The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Responsibility, defiance and politics

    Responsibility, defiance and politics

    Two Northern governors this week asked their states citizens not to run away from the bandits raiding schools and farms but to defend themselves with whatever weapons at their  disposal     and  protect themselves . It  sounds like a tall order  or even an  abdication of  responsibility   by the governors .  But  it is neither , and why we say so  is the start of our  discussion today  on leadership  , responsibility  and  defiance in the face of overwhelming  political ,  socio economic  , demographic and diplomatic odds  and challenges . I  will proceed to cite some situations globally and locally  to illustrate  this topic   and  then  show how each  in its unique context illustrates   the  topic of the day .

    Starting as we  have done with Nigeria and  the two  governors  we note that the Nigerian president    has  fired both the Ministers of Power and Agriculture in a swift  move that reflects  defiance of failure in the two  key sectors of food security  and power  generation . Similarly in the  US an  embattled US president  beat  his chest defiantly in the way  he had abandoned Afghanistan and  left  some Afghans and even Americans at the mercy  of the blood thirsty Taliban who  will now consolidate the   Afghanistanisation  of their  nation in terms of Islamic  values at great odds  with American International leftist values and orientation . Such  values  the  Taliban detests as anti Sharia  are what  the Hungarian   president quoted recently  as the reason why  he sees  what   he labeled  ‘ the International  liberal  left’ ,   led by the US  will  interfere in Hungary’s 2022  election   to  remove  him  from office  because  he  opposes gay  rights and  has made laws  in Hungary  banning  the teaching of gay  rights in Hungary’s  schools  to children  and  has encouraged  the teaching of family values . If  you recall  that the Transportation Secretary in the Biden Administration is a gay man married  to a gay man it is not difficult to see why  the Hungarian president  is apprehensive of American intervention  in  the  elections   to  remove him from  power in the 2022 Hungarian elections .What  the Hungarian President has identified as the International Left is indeed a potent global  force led by the US and EU  and   is an  Ideology very well committed to promoting  as  human and  civil liberties ,  gay  rights and women  rights   while  trying to smuggle in gender identity and crippling family values and religion globally  . Focus   on global  resistance to the  New International   Left in all ramifications  , will take a lot of the time of this column for a long time to come .  We  now look at each  of these situations critically .

    Read Also; PMB and lessons from Afghanistan

    We  go back  to our nation Nigeria and  note that the two  governors are pragmatic and brave in admitting responsibility that the state security apparatus  cannot defend its citizens against  the bandits . It  is  not an admission  of failure on their part but  a  rude and  crude admission that they will not preside over the  liquidation of their people . It is a  call to arms on the state citizens  not  to commit  hara kiri with their legs by fleeing but to take their destiny into their hands and fight the bandits . I see it as step in the right direction to stem  the  tide of growing violence that the state  governments now know they cannot  handle  because it is a real  emergency  and life has no duplicate .

    On  the issues of the Ministers sack  ,the president is admitting that the  buck stops on his table and the two Minsters  have not  delivered on their mandate . The  importance of electricity can  never be trivialized in economic growth and development  and the nation is lacking  behind  dangerously on power generation , transmission and distribution.  We   now  have Nigerians and industries living and working more on generators than an  impotent   and unreliable  national   grid  . There is no way unemployment can  be defeated as the government  desires if the industries are not working productively  to generate  needed  goods and services to increase demand and production . On  food  security the sack of the Minster was overdue but the president must find a way of stopping herdsmen destroying farms  in the guise   of   looking for water and food for their cattle . Grazing rights must not deter   or   defy   food security and how this is  managed   and delivered is an important  responsibility of  the President and any Minster of Agriculture  working for him .

    On  the American  president’s admitting responsibility for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan  despite  the fact that some Republican senators have called for his resignation or impeachment  ,   he can  be   forgiven  for saluting himself  because he did  not see the larger  diplomatic picture and consequence .Two  allies relying for their security  on   the US  visited him as he handled the abandonment of American allies in Afghanistan . The leaders of Israel and Ukraine  were at the White House ostensibly  to get assurance that they will  not abandoned in times of crisis with Iran  and Russia   respectively  like the US  abandoned Afghanistan  and its Afghan allies quite  recently . To President Biden any withdrawal is acceptable  as long as US troops  are home . Which is okay as long as the US has learnt its lesson that it has no right planting  democracy in Afghanistan  because  the  culture of Afghanistan is Islamic and that explains why the Afghan army   the  US  boasted of training bolted at the approach  of the Taliban who were surprised at the speed of the Afghan army capitulation and the speed   of the Taliban victory .

    One thing is clear,  and that is that the west and US can  not plant western values in Afghanistan any  more  because  of  the simple fact that the Taliban does not respect woman rights and thinks  the place of the woman is in the house with the family . Funnily  enough that is the view of societies and nations  with  anti gay laws . Such nations include Hungary and Poland in the EU as minorities because most EU members admit and have laws that say  boldly that gay  rights and gender identity are European values . Nigeria and Turkey have anti gay laws  and Turkey recently  pulled  out of  an agreement with EU that  was about recognizing  women protection against   domestic  violence by loading gender identity  with the violence  ,  a situation that Islamic though secular Turkey   found unpalatable .

    It  is remarkable  the  Biden government promoting American  and European  values can  not carry  along its opponents in   its  political  system on such values .The  US  Supreme  Court just confirmed a Texas law that endorsed abortion which the Biden Administration  has all along opposed . Even  the issue  of wearing  masks  or  not has polarized the US into anti  mask and pro masks wearing  Americans and political parties  with The Democrats pro mask and the Republicans anti  mask and  this  is in a pandemic when  the governments should  not politicize health security for all Americans .The  defiance on both  sides can deteriorate into violence anytime and one wonders  how heated up the American political system will  be when elections come under this pandemic  and given the depth of hostility and defiance  in the political  system . Once again From the fury of this pandemic Good Lord Deliver Nigeria.

  • The Nigerian art of self-loathing

    The Nigerian art of self-loathing

    Patriotism, contrary to delusory norms, thrives on cultural standards. The songs that every Nigerian knows by heart, the lore of nationhood, the politics of suburban and boondocks poetry, manifest the kernel of Nigeria’s culture and the substance of her sovereignty.

    A similar dynamic undergirds our political and literary traditions. Politics thrives by literary culture and vice versa.

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

    What is the Nigerian lyric? What is our reality? Nothing worth celebrating perhaps. In search of the proverbial elixir, we have drunk water from a noxious stream and filled our bellies with toxins.

    The superiority of Western democracy is one of the supreme constructions of imperialism and the poisonous elixir of Nigeria and her neighbours on the African continent. Nigerians elevate it with obsessive love. It is the magic pill to the nation’s ceaseless headaches.

    Read Also: Imo uncovers lies about firm

    Demagogues exploit its hackneyed tropes in a torrid caress of the vanities and base sentimentality of the gullible masses. Politicians chant its praise. Social commentators make extol its virtues in their vituperation in the mainstream and new media. Everybody is a sucker for its perceived benefits.

    But the West must never be blamed for our collective ignorance – the United States in particular. The latter’s democratic enterprise is one of its most profitable constructions in its bid to make America great again, at any cost. It is both music and philosophy, a sensory stream of thought feeding generations of writers, political activists, filmmakers, politicians, gender rights activists, academia, and so on.

    We must understand, however, that Western democracy and foreign policy, while deliberately presented as two tines on the same fork, are sustained by oft deceptive ideals and contradictory precepts of influence, crudely wedged into the nuclear powers’ global dominance stratagem. It is imperial politics without heart: ideologically deficit, dangerously manipulative, and Janus-faced.

    Democracy and foreign aid do for America, what painting and sculpture did for the Italians. They are potent tools for wooing and recolonising the world. A few good minds with an intuitive grasp of the hard-edged imperialist designs of the Western agenda are spuriously labelled as conspiracy theorists.

    Those who would die embracing and entrenching exotic doctrines must understand that there is no way this could be achieved without horror, given the marked differences in culture, temperament, and histories defining different nations of the world.

    It’s about time we identified values complementary to our precepts of humane governance and development. We cannot dwell, for instance, like Americans or Brits in Nigeria. We can only assimilate aspects of their culture complimentary of ours. We must always synthesise, when need be, from the most humane sociopolitical cultures around the world.

