The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Of ringworm and leprosy

    It is one of the pithy and eternal sayings of our elders. From age to age, it remains a gem: do not worry about the ringworm when you are infested with leprosy, the saying admonishes rather unremittingly.

    In other words, we are being charged to focus on the most important things and desist from going after inconsequential matters. Or put differently, we are also reminded by our elders about the un-wisdom of going in pursuit of the rat when our abode is being licked by a conflagration.

    Enough said. All we are saying here is that there is a rising hoopla recently about buying made-in-Nigeria products as the key to fighting the wretched exchange rate of Nigeria’s naira against its foreign counterparts. Today, all sorts of groups and bodies talk glibly and make shallow noises about buying Nigeria, dressing Nigeria and even eating Nigeria; as if it were some sumptuous chow.

    The din of the so-called ‘campaign’ is often raised to a ridiculously irritating decibel by people who either do not understand what they are talking about or are up to some mischief or both!

    However, as we have seen in the past, the ‘campaigners’ soon exhaust themselves and slink back into their shells. Of course, they achieve little, because nobody listens to their oft meaningless shaman-like chants. They achieve nothing and they gain nothing (unless of course they deployed public funds in which case they would have wasted our resources).

    Let’s put it into perspective: Hardball has been roused by the recent decision by two public bodies to combine to campaign for made-in-Nigeria goods, as the report stated.

    The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) reportedly teamed up in what promises to be a formidable tag-team to exterminate a canker that has left Nigeria’s economy prostrate for too long. As their names suggest, SON regulates products in Nigeria, while MAN is an influence group of the country’s manufacturers. It is indeed a powerful duo.

    Dr. Paul Angya, the boss of SON, said Nigeria had long been operating what he termed “a cargo economy.” This means an import-dependent system whereby the country has been spending billions in foreign exchange just to import goods from other countries.

    Angya buttressed his point, noting that the high rate of consumption of foreign products by end-users and consumers has become so chronic that anything tagged “made-in-Nigeria” is already dead on arrival at the local market.

    A great initiative alright, but Hardball has a few questions: (1) how many per cent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange is spent on petroleum products?

    (2) for how long has Nigeria been doling out such huge foreign exchange nearly everyday to buy these products providence bequeathed to us in abundance?

    (3) what are the immediate and long term plans to stop the importation of these products; we are talking about petrol, kerosene, diesel, aviation fuel, HDPE, LDPE, HPFO and over a dozen other industrial raw materials derivable from crude oil?

    The point of this essay: If we stop the importation of petroleum products, we would save about 70 per cent in foreign exchange. Let’s deal with the leprosy!

  • Help, Ekiti lawmakers turn fugitives!

    Watch that peaceful homestead, goes the Yoruba saying, it is only because the illegitimate in there has not come of age!

    Now, Ekiti’s political illegitimates are of age — and everything has fallen apart.  Even fugitives, in full flight, are threatening to become full outlaws!

    That is the latest ribald joke from Fayoseland, only likened to Anezi Okoro’s One Day, One Trouble, that popular children’s story book.  If full adults could find kin in children’s childhood pranks, Ekiti Kete must brace up even for more, from their infantile governor and adult delinquent, if comic, legislators.

    What is the latest of rascality from these folks?

    Well, they just showed up in Ibadan, addressed a news conference in a hurry, and in a jiffy, vanished!  News reports said they looked like a band in transit, hurtling from the law.  Might supposed lawmakers be so horrid lawbreakers — and even threatening to be unfazed outlaws?  Pray, which breed would refuse civil Police invitation to answer some questions?  Is it a case of the guilty being afraid?  Or just simply the case of no rest for the wicked?

    Yes, they levied some grievous charges against the Department of State Security (DSS).  They claimed someone, somewhere offered them $1 million (N200 million, at the official rate) to impeach Governor Ayo Fayose. But who specifically offered that cash, and to whom particularly, and where, in whose presence?  To Fayose and his stomach infrastructure band, to hell with such details! In classical propaganda, the huger the lie, the more its believability, isn’t it?

    Even then, to pull massive disinformation, you need some rudimentary credibility.  This band has none.  Proof?  The other day, they alleged that one of their own, “abducted” from the sacred precincts of the Assembly in Ado Ekiti, had died in DSS detention.

