The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

For Osun, for democracy, for Nigeria

At was interesting how President Goodluck Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flexed their muscles on the hustings at Osogbo, on August 2: the sheriff is in town; opposition, dive for cover!

Sure, the president was all sanctimonious about security agencies enforcing free and fair elections. But if the Ekiti model is anything to go by, hardly anyone is fooled.

Still, it is instructive: the eerie parallel between the build-up to August 9 and the 14 April 2007 Osun governorship election; which the PDP stole and was only retrieved after three long years of fierce legal battle.

A few days to that 2007 election, under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s do-or-die electoral charter, soldiers staged an intimidating drill, on Gbongan road in Osogbo. Viewed from the then Action Congress (AC) Candidate Rauf Aregbesola’s four-storey Oranmiyan House campaign headquarters, the drill snaked for no less than one mile, a swash-buckling manoeuvre clearly designed to shock and awe.

A few days to August 9, under President Goodluck Jonathan’s electoral militarisation diktat, men of the Department of State Security (DSS) have staged a similar drill, some of them hooded, firing into the air to scare people.

Are men bearing legal arms allowed under the law to wear hoods? Then, the wanton shooting — is it allowed, and under what circumstances?

Just as well, even with cracking gunshots, some partisans still trooped out, shouting party slogans and waving party symbols — in clear defiance of a perceived federal pacification force.

Back in 2007, no less than 12 lost their lives in election-related violence, in perhaps the most egregiously rigged election in Nigerian history. Back then, the federal fist of mail could not stop — but merely looked away from — the vote robbers, in their widespread criminality on election day.

Still, the PDP lost the election. It would take three long years to prove it: and in those years, mandate thieves unleashed a reign of terror: the hideous rape of an Ilesa secondary school girl; the murder, at an Ilesa fuel station, of a local industrialist; the military occupation and pacification of Ilesa and Osogbo, for daring to protest brazen electoral robbery; and the routine trotting, into the Ilesa gaol house, of opposition leaders on trumped up charges, for the simple reason they were the teeth of the legal challenge to the electoral steal.

Another parallel: after that electoral heist, Ebenezer Babatope, the famed Ebino Topsy and PDP chieftain, claimed that while AC won in urban centres, PDP won in rural areas, in a crass revisionism of the electoral trend of the Obafemi Awolowo days. The snag was: Osun is a state of big towns, the largest conglomeration of urban centres in the whole of Yorubaland.

Of course, the same Ebino is already talking of Mr. Omisore “surprising” Governor Aregbesola on August 9.

But on what basis might he do that: superior articulation of electoral manifesto? Superior record of meritorious public service than the governor’s? A PDP superior record of performance, both in Osun or at the federal level? Or just a hoped-for federal might’s guarantee to fiddle the vote?

Still, no crime: everyone has a democratic licence to choose their heroes!

Mr. Omisore, the PDP candidate allegedly boasted to rural folks during his campaign that non-Yoruba but uniformed goons would flood Osun during the election to aid his cause, suggesting such goons would be part of his federal armada.

For all you know, that could well be empty bluff and bluster. Still, it is worrisome that the DSS shooting ensemble involved some hooded folks. Is this a sinister confirmation of Mr. Omisore’s alleged boast?

Besides, DSS raided TSN/RSM office in Lagos. A few days later, the marketing research firm released figures of a study that suggests Governor Aregbesola would win by 73% and Mr. Omisore would trail with 19% of the votes.

Between these two events, the Omisore camp had, through text messages and other means, circulated a claim that a USAID poll had given Mr. Omisore the lead with 58%, with Governor Aregbe credited with 30%.

This claim, however, is a bare-faced lie, as USAID has disowned the purported poll. “No USAID poll was taken in Osun,” Premium Times quoted Rhonda Watson, acting public affairs officer of the US Consulate in Lagos, as saying. Brainless lying, yet again, from the Omisore camp!

Now, why would DSS invade the premises of a private marketing research firm doing legitimate business? Some intelligence suggesting subversion? Conducting polls is now a crime? Or just part of the Omisore-threatened federal bully tactics?

The federal authorities should provide answers and fast. Otherwise, they face legitimate charge of trying to rig the election.

Still, mum is it from the camp of Prof. Attahiru Jega, the INEC chairman. Prof. Jega had defended the security over-kill in Ekiti, blissfully forgetting soldiers’ harassment of Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi and other APC partisans, while other PDP partisans had unimpeded passage, even if two, Jelili Adesiyan, Police Affairs minister and Musiliu Obanikoro, Defence minister of state, had clear motives to put the state organs under their charge to partisan uses.

Even if voting appears “free” on election day, it couldn’t pass as fair — and ultimately free — if the process leading to it was crooked. That is the point INEC should address, and make itself heard in the run-up to August 9, instead of clinging to the sophistry of soldiers not impeding physical voting, even if they were complicit in mass arrest of opposing leaders, as they did in Ekiti; and as Mr. Omisore is allegedly threatening they would do in Osun.

Between Aregbesola and Omisore, the choice for Ripples is very simple. Every politician claims popularity; but right-thinking members of society know, between the two, who is popular and who is well and truly notorious.

But if the Omisore camp can lie that USAID conducted a poll that never was, have a straight face to insist on that blatant lie even after USAID had dismissed that claim, and thereafter go ahead to try, sour-grape wise, to discredit the TNS/RMS poll which suggested Mr. Omisore would be guillotined, you could clearly see the manifest villainy of the Omisore ticket. But that is left for the Osun voters to decide.

Still, it is well and truly tragic that post-Awolowo Yorubaland would suffer gladly the foolery of an Omisore candidature, even as a local government councillor! Yet, Ayo Fayose (Ekiti) and Iyiola Omisore (Osun) are Goodluck Jonathan’s model Yoruba leaders! Indeed, only the deep can call to the deep!

Beyond candidate preferences, however, a free and fair Osun poll, both on the day as well as regarding processes leading to it, is a vote for Osun, a vote for democracy and a vote for Nigeria.

Nigeria badly miscarried when its earliest rulers killed democracy; and the succeeding soldier-politicians also slaughtered, on the altar of political poison, the military as a credible and respected national institution.

A further smashing of democracy, ala a brazen steal at Osun, may well complete Nigeria’s unravelling process. That would be tragic, indeed.

August 5, 2014
Beware, sender: A UPS experience

Problem:

You have some time-sensitive documents to rush to a foreign destination. Only originals accepted; no scanned documents attached to e-mail, and no facsimile (fax, for short) and no photocopies of any description whatsoever, please.

Solution

Take them to any of those global courier services promising delivery anywhere in four or five working days. For a package containing just four sheets of copy paper, the price will be close to, if not exceed, Nigeria’s minimum monthly wage of N18, 000 that some state employers are yet to honour. But you will have the satisfaction of getting what you paid for.

Until two months or so ago, that would have been my advice to anyone seeking to rush time-sensitive material to a foreign situation.

Now, based a recent personal experience, I would have to say: Beware, sender.

Let me explain.

