The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

Amend the people, not constitution

Changing the 1999 constitution without changing attitudes will be a wasted effort

Most people would agree that Nigeria’s 1999 constitution is a flawed document. The product of a succession of manipulative military juntas, it was the shaky platform used to usher in a Fourth Republic that could not wait for the perfect thing – given the tense political atmosphere in the country in the immediate aftermath of the deaths of General Sani Abacha and Chief M.K.O. Abiola.

Any constitution written for a country with Nigeria’s diversity is bound to be problematic because of the need for endless compromise. In our case the agreement seems to have been to leave all the hot button national issues alone in the vain hope that some sages down the line will get around to addressing them.

That has not happened. Instead all those questions have come back to haunt us on an almost daily basis. That is why most reasonable people won’t argue with the need to amend the constitution to enable our democracy grow.

But much as amendments are desirable, there’s much about the current process that just makes you wonder whether it won’t all end in tears.

At the last count the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on the Review of the Constitution headed by Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, disclosed it had received 240 memoranda on the subject. A similar committee in the House of Representatives says it has also received well over 200 such memos.

This will suggest feverish interest in the process. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Powerful interests like governors and other factions of the political elite have seized the process – predictably – and this is reflected in context of the issues that are emerging as top of the agenda for review.

Among them are things like state creation, state police, tenure for political office holders, independent candidacy, proportional representation, onshore-offshore dichotomy, indigeneship and adjustment of the 13% derivation principle.

Some Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) are evening pushing items like rewriting the whole document in gender-neutral language, or more explicitly so that references would be made specifically to “he” or “she” rather than the politically-incorrect current references to only “he”.

In the unlikely event that this massive shopping list of amendments pass muster, then the advocates would celebrate the fact that Nigeria has finally joined the ranks of countries with so-called ‘progressive’ constitutions.

I beg to demur. What may be progressive or desirable for some might not necessarily be in the national interest at this point in time. There are those who argue that you don’t need a constitutional amendment in other to create states. They say the procedure is already clearly spelt out in Section 8 of the present document.

I would go further to say it is downright unpatriotic to be talking about creation of new states when many of the existing ones are virtually on their knees. State creation is a slippery slope. The Nigerian politician will never get sated until we have one for every ethnic nationality.

Again, take the issues of a six or seven year single tenure, and the requests by registered political parties for proportional representation (PR) as means of taking heat out of the contests for political office. I doubt whether the introduction of these items into the constitution will change what is wrong with our politics.

Even if we provide a single tenure, blood will be shed over who gets it at any point in time. As for a PR system that replaces the current first-past-the-post arrangement, all that it will do is ensure that more people – outside of the current ruling parties – hop on the gravy train. But is that in itself a guarantee that these new office holders would be coming to serve? You know the answer to that one.

Let me reiterate that I am all for amending the constitution. But I think we need a bit of a reality check here, and not go around thinking that we have found the perfect cure for the problem with Nigeria.

Let’s not forget that there are countries which don’t even have a written constitution and things still work in a reasonably organised fashion. Three of those nations are New Zealand, the U.K and Israel.

A constitution alone is no guarantee that the system will work. Indeed, amending the 1999 document without amending the attitudes of the people who will operate it will simply make the on-going exercise an expensive wild goose chase.

A reckless and irresponsible driver will readily crash the best engineered and retooled car on earth, and the problem won’t be with the vehicle but the driver’s immature conduct. In the Nigerian case, rather than work on the driver we would start tinkering with engine of the blameless automobile.

In discussing this issue I always project a hypothetical scenario. Most independent-minded people will say that the US constitution works. Now, if all 200 million plus Americans were removed from their country and replaced with all 160 plus Nigerians, would that constitution still work in the hands of the new arrivals? A document does not a country make.

For all the flaws of the 1999 constitution, my position is that we have not given ourselves enough time to use and test it. The United States constitution which is 225 years old has only been altered18 times in that period. In our case I have lost count of the number of occasions when we’ve sought to touch up the document in the last 13 years.

A few of those occasions we tried to do so for blatantly selfish reasons. A case in point is when former President Olusegun Obasanjo tried to amend the constitution to give himself a third term – a stunt that blew up in his face and short-circuited the process.

Given the interest of presidents, governors and legislators in some of the items listed earlier, I believe that some sort of broad review of the constitution will happen in the not too distant future. It is in their collective career interest to see that they push this through. But what they will end up producing will be a document by the political elite for the political elite – never mind the empty boasts about being the people’s representatives.

The overwhelming majority of Nigerians are not engaged with what is going on, and very few understand how it could affect their future. Many are probably battling with the devastating impact of floods that have swept away their homes to care about new states and single tenure.

But if the ongoing review is to be free from the stain of illegitimacy which the 1999 military construct suffers from, it has to be subjected to some form of mass participation. If there will be no sovereign national conference, a decent compromise would be a national referendum that allows ample time for national discussion at grassroots level.

I suspect that were this to happen, some of the things that are so important to our politicians will swiftly bite the dust. Unfortunately, the middlemen in the National Assembly will never let this happen.

October 21, 2012
Politicians must take potholes seriously. They kill people and business and taxes!

Let the deaf hear. Potholes are a yardstick of political success. It is official. Do you know why we talk about potholes so annoyingly frequently in the column? It is because potholes are the symbol of national failure, destroying lives and businesses and making a mockery of going to school to learn about good governance, Internally Generated Revenue, Foreign Direct investment and tourism proposals and repositioning Nigeria using 20-2020 vision. Potholes are a simple assessment of the commitment of politicians, political parties and individual governments to a social and moral contract with the citizens. The ‘Politics of Potholes’ is not about ‘making straight’ the path to an LGA chairman’s country home or to a particular governor’s son’s wedding venue. Potholes are about failed responsibility to the people and about abuse or non-use of power. Potholes are not a game of ‘guess how many potholes are in my LGA, state or country’.

Potholes are murderous and about human suffering and blood, human blood, not contracts. Are politicians and civil servants blind, misinformed or totally incompetent? The people bleed and see the blood on roads, cars, danfos and buses and staining the operating uniforms in Nigeria’s operating theatres where we remove the ruptured spleens and broken limbs of ‘Pothole Attack Victims’. Potholes are not about ‘excuses’ and inflated non-executed contracts and delayed budget. Potholes are about societal decay, incompetence and delay and the abdication of government’s responsibility to the citizenry. Nigeria is just one big ‘Government Neglect’ pothole in spite of sufficient funds to fix every road within one dry season since it refuses to work during the rainy season out of mental and engineering laziness not due to a lack of civil engineering capacity.

