The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Our Girls; ‘whistleblowers are everywhere- or they should be’

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. And the Boko Haram bombs did not fall silent with the change of baton at Aso Rock. This is contrary to the belief of those who vehemently and venomously claimed that President Buhari was a kingpin behind Boko Haram’s violent agitation and that all hostility would cease once he took over control. In fact there has been an escalation with the deaths and injury of hundreds from suicide bombers and actual assaults in Borno and neighbouring states. This increases the urgency of the proposed, and purportedly resisted, move of the Military High Command to Maiduguri which must not fall.  We pray Our Girls will return safely even as we bury the dead, blown up and shot, by an unrepentant Boko Haram. The Amnesty International Report about the armed forces is a serious accusation about human rights abuses in the war zone and it requires investigation. ‘Our Boys’ are on trial for their lives accused of a number of ‘death sentence’ crimes and some have been sentenced. These issues will create a huge crisis of confidence in the military and need to be handled seriously to prevent a breakdown of the system.

    The omens for corruption continuation worldwide are bad, bad, bad. Everywhere we turn, a new scandal breaks out and is ripe for dogged press revelation, restitution of ill-gotten gains, criminal prosecution and incarceration of the perpetrators in a ‘correction facility’. We pray also for protection of all whistleblowers who should by now have an international organisation- WBA –Whistle Blowers Association.

    The new Presidency is opening up the nearly decade long Haliburton scandal and more revelations on other scandals should be in the murky pipeline. Almighty FIFA faces extinction if not a cataclysmic evolutionary upheaval. Sepp Blatter has stepped down just two days after such a scandalous endorsement and boastful ‘election victory’ with the support of CAF and other developing countries. Were those votes ‘in return’ for financial largess from FIFA as those countries were beneficiaries of concealed, unannounced millions of FIFA dollars for ‘development of the sport’? Unfortunately this money was hardly ever seen in those countries on the sports fields of the youth, in football clinics, in equipment, coaching tours, talent hunts. Where there was a sign, the quantum has been tiny in proportion to the volume of funds being revealed as having been transferred. When FIFA pays or gives grants to Nigeria’s NFA, who knows and who gains –administrator or footballer or coach? It is always the administrators, first, second and third with footballers and coaches and facilities getting next to nothing. NFA has had a smell for as long as I can remember, reinforced by the infighting in the board. Nigeria did not even know that such huge dollar funds were available and flowing through some of the arteries of NFA. Even as we follow the money trail of Jack Warner through the bank trail led by the investigative reporters in the BBC, we must ask exactly how much has Nigeria received over the years from Sepp Blatter’s FIFA? Nigeria, being infamous for corruption, is unlikely to escape unscathed from any bribery accusations or scandals involving payments by South Africa, Qatar or even Russia.      Who is monitoring Nigeria’s ‘Other Money’, among non-oil incomes? The secret sources of the country’s revenue include the CBN’s malicious 13% interest rate on all loans, NPA’s private foreign currency fortune from shipping fees, FAAN and its near secret landing charges. The CBN is a real moneybag, NPA and FAAN take payment in dollars for sea and airport use.

    Why did the electricity suddenly start working better on the June 29? Who is afraid of Buhari? The fear of Buhari is the beginning of wisdom. Already we can estimate the amount of money saved per day by not having a profligate President. Nigeria estimates that about 50% of the budget has been lost year on year by greedy presidents allowing their equally greedy staff follow them down the greedy trail to also be greedy to cover up their own greed. In the last week, now 1460 -12days, we, Nigerians, have been saved by the Buhari style of governance on airfares, entourage, feeding the minions. But much more has been saved by all government departments sitting up, crossing their ‘T’s and dotting their ‘I’s and stealing less and less because ‘whistleblowers are everywhere- or they should be’.

    It is a pity that the yellow fever traffic wardens and police in many parts of the country including Ibadan are still taking bribes from taxis and danfos in broad daylight and at night. Can they not see the importance of this moment in history? Are they still clutching at the old ways even as the Anti-Corruption Tsunami is gathering steam among the people? One would have expected that the ‘Anti-Corruption Riot Act’ would have been read to everyone in uniform, or are they not a central and very public part of the new government efforts to clean up the country from the epidemic of corruption smiled on by successive evil kleptomaniacal governments?

    It will be would be very stupid of APC to lose the Senate and House of Representatives leadership positions to PDP merely because the APC members could not agree among themselves, by consensus or by majority vote, after such a long a difficult and struggle since 1999.  We expect much better of 2015 politics.

    ‘When FIFA pays or gives grants to Nigeria’s NFA, who knows and who gains –administrator or footballer or coach? It is always the administrators, first, second and third with footballers and coaches and facilities getting next to nothing. NFA has had a smell for as long as I can remember, reinforced by the infighting in the board’

  • Amnesty International’s gambit

    At a time attention seems to be focused on the new President, Muhammadu Buhari and what his tenure portends for the country, Amnesty International, AI, the global human rights watchdog, has raised a serious issue about the activities and conducts of the Nigerian military in the ongoing war against the Boko Haram terrorists in the North-east of the country.  And the damning report is already drawing the ire of the Nigerian public against the global body.

    Delivering its report titled: “Stars on their shoulders, Blood on their hands: War Crimes Committed by the Nigerian Military” at a press conference held in Abuja last Wednesday, AI said: “Since March 2011, more than 7,000 young men and boys died in military detention and more than 1,200 people were unlawfully killed since February 2012.” AI called for the investigation of certain senior officers and commanders in the Nigerian military, for allegedly participating in sanctioning or failing to prevent the deaths of more than 8,000 people in the course of the ongoing war in the North-east. The body then called on President Muhammadu Buhari to end the culture of impunity that has blighted Nigeria, and for the African Union, AU and the larger international community, to encourage and support efforts to “ensure the alleged perpetrators are brought to justice”.

    AI is not alone. The United Nations, UN, has also added its own voice. In a report issued at its headquarters in Geneva last Friday, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, the organisation’s top human rights official, asked the Nigerian president to investigate reports of horrifying crimes by Boko Haram terrorists and alleged abuses by the Nigerian military. He cited evidence gathered by his office on atrocities committed by Boko Haram and also said that the military too, had carried out a lot of human rights violations which need to be investigated. The only difference between the AI’s report and that of the UN is that rather than narrowing its own report to cover the military alone, the UN dwelt more on the heinous crimes committed by Boko Haram and probably did a balancing act by touching on the atrocities of the military as well.

    Since the AI report was made public, many prominent Nigerians and commentators on social media have taken the human rights body to the cleaners by accusing it of being one-sided and biased in its report. They have also demanded to know why, for instance, AI completely ignored the unspeakable bestiality, human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by the Boko Haram terror group itself. Based on past indictments by the global body which had become too frequent, the consensus of opinions is that AI has the habit of condemning the military, which has been trying to protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria from the marauding antics of Boko Haram.

