The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi (1929-2014)

    Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi (1929-2014)

    Professor Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi, dean of Nigerian historians and a scholar of global stature died last week, some three months after his family, friends and associates staged two days of events in Ibadan to mark his 85thbirthday and celebrate his monumental accomplishments.

    I count it one of the greatest honours I have ever received to have been asked to deliver the Birthday Lecture on the second day of the festivities, May 26, which was Ade Ajayi’s birthday.  As it turned out, that was his last public outing.

    This is like a death in the family, and I thank all those who have sent me messages of condolence on the passing of the great man.

    Many have also asked me about his condition on that day.  He was frail, as was to be expected of any person well into the eighth decade of life.  But he was for the most part alert, animated even.  When he seemed disengaged, it was hard to tell whether it was because he was bored or simply bemused, this man of few words, and withal not given to ceremony.

    His autograph on my copy of the book presented on the occasion, “J.F. Ade Ajayi:  His Life and Career,” edited by Professor Michael Omolewa and our own Professor Akinjide Osuntokun, and with a Foreword by General Yakubu Gowon, reveals a man in full command of his mental and physical faculties.

    Rendered in his crisp handwriting, with all letters well formed and no tell-tale signs of a quaking hand, it is something I will treasure to the end of my days.

    It reads: “To Prof Olatunji Dare, with thanks for a well-delivered and thought-provoking lecture at the presentation of this book.”

    Today, I have chosen to pivot on a piece I wrote back when he delivered a Valedictory Address to mark his retirement from the University of Ibadan to pay my tribute to his memory. It was titled “A scholar at work” (The Guardian, December 12, 1989).

     

    *****

    Jacob Festus Ade Ajayi’s Valedictory Lecture at the University of Ibadan is sure to go down as one of the high points of Nigeria’s intellectual history.  It was a fitting climax to 31 years of teaching and research at his alma mater, 26 of them as a professor of History. The wide sweep of his scholarship was manifest in every paragraph; so was the depth, the profundity of his insights.

    No less evident were his intellectual humility, his modesty of exposition, his generosity of mind toward colleagues, students and even those who had sought to humiliate him, his concern for the nation and for the system he was leaving, as well as his devotion to his family.

    The preface to this remarkable lecture was itself another classic:  A perceptive essay on the man and his works by Obaro Ikime, one of six students to have earned national and international reputations of their own as professors out of the 24 Ade Ajayi taught in his first year at Ibadan. Few teachers could have asked for more. Something tells me that he will treasure this tribute almost as much he cherishes the National Merit Award.

    Ade Ajayi, like Kenneth Dike before him, gave legitimacy and direction to African historiography.  European scholars like Hegel, Arnold Toynbee and Hugh Trevor-Roper held that Africa had no history whatever.  Trevor-Roper for one insisted that history was about light and that since Africa was all darkness, it could not possibly have a history.

    Lost on him and his fellow intellectual chauvinists was the fact that a certain age of European existence characterised as the Dark Ages was nevertheless considered worthy of scholarly study.

    Ajayi is a leading light among those distinguished Nigerians, African and other Third World scholars  and some progressive Europeans (Basil Davison and Michael Crowder are worthy of special mention) who, through diligent research and scholarship, changed all that.  His scholarly output of more than 60 publications, with at least 11 more in the works on the eve of his retirement, is formidable by any standard; in a country where a scholar has to contend with bureaucratic distractions and material deprivations, it is truly awesome.

    And he is not even through yet.  For as Ikime made clear, Ajayi may retire from teaching but he cannot retire from History.

    In the tradition of Jakob Buckhardt, Ade Ajayi’s point of departure would seem to be that history is not just a narrow specialisation to be studied and written for its own sake.  It is not even merely a search for truth. The truths history reveals must be spoken to power, not in the spirit of confrontation, not to make the writer clever for a moment, but to make society wiser.

    It is in this spirit that Ade Ajayi has turned his prodigious scholarship on the processes and problems of national integration, education, public policy and administration, analysing, clarifying and illuminating issues and pointing the way forward

    But he is not like the direction post that is always pointing out the way but never going there.   The bureaucratic stability that the University of Lagos enjoys today is in large measure his handiwork. When he arrived on the scene in 1972, he found that the place had been carved up           into fiefdoms, to satisfy all kinds of interest.

    To cite just one example, there was an Institute of Computer Science which had no regular students but ran service courses from time to time. But it was a full-fledged faculty with a teaching staff of two, of whom one was the dean. The traditional Faculty of Science was split into a School of Biological Sciences and a School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, each with its own dean.

    In his first year, Ade Ajayi rationalised this profusion of faculties and deanships and created a leaner, more responsive, administrative structure.

    He also embarked on a vigorous staff development programme, under which graduates of the university were sent abroad to acquire advanced degrees and return to take up teaching positions.  Before Ade Ajayi, the university undertook to pay only one-half of the salary of members of staff training abroad, plus passage and tuition. Most of those who trained under that scheme did not return, and the programme was more or less a disinvestment.

    Ade Ajayi moved quickly to correct this half-hearted attempt at staff development. Under the new programme, staff members going on study leave abroad would receive their full salary, half of it in foreign exchange. The university would pay the full tuition as well as maintenance allowance for their families. And all this was without prejudice to any other financial support the staff member may get elsewhere.

    Virtually every beneficiary of the scheme returned.  Without it, the faculty strength of the University of Lagos would not have been what it was before SAP and other forms of attrition         led to a steady movement away from the system.

    Although Ade Ajayi’s second term as vice chancellor was brusquely and unfairly terminated, he did not touch on it his valedictory.  Instead he called attention to the humiliation of Professor Orishejolomi Thomas, former vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan.

    Thomas, distinguished surgeon, one of the first group of Africans to become Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, founding provost of the University of Lagos College of Medicine, had just finished presiding over the Convocation of the University of Ibadan when he learned on the evening news that he had been retired with immediate effect.

    Speculations were rife that his dismissal might have arisen from a court ruling in which he was purportedly rebuked for improper administration of an estate of which he was an executor. Those who knew him said such conduct would be totally out of character (Interpolation: Years later, he was vindicated on appeal).

    Shattered, Thomas retreated to his prosperous rubber estate in Warri. Years later, he took ill.  His family planned to fly him abroad for treatment.  He would hear none of it.  He said he should be taken to the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital that he had founded back in 1962.  If he could not be healed there, he would like to die there. And it was there he died. Such was his faith in that institution, in his colleagues, and in his country.

    It was ennobling in Ade Ajayi to do justice to the memory of this great Nigerian patriot.

    In today’s world so dependent on new ideas and creative thinking and on changing technology as a means of mastering nature, Ade Ajayi deposed in his valedictory, no society can continue to alienate, vilify and marginalise its intellectual community and hope to develop.

    This is the warning of a wise man, a distillation of the lessons of history.

    But were they listening?

     

    *****

    It remains to ask, today, 35 years later: Are they listening?

