The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Re: Who owns Lagos ? – A reflection!

    I want to first of all thank you for the column on the above in: “In Touch” in the April 13, 2015 edition of The Nation. I read through your write up and come to the conclusion that, Lagos State and indeed the entire Yoruba States in the south west should be commended for their spirit of assimilation, habitability and good neighbourliness spirit towards all and sundry.

    Personally, I lived in Lagos for about 22 years before relocating to the South South. All my children were born in Lagos and even my wife was also born in Lagos. Lagos is home to all and sundry. If the sons and daughters of Lagos were not hospitable, I don’t think I could have spent such time in Lagos.

    Given that the Lagoon jibe from his Royal Highness, Oba Rilwan Akiolu (1) has exceeded its limits, which we all condemn and himself graciously apologized promptly via his aides, my original opinion about Lagos and its people still remain intact. The Oba is a human being. I am not speaking for the Oba; but come to think of it, as a human being, there are occasions one speaks out of emotions at least once in a while as a result of happenings in his or her environment.

    I hold the Oba of Lagos in high esteem no matter what mischief-makers would want to make out of it. Lagos is indeed home to all despite the neglect of the Federal Government especially from 1999 till date. I feel pained in my heart that despite the contributions of Lagos State to the centre, no meaningful assistance is received from the Federal Government to help Lagos in its development efforts. Tell me, how many states in the Federation can the FGN be owing a whooping sum of over N51billion for maintaining Federal Government facilities in Lagos and can still survive in its operations; yet some enemies of progress would not give up. This must not continue. That is why I am particularly happy that Lagos state is now on the same page with the Federal Government of Nigeria and many other states under the present political architecture.

    To this end, I will always thank God for the kind of leaders that Lagos is blessed with like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu – a visionary, courageous and team playing personality. May God continue to bless this country with such leaders by way of granting them more fruitful years on earth. I feel pain in my heart as I am writing this response to your column today.

    From the results of the gubernatorial elections that God in His infinite mercies gave to the progressives in Lagos, it is evidently clear that attempts were made by enemies of progress to thwart the efforts of Lagosians from 1999 to 2015, especially in her developmental strides. I noticed protest votes from some inhabitants of Lagos who came from other states despite all that Lagos has done for them all these years because of the retracted Oba’s Lagoon jibe. What has the centre government under PDP done in Lagos for the past 16 years that PDP thinks they can now come to Lagos over night to produce the governor, no matter the conspiracies of the outgoing president, PDP and the security forces?

    It is trite that one cannot eat his cake and have it back. God cannot lie. You can only harvest or reap after you have sown. There is always a wide gap between the time of sowing and the time of harvest. Not that the outgoing president will just fly to Lagos overnight with dollars and Pound Sterling to commandeer vote for Jimi Agbaje just like that instead of him to quickly conclude on his handing over note to the peoples’ general – GMB. You can see that Jimi Agbaje plus running mate, Bode George, Obanikoro and the loquacious speaker – Femi Fani-Kayode, all lost their immediate polling units on March 28 and April 11, 2015. No success without pain. Money is not everything.

    It is in Lagos State that you can have non-indigenes as members of the House of Representatives elected on the platform of an opposition party. Go to Anambra State from inception till date and tell me how many Northerners or South westerners have achieved that. Please, let no one provoke me to anger. Go to other non-Yoruba states in the whole Federation and tell me how many states have Yoruba as Members of Federal House of Reps, commissioners, etc in their cabinets.

    It is not in question as to who owns Lagos? My piece of advise to all that care to listen is that, let no one take the hospitable nature of Lagos citizens for granted as some of us who are non indigenes of Lagos will not be happy with such diversionary tendencies in an attempt to cause crises in Lagos.

    The Yoruba owns Lagos and there is no question about that. It will amount to an insult for anyone to ask that question. Let the peace of Lagos be allowed to continue. We have a very serious task at hand under the new political dispensation in Lagos State and indeed Nigeria at large.

    Finally, my special congratulations to the Jagaban of Nigerian politics – Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who allowed himself to be used by GOD Almighty as a political catalyst for progress and development in Nigeria. More grease to his elbows.

    Also, my special congratulations to Governor Raji Babatunde Fashola (SAN), who understood the dream of his predecessor and now passing the batten to  Ambode Akinwunmi to continue to consolidate on the change brought to Lagos in the last 16 years. It is our prayers that the enemies of LAGOS STATE shall not distract him. Above, all, my heart felt congratulations to the President-elect – the Peoples’ General – GMB over his well deserved victory, against all odds. To God belongs all the glory. Long live Lagos; long live federal Republic of Nigeria.

     

     

     

  • The New Information Highway

    Nigeria’s 2015 general elections have come and gone. We are now confronted with the ripple effects or the smoldering aftermaths of the titanic battles. While the winners are jubilating and celebrating by popping champagnee all over the place, the losers are licking their wounds. One thing that will, for long, remain indelible in the minds of everybody is the unprecedented level of attention given to the elections in the social media by emergency reporters. It was a novel experience in many ways.

    In Nigeria’s federal system, the federal government at the center holds sway over the state governments. As such, the ‘big vote’ in every election is the one for the top job in Abuja. This is true for other federal systems elsewhere around the world, but maybe more so in Nigeria. Not surprisingly, the election for the top seat generated wide interest, especially from the young generation and other Nigerians far and wide, gripping the whole world that watched on to see if the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), could be unseated at the centre. The outcome of the presidential election held on March 28, could not have been better for the neutrals and the teeming hoard of enthusiasts on social media around the world.

    On April 11, it was time for the gubernatorial elections and elections into the State Houses of Assembly. It proved to be a more ‘local’ affair (as it indeed is), with waned interest noticeable even at the polling units. On social media, where the presidential election was keenly followed step by step from the wee hours on election day, through the arduous process of collation in Abuja (including the ‘Orubebe interlude’), until final results were declared, the gubernatorial elections drew significantly less attention. The ‘online situation room’ was still operational, albeit with less force.

    The posts on the different online platforms told pretty much the same story as was the case in the presidential election. One could discern a pattern consistent with the narrative in the presidential election. The Rivers State election again was a hot topic, with sporadic violence reported by residents beginning from the day before the election, quite unsurprisingly because of the precedence set on March 28. Lives were, again, lost in Rivers State, with gory pictures of victims spread across facebook and twitter.

    The INEC twitter account was active, voters posted events from their polling units which showed thinner crowds but much of the same allegations. The INEC account dispelled claim after claim of malpractices and fake ballot papers reported in different states. One report that INEC account answered directly to was that of armed naval officers in Ikorodu LGA in Lagos distorting elections, stating that the Lagos State Resident Electoral Commission would “resolve” it. Fresh pictures of under-age voters around the north again emerged, with a good picture reportedly from Jos North Local government and another from Kofar Fada polling unit in Keffi, Nassarawa State, making the most sensation on social media. INEC did not confirm the authenticity of these pictures; neither were they denied as many reports coming out of different states were denied.

