The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • That Hajj humiliation

    That Hajj humiliation

    Nigeria’s fading image abroad took a further battering last week when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent back home some of our women who had gone to the holy lands of Makkah and Madinah to perform this year’s hajj.

    No fewer than one thousand of them mainly from the northern states as you know, were deported so to speak because they were not accompanied by any male guardian, either husband or close relation as prescribed by Islam. The refusal of the Saudis to accept our explanation led the Federal Government to temporarily call a halt to further airlift of Nigerian pilgrims to the Arab country.

    But as the weekend was drawing to a close, the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) to the relieve of most Nigerians, particularly Muslims announced that the Saudis have opened their doors again to allow the near 100,000 Nigerian pilgrims billed for the hajj to perform/observe their religious obligation to Almighty ALLAH.

    The hajj, one of five pillars of Islam is enjoined to all Muslim adults male or female who are fit, able and capable at least once in their lifetime. Some have performed the pilgrimage more than once either in quick succession or at some intervals. Majority of the more than one billion Muslims in the world have never been on hajj and are not likely to, given the limited number of pilgrims allocated to each country by Saudi Arabia. Their main constraint however is their inability to fund the pilgrimage themselves due to their poor financial status.

    A would be pilgrim must not only be physically fit and of sound mind, but must also be financially able to sustain him/herself in the holy land as well as provide enough for those left back home. For the female pilgrim, she is required to be accompanied by a male guardian or Muharam who should either be her husband or close relation. This additional condition on the female pilgrim has been part of the pilgrimage from inception and therefore known to all Muslims.

    But then the nature of today’s world has made this a huge burden on the Muslim woman, especially if she’s not married for whatever reason or husband not buoyant enough to accompany her or sponsor a male relation to accompany her.

    And to take care of situations like this, we are told such Islamic bodies as NAHCON are allowed to give a shield to women pilgrims who find themselves in this kind of situation by acting as their Muharam so to speak. So if NAHCON could do this why then were our women turned back in Saudi Arabia? Could it be that the Saudis had added more conditions without telling or alerting us? We may never know why or told why as the Saudis, given the secrecy with which they conduct their affairs are likely to keep the reasons to their chest. This will no doubt suit Nigerian officials very well as they are never inclined to giving information, especially ones that could embarrass or nail them. May be the Federal Government delegation being sent to Saudi Arabia to ‘smoothen things out” with the Kingdom and prevent a further diplomatic spat between both countries would do a good job of getting to the root of this national embarrassment.

    Being led by Speaker House of Representatives Aminu Tambuwal, the delegation would do well to go beyond unravelling why our female pilgrims were turned back in Saudi Arabia but also look into the operations of NAHCON itself and how we handle our pilgrims both here and in Saudi Arabia, as well as the conduct of our pilgrims.

    I want to believe that NAHCON and to some extent, the Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Boards in each of the states have a hand in this unfortunate situation either as collaborators or main perpetrators. But then we need to look at how these pilgrims emerged in the first instance. Apart from those who paid for the pilgrimage with their hard earned money, the rest are mainly sponsored by State governments, political parties, mosques, religious organizations and in few instances by wealthy individuals who regards such as an act of Ibadah. Among these sponsored pilgrims, especially those ones bankrolled by either the federal or state governments or political parties could be found party loyalists, male and female who were being paid with hajj sponsorship by their principals for their political support in the past as well as anticipated future support. Regrettably it is among this group of pilgrims that you find the bad eggs that the Saudis are always looking for to prevent from entering their country under the guise of hajj. Some of these people constitute nuisance to themselves and embarrassment to Nigeria in the holy land. Some of them, male and female do engage in acts that are clearly not compatible with Islamic tenets and not in tune with the mood of hajj. There are some of them whose interest is anything but hajj. While some go there for business or in some cases tourism, quite a few are only interested in immoral activities. Perhaps this was what was on the mind of the Saudis when those Nigerian women landed in their country for hajj without their Muharram so to speak. Do not get me wrong and I am certainly not trying to bring down my brothers and sisters in Islam in Nigeria. Certainly not. Such bad eggs abound everywhere and I am sure the Saudis will do a similar thing to pilgrims from other countries in similar circumstances. But my grouse with the Saudis is that they tend to treat issues concerning Nigerian pilgrims and their counterparts from non-Arab speaking African countries with extreme application of the law. First most of them pretend not to understand you if you speak to them in any other language but Arabic, but they understand even if they cannot respond fluently. So you are left at their mercy if you run into trouble with them or they decided to put you in trouble.

    I can imagine what those our women must have gone through there especially the illeterates among them. This is where NAHCON and to some extent the state Pilgrims Welfare Boards are at fault in my opinion. Why put such a large number of female pilgrims on board without competent Muharram or authority to assist them, knowing full well how erratic and unreasonable some of these Saudis could be? How much screening did we do here of our pilgrims to ascertain their fitness and genuineness of their intentions before dispatching them to the holy land? Some NAHCON and Pilgrims Board officials actually collaborate with some of these undesirable elements who find their way from here to Saudi Arabia for activities other than hajj. Last year a female pilgrim that came via Kano gave birth on arrival at Jeddah airport. So, how did a pregnant woman board the flight in Kano when pregnancy of that state ought to have disqualified her from the pilgrimage. Another woman lost her pregnancy and her friends were lamenting that she was in for trouble on her return to Nigeria as her husband had warned her not to embark on the pilgrimage. So, how did she pass through the screening here if at all there was one.

    Agreed that the Saudis could be excessive in the application of the law when it come to Nigerian or black African pilgrims and even erratic at times, we should not blame them too much when we fail or neglect to enforce the same law here rigorously by doing the right thing. There are regulations for instance concerning food items that can be taken along but some of our people go there with such large number of food items as if they are going for a feast. If the Saudis decide to clamp down on this now we’ll begin to shout again. I think we need to do more of our home work here before we send our pilgrims to Saudi Arabia rather than blame the Arabs for maltreating us each time we fell foul of their law. We could do this first by being strict with our screening. We should stop sending or sponsoring thugs and other undesirable elements to hajj just to dispense political patronage. If at all government or whoever wants to send people on hajj they must be people of impeccable character who know what the hajj is all about and are going there to worship Almighty ALLAH. Secondly there should be rigorous application of the five-year interval rule where one can only go on hajj every five years (if one can afford it) and not every year as is the case with some people now.

    Thirdly,our pilgrims need to better organized, both here and in Saudi Arabia and pilgrimage ought to be better funded and not just relying on government sponsorship. In largely Muslim countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, people save for years to fund their pilgrimage and attend classes regularly to prepare them for the once in a life time opportunity. Here people can go straight from a beer parlour to the airport to board a hajj flight simply because they were being sponsored by government, why won’t they misbehave?

    Lets get our acts together and do the right thing and see whether anybody would want to mess with us. But as long as we open ourselves up for ridicule, even small rats will trample on our rights. This must stop. The Federal Government must in line with our foreign policy tell Saudi Arabia or any other country for that matter that Nigeria will not tolerate any maltreatment of her citizens in their country and that punishment for any infraction of the law must be commensurate with the offense committed. But can we really do this in our present situation? Let’s wait for Speaker Tambuwall’s report.

     

  • A nation under water

    A nation under water

    It was perhaps just as well that the Federal Government declared several weeks ago that Nigeria’s 52nd independence anniversary would be observed, again, on a “low key.”

    Nigeria is celebrating its National Day literally under water. “Low key” doesn’t get lower than that.

    Those of a decidedly malignant disposition, whom we shall always have among us, may even see the whole thing – the encircling waters and the objects drifting listlessly in the deluge – as an apt metaphor for the national condition.

