The Nation Newspaper

Category: Olakunle Abimbola

  • Unity, without conditions?

    Unity, without conditions?

    By the titling of his book, he nearly caught the bug too — Nigerian Political Parties and Politicians: A Call for National Unity.

    Now, what was this? A scholarly voyage into the daemons of Nigeria’s lack of nationhood? A campaign for Nigeria’s nationhood at whatever cost? Or simply a young patriot’s cry for his beloved country, a passionate plea for some magic, despite stark contradictions?

    After some initial critiquing, he somewhat relented and adjusted the title: Nigerian Political Parties and Politicians: Winding Road from Country to Nation.

    Though the author eventually agreed there ought to be some conditions precedent before a geographical space morphs into a nation, the “unity romantic” in him dies hard still! In his new “winding road” would appear a stubborn optimism that Nigeria would somewhat get it right, and become a nation founded on justice.

    These are the patriotic exertions of Bolaji Samson Aregbeshola, a young Nigerian graduate of Biological Sciences (BSc) and Public Health (MSc), both from the University of Lagos, Akoka.

    Those exertions were products of sorties to public libraries in Lagos to keep the mind occupied, in those anxiety-gripping seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and even years, after National Youth Service; but before nailing the ever elusive job.

    For the young Nigerian graduate, that is a season of immense anguish, great self-doubt, baleful impotence, resentment against a seeming cruel and unfeeling society and an aggressive questioning of the usefulness of the Nigerian government — and state.

    But what would make a youth — and a trained scientist, not social scientist — invest his hurting hours in tackling the Nigerian question?

    For one, Bolaji has had his own Nigeria experience. He spoke of his first-ever visit to Abuja, Nigeria’s “united” capital, with no place to stay. He approached some fellow Nigerians for help. They asked him where he came from. He told them Osun State.

    Then came the ugly epiphany: seek out your Yoruba people to house you! No malice. Just matter-of-fact. It was then the full impact of the question of his nativity dawned on him. In Nigeria’s federal capital, the proud symbol of Nigeria’s unity, it was probably not enough to be simply Nigerian!

    Though this experience cannot be generalised as routine, since a good many Nigerians have less clannish mindsets, that singular experience jolted the author to the not-too-pleasant side of the Nigerian experience.

    Then another, on the economic front, en route to a promising — or sedentary? — career in Nigeria’s federal civil service. He had sat and passed the necessary examinations and interviews; and was well-neigh assured, on merit, of the “slot” — slot because it appeared a thriving convention for active relations in service to secure “slots” for their own.

    Even then, a phone call from a “powerful” minister secured the “slot” for his own “people”! As in the George Orwell original, in the Nigerian Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others!

    But even that did not mellow down Bolaji’s Nigerianness. Even now, the author seems an incurable romantic of “national unity”; who believes (not unreasonably) it shouldn’t matter where you come from; and that your Nigerianness should be enough to corral fair opportunities, so long as you are native to the geographical area called Nigeria.

    Fine principle. But it is a moot point if, in reality, it really works that way.

    Did that trigger the literary odyssey into the past that resulted in Nigerian Political Parties and Politicians? Maybe. Maybe not.

    But the author’s findings did not support the glory often ascribed to the titanic past, of pre-independence and early independence era, even with the groundbreaking achievements of the original three regions.

    Immediate pre-independence and post-independence Nigeria indeed boasted brilliant policies — and development — that made many to put their bet on Nigeria as the country to watch among the denizens of the Black race.

    The titans also boasted remarkable personalities, in three pioneer regional premiers of Chief Obafemi Awolowo (West), Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (East) and Sir Ahmadu Bello (North), even as the West set the policy and developmental pace.

    But the politics was as ugly as the policies were brilliant. That was where Nigeria got it wrong — and that is where, 54 years later, it continues to get it wrong.

    That is the notorious point this book emphasises, even with the author’s seeming patriotic fixation with “unity”. Yes, things have got progressively worse. But that is because everything stemmed from a flawed political foundation.

    The genesis, of course, was the British uncritical support for northern demands, in exchange for the region’s leaders’ perceived malleability, in contrast to southern leaders’ perceived difficulty.

    Match that with the South’s fatal mistake that, because the North was educationally disadvantaged, it would be a sitting duck for southern domination. What you get is the foundational recipe for Nigeria’s perennial crisis: a skewed federation ruled by the worst, but doomed to perennial challenge by the best.

    Even, the book’s lunch into political intrigues tends to support the Greek Parmenides’ stance that nothing ever changes.

    For instance, how does Premier Samuel Ladoke Akintola’s vandalism of the Western arm of the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), in building his Demo coalition against the rump of Awolowo’s Action Group (AG) in the sweepstakes for the West, different from President Olusegun Obasanjo’s cannibalisation of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) in this present Fourth Republic?

    Then, the frantic Michael Opara NCNC coalition with Awo’s AG (hitherto sworn political enemies) to form the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA), after the SLA masterstroke — how is it different from the defection and counter-defection between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Sokoto, Kwara, Kano and Adamawa states?

    And political histrionics: how is the Ahmadu Bello 1953 quip that “the mistake of 1914 has come to light”, in response to Chief Anthony Enahoro’s independence motion in the federal Parliament, different from the Lamido Adamawa walkout threat at the ongoing National Conference, in reply to which Sir Olaniwun Ajayi was absolutely spot on?

    As folks did not call the Sardauna’s bluff 61 years back, what stops another Lamido from playing the blackmail card in 61 years time, if the NC does not call the Lamido Adamawa’s bluff now, and erect an equitable base for sustainable unity?

    Bolaji Aregbesola’s book has reinforced the notorious fact that Nigeria’s politics and politicking have always been dirty. That accounts for the country’s eternal illness and perennial crisis.

    It is time to fix it, or it will fix us. Wish the NC delegates realised the danger we are all in!

  • NC and the return to the basics

    NC and the return to the basics

    You see that Benz sitting at the rich’s end?
    Ha! That motoka is a motoka
    It belongs to the Minister for Fairness
    Who yesterday was loaded with a doctorate
    At Makerere with whiskey and I don’t know what
    Plus I hear the literate thighs of an undergraduate — Theo Luzuka, “The Motoka”

    All of a sudden, the National Conference (NC) buzzes with a fervour of patriotism and Nigerianness, that you doubt if the whole exercise was not a wilful waste of time, energy and resources.

    If Nigeria were such a model country, and its citizens proud and sated patriots, why then the eternal agonising over its possible failure, that has forced a consistent clamour for a Sovereign National Conference (SNC), in response to which the Goodluck Jonathan National Conference (NC) has been called, with all its perceived booby traps?

    Of course, such cheap patriotic grandstanding, in the face of nation-threatening fundamental problems, is no different from vainglorious personal emptiness aptly demonstrated in the Ugandan Theo Luzuka’s poem, “The Motoka” (which opening lines are quoted to begin this piece); and in Nigerian Nkem Nwankwo’s novel, My Mercedes is Bigger than Yours.

    All too sudden, our NC conferees have become excellent citizens of an excellent country. Yet, resource-parched Nigerians, whose longsuffering youth gain death for fighting the pain of joblessness, are being forced to cough out N7 billion to purportedly fix their eternally sick country!

    It is indeed, a rhapsody of patriotism! Some happily declared themselves ethnic vacuums, and that, their formidable ammo to fix Nigeria.

    Others said, rather glumly, they wouldn’t clamber on board if they weren’t sure Nigeria was on the right track.

    Yet others solemnly swore “Nigerian unity” — that comic-tragic fixation that often begs the question, and may yet end in costly disillusionment — was beyond question. And all of these from “elder statesmen” who had earlier contributed more than a fair quota to the Nigerian fiasco!

