The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Our Girls, Gumsuri; GE Marinho;  29% WAEC pass, 71% Nigerian education failure; MEXAHNYIA

    Our Girls, Gumsuri; GE Marinho;  29% WAEC pass, 71% Nigerian education failure; MEXAHNYIA

    Our Girls missing since April 15 joined by Gumsuri Dec 12 victims kidnapped by Boko Haram who murdered 33. Christmas Day will be empty for many. Let us all buy a present and a meal for an Internally Displaced Person, IDP and send them through your pastor or imam.

    Nigeria survives because of the sacrifice of millions. Permit me to pay tribute to Mrs Grace Ebun Marinho who joined the saints triumphant at 78 years. She had six children: Bisi, Nike and Tunji Osuntokun whose father Major Osuntokun, senior brother of late distinguished Professor BO Osuntokun, died when they were infants and Yinka, Funmilayo and Laolu Marinho with my father Dr Abayomi Marinho whom she married and supported through the rest of his life. She had a successful nursing career with Lagos State. I was sort of number one childas I was 17 or so years old when we met and all the children still have nightmares about me making them finish their food ‘because many children have no food to eat’. Sorry O, aburos! Now they have children they are singing the same song. I wonder why? I also used to take them to the cinema as compensation.

    Aunty Ebun was a uniquely warm hearted person, welcoming, smiling and offering all a meal and an invitation to stay, sometimes for years. She ran one of the last truly open houses in Nigeria. She had memory for family history and an excellence in the kitchen. Her Saturday moin moin was original ‘leaf wrapped and ready by 9am’ to be dispatched from her home where she presided as Mama Gbagada especially at Christmas, New Year and Easter-. My visits from Ibadan were completed by at least two moin moin, gariice block water and no sugar pls. Any moin moin affectionado knows that good moin moin always leaves the best tasting morsels hidden between the leaves. Her moin moin melted in the mouth. The lessons from Aunty’s life include patience, perseverance in the face of death and adversity and peaceful coexistence. Another lesson is that people, especially elderly relations, must be taken for regular completemedical check-ups. She will be missed particularly tomorrow, the first Christmas without her in Gbagada. May her gentle soul RIPP- Rest In Perfect Peace. Amen.

    We have cause to worry and not only about the absence of electric power growth since 1999 when it was 3000Mw and still is 3,000Mw 15+years and $?billions later. And the worry is not even at Fulani and Boko Haram Wars or the coming election violence war. We must worry that even in non-war torn parts there is routine disgraceful mass exam failure. The pass rate at the recent WAEC examination in key subjects is 29% pass or 71% failure.  The failures will enter the ‘market’ as cannon fodder for politicians who ‘mistakenly sent their own children abroad to study’ and some will join Boko Haram as examples that western education fails.

    The mass failure for young citizens is horrendous. It is a disgrace to government institutions where the vast majority of these failures occur in spite of N100 billion+ in the accounts of oversight bodies. Most schools lack basic education facilities, like good books and good teachers. The good student will study in a pigsty and still succeed. However, the majority of students worldwide are plodders needing prodding by good books and good teachers. American books tend to simplify complex problems better than traditional British books. The art and science of mental arithmetic has been lost to the calculator leaving the brain unchallenged, feeble and unable to add, let alone remember a telephone number. When I did the school run with eight or nine children we did mental arithmetic while I drove. Mental arithmetic is not WAEC mathematics but it helps.  As soon as you want to add 1+1 those around you immediately produce some IT device like an I-Pad. We require ‘Annual LGA, State and National Mental Arithmetic Prizes’ to revitalise our youth brains. Even our health officials were mathematically challenged as to whether there were 10 or 11 Ebola Victims.

    Note that 29% of anything is failure and each government level has responsibility. Education is a conveyor belt, so far with poor products. This failure requires a strategic  ‘Education War’ to counter Boko Haram. Our abysmal education fuels their propaganda. Government should learn from and not destroy private education. We should embrace and visit what is good. Visit Afe Babalola University AdoEkiti, ABUAD to get an honest education yardstick and work backwards to primary school. Every town has good private primary and secondary schools to measure against. God bless these great Nigerians proprietors, organisations and religious bodies which provide alternatives to failure, at a cost, yes. Government must provide better fast, for the current students on the education conveyor belt. Cutting class sizes, increased quality and dedication of teachers, more and better books and facilities are not nuclear physics, but the essential ingredients of education success and rights of the youths.

    Remember that in 2015 politicians will spend billions on millions of posters towards ‘election success’ but will never approve 10million educational posters for one million empty bare-walled classrooms in Nigeria for ‘exam success. Shame. A picture is worth 1000 words except in Nigeria.

    Ps: It is not too late to buy a present and a meal for an Internally Displaced Person and send them through pastors or imams. MEXAHNYIA.

  • VP: Why Osinbajo isn’t Bakare

    VP: Why Osinbajo isn’t Bakare

    In presidential politics picking a running mate is a fine balancing act. The needs of a candidate: how to play to his strengths, and compensate for his weaknesses, usually determine who he ends up selecting. Those laboring to convince themselves that the All Progressives Congress (APC) flagbearer, General Muhammadu Buhari, made a mistake by picking Professor Yemi Osinbajo, do so without considering these factors.

    To argue that the opposition should have gone for livewire political types like governor, Rotimi Amaechi, Babatunde Fashola or Adams Oshiomhole, forget that people don’t pick deputies who would outshine or be in competition with them. It has to be clear that there’s just one captain on the ship.

    That is why there is usually more emphasis on loyalty and competence than political gravitas in making this sort of decision. In 1999, the then Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, General Olusegun Obasanjo, was confronted with names like Atiku Abubakar, Abubakar Rimi, Bamanga Tukur, Abba Kyari, Jibril Aminu and Adamu Ciroma – all heavyweights as he sought to make his choice.

