The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Kogi as metaphor for National Question

    Kogi as metaphor for National Question

    Kogi State’s Senators Smart Adeyemi and Dino Melaye are two of a kind. Bold, brash and most often gaseous, they are committed to no ideological orientation. Their Okun people did not send them to Abuja to shed crocodile tears over the state of the nation, or to become an accessory to Zamfara’s Ahmad Sani Yerima, whose motion for adopting the senate president through acclamation by 40 PDP opposition senators in the absence of APC 51 senators allowed Bukola Saraki to literally steal the chair of the 8th assembly.

    Their brief, I am sure, also did not include humiliating on the floor of the senate the Customs helmsman for discovering that an SUV said to be part of the senate president’s fleet was cleared from the ports without evidence of payment of custom duties.

    The Okun people must have felt scandalised that those they sent to Abuja engaged in melodrama including adorning a PhD academic gown to celebrate the senate ethic committee’s confirmation after a probe that Melaye earned a third class degree in Geography from ABU despite all his wild claims, or shutting down of the Senate chambers to lead 82 ‘like- minds’ “Dinobidient’’ senators to the EFCC office in support of their senate president’s wife who was undergoing interrogation over handling of contracts.

    Driven only by a desire to serve only themselves, the duo have been crisscrossing PDP and APC since the beginning of the Fourth Republic. Last week, Adeyemi, who was said to have been recruited from PDP by Governor Yahaya Bello, who gave him a third term in the Senate for which in return he promised to support all decisions taken by Bello, including imposing his political enemy, lost the November governorship ticket to Ahmed Ododo, who scored 78,704 votes to his 311.

    Today, Adeyemi’s battle cry is that his denial of the ticket was an affront to his Okun people who have never produced a governor. Dino Melaye, his alter ego, who moved from APC to PDP, however, won his own contest as a governorship candidate in the November election.

     Adeyemi’s long-time friend, Comrade Tims Ejigah, has said, “based on his antecedents of use and dump tactics, he lacks capacity to win the governorship election,” adding “If per adventure, he gets the ticket of APC, it would be an exercise in futility. Governor Nyesom Wike, a close associate of Melaye, thinks Dino does not have what it takes to be a governor, saying, “When you give Dino that ticket, you know he won’t win in Kogi State.”

    But for its tragic consequences for our nation, one would have wished Dino Melaye, who claims “he is in politics to ensure the youths get their own share of Nigeria’s resources,” becomes a governor so that we can see how he hopes to juxtapose his obsession with obscene display of wealth, including his Abuja huge mansion, expensive wrist watches and cars said to range from Lamborghini, Porsche to Rolls Royce , with the aspirations of Kogi youths he had told could become successful by waiting on God.

    The truth, however, is that Kogi and her self-serving senators, who deceitfully swear by their people, are but a metaphor for our crisis of nation-building. I am sure the Okun Yoruba people who daily endure the drama of their representatives would have been more interested in how non-resolution of the national question by self-serving Nigerian politicians since 1999 is affecting their quest for self-realisation.

    Unfortunately, the role model of these senators without a sense of history remains Awoniyi, whose integration into the ruling class as Ahmadu Bello’s secretary Adeyemi saw as evidence of justice, fair-play and recognition by the northern ruling hegemonic power.

    Integrating prominent members of the federating nationalities into the ruling class through marriage, as they did with the conquered Hausas, through political office holdings as they did with Tafawa Balewa, Yakubu Gowon and Obasanjo at different periods of our nation’s history, or through business/financial awards by appointments into key positions in the CBN, Ports Authority, NNPC etc. remain the modus operandi of the Nigerian ruling hegemonic powers.

    One is not sure if our Kogi senators understand that appointment of Awoniyi as Ahmadu Bello’s secretary was a political master stroke to end the agitation of the Okun Yoruba of the north for integration into the fold of their Yoruba compatriots in line with Awolowo’s demand for the equality of all Nigerian federating nationalities.

    Tafawa Balewa became leader of the government and later Prime Minister. The deft political move which gave the appointed political office holders a false sense of being in control when in reality, power resided in Ahmadu Bello/the hegemonic powers, no doubt led to the pacification of restive minority groups of southern Bauchi and reduction in the level of hostilities towards their Fulani overlords.

    With Lagos as the prize for his pains, Zik reneged on an earlier resolution to create states for minorities before independence during the 1957 London constitutional debate.

    Awo’s efforts to integrate Yoruba in the north with their kith and kin in the west, even after a referendum, was frustrated by the coalition partners, determined to maintain a stranglehold on the minorities in their respective regions.

    For his pains, Zik became Governor-General after independence with his ethnic group controlling over 70 percent of available political offices in Balewa’s government. Zik’s other reward was a gift of a horse from Ahmadu Bello, while Balewa got a copy of the Holy Quran, with Ahmadu Bello, according to Trevor Clark, expressing fulfillment and personal satisfaction that he had “shared Nigeria between his two faithful lieutenants.”

    But it was a pyrrhic victory. The fall-out over the 1963 census crisis was to lead to Zik’s replacement with Akintola, who also received a gift of a sword from Ahmadu Bello.  Akintola’s reward was on account of his betrayal of Awolowo, his principal, in order to reclaim his position as Premier of the west following his constitutional removal from office which was upheld by the London Privy Council judicial pronouncement. But for Akintola also, it was equally a pyrrhic victory as he was consumed by the January 1966 coup.

    From the above brief journey through memory, it is obvious our crisis of nation-building has been compounded by our self- serving politicians who falsely swear by their people. This is why the likes of Adeyemi, Melaye and others who look up to those integrated into the ruling hegemonic class in order to frustrate the quest for self-actualisation of Nigerians, including Awoniyi, Balewa, Gowon and Obasanjo, are not the people we need in the national assembly.

    It has now dawned on everyone that we are at a crossroads. With the apparent change of mindset of descendants of Nigeria’s hegemonic power, people needed in the senate are those who will be committed to consensus building towards the arduous task of nation-building, and not those who will continue to use their people for political bargaining or jesters who claim their “specialty is to tame lions.”

  • For the love of country

    For the love of country

    For the love of country” is still our sexiest lie. The curvaceous plague of Nigerian politics. Everybody cops a feel.

    Government and the governed; oppressor and the oppressed; bourgeoisie and long-suffering proletariat; the old and young: the gbenudake and soro soke generations; all partake in the prurient rite. They all identify as patriots too.

    Politics, however, fades to melodrama where the patriot misinterprets his role. In his struggle to usurp privileges and power, he inflicts misery on ordinary citizens, those whose predicament supposedly triggered his defiant ‘wokeness.’

    “For the love of country” becomes his arrant lie, the falsity that incites his passion. Thus, this minute, the random youth pulses to duplicitous love.

    Belligerent, cocksure and digitally-woke, social media is his brothel, the virtual bordello of his dreams, where pimps of strife and courtesans of the witless caress his manifest and furtive lusts. Ultimately, it slakes his unarticulated sinful thirsts.