    A particularly popular post that went viral during the gubernatorial elections was a video of the son of Musiliu Obanikoro. The junior Obanikoro, who was a candidate for a seat in the Lagos State House of Assembly, allegedly involved in a fracas of sorts at a polling unit in Lagos. While some reported that he was confronted while dolling out cash at the polling unit, others suggested he was arrested for bribing voters at the polling unit. The video showed him engaged in heated argument with several people, including a woman who appeared enraged for unclear reasons, shoving the state house of assembly candidate at one point. The presence of policemen at the scene explained the reports of his arrest, but he is seen entering his vehicle at the end.

    Even with the low turnout and the absence of many of the international observers who were themselves posting updates on social media during the presidential election, it is clear that elections in Nigeria have taken a new turn. The unprecedented use of social media in these elections is a welcome development. It succeeded in making the last minute scramble at polling units by political party affiliates a reduced feature in the elections. For whatever reason, Obanikoro Junior was engaged in that scene captured on video, future candidates will be wary of making costly mistakes at polling units going forward, if for nothing else, but to avoid embarrassment or undue insinuations and rumours. At last, Nigerians are catching up to the true power of their resolve and determination; using the tools they have control over.

    It is now time to extend the practice to all aspects of national life. All agencies of government should establish an online presence on social media for easy access, not just outdated websites that are never maintained. In more civilized countries, the police respond to threats posted on social media and multinational corporations make big announcements first on social media. There is one glaring example of the part it played in the Arab spring – governments have been toppled via social media. The sooner Nigerians realise that power to force the hand of our historically unresponsive government and its agencies, the better it will be for the general well-being and development of the country.

    If “my oga at the top” can go viral, and elections can be monitored from polling units to collation centres through eye witness pictures and videos, then people can attend public tenders, follow government projects in their communities, phase by phase, and make reports with pictures or video evidence. The change does not have to end with All Progressives Congress (APC), taking over from the PDP at the centre, it should also extend to the citizenry being more involved and informed using the resources at their disposal. One man cannot guarantee change, but with everyone on board, real change can be realised.

    Anyone who has been following the rising cases of police brutality against black people in the United States of America, will know what role video evidence caught on smart devices has played in getting people’s attention. It has put recalcitrant policemen on their toes, because new videos emerge every day.

    But then, political apathy in Nigeria is still very much a problem. The presidential election roused a good number of the citizenry, due largely to the fact that indications were clear that it will be a close race and the debate was steered by prevailing issues like insecurity among others. Still, after all the barroom talk and public debates, the turnout was less than ideal. The states with the highest numbers, like Lagos, Rivers and Kano, only had a fraction of their official population registered as voters and a fraction of those registered actually voted. The gubernatorial elections saw that number dip. However, to be fair to the people, there are probably more than a few reasons to stay safe in one’s home during elections in Nigeria. People on social media in Rivers State reported monitoring elections “safely in the house”, which is sound logic.

    This is why Nigerians have to work together to make the state apparatus work for the citizens and show interest in government processes. The political parties may have their agenda, but the people’s agenda should remain the same to make the officials work to get tangible results that will speak for themselves in the next elections. News travels faster than ever before, through easier channels and with greater reach.  It is time Nigerians exploit this great avenue to create the change we crave.

     

     

  • PDP stares at the abyss

    One of its former national chairmen, Vincent Ogbulafor, once famously predicted that PDP would rule Nigeria for 60 unbroken years. Beyond reacting with consternation to that comment the opposition were in no shape to mount any credible bid for power, and such was the ruling party’s dominance of the political space it was hard to fault him.

    A mere two weeks to voting day Jonathan was still bravely declaring that his party was too large to lose. After last weekend’s drubbing it is now clear that size couldn’t keep ‘Africa’s biggest party’ in power. Even worse, its huge proportions may just be its undoing out of office.

    One of the things that kept the PDP growing over the years was access to federal patronage. It was what president’s used to keep rebellious party men in line and what they used to seduce the desperate from opposition ranks.

    In Nigeria government remains the biggest business – especially for the political class. For them being cut off from the central administration in Abuja is like an organism being separated from its life source. It is that mindset that produces statements like ‘our people have never belonged to the opposition’ as though being out of government was a leprous affliction.

    It doesn’t require clairvoyance therefore to predict that in the North where the Buhari-APC Tsunami has swept away a slew of PDP office holders we would witness massive defections to the new party in power in coming months. The same thing is bound to happen in the South-East and South-South.

    The president-elect in one of his earlier speeches after his election triumph declared that the one-party state was dead. I disagree. In another couple of months the APC might become the dominant party as the hungry flood its ranks in search of patronage.

    I predict that the PDP will shrink dramatically unless it can throw up strong-willed leaders in the years ahead who are prepared to makes the sacrifices necessary to rebuild the party.

    A sharp decline of the Nigeria’s once dominant political force would be a disaster. As the birth of the APC has shown, this country desperately needs a credible alternative at all times to keep whoever runs Abuja on their toes.

  • How Buhari can avoid Jonathan’s fate

    How Buhari can avoid Jonathan’s fate

    For most of the last four years President Goodluck Jonathan was Nigeria’s dartboard – the target at which we all projected our collective frustrations. Nigerians have voted for change and by that token made Muhammadu Buhari the new receptacle of our collective rage if things don’t start changing fast.

    By convention, new governments get a honeymoon period where there’s little or no criticism as they try to bed in. The length of this blissful time varies depending on circumstances. Sometimes it could be as short as three months or as long as a year. But something tells me that for the new president and his All Progressives Congress (APC) that honeymoon would be very brief.

    When Nigerians voted out Jonathan, and his ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) on March 28, the problems that cost the outgoing president his job didn’t disappear with the ballot. They loomed large over Buhari from the moment he was declared winner.

    The list is long and intimidating: a stuttering economy that has seen the naira collapse against major world currencies, massive unemployment, chronic inability to provide electricity, endemic corruption and a devastating insurgency that is yet to be stamped out.

    This list of national troubles was compounded by a bitter election campaign that tested our ethnic and religious divides to the limit. It would require major work to heal the wounds and bruises of the last three months – and that is another of the heavy responsibilities that has landed on Buhari’s plate.

    As daunting as the task may seem, the president-elect and his team have a unique opportunity not just to address the problems that now seem intractable, but also to change the very nature of Nigerian politics if they are willing to take radical steps.

    Jonathan failed because he promised transformation but only delivered a damp squib. Instead of a breath of fresh air and a new Nigeria, we were confronted with business as usual and national decline to levels we never imagined possible. Values disappeared, parts of our territory were appropriated by mindless killers masquerading as Islamic zealots, and institutions were desecrated before our very eyes.

    Those whose responsibility it was to ensure that these things didn’t happen couldn’t understand why we were complaining about the appalling new order. Their misunderstanding of what the times required is what has brought about the leadership changes that have been celebrated across the length and breadth of the country.

    Permit me to refer here to one of the immortal quotes of disgraced former United States President Richard Nixon. Before he went to the White House, he had run for governor of the state of California. On November 7, 1962, after he lost to Democratic Party incumbent Pat Brown, an embittered Nixon attacked the media, telling them: “you don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

    In another eight weeks we won’t have Jonathan to ‘kick around anymore’ over fuel scarcity, Boko Haram attacks, electricity and sundry headaches. The APC and its supporters who had excelled in their role in opposition would now have to make the swift adjustment to being on the receiving end. It’s a different ballgame when the buck stops at your table.