    As legend has it, Obasanjo sought the counsel of former Minister of Works, Chief Tony Anenih, who famously advised that if he chose Rimi he should ensure that there was a police orderly waiting outside the door at all times as they would quarrel often. However, if he wanted unalloyed loyalty he should go for Atiku. The rest is history.

    All that Buhari needed to do for his choice to be considered correct was name a Christian and Southerner. This balances the ticket nicely given that for months the flirtation with a possible Muslim-Muslim slate had stoked controversy. The candidate, perhaps miffed by the fact that he was being forced to overlook several excellent candidates because of the religion issue, seemed to equivocate in several public statements on the matter.

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which had been salivating at the prospect that Buhari would make the fatal mistake of picking a fellow Muslim in spite of being painted a fundamentalist by his foes, must have been sorely disappointed. The former head of state sidestepped the trap. His enemies have now moved to the option of deriding Osinbajo as APC leader, Bola Tinubu’s puppet. That is when they are not dismissing him as a political lightweight who adds nothing to the ticket.

    We have been reminded that this is the second time Buhari would be pairing with a clergyman. In 2011 he ran with popular pastor and activist, Tunde Bakare of The Latter Rain Church in the vain hope that it would give him the much-needed Southern breakthrough. It never happened.

    By settling for Osinbajo, a senior pastor with The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) – Nigeria’s largest Pentecostal congregation, Buhari has triggered inevitable comparisons  with what happened four years ago.

    Those who compare the 2011 and 2015 picks and assume the result would be the same this time ignore the context. Although Bakare was a popular clergyman, he had no political structures to speak of.

    Before the general selected him he was not a member of any party and was not known to associate with politicians. If anything, he was more likely to lampoon them in one of his fiery sermons. It was the height of naivete on the part of Buhari and those who advised him to think that Bakare’s celebrity alone would translate into votes.

    The pastor was a kind of Gani Fawehinmi type of personality who was incredibly well liked in media and activist circles, but whose popularity never translated into political muscle. That was why in spite of his immense popularity on the streets, the late radical lawyer’s National Conscience Party (NCP) was, and remains, largely a fringe player in the polity.

    Osinbajo, on the other hand, is a totally different case. For eight years he served as Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice under the then Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu. Back in 2011 when the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) were flirting with some late-hour electoral collaboration, his name featured in the calculations for running mate.

    But the most important thing is that he’s not on the ticket because of his personal political weight but as the face and representative of a political tendency within APC. He is a member of the Tinubu political family and longstanding confidant of the former governor. His presence on the ticket keeps both Tinubu and the South-West caucus in the party engaged and committed to the Buhari challenge.

    I will just mention in passing the fact that he’s related by marriage to the family of the late acclaimed Yoruba leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. While his political influence has waned with his passing many years ago, sentimental attachment to that famous name can only help and not hurt the APC running mate.

    Aside his political and familial connections Osinbajo’s selection disrupts the PDP’s bid to make Jonathan the main beneficiary of the Christian vote. Buhari’s running mate is a pastor in RCCG whose General Overseer, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has become one of the most influential religious leaders in the land.

    During the last election cycle all presidential candidates of key political parties beat a path to his door to seek his blessings. Many would remember the famous photograph of President Jonathan kneeling with eyes closed while Adeboye prayed over him.

    Knowing the RCCG leader’s reserved and statesmanlike style, don’t expect him to openly take sides – even when one of his spiritual children is involved. In such a huge assembly you’re likely to find people from diverse political persuasions. It would be inappropriate for a father to take sides. Though I would love to be a fly on wall when Adeboye casts his vote for president and VP!

    But even without overt official backing, it would be naïve to think a very senior pastor in this massive congregation contesting for such a high profile position would not influence a chunk of the millions who worship in this church.

    This, again, is another difference between Bakare and Osinbajo. Whereas the former, with all due respect, presides over a one-branch church in Lagos – by design maybe – the latter can potentially tap into a support base with nationwide presence.

    Anyone who then tries to analyse Osinbajo’s impact without factoring in this backdrop is ignorant, mischievous or engaged in a fruitless exercise in self consolation.

  • 2015: PDP runs to Jesus

    After unsuccessful attempts by his backers to compare Goodluck Jonathan to the likes of Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama and Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew, Public Affairs Adviser to the President, Dr. Doyin Okupe, outdid himself by likening his boss to Jesus Christ last week.

    Apart from the delusions of grandeur implicit in that comparison, the suggestion is that the incumbent is the only Nigerian president who ever labored under this country’s burden. Not surprising given that this same crew had declared Jonathan the best president to ever govern the country.

    The recourse to a religious metaphor is part of the brazen efforts to make matters of faith decisive factors in the coming electoral contest. It started when the ruling party started trying to define the main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) as Islamic and sponsors of the Boko Haram insurgency.

    Even before the emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari as presidential candidate it was no secret that the opposition was looking to the north for its flagbearer and hoping to reap from the widespread disaffection with this regime in that region.

    By trying to position APC as having Muslim bias, the ruling party was clearly aiming to establish a bridgehead in minority areas of the North which are mostly Christian, while hoping that it’s anti-Muslim rhetoric would play well down South. But this ignores the fact that in many areas of the South-West there are millions of Muslims.

    There is evidence that up to a point this gambit of painting Jonathan as a Christian victim being set upon by a baying mob from the other side had gathered traction – at least with the gullible and ignorant.

    I have read statements that the president’s ascent to power was divinely facilitated therefore his return for a second term could not be stopped because God had a hand in the matter. Nothing could be more fraudulent and unbiblical.

    The Bible is replete with examples of kings who God installed and later removed. A good example is Saul – the first king of Israel. God elevated him but when he messed up the throne was taken from him and given to David. (I Samuel 9 and 15).

    I have also heard suggestions that because Jonathan is a Christian running against a Muslim, he automatically has heaven’s seal of approval. This is, again, false and unbiblical.