    If Facebook is his weakness, Twitter is his vice. A new breed of youth currently prowls social media. He is less inhibited, less courteous, and inhumane. He considers every alternative opinion a declaration of war even as he mounts the soapbox just to spout off and be seen; his rant passes the stink that smelly suds make in an ocean of mental squalor.

    It gets scarier where their ignorance, intemperance, and rage, enjoy the caress of a dubious demagogue. They launch like loose canons at the slightest provocation. Left to their devices, they are feckless and sterile. Armed with their digital devices, they pose anything to their homeland: motley blessings and applause in one minute and despicable threats in the next.

    Nigeria won’t forget in a hurry, the 2023 presidential elections; several youths supporting the Labour Party, in particular, conducted themselves like the goons used to perpetrate the #EndSARS criminality; through the mayhem, nationhood careened at the crossroads where patriotic spunk unfurls to ignorance, fake news, and mischief.

    Some have blamed their toxic demeanour on infernal youth and conceit even as many more flay the political class for inciting their worst aspects through bigotry and rhetoric.

    The youths, again, betrayed lack of a visionary plan for political participation. Thus, a large swathe of the youthful electorate turned what was supposed to be a peaceful process into a toxic exercise. The political campaigns eventually got hijacked by mischief makers: shady clerics, failed aspirants, and criminal coalitions at home and abroad – united in spite and all having a score to settle with one candidate or the other.

    Amid such clime, the 2023 polls dawned scented with prospects; the streets huffed with partisan charm, slogans, and expectations of the people. Never had electorate ire become so banal; spruced with the anticipation of clashing mobs, voters waving party flags self-identifying as Obidients, the ATIKULATED, and the BATIFIED, engaged in a conscious rite of citizenship to elect Nigeria’s new president and federal lawmakers.

    En route to the polls, Nigeria contracted and splayed to a blitz of pomp, adrenaline and wild drama as political actors clashed in a frenzied surge for votes.

    From the tenor of the campaign to the sweep of votes, the election triggered an outlook of something sinister, and then calm; in the end, every permutation pointed to the fact that the eventual winner of the presidential polls may no longer stir the jubilance deserving of the keenly contested office.

    In the most wide-open presidential election Nigeria has seen since 1979, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat 17 other candidates including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar (6,984,520 votes) of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and former Anambra Governor,Peter Obi (6,101,533 votes) of the Labour Party (LP).

    President-elect Tinubu, in an apparent show of sportsmanship, extended hands of fellowship to his rival candidates, Atiku and Obi, among others, stressing that, “Political competition must now give way to political conciliation and inclusive governance. During the election, you may have been my opponent, but you were never my enemy. In my heart, you are my brothers…Any challenge to the electoral outcome should be made in a court of law, and not in the streets.”

    He also charged his supporters “to let peace reign and tensions fade. We ran a principled, peaceful, and progressive campaign. The aftermath of our campaign must be as benign.”

    The new president-elect described physical and verbal assaults as “unacceptable and antithetical to democratic ethos” stressing that elections should be a celebration of our maturing democracy and freedom of choice and ought not to be moments of grief.

    While Tinubu’s admonishment clearly captured the mood and tenor of partisanship pre and post-election, it barely addresses the sludge of despair and doom-mongering that succeeded the outcome of the polls, especially among LP chieftains and supporters.

    Their post-election conduct mirrors the buildup and aftermath of the ill-fated #EndSARS protest; it shows that demagogues still call the shots and use the youths as disposable pawns. The latter guzzle on spite and sound bites without proper introspection or recourse to reason. It would seem that too many among them simply adopt any movement that’s anti-government and anti-Nigeria.

    Too much of duplicity is discernible in the exploits of many, whose ‘hardcore’ agitation had been seen to extinguish soon after they got ‘settled’ by the ruling class or power brokers aligned to the former.

    Ferocity manifests as crucial aspects of their passion; the clique culture, cancel culture, authoritarianism, and sense of entitlement characteristic of the ruling class actually manifest among the youth across class divides. It’s a precursor to rite of Nigeria’s rape cycle.

    If the 2023 elections have taught us anything, it is that the ’woke’ voter, in his youth, is politically illiterate and morally ambivalent. He pays lip-service to patriotism even as his provocative ‘purity’ incites filth in its wake. Stripped of his slogan, his passion betrays neither breadth nor depth. It is barely individuated from the insensitivity and grotesqueness resonant of the primeval gladiator arena.

    His passion connotes moral emptiness. What Paglia would liken to the still heart of a geode, rimmed with crystalline teeth. His platitudinous chant is disguised as a series of soothing gestures, like rubbing a lantern to make a genie appear.

    In truth, he weaponises a dark sentiment, luring the masses into a dark cycle of sadism. His exaggerated gestures and confessions of love are an assertion of savage lust. He moots no selflessness or sacrifice, only refinements of domination.

    Beneath the glitter and ire of his platitudinous chants subsist a frantic hankering for privileges and spoils of power. For instance, some of the celebrities that led the #EndSARS and who eventually became the faces of the Labour Party’s campaign train could never pass as Nigeria’s finest nationalists or moral compass despite their declarations otherwise.

    The 2023 presidential election has also taught us that compromised state actors, tribal and religious jingoists would always fail in their charge against a charismatic, detribalised leader – just as conspirators behind the contrived currency scarcity and fuel shortage failed against Tinubu.

    The 2023 election taught us that realism would always triumph over rhetoric and that we need a peaceful country to successfully fight and defeat corruption, governance failure, power outage, infrastructure collapse, substandard health and education among others.

    It equally asserts that if the youths truly seek positive change, they must achieve a unity of minds and common purpose by constructive participation in the political process.

  • Enough of the madness on social media

    Enough of the madness on social media

    The elections of 2023 have been largely concluded. Winners have been declared and some of the losers have gone to either the Elections tribunal or the courts. This has become the usual scenario in our country where losers always say they have been rigged out and their mandates have been stolen.

    A bevy of lawyers encourages them to feel this way and that the courts would eventually declare them winners.  The lawyers do this out of enlightened self-interest and for the huge Naira harvest they expect to reap. Most times the courts uphold the decision of the electorate. Sometimes the courts’ decisions favour those who lost at the polls.

    This year, the acrimony surrounding the elections has been at the greatest decibel that I have ever heard since I have witnessed electoral contests in Nigeria. The anger has been laced with ethnic jingoism bordering sometimes on call to arms by the losing candidates and their ethnic cohorts.

     One would have thought that anybody contesting an election should have known that the probability of losing is a possibility. But it seems that Nigerian politicians are the worst kind of people in the world because they go into elections with wrong motives and bank on the certainty of winning to the extent that some borrow money or sell properties just to contest elections and when they lose, they will want to bring the entire state structure down on everybody’s heads including those of the electorate.

