The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

As old national anthem returns

Nigeria we hail thee

Our own dear native land

Though tongue and tribe may differ

In brotherhood we stand.

Nigerians all are proud to serve

A sovereign mother land

This is the first stanza of the old Nigerian national anthem composed by a certain Jean Lillian Williams, a Briton then living and working in Nigeria. This served as our national anthem from 1960 to 1978 when it was replaced with a new anthem. At the time of independence when the competition to write a national anthem was thrown open, the number of people with the capacity to compose a worthy anthem in English was severely limited so it was relatively easy for the English woman to run away with the prize. Secondly, a more radical government ought to have known that the nationality of the writer would in future pose considerable problems to a nationalistic generation. The British left Nigeria as Brian Sherwood Smith, the departing governor of northern Nigeria “always as friends”. The federal government headed by sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa had no reason to be sensitive about the British nativity of the composer of our national anthem after all, he felt the country was a “British intention and creation”. In the excitement and euphoria of independence, very few people apart from a few of our intelligentsia paid much attention to it.

The structural deficiency of our country began to manifest as from 1962 when because of political problems, the carefully constructed federal political architecture of the country began to fray at the margins. This awareness became physically manifest when the military overthrew the civilian government of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa which eventually led to massive killings of Ibos in the North in retaliation against Ibo military officers who were accused of targeting northern and western Nigerian officers in the military coup d’état of 1966 which had led to a counter coup by Northern officers in July 1966.

The bitterly fought civil war between 1967 and 1970 led to much soul-searching and question for a new political beginning. The rehabilitation and reconstruction that followed the civil war led to creation of new states, fashioning out a new constitution and adopting a new national anthem on the eve of the military departure under General Olusegun Obasanjo from the political scene. The military regime of General Murtala Muhammed which came into office in 1975 rode on the wave of nationalism at home and abroad. It tried to clean the Augean stables of bureaucratic and political corruption at home and champion the cause of liberation and nationalism on the African continent and break away from subservience to western particularly British and American influence. This was noticeable in widespread retirements of top civil servants and financial support for liberation movements in Southern Africa and in Guinea-Bissau. It was part of this militant nationalism, at least in appearance, that made the Obasanjo regime change the national anthem in 1978.

A committee of bureaucrats and university professors of English was set up to draft a new anthem. I remember a friend of mine, Kola Ogungbesan then teaching at Ahmadu Bello University, was one of them. The first stanza of the anthem is:

Arise o compatriots

Nigeria’s call obey

To serve our fatherland

With love, strength and faith

The labour of our heroes past

Shall never be in vain

To serve with might and strength

One nation bound in freedom peace and unity.

I read somewhere that the command tone of the anthem smacks of militarism and that this was one of the reasons for jettisoning it. This is not a cogent reason because most anthems all over the world have some element of commanding the citizens to rise and do something. An example is the French national anthem which was fashioned in battle by those citizens who were marching to defend the young republic in 1789 from reactionary forces and their foreign supporters. The French national anthem La Marseillaise says:

Allons enfants de la Patrie

Le jour de la gloire est arrive

Contre Nous de la tyrranie

Letandard sanglant

Etandezvous dans les campagnes, etc

Meaning – Let’s go children of the fatherland; the day of glory has arrived to confront the forces of tyranny against us in our country.

One of course can say we did not have that kind of reactionary forces arrayed against us but certainly during the civil war, Portugal, South Africa, Rhodesia, France and America had no interest in our national unity and survival as a country. In other words, I do not see any point saying the anthem of 1978 had a commanding military tone. The American national anthem celebrates the fact that their star-spangled flag still waves on the land of the free and the home of the brave. The German national anthem is about “Deutschland Deutschland uber Alles” meaning their country before all others which is a call to defend Germany, a call which Adolf Hitler abused from 1939 to 1945. Patrioticheskaya pensya, the Russian national anthem has undergone metamorphosis with the change in Russian history from the USSR to now Russian federation, but the core has remained the same. It celebrates Russia’s huge size from the Arctic to the Caucasus and from Europe to the Japanese Sea and calls on its citizens to take pride in its glory and defend its integrity and primacy in the world. The Chinese national anthem “the March of the volunteers” harps on the mass revolt against Japanese occupation and the successor nationalist Chinese government propped up by the West which was eventually defeated and expelled to Taiwan.

In other words, a country’s national anthem should reflect the experience and history of a country at a critical time particularly a decisive moment. It is in the nature of any serious nation to call to arms its citizens to be prepared in case it becomes necessary to defend it.

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So our government in 1978 was following a well laid precedence in getting the old anthem jettisoned for a marching order in a world inhabited by sharks that were not particularly friendly and in a world where to be black meant less rights but most humiliating in our continent still then dominated by forces of colonialism, settlerism and apartheid.

Now what has changed? Are we freer than what we were in 1978? Certainly not. We have seen our economy collapse under the jackboot of neo colonialism and our people barely surviving under rampant corruption and mismanagement and youth unemployment leading to breakdown of security. Can we seriously call our change of anthem the most pressing issue confronting us? It will be interesting to interrogate the genesis of the move to change the anthem. Should we not be facing the issue of over centralisation if we are really serious about demilitarisation of the polity? It seems most Nigerians now believe that the country is in a state of inertia because of our over concentration of power at the centre. This has destroyed healthy economic development rooted in cooperative federalism.

Thank God it also seems we are now agreed on state and possibly local police as antidote to the bushfire of kidnapping and highway brigandage and urban robbery and thievery. These are the areas our legislature should focus on instead of the puerile changing of the national anthem which very few people care to sing even at football matches. What is very curious is that since 1979, to 1983, 1999 to 2023, we did not think about changing the anthem until now. Of course it can be argued that this long democratic period since 1999 was only democratic between the regimes of Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan from 2007 to 20015 while the Obasanjo and Buhari’s administration s were part of the military regime that began in1983 interspersed by the civilian administrations of Yar’Adua and Jonathan. If this argument is accepted, then we must expect further unravelling of the military constitution imposed on Nigeria by Abdul Salami Abubakar in 1999.

June 6, 2024
Attention seekers

It shall be the duty of every citizen to – abide by this Constitution, respect its ideals and its institutions, the National Flag, the National Anthem, the National Pledge, and legislative authorities

– Section 24 (a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended)

THIS provision of the Constitution is explicit and unambiguous. Written in plain English, as the Supreme Court will say, and not Greek, its meaning should not be lost on any citizen. It is the duty of all Nigerians, who know themselves as true citizens to respect the National Anthem as stipulated by the Constitution. There is no room for any disrespect. It is not a matter of choice, either. It is an obligation.

