The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • More national mourning; Federal character COAS?

    Tony Marinho

     

     

    COVID-19 deaths approaching 3,475,000 among 168,000,000 diagnosed cases and 1.66+billion vaccines worldwide. Nigerian cases approaching 167,000 and 2,070 deaths with 1.9m+ doses given.

    Apology: China lands a Zhurong rover on Mars – 329.4 million km from earth, not the Moon- merely 384,000km from earth. Nigeria nko?

    There has been ignored, unannounced ‘National Mourning’ for years. Now we have a ‘More National Mourning’ air force plane crash in Kaduna killing the Chief of Army Staff, COAS Lt Gen I Attahiru, Brig Gen MI Abdulkadir, Brig Gen Olayinka, Brig Gen Kuliya, Maj. LA Hayat, Maj Hamza, Sgt Umar, and crew Flt Lt TO Asaniyi, Fl Lt AA Olufade, Sgt Adesina, ACM Oyedepo. They sadly, all traumatically, paid the supreme sacrifice for Nigeria, leaving behind unachieved goals, grand plans for country, career and community and leaving distraught wives, children, parents and distant family members and distressed friends – seen on the media.

    Many of us had previously thought how lucky they were in their success before the accident. Many just appreciated their drive and professionalism. Suddenly we are lost in pain of premature termination of the walk-through life. The nation had just pinned a medal of ‘Peace in Our Time’ hope on the COAS and his team. What now in the ‘War’? The military has shining successors all well-trained with public money supplemented by performance and professional ability. Buhari, strangely unable to attend the funeral or delegate to the VP Yemi Osinbajo is best known for sectional appointments. Again, he has an opportunity to choose a permanent COAS, a major key to Nigeria’s geographical survival ‘in the war and even the peace’ which always follows war. Can he ever introduce the constitutionally mandatory ‘Federal Character’ and ‘Merit’ in the choice to abide by the wishes of most Nigerians?

    ‘Loyalty’ the other key element in any appointment is essential but loyalty must be to Nigeria through the loyal, not parochial president, the first citizen of Nigeria. Loyalty cannot be to the president without loyalty to Nigeria. Who the president appoints will signpost Nigeria’s future? More of zero ‘Federal Character’ or a change? So many Nigerians scream ‘foul play’, ‘Ethnic Domination’, ‘Death of Federal Character’.

    Will the president change the power table? By all accounts, Lt Gen Attahiru and his heroic team were men of high integrity, professionalism and dedication to Nigeria. Truly they are as the president has said ‘Heroes of the Federal Republic of Nigeria’. May they Rest in Perfect Peace. The president can mourn, from home, with us as we have mourned thousands of times. He must be tired of having sent out more condolence messages than any other president since the Civil War, almost daily. But he, as president has a more pressing presidential responsibility at ‘A time of War’.

    The COAS post is one that requires that the ‘shoes are quickly filled’ even if we say respectfully and traditionally ‘his shoes will be difficult to fill’. Yes, ‘difficult’ but not ‘impossible’. We did not waste money training these fine men and a few women still alive and well in, and some regretfully retired prematurely and perhaps unfairly from, the armed forces. ‘Nigeria Expects The President Will Do His Duty For The Country’ and move the country back from the brink of emotional and financial depression and physical firmament by choosing a COAS based on the Merit, Federal Character and Loyalty.

    Our constitution is summarised in our National Anthem and Pledge. At this time of national mourning for the crash victims, all true Nigerians should be inspired by our deeply meaningful National Anthem and Pledge. Sadly most Nigerians recognised themselves on TV in the distraught, weeping crash-victim families. Most Nigerians in their minds witnessing their own relations being buried at those multi-grave funerals and they all claimed the ‘Final Last Post Gun Salute’ for their thousands of murdered loved ones nationwide. That televised funeral is actually a representational ‘Nationwide Funeral for the estimated over 100,000 easily named fellow citizens’ of human beings, hardworking, hopeful, nonviolent fellow Nigerians lost to mindless violence. Every single family in Nigeria has the name of someone lost or knows some family who has lost someone with a name who was dear but now dead in this undeclared war. The nationwide dead -armed forces including generals, security personnel, herculean steel-willed farmers from every state and their sweet darling wives and much-loved obedient children murdered for defending their eaten and stolen and burnt farm-produce and livelihoods and homes, ‘killed by police and other uniforms’, killed kidnapped victims including children and even after ransom was extorted, bandit victims of mass slit-throat executions of farmhands, the polio vaccine volunteers made execution victims, hate-driven anti-education terrorism with resulting mass kidnapped and murdered students -the pride and responsibility of any true nation, youth abductions and murders and female violence at home, school and hotel.

    Add those killed during the last 50 years unchallenged for body parts, for politics, prosperity and pecuniary rituals because governments since forever have not mounted one serious ‘Anti-Ritual Killing Campaign’ or done anything nationwide to stop this evil trade. In despair, revisit the National Anthem and Pledge. As independence-inspired patriots, our nationalistic hope was in their words, sadly, now hollow. We have been cheated and mesmerised into a Utopian ‘Giant of Africa dreamland’ -unachieved, distorted by wicked politics! Is the ‘Giant of Africa’ just a ‘gi-Ant’ -a deadly self-consuming ant- a termite?

    Are you ‘Faithful, Loyal and Honest’ to Nigeria and the ‘Federal Character’ unapproved constitution?

  • Memo to Lawan and company

    Memo to Lawan and company

    By Festus Eriye

    The recent Southern governors summit in Asaba, Delta State, has shaken things up like very few political events have in recent memory.

    This isn’t because the ideas that emerged from the gathering were so radical or novel. ‘Restructuring’ is a word that’s been bouncing around the left of the political spectrum for decades. It’s mainstreaming by the governors simply confirms it’s a concept whose day has come.

    Perhaps what has stirred unease in the establishment is that such a communique issued from a bipartisan gathering of ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors. But so compelling and communal are the troubles they face that political affiliations took a back seat.

    Still, it would have been expecting too much to think that their proposals wouldn’t annoy those who, in spite of all that’s going on, think things are just great; all that’s needed is a little police action and we can all sleep soundly.

    So, former Nasarawa State Governor, Adamu Abdullahi, accused the governors of ‘betrayal of trust’ and undermining the sovereignty of the country.

    One time Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Prof. Usman Yusuf, faulted the resolution because the governors didn’t consult Fulani leaders before banning open grazing.

