The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • Mali and Nigeria: Matters arising

    Mali and Nigeria: Matters arising

    By Samuel Oluwole Ogundele

    Mali, a French colony between 1892 and 1960, is in a coma as a result of some internal and external forces with a special emphasis on political machinations. The country has robust, fascinating histories and cultural heritage resources with a few parallels in Africa. Thus, for example, Jenne Jeno, an archaeological urban civilization (with a date of about 8th century A.D) remains a heritage site complex of local, regional, and global relevance. These heritage resources have some uncommon tastes and preferences which define the civic pride of the contemporary Malians, belonging to such ethnicities as the Bambara, Tuaregs and Songhai. The vast northern region is the abode of the Tuaregs who are less than 10% of the total population of about 20 million.

    There was an aggravation of the conflict between the north and south as from 2012. This increasing tempo of violence was to a large degree, a political fallout of the Libyan crisis. Although a ceasefire was signed in February 2015 between the government and the Co-ordination of Azawad Movements asking for secession from the South, Mali is up to now, a crisis-ridden geo-polity. Not unexpectedly, the available natural resources such as limestone, uranium, gold, tin, copper, and iron ore are yet to be seriously exploited. Mali’s trade partners especially Indonesia, Malaysia, and China are having a field day while at least 10 million Malians are desperately poor, living on a daily wage of $1.25. Poor community health, a gross lack of education, and incessant killings of innocent people are a recurring decimal in the Malian political and social discourse. This situation has a ripple effect on West Africa especially Nigeria, that is having challenges of Boko Haram insurgency to grapple with. Indeed, the West African sub-region is a tangled web of very close relationships.

    The coup d’état on August 18 by a group of army officers, was a necessary response to the agonies of the generality of the Malians. It is on record, that an accurate, demanding nationalist, Mahmoud Dicko had been leading a group of hungry/angry citizens to protest in the capital, Bamako against poor governance. This went on for weeks until the coup was staged, leading to the arrest of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Prime Minister Boubou Cisse, and a few senior military officers. The traumatized citizens were in jubilant mood after the coup despite widespread condemnation of the situation by ECOWAS, African Union, European Union, and United Nations. But the Malians (victims of political leadership failure) are hopeful that the new government will mitigate their poverty and other agonies.  Time will tell.

    Mali, a predominantly Muslim country, had experimented with seven Heads of State from its independence in 1960 to the present day. But despite this, the problems of the citizens have been going from bad to worse.  Moussa Traore was dethroned by the head of his personal guard-Amadou Toure in 1991. There was a military-civilian transition process bringing about a new constitution and multi-party elections. Amadou Toure handed over to a democratically elected president-Alpha Oumar Konare in June, 1992. Toure returned in 2002 and ruled till 2012. Ibrahim Keita was elected president in 2013 and was forcefully removed this August. This is a cyclical pattern of unstable, political culture with a devastating blow to the followers and the country at large. It is time for the Malian leadership to begin to work for governmental values as if people matter by avoiding misguided and misdiagnosed philosophies. Enough of a leadership built on the shaky foundations of maximum thievery, unfettered impunity, primordial ethnic chauvinism, and institutional dysfunction.

    Assimi Goita is the head of the new government. He has promised as usual, to form a military-civilian transition committee to embark on a democratic process. This will be for three years. Former President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria and 14 other eminent statesmen in the sub-region have been trying to “return” peace and some stability to Mali. They went to Bamako on August 22 to meet with the new leadership. Consequently, former President Ibrahim Keita and others have been released from military custody. Keita said that he would never return to the office. Have ECOWAS and AU been able to demarcate the boundary between interference and intervention in the internal affairs of countries in Africa? How workable is the AU’s Constitutive Act? Have member states ceded part of their sovereignty to the larger order-ECOWAS and AU? At what point, can these bodies overstep the boundaries of internal sovereignty of member states? Are there sanctions against any country engaging in electoral malpractices and other forms of corruption?

    What pragmatic roles are ECOWAS and AU supposed to play when the wishes and rights of the masses are trampled upon by the incumbent leaders during elections? These questions among others need answers within the frameworks of legality and to a lesser degree, morality in order to move forward as a sub-region or continent. Up to now, the idea of international observation of elections in West Africa is a mere cosmetic exercise.  African leaders who are practising caricatured democracy in their countries have no moral rights to be looking for peace in Mali. They are ruthless, self-serving politicians who have no genuine respect for equal rights and justice.

    It is extremely irritating to see some Nigerian political leaders getting engrossed in entrenching political stability in Mali when their own country is probably in a much more serious mess. Thus, for example, it was reported, that over 110 villages and semi-urban centres as well as 450 lives or thereabouts, had been destroyed in the Southern Kaduna between January and July, 2020. This report was from Jonathan Asake, the new president of the Southern Kaduna Peoples’ Union (SOKAPU). Nigerian lives and those of goats and sheep are on a par today. On Friday, August 21, some bandits attacked a police station in Ibadan, Oyo State. One police officer was said to have been killed in crossfire. A serial killer escaped a few days ago, from a police station in Ibadan after mowing down six innocent people. Luckily, the 19-year old monster was re-arrested on August 23 after some young people staged a protest against the development. Fears and insecurities dominate the hearts of most citizens of Nigeria. Mr. President was honest enough to have told Nigerians some weeks ago, that the government had done its best. Food production levels are falling daily. Nigeria is on the threshold of collapse. Obviously, Mali and Nigeria are birds of a feather. Why is the Nigerian leadership feeling so weepy about the internal problems of Mali when its own thatched house has caught fire? It is very difficult for any coup d’état to succeed in the face of good governance. The Nigerian political leadership needs to be working for equity, justice, and fairness-the solid foundations of healthy democracy.

    • Prof Ogundele is of Dept. of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan.
  • Buhari’s 2nd term achievements

    Buhari’s 2nd term achievements

    By Abiodun Komolafe

    For those who have the gift of appreciating developmental strides, Muhammadu Buhari deserves a round of applause for doing so much within the so short period he has spent as the incumbent Nigerian president. Going by what is visible to the naked eye, coupled with what the president’s reputation managers have put out for Nigerians to see, Buhari seems to have done so much for Nigerians, through Nigerians, and on behalf of Nigerians, so much so that only the Stone of Israel can thank him for being so deeply committed to the cause of Nigeria.

    To start with, that the president created new ministries to handle some important sectors of Nigeria’s socio-political and economic landscape is commendable. However, the legitimate and fair question to ask is, before now, which ministries handled these newly-identified and assigned functions? In other words, are Nigerians that dumb and gullible as to accept a change in nomenclature and re-delegation of authorities and duties within the same bureaucracy as an innovation and or, achievement?

    As a matter of fact, creating new ministries where the extant ones are not performing is tantamount to the embellishment of redundancy and direct duplication of corruption centres. We have had diverse civil service reforms in the past! What did we make of the lessons from those exercise and what has changed under Nigeria’s present situation? Since Yakubu Gowon left, other military regimes have come, always scratching the surface. Ibrahim Babangida expanded the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), added pomp and ceremony to them, make them look flashy and, perhaps, bogus without necessarily increasing their efficiency. And that’s exactly what we are currently witnessing under Buhari’s watchful eyes! The point is, instead of reinvigorating the failing ministries, why is government splitting them, and giving them new names? How does that translate into an achievement?

    The basic principle, which is central to governance, is about the welfare of the people. If a set of rules is introduced to the society, it must not deviate from ensuring that lives and property of the people are protected and secured. Likewise therefore, if a government is creating ministries or parastatals, they have to be focused on the people, because if you create one million ministries and the effect cannot be felt by the people, you’ve gained nothing! How do we then justify government’s ‘motion-induced-but-feasible-movement-disrupted’ venture? What exactly is the government’s game-plan in rolling out those purportedly bogus achievements? How does the employment of 774,000 Nigerians, a process that is yet to take-off, become an achievement? Who benefits from the diverse scenarios being projected as the anchor of innovations and achievements?