Whether or not any Nigerian likes the National Anthem is secondary. Your dislike of the anthem is no excuse for disrespecting it. Even Donald Trump, as unconventional as he is, appreciates the value of a National Anthem. He was unsparing of his compatriots who resorted to kneeling whenever the American National Anthem was recited in protest against racial discrimination in sports. The protesters, he said, should be kicked out of the stadium.

I am not a fan of the former American president, but I share his sentiments about a nation’s anthem. The National Anthem is at the core of a country’s being. It is at once music and at the same time, the defining essence of a country. Whenever the National Anthem is recited, especially at international forums, a citizen’s head swells with pride and (s)he sings along as it blares from the speakers strategically placed at the venue.

When your compatriot wins a gold medal at the Olympics and (s)he is called out to be decorated, you also rise wherever you are in the world in honour of the National Anthem as it is rendered because of an outstanding performance and the glory brought to the country by the athlete. It is this same National Anthem that some people have decided to treat with disdain because it has been changed from Arise, O compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey… to the old one: Nigeria, we hail thee, our own dear native land…

The National Assembly, in its wisdom, passed the bill reverting to the old National Anthem and it was duty signed into law by President Bola Tinubu, who has not hidden his love for the anthem. Perhaps, it is because of this love that his arch political foes are not happy with what the lawmakers did. As we all know, it is the duty of the National Assembly to pass laws for the country. It may not always be right in what it does, but the remedy is not in disobeying the laws it passes.

The lawmakers took the action despite the advice of no less a person than Attorney-General of the Federation and Justice Minister Lateef Fagbemi (SAN). At the public hearing preceding the passing of the bill, Fagbemi urged the lawmakers not to pass it through legislative fiat, but to carry Nigerians along in order to get their “buy in”. He added: “In some cases, the National Anthem emerges from open national competition among interested citizens. In other instances, the proposed National Anthem is subjected to plebiscite or referendum, before its eventual adoption or declaration… to ensure that it meets the people’s collective aspirations and suits their contemporary socio-political conditions.

“I am of the considered opinion that the revered issue of choice of a national anthem should not come into being only by legislative fiat or presidential proclamation alone”. Fagbemi had his say, the lawmakers had their way. Others now kicking against the reversion to the old National Anthem should have toed Fagbemi’s line by going to that public hearing so as to be on record as being opposed to what the lawmakers were doing. They chose to complain after the fact. What will this achieve? Nothing. Instead of being methodical too, they have resorted to their old ways of seeking cheap publicity.

The complaints of people like a former minister of the Federal Republic, Oby Ezekwesili, and her co-traveller Aisha Yesufu, will make more meaning if they follow the law. The National Assembly has done its work and they can do theirs too by challenging the National Anthem for Nigeria, and for Matters Related Act in court as a group of lawyers plans to do. Disrespecting the National Anthem by not standing up whenever it is being recited is not the way out. I expect someone like Ezekwesili to school Yesufu thoroughly on the steps to take and not to hail her disrespectful act to the National Anthem.

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Any show of disrespect to the National Anthem by anyone, no matter their grievances, is our collective shame. It portrays us as people who do not cherish national values of which our Anthem is a symbol. Yesufu and Ezekwesili can protest as much as they like, but they should not bring disgrace to Nigeria in the process. Their disrespect to the National Anthem is not a slight and a veiled attack on the person and Office of the President. It speaks more about them and their character.

They should stop politicising everything. If they want to be honest with themselves, they will admit that Yesufu looked out of place in the video-clip of the event where she sat while others stood in respect for the National Anthem. She was fidgety; fiddling with her phone and a copy of the programme as true citizens of this country rose while the National Anthem was being recited.

It is not too late for her to retrace her steps or pay for breaching the constitutional provision on the National Anthem. Well, come to think of it, it may even be better to ignore her and not to look her way, just as those in that video with her did.

June 6, 2024
Ajaero’s many strikes

Nigerians are groaning under the weight of food inflation which in March this year stood at 41.1 % as a result of the devaluation of the naira and high importation of food items. It is the same with transport inflation which currently stands at about 30% because of government unavoidable removal of fuel subsidy scam costing the country N3trillion loss yearly and consequent increase in pump price of imported petrol. Government has continued to appeal to Nigerians for more sacrifice while assuring us of greater gains after the current pains.

While most enlightened Nigerians identified with government plea that we cannot have omelette without first breaking an egg, many believe Nigerians are being asked to pay for the sins of unpatriotic Nigerians especially in the oil and banking sector responsible for our current economic nightmare. It was for this reason government came up with some palliatives and also set up a tripartite body of 37 members with organized Labour to look at the issue of minimum wage in the country.

Unfortunately, as it has turned out, if Joe Ajaero who has not been able to distance himself from the Labour Party and his group are not playing politics, they are out rightly incompetent. While it often takes as much as a year to negotiate a minimum wage in other climes, what manner of Labour leader after two strikes in less than a year, would declare a third one, arrogantly labelled “indefinite strike” without a thought for the health of the economy of a nation in distress?

The immediate cause of Ajaero’s current indefinite strike was because of a stall in negotiation by the tripartite body set up by government that has offered N60,000 as minimum wage as against Organized Private Sector’s (OPS) N57,000 and Ajaero Labour’s unrealistic N476,000. Obsessed with the federal government headed by their political foe, Ajaero and organized labour forgot that besides the federal government, other stakeholders include the 36 states of the federation, 15 of who are yet to fully implement the N30,000 minimum wage approved by President Buhari in 2019 and 774 LGAs battling for survival.

For any competent labour leader, as observed by Daniel Bwala (Atiku’s former spokesman) on TVC programme on Monday, figures presented during wage negotiation must be based on available and verified government resources .The starting point according to him is to find out how much is accruing to government, its distribution and identifying sectors Labour believes can be starved of funds to accommodate its own demand.

In other words, Ajaero and his group ought to know that the main source of government revenue is taxation: (personal income tax, corporate tax, excise duties, export and import duties, royalties from oil and other minerals, government domestic borrowings through sale of government securities through stock exchange and external borrowings through bonds for long term government loans or borrowings from IMF or World Bank and foreign grants.)

The above revenue figures can be accessed by labour leaders during budget debate and budget public hearing while the concurrent and capital expenditures the revenues are to cover can also be scrutinized.

