It’s a big plus for the Duchess International Hospital, Ikeja, Lagos, that it has Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on its side. His goodwill message to the management and staff of the hospital on its first anniversary speaks volumes about the weight of his endorsement.

Osinbajo recalled that he underwent orthopaedic surgery in one of the hospital’s “state-of-the-art theatres,” and also spent a week on admission post-surgery in “perhaps one of the most comfortable hospital accommodations anywhere in the world.”

He described the hospital as “world-class, both in the quality of its medical personnel and its management,” adding that “it is living up to its mission to reverse medical tourism by delivering the highest standards of care using the most advanced technology and treatments to give the fastest, most convenient access to the best medical expertise available anywhere in the world.”

The hospital’s medical director, Dr Adedoyin Dosunmu-Ogunbi, had said the vice president’s surgery in July was “on account of a fracture of his right femur (thigh bone), possibly related to a longstanding injury associated with a game of squash.”

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The surgical operation was performed by a team of Nigerian specialist doctors. It was reported that some “government and private practice doctors” had advised him to consider having the operation abroad, but he insisted on a Nigerian hospital and Nigerian medical experts.

The success of the operation not only confirmed his faith in the hospital; it also corroborated the facility’s image as a centre of medical excellence.

But it must be noted that the hospital is a private hospital. Osinbajo’s surgery experience there gives the impression that its status as a private hospital was an important contributory factor.

Are there public hospitals in the country that boast similar standards? The answer to the question may well be negative.  The Federal Government’s budget for the health sector over the years is mainly responsible for that.

Notably, heads of state of African Union countries, in April 2001, met in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15 percent of their annual budget to improve the health sector. It is disappointing that Nigeria has consistently failed to meet the standard of the Abuja Declaration.

The country’s 2022 budget is N17.16 trillion, and N724 billion (4.2 percent) was allocated for healthcare across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory. Poor funding cannot produce public hospitals of the standard of Duchess Hospital.

For being paid “half-salary” for October, branches of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) would embark on a one-day protest and boycott of classes. Each branch will, however, pick own protest date.

From jumbo strikes to one-day class boycotts — quite some cascade from the Olympian heights of sweeping ASUU strikes! Thank God for small mercies!  Good sense appears setting in, though it’s early days yet.

Still, the thinking remains the same: rushing off on emotive and often tendentious presumptions, which many times become untenable beyond the passion of the moment.  That still is not good enough, for dons who should be clinical and far more deliberative.

Take the alleged “half-salary”.  ASUU claims it was paid half-salary.  The Federal Government countered it paid “pro-rated salary”.  If ASUU indeed worked for 15 or 16 days in October, then “pro-rated” would appear the more accurate tag; half-salary, the more emotive — and that is simple, basic, objective use of lexis.

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Though some lawyers have made the fine points of law that the Federal Government might have acted in error (citing technicalities about the nature of ASUU appointments, etc), these can only be valid and claimable after a court of competent jurisdiction affirms such.  Before then, it’s rather tendentious for ASUU to fly on its “half-salary” whims when it was clear it worked for half-a-month.

Still, the lesson is gradually sinking in, which is a good thing.  The old ASUU would have been roaring now, threatening the “mother of all strikes”.  But that its reaction is a whimper — even if nevertheless driven by the strike principle — is quite instructive.

The government itself should clobber together some good faith (or more appropriately, some grace) to extend an olive branch.  As mercy, it should look at how it could meet ASUU part of the way.  That’s more or less the principle behind Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila’s intervention that eventually ended the strike.

But the snag here is ASUU can’t force mercy.  It cannot, as of right, claim full salaries for nine months it didn’t work for — forget that self-serving claim that apart from teaching, its members also do research and community service.

Even then, whatever mercy the government shows must clearly not reward the bad conduct of long, disruptive strikes.  This is imperative because next time the Aluta hot heads go on the offensive, the more moderate voices would weigh in with more restraint, citing the dire consequences of the last time.

The government itself, however, must never enter into agreements it has no cash to back up.  Both sides should rather work as partners on common interests, not as sworn antagonists.

It’s time for fresh thinking across the aisle.

There’s a saying among the Yoruba that you do not get crowned king of the hawks and be hamstrung from snatching a straying chick. The sense here is that it isn’t at all ennobling or desirous to wear a tag you can’t live out. Actually, it is intensely frustrating, especially when you have the will and potential means of living up to billing but are constrained by circumstances outside of your remit. That is the bind in which the Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Abiodun Adams, appears to find himself.

