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Category: Wednesday

  • Letter to the President: “Third Term” as the Road to Anarchy

    Letter to the President: “Third Term” as the Road to Anarchy

    Two weeks ago I promised I will reproduce today an open letter I wrote to former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a little over seven years ago which somewhat predicted the sad and tragic predicament he’s found himself in recently, following his own earthshaking letter to his estranged godson, President Goodluck Jonathan. Hopefully, President Jonathan, his praise mongers and attack dogs – and the rest of us – will learn the lessons of the letter, among which are that we should always at least try to practise what we preach and always remember that in the end what we sow is what we reap. Below is the letter edited for space:

    Dear Mr. President,

    Last week, I reproduced in these columns an open letter I wrote to you 17 years ago on the occasion of the publication of what was your magnum opus titled Constitution for National Integration and Development. In reproducing the letter as a reminder that our past will always catch up with us, if we refuse to learn from it, I said the letter was a prelude to another one I had decided to write to you. This is the letter.

    It will be my second since you returned to power on May 29, 1999, this time as elected president. The first letter was published on these pages on May 11, 2005, nearly a year ago. In that letter, I said that you should learn the lesson that power is ephemeral and you should therefore perish the thought of overstaying your welcome. The letter was titled “The lesson of Power” and it was about “rumours” at that time that you, or at least your henchmen were scheming for a third term, some would say a lifetime agenda. For a long while you yourself artfully dodged questions on the issue, most famously when the visiting President of the World Bank, Mr. Paul Wolfowitz, asked you point-blank whether or not you wanted to extend your tenure.

    Sir, if you were an artful dodger of questions about extending your stay in office, several of your henchmen were categorical in their denials of such a scheme. Notable among these deniers were Deputy Senate President, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu, your erstwhile political adviser, Professor Jerry Gana, your inter-party affairs adviser, Alhaji Lawal Batagarawa, and Chief Onyeama Ugochukwu, who until recently was executive chairman of the well-endowed Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.

    Most recently, Professor Julius Ihonvbere, who took over Gana’s job as your political adviser, dismissed all speculations about your third term agenda as political laziness. “They”, he said in an interview in the Sunday Independent of March 19, 2006, “are busy on TV and newspapers spreading stories about third term. That is political laziness”.

    Needless to say, in spite of your artful dodging and in spite of the categorical denials by some of your henchmen, the “rumours” of your third term agenda persisted. The reason, as I said in my first letter to you, was pretty obvious; there was a huge gap between what you and your henchmen said and what you all did.

    Just about two years ago, The Guardian advised you in an editorial that you should make a categorical statement denouncing rumours of your third term agenda. “Here is a case”, it said in its editorial of April 1, 2004, “where silence is not golden.” For whatever reason, you ignored the newspaper’s advice. Which was just as well. Because if you had not, and swore to it on a stack of the Holy Bible, few Nigerians would still have believed you because your denials would have been at great odds with the facts on the ground even then.

    Among those facts was your apparent determination to subvert the internal democracy of your party, the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party, by recreating it in your own imperial image. There was also your wilful interference in the choice of the leadership of the National Assembly from the word go. Again, there was, of course, your implacable hostility towards your deputy’s well-known wish to succeed you in 2007 and your none-too-subtle denigration of anyone, notably Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari, who showed the slightest interest in your job.

    Sir, your recent hints that only you can save Nigeria from anarchy has an antecedent. Remember you dropped a similar hint in late 2002 at the height of the threats by the House of Representatives, under the leadership of Alhaji Umar Ghali Na’Abba, to impeach you. That hint prompted the Nigerian Tribune to write an editorial titled THE ALARM ON CIVIL WAR in its edition of September 24, 2002. In that editorial it said your alarm, more likely than not, “could very well be the hollow desperate cry to those base sentiments by a man who has leaned too heavily upon his own counselling and understanding in bungling a golden opportunity”.

    Your Excellency, on May 29, 1999, Nigerians gave you a platinum opportunity, if there is such an expression, to write your name in platinum in Nigeria’s history book. I am afraid, sir, you truly bungled and squandered that opportunity and this was essentially because you allowed vengeance – vengeance against all those you believed had wronged you by wanting to hang you for treason – to become the main driving force in formulating your policies and programmes.

    Sir, you betrayed this motive by the fact that you had barely settled down in your seat as president when you set up the Human Rights Violations Investigations Commission (HRVIC), a.k.a. Oputa Panel, initially to look into human rights violations between 1993, the year you were sentenced to the gallows, and May 1999, the year you emerged from death’s shadow to become Nigeria’s second elected president. It was only after the general uproar about the Oputa Panel’s narrow focus that you extended its period of coverage to include your years in office as military leader.

    Compare your haste, sir, to the well-measured steps South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, took to set up his own Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As you know very well Mandela had more cause to seek vengeance than yourself. After all, he spent 27 years in prison compared to your own five. And the prison conditions there were probably more appalling than ours, given the racist nature of the regime that locked him up.

    At the time the Oputa Panel started sitting late 2001, you may have read a letter written to you by Malam Abubakar Gimba, author and one-time President of the Association of Nigerian Authors. The letter was published in the Daily Trust of August 27, 2001. It is one of the most inspiring pieces of literature I have read in a long time and I wish I had space to reproduce it for you.

    Sir, if you read that letter at all, it is obvious that you did not heed its wise counsel. In that letter, Gimba quoted profusely from the Holy Bible to try and persuade you, as a self-proclaimed born-again Christian, to learn to forgive any past wrongs done to you and focus on reconciliation. “The Holy Bible,” Gimba said among other things, “fully endorses reconciliation when it says (Corinthians 5:19) ‘that God (the Most High) was in Christ (may Allah’s peace be on him) reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them and has committed to us the word reconciliation’ “ (emphasis, author’s). Gimba said only the tonic of forgiveness will bring about the needed reconciliation in the land and only you could start the process by injecting the antidote.

    He concluded his letter by quoting, again from the Holy Bible, the parable of the rejected cornerstone. You were, he said, destined by God to lead our national reconciliation. “Think about it,” he said. “In particular (think about) Psalm 118:22 ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone’.

    “Your Excellency, Mr. President” Gimba finally said, “you were once rejected. Then the Lord restored you to His Grace. Now you are our chief cornerstone. You must do the Lord’s will.”

    Sir, instead of doing the Lord’s will, you chose to do your own will. You chose to avenge those you believed had wronged you either directly, by sending you to the gallows, or indirectly by not raising a finger to protest your ill-treatment. This vengefulness has been apparent from, among other things, the way you have formulated your annual budgets since 1999 and even more so from the highly selective manner you have implemented those budgets to reward groups and sections of the country in your good books and punish those you dislike.

    The vengefulness is also obvious from the way you have tried to divide and rule Nigerians by a most cynical manipulation of ethnicity and religion, mainly through thinly disguised sponsorships of sectional and sectarian associations, even as you yourself condemned such associations as reactionary and divisive.

    Sir, your vengefulness coupled with your apparent belief that you alone know best what is good for Nigeria is what has led the country into its current serious political crisis, a crisis that may lead to anarchy and even into a civil war if we are not careful. Already, there are ominous dark clouds hanging over the country, dark clouds created by your administration’s use of the security forces to harass and intimidate opposition elements pursuing their legitimate rights of free speech, free association and lawful assembly.

    These harassments and intimidation are camouflaged as the need to maintain law and order. The hypocrisy of it all, however, is laid bare by the fact that last week as your administration was prosecuting some members of the Atiku Vanguard for forming, managing and supporting what it called an illegal organisation working for the Vice-President, you yourself were busy setting up the Obasanjo Solidarity Forum.

    Sir, the only way to avoid the manifest danger facing the country is for you to sincerely and unequivocally denounce your third term agenda. Most Nigerian’s would probably not believe you even if you do but you can still convince them if your own actions and those of your henchmen begin to speak louder than your words.

    You know, or at least should know, very well that many of those now telling you that you are indispensable – the Colonel Ahmadu Alis with their crude and silly metarphours about not changing clothes when they are not dirty, the Navy Captain Olabode Georges of this world with their equally crude and silly metarphours of not changing pilots when the aircraft is yet to reach cruising level – all these characters said the same thing to leaders like military president General Ibrahim Babangida, and to your tormentor, General Sani Abacha. You can bet your last kobo they will say the same thing to whoever succeeds you.