    The feelings of several Nigerians were reinforced by the military, which also dismissed the accusations by AI by calling them a witch-hunt and a deliberate attempt to tarnish the military’s image. In his reaction, Chris Olukolade, a Major General and the Director, Directorate of Information at the Defence Headquarters, condemned AI’s gruesome allegations against retired and serving senior Nigerian military personnel and the Armed Forces in general and described it as blackmail. According to him, “the action, no doubt, depicts more of a premeditated indictment aimed at discrediting the country for whatever purpose.” He stated that each of the allegations made in the past by the organization had been thoroughly responded to and cleared in the public domain and officially, adding that, the title of AI’s most recent report, down to the body of allegations, smacked of extreme bias, “which is disturbing, coming from an otherwise reputable organisation that is expected to be ‘just and fair’ to all.”

    This column cannot but agree with Olukolade that the AI report was one-sided. In a war, two parties are involved. In this case, you have the senseless, mindless and blood-thirsty Boko Haram terrorists, on the one hand and on the other hand, you have the Nigerian military fighting on behalf of Nigeria and Nigerians to return peace and normalcy to the affected areas. In actual fact, it is the Boko Haram leaders – Abubakar Shekau and his sponsors – who deserve to appear before the International Criminal Court at The Hague, to answer charges for human rights violation and other heinous crimes they have committed against humanity. These are people whose bestiality knows no bounds. They have slaughtered quite a number of innocent people, including pregnant women, old people, school children, infants and all that.

    For an upward of five gruesome years now, the country and particularly the military have been engaged in a fierce fight with these evil-minded terrorists. Operating under the guise of a pseudo-religious belief which has been variously described by adherents of Islam as purely heresy, the group has declared a total war in the North-east of the country. In the three most affected states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, both social and economic lives of the people have become comatose. Also, majority of the schools and other government establishments in these states have either been burnt down or have remained under lock and key as a result of the prevailing insecurity in the areas. Killing, maiming, arson and wanton destruction of lives and property have become the order of the day.  Many of the villages and cities in the affected states have been frequently invaded by the terrorists who randomly kidnapped young, innocent girls and taken to their stronghold known as Sambissa Forest, an expanse of land almost the size of Belgium. The unlucky ones were brutally killed with gunshots to the head or had their throats sliced like rams. Surprisingly, AI, now operating like the propaganda wing of Boko Haram, doesn’t seem to care a hoot about all these atrocities.

    From a rag-tag fighting force in 2009, the terrorists have since become more sophisticated and daring, deploying weapons of large scale violence including Improvised Explosive Devices, IEDs, and suicide bombers, among other lethal weapons. Till date, no one can rightly say anything about the fate that may have befallen the more than 230 Chibok school girls who were abducted from their school dormitories on the night of April 14, 2014.  Unfortunately, AI seems unperturbed about the plight of the Chibok girls. Instead, they have focused their binoculars on the military who are doing all they can to put these marauders in check.

    Mind you, this column is not trying to absolve the military of any wrongdoing or blame at all. We are all witnesses to the unnecessary and needless brutality usually meted out to innocent Nigerians by some overzealous elements in the nation’s military even at peace time. And it cuts across the entire gamut of the uniform services. It is obvious that Nigerians are incensed because with Buhari coming to power on the crest of a modest posture and popular support, expectations are high that the new President will enthrone good governance in the country and this will surely be the starting block for many good things to come. Therefore, they see the timing of AI’s allegations against the military, as an unnecessary distraction for the new president and the military establishment.

    At any rate, there is no smoke without fire. It is quite difficult to believe that Amnesty International just sat down and cooked up its report. In that case, we can only get to the root of this allegation by embarking on a painstaking investigation or public enquiry. Before then, the military should learn to adhere strictly to the rules of engagement so as to avoid this type of mess, now and in the nearest future.

    ‘In actual fact, it is the Boko Haram leaders – Abubakar Shekau and his sponsors – who deserve to appear before the International Criminal Court at The Hague, to answer charges for human rights violation and other heinous crimes they have committed against humanity’

  • Why Buhari should ignore the national conference report

    Why Buhari should ignore the national conference report

    Since the military first intervened in our politics in January 1966, the presidential-type Constitution they replaced the old Parliamentary-type of the First Republic with in October 1979 has been a bone of contention, not least because many Nigerians, experts and laymen alike, consider the Constitution’s claim of speaking for “We the People,” as a fraud. This is simply because the military exercised its veto over the final document, something which, by definition, the military had no one’s mandate to do.

    Since 1979, our Constitution has gone through some changes in 1996 under military president General Ibrahim Babangida and in 1998 under the late military head of state, General Sani Abacha, until it took its current form and substance in 1999 under military head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar. It is this military fatherhood of our Constitution that many, if not most, Nigerians find disagreeable; hence the persistent call for a constitution that can legitimately speak for “We the People.”

    The first opportunity for a fully civilian siring of our constitution since the First Republic came under a civilian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Remember he was the military head of state, who gave us the 1979 Constitution a little over three years after his predecessor, General Murtala Mohammed, who had ended nine years of military rule under General Yakubu Gowon, was killed in an unsuccessful military coup in February 1976.

    For almost his entire eight years as civilian president, Obasanjo balked at any idea of a national conference, sovereign or otherwise, for the amendment or change of our constitution. Towards the end of his second tenure, however, he suddenly saw the light and initiated one. But then it came under widespread suspicion that his change of mind was essentially motivated by a hidden agenda of securing a third, some even said a life, term for himself in violation of the constitution’s limit of two terms of four years each for the executive arm of government. That suspicion was born out when he consigned the conference’s report to the dustbin after the National Assembly voted against any change of the constitution’s term limit.

    Fast forward to May 29, 2011 when Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, president until barely six days ago, secured the office on his own steam in that year’s presidential election after completing the term of his predecessor, Umaru Yar’adua, who died on May 5, 2010 after a long illness. Like Obasanjo, his since estranged political godfather, Jonathan persistently rejected calls for a national conference. Again, like father like son, the man saw the light only after he was more than half way through first full tenure.

    Predictably, widespread suspicions trailed his announcement on October 1, 2013 of a “National Conversation” for possibly a new constitution. Many suspected, with good reason, that it was meant to divert attention from issues of insecurity, corruption, oil theft, lack of power, etc, that seem to have completely swamped him. Others thought he was persuaded to initiate it by a cabal so as to gain political advantage with some sections of the country in the general elections that were then fast approaching.

    If you think the latter argument was so much rubbish, consider the claim the other by a chieftain of Ohaneze Ndigbo, the umbrella cultural organisation of the Igbo, that they, along with Afenifere, the Yoruba equivalent of Ohaneze, and the South-South region where the former president comes from, voted for him because it was the only way they could guarantee the implementation of the recommendations of the president’s national conference, which were in their favour.

