Recently, the aphorism which claims the pen is mightier than the sword received an exaggerated upgrade at the hands of no less a person than the Minister for Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed.

Speaking like one at the end of his tether, he said last week at the Nigerian Economic Summit: “Whereas in many countries, the press is worried about being bullied by the government, here in Nigeria, it is the government that has to contend with endless bullying by the press.”

It was a sensational statement confirming that the much-vilified media don’t own the franchise on sensationalism.

What I found astounding, however, was that his comments didn’t generate even the mildest of protest.

It was either he was speaking a truth so powerful that even the accused surrendered to his logic, or people just took the position that some things are better left unsaid.

The minister’s opinion isn’t unique. I dare say if people in different arms of government or the security agencies were polled, they would have views that aren’t dissimilar – which isn’t to say they are correct.

Nigeria is passing through unprecedented trials. Security challenges that not even the best fiction writers could conjure have seized our land. The economy is in dire straits and these struggles are exemplified by the slippery slide in value of the naira vis a vis major world currencies.

Any government that has to deal with these things would understandably feel the heat – especially when they think they are doing their best. They would be defensive and develop a bunker mentality that says it’s them against us. They would see enemies in everyone whose views are not in sync with theirs, or who doesn’t share their perspective.

Unfortunately, whatever the government is throwing at the country’s many challenges hasn’t had the kind of effect that would transform the media and citizenry into some kind of hallelujah chorus line.

As some of us stated circa 2014/2015 when the Goodluck Jonathan administration was reeling from fierce media and opposition criticism, if there’s a lot of criticism of government it’s because there’s so much to criticise.

Jonathan at some point threw up his hands and declared himself the most criticised and insulted president on earth. To listen to some officials of the present government you get the impression the former president not only handed over power, he also passed on the mantle of being the world’s number one flak magnet.

But much of the resentment, anger and defensiveness in officialdom stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the media.

The primary job of the media is to report the news factually, with balance and in a socially-responsible manner. The media is to hold government accountable, speak truth to power and not get into bed with it. Some would even say it is their role to make life difficult for the powers-that-be.

Unfortunately, government officials and leaders of the security agencies expect media organisations to be nothing more than public relations outlets that will inflate their modest achievements. Their dream media would ‘patriotically’ not report the actions of bandits and insurgents because it glamourises such activities. Really!

The media gets a bum rap most of the time; it is damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t. It’s a convenient whipping boy to demonise when a government feeling the heat needs to deflect attention.

At some point in the last two years the media wasn’t paying much attention to atrocities of bandits in the Zamfara axis. I recall how they were criticised and made to look as if the lack of focus was down to some regional bias. Then, suddenly, newspapers turned their focus and begun to publish the scale of the horrors. The same figures began accusing the media of paying too much attention to banditry!

Many government officials lecture the press about how their Western counterparts cover the country, suggesting that journalists in the United States and United Kingdom don’t ventilate the evils of their societies or the shortcomings of their leaders. Nothing could be more ignorant or divorced from facts.

In the final year of the Donald Trump presidency he constantly faced hostile media questioning right there in the White House briefing room. Scenes of reporters irreverently exchanging words with the most powerful president on earth were regularly beamed across the world.

In one particular incident an exasperated Trump slammed a particular correspondent for her challenging line of questioning. “Don’t talk to me like that. I’m the president of the United States,” he declared petulantly.

Imagine if a reporter were to summon the suicidal audacity to question a Nigerian governor or president in such a fashion!

When the US made a hash of the pulling out its forces from Afghanistan, it wasn’t the Cambodian or Cuban press that magnified it. It was the American media that led the charge – calling out their government before a global audience for bungling on a historical scale.

Just the other day, President Joe Biden was caught having a senior citizen moment – taking a brief nap at a conference of world leaders. It was the Fox News of this world that led the reportage that put the president of their country in less-than-flattering light.

Nigerian government officials would cry treason if journalists did any of these things mentioned in the last few paragraphs.

It is truly ironic that the current Minister for Information who proved quite adept at pushing media buttons to make life unbearable for the government of the day when he was opposition spokesman, should be the one driving this narrative of the media as a pack of demons.

To their credit, the Jonathan administration even at the lowest point of the bashing they received, restrained themselves from overreacting. Instead, they tried their best – albeit unsuccessfully – to change the way they were being defined as ‘clueless’.

