The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Kanu, Igboho and ethnic bile

    Kanu, Igboho and ethnic bile

    By Olakunle Abimbola

     

    Nnamdi Kanu or Sunday Igboho?  Hardly a model, by which any civil people or culture should be proud.

    The one — Kanu — is an epitome of low manners: to be rude and to be crude; to abuse, to traduce and to cast terrible slurs, which could set one ethnic group against another; and relish the sweet anarchy to follow, appear his execrable stock-in-trade.

    The other —  Igboho — is the proud poster boy of crude push-and-pull.  He talks before he thinks; and pushes reflex impunity, as the apex of human finesse.

    Now, match these profiles against brazen, low-life herders, who mug, maim, rape and kill; and whose Igangan, Ibarapa, Oyo State, criminality triggered Igboho’s pull-and-push street fame; and you’d realize this may be, at best, a clash of the underclass; at worst, a clash of contending outlawry.

    Yet you have, across the ethnic divide, not a few of the elite class, not unwilling to swear by each — even among the much traduced Fulani, whose finest crust take grave exceptions to being lumped (and gaily too) among the outlawry in their kind.

    The question is why?  The first to blame is clearly the government, which ought to have reined in the string of brazen crimes, before they became a crisis; and assumed dangerous proportions.

    But far from the sweet bogey of “Fulanization”, which alleged — no, flatly decreed — a Fulani president gung-ho supporting the crimes of Fulani dregs (witness “Fulani herdsmen”, the ubiquitous criminals of choice, in southern media screaming headlines and news bites) — it would appear a clear case of police lack of capacity.

    Either way, the Federal Government would stand fairly accused, not on the basis of any ethnic demonization claptrap, but on being tardy over state police, the moment it became clear the central police had been spread too thin.

    It is, therefore, welcome that the ongoing constitutional amendment is on the cusp of legalizing state police for states that want it; and can afford it.

    Before that, however, the Federal Government must probe alleged, and punish all confirmed, cases of criminal collusion among the security forces.  It is alleged that criminal herders often enjoy rogue protection, among the security agencies, thus fuelling herder impunity.  That must stop, if true.

    But government flaws aside, ethnic bile, as weapon for socio-political relevance, has always been an elite agenda.  But the danger right now is that the underclass — in some cases, even glorified outlaws — are seizing the space to pronounce own agenda of ethnic chauvinism (or worse!), since it’s high season of fashionable bile.

    That returns the discourse to the genesis of it all.

    Chinua Achebe’s swan song, There Was a Country (released 27 September 2012), sparked fresh radicalism over Biafra.  Shortly after, the great man of letters died, on 21 March 2013.

    Prof. Achebe’s take on the Civil War (1967-1970) — not false, not true but just own reflections — triggered renewed hysteria over Igbo victimhood, into which the elite, spurred by the media, ever the great one for the perceived underdog, quickly tapped.

    In 2015, federal power changed hands, with the mainstream Igbo political elite holding the short end of the stick.  So, weaponized victimhood came all too handy.

    The so-called “Hausa-Fulani” with who the Igbo political mainstream had milked the system — from the 1st and 2nd Republics, and all through the 16 years of PDP rule in this one — suddenly became Igbo enemy No. 1!

    That presumed willy-nilly hatred — the nonsense that a Fulani president “hates” the Igbo and is sworn to oppressing them — created the gargoyle that is Nnamdi Kanu, who frankly, from his base and wild conduct, should be an embarrassment to everyone, Igbo or non-Igbo.

    Even if blind Igbo hatred can’t be supported by the spread of federal programmes and projects (in which the South East, under PMB, has its fair share), some Igbo lobbies and sympathizers reason, then it’s clear from the fact that no “single” Igboman is in the present security apparatus!

    Still, Gen. Lucky Irabor, the current Chief of Defence Staff, is ethnic Igbo from Delta State.  Perhaps he is not Igbo enough, because he’s not from the South East?

    “It’s-either-my-way-or-no-other-way” — that penchant, by a faction of the Yoruba progressive mainstream, paved the way for the current giddy excitement over “Yoruba nation”.

    First, Afenifere, which backed Goodluck Jonathan but lost out in the 2015 sweepstakes, dug in on “restructuring” and Fulani demonization.

    Then, a raft of grudge groups weighed in, lobbing the passionate bomb of Yoruba ultra-nationalism and the explosive hand grenade of “Fulanization” — all aimed at de-marketing elected leaders, for some giddy Utopia, of a future “Yoruba nation”.  Enter, with aplomb, the free-wheeling Yoruba “self-determination” lobbies!

    So, resent Bola Tinubu within, hate Muhammadu Buhari without, and frenetically plant anti-Fulani venom in gullible minds — and you have the rogue formula that vaulted Igboho as zealous but stark Oodua Republic champion!

    True, rabid Fulani hate got traction from hurting folks, hit by reprehensible kidnapping and sundry brutal crimes, traced to some criminal herders.  Still, to every herder criminal, there are hordes of law-abiding ones.  But again, tardiness, by security agencies, take that blame: for not separating the proverbial wheat from the chaff.

    Even then, the problems may have been misdiagnosed: trading common crimes by Fulani dregs to regnant policy, to suppress others, by the Fulani cream — not unexpected though, in a Nigerian setting of pulsating ethnic rivalries, that seethes and throbs with dangerous conspiracy theories.

    What’s unclear is whether that misdiagnosis was innocent or intentional.  But what is clear is that such super-charged passions give wings to the likes of Igboho and Kanu, to fly with own brands of anomie and anarchy, the only methods they know, since they appear incapable of rigorously thinking things through.

    Indeed, methods by the likes of Kanu and Igboho — and the criminal herders they thump for public applause — show the dirty underbelly every culture ought to hide, not flaunt.

    Yet, the hyper-educated, great twin-ethnic majorities of the South, seem self-condemned to the exact opposite, no thanks to crowing ethnic chauvinism and near-total surrender to ethnic bile — end times!  It’s such an epic let-down!

    If that trend holds, then the result won’t be pretty — for it would be tantamount to barbarians seizing Rome: they can only ruin, not build.

    So, those with the power of clinical reasoning must reclaim their rightful place, at a most tetchy juncture of Nigerian history.

    Let the central authorities be less hostile towards re-federalization.  But let the “self-determination” crowd too be less sanguine, over a post-Nigeria ethnic utopia, which could well be a costly delusion.

    A bit of give-and-take, will do a lot of good.  Enough of this underclass agenda!

  • Not their finest hour

    Not their finest hour

    By Sanya Oni

     

    To the hawks in the Buhari administration, not least its legion of allies, the events of the past week must have revealed its real essence. For an administration often accused of being on the ‘sleep mode’ when things truly important are at play, not only did the administration demonstrate that it could truly bite, there was something perceptively familiar both in its ways and means to suggest that a new but no less familiar chapter may also be in the offing. Now, if the ‘extraordinary rendition’ of the IPOB chieftain, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, with its accompanying wild guesses, was not dramatic enough, the pre-dawn swoop on the Ibadan residence of the Yoruba activist, Sunday Igboho should leave no one in doubt about the fouled mood at the Villa as indeed the crude resort to gung-ho tactics.

    Triumphalism. Understandably, that appears to describe the mood at the highest levels of government at the moment. Yes, the government’s spokesman, Lai Mohammed, spoke of “one of the most classic operations of its type in the world” to describe the interception (?) of Nnamdi Kanu.