    To be sure, assenting to a new Bill on Companies and Allied Matters may also appear reasonable, but only if the newly-couched content addresses existing oddities and encumbrances identified in the former Act. Again, what has changed since Mr. President assented the Bill into law? Was it done purposely to bring sanity and efficiency into business practice and organisation in Nigeria? Was the Bill assented to because of the government’s love for the masses? Will the new law lower the cost of doing business in Nigeria? Will it attract new and foreign investors to the shores of the country? Considering the acute food insecurity profile of Nigeria, how, for God’s sake, does this initiative provide adequate security and bring food to the table of the common man?

    Well, it is no longer news that currently, the churches are angry since Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020 came into existence. Regrettably, nothing is moving in Nigeria! While religion has lost its integrity steam, especially as majority of those representing the Church of Christ today are now worse than wolves, the Federal Government, on the other hand, and to a large extent, is not right either in poke-nosing into the internal affairs of the Church.

    In the considered opinion of yours sincerely, the matter on hand is between the Church and the State; it is not economic productivity where the issue of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) comes in. After all, the congregants willingly brought their money and donated it to the Church. Government’s attempt at coming in is like taxing the recipient of a gift. Put in strict terms, the Controller of what comes into the Church is God himself. Impliedly, those who discharge their functions faithfully as well as embezzlers of church funds are under His nest and He will deliver judgment, accordingly; and, at the appropriate time, too!

    Let us get it right: government has a right to enact its own laws. But the church is aloof because it doesn’t interfere in state affairs. For instance, if I decide to take my money to the church, that’s my personal business. But before I take my money to the church, it is the responsibility of the state to see to it that I pay tax, which I must have done. If, for whatever reasons, I evade tax like it is allegedly said of Donald Trump, the American president, then, it is the government’s problem for not ensuring that I carry out an essential part of my civic responsibility.

    All said, it is a fact of life that the country cannot work until we decide to make it work! The question now is: are we willing to make Nigeria work? Currently, Nigeria is battling with hyper-inflation. So, how and on what items do workers spend their salaries? Yet, assenting to the CAMA Bill is adjudged an outlandish achievement. How soon will we move development in Nigeria away from “no longer where we were before” to ‘what to do to get us to where we ought to have been’? If a situation lingers more than expected, it kills all the initiatives and the people’s response becomes unresponsive.

    Put differently, if we continue on our present path, it may not be long before Nigeria balloons into a state of badness and whatever remedy the government may possess at the time may no longer be situationally relevant as the people may no longer respond to government’s policies or initiatives. And, by the time Nigerians resort to self-help in protecting lives and property, America, in terms of gun violence business, may be a child’s play. ‘Arab Spring’ has shown us how a situation of that nature can serve as the beginning of rebellion. I hope we’d not get to that!

    May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!

  • Still on NBA’s ‘red card’ to El-Rufa’i

    Still on NBA’s ‘red card’ to El-Rufa’i

    By Okoye

    By the time this article is published, the 60th and first virtual Annual General Conference (AGC) of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) scheduled to run from last Wednesday to Friday would have either been concluded – albeit under a lingering dark cloud of animosity and controversies – or rescheduled for exactly the same reasons. The animosity arises from the arguably contentious decision of the NBA to delist Kaduna State Governor Nasr el-Rufa’i as one of the speakers at its virtual AGC. Others billed to speak are former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, former minister Oby Ezekwesili, and a Pentecostal cleric, Pastor Tunde Bakare.

    Quite predictably, el-Rufa’i wasted no time firing on all cylinders! In a protest letter delivered by his personal lawyer, he accused the NBA of demonstrating “a total disregard for the basic constitutional provision of fair hearing and justice” and “descending into the realm of partisanship.” He immediately received a lot of support from several Northern organisations, such as the Supreme Council for Shari’ah in Nigeria, the Kaduna Muslim Lawyers Association, and NBA branches in Yobe, Bauchi and Jigawa, who decried what they considered a nexus of contradictions in the entire saga. They imputed ethnic and religious biases into the action and demanded a reversal of the “unprecedented” dis-invitation plus an apology to el-Rufa’i, failing which their members would boycott the AGC.

    Meanwhile, a pressure group, the Radical Agenda Movement in the Nigerian Bar Association (RAMINBA), apparently taking a cue from another pressure group within the fold – the Open Bar Initiative – whose petition against the governor caused the immense commotion, decided to further ‘shake the table.’ The members started mounting pressure on the National Executive (NEC) of the NBA to equally withdraw the invitations of former President Obasanjo and Gov. Wike as speakers, citing well-known instances where they wilfully flouted valid court orders and adopted authoritarian measures that violated the fundamental civil liberties of millions of law-abiding Nigerian citizens.

    It is highly unlikely that el-Rufa’i underwent an interview process prior to being handed a speakership invitation. That being so, why should he and his supporters believe that he has to be given “a fair hearing” prior to any decision being taken to, or not to, disinvite him? It is a trite saying that he who has the power to give up equally has the power to receive it back.

    And why should the governor use the services of a private attorney rather than his Attorney General and Commissioner for justice since the invitation was extended to him in his official capacity as governor? Would he pay the attorney out of his own pocket or do so using public funds? It also does not make sense to hear some critics of the action insist that a decision to withdraw an invitation earlier given to a speaker must involve all branches of the NBA. Is it that the NBA constitution and conventions do not delegate such a mundane task to the National Executive Committee?

    It is very ironic to hear el-Rufa’i bleating about not being treated “fairly and equally.” This is a man who arrogantly dispensed with fair and equal treatment when he decided against all reasonable advice to pick a Muslim from the Northern Senatorial Zone as his running mate on a Muslim/Muslim ticket to the chagrin of Kaduna South indigenes in particular and Christians resident in the state in general. He must, therefore, be told in no uncertain terms that he who comes to equity must do so with clean hands.

    Now take another look at the list of speakers. Apart from el-Rufa’i – who has now been delisted – and Pastor Bakare – who was personally handpicked by Buhari as his running mate in the 2011 Presidential Election but is not a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) – all other speakers are either registered members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) or sympathisers of the major opposition party and are known to be at loggerheads with both the president and the ruling party.

    Perhaps, the asymmetric composition of the speakers’ list is why critics are accusing the NBA of swimming in highly partisan waters – a point many would consequently consider justifiable. It stands to reason that even without openly voicing their concerns, the Presidency and the APC national leadership are bound to perceive the 60th AGC more as a forum for their political adversaries and competitors to engage in their favourite pastime of bashing Buhari and the ruling party.

    Which is all the more reason why the NBA ought to have been more circumspect with its choice of speakers, more so when a key session titled “Who is a Nigerian?” was a major bone of contention between the APC and its presidential candidate and the PDP and its presidential candidate right from the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to the Supreme Court of Nigeria!

    However, those claiming that the case of el-Rufa’i represents a misguided voyage in unchartered waters by the NBA are completely misinformed. As a matter of fact, the Olisa Agbakoba-led NBA in 2007 withdrew the invitation it had extended to then Chairman of the Independent National Election Commission (INEC), Prof Maurice Iwu, as VIP guest at its 47th AGC, to protest the shambolic national elections he conducted a few months earlier. Interestingly, both are Christians and, quite unlike what is happening, no comets were seen plummeting from any part of the Nigerian sky nor did Iwu attempt to whip up emotional support among his teeming supporters and sympathisers.

    My heart goes out to NBA President-elect Olumide Akpata who seems set to receive a baptism of fire, by inheriting a major crisis not of his own making, when he officially assumes office as the curtains are drawn on the AGC. The ongoing fracas comes with a grim sense of foreboding. A similar crisis nearly sounded the death knell of the NBA in 1992 due to a do-or-die battle for the presidency between the Southern and Northern regional factions. Between 1992 and 1998, the NBA operated without a president, functioning only in branches.

