The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • As Jega bows to political blackmail…

    As Jega bows to political blackmail…

    Four years ago or so, former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, lamented in far away America what he said was the thankless job of conducting Nigeria’s elections. “With due respect,” he said on a visit to “God’s own country” in April 2010, “if Jesus could come to the world and be the chairman of INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission), any election he conducts would be disputed.”

    The problem, however, he said, was not so much INEC itself as the Nigerian politician. So if anyone needed reform at all, he concluded, it was the Nigerian politician rather than INEC. “One thing that we need to reform in our society,” he said, “is the politician. We need to reform politicians.”

    I have a feeling that Professor Attahiru Jega, the INEC chairman, couldn’t have agreed more with Obasanjo about the frustrations of his job as he is forced to retreat from his announcement in August that his commission will increase the country’s 119,973 polling units created since 1996, by 30,000 – 21,615 of them in the North and the remaining 8,412 in the South.

    Obasanjo’s lamentation then was in defence of the terrible record of Professor Maurice Iwu, Jega’s predecessor, in his conduct of the 2003 and 2007 elections both of which were more or less universally condemned as hardly free, fair and credible. Obasanjo appointed Iwu and was himself a direct beneficiary of the first election and his political godsons the beneficiaries of the second, following his failure, mercifully, to actualize his infamous Third Term Agenda.

    Obasanjo’s remarks were widely condemned by the Christian clergy as blasphemous but I believed that the condemnations were based on a misunderstanding of his motive, which, as a Christian, could never have been to question Jesus Christ’s powers. However, whatever anyone would’ve said about his motive, there was no doubt that he was dead on target about the need for Nigerian politicians to reform their ways, if ever the country is to experience a universally adjudged free, fair and credible election.

    When Jega announced his plans for the additional 30,000 polling units, he said INEC was motivated by the need to make voting easy for everyone by ensuring no polling unit served more than 500 voters. As Professor Lai Olurode, a National Commissioner, explained to the audience of a media interactive organised in Osogbo, capital of Osun State, by the state’s chapter of Association of Veteran Journalists last month, many polling units in the country had served as many as 3,000 voters.

    It so happened that the vast majority of these overstretched polling units were in the North. In the 2011 elections for, example, millions of voters in the region, including this reporter, had to walk or drive at least one kilometre to vote. In perhaps what is possibly the most notorious case in the country, most voters in Rigasa, a sprawling suburb in Igabi Local Government, Kaduna State, with a population possibly bigger than that of Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State, had to walk for more than two kilometres to vote. Rigasa had only 12 polling units for all its vast size and population.

    Hence INEC’s decision to create more of them in the North by a ratio of slightly two and a half to those in the South. The arithmetic was simple. You simply divided the existing voting population of each state by 500. Equity demanded the increase in the numbers allocated to the North be much higher than those for the South. However, big as they seemed, the allocation hardly changed the ratio of the adult population between the two regions which has been roughly 55% to 45 since censuses started in the country in early 20th century.

    But then with the Nigerian politician nothing is ever simple. No sooner did Jega announce INEC’s plan to increase the polling units and the ratio of the increase between the North and the South, than all hell was let loose by politicians who saw the decision not only as a grand conspiracy to rig next year’s presidential election against President Goodluck Jonathan as the candidate from the South. They also saw INEC’s decision as a repudiation of their cardinal belief that their region has always been more populous than the North.

    As is all too often the case in the country, where the politicians go, the media soon follow. Typical was the New Telegraph of September 26 which asked Jega to “Cancel the new polling units now!”

    The plan, the newspaper said, “would only create more political crisis in the country.” Why? Because, it said, “As of today, Nigeria’s exact population figure cannot be ascertained; it has been a matter of conjecture.”

    The newspaper said in one breath that the argument of which of the country’s two regions was more populous “can never be won or lost” but in the next breath went on to contradict itself by asking INEC to put its plan on hold till after next year’s election and “after the controversies surrounding the nation’s actual population has (sic) been properly addressed.” How it is possible to do so when the editors at the newspaper had made up their minds that the battle for a universally acceptable census is a futile one, it did not say.

    Still the editors have a point about the seeming futility of battling for a universally acceptable census in the country. During President Obasanjo’s battle to run for his second term against opposition from the North, Southern organisations like Afenifere and Ohaneze, and Alliance for Democracy as essentially a South-West party, told him they will support him only subject to his making the possession of a national identity card a condition for voting in 2003. Their motive was apparent; it would for once confirm their beliefs, in the words of the late Afenifere leader, Senator Abraham Adesanya, that the North had always made up its population by counting its sheep, cattle and goats.

    The demand was downright unconstitutional and illegal, as was later pointed out to Obasanjo by INEC. But he accepted it all the same and went ahead to conduct it, ahead of the elections. He even voted 25 billion Naira for it, as against 3 billion for Agriculture. However, even though he went through with it he had to drop its use as a condition for voting when it became obvious that only a small number of the ID cards could be issued to those registered before the elections.

    At the end of the exercise the figures suggested an even slightly wider margin of the population of the North over the South’s; whereas the 1991 census put the ratio between the regions at 53.23 for the North as against 46.77 for the South, the ID card exercise put the figures at 54.5 and 45.5 respectively.

    It is noteworthy that although the 1991 exercise had its sceptics, several notable Southerners, including Nobel Literature, Wole Soyinka, late former Chief Justice, Sir Adetokunbo Ademola who conducted the 1973 census under General Yakubu Gowon, and the late Professor Sam Aluko, the well-regarded and outspoken economist, all hailed the count as credible. It is also noteworthy that the ID card exercise was conducted by a president from the South, under a minister of Internal Affairs, the supervising ministry, Chief Sunday Afolabi, an Afenifere chieftain, and with the late Mr Deji Omotade, also a Southerner, in charge of the Department of National Civic Registration (DNCR),  the parastatal which conducted the exercise.

    If, in spite of the evidence of the compulsory National ID card registration exercise, some people chose to believe that the North is still a barren half-empty region, it’s hard, if not impossible, to see what else will shift them from their beliefs.

    In joining the chorus of those against the new polling units, the Vanguard which has been in the vanguard of a campaign of vitriol against Jega, said in its editorial of October 7 that INEC must stop its plan because it “has been rejected by the generality of Nigerians.” Really? Obviously among Vanguard’s “generality of Nigerians” must be South-East PDP, a creature strange to the constitution of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, Afenifere, Ohaneze, the Middle-Belt Forum, the Unity Party of Nigeria, the Senate leadership and even the security services which Sunday Vanguard (November 9), obviously acting on highly privileged information, claimed had written a letter to Jega warning him of the “potential dangers of his action.”

    As the newspaper knows all too well, none of these organisations, including the Senate leadership, truly represent the generality of Nigerians, as they are either self-selected, or had rigged themselves into power, or are more loyal to the powers that be than to the State.

    However, even though the combination of all those who have attacked Jega hardly represent the true generality of Nigerians, INEC’s decision on November 11 to postpone the creation of additional 30,000 polling units until after next year’s election, shows their power to blackmail and cow those they disagree with into submission is truly immense.

    It is a power that bodes ill for a free, fair and credible election next year – and probably long after.

     

    If Jega wants to go down in History as someone who was not prepared to let blind prejudice get in the way of doing his job diligently he should stick to his commission’s decision.

     

  • Nigeria’s ‘chop-I-chop’ politics

    Nigeria’s ‘chop-I-chop’ politics

    Nigeria is a country richly endowed with abundant natural resources as well as quality human capital. Its population is the highest in the continent of Africa, also with the highest concentration of the Black race anywhere in the world. With this staggering and enviable statistics, one would have expected the country to make remarkable progress in terms of socio-economic development, but it is quite sad that the country is yet to find its rightful place among the comity of nations.

    Of all the reasons that may have been responsible for her socio-economic stagnation, the phenomenon of corruption stands prominently in the vista. Since the independence of the country from colonial rule on October 1, 1960, political leadership and corruption have, like Siamese twins, become interwoven and inseparable in notoriety. The corrupt tendencies of the political class and its wider implication for socio-economic development in the country have remained a big challenge and a handicap for the country.