    God is sovereign; He’s in heaven and does as He pleases. He can use anybody to establish His purpose on earth because His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. He used Cyrus the pagan king of Persia to deliver the Jews from 70 years of Babylonian captivity (Isaiah 45; 2 Chronicles 26: 22-23). God even used a donkey in the Scriptures to do his will. (Numbers 22-24).

    The argument of these Christians would have made scriptural sense if the president was the only one on the ticket or if his running mate was also Christian. If Buhari is excluded from being used of God because he’s a Muslim, how do these super ‘Christians’ explain Jonathan being joined at the hip to Vice President Namadi Sambo – another Muslim – in the light of the scripture that warns against being unequally yoked with unbelievers? (2 Corinthians 6:14).

    Now, APC has set the cat amongst the pigeons by picking Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a pastor with The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and he can equally appeal to Christian sentiments and voters. As both sides volley supplications upwards who will the God of heaven favour: the PDP or APC Christian?

    This silly attempt to muddy the 2015 contest with religion is a con game we must refuse to partake in. We are a country of Muslims, Christians and animists. We are not choosing a sectarian leader: we’re voting for a Nigerian president.

  • Campaign Tactics: This is 2015 not 1984

    lementary politics teaches that when a campaign is in trouble you go negative by launching attacks that would slow down, or eliminate the momentum of the frontrunner. When your campaign has wind in its back, you take the dignified high road and leave the mudslinging to those behind.

    Judging by the vicious attacks that have been launched against Buhari, Tinubu and even Osinbajo, you can hazard a guess as to which campaign is feeling the heat. You can also sense where there’s momentum and genuine sense of optimism.

    Ever since the APC candidate emerged the internet has been awash with all manner of negative material targeting Buhari and Tinubu. We have been reminded of every detail of what the former head of state and his ruling council did while the military held sway.

    Lost in these desperate efforts to demonise the APC leader is the case for Jonathan’s return to office. So we are left with something like this: ‘Vote for us because Buhari jailed politicians 30 years ago.’ Vote for Jonathan because Buhari seized Awo’s passport. He is a Tinubu’s friend, and was head of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), so vote for us.’ How lame!

    What the pro-Jonathan groups don’t do is invite us to examine his patchy record in office. Whether it’s about the economy or insecurity, that record is the sort you run from, not the type you run on.

    What is the rationale for giving him another four years in office? Is it because Nigerians are better off today than they were in 2011? On the strength of what the president did with power in the last four years can we entrust him with four more?

    These are the critical questions that supporters of the current regime have refused to address. They believe that if they abuse Buhari and Tinubu sufficiently Nigerians would forget how the PDP shipwrecked the country.

    There is nothing being said now about Buhari’s past that was not known in 2011 and yet 12 million people voted for him. Reminding us of his ancient sins would not change anything at this point in the game. Eight weeks to polling day most people have already made us their minds who they would vote for – whether Jonathan or Buhari.

    For the bulk of those people what is informing their voting decisions are the realities of 2014, not history lessons about what happened in 1984.

  • Adamawa: Between Ribadu and Bindowo

    Adamawa: Between Ribadu and Bindowo

    Two candidates have finally emerged to run for the governorship of Adamawa State in the forthcoming 2015 elections. Let’s face it, the difference between Malam Nuhu Ribadu, the standard bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the All Progressives Congress, APCs, candidate, Senator Bindowo Jibrilla is same as six and half-a-dozen, to many people who are awaiting the governorship contest of the state.

    I am one of them. And I am awaiting this contest sincerely eagerly. On a personal note, whoever wins, to me, is very likely to remain approachable and accessible. Perhaps it is the reason why several people have called me to ask which among the two politicians is my choice for governor. Indeed I have known both men from home and seen them play big Abuja politics. I have known Nuhu since our secondary school days when he was at Aliyu Mustapha while I went to Murtala College, even though he was two years ahead of me in class. I have written so much about Nuhu, with scathing remarks sometimes and supporting commentaries at others.

    Bindowo has been a benefactor, for me, in several ways. When I started a newspaper in Abuja, he had offered me a very centrally located office at the Central Business District. Ordinarily the office would have cost me a fortune, which perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to afford. But he let me and the staff sit there gratis.

    There is nothing I can do, therefore, to repay him for the kind gesture. So you can call me whatever name you like after reading this piece, but the truth here is an inescapable thing. It will be foolhardy to mortgage the future of our children on the altar of personal friendship or even self-aggrandizement, if you like.

    I know from their tone that some of the people who are calling me to inquire where I stand are doing so for more than altruistic reasons. I even smell mischief in others. But as I always tell friends, my vote can only do so much just as my opinion is but a drop in the ocean. I have retained a vehement passion though for my state to play catch-up. Adamawa State was created in 1991 but it has not risen beyond the hamlet that it was before that epoch. Most other states created along with it like Jigawa, Zamfara and Nasarawa, to catch the rhyming scheme bug, have grown to become municipalities, at least larger than the localities that surround them. But Adamawa has refused to develop.  I have searched for a cause of the problems of Adamawa State, the constitutional laboratory of Nigeria, here, there and everywhere, since the start of democracy in 1999. And I have found no reason at all except the influence of rapacious godfathers who would not let the people benefit from their hard days sweat. I have also set forth to develop a survey on the way forward preceding this election that awaits the people. The wise answers to my questionnaires have been very few and far between. Some give hope high enough to wave and smile at angels there above and some bring as much depression as a Goth funeral.

    However, this matter is beyond Barkindo’s little wishes. It is about the people ofAdamawa State who have lagged behind in dividends of democracy, stomach infrastructure and the general uplift of the human development index, when compared to other parts of the country. It is about the thousands of civil servants who have, month after month, been walking to their offices because they have been denied their transport fares and their wages. It is about the universal human suffrage. It is also not a question of what party ideology would do the magic. In the case of the two contestants, when it comes to party affinities, I would say that Nuhu and Bindowo just played the reality TV show, “wife-swap.”