By virtue of being the Onakakanfo, Adams is the generalissimo of Yorubaland and, in principle, its protector against enemy attacks. In ancient history, the Onakakanfo had de facto mandate to watch over the entire region and go to war in its behalf. In other words, he was the entire region’s chief security officer. In modern times, however, the office of the Onakakanfo is largely ceremonial. The title, as in all of history, is conferred by the Alaafin of Oyo. But unlike in history, Oyo is no longer a pan-regional kingdom and has limited jurisdiction. Besides, the traditional generalissimo isn’t any longer the chief security officer of the Oyo kingdom – much less of Oyo State and far much less of other states in the Southwest region that makes up Yorubaland. The state governor is statutorily recognised as the chief security officer of respective state; and even they have contended that is only nominally because the security agencies are unitarised and answerable to federal authorities.

But Iba Adams got tapped as Onakakanfo by the late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, on account of his courageous exploits with self-defense group, the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC). He was not appointed just on ceremonial basis. Hence, he perceives himself – and indeed is widely perceived – as expected to replicate to whatever extent possible the self-defense exploits of the OPC; and because he is the Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, he sees the burden on him as cutting across Southwest state boundaries.

That, apparently, is why Iba Adams is affronted by recurring attacks by bandits on travellers using the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. Last week, he asked governors of the three states through which the expressway runs – Babajide Sanwo-olu (Lagos), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun) and Seyi Makinde (Oyo) – for official leave to use the OPC and other regional security formations like the Amotekun, hunters and the like to undertake the task of flushing out the bandits. The trouble is, even if the governors are so persuaded, federal authorities that have control of the national security agencies may stand in his way. Effectively, Adams is a generalissimo with his hands tied.

For Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President and embattled PDP presidential candidate, it doesn’t rain.  It rather pours.

From Benue, you perhaps can forget the latest sabre-rattling against the Fulani, real or imagined, who Samuel Ortom, Benue governor, is convinced are sworn to wiping out his Tiv people.

Every month end when salary looms, and the treasury is not so wet, that bellicose ethnic stuff is ortom-atic (beg your pardon, automatic) — perhaps to rally the people and distract them from biting belly pangs?

Whatever the motive, President Muhammadu Buhari had borne Ortom’s rabid attacks with rare equanimity.  That seemed to work for Atiku, so long as there were cheap partisan gains; and the dart was turned against the president and his APC.

Not any more!  Atiku now reels under Ortom’s explosive and savage anti-Fulani charge.  Atiku won’t have any of that profiling crap and he said so.  The denouement, in the dark and bathetic drama: “To hell with Atiku” Ortom raged — and to blazes with his presidential run!  Oomph!

But from Bauchi has come a quiet yet deadly rattling of gun fire: Bala Mohammed, Bauchi governor, is angry and it’s doubtful if he can be appeased.

“Atiku should apologize to me,” he growled, according to a news headline, “or I will dump him!”  Holy Moses!  What thunderous ire!

That ire sent both the no less embattled Iyorchia Ayu (never a second’s relief from Nyesom Wike and co’s ever booming batteries of artillery fire) and Aminu Tambuwal (the third leg of the triumvirate — Atiku and Ayu being the other two — accused of crass “northernization” of PDP) scuttling to Bauchi to appease the governor.

Now, a double irony here: One, Ayu, equally an endangered species in the intra-PDP crossfire, plays the peace-maker and intercessor with Atiku!

And Two: Atiku, the “northern candidate” whose charity must start at home with his brag that his fellow ethnic Fulani would easily belt and best APC’s Kashim Shettima and his Kanuri folks, who Atiku summarily dismissed as “minorities” in the North East, where both Atiku and the APC presidential running mate are homers!

Yet, a prime commander, in the Atiku North East “Fulani Army”, is threatening to dump Atiku, unless “he come beg me” — to borrow the colourful pidgin lingo of Fela.  Remember his “e don beg me” brush  with Justice Okoro Idogu?

Is Atiku then getting gradually dis-Atikulated, like some unhinged disarticulated truck — or even de-railed train?  Indeed, for the Wazirin Adamawa, it doesn’t rain.  It pours!

Like the Phoenix, they rose again from the ashes. They are both one-time helmsmen of their respective country who lost their handle on power. And from the throne, they fell into infamy that threatened a lifetime of obscurity. It is from that infamy they’ve been re-recruited to the throne. They’re what you would call ‘comeback kids.’