    Said he: “What we can tell you, once again, is that the re-arrest was made possible by the diligent efforts of our security and intelligence agencies, in collaboration with countries with which we have obligations”.

    As if to further drive home the point about triumphalism, he said the man “was travelling on chartered private jets, living in luxury apartments and turning out in designing clothes and shoes…” Not of course leaving the tiny bit about his Fendi attire, the luxury Italian fashion brand, which he donned at the point of arrest.

    Now, that was the official line. Finest hour? Debatable. Diligent efforts? Here, the devil might yet be in the details which for now are still in the realm of speculation. Where was he picked from? Is it Kenya, Brazil or Ethiopia? No one can affirm with any certainty – which is not surprising given the rather unusual, but highly complicated process claimed by our high officials. Are we dealing with extra-ordinary rendition –otherwise called irregular rendition or better still, forced rendition – a phenomenon of government-sponsored abduction and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one country to another with the purpose of circumventing the former country’s laws on interrogation, detention, extradition and/or torture! Why that seems highly probable, the only thing that could be said with some certainty is that the man, Kanu was brought into the country under extraordinary circumstances.

    That leads us to the matter of the other ‘fugitive’, Sunday Igboho, whose residence was savagely violated by security agencies last Thursday. Again, what do we know? Nothing of course, beyond the official version of events. First is that the attack was actually staged by security agencies. This is important because in April, the same Sunday Igboho had sounded the alarm of an imminent siege on his residence only to be promptly denied by the security agencies. No less chilling is that the attack was carried out in the dead of the night – some say around 1:00 a.m. that Thursday, which seems rather odd particularly as Nigerians were not told of an earlier invite that was spurned by the Yoruba activist. Third, that some lives – the number is still disputed – were lost none of which included the security men in what was claimed to be an hour-long shoot-out between Igboho’s men and the security agencies. Talk of a military-style operation – as against simple law enforcement, in which everything from vehicles to other valuable properties including furniture, and windows were fair game. And finally, that some arrests were made, just as a cache of arms were recovered. Suffice to say that every other detail from that point on, not only became a matter of conjecture but subject of claims and counterclaims.

    In both accounts, the common narrative is one of a government that has not only run out of patience with agitators but now well prepared to deploy any means necessary – including extra-constitutional measures – to assert its will. The world of course is watching as to where all of these are leading to. Meanwhile, trust Nigerians to offer to offer the counter narrative that had the same government shown the same zeal in dealing with the matter of criminal herders as indeed the number of the countless issues underlying the secessionist angers, perhaps the nation wouldn’t have to be dealing with the likes of Igboho et al.

    For now, we can only wonder as to the extent to which the Buhari administration will be willing to go. However, if its antecedents are any indication, Nigerians had better get ready for more of the shock treatments as the administration strives to bend the law for some narrow, self-serving ends. Imagine an administration that had no compunction in getting the SSS to violate the supposedly inviolable quarters of senior judges to have even far less restraints in dealing with the purveyors of activism deemed, in its own specious eyes, as treasonable. In other words, the ordeal of Messrs Kanu and Igboho might well be a dress rehearsal for the shape of things to come.

    This is where Nigerians should be alarmed. To be sure, it is not a question of whether one loves or hates Nnamdi Kanu or Sunday Igboho; or even the ideologies they propound. For while such fangled phrases as ‘self-determination’ and ‘secession’ or even its milder variant ‘resource control’ have become something of a fad or even a signature badge among the hordes of activists of every shade and hue, for the majority, the quest which is supposed its ultimate derivative is simply no more than mere concepts of idle curiosity.

    Nonetheless, the Buhari government, in approaching the different elements that have dared to challenge the current iniquitous federal arrangement, has oscillated between being selective to being deferential. It explains why a certain ‘Government’ – a one-time ‘fugitive’ will sneeze from his Creek redoubt only for the Buhari administration to catch cold; the other day, it was the uncommon minister, Godswill Akpabio forced to bow to Mr. Government on the matter of NDDC Board – something that the law and the constitution could not get him to do!

    We also know of a certain Sheik Gumi who while in dalliance with heavily armed bandits would not resist a photo-op in the presence of security agencies. Yet, he still finds ample time to throw darts at our almighty military. Apparently, some crimes are more criminal than others; otherwise, we would not have the midnight raid on the residence of Igboho while those frolicking with bandits and terrorists are out there sermonizing. So, when Nigerians talk of unequal justice, they mean the differential perception of what is supposed to be crime and punishment in Nigeria’s unequal republic.

  • Absolute powers

    Absolute powers

    By Gabriel Amalu

     

    Lord Acton, a 19th century British politician, historian and moralist was correct when he posited in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887 that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” In another version of the saying, William Pitt, a British Prime Minister (1766-1778) said it thus: “unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.”

    Clearly, in whatever fashion the statement is represented, the Nigerian socio-political conundrum presents a caricature of power, as those in power abuse it, as their power increases. Of course, power is used here to include, authority-power, deriving from laws of the state, and raw-power, arising from forceful appropriation of power, by non-state actors. In both instances, the tendency is that as power increases, moral rectitude decreases, and the result is abuse of power and privileges.

    Within the past week, the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, was intercepted and forcefully brought back to Nigeria, to face his trial before Justice Binta Nyako, at the Federal High Court, Abuja. Kanu had jumped bail, in 2017, after an attack on his country home by the Nigerian Army. Shortly after jumping bail, Kanu surfaced abroad and continued his campaign for the independent state of Biafra.

    Over the years, Kanu has become an icon for many Nigerians, particularly the younger generation in the eastern part of the country and beyond. As the quality of life in the country deteriorated, many Nigerians at home and abroad, turned to Kanu’s separatist agenda as the panacea for the poverty of leadership that has reduced the country to a beggarly nation. Before long, words such as ‘supreme leader’ were used to describe Kanu by his die-hard followers.

    With a lot of people increasingly beholden to his campaign, Kanu became emboldened to openly challenge the authority of the federal and the state governments, which he considers as forming part of Biafra. From mere rhetoric, the Biafra agitators were allegedly morphing to an armed group, under the auspices of the Eastern Security Network (ESN). Expectedly, both the federal government and state governors within the axis of defunct Biafra began to panic, at the potentials of Kanu’s antics.

    As is usual with power, it is possible that Kanu in turn began to truly see himself as potentially the leader of the Biafra nation in the making. The success of the recent sit-at-home order, by IPOB, on May 30, in memory of the genocide committed against persons of the former Eastern Nigeria extraction, during the Biafra-Nigeria war, must have equally given the impression to the powers-that-be that Kanu, if unchecked, could become a potentate of the Igbo race.

    To add fillip to the burgeoning crisis, a leader of the ESN, Mr Ikonne, was killed by security agents in Imo State. Emboldened by the widespread support from sympathisers at home and abroad, the agitators made the fatal error of engaging in direct military confrontation with the Nigerian security agencies. According to media report, the supreme leader, in exercise of powers he thought he has, allegedly gave order that in retaliation for the murder of Ikonne, a thousand heads should be sacrificed.

    Of course, all the reports remain mere allegations, and it is possible that Kanu would be able to prove his innocence, when confronted before the court of law in a free and fair trial.  On the part of the federal authority, the challenge is what to do with Kanu, who has become a pain in the ass in the past few years for the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, and the governors of the southeast and the security agencies whom he had ridiculed as incompetent?