    Any casual reading of this election cannot but come to the conclusion that this must be judged the most competitive election we have had in this country in recent years.  There are 36 states and Abuja where the presidential polls took place. The result was a dead heat with the president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC winning in 12 states, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP also won in 12 states while Peter Obi won in 11 states and Abuja. What separates them is that Tinubu ran a strong second wherever Atiku Abubakar won and in Lagos State his political redoubt where Obi won. Wherever he won he won solidly particularly in the Southwestern and Northcentral part of the country. He also won in the Northwestern part of the country, and in Borno State from where Shetima Kashim, his running mate, comes.

    The PDP which had splintered into Labour, NNPP and what was left of the old PDP could have won the presidential election if it had remained united and ran under a single flag! How is winning the election against this disunited rabble the fault of Tinubu?

    I personally think this election has been fair to all. How can the same election that senators and members of House of Representatives from all the parties have been celebrating in Abuja and feverishly struggling for legislative positions turn round to have been defective on account of the presidential poll using the same single sheet of ballot paper?

    The whole brouhaha is just too ridiculous. What worries me is the attitude of Obi and his supporters openly calling for cancellation of the entire election or is it just the presidential election? Some are even calling for a military putsch or what they call “interim government.”  Some are openly calling for the end of the country if Bola Ahmed Tinubu is sworn in on May 29th of 2023. I would have dismissed these vituperations but for the fact they are coming from very senior ethnic jingoists who have served at the higher echelons of the federal government just because their ethnic cohorts lost elections which on all grounds of probability they could not have won.

    Issuing threats of planned disruptions of the constitutional process is not the way forward. What this election and its aftermath has taught many of us is that we are probably not ready to abide with democratic practices and principles guiding electoral competition. The second lesson I think we should all learn is that, we as a people, are still the same as Chief Obafemi Awolowo described us in his 1947 book with the title of “PATH TO NIGERIAN FREEDOM “that there are no Nigerians as there are French or Germans and that Nigeria is “a geographical expression. “

    As I write, the IPOB,” Indigenous people of Biafra,” is militarily challenging the government of Nigeria for its own place in the sun. There are similar voices for some kind of secession or loosening of ties and if we ignore these demands we ignore them at our political peril. The fissiparous tendencies in this country have always been here. What we need to do is to find practical constitutional grundnorm to accommodate each other.

    The Tinubu government early in its term must call for a constitutional conference to discuss the issues of federalism and particularly fiscal arrangements to guarantee resources ownership while ensuring that each state or group of states contribute to the running of a loose federation. Let us design a system where political activities and competition will be state located and domiciled and collective and cooperative governance will be at the centre while states enjoy large measures of economy and consequent development.

    In the first republic, each region had its own constitution, independent judiciary and control over the affairs of the lives of its people. We must bring that kind of system in which people will have confidence that their government will have their backs, protect their culture including their language, religion and their future group rights. This is not theory because if we do not embrace some loosening of ties we will go the way of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Pakistan, the Sudan, Ethiopia (which had Eritrea as part of it).  Even an established unitary state like Great Britain has now   accepted devolution of power to the peoples of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

    We should look at thriving federations like Canada, Switzerland, the United States and Belgium which even though have not completely solved the issue of  political division, diversity and occasional threats of separation have at least successfully  stayed together.

    To start with, our government must do whatever it can to control the social media to prevent them from plunging the country into ethnic war on the scale of what happened in Burundi and Rwanda.

    Unfortunately, the mainstream media are beginning to source their information from social media. Unfortunately, this feeds foreign media which is then given back to us as revealed wisdom! Control of social media is therefore imperative.

    Presidents and other important persons have in the past been removed from social media if their use of it has been detrimental to the maintenance of national or international peace and concord. If the use of social media by presidents and other socially and politically important persons can be controlled, there is no reason why the entire social media cannot be controlled.

    I suggest this should be extended to all individuals and groups and ethnic organizations whose statements can bring untold hardship and conflicts to other peoples and themselves. We should not wait until genocidal conflicts ensue before taking actions to prevent them. There are just too many irresponsible people around who cannot control their emotions whose use of social media without control cannot be justified on the grounds of their fundamental human rights and democratic rights to express themselves. There can be no absolute rights in an explosive situation where lives and society itself are threatened. There must be a state of people living in peace before they can enjoy democracy!

  • Times that try men’s souls

    Times that try men’s souls

    It is peacetime Nigeria, yet it seems that a war is on. A war without battle tanks, arms and ammunition. A war fought with words; harsh, bitter words. Words that pierce the heart and leave a hole, even more than a bullet. It is a dangerous kind of war because of its power of conflagration.

    It can burn down everything in its way. With the way things are going, Nigeria is on the brink of the precipice. When those who should know better join a fray in which they should be arbiters rather than call the protagonists to order, you know that something is wrong. The elections held on February 25 and March 18 have come and gone, but their fall-out left a bitter taste in the mouth.

    Like in every contest, the candidates had their supporters, both in high and low places. It may be safe to assume that the the lowly-placed supporters, that is the hoi polloi, have accepted the outcome of the polls. At least, they are not making the kind of noise coming from the end of the powerful supporters who openly endorsed some of the presidential candidates.

    Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) was the favourite of the likes of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and America-based Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie, who rallied support for him. Many others in their camp did not want the people to know where they stood, but their reactions to the results gave them away that they too were and still are for Obi. There is nothing bad in that, but the problem is how they are couching their partisanship in an altruistic manner.

    They have simply refused to accept the results and are using very strong words to denounce the February 25 presidential election, especially. When they speak, they do so as if they are speaking in the interest of the nation. They are not. They try to win others to their side by using and twisting the law, as if they are the sole authority in that field.

    Section 134 (2) of the Constitution states the requirements for winning the presidential election. One of these is that the winner must win 25 percent of the votes cast in two-thirds of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. This has become the bone of contention because President-elect Bola Tinubu did not get 25 percent in FCT, but he did in 29 states.

    In one breathe, these legal pundits say this is an issue for the court to decide, and in another, they interprete the provision to suit their purpose, which is to deny Tinubu his victory. As the nation awaits legal fireworks to begin, the cacophony of voices keeps rising. The letter writers are also growing. The leading letter writers’ position is well known. Obasanjo and Adichie are die-hard Obi supporters. Even before the whole results were out, Obasanjo wrote to President Muhammadu Buhari, demanding the cancellation of the election.

    He claimed that the election was not free, fair, credible and transparent! Could that have come from Obasanjo, the same person whose administration oversaw the 2007 election, which the late President Umoru Yar’Adua acknowledged was flawed despite being the winner. He constituted the Uwais Electoral Reform Panel, which report has largely remained untouched and is gathering dust on the shelf where it has been kept all these years. The same Obasanjo has now written to President-elect Tinubu, asking him to embark on reconciliation and healing after assuming office on May 29.

    Without Obasanjo’s prompting, Tinubu has since embarked on that mission. But, his opponents have rebuffed his peace initiatives. Nothing will satisfy them more than the cancellation of the February 25 poll. They have taken the fight to the tribunal, but they are not prepared to allow their Lordships  to do their job in peace. They have resorted to all kinds of antics, including blackmail, to get the tribunal to see things their way. Their Lordships are, however, too independent-minded to be swayed by such emotional blackmail.

