The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • The id es of March

    The id es of March

    For some people and organisations, nothing will satisfy them more than the cancellation of the February 25 presidential election won by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Their reason for such hope is absurd.

    They are working on a well-conceived Plan B to scuttle the poll even before its conclusion, if it does not go their way. Shortly before the election, they started flying the kite about the interpretation of Section 134 (2) (b) of the 1999 Constitution, which borders on the requirements for winning the poll.

    The provision reads:

    A candidate for an election to the office of President shall be deemed to have been duly elected where, there being more than two candidates for the election – he has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Now, FCT is not a state, but is deemed to be so under Section 299 of the Constitution. Deeming a thing to be something is not the same as that thing being the actual thing. According to the section:

    The provisions of this Constitution shall apply to the FCT, Abuja as if it were one of the states of the Federation. “As if it were a state”! So, how can something referred to “as if it were” then be taking as it is? Those arguing that FCT is a state are doing so for selfish reasons. They are pushing an illegal and illogical cause.  FCT is not and cannot be a state. If FCT is a state, where is its governor? If it is a state, where are its commissioners that should constitute the executive council (EXCO) as we have them in the constitutionally recognised 36 states?

    I stand to be corrected as a layman as I posit that a territory without a governor or an executive council cannot be a state. The framers of the Constitution did not include Section 134 (2) (b) in it to create confusion, as some lawyers and politicians, who should know better are now doing. The section was included, in the framers’ wisdom, to ensure that an elected president has a national outlook. Though, he may not win outright in all the states, he should garner at least 25 percent of the votes to reflect a national spread. No nation wants a sectional leader, they all desire a national leader.

    Our desire for a national leader must not now be misconstrued by mischief makers to impute into the Constitution what is not there. Politics, so much so election, may be war by other means, as Carl von Clausewitz theorised, but it should not be allowed to degenerate to what is now happening over the February 25 poll.

    From the roadshow by those opposed to President-elect Tinubu’s victory, it is obvious that there is a grand design to stop him from becoming president, at all costs. It is not about not winning 25 percent of the votes cast in FCT, it goes beyond that. They are merely hiding under that provision to deceive the gullible that they have a case. They will know the truth at the Supreme Court where they will meet their Waterloo, just as it happened in the naira redesign policy case.

    This ides of March drama, which is happening before the 15th, which is known as ides in ancient Roman calendar, is all about themselves and their unbridled desire to acquire power. The electoral umpire had hardly begun collating the results when Atiku Abubakar’s lackey Dino Melaye, who unfortunately for Nigeria was in its Senate and House of Representatives at a time, started throwing up tantrums.

    Without any evidence, he claimed that the returns were not authentic because they were not uploaded on INEC’s result portal known as IReV. No law says that the results should be so transmitted. Were their agents not at the polling units where the results were counted? Didn’t those agents sign the results? Is entertainer Dino alleging that they signed under duress?

    What about former President Olusegun Obasanjo? Where is he coming from that he should call for the scuttling of an ongoing electoral process? Presidents as statesmen have a code of conduct that they should never breach.

    Unfortunately, Obasanjo makes and lives by his own rules. Time and again, he descends into the arena when he should be above the fray. Having endorsed Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), should he have been seen complaining about the election when his candidate was losing? They are doing everything to rubbish the election.

    From seeking to inspect the election materials, particularly the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), to using some sections of the media to misinterpret statements made by some developed countries, where we have seen Presidents desecrating the hallowed chambers of their legislatures, multilateral and bilateral organisations, the Atiku and Obi groups are ready to play dirty to have their way.

    The nation awaits what the court will say. But for now, the people have spoken and their voice can be heard loud and clear: Tinubu is the president-elect and so shall it remain. No amount of protests by overfed men wearing black to mourn their loss or the distortion of facts and figures by their media agents can change things. By the way, is it The Nation, This Day or Arise News that should watch it? This paper’s record speaks for it as a medium.

    But, the same cannot be said of This Day and Arise News. Millions watched worldwide the day eminent lawyer Robert Clarke (SAN) accused Arise News on air of siding with some politicians to mislead Nigerians over the naira policy. The outcome of the case at the Supreme Court has vindicated Clarke and this paper. What has Arise News now got to say on its position that CBN should have been joined as a party and the suit instituted at the Federal High Court?

    They lost in that crusade and they will surely lose in their campaign of calumny against Tinubu and this paper on air. I understand. They are still delirious over the presidential poll results in Lagos. They will be shocked back to their senses by the outcome of Saturday’s governorship election in the state, which is just 48 hours away. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu will, God willing, win hands down.

  • Nigerian presidency: An impossible task!

    Nigerian presidency: An impossible task!

    Sometimes in March, I wrote an article on the presidency that Asiwaju of Lagos, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was inheriting and I called it an “impossible task”. At that time the enormity of the current problem facing our country was then not clear and it is still not clear as I write and would not be clear for months to come. But we can imagine what is likely to come from cursory look at unfolding situation especially on the economic front centring on the operations of the central bank in the last eight years. It seems the CBN was run with little regards for the Act setting it up. The bank operated two official rates  of exchange while another rate operated in the so-called “black market” or parallel market thus the country had three rates of exchange with a gap of about N300 permitting round tripping by those favoured with the official rate. This led to widespread corruption involving the officials of government and their friends who became billionaires overnight without sweat. Those who had captured the state then kept the CBN governor in place no matter his indulgence in illegalities such as his involvement in presidential party nominations and having companies abroad and other illegal activities such as unilaterally giving foreign exchange allocations to whosoever he favoured. One thing that is not clear is how much those who were charged with supervising his actions including legislative oversight committees knew about all these shenanigans and whether he was the victim of state capture or a willing tool in its execution.

    The BBC news African anchor recently wondered loudly  why anybody would want to be president of Nigeria. I have also wondered why and I am sure many people are of the same view. I once wrote in this column rather sacrilegiously that if our Lord Jesus Christ came from heaven above and was asked to rule Nigeria using the same present structure and constitution, he would not succeed. There are many things wrong with Nigeria apart from the rapacious corruption of its people. One of the greatest problems is the political and constitutional structure. Every other thing is like pouring petrol into a car that has no engine and expecting it to run. Only Nigerians with their penchant for believing in miracles where common sense is required will expect better things in a structurally faulty machine.

    Before the  election was held, I told everyone who wanted my view that the election would be fiercely contested but at the end Tinubu with his widespread support in the  Northwest, Northeast, North-Central and Southwest, leaving only the South-south and Southeast to his competitors would win  and also because of a divided opposition. This has happened as predicted not only by me but all those who have an intimate knowledge of the politics of Nigeria. It is simply amazing that the losing factions of the same party the old PDP, each faction led by known politicians of the old regime, are in the election tribunals each arguing that their faction won. In the meantime the task of governance happily continues.

    Let me advise President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to first study the situation properly before promising things he may not be able to deliver. I understand his promising the youth, students loans and support for autonomy in their institutions so as to eliminate strikes and industrial actions in tertiary institutions. This country had a regime of students loans under the Yakubu Gowon regime but its administration and operations failed because the loans were not paid back.  What is needed is resuscitation of scholarships given by LGAs, states and the federal government. Promising autonomy for tertiary institutions is the right thing to say but this should be part of a holistic policy on education at pre-primary, primary, secondary and tertiary levels. There is a need to set  up a working committee on education to work out a realistic programme on education for now and the future. Let it be known that there is a fundamental change in many aspects of our national life rather than temporary or episodic pronouncements on what ails our country.

    Since everything the new government has to do must depend on the economy, the first action of the government must be focused on the economy. There is overhang of about N50 trillion debt on the country and expectation of another N11 trillion to balance this year’s budget. Thank God Tinubu is not a novice on economics.

