The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Abia PDP primaries and doomsday prophets

    Abia PDP primaries and doomsday prophets

    At last, the first round of delegate elections in the build-up for the 2015 general elections has ended in Abia state. Candidates have emerged under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party to fly the party’s flag in the main election. It has been a very tensed and uncalm period with tensions and anxiety building up. A lot of horse-trading and intrigues pervaded the polity within the period. Reason for this is due to the undisputed fact that a PDP ticket in Abia is almost a forty-nine percent success record even before the election proper. Although in politics, anything can happen within a given period that even that one percent needed to attain the pass mark may be akin to searching for a needle in a hay stack.

    Before the primaries, there were doomsday prophesies by those who hate to love the governor. Many paid commentators and a section of the media for some parochial interests were busy insulting their readers’ reasoning by tales of impending implosion in the state chapter of the party. They had predicted that the state would boil if things were not done in the way of their paymasters which to them was the only right way. Some even became President Jonathan’s apologists by showing more concern to the presidential project of Jonathan more than even the president. A case of a mere Roman parishioner being more Roman Catholic that the Pope. They asked the president to call the governor to order or else he should forget Abia, as if they cared whether the president succeeded or not. Yet these threat-mongers neither belonged to the party of the president nor do they have current voters card.

    But sentiments apart, can it be said that the PDP has fared badly under the leadership of the incumbent governor Chief Theodore Ahamefule Orji who returned to the fold of the party in August 2010? This is assuming that we give any serious thought to the false alarm by the detractors. In arriving at the answer, it is only helpful we look at the fortunes of the party under the incumbent governor, in comparison to what it was and what it is likely to be from all indications.

    Under his shepherd, PDP would for the first time since its formation in 1998 be 100 percent in control of all the elective offices in the state. The feat started in the 2011 general elections.

    In the last four years that the governor has watched over PDP in Abia, there has not been any form of unnecessary bickering that may lead to division or factionalism within its fold. Party EXCO members elected in 2010 have served out their full tenure without any in-fighting for party structure. Nobody has pocketed the party officials or subsumed its roles and functions into that of any parallel campaign organization or group. No officer has been forced to resign. Look beyond your shoulders and see events and hyped political tension in other neighboring South-east states of Ebonyi and Enugu states. Simply put, PDP in the South-east stands strongest in Abia today and this is an incontrovertible fact. That did not come by happenstance. It is a leadership virtue which every good leader must aspire to possess. To leave the scene better than you met it.

    The last litmus test is the just concluded party primaries upon which the doomsday prophets have hinged their clairvoyant skills of foreseeing doom. The exercise has come and gone with the climax being the election of party’s governorship candidate Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu on Monday December 8. He slugged it out against seven other eminently qualified contestants and eventually emerged victorious. His entrance into the game had altered the political permutation. What many of his co-contestants did not know was that they were actually the ones that made Ikpeazu to tower high and above them. No sooner had he indicated interest to run had the other branded him “the chosen” one. They were the ones who took him to the media and in the attempt to demonise him gradually brought him into the forefront. Before you knew it, the race was certain to be between Ikpeazu and the others.

    While trying to drag him down, the commoners stretched their necks to catch a glimpse of this man who had become the talk-show. They wanted to know who was this man that did not wait for election to show his wealth and capacity to help their state. When the inquired, they were told that the man was only known to be carting away the refuse generated by the same wealthy chests. Rather than dampen their spirit, they saw the hand of God and the coming to fruition of that biblical prayer of Hannah, “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifted up the beggar from the dung hill, to set them among the Princes and make them inherit the throne of glory”. They remembered he was once in charge of refuse disposal in Aba and Abia South. He did not receive any subsidy money for election, neither did he sit on the board of any bank with access to depositors fund as remuneration. Ikpeazu did not man any federal ministry and felt the world revolved around him. Gradually everything fell into place and the man who had equal stakes with the others in the “Project Abia” was undoubtedly emerging a front liner courtesy of those who thought they were dragging him down.

    In all fairness to Governor Orji, there was nothing to show that he had a preference for any candidate. He maintained his mien and stoic character in the face of all the horse-trading. Not even from his body language did he let out any whiff of suspicion as to his choice. If he had any preference for any of the contestants, he kept same to his chest so as to create a level playing ground for all. And why wouldn’t he? All the eight aspirants that contested the governorship primary were on one-on-one personal relationship with him. He couldn’t afford to love any more than the other given his position as father of all. And they all knew it.

    There is also no point to pretend that the whole exercise from the State House of Assembly to governorship went down well with all contenders. No. There were places like in Abia North where some political mannequins against wider desire got tickets to remain liabilities and parliamentary graffiti to their people. But that is why it is politics. Interests are accommodated through political arithmetic in power distribution. The beauty of it all was that with a man like Ochendo, even the aggrieved were ready to sheathe their sword as their own contributions and sacrifices for the sustained peace in the party nay the state. That is the attribute of a man who provided purposeful and selfless leadership. It has its reward called unalloyed loyalty.

    Little wonder the exercise in Abia was as peaceful as it was interesting. So what do we make of those who predicted that Abia will boil as a result of the alleged attempted manipulation of the process. No candidate walked out of the exercise. None alleged any form of manipulation. How come it was only a section of media that was in possession of that intelligence report that Abia PDP will expode?

    Abia is on the move and when the harvest time is ripe, posterity will no doubt show its kind face on a man who laboured to unite all interests for the peaceful co-existence and progress of his state.

    •Emereuwa writes from Umuahia, Abia State.

  • Jona’s wonder stoves

    Jona’s wonder stoves

    Given the current tempo of politics, it is understandable that most Nigerians would have either missed out or could not be bothered with one of the more curious outcomes of the Federal Executive Council meeting of last week. I refer here to the approval by the council for the procurement of 750,000 units of clean cooking stoves and 18,000 ‘wonder bags’ under the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves initiative at a princely cost of N9.2 billion to the treasury. The contract, with a completion period of 12 weeks, is said to have been awarded to Messrs Integra Renewable Energy Services Limited, a South African firm. The stoves and wonder bags are said to be meant for women in the rural areas, to be distributed under the National Clean Cooking Scheme.

    A fortnight ago on this page, I had argued in the context of our current economic travails that the problems facing the nation, is essentially a thinking one. I sought to push the point that our problems have merely been exacerbated by the current, though predictable, cycle of sliding oil prices. That interjection was supposed to be one long shot effort to draw attention to the lack of depth ruling at the highest echelon of our government on the one hand, and the atrocious choices being foisted on the citizens by the unfeeling, greedy and rapacious governing elite on the other.

    In the light of the latest matter of stoves, I find it necesary to pursue the matter further, given what is now an emerging pattern of cynical conversion of the misery of the people in furtherance of less than altruistic goals. If the leadership has lost the capacity to suffer shame, Nigerians ought to be embarrassed that their government has gone shopping for something as ordinary as cooking stoves in the guise of appearing to be doing something about a global problem. That it is just one of those brain-waves to enrich some powerful and connected fellows makes it terrible.