    From the parched Sahel in the grip of the furiously retreating Sahara desert to the mangrove swamps of the Atlantic, a vast swathe of Nigeria is under water. Swollen by record rainfall and by water said to have been released from dams in neighbouring Cameroun to avoid a looming disaster, Nigeria’s major rivers, the Niger and the Benue, rage as never before, swallowing up houses and washing away bridges and roads and farmlands, sparing nothing in their ravenous wake.

    For four days, the national capital was cut off from traffic from much of the South, portions of the road linking Lokoja with Abuja having been washed away. Lokoja itself, like many other cities caught up in the floods, evoked scenes of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which our own Poet Laureate Niyi Osundare has memorialised for the ages in epic verse.

    Some 130 persons, most likely a gross undercount, have been reported killed in the floods. At least as many are missing. The number of displaced persons has to be in the millions, and damage to private property must be reckoned in trillions of Naira.

    Given just the dilatoriness, the studied evasion with which Nigerian insurance companies typically handle claims, those who lost their homes and property to the flood cannot rest easy that help is forthcoming. And here I am talking of those who took the trouble and expense to buy insurance cover, or were corralled to do so by a mortgage institution.

    Most of the victims probably do not fall in this category and are entirely on their own. With the sluggish economy and rising cost of everything, and the predilection of the mercantile class for profiting from the misfortunes of others, a good many of them are not going to be in a position any time soon to repair or rebuild their homes.

    The fortunate among the millions of displaced persons will be housed in camps for months if not years, and the rest will have to fend for themselves as best they can

    The National Assembly has not met in emergency session to deliberate on legislative measures to cope with what is without question the greatest natural disaster to have struck Nigeria in recent memory.

    Perhaps its members are waiting for President Goodluck Jonathan to propose a supplementary budget. But what stops a private member from proposing an appropriate bill and shepherding it through the legislature in readiness for the President for assent?

    As for Dr Jonathan, he was half a world away, in New York, addressing the United Nations General Assembly and trying once again to charm those elusive foreign investors into coming to Nigeria to seek their fortunes as the flood waters rose steadily, turned entire cities into flotillas, and cut off Abuja from the south-western part of the country.

    The churlish would say that he should not have travelled out at all, or should have headed back as soon as he was made aware of the enormousness of the unfolding catastrophe. But it may well be that his aides never told him how dire the situation had become so as not to distract him from making the most of a moment on the world’s stage that comes only once a year.

    Besides, the vice president, cabinet ministers and officials Specialised agencies and a sprawling were on hand to deal with any emergencies. And, to his great credit, Dr Jonathan took time off his hectic schedule in New York to direct the designated ministers and officials to take charge. If they did not rise up to the occasion, it cannot be the President’s fault.

    But, wearing another hat, the President is also griever and consoler-in-chief; he sets the mood of the nation in times of rejoicing as well as in times of calamity. It would have been a gesture of enormous significance if, on his return from the United States, he had visited some of the beleaguered communities offering words of sympathy and assuring them that his Administration would do all its power to bring them succour.

    In politics, perception is almost everything. Dr Jonathan needed to be perceived as a President who cared, who feels their pain, and is firmly resolved to translate his concern into practical relief measures. Such a gesture could have bridged somewhat the widening gulf between the general public and his Administration.

    In this respect, time is still on his side, even if not on the side of the beleaguered, who will no doubt see it as a fresh disappointment that their privations rated just four perfunctory sentences in his National Day broadcast.

    It will no doubt be remarked that it was foreign contractors who made the national capital accessible by road from the South-west some four days after a stretch of the Lokoja-Abuja highway was washed away by flood waters.

    And it will be asked: Where were the indigenous contractors? Where, for that matter, were all the hardware that the government relief agencies ought to have stockpiled all these years – rescue vehicles and river craft especially. Where are the mobile emergency health centres? Where are the emergency water-treatment plants? Where was the emergency communication system?

    It will be asked even more insistently: Why was there so little preparation for a disaster so clearly foretold?

    Meanwhile, the Jonathan Administration will have to shed its preoccupation with fringe issues and devote all its energies to coping with this unfolding tragedy. The Weather Bureau says the worst may still lie ahead. This means designing comprehensive measures to deal with the present emergency and proactive measures to contain the coming one.

    I am thinking of food and shelter for the displaced; of schooling arrangements for children, and of their general safety.

    I am thinking of the vast farmlands now under water, and the harvest now lost, and the livestock that perished; the food shortage that is sure to follow, and the high prices everyone will have to pay for a piece of whatever is available.

    At a time like this, the usual posturing will simply not do. It will have to yield to fast-paced, coordinated and sustained action designed to bring relief urgently to communities of the beleaguered across the nation.

  • In lieu of cassava bread and fish pepper-soup

    In lieu of cassava bread and fish pepper-soup

    As Nigeria prepares for its Independence anniversary, I was hoping that the beleaguered Jonathan Presidency would, out of the discontinuities of the year past, diligently search for a common thread around which common purpose can be constructed, to reinvigorate the Administration and move a stalled nation forward.

    A key event in the celebrations, a lecture delivered by Ghana’s former president John Kufour, offered President Goodluck Jonathan a fine opportunity to articulate this common thread and, with it, weave a narrative that can reassure and inspire his compatriots and summon them to greater endeavour.

    Even those who felt that a foreign head of state, serving or retired, was not the most appropriate person to present the lecture on such an occasion, would still have allowed that that it was as good a platform as any for the host to reach out in solidarity and renewal to his compatriots.

    But Dr Jonathan blew the opportunity big time.

    Even if Dr Jonathan is saving his National Day broadcast for precisely the kind of address, charging him with blowing the opportunity presented by the Kufour lecture hardly amounts to a rush to judgement.

    He could have confined himself to some bland remarks on the substance of the lecture and the guest speaker. He could even have drawn some praise – which he surely can use – by claiming it as an instance of the commitment of his Administration to the spirit of ECOWAS and the African Union and the African Peer Review Mechanism that it invited a former head of state from the neighbourhood to deliver the Independence Anniversary Lecture.

    Instead, Dr Jonathan chose to use the occasion to denounce and demonise Lagos residents who staged, in response to his ill-advised decision to end a phantom subsidy on petroleum products last January, one of the most stirring and ennobling protests Nigerians have witnessed in recent memory.

    Lagos, consistent with its status and history, was the epicentre of the protests that went on without loss of momentum for nine days and would have continued if Dr Jonathan had stuck to his vow that there was “no going back” on the issue. He did not go back all the way to the status quo ante, but go back he did, forced to beat a petulant retreat.

    Most parts of the country, except the South-east, were also convulsed by the protests. It is necessary to recall this fact, which Dr Jonathan seems to have conveniently forgotten or deliberately ignored. Rarely had Nigerians been so united, for so long, on a single issue, with such firm resolve.

    In his extempore recreation, the protests had nothing to do with the contentious subsidy; rather, they were a pretext for executing a plot to topple his Administration. The protesters were not actuated by genuine grievances; rather they were “manipulated” by persons intent on preserving a corruption-soaked regime of subsidy re imbursements.

    “Look at the demonstrations back home, look at these areas this demonstrations are coming from, you begin to ask, are these the ordinary citizens that are demonstrating? Or are people pushing them to demonstrate?” Dr Jonathan quipped.

    Then he zeroed in on Lagos, in the manner of someone who had been nursing a bitter grievance.

