The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

Fire on the mountain

Fire on the mountain!” This may look like a familiar lyric from a popular song. It is not. But if the drama that is currently unfolding in the north-east of Nigeria is anything to go by, then, it is crystal clear that, indeed, there is fire on the mountain. In the last few weeks, the Boko Haram terrorists have intensified their attacks and open confrontation with Nigeria’s security forces. They have been moving from their base in Sambisa fortress to some parts of Borno and Adamawa States, seizing towns and villages along their route. At the last count, the terrorists have taken over at least nine out of the 27 Local Government Areas in Borno, representing one-third of the entire state. Recently, they proclaimed the town of Gwoza, a “caliphate under Islamic law.” Michika, Uba and some parts of Adamawa, have also tasted Boko Haram’s bitter pill.

Following the terrorists’ recent incursion into Bama town, about 72 kilometers from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, fears were heightened that the next port of call may be Maiduguri itself. Speaking in Abuja last Thursday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, said the frequency and scope of terror attacks had grown more acute, adding that this had constituted a serious threat to the overall security of Nigeria. According to her, “Boko Haram has shown that it can operate not only in the North-east, but in Kano, Abuja and elsewhere. We are very troubled by the prospects of an attack on and in Maiduguri, which would impose a tremendous toll on the civilian population. This is a sober reality check for all of us”.

It is, indeed, time to engage in a sober reality check. This is because at no time since the end of the country’s civil war in 1970, has the territorial integrity of this country been so threatened than what is currently playing out today. In spite of all the havoc the terrorists have wreaked on innocent people all over the place, they had the audacity to distribute leaflets in Maiduguri, the state capital, warning the residents of an impending attack. For one, the major weapon of terrorists is fear. Those leaflets must have been circulated to create fear in the minds of the people. If that is the aim, the terrorists may have largely succeeded in view of the mass exodus of residents in Maiduguri.

For whatever it takes, the military and the federal government should do everything possible to safeguard Maiduguri. The city is too populated to allow these vagabonds to truncate its tranquillity. It is exigent that the temerity of the rampaging terrorists should be halted without further prevarication. By now, it must be clear to our policy makers that we have an emergency at hand. There is no doubt that the army is short of manpower, having been overstretched because of its involvements in internal security duties in the country. Be that as it may, we may not have any other option than to resort to what happened during the civil war by recruiting those who are ready to do the job. Care must; however, be taken not to recruit Boko Haram agents or sympathisers.

In that case, rather than the usual one year training, the new recruits can be trained for two weeks and deployed in large numbers to crush the terrorists. The thing is to get the whole place flooded with troops. If the enemy out-flanks you, pull back, regroup and re-think your strategy. It is good that the terrorists have now come out of Sambissa Forest due to the rains and the subsequent marshy terrain. The security forces should launch a massive and sustained attack on them in the towns and villages they now occupy as well as lead an assault on Sambissa itself. The terrorists must have left some line guards behind to take care of the place for them. All the security forces need do is to muster enough manpower and fire power to do this. Obviously, the terrorists cannot cope if many fronts are opened.

The terrorists are known to move swiftly just like the ISIS is doing presently in Iraq and Syria. The so-called Islamists, though calling themselves different names, share a common doctrine of destruction. They seek to impose their will through propaganda, forced conversion, kidnapping, beheading, slaughtering, forced marriage, rape and other unspeakable horrors. Obviously, Boko Haram exists for the same genocidal mission as ISIS. It has its own contribution to this hateful movement. The plan by Al-Queda to acquire territories after territories until it enthrones its own Islamic doctrines was hatched many years back with defined roadmap and timelines. This was expected to have been crystallised in 2013. And Nigeria falls within the countries whose territories it wanted (and still wants) to acquire for this indoctrination. What this means is that Nigeria is fighting a formidable enemy.

The truth is that 16 months after a state of emergency was declared in the north-east states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, it appears that the country has not got an effective strategy to deal with Boko Haram and its avowed commitment to wage war against the country and its people. Much like the man who has a hammer and, therefore, assumes that every problem is a nail, our policy makers have tried these past 16 months, to define the Boko Haram problem as something that they are comfortable to deal with. Now, it is apparent that they are failing or they have failed, and woefully too. Not with the terrorists who seem to be riding roughshod over everybody and traversing state borders, thereby killing and maiming several innocent citizens as well as displacing people and destroying hundreds of schools in a wave of terror aimed at establishing a utopian Islamic state in Nigeria.

Recently, the international community was jolted with the abduction of more than 250 schoolgirls from Chibok community in Borno State. In the wake of the uproar, some foreign countries sent specialists with medical, intelligence, counterterrorism and communications skills to advise Nigerian officials. In addition, manned and unmanned surveillance aircrafthave been flying over the heavily forested north-eastern region of the country where intelligence officials believe the girls are held. Some 80 armed American troops have also been sent to Chad, one of Nigeria’s next door neighbours, where predator surveillance drones are being operated from a large air base near N’Djamena, the Chadian capital. All these seem to have yielded nothing as the Chibok girls are still marooned in the woods.

Viewed from the prism of the seeming bureaucratic lethargy with which the ongoing war against terrorism is being prosecuted, it is as if Nigerian leaders are bidding their time and waiting for a miracle from nowhere to happen and put an end to this ugly episode. It is rather senseless to expect outsiders to come to our rescue every time there is a problem. Every nation is and should be responsible for its own citizens’ safety except that, on this score, Nigeria’s record is abysmal. Corruption has become a hydra-headed monster that has eaten deep into the fabric of the nation. The nation’s considerable oil wealth has been cornered by a few smart alecs. The result is that the citizens have not been provided with adequate security, water, health, reliable power supply, good and motorable roads, as well as, quality education.

Now, the army, the last bastion of hope, is starved of essential resources and completely demoralised. This, in itself, is a bigger threat to stability. Yet, a military response is not a viable option to end the growing disenchantment in the country. It is, therefore, expedient on our grandstanding political leaders to urgently tackle the root causes of disaffection in the country by reducing corruption, and providing jobs and other lifelines to the growing army of hungry and angry Nigerians. As a people, we need a new, honest conversation on how we are going to defeat the multifarious forces of evil that have held the country by its jugular. Perhaps, we would be better off with leaders who do not have good strategies and know they do not, than with leaders who get stuck to bad strategies.

September 10, 2014
A professor’s lies with statistics

The reader will recall we parted company last week on the note that today I will examine the merit of Professor G. G. Darah’s position on the issues he raised in his version of the outcome of the just concluded national conference. The 3,293-word report, as I pointed out, was published in the August 25 edition of The Pointer, the newspaper of the Delta State.

The professor discussed basically two issues, namely, the imperative for replacing the current three-tier federal system with two by abrogating local governments at the bottom, and the battle for “resource control”.

Coming from a professor of mass communication – indeed coming from a professor of anything for that matter – his report was more sound and fury than factual and logical. Out of the 3,293 words it contained, he devoted barely half to the two subjects. Even then, these were more of a diatribe against a section of the country than an attempt to persuade with facts and logic. The remaining roughly 1,500 words were a propagandistic defence of President Goodluck Jonathan that should embarrass even the most incompetent public relations officer, never mind a professor of mass communication.

Take, for example, his total disregard for facts in his attempt to malign a section of this country and blame it for all the country’s woes.

“The population of Taraba,” he said in his attempt to justify the conference’s decision to abrogate local governments, “is less than one million. ..Ughelli North is bigger. Uvwie is bigger than Taraba population. It’s one local government, yet Taraba has 25.”