    I am delighted that his pre-election promise was that he would eliminate the subsidy on petrol. He has happily announced the end of subsidies on petroleum which in the last decade or so enriched without measure, a few entrepreneurs and their federal civil servants accomplices. He must not prevaricate on this. But he must assemble a formidable team to educate Nigerians that we cannot continue with the  subsidy  regime that has ruined our economy  irredeemably. There will be serious opposition but he must ride this out by explaining to the people the implication of borrowing money to subsidise consumption. This is a bad policy that will lead to our national ruin. Abolition of subsidy has led to astronomical prices of petrol, though still below what is prevailing in our neighbouring countries  of Benin, Niger, Tchad, Cameroons and other ECOWAS countries to which Nigerian expensively imported petrol has been smuggled to. But there will be gains in other areas. The money being used to subsidise petrol consumption will be free for increase in electricity generation and distribution physical infrastructural development, educational and health enhancement as well as funding a formidable military.

    The government must also follow up on its plan to add value to our primary produce through industrialisation.  Cocoa, cotton, palm products, rubber, cassava, yams, soya beans, peanuts, tea, coffee, shea butter, gum Arabic and different kinds of spices should be produced on industrial scale for local consumption and export. We should also wisely examine how we can benefit from our hardwood timber while at the same time embarking on reforestation to enhance our environment.

    Oil and gas are the big elephants in our room so to say. We do not have time on our side because current researches will perhaps within a decade render unprofitable oil and gas exploration and exploitation. This is because of the global concern on climate change for which emissions of greenhouse gases arising out of the industrial and transportation use of hydrocarbons are largely responsible.  Therefore we need to maximise the benefits from our possession of hydrocarbons while the sun shines. This will require production of crude oil at optimal levels and if possible flouting the limit of OPEC allocation which we have not been able to make for years. This will require education of the people in the oil producing communities and enlisting their support through government development activities in the area as well as ensuring that the international oil majors in Nigeria demonstrate corporate social responsibility for the communities where they operate.

    Unlike in the past when chiefs and local potentates in the Niger Delta benefited from largesse coming from contracts from oil companies, the people particularly local entrepreneurs must be given jobs that they can do without the intermediation of the chiefs. Through this the security forces will be able to ferret information from local people who will have a stake in the oil economy. A stop by all means possible must be made to end illegal oil bunkering and damaging of oil pipelines either through enhanced policing or cultivating and employing the services of the militants in the Niger Delta. The end in this venture would justify the means. We need to quicken the expansion of the currently profitable NLNG so as to benefit from the energy thirst locally and internationally. I deliberately leave my recommendation on oil and gas and other extractive minerals to the end because we should break away from over dependence on export of crude petroleum and all raw materials without adding value to them. We have waited and suffered too long importing what we should be exporting. Asiwaju Tinubu within a year must make his presence felt in our lives through the improvement of the economy. He can only do this through collective effort of all Nigerians.  This government will hopefully benefit from the Dangote refinery which is expected to start producing refined petrol and other by-products by next month, all things being equal.  The moribund government refineries which have perennially been “turned around” should be sold as they are and government must cut its losses finally. This hopefully will put an end to our importing what we should be exporting. Without opening a can of warms there is a need for a clinical audit of the subsidies regime over the last two decades and the participation of the CBN and officials of NNPC in the economic ruin of Nigeria which has led to the more than a thousand percent devaluation of the Naira. If money has to be collected from guilty parties this has to be done in order to resuscitate the economy. Through the policy of industrialisation and adding value to local products, jobs will be created for the masses. 

    A policy of protection of home industries will readily recommend itself to the new government. The textile mills all over the country must be resuscitated. They should also be supplied cotton through aggressive growth of the right kind of cotton seeds perhaps imported from Egypt and the Sudan. Importation of textiles should be banned to our country. Nigerians should be told to wear textile materials produced and sown in Nigeria by our own tailors.  Imagine the millions of jobs that will be created this way. Our people look more dignified wearing our locally sown apparels than wearing suits in the forbidden heat of tropical Africa.

    Our youth should be deployed to build the country through encouraging all graduates of engineering and architecture to form engineering companies to be allocated minor roads and houses to build. Government should prevail on cement companies to give special allocations to government housing schemes all over the country. This should not be a policy of the federal government alone but all the state and local governments must be involved in providing mass accommodation. This is not only socially important, it will also go a long way to solve our unemployment problems.

    Nigeria is an agricultural country and we need to pay more attention to feeding our people and exporting to Africa and the rest of the world. We should be able to grow all the corn that Africa needs. In the United States, 4% of their population feeds the United States and contributes the largest share of food aid to the starving countries of the world. We do not have any natural impediment against successful agricultural production in Nigeria. We can produce all the rice that we need in this country if we adopt the right policies. We can build on the extant rice policy; removing whatever corrupt practices some of its beneficiaries employed and apply the same successful policies to other grains like corn, sorghum and so on. We are the largest producer in the world of cassava and yams and sweet potatoes. We can expand production of these for the home and world markets. One crop in which we have environmental and climate advantage but we have refused to take whether because of ignorance or laziness is the growth of Irish potatoes. When I was ambassador in Germany, interest was shown in our potatoes which incidentally are available in winter when Europe and North America are covered with snow. I was told that if we could guarantee regular supply, European markets would absorb all our production. This is an area on which the Plateau State can be encouraged to focus upon.

    If we are to have sustained and successful agricultural revolution, we must make it pay for those involved in it. There are three ways to do this. We must mechanise production through state support. We must revive the cooperative movement by which agricultural unions would be aided to come together to seek government support and loans from the banks, and finally, we must revive the commodity boards to guarantee fair and stable prices for agricultural produce. To succeed there will be need for local, state and federal mobilisation. All primary and secondary schools outside the urban areas should be enabled to have school farms as we used to have in my youth. The aim of the economic rejuvenation programme must be to rebuild the economy of the country within two years while the question of the constitution and structure of government should be tackled by the third year of the present administration.  I am also assuming that with a revived economy and with jobs for all those willing and able to work will go down the terrorist rampage and brigandage going on in many parts of the country particularly in the northern part. This administration must make it clear to the military that the campaign against terrorism in the country must not be seen as an avenue for the military to corner substantial portion of the economy. The military must justify its budgetary allocation through complete defeat of the terrorists and must ensure the total pacification of the country within the shortest time possible after a decade of fruitless allocation of resources to the campaign against terrorism. This administration must be determined to once and for all build all areas of the country to stop the present unhappy situation where 80% of new graduates from tertiary institutions flock to Lagos or emigrate abroad in search of economic sustenance.

  • Politics of domination

    Politics of domination

    Democracy and the federal arrangement are like twin brothers. One cannot exist without the other. Because of their landlocked and hostile country, the Igbo political elite apparently have no faith in the federal arrangement. They can therefore not be democrats because their national instinct wherever they find themselves is to dominate others.

    Sir Ahmadu Bello, the first premier of Northern Region was the first to cite this tendency as justification for his northernisation policy, an instrument he successfully deployed to replace about 4000 civil servants of non-northern descent with northerners.

    “The Igbos are more or less the type of people whose desire is mainly to dominate everybody. If they go to a village, to a town, they want to monopolise everything in that area. If you put them in labour camp as a labourer, within a year, they will try to emerge as head man of the camp and so on. Well in the past our people were not alive to their responsibilities…”

    And as if to validate Ahmadu Bello’s thesis, the first women riot in Nigeria was in Calabar when the women protested the take-over of sales of bush meat, an exclusive preserve of Calabar women by Igbo men.