    But before our esteemed delegates get too carried away by their own illusory poetry, it is high time someone jolted them back to the stark reality.

    Every Nigerian indeed dreams of a great Nigeria, a country that would compete with the best in the world, and deliver prosperity to its citizens. But right now, Nigeria is starkly opposite what it should be. That is why it needs urgent fixing.

    A good example of the Nigeria dissonance is the NC legal status. Right now, there is no legal plank on which the NC stands. But that is no accident. It is because, even as Lugard’s contraption shows signs of acute, if not terminal distress, there is no pan-Nigeria consensus on how to save it.

    That is no country deserving of glum patriotic gushing. It is a country in acute trauma; and the earlier the NC delegates see themselves as life-saving emergency medics, the better for everyone.

    Then, take the dysfunctional presidency. Even before President Jonathan, the presidency — democratic or military — has been a terrible breed. The “military presidency” of Ibrahim Babangida annulled Nigeria’s freest election; and nearly plunged the country into needless war and avoidable destruction. Under another Khaki presidency, Sani Abacha stole the country blind, so much so that his thick odour of infamy still oozes from his grave.

    Olusegun Obasanjo, even as elected president, suborned the Nigerian economic bluebloods to fund a personal project, thus grossly abusing his high office. The other day, President Jonathan himself declared, in the heat of the Sanusi Lamido Sanusi saga, that he had “absolute powers”! Absolute powers, in a democracy, with supposed institutional checks and balances?

    That, to be sure, was an un-presidential Freudian slip. But that is what the Nigerian Presidency has been all about: rakishly insensitive, bordering on the tyrannical — and parasitical to boot!

    That is no prime organ to crow about, in a model state, that by its performance should earn the love and affection of its citizens. Nigeria is no such model state. That is why it needs urgent fixing.

    But the Jonathan presidential temper is a grand irony, given that a cabal of the Umaru Yar’Adua presidency nearly made a Jonathan presidency a still-birth. At the height of that presidential criminality — in the name of a gentle but dying president, who did not know what was going on — brutal realpolitik trounced constitutional legality, which should, as routine, be supreme. Until the Senate came with its “doctrine of necessity”, the almighty state was at the mercy of the rogue few.

    A country that relies on realpolitik, rather than manifest justness and the routine triumph of its laws, is terribly ill. A people given to cutting ugly compromises, rather than an uncompromising national ethos of justice, equity and fair play, are endangered.

    Nigeria is such a country. Nigerians are such a people. Both need urgent fixing.

    But even as the Senate’s legal contraption dislodged the Yar’Adua power cabal, the Jonathan presidential emergence has implanted another future power bomb.

    Jonathan’s 2011 presidential candidacy issued from a toxic fountain of lies and damn lies, against the zoning formula of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which ironically fetched Jonathan the vice-presidency under Yar’Adua.

    Jonathan’s 2011 presidential win issued from a near-hysterical South-Middle Belt Vs North emotive electoral sentiments, even with Jonathan’s so-called pan-Nigeria mandate, loudly touted by his Neighbour-to-Neighbour campaign lobby.

    Now, all Jonathan craves is an encore, when he knows all he has done is earn himself a massive electoral shellacking, even if he wins PDP nomination.

    But even if he gets his desire, that future danger still looms. A wounded North would feel no obligation to follow any future political arrangement, strictly outside the Constitution. More noxious: there is this abiding centrist mindset among the northern political elite, which tends to long for central power as it is, despite the clamour for federalism and restructuring.

    Now, if the North does get power back as it is, and political zoning is out, what happens? The North can try power in perpetuity — which it can ill sustain — claiming it has the population to do it. But other parts of the country too will be up in arms against such, but they have lost any pro-zoning argument by their 2011 anti-zoning conspiracy.

    That would be a recipe for disaster.

    That is why NC delegates must suspend their showy patriotism and alter the present format for good. A future time bomb ticks. But only restructuring can defuse it.

    That would turn Nigeria into a productive federation, pare down the presidency, drain the centre of excess cash and change the revenue relationship from revenue allocation (by the centre to states) to revenue contribution (from regions/states to the centre).

    That is how Nigeria can emerge the country of our collective dream; and have a fair chance to scale its second century, after the fiasco of the first.

     

     

  • Bugaje’s curious theory

    Bugaje’s curious theory

    Dr. Usman Bugaje’s curious theory, that the North on the basis of its land mass, “owns” the oil in the Niger Delta, is manifestly illogical. Besides, it is brazenly provocative and unconscionable. Worst of all, it is vacuously supremacist.

    All these are bad enough in themselves. But issuing from a citizen of a country that has groped for 100 years in search of a national community, it is culpable lack of patriotism, which borders on combative recklessness.

    Still, the greater shock is not that Dr. Bugaje made that statement, for such northern supremacist mindset has been around for long. It is rather that it met with a thunderous applause, which meant it touched a rapturous chord among the rabidly converted.

    Might power supremacy still dwell in the northern elite’s heart, after the untold catastrophe such a mindset has brought on the northern people — and Nigerians in general?

    Still, that idea is not new.

    At the height of the northern power hubris, Alhaji Maitama Sule, the Kano-born senior citizen and brilliant orator, propounded the theory that different segments of Nigeria had their divine missions. The North’s especial talent, he reasoned, was to rule.

    So, shouldn’t the country, he seemed to suggest, do a grand division of labour, where the North would concentrate on its core talent of ruling, while the other parts of the country concentrated on trade and commerce, diplomacy and the civil service, to the glory of motherland?

    Kano Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, also shows some schizophrenic policy streak, when the stake is northern nationalism. On one hand, he authors policies with the progressive temper of radically developing Kano’s human resource, to enhance the state’s competitiveness in the Nigerian social-economic community. That is very laudable.

    But, when the issue is oil, its ownership and derivation, he reclines into the conservative laager, with the same impatient radicalism, with which he is sworn to developing his Kano people.

    Is it then not something of a split personality: a governor sworn to remaking his people to use their mind — and create their own wealth — is the same that appears fixated with oil, hundreds of kilometres away in the Niger Delta?

    It is a similar oil-fixated mindset that drove Dr. Bugaje’s fantastic latest theory.

    Even, among the “new North” — smart technocrats, bureaucrats and sundry professionals who can hold their own anywhere in the world — there appears this central thinking, to which oil is pivotal.

    For all his brilliance, efficiency and modernity, Nasir el-Rufai comes across from his book, The Accidental Public Servant, as not necessarily bothered by a restructured polity, so long as Nigeria’s resources are well harnessed.

    That is by no means a bad thing. But as long as Nigeria remains a resource omnibus, with oil as its core and with nary attempt at every section of the country developing its own resource niche, there would be unholy fixation with oil. That would continue to spur the sort of statement Bugaje just made.

    Another northern star, Nuhu Ribadu, the former anti-sleaze fiery angel, can also hold his own anywhere. Still, it is doubtful if has given much thought to a truly federalist Nigeria, where every segment of the union would proudly fend for itself.

    Yet, these are the brains sorely needed for the fresh thinking to wean the North from its sickly crush on oil, and the resultant ultra-dependency syndrome.

    That of course brings the matter right back to Dr. Bugaje’s claim — that the North occupies 72 per cent of Nigeria’s landmass; so it anchors the Niger Delta, and ensures its claim to the oil in adjoining sea!

    So, to that extent, the North can lay some claim to the oil, even it is far away! If there was an extra-ordinary piece of soulless sophistry, this was it!

    Still, some analysis of Dr. Bugaje’s claim. If indeed the North has 72 per cent of Nigeria’s land mass, that would be some form of asset, wouldn’t it? Put another way, that could mean 72 per cent of Nigeria’s land asset?