But instead of going through this constitutional process, what did Ajaero and his fellow politicians masquerading as union leaders do? They came up with arbitrary figures they claimed was based on cost of feeding an individual member of a family of six thrice a day for one month, citing the current price of imported bag of rice.

But we don’t need to be labour leaders to know that minimum wage is for starters and not for a family of six. In any case, when did the number of children a family decides to have become the criteria for fixing minimum wage in a nation operating a market driven economy? We can as well advance Labour’s sloppy argument by saying since Islam allows adherents to marry four wives and indeed a member of the federal legislature once displayed his four wives and some two dozen children on the floor of the house, we might as well settle for four wives and 22 children as the basis for arriving at a minimum wage.

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It is surprising that in their overenthusiasm to shut the nation and its wobbling economy down indefinitely, over their proposed unrealistic figures of N475, 000 for a cleaner or a messenger, they forgot the monster we are currently fighting is inflation. Precisely because they believe they can intimidate the federal government and the state government including Imo State where they were once involved in fisticuffs with party rivals, they pretended they did not know that they cannot force private sector to give what they cannot afford or dissuade them from downsizing. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria invited to throw more light on the issue by ARISE TV on Monday evening did not weigh words. If asked to pay Labour’s unrealistic minimum wage, he would reduce number of lawyers in his chambers by half, he declared.

But more disturbing is the way Ajaero and his ill-trained labour leaders behave as if they are above the law. Their first strike just as this government was taking off was said to be illegal. Their current indefinite strike has been declared illegal by the well-respected Minister of Justice and Attorney General. And as if to confirm Ajaero’s penchant for behaving as if he is above the law of the land, last Monday in addition to ordering hospitals and international airports across the country be shut down, he also shut down the national grid, an illegal act that constitute a threat to national security.

President Tinubu is an avowed democrat who believes in the rule of law. And this is why he must ensure those engaged in illegal and callous shutting down of the national grid must be made to face the law. And with three strikes in one year, two of which were illegal, it is apparent, Ajaero’s goal is not workers’ welfare but destabilizing the country. We could not have suddenly forgotten that some members of his party called for military take-over following their electoral defeat in 2023.

Kano sibling spiritual wars

Lamido Sanusi’s sermon at last Friday prayers centred on the need for Muslims to accept their destiny for good or for bad: “We must believe whatever happens to us is predetermined and what we couldn’t have is also from God”. For those who claim religion is the opium of the poor, the Hausa masses who literarily worship their emir and spiritual leader are not complaining over their lot in life? On his path, by focusing on the theme of contentment, Sanusi is doing his job of preventing social dislocations by those who live in abject poverty while emirs live in opulence or as Fela put it. (Suffer suffer for earth enjoy for heaven while the Pope and Iman de enjoy for earth).

A few years back, Sanusi also paid glowing tribute to his grandfather who supervised the famous Kano groundnut pyramids and his father who attended one of the best universities in the world. Sanusi, the father or the son, didn’t need to be troubled that the children of labourers who laboured day and night to cultivate the groundnut farms while emirs sent their own children to the best universities in the world, ended up as labourers. After all the policy of feudalism is ‘labourers born labourers’. And precisely because emirs’ word among the ruled, rich or poor, is law, his admonition to Ado Bayero, the deposed cousin he replaced to accept his destiny, is in order.

June 6, 2024
Renewed Hope: Megacities thrive by native valleys

It’s one year since President Bola Tinubu emerged as a herald of ‘Renewed Hope,’ yet the Nigerian city flourishes by a rural and dubious sweep. On Tinubu’s watch, the land that nourishes should never paw us rough with anguish.

To achieve his agricultural rejuvenation goals, President Tinubu must ensure that his team and tools, unlike Thel’s worms, aren’t pathogens miming his curative green mantra.

Highlighting his administration’s first-year achievements, Tinubu showcased efforts to boost agriculture and food security. Key initiatives include the launch of the National Agricultural Development Fund (NADF) with N100 billion to tackle agricultural financing challenges.

However, the President must establish a reliable evaluation system to ensure effective policy implementation. For example, it’s unclear if the 42,000 metric tonnes of grains and 60,000 metric tonnes of rice distributed to “vulnerable Nigerians” actually reached the intended recipients. Any sabotage undermines the goal of stabilising the food supply.

The Central Bank’s donation of 2.15 million bags of fertilizer worth N100 billion raises questions about the true beneficiaries. Similarly, the Dry Season Farming Initiative, funded by the African Development Bank with $134 million, aims to promote year-round farming on 500,000 hectares. Yet, who are the real beneficiaries?

President Tinubu must closely monitor partnerships, such as the one with John Deere to supply 2,000 tractors annually, supported by low-interest loans from the Bank of Agriculture. Additionally, the $1 billion Green Imperative Programme with Brazil and a N141 billion credit facility from a Japanese agency aim to provide farmers with machines, equipment, and training.

The critical question remains: who benefits from these schemes? Are they reaching the intended farmers, or are they being hijacked by political aides and influential figures? Ensuring a transparent process is essential for supporting the farming middle class, peasant farmers, and the unemployed.

It is essential for rejuvenating Nigeria’s industrial, megacities. Right now, our cities deify baubles and digital enlightenment, which are superfluous to the country. This is why social life and commerce get grounded in the heat of a crisis. At the coronavirus outbreak, for instance, economic activities in most cities got grounded. It was as if the metropolis and the wheels of industry didn’t matter.

Before the advent of big tech; before our cash crops and wildflowers got decimated by murderous herdsmen and their ruck; before pastoral farms frothed with pesticides and fishes floated belly-up in Ewekoro and the oil creeks in Niger Delta, we grew what we ate.

Cities don’t produce food. They depend on the countryside to provide it. Save their food distribution systems, cities can quarantine, shut in, and shut down, so long as the countryside doesn’t.

A deeper look at our fate through the pandemic revealed how worthless the Nigerian city is, with its parade of glitz and chug-chug of industry. But for the country’s agricultural economy, Nigeria would starve.

President Tinubu’s agricultural policy must manifest beyond passionate pronouncements and gazetted intent. The wellspring of wealth is agrarian surplus, the ability to feed more than one with the labour of one. Agricultural surplus built the groundnut pyramids of the north and the cocoa plantations of the southwest.

Nigeria was a leading agricultural economy in the 1950s, being the largest producer of palm oil, groundnut, cotton, and cocoa globally. The sector employed over 70 per cent of the labour force and accounted for as much as 62.3 per cent of the nation’s foreign exchange earnings.