    The Japanese, Chinese, Bhutanese, Arabians, Europeans, Americans, Ghanaians, Rwandans, to mention a few, all have different aspects of their governance traditions and cultures that are worthy of emulation but not until we sieve and winnow them to make their preferred aspects amenable to our politics, economy and socio-cultural institutions. We must always remember that the Libyans, Afghans to mention a few, wildly embraced a dandy dream of freedom, but instead, they got trapped in a sinister nightmare. To date, they are paying dearly for it.

    Back home, it’s even scarier to note that our arts and literature have become very weakened in our bid to entrench American and European Renaissance in our cultural frames. More worrisome is our artists’ rabid deconstruction of Nigerianness.

    Writers and filmmakers, for instance, struggle to acculturate the Nigerian landscape with defective foreign mores. So doing, they corrupt their presentations and stifle the possibility of attaining homegrown, practicable solutions to oft politicised conflict. Nonetheless, they have a dedicated industry of cheerleaders and courtiers – journalists and so-called influencers – whose job is to romanticise their follies as the valiance sorely needed to reinvigorate Nigeria’s creative sector.

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

    While creative industries in America, Britain, China, India, Korea, Malaysia, Russia, France, to mention a few, commit genii and capital resources to constantly recreate and embellish their political narratives, with progressive outcomes, the Nigerian creative sector obsessively weaponises and projects vulgar themes of citizenship and romance.

    The chthonic projection of Western depravities and virulent awareness has become a thing among local artists. We see it sprout across genres: drama, prose, poetry, and beyond. It seizes mainstream and indie filmmaking, corrupting Nollywood inside out, as you read.

    Otherwise brilliant and perceptive filmmakers denounce patriotism and attack all it means to be Nigerian. Ultimately, they corrupt the artistic vocabulary of Nigeria’s literary arts, turning it into a meditation on society’s debauched nature as Nigeria’s secret truth. They celebrate degenerate spirit using aggressive cues of prurient art, promiscuity, gendered storms, and toxic sexuality.

    While the consequences of such dross manifest in real-time, Nigeria welcomes from abroad, more insolent corruption of its media space by degenerate reality shows like the BBN without putting up a fight. The damage to cultural psyche is incalculable.

    The United States had always appreciated the depth and promise of the arts, entertainment sector. Thus the US government and Hollywood’s symbiotic relationship. Washington DC provides intriguing plots for filmmakers and the latter reciprocates by glamourising the political class and reinventing America’s exploits on the global stage.

    Between 1911 and 2017, more than 800 feature films received support from the US Government’s Department of Defence (DoD). These included blockbuster franchises such as the Iron Man, Transformers, and The Terminator.

    On television, over 1,100 titles received Pentagon backing – 900 of them since 2005, from Flight 93 to Ice Road Truckers to Army Wives. The inclusion of individual episodes for shows with a cult following, like Homeland, 24, and NCIS, as well as the established influence of the White House and FBI, further establishes that the American government methodically supports thousands of hours of entertainment.

    Aside from the profitable impact on the US entertainment sector, the entertainment partnership and offerings are oft deployed to foster a positive image for the United States on the international stage, while offering its citizens ample channels to exorcise their post-9/11 demons.

    Films and literature could be used to foster national healing and patriotism. And they may also be used to destroy a people and ruin nations in pursuit of global good or the “enlightened self-interest” of a dubious superpower.

    With very few exceptions, like Tunde Kelani and his Mainframe Studios, Nollywood churns out too many rabidly wrought revenge-fantasies in which the Nigerian female perpetually scores retribution over her treacherous male; lest we forget the increasingly base novel and TV plots by which Nigerian audiences are lured to nurse innate demons of toxic sexuality, ethnic intolerance, religious bigotry, virulent feminism, and sexist rage.

    It’s about time the government partnered with the arts sector to reinvent the Nigerian story while channeling humane governance and patriotism.

    It’s about time we refined the subtleties that make the Nigerian dream the fantasy of thieves, slatterns, and blinkered murderers.

  • In defence of Masari’s call for self-defence

    In defence of Masari’s call for self-defence

    I sympathise with governor Massari of Katsina who has come under severe stress and strain since his desperate call on his people to defend themselves against killer bandits and herdsmen  that today operate unchallenged in 32 of his state 36 LGAs. But for self-serving Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi’s Transportation University in Katsina,  President Buhari’s presidency has been a curse to his home state of Katsina.

    As if to demystify our Commander-in-Chief,  an Auwalu Daudawa  led six-man gang of bandits chose his  arrival in Katsina  on December 11 2020 to abduct over 300 young boys of Kankara boys school. An embarrassed Governor Masari paid huge sum of money as ransom to secure their freedom on 17 Decemeber 2020 only to be followed by another abduction of 80 girls of  Islamiyya school  in the Dandume local government of the state. The bandits got a huge ransom, and were  granted amnesty after surrendering 28  AK- 47 rifles and swearing on the Quran not to return to banditry. But they reneged on their promise.

    Disappointed,  Masari then decided to embrace the strong-arm tactics of the federal government. But that also did not bring respite to his people. Killing, abduction and humiliation of people continued while the security forces gave impression the bandits routinely visited by Gumi in their forest den were invincible. With 32 of Katsina’s  34 LGAs under a siege,  exhausted  but defiant Masari was  finally forced to call on his people to defend themselves.

    With what appears a total collapse of federal government security architecture, other states of the federation share Masari’s frustration. In fact, it was Theophilus Danjuma who following mindless killings for which none was being held to account,  first called upon his people to defend themselves. He had seized the convocation  ceremony of the Taraba State University on Saturday 24 March 2018  to appeal to his people :, “I ask all of you to be on the alert and defend your country, defend your state. “This ethnic cleansing must stop in Taraba, and it must stop in Nigeria. These killers have been protected by the military; they cover them…”

    Read Also: Babel of exparte orders

    But the Nigerian army  advised  “the people of Taraba State and indeed all other Nigerians to continue in their day-to-day activities and be law abiding as anyone caught with arms and ammunition will be dealt with accordance with the laws of the land”. Unfortunately, bandits and herdsmen who after committing heinous crimes, took group photographs with some northern state governors after receiving huge ransoms,  were never dealt with in accordance with the law of the land.

    Like in Katsina, El Rufai also  experimented with payment of ransom to Kaduna mindless killers who  he confessed  were “actually from outside Nigeria, with some of them  from Niger, Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Senegal”. He admitted negotiating and paying them ransom in 2016 to stop killing Nigerians. But ransom payment did not stop the killings. In early July,  about 33  were killed  during attack on several communities in Atyap and, Zangon Kataf Local Government Areas of Southern Kaduna,. Before then, precisely on March 11 2021,  39  students were abducted by bandits from  Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Mando and also kidnapped in April were another  23 students of Greenfield University i by bandits who demanded  800m from parents after killing  five of the students.

    Like Masari, El Rufai  today denounces ransom payment to bandits. His  wife insists paying ransom is like pouring kerosene into fire . El Rufai who says no bandit deserves to live wants security forces  to move into the forest and wipe them out. But El Rufai knows that is not going to happen  with the president Buhari’s confession that he cannot contradict his Attorney General who has through his unrestrained attack on Nigerians who oppose open grazing shown he is a better defender of herdsmen than Miyetti Allah.

    Benue Governor Ortom on his part has moved from PDP to APC and back to PDP in search of solution to herdsmen siege on his state. Following the initiative of his state house of assembly, he signed his state anti-grazing law. But in November 2017,Miyetti Allah the umbrella organisation for cattle breeders sworn to wage war with Benue people if the law was not repealed.  As part of the fall out. About 73 people were massacred  in January 2018 . On June 3 2021 about 300 were reportedly massacred  in three villages of Ado LGA. When both the  Attorney general and the IG will not enforce the  law,  he set up his own security outfit  which was no match for the fire power of Fulani herdsmen.  The killings continued with about 42 killed   in recent separate attacks  in Katsina Ala and Gwer West local councils of Benue state

    Plateau has had its own share of misery . It was turned into a killing field during Obasanjo’s presidency with an investigative panel report indicting  the state sitting commissioner of police. Lalong however opted to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.  He  sought accommodation with Miyyetti Allah the umbrella body for herdsmen. He berated his Benue  and Taraba state counterparts for their state anti-grazing laws. Playing the ostrich has however brought no joy to his people.  Killings and abduction continued.  Last  Wednesday Yelwan Community of his lost 36 of their  loved ones to reprisal killing.

