The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tuesday

  • Minister and looters

    Minister and looters

    Gabriel Amalu

     

    Those who are in police custody across the country for their involvement in the rioting and looting that followed the mindless shooting of genuine protesters at the Lekki toll gate, may be concerned that the Minister of Power, Alhaji Mamman Saleh, is also not in custody, despite his alleged attempt to divert 20 rural electrification projects, to his local government, through the proposed 2021 Rural Electrification Agency’s budget.

    I haphazard an answer. First, is that Mamman Saleh is a ‘big man’ and a minister for that matter, and perhaps one of the favoured sons of President Muhammadu Buhari, and as such is immune from the long hands of the security agencies. Second, is that he could say, he merely attempted to do so, without violence. Luckily for other rural local governments, the Senate Committee on Power and Rural Electrification has vowed to stop his unconscionable attempt to site 20 projects in Lau Local Government Area of Taraba State, where he hails from.

    According to the senate committee, while Mamman Saleh sought to locate 20 projects in his local council, only one of such projects is sited in the entire south-south part of the country. To show how reckless and mindless Saleh’s attempt was, even Senator Yusuf Yusuf, from the same state, representing Taraba Central Senatorial District, strongly kicked against the unconscionable budget proposal.

    As reported, Yusuf urged his colleagues to look closely at the proposed budget. He said: “It is not just the N52 million, but if you look at from number 85, N30m, N20m, N40m and they are all concentrated in one Local Government Area.” He went on: “That is the minister’s LGA. Twenty projects are in the Lau Local Government Area. I am not challenging him, but I am sure”. Another member of the committee, Senator Bala Ibn’Nallah accused the minister of violating his oath of office.

    In this season of looting, there are looters and there are looters. Apologies to decent people from Taraba State, but it appears as if looters from that state have big hearts. I think it is in Taraba that we saw looters carting away tractors, in the full public glare. Some pushing, some driving the tractors. In fairness, Taraba is not alone, as we saw looters, in some other states who came to the government warehouses with vehicles and motor cycles to loot.

    How on earth, someone can hope to loot a tractor, and safely keep it, beats my imagination. In the same vein, how the Minister for Power, can hope to site 20 rural electrification projects in his local government, when many other local governments have nothing, from a so-called national budget, beats my imagination the more. After all, the minister is supposedly educated and urbane, unlike the looters who are uncouth, high on drugs or other similar vice, as we believe.

    Perhaps, we overrate our public officials when we hold them higher in character than the street urchins and ragamuffins, who tried to make a fool of the democratic culture of street protest, the penultimate week. Indeed, it is possible that what Mamman Saleh did, is what passes off as public service in many sectors. Could it be that self-aggrandizement and clannish interests, is what is pervading the public service, so much so that our country has bread an army of hooligans who are ready to end the life of the country in retaliation?

    The opportunity to preside over the Ministry of Power, and thereby determine who gets what, which Mamman Saleh had, and grossly abused, is perhaps a mirror of the challenge we face in that sector of our nation’s life. This column has canvased that there should be a decentralisation of the power sector, down to states, local governments and estates. If the Ministry of Power wishes to intervene in rural electrification projects, it should use states and local governments, instead of creating its own bureaucracy.

    As we have seen in the case of Mamman Saleh, it could be his decision that instead of wasting scarce resources going across the country to figure out a fair deal, in accordance with the constitution, he choose to site the majority of the projects in his local government, damn his oath of office. It is possible that the honourable has never bothered to read the country’s economic objectives as provided in section 16 of the 1999 constitution (as amended).

    The minister should know that section 16(1)(b) provides: “The state shall within the context of the ideals and objectives for which the provisions are made in this: control the national economy in such manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and equality of status and opportunity.” It provided further in sub-section 2(c) “The state shall direct its policy towards ensuring – that the economic system is not operated in such manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group.”

    Perhaps the minister needs to revisit his oath of office, which is contained in the seventh schedule to the constitution. A part of which read: “… that I will strive to preserve the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy contained in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, that I will not allow my personal interest to influence my official conduct or my official decisions… so help me God.”

    Without equivocation, the Minister of Power has clearly abused his oath of office, and has shown himself not different from those who have laid our country waste in the recent past. Since he would not resign having been caught red handed, and since his principal would not do anything about his conduct, the senate should diligently ensure that the unconscionable act is nipped in the board. The senate and the House of Representatives should stand guard against similar looting under the guise of national budget.

    The venomous alacrity with which families joined street urchins and vagabonds to loot both essential and non-essential commodities, from government and fellow citizens alike, show the decadent level of our society. Perhaps, a sociological study should be commissioned, to know whether what happened represent the perception of the citizens of what the public officials do in the name of public service.

    Even with the #EndSARS crisis contained, it will be playing the ostrich to think that the anger and discontentment that bred, perhaps the worst socio-economic rioting in the history of Nigeria has gone with the winds. The economic desperation and the moral decadence exhibited the penultimate week should worry our public officials, if they have the interest of our country at heart.

  • Cry, my beloved Lagos

    Cry, my beloved Lagos

    Olakunle Abimbola

     

    I love dis Lagos, I no go lie

    Na inside am I go live and die,

    I know my city, I no go lie

    E fit in nation like coat and tie

    When Lagos belch, the nation swell

    When the nation shit, na Lagos dey smell.

    The river wey flow for Makurdi market

    You go find in deposit for Lagos bucket.

    – Wole Soyinka, The Beatification of Area Boy (1995)

     

    The above lyrics preceded 1995, when the Wole Soyinka play, The Beatification of Area Boy, was first published.

    Indeed, change “l love dis Lagos” to “I love my kontri”, and you have the revolutionary musical album, Unlimited Liability Company (ULC), that WS released, in concert with Tunji Oyelana’s The Benders, at the height of 1983’s fiddled general polls.

    When the dust cleared, and the hurly-burly was done, and the political battle was lost and lost (to parody Shakespeare’s Macbeth), the 2nd Republic (1 October 1979 – 31 December 1983) lay in ruins.

    Even then, “Lagos” for “my kontri”, made this 1995 version a classic of art predicting — nay, prophesying — life.

    As it were, it most eerily predicted the Lagos 2020 #EndSARS protests, which tragically miscarried, leaving Lagos, and other parts of the country, a scorched car-case still in shock — though the play was published 25 years before!

    Indeed bathetic lines like “When Lagos belch, the nations swell/When the nation shit, na Lagos dey smell”, presaged, in sheer gory and poetic technicolor, how in the #EndSARS violence, Lagos rocked Nigeria, as Nigeria rocked Lagos.

    You want a common human denominator, in all of this poetic madness-turned-living tragedy?  Look no farther than Muhammadu Buhari, president of the Federal Republic!

    ULC (1983) cleared the way for Buhari’s first coming.  Its 1995 cousin presaged the Lagos 2020 fiasco, that rammed rather darkly — at least the regnant order cried, at the alleged hijack of the #EndSARS protests by nefarious lobbies — at rogue regime change, which would have echoed 1983!