    What defines Igbo politics since independence therefore, is domination. Whether their crusade is described as nationalism, search for good governance  or quest for a national rebirth, or whether masked as ‘Obidients’, EndSARS or Zikism, the endgame is domination or enslavement of their host community, an aberration the federal arrangement we adopted at independence which was unfortunately destroyed by General Aguiyi Ironsi’s Decree 34 of 1966 was designed to prevent.

    Let us start with the EndSARs protest of 2020. Those who provided intellectual support for the protest and some of its field commanders including Prof Pat Utomi and Charly Boy Oputa, Falz and Macaroni, claimed it was in pursuit of good governance. But with the massive destruction of public and private infrastructure in Lagos, the best run state in Nigeria and the fifth biggest economy in Africa, it soon became obvious as confirmed by governors of other Yoruba states that came to commiserate with Lagos governor that it was a matter of some envious people trying to destroy what they could not have.

    EndSARS sponsors knew Tinubu had never worked for federal government. They knew the media houses indebted to the federal government through AMCON to the tune of about N15b, those whose proprietors are in court over their illegal share in the ‘Dazukigate’ war chest during Jonathan presidency and of course those whose proprietors pretend to provide moral compass after their indictment for financial malfeasance against their states.

    That those media houses were spared while media houses associated with Tinubu were torched only confirm the claim, not by a few, that those who envy and hate Yoruba even after building their fortunes in Lagos, only exploited the EndSARS crisis  to attack Yoruba interests and its political leaders.

    It is also perhaps only the unquestioning Obidients who could have believed that Obi, part of PDP until the eve of the election and with nothing to show for his eight years in Anambra, beyond daily harvest of death, would win the 2023 presidential election. All the same, they have awarded themselves victory while ex-governor Chukwuemeka Ezeife of Anambra has threatened “it would be disaster if Tinubu, the president-elect is sworn in” claiming without proof, that “Obi won the presidential election across the country”.

    However, whilst Aremo Segun Osoba, an elder-statesman and former Ogun State governor praised the (Obidients) for voting massively for their candidate, he could not resist raising questions as to what informed their choice of Labour Party in Eti-Osa and in Ikoyi. He was at a loss as to why Banky W and Obanikoro, well-educated scions of respected Yoruba political families would be defeated in Eti-Osa by an unknown commercial motorcycle rider.  In Ikoyi, an exclusive preserve of the rich, he was wondering why Obidients would settle for Labour Party that has no record as against APC whose urban renewal programme had led to 400-fold increase in the value of their properties.

    As it is today, so it was yesterday. ‘Zikism’ was the reigning god among Nigerian youths between 1935 and 1959.  Zik of Africa and the foremost Nigerian nationalist was a fiery orator. His anti-imperialist lectures at Glover Hall were a must-attend for the youths of the period. He would quote authority after authority that no one could verify. But shouting of Zeeek was ear-jarring anywhere the African oracle spoke. Among Lagos white cap chiefs, Zik could do no wrong. Although, there was only one Igbo man in the inaugural meeting of NCNC, Yoruba, the real owner of NCNC did not raise any objection to his stepping into the shoes of Herbert Macaulay after his death. He was winning elections in most Yoruba urban centres.

    But it did not take long before it became obvious Azikiwe’s nationalism was not driven by altruism but his personal ambition and love for his Igbo nation. The Ibo Federal Union was formed in 1943. Zik became its national president. According to Obafemi Awolowo, “Dr Azikiwe himself was an unabashed Ibo jingoist who gave the game away when he said during his presidential speech at the Ibo Federal Union in 1949 that “It would appear the god of Africa has specially created the Igbo nation.to lead the children of Africa from the bondage of the ages.. Not only to conquer others but also adapt themselves to the role of preserver” (Awo Autobiography PP 172) 

    When Egbe Omo Oduduwa was formed in Lagos in 1949, Zik claiming it was targeted at Igbo and 27million Nigerians unleashed virulent attack on the Egbe and its leaders who were physically attacked along their properties by Zikists who behaved like todays’ Obidients. Consequently when in 1952, Zik wanted to become premier of Western Region at a period an easterner was managing the east and a northerner was managing the affairs of the north, Yoruba political elite’s elected as independent candidates including Adisa Akinloye and others elected on the platform of Ibadan People Party (IPP), opted to take their fate in their own hands, by joining Awolowo’s AG to form Western Region government in 1952.

    Igbo political elite have no abiding faith in democracy, federalism, the West or even in the North. When the Balewa government freed itself from Igbo beautiful bride blackmail, the military struck in January 1966. When they envisaged they would have little role in 1993 Abiola’s landslide victory in which he secured support from only one of Igbo’s four states, Igbo leading lights  including Arthur Nzeribe, Walter Ofonagoro, Clement Apamgbo, with some help from Obasanjo supported Babangida’s annulment of the election and inauguration of an interim contraption.

  • The cult of self (1)

    The cult of self (1)

    History may absolve our youths of righteous rage, perhaps. Many of them, mostly youngsters between their late teens to mid-30s have barged into the political space with neither an appreciation nor a sense of history.

    Their political participation is borne of biased personal experiences and dubious indoctrination by parents and social media propagandists. Yet it must be said that what they have seen and felt is enough to incite their cynicism and virulent turn.

    Nigeria wilts from misgovernance, policy failure, unemployment, inflation, nepotism, and insecurity. Amid all these, the youths accuse the aging leadership of holding tenaciously to power, never letting go; and that when they do let go, they reinsert themselves via stooges, their children, and pledged associates.

    Disgruntled by the status quo, Nigeria’s youths seek a messiah. So, they may flirt with strife and call it revolt, just as a swarm of mosquitoes can make a noise like thunder. It gets scarier when their ignorance, intemperance, and rage enjoy the caress of a dubious demagogue. They launch like loose canons at the slightest provocation. Nigeria should flinch.

    Every political herd thrives on the cult of self hence its affliction by tyranny and murderous demeanor. Like I said in my previous piece, this cult of self could be our greatest undoing – if not checked immediately. Already, its manifestations are rife.

    It is the misguided belief that one is always right and that everyone else got it wrong; it is the conviction that homicidal bias and personal interest, mistaken for individualism, are the same as patriotism and democratic rights.

    In fact, homicidal bias, discernible in the distaste for others’ views, has become the highlight of perverse citizenship and inclination to stifle others across Nigeria’s political circuits.

    The cult of self drives mob tyrants to impose their vanities on others. It enhances their threats to unleash death and mayhem on supporters of any other political aspirant aside from their preferred candidate.

    Violence and angst, a sense of victimhood and monopoly of protest, become their justification for threatening and inflicting chaos on anyone whose opinion challenges theirs.

    It is this perverse culture, accentuated by material impoverishment and poverty of the mind that birthed us terrorism, armed banditry, and the highly lucrative kidnap for ransom sub-economy.

    The cult of self afflicted us with the triggers of these monstrosities, that is, the soulless leadership and business class who mindlessly looted the nation’s treasury trashed the economy, and masterminded nationwide mayhem in furtherance of their selfish interests.

    There is little difference between the cyber-terrorists running our political space amok, and the bloodthirsty hordes of Boko Haram or the armed bandits quietly laying siege to our hitherto peaceful communities.

    The war up north has finally found its way to our doorsteps down south. We can no longer embrace aloofness as our armour against the fierce winds of chaos.

    The fragile peace of the south that we once coveted and celebrated with a smirk was, after all, an illusion. It diminishes the pervasive terror of the political mob.

    Just recently, one of the leaders of an All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign group, the Coalition of South-East Tinubu Shettima Support Group (CoSETSSG), in Anambra State, Leo Alachuna, was killed by unknown gunmen, for jubilating in Onitsha after Bola Tinubu was declared the winner of the presidential election last Wednesday.