    From somewhere in Dubai former Vice President Atiku Abubakar headed awkwardly for the high road – condemning regionalism – without addressing the issues raised by the governors. His was a nice way of weighing in on a hot topic without saying anything.

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan was equally unhappy with the fact the Asaba Accord issued from a regional base. He would have preferred if all governors – north and south – had come together. Another inoffensive intervention that conveniently ignores the fact that Northern governors have been meeting for ages and none of today’s apostles of oneness ever spoke against their congregating on regional terms.

    In the end what the governors came up with in Asaba was just the base minimum needed to begin to address the contradictions threatening to sink the country.

    Anyone with an objective view would admit that our existing governance and constitutional arrangements are not working, and major shake-up is needed. Whether you call it ‘restructuring’ or constitutional amendment, something just has to give. The US which appears to have a settled system of government has made several amendments to its constitution.

    I’m not too sure why the term ‘restructuring’ provokes such intense emotions in certain quarters. Perhaps it’s because it’s so nebulous that some believe it’s ultimately about balkanisation of the nation.

    In reality it’s about reshaping the country through resource control and redistribution, devolution of power; it’s about moving certain items from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List in the constitution. It’s about examining the size of government at different levels to eliminate waste and ensure sustainability.

    Every ad-hoc national conference that’s been organised in the country has come up with a template for these changes. The only problem is no government has shown any real appetite for constitutional reforms.

    It has always been my position that whatever our restructuring dreams are, the most pragmatic option for realising them is to go through the National Assembly.

    Unfortunately, that is where the process of change looks set to meet the greatest resistance. At a time the nation is crying for forward-looking leaders, we are saddled with legislative leadership that is desperately trying to preserve a crumbling status quo.

    This is clear from the reaction of Senate President Ahmed Lawan to the governors’ communique where he berated them for deigning to suggest ‘restructuring.’

    He said: “I believe that, as leaders, especially those of us who are elected, should not be at the forefront of calling for this kind of thing because, even if you are a governor, you are supposed to be working hard in your state to ensure that this restructuring you are calling for at the federal level, you have done it in your state as well.”

    Lawan’s comments expose him as shockingly out of touch. His challenge to the governors to begin restructuring from their end is evidence of narrow-mindedness and mental fogginess. The constitutional issues people are complaining about can only be resolved at federal level; states don’t amend the constitution.

    The Senate President is horrified that governors were in the “forefront of calling for “this kind of thing.” “This kind of thing” Mr. Senator are merely constitutional changes which you and your colleagues have sat on for two years – doing nothing.

    For these governors – none of whom can be accused of being a revolutionary – to sit together and come up with such a consensus is something no wise person should dismiss.

    If Lawan and company think that the present system favours their region and so should be preserved at all cost, he should take another look at that region – beginning from his home state Yobe which has become a regular stomping ground for Boko Haram insurgents.

    ‘Restructuring’ is to query whether Nigeria needs a bicameral National Assembly which is costing N128 billion to finance in the current budget? The Senate, for instance, is a luxury that a nation in dire economic straits cannot afford. Perhaps this is one reason “this sort of thing” is such a stomach-churning proposition for Lawan.

    Nigeria’s existing security arrangements come from a time with different challenges. It was an era when terror, kidnappings, banditry, secessionist agitations, the internet and financial crimes were unknown. Today, all these and more are on the plate of state and federal governments and their efforts at containing them have, so far, been underwhelming.

    Politicians in Abuja love the power that comes from sitting over a federal police with a central command structure. Unfortunately, they cannot fund the force which is in sorry shape. Across the country the Nigeria Police is being financed by many state governments – even down to payment of salaries. Yet, some still dream that this degenerating organisation shouldn’t be restructured.

    With the exception of Lagos and a handful of others most states are unsustainable. They cannot pay their workers’ salaries or pensions. Shouldn’t we be thinking of consolidating states?

    Even the much-talked about relationship between states and local governments is an issue that needs addressing. We should decide whether to scrap local governments since they are not federating units and allow states the freedom to make their own internal developmental arrangements.

    These are some of the issues that restructuring seeks to address – even if defenders of the status quo would have you believe otherwise.

  • The semiotics of leadership in a pandemic

    The semiotics of leadership in a pandemic

    Niyi Akinnaso

     

    Since the influenza pandemic of 1918, there has been no greater sign or signifier of global health challenge and economic disorder than the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19. True, the origin of the disease in China was disconcerting and debated at first, but it is no longer as important as its spread, its disastrous consequences, and the race to conquer the virus, which has so far infected over 164 million people and killed over three million worldwide.

    In the absence of a cure and full understanding of the nature and behaviour of the virus, its rate of spread and number of fatalities could not be measured by the relative wealth of nations. Every nation has had to struggle to mitigate its effects.

    However, as the struggle with the virus continued, significant differences began to emerge between and even within nations in both the attempts to mitigate its spread and effects. What are the sources of these differences and what are their consequences? While no single factor is sufficient in explaining these differences, it is nevertheless true that certain factors weigh much more heavily than others.

    One such critical factor is political leadership. Semiotic studies of leadership indicate that political leadership is a hydra-headed phenomenon, shaped by factors beyond the purview of authority. In confronting a pandemic, the mediating factors include (a) economic and social conditions; the population’s experience with pathogens of various kinds; and the relationship between the leadership and the scientific community and (b) certain leadership qualities, including integrity, vision, empathy, clear messaging, and collegiality.

    The remainder of this essay will explore briefly the interplay between these mediating factors and leadership qualities in shaping the response of selected political leaders to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    It will be recalled that some leaders denied the existence of the virus at a high cost to their populations, while others took it very seriously at the onset and attacked it headlong. Yet, others relaxed and celebrated prematurely only to succumb to subsequent waves of infection.

    Thus, at one extreme are leaders, such as former President Donald Trump of the United States and President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, both of whom likened the pandemic to a flu that would soon go away. They both denounced their scientists and put politics over public health. Against the opposition by the scientific community, they promoted anti-malarial drugs as a cure for the virus and politicized the wearing of masks, by downplaying its efficacy. They both held large political rallies without wearing one, thereby creating super-spreading platforms for the virus.

    Their lack of the key leadership qualities listed above led to disastrous consequences. True, Trump approved speedy production of vaccines but made no plans for its distribution. Bolsonaro, on other other hand, flatly denounced the efficacy of the vaccine, telling his people they would turn into crocodiles if they got the jab! Today, the US has the highest infection rate in the world (about 36 million), while Brazil comes in third with about 16 million.