If the professor had bothered to do his homework and had not allowed blind prejudice to take control of his mind, he would have discovered that nothing was further from the truth than the statistics he conjured in his head. First, Taraba’s population by the last 2006 headcount was not less than one million, as he claimed. It was 2,330,736. Second, the populations of both Ughelli North and Uvwie which he claimed were bigger than that of Taraba, were 321,028 and 191,472 respectively. Third, Taraba has 16 local governments not 25.

This makes the average size of the local governments in Taraba 143,796 as against the average in Delta of 163,936; a difference no fair-minded person can criticise as unreasonable, especially as there is a local government in Delta, Patani, which had a population of 67,707.

I am sure our dear professor will agree with me that playing as fast and loose with facts as he did with the populations of the local governments in Delta and Taraba just to make his point does no credit to even a primary school pupil, never mind the university professor he is and a veteran columnist that he was.

Sadly, his report of the conference is riddled with many such ridiculous claims. Take for another example, his attempt to blame his much-hated North for hitches in the payment of allowances to the delegates.

“We,” he said, “had spent six weeks no allowance. Somebody in the Ministry where Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is sitting on the voucher. And is doing it for purely sinister purpose. He does not want the conference to succeed.” That “someone” for Darah was obviously from the North.

“The first two weeks,” he said, “the northerners wanted the conference to break down. So that they can accuse President Jonathan: ‘ah you can’t run a conference. How can you run Nigeria again’. It’s fafafa (with a large chorus of fowl from the audience).”

Clearly our professor did not want to allow the inconvenient fact that the responsibility for paying the delegates allowances was jointly that of the finance minister and the secretary of the Federal Government – both of them Darah’s fellow southerners – get in the way of his wish to blame each and every failure of the authorities on the North.

Not only that, he proceeded to accuse the region of being behind the current state of insecurity in the land without any shred of evidence, never mind one that the scholarship he should stand as a professor for demands.

The region’s plan to embarrass the president by sabotaging the conference, he said, failed and so will its other plans. “It failed,” he said, “The next plan will also fail. The next plan is to embarrass him to a point by bombing many towns, simultaneously, causing havoc, disenchantment and abuse so that he cannot go for second tenure under PDP. This is the plan; it’s not hidden, it’s played out in the open.”

Last week I agreed with the professor that in a true federation, local and municipal governments cannot exist as a third tier of government even though his position was obviously full of malicious intent. In his argument, he cited America, Germany, Canada and India as true federations where local governments were creatures of the constituent states and not those of the centre as has been the case in Nigeria.

However, when it came to the issue of revenue allocation, the professor conveniently forgot that in all those countries, as in all true federations, all off-shore natural resources belonged to the countries as a whole and not to only the states abutting the oceans. This was clearly a classic case of one rule for “us” and another for “them.”

The professor’s bare-faced lies with statistics and his double standards were not the only worrisome aspects of his diatribe against a section of the country. Equally worrisome were his strident call on the country’s media, which as he pointed out, were dominated by owners from the Delta region, to ignore the ethics of journalism and descend into the crudest form of propaganda by defending the president, right or wrong, simply because he is from the region.

What the professor of mass communication said in this respect is worth quoting at length, if only because of the danger his words portend for the practice of journalism in the country. “I end up,” he said, “by challenging Delta people: We have not done enough in coming out to stand by Mr. President. We have not. Because the weapon being used at this point is verbal, intellectual weapon. It’s propaganda. And Delta State is the owner of those arsenals. The most important newspaper in the country in terms of integrity is The Guardian. It’s owned by Ibru, from Agbarha-Otor, Urhobo. The next one in terms of popularity is the Vanguard. It’s owned by Sam Amuka, Itsekiri/Urhobo. The next one is THISDAY, it’s owned by Nduka Obaigbena of Ika. He is also in the conference. Those three newspapers determine the mind of Nigerians. We need a programme that can join those forces and stand by Mr. President. (Clap of approval from the audience).

“Go to the electronic media, the most respected is either Channels or AIT. Channels is owned by John Momoh from Edo State; AIT by Dr. Alogho Dokpesi from Agenebode, Edo State. Then there is ITV, owned by the Igbinedions. They are the most powerful. People don’t tune to NTA, they tune to those ones if they cannot tune to CNN. Get what I am saying now, we need a movement that conjoin those institutions and then stand by Mr. President.”

What the president has done in three years, he said, as if firing the first shot of the crude propaganda war he is advocating, “are more than what Tafawa Balewa plus Shagari, plus Buhari, plus IBB, plus Abacha did in 30 years. Jonathan has done more than all of them.”

“Finally, finally,” he concluded, “You no say person we de chop yoke of egg, when you want to take the egg from him, whatever weapon he has he will use it against you. What we have understood now is that because this northern segment has enjoyed the booty of the oil for 30 years they cannot even contemplate not having it. This is where we are now; it’s a ‘civil war’.”

With professors like Darah doing their utmost to pitch one section of the country against the other, is it any wonder the future prospect of this country looks so bleak?

The alert reader would have noticed I have not discussed the merit or otherwise of the major resolutions of the conference as I promised last week. This is due to space constraint. It will form the subject matter for another day in a not too distant future, God willing.

Re: Again, the return of Chinweizu and all that

Sir,

Your write-up on “Again, the return of Chinweizu and all that” made some chilling revelations. Though one may not always agree with you but one will agree that facts are facts. This is your strong point.

I have watched these men, Professor G.G. Darah and Mr. Yinka Odumakin on the Channels -TV. The presentations of the two men give an impression of the play-out of a written script. Painfully, people from Delta led by the old grand Papa (Edwin Clark) have been behaving as if the President is for the South–South only.

I hope that the prediction of the break-up of this country by 2015 will not come to fulfillment.

Sir Biyi Adesanya, Ibadan.

Sir,

(Your piece last week contained) very interesting yet disturbing dimensions in contemporary discourses of Nigerian politics on behalf of the so-called “Greater/New South vs. Shariyaland Geopolitical Divide”. But for now I simply wish to correct the misplacement of retired Col. Tony Nyiam as of Delta State origin like Professor G.G. Darah. Tony Nyiam is an indigene of Cross River State.

I hope that the articulators and diviners of this Nigerian Geopolitical Divide are conscious of the present Nigerian open society for which they may unwittingly be coveting its enemies for upcoming generations of Nigeria, that is, if there is still Nigeria!

Professor Sam Oyovbaire

I stand corrected by my professor who taught me the importance of rigour in Political Science at Ahmadu Bello University in the early seventies.

September 3, 2014
Fashola’s reversal of LASU fees

One vital attribute every leader must possess in good measure is courage. Courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement. What lies at the heart of every courageous leader is not the absence of fear, but the conviction that the action he is about to take, or taking, is the appropriate one. Many leaders sometimes lack the courage to take critical decisions because of the fear of public perception. This, according to Confucius, is the worst kind of cowardice.

The recent reversal of the Lagos State University (LASU) fee from N350,000 to the old rate of N25,000 across board by the State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, at the 19th convocation ceremony of the University in Lagos, has been described by many as a courageous decision. In a country where political leaders often rule in imperial fashion, the governor’s decision to resort to the old fee regime is seen as breath of fresh air. With the reduction, it is expected that the university could now run an uninterrupted academic calendar. An elated LASU Student Union President, Nurudeen Yusuf, commended Fashola for his kind gesture.”Today marks a significant day in the history of Lagos, with this development, we are optimistic that the future of Lagos is great,” he said.