Just before the United Parcel Service Business Office along Oworonshoki- Apapa Expressway on June 6, 2014, I handed to the clerk a package containing some notarized documents for transmission to my home address in the United States. The official papers, all eight pages of them, had no commercial value whatsoever. Unlawful interception would have breached my privacy somewhat, but would not have redounded to the financial advantage of any Four-One-Niner.

I was assured that the package would be delivered within three working days. The transaction took place on a Friday. Saturday is a working day for UPS, but even granting that it is not, and allowing for Sunday which is definitely not a working day, the package was set to be delivered Wednesday of the following week, latest Thursday.

Given the time-bound nature of the documents, I could live with the N14, 600 I was invoiced.

Wednesday came, but no package was delivered. Thursday came, no delivery. The week ended on the same disobliging note.

By the middle of the following week, delivery would have been too late to serve the purpose of courier freight. But there was nothing to indicate that it was even imminent.

Armed with the payment receipt and other documents relating to the transaction, my assistant went to the UPS office to demand an explanation. He was told that the parcel was being held up at a Customs and Border Protection post in the United States and would be forwarded to its final destination as soon as the officials were done.

Why had they not told me this at the point of transaction?

That is the practice now, and UPS could only urge the relevant agency to clear it not a moment later than was absolutely necessary, my assistant was told.

By now, the addressee was thoroughly frazzled and had begun to doubt whether I had actually couriered the documents. So, I sent down an electronic copy of the shipment transaction, to be used to petition the nearest UPS office to find out what was going on.

Same reply. The parcel arrived in the U.S. within three working days, and has since been in the custody of the Customs and Border Protection agents.

For how much longer?

They could not tell. They could only promise that it would be rushed to the addressee as soon as it was officially cleared.

Was there a phone number or some other contact information through which one could reach the agency in question to have some idea of how soon they will be done inspecting the parcel?

None that they knew of, the UPS people said.

In the event, the parcel was delivered 14 working days after it was accepted for transmission, when it could no longer serve the purpose for which I had been charged an amount close to monthly minimum wage.

My layman’s sense of the law tells me that a breach of contract has occurred, for which I should be able to recover at law. After all, the contract was for delivery to the addressee within three working days, not to some inspecting agency.

But the claim will immediately collide with, and be vapourized by considerations of “national security,” the “doctrine of necessity” and “raison d’état” and all that.

At any rate, what were they looking for in a parcel containing printed matter and weighing all of 0.5 kilograms?

The Ebola fever scare was still some seven weeks away. So, they could not have been subjecting the parcel to microscopic analysis just to be sure it did not harbor the deadly Ebola virus.

Boko Haram had stepped up its nihilist campaign of murder and mayhem, the sophistication of which has led to widespread belief that it must be enjoying foreign logistic and financial backing, and to fears that it might be seeking new operational theatres aboard, perhaps in the United States itself, the bulwark against international terrorism.

Could it be, then, that the U.S. Customs and border protection agents were scouring the parcel for coded messages that might on deconstruction lead them to pre-empt a Boko Haram strike in the homeland or on the soil of any of its NATO partners or, horrible thought, its eternal ally, Israel?

Again, could it be that they were looking for something that might help them crack what they call “the Nigerian Connection” here, the network of persons engaged in syndicated crime covering credit card fraud and advance-fee fraud, the type that has brought to grief many Americans who believe that staggering wealth can be conjured out of nothing?

Perhaps they were looking for something that might help them figure out how Nigeria leaped from the bottom ranks of the world’s least developed nations to the League of the Top 20 in a matter of months. I am told that the United States and its European allies are deeply troubled by this quantum leap, and are fearful that two more of that kind would push them out of their accustomed places and take away the obscene benefits they have been reaping from such positioning.

Or something that might help the international community understand why, more than 40 days after Boko Haram abducted more than 200 girls from their school hostel in Chibok, President Goodluck Jonathan had not deigned to meet with their parents and had instead been demanding that they “cooperate” with his administration.

They might for all I know have been looking for hints about where the girls are being kept, a secret that the combined intelligence services of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, France, Australia and Israel have been unable to prise from the Nigerian authorities.

I wish I could say exactly what the U. S. inspectors were looking for or indicate where to turn for answers. What I can say at this time is that since the parcel was released without inviting me or the addressee for questioning, we have not been declared “persons of interest.” But that is not to say that the story is ended, given the mysterious ways “security issues” move here and everywhere.

There was no sign that the parcel had been tampered with or its contents compromised. But that is poor comfort, knowing that I could have had the same parcel delivered for N1,000 in less than ten days by regular mail.

Remember the good old post office.

August 5, 2014
Chibok: In defence of President Jonathan

It has been 100 days since more than 200 female pupils were seized from their school hostel in Chibok, Borno State, by elements of the nihilist Boko Haram terrorist outfit and ferried through the jungle of Sambisa forest to destinations unknown and fates uncertain.

Since then, the Jonathan administration in general, his dutiful and self-effacing wife in particular, and the dynamic and results-oriented President Goodluck Jonathan especially, have been the butt of malignant and unpatriotic gibes pouring ceaselessly from commentators, who could not see the result of the Ekiti governorship election, although it was staring them in the face just as it was tugging at the stomachs of the voters.

“#BringBackOurGirls” has been the constant refrain of some idle, unimaginative people, who cannot find better use for their time.

Instead of spoiling their spouses with good meals and tender loving care or baking cookies for their children or attending to their businesses or doing the laundry or cleaning house or tending their gardens or reading a good book or just taking a revivifying break from the daily grind, these people mill around Abuja’s manicured lawns and even spill on to the streets, to impede the flow of limousines ferrying high state officials to and from urgent state duties.

On one occasion, led by a former minister, they even tried to march on Aso Rock, for the purpose of handing to Himself the President a petition demanding more forceful action to bring back the girls.

The former minister used to have a reputation for good judgment. But her recent sojourn in the opulent offices of the World Bank, in Washington, DC, seems to have impaired her judgment, according to government officials speaking as usual on condition of anonymity.

But for the timely intervention of our ever-vigilant security forces, the misguided protesters would have succeeded in their nefarious scheme, the real object of which was to distract President Jonathan, divert public attention from the roaring successes of his Transformation Agenda and ultimately destabilise his administration.

It is to the eternal credit of the Jonathan administration that the law-enforcement authorities accorded the protesters far greater courtesy and consideration than the self-righteous and publicity-seeking protesters accorded the President of the Republic and his exalted office.

They are nothing if not pertinacious, these desperate do-gooders.

Only the other day they imported Malala, a young woman still traumatised by the wounds inflicted on her by Pakistan’s taliban, to lecture Dr. Jonathan on how to handle the terrorism convulsing northeastern Nigeria — the same Dr. Jonathan who, wearing another hat, is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Do these people hold anything sacred?

Among Malala’s jejune recommendations is that Dr. Jonathan meet the parents of the Chibok girls at the earliest opportunity. Some elements here have even gone further, urging Dr. Jonathan not merely to visit Chibok to see things for himself, but to go on to the dreaded Sambisa forest, home to some of the most ferocious beasts that ever roamed the earth.

