The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Protest without violence

    Protest without violence

    Organizers of any protest in Nigeria, under our democracy, surely has the 1999 constitution (as amended), as their holy writ. The right to protest is a fundamental right, subsumed in sections 38, 39 and 40 of that constitution. Even President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT), has said that protest is legitimate, but that he is worried about any descent into anarchy, which will make life worse for the ordinary Nigerians. Like Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, the organizers are entitled to cut their pound of flesh, but there must be no jot of blood. 

    So, while the organizers are entitled to protest, they have a herculean task, to ensure there is no descent into anarchy. A task that may be impossible, as recent events, especially the #EndSARS protest showed. State officials have asked those promoting the protest to own up as the arrow heads, so that if the protest spins out control and destruction follows, the arrow heads would answer the charges. Those in support of the protest have argued that it is the responsibility of the police to ensure public order, and not that of those exercising their right to protest.

    But in advanced democracies where regular protest is the side-kick, organizers usually project themselves forward, and give a schedule of the areas they would march on, and that helps the police to plan to protect. As argued by the spokespersons of PBAT who himself has participated in several protests, the objectives of any protest and the demands should be in the public glare, and the organizers clearly identifiable. For the proponents of the threatened protest to merely seek an omnibus end is akin to seeking to unlawfully end the life of a democratically elected administration; it is to act like the Shakespearian Shylock. 

    In Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Shylock had loaned a desperate Antonio money with the bond that if he is unable to pay when the loan is due, Shylock will be entitled to cut a pound of flesh from the breast. When the loan became due, and Antonio couldn’t pay, Shylock insisted on exerting the terms of the bond, as parties had agreed. Antonio’s friend, Portia, who pleaded his case, before the judge, ingeniously argued that Shylock could cut his pound of flesh, but since blood was not part of the bargain, he must do so without a jot of blood dropping.

    Shylock knowing that such a procedure was impossible abandoned his entitlement of a pound of flesh. Of course, if he went ahead to cut the flesh, and he spills the blood of a Christian, he would have committed an offence, which punishment would be the seizure of all his lands and goods. While Shylock hated Antonio and would have loved to exact his pound of flesh, he was not willing to do so, at the great risk of losing all that he had labored for, especially from his business, as a loan shark.

    A similar dilemma confronts the planners of the much hyped protest scheduled to begin on August 1, and to last till August 10, tagged #Endbadgovernance. Government officials and security agencies have said the protesters are entitled to their constitutional right to protest, but they must not descend into anarchy, destruction of public property, restriction of movements and similar unlawful conducts, associated with violent protests, in our clime. The scars of the relatively recent #EndSARS protest is too scary, especially in Lagos, where hoodlums tried to literally burn down the entire state infrastructure. 

    That recent history makes it legitimate to ask the shadowy organizers how they constitutionally intend to end bad governance; is it by violently foisting an undemocratically elected governance as substitute? That unrealizable objective, the organizers must know, is what is abuzz in the streets, as the ultimate plan. If that is not their intention, then the organizers, to legitimize their right to protest, must define their objectives, and conscientiously propound how they intend to achieve it within the confines of the laws of the land.

    Of course, no true democrat would oppose a call to end bad governance, if the acts that constitute bad governance are enumerated, and the demands to bring such obnoxious acts within the realm of good governance are listed. Such a call would be in sync with the basic canons of constitutional democracy. Since, the advent of the present republic, this column has always canvased for end to many obnoxious practices. But even as the most ardent supporter of the right to protest would agree, the fragile national economy would get worse if 10 working days is dedicated to public protests, for an omnibus cause.

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    The worry is that the protest could degenerate into anarchy, bloodletting and general destruction of public properties. What happened during the #EndSARS protest is a pointer, as to how even the most well planned protest could be hijacked by forces beyond the control of the organizers, to visit mayhem on the general public and its infrastructure. More so, with hunger in the land, the adage that a hungry man is an angry man would play out. Of course, this writer is not in government and so is adversely affected by the hunger pangs ravaging the majority of Nigerians.

    This writer is also averse to acts of bad government, whether by local government administrations, state governments or the federal government, and he joins his voice to ask those in power to mend their ways. It is unconscionable and unbearable, for those in positions of authority to live in affluence, while they ask the rest of Nigerians to tighten their belts, and await a future Eldorado. The leaders at all levels must live by example. They must cut the offensive waist in public governance, and show obvious frugality in public spending.

    The executive and legislative members must lead by example. The corruption in the public space must be reined in for public angst to abate and peace to reign. While there is mass discontentment and hunger amongst the majority in the land, the answer does not lie in violence and wanton destruction of public property, which is the usual end result of the kind of protest that the amorphous organizers of #ENDBADGOVERNANCE protest wants to unleash on the country. If they can guarantee a protest without violence, they are free to go on. 

    This writer has canvased that PBAT has the capacity to turn Nigeria around, and is already putting the building blocks in place. What he needs to do, is to reign in the galloping inflation making mincemeat of the income of the average Nigerian. While the economies of other nations are buffeted by inflationary pressures, the economic malignancy of the recent past makes Nigeria a peculiar mess. Since PBAT begged to be elected, the time to act is now.

  • Protest: Head or tail, we may all end up losers

    Protest: Head or tail, we may all end up losers

    • By Tunde Rahman

    All hell has been let loose, and the centre can no longer hold in Kenya over the tax revolt that has been ravaging that East-African country since June. In the wake of the crisis, a part of the parliament building was razed down by arsonists. Some public buildings were touched while several companies and shops were destroyed and looted. Sensing their relative success in forcing the government to cancel the $2.7billion in tax hikes, the mainly Gen-Z protesters are now calling for President William Ruto’s resignation.

    The young people have succeeded in throwing Kenya into turmoil, and no one in that country can now sleep with their two eyes closed. The number of casualties has been on the rise in the ongoing protests. More than 50 people have been reported killed since June, according to Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights.

     The Kenyan violence and destruction are reminiscent of the October 2020 EndSARS protest in Nigeria. During that EndSARS protest, several police stations were burnt with some police officers  beheaded. The gory video of cannibals eating flesh from the bodies of slain police officers is still chilling. There was a jailbreak, and hardened criminals were let free in Lagos, Benin, and Abuja prisons. Critical infrastructure owned by the Lagos State Government was destroyed. Notable television station, TVC, was razed down.

    It is difficult to forget how a large number of luxury buses meant to power public transportation in Lagos were burnt and left to ruins. A friend recounted to me how a distraught Governor Babajide Sanwo-olu was going through the ruins of the burnt buses at Oyingbo and tears began to cascade from his eyes over the multi-million dollar investment destroyed. 

    Such was the level of the destruction, the carnage, the investment gone in flames, the trauma and the uncertainty engendered by the protest. Those insisting on replicating the EndSARS protest in the country or reproducing the Kenyan moment in Nigeria do not mean well for the country and the people.

    It may be argued that but protesters have a right to register their displeasure about the state of the nation, particularly with the excruciating cost of living, even in spite of government’s laudable economic policies and cushioning efforts, and this may be correct. However, the planned protest does not augur well for the country and our people. This is so for a number of reasons.

    Firstly, given what transpired during that 2020 protest, there is no guarantee that any protest at this time would not turn violent or hijacked by hoodlums and other dodgy characters to foist their nefarious agenda on the country. This protest, which by most accounts is politically motivated, can only result in  violence, arson and looting, as is characteristic of similar demonstrations in Nigeria and most parts of Africa. The Kenyan episode is also a case in point.