    A few days ago Public Affairs Adviser to President Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe, who had sworn repeatedly that Buhari would never come to power, was forced to make peace with the new reality in the land. He then declared – hopefully – that PDP would stage a comeback in 2019.

    Some may want to dismiss him as a humbled dreamer, I don’t. If Buhari and APC don’t do what is required to move this country forward, it is possible that in 2019 PDP or a coalition of parties could oust them from power as we’ve just witnessed. Let’s not forget that Jonathan received it on a platter barely four years ago – and the party that toppled him is roughly two years old!

    So, lesson number one for the president-elect and his party is: goodwill can disappear. The same people are jumping around doing cartwheels and screaming ‘Sai Buhari!’ are capable of turning around to chant ‘Ba mu so.’

    In 2011, ten million votes separated Jonathan and Buhari. This year the challenger has prevailed with less than three million votes. If ten million voters can desert a candidate in the space of four years, it would be no big thing for three million to evaporate.

    The second lesson is that being nice and honest is not enough to succeed as president. In the beginning, and for much of his reign, Jonathan was sold as a simple and humble man. But he stumbled at the hurdle of competence.

    Nigerians are looking for leadership that would deliver results. Buhari and APC will not solve all of Nigeria’s problems in four years; they would be courting disaster if they create that impression. But if by 2019 Nigerians can flip a switch and receive electricity, they would reward Buhari with another term. If not, then all of his reputation for honesty wouldn’t save him from punishment at the ballot box.

    The only guarantee of longevity in power is good governance – and it begins with the team the president-elect puts together.

    The APC is a patchwork of parties and interests so it is understandable that Buhari would be paying back lots of political IOUs. However, the biggest mistake he can make is to fill his cabinet, or the circles around him, with jobbers and the same old faces that have haunted the corridors of power in both military and civilian dispensations over the last four decades.

    The experience of these people cannot be discounted and they could serve the new president very well as respected and distinguished counselors. But the federal cabinet should be skillfully put together in such a way that it addresses the practical reality of paying off those who worked for Buhari’s victory, while infusing the government with younger men and women with the energy and vision required to transform the country into a prosperous 21st century democracy.

    Perception is important and should not be dismissed lightly. The PDP repeatedly raised the issue of Buhari’s age during the campaigns and we countered by saying there are times when an older leader is what a country needs.

    That said the new government needs to tap a younger generation between 30 and 60 so that a new layer of leaders can be groomed to build on whatever the Buhari administration would do in the years ahead. If he’s to be viewed as a forward-looking leader, he cannot afford to surround himself with his age mates.

    But of all the deadly poisons that finished off Jonathan and PDP, the one Buhari needs to avoid the most is the arrogance that creeps upon and ultimately overwhelms the powerful. The outgoing administration and its leading lights got so power-drunk they forgot that the people are actually the ones who decide who governs.

    That arrogance was repeatedly captured in statements like ‘We will never handover to this or that’; ‘this person or that one will never become president – we would rather handover to the military.’ All those comments make no reference to voters. Those who had been voted into power now assumed they had the power over life and death.

    It was that same arrogance that led Jonathan and PDP to turn state institutions like the armed forces, police, DSS into toys to be deployed for partisan ends. They and these institutions came to be reviled by all those they oppressed. In the end the oppressed spoke loudly with their ballots.

    On March 28 and the weeks that preceded it, Nigerian voters were reminded again that power belongs to the people. Desperate politicians courted then assiduously with everything from bags of rice to crisp US dollar notes. By kicking out Jonathan, voters now know what their votes can achieve. It would benefit Buhari and his team not to become so arrogant and distant from those who can decide their fate.

  • Buhari: fourth time lucky

    Buhari: fourth time lucky

    They said he will never be elected president of this country and used every trick in and out of the book of politics to make sure. Three times he tried, beginning from 2003, and three times he failed. But the man simply refused to be deterred.

    Part of his problem seemed to be where he came from – the northern part of Nigeria whose leaders, in mufti and in Khaki (including himself), had ruled the country for  much of its existence as an independent country. Mr Femi Fani-Kayode, the director-general of President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign organisation, once alluded to this at the time he had pressed himself into the service of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the estranged benefactor of his current political master. This was back in 2002.

    Because the North had ruled the country for so long, he said in an interview in Sunday Vanguard (July 21, 2002), “We also have to be able to rule for possibly close to 50 years.” By “We” he, of course, meant the South where Obasanjo and himself came from. But not only did the South deserve to rule for nearly half a century in compensation for the longevity of Northern rulership of the country, he also believed, he said, good governance was a preserve of Southerners.

    “I also believed,” he said in the same interview, “that their people, their ordinary people, are actually better-off being ruled by people from the South. Because the benefit of good governance trickle down.” That year General Muhammadu Buhari ignored Fani-Kayode’s empty theory, ran against President Olusegun Obasanjo and lost.

    Even without the benefit of any reliable opinion poll, it is obvious from the dismal lot of Nigerians since 1999 that the gentleman’s fanciful theory of good governance being a function of one’s geographical origin was exactly that – fanciful; in the last 16 years, a Northerner has ruled this country for barely two years, but no one in his right mind would say Nigerians have been better off all these years than they were in the First and Second Republic or even during the military interventions in between.

    Certainly no one can say the last six years under Fani-Kayode’s new political master has been a happy one for Nigerians, with, of course, the exception of those in the president’s charmed little circle. Yet this did not stop the president’s friends and supporters from trying to make the geographical origin of the major contenders in last Saturday’s presidential election an issue.

    General Buhari’s second problem stemmed from his faith. Not being someone who has a way with words, even his most innocent affirmation of his faith provided his enemies with weapons to paint him in the image of an Islamic extremist. It seemed to make little or no difference that, for example, his cabinet as military ruler between December 1983 and July 1985 had more Christians than Muslims or that he severely curtailed the number of Muslims that went on pilgrimage to Mecca in his time, to the great annoyance of Muslims in the country.

    Three times the man ran for the country’s presidency and three times the authorities used his origin and faith to defeat him. A less determined person would have given up after the third attempt since there is nothing he could do about his origin and, at well over sixty by 2003, he was highly unlikely to change his faith.

    Apparently the man was determined not to give up. So for the fourth time he entered the presidential fray last year. This time he grabbed the opportunity to forge a formidable opposition party with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu – one of the most astute and formidable politicians of this country since the Third Republic –  a couple of some opposition parties and a disaffected rump of chieftains of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party – an opportunity he had turned his back on in the run-up to the 2011 election, much to the joy of the PDP. Thus emerged the All Progressives Congress last year as the main opposition party which has now proved the nemesis of the PDP, the ruling party that had boasted that it will remain in power for at least 60 years.

    However, that Buhari has succeeded in his fourth attempt is due less to the organisation of his party than in the faith the ordinary Nigerian seems to have in the man’s personal integrity and credibility. For, if truth be told, the APC nearly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Saturday’s elections but for the fact that most Nigerians were simply fed up with the sheer incompetence, arrogance and impunity of the ruling party, plus also the fact that its campaign of undue personal denigration of the man seemed to have backfired and created more public sympathy for him than hatred.