Such stunts might capture the headlines and the front pages, but what practical purpose would they serve, really? What if some of the distraught parents vented their anger on the President, cursed him lustily and even attacked him physically, in full view of the global television audience? Is this what Malala and her misguided admirers want?

Why has Malala not arranged a meeting between the authorities of her native Pakistan and parents of the victims of the Taliban’s terrorism? If she is such a prodigy at conflict resolution, why did she not flush out Osama bin Laden who was living the good life in her country until the Americans caught up with him?

What is even more distressing is that Dr. Jonathan actually yielded to her entreaties and agreed to meet the parents of the Chibok girls – the same parents who have spurned his appeals for the kind of cooperation with the Federal Government that would have prevented the girls from being abducted in the first place, or resulted in securing their release within 100 hours at the most.

Such executive pliability ill serves the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Nigeria.

Before you know it, another girl – or a boy, for a change – could just parachute in from Outer Ruritania to demand the reinstatement of the impeached former governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako, as well as immediate and unconditional cessation of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) juggernaut’s plans to impeach a governor or a local council chairman operating outside its protective umbrella.

One hundred days is undoubtedly a long time to stay in captivity even in the most pleasant surroundings. In the infernal Sambisa forest, everyday must seem like an eternity to the unfortunate girls. But in the emotion-soaked debate on just how to proceed, many have lost sight of the elementary fact that rescue efforts take time and meticulous planning, and flawless execution.

Ask the Americans.

In what is now called the Iran hostage crisis, Iranian students protesting the admission of the deposed Shah to the United States for cancer treatment seized more than 60 workers of the United States Embassy in Tehran and held them hostage for 444 days.

This is not a misprint: Not 14 or 44, 114 or even 144, but 444 days!

The precipitate rush to free them ended in a disastrous failure in the desert, drained the Jimmy Carter administration of all vital signs and handed Ronald Reagan a sweeping victory in the 1980 presidential election.

That lesson may be lost on those armchair strategists seeking to goad him into launching a precipitate rescue mission, but it is not lost on Dr. Jonathan, an acclaimed student of world history and international relations.

The military authorities that were once misled into proclaiming that more than 100 of the Chibok girls had been rescued are understandably more cautious these days. They would say only that they know the precise location where the girls are being held and have perfected contingency plans to rescue them without putting their lives at risk.

That is much more substantial than the combined intelligence and rescue experts and the eyes in the sky that the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Australia, Israel and other nations have achieved since their deployment in Nigeria to help in the search for the Chibok girls.

And there is much more to come if only the National Assembly would be dutiful enough to approve President Jonathan’s request to borrow U.S. $1 billion to equip the armed forces to crush Boko Haram for all time.

But the disloyal opposition, the armchair strategists and their confederates in the media would hear none of it.

The money, they are claiming, is for more “stomach infrastructure” to help the PDP capture those states not currently under its control. In whatever case, why do you need a loan to equip the national army to fight an insurgency, they are asking. What has been happening to the vast sums of money voted year after year for the armed forces and “national security”?

Those asking this kind of question are compounding their lack of patriotism with sedition. By so doing, they unwittingly or, more likely, wittingly give aid and comfort to Boko Haram, and gravely undermine the Jonathan administration’s valiant efforts to stamp out terrorism not just in Nigeria but in the sub region, the region, and ultimately in the world.

President Jonathan is clearly on top of the situation.

July 29, 2014
Pharaoh on the prowl

Honestly, Goodluck Jonathan, president of the Federal Republic, never intended to be a Pharaoh, or Nebuchadnezzar, or an army general, or a dictator. He openly said so.

But then, move over, Pharaoh; move over, Nebuchadnezzar; move over, army general, move over, dictator! In vicious projection of presidential power, Dr. Jonathan is putting you all to shame!

This is one Pharaoh that knows no Joseph when an enemy, real or perceived, must be crushed! Beware, Pharaoh is on the prowl!

It is not unlike the biting philosophy of the anonymous philosopher, off one of the balconies of Teddar Hall, across the road from the Kunle Adepeju Students Union Complex, at the University of Ibadan campus of the early to mid-1980s. This man of wit always put his thoughts across by chalk on board.

During the Second Republic (1979-1983), when corruption tore the roof under President Shehu Shagari, the philosopher quipped, with devastating pun: Shall we then all go and Sha(re)gari at State House Ribadu(n) Road?

“Riba” is slang for bribe. “Dun” is Yoruba for sweet. Ribadu Road, Ikoyi, was the Dodan Barracks seat of the president, rechristened to reflect the democratic interregnum. “Gari” is a Nigerian staple — fantastic pun!

But the Jonathan metamorphosis, despite an earlier public declamation, has more to do with another from the campus philosopher’s rich repertoire: He was mercy-ful. But then Mercy left him. So, he became merciless!

No pussyfooting, this president has become merciless! So enemies, beware, quake and fear! With the impeachment gale sweeping through opposition camps, that warning is rather trite.

Fine, the Adamawa case is rascality versus counter-rascality. The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) poached the Adamawa governorship from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at the height of the PDP meltdown. What APC gained by defection power therefore, PDP has regained by executive clobber! Rascality cancels out rascality, chikena!

But there is no moral high ground here. Before PDP got a dose of its bitter pill, poaching by illicit defection had been its virulent patent, to illegally decimate the opposition. Indeed, what goes around comes around!

Still, if rascality begot rascality in Adamawa, the ongoing case of Nasarawa is one-way rascality — rude, bounding and brazen.

The 2011 elections gifted Nasarawa political schizophrenia: a Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) governor in Umaru Al-Makura; and a PDP-dominated legislature. So, no one can accuse Governor Al-Makura of taking a PDP mandate to the opposition, after his party and others formed the APC.

So, the ongoing impeachment process to unseat Governor Al-Makura is nothing but in-your-face outlawry to steal a governorship, ironically by supposed lawmakers across the partisan divide. Yes, the legalistic-minded would argue: Alhaji Al-Makura’s deputy would still be an APC governor, so there is no question of a PDP steal. Besides, if the governor isn’t guilty of “misconduct”, he need not fear removal — pure, undiluted cant!

And if anyone still doubts where the darts are coming from, the Nasarawa legislators’ “private visit” to Aso Rock, offers a clue — as if there is need for one!

Of course, all these presidential rascality would crash. It always does.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, during his own time as democratic maximum ruler, aided and abetted many of such manufactured impeachments, the most hideous of which was Oyo Governor, Rashidi Ladoja, who must be removed because he would not share his security vote with Lamidi Adedibu, the late amala-and-gbegiri politician, Ladoja’s estranged godfather and Obasanjo’s beloved “garrison commander”, before whom an elected governor must bow and tremble!

It all blew in Obasanjo’s face, with Ladoja’s judicial recall to office, even if, by his peculiar politicking, Ladoja has proved rather undeserving of that democratic grace.

But the eventual crash would come, not necessarily by a court voiding the impeachment process, but by the wilful destruction of democratic institutions by power brigands. Indeed, yesterday’s power recklessness is today’s Boko Haram!