Unfortunately, the most powerful ‘road user’ voices in the land are silent. We do not hear of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, NMA, NURTW etcetera, market women at their AGMs catching ‘anti-pothole fever’ and shouting about potholes. No country with our pothole achievements should have travel and entrepreneurship programmes. We are all held hostage in our own country, confined by the strictures of our potholed roads. For millions, daily travel is a nightmare for which serious prayers are needed to avert a disaster. Often prayers are not enough. And our government seems powerless to prevent the continued infliction of massive unnecessary pain on the collective psyche and physical bodies of the population. The deliberate clogging of the Ogere traffic artery on the Lagos-Ibadan road is a case in point and a recurrent national shame and security disaster waiting to happen. The trailers used to commit these terrible crimes are owned and registered by the high and mighty in the petroleum industry who are now donating to flood relief almost nationwide.

That Ogere park is too often strangled by tanker and trailer drivers is not news, nor is it news about the impunity with which they do it. Only in Nigeria would that be a two or less lane road. Even Ikorodu road should and can easily be six lanes each side. No one will be brought to book for holding the nation to ransom for 11 hours. Since all the major players in the Ogere hold up are known, they should be fined by the federal government to act as a deterrent to their staff repeating such a crime against the citizens of Nigeria in future. We are used to students shutting down trunk ‘A’ roads for perceived transgressions. This new one where adults embark on similar activities is an unwelcome event that puts at risk millions of lives and billions of naira. A Boko Haramic conflagration in that circumstance would have had catastrophic repercussions. Only God can quantify the losses caused by such a decision. But who cares. It reminds us of the danger of putting police with ‘big shots’ to attempt to drive roughshod over the rest of us. We must also remember that in all likelihood, the shot tanker was probably wrongly parked causing unnecessary go-slow or full stop. Remember that the Ogere is notorious for indiscipline and obstruction just like its predecessor Sagamu. It was these same people’s fathers who blocked Sagamu to the extent that it prompted the building of the expressway in the first place. This was typical knee-jerk reaction and no long term plan to anticipate problems and build additional lanes in advance. Since then, 40 years the road has not improved, but it has deteriorated and in fact narrowed to its present sorry state where one tanker can paralyse the key artery out of the port city of Lagos. What a shame and we are not at war. By now in any forward looking country, there would be five major and several minor roads out of Lagos. But like they say, there are more bridges in river-less Abuja than in the whole of the rest of the country put together. Na wa O! Such selfish politicians cannot build a great Nigeria which is as weak as the smallest pothole.

Now that potholes at federal level have been declared wanted dead or alive on or before December, let us pursue with equal vigour the execution of potholes on state and LGA roads. All Nigerians must renew ‘The Great Nigeria Anti-Pothole War’ and fight it to its logical conclusion-no more deaths. Nigerians must no longer accept rough and rubbish roads. Nigeria can afford and must provide standard roads.

October 17, 2012
PHCN privatisation: Now that Nnaji is gone

When Prof Barth Nnaji left as Minister of Power in late August, it was not clear whether he jumped or was pushed. Most guesses including mine, however, was that he was pushed, if only because his departure was rather too sudden.

The terse two paragraph announcement of his departure by the spokesman for President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Reuben Abati, hardly suggested the minister left on his own. “President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan,” Abati said, “has accepted the resignation WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT of the Minister of Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji.

President Jonathan thanks Prof Nnaji for his services to the nation under the present administration and wishes him well in his future endeavours.” (Emphasis mine)

Presidents don’t go about accepting the resignations of their sidekicks with immediate effect and without saying why.

In this case, the President did say why eventually but his reason hardly suggested that Nnaji jumped. In any case, sudden resignations are very unusual ways to depart lucrative jobs like ministering to a country’s electricity power supply.

Nnaji left on August 28. It took the President two days to say why. This was on August 30 during a town hall meeting in Onitsha after he’d inaugurated the town’s inland river port complex. “Barth Nnaji,” he reportedly said, “has not committed any offence. He is a very competent and seasoned professional.”

However, before seemingly exonerating the minister, the president made an oblique reference to the issue of conflict of interest involving not just the minister but probably other senior government officials as well. “Before we started this privatisation,” Thisday (August 31) reported him as telling his distinguished guests, “some major stakeholders who had access to me, came to me and said, ‘Mr President, we heard all these privatisation of projects in the power sector had already been shared among the people and we want the president to assure us so that we do not waste our time.’ I said, ‘no you can keep faith in the process.’”

The minister, the President reportedly said, had willingly declared his interest in two companies that had bid for Afam Power Station and for Enugu Distribution Company. This, he said, was what gave rise to a conflict of interest that made the minister resign in order to safeguard the privatisation exercise. Obviously, it was contradictory for the President to say his minister did nothing wrong and yet point at the conflict between his private interest and his public duty as the reason why he “resigned.”

The President did not say when Nnaji declared his private interest in the privatisation of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), but anyone familiar with the exercise knows the minister’s conflict of interest did not arise yesterday. It goes all the way back to the time of the President’s immediate predecessor, the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, when the minister was his special adviser on energy. That conflict of interest had been a source of serious, and a times violent, conflict between Nnaji and both management and workers of the PHCN.

The minister could, therefore, not have resigned simply because the President suddenly discovered his private interest was in conflict with his public duty; the conflict had been there all along. From the President’s oblique talk about some VIP stakeholders’ worry about the integrity of the exercise, a more likely explanation could be that the private interest in the exercise of some officials more powerful than the minister simply trumped the minister’s.

In which case it should be obvious that Nnaji’s resignation alone has hardly solved the problem of the conflict of interest of government officials responsible for the exercise.

When the president announced on August 28 that he had accepted the “resignation” of his minister, he said he would replace him quickly and with another Igbo. It’s now mid-October and Nnaji is yet to be replaced at all, never mind with an Igbo compatriot. This undue delay suggests the politics of PHCN’s privatisation has complicated matters for the President.

If this is the case, the President has only himself to blame; he ought to have known that a policy of allocating portfolios by ethnicity – or for that matter, by state, as seems to be the case with the ministry of defence which has remained vacant since he sacked the last minister, who is from Kebbi State, months ago – is as wrongheaded as it is untenable in a world where competence has no tribe, creed or colour. Not that there are no other Igbos even more competent than Nnaji. There are. But to insist on an Igbo replacement was clearly restricting his choice.