    With Kanu in custody, would the federal government fall into the temptation of exercising absolute powers over him, by treating him as an enemy fugitive, who does not deserve the privileges of fundamental rights accorded by the 1999 constitution, (as amended)? To show how tempting the option of exercising absolute powers over Nnamdi Kanu and company can be, the 1st Vice President of the Nigeria Bar Association, Mr John Aikpokpo-Martins, in a bizarre jurisprudence, argued that the “President is constitutionally bound to crush” secessionist agitators.

    Aikpokpo-Martins hinges his disarticulated argument on the premise that having sworn to protect the constitution, the president is ipso-facto empowered to crush any person whom he bethinks opposes that constitution. If one may ask the learned counsel, what then is the role of the court, as provided in section 6(6)(b) of the 1999 constitution (as amended), if the president can unilaterally crush persons who hold views opposed to the constitution?

    If the media report of what Mr Aikpokpo-Martins said is true, then one can describe the learned advocate as a curator of the saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. For, he was in essence saying that if you have power you must employ every means to protect and preserve it. Thankfully, the president does not appear to be interested in crushing all those advocating for dissolution of Nigeria, since as in the Kanu’s case, the matter is being pursued before the court of law.

    Of course, crushing armed insurrection against the state, which the government should legitimately pursue, must never be equated with crushing separatist agitations, when it is pursued in a peaceful manner. If the converse is the case, then the constitution is a bundle of confusion. For it provides in section 39(1) that: “every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.”

    To argue that a Nigerian cannot legitimately hold a dissenting opinion about the viability of the country as presently constituted, is to turn logic on its head. That clearly is a legitimate opinion as envisaged by the constitution. Indeed, if those who hold the view, can convince the majority to reason alike, Nigerians have the inherent constituent power to determine how they are governed, and that includes the power to dissolve the country as constituted.

    What President Buhari and other state actors must come to terms with, is that majority of Nigerians are disenchanted with the state of the nation. Of course, the way out of the logjam is a matter in dispute. While some believe that President Buhari is charting the course adroitly, some others believe his tactics is at the root of the crisis, and people like Nnamdi Kanu, Sunday Igboho others have consequently lost faith in the Nigerian project.

    This column therefore urges President Buhari not to resort to authoritarianism to solve the crisis. He must abjure turning a bad man, by the corrupt appropriation of absolute power.

  • The imperative of restructuring

    The imperative of restructuring

    By Olatunji Dare

     

    For months, as the security situation worsened and hardships deepened cross the country, the attentive audience in Nigeria urged President Muhammadu Buhari repeatedly to speak up, to engage, and to lead.

    Amidst the turmoil, Buhari appeared unmoved.  The pleas turned into a clamour; still, he carried on as if he was reconciled to the situation as the new normal.

    Those who claim the ability to decode his body-language said they saw resignation and defeat stamped all over his deportment and comportment.  They said he was so overwhelmed that he must be wishing he could speed up time and terminate his tenure well ahead of schedule.

    Call them the Buharologists.

    The more firmly grounded in the attentive audience were diffident at best? What would he say now that he had not said at one forum or another, and what difference had it made?  How would another broadcast, the text of which was in all probability composed by bureaucrats and securocrats in the soulless language that is their trademark and likely to be rendered in like manner to a national audience alleviate their grinding misery?

    Two weeks ago, as the nation celebrated Democracy Day, Buhari finally chose to engage.  He did so in a manner that confounded those who thought he had given up, and those who thought he had nothing new to say.

    They expected a talking head surrounded by the artifacts of office and perfunctorily read a text put together by persons who play a tangential role at best in the scheme of things. He chose the more engaging format of not one, but two back-to-back interviews with media professionals from the Nigerian Television Authority and Arise Television.

    If his outing was not exactly a command performance, it was certainly not the foul-up many were expecting.  He held his own; he didn’t let his interlocutors back him into a corner; he was not in the least conciliatory.

    He defended his most controversial public service appointments, saying they were based solely on merit and competence, with nary a taint of nepotism or parochialism that had greeted them from an outraged public.

    Thousands of farmers may have been bankrupted by herders who have turned farmlands into killing and  grazing fields; entire villages may have been sacked by marauding herders asserting a right to graze their herds anywhere they please.

    Buhari’s answer to this mayhem is a law enacted of the Northern Nigeria Government in the 1960s   establishing grazing routes for cattle herds.  The law applied only to that region, and expired with the Land Use Act, if not with that territory itself.  Is that law, from that bygone era, now to be nationalized?

    The interviews presented Buhari with an opportunity to refine or modify his views on a wide range of important national issues.  Instead, he dug in, doubled down, without nuance and without any concession to those who hold different views, and even more crucially with no empathy for those who have been driven to the edge of ruin by the cattle herders who carry on as if they had a licence, his licence, to wage a campaign of terror and impunity against the public.

    Buhari’s contempt for the national policy dialogue, especially as it concerns the National Question, would come to the fore a few days later, during the launch, in Zaria, of the Kudirat Abiola Sabon Gari Peace Foundation.

    He declared, per Alhaji Mohammed Shehu, executive secretary of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, that advocates of restructuring and secession were “naïve and mischievously dangerous.”  He told those calling for a national platform to discuss the crises roiling the country that he had no time for any “obscure conference.”

    It was disingenuous indeed to conflate restructuring with secessionism.  But it is more.

    The entire remark, it is necessary to state, was an abuse of forum, and a gratuitous insult to the memory of Kudirat Abiola, who was slain in broad daylight by agents of the Federal Government while running an errand for pro-democracy elements campaigning for the validation of the June 12, 1993, presidential election won by her husband, MKO Abiola. To disparage the cause for which she gave her life, at a forum established in her honour, is worse than unconscionable.

    In the face of withering criticism, some of it redolent of the contempt with which he had denounced those calling for national restructuring, Buhari backed off somewhat, saying he would sign into law any Bill duly passed by the National Assembly to that effect.

    This is not a concession, but a dodge, and a transparent one at that.

    When they say only the National Assembly can change or amend the Constitution, they unwittingly drop all pretence.  The Constitution they are invoking is a disputed and contested document.  Its integrity is dubious at best.  It was designed by a small group that represented the military authorities of that era, and the entrenched interests of the part of the country that is their power base, and then foisted on the nation with the fraudulent prefatory clause, “We the People.”

    To make that document the basis of going forward or even remaining on the same spot is to put the entire nation and the political process in a straightjacket.

    Building on the mistakes of the drafter of the 1979 Constitution who thought that what the Second Republic needed was a strong Centre, and on decades of the garrison rule of the military, they replaced the Federal Principle on which the country was founded with one grounded in uniformity, with every constituent unit marching at the same pace and to the same tune.

    Under the 1963 Constitution, each of the three regions, later four, had its own constitution and institutions that reflected its needs, priorities and aspirations.  On issues delegated to the regions, the region’s constitution was the final authority unless and only to the extent that it was inconsistent with Constitution of Nigeria.

    As presently constituted, the National Assembly will never pass such a Bill.  If it did, the Bill stands to die a natural death in the next stage, where it must be approved by 24 of the 36 state assemblies.

    Some of the provisions that will govern a restructured polity will, in a manner of speaking, require those enacting it to cut down their obscene salaries, privileges and entitlements.  In short, a restructured polity will require them to commit political suicide.