With this development, Governor Fashola had proved that he is a listening leader by wiping out the tears of the LASU students with the total reversal. The beauty of it all is that the gesture is a surprise package. It was unexpected because what the students proposed to the state government was N46,000 but the governor surprised them by reversing the fee back to N25,000.

The governor and the students must be commended for resorting to consultations in seeking the final resolution of the crisis. It is, indeed, heartwarming to note that the students have also shown that they can choose the path of conflict resolution by reaching out to the state government. This is what is expected of leaders of tomorrow. It is particularly pleasing that the governor, in his words, was compelled to revert to the old fees as a result of the current economic situation of the country. This is a reflection of the humane side of the governor and his government.

This is a further evidence of the Lagos State government stance to reposition education in the state. Governor Fashola recently called on stakeholders to fashion out means to re-invent the nation’s higher education to tackle its development challenges. The governor who made this charge at the 64th Foundation Day anniversary of the University of Ibadan, entitled, ‘Framework for reinventing higher education for Nigeria’s national development’, declared that in order to overcome the current challenges confronting the country there is an urgent need to restructure education at all levels.

According to the governor: “In the 21st century, education will remain the most valuable currency that every nation will desire but which no central bank can print. Every nation must decide for herself how much of this currency she requires and set about how to acquire it. In order to agree on a Nigerian approach, I think we must agree on the purpose of education. For me, it is simply to refine and develop the quality of our human capital, which, is our most valuable resource”. According to him, if the nation defines its roles correctly and identifies its problems properly, it will not be difficult to develop an education framework that will take it to a place of pride.

Being a man that practices what he preaches, the Lagos State government under his leadership is quietly but steadily working hard to improve the quality of education in the state. With particular reference to on-going development strides at the state owned Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, Lagos, it is quite clear that genuine efforts are on to re-invent tertiary education in the state. Very soon, Lagosians would realise the LASU of our collective dream and aspiration as the government has embarked on a process that would attract the finest intellectual brains in the country to the school as lecturers . Similarly, the state government has renewed efforts to ensure that courses on offer at the institution are accredited by the National University Commission, (NUC). Today, 85% of courses at the school have been accredited by the NUC.

Indeed, the LASU School of Transportation , first of its kind in Nigeria, which is a response to contemporary necessity, has been fully accredited by the NUC. Equally, there is a massive infrastructural renewal project on-going at the school. Presently, the Students Arcade, Senate Building, Central Library, School of Transportation, Faculty of Law Auditorium, School of Management Sciences, LASU International School, among others are at various stages of completion.

Now that the LASU fees issue has been finally resolved, the state government must now concentrate on consolidating on infrastructure upliftment in the institution. Equally, the state government must ensure that no child who seeks education is left behind in the state. It is equally hoped that the management, staff and students of the institution will reciprocate the love and gesture of the state government by ensuring that academic activities run smoothly in the institution.

If indeed, democracy is about the people, this is the time for our leaders to uphold the right concept of power for the good of the society. This is also the time for the followers to ask questions of their leaders. Government does not exercise power, rather, it is the concept of government, upheld by law, which exercises power. Democracy will be endangered, when political power actors assume that they wield power, and not, that power wields them.

According to Mao Tse–tung , the founder of the People’s Republic of China: “Our duty (as leaders of the people) is to hold ourselves responsible to the people. Every word, every act and every policy must conform to the people’s interests, and if mistakes occur, they must be corrected – that is what being responsible to the people means”.

• Ogunbiyi is of features unit, Lagos State Ministry of Information and Strategy.

September 3, 2014
Lynching by impeachment

When the whole drama started, it looked more like one of those beer parlour jokes. Expectedly, people, especially the media, quickly dubbed it, rather derisively, “Chicken Impeachment”. That underscores the degree of scorn and bewilderment with which the entire comedy of the absurd was held. But those who were hell-bent on turning logic on its head were not prepared to blink at all. After all, there was a supreme agenda that must be executed at all cost without paying the least attention to whatever the ‘uninitiated’ might think about. The uninitiated, this time, are the majority of Nigerians who are still astonished by the tragi-comedy that played out in Enugu State, a place regarded as the political capital of South-east Nigeria. Remember, Enugu was the capital of the old Eastern Region from whence all other states in the South-east zone of the country today, were born.

Anyway, the agenda was simply just to lynch a political foe of an imperial governor, using the instrumentality of the impeachment clause as enshrined in Section 188 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. That section lays down procedures for the appointment and removal of governors of every state in the country. This provision of the constitution is sacrosanct and provides the only acceptable procedures for removal, or more commonly termed “impeachment”, of a sitting governor or in some instances, the deputy governor, as we have witnessed in the country. Section 188 lays down procedure for possible removal on grounds of “Gross Misconduct”.

The truth is that, on Tuesday, August 26, Sunday Onyebuchi, the deputy governor of Enugu State, was impeached by the Enugu State House of Assembly. This latest development orchestrated by the members of the assembly, who merely pandered to the whim and caprice of the governor, presented a new plot in the recent wave of impeachments and “attempted impeachments” in the country. This ‘novel’ case of impeachment, as the deputy governor himself would later attest, was unique because of the puerile charges on which it was anchored. Controversial as it was, with obvious legal issues raised, the episode has now been safely etched into the dark recesses of our history books. Whatever anybody might say now falls in the realm of conjectures as the deed has been done.

Now, let us examine the legal points of this impeachment. Section 188 (1) – (11) of the 1999 Constitution stipulates the provisions which we must assume were followed by the Enugu House of Assembly in carrying out the impeachment of Onyebuchi. According to sub-section (2) (b) of that section, the process is begun as in this case when the Speaker of the House of Assembly is presented with charges “stating that the holder of such office is guilty of gross misconduct in the performance of the functions of his office, detailed particulars of which shall be specified”.

The charges drawn up against Onyebuchi include his continuous operation of a poultry farm within his official quarters even though “by a resolution of the Enugu State House of Assembly at its plenary on Tuesday, February 12, 2013, the House of Assembly prohibited the maintenance and operation of commercial livestock and poultry farms within residential neighbourhoods in Enugu metropolis in promotion of public health standards; which resolution was further accepted by the government for implementation”. Added to the charge was his refusal to perform state duties assigned to him by the governor pursuant to section 193 (1) of the Constitution which gives the governor authority to do so.

In the somewhat comical episode, the only real legal issue is whether the conduct of the deputy governor, as alleged in the charges, constitutes “gross misconduct” envisaged by the Constitution in section 188 (2) (b). This question could have simply been addressed by the provisions of section 188 (11), which defined the meaning of “gross misconduct” in that section as “a grave violation or breach of the provisions of this Constitution or a misconduct of such nature as amounts in the opinion in the House of Assembly to gross misconduct”. That particular provision has been widely held to be ambiguous, but the fact that cannot be denied is that the provision has left the determination of what constitutes “gross misconduct” under that section largely in the hands of a House of Assembly. This means simply that “gross misconduct” in that section is what the state legislators in their discretion say it is. That is where the problem is, both for the constitution in this regard and in Onyebuchi’s case presently.

On the poultry-rearing charge, the Enugu State House of Assembly stated that it was continued even after a resolution of the House against it, “which was further accepted by the government for implementation”. If the intendment of those who drafted the charges was to prove that the deputy governor broke a law, then from an objective point of view, the attempt has failed. Section 100 (1) of the Constitution states that the power of a State House of Assembly to make laws shall be exercised by bills passed by the House of Assembly, which may then be passed into law by assent by the governor or two-thirds majority of the House. A mere resolution of the House, as indicated in the charges against Onyebuchi, is not law and does not have the legal force that the legislators suggest it has. This weakens the case of “gross misconduct” against Onyebuchi to a large extent.