But instead of working to change reportage with evidence that policies are transforming the things people complain about, officials want the media to become the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil collaborators of government. It doesn’t work that way most places in the world – except maybe in North Korea, Myammar, Azerbaijan etc.

The media isn’t bullying this government. If anything it has been at the receiving end of inelegant attempts to beat it into submission through crude legislation or other ham-handed action like the Twitter ban.

Those efforts continue daily with sustained attempts at calling a dog a bad name preparatory to its hanging. But the whole world knows who the real bullies are.

 

 

 

What’s in a name? Everything – judging by the ongoing debate about proper nomenclature for the band of gunmen who have transformed hostage-taking into a billion naira enterprise in the Northwest.

The discussion has become more intense following the downing by bandits of a Nigeria Air Force jet, as it returned from an operation over forests between Zamfara and Kaduna States.

One national newspaper just published a front page editorial criticising the media and political elite for persisting in calling a spade a shovel.

Judging by some comments, it would appear the gunmen are thriving because they’ve not been called sufficiently derogatory names. Referring to them bandits just doesn’t go far enough.

Ordinarily, being tagged terrorist should attract greater scrutiny from government and society. You become a person of interest to police forces and intelligence agencies around the world. But that’s not been our experience in Nigeria.

Boko Haram who have been labelled terrorists for more than a decade are still in business. Government did same with the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), but that didn’t douse the secessionist agitation.

Sometimes, the labelling process becomes complicated – influenced by everything from the mundane to gravely serious; with a healthy helping of politics thrown in.

I recall how in the early days of Boko Haram then President Goodluck Jonathan’s government resisted efforts by the Hilary Clinton-led US State Department, to classify the group and its leaders as terrorist. An influential local lobby arose, claiming that such tagging would expose innocent Nigerians to inconveniences and embarrassment at airports around the globe due to guilt by association.

The administration even argued that the sect were “our brothers” who they would reason with for amicable resolution of their grievances. Little did they realise that the demands of extremists are often non-negotiable and that their “brothers” would accept nothing short of surrender to their ideology.

Nigerians have moved on and the insurgents have done enough in the last decade to secure their place in the terrorists’ hall of infamy. So, naturally, people are more inclined to throw names around. But let’s be sure the cap fits.

There’s no perfect or universally accepted definition of what constitutes terrorism. That’s why some argue one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Nelson Mandela was a hero to his people and an inspiration to millions around the world. But to South Africa’s apartheid regime he was a dangerous terrorist who they locked away for 27 years.

The UN General Assembly Resolution 49/60 adopted on December 9, 1994 titled “Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism” contains a provision which describes terrorism as: “Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes.”

It stated that such actions were “in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.”

Another UN panel on March 17, 2005 described terrorism as any act “intended to cause death or serious bodily to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organisation to do or abstain from doing any act.”

A typical dictionary definition explains it as “the unlawful use of violence or threats to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government, with the goal of furthering political, social, or ideological objectives.”

What is common to the foregoing is that these violent actions are usually tied to political, ideological or religious goals. In that sense what’s happening in the Northeast fits the classic definition of terrorism because of the ends pursued by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP).

But as I argued last week, banditry in the Northwest has had no political or religious overtones. It has been largely transactional. People are held hostage for money. Those who rustle cattle, do so for cold, hard cash. The ones engaged in illegal mining are in it for economy reasons, not with any aspiration to making Paradise.

One dictionary defines a bandit as “a robber or outlaw belonging to a gang and typically operating in an isolated or lawless area.” This is exactly what’s playing out in vulnerable areas of the Northwest – from Zamfara to Kaduna – where well-armed criminals have been targeting schools and communities which have little or no military or police presence.

The use of extreme violence for economic ends isn’t something that’s unique to Nigeria. Violent Mexican and Colombian drug cartels often engage in senseless slaughter of the innocent while protecting or expanding their turf. No one calls them terrorists but simply the organised criminals that they are.

What’s going on in the Northwest isn’t a problem caused by labelling, neither is it going to be terminated via a naming ceremony. The idea is as ridiculous as suggesting Nigeria’s woes would miraculously disappear with a name change. That famous phrase from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet says: ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’.

The only way peace is going to return to the region is by first acknowledging the root of the problem. As Bill Clinton famously said: “It’s the economy, stupid.” The absence of economic opportunities has created a desperate segment of the population who have no sense of what’s right or wrong, moral or immoral, human or inhuman.

They are so desperate they abduct and kill those whose condition is as abject as theirs. They maim and murder young and old with no religious or moral compass directing their actions save the money they now worship. Those splitting hairs over names must now wake up and smell the tangy coffee.

Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, whose domain is epicentre of the problem, last weekend in Kaduna issued a cutting analysis of the situation – locating the blame where it belongs.

He said: “Rural banditry in Zamfara and other parts of the North is a result of the progressive degradation of our moral standards and a culture of greed fed by an unfettered need for material goods. It is evident that we, the leaders, are responsible for the plight of the North.

“The North lacks responsible leadership to steer it through our time’s uncharted waters. Our ruling elite has no vision for the region beyond gaining political power.”

Matawalle isolated the problem brilliantly. So what’s he and other leaders going to do about creating the opportunities that would make banditry lose its appeal?

“This article was first published on July 28, 2021. It is reproduced because of the ongoing national debate on whether to label bandits terrorists.

 

 

We are at a historical juncture where the Southeast is fast trading places with the Northeast and Northwest as a major source of worry.

The escalation of separatist violence marked by attacks on security agents, police stations, properties of top politicians, as well as the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) sit-at-home campaign, shows no sign of abating.

If the Federal Government thought the extraordinary rendition of the group’s leader Nnamdi Kanu from Kenya would lead to a collapse of pro-Biafra agitation and violence, the reverse has been the case.

In the last few months we’ve witnessed the shocking assassinations of notable figures like former presidential adviser, Ahmed Gulak and Dr. Chike Akunyili, husband of the late Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Dora Akunyili. Both were brutally executed in the street.

Scores with lesser profiles have been murdered for daring to flout the sit-at-home diktat. Some had their dwellings razed for openly criticising the tactics of the secessionists. Individuals and corporate organisations have lost billions as their trucks and goods were vandalised.

Even when one or two governors ventured out of their Government House fortresses to encourage citizens to step out on the so-called ‘Ghost Mondays,’ they were ignored because people know who calls the shots in the region these days.

Such is the scale of the violence that campaigns for November’s Anambra governorship elections have been thrown into disarray. Major parties like the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have shut down public appearances for fear of attacks.

The greater fear is that on polling day we may witness historically low turnout that renders the whole exercise a charade. How are security forces that haven’t been able to stop killings in normal times expected to provide cover for electoral officers in isolated communities on Election Day?

This spectre of violence prompted Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, to injudiciously suggest that declaration of a state of emergency in Anambra was a distinct possibility.

Many ridiculed him for being so gung-ho about declaring an emergency in Anambra, while not advocating the same strong medicine in his Northwest home turf where bloodthirsty bandits have killed hundreds, sacked rural communities and disrupted the educational system. They have a point.

Malami and other senior Federal Government officials should actually be taking a broader view of what’s unfolding in the region. It’s bigger than just delivering some semblance of elections through a show of force.

Long after the polls have come and gone, the mess in the Southeast would be waiting for someone to clean it up.

Truth be told, neither government nor IPOB can have it their way. The militarisation of the region and deployment of intimidation hasn’t extinguished pro-Biafra sentiment. A new low was reached last week when soldiers apprehended popular actor Chiwetalu Agu for wearing a robe depicting Biafra colours complete with the rising sun symbol.

Some may not be as brazen as the thespian by putting their sentiments on public display in such manner, but many harbour a fondness for Biafra in the Southeast.

Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, recently estimated that over 30 separatist groups currently operate in the region. Twenty years ago the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) was the only one, and it was viewed as something of a joke.

The only way to reverse that growth trajectory is to engage in a battle for hearts, not a shooting war. It’s difficult to sustain a union based solely on military might. Where there’s a will, people ultimately find a way – no matter the might of the state. This is a struggle that’s going to outlive President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration because the sentiments driving it are deep-rooted.

The Spanish situation is a good example. The Catalan independence movement has been at it since the mid-19th century. When separatist leaders called protests following the jailing of some of their colleagues in 2019, the streets of Barcelona were jammed by tens of thousands of demonstrators.

They don’t have their own country yet and may not in the foreseeable future, but political parties pushing their agenda have wormed their way into the mainstream, advancing the independence cause.

The big problem in the Southeast is the gulf separating both sides. IPOB wants nothing short of an independent Biafra, by referendum if possible. But since government will not serve up balkanisation of the country on a platter, it’s increasingly embracing guerrilla struggle. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the military wherewithal or political support – internally and externally – to prevail that way.