    Finally, critics contending that “what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander” and that both Obasanjo and Wike should be similarly disinvited if the NBA truly wants to enthrone its motto of “Promoting and Protecting the Rule of Law and respect for Human Rights” may have a valid argument, except that the case against el-Rufa’i is ongoing while those of the other two are in the past, and the Nigerian Constitution prohibits any law or decision that is retroactive.

    The onus squarely rests on Gov. el-Rufa’i to reach out to the sabre-rattling branches and organisations sympathetic to his cause and convince them not to allow the smouldering hostility attendant with the withdrawal of his invitation gather momentum along the country’s fragile fault lines of ethnicity, creed and region of origin and transform into a conflagration with dangerous consequences for the peace, stability and existence of our beloved nation. As a politician, he is in a better position to appreciate that this is a delicate matter that must be handled with utmost discretion.

    • Okoye Public Affairs Analyst Abuja 08054103468
  • Christianity and the African indigenous church

    Christianity and the African indigenous church

    By Tunji Olaopa

     

    THE discourse on the growth, evolution and universal spread of Christianity must take into account how a provincial religious formation became a universal force. How, in other words, did a religion that emerged within the cultural and religious context of the Middle East, and broke loose from the religious exclusivism of Judaism, derived the adaptive capacity to supplant many other religious framework and become the choice of over 2.4 billion (or 29%) of the world population. In all my fascination with, and research into, Christianity, this is one dimensions of its evolution that has remained curious for me. And it became more so as we grew up to know that the Europeans came with ‘their’ religion to supplant our African belief system. Then the more we got established as Christians the more we grew up and became aware of the subversive force of African spirituality. By “subversive,” I mean the capacity of African Christians to insert their traditional religious beliefs into their Christian doctrinal dynamics, without any sense of unease about contradiction.

    The story of the Ethiopian eunuch, in Acts of the Apostle, chapter eight, cogently focuses my theological curiosity about the spread of Christianity across boundaries, cultures and races. As the Biblical narrative goes, Simon Bachos the eunuch, the official treasurer of Candace, the Queen of Ethiopia, was returning from worshiping in Jerusalem. And on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, he had an encounter with Philip the evangelist. Simon Bachos was reading from the Book of Isaiah (53:7): “Like a sheep being led to the slaughter or a lamb that is silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth.” And when Philip asked him, “Do you even have any inkling of what you’re reading?” the Eunuch wasted no time in responding: “How could I understand except someone explains to me?”

    The Ethiopian Eunuch’s lack of understanding is understandable. He was reading the scripture out of context, and he must have been so confused. How could the person allow himself to be led to the slaughter without giving an adequate and indeed vigorous defense of his innocence? Even though the Bible recorded that Simon Bachos was later baptized, and then became the first African convert to Christianity, the important issue for me is how he was later able to adapt to Christianity in the light of his Ethiopian culture. How was Simon Bachos received on his return back to Ethiopia, and his duty as the treasurer of the queen? Indeed, how did the core Christian doctrines and dogmas—the immaculate conception and virgin birth, the crucifixion and death, the resurrection and ascension, the trinity, etc.—get merged into non-Jewish cultural contexts?

    Christianity came to Ethiopia in the 4th century when King Ezana became converted. It had earlier, between the 1st and the 2nd century, arrived in North Africa. And this arrival of Christianity to the Aksum empire is significant because Aksum became a fundamental nodal point through which the trading networks linked the Roman empire, the Byzantium empire and the other lands in Africa south of the Sahara. The Christian message of salvation would ride on this trade networks to infiltrate African cultural framework. In a recent archeological excavation in northern Ethiopia that led to the discovery of the 4th century church, we began to get close to the dynamics that eventually led to the emergence of the African church that coalesce the boundary between the Christian and the African tradition. The collection of findings at the excavation site, and especially the discovery of a gold and carnelian ring with an image of a bull head, points at the intricate and complex mixture of Christian and “pagan” beliefs and traditions.

    Of course, the indigenous African churches began in crisis that eventually culminated in a revolution which gave the churches their distinct identity. And the crisis began at the point of identification: were these churches Christian or African or none or both? It is to be expected that the definition of “Christian” is already loaded with Eurocentric Christian doctrinal beliefs. As such, the indigenous churches were regarded as a pagan caricature of the Christian faith. However, more objective scholars have outlined the role that indigenized Christianity played in the Africans’ attempt to regain their agency and humanity that had been debased by colonialism. The essence of the indigenous church therefore was to resist the colonial narrative that perceive the African as a beast without religion or values. Yet, Christianity could not have grown unless the Africans were able to experience it as an indigenous religion. And this takes the arduous and complicated processes of negotiation, translation and interpretation into idioms that the indigenous population could relate with. The African converts must be able to see themselves and their cultural beings in the Christian worldview to be able to properly allow themselves to be converted. And the Bible had to be appropriated voluntarily into the local framework of ontology and symbol.

    It is in this sense that we begin to understand the fundamental work done by Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first African Anglican bishop and the translator of the Bible into Yoruba. Crowther’s life mission as a Yoruba Christian was to make the messages and doctrines of Christianity translatable into Yoruba to facilitate the work of evangelization. And thus, he had to give the Yoruba Christian idiomatic framework that will make Christianity acceptable by the Yoruba. The Christian cosmology must find its way into the Yoruba cosmology. And the Yoruba must find their òrìsà in the Christian pantheon. Olodumare, the Yoruba High Deity must become the Judeo-Christian God, and Ècù, the primordial Cosmic Policeman, became Satan or Devil. Bishop Crowther, as well as the other Yoruba/African apologists for Christianity, had to ransack the Yoruba theological framework to look for names and equivalents that fit the Christian theological dynamics. It is this syncretist adaptation that was the foundation of the indigenous Christian church in Africa.

    To be significantly African, and to shed the pejoration of being a form of corrupted Christianity, the African indigenous churches had to draw essentially on African customs and cultural practices. Indeed, it is this regard for African culture and spirituality that led to the revolution which gave birth to the African Church in Nigeria in 1901. Joseph Kehinde Coker, the People’s Warden led the protest over the refusal to allow an African mode of worship in a white-dominated Anglican church. It was time to own Christianity as an African religious formation. During the first service of the African Church, its Lay Preacher, D. A. J. Oguntolu took his message from Song of Solomon, chapter 1, verse 6: “Don’t look down upon me because I am black because the sun has tanned me,—my brothers were angry with me and made me work in the vineyard. I had no time to care for myself.” This was one of the origins by which Africans began to appropriate Christianity and Christian symbols, liturgy and spirituality in their own ways, and in line with the imperatives of their cultures.

    However, the dynamics of Africanisation and indigenization with which the African indigenous churches began was bound to come into crisis by the very force of that dynamism and the interpretation of the juncture at which Christianity and Africanity meets, as well as the very definition of what constitute genuine spirituality. Apart from the African Church in Nigeria, other indigenous churches began to emerge: African Church, Salem, United Native African Church, and the United African Methodist Church. But the incorporation of these African churches generated an internal crisis around the theological issue of the appropriateness of polygamy, the baptism of the children of polygamists, and the taking of traditional titles. For example, the African Church forbid the practice of polygamy among the clerics. But the other indigenous churches allowed it.

    On the other hand, the “spiritual” churches—unlike the “nationalist” churches like the African Church and their struggle for control and leadership—emphasize the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit’s influence on human life and endeavors. The Celestial Churches, Cherubim and Seraphim churches (in Nigeria), the Zionist churches (South Africa), and the Aladura movement in West Africa. The emphasis on the manifestation of the Spirit, rather than on Christology, provides a form of connecting dynamic framework with the traditional African ontology of divinities and spirits. Yoruba polytheistic religion, and its pantheon of òrìsà and divinities, is even more disposed to allowing the inclusion of more spiritual entities like the “Holy Spirit.” Indeed, Christianity made an almost easy inroad into Nigeria, through Abeokuta. This is because the Yoruba culture has a fundamental adaptive and accommodating framework that is not hostile to any non-Yoruba cultural or religious practice. Thus, the Yoruba would say, “Inu Ifá ni Fatima wa” (Fatima, a Muslim name, is part of the Ifá signs). And the Ifá divinatory system itself is famous for its adaptive capacity to include new historical and cultural developments, from the coming of the railway to the arrival of Islam and Christianity.