    “Take the case of Lagos, Lagos is the critical state in the nation’s economy, it controls about 53 per cent of the economy and all tribes are there. During the demonstration in Lagos, people were given bottled water that people in my village don’t have access to, people were given expensive food that the ordinary people in Lagos cannot eat. So even going to eat free food alone attracts people. They go and hire the best musician to come and play and the best comedian to come and entertain, is that demonstration? Are you telling me that that is a demonstration from ordinary masses in Nigeria who want to communicate something to government?”

    Yes, Dr Jonathan; that demonstration was “from ordinary masses in Nigeria” who wanted “to communicate something to government.”

    And what these “ordinary masses” who had put aside the divisions of class and creed and tongue wanted to communicate was this: that they are tired of being victims of serial misrule, of policies that subvert rather than advance public well-being, of cluelessness and lack of vision in high places, of having their names taken in vain, without corresponding adherence to their interests and values.

    This was the same message that rang out loud and clear wherever the protesters staged their rallies.

    Thanks to that N1 billion annual feeding allowance from the public purse, Dr Jonathan was probably too busy eating fresh-baked cassava bread and fish pepper-soup and any victuals under the sun or even beyond it that presidential plate may fancy – to hear what the protesters were saying or see what was really going on.

    But did he not read the “security reports” sent daily to his office by “security agents”?

    If those reports are of any value, they would have recorded that one Friday afternoon at the height of the protests, demonstrators formed a protective ring around their Muslim brethren to enable them say their Jumat prayers in relative peace without constituting a target of opportunity for religious fanatics or agents provocateurs.

    That is the kind of solidarity Dr Jonathan should seek to build upon, not demonise; solidarity born out of common purpose, and of the realisation that we all are keepers of one another.

    The security agents would have told him that no serious crimes were reported while the protests lasted. Their reports would have related that the bottled water that seems to have moved Dr Jonathan to such high dudgeon was provided by some of the civil society organisations that coordinated the protests, and that no “packaged meals” were on offer.

    Perhaps they would have remarked the woman in the Lagos suburb of Agege who ordinarily fried and sold akara by the roadside but gave away her entire ware for one day to the protesters as a mark of her support

    This was the spirit that animated the protests.

    It is therefore an egregious misreading of the events of last January to portray the protesters as the unthinking dupes of unpatriotic manipulators bent on extracting unearned subsidy reimbursements from the treasury even if that meant plunging the country into bankruptcy.

    It is worse: It is a libel, and a gratuitous one at that.

    Now, it is incontestable that the Presidency has the most formidable instruments of manipulation at its disposal – NTA and FRCN, to mention only two. So why didn’t it deploy them to manipulate Pastor Tunde Bakare and Owei Lakemfa?

    If the protesters could not eat fresh-baked cassava bread and other delicacies flowing from the state-of-the-art grill at the Presidential Villa, why can’t they eat akara without being slandered? If they cannot afford the pleasure of downing cocktail after choice cocktail, why begrudge them bottled water?

    Even it they were served “packaged meals,” when did that qualify as conduct deserving presidential censure? When did “packaged meals” become the preserve of the Presidency?

    If residents of Dr Jonathan’s village cannot afford bottled water, whose fault is it? What did he do to empower them to afford bottled water when he was a director of the development agency for the oil-producing areas, OMPADEC, later as deputy governor, and subsequently as governor of Bayelsa?

    Can it be that, as President, he caused a university to be sited in the village with federal funds and corralled a government contractor to “donate” a church to the community but didn’t give a damn about providing something as basic as water for his people?

    If there is any redeeming grace in all this, it is in the revealing glimpse the Jonathan we still don’t know provides into the presidential mind. We now know that he is not in the least intimidated by those seeking to join issues with him, or for that matter by manipulators.

    “For me,” he said at the Independence Anniversary lecture, “if I see somebody is manipulating anything I don’t listen to you but when I see people genuinely talking about issues I listen.”

    So, there you have it.

  • How do you treat people like Kwankwanso?

    How do you treat people like Kwankwanso?

    Reading Rabiu Kwakwanso in the papers over the weekend on why the South east does not deserve a sixth state like most of the other geopolitical zones in the country has once again reinforced the widely held belief about the arrogance of the northern political elite and the scorn with which they treat non Hausa/Fulani Nigerians.

    Kwankwanso as you know or if you don’t is the governor of Kano State, Nigeria’s second most populous state after Lagos and the centre of commerce and industry in the North. The State is also home to Maitama Sule the politician legendary for his oratorical skills who once said that northerners (read my lips;Hausa/Fulani) are better suited for leadership (in comparison with other Nigerians). Leadership he concluded is in their DNA.

    If you add Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the current governor of the Central Bank, another Kano indigene,to the above list and consider some of his provocative utterances and actions at the apex bank, then you begin to have a rather disturbing or distorted picture of the Kano elite, a subset of the larger political leadership in the north.

    I say distorted because it is this same Kano that had produced the great Mallam Aminu Kano, the undisputed leader and champion of the masses. From here also came Abubakar Rimi, Sule Lamido (now governor of Jigawa), former Governor Ibrahim Shekarau and a whole lot of progressive minded politicians/leaders, academics living or dead that have contributed immensely to the development and progress of this country without casting aspersions or looking down on the rest of us.

    Lest I forget, Datti Ahmed, a medical doctor is also from Kano. And if you recall Ahmed was the one championing the case against administering polio vaccine on children in the north the other time,claiming it was a plot by the western world to kill Muslim children. Can you imagine this coming from a medical doctor?

    These characters are by no means the true face of Kano people and as such should be treated as individuals, so Kwankwanso is on his own I guess.

    The Kano State governor now in his second term and who many suspect harbors a presidential ambition (2015/2019?) in challenging deputy Senate president and chairman Constitution Review Committee, Ike Ekweremadu’s call for a sixth state to be created in the South east vehemently opposed such a move and called on National Assembly members from the north to be on the look out to prevent any attempt to create an additional state in the east through the back door or amend the constitution to give the president power to pick ministers from the geopolitical zones as opposed to each state.

    His argument was that the South east both in terms of landmass and population is too small for an additional state and if any state deserves to be created it should be from Kano state which he says should be broken into three. He pointedly accused Senator Ekweremadu from Enugu state of promoting an ethnic agenda on this issue while denying that he, Kwankwanso is also championing the northern interest. Relying on the last Census figures, the Kano governor said if his state was broken into three, each of he three states will still be bigger than Ekweremadu’s Enugu both in terms of size and population.

    While it is not difficult to understand Kwankwanso’s problem or concern over another state in the South east, what is rather disturbing is why would a State governor, a leader of his stature want to deny others their right. If all he wants is two additional states for Kano why say others should not have their own.? But we all know Kwankwanso and some northern elite want more than that. Most importantly they want the North’s numerical advantage in terms of number of states over the South and the political domination (of the South) which it confers on them to be retained at all cost. An additional state in the South east could alter this strength with serious political and economic implications for the north. One more state for the zone would automatically means more federal resources going to Iboland. Of course you know the implication of this in terms of infrastructural development of the area and may be less money for the other states.

    But why should the North want to dominate the rest of us or hold others to ransom or rather have things their way always? Honestly speaking what would the North or our compatriots in the North lose if the Ibos have one more state? I can’t see it? The problem here I think with people like Kwankwanso is that they don’t want to let go of the influence peddling/dispensing that they have been used to all these years since Lord Lugard’s amalgamation of 1914. But the truth is that the North or its people has not benefitted meaningfully from this near hegemonic control of Nigeria by the northern elite, instead the Kwankwansos of this world have been feeding fat on their undeserved advantages/privileges as leaders of their people to the detriment of this same people.