One of these is Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. He was a labour unionist who became the country’s president in 2002 and won reelection in 2006. His time in power was really good for Brazil, and he left office in 2010 with 83 percent approval rating. Key to his popularity in office was how he lifted millions of Brazilians out of poverty. He was also amenable to international collaboration, unlike the insular far-right incumbent, President Jair Bolsonaro

Lula’s reputation, however, took a hit when in 2017, federal prosecutors implicated him in their probe of corruption allegation involving Brazil’s national oil firm, the Petrobas. He was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison – a conviction that disqualified him from ever again seeking public office. He had spent 19months of that sentence in jail before Brazil’s supreme court in 2021 overruled the conviction, saying Lula’s right to fair trial was compromised. It was that acquittal that cleared the way for him to run in the 2022 election against President Bolsonaro. In the run-off penultimate weekend, Lula polled 50.9 percent of the votes to narrowly defeat Bolsonaro who polled 49.1 percent, and he is set to take power again by 1st January 2023. Bolsonaro’s supporters, however, did not give up the fight. Early last week, thousands of truckers – a politically powerful group in Brazil that overwhelmingly supports the incumbent – blocked highways across 23 of Brazil’s 26 states, demanding military intervention to prevent Lula’s return to power. Bolsonaro was widely expected to explicitly concede the poll, but he didn’t do that. Late last week, he only appealed to the truckers to back down; and nearly all his people including Vice President Hamilton Mourao have reached out to Lula’s camp for transition talks. But Bolsonaro is yet to overtly concede, although that won’t stop Lula.

Another dramatic comeback is by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on course to return to power. Projections from recent Israeli election gave Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc a slim majority of seats over his centre-left opponents led by current Prime Minister Yair Lapid. Such a result would mark a dramatic comeback for Netanyahu, toppled last year after 12 straight years in power. ‘Bibi,’ as Netanyahu is fondly called is a hardline Jewish nationalist. But he is also currently on trial for alleged bribery, fraud and breach of trust – charges he denies. His return to power could upend that trial as his coalition has said it would reform the law. Talk about being lucky!

 

 

“Omo a ni, e je o se!” (He’s our child, let him rule) — was the Ibadan battling cry, during the tempestuous 1983 general election.  On the stump were two brilliant fellows.

The one was Bola Ige, aka Cicero of Esa Oke, the charismatic incumbent of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s beloved party, Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN).  Ige, the razor-tongued Ijesa man of formidable intellect, had talked himself into trouble with his Ibadan hosts, from whose stock even came his wife, Atinuke; and among whom he had lived, all his colourful adult life.

The other was the genius of numbers, Victor Omololu Olunloyo and the intellectual’s intellectual, at home with any topic under the sun, though he was — still is — a razor-sharp engineer.  He was something of a maverick, though. He was the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) governorship candidate.

Ige versus Olunloyo?  Something had to give!  So, everyone fell back to sentiments; and the rather defensive Ibadan, relishing the first time a homer would be boss at the Agodi Government House, gushed: “Omo a ni, e je o se!”

Roll the camera forward to Great Britain 2022.  Boris Johnson had just self-destructed.  Rishi Sunak, the ethnic-Indian though now a thoroughbred Brit, loomed large in the horizon to be Prime Minister.

But a conclave of Tories and the British establishment popped up Liz Truss — “Omo a ni, e je o se!”  The only difference, from the Oyo 1983 scenario: Sunak was the far better material, as his campaign economic proposals clearly showed.

Well, the Brits settled for the native — but she spectacularly crashed after 45 days: the shortest tenure of a PM in British history!  But before her, Truss had sacrificed Kwasi Kwarteng, the ethnic-Ghanaian, whose disastrous proposals as Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance minister) did Truss in!  So long for the shimmer of “most racially diverse British cabinet in history!”

Just as well: Jeremy Hunt (who succeeded Kwarteng as chancellor and rolled back his catastrophic proposals) is not hunting for Ms Truss’s job.  But he sure haunted her out of it, by utterly dismantling the PM’s controversial proposals to stabilize the market!

Well, back to another Oyo cultural parallel: perhaps with her short rule and spectacular crash, Liz the PM, just “followed” namesake Elizabeth 11, the monarch?  Talk of the British “Abobaku”!

With Sunak now PM, and Labour’s Sadiq Khan already Mayor of London, the Raj is finally having its own against the flickers of mother empire! Interesting times!