    After many years of military interregnum with its attendant arbitrariness and absurdities, the introduction of democratic governance in 1999, was widely welcomed as a new dawn in the country’s political affairs. Hope was raised because, after a long period of darkness, a ray of light had appeared at the end of the tunnel. At least, that was the belief of many, if not all Nigerians. Fifteen years down the line, it is doubtful if anything is left in the enthusiasm, hope and aspiration that greeted the dawn of democratic rule in 1999. The reasons are not far-fetched. The average Nigerian has become more pauperised, more disillusioned and more alienated from the scheme of things by the political class who are preying on the vast resources of the country without even allowing the down-trodden, the hoi-polloi, access to the crumbs from the masters’ table, as it were.

    In 1966, four Nigerian Army Majors led by late Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, gave a number of reasons for the first military coup in the country that took place on January 15 of that year. In his coup day broadcast, Nzeogwu, the kingpin of the putsch said: “Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in high and low places that seek bribes and demand 10 percent; those that seek to keep the  country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers or  VIPs at least, the tribalists, the nepotists, those that make the country look big for nothing before international circles, those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds…” That coup effectively terminated the First Republic and regrettably led to the death of some major actors in the country’s political firmament at that time.

    The immediate reasons for the coup, as encapsulated in Nzeogwu’s broadcast, underscored the nationwide disillusionment with corrupt and selfish politicians, as well as their inability to maintain law and order and guarantee the safety of lives and property. That was in 1966, about 48 years ago. It is quite obvious that the current prevailing atmosphere in the country is an indication that nothing has changed. In fact, Nigeria may have taken a turn for the worse as it appears that the centrifugal force is gradually tearing away and therefore, can no longer hold the periphery. In other words, the way the Boko Haram terrorists are ravaging the northern parts of the country and all forms of criminals are on the prowl in other geo-political zones, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation is almost in jeopardy.

    Not only this. Members of the Nigerian political class have continued to foist their uncontrollable greed and selfishness on the rest of the people because what matters to them is how to feather their own nest. In this case, the rest of the people are abandoned and made vulnerable to whatever vicissitudes of life that may come their way. Perhaps, the late S.M. Afolabi, a Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, Chieftain and former Minister for Internal Affairs captured this aptly few years back, when he  said to the late Bola Ige, a former Attorney-General of the Federation: “We (in the PDP) invited Ige into PDP government to come chop, as in find something to eat”. What this means, and it is so evident today in the country, is that people flock into political parties, not necessarily because of what they can contribute to move the country forward, but essentially, what they hope to corner into their pockets as well as satisfy their cronies.

    Consequently, what exists in Nigeria is a political class that has the capacity to manipulate the machinery of government even from behind the scene. To that extent, corruption has become synonymous with leadership in the country. The most prominent definitions of corruption or what constitutes corrupt behaviour, share a common emphasis on the abuse of public power or position for personal aggrandizement. Furthermore, this ugly phenomenon is referred to as “an impairment of virtue and moral principles”. Therefore, political corruption, an endemic cankerworm that has eaten deep into the foundation of our nation, encompasses brazen abuses by government officials such as embezzlement and cronyism, as well as abuses linking public and private actors such as influence-peddling, fraud, bribery, extortion, among others.

    The political class in Nigeria is so neck-deep in these unholy practices so much that corruption has become an albatross that threatens our democratic process, good governance and as a result, stifle sustainable development of the country. And as the political class promotes corruption within its rank, it becomes more difficult for it to act positively for the benefit of the citizens and the country. In addition, the political class engages in all dirty tricks to suppress opposition, in order to secure and retain power and by so doing, maintain its stranglehold on the country. Also, in its pursuit of unfettered access to funds, good leadership is sacrificed on the altar of corruption. Indeed, the phenomenon of this cancerous political corruption has become a common thread that runs through successive military and civilian political regimes in the country. This is the unfortunate situation in which the country has been enmeshed for quite a long time.

    Over the years, we have seen the development of a vast system of institutionalised political corruption most times emanating from the very top and permeating all strata of government with pervasive and debilitating destruction of the entire society. It is a fact of history that no nation can grow and enjoy steady development in all facets of its national endeavour without the enthronement and institutionalisation of selfless and good political leadership. This is so, because good governance is a sine-qua-non to qualitative development and growth. Perhaps, it is for this reason that the late Chinua Achebe, a world-renowned novelist said, the root cause of the Nigerian predicament should be laid squarely at the foot of bad leadership. “The trouble with Nigeria,” Achebe espoused, “is simply and squarely a failure of leadership… The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to their responsibility, to the challenge of personal example, which is the hallmark of true leadership”.

    Flowing from these, therefore, a leader is expected to demonstrate such qualities as, good character, vision, tact, prudence, and ability to lead by example. This is because people basically ascribe leadership to those who they feel can enable them achieve important objectives or goals. There is no doubt that the actions and inactions of the leadership class which has been managing the wealth and affairs of Nigeria since independence, has become a pitiable hindrance to the country’s socio-economic development. The challenge now is whether we have enough patriotic, sane and clean individuals left to pilot the affairs of this country and initiate the type of leadership that can extricate the country from the woods and take it to its envisioned Eldorado. Until this is achieved, the current crop of gangsters and cheats everywhere will continue to bestride the corridors of power at all levels with their ‘chop-I-chop’ attitude to governance. This way, they will continue to milk the country, stealing the common wealth of the people, as well as, deepening poverty in the society.

  • Is Jonathan Nigeria’s Jimmy Carter?

    Is Jonathan Nigeria’s Jimmy Carter?

    As I watched the colourful Eagle Square, Abuja carnival where President Goodluck Jonathan formally declared his intention to seek a second term in office, I kept thinking that sometimes one problem or episode can make or mar a presidency.

    Despite the determination of the president and his party men to project an optimistic and cheery front, nothing could mask the fact that the declaration was being made against the backdrop of one of the administration’s major burdens – the failure to rein in the virulent insurgency in the North East.

    Just the day before, a suicide bomber sent by Boko Haram killed 47 school children in Potiskum. As if anticipating that the terrorists could rain on their parade, some of Jonathan’s 2015 boosters like the so-called Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) had placed wrap-around advertising on the front pages of leading papers. The adverts were designed in such a way that not much else would be noticed.

    Amusingly, while the TAN advert was labouring to assure us that ‘history’ was about to be made on Eagle Square, the very little space left on the front pages of the papers that had the advertising carried the depressing headline about the murder of 47 innocent children – obliterating the feel-good factor that any spin doctor might have been trying to project.

    More than anything, Jonathan’s inability to bring the insurgents to heel, or to, at least, create the impression that momentum is on the side of the government and the armed forces, might just turn out to be his undoing at the general elections. His supporters may choose to believe that he was making history at Eagle Square, but in reality his handling of the insurgency suggests his presidency might soon be history.

    This is where the parallel with the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter, leap at you. Carter came to the White House against the backdrop of the Watergate mess that brought down Richard Nixon.

    He was a breath of fresh air that blew into Washington to clear the foul smell of scandal. He was a former governor of southern state of Georgia with very little name recognition on the national scene. Despite that handicap he emerged the Democratic Party candidate in 1978 against all odds.

    Just like Carter, Jonathan’s route to Aso Villa can only be described as a fairy tale. At the time he was asked to run with late Umaru Yar’Adua he had no ambitions to seek federal office. He was content to be governor of his home state, Bayelsa – and then fate intervened. Not only did he become Vice President, Yar’Adua’s demise ferried him into the highest office in the land on the magic carpet called good luck.

    Carter like Jonathan is often described as a good man, amiable, humble and well-meaning. The former US president’s tenure had some noteworthy achievements like the Camp David Accords, the focus of American foreign policy on human right rights and renewed attention to Africa.

    Unfortunately, towards the end of his term, the widespread perception of Carter was that of an incompetent and failed president. And it was all down to one incident – the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981.

    The Americans became pitched against Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini after fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were seized by revolutionary students and held hostage for 444 days. Their ordeal began on November 4, 1979 and ended on January 20, 1981.

    The hostage crisis put a lot of strain upon Carter and in the later stages of the crisis he often looked harassed in public appearances. Things came to a head after the US decided on a military rescue after all negotiations came to nought. On April 24, 1980, ‘Operation Eagle Claw’ which attempted to free the hostages ended badly with the deaths of eight American servicemen, one Iranian, and the crash of two aircraft.