    Talk of how things change, yet remain the same!  Still, that unprecedented, post-Lagos curfew anomie from October 21, would haunt Lagos for a long, long time.

    Arsonists, like the Vandals at the gates of Rome, at the 455 AD sack of Rome, freely roamed!   Would Lagos ever be the same again?  Cry, my beloved Lagos!

    This Rome-Vandal parallel is apt.  Evil characters torched Lagos, wilfully blind to strides it had made since 1999 — strides that made it an easy national reference, in democratic-era growth and development.

    That evil lobby was also blind, deaf and dumb, to monuments that epitomize the glorious evolution of Lagos; and savaged its alluring landmarks, rooted in history, that make Lagos tick, sparkle and dazzle.

    Nowhere did the Lagos transportation past, signpost an alluring future, than the rows of sparkling Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) buses that malicious souls, goaded by evil masterminds torched, at Oyingbo; and at Berger, on the Lagos end of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.

    Oyingbo and Yaba (old Lagos mainland) and Race Course (Lagos island) were old public transportation hubs, which BRT tries to recreate and replicate.

    So, the vandal generation that set ablaze those crucial facilities never knew of the Lagos of Zarpas: golden-colour buses bearing the penny-coin emblem; the flaming red buses of the Lagos Municipal Transport Service (LMTS); later, the Lagos City Transport Service (LCTS); much later, the Lagos State Transport Corporation (LSTC); or even of their latter-day private sector competition, of Benson and Osinowo, et al, transport services, of sundry colours!

    Those were saner days of organized, comfortable shuttles, complete with ticketing conductors; and checkers that conked cheats, ogling comfy rides without pay, before the chaos and bedlam and torture of the rash of Danfo and sundry yellow buses.

    That is the proud culture BRT is trying to bring back, to hustling and bustling Lagos, since its 1999 dawn under the Bola Tinubu governorship, though BRT buses never hit the streets, till Babatunde Fashola’s first term.

    But see the manic invasion of BRT tracks (witness: the okada-yellow buses jumble-and-tumble on the new Oshodi-Abule Egba track), these few days past!  Only the Danfo generation can torch BRT buses, and feel hip about it all.  Vandals!

    Still, back to the “cradle”, the old Lagos and federal capital!  From Campos Square to Stratchan Street, that long stretch on the long, long Igbosere Road, lies a sacred belt of government power and authority — that sweep housing rich monuments of Lagos and Federal Government history.

    To your right, as you approach Campos Square from CMS/Odunlami, was the former Ajele Cemetery (Bishop Ajayi Crowther’s resting place until his remains were relocated circa 1969), now converted to a community mini-stadium and other public facilities.

    Further up road is an impressive stretch, that defined the Lagos landscape, at the apex of its glory and prestige, as federal capital:

    The Holy Cross Catholic Primary School, aka ”Holy Werepe” to indulgent kids in the hood, on account of the school’s crowing and daring tough boys.

    The famous (Lagos) City Hall, Nigeria’s oldest local council secretariat, established in 1900.  Locals gawked at its marbled majesty, when its present form was delivered, circa 1969.  After a blaze, Governor Fashola restored it to its old glory — and more.

    King’s (Founded 1909) College, is Nigeria’s first elite public school for boys, after England’s Eton College. But not even KC’s revolutionary history could save it from vandals — KC, whose “boys” turned against their colonial minders, to form the Lagos Youth Movement (LYM), to give Nigeria’s independence struggle a radical push!

    The federal courts complex, comprising the old Supreme Court (now Court of Appeal, Lagos Division) and the premier High Court.  In one of these iconic courtrooms, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was, in 1962/1963, tried for treasonable felony.

    The famous Ministry of Works, perhaps the most popular in the Lagos Race Course old federal secretariat sprawl, headquartered at the 25-storey Independence Building — but now regrettably a shell, since after a tragic military-era fire.

    Of course, the no less famous “federal Surveys”, after “Works”.  Then, the Lagos Magistrate’s Court complex, which concludes the extensive landmark.  Since 1999, that facility has beamed with modern court houses, and fitting jurists’ work gadgets.

    Now, which Lagos true-born, or true-bred, would dare think arson, talk less of setting fire to these monuments?  Yet, no less than three of them — City Hall, King’s College and the premier High Court — were set ablaze!  Vandals at the gates of Rome!

    The Lagos government must probe the arson, nab the masterminds, and get them their stiff comeuppance.  But it should also chart a new radical path, in tackling urban poverty.

    Anything short, of this twin-strategy, would in WS-speak, beatify the area boys of chaos and crisis.  That won’t augur well for the safety and security of the emerging Lagos assets, to become future monuments.

  • Anarchy and its aftermath

    Anarchy and its aftermath

    By Sanya Oni

    These must be such seasons when words conveniently loose their meanings. In the course of rummaging through tomes of materials sent to this newspaper for publication in its Op-Ed pages, the word – massacre – was noticeably, freely bandied in the bid to describe the terrible events of last Tuesday. Thanks to the social media and its new-found power of subversion, it is hard to know what to believe in the situation where a group would stream live the obituary of an activist only for the subject in question resurrect in another social media platform!

    And so like the search for a lone needle in a pile of hay, not only has the quest for the truth increasingly proving hazardous, the word seems to have lost its meaning, buried in the toxic mass being daily spewed by the grandmasters in the cyber-sphere.

    And so here we are – exactly a week after, still quibbling about whether to count the number of the dead in Lekki on October 20 in scores or in the dozen as if such would either lessen the pain of bereavement or mitigate the gravity of the crime.

    Now, with anarchy since loosed upon the land, it’s probably superfluous at this time to begin with hard questions as to what happened that fateful night. Which is a pity really considering that the event of the night actually marked the turning point in the long-drawn but largely peaceful protest?

    So how many died? Eight, 15 or 78? Better still, who ordered the fire to be opened on a group of unarmed protesters? Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has spoken loud and clear: he neither had the authority to deploy the army nor did he at any point set them loose on the protesters. No one appears to believe him. Not even his strident denial that the state government ordered the removal of the security cameras at the toll gate. In any case, he was quick to remind that his office as governor conferred no such authority to deploy any troops.

    In a society driven more by emotions by reason, it’s probably a tough call to expect anyone to believe a governor who has shown admirable leadership in the face of an unprecedented crisis. The same of course could be said of attempt to understand the circumstances under which the dark forces came to be unleashed on the innocent protesters. Guess it’s convenient to live in denial that some rogue elements in the security establishment may have played some part.  Trust Nigerians to dispense with the niceties of rigour at a time like this – that painstaking attention needed to connect those tiny dots needed to unravel the mystery – one half may have appear to have long made up their minds before the facts come tumbling in; half of the other half are probably still out there looking for the facts to fit into their theories of what could have happened. As for the rest, they can only gawk in horror at the fast-unfolding post-truth world of alternative facts!

    We must of course keep this in mind: nothing in the dust being stoked could be said to mitigate the tragedy of the current time. We are talking of lives brutally terminated in circumstances that were clearly avoidable. Of the lives of young, idealistic Nigerians needlessly wasted for the only crime of daring to protest against police brutality.

