The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

Who will help us now?

Just as I was about putting pen to paper for this write up, news filtered in that Boko Haram insurgents have struck again, taking no fewer than 47 lives in an apparent suicide bomb attack on a group of students in Pokiskum, Yobe State. The suicide bomber dressed like a student and mixed freely with the unsuspecting genuine students before detonating his\her deadly arsenal.

In the run up to this devastating attack, Boko Haram had been having a field day conquering, annexing and renaming towns and cities across the north east, with our military seemingly helpless to push them back. All of a sudden Adamawa that had looked like relatively immune to the activities of the terrorists is now under threat of being annexed by Boko Haram.

Don’t forget this is a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) controlled state and the Governor Ngilari has cried out that his state might fall to Boko Haram any time from now unless the Nigerian armed forces move fast to rout the terrorists. The state used to be controlled by the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) before the impeachment go Admiral Murtala Nyako as governor.

Nyako, you’ll recall had, while still in office, cried out about the imminence of Boko Haram’s attack on his state, but Abuja did not listen. Instead he was branded a saboteur, crying wolf, where there was none. Now that PDP’s Nigilari had spoken, may be Abuja will listen and do the needful.

I don’t want to talk much about the phantom ceasefire other than to say that whoever conceived or concocted it must be smiling to his\her bank now because I know the Goodluck Jonathan administration would have pumped money into it thinking it would bring the girls back home. Not necessarily because it genuinely wants the Chibok girls back home as soon as possible, but because bringing them back home now at whatever cost could enhance his falling electoral fortune.

But more importantly, whoever it was within the Nigerian government or the military that trusted the Chadians or any of our Francophone neighbors to help us get rid of the insurgency must have a poor sense of history in terms of our past relationship with these hateful neigbhours of ours.

During the struggle for power in Chad in the 70s and 80s, Nigeria and Moammer Ghadafi’s Libya were fighting a proxy war, so to speak, struggling to control the heart and mind of the government in N’Djamena. Both parties backed different guerrilla leaders as Goukkoni Weddaye and Hussein Habre battled it out for the control of Chad.

At a point during the second republic under President Shehu Shagari, Chadian forces backed by Libya invaded Nigeria’s north east, and it took a General Muhammadu Buhari’s led 3rd Division of the Nigerian Army to drive the Chadians out. Buhari was then the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 3rd Division based in Jos, Plateau State. The defence of that axis of Nigeria fell under his command. And he did well to defend Nigeria’s territorial integrity then. Please NOTE this.

Chad must have a reason for that invasion then and who says she still doesn’t harbour an interest in annexing north eastern Nigeria? Don’t forget that Camerooun similarly and frequently attacked parts of Nigeria around Bakassi under Shagari’s watch. Today Bakassi is part of Cameroun. Who says that Chad is not enjoying the Boko Haram insurgency and even probably secretly encouraging it with the hope of adding the territory to Chad once Boko Haram succeeded in carving the region out of Nigeria. If Cameroun could get Bakassi why not Chad getting north eastern Nigeria? Don’t forget Cameroun is not done with us yet regarding her territorial ambition as the north east around Adamawa is also being eyed by Yaounde.

My argument here is, since we are surrounded by enemies so to speak, why do we expect them to help us, genuinely and wholeheartedly fight the enemies within? I mean, why should Cameroun and Chad help us to defeat Boko Haram? Why should Chad be interested in that ‘ceasefire’ and ending the insurgency. Until now, Cameroun was enjoying the insurgency here, so to speak until the terrorists started striking in her territory.

Is it not about time that we put our destiny in our hands and enlist the help of genuine friends if we can’t defeat Boko Haram on our own?

When the ISIS started in Syria, the west (US and western Europe) were watching believing that helping Syria defeat the terrorists could on the long run result in helping despised President Assad stay in power. Now ISIS has expanded into Iraq and has carved out a territory of its own from parts of Syria and Iraq under its control. The Kurdist city of Kobani close to Turkey is under threat of falling to ISIS and Turkey, because of her hatred for the Kurds is folding her arms, burying her head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, believing ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Now the Kurds are calling on their friends around the world to help defeat ISiS, and America, belatedly is responding.

I do not know how worse the west want the situation in Nigeria to get before they would come to our aid in the fight against terror. It is very clear that President Goodluck Jonathan and the Nigerian armed forces are incapable of winning this war against Boko Haram, especially as long as countries like France continue to pay ransom to the terrorists for every of her nationale they abduct; the terrorists would be emboldened to continue. As long as some of our war commanders and their men continue to abandon the front and run away at the slightest sight of Boko Haram, the war will continue and the terrorist would have their way.

After watching a documentary on the South African Defence Forces (SADF) my heart bled for Nigeria. Our military is nothing to write home about, and the blame should go largely to all the military governments of the past, particularly, General Ibrahim Babangida’s which systematically decimated the Nigerian Armed Forces for selfish reasons. This is not exonerating the civilian regimes as well, especially Goodluck Jonathan’s under whose watch Boko Haram has become so large and powerful that we now have to beg to graciously grant us peace. What a shame!

It is not too late though to rearm, adequately equip and retrain the officers and men of our armed forces to successfully fight this insurgency. You don’t need years to do this. And at the same time, the best way to do is not the Pastor Oritshejafor’s way. I mean not secretly channelling or funneling money into foreign hands under the guise of procuring arms and ammunitions for our soldiers.

Now that we seem to be in a helpless ( but not hopeless) situation, what do we do? It is not as if we can’t defeat the insurgency, but we need to be more focussed and serious and play less of politics in the whole of this unfortunate episode in the history of our country.

The Nigerian Armed Forces as presently constituted is polarized along ethnic and religious lines and something must be done quickly to arrest the situation lest this national institution and avenue for national unity go the way of similar organisations that are today in the hands of ethnic jingoists. We can consciously create an elite unit within our armed forces, like the US Navy SEAL, to deal with Boko Haram and similar problems. This doesn’t have to take years to accomplish if the political and military will is there on the part of our leaders.

I don’t think it has gone so terribly bad for Nigeria that she cannot get help in this and similar regards from genuine friends out there. But these ‘friends’ want to see genuineness of purpose from us and willingness to see it through. If we are ready to do this, I am sure we will get help. When I said we, I mean everybody; the government and the governed; PDP and the opposition. Let’s fight Boko Haram together. It is in our collective interest.

November 11, 2014
60 Tablets for pains in pursuit of truth

Pastor Tunde Bakare clocks 60 today, November 11. I seek to throw a little light on the man many believe deliberately courts controversy and is unduly harsh on his fellow religious leaders. A man some claim draw anomie to himself, and blind loyalty in equal proportion – like ants to sugar. By his choice of words, subjects of his vitriol and characters of his umbrage – in most cases, Bakare may declare himself guilty – but with well- articulated reasons. If you can control your indignation and hear him out, you are likely to concede him the space necessary for truth and logic to soar.