    Without any doubt, it seems to me one other instance when a well intended project has been hijacked by powerful forces. As a matter of fact, I discovered that the initiative actually belongs to the Federal Ministry of Environment under its  Renewable Energy Programme. The programme is said to be in fulfilment of the country’s obligation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and as part of African strategy on voluntary emission reduction. The big idea behind it, again I am further told, is to get citizens to move from extant practices of tree-felling for firewood and the use of other fossil fuels known to contribute to greenhouses gases in favour of cleaner and more efficient energy – laudable initiative  by any standards. In the hand of a contracto-crazy government, it has since been reduced to a grotesque scheme to fleece the treasury and/or to perpetrate capital flight!

    Part of the debauchery that governance has been reduced under the Jonathan administration is the current situation in which the weekly meetings of the Federal Executive Council have been reduced to mere clearing house for contracts. I recall Obiageli Ezekwesili, former education minister warning of the trend not too long ago when she noted: “The leaders of other nations spend their times thinking about vision, strategy and policy, the others spend their time haggling over contracts. It is time for FEC to let go of spending its time on mundane things.” If it seems any unflatering that our own FEC does pretty little else than dispense contracts these days, it is even worse than the matter is about a local household item that our local metal workers have long mastered the art of their production!

    I couldn’t agree more with the chairperson of Edo State Market Women Association, Blackie Omoregie as reported by the online medium, Premium Times, when she described the plan as a misplaced priority. Her words:  “what we need now most is uninterrupted electricity to ensure that women selling pure water, grinding pepper and others, using electricity are not forced into incurring extra expenses of purchasing fuel before they can transact their businesses, not cooking stove…I will also want to remind the Federal Government to stop importing what we can produce in Nigeria here, such as this cooking stove they are talking of. We can produce cooking stove in Nigeria, we don’t need to import it and N9.2 billion is a lot of money that can create jobs for our local manufacturers. So, if the Federal Government is bent on giving cooking stove to the rural women because election is coming, let it be produced here in Nigeria”.

    I have deliberately quote the Edo market women leader in great length if only to highlight the simple but elementary economics often lost on the leaders in their decision-making process.

    To get back to my earlier point about what makes the business stink. If it seems convinient for our government to go shopping abroad for solutions that can be found locally, we must constantly remind them that nothing in the global drive for clean cooking remotely suggests that home-grown solutions cannot be found. So, what’s PRODA and other research and development agencies doing if they cannot develop simple, affordable but wholly home-grown technologies for our rural folks? Of course, the choice of a foreign firm to execute the contract would appear deliberate; whoever thinks it is not does not understand how the minds of our officials work. That’s the way things are; precisely the way they are designed to work in our clime!

    By the way, where lies the urgency?  Surely, the debate about global warming did not start yesterday. It certainly would not end tomorrow – or in the next 12 weeks during which the contract is supposed to have been delivered. As if we do not know that the only thing urgent in the messy business is the elections barely 10 weeks away!

     

  • Ibadan mayhem and politics of violence

    Ibadan mayhem and politics of violence

    Any good student of politics would have successfully predicted the violence that happened in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, a few weeks ago. Then a band of thugs reportedly accosted some policemen sent to maintain peace and order at the final leg of the meet-the-people tour by Oyo State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi to the 33 local governments during which a policeman was killed and some other people wounded. Political pundits merely smiled at the fulfillment of their analytical prophesy.

    Let us roll back the hands of the clock, to the period of 2003 to 2011. The state was so notorious for its criminal and political killings that it became a test case for the proverbial failed state. Everything that could go awry went same way. Violence became 10 a dime in Oyo State and bloodshed was as native to the state as water is to an oasis.

    First came Lamidi Adedibu – petrel of Ibadan politics – and his queer and crude godfatherism in politics. Adedibu believed that politics was a bread and butter exercise and had little to do with development. Whatever stomach infrastructure that the Ayo Fayose government today prides itself to have brought about was pioneered by the Adedibu School of politics. It was the belief of the school that politics is an esophagus thing and less about development or the tomorrow of the people. The school added a very high dosage of violence as well because in the execution of the modus operandi of the group’s complex interest, some of the members of the community who were used to the status quo would of a necessity resist the alien philosophy. Violence was needed to upstage such stiff-necked people.

    Thus, the school was nurtured by violence and in many cases, bloodletting. In many cases, murder attended to the bid of the school and killing political opponents was taken in their strides. When one considers the fact that some 80 per cent of the politicians in the state are students of this violent school of politics, it would be apparent that a divine power was needed to wean the state of violence and its inclination towards bloodshed.

    That was what happened from 2003 to 2008. Life in Oyo State was nasty, short and brutish. When Adedibu clashed with then Governor Rashidi Ladoja over cash and patronage, especially the latter’s miserly disposition to governance, matters went worse. Violence gripped the state like a dinosaur. Cells of violence in the state multiplied. Thugs reigned by the day. Iwo Road and some other parts of the state became hotbed of violence. To sustain themselves in the game of violence, the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and its executives were deployed for this nefarious trade. Exploiting the usual care-free but brawl-full life of an average road transport worker, this period became a gestation period for violence in the state and bloodletting took the centre-stage.

    Perhaps the most indicative of the lawlessness and violence of the period was the attempt by the Adedibu gang to impeach Ladoja. Signifying Ladoja’s tepid hold on the government that he ruled over, he became captive of the nuances that surrounded him. Adedibu controlled both the party machinery and the violence of its operations, including the NURTW. Eleweomo, a known kingpin of the road transport workers, was on Adedibu’s payroll. One day while the imbroglio lasted, Eleweomo led a group of bloodthirsty thugs to the House of Assembly to chase away the lawmakers. In the heat of it all, Eleweomo forcefully held the Speaker’s gavel and in a ghoulish mockery of reality, hit it on the table and pronounced that the Speaker had been impissed in a corrupted diction. The thugs threw out some Honourable members from the window and one of them sustained a grievous injury which he nursed till he died.

    Under Alao Akala, former Ladoja Deputy who later became governor, things didn’t fare better. Violence of different hue reigned during his governance of the state. His own NURTW kingpin was a man called Tokyo, whom he replaced with another man called Auxiliary, after the former left his camp. One day, at the thick of the heinous struggle for power among the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) group, Eleweomo was killed in cold blood by one of the groups fighting for ascendancy in the party.

    It was under such atmosphere that Abiola Ajimobi became governor of the state in 2011. Oyo State was tired of the spate of bloodshed that reigned in the state. This, among other factors, brought the former senator into power. The people were tired of living uncertain lives on a daily basis. More fundamentally, investors were daily considering the state as a place to avoid like a plague. The ones that were doing businesses therein were daily recording losses. Development partners avoided Oyo State and did business with other states. For the citizens of the state, it was a life lived in fear and trepidation. You woke up in the morning and you were not sure what the day would be. Indeed, you would be making a fatal mistake if you didn’t ask for a directory of which hot spot violence was being unleashed by the day.