By the way, the only way brazen criminality against governors, by hostile federal forces, is succeeding is because the central government has a monopoly of security forces. The moment that becomes history, the federal bully would know it has a helluva battle in its hands. That, would be the day!

This reckless projection of federal illicit power is bad enough. But it pales into nothing, compared with the future it dooms.

Gen. Ibrahim Babangida’s military government was so corrupt it was believed that government raised sleaze to the pedestal of the fundamental principle of state policy. Bad as it was when it was happening, it was its blighting of the future — now — that has been so devastating. Now, there is a merry and complete loss of values.

By the same token, the Jonathan Presidency has begun to impose a new set of democratic travesty: after Ekiti, a new culture of an irrational electorate is afoot: punish hard work but reward sloth; punish brilliance but reward dullness; punish solid performance but reward clear demagoguery!

Where will this crass irrationality lead a democratic republic, or even the Nigerian state itself?

The president, head of an ultra-dull presidency that could hardly boast any groundbreaking policy or innovation, appears to have developed zero-tolerance for gubernatorial brilliance; just to divert attention from his own parlous record; and also shift attention from serious electoral issues to emotive power play that would impress the gullible.

That would explain why Oyo’s Adebayo Alao-Akala, an ideas vacuum in his first tour of duty as Oyo governor, whose grandest philosophy appeared the neck-chain to wear, the face powder to dub or the perfume to wear, has re-found his voice, merrily declaring himself the next Oyo governor — despite the stark difference between his parlous record and the glittering performance of Abiola Ajimobi, the incumbent.

Of course, Mr. Alao-Akala is pitching the Jonathan dream electorate: elders without wisdom, youths without gumption and the middle-aged happily blundering between these two extremes of the brain-dead!

But the most tragic, in the run-up to the August 9 Osun gubernatorial poll, is the Iyiola Omisore boast. The PDP candidate brags he would win in all local governments. Yet, he frantically flees from debates, the latest of which was “Manifesto Hour”, the July 26 programme, organised by the International Republican Institute (IRI), to be broadcast live by the Osun State Broadcasting Corporation (OSBC). Other than demonising Rauf Aregbesola’s visible accomplishments, he has not articulated programmes of his own. And, of course, the eternal bad-tempered threats!

So, on what basis would he win the election? On the basis of the present federal paralysis under Jonathan; or the past Osun paralysis when PDP ruled the roost; and Omisore himself was senator at the centre? O, perhaps on a third: that federal might would fix it!

Why, a Premium Times online report even suggests the Jonathan federal armada might be pressing the panic button by reportedly directing operatives of DSS to “invade” TNS-RMS, a Lagos research and marketing firm, contracted to do an opinion poll on the Osun election.

The “invaders’” fear? That the poll’s results might favour Aregbesola! These are unusual times indeed!

The Jonathan presidency may have resigned itself to flexing muscles to scare; rather than thinking hard to deliver on its presidential chores.

But patriotic Nigerians must tell this Pharaoh: his choice is expressway to self-ruin.

July 29, 2014
Thank God for Buhari’s life

I wonder what the likes of Lai Ashadele, an avid reader of this column and one of its fiercest critics has to say on the failed attempt on the life of former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari last week in Kaduna.

And after the failed twin bomb attacks, one of which was targeted at prominent Islamic preacher Sheik Dahiru Bauchi by the terror group Boko Haram, it would be interesting to know what Ashadele and the rest who support the Goodluck Jonathan administration have got to say on the fight against terror in Nigeria.

To these people and others like them in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the opposition is behind Boko Haram and they are quick to refer to statements made by some prominent politicians in the north in the run up to the 2011 presidential election to the effect that they would make the country ungovernable for President Goodluck Jonathan if he contested in that election.

This belief has tainted their view of the fight against terror such that every criticism of Federal Government’s failure to drive the terrorists out of our country and secure the lives and properties of every Nigerian especially those living in Boko Haram’s theatre of operation is seen as unpatriotic and unfriendly of the Jonathan administration.

To them, every critic of the administration is a hater of President Jonathan irrespective of whether what he/she is saying is true or not. So when the opposition says this war against terror cannot be won the way Jonathan is handling the matter they are quickly shouted down and their views dismissed as scaremongering.

Some key opposition figures have even been accused of financing the terrorists. But now that Boko Haram has gone after General Buhari, I wonder whether the rabidly pro-Jonathan supporters within and outside the PDP like Ashadele still believe that the opposition has a hand in what the terrorists are doing.

The Kaduna attack on Buhari offers the Federal Government an opportunity to rethink its strategy in the war against terror and embark on an all inclusive campaign against Boko Haram, bringing all hands on deck and harnessing all resources available to Nigeria in this regard.

It is about time that both the government and the opposition sat together to fashion out a common front against Boko Haram and all other forms of terror in the country. The time for finger pointing is over. We are confronted with a problem that could consume all of us if care is not taken.

The other day, a bomb exploded at Apapa near a gas tanker but it was quickly dismissed as a mere explosion, even though Boko Haram claimed responsibility. When the United States embassy in Nigeria issued a travel advisory to its citizens recently warning of a likely terrorist attack on a popular hotel in Lagos, the Americans were accused of crying wolfs. In the south east, scores of northerners suspected to be Boko Haram operatives were recently arrested.

What all these point at is that Boko Haram now has the capacity to strike anywhere in Nigeria, and the earlier we see the problem as our problem and not that of the north alone the easier it will be for us to win the war on terror.

I say thank God for Buhari’s life. If the terrorists had succeeded in killing the retired General and the Islamic Cleric, only God knows where Nigeria would be by now. And as President Jonathan rightly pointed out while receiving Sallah homage from Muslim leaders in FCT, none of us would be sitting pretty in our homes today if those sons of the devil had killed General Muhammadu Buhari and Sheik Dahiru Bauchi.

The war that that South-south loud mouth Asari Dokubo had promised to unleash on Nigeria if Jonathan is not returned to office next year would have landed on his doorsteps by now even before he has the opportunity to cork his AK-47 rifle. The fire that he promised on the rest of us non-Ijaw Nigerians if Jonathan is rejected in 2015 would have been burning in his homestead now before he could even change from his loin cloth to a trouser.

In the north Buhari is god, forget what any other person says to the contrary and his supporters, call them Almajiris if you like, worship him and are ready to die for him. To them, he is the only person that can end their miseries, take them out of poverty, end corruption in Nigeria and make the country great and achieve her potentials. They want all those who have contributed to Nigeria’s ruin jailed, and Buhari, they believe is the only one who can do that. Every mistake of Jonathan, especially government’s failure in the war against Boko Haram makes Buhari popular before them and the retired General is seen as the Messiah to come. And the message is gaining popularity in the south as well. You can imagine this man being killed in that bomb blast. By now Nigeria will be on fire no doubt.

That he survived unhurt was an act of God and as some would like to say, God indeed is a Nigerian. But then we shouldn’t stretch our luck too far, or rather Jonathan should not stretch his good luck too far.