    They say the time to quit is when the ovation is loudest. Regardless of what your courtiers tell you, right now probably more Nigerians are jeering your administration than cheering it. The fact is that in spite of your brave attempts at political and economic reforms there is more insecurity, sorrow and misery in the land than when you first returned. Your administration may peddle statistics of your achievements, but in the end it is the human effect that matters.

    The fact is that in spite of your brave effort, you have woefully failed to stop, much less reverse, the rot in our infrastructure like electricity, refineries, higher education and health. One area you seem to have achieved something was telecommunication, with the establishment of mobile phones. Even here the achievement is marred by the inefficiency of the system and its outrageous cost to the consumer, not to mention the terrible and scandalous mess which Pentascope made of Nitel, the nation’s fixed line carrier.

    In the light of all these signal failures it is tempting for you to want to extend your tenure. Sir, you must resist that temptation with every ounce of your strength. Mr. President, Sir, no one, and absolutely no one, is indispensable to his country or cause. As you know very well, the graveyard is full with bodies of many who thought or believed they were indispensable. You owe yourself and Nigeria not to be counted among those who suffered such grand delusions about themselves. If you persist you will only be leading Nigeria down the road to anarchy. At the end of it all, you would then have gone down in Nigeria’s history as its arch-villain instead of one of its heroes.

    May God Almighty give you the strength to avoid such a tragic end to a once glorious career.

  • Not in God’s name

    In the last three decades, there has been a systematic upsurge in the number of places of worship that have kept on mushrooming in every nook and cranny of the country. Today, religion has virtually moved from the spiritual realm to become a major factor for economic development for many Nigerians. Nowadays, regardless of family background, many Nigerian men and women have abandoned the search for gainful employment for the warm embrace of what could be termed ‘economic spirituality’. What this means is that many people now see religion as a means to an end or as the quickest way to make money and live in opulence. Indeed, the whole thing has become a big industry on its own.

    As it is, all that is needed to start a church is for an individual to look for a one-bedroom apartment, a small shop somewhere or make do with a makeshift shed either with raffia palm or a disused container. Gradually, what begins with a congregation of less than five people, mostly the husband, wife and children, often grows to become a big place of worship that will require a land upon which a church will be built. From there, the thing keeps on expanding. And if the finances of the newly established church are properly managed, the congregation could stay together for long. If, on the other hand, there is any sign of smartness anywhere, particularly in the area of finance, then there is the likelihood of a faction breaking off to form a new church elsewhere. This has become a major factor responsible for the multiplicity of worship places now dotting the entire landscape of the country.

    The increase in churches has given rise to a new set of nouveaux riche who are also managers and chief executives of these churches. They go by various names and titles such as primate, supreme shepherd, general overseer, founding bishop and many more. As soon as there is a boom in their congregations, these individuals who are driven by the lure of money and power, will then transform themselves gradually into the overlords of the business empires, which by now have become a very large conglomerate. What is then used to bamboozle their followers is the claim that they are anointed by the Holy Spirit, or that they have received divine call to embark on their ministries. And of course, a few ‘miracles’ here and there take place to convince the congregation that, indeed, the spirit of God is dwelling in the heart of the big boss.

    I remember in those days, in the early 80s when I used to live in Idimu in Alimosho Local government Area of Lagos State. At that time, what baffled me was that on my street alone, Powerline Street, I could count at least about 13 places of worship belonging to different denominations of the Christian faith. Some were worshipping in uncompleted buildings, in one-room apartments, shops, open spaces and all that. They equally had their different modes of worship, which included, in most cases, nocturnal prayers and rituals particularly beginning at midnight to the wee hours of the morning with the accompanied noise making which more or less contributed greatly to their nuisance values. The last time I was there a few months ago, I noticed a great reduction in the churches. It is either some of them have relocated or they simply close shop for ‘lack of patronage’.

    We have watched helplessly as the focus of the religious merchants have shifted from spiritual intercession to save humanity from perdition and doom, to a clandestine scramble for obscene wealth and other inanities of life. By virtue of their headship of various churches and the unrestricted access to the common till of their congregation, our men of God now fall over themselves to take vantage positions where they could get closer to politicians and the elite class. They sustain their sartorial taste for luxury and questionable wealth by preaching the gospel of prosperity rather than that of salvation. Under this deceit, they tell anyone they put under their spell that God never created anybody to be poor, and that people could be rich and possess everything they want if only they could be closer to God by sowing seeds in the house of the Lord. This is why when it comes to “offering time” in the church, the pastors implore everybody present to deep his or her hand deeper into the pocket and bring out something tangible by saying: “The measure you give is the measure you get in return”. In actual fact, what this translates into is giving more passionately from their meagre earnings to sustain the ministry and indeed the pastor’s weird standard of living.

    The situation has degenerated so badly that our supposed men of God now compete favourably with armed robbers, kidnappers, oil thieves, rapists, fraudsters and those engaged in other despicable vices to wreak havoc on the society. In this way, they have turned a place of sanctuary to a place where evil is being meted out to unsuspecting people and the society at large. The other day, I was quite perplexed when this screaming headline went into town: “Armed Gunmen Beat Up, Kidnap Pastor and His Six Children in Lagos”. In view of what has been going on in the country in recent times, I quickly beckoned to the vendor to bring a copy of the paper. It was dark as I left home very early that morning in order to keep up an appointment.

    I had to put on the inner light of the car to read the story. What I saw scared and infuriated me at the same time. According to the story, a 27-man gang had abducted a pastor, Godson Akubuiro, and six of his children from their residence in Ikorodu area of Lagos. Akubuiro is said to be the founder of Mountain of Breakthrough Church in the area. The incident was said to have occurred about 1.30am. It was later learnt that the Akubiros were arrested by operatives of the Department of State Security Service, SSS, in Lokoja, Kogi state. At the time they were arrested, Rita, the wife of the pastor, was said to be away in South Africa. On her return to the country, she tried to whip up sentiments that her husband and children were innocent and all that.

    A few days later, the SSS in Kogi announced the arrest of a syndicate, including Akubuiro and his six children, for allegedly printing and circulation of fake naira notes. Mike Fubara, the Director, who presented the suspects to journalists, said the syndicate included 15 others. Fubara said items recovered from the suspects include equipment and materials used in printing fake currencies. Other items recovered were a large quantity of printed fake notes, cut-to-size blank currency notes and N1.3 million fake naira notes. At the conference, Akubuiro, who was looking sober and downcast, said he did not use the money for himself but in supporting the less privileged and the needy in his congregation. He pleaded for leniency, saying men of God were often tempted like King David in the Bible, who as a man after God’s heart, fell many times but was still pardoned by God.

    The Akubuiro clan has become the latest in the lengthy list of men of God who are actually worshiping mammon rather than worshiping God, which they so profess. I am sure there are many other Akubuiros still walking free, pretending to be holier than thou. From the way they are going, the Akubuiros might as well enter the Guinness World Record as one family in which all members of the same family – father, mother and children – have constituted a dynasty of criminals. This is, indeed, a tragedy for this country and more so, for Christendom, which calls for a very high degree of religious spirituality. It is quite unfortunate.

  • A ‘Marshall Plan’ for Africa’s employment challenge

    Unemployment, independent of any other factor, threatens to derail the economic promise that Africa deserves. It’s a time bomb with no geographical boundaries: Economists expect Africa to create 54 million new jobs by 2020, but 122 million Africans will enter the labor force during that time frame. Adding to this shortfall are tens of millions currently unemployed or underemployed, making the human and economic consequences nearly too large to imagine.

    Thus, even with the strong economic growth we have seen over the past decade, job creation in Africa remains much too slow. Africa needs a comprehensive, coordinated approach akin to America’s “Marshall Plan” in Europe after World War Two. That effort focused on building infrastructure, modernizing the business sector, and improving trade. By the end of the four-year programme, Europe surpassed its pre-war economic output.