    So Ajimobi knew the heavy responsibility thrust on his shoulders. He mouthed peace and security like a clergy mouths ‘praise the lord’. At every forum he attended, he told the world of his readiness to distance himself from the violence of the past. According to him, the Oyo State of his dream could not take off under an atmosphere of violence and chaos. He told the story of his peace pedigree and how his 32 years of being in the corporate world was spent using his mental skill to bail his companies from challenges, rather than deploy brawns and violence.

    Immediately, he established the crime-fighting unit called Operation Burst. This comprises the security operatives viz the military, police, civil defence, State Security Service operatives and others. In the last three and half years, this outfit has been commended across board for maintaining peace and tranquility in the state. Ajimobi in turn provided equipment and logistics for them with an uncommon determination. On the heels of its establishment, Ajimobi got a Security Trust Fund which is a PPP initiative to fund peace in the state. This has been working in tandem with his vision of peace for Oyo State.

    Leadership was the next thing Ajimobi deployed to tame the violence of the state. He told the factions of the NURTW upon resumption as governor that he was not interested in the internal wranglings of the union. They could pick their leaders themselves and he was not interested in using any of the transport workers for political gains. This worked like magic as peace returned to the state.

    Statistics recently released by the police in the state showed that, after almost three and half years of being in office, the Ajimobi peace initiative has worked so well. According to the statistics, murder, which was 121 cases between 2003 and the time Ajimobi took over, came down to only nine during the period. In place of 35 reported cases of arson before 2011, nil was recorded during the period and grievous bodily harm which was 1,119 before 2011 was 223 in three and half years.

    When on November 21, 2014, during Ajimobi’s meet-the-people-tour of the 33 local governments of the state, some thugs wearing APC vests killed a policeman and wounded some people, it was obvious to the people and keen political watchers that the PDP had come back to their old wild ways. It was obvious that if Ajimobi was allowed to coast home with this worldwide renown of Mr. Peace, it would be very difficult for any of the dramatis personae of the violence of eight years, to convince anyone for a single vote. Getting a thug to wear an APC thug vest and unleashing violence of such proportion could thus be a way of telling the world that they were not the only master of violence; that Ajimobi too is. They however failed to reckon that the people are no fools. The people know the patrons of violence of politics inside out. It can never be Ajimobi and his peaceful government.

     

    • Anifalaje, a public affairs analyst writes from Ibadan, Oyo State.

     

  • Promoting science and technology education

    Promoting science and technology education

    Education has been widely described as the bedrock of national advancement and an engine room for manpower development of any nation. It is a system of formal teaching and learning as conducted through schools and other institutions. It includes levels of education from pre-schools, primary, to colleges and universities. According to the late South African President, education offers a platform for the child of a peasant farmer to rub shoulder with the child of a wealthy and influential gold and diamond merchant.

    Science and technology education is particularly important because it affords nations opportunities to explore scientific and technological breakthroughs. Science education refers to the systematic study of everything that can be examined, tested and verified. The word science is derived from the Latin word “scire”, meaning “to know.” From its early development, science has developed into one of the greatest and most prominent fields of human endeavours. Currently, different branches of science investigate almost everything that can be observed or detected while science as a whole influences the way we understand the universe, the planet, human beings and other living and non-living things.

    Technology is a general term for the process by which human beings make tools and machines to increase their control and understanding of the material environment and to improve on standard of living. The term came from the Greek words ‘tekhnç’, which refers to an art or craft, and ‘logia’, meaning an area of study; therefore, technology means, literally, the study or science of crafting.

    Studies have shown that science and technology is important for advancement which engenders industrialization and civilization. In recent times, the global  rate of technological progression has developed rapidly. Innovations and creativity now increase at geometrical rate without respect to geographical boundaries/limitations, social or political inclinations.

    For obvious reasons, improving the quality of mathematics, science and technology education should not be compromised or taken for granted. Reports list China, India, Korea, Singapore and Brazil as the fastest growing economy in the world and the secret of their successes has been traced to huge investment in education and technological skills. It is, however, sad in Nigeria that governments at all levels have not accorded science and technology education the necessary attention it deserves in terms of investment in providing adequate finance, infrastructure, training and re-training of personnel. A sound science education programme is expected to achieve an appreciable national development. It is sad that Nigeria is not developed in spite of the proposals of successive governments in line with the National Policy on Education.

    Happily though, government has embarked on a review of school curricula in primary and secondary education, with early instruction in basic science and technology while 34 trade subjects were introduced towards inculcating practical skills into Nigerian students. It is hoped that all stakeholders in the education sector would work together to make the curricula work. Goals for school science and technology should meet up with global standards, use appropriate scientific processes (means) and principles in making personal decisions; engage intelligently in public discourse and debate about matters of scientific and technological concern; and increase their economic productivity through the use of the knowledge, understanding and scientific skills.

    For the country to remain relevant in competitive world economy; there is need to strengthen mathematics and science education at all levels of our education system. This is in addition to exposing Nigerian teachers and students to modern methods of teaching/learning processes at all levels of our education. It has been observed from recent SSCE, NECO and JAMB examinations that students’ performances have been on the decline in science related subjects.  Urgent steps should, therefore, be taken to address the situation.

    It is advisable, where possible, to involve our artisans/tradesmen, technicians, technologists and engineers as facilitators or teachers in science and technology related fields in our schools. The nation can take a cue from Japan, United States of America and others that have succeeded in effectively promoting science and technology education in their respective countries. Nigeria’s case should not be different if we imbibe the culture of sincerity of purpose and total commitment and political will in the implementation of our laudable policies.

    Technology transfer is not easy and cannot be gotten on a platter of gold. For instance, South Korea’s automobile industry had humble beginnings. Its initial operations were merely assembling of parts from Japan and United States. But it is today rated as one of the largest in the world in terms of production and export volume. Korea’s humble journey into success in the automobile industry began in August 1955, when Choi Mu-seong, a Korean auto mechanic, and his three brothers, mounted an engine on a modified US Army Jeep to manufacture the first car, called “Sibal”.

    For Nigeria to make any meaningful impact on scientific and technological education, the citizens would need to be resolute in supporting government’s efforts in terms of provision of infrastructure, equipment, personnel and resources. Parents should equally be ready to assist through vibrant and proactive Parent and Teacher Associations. The youths also must become extremely creative, ready and determined to learn new things that could open up their minds to fresh knowledge. Teachers should equally embrace training and re-training programmes to become conversant with new trends and developments in the ever dynamic field of science and technology.

    On the part of the government, adequate provision should be made in allocation of funds for the education sector in conformity with global standards and practices. School managers are also expected to achieve commendable results in terms of virile national development through science and technology education. The world , as we have today, is being driven by new scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs. Therefore, Nigeria cannot afford to lag behind. This, indeed, is the time to chart a new path for science and technological education in the country.

    • Olagunju is of the Lagos State Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja

  • Beyond winning and losing

    Beyond winning and losing

    The Lagos All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial primaries have been won and lost, with Akin Ambode emerging victorious.  But why does it evoke eerie parallels from the Femi Agbalajobi-Dapo Sarumi titanic primary of 1991?