Using hate-fuelled rhetoric hasn’t won it many friends. The promotion of Kanu as an almost messianic, cult-like figure has repulsed many in the establishment and political classes who have no appetite for a revolutionary journey to an uncertain destination.

Central to the challenge facing IPOB is the huge population of Igbos who witnessed the civil war, for whom the memories are still vivid and horrendous. They are in no hurry to embark on a sequel – not for all the pleasures of having their own homeland.

Overcoming their initial fear, more of such individuals are speaking out, denouncing the heavy material and psychological toll of the violence and sit-at-home campaigns on the region.

It appears what IPOB is selling isn’t sufficiently attractive, that’s why they are pushing it using terror. While images of deserted streets may represent short term propaganda gains, the collateral damage from the group’s scorched earth approach is alienating many ordinary people. It’s the surest way of short-circuiting their struggle.

The best route to restore normalcy is for all sides to recognise the limitations of their present approach and admit the existence of legitimate grievances that should be addressed.

For all the talk of reconciliation following the war, distrust between the Southeast and the rest of Nigeria is latent. This needs to be dealt with in an open and honest manner. Where errors have been made, like other zones having six or seven states and the east just five, this can be revisited.

Whatever solution is envisaged must acknowledge that Kanu is already trapped in judicial proceedings and there’s no conceivable way out but for the process to run its course. If he’s convicted, some future president, in the spirit of national reconciliation and healing, may decide to offer him an amnesty.

But the region’s political office holders, would-be presidential aspirants, must urgently seize the initiative because their territory is being destroyed daily in a slow-burn ‘second civil war’ that’s currently playing out.

 

Turmoil in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and intricate scheming within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) should surprise no one. They are portents of the titanic battle ahead as political interests jockey to determine who succeeds President Muhammadu Buhari.

Central to rising tension is deciding how flagbearers would emerge. Some have suggested they be chosen on merit. But no system known to man has been able to devise a means for measuring suitability of individuals for high office. We are left with good old horse-trading and creative formulas like rotation or zoning.

As is to be expected the battle is fiercest in the PDP whose members are horrified by the prospect of another four years in the power wilderness.

Its aspirants are emboldened because, unlike in 2019, they wouldn’t be going against an incumbent – so they fancy their chances.

The ruling party’s record is a patchwork of hits and misses with regards to the economy and security. While APC might have done relatively well with rail, roads and bridges, its abysmal record on the larger economy and insecurity can be exploited by a competent opposition.

However, Nigerian politics is anything but straightforward. In spite of the gloom and doom, the traffic of defectors is largely headed towards the doors of the ruling party. Fleeing PDP members sense where the wind vane is pointing and are jumping ship early.

Read Also: NAFDAC testing 40 herbal products

For those who have elected to remain, the calculations are clear. When they were last in power the president was from the South-south zone. So internal logic suggests they go north – even if that runs against fairness in the larger national context considering that Buhari – a Northerner – would have held office for eight uninterrupted years come 2023.

Some of the party’s stakeholders casually brush this aside, arguing that rotation or zoning isn’t written into the constitution. Never mind that it’s the very contrivance by which the political elite have shared power since the Second Republic.

So barring seismic developments, the North will produce the next PDP candidate. The ambitions of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal, former Senate President Bukola Saraki and former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso, are well advertised. Southern politicians are lining up to run for the chairmanship, confirming the unofficial zoning formula.

For Atiku especially, it’s the last roll of the dice. If he doesn’t get the ticket and go on to become president, it would be an underwhelming end to a long political career which at some point promised great things.

Driving the desire to look North within PDP is received wisdom that the region, despite Buhari serving two terms, would gladly vote one of their own again in a North-South match-up. Even if that were the case, how would another Northern candidate resonate with the rest of Nigeria?

In 2007 and 2011 Buhari’s massive vote haul in his region didn’t deliver the presidency, until the APC platform gave him a base of significant support in a southern zone in 2015.

The phenomenon where one man’s appeal consistently delivers ten million votes per electoral cycle may not be repeated. We have seen that Atiku is not Buhari, neither do Saraki and Kwankwaso have the same grassroots pull as the president. After the last six years it’s unlikely that the three northern zones would line up lamb-like behind one individual again. But for PDP, the northern card seems like the only viable option.

For APC, things are more straightforward. The presidency will rotate south – most likely the Southwest whose alliance with Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) resulted in the historic 2015 victory.

The Southeast isn’t going to get the prize on the sentimental argument that it has never produced a president. The cold calculation would be how zoning the ticket there helps the ruling party retain power.

