The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

Panadol for another person’s headache!

Tackling insecurity in Nigeria has become like a relentless migraine headache to both the Federal Government and the security services. The more we are told that the security forces will soon defeat the Boko Haram insurgents, the more grounds and territory the sect takes with trails of tears and blood. To put things in the right perspective, it is pertinent to ask ourselves some basic fundamental questions.

Are we truly winning the war against the Boko Haram insurgents? It does not seem so. The security forces from evidence have lost more grounds and equipment to the group in the recent past than any other time and have turned the weapons so seized against the military. Do we have the capacity to fight the war? Perhaps yes; but the military has not shown any appetite and commitment as troops are reported to be abandoning and fleeing their locations at the rumoured or real approach of the Boko Haram. Do we have the political will? No evidence. All we have is the political class playing politics with not just insecurity but every other thing that matters in the life of the masses of people and the nation at large. Do we have the right leadership? What we have across board and political divides do not reflect right leadership.

We have the misfortune of a leadership that is in power and government but not in charge and control of anything. Leaders that cannot put their ministers and Special Advisers (SAs) in check even when they cross the red line of law and morality.   We have leaders who are incapable of fighting the monster called corruption but rather perceived attacks on official corruption as a personal attack on them and their offices by the opposition.   Indeed, under the present dispensation, corruption has become a lifestyle just as the anti graft agencies have become comatose and dazed. The fugitives who were cleared of corruption charges by the judiciary in Nigeria perhaps on the evidence available to them have been convicted in Europe on the same allegations with copious evidence.   The police till date and indeed the authorities concerned are still not able to prosecute the bribe taking members of the National Assembly in the Femi Otedola petroleum subsidy scandal. What we see is unnecessary inter-agencies rivalry and competition for attention on the tube and print media giving mere impressions of performance to justify their budgetary allocation.   This is why till date, the alleged mastermind of the Nyanya bomb blast has not be arraigned, no thanks to the conflict between the Directorate of State Security and the Police on who should undertake the prosecution.

Is the situation hopeless?   Methinks with the right mentality and patriotic fervour, we could change the tide and create new consciousness and new value system that will make us begin to appreciate democratic ethos and respect for law and order as well as the rule of law.   For now, we are mired in a state of anomie and sinking   deeper in despondency as security of life and property are slipping out of the hands of the state while the Boko Haram insurgents inch closer to a statehood.    Rather than confront the problem and fight the cause with patriotic zeal to regain our national pride and territorial integrity, we are blaming our so-called ‘international partners.”    Why would the United States or Britain for that matter take Panadol for our own headache?

It does not make any common sense that our leaders could find it convenient to tell the whole world that we are losing the fight against the Boko Haram terrorists because America refuses to sell arms to us or provide intelligence to our security forces in our soil and territory. Our grouse against the so-called international partners for not coming to our aid in the fight against insurgency is a misguided display of infantile reasoning akin to a lazy workman blaming his tool for his failure.   What kind of people are we that we appear so sedated and dazed as not to know how to use our head and common sense in the face of challenges?   It is not now that we should be talking about equipping our military?   What has happened to the huge budgetary allocations to the Defence Ministry over the years?

Look at the show of shame in the premises of the National Assembly where the Nigerian Police and other security agents refused the Speaker entry into the National Assembly Complex. It is a despicable act of unparallel dimension and a gross violation of the sanctity of any known democratic norm. It has become obvious from the theatre of absurd that we have watched in the past five or so years that our political leaders of today under whatever guise or disguise and under whatever political apparition and platform have chosen to revel on the grave and misfortune of the Nigerian people. We should not be looking for enemies from outside, these crop of politicians are working towards breaking up the country from their actions and inactions, from what they have done and what they have failed to do.

In less than 24 hours after the Nyanya bomb blast, we saw our leaders and politicians celebrating at a political rally in Kano. In less than 24 hours after the killing of over 45 students in Potiskum, our politicians in their blind quest for power gathered at the Eagle Square Abuja in a political carnival subjecting residents of Abuja and environs to a most harrowing and gruesome torture flocking virtually every road that leads to the FCT.

Just as we are worrying about the unrelenting insecurity in the North-east and the expiration of the state of emergency and what next to do, our politicians are at it again scheming to impeach the Speaker of the House of Representatives who has defected to the opposition party. Look at the imbecility displayed by the Nigerian Police and some other security agencies. Which court orders were they enforcing? What has happened to those who had defected to other parties in the past; what kind of puerile selective justice are we applying in this country? In all this, we want America and Britain to come and carry our cross.   Every public analyst and even our revered clerics that you would ascribe some modicum of knowledge of morality have sunk into that infantile logic that we are not able to defeat insurgency because America has refused to give us weapons and supply us with intelligence. It is a shame indeed that this could be the defence of our government even through diplomatic channel of our envoy to America.

It is a truism that the Nigerian military has been battle tested at home and abroad in International Peacekeeping engagements to the admiration and pride of every Nigerian and our international partners. However, the story coming from the theatre of operation in containing the insurgency about local hunters reclaiming towns and cities abandoned by fleeing soldiers should be a source of worry to any Nigerian that has the interest of the nation at heart. How did we get to this level of total and complete loss of sense of commitment to our land? The fractious nature of our army today and reversal of fortune in gallantry is due mainly to meddlesomeness by the political class who prefer to promote ethno-religious sentiments to serve their interest. In addition, there appears to be a paucity of critical leadership at the top echelon of Military High Command who care little about quality of personnel.

If at all we have a sensible leadership, it should occur to us that America is not the only known market for arms and weaponry. Syria today, does not rely on the weapons from America and Britain and the country has held out against formidable foes. Sudan has held out against rebel groups in Darfur and the Republic of South Sudan not with the weapons from America and Britain. Lately, Egypt has decided to look elsewhere for weapons and armament when threatened by America and Britain on charges of human rights abuses. We should stop chasing shadows and face our problems as a nation; nobody takes panadol for someone else’s headache; Americans have their own problem.

• Kebonkwu Esq writes from Abuja

November 25, 2014
Our thinking problem!

If you needed evidence of how utterly unimaginative those in charge of the management of the nation’s economy are, one needed to look no further than the placebo rolled out by finance minister and coordinating minister of the economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala last week in response to the latest cycle of falling oil prices. Having the nation live under the throes of “industrial scale theft” under which more than 20 percent of projected earnings from oil are either stolen or unrealisable from month to month, the denial of the emergency could not have come as a surprise to anyone.

Little wonder the assurance by our internationalist finance minister, that the ill-winds winds will soon blow over; hence her cocktail of measures more astounding by their sheer ordinariness. As panacea, the 2015 Budget oil price benchmark is pegged at $73 per barrel as against $78 earlier proposed; now foreign travels by civil servants are axed unless for those deemed as absolutely necessary; the same goes for foreign training programmes except those with foreign sponsorship. To complement the measures is a renewed push to significantly increasing non-oil revenue via an aggressive tax administration under which owners of private jets, yachts and lovers of Champagne and other luxury goods pay more tax.

Nigerians obviously know where all of these are going. Already, the word is out: Nigerians should be prepared to further tighten their belts. For sure, a number of projects with potentials to renew the economy will be put on hold in the next fiscal year. Already, the crunch has created the first victim in the naira. Last weekend, the national currency hit the nadir at N180 to the United States dollars in the parallel market. By the way, with our Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) taking to the hyper-hustling to sell their man, there would be enough time to explain the sudden appetite for the greenback; suffice to say however that the development can only be anything but good news in a nation which relies wholesale on imports all manners of manufacturers.