    According to the Newswatch Times (April 19), this claim was made by the president of the Anambra State chapter of the Ohaneze, Elder Chris Eluemuno. As such, the chieftain said, any failure by our new president, Muhammadu Buhari, to implement the said recommendations would risk dividing the country.

    When President Jonathan inaugurated the conference on March 17, 2014 he reiterated his good faith in convening it. “Let me again repeat,” he said in the last but three paragraph of his 52-paragraph speech, “what I have been saying that Goodluck Jonathan has no personal agenda in convening this national conference.”

    When he subsequently received the report of the conference on August 21, 2014 at the end of its deliberation, he said he believed it presented a platform for “genuine and sincere dialogue among Nigerians.” He also promised that the efforts of the delegates, whose hard work and commitment he praised to high heavens, “shall not be in vain.”

    Given his reiteration of his good faith and of his commitment to implement the conference’s recommendations, you would think the man would’ve made the report a major issue in this year’s presidential election.

    Well, as we all know, he never did. Instead, like his estranged godfather, Obasanjo, he too consigned the conference report to the cooler. Worse, his quarrel with the National Assembly over his signing its amendment bill in the dying days of his presidency showed quite clearly that giving Nigerians a genuinely civilian constitution was never really of much concern to him.

    As we all know he vetoed the National Assembly bill on April 15. An incensed National Assembly then moved immediately to try and override his veto. An equally alarmed presidency countered that by going to the Supreme Court to stop the federal legislators in their tracks. The court obliged on May 7 and asked the legislators to tarry awhile until the substantive case was heard. It then fixed June 18 to hear the case, thus effectively stopping the legislators since their tenure would’ve ended by then. Initially the legislators said they were going to defy the court, but in the end sanity prevailed and they stopped their move.

    However, if President Jonathan was inexplicably cool to the idea of amending or changing our constitution, our new president was no different. Indeed he and his party were worse than indifferent; they were hostile to it apparently because they suspected the ex-president’s motive in convening it, not without good reason.

    Even then, as is clear from the new president’s inaugural speech whose precision, clarity and coherence has since become a trademark of his speeches, Buhari is concerned that there should be no conflicts of roles among the three arms of government.

    In his speech, he expressed his concern about the almost universal abuse of the Local Government Joint Account especially by governors since the beginning of the current dispensation in 1999.

    “Constitutionally,” he said, “there are limits to powers of each of the three tiers of government but that should not mean the Federal Government should fold its arms and close its eyes to what is going on in the states and local governments. Not least the operation of the Local Government Joint Account.”

    I agree with our president that his government must be concerned about accountability and transparency at all levels of government. However, it is a misnomer in our constitution for it to have created the impression that in a true federation there are three tiers of government. As I’ve had cause to argue on these pages in a true federation there are only two levels of government: the federating units and the centre to which they cede certain powers. In such a federation local governments are no more than creatures of the federating units.

    Unfortunately our own federation seized being a true one from 1966 when the military first intervened in our politics. Instead it stood our federation on its head when the centre became the creator of the federating units instead of the other way round. To add to the confusion, our constitution still vests the creation of local government with Houses of Assembly and not the National Assembly.

    This was one of the key issues that were decided upon by Jonathan’s national conference and we should all be concerned that we sort all such issues out properly.

    Even then I still believe President Buhari should ignore the report of the national conference for the simple reason that it was clearly convened in bad faith and also because it was riddled with too many contradictions.

    This, however, is a matter for another day, possibly in a not too distant future.

  • As Buhari steps in – 2  

    Saving just a few minutes ago sworn on the Holy Book, I intend to keep my oath and serve as President to all Nigerians. I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.” This quotation taken from President Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration speech in Abuja last Friday clearly sets the tone for what Nigerians should expect from their new leader in the next four years. Also, the large presence of foreign leaders from across the globe and other dignitaries at the event, equally gave a huge endorsement to the new administration.

    The new president came into office on the back of the sort of overwhelming popular support he had never before enjoyed and which he probably never anticipated in the many years he had attempted to rule the country once more, as a civilian leader. The simple analogy here is that going by votes only, he won acceptance with the largest majority of people from four of the six geopolitical zones in the country. What is different between his performance in 2011 and now is that, not only did he predictably retain the support of people from the North-west and North-east; he also made far more inroads in the South-west and the North-central states this time around. The truth is that, no matter what the opposition may say, ordinary masses actually took ownership of the last electoral process, some engaging in door-to-door campaign at great personal expense and peril, with many shunning primordial sentiments like ethnicity and religion, to ensure Buhari’s emergence as president.

    In the run up to the election, a friend narrated to me an interesting encounter he had with a young man in his 20s. According to my friend, he was at a fast food outlet when one of the desperate anti-Buhari video documentaries by the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, was being aired. After the video had run for a while, the young man turned to my friend and said: “You know, I was not yet born when this man was president in 1984. But the fact that his opponents seem to always criticize how he tried to force people to do this and that, tells me that the man may have tried to sanitise things in his own way and people were not happy with him for that.”

    My friend said he went ahead to deliver an impromptu lecture to the young man about how Buhari, in his War Against Indiscipline, introduced public sanity measures and ethics like the end of the month environmental sanitation exercise, queuing to access public utilities and all that. According to my friend, the young man left that afternoon with a vow to cast his vote for Buhari and also pledged to convince his friends and neighbors to do same. This captures the level of expectation that came with Buhari’s candidacy and eventual victory at the polls.

    At the age of 73, Buhari is a man, who can be said to have seen it all. Therefore, in terms of the temptation to toy with the people’s goodwill, he must strive hard not to disappoint people like that young man, nay, Nigerians in general. If at all he had earlier been recorded on the bad page of history, this is a golden opportunity for the new president to rewrite history. Such opportunities are rare though, but, here he is, with another golden opportunity to right the wrongs of the past.

    Of course, let us not get ahead of ourselves and expect that everything will go plain sailing. That is, indeed, naivety of the highest order in the stern reality of the murky political waters and the peculiarly testy terrain that is Nigeria. Nigeria is a country where the resort to primordial factors can easily polarise even the most elevated socio-political issues and discourse. The truth is that, even if he does not know that already, Buhari may soon realize that even his ‘own’ people – both the northerners and the All Progressives Congress, APC – will begin to jostle to elevate their interests above the collective interests of Nigeria. This is why he should shine his eyes.

    From what I gathered from his close associates and as exemplified by the extract from his inauguration speech reproduced at the beginning of this column, the president is his own man. That is, once he is convinced about something, he cannot be easily swayed. I think the country needs that type of man with a strong character and strong will to be able to decipher between good and bad; between praise singing, sycophancy and objectivity. Even the most strident of leaders can be easily drowned in the sea of yes-men around him. Nigeria surely needs a man gifted with guts, gumption and iron in his back-bone to pilot the affairs of the country and extricate it from the cobweb of hopelessness into which it is currently enmeshed. Whether Buhari fits perfectly into that bill will be determined by the events of the next four years.