For argument sake, and this is a genuine argument, one can say that Onyebuchi’s refusal to perform state functions as directed by the governor, if it can be proved, is in violation of section 193 (1) of the constitution. Whether it constitutes a “grave violation” is another matter entirely, which brings back the issues of ambiguity. The legislators may also have included this in the charge to boost the weight of the charges and create an increased notion of legality. Whether it succeeds in pushing the scales is left to anyone’s imagination as, according to that section, the legislators have the final say.

While we may continue to debate the legal issues from the impeachment and highlight the ambiguity of the constitutional provisions, one should also remember that the contemplation of the drafters of the constitution and the very spirit of the constitution in this matter, hinges on the expectation that elected legislators will be objective and upright members of the society capable of making sound and fair judgments. The constitution cannot be expected to contain or envisage all possible scenarios or definitions known to man, but the human mind, which is responsible for its propagation and implementation, also needs to be trusted to do so diligently without fear or favour and in line with the spirit of the law contained in the constitution.

It is perhaps no news to the Enugu people and others beyond the borders of Enugu that the relationship between the governor and his deputy was declining before the impeachment saga. The way it played out also left little doubt that the governor’s loyalists, yes-men or surrogates, who form the bulk of the House of Assembly, including the Chief Judge of the state, whose appointment is largely based on the governor’s discretion, have played out a well-written script to get rid of the errant deputy. We can blame the constitution, its draftsmen or the legislators. The blame in a democracy must, however, always falls back on the people who elect their representatives. This is because our choice of leaders is always a reflection of our character as a people.

What the Enugu State legislators have done is tantamount to lynching a man at the market square on mere suspicion that he may have committed an offence. Well, Onyebuchi has resolved to head to the courts. But one thing is that the courts cannot directly contravene the constitution. If the constitution says the House of Assembly has the discretion to determine what constitutes “gross misconduct”, then the courts cannot fetter this discretion except the legislators’ interpretation is so biased, and against logic and common sense, that it will be clear to a common man that it is absurd and against the spirit of the constitution.

September 3, 2014
‘Our Girls’; Tale of two Drs; Federal ‘Might is not Right’: Jonathanian Presidential Agenda

Our Girls’ are tragically still missing since April 15. No word, no comfort for the suffering families. Imagine if your child or sister was missing for this long. May God grant our government the wisdom to take the correct actions.

A tale of two doctors contrasts the meritorious and self-sacrificing efforts by the late great and gracious Dr Ameyo Adadevoh and dedicated nursing colleagues which prevented further spread of Ebola in Lagos, on the one hand, while another doctor in Port Harcourt, for finance or friendship, takes on an Ebola patient ‘privately’ and treats him successfully even though the doctor, not the patient, died.

The country-destroying immoral and morale-crushing huge, unrealistic and extortionist, ‘Salary and Perks’ SAP, of political people are very relevant to the recent demand by certain elements of that particularly odoriferous breed for the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to ‘apologise’ to the nation for the recent strike. It bears repeating that most of the demands of the NMA are for better circumstances of service which were glaringly absent at the beginning of the Ebola epidemic; better and more modern equipment, regular painting of stinking casualty and waiting and operating rooms, making cancer investigation equipment and cancer radiation therapy and chemotherapy available in 100 instead of just five hospitals or at least one in every state, introduction of an international yardstick for measuring hospitals and not just the dreaded official disease called the ‘Nigerian factor’ as an excuse for every deviation from the norm or every aberration.

These dirty and disgraceful failures of the system are why senators and representatives, let us leave aside the dubious distinction or horrendous honour, are in office. Setting those goals aside for the ‘selfish goals of’ ‘better ‘conditions of service’ is unfair. Indeed let all Nigerians remind themselves of the ‘spoils of political war’ from ‘winning’ or ‘rigging’ the elections that enriched politicians so much above their station that they can now spit at and even vomit over us as a nation.

Is it not amazing that that we are still struggling to see their stupendous salaries? Mr NASS MAN AND WOMAN, BEFORE YOU ABUSE DOCTORS and equate them with other professionals with less qualifications and a shorter and easier learning curve, WHAT DO YOU TAKE HOME as SAP?

Where is the equity? Who knows the multimillion naira and dollar salaries and perks paid to each of the Senators, Reps, Special Advisers, Assembly members, LGA members? I do not. They get, but rarely earn and even more rarely deserve, so much of that which forces them to remain silent when asked ‘how much exactly is your often unearned ‘take home pay’?

Using the current media advertorial parlance, Obasanjo ‘did’ it and now Jonathan is, ‘doing it’, screwing Lagos State as of federal right by interfering in its internal affairs through ministers gone berserk. Obasanjo withheld N10 billion for years, the same amount Sanusi as CBN Governor dashed to the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Jonathan’s government while ‘partnering’ on Ebola is very negative on devolution of powers in waterways management as it has sealed off, with soldiers, an MTN building site at the Falomo Bridge-head for several months. The overriding evil in wielding the fist of federal might that has destroyed development for 40 years can never justify taking away a state’s right to develop. The federal fist must be stopped, corrected and defeated in politics and in court. Instead of the needed friendly federal-state big brother- little brother relationship dedicated to every form of accelerated development Nigerians are confronted with and seem helpless, we have a jealousy thing going here and all the jealousy is on the federal side. Are we at war, Federal vs State? As soon as the state want to ease the suffering of its people on federal roads long abandoned to potholes, or along waterways ignored for 49 years, the federal evil knows no bounds in its efforts to curtail, prevent and decimate the efforts of the state and the needless suffering continues as development is stagnated and mediocrity perpetuated.

No nation can grow or cope with modern life if there is a permanent or partial fight between state and federal or indeed state and LGAs. In contrast to today’s federal negative events, the late President YarAdua ‘did it’ positively with the Lekki Bridge approvals including removal of obstructing federal houses on the water’s edge and Jonathan can ‘do it’ positively by holding off his goons in ‘Ministerial Uniforms’. I believe that the paradox in cooperation with some and not with others between federal government ministries and state is a sickening sign of petty politics gone dangerously wrong where common good is thrown away to punish citizens for not belonging to the federal party. Does Yar’Adua deserve state recognition for his heroic stance in the Lekki Bridge saga? Jonathan can also become a Jonathan ‘did it’ by taking seriously the points raised by the Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola about the neglect of the Apapa Railway terminal which should be carrying heavy goods and containers to other parts of Nigeria. Jonathan’s men may be more preoccupied with ‘partisan politics. However Jonathan is President of all Nigeria and should align his ‘Presidential Agenda’ with commitment to the development agendas of the states of which he is President. Even agriculture has often been sectionalised in favour of some states. How much of the new N50 billion tractor and farm equipment fund will get nationwide distribution?

September 3, 2014
‘Our Girls’; Adadevoh and others; ‘WHO Medical Audit’; Typhoid resident Vs Ebola visitor

Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. What are they going through? What are their families going through? When will they come home? The latest suspected video-supported atrocity of the Boko Haram in murdering Borno State citizens and setting up a Caliphate is a horrific mimicking of what the malignantly evil ISIS. The NEMA should stop the irresponsible castigating of independent authorities over the estimated number of displaced persons as 600,000. Government always emphasises the irrelevant. There are probably even more people displaced as parents flee for their lives and the lives of their children. Who is waiting there to die?