And just in case anyone is tempted to imagine that the falling oil prices would bring some respite to motorists currently living under the threat of subsidy removal, the truth is that there can be no such thing: whatever differentials that might have existed by the fact of the falling prices have been gobbled in the event of the free fall of the naira! That shouldn’t be hard to understand: it is an in-built logic of Nigeria’s macro-economy.

To go back to the basic point, if Nigerians are any troubled at the remedy proposed, it must be not only from the lack of sensitivity to the issues which informed the belt-tightening in the first place, notably, the wave of exogenous forces which have seen oil fortunes plummet in the global market place. One refers here to the shale oil revolution and the improved fuel-efficiency standards particularly in the United States which have eventuated in the cutback, or as it seems increasingly likely, raises the prospects of elimination of demand by the country for Nigeria’s oil. Add that to the global oversupply by nearly 10 percent of current demands; the picture that emerges is one of a long dark night for oil producers.

This is where the astounding lack of creativity in the design of what is supposed to be the therapy comes as troubling. For while it was sufficient for the authors and finishers of the transformation agenda to mount the high road of cant in their familiar therapy of kicking problems down the road, it was also an instance in which the typically bored but overpaid policy wonks would show their true colours in seeking to present the problem as a fiscal or better still- a budget problem as against what is fundamentally a thinking problem.

No doubt, the slump in the price of oil presents enormous challenges particularly at this time. Never mind that the nation has had to endure the more destabilising phenomenon of oil theft now acclaimed to have attained industrial scale for more than three years running – something an administration less prone to abdication could have brought under control. The assumption here is that the administration sees the former as a greater threat than the former. I guess it is entitled to its delusions.

Howbeit, the choice at this time, is neither one between crying over split milk nor one of endless lamentation over what could have been. To be sure, the choice facing the country over the potential losses from falling oil prices, which at the moment comes to some 20 percent, is hardly one that demands that citizens put on sackcloth and ashes. For sure, the forces can be mitigated by clear-headed policies. The problem here is that those in charge, as yet, do not appear to have any profound understanding of the looming emergency let alone the talk of fashioning an appropriate robust, strategic response. For much as there can be no understating the opportunity cost of the decade of missed opportunities, which the Jonathan administration must see itself as no less complicit, the mundane thinking going on at the highest levels of government, something that The Nation’s perceptive columnist Idowu Akinlotan once described as extravagant lack of ambition, can only further compound the nation’s development dilemma.

Where do we go? Most certainly, the choice cannot be any clearer today than it was a decade or two ago. A thousand austerity measures, to be sure, offers no guarantee of future prosperity; if anything, it might even compound the problems. The challenge therefore seems as simple as finding the formula to unleash the nation’s potentials in manufacturing, in services and in all sectors. It is all about building the capacity of the economy – boosting the skills pool and investment in vital infrastructure. An economic orthodoxy which seeks to lock away the nation’s wealth in foreign shores in the guise of saving for the rainy day seems hardly the best bet in the circumstance.

November 25, 2014
His Excellency, the Brigand

The irony was clearly lost: it was November 20, the birthday of President Goodluck Jonathan — and so much executive banditry from his side!

Was that happenstance? Or, as in the technique of creative prose, the true character of the Jonathan presidency, under pressure, unravelling?

“His Excellency, the Brigand”, was conceived as response to the antics of that tragic figure, Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti; and, in the ensuing pattern of the Jonathan presidency planting the dregs in Yorubaland, a fitting presidential viceroy.

Mr. Fayose’s adult delinquency once ruined him. With his zestful self-destruct moves, that nemesis may yet unhorse him, perhaps dooming him to an even briefer term.

But the presidential rascality from Abuja, with the Police invading the National Assembly and tear-gassing legislators, all in futile bid to block Speaker Aminu Tambuwal from gaining access, just shows Fayose’s executive brigandage is no stand-alone accident. Suleiman Abba’s Police is, after all, fully involved in the high constitutional crimes, at both Abuja and Ado!

Indeed, a fish rots from nowhere but the head!

But make no mistake: the parliamentary desecration that the Jonathan Presidency put up on November 20 and the gubernatorial banditry that Fayose inspired in the Ekiti legislature from November 17, did not just start. They had their roots in the “simple minority” pseudo-impeachments of the Olusegun Obasanjo years.

If President Obasanjo had been impeached on the basis of this high crime against the Constitution, the presidential rascality of the Obasanjo years would not today come back as tragic farce, threatening a Jonathan fascism.

In Jonathan vis-a-vis the Obasanjo years however, the child, as the poet famously quipped, has become the father of the man!

Whereas Obasanjo would limit his power abuse to muscling and blackmailing state legislatures for suspect anti-corruption crusades, Jonathan, in reckless disregard of the separation of power doctrine, is committing the ultimate infamy of invading the National Assembly; and tear-gassing the same legislatures he had requested to approve for him renewed emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.

The trick was clear, though Jonathan and henchmen would hide behind a finger: shut out Speaker Tambuwal because of the defection saga, let in Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha; and on the basis of that exclusion, proceed to unleash a criminal “impeachment” ala Obasanjo’s notorious “simple minority”! That clearly explains why the Police eased in Ihedioha, and attempted to keep out Tambuwal.

The parliamentary coup failed because the Tambuwal side resisted the security bullies of IGP Abba, who appears un-bashful at making the Police the partisan rod of the president, rather than the dutiful security arm of the Nigerian state.

On Tambuwal, IGP Abba has gone ga-ga: summarily withdrawing his security details on a mischievous interpretation of the law, unleashing his Police to rain teargas on the Speaker and his fellow legislators, and now, a threatened arrest! This constitutional abomination must not go unpunished.

For once, Doyin Okupe, unfazed presidential bulldog, somewhat lost his bark. In one breath, he disowned Mr. Abba, claiming the policeman was only doing his job, without any presidential prompting. In another, he denied Mr. Abba invaded the National Assembly. In this yet another Okupe-istic cant, only Okupe believes Okupe!

But just as well the Reps are threatening presidential impeachment. For this democracy to cease being a joke, there must be zero tolerance for the executive arm as unrepentant conclave of constitutional criminals. If on this basis alone Jonathan is scapegoat to atone for past rascals and deter future culprits, so be it!

As for Mr. Fayose, his gubernatorial banditry is not without push from Abuja. Since that virtual election eve incident, when the local Mopol commander “dethroned” Governor Kayode Fayemi, claiming that with Vice President Namadi Sambo in town he recognised no governor, Ekiti’s path to constitutional banditry was fully paved.

From that spot, Fayose had swaggered from one outrage to another — and, like the tortoise that swore never to return home until he was fully disgraced, Fayose will not cease until he exits in a dust of odium.

What abomination has Fayose not committed, less than two months in office, despite playing pseudo-David in ridiculous religiosity, by throwing himself flat on the floor at a Deeper Life Church service in Ado Ekiti?

To stop a pre-election eligibility case, Fayose, with thugs in tow and Abba’s Police looking elsewhere, marched to sack the courts and mug judges. As at the last count, the judge who assumed jurisdiction on the case has been harassed off it. Before Fayose and thugs, the courts must bow and tremble!

