The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • …The Alpha President

    …The Alpha President

    Thank God for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, the people now know how brilliant their President is. In his quest for evidence to dent President Tinubu’s image, Atiku went on a fishing expedition. He thought he would make a big catch!

    His ‘catch’ shocked him and his sheepish followers. Last week, the Chicago State University (CSU), which he has been haranguing for the President’s academic records, released Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s transcript while in school.

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    Of the 18 courses he took, he made 13As (alpha), 4Bs and 1C. This makes him an A student. He consequently became an A governor (between 1999 and 2007 in Lagos) and right before the eyes of all, he is becoming the Alpha (A) President, no matter the distractions by mischief makers. Can Atiku make his own academic records public too for comparison? He dares not! We already know of  Peter Obi’s grades. They do not come near Tinubu’s. But these are not things that excite the President. He is interested in working for the common good. Will they allow him to work?

  • A visit to the famous Normandy beaches in France

    A visit to the famous Normandy beaches in France

    The talk of war in West Africa over the military takeover of Niger Republic brought to my mind the destructive nature of war which politicians may not be totally aware of before plunging their countries into war. I wrote my doctoral thesis in 1970 on an aspect of the First World War and I know more than the average Joe on the street of the effects and consequences of war on humanity. The First World War led to total casualties of about 40 million dead and wounded, 20 million of which are estimated to have died half of which were civilians and about 20 million are estimated to have been wounded. On top of this was the Spanish influenza which broke out in 1918-1919 infecting about 500 million people globally and killing 50 million of them. The Second World War was the most destructive in human history with 35 to 60 million estimated to have been killed. The total for Europe alone was ÿþestimated to have been 15 million to 20 million, more than double the First World War. About six million Jews died in Hitler’s concentration camps. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people including 8.7 million soldiers and 19 million civilians. Germany suffered about 5.3 million dead mostly in the Eastern Front and 3.1 million Japanese died trying to conquer Southeast Asia.

    Winston Churchill, the famous British Second World War leader sometimes in 1941 during the beating back of German air blitz over Britain said “we shall fight on land, in the air, on water and underwater, and we shall never surrender”. Thanks to the tremendous support of the British Empire, the Soviet Union and the United States, the allied powers overcame the axis powers with total German and imperial Japan’s defeat in 1945.

    Towards this defeat was the D- Day allied amphibious landings, the largest amphibious operation in history from June 6 , 1944 in Normandy after the failures of such landings in Dunkirk, northern Belgium by the British expeditionary forces in 1940 when about 350,000 troops had to be evacuated under fire of the superior Wehrmacht  and in the Dieppe  raid in 1942 in Northern France which failed miserably after thousands of British and Canadian troops were wasted and those not captured had to be evacuated. The fighting in Normandy continued until July 1944, clearing German troops and pursuing them across the border in Germany. The D-Day was a costly operation. Statistics about the dead and the wounded are simply astounding. A total of 4,424 allied troops were killed on the D-Day itself more than 5000 were wounded. In the ensuing battle of Normandy, 73,000 allied forces were killed and 153,000 were wounded. Around 20,000 French villagers were killed mostly from bombing and shelling. The exact number of Germans killed are not known. Historians esti mate that between 4000 and 9000 were killed, wounded or missing during the D-Day invasion alone. About 22,000 German soldiers are among the many buried in the vast cemetery in Omaha beach.  The famous Atlantic wall stretching from Normandy to Norway which the Germans had built awaiting the kind of landings witnessed in Normandy was not sufficient to keep the allied forces out of the Atlantic beaches of German occupied France. General Erwin Rommel, the famous German general had indeed detected that the so-called “Atlantic wall” was not going to be effective but before anything could be done to make the series of coastal batteries effective, the landings took place. As an aside: Not many Germans visit these sites despite the fact they attract hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. There are five beaches namely Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword on which troops were landed in 1944. The largest of them were Utah and Omaha which were given those names by the American troops who landed on them. British and Canadian troops landed on Gold, Juno and Sword, some hours following the Americans. The entire operation “overlord” was carefully planned in England and the vast armada of ships, landing crafts, tanks and artillery and hundreds of thousands of soldiers were put under the Supreme Allied Command of the American, General Dwight David Eisenhower aided by the British General Bernard Montgomery. This landing was coordinated with continued military pressure on the Germans and Italians by the previous allied landing  on Sicily and Southern Italy and also to put an end the Soviet Union‘s  complaints of being left to fight the Germans alone on the Eastern front.

    Without going into the details of the military operations, it suffices to say the success of the landing paved the way for eventual allied victory over Hitler’s Germany. But it must always be borne in our minds that Hitler had had to withdraw some divisions of German troops from the western front to confront the Soviets on the Eastern front making the allied task easier.

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    Next year will be the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Unless one has seen the areas of operation and the vast cemetery of the dead, one would not appreciate the enormous courage and dedication men displayed pursuing a cause which they believed was worth fighting and dying for.

    The curiosity to see this led me to go to Normandy some three weeks ago precisely on September 3 after driving from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for almost 500 kilometres to Cherbourg, a naval port on the Atlantic North east of France.  This gave me opportunity to see French villages and villagers which one does not encounter while visiting Paris and thinking all France was like the superficial glitz of Paris!

    Thanks to my son, Seyi who though an engineer, was as keen as myself to see the Normandy living historical museum. It was for this cause he flew from Atlanta to rendezvous with me in Europe. He had promised me this trip as my 80th birthday present last year which he has now belatedly fulfilled. Thank you son. The visit particularly to the cemetery left a lasting impression on me and I suggest all leaders of the major countries like the United States which keeps the memory alive by its elaborate maintenance of the final resting place of the young men and their leaders who died for a war most may not have known the causes. The leaders of the Russian federation and that of the People’s Republic of China should also visit these vast cemeteries and other major powers that are still preparing for war who of course have vast cemeteries of their own war dead to remind them of the futility of war. After the First World War, ordinary people were so incensed in Europe that some writers began to suggest that when diplomacy breaks down leaders of potentially combatant nations should be given swords or boxing gloves to fight it out! 

    Wars should never be fought ever again but that is a forlorn hope. Man is naturally an aggressive animal and has been fighting for land (lebensraum) or domination of others since time immemorial and would perhaps continue to do so until he self-destroys himself. There are people who say there are many spinoffs of weapons into useful civilian lives but that is no reason for the mass murders and homicide and suicide committed by man usually for causes that could have been ironed out by diplomacy.  There are cynics who say the world is overpopulated and that wars have periodically reduced human populations but I argue that through deliberate policies, population can be reduced without the horrors of war and human suffering and possible total annihilation.

    The development of nuclear weapons has introduced into the art of war, the frightful elements of total war which if the genii is  allowed to come outside the bottle, the result of atomic holocaust will put an end to human and animal and plant life the way we know it. This scenario made John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the celebrated American president to say in 1962 that in the event of a nuclear war, the “living will envy the dead”. J. Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves who perfected the development of the atomic bomb would probably agree with the physicist Albert Einstein who said if there is a third world war, the fourth would be fought with stones and sticks because civilization as we know it will not survive a third world war.