    Nothing in the way our lawmakers at all levels have been carrying on, the way they have constituted themselves into wards of the Nigerian State, suggests that they will be prepared to do that.

    In a reconfigured Nigeria, each state will determine the balance of power between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch.  It may opt for a weak executive and a strong legislature or, vice versa, a strong executive and a weak legislature.

    Each state will determine whether legislators serve fulltime or part-time.  It will fix their compensation, taking into account its financial resources.  Only those who are prepared to serve under the stipulated terms and conditions will offer themselves for public office.  Their goal must be to service, not to get rich through public service.  A commissioner in resource-starved Yobe will not draw the same salary as a commissioner in the much better-endowed Lagos State or Rivers State.

    Each state will determine how many local governments it requires for effective delivery of services at that level, and the pay and conditions of service.

    Each state will establish and equip its own police force.  Those who object to this arrangement on the ground that state police will be used to persecute political opponents have a point, but are federal police not being used to a considerable extent for that purpose?  What makes federal abuse more acceptable than state abuse?

    It should be enough to enact and enforce laws against abuse of police powers at all levels.

    Powers not expressly delegated to the Federal Government will be vested in the states.

    Who needs a Senate that gulps scarce resources but adds little value to legislation and governance?

    The choice before Nigeria is when it will restructure, not if.  Unless it restructures, it will go the way of former Yugoslavia.  Every day that passes without an advance toward restructuring can only hasten that  eventuality.

     

  • Legislator as dictator

    Legislator as dictator

    By Gabriel Amalu

     

    The bill sponsored by Hon. Olusegun Odebunmi to amend the Press Council Act 1992, gave him out as a closet dictator, masquerading as a democrat. If the bill scales through, I will dare not write this piece. For Hon Odebunmi can get the executive secretary of the proposed press council, to summon me. And if the friends of the executive that will populate the proposed council consider my referring to Odebunmi as a dictator as blameworthy, they will ask me to apologise.

    And if I hesitate, I could be slammed with N250,000 fine, while this newspaper would be asked to pay one million naira as fine, under section 17(1)(c) and (3)(a) and (b). Of course, while by the bill Hon. Odebunmi has exhibited a dictatorial tendency, in spite of being a democratically elected legislator, the council sitting as a quasi-judicial tribunal, could hold my reference to him as a closet dictator, as blameworthy. Even more dangerous for me, and this medium, is that my assertion could be termed fake news.

    If they come under that part of the dreadful bill, I will dare not write a column again, as I may spend years working to pay the fine for writing that a democratically elected legislator is acting dictatorial. What could be more “fake” than that? By the provision of section 33(3) of the bill, I could be slammed with a N5 million fine in favour of the state, as well another N2million, for Hon. Odebunmi, in addition to a jail term. So, I may not even be able to work, to pay the fine.

    The medium which published the “fake news” would further pay a whopping N10 naira for the high crime, in addition to a handsome N20 million to the Honourable. To further assuage for the high crime, the news medium could be closed for one year. Surely, if Hon. Odebunmi has his way, publishing a “fake news” would be more dangerous than rigging election to be become a legislator.

    If the bill succeeds, life would become extremely difficult for most print mediums, as the bill intends to regulate them in a most stringent way. By the provision of proposed section 3(1), the council shall regulate the print and related media, ensure truthful, genuine and quality service by the print media (emphasis mine). What the council will consider truthful will surely prove a tough knot for the media.

    For instance, it will be dangerous to speculate why President Buhari cancelled his shelved visit to London for his medicals. Those who have speculated that the president wanted to avoid the embarrassment from Nigerians demonstrating in London, would be asked to prove the truthfulness of the allegation. Even more challenging would be to speculate the medical status of the president. With the presidency refusing to come clean on what ails our president, no news medium will dare comment.

    The Minister for Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, may also love the passage of the bill, because no news medium would ever refer to him again as “Lie Mohammed.” Of course, even a rookie lawyer can easily establish beyond reasonable doubt that his name is not Lie but Lai, and those who call him “Lie Mohammed” would stand guilty of untruthfulness. With the enormous powers granted the minister under the bill, the journalist and the print medium, would pay dearly for that.

    One way to deal with such recalcitrant print media will be to revoke the licence or refuse to renew it. And by the proposed section 3(1)(e) and (f) the Hon. Minister and the council would be acting within their powers to deal with the media house. By the provision of section 3(3) of the bill, upon conviction, the fine to be paid by ‘the liar’ would be as much as N5 million, and the amount would increase as the days go by.

    There are several other provisions in the bill that give out Hon. Odebunmi as a closet dictator. For instance, the act seeks to create the position of an executive secretary and a council with quasi-judicial powers. And in some cases, the council can actually be a judge in its own cause, and if they are not satisfied that a complaint has merit, dismiss same. Many would frown at such a bizarre attempt to imbue an administrative body with the powers reserved for the courts by section 6(6)(b) of the 1999 constitution (as amended).

    Thankfully, the constitution clearly makes a mincemeat of the dubious intentions of the dictatorial legislator. Section 39(1) of the 1999 constitution (as amended) provides that: “every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.” The derogation allowed by the constitution is with respect to the regulation of television or wireless broadcasting. Furthermore, it allows any law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society, in limited circumstances.

    So, from where did Honourable Odebunmi and his co-travellers, gain the constitutional impudence to seek to place the fourth estate of the realm on a death knell? Or don’t they care about what the constitution provides? If the bill becomes law, does it occur to the sponsors, both the person in the open and the others beating the drum, for him to dance, that the constitutional responsibility placed on the press by the constitution would be fettered?

    From the provisions of the bill, it can safely be concluded that Odebunmi may never have read section 22 of the 1999 constitution, which enjoins that the mass media should be free, so it can “uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people.” If the intense strangulation of the print media as proposed by the legislator scales through, would it not defeat the constitution, by which he answers a legislator?

    It is reassuring that both President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Information Lai Mohammed, have both disassociated themselves from the draconian bill sponsored by Hon. Olusegun Odebunmi. This column urges the House of Representatives to massively defeat the bill and the other surrogate bill seeking to strangulate the electronic media. All bills seeking to strangulate the media, must be called by their name: draconian bills.

    Both chambers of the National Assembly have no need for draconian bills, as the executive can even use it to hunt them down. Any legislator who supports such bill should look up the root word of draconian. It came from Draco, a legislator in ancient Athens, who loved to propose severe punishments like death penalties. We urge Hon. Olusegun Odebunmi to immediately withdraw the bill, unless he is the Draco of the 21st century.

     

     

  • Kabir’s take

    Kabir’s take

    By Olakunle Abimbola

     

     

    Fareed’s Take?  That’s familiar stuff: the coinage of Fareed Zakaria, famous Indian-American CNN anchor of Global Public Square (GPS), his brilliant weekly on global affairs.

    But Kabir’s Take?  Just a pun of the original. Still, Kabir’s Take could point the way to rigorous politicking — and “poli-thinking” — by Nigerian youths, beyond lobbing “youth” at you, as if that fleeting phase is any generation’s monopoly.

    Kabir Aregbesola, at the APC National Youth Conference, in Abuja on June 21, made a claim: that the Buhari presidency was birthed to deliver for the poor and silent majority.

    To deliver on this mandate, Kabir claimed, that presidency had, in his words, “stood itself out, unleashing the boldest, socio-economic programmes this country has ever seen.”