    Nuhu was presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria in 2011 which metamorphosed into the All Progressives Congress, APC, when Bindowo contested and won his senatorial seat on the platform of the PDP. It is therefore irrelevant for the people of Adamawa to put the two candidates in any party hour glass. Both are Muslims so, leave religion out of it. Both are Fulbes, whether half, quarter or simply by birth place. Both can also not be judged by the vehicle that brought them to this race as some things are better left unexposed. Indeed, APC, by all indications, is only “PDP-light”, if it were to be a drink.

    However there are three compelling issues that Adamawa must reconsider when choosing a governor. They are corruption, insecurity and god-fatherism. The corrupt public officials who operated along with Nyako to corner the states resources and deny workers their legitimate earnings must be tackled. Today they populate both parties in search of cover but we know from Nuhus background and antecedents that there is no hiding place for them, should he become governor.  Bindowo on the other hand may be too encumbered by his political IOUs that he may find fighting corruption a little too obstructive because of the preponderance of the Nyako community in the APC today. In security, Senator Bindowo is a serving senator whose action against insurgency that has bedeviled his constituency has not been vociferous. He may be close to Senate President David Mark and the Defence Minister, Aliyu Gusau but their disposition to stopping the killings in the north-east have been less than impressive and have therefore constituted more of a liability to Bindowos security credentials than assets.  In clear text, Nuhu Ribadu, a former AIG and one time anti-corruption czar who approaches every assignment with a no-defeat-no surrender mindset is more favourably disposed to winning the war on corruption and halting the senseless killings that currently pervade the north east, than his APC counterpart. Besides, Adamawa State is in dire need of a paradigm shift, which Ribadu aptly represents. Moreover, at his acceptance speech, Nuhu talked about delivering a new Adamawa State, and that renewal is everything Adamawa people require, and they eagerly, like me await the investiture of Malam Nuhu Ribadu as their governor.

    It is important for Adamawa people to make an informed choice without recourse to sentiments and other primordial inclinations. That wonderful state has suffered utter neglect. It has been raped brutalized and subjugated to the whims and caprices of self-centred people in and out of the military. God fathers have taken their share of it and left nothing for the people. Bad politics has taken its toll on it and left no room for development. Injustice has pervaded it and beaten fairplay to the back burners. It is time to give the state its new dawn and look elsewhere for salvation.

    There is also the disequilibrium in the zoning arrangement. For a start, the northern part of Adamawa has produced all the states elected governors except Murtala Nyako who hails from the southern part of the state. So if the zoning arrangement, which is not exclusive to any one party, is to be followed in the interest of fairness, justice and equity, the central zone where Nuhu comes from should produce the next governor. Bindowo is ebullient, young and ambitious, he can still get the governorship after honing his fangs, but for now, we need a governor who can win the hydra-headed battle against graft, insurgency and tribalism.

     

    •Bello-Barkindo writes from Abuja

     

  • The Police and the society

    The Police and the society

    In recent times, the activities of the Nigerian Police have generated intense debate. Different opinions ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous have been canvassed on what a model Police Force should look like. Though it is difficult to know exactly where the pendulum of public opinion fully swings, the fact remains that due to the nature of their job, the police are only to be seen rather than being heard. It is in this vein that this column is constrained to look at the issue of the police and the society.

    The public and the police exist as one. They are dependent on one another. The constitutional roles and the workings of the police as an organisation specialised in the overall peace and security interest of the public cannot be over emphasised.  In spite of the often-held misconception by some members of the public who see the police as a compulsive interloper, there is a symbiotic link between the police and the larger society.

    As British Home Secretary between January 26, 1828 and November 22, 1830, Sir Robert Peel, who is globally regarded as the father of the modern professional police force, established the Metropolitan Police Force for London based at Scotland Yard, in 1829. The 1,000 constables who form the nucleus of today’s British Police, were affectionately nicknamed ‘Bobbies’ or, somewhat less affectionately, ‘Peelers’. Although unpopular at first, they proved very successful in cutting crime in London. As a result, by 1857, all cities in the United Kingdom were obliged to follow suit and form their own police forces. Still adored today as the father of modern policing, Peel developed the Peelian Principles which defined the ethical requirements police officers must follow to be effective. He once made a famous quote detailing the inseparability of the police from the larger society: “The police are the public and the public are the police”. A truism that is as natural as the legend of the egg and the chicken.

    The Nigeria Police is a dynamic organisation with a clear constitutional mandate to ensure a safe, secure and orderly society by serving the community in accordance with extant laws of the country. Its responsibilities to the society include: Protection of life and property; preservation of peace, security and stability; preventing the commission of offences and misdemeanours as the focal point of the new approach to effective policing; detecting and apprehending offenders and their accomplices; assisting people in distress; in legal circumstances; providing security; monitoring and protection during elections and other national events, among others.

    In performing these roles, the Nigeria Police and its personnel are expected to exhibit flexibility. This goes with the expectation that the rank and file should be open-minded at all times; be adaptive to changing patterns of policing, psychology and tolerate differing opinions and standpoints. Its personnel must exhibit leadership. That is, the rank and file is expected to be consistent and approachable while being committed to and inspiring the organisational values in others. They must demonstrate integrity, which simply means, they should act with honesty and respect for the right to fair hearing and due process for all while maintaining confidentiality and respect for those they deal with on day-to-day basis.  Furthermore, the officers and men are expected to demonstrate moral strength, courage and behave honourably and impartially, at all times.