    In Zanfara where the genesis of banditry according to , Ibrahim Dosara, the state’s Commissioner of Information “started with a conflict between the Fulani and Hausa communities, 2,619 deaths were recorded between 2011 and 2019 with 1,190 abducted and 14,378 livestock rustled and 100,000 people  displaced from their ancestral homes”

    The state governor from onset cast its lot with the federal government which deployed “a full battalion of Special Forces, followed  by “Operation Maximum Safety” with 510 police personnel and 40 patrol vehicles” “Joint Intervention Team of about 1000 police personnel supported by, counter terrorism unit (CTU), federal special anti-robbery squad (FSARS), anti-bomb (EOD) squad, and conventional policemen” to the state. But when they failed to “rout-out, arrest and prosecute armed bandits, vicious kidnappers for ransom and cattle rustling gangs operating in some parts of the state,”  Governor Abdulaziz Yari escaped to Abuja from where he ruled the state.

    His successor, Matawale admitted his three predecessors spent the sum of N970 million on payment of ransom to some of “the 30,000 identified bandits, operating in more than 100 camps” leading to a rescue of over 2,000 kidnapped victims with the help of repentant bandits. But killings have continued despite Matawale swearing by the Quran along with his cabinet members and residents of the state to prove they have no connection with bandits terrorising Zanfara.

    But Masari’s call for self- defence remains romantic as President Buhari’s will not tolerate a strategy that threatens the legitimacy of his government that is already delegitimized by bandits, herdsmen and Boko Haram.

    If we need any proof; In Oyo state, Sunday Igboho, who enraged by the abduction and the killing of his nephew, Dr Fatai Aborode at Iganagan, resorted to self-help, arrested Seriki Fulani described as the chief negotiator for ransom between kidnappers and their victims, and handed him over to the police that had claimed he was invincible, has been hounded out of the country by Malami’s DSS.

  • Babel of exparte orders

    Babel of exparte orders

    THE practice did not start today. It began long ago when our eyes were, as they say, at the knees. That was the Dark Age when people did not know their right from their left. Though the law is said to be an ass, its practitioners,  especially those on the Bench, are not expected to act asinine in order to prove this altruism right.

    Law is central to the running of a nation. It is on the basis of law and order that things are done. To avoid anarchy, a nation must uphold the rule of law. Mind you, the rule of law does not operate in a vacuum. It is driven mostly by people engaged in legal practice, with support from their compatriots. Lawyers break down the nitty-gritty of the law. When they engage in their mumbo-jumbo, others look at them in awe. In most cases, these ‘learned men’ push the case of their clients than the position of the law for the general good of all.

    When you see a lawyer speaking on the side of the law, ut is because it suits the purpose of his client. Where it does not, the lawyer will go to any extent to turn the law on its head. That is when you see his ingenuity! Is it really the ingenuity or the immoral and unethical side of the lawyer? I leave you to answer that. The consolation has always been that there is someone to call the lawyer to order. The judge stands in gap for the people and the law. His job is to uphold justice in all cases before him, no matter the status of the parties involved.

    As we all know, the scale of justice is a blindfolded woman wielding a sword. The meaning is that justice is blind; it does not discriminate between the rich and the poor; it will not favour the leader at the expense of the led. Judges are demigods because of the power they wield – the power of life and death. Painfully, many of them abuse this power. This abuse has been with us overtime, but everybody, especially the leadership of the judiciary, pretended that all was well. The abuse of the grant of exparte orders, which has, unfortunately, now become the norm did not just begin today. An exparte order is made by the court based on an application by a party to an action to which the other side is unaware.

    Read Also: Peace in our time

    As far back as the seventies and eighties, judges have been granting exparte orders without taking into consideration the preservation of the res, that is subject-matter, of the case. The lifespan of an exparte order should be brief. Once the order exceeds one or two weeks, it is no longer a temporary restraining injunction. The purpose of an exparte order is to preserve the destruction of the subject-matter of a case. This is why it should not be granted by whim. For long, some judges have not upheld the maxim of being circumspect before making such orders. They grant an exparte order and shut down their courts for months, holding the affected party to ransom.

    But nobody paid attention then because, as some lawyers, who should know, once confided in this reporter, some heads of courts were involved. ‘They have their own judges who they use for such cases for pecuniary gains’! Many litigants and lawyers complained about this indecent practice in the past, but nothing came out of their complaints. Today, the chickens have come home to roost because exparte injunctions have taken on a political hue. It is this political coloration that has drawn public attention to the illegal use of exparte orders to deny many justice.

    In those days of the military, a party could easily walk into a court and come out with an exparte order, once the price is right. It was for the highest bidder whether or not you have a good case. Who will talk of a good case, where the money is good. The underbelly of this bad practice was exposed in 1993 when the shadowy Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) obtained an exparte order to stop the June 12, 1993 presidential election. This marked the beginning of the annulment of that election. Twenty-eight years after, politicians have turned the art of rushing to court to get exparte orders into a directive principle of state.

    They wait until the eve of an election that they have been aware of for months before they go to court to get an injunction to stop it. Without taking into consideration the consequences of their action on the society, judges grant the request as of right, knowing full well that it is wrong to do so. The conflicting orders by courts of concurrent jurisdiction either removing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Uche Secondus from office or reinstating him has again brought the exparte matter to the fore. In the space of four days, three high courts in Rivers, Kebbi and Cross River states issued those conflicting orders.

    Justice Okogbule Gbasam of the Degema High Court in Rivers State, on August 23, restrained Secondus from parading himself in office. Justice Nusirat Umar of  Kebbi, despite being aware of her learned brother’s ruling, reinstated Secondus on August 26.  Not to be outdone, Justice Edem Kufre of the Calabar High Court, joined the fray on August 27. He sided with his brother in Rivers in restraining Secondus. He was also aware of the subsisting injunctions before he issued his.

    Aware of the propensity of judges to abuse the use of exparte injunction, the Supreme Court warned over 35 years ago that it should not be granted as a matter of course. It can only be granted in cases where the subject-matter will be destroyed if such order was not made. The question is: what loss will the plaintiffs/applicants suffer if the court had ordered that Secondus be put on notice to defend himself? They would lose nothing. But since the judge was sympathetic to their case, he granted their request.

    If his lordshop was misdirected, what can we say of his two other learned brothers who jumped into the fray despite being aware of the subsisting injunction? It is not their duty to rule on the propriety or otherwise of the injunction nor can they hear and determine the same case that is before a court of concurrent jurisdiction. They  overreached themselves by hearing the matter. So much for their lordships. What about the lawyers, who are in most cases senior members of the bar, that lead them to temptation?

    They are as guilty as the judges. None of them should be spared by the National Judicial Council (NJC), which oversees the appointment and discipline of judges, and the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee (LPPC), which handles lawyers affairs.

    Chief Justice Ibrahim Muhammad, who chairs NJC, has invited the chief judges of Rivers,  Kebbi and Cross River as well as  their Anambra, Imo and Jigawa counterparts to Abuja over the incessant abuse of exparte orders in their jurisdictions. It is a step in the right direction. What would gladden the hearts of Nigerians is to see those found culpable of any wrongdoing punished. It should not be a meeting of backslapping and smiles; it should be one of addressing this age-long problem once-and-for-all for the greater good of the justice system. The wheat must be separated from the chaff.

