The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Of technocrats and public office

    Of technocrats and public office

    The use of technocrats in government is an age-long practice, but no store was placed on it because there was no need to. It was seen as something that should happen since after all, technocrats are like any other citizen of their country.

    From the natural progression of things from which they hitherto evolved, technocrats are now being seen in a different light, in a messianic hue, if you like by people still grieving about the outcome of the last elections.

    They talk about technocrats with such reverence that you begin to wonder if this was not the same class of people that ran the country in the past.  Their electoral loss has blinded them to the fact that there is no magic wand that their so much fancied technocrats can weave if they are opportune to serve the country.

    Read Also: Nigeria eyes regional hub with new ports’ modernisation

    Many of those who contested the last elections at different levels were technocrats. They left their well-paying jobs for politics not because they were failures in their callings, but to answer the call to serve. If in the past, some professionals missed it along the way, that does not make them less a technocrat than their colleagues who are not in politics.

    Clamouring to bring these saints into politics now under the claim that only technocrats can successfully run a government does not fly in the face of what we all know. I say no more.

    Technocrats abound in every field of human endeavour. A professional in whatever field is a technocrat. Those making a case for technocrats in the newly formed administrations at the national and subnational levels must convince others that their

     campaign is altruistic and not self-serving. If their candidates had won the elections, will they make this kind of special case for technocrats in the scheme of things?

    From when Nigeria became independent in 1960 to date, technocrats have been in government. The nation’s first and only ceremonial president, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, was a technocrat, who left his flourishing media empire for public office. Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa was a teacher, who left the classroom for politics.

    Former President Shehu Shagari too left teaching for public office, his deputy, Vice President Alex Ekwueme was a renowned architect and lawyer. How more technocrat can a public office holder be than this? Coming to this dispensation, former President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007) was a military technocrat before he joined politics. 

    His successor, Umoru Yar’Adua (2007-2010) was a lecturer. Goodluck Jonathan (2010-2015) was also a lecturer. Muhammadu Buhari (2015-2023) was also a military brass like Obasanjo. 

    There is no odd man out among all these people. The thing they have in common is being technocrats first before taking public office. Technocrats are experts in their respective fields. This is the expertise they are required to bring to bear on governance.

    You do not need a degree in industrial relations to be labour minister or a  certificate in aeronautics to be aviation minister. 

    Technocrats have served before as minister, commissioner or board chairman. So, the hue and cry for them now seems to be self serving, especially at the national level. 

    They are not doing it because of love for their country, they are doing it to paint the winner of the election as incapable of running the country.

    If they are calling for technocrats, is Bola Tinubu who won the February 25 presidential election not one? They know his antecedents, yet they do not appreciate his innate leadership qualities. He worked at the multinational company, Mobil Oil, and rose to become treasurer before leaving to join politics. He was in the Senate between 1992 and 1993. He was governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007.

    The pro-technocrats in government group has a different definition for technocrats. What is more, Tinubu’s executive council as governor was filled with technocrats.

    Ironically, today, as President, he is being harangued on the need for technocrats in his cabinet. What those in the pro-technocrat league know, but do not acknowledge, is that Tinubu appreciates what technocrats can do in and for government. The pro-technocrat in government group is now making it look as if without technocrats, nothing good can come out of government.

    There is tension in the country today because of the issue. For instance, Lagos, a cosmopolitan state, is facing a crisis never before experienced in its history. The House of Assembly, which declined to confirm 17 of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s 39 nominees for commissioner, is livid about issues raised in some quarters over the exercise of its power on the matter.

    What irks the lawmakers most is the claim that they are playing politics with it because most of the nominees are technocrats.  The pro-technocrat people do not understand that a technocrat is also a wielder of political power.

    Being an expert in your field and a wielder of political power make you a complete technocrat. This is why people like Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, M.K.O Abiola and Tinubu, among others, sought political power.

    A technocrat without political acumen is a mere tool in the hands of seasoned politicians. These politicians know what power means and can do anything to acquire it. Unlike technocrats, they do not wait in the wings to be called upon to take power, which has been said, is not served à la carte. Otherwise, we will all go to the restaurant to make our order. Technocrats should not wait on politicians, who are beholden to their loyalists that do all the dirty work, to invite them to take public office after the election.

    A technocrat who is interested in public office should also be interested in the political frays that line the route to power. This was what Speaker Mudashiru Obasa was trying to say about technocrats and power, while explaining why the nominees were not confirmed. 

     He used strong words as he allowed his emotion to overtake him, but the message was clear.

    “They say we are placing politics ahead of technocrats! What technocrat? What do you mean by technocrat? Who is not a technocrat in this hallowed chamber?… We gained power since 1999 and we have to sustain it… So, I am trying to protect my party… We will not sacrifice service to our people in the name of technocrats. We are politicians, and if not for us, the technocrats won’t be appointed…”

    Truly, politics is all about interests and as Obasa said, the lawmakers’ interests lie with their party and constituents.

    There is a lesson in this for technocrats and their backers. Call it Politics 101, if you like. We are in a democracy and not technocracy.

  • Living far side of the gun

    Living far side of the gun

    The call for a military coup in Nigeria will end in a splash of spittle and curl of the tongue inwards. Yet it is curious to see the champions of coup d’etat fondle splinters of fury into fragile fictions of change. They forget that should soldiers march on the Presidential Villa to seize power, the freedom they exploit incautiously on social media would become forbidden to them. The freedom of speech that they take for granted would slip, indefinitely, out of their reach – among other rights.

    The coup agitators, mainly comprising Gen X and Gen Z youths, and some misguided seniors, parade themselves as Nigeria’s self-appointed digitally woke divide. Many of them were placebo seekers who sought a magical escape from the Nigerian nightmare through the placebo aspirant at the 2023 polls.

    Having failed at their ill-fated enterprise, they are out to reenact the parable of the frantic electorate who would burn Nigeria to a charred rubble to birth nirvana out of rage.

    Their passion connotes spurious purpose. What Paglia would liken to the still heart of a geode rimmed with crystalline teeth. Their bromidic chant resounds as a soothing lullaby; it’s akin to rubbing a lantern to make a genie appear.

    Amid the racket, dreams of progress bloom like a fictitious retreat. An emotive simplicity. It’s a  Nabokovian invention of rarefied detail, as Gardner would say.

    Once again, no one who had survived military dictatorship would wish it upon Nigeria, except the proverbial headless, mindless mob – who have seen a lot to treasure in the slew of coup d’etat pirouetting across Africa.

    Every coup manifests as a war; war against peace, security, and a myriad of freedoms. War has no appeal. It is never sexy.

    While the protracted war between Russia and Ukraine signals an existential rhetoric about the changing nature of sovereignty and threats to national freedoms, the picture changes with the inclusion of grisly African characters.

    Read Also: I am disappointed how Adebanjo conducted Afenifere affairs, says Fasoranti

    A new pandemic spreads and spirals through Africa as gun-totting bloodhounds barge onto the corridors of power in a series of terrifying coup d’etats.

    The culprits – mostly young soldiers and members of presidential guards – all chant their intent to salvage what’s left of their plundered nation-states. No thanks to “corrupt civilian leadership.”  

    The most recent coup was executed by military officers in the oil-rich Central African nation of Gabon. The officers said, early on Wednesday, that they had seized power and were overturning the results of a disputed election that returned the incumbent, President Ali Bongo Ondimba, for a third term in office.

