The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • Ethical issues in marketing communication

    Marketing is war. And in war, fair, some contend, is foul and foul is also fair. Winning, some gladiators argue, is all that matters!

    The public, the spectators, the customers who invariably constitute the majority understandably disagree with winning by all means. And they cannot be ignored. After all they determine the commercial success or failure of every effort, marketing or sporting!

    This explains the place of officiating and regulation in sporting and marketing activities respectively. Incidentally, in marketing, like in sports, the world is increasingly expecting ethical behaviour. This increases the burden on players, umpires and regulators. Marketing war is made fiercer because, the more documentation is done in form of regulation, the more smart marketers watch out for loopholes to explore.

    This search for and probable discovery of loopholes has intensified the long brewing war in the alcohol beverage industry in Nigeria. Observers maintain this might not abate soon but warn that care has to be taken to ensure that it does not degenerate into chaos. The war in the brewing industry shifted from the duopoly of Guinness Nigeria and Nigerian Breweries which went on for several decades to three three horse race that you now have with the bold entry of SAB Miller into the Nigerian market a few years ago. This ought to have been to the benefit of consumers.

    Industry watchers note with interest that Nigerian Breweries reacted swiftly to SAB Miller’s entry with its own acquisition efforts, while Guinness Nigeria made its own statement by expanding and upgrading its brewing lines in Edo and Lagos states. All these highlight the efforts of gladiators at showing readiness for battle and preparedness to win. Consumers should ordinarily be the ultimate winners from this keen competition. But has this been the case here?

    This appears not to be the case in Nigeria. The public watched helplessly as one notable player latched on the just concluded FIFA World Cup held in Brazil to arm-bush the agreement properly entered into between the Nigerian Football Federation and Guinness Nigeria with its ‘shine on Nigeria,’ campaign. To the chagrin of stakeholders, all the NFF could do was to issue a tame news release that was totally drowned by the well orchestrated marketing noise of the ‘intruder.’

    Did the NFF enter into an agreement it had no power or willingness to enforce?

    Typically the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) and the Consumer Protection Council of Nigeria (CPC) maintained studied silence. So, maybe the company in question had done nothing wrong. However, popular belief is that if a brand has gone the extra mile to enter into a proper agreement with the NFF that sees it lending support to Nigeria’s national team, other stakeholders ought to respect that agreement and existing relationship. The former Super Eagles’ stars that lined up for the “Shine on Nigeria” campaign ought to have known better and where they feign ignorance, it becomes the place of regulators to intervene and ensure sanity. How else does the average Nigerian football fan know which of these competitors is the true official sponsor of Nigerian football and makes the decision to reward its patriotism by increased patronage?

    Nigerian Breweries might have carefully studied the rule books so as to bend the rules instead of breaking them but this does not in any way absolve regulators from the obligation to play the umpire role bestowed on them by the laws of the land. In this case, both the APCON, CPC and Nigerian Breweries have questions to answer because everything is bad about killing other brands in order to grow your own.

    So it appears that SAB Miller’s strategic entry seems not to be the only thing reshaping competition in the sector. Unethical marketing practices by a leading competitor is having an overwhelming influence on the brewing industry in Nigeria and the consumer remains shortchanged because unethical marketing denies consumers of the right to make informed choices. This ought to have attracted the attention of well meaning Nigerians saddled with the responsibility of protecting consumers and enforcing marketing as well as advertising standards in the interest of equity and fairness.

    There is also growing concern among stakeholders that the huge cry for corporate support for sports via sponsorship and professional marketing is being mocked by such unbecoming attitude by leading players. The act, the sports family insists, is capable of discouraging corporate sponsors from lending support to a sector in dire need. This is the more reason why regulatory authorities should have stepped forward to play their roles and preserve the sector threatened by an unethical marketing campaign.

     

    • Eze wrote from Lagos

  • Nigerian power sector: Reading the Tea Leaves

    In ancient Asia, the art of Reading the Tea Leaves was quite popular as a form of fortunetelling. Described as one of the simplest forms of predicting the future, its practice, just like in any other art, based on imagination and experience, succeeds or fails on the strength of the diviner’s ability to construe the symbols in the tea leaves.

    There seems little difference between that practice and today’s investors and policy makers studying the fundamentals of the environment before making projections for the future. It is all about visioning from the probable, predictable and available.

    So it was with the planners in the Nigerian power sector when they adopted privatisation as the best option for the country to banish decades of continuously worsening darkness. They were simply mirroring the future by reading the tea leaves of the present. Today, the picture on ground evidences the realism in that vision, its import and imperative.

    Definitely, it is a tortuous road yet, with a lot of bits and pieces, odds and ends to contend with. But the fits and starts regardless, recent events have continued to prove that freeing Nigeria from the debilitating condition, which has translated to stunted growth of a nation that ought to be rubbing shoulders with the economic giants of the world, must take a firm root in the decision to remove the sector from direct government control.