    Other expected qualities include the display of professionalism. What this means is that they should not shift responsibility but be accountable to superiors and constituted authority, honestly, openly and consistently, while continually striving for excellence. This, they can achieve, through respect. Therefore, members of the Nigeria Police are expected to realise, embrace and respect the inherent diversity in languages, religions, cultures, lore and mores of Nigerian communities with no iota of bias. They must also have a sense of appreciation. Policemen are also expected to value other opinions whether dissenting or complementary, while appreciating and acknowledging the efforts of others.

    In all of these, what the police need most is support.  Apart from support by the public, officers and men should endeavour to recognise and reward the service and sacrifices of others through promoting professionalism and career development. This support comes in the form of synergy between the police and the community where they operate. This is necessary because the average policeman should always tap from his catchment community in the areas of community policing such as information sourcing and sharing, volunteer services and so on, while maintaining confidentiality of sources.

    Above all, it is pertinent to note that the police cannot exist in isolation because the public justifies the existence of the police in the first instance, just as the public cannot prosper in chaos or the absence of law and order. It is the performance of this onerous duty by the police that sometimes brings them into bad reckoning in the minds of some people who probably do so after perpetrating or getting involved in certain heinous and prima-facie crimes and misdemeanours.

    Generally, the average Nigerian views and interacts with members of the police force with measured suspicion and concealed distrust.  In many instances, many people think the policeman or woman is an extra-terrestrial being with a clear agenda to make life difficult for people.  This mindset is responsible for many Nigerians hoarding useful and essential information from the police, a behaviour that is responsible for non-resolution of many crimes especially murders, assassinations and other killings in the country.  The reluctance of people to volunteer useful information, except, probably, for pecuniary purposes, has become bottle necks in solving an array of knotty criminal cases over the decades.

    It is also of prime concern that the Nigerian public, particularly the political class, is in the habit of heaping praises and encomiums on the police when its actions favour them and demonising it when its actions do not favour them. It is good to note that under the new dispensation, the leadership of the police is opening up new vistas for working cooperation with the larger public in the areas of developing joint initiatives to target crime and criminality within the society by creating and supporting information and resource sharing.  In doing this, policemen are expected to form active partnership with research and training institutions/organisations. They can also involve more people outside the force, such as volunteers, who will help in crime prevention and community policing.

    Recently, the police hierarchy established human rights desks in all police formations nationwide. It was followed last week with the release of the code of conduct for human rights in the police. This is in tandem with the reformative process and the new orientation geared towards transforming the operational and psychological make-up of the police, especially in the area of maintaining law and order as a prelude to a peaceful election season in 2015.

    Therefore, those who are currently trying to drive a wedge between the Nigeria Police and the Nigerian public, by skewing information and cooking up non-existent scenarios capable of bringing the police to public ridicule and odium, must seriously have a rethink. The public should be wary of those who seek to indoctrinate it with Goebellian propaganda designed to rubbish the police. Now that the political parties’ primaries are over and the candidates for the 2015 elections are known, the police should be mindful of those who are determined to use the instrumentality of the force either to cling to office or assume power at all costs.

    The symbiotic link between the society and the Nigeria Police calls for a reappraisal because it seems the new genre of the political class has been creating dire situations designed to alienate and practically destroy the natural bond between the two segments.  Perhaps, we should introspectively ask: Why is the Nigeria Police, the same organisation that has excelled in the various United Nations’ peacekeeping missions in other countries, being constantly vilified by a segment of the society? This is germane because apart from reflecting and mirroring the society, the success or failure of the Nigeria Police will certainly have a catastrophic cum collateral damage on the larger society.

  • Our Girls; FERMA failure; Social Media Awards; A Political Party Corruption Index for Jonathan vs Buhari      

    Our Girls; FERMA failure; Social Media Awards; A Political Party Corruption Index for Jonathan vs Buhari      

    Our Girls are still missing since April 15 denying families of the joy of the holiday season.

    FERMA must try to overcome its growing reputation for sleeping during the year and only waking up like Father Xmas –once a year-to declare ‘zero tolerance for potholes for Yuletide and New Year travellers’. Are we idiot children to be given ‘pothole filling’ as an annual gift? We all know that end of year budgets are used to steal money from contractors, contracts and government. Shame. FERMA should apologise to the millions who have lost time, money, tyres, vehicles and limbs and even lives in the potholes FERMA could not fill for 11 months. Be assured that very little pothole filling has taken place on the Lagos-Ibadan road. The massive traffic jam this last Saturday caused a marked traffic diversion to the Abeokuta/Papalanto Road and Abeokuta/ Agege Expressway both mislabelled as their condition makes them in a good position to compete for the ‘Road with a 1000 potholes’ Prize.  In the UK, government pays compensation to pothole accident victims and replaces their tyres etcetera. What exactly does FERMA do for the rest of the year apart from recruit Sure-P black shirts in Lagos and drive state officials off ‘abandoned for lack of funds’ federal roads? FERMA is not a good advert for the Federal Might!

    Hurray for the First Social Media Awards held recently in Lagos. It is a good step in the right direction and draws attention to the massive failure of the majority of companies and corporations and even the media to pay much more attention to influencing society and the lives of citizens through social media messages than currently done. For years we have been fighting for a larger space in the media for life skill messaging which has less than 1one percent of total media space in contrast to the commercial message which takes up 99% of advert space but does not affect or save life. The Ebola media triumph should be studied and replicated for many diseases including typhoid and life threatening conditions in same way Ebola was defeated through the media.

    Speaking politics, the primaries seem superficially to have been the most successful in history. But did the delegates vote or were they pushed or ordered?  We have no idea how much of Nigeria’s money changed hands in the direction of the delegates and how much godfatherism and godmotherism went on. The Lagos State PDP figures are touted as tainted with an overflow of 50+votes miscounted or mysteriously included. However even if 50 or 60 votes were legally added to the protestor or subtracted from the winner, would that change the outcome?

