The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • If the heavens will fall…

    If the heavens will fall…

    Going through the newspapers or listening to news broadcast especially in the last few weeks, a first time visitor to Nigeria could be forgiven for thinking that the country is about to cease to exist.

    If he is a would be foreign investor he would be perfectly in order to reconsider his position especially after listening to the drums of war being beaten by supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan who would want the whole world to know that there would be no country called Nigeria post 2015 presidential election, should their son, Jonathan, fail to clinch re-election as Nigeria’s president in two years time.

    The would investor and indeed the first time visitor would be mistaken however to think too seriously about all this noise of Jonathan in 2015 or no Nigeria by some over fed glorified thugs speaking on behalf of President Goodluck Jonathan.

    The likes of self proclaimed jihadist and Niger Delta militant Alhaji Asari Dokubo, Niger Delta activist Ms Annkio Briggs and regrettably, chairman of the Niger Delta amnesty committee, Mr Kingsley Kuku are now the leading voices in the Jonathan camp threatening the rest of us to either return their son as president in 2015 or face the music, as if that music will also not be played in the Niger Delta.

    Why anybody who takes them or their likes seriously would be mistaken is not because what they said was not strong enough to warrant serious action being taken against them in a more “serious” society, but because here we have gone through that route before and nothing happened. Anybody here during the Abacha military era and listened to the likes of Mallam Wada Nas or “Noise” would think that if anything happened to his man Abacha, Nigeria would collapse. Abacha died and Nigeria is still alive.

    When Asari and co said its either Jonathan or nothing in 2015 I am sure they are either looking for more money from the president or just trying to justify the money they had just collected. If their position is based on sound reasoning they would have known that in a democracy decisions are made by votes and the majority carry the day. If they want Jonathan to be re-elected in 2015 it is not by threatening the rest of us that their son would get our votes, they have to plead with us and convince us why Jonathan deserves our votes again. And they should begin their charity at home in this regard first, by convincing the Niger Delta people that their son had done well to earn their support for a second term. They should point at the East-West Road that he had “done”, the rivers and creeks of the Niger Delta that he had “cleaned up”, free of oil pollution and now conducive for fishing and farming, the gas flaring that he had “stopped” and/or converted to energy, millions of their children that are now “gainfully” employed and other physical infrastructure including healthcare and education that they now enjoy.

    When they leave there they should come to the south west and point at the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, how their son had turned it into a ten-lane super highway, how the people now sleep with their two eyes closed thanks to the super efficiency of his police force, how the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan now ranks among the best in the world in healthcare delivery.

    Before venturing into the north to campaign to the Hausa/Fulani people, they should cross the border to Iboland and tell Ndigbo how Jonathan has been able to eradicate erosion ravaging their land, end their “marginalization” in the scheme of things in the country and his plan to install an Igboman as his successor in 2019.

    Going up north I think does not require much talking, they should just walk the streets of Kano, Kaduna, Maiduguri and Damaturu in particular and tell the people how their son confronted and defeated Boko Haram to restore peace to their land. In particular they should hold rallies in Baga, Biu, Potiskum and trumpet the achievements of the president in the areas of security and job creation. How he was able to wean their children from the scourge of Almajiri and set them on the path to western education. They should hold a big rally in Jos to celebrate the restoration of peace to the Plateau.

    And to cap it all, a mother of all rallies, drawing no fewer than five million Ijaws (as the 4th largest ethnic group in Nigeria as they claim) and may be another five million from elsewhere in the country should be held in Abuja where Asari Dokubo, Annkio Briggs, Pa Edwin Clarke et al would real out their son’s achievements to include uninterrupted power supply across the federation, first class healthcare, education and fantastic road network among others. If they can do this and Nigerians see the proof, they won’t think twice before voting for Jonathan in 2015. But in the absence of this, no amount of threat and intimidation from Asari Dokubo and his likes would deter Nigerians from voting out Jonathan in the next presidential election if they so desire.

    By the way, are these presidential salesmen telling us that all is well with our polity and their man is the best we can get or deserve? Was it not this same Asari Dokubo that told Jonathan not too long ago to forget 2015 because he has not performed well? Was it not him that openly confessed that he would be ashamed to go out to canvass votes for Jonathan again as a fellow Ijaw because the man has let his people down? This was sometime last year. Between then and now what has changed for better in Jonathan’s performance index to warrant Dokubo and co threatening to bring down the nation if he failed to win in 2015?

    When he made that statement last year many thought he was making sense but those who know him better said the man was talking because Jonathan had just revoked his multimillion-dollar pipeline protection contract and wanted the president to know that he was not happy and could ruffle a few feathers. Has the contract been restored?

    Whether the man is working for his money or not I think he is doing more damage to Jonathan than the opposition could ever have done and those close to the president had better call him to order. I don’t subscribe to ordering his arrest as being canvassed on the floor of the House of Representatives, it would only be conferring relevance on a thug, while at the same time I do not buy the argument of those criticising the call for his arrest on the ground that those who had previously made similar inflammatory or treasonable comments were not arrested. One, two wrongs don’t make a right and if what the previous hate mongers or anti-Nigeria sentiments peddlers said then are manifesting now, it’s because allowed it.

    If those who vowed to make Nigeria ungovernable for Jonathan if he became president are actually behind the insurgency in the North, they are succeeding because they know the president can not do anything. And nobody can do anything to Asari Dokubo because he is speaking the mind of the president.

    There are too many Dokubos around Jonathan but they and their principal should know that nobody can predict the outcome of a war or when it would end. You can only talk about the beginning. And as the Yoruba would say, if the heavens are going to fall, they would not fall on the roof of one man. If Nigeria is going to be history if Jonathan is not re-elected as Dokubo, Kuku et al have threatened, where would the Niger Delta be? Before Nigeria would cease to be the Niger Delta would have taken one of the heaviest beatings in modern warfare. So, those beating the drums of war had better thread softly less they are consumed by the sounds of their music. Biafra thought Nigeria could be history; we all know the story.

    Jonathan would do better to focus his energy and attention on bringing peace and security to the land and deliver on his promise on power supply, tackling corruption, providing social and economic infrastructure, improving the economy, creating jobs and so on instead of unleashing his thugs like Dokubo on us to insult our sensibilities. If for whatever reasons Nigerians fail to re-elect him president in 2015, nothing will happen, Nigeria will continue.

     

  • Kano as a construction site

    When I sauntered into Kano recently, I got swept off my feet. I marvelled at what I saw, just some four months after my last visit. From the Zaria road entry route down to my destination, I saw impressive development projects springing up, all over the place. Kano, all of a sudden, is like a new capital city being built from the scratch. It is turning into an Abuja of sort – or even something higher – with the level of ambitious projects all around. While the FCT’s construction works is largely concentrated on roads, that of Kano cut across all infrastructural needs. As I pondered over the foresightedness and patriotism fuelling execution of such mass projects, I wondered if my brother, Ibrahim, who has been in Malaysia in the last three years could be able to identify certain places upon his return. It was this homecoming that also made me realise why some folks on the social media platform, Facebook, shower praises on the governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. I never cared to join such discussions around the personality of the governor who some people call Audu Bako of the modern age. I thought it was the usual political gimmick and that odious attitude of bootlicking that our politicians are so much adept to. However that weekend trip to Kano changed all that pre-conceived opinion I had about what is happening in Kano.