Sparing the life of Buhari I believe was God’s way of showing His love for this country and those in charge of our affairs should appreciate this. Stoking trouble all over the place, especially in opposition controlled states, just to win control ahead of the 2015 presidential election might be to Jonathan’s advantage now, but ultimately will be of no benefit to Nigeria. It could spell doom not only for our democracy but also for our existence as a nation. The Federal Government is flexing its muscles in Osun State now, threatening to use its might to take the state from the opposition in the August 9 gubernatorial election, just like it did on June 21 in Ekiti. If it succeeds, that could just be the beginning of the end for our democracy and our country. Nigeria in the pocket of one man! That would be worse than our experience under Abacha, and Jonathan, it does appear is set for this. Who will or can stop him? I don’t know.

But does he need to do all these to win another term in office? I don’t think so. All he needs to do I think to return in 2015 is defeat Boko Haram, fix the power problem, fix our roads, hospitals, fire the Oil minister and put her and former Aviation minister on trial to prove his credentials in the fight against corruption, #bring back our (Chibok) girls, tell First Lady Patience to stay more at home and act more like a statesman and less as a politician. If he tries these I think Nigerians could be persuaded to give him another chance.

More important however, is to ensure peace and security; the attacks on Buhari and Bauchi have shown that nobody is safe in the country. Boko Haram could strike at anybody, any time, anywhere.

July 29, 2014
Osun: It’s April 16, 2011 all over again

Eleven days from today, the good people of Osun will march to the poll to elect the man who will steer the tender ship of their beloved state for the next four years. As they say in these parts, with the death of an elephant, it is expected that all manners of knives would be summoned to active duty.

Now, it’s been a month plus of high-voltage hustings and with just enough drama and excitements to provide entertainment for a lifetime. Part of the ‘entertainment’ may well be the vast field of gubernatorial wannabes in a state which morphed from being in the PDP financial death row to a toast of credible investors in a space of three years.

Add that to the brainless revisionism being served by a frontline aspirant in the name of politics and the rather expensive play on the psychology of voters by the cheap stunt in which a leading candidate would mount an Okada with two roasted corns in hand; what comes revealed is the politics of the most opportunistic, cynical variant. These are interesting times, no doubt.

The Osun governorship election is of course interesting in a number of ways. After the Ekiti tsunami, Osun is naturally expected to provide the next laboratory to validate the PDP’s thesis on the trumping of performance by stomach infrastructure. But even more than that, it is supposed to be the affirmation of the so-called wind of change blowing across the South-west by which it is meant the triumph of the main-streamers.

Let me add one reason why Osun holds a personal interest for me: I am actually working on an hypothesis – and I am prepared to take a bet on that – that the outcome of the August 9 poll would not be substantially different from what happened on April 16, 2011 presidential election!

Remember that hell of a shellacking for citizen You-Know-Who! Wait for Scene Two.

Still wondering about my interest in the Osun ‘guber’ race?

Let me add that I am a silent admirer of the governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. I have met him a few times since he became governor and each time, I found myself not just enthralled by his sheer energy and passion to get things done, but also his deep sense of purpose and understanding of his mission. I have read not once but severally his lean “Green Book” which encapsulates his mission – thanks to Femi Ifaturoti, his Director General of Osun State Bureau for Social Services. Each successive reading not only reinforces my earlier impression of him as no ordinary sojourner in government; the book has gone a long way in aiding my understanding of this unusual enigma of a personality which of course is the reason I chose to stick my neck out in his second term bid.

Three years in the saddle at the state of Omoluwabi, very few will doubt that Aregbesola has delivered on all fronts. Today, it’s hardly remembered that Aregbesola actually came into office to meet a staggering debt of N18 billion – contracted by the departing PDP administration which he successfully restructured within months. Under his watch, the economy of the once laidback state is not only being repositioned, it’s been three years of deliberate efforts to tackle major structural impediments to the realisation of its potentials headlong.

From the massive road works going on, the complete overhaul of the educational sector, the careful attention to agricultural modernisation through investment in a new generation of farmers, to massive urban renewal programmes, it would take the most impervious not to appreciate that the foundation of a future economy is being carefully erected in Osun state.

Of course, we can talk about his revolutionary learning tablet the “Opo Imo”, the youth employment O’YES programme as well as the school-feeding programme all of which stands out in sheer novelty.

What about the governor’s interactive programme – Gbangba d’ekun – a forum during which he engages the ordinary citizens on issues of governance? Or the Walk-to-Live programme, an important governance tool through which the government seeks to inculcate healthy living habits on the populace? Clearly, it is hard to imagine all that the governor has been able top achieve despite its ranking among the least of recipients from the federation pool.

Was the governor perfect? The last time I checked, saint-hood was not one of the qualifications for being in government. I have heard the word “controversial” or worse used to describe him. The much I know about him is that he is not pretentious about his beliefs unlike the chameleon being egged on by some narrow interests. As for whether he been faithful to his stewardship – my answer would be an emphatic yes!

Now, let’s talk briefly about his main opponent – the PDP’s Iyiola Omisore.

What does the PDP candidate stand for – on education, job creation, infrastructure and health care? No one, it appears, have the foggiest idea on where he stands. The closest I have heard him say is that he will undo all that Aregbesola has done all these while. Just like that! Where is the policy framework – or the hard thinking behind such? You guessed right: it’s the season when populism is expected to trump hard choices. Between the builder and the demolitionist, the good people of Osun have just enough time to make their choice!

Now I know a legion out there who would swear that the Ekiti tsunami wasn’t just the game changer but the defining moment for the good people of the South-west. Guess we have 11 days to put the hypothesis to test. Let me however speculate on the list of unlikely factors in the August 9 poll: Number one on that list is that mocking ride on Okada with corns in hand; at best it’s poor example in salesmanship. The other is the nocturnal visits to clergies in a play of the religious card. The good people of Osun know better to cast their lots with Lucifer and his seductive overtures.

Now, let me summarise: After the breadth-taking developments of the past three years, it certainly would be worse than tragic for the state to fall into the hands of a political adventurer. I can bet a million it wont happen.

July 29, 2014
Nyako’s impeachment: Matters arising
Since the impeachment of Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa state and the subsequent swearing in of Umaru Fintiri as governor, one issue has continued to occupy the front seat in public discourse. We see this again in the current attempt by the Nasarawa State House of Assembly to impeach Governor Tanko Al Makura. I am referring to the issue of service of the Notice of Allegation as provided under section 188(2) of the constitution. The said section provides thus:

“… the Speaker of the House of Assembly shall, within seven days of the receipt of the notice, cause a copy of the notice to be served on the holder of the office and on each member of the House of Assembly…”

Let me make haste to state at this point that the procedure for impeachment as provided under section 188 of the constitution is sacrosanct. Any omission, breach or failure to comply with the steps of the impeachment process is fatal. This point was emphasized by the Supreme Court in the celebrated case of Dapianlong – V – Dariye [2007] 8 NWLR PART 1036 332. Service of the Notice of Allegation, which has been loosely referred to as Notice of Impeachment, is required by section 188(2) to be on the “the holder of the office”, that is “the person”, “individual” or “occupant” of the said office and nothing else. In other words, service of the Notice of Impeachment must be on the person occupying the office of the Governor and not the Office of the Governor.