    With the outcome of both the PDP and APC primaries throwing up incumbent Jonathan and past military leader Buhari, the discerning voters of Nigeria have the opportunity to choose between the ‘questionable consistency of delivery’ of the PDP since 1999 to 2015 and the opportunity for change thrown up by the APC/Buhari ticket.  The voters are asking if Nigeria can endure another four years of PDP-style control and another four years of high internationally measured corruption? The new improved Buhari on the other hand, still has questions to answer on the malicious warped North-South wealth distribution  when he was running PTF.  Will such a man, who was unfair over PTF funds, be fair with the country’s budget? Has he learnt any lessons and can he run the country fairly? APC mysteriously touts the ‘holier than thou’ anti-corruption card and the APC perceived record of outdoing the PDP in service delivery and good governance. However the APC is by no means a white lily of anti-corruption and needs to massively improve on its anti-corruption activities, with some believed to own massive assets from governance. The overbearing exercise of ‘posts and position power’ has seen the Senate and Reps and governorship positions populated by the chosen family and loyalists. There is a big debate in the minds of voters about party corruption. Where do PDP, APC et cetera stand on the Political Party Corruption Index?  The truth is that most in the South are frightened at the prospect of negative growth expected under another northern government at the federal level as northern governments are known for their ‘North is superior policies and practices’. Nigerians know that the any southern in the government will be the usual ‘yes’ and AGIP, Any Government In Power, men and women who are infamous for looking the other way and asking no questions while others suck the life out of Nigeria.

    The electorate will vote as it is necessary to keep democracy running against the threat of a military take-over. The progressive states will have an advantage if they first stop party corruption immediately and ‘divert’ all incoming revenues towards honest budgetary spending. This spending should be on pothole filling- ‘Make straight our path’, textbook distributing –‘books now, buildings later’, school upgrading, salary and pension paying – ‘a labourer is worthy of his hire’, bridge repairing, scholarship giving, sports supporting, Boy Scout etcetera supporting programme all added to the planned stomach politics. The people’s happiness is dependent on both stomach and development.

    Everyone, politician and pauper, voter and violent politician, has a stomach. Why should it only be politicians who have a full and potbellied stomach and rosy cheeks when even the potholes remain unfilled?

  • Buhari: The opponent PDP prefers!

    Buhari: The opponent PDP prefers!

    Even before the first vote was cast at the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primaries the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) was already dismissing eventual winner, General Muhammadu Buhari, as a walkover. Its spokesman boasted that President Goodluck Jonathan would trounce all the opposition party’s aspirants rolled into one.

    Early in the week, all sorts of analyses made out former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to be the man most feared by the ruling party. One such article spoke of his immense wealth, intense preparation for the job and existing contacts with a remnant of his loyalists in the PDP who could work for him under the radar. At the end we were assured he would pip Buhari at the finishing line.

    In their attempts to paint the former head of state as easy to beat many are quick to point at his three unsuccessful attempts at getting the top job. But they do so without putting those defeats in proper context.

    For instance, it is settled that no one can become president of Nigeria unless they run on a broad-based platform with firm presence across the country. The constitution requires that to be elected you must win a majority of votes cast as well as 25% in two-thirds of the 36 states.

    The two times Buhari mounted his challenge on the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) platform, the party was strong only in a handful of northern states where it had governors. Down south it was virtually non-existent.

    In 2011, after he parted ways with the ANPP, he offered himself on an even more ramshackle arrangement called the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). By the time of the elections, the party didn’t control even one miserable local government area in the country. It had very little name recognition anywhere in the country and not much money.

    Like before, his new party was virtually non-existent in the south. He tried to remedy this and deal with accusations that he was a Muslim fundamentalist by picking a well-known pastor, Tunde Bakare, as running mate. Whatever point he thought he would score with southern Christians was neutralised by the fact that the clergyman had no political structures to add heft to the ticket.

    A last minute attempt to cobble together an alliance with other opposition groups came to nothing, and the CPC plunged ahead with its ultimately futile bid. The astonishing thing is that despite the crippling shortcomings of the platform, his candidacy still managed to attract over 12 million votes.

    This time around, Buhari is running on a platform that has 14 governors and strong presence in states where it does not control government. For the first time ever, this candidate who lost thrice because he didn’t have a credible electoral route to Aso Villa, now has a realistic chance of securing a simple majority and 25% of votes cast in two-thirds of 36 states. And yet the PDP would have us believe that he would be so easy to beat!

    Beneath the bluster, however, you get a sense of unease at the emergence of the old enemy. There’s no stronger evidence of this than the desperate efforts by the ruling party’s online army to discredit Buhari by reminding Nigerians of a litany ancient sins allegedly committed by the former head of state.

    One accusation that has been levelled against the APC in the past is that there’s not much separating it from the PDP. The differences are becoming quite stark – starting with the two presidential candidates.

    Let’s begin with ability to communicate their ideas and positions. No one can accuse Buhari or Jonathan of being orators. In fact, listening to either drone on from their usually prepared speeches is guaranteed to send you to sleep faster than swallowing a pack of sleeping pills.

    But what Buhari lacks in oratory he makes up for with that X-factor which attracts fanatical following. In this sense he is akin to the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo – no great speaker himself – but whose mere appearance at a public function could work his supporters into frenzied cries of Awo!

    The APC flagbearer excites his base. His followers are passionate about him: the word more commonly used to describe the connection between them is ‘fanatical.’ They will follow him for free and at the drop of a hat.

    Can we say the same about Jonathan? Take away the platform and Buhari would still attract millions of voters. If you separate him from the PDP platform, how many supporters would follow the incumbent president on a journey into the unknown?

    When you think of Buhari the adjectives that come to mind are firm, stern, strong and honest. Think of Jonathan and words like humble, amiable, deliberate come to mind. But you also think weak and indecisive.