    Part of the problem with the party was not so much its choice of the director-general of Buhari’s campaign organisation but his conduct once he took over the organisation. No doubt Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, the River’s State Governor, came highly recommended as a formidable opponent of the president and his overweening wife, Patience, who is from his state. Rivers is also one of the wealthiest states in the country. But for some inexplicable reason, no sooner did he take over the Buhari campaign organization than he alienated Tinubu and several serving governors in the party, including Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Kano’s governor who came second in the APC presidential primaries.

    Equally inexplicably, he also alienated several party chieftains from the South-South and the South-East like Mr Osita Okechukwu, Chief Ikechi Emenike and Temi Harriman who had helped in securing the general’s landslide victory in the party primaries and who would certainly have helped in narrowing the wide margins by which the president defeated the general in the two zones, wide margins which contributed in denying him the landslide victory he deserved in the elections as a candidate who eschewed hate language in all his campaigns in spite of all provocations but instead focussed, along with his running mate, Professor Femi Osinbajo, on issues.

    Clearly APC’s apparent writing-off of South-South and South-East as too hopelessly loyal to the president was a mistake. This should be obvious from the fact that the president, though admittedly under greater pressure than Buhari in the contest, never gave up seeking for votes in Buhari’s North-West, North-East and South-West strongholds. The president was, of course, more endowed than Buhari but what mattered more was getting value for money not just throwing it at people as PDP did, apparently to not much avail.

    In a back-page piece as a guest columnist of Thisday on Election Day, Chief Osita Chidoka, the youthful Minister of Aviation wrote about was he called  “The death of the African Big Man.” Even among Nigeria’s military rulers, he said, Buhari ranked lowly because he had no plans to hand over to civilians, isolated Nigeria diplomatically and passed laws retroactively.

    “The question We ask Nigerian watchers and voters,” he said, is “with a record of seizing power through force, of brutally oppressing the people, and of triggering economic turmoil – would you find him to be a suitable leader?”

    Presumably Nigerians pondered over Chidoka’s query and the majority of them obviously decided to take their chance with a persistent but honest 73 year-old than with a 57 year-old who had made such a hash job of their country in the last six years.

     

     

     

    Re: Yorubaland as battleground

    Sir,

    Let me humbly correct the wrong comparison in your article titled “Yorubaland as Battleground”, (March 18). You said the AIT has since transformed into the propaganda arm of the PDP alongside the NTA, and that the latter’s disposition is understandable being a medium of the PDP- run FG.

    I think that comparison is unfair to the NTA, which has been far more temperate and moderate in its political broadcasting in this election season than the AIT.

    I wonder how much of the AIT you have watched in the past one month. I have been a regular watcher of the station till I stopped a couple of days back to save my mind from burning anger and sheer nausea. No TV station, since Awolowo established WNTV in 1959, has spewed out – in the name of political advert – such bile as can lead this country into anarchy as the AIT has done and is still doing. I think Chief Raymond Dokpesi, its proprietor, has allowed short term gains to obfuscate his strategic, long-term calculations.

    I find myself today switching often to NTA as my next option after Channels TV in terms of local stations. It used to be Channels and AIT. Dokpesi is demolishing the edifice he has built like an inscrutable, if not insane, bird Ghanaians call eghagha, that in a matter of days, tears apart with its beak and legs a nest that it had painstakingly and artistically sewn together.

    Dr.Femi Olufunmilade

    femiology@gmail.com

    Sir,

    Please refer to your column of Wednesday March 18. Writing on “Yorubaland as battleground” kindly note the fixed expression: “have your cake and eat it” and NOT “eat your cake and have it.”

    Femi Melefa.

    +2348033141978.

  • April 1st Our Girls; One INEC team + One Card Reader/50-100 voters pls; Single day elections in 2019

    April 1st Our Girls; One INEC team + One Card Reader/50-100 voters pls; Single day elections in 2019

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15th 2014. Soon it will be one tragic year. Congratulations to our troops and the supreme sacrifice some have had to make against Boko Haram. We wish they had acted one year ago.

    No results are announced by INEC at my press time Monday Am. Nigeria is still afraid of exit polls, which are part of the international political anticorruption arsenal. Why did INEC not quickly collate and announce ‘INEC authorized results’ at local collation centres immediately?  We pray that INEC will not be oppressed by the traditional demons against democracy as in the recent past. The election was not ‘pure’. There were unacceptable incidents of calculated and callous violence, stolen report sheets, bombs, attacks, gunfire, deaths and injuries, violence against the media and a fatal boat incident.

    However it ‘appears’ largely free and fair except for some very difficult orchestrated elections in violence-prone states. Voting should be a pleasant experience and not a dangerous punishment. Patience, perseverance and pragmatism are necessities in Nigerian elections and punishment for violence perpetrators. Voters will not swallow false results of a sham election rigged in their state.

    Exposure to scorching sun or tropical rain, no seats, no shade, no toilet facilities, was the order of the voting day. Worldwide we see elections where voters spend seconds or minutes for accreditation with driving licence or passport or voter’s ID and immediately vote with a choice of several curtained-off polling booths for secret voting. In this last election on the March 28 in my polling booth, INEC arrived at 8.45pm and we spend from 9.15am to 3pm being accredited as one card reader died on us and this was not replaced until the second one died at 1.06pm. Even then, it took the pressure of the citizens and a citizen’s vehicle to take INEC officials to HQ for replacements, which arrived at 2pm to accredit the remaining 100 out of about 280 voters. As usual in Nigeria, it was exhausting, time consuming and economically costly.

    I personally wiped my thumb and the card reader spent just 2 or 3 seconds to accredit me. However the person ahead of me was accredited on his ninth digit attempt. But even that took just about one minute. Of the nearly 300 voters only three or so had to be done manually. What are the lessons and corrections that can be offered? The card reader was a ‘qualified’ success preventing duplication, multiple voting, fake cards and post-voting stuffing of ballot boxes. The difficulty was when the card readers failed but card readers are multi-purpose anti-corruption device. In some cases where it failed the card reader was maliciously or politically crippled. Below are my conclusions or Post Mortem Findings.

    Post Mortem finding 1: The spending of four hours lining up for one three person INEC team to accredit over 150-500 people is too long and wrong. We in our station were ‘lucky’ as only 300 turned up out of 800 expected. Many voters had registered but only worked there and could not come to vote from home-lost votes. Surely in order to ‘Speed up the process,’ Nigeria have one INEC card reader/50 cards to speed up the accreditation process. The card reader is to be hailed as it severely limited vote rigging and voter number fixing.

    Post Mortem finding 2: A planned three INEC staff for 200-500 voters are unimaginably poor management. We eventually had two sets of three INEC staff. INEC needs to treat Nigerians better and plan ‘three INEC staff /100 voters’ in each polling station.