    But pray, in contrast, what percentage of Nigeria’s liability does the North log, even with its rich land asset? No sarcasm intended here, but that could be gleaned from the perennial southward drift of its cheap labour, the virtual collapse of its community with the advent of the Boko Haram crisis and its empty swagger, which thinly veils its mortal fear of losing out on the oil revenue front.

    Besides, the mindless violence that has seized the region, like some Armageddon, could be explained away to religious or ethnic tension. But really, it is an economic pull, a logical tragedy for an economically parched people, falling upon themselves in sheer economic madness.

    Yet, even with its challenges, the North boasts the brains to turn around its parlous human development index, if ruinous mindsets, like Bugaje’s, would not keep popping up.

    Such mindsets dream of easy money from oil — knowing full well that region is insulated from the environment-blighting oil bearing Niger Delta communities face — and not particularly caring about fair compensation in derivation, for that acute environmental pain.

    But perhaps the chicken would soon come home to roost, if oil is eventually struck in the Lake Chad basin. It is then the region would realise derivation is not just excess payout, but money earned from local economic value; and for acute pains from environmental destruction.

    So, as Nigeria urgently needs a restructuring of its polity, the North — at least that segment of it that could applaud Dr. Bugaje’s sophistry — needs a radical restructuring of the mind. Its socio-economic salvation would come not from oil dole from the Niger Delta or even from Lake Chad basin, but from wealth driven by its own people the hard way.

    That is how the North, like other parts of the country, can develop its economic niche, and therefore positively compete in a Nigerian commonwealth, where economically prosperous regions deliver mass development and prosperity for Nigerian citizens.

    But the Bugaje theory could not have come at a better time; and the National Conference that kicked off yesterday must take especial notice.

    Even if the Jonathan powers-that-be are bent on playing games as being alleged by many, the delegates cannot afford such dangerous games.

    Nigeria will not survive on a supremacist mindset that makes empty claims, based on vacuous logic and culpable sophistry; and powered by a reckless penchant to be insensitive, unfair and unjust.

    The Bugajes, the el-Rufais, the Ribadus and the Kwankwasos are bright minds that owe their region the bounden duty to radically alter its thinking; and turn the North into an economic dynamo that can compete with the best the rest of Nigeria can offer.

    That is the only way to the Nigerian dream. Any other way is an expressway to perdition; the sort that, for 100 years now, has left a political amalgam in a virtual cul-de-sac, on its unending journey to nationhood.

  • Scrapping a toxic presidency

    Scrapping a toxic presidency

    Can a toxic presidency produce a wholesome president? That is one fundament players across the political divide have refused to grasp.

    That appears responsible for the conceptual fog that continues to plague the National Conference, billed to take off on March 17.

    On the virtual eve of a supposedly make-or-mar confab, partisan temper appears coalesced on the ruinous centrism that has beggared Nigeria for decades now — and seems set to see its eventual unravelling.

    The trajectory of the Nigerian ruling court, since the colonial times, appears clear enough. Lord Fredrick Lugard headed a colonial regime sold to total local exploitation for its Metropole.

    At independence, foreign domination gave way to local domination. The collapse into military rule, shortly after, further formalised the notion of power without responsibility.

    Even with the current democracy, little has changed. From Olusegun Obasanjo to Goodluck Jonathan, the ruling ethos appears clearly on the side of an unquestionable Leviathan, even with the mouthing of “democracy” and “federalism”.

    At the root of this subversion of democracy and good governance is idle funds in the central till, that gives each succeeding president the Dutch courage that it could do and undo — so long as it has enough cash to fund its rascality. And all the talk about the unity of Nigeria being a “no go” area is all scarecrow stuff: to divert attention from the real dangers; and keep the central Leviathan intact.

    Even in the build-up to the confab, you could tell from the body language of the Jonathan Presidency that it is anxious that those idle funds are never drained off, so that it could retain the instrument to wield humongous mischief, powered by idle money.

    What is more? Though one should always give the extant government the benefit of the doubt, that its intentions are noble and its motive pure, the N7 billion budget for the confab, with the anticipated N4 million allowance for each delegate, looks like some grand but cynical bribe to lure who is who into some bazaar, from which they can’t possibly pull out until it is too late.

    Yet, if this conference fails to fix Nigeria for good, other dynamics would fix Nigeria for ill.

    But not only the government side is fixated with centrist tendencies. The opposition too is not entirely cured of that ailment.

    To be sure, the newly released All Progressives Congress (APC) road map appears exciting. But it is still based on the centralist tenet of an all-powerful and all-rich federal government; that would nevertheless spend its excess money more responsibly than the reckless and spendthrift Jonathan Presidency.

    If the APC federal government is pledged to creating two jobs for every one job a state creates, the simple logical conclusion is that the central government is an economic Leviathan, far richer than the states it is supporting.

    No doubt, creating jobs that way is not unwelcome. Indeed, it would be hailed by all — the distressed youths and their ever-stressed parents and guardians. But it hardly changes the current folly of building an economy top-down, instead of down-up. That is the bane of Nigeria’s pseudo-federalism, and the root of the country’s perennial under-development.

    Where then are the sharp federalist alternatives, that should mark APC out as leading the push from sickly centrism to vibrant federalism, in the best tradition of “Change”, its political war cry?

    Still, APC may well be a victim of its grand coalition. Aside from the South West that has a radical federalist agenda, the attitude of others appears somewhat ambivalent, even if it is the fashion these days to mouth “true federalism”.

    The North is basically centrist at heart, which is understandable. That region has most benefited from Nigeria’s skewed federalism — and power nepotism. But it also has paid the stiffest price of its dysfunction. With its parlous development index, it is a region purging from the sweet poison of its “good” fortune.

    The South East is torn between growing and managing its landlocked homeland — which, with its talent it is perfectly capable of doing — and the fate of its far-flung Ndigbo in the “Nigerian Diaspora”. Its ambivalence on the federal cause is perhaps understandable.

    The South-South, on the other hand, screams federalism and resource control to have more of its oil wealth — hardly illegitimate. But if Jonathan can nick the good luck of four more years, it would appear quite open to a central bazaar’s last hurrah.

    These might therefore be the cross-current APC had been navigating before coming up with its road map, which is anything but federal, save for its proposal to vest minerals and mining in local interests, as against the present joke of making it a central affair, and its consequent paralysis.

    After the failed hope of five decades, therefore, it is sheer folly to entrust the fortune of Nigerians to a good man or woman, without radically restructuring the bad system. That is more or less what the APC roadmap offers. The APC good men and women are welcome. But even more welcome is a good system!

    The system to do the job is robust federalism, with even more robust checks and balances, between a pared down centre and much more energised federating units. That should ensure the real economy is in the constituent parts, with the federal government doing positive facilitation and coordination.

    Former President Obasanjo and incumbent President Jonathan are a pole apart as any can be: the one, a gruff, irredeemable old soldier whose default temper is dictatorship; the other a harmless-looking, ever-smiling bloke with a supposed liberal temper.

    But see the difference in their presidencies: six and half-a-dozen, when the issue is unconscionable domination and wielding power without responsibility!

    The one suborned the local economy for an illicit presidential library complex; and is living happily ever after with his trophy. The other cannot account for an allegedly missing US$ 20 billion oil money. Yet he is flushed, not with regret, but with a sickening sense of divine entitlement for second term!

    Obasanjo and Jonathan are both products of a toxic presidency. Any wonder they have not emerged non-toxic presidents?

    So, the first task before the National Conference, if they really want Nigeria’s survival, is to detoxify the Presidency flush with toxic money, and channel such to development, where it is needed.