    The failure of the rescue was a huge blow to American prestige and the preeminent global super power of the age. It came to symbolise the failure of the Carter presidency. It was no surprise that he lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan and the Republicans.

    Interestingly, Reagan was not regarded by most voters as intellectually superior to Carter. If anything, he was given to gaffes, memory lapses and often dozed off in meetings because of his age (He was almost 70 when assumed office). However, he always projected that confident, can-do spirit of the American cowboy. That seemed to resonate with the electorate who were fed up with the rubbishing of their proud country under Carter.

    Just like Carter, Jonathan has his own hostage crisis. Over 200 days ago in the tiny village of Chibok, Boko Haram gunmen swooped on hapless schoolgirls sleeping in their dormitories at night. They carted away hundreds of them. Today, 219 of them remain in captivity with no hope in sight that they would soon be freed.

    The government, of its own accord, has severally raised hopes of their release, announced ceasefires that turned out to be flukes. The upshot is that no one places much store these days by whatever the administration says on the matter.

    More than anything else the Chibok schoolgirls saga and the seeming helplessness of the government to free them has come to define the Jonathan presidency. Over this matter the pride of the Nigerian military burnished by its prosecution of the civil war and exploits in peacekeeping operations around the world has been badly bruised.

    The president appears to have played all his cards. Once upon a time the declaration of a state of emergency seemed to be the mighty stick that would whip the insurgents into line. But it seems like more people have been killed since the so-called emergency measure came into being.

    He and his men have tried blaming everybody but themselves. First, it was embittered Northern politicians and lost out in the 2011 presidential contest in the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and promised to make the country ungovernable. Next it was the opposition All Progessives Congress (APC) which only came into existence late last year. In a moment of contrived excitement at Eagle Square, Akwa Ibom Governor, Godswill Akpabio, denounced its leaders as blackmailers and sponsors of terror.

    The accusations have since been shown up to be hot air because if the accused are truly the powers behind the insurgency, and are still walking the streets as free men, then this administration has only confirmed that it is not capable of enforcing law and order in the land. No responsible government would have evidence against terrorists and their sponsors and not move against them.

    Again, the Chibok saga, the recourse to the blame game and name calling is also a manifestation of another of the president’s problems. He is out of touch and surrounded by people who tell him what they think he would like to hear.

    Nobody expects Jonathan to march into Sambisa Forest – guns blazing to free the girls. There is no superman president anywhere – not even in Hollywood movies. Sometimes all a leader needs do is project empathy and the people would be satisfied. He would be judged to have shown leadership at critical moments.

    But what have we seen with the Chibok episode and the wider question of the insurgency are actions that support all who question the president’s suitability for the office he occupies. He swear he’s concerned but his actions tell a different story.

    He and his wife began by doubting whether any kidnapping actually took place. Next, he would not even deign to visit the town in question despite the fact that it had become a global cause. Citing security concerns, the president of Nigeria with all the military resources at his disposal pulled out of visiting a locality that CNN journalists ventured into.

    The day after the Abuja motor park bombing he was off to Kano to receive a defecting politician. A day after the massacre of the 47 school children he was grinning and dancing on Eagle Square. Where is empathy – even if faked? What? A minute silence and let the show go on? Shame!

    President Jonathan stood on the podium and declared that he had fulfilled all electoral promises he made to Nigerians in 2011. I was shocked because I can think of several that are still awaiting fulfilment. But I will just touch on one for this Sunday.

    Four years ago gigantic billboards welcomed you into Abuja with the visage of Jonathan promising a ‘breath of fresh air’ in governance. That suggested back then that there would be a new way of doing things.

    On the cusp of the 2015 polls the one who promised fresh air is battling to clear the stale air that is practically choking us all. Nigerians have always struggled with our differences over our beliefs and ethnicity. But in the last four years all that has been exacerbated to the extent that people are threatening fire and brimstone because of religion and ethnicity.

    We are back to the era of manipulations of the state’s weapons of coercion in pursuit of personal ends. A typical example is the Inspector-General of Police, Suleiman Abba, jumping into a political tug-of-war and assuming the role of judge. Nigeria deserves better.

    I am sure that the president must have tarred a couple of roads in the last few years. But it takes more than that to be president of a country. At this point in time it all comes down to the question of whether Nigeria under Jonathan is headed in the right direction. I don’t think so.

  • ‘Our Girls’; Victims and poor access to Victims Fund; More sports opportunities; INEC/ PVC

    ‘Our Girls’; Victims and poor access to Victims Fund; More sports opportunities; INEC/ PVC

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. Words fail to describe the emotional upheaval of both the girls and the families they were forced to leave behind. It defies explanation that they have not been rescued. Even slaves get rescued. For some reason the purported ceasefire and impending release of the precious girls has turned into a somewhat mysterious tale of mistaken ‘discussions and conclusions’ just as, back in the day, 1967, ‘On Aburi We Stand’ was subject to similar misinterpretation and innuendo which eventually led to our Civil War costing over one million lives. The Boko Haram menace casts a dark shadow over the joy of every Nigerian, especially the refugees and their families and the families of victims.

    The press is reporting that most of the victims of previous bombings are neglected for non-payment of bills for extensive surgery by the authorities who had promised to do just that and this is in spite of the huge sums of money, N58 billion, collected recently. It is very important to treat this matter urgently, perhaps give hospitals a start-up fund as credit against the names of registered refugees and victims of such attacks. This fund can be topped up as it is depleted by payment of bills for investigation, surgery and equipment for hospital and home care. The fund should be retired under medical accountancy guidelines. A country which looks after its bomb victims on the pages of newspapers and not with drugs, tests and necessary investigation is not a country worth dying or dying in.

    Nigeria is notorious for its poor heath care of those who seek its services. However on behalf of victims of war violence we deserve and demand more, better and comprehensive medical care and urgent attention to their needs. They are targeted war victims, not accidental or collateral damage.  They expect and deserve expert modern medical support by medical professionals trained in both the physical and psychological aspects of war wounds. There will obviously be many more victims of violence and war as the elections approach and Boko Haram demands wider ownership of territory in Nigeria –something that must be resisted with every bone in our body. The president has rightly pointed out that ‘not a drop of blood should be spilt, not a life lost for him or anyone to get ‘elected’.  But Southern Kaduna is in particular turmoil following the activities of rampaging Fulani herdsmen.

    My country, na wa O. My friend, returning from Kenya says we should bury our heads in shame, like ostriches, as we have nothing to boast about in Nigeria. As the Non Sovereign National Conference ended recently there is no answer or solution to the onslaught of ‘Suspected Fulani Herdsmen’, SFH, onslaughts against thousands of farmers in five states including Benue and which claimed many lives and displaced thousands. Is it just a bloody and murderous tiff between kissing turned killing cousins? Is it solely economics of demands for commandeered and unpaid for cow feed and destroyed farm produce? In that very secret war, thousands have been killed and millions displaced, more than in the Boko Haram War (BHW) which has for political reasons seized the headlines. It seems it is more convenient to accuse nonspecific foreign agents than solve the problem of Nigerians we can see. If the BHW is both external and internal, the Fulani Herdsmen War is strictly an internal Nigerian affair? You cannot ignore the killing 20-100 people a day in a cow grazing-rights conflict and then raise $200m from the USA to fight a virus which has killed less than 10 people. In the Niger Delta the target was not the people.

    In the Fulani Plateau/Benue/Kaduna/Nassarawa War and the Boko Haram War, the target is always the people and their land. And be assured that the executions are equally vicious in both wars. There is no easy way to die and death in Nigeria’s current wars is particularly gruesome. It is strange that only the outcry is that there may be a famine from unplanted fields and no outcry about the dead.

    The happy pictures of Nigerian girls and boys competing in many other sports across the world are heartening and a credit to coaches and handlers who often use personal funds. Come on youths. Companies, donate your CSR products to children to make them the Olympians and para-Olympians of tomorrow. Time to choose the next generation and support them by scholarships, grants and sponsorships in academic and athletic pursuits like wrestling, shooting, swimming, cycling, archery etc.  Any single ‘bonanza’ or reality show or mega billboard featuring a ’sporting hero’ would have paid for many games and Sports Camps.