    If a sixth state in the South east will bring fairness and equity as Ibos would want us to believe why is Kwankwanso opposed to this? If he wants more state(s) out of Kano or elsewhere in the North let him or those in his boat apply and their request should be treated like others; on the table,with the criteria clearly spelt out and known to all. If at the end of the day the South east or any other zone got its wish or failed to the whole nation would know why.

    This attitude of its either my way or the expressway as being displayed by Kwankwanso is not in the best interest of the country most especially the North. This is the same attitude the North is adopting over the controversial issue of State police. If the Kano State governor believes his state is big enough to give birth to two other states because of the peculiarities of its size and population, why shouldn’t a state like Lagos,because of its peculiarities be allowed to have its own police force? It is not compulsory for others who don’t want to to have their own separate police, but those who can afford it and want it to be allowed to have it provided they comply with the law? Shikena!

    In our warped federalism we still want a very strong central government, a strong state when it suits our purpose and even a powerful region to serve our needs. The North does not want another state in the South east so that it can use its numerical advantage over the south to easily rally the nineteen northern states to veto or out muzzle the seventeen states from the south on any issue that requires national voting in say the National Assembly for instance. Even if nobody at least not Kwankwanso is saying so that is the belief here and this doesn’t bode well for national unity. While he is opposed to the president being allowed constitutionally to appoint ministers on regional basis, he sees nothing wrong in the North constituting itself into a regional bloc to dictate what happens in this country. Eating your cake and having it, eh?

    Instead of raising dust or sweating unnecessarily over issues that could divide us Kwankwanso and his likes, and I must confess they are not limited to the North alone, should be routing for fairness and equity. There are people like him here as well but may be they are not occupying the kind of public office he’s occupying, and when they make his kind of provocative statement only a few pay attention to them.

    While calling Kwankwanso to order, it is also necessary to advice our compatriots east of the Niger to also learn how to get things done without necessarily inviting the wrath or annoyance of others. The Ibos have a way of having a good case but spoiling it through bad presentation. They must learn to cooperate with and carry others along. In Nigeria no one ethnic nationality can do it alone. We need ourselves. So, Kwankwanso, no threat please.

     

  • The wages of obduracy

    The wages of obduracy

    The nation ought to see itself in debt of gratitude to President Goodluck Jonathan for terminating Project Cure – Sanusi’s obsession with finding cure for ringworm when a more malignant cancer is indicated. There are several reasons why Nigerians ought to be grateful for the mercy intervention by the President.

    First, it seemed unlikely that the “curers” would ever come to agreement with majority of citizens on the need, or lack thereof, for the curious therapy. The situation is hardly helped by the perception of the CBN as an arrogant, insular institution that sees itself above the common herd; certainly not one to be swayed by the weight of public opinion.

    Secondly, never, it seems, has a therapy proven to be so divisive; it seems to have verged to the point of constituting a major distraction both to the administration and to the apex bank itself. With due respect to the assumed merits as sold by the apex bank, Nigerians seem to have convinced themselves that the unique selling point simply fell short – and miserably too – on the list of items that should constitute the priority for the bankers bank.

    Furthermore, it was one instance in which the apex bank would seek to re-write the rule of economics –a science that prides itself as one involving choice among competing possibilities. When majority of Nigerians appeared united in their rejection of the restructuring, the CBN threatened a fiat as if it was itself not a creation of statute. Not once or twice did I hear the CBN maintain that the planned exercise was not open to debates since it claimed the measure not only had the backing of the law, but had the approval of the President.

    The President’s intervention, in my view, may have in fact saved the CBN from itself. Unfortunately, one of the unintended consequences of the Sanusi obduracy is the current situation in which a reconsideration of the entire notion of the apex bank’s so-called autonomy is being called up.

    Now, I know a throng out there who would argue that this is no more than a knee-jerk, or if you may, reflex reaction to the Sanusi exuberance. They are probably right just as I would argue that one needed not to cut the nose to spite the face.

    But the question of foreclosing the debate on the future of the apex bank, particularly the notion of its autonomy belongs in a different realm. Agreed, there are those who would rather see things from the narrow prism of current experience – something of a punishment for the proverbial lone bull raging in the financial house’s china shop, an individual whose abiding love for hugging controversies would ordinarily appear as incompatible with the conservative traditions of the apex banking institution. But clearly, there are other Nigerians who see in the debate, a great opportunity to realign the rules of the apex bank, to make its processes more transparent and to ensure a more accountable institution.

    This is where the current concern about the apex bank’s autonomy comes in. What is autonomy anyway? I understand the word at two levels. One is operational; the other is best described as administrative and procedural.

    The former is what needs to be preserved. Indeed, I have not heard anyone argue that MRR or whatever monetary policy instruments the apex bank may chose to adopt be made a subject of extraneous oversight. Indeed, its capacity to respond to monetary policy challenges would probably need strengthening, not curtailment.

    Outside of the monetary policy terrain however, there should be no such thing as absolute autonomy. A most vivid illustration is the requirement for the CBN to secure written approval from the President in any plan to restructure the naira. Coincidentally, I have not quite seen anyone argue that this requirement is neither necessary nor desirable. While those pushing for absolute autonomy do not bother to make the fine distinction, it seems to me a part of the deliberate muddling of facts to reinforce a particular line of argument.

    The CBN Act of course says that the institution should be sacrosanct. That is precisely the issue. It needs not be. Why – because to allow it, is to make our CBN the most powerful one in the world.

    I need to illustrate. Up till August 2009, it was doubtful that many Nigerians knew how powerful the CBN governor is. After the unprecedented sacking of the executive management of the then ailing banks, the situation would change. I couldn’t recall Nigerians expending much energy debating the action against the bank chiefs whose criminal lapses nearly brought the entire financial system to ruin. If my memory serves me right, most Nigerians readily agreed that the cups of the delinquent bankers were already full and running over.

    But then, Nigerians would become divided over a number of issues. I cite two examples.

    First, was the unilateral takeover of the banks without recourse to the club of existing shareholders. For a club not adjudged to have been culpable in bringing ruins to their institutions, the class was to suffer double jeopardy from the unchallengeable powers of the CBN. Aside being forced to wear the label ‘guilty by association’, their situation would be compounded with the denial by the apex bank of their right to recapitalise their institutions.

    The second example is the apex bank’s unilateral injection of nearly N620 billion of bailout money from its till. Compare the intervention for instance, with the United States’ Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) –put in place by U.S. President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008 to purchase assets and equity from financial institutions as a means of strengthening the country’s financial sector in the wake of the global credit meltdown.

    Or even the takeover of the US troubled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the wake of the sub-prime lending crisis. Both interventions were undertaken by the US Treasury (the equivalent of our finance ministry) as against the Federal Reserve (the apex bank); in both instances, the relevant laws were passed by the US Congress.

    The argument as to whether the nation can afford an institution that stands as a law unto itself is one that hasn’t been made convincingly by those making the case for the retention of the powers of the CBN as it is. It is not so much about hanging anything on the neck of the current helmsman whose temperament seems to have exacerbated the issue. Rather, it merely acknowledges the need to learn from our recent past even as the nation struggles to chart a new course in financial rectitude. Global best practices or not, can anything be wrong with evolving a home-grown solution to our problems?

     

  • Ondo and the limit of spite

    Ondo and the limit of spite

    The build-up to the October 20 gubernatorial election in Ondo State is sinking into a hierarchy of spite. At each level of that hierarchy is a concert of hate.

    It tragically limits the right of the Ondo electorate to be pitched and be treated to life-changing electoral menu. It also tragically limits the significance of that election, for a Yoruba nation resolved to finding its bearing in a Nigeria on quicksand, no thanks to the country’s abiding violent contradictions.