    Of course, on my visit in December, I had noticed a number of things springing up here and there, including the wonderfully designed and constructed blocks of classrooms dubbed Kwankwasiyya; itself an ideology springing up out of the governor’s demonstrated patriotism a la Awoism and Zikisim. The classrooms, which are also tastefully furnished using modern building mechanisms, dot the roads and alleys of Kano from Bebeji local government (on coming from Kaduna State) to the farthest or remotest part of the state. There were equally other road expansions here and there.

    However, on this recent trip, the projects are overwhelmingly many and gigantic in sizes. From Kwanar Dawaki area, there were two mass housing schemes that welcome one to the city of Dabo. The projects, I understand, will collectively provide 32,000 houses in what is called Kwankwasiyya city – located at Amarawa in Kumbotso local government – and Amana City, situated at nearby Gurjiya, in Dawakin Kudu local government. The third of the threesome called Bandirawo is being sited at Tumfafi, on the way to Katsina State. The housing scheme, I came to discover, was also not your type of government mass housing that would be constructed without provision for necessary infrastructure. Already, the government had pumped billions to provide amenities such as dual carriageways complete with drainages, water reticulation and electricity. Provisions have also been made for schools, a five-star hotel and international conference centre apart from the houses that were also categorized in such a way that all manner of people could be able to queue in. As we drive into Kano that Friday afternoon, all I could see from each of the two sites was appreciable level of work as many of the buildings were nearing completion. I learnt that the same situation applies at the Bandirawo City located on the other side of the town.

    Move a few kilometres to Karfi, around the headquarters of 7Up, one will observe expansion of the Zaria road being done by the state government. The scope of the project involves expanding the ever-busy road to three lanes. Drainages are also being constructed on both sides, as well as streetlights. This extends up to the popular Silver Jubilee round about where construction of the first ever fly-over in Kano city is fast taking shape. The objective of the ambitious fly-over project was not only about beautification of the city centre but also to ameliorate the gruelling traffic jam that is often times characteristic of the city, and a hindrance to its commercial activities. The fly-over, which starts from the Kofar Nassarawa, from the walled city, flies over two major roundabouts and descends on State Road by the Audu Bako Secretariat. It is a twin fly-over with the other one starting at Gidan Murtala and crossing over to Radio Kano roundabout, at the intersection between IBB Road, Ibrahim Taiwo Road and Obasanjo Road.

    For the two days that I drove around the metropolis, I saw literally a thousand and one construction works, from roads to schools, fencing and interlocking, making me to keep juggling with the phrase that eventually I am using as title of this piece. Because the level of infrastructural decay is so appalling, the governor has to literally declare a state of emergency on bad roads and decayed infrastructure generally. A couple of roads are under construction at Farms Centre, Kabuga-BUK New Site Road is being expanded and dualised; Dorayi-Panshekara is under construction, so also Sharada Road. I began to wonder; how is this man financing these gargantuan projects? Because there was a time in Kano when we were told that government could not do much because of paucity of funds due to large salary voucher but here is Kwankwaso doing it all without sacking any worker. Well, the governor had actually blocked revenue leakages and exorcised the civil service of all ghost workers following months of difficult but worthwhile verification exercise. It is a little wonder therefore that the governor announced 2013 fiscal year with a whopping N20 billion as backlog cash in the government’s kitty.

    There is no gainsaying that Kwankwaso is a messiah for Kano at this material time, looking how he tackles various developmental problems head-on. While appealing for government to fast-track what it is doing especially by ensuring timely completion of these road projects (like the Sharada and Sheikh Jaafar Roads), I am bold to echo the commendation for Governor Kwankwaso as espoused by the Kanawa; this is yet another Audu Bako in administration and patriotism and an Aminu Kano in ideology.

     

    • Safiyanu writes in from Gwarimpa Estate, Abuja

     

  • Once upon a Nigerian state?

    Once upon a Nigerian state?

    When a coward sees someone he can beat up, he becomes hungry for a fight – Igbo proverb, courtesy Chinua Achebe

     Prof. Adebayo Williams, the inimitable and formidable verbal pugilist, in informal discourse, called it post-state cancer – so piqued is he with the ease with which under-class bands run rings round the Nigerian state; and triumphantly claim the scalp of the once-dreaded security personnel.

    In Goodluck Jonathan’s Nigeria, the state is well and truly demystified!

    Indeed, when the Igbo proverb quoted above is fed in the combustive mix, it conjures some gallows humour: ragtag groups, the latest of which is the Ombatse (ironically translated ‘Time is now’ – for total anarchy?), contemptuously flexing its muscles and taunting the fleeing Jonathan Presidency to bring it on!

    Already, the cult group, domiciled in Nasarawa State, has claimed a reported 47 scalps in confirmed deaths of police officers – including the missing Mohammed Momoh, which an online news publication claims is dead; but which local authorities could not confirm, beyond his missing status.

    Having worsted the Police soft target, is Ombatse now, willing and ready, awaiting the military big guns, like Boko Haram before it? Remember Boko Haram started with throwing bombs at police personnel and attacking police and prison facilities on get-away bikes locally dubbed ‘Okada’?

    And talking of Boko Haram, the Jonathan Presidency’s Amnesty-biko (Igbo for please) offer suggests the “e don beg me” hilarious episode, another tragicomic affair involving the late Afrobeat Kingpin, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and his gaoler, Justice Okoro Idogu.

    After a visit to an infirmary where Fela was inmate while still serving his prison term, for offences not a few believed the Buhari military government trumped up, Fela claimed the conscience-stricken judge had apologised to him – e don beg me!

    That claim triggered a chain of events that led to Fela’s release from prison. But it also landed the involved jurist in hot controversy. Justice Idogu bellowed his denial and innocence, amid a bedlam of condemnatory voices. But not a chance! His was a lone voice buried by a hostile din.

    But back from Fela and Okoro Idogu, where was the Commander-in-Chief, when the likes of Boko Haram, Ansaru and now Ombatse were flexing their muscles: slaying innocent citizens and dutiful security operatives?

    He was probably busy elsewhere flexing his own muscles; against real or imaginary political foes, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the Rivers governor, being the latest to be crushed. Indeed, when a bully sights one he can maul, he becomes hungry for a fight!

    Indeed, whatever is happening today, in this polity, makes a mockery of all those concepts in basic Government, none the least the concept of the state; and of course, the much maligned federalism. This two-some got a routing in this latest and bizarre Ombatse massacre.