    Both of these leaders put politics over science and ego over the public good as they were working toward reelection. Even after both of them got infected and luckily survived, they still persisted in mixed messages about the danger of the virus. Trump lost reelection partly due to his poor handling of the virus. He has since transferred his lies about the virus to lies about the election he lost, by deceiving supporters that the election was stolen from him and inciting them to attack the Capitol as Congress was sitting to tally the electoral votes.

    In Brazil, Bolsonaro not only defied medical expertise to promote anti-malarial drugs as a coronavirus cure; he also blocked the purchase of vaccines last year, which would have helped to curb the disastrous effects of the raging new variants in the country. He is currently under investigation by the Senate but that will not bring back to life over 437,000 Brazilians, who died from COVID-19.

    At the other extreme are effective leaders, who set out early to rescue their citizens from the pandemic and followed through till today. Prime Minister Jacinda Adern is often cited as such a leader. So is President Nguy?n Xuân Phúc of Vietnam along with Nguy?n Phú Tr?ng, the General Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party. These leaders demonstrated high integrity, had clear vision about the possible trajectory of the virus, developed clear messaging about its danger and necessary mitigation measures, and worked with the scientific community in developing their responses. Above all, they demonstrated empathy, by putting their citizens and the public good above themselves and politics.

    Even before very little was known about the virus, Adern developed a simple, but very clear, theme for her message: “Unite against COVID-19” and urged citizens to stay within their quarantine “bubble” in order to stem the spread of the virus. Similarly, Vietnamese leaders took quick action, quickly locked their border with China, and imposed strict lockdown, quarantine, and contact tracing protocol. They even got the Army engineers involved in the mass production of personal protective equipment, which was distributed freely to all citizens.

    The result of their effort is clear today in the relatively low infection and death rates in their countries. New Zealand has had 2,655 infections and 26 deaths from COVID-19, while Vietnam has had 4,665 infections an 37 deaths. True, these countries are relatively homogeneous, have high GDP, decent healthcare systems, and high literacy rate, it is still a mark of effective leadership that their leaders are able to rally the citizens around a common response to the pandemic, whereas other leaders, such as Trump, failed to do so, given similar, if not better, conditions.

    Between the two extremes are leaders, such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, who started off well in combating the virus but, for political reasons, took his eyes off the ball. In preparing for reelection, he began to hold mass maskless rallies and disengaged production of necessary equipment needed in combating the virus. As a result, the country sank under new variants. Even the Serum Institute, the world’s largest centre for vaccine production, had to shut down temporarily, leading to worldwide shortages of the Oxford- AstraZeneca vaccine.

    What is clear from these examples is that leadership effectiveness is perceived by the population. The handling of the pandemic provided a good yardstick for evaluation. Thus, Trump lost reelection, while Adern swept to a landslide victory.

  • ‘Anthem + Pledge = Constitution’

    Tony Marinho

     

    COVID-19 deaths approaching 3,400,000 among 163,000,000 diagnosed cases and 1.41+b vaccines worldwide; Nigerian cases approaching 166,500 and 2,070 deaths with 1.75m+ doses given. Learn from the Indian variant and the third wave of the epidemic! Covid is fighting back in 2021 with a Covid-19 mutation. Covid 19-21 is my nomenclature as the term ‘Indian variety’ is very misleading as it suggests it is spread from India which is not the case. It is a mutation. Covid is not an old disease. Today’s variety is today’s disease. Remember that even malaria became resistant and changed. The new variants have also been identified here. But they did not arrive from India but grew as changes to the virus we have. Covid-19 is struggling to survive. What can you do to protect yourself, your family, friends, workers and contacts from Covid 19-21?

    There is no danger in keeping to existing safety measures or even starting today to take the well-known preventive measures. The danger is doing nothing and pretending you are immune without the full vaccination course.  Do not be an ignorant or arrogant danger to others. Not to be patient in the Covid fight now may turn you, a loved one, an acquaintance or office contact into a Covid-19 patient tomorrow. Many survive but some do die.

    Fortunately, the first wave of Covid-19 though deadly was not as devastating for Africa and Nigeria as predicted. We cannot predict how virulent and deadly the new Covid19-21 variety will be. Remember that ‘this too will pass’. But it will pass faster, and with less disease and destruction and death, if we fight the good fight and finish the covid race all together. We are only as strong as our weakest link. We must play our own part to keep ourselves and other out of our limited hospital beds and few mortuaries. Covid-19 is now definitely now a new Covid 19-21 version.

    China lands a Zhurong rover on the Moon. What does Nigeria do?? It cannot trace murdering bandits on heat-trailing motorcycles.

    Is Nigeria still safe enough for our youth to go on NYSC?

    Be aware of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, MIF’s ‘Ibrahim Index of African Governance, IIAG, published since 2007 has released its 2020 report highlighting the effect of Covid-19 and its impact on economies and lives and livelihoods and the future of Africa. The report suggests that several countries used the pandemic to reintroduce retrogressive oppressive laws against freedoms required for development. However, we know that China develops in a heavily monitored country. The report highlights the need for more, better-funded and equipped technical schools and move away from old men running countries down to a younger generation who will hopefully run the countries ‘upscale’.

    The MIF works with a major research organisation called the ‘Afribarometer’ which does a lot of citizen satisfaction and demands surveys to get updated information. For example, the citizens generally call for governments to get with and concentrate much more on developmental issues rather that divisive, anti-development, time consuming/wasting and very financially draining on the budget. The highlight of this is unfinished and subsequently abandoned projects from one government to another even when the same party ‘wins’ election again. Ask your child to Google the ‘IIAG-2020 Report’ and the ‘Afribarometer’ as well as the MIF, for a full assessment of Nigeria, the countries around Nigeria and Africa to get an independent view of happenings to balance Africa’s assessment by the IMF, World Bank and some UN agencies.

    France is transferring five billion euros to West African countries to strengthen the CFA frac and to form a new currency block the ‘Eco’ and maintain France’s hold on those former French colonies.  France until recently had a law that 50% of French West African countries’ forex reserves had to be held in France -a stranglehold against governments going independent. West Africa is still colonial. Even Nigerian citizens are demanding that Great Britain intervenes in the mess that has resulted from its creation of Nigeria in 1914 and the timebomb given us in 1960 at independence. That timebomb was a ‘multi-bomb’ exploding with deadly consequences since then, including a terrible civil war and thousands of ‘little wars’. We had hoped that the greed of a few would over the last 60+ years have been satisfied or at least curtailed by the long-term generosity of the merely needy.