    Having said that, there is yet another layer of tragedy that must be seen as no less disturbing: the crass exploitation of the unfolding crisis by those who apparently have different agendas in view or have some axes to grind. In this, only the extremely naïve would fail to observe a certain pattern in the wave of destruction that has taken place across Lagos. Here, I am not talking of the scenes of giant warehouses being flung open by the hordes of rioters being presented as another reason for the mob to hate the so-called leaders. I do understand why the best of arguments would not suffice to assuage the anger of those who see the lock up of those critical supplies as another evidence of our officials’ greed and callousness. And while one needs no tutorials in basic sociology to appreciate that the rampaging army now variously descried as hoodlums and thugs are the very by-products of our iniquitous socio-economic system, I do have some worries about the complete breakdown of the national security apparatus at such a time like this. But then, that is for another time and season.

    For now, my little worry is the pattern of destruction witnessed in Lagos in the past week.  From the palace of the Oba of Lagos – the monument of traditional authority – to the courts, the very symbol of the justice system; to the rioters, nothing was considered sacrilege. Not even the multi-billion naira forensic laboratory said to be the best in the West African sub region, the brand new BRT buses – the new face of public transportation in Lagos was spared. So also were media houses like TVC, The Nation newspapers and Lagos Television. Talk of a careful method to a contrived madness!

    And the target? One lone individual adjudged as in the Biblical Prophet Elijah as the Troubler of Israel!

    You want to know what I think. I do not need to be a conspiracy theorist to sniff the work of fifth columnists in last week’s tragedy; the early evening raid on the protesters says a lot; nor could one pretend to be blind to the macabre political dance already playing out in the build up to the 2023 elections. Now, that is a story for another day. As for the effusive indignation of the self-proclaimed Atona Yoruba, you can put it to local grudge, the destructive force of hate – the sort that perennial losers indulge when their opponents are beyond their reach.

    For now, let’s join the hard working Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to mourn the despoliation of our dear Lagos. Afterwards, we can then loudly proclaim – there’s no killing the Lagos Spirit!

  • Mayhem and after

    Mayhem and after

    Olatunji Dare

     

    The week before last was one of those rare moments in a columnist’s life when a topic literally lands on the computer screen, demanding elaboration, elucidation, contextualization, analysis, and all the other processes through which the editorialist is supposed to subject the news of the day so as to make it intelligible.

    Tens of thousands of young men and women in many Nigerian towns had set out to protest, not on account of the usual bread-and-butter issues, but against the police Special Anti-Robbery Squad, which they accused of brutality, extortion, and extra-judicial killings.  Even so, with a high- mindedness rare in these parts on such occasions, they demanded better pay and conditions for the object of their protests.

    This development was going to be subject of my submission for this column last week, provisionally titled “O to gee goes digital.” The whole thing struck me as the digital equivalent of the movement that culminated in breaking the hegemonic hold of the Saraki family on Kwara politics.  But I could not finish the piece to my satisfaction before my deadline, which was just as well. For it would have seemed stale by the time it was published.

    The protest was remarkable in several ways.  It had no identified leadership.  So, you could not, it was said, co-opt, bribe, suborn or otherwise compromise it.  Nor could you, in confronting it, follow the old boxing maxim:  Kill the head, and the body will die.  The closest thing to a brick-and-mortar facility you could garrison was perhaps the tollgate on the Lekki Expressway.

    If you disrupted their communication, they simply shifted to another location in ethereal space.  The country has gone past the time when Sani Abacha’s terror squad was paying out good money to all manner of diviners to help find the locale from which Radio Kudirat was broadcasting to opposition elements.

    With each passing day, the crowds grew larger and larger, and new crowds sprang up in other cities across the nation.  Eschewing violence, they presented their grievances with eloquence before a largely sympathetic public.  Expecting no quick results, they had come prepared to dig in, to “occupy” some strategic locations until their goals were met.

    To everyone’s surprise, the Federal Government acceded to their requests and it was expected that the protesters would disperse just as peaceably as they had conducted themselves.  They expanded their list of demands.  A stalemate was brewing.

    But everything about the protests, from motive to execution, pointed to a higher level of social consciousness and maturity. Their vision was inspiring, and their conduct drew high praise, even from the authorities.

    Here, before our eyes, the beautiful ones were being born, if I may riff on the title of Ghanaian novelist Ayi Kwei Armah’s great novel.  Fed up with the fecklessness of the older generation, they were taking matters into their own hands to arrest the drift and chart a future rich in promise and possibilities.

    That dream was shattered last Friday night when gunshots rang out at the Lekki tollgate, lights turned off, during a misbegotten curfew. By the time the guns fell silent, an unspecified number of persons were believed to have died. The shooting set off an orgy of violence, arson and looting that went on for two full days.  By the time it was over, Lagos had been reduced to a vast theatre of carnage, and a traumatised public was almost yearning earnestly for SARS.

    It was as if the city had been specially marked for destruction.  Its fragile infrastructure lay in ruins. The city’s rapid transit buses, court houses, local council offices, City Hall, and many other state assets were put to the torch and pillaged.  So were shopping malls, hotels, banks, and two of the leading media outlets.  So also were assets identified with some eminent persons of Lagos descent.

    One of the questions that will have to be thoroughly investigated is how a protest against a unit of the police under the control of the Federal Government resulted in such colossal damage to the infrastructure, the economy, the wellbeing and the prospects of Lagos residents.  Was this happenstance or calculation?

    How did a protest against police brutality and extortion morph into an invasion of the palace of the Oba of Lagos and the looting and trashing of its irreplaceable artifacts and archives?  This has to be an act of premeditated cultural violence, an attempt to erase the history of the institution and wound the pride and self-esteem of the people.

    It is hard to believe those who had carried out their protests peaceable and civilly for more than a week were also responsible for such barbarous conduct.  Their ranks, as many had feared even as they praised their conduct, had been infiltrated by criminal elements, and by persons whose agenda has nothing in common with that of the protesters.

    And, irony of ironies, the acephalous character that had been advertised as the movement’s major strength became in the end a liability. When violence erupted, there was no one to issue directions, to urge restraint or even to provide basic information on what was going on and on the next move.

    The actual number of persons killed may never be known, nor their names and the circumstances of their death.  Eyewitness accounts and ballistic evidence point strongly to persons dressed in Nigeria Army uniforms as the shooters. If that is confirmed, who dispatched them on that murderous mission?

    #EndSARS, it is plain, is but a summation of the malaise in which Nigeria has been mired, a condition from which, on present evidence, it seems the nation’s leaders are incapable of extricating it, despite its almost prodigal endowment in human and material resources.  Its roots lie far deeper than mere rejection of police brutality

    As a rule we hardly keep records.  But those that we do keep are far from reliable. Few will contest that at least 30 per cent of those graduating from our universities, polytechnics and institutions of further learning over the past five years are unemployed or underemployed.  The vast majority are for the most part eking out a precarious existence.