    Appearing on state-run TV hours after Bongo was declared the winner of last weekend’s vote, the officers said they were cancelling the result, suspending the government and closing Gabon’s borders until further notice.

    Gunshots boomed through the country’s capital, Libreville, from the vicinity of the presidential residence soon after the announcement. Hours later Bongo, one of France’s closest allies in Africa, appeared in a video posted to social media and authenticated by an adviser, pleading for international help.

    The takeover in Gabon is just the latest in a string of coups that have taken place in recent years and comes just a month after soldiers took control in Niger. On July 26, 2023, members of Niger’s presidential guard detained President Mohamed Bazoum inside his palace, declaring on national television that they were seizing power to address the “deteriorating security situation and bad governance.”

    Abdourahamane Tiani, the commander of the presidential guard, was named the new head of state a few days later by the military junta. The leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have been in talks with the Junta to reinstate constitutional order, noting that they will activate ‘standby forces’ if diplomacy fails.

    In Burkina Faso, there were two coups in 2022; the first coup was executed in January by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba who ousted President Roch Kabore citing the latter’s failure to contain violence by Islamist militants.

    However, on September 30, 2022, Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power from Damiba to become the country’s new leader.

    In Chad, the army seized control of the country in April 2021, after President Idriss Deby was killed in combat while visiting forces engaged in fighting rebels in the north. The president’s son, General Mahamat Idriss Deby, was named interim president, which contravenes Chadian law, where the speaker of parliament should have become president. The unlawful transfer of power sparked rioting in N’Djamena, the country’s capital, which the military eventually quashed with extreme force.

    Likewise, in Mali, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was overthrown in August 2020 by a gang of Malian colonels under the command of Assimi Goita. But following a clash between the coup leader and the interim president, retired colonel Bah Ndaw, the junta staged a second coup in May 2021, and Assimi Goita, who had been acting vice president in the meantime, was promoted to president.

    In Guinea, President Alpha Conde was overthrown in September 2021 by he army’s special forces leader Colonel Mamady Doumbouya after the former altered the constitution in 2020 to circumvent restrictions that would have prohibited him from running for a third term, which led to severe unrest.

    ECOWAS thereafter imposed sanctions on Doumbouya, junta leaders, and relatives, rejecting the promise of a transition to democracy in three years.

    There have also been failed coup attempts in Guinea Bissau, The Gambia and the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe.

    The recent coup d’etat in Gabon, however, deepens the pattern of instability across Africa’s Sahel and jeopardises what has been a rare process of fairly steady democracy building in the region.

    The previous coup in Niger that ended abruptly the country’s democratically elected government is equally lamentable given the country’s valued contribution to African and international efforts to stabilize the Sahel against its web of insurgencies, extremist movements and military coups.

    African States have experienced over 200 military takeovers between the 1960s and 2012. Many analysts believed that coups were ‘going out of fashion in Africa’ by 2015 due to the limited cases on the continent. At present, however, coups are widely seen to be ‘on the rise’ or ‘dangerously back in fashion’ in Africa, as some countries including Gabon, Niger, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Mali, Chad, Sudan, and Burkina Faso, have experienced a series of successful and failed military takeovers over the last four years.

    The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), on its part, cannot afford a protracted war with the military juntas as it would be fighting on many fronts. This would only aggravate the incidences of insecurity, poverty, displacement, declining economies, and other afflictions of the continent.

    Yet the contagion of coups should never be allowed to spread to Nigeria. No matter how seductive it seems to silence hope and amplify our woes, we must persistently look to the sunnier side of things.

    We must shun the enticement of silver-bullet coup d’etats and doomsday predictions, lest we wring life totally out of our fragile nation.

    Nigeria, especially, must not commit itself to such a fruitless venture. The country has its hands full at the moment battling internal strife occasioned by armed banditry, ethnic conflict, terrorism, and the most unpatriotic citizenry perhaps in the history of Nigeria.

    The military coup d’etat should never be a Nigerian option. To prevent it, the political class must quit treating Nigeria as a soulless void. 

  • Jagun Jagun: Some art for Nigeria’s sake

    Jagun Jagun: Some art for Nigeria’s sake

    Beyond the carnage, Jagun Jagun (Warrior) offers a daring elocution of the Nigerian story rendered from a Yoruba perspective.

    The movie satirises the Nigerian riddle, showing in 174 minutes, how the nation flails to torrid interests and the jarring cynicism of political actors, all working their selfish angles. Politics, in the movie, stews to a scalding broth as rival interests split private terraces and public courts in vulgar gladiatorship.

    The rogue kings may be said to be driven by selfish interests which aren’t solely patriarchal as curious rabble would have you believe – the presence of the female regent in the cabal of monarchs cum power grabbers is the narrative’s subtle way of depicting greed as a human foible, and not solely a male affliction.

    Ogundiji’s student warriors and mercenary force, on their part, may be said to be driven by conflicting interests: some patriotic, some selfish. Gbotija (Lateef Adedimeji) for instance, is driven by his quest to avenge the death of his father who was slain in cold blood by Ogundiji (Femi Adebayo)’s marauding force. His vendetta eventually meshes with his sheer lust to have Iroyinogunkiitan (Bukunmi Oluwashina) for keeps. This eventually leads him on a life-defining quest. Yoked supernaturally to the woods, Gbotija flaunts mythical prowess that eventually manifests through the narrative.

    Jagun Jagun

    Adebayo offers an alternative perspective even as he portrays our foibles through a more powerful and engaging lens. Jagun Jagun offers a sentimental recall of the fabled strength of the ancient Yoruba Generalissimos who wielded the sword to hack their paths to infamy or renown.

    Read Also: Makinde presents N70m Prado Jeep to Saheed Osupa

    The spirited usage of oriki, plain-woven proverbs, and idioms, imbue the narrative with poetic resonance. While the plot initially hangs loose at the helm, it garners appreciable heft and coherence as it unfurls. Some remarkable twists in the plot depict Adebayo and the movie’s director, Adebayo Tijani’s coming of age: Ogundiji’s morphing from a presumed saviour who neuters Jigan (Odunlade Adekola), a minor mercenary and murderer of helpless monarch Oniketo (Muyiwa Ademola)’s crown prince before his very eyes, to a blood-thirsty warlord is unanticipated.

    Ogundiji’s subsequent deployment of Gbogunmi (Ibrahim Yekini) and Agemo as war mercenaries illustrates his might and consolidate his hold on the coterie of kings who patronise and pay homage to him for the gift of his protection.

    Erinfunto (Fathia Balogun) and Morohunmubo (Bimbo Ademoye), Ogundiji and Gbogunmi’s wives fulfil the oft-hackneyed trope of how wives of the most powerful figures constitute their nemesis in common hours.

    Adebayo’s meta-theatrical integration of rhetoric and narrative authority to his Yoruba roots manifests in Gbotija’s tirade to his fellow warriors cum students in Ogundiji’s war theatre, it resonates in his rant while demanding better meals and welfare from Iroyinogunkiitan’s maidens, and also in his defiant plaint while being flogged on a stake. It equally resonates with Gbogunmi’s cheeky and direct address to the viewer in his soliloquy.

    These spurts of imaginativeness validate Adebayo’s deployment of his creative depth to assert ownership of his craft.

    What shouldn’t we do for an evergreen story? What shouldn’t we give? Evergreen  storylines make up the fabric of our collective narrative; when progressively spun, they are endlessly fascinating, yielding fresh insights through the imagination of the writer or filmmaker, who milks history and recalibrates reality to espouse a positive national lyric.