Over the last four decades, however, the yield of most key crops has declined, in particular, cassava, cocoa beans and wheat – a reflection of low utilisation of improved seedlings, agrochemicals and poor adoption of technology, according to a recent Price Water House report.

For most key crops, Nigeria’s share of global production has remained low. However, the rate of consumption has outstripped production. The deficit has been met largely by importation, making the country a net importer.

On average, between 2011 and 2015, N1.4 trillion has been spent on food imports with wheat, milk, rice, sugar and malt extract, constituting the bulk of Nigeria’s food import bill.

Between 2016 and 2019, Nigeria’s cumulative agricultural imports stood at N3.35 trillion, four times higher than the agricultural export of N803 billion within the same period.

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These challenges have stifled agricultural productivity, affecting the sector’s contribution to the country’s GDP. It has also led to increased food imports amid skyrocketing population and declining levels of food sufficiency.

Of its 92.4 million hectares, Nigeria boasts 82.0 million hectares of arable land; so far, just 34 million hectares of it have been cultivated. With population explosion and the government’s renewed drive to boost food security, agriculture has become increasingly crucial to our survival as a nation.

Understandably, former President Muhammadu Buhari sought to revivify the country’s agricultural economy but the country’s fixation with oil rendered her a whited sepulchre, sullied by wastefulness and vice, the soot that will not out.

Nigeria needs agriculture. Agriculture employs about 70 percent of the country’s population thus it can be used to drive sustainable growth prospects through a value chain that turns raw commodities into processed goods for domestic consumption or export.

President Tinubu must fund the diversification of agriculture to make it more appealing to a vast youth population that is spiritless about farming but might be attracted to processing, marketing, and other business opportunities along the value chain.

The food emergency in northeast and northwest Nigeria brought on by the Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, infrastructure deficits, and the government’s response to them emphasises the need to expand the agricultural sector to guarantee food security and nutrition.

Until then, the Nigerian city will subsist as a plague; it is diseased because its sensuality is both morbid and commercial. Its hidden graces unclad, like the proverbial harlot, self-exiled from the village but always returning under cover of night to stalk and prey on the countryside.

The Nigerian city does too little for the countryside. Knowing this, President Tinubu announced his decision to resurrect the country by endowing its agricultural economy with remarkable fillips.

Tinubu must understand that his government cannot achieve agricultural boon simply by pronouncing passion to resources. He must thoroughly examine if resources are pronounced to his passion.

While the rationale for prioritising agriculture is sound, many reforms will have to be enacted if the sector is to flourish. These reforms must also include measures to save rural Nigeria with the sheen continually sponged off its greenery by the city.

It was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York, writes Dyson.

Hay was responsible for Nigeria’s first brush with economic glory. Between 1962 and 1968, Nigeria’s major foreign exchange earner was the agricultural sector where palm oil and groundnut made up around 47 per cent of the country’s exports. However, Nigeria’s position as an agricultural powerhouse declined through its oil boom.

Caught between the womb walls of the crude oil creeks and digital tech, Nigeria lives imprisoned in starvation’s bower. Yet the government recites fantastic stories of agricultural rebirth thus rejecting the strife of contraries by which Nigeria convulses.

At the outbreak of COVID-19, our storied artifice collapsed in hysterical retreat as the country leapt from its tinseled perch and dashed, shrieking back to its native valleys.

What was hitherto regarded as an underprivileged fetish and peasant preserve became our major source of sustenance and rebirth. Nigeria weeps but does not recognise her tears.

May 30, 2024
Kano emirates family dispute

It is a pity that what seems to be a seamless resolution of the royal family dispute in Kano is being blown out of proportion by outsiders who have no jurisdiction whatsoever in a situation that lies in the purview of the Kano State. The constitution gives all states control of traditional institutions in their territories. As far as the constitution is concerned, the federal government’s role in a situation of dispute is the maintenance of law and order.

The situation in Kano has strengthened the argument of the necessity of state police to permit states to enforce their directives and state laws. The deployment of police and other security forces such as the DSS and in extreme situations, the army, when the police cannot cope, belongs in the province of the federal government. We must try and avoid excessive use of force in what appears to be a civil matter. Kano can be combustible at times but at the same time, we must allow civil resolution to play out its own process before resorting to other methods. The situation in Kano must not be allowed to deteriorate to such a level for lives to be lost.

The dramatis personae in the dispute are first or second cousins in the same dynasty. When Sir Muhammadu Sanusi 1 was deposed in 1964, his brother, Ado Bayero the Nigerian ambassador to Senegal was picked by the Sardauna of Sokoto who was then the premier of the North to succeed him and Muhammadu Sanusi was banished to Dutse, then a dusty garage junction on the way to Borno. The place has become an emirate and a state capital today with a faction of the Sanusi family maintaining a hereditary role in the emirate.

Muhammadu Sanusi, the grandfather of Lamido Muhammadu Sanusi did not resist his deposition because he knew it could have been costly to the royalty which he held in high esteem. He went quietly into the darkness of descent from the Olympian height he had enjoyed as a haughty emir of Kano who was primus inter pares among all the emirs of northern Nigeria paying scanty regard to the supreme position of the Sultan of Sokoto, the titular head of what was a caliphate subservient to political overlordship of the premier of the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello who happened to derive most of his power from the electorate of Northern Nigeria but also from being a member of the family of the Sultan.

When Muhammadu Sanusi 11 was deposed by Governor Ganduje about four years or so ago for what was called maladministration and insubordination, he too followed his grandfather’s example and went into exile in a dusty village in Nassarawa State until he was rescued via the court of law after a case was filed by his friends so that he could be granted right of where to live outside Kano. He relocated to Lagos with some of his family and after some time he got his spirit back and began to comment again on strictly economic issues which are his forte. Why can’t Emir Aminu Bayero in the interest of the dynasty go into the night quietly and find a useful thing to do for himself, the emirate of Kano and for the peace of Nigeria? If there is crisis in Kano, he and the Kano people will be the losers and what would he have gained at the end of the day? It is God who elevates and wherever we find ourselves, we should just accept and allow the will of God be done.