    We can, and must, do the same for Africa. Entrepreneurs, politicians, philanthropic foundations, and development organizations — such as the World Bank, International Finance Corporation and USAID — must all work together to solve the unemployment crisis and make Africa an engine of growth. If we are outrun by the employment challenge, Africa will be a drag on global growth and resources for generations to come.

    Africa’s Marshall Plan should prioritize three interdependent “pillars” of development, which all work together to form a virtuous cycle of growth: policy reform and a commitment to the rule of law; investment in infrastructure, and a commitment to developing Africa’s manufacturing and processing industries. This virtuous cycle forms the heart of Africapitalism: the public, private, and development sectors all coming together, united in a single objective of creating jobs and social wealth.

    First, we need enlightened government policies that help reduce administrative and operating costs for investors and businesses. We must streamline licensing and permitting processes, reduce import duties and tariffs and ease visa restrictions, among other reforms. Such policies would do much to attract investment, increase entrepreneurship and ultimately generate jobs.

    Enlightened government policy in Kenya and Nigeria has already helped to advance the information technology and financial services sectors. Microsoft’s pilot project to expand broadband access in Africa depends on government policy that frees up unused “white space” in the TV and radio broadcast spectrum. Financial services reform across several African nations, starting with Nigeria, enabled United Bank for Africa to grow into a pan-African financial institution. The government’s privatization programme has attracted billions of dollars of private investment to develop Nigeria’s power infrastructure.

    Governments and the private sector must also commit to strong, transparent institutions to help boost confidence in Africa’s business climate. African nations such as Botswana, Rwanda and Liberia have made tremendous progress in this area, though in some countries, war and civil unrest continue to take a toll. Sustained economic and job growth requires creating a safe and reliable environment for capital — including strong civil and legal institutions, corporate financial transparency (such as efforts by the Nigerian Stock Exchange to improve the quality of financial reporting for listed companies), accountable, democratically-elected politicians, and modern, open and transparent markets (like the new commodities exchanges that Heirs Holdings, Berggruen Holdings and 50 Ventures and its partners are creating at African Exchange Holdings). Aggressive advances on such policy fronts will help support the development pillars of infrastructure investment and industrialization — both of which are vital to creating employment on the continent.

    The second pillar of Africa’s development programme must be infrastructure investment, particularly in power and transportation, without which business cannot function. Today, more than 70 percent of sub-Saharan Africa lacks access to electricity and every one percent increase in electricity outages reduces Africa’s per-capita GDP by approximately three percent. Access to affordable electricity is essential to unlocking the continent’s growth potential — reducing costs and enabling business growth, including home-grown businesses that create jobs and sustainable local economies.

    Transportation infrastructure promises to have an equally transformative impact: roads, railways, waterways and airways are the backbone of a thriving commercial economy. The African Union should encourage and embrace transportation projects that first connect African nations to each other, and then to our global trading partners. Projects like the toll road between Entebbe and Kampala, and the Kenya-Tanzania highway will facilitate greater trade of agricultural and manufactured goods within Africa. Consider that today in Nigeria, 65 percent of our produce spoils for lack of storage infrastructure, and is difficult to export to other African markets for lack of rail and road infrastructure.

    Major multinationals like Diageo, Wal-Mart, Barclays, and Microsoft are ramping up African operations in spite of infrastructure challenges. In some cases, they even build their own infrastructure. Stronger policy and physical infrastructure would bring more investment from those who cannot or refuse to bootstrap it. It would also help small and mid-sized enterprises grow faster, and these companies are the engines of job growth in any economy.

    Africa’s third development pillar must be building our manufacturing and processing industries. Africa lacks the capacity to process and refine its own natural resources. Raw materials such as oil, cocoa and gold are shipped overseas, where they are processed into high-margin products and often re-imported into Africa — costing both jobs and hard currency. For example, Nigeria exports raw crude oil and then imports expensive gasoline, when the country should be able to refine the oil itself, supplying not just its own market, but also other markets across Africa. This inability to create finished goods at home, and trade them with other African nations, drastically limits the continent’s growth potential, and thus its ability to create businesses, jobs and wealth within Africa’s own domestic economies.

    I believe we can solve Africa’s employment challenge, but only if we focus on these three development pillars with great urgency, and accelerate current investment and business trends. Many of Africa’s stock markets are delivering stellar returns, while institutional, retail mutual fund and private equity capital is flowing rapidly into African markets. Many multinationals and African conglomerates are investing heavily in Africa. Despite such investment and economic growth, however, Africa is not creating nearly enough jobs. According to demographics, time is not on our side. But with a coordinated jobs plan for Africa, we can secure a productive, economically independent future for the continent and its people.

  • APC’s dance with death? Scrutinise PDP supporters before ‘porting’ them to APC

    APC’s dance with death? Scrutinise PDP supporters before ‘porting’ them to APC

    As APC the political saviour? There is a gathering storm beyond the–‘Resign from elected office if you change party’, which is a principle I agree with, but parties have never applied it in Nigerian political history nor in the USA.

    Though I am neither Buhari fan, nor Tinubu fanatic, I am happy that APC started well but did it gather all the peripheral parties before, to use the IT term, ‘porting’ the New PDP elements? Now APC is compromised, some say contaminated, as a moral authority and ‘saviour’ with a progressive ideology. Absorbing willing PDP governors is a masterstroke, ‘The 2013 Civilian Coup’, not for any corruptly acquired ‘war chests’ rumoured to be the political custom, but only if the governors were screened and found efficient, people loving, non-corrupt and ideologically compatible to APC’s progressive agenda -which we have not seen.

    Is APC sacrificing integrity by its ‘APC dance with death’ i.e. with evil masquerades and yesterday’s historically established architects of Nigeria’s serial military, economic, electricity, refinery and political failures including letter writers?

    APC initiators are not saints, but appear the lesser evil when Nigerians need miracle ‘Good Governance- No Greed’ parties’. In the unregulated political arena, most politicians of all parties and all civil servants profiteer, stealing, by ‘divine right’ from the public purse. However the APC team apparently has done more for the people than those in the PDP and they ‘smell’ sweeter on the Corruption Index. Can APC lose its ‘saviour’ identity by these antics? It is already made overweight and unattractive by consuming everything PDP-good, bad and ugly. It may develop a tummy ache and have to vomit PDP rubbish.

    There is an argument that the APC must not make the Awolowo mistake of ‘puritanism’ said to have cost Awolowo the 1979 election to Shagari. Recent revelations suggest the military took the election from Awolowo and gave it to loser Shagari, precipitating a 35 year democracy backslide. Is voter results’ manipulation not a crime? The lesson for APC is that Awolowo’s moral force won the population’s vote and the election battle. However it lost him the war as it created enough fear in the ruling military class as to deny him victory like they did for Abiola later. It is now clear that the military never stopped planning a comeback anyway but it would have found it harder to fault a sounder Awolowo government than a wayward Shagari government with Umaru Dikko shenanigans. Remember that Jonathan was actually voted in by Nigerians for non-interference in round one of the last elections. Unfortunately, the subsequent avalanche of PDP baggage -paid employees, members, hangers-on, election riggers and probable thugs has resulted in the dead weight that is Jonathan’s current failure. This uncontrolled mass ‘porting of PDP’ to the APC, with admission of anything PDP, new and dropouts, may ‘win’ the short term battle for numbers in National Assembly and at governors’ meetings. However it will hamper the APC in the voting wars of, 2015, when it will need firstly, moral and ideological leadership to attract votes. Secondly, when APC will need to retire its current generals like Tinubu and Buhari and search for and throw up Nigeria’s real Kennedys, Mandelas, Martin Luther Kings and maybe Obamas like Fashola et al. They will marshal a new generation of front-liners to change the face of politics in Nigeria. Traditionally the old generals and politicians on Nigeria do not lie down well until they die still struggling to ensure Nigeria’s further failure. The old seek gratification, homage and payment into the grave. ‘The party must pay for my funeral’. The terrorists are with us-politicians.

