done through federal taxes levied on minerals as well as custom and excise duties and export duties levied on agricultural commodities. The state by and large would keep their resources to themselves after payment of appropriate taxes to the Federal Government.

    Security

    The security forces of the country shall consist of equal numbers of citizens of Nigeria recruited on equal basis from federating states. They shall also be deployed as territorial forces in their areas of recruitment, but training shall be coordinated from the centre. This may sound rather outlandish and impractical, but this is exactly what is done in the UK and; the British Empire on which the sun never set, owed much to this arrangement. The constitution also must make illegal and criminalize any coup d’état or violent seizure of power by the military. From the above, it is quite clear that I’m a supporter of pristine federalism and resource control while at the same time believing in the unity of the country, but my system would be based on devolution of powers to the state, while vastly reducing the power of the centre so as to minimize conflicts in an ethnically plural country like Nigeria.

    The Legislature

    The legislature shall be elected at federal and state levels by universal suffrage and the system of government shall be parliamentary system. The leader of government at the state and federal level would be leader of government’s business in the House. The Senate shall be elected on equal basis by the federating states while the House of Representative shall be based on population. The leader of government at the state level shall be called the Premier while the leader of government at the federal level shall be called Prime Minister. There shall be a ceremonial Head of State at the centre who shall be called President. The Premiers and Prime Minister shall hold office for a maximum of eight years.

    The Judiciary

    There would be at the apex, the Supreme Court headed by the Chief Justice of the country. Below it shall be federal and state Appeal Courts and Federal High and State High courts. The post of magistrate shall be abolished and where necessary, customary and Sharia courts shall exist if demanded by the people.

    Official Language

    The language of education and business in the country shall continue to be English, while each state would be free to determine what local language to use in their legislatures and state government s. this is what is done in India, Switzerland and Belgium.

    It would now be left for my legal colleagues to put my ideas in proper legal phraseology.

  • When the President speaks

    When the President speaks

    How goes it, comrade?”

    “All is well my brother; He is on the throne.”

    “There you go again. Who’s on the throne now? That’s how you launch into mysticism and religious mentalism to stop an important intellectual peregrination.”

    “Please, please, spare me; spare me. I haven’t recovered from the Sunday morning presidential admonition from the Villa. The long, sterile sermon in the church and then Monday’s somehow mendacious Independence Anniversary speech that has raised so much dust.”

    “Mendacious? How dare you? That was a well crafted speech. Were you looking at the messenger, instead of receiving the message?”

    “Haven’t you been in town? They say the President didn’t get it right when he said that Transparency International noted that Nigeria is the second most improved country in fighting corruption. The organisation said it never made such a rating. Opposition parties are latching onto that to lash the President, saying he should apologise to Nigerians for deceiving us. A lying President? Oh! I don’t believe it. Who wrote the speech? Was there no editing?”

    “I didn’t know that was what you were driving at. But that wasn’t the only incongruity in the presidential speech.”

    “You’re right boo. Didn’t he say that several government programmes and projects are creating wealth and millions of job opportunities for our youths? Where are the jobs? He cited the You-Win programme. I haven’t seen anyone who has won it; have you? The local content initiative in the oil and gas sector; is that subsidy? All we hear are oil kids and their billion naira subsidy deals. Every rich man’s son is into oil and gas, even if he has never been to the Niger Delta.

    “And the Agricultural Transformation Programme. Many have asked me: what is so called? The cassava bread initiative? How many have had the rare opportunity of having a bite of the bread? What’s the taste like? What’s the price like? For rice importers, everyday is Christmas; they are happy.”

    “ My brother, na wa; my hand fall. And those figures. What the hell are they actually indicating? Who understands them?”

    “Oh that! He said Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown by 7.1 per cent and people have been asking me: where is the growth? You see, there is a kind of disconnect. What does the man in the street know about GDP? He wants to feel falling food prices, crashing transport fares and dropping school fees; not some esoteric figures that, in his view, symbolise the elite conspiracy to deceive the masses and obfuscate the real, hard, solid facts he confronts every day.

    “Nigeria,” said the President, “has become the preferred destination for investment in Africa, ranked first in the first five host economies for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), accounting for over 20 per cent of FDI flows into the continent. Besides, there are over N6.8 trillion commitments. Haba! Who are the mean chefs who cooked up these figures? The figures we have, but where are the facts? The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) says it has 249 new members. Is that a foolproof thermometer to gauge the economy’s temperature? What has happened to those once vibrant textile factories where thousands earned a living? How fares the N70 billion textile revival fund? Will Dunlop and all others that fled the stifling environment here return? I’m just sick of it all. All figures, no facts.”