    In the past, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as he then was, and other activists had deployed the instrumentality of non-violent protest or agitation to advance the democratic cause that led to the rebirth of democracy in the land, and to correct some imbalances in the operation of Nigeria’s federalism, particularly during the regime of President Obasanjo.

    Secondly, the sponsors and promoters of this protest, christened #EndBadGovernance protest, remain yet unknown. They are faceless and yet unidentified persons. I glimpsed an online interview with SaharaReporters’s publisher, Omoyele Sowore, identifying and calling for the demonstration. Meanwhile, he and his family are in their safe harbour in New Jersey. That was the same way detained Nnamdi Kanu was giving orders from abroad, naming individuals and their properties to be destroyed in Lagos during the EndSARS’ protest.

    Thirdly, it’s being established that constructive dialogue is the key to resolving issues and thrashing any misgiving or disagreement, which is bound to occur in any society. When there is a conflict between governments and groups arising from policy issues and other matters, dialogue is always the best way to resolve such disputes. In spite of the remonstrations of Organised Labour over the National Minimum Wage, eventually they still resorted to negotiations with the government during which the matter was resolved amicably and a new national minimum wage, which is over 100% of the old one, was agreed upon with even an icing on the cake as President Tinubu committed to every 3-year review, instead of workers having to wait for 5 years before wages are adjusted.

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    More importantly, the hashtag #EndbadGovernance being promoted by the unknown protesters is dubious and remains contentious. End to bad governance? This condensation reminds one of the rhetoric of still-disgruntled opponents of President Tinubu, who lost the 2023 presidential election at the polls and in court, and now want to unseat him and come to power through the back doors.

    This is unacceptable. The nation’s electoral laws stipulate how elections are won and lost and the electoral circles as well. They will do well to wait for the next election in 2027.

    End to bad governance? Where is the bad governance, one may ask? Yes, these are challenging times. Current economic challenges are not peculiar to Nigeria alone. Almost all the countries around the world, including the most developed ones, are in turmoil. Nigeria is no exception. President Tinubu is applying the right medication to an ailing economy he inherited. This bears restating: the economic policies the government has embarked upon, which have been widely commended, have their gestation periods. And, though some pains may have come during the interregnum, these would be temporary. Some compensatory and cushioning initiatives are also being embarked upon. The point is that the distribution of the palliatives to the people needs to be intensified and pursued vigorously. In this respect, states and Local governments must do better as partners with the federal government to ensure effective distribution of these palliatives.

     In the meantime, there is cheering news about the economy. The country has exited the ways and means trap, which had been a cog in the wheel before and there is now growing confidence in the nation’s economy. According to the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, debt service cost has declined from 97% to 68% and government has also surpassed non-oil revenue by 30%. What this means is that government will now have more money to fund social services and infrastructural projects that will improve the quality of life of Nigerians. The economy is growing, and sooner than later, some of the challenges of today will be overcome.

    Therefore, this is not the time for a violent protest. The protest does not bode well. It poses an existential threat to Nigeria and its democracy. It will not augur well for anyone. We may all be losers in the end.

    In summing up this article, I cannot but paraphrase that insightful columnist, Mr. Idowu Akinlotan, in his July 21, 2024 Palladium column, because he made this point more succinctly than I would do. I quote: “In sum, everybody may end up a loser, including opposition politicians galled by the outcome of the last presidential election, politicians who promote ethnic and religious exceptionalism, ethnic groups which resent the winner of the poll, youths who would likely become cannon fodder should the crisis blow out of proportion, and the country itself whose tenuous unity and untenable political structure have triggered tectonic shifts in the body politic. Nothing is certain, and this is no scaremongering.”

    •Rahman is a Senior Presidential Aide

  • Prof. Olatunji Dare: In his farewell, we find him anew

    Prof. Olatunji Dare: In his farewell, we find him anew

    In the quiet hum of The Nation’s newsroom, about a decade ago, I first encountered Professor Olatunji Dare. His presence was commanding yet unassuming, his words pulsing with the wisdom of a lifespan devoted to fiery journalism. It was in the office of the then Daily Editor, Gbenga Omotoso. That chance encounter would serve as a prologue to an enduring regard for one of Nigeria’s finest columnists.

    Fast forward to a Wednesday night in 2022. Fresh off the euphoria of winning the Fetisov Journalism Award (FJA) for Outstanding Contribution to Peace, my phone rang. The voice on the other end was unmistakable—incisive, soothing, and profoundly encouraging.

    Professor Dare had called to congratulate me. He said he had been trying to reach me for two days. At that moment, he made me a promise borne of a genuine desire to see me excel – one that supersedes what any benefactor may profess. Although I haven’t yet taken him up on that promise, the goodwill and sincerity behind it resonate with me still – a testament to his unwavering support for young journalists and writers.

    His retirement from The Nation’s back page as he clocked 80 isn’t just the end of a column; it’s the dimming of a beacon that has illuminated the landscape of Nigerian journalism for decades. Some have questioned the relevance of columnists, arguing that the ruling class scarcely reads them. Yet, Professor Dare is one of those rare breeds, whose incisive takes command the attention of even the most aloof political players. His writings transcend mere commentary. They are the pulse of the nation, echoing through the corridors of power, into the hearts of the citizenry.

    The beauty of his prose subsists in its appeal to both his fans and critics. His words, whether revered or rebuked, command engagement. Throughout his illustrious career, Professor Dare shunned the hubris that often ensnares intellectual giants. He never saw himself as an oracle, despite his authoritativeness and prognostic gift. His delivery, always steeped in a rare cadence of humility, ennobles and edifies society.

    Little wonder he maintained his oracular tenors from his days as the author of Matters Arising to his recently rested column in The Nation, At Home Abroad. From his unapologetic yet constructive criticism of military dictatorship to his clinical and didactic engagement with civilian leadership, Professor Dare’s contributions to nation-building are invaluable. Foremost columnists—some of whom were his former students—have paid homage to his literary and academic brilliance as he celebrated his 80th birthday.

    In his departure, I find him anew. Each column he penned provides an avenue for rediscovery, a chance to delve into familiar issues with fresh perspectives. His farewell offers an opportunity for new disciples to find him and for old friends and acquaintances to relive his wisdom.

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    At 80, the instinct is to let Professor Dare take his victory lap, applauding respectfully for the incredible work he has done. Yet, selfishly, I find myself yearning for more. Perhaps it’s because I suspect he still has much to offer. However, it is important to respect his decision to step back, given the immense sacrifices he has made and his invaluable contributions as a leading writer and moral compass for society.

    It is instructive that in over three decades of public commentary, the former Chairman, Editorial Board of The Guardian Newspaper and weekly columnist of The Nation, he never betrayed an exaggerated sense of self-worth. He neither declared nor paraded himself as an oracle, a temptation that many in his position would find hard to resist.

    Back in the military era, when eggheads sprouted and flowered as the mystical roses of the Nigerian mire – and endorsed brutes wielding unmerited power as they made our chaste, walled garden unchaste – Professor Dare refused to hop on the sycophantic bandwagon.

    Unlike several intellectuals who paraded flawed presence, he asserted real persona and moral substance. Thus, he was closed to and defiant of the seductive whisper of the crooked. He understood that the process of co-option is often subtle and reductive of journalists who must pride their independence.