    Before leaders plunge the world into regional or global conflicts, they should seriously think about the aftermath and realize that there are tested, better and less costly alternatives to war as Winston Churchill is heard to have said that it is “better to jaw-jaw than to war-war”. He is right and the earlier the world’s leaders learn about the veracity of this statement the better for mankind.

  • From Japa to Japada: Greening the Nigerian pasture (2)

    From Japa to Japada: Greening the Nigerian pasture (2)

    If President Bola Tinubu truly seeks to make Nigeria habitable to all; if he wishes to create an enabling environment for individuals and enterprises to thrive, then he must avoid the mistakes of his predecessors. The Presidential Villa shouldn’t subsist as our Versailles. 

    The presidency should no longer serve as a theatre of ruinous artifice. Agreed, the government thrives the world over as a performance theatre rippling with courtiers, but Nigerians no longer wish to be patronised by leeches. Nigerians do not wish to be handled by courtiers. They want leaders that truly serve their interests.

    Governance has been a farce for too long. It’s about time we experienced true change. First, there must be an immediate moratorium on the cloying manoeuvre oft deployed by every ruling party to portray itself as the only change agent with a bleeding heart and the capacity to reform the country.

    The incumbent administration must shun inclinations to make a show of its Social Intervention Programmes (SIPs) as some grand gestures to the impoverished, the displaced and other casualties of misgovernance, whose plight successive leadership have exploited through embarrassing lifeboats.

    President Tinubu could institute governance that finds less need for populist initiatives and curtails brain drain (Japa) in one breadth. To achieve this, he could commit to providing food security and a more pragmatic, Nigeria-specific educational system.

    Ensuring food security will guarantee Nigerians access to decent, affordable nutrition, and generate employment opportunities. A Nigeria-specific educational system will furnish the country with the quality of brains, labour and a citizenry rightly psyched to drive patriotic, all-inclusive growth – but this is a discourse best served at a later date.

    And, yes, technology is just a part of the mix, a very crucial one no doubt but it shouldn’t be cuddled as his administration’s magic vase. Nigeria’s socioeconomic crises can never be resolved by simply rubbing a digital lantern to make a genie appear. Technology isn’t the silver bullet to all our troubles.

    Rather technology must be seen as an aid to boosting agricultural economy and industrial productivity. We cannot best the more developed societies of the world at technological innovations. Thus Tinubu’s administration must control its fascination with technology and instead focus on Nigeria’s strengths: 82.0 million hectares of arable land of which 34 million hectares have been cultivated so far, natural resources (of which a greater percentage are illicitly exploited), and our under-exploited entertainment and education sectors.

    While a few Nigerians earn a decent living in overseas’ medical and educational sectors, many more are doing grudge work sweeping the streets, picking oranges on rural farms, cleaning toilets, doing security work, and washing the anuses of mental patients in hospices, irrespective of their training and academic qualifications.

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    Many of them could be gainfully employed in Nigeria’s agricultural economy with appropriate incentives. Agriculture employs about 70 percent of the country’s population thus it can be used to drive sustainable growth through a value chain that turns raw commodities into processed goods for domestic consumption or export.

    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.

    Agriculture could be our game-changer. Who says Nigeria can’t feed the world? The wellspring of wealth is agricultural 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.

    It was the mainstay of Nigeria’s economic independence. 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 while contributing over 60 per cent to Nigeria’s GDP.

    Challenges of poor land tenure system, deficient irrigation, climate change, low technology, land degradation, high post-harvest losses, and poor access to markets, to mention a few, currently stifle agricultural productivity.

    For instance, 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.

    With population explosion and the government’s renewed drive to boost food security, agriculture has become increasingly crucial to our survival as a nation. But caught between the womb walls of the crude oil creeks and the I.T revolution, Nigeria lives imprisoned in starvation’s bower.

    In the wake of food inflation and other hardships accentuated by the fuel subsidy removal, President Tinubu declared a state of emergency on food security, in July, and instructed that all matters about food and water availability and affordability be included within the purview of the National Security Council (NSC). These measures were to be followed by an immediate release of fertilisers and grains to farmers and households to mitigate the effects of the subsidy removal.

    Also, on July 13, the President wrote to the Senate seeking approval for an $800 million palliative loan from the World Bank, to fund a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) facility that will provide 12 million impoverished households N8,000 per month for six months.

    But the plan was dismissed as unrealistic as it pits the citizenry’s low purchasing power in yet another futile  battle with rising inflation (pegged at 23 per cent) and increasing cost of accommodation and transportation. Based on the Transport Fare Watch data, uploaded by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on August 12, 2023, the average transport fare within major cities has increased by 97.88 per cent and the average cost of a kilogram of beef stood at N2,653.02, indicating a growth of 27.55 per cent. Tinubu has since instructed a review of the scheme to N15,000 per household.

    In the immediate term, he also expressed his plans to reactivate land banks starting with 500,000 hectares of already mapped tracts, to boost food output. Nonetheless, the citizenry demands instant relief.

    Greening the Nigerian pasture is not achievable in a sprint or marathon. Think of it as a cross-country run. It is not a race winnable in four years. But who cares? Tinubu made Nigerians promises. Hence Nigerians ask, albeit impatiently: “Where is the abundance that he promised?”

    Going forward, his administration must de-emphasise a culture of public governance dependent on lifeboat solutions; to truly empower the citizenry, his administration must actualise a stable electricity supply and a better road and marine infrastructure; he must also revive the agricultural economy, get the refineries working.

    Systems thrive by their human elements thus Nigerians humanise our systems and dehumanise them. The President must be wary of the human factors that hinder the successful implementation of most policies and SIPs.

    Former President Muhammadu Buhari initiated the CCT, TraderMoni and N-Power resulting in alarming fraud running into billions of naira.  Likewise, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s  administration’s  SURE-P was hampered by massive corruption.

    Fast forward to 2023 and Tinubu, as President, bears the unenviable credit for removing fuel subsidies while sustaining the SIPs that he inherited from Buhari’s administration.

    No matter the degree of sophistry deployed to validate or invalidate their sustenance, let’s hope they do not subsist as futile, lifeboat remedies to socioeconomic problems. Let’s hope they become needless to us.

  • All hail the new Soun of Ogbomosoland

    The news of the choice of Pastor Afolabi Olaoye, widely known as ‘Pastor Ghandi’,  as the new Soun of Ogbomoso came as a pleasant surprise to me, but apparently not as a surprise to the new king himself and those who know the history of Ogbomoso. The new Soun apparently was told of the efforts of his prominent father, Prince Samuel Oladunni Olaoye, to be the Soun of Ogbomoso in 1940. Unfortunately, Prince Oladunni Olaoye could not realize his dream.

    Prince Olaoye, as his father was known, was a civil servant who retired as a Director in the Western Region’s Ministry of Works and Housing in 1969. He was a tall and personable man with much presence wherever he was. Prince Olaoye was pivotal in rallying the Ogbomoso community in Ibadan in taking the body of the assassinated Premier of Western Nigeria, Chief Ladoke Akintola, his close friend, home to Ogbomoso for a befitting burial after the coup d’état of January 15, 1966.