    “Look, my brother, Dr Jonathan doesn’t want to be pessimistic, you know. He needs to deliver a message of hope and give the impression that the ship is on the right track.”

    “I understand, but the hyperbole. That Nigeria is the investors’ haven? Who invests in a country troubled by merciless kidnappers, armed robbers and blood thirsty fundamentalists, who murder innocent students and ordinary folks looking for means of survival? Who?”

    “But the President says many Nigerians have acknowledged that there has been a significant decline in the spate of security breaches.”

    “You see, that is what we’re saying. Where is the truth in that? Who are these Nigerians? If the Villa crowd and their friends are safe, does that mean other Nigerians are safe? Why don’t they ask the parents of those defenceless students murdered in their sleep in Mubi? Why don’t they ask the families of Delta Commissioner Hope Eghagha and his slain police orderly’s? Have they checked with the family of the slain Borno Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Zanna Malam Gana? The former Prisons chief Ibrahim Jarma. Lagos bureau de change operators who were killed in the bloody Sunday shooting spree. The Kano Civil Defence chief, who was killed alongside his wife and three-year-old kid. Businessman Oddi Nweze. Missing TV presenter Rasaq Aremu Gawat. And many others who never thought death would come so early and in such a brutal manner right in their homes or on the street.”

    “These are the cold facts. The figures are scary. We’ve lost count. When people were going about with knives and daggers, we did nothing. Then they started carrying locally made guns. We did nothing. Now, they bear AK-47 rifles, pump action guns and grenades as well as bombs. Everyday is like going to war, a war we know nothing about. A senseless war waged by senseless people against a senseless system.”

    “You’re right. But don’t you see politics in all this? Didn’t some people say they’ll make the country ungovernable for the President?”

    “I understand you. You see, my brother. I’ve reflected on the matter. There’s politics of security and security of politics. When the two clash, the result is the extremism that we see and feel now. So, these times call for no sophistries and duplicity. No. It’s time for action. Today you say you’re talking with angry sect leaders to whom life is all about blood and death; people who have vowed never to be placable; tomorrow, guns boom. More deaths.”

    “Yah! We all feel it, my dear. That’s our country for you. But, my point is that it’s wrong for people to hang it all on Jonathan’s head. He can’t do it alone.”

    “That’s what you people always say. The theory that one person can’t change a nation is strange. Why are leaders elected if they can’t change things? It is when they are seen to be changing things radically that others follow, not when they are lethargic and lackadaisical. When you sought our votes, you kept yelling ‘I, I and I’. Now, you say ‘we; I can’t do it alone’ and ‘there are many Nehemiahs in the National Assembly (really?), in the Federal Executive Council, the Judiciary’. There are those who insist the President should be a preacher; one is being forced to believe them.”

    “In those early days of the administration, Dr Jonathan was so proud of his respect for the rule of law and due process. He no longer romanticise them. What happened?”

    “What a question. Anyway, how do you expect him to go on singing rule of law and such niceties when the National Judicial Council (NJC) has been scorned by the Executive. The NJC, several months ago, recommended the reinstatement of Appeal Court President Justice Isa Ayo Salami, but the Presidency has been sitting on the matter, appointing an acting head for the court, even as it has been said again and again that the NJC has the final say on the matter. Is that rule of law? You see, leadership is about courage, vision and sincerity. Truth. Justice. When these are lacking, what you have is like a truck with flat tyres; you push and push and push but it won’t move. May the Nigerian truck not lose its tyres. “

    “Amen!”

    Otedola: Not so fast, Reps

    The House of Reps is at it again. It has set for itself the spurious task of probing how Femi Otedola paid his N141b debt to the Asset Management Company of Nigeria(AMCON), according to spokesman Zakary Mohammed. To do this, the House will take some time off another crucial mission – that of raising members’ allowances to N7m per quarter (Isn’t that peanuts for such hardworking men and women of integrity?)

    It’s no news that the frontline businessman accused Farouk Lawan of collecting $620,000 bribe from him. Lawan, one of the leading lights of the House and self-styled anti-corruption crusader, is to face trial. This has brought the House to ridicule and opprobrium from which it may not recover so soon.
    Otedola was owing AMCON; he has paid. What is the business of our dear Reps in that? Would they have loved Otedola to stay a debtor for ever? When will the House spare a thought for Boko Haram? When will kidnapping and robbery get a mention? Who owns the assets Otedola pledged for the loans; the House? Of what use is this probe? Probe for probe sake? Shouldn’t other debtors be encouraged to follow the Otedola example? Is this score-settling or crime-cracking? I’m tempted to believe the former is the case, not the latter.
    But don’t our Reps have some shame?