    And then, there will be the issue of those who financed the campaign and would be naturally eager to recoup their investments by angling for plum or juicy government contracts and appointments to this end. The administration will kick and cry in order to free itself from the fangs of these inevitable ‘hawks.’ In this case, Buhari will need to bear it in mind that he must succeed where others before him faltered and failed. The immediate past government is perceived to have failed miserably to live appreciably above the big hand of these ‘hawks.” The beauty of it all is that in the new president, there is a man with the necessary discipline to live above a lot of these temptations. This is because dealing with these sort of issues, can often require the type of single-mindedness that critics of Buhari, a former military ruler, have often  accused him of possessing.

    However, beyond his personal qualities and all that, the new president needs to surround himself with people of knowledge, technocrats and experts who will also demonstrate a good level of readiness to ride above pettiness and first and foremost, put their knowledge and expertise on the table for the common good. The new president, indeed, has one of such technocrats and practical men needed to help share virile ideas and steer the ship of the country well enough. He has that man in Professor Yemi Osinbajo, the vice-president, former attorney-general of Lagos State and a very practical academic.

    Furthermore, it is pertinent to note that there will be a lot of bumpy climbs and slippery slopes along the line for Buhari-Osinbajo and for Nigerians in the coming days, months and years, but let us hope that we can all be patient enough and cooperate with the genuine positive endeavours of the government. To achieve this, we should not be unduly apprehensive and acerbic especially in the first few months of the administration. Personally, I am not too sentimental about the so-called 100 days mantra, but all things being equal, I think there is light at the end of the tunnel. Nigeria has been lost in the wilderness of despair for too long. Now is the time to re-plot our national graph and seize the opportunity presented by the emergence of Buhari, with both hands. The country must move forward and that responsibility lies on the shoulders of our new leaders as well as the people of this country. Never again should we allow some group of bandits and plunderers to make away with our common patrimony and ride roughshod over the populace. The days of impunity and bare-face robbery of the treasury should be gone and gone for good!

    ‘Nigeria has been lost in the wilderness of despair for too long. Now is the time to re-plot our national graph and seize the opportunity presented by the emergence of Buhari, with both hands’

     

    • Concluded.

  • Our Girls; Remember  Fulani Herdsmen-Farmers War; Assets; Info Ministries/Media  save lives

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. President Buhari has promised to focus on their safe return and to relocate the Forward Command HQ of the Boko Haram War to Maiduguri, the embattled state capital and long sought prize of the insurgents which has again come under murderous attack along with Fika, Gamboru and Ngala since the President assumed office. Maiduguri must not fall.

    Let us congratulate the majority of the seriously over-estimated 160+ Nigerians, most likely nearer 120m, on surviving the ‘Political War of 2015’. There were deaths, murders, casualties and a massive nationwide trauma from the massive non-democratic assault on the democratic wishes of the citizens.  Add to that a huge war budget nationwide which has been a major contributor to the crippling of the finances of the country, including the fall of the naira, and we see the true cost of this ‘Political War of 2015’.

    We must congratulate President Buhari for being tenacious enough and politically savvy enough to cooperate with strange bedfellows to achieve the APC, a ‘fruit salad’ of good and evil to defeat the pot of stew, amalgamated evil, that PDP turned out to be with too few good pieces. In a fruit salad, the pieces still remain individual and separate and identifiable. The person we have put in charge, President Buhari, can use his opportunity and powers of investigation to choose between the sweet and sour pieces to present to the people the next group of leaders. He and the VP have set a good example by declaring their assets, hopefully publicly. Of course they can and will insist on obedience to the law and make ‘Assets Declaration’ accompany ‘Acceptance of Appointment Forms’ for Ministers and all advisers and appointees. The difficulty would be to get governors to follow suit with themselves and their commissioners and advisers. It is not a moral difficulty but a corruption perpetuation difficulty.

    However President Buhari must try to make Assets Declaration the first step to all such government appointments. Whether he can get assent from a current NASSty NASS remains to be seen. The NASS track record, for party members of all parties, in financial transparency is legend and abysmal. It is in serious doubt if the membership of NASS and even the state assemblies are willing to clean up their act or allow themselves to be cleaned up. Indeed the President referred to difficulty with getting the states and LGAs to cooperate. Only time will tell. The President was particularly silent on the second Nigerian War –The Fulani herdsmen- Farmers across 10 states War’ which claims between 30 and 100 citizens a day and over 5,000 to date. He will be expected to tell us his plan for the end of this war in the near future.

    While we give President Buhari the next few days to tell us his plans and reminds him that there are 1460-5= 1455 days  left, let us take a break from politics and remember to implement policies at home and at work that will save ourselves to enjoy the fruits of our 2015 democratic struggles.

    I have recently advised several groups on how to stay healthy and attended the funerals of too many acquaintances and friends. No one will live forever and no one knows the day of death, but there are a few things we can all pay attention to in order to even the odds. There are lessons to be learned from the maybe N1.5-2tillion naira political campaign even as we remove the posters and burn the newspaper adverts. If we paid as much attention to our health as we do to politics and gossip we will be a healthier happier people.  If we funded health posters and health adverts as much as we fund political posters and political messages we would all be healthier or and happier. If our 200 radio and TV stations carried as many life-saving and health information messages as political messages we would all be healthier and happier. If the ministries of information at federal and state and LGA level did their real job of informing the public every day about the 200 life-saving messages instead of what politicians’ daily antics we would all be healthier and happier. Nigeria’s media must educate. It must take responsibility for the medical and social ignorance of the citizens as it has 24/7 access to citizens who are often ignorant of life-saving skills and messages. This is the task before all government and private media organisations and executives – to educate the citizenry during the next 1455 days on staying alive before 2019 round of democracy and election education. There is more to media responsibility for citizens’ education than Ebola and Elections. There is life itself and people need life skill education daily as new ignorant citizens hear and see radio and TV for the first time every day.

    So the inadequate amount of airtime allocated to such life skill messages is a scandalous indictment on the media which happily awards itself accolades for branded commercial advertising while to population falls ill and dies from lack of life skills. Life skill messages needing dissemination include taking folic acid throughout reproductive life, checking Blood Pressure, examining your breast and abdomen for masses, knowing your genotype, low sugar-salt-fats-alcohol intake and regular exercise. ‘Life Skill Message Education’ is in and out of school time and worktime.

    ‘If our 200 radio and TV stations carried as many life-saving and health information messages as political messages we would all be healthier and happier. If the ministries of information at federal and state and LGA level did their real job of informing the public every day about the 200 life-saving messages instead of what politicians’ daily antics we would all be healthier and happier’

     

  • Our Girls; PDP’s poisoned parting gift – fuel/powerlessness: Nigeria dies;  ‘DAY 1 OF CHANGE’; ‘Liberate States’; ‘Cut NASS to N10b’

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15, 2014. Where is their ‘CHANGE’ and protection under the law in this democracy?