  • Peace in our time

    Peace in our time

    Neville Chamberlain the British prime minister, son of the Birmingham capitalist who was Secretary of State for the colonies in the 1890s when Africa was carved up among European imperialist powers visited Adolf Hitler the warlike German chancellor in 1938. Hitler played on the psychology of the elderly politician who was making his first flight ever and arranged that the meeting took place at his lair at Berghof, a private mountain retreat at Obersalzberg of the Bavarian Alps near  Berchtesgaden   where he was virtually alone with an interpreter and one or two aids  who received the British delegation. On their journey up  the hill they saw German youngsters training and digging what appeared like trenches in readiness for war . What was the  problem? Hitler had  demanded half of Czechoslovakia , the Sudetenland  inhabited by about 3 million ethnic Germansto be annexed to the German Reich peacefully or he would go to war . The old prime minister felt Britain had not fully recovered from the damage of the First World War and saw no reason to fight another war  in his words “  in a distant country “ so he told Hitler that he would sign a protocol with him if Hitler would assure him he would not attack any  other country in Europe after the agreement. This he later signed in Munich before returning to Britain with the piece of paper (chiffon de papier) which on arrival in Heathrow he waved to the crowd who came to welcome him and said  “ peace in our time”. This  Munich Agreement has gone down in history as the Appeasement. Unfortunately for Chamberlain who died under withering abuse and criticism  in 1940 , the Munich Agreement did not discourage Hitler from his warlike tendencies, rather it goaded him on ,until He attacked Poland in1939 and the British had to plunge into war against fascism  as a result of this . This is the historical evidence that appeasement does not always work . The lesson the world has learnt is that rather than acquiesce with aggression you resist and fight it . A bully does not respect supine submission but rather resistance and fighting back . This episode has for better or for worse shaped global strategy since then . Peace is not the absence of war, it is freedom to live a dignified life without fear of domination and a nation can fight a just war to secure this kind of peace.

    The post Second World War division of the world into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO) and WARSAW PACT Communist countries  was a result of the feeling derivable from Newtonian physics that action and reaction are equal and oppositely directed  and that it was dangerous to negotiate out of weakness or to give your enemy any concessional advantage .This feeling  of no appeasements saw the world engage in dangerous but fruitless and futile competition for world domination in which trillions or perhaps zillions of dollars that could have been profitably used for global human development  were spent .Of course this did not prevent outbreak of wars in which satellites were aided to fight  in wars of liberation on the African continent  and ethnic conflicts after the collapse of Yugoslavia and Soviet Union . However there have been conflicts like the Korean War in which the world came dangerously close to great power confrontation between  25 June 1950 and  27 July 1953 and the Vietnam war between 1 November 1955 and 30 April 1975  and the Cuban Crisis of 16 October 1962 to 28 October 1962 .The ongoing conflict between the Russian federation and Ukraine and the various wars in former Russian Caucasus now independent nations are still part of the pangs of pain of the child birth of new nations at the demise of the Soviet Union and the grudging refusal of Russia the successor state to the Soviet Union to accept a lower global status for Russia in relation to China and the United States .

    Read Also: ‘Change begins with me’ not just a political slogan

    The advent of nuclear weapons first in America in 1945 and in the Soviet Union in 1949 and China in 1964  and the ability to deliver them on intercontinental ballistic missiles changed the nature of global strategy and diplomacy . No matter the second  strike capability countries like the United States and  The Russian Federation  and presumably China have , no country would seriously factor the use of nuclear weapons to resolve conflicts nowadays unless as a last result. When General  Douglas MacArthur  threatened to use it against China during the Korean War President Harry Truman peremptorily removed him as Allied Commander in 1951. This is why there seems to be unwritten agreement amongst the major nuclear weapons states to refrain from the use of nuclear weapons in their global competition for power and influence. There are however some nuclear weapons states like Israel, Pakistan, North Korea and India that appear would  be ready to use the nuclear weapons they have as a deterrent against hostile neighbors, in the case of Israel  against the Arab states committed to wiping out Israel from the face of the earth and in the case of Pakistan and India for mutual assured destruction. North Korea seems to feel insecure   but having nuclear weapons in the face of the United States opposition to its existence ,at least initially but not any more  gives it some sense of security. It is  because of this defensive purpose that the Islamic Republic of Iran wants to join the club of nuclear powers against Western powers’ opposition for fear of a religiously driven state acquiring nuclear weapons .

    When in 1994 the Soviet Union collapsed there was a feeling of relief that the Cold War has at last ended . The massive Soviet Empire broke into 15 supposedly independent countries and the power of Russia its major successor state was considerably diminished . This made President Barack Obama referred to the Russian federation as a medium power which was correct but which angered president Vladimir Putin to no end and made him commit to recovering Russian prestige through rearmament and pursuit of a policy of “Russia abroad “by which he meant defending the interests of ethnic Russians in the independent States near the Russian homeland. This has brought him into dangerous confrontations with  nationalists in places like Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic states of Latvia , Estonia ,Lithuania  and particularly in Ukraine which has attracted Western response of either incorporation of the Baltic states into NATO and supporting Ukraine by supplying it with defensive weapons since Russian incorporation of  Ukraine’s Crimea into Russia . Despite the threat and application of economic sanctions against Russia ,the reality of global military balance is that Russia’s annexation of Crimea has come to stay and nothing but a major war can remove Russia from the Crimean peninsula which is largely inhabited by ethnic Russians .The European political map may yet settle down and no major changes in national boundary may occur . How many people today seriously think Germany can ever recover its lost territories in Russia and Poland . It is the same way that the current political map of Europe will have to be accepted for the foreseeable future.

    The major possible areas of future conflicts are the Middle East and  in the South  China sea . The problem of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian entity would have to be resolved politically and not by threat of possible annihilation of Israel. The United States is committed to the protection of Israel  and a nuclear weapons armed Israel cannot be militarily wished away even if the threatened “ Islamic bomb” in Iran were to  materialize. The recent recognition of Israel by many Arab states indicate that the Palestinian  problem can  be resolved if Israel is flexible enough to accommodate the reality of a two states solution on old Palestine and the West Bank of the River Jordan .

    America  seems to perceive emergent China  as a threat which must be confronted particularly in  the South China Sea and the Taiwan straits as part of its containment policy .I really do not know how America can stop Taiwan’s 65 million Chinese from joining the people’s republic of China if that is their wish . Can America really fight China if it decides to invade Taiwan inhabited by its own people? Will America go to a nuclear  or conventional war for the purpose of protecting Taiwan ? Time is really on the side of China and the Chinese, if they are wise ,should wait out the Americans and allow the Taiwanese ripe apples fall into their laps at the appropriate time without going to war with an angry America that feels it is losing the economic struggle for primacy to China .

    Finally what is the future of peace in Africa. The Tigrean war in Ethiopia points to the future scenario in Africa . No central power can suppress the desire of a people to be free. The colonial contraptions masquerading as nations in Africa have no future unless they are restructured , or  in some cases merged with their ethnic irredentas in neighboring countries . The upshot of what I am suggesting is  staring us in our faces in Nigeria where there is total absence of peace , a peace which is desirable and which we can achieve if we listen to the wise yearnings of our people calling for restructuring and understanding our differences and not forgetting them .

     

  • The invasion of NDA

    The invasion of NDA

    Even in their wildest dreams, gunmen or whatever name they are called, tend to look before they strike. They choose and assess their potential victims ahead of any attack. They look at their chances of success when planning the attack and weigh it against any eventuality. They do this because they too are afraid of being killed or caught or exposed or attacked in return by the potential victim.

    The easier the operation, the better for them. Go in easily and come out easily is their motto. Even a mad man does not want to die if he can help it. There is a method to the madness of these unknown gunmen, who we address variously as terrorists, insurgents, bandits, robbers and kidnappers these days. These gunmen are everything rolled into one. They have become a thorn in our flesh. There is probably no home today that has not felt the viciousness of these gunmen.

    The late Okoronkwo
    • The late Okoronkwo

    They kill, they maim, they rob, they rape, they kidnap.  Even kids that are below the age of five and expectant mothers are not spared. They take them away and do not release them until they are paid ransom, which runs into millions of naira. As I write this, some school pupils kidnapped in Kaduna and Niger states at various times in the past 60 and 80 days are still being held. Pupils of the Baptist Bethel School, Kaduna,  are being released in batches, just as their parents are able to raise the ransom.

