Category: Festus Eriye

By Festus Eriye

In just about any other business when things are going south, leadership pays the price. If a company keeps making losses and isn’t delivering dividends to shareholders, the CEO would be sacked.

Elite football clubs dispose of managers like used tissue paper when they are unable to meet targets – and it doesn’t matter how reasonable their excuses for failure may be.

The military and security establishment are just like any other business organisation – except that they are not tasked with delivering monetary dividends. Theirs is to manage men and armament with a view to guaranteeing the nation’s territorial integrity.

It stands to reason that when insecurity becomes a national crisis their leadership would come under scrutiny, with many calling for the sacking of the heads of the armed forces.

If things are going well, there may be no need to change people. IEDs may not be exploding in Abuja, but life is still scary for people in Borno, parts of Yobe and Adamawa.

Insurgents cross our borders at will, ride roughshod over our territory, making headline-grabbing sorties that embarrass the government. The ghoulish Abubakar Shekau who has been ‘killed’ or ‘badly maimed’ a couple of times has reincarnated to revive his video-making career.

One of the targets of recent criticism, Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai, argued in a recent interview that internal security is the brief of the police.

That’s another way of saying don’t blame us for what isn’t our responsibility. But this classic separation of duties between the forces is becoming irrelevant.

Nations sometimes bring out their armed forces to assist in times of natural disaster. Our current insecurity challenge is a disaster by any definition which has caused the government to co-opt the military in joint operations from far north to the Niger Delta.

All over major cities like Lagos, you see vans carrying a mix of soldiers and policemen. The government didn’t take the position that soldiers shouldn’t be contaminated with internal security assignments. The military is involved because the challenges of 2020 are different from what existed in the 70s and 80s.

Buratai also argued that sacking security chiefs is no guarantee that the war against the insurgents would dramatically improve.

The ghoulish Abubakar Shekau who has been ‘killed’ or ‘badly maimed’ a couple of times has reincarnated to revive his video-making career 

That may be so. But it is equally possible that assigning new hands to the task could alter the dynamics of the conflict. New leaders want to prove a point and make their mark. They will come with fresh ideas. Also, such changes refresh the system and cause upward movements that boost morale within the forces.

While this may seem like the logical step to take regain momentum, President Muhammadu Buhari, is clearly not inclined to embrace it. National Assembly leaders who have been amongst the most militant in seeking leadership changes, after meeting him emerged to sing a more nuanced tune.

Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media and Publicity), Garba Shehu, provided insight into official thinking on the matter. No one is going to be sacked in a hurry because the nation is at war, he said.

Oh, really? Examples abound in history where military commanders were changed because they had not met their target, or because a change of strategy required the redeployment of officers who were a better fit. The changes affected administrative heads of the forces as well as field commanders.

It happened during the Nigerian civil war – bringing to national consciousness a corps of star officers like Olusegun Obasanjo, Benjamin Adekunle, Murtala Mohammed, Alani Akinrinade, Mohammed Shuwa, Godwin Alabi-Isama to mention a few.

Famous United States President Abraham Lincoln faced with the real threat that forces of the southern confederacy could overrun Washington DC, kept firing general after general, until he appointed Ulysses S. Grant who was always winning battles where his colleagues were foundering. That was the turning point in the war against the rebels.

The president may be a retired general who in his present capacity knows more than the rest of us emergency security experts, still what is at stake needs not be mystified. We are not venturing into discussing principles of war or battle strategy. This is just about getting the best hands to manage men and material.

The presidential spokesman disclosed a long list of equipment that has been procured to take the war to the enemy. That is comforting and in line with the argument in this column several weeks ago that a nation at war needs to increase defence spending.

But the most powerful weapons and armaments don’t do the job on their own, they need humans to activate and deploy them. This is why strategy and leadership are more important than just acquiring things.

Before the current crop of security chiefs were hired, Nigeria made advances against the insurgents. Long after they would have left their positions the country would still have capacity to defeat the terrorists. So it is a mystery clinging on to the officers – some of whom have long crossed their retirement dates and are serving simply at the pleasure of the president.

Prominent lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), has argued that laws regulating military service require the retirement of officers who have served for 35 years or reached the age of 60. Virtually all the service chiefs have clocked out three decades and a half in service.

I am not aware of any rigid tenure for service chiefs. Historically, most have spent between one and four years and been moved on. The present crop are well on course to becoming the longest servicing in the nation’s history.

Buhari has a reputation for being slow to hire, slow to fire. Little wonder cabinet reshuffles were a rarity in his first term. If he wants to keep his security chiefs and exit with them in 2023, good luck to him.

Nigerians are only interested in defeat of the insurgency and security of life and property – one key ground for which he was elected in 2015 and re-elected last year.

Festus Eriye

 

DO groups like the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Afenifere and Ohanaeze N’digbo established to promote ancient ethnic and regional agendas, have any real political clout in today’s world?

Not much, if you read the cutting reaction of President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman, Femi Adesina, to NEF’s negative assessment of the administration’s performance – especially with regards to the current crisis of insecurity.

Adesina dismissed the elders as paper tigers and the group as, in reality, just a one-man show.

The brutal putdown notwithstanding, truth is these so-called ethnic sociocultural groups don’t have much of an influence on who triumphs at the ballot box. Their press statements make for colourful headlines in newspapers and arresting soundbites – but that’s as far as it goes.

Which is not to say that their views are always without merit. Let’s not forget that many of their members are accomplished people with lots of experience in government. The only problem is today’s Nigeria is the product of their service years.