    The pristine state is supposed to have overwhelming force – if not a monopoly of it – to impose its will: if you factor in the concept of the Social Contract, in which all citizens surrender their rights to the state in exchange for common protection.

    But at Alakyo, an Eggon village near Lafia in Nasarawa State, it was a lunatic fringe that got the better of the all-mighty Nigerian state.

    How else could one explain the entrapment and massacre of 47 security personnel, purported on a mission to round up members of this lunatic fringe, who earlier even had had the temerity to capture a senior police officer, torture him and force him to swear an oath of allegiance to the Ombatse god? Is this 1st century Africa or 21st century Nigeria? The state-as-relic could not have been more starkly painted!

    Then the sight of His Excellency, Tanko al-Makura, the Nasarawa governor, slithering for cover at Aso Rock like some frightened snake, and bawling for help, was a wicked thumbs-down for Nigeria’s peculiar federalism.

    How does a governor enforce security when he has no control over the Police, the basic security agency? And what is Nigerian federalism worth if a governor has to scurry for presidential help on basic security? That, in full technicolor, shows the inherent absurdity of a state government without state police. Yet the gubernatorial fop is grimly humoured as the chief security officer (CSO) of his state!

    But even in all of this all-too-Nigerian tragedy, some new comic always emerges! Imagine, Ibim Semenitari, the Rivers commissioner for Information, while warning off presidential storm-troopers bent on putting her governor’s nose out of joint, reminding the political invaders that Governor Amaechi remained Rivers’ CSO! A peculiar CSO without troops? And a tiger proclaiming its ‘tigritude’ (apologies to Prof. Wole Soyinka) if ever there was one!

    Of course, al-Makura arrived to find the president, not unlike the fictional Chief Derin, the great one for junk trade missions abroad (in Wole Soyinka’s The Interpreters), met his commander-in-chief, before whom every governor must bow and tremble, blissfully abroad in South Africa.

    Hardly a crime, to be sure. The South African trip could even pass for dutiful tour of duty, since it had something to do with the World Economic Forum (WEF). The snag however is that you find in Jonathan a gravely distracted president, who seems more consumed by plotting four more years of incompetence and impotence; than solving the grave security situation and sundry infractions he faces in his troubled current term.

    Of course elsewhere, a political jobber without; and a trashy talker within, have upped the ante by sabre-rattling of a peculiarly lunatic hue.

    To Kingsley Kuku, a presidential aide, 2015 is nothing but Hobson’s choice: vote in Jonathan or forget peace in the Niger Delta. To trash-talking Asari Dokubo, a former militant, deny Jonathan re-election and face war!

    And to Jonathan’s grand political godfather, Chief Edwin Kiagbodo-Clark, whose earlier libel of everything and everyone for the Jonathan cause paved the template for the all-muscle-no-brain bombast of the duo: the lads’ outbursts are regrettable – but whoever blocks Jonathan’s way is looking for trouble! Now, how are six different from half-a-dozen?

    Besides, Pa Clark let drop a costly Freudian slip: never mind Dokubo, he assured; Ijaw would not go to war. So, the Jonathan cause is not even a South-South cause again – it is an Ijaw agenda? Geez!

    Even to the Northern elite, at the fore-front of power-change: as Heraclitus the philosopher said, even they cannot step in the same river twice! Nigeria is so rapidly changed that old northern ideas about power are tragically out of date. It is time, therefore, everyone subscribed to new ideas.

    It is end times for Lord Frederick Lugard’s arbitrary forge, now lumbering into its centenary with utmost stress. How will the endgames be: peaceful or violent?

    Pa Clark suggests a national conference before 2015. That is hardly novel. But there is hardly any other way to renew and federally restructure the Nigerian union before it collapses on everyone. The ongoing spectre of once-upon-a-Nigerian-state is sure trouble before the final collapse.

    After the Jonathan debacle with all the vacuous power talk, Pa Clark’s suggestion shows at least some good can still come out of his house of Israel.

  • Madam Rufa’i’s unlucky babies

    Madam Rufa’i’s unlucky babies

    Nigerians are by now, only too familiar with the spectacle of highly placed public officers helplessly wringing their hands in feigned supplication to an absentee god when confronted with the problems they were hired to fix. Last month, Nigerians were treated to another spectacle by the number one steward in the education ministry – Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufai. She told journalists after monitoring the conduct of the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) only 520,000 candidates stood the chance of gaining admission into any tertiary institution out of the 1.7 milion candidates who sat for the examination.

    Here is what the media quoted her to have said: “The major challenge is a country like Nigeria having 1.7 million sitting for examination. The space we have is 520,000 for federal, states, private universities, polytechnics and colleges of education. If one million passed, what are we going to do with the rest 500,000? We will not expand the carrying capacity without expanding the facilities”.

    Not done, she asked: “What are we going to do with the large number of students out there? I feel the pain. Mr. President is very much concerned. If you have students that have passed examination and they cannot have access, you can imagine their thought in the long run.”

    If the ministerial prerogative to lapse into lamentation over problems, which is ordinarily deemed to be within the capacity of the administration she represents to solve is accepted, to present the problem as something of a fresh challenge is however a different call – a tough one to accept. The problems are of course hardly new. What they require are fresh and imaginative thinking the likes of which the minister and the top guns in her ministry seems ever so unwilling – or rather ill-equipped – to undertake.

    The administration obviously believes in the centrality of “carrying capacity” to the resolution of the problem. A measure of this line of thought is the dramatic step of opening nine new universities even when the older federally owned universities could do with better funding. It may partly explain the minister’s call for opening of more access – through perhaps the establishment of more private tertiary institutions.

    Is the issue really one of “carrying capacity”? Or put in another way, is the crisis simply one of numbers that can be solved merely by doubling or quadrupling the existing carrying capacity of our tertiary institutions?

    I have no doubts in my mind that the current capacity needs to be expanded to ease the problem of admissions. I am aware that there are those who will argue that even a mere thousand taken out the vicious cycle of despair is worth the consideration. It is however a different matter to suggest that the boosting of the combined investments of federal, states and indeed the private sector would at some point satisfy the demand for tertiary education without a fundamental shift in our educational paradigm and a corresponding shift in national values and priorities.

    My position is of course that our concerns with tertiary education has become somewhat misplaced. Now, the quest for a university or polytechnic is certainly legitimate. The reality however is that not everyone that desires it would get one. This is true of developed as well as developing countries. What the developed countries have done is find a balance between the quest for learning – which is life-long, with the need to fit into the labour market.

    Today, part of the problem is what tertiary education is supposed to offer its recipient. Thirty years ago, such issues was regarded as irrelevant. Access to higher education what somewhat given and indeed, came close to a ‘right’ just as the debate about what it is supposed to offer would have been academic. Today, I will wager that anyone would argue that tertiary education, as against basic education, is a ‘right’ under current realities. Secondly, only a few entertain any illusions that their quest for tertiary education is driven by any other factor aside availing opportunities to corner available jobs.