We have lost four Nigerians to Ebola Virus Disease including from the medical and nursing profession doing exemplary work to contain the virus. Our hearts go out to their families who need emotional and financial support. I first met Ameyo Adadevoh with her siblings in the house of her parents Professor Kwaku and Mrs Deborah Adadevoh in the late 60s in University of Ibadan. Her father’s sister Aunty Stella married into the Marinho family. Ameyo had a successful fulfilled caring professional practice. Now she is dead. Only God can comfort her son, husband and other family members and especially her mother. There is talk of national honours for the dead. Perhaps, but this cannot bring them back. From these needless deaths what lessons are to learnt and acted upon by government? What permanent preventive measures are to be made available? Ebola will surely go, but Dr Ameyo Adadevoh, the matron and the other health and ECOWAS support staff will remain dead.

They are dead because of their dedication to duty and personal heroism and because we did not adhere to normal ‘International Standard Individual Isolation Facilities Protocols’ and ‘Deadly Virus Management Protocols’, proper hose-down of patients, and access to the drugs used to save the lives of foreign patients flown abroad. Let them not die in vain. Medicine is not measured by Nigerian sub-standards. Medicine is of one standard -international. This tragedy has exposed the abysmal state of Nigeria’s medical services and sanitary conditions. Of course Jonathan cannot be held responsible for cleaning and monitoring bacteria in hospitals. These are the preserve of the supervisory effectiveness of the nursing staff and microbiology swab takers. But Jonathan can use emergency powers to triple the health budget, have an ‘Independent International WHO Supervised Medical Audit’ to see who is lying about the state of health- the doctors or the ministry. Above all, medicine needs a large dose of ‘truth’ and not more political mumbo jumbo and congratulatory backslapping while the numbers of Ebola patients continues to increase even as typhoid and infections contracted by patients already in hospital defy calculation. Medicine must step up and take its place as it did in the past. You may think that the Indians and Chinese setting up hospitals and diagnostic centres in Nigeria are better than us and are here to save you from our medical failure. Yes and No. They have an undue advantage as they get government grants and bank loans from their home countries at 3-5% long term 3-5 year repayment schedules. Nigerians in medicine are forced to get loans at 25% and 3-12 month repayment terms and that is if they can get a loan at all. The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) should have an NMA Bank with its funds and get grants from African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Bank to give equipment loans to doctors at 4-5% over five years. The health service requires a great ‘cleanliness hand’ as well as cutting-edge equipment. Recently the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission or whatever paralysed the already nearly pathetically inadequate cancer care radiation capability in Nigeria by arbitrarily increasing the fees for radiation material when we should be offering such facilities in every single state. Remember that even the ministry of health for 20 years refused to supply patients in Nigeria’s hospitals with pethidine and other morphine-based pain killers, essential for post-operative care and severe pain. No heads rolled as our patients died of cancer and died in pain. Nigeria was offering better care 30-40 years ago when I was a medical student and a young doctor than it does today. In those days, we had open heart surgery and renal transplants. We were not ashamed to have foreign professors and doctors visit us and operate and use our toilets. Today we are ashamed of the colour of our walls, unpainted and unclean for years. Our equipment is dated. We are ashamed of our level of commitment, paralysed by endless waiting for electricity or equipment to be sterilised or the staff to be assembled.

We can trace our failure to a breakdown of morale in all professional life to the beginning of the end –the corrupt mega-salaries and perks. SAP paid the political class and SAPing the will of other Nigerians to work when politicians take N30 -45m per quarter for talking. The NMA strike may be suspended but the medical air remains polluted with criminal neglect by government and its officials in the accumulation of filth, real and management filth, in our chronically under-funded and demoralised medical services. Ameyo and our valiant others must not die in vain. Nigeria, stop crocodile tears and at least clean up and provide 21st Century sanitation for our hospitals, schools and markets and wash your hands! Nigerian Typhoid is a permanent resident killer, not a visitor like Ebola!

August 27, 2014
Soyinka: Biafran memory of Asaba

In his last important work, Chinua Achebe offered his own description of the human debacle which characterized the prosecution of the Nigerian Civil War. In his inimitable pungency the grandmaster observed that more firearms were deployed than the total supply used by the Axis and Allied Forces during the Second World War! On page 170 of There Was A Country, Achebe stated that “the Nigeria – Biafra conflict created a human emergency of epic proportions” with millions flooding the deplorable camps, “epidemic ridden grave yards, where shortages of supplies, poor sanitation created a bitter cocktail of despair, giving rise to social pathological and psychological traumas.”

Through those cruel trench exchanges, cold-blooded massacres and through the trauma of parents’ watching helplessly, the final seconds of their children starving to death, the Biafran granite resistance remained stoic and stubborn. Of all the colossal losses suffered by both sides, there were few exceptional calamities. For the federal Second Division, the Abagana Fiasco, and the disastrous Niger crossing from Asaba, was like the Oguta and the Owerri final offensive of the Third Commando Division, landmark reverses which at the end of the day, returned the initiative to the desperate secessionists.

On the Biafran side, the stop at Ore; the poisoning and the consequent wipe-out of the Biafran Expeditionary Army by their Bini hostesses; the loss of the entire Midwest; the fall of Port Harcourt and its refinery; the loss of Azumiri, Egbema, Ohaji, Uzuakoli and for that matter the Biafran food basket axis of Ngwa land, Akwette, Aba etc, were heavy reverses that were never contained till the bitter end.

As the Biafrans took more punishment, the death on July 29, 1967 at Obollo Ofor of the charismatic Major C.K. Nzeogwu almost brought the war to an early end. In our exclusive chronicle of the last hours of Kaduna Nzeogwu (See pp 45, Blood On The Niger), we noted that the immediate impact of Nzeogwu’s death was devastating across the lines. His death led to the emotional loss of Opi junction, which as he had predicted, led to the eventual loss of the war. He had advised Ojukwu not to declare secession as that would pull the OAU to the federal side. His death diminished the potentials of organizing a southern command in tandem and his trusted lieutenants, Majors Obasanjo, Ogbemudia, Atom Kpera abandoned their neutral stand and went full circle carrying the federal flag to war.

In his own battlefield testimony, former Press Secretary to the Head of State and Daily Times War Correspondent, David Attah stated in the Sunday Sun, January 22, 2011, that,…”When Major C.K Nzeogwu was killed, the wailing of the Nigerian officers shocked me. An enemy officer was killed and I could not believe their tears. They had lost a comrade-in-arms, a man who believed very much in the Nigerian Revolution.” On the orders of the Federal Commander, Nzeogwu was buried in Kaduna with full military honours.

Colonel Charlie Archibong was the lead Commander at Ore ahead of the invading Biafran forces that struck the Mid West, August 9, 1967. He had His Excellency’s special Orders to blitz through the West and sack Dodan Barracks in 48 hours! He was ordered to stop and from Ore the Brigadier Banjo’s inexplicable Retreat Orders led to the federal recapture of the Midwest. Charlie Archibong was to see more action at Ikot Ekpene and after one of those his risky officer-led Recce operations, his command headquarters waited in vain for his return. A federal well organized ambush had spotted the Biafran officer, ensnared and trapped him into a double obstacle. In the mad rush to recover his body, the Biafrans lost the strategic Ikot Ekpene town and the entire sector. No other Biafran officer apart from Col. Nsudo also from Akwa Ibom, fought the war with such incomparable zeal, sacrifices as Charlie Bazooka!