I can understand the presidency being irked by NEF giving a fail grade to Buhari on every front. But no one witnessing the resurgence of Boko Haram attacks in the Northeast would say the administration’s record with regard to security is anything but a mixed bag.

On Sunday, the insurgents killed 30 travellers at a military gate just 24 kilometres from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. Despite the government’s repeated claims of degrading the terrorists, they retain the ability to carry out these sorts of attacks – putting to question the premature claims of victory.

But the Northern elders’ statement wasn’t just about the president who they have given up on as a lost cause; it was also about anticipating a post-Buhari era.

They spoke about the sort of presidential candidate they would support at the 2023 elections. The lucky individual would be someone with genuine commitment to deal with the north’s problems and meet its aspirations

The group didn’t define what the region’s interests are but her woes are all too evident for the world to see. A new World Bank report titled ‘Advancing Social Protection in a Dynamic Nigeria’ released on January 28, 2020, claims that the North accounts for 87% of all poor people in country going by 2016 figures.

Interestingly, NEF didn’t commit to backing another northerner for president in three years’ time. This runs counter to the stealth campaign being pushed by a tendency within the region’s political elite for whom, suddenly, zoning has become an anachronism.

It is laudable that the group is sending early warning it would not support people on basis of their region or wealth. It has also warned politicians with a sense of entitlement against assuming they would get automatic backing.

Let me reiterate that the likes of NEF would not have much of a say in determining who picks the ticket of the two mainstream parties – APC and PDP. Still, their intervention is useful for guiding national debate about emerging trends.

One such pattern is the increasingly loud whispers of those who believe it is in the best interest of the North to keep the presidency even after Buhari would have held office for eight unbroken years.

I acknowledge that all Nigerians, irrespective of their ethnicity have the constitutional right to aspire to the highest office in the land. But those pushing this agenda are so insensitive and blinded by their ambition that there’s no consideration for the devastating impact their scheming would have for unity in a nation of diverse ethnicities as Nigeria.

The convention in recent years has been rotation of power between the old North-South divide. That formula was briefly interrupted by the unscripted demise of former President Umaru Yar’Adua.

It was a development that not even the clairvoyant could have predicted. The nation had to manage the unprecedented by developing a doctrine of necessity to smoothen then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan’s path to power.

Some tried to shove Jonathan aside on grounds that the North had not exhausted its two terms. But they ran into a brick wall in an incumbent president who wanted to exercise his right to run.

Jonathan has come and gone and still NEF can make this devastating claim about the performance of a president of northern extraction:

“Poverty, particularly in the North, and massive social security have worsened under this administration. The relationship between insecurity and poverty is fundamental, but the administration does not appear to have any idea on what will provide relief or solution.”

It’s not just about Buhari. There’s no evidence showing how the north ruling Nigeria for more years, in both military and civilian dispensations, than people from other parts has had any lasting positive impact on the region. Instead, the result is the sort of sorry World Bank statistics quoted earlier.

Contrary to what some would have you believe, being president is no guarantee of a better life for your people. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s incumbency had little or no physical benefits for his immediate locality of Ogun State or the wider Southwest zone.

Similarly, Jonathan’s almost six years in office didn’t make much of a difference in Bayelsa State, neither did it transform the larger Niger Delta region. It may have made a few political types emergency billionaires, but the larger population remains as impoverished as ever.

The biggest problem facing the North isn’t how to retain the presidency, but how to reclaim its land from the demons that have seized it. The region has become a terrain where life is short and brutish. If it is not Boko Haram fighters unleashing another incident of mindless killing, it is a new wave of cruel bandits maiming and murdering, or it is bloodletting between farmers and herdsmen.

What the North needs now is not another ambitious egotist who wants to enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the presidency. What it needs urgently is restoration of peace, reconstruction and regeneration of its devastated lands and populace.

 

 

By Festus Eriye

Kano State has gifted Nigeria some of her most colourful and interesting political characters. Aminu Kano was noted for his radical politics and self-effacing lifestyle; Abubakar Rimi for his eloquence and populism. Sabo Bakin Zuwo was also a populist with a comic turn.

To that special list we can now add the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado Doguwa. Last Thursday, he returned triumphantly to the House of Representatives having won the rerun election in his Doguwa-Tudun Wada Federal Constituency comfortably.

A few days before, just down the corridor in the National Assembly, Senate President Ahmad Lawan, had sparked an urgent national debate by declaring that our security architecture cannot address the insecurity challenges confronting the nation.

His remarks came amidst rising tension over high profile executions of hostages by Boko Haram, as well as other mindless killings and kidnappings by faceless bandits across the land.

It was against this backdrop that Doguwa made his oratorical outing on the floor of the House.

Giddy with excitement, he boasted to wild cheers that he was not called a ‘powerful parliamentarian’ for nothing. He added that his power wasn’t limited to the National Assembly’s precincts. ‘I am also powerful at home,’ he declared.

At which point he produced evidence of his might on the home front – four wives who were introduced to the chamber. ‘I deal with four women,’ he announced to great mirth among his colleagues. But there was more. These women had between them already given him 27 children and he was still counting, he said.

Actually, Doguwa understated his power. As a representative, indeed Majority Leader, in addition to being powerful at home and House of Representatives, he is also powerful before the larger populace who expect his likes to be an example.

Many lawmakers had a good laugh at Doguwa comic moment. But I doubt whether everyone present in that chamber was amused.

There are distinguished women achievers who would have taken exception to women being portrayed as just baby machines. I suspect that even men would have been cringing with embarrassment – hoping he would quickly clam up.