    POST Mortem finding 3:  Nigeria must have a single INEC election with one accreditation and same afternoon election of all offices: President, National Assembly, Governors and State Assembly. Nigerians and Nigeria cannot afford to shut down twice for elections at the cost and loss of many billions to businesses and government. Nigerians should not be forced to go through the mental, physical and financial stress of an 8-12 hour election, more than one day every 4 years. This will halve the INEC budget for police security, travel and vehicle transport hire, and voter register reproduction for the second election day and also save parties 50% of party agent hire fees and other monitoring expenses. INEC can apply some of the billions in ‘saved’ funds to hiring more INEC staff for a ‘one day election’, which will maximise the value of accreditation and queuing. It will cut wastage of time and energy and financial business losses and reduce security risks.

    If allowed to function, The permanent voter card and the card reader remain the best things that have happened to ‘honest elections’ in Nigeria. Of course, no Card reader revolution can totally prevent the massed forces of evil political elements misusing their position and power to intimidate voters, buy voters’ thumbs or steal ballot boxes. These manifestations of maniacal acts of demonic anti-democracy vandalism often characterise struggling democracies where ‘one man-one vote’ democracy is subverted by ‘party and personal perpetuation’ at any evil price.

    Serving politicians who have lost elections by legitimate means or had to use illegal means to ‘win’ the elections must ask themselves why they got it wrong? In four years’ time, 2019, when the electorate decides again, we do not want to be challenged by the same political arrogance, insulting electioneering behaviour and prolonged massive financial wrongdoing.

  • Corporate Area Boys

    Today I publish below the last of the three articles I promised the reader on March 4 in my tribute to the late Malam Abubakar Gimba, a former president of the Association of Nigerian Authors, a great writer and, for me at least, one of the greatest personifications of humility and simplicity. The reader will recall that I promised to reproduce the three articles, including one by Gimba, which were my best in the last fifteen years, for their eloquence and continued relevance to our politics.

    The 2011 column by Eniola Bello, aka Eni-B, ace columnist and now managing director of Thisday, reflects on the shameful role so-called Corporate Nigeria has played in our politics – and economics – since at least 2003, culminating last month in a whopping 21 billion Naira plus fund raiser for President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign war chest, and this in flagrant violation of our Constitution and Electoral law.

    Before Eni-B’s piece, however, a word about the almost full page advertorial that has been published by virtually all our national dailies since last weekend, claiming that a vote for General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC),  on Saturday will be a disaster for Nigeria and Africa. The message was simply good old mendacious religious fear-mongering and both messenger and the vehicle which first published the claim are malicious neo-conservative demagogues.

    First, the vehicle. The Washington Times (WT) was founded in 1982 by the media arm of the controversial Unification Church whose founder is the even more controversial late South Korean, Sun Myung Moon. The church has been accused of brainwashing its members and its founder was convicted in 1982 for tax dodging in America. WT is arguably the most right-wing and the most Islamophobic newspaper in that God’s own country.

    Richard Grenell, the author of the article, is as right-wing as WT, possibly even more so, as the longest serving spokesman of the American Permanent Mission at the United Nations when the Republicans held sway in the White House. He became the first openly gay spokesman of a Republican presidential candidate when he was briefly hired by Mitt Romney in the 2012 American presidential election which Romney lost to President Barack Obama.

    As for Grenell’s message, the least said about his crude and clearly untenable attempt to link Buhari with Boko Haram and to the even more bloodthirsty ISIS in the Middle East, the better. Ostensibly sponsored by a “Move On Nigeria”, the message had the character of PDP and Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor’s CAN, as the religious wing of the party, stamped all over it.

    And now to Eni-B’s corporate area boys.

     

    Jonathan and the Corporate Area Boys

    By Eni-B Thisday 30 May 2011

     

    They came from all parts of the country, even if it wouldn’t be out of place to describe them as the Lagos business crowd. They were dropped one after the other in state of the art cars at the entrance of the State House, Marina Lagos. They turned out mostly in well tailored suits, with not a few in full national attire, particularly of the South-south variety. They milled round the expansive premises of the State House as early as 6.00pm, men and women ostensibly at the top of their game. They exchanged banters all around – a handshake here, backslapping there; a hug at one end, a peck on the cheek at another.

    In this select crowd were most of Nigeria’s biggest entrepreneurs, bank chiefs, captains of industry, CEOs of blue chip companies, top players in the oil and gas sector, and many other big employers of labour. All members of a group elegantly called Corporate Nigeria, those in this privileged crowd were at the State House, Marina Tuesday last week to honour the invitation of President Goodluck Jonathan, in what was described as a thank you pre-inauguration dinner.

    Jonathan had every cause to host Corporate Nigeria to dinner. For one, many members of the group dipped their hands into their deep pockets for hefty donations which Jonathan generously deployed to fund his presidential campaigns. For another, in other climes, such presidential dinner provides a good avenue for a serious head of government to socialize with the crème de la crème of the business community, put faces to names, drop one or two ideas on the administration’s economic direction, and get some feedback on business challenges from government action or inaction. What can be achieved in such an informal environment may be much more than days of tedious sessions at workshops and seminars.

    Unfortunately, neither the president nor Corporate Nigeria seized the opportunity to make any meaningful statement. Neither appeared to understand why the need for that kind of presidential dinner.

    Guests were supposed to be seated before 7.00pm when the president was scheduled to arrive. Jonathan did not arrive until 8.00pm. And there was no apology for arriving an hour behind schedule! Could that be an indication of the respect he has for the members of Corporate Nigeria? Even with Jonathan seated, it was a battle to keep the guests on their tables. There was a complete breakdown of order and discipline as many people moved from one table to another ostensibly to exchange greetings, but apparently to be noticed. Nobody listened to Compere Ali Baba’s repeated appeals that guests should keep to their tables and stop moving about. Was that the respect the president was deserving, even with envoys of other countries quietly seated? Or was it just a general lack of decorum and self-respect, an indication of the disorganization in the nation’s business community?

    The conduct of the business of the day was not any better. After the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mallam Yayale Ahmed, had introduced the president with the usual time-wasting flurry of protocols, Chairman Stanbic/IBTC, Mr. Atedo Peterside, set the tone of what was to come in what were described as goodwill messages. First, he said Jonathan’s victory at the polls was not because of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) but in spite of the party. Then he said at his polling unit in Victoria Island Lagos, for instance, the same people who voted for the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the National Assembly polls voted for Jonathan in the presidential, before returning to vote ACN in the governorship and State Assembly elections. Concluding, Peterside said his wife and daughter not only assisted INEC officials in counting the ballots during the presidential elections, he added that it is members of Corporate Nigeria who should thank Jonathan for saving them from going on exile should some other candidate have won the election.

    Following Peterside’s speech, there appeared to be a competition among the other speakers to dress Jonathan in borrowed robes of undeserving praises. One speech after the other got worse in fawning adulation and praise singing. Chairperson of Emzor Pharmaceuticals, Mrs Stella Okoli, spoke about Jonathan’s wisdom, intelligence and humility in a gaseous effusion that was more emotional than meaningful. When Wakilin Adamawa Hassan Adamu said Jonathan is the only incumbent that has so far organized a credible election in Africa, I couldn’t help shouting in shock disbelief. Otunba Funso Lawal won the award for cringing servility. He not only gave the president a Yoruba name, ‘Oladipupo’, he called First Lady Patience Jonathan, ‘our beloved mummy’. Although I couldn’t see Lawal from where I was sitting in the hall, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he gave a deep bow while acknowledging Jonathan’s wife.