    Will APC convert the PDP baggage ‘stalwarts’? Will the ‘I don port’ PDP bite at the heart of APC? APC must be cautious of having 100 past PDP stalwarts, a Trojan Horse, all with cell phone direct links to the old PDP hierarchy and destructive PDP machinery inside the APC fortress. Will they foment trouble instructing their followers to cause a violent exit, destroying the APC? And what quality of followership have the PDP leaders taken with them as they ‘port’ or change sides? Does the APC want the opposition’s ‘ace thugs’ hiding in its new political agbadas and babanrigas? Oyo State was dragged low into moral and human rights abuses by thuggery under PDP control. The APC and INEC, if serious, must talk to Governor Ajimobi about how he ‘de-thugged’ the elections and governance. Was it money, amnesty, employment, publicity or imprisonment? Who is screening the PDP followership ‘porting’ to APC? Are there any members of ‘Reformed Association of Thugs-RATs? APC should avoid ‘porting’ known thugs and murderous ‘petty’ strongmen. Clean up the parties!

    And who will de-fang the violent NURTW through positive publicity like enlightenment, positive newspaper stories, TV coverage of motor-park management and interviews. Elevate the esteem of the NURTW membership to make them ashamed to ‘thug’ in 2015. Nigerians are not burdened by apartheid or slavery but by ‘party’ slavery. Even apartheid victims had 46,000Mw electricity. Nigeria has 3,000Mw after 14 years of PDP apartheid! APC must not im-‘port’ the devil’s baggage. APC: Do not dance with death, stay ‘clean’ and the voters will ‘port to you’. Marry the devil, and die with the devil’s virus. Meanwhile what is APCs Solar Energy Strategy, please? APC should also check Kenya’s Solar Sunny Money Solar Roller and Geothermal Rift Valley programme shown on BBC.

  • Between OBJ and GEJ and others in-between (II)

    Between OBJ and GEJ and others in-between (II)

    Dr Iyabo Obasanjo’s intervention in the rift between her father and President Goodluck Jonathan through her terrible letter to the old man is sadly a testimony to how thoroughly dysfunctional the Obasanjo family is. It also shows how equally guilty – possibly even more so – she is of some of the vices she’s accused her father of; vengeful, hypocritical, opportunistic, ungrateful, and much else besides.

    “We, your family,” she wrote in her letter, “have borne the brunt of your direct cruelty and also suffered the consequences of your stupidity BUT GOT NONE OF THE BENEFITS OF YOUR SUCCESSES.” (Emphasis mine). As a vet doctor and a PhD in public health, Iyabo, no doubt, had the credentials to serve as a commissioner of health in her Ogun State and as senator. Surely, however, she should be the first to acknowledge that if she was not an Obasanjo her credentials alone would never have got her those jobs, especially since, as she herself said, she was away from the country from 1989 until the inauguration of her father as president in 1999, except for her brief visit in 1994.

    And she was not the only one from her mother, Olurenmi – her portrait of her husband in her 2008 book, Bitter-Sweet: My Life with Obasanjo, could hardly have been more unflattering – to have greatly benefitted from being an Obasanjo. Her brother, Gbenga, who had accused his father of sleeping with his wife, was also a great beneficiary of their father’s presidency. For example, he reportedly had an interest in an Indian company which snatched a multi-million dollar contract for the rehabilitation and expansion of the power plant of Ajaokuta Steel Company Ltd from Power Works Ltd.

    PWL partly belonged to the late Mrs Kathryn Hoomkwap from Plateau State, one of those who worked hard to get Obasanjo elected in 1999 and who helped him draw up a blueprint for the transformation of Nigeria, a blueprint he promptly discarded as soon as he took over power. Kate, a friend and classmate from our university days, worked so hard under then President-Elect Obasanjo’s team headed by late Chief Sunday Awoniyi that Obasanjo reportedly told Chief Awoniyi he may appoint her secretary of his putative government. But not only did he not do so. He was at least complicit in the robbery of PWL’s contract after it has invested heavily in it and giving the job to a company Gbenga had an interest in. Kate died with the burden of the bank loan her company took for the contract.

    So for Iyabo to claim that her estranged wing of the Obasanjo family did not benefit one jot from her father’s name was a bit too rich. Her claim may not be the height of ingratitude, but it is close.

    Obviously Iyabo’s bitterness with her old man is not because she did not derive any benefit from being an Obasanjo. It seems it is more because she did not get more, given her failed second term senatorial bid and the open secret that she wanted to be a minister. Her father, she must have believed, did not commit himself enough to make those ambitions possible.

    Her bitterness is not just with her old man. She seems also bitter with her country. “I tried to contribute my part to the development of my country,” she said in her letter, “but the country decided it didn’t need me.” Part of her bitterness with Nigeria was the scandal that surrounded the retreat in Ghana of the Senate committee on health she headed, a retreat which she herself said was paid for by the Ministry of Health and some international NGOs but which she and her colleagues still went ahead to collect estacodes for, something which was clearly wrong, if only because there is a conflict of interest in ministries paying for the oversight functions of legislators.

    Yet like her father who she blames for hypocrisy, she said she saw nothing wrong with what she did. “I did nothing wrong,” she said of the scandal. Instead, she saw everything wrong with a country which could not appreciate her sacrifice as someone who left the comfort of her residency abroad to return and serve her country.

    In thinking that the country did not appreciate her sacrifice, Iyabo is clearly one of those Nigerian technocrats in diaspora, genuine and fake alike, who think their expertise entitles them to special treatment in their country when in fact their record of performance has amply demonstrated that they have used their expertise more for self-aggrandisement than for the benefit of their country.

    Iyabo resembles her father too much for anyone to accuse her of being a bastard Obasanjo. But what she did to him and to her family is hard, if not impossible, to justify even for a bastard child. If, as she said, her father’s letter to President Jonathan was “vengeful”, hers to her father was worse, especially if, as is being speculated, she was put up to it for pecuniary considerations by the presidency. However, whatever motivated her letter, it is almost impossible to find a word awful enough to describe what she has done to herself, to her father and to her family.

    As for President Jonathan’s reply to Obasanjo, his nearly 5,000-word letter has done little, if anything, to belie his estranged benefactor’s charges. As far as compositions go, the president’s reply would probably score much higher than Obasanjo’s 8,000-word or so letter, even though neither of the combatants will win any award for style and grammar.

    Beyond its superior style and grammar, however, the president’s letter contains little to belie the substance of Obasanjo’s letter. The summary of the president’s reply was simply to say Obasanjo had done worse during his eight-year presidency than what he has accused the president of.

    This thesis is highly debatable. It is debatable, for example, that the country is today more secure, more united and less corrupt than it was during Obasanjo’s time. And certainly the one thing no one can ever accuse Obasanjo of is cluelessness and lack of control over his lieutenants, relations and friends, vices which the president is widely seen to suffer from.

    However, even if it is true that Obasanjo was no better than the president in the vices he has accused the president of – and in several ways this is true – this is beside the point, namely the point that leaders should be judged more by the standard they set themselves than by the records of those before.

    When President Jonathan took over on his own steam in 2011, he promised to bring in “a breath of fresh air” and transform the country’s political economy. More than half way through his current term the stench oozing out of our country has only got stronger and stronger to the point of almost choking its people.

    Take, for example, the country’s state of insecurity. It was not enough for the president to have countered Obasanjo’s charge with the answer that kidnapping for ransom, oil theft and the Boko Haram insurgency predated his presidency. The question, which he did not answer satisfactorily, was what has he done since then to stem these and other forms of insecurities in the land?

    One of his answers is that the presidency has poured in billions into building schools for almajirai (so-called child destitutes) to address ignorance and poor education as two of the factors he said are responsible for Boko Haram insurgency. He also said his government has established 12 more universities in the country, nine in the North and three in the South, as if the problems of our universities are their numbers rather than their quality.

    What this answer clearly betrays is a frame of mind which lacks a proper grasp of the complexity of almajirai and which thinks the solution to virtually every problem is simply to throw money at it when all that this has done in the past is to breed even more corruption.

    On corruption itself, to take another example, the president said he “will not shield any government official or private individual involved in corruption” but added the convenient caveat that he “must follow due process in all that I do.”