    What is the Nigerian lyric? What is our reality? The superiority of Western values is one of the supreme constructions of imperialism and the poisonous elixir of Nigeria and her neighbours on the African continent.

    Nigerian writers and filmmakers, for too long, have struggled to acculturate our  landscape with such defective foreign mores. Thus they corrupt their presentations and stifle the possibility of attaining homegrown, practicable solutions to oft-politicised conflict.

    Nonetheless, they have a dedicated industry of cheerleaders and courtiers who romanticise their follies as the valiance sorely needed to reinvigorate Nigeria’s creative sector.

    Themes glorifying repulsive gender wars, mindless youth rebellion, and the orchestration of deviant social hierarchies are aggressively projected and patronised to the detriment of rational, progressive, and didactic art.

    This hurts us immeasurably as otherwise brilliant and perceptive filmmakers denounce and attack their homeland. They corrupt our artistic vocabulary, twisting it into a meditation on society’s debauched nature. Ultimately, they celebrate degeneracy via aggressive cues of prurient art, promiscuity, gendered storms, and virulent sexuality suggested to them by foreign consulates and NGOs.

    It’s about time the government partnered with the creative arts sector to reinvent the Nigerian story while channelling humane governance and patriotism. This is not a call for government censorship of progressive art. Rather it’s a call for institutionalised support via public-spirited funding and ideological partnership.

    Adebayo’s Jagun Jagun is a searing satire replete with cues in Nigeria’s search for redemption in a world more noted for malice than goodness, thus his creation of alternate universes populated with creatures amenable to his cause to reignite patriotic Nigeria.

    Politics, however subtle, lies at the heart of every critique of Jagun Jagun, as it subsists in the consideration of every art form. But foisting foreign notions of how a Yoruba or Nigerian narrative should flow only further codifies the mental subjugation we must abhor.

    For the first time ever, the social space enthuses the brilliance and artistry of a movie project and some interesting characters score it “zero” and “below average,” claiming they are “hard to please.” Such characters manifest as a social curse and must be ignored by the cast and crew of Jagun Jagun and every movie buff.

    Arguments about what constitutes the true Yoruba story or historical narrative pirouette from the meta-colonial mentality and inferiority complex of many a reviewer who deems his or her spurious take on the movie as some gospel truth.

    Many claim to have earned their doctorate on a similar theme. Yet no one knows of their thesis. On the other hand, Adebayo’s Jagun Jagun, is the most telling dissertation at the moment on the semiotics of Nigerian art. Of course, his thesis isn’t complete. He must wield more convincingly and imaginatively, his muse, and the burden of expectations of his teeming fans.

    Perhaps the movie’s sequel and a host of other offerings would, in time, consolidate the genius of Adebayo and his crew. His brilliant introduction of Ikulende Agbarako (Ibrahim Chatta) at the film’s climax fulfills appreciably its seductive intent.

    Most reviews speak to the perceived inferiority of the Nigerian storyteller and of the Nigerian people – something Europeans have convinced themselves and subsequently convinced us was endemic to Africa – this simply makes it easier for them to validate their political and economic agendas through sociocultural weaponry.

    The idea that Femi Adebayo’s Jagun Jagun misrepresented aspects of Yoruba history is plausible yet forgivable in the light of the rigour, politics and pragmatism required in producing a movie of its magnitude. And despite apparent flaws in the movie’s plot, even its most bitter critics must appreciate the depth of research and artistry committed to its production. The costuming, score and digital effects, to mention a few, were brilliantly marshalled to meld with the fast-paced plot.

    Yet the most toxic critics harp on its minor defects, highlighting them as unforgivable deficits of the movie. At least folk are talking about it and “scholars” are interrogating it.

    And that is why Adebayo gets a seat at the table, while his most virulent critics jostle for wiggle room in an overcrowded soapbox.

  • Niger: Curiouser and curiouser…

    As an avid watcher of what is going on around the world and particularly in our world in West Africa, I am not sure I know what is going on in Niger Republic, a previously friendly and neighbourly country to our country Nigeria.

    The junta that is apparently in control since the July coup d’état has announced a three year transition program after the appointment of the cabinet and military governors of the various departments (states), the government now in effective control at least in the southern part of the country, has allowed access to the deposed President Muhammad Bazoum who is still a prisoner in the sprawling presidential villa in Niamey the capital. The government allows supporters of itself to demonstrate their loyalty in organised stadia and the streets shouting “down with France” while waving Russian flags which have miraculously appeared in large numbers in the country. This is very sad.

    Is Niger ready to replace French domination with Russian servitude?  It is the case of a drowning person holding on to straw! This seems to frighten the Americans who seem to suspect Russian shenanigans behind every anti-Americanism in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Niger definitely has serious grouse against France arising from the humiliating colonial treaty uniformly imposed on former territories in French Africa. While giving them flag independence on one hand France maintains tight control over their finances by holding on to their exports and any foreign exchange earnings and keeping them within the franc zone which even after France has joined the European Union and adopted the Euro. This special franc is still strangely tied to special colonial currency uniting all former French colonies with France in a chokehold not permitting the legally independent country any chance to breathe or operate freely.

    Unlike other Francophone countries, the rate of literacy in Niger is abjectly poor. Knowledge of Hausa will get you by in the country, not that this is bad, but it definitely shows the superficiality of French colonial legacy. Resources in the country are in French hands and in the hands of their puppets in government. Minerals like gold, uranium and petroleum belong to French companies that pay very little to the Nigerien government exchequer.

    Read Also: State police is inevitable

    France depends considerably, not totally, on substantial supply of uranium in the country to power its nuclear reactors for which its electricity depends. Much must be said for the strength of the Hausa culture which is dominant in a supposedly Francophone country. This fact has put the country permanently in the Nigerian orbit. About 60% of the population are Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri and Zarma, the same ethnic groups found on the other side of the border with Nigeria. In fact most of those on the border do not respect this border because families straddle and trade and farm without respect for the   poorly protected borders.

    In normal times this unprotected border would have been an advantage to the mutuality of interest of the people of two neighbouring countries at the same level of economic development. But this is not the case with Nigeria and Niger whose burden Nigeria has had to carry all these years. This fact of dependency has been recognized by Niger for a long time and whoever was president of the country had regular access to the seat of power whether in Lagos or Abuja. This economic dependence has led to widespread smuggling on the border and attempt to control it has led to resentment on both borders by the two communities benefiting from it.

    When President Muhammad Bazoum was removed from power for whatever reasons including nepotism, corruption, lack of support for the military in its wars against Boko Haram from the south and Touareg militants from the Southwest and the North, Nigeria felt it had to stop the pandemic of military incursion into politics particularly in the region and its backyard. This was at the point when it rallied the ECOWAS for support of its stiff resistance against the new junta in Niamey.  It just happened that our president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is the incumbent chairman of ECOWAS. Those running the inchoate foreign policy of Nigeria without the input of knowledgeable and steady hands misadvised the government to issue an ultimatum without adequate study of the situation. The states in the far north of Nigeria felt obliged because of the pull of religion and ethnic consanguinity to oppose any military operations in Niger which may spill over to Nigeria and also because of their hidden economic interests. 