  • Travails of information ministers

    Travails of information ministers

    Most past Nigerian ministers of information have tended to end their tour of duty on a sad note. This is precisely because successive Nigerian leaders, in an age when development in communication has rendered even multi-terminal communication channels obsolete, sadly still see communication as a two-way affair between the government and the governed. This perhaps also explains why even those that had genuine intention of serving their fatherland often ended up squandering the reputation and goodwill that took years to build as they, in the words of Alhaji Babatunde Jose, struggle ‘to walk the tight rope’.

    Neither professional training, nor success in past endeavours has ever prepared a minister of information for the challenges of an office designed not only to block other channels of communication, but also label opposing views as treason. Communication, the nerves of government designed to help government measure the pulse of public opinion, is viewed as a tool for sedition. The failure of past successive Nigerian governments cannot be totally divorced from their penchant to listen only to themselves.

    Either as elected leaders, or usurpers of political office through military coups, successive Nigerian leaders have often insisted that they and they alone, must determine the information the people get. For this reason, Balewa government in the first republic, exasperated by views of opposition, set up its own newspaper, appropriately regarded by Nigerians as ‘government views paper’. Murtala Mohammed/Obasanjo regime took over the Daily Times, a privately owned newspaper with independent views and the New Nigerian which mirrored the views of the northern establishment. Shagari tried unsuccessfully to appeal to journalists to mirror the views of his government which he deceitfully equated with that of the nation.

    Buhari came up with an obnoxious Decree Four which made it an offence to report even the truth that ran contrary to the views of his regime. Babangida’s liberalization of ownership of radio and television was in the end self-serving. Obasanjo had such disdain for other views that he likened journalists to dogs.

    Now Jonathan, a product of public opinion like many of his predecessors, has been agonising over his inability to use the awesome power of the presidency to stop criticism of his government’s handling of Nigerian problems which he rightly said were of no creations of his. He thinks the economic views of Dr Okonjo-Iweala which has only reduced our nation to one of the poorest nations of the world in spite of our limitless potentials, a system that has failed even in Europe and America where the mixture of capitalism and welfarism has produced something akin to communism, or those of Dr Doyin Okupe, the self styled ’attack lion’ who recently told half truth about the usage of $1000 bill in US, and those of CBN governor that has rendered thousands of once gainfully employed people jobless, are superior to those of other stake holders in the Nigerian project including former Heads of state.

    The tragedy has been that those called upon to sell government vision are often some of the best products of our society. Tony Momoh, my ‘Oga’ at the Daily Times was a highly principled and successful editor. He was soon to discover all government wanted was not to share information, but force its views on the people. Following Dele Giwa’s assassination through a parcel bomb in October 1986, two days after he was accused of anti-government activities by State Security Services (SSS), Momoh had pledged a government probe of the incident only to back down later saying “a special probe would serve no useful purpose”. By 1987, he had started a government inspired crusade for the press to see itself as tools’ “for the promotion of national unity and integration” of the ruling elite. By 1988, if Momoh had his way, only radio sets that could disseminate only what the government wanted the people to hear would be available. Dismissing opposing views of those opposed to Babangida’s N1billion political party headquarters, Momoh had said no amount was too big to defend democracy since the alternative was dictatorship. As Babangida’s ‘transition without end’ took its tolls on Nigerians and its economy, Momoh resigned himself to writing ‘letters to my countrymen’ until Babangida replaced him with the humour master, and former custom officer, Alex Akinyele, as his information manager.

    Yar’ Adua found in Dora Akunyili, a professor of Pharmacy and a former Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) an ideal information manager. She squandered all the goodwill she had acquired in her misadventure into the ministry of information. She passionately defended the views of the administration with all her might until she resigned from PDP government. Today apart from the ill-advised, failed re-branding of Nigeria project, she is remembered more as an accomplice in the historic vote theft in Ekiti State.

    Labaran Maku was equally well-equipped for his current job. He had been President of University of Jos Students Union and officer of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS). He had been a reporter, political editor, member of editorial board of two national newspapers and Deputy Editor-in-Chief during his career as journalist. To cap it all, he was once the commissioner for information and later the Deputy Governor of Nasarawa State from 2003 to 2007.

    It is hard to see a man better prepared for the job than Maku. But despite this string of achievements, Maku has moved from one disaster to the other. His latest folly earned him tongue lashing by the Senate president. Maku, according to David Mark is “a careless talker. He talks very carelessly. He did not think properly. He is not an educator and we need to educate him. I hope the president cautions him and calls him to order.”

    Maku who had said that “the National Assembly could not dictate to President Jonathan” was also reminded of the Doctrine of Necessity which was passed into resolutions by the Senate and House of Representatives in February 2010 on the strength of which and the then Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan became Acting President.