    This may not be a totally fair assessment of the president but it is the perception out there – one that is reinforced by quotes like the one from former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s controversial new memoirs, “My Watch”, that insinuated Patience Jonathan, Diezani Alison-Madueke, Petroleum Minister, Stella Oduah, former Aviation Minister and Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, were all ‘Presidents’ of Nigeria. Jonathan, he wrote, was the weakest of them all.

    Buhari’s strongest point – one on which friends and foes largely agree – is that he is honest and that in a country where a large chunk of the elite have been besmirched by corruption, he has remained sleaze-free. The PDP recognises this as his strong suit and is challenging that image.

    We are now being reminded that when the nation’s borders were shut amidst currency reforms in the mid-80s, the then military ruler’s aide-de-camp, Major Mustapha Jokolo, pulled rank to get 53 suitcases belonging to an emir into the country. The bending of the rules to allow the privileged bring in the banned baggage with unknown content remains a sore point that dogs the General’s steps.

    This one incident is what critics point to when they raise doubts about Buhari’s saintliness. But to put things in perspective we should also note that the man has held several high profile offices – including supervising the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and yet has no house in Abuja or a foreign bank account. Most people accept that he’s an honest man with a modest lifestyle, that is why attempts to paint him otherwise always ring hollow.

    Under his watch three convicted drug pushers were executed under the retroactive laws instituted by the military junta of the day. Of all the actions of that tough regime, this is perhaps one of the most wrongheaded and troubling. It is one which he would one day need to confront and apologise for.

    But if we were to use the atrocities of former military regimes to exclude people from participating in the political process, then a large swathe of powerful figures in the land today would be disqualified – everyone from Obasanjo to Babangida, David Mark and others who participated in the annulment of the June 12 election results, or who rubberstamped death sentences arising from trumped-up coup plotting allegations.

    The ruling party supporters may be dismissive of Buhari in the belief that as they successfully did in times past they can define him again as some sort of religious nut. Against the backdrop of a polity polluted by sectarian disputes made worse by the atrocities of Boko Haram, this old trick could be used to damage the man before the undiscerning.

    True, Buhari has said in the past that he supports Sharia. But I’m yet to see a Muslim who is opposed to the legal code that is part and parcel of their religion. Indeed, knowledgeable people would tell you that it had always been in the statute books in Northern Nigeria before and after Independence. The turning point was when Sani Yerima, then Zamfara State governor, dramatised and politicised the adoption of the code by his state in 2000.

    Beyond one or two ill-thought out utterances, fair-minded people should look at Buhari’s life, actions and associates and determine for themselves whether he fits the mould of an Islamic fundamentalist. Let’s not forget that this same individual led the military push to destroy Maitatsine in the 80s. This last July, he barely survived a bomb attack carried out by extremists he is supposedly sympathetic towards.

    Those who dismiss the APC candidate as easy to beat should ask themselves whether over the last four years he has shed support like his opponent for the February 2015 polls. Most people who voted back for Buhari in 2011 are still likely to back him today. After seeing what he has done with power , Jonathan has lost many erstwhile supporters.

    What should disturb the ruling party more is that people are becoming increasingly resistant to the old propaganda. They take the position that Buhari may not be an orator, he may not be an angel or discuss economic policy like Okonjo-Iweala, still they would risk their votes on him because they are fed up with Jonathan’s Nigeria.

  • Bursting some 2015 myths

    One of the great unknowns as polling day draws ever closer is how the ‘North’ will vote. For the past five years, the region has been devastated by the Boko Haram insurgency as well as communal clashes that set indigenous farming communities against itinerant Fulani herdsmen in places like Benue and Plateau States.

    Unpredictable voter behaviour is compounded by the fact that the regional elite is divided between sustaining the status quo or lining up behind Buhari. For some, four more years of Jonathan might not be such a bad idea as it opens the door for them to run at the next contest.

    In reality, the electoral picture that might emerge two months down the line could throw up a clear winner in the region, but it would also bury almost permanently that myth of ‘one North’ as it probably existed in the days of the Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello.

    The same thing applies down south. I hear people repeat lazy assumptions suggesting that every South-south vote is already in Jonathan’s column. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

    The South-south zone is artificial – a product of the General Sani Abacha constitutional conference. This is one part of Nigeria where you would find one of the most diverse collections of ethnic groups – each with its own unique identity and political interests.

    The Niger Delta insurgency and the emergence of Jonathan as president has helped project the Ijaws into the limelight – but not always in a positive sense. Some ethnic groups have complained that access to the most powerful office in the land has made them more domineering. A case in point is the president’s abandonment of his visit to Ogidigben to inaugurate the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) project because of pressure from his Ijaw kinsmen. That action almost reignited bloodletting with the neighbouring Itsekiris.

    Just as in the North, all zones of the country present opportunities for hardworking and imaginative campaigns to exploit. It would be foolish for any candidate to write off a zone because his opponent comes from there or supposedly has an iron grip on the area.

  • APC’s best bet!

    APC’s best bet!

    Today, December 10, will remain unforgettable in the annals of opposition politics in Nigeria for the simple reason that it would signal whether a golden opportunity to turn Nigeria’s fortunes for good use or not. Today, at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere, Lagos, the main opposition force in Nigeria – the All Progressives Congress (APC) – is conducting a primary election to decide who would fly the party’s ticket in the February 2015 presidential election. There are five aspirants in the list of contestants, namely, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), former Head of State; Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President; Engr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwanso, Kano State Governor; Owelle Rochas Anayo Okorocha, Imo State Governor; and Sam Nda-Isaiah, Publisher, Leadership newspaper. Each of these gentlemen are achievers in their respective professions and are respected public figures. There is no tangible reason to imagine anyone of them lacking in what it takes to lead Nigeria to true transformation. Not even the seemingly least experienced of the contestants can be lightly set aside on this score; for, some great leaders are never discovered until they are opportuned to mount the saddle of leadership. We don’t need to travel abroad for examples. Outside the legal profession where he rose to wear  the coveted silk robe, the incumbent Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola, was unknown to most Nigerians until he was elected governor in 2007. Today, he is adjudged an exemplary performer and a model to his peers in the arena of governance at state level. Similarly, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai was not so well known to Nigerians and not many could certify his leadership capability until he was appointed minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, whereupon he exhibited uncommon administrative acumen in restoring the almost lost glory of the Abuja Masterplan.