    Two eminent Nigerians are pointing at the way out.

    Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Commonwealth secretary-general, is voting for a restructured federation, based on federating regions of states.

    Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who shares in the notoriety of the military and its central command complex that has left Nigeria winded, warns at the mutual desperation between his native North (ogling central power as it is) and the South-South — read opportunistic Jonathan (not in a hurry to spew out, to use Achebe-speak, the palm kernel thrust in its mouth by benevolent spirits!).

    The National Conference must rid Nigeria of its misery — a toxic presidency that fattens while the people in its charge waste. It is the arrogant face of mindless centrism that has underdeveloped Nigeria for too long.

    But should it preserve this hideous Leviathan, it would have paved Nigeria’s way to Golgotha.

  • Jonathan feasts, the nation sinks

    Jonathan feasts, the nation sinks

    GOodluck Ebele Jonathan, president of the Federal Republic, feasts with his centenary crowd, over their centennial wonder.

    But the nation — or more correctly, the country — over which he and his foreign and local revellers swoon, sinks more into the quagmire, of a hundred years of pretence.

    The grim trophy: slain school children and mass bombing by Boko Haram; and paralytic fuel queues that show the Nigeria of Jonathan’s celebration is no more than a centenary joke!

    That was the grand contrast, that faced luckless Nigerians, in the last week of February.

    Even at a crucial crossroads, there appears no link between Nigeria’s rulers and the ruled.

    In that cynical spirit, President Jonathan beatified a horrible past, with the fond hope that would blot out the hard present, which portends a grim future. Some hope!

    Dazed Nigerians, not a few caught in a debilitating ennui, could only look on and wonder!

    Talk of the beatification of horror, and the so-called centenary honours list jumps into the mind. Sitting atop the list is Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, Lord Frederick Lugard and even his girlfriend — as far as the Nigeria story goes — Flora Shaw.

    Now, the queen is a wonderful personage, adored by her people. But as far as Nigeria’s British colonisation goes, she heads a bandit state — every empire is a bandit state — that stole from, and raped the peoples of Nigeria, simply because it had superior arms and inferior conscience. And all these under the grand hypocrisy of Pax Britannica!

    So, for beatifying the queen in the context of Nigeria’s colonisation, is Jonathan endorsing that evil? That is house negro complex taken too far!

    As for Lugard, he did his job as a patriotic Briton. But that boon to Britain was — and still — is a mess to Nigeria. That Lugardian mess is still being sorted out by the Nigerian people, even if the Nigerian state appears to have made its peace with the unconscionable Lugardian court.

    It is only such a soulless court that can proceed to celebrate as epochal, a non-event as 100 years of Nigeria’s slavery — and, to boot, in the midst of intense anguish in sections of the country, especially in the North East.

    There, Boko Haram continues to spill innocent blood, the most outrageous being the 29 minors, killed at the Federal Government College, Boni Yadi, Yobe State. Phew! A federal government that cannot secure the lives of its young citizens, in its own secondary school, must find time to clink glasses! Does it not know it is the raw blood of its slaughtered youngsters it drank as wine?

    Away from foreign colonisers, Jonathan’s centenary honours list crawls with local colonisers. To start with, the ace thief, Sani Abacha! Abacha was a classic example of how not to be a citizen; yet, no thanks to the mechanical balancing of the dysfunctional Nigerian state, he is a Jonathan winner!

    Still, none of the rabble of ex-Nigerian leaders that queued for the so-called centennial honours could be said to be morally superior to Abacha. Sure, Abacha was their collective image at its most decayed, but their image all the same!

    Gen. Yakubu Gowon would perhaps enjoy most of history’s sympathy. His, from military rule’s days of innocence, is perhaps a charge of culpable omission. Not the others!

    Gen. Ibrahim Babangida wilfully annulled the freest election in Nigeria’s history. He stands legitimated charged, for Nigeria’s current rotten public morality.

    His two successors, Abacha and Gen. Abdusalami Abubakar, take the can for the fate that befell MKO Abiola, winner of that presidential election of 12 June 1993.

    For insisting on his mandate, Abacha locked up MKO and threw away the key. MKO died in custody under Abdusalami’s charge, even if the general had the presence of mind to quickly release Olusegun Obasanjo. Yet, the duo are honoured as national builders, while their acts, by commission or omission, could well have pushed the country over the cliff.

    Gen (President) Obasanjo was, of course, key to the continuation of the old order under a new guise. So, scratch the Ota farmer, and you probably would locate the roots of the current unease. He is the author and finisher of health-challenged President Umaru Yar’Adua, whose death in office has brought about the peculiar mess of the Jonathan presidency.

    Though Obasanjo now cries the cry of the innocent and the wronged under Jonathan’s onslaught, perceived or real, it is rather the deserved shriek of a plotter snared by his own trap!

    As for Chief Ernest Shonekan, who neither staged a coup nor won an election, his sole ticket to centenary honour was being the chief tool of sustaining the crime of annulling MKO’s mandate. Now, how can that be a motivation to Nigeria’s generation next — that perfidy pays?

    These were the unconscionable leaders that have left Nigeria in a ditch at the turn of its first century. Yet, these leaders (more of power dealers!) toast themselves to high heavens, not caring a hoot about how prostrate they have left the poor people in their charge!

    Indeed, reading Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s book, Adventure in Power Book Two: The Travails of Democracy and the rule of Law, clearly showed Nigeria’s leadership crisis started from the very beginning — at independence.

    Instead of envisioning a bright future for their new country and working hard towards it, the federal leadership at independence was rather fixated with crushing Awo’s Action Group (AG); and with it, all its developmental strides.

    But even if Awo was biased for himself, as he articulated his own case in his own book, how the Tafawa Balewa federal government milked the Western crisis to get at their perceived nemesis is all too clear, from accounts from that troubled era.

    But the moral, in the context of Nigeria’s centenary mis-celebration, is that that fixation turned out a grand distraction, with the tragic consequences of a relay of bad leaders, of which Jonathan is only the latest.

    But just as well: the bright sparks in Nigeria’s opaque skies — Wole Soyinka, the families of Gani Fawehinmi, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and the grand martyr of Nigerian democracy, MKO — have rejected the centenary awards.

    Still, the irony is that, pound for pound, they are far more deserving of the awards. Despite the long haul in the wilderness, they have shone brightest; and demonstrated what dazzling heights Nigeria can attain under the right leadership.

    If any good can come out of a gaffe, the Jonathan honours list, with its parade of leadership fat cats, has shown something: those leaders are the direct opposite of what Nigeria needs to be great.

    So, as the country takes its first gingerly steps in its next century, Nigerians must vote the direct opposite of these past leaders. Much more importantly, the National Conference must radically restructure the country for productivity and sustainable development.

    If not, a second centenary for Nigeria would be a pipe dream, for Nigeria would have sunk without trace, in the violent ocean of its own contradictions.

  • Jonathan, Sanusi and opacity

    Jonathan, Sanusi and opacity

    There is a Yoruba saying that states an elder worth his or her name crunches kola nut with reckless abandon.

    It is not just the African dictatorship of the elderly that entitles the elder to such reckless crunching, the sort that could even jerk awake a light sleeper. It is rather his or her moral impregnability — that heavy responsibility that earns the exalted privilege of elderly impunity.

    This is, of course, no expose on African tradition. It is rather linking African mores to the Jonathan presidential suspension (read sacking, with a sleight of hand) of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.

    Mallam Sanusi had earlier rebuffed a presidential threat to “resign”, insisting — and rightly so — that by Section 11(2)(f) of the CBN Act of 2007, only a presidential request, backed by two-thirds of the Senate, could sack him.