Then, to procure fake parliamentary endorsement for rogue commissioners, the all-conquering Fayose thugs and all-colluding Abba Police again came in handy — with seven rogue legislators sacking 19! Again, before Fayose’s concert of thugs and colluding Police, the Ekiti parliament must dive for cover!

The piquant irony: one of the “approved” commissioners is “Justice and Attorney-General”! Ah, the English, Geoffery Chaucer, would scream from his grave: if gold rusts, what would iron do?! What lawyer worth his training would take himself through such farce?

But again, a self-destruct Fayose special, in reckless constitutional criminality: procurement of ghost legislators!

If the Ekiti legislature numbers 26, split 19 (APC) and seven (PDP), where did the three ghost legislators emerge, to form a phantom quorum: not only to “elect” a phantom temporary Speaker, but also to “sack” the lawful Speaker?

These are the open political graves the excitable Fayose merrily digs for himself. In no time, he would be buried in them, and vanish without trace!

Ironically, the first act Fayose’s illicit parliament did was to pare itself naked. It abrogated the Ile Uyi, Ile Eye (Land of Honour) branding of the Kayode Fayemi ancien regime — and just as well: for honour and (un)parliamentary knavery are parallel lines that never meet — and declared itself the Fountain of Knowledge.

But if there is any knowledge in Ekiti’s emerging jungle, it must be absolutely without character!

Very early in his first term, Lagos Governor, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, spoke of the infrastructure of the mind. Eight years later, the result is there for everyone to see.

Ekiti Governor, Ayodele Fayose, signalled his second coming, with stomach infrastructure. Four years down the line, Ekiti-Kete will feel the full impact.

In Abuja and Ado, the wages of bad electoral choices loom large.

After the fraud of voting the southern shoeless boy in 2011, not a few spewed the nonsense of “voting for Goodluck but not PDP”. Well, the truly tragic result is a vindictive president as wilful undertaker.

At the June gubernatorial polls, Ekiti-Kete hated former Governor Fayemi so much that they would appear to have hated themselves even more! Hence, the wilful self-infliction of the tragic Fayose. The result is expressway to the Stone Age, despite Ekiti’s avowed brain power.

How ever good or bad a government turns out is a function of democratic choice and consequences. But never must the executive chamber become the bastion of constitutional bandits who, with their Samson’s complex, don’t give a damn, even if they crash the polity.

That is the manifest danger from Abuja and Ado-Ekiti. It must be resisted, with all legal resolve, by every Nigerian patriot.

November 25, 2014
The making of a police state

One year and five days ago (November 19, 2013), my column, “The road to a police state,” appeared in this space.

“Just to be absolutely certain that I wasn’t missing something,” the column began, I inspected President Jonathan Goodluck’s Transformation – or is it Transformative?—Agenda before writing this piece.

“The Agenda, I can report with the highest confidence, does not include turning Nigeria into a police state.

“Yet, that is what has been happening lately, sometimes brazenly and sometimes insidiously.

“With each passing day, Nigeria bears closer resemblance to a state in which the activities of the people are strictly controlled with the help of a police force or “security agents,” in place of regular operation of administrative and judicial organs of government based on publicly known legal procedure.

“That is the definition of a police state.”

At that time, Mbu Joseph Mbu, then Rivers State Police Commissioner, was at every opportunity countermanding Governor Chibuzor Amaechi and carrying on for all practical purposes as if he was leader of a disloyal Opposition.

The police had brusquely terminated a meeting that seven governors and officials who broke away from the PDP were holding in a private house in Abuja

Kitted as for battle, the police had sealed off the conference room of the Nicon Luxury Hotel in Abuja, where the Socio-Economic Rights Accountability Project had planned to discuss Nigeria’s freedom of information law, with scheduled speakers from Europe, the United States and Nigeria.

The courts had ordered the re-instatement of former Osun State governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola as PDP national secretary, finding that his purported removal from that office was ultra vires.

But no sooner had Oyinlola served notice that he was set to resume work at the PDP’s Wadata Plaza national headquarters in Abuja than battle tanks and police armed for combat blockaded the place. It was almost as if Boko Haram’s high command had just served notice that its men had landed in the neighbourhood.

In the run-up to the gubernatorial election in Anambra, the police command in Imo State announced with breathless excitement the arrest of 180 “thugs” and “hoodlums” and “bandits” from Osun on their way to Anambra for the purpose — what else – of rigging the poll.

The police claimed to have recovered from them voter ID cards and other election documents, not forgetting “other dangerous weapons.”   A far more credible source insists that the 180 were accredited election monitors belonging to the Justice and Equity Organisation.

In another manifestation of the drift toward a police state, agents of the secret police subjected APC chieftain Nasir El Rufai to false imprisonment. His crime? He was in the Anambra State capital, Awka, to monitor the poll.

In all this, not a word of caution, much less disapproval, came one way or another from Dr. Jonathan, or the so-called Presidency.

Today, a year later, those developments seem almost benevolent compared with some of the things that have happened lately. The constitutional state is in full retreat, supplanted by the police state of Dr. Jonathan’s design.

It is no longer the case that Nigeria is well on the way to becoming a police state. Nigeria is a de facto police state.

Even before taking office as governor of Ekiti on the platform of the PDP, Ayo Fayose led a band of thugs to the precincts of the High Court in Ado Ekiti to beat up judges and tear up court documents, the better to prevent the court from entertaining a law suit challenging his eligibility for the contest. The assailing mob was given safe escort by the police.

President Jonathan and the country’s chief law officer, Bello Adoke, saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing, and did nothing. It suited them perfectly.

Next, Fayose purported to convene a meeting of the state Assembly, at which seven of the 26 elected members of the legislature purported to have impeached the Speaker in his absence, and to have cleared some nominees for executive positions at state and local levels.

That kangaroo session was facilitated by the police.

President Jonathan, to whom the police are answerable in the final analysis, heard nothing, saw nothing, said nothing, and did nothing. Neither did the chief law officer in his administration. How could they when it redounded to the advantage of the PDP?

How else can one characterise the situation in which the Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba, presumes to determine that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, fourth in the order of hierarchy among elected officials forfeited official protection when he defected from the riling PDP to the APC?

Even by Nigeria’s standards, it is ominous indeed when the police take it upon themselves to pronounce on constitutional matters and then proceed to act on the basis of that pronouncement.

Neither President Jonathan nor the chief law officer of his administration is perturbed by this development. They probably instigated it anyway, jointly or severally.

National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki felt obliged to deny through a spokesperson, that he had ordered Tambuwal’s arrest. He would have been more reassuring if he had asserted when he should have asserted that, under the constitution, he has no power to order anyone’s arrest without the due process of law.

Any hope that the withdrawal of Tambuwal’s security detail was just another aberration evaporated when the police invaded the precincts of the National Assembly, their object being to prevent Tambuwal from attending a meeting of the House that Dr. Jonathan and the PDP were staging for the purpose of impeaching him.

A scandalised public was still wondering what the country had been turned into when the secret police broke into the APC’s Data Centre in Opebi, smashed up stuff, arrested some staffers, carted off as server, computers hard disks, and a truckload of documents, persuaded,                 State Security spokesperson Marilyn Ogar said that the facility was being used for cloning permanent voter registration cards and other “unwholesome activities.”