    Our constitution is summarised in our national anthems. All true Nigerians should be inspired by the deeply meaningful versions of our national anthem and our pledge. Anthem 1 (1960-1978) written by British expatriate Lillian Jean Williams used words which has such power and depth but so neglected by the political class. Words like ‘Nigeria, we hail thee…brotherhood, truth and justice reign, no man is oppressed, and so with peace and plenty, Nigeria ‘may’ be blessed.

    The Anthem 2 (1978) to date written by JA Ilechukwu, EE Akpan, BA Ogunnaike, S Omoigui and PO Aderibigbe with words like ‘Arise, compatriots, love, faith, ‘bound in freedom, peace and unity’, ‘our youth the truth to know’, to build a nation where truth and justice reign’. When will truth and justice ever reign? Simple answer is when the greedy voluntarily or are forced to share Nigeria with all Nigerians, just like in that Nigeran pledge written by Felicia Adebola they force children to swear to but refuse themselves— to be ‘Faithful, Loyal and Honest’.

     

  • Recall reservists, recruit 200,000; $50b reserves!

    Tony Marinho

     

    COVID-19 deaths approaching 3,400,000 among 159,000,000 diagnosed cases and 1.15b vaccines worldwide; Nigerian cases approaching 166,000 and 2,075 deaths with 1m+ doses given. Learn from the Indian Epidemic!

    Mr President, recall reservists, recruit 200,000 now! We are at a crisis crossroads. But our problems started long ago. We were badly built. Some extended the hand of fellowship and equality, others enslaved and insulted them, taking too much for themselves. Mistrust, arrogance, greedy unity government, false federalism, rubbishing federal character, the political class mutating into an arrogant greedy corrupt rulership and its successor, the military, became rulers over conquered slaves, not leaders of a great country of proud citizens.

    Our hands are full with expected external enemies, fallout from the Libyan Peace Accord expelling mercenaries including battle-hardened Chadian anti-government groups as well as freelance mercenaries who hide and seek war, and often create conflict to keep employed. Clearly it is an unexpected outcome that ‘One man’s ‘Peace’ is another man’s ‘War’!  ‘Libya’s Peace = West Africa’s War!’

    Currently there are thousands of experienced soldier survivors of prolonged guerrilla and door-to-door war who have access to current weaponry denied the underequipped armed forces of soon-to be targeted countries. Add to that the tsunami of maybe 100m West African current burgeoning generation of disenfranchised resident and migrant ‘youth bubble’ neglected by generations of failed politicians failing all UN indices of development  to provide for three generations, father to son and grandson. No power, water, roads, education, security! The citizens have been forced into too many corners, with, belt-tightening and falling currency values.

    Certainly, for the past 30-40 years, marginalised youth in Nigeria stood on the social side-lines, neglected, watching the politicians, civil servants and contractor-class grandstand at election time. These failed leaders, even when in court facing multiple multibillion naira theft and mismanagement of the citizens’ money charges, dance in and out of court, smiling on the media stage while living large and partying wildly. They still consume huge self-inflated budgets for Salaries and Perks, SAPping Nigeria dry while the youth’s own parents and grandparents struggle with decades of poor salary-value in the market, penury, denied wage increments, salaries and pensions all forcing them to under-educate the youth. The pauperised citizens cannot keep their progeny in schools of good status, truncating tertiary education ambition and failed to adequately feed, clothe, and pay regular rent for a dignified shelter. The fall in most Nigerians’ financial status, particularly from refusal of employers to pay as-and-when-due caused by unbridled and unchallenged government corruption neglect, led to falling social standards and social services and respect within the family.

    There is disruption in the African Extended Family Bank, in existence before Western banking was introduced. Children lose respect for unsalaried parents and take to crime, stealing even at home and in the community using motorcycles, giving honest motorcycle operators a bad name. The buying power of one government or private sector salary directly and indirectly prevents violence by feeding hundreds in private employment in the food chain from private youth-run transport, kiosk vendors, schoolteachers etc.

    This menace did not start today. The growing local menace of thuggery was built on the history of local gang, cult and political thug groups. Now abandoned by their political motivators and financiers, they have turned on the citizenry. How can they be ‘de-thuggerised’ and supported before they destroy us with no help from the deliberate epidemic of farm and community and forest invasions by AK-47 wielding herders, the Boko Haram and ISIS-WA, all key chequered original terrorist groupings already posing a real and present danger to a country of one ethnic group lopsided governance appointments and lethargic with a deaf governance system?

    How can sexual, drug, alcohol, human kidnapping  and human parts trafficking abuse be tackled quickly when SDGs are so neglected, the police systems are attacked and governments claim they cannot pay the already outdated ‘new salary structure’ of N30,000 minimum wage? The problem governments have is not the minimum wage for levels 1-4 itself but the huge adjustments to the other levels of salary fat cats in the level 7+.

    Government can help Nigerians. It must ‘MAKE THE NAIRA STRONG AGAIN: TARGET $50b by 2022’. Government likes weaker cheaper naira because the few dollars will buy more naira and pay more local debt and salaries. However, the stronger dollar is required to demonstrate a strong country. Increasing dollar earnings from oil prices in which Brent Crude is predicted to reach $70/b can be harnessed by the CBN to achieve $50b Foreign Reserves and higher. $50b is magic minimum confidence levels for a 60+yar old country and a stable strong naira. The political class must get the foreign reserves to this safety net $50b figure with an eye on $75b.

    We demand that government recruits 150-200,000 youth to make a 500,000 strong armed forces command required to face the threats to Nigerians. Government should urgently recall Nigeria’s Reserve personnel, RANAO etc, made up of recently retired armed forces and police personnel. These are already highly trained personnel who graduated for the ‘University of Nigeria’s Military Life’, many also ‘specialty trained’ abroad, at huge expense to Nigeria. It is security 1-0-1 that their current competence must be tested to gather intelligence, plan and execute commando and other attacks to curb the crisis of violence frightening every Nigerian.

    MR PRESIDENT, RECALL RESERVISTS, RECRUIT 200,000 NOW!! TARGET $50b FOREIGN RESERVES by 2022!

  • Assessing Nigeria from within and without

    Assessing Nigeria from within and without

    By Niyi Akinnaso

     

    Nigeria is losing it. The country is heading in the wrong direction. That’s what Nigerians themselves are saying within and without the country. And that’s what the international community is saying as revealed in several international assessments of the country’s situation and the quality of governance. There has never been such a convergence of calls from the immediate stakeholders and international observers for urgent solutions the country’s multiple problems. The fears are palpable that a major disaster is imminent if nothing is done to address these problems.