    The new Soun has now realized his father’s dream. Prince Oladunni Olaoye had wanted to be king in 1940. He was passed over, even though he was the popular choice, because he was the grandson and not the son of the reigning monarch as tradition required at that time. That tradition was subsequently changed such that the grandson or great-grandson of the monarch could aspire to the throne.

    The new Soun grew up as a privileged son in the home of an educated father, a Baptist Christian, as most of the educated elite of the town were. He had the best education going to the University of Ife, graduating in English and Literary Studies and then getting a Masters’ of Science degree in Labour Relations and Management Science at the University of Ibadan.  He has been involved in consulting in a wide variety of areas including management, investment and other areas within the American and African Business Environments.

    He is also privileged to be following in the footsteps of his royal uncle, Oba Oladunni Oyewumi, a thoroughly modern king and a liberal Muslim who told me that his credo was that religion was a personal calling. He said he insisted that a child could choose one of the universal religions of Islam or Christianity. Indeed, his children were allowed to embrace either of the religions while he remained a practising Muslim to the end. Interestingly, whether by accident or by design, the new Soun is close to Prince Oyewole Oyewumi, one of the children of the late Oba Oyewumi Ajagungbade III. This is a veritable example of the absence of rivalry amongst the princes of the town.  This is important for amity and cooperation, which is necessary for peace and development of the town.

    The new Soun is well endowed with savoir-faire. This is necessary in this day and age for what is needed to make a kingdom move forward. Ogbomosho seems to have the tradition or penchant of choosing highly exposed candidates for the throne as happened to the father of Soun Oyewumi who was well known in colonial French West Africa as a business man and of course the just departed Oba Oyewumi who made his fortune in the new Plateau State and now the new Soun who knows quite a lot about the world.

    Ogbomoso is a very important kingdom in Yorubaland, sharing borders with Ilorin Emirate, a Yoruba Kingdom now under Fulani rule against which the remnant of the Oyo Empire, particularly Ibadan the successor, fought wars in the 19th century. Ogbomoso has produced three Are Ona Kakanfo (Generalissimo) of Yorubaland, the last of which was Chief Ladoke Akintola. 

    In other words, the position of Ogbomoso was considered pivotal in the history of Yorubaland. Happily, Ogbomoso’s relations with Ilorin and the entire Northern Nigeria remains peaceful due to the friendship of the last Soun who built his wide ranging businesses with the North and the Emir of Ilorin was a regular visitor to the Soun’s palace when Oba Oyewumi was on the throne.

    The new Soun should continue the traditional visit with his neighbours in Ilorin and even Bida in Nupe land.

    I got to know the new king by accident precisely in 1992 when I was Nigeria’s ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany. He was a young man posted to the Redeemed Christian Church of God ( RCCG) “Living Waters” parish founded by my  late wife, Pastor Abiodun Osuntokun . The posting of the young Pastor Folabi Laoye was meant to relieve my wife from the arduous work of being a wife of an ambassador and also taking care of social activities as demanded by her position and then doing the 24 hour job of a minister of God.

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    The young pastor was like a younger brother or nephew of mine. He and my nephew, Bankole, were like twins in their social escapades before God called him. Pastor Ghandi, as he is generally known, worked closely with my wife for one year without much friction despite different doctrinal approaches to the work of God. I met Omo, his young wife of Bini parentage who grew up in Yorubaland. They were both our guests for considerable period in Germany. The young pastor, I could see, was really a man of faith whose loyalty to the church and the awesome power of God was not diminished by the fact that it took quite a while after marriage before his wife had children. His exposure to foreign Christian congregation began in Germany but got to fruition in the United States where his talents were doubled by the grace of God.

    He ministered to the ordinary and the important people in the society and by the turn of the last century, his fame as a successful African pastor in the United States was so high that in 1999 he was a guest of the new democratically-elected president, Olusegun Obasanjo during his swearing in as head of state. I can say without being immodest that I was present at the beginning of his missionary journey.

    His mission as Soun of Ogbomoso, according to his statement, is to be a shepherd to everyone in the town – Christians, Muslims and Traditionalists. I pray he does this successfully.

    The new Soun must appoint those needed to minister to the variety of faiths available in his kingdom and with that in place, he will have peace of mind and time to worship his own God the way he is used to. The task ahead is how to use his considerable influence and contact to bring development to Ogbomoso and build on the legacies of his immediate predecessor in office. Peace is a necessary condition for development. He must always remember that Ogbomoso can be very volatile as religion and injustice are two issues that can easily be exploited by social and political malcontents to precipitate chaos. I have no doubt that that the new Soun would be just and fair to all the people at all times because he would not need any material benefits from his position as the ruler of the town.

    He should not allow himself to be pushed into rivalry with the Olugbon, Aresa, Onikoyi and other Obas in his territorial domain or even with the new Alaafin when he is chosen and crowned. He should visit the new Alaafin when he is appointed and begin an era of peace with Oyo, something that was missing previously. He should also be friends with the Olubadan who shares with Ogbomoso the fact that unlike other Yoruba Obas and just like the Soun, the traditions in Ibadan are not buried in mysticism and obscurity.

    I celebrate with the Ogbomoso people with whom I am very familiar having written books on Chief Ladoke Akintola and Oba Oladunni Oyewumi Ajagungbade III, whose son Oyewole is married to my niece Ajibike, and I consider myself involved in the welfare of the Ogbomosho kingdom.

     May the new Soun’s time be peaceful and prosperous and may Ogbomoso witness peace and tremendous development during the reign of Soun Afolabi Oluseyi Olaoye.

  • From the Bishops’ court!

    Their Lordships had hardly finished delivering the judgment when the comments started flying. Suddenly, everybody was talking law. It was no longer the exclusive preserve of lawyers. Expectedly, the petitioners and their lawyers were the first to fire salvoes. Right from inside the court, the lawyers made known their dissatisfaction with the verdict. They wasted no time on niceties as one of them, Chris Uche (SAN), stood up to ask for a copy of the judgment.

    He shunned the decorum of first commending their Lordships for a job well done, even if they did not, before making the request. He spoke in a bland tone. When the Presiding Justice Haruna Tsammani tried to draw him out by cracking jokes, the senior lawyer did not respond. One of his colleagues on the other side, however, followed tradition by praising the justices for doing a good job.

    But their Lordships were in a hurry to call it a day after the exhaustive session.  For over 12 hours, the Justices sat, breaking for only 15 minutes. It was the second longest verdict to be given in the nation’s history. The first, according to renowned judiciary reporter, Richard Akinnola, who should know, was the famous treason trial verdict of Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1963. In the heat of the comments by experts and laymen, another issue came up. It was a non-issue, but the petitioners tried to make a mountain out of a molehill.

    After collecting a certified true copy (CTC) of the judgment, President Bola Tinubu’s lawyers scanned and watermarked their copy before circulating it. That was all the petitioners needed to allege that the judgment was not written by the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC). Why will any sane mind think that of their Lordships? Well, this has been the stock-in-trade of the petitioners and their supporters since the February 25 presidential poll.  

    If the social media crowd and the hangers-on of Labour Party’s Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are that mischievous, should priests, who are perceived as God’s elect not know better?  Priests are no just anybody; they are men with divine inspiration who are expected to lead others along the right path. The last elections revealed the true colour of many of these so-called men of God, who have turned to gods of men.