The invaders had gone there not to investigate an allegation but to inflict injury on the Opposition, to cripple its preparations for the general elections.   Only President Jonathan and the PDP stand to profit from the heist, a reckless abuse of state power on a scale almost beyond belief.

As usual, the President and the chief law officer of his administration saw nothing, heard nothing, did nothing, and said nothing.

Watching many legislators, distinguished and merely honourable, negotiate the wrought-iron perimeter fence of the National Assembly with the nimbleness and agility one thought were the preserve of professional athletes in their prime was about the only redeeming grace to the execrable events I have detailed here.

I gather that not a few of them have since learned what politicians of the First Republic learned the hard way: Never wear a three-piece traditional ensemble to a political event. Leave the agbada at home, in the car, or fold it neatly and tuck it under the arm.

November 25, 2014
Gradgrind in Abuja

Suddenly, Nigeria is literally drowning in an avalanche of facts and figures on every aspect of the National Condition.

There was a time, not long ago, when you could hardly hold on to anything about Nigeria’s condition as fact. Not even something as basic as the country’s population. According to some of the more reliable authorities, if you hived off 25 million from whatever official figure was in circulation, you might be getting close to the true figure.

No one could tell how much crude oil was being lifted offshore or onshore and by whom, how much of it was refined locally, how much of the refined product was being consumed locally, now for how much was refined petroleum was being imported.

Consumption was said to be so heavily subsidized that if pernicious support was not ended immediately, the entire country would have to go into receivership. Yet, they could not define just what the subsidy consisted in.

And, of course, the book keepers had no idea of just how much petrodollars was accruing to the exchequer after all the thieving that routinely creamed off fully 40 per cent of production, according to knowledgeable foreign sources.

All that is now history.

Where previously an acute dearth of facts made planning almost impossible, we now have something close to superfluity of data. Wild and usually self-serving guesswork is out. Certitude and precision are in.

It is almost as if the Dickensian character Thomas Gradgrind leapt out of the pages of Hard Times and landed in Abuja just before the Great Declaration, seized the machinery for data collection, storage, analysis, retrieval and reporting, and overhauled it so that it can keep pace with the Transformation gale sweeping the country.

Dr Gradgrind’s intervention has in effect, transformed the Transformation Agenda itself from a ritual chant into an actuality that can be measured, weighed and gauged. In this age of empiricism, how can you claim that anything is being transformed when you cannot measure and weigh and gauge the changes resulting from transformation?

It is only fair to note at the outset that Dr Gradgrind, stern schoolmaster that he was, would have shaken his Victorian head at the overweening ambition of the marathon speech in general, and especially the lexical incontinence that ran through it.

“Dear Compatriots,” it began. By the fourth paragraph, the Eagle Square audience, comprising a sizable crop of rented cheerleaders from all over the country, had been transformed into “distinguished ladies and gentlemen.” I can almost see the face of the Rt Hon (or is it His Excellency) David Mark turn quizzical, as if he was trying to figure out what that assemblage could have in common with members of the Senate, of which he is President.

As the speech progressed, Dr. Jonathan abandoned that line and went folksy, calling the audience “my people.” It was as if he was back in Otuoke, trading banter with the locals over a barrel of the local brew. Later still, he injected some element of endearment into his oration, and the audience became “my dear people,” as in this oratorical gem: “We have moved forward. Only forward!!! my dear people. Forward!!!”

It got more collegial when the audience became his “fellow Nigerians.” It got positively fraternal when he called the audience “my brothers and sisters.”And so on and so forth.

But where it mattered most, you could not fail to notice the guiding hand of Dr. Gradgrind in the Great Declaration, the history-making event at which Dr. Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, who, unknown to Nigerians until he revealed the fact several years ago, is also an Awolowo by adoption – announced that he would be seeking re-election in deference to the supplications and yearnings of 17.8 million Nigerians.

Not ghosts, mark you, but actual living adult Nigerians in the fullest possession of all their faculties, precisely 17.8 million of them, not more and not fewer, according to those who orchestrated the event.

Here is one gem, emblematic of the Gradgrind touch:

Access to potable water rose from 58 to 67 per cent in the four years from 2010 to 2014, coinciding neatly with Dr. Jonathan’s term.

Those who doubt this will do well to consider the boom in “pure water” sales all over the country Such is the abundance that even those misguided elements who were demonstrating in Lagos against the plan to cut gasoline services had access to free bottled water.

Here is another:

Sanitation coverage rose from 32 per cent to 41 per cent, again between 2010 and 2014. I claim no familiarity with the term but I suspect it refers to garbage and sewage disposal across the country.

Even the jaundiced opposition will have to concede that a government that can keep track of and painstakingly document “sanitation coverage” nationwide and not just in Abuja, cannot be written off as “non-performing.”

And yet another:

In 2009, average life expectancy was a dismal 41 years. Today, five years later, it stands at 52 years. If this is not life more abundant, as the jaundiced critics are sure to contend, it is certainly life more elongated.

Nor is that all the good news on the health front. “Some of our hospitals now perform open heart surgeries, kidney transplants and other challenging operations as we reposition our health service to end decades of medical tourism that drains our scarce resources,” Dr Jonathan declared.

Did you hear that, Germany, India, and France? Your days of profiting from the health challenges of Nigeria’s top officials and their wives and surreptitiously siphoning state secrets out of them is over

For decades, Nigeria’s artery, the River Niger, was too silted for navigation. It has now been dredged all the way from Warri, in Delta State, to Baro, in Niger State. And in just the last three years, 1.6 million tons of cargo had been freighted across that waterway, and exactly 6.7 million passengers who would have had to take an expensive cruise to enjoy the pleasures of water transportation experienced the thrill right here at home.

There is no vagueness here, no ambiguity: 1.6 million tons of cargo, not “more than one million” or “roughly two million tons of cargo; not “more than 6 million” or “nearly 7 million, passengers,” as those in the business of fudging would have stated. It doesn’t get more precise.

Apparently, they haven’t heard in the Transformation Situation Room the latest about the inland port that was supposed to be built near Lokoja for which almost the entire contract sum has been paid.

No construction is going on at the site. The contractor has threatened to file a defamation lawsuit if the maritime authorities had the temerity to declare the site abandoned. Meanwhile the maritime authorities cannot move against him because he is politically connected.

It must not be supposed, however, that many of the other multi-billion Naira projects Dr. Jonathan was rhapsodising over have gone or are headed the way of the Lokoja port project The sprawling power project, for instance , is scheduled, finally, to deliver guaranteed electricity in “several months.”

On the agricultural front, the picture is even more gladdening. Irrigation projects set up across the country by —who else — the Jonathan Administration, have in the past there years generated grain harvests of 3 million metric tons, with a cash value of N45 billion. Again, very precise.

There you have it. The Transformation Train is streaking on transformed tracks across Nigeria as a speed that almost staggers the imagination.

No wonder the Great Proclamation, with its intimations of even greater transformation ahead, was followed by a great deal of winning and dining at the Villa, according to an inside source.

Well might one say, as Oscar Wilde said in another context: In Abuja and with Abuja, nothing succeeds like excess.

November 18, 2014
Ogun: Anthony Vs Augustus

In the battle for the soul of post-Julius Caesar Rome, Mark Anthony had a grand lamentation.

In Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra, Anthony said though Augustus Caesar was a mere subaltern when himself, Marcus Lepidus and Augustus (later the Second Triumvirate) crushed the Brutus-led rebellion that killed Julius Caesar, he was already a full general. Yet, Augustus always trumped him in battle.

