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Category: Sanya Oni

What manner of ceasefire?

Yours truly could be forgiven for mistaking the so-called ceasefire between the military and the Boko Haram in Abuja for the long-expected terrorists’ instrument of surrender. This is perhaps to be expected in the context of the unmistakeable signs of the military finally coming to its own after months of costly, humiliating reverses including losses of sophisticated hardware and vast portions of Nigerian territory to the enemy. Taken together with the renewed diplomatic offensive that has raised prospects of further isolation of the terrorist group, one would be right to imagine that the days of the group as a cohesive, fighting force, is increasingly numbered.

To yours truly, the matter had become as simple as pressing the current advantages to force a lasting truce and to exact retribution for the crimes committed against the state. That was probably why the text of the ‘ceasefire’ anounced by Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh could not have been anything but anti-climaxtic and confounding: “…a ceasefire agreement has been concluded between the federal government of Nigeria and the Ahlul Sunna Li Daawa Wal Jihad…I have accordingly directed the service Chiefs to ensure immediate compliance with this development in the field.”

Apparently, so desperate was the army chief to churn out the agreement as breakthrough that he couldn’t but dispense with the military’s traditional taciturnity on such sensitive matters; on its part, the Jonathan administration, ever so reader to cart home the trophy before the game was called saw the Chad-brokered ceasefire as heaven sent! It did not matter that the details were still sketchy and tentative at that point; any deal – including a one-sided one in which a sovereign authority would offer what amounted to a capitulation for a morsel of ‘peace’ – would simply suffice!

Familiar? On yeah!

More than a week after, Nigerians are in a better position to assess the substance of an agreement that continues to yield body counts in scores on both sides with every passing day. But then, given the spate of renewed hostilities, the army top shot may well have been talking nonsense. Not only has the raiding band of the Boko Haram since heightened their campaigns of abduction and seizure of women and children with the number of abductees hitting nearly five scores in the past week alone, the ceasefire may well have existed only in the imagination of its purveyors!

Indeed, hours after the announcement of the ceasefire, troops from the 7th Division of the Nigerian Army would swoop on the Boko Haram after the latter staged an attack on Damboa, Borno State. In the ensuing battle, 25 members of the sect were killed. In Abadan, a town located on the Nigeria-Niger border, if the residents had expected respite within hours of the proclamation of the ceasefire particularly after an earlier attack some 24 hours before the ceasefire left 30 dead, the attacks would actually intensify after. So confused was the atmosphere that the French news agency, AFP quoted a resident as saying: “We all heard of the ceasefire over the radio but it seems the insurgents are not perturbed at all…To me, they (the militants) don’t even care about it because they increased their attacks from Friday, the very day the ceasefire was announced. By Saturday, they hoisted their flags.”

I have in the course of the past week, struggled to find the meaning of the “ceasefire” as proposed. Ordinarily, the idea of cessation of hostilities, although nowhere near a half-way home to closure, should offer the nation some respite – if it works. With sweet poison of possible release of the Chibok Girls, it seems the nation could not have had a better deal! Really?

It must be said though that the idea of asking our fighting men to hold fire for whatever reasons, in the context of military advantage reportedly achieved in the past few weeks would appear suspect, inexplicable, if not entirely opportunistic. Perhaps, only the federal government still lives in the illusion that the nihilists, after feeding on the blood of innocent Nigerians would become penitent without a decisive routing in battle.

Who needs a ceasefire that offers next-to-zilch chance of getting the group to renounce the toxic ideology that permits and legitimises savagery? Or one that squelches the prospects of a fitting retribution for the obvious crimes committed by the group against humanity?

We must be clear in all of this: the reason the nation is at this very point is the apparent loss of capacity by the Nigerian state under the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan. It is the administration’s inability to enforce the nation’s unchallengeable will within its borders that must be seen as the heart of the imbroglio. True, there are those who would argue whether the increasingly war-weary military – and not least the civil populace – really have much choice than settle for armistice, more so with recent revelations about the poor fighting spirit and rank indiscipline among the troops, all of which of course are directly traceable to the rot that have percolated in the military establishment over the years.

Much as these concerns are not without foundation, they merely validate the point about the absence of state capacity at a critical moment. The greater tragedy is the false choice being promoted by the Jonathan administration as one between appeasement which merely offers the spineless federal government opportunity to buy time to kick the problem down the road, and the rule of abdication under which it throws its hands in the air and do nothing on the other!

Want to know my thought on the Chibok Girls? I believe the poor girls will soon be released. Nigerians – the countless millions who continue to offer their prayers want them home. Of course, the international community wants them home. After more than six months in their custody, it seems understandable that the Boko Haram would also want to see their backs!

Of course, President Jonathan wants them home; the same reason that our friends at the Transformation Ambassador of Nigeria (TAN) secretariat want them home before the November 16, D-Day! Imagine what would happen were the girls to show up, say for instance, at Abuja City gate at the H-Hour!

October 28, 2014
Who says the rains are not here?

If there have not been loud protestations from the 36 states capitals – minus the Abuja behemoth – about the declining flows into their treasuries, it isn’t because the situation is not sufficiently alarming. Not only is the picture across most states of the federation one of struggles to meet recurrent bills, capital projects have since been put on hold. Had the mad scramble for the outstanding 33 Government Houses in 2015 not dwarfed every other issue, Nigerians would probably be in the right frame of mind to appreciate what is increasingly becoming a dire financial situation facing the states and the local governments. Trust our eternally-optimistic politicians to insist that things would somehow get better – or that the good times would soon return – even if they have not lifted a finger to make that happen.