    Opportunities for actualising the dreams that had led them to seek higher education and further training are few and far between.  And their ranks swell with each passing day.

    Trained teachers who should be teaching in understaffed schools or engaged in running adult and non-formal education schemes roam the streets, unable to find work.  Those who have jobs are not paid for months on end, or are paid only a fraction of their statutory emolument.  The same is true of other professionals and members of occupational groups.

    Protesters see their parents who had given the best years of their lives to serving the public pine away on long, winding lines and often at the mercy of the elements, collapse from sheer fatigue  and sometimes even drop dead waiting for their meagre pensions.

    All this is happening in a country where elected officials, to cite only a few of their perks, receive raft of special allowances every month for their wardrobe, newspapers, entertainment, and “hardship” – yes, the unspeakable hardship of lawmaking.  Each of these allowances is several times bigger than the national minimum wage.

    At N60,000 a month, a Senator’s “wardrobe allowance” is twice the national minimum wage, which some employers, taking a cue from state governments , say they cannot pay.  The senator’s “furniture allowance’ for a four-year term is more than 80 times the minimum wage earner’s cumulative pay over the same period.

    The protesters see monumental waste in every corner; they see serious fraud and misconduct go unpunished, if not actually rewarded; they see public officers flaunting their illicit wealth and the totems thereof without fear of the tax man or the magistrate, and without qualms.  It is as if they  are taunting the public, daring it to do its worst.

    These are just some of the festering issues that exploded into anarchic violence on the streets of Lagos last week.  For now, the streets are quiet. The protesters have left to mourn their dead, tend their wounds, savour their loot, and contemplate their unending woes.

    They will be back, bigger, better organised, more resourceful and more resolute, unless the issues of which #EndSARS is but a rubric are addressed forthrightly.

  • Healing Nigeria

    Healing Nigeria

    Gabriel Amalu

     

    TWhen this column advised the government not to unleash the military on #EndSARS protesters, we did not envisage that any intransigence would lay our country prostrate within days. We were concerned about our fledgling democracy, considering that should the obdurate organized protesters be confronted by a military on a war footing, the consequences may be too dire for our nascent democracy. Unfortunately, a sudden dumb attack on the organized and decent protesters has birthed an army of the decadent protesters.

    While the Lekki protesters were gyrating to music and patriotically waiving the national flag, the decadent protesters who have taken over are hell bent on bringing our country to its knees. With arson, banditry and stealing as their ethos, this group foolishly think that by burning public buildings and private property, burglary and stealing, maiming and killing fellow citizens, they are hurting those who have laid the country waste by their corrupt practices. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in giving the protest a bad name, which is a reason to end it.

    Amongst the army of the decadent protesters are drug addicts, scallywags, political thugs, the economically humiliated, the chronically unemployed, criminals, marauders and the politically displaced. For the politically tainted, criminals and marauders, their armour is to burn down everything of value, while for the economically humiliated, theirs is to gleefully steal on camera. Damn visual evidence, and morality, they mobilise their households to a burglary expedition, good name be damned.

    The events of the past week, has really brought out the worse in us. For some of the politically tainted decadent protesters, it is an opportunity to either effect a regime change or alternatively balkanize the country. So, the most depraved amongst them are tweaking the tales to infuse the twin national fault lines of ethnicity and religion to further blur the achievements of the decent protesters. They care not about the innocent lives that would be lost

    Lagos, where the decent protesters made protest elegant, beautiful and alluring, has been so devastated by the criminality of the decadent protesters. Like a group of maniacs, the decadent protesters went about town burning government and private property, as if the ashes could be used to heal their depravations. In a most depressing manner they poured scum on the nobility of protest as a democratic weapon.

    But enough of angst against the decadent protesters, whose counterparts in government are pretending to be hard of hearing and dim sighted. Against common sense, members of the legislative assemblies and the executive councils are yet to wake up to the warning from the #EndSARS protests, despite the dire consequences of ignoring it. They should know that while police brutality was the trigger, the angst against the governments is much deeper rooted, and they ought to be proactive in dealing with it.

    Unfortunately, while the decadent protesters are openly destroying our country, the decadent public officials are hideously doing the same. President Muhammadu Buhari, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the chief executive of the federal republic, whose legacy as president is at stake, must wake up from his lethargy over the issues troubling our country and lead the charge to heal our nation.

    Substantially, the anger out there is trained against the style of Mr President, and persons perceived as his die-hard supporters. The prime individual target of the arsonists, in Lagos, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Jagaban Borgu, is a victim, mainly because he is viewed as the person who helped the president to get to power. Of course, while that is not a justification for the debauchery of the decadent protesters, it is a signal to the president to re-examine his style of governance.

    The chief failure of the president, is his disposition to tribalism and nepotism. For reasons best known to the president, he has perjured the provisions of section 14(3) of the 1999 constitution (as amended), which provides that: “The composition of the government of the federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such manner as to reflect federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or in any of its agencies.”

    While his minders are quick to abuse those who point out this illegality, and make bogus reference to dubious statistics to justify the unconstitutional conduct, we have no doubt that many of them ran under the bed when the fire came. So, the president must save his legacy by consciously changing his ways, to reflect the diversity of our country in his appointments. Many of the anger out there is because many see the president as a sectional leader.

    The second issue the president should address is the over centralisation of economic and political power at the centre. By publicly declaring and taking steps to diffuse some power from the centre to the states, the president would instantly turn to a hero. Whether in the northern part of the country, or the southern part, most states are economically unviable and that is impacting negatively on governance.

    The members of the National Assembly who receive unlawful emoluments, referred to as #EndotherSARS, should return to constitutional behaviour. They should quickly obey the provision of section 32(d) of the Third Schedule, Part 1, of the 1999 constitution, which gives the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission the authority to determine their remuneration.

    Some of the aggrieved view the members of NASS as lawbreakers, and the anger against them, is because of their huge salaries and other emoluments. Again, this column joins other voices of reason to ask the NASS to come to their senses and mend their ways. With regards to some states, the angst may be a reflection of how the powers that be in the states are perceived. Of course, there are also cases of the politically displaced who see the crisis as an opportunity to regain some ground to achieve private agenda.

    Again while that is not an excuse to commit arson, the chief executives and the state legislators must realise that they cannot be living in opulence while the masses wallow in abject poverty. To compound their challenge, governors who answer chief security officers, have no command control of a single police officer. To heal Nigeria, those in power must restore credibility to public service otherwise the decadent protesters may burn down our country.

    This column urges the legislators and the executives at all levels to treat the ongoing crisis as a national emergency, to save our hard-earned democracy.

  • Rage

    Rage

    Olakunle Abimbola

     

     

    Rage, from a psychologist’s — or even commonsense perspective — is always double jeopardy.

    On one hand, you take the most reckless of actions.  On the other, your brain is crippled, to its lowest capacity.  It’s merry tragedy foretold.

    That about captures the #EndSARS protests gone awry.

    Still, some quick, swift opening salvoes.