His outburst gives us a peep into his mind-set and makes you shudder at the quality of legislation which a chamber he leads and influences would produce.

No Nigerian law bars him from having 27 or 40 children. Actually, he still has a long way to go in the virility contest to catch up with Mohammed Masaba, the late Muslim cleric from Niger State who reportedly had 89 wives and over 180 children.

The legislator would most likely use the allowance of religion to justify his marital and procreation choices. I understand that his faith allows you four wives if you can treat them equally – a virtually impossible task.

Doguwa is in good shape because as a federal lawmaker he can comfortably take care of his brood. The same cannot be said of a beggar who hiding under faith follows his example and indulges himself with several wives who end up producing multiple children he can’t cater for. In quick order they are soon deployed into the family business of begging and become a social menace.

This same point was made by the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, in remarks he made at the convocation ceremony of the Federal University, Gusau, sometime in January.

He argued that the culture of marrying more than one wife by those who could not properly take care of a single wife and producing many children was the main reason why the northern region would continue to remain backward and in abject poverty.

It is interesting that across the Muslim world average family size is nowhere near what our ‘powerful parliamentarian’ is creating. According to UN statistics for 2017, the average household in Saudi Arabia was 5.6 persons, Egypt 4.1, Morocco 4.6 and Indonesia 4.0 to mention a few. The highest numbers were recorded in Oman and Afghanistan with an average of eight persons.

Sanusi’s point also has relevance down south as there are many Nigerians who are still breeding without regards to how they would they would cater for the lives they are bringing into the world. Even if they don’t end up with a pan on the streets, they become a burden to their immediate family and acquaintances.

Imagine what it would do to a country like ours that already has a population crisis if just 20 million Nigerians decide to copy Doguwa’s example and chuck 27 more persons per family into our midst.

On reflection, those who had a good laugh would realise that rather than being hilarious, Doguwa’s lap of honour was in reality disastrous

You would expect that a senior lawmaker would be concerned that even at today’s numbers we don’t have the resources to provide enough schools, hospitals, roads and other infrastructure for our population. Even if we had all the cash in the world it is virtually impossible to build facilities to match the speed at which humans reproduce.

As I wrote in a piece on Nigeria’s population last year, we could well be over 300 million people by 2050. The scary part about these projections is that while we are multiplying, the nation’s landmass remains static at approximately 923,768 square kilometres – or even less if you take out what we lost in the Bakassi Peninsula.

A significant chunk of this space is uninhabitable – given climate change and the relentless encroachment of the Sahara Desert.

We are already noticing the impact as dislocated people seeking succour down south, compete for land and limited resources with the locals.

Many have attributed the spate of kidnapping, armed robbery, insurgency, farmer-herder conflict to the rate of population growth.

These are the critical issues which should occupy the National Assembly and not wasting precious time listening to a politician regaling us about his virility or boasting about power for power sake.

On reflection, those who had a good laugh would realise that rather than being hilarious, Doguwa’s lap of honour was in reality disastrous.

Festus ERIYE

 

ON Monday, Senate President Ahmad Lawan, a friend of the administration, stated the obvious. Our security architecture cannot tackle terrorism or the mindless killings happening across the country. In other words, the existing system has failed.

It is not a diagnosis the leadership of Nigeria’s security establishment would agree with. They are always quick to point to Boko Haram no longer bombing Abuja and major cities as evidence of improvement.

The Police hierarchy encourage you to ignore ‘shrill’ headlines about kidnappings and brutal killings, assuring you that crime statistics for Nigeria compare favourably with the so-called havens of peace across the globe.

But it is easy to play games with figures because statistics don’t bleed, human beings do. When they do, gruesome headlines about their travails testify that whatever numbers are being bandied in officialdom, our reality is increasingly scary.

Last Sunday, gunmen killed 15 people in Plateau State. On the same night in Kaduna, unknown assailants suspected to be kidnappers attacked a vehicle carrying travellers at Raigasa train station. They kidnapped two people and in a matter of hours contacted the family demanding N20 million ransom.

Barely 24 hours before these incidents, 11 people were killed and four women kidnapped as another band of gunmen attacked five communities in Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State.

Between Friday night and Saturday morning in Juji community, Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, an estimated 50-member gang of bandits killed a vigilante and abducted a doctor’s wife and children.

A week ago, gloating Boko Haram terrorists announced they had beheaded Rev. Lawan Andimi, abducted chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in Michika Local Government Area of Adamawa State.

This shocking development, coming as news broke of the execution by the same group of Daciya Dalep – a student of the University of Maiduguri – shocked even an increasingly jaded and desensitised nation.

From the Northeast to the Northwest, gun-toting criminals are going their merry way killing and maiming unhindered – with the police and military limited in what they can do. The only bright spot appears to be the Zamfara axis where the activities of bandits have been trending down.

It is no surprise that the Senate is today debating worsening insecurity. The executive branch might be tempted to be defensive, as the discussion would appear to be a negative assessment of their performance in the area of safeguarding the lives of Nigeria.

They should resist the temptation. The country is facing a security crisis the type we’ve never known in our history.

The challenge isn’t insurmountable but the authorities first need to admit that we have a problem.

That is why the government’s initial legalistic posturing over the ‘Operation Amotekun’ initiative in the Southwest didn’t make sense. If anything, Nigeria needs to throw more Amotekuns at the problem in all six geopolitical zones.

This is a crisis that requires creative thinking and new ideas. Hopefully, the National Assembly can lead the way by appropriating adequate resources to fight insecurity.