That routine trumping Anthony, firmly under the skirts of Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, so much rued, forced him to suicide, after the veteran’s defeat at the 31 BC Battle of Actium.

This is no foray into Roman history or Shakespearean drama. It is only some literary parallel to the battle for the soul of Ogun State, with the ruling progressives in a fight-to-finish.

In this progressives’ retrogressive war, reason has vanished. Only ego remains.

“Olumo Wars” (Republican Ripples, October 21), had hoped the two feuding camps would find some mutual accommodation. But that has proved forlorn, with a faction, the near-wholesale Ogun All Progressives’ Congress (APC) National Assembly caucus, with Deputy Governor, Segun Adesegun, defecting into the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Enter then, Anthony: Aremo Olusegun Osoba, former Ogun governor and media aristocrat. Latterly, the Aremo has joined the Afenifere default setting, by tracing his progressive nativity to the feet of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, to underscore his ideological longevity.

That could translate, in Shakespeare-speak, into an Anthony reminding the Augustus of his time, that he was a progressive qua progressive, even when Augustus was still in political diapers, of no defined ideological provenance!

More dangerously, for the progressive cause: the Aremo’s Awo nativity could well signal a proxy war, as the Afenifere dandies are wont to do, against forces beyond the local “enemy”, another latter-day ideological arrival — at least in the thinking of the huffy Afenifere aristocracy — come to sudden but great political fortune, and becoming bad influences on the local rascal, also come to sudden political office!

But also enter, Augustus, Ogun Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun (SIA). He could well have been in political diapers when the Aremo had become a general in the Awo Progressive Army. He could also boast no ideological fidelity over a period of time.

He could even prove guilty as alleged: that he ought to have shown Pa Osoba more reverence, in his alleged iconoclastic war to gun down the old Osoba progressive order; and mould the terrain in his own image, simply because he is governor, and does not shy away from fierce slugfests.

Still, SIA himself could claim, as governor, to have near-excellently executed his brief, earned his pip beyond empty progressive sloganeering and grandstanding, and therefore earned the people’s confidence.

Even more irreverent, he could claim, with a measure of fairness, that when the battle was fierce, and Otunba Gbenga Daniel (OGD) was bloodying everybody, and the heat forced the Aremo to relocate elsewhere on political sabbatical, he and only he, was the triumphant general in the streets, facing — and slaying — the dragon of Governor-Ferocious OGD!

Still, the Anthony-Augustus parallel does not in any way suggest SIA would prevail over Osoba, as Augustus did over the more seasoned Anthony. Pray, which child, even with his wardrobe choking with fancy clothes, out-rags his parents?

Nor does it suggest the reverse: Osoba trumping Amosun.

It starkly suggests an ego war is afoot, in which a hitherto common camp — in government and with achievements to flaunt — is about falling upon itself like ones cursed. Mutually assured destruction (MAD) may just well be assured!

On the Ogun political plains, soon to turn ideological killing fields, hubris crows and brags, in the worst tradition of what the Yoruba call eedi! It is the ultimate grave of the proud, the haughty, the cocky!

The ultimate victims? The people — except, of course, they secure their own interests, even as the politicians batter themselves in a needless civil war.

So, the Ogun people must ask themselves: have they fared better than hitherto under SIA; and what are their prospects, four more years under that government?

If the answer is yes, they had better start directly rallying themselves; to protect their interests. If however the reverse is the case, they had better start planning to do the needful too.

Of course, that is better said than done. In a democracy, political parties are a vital interface to mobilise the people for purposeful political action. But what if these political parties are themselves a bastion of confusion; and the people, themselves, in their high season of doubt and ennui?

On one hand, the SIA APC government, that has given a good account of itself, appears near-fatally distracted. On the other hand, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) plots — and why not? — to take partisan advantage. But its own record, as the federal ruling party, is absolutely appalling.

It was as WB Yeats said in his famous poem, “The Second Coming”: The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

The second coming! Is the poem that gifted Chinua Achebe the immortal title of his foremost classic, Things Fall Apart, about plaguing SIA’s second coming: with things falling apart, the centre not holding, the falcon not hearing the falconer, and mere anarchy being loosed upon the Ogun partisan world?

That would appear the case, if Osoba and SIA don’t step back from their mutually self-destruct paths! And talking about self-destruction, all the noise about the Osoba faction emptying into SDP is a journey to nowhere — or better still, a journey to the past.

SDP, like Olusegun Mimiko’s Labour Party (LP), is a PDP Trojan horse. Unlike the ill-fated Democratic People’s Alliance (DPA) of 2007, which the Afenifere grandees floated but was electorally crushed, SDP would appear more potent because of its high chances of treachery with the opposition, to checkmate a bitter comrade turned antagonist; but also, given the SIA government’s developmental strides, short-change the people.

Those who got their progressivism from the feet of Awo must be familiar with this tragic trend: Awo-Akintola (1962/63); collapse of the Second Republic (1983); Unhorsing of the Alliance of Democracy progressives (2003) — whenever the Yoruba homeland shows signs of bursting forth, despite the paralysis of pseudo-federal Nigeria, score-settling and ancestral feuding Yoruba themselves would join reactionaries from elsewhere to scuttle the golden dream.

For the ideological-callow but politically gung-ho SIA camp, some home truth: you can’t hope to consolidate your development programmes and policy, if your politics is not right!

Something is certainly not right with SIA politics: a sitting and high performing government deserted by almost all of its National Assembly members; and a good chunk of the Ogun legislature members.

Some dire news, for both sides: If Osoba loses this war, he faces political death. If SIA loses, he kisses his second term goodbye. By sheer ego, it is lose-lose. But reason may yet turn it win-win.

As in Ekiti, sad history is about repeating itself in Ogun — unless, of course, both the seasoned and callow get off their ego horse; and fast, wear their thinking caps!

November 18, 2014
Politics without principle
Historically, there was never dearth of purposeful creative leadership in the African sub continent and among indigenous Africans. Indeed, history has it that civilization started from Africa with abundant evidence. Pre-colonial Africa is replete with stories of redoubtable empire builders and astute political leaders. Then came the colonial invasion, experience of which debased our growth and disrupted African civilization in science, arts, and politics.   However, the same period threw up a leadership that fought to reclaim the soul of the black man.

It was to take the profound commitment of our early nationalists and pan Africanists to liberate Africa from colonial bondage and subjugation, which is what we enjoy today, but have added nothing. There was vibrant leadership across the continent. Even though we may appear to have lost the sense of history, we can still recall names like Herbert Macaulay, Kwame Nkrumah the Osagiefo, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, the Afro American warrior, Marcus Garvey and a host of others. The leaders at the time were ideologically rooted on the direction they wanted to take the continent and its people and they developed the form of government that would better serve the cultural and social milieu of the people.

In Nigeria, at independence, there was a crop of leadership that was selflessly committed to altruistic governance to bring development to the people.   We cannot forget names like Sir Ahmadu Bello, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Aminu Kano and a few others who left a footprint on the sand of time. These are people that we venerate today to almost a point deity. We proudly point to the physical evidence of their leadership and philosophy. Their enterprising legacy in infrastructure and the economy are evergreen.   The first generation universities in this country are products of their foresight and the place of education in building the people and a nation.