    What Nigerians are saying

    Recent and ongoing discussions about the country centre on the security situation, because nothing much could be achieved without peace. Unfortunately, peace has eluded the President Muhammadu Buhari administration from inception. Even his own political party was fractionalized under his eyes, beginning with the division within the National Assembly during his first month in office in 2015. Division has since enveloped the whole party, which had to be placed under a Caretaker Committee.

    However, what concerns the citizens the most right now is the widespread insecurity in the land, from Boko Haram terrorists to Fulani herdsmen, kidnappers, bandits, and robbers. The Global Terrorism Index lists Nigeria as the third country most impacted by terrorism, with Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen pinpointed as the first and second deadliest groups in the country. The Nigerian situation is so dire that the Global Terrorism Index classified the country as being in “a state of war” along with four other war-torn countries, namely, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen.

    There really is no sector of national life that is exempted from trauma. Roads are inadequate, while existing ones are in disrepair. Those under repair, such as the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, have taken forever. Electricity, water, and housing are in short supply. Educational institutions and hospitals are underfunded. The country’s poverty rate is the highest in the world-about 90 million people in the country live in severe poverty.

    The country’s unemployment rate is equally alarming, being the second highest in the world. According to Bloomberg’s recent global survey, Nigeria is approaching the unenviable status of the unemployment capital of the word: “Unemployment for people aged 15 to 24 stood at 53.4% in the fourth quarter (of 2020), and at 37.2% for people aged 25 to 34. The jobless rate for women was 35.2% compared with 31.8% for men.

    This is a looming disaster for a country where more than 60% of the working-age population is younger than 34. The disaster is accentuated by the lack of appropriate education for today’s job market and the lack of transferable skills for self employment. This high unemployment rate is evident everywhere-at bus stops, motor parks, urban streets, shopping malls, and major social gatherings (birthday and funeral parties), where able-bodied youths roam aimlessly, begging for one thing or the other, pilfering or stealing.

    To worsen the situation, prices have gone up across the board simultaneously with rising inflation and the falling value of the Naira. Banditry in the North and herdsmen-farmers clashes in the South and the Middle Belt have resulted in low farm harvests, further driving up food prices.

    The view from the international community

    Nigeria ranks poorly on all international indices: The country is perceived to be highly corrupt. Human development is poor. Governance is very poor. The state is fragile. This summary points to a state in distress, heading for possible collapse.

    Nigeria scored 25 out of 100 possible points on the Corruption Perception Index released in January 2021. This is the worst score the country has had since the inception of the global evaluation in 2012, except in 2013, when it also scored 25. The recent score puts the country right in the middle of the bottom pile of countries perceived to be highly corrupt.

    With President Buhari receding more and more to the background, his fight against corruption seems to have taken a back seat. The result is a free-for-all season of corruption in high and low places. It even enveloped the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu. The consequences of corruption are evident everywhere, especially in politicians and public officers living large, while the vast majority of the population lives in squalour.

    It is no wonder then that Nigeria ranks very low at 161 in the world in the recent Human Development Index ranking, released in December 2020. The health indicators are disappointing, with average life expectancy of 54.7 (female 55.6; male 53.8). The country also ranks low on other indices of human development, including education, human security, inequality, gender, environmental sustainability, income, and poverty eradication.

    One of the reasons for the country’s poor performance on international rankings is poor governance. This is revealed in the recent Chandler Good Government Index (2021). Nigeria ranks poorly on the seven pillars of good governance measured, namely, (1) leadership and foresight; (2) robust laws and policies; (3) strong institutions; (4) financial stewardship; (5) attractive marketplace; (6) global influence and reputation; and (7) helping people rise. In particular, Nigeria ranks virtually at the bottom of the scale on pillars 1, 3, 5, and 7.

    The cumulative result of these low rankings is the ranking of Nigeria as the 14th most fragile country in the world on the 2020 Fragile States Index. Nigeria ranks low on the major indicators of state fragility, particularly, cohesion, economic, political, and social indicators. Despite the government’s unrealistic position that the unity of the country is nonnegotiable, the cohesion indicators point to the need for negotiation: The elites are fractionalized; group grievance is at its peak; and the security of lives and property is at its lowest ebb.

    Urgent solution needed

    There is no other way to interpret the agitations by Nigerians and the poor global rankings than to see Nigeria as facing imminent collapse, if nothing is done to ameliorate the situation. Immediate action is needed to halt widespread insecurity; curb group grievances; reallocate resources to achieve economic balance; and enhance governance by bringing it closer to the people.

    After repeated group agitations and several national conferences, it has become evident that the best solutions should include decentralising the police system to enhance security supervision; ensuring that livestock and crop farmers operate within their zones; reconfiguring the federating units (to curb waste); and devolving powers as well as reallocating resources to the federating units.

     

  • The president and the priest

    The president and the priest

    By Festus Eriye

     

    A political divorce is an ugly thing to behold. Last week, Nigerians witnessed one such nasty breakup when charismatic Catholic priest, Reverend Father Ejike Mbaka, took to his pulpit in Enugu to denounce Muhammadu Buhari as a failed president who should resign, or be impeached if he won’t go quietly.

    Mbaka and the president go some way back. In the Southeast – a region noted for the aridity of its support for Buhari’s political aspirations in times past – the priest’s endorsement turned out to be a prized pick-up in the 2015 election cycle.

    Back then he declared – based on prescience we concede to religious leaders – that the president was God’s solution to move the country from its juncture of disappointment under then President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Now, full of divine insight one more time, the priest is singing lustily from a different hymn book.

    It leaves you wondering how someone receiving intelligence from the God who sees the end from the beginning, can so abruptly and calmly edit the epistle he fed Nigerians not too long ago. Could these declarations really be from the God who’s not the author of confusion?

    Actually, the priest isn’t noted for his consistency. In November 2014 when then First Lady Patience Jonathan visited his Enugu church, he declared that her husband had ‘done well’ and deserved a second term. He said the president could have done more if not for ‘distractions’ – referring to security challenges his government was battling.

    Barely two months after, on New Year Eve of that same year, Mbaka with all holy authority called on Jonathan to “quietly resign” for failing to deal with corruption, insecurity and youth unemployment.

    In 2019, the cleric offered fulsome praise for the man he backed four years earlier – hailing his ‘agriculture revolution’ among other things. He said: “We urge Nigerians to vote President Buhari in order to complete his eight years tenure and after which he will hand over to younger candidate.”