    Few can forget how he resigned from his former workplace after the newspaper apologised to the late military dictator Sani Abacha. Professor Dare rejected the newspaper’s bid to earn the good graces of the late tyrant, and instead opted to resign, stressing that a newspaper that had always advocated the rule of law should not enter into a bargain that muddied the rule of law. “Since I didn’t participate in the resolution of the crisis,” he reportedly said, “I think it will be unfair to those who did if I benefit from the gains of the trip.” Thus, he relocated to the United States, where he started life afresh at Bradley University and the authorship of a 14-year weekly column, At Home Abroad, in The Nation.

    He shunned ghostly, amoral clout, and its promise of instant gratification, knowing it will eventually vanish in the long run, amid the sullied system that goads journalists to become soulless lobbyists.

    Professor Dare deployed fiery intellect to mirror societal hypocrisy and misgovernance, moral corruption and injustice. He walked his talk in the interest of Nigeria and the populace.

    For this and many other reasons, friends, family, colleagues, and former students converged on Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja GRA, Lagos on July 17, to celebrate a man who has spent his life speaking truth to power and mentoring generations of journalism greats. A recipient of several national and international academic and professional awards, the Emeritus Professor of Communication from Bradley University, Illinois, United States, has significantly contributed to public discourse in the country and beyond through his incisive columns in national newspapers and research papers in reputable journals. His satirical writings have been the subject of academic research in tertiary institutions within and outside Nigeria.

    President Bola Tinubu, in celebrating Dare, extolled him for his commitment to journalistic integrity and ethics, even when he faced adversity and repression during the military era. Professor Dare defies description and elicits awe for his brilliance, strength of character, and the courage of his convictions.

    If Professor Olatunji Dare’s life were a book, it would be a literary masterpiece, interlarded with patriotism, satirical genius, progressive scholarship, and a life devoted to the preservation of nationhood. His life is a saga of serialised valour, each chapter brimming with contributions that have shaped generations of writers and thinkers.

    Professor Dare deconstructs and illuminates the grey areas of governance and citizenship with painstaking, resilient introspection. His retirement is not just the end of an era; it is a poignant reminder of the power of words and the enduring impact of a life dedicated to truth and justice.

    Perhaps because he humanely engages with the issues and relates it to the people, Professor Dare attained noble repute, unsullied and deeply respected from the grassroots to the glitzy corridors of power. In retirement, he assumes a prideful place in the pantheon of Nigeria’s finest satirists, patriots and statesmen.

    As he steps away from his role as a columnist, we honour not just his contributions to journalism but also the profound impact he has had on our lives. Professor Olatunji Dare, at 80, remains a beacon of wisdom, a testament to the enduring power of insightful, humble, and impactful journalism. In celebrating his legacy, we are reminded that the adventures of our souls in knowing him—first through his engaging writing and then through personal encounters—have been nothing short of transformative.

  • A farewell to columnism

    A farewell to columnism

    If you don’t find “columnism” in the dictionary, you have my word that I did not make it up.

    I first encountered the term in an essay for The New York Times by the lexicographer, William Safire.  Following him, I have used it in this space to denote the art and craft of writing a newspaper or magazine column.

    But I did so with not a little wariness.  In the war of attrition between the Babangida regime and  the progressive section of the news media, I feared that the inventive managers of its duplicitous political transition programme might replace the second letter in “columnist” with the first letter of the English alphabet, in the process transmuting the term to “calumnist”  and damning practitioners the noble art of columnism to wear a term of reproach through the life of the regime and beyond.

    Columnism has been my preoccupation, on and off, but more on than off, for some 30 years.  But as I hinted last week, it is time to go.  This is the final installment of “At Home Abroad.” the brand name of the column since this newspaper debuted some 14 years ago.  In its previous iteration on different platforms, the column ran as “Matters Arising” and furnished the title of a selection from my collected journalism between 1985 and 1993.

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    Writing the column has been a great honour and privilege.

    At a time like this, one is expected to reflect on one’s adventures in the business and share with fellow practitioners in general and the younger ones in particular nuggets of the best practices one has learned over the decades.

    It is incomparable, this privilege of inflicting one’s views and biases, and prejudices on others week after week on the issues of the day, issues large and small, with no direction other than the broad editorial policy of the journal, the enduring examples of some of the finest practitioners of the craft dead or living, the laws of defamation, the dictates of decency, the moral law within you, and the values that have shaped you.

    It is in fact more than a privilege:  it is a trust that must be earned and constantly re-earned.

    The trust carries with it a corollary duty:  to deploy your gifts, skills, insights and judgment to help shape the standards of sense and sensibility; and to produce a picture of reality on which sound public policy can be founded.  The columnist must not get so absorbed in the privileges and trappings that he or she loses sight of this overarching goal.

    The most accomplished columnist, working under the tyranny of deadlines, with unfolding situations and incomplete or faulty data, can be permitted his or her mistakes.   But it is inexcusable for the columnist to be irresponsibly wrong, or to persist in error after a truer picture of the situation has been provided.  The columnist is thus obliged to refresh his or her knowledge, update the available information, cultivate a multiplicity of sources, eschew oracular pronouncements, and instead, cultivate humility.

    The political columnist is concerned with power, its use and abuse.  To write about it in a manner that commands respect and trust, he or she must be in a position to observe power closely, to go beyond appearances, or what one of the greatest practitioners of the craft, Walter Lippmann, called “the foam of events.”

    To write competently and confidently about the use and abuse of power from a distance, you have to be stationed up close.  But not so close that you cannot see clearly.  You have to maintain an “air space” between you and the authorities.  Watch out for the seductions of power that come in many guises and disguises, and never put your trust fully and uncritically in princes and principalities.

    You can be harsh, even brutal, if that is what the situation demands.  But never write from malice or hatred, for they undermine that charity that is the foundation of the good society.

    That is what I have distilled from the reflections and reminiscences of some of the best exemplars of the craft.  I have tried to apply them to my work.  How well I have succeeded is for the reader to judge, but I can say that they have served me well, just as they have served the sources from which I derived them and will doubtless serve those who diligently seek to apply them.

    Retiring the column is not the same thing as retiring from journalism.  On retiring from the University of Ibadan, the eminent historian, Professor Jacob Festus Ade-Ajayi noted that he was only retiring from the teaching of history at an academic institution, not retiring from history.  Like the great man, I should make clear that I am retiring from columnism, not from journalism.

    From time to time I will, as a contribution to the national policy dialogue, write on issues that move me or amuse me or faze me or irritate me, but not under the AT HOME ABROAD rubric.  The frequency will be determined by circumstances. I count it an honour that this newspaper has accorded me that privilege.

    In my writings over the decades, I have won many friends and admirers.  Many of them remember and remind me of things I wrote long ago and now remember only dimly, and they do so largely from appreciation. I thank each and every one of them.  I know I did not always live up to their expectations, yet they kept faith with the column week after week.

    The column has also attracted its fair share of critics and antagonists.  When the paper still provided facilities for instant comments without mediation, the column was the haunt of one anonymous troller who could never bring himself to see or say anything good in it – or in the columnist for that matter.  Within minutes of the column being posted, he is there excoriating him remorselessly and imputing the basest motives to him.