    Not one of these speakers who spoke for Corporate Nigeria mentioned, even in passing, the serious challenges Nigerian entrepreneurs face daily. Not one of them said anything on what they expect from the president to make the business environment friendlier. Not one cared to point out what could be done to make the economy better. There were no demands and of course, Jonathan made no promises. Only Bukola Saraki who represented the state governors reminded the president that those in the hall expect from government policies that would grow the economy, make their businesses thrive so there could be more billionaires.

    When it was about 10.30pm, close to four hours after the event started, and there was still no sign Jonathan was going to speak, I took my leave. I could not understand how a president who is concerned about the problems of the country could afford four hours at a dinner that should end in two hours, listening to meaningless speeches. I could not understand how serious CEOs would waste executive time patronizing the president with words they even do not believe.

    Listening to those speeches, the image that immediately came to my mind was that of Area Boys who ambush car owners in Lagos traffic, cringing and begging for money even while barking platitudes in that guttural voice, “Father! You will live long! Chairman, more blessings!”

    I now know how most members of Corporate Nigeria only thrive on waivers. They are no more than Corporate Area Boys.

     

    Re: “Impunity: like Nigeria, like Niger State”

    Sir,

    Reference your piece, “Impunity: like Nigeria, like Niger State” (February 25). Since you started your article with the Chinese proverb, you should have ended it with another one which says “Man proposes, God laughs” or better still, the African proverb, “A stubborn fly, follows the corpse to the grave.” Sir, you have spoken well.

    Tony Ogunbiyi.

    +2348037172645.

    Words of wisdom for those who think they can impose their will on Nigerians in the coming general elections by subterfuge or the use of ethnic militias or abuse of the security forces.

  • Our Girls; Fulani Herdsmen: Farmer War, Boycott Blood Meat: Be a political journalist. Count Your Vote 

    Our Girls; Fulani Herdsmen: Farmer War, Boycott Blood Meat: Be a political journalist. Count Your Vote 

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15 2014. To them, and 15,000+ murdered, add 90 executed in Damasak and those wives murdered directly by Boko Haram to keep them ‘pure’ till a heavenly reunion. Did someone say ‘Negotiate with Boko Haram’?

    As Boko Haram reduces under the offensive, we face the Fulani Herdsmen Vs Farmers War claiming 5,000+ lives, and another 90 Fellow Nigerians cruelly massacred last week. Election win or not, statesman, Fulani leader and General, Buhari, must resolve this festering Fulani Herdsmen-Nigerian Farmers leprosy sore before it causes an ECONOMIC BACKLASH BOYCOTT OF ‘BLOOD MEAT’ defined as ‘Meat transported and eaten at the cost of lives & livelihoods of fellow farming Nigerians’.

    I disturbingly see cow meat on my plate as the flesh of those murdered children and parents.  This senseless War should stop if Nigerians at the end of the cow transport chain, ‘EAT NO MEAT’ for three months. Speaking medically, no one will die from not eating meat, so why should people die BECAUSE WE EAT MEAT? Why can you eat meat delivered by the death of a child? You are an accessory and receiver of stolen goods- farm grass and crops eaten by the cows. You have blood on your hands.

    This is how it was in the 18th C Wild West of America. The war will continue after a boycott if, as suggested by some, it is a cover for a territorial Fulani war disguised as a cow-farmland war. A seeming senseless war or a cunning expansionist strategy?    The wickedness of unleashing weaponised OPC on Lagos citizens shows no difference between that group, its leaders and Boko Haram.

    Death and terror are just that. No ‘political’ excuses. Boko Haram members murder their wives. We know what OPC does to victims.Enough of the personalisation or ‘partyisation’ of Nigeria’s governance and public institutions by all parties in power at federal, state and LGA level and the traditional institutions.

    Governance, the private sector and traditional responsibilities are timeless and transcend political tenures. They should not be partisan. Politicians are hired and fired at elections and are 4-8 year employees of the citizens. They must not extort endorsements from the landlord, the institution of governance.

    Holding teachers, handicapped, civil servants and unions etc., to ransom to ‘declare for us’ is abuse.  ELECTION ALERT: INEC says we must not leave the polling booth after voting. The IGP must retract any wrong information. Leaving the polling booth unprotected by citizens is an invitation to fraud. In this election, INEC must make more statements that CITIZENS must OBSERVE & ‘COUNT YOUR VOTE’. Remember to take WATER AND SNACKS in a transparent bag for security for yourself and others including the election staff, neglected for 10 hours, with shops closed.

    I worry for young NYSC staff, so much is expected of them, for so little. Have you seen the squalor, poor sanitation and facilities of NYSC camps? Since 1973 or so, Nigeria has stolen billions from the NYSC Scheme. I served NYSC in Jos and Lafia in 1975/6 and am sickened by the debasing hovels given NYSC as accommodation today.

    With indifference to any lethal consequences, we again risk their nationalistic NYSC lives for Nigeria. Let no drop of NYSC members’, or anyone else’s blood, be spilt by murderers in the false name of politics. Too many NYSC heroes have died for other people’s greed. NYSC members, we salute you. Nigerian politicians should protect their NYSC ‘children’.

    No one should be allowed to make inoperable the PVC Card Readers with the protective role of an impartial Police and the Armed Forces uncompromised by criminal governors. Any ruling party agents cannot be allowed to repeat Ekitigate election revealed by the patriotic military whistleblower who deserved promotion and induction into the ‘Hall of Fame for Whistleblowers’. Recall the whistle blowing Police officer ‘O’.

    He should be the Foundation Hall of Fame whistleblower. All political parties should participate at ‘Political Security Meetings’.World expectations are high for the triumph of democracy in Nigeria. Rigging and Violence are a CIVILIAN COUP ATTEMPT, treason, and prosecutable. Do not forget the newly elected ‘Democracy Saint’ Obasanjo’s role in the recent election ‘victories’.

    On Sat March 28th, let no one say ‘no’ to voting. Every voter who ‘siddon look’ and refuses to vote is a vote against his candidate. Let no one be intimidated. We are all ELECTION MONITORS AS RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS. TURN ON YOUR CELL PHONE, RECORD SECRETLY ANY iniquity, UPLOAD TO PREPLANNED INTERNET AND MEDIA’. I suggest you download Meerkat through Twitter and use it to expose political wrong-doing. We are all POLITICAL WAR JOURNALISTS-say Kunle   and Kolade M. Let the good outnumber the bad, let honest voters outnumber riggers, let truthful lawyers outnumber lying lawyers, let honest judges outnumber corrupt judges, let police and courts accept electronic evidence of violence- a criminal code crime, let the court injunctions stop, let good overcome evil. NO ONE’S POLITICAL LIFE IS WORTH THE DEATH OF EVEN ONE NIGERIAN. Stay alive to tell the 2015 election story. Long Live Nigeria! VOTE FOR YOUR CANDIDATE, FREELY AND FAIRLY ON SATURDAY MARCH 28TH2015.PS NERC again totally failed to protect Nigerians by not preventing the recently reversed hike in electricity tariff. The NERC board should resign or be sacked for incompetence. And why don’t American police disable people by shooting the people in the arms and leg instead of dead?