    Right now, the most glaring opportunity for the president to prove he will not shield any of his officials implicated in any corruption is the well publicised case of his Minister of Aviation, Ms Stella Oduah, whose sack has been widely demanded for, for importing armoured cars, presumably for personal use, that were never budgeted for at highly inflated prices.

    The president is right to insist he would not sack any of his officials without due process. But when a president sets up a panel to investigate an official and then refuses to disclose the outcome of the investigation – never mind acting on it – weeks after he publicly announces to the world that the report is on his table, as is the case with his minister of aviation, he can only blame himself if his vows of zero tolerance of corruption rings hollow in the public ear.

    Still on corruption, the president says he is “amazed” that with all of Obasanjo’s knowledge, he still believed the “spurious allegation” made by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, that $49.8 billion of recent oil receipts had been unaccounted for by the NNPC, presumably stolen. Now that Sanusi has recanted, the president said, Obasanjo should find it in his “heart to apologise for misleading unwary Nigerians and impugning the integrity of my administration on that score.”

    With due respect to the president, he is merely being clever by half. True, Sanusi clearly got his arithmetic grossly wrong. However, his point that NNPC had not accounted for all oil proceeds remains valid; the Minister of Finance, Dr Okonjo-Iweala, has admitted that over $10 billion remains unaccounted for. This is only a fifth of Sanusi’s figure, but $10 billion is by no means peanuts by anyone’s standard.

    One can go on to show how the president did not satisfactorily debunk Obasanjo’s other charges – his handling of the economy, his anti-party activities and his use of ethnicity and religion to divide and rule this country, etc – but what is more important is that the president is seen to live by the standard he had set for himself.

    He has little time to make amends before the next presidential election which he is clearly determined to contest. He will spend this time more usefully trying to make these amends than in trying to divert the public’s attention to his erstwhile benefactor’s motives, whatever they are.

  • This New Year 2014

    This New Year 2014

    “Many are landlords in the CEMETERY; many are tenants in the MORTUARY; many are candidates of OBITUARY. But we are here, still worshiping in His SANCTUARY. He has been keeping us since January; His good news filled up our DIARY; He’s doing all these without collecting SALARY. He’s indeed an awesome God! If you know he is truly an awesome GOD and you are alive today, He is the reason I am testifying …. Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.”

     

    The words above encapsulated the text of a message sent to me on  Christmas day, exactly eight days ago today. The message came from a former civilian Governor of a state in the South-south geo-political zone of the country. The theme of this message is the definition of God as the Supreme Being. It describes the ephemeral nature of life which ultimately reduces man to “tenants in the mortuary” and eventually as “landlords in the cemetery”.  He says the world is God’s vineyard which he describes as “His sanctuary”, where we all worship, that is, carry out our daily activities under the guidance and supervision of God even though we do not as much pay Him a dime as “salary”. He reminded us that He is an awesome God and the reason why we are alive today.

    The message here is that we owe a duty to God Almighty our creator. Whether we call Him Allah, Yaweh, Olodumare, Oselobua or Chineke, we are most certainly referring to only one Supreme Being which we all owe allegiance to either as Christians, Muslims, pagans or even animists. Today, we are all exchanging banters that we have witnessed the dawn of a new year – 2014. Many people did the same thing this time last year, but today, they are no more. They are either still tenants in the mortuary or have since taken up permanent residency as landlords in the cemeteries all over the place.

    For us in Nigeria, it is a mix bag of celebration to witness a day which signals the beginning of what may look a tempestuous year ahead of the coming 2015 general elections. Going by all the happenings in the country in the last few months, especially on the political firmament, I don’t think we need a soothsayer to tell us that this year promises to be more exciting and exhilarating as we move closer to the general elections scheduled for next year. In some states, the elections will be held this year and the politicians across various political divides are already girding their loins for the epic battle which many see as do or die.

    However, President Goodluck Jonathan is not unaware of the turbulence that is lurking around the political horizon. Perhaps, that is why he has devised a ploy to diffuse the political temperature by introducing a National Conference which may get on stream anytime soon. If properly managed, it is expected that such a forum will afford all the contending groups, tribes and ethnic nationalities in the country an opportunity to ventilate their opinions on the way forward if we are to remain as one homogeneous political entity. At the end of the talk, there could possibly be a change of attitudes in our politicians. This is because for so many years, the average politician has always played and preyed on the intelligence of the voting public. The voters are brainwashed, cajoled or even coerced to vote only to be abandoned the day after by these politicians who then choose to run after their personal gains rather than what will benefit the majority of the people who voted them into power in the first instance.

    At any rate, politics is going to take centre stage in the affairs of this country this year. We have witnessed a lot of political alignments and realignments in the past few months. The gulf between those hitherto considered to be conservative and the so-called progressives appears to be disappearing. In the ongoing political reengineering, strange bedfellows have decided to cohabit and stay together for good or for ill. The enemies of yesteryear are fast abandoning their hard-line postures and are coming together to forge a common front. This is because, as it is, the country appears to be inching gradually towards the precipice if recent events are anything to go by. As the day progresses, there is this inclination that dictatorship and totalitarianism are gradually creeping into our political lexicon.

    For quite some time, Africa has variously been described as a continent where the best of the news emanating from the continent is replete with wars, disasters, famine, disease and poverty of unimaginable proportion and other things associated with the vicissitudes of life. Those who hold on tenaciously to this belief may be right after all. Take a look at the ongoing debauchery, genocide and pogrom that is going on in the Central African Republic and South Sudan, where people sharing the same umbilical cord have suddenly become sworn enemies. A lot of destruction is taking place and so much blood is shed on the altar of ignorance, poverty and bondage. Back home in Nigeria, we are all living witnesses to the enormity of destruction being wrought on the corporate existence of Nigeria by the Boko Haram terrorist group.

    Apart from the high incidence of terrorism in the country, there is also a serious security threat occasioned by rampant cases of kidnapping and violent robberies in many parts of the country. This has almost stretched the elasticity of our security agents beyond the limit and a drain pipe to our dwindling financial fortunes. This situation is further exacerbated by the uncontrolled massive theft of oil, the nation’s cash cow, which has led to significant drop in oil revenue in the last few years. This has reduced the financial muscle of the government as oil theft persists thereby drastically infringing on national revenue earning.

    Due to some financial recklessness by our leaders, it is no longer news that the nation is broke. In the last six months, this situation has resulted in many states not being able to pay salaries of workers and honour other financial obligations because of the shortfall from their shares from the federation account, which is a monthly ritual where states are given financial handouts from a common till to meet their financial expenditures. This month, almost all the nation’s federal universities will be throwing their doors open for their students to resume school. This is coming after six months of closure due to a national strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, the umbrella union of Nigerian university lecturers, seeking improvement in funding of university education.

    Unfortunately, while the lecturers are returning to classes, the Nigeria Medical Association, NMA, which suspended a five-day warning strike by its members a few days to Christmas, is gearing up for a more devastating strike action if its demands which include payment of allowances and consolidation of appointments are not met. With the sensitive nature of the health sector, if the NMA is allowed to go on its planned strike, it may be the mother of all strikes with devastating consequences on health care delivery in the country. And the body has threatened that the strike will be total, that is, it will involve both the public and private practitioners. If that happens, where does that leave the country?

    There are so many things to talk about, but we should bear it in mind that the economy of the country is like blood that flows in the body – if it dries up, then the person is gone. If we don’t take steps to strengthen the economy, diversify our economic base from oil earnings and tackle corruption headlong, all this talk about 2015 and which person, party or tribe will take over the mantle of leadership in the country will amount to mere balderdash.

    I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year in good health!

     

  • Christmas Corruption; Stop ‘selective’ charity; ‘A 2014 Cellphone Anticorruption Drive?’

    Christmas Corruption; Stop ‘selective’ charity; ‘A 2014 Cellphone Anticorruption Drive?’

    Welcome to 2014.  Can we have a list of the bonuses presents, and cost, given and received this Christmas by all Nigeria’s top 5000 government employees –in the Presidency, NASS, State, LGAs, Directors in each ministry and agency. Even the private sector is involved. Christ’s name is now being used for a new massive corruption –‘Christmas Corruption’– the siphoning of funds for ‘Christmas Cheer’. The proportion of gifts for the poor nationwide is not up to one percent of this total. For every N1 spent on publicised photo-op children’s parties and visits by dignitaries, probably N1,000 is spent on ‘oga on top’ Christmas parties and presents. Remember that less than one percent of the needy homes are visited. Next Christmas governments at federal and state level should listen to Christ and consult their register of all ‘Needy Homes‘ and allocate funds in December in the budget for food, presents and activities.