    Now, the brightening horizon of hope as to where the road already taken would lead is becoming quite apparent. Many yet to see the silver lining breaking out are either those far behind the tunnel or others who do not care to look deep or far enough. Keener observers have since seen the dazzling and alluring perspective and the wise among them are fast grabbing the opportunities therein.

    A brick over the other, the superstructure which is supposed to house the stakeholders in the sector and drive the operations of the privatisation   regime is already taking shape.

    Quite recently, another very important layer was added to this architecture with the commissioning of the Market Operations Centre for the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).

    This fully computerised and automated platform known as the Nigerian Inter-bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) and Power Collect, is a full-proof mechanism designed to enable stakeholders monitor all aspects of the electricity value chain, from generation, transmission, distribution, consumption and payments. The target is the complete elimination of all forms of inefficiency and corruption  that could bedevil the system.

    Minister of Power, Professor Chinedu Nebo, hit the nail on the head while performing the ceremony when he enthused: “ … I can now conveniently sit in my office to monitor the movement of power generation, distribution, consumption and payments made at a particular point in my office.”

    Adding to the build-up are some landmark components. Thanks to the intervention of President Goodluck Jonathan, the generation companies (Gencos), most of which have been beset by low gas supply leading to abysmally low capacity  generation, will soon tell a different story. A robust collaboration between the helmsmen at the Power and Petroleum ministries, key to this intervention, aimed at troubleshooting the crisis, is already in place.

    The President has also approved a whopping $1billion as an addition to previous interventions to ensure that the fight against vandalism, which has already begun in earnest, is won.

    Already the National Renewable Energy Policy, including Energy Efficiency, which is meant not only to make investment in that critical area attractive, but ensure the optimisation of local usage of electricity, has been put in place.

    The new owners of the unbundled power entities are being pushed to fulfil their obligations towards implementing their business plans regarding the recovery of obsolete capacities – revitalising obsolete machines and installing new ones – and reducing the Aggregate Technical Commercial and Collection (ATC &C) losses.

    Huge funds have also been sourced and secured for strengthening the transmission infrastructure through the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the only part of the electricity value chain that was not privatised.

    Many more of the National Integrated Power Plants (NIPPs), are being completed while others are strengthening their capacities in a bid to jolt the generation capacity substantially.

    More private investors are committing huge funds in different areas of the sector’s operations. Quite recently, the Minister of Power was in Magboro, Ogun State to flag-off yet another of such investment – the ground breaking ceremony of another power plant with the capacity to generate 90megawatts of embedded power and the projection of an increase to between 250megawatts to 300 megawatts in future.

    A few days ago, Nebo and the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, signed a formal agreement on behalf of both countries on the Power Africa Initiative unveiled by President Barak Obama, last year. The initiative is aimed at adding about 10megawatts to the nation’s electricity generation. On the same day, the Minister also signed two other agreements with different companies for the manufacture of electricity components.

    A few months ago, Nebo was at the Nigerian Stock Exchange, where he exchanged ideas with key stakeholders and investment experts on the possibility of reducing the five-year ceiling before the new owners of the successor companies in the electricity sector could approach the capital market for funds.

    A huge icing on the cake, is the coming on board of the National Council on Power instituted on Thursday, August 14, by Vice President, Namadi Sambo.

    These are apart from other numerous activities in the sector, including those being primed for the declaration of the Transitional Electricity Market (TEM), when all the elements of the privatisation engagements are expected to go full blast.

    There is no doubt that the driving force in this emerging platform, is located in the zeal of the President, who, since declaring the Power Reform Roadmap in 2010, has shown uncommon commitment and spared nothing toward driving the project.

    In this, he finds an able lieutenant in Nebo, who has also shown a lot of gusto by walking the tight rope towards ensuring the dream comes to fruition. Ambassador Godknows Igali, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power, puts it succinctly, when he said both sleep and dream megawatts.

    A critical interrogation of the current situation in Nigeria ought to leave no one in doubt, surely, as to why the ongoing initiative must secure the full support of all, including beneficiaries of the old order, reason why attention must now shift from government and focus on the new owners of the power companies, some of who, still believing in the axiomatic Nigerian System, tend to be waiting for manna to fall from heaven.

    Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Power (PTFP), Reynolds Beks Dagogo Jack, could not be less emphatic about this when he told reporters in Lagos few months ago that these operators needed, for instance, to start sourcing funds like typical businesses instead of waiting to be spoon-fed by government.

    Like the Pharisees still seeking signs from Jesus after witnessing so many including the raising of Lazarus from the dead, there will be no other sign to show that things are looking up in the power sector.

    • Igboanugo, a journalist, lives in Abuja

  • Nasarawa: Triumph of people’s will

    Reason prevailed, and democracy as well as the rule of law triumphed recently, when a probe panel ended a month-old altercation between the Nasarawa State Governor, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura and members of the state House of Assembly.