How strong are its structures in the east? Would the ticket motivate a region that’s been historically repulsed by the ruling political tendency to suddenly execute a U-turn?

Perhaps, this realisation is why there’s a dearth of interested aspirants from the zone. The same cannot be said for the Southwest where you can readily identify three leaders whose presidential ambitions are well known.

Handling the Southeast and South-South is potentially tricky for PDP. How does it explain not giving a chance to its long term allies in these strategic strongholds after a Northerner has held office for eight years? It’s the most difficult of conundrums.

Governors would be key in determining who gets what in either party. But they won’t do so as a bloc because of diverging interests. PDP governors in Port Harcourt in 2018 didn’t act as one in the contest between Atiku and Tambuwal. It would be the same with their ruling party colleagues when push comes to shove.

Intriguingly, the 2023 race could be reminiscent of the famous 1993 contest in terms of departure from conventional wisdom. Many would say the early frontrunner in APC is former Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu. In 2015 he was a shoo-in for the vice presidency until virulent opposition to a Muslim-Muslim ticket with Buhari scuttled the proposition.

Already, some influential northern voices have suggested that they would back him if he runs with another Muslim. Would this fly when it didn’t six years ago? Possibly.

Twenty eight years ago, then Social Democratic Party (SDP) threw up a Southern Muslim flagbearer who had to run with a Northern Muslim out of strategic interest.

The pairing was anathema politically but it was the condition late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, leader of the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), gave as condition for backing Chief M. K. O. Abiola’s candidacy. The businessman was asked to go and sell the Muslim-Muslim ticket down South and he did a masterful job.

The National Republican Convention’s (NRC) northern candidate, Bashir Tofa, went for the more politically correct option – pairing with the Christian Dr. Sylvester Ugoh from the Southeast.

But by polling day on June 12, 1993, the ‘taboo’ pairing had become a non-issue – clearing the way for a sweeping SDP landslide across the country. Abiola achieved electoral breakthroughs in the three northern zones – even defeating Tofa on his home turf – because his party delivered for him.

While the APC and PDP may not presently have an overarching godfather in the mould of Yar’Adua or a dominant, well-oiled political machine like the PDM, watch out for the role of governors and local leaders of large delegate-rich states as the parties get down to making their choice.

 

Everything about COVID-19 is a pain. Like every nuisance, or that awkward guest who plumps himself down on your sofa uninvited, this pandemic isn’t in a hurry to go away.

First, there was the outbreak as the ‘novel coronavirus,’ then a second wave and now countries around the world are grappling with a potentially deadlier third wave. What next? The fourth, fifth or even permanent residency?

Nigeria confirmed late in July that we have officially entered the third wave with a scary spike in daily infection rates after a period of steady decline. Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) figures show that on August 21 the country recorded 1,064 cases – the highest daily figure in six months. The last time there was a higher figure was on January 18, at the peak of the second wave, with 877 cases.

The new strain has so far popped up in the FCT, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Lagos and Oyo States.

In every wave, Lagos has been the epicentre. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu confirmed the upward trend Monday saying test positivity rate currently stands at 12.1% compared to 1.1% at the end of June 2021.

But whatever danger he sees in the statistics is lost on most of his compatriots. The so-called Delta variant is supposed the deadliest of the coronavirus strains so far and spreads faster. The killer is back, reinforced, ready for a rematch, but Nigerians are unimpressed.

We’ve become so hardened we’re not moved by evidence. About 506 people have died in Lagos over the course of the pandemic – a period of one and half years. Significantly, 135 of that number are those who lost their lives in the last one month. Osun just announced 13 deaths in one week.

Read Also: Insurgency: 10% of Borno residents missing, says Zulum

High profile casualties abound: from former Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye to Mohammed Fawehinmi, to former First Lady, Hadiza Shehu Shagari – just to name a few.

One reason for cynicism might be that other diseases are doing an equally impressive job of decimating the population. Take the recent cholera outbreak across the country which has claimed close to 1,000 lives in just a couple of months. For all its fearsome reputation the coronavirus death toll in 18 months is 2,260.

COVID-19 is the great unmasker of hypocrites – and we see this all the time around the world. In the UK, ministers and other high officials tasked with enforcing tough lockdown rules, have been caught breaching same to secretly visit their families or lovers.

Last weekend, despite preachments about the danger of large gatherings at this time, a huge crowd of movers and shakers shook Kano as President Muhammadu Buhari led his son Yusuf to take Zahra, daughter of the Emir of Bichi, Nasiru Ado Bayero, as wife.