    No, we did not have much power for most of Christmas Day and none on Boxing Day in 2013 and probably none today. Government should apologise to the millions of children and mothers, disappointed, disillusioned and depressed and distressed by serial failure of governance. Think of the billions in losses due to extra costs, changing plans, and the distress of darkness in the 21st Century. Shamefully it was too much for the N4trillion federal government after being in power since 1999 i.e. 14 years and their appointed power companies to give us power supply on Christmas Day 2013. If 14 years ago the electioneering campaign of the government in power had said ‘sorry we have no plan or commitment to get power to you in 14 years but vote for us anyway’, would anyone have voted for them? Of course we must remember the corruption of the ‘election’ process. But the federal government officials had power at home paid for by the powerless Nigerians. Government has budgeted over N100b for fuelling its home and office generators in 2014. If I had political power for one year, I would ban generators in all government and official residences and those of private managers in the power sector. ‘Operation Switch Off’. We pray that power-filled days will come as they have in Ghana, Congo, South Africa, Togo. But the powerlessness did not hinder the electricity workers reporting to greet Nigerians for ‘Christmas Gift’. Is there a threat of further disconnection for no gift? Blackmail! No one can convince me that it is not possible to provide uninterrupted power for all Nigerians. The excuse of lack of gas is a lame excuse as countries without gas manage. Is this incompetence or corruption? Nigeria will not have 24-hour power until all politicians are forced to use only the grid and come down to our level and remove generators and fuelling costs from the budgets of Federal and State government and National and State Assemblies.  The rewards of power failures are too high to be abandoned without a fight. It is only then that solar will be taken as  a serious alternative source energy in this sun-stroked land where we hide form the sun instead of harnessing it as in countries with 10% of the sunshine days we have. Government should institute tax breaks and reduced customs tariffs in a new Solar Power Policy. Instead it allocates billions for fuelling generators with imported diesel and petrol in the offices and homes of tens of thousands of ‘big shot’ politicians and civil servants nationwide. The ‘I fine pass my neighbour’ generator palaver is alive and well but has moved up to ‘my government paid generators is bigger than you generator because I am a Perm Sec and you are a Director and ‘mumu’ citizens in darkness are paying for it’. Who is the loser and who pays?

    We know most Nigerians are hard-working. O Nigeria, where is your salvation? Message or no message, not with Obasanjo, he lost the opportunity and could not give us electric power when he was in power and 14 years after his continuous PDP government took power -a political power failure? Not Jonathan, has he performed adequately to deserve a second term? However he has 2014 and 2015 to perform a miracle of ‘good governance’.  He can cripple mafias in the ministries, customs corruption, 25-75% contract kickbacks and pilfering from the poor. Nigeria will collapse unless all government employees take the ‘Keep Clean Hands Oath’ and stop cheating citizens visiting their secretariats and ministries. It will be a miracle for Nigeria but ‘good governance’ is the normal in most countries. We have African ‘hope but not much expectation’.

    In 2014, we want no more rudeness to Nigerians invited to National Assembly (NASS) meetings or the police station. How many NASS members were honestly elected?  Many Nigerians are proud to be Nigerian but Nigerian governments  are successively not proud of us allowing government agents and government ‘uniforms’ to treat us like undeserving servants. Have you ever been to a ministry for your right? Did you go back 100 times or 400 times? I did.

    That is the lot of Nigerian citizens in 2013 -To suffer needlessly and then smile and vote foolishly. Nigeria’s politicians and civil servants are mostly abusers of power and not servants of the people. Can they change in 2014? The fear of the citizen camera can help beat corruption in a ‘2014 Cellphone Anticorruption Drive’. Upload to Channels etc.

  • Jonathan’s annus horribilis

    Jonathan’s annus horribilis

    Annus horribilis is a Latin phrase meaning “horrible year.” Its use in recent times was popularised by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth in a speech in November 1992 marking the 40th anniversary of her rule.

    She had dug deep for a special phrase to describe a year that shook one of the world’s oldest monarchies to its root. It was a nightmarish period in which the world was treated to the collapse of royal marriages, publication of late Princess Diana’s tell-all book, and a disastrous fire in Windsor Castle, one of the Queen’s homes.

    Ever since that memorable speech many other leaders like former United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, Spain’s King Juan Carlos and others have had occasion to reference that unique expression to describe years that were not too pleasant in their realms and around the world.

    To say that President Goodluck Jonathan has had a torrid year is to state the obvious. In 2013 everything that could possibly go wrong went awry for him and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    Although he sought throughout the year to create the impression that security challenges under control, events in large swathes of the north gave the lie to his presentation. Over the months Nigerians would receive a bloody introduction to hitherto anonymous places like Bama, Benisheikh etc.

    As the body count mounted an administration that had tried to project to the outside world that the Boko Haram insurgency was something it could handily crush with its local resources, was forced to declare a state of emergency across three North Eastern states. But rather than stem the tide of terror the measure only seemed to enrage the insurgents and spur them to unprecedented levels of depravity.

    So much so the United Nations Human Rights office declared that the sect’s actions amounted to crimes against humanity. Interestingly, a regime that had sought desperately to downplay the gravity of the situation by opposing efforts by the United States government to classify Boko Haram as a global terrorist organization, without any sense of embarrassment was the one of the first out of the blocks with praise after the Americans succumbed to reality.

    After making his toughest move with the emergency declaration and ordering lightning air raids on the insurgent camps, the president and his team were rewarded with several weeks of relative quietude. But just when it seemed like peace and safety the insurgents popped up in Maiduguri like some jack-in-the-box object with an audacious attack on military bases and the airport.

    It was a spectacular statement that rather than being damaged, the sect was growing in confidence and military capability. The attack featured a long line of pick-up trucks and high caliber guns. Even worse, it was a humiliating experience for the Nigerian military to be worsted in one of its redoubts by what many once sneeringly dismissed as a ragtag bunch of clueless gunmen.

    Today, despite throwing everything in its power at the stubborn sect the terror threat remains undiminished. Yes, Nigeria may not be fighting a civil war yet in the manner of Congo, Sudan or the Central African Republic (CAR), still on Jonathan’s watch the security situation has degenerated gravely in 2013.

    On the political front it has been a horror movie. For all of its failings the ruling PDP has over the last 14 years always managed to extricate itself from situations that that threatened its existence. But not any more.

    No matter how Jonathan or his party may want to spin it, then revolt of the G-7 governors – leading to five of them defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC) was a catastrophic development. To compound the injury, scores of legislators in the Senate and House of Representatives have followed the example of their leaders.

    Knowing the critical role played by governors in deciding presidential elections, the defections may well turn out to be the defining moment – not just of the Jonathan years but of the general direction of the Fourth Republic.

    The defections at the National Assembly are just as devastating. For the first time since 1999, the PDP lost the game of numbers in the House of Representatives. With the opposition in control of the lower house Jonathan’s legislative agenda for what is left of his tenure is in jeopardy.

    What makes this so remarkable is that these losses were self-inflicted. The five governorships and legislative seats were surrendered without one ballot being cast. It is truly unprecedented. Defections are commonplace in Nigeria politics but rarely on this scale – especially with more movements out of the ruling party anticipated in coming months.

    When Jonathan ran for president in 2011, he had a fairly united party behind him. Embittered northern politicians like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Adamu Ciroma, ex-President Ibrahim Babangida and others who lost the zoning battle, simply adopted a siddon look attitude. But they were not urinating in the communal well or hurling verbal missiles at the party’s candidate.

    Today, the situation is radically different. The PDP is bitterly divided with internal trust and cohesion destroyed. Those who have not jumped ship are still lobbing broadsides at the president and party chairman, Bamanga Tukur. Clouds of suspicion hang around all who have shown less than unalloyed loyalty to the current powers-that-be.