    The last time we heard from him, he accused me of cowardice and dishonesty for not naming a public figure whose diverting convocation address in one of the universities I had shared with readers.  When someone in the attentive audience pointed out that the public officer in question was named in the article, this unrelenting antagonist rejoined that it was my fault that I had not followed the elementary canons of newswriting  — who, what, where, when, etc.

    With antagonists like that, you can never win.  I wonder what became of him when The NATION shut down the instant-response ap on its website.  He had one thing going for him, though:  he was knowledgeable, and his prose was admirable.

    Together, admirers and antagonists kept me on my toes much of the time.  I often had to reckon with or anticipate what the latter would say.   

    My written evaluations of submissions by my students, I realized years later in a different setting, must have gnawed at their self-esteem, especially in my early years as a university teacher.  It is not enough to say that I meant no harm.  It is a measure of their large heartedness that they rank among my best admirers today.  They all constituted a crucial part of my education.  I learned from them even as I sought to teach them.

    It remains to thank the proprietors, managers, editors, staffers and operatives of The Nation Newspaper for the courtesies and kindnesses they showered on me from the day I first set foot on their premises.

    For now,  au revoir.

  • Doomsday as paradise

    Doomsday as paradise

    Doomsday as paradise?  That’s a violent contradiction in terms! 

    Still, that is the permanent state of people who flee hard thinking to fantasize over fashionable — and inevitable — doom.  Sounds familiar?

    That would appear the picture-perfect Nigeria.  Its thinkers.  Its media.  Its opposition figures. Its prophets-turned-cheap pundits, projecting permanent woes.  Its baleful social media warriors.  Its ethnic champions, posing as a reformative army. 

    Its academics: bristling “strikers” sans thinkers.  Its lawyers, that bawl rights but crave chaos.  Its students, gangling simplistic soldiers of Aluta. Its retarded organized Labour, shackled to the past.  Not to talk of its much abused hoi polloi, primed to wallow in their misery, in utter hopelessness, by fake messiahs.

    What an ensemble!  But no quake of sweet droning can make up for hard thinking!

    But let’s break it down.  Do a content analysis of newspapers, radio talks and TV shows: Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan, Buhari and now Tinubu — and what do you find?

    Hunger.  Squalor. Poverty. Joblessness. Hopelessness — all 25 years from 1999.

    Yes, these are gripping drama of life on which the media must report.  And yes: the government always lags behind the people’s expectations.  In any case, democracy — as against junta rule — is celebrated oomph of pent-up pains.

    Still, must negative hyperbole always rule the roost, because that sounds “woke” to milk ever-present misery for whatever motive?  Must our past always be adjudged better than our present — and are they really?

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    Take Lagos.  In 1999, there was neither Blue nor Red rail.  Today, Blue is doing daily shuttles.  Red is rearing to go.  In 1999, there was no Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).  Today, BRT is routine.  In 1999, mountains of filth were all over.  Today, they are all vanished, converted to venture wealth, that feeds households, via sustainable jobs.

    But more critically on the ideas plain: the punishing thinking and audacious vision, that fired all these policies and programmes, were all post-1999.

    Now, beyond Lagos.  In 1999, there was no Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge rail.  No Wasimi rail wagon plant.  No 2nd Niger Bridge.  No Loko-Oweto Bridge over the River Benue.  No rice-milling plants that sprang up, recalling to life long-dead — and buried — local rice. 

    And definitely no Dangote refinery, on which about everyone waits for petrol pump prices to crash: to tame inflation and reset the post-oil subsidy economy.

    Sadly, all of these were visible post-2015 projects, though to be fair, the modernized rail network plans had their genesis at the tail-end of the Obasanjo Presidency. 

    The PDP politicians of that era, though, were too besotted with naked power — PDP … PAWA! — and too comfy with easy money to bother about chores as infrastructure! Now, these blokes, supreme masters of cant, pose as romantic and new messiahs!

    Now, you’d understand the government and the opposition playing cat and mouse.  That’s legitimate.  It comes with the democratic territory. 

    But why would otherwise deep thinkers, within or outside the media, just latch on to this eternal, mournful hubbub, instead of engage, with rigour, those in power?

    A simple answer.  These folks are no — and never can be — magicians.  Yet, they bitterly resent those in government for not snapping their fingers and conjuring magic! 

    It’s the ancient Israelites again, screaming and screeching manna, yelling at Moses to take them back to slavery in Egypt!  And old Pharaohs, of the PDP era, wait with zest!

    Now, a close x-ray of extant policies, vis-a-vis the present pains.

    The Tinubu order must take it — “on its full chest”, as that cheeky, street pidgin lingo goes — that its policy choices are driving the current hardship in the land.

    The twin-elephants in the room are clear: the removal of oil subsidy and the floating of the Naira.  But then, in the regnant economic thinking — or lack of it — which swarmed the 2023 presidential election campaigns, what superior alternatives were out there?

    But instead of rigorously engaging the government on policy, and forcing it, by sheer force of reason, to adjust where necessary, everyone is clambering onto the easy lane of droning without end; and docking those in government as wicked and soulless.

    Those who personalize policy are out of their depths — and that’s about everyone, emotive and loud.  Hardly a crime, though, except that that din distracts folks hard at work to get us out of the jam.

    The other day, the Buhari order too was branded as wicked, incompetent, reckless, clueless and antediluvian — for taking loans!

    Now, which one is more redemptive: Obasanjo forking out US$ 12 billion to buy “debt forgiveness”, rather than invest that cash in critical infrastructure that can be worked to pay off the debts and after, keep the economy humming? 

    Or Buhari — “grow what you eat and eat what you grow” — getting those loans, in periods of harsh adversity, to kickstart that hard infrastructure fight-back?

    Why, Chukwuma Soludo, Anambra governor, even blurted Buhari left behind a “dead” economy, near-exclusively on Buhari’s monetary policy.  But how so, for a government that rallied infrastructure and agriculture?  Amusing paradox, isn’t that?

    But that’s the normal hubris of the economist.  As lawyers that brand only selves as “learned”, economists dismiss anyone that can’t boast their esoteric theories, as having sawdust for brain.  Hubris!

    Sam Omatseye dubs Soludo “boom of the Anambra orchestra”.  Well, Dave Umahi was boom of no orchestra as Ebonyi governor.  Yet, in three years, he had transformed Abakaliki (read the entire Ebonyi) from a dusty destination to an emergent model state, rural and urban!  He’s an engineer who knows infrastructure is the prime driver of the economy.  Not an economist that fetishizes monetary policy!

    In tactical error, many a high priest of the Tinubu cathedral had run with the Soludo quip, to sate the sentiment of the moment, demonize the immediate old order, and de-couple the Tinubu order from rational continuity in infrastructure and agriculture!

    But lo! Even now, immediate relief winks from the long, hard work of the Buhari years — Dangote refinery for one!

    Yet, the administration need not panic. 

    Hardly any government, since 1999, had applied more critical thinking; and pushed out more creative ways to get us out of the hole: new super-highways, CNG to exclusively power the local economy, leaving refined petroleum to earn foreign exchange, consumer credit, student loans, and a reformed power market, though still work-in-progress — if only its driving minister, Bayo Adelabu, would think less of the cold market, but more of the people in whose veins blood flows.

    As for anarchists looking toward Kenya for (mis)direction, let them have their say, even as the security agencies, eagle-eyed, put them in check. There’s no right without duty.