Given the level of our development it is understandable that government would be focused on spending more on provision of infrastructure, healthcare and education. But no development can happen where there is no security. Schools cannot operate normally when insurgents can sweep in one night and pinch hundreds of students as we saw in the Chibok girls saga.

So, given the gargantuan challenge on our hands, a good place to start is to look at the size and effectiveness of our national security spending.

It is no secret that the police and military are under-funded. But we also know that in the last dispensation, billions of naira voted for fighting the insurgency were misappropriated by those assigned to supervise spending.

But fear of mismanagement shouldn’t shroud the fact that we need more police, soldiers and other security agents to throw at the problem. We need to finance equipment and armament to prosecute an unconventional type of war.

Nigeria has a grave problem with porous borders and ungoverned spaces – especially across the northern geopolitical zones. There’s no alternative to investing in technological solutions as we can never have enough men under arms to police our massive landmass. This is imperative because even the insurgents are investing in this area – acquiring drones.

There is no standard template for national budgeting anywhere in the world. Countries allocate resources relative to their priorities and challenges. In the US and across the West defence spending plummeted as the Cold War thawed. But today, with an eye on defending her national interests and fighting terrorist threats around the world, the hawkish President Donald Trump is splashing the cash.

Unfortunately, cash is one thing that is short supply for the government. It is borrowing to finance its spending plans and may not even be able to fund the entire budget. Still, it must procure the tools for fighting the war. This would require creative solutions working with friends and partners to provide the arms we need.

Among other possible solutions, former Minister of Internal Affairs, General Abdurrahman Dambazzau (rtd) had indicated back in 2017 that government was toying with idea of establishing a National Guard.

His disclosure attracted negative reactions given that the idea was first broached in the dying days of former President Ibrahim Babangida’s administration. It died a swift death as it was perceived as a vehicle for him to perpetuate himself in office.

Beyond that, many have argued quite correctly, that the multiplicity of security agencies has not solved the problem of insecurity. Adding one more may not change the situation dramatically. More so when we’ve not been able to adequately fund existing ones.

Still, we cannot dismiss any idea at this point. With the police incapable of containing new strains of violent internal conflicts, does it not make sense to have a force that sits midway between them and the military in the use of force and aggression to contain threats? They would free the police to focus on core duties and the military to tackle external threats.

The time is ripe for a beauty contest of ideas – everything from Amotekun to the Guard is welcome – if they can help us sleep with two eyes closed.

By Festus Eriye

Until the dramatic intervention of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, not many would have described the Western Nigeria Security Network codenamed Operation Amotekun, as the first step towards breaking up the country.

His declaration that the project was illegal as policing was the exclusive preserve of the Federal Government, conjured a crisis where there was none.

The Amotekun project grew out of a security crisis in the Southwest that has seen killer herdsmen and kidnappers sweeping through the region. Peaceful hamlets where violent incidents were few and far between suddenly became theatres for mindless bloodletting such that villagers became too frightened to go their farms.

For all their assurances and reassurances, the Nigeria Police were in no shape to provide adequate security for the people.

Matters came to ahead in July last year with the high-profile killing of the daughter of Afenifere leader, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, on a highway somewhere in the Ondo State.

As the region’s governors and political leaders beat a bush path to the old man’s door to console him, an angry citizenry demanded answers from a central government that only had canned words of comfort to give.

President Muhammadu Buhari could offer his ritual press statement and move on, but not so the governors whose territory had been turned into killing fields. As chief security officers of their states they had to come up solutions and their consultations produced the Amotekun concept.

It is inconceivable that they would have nurtured the project to the point of take-off without adequate consultations with the security agencies and political authorities in Abuja. This much has been confirmed by a couple of governors.

It can also be argued that were there serious misgivings on the part of the president and his closest advisers, promoters of the scheme would have been more circumspect before committing significant financial resources to the project.

So, rather than Malami’s constitution excuse, everything suggests that the sudden hostility from the centre has to do with politics and the morbid fear of a national break-up. It is an eerie coincidence that the controversy is boiling over exactly 50 years after the end of the civil war. 

When a figure like former Kaduna State Governor, Balarabe Musa, who in the past made pretensions to being a progressive politician, makes the incendiary claim that Operation Amotekun is designed to bring about an Oduduwa Republic, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Miyetti Allah Kautal Houre – a faction of the Fulani socio-cultural organisation – even went as far as warning the Southwest that it should forget the presidency in 2023 if it presses ahead with the project.

But nothing about the promoters of Amotekun lends credence to these insinuations. All the governors are dyed-in-the-wool establishment types and anything but fire-eating revolutionaries or separatists. Seyi Makinde of Oyo State even belongs to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) not given to making common cause with the APC.

Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, would be more concerned with securing a second term at this year’s governorship elections in his state, than in midwifing a secessionist movement to nowhere.

There is no sense in the region that the people’s heart’s cry at this point is the creation of a mythical Oduduwa homeland. If anything, the political alliance between the leading lights of the zone and key northern leaders like Muhammadu Buhari, remains strong and appears the most viable option for those who have ambitions at the national level in the near future.

Even the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) which has been co-opted into Amotekun – for all its bluster – is anything but separatist. Whatever its roots, the maneuverings of its leadership have reduced it to little more than an organisation that provides enforcers for hire.

During the 2015 election campaigns, this same OPC – along with the supposedly separatist Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) – was in the vanguard of the ‘President Goodluck Jonathan must win’ movement.

With sweet promises of pipeline protection contracts ringing in their ears, OPC, MASSOB and similar groups in the Niger Delta, took to the streets to stage sometimes violent protests threatening mayhem if the electoral outcome was anything but a victory for the then incumbent.