    The government that should ensure the sanctity of life; that should nip the kidnapping of its citizens in the bud, is rather threatening to criminalise ransom payment. It wants to punish those who pay for the release of their abducted children and other relatives. Is that the solution to the problem? The bigger issue of crime and criminality, which unfortunately, kidnapping is, has been left largely unaddressed. Distraught parents who sent their children to boarding school, with the belief that their safety is assured, are left wondering if they did any wrong in trying to give their kids good education. We are at the mercy of gunmen. Our nation is under siege.

    From soft target, gunmen have since moved to difficult target, hitting military formations and offices of multilateral agencies and waylaying the convoys of governors. Only God saved the governors of Benue and Borno states,  Samuel Ortom and Babagana Zulum, who some gunmen attempted to assassinate. The truth is the gunmen are growing by the day. They have become emboldened because they appear to be above the law. None of them has been known to be brought to book,  not even when they attempted to kill governors.

    Afaka in Kaduna State, which has a huge federal presence, has lately been in the news because of gunmen’s escapades in that axis. They were at the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation and Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Staff Quarters. In both places, they kidnapped people, among them pupils and women. Their victims were only released after the payment of ransom. All these happened right under the nose of the biggest federal institution in Afaka – Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) – which was hitherto thought impregnable. The thinking was that no matter how mad a dog is, it will surely respect its owner. This dog does not know the face nor even recognise the voice of its owner.

    Read Also: Attack on NDA will hasten process of ending criminality – Buhari

    These gunmen only listen to their own voice and inner mind. It is what they want to do that they will do, no matter the consequences. Can any sane person ever think of storming a military academy? Is that not suicidal? This is what these gunmen have done. They went into the lion’s den, not only to dare it, but also to kill and kidnap. They killed Lieutenant Commander Awolo  and Flight Lieutenant C.M. Okoronkwo, who was described as head of Medical Laboratory. The gunmen went away with Major Stephen Datong. Shortly after the incident happened on Tuesday morning, the military said it was on the trail of the gunmen.

    Many hours after, the nation has not heard anything about the arrest or otherwise of the gunmen. How did they gain access into the Academy? Sometime in 1992 or so,  I was there on assignment for the opening of an eye hospital and I marvelled at what I saw. The NDA is not a small place. It is a  community on its own, with a large expanse of land. It is not where a stranger without knowledge of the place can invade easily and escape just like that. Something must be wrong somewhere. What went wrong? This is the question, authorities of NDA must answer. They must have an answer to this worrisome breach of its security.

    late Awolo
    •The late Awolo

    NDA, of all places, should not be prone to gunmen’s attack. If NDA, which is supposed to be a strong tower of refuge, can be easily penetrated by gunmen, where and who is safe, then? This is the question many have been asking on social media. It is a pertinent question. There is no Nigerian that will not be bothered by the attack on NDA because of the latent message in it. The message being sent across by the gunmen is that  ‘look, your so-called secure institutions are not safe if and when we want to attack. So, relying on them for your  security is not advisable’.

    We have heard from the Academy and the Defence Headquarters (DHQ)  on what happened at NDA. They said one and the same thing using different words. To the Academy, its security was ‘compromised’ and to the DHQ, the security was ‘breached’. The NDA’s statement,  if I understand it well, connotes that some people within might have had a hand in what happened. Who are these people? It is left for the authorities to fish them out . But it is not comforting that there might be people inside an institution, such as the highly fortified NDA, working against its interest.

    With such people in NDA and in other military formations, we have nothing to fear from the enemy outside because they have a foothold inside already. It is a shame that the gunmen escaped after the attack and are yet to be arrested as I conclude this essay, despite the massive manhunt for them. Is it that easy to invade a military institution and escape? It beats me hands down. As the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Lucky Irabor, said in his reaction: ‘This madness must be brought to an end immediately’. It will be a shame on our nation if the perpetrators of this grave crime get away with it.

  • A bouquet of poisonous freedoms

    A bouquet of poisonous freedoms

    This minute, Nigeria’s youths enjoy patronage from external forces, who use them as unwitting tools of subjugation, manipulable by buffeting their naivete.

    In truth, many carry on like survivors of dystopia, whose ethical thinning manifests by pitiless experience. They seem weathered like driftwood yet helpless amid familiar, unfamiliar storms.

    Consequently, crooked forces from abroad, comprising foreign media, predatory governments, political and non-governmental organisations, have emerged to “help” us. As a necessary ruse of rescue, they have sunk their fangs into the flesh of the youth and our governance systems via poisonous patronage.

    These external actors wield toxic propaganda, a ruinous news agenda, stealthy diplomacy, and dark psyops, all streamlined to foster bigotries and the rage of disgruntled, impoverished citizenry.

    Operatively, they desensitise the youth to guiltless rage and incendiary activism in fulfillment of their preferred narrative about Nigeria and hideous agenda to accelerate the country’s self-destruct.

    The ill-fated Arab uprisings deviously couched as the “Arab Spring” must, however, serve as a reproach to the country’s youth. Like I said last week, nobody could love Nigeria more than Nigerians hence our need for caution in accepting “help” from abroad.

    Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, among others, would tow more peaceful paths today, had they a second chance. They would shun their western patrons’ gift of ‘self-determination’ and gendered freedoms if they could turn back the hands of time.

    Basking in the patronage of so-called ‘super powers’ from Europe and America, Nigeria’s youth currently feel dignified, but in truth, they are being paralysed.

    They are being goaded into a melancholy state of contraction from which there is no escape through action. Every action they had been incited to take against their oppressors in the ruling class, for instance, has manifested as a revolt against self, the collective good, and the future of the Nigerian State. Think #EndSARS.

    Now that the consequences of their rage have begun to manifest, they retreat into the wormhole of fear. Subsequently, they have taken the battle to social media: the threshing ground of separatists, hoodlums, maniacs, cowards, and other aberrant.

    In the physical public arena, the youths have been reduced to only passive responses: fortitude and endurance. But in their newfound battle zones on social media, they parade as warlords, separatists, and acerbic patriots.

    The failure of the #EndSARS protest and its inability to birth a political movement anchored on progress, public service and patriotism, stemmed from its protagonists’ purposelessness and acquiescence to the dystopic visions of their sponsors at home and abroad.

    Eventually, they built what was supposed to be a liberating movement into a national threat; they turned the protest arenas into forbidden open spaces, an agoraphobic wasteland.

    As the protests snowballed into chaos, the world waited with bated breath, the usual culprits especially – known for marketing arms and ammunition to warring factions in exchange for plundering the affected countries’ natural resources, among other crimes.

    This minute, western media sensationalise our story while their governments pay poisonous patronage to our travails. The youths mistake this for love. But it’s a love that would goad millions of Nigerians to untimely death and desiccate their flesh; a love that would raise their hopes only to crush them to skeletal deficiency of being.

    Against the backdrop of this plot, it is scary to see the tenor of rage being hurled about on social media, mostly by youths. Many profess love for country but in truth, their passions manifest crude iniquities, distressing orientations, negative energy clusters, and abraded grief, all fostered by loss, poverty, and unbearable gloom.

    The contemporary youth manifest as Nigeria’s secret fear. They are what is left when the oppressive oligarchs are done devouring the country, the dry bones they picked over after they looted and wolfed down our collective wealth.

    Of course, nationalist consciousness still thrives, but images of the self and the collective good have gotten smaller; corrupted to be precise. Yet our youthful patriots preach and promise healing but with palsied hands.

    Read Also: M.I urges youths to get PVC after two hours in police custody

    Their versions of love and healing fail to plug the lacuna created by bad leadership because they are products of a dysfunctional social system fostered by toxic family, ethnicity, and religion. More worrisome is the destruction of the family despite its touted significance as the core social unit. But this is a discussion for another day.

    If there is a revolutionary dialectic in Nigeria, it is in the tension between individual and self. But this is often weaponised as the tension between individual and state, individual and groups, individual and the system, individual and the almighty Nigerian factor.

    The real battle is between individual and self. The dutiful patriot must discipline and restrain himself. Seasoned through miseries and deathly solemnities foisted on him by governance failure and an oppressive political class, he mistakes his battle with external elements and forces of oppression as his life’s purpose.

    In tackling them, he yields to that innate lust that ignites the heart towards selfish pursuits. He scoffs at posterity and ancestral dreams. Private lust trumps the public good, flaming up in Nigeria’s funeral pyre.