Many at the event were unmasked: it wasn’t the only COVID-19 protocol they trampled underfoot on their way in and out.

The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) warned Sunday that events such as the wedding where precautions were openly flouted, can fuel infections.

But this isn’t just a Nigerian thing. Such is the desire for people to return to unrestrained living that they would sooner or later run afoul of what is now considered acceptable conduct. Just like the Buhari’s, former US President Barack Obama wasn’t going to let a little virus stand in the way of a grand celebration of his landmark 60th birthday earlier this month.

Amidst an outcry over how unseemly it was to host such a mass gathering in a pandemic, he announced a scaling down – which still made room for a couple of hundreds to attend. Those who defended him argued that most of the attendees were already double-vaccinated so there’s was very little danger posed to guests.

Really? In recent times the news has been awash with reports of people who had received two jabs testing positive. Popular singer Mike Okri is one such example. So much for vaccine protection. COVID-19 is not only a pain, it’s clearly very confusing.

So if the Obama guests trusted in the efficacy of their jabs, on what did the Buhari crowd base their confidence? How many at that party had been vaccinated once when the country has only received a little over four million vaccine doses to cater for over 112 million eligible people?

This isn’t to suggest that there’s been a mad rush to take advantage of the limited quantity of vaccines available. Far from it. A combination of hesitancy and just sheer indifference has ensured that there hasn’t been a crisis arising from the limited supply of doses.

However, one state that cannot be accused of taking the third wave lightly is Edo. Governor Godwin Obaseki just unveiled a set of tough new measures that the unvaccinated won’t find amusing.

Beginning from the second week of September 2021, people who haven’t been vaccinated at least once would be denied access to banks, churches, mosques and large public gatherings.

The governor says the measures are to protect citizens and will remain until the pandemic passes away. His zeal is admirable but may just be overdone. People would be raising questions about the legality and fairness of an order that denies them access to banks and churches just because they’ve not been vaccinated. May be the Edo State government has provided sufficient vaccines doses and people didn’t take advantage. The facts don’t support that suggestion.

The trouble with the new measures is that they will suffer the fate of most Nigerian laws – death by unenthusiastic enforcement.

Even worse, they won’t amount to much because the state isn’t an island. It is surrounded by others who are less gung-ho about dishing out the bitter medicine to combat COVID-19 – meaning Obaseki’s actions alone can’t tame transmission if similar measures are not in place in surrounding states.

Then you have the remarkable penchant of Nigerians to break rules. Governor Sanwo-Olu was just moaning over 1,049 returnee travellers who absconded from Lagos’ isolation facilities. Security in the facilities must have been quite lax for them to break out in such numbers in less than three months.

If truly the purpose of isolation was to prevent spread to the larger population, such centres should have been like mini medical prisons. But I guess the governor expected people to be reasonable and do the right thing. Unfortunately, that’s an attitude that’s been as scarce as people wearing masks – even in the midst of a supposedly more deadly new wave.

By Festus Eriye

Anyone born in the 1990s cannot understand why for those slightly older, former President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida aka IBB aka Maradona remains an object of enduring fascination. They were probably in the womb or were too young to notice when, at the peak of his powers, the general played Nigerians like the piano.

They would struggle to understand the context in which he was nicknamed after the late Argentinian football great Diego Amando Maradona who was noted for his silky dribbling skills. Despite being so prodigiously talented he wasn’t averse to deploying the occasional underhand tactic to determine the outcome of a match – as he infamously did with the ‘Hand of God’ goal in the World Cup quarter-final match against England in 1986.

To them, the larger-than-life Chief M. K. O. Abiola – one of the most colourful business moguls and politicians – to have ever traversed these parts is someone they can only relate to from a perspective of history.

Today, Abiola’s main claim to fame is not the fact that he was one of the richest Nigerians that ever lived, but that he won an election widely adjudged as one of the freest and fairest ever conducted in this country, but never got to occupy office. He wasn’t denied by death neither did he renounce the victory: it was snatched from him by Babangida – his one-time friend turned deadly foe.

Twenty-eight years after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election results IBB is still explaining why he and his junta subverted the will of the Nigerian people.