    No wonder the African Church was the first in Nigeria to signal the emergence of the African initiated churches. African Christianity therefore began as a legitimate attempt to come to terms with the Christian messages, dogma, doctrines and practices from the solid background in African cultural practices and ontology.

     

    • Retired Federal Permanent Secretary and Directing Staff, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos

  • Politicians do not rig elections

    Politicians do not rig elections

    Nnedinso Ogaziechi

     

    While we all agree that democracy is the best form of government as the power is in the hands of the people, we have come to also realize that the same human element can thwart the whole democratic process. The mention of elections in Nigeria for instance invokes despair, fear and mistrust in the whole process from political party ward congresses to the general elections by the people who ironically ought to own the process.

    As a human process, there might not be perfection but for a determined people, an above average outcome of elections signposts growth and a chance for development of nations and institutions. If therefore Nigeria can make progress with the practice of the best tenets of democracy, it has to be a collective decision of all stakeholders.

    If as Mohammad Khatami observed, “Elections are the greatest symbol of participation and political reform”, then we must as a nation begin to evaluate, very closely the electoral processes that have been in place for so long but seemingly often very flawed. If Nigeria has the unenviable record of the most post-election litigious outcomes, then something is wrong with the people, the process or sadly, both.

    Representative democracy goes beyond gender equity or youth and minority inclusiveness, it gives the people the power in their varied but united voting blocs, the freedom to speak with their votes. Since 1999, there have been huge numbers of post-election litigations and these have interrupted governance, seen to wastages in time and tax payers’ funds and sometimes loss of lives. Progress, gender parity and free and fair democratic practices should be a collective effort of governments, political parties, security agencies, civil society, religious and traditional rulers, electoral commissions and the people among others.

    The Roundtable this week tracked down the poster man for credible,  election in 2019, the Kwara State Resident Electoral commissioner, Mallam Garba Attahiru Madami, an experienced educationist, sports administrator and a renowned agriculturist  who thumbs his chest for conducting the freest and fairest election in a state that was regarded prior to the election as one of the flash points for violence given the supremacy battle between the Saraki political dynasty of People’s Democratic Party, (PDP) and the and  the All Progressives Congress locally (APC)  locally referred to as ‘Otoge’ group that were determined to unseat the then Senate President Bukola Saraki’s political empire.

    Mallam Madami had gone to the job determined to make a difference in the Nigerian electoral process. He decided to work with all stakeholders for a credible electoral process and triumphed at the end. Despite the pre-election fears, he was determined to maintain the integrity that earned him the job. Today, the record of the best election since 1999  in the nation belongs to him for working with all stakeholders to deliver to the people an election that both the winners and losers congratulated him for, a rarity in the Nigerian political space. Kwara state is one state that had no post-election litigation – a sure sign of the credibility of the process.

    In the words of Mallam Madami, ‘elections are not rigged by politicians, the average ‘big-man’ politician votes and goes home. The electoral officers, the voters themselves and the security agencies all have a hand in credible or flawed elections. According to him, the panacea to flawed elections is a positive collaborative effort and must include the people, the political parties, traditional/religious leaders, security agencies, gender/civil society and youth organizations and an electoral commission (INEC) that is ready to play by the rules as an arrow head.

    The ownership of the process by all the stakeholders ensures the credibility of the process. However, according to him, his success did not come on a platter. He was determined to be on the side of objectivity and was lucky to inherit INEC staff that was equally ready to do the right things under his stern warning of probity and fairness. Being an academic, he knew the value of voter education, communication and mobilization and that to a very large extent helped in re-orientating the people to make the right choices through deliberate positive actions. He tried to lead by example in ways that would be an honour to those who appointed him to do the job even without any form of lobbying. In all, he believes that no matter how powerful any politician is, when the people are determined to work together in a democracy, the result would be akin to the result of the Kwara election in 2019. As the Resident Electoral Commissioner, his ability to work with his staff  and others despite their imperfections was key to his success.

    According to him, given the strategies he adopted in Kwara, he believes that if all electoral processes are  free and fair, there would be no obvious advocacies for gender parity in Nigerian politics. The issue of increased women participation can happen when the processes are seen as free and fair because Nigerian women have the power and intellectual capacity to stand for and win elections on merit. He cites late Dora Akunyili, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, late Hajia Gambo Sawaba, late Madam Tinubu as women whose leadership qualities can win them elections in a free and fair contest.

    However, he believes that the system has been unfair to itself and the women who ought to be seen as partners in progress. Illiteracy, finance and violence  are often at the root of the disenfranchisement of women. Illiteracy especially in the twenty first century is skewed against women. Viable democracy he says is driven by the educated and good leadership has no gender on the global scale given that most countries in Europe are being led by women and their economies are doing great especially with the global economic realities due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    To him, the assumption that women’s place is in the kitchen is such a parochial idea and the poverty in the country shows that Nigeria is losing the contributions educated women bring to development. He cites the example of Rwanda with more than sixty percent of their women in parliament and how well the country is doing in the global economic front.  He credits a credible electoral process for the number of women in Rwandan parliament. He wants Nigerian political parties to make deliberate efforts at inclusiveness and faireness for a better country that is looking at decades to come. The government and people must take girl-child education more seriously. The few female elite and politicians should do more interactive and mentorship programs to catch them young.

    As an academic, he has documented his efforts, media reports and personal  experiences as a REC in a magazine format – POLLSCOPE as a historical document/report and a guide for future RECs and other relevant groups for credible elections.

    Folashade Aransiola, an entrepreneur, gender rights advocate and Leadership mentor was a House of Assembly candidate for the People’s Trust party for Irepodun Local government area of her state in 2019. She says she lost the election but came off with a lot of lessons as regards women participation in politics. Contrary to general narrative, most men would actually want to support a qualified and competent woman who indicates interest in politics.

    The chairman of her local government for instance even mobilized volunteers to assist her canvass for votes and took her to the traditional ruler who prayed for and supported her in her election without her asking for such assistance. She insists that the moment the people observe you are genuinely interested in service, the support is usually overwhelming from both men and women. She believes too that most women show too much apathy towards politics and feel that they need to leave leadership to the men.

    Folashade,  who is also the Kwara state Chairperson, League of Women Voters of Nigeria wants more women to show more interest in politics and leadership because leadership has nothing to do with gender but your capacity to lead. She feels a sense of disappointment with most female intellectuals and businesswomen who shy away from politics and blame their femininity as though politics and leadership is a physical exercise.

    She felt disappointed to be described as the first woman to appear on Royal FM for a political review programme when she knows there are very qualified and capable women that should use that as a platform to promote gender equity in politics or even agitate for better leadership in the state or nation in general. She believes there must be a deeper sense of advocacy for women and girls to be made aware of how they can collaborate with men for a better developed nation. To her, funding and derogatory remarks from the society should not discourage women from active politics. She believes women can relate to each other and as such, any woman with good intentions and pedigree will be supported by women social and religious groups and can even galvanize funds to defray campaign costs.

    Her participation in electoral contest has helped her in demystifying the ideas being bandied all the time about female participation. Most voters are women and would with good orientation support fellow women because democracy is about numbers. She says her leadership of the League of female voters of Nigeria in her state has really exposed her to the real issues about gender parity in Nigerian politics and she refuses to buy the flawed narrative that men do not want women in politics. She feels rather that most women do not care to venture into politics even when they know the benefits.