    Obi’s running mate Datti Baba-Ahmed’s unwarranted attack on the integrity of the Supreme Court in a March 22 interview on Channels Television was the unkindest cut of all. He spoke bitterly in that interview, alleging that the President and Chief Justice Kayode Ariwoola would be “ending constitutional democracy by swearing in Tinubu on May 29”. There is freedom of expression, but it should never be taken as licence for reckless and ill-digested statements. A man who aspired to be the Second Citizen should know better than that. No amount of provocation should have made him spew forth such bile, considering the characters that make up the support base of their Obi-Dient Movement.

    Truly, the interviewer tried to call him to order, but Baba-Ahmed refused to see reason, and insisted on being “extreme” in his view because Yakubu (referring to INEC chairman) was “extreme in declaring Tinubu president-elect”. Channels unwittingly (or was it wittingly?) exposed the interviewer that day by not giving him the needed cover. Where were the producer and other behind-the-scene operators when the interviewee was going off course and the interviewer was struggling to keep him in check? The backroom managers failed in their duty to mute Baba-Ahmed and stop him from assaulting viewers’ sensibilities with his jaundiced views on air.

    The deed has been done and the regulatory agency has taken the action it deemed fit, even though it acted unilaterally, without hearing from Channels. This is what happens when law and order are allowed to break down. Nobel laureate Prof Wole Soyinka’s well-intentioned intervention is now being misconstrued by those who should know better. Baba-Ahmed went overboard on air on March 22 and he should be told in categorical terms, just as Soyinka did. Channels too which has the machinery to check his outbursts, but did not do so, is culpable. It failed not only to protect its reporter, but also the nation.

    As for Adichie, it is suffice to say that this is not the time to play the ethnic card. Sadly, this is not the age of reason. Someone of her standing should rise beyond ethnic and religious inclinations  and act as the international citizen she has become. What is hollow about Nigeria’s democracy? Would her position be the same if Obi had won? Is she really sincere in her assessment that there was nothing fundamentally wrong in Baba-Ahmed’s vituperations?

    What these times, as Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling said in his poem: If, call for are men who can keep their heads, when others around are losing theirs; men who can meet with triumph and defeat (the poet actually used disaster) and treat those two impostors just the same. If we as a people, can be such men, the earth and everything in it, shall be ours, as Kipling said in the second to the last stanza of the poem. May we not be blinded by our ethnic and religious biases not to see the sense in these rich words.

  • Shall we profit from what we grow?

    Shall we profit from what we grow?

    It’s about time the Nigerian city achieved rural sweep. We must begin to profit from what we grow. Right now, our cities deify baubles and digital enlightenment that remains superfluous to the country.

    This is why social life and commerce get grounded in the heat of a crisis; at the outbreak of the coronavirus, for instance, economic activities in most cities got grounded – it was as if the metropolis and the wheels of industry didn’t matter.

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

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

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

    President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu has his work cut out for him. His agricultural policy must manifest beyond passionate pronouncements and gazetted intent.

    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.

    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 percent of the labour force and accounted for as much as 62.3 percent of the nation’s foreign exchange earnings.

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

    The yield of rice on the other hand has increased steadily, resulting from

    government’s increased support for rice production, by providing subsidised agrochemicals and credit facilities through various intervention funds.

    In contrast to yield, land usage in Nigeria has increased across key crops, like cassava, cocoa beans, rice paddy and wheat. This has been primarily driven by an increase in the population engaged in farming, although production remains at a subsistence level.

    For most key crops, Nigeria’s share of global production has remained low. However, the rate of consumption has outstripped production. The deficit has been met largely by importation, making the country a net importer. On average, between 2011 and 2015, N1.4 trillion has been spent on food imports with wheat, milk, rice, sugar and malt extract, constituting the bulk of Nigeria’s food import bill.

    Consequently, Nigeria is vulnerable to changes in global agro-commodity prices, with a significant impact on inflation and foreign reserves. Between 2011 and 2015, agro-processed exports declined by 41 percent to N143 billion. These exports, which accounted for an estimated 20 percent of Nigeria’s non-oil exports in 2015, were mainly leather and processed skin, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, tobacco and cocoa derivatives.

    According to the FAO, Nigeria is estimated to have lost US$ 10 billion in annual exports of agriculture and agro-processed commodities including

    groundnut, palm oil, cocoa and cotton as a result of the decline in production of these commodities.

    In addition, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) attributed the decline in food exports to non-compliance with regulatory and documentation requirements for food imports to the European Union and the United Kingdom.

    Also, the World Bank estimates that Nigeria and other developing countries could have lost as much as US$ 6.9 billion in 2015, as a result of food export rejection.

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

    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.

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

    Understandably, President Muhammadu Buhari sought to revivify the country’s agricultural economy at his assumption of office in 2015, and then, in 2019. Despite his rural preachment, the country’s fixation with oil rendered her a whited sepulchre, sullied by wastefulness and vice, the soot that will not out.

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

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

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

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

    The Nigerian city does too little for the countryside. Knowing this, President-elect Tinubu announced his decision to resurrect the country by endowing its agricultural economy with remarkable fillips. To achieve this, he must ensure that both his team and tools, unlike Thel’s worms, aren’t pathogens miming his curative mantra.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Tinubu and the mainstream media