Jonathan was head of a government sworn to preserving the unity of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Here you had supposedly ‘separatist’ organisations whose raison d’etre should be the opposite openly campaigning against what they stood for! And someone would have us believe that OPC is working for the creation of Oduduwa Republic. Perhaps in their dreams!

These groups are largely opportunistic and not separatist. They are rebels with causes that provide them meals. They are useful for those who whip up political mischief, but shouldn’t worry anyone truly concerned about the corporate existence of this country.

IPOB’s embrace of the project is predictable and understandable. It gives it comfort to imagine that another region is squaring up to its hated foe – the Federal Government. It doesn’t matter whether its fantasy is different from reality in this case – anything would do for propaganda sake.

This controversy is needless drama. Amotekun has become ammunition for mischief-makers and Malami’s meddling has weaponised it. In the Southwest, what would have been just another security operation has become a regional cause celebre which must be defended at all cost. It is now welded to ethnic pride. 

If you oppose it, you will pay a price down the line because you will be profiled as a sell-out. If you support it, you could be caricatured in certain parts of the country as an ethnic jingoistic.  

It didn’t have to come to this for something that was simply about keeping a people whose government had failed to do so, safe.

“This controversy is needless drama. Amotekun has become ammunition for mischief-makers and Malami’s meddling has weaponised it.”

I suspect that it would take more than Malami’s decree to kill this idea whose time has come. Before he intervened, governors from the North and East had spoken of making similar arrangements to tackle insecurity in their regions.

Truth be told, the Nigeria Police and other security agencies need urgent help to deal with today’s challenges. They are not fit for purpose in today’s world of killer herdsmen, kidnappers, ritual killers and other hitherto unknown criminal activity.

To oppose something that would help because of a wrongheaded notion of its legality is totally unacceptable. The ones who escalated this matter must deescalate it without further ado. The key players all belong to APC and should be able to work out a reasonable compromise. 

If they don’t, they would be sending out unhelpful signals of distrust and disunity in the ruling party.

 

Festus Eriye

 

BY now, half of Nigeria knows President Muhammadu Buhari has a bright daughter, Hanan, who’s so passionate about photography, she earned a First Class degree in it from a British university. But it isn’t her creativity that thrust her in the headlines at the weekend.

The young woman was reportedly on a study tour of the Bauchi Emirate last Thursday as part of the requirements for a Master’s degree programme. Another version says she was invited to the cultural event by the emir and indulged her passion while there.

Her presence in Bauchi was not the issue. Rather it was her choice of transportation that got Twitter atwitter. She was ferried there on her father’s presidential jet. Some of the images that have emerged showed her being received like some visiting government functionary.

As a storm of controversy broke over the propriety of her use of the aircraft, presidential spin doctors scrambled – releasing a defence that suggested that the row was needless as she had a right to use the plane.

I admit that convention and common sense means that the First Family would travel on the aircraft assigned to the president from time to time without issue. After all, no one makes waves over the fact that the head of state’s family lives with him in his official accommodation.

Some have rushed to Hanan’s defence by dredging up past instances of abuse of the presidential jet. How pathetic! That is like arguing that because wrongdoing was perpetrated by certain persons in the past, we should just and grin bear it today. Times change: what was glossed over five years ago, may necessarily be accepted by people today.

First Lady Aisha Buhari didn’t help matters by tweeting a video of her daughter in the jet, the day after the storm broke. Although her aide later issued a statement denying that the post was her way of thumbing her nose at critics that was the way her action came across.

This controversy isn’t just about the right of the First Family to enjoy the perks of office accruing to their father. Even where you have a right to such facilities, you could rub people the wrong way in the manner you use them.

Every United States president is entitled to use the famous Air Force One aircraft in their coming and going. But on May 13, 1993, Bill Clinton found himself in hot water after he ordered a haircut while the plane was parked at Los Angeles International Airport.

There was anger that air traffic was slightly affected while two runways were shut down for an hour on account of the president’s jet idling on the tarmac. Aside inconvenience to travellers, people were incensed at the cost to taxpayers of Clinton enjoying a leisurely beauty routine while burning expensive aviation fuel. The media quickly dubbed it ‘the most expensive haircut ever.’

One of the issues that has cropped in the Hanan Buhari controversy is whether there is a law preventing a member of the First Family from using any of the vessels in the presidential air fleet.

Frankly, there is no such law. All we have is tradition that accommodates the most senior officers of state like the Vice President, President of the Senate, Speaker of the House of Representatives and any other person the president permits in the privileged circle of those allowed access.

But this is not just about legality; it is about morality and boundaries. The fact that a jet is involved doesn’t change the principle. Would it be right for the son of a state governor to go nightclubbing in his father’s official car – carrying the insignia of his office – just because of familial ties?

The president was elected. His wife and children were not part of the ticket. They are part of the package that comes with the office holder, but who also have to learn to keep a decent distance when official business comes up.

It is for this reason some of the most unpopular First Ladies became so because they didn’t know their boundary. Rosalyn, wife of former President Jimmy Carter, used to sit in on the cabinet – something that people resented. Hillary Clinton was similarly despised during her husband’s first term because of her constant intrusion into official business.

No one has said so far that Hanan went to Bauchi to represent her father or mother. It is clear she went there for her private engagement. Was it proper for the state to fund the trip? Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, has explained that she obtained necessary approvals for use of the aircraft from relevant officials. That is beside the point. Was it appropriate for her to use the plane when she was not on an official assignment?