    INEC’s distribution of Permanent Voters Cards, (PVC) was inadequately prepared for and left much to be desired.  It was poorly planned and with a grossly inadequate time frame. It was pathetic to see the INEC official sifting through 600+ cards one by one each time a person appeared. I had to give up my wait in the queue to give a public lecture and  I could not return the following day. Now I have to go to the local government secretariat to try the get the card. This is unfortunate. For time saving and easy retrieval the cards could easily have been placed in a box divided into 10-20 sections covering A-Z and given more days at the booth.

  • The festering Boko Haram war

    The festering Boko Haram war

    While the Nigerian political authorities and the military establishment continue to harp on the existence of an imaginary ceasefire, Boko Haram terrorists remain unrelenting in their onslaught against hapless Nigerians, particularly in the theatres of war in the Northern part of the country. In recent times, the terrorists have kept up their ‘winning streak’ by effortlessly over-running several communities in the war-ravaged areas. In several instances, the communities are ‘captured’ as Nigerian troops that could have checked the terrorists’ advance, vote with their feet instead of offering any form of resistance to the rampaging terrorists.

    The latest in a series of success stories for the terrorists is the recent attack and eventual capture of Mubi, the second largest town in Adamawa State. Perhaps, it is not the attack on Mubi that should be of more alarm to followers of events in and around Nigeria’s northeast geo-political zone. More alarming, instead, is the ease with which the terrorists ‘walked-over’ the security forces stationed in the town. Buoyed by this spectacular success, the terrorists demonstrated that they, indeed, meant business by unilaterally changing the name of Mubi to “Madinatul Islam,” meaning, the “City of Islam”. Not only this, as a further confirmation that they were in total control of the town; they introduced Sharia rule and followed suit with the amputation of 10 people for perceived contravention of the Sharia law.

    The first sign of Boko Haram’s expansionist tendency came in August this year, with the capture and occupation of Gwoza, a hilly town in Borno State, now rechristened “Darul Hikma” or “House of Wisdom” by the terrorists. There, they swiftly hoisted their flag and immediately converted the town to their operational headquarters. Since then, they have continued to dig in and propagate their own version of Islam. A major military offensive at the onset of the emergency rule in May 2013, had appeared to put the terrorists on the defensive by flushing them out of their strongholds, but the military seemed to have failed to sustain the momentum and allowed the relentless hoodlums to retake some of the areas they had initially abandoned. The matter was made worse by widespread refusal of troops deployed to confront the terrorists to engage them because of lack of adequate firepower. This has led to the institution of various army court marshals to try the allegedly mutinous troops.

    With Boko Haram’s unprecedented gains in recent weeks, the group appears to be inching closer to achieving its goal of carving out a strict Islamic state across northern Nigeria. They have killed no fewer than 13,000 innocent people, displaced several others and destroyed hundreds of schools and churches in a wave of terror aimed at carving out an Islamic state in Nigeria. It is quite unfortunate that these terrorists seem to be waxing stronger in this war. This is attributable to lack of seriousness and commitment on the part of our leaders – the politicians and the military top brass. Apart from this, the endemic corruption in the country has taken a toll on the government’s ability to effectively prosecute the war. The reality is that, rather than throw everything into the fray, our defence planners appear to be engaged in cutting corners for pecuniary gains. It has been insinuated that some of the armoured vehicles recently brought into the country and branded as new ones, have constantly developed problems of overheating, while no fewer than 20 of them, may have been captured by Boko Haram.

    Perhaps,the most nauseating aspect is the inability of our military leaders to accept that things are not really going the way they should be in the ongoing war. Rather, the military has been consistent in defending the indefensible. Soon after Boko Haram terrorists overran Gwoza and made a huge capital out of it, Chris Olukolade, the first Major-General to be produced by the Public Relations Corps of the Army and Director, Defence Information, DDI, had this to say: “The claim is empty. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Nigerian state is still intact. Any group of terrorists laying claim to any portion of the country will not be allowed to get away with the expression of delusion and crime…” The DDI’s braggadocio has since paled into insignificance as the terrorists have remained undeterred in trying to realize their badly-craved Islamic Caliphate.

    As the terrorists conquer one village and town after another, so also do they increase their war arsenal as they move on. The conquest of Gwoza fetched them at least 200 AK 47 assault rifles belonging to the police which they allegedly carted away following their attack on the Police Academy in the town. Those arms are certainly part of what Boko Haram is now using to wreak havoc all over the place. Similarly, the attack on Mubi not only boosted the armoury of the group, but it also enriched its stock of food items and overall war chest. Report has it that food items, money and weapons seized by the terrorists in the town, will be enough to sustain their activities for a year. The resources seized so far, the reports say, are exclusive of contributions to the terrorists from like-minded jihadist groups and their non-combatant members who are wealthy business moguls.

    The truth is that five years after the emergence of Boko Haram, Nigeria does not seem to have an effective strategy for dealing with these misguided elements and their deep commitment to waging war against the country and its people. It is a shame that almost two years after a state of emergency was declared in the three North-east states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, the government and the military, have not been able to contain the menace of these terrorists. Nothing illustrates this obvious helplessness than the inability to rescue the Chibok school girls who were violently removed from their school premises in the Chibok community, Borno State, on the night of April 14. Since then, except for various permutations and apocalyptic guesswork, no efforts have been made to secure their release. They have, therefore, remained marooned in a strange environment where they are constantly tortured, abused and dehumanised.

    Rather than confront them headlong militarily, the government is shamelessly willing to dialogue at all costs even though it is clear that nothing from what Boko Haram wants to achieve is Islamic. So trying to dialogue with them is a waste of time as they would only agree to do so if they were losing the war. For now, they don’t seem to be. Hence, they have turned down requests for dialogue and even amnesty. Certainly, the solution is in the battlefield. Therefore, Nigerians should be security conscious and give useful information to the security agencies. To win this war, the security agencies need the cooperation of all.

    If there is to be any silver lining in the horizon any time soon in the country’s so-far disastrous handling of Boko Haram, it must start with the re-awakening of our security apparatuses and perhaps, even the President himself, to the need for a profound rethinking of our strategy to contain and combat this scourge. The alternative is to accept the victory of genocidal, murdering religious extremists, over a vast territory that they intend to use to propagate their jaundiced version of Islam. The most important aspect about any purported Islamic State in such an atmosphere as Boko Haram rules over is that it is easily a vector for attracting training and funding from terrorists all over the world. Surely, Nigeria needs a new analysis, a new language and new strategies that relate to defeating a viral system that spreads across national boundaries.

    Sad enough, the politicians aren’t giving a damn. The only thing that matters to Nigerian politicians right now is the 2015 elections through which they hope to continue to perpetuate themselves in power willy-nilly, to the detriment of the peace, progress and development of the country.  At the rate we are going, if care is not taken, we might wake up one day and discover that Nigeria is no more. A stitch in time saves nine!

     

     

  • Obanikoro’s campaign of self- indictment

    Obanikoro’s campaign of self- indictment

    The PDP veteran of governorship candidate in Lagos State, Musiliu Obanikoro, has indulged in online self-advertisement for some months now. Not many Nigerian active Facebook patrons would have missed his celebration of the military as Minister of State of the Defence Ministry.  Whatever Obanikoro has claimed the military has done are questions that will be asked later here.

    ‘Koro’   as he is popularly called, has since commenced the campaign for the Lagos State governorship office. The Texas, United States-trained Obanikoro has flaunted the recent honour done him by his alma mater in the United States.  The grounds of the award were not quite explicitly presented though, but as usual a good photo opportunity was not missed.  How much Koro’s supposed learning experience has impacted on the opportunities availed him in government is what is not known.  Koro missed sharing this with the world through the reach Facebook availed him.

    The former high commissioner to Ghana has since begun to complement his online adventure with the conventional campaign exercise.  The bogus campaign secretariat in the elite GRA of Ikeja is unmistakable for neighbours and any passer-by.  It is adorned with the bold message of the love for the government house in Alausa.  The message: Greater vision for Lagos. And one begins to wonder if Koro could not do better than just echo one of the numerous APC bidders for the same office.  For the APC aspirant, specifically, Adeyemi Kuforiji, Speaker of the State House of Assembly, it is a legitimate  claim. After all, he has been part of the chorusing crowd of the eko o ni baje catch phrase of his party.  And they all seemed to have collaborated to demonstrate their belief in that philosophy.  But what is the justification for Koro’s almost plagiarist’s copy?