Read Also: Fed Govt, Labour to resume minimum wage talks Friday

I have abiding interest in Kano for reasons of having many friends from there and particularly for my respect for Ambassador Aminu Sanusi, father of the incumbent emir, who I first met when he was our high Commissioner in Ottawa Canada and I was a graduate student in Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1968. There was this horrible film “Afrika Adio” made by a studio in Italy by the racist propaganda machine of apartheid South Africa to denigrate the whole of Africa as a place of savages. It was a terrible film showing the Tutsi massacre in Rwanda and Burundi by their compatriots the Hutus, the fighting in the Congo accompanied by tribal massacres and the Biafran war and alleged massacres and other brutal fighting compared with the serenity in Portuguese Africa and other settler colonies of Rhodesia, Mozambique and Angola and apartheid South Africa. For us Africans who had no voice and who were thousands of miles away from our homes, this was a devastating blow and assault. Some of us surrendered to depression and melancholy. It was in this circumstance that as president of the African students union in my university, I wrote to Ambassador Sanusi telling him our serious situation because our fellow students looked curiously at us asking us questions annoying problems about cannibalism in our various countries. Ambassador Sanusi immediately prevailed on the Canadian government to ban the movie and he travelled to Halifax as a father would do to assure us of what the federal government of Nigeria was doing to prevent an occurrence like the one we suffered from. We remained eternally grateful to him. Ambassador Aminu Sanusi later served in China and other places before becoming permanent secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs during the Muhammad/Obasanjo military regime from where he left suddenly to Kano to become a district head and Ciroman. Unfortunately, he died rather young. On accidental meeting between us around 1982 or 1983, he had asked if I would consider writing a biography of his father, Sir Muhammadu Sanusi after my book on Sir Kashim Ibrahim to which I answered in the affirmative. His death subsequently ended what would have been an interesting academic exercise and contribution to Nigerian history. I state all this just to say I have had an abiding interest in the role of personalities in history and studying the role of important personages in our history would no doubt enrich our understanding of the past and the present of Nigeria.

Back to the Kano emirate situation. There is nothing new under the sun, King Solomon wrote, and the deposition of Emir Aminu Bayero would not be the last in Nigeria as long as the constitution permits it unless the traditional rulers are constitutionally insulated from the overlordship of elected rulers. Before him the Alaafin of Oyo was deposed in 1954 by the Obafemi Awolowo government, the Olowo of Owo, Sir Olateru Olagbegi was removed in 1966 by the Brigadier Adeyinka Adebayo government of Western Nigeria; during the Abacha regime, the Sokoto State government removed Ibrahim Dasuki as Sultan of Sokoto. Going forward, traditional rulers should only be marginally involved in politics in theory and in practice. Those who want to eat with the devil must use a long spoon.

Now that we are revising the constitution, there is a need to protect traditional rulers by having an appropriate constitutional provision for it. If we cannot respect them, we should abolish the institution like India did. But since Nigerians want their preservation, we must preserve them in truth and indeed. When politicians are in trouble at least in the local areas of the country where respect for traditional rulers is the highest, they rush to them for advice and support but as soon as they settle down and stabilise their regimes, the traditional rulers become dispensable.

It is in the interest of the traditional rulers not to play into the hands of political rulers who enjoy using them. Traditional rulers should come together at least the important ones among them to constitutionally protect the institutions from political manipulation, use and misuse. This is the only way to avoid the recurring decimal of political leaders kicking traditional rulers around just to score points in their political competition. Before constitutional changes, traditional rulers should occupy their royal positions and keep silent no matter how much they want to correct the errors of politicians or else they will become victims of the vagaries of political development.

May 30, 2024
Silver jubilee, silver lining

Understandably, the Tinubu administration which turned one yesterday did not roll out the carpet to celebrate. It is not for want of what to celebrate. Its action is in accord with the nation’s mood. Nigeria is bleeding from years of mismanagement and poor leadership and the followership and leadership have to carry the can for this. The masses have unfortunately borne the brunt. They remain haggard and hungry-looking where those they voted into power look robust, fresh and well-fed.

Whether in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which ran the country for 16 years from 1999 to 2015 or the All Progressives Congress (2015 to date), the fate of the common man has always been the same. They make sacrifice for their country, while their leaders consume the offering rituals without any consequence. Are we not told that those who eat the rituals offered to the gods will face dire punishment? We have never seen this happen, except in folk tales .

Ordinarily, the nation should be agog now, celebrating 25 years of its return to democracy in 1999, but for the prevailing economic situation.

Notwithstanding the gloom, the day could not just come and go like that. So, the National Assembly, the bastion of democracy marked the silver anniversary with pomp and ceremony yesterday, with President Bola Tinubu, who was a senator in the short lived Third Republic between 1991 and 1993, addressing a joint sitting of the Senate and House of Representatives. It is not often that the President addresses such a joint session. He does so only when extremely necessary.

That we are celebrating 25 years of unbroken democracy for the first time in the annals of Nigeria is something to crow about, but it is sad that majority of the people cannot really point at anything to be proud of about civil government. We are quick to say that leadership has failed the country, but as followers are we not complicit? A country gets the type of leaders it wants, so goes the saying. It is believed that the people have consistently voted for the same set of people since 1999, though parties may differ.

Yes, it has been 25 years of democracy, but as a colleague said in the course of our conversation, ‘man mi, it is not how far, but how well?’ How has democracy impacted the lives of the people? Are they better off today than they were under the military? We may be enjoying our freedom which was fettered under the military. But as the same colleague noted: ‘how free really are we?’ ‘Look around you and see what is happening; many of our colleagues are being abducted under the guise of arrest for doing their job’. ‘Should this be happening in a democracy?’

Indeed, a lot still has to be done to make democracy work for all. According to Abraham Lincoln, ‘democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people’. So, the people must be at the centre of democratic governance. It must not only be about the leaders and their welfare.

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The National Assembly’s celebration of 25 years of democracy is good, but it failed to address the place of the people. For too long, those in power have placed emphasis on themselves without a thought for the masses. As representatives of the people who are their constituents, lawmakers owe it a duty to correct this anomaly.

We can only celebrate democracy where the people are in the mix; where they are not, there is nothing to gloat about. A democracy where the followers are famished but the leaders are rotund was not the democracy we envisaged when the military was leaving in 1999.

All the talks about ‘reflections’ by past National Assembly leaders, David Mark (Senate) and Femi Gbajabiamila (House of Representatives) and former Head of State Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar will only have meaning if the gains of democracy reflect in the people’s lives. All these will be baloney, if fuel, electricity, food, security, gainful employment, healthcare and education remain a mirage to the common man.

Despite all the misgivings, I remain optimistic about the future. There is a silver lining in the cloud amid the renewed hope agenda of the government. May our democracy endure.

May 30, 2024
Our judges have gone gaga again!