    Dr. Agbalajobi (of blessed memory) was the undisputed favourite of the then Alhaji Lateef Jakande Lagos political establishment.  Then, the 2nd Republic Action Governor of Lagos’ word was law.  But the Sarumi camp was bent on resisting any Baba so pe (“Baba has decreed”) alleged imposition.

    Mr. Sarumi, on the other hand, was the Lagos face of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida’s “new breed” — fresh, nimble and dynamic Olympians on Nigeria’s political firmament; come to run, out of town, the stale, awkward and rickety Titans, veteran politicians of the 1st and 2nd Republics, who little realised their epoch was over!

    For Agbalajobi  and Sarumi, the primary was a hideous stalemate, resolved only by their party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), disqualifying them both.  But the battle continued by proxy.

    Yomi Edu, the eventual SDP candidate, who faced Sir Michael Otedola (God bless his soul) of the National Republican Convention (NRC) was perceived, by the Jakande camp, of the Sarumi provenance.

    Both camps banded together to win the legislative election with a near-clean sweep.  But on the governorship, the Baba sope camp triggered mutual destruction as combat tactics.

    They allied with Otedola’s NRC  and gave their own candidate a terrible electoral hiding.  When the dust cleared, the political progressives, for the first time in Lagos history, had lost the governorship to the conservative NRC.

    Now, the eerie parallels between 1991 and now.

    In 1991, Lagos East Senatorial District was theatre of war.  It is also now.    After Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (Lagos West) 1999-2007 and Governor Babatunde Fashola (Lagos Central), 2007-2015, APC has zoned its governorship, from 2015, to Lagos East.

    Like in 1991, a pre-primary din alleged “imposition” of a “favoured” candidate, thus leading to horrific bad blood among the contestants.  Like in 1991, though the governorship primary delivered a candidate, there is probably no guarantee that candidate would be acceptable to all the feuding camps.

    That must explain why, before the primary that eventually produced Mr. Ambode, Asiwaju Tinubu, the party’s leader, had pleaded with everyone to accept the result.  It is also heart-warming that, after, Governor Babatunde Fashola has asked Lagosians to vote Ambode for continuity.

    But much more than a historical parallel, a direct link, between 1991 and now.

    The anti-Jakande crusading boys of yesteryear have become men.  Mr. Sarumi, no thanks to series of bad political decisions, may have vanished from the horizon.  But Asiwaju Tinubu has taken his place, thus replacing the Jakande political hegemony with their own.

    And, to be sure, they would appear to have done Lagos some hefty good.

    Whereas the Olusegun Obasanjo-Umaru Yar’Adua-Goodluck Jonathan Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) continuum at the centre appears to have bankrupted Nigeria, with the present fiscal panic over crashing prices of crude, the Tinubu-Fashola Alliance for Democracy-Action Congress-Action Congress of Nigeria-APC continuum in Lagos has led the state from a revenue profile of N600 million a month in 1999 to about N23 billion in 2014.

    On the balance, Lagos appears clearly to have moved from point A to B; signalling progress in enhanced security, infrastructure renewal, a greener environment and a far cleaner Lagos — Lagos, hitherto among the dirtiest on the globe.  There is always, of course, a lot more to do.

    Conversely, on the balance, the centre would appear to have regressed from B to A, with a harvest of decayed infrastructure nationwide, though President Jonathan, in his 2015 declaration speech, claimed stats that suggested he was fixing that.

    Still, there is legitimate feeling that, had post-1999 Nigeria (with its quantum of funds) been blessed with the leadership of post-1999 Lagos, the country would have been better.

    But success does have its hassles!  After the halcyon days of collective success, it appears now the era of “what is in it for me”!  That would explain the fierce contest — all the contestants Tinubu’s close protégés — to succeed Governor Fashola, who has boasted, from all objective accounts, superlative governance.

    Now, back to a peep at 1991!  At the start of the Ambode phenomenon, a band of demonstrators stormed the Ikeja seat of the Lagos government: first, at the precincts of the Lagos House of Assembly and later, at the adjoining Lagos House.  The message: “No more Oga sope!”

    If “Oga sope” echoes the Jakande era “Baba sope”, it is because the wished-for Utopian, all-equal Animal Farm of the anti-Jakande crusaders of yesteryear has morphed into something more earthly, of some animals more equal than others, to parody George Orwell.

    Let’s not beat about the bush — to use Soyinka-speak in his Jonathan Nebuchadnezzar putdown — though the battle has been lost and won, too many are aggrieved.  If things were not to degenerate to the Agbalajobi-Sarumi tragedy of 1991, then urgent, conscious and deliberate efforts must be made to placate the aggrieved.

    But first, both winners and losers must agree: theirs is a milieu that needs urgent reformation.  Starkly put, reform or die!

    The APC and its forebears may have got governance — brilliant governance at that — right.  But not their internal politics, which is always in a shambles, with today’s beneficiaries — and tomorrow’s victims — shouting “fairness!”, only later to scream “imposition!” when the table gets turned.

    The party must work some consensus on its internal business, without threatening to bring down the roof each time.  Since “consensus” is simply “imposition” to not a few, APC should deepen its primary elections, and make them a fresh start at deepening its own internal democracy.

    If the combatants won’t embrace entente for charity, they must, out of sheer enlightened self-interest.  They must not destroy  the house they built.

    In 1991, a dominant segment of the SDP got Edu as candidate, in lieu of Sarumi.  But the Jakande faction, dominant in the electoral streets, deployed the ultimate hammer — the classic Yoruba “Kaka k’eku maje sese, a fi sawa danu” [virtually in English: my private loss must turn a collective disaster].

    Lagos was the worse for it: Sir Michael was an excellent elder and citizen.  But as governor, he was far from excellent; and his electoral war cry, “That Lagos may excel” turned a hollow joke, as Lagos nearly stagnated.

    In 1991, the progressives were a shoo-in; even in 1999.  But in 2015, not so: no thanks to haemorrhaging over the years, despite proving their mettle.

    Again, no thanks to President Jonathan’s playing the end against the middle: Christians against Muslims, Igbo against Yoruba, subverting state coercion for partisan gains; and vicious Tinubu demonization by embittered Yoruba enemies, 2015 will be a far tougher proposition.

    That is why Tinubu himself should reach out and placate those who lost out on December 4.  Anything short may just replicate the Agbalajobi-Sarumi tragedy.

    With how PDP has beggared the nation at the centre — and that party stands to benefit most from any ensuing crisis — Lagos would be the worse for it.

     

  • The implosion that never was

    The implosion that never was

    Of the gubernatorial primaries that took place across the country last weekend, the one in Lagos was decidedly the most watched.

    The news media framed it not as a contest among the 12 aspirants seeking the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket, but as a titanic clash of wills between former Lagos State Governor and National Leader of the APC Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and his successor, Babatunde Fashola (SAN).