    Unknown to Koro perhaps, his campaign copy displayed on the wall of the campaign secretariat is defeatist.  As a student of language, I was struck by the fact that Koro volunteered to endorse the sitting government.  As a result, he seems to have rather mounted a campaign for the APC as a party no matter whoever emerges the governorship candidate.  To many Lagosians however, including this writer, Koro is only being factual even if willy-nilly.

    While trying to settle down as the governor of the state, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had left no one in the dark about his ambition to emulate Chief Obafemi Awolowo as a pro-people politician.  He actually installed a public spectacle within the government secretariat displaying a bold photograph of Gandhi, Awolowo and himself wearing similar eye-glasses to convince whoever was still in doubt. Clearly, Koro, like this writer, has been a living witness to the great turn-around Lagos has recorded under Asiwaju and his successor.

    Prior to Tinubu’s governorship era in Lagos, the movement of the federal capital from Lagos to Abuja notwithstanding, the traffic situation had become hellish, routinely manifesting lockdown. The preceding administrations could not think through it at all. The odd-even number separatist policy for vehicles going to the Island achieved only very little. Tinubu smartly sprang into action to start what has become a model for all fast growing cities in Nigeria in the form of the Lagos State Transport Management Authority, LASTMA.  Today, even as LASTMA has been infiltrated by a few bad eggs, it has done so well restoring sanity to the congested Lagos roads.  And if there is any convincingly demonstrative case of the need for continuity in government, it resides in the APC legacy in Lagos State.  Tinubu charted further path of sanity for transportation in Lagos with the introduction of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). And now, road sweeping culture initiated by the APC in Lagos has since extended to Kwara and even beyond.  The greatest global testimony to Tinubu’s vision for Lagos is perhaps is the emergence of Lagos as one of the three cities in the world selected by the Ford Foundation as priority cases for its about to be launched Just Cities Programme.

    But Koro was part of what has transformed into APC family for some time, some may wish to note.  He seemed to be an irregular though while his romance with the group lasted.  He was a beneficiary of that old group’s popularity.  He was a commissioner and even a local government chair. However, Koro would rather want Lagosians to delete their memory of his supposed service years in these two offices. He is probably best remembered as the chairman of Lagos Island Local Government when the imposing secretariat got burnt in controversial circumstances.  The great Lagos Koro is now implying in his campaign therefore bears no iota of his imprint in spite of the uncommon opportunities. Rather unashamedly, like the proverbial lord of misrule, he was Minister of State in the Defence Ministry when soldiers let hell loose on his fellow Lagosians, burning the BRT buses that have availed them with a great deal of relief. Worse, Koro was a party to the official denial of the soldiers’ rampage documented by many in this age of affordable cameras in different shapes and sizes.  But the same state the army of occupation had ambushed has continued to be well nurtured to be great, defying all attacks and manifest with the blessings of the eko o ni baje prayers of the well wishers.  Does Koro fit into the group of these well wishers?  Yet, the Sambisa forest of shield for Boko Haram remains impenetrable for these same soldiers who swore to reverse the greatness of Lagos duly recognised by their minister.

    Unfortunately for Koro he has a most shiny parallel in the fellow islander and ageless Prince Ademola Adeniji-Adele who has flaunted his all-time socio-political relevance.  Until very recently he was Sports Commissioner in the government of Fasola.  Clearly, the popularity of street soccer which has gone a long way to liberalise access to opportunities for the grassroots in Lagos State is the initiative of this democrat.  Though a much earlier chairman of the Lagos Island Local Government, the pleasant memory of Adeniji-Adele’s reign as chairman still lingers. He has since remained a darling of many Islanders, indeed many Nigerians.  Who will forget the most daring hosting by Adeniji-Adele of the historic Epetedo victory declaration by Basorun MKO Abiola, the winner of the June 12 1993 presidential election?  Though a prince, Adeniji-Adele left no one in doubt that he had a deep understanding of the social challenges in his immediate environment. The area boys perceived as wild miscreants could be tamed as far as he was concerned so the society could be the better for it. He started trade learning schemes for them and initiated several other reform measures. The Prince turned chairman also introduced a transportation system that provided for free rides for senior citizens.  The Gold grade coaster buses introduced by Adeniji-Ademola also had air conditioners to provide for the comfort of passengers in line with the world’s best practices. Koro and his other successors did not seem to find the legacy sustainable. Adeniji-Adele’s interventions to the unique challenges of Lagos Island have remained unmatched several years after.  He still remains a loyal faithful of the party in the state.

    PDP will perhaps do APC a lot of favour by fielding Obanikoro, currently its most visible candidate.  His campaign is clearly dead on arrival as he never seemed to realize the need to cultivate and nurture a supportive platform for his governorship aspiration.  If only Koro knew he would need the people again for some personal ambition…

    • Akanni is a Lagos based development consultant.
  • As President Jonathan declares his 2015 bid…

    As President Jonathan declares his 2015 bid…

    Three years ago this month, November 23, to be precise, I expressed fears on these pages that the country was waging a war against the insurrectionist Boko Haram that seemed to have no end in sight. The war, I said, seemed to be turning our politicians, soldiers, security agents and their contractor friends into agents of war rather than of peace.

    The title of the piece was “Boko Haram: ‘War’ with no end?’ It was a title, I pointed out, I’d borrowed from that of a 2007 collection of essays by left-wing writers of various nationalities, including Naomi Klein, whose common cause was an abhorrence of the way the West had imposed itself on the rest of the world as a violent global police.

    Klein was a journalist, writer, film maker and author. In her 2007 best seller, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, she argued that the neo-conservative forces that had taken over America and much of the West have used, in the words of the book’s blurb, “public disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters – to push through highly unpopular economic shock therapy.”

    In her own contribution in the collection in question entitled “Building a Booming Economy Based on War with No End; The Lessons of Israel”, Klein provided what she believed was the answer to the puzzle of a booming Israeli economy in the midst of the chaos and carnage in its region.

    Israel’s economy, she argued, boomed because “perhaps more than any other country, (it) has learnt to build an economy based on never ending war”. That is, a war that fed on constant fear which, unlike oil, the main resource of its hostile Arab neighbours, was “the ultimate renewable source” because it created “a bottomless demand for devices that watch, listen, contain and target suspects.”

    I am tempted to reproduce the article in the light of the recent resurgence of Boko Haram’s insurgency, which is clearly a direct consequence of President Goodluck Jonathan’s apparent much greater concern with plotting his return to power in next year’s presidential election unopposed – at least within his party – than with securing the lives, limbs and property of his compatriots.

    Space, more than anything else, however, makes it impossible for me to succumb to the temptation. Suffice it to say the sentiments I expressed in that article – sentiments which, I believe, are shared by millions of Nigerians – seem, alas, to have been borne out by recent events running up to the President’s declaration yesterday that he would, after all, run for re-election next year, thus ending the make-believe that he had remained undecided all this while, which hardly anyone, possibly even himself, ever believed.

    If the Israelis, as Klein argued in her essay in question, have learnt to use the global war on terror as a strategy for building a thriving domestic economy in the midst of the chaos in the region, it seems our President has learnt to wink at his men and women as they used Boko Haram insurgency to divide Nigerians and whip up support for him in his bid to get re-elected next year. He seems to have even learnt to use the insurgency to get the National Assembly to do some of his biddings – witness, for example, the speed with which the federal legislators approved his dubious request for a $1 billion loan from abroad, ostensibly to fight the insurgency. Dubious, because this country never borrowed one kobo to fight its more devastating three-year civil war between 1967 and 1970.

    This divide and rule strategy, using mainly Boko Haram, has manifested in many forms, notably as claims by some of his spokesmen and those of his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that the main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), is an Islamic party and a vote for one of the leading contenders for its presidential ticket, General Muhammadu Buhari, is a vote against Christianity. For those who make these claims, it obviously does not matter that, as the President himself has said occasionally in what were perhaps Freudian slips, more Muslims than Christians have been killed and attacked and their livelihoods destroyed by Boko Haram since 2009 when its insurrection took its present deadly turn.

    Of all such claims, however, the one that takes the prize for outrage and bigotry must be the most recent one by the controversial President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and a member of President Jonathan’s innermost kitchen cabinet, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. Only last week he claimed that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been scheming to disenfranchise Christians for next year’s elections. As he is wont to, the man did not offer one shred of evidence to support his claim.