    First, the tragic endgame: nothing can justify or rationalize the shootings at the Lekki, Lagos toll gate — absolutely nothing!  So, the army officers allegedly involved should be identified and brought to book.

    By the same token, nothing can justify the orgy of brazen social media lies.  Suddenly, a “Lekki massacre” became a “raid”, because body bags can’t match the massacre claims!

    That singular lack of integrity is the most spectacular blot on the #EndSARS protests.

    Much more: those phony Lekki deaths fuelled raw passions that sent many others to avoidable graves, not to talk of hewn limbs, in other parts of Lagos, in post-curfew youth-security agency clashes.

    Enter, the double-edged sword of social media: a potent tool of mass mobilization; yet a grim weapon of mass destruction!  Whoever plays, in which lane, should get their desert!

    Like the trigger-happy Lekki soldiers, therefore, those that sent out those fatal lies, from their social media accounts, should be traced, arrested, tried and punished.

    Actions have consequences, particularly wilful lies that lead to the death and maiming of others.

    Even then, the rogue operatives, of the disbanded Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS), had it coming; so did the government itself, that tolerated their brazen abuse, of youths’ rights, for far too long.

    So, the #EndSARS protests were as much a fiery street referendum on police brutality, as they were on the government’s condemnable fudging on it.  Therefore, the protests received near-universal support, as lawful, legitimate, reasonable and commendable.

    Still, the government was wise to have quickly acquiesced to the #EndSARS demands; and announced steps to implement them — an acceptance of FSARS guilt?

    That would have been a glorious climax, had the protesters done a tactical withdrawal, but outed with sound strategies, to push the government to implement their demands.

    But citizen-government distrust made that virtually impossible.  Enter, then: the first, in the relay of errors, that finally screwed up the protests.

    So, while #EndSARS was legit, #EndSWAT was hardly so.  True, trust was the big issue.  The protesters thought — rightly so, many would insist — that the government was selling a dummy, since FSARS had been “disbanded” many times before; and SWAT could well be FSARS in a new skin.

    Yet, SWAT had no solid case against it, except conjectures, reason or emotive.  Besides, FSARS was set up to battle violent crimes, which from reports it splendidly did in the North, but abused its functions in most parts of the South.

    It would, therefore, have been tragically unthinking of the government not to create an immediate alternative, warts and all, since the felons FSARS was founded to tackle won’t pause a second.  Besides, getting the government to back down is one thing, dictating where it must go, or what it must do, is another.

    That reality, however, was lost on the triumphant protesters, flush with how easy the government had yielded to their demands.  Besides, they kept on adding to their demands, thinking they had the nervy government exactly where they wanted it.

    That was a strategic blunder, for it slammed the gate on respectable exit and honourable change of directions, should things turn hot and nasty — as they eventually did.

    Thus, the protesters’ demand, as a never-ending-state-of-flux, ushered in error No. 2: blocking off roads, including city highways and inter-city expressways.  Not a few even converted these roads into snappy kitchens, to cater for co-protesters!

    That was the first sign of derailment, though they didn’t seem to know.  In Belarus, massive protests have been going on for three months now, over a fiddled presidential poll.  But despite their massive scale, not once did protesters block off traffic, thus alienating parts of the population.

    Meanwhile, “glorious” pictures and crowing posts, via social media platforms, from the Lekki, Lagos protest epicentre, fuelled, among the excitable, a strong my-hood-is-more-brazen-than-yours contest — again, a big sign all was turning awry.

    But the final plunge was the Lekki protesters’ decision to defy the curfew, instead of disbanding and heading home.  It was the tragic turning point all would come to rue!

    That was the fatal crossover from legality to lawlessness.  True, the law guarantees peaceful protests.  But the same law arms the government with checks-and-balances, if things spin out of control.

    That was the curfew — to dislodge crowds from the streets and secure and dominate the space.  That defiance, therefore, was the first handshake with disaster.  The unfortunate shootings were a reckless plunge into catastrophe.  The tragic aftermath, of arson and looting, was a grim kiss with anarchy, which scalds every lip and tongue.

    So everyone involved, at any of these critical junctures, should be asked fair and legitimate questions; and punished, if found culpable.  Actions have consequences.

    For those belching hate and more hate in troubled times — you hate Buhari without, hate Tinubu within, and crow to yourself you’re hip — this protest-gone-awry is living proof of the destruction unvarnished hate can wreak.  It is the bitter, even if slight, taste of Kigali, which leaves everyone a loser.  Remember Rwanda?

    As for “revolution” romantics, even the obtuse know that is a trip to nowhere.  The Libyan revolution removed Muamar Gaddafi but left Libya in a 10-year anarchy, still running since 2011.

    Even the French Revolution (5 May 1789-9 November 1799), perhaps history’s most romantic, left the French trading true blue bloods for a grand counterfeit (in Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte: 15 August 1769-5 May 1821), and even a fakery of that counterfeit (in Napoleon III, Charles-Louis Bonaparte: 20 April 1808-9 January 1873), prompting that Karl Marx famous quip: history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce!

    It’s a critical juncture at which everyone must think — and think hard.  Yes, there is hardship in the land.  But is the solution destroying Lagos, Nigeria’s prime window of opportunity, that about everyone flocks to?  Or torching and looting small shops, that provide little jobs?

    Then, the immediate conundrum: how do you persuade the police, killed, maimed and bruised by anarchists, to return to the streets, night or day, rain or shine, to protect the mass of innocent citizens from prowling, free-wheeling criminals?

    That is what blind rage does.  One just hopes the grim lessons have been learned.  It’s time to think out of a jam, and not further box yourself in, by blind rage.

  • EndSARS: Time for truce?

    EndSARS: Time for truce?

    By Sanya Oni

    With reports about the military being deployed in parts of Abuja supposedly to forestall the breakdown of law and order, it is apparent that the Buhari administration’s irritation with the #EndSARS protesters has finally reached boiling point. No thanks to the administration’s penchant to deploy archaic tools even when the nature and texture of the crisis at hand is somewhat novel and mind-tasking; the Nigerian Army, ever ready to play the government’s handmaiden has since moved from mouthing barely veiled threats in the wake of the protests, to rolling out its Operation Crocodile Smile VI.

    Unfortunately, whereas the military’s resort to the use of phrases like “subversive elements”, “trouble makers”, and “cyberwarfare” could be explained in the context of its martial psychology, the psychology of a regime that see its custodianship of state power as not open to question by the citizens must be seen as deeply troubling at this difficult time.

    Now, recall that the #ENDSARS first gained public consciousness in 2017 and this after several social media posts about extortion, harassment, and kidnapping suffered by youths at the hands of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).  That the issue finally boiled over in 2020 under similar circumstances could only mean that the government either chose to sleep on a grave matter that touches the right to life and dignity its youths, or simply wished it away.

    At this time, a lot has been said of the protesters five-point demand as being straight and simple to solve. In truth, the demands appear quite straightforward – on the surface.