    Before them, Maku had in an attempt to defend President Jonathan’s alleged refusal to say “Amen” during a church service when prayers were being made against corruption, had stated that ‘it was because he is president of both the “rich and the poor, shoed and shoeless, corrupt and incorrupt.”

    Maku also said that just as you cannot accuse God of being evil for sending sun and rain to both the good and bad, so you cannot accuse the president of being corrupt for “sending love and friendship to both the corrupt and the very corrupt.” Even Akinyele the master of humour couldn’t have done better.

    On the general protest that followed the removal of fuel subsidy in January this year, Maku had said ‘the youths were just being used’, the same way he was used by big oil barons to mobilise students, as a student leader in the university. If he did not act out of conviction as a student leader, it is doubtful if a leopard will change its skin at old age, even as a minister.

    Maku in particular seems to have always courted controversy. The enthusiasm which he has brought t o bear on his work as information minister is not markedly different from that of his student leadership almost three decades back. He talks without reflection but with such passion that tends to give the wrong impression that those who work as minister of information are necessarily hungry people.

  • Otedola’s curious N141b debt settlement

    Otedola’s curious N141b debt settlement

    It is good to have friends in high places. In a country like ours where people believe so much in connections, we struggle to have friends in such quarters. The reason for this is obvious. Having friends in such places confers a lot of privileges. It opens doors and at the mention of your powerful friend’s name, others will cringe before you.

    Some will even bow to you because they know that you only need to speak the word and they are finished. It is indeed good to have friends in high places. With the support of your powerful friends, you can get away with anything, including murder.

    Having friends in high places has its advantages no doubt. In the interdependent world that we live in today, it is good to know people be it in politics, business or at the social level. We need to move out of our cocoons and make friends for the betterment of our lives and society.

    The essence of friendship is to have people to fall back on when the need arises. Some of us are good at making friends; some are not that lucky, no matter how hard they try. We collect friends for different reasons. Some deliberately make friends in high places because of what such friendship can fetch them. Those people are not assets to their friends, but liabilities. But do they care?

    They don’t because they intentionally made such friendship because of what it can fetch them. These are people who go to government offices, throwing their weight about and asking through their body language, do you know who I am? They are super connected and they leave no one in doubt about that. Where some talk of friendship in high places, they boast of friendship in higher places. They are friends of leaders of the country and you know what that means; it means power, raw power. Because of their closeness to power, they tend to treat others with disdain, forgetting that their privileged position should make them humble.

    Being a friend of the president of a country should make any rational person to be fearful and grateful to God at the same time. It is a privilege, which many crave, but which only a few can obtain. So, those who obtain this rare favour in the face of the Almighty should be mindful of how they use it. Such favours are not meant to be used by shouting all over the place that I am the friend of the president.

    Those who are true friends of a president are known by how they contribute to his success; they are known by the kind of public good they dispense; they are known by their humanitarian gestures; they are known by their ethical and moral conduct; they are known for their uprightness in all their endeavours.

    These are attributes of a person, who does not want his powerful friend to fail through his questionable conduct on account of their friendship. But what do we have today? We see all over the  place, people hanging around the president because they want to be identified as his friend so that others can say of them : don’t you know that man, he is the president’s friend. Nobody can touch him; anything he does, he will get away with it. Yes, on earth, anything they do, they will get away with it. But in the Hereafter, we will all answer for our deeds. Even the president will answer to a higher president.

    On earth, let all those who want to use the president to achieve their selfish desires continue to do so, but a day is coming that there will be a Pharaoh who knows no Joseph.

    Nobody can really put a fin

    ger to the kind of relation

    ship between President Goodluck Jonathan and oil magnate Femi Otedola beyond the fact that they are friends. Their friendship, I have heard it said, predates Jonathan’s assumption of office. According to the grapevine, Otedola was there for the president when the cabal was hellbent on stopping him from emerging acting president before the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010.

    Some even said he committed time and money to the Jonathan project before and after Yar’Adua’s death. So, both men are close. Because he is not an ingrate, the president has brought Otedola close to himself since he came to power and the oil baron is seen all over the place with him. It was said that when things seemed not to be going well for Otedola, it took only a little push from the president for him to get his bearings back. I don’t know how well his businesses are doing, but from the look of it, things are not bad for him.

    The chink in his armour may be his alleged indebtedness to the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) for which he and 418 others were blacklisted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Their blacklisting followed their alleged reluctance to service the debt despite the buying of the loan by AMCON at an agreed price.