    That sounds audacious, particularly in a contentious polity that runs high on emotions, but pretty low on hard facts.  But to back that claim, Kabir reeled out stats — verifiable, if disputed: over one million youths engaged under N-Power, the volunteer youth job scheme.

    Over 5.5 million school children, nation-wide, had been — and are still being — fed under the Homegrown School Feeding Scheme: both programmes targeted at hurting youths, many of them jobless and near-hopeless even after gaining tertiary education; and children from the most vulnerable of homes.

    Also, “homegrown” targets the farmer-parents of these vulnerable children: while their food crops feed their kids in school, by buying those crops, the government empowers those poor farmer-families and homes.

    Still, on the most vulnerable of demographics: the administration’s conditional cash transfer, to the poorest-of-the-poor, has supported no less than one million families.

    Then, credit for the most humble and lowly of businesses, clearly before never addressed on this scale: more than 2.5 million traders and market women had accessed micro-credit via Trader Moni and Market Moni schemes — again, a jab at mass poverty, at its lowest and most crippling hub.

    Then, agriculture — the Anchor Borrower’s Programme.  That scheme, the flagship of the administration’s agriculture/food security exertions, has shovelled credit the way of more than 3.1 million farmers, boosting the Buhari economic war cry of grow-what- you-eat and eat-what-you-grow.

    The “rice revolution”, which has thrust Kebbi as Nigeria’s rice capital, is the most pivotal proof of these strides which, by official stats, has greatly rolled back Nigeria’s food import bill; and saved billions of dollars in forex.

    Integral to that agricultural rebirth is the ramp-up in fertilizer supply, halving the price from its pre-2015 N11, 000 a bag to N5, 500.  That has given farming a healthy jab, though present security challenges threaten to roll back those gains; and also imperil paying back the Anchor Borrower’s loans.

    Kabir also cited the Buhari administration’s infrastructure up-scale, in rail and roads, clearly the most far-reaching since 1999: the delivery of more than 400 kilometres of faster and more modern standard-gauge rail tracks, at the Lagos-Ibadan corridor, en route to Kano, among other rail renewal projects nation-wide.

    The road parallel to the rail renaissance would appear no less impressive, given the lean economic times: over 1, 000 kilometres of road infrastructure nationwide; aside from the 2nd Niger Bridge, now at 60% completion stage; and the no less crucial Lagos-Ibadan expressway — both critical arteries billed for delivery in 2022.

    “Lest we forget,” Kabir jogged blunt memories, the regnant ailment of contemporary Nigeria, “all these were achieved with dwindling crude oil revenue and a devastating global pandemic.”

    The political opposition could counter — and rightly so: the Buhari administration has gone on a borrowing binge (which could well shackle the future generation); and the pandemic has not translated into better lives for Nigerians.

    Indeed, it could screech: life is tough; and mass poverty bites ever so hard — and it would be right on both fronts.

    Still, had yesterday’s governments — today’s opposition — better harnessed yesterday’s boom, today’s bust, and Buhari’s resort to loans to deliver critical infrastructure, in ultra-lean times, would clearly have been averted.

    Indeed, it all appears the Nigerian equivalent of the biblical seven lean cows, that gobbled up seven fat ones!  It isn’t easy or comfy for anyone.  But it is a hard rite of passage, without which redemption, social or economic, could be a mirage.

    Still, Kabir’s Take comes with a caveat: the dire danger of scrambling off those progressive-powered development paths of the last six years, in the post-Buhari years.

    He warned: “When this President finishes, with the best of efforts, the development work still won’t be enough. This is because,” he added, “the rots of decades can’t be reversed completely in eight years.  Therefore, the legacy of progressive, pro-poor and inclusive development we seek for our people is not an eight-year play.  It’s a forty-year one.”

    You could, straight off, juxtapose Kabir’s 40-year quest for “inclusive development”, with a former PDP national chairman’s boast that his party would rule for 60 years — in the first instance!

    The one pitches hard development.  The other brandishes sweet power.  But even more impressive: the one is a callow youth.  The other was an elder that should brim with wisdom and experience!

    Still, if Kabir aggregates fellow youths in the progressive front, then Nigerian politics can only be the better for it.

    Who knows?  Such forward and critical thinking could trigger a response from conservative youths across the aisle; and rigorous progressive versus conservative ideas may well bloom, in a triumphant flowering of ideas, that can be win-win for all!

    So, Kabir’s Take is all about raising the level — and rigour — of policy debate and public discourse, beyond traducing persons, abusing rival tribes as emotive fall guys, or planting fashionable hate — the present sweet toxin that struts the public space, shuts down individuals’ faculties and dams reasoned discourse.

    Yes, he would go further to pitch, to his party elders, some affirmative actions practically telling the APC to surrender every elected local government position to the party’s young Turks — hardly a crime but hardly democratic too!

    In the long run, however, a party whose members eat and drink their chosen ideology, would render these affirmative actions nugatory.  In such, it’s your ideological drill and the age of your ideas — not your biological age — that rule the roost.

    If that holds across party lines, then Nigeria could boast new tribes in politics —  progressive, centrist or conservative!  That could well stem the present zero-sum game, in which one ethnic’s gain has got to be the loss of the other!

    There then, for the general polity, appears the exciting promise of Kabir’s take.

  • Buhari’s press problem

    Buhari’s press problem

    Sanya Oni

     

    Talk of a ‘solution’ in search of a problem; Honourable Segun Dokun Odebunmi, the supposed ‘author and finisher’ of the two media gag bills under consideration in the National Assembly may have done a good job of pushing the pet project against all odds; it seems however a long way yet in convincing skeptical Nigerians that the intention of the bill is anything about the promotion of the public good. Again, talk of the proverbial Hand of Esau versus the Voice of Jacob; with four bills in the last six years of the Buhari administration all of them seeking a curb on the exercise of free speech, it doesn’t even require the sixth sensed to know where this latest arrow on that important pillar on democracy is coming from.

    So much for the ‘media problem’ that the bill seeks solution. Never mind that the sponsor did not deem it worthwhile to let Nigerians into the window of the new pathologies that the bill seeks to cure the media of and of which existing remedies have not availed. The media, as far as the current moods go, is Nigeria public enemy – to borrow a line straight from the Donald Trump playbook.

    Never mind its pretensions to the public good, the bill is apparently uncomfortable with those rights guaranteed under Section 39(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) that: “every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference”.

    Even more disagreeable to the sponsors, it seems, is Section 22 of the same constitution, which enjoins that the mass media be free, so it can “uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people.”

    So much for the denial at the highest levels of government; while few Nigerians can pretend to be oblivious of the current moods in government circle, fewer still would deny the perception that has long endured there that the media is not only too free but excessively so both for its own good and for the good of the society. And that was long before Jack Dorsey’s Twitter struck – to put not just President Buhari’s twitter account to the sword but his presidency to a terrible embarrassment.

    It has been a comedy of errors ever since, the latest of which is Odebunmi media gag bill.

    You ask – Honourable Segun Dokun Odebunmi – who?