    Tinubu, the media reported unequivocally, had chosen and was set to impose a candidate on the party in the person of former Lagos State Accountant-General Akinwunmi Ambode, and Lagos being the stronghold of the APC, all that remained was the coronation.  Yes, a primary would be held, but it would be a mere formality; the result was already known.

    APC’s National Legal Adviser, Dr Muiz Banire, appeared to have given some impetus to the “imposition”  in a rambling interview he gave the online journal Premium Times several weeks ago, leading some to quip that, with a legal adviser like Banire, which political party needs a well-placed insider to foul its nest?

    Ambode himself unwittingly gave stories of his alleged preferment some credence when, on the the eve of the primaries, he was reported to have urged other contestants to withdraw from the race because he had already won.

    Fashola, the media reported just as unequivocally, was seething with resentment that, whereas it was left to governors in other states to handpick their successors, he was allowed no say in determining who would take over from him.  There was no better time than now, at the end of his non-renewable tenure, to assert himself.

    To that end, the reports went on, he had picked his own candidate from among the aspirants, to do battle with Tinubu’s candidate at the primaries.  He would match Tinubu Naira for Naira, dollar for dollar, and Lagosians, nay Nigerians, would get to see the real Fashola, not the person who had been forced to operate in Tinubu’s shadow for roughly eight years.

    If he was persuaded that his candidate had been cheated out of victory by hook or crook, Fashola would not hesitate to dump the APC and take shelter under Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) umbrella, not minding the consequences. If that happened, the PDP would capture Lagos. Fashola, many media outlets  reported breezily, was set to beard the Lion of Bourdillon in his redoubt.

    I don’t know how Tinubu came to be called the Lion of Bourdillon.  To be sure, there is an agreeable cadence to the title, and he does live on Bourdillon Avenue, in Ikoyi, Lagos. Other than that, the term would seem misplaced.  He does not have the muscular build of a lion.  He does not roar. More often than not, he is soft-spoken

    But I digress.

    Just to show that he meant business, Fashola, it was said, had dispatched state officials to Ambode’s residence on the eve of the primaries to bundle him out of the place on the grounds that, as a private individual, he was not entitled to live in government quarters.

    These were the tales doing the rounds in newspaper newsrooms, in gossip magazines and on the misnamed social media, all travelling at the speed of the Internet, not forgetting peppersoup  joints and commuter buses,  all of them claiming to derive from “authoritative” or “informed” or “reliable” sources, and all of them “speaking on condition of anonymity.”

    Thus was the stage for a titanic clash of wills between Fashola who, reports said, had resolved grimly to bring down the house down if his candidate did not emerge from the primaries clutching the APC’s gubernatorial ticket, and Tinubu who was just as determined to take out any obstacle in the way of his candidate securing the same ticket

    The die was cast.

    I was troubled and conflicted.

    Troubled, because my mind raced back to the impasse arising from the selection of the SDP gubernatorial candidate for Lagos State, in 1991. That conflict paved the way for the NRC candidate Michael Otedola to win the governorship by default.

    With Lagos State in the hands of the NRC that had called for the annulment of the 1993 presidential election won by the SDP candidate Bashorun Moshood Abiola and supported it enthusiastically, the resistance to that infamy was less than optimal.

    Could that happen again, and perhaps throw up an Obanikoro who as Minister of  State for the Army routinely deployed soldiers to terrorize crews working on public projects in Lagos, or horrible thought, a rampaging Fayose who operates on the principle that statesmanship consists in smashing things up and turning the clock back?

    Having lived in Lagos on and off since 1963, I found those prospects really troubling

    I was also conflicted because, as one who has identified with the progressive cause in all his adult years and can claim some familiarity with Tinubu and Fashola, what should I do amidst reports that the twain were at daggers-drawn, with frightful consequences for the progressive agenda?

    Pretend that I had no inkling of all the tales that were being peddled – tales that might well turn out to contain a grain or two of truth?  Call their senior aides to find out what was going on, given that Tinubu and Fashola may not be reachable in the charged political atmosphere?  Or call them, hoping that you might be lucky to get through and that they would open up.

    When you reach a certain age in our culture, it translates into generational capital you can draw on. If in addition you have acquired some professional standing, you feel entitled to raise issues, confident that in those circles that really count, your bona fides would not be questioned.

    So I called Tinubu and Fashola.

    Tinubu’s position is already on the public record.  I have nothing to add to it.

    What Fashola told me — and this was before Tinubu’s statement was published— tallied in all essentials with that statement.

    The contest, they have said, was never about individuals.  It was about Lagos State, its future, and the well-being of its residents.  No aspirant was shut out of the contest.  The process was fair, and the outcome unexceptionable.  The clash of wills on which the imminent implosion of the APC was grounded was the confection of talebearers.

    The loser in this narrative is the PDP that had stoked the fire assiduously with help from its proxies, persuaded that an implosion in the APC would be its sure path to power in Lagos State.

    Now, Chief Olabode George and company will have to devise another battle plan.

  • Osundare: a breath of fresh air

    Osundare: a breath of fresh air

    In the present morass, Prof. Niyi Osundare winning the 2014 Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) is a breath of fresh air.

    Still, a breath of fresh air evokes an ironic déjà vu.

    A few months before the 2011 presidential election, there was a contrived air of great expectations.

    Mobile adverts, particularly on the panel of Danfo commercial minibuses, spoke of the imminence of “A breath of fresh air”, a pan-Nigeria new deal that would, perhaps, eclipse the globally acclaimed New Deal of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

    FDR’s New Deal (mainly, 1933-1936) was well and truly phenomenal, with its 3Rs — Relief for the unemployed and poor; Recovery of the economy to normal levels; and Reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression — lifting America from the Great Depression.  The Depression started in August 1929, hit the trough with the Wall Street Crash of October 1929, and triggered a global economic meltdown.

    Nigeria’s answer to FDR was Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

    The Nigerian equivalent of the American dream was a once shoeless southern creek boy, from the poorest of the dirt-poor,  from the minority of minorities — and, to boot, a charming name of Goodluck, and the record: first Nigerian president to boast a PhD! — rising to the acme of Nigerian political power, despite the country’s bully and domineering majorities.

    And GEJ’s answer to FDR’s New Deal was a Transformation Agenda, which mesmerising core was to pump the breath of fresh air, after which Lugard’s musty contraption would never be the same again!  Moral?  GEJ’s age of merit and quality beckons!

    Four years later and a few months to another presidential election, however, that promise has vanished, leaving the air toxic, rancid and pungent — almost in all spheres of national life.  An anticipated era of Plato’s philosophical kings has begotten the exact opposite: an unrepentant rule of the executive rabble.

    Whereas pre-Jonathan Nigeria was a venal redoubt where, to parody the England of the poet Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), Philistines (the garish nouveau riches) routinely trumped the Greeks (the deep and cultured), Jonathan’s Nigeria has slid into sheer political barbarism, where about nothing is sacred.

    Transformation has turned deformation.  Hope turned mirage.  Merit turned unbridled mediocrity.  Freshness turned stale.  Public institutions, proud slaves of private whims: with the Police sacking Parliament; and an unfazed IGP Suleiman Abba, in an eager and merry dance to Hades.  A once proud and secure state has turned captive, pliant and prostrate, to blood-thirsty anarchists.