Today, our education is in ruins and tatters, no thanks to maladministration by university administrators and poor government policy. We undervalue education so much so that we allow schools to shut down for upward of one year and deny them funding while we revel ourselves as giants of Africa to the derision of the world. Those who can afford it now send their children to Ghana and even Republic of Benin even for as basic as secondary education; that is how bad it has become.

Look at the groundnut pyramid in the North, cocoa in the West and coal in the East.   These were all products of the good thinking of those early leaders and politicians who were truly committed to serving their people. You cannot point to any investment and castles abroad belonging to those politicians of yore. Today, politicians across ethnic and ideological divides where there is any, shamelessly invoke the spirits and names of these venerated leaders whereas they do not share a scintilla of the principles and ideals that these leaders worked and died for. A Chief Awolowo would never have sold his birth-right for a pot of porridge; even when he deservedly wanted to be the president of Nigeria for one day. He never was tossed by winds of opportunism and never compromised on his honours, integrity, and principles.   That sage would be turning in his grave in grief when he sees those charlatans who are using his name and wearing his trademark cap but doing the opposite of what the man stood for.

The abysmal level of recession and decline in quality of political leadership in Nigeria today calls for a proper scrutiny and study of the genetic makeup of our politicians.   Today, the politicians live in wanton opulence and engage in obscene competition to outdo one another in display of their ill-gotten wealth in the ocean of penury they have inflicted on the people.    We have leaders who say one thing in public and do the opposite without qualms about moral candour. The politicians of today behave like buccaneers and pirates who care less about what is moral and good but more of what territory they conquer. They have hijacked the Nigerian leadership and held the masses of Nigeria hostage.

Let us for once remove the scales of religion, ethnicity and tell ourselves the hard truth. Look around you and point out any honest project that is executed across the country that any of our today’s politicians can lay claim to. Beside the orchestrated campaigns and misleading ads by the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN), there is no proof and physical evidence that we have got anything right or anything near it.   The power sector is in comatose and most part of Nigeria apart from the capital cities are in total darkness. Citizens who can afford it generate their light, provide water for themselves and security is their headache. The road networks across the country has remained the same nightmare to commuters, security has almost completely slipped from our hands, we are yet to rescue the young Chibok girls abducted over seven months ago by the Boko Haram sect.

As if that is not enough, the sect is daily gaining ground and claiming territory while the government tells the whole world that terrorism in Nigeria will soon be defeated.    There is hardly anything you can pick and chose from the pack of the amalgam of both conservative and the progressive so-called. Most of them are driven by blind ambition and selfish personal greed. We have maniacs who want power for the sake of power. They follow the winds and waves to where their lots and fortune will be lubricated. Today, they are apostolic, tomorrow they are catholic, and the next day they free thinkers. Today, governance has taken a back seat because the political office holders are scheming for 2015 Elections. Nobody bothers about delivery and performance so they want the President to anoint them for return to the Senate or whatever offices they presently occupy. This is because they are not counting on the votes of the electorate whom they have alienated and certainly would deny them a comeback for non performance.   This is why Nigerians must be vigilant and insist that the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) should show exemplary honour and patriotism and put the nation first for once.   We have no doubt about the pedigree of Professor Atahiru Jega, the INEC chairman but our fear is that the political hawks may have built a nest round him to act out their script as a puppet.   We watched the buffoonery and bizarre drama of the President’s declaration and the pain it inflicted on Abuja residents and environs.   It was an extravagant wastage in all its ramifications.

Nothing can justify the human suffering inflicted on the people on that day; the cost in organization is mindboggling with hired crowd from all parts of the Federation. For God’s sake, the man has no rival, no competition as the party had adopted him as a consensus candidate. He could as well have addressed Nigerians on the Network News of his acceptance to graciously become our President come 2015 or better still fix the jamboree for a weekend. The carnival was a mockery of the state of the nation because it came less than 24 hours after the blood thirsty Boko Haram sect had slaughtered about 45 students in a secondary school in Potiskum, Yobe State.

For all the bogus statistics of achievements, the evidence are there that our roads are in parlous state of disrepair, there is insecurity everywhere you go; north, south, east or west. Almost the entire country is in darkness, there is no running water as people in the rural areas still drink from the pond and dirty wells. Apart from the ubiquitous NGOs formed by Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, which has provided jobs for praise singers, unemployment is not abating. Where is our honour as a nation? Where is our integrity as political leaders? Where is our principle and ideology as a group? How much longer do we hope to go with political leadership without principle? Someone should please help me find answers!
- Kebonkwu (Esq) writes from Abuja
November 18, 2014
FG and pension arrears
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as president, showed a tremendous respect and sympathy for pensioners when in 2006 he blocked the Minister of Finance, Esther Nenadi Usman’s attempt to pay the arrears of pensioners with Federal Government bonds. President Obasanjo was particularly unhappy with that arrangement when he asked the question: “A 70 or 80 years old man, if you give him pension arrears in bonds, and you say it is cashable in so, so number of years, how many more years do you think he has to live?” (The Guardian, August 8, 2006). The pension arrears nationwide were put at ¦ 75 billion. President Obasanjo ordered the government, through its Minister of Finance, to release ¦ 75 billion to clear the pensioners’ arrears. The pensioners were subsequently paid their pension arrears. During the Yar’Adua administration, prompt attention was paid to pensioners, known all over the world as senior citizens.

Unfortunately, the regime of President Jonathan has been different. Even when it appeared that the President wanted to act, Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was always on hand to frustrate his effort. Less attention is being paid to non-payment of pensioners arrears than preventing pension looters from stealing pensioners’ fund. As I observed in The Nation, June 29, p18 on “Okonjo-Iweala and pensioners”, “For once, we should appreciate President Jonathan’s kind and favourable disposition to the issue of arrears of 53% increase in pensioners’ monthly salaries from 2009 to date. It was reported, as I did mention in my last open letter to the President (See The Nation, January 24, p21) that President Jonathan had signed an approval for the payment of 53% increase from July 1, 2009 to date as calculated by his Technical Committee. We later heard that out of this, 33% had been paid to the military who are gunning for the balance of 20%. The pity of it all is that Mr. President seemed to have been dictated to by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, his controversial minister, who was alleged to have insisted on cutting the 53% to 33% even after the Wages Commission and the NUC were said to have prepared 53% payment of arrears for inclusion in the budget”.

We can see that, unlike his predecessors (Obasanjo and Yar’Adua), President Jonathan has no control over his Finance Minister. Surely, if Jonathan were president in 2006, he would not have had the guts to stop his Minister of Finance from wanting to pay arrears of pensioners with Federal Government bonds. Neither has he the guts to order Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to clear the pensioners’ arrears of 53% increase which he signed from July, 2009. Instead, he left everything to Okonjo-Iweala, first to unilaterally reduce the increase from 53% to 33%, and second to renege on the effective date of July, 2009 which has now been shifted to July, 2010.