It is important to draw a distinction between “haolder of the office” and “Office of the Governor”, as an impeachment proceeding is against the person and not the office of the governor. To underscore this point, I submit that mere delivery of the notice to the Office of the Governor at the state house via the normal channel of communication between the State House and the legislature does not comply with the provision of said section as same will not suffice in any judicial proceedings as proof of service on the holder of the said office.

Back to what transpired at Adamawa, as reported in the media. An unsuccessful attempt was made by the House of Assembly through the Clerk of the house to serve the notice on the Office of the Governor of Adamawa State, as a result, the legislators resorted to self-help, i.e. service by substituted means. It must be noted however that the legislators had approached the High Court of Adamawa state presided over by His Lordship Ambrose Mammadu with an application for substituted service, which was refused by the court.

Two issues jump out for me from the above. First, that the legislators acknowledge the fact that service envisaged in section 188 is personal hence the attempt to deliver the notice at the Office of the Governor, although wrongly in my view. Secondly, that the constitution unlike the rules of practice of our courts did not provide for an alternative mode of service, otherwise the legislators would have simply had a recourse to it without approaching the court.

I concede that the situation that the Adamawa State House of Assembly was confronted with at the time was unfortunate as the constitution could not have envisaged a situation where an occupier of the office of the governor will resort to the kind of tactics employed by Nyako. One wonders why a governor will evade service of the notice, if he believes that he has nothing to hide. The question agitating the minds of most Nigerians is simple, given the situation that the legislators in Adamawa found themselves at the time, what should they have done?

There appears to be two schools of thought on this, firstly, that the legislators were right in law to have resorted to service by substituted means without an order of court or enabling law. Proponents of this school overlook the wider implication of this practice on the polity of Nigeria. It is not healthy for our democracy to permit legislators to resort to any means they deem fit in circumstances where there is a lacuna in the law, as in this case. This will be tantamount to the principle of the end justifies the means. The action of the legislators in Adamawa is respectfully in my view, a recourse to self-help.

Secondly, the other school of thought holds the view that the court can grant an order ex parte for substituted service where personal service fails as in this case. One is at a loss as to where the court will derive such powers given the clear provisions of section 188. Impeachment proceeding is sui generis and strictly governed by the provisions of the constitution and nothing more. The attempt by the proponent of this school to import into section 188(2) of the constitution the civil procedure rules of the various High Courts in Nigeria is inappropriate in this case. Substituted service and how to go about same is specifically provided for by the rules of court. However, the relevant constitutional provisions on impeachment did not make any provisions for substituted service.

In fact, it is safe to say that the drafters of the constitution will not have required the legislators to file an application ex parte in any court in order to obtain an order for substituted service if there was a provision as such in the constitution. The constitution would have for instance in my view provided as follows:

“Where it becomes difficult to serve the holder of the office as required under section 188(2) the speaker of the house of assembly shall upon a resolution of the house passed by two third majority of the members cause the notice to be published in a national newspaper in circulation in the state”.

No doubt the case in Adamawa presents us with a novel situation and has again exposed the lacuna and shortcomings of our constitution. However we cannot blame the drafters of the constitution as they could not have anticipated the drama in Adamawa. The Adamawa scenario is certainly not the last we will hear on this issue of service, already the same drama is playing out in Nasarawa State. I submit that this has presented us with a chance to amend the relevant provisions of the constitution in order to address this issue, as was the case after the doctrine of necessity during the late President Yar’Adua. Constitutional amendment in any case is done in response to the changes and dynamics of human society.
- Akinleye is a Lagos-based legal practitioner
July 29, 2014
Coriolanus of Osun

Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, in Shakespare’s historical Roman play, Coriolanus, was a young general. The play was written c.1605 but was set in 509 BC Rome, just after the expulsion of the last of the Tarquin kings.

In today’s Nigeria, politics and demagoguery have contrived to throw up another Coriolanus, in Iyiola Omisore, the PDP gubernatorial candidate for the August 9 election in Osun.

It is a classic case of history repeating itself as outlandish farce.

Coriolanus was truly noble, heroic and intrepid, so much so that his glorious capture of Corioli, a city of the Volscians, Rome’s mortal enemies, earned him the agnomen, Coriolanus.

He was a soldier and no meddler. Soldiering was what he was and ever wanted. To boot, he had noble contempt for the Roman plebs with their reeking breaths — and an over-size pride that curried nothing but self-destruction.

Still Volumnia, his mother, wanted her son to transit to politics and run for consul. But for Coriolanus, the path to consul was the beginning of the end.

When, to win the consulship, Coriolanus needed to show his war scars, and fresh Corioli wounds, to earn the sympathy of the plebs of stinking breaths, goaded to rebellion by subversive tribunes, Coriolanus fatally blew his tops. That pretence was simply too much for his noble soul!

The result: banishment from Rome; a Coriolanus-Volscian siege on Rome, aborted only by plaintive pleas from Mother Dearest, Volumnia; and Coriolanus’ eventual murder at Antium, the Volscian capital.

But so long for Rome and its near-boy soldier! How does Iyiola Omisore, a former senator of the Federal Republic, compare to the original?

For starters, while the tribunes, voices of the Roman rabble in the Shakespeare play, goaded the plebs to anti-Coriolanus passion, a Nigerian Tribune slants Mr. Omisore’s case — hardly a crime but hardly journalism virtue too — as positively as the Roman tribunes negatively twisted Coriolanus’.

Then, the nobility-villainy continuum. Coriolanus’ nobility was beyond doubt. Mr. Omisore’s friends and acquaintances could well claim for him similar virtues, with their intensely private knowledge of his persona. Still, respectable society would appear to cringe from Mr. Omisore’s public persona.

Coriolanus, among the rabble, exuded fear, while the Roman nobility had nothing but admiration for the callow youth. What Mr. Omisore emits, among the masses and the elite, could best be seen from the reported masked gunman captured on photo, trailing him at campaign stumps.

But it is in the post-Ekiti Debacle frantic Fayose-wannabe that Mr. Omisore best replicates the Coriolanus vote comic. To be consul, even after securing the Roman senate’s nod, Coriolanus was condemned to showing off his war wounds, for the votes of the rabble he despised with all his noble soul.

Like the Roman Coriolanus, the Osun variant has, in frantic search of votes, also condemned himself to acting his newly acquired man-of-the-people demagoguery, ala Ekiti’s Fayose, with tragic comedy.

Man-of-the-people Omisore jumps on the next available Okada to the next campaign stump. But what comes across is extremely bad acting that craves cheap sympathy.

Man-of-the-people Omisore stopped to grab popcorn from the roadside. Yet, lurking behind him was the sinister shadow of a hooded gunman.

Man-of-the-people Omisore sank his teeth in two roast corncobs, in double-handed felicity with the masses. But what came across was a hideous scowl: some suppressed rage at pawning such personal humiliation for votes.