     

  • New varsity ranking: What makes Unilorin tick

    New varsity ranking: What makes Unilorin tick

    The University of Ilorin recorded another feat recently with its ranking as the best University in Nigeria by world universities’ ranking agency, the 4 International Colleges and Universities (4ICU). The international higher education search engine, which constantly reviews the performance of accredited universities across the world, also adjudged Unilorin as the 20th best university in Africa and 1842nd in the world! For the exercise, 4ICU ranked about 11, 307 colleges and universities by web popularity in over 200 countries.

    Indeed, the new ranking is a veritable testament to University of Ilorin’s unrelenting drive for excellence, due recognition of university’s commitment to uplifting the nation’s sliding academic standard with its stable academic calendar that has never been interrupted by any form of frivolous workers’ strike for the past 12 years.

    In the 2014 University Web Ranking, the University of Lagos placed second in Nigeria and 21st in Africa while the third position went to Obafemi Awolowo University, which also came 26th in Africa.

    This latest ranking is not fortuitous and it is not Unilorin’s first outing on the recognition dais. Over the years, the university has proved to be a centre of academic excellence. For three consecutive years, another international university ranking agency, the Web of World Universities (Webometric) had ranked the University the best in Nigeria in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

    To keen watchers of the University of Ilorin, who have consistently followed the single-minded commitment of our management, staff and students to excellence, the new ranking is not entirely a surprise. Indeed, many people, from national policy makers to high net-worth public commentators and independent observers, parents and admission seekers are unanimous in their assessment of Unilorin as the veritable “best of the rest” citadel of learning in Nigeria.

    To be sure, the new ranking is consistent with the rising profile of the university in the past few years. Since 2011, she has maintained a steady presence among most preferred education institutions by prospective students. According to statistics obtained from the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB), Unilorin was the eighth most preferred university by admission seekers in 2011; fifth in 2012; second in 2013 and first this year. After the last Unified Tertiary Institutions Matriculations Examination (UTME), JAMB/NUC statistics showed that the University of Ilorin was the most subscribed university in the country with a total of over 105,000 candidates seeking to enter the university in the 2014/2015 academic session. The University of Benin, Benin City came a distant second in this respect with about 76,000 admission seekers.

    The new ranking has also confirmed so many superlative assessments of the University in recent times by personalities like President Goodluck Jonathan, members of the National Assembly, the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; as well as the former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Judge Bola Ajibola.

    During the 29th Convocation ceremonies of the University last October, President Jonathan, obviously impressed by the university’s “stable and uninterrupted academic calendar for several years now”, attested to the fact that “this positive step, which has been the hallmark of this institution, has brought notable achievements to the university in all spheres of its endeavour.”

    Before then, in June last year, members of the Senate and House of Representatives’ Committees on Education, during their separate oversight visits to the university, spoke glowingly of the university’s giant strides, describing the institution’s stable academic calendar as “a great feat that should be emulated by all universities in Nigeria.”

    And in mid-May this year, during the flag-off of the university’s oil palm plantation and distribution of PC tablets to students, Dr Okonjo-Iweala extolled the ingenuity of the University of Ilorin, saying the institution is “100 paces” ahead of other universities in the country.

    Also, in April this year during a visit to the university, a former judge at the International Court of Justice, The Hague, Prince Bola Ajibola, described the university as “the first on the list in Nigeria in terms of everything”, adding that the nation is always looking forward to the university’s performance. “You are the pride of Nigeria”, Prince Ajibola added.

    It could also be recalled that for two concurrent editions of the NUDTAS Awards, the University of Ilorin showed unprecedented class by winning three of the 17 available awards in 2008/2009 and 2010/2011 respectively, leaving the remaining 14 for the more than 120 other public universities in the country to scramble for.

    But all these achievements did not just come from the blues.  They are well-deserved recognition of consistent drive for excellence by the university under the leadership of Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali, who has, since assumption of duties about two years ago, left no one in doubt as to his messianic mission. Since he took over the mantle of leadership at the University of Ilorin on October 16, 2012, the renowned Professor of Veterinary Medicine, has not only tried to sustain the legacy of excellence bequeathed to him by his predecessors, he has also greatly improved on it, bringing on new innovations that have invariably ingrained the university’s name in the minds of many Nigerians and indeed foreigners who desire quality and uninterrupted education.

    The university has recorded many achievements in all spheres of its main mandate: teaching, research and community service. For instance, the welfare of staff and students are top priorities; excellence in teaching and research is uncompromisable; infrastructural development is receiving the necessary attention; excellent town and gown relationship is being promoted; internally generated revenue is being enhanced; fiscal discipline, transparency and accountability are getting the necessary fillip; and the university is already making a determined move, through its recently launched oil palm plantation initiative, to contribute to the nation’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP).

    One of the secrets of its enduring peace, stability and progress is its uncommon blessing with a succession of purposeful leadership and a consistently committed workforce, joined, like Siamese twins, in a single-minded strive for excellence. This unity of purpose, more than anything else, has been the cutting edge of the University of Ilorin since over a decade ago.

    This culture of conscientious leadership and supportive followership is so contagious at the University of Ilorin that sundry staff unions have invariably become partners in progress with the management as against the cat-and-mouse syndrome that often characterises the relationship between workers and managements in many universities in the country.

    Only recently, the university’s chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) pulled through what could rightly be described as a feat that is unprecedented in the annals of university education in the country with the commissioning of a N7.3 million hostel project that was wholly internally-financed by ASUU. And on the following day, Thursday, January 30, the same union held a hitch-free congress that threw up a new set of leaders in a classically seamless transition of power.

    The hostel project, which foundation was laid on Monday, August 5, 2013, by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali, was completed in a record time of five months. It is ASUU’s way of contributing to the reduction of hostel accommodation problems facing students of the university.

    Indeed, as the Vice-Chancellor said during its commissioning, the hostel project, the first of its kind by any union in any university in Nigeria, has shown Unilorin ASUU as an epitome of exemplary leadership and purposeful unionism.

    Herein lies the secret of Unilorin’s greatness.

    • Akogun wrote from Ilorin.

     

  • Osun: The morning after

    Osun: The morning after

    All is quiet now in the aftermath of the governorship election in Osun State, bar the exuberant rejoicing in re-elected Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s circle, which stretches all the way from Osogbo to Bourdillon Road in Ikoyi, Lagos, the grieving in Aso Rock and in Wadata Plaza and the gnashing of teeth in the palaces of some wayward monarchs.

    Make no mistake about it:  The election was a contest between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Ogbeni Aregbesola, on the one hand, and President Goodluck Jonathan, and the entire apparatus of the Federal Government on the other, with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Iyiola Omisore, playing along as bit actors.

    With the Federal Juggernaut behind you – slush money, logistics, the police, the army, the secret service, clandestine armed services of no known provenance, and the desperate craving to “capture” more opposition territory – with these and much more behind you, who can stand in your way?

    Besides, the governorship election in Ekiti two months earlier had not only pointed up a winning formula that accorded sophomoric stunts a greater salience than solid achievement, it had also shown that the entire Southwest was politically ripe for the picking.

    But something went horribly wrong on the way to the orchard.

    The would-be harvesters suffered a comprehensive sandbagging.