    Their sheep call them ‘daddy’, but they do not act like one. The daddy tag comes at a price – a priest is a father to all and must not discriminate among any of his children. Sadly, these priests are dividers and not unifiers. Whether of the Pentecostal or the Orthodox faith, they are the same. They have brought priesthood to a low, making themselves subjects of ridicule. The public has lost its respect for them.

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    Instead of being sober, they have embraced vulgarity. This may be why the church and state were at loggerheads in medieval Rome. Their Lords Spiritual would rather play politics instead of feeding God’s lambs, which is their primary assignment. Many members of their flock have gone astray today because of their flamboyant lifestyle. The last elections exposed them for who they are. They openly flirted with Obi. His loss was a big blow to them and their woes were compounded by the PEPC verdict.

    Certain matters are beyond their ken, but they are not ready to let go. It is expected that when priests speak on politics, it will be to help move the country forward and not to heighten tension. But no, that is not their way. At the opening of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), its president, Archbishop Lucius Ugorji, berated the PEPC. According to him, the court’s position on the electoral umpire’s failure to upload some results of the presidential election on the IReV portal in real time suggested that it was wrong to expect the agency to keep its promise to do so or obey its guidelines on transmitting results electronically.

    Ugorji may be ‘My Lord Spiritual’, that does make him a judge in the mould of their Lords, Justices of PEPC. Has he read what their Lorships said on results transmission? There is no law that says results must be electronically transmitted. It is an option which INEC can adopt, if the means are available. If unavailable, results can be manually transmitted. What is a guideline to the electoral law? They are incomparable. A law carries the force of legislation by a properly constituted parliament, a guideline does not have such weight. Ugorji should know better. He should not criticise their Lorships for criticism’s sake. Did they follow the law? Yes, they did. So, Ugorji erred.

    The bishops cannot hold court over the PEPC verdict. They are priests with their duties cut out for them. If they wish to engage in politics, they know what they do. They cannot seek to play politics in cassock through the backdoor. We have had many priest-politicians in the past. We also have one in this dispensation, who is a governor and a Catholic like them. Priests should always refrain from remarks capable of questioning their integrity and pitting them against the government. That is my piece of advice to them. They are at liberty to accept or reject it.

    It also does not lie in Ugorji’s mouth to tell the Supreme Court not to ‘’neither bend the law nor seek to satisfy the whims and caprices of any party…’’ His insinuation is not lost on political watchers. Is he saying that the PEPC bent the law…?  Does he have any proof? Would he have said the same thing if the court had ruled in Obi’s favour? In times like these, certain people, especially priests, should be mindful of their words, for we never know which angel may be passing by.   

  • Obaseki vs. Shaibu: Dearth of democratic ethos

    Nigeria must not despair because of her current democratic challenges. We were in the wilderness for almost 30 years after the collapse of our first democratic experiment which lasted for barely five years. This was because most of institutions democracy that the new imported value system needed to function were absent or at rudimentary stage. Our independent legislature and judiciary easily caved in with the pressure of the executive shortly after independence. The press owned by politicians and tribal groups in fact contributed to the outbreak of the civil war. The abysmal performance of the press during our recently concluded elections only confirmed the usual aphorism that ‘the medium is the news’. Of course we saw how ethnic based civil society groups and their foreign sponsored counterparts openly quarrelled over contents of their reports.

     More than this, sore losers who shopped for political platform to contest elections and their unthinking ‘Obidients’ can hardly be regarded as people with faith in democracy or its ethos, described by Aristotle as ‘balance between passion and caution” of political actors. For democracy to thrive, according to him, political actors must be committed to a set of ideals if democracy is to be anything other than the tyranny of the majority.

     We must therefore congratulate ourselves for the giant strides we have made in the last 23 years in spite of the ongoing shenanigans in Edo State. Democracy is a difficult process as America recently discovered after over 200 years. In fact when democracy first became an idea some 300 years ago, philosopher Michel de Montaigne according to James Kloppenburg’s ‘Toward Democracy’, rejected democracy saying he did not believe ordinary people were capable of the self-restraint democracy required.

    In 2016, Adams Oshiomhole, the  then outgoing governor of Edo State, using power of incumbency, imposed Godwin Obaseki  at the expense of other APC stalwarts such as Chris Ogiemwonyi (former minister of state for works) former army general Gen. Charles Arihiavbare and former deputy governor, Dr. Pius Odubu as his successor. Asked by reporters on October 24, 2016 the reason for his blind faith in Obaseki, Oshiomhole had said Obaseki was “more competent than him and would bring more development to Edo”.

    Little did he realize that Obaseki like many other military-baked new-breed politicians is a man without character. At the centre of the struggle with his benefactor was the control of Edo State House of Assembly where their ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) controlled all the 24 members in the state Assembly.

     To prevent Oshiomhole’s loyalists from taking control of the state legislature, the Clerk of Edo House of Assembly, Yahaya Omogbai, was said to have ushered nine members in a house of 24 lawmakers-elect into the chamber at midnight and read out Obaseki’s letter of proclamation with which Honourable Frank Okiye the governor’s anointed candidate for speaker was elected.

    Hon. Osifo and the 13 others went to court to file a case against the speaker and the eight others. While the case was in court, the seats of the 14 Oshiomhole loyalists were declared vacant by the minority factional speaker and was about to conduct election to fill the positions before he was stopped by the court. All efforts to find amicable settlement by the party, the National Assembly and the president were frustrated by Obaseki’s minority that was bent on holding on to what it illegally seized.

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    From then on Obaseki won all the battles. First Obaseki sought and got a relief from Justice Kolawole Omotosho’s Federal High Court Abuja to frustrate the Senate and the House of Representatives resolutions on the findings of committees led by Senator Sabiu Aliyu Abdullahi and Honourable Abdulrazak Namdas for the respective chambers to invoke section 11, subsection 4 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria viz: “In the event that a new proclamation is not issued as recommended within the period of three weeks”,  the National Assembly was told “it could not compel Obaseki to issue another proclamation within the lifespan of an existing proclamation”. The court also ruled “NASS lacked the power to take over the functions of Edo Assembly or any other state House of Assembly in the country”.

    Obaseki who had earlier attributed the underdevelopment of Edo until 2006 to “non-state actors empowered by political class, collecting revenues as an alternative government and constituted themselves into an army that were used for political activities”, decided to partner with the same non-state actors as 2020 drew near.

    He then made peace with Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, the Esama of Bénin Kingdom and a chieftain of PDP  who was fought to a standstill by Oshiomhole for allegedly confiscating land and other resources of the state and whose son, Lucky Igbinedion, a two-term governor was indicted for financial crimes against Edo State. He also made peace with Chief Tom Ikimi, a former PDP stalwart, who retraced his way back after a short sojourn in APC. Igbinedion and Tom Ikimi, PDP stalwarts became Obaseki new godfathers.

    PDP withdrew its accusation through its publicity secretary, Chris Nehikhare that Obaseki was responsible for the “growing level of poverty, insecurity and unemployment”.  The party also swallowed its allegations that “commissioned” Five-star specialist hospital is still home to reptiles; Tayo Akpata University of Education, an unfulfilled political Greek gift, College of Agriculture Ogierieki, a victim of policy lip-service, the Gelegele sea port project is still a mirage and the industrial park is still at the MOU level”.