    To start with, no independent sources confirmed the so-called abduction. Then, it turned out a vicious lie, as the so-called dead man was alive.  Still, like unintelligent stunt pullers, Fayose and crowd openly serenaded Kokumo (Yoruba for risen from death), and after, gifted him a glittering car — all for his villainy!

    Is that a band anyone would take seriously?

    Aside from Kokumo, the band also lied that DSS seized another three.  But the trio made a dramatic appearance at the Ibadan press conference, roguishly confessing they indeed vanished to avoid DSS arrest!  Did they forget their old lines?

    Then, the comic threat: they would no longer “honour” DSS’s invitations!  But under what laws, in Ekiti or Federal Nigeria, would they anchor such behaviour?  Besides, if they can walk their talk, why are they fleeing?  The Yoruba elders are right: when the clay sculpture covets self-destruction, he craves a stream bath!

    To all of this, however, is an ironic ring.  When Fayose was playing the outlaw governor, he chased, out of town, the Ekiti legislature, which then had an All Progressives Congress (APC) majority.  Now, in raw fear, even his handpicked legislators are chasing themselves out of town, the impeachment bogey in hot pursuit!  Indeed, what goes around comes around!

    Ekiti Kete, please take heart.  Fayose is only but a little price to pay for a rotten electoral choice — except that, from Ekitigate, the so-called choice was Hobson’s choice from Fayose and his electoral criminals.

    Talk of double jeopardy!

    Maybe its some ghosts in over-charged imaginations, after all, bribery could really be ghostly business!

  • Agents of disruption

    It is a cause for concern that members of the Newspapers Distributors Association of Nigeria (NDAN) are using their platform to cause disruption.  A March 30 report said: “For the second day running, members of the Newspapers Distributors Association of Nigeria (NDAN) yesterday prevented the distribution of The Nation, The Sun and Vanguard newspapers at major points in Lagos and Abuja…the distributors vow to frustrate the three newspapers.”

    They are reportedly fighting for increased commission following cover price increment by some national dailies. Their method is unacceptable and condemnable. The report said: “At Kakawa, a major distribution point on Lagos Island, agents threatened to pour acid on employees of The Nation who were distributing the newspaper. They were also threatened in Ikeja and Maryland distribution points.”  Does this mean that a newspaper company has no right to review its distribution method and employ direct distribution in the face of an unresolved disagreement with the NDAN members?

    The report further said: “An agent at the Kakawa distribution point was quoted as saying: “You people don’t want to negotiate. You think you can do it yourselves. An agent from Kakawa was yesterday monitoring vendors in Maryland to ensure they were not selling the three newspapers. In Abuja, distributors seized newspapers from vendors who were ready to sell the products. The agents vowed to continue to disturb the media houses until they agree to part with more commission from the N200 cover price.”

    By trying to force the affected newspaper companies to make a concession in their favour, the NDAN members violated a basic principle of mutual convenience, which should be the basis of a business relationship. Their wild action is not only uncivilised but also uncultured. It is the height of self-centredness that they displayed an unwillingness to show consideration for the other party in the business relationship.

    Perhaps more importantly, this aggression by the newspaper agents must not be encouraged by the law enforcement agents. It is good news that The Punch has reportedly “taken some agents before a court in Garki, Abuja for seizing their copies from direct salesmen”.  Also, the report said: “The newspaper houses have written to the Police Commissioner, seeking protection for their business and workers.” This is an appropriate move on the part of the newspaper companies.

    It is pertinent to ask whether the NDAN has a proper leadership.  Why have the association’s leaders failed to demonstrate responsible leadership?

  • Between Wike and Fayose

    Between Rivers’ Nyesom Wike and Ekiti’s Ayo Fayose, southern Nigeria risks two ticking retrogressive bombs, set to blow, into smithereens, their respective states.

    Incidentally, both rode to power via suspect mandates, nevertheless sanctioned by the highest court in the land.  Ironically too, both cases epitomise how the judiciary, the apogee of lawful civility, by commission or omission, haul the society right back into Stone Age outlawry, where brutes and savages hold sway.

    It’s a scary neo-Hobbesian state that the coming generation won’t find funny at all.