Ordinarily, I am drawn to people who are not afraid to speak what they believe is the truth – at all times; who do not succumb to the pressure of impressing others so as to gain their adulation; people who are not bothered about the enormity of your anointing if your obvious actions and conversations give you away as a charlatan – you will be hung out to dry. Oh, I like such people.

Yes, people who see Bakare as a “noise-maker” or “rabble-rouser” may have a point. He does cause trouble with his statements… and more often than not rabbles are roused on account of his diatribes. The point to linger on is not what he does, but why he does those things. In private discussions, as I sought to probe the spine of his position on this issue…with a mischievous twist of his lips, he would labour to give words to the cascading thoughts in his heart – his glowing face reveals a man thoroughly at peace with the severity of his commentaries.

Well, 15 years may not be long enough to write a profound character guide on a person, but I can state categorically that he writes down, dwells over, bounces off people, almost all his so-called controversial statements… He does not use the old and tested lacuna: “touch not my anointed…” in escaping troubling issues and scenarios when he is called to account. Bakare would over-prepare for contestation of ideas and understanding of the Word – whether the challenge comes from a peer or neophyte.

Oh, he does have a temper. Is there a man without blemish? Excuse it the way you want, he can be a bolt of fire against the devil in one instance; and if an associate, his child or acquaintance steps over or pulls down what ought to be carefully arranged or garnished – the tongue of correction comes sharp and long…touching the recesses of your inadequacy, purging you almost instantly of any dreg of incompetence. Oh, he detests incompetence in any situation – more avidly if he suspects incompetence, insensitivity or high corruption at the citadels of political power. He surely must share the same sentiment with the 26th American president, Theodore Roosevelt, who said: “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”

Religious hypocrisy and political charlatanism irk him most. Since “performers” of both “arts” prey on the minds and hopes of people, his most vitriolic deprecations are reserved for them irrespective of their status, influence, motives or familiarity. When people say ‘why wash your dirty linens in public?’ ‘Why doesn’t Bakare call his “brothers” to order in private brotherly love?’ Let me reassure you, on most occasions, he would bend backwards to reach out privately and poignantly point out these “infringements” and “perversions” – especially within the body of Christ. Often, the others chuckled over it with glib assurance of acceptance…yet the issues fester, the complicity deepens…then Bakare explodes, and most people take off in pursuit of ringworm with leprosy left unchecked.

Like Apostle Paul, Bakare’s teachings are hard: in the pursuit of happiness and prosperity, ‘live holy, depend completely on God, repay evil with good, and do unto others much better than they to you’. He not only lives what he preaches, he challenges others to take him up on his convictions and cross notes afterwards. He is bemused when people find it almost impossible to differentiate between principles (issues he vehemently attacks) and relationship (usually committed by his friends and older associates in faith). He is hurt when hare-brained policies and exertions of governmental powers deliver more hardship on ordinary folks – and he explodes where most leaders merely grumble and vacillate in soporific acquiescence. He is undaunted and scarcely embarrassed when no one believes or even regards what he says God has shown him in visions or dreams – he simply pivots ahead using same as launch pads to more declarations.

If his person is not violated, if his faith is not compromised; if his loved ones are not in doubts; if his God does not keep silent, then the whole world united in blatant antagonism against him, will not stir the little hair still remaining on his head. An enigma indeed.

Though little of frame, Bakare’s heart is large. Very large. His generosity sometimes bothers on thick-headedness. Somehow, if you investigate the strands of his magnanimity, you will find narratives of his humble beginnings. He obviously suffered growing up… well, like most successful Nigerians of his age… but his has diverse colorations that will make a book on his formative years a best seller. So, in his generous spirit hides a desire to help people about to fall into extreme poverty. Don’t get it wrong: weepy, needling, obsequious appeal for mercy-cash will not move him. With obvious compassion and keen intelligence, he would probe the circumstance of your situation and the potency of your peril. And to make sure you are not in any doubt about his position, he will ask that help should be given you, but ‘this and that’ are what you should focus your energies on so you can stand on your feet; but if on his reading, you need more than a token, he will invite others who can effectively intervene in your affairs, so you can stand strong.

Bakare lives his life in the open (a rare condition in this climate) – the hunger to share and teach makes him tell it all. He fixes his own stories, warts and all, in all his public narratives as he criss-crosses the world teaching and preaching. While most of us will repent of our mis-steps and keep it mum between us and God; not Bakare. After repenting, the man will “call” the “whole world”, confessing his mishaps. And somehow drawing out a lesson or two why no one else should have any excuse for falling into same. He is quick to do that for his few mistakes; but ironically zips his mouth when he does any of his sundry good deeds. A peculiar man!

As Babatunde Gbolahan Bakare marks his 60th birthday today, with millions of his silent admirers (and of course, millions of the “others”), a constant train of thought is that he will live long to give of himself to his God and his country – with calm boldness, profound power and enduring grace… such that if the Lord arrives and asks if there’s a trusted and courageous ‘errand-man’ ready for him to use – Layide’s husband may confidently step forward and say: “Here am I, send me!”

November 11, 2014
Jonathan and the ghost of Chibok

Nigerians first… Nigerians always!!! President Jonathan declares, theadvert swooned in false gaiety, as if there was some big carnival in town. Instead, there is a big funeral.

Which Nigerians is the Jonathan presidential declaration advert talking about?

Those that Boko Haram daily slaughter in the North East?

Those that have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) in their own country?

Residents of Mubi (or is it Madinatul Islam?) and Gwoza (or is it Darul Hikma?), that Boko Haram has captured, from under the nose of the president and his mighty host?

The distraught parents of the Chibok school girls?

Or, nationwide, civil servants who don’t know when their next salary would come, because the Jonathan administration cannot trustfully manage the Federation Account?

If President Jonathan is true to himself, even he would be unexcited at his so-called declaration today, to again run for the Nigerian presidency. But if he is truly excited, he would have believed the lie told him by his flatterers. If he did, that would be unflattering to his sense of judgement — and his conscience.

Indeed, Aniete Okon, a former senator of the Federal Republic and the Jonathan declaration’s publicity sub-committee chair, betrayed the Chibok ghost by resorting to raw aggression to salve his conscience. “Are you saying that until we find the girls, we should not renew our faith in the country”? The Nation of November 10 quoted him as saying.

Some question! But why is Mr. Okon so agitated — because of the manifest idiocy of the Jonathan declaration, in the face of looming disintegration?

Is Mr. Okon seeing, in the mirror, the hateful image of a 21st century Nero, fiddling and playing politics, even as the country Jonathan inherited in 2011 is losing territory to Boko Haram anarchists?

Jonathan and associates can delude themselves all they want. Theirs is government of manipulation, for manipulation, by manipulation.

That is manifest in yet another Declaration Eve wrap-around advert in some newspapers, which the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) ironically entitled: “Be a witness to history … as HE President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR declares, in response to Nigerians’ demand …

“As an outstanding performer,” the advert claimed, “he was under-reported. We came, highlighting his verifiable achievements that have transformed every sector of Nigeria. The story has now changed, with over 17.8 million Nigerians endorsing him for continuity. Thank you Mr. President,” the self-serving ad enthused, “for yielding to the voice and demand of Nigerians!”