At this stage, let me state that it is still a long way from the predicted downpour. While there is no basis as yet, to compare the current situation with the crises of the 1980s which forced the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) on us, the truth of the matter is that the tell-tales of an astoundingly maladjusted economy are just as telling.

Nigerians are of course familiar with the outlandish picture of growth posted over the last decade. With enough in the foreign reserves to cover more than eight months of imports as against what obtained in the eighties when we couldn’t afford to pay our import bills, not to talk of the $1 billion in the Sovereign Wealth Fund, aside the piggy bank known as the Excess Crude Account (ECA); add that to the fact that oil price, despite predictions of massive slump, has held fairly steady – perhaps longer than any other time in recent memory; it becomes at once, tempting to see some of the fears as overstated.

But then, as yours truly has always stated, the reality on the Main Street paints an entirely different picture. While Nigerians are fast learning the difference between real growth and the stuff in economic textbooks after more than 10 years of so-called hyper-growth, the picture of badly shrunk treasuries across the states and local governments is perhaps one that have hardly been fully comprehended.

Governor Rotimi Amaechi puts the issue in clear perspective when he observed: “The problem we have is that the federal government, out of outright stealing from NNPC, is not able to pay to the states the required funds the states are entitled to; to enable them not only pay salaries but to run state affairs. We are going back to the Shagari days when they owe everybody. The only reason we have not gotten there is because the governors are very ingenious: they are doing everything to ensure they can pay salaries, but some states cannot pay. Wait, election is coming and the opposition will begin to publish their names.”

Ingenious? That is debatable. It is after all an open secret that many states are broke. Many are in fact are as good as bankrupt. Kogi State, where yours truly comes from, according to reports, is broke. I know of local governments in the state owing nine months in arrears of salaries. In Abia State, primary and secondary school teachers have not been paid for four months running. Benue has been owing teachers for as long as anyone can remember. Bayelsa, the President’s home state is said to be contemplating going for the drastic measure of staff rationalisation. Overall, the picture across the states, with very few exceptions, is the same.

At this time, I don’t want to go into the debates about the viability of the states. The issue of whether or not their tax bases are too narrow to sustain the appurtenances of governance is as debatable as it academic. Suffice however to state that while the debate may have some grains of truth, the same could also be said of the federal government, which aside, cornering far more revenue that it can ever wisely use, has neither demonstrated the capacity to protect its revenue source nor shown better imagination in the utilization of its own share of revenue.

Let’s look at the issue more closely. According to the Budget Office documents, using the 2012 figures of N4.24 trillion, the nation recorded a dip of N1.4 trillion in oil sales; in other words, compared with the 2012 earnings, it actually made N2.81 trillion –some 33.69 percent less. Some countries, faced with the same situation, would have declared emergency. Not Nigeria! Of course, the trend has persisted – hence the rancor which has since become the feature at the Abuja monthly conclave for sharing oil money.

What do we know? Obviously, the world knows us better than we probably know ourselves. The world describes what is going on as industrial-scale theft, our federal government shops for platitudes – blaming production-shut-ins which it knows is a derivative of the former on the shrinking revenue! So where is the difference? Are we really serious?

And what has the federal government beyond the annual ritual of lamentation? First, it embarked on a meaningless shuttle diplomacy to persuade its ‘partners’ not to accept Nigeria’s stolen crude. You ask; what has happened to the navy’s famed capacity to protect Nigeria’s Exclusive Economic Zones? Does anyone still wonder why Nigeria continues to be the butt of jokes in foreign capitals?

I have heard quite a few theories swirling around the industrial-scale theft of oil said to be going on. One sees it as deliberate, an extension of the financial scorched policies designed to bend the states’ will as 2015 election nears. I have also heard that the federal government knows those behind the theft but that it is powerless to do anything about them. The point is, there are simply too many theories flying around, none of which is any flattering to the federal government!

One thing however seems clear to me. It appears that this federal government does not give a damn even if the states’ bureaucracies collapse. Forget that it takes 54 percent of the pie, it would soon be time for the hierarchs of the administration to offer free tutorials to states whose take-home average is less than one percent – on frugality. That is the way it has been. And as it seems, no one can do anything about it!

October 14, 2014
Military and its demons

The arraignment, last week, of another batch of 97 soldiers by the military authorities for offences ranging from mutiny, assault and misconduct to tampering with military property, would appear to suggest that the rot in the Nigerian military may have been understated after all. Coming after the fierce debates provoked by the death sentence passed on an earlier batch of 12 soldiers charged with the same serious charge is yet to abate, Nigerians who have expressed opinions might yet find them to be premature in the light of more terrifying revelations of the arrest, at the weekend, of a serving Brigadier-General attached to the 3rd Division of the Nigerian Army over allegations of “negligence”.

The charge of course is that the, Brigadier-General, commander of a whole Brigade in the North-east, together with his Chief of Staff and troops, took to their heels at the sight of advancing Boko Haram insurgents in Bama. This was supposed to be a Brigade with two units of a battalion each, supported by 122 medium artillery guns with shilka and tanks.

Of course, the insurgents not only secured free entry to the armoury of the Brigade Headquarters, they carted away military vehicles, tanks and weapons, which they deployed to attack the infantry battalion at Konduga. Ironically, the commander and his Chief of Staff would later be rescued by the same battalion in Konduga stationed about 15 kilometres from Bama!

Strange? Shouldn’t be. Similar strange things have been known to happen in the past. In 2008, a General Military Court Martial sitting in Kaduna sentenced six soldiers – one of them a Major – to life imprisonment for selling arms to the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

Were things to be normal, the resort to applicable service laws would seem the natural order of things. But then, just like the debates that followed in the wake of the conviction of the 12 soldiers on September 16, the process, as important as it is, seems unlikely to settle anything. Aside the fact that the larger society is prone to being eternally divided on just about everything under the sun to the point of being permissive of wrong-doing, the military itself has not proven that its standard of justice is nearly fair and equitable. In the circumstance, we may well prepare for another round of muddled debates that in the end serves neither the military nor the larger public cause!