What IS happening in Kano is sickening. It all began last Thursday when the House of Assembly dissolved the five emirates in the ancient city created by the immediate past administration of Abdullahi Ganduje. His successor Abba Yusuf immediately signed the bill into law, ending the four-year tenure of the Emir of Kano, Aminu Ado Bayero, the main target of the repealed law and the four other emirs who emerged from the balkanised Kano Emirate. Yusuf immediately brought back Muhammadu Sanusi as Kano emir. Sanusi has since taken over the Rumfa Palace; Bayero is in Nasarawa, which hosts what has been described as a mini palace.

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The courts have waded in the matter giving conflicting orders which have complicated issues. A court restrained the governor from sacking Bayero and others; another of coordinate power gave its own order endorsing his action to dissolve the five emirates. The dingdong has continued with both parties going to the courts of their choice to obtain orders favourable to them.

The courts are supposed to know better than to indulge the parties. But, rather than do what is right and proper, they are wittingly giving conflicting orders. Why are some of our judges like this, despite all the warnings about the use and abuse of interim injunctions? It is only trite for a judge not to give an interim order where one has already been granted by his brother-judge, whether or not the first judge was right to do so. No interim injunction by one judge can cancel the other by his brother-judge since they are of equal status. These judges should stop giving the judiciary a bad name and halt this madness, which all started in 1993, now!

May 30, 2024
Of Tinubu’s ‘government of circumstance’

President Tinubu has said no one should pity him over the challenges his administration is facing because he asked for the job. What however is not in dispute is that he inherited a country in state of extreme distress, with a near collapsed economy, crumbling underfunded educational sector with 20 million of out of school children and general insecurity of lives and properties of Nigerians.

Our nightmare started back in 1966 when “soldiers marched out on a straight path towards their vision of a good society, but the mission became more elusive, the closer they came towards it (Robin Luckman)”. They did everything to search for ‘the path to Nigeria greatness’ they never took, except retracing their way back to the beginning of our nightmare. Ex-military officers and their military-baked ‘new breed’ politicians that a took over as democratically elected leaders , like Fela’s (Zombies) unthinking soldiers just continued digging deeper into the hole.

It was therefore not a surprise that Obasanjo/PDP 16-point agenda failed and Umaru Yar’Adua’s 7-point agenda died with him just as Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s own 7-point Transformation Agenda suffered the same fate. Buhari prides himself on his anti-corruption credentials but it was his suspended chairman of the Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property (SPIP), Okoi Obono-Obla that recently told Daily Sun newspaper that “Nigeria lost $500 billion to corruption under Buhari”.

No one can therefore blame Nigerians if they had lost faith not only in politicians whether in khaki or ‘Agbada” but also in government, by the time Bola Tinubu came with his own seven-point renewed hope agenda, in 2023. Besides mistrust of cynical Nigerians, Tinubu had other challenges from those constituting hegemonic power in Nigeria and other ethnic irredentists who routinely exploit our innermost fears as a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society by forcing their followers to see the pictures in their heads as the only reality. They were in spite of INEC verdict and Supreme Court’s pronouncement ready to delegitimize his presidency and make the country ungovernable.

One year after, the emergence of Tinubu’s ‘government of circumstance’ blamed for the sins of his predecessors and hated with passion by Nigerian victims of his hash economic policies, the juror is out, unfortunately led in the main by his political foes and Obasanjo who has seen nothing good in all his past successors.

Predictably, Obasanjo who institutionalised corruption through government its ill-implemented privatization policy through which Nigeria’s total investment of over $100b was sold for a paltry $1.5b now blames one year old Tinubu’s government for the poor state of the economy.

For Obasanjo, Tinubu’s one-year administration must be held for what he describes as “consistently poor policies, lack of long-term sustainable policies, discontinuity and corruption firmed on personal greed, avarice, incompetence, lack of knowledge and understanding and lack of patriotism.”

He went on to also dismiss Tinubu’s response to the economic challenges so far as not different from “the statement and proposed actions he gave 45 years ago to stop fuel scarcity for which the sycophants and spin doctors of this current administration went out to castigate me”.

However, the above is not to hold brief for President Tinubu but to put the records in perspective since those responsible for our nightmare are the same people writing our history.

Taking a cue from his promise to change the narrative upon assumption of office last year, I think we can now attempt a critical analysis of his intervention in the last one year starting with his ‘fuel subsidy is gone’ declaration on his inauguration day for which he has received a lot of backlash.

Most informed Nigerians agreed the fuel subsidy scam must go. But Nigerians had expected Tinubu who told us he was always a step ahead of his political foes to have anticipated sabotage from the fuel merchants that have for years lived on the blood of Nigerians.

It was the case of the witch cried yesterday, the baby died this morning, who does not know it was the witch that killed the baby’ goes the usual Yoruba aphorism. Within minutes of re-stating the facts since Buhari had in fact removed the subsidy, fuel dried up in filing stations, a repeat of what happened in year 2000. But unlike Obasanjo who was stampeded into signing into law which increased the number of fuel importers from four multinational companies to over 140 new companies set up by PDP stalwarts, Tinubu took the wind out of the fuel merchants’ sails by ordering NNPC to immediately jack up the pump price to about N500 per litre.

But if you ask me, knowing our governors are Leviathans answerable only to themselves, I think the excess revenue accruing to government from the subsidy removal ought to have been placed with an independent body to manage in the interest of suffering Nigerians whose objective positions today is worse than when under their oil marketers’ enslavers.

Tinubu government must therefore understand why Labour and Nigerians confronted with unbearable cost of transportation and spiral inflation in cost of food supply (April’s food inflation was at 40.53 per cent, as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)), are angry.

There is no evidence that states governors who were also granted loans of N2.5 billion each for delivering palliative in addition to windfalls in their monthly allocation have brought any form of relief to their people. Many of them while building airports or bridges over dry land in their state capitals are yet to pay workers the national minimum wage.

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I also believe Nigerians cannot but be unhappy with the president over his silence on our lawmakers’ frittering away of N57.6 billion on Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) toys for its members coming shortly after the Senate had, in December 2023, approved $7.8 billion and €100 million as part of the 2024 borrowing plan framework.

Nigeria may be a very religious nation of religious people. But there can be no justification for government frittering away of N90 billion 2024 Hajj subsidy, while angry Nigerian taxpayers are demonstrating and threatening to take government to court over repressive taxation.

I also don’t know how the president is able to sleep with daily harvest of deaths due to activities of bandits and kidnappers and terrorists long after it was agreed by experts and the 36 states governors that the panacea is state police. President Tinubu, many believe, does not need one year to persuade the National Assembly to do their job.