    Kenya President William Ruto is intriguing, though.  Headless youths, on social media, powered him to power.  Same headless youths, on same social media, swear to push him from power.  And after then, what?

    It’s sweet journey to nowhere, for modern governance is more grit, less caprice or magic.  One way or another, Kenya will be all right.

    It’s time to challenge the Tinubu order with hard thinking, not distract it with ceaseless droning.  There is no quick fix anywhere!

  • A note on Prof Olatunji Dare @80

    A note on Prof Olatunji Dare @80

    My colleague and managing editor of the newspaper, Lawal Ogienagbon, had most fittingly, described the outing as Dare’s Day in his column of last Thursday. Although he had also described the colloquium held the day before – a collaboration between The Nation and the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), to celebrate one of its own, an industry icon, an acclaimed teacher and mentor to many who had only four days before the event turned 80 – as ‘rare’ in the media world; however, it seems unlikely that anyone who knew the celebrator would be surprised at the turn-out of the high and mighty at the high profile media event.

    I heard someone describe the event as a media event. Admittedly, the presence of industry’s big names like the ‘ageless’ Aremo Segun Osoba, Lanre Idowu, Sully Abu, Clem Baiye and Richard Akinnola were such that left no questions of it being primarily a media event; but then, these are also distinguished thought leaders who have also earned their stripes in other theatres of the nation’s public life.

    As one of the behind-the-scene players, I must confess to an initial apprehension over the issue of timing given that the celebrator lives in a different time zone in faraway United States. I actually thought that the appointed time of 12 noon was somewhat a bit late for members of the pen profession; I had reasoned that majority of our still practicing colleagues, pressed in their impossible schedules, would either at this time be heading for their desks for the day’s job, or if they managed to attend at all, would only be for a few minutes.

    And then the notoriously hellish Lagos traffic; the situation of the latter had been compounded by the heavy rains and the attenuating flash floods which had kept many off the roads in the preceding week. All of these raged in my mind as my colleague, Kunle Abimbola and I perused the odds as we embarked on the countdown to the D-Day. Of course, my managing director, Victor Ifijeh, long convinced that those Lagos daemons were no match for the Olatunji Dare brand and all that the celebrator represents, gave the marching order to proceed, no matter what!

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    The rest – as they say – is history. It was, to put it mildly, a glorious outing.

    Surely, if the fully packed 120-seater Radisson Hotel meeting room where the event held was any proof of how the celebrator is held in Nigeria’s media firmament, the theme of colloquium – Dare at 80: Same craft, changing times – The columnist as societal conscience would serve, not just as a telling reminder of the contributions and the unquantifiable sacrifices of this foremost public intellectual, but the eternal relevance of his views as the nation struggles to find its place under the sun.

    Like countless other Nigerians, my ‘knowing’ of Prof Dare predated my physical encounter with him in this newspaper. Surely, nothing about Prof Dare that is not already public record. Here, I couldn’t but borrow from the paper delivered by Lanre Idowu, another distinguished elder in the profession where he writes: “He is one distinguished Nigerian from the confluence state of Kogi, who studied mass communication at the University of Lagos where he excelled as the first to earn a first class degree in the department. He later studied Journalism and obtained a master’s degree at Columbia University, New York before adding a PhD at Indiana University in Bloomington, USA.

    “He was a lecturer in the University of Lagos before crossing over to The Guardian where he was a columnist, editorial page editor and later, chairman of the editorial board. He later fled to the United States when troubling developments to his craft and life dictated so. He taught in Bradley University, Peoria rising to be an emeritus professor. He is the author of Matters Arising (1993), a selection from his collected journalism, and Diary of a Debacle: Tracking Nigeria’s failed Democratic Transition, 1986-1994… Professor Dare has written columns for such publications as the Guardian, Comet, and The Nation”.

    The above of course were very well known about Prof Dare. The part that is perhaps less celebrated and so is often understated is his Spartan discipline and unbending principles – two virtues exampled by the needless sacrifices forced on those, like Prof Dare, with principled opposition to the exercise of arbitrary power.  While this would prove extremely costly in the hey days of the maximum ruler – Sani Abacha –  that he and his likes, would not flinch in the face of intimidations and the attenuating deprivations would remain a huge lesson that the current generation needs to take one or two lessons from.

    My pain is that I didn’t get to know the eminent scholar beyond what I read in the newspapers in those dark days.  Although I studied at the University of Lagos, I couldn’t recall coming across his name while in the university. My discipline being Sociology and not Mass Communications would perhaps explain why. Only long after leaving the institution would I find myself among the league of his virtual students, and that was long before the internet and its virtual learning correlates invaded and redefined that vast space of public communication.

    Thanks to his regular appearance in The Guardian at the time, the Tuesday edition of the paper was not just a delight but a must-read for those of us who saw his style as refreshingly unique in substance, subtlety and forthrightness. You could, with every piece he penned, laugh and snigger on any subject he broached upon without missing out on the message. Like the other favourite elder and writer of mine, Dan Agbese of the Newswatch, every single piece became for me a cherished collector’s item. How could I ever forget the piece he wrote about the menace of street trading in Lagos and how, in the snarl that permanently defined the Lagos traffic at the time, you could literally order anything from groceries to kitchen wares from among the hordes of itinerant hawkers, who despite not offering any guarantees of quality are nonetheless the delight of the motorist and the passengers alike? Or the other equally unforgettable one he wrote about the steep price he has had to pay for his chosen art form – satire – by those who would not find the grace to read beyond the surface?

    That was vintage Prof Dare. Sadly, all of that would come to an abrupt end – at least temporarily – when Sani Abacha happened with its bruises and scars.

    You can then imagine my joy at joining this newspaper to meet the eminent professor whose encounter up till that point could only have been in the dreamland. Clearly, if the meeting was, for yours truly, a big deal, my subsequent interactions would prove his profound humanism as indeed his abiding concerns for the welfare of those of us privileged to cross his path. True to his nature, he would become an encourager in every sense of the word, a model character in its truest essence and a worthy exemplar in personal integrity.

    Here’s wishing the distinguished emeritus professor many more years in good health and peacve of mind. 

  • New beginning for NBA?

    New beginning for NBA?

    The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), last Saturday, overwhelmingly elected Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, as her next president in a keenly contested election. While the other two contestants put up a decent fight, the victor won by a landslide. In a victory speech to his campaign team, which has gone viral on the social media, Mazi, sounded conciliatory to his opponents and urged his supporters to celebrate with decorum. He acknowledged that the two contestants are his brothers and urged those elected with him to roll up their sleeves for the heavy lifting ahead.

    Undoubtedly, there is enormous work ahead, particularly on how to make the NBA, less transactional in its relationship with her members. Perhaps, because of the enormous resources required to contest the presidential election, the winner is tempted to be transactional. After spending hundreds of millions of naira, which the presidential election reputedly costs, a winner may be charged to recover his investment, rather than charged to invest his time, talent and treasure to serve his colleagues and the society at large. But, as an association of lawyers, the society looks up to NBA for guide, when at cross roads.

    While not an opposition party to the governments in power at the national and sub-national levels, the association must always speak up against social injustice whenever the need arises. Considering its enormous human resources, the NBA is best situated to fight social injustice, especially when those affected, are the disadvantaged and the downtrodden. With the recent vigour shown by the Supreme Court in the suit instituted by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, on the interpretation of sections 7 and 162 of the 1999 constitution (as amended), the new NBA leadership should consider championing public interest litigation.