In announcing Nnaji’s departure as minister, the President praised him for his competence and professionalism. Few would or can question the President’s judgement about the ex-minister’s credentials. However, it misses the main issue which is the integrity of the exercise. The fact is that competence and professionalism are no substitutes for integrity. And it is the dubious integrity of the exercise that has left the country as poorly served today by its power utility company as it was nearly 13 years ago when President Olusegun Obasanjo promised he will turn the sector around.

Nnaji did little to enhance the integrity of the exercise which, by the president’s own admission, was why the gentleman had to leave.

The question is would his departure make any difference? It is doubtful that it would, for the simple reason that Nnaji is probably not the only senior government official whose private interest ran counter to his public duty. The evidence is there in the history of privatisation in this country where the commonwealth has largely ended in the hands of senior government officials and their cronies and kins. It is also there in the fact that, as with previous exercises, perhaps the most notorious of which was that of NITEL, the country’s telecommunication company, the assets of PHCN have probably been grossly understated.

Government ownership of companies may have been discredited in this country but the record of the private ownership in sectors like banking and aviation has given little cause to believe that privatisation is the only solution.

Elsewhere, among the Asian Tigers – South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, etc – and in China the world’s emerging economic super power, there is ample evidence that efficiency and profitability is not the preserve of privately owned companies. The evidence is also right here on our continent, where the publicly owned Ethiopian Airline, for example, has shown that public ownership is not necessarily an obstacle to commercial success.

By all means let’s go ahead and privatise our public companies since they have proved unviable. However, as we do so we must remember that their problem was less the nature of their ownership than the lack of integrity with which they were run.

Unless the authorities do all they can to guarantee such integrity in the sale of the public companies, their privatised offsprings can only bring even more pain to consumers than was the case before.

October 17, 2012
Why Mimiko can’t win Ondo election

As the clock ticks daily to the D-Day for the Ondo State gubernatorial election and the flurry of political activities and intrigues that accompany it, the question on the lips of observers is; can Mimiko win? The answer is hanging in the air but the reason for asking the question is not far-fetched. Olusegun Rahman Mimiko, Governor of Ondo State and until recently, the candidate to beat in the October 20, gubernatorial election in the state, is the candidate of the Labour Party. He is the only governor produced by Labour Party in Nigeria. His major contenders are Olusola Oke of the PDP and Rotimi Akeredolu of the ACN.

Watching the debate of the candidates on AIT last Thursday, Mimiko looked troubled, emaciated and forlorn. Olusola Oke of the PDP was in his best element while Rotimi Akeredolu did not do badly. Recently, a poll watch that gave victory to Akeredolu popularly called Aketi with 40.28 percent; Mimiko came a distant second with 24.84 while Olusole Oke came third with 22.84. This may be correct considering the turn of events in Ondo State in the last few weeks. What led to the turn of events for Mimiko who three months ago was sure to beat other candidates silly in a free and fair election?

Mimiko rode to power with a lot of goodwill arising from the 2009 landmark judgment of the Court of Appeal, Benin division which returned him as the duly elected governor of the state while stripping the then incumbent, Olusegun Agagu of the PDP the certificate of return already issued by INEC. Mimiko was so popular that his inauguration witnessed multitudes of supporters from within and outside the state. Overwhelmed with the crowd and level of support, he wept. He promised to work for them and they believed him. But shortly after he assumed the reins of power, the real Mimiko manifested. He reduced governance in Ondo State to a family affair by alienating leaders of his party and his close aides in major decisions of government.

The first sign of trouble was when a Senator from his party defected to the ACN. But when the state chairman of the party, Olaiya Oni resigned, it was a sign that all is not well with Mimiko. Recently, five of his closed aides resigned in a day while others followed in quick succession. His party members have left in droves. The trouble was however temporarily mitigated by the seeming performance of Mimiko especially the N5billon street lighting of Oba Adesida road and the water dispensing roundabout. This soon pale into insignificance when the scale fell off the eyes of Ondo people that Mimiko only did the grandiose project on Oba Adesida road and nowhere else in the state capital not to talk of other major towns like Ikare, Owo, Okitipupa and Ore. He ought to have taken a cue from neighbouring Ekiti and Osun states where construction work is going on in other local governments in the states.

The Mega school project of Mimiko is a colossal waste of money as a general renovation of schools as recently done in neighbouring Ekiti State would have been more cost effective and result oriented. He embarked on a dome project of N2.9 billion which is now abandoned. On health, his N4 billion Kaadi Igbeayo project has been abandoned. Agagu claimed he left a sum of N38 billion naira in the treasury but Mimiko claimed he met a debt of N117 billion. He was alleged to have thrown the state into huge indebtedness to the tune of about N100 billion naira by borrowing and yet he has received in three and a half years about 300 billion from the federation account. He owes many contractors without any hope of paying back if he does not secure a second term. The Sunshine Liberation Movement has exposed many shady deals of the Mimiko administration and they have provided documents to back this up which the government has not been able to debunk till date. The sharp practices include contract inflation, over invoicing and frivolous awards of non-existing contracts to family members and cronies.

What observers regard as the greatest undoing of Mimiko is his treacherous nature. He was alleged to have betrayed Ajasin, Adefarati, Agagu, Obasanjo and Tinubu. He had a pact with Tinubu who bankrolled his bid to reclaim his mandate with the understanding that he would join ACN thereafter but reneged on the agreement and even castigated Tinubu his benefactor. Mimiko could not be trusted. He once shocked a colleague governor from a neighbouring state when he sponsored hoodlums to disrupt the venue of a lecture for late Adefarati after he has assured his colleague that there would be no problem.

Another problem confronting Mimiko is that he is in the midst of performing governors in the South-west from Lagos to Edo State. Like a bad dream, his popularity has drastically waned in the last one month when Ondo State people started comparing the state which earns an average of N6 billion from the federation account monthly as an oil producing state to Ekiti, a non-oil producing state with just N2.5 billion. The level of work in Ekiti’s 16 local government areas is stupendous and this made Mimiko’s supposed achievement juxtaposed with the resources available to him pale into insignificance.