    At a level on the spiteful hierarchy are hurting Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) gubernatorial hopefuls, who lost the party’s governorship ticket, and left the party in protest. As is the rule with estranged politicians and universally with neophytes to justify new company, demonising former company, as a rule of thumb, is alive and well.

    At another level are the Afenifere grandees who have thrown their hat into the ring, for a high-octane proxy war. Surely, as a native of Ondo State, Pa Reuben Fasonranti, the Afenifere leader whose controversial election fissured the once formidable voice of the political progressives in Yorubaland, has a stake in the Ondo election. So does Chief Olu Falae, another eminent Ondo elder. And so does, for that matter, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, the most combative and straight-shooting of the Afenifere titans who seem to chafe at the thought of a callow generation staking a claim to the Yoruba progressive franchise.

    To be fair, Pa Adebanjo, in his published reaction to Dr. Jide Oluwajuyitan’s piece, “Sons and fathers” (“Re: Sons and fathers”, The Nation, September 20), stated that he attended Governor Segun Mimiko’s flag-off campaign only because he was invited. But it needs little perceptiveness to realise the Afenifere titans’ gripping interest in the Ondo poll transcends Governor Mimiko’s civility.

    At the apex of the Ondo hierarchy of spite sits Governor Olusegun Mimiko, campaigning hard for an encore. With the governor’s campaign’s constant stream of hate and scare-mongering, about some alleged “foreigners” come to cart away the Ondo gubernatorial loot, Dr. Mimiko about exemplifies the cynical quip of patriotism being the last bastion of the scoundrel. When the turf is suspect patriotism, then raw xenophobia becomes a scalding, emotive tool.

    All levels on the spiteful hierarchy are, therefore, united-in-grudge against the ACN and its “leadership” – a euphemism for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the party’s national leader.

    The estranged ACN former aspirants accuse him of “imposition”: of a rival in Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, the ACN Ondo gubernatorial candidate.

    The Afenifere grandees fret at Tinubu’s alleged political conquest of the South West, a region the old lieutenants of Awo maintain they have a spiritual watching brief, just to ascertain its progressive political health. After the dismal collapse of Project OGD, during which Otunba Gbenga Daniel, former governor of Ogun State and favourite of the Afenifere elders, as a counterpoise to the Tinubu perceived threat, sensationally self-destroyed, scrambling to the Ondo war front for the last stand-off makes logical sense.

    That sweetly dovetails into Mimiko’s rather plebeian pitch to the Ondo electorate to beware of a certain District Officer (DO) and his alleged overlord from Lagos. The rallying cry: the invading Lagos army must be stopped at all cost. Repeat: at all cost! Sweet emotion! But the Ondo election should be made of sterner stuff, given the sophisticated Ondo electorate.

    Still, on the ACN. There is a lot to be said for urgently pushing more equal opportunity in the party’s consensus candidate selection system. That would save it from perennial charges of “imposition”; and the consequent demonization of its leaders.

    It is also a moot point if the ACN’s apparent get-Mimiko-out-at-all-cost strategy is wise in the short run. As Ripples has always argued, a Labour Party, LP’s Mimiko appears, on its face value, ideologically closer to ACN than the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with its barren mainstream philosophy of structural underdevelopment. Ideological affinity, in the absence of party unanimity, would appear best suited for the South West, trying in the integration project, to preserve its people’s future by making the best of the Nigerian debacle.

    Even then, this ideological affinity argument is terribly vitiated by some notorious facts about LP and Dr. Mimiko. For one, LP has morphed from its perceived rooting in social democrats (like Britain’s Labour Party) to an empty, ideologically vacuous electoral platform open to about anyone with electoral stress and enough cash.

    For another, Dr. Mimiko the politician has proved a consummate, sly, shifty but unfazed player in free-wheeling, ideologically neuter politicking, where old enemies become friends and old friends, enemies; so long as the end justifies the meanness (apologies to Prof. Wole Soyinka).

    Witness: the anti-Labour posture of a Labour governor, during the January anti-fuel subsidy removal protests, which ensured the protests were most ineffective in Ondo State, in the whole of the South West. But surely, there must be more to elections and electioneering, particularly in a national season of anomie, than equal opportunity racketeering to coral power at all costs?

    Besides, Mimiko logs a frightful track record of serial betrayal of political colleagues (witness the late Adebayo Adefarati in Alliance for Democracy, AD and Olusegun Agagu, in PDP). The ACN accuses him of similar breach of faith in the current dispensation. That clearly makes trust and mutual confidence building an uphill, if not an impossible, task.

    So, with both party (LP) and candidate lacking in brand integrity, the ACN-Mimiko match-up was always a probability. The crunch certainly is here!

    Still, the October 20 election is not about Mimiko per se (though as sitting governor he would strive to retain his seat, in a warped political milieu where losing an election is often tantamount to a Roman emperor vanquished in a power tussle, and falling on his sword) or about Tinubu and his party (though the ACN appears to offer a sharp alternative, in the context of a South West that needs regional integration to further assert itself in the troubled Nigerian federation).

    It is rather about the democratic right of the Ondo electorate to a better deal. Which of the contending parties is likely to guarantee that? The electorate would decide that. But how can they make a sound decision when the whole place is cluttered with xenophobia, spite and allied din?

    The election is also about the strategic place of Ondo in the South West economic integration agenda. Which of the contending parties is best placed to give Ondo its pride of place in this agenda of regional economic rebirth and sustainable development? These are the pertinent questions.

    Governor Mimiko would do well to review his service in the past four years and state his future agenda, instead of his present barren tactics of fear-mongering and mind-poisoning. His opponents too should clearly state and vigorously sell their programmes.

    The October 20 election is far too important to be limited by hate and spite.