    A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Lagos State, and the Special Adviser for Drainage and Water Resources to Lagos State Governor, Joe Igbokwe made this known on his social media handles on Tuesday.

    Alachuna’s murder occurs in the wake of tension triggered by tribal politicking in Lagos, en route to the March 11 gubernatorial polls. And how have we responded to this looming apocalypse? By gaslighting it and immersing in morbid rites of escape, like the cult worship of political idols and their totems of dubious rhetoric.

    “The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition,” avers Wright Mills. In Nigeria, political celebrity, among others, is the major beneficiary of our dysfunctional social complex.

    Yet millions of Nigerians embrace ignorance even as the toxic underbelly of their political celebrities cum the oligarchic enterprise is hurled in our faces; just recently, a viral video of two new governor-elects of rival political parties doing a celebratory dance in a shared private jet made the rounds.

    It was apparent that the duo shared a tight bond immune to the ravage of acrimony and toxic partisanship pervasive in their neighbouring political spaces.

    Reality asserts the political class’ clinical approach to politics and their commitment to it as a game, where you either win or lose – only to retreat, realign and try another day.

    Little wonder that supposedly sworn political enemies have been seen to unite by their children’s marriage or betrothal to each other’s daughters. Outside the circuits of their gated commune, however, ignorant electorate clash and bawl, maim, and kill each other in a manic fit to further the interests of their respective political messiah.

    This malady is borne to the point where a man who couldn’t muster a convincing explanation of his ambition to lead, let alone a visionary manifesto, is maliciously shoved to our consciousness as the best President Nigeria could ever have.

    On the flip side, however, the teachers responsible for furnishing Nigeria with all manners of genii, visionaries, technocrats, sports champions, and nation builders, and the security operatives responsible for protecting our lives and property, are treated with disdain by the citizenry and the state.

    The policemen, soldiers, and the press, who are burdened with the task of protecting us from the worst from abroad and among us, are persistently humiliated and tortured by the Nigerian collective.

    The institutionalised degradation of our teachers, security operatives, and the press offers public spectacle until their humiliation and debasement hit too close to home and our comfort zones.

    Protracted strike by Nigerian universities has been known to render several youths frustrated. Lest we forget the humiliation and debasement of the striking lecturers, death threats to journalists amid institutionalised harassment of the press; and the disdainful treatment of the nation’s armed forces equally hit too close to home.

    Recent intelligence reports suggest that the federal seat of power in Aso Rock, Abuja, and Lagos State among others, were on the radar of some persons planning terror attacks across the country and the widespread apprehension of the citizenry and political class are instructive.

    At this crucial period, who are those we look to for solace and security? Is it our celebrity politician, reality show vixen, pornstar, sports star, actress, musician, or social influencer?

    Who are those we look to for direction and reassurance that all would be well? From whom do we extract a promise that we would be safe? Is it the menacing herd prowling social media and public space, hurling invectives and death threats at anyone with differing political views? Is it the virulent horde wishing anarchy on Nigeria at home and abroad?

    The chaos of naira scarcity and decline, the looming food crisis, and the threat of cyber-bullies rarely prick the illusions that warp our consciousness like the incumbent threat of nationwide terror attacks.

    To deal with the latter, we look to the media and armed forces. This is quite instructive.

  • Beyond Peter Obi’s Lagos victory

    Beyond Peter Obi’s Lagos victory

    Igbo political elite often play the victim. After initial claim of disenfranchisement across Lagos and call for a military takeover if Obi was denied of victory, it was wild jubilation on Monday as they invaded Alausa with Obi party’s flag following INEC announcement of his victory with about 500,000 votes in Lagos over Tinubu who secured less than 5000 votes in Enugu.

    But then nationalism among Igbo political elite has always been driven not by altruism but by selfish interest. And no one puts this better than Chinua Achebe in his classic, ‘No Longer at ease’- “we are strangers in this land, when calamities befall the owners of the land, we return home leaving the owners of the land who know how to appease their own gods” Here, Chinua Achebe, as in his other classics, focuses on transformation Igbo experience in strangers’ land while maintaining a dead silence on dislocation and despoliation of host communities.

    Thus the buying off of cutlasses in Lagos market by Igbo urban immigrants in preparation for war against their Yoruba host with whom they had lived peacefully before Zik’s return to Nigeria in 1934 was over alleged threat to Igbo leaders.

    The derailment of Zik’s ambition to join the colonial legislative council due to Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti and Dr Olorunnibe’s NCNC intra-party revolt was sold to Igbo urban immigrants as Yoruba tribal war requiring Ozumba Mbadiwe’s call on Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa to cede Lagos from Western Region.

    Even the March 5, 1941 Nigerian Youth Movement bye-election, during which Awolowo supported Ernest Ikoli, an easterner  from present day Bayelsa against Oba Samuel Akinsanya, his fellow Ijebu man  while Zik and his West African Pilot supported the latter, ended with Awolowo being labelled a tribalist by Zik to justify pulling down of  the first Pan-Nigeria Movement.

    Many Igbo political and intellectual elite including some of my close friends have said it to our face “You Yoruba are very tribalistic “just because we believe Obi’s chances in the 2023 presidential run is very slim in spite of assurances of his promoters starting with some of our mischievous elders including Olusegun Obasanjo, Pa Adebanjo and Pa Edwin Clark who claim to promote his  candidacy “for equity justice and one Nigeria”.

    They are not telling the truth that in the 1959 election, Igbo-dominated NCNC came first but by-passed Yoruba AG that came second to become beautiful bride to NPC that came a distant third; that during the 1979 inconclusive election, Obasanjo according to Aremo Segun Osoba, by-passed the electoral college constitutional provision, to rig Shagari into office with Richard Akinjide’s twelve two third of a state formula. Igbo NPP immediately offered itself as a beautiful bride to Shagari’s NPN; that in 1993, Igbo supported Bashir Tofa against MKO Abiola. And when Abiola against all odds won by a landslide, some Igbo leaders led by Arthur Nzeribe became instrument with which Babangida annulled the most credible election in our nation’s history.

     Until 2022, Obi like most prominent Igbo politicians was in PDP. And without rapprochement or handshake across the Niger with the West, the rejected corner stone, Obi divorced PDP in 2022 and hoped to win Nigerian presidency in 2023.

    Obi’s other pillar of support was  ‘the obidients’, predominantly made up of ‘Igbo children of anger’ who  because of the falsehood they had been fed with tend to hold everybody except Igbo leaders, their scourge, responsible for the plight of poor Igbo in Nigeria.

    They seem to suffer from selective perception accepting no other views except perhaps that of Professor Pat Utomi  who told them Obi is the best of all presidential candidates because he was such an entrepreneurial genius that he built a house as student of University of Nsukka where the Sultan Of Sokoto lived as a young military officer.

    For them it does not matter the Anambra Obi governed for eight years is today like a war-ravaged state. Asking the line of business of Obi as a student since Igbo multi billionaires  including Cosmas Maduka, Kalu Uzor Kalu and Owelle Okorocha and Andy Uba who we were told started as street hawkers never had such an easy break-through, does not really matter.

    Of course the third group is made up of our own Yoruba children, with ages ranging between 20 and 35. The anguish of those who wondered where Yoruba parents missed it stems from the fact that the Yoruba are a people of culture. Their Ifa divination/Yoruba philosophy speaks of a child brought to the world who does strive to be better than his father as having been brought to the world in vain. A Yoruba child is never a slave to even his father’s belief system. Thoughts in Yoruba philosophy according to late Professor Sophie Oluwole, is progressive. For the Yoruba, ‘Ogbon odunni, were eremiran’ meaning today’s truth is tomorrow’s fallacy. How can a Yoruba youth become an unthinking ‘obidient’?