    From Fayose’s Ekitigate comes the rancid ooze of electoral rot, which high-powered conspirators in the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency cooked.  It was sheer executive banditry, involving the security forces, real and fake, that put the legal force of the state to the unfettered service of election criminals.  But even with the military arm of that conspiracy apprehended and punished, their civilian counterparts, led by Fayose himself, roam free and run amok with even more outlawry.

    When bandits are bivouacked in State House, they proclaim lawlessness as the new law.  And boy, has Ekiti trodden that chequered path!  From a governor-elect sacking the courts, mugging lawyers and judges and shredding court papers, with the collusion of the Police, Fayose has become the unfazed outlaw cynically manipulating the law; and is not unimpressed by his own legendary uncouthness and devil-may-care barbarism.

    Unfortunately, Ekiti, the famed land of professors, would be the ultimate loser.  As it happened, within one electoral mandate, Obafemi Awolowo vaulted his Western Region into progress and civilisation, that continues to be the envy of the rest of the country.  Ekiti, the pristine land of honour and integrity, was a prime and proud beneficiary.

    Well, Fayose with his infantile brinkmanship, uncouth noise and empty demagoguery is set to take Ekiti on a reverse gear.  Again, Ekiti Kete would be the prime — and proud? — losers.  Just as well, as almost everyone over there, elders and youth, men and women, appear too dazed, deaf and dumb!

    As for Wike and his Rivers, the scenario is no less scary.  Wike “won” a controversial governorship poll, in the run-up to which people were freely slaughtered.  After getting a judicial seal for that blood fest, he is also “winning” the legislative reruns: no less blood flowed, many were roasted, a few others beheaded and the majority scared from making any choice.

    Wike, the electoral warlord, is flush with victory; and looks even more foreboding, to the blood-cuddling cheer of his savage troops and even the people — a very good number, it would appear, from the vote tally so far.  Rivers appear well and truly proud of their descent into the Hobbes state of nature.

    But the question is: will that victory last or would it be pyrrhic?  That is in the belly of time.  Still,   history would record two Rivers consecutive governorships.

    One branded itself on futuristic model public schools, Port Harcourt, its capital, as World Book Capital and other indices of renaissance, enlightenment and development.  The other is branding itself the beheading capital of Africa, haven of bloodthirsty cultists and equal-opportunity criminals; and where supposed democratic elections are nothing but Hobson’s choices, pressed by free and heinous mass murder.

    The future of Ekiti and Rivers are well buried in the past — unless of course, someone, somewhere, woke up fast and rolled back this twin-tragedy before it is too late.

     

  • Of Moses and Kachikwu

    Of Moses and Kachikwu

    Hardball wagers that adversity sharpens the mind. And here is an example. The excruciating living conditions of most citizens today, sharply brings to one’s mind, some kind of parallel between the biblical Prophet Moses and our junior oil minister, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu. Bible students will agree that Moses is perhaps the most significant figure in the good book, second only to Jesus Christ. Now how can anyone begin to place Kachikwu beside Moses?

    Here is how: the great leader of the Israelites, Moses, despite being imbued with so much grace and anointing, was voided of grace at a point.

    If you remember the great story of the Israelites journey through the wilderness, you are bound to lose it too if you are leading a pampered tribe on a most punishing desert journey. At every juncture, the people are grumbling and looking back to Egypt from where God miraculously sprung them from a vicious Pharaoh.

    In one of those testy moments, the Israelites came to the wilderness of Zin in Kadesh and there was no water. And the entire people gathered together against Moses and his brother Aaron. And they spoke most contentiously: “… And why have you made us come up out of Egypt, to bring us to this evil place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates; nor is there any water to drink.” (Numbers 20:5).

    Moses and Aaron as usual, fall on their faces in intercession on behalf of their recalcitrant brethren. Soon enough the glory of the Lord appears to the duo. And the Lord speaks issuing clear, solemn instructions: “Take the rod; (the same rod Moses had used to wrought unbelievable wonders including parting the Red Sea) you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their very eyes and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock…”

    What did good old Moses do? Already uptight and pissed off with an ungrateful clan, he gathers the assembly before the rock; and he says to them: “”Hear now, you rebels, must we bring water to you out of this rock?” Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; …”

    Of course those who know the Word know the grievous consequences of Moses’ action. They also understand who the Rock represents.