    Be careful what you wish for. The internet brought communication with business and brought loved ones closer. Yes, but it also brought the rapid spread of indoctrination, religious radicalisation, instant reality events like extremist executions and suicidal blogging, yahoo-yahoo and internet scams, identity theft and bank fraud.

    From May 29, ‘Day 1 of CHANGE’, President Buhari, as President of all, should be a truly national leader during this stage of Nigeria’s dark history. SWORN ASSET DECLARATION FOR INCOMING OFFICIALS SHOULD ACCOMPANY THEIR ACCEPTANCE LETTERS FOR APPOINTMENT. Also nationwide growth and progress cannot occur in a military-style unitary system or a FEUDAL FALSE FEDERALISM favouring divine right to rule. ALL NIGERIANS have rights to A SENSE OF BELONGING. Let freedom for development reign. Buhari must ‘LIBERATE THE STATES’ from a historically oppressive federal government –made up of a few ‘FEUDAL FALSE FEDERALISM FOREVER’ myopic men, sitting in conclave in Abuja on every ‘federal decision’, and vetting or vetoing it and enforcing directives and archaic militarist and colonial laws condemning Fellow Nigerians to 19th Century underdeveloped perpetual poverty. This backward cabal of oppression has had a role to control, command and destruction of ideas like state railways, water controls, roads, building projects et cetera. We have suffered this in Lagos State. Can Buhari be more progressive than his predecessors?

    About 95% of the true population of 120m lives in the 36 states but get 35% of the budget. However states, when paid colossal sums between 1999 and 2014, did little for the citizens – corruption. The federal government and National Assembly (NASS) must reduce size, budget and federal powers for states to get more independence though states misused their allocation over the years.  Every Nigerian state has a population bigger than 50 countries. They are the direct responsibility of governors, local ‘heads of state’.

    The 2015 Federal budget is unacceptable. NASS is not a ministry! The N150b NASS budget is more than the allocation to 23 ministries and must be cut to N10b size. Policies cutting stupid salaries and perks, part-time legislation, sitting allowances must be introduced by NASS or by referendum.

    Three items in the press demonstrate oppression of Nigeria’s masses. One is the CBN’s ‘concessional’ 9% loans for agriculture while we borrow from bloodthirsty banks at 21-25% with 13% going to CBN as the MPR, non-existent in most countries. The second is an advert boasting ‘we allow/demand 30% down payment on the N85m homes for sale while the rest is spread over ONE year’. The third is the naira exchange rate N200-215:$1, making the naira ‘toilet paper’. This is down from N1 for $1.5 when I started work in 1974 and we had such misplaced pride in a Nigeria whose leaders had a secret malicious monetary policy. These are cases of systemic corruption and failed leadership. Nigeria fails in financial services to its millions seeking small survival or business loans or housing mortgages– essential for a just society. Can Buhari change our economic woes and listen to Henry Boyo the economist to achieve poverty reduction policies.

    Is PDP trying to postpone or sabotage the May 29 inauguration?  The massive corruption and round-tripping surrounding the fuel scarcity has changed my mind as Nigeria dies from being strangled. Buhari should initiate IMMEDIATE FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL and urgent ESTABLISHMENT OF MULTIPLE SMALL NEW REFINERIES for home-grown fuel and the 100 useful by-products we never hear about but need for industrial growth. We are already paying N130-400. Is the punishing fuellessness plaguing Nigeria a Machiavellian ‘PDP Venomous Poisoned Parting Present’-fuellessness and powerlessness? Buhari can BLAME PDP INCOMPETENCE AND CORRUPTION for a need for the ‘Immediate Effect’ removal of subsidy.

    Beyond the Boko Haram War, when a country losses its farmers, families, children and armed forces members within the country, it must face the ‘internal terror situation’.  If it is true that the Fulani herdsmen are a few ‘common criminals’ then they should be emasculated with military precision.

    An angry Buhari, a prominent Fulani General, and a former head of state once led a protest delegation to Governor Lam Adesina about a deadly clash between Fulani herdsmen and Oke Ogun, Oyo State farmers. He was educated on who was to blame. With the death of soldiers it seems little has changed except that the herdsmen are better armed, so imagine how they TREAT OUR FARMERS WHO ARE ONLY LICENCED TO CARRY DANE GUNS AND MACHETES. The cattle routes can be guarded easily. The herdsmen have robbed and killed many, including a General in Lagos. Disarming farmers but not herdsmen is ethnic, political and genocidal. What is Buhari’s blueprint on this ‘The Other War’? Let us threaten to stop the North-South cow herd trade until the herdsmen respect other Nigerians –farmers and soldiers. No country whose soldiers are killed can sleep at night. No soldier joins up to be killed in ‘petty cow squabbles’. What ‘medal’ do they get?

    Who is funding Fulani herdsmen weapons? Is their wider mission to destabilise regions of Nigeria or expansionist?  Is it about ‘INSISTING ON RIGHTS OF PASSAGE THROUGH FARMLANDS AND FREE FEEDING/WATERING FOR COWS?  The Fulani herdsmen-Farmer War is internal, not ISIS. A solution must be quickly found. What a waste. Death, so we can eat meat, makes no sense. We demand ‘change’.

  • As Buhari steps in (Part 1)

    At last, in spite of predictions by doomsday prophets, the 2015 general elections in the country have come and gone. We are left with house-keeping until May 29, which is less than 48 hours from today, when Muhammadu Buhari, the president-elect, will be sworn in as the fifth democratically elected president in post-independence Nigeria. As winner of the presidential election which held on March 28, after he is sworn in on Friday, Buhari will be the fourth president inaugurated into office since the country returned to democratic rule in 1999 following 19 unbroken years of military interregnum between 1983 and 1999.

    The 2015 presidential contest was rightly regarded as the most pivotal in the country’s 55 years history since independence in 1960. There was no denying the thickness of the tension in and around the country as the elections approached. Even Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, described the electioneering process as “vicious” on account of the fiercely competitive nature of the political campaigns that witnessed the most expensive elections ever organized in the land.

    Having emerged winner in a process that, although not without its own shortcomings, many, including international election observer groups, have hailed it as largely peaceful and credible, expectations are unsurprisingly high about what will come with  Buhari’s presidency. Indeed, many Nigerians believe, rightly or wrongly, that the myriad of problems confronting the country will automatically vanish the moment the new president mounts the saddle.

    Considering the socio-economic malaise the country has had to endure in recent years, Buhari, is at this time, seen as a messiah of sorts. In view of this, all structures – political and economic – are eagerly awaiting his much-vaunted ‘magic’ wand. In fact, it might be safe to say that Buhari is right now carrying more weight of expectation than Chief Olusegun Obasanjo bore when he was voted the country’s civilian leader in 1999. Before then, the military had dominated the political scene from December 31, 1983 till May 29, 1999.