    But much as Asiwaju Bola Tinubu might want to play the statesman card, what happened in Lagos last Saturday is not democracy. It is a conspiracy and revolt of urban immigrants against their hosts. And this is part of what federal arrangement tries to prevent in all multi-ethnic societies.

     And to the extent that Igbo political elite have since independence opposed federal arrangement and today toy with idea of citizenship when outsider cannot secure a plot of land in their Igbo country, it will be suicidal to dismiss the fear of those who claim the grand plan of immigrants who exploit our liberalism because of our level of our cultural development is to ultimately enslave us in our own land.

    A journey through memory will confirm that from the onset, Obafemi Awolowo canvassed for a federal arrangement patterned after Switzerland which back then had four million people with 22 cantons each with its own parliament and government. The Romansch racial group with only 44,000, enjoyed a regional autonomy and government.  Canada with half of Nigeria’s 27m population back then in the fifties had nine provinces.

    Awolowo and Yoruba leaders made useful contributions to both the Richards and Macpherson constitutions, which were promulgated to ensure one tribe does not enslave others.

    And when Awo became premier of the West in October 1, 1954, he started the agitation for the creation of Midwest despite misgivings by his party who rightly predicted Midwest would be hijacked by Igbo.  In 1955 he called for the creation of the COR (Calabar/Ogoja and Rivers as well as  a Middle Belt state. Tragically, both Hausa Fulani and Igbo political elite rejected all demands up to the London 1957 constitutional conference.

    It is part of our history that Hausa Fulani and Igbo that sent Awo to prison in 1962 openly boasted  that by the time he returned from prison, he would be too old to question how they govern Nigeria.

    And if there is any doubt both the Hausa Fulani and Igbo are opposed to a federalism but share a common world view on how Nigeria should be governed, it is on record that the first thing Igbo political elite did when they had a temporary advantage in 1966 was to rail-road Ironsi regime towards turning the country into a unitary state with Decree 34 of 1966. And since their rival for the soul of Nigeria seized the initiative after July 1966 coup, Nigeria has been run as a unitary state. The current 1999 un-debated constitution has been dismissed by many as Abdul Salami Abubakar Decree 24 of 1999.

    It is time we confront our demon by returning to the ‘Path to Nigeria freedom’ we have avoided for 62 years.

  • President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu

    President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu

    Bola Ahmed Tinubu makes history as the most maligned presidential aspirant perhaps. En route to the polls, he suffered the affliction of powerful foes within and outside his own party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    But like an old warhorse inured to trials and plots fostered by known and unknown adversaries, he emerged victorious. Victory sprouted in fields of tumult as he laboured against aggressive charges: the assault of wildly cynical and combative media, the charge of partisan pastors leading a vengeful religious mob to “punish” him for choosing a fellow Muslim as his running mate.

    Lest we forget the curiously contrived fuel scarcity, the shady currency redesign and naira swap enforced by the Godwin Emefiele-led Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and its resultant naira scarcity – all contrived to incite the electorate against Tinubu and cost the APC a large percentage of anticipated votes at the February 25 polls.

    But through these hostilities, he marched in virtual lockstep with his dreams, undisguised in candour and integrity of intent. His consequent victory and emergence as Nigeria’s new President-elect echoes his previously hard-worn victory at his party’s presidential primaries, few months earlier at the Eagle Square in Abuja.

    Through the fire and the furnace, Tinubu emerged as APC’s flagbearer commanding elegant tributes to his politics. There is no gainsaying his victory at the presidential election reorders the chaos of political play.

    His foes were  right to be wary of him. His victory at the 2023 polls excites defiant idealism and commands a new class of political patronage. No more shall a crafty coterie of oligarchs afflict Nigeria perhaps.

    Tinubu may cancel them out, like the Sphinx that devices and answers his own riddle. Against the shadowy cabal’s run of play, the President-elect manifests as both a titan and a remarkable man of alchemy.

    This is my heartfelt belief, prayer, and hope about new President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But while we anticipate his visionary leadership, not a few cynics question his capacity to actualise excellent governance at Nigeria’s centre and federated units.

    Many more nurse dire notions about him. Has he emerged to sustain the business of lacklustre governance? Or would he be the bridge to the replenishment of Nigeria’s famished tracts? What hope subsists in his emergence for Nigeria’s disillusioned youths?

    In a show of concern, the new President-elect acknowledged in his acceptance speech that “there are divisions amongst us that should not exist. Many people are uncertain, angry, and hurt; I reach out to every one of you. Let the better aspects of our humanity step forward at this fateful moment. Let us begin to heal and bring calm to our nation.”

    And to the youth, Tinubu said, “I hear you loud and clear. I understand your pains, your yearnings for good governance, a functional economy, and a safe nation that protects you and your future.”

    En route to the polls, he highlighted in his manifesto, seven core areas of concern to his government, if elected; he promised to actualise a 25 percent annual budget for education and a 10 percent annual budget for health. He offered to decentralise the police, introduce the commodity exchange policy, total deregulation of the oil market and building of national storage to sustain supply, stimulation of production and manufacturing for export, and the actualisation of 15,000MW generation and distribution of electricity

    He promised to do all these while creating hundreds of thousands of sustainable jobs simultaneously. A recurring theme in his manifesto was the pronouncement of intent to build a new, prosperous country anchored on an enduring economic rejuvenation drive.

    Titled ‘My Vision for Nigeria,’ Tinubu promises in the document, “a nation transformed into greatness, the pride of Africa, a role model for all black people worldwide, and respected among all other countries.

    “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.”

    Tinubu promised a country with a robust economy, where prosperity is broadly shared by all irrespective of class, region, and religion. “A nation where its people enjoy all the basic needs, including a safe and secure environment, abundant food, affordable shelter, health care, and quality primary education for all. A nation founded on justice, peace, and prosperity for all.”

    As far as lofty visions go, Tinubu excites vistas of a new era of infrastructure growth, economic prosperity, peace and security. To achieve this, he appeals to the goodwill and harmonious efforts of everyone, especially the youth, whose efforts are crucial to the remodelling of Nigeria into a prosperous and habitable homeland.

    This could never be achieved by mere rhetoric. Nigerians should give him a chance and so doing give us all a chance at redeeming our badly afflicted country.

    To achieve this, we must divest our hearts of learned and inherited contempt. We must disgorge the darkness within and positively reengage with our country.

    At the moment, the cult of self commands our politics. This cult thrives on the sinister quirks of sociopaths: superficial charm, grandiloquence, and conceitedness; a hankering for praise, a penchant for violence, crass sentimentality, sophistry, the inability to feel guilt or remorse, and an inclination to kill.

    These much was visible in the recently concluded presidential election, where Nigeria pulsed to demons interred in our dysfunctional social complex. The maladies are deeply cultural and hardwired into the Nigerian psyche.

    Call it our affliction by unfettered fanaticism, the preoccupation of partisan zealots.  On its receiving end was Tinubu; the celebrated statesman and two-time governor of Lagos suffered thunderous and inexplicable malice by the machinations of secret and established covens of political adversaries.

    A fanatical mob split between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and Labour Party (LP)’s Peter Obi, persistently maligned him in a series of coordinated attacks across mainstream and new media en route to the elections.

    Every contrary voice attracted wild rage and vitriol from this mob; besides hurling death threats at Tinubu’s loyalists, Obi’s supporters aka Obidients, in particular, physically assaulted Nigerians who voted for Tinubu in parts of the southeast. A few viral videos attest to this fact.

    This is our reality. A society in which the social space inhibits the growth of diverse, independent voices; a space where citizens foster a vicious, poisonous echo chamber that reinforces selfish whims and doctored truths.