    In corollary, the critical question today is not about who is competent among the APC’s presidential hopeful, rather, it is about who is most likely going to bring victory to the APC. To answer this question, I conducted a study the outcome of which is available to major stakeholders of the APC. The study is titled, “Opposition Victories in Africa: How it Can Happen in Nigeria”. This study is a comparative analysis of eight African countries where the opposition had won presidential elections at different times. By this we do not mean an intra-party transfer of the baton of power such as happened in Nigeria in 2007 when President Olusegun Obasanjo handed power over to his party member, late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Rather, we refer to an inter-party change whereby, upon the defeat of a ruling party’s candidate, power is ceded to an opposition candidate, as was the case in Zambia (1991), Ghana (2000), Senegal (2000), Kenya (2002), Benin Republic (2006), Sierra Leone (2007), Ivory Coast (2010), and Malawi (2014).

    Certain common denominators were found in a good number of the countries under review.  But before I summarise each of the denominators here, I should underscore the fact that the greatest lesson of this study is that incumbency is not such a great electoral asset to a ruling political party as we tend to imagine anymore, here in Africa, not America or Europe alone. Incumbency has been demystified elsewhere in Africa where the leaders loomed larger than life than as we have it in Nigeria. And, the addendum to that lesson is that if the right steps are taken by the opposition in Nigeria, victory is attainable.

    In the study there were five denominators, namely, “tested candidates”, “coalition strategy,” “complementary candidates,” “mass discontentment,” and “international pressure”. For the present purpose, however, we shall limit ourselves to the first denominator only, that is, “tested candidates”. In at least four of the countries under review, the candidates that brought victory to the opposition had previously contested the presidential election a number of times ranging from one to four. In other words, they were tested veterans in the rigours and hassles of presidential election. Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal in 2000 was contesting for the fifth time before he won. Having contested in 1992 and again in 1997, Emilio Mwai Kibaki of Kenya was in the contest for the third time in 2002 when he won, while John Kufuor of Ghana had vied against an incumbent Jerry Rawlings in 1996 before he emerged victorious in 2000. In Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma had contested against incumbent president, Tejan Kabbah, and lost in 2002, before taking a second shot against Kabbah’s vice president, Solomon Berewa, which he won in 2007. In Zambia, where alternative parties had been more or less hindered till the clamour for multi-party election reached a crescendo and prevailed in 1991 with Frederick Chiluba winning, there was nobody of consequence who had passed through the presidential election turf as a candidate and strong enough to challenge Kaunda. Yet, the opposition, realizing the strategic nature of fielding a tested candidate, made Chiluba its flagbearer. The wisdom in this was that, although Chiluba had never contested a presidential election, he was nonetheless a nationally renowned labour leader who had emerged the president of Zambia’s apex labour union, Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, through competitive election. Thus he had a nationwide campaign structure and ardent supporters on the labour platform, aside the party he had formed a year before the 1991 election, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy. Nobody else, outside the ruling party, was considered stronger than Chiluba to wrest power from Kaunda who had cut the image of a ‘father of the nation’ and was like a king on the throne.

    Looking at the experience of opposition parties that have attained power in Africa, the APC can be said to have a “tested presidential hopeful” in terms of consistency in vying for president, as well as the percentage of votes secured. The person in reference is Gen. (Rtd.) Muhammadu Buhari. He takes the credit for consistently posing the greatest threat to the stranglehold of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in power in the current democratic dispensation. He has contested thrice till date – 2003, 2007, and 2011- and he is the runner-up candidate each time. In Africa, he is behind Abdoulaye Wade’s attempts who had tried and failed four times before winning, and in terms of frequency till date, he is at par with Emilio Mwai Kibaki of Kenya who had made three attempts, albeit winning at the third in 2002.

    Coming to the percentage of votes scored, the 32.19% and 31.98% Buhari secured in 2003 and 2011 respectively fall in the same range with the votes secured by the leading opposition candidates in three of the foregoing African cases before the affected candidates forged coalition arrangements with other candidates to win the run-off. The cases are as follows: Abdoulaye Wade, 31.01% in year 2000; Yayi Boni, 35.78% in 2006; Alassane Ouattara, 32.07% in 2010. The Buhari’s percentages are also in the same range with the 36.4% that brought Peter Mutharika to power in Malawi in the first round of ballot in May 2014. The 2011 election was remarkable for Buhari because he had contested on the platform of a party that was registered only a couple of months before election: the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). The point is, then, the party was not the issue. The issue was Buhari, and like Yayi Boni, he could still have pulled as much votes as he had then as an independent candidate if there had been provision for that in Nigeria’s electoral law. A Buhari candidacy, undoubtedly, holds the greatest prospect for an APC victory in 2015.

    Nevertheless, if Buhari would not be the presidential candidate of APC it must not happen through his defeat at the primary election. It should be because Buhari himself steps down today, in which case, he would, as a matter of good faith and commitment to the party’s victory, convince and mobilize his teeming, fanatically-loyal supporters, in their millions, across Nigeria to give every necessary support to the party’s flag-bearer. This is the only way the political weight of Buhari that was the major attraction for the parties that merged with the CPC to form the APC can be harnessed for the 2015 election. One is not implying that Buhari should be seen as superior to any other aspirant. Rather, one is arguing that his political weight is crucial to APC’s victory in 2015 and that reality must be factored into the emergence of a presidential candidate today at the Teslim Balogun Stadium.

    • Dr. Olufunmilade is Head of Department, International Relations and Strategic Studies, Igbinedion University, Okada.