  • Enter Femi Falana, SAM II

    Enter Femi Falana, SAM II

    Falana ran tie, t’ara eni l’anran! (Falana, mind your own business!)
    On 10 September 2001, Gani Fawehinmi (1938-2009), Nigeria’s first Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM 1) became SAN; and cured the Nigerian legal profession of its open sore: of shutting Gani out of a well-deserved silk – at least in the eye of the hoi polloi.
    When the great and universal Gani eventually became SAN, it was clear the SAN institution needed Gani more than Gani needed that institution – for how could that body claim to be real when the greatest socially-conscious attorney of this generation, and perhaps for generations to come, was kept out of its ranks?
    As it was with Gani, so was it, on 12 September 2012, with Femi Falana, Nigeria’s second Senior Advocate of the Masses (SAM 2), when he took the silk.  Like Gani before him, the institution of SAN needed Mr. Falana more than Mr. Falana needed it.
    True, Mr. Falana was not formally crowned SAM by scandalised University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) students, who felt Gani deserved the silk, for his stellar contributions to social justice, law as a tool for development, human rights and more.  But the Gani-Falana parallels, en route a thorny road to SANship, is remarkable.
    Like Gani, Falana is a people’s lawyer.  Like Gani, Falana is a legal iconoclast, especially when he jousts with the lawless, over-pampered ruling class, who like to play god with the lives of the rest of us.
    Like Gani, Falana is a courtroom dramatist: and the newspapers, ever on the side of the perceived underdog, respond equally dramatically with “Gani/Falana wins round one …”, after clinching an opening injunction, even if the case is far from final determination.
    And like Gani, Falana, though a fire-belching courtroom revolutionary, is at heart a legal reformist who does the establishment a load of good by constantly reminding it of its dirty and stinking underbelly; and asking it to clean up or risk being cleaned out.
    Of course, a bullying panicky ruling class misconstrues this explosive activism as rebellion; misunderstands this fervent peaceful reformation, through the instrumentality of the law, as revolution through the back door.  As a result, it reaches for the sledgehammer by denying such “radicals” their due.
    That logically explains Femi Falana’s belated admission into the SAN institution, like Gani before him, until the whole thing bordered on the ridiculous.  Until September 12 when Mr. Falana got his due, 11 years after Gani’s belated elevation and three years, almost to the date, after his glorious passage (Gani died on 5 September 2009), the conclave of SANs without Mr. Falana looked odd.
    But when comes SAM 3, after Gani and Falana, the next brilliant legal mind to be denied his or her professional due, because of legal activism or radicalism?  That, to be sure, is a humbling question for a society that sorely needs an equal opportunity reward system to snap out of the current paralysing mediocrity and pervasive corruption.
    Yet, neither Gani nor Falana could lay claim as the purest legal mind of their respective generations, which somewhat dovetailed.  That honour without doubt belonged to the late Chief Fredrick Rotimi Alade (FRA) Williams, QC [Queen’s Counsel] and Nigeria’s first SAN.  In every respect, the great FRA was a giant in law as he was in build.  Indeed, FRA was worth every pound of law his massive frame could boast.  He was not called “weight of evidence” by gawking peers for nothing!
    Indeed, FRA was the classical lawyer, a veritable approximation of the lawyer’s creed: that everyone is entitled to legal defence.  So, in his long and remarkable career, his fixed ideology was to render legal services and apply his prodigious forensic intellect to whoever could afford them, was apolitical in taking briefs and, if law were not some codified morality, many would even wager good, old FRA of blessed memory was amoral: just an unfazed servant of the law, when it got to legal brass tacks.
    Indeed, a cynic once growled FRA would take a brief from our Lord Jesus Christ, would avail the devil himself the same privilege, and promptly plead the lawyer’s creed of legal representation to all!  Strictly in law, he was right.  But in the unlearned eye of the hoi polloi, he was fatally flawed.
    But that took nothing from the sheer depth of his learning, the sheer breath of his brilliance, his sweeping contribution to legal scholarship and the sheer formidability of his advocacy skills, so much so that he was a near demigod in the courtroom, revered by friends, feared by foes and honoured by judges, the closest, if any, to the approximation of a living legal institution.
    Indeed, whoever growled over FRA’s latter-day legal progression, and his apolitical professional bent would do well to study the politics of the First Republic, and capture how involved he was in the Action Group’s Awolowo-Akintola blowout.  Did that scalding experience sober FRA and made him swear to ever after put politics at arm’s length?
    Still, these ratiocinations would only resonate with the legal patricians.  To the hurting plebs, victims of military impunity and the dictators-wannabe of the intervening democratic republics, including the current Fourth Republic, all these must be empty air to justify the late FRA’s perceived social insensitivity in his law practice.
    It is in the streets therefore that the likes of Gani and Falana are kings.  No one can take anything away from Gani’s profound scholarship, prodigious learning and Spartan character.  The same can be said of Mr. Falana.
    Indeed, Mr Falana cut his teeth in the radical advocacy tradition of the Alao Aka-Basorun (in whose chambers he started legal practice) school.  So, far he has stayed true to that narrow and risky path.
    Besides, the Falanas of the Nigerian legal cosmos reacted splendidly to the challenge of military rule with all its abuses; and made the piquant point that even the military could not claim to operate above the laws of the land which, by the way created the military establishment itself, ever before some smart alecs in Khaki dreamed the profitable business of coups for personal fortune but collective ruin.
    That is the proud legacy of Mr. Falana.  That is the crux of his “crime” against the establishment.  That is the simple explanation of his scandalously belated admission into the apex professional conclave of lawyers in the country, which he thoroughly deserved.  Though the battle was long, he has won his race – and gloriously too!
    Falana ran tie, t’ara eni lanran!  But this Falana, against conventional wisdom, has made it his professional business not to mind his own business, but that of the weak and the underprivileged that needed to be protected by law – and many times, gratis!
    That is the abiding sweetness of the legacy of Femi Falana, SAN, SAM.  May your tribe never shrink, however loud the establishment roars!
  • Before we crucify or applaud Nnaji

    Before we crucify or applaud Nnaji

    In a country not accustomed to probity and accountability especially in public office, the resignation or sacking of a public officer over conflict of interest in the discharge of his or her official duties calls for serious reflection.
    The departure of Professor Barth Nnaji as Nigeria’s Minister of Power last week offered an opportunity to assess the commitment or otherwise of the Goodluck Jonathan administration to transparency in governance and how far or close we are to achieving that goal.
    Although it remains unclear whether the former Minister left voluntarily or forced to resign (another name for sack), his exit, coming on the heels of the administration’s new drive to promote performance in government through the recently introduced Performance Contract Agreement by Ministers could be an indication that the government was finally ready to deliver on its promises to Nigerians. And one of those promises is the provision of no fewer than 10,000 Megawatt of electricity to the national grid, a task Professor Nnaji was expected to achieve, and I think he was well on the way to doing just that. Given the very low level of electricity generation in the country prior to assuming office, achieving the present 4,400 Megawatt was no mean achievement by Nnaji and nobody could deny that things were looking up in the power sector under the former Minister. So, what went wrong? Why did he resign or given the boot?
    The man at the centre of it all said he had done nothing wrong, including the controversial conflict of interest accusation and left to protect the integrity of the Jonathan administration in the face of some powerful interest groups interested in manipulating the ongoing power sector reforms to their advantage. He had stepped on the toes of these groups in the course of his assignment.
    President Jonathan has equally defended Nnaji claiming he had done well but for a certain conflict of interest involving a company in which the former Minister had an interest showing active interest in the ongoing power sector reform.
    Depending on which spin on the sack/resignation you want to believe, the fact remains that something fishy has happened or is happening in the power sector which if not fished out and addressed immediately could affect the ongoing reform and our ability to generate enough Megawatts to power our economy. No fewer than 40,000 Megawatts of electricity, according to experts is needed to achieve this. How do we achieve this and in what way would the exit of Nnaji help?
    If truly the sacking of the former Minister was due to the conflict of interest as alleged by the Federal Government, then his exit could help on the long run as it is expected that nobody in government with interest in the power sector no matter how remote and no matter how highly placed would be allowed to participate in the ongoing reform in the sector. This expectedly should also include some serving state governors who are alleged to be eyeing some of the successor companies to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
    The Federal Government would do well also to look beyond the issue of conflict of interest and address Nnaji’s allegation that some powerful interest groups whose toes he might have stepped on were behind his decision to quit. Although it is not uncommon in Nigeria for us to blame everybody but ourselves for our woes, the allegation should not be swept under the carpet as it is not unlikely that was the situation given the culture of insider abuse in Nigeria by people in position of authority in the country.
    Rail transportation that was once the backbone of haulage business in Nigeria is in ruins no thanks to what the people believe to be the activities of some powerful individuals within and outside the government with interest in road transportation. Have you ever asked why Nigeria Airways died and some of our private airlines are still flying even in the face of harsh economic environment? The same could be said about the defunct Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL) and privately owned Nigerian shipping lines. The truth is that here we promote more of our selfish interest above that of the nation and protect same. So if Jonathan could kick out Nnaji to protect his flagship power sector programme, he should also not hesitate to fish out and punish those others bent on thwarting the programme or manipulate it for their selfish interest. Can he do it? On the evidence of his swift move against Nnaji, he should not find it difficult to deal with this powerful enemies within. But as it is with Jonathan, don’t expect anything and if it happens, then you are lucky.
    Gauging from the reaction of members of the public to Nnaji’s departure from Jonathan’s cabinet, one could safely conclude that the former Minister is a man of integrity, but how he got caught up in this conflict of interest mess is still a surprise. More surprising is Jonathan’s feigned ignorance of Nnaji’s subsisting interest in the power sector even as a serving Minister.
    It is public knowledge that the former Minister had substantial interest in a company, Geometric Power Limited which is a major player in the power sector. I am sure Jonathan made him a minister with a view to tapping his expertise and experience garnered over the years in the sector, including his years at Geometric. As it is the practice elsewhere,the man put all his interest in his company in a blind trust, severed all relationship with Geometric and headed to the Ministry of Power to serve his fatherland with love and strength and faith. But how ‘blind’ do we expect this trust or even the Minister to be when a business venture that will naturally interest the company comes up in the Ministry? This is where the problem lies and I think this gave rise to the doctrine of conflict of interest. I think putting private interest in a blind trust while serving the public was a legitimate window to insulate a public officer from the accusation of conflict of interest. This Nnaji did and I think Jonathan knew about it before appointing him a Minister. The SSS must have discovered this during their investigation the report of which must have influenced the Senate confirmation during his screening. With this known to those who should know, at what point did Nnaji violate his oath of office? Did he do anything while in office that was not known as at the time he was being made a Minister or did he do anything that was anticipated then? If he had not done anything new or unknown to Jonathan before to warrant being sacked on account of conflict of interest then the charge of conflict of interest cannot stand. There must be something else behind his sack; there is more to it than we are being told. Could it be those big toes that Nnaji stepped on that are behind his sack? Only Jonathan knows, but the president will not tell us. What a shame? And if the media talk now he will say we are biased.
    Nnaji himself is not without blame in this matter. How can he be so naive to think that he can eat his cake and have it? The law on this conflict of interest thing we are told is very clear, to allow a breach is like allowing insider trading on the stock exchange; it is unethical. If anyone had assured him that “nothing will happen”, now he knows better. You don’t trust the promise of a politician. Now as for those calling for his reinstatement, it is rather too late as the Federal Government has conveniently placed this charge of conflict of interest on his neck and except he or Jonathan opens up on it and tell us the truth, the charge is enough to keep him away from public office at least for now.
    That pipeline fire in Lagos
    Lagos has again experienced another pipeline fire due to activities of vandals. And at the rate this thing happens we might need a dedicated security outfit to protect this important economic facility. And since our security agencies appear incapable of doing this who is better placed to do it than the vandals themselves; the pipeline thieves. If we could hand over the protection of pipelines in the Niger Delta to ex militants and pay them millions of dollar every year, then the vandals here deserve the same thing, don’t you think so? This is the implication of implementing stupid policies. Jonathan over to you.
  • That dread month, again