Governor Raji Fashola recently took him to the cleaners when he gingered Ondo State people to wake up from their slumber and chase Mimiko out. He said it is shameful that Ondo had not fared better than when Mimiko took over more than three years ago despite the resources available to him. As if Ondo people have been waiting for Governor Fashola to show them the way, they turned the table against Mimiko. The first sign that Mimiko is no longer the candidate to beat was the Ikare rally that was well attended to the chagrin of Mimiko. The crowd at Ore rally of the ACN was more than that of Ikare. Ondo rally of the ACN was an embarrassment to Mimiko who hails from the town. It was a mammoth crowd. From that moment, it was clear that Mimiko is in trouble.

In Akure last week, 400 members of his Labour Party defected to the ACN saying Mimiko would lose the election this Saturday. We all know huge crowds at rallies don’t win elections but for ACN to record such a huge crowd, the signs are bad for the government of the day. Ondo State people also wanted to be part of development in the rest of the South-west states and would not want to be left out in the impending greater benefits that would come with the regional integration of the region which Mimiko has shunned.

The analysis of the election proper is also a cause of worry for Mimiko and his genuine supporters. In Ondo Central which has the largest number of voters and where Mimiko has the strongest support base, he is not sure of total victory except in Ondo town. Akure, Ile-Oluji and Iju Ita Ogbolu is likely to be won by the ACN. Ondo South comprising of Ore, Odigbo, the riverine areas of Ilaje, Ikale and the Mahin and Arogbo clans is for former Governor Agagu and by extension, the PDP but the ACN will have a good showing having made in-roads into the area recently.

Ondo North comprising of Akoko and Owo is Akeredolu’s base and he is sure of victory. Mimiko is in for a shocker as most of his trusted aides and friends are working for the opposition and are still the men he relies on to deliver votes for him on October 20. It is so for Mimiko because of his politics of exclusion. He does not trust his aides and his aides don’t trust him but are only waiting to collect whatever he has to offer before bolting. The Mimiko ship is already leaking and it is a matter of time before it sinks. Only the Nigerian factor can ensure victory for Mimiko on Saturday given the fact that it is near impossible for him to win in a free and fair election. With this scenario, the question comes up again, can Mimiko win?

• Ibraheem writes from Ore.

October 17, 2012
The Hajj conundrum

Going on pilgrimage is a religious obligation that every Muslim is expected to perform, at least, once in his or her lifetime if he/she has the means. For the Christians, it is Jerusalem, in Israel, that they head to every year to perform their pilgrimage. The Muslims go to Mecca and Medina to observe theirs.

But by far, it is the Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia that attracts the highest number of faithful all over the world every year. With this also comes the high publicity that is attached to the yearly ritual. Apart from the yearly pilgrimage, many Muslim faithful also visit the Holy land for Umrah or “Lesser Hajj”. However, this is done at anytime of the year without really engaging the attention or the probing eyes of journalists and other media commentators.

The popular yearly hajj, which culminates in ram-slaughtering, the Id-El- Kabir festival, is undertaken two months and a few days after the Muslim’s 30-day fasting period known as Ramadan. This yearly hajj is a very big event as so many activities are involved in it. Good enough, the Saudi Arabian government has put several measures in place to accommodate the large influx of Muslims to the country on the annual religious ritual. But in spite of all the measures put in place to ensure hitch-free hajj operations, some of the pilgrims have run into one problem or another while in the Holy Land. In most cases, the Saudi Arabian government has always risen up to the occasion by attending to any issues that may arise during the annual pilgrimage.

Surprisingly, this year’s pilgrimage by Nigerian pilgrims has attracted a huge controversy because of the forced deportation of some female pilgrims. The dust raised by the action taken by the Saudis is just about to settle with the flurry of diplomatic meetings and shuttles embarked upon by the Nigerian government, particularly the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Aminu Tambuwal, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and his team also dashed to the Kingdom on a one-day fence-mending visit. Finally, the Saudi government softened its stand on some of the pilgrims who had earlier been repatriated to Nigeria. That incident itself is the crux of this discourse.

The first thing is that, side-by-side our generally accepted Western attitudes and values that lay emphasis on the freedom of the individual adult to act according to his or her own needs and general personal desires, Islam is a different ball game, especially with regards to women. Simply put, women are generally seen as minors who require permission from their husbands or father or the adult male equivalent in the family. Generally speaking, choices for women in Islam on a lot of things simply follow a well-guarded path with little or no room for any ‘creativity’ on the part of the woman. Of course, this tradition is most jealously upheld and guarded in Islamic environments were Wahabism – a stricter, more extreme version of Islam – is practised such as you find in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Taliban-controlled-Afghanistan and a few other places, including among many Muslims in northern Nigeria.

This is where, in hajj, the issue of mahram (chaperon/guardian) comes into the picture. One thing though, it is not true that the issue of a chaperon has only just come to be recognised in hajj. It’s just that the practice has, over the decades, been bent to accommodate modern political and social nuances. In short, the practice of mahram for women on hajj has merely learned to recognise the fact that because of the peculiarity regarding the number of pilgrims of various backgrounds from even one country, it cannot be practical for every single woman going on hajj to necessarily have access to a family member who is an adult male to act as chaperon. Hence the waiver that had been in existence for Nigeria’s female pilgrims since the 1980s. Under this arrangement, the leader of the delegation (the Amir-ul Hajj) from each country is sufficient to act as the chaperon/guardian of all female pilgrims from that country.

So, what went wrong this time? Well, an exhaustive answer may only be provided by both the Saudi authorities and their Nigerian counterparts. But it is first worthy to note that even by the regulations on hajj and the chaperon/guardian issue, it is permissible for any woman who is 45 years old or older to go on hajj without a mahram. This also brings us to the issue of the category of women who have so far been denied entry into Saudi Arabia in the current controversy. It is, perhaps, not ordinary happenstance that while some older women have been granted entry with the minimum of fuss, most of the ones who have been denied entry are young women all under 34 years of age and even much younger. In the case of one contingent from Kano, it was allegedly discovered that a whole plane only had three male passengers, with all the other passengers being female.

And it certainly begets curiosity as to why a passenger plane could have such a lopsided composition of passengers. It becomes more interesting when we throw into the fray Nigeria’s history with regards to the behaviour of some members of our contingents at such gatherings of mass proportions abroad. It is a well-documented development that it is usually a hard battle preventing some members of our contingents from absconding during sports meets anywhere in the world. And unless we are bent on calling a spade by some other name, we cannot feign ignorance of such incidents often taking place with our contingents on pilgrimage whether to Jerusalem or Mecca. Even where some of these people – in this case, the women – do not abscond outright, there have been alleged cases of various unwholesome activities on their parts such as prostitution, begging and the like. And unless we insist on wallowing in self-denial, many such stories abound about our pilgrims’ conduct in Saudi Arabia.