The issue under focus is indiscipline in the armed forces. Perhaps, the much that can be said is that the daemon is as old as the institution itself. A little more than two decades ago, the then Chief of Army Staff Lt-General Salihu Ibrahim had described the Nigerian army as “an army of anything goes”. His other comment, although less publicised, obviously bear more relevance to the problems at the moment.

I quote: “It is an open secret that some officers openly preferred political appointments to regimental appointments, no matter the relevance of such appointments to their careers…we became an army where subordinate officers would not only be contemptuous of their superiors, but would exhibit total disregard to legitimate instructions by such superiors…We created such a situation whereby we were operating mini-armies within the larger Nigerian army.”

That was some 21 years ago. Today, the seeds of soldiers wedded to non-combat, non-regimental duties has not only matured, (the military did practically nothing in the intervening years to exhorcise the ghost), it has produced an army so flat-footed that it would run from a rag-tag army of insurgents. That is what Boko Haram has done: exacerbate the ingrained delinquencies of the body as a fighting force.

Again, it goes to the point that the problem has long been understated. The military, we are all agreed, is in a mess. Truth is – a good number of the men currently bearing arms have no business in the disciplined profession. We see evidence of this daily among the lower ranks when they serve their brand of ‘justice’ on hapless civilians, or, as is also not infrequent, when their officers wilfully act in ways as to suggest being above the law. The difference is that the virus has been taken to the war theatre where obedience to orders may mean life or death for the troops. And to imagine the possibility that what is currently before the public is only a tip of the ice-berg!

Yes, the demon of indiscipline is one the Nigerian military as an institution must confront – and win! The issue however is whether the mess can be cleaned up by the draconian justice that the military has long perfected – and one that makes no fine distinction between dissent, no matter how legitimate, and the more grave charge of refusal to obey lawful orders. That appears to be the point being made by those opposed to the maximum sentence imposed on the convicted soldiers.

The debate is of course ‘live’ and open, and, as it appears, one that would endure for a while. To be sure, it is one unlikely to be obviated by reductionist argument about the military court-martial being an inescapable component of military justice system. For while the soldiers truly signed to die fighting for their country, nowhere is it implied in the service rules that they could be treated as expendables! Indeed, their preparedness to lay their lives down for their country would seem to impose the onerous burden on society, and no less their primary constituency – the military – to discharge their own burden of equipping them and watching their backs! This is what the military call espirit de corps; it’s what gives colour to the patriotic spirit. It seems about time the military high command reflect on those.

October 7, 2014
CAN’s troubling/troubled house

Having largely fallen into the toxic seduction of infallibility, the church Nigeria must consider itself lucky that it still retains the few in its rank, individuals with sufficient moral stature to confront the antics of thec-led Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). Believe me; I believe the body of Christ owes a debt of gratitude to the revered Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie, for his interjection on the state of the nation and by extension, the church in Nigeria, as published by New Telegraph of Saturday September 27.

Hear the revered Cardinal deliver his point-blank verdict: “CAN leadership today is zero. CAN has no leader”. His main charge was that body has fallen short of the expectations of its founding fathers with the current leadership reducing the body to an appendage of power. Related to this is that CAN has succumbed to the Nigerian malaise of corruption.

By the way, I have heard countless scores of discerning Christians render the same verdict in their quiet corners, in addition to their silent prayers for true Christian leaders to emerge for a time like this! Nigeria obviously needs leaders who will resist the urge to prey on people’s psychology at difficult times; leaders with compassion for the poor and the weak – and who, for their transient comfort, will not shy from speaking truth to power!

Given what one perceptive analyst aptly described as “politicisation of religion and the religionisation of politics”, trust the bare-knuckle censure by Okogie to rub on raw nerves and with it torrents of excoriation in the days and weeks ahead. After all, the grand old man has dared to pass judgment on a man perceived by many as incapable of wrong-doing. However, in the face of possible seduction to the doctrine of Balaam to which a section of the church in Nigeria is increasingly prone, what matters is that the uncomfortable truth has been delivered with such forthrightness and by an elder from ‘within’.

For starters, it must be troubling for Christians to watch the body which purports to speak in their name being dragged into brazen partisanship by its leadership (just imagine the self-promotion it begets). From merely gawking in horror at Pastor Oritsejafor’s reduction of the once vibrant body to a chaplaincy of both the PDP and the Jonathan administration, yours truly can say without any fear of contradiction that things have gotten to such a point that the body’s threadbare pretence to being a “Christian” organisation and the questionable claims of the current crop of its leadership as a force for the general good can no longer go unchallenged.

By now, the story of how the personal jet of CAN President got entangled in cash smuggling mess is already well-known to be retold here. Trust Nigerians to procure controversies where none exists, there have since emerged several theories and interpretations there from – all depending on who is telling. Howbeit, the only thing still not in dispute is that $9.3 million cash was ferried to South Africa – using a jet belonging to the head of a body that purports to represent the Christians – and wait for it, to procure arms!

I have since followed the attempt by CAN leadership to rationalise the scam. Ordinarily, if you ask me, I would say that CAN has no business in the mess. After all, Nigerians have not been told of CAN’s “residual interest” in the controversial jet neither is the body in any way known to be linked to the scandal. CAN unfortunately thinks it has more than ordinary watching interest which it must protect even when it risks alienating discerning Christians! Aside defending one of its own who has in fact admitted to a dalliance with the god of mammon, CAN has taken to the overdrive, seeking – not to stave off – but to appropriate the potentially embarrassing scandal involving its principal functionary. While that is galling enough, the body is at once saying that their principal not only could do no wrong, but that it stands ready at all times to defend him no matter the circumstances and irrespective of what he does even in his private capacity! That is how bad things have become.