    From advocating two full terms to canvassing tenure abridgement, significant differences must have cropped up in this marriage made in political heaven. Little wonder the recriminations have been so entertaining.

    After recovering from the shock of the sucker punch, the president’s spokesman Garba Shehu hit back with the claim that Mbaka had once shown up at the villa with three individuals seeking contracts as payoff for his support back in the day.

    The priest and his pals were reportedly fobbed off by a president who wasn’t going to bend rules to favour any supporter – no matter how eminent or strategic.

    This hitherto hidden information was meant to paint the priest as embittered by the snub and a cheap hustler who was no better than those he regularly slags off.

    Read Also: Why I introduced contractors to Buhari, by Mbaka

     

    Did it work? I doubt very much. Firstly, there’s no evidence of attendance being down at his Adoration Ministry services because of the revelations about his entourage on that visit to Abuja.

    Nigerians have become quite cynical when it comes to their perceptions of interactions between big players on the sides of the church, mosque and the state. We’ve been regaled with tales of how some past civilian and military heads of state wouldn’t take a step until they had consulted their marabouts.

    Even if Mbaka were indeed a briefcase contractor not too many would be shocked. It was not much different under Jonathan who arduously courted clerics of every stripe. Under him eminent pastors were regular visitors to the villa.

    Many would remember how the private aircraft linked to a powerful pastor was trapped in an arms-purchase expedition gone wrong in South Africa. So, it’s nothing extraordinary if a big pastor was actually wheeling and dealing in high places. After all, as the man has suggested those being patronised with contracts are not more deserving than himself!

    On the other hand, the revelations haven’t drawn much sympathy to the president either. He’s still being challenged to deliver on the multiple fronts Mbaka pointed out.

    There’s massive bloodletting across the land without any signs of a let up. Not since the civil war days has there been such an upsurge in secessionist agitations – even in parts of the country where they were unheard off.

    Across the land symbols of state authority like soldiers, policemen men and their stations, courts, prisons and their wardens, even Customs officers have become objects of target practice for rampaging gunmen.

    In different parts non-state actors are assuming responsibilities that only agents of state should perform. In some areas bandits and insurgents have planted their flags and are levying taxes on the hapless locals.

    On top of it all you have an economy that’s on the ropes, with many states in danger of being ground under by a mountain of unpaid wages, pension and gratuities. It just leaves you wondering who’s really in charge.

    Even if the messenger isn’t as angelic as we thought, it doesn’t detract from the relative accuracy of his message. You may quarrel with his prescription but admit also that the defensive reactions didn’t do the president cause much good. After all, but for the U-turn, the presidency wouldn’t be dry-cleaning Mbaka’s dirty cassock so publicly.

    One more reason why the Presidency’s reaction was over the top is people asking presidents and other officer holders to resign is nothing new. We all know Buhari isn’t going to pack his bags just because Mbaka said so.

    When the president and other leading lights of his party were in opposition they regularly berated Jonathan and demanded his resignation. Such calls shouldn’t sound so offensive now the shoe’s on the other foot.

    The cleric’s second option is for the National Assembly to impeach Buhari. Snow is more likely to start dropping in hell than for the 8th National Assembly take such a step. Impeachment is political and a game of numbers. The All Progressives Congress (APC) controls both chambers with comfortable majorities. I doubt if there’s any member of the ruling party bold enough to sign up to such an agenda in today’s environment.

    Fact is Nigerians are on edge – battered on every side by security and economic challenges. The government isn’t as popular as it was on Election Day in 2015 – even if there are those who want to believe otherwise.

    So rather than taking an arrogant, hectoring tone towards the disaffected, conciliation might just be wiser. After all, friends don’t just turn to bitter foes overnight – even where there’s a little matter of contracts involved.

     

  • Benin Bronzes: Stop Now

    Tony Marinho

     

    COVID-19 deaths approaching 3,500,000 among 155,000,000 diagnosed cases and 1.15b vaccines worldwide. Nigerian cases approaching 166,000 and 2,075 deaths with 1m+ doses given. Study the Indian epidemic!

    We are in our ‘Monthly Month-End Mourning’ precipitated by a massively bloodthirsty ‘Mourning Month of April’ which closed with another high death toll of fellow Nigerian citizens from farm invasion, herder and bandit mindless murder or kidnapping and execution or loss of gallant security personnel. WWW, Why,Why,Why??

    However, there is a sliver of hope in an unrelated source – the planned return of over 500 of our several thousands of plundered Benin bronzes.  It is good that Germany is finally returning returned hundreds of famous Benin bronzes made of a copper alloy under the coalition of Museums with Nigerian officials and the Royal Court of the Benin Kingdom called the Benin Dialogue Group founded in 2007. They are a beautiful testament to the wealth and industry of the Benin civilisation. When stolen as ‘spoils of war’, neither the thieves nor the Benin people ever thought the war trophies would be returned. Similarly, no one can yet see a peaceful way out of our increasing monthly murder 2010-2021 toll, a one-way war declared on Nigeria with no ‘right of reply’ or fighting back permitted!!

    What is the destination of the returned Benin bronzes? Abuja or Lagos or Benin, the scene of the crime? Will they just be re-stolen? Will they be self-righteously ‘repossessed’ aka re-stolen by a great-great-great-great grand-daughter of Omo n’Oba Ovonramwen who was deposed in 1897 and with two wives, exiled to Calabar and died in 1914? In case anyone ever returns the magnificent huge haul of Benin bronzes to Nigeria including from the British Museum, it will not be the time for the federal government to keep such artifacts in Abuja. The artifacts were stolen from Benin. We are told that a new museum is to be bult in Benin to rest the Benin bronzes stolen during the sacking of Benin in 1879 from Benin City. No one else should claim ownership over these precious artifacts steeped in ancient Benin bloodshed. Once this is agreed and the Benin bronzes are safely back home, one or two of the artifacts may be loaned too wherever. The Benin bronzes exemplify the glory of the ancient Benin Kingdom, and belong in Benin City secured like the Monalisa!