    All the intimidating display of force and might, the warrantless arrest of officials and operatives of the governing party in the state, the bullying, the stoking of religious differences, the claim to possession of private facts that showed Omisore not only leading but coasting to victory —everything ended in a puff, “just like that,” to borrow a phasing from Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the Afro-beat king.

    Such was the compass of the intimidation that Chief Isiaka “Serubawon” Adeleke, who once governed the state on the Caligula Principle —”You can hate us, so long as you fear us” — was driven by fear to flee his home in Ede and go into hiding as the Federal Juggernaut widened the reach of its ravenous dragnet.

    At Aso Rock and in the palaces of the wayward monarchs and in Wadata Plaza and in the ranks of Dr Jonathan’s private army of ghost “public affairs analysts” and “public affairs commentators”, who invariably live in Abuja, they must be wondering how what was supposed to be an easy take-over turned into a comprehensive rout of the would-be receivers.

    They conveniently forgot that Osun is not Ekiti.  Believing that the dividends of democracy begin and end in the stomach, they could not see beyond the stomachs of the electorate. Accordingly, they tailored their messages to appeal to that organ and its immediate satiation. They mis- apprehended an outlier, an aberration, for a trend.  They willfully set aside the public record and stuck with their private facts.

    And so, what was supposed to serve as a bridgehead for the capture of the Southwest in Dr Jonathan’s all-but-certain presidential run in 2015 ended up as the graveyard of that strategy. They will now have to go back to the drawing board on that one.  And, despite the gain in Ekiti, his faction of the National Governors Forum remains a minority; the most it can hope for is parity in membership with the group from which it was suborned to defect.

    The Osun verdict is on one level a personal triumph for the austere and driven Rauf Aregbesola.  Unlike some who stumbled into office in a fit of absent-mindedness or were dragooned into it, he entered office fully prepared, a man with a mission, armed with blueprints for transforming the      State of Osun.  From his first day in office, he has pursued his progressive agenda with a singularity of purpose that has alienated some around him who regard political office not as a summons to service but an invitation to eat, drink and be merry.

    The election outcome is also a victory for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the National Leader of the victorious APC.  Following the party’s freak defeat in the Ekiti governorship race, some commentators had begun to script his political obituary.  They said he was waning as a political force in his Southwest redoubt, and was headed for the abyss.

    It is not the first or the second time such things are being said of him, and it won’t be the last. Those counting him must be prepared for a long wait. The man’s capacity for resurgence is simply astonishing.

    The election was in a way a proving ground for the Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, whom I got to know quite well when he served as a consultant to the Editorial Board of The Guardian, where I was chair of the board and editorial page editor.

    He acquitted himself magnificently, displaying the intelligence, the sharp, analytic mind, the capacity for sustained engagement, the eloquence, the resoluteness and the forthrightness that made him one of the youngest, if not the youngest person to be appointed permanent secretary in the Federal Civil Service.

    The decisiveness with which he moved the APC machinery to Osogbo to counter the designs of the Federal Might was vintage Oyegun.  He is not combative by nature, but he is not afraid of a fight. You can count on him to fight a good fight.

    I cannot recall the context now, but in one of the many conversations I had with General Olusegun Obasanjo during visits to his farm in Ota, I mentioned that Oyegun had marked his 55th birthday lately.  Obasanjo, who is as flinty with praise as he is with his money, spoke glowingly of Oyegun who served with him when he was head of state.

    He asked me to convey to Oyegun his desire to host a birthday luncheon for him, his family and friends. The luncheon did take place, several weeks later.

    That is a measure of the esteem in which Oyegun is held.

    The on-again, off-again candidate of the Labour Party, Fatai Akinbade, finished as an also-ran.  But he provided a comic relief that dispelled somewhat the high tension that marked the vote tallying. Losing on every turf and registering for the most part less than token presence, his spokesperson nevertheless called on the candidates of the APC and the PDP to withdraw if they felt threatened by Akinade’s profile.

    At this writing, Omisore has not conceded.  The man, who could win election to the Senate from prison where he was being held as a suspect in the prosecution of the murder of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige, has now twice failed to win election from the outside. He lost his re-election bid to the Senate, and was crushed in his governorship quest.

    His political future is uncertain.  Dr. Jonathan may well compensate him with a ministerial appointment, an ambassadorial post, or some other sinecure.

    In whatever case, you will never see Omisore again riding an okada or devouring a cob of roast corn purchased from a street vendor.

     

     

     

  • This Ebola virus disease

    This Ebola virus disease

    These are not the best of times for roasted bush meat sellers out there whose means of livelihood are being threatened by the Ebola Virus Disease which literally flew into the country on July 20 from Monrovia, Liberia.

    The dreaded disease arrived in Lagos on that day when a Liberian/American, Patrick Sawyer already infected landed at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja and shortly after collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital where he was confirmed to have been infected with the virus. He died a few days. Two of the medical personnel that attended to him later tested positive to the virus, one of them, the nurse later died.

    And since that incident, business has gone down for bush meat sellers as their customers, out of fear of contracting Ebola whose origin has been traced to certain bush meat commonly eaten in West Africa, have been boycotting their delicacies, some opting for fish.

    In these hard times, one can imagine what these sellers are going through now trying to put food on the table for their families against the odds. And with help not likely to come from any source, one can only pray that a solution to Ebola would be found quickly before it becomes an epidemic.

    While our sympathies go to these unfortunate bush meat sellers, our condolence to the family of the late nurse who like other brave medical personnel dared Ebola by attending to Sawyer, even at the risk of their personal health.

    The ease at which Sawyer was able to import the virus into the country without being detected even when he knew he had been infected back home in Liberia raises doubt about the ability of our Port Health authorities to detect and prevent the importation of dangerous/infectious diseases into the country. It also calls into question the kind of cooperation (if any) existing between health authorities across the West African sub region.

    Quite annoying was the revelation that the Liberian authorities knew or suspected that Sawyer was carrying the virus and they could not stop him from flying into Nigeria, even when they knew he was heading to Lagos. And if they couldn’t stop him at home why not alert their Nigerian counterpart that Sawyer was heading to our country and he should immediately be quarantined on arrival. Now the failure or inability of the Liberian government to do what every responsible government should do to safeguard public health has thrown Nigeria into trouble over this Ebola outbreak.

    If there is nothing in the ECOWAS protocol to compel governments in the sub region to prevent exportation of diseases from their country to other member states, then the Authorities of Heads of States and Governments should act fast to review the laws where necessary. The founding fathers of ECOWAS probably did not for see an Ebola outbreak or a trans-West Africa public health crisis when they agreed on the protocol in the 70s. It is about time we took a second look at the relevant provisions of the protocol, including those dealing with cross border crimes like armed robbery and terrorism, and even the 90 days residency without visa/work permit.

    The ECOWAS protocol has encouraged free movement of people and goods across the sub region by citizens of ECOWAS but the downside of this unfettered freedom of movement is the freedom to move about with deadly diseases like Ebola and most tragic of all, the freedom to spread terror like Boko Haram. Something has to be done and urgently too.