    This fact raises a fundamental question of the loyalty of a section of the country to the national government. Those in charge of Nigerian foreign policy must always bear in mind that there must be sufficient consensus before a country like Nigeria can embark on any foreign policy that may have to be backed by force. With this strong opposition of the North, the question of military operations from Nigeria as part of ECOWAS force has become unsustainable in view of our national strategic political interest. Whatever other ECOWAS leaders may say, military operations have become untenable.  It is also impolitic for ECOWAS headed by Nigeria to be in league with the USA and France to fight against an African country unless vital interests are seriously in jeopardy. From our experience with ECOMOG during the Babangida and Abacha regimes, Nigeria would have to shoulder the economic and military burdens and provide most of the soldiers and equipment for any military operations. With our current economic situation, Nigeria is not in a position to bear such an economic cost of military operations. What we can do whether within ECOWAS or without, we have already done by stopping visible trade relations between the two countries and electricity supply from Nigeria which under existing protocol, we are obliged to supply.

    The threat of military action against the government in Niger remains a threat and is a form of policy contrivance which comes into play as a useful diplomatic ploy to force your opponent to change course, it should not be taken literally. This is normal diplomatic language; there is nothing unusual in threatening the use of force as a ploy to facilitate diplomatic solution. Emissaries continue to be sent from Nigeria/ECOWAS to Niger to find amicable solutions to the problem.

    Curiously, military chiefs of ECOWAS countries continue to talk about being prepared for the D-day as if war is a game! The United States has now dispatched a knowledgeable diplomat, Kathleen Fitzgibbon as ambassador to Niger. This envoy is familiar with Niger and Nigeria where she was previously deputy head of mission. Her mission is to help find a solution to the diplomatic impasse in Niger apparently in coordination with Nigeria. One hopes that a face-saving solution can still be found to the diplomatic entanglement in Niger. This action taken by the United States is an affirmation that the USA acknowledges the fact that the junta is effectively in control which is an aspect in international politics. Even President Putin of Russia is advising the Malian head of state to follow pacific route in his militant support for Niger. The Nigerien junta itself is saying it removed their country’s president to protect Niger and Nigeria. Perhaps our government should find out in what ways a military government in Niger would be protective of Nigerian interest.

    In the meantime, the American and French military presence remains in the country. China is also having major shares in the only small refinery in the country and Russia through its mercenary Wagner group is showing interest in the fragile country while fanatical jihadists mouthing the slogan of ISIS are pressing down hard from the Algerian and Libyan Desert. The situation in Niger, an arid and largely inconsequential country, has brought in big players in the global game of diplomacy with Nigeria being massively involved.

    For the future, this is a time to really look at what our future relations with our immediate neighbouring countries should be. I wrote a journal article on “Nigeria and its neighbours” sometimes in 1976 or thereabouts and I had advocated that we should seize Equatorial Guinea and annex it to our country. Unfortunately we let the opportunity pass. We should now look closely at the possibility of closer integration still within ECOWAS with countries like Niger, Benin, and Equatorial Guinea where we have overlapping economic and political interest. There were interest shown in this kind of closer integration with Nigeria in the past but because of our short-sightedness, we allowed the interest to wane and pass. This special relation I am suggesting is not annexation but some kind of closer economic integration like what exists among the United States, Canada and Mexico despite their different world view and level of economic and political development.

    In the meantime, I advise with all the emphasis at my command that no national interest would be served by leading an ECOWAS military intervention in Niger. If we do, we would destabilize Nigeria and Niger itself where we would be faced by military resistance and jihadist forces from the north and Southwest of the country. It will be a no-win situation. We should continue to mount pressure until the situation unravels itself.

  • Immortal truth

    There are some truths that many people do not want to hear, especially when they do not fit into their set ways. Once, they have made up their minds on any issue, they close their minds to other views.

    Life is all about alternatives; it is either-or. There is nothing on earth without an alternative. Death is the alternative to life; illness, wellness; injustice, justice; lie, truth, and so on and so forth.

    Truth is constant; it is the balm that salves the conscience. This is why no matter how far a lie travels, truth will catch up with it one day.

    The nation should be in the process of healing now, but those aggrieved with the outcome of the February 25 presidential election are fanning the embers of discord. They keep fouling the air with lies and half truths.

    Despite exercising their right to go to court, they still want to be the judge in their own case, contrary to the age-long principle of justice. They must win at all costs. If they do not, then it is miscarriage of justice. 

    A good case is backed by facts, concrete facts. Without solid evidence, a case has little or no chance of succeeding. No amount of blackmail by the litigant or his lawyer can help a bad case. Also, a case is won and lost in court and not by calling a press conference in the open market.

    There is nothing, no matter how sweet a lawyer says outside the court that can help his client’s case, if he did not say it in the courtroom. The present day practice, now common among lawyers, both young and old, of addressing reporters outside the court after the day’s proceedings is not known to law.

    Read Also: Nigerien coup and President Tinubu’s challenges

    What is the use of such press conferences when they do not form part of the court’s record? A lawyer who has made his point succinctly in court does not require any other extra-judicial means, which these arranged press briefings are, to state his case.

    But lawyers do not care as long as the end justifies the means. This says a lot about people who are supposed to be ministers in the temple of justice. There is no other case in recent times than the presidential poll dispute that has suffered from this kind of antics. The petitioners, their lawyers and supporters have come to see the court as standing between them and justice!

    Rather than look inwards and check if they have a good case, they prefer to engage in clout (read as shadow) chasing, as the social media people will say. Long after the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) reserved judgment, they are still fishing for evidence abroad to use in the case! Of what use will that be? Are they planning to arrest the judgment so that they can bring their new evidence, if ever they get one?

    This resort to a voyage of discovery did not start today. As far back as 2008, election disputants played the same game, provoking stern reaction from the late Justice Niki Tobi, who was on the PEPC panel that heard the Buhari versus Yar’Adua case. “The Court of Appeal cannot collect evidence from the market overt… On the contrary, the court has to wait for evidence in the court building…

    “Courts do not go on a frolic or on a journey to collect … evidence… they deal only with evidence before them. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not saying… that all was well with the presidential election conducted in 2007. What I am saying is that there was no evidence… to dislodge Section 146 (1) of the Electoral Act”, Tobi said in apparent anger to the criticisms of that panel.

    Part of his conclusion was that: “Nigeria is a country where suspicion of wrongdoing is the pastime of the citizens. Nigerians should realise that some public officers should be trusted to do the right thing. Why not the judges?” Yes, why not the judges? Why can the Justices handling the Atiku, Obi petitions against President Tinubu not be trusted to do the right thing? Why?

    Have the petitioners discharged the obligation in Section 135 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended), which was hitherto Section 146 (1) in the 2006 law cited by the late Justice Tobi, in their bid to void President Tinubu’s election? I leave the Justice Haruna Tsammani-led PEPC to answer the question.

    Section 135 (1) states: An election shall not be liable to be invalidated by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of this Act, if it appears to the Election Tribunal or Court that the election was conducted substantially in accordance with the principles of this Act and that the non-compliance did not affect substantially the result of the election.

    One thing is certain: Blackmailing the Tsammani panel will not work just as it failed to move the Tobi panel in 2008. As the late Justice Tobi said: “I regard all the comments, some of them doubting our integrity to do justice according to law, as blackmail and I will not succumb to blackmail”. 

    Judges are not known to succumb to blackmail and I do not see the PEPC bowing to it in the Atiku, Obi petitions, no matter how many #AllEyesonElectionTribunalJudges billboards these politicians commission.

    Justice Tobi may be dead, but his immortal words on the provisions of Section 146 (1) now Section 135 (1) on election invalidation, as being like a Rock of Gibraltar, solidly standing behind and for a respondent to an election petition, remain the truth and nothing but the truth. As the erudite jurist noted, the law was made by the National Assembly and not judges. So, on who should alleyes be?