    Now to our dear Kachikwu: Asked last week when the fuel scarcity pain will ease for Nigerians, he said: “One of the trainings I did not receive is that of a magician but I am working hard to ensure some of these issues go away… and for the six months we have been here, NNPC has moved from 50 per cent importer to 100 per cent importer… so quite frankly, it’s sheer magic that we even have the amount of products at the stations. We are looking to see how to get foreign exchange…”

    Can you hear Kachikwu sounding exasperated with the rest of us the way Moses sounded when the Israelites needed water? He has never queued in a fuel station before, Hardball wagers. But Nigerians need fuel and it is either he can do the job or not.

    And Hardball thinks his job is very simple: he must work on new refineries pronto, lest the scarcity lingers till 2019. Nothing else will work.

  • Bull dog vs bull master

    Well, everyone knows the bull dog, bow-wow, bow-wow!  But surely the bull dog must have a master, at whose pleasure and at whose service, it growls, barks and bites; and bandies and frolics, full of bile or full of zeal?

    As the bull dog was trained to bait the bull, our political bull dog here has no mean expertise in baiting political opponents, on behalf of his political master.

    Well, guess who both bull dog and “bull” master are? No prize for right answers: Doyin Okupe, the Remo-born prince and medic- turned-political gladiator. And his eternal master?  Again, no prize: Himself the Ebora Owu, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of the Federal Republic!

    The other day, however, the fawning bull dog pushed presumed relations to the limit, when he declared that Obasanjo remained the leader of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Southwest, despite Baba, around the time last year, publicly shredding his PDP membership card.  O, that was wrong: doing it himself he found rather infra dig; so, he told one of his fellow ward members to do it, in the full glare of the cameras!

    Anyway, Dr. Okupe, assuming touching love for a revered master, shoved aside Obasanjo’s purported tearing of his PDP membership card, and proceeded to canonise Baba PDP eternal leader in Yoruba land, with an impressive battery of illustrious lieutenants: Bode George, Ayodele Fayose, Iyiola Omisore, Femi Fani-Kayode, ehm, ehm … who is left?

    But even with only this quad, would you say PDP have no leaders in the Southwest?  As the Yoruba would quip: Ta lo pe won o ni baba?  (Who dare says they have no leader?)  And to think Baba, in Okupe’s proud and loyal heart, sits atop this formidable ensemble!

    Okupe, of course, was growling and barking at Buruji Kashamu, a senator of the Federal Republic, who holds sway in the Ijebu Igbo/Ago Iwoye axis of Ogun State, dishing out mouth-watering patronage to his adoring and appreciative beneficiaries, who reward him with “PDP leader”.

    But bull dog would have none of that nonsense, more so when Baba stormed out of the party, claiming his national and international admirers would knock him if they ever heard Kashamu was his “leader”.

    Hear Okupe, all bark and bite: “Baba Obasanjo still remains the undisputed and authentic leader of the PDP in the Southwest. The fact that he tore his membership card is not tantamount to resignation from the party. Tearing of the membership card, though a very negative action,” he explained, “is undoubtedly a knee-jerk reaction to certain unacceptable or intolerable happenings within the party which can and will be redressed.”

    But the master was absolutely unimpressed. Okupe, he declared without much ado, was a “hypocrite” and should be ignored.  How so?

    For starters, the same Okupe, Baba explained, under new master Goodluck Jonathan, led the expel-Obasanjo-from-PDP orchestra, during those same “unacceptable or intolerable happenings”! The Remo prince forgets too soon: the Ebora neither forgets nor forgives!

    Still, Okupe should have known better, before reducing Baba to “Southwest leader” — a whole Baba!  The riposte came: straight, short, sharp — and narcissist!  Is it not from the “national” Baba Iyabo?

    “I was national leader of the party for eight years, so how would I now reduce myself to becoming its leader in the Southwest?”

    How indeed! Any response from the fawning bull dog?

  • Akala zigzagging

    Allocation mentality was on display when former Oyo State governor Otunba Christopher Alao Akala expressed a parochial understanding of wealth creation by government for the purpose of good governance. He inadvertently lent credence to the critical argument that the dependency of state governments on allocations from the Federal Government is a dent on the concept and practice of federalism.