    Tinubu and the mainstream media

    Tinubu, for the battle for the presidency, fought principalities and powers – “sum-total of evil powers that threaten man both heavenly and earthly” (Paul: Ephesians, 3:10). There were the errant political fathers, his APC ruling party, treacherous fellow party members, the unquestioning Obidients, the social media terrorists, children of anger, Christians without spirit of Christ and of course the opposition PDP and Labour . But perhaps none of these Tinubu’s traducers loathe him as much as the mainstream media led by The Punch and the Tribune that daily pour scorn on him.
    But even after miraculously surviving the heavily mined Nigerian political landscape, there are none more desperate to bring Tinubu down than Obaigbena’s ThisDay/Arise TV and John Momoh’s Channels Television. Just as it was at the beginning when their obsession was in delegitimizing the candidacy of Bola Ahmed Tinubu instead of selling their anointed candidates, they are today irrevocably committed to delegitimizing his victory as president-elect. In this vicious battle, neither rules of behaviour or professional ethics are respected, forcing the NBC to recently slam them with fines of N2m and N5m respectively.
    The mainstream media started their malicious attack by first raising questions about his lineage, schools he attended, health status and alleged criminal records long debunked by the USA state department. Their savage attack was soon joined by social media anarchists and fascists. Then arrogating to themselves the power to make choices for the electorate, the mainstream media picked issues with his choice of Muslim-Muslim ticket. Journalists who probably believe in nothing, out of mischief started to mobilise pastors across the country.
    Then his refusal to appear on Arise TV platform to be bullied by ‘high flying’ journalists who claim to have a degree in “animal psychology” became an issue leading to December 12, 2022’s duplicitous “You can’t silence free press”, and Dele Alake/Bayo Onanuga’s Dec 13, 2022 reference to what they describe as “Nduka Obaigbena and his THISDAY/ARISE NEWS’ hypocritical grandstanding on public morality”.
    But the editors, more than anyone else know there is no free media anywhere in the world. They are owned by owners of society who use them as instrument for waging the battle of consciousness. The media therefore is never a .free place for market of ideas because he who pays the piper dictates the tune. What confers credibility on any publication or TV station is the character of those who know how to “walk the tight rope” (Alhaji Babatunde Jose) by understanding they don’t have to fight the battle of their enslavers like slaves. Professionalism often reminds them of their equal responsibilities to society.
    Here at home, Daily Times was never ideologically neutral. Yet it became the most powerful and credible paper in Nigeria at a time. So was The Guardian which became the flagship of Nigerian press, preaching liberalism without offending the sensibilities of its conservative owners. The issue today is that some of our ill-trained practitioners without character have according to Uncle Sam Amuka, “changed all the rules of journalism”.
    The coverage of the 2023 election by the mainstream media raised questions about their commitment to our country. Let us start with Arise TV and Channels. The former started the day with two distinguished analysts- Liborous Oshoma and Professor Adele Jinadu, a celebrated scholar, formerly of University of Lagos. Both agreed “the election was seamless even in areas where there were no security operatives. No one has been harassed, kudos to INEC, BVAS worked. It is a game changer. No one was saying they cannot find their name.” Jinadu concluded by saying “It shows a lot of work has been put into the electoral process by INEC and security agencies”.
    The reports of Arise TV field reporters supported their position. Atiku was quoted after voting as saying “It is a worthwhile exercise”, Okowa as “Thanking God for peaceful and fair election” with Datti declaring “it is the most peaceful election” while Peter Obi in Anambra said “The line was moving seamlessly” ‘INEC has done well”. It was the same smooth process in Kaduna, Bauchi, Ilorin, Plateau and Adamawa where governors were interviewed. YIAGA Africa authenticated this and scored INEC high.
    But Arise TV, as it did during EndSARS protest, seems determined to cause ethnic tension in Lagos. At Eti Osa and Ikate Elegushi where their reporter spoke of massive de-franchising of voters, it turned out that Labour did not only win the area, an unknown scooter rider defeated popular Banky W of PDP and Obanikoro of APC. In the gubernatorial election, Arise TV blew few skirmishes in Lekki, Ikate, Surulere, Ikate Elegushi where it claimed “people were not allowed to vote, queues were disrupted by hoodlums or that results are not uploaded simultaneously as promised by INEC” out of proportion.
    The Lagos State Police Commissioner, Idowu Ohohunwa interviewed by Arise and Channels denied social media claim of widespread political skirmishes and massive voter suppression in Lagos adding that the over-exaggerated infractions constituted only one per cent of the 13,325 polling booths in Lagos. Yet it is this infraction ARISE and Channels have been relying upon to discredit the 2023 election.
    With all the results from all polling units already in Abuja and with all stakeholders showing Tinubu was heading for an outright victory contrary to their hope of a hung election requiring a re-run, the mainstream media as represented by Arise and Channels could not stand the victory of Bola Tinubu. They are in spite of their field reports prepared to do anything to delegitimize an election most Nigerians think may turn out to be the most credible after the 1993 MKO Abiola’s annulled election.
    The other plank for their crusade to delegitimize the credibility of the election was INEC’s failure to upload results of the election simultaneously. INEC and experts have confirmed the source of what is uploaded is the hard copy of the result duly signed by all party agents and the police at every polling booth, which meant that rigging can only be inferred if the results with stakeholders from polling booth are found to be different from those eventually posted by INEC.
    The mainstream media, seeing only what they want to see, have continued to undermine the result of the election. Reading some of their columnists in The Punch, Tribune and Thisday makes one wonder if the writers are Nigerians. Since others call you what you call yourself, the international media, taking a cue from some of our unpatriotic journalists have started to address Tinubu the president-elect the way we addressed him in order to delegitimize his victory. Who does not know that given a choice, the West will prefer an importer of labour of other societies?
    Of course ARISE and Channels have continued to offer their platform to PDP and Labour sore losers who were never part of the democratic struggle to delegitimize the result of the elections whose results they accepted where they won but rejected where they lost. At Channels, Datti the Labour VP candidate said the election was rigged. But when asked if the over six million votes his party won (exploiting ethnic and religious sentiments) was also rigged, he said no!
    Nigerians who care about their country are scandalized by ARISE TV’s duplicitous argument that those asking for interim government and those at the Defence Head-quarters begging the military to take over after losing an election are protected by democratic ethos. The only way to describe what the mainstream media are currently doing to our country because of their hatred for one man is fascism.

  • Cash scarcity and old age

    Cash scarcity and old age

    In some western countries like Canada, USA and Britain and the European Union, old people go on the trams, underground trains, urban buses and other mass movement machines free of charge. It is believed after working in their youth for the state, they deserve freedom on urban transportation grid and because of their puny material resources, the only thing the state can do for them is to grant them freedom of movement while still alive.

    Unfortunately they do not extend these rights to old people from other countries. This is understandable because the foreign visitors did not contribute to the material basis covering the free rides on public transportation packages. It is generally believed that nothing is free under the sun.

    We cannot be comparing what happens in social welfare  countries to our country which operates on crude capitalistic scheme where  one works until he can no longer work and he is expected to go home and die or be taken care of by one’s children if they happen to work. This is at the root of primitive economy practised in our land before and after the western capitalist scheme landed on us in our country. This is the basis of the corrupt system we run in our country.  While one is still at work, the tendency is to prepare feverishly for the future. All systems go, including corruptly manipulating the system for personal aggrandisement! Those who are honest unfortunately face a bleak future. To stop old people being  thrown at the  mercy of their children, we have to put in place, a social welfare scheme that will obviate the personal tragedy of old people when they retire not just from universities and the  bureaucracies but also the farms and the trades from which they have maintained and sustained the country all these years.

    When as a result of hunger leading to delirium these people begin to say things about the number of people they have killed and in some of our villages, they are sometimes beaten or stoned to death as wizards and witches! There is a long way to go to solve the problem of not just the youth but the elderly people in this country. The holy books recognise that we will always have the poor among us.  This is why we must put in place pro-poor policies in our development plans. No country has been able to eliminate poverty in their countries. The Soviet Union failed in this regard and China is failing despite the long strides in its economic development.

    It is these observations that lead me to comment on the practice in GTB, a banking group that gives preference to elderly people in their banking service. If you queue up in front of their banks, their officers would come round and create a fast lane for elders. A female friend of mine told me how she usually went to the bank with her grey hair combed out so that she would not be mistaken for a young person and that this technique usually worked to her satisfaction! When she told me about this, I told her that she was not the only one benefitting from this exposure of her grey hair. I told her about my experience. Usually I wear traditional outfits on Friday and now whenever I go to the bank, I leave my hair solidly flying in the air with all its grey majesty.