    Of course, in the immediate post-sack hubbub, the law and its intendment have fallen prime victims. Outside the grey area between sack and suspension, the infusing of the Nigerian presidency with a Kabiyesi [Yoruba for unquestionable] syndrome appears on the ascendancy, no matter what the law says or does not say.

    If Sanusi must continue to blow the whistle on the government, why didn’t he resign, goes the emotive query. To be sure, that is not unreasonable, if morality were to be the issue: a whistle blower is, after all, a “traitor” exposing a peer. Fine morality!

    But if a probable crime had been committed, and the law to which all the parties concerned had sworn to protect insists on somebody squealing? Which one trumps the other: the morality of silence or the legality of squealing?

    But let’s even assume (without conceding, as the lawyers would say) that morality prevailed; and President Goodluck Jonathan, incensed by (im)moral outrage — the law be damned! — moved to sack the CBN governor, why the virtual tip-toe in doing it?

    Why didn’t the president, like the iconic African elder, crunch his kola loud enough by announcing the sack with a flurry, with the CBN governor in-situ? Why watch on tip-toe, like a conspiratorial Tom, the CBN governor safely away in Niger Republic, before announcing his ouster? Perhaps a classic study in presidential cowardice?

    Whereas the president of the Federal Republic appears to hug, like a second skin, opacity in state matters, the CBN governor would appear sold on transparency, at least when the issue is alleged humongous stealing of oil money, using the ever-opaque Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as conduit.

    Still, the you’re-shielding-oil-money-thieves Vs you-spend-CBN-money-recklessly controversy, which led to Sanusi’s sack through the back door, somewhat echoes the inimitable Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, in one of his ever memorable numbers: “You be thief/I no be thief; You be rogue/I no be rogue, You be armed robber/I no be armed robber … argument, argument, argu; argument, argument, argu …”

    But even if the argument is between two camps of rogues, as Jonathan’s presidential spinners are slanting the Sanusi sack saga, it is perhaps cold comfort that one roguish camp is at least transparent in its claims! But the Jonathan camp can’t even claim that credit — which is a pity! Not for the Jonathan Presidency the Caesar code: Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion!

    Mallam Sanusi has cried himself hoarse there is alleged systematic stealing of oil money, which scale this country had never witnessed, even with its A++ record in public graft, under the Jonathan Presidency.

    At the beginning of the end, Sanusi wrote Jonathan a secret memo that there was a “crater” of US $49.8 billion in the nation’s purse, and pointed fingers at some smart alecs at NNPC. Jonathan did nothing — until former President Olusegun Obasanjo, fighting his own battle of relevance, included the allegations in his ill-tempered letter to the president.

    Predictably, Jonathan’s ire was not at those who allegedly short-changed the treasury, but at Sanusi who raised the query. The boy who once upon a time had no shoes has become a man comfy with alleged humongous stealing, that may condemn millions of current and future Nigerian kids to be shoeless! When eventually some reconciliation was done, between US $10.8 billion (NNPC’s claim) and US $ 12 billion (Sanusi’s claim) still remained unaccounted for — except for some hocus-pocus that NNPC used to explain it away!

    The end of the end came with the Sanusi allegation, before the Senate finance committee probe, that another US $20 billion (more than the 2014 budget) could also have vanished! Now, that was not a CBN governor grandstanding at a press conference. That was a CBN governor, using hard evidence, to make a presentation before parliament, in the best tradition of open societies.

    But today, there is no satisfactory answer to that query — though the probe continues. Jonathan’s classical response was to kill the messenger, with the fond hope the bad message would disappear! It is a moot point if that query would die with Sanusi’s illegal sack. But again, Jonathan has proved himself a champion of opacity, whose body language is mad at probity but frolics with fiscal iniquity.

    To counter the missing US $20 billion charge, the Jonathan Presidency would appear to have initiated its own charge of N168 billion, which the Sanusi CBN administration allegedly recklessly spent. The presidential whistle-blower is the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN), which findings suddenly jumped into the fray, like some Deus-ex-machina in a Greek tragic play.

    For all you know, there could be substance to the anti-Sanusi allegation. But the circumstances of its making, combined with the reported threat of a Sanusi trial, all point to a not-too-unfamiliar tactic of muddying the waters and bandying threats.

    All that portrays the Jonathan Presidency as a dog that barks, not out of strength but out of fear. But it would take its chances, that not a few would fall for such cheap bluff and bluster.

    Mallam Sanusi has many faults. He is a gadfly; and he is a tad too voluble when taciturnity would do just fine. Besides, playing CBN governor-activist in a sleaze-rich administration is tantamount, to parody that tennis term of unforced error, to unforced fatality.

    But he has been consistent on government transparency as the Jonathan crowd has been on opacity. He therefore appears to have put the fear of God in the Jonathan ensemble.

    It is a classic match-up between powerless conscience and conscienceless power! Still, history has shown conscience is not so powerless, as not to eventually trounce conscienceless power.

    After the Justice Ayo Salami saga, the Sanusi case is yet another red alert at the clear and present danger of an opaque presidency, particularly when the issue is alleged mindless exchequer raid. But when asked to probe these allegations, President Jonathan gets grumpy!

    Fortunately however, election times are nigh. With all these allegations of sleaze and negative presidential reactions, can you entrust your exchequer to this man for four more years?

    It is no time to sit on the fence!

  • Inside Jonathan’s confab

    Inside Jonathan’s confab

    Want a peep into President Goodluck Jonathan’s impending National Conference (NC)? Just look back at the president’s pre-2011 election Attahiru Jega joker.

    But that doesn’t mean Jonathan would hold a monopoly of stunts at the NC. Good Lord, no! About every bloc coming there would stage manoeuvres; manoeuvres to outsmart the other bloc, and secure some short-term advantage. That would be perfectly Nigerian!

    Still, what is at stake is a future productive, truly federal Nigeria; as opposed to the present parasitic, pseudo-federal Nigeria, on auto-pilot to self-destroy.

    As things stand, and without being unnecessarily alarmist, it might just be the last opportunity for peaceful change; to reconfigure the country for sustainable development. Whoever wins in 2015, but with the present self-destruct structure unaltered, Nigeria would still be tethered to its old ruinous template.

    So, the confab should work towards a long-term solution to the perennial Nigerian crisis, and not short-term selfish manoeuvres. But it doesn’t appear the leading actors are thinking that way. They would rather game and push their luck.

    Besides, the build-up to the confab, its template of nominations and its general perception, have not betrayed any novel approach, judged against President Olusegun Obasanjo’s National Political Reforms Conference (2005) and Gen. Sani Abacha’s National Constitutional Conference (1994/1995).

    Yet, since these two confabs, rather than improve matters, the Nigerian polity has raced to the cliff at geometrical speed, to parody Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), that doomsday English cleric of the Industrial Revolution era (1770-1850).

    That brings the discourse back to the probable Jonathan motive by the confab, and the pre-2011 the Attahiru Jega joker.

    After the disastrous 2007 election, Maurice Iwu had come to the end of his tether. So, accidental President Jonathan allied himself with the popular clamour to remove Prof. Iwu and reform the electoral system; with the opposition making a feast of the Muhammed Lawal Uwais Electoral Reforms Panel’s recommendations.

    The president hit on the joker of Prof. Jega’s famed integrity — a sure winner, after Iwu’s Iwuruwuru years.

    But he did that without ceding, to the National Judicial Council (NJC), his sole power to appoint, subject to Senate confirmation, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chair and national commissioners, as the Uwais Panel had proposed.