    Obaseki, a blind fighter went on to win his re-election bid on the platform of PDP but not before engineering the removal of his estranged godfather as APC chairman. Obaseki defeated his former godfather with the active support of Shuaibu who ensured that the 14 elected members of Edo State house were shut out of the house for four years.

    Now Obaseki, the blind fighter has stripped Shuaibu, his deputy of his official responsibilities including monitoring and reporting the collection of internally generated revenue and supervision of the sports ministry. He did not stop there; he sacked media aides attached to his office and relocated his deputy’s office to Siberia, all because Shuaibu expressed interest in succeeding him.

    What goes around comes around. Shuaibu has also been told by Senator Oshiomhole, that “APC has no room for internally displaced politicians (IDP) in search of a rehabilitation camp”. Obaseki like Shuaibu and their other military baked new-breed military baked politicians, are all men without character

    But we must not weep for Edo alone. Over 50% of governors elected on PDP platform in 1998 and 2003 were declared men without character by the courts that found them guilty of tampering with the resources of their various states. The first set of senators after the 1998 elections spoke openly about their desire to recoup their expenses on the election. Within three months they had come out with schemes through which fuel import licenses were allocated to over 100 companies fronting for them. A house probe was to later confirm the theft of about N1.7t through the fuel subsidy regime

    PDP and APC are no party of saints. Bukola Saraki damaged the fortune of his party by moving from PDP to APC. In APC, he admitted trading off the victory of his party to secure the senate presidency and when he fell out with APC, he again moved back to PDP. In his group were Tambuwal and Rotimi Amaechi, Tony Anenih among others.

    PDP, described as “a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils’ while APC its twin brother formed not on the basis of shared ideas, shared values, shared commitment, have left the nation with only military baked ‘new-breed’ politicians that lack character.

  • From Japa to Japada: Greening the Nigerian pasture (1)

    From Japa to Japada: Greening the Nigerian pasture (1)

    Modern Nigeria is scarcely a genuine enterprise. It is an unfinished article. The imitation of everything foreign and a very bad imitation at that. No thanks to our distaste for Nigerianness.

    Here, in Nigeria, humanity dims to artifice and patriotism thrives as a currency of political racketeering, within and outside government circuits.

    Sadism dominates our culture. It runs like an electric current through political transitions, dismal newscasts and biased analyses. It is at the core of our nationwide cynicism, varnishing the plaint of boondocks dissent and the dreariness of rural poetry.

    Modern Nigeria crushes the capacity for moral choice and diminishes the individual’s prospects for growth thus forcing him or her into the shackles of the imperiled collective.

    This desolateness bears the frightful  consequence of an exodus of the country’s young – and even the circumspect middle-aged and the elderly – in search of greener pastures abroad. 

    This exodus has over time assumed the nature of a flight, an escape or an economic expedition, widely labelled the “Japa” syndrome. Japa, meaning “to flee” is a colloquial term used to describe the  migration of Nigerians to America, Asia, Europe and even other African countries. This term is severally conflated to connote migration for better opportunities even in cases whereby the migrant fails to fulfill the prerequisites of a legitimate skilled traveller.

    In 2018, Schengen countries such as Germany, Hungary, Finland, Italy, and Spain, which are Nigerians’ popular destinations, experienced increased visa applications from Nigeria. A total of 88,587 visa applications were received, of which 49.8% were rejected. This means that 44,076 applications were denied. The most recent statistics show an increase of 51% in the rejection rate of Schengen visa applications lodged by Nigerians, according to 2020 Schengen visa statistics. 

    Recent statistics released by the UK government show that 486,869 study visas were granted as of June 2022, about 71 per cent more than in

    2019. Nigeria ranks third after India and China, increasing from 8,384 to a record high of 65,929 applications for study visas to the UK.

    These days, everybody takes pride in their ability to Japa (flee) or relocate their wives and children overseas. Despite the grim narratives of the harsh realities of life for migrant families abroad, any attempt to counsel folk to keep faith in Nigeria attracts a petulant retort.

    Not even cautionary stories like the recent Sky News report detailing how Nigerians are being left stranded and duped in the UK, after emptying their life-savings to relocate there could deter Japa enthusiasts.

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    The investigative report by Sky News, reveals the plight of Nigerian migrants duped by “travelling agents” into paying exorbitant fees to relocate to the UK, only to find themselves stranded and without the skilled work opportunities promised them upon their arrival.

    The expose detailed how a rising number of Nigerians are conned off substantial sums running into millions of Naira in their bid to access job opportunities that do not exist within the UK’s skilled worker visa system.

    A Nigerian woman, who paid £10,000 to an “agent” for a skilled worker visa that was supposed to secure her a job as a carer in the UK, was one of the unfortunate victims. The woman was one of the several Nigerians currently forced to survive on handouts from food banks while sleeping on the streets.

    Many cite the deplorable living conditions in Nigeria as their reasons for fleeing overseas; the reasons run deeper than that. The sheer cost of the fees – running into millions of naira – paid by Nigerians travelling through legitimate and irregular paths depict the gravity of their disenchantment with the affairs of the country.

    Interestingly, some migrants take loans at outrageous interests from loan sharks to fund their relocation abroad; and several families who are well-to-do over here, have been known to pawn off their assets to fund their relocation too. Thus many bank managers, journalists, medical doctors, nurses, and engineers, to mention a few, have packed up and fled Nigeria with their families for an uncertain fate abroad.

    Although a few have been known to enjoy a better fate abroad, many more eventually settle for menial jobs as security men, restaurant waiters, street sweepers, janitors, hospice caregivers, and even commercial sex workers abroad.

    The resistance to counsel blooms by a lack of ignorance about the drudgery of starting from scratch abroad. But who cares?

    Recent reports reflect a decline in Diaspora remittances since 2019 when

    migration peaked. According to World Bank statistics, in 2018, the Diaspora remittances peaked at USD 25 billion, which was 6.1% of Nigeria’s GDP. In

    2019, it dropped to USD 23.81 billion; in 2020, it dropped further to $17.21 billion – four per cent of the GDP.

    The World Bank attributed the slight increase in remittances to USD 19.2 billion in 2021 to the relative stability of the Naira-US Dollar rate but with the devaluation of the naira cum the massive migration in 2022, experts predict a greater drop in overseas remittances to the country.

    Against the backdrop of the situation, the incumbent administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu speaks hope to our desolation, promising greater revenue drive and resuscitation of our comatose manufacturing sector.

    How he intends to achieve this amid a culture of public governance and citizenship that, over, institutionalised and entrenched our lack of compassion for the homeless, the unemployed and the poor has become the subject of endless public debates.

    As the disenchantment spreads and more Nigerians scurry for greener pastures overseas, the imperative to remedy the situation becomes even more manifest.

    This is hardly another cautionary treatise on the perils of relocation abroad. Rather, it is about everyone’s role (government and governed) in perpetuating the grotesqueness that renders Nigeria uninhabitable to all of us. It is about what must be done to remedy our situation.

    The responsibility for the collapse of the Nigerian economy must be shared by all classes of Nigerians who have a stake in the country’s multiplex of corruption.