No doubt, these are interesting times.

If Nigerians saw the signs of the potential rot on the horizon, they probably paid little heed – hence the monstrosity on our hands! Although the problem did not begin last year, something happened to the body then that was not only significant but marked what appears to be its turning point. That was when the Catholic Church – arguably the most vibrant bloc in CAN – ‘temporarily’ withdrew its membership, citing among many reasons, “the polarizing statements of some Christian leaders; use of money in CAN elections; and several court cases involving state chapters of CAN” for its decision. Its spokesman, Rev. Fr. Dr. Cornelius Omonokhua would aver: “Catholic leaders have quietly brought these concerns to CAN leadership but that their advice was shunted aside as the CAN leadership repeatedly accused them of ‘intellectual arrogance.’

Let me be clear: I cannot claim to have understand the details of the power play that eventuated in the schism of the body. And I am not one to judge which party is right and wrong. What is important is that the Catholic bloc has since been proven right by the one-sided dalliance of CAN with a section of the political class. And while the result of that dalliance goes beyond the division in the house, the body’s standing as a moral force stands imperilled just as the diminution of its rationale as a force for good is guaranteed.

Again, I am told that the opportunistic appropriation of organs of CAN for private political ends comes with rich rewards. That, in my view, hardly qualifies as a flattering legacy for the current team at CAN just as the striving to serve God and mammon at the same time is delusional. Didn’t the avatar of our faith teach that one cannot serve two masters?

Have I taken liberty against God’s anointed? Let God be the judge. As for those eager to pronounce sacrilege or fatwa for venturing a comment, let them have the humility to accept that the doctrine of human infallibility has no place in Christendom.

September 30, 2014
Putrid flesh served a la carte

For the Goodluck Jonathan administration, it does not just rain; it simply pours. For Nigerians, the best way to describe current flight of public morality across the board is perhaps to borrow from Obi Okonkwo, the main character in No longer At Ease. His characterisation of decadence being served with putrid flesh in the spoon is apt. From Modu Sheriff, to the seizure $9.3 million by the South African authorities and now, the Synagogue affair, the presidency is proving to be the most accident-prone in the world.

It seems unlikely that most Nigerians gave much thought to President Goodluck Jonathan’s widely publicised visit to the Synagogue Church of Nations (SOCAN) on Saturday. With more than four score souls – most of them nationals of South Africa – confirmed to have perished by the close of last week, ordinarily, it would be hard to question the judgment which informed the President breaking off from his busy schedule for a formal, if merely, symbolic visit.

In order words, while it could be argued that the presidential visit amounted to nothing beyond its symbolism, it takes nothing from the exalted office that the president saw the need for the visit having earlier arrived town for his party event.

The first problem is what the President chose to do with the visit. To start with, it’s hard to miss the import of the photo-op session with TB Joshua, splashed on the pages of newspapers, a day after when body counts were still on-going. That – if you ask me – was a barely disguised politicisation of tragedy by the supposed mourner in chief. I have not even here passed judgment of what appears to me, as derogation from the stature of the number office as symbol of our collective morality which the outing represented.

The second problem is the destination of the visit. With Deputy Governor Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire in tow, the president’s party could be excused of throwing protocol to the dogs. But then, we are talking of a presidential visit to a disaster scene, not a solidarity visit to a religious leader. The president should have known the difference between the two. Whether or not the state government is involved does not matter: they ought to know better – that is, if they were.

That leads us to the composition of the welcome party. I do not shy from saying that the dictates of public policy requires that TB Joshua be kept from the president’s sight. The scores of federal and state officials on ground should ordinarily suffice without the president’s presence. In any case, one sees nothing in the trip that a call at the governor’s office would not achieve by far.

By the way, what message does the President seek to convey by the solidarity visit to the party under investigation – is it that the key ’culprit’ is his friend?

Let me be clear: I do not think that anyone has dared to presume Joshua or anyone for that matter, guilty of any offence. It goes beyond saying, however, that the leadership of the church have some explaining to do in the circumstance that some of the structures in the church, including the one which came down, were alleged to have been modified after the initial approval granted by the government. That is if we grant the criminal obtrusiveness of members of the church to the rescue efforts at the onset of the tragedy.

Between the state government and the church, the judgement of how either handled the crisis is a matter of opinion. Perhaps, it is just as well that several theories – including those of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) and terrorist attacks – are already flying in the air. In the past week, we have seen partisans go on frenzy, rolling out one rationalisation after another to explain why a structure originally designed to carry two floors should bear the weight of four. Perhaps, all of that are to be expected in what remains of our pre-industrial world of gnomes and superstition.

The truth of course is that the handling of the Synagogue tragedy by the state government leaves so much to be desired. For while Lagos can claim to be the clear leader in disaster management, the incident reveals a new face of institutional paralysis, the lack of abiding standard in the application of the law that would ordinarily be considered unthinkable in the Centre of Excellence.

Admittedly, the state government did not operate in vacuum. If anything, the state government is only too aware of the on-going atavistic politics as 2015 presidential politics hits the home run. Call it therefore practical politics that the state government has been somewhat tame in its response to the point of being impotent. As it stands, the judgment about whether the nation is better or worse for it is only a matter of time.

I return to the point of that visit by President Jonathan. And what did the visit achieve? It’s worse than nothing. In fact, it is injurious to the cause of institution-building. More than that, it offends public morality.