    Listen to Akala explaining why he reportedly said: “I thank God I lost 2015 governorship election.” He was quoted as saying: “I said that because I pitied the governors because of what they are going through now. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep with these dwindling monthly allocations. That was the reason why I said that. I don’t know how I would have coped. I am hypertensive already and I don’t know what I would have done. I pray it doesn’t go beyond that”. There is a hint of sour grapes here.

    Beyond that, to go by his words, Akala would have been not only financially challenged but also creatively challenged. The creation of wealth outside the context of central allocation demands creativity in the sphere of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). Without discounting the weight of federal allocation, it can be argued that if a governor lacks the creative spark to generate revenue domestically to enhance centrally allocated funds, such a situation would compound the complications of governance.

    The setting is significant. The ex-governor said he was at the national secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to “hold talks with the leadership of the party”. Akala was a Labour Party (LP) gubernatorial candidate in last year’s election and lost to Governor Abiola Ajimobi of the APC.  He was quoted as saying: “If I am not satisfied, I will not join the APC. I have a choice. I’m in the APC because I am satisfied with the change.”

    Curiously, Akala’s observation on the financial difficulties of the incumbent governors and his self-confessed hypertension may not be enough reasons for him to dump his ambition to be a governor again. His answer on whether he intends to seek votes in 2019 exposed internal contradictions. He said: “When we get to the bridge, we shall cross it. This is just 2016. Time will tell wherever anybody wants to go. Why do you try to ask God about 2019 now? Do you know whether you will sleep and wake up tomorrow? Let’s leave 2019 to God.”

    Perhaps Akala is optimistic that federal allocations would have improved by 2019, or even that his hypertension would have improved by then. Clearly, Akala needs to improve the quality of his thinking by doing quality thinking.

  • Smoke in my eyes…

    Hardball has got smoke in his eyes … and creases on his mind. Or to put it quite correctly, he is misty eyed; his vision has suddenly gotten blurry and he cannot fathom why. Could it be environmental factors? Is the climate change taking off from his sight? Is it the dust of the unforgiving dry season? Perhaps the un-burnt fuels remorselessly emitted as carbon-monoxide on Lagos traffic everyday?

    Or could it be from inside his head? Why does he feel so blear and indeed troubled? There is something miasmic in the atmosphere of his mind. He is assailed by a certain weightlessness which he has no control over. He is not feeling blue, for that would be making light of his state, he feels like a man who wakes up from slumber to find that he is held hostage by aliens in strange place. What could this be? Could one truly have been transported to a strange place by some malevolent hands?

    But alas, the caterpillar scourging the plant is right under its leaves. It’s the polity, dummy. It gets increasingly wearisome, vitiating the body and soul without let. It’s torturing enough that no cheery news has filtered in for a while; it is the lot of Hardball as protagonist and harbinger to bear the weight of all the woe tales encircling the land.

    Consider a few clips from one day’s fare: “We operate patients with lamps, torch lights.” This is the cries of doctors (yes, medical doctors and not herbalists) in one of Nigeria’s upscale medical institutions, the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, UITH. The national power grid has been caught in the greed of a new power cabal, thus UITH says it has a generator for each section of its massive operation. This is apart from two huge generators. Imagine the bedlam on a sunny, hot afternoon in semi-arid Ilorin, Kwara State. The noise festival from a dozen generators, the harvest of carcinogenic fumes over a once specialised infirmary … and all this replicated in all such so-called teaching hospitals across the land. Now, Hardball would take liberty and call it some form of gradual hospiticide going on there in the guise of a hospital.

    Let’s consider a few more headlines: “Tenant sets Edo landlord ablaze”. Straight-forward story as Hardball guesses you can guess dear reader. Yes, the blighters of a tenant could not pay rent and he had to put out the landlord before he throws him out. Now they are both out – landlord and tenant. He had vowed to kill the two of us, narrates the wife of the landlord. One would guess the smoky-eyed tenant chose to exercise his prerogative of mercy in the final catastrophic moments.

    And this last headline: “DSS presents ‘dead’ lawmaker”. Following from a rumour that an Ekiti lawmaker in the custody of the Department of State Security had died, the DSS had to parade him if only to prove that the ‘dead’ could be brought back to live.

    The parade turned out to be a good performance on both the part of the lawmaker and the DSS. Don’t ask what a miserable house member is doing in the custody of almighty DSS for so long; just enjoy the drama and shed a tear laughing.