    I have always noted that our professor emeritus and the Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka leaves his hair in all its majestic luxuriance so that he can attract the attention due to him as a wise old man. I feel sorry for old people who paint their hair black apparently to shield themselves from being regarded as old people. My children actually advised me to let down my old grey hair to attract sympathy from officialdom particularly the police and other such uniformed personnel of government who when they are in uniform they lose all human feelings. The only problem is that if I want to dress correctly, I have to dress with a full cap on my head which may hide my grey old hair. It is left for my readers to dress properly and be humiliated while struggling with our grandchildren on queues in front of banks. Sometimes when one is being given priority attention I sometimes hear snide remarks like “these are the old people who got us to where we are today” or statements like “these old people are even stronger than us the younger people”. One must close one’s ears to all these remarks which if we look at it critically, the young people are correct. Because of these snide remarks, I hesitate going to the banks in order to escape from these wicked remarks which are actually true. Come to think about it: the military that dominated the politics of Nigeria from 1966 to 1999 and I belong to the same generation. Even though I was not personally responsible for ruining the country, I was vicariously responsible because of the generational responsibility. The military held a gun to our heads and only an intrepid daredevil person like Ganiyu Fawehinmi dared challenge them.

    Some of us survived the crude cashless economy imposed on us and we made do with handouts like mendicants of medieval Europe. Some copied those in Western Europe and America where poor people go to what is called soup kitchen to eat. The Pentecostal churches were very adept at doing this every Sunday by collectively providing food for poor people who couldn’t access their money in the banks. In my own case, I found solace in our Pentecostal churches which allowed older people to issue cheques in lieu of cash collected as offerings. Nigerians are survivalists and we all tried to survive one way or the other. Of course some people died unfortunately but many others survived. Towards the end of our national agony, I began to get used to the fact that we really don’t need to carry wards of Naira around. Some have even said the cashless economy has led to reduction of crime particularly kidnapping and demanding for millions in ransoms. I don’t have any verifiable data to say whether this is true or not. But I remember telling some beggars that I don’t have money to give them and to my pleasant surprise they understood the situation and some even cursed Emefiele for denying them their living allowances coming from softies like me. 

    Now that we seem to have gone back to spending the old stinking Naira, I am told that every time you touch the old Naira, one has to sanitise his or her hands. We just must thank God that the trauma of suddenly becoming poor because of government policy is gone and I hope we will never go through this ordeal again. It was difficult explaining what was happening to us to our folks abroad who just could not imagine what befell us in Nigeria. Even if one is not rich we should not have been reduced to beggary. Some of our children not knowing what to do asked if they could send money to us at home and the answer was No because there was nothing to do with such largess and the dollar was not a legal tender in Nigeria!

  • When wolves bleat like sheep

    When wolves bleat like sheep

    A wolf disguised as a sheep would not be discovered simply because it bleats badly but because of the “shit’ it leaves behind. No matter how rhapsodic any politician waxes about wresting his allegedly “stolen mandate” from the proclaimed winner of the 2023 elections, Nigerians must examine his claims with a quizzical mind.

    The election has been lost and won. It’s about time we moved on. But whoever feels he was “robbed” must seek redress through the law court. The provisions of the law are quite clear on the issue.

    Hence it becomes worrisome to see failed candidates in the just concluded elections incite their supporters to anarchy. Such characters must not be spared by security agencies. It’s about time their excesses are curtailed.

    There is a tragedy inherent in politicians’ customary lamentation every time they lose an election; many of them resort to conduct unbecoming of the nation builders cum messiahs they professed to be en route to the elections.

    Such characters are extremely dangerous. For instance, since the conclusion of the presidential elections, certain aggrieved candidates have been braying for war.

    Mayhem is the anthem that we should shun. It is the fruit of dissent that we need to be wary of and I will continue to say this hoping the prospective tools – the youths – by which the masterminds hope to actualise their selfish plots, would listen, and let the anarchists commit themselves and their families to the chaos they incite.

    The biggest misconception about insurgence or whatever the anarchists choose to call it is that it could be progressive and that its end result would be the actualisation of their allegedly stolen mandate.

    It’s all dirty, greedy politics; the anarchists want the youths to fly the flags of their rebellion against the rule of law. They want everyone to brandish a bumper sticker that bellows: “Death to the Federal Republic of Nigeria!” simply because they lost an election albeit deservedly.

    They call anyone holding contrary counsel or view, a traitor or whatever colourful adjective suits their rage. Then they promise the youths a prosperous future and a better fate under their leadership.

    Sadly, youths that ought to know better buy into their farce and they all begin to dream and talk of the great uprising that would set them free from the living hell Nigeria has become. Truly, it is a sad thing that these anarchists enjoy the “obedience” and support of youths, whose eyes cannot see and whose mind cannot discern their selfish plots.

    Thus the affected youth wastes his passion recycling hackneyed rage and fomenting trouble for the sake of shady politicians; for the latter’s sake, he perpetrates ethnic and religious intolerance with devastating results.

    He engages in bootless pursuits at the end of which he accomplishes too little or nothing. For himself, he probably accomplishes some individualized goal – the satisfaction of a sentiment or material gain perhaps – which to him is everything. But for Nigeria, he accomplishes nothing.

    Eventually, he grows into the prototypical average, disgruntled man on the street, who suddenly realizes in his twilight that he has squandered God’s greatest gifts to him: his intellect and time.

    Then the smokescreen of youth and hastily prized platitudes begin to peter out and he realizes that his rhetorical talisman is a paltry plated coin, not fit to pass around even as a contemptible kobo.

    The attempt to conceive imaginatively, a better ordering of Nigerian society away from the pitiless chaos in which the nation has sunk is by no means modern, it is at least as old as Plato, whose “Republic” set the model for the Utopias of subsequent philosophers and self-styled revolutionaries.

    The anarchists contemplate a new Nigeria in the light of no ideal: they claim to feel a great sorrow by the evils that characterise the country, and they claim to be driven by an urgent desire to lead the country to the realisation of the collective good.

    It is this desire that has been the primary force moving the pioneers of anarchism and horrid tyrannies as it moved the creators of “ideal” commonwealths in the past.

    In contemporary Nigeria, such an ideal incense suspicious politicians claiming to fight for an allegedly stolen mandate and their right to rule the country. In this, there is nothing new; what is new and unpardonably offensive is the pretension of such characters to heartfelt patriotism, shared grief and identity, and hankering to alleviate the sufferings of the masses.

    This has enabled their cynical, anarchist political movement to grow out of the frustrations of the people.

    Such characters exploit the hopes of the youth, in particular; a political demography comprising predominantly impressible youths whose thought processes are anything but politically conscious. And this makes the agitation of the anarchists worrisome and markedly dangerous to the survival of the country.