    That dread month, again

    If Abuja has a favourite time of year, it certainly cannot be September. Not on account of the rains, however, though they have been unusually heavy this year, causing flooding from the desiccated Sahel through the savannah all the way to the coast.

    Nor does the unease with September stem from fear of Boko Haram, which remains alive and is even thriving, months after they said they would have erased it from our consciousness

    September, remember, is the month leading up to the October 1 National Day celebrations. It is the time of year when they will have to confront their record for the previous year, manufacture achievements, invent excuses and solemnly announce the same goals they had ritually announced in years past, all in an effort to create the illusion of momentum.

    Just how many times can you warm up yesteryear’s tired platitudes and pious declarations of intent and serve them as fresh inspiration? How many times can you celebrate a phenomenal annual growth rate of 7.8 percent when those around you see only decline and blighted hopes, with prospects of more of the same?
    September is Abuja’s nightmare.

    And it is already living up to that billing. Abuja has announced that, as in years past, the National Day will be celebrated on a modest scale or, to use their words, on a low key. Realistically, given the national condition, can the occasion be celebrated in any other way? Can you roll out the drums and bring on the trumpets and the cymbals?
    One aspect of the celebration that should have renewed confidence and optimism has instead evoked fresh disappointment; instead of signaling a clean break from a past that often valued ascription over achievement, it kept that tradition alive and even reinforced it.

    I have in mind the National Honours List for 2012 published last week, the designated recipients of which have been decorated at an investiture staged as part of the National Day celebrations. To be sure, the List contains a good number of worthy individuals who have made outstanding contributions to their field of learning, carried aloft the banner of Nigeria, and generally helped to uplift society. It is especially fitting indeed that Jelani Aliyu, the car designer who is the toast of Detroit and indeed the motoring world, has been accorded an MON.

    And to think that he came out of Birnin Kebbi Polytechnic, in Birnin Kebbi, the historic but – at the time — largely unprepossessing town in which I earned my first paycheck teaching high school physics and chemistry? Genius will out, as they say. The Selection Committee also deserves praise for nominating Dr Olufunmilayo Olopade, the University of Chicago distinguished professor of Medicine and Human Genetics and authority on cancer risk assessment prevention, whom President Barack Obama named to the U.S. National Cancer Advisory Board last year.

    But the Honours List is bloated, unwieldy, prodigal. Do they have enough medallions to go round this time?  More than a few of the individuals on the slate do not belong there at all. The padding, no doubt to satisfy all kinds of interests, among them party bigwigs, campaign donors, and federal character, has had the unfortunate effect of casting serious doubt on the worth of the entire exercise.

    By lumping the clearly unworthy and the marginally worthy with the eminently worthy, you tarnish the awards and embarrass, even if unwittingly, the wholly deserving by putting them in company they would certainly not keep if they had a choice.

    To cite just one example: One deputy governor who has been served with impeachment notice for conduct unbecoming was slated for the OFR. The impeachment is not a foregone conclusion, to be sure. But would it not have been more prudent to await the outcome before even considering him for any award?
    What qualifies him more for the award than the high-achieving Governor Babatunde Fashola who has changed the face of Lagos metropolis almost beyond recognition, or for that matter Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State who, by all accounts, has been ploughing the oil revenues accruing to the state into raising the living standards of the residents?

    Given Boko Haram’s continuing depredations and the general insecurity in the country, should the Inspector General of Police be getting the same award as in whatever case as retired Supreme Court Justice Kayode Eso, one of the finest jurists ever to grace the Bench in Nigeria? For that matter, should some recently translated senior judges be accorded the same honour as Justice Eso who had already earned a national and international reputation well before those judges entered Law School?
    Take again the case of Ambassador Dr Patrick Dele Cole who, following a stint in academia, has chalked up a long and distinguished career as a public servant, media administrator and diplomat.

    He is getting the OFR, whereas some political adventurers who rigged themselves or were rigged into the legislature where they have served mostly as bench-warmers and freeloaders are getting the CON. There is good reason for many of the awards, but overall, there is no rhyme to them, and no proportionality.

    Progress toward a re-design of the architecture of the Nigerian state would perhaps have lifted the public mood as we face October 1. There is broad agreement that, as it stands today, the architecture is so gravely flawed that it cannot be salvaged by mere fine-tuning. Nothing less than a Constitution warranted by “We, the people” can inspire Nigeria to step into the future with confidence and optimism.

    The Jonathan Administration thinks otherwise. It thinks the people cannot be trusted to make a Constitution for themselves, and that one must be foisted on them by committees whose members he hand-picked, to deliberate on terms of reference he defined. He will then refract whatever emerges from the reports of the committees through the prism of his own interests and the interests of those he serves, before passing it on to a rubberstamp National Assembly, whose members for the most part represent only themselves, to enact into law.