    They demanded the release of the arrested protesters. They wanted justice for all the deceased victims of police brutality and appropriate compensation for their families. They demanded an independent panel to oversee the investigation and prosecution of all cases of police misconduct within 10 days. They also demanded, in line with the new Police Act, psychological evaluation and retraining of all the disbanded SARS officers (to be independently verified by an external body) before their re-deployment. And finally, an increase in police salary so that they can be adequately compensated for protecting lives and property of citizens.

    It is noteworthy that the government readily accepted that the issues raised by the youths were legitimate, although it would seem that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was the lone voice in what later became a babel of voices from the Federal Executive Council particularly with Information Minister Lai Mohamed and his defence counterpart, Bashir Salihi Magashi somewhat giving some hints of overreach on the part of the protesters.

    Remember, the sheer number of cases collated by the protesting youths at this time were such that left the police authorities and federal government with very limited options. To me, the latter is what makes the so-called concessions by the government and with it the suggestion that the government be given the benefit of the doubt as not only laughable but tragic. The government wasn’t being called out to make any concessions; it was only being challenged to take its duties seriously. In which case, the protesters who have now taken upon themselves to play the role of the watchdog cannot in good conscience be accused of needless obduracy.

    I perfectly understand the government’s frustrations with the protesters; not only is it clearly out of breath with its deployment of IT tools but the sheer sophistication in logistics that is yet to be seen in government business in these parts. Need one talk of the unrivalled patience and coordination of the protesters and with it the massive public support their actions have garnered?

    We are here talking of the same youths, who were only yesterday described as ‘lazy youths” by President Muhammadu Buhari. Such is their depth of understanding and articulation of the issues that have left the government not only pathetic but utterly helpless.

    I have the heard the question raised times without number: Since the government has accepted the so-called five-point demand, why can’t the protesters simply go home and wait for the government to address them. After all, we have seen a governor like Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos not only showing exemplary leadership and good faith, but a readiness to engage beyond the superficial, very much unlike the principal culprit – the federal government.

    The answer would seem obvious. The protesters do not trust the government to do as it promised. Sure, the protesters perfectly understand that a good number of the issues raised will take time to address; what appears to be the matter is government’s poor understanding of the issues at stake! Imagine government offering SWAT in place of SARS – a case of old wines in new bottles; in place of the demand for a comprehensive overhaul of the policing system – from recruitment to training, from welfare to logistics, the government is talking of palliatives!  Such has been the level of its cluelessness that even bystanders are left to wonder if this government actually lives on the Mars.

    Take a drive to the police training school in Ikeja. It is a sorry sight – and this for an institution charged with training our law enforcement personnel. The other day, I saw recruit-trainees in their white pants and sleeves carrying plastic buckets in search of water in Ikeja neighbourhood! Does anyone still wonder how such an environment could not but breed extortionists, sadist and at the extreme, armed robbers?

    Take a trip to any police barracks to see the level of dehumanization that those carrying arms are forced to put up with. Only last week, I came across a trending but unverified video said to be of Obalende Barracks, Lagos and the only thing I could do was weep!

    How about the police Area Commands? Most are in a mess. No computers, no basic communication gadgets as would befit a modern crime-fighting force. By the way, what is the typical budget of a Divisional Police Office like? Not too long ago, I did a research on same only to find, to my consternation that some DPOs have barely N2,500 to run their beats for a whole month!

    Nigerians, not least the protesters, have seen enough transitions in their lifetimes to know that things are not what they seem: after all, what difference did the transition of the inept power utility firm make after its baptism from NEPA to PHCN and now to Discos? In other words, they know too well that SWAT and SARS are one and the same – as of between six and half dozen.

    This is where those asking the protesters to go home miss it – it is not time, yet. At least, not until government accepts the need for a comprehensive blueprint for police reforms to be authored – not by the government – but civil society groups. That would be one sure shot in the long journey to rebuild trust.

  • Beyond #EndSARS

    Beyond #EndSARS

    By Gabriel Amulu

    The ongoing street rage, against the infernal torture and criminality that is the hallmark of the proscribed Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), calls for immediate restructuring of the Nigerian Police Force, not the infantile change of name to SWAT. As the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Adamu, must have realised, the Nigerian youths are tired of double-dealing, with respect to the debilitating insecurity that is threatening the corporate existence of Nigeria.

    Meanwhile, this column commends Nigerian youths responsible for the ongoing campaign to end police brutality across the country, tagged #EndSARS. They deserve praise for galvanising and channelling youth energy to a worthwhile venture. Their few days in the street have shown that if Nigerian youths can mobilise to demand change in the way we are governed, many of the shenanigans that pass off as governance at various levels of government will stop.

    But while police brutality and insensate corruption is endemic, it is just a bit of the challenges faced by our dear country. One of such other challenge is captured in one campaign poster, in the social media. It says: “what about the other SARS killing us too? Senators And Reps’ Salaries (SARS).” In my view, that second SARS is more virulent than the first SARS. So, if the campaigners can force a change of that second SARS, the vices in the police force can be dealt with through the promulgation of efficient laws and regulation.

    This column believes that the gross inefficiency at the various branches of the executive arm, including the police, is because, fundamentally the legislative arm which is constitutionally empowered to checkmate inefficiencies in the executive arm, is itself weighed down by corrupt practices. By disregarding the 1999 Constitution (as amended) in determining its emoluments, the legislative arm, especially the National Assembly, surrendered its moral authority to checkmate the executive arm.

    To make matters worse, the National Assembly has become populated substantially by the fantastically corrupt, and it continues to attract characters, who go there not to make laws, but merely to enrich themselves. With such characters in the majority, what you have are extortionists who would rather extort than “make laws for the peace, order and good government of the federation”, as enjoined by section 4(2) of 1999 constitution.

    So, when public hearings are set up to examine the laws or the committees go for oversight functions, what you have is a jamboree. The most recent of such scandalous outings was between a House of Representative Committee, set up to probe allegations of corruption in the Ministry of Niger Delta and the Niger Delta Development Commission.

    At the height of the inglorious affair, when accusations and counter accusations were flying about, the committee chair begged the Niger Delta Minister Godswill Akpabio, to stop exposing them to the world. Such is the tragedy that has befallen the National Assembly that no person takes them seriously. This column therefore supports the call for downsizing the senators and representatives salaries (#EndtheotherSARS).

    If President Muhammadu Buhari and members of the National Assembly have a sense of history, they would seize the opportunity of the ongoing agitation to start restructuring of Nigeria, so they can be remembered well. Even without the ongoing #EndSARS agitation, anyone who thinks that Nigeria, as presently configured and governed, is sustainable in the long run, must either be an ignoramus or a fraud.

    As I have argued here severally, the core-northern part of Nigeria, which is seen as advantaged by the present status quo is in worse shape than the south, which feels oppressed and marginalised. Just like in the 1950s, in the match towards Nigeria’s independence, while the south is getting impatient with the state of affairs and want an immediate change, the north which is lagging behind, also needs the change.