    Recently, two other leading clerics, one Muslim, the other Christian, called on the President to sacrifice his presidential ambition in what they said was in the interest of the country’s security, peace and unity. The first, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, the well-known Kaduna-based Islamic preacher, said in an exclusive interview with Sunday Trust last month (October 19) that both the President and Buhari should sacrifice their ambitions because they have become highly divisive and a win by anyone of them next year will only lead to bloodshed worse than we saw following the 2011 presidential election.

    Last Monday, Reverend Chris Okotie, a leading Nigerian televangelist and pastor of the chic Household of God Church in Lagos, published what looked like an open letter to the President pleading with him to  emulate Lyndon B. Johnson. Jonathan, he said, like Johnson, became President after his principal died in office. Like Johnson, Okotie said, Jonathan also inherited a war. The two, he also said, mismanaged their wars. Jonathan, he argued, should therefore emulate Johnson by honourably declining to contest his party’s presidential ticket, just like Johnson did in 1968 as a result of his mismanagement of the Vietnam War.

    After he declared yesterday at Eagle Square that he had sought God’s face and consulted with his family and had therefore decided to seek re-election, it is obvious that the calls by the two clerics had fallen on Jonathan’s deaf ears.

    I have some reservations about calls on both Jonathan and Buhari, but even more so in Buhari’s case, not to contest next year’s presidential election. Both may have become divisive, but the divisions in this country will not end simply because they decide to sacrifice their ambitions. Buhari, I believe, is even less of a divisive figure than Jonathan because the negative emotion he triggers in people is more by default, thanks to the country’s generally anti-Islam media, than by choice as, I believe, is the case with the President.

    And now that it is, in any case, obviously too late to ask the President not to contest, one can only hope and pray that he will spend the rest of his current term focusing on bringing an end to the Boko Haram insurgency, rather than playing politics with it, even if only by proxy.

    Monday’s suicide bombing of a secondary school in Potiskum, Yobe State, in which no fewer than 47 young men lost their lives – this was just a day before his declaration jamboree – only underscores the need for the President to demonstrate that his heart and mind are in the fight against terrorism and insecurity in the country.

    The President should know that his vow on Monday to deal decisively with the insurgents can only ring hollow in the ears of most Nigerians, given his many previous broken vows, and given also the fact that he seemed so eager to convince the world he was winning the war against terror as he prepared to end his pretence at not making up his mind to get re-elected next year, that he allowed himself, as commander-in-chief, to be suckered into a false ceasefire.

    If the President sincerely wants to end the insurgency, the things he should do have always been obvious. First and foremost, he must end the long-running neglect of arming, training and providing for the care of our troops. He never needed the Americans to tell him, as they did recently, that all the billions that had been pumped into fighting the war since 2009 had ended largely in the pockets of the senior hierarchy of our military and he needed therefore to audit those expenditures in order to identify and bring the culprits to book.

    Last Monday, Nigeria’s ambassador in the US, Professor Ade Adefuye, ticked off the Americans while receiving a delegation of the US Council on Foreign Relations, for refusing to sell arms to Nigeria in its fight against terror. Nigeria is right to express its disappointment at America’s holier than thou attitude on the abuse of human rights by our soldiers. But then it’s not as if the Americans have a monopoly of the arms we need to fight terrorism. When the West, including America, initially denied Nigeria arms during our civil war, we turned elsewhere. We can do the same today if we manage our economy well and stop trying to buy arms under the table, using dubious proxies.

    Second, the President needs to reign in those key elements of his kitchen cabinet whose favourite pastime is to abuse and threaten anyone or any group that disagrees with him, no matter how slightly or genuinely.

    Not least of all, his next budget should demonstrate that he is ready to address the huge gap that exists between the socio-economies of the country’s geo-political zones. And it’s no use talking about such things as building schools for almajirai. Such talks only insult the intelligence of Northerners because those schools have made little or no impact, and are unlikely to ever do so, on the region’s poverty.

    As the President prepares to campaign for next year’s presidential election, he should know that nothing he does would earn him votes like bringing an end to the insecurity that has pervaded the country. The first step in achieving this is to end the politicisation – and commoditization – of Boko Haram, something that has been the stock-in-trade of many of his closest friends and aides – with, of course, more than a wink from the man himself.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Ogun: Between politics and progress

    Ogun: Between politics and progress

    Sporadic gunshots are rampaging. Fierce fury flying and cross fires criss-crossing the caves and camps; an enclave of the gate that leads to socioeconomic and political sophistication is turning a theatre of the absurd. No thanks to the ongoing witless war weaved and waged by politics against progress in Ogun State, as the clock ticks towards 2015. A war that gives a prize of truth to Richard McKay Rorty’s pragmatic advocacy that crushed the absolutism and timelessness of truth.

    When the American professor of Philosophy opined that there was no ahistorical truth, that the truthfulness or falsity, validity or invalidity, of an idea, principle, value or worldview depends on changing times and changing peoples of varied orientations, minds and motives, no direct or subtle thoughts of politics in Nigeria, let alone Ogun State, motivated his reasoning. But, the seeming contextual differences in the mental images conveyed by the eight-lettered word, politics, so far, in what come across as two worlds apart of same state suggests that the famed post-analytic epistemologist had Nigeria, specifically, Ogun State politics, in mind.

    Erstwhile domain of dynamic politics now seems a den of mediocrity which holds progress and development in bitter contempt. Scornful kudos to the great chameleon of all ages. Politics is the mystery with the unrivalled potency of changing itself as well as altering, blinding or blunting the psychology, eyes or sensitivity of the human.

    When the crime of a governor is his ‘effrontery’ to embark on massive infrastructure development; when the pitfall of a governor is his ‘wicked’ judicious use of the public wealth; when the undoing of a governor is his ‘foolish’ faithfulness to his electoral promises to the people; when the ‘suicide’ of a governor is his refusal to play the self-appointed godfather’s puppet-in-power, definitely, meaning has metamorphosed. Good no longer good and bad no longer bad because foul is the fair weapon now being deployed by political foes – enemies-within, enemies-without – against the incumbent governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, in the current battle for Ogun soul.

    If anything, politics of conscience, rather than politics of combat, had defined the past of Ogun State.

    The shape and colour of governance under the late Chief Olabisi Onabanjo was good not just because it heralded progress and development in all spheres, but particularly because politics and progress were then synonyms. Those were the nostalgic days of yore, when the meaning of politics had a single, unified real life reference in the legendary Obafemi Awolowo. A public trust that entailed nothing but services that created the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of the people at every point in time.

    Similarly, politics meant Ogun progress in 1993. To think that the people veered off their accustomed tradition of choice by merit to massively queue behind MKO during the June 12 saga, simply due to his being a son of the soil or his ever fat purse, is to delude none but oneself.

    The underlying motive has never been perfection of leadership by a people in an endless quest for excellence, which seems the surname of the average indigene, be it in the laboratory, on the football pitch, in courtrooms, chalk holding or in pen pushing.

    In fact, it was pen-pushing that groomed and garbed the iconic journalist of all times, Chief Segun Osoba, in an exotic bridal gown laced with magnetic accessories. Alas! The same thirst for excellence that made the journalist a two-time Ogun CEO eventually made him an ‘ex’ till date.

    Truth be told, the 2003 ouster of Governor Osoba was never the making of the federal windstorm that uprooted many South-west trees. This piece, a pill bitter, even to its administrator, can’t but be served and swallowed as a necessity of the moment. The traditional disdain of Ogun for mediocres and averagers signed and sealed the heroic reporter’s ill-fate.

    The next inheritor of the Ibara baton came with sparkling ‘ingenuity’ that set it apart in a world of its own. Most mouths soon turned minstrels singing the panegyrics of the new helmsman whose trademarks were the automated smiles. Every day became a festival of celebration. Celebration of invisible giant strides aesthetically projected by day-by-day billboards, attention-arresting jingles, future-picturing calendars and truth-twisting image makers.

    Impunity begat impunity as cosmetic development spread across the state, heralding peripheral happiness and contentment in nearly everybody. A couple’s clash climaxed as the ageless marriage between politics and progress in the Nobel Laureate’s state got dissolved. Hence, politics served the powers, severed the people to stagnancy and sent progress and development on exile, only to be heard of in the nearby state of the lagoons.