    Otedola’s debt was put at N192.4 billion, but it was bought by AMCON for N140.9 billion. With over N50 billion chopped off his debt, it was expected that Otedola and others who enjoyed similar mark down on their loans will promptly begin to service the facility to continue to enjoy the support of their banks. You can trust the Nigerian businessman, they never did that.

    They started to play the waiting game to see what will happen next. Meanwhile, they were still going to their banks for more loans. This leads us to this question : Should a debtor that refuses to service his/her debt be allowed to obtain more loans? The CBN answered this question appropriately by blacklisting the debtors. I agree with the CBN.

    What kind of precedent will we be setting if we treat debtors like the ones blacklisted by CBN with kid gloves while going after small debtors with a sledge hammer? It will be a bad precedent and the consequences for us as a nation will be grave if we continue to pamper big debtors.

    Many banks are dead today because of the refusal of some big debtors to defray their debts. Many of those debtors are strutting all over the place as lords of the manor, despite causing the death of these banks. Why will a debtor refuse to pay? Is it for lack of fund or what? Can he choose to pay at his own will or as scheduled by the bank?

    Barely one week after news broke of his being blacklisted, Otedola reportedly paid his N141 billion debt. Just like that; yes just like that. So, he had the money all along but chose not to pay? Why did he choose to pay now? To ensure that he continues to enjoy credit facility from his banks? No, that cannot be the case since he was compelled to pay up by CBN’s action.

    I don’t know how much Otedola is worth, but one thing I know for sure is that N141 billion is a huge sum, which cannot just be picked up off the street. Where did he get the money from? What are the assets he sold?

    AMCON must come clean with the people on this issue because of insinuations that Otedola might have benefited from his friendship with the president. For me, it is not a sin to have the president as a friend, but it will be wrong to use that friendship to gain undeserved favour.

    Will other debtors benefit from such help so that they can continue to remain in business and be able to borrow money from the banks until they are killed just like some financial houses before them? Friendship should not stand in the way of justice; no, not at all. The people have the right to know how Otedola was able to raise such huge sum within so short a time when he could not do so for years before the CBN threat.

  • 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.

  • Aikhomu and the travails of the naira

    This article first appeared in The Guardian on August 22, 1991. The article is as relevant today as it was 21 years ago. Today as it was then, it doesn’t appear there is anyone in charge of the economy. Today those who contributed to the collapse of the banking sector, those who supervised their activities and those who have been accused of defrauding the government are also economic advisers to government. Happy reading.

    It feels good to be a Nigerian at this period of our nation’s history. For once, attention is being shifted from corruption, police brutality, drug, scandals, student riots and so on, to issues of development. Economic decisions that government believes to be in the interest of the governed are promptly taken. In politics, we have come up with our own models that will shame the whole generation of Western model builders. We have come up with our own definition of political party, elections, manifestos and so on.

    In international economic diplomacy, we can ignore William Keeling and his Western masters and co-detractors who were envious because of about $150 million or 1.5 billion naira we spent on hosting the most successful OAU summit since the organization’s inception in 1963. If their problem is our outstanding debt, which is now $30 billion by their records, this we have been servicing without default.

    At home, our economists have shamed their Western counterparts by embracing models they had been too timid to adopt. We have embraced what our economists call “the inevitable large scale programme of devaluation” in spite of the reservations of Western economists and scholars like Jaime de Millo (the World Bank official) and Ricardo Fari of Johns Hopkins University. Both men have warned that the wholesale devaluation of our naira would not help our situation. Our former Head of State – the frustrated chicken farmer, once noted for his cynicism about our economic programme, has even taken the battle to Columbia University where he dared our creditors to begin charity at home by adopting the law of demand and supply and to jettison “protectionism” against Japanese goods and subsidy of their agricultural produce. He is on his own; our government economic advisers would want us to know they are in charge. Unlike General Obasanjo, they have faith in our creditors.

    What I have found disturbing however is not the economists ingenious recommendation that we must boycott goods and services including drugs, food, telephone, electricity, if the prices are too high, but their occasional head-on collision with government. This tendency tends to cast doubt in the mind of the governed especially when they are being told there is only one way to our economic salvation. The government no doubt needs credibility if it is to carry the people along.

    We can now recall that as at November 13, 1986, the first-tier rate was N2.80 to $1 or N4 to #1. But shortly after this, the first rift between the government and its economic experts became noticeable. Then, on November 24, 1986 when the exchange rate jumped to N3.45 to $1, Augustus Aikhomu, then Chief of General Staff, panicked and attempted to issue a decree to ensure stability of the naira in total disregard for the law of “demand and supply”. He consequently went ahead to increase the amount of foreign exchange for auction from $50 million to $75 million.