    Any truth that conflicts with our views of ourselves is deemed maleficent, unfair, and untrue. Any perspective that bashes bigotries and imparts unpleasant truths to us is deemed abhorrent.

    The death threats and physical assaults meted to citizens holding differing political views, among other things, reveal us to ourselves. They accentuate our affliction by mob tyranny.

    The cult of self would be our greatest undoing. Already, its manifestations are rife. It is the misguided belief that one is always right and everyone else got it wrong; it is the conviction that homicidal bias and personal interest, mistaken for individualism, are the same as patriotism and democratic rights.

    In fact, homicidal bias, discernible in our distaste for the view of others, has become the highlight of perverse citizenship and inclination to stifle others.

    Violence and angst, a sense of victimhood and a monopoly of morality become their justification for threatening and inflicting chaos on anyone whose opinion contradicts theirs.

    It is against such deficiency of citizenship that Bola Tinubu emerges as Nigeria’s new President-elect. Not an enviable job apparently.

  • Tinubu’s date with destiny

    Tinubu’s date with destiny

    It WAS a hard fought battle. The battle climaxed in the early hours of yesterday when President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared the winner of the February 25 election at 4.10 a.m. The nation’s Chief Electoral Officer, Prof Mahmood Yakubu,who made the declaration, said Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to beat his closest rivals, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), 6,984,520, and Peter Obi, Labour Party (LP), 6,101,533. Tinubu’s victory marks the beginning of perhaps, the most vital phase of his political odyssey.

    Tinubu, the Asiwaju of Lagos and Jagaban Borgu, two of his many traditional titles by which he is popularly known is not a political journeyman but a master of the game. He did not just wake up one morning and resolved to run for president.  It was a project which he thought through and bide his time before throwing his hat in the ring. When he started moving around the country to consult people on his aspiration, it became crystal clear that he meant business.

    Nothing and nobody was going to stop him. From one state to the other, from one political stalwart to the other, he canvassed support for his bid. Tinubu was ready to give in order to receive, but the terms must be mutually agreed upon. They must not be one-sided terms under which a party may feel shortchanged. As a strategist, Tinubu plays by the principle of give-and-take. ‘’If you rub my back, I rub your back’’, as people say. This principle is the bedrock of his political belief. He is often surrounded by people because they know that he will always be there for them.  His nationwide consultations were, therefore, merely a formality.

    But as an astute politician, he knows that people should not be taken for granted, no matter the political favours they might owe you. He opened the race for the presidential ticket of his party after he went to the State House, Abuja, to inform President Muhammadu Buhari, of his aspiration. The President gave him his blessings and from then on, Tinubu never looked back. At the party’s convention at the Eagle Square, Abuja, last June, all eyes were on him despite the large field of aspirants. But one after the other, many of the aspirants stepped down for him, paving the way for his election as APC’s standard-bearer.

    Although, he defeated Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi and cleric-politician Pastor Tunde Bakare, to pick the ticket, he quickly put his victory behind him and visited them to seek their support in winning the election. His magnanimity and generosity are legendary. He owes his political survival to these attributes, which many other politicians overlook. But then, Tinubu does not suffer fools gladly. You cannot abuse his large-heartedness and tolerance again and again and expect him to keep quiet. His capacity to absorb shock, betrayal, deceit and the shenanigans of those who should be his eyes and ears is astounding.

    As he begins a new political life as president-elect, waiting to assume office on May 29, many of his estranged political associates will surely want to reconnect with him. From now till his swearing-in all roads will lead to his house, with all sorts of people seeking his attention. Things have changed and they will do well to know that. The Tinubu of yesterday is different from the Tinubu of today. When we said in this space last week that by this time this week, his status would have changed, one was not being prophetic, but realistic. As I said then, he was head and shoulder above his fellow contestants. I knew that it was not going to be an easy race, but never knew it would be that tough, with the incredible performance by Obi.

    Bookmakers are still wondering what happened in Lagos State, where Obi won, beating Tinubu to a close second. To Obi’s supporters, especially former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Ebora Owu,who we all refer to as Baba, that poll was okay because Tinubu lost. But in the states where Tinubu won, the polls, to use Obasanjo’s words, were “not credible and transparent”. Were the polls in Lagos, Osun, Nasarawa, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Delta, Cross River, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo, all where Obi won, and the states where Tinubu carried the day, not conducted by the same INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) which Obasanjo and his ilk are crucifying?

    What makes the polls in Benue, Borno, Ekiti, Jigawa, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Rivers and Zamfara, all where Tinubu won, “tainted” to borrow the word of their media collaborators, and those of Obi and Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) untainted. Why are they not using the same parameters to assess the election? Must they hate a man to the extent of trying to delegitimise the election that he legitimately won? What is Tinubu’s offence? What did he buy from them that he did not pay? Now that the election has been won and lost, one only prays that they will stop bellyaching over the matter. The nation has concluded one electoral process.

    The stage is set for the other, which is the seeking of redress at the tribunal by the aggrieved, if they think that they have a case. If I were in the shoes of these people, I will pick up the phone today and call Tinubu to congratulate him for a hard fought election, in which Obi, in particular, stunned the nation. Will they do so? The choice is theirs. In the interest of all, they should, in the meantime, tell their loyalists to stop overheating the polity with the falsehood they are spreading over the election.  

    Tinubu has won and God willing, he will take his oath of office on May 29 and also be decorated with the highest national honour of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR). As the nation awaits the inauguration of its president-in-waiting, let us join him and his family in prayers for a successful tenure. May his time bode well for Nigeria.    

  • Reverend Canon Leslie Donald Mason

    Reverend Canon Leslie Donald Mason

    Unlike nowadays, the secondary school that a child went through is fundamental to the future development and progress of a child. This is because most of the historic secondary schools like Christ’s School Ado Ekiti, have  traditions and credos that shaped and nurtured the students when they come to the schools in their formative years. I know this is true of those of us who are now very old. Those of us who can reflect on our educational past to influence the present and the future should do so for the sake of posterity.

    When in the last quarter of 1955, Canon Leslie Donald Mason, the then principal of Christ School Ado Ekiti gave me a ride in his old Rover green automobile as a prospective student, I was meeting a white man in close contact for the first time and I had problems getting used to his Northern English accent. Of course after a few months in 1956 of entering Christ School Ado Ekiti, I had no problems understanding every word he said to us. This could be in the chapel daily or whenever any teacher was absent and discovering this during his supervisory promenades around the school, he would come in to teach us.

    As young children, we were amazed that he knew everything under the sun. It did not matter whether it was Algebra, Geometry, History literature, English language or Latin which appeared to me as his favourite subject. I remember his use of the Latin book Fabulae facility’s (easy stories). He was always happy to teach us and we were also happy to learn from his wisdom. He also had a way of writing in cursive which was different from other teachers. He was a class by himself. We sometimes debated among ourselves that his Masters of Arts degree MA) was in classics. I don’t know what gave us this impression. Perhaps we heard it from older senior students and to us then classics meant all aspects of knowledge and that was why he could teach any subject under the sun!

    Our daily routine in the school was that we usually assembled in the chapel in the morning for devotion which was conducted by Canon L. D. Mason. He was always immaculately dressed in shorts and nice short sleeves shirt and a tie. When after the students and members of staff would have sat down, he would quietly walk majestically to the pew to conduct the service. The service was usually very short. We sang a hymn and he would then exhort us to be of good and godly behaviour. He would then walk out and the students according to their classes would march up the Agidimo Hill accompanied by a brass band like soldiers going to war. Thus began our daily academic activities. We actually approached our studies as if going to war! We came to school to learn and to learn how to be good Christians on top of what our parents had taught us in our different homes.  We had no time for frivolities characteristic of some schools where young boys and girls wasted their time writing so-called love letters to friends of the opposite sex. Although Canon Mason was single, he did not teach us to shun the company of the opposite sex. We just felt it was not right and that the time for such things would come at the appropriate time. Those of my classmates who wasted their time doing such things did not do well in life.