    Nigeria has looked in sad surprise at countries, African and European and ‘civilised’ which disintegrated because of senseless, needless unprovoked and always unpredictable and murderous destabilising war. Every tyrannical power falls eventually, so why do they bother? We Nigerians said, or hoped that those nasty things with tearful avalanches of refugees, mountains of graves and tsunamis of tearful suffering endless lines headlines as warnings to the rest of us, ‘are not our portion’, we said. We Nigerians know how to accommodate each other through integration tribally and religiously with intermarriage, NYSC and work relationships! We have learnt the lesson of the Civil War!! Never again!!! But sadly, and strangely sinisterly, Nigeria is being put in that ‘death and destruction, horrible hellhole’ place by a decision by unnamed people. One day, some international Panel of Inquiry will be commissioned by the UN or AU to do an investigation to answer  many weighted questions.

    One question will be why our would-be great and wonderful but usually safe country is a frightened, terrified shadow of itself.

    Another question will be how it came to have five million Internally Displaced Persons now being attacked even in their refugee camps.

    Another question will ask about the sea of blood shed from thousands of fellow Nigerians, only guilty of being born on and defending ancestral Nigerian farm or walking on a Nigerian ancestral path or just being alive and breathing Nigerian air with no weapons to equally protect themselves or each other?

    Another question will be to ask the www question. who.where.when- Who gave the order? Where; When was the order given?  What was the order? The order for an escalation of the mayhem that has existed for many years at a lower level of disruption. The order that emboldened thousands of herders to embark on nationwide farm invasions destroying the planted, growing soon-to-be-harvested financial wellbeing of other fellow Nigerians, disrespect their very existence, inflict verbal and physical violence, terrify them and then so needlessly, unprovoked and mindlessly kill them. Nigeria is a frightened country where the weak are disarmed by law or subterfuge and exposed to vicious highly motivated and apparently very teleguided armed herders, bandits, kidnappers who no one seems to be able or want to catch. A Libyan-Tchadian mercenary threat if not confronted could also sweep the violent and the victim.

    IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO STOP THIS STEPWISE ESCALATING VIOLENCE, but sadly history says it soon will be. The Boko Haram can be isolated and neutralised. The bandits can be forced out of Nigeria. The herders can be reined in or corralled. The leaders who gave the wrecking order can give the withdrawal order and Nigeria may just work to accommodate all. Already ECOWAS is facing the fallout from the peace in Libya displacing seasoned mercenary troops including Tchadian exiles fighting the 30-year regimen of late President Idriss Deby recently killed. His death will escalate the war in Tchad. They will reinforce ISWAP and embolden Boko Haram to join them or worse.

    www-whichwaywar in Nigeria, in West Africa?

  • Olabiyi Yai (1939-2000)

    Olabiyi Yai (1939-2000)

    By Niyi Akinnaso

    Olabiyi Babalola Joseph Yai had an unobtrusive personality. He was affable, warm, forthcoming, kind, and liberal. He was a true omoluabi. You needed to be close and engage him in discussion or read his work to discover that he was also a polyglot, a polymath, and a transnationalist. These attributes came through in his professional undertakings as an academic and a diplomat.

    Born in 1939 to Yoruba parents in Sabe, Benin Republic, Yai was raised as a lone child. However, he became a child of the world and his global family grew with his academic training; his professional development; and his diplomatic engagements. The location of Sabe, the old capital of the Yoruba kingdom, in Benin Republic, rather than Nigeria, made Yai realize early how the Europeans manipulated the African continent. Little did he realize that he would later participate in assessing the impact of the manipulation.

    Yoruba language, culture, and philosophy formed the basis of Yai’s scholarship and outlook on life, because his learning began at the feet of Yoruba village elders and from watching local festivals and rituals. True, he studied French language and literature at the Sorbonne in France, where he was persuaded by to continue with French studies after his first degree, he decided to steep himself in Yoruba studies, which led him to the University of Ibadan to study Yoruba linguistics. He taught briefly at Ibadan but later joined the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University).

    It was at Ife I met Yai as a colleague-he in African Studies and I in Linguistics. We would later reconnect in the United States-he at the University of Florida at Gainesville and I at Temple University in Philadelphia. He and Goran Hyden invited me to Florida in 1992 to participate in the Carter lecture series. Our bond was re-kindle and we occasionally exchanged visits until he joined UNESCO in Paris.

    It was during this second encounter that it became apparent that we shared a common exposure to Ifa’s unparalleled textuality and the associated rites and rituals. Although we made little of Ifa as youths, its centrality to Yoruba culture, philosophy, epistemology, and worldview gradually dawned on us and came to shape our encounter with scholarship as business. We were engaged in the business of exegesis like the Ifa priests we encountered.

    But there was much more to Yai beyond our encounters. He was a true polyglot. He spoke and read Yoruba, English, French and Portuguese, among others. This linguistic template gave him access to a wide range of literature on Yoruba in particular and Africa in general.

    Multilingualism also suited the wide nest of his intellectual engagements as a polymath. Yai was at once a linguist, philosopher, cultural historian, literary critic, and, I would add, a pseudo-anthropologist. This multi-disciplinary background allowed him to engage any topic from various perspectives.

    We often disagreed whenever the topic was of anthropological interest, because he saw in anthropology no more than cultural translation. True, Maxwell Owusu, a Ghanaian anthropologist, critiqued the first generation of anthropologists of Africa along similar lines, but he did not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

    I tried to convince Yai that he should not paint all anthropologists with the same brush. At one end are expatriate anthropologists, seeking to understand other cultures. At the other extreme are indigenous anthropologists, such as Owusu and myself, who study our own culture and explain it to outsiders. However, these extremes are not absolute as various anthropologists fall into slots in between, depending on how much of the local language they acquire, how long they stay in the community, how frequently they revisit the same group, and how rigourously they engage the appropriate methodologies and theoretical perspectives. Besides, anthropology is not a monolithic discipline as it encompasses cultural, linguistic, archaeological, biological, and visual specialties and engages material across the humanities, the social sciences, and even the hard sciences.

    Yai revisited my argument with a nod only after reading my article, Schooling, Language, and Knowledge in Literate and Nonliterate Societies, published in the Cambridge Journal, Comparative Studies in Society and History. I teased him that only anthropology could provide the perspective of knowing that informed the article and we both laughed, but not without his teasing back: “Well, Niyi, Ifa lo foo’re fun e, by which he meant it was not anthropology; it was the blessing of Ifa, the very focus of the article.

    Yai was as much a polymath as he was a transnationalist. He held academic positions in Africa (Nigeria and Benin), North America (USA), Latin America (Brazil), the Caribbean (Haiti and Cuba), Europe (Birmingham and France), and Asia (Japan). He also held consultancy positions in culture and language policy across West Africa.