    To Folashade,  even though there are  impediments like education and financial capacity, the women can begin to collectively agitate for more education opportunities and  economic empowerment, do more advocacies and mentoring and try to catch the girls young and make them see themselves as equal stakeholders because in the end, women and youths are the victims of bad leadership. The more educated and financially capable women must invest in fellow women just like the men and with their numerical voting strength, the development we seek must come.

     

    The dialogue continues…

  • The need to reinvent our foreign policy

    The need to reinvent our foreign policy

    Igboeli Arinze

     

    As one who happens to be fixated on foreign policy issues and their resolution, I am always excited whenever I come across books or periodicals that deal with foreign policy issues while I am also at home with a few names that should naturally zing with foreign policy wonks or aficionados. Names like Prince Metternich, Talleyrand, Mikailovich Molotov, Lord Palmerston, Anthony Eden, Henry Kissinger, Joe Garba , Ibrahim Gambari and Bolaji Akinyemi and a few others are names that resonate with the numerous achievements posted in the running of foreign affairs.

    The world’s growing interconnectedness and a number of other events, such as the surge of terrorism lately has shown that countries must take seriously how it conducts its foreign affairs and that there is need to effectively reinvent our foreign policy by ensuring that a spirited and active one is in place.

    It will be recalled that Nigeria as the Giant of Africa did at at one point in time have its foreign policy glory moments; we recall with fond nostalgia General Muhammed Murtala’s 1976 ‘Africa has come of age speech’ given in Addis Ababa as a response to President Gerald Ford’s opposition to the recognition of Augostinho Neto’s MPLA as the legitimate government of Angola.

    Murtala did kickstart through this speech the replacement of Nigeria’s foreign policy direction which had initially been pro-western and then nonaligned with Africa been at the centre of its foreign policy. The gangling Joe Garba, our then Minister for External Affairs , began what one can describe as a renaissance era, shuttling between continents and earning our nation enormous respect as a rising black power. Successive administrations were to follow suit with the duo of Ibrahim Babaginda and Bolaji Akinyemi bringing extra dynamism into our foreign policy goals. Sadly, after the Babaginda era, Nigeria’s foreign policy took a nose dive with successive administrations trying out new dimensions which have sadly failed to work.

    The recent harassment of businessmen of Nigerian origin by the Ghanaian authorities is a pointer to such a failure and as well has raised questions about the dynamism of our foreign policy as well as the way in which it is been managed. The Ghanaian authorities had asked Nigerian owned shops in Accra to pay the whooping sum of $ 1 million Dollars before they could reopen their businesses. Such a demand, which I describe as mind boggling, breaches all known form of trade protocols for which both nations are signatories to. It is also an insult to the Nigerian people, that legitimate Nigerian businesses are often singled out for such maltreatment. Such actions test the effectiveness of our foreign policy but also the readiness of our government to protect the Nigerian citizen.

    Lord Palmerston, one time British Foreign Affairs Minister who had championed the blockade of Athens, Greece owing to the Don Pacifico affair whilst defending his decision to send the British navy to compel Greece to compensate Don Pacifico, based such on the inalienable right of a subject of the British Empire to be protected from any form of indignity under the watchful eye of England, to Palmerston, it was some sort of Civis Romanus Sum.

    As Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria’s claims to being a regional power cannot be contested. Our sacrifices to other African nations as we did in Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, Liberia, Mozambique Sierra Leone and Mali, coupled with our numerous economic interventions to other countries when we had the luxury to do so, justifies such claims. However, such claims can be said to fade quickly or exist on paper when our citizenry are regularly disrespected at will by other nations, mocked by the same nations that had at one point in time or the other benefitted from our largesse as a nation.

    Yes, it will be rash for one to suggest a blockade of say Accra or some other extreme punitive measures should our African brothers here or foreigners be they Chinese or Americans maltreat our people. However, I believe it’s time that we reinvent our foreign policy to meet the challenges of the present age. It is about time that we adopt stringent methods to help other nations think twice before maltreating any of our citizens.

    It is not enough to summon the ambassadors of such countries and express our frustrations, no; I do not even think reporting such issues to arbitration panels of supranational bodies such as ECOWAS or the African Union will help, rather can we attempt a quid pro quo sort of diplomacy that will exact maximum damage on the interests of such hostile nations?

    Call it a Nigerian Civis Sum or big stick diplomacy, I am talking about the right mix of hard and soft power approaches enough to inspire adequate deterrence.

    If the Nigerian government then could nationalize British Petroleum and Barclays Bank for the role of the British government in aiding and abetting apartheid in South Africa then, why should we not then wield the same big stick when Nigerian citizens are treated poorly?

    We cannot aspire to become a global power status when we cannot function adequately as a sub regional or regional power.

     

  • ATM: Understanding Oyetola’s Template for Rejuvenating Osun Economy

    ATM: Understanding Oyetola’s Template for Rejuvenating Osun Economy

    Samson Owoyokun

    We live in interesting but frankly tough times occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic that’s currently holding the world by its jugular.

    Nigeria, the most populous black nation of the world, is not immune from the ongoing destruction – human and economic caused by the pandemic that has no curative solution in sight yet.

    Expectedly,  the global crude oil  market is suffering from a great shock, which invariably, has led to a significant short fall in petrodollar, which is the mainstay of the Nigerian economy.

    As a result of the drastic reduction in the earnings of Nigeria from the sales of its crude oil, revenue to the 36 States of the federation has also dropped, thus, forcing the states to look inwards in order to raise their internally generated revenue.

    Osun, a state dubbed to be for civil servants majorly, with many privately owned and public tertiary institutions yet with just one notable manufacturing company in Ilesa. In his determination to promote industrial harmony, the governor of the state, Gboyega Oyetola has kept to his pact as regards prompt and timely payment of full salaries to both civil servants and pensioners despite the huge deductions from FAAC accrued to the state on a monthly basis. Analysts have alluded to his professional background as a financial reengineering wizard to be the catalyst for this astonishing feat.

    Oyetola has put governance on steady path of progress, running the essential social services in health by revitalising 332 primary healthcare centers and upgrading of general hospitals, reinvigorating the educational system, ensuring peaceful coexistence among the people and upscaling the security apparatus of the state through both the conventional and non conventional outfits (Amotekun); these are the propellers and enablers towards progressive growth and development to industrialise Osun, which is the foresight of the Ilerioluwa prodigy.

    Following from the foregoing, therefore, Governor Gboyega Oyetola, of the State of Osun, a former boardroom expert with years of cognate experience, has repeatedly emphasised the fragile economy of the 29year old state, both in his declaration and inaugural speech of 5th June and 27th November 2018 respectively to bring fresh innovative ideas to transform the state towards abundance and prosperity for all by concentrating on three thematic areas – agriculture,  tourism and mining codenamed Osun ATM.

    The Governor unveiled the tripartite economic agenda during the Osun Economic and Investment summit he organised November 2019, it was an eye opening three days event unleashing the immeasurable potentials embedded under and on the surface of Osun soil, the gains of the summit are already reflecting on the economy: though not yet uhuru, there’s significant push in agriculture as a private initiative of 507hectares of farm konnect limited was berthed in Wasinmi, Irewole local government area of the state which will take a thousand unemployed youth off the streets, another $10m of African Red Crest in rice revolution in the offing. For the first time in thirteen years, one of the rusty and dusty seventeen mining titles of Osun brought in N100m as sign up fee under the pragmatic leadership of Oyetola.

    The Q1 to Q4 of year 2019 was impressive with a noticeable increase of 56.4%  from the previous year amounting to N17.9bn, an outstanding feat in a business calendar year for the first time in Osun. The magical wands of Oyetola expanded the tax net, plugged fiscal leakages, automated and digitalised components of IGR collection, strengthened fiscal discipline, transparency and accountability, granted administrative autonomy to the state IRS. He has made it a trademark for his closing remarks everywhere that he shall continue to market Osun to local and foreign investors until there’s a revolutionary trend in the economic dynamics of the state in agro allied, processing and manufacturing sectors.