If it is beyond the president to reject the wholesale devaluation of our naira by Bretton Woods institutions, the infamous apostles of market-driven economy, who Obasanjo said must be obeyed and who engineered removal of Buhari from office in 1985 over his recalcitrance, it is not beyond him to take us back to our neglected ‘backward integration policy’ which we foolishly traded for IMF ill-advised comparative advantage policy designed to deny us industrialisation. Experts also say we can also embrace some form of protectionism.

But beyond economic recovery, President Tinubu once again must be reminded of the need to address our political problem. As Olisa Agbakoba reminded him last week, “To fully realize his transformative vision… he must establish a strong foundation of national order and engage with ethnic groups, the National Assembly, and diverse stakeholders to resolve fundamental questions around Nigeria’s political identity and arrangements for living together as one united entity”.

And finally President Tinubu needed to be reminded that government is communication and communication is government.

May 30, 2024
Because we dress our bandits as urban legends

There is a reason eggheads seldom acquire political power. Intellectuals, artists, revolutionaries, and pacifists rarely become potentates because they are cast in the mould of Castiglione’s courtiers or the proverbial whore of Babylon. Perhaps the fault is in their stars.

Some assume elevated significance, often hard-earned through enterprise, scholarship, professional excellence and repute. Think academics, journalists, entertainers, technocrats, clerics, among others – this breed cut the perfect portrait of the mind’s glory astride fields of grit. Yet they would find that intellect and repute are never enough without the courage to defy institutionalised fraudulence.

In Nigeria, eggheads sprout and flower as the mystical rose of the mire; by their devices, our chaste, walled garden is made unchaste by brutes wielding unmerited power, like the plundered bower of the country brothel.

Several intellectuals parade flawed presence because they assert unreal persona and moral substance, most of the time. Thus they are open and acquiescent to the seductive whisper of the crooked.

The process of co-option is often subtle. For instance, public officers and corporate magnates, well-versed in the art of influence, employ a combination of material inducements, flattery and intimidation to bend journalists to their will. Invitations to exclusive events, private dinners, and off-the-record briefings serve to create a sense of camaraderie and indebtedness. Journalists who once prided independence find their judgment seduced and beclouded.

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This dynamic is particularly evident in the creation of WhatsApp groups—a modern tool that should ideally foster transparent communication and accountability. Instead, it has become a platform for manipulation. Some journalists, in a misguided attempt to maintain access and foster relationships, create these groups and add public officers to them. The result is an environment where public officers can monitor discussions, stifle dissent, and shape narratives to their advantage.

This is not to say that all such fora are manipulable by shady elements. I have been a part of two or three platforms where journalists hurl bitter truth in the face of public officers and corporate spokespersons in the fold – as it is randomly done in very few fora like The Lagos Times (TLT). This occurs, barring the excessive obsequiousness of a few fawning characters, of course.

The power dynamics across several digital fora are starkly lopsided. Public officers and corporate spokespersons do not reciprocate the gesture; they do not add journalists to their WhatsApp groups within the corridors of power and the corporate boardroom. This one-way inclusion serves as a constant reminder of the imbalance, subtly reinforcing the journalists’ subservient role. Any journalist who dares to express a damning opinion about a public officer or image maker within these groups risks not only professional ostracism but also potential retribution.

The implications of this are profound. Journalists, aware of the lurking eyes of power in their midst, often self-censor to avoid conflict. This self-censorship erodes the quality of editorial commentary, investigative journalism, and news reportage thus transforming what should be a robust and critical press into a compliant and toothless entity.

The consequences of this courtship extend beyond individual journalists. The broader impact on press freedom and ethical journalism is alarming. When journalists fail to perform their role as watchdogs, corruption thrives unchecked, and the public’s trust in the media deteriorates. The press, once a bastion of truth and accountability, becomes a mere echo chamber for those in power.

Between their flawed persona and lack of moral substance rids them of grit. Ultimately, they play errand dog and court sycophant to the President, governors, lawmakers, and even the mob of angry youths. They can be likened to the celebrity hairdresser, boudoir confidant or presidential lounge lizard perpetually nodding in affirmative to the caprices of his principal.

They are constantly engaged at the feet and filth attic of the political herd or online mob, their masters and benefactors. Flattery and malice leap from their forked tongues as they ennoble and attack their principal or quarry’s perceived allies and detractors.

Through dispensations and conflict situations, they are pliable and servile, projecting their principals’ whim and wile with slavish plasticity. Their identities are self-evacuated as they persistently open themselves like a glove to the political palm. Like Castiglione’s male harlots, their shameless self-abasement is unmanly and amoral; they elevate bum over forelock in a flagrant rite of political sodomy.

This is unbecoming of journalists and the intellectual class but it is our fate in contemporary Nigeria. Thus they speak modern in the tenor of savage minions.

This phenomenon is borne of a hankering to romanticise the darker aspects of society, for a profit – thus they turn our corporate and political bandits into something more than mere criminals, often elevating them to the status of urban legends.

The greatest thieves, says Bangambiki, are not caught. Not because it’s not known that they are thieves but because you cannot accuse them of robbery and live. These thieves are praised as national heroes and liberators or as successful entrepreneurs.

The bandits of our country are not your ordinary criminals. They do not lurk in the darkness or wear masks to conceal their identities. Instead, they walk among us, their faces unmasked, their presence known to all. They are the ones who operate in plain sight, who defy the conventional notions of criminality, and who seem to possess a certain mystique that sets them apart from the common crook.

It is said that our bandits are not driven by greed or malice, but by a deeper, more primal urge—a desire to challenge the status quo, disrupt the monotony of our everyday lives, and inject a sense of drama and excitement into the fabric of our society. They are the modern-day outlaws, the renegades who dare to defy the rules and forge their path through the urban landscape.

But what sets our bandits apart from their counterparts in other climes is how we portray them. Instead of outright condemning their actions, we glorify them, mythologise them, and transform them into larger-than-life figures who embody the spirit of humanity or rebellion and defiance.

We dress our bandits in the trappings of urban legends, weaving tales of their exploits that are equal parts fact and fiction. Perhaps it is our way of coping with the harsh realities of life in contemporary Nigeria, of finding meaning in the chaos and disorder that surrounds us.

Perhaps it is our way of reclaiming a sense of agency in a world that often feels beyond our control. Or perhaps it is simply our way of indulging in a bit of escapism, of immersing ourselves in a narrative that is as thrilling as it is improbable.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that our bandits have become more than just criminals—they have become symbols, icons, and legends in their own right. They are the antiheroes of our urban landscape, the rebels without a cause, the outcasts who have found a home in the shadows.