Two recent events brought the subject of violence to my attention again, notwithstanding my reflections on the subject just last week. The first event is the series of warnings of imminent violence in Nigeria by the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. The warnings, first issued by the US on October 22,2022, were accompanied by travel advisories and/or movement restrictions within Nigeria by nationals of the respective countries.

The second event nearly made a hypocrite of the United States as it occurred on the American homeland within a week of the US warning: It is the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, in the couple’s home in California in the dead of night. The attacker was reportedly heard, asking “Where is Nancy?”

Now in hindsight, there are those who questioned the moral right of the American government in warning the Nigerian government of imminent violence even when such danger was lurking in the American bedroom. After all, the violence unleashed by election deniers on the seat of power in Washington on January 6, 2020, and the ongoing investigations of that event by the Department of Justice, should have given the US government sufficient notice that the recent attack could happen at any time. However, it might be difficult to predict exactly where and when such an isolated attack could take place.

Nevertheless, the causes, nature, and perpetrators of violence are very different in both countries. The issue at hand is about Nigeria, where anything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong, from security to the economy; from education to healthcare; from governance to development, and so on.

Although the public many not know the nature of the intelligence that led the US government and others to warn Nigeria of imminent violence, it is to be assumed that intelligence information must have been exchanged between the foreign missions and the Nigerian government.  In any case, the background to such warnings is clear to objective observers of insecurity in the country. The months leading to the warnings saw violent attacks by Boko Haram, bandits, gunmen, and kidnappers. Of particular concern were the attacks on places of worship, the Nigeria Defence Academy, Correctional facilities, INEC offices, and the presidential convoy. Shortly before the warnings, there were reports of Boko Haram’s threat of more attacks on Abuja.

This scenario alone should have been enough for the Nigerian government to tighten its belts, especially as the 2023 presidential election campaigns kicked off, with million-man matches constituting soft targets for terrorists. Besides, security warnings from major allies, such as the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, should have been taken very seriously, realising that they have much better access to intelligence than the Nigerian government does.

Unfortunately, the government’s responses have been typified by denials and contradictory signals. First, the bad foot was put forward by the the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed. He flatly denied the existence of a threat to national security, boasting that “Terrorists have been hard hit and put on the run. Bandits have been decimated and scattered. Our country is safer today than at any time in recent times … as far as insecurity is concerned, the worst is over for Nigeria”. There is an element of truth here: As of the time the Minister spoke, the situation was not as bad as it was three months ago, when daily reports of insurgency and banditry were routine.

Nevertheless, the Minister spoke too soon and it did not appear that he consulted with the security agencies. For one thing, within a week of the Minister’s speech, kidnappers wreaked havoc on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, killing a policeman and injuring another. They also made away with innocent passengers, including a former Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Professor Adigun Agbaje, and at least five others. As usual, they demanded humongous amounts of ransom. The incident startled the community of scholars at home and abroad. If no one else, at least this group, and others jolted by the kidnapping, would not take kindly to the Minister’s boastful verdict on the decimation of banditry in the country.

On their part, security agencies put the good foot forward: Security was beefed up and the public was enjoined to be vigilant. Moreover, a statement from the presidency confirmed that “security measures have been reinforced in and around the FCT”. The statement ended by giving “assurances that the government is on top of the security situation”. This is the kind of statement expected from a government’s spokesperson, such as the Minister of Information.

In typical Buhari version, the government waited for over a week before summoning the Security Council. As usual, contradictory signals came out of the meeting. On the one hand, the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, toed the same line with the Minister of Information, by flatly denying any imminent threat. Worse still, he described the warnings by foreign countries as an “unnecessary distraction”. He asserted further that any sense of insecurity in the country is “false” and that “it is irresponsible for anybody to give that signal”.

On the other hand, rising from the same meeting, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, in tacit acknowledgement of the significance of the warnings, gave assurances that the government was engaging with foreign missions within the country to ensure that the situation was put under control. The Armed Forces and other Security Agencies concurred and confirmed that security has been heightened around the country. If the security warnings by foreign missions could engender this much security response, then the warnings have been useful.

The truth is that the Federal Government has a reason to calm the people’s nerves in the face of threats from every aspect of national life. The government should be hesitant about imposing additional security restrictions on a hitherto restive population. At the same time, however, what needs to be done should be done to keep the people safe. It would appear that the security agencies are doing that. The National Security Adviser should have complemented their effort with assurances of escalated security surveillance, instead of issuing flat denials and insulting the intelligence of foreign missions.