    On Sundays, we would have full morning and evening services conducted by the same Canon Mason. Sometimes the evening service could be delegated to one of the senior tutors or the senior prefect. It was customary for a sermon to be delivered during the morning service but this was considered unnecessary during the evening services. Any casual visit to Christ School may have had the impression that the school was preparing us for the priesthood because we prayed not less than eight times a day, prayers were central to the life of a student. Some of the principal’s friends and regular visitors were George Vellacourt and Bishop Gordon Vining the secretary of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the Anglican bishop of Lagos respectively.

    The principal served in loco parentis throughout the week. If we were seriously sick, we would be taken up the hill to his house for attention. I was asthmatic as a child and was taken to his house many times where I was propped up in bed and given hot tea and food by him or his cook. The principal was very gracious to me in particular bearing in mind that my senior brother, Chief Oduola Osuntokun, his deputy was a politician and a nationalist who felt compelled to sometimes disagree with him perhaps as a symbol of colonialism! If things got serious when students were ill, the poor man would take one to the general hospital in Iddo-Ekiti which was the only hospital in the whole of Ekiti. Sometimes he could arrange for one to be taken to Akure which had a bigger hospital.

    Canon Mason was most particular about two things: our character and academic knowledge.  He paid attention to the reports written every end of the school term by the house masters who commented on our character sometimes unfairly. He also took note of the number of times one went on what was called “school imposition” inflicted on errant students for minor offences. Students on school imposition were made to cut grass on Saturdays for the number of hours specified in the imposition. This was usually at the instance of the school prefects. For serious offences such as stealing, disobedience of school regulations, misbehaving in the chapel or on the way to the chapel could attract what was called “school detention”. This was always announced by the principal during the solemn Friday afternoon service in the chapel. There would be pin drop silence and the principal in a quavering voice with tears in his eyes would announce the students’ names and what offences they had committed. He would usually say he was going to grant such students another chance “not by merit but as an act of grace”. We tried very much to stay out of these kinds of offences that would attract the entire school’s attention.  

    No matter how brilliant one was, Canon Mason would not be impressed if he got the impression that one was badly behaved. He would say this in the reports at the end of each term that were sent to our parents .He also paid great notice to a child’s academic progress from forms one to five. He knew a child’s strength. When we chose what subjects to offer in the University of Cambridge overseas school certificate examinations, he would follow it with keen interest advising where necessary because some parents sometimes wanted their children to follow certain professions even when the children were not talented in those areas.

    Canon Mason also followed one’s progress after leaving school and was always proud to know how many of his students had entered the University of Ibadan. I remember when I visited Christ School in 1961 while at the Ibadan Grammar School Higher School; he wondered why I had not taken the concessional examinations to the University of Ibadan instead of wasting my time in a Higher School.  I now wonder about this because I had one of the best results in my class! Unfortunately in our time, there was no career counselling. Everyone wanted to follow the footsteps of our teachers. This was why in my class, we ended graduating in academic subjects instead of in professions. He took pride in how many of his students came out in grade one and how many distinctions each student got. The results would be pasted on the school notice board for younger students to see and to celebrate and to also emulate. Whenever we visited after the release of these results, Canon Mason welcomed us with open hands and asked us our next plans.

    He was not much of a sportsman and he delegated this role to any of his colleagues who were sportsmen in their youth. But he brought to the school the game of ROUNDERS, some kind of a cross between cricket and American baseball. Apparently this game must have been played in England but as far as I know Christ School was the only school that played and enjoyed the game. Canon Mason sometimes came to watch inter house competition in the game of Rounders. He set up a health centre where he treated students with sores in their feet and also taught older students to perform the same act on any other student who may have cuts and wounds which did not require going to hospitals. He also taught us bricklaying and carpentering and we built some cement reclining seats around the school for relaxation on the lawns. He also encouraged us to get involved in agriculture and we had a school farm where we grew peanuts, yams, corn and vegetables. We rotated farming, carpentry or bricklaying every Wednesday afternoon when we had a break from our rigorous academic pursuits. He ensured we had a full and useful life as students.

    His love for us did not end within the portals of the school but throughout our lives. We loved him back equally and I have never heard anybody say something unbecoming of this great man from the north of England.

    The love for the school he nurtured in us made my 1956-1960 set to donate some class rooms to the school just about a decade and a half after leaving school when we were ourselves struggling to find our feet. This sacrifice was the least we could do to remember the school and its contribution to our lives under the tutelage of Reverend Canon Leslie Donald Mason MA.

  • Tinubu: The way to go

    Tinubu: The way to go

    By this time next week, his status would have changed. He will, God willing, be addressed as President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The former Lagos helmsman towers above all other contestants in the presidential election coming up on Saturday, which is 48 hours away. In other societies, his election would have been a settled matter by now.

    Settled because he knows why he is running and has his blueprint ready for running this country from day one on May 29, 2023, when he succeeds President Muhammadu Buhari. In everything he does, the All Progressives Congress (APC) standard-bearer has shown his commitment to the cause of a country where no citizen suffers or goes to bed on an empty stomach. Right now, the populace is hungry and angry because of a cashless policy without adequate infrastructural backbone.

    Tinubu’s humanitarianism knows no bounds. But it is much more than that. His love for humanity is what propels him to be in the presidential race.The Asiwaju of Lagos desires a Nigeria where things work. A country that its citizens will be proud of; a country where people from other parts of the world flock to; a country which place in the comity of nations is assured; a country whose citizens won’t be treated as crooks anywhere they go to in the world.

    Nigeria cannot remain what people commonly refer to as a nation of potential. It is time to harness this potential for the common good and this is the driving force behind Tinubu’s aspiration. We are a blessed nation and what it takes to trigger these blessings is charismatic leadership. A leadership that will galvanise the followership into action; wake them up from their inertia; take them away from the drudgery of life that fetches no meaningful returns despite all the toiling.

    A leadership that will let people know that they can make a difference. Already, Tinubu is showing what it means to make a difference. None among the presidential candidates has shown the kind of zeal he has for the onerous task of leading the country. There is no doubt that he is fully prepared for the job. He has done his homework well and has a vision of where he plans to take the country. Recent happenings have given Nigerians the chance of a glimpse of what he is capable of doing.

    Where his opponents are busy making contradictory statements on some government policies which have affected people badly, he has been consistent in calling for a rethink and proffering his own solutions to those problems. This is a sign of a good leader. Constructive criticism reflects the inner ability of a critic as a doer of what he preaches; he does not criticise for criticism sake, but does it to help find solutions to challenges.

    The people all know where Tinubu stands on the naira redesign policy and fuel scarcity, the two issues which are of utmost public concern today. The naira policy, especially, has made life unbearable for the populace whose money in the bank has been virtually confiscated. The redesigning of the old N200, N500 and N1000 notes, as they then were, has become a long drawn battle between the government and the hoi polloi, who are hard hit, by the policy. The new notes that replaced the old N200, N500 and N1000 are hard to come by.

    The scarcity has turned many to beggars despite having money in their accounts. They cannot access their accounts and are being forced to collect ridiculous amounts like N1000 and N2000 in lieu of what they actually need. The situation is that bad. But Tinubu’s main opponents, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi, Labour Party (LP), are playing politics with it, instead of saying it as it is, like him. They are parroting the government’s claim that it would check ‘vote-buying’.