We have had instances in the past where such boundaries were not respected and it never looked right. Ibrahim Abacha, a dashing lawyer and businessman was just 28, when he commandeered a presidential jet for a frolic with a posse of pals.

On that fateful day of 17th of January, 1996, he and 14 others were just minutes to landing at the Aminu Kano International Airport, when the aircraft crashed and exploded.

Ibrahim wasn’t a general, neither was he a member of the ruling military council headed by his father, Sani Abacha. But he had enough pull as the first child of the dictator to order a presidential jet for pleasure. There was no law preventing him from doing so, but that didn’t make it right.

We can see that the lacuna that exists creates room for abuse as people would always be elastic in their interpretation of what they are permitted them to do in the absence of statutory restraints.

It doesn’t have to stay this way. The absence of a law is actually opportunity for the National Assembly to draw up guidelines that properly direct the use of these state assets.

So, while Hanan may not have broken any laws by flying to Bauchi on her dad’s presidential jet, the optics just don’t look right for her father who is ordinarily known not to stand for excess and is an apostle of austerity.

 

By Festus Eriye

At the very beginning every year looks pregnant – promising to deliver on our dreams and heart’s desires. But more than most years, 2020 comes across as potentially portentous. It could be because of the rhythmic ring of the numbers: 20-20! It could even be because it sits so significantly at the beginning of a new decade.

It is a year that seemed so distant ten years ago when a set of Nigerian leaders were painting a picture of our collective tomorrow.

They came up with this vision: “By 2020 Nigeria will be one of the 20 largest economies in the world, able to consolidate its leadership role in Africa and establish itself as a significant player in the global economic and political arena.”

What became Vision 20:2020 started with then President Olusegun Obasanjo but would be launched by his successor, the late Umaru Yar’Adua in 2009.

The latter of the visioners unfortunately has passed on, but the former is alive and well to testify that we are nowhere near the target they aimed for. Nigeria is not the respected, dominant continent leader it aspired to be, neither is it as admired as it should be globally.

Major world leaders have taken tours of the continent in recent years and chosen to give Abuja a pass and stopover in Accra – since Ghana is often held up as a shining example of democratic progress in Africa.

So do we blame the Obasanjos and Yar’Aduas for the foundations they laid or those who came after them?

Given where we were in 2010 – we were not even the largest economy on the continent back then – it was perhaps overambitious to have dreamt of transforming our mono-economy into one of the 20 largest on the planet.

Today, if we were to dust up the document and rebrand it ‘Vision 2030’, it would still be relevant. Beyond the nominal claim to being Africa’s biggest, our economy remains largely sluggish. We continue to battle high inflation, unemployment, infrastructure inadequacy and an unresolved dependence on oil for foreign earnings.

President Muhammadu Buhari aptly captured the sense of wasted opportunities and resources in the area of infrastructural development when he sarcastically queried ‘Where is the power?’ in reaction reports of billions of dollars spent during the Obasanjo era in pursuit of stable electricity supply.

There has been some progress in the area of agriculture with the government’s policy on local rice cultivation and unorthodox border closure policy, triggering a taste and productivity revolution across the land.

During the recent festive season the bulk of rice on sale in shops and markets were locally produced ones of differing quality. But I was struck by the comments of a few people who said ‘that’s what everyone’s eating now’ – referring to Nigerian rice.

In March 2019, Director-General, Africa Rice Center, Benin Republic, Dr Harold Roy-Macauley, reported that Nigeria had overtaken Egypt as the largest rice producer in Africa.

With an output of 4 million tonnes a year, we had outstripped Egypt which hitherto was producing 4.3 tonnes annually but saw that figure drop by almost 40 percent last year due to the Egyptian government’s decision to limit cultivation to preserve water resources.

But one positive shard of light doesn’t a vision complete. Nigeria in 2020 is still a country of very poor people with extreme disparity between the rich and poor.

Some of the most prominent headlines leading into the new year had to do with the ongoing tug of war between federal and state governments on one hand, and labour unions on the other, over implementation of the recently agreed new minimum wage of N30,000 per month.

The Nation reported yesterday that the unions and 26 states were headed for a very rocky start to the New Year as little headway had been made in talks. All of this stress over figure that comes to roughly $85 per month!

But even if the workers have their way, whatever modest gains they make could be wiped out by tax increases and the recent hike in electricity tariff. Whatever the justification for the increases people have the feeling that they are being asked to pay more for darkness.

The president has tried to get Nigerians to head into 2020 with heads held in hope of better days by penning us a lengthy missive. Those who read through and many who couldn’t be bothered by another litany of promises, would be hoping this year would somehow be different.

At least for the first time in many years, the government is kicking of the year with a budget that is signed, sealed and delivered. In the past much was made of the fact that late passage of the government’s spending plans affected its ability to deliver on its promises. It remains to be seen whether having the budget in place in January would make a difference this year.

It promises to be a dramatic year in politics as the scheming for 2023 heats up in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Succession politics is already driving tension within the parties. The struggle for the soul of the parties has thrown long term prospects of their leaders into doubt as the different tendencies battle to install one of their own in the driving seat.

So this year could yet turn out to be sweet or sour for Adams Oshiomhole in the APC as the battle against his foes in party is joined. The same prospect awaits Uche Secondus as the internal struggles in the PDP play out.

Add to this looming elections on Edo and Ondo States, and you have all the ingredients for volatility. Edo is especially unpredictable. This is one conflict where the prospects for late reconciliation look dim with every passing day.