  • Planned regrouping of PDP, NNPP and Labour

    Chief Bode George, one time PDP deputy national chairman (South) was perhaps one of the few honest PDP elders that saw the party’s defeat in the last February presidential election coming. He had before the election warned against breaching of PDP constitutional rotational provision conceived by its founding fathers to promote harmony and sense of belonging. His warning was however ignored by those driven by greed for power with dire consequences including the fractionalization of the party into PDP, NNPP and Labour. Bode George who has continued to blame the defeat of the party on mismanagement by its leaders knew a house divided against it would not stand.

    After their self-inflicted tragedy, there were newspaper reports of discussion of possible merger between Labour Party, PDP and NNPP ahead of 2027. The truth is that the three are one and the same. As Bode George asked a while ago: Where is Obi of Labour Party coming from?” Obi after serving his two terms as Anambra governor on the platform of APGA joined PDP and became Atiku’s running mate in the 2019 election.

    But Atiku Abubakar, leveraging on voting population of the north, in breach of PDP constitution came out for the 2023 election. Peter Obi equally driven by greed like Atiku Abubakar resigned from PDP, relocated back home to also exploit the ethnic sentiments of his own aggrieved Igbo people who felt betrayed after faithfully serving PDP for about 24 years. Beyond vehicle for political power, both have no abiding faith in PDP.

    But the fault is neither in Obi nor in Atiku since  PDP was neither a political party driven by ideological orientation nor a political faction with interest or opinion different from that of the party. To John Campbell, a former American envoy to Nigeria, PDP was “an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria with no ideological or programmatic basis, but simply as essentially a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils”.  PDP did everything including periodic ‘family quarrel’ over sharing of Nigerian resources” during its 16 years reign to validate Campbell’s thesis.

    At the onset of the 4th republic, contract for the refurbishment of Nigerian ailing refineries secured by PDP members was not implemented. Instead, they created artificial fuel scarcity to justify setting up of PPPRA, an instrument with which PDP leaders and their children defrauded the nation to the tune of about N1.7trillion under the fuel subsidy scam.

    Read Also: Domestic airlines at war with Nigerians

    They also came up with self-serving monetization policy through which public servants immorally bought their official residences. Two stood out like sore fingers: Dimeji Bankole, a former Speaker of the House of representative  and David Mark, a former Senate President  who bought the Senate president mansion, built on 1.6 hectares of land, a national monument that was not meant to be acquired by an individual and was never reflected in the federal government’s gazette as required”.

    There was also the power sector reform.  It was launched by President Jonathan in Lagos on August 26, 2010. Then in August 2013, 15 companies made up of 10 Distribution Companies (DISCOs) and five Generation Companies (GENCOs)  paid $2.238b to  take over 60% of unbundled PHCN after federal government  injection of between $8.2-$15b of taxpayers money.  But who were these new investors and Disco owners? Records show they were mostly PDP stalwarts led by Professor Jerry Ghana.

    As Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State and now Nigeria’s president observed during the 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium: “The PDP administration shared our generation, distribution and transmission to their friends and cronies without very deep and thoughtful research and evaluation. It has now become pork chops”.

    The whole privatization effort between 1999-2014 was abused forcing the 7th Senate report of November 30,  2011 to direct the National Council on Privatization to “rescind the sale of Abuja International Hotels Limited (NICON) Luxury Hotel) as well as Sheraton Hotel and Towers;  investigation of the sales of assets of Daily Times Nigeria PLC  to Folio Communications Limited and its directors by anti-graft agencies and the sold assets recovered; that the Share Purchase Agreement of Volkswagen Nigeria Limited now (VON)  be rescinded while the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was to investigate the economic crimes perpetrated against the nation by Barbedos Ventures Limited; that NICON Insurance PLC  and Nigeria Re-insurance PLC should refund N900 million and one billion Naira respectively back to the federal government; that  the former Directors-General, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, Dr. Julius Bala and Mrs. Irene Nkechi Chigbue should be reprimanded by the National Council on Privatization; while the then Director-General, BPE, Ms Bolanle Onagoruwa be relieved of her appointment.

     But Nigerians have short memories. In any case, by 2023, Buhari had done enough to alienate those who gave him landslide victory in 2015. While those in government lived in denial, there was massive insecurity especially in the northern states where helpless Nigerians were kidnapped for ransom, killed or driven into IDP camps by terrorists who confiscated their homes and farm lands.

    There was also a reign of impunity. Godwin Emefiele, a CBN governor appointed by President Jonathan because of his sympathy for PDP wanted to contest for  Nigerian presidency on the platform of APC even as a sitting CBN governor. When he lost out, he unleashed violence on Nigerians. He disobeyed Supreme Court order that attempted to bring relief to Nigerians who had no access to their confiscated life savings. Frustrated Nigerians were up in arms against APC and its presidential candidate.

    The presidency was therefore just there for the picking by PDP. But PDP, haunted by its past and driven only by greed, frittered away the opportunity. While their total votes and those of their two family members almost doubled that of victorious APC, it was APC that scored the highest votes and met the constitutional spread requirement.

    Let the talk and regrouping begin, but not with the current PDP leading light who have always behaved like prostitutes. Atiku Abubakar has been running from one party to the other in search of a platform since 2007: Action Congress 2011; APC 2014 and PDP 2017.

    Aminu Tambuwal also once rallied round his supporters to breach his party (PDP) zoning formula ceding the speakership to the Southwest geo-political zone. He was elected speaker with 252 votes compared to government and PDP-backed Mulikat Akande-Adeola’s 90 votes

    Bukola Saraki is as audacious as he is venomous on the political battle field. He punished PDP by pulling it down for claiming he was part of N1.7 fuel subsidy scam. In APC, he traded off the victory of his party for senate presidency in what Itse Sagay back then described as ‘a victory for impunity, a victory for fraud and a victory for political desperation and indiscipline”.

    We have Obi, diminished not only by his opportunism, appeal to religion and ethnic sentiments, but also damaged beyond repairs by his unthinking ‘obidients’ who terrorize those who refuse to swallow their prejudices.

    Rabiu Musa Kwankwanso who won only his Kano State in the last presidential election shot himself in the leg by his short-sighted opposition to state police and his ‘National Grazing Reserves Bill’ (seeking grazing routes and reserves), as against ranching promoted by Southern Nigeria People’s Assembly (SNPA)

    Besides the struggle for 2027, the nation todays needs a viable opposition that can keep the ruling party on its toes. That task does not belong to those who brought PDP to this sorry path but to those who understand that political parties promote ideological or policy goals and also serve as modernization agents.

  • If fathers build and sons destroy…

    If fathers build and sons destroy…

    Fathers earn and sons spend. Moguls acquire and sons deplete. Pacesetters in politics, arts and business hack their way through mortal wilderness to acclaim. They forge their path to identity, amassing fortunes and a name that they bequeath to heirs. The latter, having it all, however, suffers the burden of freedom.

     Freedom binds them to the slaughterhouse of choice. When they make the right choices, they soar into trance and society salts the earth they walk upon. If condemned to wrong choices, freedom chillingly shut their eyes to the truthful and humane, in a deadly game of blind man’s bluff.

     In the latter scenario, ignorance becomes Eden and the sanctuary of heirs, where too many sons of famous fathers become spendthrifts, alcoholics, drug addicts, and dilettantes. They deplete what their fathers procured.