In Nigerian political history, it is so reminiscent of an Ahmadu Bello, feeling dust in his nostrils, swearing to deal with Obafemi Awolowo for dragging him to beg for votes before his own subjects. But the Sardauna was, at least, royalty!

Man of the people Omisore did violence to basic dress sense; his own very cynical proof that he numbered among the masses. Yet, what emerged was ludicrous self-ridicule that harvests more scorn than love.

Blind panic was never executed with a bolder face!

And all this melodrama for what purpose? Reported snorting at the people not to waste their votes, since it would allegedly not count; alleged threats that gwodogwodo (strange and ruthless soldiers and police) would be unleashed on election day, in a complete partisan militarisation ala Ekiti; and wilful bad-mouthing of glittering achievements by Rauf Aregbesola, the sitting governor, in the fond hope that the Osun people are deaf, dumb and blind to the obvious!

And if all that failed — as they seem to be failing — play the religious card: Christians-don’t-vote-for-that-mullah, as allegedly ordered by Aso Rock and PDP hierarchs, as claimed by some news reports.

For all you know, these might all just be high-voltage partisan allegations. But with Omisore protégée, Jelili Adesiyan as Police Affairs minister and Musiliu Obanikoro, the Lagos prodigal, as Defence minister of state, the wondrous deeds of the duo in the Ekiti electoral blitzkrieg, and an unconscionable Jonathan Presidency that thinks nothing of throwing the security agencies into partisan fray, hardly any allegation sounds so fantastic.

Still, not unlike Fayose before him, at least from media coverage of the Osun electioneering, Mr. Omisore boasts no cutting-edge vision or rigorous articulation of policy over the Aregbesola governorship — just a dark hint that federal might would fix it, no matter how dull or uninspiring his ticket comes across to the Osun voter.

Ironically, the Aregbesola camp too, with the shock of the Ekiti debacle, was almost pressing the panic button: what with Mr. Fayose bragging he would lead PDP to “recapture” the South West; and Mr. Omisore staging his Fayose-wannabe burlesque.

Still, Governor Aregbesola has hit back with a carefully choreographed mix of politics and policy, rolling out, mint-fresh, newly completed school complexes, commissioning of the school bus programme, launching a micro-business credit scheme with sheer pomp; aside from glittering infrastructure — thanks to the governor’s massive urban renewal programme; and no less massive suburban and rural roads.

It is a classic case of a governor that has a lot to show in four years — and is not at all coy about showing them!

And the campaign crowds? Simply intimidating, perhaps sending raw panic to the other camp. If Governor Fayemi could be charged with aloofness, which has proved fatal for his second term, Governor Aregbesola has proved himself a consummate man of the people, an effective mass mobilizer (and his massive rallies are proof) and a policy wonk cum visionary, all rolled into one. All these, he has deployed against the staid Mr. Omisore, who looks even more pathetic by the day.

Aside from the sorcery of federal might (beginning to echo the bubble of Shakespeare’s Macbeth’s three witches), the Osun Coriolanus continues to look like some luckless lamb led to slaughter. He has neither the sharp mind to match Aregbesola’s policy articulation nor the personal effervescence to match the governor’s charisma.

As the August 9 election draws near, how would the federal fixers fiddle this one, as Mr. Omisore is allegedly boasting?

July 22, 2014
It’s Jona country, period!

Thanks to the outbreak of the latest strain of the virus of political delinquency, the nation marches perilously towards its long predicted unravelling year 2015. Although, the twists, turns and high-wire intrigues had long been expected, what no one could have predicted was the latest strain in which the impeachment instrument would become the main driver of the process with barely six left months of the current tenure of elected public officials. But then, like an untreated flu that would spawn other opportunistic ailments, what was initially assumed to be a play of political delinquency has since metastasised into full-blown political pathology, spreading so fast across the polity as to pose grave threats to the health of the republic.

It is not as if the nation did not pay enough attention to the farce which started in July last year in the Rivers State House of Assembly during which five renegade members moved to impeach Hose Speaker Otelemaba Amachree, in their bid to pave the way for the removal of Governor Rotimi Amaechi. Indeed, it wasn’t that they failed to recognise the virus when it resurfaced in Edo State in June this year when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) plotted to upstage the leadership of the State House of Assembly, in their bid to get at the comrade governor.

Perhaps, the problem was to assume that simply because the wily lawmakers in the two instances met their matches in their equally foxy governors, a permanent antidote of sorts had been found. That costly misjudgement would seem partly responsible for what now threatens to be full-blown epidemic of impeachment.

No doubt, many expected that Murtala Nyako of Adamawa, an ex-military brass-hat would not only anticipate the desperation of those determined to do him in long after he parted ways with President Jonathan, particularly after he followed this with the accusation that the Jonathan administration committed genocide against the North, but would actually take pre-emptive steps to foil it.

Too bad that he failed; now, he is not only down and out, he suffers the collateral damage of being a potential fugitive on the run from charges ranging from graft to treason. And from the look of things, his neighbour and fellow APC governor, Tanko Al-Makura, seems set to share his fate following the quit notice served by the PDP-dominated House of Assembly. As it appears, not even the factor of the aggrieved citizens taking to the streets for nearly the whole of last week to protest the lawmakers attempt to oust their governor looks likely to change anything with the lawmakers again serving the notice and that the process would go ahead as planned.

Now, the issue really isn’t that the use of the weapon of impeachment is anything new in the nation’s democratic practice. After all, we saw how the weapon was used in the Second Republic of Shehu Shagari by the implacable lawmakers of the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) to truncate the PRP administration of Balarabe Musa in the old Kaduna State. It was even more so in the Fourth Republic under the Obasanjo administration, when without any pretences to the niceties of process, it found it a ready tool to nail those deemed as political foes as we saw in Joshua Dariye’s Plateau State and of course, in Bayelsa where Jonathan would be the beneficiary.

The difference under President Goodluck Jonathan goes a tad beyond cynical manipulation of process for political advantage; what we have is vintage Jonathan opportunism –a hubristic conversion of national institutions for regime perpetuation, an outright subversion of the democratic process.

This is where those who currently feign surprise either failed to pay heed or chose to ignore the tell-tales signs of the budding fascism. We have certainly gone a long way from the time the president played the meek and humble card. I recall here that my colleague Sam Omatseye long ago warned Nigerians about the danger of falling into the ‘homeboy’ seductions of the man from Otuoke. That when it was still fashionable for officials in the Presidency to encourage the boss to play the victim. Not anymore. The true victims can roast in the merciless sun with no one giving a damn. The once coy regime is off the leash, and with it, an awesome sense of unchallengeable power. Once it was content to merely sow divisions in the polity, now it seems determined to take on its foes by means more foul than fair. For the opposition, the message ought to be clear enough: for every trouble, they had better prepare for the double. Truly, the race to 2015 has begun!

By the way, does anyone still remember the administration’s serial promises on the power sector that has remained un-kept? I do not mean the nebulous claims about power stabilisation but its own self-advertised delivery target of 10,000MW power generation by 2013 or is it now 2014?