  • A referendum on the Jonathan years

    A referendum on the Jonathan years

    It is great that  terrorists have been pushed out of Baga, Bama and others but how does that translate into electoral advantage for Jonathan in places like Chibok where hundreds of families are still grieving over their missing daughters? How does it help him with families across Adamawa, Yobe, Borno, Gombe and Kano who lost husbands, wives and children as the insurgents rampaged unchecked over the last four years?

    Six weeks have evaporated like a puff in the wind and the postponed day of reckoning is finally upon us. Voters would pass judgment on All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari’s, past and present and decide whether they want to go on an adventure with him and his party.

    Crucially, the March 28 election is even more about President Goodluck Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) being placed on a scale by the people they have ‘served’ over the last four years.

    The polls are not about Prof. Attahiru Jega and his performance as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Neither are they about the alleged sins of former Lagos State Governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign has devoted countless millions producing negative advertising and hate documentaries against the two men you would be forgiven for thinking Jonathan was running against them instead of Buhari.

    If the president had sat out this election, next Saturday’s contest would have been defined in a different way. But he’s on the ballot seeking four more years in office: that automatically transforms the polls into a referendum on his tenure.

    In seeking a revalidation of his contract with Nigeria he will face the same parameters used to judge people who want a renewal. First there has to be a review of what has been done in the initial term and a decision made as to whether the individual who has put himself forward is the man to lead the organisation going forward.

    So what has Jonathan made of the four-year mandate he received in 2011? Has he done enough to earn a fresh contract? Will Nigeria be a safer, respected and more prosperous country if left in his care for another four years?

    Granted that most voting decisions are neither objective nor rational, I still believe that a sizeable number of voters – especially the undecided – should be asking these questions as they make up their minds whether to return him to the presidency.

    Jonathan took office with overwhelming goodwill. Riding on the back of the national need for healing following the unscripted demise of Umaru Yar’Adua, he brushed aside Buhari’s 2011 challenge. People wanted him to succeed and expectations were high because he and his late boss were Nigeria’s first university-educated executive presidents.

    It was refreshing that he was from the Ijaw minority in the South-South zone – breaking the usual three-cornered Hausa-Igbo-Yoruba power struggles. His grass-to-grace story was attractive and romantic – offering the possibility of a fresh start  under a humble head of state after a succession of arrogant and autocratic leaders.

    That goodwill translated into him getting 10 million votes more than Buhari. Although many still dispute those figures as rigged, they are the ones recorded by INEC for posterity. They are also the ones upheld by the courts.

    Usually, incumbents face very testing elections when they seek a second term. The margin of victory often contracts when compared to the first time around. However, it takes some special talent to blow away 10 million votes such that, today, Jonathan stands on the verge of making history as the first incumbent president in Nigeria to lose his reelection bid. How did things get this bad for him?

    Although expectations were high, the new president raised the bar even further by promising ‘transformation’. But instead of a landscape transformed, what we have after four years is a country devastated on many fronts.

    Jonathan apologists have printed reams of glossy paper itemising his supposed great achievements. They churn out statistics to open our eyes to the transformation we cannot readily appreciate. The things I always remember are that he established 12 federal universities, built almajiri schools and Nigeria’s economy became Africa’s largest under his watch.

    This list might impress party hacks but that’s as far as it goes. There was a time where opening universities was a big deal. Not anymore. Private individuals are establishing them all over the place.

    As for the size of the economy, the tag is just a salve for our egos and not much more. Nigeria’s economy might be the biggest on the continent but that honour is vitiated by one of the iconic images of the Jonathan era: the National Stadium, Abuja packed full of the unemployed who had gathered for an ultimately fatal Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment exercise last year.

    Ours is the largest economy in Africa at a time when our currency is lying prostrate against major currencies of the world. It would have been a boon if were exporting goods, but because we are enslaved to imported petrol this massive economy is headed farther and farther into the woods.

    In any event, I cannot imagine that Jonathan and his team – with a straight face – would claim that the ‘magic’ they performed in the last four years was what shot the country atop the continental economic rankings.

    The problem with Jonathan’s ‘achievements’ is captured by a link that his online supporters keep retweeting. It says something like ‘If you are from Ogun State please click here to see how GEJ has transformed your state’! If I live in a community and cannot see this so-called transformation then it is just fiction – or whatever has been achieved is being oversold as transformative.

    If Jonathan’s positives are not resonating, it is because his negatives are so overwhelming. Every regime has its fair share of scandals but this one seems to have a manufacturing plant that spews out sleaze. Over the last four years it has staggered from tales of billions of dollars allegedly missing from the NNPC, to flamboyant ministers blowing millions on armoured limousines to bungled arms purchase runs leading to embarrassing seizure of millions of dollars traced to the government in far away South Africa.

    Just as the image of the president was taking a battering internally, the country was not doing better externally.  The phantom phone call scandal involving Morocco left the president in the ridiculous position of having to deny something that his government officials had been vehemently insisting happened. It is not without reason that the administration’s critics call it ‘clueless.’

    Another defining character of the last four years has been the subversion of the rule of law and the destruction of institutions. It’s as if from day one the scheming for a second term took hold of the president. In order for that ambition to be realised, key national institutions have been virtually destroyed and compromised. The police, DSS and armed forces have at various times been pressed into partisan political assignments on behalf of the president and PDP in ways that are just nauseating.

    But ultimately the institution mostly badly affected by Jonathan’s desperate craving for another term is the ruling party. The PDP is going into elections in its worst shape since 1999. Under the incumbent, distinguished members have been deserting in droves as ambitions and interests clashed. Each time this happened, Aso Rock court jesters would dismiss the departed as paperweights who the ruling party could do without.

    Governors Rotimi Amaechi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Magatarkarda Wamakko, Abdulfatah Ahmed and Murtala Nyako were casually allowed to go without the political implications of losing five states to the opposition sinking in. Former national chairmen like Barnabas Gemade, Audu Ogbeh and Kawu Baraje left. House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Tambuwal and one of his predecessors Ghali Umar Na’Abba have jumped ship. So also have numerous senators, representatives and ex-ministers.

    Add to that list of heavyweights former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who was humiliated out of the party because his continued presence was an obstacle to Jonathan’s second term bid. After dismissing him and calling him names, guess who came calling under the cover of darkness at the former VP’s Yola home a few days ago begging for support? Candidate Jonathan!

    Even former President Olusegun Obasanjo who always swore he was PDP for life ended up tearing his party card in a farcical ceremony at his Abeokuta ward. His departure was celebrated too. Much as PDP would want to pretend that those who left weren’t politically relevant, these departures are akin to losing blood or limbs – the organism invariably becomes weaker.

    One of the challenges that came to define the Jonathan years is the insurgency in the North-East. Several months after they carved out a caliphate on Nigerian soil, an African multinational force in collaboration with the Nigerian military has driven Boko Haram out of most towns they occupied.

    A few days ago, Jonathan was quoted as boasting that the sect would be defeated within a month. There’s no question that the president and ruling party expect an electoral boost from the victories of the military.