Therefore, it might be safe to assume that in the case of the current controversy, our legacy has simply preceded us. In essence, the Saudis may have finally caught on to the antics of our people and decided to try and put a stop to it, starting, of course, with the crackdown on that (in)famous three-male-out-of-hundreds aeroplane incident from Kano.

If this is the case, then perhaps the Saudi authorities are absolved of all blame, right? Well, not quite. Firstly, it is highly implausible that the Saudis have only recently caught on to this attitude and have, even more belatedly, found a noose to throw around the problem. In addition, as a retort to a question on why more and more men are becoming adulterous around the world, a psychologist once asked: “Who do you think these men are sleeping with?” Perhaps, it is similarly legitimate for us to ask: After all other pilgrims have returned to their countries, which men then patronise the Nigerian women who often decide to stay behind and hawk their bodies for money in Saudi Arabia? What usually happens to the hordes of women who are reportedly ‘arrested’ by Saudi security forces for breaches of the social and moral rule only to be off the streets for the night or a couple of days and be back ‘doing their thing’ afterwards? Could the possible answers to these questions be the main reason the Saudis have allegedly not given any reason for their new-found brazenness in injuring their country’s diplomatic ties with Nigeria while not offering any explanation for the sudden aggressive treatment of Nigeria’s female pilgrims this year? Well, maybe, as they say in Yoruba, oro p’esije (too serious beyond response).

October 17, 2012
Another view on onshore-offshore oil debate

One regrettable thing about not speaking out on issues that have the potentials of defining the direction, quality of life, development and growth of society, is that one lives with the burden of failing to act right and on time, too, forever. Over the years, this has been the lot of poor majority Nigerians, who seem always comfortable to either sit on the fence or act as bystanders and impartial arbiters in issues that affect them. The consequence has been that politicians smart enough to identify this weakness have continued to brew subversive policies and live large while the people suffer steady decline in fortunes.

Today, the issue of the abrogation of onshore-offshore oil dichotomy, which has maintained an increasingly delicate presence on the controversy table, is challenging the peoples’ will to determine their future, organize and achieve their personal and collective goals in life. The bill, which provides adequate financial reward and compensation for oil producing communities or states where oil is drilled whether offshore or onshore, has since pitched the North against the South. With tempers running high and fingers pointed at key politicians, particularly former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Honourable Ghali Na’ Abba, former Speaker, Federal House of Representatives, in whose administration and leadership of the House, respectively, the controversial bill was introduced, the president has since added salt to injury by pronouncing the issue settled.

While Obasanjo is accused of introducing the bill to divide the House and as well as scuttle an impeachment moves by the National Assembly, Na’Abba is accused of doing little or nothing to protect the north, which today, is on the receiving end of the bill. The former Speaker, his traducers insist, was blinded by greed, an alleged gubernatorial ambition and hate for the then Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwakwanso, with whom he never enjoyed the best of relationships, to permit the bill, to spite him.

However, in an interview, recently, the former Speaker dismissed his accusers, saying that he did his best to prevent the bill from sailing through and protect the interest of the north. But rather than assuage frayed nerves, Na’Abba’s reaction has since deepened the controversy surrounding the matter. Indeed, to keen followers of politics in the National Assembly and Kano State at the time, Na’Abba’s belated defence possibly qualifies as warped tales from dream lands. Equally coming close to the typical situation of a drowning man desperate for survival, Na’ Abba in his bid to wriggle out of a condition, which he watched as the north walked into, deliberately decided to twist bare facts out of shape. Seeming like the proverbial monkey that clapped and jumped, while his house, the trees, were being felled by the enemy, Na’Abba’s mind, perhaps, was set on other things while Obasanjo acted his scripts to the hurt of the north.

But assuming, without conceding, there was any meat in his argument that no northern governor raised a finger in opposition to the abrogation of the onshore-offshore dichotomy bill, why would he settle for a strange ‘clause’ to, according to him, discourage Obasanjo from signing the bill, when an open and outright opposition and condemnation of the bill would have settled the matter pronto? This featherweight defence, for the discerning, further gives away the deceitful manner in which the matter was handled by Na’Abba’s leadership. This is why one considers his finger-pointing to northern governors annoying and ridiculous, to say the least.

Bad as it were, it is never too late to make amends since lessons have been learnt from the action and inaction of those who should know better, just as its practice has manifested grave inadequacies in the distribution of national wealth for growth and development of the nation. This is why not a few people were shocked when signs emerged that President Goodluck Ebere Jonathan was not disposed to revisiting the issue.

While one is constrained by the volatility of this issue, it would spell doom not to speak out against stay of review for an issue that is potentially strategic in achieving the Nigeria of our dreams where everyone irrespective of creed or class can grow together and enjoy equal opportunities in all spheres of human endeavour.

There is no disputing the fact that until the discovery of oil on land and sea, the nation had found life in other money-yields such as cocoa, palm oil, groundnut, among others. Even at the discovery of oil, money made from these sources was deployed to develop it, just as natives of oil communities had benefited immensely from these revenue sources before oil became the main source of sustenance.

There is no doubt, therefore, that there are apparent disparities in revenue sharing formula, which leaves a sour taste in the mouth particularly as it negates the spirit of brotherhood and unity that reigned before the abrogation of the dichotomy.

One clear sign today is the slow pace of development in most of the non-oil producing states. The abrogation has equally widened the poverty grid and also weakened the capital base of non-oil producing states, thus making it difficult to deliver democracy dividends without so much struggle. Most of the non-oil producing states find it difficult to evenly grow as their oil producing counterparts.

As currently obtains, South-south and people of the oil-producing littoral states are at prime position with 13 per cent allocation, thus underscoring the urgent need for a review. Funny enough, while this has weighed negatively on the north, governors of South-south states, typical of the literary character, Oliver Twist, want more!

The position of governors of ‘Prince’ States, who are opposed to the dichotomy is understandable. They hinge their argument on the fact that the matter had long been decided by the nation’s apex court, the Supreme Court, in favour of the subsisting sharing formula. But truth, however, is that the Supreme Court ruling like a sticky plaster, has simply continued to provide a temporary cover for an already nourished oil producing states, while for the non-oil producing states, challenging economic conditions have since drifted from a prickly state to a growing cancerous sore needing urgent medication.