Audacious? Not yet! See TAN’s stats: 1.6 million signatures from the North East want Jonathan to continue. This 1.6 million must nurse some death wish — to wish some incompetent and soulless president should prolong their agony!

Perhaps they also include the Chibok parents, who hail the president for not only having no clue as to recovering their children but also absolutely lacking in compassion on sharing their grief — a grief a president worth his seal of office would have averted.

Corresponding figures from the North, according to the TAN advert, are: North West, 3.4 million and North Central, 1.85 million. From the South, the zestful Jonathan Signature Fans Club, scribble: South East: 2.3 million; South West: 2.6 million and South South: 6.05 million.

So, with all the noise and tempest from the South East on Jonathan 2015, that zone could garner only 2.3 million signatures; and the North Central, with the Jonathan camp’s serious goading of that zone’s Christians against Muslims, only 1.85 million signatures?

Indeed, every ploy harbours the seeds of its own destruction!

But forget all the media hype and advert foxtrots: the Jonathan strategy is simple — make a huge racket of sweet nothings, and all the ruts would vanish! It is the old propaganda strategy: lies repeated often soon assume the garb of truth.

Still, at every juncture, Jonathan comes a sad cropper — though his TAN racketeers egg him on — and the setback has its spiritual fount in the April 14 kidnap of the Chibok school girls.

Before April 14, not a few would grant Goodluck Jonathan the benefit of the doubt. But after, he lost everything. On Chibok, his government has shown no initiative, no sound judgement, no balls, no compassion, no remorse, no nothing — just condemnable petulance, arrogance and emptiness.

That Jonathan was tardy after the kidnap, thus surrendering lead time needed to save the girls, was monumental bad judgement.

That First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, tried to put the Chibok victims on television trial, showed presidential callousness without redemption. Ironically — but justifiably enough — the First Lady bloodied herself with her “Dia ris God o” tragicomedy.

Even more fittingly, that initial tardiness and failure to save the girls always comes back to haunt Jonathan, and his presidential re-run misadventure.

At its last appearance, the Chibok ghost hit Jonathan where it pained most. His spin doctors had, with fan fair, announced a ceasefire with Boko Haram; and coming with that package was a tantalising release of the Chibok girls, after which — at least the propagandists thought — their chief would gallop to victory, both at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) sole nomination (which, by the way the Jonathan camp has made a hash of), and at the election proper itself.

But yet again, Jonathan ate crow, his presidency proving itself the dumbest and daftest Nigeria ever had (and may ever have), the way the so-called ceasefire shamefully collapsed! Of course, all that desperation was to make inviolate today’s so-called declaration.

Talk of a president so avid at pressing his constitutional right to run but is so remiss in doing his constitutional duty, to the satisfaction of his compatriots; save the multitude of hustlers urging him on, when it is crystal clear, to any right-thinking person, that the job is beyond his ken — intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.

Despite all the media grandstanding, all the boisterousness, and all the braggadocio at Eagle Square today, it is clear that Jonathan and friends are stealing to the declaration, like some thief during broad daylight! All the bluff and bluster is to cover the manifest irrationality of the Jonathan declaration.

Besides, is it not grand irony that this same Eagle Square, in which the president is not bold enough to host National Day celebrations, at least in the last two years, is now where he exhibits the Dutch courage to declare his so-called bid for second term?

Like Neighbour-to-Neighbour (N2N) before it, TAN is another equal opportunity racket and gravy train to sell Nigerians a pig in a poke. While N2N drooled about “a breath of fresh air” (which all too soon turned rancid) and a shoeless boy bidding for president, TAN is hallucinating about non-existent achievements.

But at the other end of the country, Boko Haram is busy showing off its “caliphate”, axed off Nigeria’s territorial space, courtesy of a video made available to AFP. That is another concrete achievement of Jonathan and friends!

For Jonathan, there is no escaping the ghost of Chibok — and, it appears, the worst is yet to come.

November 11, 2014
Sleep-walking toward Mogadishu

They must be rejoicing in their fortified encampments in the Sambisa Forest and in the open savannah stretching from Bauchi through Borno to Adamawa, mocking and taunting a demoralised and ill-equipped national army, shaming some of its leading commanders by capturing, occupying and re-naming their hometowns.

And it is not just on the battlefield that Boko Haram is prevailing. It is also proving superior in strategic thinking. It inveigled a desperate Federal Government and a weary national army into announcing and observing a ceasefire and assuring a traumatised nation that the Chibok girls were about to be set free, more than six months after they were abducted from their school hostels.

Meanwhile, Boko Haram consolidated its hold on the areas it has occupied and, virtually unopposed, opened a new front with lightning speed, stamping it with its accustomed bestiality and fanaticism.

It has been suggested that the group the Federal Government was negotiating with had no mandate to speak for Boko Haram or conclude any agreement in its name.

If this is true, it would amount to a failure of intelligence with few parallels anywhere.

Two years ago, President Goodluck Jonathan declared that Boko Haram would be crushed within six months. Like his deadlines for generating and distributing electricity to a nation that has been forced to make peace with darkness, it came and passed.

When the UK, the United States, France, Australia and Israel promised logistic and intelligence assistance in locating and freeing the Chibok girls and containing the insurgency, an excited Dr. Jonathan stopped just short of declaring victory.

They came, they saw, and have maintained a presence of sorts, but without achieving any significant results. The national army and the intelligence services are no better off, and the Jonathan administration is no wiser.

Lately, Dr. Jonathan cajoled the National Assembly into authorising him to raise a loan of one billion dollars to equip the armed and intelligence services to fight the insurgency. He and his military advisers seem to have come to the painful reality that Boko Haram is not going anywhere soon.

Boko Haram is in fact waxing stronger everyday, as Ambassador Ade Adefuye told a delegation of the influential United States Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, in Washington DC.

In the midst of the unfolding disaster, no senior political official has resigned voluntarily or has been asked to do so. The Commander-in-Chief has not deigned to go near the warfront to rally the troops and to give succour to the beleaguered population of displaced persons.

But this has not stopped his rented cheerleaders from placing him on the same pedestal with Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and Nelson Mandela, men who led from the front, by personal example, risking or sacrificing everything for the causes they believed in and championed. Must they insult and assault the memories of these great personages and the intelligence of the Nigerian public in their desperation to sell a gravely flawed candidate for re-election?

In their interactions with the rank and file, some of Dr. Jonathan’s field commanders seem to have inspired mutiny rather than loyalty. One of them is the butt of jokes and jibes on the Internet. They say he is often so inebriated that, for the most part, he can’t figure out whether he is coming or going. But he and his colleagues remain in command, carrying on business as usual under admittedly difficult circumstances.

Their circumstances are not to be envied.