    But even as President Jonathan rode the popular crest as electoral reforms (ER) president, he held close to his chest his decision to run or not to run. The not-so-hidden ploy was to shore up his credibility; and the not-so-unwritten script was to emerge the chief beneficiary from the ensuing reforms.

    Now, therefore, is a distinct sense of déjà vu. Then, it was ER. Now, it is NC. Then, mum was the word, on Jonathan running or not. Now, mum is the word on Jonathan’s re-run. Then, ER was a popular foil to build a callow president’s prospect. Now, NC is the platform to rebuild re-run credibility, after a president’s near-disastrous full term. As it was with ER, Jonathan’s mission is to emerge chief beneficiary of NC!

    The snag is, the deception is not so veiled this time round, if it was ever so veiled back then. Much as the president has tried, his lobbies continue to give the game away.

    Old man, Edwin Clark, keeps on alienating — as, by the way, he did with the North pre-2011 — with his vulgar abuse, other sections of the country he had decreed would vote his presidential godson. Young man, Asari Dokubo, keeps on his trashy threat of war, should Jonathan, his Ijaw kin, lose.

    Yet, the minority South-South lacks the number for Jonathan to prevail in a free and fair election. So, where will the tally come from — the marines?

    In the building scenario, the NC is as good a grandstand platform as any, for electoral harvest. That, of course, has fuelled leading opposition politicians’ wholesale dismissal of the exercise — another extreme, if you ask.

    President Jonathan apparently has tasted the sweet poison of Nigeria’s central coffers; and would appear in no hurry to surrender the honey pot — as the majority Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba, before him.

    Indeed, President Obasanjo so enjoyed the lollies he, without much ado, craved an unconstitutional third term, which he however continues to deny! The North, on the other hand, appears sold on the hubris that that honey pot is its divine right to keep — in perpetuity, if possible!

    Still, the Niger Delta continues to bear the ecological brunt of Nigeria’s oil wealth. So, it is in the South-South’s best interest that Nigeria be restructured so that region can, at least, marshal the cash to fix its oil-devastated ecology. So, should Jonathan go through the motions of another NC without radical re-tinkering of Nigeria, he would incur the boos of even generations unborn in the Niger Delta.

    Still, Jonathan and his lobby are not the only ones that would attempt to play games. The North, for one, with its siddon-look temper (apologies to the late Chief Bola Ige) may not have the clout to scuttle Jonathan confab.

    But it picks no bones about its preference for the status-quo, if sentiments from the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) are to be believed. That is apparently why the ACF has dismissed the Afenifere Renewal Group, ARG’s restructuring model, after its February 12 one-day Yoruba Constitutional Conference in Ibadan, Oyo State, as confederation bordering on disintegration.

    The South East is an interesting study in contrasts. While the extant partisan establishment over there seems resolved to put the future survival of their region at the service of Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential encore, Igbo Leaders of Thought, led by Prof. Ben Nwabueze, are insistent on cutting a fair deal for the Igbo nation in a truly federal and restructured Nigeria. It would be interesting how these two strands play out at the confab.

    But perhaps the most interesting manoeuvres would come from the South West. The traditional South West stand is radical restructuring ala Sovereign National Conference (SNC). That was basically the idea the ARG one-day Yoruba conference sold, even if the Jonathan confab is not sovereign.

    But immediate political exigencies have, somewhat, diluted this consensus. The current South West partisan lords of the manor would not touch the Jonathan confab. But the body language of followers, in that same ruling party, is much more nuanced and ambivalent.

    On the other hand, the Afenifere old guard, with a few young elements, are clambering on the Olusegun Mimiko Labour Party (LP) platform which, for sheer political survival, makes no secret of its Jonathan dalliance. As Mimiko courts Jonathan to survive, Afenifere courts Mimiko to fend off the looming hegemony of the Bola Tinubu-led All Progressives Congress (APC) group.

    The question is how much of its SNC ideals Afenifere would trade off, for the Mimiko-Jonathan support, in mortal fear of an APC hegemony? So, when ARG roared against anyone betraying the “Yoruba cause”, at its Ibadan one-day meeting, it was clear the message was for the Mimiko-Afenifere camp.

    Again, it would be interesting how all these play out inside Jonathan’s confab.

  • Ige: 12 years after

    Ige: 12 years after

    Just as well Prof. Isaac Adewole, vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan, caused it to be announced that he had no hand in shutting the event from Trenchard Hall, the advertised venue. It eventually held at the Students Events Centre, the university’s old central cafeteria.

    The story was that first, Trenchard Hall; then, the UI Conference Centre, were denied the organisers of the two-day events marking 12 years after the assassination of Chief Bola Ige, SAN. That political colossus, UI alumnus and former federal attorney-general was killed on 23 December 2001.

    Trenchard Hall was to host the symposium on February 4 after the showing, at the UI Arts Theatre the previous evening, of Ofin-Ga, a film written by Prof. Akinwunmi Isola, famed scholar, cultural activist and Yoruba language purist.

    Prof. Isola chaired the symposium, with twin topics: “Impacts of Unresolved Political Assassinations on Future Elections and on Nigeria’s Security” and “National Conference according to Bola Ige’s Dream”. The Bola Ige Centre for Justice, anchored by Awa Bamiji organised the event, in concert with the university’s Students Union elements.

    The story, therefore, was that not a few hearts skipped, among the university’s management, at the horror of the event turning explosively political, with the Jonathan Presidency getting hit.

    For one, Bamiji, who goes by the pre-fix “Comrade”, was likely to attract starry-eyed ideologues and fire-blazing cadres from the students’ Aluta column, irreverent folks who love to work themselves into a lather mouthing socialist slogans, denouncing the extant “decadent” order.

    For another, the twin topics were explosively suggestive: one amplifying the notorious fact that Bola Ige’s killers have still not been brought to book, some 12 years after; and the other suggesting the imminent National Conference was the latest fakery, contrasted to the classic Sovereign National Conference (SNC), which Ige and kindred spirits espoused.

    But thank God the vice chancellor was trenchant he was no part of the alleged Trenchard conspiracy. The rumoured reason was scandalous: that it could turn political; and some presidential folks could be embarrassed.

    It would have been embarrassing that after 66 years, UI, Nigeria’s premier university, had not evolved a culture robust enough to handle partisan political exchanges, without top management hearts quacking. That simply cannot be true! Every university ought to allow equal opportunity access to all shades of political opinions, making it a hub of ideas.

    But the organisers’ odyssey was not limited to alleged administrators’ nerves. Aside from Osun Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, who sent a representative, Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) Chairman, Wale Oshun, one of the guest speakers, represented by Comrade Laoye Sanda, and Prince Tajudeen Olusi, who also sent a representative, none of the advertised political heavyweights showed up. Even for a Bola Ige memorial, governance was enough distraction!

    None of the biological Iges was there too.

    But neither of these dampened the zest of the organisers nor the admirable commitment to the memorial, by the cultured old guard, led by the taciturn Prof. Isola, the chairman at the symposium, whose cultural activism nevertheless shone through, as he challenged speakers who could, to make their presentations in Yoruba, as Bola Ige would flawlessly have done if he had wished!

    Indeed, the mix was quintessential Bola Ige: cultured old folks and aspiring young Turks, all fired by the ardour for progressive thinking, the zeal for a cultured society and the drive for governance devoted to the social welfare of the mass of the people; and total commitment to the Jeremy Bentham credo of the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

    Indeed, the parade was intimidating in its cultured temper: Prof. Isola, Retired Methodist Archbishop, Ayo Ladigbolu, Baale of Ekotedo, Ibadan, Pa Taiye Ayorinde (who, in response to the compeer addressing him as “chief”, insisted the nearest English equivalent of Baale was Duke, since the Baale installs chiefs; but added Baale was Baale and would rather be addressed by simply that!), Prof. Kola Ogundowole, ace Yoruba poet, Chief Tunbosun Oladapo, Dr. Wale Okediran, the famous medic with literary blood coursing in his veins, Comrade Moshood Erubami, Comrade Laoye Sanda (who represented Hon. Wale Oshun), Princess Bisi Sangodoyin and Comrade Gbenga Awosode, among others.