    No doubt, the 2002 Business Education graduate of the University of Ado-Ekiti may have been a veteran of sorts in the of business of politics; it seems to me that the man is in this particular instance selling a script which he could not have authored let alone understand. Talk of a man who has made not just a career but also business out of the vocation of politics. A man who went into active politics barely two years after leaving school, got elected chairman of his Surulere Local Government Area of Oyo State in 2004, subsequently became caretaker head of the council in 2007 before landing another big one as full-time commissioner in the Oyo State Civil Service Commission. I even read an account somewhere in which he was described as an oil magnate! Currently in his third term in the lower chamber of the Nigerian parliament representing the good people of Surulere/Ogo-Oluwa federal constituency, the man behind the media gag bill also speaks on behalf of that august body.

    Now, he is supposed to know a thing or two about the media. Not necessarily from his current vantage position as spokesman of the Lower House but in the arena where the game, influence-peddling, is certainly profitable. That, obviously would explain the manner with which he brought Ogo Ilu 89.3 F.M. Oko, a branch of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), to his constituency. Yes, Information Minister Lai Mohammed, was there to describe the project as “the first and only radio station that is a product of constituency project in Nigeria”. Talk of the variant of ‘oversighting’ of the executive branch the kind that Nigerians are only too familiar!

    By the way, the last time I checked, Odebunmi was actually promoting a private radio station which, according to him, “will help provide employment opportunities for youths as well as help to discover and develop talents” – which of course is no crime! But then, if I know the typical businessman of which he is of a kind, its probably just one of those ventures designed to nurture the ego.

    To get back to the main point: Odebunmi seems to me a mere symptom of a larger crisis. By this I mean the crisis of governance under which those charged with the business of delivering the public good will rather be chasing shadows. While all manners of placebos are offered in place of governance, the citizens are supposed to be grateful to a leader in whom no guile has been found.

    Unfortunately, had the Buhari administration been a shade less self-absorptive of its own inherent goodness to appreciate the role of the media not just as a critical partner in the governance process but one charged with the constitutional duty to hold the government to account on behalf of the people, its current sanctimonious disposition would have been entirely pointless. But then, as they say, what you see is what you get!

    Talk of a born-again democrat finally shedding all pretensions to a borrowed bona fide. Now, if the very idea of a constitutional order seeking to transmute into a sovereign in the manner of Divine Rights of kings and with it the doctrine of infallibility seems unthinkable in recent past; now it’s no longer seems far-fetched!

    So here we go. Let them define the ‘truth’ as it suits them. Let them constitute the Nigerian Press Council as they deem fit. And then of course their register of media practitioners. And the Black Book.

    Let them roll out their regime of punitive fines designed not just to cow, but to keep the media on the leash. They would need the jails – many of them – to keep those troublesome fellows out of circulation even while the treasury swells with revenues from the punitive fines. It is after all, a case of “we” versus “them”, “patriots” versus “villains”. Welcome to Nigeria’s brand-new world of media regulation; their world of democracy. Welcome Decree 4.

     

  • Kaunda shall be free

    Kaunda shall be free

    By Olakunle Abimbola

    Kenneth David Kaunda (28 April 1924-17 June 2021), famous author of even more famous book, Zambia Shall Be Free (Heinemann, 1962), is at last free from it all!

    But such a biting irony: Zambia’s first president (1964 to 1991) was, in 1999, declared “stateless” by a Zambia high court; and risked instant deportation to Malawi, his parents’ birth place.  Later, the Supreme Court restored his Zambian citizenship.

    Yet now, President Edgar Lungu hails KK, at death, as a worthy patriot — which he was — deserving of a 21-day national mourning!  The rough-and-tumble of African politics!

    Like Zambia, like Côte d’Ivoire!  How can a country just jerk awake to declare its former president, of 27 years, an alien?

    The Côte d’Ivoire equivalent is Alassane Quattara (now president but former Prime Minister).  Former President Laurent Gbagbo declared Quattara a Burkinabe, just to shut him from the presidency.

    Only in Africa!  Kaunda shall be free!

    Still Kaunda, despite the raw treatment from his immediate successors, was hardly a saint.  He too intimidated his state, over which he governed.

    For 27 years, his personalization of the Zambian state was afoot: the national football team was dubbed “KK Eleven”.   His United National Independence Party (UNIP) was the sole legal party.   KK himself, from 1978 to 1983 to 1988, was the sole presidential candidate at Zambia general elections.

    That charade crashed in 1990, culminating in his electoral “massacre”, by an electoral alliance, led by Trade Unionist, the late Frederick Chiluba, in 1991 — two clear years before the next election was due.

    Still, KK was no single power Satan of his age.  That notoriety probably  belonged to the trio of Idi Amin Dada (Uganda), Jean Bedel Bokassa (Central African Republic, which Bokassa renamed “Empire”) and Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga — some mouthful! — he who was even claimed richer than his country, at the zenith of his rule!

    Indeed, KK belonged to the more decent bloc.  With Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah (probably the age’s most rigorous) and Tanzania’s Nwalimu Julius Nyerere (among that era’s most revered), KK managed to rustle up Zambia’s homegrown version of “African Socialism”: “Zambian Humanism”; with Ghana’s Consciencism and Tanzania’s Ujamaa.

    Still, bar Tanzania’s Nyerere, the ideological stunts would appear ploys to build personality cults, instead of solid state institutions.  That particularly undid the promise of Ghana (among its peers, the most ideologically robust); and progressively shaped KK into a dictator, even if benign, who didn’t know when to quit.

    For good or for ill, therefore, KK honestly epitomized the first generation of African leaders, who stepped out with the wrong foot, and consigned their people and continent to be global laggards — an unflattering reality that endures till today.

    Yes, Cold War-era ideological intrigue and panic, from the Western sphere, may have shot down and crippled the most promising — and here again, Nkrumah’s Ghana is golden reference.

    Nevertheless, from Nigeria’s Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, to Malawi’s Hastings Kamuzu Banda, to Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, to Uganda’s Milton Obote, this first generation of African leaders would appear unprepared for office.  Worse: they were ingloriously intolerant of better local minds that could make the difference; and thus manipulated the electoral process to willy-nilly stay in power.

    In Nigeria, the manic conspiracy to destroy Obafemi Awolowo (by far, his generation’s most piercing political and developmental mind) climaxed in disastrous military rule; and the carefully wrought 1963 Republican Constitution crashed on the altar of crass politicking.

    Those who still crow about that document, and chirp as if it’s some dormant El Dorado waiting to be conjured, conveniently forget the human foibles that buried it.  That dark mindset is still very much around, if not much worsened!

    But while military rule swallowed West Africa (bar Senegal), fuelling epochal rot all round, pseudo-democracies took hold of much of East and Southern Africa, with Kenyatta’s Kenya and KK’s Zambia standing out in that genre — though crude military rule would also dawn, under Idi Amin, in Uganda.

    Still, African democracies-sans-democracy would lead to no less devastation of public institutions in new African nations, from the 1960s lasting into the 1990s.  That was the critical lead time KK, as most of his peers back then, blew; and therefore helped to under-develop their respective countries.

    Still, KK ruled Zambia for 27 years, lived 30 years more, within which he got bruised and worsted, despite doing excellent anti-HIV/ADS campaign aside from the sterling anti-Apartheid advocacies of his power years, before earning due honours, after dying at 97.

    Moral?  Nation-building is a marathon, not a sprint.  So, the Nigerian media should adopt historic-cum-strategic methods, if it must be the agent of positive change it craves.

    TB Joshua x-rayed

    By Azubike Nass

    Your article on the late TB Joshua displayed good memory and research statistics, in making your point — a product of a fecund and clean mind.