Does anyone still remember that the infrastructure of Africa’s fastest growing economy in 2014 still belongs in the Stone Age? And lest I forget, that the economy since 2013 has virtually remained hostage to the cartel of oil thieves said to be responsible for the industrial-scale theft of Nigeria’s crude on account of which the 36 states are now visited with the bizarre financial scorched-earth policy ever in perhaps the nation’s fiscal history?

More questions. I hope we’ll get around to these and many more – including the question of how a President invested with a broad pan-Nigerian mandate a little less than four years ago has shrunk almost beyond recognition – before everything else.

These sort of put everything in perspective, or what do you think?

$1 Billion to fight Boko Haram?

It’s no longer news that President Goodluck Jonathan wants a $1 billion loan package to fight the Boko Haram. Having thrown in something in excess of N3 trillion in the last three budget cycles with limited results to show, it seems reasonable to expect that citizens would demand, hard probing questions about the overall conduct of the war on the insurgency.

First, we have not been told where the loan is coming from and on what terms. Second, we have also not been told why the loan request is coming outside of the normal budgetary cycle. Clearly, that the nation is at war should not alone vitiate the requirement for due process.

Beside the two, I have, times without number, expressed what I consider, a fundamental reservations with the framework of our so-called foreign loans. By this I mean the idea of taking a loan at say five percent or more interest, whilst locking up one’s investment at a measly two percent. Can somebody explain the sense in making a deposit at two percent while paying five percent on loans?

July 22, 2014
On reaching 70

When you reach age 40, the New York Times humourist and satirist, Russell Baker, wrote in his engrossing autobiography, Growing Up, you suddenly realise that you can no longer take your immortality for granted.

Baker, since deceased, was writing about a country in which the life expectancy even for persons at the lowest rung of the economic ladder was well above 60 years.

According to the best authorities, life expectancy in Nigeria may be as low as 47, or as high as 54 years. So that if you attain the age of 70, as I did last week, you are at least in a statistical sense doing “overtime,” for which the reward is certainly not an enhanced rate of compensation but an accelerated journey into the arcane world of entropy.

From then on, the trajectory is notorious: Memory falters, eyes dim, reflexes slacken, hearing diminishes, joints creak, body processes slow down and motion is constrained. Thurgood Marshall, the first black associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, captured this process succinctly in1991 on being asked why he was resigning from the court when he could keep the job until his death.

“Because my body is falling apart,” the great man said. He was 81 and lived for two more years.

There are of course even here notable persons, who have proved superior to that trajectory. I am thinking of Chief Edwin Clark, rambunctious as ever at 82, the irrepressible Chief Ayo Adebanjo, former Head of State Gen. Yakubu Gowon and former President Olusegun Obasanjo. At 80, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has a gait that persons two decades younger will give anything to possess and runs a schedule that will faze persons half his age.

I have not yet begun to feel the full weight of the years. And I am indeed thankful that I have beaten the statistical odds. So, when asked how it felt to be on cusp of 70, I usually responded that it felt not much different from being 65, or 60 for that matter.

Not anymore.

When your colleagues in the newsroom call you “Daddy” to your hearing or “Baba Dare” behind your back; when the young woman you are about to compliment from the purest of motives on her fetching dress and exquisite grooming gives you a look that literally screams: “Don’t even think of going there” ; and when you are on the receiving end of friendly advice to give up your snazzy designer necktie for “the younger ones,” you know that you are now perceived differently even if you don’t feel much different.

Still, the anniversary was worth celebrating.

It was a compact and a starchy affair, marked with a lecture and the launch of what the Germans call a festschrift, an appreciation of a scholar when he turns 65, by fellow scholars, and with the usual reminiscences. It had nothing in common with the owambe outing that the chairman of the occasion, Gen. TY Danjuma, said jokingly he would have preferred.

Although I had heard much about the resolute manner of Gen. Danjuma, it was not until 1991 that I experienced it first-hand. Lagos State Military Governor Raji Rasaki had closed down The Guardian Newspapers, following the publication of a story that the police had shot dead two students during a demonstration at the Yaba College of Technology. Rasaki let it be known that if The Guardian disavowed the publication – which was accurate in every material particular —and apologised, he would allow it to resume business.

The Guardian Publisher, Alex Ibru, had then called a meeting of senior editors to deliberate on Rasaki’s proposal. In attendance were two members of the Board of Directors, Gen. Danjuma and Chris Okolie, the Publisher of Newbreed.

The discussion was going in the way of finding the words to meet Rasaki’s terms when Danjuma intervened.

“We cannot apologise,” he said. “We will not apologise.”

That resolute pronouncement, backed enthusiastically by Chris Okolie, ended the discussion. Rasaki did not get his apology. A week later, The Guardian was back in business.

But I digress.

Not a few persons in the anniversary audience must have been grieved to learn from the guest lecturer, Prof. Kwame Karikari, of the University of Ghana, Legon, and most recently the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, that Ethiopia, freed from the tyrannous grip of Mengistu Haile Mariam and the Dergue, and Eritrea, which at its birth showed inspiring intimations of a new way of governance in Africa, have regressed into stark authoritarianism, along with Gambia, which Yahya Jamme rules as his personal estate.

But these are only the worst cases on a continent in which rulers show scant regard for the rule of law, human rights and freedom of speech and of the press.

Nor did my fellow Columbian, Karikari, spare the men and women of the press — their predilection for cutting journalistic corners and engaging in sensationalistic reporting, their scant regard for ethics and their often instrumental approach to the business, not forgetting the proprietors who do not pay their workers regularly and thus drive them to seek or accept favours that compromise news work.

Dr. Wale Adebanwi conceived the festschrift, nurtured it, sustained it and saw it to execution in just six months. Just to give some idea of the effort that went into preparing the volume: It features contributions from 25 scholars, media academics and media practitioners on four continents.

It is emblematic of the diligent commitment that has earned Dr. Adebanwi a global reputation for scholarship in just the first decade of his academic career. I thank him and all the contributors to the festschrift. If one follows the German tradition, it is coming five years late. But I take it with grateful thanks.

I claim no entitlement to the significant presence at the anniversary event of my colleagues in the academy and the media, former students and persons who have followed my work over the years. Few things are more gratifying than the approval of one’s colleagues, peers and a discriminating audience. I am deeply touched.

In the years ahead, I plan to devote my time to spreading awareness about the childhood degenerative disease, autism, with which one of my sons is afflicted, and to use whatever influence I can muster to draw attention to the plight of those so circumstanced.

A Very Special Birthday Greeting

The Hon Patrick Obahiagbon, Chief of Staff, represented his principal, the Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, at my birthday celebration.

But it was in his personal capacity that he sent on the eve of that milestone this e-mail, which I crave his indulgence to share with the devoted followers of this page.

Hear it, then, from Himself the Igodomigodo:

“Congratulations on your natal day, my brother.

“Only a particolored pantaloon would be didymusian as to the fact that your peregrination thus far in this incarnation has been dedicated to the pax Nigeriana of our dream.

“May your pantagruelian and rabelaisian pen never suffer atrophy that you may continuously dance on the coruscating cadence of the hybla bees.So Mote It Be.”

July 22, 2014