    To attain true progress, the youth must free themselves from innate and external shackles of thought and action. They must understand that the oligarchs and their “helpers” from abroad, would often set out to compromise their leaders by making them their consorts, that the latter might, in turn, mislead millions of other youths to sabotage self and State.

    To rebuild Nigeria, I reiterate, that the youth must seek legitimate participation in the political process. They must seize the moment to regroup, adopt or establish a viable political party, duly registered, and founded on humane principles of nationhood, citizenship, and thought.

    The recent call for voter re-registration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its intent to resolve perceived failings of the electoral system including voter apathy, holds great promise for youths seeking to participate in the political process.

    Of course, given the institutionalised shortcomings of the electoral system, I would still urge the youths to present to the National Assembly, a request to normalise the use of the international passport, driver’s license, national identity card, and BVN (for electronic ballot) as acceptable means of voting at the 2023 elections.

    The political class will object to this given their penchant for hoarding unclaimed voter’s cards, to fulfill their election-rigging master plans but it’s worth starting the debate over that.

    The youths must unite with societal segments they hitherto ignored and dismissed as too violent, too dumb, too compromised, and too wild, like the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), the trade unions, among others.

    They must initiate steps to quash the oligarchic caste system that reduces several youths to political hooligans, arsonists, and assassins – it’s about time they started the deliberations nationwide.

    The process must eschew violence and hate speech, and their synergies must be guided and adapted through an ad hoc coordination at repelling moles, goons, and saboteurs, who would be sent to disrupt their rallies with tribal toxins, fake news, religious venom, and filthy lucre.

    Then they must scorn poisonous interventions by countries whose major interest is to abolish our sovereignty, plunder our resources, and lay us bare.

    We mustn’t forget how foreign media, governments, NGOs goaded Arabians to a scalding spring, only to desert them afterward. The same voices that incited them to carnage shut their borders against them claiming they were toxic refugees.

  • Leaders need more than piety to run government

    Leaders need more than piety to run government

    Most Nigerians will readily attest to the fact that both President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo are pious men. Their immeasurable  piousness was perhaps their major asset during the 2015 election. It was mainly because of their Muslim and Christian credentials that the masses of poor Nigerians who as a result of cultural imperialism  believe they are holier than Sheikh Abdul Rehman Al Sadais, the chief Iman of Mecca or Pope Francis in Rome, elected these two devout leaders into power. And they have not disappointed  us as the two pious men have continued to live and govern by faith.

    Pastor Osinbajo speaking at the interdenominational church service for the 2018 Armed forces Day Celebration in Abuja on January 5 2018, said “as dangerous, deadly and heartless as killings by Fulani herdsmen  in Adamawa, Benue and Jos were, retaliation was not the answer”. His message was that of forgiveness.

    In the same vein, on January 2018 while president Buhari was assuring grieving Benue delegation of political, traditional rulers and elders of Benue led by Governor Ortom after  mass burial of victims of marauding herdsmen, that the perpetrators would be brought to book, he appealed to them saying “in the name of God accommodate your country men”. His was also a message of forgiveness.

    Was forgiveness not what all the Holy books, the Bible and the Quran prescribed? : “O my Servants who have transgressed against their souls! Despair not of the Mercy of Allah: for Allah forgives all sins: for He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful..( Surah Ghafir, verse 55 )  “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool..( Isaiah 1:18)  And when Peter asked Jesus “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.( Matthew 18: 21-22)

    The setting up  and the launching of  ‘Operation Safe Corridor’, an initiative for the de-radicalisation and rehabilitation of ex-Boko Haram members and their reintegration back into society by President Buhari’s government in 2016 therefore fitted perfectly into the mindset of our pious leaders. But five years into the launching of the initiative, killings, whether in the name of Boko-Haram, Bandits or Fulani herdsmen have continued in north western states of Sokoto, Zanfara, Katsina and Kaduna where 222 persons were killed with 774 others  kidnapped  between  May and July 2021.

    And without succor for about 350, 000 killed, 3m displaced and over 310,000 driven by insurgents from their communities marooned in IDP camps before the take-off of the project, people read  injustice into pampering of criminals that had visited so much sorrow on Nigerians. As asked by  Bishop Kukah “Why should rehabilitating  those that declared war against Nigerians , murdered thousands of citizens, destroyed infrastructure and rendered entire families permanently displaced and dislocated than victims in IDP camps”?.

    Besides Soldiers at the war front in the north-east who expressed  misgivings about the release of repentant Boko Haram suspects,  some residents of Borno in July 2020,  kicked against the reintegration of repentant Boko-Haram members into their communities, asking the federal government to take them to Aso Rock.

    But questioning the success of this federal government pet-project last week  during the surrender of 1,000 repentant Boko Haram terrorists and  about 200 other Nigeria ex-militants from Cameroon, Governor Babagana Zulum, said while he was not opposed to federal government policy he observed  “ no one will find it easy that killers of his or her children and other loved ones including our courageous soldiers and volunteers who have lost colleagues..” are integrated without paying or atoning for their sins. He further claimed that  “quite often those who have passed through the Safe Corridor initiative, usually go back and rejoin the terror group after carefully studying the various security arrangements in their host communities, during the reintegration process”.  He then called for the review of “the whole idea of de-radicalisation, as currently being implemented, to ensure the main goals and the underlying objectives behind the initiative are achieved.” His recommendation therefore include: immediately prosecution of the insurgents in accordance with the terrorism Act and devolution of the powers of the minister of justice and attorney-general of the federation to state attorneys-general in order to facilitate the prosecution process,”

    Read Also: ‘Nigeria should get its leadership right’

     

    But our pious leaders driven by his sense of self-righteousness have shown no inclination towards changing their strategy. But instead, from far away Washington DC came  support from another man of faith, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture. According to him the decision by the federal government not to prosecute repentant insurgents is “in line with global best practice. What they (soldiers) were doing is what the global practice dictates about soldiers that surrendered that should be treated as prisoners of war,”

    But how can Lai Mohammed who recently said his 7 years old grandson wanted to know why people call him ‘lying Mohammed’ pretended not knowing that  Boko Haram, Bandits, Herdsmen who break all international rule of engagement by kidnapping underage female children they forced into marriage or turned into sex slaves, school children they kidnapped for ransom and indiscriminate killing of subsistence farmers, their children  and wives on their farms or while sleeping in the night, cannot by any stretch of the imagination be regarded as soldiers?

    Support for government also came last week from  the  Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) The body through  Is-hac Akintola, its Director  has called on the Federal Government and Nigerian Army to resettle repentant Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists. The body wants “Returning fighters to  be treated like brothers newly found because  What they need is our understanding, cooperation and kindness”. The body was however silent on the needs of victims who lost their loved ones. driven from their  farms and communities and  are currently living in IDP camps.

    Unfortunately since we have all become blinded by religion, reminding those we elected on the basis of their faith that Saudi Arabia which executes people for murder, drug smuggling, rape, armed robbery, and terrorism offenses has one of the highest execution rates in the world  and that the Jewish Talmud supports capital punishment especially for  those  who are a threats to society will not change the mindset of pious leaders driven only by sense of self-righteousness.

    But as 2023 beckons, perhaps it is time to remind ourselves that government is too important to be left in the hands of pious men driven only by sense of self-righteousness. Government is a Leviathan-a huge fearful sea monster. Parts of its important task is to   keep man who most of the time is insane under control  just as it has to control the excesses of the rich who demand freedom for licentious lives  while presiding over empire of slaves.

    Piety is perhaps the least attribute needed by those who want to run government. Indeed for those who intend to venture into the serious business of managing society, sincerity, candour, honesty and probity are not as important as egoism, brinkmanship and skillful exploitation of man’s secret fears and infirmities.