Read Also: Nigeria must learn from history, or remain stagnant, says don

His latest rationalisation in an interview with Arise TV doesn’t come any closer to offering a remotely acceptable justification for the heinous heist that denied a duly elected president his prize. It was a classic act of treason but in a land where anything goes, he and his co-conspirators have gone on to enjoy cushy retirement while deigning to lecture us about what’s in our best interests. In some other lands he would be spending his final days behind bars.

But punishment comes in different ways. God has blessed him with long life to witness that his legacy would forever be defined and tarnished by the singular act of the annulment. Whatever he accomplished by liberalising the economy and polity is overshadowed by one gross miscalculation. He will spend the rest of his days feeling the need to unburden over what has become a dead weight around his shoulders.

In the recent interview Babangida revealed that there would have been a violent coup d’état had Abiola become president. He’d like us to believe that the annulment was an act of love towards the winner of the poll and the country.

I would argue that the reverse was the case. The cynical cancellation was the arrogant action of a bunch of politicians in fatigues who had become addicted to power; they became so used to the perks and spoils of office and were loath to withdraw from the honeycomb.

It was supreme arrogance for a bunch of officers to think that their desires were superior to the will of the country expressed through millions of voters.

The truth is IBB was never really keen on transferring power to civilians. He kept manipulating and subverting the transition programme he’d put place – arbitrarily altering handover dates.

That’s when he wasn’t whimsically circumscribing the right of people to participate in the process. Some were banned after being classified as “old breed politicians.” Others anointed as “new breed” were cleared to forge ahead in two artificially created political parties which were assigned names and government-built offices across the country.

Politicians were herded into them like cattle depending on whether they were ideologically “a little to the left or a little to the right.” It was a Nigerian original that could only have been conjured by Babangida’s fertile imagination.

It was farcical but so determined was the country for a return to democratic rule that the people made it work – turning out in droves for peaceful polling. They even overlooked what remains a political taboo today – electing the Muslim-Muslim ticket of Abiola and Babagana Kingibe.

Imagine what could have been had those results stood? Imagine how that outcome could have affected political development and national cohesion in the nearly three decades since then? But Babangida pulled a heavy rug over Nigeria’s brief moment in the sun; he snuffed out the two artificial babies he created. It was a criminal act of historical proportions.

IBB is no paragon. He lost the right to pontificate on democracy the day he annulled the June 12 results. The best he could do would be to get out of our faces. But he’s not content to sit quietly on the side lines.

In the new interview he’s back at doing what he does best – scheming and intriguing, trying to shape the direction and outcome of the pivotal 2023 presidential elections.

Take, for instance, his prescription of an age cap. He says the next president should be somebody in his 60s. This suggests there’s something magical about this demographic that will make Nigeria’s troubles disappear.

But the age argument is intellectually fraudulent. The mess that’s been made of this nation isn’t just down to the age of whoever is president. Goodluck Jonathan was in his early 50s when he took office.

The vast majority of governors, ministers, local government chairmen, federal and state legislators are in the band between 30 and 70 years – yet their domains are in such a sorry state. Clearly something other than age is responsible for their failure.

Incumbent US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump are in their 70s. Even at 75 the latter is plotting a return to office in 2024 when he would be 78 – and there are millions of Americans of all ages urging him on.

Our problem isn’t just about the age of the president: it’s about creating a system that works, recreating a society based on laws – one that has the right values, one where the people from diverse backgrounds feel they are getting a fair shake.

The next president should be a person with vision, capacity, skill sets to handle current challenges with regards to the economy, insecurity and national cohesion. He shouldn’t be parochial or blinded by a provincial mind set.

Nigeria needs presidential candidates with character to lead us into that bright future we dream of – not some flaky individual who’s the product of the scheming of individuals whose grievous errors brought us to this sorry pass.

 

By Festus Eriye

On the day he was decorated with his new rank of Lieutenant-General, Chief of Army Staff, Farouk Yahaya, made a proud boast. The army, he said, had sent many bandits and other criminals undermining national security “to God to go and answer for their crimes.”

It’s been two weeks since those remarks; the litany of atrocities and frequency of attacks, suggest he’s not made enough appointments for them with their maker.

At a time when we’ve become well-nigh unshockable, many were stunned by reports on Monday of how intense gunfire from bandits brought down a Nigerian Air Force jet returning from a bombing raid on targets in the forests between Zamfara and Kaduna States.

Thankfully, the pilot who ejected from his disabled craft was rescued. The military high command has celebrated the heroics and bravery of Flight Lieutenant Abayomi Dairo as is appropriate. But the larger significance of this incident must not be lost.