I believe fervently that Nigeria is a country destined to stay glued by the creator. Our forebears made no error in their judgement that we share a common destiny. The kind of security challenges we are sailing through could only have happened in a society that offers no hope for its coming generation. Increasing the current revenue allocation in favour of the non-oil producing states, could no doubt restore hope to the hopeless, but thousands of kilometers away from solving the mirage of problems confronting, especially the North. It may be a temporary succour, more importantly the kind of relief needed to cruise to the next level.

It is not time immemorial when agriculture sustained the nation. In the early 60s. agriculture constituted more than 75% of this country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and foreign earnings. So, where and how did things go awry? Maybe, we say, the oil boom. But it is not a curse that we discovered oil. The tragedy is the failure to invest the earnings to develop other natural endowments, especially agriculture. God forbid, what happens if “our oil” dries off? It is a common knowledge that our foreign earnings from agriculture, expectedly but regrettably, began to fall when we discovered oil in 1956 and abandoned the farm. Agriculture related industries like cotton industries, leather factories also plummeted. Unemployement, poverty and other vices followed.

My verdicts: the oil producing states, in the spirit of neighborliness should let up the issue of a revisit of the dichotomy. Yes, it is a common sense to benefit from one’s resources, but more common and apt is to be one’s brothers keeper.

• Aiyekooto writes in from Ilorin, Kwara State

October 17, 2012
Sultan, the Archbishop and the Nobel

It is the Nobel season once again. This time Nigerian names are in the frame more than at any time in recent memory. Already, perennial favourite, Chinua Achebe, has lost out in the literature stakes to the Chinese writer, Mo Yan.

This year, in one of the more curious nominations, the shortlist for the Peace Prize has thrown up the names of the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammed Sa’ad Abubakar III, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Onaiyekan.

Ordinarily, the prospect of two of our countrymen picking up the coveted prize is something that should fill Nigerians with a sense of pride. Such an honour would be a welcome bit of good news amidst an unrelenting deluge of the bad stuff.

But coming at a time when the brutal actions of the fundamentalist Islamic sect, Boko Haram, are threatening to tear the country apart, this ranks as another in the long line of controversial nominations for the Peace Prize.

Without question the insurgency in large parts of northern Nigeria is the greatest challenge to peaceful coexistence this country has faced since the Civil War. The Niger-Delta insurgency was limited in scope to targeting Nigeria’s economic interests and making it impossible for multinational oil firms to operate.

But Boko Haram, combining the incendiary mix of politics and religion, has set as its goal the toppling of the current constitutional order, and replacing it with a theocracy where Sharia law will be the law of the land.

Such is the level of brutality deployed by Boko Haram in its campaign, that it has been cited – along with military agents of government – as committing possible crimes against humanity in the present theatre of conflict in the North-East.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimates that in the last three years the intense war between the sect and Nigerian security forces might have claimed at least 2,800 lives. With their use of crude IEDs for mass killing, we can credit the bulk of that body count to the terrorists.

A new report by HRW says some of these attacks were “deliberate acts leading to population ‘cleansing’ based on religion or ethnicity”. These are very grave charges indeed. They hold out the prospect that those being accused – whether on the side of the extremists or the government – could one day find themselves facing justice at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.

Despite its deployment of military force as the sect’s attacks became more brazen and catastrophic, the government has not been able to crush it. But many argue that this failure is also down to collusion on the part of local communities and their leadership who have shielded known elements of Boko Haram for years. This protective cover has made it almost impossible for security forces to get quality intelligence in their fight against the group.

Of course, Boko Haram has been able to cow large sections of the North – both ordinary people and elite – by showing potential collaborators with the Federal Government that they and their families could only expect sudden, brutal death for their folly.

A little over a year ago former President Olusegun Obasanjo embarked on a peace mission to Maiduguri to meet Babakura Fugu , the representative of the late Boko Haram leader, Mohammed Yusuf’s family. A few days later he was shot dead by assailants suspected to be from a faction of the sect.

Little wonder that such collaboration has been few and far between, and over the last few years a blanket of silence has descended upon the entire region. It is hard to get any major regional leader to publicly denounce the actions of the sect with the kind of trenchant rhetoric they deserve.

Where they have been forced to comment, such statements have been embarrassing balancing acts that in one breath offered anodyne words of condemnation while at the same time making excuses for the killers – or finding fault with the actions of the security agencies.

There is no question that in the North the Sultan remains the most influential and powerful traditional-cum-religious leader. But beyond making the usual bland, politically-correct statements, I cannot recall when he ever denounced the activities of Boko Haram with force that they deserve.

We do know that the sect are not exactly enamoured with him. If anything they hold defenders of traditional Islamic orthodoxy like him in great contempt, and would do anything to destroy his influence and all he represents. So it is a mystery that he has not come out as hard as he could have on the issue of Boko Haram.

As for his fellow nominee – the archbishop, I have no doubt that as a man of the cloth he is equally committed to peaceful coexistence of the two major faiths in Nigeria. I recall seeing a picture of him serving fruit to some Muslims at a gathering he organised to help them break their fast during the last Ramadan.

Still I am not convinced that such gestures alone, or offering the right platitudes after some terrorist outrage, qualify one to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

But again, stranger things have happened. After all United States President, Barack Obama, while still trying to find his feet in office was handed the Peace prize on a platter less than one year after he was elected.

In one of the most embarrassing chapters for the Nobel Academy in recent times, they strained for a reason for giving the prize to a president who at that point was superintending wars in two different theatres outside the American mainland. The best that apologists could offer was that the prize was to encourage the ‘apostle of hope’ to work toward global peace in the future – ‘a call to action’ they said it was.

How I wish the Sultan and the archbishop will win. What I am not sure of is whether Boko Haram insurgents who have not responded to the deadly persuasion of Joint Task Force (JTF) bullets, would be impressed by some shiny medals minted in Sweden.

October 14, 2012
On the Port Harcourt horror show

Last week, a mob descended on four undergraduates of the University of Port Harcourt – beat them to death and burnt their bodies. They allegedly stole some cell phones.

The lynching in the Aluu community of Port Harcourt was said to have been overseen by the traditional ruler who in a moment of madness appointed him not as only as judge and juror, but must have so fancied his own eminence he was deluded into thinking he had the power to take life.