    Also, the Governor recently reiterated his convictions about a working Osun economy during a maiden virtual public lecture organised by the State’s Ministry  of Regional Integration and Special Duties under the headship of Olalekan Abdulrahaman Badmus to herald  the 29th anniversary of creation of the state. He spoke on the topic ”Unbundling Osun Potential towards prosperity in Agriculture, Tourism and Mining.

    The Governor used the occasion of the virtual engagement to reel out some of the fundamental achievements of his administration in the last 21months since assumption of office as the state helmsman, saying the repositioning of the state economy is his topmost priority. He promised to reclaim missed business opportunities for the state. He assures anyone interested in doing business with Osun that their investment will be guided religiously. He made public the amenities, infrastructure, enabling atmosphere and accommodating spirit of our people to make any business to thrive.

    Henceforth, the Governor declared that agriculture, tourism and mining will form the engine room of his economic governance agenda. His commisoners for agriculture and food security, culture and tourism- Adedayo Adewole and Dr Obawale Adebisi did not fail to impress on the participants the momentmental milestones of their ministries and the projections and revitalisation of Osun economy via the three pivotal sectors.

    Because of his illustrious background in the private sector spanning decades of immaculate practice, the Governor knows the vitality of resource persons to the actualisation of any management policy. Hence, in trying to achieve his objectives, the three guest speakers at the event including the Director General of IITA Ibadan, Dr. Nteranya Sanginga, represented by Dr. Richard Okechukwu, a tourism expert, Chiamaka Ifediora and Former Special Assistant to the former Minister of Petroleum, Najim Animashaun, spoke extensively on the need for the state to properly harness her potentials in the areas of agriculture, tourism and mining.

    For Okechukwu, IITA Head of Station in Onne, Rivers State,  the relationship between IITA and Osun is that of brothers. He said for Africa to fix its food problems,  Africans must fix systems, technology, policies, political will, financing, marketing components and infrastructure. He said all these must be narrowed down to Osun in order to unluck its massive potentials in the state.

    Against the backloth of the above, Dr Okechukwu said that a good masterplan is key in achieving the set objectives. He submitted that there is a need for a good agricultural master plan that can be institutionalised to survive government after governments; that will be passed into Law by the House of Assembly so that whatever government that comes in will continue to push it, saying this will help to solve the problem of policy somersault which has held the state back for a long time which in the process kills good ideas. “A four year tenure is not enough to solve the problems of a sector that has gone bad for a long time. Policy somersault destabilises the farmers and the investors in the value chain,” he said.

    Continuing, the researcher said  solving the agricultural problems in Osun goes beyond the ministry of agriculture itself. The ministries of education, water resources, commerce and industries, finance, works, transport and housing, health, environment, human resources, information, local government and chieftancy affairs, women affairs, regional integration, youth and sports, science and technology must embrace certain policy changes and their specific contributions must be mentioned in the master plan.

    For Oyetola to achieve his lofty aims in agriculture, there is a need for farm mechanisation to attract the youth and also the  usefulness of  improved seeds cannot be overemphasised much as there is a need for a lot of quality control to eliminate fake and substandard herbicides and insecticides. Access to credit by farmers and those involved in agro-allied business is also key. Osun truly needs more micro, small and medium enterprises to prosper.

    Dr Okechukwu also hammered on the need for proper tracking  and recording of  farm produce that comes out of Osun every year. Such data, he submitted, can be used to forecast, plan and negotiate with local and international partners. In summarising his position on the subject matter, he said there’s a need to end multiple taxation and look for subsidies for farmers, charging Governor Oyetola to embark on aggressive  land reforms which will enable more people to come into the agricultural space.

    Chiamamaka Ifediora – Principal Consultant of Merging Borders International, encouraged the Governor to pursue tourism as a business to make profit. In order to achieve this, she said Osun governemnt must focus on three concepts (1) Plan: (sustainable policies, consistent and sustainable growth process, pricing, revenue target, near accurate data of tourists), (2) Product: (how to sell tourism product – packaging like spiritual, religious, adventure and Eco tourism) and (3) Promotion: Osun residents to patronise Osun tourist attraction sites first  then Africans tour Africa more to attract foreigners, local community needs to show what they have to offer; their Oduduwa origin (Osun state); aggressive state wide orientation through different mass media by the state government to embrace roots, state should engage the educational sector especially public and private schools to study roots; culture and assets of state which enable them to  spread information wherever in the world they may go; states should endorse film bodies like Nollywood and music entertainers for promotion as well as BBC major media channels; TV and online influencers; advertisement; celebrate indigenous people or people affiliated with the state to boost interests in tourism. Without an atom of doubt, if carefully followed, Osun will be the better for it, she concluded

    By and large, tourism, if properly harnessed, will help  create new jobs for the people of Osun State,  stimulate trade and entrepreneurship especially small business and will generate funds for infrastructure for the development of the state.

    The deputy chief of staff to the Governor, Adeyanju Abdullah Binuyo, gave a brief summary of what the state is doing in the Solid Mineral and Mining Sector. At the moment, the state has  17 mineral titles- 10 gold assets, 4 quarry leases, lead, zinc, telsa, quartz, marble. In all, there are 9,000 registered miners in the state. According to Binuyo, by the first quarter of next year, all the 17 assets should be active in commercial partnership.

    Under the leadership of Governor Oyetola, there has been a business restructuring scheme after identifying all the 17 assets across the state. Going forward, in order to actualise the mining dreams of the administration, the state will need partners to support primary exploration of the  assets. To  estimate the resources,  the state carried out what is called reconnaissance of assets using aeromagnetic reports.

    The Inisa-born management consultant said the state is already building and equipping a buying centre to engage the registered  miners to be able to buy off all the gold and minerals they are able to produce, a replica of gold souk in Dubai. Also, the state government led by Governor Oyetola is going to start a lapidary to train youths, teach them about jewellery making, stone cutting and polishing, all for their economic empowerment.

    Again, good times are here for the people as the state government is poised to invest in education for artisanal and small scale miners while seeking the Federal Government assistance in technical and vocational training centre to be located in Osu, Atakumosa West LGA in addition to emplacing a governance structure set up for consents, permits, waivers to avoid encumbrances. There is now an operational joint taskforce for assets security against illegal miners.

    Not neglecting the environment where the minerals are explored, the state will embark on sustainability project via environmental impact study before the commencement of exploration. It is already in the pipeline that the state of Osun will partner with the FG on the recently launched Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Initiative (PAGMI) which will help to  teach the  youth skilled ways of mining responsibly.

    There is little doubt therefore that the sector will be a major contributor to infrastructure funds for the state in the future as envisioned by the Oyetola administration

    On gold mining, the state is host to Segilola project (Only global standard goldmine in Nigeria) who confirmed deposit of about a million and half ounces of gold. This is a real jackpot for the state. In order to maximise the benefits derivable from gold mining, plans are under way to integrate all artisanal miners to ensure formalised relationship, train and partner with them, buy off their gold mineral to support the local economy. The multiplier effect of this cannot be overemphasised. There is also a plan to turn Hassan Alajoku park at Gbongan into a regional gold buying and commodity centre. Najim Animashaun dwelled more on the evolution, history and economic indices, should Osun show pay more attention to its mineral deposits, the figures in naira and dollars are mouth watering, he equally suggested pathways and realistic mechanisms for Osun solid minerals development programme to attain its set goals and objectives .

    There is so much to say about the Osun ATM (Agriculture, Tourism and Mining) agenda of the Oyetola administration. It’s an unfolding evolution that will keep stakeholders and concerned members of the public talking in a long while to come. Luckily for the people of Osun, the Governor has the political will, administrative acumen and professional competence to see to the actualisation of the agenda for the betterment of the people of the state. It is visible that the last twenty one months of the Oyetola APC led administration are good times again for the loving people of the state.