Nigeria is no longer dealing with ragtag armed gangs in the Northwest. You don’t bring down a military jet with a pistol or Dane gun. Many photographs of bandits with their victims in recent times have shown them strutting around with RPGs (rocket propelled grenades) and AK47s. But to perpetrate what they did two days ago would have required something of the calibre of shoulder-held Surface-To-Air Missiles (SAM).

You don’t acquire this kind of capacity overnight and you can’t without adequate funds. So while governments and influential individuals in the region pursued wrongheaded initiatives that appeased the criminals, or pushed a narrative that the society had somehow offended them, they pressed on with their real agenda – stocking up for war, because you don’t take an RPG to a social gathering.

In another example that the gunmen mean business, they ambushed and killed 13 policemen in a single attack in Bungudu Local Government Area last Sunday.

That same weekend a certain bandit leader Kachalla Turji made headlines after he and his men seized 150 persons from several villages in retaliation for the arrest of his father. He had in a meeting with noted cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi in February bragged that his gang had enough weapons in their possession to paralyse Zamfara.

Although they’ve been linked to attacks on police stations and security forces in the Southeast, for all their aggressive rhetoric, for all the hype and demonisation, Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) militants are yet to scale up to the level of shooting down fighter jets. As for Sunday Igboho’s forces, they are content to deploy African magic and associated disappearing arts.

I fear, however, that the government would continue to find it tough going against the bandits. They are a different animal from foes it’s contending with in the Northeast, Southwest and Southeast because their motivations are neither political nor religious but economic.

Ransom is more addictive than any opiate because it’s easy money. For as long as there are people, isolated institutions and communities, it will keep coming. With the parlous state of the economy, there are very few enterprises that guarantee the return that hostage-taking does – not even crude oil.

That’s why talk of amnesty for the bloodthirsty hounds always comes to nothing. Such an arrangement modelled after what currently exists in the Niger Delta would only offer paltry government handouts to multimillionaire criminals. It’s not enough incentive for those who can make mindboggling money from pinching fellow human beings.

In April, Auwal Daudawa, who masterminded the abduction in December 2020 of over 300 schoolboys in Kankara, Katsina State, took up arms again just weeks after claiming he had repented. His excuse? Frustration over “lack of proper engagement” for him and his family after the Zamfara government undertook to cater for his welfare.

A brief recap of some recent cases better illustrates the ransom economics. Parents of 16 Greenfield University students abducted in April paid a whooping N180 million to secure the release of their wards after 38 days in captivity. That’s a tidy return for five weeks’ works irrespective of the number of goons recruited for this assignment.

After 28 days in their kidnappers’ den seven staff and students of Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic in the same state were freed after payment of N10 million.

The parents of 120 students of Bethel Baptist Secondary School, Kaduna, are currently sourcing a ransom of N60 million – at N500,000 per child – to bring them home.

The more ambitious abductors of the Emir of Kajuru have set an asking price of N200 million to release members his household still in their custody, having cut the traditional ruler loose as a gesture of goodwill.

The business is relatively risk-free because its promoters have all the cards in their hands: they can press emotional buttons of their victims’ families while government postures and emits empty threats.

Bandits have one major advantage in the sense that the authorities underrate them and underestimate their capabilities. For while the convenient narrative is that they are led by illiterate warlords, we see in their actions bands operating with increasing sophistication. They may appear rash and irrational but execute their missions in ways that are clearly well-thought out.

For instance, in most recent cases the gangs have swooped on isolated secondary schools and villages, riding scores of motorcycles for easy get away into the dense forests. Even while negotiating with the families of hostages seized from Greenfield University, they requested brand new motorcycles clearly for operational use.

This suggests a better understanding of the terrain they operate in and the crimes they have chosen to perpetrate, than those who are attempting to bring them to heel. So far, government seems content to strafe them from air – with limited accuracy – whereas their quarry can appear and disappear once the jet has returned to base.

There’s a limit to what can be achieved this way, suggesting an urgent rethinking of approach. Government should be worried because the longer the bandits retain these advantages the worse the problem becomes. Once upon a time Boko Haram was an irritant limited to Maiduguri; twelve years after it’s a malignant rash spread all over the Northeast.

Today, the government’s recent successes have boxed it into a corner. With IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu and Igboho restrained, all attention would be focused on the bandits. President Muhammadu Buhari and his team must now answer those wondering how their long arms can pluck foes from Kenya and Benin, but can’t seem to do the same in the wild, wild Northwest.