    Moral?  It is Jonathan’s age of unbridled paralysis, stupid!

    But from this sooty pot of national paralysis has emerged the immaculately white pap of welcome sanity:  Niyi Osundare, sole NNOM winner for 2014.

    So, a near-irredeemably damaged state can still throw up uncompromising quality?  Perhaps some redemption is afoot!

    But the ultra-sweet bonus: Osundare triumphs even as Hurricane Jona is busy blowing Nigeria to the cliff; and Typhoon Fayosh is busy smashing everything of common sense in Osundare’s native Ekiti, where Governor Ayo Fayose sits as unbridled cave-master, with zero tolerance for anything lawful, anything noble, and anything decent: in stark contrast, to echo Osundare himself, to the “arrested renaissance” of the Kayode Fayemi years, in a race-against-time into the Stone Age.

    Still, Prof. Osundare is no short burst to success.  On the contrary, his is the Old School long and arduous trek to excellence.

    Way back at the University of Ibadan in the early to mid-1980s, he mentored a crop of students in his highly interactive creative writing class: Kongi — no, not the inimitable WS but Sesan Ajayi of blessed memory, who nevertheless patterned his poetry after WS’s; Remi Raji, now a professor of English at UI, Babatunde Ajayi, Jr, Afam Akeh, the political science major who had his soul yoked to euphonic poetry, Nduka Otiono and, of course, yours truly, to mention a few.

    As he always warned that the Nigerian Ivory Tower was turning grey, he honed his students’ poetry skills as he fired their humanity; beseeching them to protect their inherent nobility, and avoid leaving school to “join them”, no matter the odds.

    But of course, the laureate’s staying power was that, in whatever he did, he walked his talk.

    To start with, he was — and still is — a consummate academic that always told you creativity was “99 per cent perspiration and one per cent inspiration”.

    He worked hard at his trade, and from Song of the Marketplace, to The Eye of the Earth, to Moonsongs, to Song of the Season, to Waiting Laughters, to Midlife, to The Word is an Egg, to Early Birds, to Not My Business, to Tender Moments: Love Poems, among others, the Ikere-Ekiti “rural-born and peasant-bred” toughly nurtured his genius, to produce a happy concert of inspiration and perspiration!

    Not for him, cloistered but conspiratorial silence when things go awry.

    At Ekiti’s fatal embrace of Fayose’s toxic “stomach infrastructure”, he composed a dirge for his native land: pained lamentation of a devastated troubadour, for his doomed lady.  “The People Voted their Stomach — Blues for an Arrested Renaissance” went viral: for its arresting content and its enchanting form.

    Less than three months later, the Ekiti blues is real!

    When Fayose’s barbarians sacked the courts, battered judges and ripped court records, the poet’s rebuke came in biting riposte: “They slap Court Judges ‘In the Land of Honour’ “, the pristine voice of noble Ekiti scolded the present barbarity that would pass; and rued how “Impunity mates Immunity/And the union begat Imuniti” (devastating pun for “immunity” and literally, Yoruba for beyond arrest; or executive lawlessness).

    Less than three months later, Fayose’s pact with the past — while others make a dash for the future — is all but cemented!

    Unlike the infamous hee-haw of some Ekiti elders, over the governor’s galloping illegalities: the latest being the Ekiti Assembly 7 sacking 19 (a triumphant improvement on Jonathan’s Nigeria Governors Forum novelty of 16 greater than 19), the man has not died in the poet (to paraphrase our own WS).  In the face of glaring lawlessness, he has refused to be silent.

    That this poisoned atmosphere, in Nigeria as a whole and in his native Ekiti, still produced Prof. Osundare as sole NNOM laureate for 2014 is well and truly remarkable.  It is simply the inevitability of excellence — particularly that hue that combines brilliance with conscience — for any nation desirous of attaining its manifest destiny.

    So, when on December 4 the President meets the Poet to deliver the award, it would be a meeting between mere tinsel and solid gold.

    Perhaps Nigerians, on the virtual eve of another election, will gravely ponder: why do we settle for tinsel (or even worse) when we have and can get solid gold?

    Osundare’s win is tribute to the sane segment of troubled contemporary Nigeria.  These times would pass, if the deep don’t surrender their sanity to the galloping barbarians.

  • Transformers at work

    Transformers at work

    Just as one would imagine, Nigerians have since taken to the overdrive in the wake of the crisis of falling oil prices. For a crisis that took nearly a decade to berth, it is a revelation of how pretty little has changed that the debate has dwelt largely on short-term, mitigating measures. We saw this in the knee-jerk response by the federal government when it announced a rash of barely well-thought out measures to usher in a season of austerity penultimate week. The Central Bank of Nigeria has since complemented these with equal but no less lethal dose of measures: devaluation and a hike in interest rates, both of which have the overriding effects of further shrinking an economy in dire need of muscle to lift it. Now, the expectation is that the measures would somehow help douse the fires stoked by falling crude oil prices. Such an illusion!

    Of course, it’s merely a return to the ancien regime of unworkable therapies; solutions tailor-made to deliver to maximum pain all in the guise of treating an ancient ailment. It’s the old pathway – of adjustment, belt-tightening and austerity – which speaks to nothing else than the need to balance government’s consumptive books.

    The question of whether any lessons have been learnt from previous experience would seem entirely superfluous, at least at this time. The nation, after all, is supposed to be in crisis of such a nature that could be rightly termed global, forces over which the managers of Nigeria’s economy have little or no control. However, for an economy that’s probably the most dissected in the entire universe, the missed opportunities of the past decade and the criminal mismanagement which attenuated it should ordinarily provide enough to chew upon at least to the extent these have berthed in the current so-called crisis.

    As it is, there is really no use crying over split milk. One thing that is clear however that there can be no running away from the gross misunderstanding, if not the wrong assumptions that underlie the current therapies as proposed by the government and its banker.

    In this regard, I found myself reflecting on a statement made by the Country Director of the World Bank in Nigeria, Omo Ruhl, some years ago. According to the World Bank chief, “Nigeria is not a mono-product economy, it is a mono-revenue economy and a mono-export economy because in the other sectors there are no exports, very low fiscal revenues, that is where your challenge is but oil is only 17 per cent of your GDP, 83 per cent is everything else taken together”.

    To the above, he would add:  “Oil is actually the fourth largest sector of the Nigerian economy, the largest sector is agriculture, the second largest sector is wholesale and retail and services is the third largest. So what Nigeria should do is focus on propelling these other sectors forward so that they can also export, so that you are less dependent on oil and finding ways of generating revenues for the government for legitimate investment in infrastructure, health and education”.

    That statement would seem no less true in Nigeria’s post-rebased economy as it was three years ago when it was made.  My quick check actually revealed that the share of the oil economy to the GDP shrank to 14.40 percent in 2013 although petroleum exports revenue still accounts for over 90 per cent of total exports revenue.