In the midst of President Jonathan’s nonchalant attitude to the plight of pensioners over the non-payment of 53% arrears of their pensions, retired military pensioners on Wednesday, August 5 (Punch, August 7) staged a peaceful protest in Abuja over non-payment of their pensions by the Federal Government. The retirees, who threatened violence said that the Federal Government had yet to pay their pension arrears from 2010 till date (it has been changed from July 2009 to July 2010 by the powerful Finance Minister). They carried placards, some of which read, “Mr. President, pay our pension arrears or forget 2015”. Converging on the junction to the Presidential Villa, the group accused President Goodluck Jonathan of not obeying the directive of the Senate to pay them. By our reckoning, the group was probably unaware that the directive actually came from the Minister of Finance who, on pension matters, is the big boss! When the protesters visited the National Assembly, the three Senators who addressed them revealed that money had been appropriated in the 2014 budget, but it had been hijacked by the presidency. These ugly scenarios should enable us to contrast Jonathan’s regime to those of Obasanjo and Yar’Adua (of blessed memory). Also, there have been civilian protesters who had made several trips to Abuja on this serious issue of non-payment of pension arrears from 2009/2010 till today. What more do we need to say on this matter that is certainly an embarrassment to people of conscience in Nigeria and the international community?

Belatedly, a certain Mrs. Nellie Mayshak, the Director-General of Pension Transitional Arrangement Department (PTAD), spoke on this matter two months after the protests (See “Pensioners to enjoy 33% increment”, Punch, October 19, p57). She was asked the question: “when should the pensioners expect the full (italics mine) implementation of the 33 percent increment?” Note that it is not 33%, but 53% increase as signed by Mr. President in July 2009. Mrs. Mayshak herself said that the increase took place “between 2009 and 2010”. She then assured that “the good news is that the Federal Government has been working hard to implement the commitment in the implementation of the 33 percent to civilian pensioners and that will take effect, hopefully, from this month(October, 2014)”.

Just this month, the military retirees have protested again, this time to the Minister of Finance demanding that the pension increase should be 53% “to put them at par with those on active service”, (See “Military retirees protest delay in pension payment”, Punch Nov.6, p13). But Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said “I cannot tell you that everything will be paid at once”.

And so it is that we are now in November and once again the October date was a big lie. What is more, the bad news is that the payment of pensioners’ arrears would be scattered or staggered, meaning it would be paid by instalment and not at once as it was under Obasanjo and Yar’Adua. Not paying the pensioners at once would be an act of unimaginable wickedness. Payment of the arrears at once would have afforded pensioners the opportunity of building or buying houses of their own, apart from having a good Christmas this year, at least, for a change.

The wickedness becomes outstanding when you realize that those dictating when and how to pay or not to pay pension arrears do own mansions in Abuja, Lagos etc, as well as in America, Britain, France, Dubai, name it, and will enjoy Christmas with their families with lots of naira, dollars and plenty of food at their disposal. But in their peculiar wickedness, it has not occurred to them that poor pensioners are entitled to a home in their villages, or given the opportunity to spend Christmas and New Year with money in their pockets.

The government prefers that these pensioners die homeless while they and their families live in opulence in big mansions scattered all over the world. What an unpardonable sin? The Federal Government should, as a matter of urgency, pay the correct arrears, and without remainder, of 53% increase to pensioners from 2009 when the President Jonathan signed for the payment and order the Minister of Finance to implement. Incidentally, the pensioners have said that President Jonathan should forget 2015. This is an opportunity for the opposition to capitalize on this serious lapse to plead with the pensioners to hold on till 2015 when the issue would be solved once and for all. Because workers have children of voting age, many workers have between two and four of such children. That of pensioners is even greater. Many of these pensioners are parents of this working class, together with their children who are also grandchildren of pensioners, many of who are of voting age. Altogether the pensioners, their children (workers) and grandchildren, either working or in tertiary institutions, would form a formidable electorate that can do and undo by supporting their parents and grandparents on election day. That is when the aggrieved pensioners would get their pound of flesh. When the die is cast, it will be no shaking, no surrender. Mark my words. People who are blessed must learn how to bless, and not impoverish others
- Prof. Makinde FNAL is DG/CEO, Awolowo Centre for Philosophy, Ideology and Good Governance, Osogbo, Osun State.
November 18, 2014
When Ahmed declared for second term
As I looked at the crowd of people; women, children, artisans, political associations and VIPs, who came to participate in the epoch declaration of Maigidan Kwara, with discernible joy in their faces, I felt like being able to decipher what was going through the mind of my boss and governor of Kwara State, Dr Abdulfatah Ahmed. For it is rare in deed to host the kind of personalities and the huge crowd of party members who came to grace the occasion declaring his intention to run for a second term, without feeling, for wants of words, fulfilled.

Of course we knew they didn’t come for Ahmed alone; they came to feel the Kwara political structure that has afforded every man and woman to reach the pinnacle of his or her potentials. They came to feel the veracity of the Saraki political philosophy that defines democracy as truly a politics of inclusiveness based on individual capacity to deliver rather than aristocratic exclusivity where only those who have the resources control the destiny of others. I know the people came to sound a clear note of warning to those who think electoral power, the real power to determine who rules over us, resides somewhere in a mansion in the federal capital. Like our political leader said, it is the politician who stands with the people through thick and thin that gets their support and it is no secret that when you talk of a leader staying with his people through it all, none in Kwara can equate Saraki’s record.

Late Olusola Saraki, the Oloye, sacrificed his personal comfort to liberate Kwara from ýthe status quo where Kwara’s relevance was restricted only to filling the gap required to win election, after which the state benefited from crumbs. He participated in who becomes what at the national level, thereby made Kwara critical in decision making. Saraki, the son has, through the support of the , become a house name in the national politics. This is a pride to Kwara.

Take it or leave, they came to celebrate what the ignorant deem to deride in Kwara which is the reality that in the Kwara of today, anybody, can become anything, provided you are within the right political structure. The people came to celebrate the Saraki political dynasty, which as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar pointed out at the event, has produced two ‘successive and successful governors’, pointing out that he was part of that project from the start.

This last point needed to be appreciated particularly given the wrong picture that the opposition has sought to perpetually paint about the Saraki political structure. The truth is that majority of those belly-aching in the state against the structure are only kicking because of the determination of the structure to give voice to the voiceless among the crowd of men and women who consistently devote their energy and sometimes very meagre resources to the success of the structure.

I can gleefully repeat what the governor said about the structure because I know it is the truth: “I reaffirm my belief in our political structure. A structure that has given hope to the hopeless; that has made governance inclusive in Kwara State. This structure gives hope that you can be anything you want subject only to the limit of your abilities. It is only this structure that could have enabled Abdulfatah Ahmed, the son of a middle-level policeman, to become governor. So, whether you are the son of a carpenter, tailor, farmer, taxi driver, or trader, you too can be governor. “You too can be President. You too can be a minister. You too can be a Senator. You too can aspire to the House of Representatives. So, tell those who offer you false freedom, those who are bitter that we have democratized access to political power regardless of social background that you already have freedom to dream, to aspire and to achieve through this structure.”

It is the truth because there are several other examples apart from Ahmed to prove the authenticity of that claim. It was that disposition that made not a few chairmanship aspirants weep openly during the last exercise when they suddenly realised that without lobbying, without having to contribute ‘welfare packages’ to a godfather or godmother somewhere, they secured the ticket of the party for their councils. It was that structure that gave a Bolaji Abdullahi, proudly a journalist, the opportunity to become one of the best sports minister of the republic. It was that structure that gave a Zakari Mohammed, also a ‘mere’ journalist, the opportunity to become a member of the House of Representatives today. It is too early too to forget that that structure made Professor Abdulraheem Oba, who was never a politician but an outstanding academic, chairman of Federal Character Commission.