This act of impunity which has filled the entire country with revulsion is just a mirror of how we take the law into our hands in this country. In Nigeria, every man is a law unto himself.

As though that was not bad enough, we are reveling in new levels of bestiality that it is amazing some us still have the capacity to be shocked. Last week, unknown gunmen slaughtered over 40 students in Mubi. Shortly after this new outrage at Aluu. Add all of that to the regular diet about ritual killings in the newspapers.

Surely, Nigeria is very sick. A society where a baying mob can gleefully burn four youngsters who have not committed murder, but may or may not have stolen cell phones, needs urgent self examination. Aluu shows us how low we have fallen. The question this morning is we can we descend any lower? I answer with trepidation: in present day Nigeria anything is possible.

October 14, 2012
Still on the Constitution and bad workmen

Among the usual mixed reactions this column gets, that from one, Mike Oyeleke, to last week’s piece on what I obviously considered our wrong-headed belief that the sure-fire solution to the country’s problems is to fix its Constitution, looked like a most logical rebuttal of my thesis.

For Oyeleke, whose reaction is reproduced below, I was obviously wrong to blame Nigerian politicians for quarrelling with our Constitution. They are, he says, right to do so because the country’s Constitution as the principal tool for its development is defective and in dire need of fixing.

The gentleman’s point of view is likely to resonate well with advocates of Sovereign National Conference; they seem to believe convoking an SNC to fix our Constitution is the panacea to our problems. It is hard, I believe, to find a more simplistic thinking on how to solve Nigeria’s problems.

True, our Constitution is defective and in need of fixing; it is a wrong reading of my piece last week to assume I did not think it is defective. After all, nothing man-made is, by definition, perfect because Man himself is imperfect.

My argument was simple; warts and all, if Nigerians had kept faith with their Constitution their country would never have been in the terrible mess in which it is. To quote one of the respondents to my article in question whose response I did not reproduce here, one, Ogbuba Gabriel who said he is an engineer, “A good worker can mend a crack with a bad tool to some extent.” I, for one, couldn’t agree more.

By the same token, even with the best tool available, no positive result can ever be achieved with the kind of bad faith Nigerian politicians have demonstrated in upholding the country’s Constitution in their politics.

The monumental corruption and waste that have been exposed in the country’s oil subsidy regime is, for example, not the fault of the country’s Constitution. Neither is the Constitution to blame for the monumental “mismanagement and misapplication” of the country’s ecological fund – to use the words of the Senate Public Accounts Committee which recently said it has discovered N400 billion of the fund had been used in the last 10 years to buy such creature comforts like presumably expensive vehicles for public officials rather than for protecting and improving our environment. No doubt if half, or even less, of this huge amount – and chances are the corruption and waste was understated – had been spent on dredging our rivers and streams and generally on safeguarding our environment, the flood disaster we have witnessed this year all over the country, which has claimed hundreds of lives and thousands of livelihoods, would have been avoided.

Again, it is not the fault of the Constitution that, as one of my respondents said, our presidential system has proved prohibitively expensive. The Constitution is not to blame, for instance, for the decision by our federal legislators to fix their own wages and allowances and keep us totally in the dark about the size of those wages and allowances. On the contrary, the Constitution couldn’t have been more explicit than it was about the conflict of interest in allowing public servants to fix their own remuneration.

In these and all other cases of corruption and waste, there are sufficient Constitutional guidelines to stop abuse. There are also sufficient guidelines on how to punish abuse – and reward compliance. The problem for our country is that these guidelines have mostly been observed only in the breach. The problem is also that hardly does anyone get punished when the guidelines are breached. Instead our reward and punishment system seems to put a high premium on wrong doing and on self-service, as has been glaringly demonstrated by the country’s thoroughly discredited National Honours awards.

By all means let us correct the flaws in our Constitution. But if we truly want our country to develop we must approach its amendment with the full knowledge of, and respect for, the fact that a rule is not worth the paper it is written on if, as is obviously the case in Nigeria, it can be disregarded with impunity, especially by those entrusted with the power and authority to ensure compliance with it.

Talking about the importance of our politicians leading by example as the way out of our national decay, I witnessed a small but symbolically mighty example of it last week in Ekiti State when, on a visit to its governor, the youthful John Kayode Fayemi with my publisher friend, Chief Ikechi Emenike, he asked us to join his convoy on a trip from Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, to Ekiti East Local Government for a town square meeting with its people on next year’s budget.

The first thing that struck me was that his convoy was a short five or six vehicle long, with himself and his commissioners and aides that accompanied him in a bus. That was a far cry from your typical governor’s convoy.

However, what struck me even more was that the convoy actually obeyed traffic lights within the town, had no siren and did not disrupt the traffic on the highway all the way to its destination.

It is small examples of leadership by example like this, much more than our proclivity in amending our Constitution at the drop of the hat, that will make the big difference in our struggle to become a peaceful, stable and prosperous nation.

FEEDBACK

Re Constitutional amendment: a bad workman…

Sir,

The tools the Nigerian politicians work with are not original tools. Rather they are working with corrupted tools. Whereas in America the senate president is the vice president, in Nigeria we have a vice president separate from the senate president. Since the tool is corrupted so will there be complaints by those who use the tools. Shouldn’t the office of the attorney general be separated from that of the minister of justice? Shouldn’t each federating state have its own constitution and its own police? Should the National Assembly members determine their pay? Bad workmen, bad tools.

Mike Oyeleke, +2348162441631

Sir,

Thank you for your very interesting article: Constitutional amendments: A bad workman… This is just to correct a small mistake. You stated that Major-General Aguiyi Ironsi abolished the Independence Constitution. That assertion is factually incorrect. The Independence Constitution is the 1960 constitution. But there was another constitution in 1963. It is called the Republican constitution. It was the one abolished by Major-General Ironsi.

Hon Samaila Mohammed, Jos

Sir,

I agree with you that the constitution do not constitute far greater problem in Nigerian affairs than the behaviour of our politicians. However, there is no doubting the fact that some sections of the present constitution need to be amended. And while the paramount condition for our national progress is change in attitude and behaviour, I also think that there is need to jettison this costly presidential system for a more cost effective parliamentary one. Unfortunately our legislators won’t support such move because they are only interested in feathering their nests with our collective wealth.

Kingley Aduga, 08133071697

Sir.

Amend the constitution of Nigeria one million times it will not solve our problems. This is because those who are to protect and enforce will be ones that will work against it.