     The son, often heir to fortune on a silver platter, has nothing to measure or be measured against, except the accomplishments of his father – most of which gets squandered.

     Fathers build and sons destroy. But not every child depletes what his father built. A generation may forcefully reinvent itself out of the declining fortunes of its forbears.

     The current generation of leaders, for instance, could recreate the Nigerian dream from its deplorable state as the fantasy of thieves, looters and blinkered murderers into progressive, realistic and awe-inspiring vistas.

     To do, so we must rid our souls of moral lesions, conflict and contradictions; we must quit being shameless and grand in disarray.

     Whatever rationalisation is advanced to justify Nigerian senators’ receipt of about N2 million each as allowance before proceeding on a seven-week vacation, flies in the face of reason, particularly during these hard times.

    Read Also: In bad taste

     The country’s upper legislature has been on the wrong side of the news since it approved about N218 million as holiday allowances for the 109 senators. The bank alerts were reportedly received by the senators on August 8, just before the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio told the senators that some money had been credited to their accounts to enjoy their holidays.

     However, the management of the National Assembly has since attempted a justification of the spending claiming that the N2 million paid to all senators was not a vacation allowance. The assembly said this in a statement by its Secretary, Research and Information, Ali Umoru, on behalf of the Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA), Sani Tambuwal.

     After screening and confirmation of the ministerial nominees on August 7, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, informed senators that money had been credited to their bank accounts to enjoy their holiday, which started that day.

    The action, predictably, incited the ire of many Nigerians who berated the lawmakers for being insensitive to the masses’ plight. It flies, in the face of reason, that lawmakers who are tasked with the protection of the citizenry’s interests would engage in such a brazen display of insensitivity at a time that millions of Nigerians are grappling with atrocious increments in the cost of fuel and skyrocketing inflation of the prices of food, transport services to mention a few.

     At the heel of widespread condemnation of  the payment to senators amid hardship in the country, the senate has said in its defence, that the N2 million paid to each of the senators was part of the running cost of their offices and that it was budgeted for.

     “It should be noted that the Two million Naira is part of the running cost of the office of each senator as provided for in the 2023 budget.”

     The Senate Chief Whip, Ali Ndume, subsequently argued that there was no big deal in all the senators receiving N2 million each for their vacation allowance, noting that it was not unusual.

     The N2 million allowance given to the senators has, however, been described as illegal as no such provision is made in the remuneration package approved by Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), the body authorised by law to prepare salaries and allowances for public servants. But under the law, lawmakers are entitled to a “recess” allowance which is 10 per cent of the annual basic salary of each legislator and is paid once a year.

     There is no gainsaying Nigeria, has for several years, suffered the lack of a humane culture of leadership. The incumbent senate must avoid a reenactment of “business as usual.”

     Where it is “business as usual,” the citizenry is expected to maintain a stiff upper lip, whatever the devastation wrought on the state, even as the political class engages in the pursuit of selfish interests. They are expected to buy into the fantasy of progress promised at the end of the pillage.

     We need a legislature capable of  working with the executive to humanely reconstruct the power equation, redistribute social privileges, and reinvigorate civil societies, and dormant economies.  

     Public healthcare, public education and the manufacturing sector, for instance,  must be overhauled with better social safety nets and driven to earn foreign exchange. This can never be achieved where public officers breeze through the corridors of power with intent to diddle and plunder.

     Something’s got to give. En route to the 2023 polls, renaissance hierarchies  clashed in the noisy climax of gladiator politics. Within the melee, the average voter re-emerged decisively as the political personae of a renaissance Nigeria.

     It’s about time Nigerian senators  equally re-emerged as the cultured  patriots and workers of marvels they were expected to be. The farmer, painter, plumber, sculptor, street trader, teacher, student, unemployed graduate, and manual labourer, who voted for them, anticipate their calling as fearless change-makers – irreconcilable to visions of them as looters and unfeeling political elements.

     In the ongoing duel with hardships triggered by the removal of fuel subsidy and accentuated by inflation, the ultimate purpose of families, states, and nations, is to breathe. It’s a sublime irony: Nigerians labour to breathe in an atmosphere corrupted by political leadership and their labour for material wealth.

     At a time like this, the Nigerian senate must quit participating in heavily choreographed or soulless sessions, in which the demands of corporations, individuals, and banks are paramount.

     Each senator must vie to represent  Nigerians’ interests. The elections are over. Slogans and scathing bromides have lost their resonance with the long-suffering masses; they expect their elected representatives to work together to reclaim Nigeria’s soul from the fangs and talons of a raptorial corporate state and political class.

     A new class of political leadership must emerge to assert the economic  and political freedom of the citizenry. Against the backdrop of this, we face a far more difficult problem: Nigeria’s affliction by an electorate nurtured by bigotries and savage materialism. In the run-up to the general elections, voters emerging from two societal extremes, the haves and have-nots, coalesced in ghastly politicking that rocked the foundation of the country and threatened our unity.

     This is the time to foster national healing. But how can the lawmakers counsel the masses to be painstaking if they are suspected of insensitivity? How can they teach the citizenry to embrace patience and sacrifice while they are accused of profligate spending?

     How do they reconcile themselves to the belief that politics should never be about accumulating obscene, illegitimate wealth to splurge or show off, but about the passion to live life more fully and engage more expansively in the perpetuation of humane leadership?

  • We betrayed Plateau State

    We betrayed Plateau State

    If the essence of government is the protection of life and properties of citizens, our successive governments, since 1999 should be held responsible for the travails of people of Plateau State. Beyond occasional skirmishes between herders and subsistence farmers, people of Mangu had lived in relative peace with their Fulani settlers until the institutionalisation of reign of impunity by President Olusegun Obasanjo at the onset of the 4th Republic and later by President Muhammadu Buhari and his loyal gatekeepers.

    Those indicted by a probe into causes of social dislocations between the two groups during Obasanjo’s presidency were left off the hook, an oversight that was to later lead to reprisal attacks. And while Buhari played the ostrich, those hiding under his government to serve other tendencies went to work. With the pacification of the north-central, MACBAN presented their demand if peace must reign in the country. 

    Read Also: BREAKING: Tinubu assigns portfolios to Ministers-Designate

    In a statement jointly signed by Salisu Ahmadu, national president and Umar Shehu , national secretary of the body, they perceived the federal government as being unwilling to protect the interest of Fulani in Nigeria, Fulani in West Africa have been invited to raise funds and prepare for war. MACBAN’s northeast Chairman, Alhaji Mafindi Danburam insisted “Open grazing is our culture and you cannot wake up one day and stop me from practicing my culture”. Finally Fulani are prepared for war except the anti-grazing laws by various states are abrogated and replaced with federal government cattle colony policy with Fulani allowed to settle anywhere they desire in line with their culture.

    Nigerian stakeholders, the United Nations and Britain appealed in vain that Buhari applied the big stick. Despite the mindless killings of harmless farmers and confiscation of their farmlands while survivors languished in IDP camps, few people if any, were arrested let alone prosecuted.  The impression was that the attackers were invincible.

    The president’s visit to Plateau to commiserate with the people brought little relief as his appeal to victims to be good hosts appeared to have only emboldened the attackers.

    Nigerians did not get to know the identity of their assailants until Sheikh Gumi’s visit to the killers’ den deep inside Niger’s Tegina forest and Birnin Gwari forest in Kaduna State.  It was from him we learnt the bandits were invited by our own aggrieved vengeance-seeking Fulani compatriots.  It was from governors Bala Mohammed of Bauchi, Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna and Aminu Masari of Katsina and Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano that we learnt that the killer herdsmen are mostly Fulani criminals from neighbouring countries who found ‘Kidnapping for ransom’ more rewarding than grazing of cows.