    The northern governors who are resisting the #EndSARS campaign, are doing so, to safeguard their plum positions, not because their people are benefiting from the failing state. It is common knowledge that large swaths of the northwest and the northeast remain some of the most dangerous places on earth. And if there are no economic and political restructuring to allow states earn more income, and develop the police to provide basic security, how on earth can those states survive the crisis bedevilling them?

    Common sense dictates that with about 30% of youth unemployment, arising from lack of economic activity in most states of the country, the criminality and banditry that has overwhelmed the north, will not go away. With war addling the banditry, how sustainable is it for Nigeria to keep borrowing to prosecute the war, and save it from its internal contradictions?

    That is why President Buhari and those mouthing threats on his behalf, must wake-up from their slumber and realise that though the ongoing agitation may have been triggered by instances of police brutality, the malaise agitating the youths go much deeper than that. The National Assembly, without more prompting, can come clean of its past mistakes, call itself to order, and mend its ways.

    It will be foolish for the government to fall to the temptation to send the army against the people. If they have a sense of self-preservation, they should weigh the possibility that that army may instead chose to storm the Bastille. Should that happen, the price to pay, by both the currently oppressed and the oppressors may be too steep. So, why don’t the authorities wake up and save everybody from the bloodletting and uncertainties that may follow.

    Instead of mouthing platitudes, the youths have asked the government to initiate actions that would convince Nigerians that the government mean business. People like the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, should be given new assignments, instead of allowing him to further heat up the charged atmosphere. If the government which he speaks for, has the ability to rein in anarchists and trouble makers, it should concentrate energy in the northeast and northwest.

    What the government must do, is to initiate concrete changes, which will give the youths the encouragement to enter into dialogue with them. If by their action or omission, the government allows the ongoing public agitation to morph into a revolution, the monumental tragedy that would befall our country can be better imagined than experienced. As they say, a stitch in time saves nine.

    Clearly, the demand for police reform championed by the youths, is a wake-up call for all those abusing the privilege they have to govern, to mend their ways while they can. Let none of the abusers be fooled, unless they change, there would be no country to govern, in no distant time. That is if the apocalypse is not already at the gate, with the rage raging out there in our cities.

     

  • Citizen governor

    Citizen governor

    Olakunle Abimbola

     

    SAM Omatseye, The Nation Editorial Board chair and columnist, promptly christened him “BOS of Lagos”, as “Alpha Governor” (Akinwunmi Ambode) and “Governor of Example” (Babatunde Raji Fashola), before him.

    But after 500 days, which incidentally culminates today, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu (BOS), governor of Lagos, is essentially no boss, but a driven leader funnelling help — quiet, dutiful and focused — to the pressing and endless needs of Lagosians.

    It’s the making of the Citizen Governor.

    After 500 days (an unusual landmark, unlike the conventional 100 days), the Sanwo-Olu governorship has rolled out an impressive armada of achievements in brick-and-mortar: fixed roads (357 in all, state-wide) and completed bridges: aside from definite completion date for the Pen Cinema flyover in Agege (an Ambode governorship legacy, as the commissioned Oshodi-Abule Egba BRT track, and the Oshodi transport hub).

    Others are multi-modal transport and traffic solutions (including progressing work on the Mile2-Orile-CMS rail corridor, revamped ferry services and definite arrangements to kick off the construction of the 4th Mainland Bridge); and housing deliveries, under the rent-to-own scheme.

    Also included are social infrastructure upgrades: maternity and other hospital deliveries; Eko-Excel technology-driven teacher re-training in public primary schools (the bastion of the poorest of the poor), following on the heels of the Fashola-era Eko (Yoruba for Learning) Project, for public secondary school teachers; not to mention environmental boosts, gradually delivering a much cleaner Lagos, up from the refuse and sanitation collapse of the Akinwunmi Ambode era.

    Deserving of special mention is the Lagos implementation of the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, pioneered by Osun under the Rauf Aregbesola governorship but mainstreamed, nation-wide, by the Buhari Presidency, after dawning in 2015.  In Lagos, the programme fed 135, 445 pupils daily, in the 976 public primary schools, state-wide, before the COVID-19 lockdown disrupted the calendar.

    Lagos, with its financial standing, had no business not implementing this programme much earlier.  But it is to the credit of BOS that the schools feeding programme is here.  With Eko-Excel, it’s a major policy pact, by the Lagos government, with the poor and vulnerable — the bulk of the teeming state population.

    Such pro-poor policies also underscore the government’s progressive ideology, the dominant stream in Lagos since independence, which has only continued from 1999.

    To be sure, BOS’s brick-and-mortar achievements are impressive.  But such are the massive Lagos needs that they might not be obvious to everyone.

    For one, the city centre never sleeps.  For another, its boisterous, rampaging folks rush and crush everywhere, not unlike a wild herd of elephants, leaving ruins in their trail.

    Still, you literarily flew past on the Itire-Lawanson road, and found — with shock — the age-old craters, that swallowed vehicle tyres, gone — replaced with neat inter-locked stones!  That wasn’t the case 400 days ago, when BOS marked his first 100 days!

    Yet, the acidic waters that chewed up the tar, and created the craters, which birthed the traffic snarl, were a function of the locals’ reckless clogging of the drains, thus forcing dirty water to spill to the road, and eat it up, with acrid gutter stench to boot!

    It’s good the government has fixed that road.  For it to last though, Lagos must devise ways to drive radical behavioural change, to checkmate Lagosians’ environmental outlawry, that shortens the lifespan of critical road infrastructure.  Otherwise, the government might be glued to same old repairs, instead of moving to new areas.

    You drive on the long Okota Palace Way, up to Apple Junction at Amuwo-Odofin, and you marvel at how clean that stretch is becoming.  Still, evidence abounds, of piled refuse, on the high median.

    As LAWMA and co get more efficient in refuse management, folks too must imbibe rational and responsible refuse disposal behaviours — even if KIA must come up with stiff and stern penalties, to force better environmental conduct.

    But just as well one of the roads, under major rehabilitation state-wide, is Ilara road, Ibonwon, in Epe’s Eredo LCDA.  That is cheery.

    Still, BOS should double up to complete the pan-Epe urban upgrade, the policy flower of the Ambode era.  Therefore, the government should waste little time in completing the project’s tail-end, at the Odomola-to-Odo Ajogun axis.

    A gleaming artery that suddenly becomes an eyesore, at Mojoda and Odo Ajogun, the last two communities at its Ogun border completion point, can only outrage the locals.

    Besides, the Itoikin-Epe wing of the project also seeks urgent attention, just as the Eleko junction, Eleran-Igbe bus stop area, of the Lekki-Epe expressway.

    As BOS continues to make steady strides, therefore, he must pay attention to these Epe axis challenges.  They could be putative embarrassment to “home boy” Deputy Governor; and avoidable headaches to the ruling party, at future polls.

    Still, as vital as physical achievements are excellent for optics, the BOS era might be defined by traits much deeper.

    First, he is emerging as a quiet and effective leader, among a well-oiled and effective team.  This is welcome, particularly viewed from the tragic hubris that, at noon, cut short the Ambode era.  That the governor has opted for dutiful project continuation, instead of opening fresh flanks, powered by nothing but ego, is refreshingly welcome.