    Like Obasanjo was, Buhari is equally not a neophyte. He is not coming into the saddle unprepared. Having led the country for 20 months – from December 31, 1983 to August 12, 1985 – following the military coup that toppled the government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari in the dying minutes of December, 1983, he has been there before. In addition, he has a well-documented story of having previously lost elections in his bid to be Nigeria’s civilian president on three occasions – 2003, 2007 and 2011, before getting his Holy Grail at the fourth attempt this year.

    It is also safe to assume that through his years in the military and even after being ousted as head of state by General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and his band of coupists in 1985, he has carefully cultivated a formidable enough circle of strategic friends at home and internationally. These can, indeed, come handy in his new position. The times may have changed, but having also previously served the nation in such capacities as Federal Commissioner of Petroleum Resources, military administrator in the old North East as well as chairman of the then Petroleum Trust Fund, he is a man who must be aware of the infrastructural and indeed, economic deficits facing the country. There is no mincing word that Buhari is a dogged fighter, an incurable optimist and a man imbued with Spartan determination to succeed in spite of both natural and man-made hurdles in his path.

    With these rare credentials possessed by one man, what the country needs now from him is a productive demonstration of his understanding of the avalanche of burning issues at stake through the application of practical solutions to dealing with them. For a man whose main selling card has always been his honesty, self-discipline, incorruptibility and steadfast belief in the need for government to operate efficiently by taking bold steps to eliminate wastages, the country has hardly ever been more in need of being administered by an individual that fits the profile of the incoming president. Already, the sound bites coming from the camp of the president-elect with regards to the need to reduce and commercialise the bulk of the aircrafts in the over-bloated presidential fleet, is very encouraging. Let’s hope that this will be just the beginning in his bid to bring some fiscal sanity to the overhead cost of governance in the country as he has always suggested by his body language.

    Another area of exceptional national interest is petroleum-related activities, which include revenue generated from crude oil, the management of the funds, as well as the facilities for the production of the product. For several weeks now,  Nigerians have been in the throes of excruciating  scarcity of petroleum products, the same problem that has rendered the nation’s economy perenially prostrate in the last few years. For a major oil producing country in the world, this is a scandal of monumental magnitude. It may not be much, but, perhaps, there may be some consolation in the person and persona of the president-elect.

    Each time Buhari speaks about the oil or petroleum resources sector, he seems to speak like someone who is familiar with issues around the industry, someone who appreciates the enormity of the issues well enough to be armed with very workable solutions to the industry’s seemingly intractable problems. I can’t help but notice the nostalgia with which he responds to issues about the industry. Although whether this fondness translates to concrete results in the interest of all in the next few months or years, is another matter altogether.

    The Nigerian oil industry is like a patient on a stretcher being wheeled to the theatre for urgent surgical operation to save his life. In other words, the Nigeria oil industry is currently gasping for breath as most of the country’s refineries have either broken down or they are merely engaged in epileptic production which is a far cry from the country’s energy needs. This unsavoury situation has created a lacuna for very dubious businessmen and their collaborators in the corridors of power, to bleed the country dry through the payment of duplicitous subsidy for the importation of petroleum products.

    For instance, some highly placed Nigerians are believed to be neck-deep in fraudulent importation of aviation fuel, only to turn round to pass on papers for payment of subsidy for kerosene. Another ploy is a situation where refined petroleum products are taken out of the country to neighbouring West-African countries and then brought back immediately as imported petroleum products in order to collect subsidy. These are some of the ingenious ways through which the country has been stolen blind. Now is the time to plug all these loopholes and save the country from thieves masquerading as businessmen.

    Recall that the last of the country’s long-since comatose refineries was built in 1984, at a time Buhari presided over the affairs of the country as a military ruler. While the age of the refineries is regularly cited as a reason the country needs new ones, it is instructive to know that even in a country like the United States of America with a history of healthy refineries and efficiency in the refining of petroleum products, the most recently-built refinery was constructed around 1988. What I am trying to say here is that, with a good maintenance culture, the age of a refinery does not necessarily prevent it from delivering. Sadly, our abysmal maintenance culture has created a lot of rot in our entire social and economic infrastructure as exemplified by the sorry state into which our refineries have been plunged for decades.

    • To be continued

     

  • Nigeria and Turkey’s forthcoming elections

    Nigeria and Turkey’s forthcoming elections

    It is election season in Turkey; in about eighteen days or so the Turks will go to the polls to elect a new prime minister – or retain the old one, Ahmet Davutoglu – for the next four years. They will also vote on an amendment to the country’s constitution which will transform it from a parliamentary democracy into a powerful presidential system. However, this transformation requires approval by 2/3rd of the country’s 550-member legislature, i.e. 367 members, to pass without a referendum or 330 with.

    Leading the battle by the ruling party to retain power and change the constitution is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s ceremonial but powerful president and leader of the party, the so-called “mildly Islamist” Justice and Development Party (AKP). Erdogan has been in power since 2002 when AKP first came to power on a wave of popular disaffection with militant secularism championed by the military which had dominated the country’s politics since it first changed in 1924 from a Sultanate into a Republic under the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Erdogan has been campaigning for his AKP to win 400 of the legislative seats and, thus, to become its most powerful elected president in recent times.

    The election in that country should interest Nigerians for a number of reasons. First, along with Iran, Turkey has, by some estimates, about the same Muslim population as Nigeria – around 75 million. The ratios of this number for the three countries differ – about 50% for Nigeria, 99.7 for Iran and 98.6 for Turkey – but the numbers are big making the three almost jointly sixth in the Muslim world, after Indonesia (about 205 million and a ratio of 88.1%), Pakistan (178.1m: 96.4%), India (177.29m:14.6%) Bangladesh (148.61m:90.4%) and Egypt (80.02m:94.7%).

    Second, as a country that straddles Eastern Europe and western Asia in space, it is of strategic importance to the world both geographically and religious wise.

    Third, for at least the last decade after AKP came to power in Turkey, the country has provided one more proof that Islam and democracy are not necessarily incompatible as some Westerners and secularists and even some radical Islamists would have the world believe. Under AKP the country has transformed into a thriving plural democracy and prospered economically into one of the most advanced in the world.

    Last but by no means least of all, since at least 1998 Turkey has established its presence in Nigeria as one of the biggest outside forces for development in our education and health sectors. Today its 16 non-denominational Nigeria-Turkish international primary and secondary schools spread across Nigeria in Abuja, Kaduna, Lagos, Kano, Ogun and Yobe states – and with plans for more – are among the very best in the country. So also are its Nile University, which is part of a global network of 26 universities in America, Europe, Asia and Turkey, and its state of the art Nizamiye Hospital, both based in Abuja.