And what did the President promise? He vowed to investigate the cause of the collapse of the six-storey building – a job he should ordinarily know – belongs to the state government!

Next, he promised that the federal government “will deploy the machinery to ensure that investigations into the collapse were treated speedily”. How? Where is the point of intersection between presidential directives with that of a state bureaucracy? The usual politics of opportunism?

And finally, the President promised to convene a meeting with state governors to discuss the need for advice or measures that will check illegal erection of high-rise buildings”. Couldn’t there be a better forum to announce the meeting of the governors than the very scene of disaster under investigation?

To the main point. I have no idea why our Presidential handlers would find nothing untoward in dragging the President – supposedly the symbol of public morality – into the needless session. If you ask me; I’ll just say that it’s partly to be explained by the free-fall in public morality across the board.

That to me is the only way to explain how a luxury jet said to have been procured to serve the cause of the gospel would be entangled in a money laundering mess in a foreign soil. Soon enough, we will know Jonathan’s real friends.

September 23, 2014
When we can’t take care of little things

Tragedies have a way of reminding us of our frailties. Indeed, no matter how much humanity can claim to have conquered the forces of nature, there are simply some things that are beyond him. In the circumstance, the best he can do is either to reduce the frequency of occurrences or mitigate the impact once they show up. One of humanity’s greatest lessons of adaptation must therefore be in his ability to learn from disasters, and to put in place, structured responses to when they occur. It is the absence of the latter that makes him different from lower animals.

It is amazing how ordinary things come to remind us of how far down the nation is on the evolutionary ladder, so to speak. While yours truly has been doing some reflections on the state of the nation in recent time particularly our man-made disasters, this piece is actually prompted by the death of veteran journalist Mr Dimgba Igwe, penultimate week. Ten days after the passing of the journalist, everyone who matters have extolled the late journalist’s qualities as humanist, thorough-bred professional, an outstanding Nigerian and many more. Nearly everyone I have heard speak on the death somehow agree that his death was tragic as it was unfortunate. Whereas the closest to “inevitability” of his death was probable outcome(s) from the injuries suffered after being knocked down by the criminal now on the run, I haven’t heard anyone succumb to the fatalistic nonsense that his death was anything “decreed”. In all, there was a sense of admission that he was yet another victim of cold, indifferent and uncaring society.

Accidents are of course, sometimes inevitable. However, death, in the circumstances in which he was alleged to have been killed, in a relatively busy neighbourhood, should ordinarily provoke deep, probing questions much of it about what we have become as a people. I hasten to say here that while the outpouring of outrage and grief, are in order, it comes to nothing without the larger society’s acceptance of moral culpability in its making. For while it was bad enough that an innocent man was knocked down in the course of an exercise to keep his body in shape, that the culprit could take to flight in such circumstances obviously says a lot about the state of our humanity, but even more about the urban jungle which we now live. Obviously, it starts from the onlooker programmed to indifference; the numb public who wouldn’t care that a fellow citizen was cut down, right down to the atomistic players in the half-way home described as hospices – all – including the larger society – must see themselves as principal casts in the long play that evinces our collective retrogression – our famed descent to the state of nature.

As they say, there’s no need crying over spilt milk. Clearly, no amount of outrage will bring the dead back. However, if we agree that the society is served when appropriate lessons are learnt from tragedies such as that, we can begin at least to make some headway.

The question is – are we ready to learn?

If it seems any reassuring, the Inspector General of Police has assured the public of the “determination” of the police to arrest and prosecute the killer. I say big deal. The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) on its part wants information from the public. Story, story…

At the moment, the much we know is that the killer drove a Toyota Corolla car. Was the vehicle registered or not? None of the eyewitnesses claim to know and there has been no suggestion of anyone stepping forward to assist the police with vital information on the basis of which it might proceed with serious investigation. This unfortunately in the age of phone cameras and mobile phones. Save for the lone corpse in the morgue, the incident of September 6 may well have passed as a fiction. That’s how bad things are. In the circumstance, Nigerians are left to wonder whether police assurances mean anything. It comes close to a classic Nigerian tale of citizen-indifference reproducing class inaction with the usual suspects – the police –tasked to play the magician.

Where do we go from here? Tough question. Just as the culprit may never be found, we console ourselves that the tragic death and the equally tragic circumstances surrounding it are somewhat mitigated by a life of solid accomplishments. We are supposed to move on, hoping and praying as we are wont to do – that such occurrence never happens again. Just like that? That is what I call the big delusion – the idea that a problem will disappear by wishing it away.

Moving on – I believe that we have a big problem in this country. Admittedly, the problem is a complex one. I have heard it said that the problem with Nigeria is leadership. While there can be no overstating the leadership dimensions of our problem, it seems to me also that the problem of follower-ship has been somewhat understated. I am not here referring to flashes of aberrant behaviour that is routine and commonplace, but rather the pervasive delinquency, which very much like cancer, now runs through the entire gamut of the normative order, particularly among the class described as followers. It’s seems now only a matter of time before anarchy is loosed upon us all.

By then, the question of how to build a society of the future on a wobbly sub-structure of citizenship would be superfluous. It’s like seeking to erect a 10-storey building on straw foundation – an impossible task.

Clearly, omens are bad. The symptoms of the anomie are obviously as engulfing as they are unsparing. The deluded but now regular Jonathan-forever TAN-crowd now plaguing the nation with their rallies – stomping stadiums across the country may have just become the latest raw materials for the looming anarchy. As for a section of the student movement –NANS – giving President Goodluck Jonathan administration, uncritical, unthinking and above all, unqualified endorsement for another term at a time one out every two youths are out there looking for a job, theirs’ at best is a catalyst to the coming self-help republic where everyone is on its own.