    It is no doubt the stock in trade of such rabble-rousers to refer to violent uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Zanzibar, Tanganyika, India-Pakistan, Mali and parts of Asia among others, as worthy indicators of Nigeria’s need to follow suit.

    Whenever they dazzle with such commentary, tell them to lead the charge of the mayhem they advocate with their wives, children, parents and concubines. It is interesting to note that such individuals and their cohorts in civil society have their beloved wives and children tucked safely abroad even as they goad clueless youth at home to their doom.

    The process of re-sensitizing the youth away from the establishment of chaos and possible genocide advocated by the anarchists must be quickly accelerated by the incoming government from the get-go.

    President-elect Bola Tinubu has got his work cut out for him; while his triumph at the polls may be attributed to his impressive track record and his choice of realism over rhetoric throughout his campaign, he has to contend with opponents in the People’s Democratic Party and Labour Party who deployed cheap rhetoric and lies to earn votes.

    The latter fueled the angst of a large swathe of ethnic and religious bigots, using mainstream and new media. Even after suffering defeat, they and their supporters have adopted to the garb of sore losers indiscriminately calling for the cancellation of the election while wishing doom upon the country.

    President-elect Tinubu must disabuse the minds of the mob who are unfortunately taken by the platitudes and poetics of such dubious characters.

    Pre-election, a recurring theme in his manifesto was his intention to build a new, prosperous country anchored on an enduring economic rejuvenation drive. Titled ‘My Vision for Nigeria,’ Tinubu promises in the document, “A vibrant and thriving democracy and a prosperous nation with a fast-growing industrial base, capable of producing the most basic needs of the people and exporting to other countries of the world.”

    He promised the citizenry access to all their “basic needs, including a safe and secure environment, abundant food, affordable shelter, health care, and quality primary education. A nation founded on justice, peace, and prosperity for all.”

    The only way to assuage frayed nerves is for him to fulfill these promises. From his inauguration, on May 29, over 200 million Nigerians would expect a magical turnaround of the country’s fortunes as well as their individual and collective fates.

    There is certainly much to be done. As his supporters outgrow the pageantry of his hard-fought victory, his virulent rivals would heal from the venom of defeat perhaps.

  • Yes, Daddy amid the plotters’ antics

    Yes, Daddy amid the plotters’ antics

    Yes, Daddy is the new fancy word in town. The word caught fire when the audio recording of the conversation between Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi and Living Faith Church (aka Winners) founder Bishop David Oyedepo leaked. It is an everyday word, which we hear often in discussions between fathers and their children.

    It is also commonly used by born-again Christians in reverence to their pastors who they fondly call daddy. So, it is not strange to hear these people lovingly refer to these men of God as “Daddy GO” or daddy this or daddy that.

    Following the bedlam over the Yes, Daddy audio, my mind raced to a 2021 book with the same title: Yes, Daddy, written by American journalist Jonathan Parks-Ramage. The book is about a young gay writer lured into a hot, sizzling affair by an older, successful playwright. Before he knew what he was into, he found himself in trouble. Here, a politician and a pastor are in a union of sorts. A marriage of convenience to help the politician to win election. But, it did not turn out that way.

    Many pastors played a hideous role in the just-concluded elections, as the audio revealed. Please, do not get me wrong. I am not saying that pastors cannot support candidates of their choice. They can, but they cannot be too open and partisan about it because, as they know, they lead a mixed multitude. Not every member of their church shares the same political view or leaning. These pastors did not take this fact into consideration, with the exception of Pastor Paul Adefarasin.

    Adefarasin told his flock that he leads a congregation with different political belief and so must be seen to be a true father (read as daddy) to all. This is how pastors should behave and lead their churches. Rather, many became cheerleaders for politicians, directing their congregations on who to vote and how to vote during the last elections. They overreached themselves in so doing. The Yes, Daddy audio revealed how far gone churches are in politics. Certainly, this cannot be healthy for the spiritual wellbeing of their congregations.

    What does it say of a pastor that will leave his calling and dabble into politics by promising to reach out to Christians in Kogi, Kwara, Niger and other northcentral states on behalf of a presidential candidate? It does not speak well of such a pastor, no matter how great or godly he and his spiritual children think he is. A man of God is one who does not discriminate between people no matter their faith, tribe or political leaning. A man of God is his brothers’ keep. He also loves his neighbour as himself.

    The good Samaritan was not a pastor nor  a Jew but he performed a noble and godly act by stopping on a lonely and dangerous road to help a man in distress. The same man that a priest and a Jew, who perceived themselves as godly, saw and took the other side of the road in order not to help him. No matter what is said here, these pastors will never believe that they do not practice what they preach. Since they are the only ones who hear from God, we leave them to their ways. But they should remember: God knows His people and his people know Him.

    It is their misreading of the political temperature that has led the nation to where it is after the elections. All these talks about a plot for an interim government may have their roots in the special relationship some politicians enjoy with certain pastors. There was too much desperation over the last elections. This was why Obi went to the extent of becoming a latter-day pentecostal convert in order to pluck the huge votes of youths in those churches. He misfired; his gamble did not pay off. Obi may appear meek and soft-spoken, but under this mien is a hardcore politician who can do anything for power.

    I still find it hard to comprehend how he ever thought he could win the February 25 presidential election. I never gave him a chance at the poll. I must admit that I underrated him and what the youthful Obi-dient Movement, supported by many senior citizens in the Southwest, in particular, could do. His incredible performance should have been something for him to build on in future, but he has lost that opportunity with his sore loser attitude. His loss cast him in the glow of the typical Nigerian politician who never loses election, but is rigged out!

    Rather than be grateful to God for that his unbelievable performance, he is carrying his sacrifice beyond the mosque by listening to those deceiving him that he won the election hands down! They claimed that if the results had been uploaded as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) promised, it would have clearly shown that Obi won. Really? Did the results eventually declare not tally with the ones obtained by LP agents at the various polling units nationwide?

    The case is now before the tribunal which will settle it once-and-for-all. But wait-and-see, if the matter does not favour them, they will accuse the tribunal of travesty of justice. I will be surprised if they do not do that. Already, they have started attacking the integrity of  Chief Justice of the Federation Kayode Ariwoola in preparation for their rejection of any unfavourable verdict.

    With all these shenanigans, how can any one say there is no truth in the confirmation by the Department of State Service (DSS) of a plot for an interim government by some people. It is not unlikely that the plot had been on ever before the February 25 poll. Three weeks to the election, President-elect Bola Tinubu had spoken of plans by some fifth columnists in the corridors of power to foist an interim government on the nation.

    With Tinubu’s victory and the unsportsmanly attitude of the losers, the plotters are likey to have grown in number for this illegal cause. Why should there be an interim government after Tinubu has been validly elected president? Is interim government the next appropriate thing or the inauguration of the President-elect? The plotters are just wasting their time because nobody, as the great Bashorun M.K.O Abiola used to say, can abort a pregnancy after child birth.