  • Cultism’s new goalposts

    Hardball would like to posit that today’s man is gradually growing into a pseudo-savage relishing a daily streaming of blood of fellow man. Snuffing the life of a neighbour seems to be fast becoming the pastime of the day. From every corner of the world, from every continent, one race seems to seek to outdo the other in what may be termed an unfolding homicidal agenda.

    Increasingly man loses his innocence; becoming less squeamish about the sanctity of the life of a fellow man. Today’s man seems to love the flow of blood; indeed, seeing the gruesome throes of dying and death may well give him the kicks. And why not, man is daily assailed with the sight, sound and images (including imageries) of death. News these days is 80 per cent sorrow, tears and blood and 20 per cent about all other human concerns.

    If a father is not beheading his son in cold blood for ritual purposes, a son is butchering his grandmother just for the thirst of blood. A 12-year-old walks into a church and opens fire on worshipers; a toddler strays into the road and is crushed by frenzied motorists; and if you think that is overtly gruesome as it were, the lifeless mass of flesh is craziedly squashed and pressed unto tar by even more frenzied drivers while an unfeeling world walks on by as if the mashed jumble pressed into tar were that of a chick.

    Everyday we are fed with pictures of gore and human damnation as concocted by ISIS. Even citizen from the pit of hell would shudder at ISIS’ ingeniously creative executions. It is as if they are singularly minded to wipe out the human race – such fury, such wantonness! Bombs are going off daily in nearly all cities as if the world is full of fiends from the dark pits. People plotting against people they don’t even know and handing them gruesome ends everyday.

    You would wonder why Hardball has suddenly lapsed into a griping philosopher of sort. Well, the news emanating from Abia State University, Uturu (ABSU) has changed the goalpost of cultism as you would find out in a while.

    Last Saturday, as reported, a group of students, who were members of a rival cult group, stormed a hostel near the ABSU campus. They held the hostel spellbound until they found their victims – two 300 level students. They killed them, the report went, beheaded them and mounted their heads as goalposts at the playing ground.

    Talk about shifting goalposts in the bloody art of head-hunting! We knew about rival cult groups hacking or shooting each other and beating a hasty retreat. But to impale the heads of fellow students and make them uprights for a football game is to signal the new audacity of a murderous school cult.

    It also signifies a total collapse of the school’s management if not the state. And what is the response of the state: it sets up a committee to doodle while the bloody animals escape into the bush…

  • History and a chief challenge to Buhari

    A few years ago, a former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, looked at history with disdain. He translated the disdain into policy.

    Barely a month ago, two key figures in our history were remembered. They were Sir Ahmadu Bello, who was the Sardauna of Sokoto, and Chief Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh. The cerebral events took place in the north and south respectively.

    The one was the premier of northern Nigeria in the First Republic and the other was a finance minister in the same republic in the Tafawa Balewa government.

    During that Okotie-Eboh event, three-in-one minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), showed how our students no longer studied history. He noted that the students who studied abroad, especially in the United States, knew foreign histories more than ours. For instance, they know who Abraham Lincoln was and when he became president.

    An elder pitched in recently. He is the respectable J.O.S. Ayomike, a historian and chairman of the Itsekiri Leaders of Thought. He called for the return of history to the curriculum of schools. He made the call when he was honoured with an Exceptional Lifetime Achievement Award to mark the Golden Jubilee celebration of the Federal Government College, Warri, Delta State.

    Hear him: “I use this occasion to make a call close to my heart. It has bothered many Nigerians that history, as a formal discipline, is no longer taught in our schools up to tertiary level.”

    To demonstrate his fidelity to the past, he presented a gift of history books to the famous college.

    Chief Ayomike’s gifts, which also included several other books, were emblematic of the value of the past. We cannot know who we are without knowing who we were.

    It is ironic that Chief Obasanjo who turned our schools against history has been under the spell of history all his life. Was that not why he fought some partisans over the Owu leadership? Was that not why he wanted to reign as civilian president after his time as military leader? Was that not why he wrote books, especially a historical book about the Nigerian civil war?

    If we neglect the past, we lose the future. That was Chief Ayomike’s point. It is high time the lawmakers and the new president returned us to studying our history.