So, the next time you hear a tale of a daring pillage of the public till, a heist in the corporate business sector, or the brazen plunder of our villages by bandits operating from the forest groves, remember this: our bandits are not just thieves and troublemakers.

They embody our collective imagination, the living, breathing manifestations of our wildest bigotries, shameless vanities and fears. They are the urban legends that banter and walk among us, reminding us that sometimes, reality is stranger than fiction.

May 23, 2024
Between Wike and Fubara

Last Sunday, May 19, the Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide while calling for “peace throughout the entire Niger Delta region”, at the end of a one-day peace and security summit, ‘urged the politicians causing political turbulence in Rivers, to sheath their swords’. The following day, Monday May 20, former President Goodluck Jonathan while performing the flag-off of the construction of the multi-billion naira Trans-Kalabari Road project in the Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State appealed to Minister Nyesom Wike and Governor Siminalayi Fubara “to work together for the development of the land and the people of Rivers State”. He then went on to commend Governor Fubara for his “vision and the courage to start the much needed road located within a difficult terrain which he said “is not going to be a tea party”, among other critical elements including airport, rail and water transport systems if (we) must develop a nation”.

It was apparent from Jonathan’s comment that the work of development cannot be accomplished by one administration. This fact was probably lost on Wike who was named Mr. Project by ex-VP Yemi Osinbajo on account of the giant strides he made in infrastructural development in Rivers to have suddenly forgotten that before him was Governor Rotimi Amaechi who attracted those who mattered in Nigeria including the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, to Port Harcourt to commission completed projects.

But for President Jonathan’s observation, those outside Rivers State would have thought there would be nothing else to commission after 16 year’s rage of commissioning of projects executed by Amaechi and Wike.

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We however now know there is still much work of development to be carried out in Rivers. And this is why it is hoped Wike will humble himself by admitting ‘the world is a stage where everyone plays his own part’ instead of trying to hold Rivers and its new governor hostage.

Ignoring the fact that there is already a new sheriff in town, Wike publicly expressed a desire to control Rivers State PDP political structure he successfully deployed to secure victory for Fubara. I don’t think anyone should begrudge Wike for laying claim to ownership of Rivers political structure. He has demonstrated during different elections that he is the undisputed leader of the riverine grassroot politicians who decide outcomes of every election within dangerous riverine terrains election umpires and observers will do anything to avoid.

Wike admitted reaching a truce after President Tinubu privately waded into their conflict. The truce was however dismissed by some Rivers elders, led by Rufus Ada-Gorge, a former governor of the state, who claimed that if the peace deal is allowed to succeed it, would amount to President Tinubu unilaterally suspending the Nigerian Constitution which he says portends executive rascality which undermines our constitutional democracy, rule of law and good governance.”

The elders were joined by some opportunistic youths eyeing the seats vacated by pro-Wike commissioners. They were in solidarity rally at the demolished Rivers State House of Assembly complex which was earlier torched on October 29, 2023, to forestall planned impeachment of the governor, singing “we are not slaves. Some slaves are happy in their chains”.

Lionized by elders and opportunistic youths, Fubara refused to represent the budget earlier approved by four suspended loyal state lawmakers even after the warring 27 state legislators withdrew their impeachment threat.

If Wike had been a good student of Nigerian politics, it was at that point he ought to have known the game was up. It was obvious Fubara had borrowed a leaf from Akintola’s playbook of 1962. Like Akintola ‘taku’ (refused to step down in line with constitutional provision), Fubara dared Wike, saying “I am now in power even if it was by mistake”. That was a subtle threat he was prepared to pull the whole edifice down on their heads.

Fubara was also a good student of Obaseki. To forestall impeachment by Adams Oshiomhole’s 17 loyal state lawmakers, the Clerk of Edo House of Assembly, Yahaya Omogbai, was said to have ushered seven members in a house of 24 lawmakers-elect into the chamber at midnight and read out the Obaseki’s letter of proclamation with which Honourable Frank Okiye the governor’s anointed candidate for speaker was elected. To seal the fate of the 17 elected majority lawmakers, Obaseki refused to swear them in while the National Assembly was told “it could not compel Obaseki to issue another proclamation within the lifespan of an existing proclamation”.

Fubara on his part first secured the support of Uche Secondus and other PDP elders Wike had fought to a standstill. He then relied on four suspended members of Rivers State House of Assembly to declare vacant the seats of decamping 27 state lawmakers loyal to Wike.

It is also obvious, the 1999 constitution created Leviathans out of our governors. Deputy governors or other adversaries will take on our governors only at their own peril.

Wike had before leaving office publicly declared paying for all projects, a claim Fubara as Wike’s chief accountant did not dispute while being railroaded to become governor. He even admitted: “Originally, our mantra was supposed to be ‘Consolidation and Continuity”. Now in power, he says his administration is bogged down by the debt piled up by Wike. Like Akintola did with disastrous consequences, Fubara has started to talk of probing the administration of his estranged godfather.

Fubara also now questions the integrity of his godfather. Last week he told reporters that he invited the governor of Abia State to commission his projects because “he is not an artificial integrity man. He is an action integrity man. He is not the one that they will gather because they just want to talk”.

But before we crucify Fubara, let us first look at ourselves in the mirror. Democracy is a new values system we embraced without the accompanying democratic ethos. Of this, character, or what Aristotle described as ‘balance between passion and caution of political actors’ is important if democracy, as a majoritarian rule is to be anything other than the tyranny of the majority. For democracy to thrive therefore, political actors must be committed to a set of ideals. Unfortunately for us our political space has been largely populated since independence by men that believe neither in any creed nor any set of ideals.

The collapse of the first republic started with Akintola’s refusal to obey his party’s constitution and Prime Minister Balewa and President Nnamdi Azikiwe, who in breach of the constitution, served as accomplices while Senate President/Acting President, Nwafor Orizu, once convicted by the colonial powers for fraud against his people, out of ethnic sentiments, ceded power to Aguinyi Ironsi.

Apart from the late Umaru Yar’Adua, there was no evidence Obasanjo, who embarked on a third term fiasco, and Buhari, who was unable to rein in ethnic irredentists in his government, believe in any set of ideals. And precisely because we often play the ostrich, we expect Fubara to be different from Odili, Amaechi and Wike, predecessors.

A part of a whole cannot be holier than the whole.

May 23, 2024