The nation’s armed forces are yet to recover from the planned emasculation of the Babangida-Abacha years. To ensure his personal survival and the survival of his regime, Babangida took every measure conceivable to make it almost impossible for them to organise or execute a coup. Military aircraft were grounded, tanks were put out of commissioned, and weapons systems were not upgraded. Advanced training became a favour, to be dispensed to handpicked aides. Toadyism supplanted professionalism.

Military formations with awe-inspiring names littered the landscape, but they existed only on paper for the most part. To cite one notorious example, there were “amphibious brigades” here and there. But when a Kaduna-bound military transport plane carrying more than 150 officers crashed into the Ejigbo swamps in 1992 some five minutes after take-off from Lagos airport, no military craft of any description got to the scene within 48 hours.

The military had to rely on the equipment furnished by the civilian contractor Julius Berger to reach the scene, for salvage rather than rescue operations. All the passengers had died of suffocation.

The civil war in Liberia and Sierra Leone gave Babangida an opportunity to ship out officers and men of units or formations whose docility he could not count on.

Where Babangida was concerned with self-preservation, Sani Abacha was concerned with self-enrichment. And if looking the other way as Abacha indulged his overweening greed helped Babangida remain in power, so much the better.

Thus, whether as Chief of Defence Staff or Minister of Defence in the Babangida regime and its doomed extension, Ernest Shonekan’s Interim National Government, gorged himself remorselessly on the defence appropriations. Military salaries and benefits went unpaid for months.

According to the online archives of the military historian Dr. Nowa Omoigui, at such moments, the men of the military would shrug their shoulders in resignation and say “Sani ya chi,” literally, Sani has eaten (the money.)

Somehow, perhaps thanks to Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, the admiral without a fleet —who was Babangida’s vice president, the Navy managed to keep its appropriations out of Abacha’s capacious maw. And so it was not unusual for the army to borrow from the Navy to pay salaries

Back when he was chair of the Presidential Advisory Council, General TY Danjuma had warned Aso Rock that if it did not move vigorously against Boko Haram, Nigeria might go the way of Somalia. That end-point is distant, but the process is underway. Boko Haram has set Nigeria on the long, treacherous road to Mogadishu.

It is still possible to arrest the drift. Dr Jonathan must show focused and sustained political resolve, and so must the civilian leadership of the armed and intelligence services. The professional leadership of the armed and intelligence must show greater imagination and capacity.

Everything must be done to boost the morale of the fighting forces. They must be given the tools they need to carry out their assigned tasks.

In the final analysis, the insurgency is an armed response to political grievances. A lasting solution will therefore have to be sought in political accommodation rather than in military victory.

To that end, the major political parties must begin to countenance the formation of a government of national unity after the forthcoming general elections.

November 11, 2014
Nigerian politics and The Matthew Effect

Surveying the road to the 2015 general elections this past week, I have found myself thinking again about what sociologists call The Matthew Effect.

The phenomenon takes its name from the Parable of the Five Talents in St. Matthew’s Gospel 25:14-30, where Jesus likened the kingdom of heaven to the fate of the servants who were given various sums of money to look after by their master on the eve of a long journey.

Those who had been given the most substantial sums had invested and multiplied them. The one who had the least amount had simply buried it and returned to his master exactly what he had been given. No value added.

The master, a hard, usurious fellow, angrily took away what he had given to the slothful servant and handed it to the servant who had multiplied his own endowment.

Lesson: To those who have much, more will be given. From those who have little, even that little will be taken away and given to those who have much.

In its own way, The Matthew Effect accounts for how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, or how, according to the contemporary sociologist Daniel Rigney, advantage begets further advantage.

The Biblical parable is about faith and the spiritual realm, but The Matthew Effect, a coinage attributed to the Columbia sociologist Robert K. Merton, applies strikingly to the material realm, and even to the realm of knowledge.

On the material plane, it explains the iniquitous distribution of public resources in Nigeria – how, to cite a notorious example, the office messenger in Aso Rock has to fend his family from his meagre earnings, whereas President Goodluck Jonathan, even allowing for the prohibitive cost of that incomparable executive delicacy, cassava bread, can appropriate close to a billion naira in public funds as culinary expenses.

The Matthew Effect also helps explain why the janitors who clean the halls and offices of the National Assembly are responsible for clothing themselves, whereas the legislators receive from the public purse more than three times the monthly wage of a janitor as “wardrobe allowance” for every month assuming the stipend has not been raised to keep pace with inflation.

And it explains why those same legislators get a hefty monthly “hardship allowance” for the unspeakably dangerous work of rubberstamping proposals from the Executive Branch and staging endless hearings, and whereas there is no such perk for their drivers who live in the God-forsaken parts of town and battle their way to work early and close only when it pleases the master for a little more than the minimum wage, if that.

Much of the jockeying for 2015 and the likely outcome is easily explained by The Matthew Effect. Now, governors who have reached the term limit are now being importuned by “their people” to retire into the Senate and live happily and prosperously ever after. Where the people are not moving quickly enough to beseech them to take opulent retirement, the governors are positioning themselves for the transition.

And as sure as Nigeria is Nigeria, advantage will beget more advantage.

And as the re-election campaign fortunes of Dr Jonathan and Senate President David Mark show eloquently, those who already possess a great deal will be given much more.

Take David Mark first.

Since the end of the civilwar when he was appointed “Abandoned Properties” czar in the old Rivers State, his has been a steady march from one gold mine to another – military governor of the old Niger State, minister of Communications, in which capacity he declared that telephones were not for the poor – never mind his denial some 20 years later – and president of the Senate since 2007. He reputedly owns two swanky courses in the U.K., and perhaps another one or two elsewhere.

If he has any problem with money at all, it is how to spend it. By one account, he has made enough money to last him and his progeny till the end of time.

And yet, the grateful people of Benue South Senatorial District could not leave it to him to purchase the PDP’s nomination form for re-election. Nine local government chairmen, drawing no doubt on their federal handouts, plonked down an unspecified sum to get him the document, which he humbly accepted at his Otukpo country home, tears of gratitude streaking down his face.

Mark rose magnificently to the occasion, assuring his visitors and the crowd that had gathered outside his home, in a speech prepared for the moment, that he would be willing to lay down his life for the sustenance and stability of democracy and for the creation of Apa state if they asked him to do so.

Ah, the nobility of sacrifice!

The usual suspects will no doubt be scoffing that this was sheer grandstanding, an empty and therefore meaningless gesture. We will never know, since “his people,” much to their disappointment, chose not to put Mark to the test.

This is obviously a different David Mark from the one who had during the “June 12” crisis of 1993, vowed to personally shoot President-elect Moshood Abiold to death if Abiola was allowed to take office.

Not even the passage of more than 20 years can fully explain how, in the one instance Mark threatened to liquidate the winner of a democratic election rather than allow him take office, and in the other he declared that he was prepared to lay down his life for the sustenance and stability of democracy.

Nor has there even been in the Mark camp the appearance of a road-to-Damascus conversion.