    But if Liberia couldn’t do what she supposed to do to prevent exportation of such diseases as Ebola to Nigeria or any other country, did that also excuse the Nigerian government from protecting her citizens from such dangers as Ebola? I mentioned Port Health earlier; in an ideal society this body should be the leading the fight against importation of all forms of diseases into the country. But is this body capable of protecting Nigerians? I have my doubt. And I will tell you why.

    In most parts of the world a yellow card is expected from travelers at the point of entry into their destinations. The card is supposed to confirm your status as regards immunization against some diseases. West Africa is an endemic region for Yellow Fever and other forms of malaria, hence all travelers from Nigeria and other ECOWAS member states are expected to be vaccinated against the disease before they could be allowed to enter another country. But you can get that card in Nigeria from any of our public hospitals, Health Centres, Local Government headquarters and the Port Health without being vaccinated.

    So if we can give a clean bill of health to someone who is probably infected with a dangerous disease without testing his health status, how can we then prevent someone with dangerous disease from entering the country, since we are not averse to exporting such? Until we stop and arrest our crooked ways people like Sawyer will continue to bring diseases like Ebola to us.

    I am sure if the man from Liberia had not collapsed on arrival, he would have entered the country freely and spread the disease to God knows how many Nigerians he would have had contact with before being struck down by the ailment. The fact that a flight was coming from an Ebola infested country should have alerted our health authorities to quarantine all passengers on board that flight for any sign of the disease. How many flights had arrived Lagos from Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and the other countries similarly affected by Ebola before the one that brought Sawyer into our country? Did we bother to check them? It is not unlikely that many people carrying the virus had been flown in from these countries before the July 20 flight that brought Sawyer; where are they now?

    It has often been said that we attach little value to human lives in this country as a few deaths here and there, even in their thousands no longer mean anything to us. A responsible and responsive government would have placed restrictions on all flights coming from these Ebola infested countries the moment the outbreak of the disease was reported there. But here in Nigeria, our government and its agencies had to wait until Ebola was flown into our country before they could act; and by then it was rather late, what a shame. Ebola is here with us now. How do we fight it?

    Even when the affected state called on the Federal Government to close our borders with some of our neighbours, the call was treated as a political talk coming from the opposition and it was dismissed. Now we are somehow in a crisis. May be if we had closed the borders that would have at least sent a message to our neighbours to act fast against the spread of the disease. I haven’t heard Benin Republic say anything yet, but if Ebola gets into that country or is already there and nothing is being done, then Lagos is in trouble. And if the disease becomes an epidemic in Lagos then Nigeria is in trouble. And if anything happens to Nigeria, West Africa is gone. It is as simple as that.

    I agree this is no time to apportion blame as all hands must be on deck to fight the Ebola Virus Disease. Wherever the cure/drug is Nigeria must get it, no matter the cost. We cannot afford an Ebola epidemic. It is too grave to contemplate.

  • A bridge too far

    A bridge too far

    For federal electoral bandits, Osun proved a bridge too far on August 9.

    And in the spirit of routed bandits, a mobile policeman in Ode-Omu, reportedly in the convoy of exiting Jelili Adesiyan, Police Affairs minister, allegedly shot at a crowd celebrating Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s victory, injuring one Idowu Mufutau, according to an August 11 report by The Nation.

    In combat metaphor, Osun must rank as Nigeria’s electoral equivalent of the 18 June 1815 Battle of Waterloo (then in Holland, but now in Belgium).  As the all-conquering Napoleon met his doom in Waterloo, federal election-fixers met decisive defeat in Osun.

    This write-up’s title is straight from World War II lore.  A Bridge Too Far, a 1977 film adapted from a 1974 book of the same title by Cornelius Ryan, captured the epic collapse of the audacious attempt, by the Allies, to halt World War II in 1944.

    That air-borne operation was to capture a couple of bridges, chief among them Arnhem, in German-occupied Holland; and therefore cut off German defences.  But Arnhem proved a bridge too far, leading to horrendous losses in the Allied camp.

    Closer home, it was at the Osogbo battle of 1840 that the Ibadan forces halted the Fulani jihadist push into Yorubaland.

    Some 174 years later, Osogbo was again at the centre of the defeat of another imperialist power push.  Ironically, at the epicentre of the August 9 Osogbo rout was a “Jihadist” — at least from poisoned and bigoted partisan view — who led his people to stand firm against electoral capture, by any means possible, by President Goodluck Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).  It is a classic example of glorious history repeating itself — but this time, not as farce!

    It is tribute to the in-your-face dissembling of the Jonathan Presidency that the president’s congratulatory message to Governor Aregbesola tried to put a spin to electoral robbery gone awry.

    After bland congratulations, came the real message: “The outcome of the election has also given a lie to the false, unfair and uncharitable allegations that measures put in place by the federal government for the Ekiti and Osun State elections were partisan and designed to achieve a favourable outcome for his party”.  Really?

     

    When Iyiola Omisore, the PDP candidate, walked his talk that hooded security operatives would be unleashed on his opponents, mum was it from Jonathan.  When a hooded soldier (captured on the front page in the August 7 issue of The Nation) helped to thwart organised Labour’s last endorsement rally for the governor, mum was it from Jonathan.

    When PDP partisan and Defence minister of state, Musiliu Obanikoro, invaded with his soldiers, with the body language of Mission-Crush-the-Opposition, mum was it from Jonathan.  That some of the soldiers still acted professionally made the point that the problem was not soldiers per se,but unscrupulous political masters, prompting them to muscle the vote.  At any rate, involving soldiers in elections is proven democratic suicide.

    When Jelili Adesiyan, Police Affairs minister, Obankoro’s tag-team partner and Omisore’s close ally put on his own show — hooded DSS men, pre-election shooting into the air to create panic, and even the election eve glorious capture of Lai Mohammed, APC spokesman and Sunday Dare,Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s spokesman, mum was it from Jonathan!

    Nor did the president find his voice after the hooded security operatives’ attack on former Governor Isiaka Adeleke, and wide-spread attacks to cripple other opposition leaders.  Yet, the president deceives himself he guaranteed a free, fair and credible vote!  He can tell that to the marines!

    Truth be told: Governor Aregbesola triumphed despite clear federal booby traps; and the not-so-veiled mandate for men in uniform, genuine or fake, to commit electoral crimes, and steal the Osun governorship.

    Besides, when will someone tell Nigerians hoods are now part of the Nigeria military’s accoutrement?  That is the abominable nadir Dr. Jonathan has sunk the presidency in his temporary care!

    Prof. Attahiru Jega’s INEC tried its best on election day.  Voting qua voting, it organised a decent poll.  But it must stop playing dumb to rigged pre-election processes.  As Ripples insisted after Ekiti, you can’t have a free election when a party to the process is unfairly harassed and detained.  As it was in Ekiti, so was it in Osun.

    The PDP desperation for power is well known — though that is no exclusive vice of the federal ruling party.  Neither hidden is President Jonathan’s almost unconscionable longing for 2015, despite demonstrable suspect competence.  But the real danger, for the country’s goodwill, is the mass falsehood, bigotry, hate and spite sown all round.