    The inspiration behind these institutions is the Gulen Movement, after its founder, Fethullah Gulen, the world renowned 74-year old Turkish Islamic scholar, author and poet, who has lived in self-exile in Philadelphia, America, for decades to escape persecution from the secular civilian and military regimes that had dominated Turkish politics and society up until 2002.

    The Gulen Movement, which has since renamed itself the Hismet Movement, after its founder’s pronouncement that it was rather presumptuous to have had it named after himself, has meant different things to different people. It sees itself as a social and spiritual movement which completely eschews politics but which lays emphasis on religious dialogue and even more so on education, inspired, it says, by Prophet Muhammad’s (Peace be upon him) saying that “The ink of a scholar is more sacred than the blood of a martyr” and the fact that the Arabic word “ilm” (education) is, according to experts, the second most used word in the Holy Qur’an, after Allah.

    Others see the movement differently. Even though it has no formal leadership or sheikhs or structure and even though it has no ceremonies or procedures for initiation into its membership, many, including militant secularists in Turkey, see its members as closet radical Islamists who secretly want to establish an Islamic State of Turkey.

    On the other hand, radical Islamists accuse it of being too open to Western ideas and creeds. It therefore, in their eyes, poses a grave danger to the Islamic renaissance in Turkey which has since trumped Ataturk’s century of secularism.

    Whatever the movement is, its alliance with AKP in 2002 in their opposition to military dominance of the country’s politics and society was universally acknowledged as probably the single greatest factor in AKP’s triumph.

    Sadly, that alliance has gone sour, at least since 2013, so sour that today Erdogan sees the Hismet Movement, whose members believe he has reneged on his commitment to consolidating plural democracy and transparency in Turkey and has, instead, become too self-serving, as the single biggest obstacle to his dream of becoming an imperial president.

    Such is the bitterness with which he views the movement that he now calls its members terrorists and has embarked on a campaign of seeking the shutting down of their institutions wherever they exist, by labelling them as fronts for terrorism. The most recent was his call last week on the authorities on the neighbouring Muslim Albania during a visit there last week to close down the movement’s schools in the country, a call that was promptly rebuffed. Before then his country’s diplomats in our neighbouring Benin Republic had tried the same gambit with predictably the same result.

    Hismet Movement is not the only one at the receiving end of Erdogan’s anger against any opposition to his dream. The media and opposition parties in the country also are. Yet, he and his party remain favourites to win the forthcoming election by a wide margin, if not by the margin he desires to turn his country into an imperial presidency under his leadership.

    In the likely event that he does win, the Nigerian authorities should expect his diplomats to come calling sooner or later with pleas to shut down the Turkish-Nigerian institutions in our country because, of course, they are “fronts” for terrorism.

    Good thing is, Nigerians and their leaders are simply too smart to fall for such a harebrained gambit.

     

  • Our Girls; Better IDP care; ‘Fulani Herdsmen-Farmers War’- ‘Cow Meat Boycott’ and Mass Transit the answer?

    SIR: Our Girls are still missing since April15, 2014, what a tragedy for the families and our country. We often claim there are no jobs for our professionals and tell them to become entrepreneurs. With high unemployment of professionals will 100 psychologists now be recruited, employed and deployed by government, NEMA, the Red Cross and other agencies. They are needed for the mental and emotional care of those traumatised by the bullets, bombs, bestiality or bereavement of war. Available assistance appears stretched to the limit in caring for Internally Displaced Persons. Yet over N57billion was raised by the Victims Fund and more donated internationally. This is the time for IT-monitored, accountable, open-handed, quick action and red tape-cutting assistance with no corruption or bureaucratic bottlenecks leading to another monumental government failure to help Nigerians. If Nigerians fail to quickly rehabilitate our over two million victims, we do not deserve to be a country. We see no money collections and posters and media urging volunteers and donations towards the relief effort.  Who are the faces of Nigerian women leadership leading the support efforts for victims? This HUMANITARIAN WAR EFFORT is what Governors’ wives and the wife of the new President should be proud to do FROM DAY ONE in the new dispensation in association with the women of Nollywood, women professional bodies, wives of the armed forces, wives of bankers etc. I say ‘wives’ but men also need to support this war effort.

    The destruction in the Middle East should worry all of us. Here, the Boko Haram War will not go away. It keeps rearing its ugly explosive murderous ‘here today-gone tomorrow- back the next day’, guerrilla-style tactics so successfully used in the past by the Boko Haram war machine. The recurrent war events in Maiduguri and the recapture of Borno towns already retaken by Nigeria suggest the need for larger forces. Driving Boko Haram away is not the complete answer. The exits must be sealed and the enemy captured. Therefore we need the establishment of efficient commando counter-terrorism guerrilla-style Nigerian Special Forces units in the bush to encircle and cut off escape routes into the bush, forest and across borders. In the national interest and that of millions displaced and at daily risk of being blown up by an increasing number of forced and volunteer suicide female bombers, misplaced military pride must be replaced by cooperation and pragmatism.

    There is need for better Nigerian/ Nigerien/ Chadian military cooperation. The publicised, un-denied use of mercenaries is not without its huge financial cost. It seems the Nigerian Army has fallen foul of the ‘Consultants Disease’ infecting the federal and state civil service, parastatals like NNPC and even the private sector where at every point ‘Consultants’ are invited to do the ‘dirty’ work like raise taxes from the population, sack staff, conduct forensic audit of accounts and now even fight wars. Often if that cost was properly injected given to the organisation as motivation and material, the same result would have been achieved in the often badly demoralised primary organisation.

    Amidst the euphoria of ‘change’ come May 29 and with just 1460 days in control of Nigeria, there are some hard decisions needed. The political battle and war may have been won but there is also real ‘blood and dead bodies’ wars. Boko Haram has local and international, political and religious, poverty and financial, radical and rapist components. But there is another war, a local war which killed three Tiv farmers this last weekend. This ‘our war’ is rooted in Nigerian feudalism and the terrors of an expansionist history, religious and political, territorial and right of way/passage through farms and drive for conquest and humiliation of others. The recent deadly attacks in Taraba, Plateau and Benue resulting in 100 to 400 deaths and involving men in Nigerian army uniform, Fulani herdsmen and perhaps fatal differences between local tribal populations especially farmers. The cost is high and rising with reported tit-for-tat deadly attacks by Fulani herdsmen and farmers in the over 20+ year old Fulani herdsmen-farmers war. It has defied all the conflict resolution attempts of local and international expert mediators to date who must redouble their efforts in the coming months for success.