    That, obviously has great implications for the educational sector as a whole; now, this is not only in the context of the state of youth unemployment, but also in the light of the emerging skills gap.

    The issue is – and this is generally accepted that three out of possibly five eligible youths are unemployed. A sizeable proportion of these are holders of college degrees and diplomas. The other component of the troubling equation is their lack of relevant skills and by this I do not mean the meaningless jibe about our graduates being unemployable, but the absence of identifiable, competitive skills needed in the services and the industrial sector. The big irony is that the existence of this large “unemployable pool” has rather than diminish the appetite for higher education seems to have fuelled it.

    The issue clearly isn’t just about expanding the opportunities for tertiary education but to expand and upgrade alternative opportunities available to youths to develop themselves. Part of the consequences of the deplorable state of things is situation where you find the Togolese and other ECOWAS nationals as artisans and technicians taking over our services sector, while their Nigerian counterpart, ever so ill-equipped hang out in search of a job.

    Time it seems to get back the craft schools – the veritable institutions for training artisans and craftsmen. Time to go back to the era where our artisans are not only graded but are paid wages commensurate to their certification. We need to return to the basics of dignity in labour and due reward for honest work.

    Now, I get amused at the suggestion that the fundamentals of the current crisis can be remedied by the introduction of the so-called entrepreneurial studies at our higher institutions. I certainly agree that a good knowledge of entrepreneurship principles will do no harm in the circumstances. But then, they represent mere placebos as against the cure drugs. The key is to make the vocational training option accessible, attractive and to align it with the demands of industry. This is what like Lagos, Ekiti and perhaps Kano are doing by collaborating with some world-class companies to ensure transfer of skills to their youths. What I have in mind is for the educational ministry to champion the effort.

  • Appeasing the unappeasable

    Appeasing the unappeasable

    With weekend abduction of the 92-year old Dr. Shettima Ali Monguno by elements suspected to be Boko Haram, the nature of the atavistic force unleashed by the Boko Haram should by now be clear to everyone. The signs, clearly, are that the group is neither ready nor willing to engage anyone; if ever it will, it will most certainly be on its own terms. Considering that the military Joint Task Force – rather than the Boko Haram – has understandably been on the spot in the aftermath of the so-called Baga massacre, the prognosis must be seen as truly, chilling. Aside the obvious psychological advantage which the group has since claimed, it seems highly unlikely that those behind the group will let off in their morbid push to wrest unimaginable concessions from the typically timid and rather unimaginative federal government.

    In the circumstance, a heightened offensive by the group isn’t just a possibility, but one that is predictable. The idea of course is to weary the federal government.

    Now, the ordeal of the elder statesman is certainly regrettable. The good news is that his abductors have decided to let him go. Even then, the kidnap saga must be seen as nothing more than a footnote in the bloody entrails of the group just as mercy release of the elder statesman does little to alter the group’s bloody records or its contempt both for humanity and the orderly society.

    The point remains that this would not be the first time that the group will so defiantly throw dart at the very of the highly revered structure of authority in the North. Earlier in January this year, the group had picked on the convoy of the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Dr. Ado Bayero. The attack, during which the monarch was wounded, left his driver, orderly and a traditional guard who tried to protect him dead. Two of his sons also in the convoy were wounded. The attack coincidentally came three months after Major General Mamman Shuwa, rtd, one of the nation’s outstanding civil war heroes, was murdered in his Gwange Ward residence in Maiduguri metropolis as he prepared for the Friday congregational prayers.

    To put things in some perspective, there is something in the latest abduction that stretches the typically malevolent symptoms of the current anomie to new limits. Call it – if you like – the final rite of internment for whatever pretensions about the group being amenable to reasoned dialogue. For a group that started off by taking on the security services, the group has since added style to its brutal methods from decapitations to the most heinous forms of bestiality. Whereas churches and other places of worship once presented as fair game for its squad of bombers, today, just about everything represented by humanity is considered legitimate target with perhaps the only restraints being those imposed by the JTF. Pregnant women are not spared; children – including those one writing examinations are not excluded. And as the latest abduction has shown, not even the aged are exempted. Of course, there is no such thing as consideration for race and colour just as the methods have since become a study in human regression on the evolutionary ladder – a throwback to the age of savagery.

    Remember the story of the North Korean medics deployed to minister to the health needs of the people said to have been decapitated in the presence of their loved ones? I am not here referring to the hostages felled in the course of rescue attempt by security forces but the three medics butchered as their spouses watched.

    This is the foe that Nigerians are up against – the enemy stuff that conventional armies dread. What to do with the group is of course the billion naira question.

    Let me state quite clearly that I find no useful distinction between the so-called political Boko Haram and those other mutant derivatives. It must be said that those making the distinction have since failed to persuade of the validity of their distinction, since after all, a tree is said to be known by its fruits. The nation has obviously gone past the attempt to draw distinctions between mass killers and the merchants of terror.

    Let’s look at the option of appeasement possible at this time. Understandably, nearly everyone is looking in the direction of the all-purpose therapy called general amnesty. That seems fine except that it seems another instance in which the word will lose its meaning in application. Now, the problem isn’t so about the amnesty per se but in the failure to appreciate that amnesty is actually an act of a sovereign. Here, the leadership of the sect would seem miles ahead of most Nigerians hence its rejection of the proposed deal off-hand. And why should it when it has nearly one-score local government out of 774 in the country under its rule – that is more than the population of Tonga, a tiny country in the South Pacific? Now, the reports about those local government councils being under the iron rule of the Nigerian Taliban are yet to be disputed, which in the circumstance, leaves the federal government the only option of exploring either a framework of co-existence or citizen swap as between two sovereigns! Even at that, the prospects, given the declared territorial ambitions of the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), should ordinarily be frightening.

    So what to do? It seems to me that a certified paedophilia has a higher chance of transmuting to a baby nurse than the Nigerian terrorist would overnight become a model citizen. Now, talk is good, and as they say – cheap. But then, the idea of talk assumes that two parties are in agreement and that there is a minimum basis of understanding. The truth of course is that we are still a long way from the Grand Bargain moment, nowhere near the point where the Nigerian terrorist will be amenable to talks.

    Let me make the point simple. Today, everyone talks about the relative peace in the Niger Delta and how the visits to the creeks and the backroom deals eventuated in the amnesty. Very few remember the Battle of Gbaramatu which forced the militants to the table. The point here is that those who hunger for omelette haven’t yet told us how to make one without breaking an egg. Either the nation finds the resolve to battle the terrorists or it should get ready to travel the path of slow and systematic disintegration.

  • A Lady Macbeth in the House?

    A Lady Macbeth in the House?