    Many Nigerians, particularly a South-South/South East column, rabidly cheer on Jonathan, even as he embarks on hideous constitutional abominations.  This is ominous.  Since independence, such uncritical babble often precedes Nigeria’s descent into the abyss.  Everyone must rise to save this president from himself.

    A normally reasoned reader, responding to “For Osun, for Democracy, for Nigeria” (last week on this page), declared himself convinced the Osun people were eager and ready to trade Governor Aregbesola for Mr. Omisore.  Ripples just responded: “Okay o, we shall see”.

    But how could rational humans trade solid emerald for broken Sprite bottles?  And any normal Yoruba person choose Omisore over Aregbesola — Omisore, with his terribly flawed persona?

    Another elderly citizen declared himself custodian of God’s judgement about to descend andwipe out the extant political order in the South West, starting with Ekiti; and ordained to continue in Osun.  That partisan wish is hardly a crime.  It is a democracy after all!

    Still, the old man is always driven by spite, bigotry and deep hatred for particular personalities that Ripples did not bother with a response.  But Ripples thought: God is no spiteful tin god, of the old man’s dream, that rewards beneficence with ingratitude.  That played out perfectly in Osun, negating all efforts to steal the vote.

    PDP’s Omisore ran an ultra-negative campaign: blackmail, threat, spite, dissembling and ill grace; not telling anyone what he would do, but swearing how much of the present benefits he would destroy.

    Governor Aregbesola, on the other hand, even while mobilising to face head on the federal vote-stealing Leviathan, pointed to what he had done and what he would do, if re-elected.  Incidentally, two programmes: free train rides to Osun during festivities and Walk for Life just dovetailed into the electioneering period.

    Alas!  No one could accuse the governor of electioneering stunts, since the two programmes had started from the inception of his government.  That was salute to belief and consistency.

    Still, with his renewed mandate, the Ogbeni must learn to eschew needless controversies that hand his enemies the ammo to demonise his person, his programmes and his government.  A renewed mandate is a call for more hard work.

     

     

  • Osun: The morning after

    Osun: The morning after

    In the sweetness of the resounding victory handed to their visionary, hardworking governor, Rauf Aregbesola last Saturday, it is so easy to forget that the victory did not come at a bargain price. To be sure, nothing in the outcome deviated from expectation. To anyone familiar with the real-politik in the state as against the hype, it would have taken an outright subversion – or if you like, an electoral coup – to achieve a different outcome.

    Guess it seems so easy now to celebrate the process said to have delivered the outcome. The truth however is that the real credit belongs to the iron will and determination of the people. Like the Rock of Gibraltar, they stood together in their defiance of tyranny; theirs was not going to be a conquered territory.

    Now, there will be enough time for the good people of Osun to relive the comic sides of the process: the spectacle of one gubernatorial wannabe on Okada clutching two cobs of corn; the farcical reductionism of the context to one of choice between real development and stomach infrastructure; the desperate but opportunistic play of the religious card by the PDP candidate, Iyiola Omisore.

    Yours truly was certain that these were going to be unlikely deciders of the contest. Is yours truly right? You be the judge!

    Victory at last? That is unmistakeable. The figures, as returned by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), says it all. In 24 out of 30 Local Governments, it was a clear, emphatic show of superiority by the incumbent. The number of votes returned in favour of the victor and their spread comes close to rout – a shellacking!

    The result of the election obviously goes beyond returning a verdict of victory for the incumbent. First, it is a major set-back for the unscrupulous wayfarers pretending to the high pedestal of political leadership in the South-west. Clearly, the people have spoken of the place of reward for honest and well meaning service. They have affirmed their rejection of strange corrosive values of instant gratification which the PDP insists on foisting on them. Theirs was a clear repudiation of PDP’s divisive politics, their cynical play on the sensibilities of the people for megalomaniacal ends. Above all, it was the opportunity for the people to demonstrate that no amount of brute force would suffice to cow them.

    No doubt, there has been a lot of talk about the cost of victory. Those worrying about the humongous cost of electoral management have good reasons to be. Under President Goodluck Jonathan, we have seen every successive cycle of election grow in leaps and bounds. By this, I do not mean mainly of naira and kobo, in men and materiel terms, but in the sheer number of agencies suborned to the process. Once we thought that the cost of the Edo governorship was barely passable; Anambra would turn out to be worse; and then Ekiti and now Osun – each cycle progressively mounting in their costs. But then, the per capita cost comes nowhere the cost of impunity, the abuses of the security agencies, the trampling on individual rights and freedoms. What about the trauma forced on the people only because they have the burden of an election to discharge? Do these matter, and to who?

    Obviously, in President Goodluck Jonathan’s book, neither the economics nor the socio-political factors matter; the end would suffice to justify the means. Has anyone considered the economics of the deployment of 55,000 boots in an election where less than one million voted in a nation with 20,000 men fighting in the increasingly one-sided war in the North-east? Madness or desperation – a sign of insecure presidency?

    Where would they get the numbers in 2015? Recruit more of the hooded enforcers as we saw in Osun? And where would that lead to if not Jonathan’s self-help republic? Isn’t that a curious route to democratic consolidation?

    Now to the good in the madness. Surely, the lesson from Osun must be the fact that no force on earth would suffice to stop the march of a people determined to be free. I honestly shudder to imagine what could have happened had the outcome of the election ran against the grain of the people’s expectation. Osun should be a sobering lesson in the limit of raw power.

    This one for Pa Ashadele

    As a general rule, I try to refrain from joining issues with readers of this column. I understand that the burden of writing a column carries the risk of being misunderstood. But to go as far as imputing base motives to nearly every idea published on this page is not just cheap but clearly opportunistic.

    Here is what Pa Lai Ashadele wrote in response to my column titled “Power Sector: Lest we forget” published last week.

    He writes: “It should not have been the caption for your article but OUT TO BLAME GOVT (sic)”.

    He went on: “where is the justification for your beration (sic) of the government if there was an increase in power generation from 1500MW then to 5000MW now?

    You mentioned vandalisation of the structures that would assist to increase the megawatts by hoodlums, the receding flow of water to power plants and non availability of coal, which depends on nature, but offered no solutions. Media men in the past blamed government at various times of meddling in the affairs that were preserves of the private sector and called for the privatisation of the power sector which the present government has brought to fruition and yet all it gets are unending blames by the same media in spite of their bereftness (sic) of ideas on the way out all premised on political bias. A positive attitude is all we need now for survival”.

    Clearly, this is not the first time yours truly would be adjudged guilty of political bias. I offer no defence. As for my piece on the power sector, I didn’t say anything extraordinary, at least nothing that the Man on the Street has not expressed in one form or the other. My understanding of the purpose of government is that it exists to solve the problems facing the people. In this case, it has failed. What is interesting is that Pa Ashadele does not believe that the nation deserves better than what presently obtains – after pouring more than $20 billion in the last decade.

    No wonder Pa Ashadele touts handing over the power entities to private sector as an achievement! Before now, I had thought that the privatisation was only a means to an end. Pa Ashadele believes it should equate abdication.

    Talk of the divide between an analogue and digital generation! No offence meant please!