    The rift was settled but not without a strong warning from the Central Bank that government’s interference would not be tolerated. By November 1990, when they had successfully arrested the decline in the value of the naira, the exchange rate had floated up to N10.75 kobo to the dollar. Barely two weeks later, the Central Bank through its Director of Research, Dr. M.O. Ojo, ably defended this rate claiming that the naira was realistically valued because the supply of foreign exchange tallied with demand. In his words, the “rate is dictated by simple law of demand and supply.” He allayed our fears by informing us that low exchange rate is no indication that the economy is not on course.

    By last July 24, the floating exchange rate had climbed up to Nl1.32 kobo to the dollar. Once again Aikhomu, the military Vice President, broke the truce by publicly criticizing the Central Bank and its economic masterminds. Characteristically, the Vice President then said that, “the value of the naira cannot be left absolutely to the whims and caprices of market forces”. He is thinking of government measures aimed at stabilizing the exchange rate of the naira at an acceptable level.

    The latest confrontation has once again provided an opportunity for the critics of the economic policies of government to ask where exactly we now stand. The economic experts have moved us from first tier to second window, back to second tier and forward to the Dutch market. They have reduced our lives to second-tier lives. We accepted because “hope rises eternal in the human breast.” If government now doubts its able ally in this war of economic survival, how are we sure we have not all been hoodwinked?

    In all this, I sympathize more with government. This is not because I care less for helpless Nigerians, who live second-tier lives, but our government that is saddled with the overall responsibility of taking us to the economic El Dorado seems to have been reduced to a pawn in the chess game of our economists. With this type of betrayal from a trusted ally, we can easily see that, were it not for the craftiness of government, our whole economic system would have collapsed.

    Our government made up of men and women of great skills has, in spite of its unpredictable self-serving allies, successfully combined the husbandry of our economy with other vital decisions that have. far-reaching effects on our lives. For instance they alone decide for us when the nation needs to be prodigal or ostentatious. They alone know when we can make donations to the needy, sick, elite, successful footballers, musicians, churches and mosques. And it is they alone that can decide when it is time to stop spending money as if there will be no tomorrow.

    As if these were not enough burden for government, it has to maintain a delicate balance between investing in our future political stability and health as well as housing for all in the magic year 2000. It has to juxtapose economic rationality with political expediency. It is obvious that our economic managers are not ordinary men. Even craftiness is a measure of resourcefulness. I would therefore rather swim or drown with a resourceful government with all its scheming than with our economic experts who operate more as agents of our creditors.

    – August 22,1991

  • Animal Farm

    Animal Farm

    It was not supposed to become like an Animal Farm’s tale, but like everything that those in government handle, they have introduced class to it. Yet, when Taraba Governor Danbaba Suntai and his aides flew out of Jalingo, the state capital, last Thursday, one thing that probably was far from their minds was class. Unarguably, every one on board that ill-fated flight knew where he belonged in the hierarchical structure, it  was not an issue to be flaunted to the extent of embarrassing anyone. It was a flight of jolly good fellows, perhaps, on  a Sallah binge. But it turned out otherwise.

      It is not Suntai’s fault that his lieutenants are being treated as subjects in a matter of life and death because he himself is not aware of what is going on around him, at least, for now. Our prayer is that he pulls through. Suntai needs all the prayers to be alive because it appears he is between life and death. Suntai has a passion which we have all come to know him for and this is flying. He loves running around in a plane and at the least opportunity he takes to the sky. Since he passed out from the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, Kaduna State, Suntai has been flying himself whenever he is opportuned to do so.

      To him, flying is not only an hobby, but a passion. Hear him: ‘’Personally, right from the onset of my life, I chose aviation as a career and pursuing it I was able to obtain admission to Mbrevidaila Aeronautical University in Florida, but coming from a very poor background, I could not sponsor myself in school; so, I started seeking scholarship, but I could not obtain a scholarship. So, that was how I ended up in the pharmacy profession. However, aviation has continued to bite in my blood. And when I learnt that I could even fly at my age, I decided to come over here to see the rector and inform him about my ambition and he enrolled me.

     ‘’And after some few training, today, I was able to undergo this solo flight. So, in my blood I have it as a passion, so this passion translates to my belief in encouraging students who want to be pilots to be sponsored to train…so, it is a passion…I don’t know about other governors but the thing is all about passion’’. Suntai spoke in August 2010 after he finished at NCAT and took his first solo flight as a pilot. He was no doubt ecstatic that, at last, he could now fly a plane. Many of us would wish we could also do the same thing but we lack the courage to take up that challenge. We can only fly with our mouths.