    The implication of the above should not be lost. The contribution of the non-oil segment of the economy has been grossly understated. Here, we are talking of a sector that accounts for more than 85 percent of the GDP. Even at normal times, one would have expected that the segment would constitute the pivot around which the economy is expected to spin. Under an emergency, that segment naturally assumes the status of the proverbial golden hen deserving of extraordinary protection from the fiscal and monetary authorities.

    But what do we get? Policies so surreal, so utterly skewed towards speculation that they may have been conceived in the virtual Island of Ashtabula!

    Let me be clear here: some of the measures such as the cleaning up of government finances as proposed by Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala have some merit. The problem is that we have been on that road for more than 10 years with little to show for it in practical terms. Have we not lived with the pension scam, the subsidy-gate and all manners of industrial scale thefts that have reduced the science of public finance to a sham? What about the menace of ghost workers known to rob the treasury of billions annually? A case of one being less toxic than the other?

    So much about the so-called luxury tax; what’s the big deal about the tax on goods consumed by Nigeria’s idle rich when a single waiver by a highly connected individual can actually fetch the equivalent of 10 years luxury tax bill? And how come nobody has ever thought about the line of revenue before now despite the deficit holes in successive cycle of budgets?

    I must admit that the option of devaluation, the hike in Monetary Policy Rate and the raise in Cash Reserve Ratio for private sector funds is the textbook stuff. Devaluation isn’t only a way to conserve foreign exchange; it has the dual advantage of boosting exports. Classic textbook stuff! Yes, it all makes sense: oil has run into troubled times in the global marketplace hence the need to curb the pressure on the foreign reserve. Time to encourage local producers to take to export to earn more foreign exchange. A win-win? Bad news. Nothing aside crude oil and raw cassava, to export. Both share the same fate of declining global prices!

    Left however to the CBN, the real source of headache is the activities of the band of speculators swarming on the foreign reserves. Now that is supposed to be news in an economy where just about any soldier of fortune who calls himself foreign investor can make a run on our reserves! Of course, the question of tracking the shadowy group whose activities constitute, in the reasoning of the apex bank, economic sabotage would seem academic in the circumstance.

    So what to do? Let everyone bite the bullet. Devalue the currency; get everyone in a non-discriminatory way to pay more for their forex requirements. It does not matter whether you are bringing in industrial inputs, finished goods or doing capital flight.  Second, raise the lending rates to deter borrowing and hence reduce so-called liquidity even at the risk of sounding the death knell for the real sector already starved of its vital juice. With more money available to the federal and state governments to spend, and with money to be made from arbitrage, everyone, except the odd segment producing the 85 percent of the GDP, should be happy.

    How about that as transformation; their transformation.

     

  • Mainstreamers at work, again

    Mainstreamers at work, again

    These Mainstreamers – they never give up.

    They have been at this game since the First Republic, canvassing that the way for the Yoruba nation to achieve self-actualization under the Nigerian sun is to eschew the diversity undergirded by the federal arrangement and insert itself in a political mainstream, the better to secure a bigger allocation of the country’s resources and political appointments.

    In one breath, and with admirable high-mindedness, they proclaim that the Yoruba cannot all subscribe to the same political tendency. In the very next breath, they seek to corral the Yoruba into what they regard as Nigeria’s political mainstream

    The group appears in many guises and disguises but the goal is always the same:  to deliver their kinfolk from their addiction to opposition politics and thus rescue them from the marginalisation the group claims has been their unhappy lot of the Yoruba since independence.

    They returned briefly to the spotlight last week, this time as Concerned Yoruba Leaders, under the aegis of the Yoruba Unity Summit, which is at bottom PDP in the Southwest, plus the usual professional mainstreamers and “monarchs” who command  little allegiance and even less authority in their domains but nevertheless bask in the delusion that they represent and speak for their “subjects” – a delusion that those courting them are only too willing to cultivate and nurture with blandishments.

    This latest outing was staged in Ile Ife, the cradle of the Yoruba, in the Oduduwa Hall of the Obafemi Awolowo University, an institution dedicated to learning and culture.  There, gathered for common purpose under the beatific shadow of The Great Progenitor, were his legatees and his children, that purpose being to cajole President Goodluck Jonathan into granting the Yoruba a bigger slice of the spoils and preferment of national office in return for their block support for his re-election.

    Or maybe it was the other way round:  The Mainstreamers would deliver the block vote of the Yoruba Southwest to ensure Dr. Jonathan’s re-election, and he in turn will, as he phrased it, “take care of the Yoruba.”  The one was offering what it does not possess to secure what the other cannot provide.

    The rump of the participants comprised “monarchs” from Ekiti, formerly Fountain of Knowledge and Land of Honour, now Land of Stomach Infrastructure, bused to the venue by the great apostle and promoter of Yoruba unity, Governor Ayodele Fayose. And the conference was treated to a riveting disquisition on Mainstreaming by no less an authority than Ebenezer Babatope, who has been espousing the subject with the same zeal with which he used to espouse socialism and Awoism before he saw the light.

    Dr. Jonathan, trust him, rose magnificently to the occasion. He told his hosts how, almost four years later, he was still in shock that his efforts to ensure that a member of the House of Representatives from the Southwest was anointed Speaker – fourth in the national hierarchy- — was sabotaged by politicians from the self-same Southwest who cared more about ideology than the progress of their own people.

    I cannot vouch that this is the kind of progress the Mainstreamers had in mind.

    After all, the previous Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, is better remembered for threatening to unleash the military— as distinct from ordinary riot police — on the people of Ekiti to mainstream them under the canopy of the PDP, and for accumulating great personal wealth under cloudy circumstance, than for anything he did for the Yoruba nation, for Ogun State, or for that matter his hometown, Abeokuta.

    As Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro is remembered only for mobilising armed soldiers to terrorise contractors and crew working on projects being executed for the public by the APC-controlled Lagos State Government, claiming without fear and without research that the sites belonged to the Federal Government.

    God help Lagos State and its residents if he succeeds in his gubernatorial bid.

    It may well be that the fault was with Bankole and Obanikoro, not with Dr. Jonathan.  In whatever case, the man does not to nuance.

    To return to the Yoruba Unity Summit:

    They could have staged the conference with overarching symbolism in the expansive quarters of the Ife monarch, guardian of the O’dua flame and a key participant at the Summit. They could have staged it with no great loss of symbolism in any of the event centres in the ancient city. Instead they chose the faded but still fetching campus of the Obafemi Awolowo University.

    The university has never been a citadel of the cant and humbug that were being peddled at the Summit.  The Mainstreamers could not have swooped on the campus or invited Dr. Jonathan along without the knowledge and consent of the university authorities, who should have known that the suffocating security presence that usually went with such conferences would create tension and disrupt campus life.

    Apparently, the authorities did not care, and neither did the Mainstreamers.

    Where students at the Obafemi Awolowo University saw wanton provocation, not a few of the summiteers saw an opportunity for reinforcing their stomach infrastructure, a goal rendered all the more urgent by the collapse of the Naira.