    With the over a score recently killed at Farin Kasa and Sabon Gari communities in Mangu Local Council of Plateau State, fatality figure in the last two months has climbed up to 231. The figure for the last three months was put at 346 killed and 18,751 displaced according to Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam of Peace Foundation. Of the figure, about 200 came from Mangu. He also spoke of 2,081 widows, 6,066 orphans inside IDP camps of the affected areas.

    In fact, Istifanus Gyang of Barkin Ladi Riyon Constituency at the National Assembly has just confirmed that “over four villages have been added to the 45 that have already been over-run and are under forceful occupation and with thousands of survivals marooned in IDP camps”. 

    This perhaps explains why Dachung Bagos, the member representing Jos South and Jos East Constituency in the House of Representatives, is now urging residents to defend themselves. Although under section 14(2) (b) of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. But “in the face of this kind of breakdown in the will and capacity of the government to protect the people and their communities, law-abiding citizens”, he says, “must organize to protect themselves.” In any case, “section 17(2) (b) of the constitution, recognizes “the sanctity of the human person” reinforced by section 33(2) (a) which makes self-defence lawful when undertaken in “defence of any person from unlawful violence or for the defence of property”.

    Little relief came from the president’s men. President Buhari’s first minister of defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to reduce tension wanted states to suspend the implementation of their Anti-Open Grazing Laws. His successor  Maj. Gen. Bashir Magashi (rtd. ), speaking against the backdrop of the abduction of 42 people, including pupils, from the Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State wanted Nigerians to defend themselves against bandits and killer herdsmen, perhaps with their bare hands.

    Buhari’s government continued to play the ostrich even as experts and students of federalism recommended state police as one way to finding solution to all Nigeria security challenges, given the acquaintance with the people and the terrain.  Northern governors’ initial opposition was initially led by Kano’s Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso who declared “All of us in the Northern Governors’ Forum, probably the 19 of us with the exception of one or two, are bitterly against the issue of state police”.

    But even when governors of Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno, whose states were under siege settled for the establishment of state police at the 4th meeting of the Northeast Governors Forum on March 5, 2021, President Buhari who ‘knew what the people wanted without asking them’ shut it down just as he did when the 19 northern governors changed their position.

     The only tepid response to the menace of killer herdsmen regarded as the fourth most deadly violent group in the world came from the National Assembly through Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s ‘National Grazing Reserves Bill’ (seeking grazing routes and reserves), which the Southern Nigeria People’s Assembly (SNPA) described as “an unfortunate elevation of what ought to be private commercial ventures into a national or government business”. It was dead on arrival as many southern legislators who believed it violated principles of federalism and in breach of the Land Use Act insisted ranching remains the best global practice in animal husbandry.

    If President Tinubu engaged in misplaced priority of trying to help Nigeriens fight for democracy and the unambitious National Assembly planning to spend N40b on toys called bullet-proof SUVs did not know about the plight of our fellow Nigerians languishing in IDP camps where they sleep on bare floor without mattress or blanket, without access to drugs and with many eating only once a day and sometimes going to bed without food, they can call for two television  documentaries that vividly  brought their plight to Nigerians last Sunday.

    If the president’s new security chiefs cannot clear out those who forcibly ejected our compatriots from their homes and farms to allow them return to normal life, begging as a strategy is allowed. He has at his service, Sanusi Lamido (MACBAN patron), Dr Sheik Gumi who enjoys the confidence of criminal herdsmen and of course the Muslim clerics that secured for him a face-saving victory from Nigerien military adventurers last week.

    As for our unambitious lawmakers, I am sure after watching the documentary, they cannot but see their lusting over SUV toys by the name of bullet proof cars as infantile behaviour. They might remind their public service counterparts in USA travel by public transport, share flat or sleep in their offices in Washington DC.

    Finally if the president and the lawmakers understand our challenges of insecurity, they will know they are running behind schedule in initiating a constitutional amendment to allow for state police.

  • In bad taste

    In bad taste

    Call it an act of desperation, and you may not be wrong. Their desperation has made them to lose every sense of reason; they cannot pause and consider the consequences of their actions. In their eyes, they are doing what is right, and anybody who tries to correct them becomes an instant enemy, no matter his status.

    How can a set of people be so patently wrong and yet see themselves as right? It is either their own way or no way. It all started before the 2023 general elections. The emergence of candidates for the February 25 presidential election on the platforms of the various parties was in itself a tug-of-war. It was full of pulling and tugging. With the primaries over, a clearer picture of the contenders and pretenders in the race emerged.

    Read Also: BREAKING: Tinubu assigns portfolios to Ministers-Designate

    By then, the air had been polluted by the politics of ethnicity, religion and bitterness. The youths, the highest demographic group in the over 93 million voter’s list who ought to know better, fell into the hands of manipulators, who used them to achieve selfish ends. But the election did not go their way, despite all the contrived polls which said their candidate would win. Truth be told, Peter Obi had no chance in that election.

    But he put up a good showing, as he and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar ate into each other’s votes in places where either of them could have won hands down, if they had run together. Their self-inflicted error became President Bola Tinubu’s gain. They have refused to see it this way since their loss in that epochal race.

    There has not been peace since the election was won and lost on March 1. The clerics and the pundits who gave the election to Obi, their preferred candidate, rather than accept the result in the spirit of true sportsmanship, have transferred their bitterness with the President to the court which is adjudicating on the electoral dispute.

    Just as they called the President names before, during and after the poll, so are they now tagging the judiciary. The country has never seen a thing like this before. Even the June 12 debacle was not this bad. Though the Abimbola Davies’,  the ‘Dr Atkins’ and the Arthur Nzeribes’ of this world used the court to truncate the electoral process, they did not descend so low as to call out judges in public and accuse them of misdemeanour as we are witnessing today. 

    Supporters of the first and second runners-up in the February 25 poll are taking out their candidates’ loss on the judiciary. Is that the way the losers will win their cases before the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC)? Blackmail cannot help them. Blackmail has never helped any litigant. Rather, it ruins their case. Why?

    No court will watch and allow its integrity to be dragged in the mud. What has the supporters of Obi and Atiku not done in their desperation to pressure the PEPC to see things their own way? Election and litigation are mutually exclusive. So, you cannot employ the same tactics in fighting them. While you can deploy blackmail in election, you cannot easily do same with litigation and have your way.

    Everything they threw at the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Kayode Ariwoola did not stick. Their trick is to get him out of the way before the case gets to the Supreme Court, where it will eventually end. As we all know, as CJN, he may choose to head the panel that will hear the appeal that is likely to follow the PEPC judgment whenever it is delivered.

    Rather than sheathe their swords as the nation awaits the judgment with bated breath, the losers’ crowds are busy doing what they know how to do best – making wild allegations all over the place in order to pull the wool over people’s eyes. The other day, they claimed that a member of the five-man PEPC had resigned, and followed it up with the allegation of Justice Ariwoola’s meeting with the President. Before then, it was that he was seen disguised on a wheelchair at Heathrow Airport in London.

    His features were visibly clear in the video that went rival in social media that there was no mistaking who he is. And now through a billboard, they want to put the PEPC on the spot ahead of its judgment. The#AllEyesonTheElectionTribunal Judges billboard is obscene. It was obscenity at its worst. The message was not lost on the public. It was a direct attack on the integrity of the Justices, who have been through a lot over the Atiku and Obi petitions.