Governor Godwin Obaseki and his supporters are clear in their mind that Oshiomhole would never back him for a second term. Their strategy of taking the battle to him means that only one outcome would be acceptable: one that produces a clear winner and loser.

Given that the APC chairman is equally a fighter who taken on some of the toughest characters in the land and prevailed, the ruling party could suffer collateral damage as it would go to polls divided – whoever ends up picking the ticket. But politics is a game of possibilities and it is not unthinkable for today’s bitter foes to pull back from the brink.

This year would show whether Nigeria has truly seen off the Boko Haram insurgency. We would find out in short order whether the departure of Chadian troops negatively affects the balance of the ground.

But whatever lurks in it, let’s head into 2020 hoping it would be a very happy new year for the vast majority of our people.

Festus Eriye

 

THERE’S nothing funny about the brutal murder of the Kogi State People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Woman Leader, Mrs. Salome Abuh. The gruesome manner of her death underlines why Nigerian politics would never attract the best of us.

Abuh was murdered and her house razed last Monday by suspected political thugs. The killing happened after the outcome of the governorship election had been known.

Now, miraculously, the Kogi State Police Command says it has arrested six suspects in connection with the killing.

Their apprehension comes barely 24 hours after President Muhammadu Buhari, last Sunday, directed that her killers be brought to justice.

The police say the suspects were apprehended on Friday, which means the breakthrough was accomplished before the presidential order.

I would like to believe this timeline. Unfortunately, Nigeria teaches you to be cynical. Usually, it takes some dramatic order from the top to get things moving. We can only hope that those who have been held are the true perpetrators and not some flotsam and jetsam dragged in to defuse pressure.

Back in July this year, unknown gunmen killed Mrs. Funke Olakunrin, daughter of the Afenifere leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, somewhere in Ondo State.

As anger raged across the land over another high-profile murder, the police as usual announced breakthrough arrests of suspects they claimed were involved in the killing. These individuals were never paraded in the usual triumphant manner the Force is used to and nearly six months after, no one has been charged to court. Perhaps they need another of Buhari’s forceful orders to revive what has become a cold case.

Strange and funny things are happening in the land. I was astonished when a colleague drew my attention to the US indictment of Allen Onyema, chairman and CEO of Air Peace for fraud and laundering of funds in excess of $20 million.

Until the shock development Onyema counted as one of the good guys for creating a thriving business that provided jobs for thousands of Nigerians. His stock rocketed after his patriotic intervention to airlift scores of his compatriots who were trapped in xenophobic violence in South Africa.

But good deeds are one thing, an indictment by judicial authorities of another country an entirely different matter. That is why I am amused by certain reactions to the businessman’s troubles.

Some have blamed the media for even reporting the story at all. Others say it is the Yoruba and Fulani-owned newspapers who have launched a campaign to bring down an Igbo businessman. They wonder why other allegations of corruption against some notable politicians didn’t receive the same kind of play.

It makes you wonder what age some Nigerians are living in. The media – new and traditional – as it exists today isn’t some sort of secret society where practitioners can take a collective vow of silence over an unpleasant story. If our newspapers choose to bury their head in the sand, their international counterparts won’t, and the countless social platforms would still amplify the scandal.

While the shock of the indictment may have induced mental paralysis in some quarters, it beggars belief that anyone would choose to view the Onyema matter from the usual tawdry tribal prism.

The indictment wasn’t issued by Nigeria authorities who can then be easily blackmailed with ethnic rubbish. Even if local business rivals or a coalition of Yoruba and Hausa whistleblowers had provided dirt on Onyema, they couldn’t have succeeded in their mission if they didn’t find ammunition.

The indictment is a reality that only those directly affected can deal with. Their ‘sympathisers’ hurling insults on social and print media are idle and emotional noisemakers who are not helping his cause. Their name-calling won’t make the charges against the Air Peace boss disappear. This is only going to be resolved when the man has his day in court.

But in terms of the ludicrous, nothing beats the recent sponsored demonstrations in Abuja, accusing the lawyer and activist, Femi Falana, SAN, of trying to intimidate the Department of State Services (DSS) and other security agencies in the country.

How did the slight-framed Falana manage this grand accomplishment? He simply has been vocally challenging every excuse offered by the DSS for the continued detention of his client, Sahara Reporters publisher, Omoyele Sowore, long after he had satisfied court-imposed conditions for bail.

His actions obviously discomfited the security agencies and their constituency. So some smart individual pops up with the perfect solution: organize a demonstration to browbeat an activist who has spent the bulk of his adult life marching at the barricades!!!

From one notable protester we move another. A letter from former Zamfara State Governor, Abdulaziz Yari, protesting the non-payment of his outstanding allowances and pension has been made public.

Yari is also demanding that his successor, Bello Matawalle, pay his monthly N10 million retirement ‘stipend’ as prescribed by some state law.

His letter stated: “The law provides, among other entitlements of the former governor, a monthly upkeep allowance of N10m only and a pension equivalent to the salary he was receiving while in office.

“Accordingly, you may wish to be informed that since the expiration of my tenure on May 29, 2019, I was only paid the upkeep allowance twice — i.e. for the month of June and July, while my pension for the month of June has not been paid.”

Poor, poor Yari! He probably would have been a senator now if he and his supporters had not thwarted the efforts of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to hold acceptable primaries in the state. He and his rivals ensured that the party couldn’t hold one by the time INEC’s deadline expired. As a result of their actions state and federal elective offices were handed to PDP on a platter.

Today, pan in hand, he’s begging for N10 million when as senator he would have been salting away more than twice that.