    Behind every successful man there is a woman, we are told, but no one seems ready to openly admit the converse that lurking behind every failed man is a certain woman. The closest I have heard people admitting this negative tendency is the African proverb that says that behind every wicked masquerade there is a wicked commander.

    History is replete with the manipulative roles wives and/or concubines have played in the making of despotic rulers. Conversely also, some of the most successful leaders the world had produced had wonderful wives, who inspired them to greatness and goodness. No man born of woman, it should be noted though, is immune to the influence, good or bad of a woman. She could either be his wife, concubine, sister or mother. And in rare cases his daughter. However, most often than not, the unseen manipulative hand behind the good or the wicked man (leader) is his wife.

    As the political temperature in Rivers State rises towards boiling point, Nigerians, especially those from that oil producing state should shine their eyes and use their magnifying glasses to see the wicked commander(s) behind President Goodluck Jonathan’s wicked masquerade.

    Our dear First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan was reportedly annoyed last Thursday when a crowd of supposed supporters went to Port Harcourt International Airport at Omagwa to welcome her back home after a “hard week’s” work in Abuja, and a certain gentleman in the crowd called Chikaodi Dike, introduced himself as the chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area in Rivers state.

    Madam, a “daughter of the soil” who expectedly had been following keenly the ongoing face-off between her husband, Jonathan and her state governor Rotimi Amaechi over God knows what, reportedly asked Chikaodi whether he is the suspended or new chairman of the council, to which the man replied as being the latter. The response got her annoyed and Madam was reported to have described Chikordi “an illegal chairman”.

    To those familiar with the power speak in Abuja, this was euphemism for trouble and it didn’t take long to arrive as armed policemen invaded Obio/Akpor local government secretariat the following day and sacked the interim administration of Chikaodi put in place by the state House of Assembly following the suspension of the former chairman and his councilors. The council (administration) as I write is under the jackboot of the Nigeria Police deployed by “Madam and Oga at the top”.

    And since last Friday Obio/Akpor local government area and indeed the whole of Rivers State has been under a state of fear, fear of what trouble could come next (from Abuja), part of which was manifested Monday when thugs opposed to the new administration in the council invaded the premises of the state House of Assembly.

    The descent to this ugly situation and seeming insecurity in Rivers State did not start last week, it’s been building up for a long time and could be linked to President Goodluck Jonathan’s yet to be declared ambition to run for another presidential term in 2015 and the need to secure the two million or so votes of Rivers State to ensure victory.

    President Jonathan is well within his rights to want a second term in office while First Lady Patience would be failing in her duty as his wife if she refused to pull all the strings at her disposal to help her husband realize this ambition. The problem here is not that she is pulling strings, but the kind of strings she is pulling. If the First Lady calls the head of a local council administration lawfully put in place illegal and the police sack that administration the following day, who does not know where the order to the Police came from: Madam. She is exercising a power she does not have; that of the Commander in Chief. This is dangerous for our democracy.

    Our constitution recognizes one centre of power; the Presidency, headed by Goodluck Jonathan as President and Commander In Chief. If his wife talks or gives directives and we see such manifesting almost immediately, then it is either the man gave the order to support the wife’s position or has ceded part of the power of the C-I-C to the First Lady. And this is not the first time Madam will be acting as such. In fact those close to the corridors of power at the Presidential Villa say even Service Chiefs do sometimes take order from her.

    Since the police sacking of Obio/Akpor council administration there has been no official word as to who sent the policemen. And with the seeming ease with which thugs invaded the Rivers State House of Assembly without any strong attempt to stop them, this could only mean that “Oga and Madam at the top”, are directing the affairs from Abuja with the connivance of a certain former Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area who currently sits in cabinet with the president as Minister of State for Education. This could only mean one thing; despotism.

    President Jonathan and wife Patience are using the powers invested in him as Commander In Chief to bully and persecute both real and imaginary enemies. He is unleashing his police on Rivers State now, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is expected next while some lackeys in the state House of Assembly are being propped up for a hatchet job to impeach the governor. We have gone through this path before. If all fail they plan to foment trouble and cause chaos preparatory to a planned declaration of state of emergency in Rivers State all aimed at either getting Governor Amaechi out of the way or make it impossible for him to govern effectively and have a say in his successor.

    Nothing is new, but the surprise is the enlisting of such technical agencies of government like the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and their parent Ministry of Aviation in this war of persecution against the Rivers |State Government. The more they came out to attempt to nail the state government over the purchase of an executive jet the more they exposed their inefficiencies and made a fool of themselves. If truly the aircraft has been flying illegally in Nigeria since it entered service last October where have all these agencies been since then? Is this how to manage our sky? As for EFCC, the anti graft agency can only go down if it continues to make itself available for use by politicians to settle political scores.

    The aggregation of all this naked use of state power to bully, persecute and oppress perceived enemies by President Jonathan is that it takes us closer to dictatorship. And if you add the increasing clampdown on freedom of speech/expression/press, you get what I am talking about. Unraveling before our eyes is a budding despot and he is being pushed all the way by a Lady Macbeth beside him, in the full glare of a rudderless and toothless ruling party. And Nigerians are watching.

    This is the time for the so called Council of State, comprising of sitting and former presidents, former Chief Justices of Nigeria and others to call an emergency meeting in Abuja to deliberate on the Rivers crisis and insecurity in the land and proffer solutions. The National Assembly should not fold its arms either. And where are the elders of Rivers State? Let’s save our democracy.

  • Okupe’s roadshow

    It was a suggestive moment. Power employed the appeal of poetry in a move to seduce the fraternity of the pen. The clever play on words came at the end of a high-profile visit by Dr. Doyin Okupe, Senior Special Assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on Public Affairs, to the corporate headquarters of The Nation at Matori, Lagos. A member of his team, Dr. Olusanya Awosan, Special Assistant to the President on Public Relations, was asked to close the meeting with senior journalists working for the newspaper. He came up with creative lines inspired by his Public Relations background. “This nation is ours. Let us use The Nation to work for our nation,” he said. These words, which formed the high point of his brief parting speech, drew a wave of laughter from the impressed audience in the company’s board room.

    It brought about a light-hearted finish to an encounter that often featured intense passions and contentions. From the start, Okupe admitted he had entertained the view that the newspaper was “hostile”, basing his opinion on the identity of its publisher. However, he also confessed that the paper had proved him wrong by its “professionalism” even in its coverage of the presidency, which is of a dissimilar political complexion.

    Dressed in white native attire, with a black cap and brown shoes, the fleshy physician who is better known as a politician spoke smoothly. He was on familiar turf, having served in a similar capacity in the early years of the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency. His comeback and responsibility in the current administration has been interpreted in some quarters to mean that Jonathan needed a more aggressive voice and greater bite in the handling of the government’s public communications. But, interestingly, the man didn’t growl at anyone on his visit. Rather, he was a picture of civility, and went to great lengths to explain and elaborate on issues that arose.