     Suntai, it is said, so much loves flying that he devotes so much time to it at the expense of his executive duties as governor. This is, however, not the subject under discussion. We are here concerned with the way other victims of the crash are being treated. It all appears as if the governor was the only one aboard the Cessna 28 plane flown by him whereas he was not. There were others with him. Among them were his Aide-De-Camp (ADC). Dasat Iliya, Chief Security Officer (CSO), Timo Dangana, and Chief Detail, Joel Dan. Now the only difference between them and Suntai is that the latter is a governor, which by our country’s standard, makes him a demi-god. This explains all the fawnings over Suntai since the unfortunate accident.

     It is as if those on board the plane with Suntai  do not exist as far as the authorities are concerned. To them, it is all about Suntai, Suntai and Suntai. We are not saying that the government should not show concern about the well-being of the governor. All we are saying is that they should also show interest about the well being of others injured in the crash.

    We are told that the govern

    ment is so much con

    cerned about the governor because he sustained far more serious injuries than others and I say that is where they got it all wrong. Why do I say so? A man, in most instances, does not die from the seriousness of his injuries. The severity of an ailment does not necessarily hasten the death of the indisposed. So, why are we not as concerned about the others as we are about Suntai.

    Life is the same, be it that of a prince or a serf. In so much as we do not want Suntai to die, we should also strive in like manner to ensure that the others also live. When it concerns life, we should treat the king and his servant the same way. The state, which flew Suntai to Germany for treatment also has the means to fly the others abroad for treatment, so why didn’t it do so? Was it advised medically not to extend the same gesture to them? What informed such medical advice? Is it because they are lesser mortals who do not deserve such royal treatment? God forbid, but if any one of them dies from his injuries, how will the government look like before the people? Has the government spared a thought for that?

     Well, what am I even talking about? Do they care about losing face before the public? It is not too late to make amends. The others too should be flown abroad for proper medical treatment because life is the same, whether that of a governor or his ADC, CSO or chief detail.

    We are all equal before God and no life is more precious than the other in the eyes of the Almighty.We are not in George Orwell’s  Animal Farm where pigs turned things upside down, broke the commandment on equality and turned the kingdom into where ‘’all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.’’ I wish all the Cessna 28 plane crash victims hasty recovery.

       Carpenter’s hammer as gavel

    Our lawmakers will not cease to confound the world with their absurdities. Last week in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, members of the House of Assembly turned themselves into a laughing stock when they held plenary outside the constitutionally recognised venue because they did not have access to the Assembly Complex. Besides that, they also sat without the mace, the House symbol of authority.

    The speaker added to the drama by wielding a carpenter’s hammer as gavel. In a society like ours where most of our lawmakers behave more or less like thugs, anything could have happened had there been any tiff during that session. If any of his colleagues had annoyed him that day, only God knows what the honourable speaker would have done with the carpenter’s hammer he wielded with so much relish.

    Will our lawmakers ever grow up? When will they stop ridiculing their countrymen with their incivility? They need a lesson in public behaviour, but my fear is they may think they are in one of those their sessions and turn the poor facilitator to a punching bag.

  • Golden Islam…the pursuit

    Golden Islam…the pursuit

    (A review of Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s quest for true Islam)

    I do not celebrate Rauf Aregbesola for this is hardly about him. I do not know the man nor do I intend to meet him; probably because I have met him many times over in his spirited reason. He calls it “Islam, Education and the Principles of Jihad,” but I would call it a gift, a cognizant bequest to the Muslim brotherhood.

    In his submission subsists caution, that proverbial depth of reason and understanding that has become forbidden fruit to a greater section of religious faithful cum humanity. He advocates peace, tolerance, the pursuit of knowledge for the collective good and sincere worship of Allah (SWT). In the lecture which he delivered recently at the 2012 (1433) National Unity Ramadan lecture of Al-Habibiyyah Islamic Society of Nigeria, Abuja, the Governor of Osun evoked those rare principles of spirituality and humaneness that constitutes the essence of Islam.

    The uneasy relationship between the Christian and Muslim worlds, he claims, is partly because they are competing faiths and partly due to gross misunderstanding of what Islam truly represents. Since September 11, 2001 when some terrorists flew fuel laden planes into buildings in the United States, killing about 3, 000 people in the worst terrorist attack in the country, there has been an unprecedented surge in what scholars now refer to as ‘Islamophobia,’ he acknowledges.

    Aregbesola condemns the unending cycle of violence and intolerance perpetrated in the name of religion, warning that it would lead to mutually assured destruction of adherents of both faiths. “This scenario is foreboding and should send cold shivers down our spines. Let nobody be under any illusion, it is an unwinnable war for any of the parties,” he warns.