    But such unrealistic expectations come from a profound misunderstanding of the dynamics at play here. It is great that  terrorists have been pushed out of Baga, Bama and others but how does that translate into electoral advantage for Jonathan in places like Chibok where hundreds of families are still grieving over their missing daughters? How does it help him with families across Adamawa, Yobe, Borno, Gombe and Kano who lost husbands, wives and children as the insurgents rampaged unchecked over the last four years?

    Where there has been transformation it was of the undesirable sort. I, like many faceless millions, voted for Jonathan in 2011. Back then we used to say we were voting for him and not PDP. The result was the creation of a pan-Nigerian mandate that swept him into office. Today, a president who emerged as a unique Nigerian creation has ended up the hostage of Ijaw clan chiefs and ex-militants.

    A Nigerian president has been reduced to manipulating ethnic militias like the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) whose agendas are largely separatist in his desperate bid to cling on to power.

    Jonathan has been executing a cross-country dash from pillar to palace to pulpit – bowing before strange gods and demi-gods as he struggles to stave off a defeat that is increasingly looking inevitable.

    And it was all so unnecessary. Imagine what the political landscape would have looked like today had the ‘New PDP’ faction not broken away from the ruling party? Perhaps there were too many interests to appease and none would ever have been satisfied with any form of compromise.

    Unfortunately, the ambitions of the president deepened the fault lines. The upshot is that in a few days we all would cast votes that could radically alter the political landscape. If his party is kicked out of power Jonathan would then have truly delivered ‘transformation!’

  • Demons in the House

    The story you are about to read points to the fact that, that “nice man” you call your husband or that “beautiful lady” you call your wife may just be a demon in the house. It all happened last Tuesday when I visited one of the outstanding health centres located in the sprawling city of Lagos. My mission was to undertake a routine medical checkup.

    I arrived at the medical facility a few minutes after 9 a.m and within some fleeting minutes; the laboratory technician took my blood sample to enable him run some preliminary tests – cholesterol, PVC, haemoglobin, etc. Naturally, it takes some time to run the tests. The time frame is between an hour and two hours at the most. But this particular day, it dragged on and on as more and more people showed up at the facility. At about 1 pm, it was my turn to perform the last rituals – urine test, blood pressure measurement and weight measurement – before being ushered in to see the consultant, a familiar, dedicated doctor with whom I have had personal, intimate rapport for many years.

    As soon as I sat down opposite him, the consultant started reviewing the result of the blood test and was sifting through the papers in the file as he compared the result with the previous ones. At a point, he ordered me to lie down on the examination couch where he examined me by pressing my stomach, ribs and all that, with his stethoscope glued to his ears. He asked me to breathe in and out or take a long breath, and all that. Just as he was doing this, shielded by the privacy screen, somebody walked in. The consultant told the person who was shouting “doctor, doctor,” to hold on and that he was busy attending to a patient. By the time he was through with me, he removed the surgical hand gloves, quickly washed his hands and went to his seat. I also disembarked from the couch, buttoned up my shirt, wore my shoes and went back to my seat. Behold, the man who had been waiting was another doctor. He had on him a white lab coat, the type worn by doctors while on duty. He appeared to be in a hurry as he was standing throughout his brief encounter with my consultant.

    From the trend of their discussion, he may have dashed into the medical facility from another medical facility nearby to arrange for a surgery that was to take place the following day. I guess it was a sort of collaborative effort between the two doctors as I overheard them talk about the bill for the operation and what will accrue to each doctor and all that. As a person who is always thorough and very professional on his job, my consultant then asked the other doctor whether he had taken all necessary precautions, to which the other doctor replied in the affirmative. To further buttress his point, the other doctor told my consultant that as a rule, he is strict with his team when it comes to observing professional ethics and rules in carrying out their duties. Then my consultant asked him: “Supposing you are not there to enforce the rules?” The other doctor replied: “No, no, no, they know I am strict with it and so they will not, and I repeat, they dare not do anything without the necessary precautions.” And he quickly added: “But you know, to be on the safe side, we assume that everybody is positive, so we take the necessary precautions.”

    It was then it occurred to me that they were actually talking about testing the patients for HIV before carrying out any surgery. Then the other doctor chipped in again: “But you know, some of these patients will refuse to be screened for HIV and that is why we assume that they are positive to be on a safe side.” He then gave two illustrations to emphasise his point. If I must confess, those illustrations shocked me to my bone marrow and literarily swept me off my feet.

    First, the doctor said: “Let me tell you, there was a time, a woman, a housewife who had tested positive, told us not to disclose her status to her husband who was always driving her to the hospital. She simply told us to leave that to her and that she was voluntarily going to tell him at the appropriate time.” According to the doctor, “six months, then one year rolled-by and the woman never disclosed her status to her husband.” Again, the doctor said there was another case which was more frightening than that: “In this case,” he said, “an influential man tested positive for HIV. He was actually on antiretroviral drugs and he was always coming to the hospital with his wife. The worst part of it was that he warned us never to tell his wife. At a point, the wife, who was also nursing a renal-type problem, developed some complications arising from HIV infection which she obviously contracted from her husband.” The doctor said: “The wife invariably died from the complications.”

    If you think that was bad enough, wait a minute, the worst was yet to come. According to the doctor, they were all surprised when few months after the woman died, this influential man, whom he continuously referred to as very, very nice, sent him (the doctor) an invitation card, inviting him to his “coronation and marriage” to another “brand new” lady. At this point, my consultant, who could no longer stomach the pathetic story, lost his cool and lashed out against the so-called influential man, who was said to be so nice, calling him unprintable names. The argument soon snowballed into the issue of confidentiality in medical practice, that is, doctor-patient relationship which prevents a doctor from disclosing the health status of his patient to anybody except with permission from the patient.

    My consultant harped on the danger such poses to the health of the society as the man had even gone ahead to marry another “innocent” lady who might not know that her newfound husband is HIV positive. This is a man who had earlier nonchalantly dispatched his first wife to the great beyond through sheer dishonesty. Surprisingly, at every turn during the discussion, the other doctor had a defence, citing some legal nonsense and the fact that the man is so nice, to support his argument. When my consultant noticed that his doctor-friend could not be easily swayed, he simply said: “That man may be outwardly nice, but he is a demon inside.” That ended the discussion and the doctor took his leave.

    Throughout the discussion, I kept mute because it was a discussion between two professional colleagues. Though I just sat there looking like a novice, my journalistic instinct soon took over. The questions that have been agitating my mind ever since are: How many of these type of cases are happening all over the place in Nigeria, in Africa and all over the world today? What can the World Health Organisation or our individual countries, do to stem this ugly development which may end up silently killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people if not properly checked? Why will a partner in a marriage test positive for HIV and decide to hide it from his or her spouse, knowing full well that the disease is contagious and could terminate his own life and that of his partner or any other person could easily be infected by the non-disclosure of his or her status? How many people have died and how many more will still die from this avoidable catastrophe caused simply by man’s dishonesty?

    From this satanic and sad scenario, we seem to be in a world inhabited by animals going about with the deceitful features of human beings. With highly dishonest people around that will not disclose their HIV status to even their spouse, it is quite certain that the next pandemic with devastating consequences will not be Ebola but Demons in the homes. May God help us!