    I am a practicing mystic, well studied in Oriental (Eastern) and Occidental (Western) mysteries.  I have never been to TB Joshua’s church but I had followed his activities for many years.  What I saw in him was a grandmaster of a high order, a great Christian mystic, far above the level of much church leaders.

    He had the powers, and he applied them for the best benefit to humanity, and that has refurbished his powers in multiple.  He had completed his work for this incarnation.  He is now an Ascended Grand Master.

    As to the source of his powers, from the level of understanding of most church leaders, it is neither here nor there.  It is not always a strait-jacket of good and evil,

    Christ and anti-Christ.

    The Wizard of Endor was a great spirit medium with awesome powers, and was consulted by kings and nobles, from far and near.  It was not a case of either good or evil.  There was no record of applying the power for evil.  The Supreme God still holds the ultimate authority over all things.

    Most church leaders actually don’t know enough of the mysteries of Jesus Christ.  The powers He acquired during his 18 years sojourn in the East.  During His mission, Jesus once spit His saliva on the ground, mixed it with sand, robbed it on the eyes of a blind man and instructed the man to go to the river and wash it.

    The blind man did so and his sight was restored.  The deeper meaning of this specific form of power principle is to be found in certain Oriental esoteric teachings which Jesus had passed through.

    If you do that today, any ignorant church leader could give it any derogatory name: Satanism, Shamanism, Occultism, etc.

    There are many such examples in the multiple powers manifested by Jesus the Christ during His earthly life.

    • Col. Nass (retired) writes from Enugu, Enugu State, Nigeria.

     

  • Unmatched Omatseye

    Unmatched Omatseye

    By Gabriel Amalu

    As I set out to write this tribute in honour of Sam Omatseye, who turned 60 on June 15, my thoughts went to the United States of America’s poet, Maya Angelou’s: Caged Bird, which is perhaps one of the most poignant poems on freedom versus bondage. At a time, when Nigeria is roiling is mass disaffection with the status quo, I consider it a fitting tribute to use the poem as the background to celebrate Sam Omatseye at 60.

    I met Sam when I was invited to join the editorial board of The Nation, sometime in 2006. Prior to that, I had occasionally read Sam’s scathing criticism of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government in The Sun newspaper. Ever insightful, critical, and sometimes contemptuous and disparaging, Sam in irresistible language dissected the government led by President Obasanjo, and many times put it to the sword.

    So, unlike many who have written tributes in honour of Sam Omatseye at 60, I didn’t take notice of his great exploits in his days at Concord newspaper or other earlier journalism career. But I can say without equivocation that it is at the editorial board of The Nation newspaper, which he chairs, that Sam blossomed. Not just in his journalism career, but as a journalist, writer, poet, novelist, and television personality of national and perhaps international repute.

    Sitting with Sam nearly every week since 2006, physically, and virtually since COVID-19 birthed on the scene, there is no better tribute than to buttress Sam’s wish for a new Nigeria, in the mould of the first and fourth stanzas of Maya Angelou’s stimulating poem: Caged Bird. By words and action, the tantalizing prospects of the two stanzas, I dare say, is what Sam has devoted his career in literary and other intellectual works, and most recently his television broadcast to profess.

    Though set in the redoubt of the black man’s struggle in the United States of America, for freedom from slavery and bondage, the poem poignantly accentuates the potentials of the freeborn and attenuates the disillusionment of the slave in bondage. Many in Nigeria today, see themselves as shackled by bad governance, in a manner not different from that of slave denoted by Maya Angelou in the poem: Caged Bird.

    Sam, every week, in the print and electronic media, excoriates the pitfalls of government at all levels, which has manacled the potentials of Nigerians, in ways not different from that of the caged bird. His weekly offering on Mondays in this paper, titled: In Touch, is arguably the best written weekly prose in any newspaper in Nigeria. Scented with poetic dilations, Sam Omatseye, uses literary, historical and didactic anecdotes to corral the power elites to free Nigerians from the fetters of bad governance.

    Of course, he proffers better ways, to make Nigerians the free birds, where the country to be a truly democratically governed country. As Maya Angelou wrote: The free bird leaps/on the back of the wind/and flouts downstream/till the current ends/and dips his wings/in the orange sun rays/and dares to claim the sky. Should those in power rule with democratic fervent, Nigerians can with ease claim the African sky and contend with Europe and America for the world sky.

    But nay, what we have is a stale president who misguidedly believes that he can force the states to create what he calls a grazing route, instead of modern ranches. A president who naively believes that because he has temporal executive powers he can decree that his kinsmen who own the roving cattle are the freeborn, while the rest are slaves. A president who would use his office to grant the wishes of the minority, which offends the laws of the land, against the majority, constitutional democracy be damned.

    Of course, because of his actions, there are significant numbers of Nigerians, who believe the president sees the rest of Nigerians as slaves, like the caged birds. Again Maya captures the mood of those manacled by the poor governance. She wrote: But a bird that stalks/down his narrow cage/can seldom see through/his bars of rage/his wings are clipped and/his feet are tied/so he opens his throat to sing.

    Not long ago, the youths of Nigeria sang @ #EndSARS and the consequences were catastrophic for the caged bird and the free bird. With the experience of that unfortunate outcome, the federal authorities are no longer amenable to even allow the bird to openly sing the song of disillusionment and despair. Those who tried to sing at the June 12 remembrance met canisters of teargas and staccato of bullets.

    The third stanza of the poem reminiscences how the caged sings/ with fearful trill/ of the things unknown/ but longed for still/and his tune is heard/ on the distant hill/ for the caged bird/sings of freedom. This part captures the faith of the Nigerian youths whose potentials have been mismanaged. Who shine in other less endowed countries, and who would wish that their country could unleash her potentials so that they can be free.

    The fifth stanza further portrays the tragedy of our dear country, whose citizens are buried with their dreams, because their wings are clipped and their feet tied. Maya wrote: But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams/his shadows shouts on a nightmare scream/his wings are clipped and his feet are tied/so he opens his throat to sing. There is no doubt that Sam Omatseye has dedicated his life to push for Nigerians to actualise their dreams.

    Indeed from accounts, Sam has remained a frontline activist since he graduated from the university. He tumbled with the civil rights movement during the feisty days of the military. From his overseas redoubt, he remained in touch with nation’s socio-economic throes, firing his salvo against oppression and bad governance. Since his return, he has not taken his foot off the throttle for a better Nigeria.

    He has authored several works, including his famous: My name is Okoro, set in the period of the Nigeria civil war. To write that work of faction, Sam researched on the war, read and heard variegated stories, and is actually a better commentator than President Buhari who boasts about his one-sided civil war account. Sam also has collections of poetry, Mandela’s Bones and Other Poems and Lion Wind and Other Poems, and of course Dear Baby Ramatu. He is also a playwright.

    His first novel The Crocodile Girl: “digs deep into a society in the throes of hatred and injustice.” While his second: My name is Okoro, is history emblematised in fiction. An ardent follower of the Nobel awards, this writer predicts that Sam could be the next Nigerian Nobel Prize winner in Literature. Happy birthday, my chairman.

  • IBB and the ghost of June 12

    IBB and the ghost of June 12

    By Olatunji Dare

    What were former military president Ibrahim Babangida’s thought and preoccupations as the events memorializing June 12, 1993, the day of promise he turned into a nightmare, unfolded?