    At the film show, the previous evening, were Prof. Ishola, Prof. Oladapo Akinkugbe, emeritus professor of medicine, Dr. Tony Marinho, medic and The Nation weekly columnist, and Prof. Ogundowole among others, despite the film showing at the forecourt of the Arts Theatre, and not inside as advertised.

    Of course, the students too came in numbers, both at the film show and at the symposium, a fitting tribute to Ige’s memory, for he was not only a perpetual friend of the youth, he was also their exemplar, to which not a few aspired. Indeed, at the symposium was an Aluta column of students, shouting “vic-to-ry” and whipping up comradely fists.

    Still Ige, near-beatified since his tragic death, was all too human.

    Like the literary tragic heroes, he fell to no one but hubris. It was hubris that drove Ige to break ranks with his Afenifere family for felt betrayal, after the Alliance for Democracy (AD) caucus presidential primary that rejected him for Chief Olu Falae. That drove him into the conservative camp, which signalled the beginning of the end.

    Even more tragic, it was hubris that made him shunt aside the dire warning, by a loyal aide, Alhaji Kayode Adekojo (who spoke at the symposium), that death lurked that night, if Ige slept in his Ibadan home.

    Alhaji Adekojo claimed he had seen Ige’s killing in a trance; and tried to dissuade his boss from sleeping at home or, if he insisted, offered to serve as spiritual bulwark against the would-be killers. Ige dismissed both offers, despatching him instead to distribute Christmas turkey to Governor Lam Adesina and some other local VIPs. Less than two hours after parting between boss and aide, however, Ige’s first-born and daughter, Funso, reportedly called Adekojo that his dire dream had come to pass!

    Still, that was Ige, the human. In Ige, the near-divine, all the tragic dross of human foibles is gone. What is left is the quintessence: the one that is dead and yet lives; a true hero whose essence transcends his immediate family; and is proudly owned by a doting community, for generations to come. That is indeed the fundament of greatness.

    As to be expected, therefore, the bitterness that Ige’s killers still walk free remains undiminished; and resonated all through the two-day event.

    But there is great comfort — and that comfort is not cold at all! — that though Ige died but still lives, those associated with this murder live but have long died!

    So, as the Nigerian state lumbers to fish out and punish the killers, and secure justice for its own attorney-general and minister of Justice, let those who believe in the Ige essence champion those ideals he and his progressive Palladium stood for: quality education and health paid for by the state, and an equal-opportunity, just society and a truly productive federal Nigeria.

    Nothing less would immortalise Ige.

  • Aregbe-phobia?

    Aregbe-phobia?

    Caveat Emptor: Ripples is friendly to Osun Governor, Rauf Aregbesola’s causes. But that friendship, putting it with a dramatic metaphor, is not carnal.

    It is rather based on shared ideals: politics of development, governance of vision, sheer courage of conviction, the grit to think and the passion to do.

    But he is no enemy of The Punch newspaper. That, in any case, would be decidedly stupid: how could anyone wilfully block self from a rich spring of news and allied fare?

    And vain: who is a mere columnist to contend with the all-mighty Punch, which editorial roar sends presidents diving, governors trembling and ministers grumbling?

    But much more than admitted friendship or perceived enmity, Ripples is adamant on good faith, fairness, and decorum, even as the Fourth Estate takes on the other three estates of the realm — no easy chore, to be sure, as many on the other side are simply too stiff-necked, like the annoying Biblical Israelites — on burning national issues.

    With profound humility, therefore, and with all due respect to its awesome mental power, The Punch did not manifest much of good faith, fairness or decorum in its latest tango with Governor Aregbesola, by its January 21 editorial: “Aregbesola’s misguided church project.”

    Perhaps, the newspaper was well meaning. But by its bad temper, its puritanical air and its dismissive ire, it relegated itself from the majesty of correction in good faith to hectoring in bad faith.

    Yet, The Punch was spot on, when it argued that Governor Aregbesola, if he commits public funds to building a Christian worship centre, could not in all good conscience demur if other religious blocs insist on similar treatment. That is a good point which the governor and his advisers would do well to ponder.

    Still, there is evidence that The Punch did not fully understand the issue before entering the fray, thereby opening itself to legitimate charges of culpable bias, if not outright spite.

    And by sheer ironic justice, look no farther, for this evidence, than Niyi Akinnaso, its own back page columnist, whose piece, “Aregbesola and the political economy of religion”, appeared on January 21, seven days after The Punch editorial.

    Mr. Akinnaso demonstrated a more nuanced understanding of the Osun religious ecology and its trinity of faiths: Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Worship, their age-old practices and their staunch adherents; the motive of turning the calling of Osun’s many prophets and pastors to stimulate a repressed local economy; and even a subtle imperative for equal opportunity access to the trinity, in the best tradition of Yoruba religious tolerance and best convention of a secular Constitution serving a multi-religious polity.

    If the gods in The Punch Editorial suite would just climb down from their celestial plane, they just might hear the gentle rebuke in Mr. Akinnaso’s concluding sentence: “This puts a major burden on reporters to always look beyond the controversies surrounding well-intentioned projects and not allow their reports to merge with those of the opposition.”

    With Mr. Akinnaso referring to previous controversies of an alleged Aregbesola Islamist agenda in Osun and the schools reclassification brouhaha, on which The Punch wrote nay-thundering editorials; and tracing the genesis of the Christian centre in the current excitement, the verdict was genteel but dire: newspaper editorials ought to be driven more by sobriety; less by controversy.

    Still, it does not mean that The Punch was wrong in the present case and that Mr. Akinnaso was right — or vice versa. It only means that The Punch and Governor Aregbesola stand on two different pedestals regarding religion and the state.

    The Punch — and for good reasons too, given the Nigerian contemporary experience — is short-fused at any state intervention in religious matters. That is legitimate and fair enough.

    On the other side, Governor Aregbesola takes an activist view: everything — even religion — needs constructive engagement. That is hardly illegitimate and unfair!

    In the case of the Hijra holiday, it is the state bowing to legitimate cravings by Muslims, who first of all are citizens. The same logic holds for the Isese public holiday. Traditional adherents too, the most repressed in Nigeria’s religious cosmos, are first of all citizens! Religious chauvinists could cringe from both holidays. Dogmatic media may thunder their opposition. But none can deny the holidays underscore citizens’ multi-faith rights in a secular republic.

    In the tripartite praying sessions at state functions, it is equal access and equal opportunity to all faiths. In the present case of promoting a Christian worship centre, it is the economic motive of using religious activity to stimulate local business.

    Indeed, the sheer label of “Christian” or “Muslim” or “pagan” (African religion is no paganism, except in the jaundiced eyes of Western colonisers) is a veritable scarecrow. But what if Osun targets a pot of Diaspora gold from cultural tourism (as indeed, it does); and that is hinged on a calendar of traditional festivals, worship and artefacts, does a parallel Christian or Muslim tourism not make a lot of sense?

    And from such tourisms, if the economy takes a healthy jab in the arm and the locals reap the ensuing prosperity, what is wrong with a government making strategic investment in such ventures? The answer perhaps would still be a hideous controversy. But it does not negate the economic sense in strategic investment, even if its emotive face is “religion”.