With the vast resources of Nigeria under his control, to say nothing of his official remuneration that, however large – it is apparently a state secret – is dwarfed by all manner of allowances and discretionary spending, Dr Jonathan may not be the sixth wealthiest African head of state. But he would have to be the most improvident African head of state if he cannot come up with N22 million to purchase his campaign reelection form.

His teeming admirers, ranging from half-starved youth corpers to shadowy organisations founded and funded by the so-called Presidency, would not even let him rummage his bedroom or cocktail bar for some pocket change to cover the transaction. At the last toting up, they had raised nearly five times the amount needed for the form. PDP governors and Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, widely believed to be a proxy of the Jonathan Administration, contributed N22 million apiece.

Compare and contrast the electioneering fortunes of Dr Jonathan and Senator Mark with that Texas State University-based-poet, writer and public intellectual, Ogaga Ifowodo, seeking to represent the Isoko Nation in the National Assembly. He reckons that he needs some N57 million for the entire campaign – from seeking the nomination to mounting and running a focused race right up to polling day, and has said that much in a letter addressed to the Nigerian public.

Dr Ifowodo is driven by an overarching commitment to public service rare among the younger generation, a belief that he can make a difference and a desire to pursue it. But his problem is how to find the money, whereas if Dr Jonathan and Senator Mark have any problem at all with money, it is how to spend it.

The kind of help being heaped on Dr Jonathan and Senator Mark who do not need it and, it has to be said to their credit, have not asked for it, should be going to the Ifowodos, to insulate them from the pernicious Matthew Effect.

November 4, 2014
Ogun’s Golden Years

The Industrial Revolution which began in Britain in the late 18th century marks a turning point in human history as hand production was supplanted by the use of machines. Production took a giant leap leaving in its wake rise in disposable income and consequently enhancement in the standard of living of the people.

If the Industrial Revolution was an economic phenomenon, the Renaissance that preceded it was a cultural-cum-knowledge revolution. Renaissance, which commenced in Italy in the 14th century, marked another epoch defined by phenomenal rise in intellectual pursuits and artistic developments.

There’s what may also be pronounced as Media Revolution, an age that birthed what Prof Wole Soyinka described as agencies of instant communication, which convey our march of history in contemporary, real-life tempo. With CNN, Aljazeera, BBC, etc. and Internet, national boundaries are obliterated and geographical distance counts for nothing.

As there are epochs so are individuals which define their times. Thus we can speak of the Pele era in football; the Maradona era; the Messi age. Are there other good footballers? Yes, of course. But you see the likes of Pele, Maradona and Messi once in a generation, sometimes in lifetime. The same can be said of Muhammed Ali and Mike Tyson. Yes, there were other good boxers, even great boxers but the two defined their times.

There are leaders whose works created the epochs. Lee Kuan Yew, as Prime Minister, is credited with moving Singapore, a colonial outpost with no natural resources, from the Third World to First World. When you mention Singapore today, the image of Kuan Yew comes to your mind and the thought of Asian Tiger crosses your mind.

The Western Region of Nigeria witnessed its golden years under the leadership of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was the Premier between 1954 and 1959, previously the Leader of Government Business of the Region from 1952.

It was in the Western Region, during the Awo epoch, that agricultural settlements and institutes were first established. It was in this region that a minimum living wage was first introduced in Nigeria, and paid to workers. The first industrial estate and housing estate in Nigeria were established in the Western Nigeria.

The first television service in the whole of Africa was established in the Western Region. Liberty Stadium, established in 1959, was also the first in Nigeria. Steel ballot boxes and security-printed ballot papers were first used in the Western Region at the instance and insistence of the Action Group. Voting by symbol was equally introduced into Nigeria and first used in the Western Region.

Of course, it was in the Western Region that Free Universal Primary Education and Free Health Services for children up to the age of 18 were first introduced in Nigeria. Time and space will certainly fail me to mention more. That was indeed an era, an epoch that remains indelible in the history of the country. Awo launched the Western Region into its future at the speed of light, ahead of other regions in the country and only some years away from catching up with Europe.

Today, the administration of Senator Ibikunle Amosun has built the first-ever flyovers by any state government since the creation of Ogun State in 1976. Thirty years after the legendary Chief Bisi Onabanjo introduced free education in Ogun State, it was Senator Ibikunle Amosun that re-introduced the scheme, which has expanded access to education. Amosun is the first to construct world-class model schools for children of public schools, which have made the private schools green with envy.

The governor has constructed the first-ever six-lane international standard roads across the state – complete with modern features such as drains, medians, greenbelts, walkways, street lights, etc. Amosun distributed 500 brand new transformers to bring back to life comatose Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Ogun in a single iconic gesture.

It was Governor Amosun that introduced for the very first time in Ogun modern luxury buses, and the first in Nigeria to purchase the very latest technology of Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) and make the “maximum donation” of security equipment at one fell swoop that the Inspector-General of Police said he had never witnessed “since I have been serving as a Police officer”.

The Amosun administration pays N18,250 as minimum wage, implemented the wage across board, and up to Local Government level, thus making Ogun the only state in Nigeria to do so.

The recently released report of the World Bank, Doing Business in Nigeria 2014, ranked Ogun as one of the top reforming states “that made the biggest strides towards the national frontier of good practices.” The state was ranked lowest overall performers in both 2008 and 2010 reports of the financial institution. Nigeria’s leading business newspaper, Business Day, had in 2013 declared Ogun State as the fastest-growing economy and first choice for industrialists and entrepreneurs among the 36 states in Nigeria. And just a few days ago, The Guardian, says Ogun State has become the hub of industrialization in Nigeria, overtaking other states. Time will fail me to talk about investment in free health – Gbomoro and Araya – as well as agriculture.

This phenomenal rise of Ogun State in world’s reckoning just within three years of the administration of Senator Ibikunle Amosun has been captured in a book, Ogun State: The Golden Years, which will be presented to the public on Sunday, December 7, at the Obas’ Complex, Governor’s Office, Oke-Mosan in Abeokuta. It’s really a day to look forward to as the the event will bring together ‘Who is Who’ in Nigerian politics, sons and daughters of Ogun State, former Heads of State, governors, captains of industry, the diplomatic community, leading academics, media executives, among others.

Someone once told me a story of how disciplined and visionary was his school principal in Ogun State. He said the principal was transferred some years after he graduated with distinction. He later discovered from inquiries about the state of the school after the departure of the well-regarded principal. It was bad news. The new principal, he was told, was reckless with money, undisciplined and loose. This of course, impacted negatively on the school and performance of the students nosedived.

One thought that dominated the discussion during the recent assessment tour of local councils by Governor Amosun was, “If only this scale of infrastructural development can continue for the next 20 years, then Ogun will be like any state or city in Europe.”

Those who are now desperate about power in Ogun have been there before. What did they do? They shared the money and created insecurity. So if they come back again what will they do? They will increase the scale of the sharing and return the state to its inglorious past. The book, Ogun State: The Golden Years, will reveal that even with their culture of rigging, it will be impossible to displace a grassroots politician like Amosun, who has launched Ogun into a new epoch.