While Yari is moaning about two months of unpaid pensions and allowance, I wonder what the salary and pension status of the average worker in the state is.

For a state like Zamfara, it is an obscenity for a former governor to be carting away N10 million a month. For what? His official salary as governor was nowhere near that and not even the president earns that in a month.

But then stranger things have happened in this joke factory called Nigeria. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, heard it all, something new breaks and takes your breath away.

 

• Note: this column takes a break until the last week in December as I proceed on annual vacation. Thanks for being a part of the discussion.

 

THE fall into opposition hands of Bayelsa State, for 20 years a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fortress, is just the latest in a string of disasters that have befallen the erstwhile ruling party that once dreamt of a 60-year dominion over the land.

As far as political upsets go, it ranks up there with the wiping out of the Saraki dynasty’s control over Kwara State at this year’s general elections.

What transpired over the weekend goes deeper than one party prevailing and another losing power. Before our very eyes, the All Progressives Congress (APC), once considered anathema in the South-south and Southeast, is transforming into an acceptable platform for getting to power in these areas.

Instead of a token presence in Edo State, its footprint is now planted firmly in Bayelsa with the prospect of further incursions into the rest of the South-south zone.

Is it because the party is suddenly deodorised and the things that made it unattractive evaporated? Not so. Our reality is that not much separates the two main parties in terms of their politics and policies. That is why their members flit from one to another at the least provocation and without discomfiture.

The Bayelsa election result is more about the personalities and pedigree of the candidates. It is also about how local party leaders foisted their preferred candidates on the party and the fallout their actions triggered.

Many have blamed Governor Seriake Dickson for ‘imposing’ Senator Douye Diri on the party, ostensibly as part of a complex arrangement that would have cleared a path for him to run for the Senate seat presently occupied by Lawrence Ewhrujakpor – the Deputy Governorship candidate.

The most formidable obstacle to Diri’s emergence was the presence in the race of the serial contestant, Timi Alaibe, who was clearly favoured by former President Goodluck Jonathan and some others.

Dickson did what most governors have done over time by pulling out all stops to ensure his man got the ticket. But the upshot was that critical stakeholders whose collective contributions could have assured victory for the PDP were offended.

The signs were there that all was not well given the gale of defections that persisted almost until Election Day. It was as if they were designed to exact the maximum political toll on Dickson’s goodwill as the departures happened in drip-drip fashion, on a weekly basis.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the absence of former President Jonathan and neighbouring Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, at the party’s grand rally leading to the polls sent out further signals of a divided house.

Like most governors Dickson was probably deceived by the sense that his office is so powerful, he could deliver victory on his own despite all the hemorrhaging of support.

But this episode has shown again that no matter how powerful he is, a governor can be outflanked when critical stakeholders band together. It happened in Lagos with former Governor Akinwumi Ambode. Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan also saw his bid to install a successor of his choice frustrated in 2015 by the coming together of disparate forces in the Delta State PDP.

The spectre of disunity was equally present in APC. The party was dealt a body blow less than 48 hours to the election when the court ruled in the case filed by former Minister of State for Agriculture, Heineken Lokpobiri, that it had no gubernatorial candidate.

A brief judicial reprieve allowed the APC and its candidate David Lyon to remain on the ballot. But this legal complication may yet come back to bite the party.

Indeed, Lokpobiri and the other primaries contestant Preye Aganaba, never accepted the outcome of the exercise. That is the reason the former minister never withdrew his suit – insisting he was the rightful flagbearer.

Interestingly, while he claims he only asked to be declared the APC candidate, the court went a step further to void the entire primaries. If the Court of Appeal doesn’t strike down the ruling of the lower court, what happened in Zamfara State may well play out again like a horror movie no one wants to watch.

In the end, there were lots of people embittered by the outcome of the primaries on both sides and they didn’t disappear quietly. It all came down to how their deliberate actions ultimately impacted their party’s fortunes.

Alaibe is still in court as is Lokpobiri who, nevertheless, asked people to vote for APC in the hope that he would be the beneficiary somewhere down the line.

On the PDP side the siddon look approach of certain individuals was glaring. But it would appear some went further with actions designed to frustrate the governor. The level of the party’s electoral collapse last Saturday lends credence to this belief.

On reflection, perhaps Dickson may have been better served by allowing the emergence of a consensus candidate – even if the individual wasn’t his preferred one. After all as we have seen between Godswill Akpabio and Udom Emmanuel in Akwa Ibom; and between Adams Oshiomhole and Godwin Obaseki in Edo State, the governor you install could well turn out to be your worst nightmare.

The situation is a bit different in Kogi State where 18 months ago, Governor Yahaya Bello was considered dead in the water. He owed a huge backlog of salaries to civil servants and was battling foes on every side.

He even managed to alienate a deputy who he eventually hounded out of office in one of the most infamous episodes of crooked impeachment in Nigeria’s history.

But he realised a long while ago that he was in political trouble and began scurrying around to mend fences. For all his shortcomings, Bello deserves credit for ensuring he went into the elections with a united front. Come polling day, the likes of James Faleke, Smart Adeyemi and the Audus were in the same camp with him.

Now he has won a second term handily, not because he’s deserving on the basis of performance or that the people are suddenly enamoured of his heavy-handed style, but because he quickly realized that he couldn’t prevail battling formidable opposition under the same roof.

It remains to be seen whether his stooping to conquer at the polls would translate into a more humble and humane style in his second term. But then we have Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai’s assurance, delivered on bended knees, to expect a wiser, more mature version of the Kogi State governor in the years ahead.