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    Of course, to achieve that, the association would have to seek a departure from the narrow interpretation of the doctrine of locus standi, as enunciated by the Supreme Court in Adesanya v President, FRN, (1986) 5SC 112; (1981) 2 NCLR. Should the NBA as a body engage in public interest litigation, it will send a signal to the apex court, that there is a need for departure from Adesanya’s case. Such a fire, if ignited by the association, would have far-reaching consequences for public administration in Nigeria, as private lawyers would on their own, push further, the legal frontiers.

    An easy model to emulate is India where with the activism of Justice P. N. Bhagwati and Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer, the Supreme Court of India, in the 1980s relaxed the traditional rule of locus standi, to allow public spirited individuals, to institute cases to serve social justice. In Khatoon vs State of Bihar, quoted by Wikipedia, a case was filed on the condition of prisoners in the Bihar jail, before the bench headed by Justice P. N. Bhagwati. The Indian Supreme Court decided that prisoners should receive free legal and fast hearings. Consequently, about 40,000 prisoners were released from jail.

    Of course, it is a notorious fact that the Nigerian prisons, recently baptized as Correctional Centres, is overcrowded, substantially by those who have not been convicted by the court for any crime. Euphemistically referred to as Awaiting Trial Men and Women, these “innocents” under the 1999 constitution (as amended), languish in jail, some without any hope, of ever being freed. Such persons are the disadvantaged and the downtrodden, whom the files containing the charges against them, have been lost, and neither the prisons nor the courts, have any record, of the alleged crime, for which they languish in jail.

    Sometime in 2021, this writer was privileged to serve as a team member, when the Knights of St. Mulumba, Nigeria, organized a Policy Advocacy Conference on Decongestion of Correctional Centres. According to the Honourable Minister of Justice, there were 74,127 inmates in custody in the nation’s custodial centres, out of which 52,226 are pre-trial inmates, otherwise known as Awaiting Trial Men and Women, while the rest 21,901 are convicts. To make matters worse, the capacity of Nigerian Correctional Centres is about 50,083, and so it is overpopulated by the “innocents” under the 1999 constitution (as amended).

    So, amongst other things, the newly elected NBA president and his team, while pushing the political office holders to take necessary steps to decongest the correctional centres across the country, should ignite interests in public interest litigation, to engender social justice in the country. As Mazi, should know, many of his colleagues, see the NBA officials at national and branch offices, as not different from the national and sub-national politicians, who see public service as transactional businesses. Many lawyers are disillusioned with the NBA and that explains the determined efforts, by some, to have alternative association of lawyers, registered.

    At an event of the budding Amuwo-Odofin Lawyers Forum, members sympathetic to the emergence of Afam Osigwe, SAN, as the NBA president, expressed hope, that he would tame the unjustifiable costs associated with the NBA conference. The forum, made up of lawyers, within Amuwo-Odofin Local Government Area, Satellite Town, Okota, and environs, canvassed for the establishment of Amuwo-Odofin Judicial Division, and urged that the Afam Osigwe, SAN-led national executive, protect the encroachment on the businesses of lawyers in Nigeria, by foreign jurisdictions.

    The protection of the Nigerian legal field is one that appeals to Nigerian lawyers across the country. There are also local opportunities for lawyers, which the new administration should secure to increase businesses for lawyers. One of the hottest issues, during the electioneering campaign was the welfare of lawyers, both junior and senior. No doubt, Nigerian lawyers hope that the promises made during the campaign will be kept. Undoubtedly, the economic challenges facing the country impacts very negatively on the professionals, and the NBA is in a position to ameliorate some of these challenges, using the advantage of numbers, to bargain.

    The larger society also expects the NBA to look inwards, at the bar and the bench, to foster self-cleansing. To pretend that the legal profession is not afflicted by the pervasive decay afflicting the larger society, is to play the ostrich. The Afam Osigwe, SAN, led executive should take steps to make the society regain its confidence in the legal profession, by ensuring that lawyers who engage in professional misconducts are punished, regardless of status. It can also devise a whistle-blower template, to help the National Judicial Council (NJC) deal with the pollutants on the bench.

    One interesting aspect of the election was the ease with which votes were cast, by voters. The seamless electronic voting procedure ensured that anyone willing to vote, did so, without any exertion. Clearly, the present Electoral Committee of the Nigeria Bar Association (ECNBA), has one or two things, to teach the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on the conduct of elections.

  • A preface to a valedictory

    A preface to a valedictory

    Not unmindful of the insight of the poets that there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip, I make bold to assert what is already out there in published tributes and scheduled events: I will be turning 80 tomorrow (Wed, July 17).

    No matter how you slice the calendar or reckon the passage of time, that is a lot of years, exceeding by a full decade the proverbial three score and ten granted to man, according to Holy Writ.  But I never saw myself included in the select group destined to reach that milestone.

    It was not unreachable.  One had seen a parent live into the late 70s and another into the mid-80s, in full possession of their faculties.  One had even encountered JV  Clinton, a sprightly septuagenarian, who had served as editor of one of Zik’s newspapers in Port Harcourt, and was writing a scintillating column for the Sunday Times in the 1970s.

    But he was regarded as a curiosity.  It was as if he had no business being in that line of work, or indeed in any line of work for that matter.   He was thought to belong more in a retirement home than in a newspaper studio.  No reference to him was considered judicious unless it was prefaced with his age.  That was an insidious disclaimer that signaled to the reader:  “What you are about to read or are reading was written by a man in his 70s. 

    Caveat lector.  Beware, reader.

    The sage, Obafemi Awolowo, had reached 70 when the 1979 Constitution was being prepared.  Despite his unrivalled mastery of federalism and his matchless record of achievement as Premier of  Western Nigeria and Federal Commissioner for Finance in the civil war years – or because of them – they pivoted on his age in a bid to render him ineligible for the Presidency in the making.

    Age 70 was attainable, I thought then.  But was it desirable, despite the many individuals in that bracket who functioned productively and were making vital contributions to society?  Of that, I was not sure. 

    Even if attainable, age 80 was not for me.

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    But here I am just one day short of that milestone, writing a weekly column.  If I am viewed today as many viewed JV Clinton in the 70s, I guess I would say rather diffidently that I am not the only one guilty of that aberration, if aberration it is indeed and not grace.

    The late Duro “Double Chief” Onabule wrote a weekly column for the Sun well into his 80s.  Dan Agbese clocked 80 earlier this year, and his column remains a model of wit and clarity.  The historian Akinjide Osuntokun clocked 80 several years ago, but his column on national and foreign affairs is an engaging distillation of his deep insights.

    What can one say of Wole Soyinka who, at 90, has maintained the creative spark that produces cultural forms in a profusion and texture that will faze even the most gifted persons half his age?

    I recall that on his 80th birthday, his son Olaokun remarked that the family had become increasingly concerned about his frequent travels to distant places unaccompanied.  If he has given up the habit, I doubt whether he has made any other concessions to ageing, or what I should in Kongispeak call superannuation.

    I did not sleepwalk into maintaining the column to age 80.  If age is but only a number, that number climbs to a point where it weighs you down and slows you down and leaves its mark on you.  Year after year, I thought of retiring the column. Year after year, my resolve failed.