    However, it was his appointment as Benin Republic’s Permanent Representative to UNESCO that capped his transnationalism. He travelled widely and participated at the highest levels of the development of UNESCO’s programmes. He served on various UNESCO committees, including the World Heritage Committee; the Committee of the International Fund for the Promotion of Culture; the International Scientific Committee of the Slave Route Project; the Jury for the designation of Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage; the Board of Trustees of the Africa World Heritage Fund (AWHFD); and President of the Culture Commission of UNESCO G77. Above all, he became the Chairman of the Executive Board of UNESCO.

    These appointments put Yai at the centre of decision making, especially on issues relating to Africa. Accordingly, he was on the team that revisited the horrific past of Africa through the experiences of slavery, colonialism, economic exploitation, cultural bastardisation, and the theft of African art, including the majestic artwork of the Benin palace that came to be known as the Benin bronze collection. How I wish Yai were alive to witness the imminent repatriation of these magnificent pieces!

    Yai’s life and scholarship were marked by three cyclical themes. First, he was born Yoruba and he returned to Yoruba language and culture after studying French at the Sorbonne in Paris. Second, he would return to the Sorbonne briefly to teach and finally to Paris to work for UNESCO. Third, Yai’s study of Yoruba culture involved trans-continental studies, connecting the Yoruba homeland in Nigeria and Benin Republic with the Yoruba in the Diaspora. These studies affirmed the centrality of Ifa to the survival of Yoruba culture in the Diaspora and led to Yai’s idea of Global Africa.

  • A Made-in-Nigeria nightmare

    A Made-in-Nigeria nightmare

    By Festus Eriye

    Several things scare me about Nigeria’s current insecurity nightmare. Firstly, it is unprecedented. Under President Olusegun Obasanjo the major headache was the uprising in the Niger Delta which was largely contained and brought to heel with the deal with militants under President Umaru Yar’Adua.

    The seed of the Boko Haram insurgency was sown under Yar’Adua following the killing of the sect’s founder, Mohammed Yusuf. It sprouted and blossomed under President Goodluck Jonathan. But the rest of the country was relatively peaceful under those dispensations.

    Today, everywhere is boiling. The country is fighting to put out fires on several fronts. Thousands of bandits are terrorising seven states in the Northwest.

    Boko Haram, which the government boasted it had degraded, has resurrected from whatever shallow grave was dug for it. In the last few days they wreaked havoc in Geidam and Mainok in Borno State. Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, just cried out about the terror group planting its flag on territory it had taken in his domain.

    Attacks by herdsmen continue unabated. I just watched a footage of Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom’s plaintive cry for help after herders invaded an IDP camp in the state – leaving seven persons dead.

    Kidnapping is all the rage with isolated university campuses and similar institutions as choice targets. In the past few days abductors have snatched 21 students from Greenfield University in Kaduna State and another three from the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi.

    Hostage taking for cash has become a growth industry that is finding takers in virtually all 36 states.

    In the Southeast the uprising by the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) is shaping to become Nigeria’s second insurgency.

    Without question, the larger economic crisis – worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic – is driving a lot of the criminality. Take the abductions for example. Most kidnappers don’t have a political or religious agenda: they are only after cold cash – which brings me to my second concern.

    The problems we are dealing with require immediate solutions. Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes. An economy that’s on life support is not about to experience a miraculous resurrection. We’ve been dealing with Boko Haram for close to 12 years and they are not yet broken. Former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Yusuf Buratai (rtd), predicted not too long ago that we’ll be battling the insurgents for the next 20 years.

    Kidnappers are not about to disappear into thin air. Not when they earn millions by simply taking innocent people out of circulation. That’s why they are becoming increasingly ambitious. Those who snatched students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State, are holding out for N500 million ransom.

    The ones holding the Greenfield varsity kids insist their N800 million price is non-negotiable. They have ratcheted up pressure on the state government by killing five of the students. Governor Nasir El-Rufai has sworn he won’t yield to their demands.

    Oh, how his views and position on this matter have evolved. I just saw a footage of an interview he gave Sahara TV on the subject of the Chibok girls while President Jonathan was still in office. Back then as a member of the opposition he declared that when the lives of your citizens are at stake, no option should be taken off the table – not even negotiation.

    I sympathise with his new position because I agree that ransom payment is not the solution. The kidnapping monster feeds on ransom; starve it of that blood-sullied cash and it goes into its death throes.

    Still, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes – dealing with the emotional and political blowback from watching frustrated kidnappers dropping off the dead bodies of their hostages. But imagine paying N800 million to killers who have already murdered five kids? Imagine how empowered their criminal enterprise can become with such funds?

    I’m sure El-Rufai now better understands what it means to be caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. He’s clearly left with only the option of a military rescue bid – with the attendant risks – before the abductors perpetrate even worse atrocities.

    My third worry has to do with what has happened to our protectors in recent times. There was a time when people lived in genuine fear of the police and army – not any more, not since the #EndSARS protests. In the last few weeks scores have been killed across the country. When those who should protect the populace can’t protect themselves, you have real problems on your hands.

    I am sure President Muhammadu Buhari and his team are just as troubled by the spreading chaos. Unfortunately, nothing he has thrown at the problem seems to be working. If anything, the emerging message is incoherence in government’s strategy for restoring normalcy.

    A while back he issued an order that those found illegally bearing AK-47s be shot on sight. It was something that wasn’t clearly thought out because his Defence Minister was soon walking back the remarks, saying bandits would be apprehended and prosecuted.

    It’s not as is his words matter at this moment. Words count when they are accompanied by concrete action. Each time Buhari threatens to deal with bandits it all sounds hollow as the very next minute a new outrage is reported. So it’s perhaps a wise thing that he’s keeping his counsel to himself.

    By any yardstick, what is going on isn’t normal. Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka says Nigeria is at war. But it’s not warfare as we know it. If the nature of warfare has changed, we have to change the way we fight.

    It’s not a situation that can be resolved by government and security forces alone.

    Without delay the president should declare a national security emergency that would allow for the deployment of every available resource to pacify the land.

    All efforts should be expedited to empower regional outfits like Amotekun and Ebubeagu.

    There should be a mopping up of men and assets of our security agencies to focus on those states where the crisis is reaching a breaking point.

    Governments should consider shutting schools in isolated locations for some months until better security arrangements are in place. It should engage rural communities better in gathering intelligence through the use of vigilantes.

    For the long term, this federation must be restructured. We’re where we are because of what’s been left undone. If we’ll not do it willingly, our current troubles will make it happen – and with pain we could have avoided.