     

     

    Owoyokun is the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Special Duties

     

     

  • Nigeria and its insecurity plague

    Nigeria and its insecurity plague

    By Ademola Adesola

    Nigeria is not at war with any external enemies. Yet, the human conditions of a vast number of its incredibly longsuffering peoples – from South to North – are indistinguishable from those of citizens in war-torn polities. Already undone by unremitting climb in unemployment, poor remuneration, dearth of requisite modern infrastructure, weak education system, poverty of biblical proportion and economic strangulation, and wounding injustice of varied colourations, Nigerians are more than ever daily being processed through the intolerable mincer of insecurity. Avoidable in many practical ways, these miserable conditions of most Nigerians have incrementally worsened since the acclaimed restoration of the country to democracy in 1999.

    While the insecurity plague and other social horrors afflicting Nigerians predate the current administration at the federal and the other supine levels of government, it is indisputable that these solvable socioeconomic problems have worsened under the watch of the extant rulers. Taken together, the kaleidoscope of insurgency as championed by the nihilistic Islamist sect (Boko Haram) in the Northeast, the marauding murderers and land-grabbers in the Northcentral called Fulani herdsmen, the kidnappers and criminals in the Southern states, or the extrajudicial killings, violent quelling of peaceful protests, and unlawful detentions of Nigerians across the federation by security agents have been making Nigeria more insecure and unlivable in the last six years. More painfully, nothing from those ostensibly saddled with the responsibility of ensuring the security of the inhabitants of the country suggests they value human life and have a deeper appreciation of the climate that keeps the disease of insecurity active in the country.

    For a more realistic appreciation of why the insecurity disorder in Nigeria is aggravating increasingly, particularly under the watch of the Muhammadu Buhari regime which has duelling insecurity as one of its three-fold objectives (the other two being economic transformation and anti-corruption), it makes sense to avoid the specious reasons and superficial justifications that the floundering Buhari administration and its uncritical supporters spin tirelessly. To better appreciate why insecurity continues to cheapen lives and make peaceful workaday living extra stressful in Nigeria, we must examine, one, Nigeria’s federal system; two, the nexus between poverty and insecurity; three, the quality of democracy in practice; and four, the question of (in)justice.

    The defective federalism favoured in Nigeria is an enabler of insecurity. Far more than at any other periods, Nigerian since the promulgation of Decree 34, aka Unification Decree, in 1966 by the Major-General Johnson Aguyi-Ironsi junta, has remained a unitary state despite the expensive pretensions to federalism. Inasmuch as the state governors are beholden to the feds for the security and economic management of their states, any claim to federalism is spurious. The federalism beloved in Nigeria, as the federalism scholar J. A. Ayoade sums it up in his notable 1997 inaugural lecture entitled “Nigeria and the Squandering of Hope,” is “a design error or it is an error by design.” Unless expeditiously reversed, such grave fault, that thinker posits, will remain an effective source of punitive tension. Similarly, in his review of Nigeria’s strange federalism, the political science teacher, Browne Onuoha, postulates that “[w]e are not practicing federalism in Nigeria […] From the beginning, the issue of federalism became a very funny arrangement, which became worsened by the military.” Unfortunately, no civilian government since the military worsened this already bad system had ever committed to undoing the mess and emplacing a functional federalism. The consequence of the entrenchment of this ersatz federalism – a “disaggregative federation as Ayoade labels it – has been a steady solidification of insecurity.

    For a populous and vast country like Nigeria, a centrally coordinated security system is ill-fitting. A one-kind-fit-all policing system cannot serve the security need of the Nigerian federation. This current system must be unbundled and powers devolved among the federating units. As we have seen time and again, neither the state governors nor the commissioners of police really have any control of their states. They depend on the feds to recruit police officers and deploy them to states. When the security situations in any states become overwhelming, the feds take recourse to the military to do police jobs. In not taking seriously the need to decentralize policing in the country, the Buhari administration shows itself incapable of addressing one of the sources of insecurity in the country.

    Poverty, unemployment, poor wages, and weak purchasing power have never been known to strengthen security in any country. These conditions feed insecurity. All these disgraceful situations exist in terrifying degrees in Nigeria. In their essay, “The Tangled Web: The Poverty-Insecurity Nexus,” Lael Brainard, et al, contend that “Extreme poverty exhausts governing institutions, depletes resources, weakens leaders, and crushes hope—fueling a volatile mix of desperation and instability.” A sustained focus on local media reports reveals that Nigeria has seen a huge increase in kidnapping, wire fraud, and other crimes in the last six years. These crimes cannot be divorced from the crushing poverty and idleness that define the existence of most young people in Nigeria. Nigeria has a big demography of young people, a source of prosperity and progress for any country governed by purposeful minds. The waves of crimes threatening the security of Nigeria are not activated by older “citizens” of the country. Members of the energetic, creative, and resilient youth fold are often behind most crimes in the insecure land. Until visionary, creative, and thinking minds take charge of the levers of political powers in Nigeria, insecurity will remain a constant cause of worry there, and any efforts aimed at transforming the country without a structured attention to poverty and youth unemployment will be counterproductive.

    Insecurity also thrives in Nigeria because of, to borrow Claude Ake’s useful phrase, “the democracy of alienation” most Nigerian rulers cherished. They may not don military uniforms, most rulers across the levels of governance in Nigeria are instinctively and willfully dictatorial. Although they profess democracy, their thoughts and actions show that they neither have a basic grasp of the concept nor do they feel comfortable submitting to its ethics. Nigerian rulers are fair-weather democrats. They are democrat only when the concept can burnish their image. Oddly enough, in the country those surface “democrats” run debate is frowned against, dissent criminalized, and free speech pathologized. Even protest, which is part of the greases for lubricating the wheels of a democratic system, is seriously anathematized. In the way they manage the special project platforms they love to masquerade as political parties, Nigerian rulers’ dictatorial tendencies bloom. In giving free reigns to their oppressive inclinations, these despots hurt others and make harmonious coexistence impossible. In privileging only their own voices as supreme and infallible, they consider alternative views as sacrilege and their authors as blasphemers in need of harsh, counteractive punishments.

    What has been the experience of the Ibrahim Yaqoub El Zakzaky Shiite group? How does the Buhari regime mange the agitations of the Indigenous People of Biafra? How about the protests of the Omoyele Sowore RevolutionNow movement? What happened to the protests variously organized by the activist, Deji Adeyanju, and the Nigerian singer and songwriter, Charles Chukwuemeka Oputa, aka, Charly Boy? Why is Mubarak Bala imprisoned without trial? What was the offence of journalist Agba Jalingo for which he was cruelly incarcerated? The list is long. These groups and individuals were mishandled and decimated by agents of state because they dared to exercise the rights consistent with the demands of a democratic system. They became enemies of the state because they projected perspectives that didn’t align with the retrogressive convictions of the pretentious democrats in power. Any society where the rulers detest debates and alternative reasonings will remain a boiling cauldron of instability. The illiberal dispositions of the Buhari government and those across the states of the federation are contributing bigly to the insecurity in Nigeria. For as long as the policies and programmes of these governments dehumanize Nigerians and the logics undergirding them shallow, there will always be Nigerians who will raise the banners of fresh, different rationalities. Rather than crush these people and seek to make them silent, governments who care about security will meet those people at the level of ideas. One tree does not make a forest; a camorra of rulers and their aides do not possess all the ideas needed to make a country functional.