    Though tasking,  it keeps one’s writing skills alive.  Writing it attunes one to the issues of the day, and makes one think through the consequential as well as the idiosyncratic.  It enjoins judgment and a nice sense of discrimination.  The fan mail flatters the ego, but the column keeps you grounded.  It wins you more friends than it cultivates adversaries.   It helps pay offshore bills and brings some collateral benefits.

    But one must draw the line when what was for several decades a delight is gradually becoming a chore, when the challenge of finding new ways of saying what needs to be said and saying  it elegantly becomes less insistent, and when the urge to simply fulfill all righteousness for the day has begun to subvert the imperative of doing superior work.

    I am back to that point in my Bradley University years when I used to forward impatiently to the end of the class, unlike in previous years when students had to remind me that the hour was up and that they needed to head to the next class.  I suspect I have passed it.

    These days, I hear the keyboard whispering:  Why not go with what you have and move on to something less exacting?  What exactly are you trying to prove?

    Two spinal surgeries and a cumulation of the pathologies of ageing accelerated this development.  They have also contributed in large part to my failure to fulfill a solemn, public pledge I made ten years ago at a book launch and lecture to mark my 70th birthday.

    Asked why my wife was not present to share the joy of an occasion that belonged in equal measure to both of us, I explained that she had to stay back in Peoria, Illinois, to look after our autistic second son,  then 35 years old.

    I first became aware that autism was in all probability a significant public health issue in Nigeria during a sumptuous lunch in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in April 1991.  Emeka Izeze, editor ofThe Guardian and I were on assignment with the Secretary-General of the OAU, Dr Salim Ahmed Salim, on the eve of that year’s Guardian Lecture he was scheduled to present.

    A Nigerian ambassador in the OAU Secretariat was our host, and the party included a senior career diplomat at the Nigerian Embassy in Addis, and a Nigerian technocrat serving with a UN agency based in the Italian capital, Rome.  All five of us were gathered in the same room and dining at the same table for the first time.

    I do not recall the drift of the conversation, but we discovered that four of us had autistic children and were struggling grimly to cope.  The odds against this occurrence must be galactic.  On the spur of the moment, I vowed that I would one day embark on a mission to raise awareness about autism in Nigeria and help mobilize resources to combat its blight.

    The 2014 ceremony at which I spoke for the first time in public about my son’s autism seemed to me as good an occasion as any to return to my 1991 epiphany in Addis Ababa and the response it had called forth.

    And so, I announced that on my retirement from teaching the following year, I would devote my time to serving the autistic.  But I did not reckon with the fragility of life after 70.

    Nothing had prepared me for the rapid onslaught of one medical challenge after another. Two back surgeries.  Then Covid 19, with its severe restrictions on travel even for the robust and agile. Then the loss of the project file and working file papers in my luggage on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt en route Lagos.   All in all, a near-perfect calendar of woes.

    Still, it is for me a matter of shame that the project never got off the ground.  It is not dead, but my involvement at this stage can only be peripheral. 

    I have on deposit N6.5 million, comprising the N3 million donated by Governor Kayode Fayemi and Governor Adams Oshiomhole at the 2014 event, plus accrued interest.  It will be handed over to a bona fide legatee my solicitors are working on locating, plus my personal bequest.

    The column will take a valedictory bow next Tuesday.

  • Kongi!

    Kongi!

    Whenever the nation plumbs its self-destruct mode, Prof. Wole Soyinka, our own WS, is always there — either as a callow young man; or as a hoary old man. 

    It’s a life-long, cradle-to-grave, chore with multiple barbs.  Yet, the Nobel Laureate is no Coriolanus of William Shakespeare — their own WS! — that would show his scars!

    When Samuel Ladoke Akintola and his “Demo” vote storm-troopers, in the 1st Republic   Western Region, were gifting the Biblical stones instant life to replace living voters, he faced down the bullies, against terrible odds.

    If you doubt, consult his Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years. 

    It was indeed a peculiar mess — a long season of anomie (incidentally the title of WS’s second novel), that plunged the old West into anarchy, which bred military rule: that long spell, and heavy cross of disaster, Nigeria had to bear, on and off, for 28 years!

    In all of this troubled epoch, WS’s principled humanity shone through and through.

    When Nigeria and Biafra would go on a fratricidal war — dubbed “civil” but indeed incredibly savage — he lurched himself into creating a very dangerous Third Force: neither for Nigeria nor Biafra, but totally against the war. 

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    By the way, eons after, WS’s Egba step-kin, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo (WS calls himself “Ijegba”: a graft of Ijebu and Egba) tried to finagle the idea for crass political opportunism — to forge a so-called political “Third Force” outside APC and PDP!

    Just as well: the original remains fresh in sweet memory. The counterfeit is vanished and forgotten.

    But back to Biafra.  While the hitherto kith-and-kin prepared for war, WS went on a long drive to Enugu, to seek out of Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Biafra secessionist leader, in search of dangerous peace. 

    Christopher Okigbo, one of emergent Nigeria’s most euphonic poets, stumbled on Soyinka in Biafra, and unleashed one last poetic screech of joy!  He would die in battle, a few days later, in a war WS had risked own life to avert!

    But that was not all.  He made it back to Lagos in one piece only to be clamped in jail — technically no jail but military detention without trial — by Nigeria’s wartime leader, Major General Yakubu Gowon, first in Lagos, later, in Kaduna.

    Again, if you doubt, get Kongi’s prison account, The Man Died — in him that keeps silent in the face of tyranny.

    That was WS living his famous quip: Justice is the first condition of humanity.  It was a hard road to travel, a bed of rock and stones.  But the flint-hard soldier of justice would have it no other way!

    By the way, in prison, the genius in WS chided his “casing” for morphing into a virtual “cotton wool”: consuming everything, producing nothing!  Well, The Man never died, nor was even idle, though temporarily shackled by extant powers! 

    The ever-living proof, for future generations, even after the present has become ancient history, is the prison memoirs, The Man Died.

    When in the doomed 2nd Republic (1 October 1979 – 31 December 1983), President Shehu Shagari’s ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) stole re-election in 1983, WS opted for a more popular — if dramatic — musical genre, to express his outrage.

    Enter, the studio album on vinyl: Unlimited Liability Company, with Tunji Oyelana’s The Benders on the bandstand. 

    That protest album, with its provocative wit and jarring humour, had hardly hit the ears before the military enfant terrible sent Shagari and co hurtling!  That was sweet sour though: for the military doctor killed — instead of healed — the patient!

    When the military overlords essayed their most reckless crime yet — annulling the 12 June 1993 presidential election that Basorun MKO Abiola won — WS lost no time to hit the trenches, with the pro-democracy forces.

    His NALICON — the National Liberation Council of Nigeria — and the pro-democracy network, NADECO — the National Democratic Coalition — not only sent the annuller, Gen. Ibrahim  Babangida, scuttling from power (even as the tragic sustainer, Gen. Sani Abacha, suddenly expired along the line); it also sent the political military, scurrying back to their barracks, with barely any honour left!

    For proof of a bit of that, you can reach for You Must Set Forth At Dawn, WS’s old age bio work, told in dramatic plots — the third of an exciting triad: Ake:Years of Childhood (childhood and adolescence); Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years (early youth and mid-age); You Must Set Forth At Dawn (old age), even if all WS radiates is eternal youth!