    And many indeed were the summiteers who returned home with the tensile strength of that part of their anatomy greatly enhanced, I gather.

    The horrific carnage at the Kano Central Mosque that claimed more than 100 lives and left more than twice as many injured occurred on the same day that Dr. Jonathan landed in Ile-Ife in a military helicopter to woo the Mainstreamers for his re-election bid, and barely a week after he declared in London that it was a sure sign Nigeria had Boko Haram on the ropes when that nihilist group had not overrun another town in one week.

    Even so, he responded to the carnage with characteristic swiftness, ordering the security services “to launch a full-scale investigation and to leave no stone unturned until all agents of terror undermining the right of every citizen to life and dignity are tracked down and brought to justice.”

    If the security services had the capacity to do that, would the carnage have occurred in the first instance?

    But again, not even Dr. Jonathan’s most implacable critics have ever accused him of giving a damn about nuance.

     

    Niyi Osundare, NNOM

    The 2014 Nigeria National Order of Merit could not have gone to a worthier recipient than Niyi Osundare, globally acclaimed and much-garlanded poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist, distinguished teacher and public intellectual of the first rank, a man of great moral stature who leads by personal example rather than by precept.

    In Osundare, we find consummate literary craftsmanship, social vision, and a passion for justice and human freedom distilled into a voice of reasoned engagement that is all the more powerful for being modest. In a lofty cause, you could not wish for a more formidable ally. In an ignoble venture you could not have a more uncompromising adversary.

    Amidst the gloom that has encircled and now threatens to choke Nigeria, this award has largely being spared the corruption that rules the land. It is a reassuring testament that Nigeria can still be true to its highest ideals.

    Akoyejo (or “gatherer of prizes,” loosely translated from the Yoruba): The Nobel, next.

  • Boko Haram and call for President’s resignation

    Boko Haram and call for President’s resignation

    The war against insurgency in Nigeria has sadly been reduced to Jonathan’s war. Those who could command public opinion to weigh in against the spread of the Boko Haram sect and terrorism in northern Nigeria have ostensibly kept mute or talking in a manner deriding President Goodluck Jonathan and his government; some are even out-rightly making encouraging remarks to create inertia of social forces that have continued to reinforce the insurgency in the parts of the country. This explains the growing lack of synergy amongst the political class in the fight against insurgency in Nigeria. Rather than pull together to defeat insurgency in the land, some sections are directly and indirectly promoting it for political gains.

    Many political actors in the current dispensation come across as mere cartoon characters. They live under the illusion that once President Jonathan is forced out, Boko Haram insurgents would leave the Sambisa Forest and climb down from the Adamawa mountains and embrace peace and reintegrate into the society, like the Niger Delta militants. While this assumption remains to be seen and most unlikely, it is safer to treat Boko Haram as a terrorist organization that it is.

    Insurgencies all over the world follow a pattern that can no longer be subjected to normal logic. The psychology of terrorism is clear: those who go through its tutelage and brainwashing, are radicalized to give up normal life and form a subculture, which can no longer mesh with the mainstream it left. This basic truth vitiates the thinking of those who believe the coming to power of somebody other than President Jonathan (perhaps a Muslim northerner) would stop insurgency. This is an empty dream if the anti-social and anarchistic nature of terrorism is fully considered.

    Also, from the deep divisions in the fighting ranks of the Nigerian military, it does appear some selfish politicians have reached out to their contacts in the military and convinced many of them not to fight and to sabotage the operations of the Nigerian military. This has led to too many desertions and cowardly actions, which have paved the way for the Boko Haram to make frightful progress to the point of establishing caliphates here and there. The sect just renamed Gwoza in Borno State, which it captured in July to Darul Hikma or “House of Wisdom”. Mubi is now Nadinatul Islam, which means the City of Islam and peace. One wonders what is wise or peaceful about their violent take-over of Gwoza and Mubi or the sorrow, tears and blood they have left in their trails all over northern Nigeria.

    One question is pertinent here: is President Jonathan the problem as some politicians want the world to believe? Let us recall that Boko Haram was incubated long before President Jonathan came to power at the centre. What triggered the current escalation of the terrorist conflict – the extrajudicial killing of Mohammed Yusuf, its leader – also happened before Jonathan.

    What this points out is that Boko Haram was not precipitated by the Jonathan Presidency. This does not however mean that he should allow it to fester. The presidential will to combat Boko Haram insurgencies and defeat it is evidently there also; the military is being equipped and reinforced in manpower and otherwise, to adequately rise to the occasion. If the Nigerian military, once reputed as one of the greatest in Africa, has fallen short of expectations in this all-important fight, it is not because President Jonathan has denied them any vital political will or cover.

    The reason the fight against insurgency in Nigeria is witnessing all manner of surprises and reversals is the said sabotage, which may have been inspired by those who want the insurgency to persist as a proof that Jonathan is incapable of managing the affairs of Nigeria.  Such actors have made quite some impression on the international community, where vested interests may be denying the President the assistance he naturally deserves to pull the country out of the dilemma.

    Curiously, the US of all nations are officially not selling arms to Nigeria and the US Ambassador gave the reason to be that Nigeria’s military has an awful record of human rights abuses. This has forced Nigeria to purchase arms even from black market out of frustration and desperation. More curious is America’s insistence on dialogue with Boko Haram, a brutal sect it has officially criminalized and designated a terrorist organization, even after that country, as a matter of policy, has refused to negotiate with Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

    Those who are orchestrating insurgency in Nigeria therefore do not understand some of the violent dynamics of terrorism, which does not reverse once on course. Fact is: no matter who is in power in Nigeria, even if it is the Sultan of Sokoto, the insurgency will not disappear. It may even get worse. The reason is also simple: even though Boko Haram claims to be Islamic, it does not share the same ideology with the mainstream Islam and unless the Muslim in power kowtows to their warped ideology, he will receive the same treatment as a Christian President Jonathan.

    The solution does not lie in asking President Jonathan to resign. Boko Haram is simply an insurrectionary and social anarchism rooted in an Islamic ideology gone awry. Most religions do have them, the difference being only in their goals and mode of operation. Reverend Jim Jones of Guyana Tragedy fame, the Church of Ten Commandments in Uganda, Reverend King of Nigeria, to mention a few, all led many to their early graves and yet claimed to be practicing Christianity and have done so in history and contemporary times.

    No serious country plays politics with national security. In matters of security, politics takes a backseat. This explains why a Democrat’s President Barack Obama had to appoint an erstwhile top Republican Senator, Chuck Hegel, as the US Secretary of Defence. National Security is so all-encompassing and at the heart of the nation and her survival. And unless the nation survives, there will be neither politics nor politicians and this is point lost on the Nigerian politicians.

    There is nothing a President should do in such war that President Jonathan has not done. What is lacking is synergy and the lack of it is made so by those who are now screaming that President Jonathan should resign for not standing up to Boko Haram. Mad dogs cannot be treated; they are destroyed the world over and so shall be Boko Haram.

     

    • Mefor, Forensic Psychologist and Journalist, writes from Abuja