    Remorse? Contrition? Vindication?  Fulfillment?  Triumph?  All of the above?

    We may never know until he releases his much-postponed memoirs.

    Why, in any case, did Babangida annul the 1993 Presidential election, the anniversary of which was marked last week under the rubric of Democracy Day?

    Twenty-eight years later, he has not been able to give a coherent answer.  Rather, he has been fudging and dissembling as is his wont.  He has said, among other things, that he annulled the election as a favour to Abiola, because Abiola would have been overthrown and probably killed if Abiola was allowed to take office.

    Colonel (as he then was) David B. Mark, is on the public record as having stated that he would personally shoot – and presumably kill — Abiola if Abiola was installed president.

    The closest Babangida ever came to laying out his regime’s case for the annulment was his            June 23, 1993 broadcast.  But as I will try to show presently, the case falls apart under the most cursory of readings.

    Those, it is necessary to recall, were desperate days in Abuja – days of wild improvisation and frenzied experimentation.  The scheduling of the broadcast reflected that much.

    It was to be made at midday, according to an official statement.  It did not take place.  It was rescheduled for an hour later.  Still, no broadcast.  The broadcast would now take place at 7 p.m, they said.  That hour came and passed, without the broadcast.

    It took place, finally, two hours later, at 9 pm.

    It was a sprawling, laboured speech, some 2,700 words long.

    The first part was an exercise in self-glorification.  Babangida said that the policies and programmes he had pursued -SAP, for example? — were sound “in understanding, conception, formulation and articulation,” and “comparatively unassailable,” and that history would certainly score the administration high in its governance of Nigeria.

    Twenty-eight years later, the widely-held verdict is that Babangida is the prime architect of the nation’s current woes.

    So much for the testimonial he issued himself.   The concern here is with the rest of the speech, in which Babangida laid out his reason for annulling the election.

    In implementing its reform programmes, he said, the regime had to contend with social forces that had in the past impeded national growth and development, as well as new social forces that the programmes spawned. To resolve matters, he said, the regime was constrained to tamper with the rules governing the transition.

    Here, one positively must interject: Whatever happened to the “in-built” corrective mechanism that the regime and its palace intellectuals had forever advertised as a unique feature of the transition design?

    To return to the speech:  Tampering with the rules out of sheer necessity unwittingly attracted “enormous public suspicions” of the regime’s intentions and policies.” Translation:  The attentive public came to the conclusion that Babangida was nursing a secret agenda, the object being to perpetuate himself in office and in power.

    The transition programme, Babangida continued, was about building a lasting foundation for democracy.  But “lasting democracy,” is not a temporary show of excitement and manipulation by an over-articulate section of the elite of the whole nation and the political process; lasting democracy is a permanent diet to nurture the soul of the whole nation and the political process.”

    A further interjection, the last.  Democracy as “soul food?” As “stomach infrastructure,” in other words?  Shades of Ayo Fayose.

    The June 12 election, like the presidential primaries that were cancelled the previous year, Babangida said, did not meet the basic requirements of democracy:  free and fair elections, un-coerced expression of voters’ preference, respect for the electorate as final arbiter in elections, decorum and fairness on the part of electoral umpires, and absolute respect for the rule of law.

    But because the administration was determined to keep faith with the deadline of 27th August, 1993 for the return to civil rule, it overlooked the reported breaches. The breaches continued into the June 12, 1993 on an even greater scale, but Humphrey Nwosu’s National Electoral Commission went ahead and cleared the candidates.

    There was also a conflict of interest between the government and both presidential candidates that would have compromised their positions and responsibilities were they to become president.

    The courts had been intimidated and had been subjected to “the manipulation of the political process by vested interests, to the point that the entire political system was endangered.  Under these circumstances, the National Defence and Security Council (NDSC) decided to annul the election in the supreme interest of law and order, political stability and peace.” (emphasis added,)

    Resting his case, Babangida declared: “To continue action on the basis of the June 12, 1993 election, and to proclaim and swear in a president who encouraged a campaign of divide-and-rule among our ethnic groups would have been detrimental to the survival of the Third Republic.” (my emphasis.)

    Despite all the fudging, it is beyond dispute that the NDSC approved holding the election. Babangida admitted that much in the broadcast, perhaps unwittingly. In any case, the NDSC in whose name he claimed to have acted was for all practical purposes a phantom of his own making, whose authority he invoked whenever it suited him.

    It was Babangida’s proxy, Arthur Nzeribe and his so-called Association for a Better Nigeria that, to use Babangida’s words, “intimidated and manipulated” the courts.  In that subversive undertaking, they were aided and sheltered by the regime’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Clement Akpamgbo, and Babangida’s retinue of shysters and forensic cardsharpers.

    The alleged breaches of the electoral laws that vitiated the election, as Babangida claims, furnished an opportunity to disqualify and prosecute the perpetrators and clean up the process.  Why did he put up with them for so long?

    The public was well primed to vote on June 12.  That date had been seared into its consciousness.  It was Babangida’s regime, not NEC, that created a climate of uncertainty around it.  Even so, 15 million Nigerians came out to vote.

    To invoke the “rule of law” to justify the annulment as Babangida did, was to stand that concept on its head.  How can a regime that promulgated retroactive laws and routinely ousted the courts of jurisdiction claim adherence to the rule of law with a straight face?

    Who among the candidates, by the way, encouraged “a campaign of divide-and-rule” among Nigeria’s ethnic groups, as Babangida claimed?   A candidate for national office employing such tactics would have known that he was committing electoral suicide.  The public would have rejected him emphatically.

    The resident court never missed an opportunity to tell the public that Babangida’s “place in history” was assured.  They pontificated that Nigeria’s history would be divided into two epochs:  the pre-IBB Era when all was dark and void and formless, and the IBB Era, when light and progress supervened and reigned.

    Recognising at last that his case for the annulment was always threadbare at best, and seeing June 12’s salience wax year after year even as whatever was left of his reputation waned,  Babangida changed tack.

    Now, he has been saying that he presided over the freest and fairest election ever held in Nigeria, and should be accorded the fullest credit for that distinction.

    This schizophrenic claim does not square with his sweeping rejection, nay demonisation, of the June 12 election.  Men -and women – in public life rarely set out to quarrel with and reject their own signal achievements so viscerally.

    The legal titan Professor Ben Nwabueze, who served as Secretary for Education in Babangida’s ineffectual Transitional Council while doubling as a strategist in the evisceration of the June 12 election that was supposed to be the culmination of the transition provides an important clue to Babangida’s disposition at that critical time.

    “His behavior in the last days of his regime, “Nwabueze wrote in the inelegantly titled June 12, 1993 Election:  Problems and Solutions, “left a rather strong impression of a man forced to quit against his will, of one un-reconciled to quitting in the last days of his rule and in the face of defeat, he cut a figure of someone unwilling to reconcile himself with composure to the adverse torrent of events, of an angry and bitterly disappointed man.”

    More tellingly, Nwabueze wrote of Babangida, “His mind, his motions and his actions seemed to have become somewhat disoriented, and no longer governed by disinterested, patriotic considerations. . .”

    It remains to add that Babangida has lived to see the day he sought to eviscerate with manic desperation become a national symbol, a point of reference and a goal of our collective aspiration, holed up in the opulent sterility of his Minna Hilltop Mansion, grateful for the occasional visitor, an object lesson in the delusions of power.