Think it’s far fetched? Think again.

September 16, 2014
Much ado about N65

As far as winning arguments go, it seems highly unlikely that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would succeed in persuading the banking public of the merit of its latest decision to “re-introduce” charges on ATM withdrawals on “remote-on-us” transactions. A week after the new policy is supposed to have taken off, the debate has remained animated both in the electronic and the print media. Of course, the preponderance of the opinions is that the Godwin Emefiele-led apex bank has not only missed the track, but that is gradually taking the financial sector back to its old extortionist ways!

Yours truly has carefully followed the debate. I must confess that it is one of those moments when emotions not only rule, but is expected to dictate public policy. And this is understandably so in a clime where service providers are at liberty to slap all manners visible and invisible charges on hapless, but unsuspecting patrons of products and services. Nigerians are after all, only too familiar with extortionate demands by service providers of all sorts – even for services that were never rendered.

Given that context, the harsh criticism not to talk of the resistance that has followed, are only to be expected. But then the issue is when such criticisms by those in strident opposition to what is essentially a value-added service are anchored on false premises – or if you like grave misunderstandings. I guess this is where those in the business of public commentary have the responsibility to help shed light on the issue.

To start with, it is a measure of the changing landscape of service delivery that Nigerians are even debating the latest measure by the apex bank. Ten years ago, the debate would at been merely academic. And trust me – we wouldn’t be Nigerians without our claims of “expertise” even on subjects that many know next to nothing about!

Secondly, it is indicative of how much the Nigerian consumer has come of age in terms of cost-consciousness and service delivery as a whole. But more significantly, the debate is reflective of the understanding of the dynamics in the sector in the last few years – a measure of how much ground the industry as a whole has covered in concrete, developmental terms.

It is also a revelation of the vast knowledge gap that still exists in an industry on which the lives of every Nigerian have come to depend.

To be sure, the CBN circular can hardly be faulted on the grounds of ambiguity: Effective September 1, the apex bank had stated that it would bring back “Remote-On-Us’’ ATM cash withdrawal transactions fee. The fee pegged at N65 per transaction was to cover the remuneration of the switches. It went on to state that “The new charge shall apply as from fourth “Remote-on-us’’ withdrawal in a month by a card holder, thereby making the first three “remote on us” transactions free for the card holders, but to be paid for by the issuing bank”.

As for all ATM cash withdrawal on the ATM of issuing banks, these would remain at no cost to the card holder.

Contrary to what many Nigerians prefer to believe, I do not see anything extra-ordinary in the decision of the CBN to re-introduce the “Remote-on-us’’ charges. If anything, I see the development as borne more of economic realism than anything else. As for the argument that the Bankers Committee had in its wisdom in December 2012 opted to assume the burden on behalf of their customer, this, I daresay, hardly qualifies as an argument. For nowhere in that decision was it remotely suggested that the services was free or cast in stone as it were; rather, the bankers merely opted to assume the costs perhaps in the light of the prevailing exigencies.

More fundamentally, Nigerians should not find it difficult to understand the basis of the “Remote-on-us’’ charges. Think of it this way: a man walks up to an ATM of a bank where he does not operate an account and gets paid. Of course, value is transfered.

Now, is it realistic to pretend that value was not delivered – and that no cost was involved? Would the transactions have been possible without seamless communication between the issuing bank and the payment bank? Shouldn’t the payment bank be entitled to the reward in view of the service rendered? And who should rightly bear the cost, the issuing bank – or the individual who enjoys the service?

That, unfortunately is the present level of the the debate. Didn’t the scriptures say something about the labourers being worthy of his wages? Why should the bankers case be different?

Let me state at this point that there is nothing unhealthy in the debate. Indeed, my wish is that Nigerians make a habit of questioning not just the quality of service dumped on them, but the quality of governance that they are afflicted with.

Happily, more and more Nigerians are questioning the basis of a number of the spurious charges slapped on them. For instance, the other day, I issued four different cheques all totalling N600, 000 only to be slapped with a bill for exceeding the daily cash withdrawal limit. The explanation was that the fellows – not me – collected cash on the counter on the same day! How about that as punishment for daring to pay some poor artisans on the same day? Should Nigerians forget the customary fixed charge routinely slapped on them by the electricity companies even when they are not availed of service.

I agree that progress can only come when citizens routinely take their service providers to task. The key is to be on the side of equity.

And the man died

On Saturday, a friend had called me to inquire if I had heard the news of the death of my former boss at The Sun, Mr. Dimgba Igwe. The friend would add that he was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver.

How? Was he knocked down in a lonely alley? Were there no citizens around to rally for immediate help?

I was later to understand that the first private hospital he was taken to could not help; the second was even worse as the best they could do was refer him to Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) by which time it was already too late.

Would he have died if prompt medical attention was given to him? We can only speculate. One thing seems clear though: the system failed him when it mattered most. This is most unfortunate for a man who spent his entire adult life seeking to make our country better. We shall miss him.

September 9, 2014
When TAN came to town

Nigerians should not be surprised at the multiplicity of groups springing up across the 36 states – all sworn to President Goodluck Jonathan re-election project. For those familiar with the coy ways of the minstrels of power, the long winding play going on; the feints, flanks and the manoeuvres; the grand pretences by those who covet the office so desperately they would rather remain there perhaps till kingdom come should not come as a surprise. Thanks to Abuja’s piggy bank which never runs dry, it is a question of time before Nigerians begin to lose count as groups merge, mutate and/or transform.