    Perhaps predictably, he defended his boss, arguing that the president was misunderstood and unfairly characterized as “clueless.” His adjectives for Jonathan were: “human,” “sensible,” “intelligent.” However, he offered no convincing proof of Jonathan’s brilliance. The only premise that he supplied for his assessment was that whenever he had an official discussion with Jonathan, the president was usually able to recollect the minutest details of their previous interaction. Jonathan had a patriotic love for the country, Okupe testified.

    Bad press was a difficult challenge to the administration, he declared, and told the fascinating story of how even his own 87-year-old mother had drawn his attention to the government’s reported poor performance. He was asked: Weren’t the so-called negative media reports faithful in their recreation of reality? Can it be truly said that the government was actually performing to public expectation?

    Okupe called for understanding, and argued that as the head of a two-year-old administration, Jonathan had done well enough and only required more time to further show the stuff he was made of. To back his claims, he dwelled on an alleged revolution in agriculture and electricity supply. The interviewers rejected the rosy picture he painted. The divergence put a question mark on the integrity of information from government sources. Was the media expected to parrot official statements without professional mediation? Evidently, there should be a meeting point between the reported and the reporter.

    Governmental openness isn’t quite as it should be, Okupe conceded. However, seeking an excuse, he blamed this democratic aberrancy on long years of military rule and argued that it would take some time before official secretiveness became a thing of the past. He broke the welcome news that, as a step toward greater directness, his unit planned to launch a regular information forum for public enlightenment.

    The questions he had to tackle showed a glaring disconnect between public opinion and governmental activities. The range of issues raised included the status of First Lady Patience Jonathan who was controversially promoted to the position of permanent secretary in Bayelsa State; the government’s contentious consideration of amnesty for the Islamist terror group, Boko Haram; Jonathan’s perceived 2015 presidential ambition; the divisive state pardon granted Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former governor of Bayelsa State convicted of high-scale corruption; and the 2012 US report on human rights abuses that alleged the existence of 6,000 kids in Nigerian prisons.

    At one point, Okupe allowed himself the luxury of self-praise. “I have sense,” he declared to the amused interviewers. If that was intended to get the critical journalists to accept that he knew what he was talking about and should be believed, it was a faulty anticipation. Words were simply not enough on this occasion. Certainly, Okupe’s image as government spokesman necessarily came with a baggage. He couldn’t dodge the suspicion that trailed him. Even at those times that he yielded ground to the interviewers on some issue, that didn’t make him less of a mouthpiece. It is the burden of he who speaks on behalf of another. Indeed, how accurately can he mirror the other? Also, irrespective of his possible accuracy, how can he shake off the partisan badge of defender and advocate?

    There are times when counter-attack, rather than defence, does the job. Okupe proved this on at least one issue. He did it with admirable skill, and even got everyone laughing. His unexpectedly hilarious response was to a question on the alleged war-like posture of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). One journalist wondered why the PDP was drumming war beats two years to the 2015 general elections. Without a pause, Okupe countered with a rhetorical question: “What do you want them to do, play Owambe music?” The reference to the Yoruba melody of ease was remarkable, and implied that politics was war by other means.

    Yoruba language coloured Okupe’s words now and again. When he reached for the resources of his native tongue to drive home a point, he relied on proverbs. In one instance, the Yoruba saying he deployed carried the imagery of medicine, his original profession. He said: Biegbo tin da ko lose jina. Translation: An injury doesn’t heal as fast as it was sustained. This was his way of arguing that the Jonathan administration inherited a rot that could not be remedied overnight.

    Okupe’s visit provided information for two reports published in the newspaper the following day, April 23. Maybe the road show deepened his insight into the pros and cons of political image laundering. Will he come around another time?

     

    • Macaulay is on the editorial board of The Nation

  • Lest we forget: this land was not always without honour

    Lest we forget: this land was not always without honour

    I have never in my entire public career, spanning nearly 50 years now, either given or received bribes, or any other form of gratification. I find doing so repugnant and personally demeaning – Dapo Fafowora 

    He called his memoirs, Lest I forget: Memoirs of a Nigerian Career Diplomat. But the book could well have been entitled, Lest we forget: This land was not always without honour – so trenchantly does his professed ethics rebuke today’s public service sewers.

    How many public servants today can boast Ambassador Dapo Fafowora’s claim above, made in his book, due for public presentation at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos, on Thursday?

    And if you think Dr. Fafowora’s declaration was that of a solo holier-than-thou, then consider this anecdote of 1959, which the young Dapo Fafowora witnessed, as a clerk in the Western Region Treasury.

    An accounts clerk going on leave had added 10 miles to the distance of his home town from Ibadan, hoping to gain five extra shillings to his leave pay. One Mr. Kemp, his boss, drove to his village to investigate the claim, found the distance was 10 miles short, and dismissed the clerk for five shillings fraud. For shame, that clerk committed suicide!

    Too good to be true today, when top bureaucrats accused of embezzling pension funds hire the best SANs to protect their alleged loot, superstar-style?

    Also consider the case of Ambassador Fafowora’s late father, Chief Olagunju Fafowora.

    As private secretary to the late Oba Akran of Badagry, a minister in the Chief Awolowo-led Western Region government, the minister had given the senior Fafowora 3,000 pound, to share among party hacks, without any particular list. Being no politician himself, Fafowora could not locate any politician; so he returned the money to his principal, reporting the failure of his Badagry mission.

    A bewildered Akran, expecting the man to have somewhat helped himself, told him he would never be rich! Not a few of his contemporaries also thought he was crazy. But the senior Fafowora placed his personal integrity far above a few pounds, which nevertheless was quite a trove in those days. So, if the junior Fafowora felt gratifications repugnant and personally demeaning, you at least knew where he was coming from.

    Then, the case of Pa Christopher Williams, Dr. Fafowora’s maternal uncle. He too was minister of Lands under the Awo Western Region government. But he resisted every pressure to allocate land either to himself or members of his family, pleading that the Action Group (AG) government frowned at such.

    In The Accidental Public Servant, Nasir El-Rufai committed no crime by allotting land to his spouse who, as he rightly argued in his book, was a Nigerian citizen, was qualified and had paid the requisite fees. But the difference between the two ministers, over different generations spanning some 50 years, is the decline in rigour over public morality.

    Still that past was no unanimous moral paradise, where everybody lived happily in probity. As Ambassador Fafowora would find out, his own personal probity would clash with institutional rot, fired by deliberate and systematic subversion of processes. That would lead to his sudden retirement at noon, when his career sun was most dazzling; and career halo most golden.

    Fafowora and other victims of that retirement gale (which belied all logic), by the new Muhammadu Buhari military government, were victims of ethnic paranoia in the Nigerian public services. The North, at independence, could clearly not compete with the South, in Western education-driven skills. Yet, the British had fed the northern elite with a strange sense of entitlement.