    “In my part of Nigeria, Christians and Muslims are so interwoven in communal living that a religious war and forcible conversion are unthinkable. There is no family that does not have a generous mix of Christians, Muslims and traditional religious worshippers. Even though I am a Muslim, my uterine sister is a fervent Christian…I am proud of this heritage although it does not subtract anything from my Islamic faith,” he says.

    Any fairly honest Nigerian knows that the Boko Haram sect does not approximate Islam by any stretch of the imagination, the Governor avers and the issue, he says, “is about the dynamics within Islam and if not well managed, could affect its perception by the larger world and its fortunes in a changing world.”

    As panacea, Governor Aregbesola sensitizes the Muslim Ummah (community) to the inherent benefits in scorning violence and evolving a peaceful and highly progressive Islam and educational system. However, his effort no matter how heartfelt, would have amounted to an exercise in futility had he not sought to explain Islam’s true position on the oft misrepresented concept of Jihad – given the Christian disposition to equate every Islamic enterprise as an appendage of bloody and violent Jihad.

    In Islam, Jihad is not all about war. Qital (war) is just one form of Jihad. Jihad in its broad sense implies all forms of striving, struggle or exertion of effort aimed at improving a situation or reaching perfection or attaining excellence. It could imply struggling against evil or against one’s limitations, weaknesses and excesses. To this end, all efforts aimed at attaining discipline, self-improvement, self-denial, self-restraint, excellence, patience and perfection for the sake of Allah (fee sabilillaah) constitute forms of Jihad.

    In this respect, Muslims need to learn, he admonishes, from the outstanding conduct of Khalifah Umar Ibn Al Kattab (R.A.) and Salahudeen Al-Ayyubi when they both took control of Jerusalem during their reign as leaders of the Muslim Ummah. They destroyed neither churches nor synagogues. Rather, Muslims were permitted, if need be, to pray in them. Besides, the Christian and Jewish inhabitants were accorded respect and nobody imposed Islam on them. It is also on record that the Prophet allowed the Christians from Najaran to worship in his mosque while on a visit to him in Madinah al Munawarah.

    “But what do we see today? Wanton destruction of churches and mosques, and the thoughtless killings of both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Isn’t Islam itself now under a threat in the hands of villains who claim to be defending and promoting it?” laments Aregbesola.

    To those who only believe in imposing Islam on others, he remonstrates, Allah (SWT) asks a pointed question in Surah Yunus (10:99): ‘If it had been your Lord’s will, they would all have believed – all who are on earth! Will you then compel mankind, against their will, to believe?’

    Coercion has no place in Islam, argues Aregbesola; neither does hateful monotheism. Thus he counsels that a Muslim needs not live in an ideal Islamic society before he can diligently serve Allah and uplift his society. “Otherwise, Allah would have restricted Muslims only to certain parts of the world,” he said stressing the need for Muslims to learn to live, work and find fulfillment in a multi-religious and multi-cultural society no matter the odds. Pristine Islamic values and ethos must not be confined to the mosques and our homes. They must be on display in our social interactions and our committed effort towards the transformation of the society. Indeed, to be able to win the world to Islam, we must be in constant contact with people of other faiths and those who are not religious at all.

    In a nutshell, Aregbesola suggests a new template for Islamic propagation. According to him, every generation needs to respond to the needs of its time. Muslim scholars have to develop their capacity to address modern audiences and modern challenges. Modern tools of technology and communication must be legitimately used for the purpose of Islamic propagation. Most importantly, the voice of moderation and inclusion must now drown out the voice of extremism and exclusion.

    Aregbesola advocates a holistic agenda for the education and re-education of the Muslim mind and stresses the elimination of victimhood, the notion that Muslims are victims of western and Christian conspiracy, the tendency that predisposes Muslims to hatred and make them easy recruits of merchants of violence. Rather, where Muslims are in authority, they should use their positions to promote and enthrone good governance, mitigation of misery and poverty, promotion of justice and liberty for all people. It is unacceptable that ignorance, poverty and underdevelopment are somewhat pronounced in places where Muslims are in the majority in this country. This situation must change. History teaches us that Islam has nothing to do with misery, poverty and underdevelopment.

    While working with other communities, the Muslim must share the responsibility of making the world an abode of peace, justice and progress that the Muslim Ummah may once again become torchbearers of civilization and human progress emphasizes the Governor.

    No doubt, Aregbesola evokes glories attributable to the Muslim Ummah in the epoch widely acknowledged as the golden age of Islam. In that era also known as the time of the Abbasid Khilafah, from the 8th Century to 15th century, scientists, geographers, poets, engineers and philosophers amongst others, contributed significantly to their respective fields, by creating new inventions and by preserving and building upon earlier work. Their contribution till date, impact every major civilization that succeeded their era.