•Soyombo is Special Assistant on Media to the Governor of Ogun State

November 4, 2014
On Lagos’ Fitch ratings
Global leader in credit ratings and research, Fitch Ratings, recently upgraded Lagos State’s national long-term rating to ‘AA+ (nga)’ from ‘AA (nga)’, thus giving the state a stable outlook . Fitch equally confirmed the state’s long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) at ‘BB-‘with stable outlooks and its short-term foreign currency IDR at ‘B’. Its N275 billion MTN programme, together with its N57.5 billion and N80 billion bonds, which mature in 2017 and 2019, respectively, were also affirmed at ‘BB-‘ and upgraded to ‘AA+(nga)’ from ‘AA(nga)’. The rating action reflects the following rating drivers and their relative weights: High: Management and Administration: Fitch believes that Lagos management is becoming progressively more sophisticated. Fitch equally rates the state high on debt management, which has improved with longer bond tenures and more loans from development banks.

The Fitch’s upgrade is a further testimony to the state’s continued firm operating performance, enhanced transparency and renewed efforts towards an increasingly urbane and transparent administration, which is favorable to increasing private sector investments. With a local GDP accounting for 20%-25% of the national GDP, Lagos is a critical driver of Nigeria’s economy. Domestic production is fuelled by its diversified economy as a commercial hub in the country, with service, construction, transport and industry making up 80% of the local economy. Fitch believes that Lagos’ socio-economic indicators will further improve as local GDP growth is expected to out-perform the estimated national GDP growth of 7%-8% in 2014.

To keen watchers of events in the country, the Lagos’ Fitch ratings do not come as a surprise. Today, Lagos remains a benchmark for budget implementation and performance in the country. The Fashola administration’s first two budgets were particularly indicative of the government’s plan to address infrastructure deficit in the state. In 2008, for instance, the state government budgeted 60.05 percent for capital expenditures and 39.5 percent recurrent expenses while in 2009 capital outlay was 63 percent while recurrent spending was 37 percent. In the 2010 budget, capital and recurrent expenditures stood at a ratio of 59 and 41percent respectively.

In terms of commitment to budget performance, the state government has also recorded high successes that reflect not less than 70 percent annual budget performance. For instance, in 2012 and 2013, the state’s budget recorded 89 percent and 85 percent performance respectively. The idea of quarterly budget assessment speaks volume of the pro-activeness of the state government as it affords a scientific basis of measuring performance in a consistent manner while putting pressure on government departments and agencies to meet budgetary targets.

Recently, the state government announced an 84 percent third quarter budget performance for the 2014 Budget with an 86 percent cumulative or aggregated performance for the first three quarters of the year covering from January to September. However, against the backdrop of the very high targets it set, the cumulative performance, still falls short of government expectation. Nevertheless, by many measures, the performance is a tough act to follow in West Africa, if not the whole of Africa. The manifestation is quite visible in the increased number of projects embarked upon by government across the state.

Infrastructure development is critical to achieving human capital development in any society. The economic impact that infrastructure improvement has on nation building cannot be over-emphasised. Considering the statistics that about 85 percent of the people in the world reside in the developing world and transition economies, and with 67 percent of that population below age 35, the need for infrastructure development to support enduring development remains a matter of major concern for all nations of the world.

Without doubt, Lagos leads in terms of putting in place a concise and precise infrastructure development vision and programme in the country. It has demonstrated sincere resolve to tackle the power situation in the state through the delivery of embedded power and energy solutions that has led to the completion of three power plants across the state. Similarly, the state is presently implementing six simultaneous transport solutions namely; Mile 12 – Ikorodu, Lekki-Epe, Lagos – Badagry, Lagos Light Rail, Lagos Ferry and Lagos Cable Car. In terms of housing provision, the state now delivers 200 Housing Units on a monthly basis with a 10-year mortgage and a maximum interest payment of 9.5 %.

Out of the 10 Mother and Child Centres, planned for the state by the present administration, six have been completed and are fully operational including the Amuwo-Odofin MCC which recently became operational. Others are located in Ajegunle, Gbaja in Surulere, Ifako-Ijaiye, Isolo and Ikorodu. In agriculture, the state has multiplied increments in agricultural outputs in the area of poultry, vegetable, and agro-processing such as rice and cassava milling, transportation.

It is instructive to state that a large proportion of the state’s infrastructural renewal drive is being financed from Internally Generated Revenue, IGR. It is common knowledge that, for various reasons, the statutory allocations to states from the federal purse are now dwindling. It is, however, remarkable that the state government has continued to perform its statutory obligations on all fronts, irrespective of declining federal allocations. It is to the state’s credit that the idea and the compelling benefits of paying tax have become a way of life for the people of the state. Through the Lagos experience, it has been proven that, by developing a tax based economy; it is possible for a state to be self-reliant.

It is in this regards that Lagos is moving along the path of many countries of the world that had recognized that the payment of taxes was the first step to prosperity. It is important to stress that Lagosians are willingly complying with the payment of taxes because government has been able to win their hearts by providing quality public services and spending tax revenues justifiably. This is the best way to build the social contract between citizens and the government. It is, however, important to urge a significant minority of Lagosians in the formal sector who are yet to be persuaded to pay their taxes to come into the tax fold in order to sustain the rising profile of the state, as embedded in the Fitch ratings.
- Ogunbiyi is of the Features Unit, Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.
November 4, 2014
An enforcer on rampage?

It was expected that the purveyors of the morality of the specious kind would seek to muddle the issues involved in the defection of House of Representatives Speaker, the Rt. Hon Aminu Tambuwal in their bid to exact brutal assault of the constitution of the republic. From the look of things, the bizarre act, by the acting Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba, of stripping the Speaker of his security details merely presents a foretaste of more brazen acts of impunity by an increasingly out-of-control administration.

Let me at once state that of all the arguments that have been made on the defection of the Number 4 citizen, the most seductive one has been the one which goes that the Speaker ought to have vacated his seat the very moment he announced his defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) that Tuesday October 28 – on moral grounds!

Morality? Who is talking morality? The matadors of power for whom everything is game?

I digress.

The issue here is the status Rt. Hon Tambuwal. To be clear, the argument of the partisans, including our hordes of netizens that the Speaker ought to have done the ‘needful’ the very moment he opted to part ways with the party that sponsored him into parliament is neither here nor there. To the extent that he has done nothing of their expected “needful” – on moral or immoral grounds – he remains Speaker of the House of Representatives!

I have heard, and I find it ingenious as well as amusing, the argument that section 68 (1) (g) is self-actuating! That the provision deems the Speaker to have vacated his seat as a member of the House and by extension his position as speaker the very moment he defected from his former party! I daresay that the position is a new one –an unfathomable constitutional absurdity as we shall see presently.

Now, let’s proceed from the known. We start with Section 68(1) (g). It says: “A member of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall vacate his seat in the House of which he is a member if;

(g) being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by a political party, he becomes a member of another political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected; Provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or of a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was previously sponsored”.