     

     

  • The houses they built

    The houses they built

    Dr. Michael IheonukaraOkpara (1920-1984) took over as Premier of Eastern Nigeria in January 1960 from Dr.Nnamdi Azikwe (1904-1996). The old Eastern Nigeria now consists of nine states namely Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross Rivers, Abia, Imo, Ebonyi, Enugu and Anambra states. For six years he was head of government of Eastern Nigeria. Dr. Okpara was the son of a labourer but rose to become a medical doctor of distinction. He practised what is termed “Pragmatic Socialism” and his hobby was building infrastructure development for Eastern Nigeria as well as encouraging agriculture. After the unfortunate civil war, he went to exile in Ireland where he practised Medicine. Before his return from exile in 1979, his close associates took up a collection to build him a house in his village at Umuegwu in Umuahia, Abia State and that was the only house and property he ever had. He died on December 17, 1984 and today a University of Agriculture is named after him in Umudike and likewise a street is named after him in Abuja. It was in the house built by his friends that he was buried in 1985.

    Apart from Dr. Olusegun Kokumo Agagu (1948-2013) no other elected leader is better appreciated and admired in Ikale land particularly in Osoro Kingdom, in Ondo State, than Chief Christopher Oluwafunmi Akinfosile (1920-1996), Minister of Communication in the first Republic. He was an encyclopaedia of ideas. His hobby was in giving scholarships to students, building schools, roads, post offices and agricultural settlements in Ikale land. I was, in away, his chauffeur, assistant and friend between 1977 and 1984 when he was the National Chairman of NPP.

    Although I was still working in The Punch as National Assembly Editor but there comes a time in a reporters’ career when your reporting career goes beyond mere coverage of a leader you are assigned with. Several times during that period, I would give Chief Akinfosile a ride in my old Volkswagen from a flat he rented at Mende in Maryland area of Lagos, to political meetings.

    On October 18, 1979 through the NPN/NPP accord, he made some notable NPP members including Paul Iyorpuu Unongo (77), Mrs. Janet Adefenwa Akinrinade, Geofrey Ademola Thomas(1925-2013) and others, Ministers under President Shehu Shagari.

    Myself and his cousin, Opeyemi Oyedele alias John Bull persuaded him to make himself a minister or someone from Ondo State. He rejected our plea insisting it will be the greatest height of nepotism to do so. Yet interms of physical cash he had none. Chief Akinfosile was a very forthright individual, highly principled and too much in love with his people. With my cousin, Chief Babu Akinbobola, I attended his funeral service held at St. John’s Anglican Church, Igbotako on Saturday November 2, 1996. It was a befitting burial organised by his children, relations and friends including Egbon George Akinfosile, Femi Omoniyi, John Bull Oyedele and his brother, Ife Oyedele, a public relation guru. The house that he built in Igbotako is in the hearts of the people of Ikaleland and they expressed their gratitude, some with tears, in their eyes, on the day he was buried. And they still remember him till today.

    Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1906-1987), a man with a commanding presence and magic touch, was Premier of Western Nigeria between October 1 1954 and December 15, 1959 – about five years before he made the mistake of crossing to the centre. Imagine the lasting achievements he made in that region within such a short period.

    One of the most romantic figures in Ibadan politics was Alhaji Adegoke Oduola Akande Adelabu (1915-1958) alias penkelemesi. My friend Akogun Lekan Alabi has written so much about the man. Yet when he died in a car accident on March 23, 1958, Adelabu, “the lion of the west”, had no house. Today in Ibadan the house he built is still in the hearts of the people that is 56 years after his death.

    Since the people’s lawyer late Kanmi Ishola-Osobu himself an advocate of the oppressed introduced me to late Mallam Muhammed Aminu Kano (1920-1983) in 1975, I could count on how many clothes the late Mallam wore throughout my coverage of him till he died on April 17 1983. People hardly noticed because he wore only white with his customary red cap- now the trademark of Engineer Rabiu Musa Kwankaso, Minister of Defence in 2005, and now second term governor of Kano State. In terms of money, he had none even though he was born into wealth like Dr. Yusuf Bala Usman (1945-2005), a defender of the destitute and the needy. He chose to be poor to fight for the talakawas like Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi (1869-1948) of India. He once said that “All parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the talakawa (commoners) is diametrically opposed to the interest of all sections of the master class, a party seeking the emancipation of the talakawa must naturally be hostile to the party of the oppressors”.

    People often forget that Mallam Aminu Kano was once Minister of Communication (1967-1969), Minister of Health (1971-1975), leader of Northern Element Progressive Union (NEPU), 1950-1966 and leader of People Redemption Party until his death. He is best remembered as the leader of the poor people. After his death the only house he had, was in Kano which was converted to the Centre for Democratic Research under the Bayero University in Kano.

    Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (1912-1966) who was from Jere ethnic group (a branch of the Hausa), had neither fortune nor palaces when the military killed him on January 15 1966.

    He left behind 19 children, an ailing mother Hajia Inna, a posthumous daughter Zainab, a home in Tafawa Balewa in the present day Bauchi State, a farm, a small bungalow in Kaduna which was later donated to Jamatu Nasri Islam, a wrist watch, a worldwide short radio, a ceremonial scimitar given to him by Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello and three wives including Laraba and Jummai.

    His own fate was far better than that of the late leader of government business of Northern Nigeria between 1951-1954 and Premier of Northern between 1954-1966and also leader of the ruling Northern People’s Congress (NPC). Sir Ahmadu Bello (1909- 1966) who had no house in Kaduna yet he was the most powerful politician during his era. The two houses he had were at Sokoto and in his village at Rabbah. He was the grandson of Usman Dan Fodio who founded the Sokoto Empire. After he too was killed on January 15, 1966 with his most senior wife, Hajia Yangu Wan, all his belongings at the Premier’s lounge were looted. His head of the domestic staff at that time Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki (90) was in Mecca and his  most senior permanent secretary, Alhaji Ali Akilu was hidden by the then Commissioner of Police for Northern Nigeria, M.D. Yusuf from being killed by the military. Only a few of his aides including the Minister of Land and Survey and a wealthy Kano businessman Alhaji Ibrahim Musa Gashash, his Chief Private Secretary, Alhaji Gidado Idris (79) and Turaki Zazzau Alhaji Aliyu, were brave enough to organise his burial at Sultan of Sokoto’s residence in Kaduna. He had no bank account.

    The life style of these men, is in sharp contrast to the conduct and personal fortunes of the present day generation of political class who have made the looting of the treasury their desperate hobby and passion. I believe great leaders are better remembered and admired after their demise, more for services provided, goodwill cultivated, the structures they were able to build while in power, the amenities they were able to provide, more than the billions of dollars and naira they looted in power.

    And as they say in Latin “fax mentis incendum gloriae”, which means “the passion for glory is that of the torch of the mind”.

    • Teniola, a former director at The Presidency lives in Lagos.
  • Save this nation from collapse

    Save this nation from collapse

    Indeed, Nigeria is a blessed country and we, Nigerians, are blessed people. A country blessed by God needs to walk along God’s own path of Faith, Hope and Love. This is done through her citizens, though now, many Nigerians tend not to know the path they are following. The recent happenings in Nigeria give a responsible person serious concern and one feels terribly worried with the daily sad stories in our land. Apart from the war against the Boko Haram insurgency, we are also faced with the newly introduced war of impeachment as a means of capturing political power at all cost.