Another heart breaker for Biafra came with the shocking news of the death of Major Adaka Boro. Like in the ironic case of Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, both friends and foes cried at his funeral. General Alabi Isama in his book went further to produce the photograph of the Biafran straggler who shot the Major at the Port-Harcourt sector of the war. Adaka Boro’s death put Biafra in mourning as most of the Biafra field commanders were followers of Boro. Issac Boro was many things to many people, but as the President, University of Nigeria, Students Union, in the early ‘60s, he was the epitome of the golden age of Nigerian student revolution. At Nsukka, he had a covenant with his disciples. They communicated in special languages and codes. These subalterns were his followers and the first to volunteer service into the Officer Corps Regiment that bore the brunt of the war. They did not question the leader when he declared the KIAMA philosophy and were not in any position to question his decision to join the federal forces. His death was a shock and like loyal officers they fanned out from their bush locations to salute the fall of a fine officer.

While the Biafrans were able to return to their trenches after the funeral rites of those officers, they were in inconsolable grief on learning of the death of the Nigeria’s Paragon of Integrity, Crusader against Genocide and Africa’s Leading Voice against man’s Inhumanity to Man.

At the 2010 Harvard International Conference celebrating the works of Christopher Okigbo, Achebe with Professor Soyinka sitting beside him, once more, recalled the reaction of the people of the Sun to the sad news of the ‘death” of the activist. “We learnt that our friend and dissident, Professor Wole Soyinka had died in prison custody… the whole enclave erupted in solidarity and a new energy and a Spartan resolve to fight to the finish was unleashed”.

And for the Biafran memories, Professor Wole Soyinka was the first courageous voice to relate the gruesome death of King’s College handsome Alumnus, Gogo Nzeribe. When the man Died, Gogo was bound hands and feet by Captain Bulala Tarfa and fed for days to cockroaches in Kirikiri Prisons. When nobody had the balls, he was the lone voice right there in prison custody who told the world about Asaba.

“A Corporal had shot 13 detainees in Asaba in cold blood. A young Yoruba boy admitted shooting them. He said they were talking in Igbo and he had ordered them to speak English. He decided that they were plotting something so he turned his machine gun on them. He was released two days ago and re-assigned to a new Division by the Office of the Chief of Staff. Then I asked why….it is only part of the same extermination process. It has been bred in them. A free for all epidemic. That young man had done his bit, he is set free”.

August 27, 2014
Nasarawa’s ‘cash and carry’ politics

Three weeks ago, this column pointed out the brazen act of illegality which the Nasarawa State House of Assembly, particularly the 20 members from the opposition party, is trying to foist on the people of the state. It is very clear that their satanic plot is to remove Tanko Al-Makura, the legitimate governor of the state, by illegitimate means. Though impeachment is a legitimate weapon enshrined in the constitution to check executive recklessness in the polity, many right-thinking Nigerians are amazed and dazed by the easy recourse of some lawmakers (or lawbreakers) in some Houses of Assembly to invoke this section of the constitution at will to settle personal scores or political differences.

Now that the Nasarawa State House of Assembly has been beaten to their game, the 20 opposition legislators are not taking their defeat lightly. They have vowed to continue with the impeachment moves against their governor in spite of the fact that the panel constituted to investigate allegations against him, has returned a not-guilty verdict. There is no other way to describe this desperation than to call it legislative rascality. This is because if, indeed, the legislators were genuinely representing the people who voted them into the House, the whole impeachment brouhaha should have ended at the point the panel dismissed the 16 counts of gross abuse of office levelled against the governor.

It is quite unfortunate that all the legal questions raised by the entire impeachment saga have not been addressed, yet more are being created as the episode continues. The key issues raised by the impeachment drama as stated in the column before this, are, first, whether the Nassarawa State House of Assembly had conformed with the provisions of Section 188 of the Constitution that demands that notice of the impeachment be served on the governor within seven days of its presentation to the Speaker of the House; second, whether the Chief Judge of the state has complied with Section 188 (5) of the Constitution in setting up the panel charged with investigating the allegations against the governor; and third and last, whether the House of Assembly can direct the Chief Judge to disband and reconstitute the panel on its own authority as opposed to calling a court of competent jurisdiction to determine whether the panel was indeed duly constituted or not, and making consequential orders based on its determination.

None of these issues has yet been conclusively addressed by the Nasarawa State House of Assembly or the Chief Judge of the state. Still, the whole episode keeps unfolding in a direction so far removed from legality that one must wonder whether the law or any perceived breach of the law means anything to these institutions that are responsible for its formulation and interpretation. Meanwhile, in one breath, the House of Assembly stands by its ‘order’ to the Chief Judge to disband the panel amidst vows to continue the impeachment process irrespective of the report of the panel. In another breath, it promises to institute an action in court to determine the legality of the panel. The absurd reality of this legislative double-speak in Nasarawa and the seeming lack of any statement by the Chief Judge on the legality of the constituted panel in line with Section 188 (5) of the Constitution, bears a remarkable resemblance to the politics of impunity practised in Nigeria which pervades all arms and levels of government. An otherwise straight-forward procedure laid down by the laws of the land has resulted in legal and legislative circus show to the surprise of no one in the country.

If the Nasarawa State House of Assembly does go ahead with its threat of continuing the impeachment process in the light of recent developments without recourse to the law courts, then we may be headed to yet another instance of blatant disregard for our constituted laws in the country. This has disturbingly become more of a trend than otherwise as one would expect of an organized society. From all indications, the circumstances of this present case cannot be left to or resolved in the “court of public opinion” as the APC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, had suggested in earlier comments to the press. The situation calls for a lawful order, one way or another, to put an end to this public show of shame by all parties who are rumoured to be acting on absurd pecuniary motivations, unsurprisingly.

The resolution to this debacle, whatever the motivation, appears to lie more on the issue of the legality of the constituted panel than on any other issue. If we were to be realistic on the issue of service or non-service of impeachment notice on the governor, one may point out that while it is always in the interest of the law to insist on adherence to procedures laid down therein, it is also on record that, sometimes, the courts have taken a tough stance on cases hinged on service or non-service of legally required notices by looking at the essence of such notice to begin with. The essence of a ‘notice’ is to bring to a party’s knowledge the existence of certain facts or circumstances to accord that party the privilege of knowing about them, such as a suit or allegations for instance, and create an opportunity for a reply or defence to those allegations. If even after the omission of this notice by the accusing party (or parties), the indicted party has in one way or the other got wind of the allegations and has, in some cases, even proffered or prepared his defence, then the insistence on the actual service of the notice and any issue arising from it becomes superfluous or a technicality and not a necessity. However, the law is the law and must be followed, especially by elected officials who should know better.

This brings us to the issue of the composition of the panel by the Chief Judge, which is at the centre of the matter. The legality of the panel is not only justiciable but, surprisingly, it can be determined in a competent court at the instance of any of the affected parties. It will be a suit purely calling the court to decide if the panel was validly constituted. If the House of Assembly is not willing to call the court to decide on the legality, any other affected party can equally do so. It can be a matter decided solely based on affidavits as clearly provided for by the Originating Summons procedure of the High Courts and Federal High Courts.

For sure, the constitution leaves no room for the legislature to determine the composition of the panel, or decide the mode of sitting or the outcome of the deliberation. And just as what constitutes gross misconduct is left entirely to the discretion of the legislators, the composition of the panel is the prerogative of the Chief Judge of the state as well. Therefore, the legislators’ refusal to accept the panel’s verdict amounts to legislative recklessness, and any attempt to force out the governor through extra-constitutional means is an open invitation to chaos and anarchy.