    Horror became a regular match played on the Kuto turfs – stadium that was an irony of its revered title. Place of play turned place of pain. Pain unleashed by horror of daily human rituals. The morning becoming incomplete without a new set of corpses cascading the neighbourhood gutter. Daybreak harvest of headless, limbless, armless or organless cadaver outputs of moonlight abattoirs.

    Sporadic and rampant, the Ita Oshin wars were but pet drama of daylight bloodsheds at the central motor park  that added up to naked horrors on the bridge. The long bridge! Where cautious driving killed retired Brigadier General Sylvester Iruh and countless others wasted by armed robbers for daring to stop and fix their coughing cars, in defiance of robbers, perpetually on rampage.

    2011! When the skyscraper-cap sauntered into the centre for a fight against the anointed heir of Governor Daniel, not a few saw it as yet another of the Bola Ige’s conceived five fingers of a leprous hand. The challenger was, after all, another typical Nigerian politician, who, once upon a time, dined and wined with friends-turned-foes.

    But! Alas! Amosun has ‘disappointed’ the vast majority. A man hitherto underrated as incapable of making a makeshift hut that ends up erecting a palatial mansion.

    Within a twinkle of an eye, Abeokuta, Ijebu Ode, Sagamu, Ota and virtually every other erstwhile village-like city started evincing the glitz of genuine modernity that have now spread like wildfires.

    The Owu-born started out with ravaging caterpillars and bulldozers that discriminated not. Caterpillars which fuel and power was the people’s approving smiles; smiles that melted people’s pain into pleasure and morphed sours into songs. Not the consolatory cash, but inborn spirit of excellence pacified the enlightened mass.

    Kings and commoners, princes and paupers, the mighty and the meagre turned to the workforce of Amosun the future builder, through their crucifixion of  good of the self for the resurrection of the good of all. Together, they succeeded in recalling progress from exile, at a time the hibernating assailants and expellers of progress never expected.

    Over their dead body! Never again must the shadows of progress reflect on the Ogun River, let alone its reincarnation on the land, air and sea via massive, never-seen-before state-wide roads, listless bridges, modern schools, markets, and, above all, snoring sleeps of the masses that murdered their own sleep! Here lies the provocation of the stinging bees on the prowl.

    Attacking to defend selfish political interests appears the lonely and veiled logic beneath the current propaganda, deceit and manipulation that tie people’s prosperity to the inglorious, future-destroying chop-make-I-chop politics of yesterday.

    The ultimate victims and vanquished would ever be the all-time vendors of deceit in a market of wise people that now know better. Wise and intelligent people that are sure that nurturing humans like hens with sumptuous meals ahead of slaughtering is an antic of the wicked. Hence, silent vigilance remains the impregnable shield against rampaging political vultures.

     

    • Olokode, a media consultant writes from Lagos.
  • APC and its presidential headache

    APC and its presidential headache

    The biggest challenge confronting the All Progressives Congress (APC) as it chooses it presidential flagbearer is not the number or quality of those who have put themselves forward.

    If anything, all with the exception of entrepreneur and newspaper publisher, Sam Nda-Iasiah, have some sort of experience at very high levels of government to brandish as qualification for seeking the top job.

    The real headache is that everyone of the aspirants has some form of baggage that the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) will gleefully exploit – diverting attention from Jonathan’s terrible record in office.

    Take former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari. He is ordinarily an electoral powerhouse. In 2011, he did the near impossible by garnering 12 million votes on the platform of a political party that was just a few months old. What that proved is that the sheer force of his personality could deliver irrespective of the platform on which he runs.

    But I have argued in the past that this very strength – in particular his cult-like following in the north, eventually became his Achilles Heel – as his strategists were misled into thinking he didn’t need an electoral leg down south to help him to power. In the end, he swept the north but was undone in the South-West when Jonathan won the zone with the exception of Osun State taken by Nuhu Ribadu then flying the flag of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

    Were he to emerge the candidate of APC, he would be running on a better structured platform with strength on both sides of the Niger. A strategy that targets that the votes haul from the North West, North East and South West – with small pickings elsewhere could put him within touching distance of a prize he has coveted all these years.

    The ruling PDP realise the potency of a Buhari candidacy and have begun undermining it even before it becomes reality – and there’s the rub for the APC. With the general on the ticket, the campaign will not be about Jonathan’s management of the economy or his failure to combat the raging insurgency in the North-East, it will be turned around to focus on the General’s record as a military head of state as well as his position on religious issues.

    We will be reminded that his regime authored the infamous Decree 4 which the military reined in Nigeria’s famously free-wheeling press. It wouldn’t matter that in 2015 voters are not being asked to elect a new military junta.

    The attempt to paint the khaki-clad Buhari of 1984 as the same as the agbada-wearing presidential aspirant of 2014 is one of the enduring lies of the emerging campaign. His opponents will not admit that as president he will not have the same powers he wielded 30 years ago. He cannot pass any budget or bill by fiat and would have to deal with a National Assembly whose complexity we cannot fathom now.

    As another ex-military ruler, General Olusegun Obasanjo, found out to his chagrin after his Third Term project bit the dust, there are times when this much-maligned body can prove to be an effective bulwark against would-be despots. There’s no reason to think that the constitution would be amended in 2015 to accommodate any autocratic streak in Buhari.

    Even his much-vaunted desire to stop corruption in its tracks could get a reality check in that same National Assembly. People forget that one of the first bills Obasanjo sent to the legislature in 1999 was a stern anti-corruption bill fashioned after similar laws in Singapore. But by the time Abuja lawmakers finished with it what was sent back to the then president was a limp and near-useless legislation whose impotence is confirmed by the depth of sleaze in the country 15 years after.

    Other issues that will come to dog a Buhari campaign will include the retroactive execution of the convicted drug pushers, the controversial clearance for 53 suitcases to be allowed into the country at a time when the country’s borders were shut to allow for currency reforms.

    We will be told not to forget that the General once professed a love for Sharia – so much so that he would have loved for it to apply throughout the country.

    And let’s not forget the incendiary comments made by the ex-CPC presidential candidate after it became clear that his ambitions had bitten the dust four years ago. His embittered supporters took to the streets to vent their frustration with fatal consequences for many National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members who had serviced as electoral officers for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    He may have distanced himself from the acts of violence, but his opponents would still seek to embarrass him and damage his candidacy on the altar of vicarious responsibility.

    This brings us to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Again, we are confronted with another political giant who through a series of wrong choices undercut his own relevance in national power calculations. We cannot forget in a hurry that at the end of Obasanjo’s first term Atiku controlled the PDP and the then president had to virtually go on bended knees to secure his backing and that of governors loyal to the then VP to clear the way for a second tenure.

    Frustrated out of the ruling party by Obasanjo, his ill-fated presidential run on the ACN ticket and his return to the party he had spurned and excoriated in the bitter days before the 2007 polls, and now his presence in APC, makes it all too easy for those who will paint a caricature of a desperate politician.

    Many acknowledge his virtues as a mobiliser who understands Nigerian politics. His deep pockets would make him an asset for a party like APC which could find itself challenged in the money stakes against the ruling party.

    Interestingly, in his campaigning so far, Atiku has tried to talk about issues and advance policy positions he would like to pursue as president. All that elevated politicking would disappear in a puff of smoke the moment he emerges APC candidate because the PDP, again constrained to shift attention away from Jonathan’s record, would dredge up the former Vice President’s many controversies.

    We would be reminded of the American Congressman William Jefferson’s saga as well as questions about Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) and sundry matters. From now till Election Day, Atiku would be defending and explaining himself against real and imagined charges in the court of public opinion.

    I will not dwell much on Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and Nda-Isaiah because whatever baggage they come with is linked to fact that their appeal is limited across the country. The PDP would be quite happy to dismiss them as provincial – never mind the fact that Jonathan and his erstwhile boss, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, could have been described in those terms at the point they assumed office in Aso Rock.

    Much of the handwringing within APC has focused on how much ammunition its aspirants have laid out for PDP attack dogs to play with.

    But this ignores the fact that Jonathan, the ruling party’s candidate, has baggage that would  finish off any candidate in different clime. Compared to his, United States President Barack Obama’s issues were child play, and yet American voters punished him and his party at last Tuesday’s congressional elections by handing power to the Republicans.