    The malady manifests from the corridors of power to the impoverished boondocks and rural areas; from the media soapbox to the manicured quadrangles and lecture theatres of the academia; from the banking halls to the comatose industrial sector and the random trade zones of municipal sidewalks.

    This anomaly subsists as frightful swathes of political extremes coalesce and clash in pursuit of their coarse and selfish interests. The aggregate misfortunes that beset Nigeria, from our bungled economy to the shredding of our constitutional rights, to our lack of universal health care, to sponsored terrorism in the country’s northeast and northwest, and the neocolonialist afflictions of our media and politics, can be adduced to the institutions that produce and sustain our political elite.

    While every Nigerian is a politician, including all those who declare their disdain for politics, not all politicians are Nigerian, it would seem. Yet Nigeria suffers the fallacy of enlightenment of its political elite. The latter, however, asserts assiduously, the mediocrity of the Western education and indigenous culture that produced them.

    Progressive politics is now too often merely empty rhetoric, divorced from the everyday life of the people for whom its proponents claim to speak. If the incumbent leadership truly seeks to revive the country from its cataclysmic descent, attention must be paid to the quality and tone of the institutions that produce the country’s political actors.

  • Keyamo’s agony and righteous indignation

    I sympathize with Festus Keyamo the newly appointed Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development. He was depressed by what he saw during his last week’s visit to Murtala Muhammed International Airport, (MMIA), Lagos, the nation’s foremost gateway and aviation sector’s major revenue earner. In his words: “The old international terminal, right from the toilet facilities to the arrival, departure halls, is an eyesore to Nigerians and foreigners. The lifts are not working and the passage is unwelcoming, and there is no air conditioner”. For him, it was also disheartening that “We have the new terminal but it cannot be used because it was designed without provision for big planes” while  “everywhere else not occupied by dead planes has been  taken over by powerful private aircraft owners”.

    It is not difficult to understand the minister’s source of agony. He must have seen records of a petition by members of the National Union of Air Transport to the leadership of the Senate in July 2013, which alleged that, just for consultancy works on the upgrade of the airport, “Messrs. Ngonyama Okpanum and Associates; Messrs.’ Design Union Consulting Ltd and Messrs.’ Triad Associates Ltd were awarded contracts for the sums of N99, 179,507.17; N60, 986,730.46 and N95, 520,011.93 respectively.  And for its actual upgrade, Zakhem Construction Nig. Ltd allegedly secured a contract at the sum of N920, 191, 147.58. For the first phase and N981, 900,300.45 for the 2nd phase, even though the petitioners swore “the entire Phase II is sheer duplication of Phase I.”

    The newly built but dysfunctional NMIA terminal was financed from the $500m loan from Import and Export Bank of China. And for the new minister, it is not any less depressing that before the nation could derive some joy from the $500m loan secured by Princess Oduah, penultimate past minister of aviation to cover  the rehabilitation of four other air terminals, her successor,  Hadi Sirika had approved the concession of two of them (Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, and Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), Kano, to the Corporation American Airport Consortium for an  $8.5m upfront payment for the maintenance of the two airports for the next 20 years.

    For Keyamo, it cannot also be a pleasant assignment reassuring Nigerians that since the $8.5m upfront payment is not enough to service the Oduah’s $500m Chinese loan let alone address the process of repayment, Nigeria will not share the experience of Uganda where in 2015, and Chinese Exim Bank took over Uganda Entebbe International Airport for defaulting in repayment plan.

    But perhaps more agonizing for Keyamo is the fact that he is dealing with informed Nigerians who are aware the $8.5 upfront payment may have been spent in advance by Hadi Sirika who on the same day he signed his concession agreement also signed through the Aviation Ministry, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the commencement of the African Aviation and Aerospace University (AAAU) in partnership with Abuja based University.  By that act, he has given license to FAAN to spend unearned money.

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    Keyamo must be warned that both FAAN and NCAA remains the scourge of the aviation industry and the reasons successive Minsters of Aviation since 1999 ended up in grief. The former is “statutorily charged to manage all commercial airports in Nigeria, provide service to both passenger and cargo airlines and create conditions for the development in the most economic and efficient manner of air transport and the services connected with it”. The latter is the agency charged with the oversight of the aviation sector.  Unfortunately both have failed Nigeria. Rather than serving Nigeria, the loyalty of the two bodies have been to domestic airlines whose interest they promote through government policy initiatives.

    For instance because of greed, corruption and mismanagement of the aviation sector by these two bodies, Babalola Borishade as aviation minister brought nothing but grief to Nigerians. Before he was finally dropped as aviation minister by President Obasanjo, about 320 Nigerians lost their lives in air crashes including the October 22, 2005 Bellview crash that killed 117 people, the December 10, 2005 McDonald DC 100 Sosoliso crash that killed 107 in Port Harcourt and the October 29, 2006 ADC Airlines on a scheduled domestic flight from Lagos to Sokoto, that crashed and killed 96.

    The then minister was in 2009 arraigned by EFCC on a 15-count charge of bribery and forgery covering alleged mismanagement of a N5.2 billion aviation safe tower contract along with others including Rowland Iyayi, a former Managing Director of the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency who is today a leading member of domestic Airline Operators opposed to the establishment of Nigeria Air.

    In the case of Stella Oduah, her downfall was masterminded by FAAN and NCAA public servants.   Although in her defence over NCAA procurement of two $1.6m BMW Bullet-Proof cars for her security before a House Public hearing in 2013, she attributed her travails to “entrenched corrupt and profligate individuals and entities who have caused the serious rot in the aviation sector, while for 38 years, our airports were a damning commentary on our status as part of the civilized world”. She however pretended not to know that the group she blamed for her travails was groomed by NCAA and FAAN public servants.

     Of course there is no evidence to support Oduah’s claim that she and “her team (NCAA and FAAN) changed the game in favour of Nigeria attaining her pride of place in the comity of nations”. If anything, Keyamo’s lamentation during his visit to MMIA invalidated such outlandish clam despite Oduah’s self-glorification, media celebration and conferment of Ikenga chieftaincy title by her people.

    Keyamo must be wary of not only NCCA and FAAN but crusaders who are saying because BA and Virgin Atlantic operate over 21 frequencies to Nigeria without any Nigerian carrier reciprocating the same privilege, “If Air Peace is not allowed to fly to London, then British Airways and Virgin Atlantic should be stopped from flying to Nigeria”.  I cannot see any wisdom in starting a battle we cannot win as Oduah sadly discovered while in office. At the end of the day it is Nigerians travellers that will suffer.

    Instead of playing the ostrich, I think we should first put our house in order. Is it true some of the airlines have problem with American authorities over the sources of their monies? Is it true some of our business men engage in unwholesome business practices, the reason some were kicked out of South Africa not too long ago? Is it true some of our business men driven by greed hardly follow rule of engagement in business practices?

    Finally, Keyamo must not succumb to the blackmail of domestic airline operators.  We need a national carrier not just because we have sunk N3 billion into the Nigeria Air project but because it is the most rational thing to do in our circumstances. We have since realized the likes of defunct ‘Okada, Al Barka” and Aero Contractors are no substitutes for Nigeria Airways. Like most of our seized public enterprises, we now know those who bought Nigerian Airways could not run it even with government bailout. We also now know that those who are swearing in the name of patriotism because Ethiopian Airline, which got the franchise to run the national carrier, was to have 49 per cent stake have by their past actions demonstrated their lack faith in our nation.