    At a recent meeting with labour leaders, ethnic nationality chiefs and civil society groups, Dr Jonathan declared: “A Constitution that can guarantee true democracy must flow from the ideas and experiences of the people, not just the people in the corridors of power, but also the people in the market places and in the public squares.”
    But before you could congratulate him on his epiphany, he added that constitution-making or review in a democracy, while not being an exercise for the elite, should be “processed through a strategic and far-reaching consultation with the people”. For him, “That is the spirit of democracy.”

    Consultation. There you have it. But where are “the people” in all this? The whole thing is a charade, a transparent subterfuge, to borrow a term Wole Soyinka coined for an earlier journey to nowhere that military president Ibrahim Babangida took Nigeria through.

    Also casting a long shadow over the National Day celebrations is the uncertainty over the health of the inimitable First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, an uncertainty that has bred all kinds of speculations, from the ribald to the morbid. Few outside the Dr Jonathan household even knew that anything was amiss until the online journal Saharareporters said she had been evacuated to Germany for medical treatment.

    The Bayelsa State Government, in which Dame Patience serves as a permanent secretary, has called for prayers, but Aso Rock has maintained an undignified silence after it was forced, literally, to admit the substance of the Saharareporters story. The speculations will not go away, and it would be best to dispel them through occasional medical bulletins.
    It is remarkable, nonetheless, that through all the speculations, Dr Jonathan has gone about his duties with calm composure and nary a sign of fretfulness. He has kept his presence of mind and sense of occasion under the strain arising from his wife’s illness. Nor has he buckled under the mountain of unremitting criticism.
    Add steadiness, and grace under pressure, to the personal attributes of the Jonathan they still don’t know.

  • What do the Yoruba want?

    A grand family meeting, like theAugust 30 Yoruba Assembly held in Ibadan, Oyo State, would as of necessity come with many viewpoints. It is not unlike the fall of the proverbial mighty elephant, at which knives of all shapes make a proud showing.

    A lobby at the one-day confab complained of Yoruba “marginalisation” in federal appointments. That is true; and the complaint is valid. If the Yoruba are integral part of the Nigerian federation – which they are – it is their moral and legal right to share from the federation’s benefits. If their share declines, vis-a-vis other partners’ in the federation, they naturally must complain for the imbalance to be righted.

    Still, let it not be forgotten that “marginalisation” – as valid as it is – started as a survivalist cry from the Yoruba mainstreamers, who lost out in the electoral sweepstakes of April 2011. The mainstreamers’ political view is that development in the old Western Region must start with as many federal appointments as the region could possibly coral. That is the plain sharing mentality, which has put everyone in the ditch; and which the Ibadan assembly was trying to correct.

    The futility of such appointment-led development thesis is shown in the Obasanjo example. Olusegun Obasanjo, a Yoruba, was two-term elected president, the ultimate position which decides who gets what. Still, his tenure was a disaster for Yorubaland, so much so that at the height of his presidency, he blithely boasted that Lagos – the crown jewel of the region, former federal capital and still the commercial capital of the country – was a jungle. And he probably was proud to leave it so!

    The mainstreamers’ federal-pork-is-paramount-to-development theory is contrary to the progressives’ view that the South West must be stand on its own, independent of any federal pork. Indeed, since the Awolowo-Akintola tango of the First Republic, these two starkly contrasting political viewpoints have driven the dynamics of politics in the region.
    In any case, there is need for conceptual clarity. Without prejudice to the legal and social rights of the Yoruba in Nigeria as presently constituted, why would they complain that a system is doomed (that is the sum total of the Ibadan meeting: that the present Nigerian system is unsustainable) and yet insist they are marginalised under the same crumbling system? Is that not a contradiction in terms?

    Away from the mainstreamers now, even Adeniyi Akintola, SAN, a legal luminary of no mean calibre and a man with genuine generosity of spirit, proudly announced himself as a Yoruba and Ibadan “irredentist”. “Irredenta”, the word from which “irredentist” emerges, means victims of ethnic imperialism.

    In the context of restructuring therefore, the Yoruba of Kwara and Kogi states, clamouring for realignment with their kith and kin in the South West, are rightly victims of the irredenta of the current Nigerian structure, which groups them as part of the “North”, when really they ought to be part of the South West. That much was said by the area’s representatives at the Ibadan summit.

    But in the context of Nigeria, what does Yoruba or Ibadan irredentism mean? A Yoruba poised to grab more than its due? Or within the South West, in a restructured Nigeria, an Ibadan primed to resume its old imperialism; that climaxed in the disastrous Yoruba civil war, the Kiriji War (1877-1893)?

    Akintola, a bosom friend of decades but unfazed Ibadan nationalist nevertheless, could not have meant what he said in these two imperial senses. Neither could the Yoruba conferees. But there is always a chance of misrepresentation – and wilfully so – by anti-restructuring elements, eager to muddy the waters and scuttle the campaign.
    But Gen. Alani Akinrinade, convener of the Assembly, was very clear at his pre-summit media luncheon comment: that the Yoruba had always been federalists in their political evolution; and would want such productive federalism replicated on the Nigerian front, so that different sections of the country could develop at their own paces and, by so doing, strengthen the Nigerian union, and save it from perennial but life-threatening crises. On “marginalisation”, he said it would not have mattered who held what, if the country was well run.

    Which leads to the next logical question: what do the Yoruba want? From the Ibadan summit’s communiqué, it would appear what any right-thinking Nigerian would want, after 98 years of false steps, since the Lugard amalgamation of 1914. A nasty Civil War (1967-1970), ruinous military rule, the 12 June 1993 presidential election annulment crisis and 13 years of shambling along under civil rule (with the Boko Haram insurrection as the latest nation-threatening crisis) only underscore the feeling that something fundamental is wrong with the country.

    So, the call for a restructured Nigeria is sound. The present Nigerian structure, with a rich but idle centre, is not only a recipe for mindless corruption, but also a charter for underdevelopment, borne out of perpetual crises. With each subsequent occupier trying to coral the common wealth for its own ethnic champions (the latest being Goodluck Jonathan’s Ijaw presidency, handing former militants suspect marine and oil pipeline contracts), it is as if every section is grabbing what it could from a sinking Nigerian ship. Now, if the idea is not for the ship to sink without trace, then restructuring towards a new beginning makes eminent sense: having a federal government; with much stronger six regional governments, as development centres.

    With a skewed structure settled, there is the imperative of whittling down the cost of governance, especially at the centre, which under the proposed new dispensation, would support regional economic activities, after taking charge of central agencies like defence, external affairs, currency and customs.

    To cut down cost of governance, the Yoruba conference suggested adopting Westminster system of choosing ministers from elected parliamentarians in the House of Representatives. If this happens, what role will the Senate, a key institution of electoral balancing in a federation, play? These are areas of serious debate en route to arriving at a mutually acceptable new constitution.

    Perhaps the most disturbing of the Ibadan Yoruba Assembly’s communiqué is the suggestion that vigilantes should hold a pride of place in the region’s security system. This suggests impatience with the present debate over the Nigeria Police.
    Still, the South West must be careful on this sole suggestion. Vigilantes are no substitute to a decentralised police. The time for state police has come. The South West political elite and civil rights groups should press on full throttle for its actualisation. On the other hand, those who stone-wall state police, even with the glaring challenges of insecurity, must know that they risk the putative reign of ultra-nationalist militias. That is the road to Yugoslavia. It is unnecessary.

    The Yoruba have taken a stand on Nigeria’s future. Let the other zones join in the debate. To be sure, it promises a furious jaw-jaw. But it is certainly better than a bloody war-war.
    This serious talk is imperative, if Nigeria must be saved.