    Finally, insecurity plagues Nigeria because it is too much at peace with injustices. The people in Benue, Taraba, Kogi states, and the Internally Displaced Persons and those mourning their gruesomely murdered loved ones in Northeastern Nigeria know the colours of injustices too well. Those in Southern Kaduna too are struggling with injustice. What the people in these states have got as justice for their excruciating ordeals is that the offenders have not been made to answer for their crimes. Some of these people have lost their homes and lands to Fulani herdsmen and the ones whose family members have been killed or kidnapped by Boko Haram have witnessed the so-called rehabilitation and reintegration of members of that implacably ruthless group into society. Those “repentant” insurgents – never mind that the public is not aware of their mea culpa – are said to be ready for educational trainings and financial gifts from government. Yet, those they messed up their lives and disrupted their families are out there in ramshackle tents living a miserable life. There are many more terrible cases of injustices across the country. Self-help is fast gaining ground. Those left in the lurch by governments are rising for their own defences and seeking justice their own way. Jungle justice seems preferable to communities who have waited in vain for state protection. The outcome of those self-help measures cannot but trigger insecurity. No country with heavy doses of injustices as are rampant in Nigeria can be at peace and secure. Insecurity plague does not emerge from a vacuum; it is precipitated. In other words, Nigeria’s insecurity is more a product of the (in)actions of its myopic rulers than it is of their smarmy followers.

    Adesola writes from the University of Manitoba, Canada.

  • The Femi Fani-Kayode in us all

    The Femi Fani-Kayode in us all

    Dr. Matthew Ayibakuro

    SIR: The last few days has witnessed varying degrees of reactions to the trending video of a former Minster of Aviation in Nigeria, Femi Fani-Kayode, passionately rebuking a journalist for asking him who was bankrolling his cross-country visit to several states in Nigeria. The Nigerian Union of Journalists has released a statement rebuking Fani-Kayode, as has various media houses and stakeholders, including Daily Trust, for which the journalist in question works.

    To his credit, the former minister was quick in issuing an explanation, followed by an apology for his actions, but I reckon the damage is already done, leaving in its wake the ongoing social and political scrutiny of his actions and what it says of the relationship between the media and public servants – past and present – in Nigeria.

    To be fair, the video was a hard watch, especially the point at which the former minister asks the journalist if he was stupid. That was simply unwarranted and unfortunate and reflects the personality and disposition of Fani-Kayode. A different individual could have handled the situation in a manner that made the point that he endeavoured to make without using such abusive words. On the other hand, whilst recognising the invaluable role of the media in society and the importance of the democratic principle of freedom of the press, perhaps the journalist could have possibly provided a background to the question. However, considering the lack of context in the video that suffered online of the encounter, it is impossible to have a conclusive perspective on this.

    As disturbing and incongruous as it all sounds, let us make no mistake about this: There is a Femi Fani-Kayode in us all. That feeling of absoluteness that should only be an exclusive reserve of God, but now resides in the souls of many in public and private spheres.

    In the Nigerian context, you can see it easily everywhere, starting from public office holders who have such an exaggerated sense of entitlement that makes them believe they are doing the people a favour by holding such offices. Hence, they demonstrate obvious irritation whenever they are questioned by journalists or required by civil society or the opposition to explain decisions or actions taken. In Nigeria, public office holders are gods with more knowledge than noble prize winners and more understanding than experts and professionals. They know better than the people and whatever they do is right. How dare you question them?

    Sadly, the Femi Fani-Kayode syndrome is not only found in public offices. You find them in universities too, where lecturers take exception to being questioned or corrected by their students, punishing those who do so for good measure. There abound numerous examples of similar Femi Fani-Kayodes in corporations and even civil society organisations who rule with absolute authority and in doing so trample on the innovative disposition and human rights of their staff and partners in lesser bargaining positions. Operating in the private sector provides them even more room to exert their authority without any form of questioning. Do you know who they are?

    The recent reaction to the amendment of the Companies and Allied Matters Act in Nigeria, especially as it relates to the supposed regulation of non-governmental organisations also demonstrates the Femi Fani-Kayodes in churches and other places of worship. More than anything else, religion provides a potent mechanism through which religious leaders exert unquestionable authority over people without any room for questioning, for in their case, when you question them, you are invariably questioning God, on whose behalf they speak. In a deeply religious society like Nigeria, who would dare do that?

    We are a society of Femi Fani-Kayodes. We are a society that is averse to accountability and so easily hypnotised by absolute and unquestionable leadership. It is therefore not surprising to see masses celebrating governors who bestow on themselves titles like “Governor-General” and other similar titles.

    So, even as we all jump on the mainstream bandwagon of critically analysing the actions of the former minister, this regrettable event provides an invaluable opportunity for everyone to examine at a society-wide level, and in our personal spaces, the little Femi Fani-Kayode in us all.

    • Dr. Matthew Ayibakuro, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
  • What is IPOB strategy?

    What is IPOB strategy?

    Tochukwu Ezukanma

    SIR: Earlier, in its fight against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in defiance of United Nations Resolution 242, the PLO adopted a strategy of unrestrained guerrilla warfare against Israel, including indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets. The strategy proved ineffective because, although it unsettled Israel, it could not defeat Israel, even if it is sustained and intensified for decades. Essentially, it backfired because it portrayed the PLO as a terrorist organization.

    So, despite its inability to defeat Israel, it also lost its international credibility; it was ostracized as a “terrorist” organization by the governments of the most important countries of the world. Consequently, the PLO changed its strategy, backpedaled on its guerrilla warfare, embraced diplomacy, and burnished its international image; it became diplomatically relevant. This was the precursor to the botched President Bill Clinton brokered peace agreement between the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli Prime, Minister Yitzhak Rabin in year, 2000.

    In its fight against Apartheid South Africa, the ANC had a strategy. Having learnt from the mistakes of the PLO, it focused on building a global diplomatic and economic alliance against Apartheid South Africa. Although it periodically launched guerrilla attacks within South Africa to impress the restive masses of Black South Africans, its fixation remained on shocking the conscience of the world with the evils of Apartheid. After nearly two decades of painstaking labour, the ANC anti-Apartheid campaign had successfully troubled the conscience of the world with the horrors of Apartheid.

    Unlike the PLO and ANC, the IPOB has no legitimate grievance. Consequently, it cannot genuinely rouse the world conscience against the Nigerian government. Therefore, it found psychological refuge in falsehood and cheap propaganda. Its trumped up allegations against the Nigerian government, like the enslavement of the Igbo and ongoing extermination of the Igbo in Nigeria, are resounding nonsense; they ring hollow in international circles. The global community realizes that, like most Third World countries, Nigeria is muddling its way through the 21st Century; and by Third World standards and within the limits of human frailties; Nigeria works for every Nigerian. There are tribalism and ethnic injustices in Nigeria, and no particular ethnic group is totally innocent of these vices.

    Ostensibly, IPOB’s goal is the creation of an independent Biafra through a referendum. It is the prerogative of the Nigerian government to hold such a referendum. Similar referendums were held by the governments of Canada and Britain for separatist regions of Quebec and Scotland respectively. The Nigerian constitution has no provision for such a referendum. Therefore, the first step towards a referendum on Biafran independence is making a constitutional provision for a referendum. Ordinarily, IPOB should have focused on making the federal government amenable to holding a referendum on Biafran independence, and nudging the National Assembly towards a constitutional amendment that will allow for a referendum. Paradoxically, IPOB is working against these two objectives. It incites violence, breaks the laws, and antagonizes the Nigerian government. As such, IPOB has been proscribed as a terrorist organization by the Nigerian government. How then can the referendum hold?

    Nnamdi Kanu and his senior lieutenants know there cannot be a country, Biafra. However, Biafran activism makes them relevant and makes them very rich. So, the object of Kanu’s continued agitation for Biafra is not to achieve Biafran independence but to retain his mesmeric sway on his followers, which, in turn, builds his financial empire. Not surprisingly, his speeches are not strategic. They are tendentious rubbish – gossips and trivialities – that resonate with his credulous and deluded followers. His speeches are a truculent blend of falsehood, incitements and insults. They nauseate discerning minds but enthrall his ignorant and confused followers.

    Although his propagandists attempt to cast him as hobnobbing with the powers that be on his “diplomatic trips”, he cannot meet with any worthy member of any government or international organization. The central question remains how does IPOB’s posturing, lies and propagandistic distortions advance the prospects of a referendum on Biafran independence?

    • Tochukwu Ezukanma, Lagos.