    As for the yes, daddies of this world, it is time to stop sulking over the election and allow peace to reign. This is the time to know the true men of God as they will come out and advise their aggrieved politician sons to take things easy and allow the tribunal to do its work. If and when they do this, people like me will say to them: “Thank you, Daddy”. Until then, I pray God touches their hearts to be true doers of His word.

  • Ezeife’s drum of war and lessons of history

    Ezeife’s drum of war and lessons of history

    Groups are the building blocks of African societies. Europe, regarded today as an atomized society, once fought series of tribal wars until 1648 Westphalia treaty which with state formation, allowed tribes, small or big to protect their values and culture from invaders.

    Everyone should therefore be proud of his tribe. After all, for the love of his Igbo tribe, Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife, an alumni of Harvard, Nigeria’s former permanent sectary, a former governor of Anambra State and an elder-statesman, recently staked everything when he declared without restraint that  ‘If Bola Tinubu, the president-elect is sworn in on May 29, that will be the end of Nigeria”.  In pursuit of his crusade,   he was last week also quoted as warning Yoruba in Lagos not to provoke Igbo to retaliation. To underscore his seriousness, he told us of how his Igbo tribe valiantly fought Nigeria for three years despite the backing of Nigeria by Britain and Russia. And finally, Ezeife, either because he is suffering from selective perception or blinded by his love for his tribe, claimed the Igbo, “are the only people who always vote Nigeria.”

    The truth however is that ‘you cannot be a good Nigerian except you are first a good representative of your tribe’ as Obafemi Awolowo once reminded us. And that was the central focus of Edmund Burke’s (1728-1797) philosophy. Men according to him are born constrained by the traditions of their forbears; therefore the best life begins in the “little platoons—family, church, and local community which orientate men toward virtues such as temperance and fortitude self-restraint and self-criticism”.  You can therefore not give what you don’t have.

    Unfortunately, some of our leaders who play the ostrich to exploit those who look up to them for direction insist this could be done in reverse order. For instance, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was first enchanted with ‘renascent Africa”. But while trying to resolve his Nigerian Youth Movement local crisis in 1938, Senator Odutola had observed “During the days of our ‘old Africa’, the Ibos and Yoruba lived together as Nigerians, it seems to me therefore that the remedy for this present trouble is for Zik to return “his New Africa” either by post or by taking it there personally. “But mark it, unless this brand of ‘new Africa’ is done away with, there will be no harmony in the country” (The Autobiography of Awolowo P.145)

    But Yoruba political elite’s resistance to the takeover of Yoruba land by ‘Zik of Africa’ and his group in 1952, finally forced him, after playing the victim by labelling Yoruba ‘tribalists’ to hearken  to Edmund Burke’s advice that ‘charity begins at home’. He retraced his way back to the east where he displaced Eyo Ita, the minority leader of government.   ‘Zik of Africa’, as premier was reduced to ‘Zik of Onitsha’ by mainstream Igbo who detested the Onitshas. 

    What is apparent from our recent history is that unity of Nigeria is only evoked when Igbo leaders are in control while the country is pulled down or reduced to Lugard’s zoo when they lose grip.

    The trading of Awolowo and his AG In 1959 for Fulani controlled NPC was anchored on the need for Nigerian unity. But for their pains, Igbo political leaders controlled most of the ministerial and appointive positions in Balewa’s government. The 1979 NPN and NPN alliance also earned the Igbo political elite some juicy positions including the senate presidency and speakership. Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Igbo war hero even returned from 10 years exile to join Shagari government

    But out of government, following the disputed 1964 elections, pulling down the Balewa’s government became a mission. This was accomplished in January 1966 with the young Igbo military mutineers carrying out selective killings of military and political leaders from other regions while protecting theirs’ from the arms way. Ironsi went on to replace the federal constitution with a unitary system, a long term Igbo agenda.

    But in 1993, with MKO Abiola, despite winning only one Igbo state, cruising home to a landslide victory over Igbo, Bashir Tofa, the Igbo preferred candidate, Igbo nationalism took flight as leading light of Igbo politics joined Babangida in derailing his eight years transition programme.

    Their crusade was led by Obasanjo who declared that ‘MKO Abiola was not the messiah Nigerians were waiting for’. On June 13, 1993, Nduka Obaigbeina , the publisher of defunct Thisweek joined the crusade by appearing on CNN calling for the annulment of the election because MKO Abiola allegedly sported a dress with an SDP logo to the voting centre. Before then, there had been various dramas by Arthur Nzeribe and his government sponsored shadowy illegal Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) and Justice Bassey Ikpeme and Clement Apamgbo.

    On June 16, Okey Usoho, the NRC national publicity secretary alleged falsification of results. On June 17, Walter Ofonagoro, Tofa’s campaign director of organisation in a 14 point statement alleged the election was not free. On June 18, the Champion newspaper owned by Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu asked those who had misgivings about the election to go to court while on June 23, Nduka Irabor read an unsigned and undated statement to annul the election.

    While MKO Abiola was detained for winning an election, Walter Ofonagoro and  Uche  Chukwumerije, a veteran of Biafra propaganda during the civil war, derided Abiola as  “a fleeing Are Ona Kankanfo’ and a leader who allowed his pan-Nigerian mandate to be ethicized by his Yoruba people’. Of course, there was Ojukwu himself who served as Abacha’s envoy to Europe to de-market Abiola on account of his many wives.

    Fast-forward to 2023. With the application of technology, many informed Nigerians believe the 2023 election may turn out to be the best and most credible election after the 1993 debacle. This was an election where the sitting president lost his Katsina State, the ruling APC lost 12 of the 24 states it controlled and where Peter Obi, a PDP deserter with no structure, exploited Igbo ethnic and religious sentiments to garner un-deserved over six million votes.

    As it was in 1993, on Monday, February 27, 2023, with all the results from polling booth across the country already with all contestants, showing Tinubu who had for 20 years built consensus with northern politicians was cruising to outright victory, Dino Melaye and his Labour Party counterpart stormed out of the collation centre. Their anguish: INEC’s failure to transmit results electronically from the BVAS to the iREV portal immediately after collation at Polling Units.

    This was swiftly followed by demand of Ifeanyi Okowa, and Yusuf Datti, PDP and labour VP candidate respectively, that the election be cancelled and a fresh one conducted nationwide.

     Obasanjo, Obi’s chief promoter, also swung into action. Anchored on the unsubstantiated claims, rumours and allegations of fraud by sore losers, Obasanjo also called for the cancellation of the election result.

    As it was in 1993, despite only one percent infraction in Lagos, according to Lagos State deputy governor, Obimedia and their patrons, the real ‘tribalists’ are beating drum of war, creating fear through  sponsored television  surrogates, and pushing false narratives to discredit not only the elections and the integrity of INEC  but also our judiciary.

    For the Obimedia, their tribal patrons and Obasanjo with his “fake nationalism, precarious patriotism and vaunting ambition to be at the centre of our universe”, (Bisi Akande), all we can do now is to remind them of Uthman dan Fodio’s popular saying:  “conscience is an open wound, only the truth can heal it”.