    With a national carrier, no matter who runs it, we will use our local currency and not be held hostage by IATA over foreign airlines trapped funds which in July last year stood at $464 million (N199.2 billion) but has now risen to $812 million.

     Give me an Ethiopian to run our national carrier and a Rwandan to run our refineries.  For Nigerians to be saved from Nigerians, we must make use of what we have if we cannot get what we want.

  • As the Bar battles EFCC over prosecutorial power

    As the Bar battles EFCC over prosecutorial power

    Yakubu Maikyau was sworn in as the 31st NBA president last Friday, August 25. Like most of his predecessors, he was conscious of the critical role of the judiciary without which a society descends into a state of anarchy where it ‘is the war of all against all’. Reading the mood of the nation correctly during his inaugural speech, just as he did during his first appearance on national television after his inauguration, he had expressed his concern for “terrorized, traumatized and pauperized Nigeria and Nigerians”. He went on to remind members of his noble profession of the need to protect the ‘voice of the legal profession’, which according to him “must speak against the terror in the land and the hardship that has taken over the lives of our people”.

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    Unfortunately, just as his predecessors did, the voice which he claimed “remains what is left of this country which cannot be emasculated” was misdirected into fighting a needless battle to whittle down the power of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by restricting it to investigative duties while the prosecutorial function is ceded to the bar or to another new body entirely.

    Successive presidents of the Bar  as well as past attorneys-general have  adopted various strategies to emasculate EFCC despite the fact it can only be as independent as the supervising minister who has the last say on who to be prosecuted, wanted it to be.  It was on account of this open hostility of the Bar that EFCC in its statement of August 2016 took us on a journey through memory.  Back in 2005, Lanre Odogiyan as NBA president had called for outright scrapping of the EFCC during the Bar’s conference in Port Harcourt. That reactionary proposal was killed by some respected social crusaders including Chief Gani Fawehinmi who was present at the conference.  But Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa’s (Justice Minister 2007-2010) waged a silent war against EFCC.

    The battle was again brought to the open by Abubakar Mahmoud who during his inauguration in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on August 26, 2016 as the Bar president called for reforms in the operations of the EFCC. He suggested that the anti-graft commission be made to only investigate while an independent agency carries out prosecution.

    His crusade was hailed by another former NBA president, Chief O.C.J. Okocha (SAN). “The principle that the BAR is trying to pursue”, according to him is that “with thousands of lawyers looking for jobs, these legal practitioners should be employed to act as prosecutors at all levels of prosecution instead of police”. In other words for a Bar whose responsibility is first to the Bar according to Chief Idowu Sofola, one time Secretary General  of the Bar, and its president (1980-82), it is a matter of jobs for the boys.

    Of course other senior members of the Bar seem to share the same mind-set. Only last week, August 24, Olisa Agbakoba, another  former  NBA president regarded as one of the pillars behind EFCC’s recorded success in its anti-corruption war suddenly remembered that EFCC as a ‘federal establishment  by virtue of being a creation of the National Assembly, cannot prosecute state offences and should not interfere in the affairs of state governors’. He has therefore urged the new Attorney General of Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, to ‘unbundle’ the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and restrict it to investigations while a new National Prosecution Agency should be established.

    But the word ‘unbundle’ has only one familiar ring in the ears of Nigerians – ‘corruption’ They  have not forgotten how PHCN was ‘unbundled’ after government’s injection of between $8b-$16b and sold at give-away price of just a little over $2b to clients of senior members of the Bar.

    Unfortunately, some of the arguments brought up by the Bar to support their needless war fly in the face of available facts. First, EFCC is convinced that the war against is “a cleverly disguised campaign by powerful forces”, and so called attention to Section 6 (m) of the EFCC Establishment Act, 2004, which clearly spelt out the powers of the commission as including: “taking charge of, supervising, controlling, coordinating all the responsibilities, functions and activities relating to the current investigation and prosecution of all offences connected with or relating to economic and financial crimes.”

    The anti-corruption body also wondered whether it was “not a strange coincidence that the suggestion to strip the EFCC of its prosecutorial powers is being floated few months after EFCC arraigned some senior lawyers for corruption?”

    Besides accusing many senior members of the Bar of accepting “tainted briefs” to aid looters by providing them with technicalities on how to avoid prosecution and conviction, EFCC also believes government cases given to some senior members of the Bar for prosecution were deliberately bungled. It cited two examples. Abubakar Mahmoud as “the federal government-appointed prosecuting counsel in the trial of ex-Delta State governor, James Ibori, at the Federal High Court, Asaba. EFCC lost the   case in questionable circumstances while the same ingredients from that case were used to fetch Ibori a 13-year jail term in London”.  

    Mahmoud according to the anti-corruption body was also the EFCC’s counsel in the appeal against the infamous ‘perpetual injunction from arrest and prosecution’ by former Rivers State governor, Peter Odili, which was still pending before the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt’, eight years after it was first filed.

    Finally, Mahmoud was also reminded that of the over 200 fraudulent bankers responsible for the collapse of the banking sector, only four were brought to justice in a period spanning eight years when the brief were given to senior members of the Bar.

    Besides, the body wondered why the Bar that has not lived up to expectation wanted to change a winning team that has in one year recorded more convictions than all the states and federal ministries of justices combined. And it was for this reason EFCC anti-corruption lawyer Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) believes NBA president’s comment borders on ‘corruption fighting back’ especially after pointing out that of about 20 agencies authorized by the constitution to investigate and prosecute, only the EFCC is more prominent having secured over 1000 convictions since inception in 2004 which involved former governors, public servants and businessmen.

    Precisely because EFCC believes  there are some rogue elements in the Nigerian Bar Association giving the Bar bad name” which the Bar unfortunately have been unable to tame, it was of the opinion that a “Bar populated or directed by people perceived to be rogues and vultures cannot play the role of priests in the temple of justice.”

    It is apparent that even with EFCC holding prosecutorial powers, most of the briefs will still have to go to the senior members of the Bar. The only control it has and which the Bar wants to take away is its power to decide in the interest of Nigeria which of those ‘celebrated’ rogue elements in the Nigerian Bar Association, giving the Bar a bad name and that must be left out because of   their notoriety for ‘tainted briefs from well-known fraudsters or for betraying the very essence of law which is the pursuit of justice.

    This is why the joke today is on the Bar which must invalidate EFCC’s thesis that “the current self-serving campaign is intended to create a cabal of untouchables who can be investigated but may never be prosecuted.”

  • National images of selected countries and Nigeria

    National images of selected countries and Nigeria

    All countries are competing peacefully with one another  to be loved and for investment as well as for election into Committees of the Specialized Agencies of the United Nations and other international organizations unless they are members by right.  It is therefore important for countries to have good image in the comity of nations whether for elections or not. Just like human beings, it is good for countries to have good images which invariably impact on people’s perception of citizens of such countries.