    Why all this alarm and fear? If these noisemakers are sure of their candidates’ cases, they should allow the Justices to do their job in line with their oath “… to dispense justice without fear or favour, affection or illwill”. After all, after PEPC, they still have the Supreme Court to approach, if they are not satisfied. That advert was in bad taste. As bad as Donald Trump is, he will not go to that length to denigrate the American judiciary.

    Those who approved the advert were insensitive, too insensitive to the tense socio-political mood in the land. They should have seen through the advertisers’ ploy to use the billboard to whip up sentiments and throw the Justices under the bus. The clock is ticking and very soon, we will all know where the pendulum swings. One thing is sure: justice will be served. It cannot be otherwise because justice is blind, bold, fair, equitable and just to all that come before it. At the end of the day, the joke will be on the advertisers.

    Approving that billboard for them was a great disservice to the nation, no matter the amount they paid. Everything should not be about money, money, money.

  • Ethnicity, nationality and need for national integration

    Ethnicity, nationality and need for national integration

    Last week, the Nigerian Academy of Letters held its 25th annual convocation to admit members and fellows into its fold. The academy also saw the change of leadership from Professor Duro Oni of the University of Lagos’s Department of Creative and Dramatic Arts to Professor Sola Akinrinade of the Department of History of the Obafemi Awolowo University. The handover was seamless and without the usual drama associated with the change of guards in our clime. There were no threats of going to court or of breaking a few heads as happens often in similar situations in our country and political parties. Perhaps the civilized way the academy handles its affairs should be a lesson to the country at large that elections and change of leadership can take place within a civilized space.

    Read Also: BREAKING: Tinubu assigns portfolios to Ministers-Designate

    The greatest problem facing our country is the question of harmonizing the disparate and different interests of the various ethnicities growing up in the womb of the Nigerian state in what a writer described as finding fusion from fission within the Nigerian ethnic space. (Please note the deliberate avoidance of the word tribe which denotes primitive people).

    The theme of the conference largely centred around the issue of ethnicity and nationality in Nigeria. The issue was how we can have national unity without derogating from the importance of the various ethnic formations we have in our country. Those who presented papers came from different academic disciplines ranging from history, languages and linguistics, dramatic arts, philosophy and religions. They were all sure and certain that unless we find a way out of the descent into ethnic confrontation, bigotry and conflicts in Nigeria, our country would not only not progress, but would certainly die. Some of the scholars suggested that instead of overconcentration on ethnic studies, we should deliberately find issues of inter-ethnic relations in the past and the present as primary areas of research. They suggested that most of our languages, the number of which was not agreed upon, belong to the same KWA subgroup of NIGER-CONGO group of languages. The fact remains that our languages are not as different from one another and can be easily learned by young children if properly taught.

    The issue of finding a common language we all can adopt as a national language came up. People made allusion to the fact that Nigeria is not as linguistically and culturally variegated as India, yet they found a common ground in the adoption of Hindi as an indigenous common language out of the multitude of languages in India. The consensus however was that the current use of English provides a unifying cement without the fear of an indigenous language of a group lording it over others especially if the language of one of the three main ethnic groups, the Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba was adopted. Besides, English gives us connection with the wider English world which is advantageous to all speakers of its national variants. The idea of a language like Igala was mooted, but it was simply laughed at out of consideration. Igala was suggested because it has many words from Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba and it is a language of a relatively small ethnic group.

    The point of language is very important and previous governments that adopted the teaching of Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba in primary and secondary schools all over Nigeria knew what it was doing. It decided that if Nigerians can communicate with one another, the fear of each other will be removed and what currently is a riddle to those outside one’s language will be removed. Unfortunately the national language policy has not been effectively implemented perhaps because of insufficient teachers and budgetary allocations and the political will to implement what seems to be a practical solution to complex problem.

    The conference was told about the seamless integration of different sub ethnicities of the Yoruba in for example, Ibadan and many of the Yoruba towns following the 100 years of warfare and the collapse of the old Oyo Empire. What made this much easier than it would have been was the fact that the people spoke the same language, albeit different versions of it. In the Islamic Northern part of the country, the religion of Islam cemented many groups together even when they spoke languages as distinct as Hausa, Nupe, Fulfulde and Kanuri. This seamless integration was absent among the Igbo, Ibibio, Izon, Urhobo, and Annang people and the various “chief-less” people in the Middle Belt of Nigeria such as the Tivs because of their segmentary political sociology. 

    The point of urbanization as a factor of integration seems to have been ignored and I believe this is important. There also seems to be some concern among some people that research into ethnic groups about what distinguishes and separates them from others was not in the interest of Nigerian nationality but that focus should be on identifiable unity among people who on the surface appear not to have anything in common. For example, the Tivs and the Jukun who are different people were united by the Tivs borrowing chieftaincy ideas and even tittles from the Jukun. The same thing can be identified in eastern Yorubaland where there are existing cultural and political titles borrowed from either Bini or Nupe. The most important diffusion of political culture exists between Bini and Yoruba people despite people trying to erode its significance because of contemporary inferiority/superiority complex.

    The problem is not just interrogating the issues of relations among people but their weaponisation for contemporary political advantages of the outcome of research. Avoiding the study of our differences may in fact destroy genius, innovation and creativity. No one can thoroughly understand some of Wole Soyinka’s plays and Chinua Achebe’s books without some knowledge of Yoruba and Igbo. There is absolutely no problem studying different ethnic cultures; what we should avoid is unnecessary comparison of them in terms of ranking them as to which is better. In the past, ethnicities like those of the Yorubas, Edo, Hausa, Jukun, Chamba and Efik were placed at a higher level of civilization on the basis of the kingdoms and empires they formed while segmentary groups like the Igbo, Tivs and so on, were regarded as people of lower level of achievements and civilization because they were organised in clans and villages. But this erroneous interpretation of cultural achievements belongs to the uninformed past.

    The late Chief Obafemi Awolowo rightly said there should be no problem between being a patriot and nationalist; between being a  Yoruba and a Nigerian even though in 1947 he had dismissed the idea of Nigeria as “a mere geographical expression.” His idea of Nigeria being an artificial and administrative convenience was echoed by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa who had dismissed the idea of Nigeria in 1954 as a “British intention”. The Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello even went further by calling the amalgamation of Southern and Northern Nigeria the “mistake of 1914”.

    One may be tempted to say all these doubts about Nigeria and fear of disintegration belong to the past but that will not be a realistic assessment of the present political reality. The country is more divided than ever before even though it seems young educated Nigerians are forging ahead with inter-ethnic ties but the politicians are way behind. Elections are largely determined on ethnic basis, emphasis is placed on state of origin instead of place of residence, political parties have no different or divergent ideologies; in fact they appear to be special organizations or mechanisms designed to capture power for personal financial aggrandizement by those in power.

    I believe if there was all-round economic development and expansion of the labour market, the problem of ethnic divisions would be obviated. In Canada for example, no one seriously talks about whether one is of English, Francophone or Ukrainian origin because there are jobs for all who want to work but the case in Nigeria is different because of competition for scarce jobs and employment. Religious differences are constantly weaponized to the detriment of national unity. Until the politicians and the bureaucrats who egg them on realise the time bombs on which they are sitting and do something radical about it in terms of political engineering and ethnic balancing, our country is doomed to fall like  ethnic Humpty Dumpty which cannot be put together again.