However, we must give it to the undisputed leader of the moment – the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN). Irrespective of what anyone may think, or how repulsive their message might appear to be, the group has somehow managed to court public attention. Watching their activities in the last few months, I must confess that there is something intrepid – if hardly creative – in the activities of the group. That is of course permitting – although not excusing – the wild claims on prime-time television about the stature of their principal, putting him in the league of the world’s greats; or as has become increasingly common, the resort to outsize claims of achievement in the face of continuing state regression and failure.

I do not think anyone would or should begrudge the group on their claims or even their current ambition to secure 10 million signatures for President Goodluck Jonathan either. However, like the deadly Ebola virus currently spreading like wild-fire leaving our typically ineffectual public health infrastructure reeling, what should bother us is whether law and morality can still hold in the face of intense saturation of the traditional and the new media by the gospellers of TAN. At this point, debates about the sources of the huge war chest which the group has deployed into action, is obviously, still superfluous.

However, the question of whether the law is on their side or in their pocket, I believe that has already been answered by the group’s open defiance of the laws regarding the kick-off of the campaigns. With an impressive financial war chest to pull, the group obviously thinks little of the niceties of process – more so with the power and the institutions of the state so clearly behind them. We saw this at play at their debut national zonal rally for the South-east in Awka, the Anambra State capital; it was evident in Ibadan a week after. Port Harcourt would turn a climax of the orchestrated endorsements for the President – a signal that the Jonathan-for-second-term train is not only off the leash and revving at full throttle; it was coasting home to victory.

For an investment, I do not think that things could have been better. A total of 4,156,000 signatures for the President from the six South-south states, irrespective of how much was expended, considering how important Project 2015 is, ought to be worth every farthing. Hopefully, there should be enough time to find out whether or not the tally approximate the set of job-seekers asked to upload their personal details in the course of their search for an elusive job!

Did I hear someone say scam?

These are no doubt, interesting times. However, if you ask me, I will tell you that I have no problems with the group’s – or anyone’s – contempt for the law. Indeed, I have very little sympathy for the prey. Here, I am reminded of the beneficiaries of TAN’s 12 nights of bliss – an all expense paid trip to Brazil to watch the Super Eagles World Cup Group’s qualifying matches. Weren’t they assured by TAN that those memories would last a lifetime? What difference does it make that they returned to the dreary humdrum of an existence?

Let me again be clear: I have no problem with TAN marketing their principal. My beef lies in their continuing exertions to distort the reality ordinary Nigerians daily face, and their mindless profiteering from the travails of their fellow citizens.

While TAN is at liberty to frame the issues facing Nigerians anyway they deem fit, Nigerians are obviously entitled to asking fundamental questions about the state of their union; not least their well-being under the watch of their principal – President Jonathan.

At issue is of course the impact of the so-called transformation agenda on the country and the people. Obviously the issue is best framed in terms of the following series of questions. First, is the country more united than it was four years ago when President Goodluck Jonathan took over? The question obviously bears asking given the presidency’s potential as a uniting force and given the President’s rather impressive pan Nigerian mandate of 2011.

Nigerians are obviously familiar with the penchant by the administration’s hierarchs to hide behind statistics in their distorted accounts of economic performance. Nonetheless, it bears asking again: is the economy truly on course in an economy where manufacturing is virtually non-existent and where all manners of consumable items are imported?

What about the prospects for the so-called inclusive growth? Are situations now better than they were four years ago?

Away from the classy road shows, where are the so-called foreign investments in the absence of the pillars on which a truly modern, sophisticated economy can be built? Where are they – the sundry fly-by-night portfolio investors?

What about the war against corruption? Can the administration truly claim to be winning the war?

September 2, 2014
Stranger than fiction

Trust Nigerians to pass off the sacking of the elite police training institution in Dhimankara District, of Gwoza Borno State last Wednesday as just one of those things. Yours truly has been picking the bits and pieces of the accounts together notably that of Leadership newspaper. It seems to me that the Wednesday afternoon attack on the police training facility was predictable. Indeed, it was a matter of “when”, not “if”given that the insurgents had been attacking pockets of hamlets and villages around Gwoza town.

From the accounts, it was clear that the insurgents had better intelligence; they knew when each batch of trainees came in and when those that had finished their training left. It was therefore a question of simply bidding their time for the period betwen the departure of a batch and the arrival of another. And that exactly was when they chose to strike – a case of terrorists at work while our men under arms slumbered.

Again, the story is familiar. The insurgents came riding on trucks and armoured tanks. Not only did they outnumber the security forces, they clearly outgunned them. In the Gwoza attack, the newspaper quoted one of the trainees as saying: “We just arrived the camp and were busy with the documentation process when we began to hear the sounds of shooting at the gate. We later learnt that some of our colleagues, mounting guard at the gate, were exchanging gunfire with the Boko Haram. Most of us were not armed, so we had to flee into Dhimankara village, and from there, we all found our way into the bush and headed towards Adamawa State”.

In the operation that lasted the whole of an hour, some 35 persons were reported missing.

Nigerians are by now familiar with the exploits of the ill-clad ragamuffins in the vast ungoverned space described as North-east Nigeria. Again and again, we are told of the ability of their long convoys to sneak into vast communities to wreak havoc without detection. And with it stories of cycles of confrontation with the Nigerian military which makes the latter look like boy scouts.

While we question the strategies being employed in the war on the insurgency to the extent that they neither make sense nor add up, we must insist on having a holistic picture if only to understand how we have become what we are.

To start with, Dhimankara, the base of the Military Police Training School is just barely 16 kilometres from Gwoza – a community which the Boko Haram had not only seized but had declared the seat of its caliphate. One imagines that a police facility – not least one training the mobile squad – being in close proximity to the base of the terrorists would be in permanent state of heightened alert and with adequate security back up. Were they?