    Can Buhari stop this ‘The Other War’? Has he got the moral authority? Can the military be applied neutrally? As an interested party, after all he is Fulani, will he be able to be fair to all concerned, as Rotarians will say? Are the causes of this Fulani Herdsmen-Farmers War just difficulties over ‘grazing rights’ or ‘watering holes’ or deep ‘ethnic agendas’ like seizing farmlands and produce without due process or payment for village and farm produce consumed by herdsmen, their families and cattle? There has been historical animosity. Too often the incumbent federal government disarms one side, exposing it to attack or prosecutes one side for possession of weapons for defence as the government does nothing to protect them.  Nigerians must look for other meat that does not cost the lives of its wonderful farming families and gallant soldiers. Why eat meat costing lives or livelihoods of families- Blood Meat. Will a cow Meat Boycott bring sanity through trailer and train transport? Perhaps! In the 21st Century cattle can easily be fed, watered and fattened at source on large northern farms and moved by train or trailer nationwide eliminating the North-South cowherd routes.

     

  • Abba: Lest we forget

    As usual, on Tuesday, May 12, I was anxious to listen to Channels Television’s 10pm news broadcast. This segment of the day’s news bulletin has been my favourite since the debut of the TV station many years ago. But on this particular day, I was much more eager to listen to the news because of the council of state’s meeting, the last to be presided over by the outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan, which took place at the presidential villa earlier in the day. I knew there may be one or two important news emanating from that meeting. Besides, the newspapers had insinuated that Solomon Arase, who until that day was in acting capacity as Inspector General of Police, could be made a substantive IG at that meeting.

    The news that night opened with some video footage from  the Council of State meeting. In the group photograph which was featured at the tail end of the report, nine surviving former Heads of State – Generals Yakubu Gowon, Ibrahim Babaginda, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Olusegun Obasanjo, Muhammadu Buhari, Chief Ernest Shonekan and Alhaji Shehu Shagari  – were featured. Of the lot, only three of them, including Dr. Goodluck Jonathan,  are civilians. The rest are military rulers. Some of them have come back as civilian presidents – Obasanjo and Buhari, who will be taking over the reins of government pretty soon.

    The highlight of the day’s news was the confirmation of the appointment of Solomon Arase as substantive IG after serving in acting capacity for less than one month. As the news scroll had it that day, it was “a record confirmation within one month”. It was in the process of confirming Arase that the president gave a little insight into the real reason why Suleiman Abba was summarily eased out of office last month after nine months in the saddle as IG. According to reports, Abba was eased out because of “noticeable indiscipline in the rank and file of the police under his command”. Though the report did not expatiate on what was termed indiscipline, the reason given by the government tallies with insinuations and speculations that greeted Abba’s sudden removal. The speculation then was that it might not be unconnected with the fall-out of the 2015 general elections particularly the presidential election in which the incumbent president was defeated. Since that defeat, many people in sensitive positions at the federal level have been sent packing. It is like a wounded tiger has come to town and has been baring its claws ever since.

    Like I pointed out in my column dated April 29, titled: “Abba: A Sacrificial Lamb”, the former IG had to be sacrificed for not superintending over a shambolic election which was what his paymasters had anticipated. We are all aware of the shenanigans that took place in Rivers State in the governorship election. That issue will soon become a subject of litigation. We are aware of the role played by some very important people in that election, from the INEC commissioner in the state to an empress who relocated to the state many weeks before the election. And of course, the issue of the deployment of senior police officers to monitor the state’s election and the counter-order or marching order issued to the officers. How the media blew the surreptitious moves open and the hullabaloo that followed in high quarters when all the secret manoeuvres leaked to the public.

    Then I remember that JamesF. Entwistle, the American Ambassador to Nigeria, visited the police headquarters in Abuja to give the “boys” a pat on the back for a job well done. The visit, which was aired on Channels TV’s 10p.m news on Monday, April 20, showed the footage of Abba, responding to all the good things the ambassador said on the police performance during the just concluded 2015 general elections. Abba said: “The elections were peaceful because my men went to the field and complied with instructions – be professional, don’t support any party and don’t be partisan in any way”.  According to him, “that was exactly what they did and this is responsible for the relative peace the country is now enjoying”. That sounds like a statement from a tough cop who knows his onions. As it is customary, Channels TV repeated the footage in subsequent news bulletins on that day, all through the night. Also, at 7:15 am the following day, shortly before the newspapers’ review, that is, during its News Track, the footage, once again, came on the TV station.

    Either by sheer telepathy or something else, when the footage came up again that morning, something in me told me that some people, somewhere, might interpret Abba’s innocent words to be an affront especially given the prevailing mood in high places after the ruling party was beaten silly in the elections. In any case, what Abba said on Channels TV was what really happened. It was a departure from previous elections when policemen will operate side-by-side or hand-in-hand with political thugs, taking directives from unscrupulous political godfathers, snatching ballot boxes, simulating arrests like was witnessed during the last governorship elections in Ekiti State and later, Osun State, including some other stupid things very unbecoming of law enforcement officers. In the last elections, nothing of such happened. If it happened at all, it was insignificant and too infinitesimal to raise eye-brows. That was why the Americans gave the police a pat on the back for a job well done as well as promising to assist the agency in strengthening their operational capabilities through training and all that.

    Unfortunately, back at home, what did Abba get? Less than 24 hours after the visit of the American Ambassador and his team, Abba got the boot. The whole nation was jolted. I am sure the Americans were, too. Of course, Nigerians are no fools. They can read between the lines. Talk of the African proverb: “The witches cried last night and today, a child in the neighbourhood drops dead….” Now, the removal of Abba is being couched in a deceitful garb. Speaking to newsmen last week on why Abba was removed, Mike Okiro, chairman, Police Service Commission, said; “Going by the explanation President Jonathan gave when one of the governors raised the question, the president took the action because of the gross indiscipline he noticed among the rank and file under his watch”. Hey, here we go again. Go tell that to the marines!

    It is on record that Abba presided over the most peaceful elections in Nigeria’s history. He probably read the mood of the nation correctly and knew that Nigerians will not take kindly to any attempt to rig the last elections. In fact, rigging an election such as the last one, could probably have thrown the country into a great conflagration the magnitude of which could lead to a major catastrophe. But thank God, the whole elections ended conclusively. Abba too, deserves praise. Not condemnation. Not blackmail. At any rate, whatever is said about Abba now does not matter. Nigeria has moved on.

    And talking about indiscipline in the police, it is an affliction of epidemic proportion. Over the years, the activities of the bad elements have continued to overshadow the good intentions of some of the finest officers in the system. Already, Arase said that he has let loose some units of mad dogs to go after the corrupt elements. Indeed, it looks like an impossible task. That department is damn rotten. Therefore, retrieving it from the abyss into which it has sunk requires a major surgical operation. Not grandstanding. Not any quick-fix approach. God help Nigeria, help Arase.

    ‘It is on record that Abba presided over the most peaceful elections in Nigeria’s history. He probably read the mood of the nation correctly and knew that Nigerians will not take kindly to any attempt to rig the last elections’

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