    Thus, from the different happenings in our land, we can now see that there are people in our nation today who, by their utterances and actions, are not happy to see the continued existence and growth of  Nigeria. Such people have their script, their selfish and destructive agenda, and they are playing out this script ruthlessly without taking into consideration the generality of the people. We remind them that they cannot continue to have their way at will. Really, there is a limit to everything. Definitely, there is nemesis too.

    It is over 100 days now that our over 200 children, God’s special gifts to humanity,  (now referred to as Chibok Girls) have been abducted by the Boko Haram insurgents. Unfortunately, the search for these school children in captivity is more of a talk show and trading of blames than real action. While all this is going on, some of the traumatised parents of these children are dying. There was a report that 11 parents have died already.

    Still on the search for the Chibok children, the father of this state opened Nigeria to the comity of nations on the pretext of helping to rescue the children from captivity. With this decision, is our country still well secured?

    Now, the same father of the nation is asking the National Assembly to grant his loan request of $1bn to fight insurgency. Different people and groups are asking the National Assembly not to grant the loan request of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Some people are even insinuating that the president’s request could be in preparation for the 2015 General Elections. On our part too, we are asking for the concrete explanation and the rationale for this loan at this critical period. Our military personnel need to be well mobilized before emphasizing on hardware. No hungry and angry military can fight any war.

    In the same way, some people are also alleging that former President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered his then Minister of Defence, Lt. Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (Rtd),to retire some military top brass on the pretext of curbing coup plotting and avoiding further coup in Nigeria. People are now saying that with the high degree of insurgency and their seemingly daily strikes, such military top brass would have been helpful in the war against the Boko Haram insurgency.

    On elections, the reported ‘landslide’ of the recent Ekiti State Governorship Election of Saturday, June 21, may be a gateway to mistrust in electoral process in this nation and it tends to be a gateway to bloodshed in Nigeria as well. Already, there are indications that Osun State people are getting ready for the Governorship Election of Saturday, August 9. They are not prepared to be intimidated nor short-changed.

    Also, we are surprised to be experiencing the frequent impeachment of state governors, particularly from one political party in the country just immediately after the Ekiti State gubernatorial election, is an invitation to chaos and anarchy. What is of great concern is the silence of the father of the nation in all these series of impeachment. All those concerned in the dangerous trend must be called to order.

    In fact, the present trend is a reminder of the Third-Term Agenda of former President Obasanjo. We remember the story of Dr Peter Odili, the former governor of Rivers State, who wished to be the President of Nigeria. President Obasanjo administration used the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to intimidate Dr Odili out of the presidential race.

    The same style is now being used by the present administration. With the impeachment of Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State by the State House of Assembly, EFCC has declared Nyako wanted. The same EFCC which is supposed to be waging total war against corruption is busy withdrawing the cases against the people charged for corruption. This is for political reasons and it depends on the party such people belong. This means that if Nyako declares for the ruling party today, EFCC will close the case against him and he will become worthy ‘material’ for future election. Is this how to win a war against corruption?

    A stitch in time saves many, not just nine. Thus, the government must face the Boko Haram insurgency and the daily bombings with sincere mind instead of focusing its attention on the 2015 Election. Nigerians are getting tired of the various messages of condolence and sympathy by the government. Now is the time for real and purposeful action. We must note that if there is no Nigeria today, there can never be 2015 election.

    We have no other country, but this country, Nigeria. We must all salvage it together. We also enjoin those who think they can destroy this country through their selfish interest and action to desist. May God save this nation from untimely collapse.

     

    • Cardinal Okogie is Archbishop Emeritus of Lagos.

     

  • Power sector: Lest we forget

    Power sector: Lest we forget

    These days, it is doubtful that Nigerians still pay attention to the happenings in the cesspit of incompetence and graft described rather charitably as the power sector.

    I refer here to the latest report that the federal government has revised its power supply target to 5,000Mega Watts (MW) by the end of the year. Only last month, Minister of Power Prof. Chinedu Nebo, had raised hopes while addressing a delegation of Indian investors that “Nigeria will hit 10,000MW by the end of 2014”.

    But at an inter-ministerial briefing last week, Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke would have no soothing words for Nigerians expecting the December turnaround: The best, she said, is “a generation capacity of at least 5,000MW within 4-5 months” – and “barring unforeseen circumstances”.

    So much for the plague of confusion ravaging Jonathan’s power sector. It’s certainly been a long, confounding exercise in the reducing arithmetic of Jonathan’s power sector where the more money they throw at it, the less the value that is delivered in return.

    Let’s see how we started. In 1999, the nation’s generation capacity was said to be 6,000MW (ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo would have us know that the actual deliverable was 1,500MW”). Even at that, Obasanjo summary of the state of the power sector as rendered to the Ndudi Elumelu panel of the House of Representatives which probed his administration remains instructive: Ijora and Oji River stations, both of which utilised coal, were down due to lack of coal production; Afam and Delta, both of which were gas thermal plants were obsolete. The hydro plants of Kanji, Jebba and Shiroro were no better. Apart from silting and/or inadequate flow of water into the dam, there was also the problem of poor maintenance. Egbin, the thermal plant suffered disruption of gas supply through vandalism and poor management and maintenance by staff. And so, the effective output was 1,500MW.

    What did he do and how far did he go?

    First, a new Afam 276MW thermal unit was installed and commissioned. This would be followed by Agip’s 480MW thermal unit at Okpai.  Then Papalanto, Omotosho, Alaoji and Geregu plants each of which could provide close to 1000MW.

    The next would be the National Integrated Power Projects located at Sapele (Delta), Ehobor (Edo), Egbema (Imo), Gbaram (Bayelsa), Calabar (Cross River) and Omoku (Rivers).

    From this stage, the riddle begins. A total of 34 companies were awarded contracts to bring in turbines under the NIPP. By design, their output, combined with the four thermal plants was to deliver 10,000MW by 2007/2008. That is aside the existing 1,500 MW which Obasanjo claimed he met. Nearly 10 years after, we are still struggling to hit 6,000MW by December!

    Where did the megawatts disappear to? What happened to the turbines? Is gas really the only problem; or is it merely a smokescreen covering an intricate web of criminality? Who are the contractors by the way? How many performed or failed to? In the confounding riddles which have brought the sector to this sorry pass, we may never get the answers. True, Obasanjo may have brought plenty of motion without locomotion to the sector;  and methodical Yar’Adua, his signature inertia; with President Goodluck Jonathan, there has been neither rhyme nor method to the reign of abdication and the culture of criminal indifference that it has spawned!

    Where are the excuses for an administration – which, courtesy of the Gabriel Suswan committee on the NIPP – was allowed to warehouse the NIPP funds? Or have we forgotten so soon? For how long will the ancillary gas infrastructure remain in the pipeline?