    Parties going into elections understand the need for unity. It would take a miracle for the PDP to go into the 2015 general election with anything that approximates the kind of front it had in 2011. I suspect that for much of 2014 it would be engaged in trying to purge its ranks of “traitors” – an exercise that will not only weaken but also distract it.

    It is fitting therefore that a horrible year should close with the explosive and very public falling out with former President Olusegun Obasanjo – the incumbent’s erstwhile godfather. The exchange of toxic letters between the two has been substantially examined by sundry commentators.

    Many have suggested that Obasanjo’s antecedents disqualify him from criticising Jonathan in the manner he did. I take a different position. You can call the ex-president all sorts of names, but that does not remove the fact that the bulk of issues he raised in his epistle are part of the incumbent’s record on which he would be running in 2015.

    So while Jonathan and his supporters may be congratulating themselves for hurling barbs back at Obasanjo, they miss the point that all their responses and paid adverts have become academic. The former president’s devastating 18-page letter has long gone from an embarrassing correspondence from a frenemy to a template of attack that the opposition will adopt for 2015.

    So even if they attack Obasanjo from now to eternity the damage is already done by “a card-carrying PDP member.” It is not necessary to add that a house divided against itself is headed for a dramatic fall.

    It is often said that people grow in stature in a demanding office like the presidency. That is hardly the case with Jonathan in 2013. His many wars rather than make him larger than life have reduced him to a defensive figure whose most vociferous defenders are members of his Ijaw ethnic group.

    His defensiveness was evident when in response to the APC’s call for his impeachment he accused them of treason – forgetting that impeachment is provided for in the constitution. When Obasanjo raised pungent questions about his rule, he accused him of incitement and endangering national security.

    Intimidation and subtle threats are no way to respond to differences of opinion in a democracy. Only the insecure resort to bullying tactics when a robust discussion of issues would suffice.

    But by far the most unpresidential remark I have heard this year was the bit in the president’s letter to Obasanjo where he said most of the challenges faced by his administration began under other administrations. So what?

    Every administration inherits the problems left behind by its predecessors. People run for office promising to clean up existing mess. What we expect is not an incumbent regaling us with the history of our problems, but getting on with the business of making improvements.

    Unfortunately, as 2013 winds to a close Jonathan finds himself in situation where instead of pointing to achievements, he’s whining about what other regimes left undone. He should remember that in 2015 that attitude would not help him much when the opposition starts asking voters: ‘Are you better off today than you were four years ago’?

    Nigerians and their fragile ego

    Although I was away on a short leave of absence when the late South African President Nelson Mandela was buried, I followed the coverage closely like most people.
    Given the impact of the story of his life it was no surprise that leaders from all over were falling over themselves to pay tributes. Everyone was recommending to his neighbour the example of the anti-Apartheid hero, but no one was offering to be this generation’s Mandela.
    Frankly, for many who went to South Africa for the burial rites, it was more a chance to get their photo taken or hear their own voices. US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Dansih counterpart, Helle Thorning-Schmidt landed themselves in hot water when they were caught giggling while snapping selfies.
    Nigerians, for their part, were infuriated that their president was not given prime time billing. They lost no time in reminding the South Africans of how much this country did to secure their freedom.
    To hear some of us talk you would think Nigeria was the only country that helped the South Africans. In reality there are countless thousands from across the globe who supported the anti-Apartheid struggle morally, financially and diplomatically. But you would not find too many of them as demanding of recognition as Nigerians. It just smacks of a lack of humility.
    Nigeria’s contribution to the struggle in southern Africa is well documented and cannot be erased from history. We don’t have to keep banging on about our generousity. We may have given them cash, but they shed blood and gave their own lives.
    Songs of praise from outsiders are not what we need. Instead of working ourselves into a fit over perceived slights by the South Africans, let’s move on and focus on fixing our country. We’ll feel better about ourselves and the world will respect us more when our country works.

  • Between OBJ and GEJ and others in-between (I)

    Between OBJ and GEJ and others in-between (I)

    Last weekend, Leadership (December 21) published a story in which it quoted former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, (OBJ) as saying on his Facebook wall on December 20 that, following his controversial December 2 letter to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) which he ominously titled “Before it is too late”, it was time Nigerians turned on the heat in the polity so that only the best party should win the next general elections in 2015.

    “It is now time,” the newspaper quoted him as saying, “to turn up the heat. May the best party win.” In the light of his letter in which he admonished his estranged benefactor and godson to shape up or ship out, Obasanjo’s call for Nigerians to turn on the heat was clearly his coded way of asking Nigerians to throw out the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the next elections, the very party that gave him the platform to rule the country as its first elected president since 1985 and a party which he once boasted will rule Nigeria for a long, long time, if not forever.

    His call for Nigerians to turn up the heat also looked, at least to me, like a call on the select Nigerian leaders – Generals Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma and Dr Alex Ekwueme with whom he said he had shared the content of his letter and who he also said shared his concerns – to speak out in his support.

    So far none has and it’s highly unlikely that anyone of them will. Up till now the only one among them who has said anything about the letter is General Danjuma and he has categorically said he will not criticise GEJ in the open. “I have complete and unimpeded access to the president,” he said in a goodwill message to the 6th Abuja Festival of Praise on the night of December 20 in response to what he said have been repeated calls by the press for him to say something about the letter, “and if I have anything to say to him, I will do so face to face. These are difficult times and we must be careful, especially as leaders on what we say in public.”

    The general’s argument of unimpeded access to the president precluding his speaking out does not look quite tenable; in November 2003 he spoke out against Obasanjo as a president that he said he found out was under the spell of a cult-like clique. At that time he had just left Obasanjo’s administration as the defense minister and he had complete and unimpeded access to the Obasanjo.

    Five years later, he said even more terrible things about his former friend and boss. In an interview with The Guardian (February 17, 2008) marking his 70th birthday he condemned Obasanjo as “the most toxic leader that Nigeria has produced so far.” The country, he said, “took him out of jail and made him a president; he abused Nigeria, he deceived Nigeria and he deserves a second term in prison and we will make sure he ends up there.”

    By then Obasanjo was, of course, no longer president but, on General Danjuma’s own contention, his friend still ruled Nigeria by proxy “through Yar’Adua, his puppet.” At the time Danjuma still had complete and unimpeded access to his friend and to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

    So if the general has rejected calls for him to speak out on Obasanjo’s letter, it would not be because you speak truth to power only when you do not have complete and unimpeded access to those in power.

    In any case his attack on Obasanjo back in 2003 would not be the first time he’s spoken out against those in power even when they were completely accessible to him. There has to be other reasons for his reticence this time, probably foremost of which is his well publicised falling out with Obasanjo over the former president’s successful move to partially take away the oil well the general had been allocated by the late military head of state, General Sani Abacha, an oil well which has since proved one of the most lucrative in the country.

    As for Generals Babangida and Abubakar and Chief Ekwueme, they too, like General Danjuma, are more likely than not to maintain strategic silence, strategic because while they know much of what Obasanjo said in his letter is true, as we shall see next week, God willing, they do not want to offend or embarrass President Jonathan with whose government they’ve been doing good and brisk business in many sectors of the economy.

    Their strategic silence is also probably because they believe Obasanjo lacks the moral authority to condemn the president for all the offences he has charged the president with, not least of all the charges of bad faith and divisiveness. For, make no mistake about it, before Jonathan came along, Obasanjo was the most divisive president we’ve had in this country and someone whose word you took to your bank at your own peril, as I have tried to show in innumerable articles I have written about the man on these pages and elsewhere, one of which I shall reproduce on these pages in two weeks time, God willing, for its relevance to the ongoing controversy about his letter even though mine was written eleven years ago.

    The point of all this is that clearly Obasanjo is on his own in this letter writing business as a strategy of wrong footing President Jonathan. Worse for him, it seems the heat he wants President Jonathan and the PDP to be subjected to has been turned on him, first, from a quarter he – and probably most Nigerians, including this reporter – least expected and, second, from the reply to his letter by his erstwhile godson.