    If APC’s candidates have things they have to explain, then Jonathan finds himself in a similar quandary ten times over. On the economic front it is impossible to say that Nigerians are better off economically than they were in 2011. The recent collapse in power generation is an embarrassing enough statistic for a ruling party that has promised light since 1999, but only succeeded in delivering darkness.

    In the 70s the British Tory Party produced an electoral poster showing a serpentine queue of the unemployed waiting to be interviewed for a few job openings. The pay-off line was ‘Labour Isn’t Working.’ It was devastating. The inimitable Margaret Thatcher was swept into 10 Downing Street on the cusp of the landslide.

    Today, Jonathan’s stewardship in the area of unemployment can be captured just as succinctly with those photographs of an Abuja National Stadium packed to overflowing with desperate applicants seeking employment in the Nigerian Immigration Service.

    The exercise ultimately ended tragically with over 19 persons killed nationwide. Such is the contempt that the government has for public opinion that those like the Interior Minister, Abba Moro, who presided over that fiasco are sitting comfortably in their offices till date.

    To say that the administration has been scandal-scarred is to state the obvious. The nation still awaits the results of the forensic audit triggered by allegations made by the former Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, that the NNPC had failed to remit billions of naira to the Federation Account.

    Petroleum Minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke and erstwhile Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah, hugged the headlines for months over allegations of sleaze. While the former continues to fight to stop the House of Representatives from probing allegations that she spent a fortune hiring a private jet, the latter did the ‘needful’ by throwing in the towel when the heat became too much.

    But the government’s reputation totally went down the tubes with the botched attempt by its agents to smuggle $9.3 million into South Africa in a private jet in a bizarre arms shopping trip. While it was still trying to contain the first mess, it emerged that a second seizure had been made by the South Africans – bringing the total to $15 million.

    But perhaps the greatest failure of the Jonathan administration is its inability to end the insurgency in the North East. Today, the insurgents have carved out a caliphate the size of three states in that region. Those who predicted that country would break up in 2015 are inching closer to seeing that dire prophecy become reality.

    A break-up isn’t only when we are scattered in many pieces. Today’s reality is that unless the gains of the insurgents are quickly reversed the map of Nigeria handed to Jonathan in 2011 would be different from that he would hand to a successor next year.

    Today, Nigeria is more polarised along sectional and religious lines than at any time in its history. We are seeing a government and ruling party that has shown every readiness to use religion to divide the country in order to rule over it.

    Tragically, the diabolical efforts of the ruling party’s hacks have produced a situation where many voters have already made their decision on who they would vote for simply on account of his religious identification. That shows how much progress we are making.

    APC should stop searching for the perfect candidate. That creature doesn’t exist on the face of the earth. At any given time aspirants come with baggage. The answer is not to flee from a candidate because of baggage, but to see whether what he brings to the table is greater than his negatives.

    The party must decide whether a Buhari who’s a vote magnet up north should be dumped just because of his controversial past. Will it do better with a ‘safe’ candidate who doesn’t offend sensibilities but cannot galvanise the supporter base the way the General can? The same can be said about Atiku. Should he be passed over despite what he brings to the party just because opponents would call him names? It’s a no-brainer.

  • Reforming the prison system in Africa

    Reforming the prison system in Africa

    The institution of prison is not indigenous to Africa. It is a holdover from colonial times, a European import intended to isolate and punish political opponents, exercise racial superiority and administer capital and corporal punishment. In the pre- colonial Africa, criminals, slaves and those defeated in war were subjected to detention of one kind or another.

    Detention did not appear to have been regarded as a punishment in itself but a means where offenders would be held for purposes of attending their trial, or awaiting some other form of fine or punishment. Therefore, in pre-colonial Africa, emphasis was placed on securing compensation for the victim as opposed to punishment of the offender. Wrongdoing was rectified by restitution rather than punishment, while imprisonment and capital punishment were viewed as last resort often for chronic offenders who have repeatedly been warned for upward of three times or more.

    Imprisonment as a specific form of punishment, however, is a distinctly modern phenomenon. Thus, in a strict sense, imprisonment in Africa may be said to have begun with the introduction of this ‘modern’ form of punishment to the continent by the colonial powers. Consequently, the beginning of prisons can be traced back to the rise of the state as a form of social organization. Corresponding with the advent of the state was the development of written language, which enabled the creation of formalized legal codes as official guidelines for society.

    Ideally, the prison aside from serving as a form of punishment for offenders is also planned to be an agent of reformation and rehabilitation. But sadly, reverse seems to be the case as too many criminal offenders emerge from prisons ready to offend again. This is largely due to the fact that first time offenders are often kept together with hardened criminals and they end up being badly influenced by the latter. Consequently, they will not be able to imbibe the right values which their imprisonments were meant to inculcate.

    In Africa, prisons face a host of challenges including deficits of good governance, monetary support and other resources. These shortcomings have resulted in overcrowded and abusive prison conditions. Therefore, those incarcerated in African prisons face years of confinement in often cramped and dirty rooms with insufficient food allocations, inadequate minimum standard of basic hygiene and scarcity of decent clothing. Other challenges facing the smooth functioning of the prison system in Africa include, torture, privilege system, juveniles housed with adults and gangsterism.

    Gitarama prison located in Rwanda, Africa, top the list of the worst prisons in the world as it does not have enough space to host any more single prisoner at the moment. Originally, the facility was built for 500 prisoners but houses 6,000 inmates. Investigation revealed that the prison has four men per square yard which is literally the worst condition to keep humans in any place.

    South Africa is currently ranked number one in Africa and ninth in the world, in terms of prison population with more than 160, 000 inmates. These prisons are places of extreme violence with assaults on prisoners by guards or other prisoners being frequently fatal, situations often seen as reflections of the general society. Raping is also common as HIV positive inmates rape other inmates.

    In Nigeria like in other African countries, the greatest problem facing the prisons institution today is population explosion and this is central to various other problems of the nation’s penal institution. Investigation reveals that remand population constitutes a greater segment of the prison population. Remand prisoners, according to prison sources, are those awaiting trials; those who have been tried awaiting sentence and those convicted awaiting execution. About 80 per cent of the entire prison population are awaiting trial prisoners.

    It was gathered that several factors are responsible for the preponderance of this category of prisoners in Nigeria’s penal institutions and the swelling of the entire population. Prominent among these are rising crime rate and the confused criminal justice system, which manifests in unlawful, incessant and arbitrary arrests by various security agencies, over-use of prison sentences, stringent conditions of bail, delay in administration of justice occasioned by acute, shortage of courts and hands to take on the cases, incessant adjournment, length of time needed to investigate cases such as murder, armed robbery, obtaining by trickery and cases requiring laboratory tests. Others are lack of co-ordination and communication among the police, prison authorities and the judiciary, inadequate transport facilities to convey the remand population to court, corruption and avarice of police officers who demand money for bail and to take this category or prisoners to court.

    Therefore, in order to reduce congestion which is the major problem facing the prisons, it is vital to utilize the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) method. ADR is a term used to describe several different methods of resolving legal disputes without going to court. These include arbitration and mediation. This method has been utilized successfully in Lagos through the Citizens Mediation Centre. Cases of awaiting trial inmates should be given priorities as was done in Lagos by the former Chief Judge, Justice Ayotunde Philips who ordered the release of 233 awaiting trial inmates, the highest by any Chief Judge in the country.

    To further reduce congestion of prison in Lagos, the state Ministry of Justice introduced Community Service  Project, an innovation that makes offenders to serve the community in various ways.

    Also, well meaning Nigerians, philanthropists, religious bodies and non-governmental organizations as well as corporate bodies should assist the prisons through donation of essential items in order to achieve the goal of reforming the inmates to serve the society when they finish serving their terms. In addition, the prison staff should continuously undergo trainings, particularly in inter-personal relationships and psychology so as to achieve the needed peace in the prisons. Any report by inmates on issues bordering on abuse and maltreatments by either their fellow inmates or prison staff should not be treated with kid’s gloves.

    Privilege system, as presently being operated in most prisons in the country, where some inmates are treated differently from others, should be eradicated. Equally, the issue of gangsterism, which makes some inmates subservient to others, should be properly addressed. Juvenile offenders should be housed separately from the adults to forestall undue influences.

    If prisoners are to come out good and not be a curse to the country, we need to do much better than we are presently doing.

    •  Bakare is of the Features Unit, Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.