    You can add to that a fourth: Isara: A Voyage Around Essay, a creative tribute to Pa S. A. Soyinka, his father, and his Isara, Ijebu Remo, nativity.

    By the way, Dawn echoes “Death in the Dawn”, a 1967 poem that would eventually crystallize in Soyinka’s campaign against the wanton waste of lives on our roads. 

    His “maja-maja” exploits on the Ibadan-Ife express slaughter slab — no thanks to outrageous driving habits — would culminate in the establishment of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), of which he was first chairman.

    So, with Unlimited Liability Company and the Shagari ouster, grafted with the IBB-Abacha errant rascality of June 12, you would pardon WS for chiding Peter Obi and his Obidients.  That Gbajue army — so christened by Kongi himself — after losing the presidency, tried to goad the military to a take-over!

    Yet, those loud barbarians, banging on the gates of Rome, are not just the rude and crude social media children of anger, bred on insults and gangling ignorance. 

    They also include — very, very sadly — otherwise celebrated literati lending image and prestige to brainless rumours, at best; wilful fraud, at worst; all in blind support of ethnic kin, fairly and truly beaten!

    But then, that’s a fitting contrast between WS’s lifelong constancy, and reputation vanished mid-life, leaving the wilful victim gasping, bitter and directionless.  Choice!

    But beyond public affairs, how about the master playwright’s forte: his unceasing drama of life, in constant dialogue with his troubled reality, local and global?  Death and the King’s Horseman, The Jero Plays, The Lion and the Jewel, The Beatification of Area Boy, King Babu, The Strong Breed, The Road, Opera Wonyosi, Alapata Apata …?

    Is there anyone, more fecund and more profound, in these humanizing works?

    And the poems — the very crux that exemplifies WS’s  Kongi moniker — crunchy poems that don’t suffer gladly wandering minds and lazy brains!

    True and true, WS has been a Titan of his age, reminiscent of Gani Fawehinmi, Tai Solarin, Beko Ransome-Kuti, the young Chima Ubani cut down in virtual noon, Prof. Ayodele Awojobi — true Titans that remained true to principled advocacy.

    Which contemporary Olympians would take over?  Opportunistic Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) hustlers?  EndSARS veterans that sold white lies and ran with them till they could run no more?  The social media ensemble of empty din?  Or rogue clerics?

    At 90, Wole Soyinka has impacted his world as 10 extremely rich lifetimes!  Happy birthday, Prof!

  • LGs: Freedom at last?

    LGs: Freedom at last?

    Majority of Nigerians have been literally over the moon ever since apex court delivered the landmark judgment restoring the fiscal powers of the local governments to elected officials last Thursday. To fellow citizens long exasperated by the apparent parting of ways between justice and common-sense, the judgment, delivered in flowing, unambiguous prose, and with a nary a wiggle room for the typical political elites’ silly manoeuvres, came as the perfect answer to that class challenged by understanding. It was a case of a Daniel come to judgment.

    Without a shred of doubt, it was one moment that our governors, with their penchant to play the monarchs in a supposed republic, and their supine legislative allies, went home bloodied.

    Unfortunately, if I personally thought that the judgment merely restated what we already know about the impropriety of the states in appropriating what clearly does not belong to them, the revelation about this point being lost on Nigerians all of these while only came after the judgment.  Hence the rejoicing in most parts of the 774 entities across the federation that their day of financial freedom has finally come!

    Yes, effective that Thursday of the judgment, local governments, by this I mean those who have elected administrators in place, would collect their allocations directly from the federation account.

    That is the obvious part of the judgment. Less obvious, and yet seems to me of a greater import, is the reasoning of the judges while referencing the section of the constitution which mandated the states to maintain a joint account with the states. The judges, to their credit, barely stopped short of pronouncing the account dead. Affirming the primacy of justice in the face of apparent conflict between the text which mandated the account and the law’s intendments on one hand, and the opportunistic exploitation of the lacuna for fiendish ends, the judgment, mercifully, spared the citizens of the verbiage for which our courts have chosen to be grandmasters! 

    It reasoned, rightly and common-sensically in my view, that since paying the councils through the states has not worked, “justice demands that local government allocations from the federation account should henceforth be paid directly to the local governments”.

    Like it or not, that is judicial wisdom in its finest colours!

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    And it did not even stop there. In an emphatic, undisguised censure, the judges also decried the penchant by state executive/legislatures to issue whimsical decrees bordering on life and death for elected councils, which it observed were usually accompanied by the imposition of caretaker committees to run their affairs. Drawing strength from the unambiguous provision of Section 1(2) of the constitution provides that “the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any persons or group of persons take control of the government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this constitution”, the apex court described what the governors have been doing all along as not only unconstitutional but amounting to gross misconduct!

    For me, I think it is rather shameful that it took the action of the federal government to get us to this point. For while there might be areas of ambiguities in the constitution particularly on the issue of the joint accounts, there are sufficient provisions in the larger body of the organic document that leaves no discretion for the kind of arbitrariness that the nation has seen in the last few years under the direction of the governors. Knowing how creative some of our emergency federalists could sometimes be, I would certainly not be surprised if the federal government is further dragged before ECOWAS court or other supra-national arbitrators to explain why the judgment should stand in the face of the federalism as practiced in other jurisdictions!

    That takes us to the matter of our ‘puritan federalists’.  Again, I have made the point in an earlier contribution. If I understand their frustrations which I consider as being largely born of their obsession with their two-tiered federal apple cart and which in their opinion the judgment has clearly upended, their inability to recognise the weighty issues of propriety, law and constitutionalism which the governors in their sanctimoniousness would prefer to keep in abeyance in their appropriation of powers neither envisaged nor granted by the constitution, would seem just as utterly unforgivable. To argue, one of their leading lights actually put out at the weekend, that the Supreme Court judgment merely sought a solution to a problem that didn’t exist or if it existed at all, was at best a mirage, is crassly opportunistic if not delusional.

    How did we get here, if we may remind ourselves? Is it not because our local governments, as presently constituted have remained at best shadows of what they are supposed to be? Autonomy or not, where in the law is the provision that the governors can run them as they pleased? Given the joke that many of the governors have made of their states, what is the basis of the assumption that governors are better administrators and so know what is best for the local governments under them?

    Although this writer is yet to read the full judgment, suffice to say that yours truly is yet to find anything in the reportage of the well-considered judgment that could be deemed to offend the fundamental principles of federalism. The governors after all, being neither monarchs nor all-knowing autocrats are expected to govern by the strictures of the constitution and the law; the same law that mandates an elected body to take charge of activities at the grassroots going as far as to impose a duty of ensuring that a democratic character is maintained by our gubernatorial lordships at all times!

    How does that move by the federal government to ensure that the funds standing to the benefits of the councils are utilised under the direction of those elected to administer them be deemed as anything but a worthy public service?

    Let me state that the battle to restore the local system as touch points for service delivery points is far from over. The key, operative words here are service and delivery. That is what they exist for and that is what the people deserve. Ensuring that funds meant for their operations actually reach them seems only the logical point to begin the process. Given that local government authorities are not expected to serve at the pleasure of the governors but the people from whom they derive their mandates, the next challenge is to ensure that those in charge truly have the mandate of the people are allowed to govern. Here, if the charade that local government elections under the so-called States Independent Electoral Commissions (SIECs) have become is anything to go by, the latter would seem a tall order; yet it seems to me the one challenge that Nigerians must fight but fight to win!