    Pray, how will it do that? With people hardpressed for cash, it would, rather, encourage vote-buying because some voters will collect money, even from the devil, as things now are, in order to survive. Tinubu is not against the policy, but its implementation for which he has proffered six ways in which it could be improved upon. Tinubu is not blinded by his loyalty to President Muhammadu Buhari not to tell him the truth. Yet, they delight in blaming him for backing the President in 2015.

    The President knows Tinubu’s stand on the policy. That is how it should be.

    This is how you know good leaders. They are not blown by winds from here to there; they stand firm on the side of truth and what is good because they are conscious of the judgement of posterity. Tinubu has a track record. He turned Lagos State, where he was governor from 1999 to 2007, around.

    The Eko Atlantic City stands today as a product of his vision. The Lekki Export Processing Zone (LEPZ) is also there. What about the blue and red line rail system? The steep rise in the state’s internally generated revenue (IGR)? The systematic waste and traffic management and state-of-the-art bus terminals in some parts of the state?

    These were projects of deep thinking, which have placed the state in a class of its own and helped to make it the fifth largest economy in Africa. Imagine what Tinubu would do as president. A vote for him is not a waste, but a vote for making Nigeria great. He is the kind of president Nigeria needs at a time like this. May God crown his efforts with success on Saturday.

  • Lai Mohammed, Fani Kayode and the Agbor mafia

    Lai Mohammed, Fani Kayode and the Agbor mafia

    President Buhari in pursuit of what he hopes would be his two enduring legacies- ‘fighting corruption and ensuring free and fair election’ had without restraint not too long ago,  asked “Nigerians to vote for any candidate of their choice from any party” in the election coming up in two days’ time. And until the ongoing Emefiele’s wicked and sadistic assault, Nigerians have continued to have an enduring faith in their country despite eight years of high inflation, growing rate of unemployment and general insecurity across Nigeria.

    Last week, two controversial Nigerian politicians, Lai Mohammed and Femi Fani-Kayode made some statements which I think are worth interrogating. The former revealed that President Buhari despite his apparent lack of enthusiasm has in fact always supported his party and party candidate – Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the election coming up in two days’ time while the latter told Nigerians that have been trying to find an explanation for their ongoing hardship arising from the illegal and immoral confiscation of their savings to blame those he describes as the “Agbor mafia” for their nightmare.

     Although it is not often one agrees with these two controversial politicians, but this time around however I think their logic is unassailable.

    First, President Buhari has been described by Nigerian opinion leaders variously as “a nationalist and a man with a good heart”,  “a detribalized person that means well for Nigeria”, a man of integrity and transparency, praised for  his “life of commitment, dedication, patriotism, and honesty” by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his party’s candidate.

    And after eight years of monumental borrowing to execute his infrastructure projects, I think Buhari would rather want a successor that will protect his legacy rather than a return to PDP’s 15 years of the locust. Atiku Abubakar, his fellow Fulani rival  who has made it clear he would not mind selling anything including the Lagos-Ibadan express road, the Second Niger Bridge, East -West road and even the rail lines, to raise funds for  aspiring young entrepreneurs can surely not be his a choice.

    This is because from the benefit of hindsight, Nigerians now understand what Atiku means by entrepreneurs. We know they include those young men and women – who specialize in importation of the labour of other societies including ceramics, electronics, textile, pharmaceutical etc.  And we must not forget Atiku’s former vice presidential running mate, Peter Obi’s favourite: wine. As it was back then, they will probably get tax waivers if Atiku wins.

    For Buhari, I think it is not about repaying those who laboured to make him president after three heroic failures as grumbling Adam Oshiomhole was recently trying to say. It is about his legacy. I am sure that is why the president is making up for missed opportunity to follow Tinubu around on the campaign train in Nigeria, with a pre-recorded messages from far away Addis Ababa, Ethiopia reassuring Nigerians that “Tinubu is a true believer in Nigeria, who loves the people and the development of our country and who would build on his (Buhari) achievements having demonstrated his commitment to the development of the country and the well-being of its people.”

    Just as for Tinubu, Buhari’s endorsement no matter how late is a great asset, I also agree with Lai Mohammed that “it is preposterous to even suggest that Mr President, as APC leader is equivocating on his support for APC presidential candidate.”

    It is also difficult to invalidate Femi Fani-Kayode’s ‘Agbor mafia thesis”. Because  Buhari suffers from  messianic complex, even as an  elected president, he acts as if he is living in an age of feudalism  where ‘the lords’ value  honour and loyalty of their serfs who must be bound by oath of allegiance. This was why he was easily captured by the likes of Godwin Emefiele, a master of political subterfuge.

    Because he serves Buhari like a slave as CBN governor, Emefiele can do no wrong. He became a card-carrying member of APC. He procured N100m APC presidential candidate form, over 500 branded campaign vehicles supported by three aircrafts and went to court to defend his right to contest for the Nigerian presidency as a sitting CBN governor.

    President Buhari did nothing until Emefiele was outwitted by a rival cabal and decided to embark on a vengeance mission against APC. This perhaps explains why his currency-swap a few months to an election has been described by Fani Kayode as nothing but fraud. For him: “Asking everyone, both rich and poor, to give up their hard earned cash and you refused to give them full value in return was never a currency swap. It was a currency grab and a classic 419”. And “taking old notes and refusing to give promised new ones or directing us to put our money in the banks and live by bank transfers when 65% of the Nigerian people do not have a bank account is nothing but 419 scam”.

    As Lagos, Ogun and Rivers and Ondo states boiled over scarcity of new naira notes with about 15 lives lost across the country, Governor Akeredolu believes Emefiele misled the president. First there were no new notes to go round. Then contrary to Supreme Court ruling, the president extended the validity of the N200 note, which represented 7% of currency in circulation for 60 days while the N1000 and N500 notes representing 82% in breach of Supreme Court ruling were said to be no more legal tender.

    For Governor Akeredolu, disallowing access of Nigerians to their savings after confiscating them “conveys the deplorable impression of contrived subterfuge manifest in the official confiscation of legitimate deposits of the people in banks”.

    We have since seen other governors visiting their rural communities to appeal for calm. In Lagos State, Sanwo-Olu has empathized with Lagosians over the hardship being experienced with the currency swap and asked the residents to remain law-abiding and avoid all forms of violence, arson and rioting. He approved 50 per cent reduction of transport fares across the state-owned transportation system.

    We have seen a trending video of CBN bus with CBN executives including  Mohammed Alli, and some armed men visiting  Tundun wada, Bunkuri and   Rano LGAs of Kano State to allow local people swap their old notes as narrated by ARISE correspondent, Ayo Aransaye.

    Punch newspaper reported thousands of depositors besieging Lagos CBN office as elsewhere in the country. To calm nerves, there were reports of commercial banks, including First Bank, GT Bank, Access Bank, Fidelity Bank, UBA, Lotus Bank, Sterling Bank, among others, advising their customers to bring the N1,000 and N500 old notes to their branches.

     And even with many Nigerians now drawing a parallel between Emefiele’s current effort at derailing the 2023 election and the ignoble role of Arthur Nzeribe during the 1993 June 12 debacle, ARISE group continues to defend Emefiele just as it did when the Minister of Finance first raised concerns about the implementation of the currency-swap policy.

    As if to further validate Fani-Kayode’s thesis, as late as Monday January 27, ARISE GROUP, in spite of overwhelming evidence of hardship of Nigerians who cannot withdraw from banks or make transfers, continue to insist the currency swap debacle is about APC governors’ search for currency to buy votes.

    In their new variant of journalism, they are now the defenders of President Buhari they claim was betrayed by his APC governors that challenged him for disrespecting Supreme Court ruling. I think Fani-Kayode has rightly identified those waging war against Nigerians.