The list is endless because the structure is still churning out men and women of similar or even worse circumstances, projecting them into limelight where they can demonstrate their God-given talents. The lesson is that in Kwara, elective office is not the inheritance of a family or group of friends. And I am more comfortable relating with such a system than dealing with people who see public offices as their sole rights and who will run anyone down who seeks to expand the space of opportunities that God himself sanctions for all men.

Beyond this, the declaration also gave the governor an opportunity to present his agenda for the second term in office, which by the grace of God and the active support of the people, we believe shall be a reality. Like he did when canvassing for votes during his first term, the governor has bound himself to implement projects that will further transform the face of Kwara in a more positive way.

Here are his promises: “By the grace of God and with your mandate, we intend to accelerate the development of our state when re-elected for a second term in office. I will boost local economy through the establishment of an Independent Power Projects (IPP) that will power industrial clusters across the state, stimulate jobs and improve power supply to our communities”.

“By the grace of God, we will upscale our education reforms with the complete overhaul and modernization of 120 secondary schools across the state as we start the process of benchmarking our schools against global best practice. In terms of physical infrastructure, we will connect more of our communities with urban and rural roads, including roads designated as federal, thus opening up our state for greater development.

“By the first quarter of next year, we will take another bold step towards providing our youth with functional skills when the City and Guilds-affiliated International Vocational Centre, Ajasse-Ipo takes in its first set of students. This school will connect with our Quickwin initiative, under which a new crop of youth entrepreneurs is currently receiving vocational and entrepreneurship training, to fill middle level manpower gaps.

“In sports, we intend to completely overhaul and modernize the indoor sports hall of the Ilorin Township Stadium in line with high standards of Main Bowl and in order to promote sports development, especially among our youths. In 2015, we intend to get piped-water to all homes in Ilorin metropolis through primary reticulation of the on-going Ilorin Reticulation Project. Outside the capital, new water projects will bring piped water to a greater number of our people.”

It is left for us to decide to work with Ahmed, to give our total support to the Saraki political structure and ensure a Kwara as a land of abundant opportunities for all. Not a state where our collective destiny will be determined a man or a woman in Abuja.
- Oba writes from Ilorin
November 18, 2014
Saraki, Belgore and Kwara politics
Those who know Dele Belgore, the floating gubernatorial aspirant of the opposition party in Kwara State would not have been carried away for long after reading his latest lengthy newspaper interview.

Those with the proper understanding of the social and political settings of Kwara state would not be bothered by the latest vituperations that have been coming from the likes of Belgore, who in 2011 was the first to crucify the late Olooye, Olushola Saraki, calling him, as he is wont to do to his son now, all sorts of names because he wanted to become governor of Kwara State on the platform of the ACN. Now that the elder Saraki is gone, to Belgore the deceased was the best politician from Kwara State but his son is the devil; and you wonder the logic of such reasoning.

To Belgore, the appointment of a ’hidden’ Suleiman Abubakar to become a minister is evidence that Bukola Saraki and his political structure has been keeping the elites out of the Kwara political structure. I wonder how Belgore would want to define the elite? Is Prof. Abdulraheem Oba who became the chairman of the Federal Character Commission, FCC, through the Saraki political structure now out of the elite class? What about Dr. Ahmed Alli, Abdulrazaq Atunwa, Kamaldeen Ajibade and Saka Isau who are both Senior Advocates? They are not elites?

Again, those who know the system know that this is the very reason the gang-up against Saraki is thick; it is a protest by those who consider positions from the system as their birthright, just because they are the children of “Alfa Agba”. And those of us born by the common men but possess innate potentials to deliver should be buried alive!

Take a look at the list of anti-Saraki elements in the politics of Kwara today: all are driven by ego as against Saraki’s mantra of equity, justice and fairness. It was such equity that propelled the son of a commoner like Bolaji Abdullahi to limelight. It was justice that brought out Zakari Mohammed, a ‘common’ journalist to become one of the best federal representatives in this era. It was such fairness that brought out Razaq Atunwa, born in the hidden locality of Afon but British trained barrister, to become a Speaker. It was fairness that brought Abdulfatah Ahmed, the son of a middle class police officer to become the governor of our state. If Abdulfatah without the requisite financial muscle to stand in the way of a Belgore could be a governor, who says, I, the 18th son of a local Mallam but a masters degree holder, can not become a Senator under the political structure of Kwara APC?

How easy was it for Bukola to stand publicly against his father, the man God used to make him governor and insist that another person, and not someone from his own family, must succeed him? What would have happened if he had collaborated with the project and have his sister installed as his successor? How would Belgore be describing the late Saraki by now if that project had succeeded with the full support of his son?

If Bukola Saraki had insisted on following their desire, none of the personalities we mentioned above and the many others still in the system would ever have an opportunity to become anything meaningful in life. What was the principle that influenced the emergence of most of the current chairmen of local government areas in the state? It was the need to give new faces a chance and the world was witness to how this was done and the impact it brought. To Belgore and his ilk, they would rather that only people from their own nobility got the chance to be in the council leadership, because they are the only ones that matter in life. No problem, one day the real men behind the mask of opposition they are currently wearing would be exposed.

Their grouse we understand as class bitterness; that hateful feeling you have when your mate has overtaken you and you do not see how to catch up. It is hard to say but it is the bitter truth because if Bukola had relinquished his position as senator and allowed these modern day anti-Saraki fighters to remain in their positions, he would have remained the messiah of the time. We understand their types, men and women whose only concern is the comfort of their person.

But Bukola inherited the spirit of benevolence; he inherited a structure that picks a man from nowhere to take him to somewhere noble, a structure that enlarges the span of opportunities irrespective of place of birth or education instead of restricting the benefits of political participation to only a small clique who want comfort for only their family members. To such dreamers, the reality is that they are dreaming if they think they can take over the state, for whether they like it or not, as they conspire and devise strategies, the good that Saraki has done for the children of the commoner would speak against them.

It is therefore better that they wake up from their sleep now and embrace the reality: Saraki, as political leader of Kwara State. That is the current divine order.

Belgore also repeated the mantra of the opposition about Governor Ahmed having not done any new project but completing the ones Saraki initiated while in office. For how long would ambition blindfold the opposition to understand that no nation, least of all Nigeria, can afford to continue to pile up abandoned projects all in the name of just getting new ones named after the incumbent. Is that not the difference between Nigeria and developed states?

This argument, even when not true, is a pointer to the kind of mindset the likes of Belgore have, and is a dangerous mindset that reasonable men would shudder at because it indicates that if they were given the slightest opportunity to rule, they will dismantle everything that has made Kwara great in the last 11 years. They will dismantle the legacies not because the legacies are not credible, receiving local and global accolade such as the recent award by the OECD in Paris, but because of envy. And we want to say without being ashamed of it that Governor Ahmed is not competing with Saraki, so Ahmed is not envious of the Leader. Ahmed was a member of the political structure that discussed and initiated programmes and policies to be done in government and only men without integrity and honour will jettison such. Ahmed is not one of them.

How ridiculous would it have been for Governor Ahmed to abandon the Harmony Diagnostic Centre, the International Aviation College, the Kwara State University or the various road projects?

Enough of this deceit by the opposition in Kwara. They should tell Kwarans what is happening to Ajasse Ipo / Offa road, the Ilorin / Jebba road, and other deplorable federal roads in the state.
- Barakat, a social critic, writes from Ilorin
November 11, 2014