    But in fairness, the North’s fear was not unjustified; as the British themselves did not found Nigeria on any deliberate ethos of equity. In that crippling paranoia, the northern lobby succeeded in imposing the domination of the mediocre, which to survive, needed to eliminate real talents, which automatically became perceived threats.

    But could southern domination have been of the meritorious? Nobody knows. But even domination by merit would be equally intolerable, even with its surface benefits. Only equitable access and just treatment across the board would do. That painful moral must be gleaned from the lunatic retirements, which gale swept away the ambassador and the 80-plus career diplomats, among the finest in the country’s stock.

    For his retirement, Dr. Fafowora alleged a triangular axis of plotters: two dead, one still alive, in a chapter which he called ‘The Night of the Long Knives’. The late Lawal Rafindadi, director-general of the defunct Nigerian Security Organisation (NSO) precursor to today’s SSS, reportedly passed Fafowora’s name “in pencil” to Gen. Buhari, who reportedly approved in error, since the name was originally not on the retirement list.

    But even with the error, both the late Gen. Joseph Garba (a former foreign minister in the Murtala-Obasanjo military government) and Prof. Ibrahim Gambari (another foreign minister under Buhari) allegedly colluded to ensure the error was done deal. Fortunately, Prof. Gambari is still alive to shed light on his alleged role in the exercise.

    In Dr. Fafowora’s view, Garba was a serial betrayer whose “perfidy was relentless and without any remorse”; thus echoing the Shakespearean quip of the evil men do living after them, while their good deeds were interred with their bones.

    Worse: the author also accused Garba of planting, to cover his allegedly confirmed perfidy, the yarn that Fafowora was wrongly retired because his name bore close similarity to another officer’s, listed for the exercise. So successful was that yarn that Prof. Jide Osuntokun quoted it in a tribute to the author! But Dr. Fafowora insisted that Magoro, another ranking member of Buhari’s Supreme Military Council, confirmed the retirement was the basic handiwork of Rafindadi and Garba.

    Thus, one of the golden boys of Nigerian diplomacy, pressed into service twice to fix ruptured embassies in Uganda and Turkey; and on specific request drafted as brain box as Deputy Permanent Representative at the United Nations, was shunted aside 20 years into service and 17 years before his due retirement – and at mere 43!

    His odyssey symbolised the prodigality, the waste and the lunatic self-bleeding that have turned the Nigerian bureaucracy a shadow of its once vibrant self – no thanks to the senseless purges of post-Gowon military barbarians, pioneered by Murtala Muhammad and climaxed by the grim Sani Abacha.

    Though Abacha was outside the scope of the work, Buhari gave a foretaste of Abacha-era savagery when he railroaded the late Prof. Ishaya Audu straight from a summon, as Nigeria’s UN Permanent Representative in New York, into gulag without trial for 18 months; released only after Buhari himself was overthrown.

    How did Nigeria get it wrong? This 549-page book, rich in anecdotes and even richer in sound knowledge of modern history to navigate diplomacy, might just offer a rich clue.

     

  • A morbid obsession

    A morbid obsession

    Why do they so desperately want Enugu State Governor Sullivan Chime dead?

    He defied their morbid expectations just three months ago, returning to Nigeria “hale and hearty” even if wordless, after spending three months of “accumulated vacation” in the UK undergoing treatment for what was described as “nose cancer”.

    While he was away, rumours of his death figured so frequently in the newspapers, on radio, and on the Internet that it required a huge leap of faith to believe that he was alive. His dramatic return dispelled rumours of his death, but his disdaining to address the throng that had converged on Enugu Airport to receive him only fueled speculations that he was gravely ill. No political leader would forego a chance like that unless he or she faced the direst odds.

    Scarcely three months later, the rumours have resurfaced with renewed virulence. Sullivan Chime, even the more respectable newspapers have been saying, had died again, this time in India, where he had gone surreptitiously to receive medical treatment

    These headlines, taken from various newspapers and Internet sites, tell the story in their own different ways:

     

    Gov. Sullivan Chime dead in India – Rumour?

    Enugu State Governor, Sullivan Chime, dies in India.

    Enugu State Governor, Sullivan Chime might be dead.

    Gov. Sullivan Chime dead?

    Chime feared dead

    Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu allegedly dies in India

    Is Sullivan Chime dead?

     

    Practically all the platforms on which these headlines appeared attributed their stories to codewit.com, the web address for Codewit World News (CWN), which qualifies itself rather exorbitantly as “an outstanding, groundbreaking website that encourages citizen journalists to report ongoing corruption and government malfeasance in Africa.”

    The portal, its sponsors claim, “is among the world’s leaders in online news and information delivery. The project is engineered by the new sound (sic) of Nigerians, creatively declaring the uniqueness and greatness of the African People”

    As for its “vision,” it is nothing less than “to inspire the entire African people, starting with Nigerians, by employing credible media-driven platforms through which Nigerians can engage themselves, as well as the rest of the world.” The emphasis is mine.

    It purports to accept as a challenge the high-minded task of effectively debunking “the persistent effort of the western media to consistently and erroneously portray us as the Dark Continent, characterised by the 5D’s: Disease, Despair, Destruction, Disaster, Destitution and Deceit.”

    This project, the web site discloses, was conceived by Mr. Anthony Claret Onwutalobi, the founder of Codewit Global Network. Onwutalobi, the web site volunteers, is an author and educator who has developed a system of “philosophical thought” called “codewism,” in which he “clarified that the solutions to African problems lie in eight key principles.”

    Here is the codewit.com story on Chime in its essence:

    “A heavy cloak of mourning falls on the nation once more today as news of Governor Sullivan Chime’s death filters in.

    “A reliable source who confirmed his death to codewit.com said he gave up the ghost an hour ago in India (9 pm Nigerian Time).

    “His Excellency, the late Governor Sullivan Chime had battled an undisclosed illness for months. When citizens began questioning his prolonged absence from Enugu, the official story was that he was on a long vacation accrued over a period of 5 years. . .

    “Efforts to get across to some commissioners in the state were not successful as their phones were switched off.

    “May his soul rest in peace.

    “More details shortly.”

    The promised details never followed.

    Given Anthony Onwutalobi’s antecedents and the provenance of the story alleging that Chime had died in India, one would have thought that the news media, actual and virtual, would handle the matter with a nice sense of discrimination. For, as news stories go, his is threadbare.

    But it quickly went viral.

    Many media outlets simply reproduced the codewit.com story verbatim, though with proper attribution. Those that didn’t reproduce it verbatim entered perfunctory reservations that raised no questions about the substance of the story. Then, there were those who sought to pre-empt criticism or liability by qualifying the whole thing as rumour.

    But why give wings to rumour in the first place?

    “A reliable source,” combined with the precise time of death – not last night or yesterday, but an hour ago” – must have made some editors rest easy. Isn’t that what many of them have been taught or have come to regard as the stuff of good reporting?