So what to do in the case of a breach of that provision? Here is what the constitution says in Section 68(2): “The President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives, as the case may be, shall give effect to the provisions of subsection (1) of this section, so however that the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives or a member shall first present evidence satisfactory to the House concerned that any of the provisions of that subsection has become applicable in respect of that member”.

Not being a lawyer, my understanding of the foregoing is that the constitution leaves no room for the rule of arbitrariness under which an extraneous party would hide to foist the rule of mischief. Not only is the section clear about the authority to declare any seat vacant, it establishes the rule of the process to be followed. That process obviously begins and terminates in the House while disputes and controversies arising there from are expected to be settled at the courts!

Which is what makes the directive of Jonathan’s enforcer, Suleiman Abba, inexplicable. My humble view is that Nigerians should do a textual analysis of the IG’s statement. For the records, here is what it text said: “In view of the recent defection by the Right Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC)” and, “Having regard to the clear provision of section 68(1) (g) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) has redeployed its personnel attached to his office”.

Whose office? The office of Tambuwal or the Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives? This is where I detect a plot more sinister than what most people presently understand it to be. For if it seems barely understandable that Tambuwal would be summarily tried, convicted and sentenced in the court of IG Abba to please his PDP taskmasters, that the entire institution of the House that would be put in abeyance under the authority of the IG would pass for less than tolerable!

Now, we know what the law says. For emphasis, the process of declaring a seat vacant begins with a member first presenting evidence that is satisfactory to the House. The same rule presumes that members would deliberate on the evidence after which it would then pronounce a verdict. That is the law. As for the position of the Speaker, the rule of the House is no less clear: the members require two-third majority to remove the Speaker. And if I may add, the business of removing Tambuwal or declaring his seat vacant lies between the House and the courts! The fact that neither Abba nor his PDP sponsors belong to either makes their desperation despicable. Worse is that an officer sworn to uphold the law has shown such a degree of bias that borders on impunity.

If you ask me, I will urge that the Senate make the IGP’s cup to pass over Suleiman Abba. He seems better cut out for Wadata Plaza – the abode of intrigues, headquarters and home of Impunity Incorporated. To confirm him as chief of police at these difficult times is to grant an open licence to impunity! Nigeria deserves a better top cop.

November 4, 2014
Tambuwal and the integrity question

Ripples’ candid view: Aminu Tambuwal, Speaker of the House of Representatives, should have resigned his speakership.

From the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) camp, now busy shopping for sympathy, and howling “betrayal”, that view would be “balanced and objective”; or even “patriotic”.

From the All Progressives Congress (APC), celebrating a big political catch, Ripples would be guilty of “empty idealism” and perhaps culpable ignorance of the realpolitik.

But both views would amount to cant. Principles are constant. But cant is the chameleon that changes with the season, even if it has to risk high unreason, bordering on patent absurdity.

By convention, the party with the majority provides the Speaker — democracy is, after all, majority rule. So, Alhaji Tambuwal ought to have stepped down because it is decent, because it is honourable, because it is fair.

But which of the opposing sides plays by decency, plays by honour, plays by fairness? And if overwhelming bad faith is the grundnorm, why would a partisan play by good faith — to commit partisan suicide?

To the emotive and non-introspective, therefore, the Tambuwal affair is a PDP vs. APC tango. In a way, it is — to the extent that the one got a net-loss and the other, a net-gain. But dig deeper, and what you see is the unconscionable face of Nigerian politics, and its rotten, smelly core! That ought to impress the perceptive, much more than partisan gains or losses.

Take the PDP that now screams blue murder. What moral right has it to do so: because it boasts better morality when similar situations are to its own rogue advantage?

Mulikat Adeolu-Akande, the House Leader, was quoted as saying that the with Ondo Governor, Olusegun Mimiko’s defection to PDP, all eight Labour Party (LP) members of the House of Representatives “automatically” (and Ripples adds, seamlessly) become PDP members — just like that? And there was even no split in LP!

Now, if the House Leader is so sloppy in her sense of proprietary, why should others be more scrupulous — because the majority is now the victim? Or because PDP can ripple its majority muscles to threaten others, or corral illicit orders from the Police high command to impose its will?

That, of course, brings the debate to the purported withdrawal of security from the office of Speaker — not because he has been deposed as Speaker, but because he has defected from the majority party.

To start with, there is an eerie similarity between Sulaiman Abba, acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and his commander-in-chief, President Goodluck Jonathan, in the so-called withdrawal of the Speaker’s security details.

The one wants to be confirmed IGP at all cost; the other wants to win in 2015 at all cost. So, it is meet that the subversive order — subversive of the law — emanated from the Concert of the Desperate, into which the duo fits pat! Whenever desperation is sighted, bad judgement is never far away.

Besides, it is tribute to Jonathan’s presidential focus that even as Boko Haram swooped over Mubi in Adamawa, the commander-in-chief was swooping over a presidential nomination form for a job he has clearly proved his inability; and was also gracelessly settling partisan scores with the Speaker.

On what basis was the IGP giving that illegal order? That Alhaji Tambuwal is no longer Speaker? That definitely is not true, for no parliamentary session has deposed him. And if he is still Speaker, does the IGP, even if the president gives him an illegal order, have the right to summarily strip the No. 4 citizen of his security, his right by law?

If that were so, then it would be dangerous indeed: for maybe some day, someone, somewhere could “order” the IGP to summarily withdraw the president’s security details too! And by pure logic, why not? If a mere policeman can deny the No. 4 citizen his legally guaranteed security, on some phantom law he lacks the capacity to correctly interpret, he could also as well deny the No. 1, citizen, the president, of his too!

Outrageous? That is the risk you take when, by reflex but unreflective actions, you try to undermine the institutions of state.

But back to the basic argument: ought Speaker Tambuwal have remained Speaker, after defecting from his majority party? On moral grounds, Ripples thinks not. But the legality or otherwise of it is much more complex, all the more complicated by the mala fide all round.

To start with, by Section 50(1)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, the Speaker is the exclusive business of the House. So, is the IGP (or even the president) a member of the House? So, how come both have convinced (more of colluded with) themselves the Speaker has been removed, and so should forfeit his right to official security by law, if both don’t suffer from grand executive delusion?

Then even the law the IGP glibly quoted: Section 68(1)(g), which says a House member loses his seat if he left his party for another, provided there was no division in the party or merger with another party.

Now, where was our IGP when Labour Party MPs defected to PDP, even with no division in their party? The same law he brandished with a flourish at the Speaker died then, just because the president was pleased with the defection to his own party? So, it is some Animal Farm, where some animals are more equal than others?

Of course, partisan opinion is divided on whether a division exists in the PDP. The ruling party hierarchs love to flaunt a court verdict that there was nothing like “New PDP”. They follow that up to kid themselves there was no division in the party. But if there was no division, how come five governors (Sokoto, Rivers, Kano, Kwara and Adamawa — now reclaimed by gunboat impeachment) left the party for APC?