    So, the emotion of religion is sheer dynamite. But not so the reason of it. Therefore, even if The Punch’s radical opposition is hardly illegitimate, it borders on dogma: that penchant to promote a belief to an article of faith and flatly dismiss any contrary view. But history is full of unfair victims of orthodoxy, which nevertheless turned out no more than combative ignorance.

    Take Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). In 1632, Galileo declared that the sun, not the earth, was at the centre of the universe. The papal court back then screamed heresy, and sent Galileo to papal Coventry until he died under house arrest in 1642.

    But it so happened that Galileo was right and the Roman Catholic Church was wrong. That prompted a Pope John Paul II apology to Galileo in 1992 — three centuries later! But the irreparable harm was done.

    The Punch may mean well in its Osun campaigns. But its seeming but disturbing default-setting of presuming Governor Aregbesola means ill by his policies, and rushing to pronounce dire judgment in the most arrogant of tones, even if its editorials betray lack of full understanding of the issues, can only open it to legitimate charges of Aregbe-phobia.

    Aregbesola is not totally wrong any more than The Punch is totally right. Both sides can learn a lot from each other by mutual respect and proper understanding of issues.

    But perhaps Ripples is too friendly to Aregbesola gubernatorial causes to appreciate the points The Punch espouses. But maybe too, the newspaper is too hostile to give the governor’s policies fair hearing!

  • Echoes of 1966

    Echoes of 1966

    No, echoes of 1966 do not hint at some military adventurism, which with hindsight was — and, to those not able to think through Nigeria’s eternal political crisis, could still be — some grim deus-ex-machina.

    But for Nigeria and other countries beggared by military rule, the plague is no more than harebrained zooming to, harebrained zooming fro, and on the balance, rooted on the same spot! In Nigeria’s peculiar case, it could well be net retardation!

    So, it needs no especial acuity to realise any such suggestion is a barren desert, when what is needed is a spring of ideas to think through the problem — no matter how grim and dire it appears — and arrive at sustainable solutions.

    But echoes of 1966 could well and truly be gleaned from the latest Northern Elders Forum, NEF’s psychological war against the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency, by its threat to drag Lt-Gen. Azubuike Ihejirika, former chief of Army staff (COAS), to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged human rights abuses, of the Nigerian Army under him, in the Boko Haram anti-terror campaign.

    Just as well, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has decried the NEF threat, but all the elements, back in 1966, are here: ethnic grandstanding, regional confrontation, cultural chauvinism and political rascality, all pressed into service in the zero-sum power game.

    The warring camps may have changed, but the war logic — or illogic — remains constant.

    Back then, it was the North versus the West, with the East in the Northern camp, to crush a common enemy.

    But right now, the alliance is altered: it is the “North” versus the East — “East”, meaning the old Eastern Region: present South East and South-South; with the West (present day South West) enjoying its newfound entente with the traditional North, with which it fought to the death in the First Republic.

    Again, the clear motive (on both sides) is to crush a common (power) enemy; and the grand prize is the toxic Presidency — definitely more toxic than the Prime Minister’s office of the Tafawa Balewa era.

    So, it is natural that the likes of Comrade-Senator Uche Chukwumerije would, in reaction to the Ango Abdullahi challenge, rise in defence of Gen. Ihejirika, an Ndigbo son.

    Senator Chukwumerije’s riposte, that anyone thinking of heading for ICC, would do well to watch his back; for following closely might well be ghoulish tales of genocide, dating back to the pre-Civil War northern massacre of the Igbo, a pogrom that morphed into alleged Igbo genocide during the Civil War (1967-1970) itself.

    That would fall pat into the theory propagated by the late Chinua Achebe, in his swansong There Was A Country, and by the even more blood-chilling documentation by Emma Okocha, in his Blood on the Niger, a well documented tale of the Asaba massacre, by Nigerian soldiers, of Western Igbo civilians: never accepted as full Igbo by Biafra; never accepted as full Nigerians by Nigeria either!

    It was a neither-nor zone of death that, according to Okocha, turned the waters of River Niger crimson with innocent blood of defenceless civilians.

    But that claim was no less proudly negated by Brig-Gen. Alabi Isama, in his Civil War memoir, The Tragedy of Victory, in which he claimed the Third Marine Commando Division, where he was chief of staff under the mercurial Brig-Gen. Benjamin Adekunle, never massacred any Igbo, as Biafra’s propaganda claimed, to hold on to its eastern-most reaches, in the face of federal troops’ onslaught.

    But there is no contradiction in the two claims: First Division (which Okocha’s book accused of genocide) and Third Marine Division (which Alabi-Isama cleared) fought at different theatres of the war.

    But all these justifications and counter-justifications would appear not so important in Prof. Abdullahi’s NEF latest campaign. The target is not Ihejirika per se. It is rather President Jonathan, his commander-in-chief (c-in-c).

    Gen. Ihejirika was only the Army chief. Above COAS, in the command chain, is the chief of defence staff, the Defence minister, before the ultimate boss, the C-in-C. So, if Ihejirika is frog-jumped to the ICC, Jonathan too is endangered — and he might well be the ultimate catch!

    But Prof. Abdullahi’s merry riposte to Senator Chukwumerije’s grim historical reminder appears suggestive of a grander agenda. Talks of alleged genocide at Odi and Zaki-Biam, at ICC, could also suggest a dragnet for former President Olusegun Obasanjo, unrepentant C-in-C when the terrible deeds were done.

    Obasanjo is, of course, the northern friend turned fiend, regarded by many in the aggrieved northern camp as the region’s nemesis, the perceived orchestrator-in-chief of the present power cul-de-sac the “North” now finds itself.

    An ironic casualty, should Odi and Zaki-Biam get to ICC, could be Gen. Victor Malu, one of President Obasanjo’s COAS’s, who would double as victim and alleged perpetrator. As COAS, the Odi massacre was under his charge. But he only realised the evil after the pacification guns turned on his own people at Zaki-Biam! So long for selective principle!

    Not a few have, therefore, suggested that after the physical trauma of mindless Boko Haram butchery of innocent Nigerians, making the president appear incompetent and clueless, his northern traducers have upped the ante to psychological trauma of post-office ICC trouble.

    If that indeed is the case, no pity for President Jonathan from here. Sure, the Nigerian presidency is such a stressful job that about anyone on that hot seat deserves citizens’ empathy. But Jonathan is hardly anyone’s model president, a notorious fact even his most uncritical supporters would concede.

    But that is not why he is undeserving of pity. Even after being a victim of impunity from the so-called Yar’Adua cabal, during the late president’s last days, he himself has erected a devil-may-care presidency of impunity, with the brazen criminality his supporters are unleashing in Rivers State. That gravely desecrates his high office, pours odium on institutions of state and endangers democracy. The president as hideous bully, misusing lawful coercion for partisan scores, seldom earns citizens’ endearment.

    But Jonathan’s most unforgivable flaw is, as a minority president whose native region bears the brunt of Nigeria’s petroleum mismanagement, he has proved more comfy with the president’s near-imperial powers rather than work towards altering the fundamentals for the greater good.

    All too soon, he would cease to be president. Perhaps then he would develop the Malu syndrome: victim of the bestiality of the status quo, when he had, as president, a fighting chance to change it for the better.

    Ay, a national dialogue is afoot. But it is almost an open secret that it would be little more than a sop for Jonathan’s presidential re-run credentials, with nary much changing.

    But the Jonathan attitude appears no different from his opponents’. Everyone appears bent on having a go at the toxic presidency, despite its clear toxicity!

    Yet, without first fixing it, with the dysfunctional current “federalism” that gave birth to it, the future is less than assured, despite the pervasive din of democratic(?) bickering, ala 1966.