With the knowledge that there are top legal practitioners involved on all sides, one can only wonder why there are so many legal missteps and disregard for legal procedure from the onset of the Al-Makura’s impeachment saga. It calls the integrity of lawyers involved to question and puts the sincerity of their legal advice and ethics in bad light, depending on the level and the time of their involvements. With the foregoing, let me state what we all know clearly. There is all probability that this whole mess has nothing to do with gross misconduct, or the desire of a House of Assembly to act in the interest of the people or even the law at all. This may just be politics as usual, fuelled by cash. No wonder, the players are picking and choosing from laws that suit their interest and playing it all out in the public gallery, like true Nigerian politicians that they all are. God help us all!

August 27, 2014
Again, the return of Chinweizu and all that

A supposed email exchange between Chinweizu, veteran columnist and author (The West and the Rest of Us, Anatomy of Female Power) and Professor G.G. Darah, communications teacher and prominent Delta State delegate to the just concluded national conference, has been making the rounds on the internet. If the exchange is true – and the style and substance of the exchange suggests it is – then we are in an even deeper trouble in this country than we imagine because of the Boko Haram insurgency.

The exchange, dated August 6, was copied to Mr Yinka Odumakin, an outspoken Afenifere spokesman, Col. Tony Nyiam, Rtd, who, like Darah, is also a Delta State delegate to the national conference and the arrowhead of the 1990 attempted coup against General Ibrahim Babangida, which purported to have excised much of the North from Nigeria, and to one Professor Chinedu Nwajimba.

The chilling concluding paragraphs of the exchange is worth reproducing in full, if only because of the possibility, even probability, it raises that it may have been the motive in convening the conference, if not of the authorities themselves, at least of elements at the conference who are known to be very close to the powers that be.

“The main point,” Chinweizu said in his email, “is that we can’t afford to prolong our agony under Caliphate Colonialism. Our Liberation requires that they leave Nigeria entirely, and the sooner the better. If they are allowed to remain on any terms, even by return to 1960 Federalism or even Aburi, we’ll still have them polluting our polity. (Please see the attachment). So the sooner we get them out completely the better for us.

“And if we can defeat and expel them without recourse to shooting war, i.e. without bloodshed, that’s the best. So you guys should do it within the Confab walls. Excise them by talking and voting; don’t wait till you have to shoot and bleed. Political war is better than military war.”

Earlier in the roughly 800-word email, Chinweizu had expressed his happiness at what he said was a new division in the country the so-called progressives at the conference have engineered, something he described as the new “Greater/New South vs. Shariyaland geopolitical divide.” He then said although they were to be congratulated for their achievement in creating this new fault line, they should know that the battle had just begun.

“When the Confab returns to wind up,” he said, “if you can’t get them to walk out or can’t pass a resolution excising Shariyaland, Orkar style, then engineer a breakdown, with a Greater South separate majority/minority report that creates the cleavage that would oblige the Prez to reconvene the Confab as Confab 2, ostensibly for reconciliation across the cleavage. But you’d seize the opportunity at Confab 2 to create a Peoples’ Constitution, without any compromises to accommodate Arewa/Shariyaland. And you can there excise them if they resist the new constitution, as they will surely do. Am sure you and Yinka (Odumakin) can get that going and accomplish it. If all fails, at least get a resolution passed by the Greater South majority, postponing the 2015 election till after a new Constitution is approved by referendum.”

The reader will recall that in my column of January 15 on these pages, entitled: “The return of Chinweizu and all that,” I had cause to join issues with the gentleman when he wrote in The Guardian of December 12 and 19, 2013 to take on the radical politician and Kano State delegate to the national conference, Dr Junaid Muhammad, and President Olusegun Obasanjo, one over his criticisms of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in press interviews, and the other over his since famous open letter to our No 1 Citizen, which was even more critical of the president than Dr Muhammad’s interviews.

Chinweizu entitled the first piece “To Junaid Mohammed and the Shariyalanders.” What he said in it was pretty much the same as what he repeated in his email to Darah. It was also pretty much the same as his December 19 criticism of Obasanjo’s letter, except he did not forget to dismiss the 1999 Constitution under which Obasanjo returned to power as “illegitimate” and “a self-interested creation of Northern generals for the parochial interest of Shariyaland”. This was in spite of the fact, as we all now know, that the 1979 Constitution promulgated by Obasanjo as military head of state, which is essentially the same with the 1999, was authored principally by people like Professor Ben Nwabueze, Chinweizu’s fellow Biafran traveller and critic of the 1999 Constitution – thanks, in part, to the professor’s self-confession in a recent interview in Sunday Vanguard (March 20).

Chinweizu’s email began with thanks to Darah for his situation report on the national conference and a plea that Darah and perhaps those he copied would “get it widely published in the media for the enlightenment of the Greater/New South (i.e. South + Middle Belt) Public.” Specifically, he wanted Odumakin to get it published in the Nigerian Tribune.

I am not aware than Odumakin has been able to do so but Darah’s report has been published in The Pointer (August 25), the newspaper of Delta State, at least in its online edition from where I was able to download the report. Darah’s triumphalism over his version of the outcome of the national conference betrayed a malicious intent towards a section of this country – a malicious intent probably shared among those in power – which nearly turned the conference’s final sitting into a fiasco.

“There will be two layers of power. One federal, two states,” Darah said in his report rather cockily. “Local governments will exist as they are in section 7 of the section, but they will not be a tier of government. Get me correctly, they will not form a tier. There is no federation where councils are tiers. It’s only in Nigeria, and they did it to spoon feed those 419 local governments in the North.”

States, he also said, will design their own constitutions to cater for local interests. “It is so in India, Germany, Canada, it is so in America,” he said.

Darah is absolutely correct that in a true federation there can be only two tiers of government; the federal and the state. It would then be up to the latter to create any number of local and municipal governments it wants depending on its wherewithal and the wisdom of its politicians.

Problem is, Nigeria ceased to be a true federation like all of Darah’s examples, from the day the military first seized power in January 1966. True federations come about by aggregation. The Nigerian federation since 1966 has been by disaggregation. In other words, instead of power being ceded to the centre from the component parts, it has flowed in the opposite direction, with all this implies for the autonomy of the component parts.

Even then, I believe the conference took the right decision in abrogating local governments as a tier, if only because they have no legislative powers except for bye-laws, and even though the decision smacks of vendetta against a section of the country. The ill motive behind the decision was apparent from the conference’s confusion in its decision to still allocate 22.5 per cent of the federal revenue pool to the tier as against 42.5 per cent for the centre and 30 per cent for the states in its recommendation for revenue allocation.

This brings me to Darah’s explanation for what he described in his situation report as the “climb down” by delegates from the Delta region on the controversy over the size of derivation as a principle of revenue allocation, a climb down he chose to blame essentially on the Yoruba, in particular one Yoruba delegate from Lagos.

The merit of his position on this issue and on the major decisions of the conference will be the subject of this column next week, God willing. It will also examine Darah’s report as a wanton denigration of the North and as propaganda for President Jonathan.

August 27, 2014
In defence of NDF

THE last time we met on these pages two weeks ago, I predicted that the final meeting of the National Conference scheduled for August 11 was likely to end in a fiasco. This, I said, was essentially because, like virtually all our constitutional conferences since 1966, it was convened in bad faith. Alas, I was almost proved right.