    Once upon a time, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, before he became arguably the most trenchant defender of President Obasanjo during his second term, described him as a Mr. Know-It-All and a stooge of not only the much maligned “Fulani caliphate.” Fani-Kayode said Obasanjo was also a stooge of “his Western European backers…and his friends at the IMF and the World Bank.” The man, he concluded, in that clearly malicious article in The Comet (March 18, 2001), since rested, “may end in utter disaster and shame.”

    At the time Fani-Kayode wrote those words not even he in his wildest thoughts could have imagined that the former president’s “disaster and shame” would come in the shape of a daughter who seemed to have benefitted most from being an Obasanjo, namely, Iyabo, a veterinary doctor and a PhD in public health.

    Iyabo is not the first to visit opprobrium upon her father; years ago Gbenga, her brother from the same mother, accused his old man of sleeping with his wife in a sworn affidavit. Being a man apparently with a crocodile skin, the accusation did not appear to “shake his coat”, as we say in local parlance.

    Iyabo’s charge against her father in a letter that was indeed a “red hot exclusive”, as the editors of Vanguard which published it on December 18 described it, must have rattled the man no end. Inspired, as she herself said, by her father’s 18-page letter to President Jonathan, she wrote her old man an 11-page letter dated December 16 in which she accused him of being “a liar, manipulator, a two-faced hypocrite” and a cruel and criminally negligent father and husband. Disaster and shame don’t come any worse than someone your own loins sired and who most people thought was your favourite, saying such unprintable things about you to the whole world, especially at a time you’d picked to fight a critical battle of your life.

    It was a sign of how much he was rattled that he called her while he was visiting in the US where she is now resident to confirm if she could indeed pen such blasphemy. Equally, it was a sign how much shame she must have known she has brought unto her family that she initially denied writing it.

     

     

    Feedback

     

    Re: The persecution of Governor Lamido

    Two weeks ago I promised to publish a very thoughtful reaction to my piece on the subject above last week but didn’t. My apologies. Below is a shortened and edited version of the reaction.

     

    Sir,

    I am yet to see people from the North call out their leaders to account. But instead what we have seen is people demonising Jonathan. I am not saying ‘don’t question Jonathan.’ All I’m saying is, let’s question from home first.

    I am a Muslim and from your name you seem to be one also. So let me use the religion angle.

    Tribal leaders in the desert and outside the Arabian Peninsula came to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and gave their allegiance to Islam and the Prophet himself agreeing to be ruled by him. Many people say that Islam was spread by the sword. But it only happened because of the leadership of the Prophet and the justice that reigned in Islam. Today many in the West are beginning to understand how Islam was spread.

    If the Prophet was seeking justice outside his kingdom without firstly, trying to clean up his own house, do you think Islam as we know it would have existed? But of course if you are a Muslim you most likely already know all of these. I hope we can do what is right. May God make it easy (for us all).

    Abdul’Aziz ibn Ibrahim

     

    Sir,

    I’m neither your fan nor apologist because I can’t stand your ethno-religious irredentism. But those who attacked you because of Lamido’s article should, if they can read English, read where you said, “This does NOT, of course, mean Lamido’s sons should not be prosecuted & their father exposed as….a hypocrite…”

    Myk Aiyemo – Abuja

    +2348052355655

  • Merry Christmas;   The Sovereign National Conference

    Happy marriage to Daniel and Justina Henshaw. I am very sure that nobody is going to read this article. After all, it is Christmas Day! Just in case –Merry Christmas.  Be Christ-like – nice today to your family, to your friends and to your hired domestic help. They need a good Christmas more than you.  Domestic help are treated particularly badly by many upright people masquerading as Christ-like. Granted they are often criminal in intent but a decent meal is what even a prisoner awaiting execution is given.  The long overdue focus on human rights among the world’s and particularly Nigeria’s domestic help is welcome, as many are kept in almost slavery conditions.  A merry Christmas to you and your domestics.

    S-NC BUSINESS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS AND EVERYONE’S BUSINESS -ESPECIALLY THE UNDER 40s. Let us find younger adults to take us forward from this S-NC. The S-NC is about much more than just politics The S-NC is about life itself, existence, hate and happiness and not just mind control and mineral control. Everyone should be involved in this non-political journey during the next few months. Nigeria’s survival depends on it. Our successful transition from disaffected country to a cohesive nation or back to pre-amalgamation primal self-interest depends on this S-NC.

    Modalities are being worked out. Let the word SACRIFICE resound from Nigeria’s dungeons and rooftops. Of course there must be ‘NO ALLOWANCES FOR BEING MEMBERS’ only ‘NON-MONETISED ACCOMMODATION AND FEEDING’. LET EACH COMMUNITY, GROUP OR AGENCY SPONSOR ITS CANDIDATE. The VENUE must reflect Nigeria’s problems -AN EDUCATIONAL FACILITY LIKE A FEDERAL UNITY SCHOOL, POLYTECHNIC OR UNIVERSITY-not six months in Ladi Kwali Hall!  So who will be in the S-NC? There are many suggestions. About 80% should be under 40 years and 50% should be women. Women have suffered the most. Women represent children –two in one. We have fine females in all spheres. Any proposed proportional representation is based on our fraudulent census while executive whistle-blower Odimegwu is unjustly dismissed/ resigned and Nigeria looks on. Shame! This gives serious doubts from the beginning.

    Amalgamation collected together different ethnic groups, many very uncomfortable bedfellows, not having been treated fairly, by federal equity. This is decision and payback time. Reassessment may require apologies, reparation, redistribution, payouts. It will certainly require a redefinition and redistribution of federal political and administrative structures, fiscal federalism, exclusive listing changes and ‘federal feeling’. Every Nigerian interprets that ‘FEDERAL FEELING’. They will examine the flaws in federalism and the constitution and participate in fashioning a ‘NEW FEDERAL NIGERIA’ if possible and a ‘NEW REGIONAL FEDERATION’ with a ‘NEW NIGERIAN REVENUE AND REPRESENTATIONAL FORMULAE’ if necessary. No Nigerian will feel oppressed, marginalised after this S-NC.

    Therefore if there are 344 ethnic groups in Nigeria, let them each send one person, the best brained person, to meet, greet and avoid deceit. One person, one voice per group. Let them advance their ideas and retreat home for contemplation on Nigeria surviving as a nation. Enough of WAZOBIA or WAZZZOOOOBIA. There are more than three tribes in Nigeria and they and their coat tail tribes have failed to improve Nigeria or bring it into the 21st century. The term should be consigned to the dustbin of history. It is an insult to the other 341 tribal groups and a reminder of the oppression, real and imagined, inflicted on ‘other ethnic groups during the last 53 years. This is 2013. We can no longer be playing colonial politics with fellow Nigerians who are Nigerians in their own right and not ‘minorities’ -another word that should be expunged from our vocabulary.

    Old battles still open fresh wounds. Conquerors must confer with their former adversaries to concur and conjure a non-violent way forward. Swords are no longer the way to stay on the same boat. Wound remain open too long in Nigeria and fresh ones are opened daily making co-habitation without one eye open and a hand on a weapon impossible in some areas. Where is the love of self and each other, sister and brother, friend and lover? But love cannot come when agendas are for the belligerent takeover of other people’s property.  There must be conflict for resolution but there must be evil intent for conflict in the first place. That pervading evil intent is capable of destroying even the new Nigeria and ‘the falling apart as the centre cannot hold’.  To be proud of Nigeria we must be proud of each other. If we despise and deprive one group, no amount of disguise will make us feel Nigerian.

    The centre is a huge bone of contention in Nigeria and the unbundling of the federal structure is of paramount importance to any sense of belonging. The federal structure has been seen as self-serving of incumbent powers that be and oppressive of the peripheral authorities especially if they are seen as wrong party, wrong ideology, or wrong-footed or anti-centre. Millions of Nigerians have suffered untold hardship and been forced to invent the circumstances of ‘I de manage’ due to the unfair withholding, unfair distribution of their federal rights in terms of funds, opportunities, projects, infrastructure and federal presence. Indeed many have died at the hands of federal agents like the police during political and other activities. ‘Federal bias is often lethal, fatal or injurious to your health’ easily summarises to power of the centre over the country and its citizens. This needs to be reversed.  MEXAHNYIA