    Yes, his excellent handling of COVID-19 was the insult-turned-glory juncture for BOS.  He, that was the virtual butt of jokes, by an ever cynical Lagos electorate, suddenly became an adored citizen governor.  Awo, the avatar, would have dubbed it eebu dola — ridicule turned praise!

    But on the policy front, the COVID-19 triumph was much more: after Ebola under Fashola, the BOS COVID-19 success portrays a deepened Lagos expertise in critical public health emergencies, particularly epidemics and pandemics.  It shows how well Lagos has developed since 1999 — and BOS did it, not as a superman-governor but as a level-headed leader, of a well-oiled team.

    After 500 days, BOS has done well — but so had Ambode.  The former governor had overcome his initial glitches and was cruising, just as BOS is now.

    Still, BOS must avoid the Ambode stumble. If the governor continues to focus, dutifully lead his team, and doesn’t succumb to any latter-day executive arrogance, conceit or hubris, these beginnings might just be the strong fundament of a well and truly glorious governorship.

     

     

    Ogunyemi goof, ASUU straw

     

    RIPPLES goofed, big time, last week (“Time to call ASUU’s bluff”, October 13), mixing up ASUU Presi-dent, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi’s base — fulsome apologies!  He is of the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye, not the University of Ibadan, as the column claimed.  Again, sincere apologies to the two university communities.

    But some irate ASUU members/sympathizers seized that goof, to lob Molotov cocktails at the column — no sweat, for fair is foul and foul is fair, in war!

    Still, chill gentlemen!  That was no war — only a frank column hard tackle to force a more responsible ASUU behaviour, for the common good.

  • Youths, BBN and #EndSARS

    Youths, BBN and #EndSARS

    Just as one would imagine, Nigerians have said all that needs to be said about the just-ended reality show BigBrotherNaija. Merely by the wave of denunciation that trailed the programme from take-off to the final moments when the Grand Prize of N85 million was awarded the winner; not least the cash rain that has attended its aftermath and the media blitz it spawned; one would be tempted to reduce everything about the show to the Achebean Trouble with Nigeria.

    Now, if one understood the subtle angst underlying a show in which young adults will be locked up in a closet under the eagle eye of a roving camera and all the temptations that came with it for mere lucre; certainly not the sanctimoniousness and hypocrisy of a few moral policemen in our midst who not only seek to determine what is right and pure but will seek to rain the fury of Armageddon on contrarians. Here is a country where millions of youths are idle with nary a prospect of getting their hands dirty on productive or even rewarding work; yet that hypocritical segment would descend on the few considered ‘eccentric’ merely for the crime of daring to live out their passions!

    It is not exactly that one does not see the point of those who would rather use the barometer of Big Brother Nigeria to measure all that is wrong with our youths. Once upon a time, a certain Catholic priest Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Ojeifo of the Archdiocese of Abuja had asked of the BBN: “What values are we transmitting to youths today, in a society where immorality and stupidity are rewarded with big prizes?

    “We cannot continue to nurture a society that places a premium on iniquitous shows such as BBNaija and expect to groom a generation of cultured, disciplined and morally upright leaders…The promoters of this immoral show must ask themselves what they intend to make out of it; they must ask themselves what values and morals they are projecting to the larger Nigerian society.

    That was during the 2017 edition. Three years on, the debate of continues. And so, has interest in the shown by those who would ordinarily been indifferent. If in doubt, ask the ordinary market woman or the cobbler next door about a certain Laycon, they will most likely regale you with a story of a boy made good by Providence; if you care to stay attentive and long enough, you’ll probably hear muffled supplications about some miracles which they hope will hopefully berth in their corners too!

    But then, the same moral arguments may well apply to the world of beauty pageants, the Nollywood and not least the growing counter-culture of expression and protests through music and the arts. As in these cases, the real problem, as it appears, is the penchant to hold on to a past that has long faded like Grandma’s Kente cloth. While like every Nigerian, one often worries about the terrible choices our youths are called to make in a society the keeps pressing them to the margins, the irony is that we can’t even seem to find some accommodation for that segment that dares to be different in their own different ways.

    Today, if there are some Nigerians still claiming to be unaware of a certain Naira Marley, it seems most unlikely that they would not have come across a tribe called Marlians! So potent is the force of the movement that their chief priests’ signature tune – T’esu mole – alongside its gyrations are rendered in our sacred religious enclaves!

    Pornography. Immorality. Alcoholism. Nudity. These are familiar labels that have been used to describe the show. And these tags from people who, probably like me, never bothered to watch the show. Reminds me of a story of a priest who ran into a young woman in the course of a journey. At a point, the duo got to a stream of fast flowing water. The lady, obviously scared at the possibility of being swept off by the angry torrent turned to the priest for help. And what did the priest do? Off he simply went, muttering that he, as a man of the cloth, could not be expected to touch an unclean thing! A few minutes later, another stranger who was probably too much in a hurry to cross would be approached by the lady, and almost without thinking, the man pulled her skirt up to keep it from getting wet, after which he carried her on his back across, and moved on. Meanwhile, the priest from a safe distance watched not without some unimaginable thoughts swirling in his minds even long after the good Samaritan had departed!

    Now, let’s take a look at the array of the BBN 2020 contestants. The youngest of them, Rebecca “Nengi” Hampson is 22; her bio describes her as an entrepreneur. The oldest, Timmy Sinclair “Trikytee” described as creative artist and storyteller is 35. Then of course is Olamilekan “Laycon” Agbeleshe, the ultimate winner who is 26 and is a singer and rapper. Far from being in the teeny club, these are largely full-formed adults who already had some things going for them. None made pretences about who they are or even the values they represent – very much unlike many of the hypocritical mob. In any case, the contestants made clear that the show was for them a launch-pad for bigger careers in show business.

    No matter how objectionable some might find shows like the BBN, there will always be places for such in every society. That is what globalization and technology has brought. Moreover, it is in the very nature of capitalism. What responsible government’s do is regulate the content – which in this case – has been done with the tag ‘adult’. And then, being on the DSTV bouquet means that those not so inclined to the show could hit on the remote-control button. The same thing with the uproar about the reward system under which a so-called idle, unproductive spell of 70 days in a madhouse will yield a cool N85 million for the winner. It’s the way the world is wired. It’s the reason why Nobel laurates are not on the Forbes list; the same reason why our egg-heads are never in contention for creativity! I guess this is where those accusing Dapo Abiodun of misplaced priority miss the point. The fact that one is given high recognition isn’t the reason the other came short. Much as I would concede that such gestures reflect a society’s choices of priorities, it must come with the understanding that the terrains are worlds apart!

    And now my final point about Nigerian youths. Thanks to the #EndSARS protests – we are probably on to Nigeria’s Spring of Discontent. For the youths, it appears to be the moment of their arrival – a testament to their desire to get their voices heard. Only those who fail to the read the signs correctly will deny the reality of the raging fire.