    When codewit.com went on to explain that “an hour ago” in that context translated into 9 p.m. Nigerian time, and to add that “some commissioners” who could have confirmed or denied the report had switched off their phones, it was engaging in parody. But the parody seemed only to have conferred a patina of plausibility on the rogue story in some newsrooms.

    Spirited denials issued by the authorities in Enugu gained far less traction than the codewit.com report that had been republished in the newspapers and many other online outlets. Since news signalises a rupture or disjuncture, Chime dead has greater journalistic salience and resonance than Chime alive. That is the morbid calculus of tabloid journalism.

    Nor did it help matters when the officials said Chime was alive and well but could not say precisely where he was nor how he might be reached.

    Chime himself could have ended all the morbid speculation by showing up dramatically in his office or at some event in Enugu and confounding his tormentors once again.

    Perhaps he is taking consolation in the belief of our people that person falsely and maliciously reported dead is sure to live long. It must follow from this that the more frequently a person is falsely reported dead, the more assured that person is of longevity.

    Still, enough is already too much. This is “dem-say, dem say” journalism taken too far.

    It is more than enough to drive even the most accommodating official to elevate rumour-mongering to a penal crime and set up an entire bureaucracy, backed by a new law, to deal with this vexatious obsession.

    If Chime does not want to adopt Bayelsa Governor Seriake Dickson’s strategy for dealing with the issue, he can, crackerjack lawyer that he is, find a remedy in civil law. Falsely reporting a person’s death meets the legal definition of “wanton infliction of mental and emotional distress.” And it is actionable.

    If there is no Nigerian precedent, Chime could write himself into legal history by initiating a lawsuit to establish one.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Aregbesola: Raising the bar in governance

    Aregbesola: Raising the bar in governance

    As the 2014 gubernatorial election draws closer in Osun State, the signs are that it will not be business as usual for political gladiators jostling for the gubernatorial seat currently occupied by the incumbent governor Rauf Aregbesola. Not only has the governor shown that he is a leader that makes things happen, he also discovers resources in places one thought were barren.

    The truth of course is that Aregbesola continues to create opportunities in places where many cannot imagine exist. He takes something average and makes it exceptional. Rather than make excuses, he always finds a way to make things happen by his numerous programmes that have lifted Osun to the best among the states in Nigeria. A state that was noted for poverty and underdevelopment has since climbed the topmost ladder among the states that have reduced poverty among its citizens, coming first in terms of environmental friendliness, and leading among the states that were involved in rural development using the six point integral action plan as compass.

    Former President of America President Bill Clinton once declared in 1983 at his gubernatorial inauguration that “education is the key to our economic revival and our perennial quest for prosperity. We must dedicate more of our limited resources to paying teachers better; expanding educational opportunities in poor and small districts; improving and diversifying vocational and high technology programs…. Without competence in basic skills for our people cannot move on to more advanced achievement.” The governor obviously took the charge to heart when at the inception of his administration, raised primary school basic funding grants from N74 million (spent by the ousted regime for eight years) to N424million a year

    Today, the Aregbesola administration feeds over 250,000 elementary pupils daily with about N400 million monthly. Secondary school funding grants has been raised from N117million to N427 million per year. Thirty percent tuition fees reduction for tertiary institutions were carried out to the appreciation of parents and students, indigene bursary award was raised from N3000 to N10,000. Additionally, 98 UNIOSUN medical students were sponsored to Ukraine, just as 750,000 pupils were kitted with school uniforms free of charge. A number of state of the art elementary, middle and high schools are being built all over the state, in various stages of completion. Tablet of Knowledge (Opon Imo) is on its final practical test in three schools in the state, to be ready for distribution to 150,000 students and teachers in all the senior secondary schools in the state free of charge.

    The implication of these achievements for would be gubernatorial candidates and their political parties is that the benchmarks already set by the incumbent will have to be met and those who aspire to defeat him will not only promise to do what he has done but demonstrate the capacity and record of achievements to surpass him.

    The second huddle that the aspirants will have to clear is ability to create employment opportunity to surpass that of Aregbesola who has now employed over 50,000 youths from the state. Numbered among these are the 20,000 employed within his first 100 days in office. Of the number, 18,000 are now fully engaged. The second batch of 20,000 youths came on board this February, while about 10,000 others were recruited into the state civil service either as teachers, doctors’ engineers and other professionals. Those aspirants must be ready to go beyond rhetoric but meet their promise with action it is then that the people will give them a consideration. It is important to recall that this OYES has earned the state an award by the World Bank which also recommends the scheme to the federal government.

    The third huddle to be scaled by the other gubernatorial gladiators is in the area of agriculture. Governor Aregbesola has shown that the land is fertile enough not only to feed the state but the nation. It is no longer news that the agricultural revolution in the state has started yielding results. The farmers and their friends will forever remain grateful to the governor for providing them with N1billion support for the cooperatives. Indeed, 1,765 hectares were cleared for farmers to make farming easier, 28 cooperative groups were supported to plant 17 kilometres stretch maize, 10,000 capacity cattle ranch were established at Oloba, Iwo and has also been recognized by the World Bank. Bee- farming, the first of its kind is already on at Oyan.

    The farmers that benefited from these projects and assistance will not want to lose the governor that supports them, and the aspirant that will defeat their friend will not only promise but must have been tested and trusted by the people.

    On road infrastructure, the previous government of Oyinlola Olagunsoye built 553 kilometres of roads in 90 months. Governor Aregbesola in 24 months has done 513 kilometres of roads, apart from the 218 kilometres being done by the local government authorities in the state. The people will not compromise on the man that has opened up rural areas and has since received the recognition and backing of the World Bank as the best among the four states under the supervision of the World Bank supported Rural Access Mobility Programme (RAMP).

    In the area of peace and security, it is on record that no security outfit existed until this government came on board. The administration successfully set up the Swift Action Squad (SAS), equipped them with initial five Armoured Patrol Cars and 25 Patrol vans, state-of-the art multi-force, security control centre, mega police stations and community policing network.

    The social ethos of Omoluabi is transforming the state from the violence-prone state in the pre-Aregbesola era to a peaceful one to underscore the fact that the virtuous status of the state is not mere rhetoric but the ideals that has unified groups.

    Today, the aged, especially those who have no relations to cater for them are being taken care of under the administration’s social welfare programme. The critically vulnerable elders, numbering 1600 are on monthly allowance of N10,000. Some are being looked after in the hospitals in the state. Others receive home-based medical care. The mentally challenged are not left out as some of them are now restored back to normal health and returned to their communities. So those who want to serve Aregbesola a quit notice should be reminded about these benchmarks. For no matter the tirade and negative propaganda, issues that benefit the people will be the basis for success at the polls and not cheap lies, diatribes and blackmail. Aregbesola has given the people of Osun the dividends of democracy. It is for his opponents to show their stuff and their antecedent to let the people make their choice. This is the hallmark of democracy.

     

    • Obaditan writes from Osogbo, Osun State