    Every important country in the world has an image that may be universally or regionally imagined. Anybody following this kind of thought also knows that the image of a country reflects on the image of its citizens. An American is perceived as loud, domineering, carefree and physically imposing. There is also the “ugly American” image which is a negative way of seeing the violent nature of America. This kind of categorization is not in any way scientific and is usually based on perception and may not be totally true because not all Americans will fit this description. We all know that “national character” may or may not be true and we are always advised to avoid it because it may not pass the canons of objectivity. The “big American” is a useful mirror of the American country which is vast from east to west and from south to north which in flying time could take five to six hours in any direction. The largeness of its size somehow is reflected in the way Americans perceive the world. The fact that the United States has appropriated the name “America” is a manifestation of the natural arrogance of the United States which was historically perceived as its manifest destiny to lead and to dominate others.

    During the JF Kennedy era of American obsessive determination to conquer space, members of the administration were jokingly referred to as the “New frontiersmen” harking back to American history when the conquest of its vast western territories was regarded as its manifest destiny. This idea of a manifest destiny led to unnecessary military adventures in its history from its 19th century conquest of Spanish Cuba and the Philippines to its wars in Korea in 1953 and Vietnam in 1965 onwards and its victory over communism which an American historian  Francis Fukuyama described  in 1992 as the “end of history and the last man”.

    The point I want to make is that America and Americans have an exaggerated opinion of their country and for a long time the world has bought into this exaggeration.  The number of Nobel laureates in American universities and the scientific innovation and copyright of products in the United States bear this greatness out. Whether one likes America or not, one cannot deny the greatness of the country despite its shortcomings as seen in the pandemic violence and rampant racism which people have to cope with. The Chinese and Russians in coded diplomatic language constantly refer to America as a country afflicted with the virus of “international hegemonism”.

    Of course the image of a country is most of the time, determined by its historical evolution. Britain and I suppose the British are known for their bulldog tenacity, their spirit of making the best of any difficult situation. Their imperial achievement of having an empire on which the sun never sets gives every Briton the attributes of administrative cleverness, cunning and sophisticated culture. The fact that such a small country wielded power beyond its limited  natural and human resources confers pride on its citizens and the British are known for their arrogance and carriage and keeping “a stiff upper lip” indicating being resolute and unemotional when faced with adversity. Some episodes of their history such as their several victories over the Spanish, French and several campaigns in Africa and Asia and recently in their so-called “ war of Britain “ when in spite of Hitler’s bombing armada in 1941 the country survived to fight another day.

    Germans are well known for their philosophy, music, spirituality, discipline, scientific approach to life, sophisticated engineering, cleanliness, obedience to order and their toughness. All these derive from their history. This has led them in spite of the tragedy of defeat in the Second World War to build, like Japan, one of the most industrialized countries in the world with little natural resources but depending on the brains and brawn of the people.  Any visit to Germany and seeing the Autobahn crisscrossing the country will show one how the mind of Germans works. This approach is reflected in how Germans think and behave wherever they go and people’s perception of them. Historically in Nigeria, any medicine from Germany was deemed efficacious and effective. Any equipment from Germany was regarded strong whether it was automobiles, telecommunications, electricity and medical equipment. This reputation has paid very well for the export market of the country and made Germans preferred citizens to deal with because of their acclaimed efficiency.

    As for the Chinese, their inscrutable visage points them out in a crowd. Their engineering feat is beginning to be recognized everywhere. Their ability to live anywhere and to share knowledge with people in the underdeveloped parts of the world is beginning to attract clientele to their country. The fact that they have developed their country through their own bootstrap without looking to other people for assistance has brought a sense of pride to the country.  On account of this, people have a good image of the Chinese even if they are known to drive a hard bargain.  Chinese are known not to ask many questions when doing business in the underdeveloped world and do not frown on corrupt politicians in the underdeveloped world. What the Chinese think of other countries is hidden in their minds. But they are racist as anyone and they regard non-Chinese as barbarians at least in past and hopefully not in the present. Their “long March” to development is well known and their toughness is well recognized. Their cultural civilizations as evidenced by their cuisine and artistic traditions have given a first class image to the country. Nevertheless everyone knows that they could be very wicked if one crosses their path or if they refuse to obey the authorities of their country and life could be a trifle to them and perhaps this is understandable to a country of 1.4 billion people.

    The small state of Israel punches well above its size internationally. This should not surprise anybody because Israelis see their country just like the Americans see their country as “God’s own country”.

    In the case of Israel, men of the Judeo- Christian traditions numbering billions of people do not make a distinction between Biblical Israel and the new Israel. People go on pilgrimage to the holy land as many times as they can afford it. Nigerian Christian’s are avid goers to Israel as pilgrims. Because of this, the country and its peoples’ image are at high level well beyond the stratosphere. Even if one dismisses this as emotional, Israel has turned what is essentially a desert to a flourishing country of vineyards and engineering feat and making highly priced medications and chips and machinery used in aerospace, the military and hospitals. The country and its people have great reputation in agriculture, engineering, intelligence, defence and manufacturing. Israeli scientific innovation is highly rated everywhere and because of this, Israelis are well regarded everywhere including even among their enemies in the Middle East and the Muslim world. Their leaders have the pride of first class country despite the  mutual racism  between them and  Arabs as well as against Africans who are derisively referred to as “Kushites”. Nigeria has benefited from their performance as road, agricultural and water engineers from the period after independence till the present.

    The eye does not see itself but as a Nigerian I have some ideas about our public perception at home and abroad. We have the image of hardworking people who easily learn how to get on in a technological age. Because of the presence of highly educated Nigerians abroad particularly doctors, we are regarded as highly educated and knowledgeable people. There is hardly any country in the world where one would not find a Nigerian no matter how inhospitable the climate may be such as in Alaska or Yemen. Nigerians at one time were said to be the happiest people on earth. They are fun loving and at the same time very religious. Some may argue that their commitment to their beliefs is superficial but who is to say except God.

    The negative image of Nigeria and Nigerians is that we are a corrupt country of corrupt people.  Some people see us as lazy and indolent people who like money but are not prepared to work hard for it. This negative image is captured in what a director of Coca Cola international once said while addressing African recruits for his company in New York and called an African who wanted to ask a question a “Nigerian”. When he was asked how he knew he was a Nigerian, he retorted that when he is in a midst of African young people, “the one who is trying to put his hand in my pocket is a Nigerian”. People laughed but this is not funny! Nigerians are involved in fraudulent practices such as identity and bank fraud. Many have also been caught in social welfare fraud and credit card fraud. These involved in these sordid acts are an infinitesimal proportion of the Nigerian population.

     Nigerians are feared by other Africans because of our sharp practices. Some admire us for ability to look our adversaries in their faces even when we are wrong unlike other Africans who will accept whatever lowly treatment they get in the hands of foreigners. Because of our peoples’ boldness, some nationals of African countries wish they were Nigerians on account of our peoples’ boldness. When taken together, the positive and negative image of Nigerians is not very flattering and this is why we suffer in the hands of Immigration officers all over the world for the offence a few. It is about time that our people know that every Nigerian is an ambassador of this country whether he or she is at home or abroad because others watch us as representative of the whole country. We need to change this overall image of our country because it is affecting our economic development and the future of our country.