Secondly, there was no doubt that the attackers took them by surprise as they were not in combat form when they arrived. Leadership reports on the account of one of the policemen: “The instructors and armorers had taken over our rifles when the shooting started. Most of us were not with our rifles, and before we could get back to the armoury, it was very late” .

An instructor at the camp was quoted as saying: “The fight at the gate lasted more than an hour before the terrorists blew off the armoured tank that was giving cover to our men at the gate. That was how they succeeded in entering into the premises.” What happened after can only be imagined– the poor hapless souls simply fled into the Adamawa jungle!

Remember, the military outpost in Gwoza had been sacked since August 6; since then, the combined efforts by the military and the air force to dislodge the militants from the town had not only met stiff resistance but had failed. Even then, it seems particularly doubtful that a framework of inter-agency cooperation was in place. Or even a back up or grand preparation in case of possible eventuality.

Why should grand plans be deemed as beyond our ken?

More importantly – why open for business if the safety of the personnel cannot be guaranted? Or better still, why not relocate the training facility to a safer place at least for the sake of the trainees?

It is of course doubtful that anyone would be called to account for last week’s Gwoza disaster. Yet, the truth that needs to be told is that someone, somewhere, was derelict in the performance of his job. Indeed, some functionaries failed the men. The consequence is the scores forced – against their will – to pay with their lives. Nigerians deserve full account. Indeed, finding the answer to what went wrong in Dhimankara would in many respects, speak to all that is wrong with us as a people – particularly our continuing regression.

Finally, for a war that has gulped nearly a whole of three trillion naira in the last three years, we expect not only better coordination but greater efficiency from our body of fighting men. As for military high command’s dismissal of Boko Haram’s declaration of caliphate, it means nothing without an emphatic routing at the battle field. If only for the sake of its glittering past record and institutional pride, it just cannot afford to lose the war against the Boko Haram.

August 26, 2014
Impunity writ large

Nigerians ought to be alarmed at the emerging symptoms of political Ebola in Nassarawa State given its implications both for the health of our badly scarred democracy and the future of Africa’s most populous nation. I refer to the alleged plan by Nassarawa lawmakers to re-open impeachment proceedings against Governor Tanko Al-Makura after an earlier attempt was botched. While Nigerians may claim to have seen enough of the disease of impunity in the sundry acts of institutional abuses by an out-of-control federal government; there is something in the latest attempt that speaks to a potentially more ravaging, debilitating malignancy.

Of course, we know the story. Late last month, 20 PDP members of the 24-member Nassarawa House of Assembly decided that the APC governor’s time was up. In all, they listed 16 offences– the usual stuff (contrived?)– to justify their bid to remove him. Armed with a resolution, they directed the Chief Judge to constitute an impeachment panel.

Problem Number One was that the House intended the Chief Judge to function as a mere undertaker – as against the constitutional role impartial constitutional arbiter – to finish the job. Problem number two was that the Chief Judge, Suleiman Dikko couldn’t imagine playing the errand boy for a group of unruly lawbreakers pretending to be lawmakers.

A looming clash of titans? You bet. And so, the Chief Judge chose a panel of seven, who in his opinion would do the job according to the law. The lawmakers smelt a rat. They ordered the respected Chief Judge to disband his panel alleging that one or two was not qualified. They also made clear their preference for another panel either of their own choosing or one to be approved by them. The Chief Judge wouldn’t be persuaded that anything was wrong with the panel and so refused to bulge. The House fulminated. No matter. The panel went into business.

To be sure, it was not a question of the law being ambiguous about who had the authority to exercise the discretion. Indeed, it appears to be the one instance where constitutional provisions do not lend to any ambiguity. While it is the lot of the lawmakers to kick off the process, nowhere in the law is the House conferred with absolute discretion on the process. This, unfortunately, the House chose not to understand.

In the end, the panel returned NOT GUILTY verdict on the man that the House would rather have his head on a platter!

Under the law, the case was deemed permanently closed: it was clear that the lawmakers had not only blown the chance to oust the governor, they had fully exhausted the provisions of the law in the bid.

That however has since turned out to be one bitter pill that the House would rather not swallow hence the fresh bid to oust the governor. Indeed, it would appear that the Nassarawa lawmakers see themselves as not just above the law, but far beyond the niceties of checks and balances ingrained into the political process hence their latest gambit to draft a vacation judge to finish up the job left by an unwilling Chief Judge!

The implication of this must be seen as truly frightening. First is the danger in the desperate resort to self-help by the PDP lawmakers; the idea that the House is prepared to have its way by any means no matter how illegitimate – or treasonable – and that there is nothing that anyone – not even the electors of Nassarawa – can do about it!

The other is the signal being sent out – that PDP would only accept its preferred outcome – even that means undermining a vital institution of democracy like the judiciary. Why not go to court if the issue is that Justice Dikko actually breached the law in the setting up of the impeachment panel? Would the drafting of the vacation judge to do their bidding automatically set aside the earlier proceedings? Would the trial of the governor by another panel for the same offence not amount to double jeopardy?

And finally, would it not amount to a usurpation of the power of the chief judge – a clear breach of the constitution? How would that pan out with the constitutional provision which confers finality to proceedings in the event that the panel returns the no guilty as in the present case?

Nigerians are watching how this plays out. However, with General Elections barely six months away, they must wonder at the game plan; the interests being served by the activities of the bunch of delinquent lawmakers sworn to truncate an orderly process. While it seems clear that the sponsors of mayhem cannot see the danger signals in the precipitous descent into the famed Hobessian jungle, Nigerians have a lot to worry about in what the development portends for their democracy.

And where do we go from here? From hooded democracy to the rule of might? And where does that lead? Your guess is as good as mine.

August 19, 2014