  • The international dimensions of the fall of Afghanistan

    The international dimensions of the fall of Afghanistan

    Afghanistan (khorasan) is not a nation but a conglomeration of different peoples majority of them being Pashtun (Pathans) who also form substantial part of the population of Pakistan. Other groups in modern Afghanistan are Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazara, Aimaq, Turkmen , Balochs, Pashai, Nuristani, Gujjar, Brahui, Qizilbash, Pamiri, Kyrgyz, Sadat and others . However the three largest groups are the Pashtun ,the Tajiks and the Hazaras. The territory now known as Afghanistan  was once conquered by Darius 1 of Babylonia  circa 500 BC and Alexander the Great of Macedonia in 329 BC among others. It once formed part of an empire stretching from Iran and extending to Delhi  in India ruled at one time by Persians (Iranians) and  at other times by the Rashidun Arabs. Mahmud of Ghazni, an 11th century conqueror who created an empire from Iran to India is considered the greatest of Afghanistan’s conquerors. Ghenghis Khan took over the territory in the 13th century, but it was not until the 1700s that the area was united as a single country. The people of Afghanistan were at a time either Zoroastrians , Hindus, Buddhists or pagans. It was not until between 8th and 10th centuries that the majority of the Pashtuns converted to Islam. The Pashtuns are largely concentrated in the South and parts of the East, the Tajiks are  mainly in the Northeast and western Afghanistan and Uzbeks are mainly in the North.

    The modern evolution of Afghanistan can be said to have begun in  1880 after the end of the second Anglo- Afghan war. Before that time Afghanistan was part of various Persian empires and its history is tied to that of other countries in the region including Pakistan , India, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The first ruler of  modern Afghanistan was Ahmad Shah who united the various Pashtun tribes and by 1760 built an empire extending to Delhi and the Arabian Sea. When he died in 1772 the empire went into ruins, but in 1826 Dost Mohammad  the leader of the Pashtuns restored order. He had to contend with the British empire in India against whom the Afghans fought two wars between 1842 and 1880. The war was fought  by the British to prevent Russian imperial designs on Afghanistan then under their emir, Shah ALI Khan . Britain finally recognized the independence of Afghanistan on 8 August 1919  by a treaty signed in Rawalpindi and agreed that British India would not extend past the Khyber Pass. From 1919, Britain stopped giving subsidies to the country. Although Britain did not incorporate Afghanistan into the British empire it nevertheless controlled the country’s foreign policy for 40 years from 1880 to 1920. In 1926 Amir Amanullah declared Afghanistan a monarchy rather than an emirate  and proclaimed himself as King. He embarked on reforms to modernize the country and to limit the Loya Jirga ( the National Council). These reforms led to revolt against him, which forced him to abdicate in 1929. The country was not stabilized until 1933 when Mohammad  Zahir Shah became king. He ruled the country until 1973 . He lived to witness Britain’s withdrawal from its Raj in India and creating largely Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan  whose border with Afghanistan was disputed. In fact, Afghanistan voted against the admission of Pakistan into the United Nations in 1948.

    In 1953, the pro- Soviet Russia General Mohammad Daodu Khan the cousin of the King  looked towards Russia for economic and military assistance while embarking on social and economic reforms. In 1965 the Afghanistan Communist Party came into being albeit secretly. In 1973, the prime minister Mohammad Daodu Khan overthrew the old king and the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan came to power. Khan abolished the monarchy and named himself the president with firm ties to the Soviet Union.  President Muhammad Daodu Khan himself was killed in 1978 in a communist coup d’etat and Muhammad Taraki, one of the founding members of the Communist party became president and Babrak Karmal became his deputy. Internal dissension marred the workings of the government and a revolt in the countryside led by guerrilla movement of the Mujahideen emerged to challenge the Soviet Union-backed government. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979 to bolster the Communist regime in the country. By early 1980, the Mujahideen united against the Soviet-backed Afghanistan’s army  and some 2.8 million fled the country for Pakistan, and another 1.5 fled to Iran . The Afghan guerrilla movement of the Mujahideen controlled the countryside while the Soviet troops and their Afghan supported government controlled the capital Kabul and major towns. The Mujahideen received support and arms from the USA, Britain and China via Pakistan, and by 1986 the Soviet army began a phased withdrawal from the country. By 1988, Osama bin Laden and 15 others formed the group Al Qaida (the base) to continue the war against the Soviet army in Afghanistan. In 1989 the US, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union signed a peace accord in Geneva guaranteeing Afghan Independence and the withdrawal of 100,000   Soviet Russian troops from the country. This did not end the war of the Mujahideen against the Afghan government  led by Dr. Mohammad Najibullah which was still backed by the Soviet Union.   In 1992, the Mujahideen backed by turncoat government soldiers stormed Kabul, the capital, and ousted President Najibullah from power.  As soon as Kabul was taken the Mujahideen began to fracture, but eventually an Islamic State under Professor Burhannudin Rabbani was proclaimed. In 1995 a newly formed Islamic militia, the Taliban (students) rose to power on promises of peace after the exhaustion by war and famine. The Taliban outlawed the farming of poppies for the opium trade and banned the education of women and  imposed draconian Islamic code on the country  including public executions for a myriad of offenses. Millions of refugees again fled to neighboring countries. The former president Najibullah was in 1997 publicly executed while  Ahmad Shah Masood’s northern Alliance and Hamid Karzai’s  Pashtun Group in the South began to battle the Taliban for control of the country. Following Al Qaida’s attack on the U.S . embassies in East Africa, President Bill  Clinton ordered cruise missiles attack on the country .

    Read Also: PMB and lessons from Afghanistan

     

    On September 11, 2001 Hijackers commandeered four commercial air planes and crashed them into the World Trade Centre in New York, the Pentagon  and a Pennsylvania field killing thousands of Americans and nationals of other nations. Bin Laden then based in Afghanistan was fingered as the brain behind the terrible attack. British and American air forces began aerial attacks  while the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan drove the Taliban out of Kabul and finally out of the country. Hamid Karzai, a royalist ethnic Pashtun, was sworn in as interim leader of Afghanistan in 2001. Amid increased violence and chaos NATO took over security in Kabul in 2003, the Organization’s first  military commitment outside Europe. In 2004, Karzai was elected president and by 2006, mission creep saw the NATO forces fighting Taliban and Al Qaida forces  in the southern portion of the country.

    Thus began the involvement of American led NATO forces for twenty years under four presidents , Gorge  W. Bush,  Barack Obama , Donald J. Trump and now Joseph Biden who  rightly decided to cut the Gordian knot and withdraw from a senseless unwinnable war, having learnt from the failure of previous conquerors of the country. Biden has come under severe criticism  for the hurried and shambolic execution of the withdrawal. I personally think Biden took the right step to withdraw from the conflict with a foe who was ready to fight until death.

    Afghanistan, a country of 40 million people, occupies a strategic place in Central Asia and it is this centrality of its location that makes the poor country important. Pakistan, which for ethnic Pashtun solidarity  had been supporting the Taliban and undermining US war efforts, may yet rue its support for the Taliban which now poses a threat to Pakistan itself, which has its own militant Talibans committed to overthrowing the government in Islamabad. If Pakistan is about to fall, the West may again have to fight the Talibans in Pakistan because it will be suicidal to allow a “ Mad Mullah “ to have his hands on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The same reason may force India to intervene. China with its huge investment in Pakistan and the fear of Islamic terrorists entering China’s Xinjiang Islamic dominated province  has an interest in watching what goes on in Afghanistan. Infiltration of terrorists driven by jihadi sentiments into Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and on to the Russian Caucasus will compel Russia to be  careful of  its support for the Taliban regime unless it foreswears supports for Islamic terrorism. In all these scenarios, the United States does not have much to lose. Its wasting 3 trillion dollars and loss of 2400 soldiers and perhaps another 2000 Allied troops  over two decades of war has been  a misplaced effort and an exercise in futility. If America had studied the history of the failure of attempted foreign conquest of Afghanistan, it would not have repeated the history of failure.

  • Ishaq Oloyede: Getting an encore at JAMB

    Ishaq Oloyede: Getting an encore at JAMB

    INTEGRITY is innately borne and espoused as a kernel of character. But honour is a cosmic gift under no one’s control. It peaks and ebbs as spectator mood at a crunch soccer tie. Hence had he forged his character like decals, Professor Ishaq Oloyede would be unworthy of regard and applause.

    He would be undeserving of reappointment as Registrar/Chief Executive of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) for a second term of five years.

    The furnace of public office soon melts off specious character, like poorly formed/forged decal; hauled inside the heat, only a man of unimpeachable fibre may emerge pristine, unscathed.