Dr. John Ogbadu

Sir,

You will no doubt support that the present constitutional status quo be maintained given that your part of the world is unfairly favoured by the document. Yoruba speaking people of Kogi State, for instance, are treated like slaves by Igala colonialists who believe the state was a gift to them by (General) Ibrahim B. Babangida! Are you saying in all honesty and sincerity that they should continue to groan under such constitutional bondage? It is definitely going to be costlier in the long run to perpetuate such constitutional injustice, cheating and unfairness which may breed new militants and boko haramites.

Musa Bakare

+2348036351937

Sir,

As usual, you got your dates mixed up. Murtala was assassinated in 1976, not 1975.

S.K. Mustapha

+2348034235782

Maiduguri

I stand corrected. MKH

October 10, 2012
Independence without celebration

I could have written this piece earlier but waited to appropriately gauge the mood of Nigerians last Monday, October 1, the 52nd Independence anniversary of the country.

On the eve of that day, Ayo, a young Customs officer in Lagos had called me to wish me happy Independence Anniversary in advance. Soon after this, he added a caveat! “Sir, is it true that prices of petrol might be hiked tomorrow?” Initially, I was speechless. Then I quickly put myself together and replied: “I don’t think so. No sane person would do such a thing on Independence Day of all days.”

“But remember sir that the last fuel price hike was on New Year Day, January 1, and people are already doing panic buying”. In spite of this, I stood my ground and asked him to perish the thought. That is the extent of the mortal fear that has been etched into the sub-consciousness of the average Nigerian.

Anyway, the following day, October 1, I listened to the President’s broadcast that morning as he reeled out his achievements so far. It was reassuring though. But statistics aside, what Nigerians actually need this time is to measure the quality of their life. Has there been any improvement in the last 13 years of democratic governance? I say this because I share the admission of the President that he alone and not one man alone can change the fortunes of Nigeria.

We have passed through decades of decay, decadence, indiscipline, corruption, embezzlement of public funds and all that. That Nigeria is still standing as one nation today is probably due to the benevolence of the Almighty God. Every sector, every section, and every age bracket have contributed to the morass of underdevelopment the country has been grappling with.

Under the military interregnum, there was a common enemy, as various aspersions were cast on the military as if they were some foreign elements or strangers who had cornered the reins of power to foster a selfish agenda. We never took cognisance of the fact that, except for the head of state, military governors or military administrators of each state and a few aides, all other members of the cabinet were civilians. Even the civil service, the engine room of government, was run solely by civil servants. Not one of them was a military man.

So, if the military rulers stole money, they did not perpetrate the looting alone. They were aided or, even in many instances, goaded by the civilians in high places. It was the civilians in sensitive places who taught them how to steal and what to steal. Today, the civilian collaborators of the military are walking freely and causing problems everywhere with their ill-gotten wealth, but nobody is talking.

That brings me back to 1999. We all know what we passed through to achieve democratic governance. Many precious souls were lost in the titanic struggle to ease off the military from power. But how many of those who stood before the barrels of the guns are in power today? The political firmament is being dominated by the offspring of those who brought the country to its knees prior to the events of January and July 1966. Many of the political parties, that is, if they can be called as such, are populated by crooks and known criminals. Their agenda: to loot the public till in order to oil their selfish and extravagant lifestyles.

In the rat race to empty the treasury, strange bedfellows are now cohabiting. It is no longer “what we can offer, but what we can get”. That is the reason why there is a permanent fratricidal war going on in most of the political parties. When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. As our politicians are embroiled in an open war of attrition, it is the people and the development of the nation that bear the brunt.

No other time in Nigeria has the drums of war by ethnic nationalities been so high than today. Those who have been schemed out of the political equations in the country have resorted to championing the parochial interests of their ethnic and sectional groups. This, they intend to use, as bargaining chips for political ascendency. To achieve this, they must heat up the polity to breaking point.

While the ethnic jingoists are doing their own, others are using religion and other pretences to conceal their real intentions. Besides, all the present form of criminality – kidnapping, violent robberies, internet fraud and social media crimes – are the manifestation of a society where the craze for materialism at all costs has reached an alarming crescendo. It is like those who cannot join the politicians to loot have devised their own ‘ingenious’ means to amass wealth even if it means that blood must flow freely.

Look at Boko Haram or whatever it is called. Though the lethargic security system in the country could be blamed for not nipping this nonsense in the bud, the increasing number of new converts to the rapacious and rampaging gang is worrisome. It means some people are profiting from the entire brigandage. In a country where religious pluralism holds sway, is it not pure eccentricity to assume that a rudderless group of people could foster a particular religion or doctrine on the country?

Now, it is getting increasingly clear that the gang of marauders has the blessing and active connivance of some unscrupulous security agents, which is why their activities have been proving intractable. Yet, what is really at stake is the struggle for the control of the levers of power. All is about power, not to change or improve on the destiny of the country but to rape it ceaselessly and mercilessly.

As I write, I can imagine the life of squalor and destitution the victims of the recent flood disaster in the country are facing. Do the politicians care if they are washed away by the surging flood? As people are driven out of their places of abode, petty thieves and robbers are all over the place making away with any property they could lay their hands on. The government that should have provided the needed succour seems to have no solution to the problem. Consequently, many of the displaced Nigerians are now left entirely to the vagaries of hunger, disease and untimely death.

That is why I see this year’s independence anniversary as a contradiction of what I witnessed in the United States of America, USA, on June 4. That day was America’s Independence Anniversary.

Independence Day in America is always a huge celebration. You could smell the festivities before the D-Day. Various manufacturers and shopping outlets unleash a deluge of promos, discounts and lotteries on the public, while people scramble to arrange for barbeque all over the place. People travel far and wide for revelry.

In the afternoon of that day, I accompanied my friend to their church – a newly commissioned Redeemed Church of God at Richmond area of Houston, Texas. The place was packed full with picnickers who were all Nigerians. Apart from a cow on a barbecue, sausages, corn and every item of merriment were also in abundance. As I watched the joyous multitude, what ran through my mind was: “Here are Nigerians celebrating the independence of another country almost 7,000 kilometres away from home with such élan and excitement. Even though many of them could hardly live above subsistence level, they were sure that their conditions can only improve, not get worse like that of their fellow men back home.

The lesson from this is that we must wake up from our deep slumber, eschew all forms of unhealthy rivalries – ethnic, religious or political – bury our parochial interests and join hands to move this country forward.

October 10, 2012