The opposition APC has even upped the ante, pushing forth two Federal High Court judgments: Justice Faji, in Ilorin, that held there were indeed factions in the PDP; and Justice Aikawa, in Sokoto, which not only affirmed that there was a division but also held that the resulting faction merged with APC.

So, if these judgments are real, where stands the PDP position that factions never existed simply because of the legal sophistry that no “New PDP existed”? And where stands the IGP precipitate order to strip the Speaker of his security, simply because Mr. President is boiling?

Let President Jonathan and fellow PDP hierarchs boil all they want. They are only a victim of their own impunity. The rich also cry!

But let them be wary of, as Jonathan always does when he appears trapped, rushing to wield power, without recourse to the law that created that power. That would reinforce the ultimate futility of impunity and doom them to crises like the Tambuwal affair, if not the eventual collapse of the democratic project.

As for APC, let them too be wary of playing the politics of cant, and play more of the politics of principle. It is such penchant to play in the PDP sewers that fuels the rising opinion that APC differs from PDP as six differs from half-a-dozen.

APC, if it really wants to deliver change, cannot afford such conceptual putdown.

November 4, 2014
Tambuwal and the integrity question

Ripples‘ candid view: Aminu Tambuwal, Speaker of the House of Representatives, should have resigned his speakership.

From the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) camp, now busy shopping for sympathy, and howling “betrayal”, that view would be “balanced and objective”; or even “patriotic”.

From the All Progressives Congress (APC), celebrating a big political catch, Ripples would be guilty of “empty idealism” and perhaps culpable ignorance of the realpolitik.

But both views would amount to cant. Principles are constant. But cant is the chameleon that changes with the season, even if it has to risk high unreason, bordering on patent absurdity.

By convention, the party with the majority provides the Speaker — democracy is, after all, majority rule. So, Alhaji Tambuwal ought to have stepped down because it is decent, because it is honourable, because it is fair.

But which of the opposing sides plays by decency, plays by honour, plays by fairness? And if overwhelming bad faith is the grundnorm, why would a partisan play by good faith — to commit partisan suicide?

To the emotive and non-introspective, therefore, the Tambuwal affair is a PDP vs. APC tango. In a way, it is — to the extent that the one got a net-loss and the other, a net-gain. But dig deeper, and what you see is the unconscionable face of Nigerian politics, and its rotten, smelly core! That ought to impress the perceptive, much more than partisan gains or losses.

Take the PDP that now screams blue murder. What moral right has it to do so: because it boasts better morality when similar situations are to its own rogue advantage?

Mulikat Adeolu-Akande, the House Leader, was quoted as saying that the with Ondo Governor, Olusegun Mimiko’s defection to PDP, all eight Labour Party (LP) members of the House of Representatives “automatically” (and Ripples adds, seamlessly) become PDP members — just like that? And there was even no split in LP!

Now, if the House Leader is so sloppy in her sense of proprietary, why should others be more scrupulous — because the majority is now the victim? Or because PDP can ripple its majority muscles to threaten others, or corral illicit orders from the Police high command to impose its will?

That, of course, brings the debate to the purported withdrawal of security from the office of Speaker — not because he has been deposed as Speaker, but because he has defected from the majority party.

To start with, there is an eerie similarity between Sulaiman Abba, acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and his commander-in-chief, President Goodluck Jonathan, in the so-called withdrawal of the Speaker’s security details.

The one wants to be confirmed IGP at all cost; the other wants to win in 2015 at all cost. So, it is meet that the subversive order — subversive of the law — emanated from the Concert of the Desperate, into which the duo fits pat! Whenever desperation is sighted, bad judgement is never far away.

Besides, it is tribute to Jonathan’s presidential focus that even as Boko Haram swooped over Mubi in Adamawa, the commander-in-chief was swooping over a presidential nomination form for a job he has clearly proved his inability; and was also gracelessly settling partisan scores with the Speaker.

On what basis was the IGP giving that illegal order? That Alhaji Tambuwal is no longer Speaker? That definitely is not true, for no parliamentary session has deposed him. And if he is still Speaker, does the IGP, even if the president gives him an illegal order, have the right to summarily strip the No. 4 citizen of his security, his right by law?

If that were so, then it would be dangerous indeed: for maybe some day, someone, somewhere could “order” the IGP to summarily withdraw the president’s security details too! And by pure logic, why not? If a mere policeman can deny the No. 4 citizen his legally guaranteed security, on some phantom law he lacks the capacity to correctly interpret, he could also as well deny the No. 1, citizen, the president, of his too!

Outrageous? That is the risk you take when, by reflex but unreflective actions, you try to undermine the institutions of state.

But back to the basic argument: ought Speaker Tambuwal have remained Speaker, after defecting from his majority party? On moral grounds, Ripples thinks not. But the legality or otherwise of it is much more complex, all the more complicated by the mala fide all round.

To start with, by Section 50(1)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, the Speaker is the exclusive business of the House. So, is the IGP (or even the president) a member of the House? So, how come both have convinced (more of colluded with) themselves the Speaker has been removed, and so should forfeit his right to official security by law, if both don’t suffer from grand executive delusion?

Then even the law the IGP glibly quoted: Section 68(1)(g), which says a House member loses his seat if he left his party for another, provided there was no division in the party or merger with another party.

Now, where was our IGP when Labour Party MPs defected to PDP, even with no division in their party? The same law he brandished with a flourish at the Speaker died then, just because the president was pleased with the defection to his own party? So, it is some Animal Farm, where some animals are more equal than others?

Of course, partisan opinion is divided on whether a division exists in the PDP. The ruling party hierarchs love to flaunt a court verdict that there was nothing like “New PDP”. They follow that up to kid themselves there was no division in the party. But if there was no division, how come five governors (Sokoto, Rivers, Kano, Kwara and Adamawa — now reclaimed by gunboat impeachment) left the party for APC?

The opposition APC has even upped the ante, pushing forth two Federal High Court judgments: Justice Faji, in Ilorin, that held there were indeed factions in the PDP; and Justice Aikawa, in Sokoto, which not only affirmed that there was a division but also held that the resulting faction merged with APC.

So, if these judgments are real, where stands the PDP position that factions never existed simply because of the legal sophistry that no “New PDP existed”? And where stands the IGP precipitate order to strip the Speaker of his security, simply because Mr. President is boiling?

Let President Jonathan and fellow PDP hierarchs boil all they want. They are only a victim of their own impunity. The rich also cry!

But let them be wary of, as Jonathan always does when he appears trapped, rushing to wield power, without recourse to the law that created that power. That would reinforce the ultimate futility of impunity and doom them to crises like the Tambuwal affair, if not the eventual collapse of the democratic project.

As for APC, let them too be wary of playing the politics of cant, and play more of the politics of principle. It is such penchant to play in the PDP sewers that fuels the rising opinion that APC differs from PDP as six differs from half-a-dozen.

APC, if it really wants to deliver change, cannot afford such conceptual putdown.

Quote: “Let President Jonathan and fellow PDP hierarchs boil all they want. They are only a victim of their own impunity.”

November 4, 2014