    Between the grandmaster con-artist and his minion handmaiden in crime, there is a lot that needs finding out!

    By next year, the nation would mark the 10th anniversary of the much trumpeted Power Sector Reform Act (PSR 2005).  Many – including yours truly, had welcomed the legislation convinced that it actually held the key to unlocking the potentials of the sector.

    Among the key expectations was that it would end government’s near-monopoly which had bred lethargy, corruption and inefficiency in the sector. The story was that because the sector was wholly in the hand of government, the incentive to align its business practices with the dictates of the market was simply not there; and so was the will and the discipline to anticipate future needs and plan appropriately lacking – hence the steady decline into the moribund sector that we now have.

    Underlying the reform therefore was the need to liberalise the sector, to get more players on board in the spirit of true competition, and to ensure a steady flow of investment, which, no thanks to the erstwhile environment was stifled.

    And the result nearly 10 years after? The promises have since disappeared into the wind.

    It is still the same old wearisome excuses, of alibis being recycled or repackaged and sold to the weary electricity consumer with very little signs of impending change.

    Indeed, what we have is a new wine of instruments of legislation and regulation in the old wineskins of poor and ineffective governance. The old PHCN behemoth is gone for good; now we have a group of disparate club of players – that have demonstrated neither the financial muscle nor the business intelligence to suggest that they are able to get things going. The result is the endless promises as against actual delivery of electricity to homes and businesses just as the regulator appears clueless.

    Ten years during which the nation is supposed to have made some progress, we are only moved marginally from where we were 10 years ago. This is in spite of the massive investment sunk in to stabilise and upgrade the sector – an outlay known to have exceeded $20 billion under the decade.

    The explanations are not far-fetched: good as the principle of liberalisation is, in the hand of an utterly incompetent government, it becomes an exercise in abdication.

    For instance, how does one explain the fact that a government that has divested substantial interests in its erstwhile entities could still not muster funds to invest massively in gas infrastructure known to be critical to the reform package?  And that nearly 10 years after establishing Letters of Credit for the NIPP plants, a good number remains uncompleted?

    The Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) would rather we do not talk about the mess their messiah has wreaked on the power sector, the economy and the polity as a whole. Much as they try deodorising their principal, there are simply some truths that cannot be wished away.

  • Osun on the march again

    Osun on the march again

    As the final countdown to Saturday’s gubernatorial election in Osun State begins, global attention would once again be focused on Nigeria as the wobbling and fumbling continues in the nation’s quest to join the leagues of real democracies.

    And as had always been the case with elections in western Nigeria since independence, it is going to be a straight fight between federal might and the people’s will. Why the federal government or rather the party at the centre is always interested in controlling south west Nigeria against the wish of the majority beats one’s imagination. I don’t want to hazard a guess, but suffice to say that each attempt whether successful or not have always had grave consequences for the country.

    Attempt by the NPC/NCNC controlled federal government in the first republic to take over western region through its lackeys in the region led to the western regional crisis that later snowballed into the crisis that eventually ended Nigeria’s first attempt at democratic rule. Recall what happened to the second republic when the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) of President Shehu Shagari forcefully claimed victory in Ondo State. The only ‘successful’ takeover of political power in the south west by the party at the centre to date was in 2003 when ‘son-of-the-soil’ President Olusegun Obasanjo manipulated the process, using the federal might, to claim victory for his Peoples democratic Party (PDP)in all but one of the south west states.

    But not too long after, the people realized their mistake and took back what they lost to the PDP, safe Ondo State. Again, applying the federal might policy of intimidation, the federal government is on another mission to forcefully take over the south west targeting Ekiti and Osun states as prelude to pocketing the remaining four states of the region in the 2015 general elections. And with Ekiti already in the bag, Abuja is full of confidence that Osun too will fall. In the last few weeks, the state has been fully militarized by the Commander-In-Chief, President Goodluck Jonathan, who in defiance of wise counsel has moved soldiers, State Security operatives and of course the police into Osun to ‘deliver’ the state to the PDP. Whether he succeeds or not and what becomes of our democracy after Saturday is in the hands of time. For Jonathan, securing Osun, Ekiti and the rest of the south west states is not so much for the wealth of the region, but the millions of votes he needs to secure a second term. Whereas his party men in the region are only interested in the key to the treasuries of the Yoruba states in order to squander the resources.

    With this premise, it is easier to understand the battle that lies ahead for the people of Osun State as the local ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate Governor Rauf Aregbesola confronts the PDP and its flag bearer, Senator Iyiola Omisore stoutly backed by the government at the centre.

    Saturday’s election is not so much in the hands of Aregbesola or Omisore but the people of the state who must decide the direction they want to take their future. Where Osun State was before Aregbesola came in and where it is today should be their guide, and I will use education to illustrate my point here.

    As a beneficiary of the Bola Ige administration free education programme in Oyo in the second republic, I recall what most members of my generation then were going through to go to school and stay in school before the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) came to power in the region in 1979 and education was made free. No more school fees; no more buying of books, all our parents had to do was feed us and buy our school uniform. I can still recall the happiness on my parents’ face when newly sworn in governor Bola Ige announced this at the Liberty stadium on October 1, 1979. They both heaved a sigh of relief as they listened to the pronouncement on radio. Before then they had been finding it difficult paying the school fees of my siblings and I. Even though the skeptics, especially in the NPN said it wasn’t possible and derided the quality of education we were getting in public schools, millions of parents stood by the UPN and their governors defying the federal might to secure their children’s future. Today that decision has been well justified; their sacrifice have not been in vain, their children are now successful men and women in their various fields, thanks in no small measure to the free education programme of the day. The NPN federal government did offer rice and money that time but they rejected them.

    If one looks at the contributions of the Aregbesola administration in the last four years or thereabout to improving the standard of education in Osun State, one is tempted to say that if only for that he deserves, without blinking an eye, a second term in office. And that is the truth.

    I don’t want to talk about the beautiful schools he has built all over the state or even the reclassification of schools that he has done, as some are wont to argue that aesthetics are not enough to make good schools, what about the free feeding programme on which over N3 billion is being spent annually; free school uniforms. What about the tablet of knowledge or ‘Opon Imo’ (a miniature computer or tablet) containing the entire senior Secondary School syllabus, books and WAEC/GCE examination papers given to Senior Secondary School students to prepare them for their final exams.

    Any parent or guardian that understands what it takes to buy whole set of books for their children or ward(s), buy their uniform, pay their school fees and above all feed them (at least once a day) will appreciate the burden that Governor Aregbesola has taken off their shoulders. And it is only right and even godly to appreciate the man by giving him another term in office. This is the least they can do for a man who has taken it upon himself to better their lot. To Governor Rauf Aregbesola, serving the people (of Osun) is a commandment from God. I chose to dwell on his education programme (only a fraction of his achievements in this sector) because I believe, like Chief Obafemi Awolowo who saw the future of his Yoruba people in education far back in the 50s that is the best foundation for the future.

    Aregbesola has laid a solid foundation for the future of his people in Osun, the people should allow him to build it further by rewarding him with a second term. Any other decision to the contrary could lead to eternal regret. A word is enough for the wise.