The proofs of bad faith were many, among which were the timing of the conference so close to next year’s general elections and the wilful and blatant imbalance in the regional and religious composition of its membership. As if these were not bad enough, some delegates close to the presidency, apparently working in cahoots with a section of the conference’s leadership, tried to sneak a document into it which contained provisions that were widely suspected to be the real object of the conference in the first place. This was towards the end of the conference.

The 102-page document purporting to be the “Terms of Agreement of the Six Geo-Political Zones in Nigeria” contained such provisions dear to President Goodluck Jonathan and members of his kitchen cabinet like the six-year single-term tenure for the executive arm of government and 50 per cent of revenue allocation based on derivation, as opposed to the current 13 per cent.

That this document was introduced in bad faith soon became evident when a motion by Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, a member representing the Nigerian Guild of Editors, and supported by former Senate President Ken Nnamani, a delegate from Enugu State, calling on the conference’s leadership to explain its appearance forced the leadership to repudiate it.

“We,” said the Chairman, Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi, as reflected in the Conference Hansard of June 30, “know nothing about the paper in circulation…We have nothing to do with it. That matter should be closed!”

When the conference resumed penultimate Monday for the final consideration of its decisions, it became obvious that those intent on imposing their principal’s hidden agenda on the conference were undeterred by the chairman’s categorical repudiation of their document; in place of “Terms of Agreement of the Six Geo-Political Zones in Nigeria”, another more daring document purporting to be “DRAFT CONSTITUTION OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, 2014” was included among the documents circulated among the members.

Predictably, the Northern Delegates Forum (NDF), which forced the rejection of the first document, rose against the second. “We,” said its leader, former Inspector-General of Police Ibrahim Commassie, Sardaunan Katsina, in the press statement it issued on August 12, “unequivocally disown it, and emphatically disassociate ourselves from it.”

The Forum gave several reasons for its rejection, among which were (1) that being unelected members of the conference, they were not qualified to write any draft constitution; (2) their brief was to amend the 1999 Constitution not write a new one; and (3) making 2014 the effective date of a new constitution ahead of next year’s general elections was a camouflage to legitimise a third term for governors currently serving their second term under the 1999 Constitution and a way to evade the controversy that has dodged the legality of President Jonathan’s undeclared but apparent decision to contest next year’s presidential election.

To buttress their suspicions, the delegates variously pointed out that several decisions were inserted in the so-called draft that were extraneous to the conference’s proceedings. For example, they said, Section 2A in the so-called draft, which approved state constitutions, as in America, was never sanctioned by the conference. Again, the conference, they said, did not approve referendum as a mechanism for adopting a new constitution because that, in itself, entailed amending the current constitution, which approves for referenda only for state creation or boundary adjustments. Also, the conference, they said, never approved that Section 305, on the continued validity of certain pre-existing laws, including the Land Use Act and NYSC, be deleted, as contained in the so-called draft. And so on.

Not surprisingly, the Southern delegates, along with several from the Middle Belt, responded robustly the following day to the NDF’s rejection of the so-called draft. At a press conference addressed by the leadership of these delegates shortly after the conference adjourned from its final meeting that day, John Dara, a delegate from Kwara State and secretary of the Middle Belt Forum, which he claimed consisted of 14 of the 19 states in the North, said the delegates from the sub-region were “solidly in support of the outcome of this conference”.

Nigeria, he said, “would be operated on a new improved constitution, based on the deliberation of the conference subject to the approval of the people of Nigeria”. Those who objected to the labelling of the conference’s report as a draft constitution, he said, were not controverting the accuracy of the report but were merely “not mentally prepared for the idea of a new constitution and that the reality was a bit shocking for some people”.

Yinka Odumakin, the spokesman for Afenifere, the Yoruba cultural umbrella organisation, was even more scathing of the NDF than Dara in his reaction carried by Vanguard (August 13). Members of the NDF, he said, were only trying to blackmail the conference about the draft constitution. “What they are doing,” he said, “is just to blackmail the conference by saying that the draft constitution is Jonathan’s third term agenda. That is not the truth.”

Blackmail or no blackmail, the chairman of the conference, Justice Kutigi, took the NDF’s objection to the so-called draft seriously enough to assure delegates in his closing remarks that if there were any errors in the conferences reports, they were not deliberate and that there was nothing like a draft constitution.

“What were articulated to the delegates,” he said, “were all issues agreed at the plenary session and there is nothing like a draft constitution. What we have are proposed amendments to the 1999 Constitution. I repeat, there was nothing like a draft constitution.”

With this, the conference somewhat surprised sceptics like me and avoided ending in a fiasco. Hopefully, the chair will submit a report to the president tomorrow afternoon, which has accurately captured its decisions.

If it does so, many people may dismiss the NDF as a bunch of attack dogs that cried wolf where none existed simply because it wanted the status quo to remain. That would be grossly unfair.

A Daily Trust story last week, which said the chairman claimed his brief in his letter of appointment from the president was to produce a new constitution, suggested bad faith on the president’s side, assuming the story was accurate. I have read and re-read the president’s speech when he inaugurated the conference on March 17. Nowhere in the 56-paragraph, 2,574-word speech did he explicitly ask the conference to give him a draft constitution.

The closest he came to doing so was in paragraph 46, where he commended the National Assembly for proposing an amendment to the current constitution that would allow for referendum as a mechanism for adopting a new constitution, should the need arise.

“Let me,” he said, “at this point thank the National Assembly for introducing the provision for a referendum in the proposed amendment of the Constitution. This should be relevant for this Conference, if, at the end of the deliberations, the need for a referendum arises. I, therefore, urge the National Assembly and the State Houses of Assembly to speed up the constitutional amendment process, especially with regard to the subject of referendum.”

Surely it would be an act of bad faith for the president to even merely imply something in public only to explicitly declare it in private, assuming, that is, that was what happened. Sources close to the chairman said he has been critical of the Daily Trust story as a gross misrepresentation of what he had said, which was that the president had asked him in his letter to go well beyond merely making recommendations, as had been the case before, and propose ways and means by which its recommendations will be implemented.

Assuming he was misrepresented by Daily Trust, it should be obvious to anyone with even only half an eye that someone somewhere was trying to exploit his belief in the sincerity of the president to make mischief with the conference reports. This much was clear from the way John Dara and Company have tried to defend the so-called draft constitution as quoted above.

The man says the northern delegates did not controvert the content of the so-called draft when indeed they quoted chapter and verse where it contained gross misrepresentations of the conference’s decisions. Not only that, he went on to gloat about what he called “the reality” of a new constitution that those opposed to it would have to live this.

Justice Kutigi has insisted that the conference reports were merely proposed amendments to the 1999 Constitution. That being so, to label anyone of them a draft constitution and even give the year in which it will take effect is a gross misrepresentation of what it is. After all there is everything in a name.

In any case you don’t have to be an expert in English grammar to see that the difference between DRAFT CONSTITUTION OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, 2004 and DRAFT PROPOSALS TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTIONOF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, 1999 is not mere hair-splitting. Even an idiot can see that the second is, by far, a more accurate representation of the conference’s brief than the first, to the extent that the first is accurate at all.

Isn’t it then strange that many of those, like Dara and Odumakin, who like to dismiss the 1999 Constitution as one not written by “we, the people” are the same ones who would vehemently support another drafted by hand-picked government nominees who have nowhere near as much legitimacy as the elected majority of those who drafted the 1979 Constitution which, really, is what the 1999 Constitution is, give or take a few amendments?

August 20, 2014