    Inspired by his first tenure as JAMB Registrar, President Muhammadu Buhari reappointed Oloyede, apparently to consolidate on his previous achievements. His first time out, Oloyede effectively resolved a lot of the board’s operational hiccups. He curbed decisively, the abysmal performance that had plagued the board since its establishment in 1978.

    This isn’t to say that Oloyede is an infallible knight. He definitely has his flaws – being only human. His administration betrays shortcomings that are markedly obvious. But in this moment, and for this purpose, all the character pieces fall in place, and to his credit – which informed the revalidation of his appointment by President Buhari on Friday, August 20.

    Before Oloyede assumed leadership of JAMB, the board affected a ghostly performance on several counts. It’s conduct of examinations was shoddy. It’s issuance of results was equally problematic, blemished by outrageous and oft unforgivable irregularities.

    But since Oloyede took over, JAMB has recorded appreciable success. He has revolutionised the examination process even as he pulled all the stops to the seamless synergy of fiscal and managerial operations of the organisation.

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    He has done so much to institutionalise transparency in the system; it wasn’t until he assumed management of the board that it became clear to the federal government and every Nigerian, that JAMB could actually function as a cashcow.

    Prior to Oloyede’s appointment, the total amount JAMB remitted to the federal government’s coffers between 2010 and 2016, for instance, was N 50,752,544, which was about one per cent of the N5 billion the agency remitted to the federal government in 2017 alone.

    The apparently ludicrous nature of the remittances, pre-Oloyede era, spurred the federal government to institute a probe of previous heads of JAMB. The Federal Executive Council (FEC) subsequently ordered an inquiry of previous JAMB administrations over what it deemed poor revenue remittances in the past.

    “Now they (JAMB) have not increased their charges, they have not increased their fees. The question that FEC and council members were asking was ‘where was this money before?’” former Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, reportedly said after the September 13 FEC meeting.

    The accountant general’s office stated that N11,522,808 was remitted in 2011; N25, 303,274 was remitted in 2013 and N13,926,462 was remitted in 2014. There was no remittance in 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016, according to the office of the Accountant-General.

    Despite its ridiculous earnings and scandalous period of non-remittances, JAMB subsisted as an ardent fund guzzler, digging a hole in the government’s purse. However, between 2016 and 2020, that is, Oloyede’s first tenure as Registrar, the examination board remitted about N28billion to the government’s coffers, despite reducing some of its charges.

    In Oloyede’s performance, we see the exculpatory rousing that honesty in public office inspires. We see how sterling character and progressive deployment of higher learning distinguishes a person of authority cum public servant. The lambent complexion stays lucent, and the aura subsists.

    To stay afloat the stormy seas of public office, Oloyede defined himself by a measure that he must always aspire to surpass. Perhaps he saw public office for what it was, a deceptive con game. And he would rather not get conned. Thus he fed his focus and starved his distractions.

    Oloyede’s bid to reinvigorate JAMB seemed impossible in a clime maligned by institutionalised mishaps and administrative bottlenecks but bolstered by his stubborn resolve, he sought to achieve the impossible.

    He resolutely nursed a vision of a disciplined, orderly, prosperous exams administrative organ, whatever the odds.

    Of course, so much has been written about him – mostly patronising. While this too may resonate as yet another pitch to the chorus, it need be said that in saner clime, Professor Oloyede wouldn’t attract anything beyond the perfunctory tribute of a pat on the back.

    After all, he had only been doing the job for which he was appointed, and for which he is being handsomely rewarded from public fund.

    He has done nothing special by revolutionising JAMB operations while regularising studious remittances of its revenue into government purse perhaps. But in this clime, what he has done must be deemed worthy of emulation.

    This is Nigeria, where Professors and supposedly esteemed dons of the academia have been used to rig national elections, not minding its consequent fallout on the populace whose mandate were stolen and dreams of progress extinguished.

    Hence the emergence of an Oloyede is deserving of applause.

    The core of his character was probably forged through his childhood. As it is said, the child is the father of the man. There is no gainsaying, he was raised on a humane diet of tough love and character-forming Islamic precepts.

    Born on October 10, 1954, in Abeokuta, Ogun State, he lived in Shomolu, in Lagos, for a while, before his father moved them to their family house – built by him – in Akoka.  There, very close to the University of Lagos and St. Finbarr’s  College, as well as the Federal College of Education (Technical), he grew up under the eagle eyes of his dad, maternal grandmother and extended family members, having lost his mother at the tender age of four.

    In a recent interview, he stated that his dream as a child was to be the best Muslim. “My dream as a child was to be the best Muslim I could be because I could see my parents. I could see members of my families being renowned Muslim scholars. As children growing up in those days, we weren’t dreaming of becoming anything other than to be able to be useful to the community. Maybe after admission to the university then we could start dreaming of a career path.”

    Thus his pursuit of Islamic Studies up to doctoral level was certainly an auspicious venture, and Nigeria is the better for it.

    He attended the Progressive Institute, Agege, Lagos, between 1969 and 1973, and the Arabic Training Centre, (Markaz) in Agege, Lagos, from 1973-1976.  He later went for further Arabic training in Offa, Ilorin and the University of Ibadan (UI), where he obtained a certificate in Arabic and Islamic Studies between 1976 and 1977.

    In 1976, after completing his diploma, he was engaged to teach at Queen’s College, Lagos. He was on Level 07 at the time but he felt that the best thing for him to do was to discontinue work. Despite the kind of salary that he earned at the time and the possibility of securing  a car loan, he felt that he should continue his education. So he returned to school. He proceeded to the Kwara State College of Education to start a National Certificate in Education. Although he did not need an NCE, he sought a school environment in order to repeat the GCE O’ level examination in English, which was the only barrier between him and getting an admission through direct entry. He spent one year there and afterwards proceeded to the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) for direct entry because he already obtained a diploma from UI.

    He subsequently attended UNILORIN in 1978, where he studied Arabic and was awarded a B.A. Arabic (First Class Hons) in 1981. In July 1982 he was appointed an Assistant Lecturer in  the Department of Religions of the University. In 1991, he earned his Doctorate degree in Islamic Studies also from UNILORIN.

    Prof. Oloyede earned several scholarships and prizes during his student days, notable among which were the Arab League prize for the best final year Certificate student in Arabic and Islamic Studies in 1977 at the University of Ibadan; Federal Government undergraduate merit award from 1979 to 1981; Department of Religions Award, University of Ilorin, 1981 and Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Award, Unilorin also in 1981. He was appointed Deputy Vice – Chancellor (Academic) on June 19, 2003 and Deputy Vice -Chancellor (Administration) on July 6, 2005.

    Professor Oloyede is an accomplished academic, Islamic scholar and luminary public intellectual. Starting as an Assistant Lecturer in 1982, he rose steadily through the ranks to become a globally respected Professor in 1995 with several articles, authored and co-authored, in reputable local and international outlets. He was elected the Vice Chancellor of his alma mater, University of Ilorin, on October 15, 2007, for a single term of five years during which the university was deeply transformed, attaining high rank among the best in Africa and one of the most sought-after universities in Nigeria.

    In 2015, he was appointed the Second Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Third Governing Council of Fountain University, Nigeria. He is also one of the International Advisory Board members of International Network for Higher Education in Africa (INHEA). Since 2013, he has been the Secretary-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA).

    Since assumption of office, Oloyede has been widely celebrated for transforming JAMB into a reference point in effective public service delivery and accountability with many unprecedented exploits.

    The native of Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State, has distinguished himself as a lot of things: a revolutionary, a provocateur, a committed Muslim, and scholar; Oloyede is a wellspring of cultural commentary and public service inspiration.

    He just might be the answer to Nigeria’s call for a new generation of leadership.

    Like white rose growing on concrete slabs or the daring mushroom that pierces the motionless eternity of earth, pushing clearly but obstinately, through faint form, till the hour of fertility strikes, Oloyede has fluorished where many got corrupted and cowed in defeat.

    Shedding doubts like worn covering, he tilled the thick darkness of endeavour, on whose cliff flowery deeds sprout, till the carnations of light overwhelmed the contemptible famine of night.

    Perhaps, his second time out as JAMB’s Registrar would gift the nation with more luminous blooming.