    The “not guilty” verdict by the seven wise men of the law was the balm the state needed to ease the mounting tension created by the action of the “honourable” members.

    For putting out the raging flame intended not only to consume Al-Makura, but the entire state and its peace-loving people, the panel showed wisdom and justice.

    It speaks the mind of the people of the state, who have earlier revolted against the unpopular action of the members. So the verdict is a victory for the masses of the state.

    The governor is a product of the people; they brought him to power. They stood by him when elements within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who think they own the state, denied him ticket to serve the people on its platform.

    The people, not Al-Makura, triumphed in the end by throwing out the old-order, when they voted overwhelmingly for the incumbent.

    Three years on, Lafia has ceded its decades-old status as a glorified local government headquarters to that of an enviable state capital. Asphalt roads transcend every nook and cranny in the ancient town. The T. Abdul Kura street, Abdul Shatu-Adamu Mua’azu road, Agwai-Angwan Nugu junction, Lafia East-Government Guest House with spurs towards Makonjigi, Peoples Bank-New market dualisation, UAC-Gonar Mallam Sarkin road, Awe Street, Stanbic Bank-Kurikyo road among others are prides of an average resident of the state capital. Approximately, 80 kilometers asphalt-drained roads were completed in Lafia within the period, while four kilometres asphalt drained roads in 12 other towns are on as well as 600km rural roads.

    The people will always rise in defence of the governor because for the first time, storey buildings dot the landscape of even primary schools across the state. More than one billion naira was spent in providing furniture to primary and post primary schools across the state alone. Today, pupils no longer study under the trees, or on the floors. The administration has also built classrooms in post primary schools across the state, while hostels have sprung up in all tertiary institutions in the state.

    The people would revolt against any attempt to unseat the incumbent because for the first time, multi-million naira hospital projects have sprung up across the three senatorial districts of the state.150-bed hospitals are being built in Lafia, the state capital, Akwanga, and Nassarawa town.

    The people would protest because they don’t need to trek far distances to access potable water; farmers now smile at the end of every farming season, while traders and market women have locations to transact their business.

    The people will agitate because for the first time, civil servants are being paid as at when due, even with the minimum wage. They do not have to wait for an overdraft of N850m to be taken from a bank before they are paid as was the case during the old-order.

    They will revolt because their state has been liberated from the chains of debt the PDP government plugged it into.

    So the people would rise; and they did rose when their so-called representatives dared them by raising the impeachment axe against their own. They took to major streets in Lafia, Karu, Akwanga, Keffi, Nassrawa, Wamba, Keana, Awe, Doma, Obi, Kokona among others.

    The protest attracted the leaderships and members of Association of Market Women (AMW), Nigerian Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), student union bodies, Keffi Traders Association (KTF), National Association of Transport Owners (NATO), National Union of Roads Transport Workers (NURTW), religious leaders, as well as political groups.

    They raised placards, with various inscriptions including “Impeach Our Governor, Get Recall,” Impeachment Not In Nasarawa,” “N50 million Is Paid To Each Member,” “Lawmakers Are Lawbreakers,”  and so on.

    The number of protesters grew by the day, while the protest lasted, with the people insisting it was time to commence a recall of the lawmakers.

    Yes! The people are angry because the very people, who pledged to represent them are working against them, so what is the need keeping them at the assembly any way?

    What is more, the members did not deem it necessary to consult their constituencies before their decision on a matter as serious as the recall of the governor was taken. Who then are they representing? Themselves apparently!

    The people are angry because even the resolutions and motions so far initiated by the so-called representatives are anti-people. They denied the youth employment by the removal of appropriation for empowerment programmes that would take the jobless from the street. The members shot themselves in the foot, when the youth empowerment matter was advertised in the newspapers along with other issues in the impeachment notice.

    “Imagine that our own lawmakers will raise impeachment notice against a governor for recruiting our teeming unemployed youths. Do they prefer our youths continue to roam the streets,” queried Bisallah Adamus, who said his group has commenced modalities at mobilizing Nasarawa people to begin a recall process against the lawmakers.

    Apart from the youth empowerment issue, the members also see the introduction of minimum wage, which would have cushioned the suffering of civil servants in the state as illegal. It also ordered the stoppage of laudable programmes such as Biometric exercise and digitalization of land matters by the state government. Then there is also the issue of the controversial law prescribing one year tenure for local government chairmen, in which the assembly overrode Governor Al-Makura to pass into law, the state Local Government Amendment Bill 2013 despite rationalization by stakeholders that it tread with caution.

    The governor had written to the house to reconsider their stand intimating them of the implication of their decision. He told them that apart from the fact that chairmen and councillors so elected would hardly settle down to work before their tenure expires under the new law, it would be wasteful on the part of government to conduct election into the council every year.

    Tenable as the governor’s intervention is, the assembly went ahead to override him by passing the bill into law in a manner described by those who should know as an abuse of legislative process and anti-masses. The members by that singular action showed that the relationship between it and the governor is frosty, but in getting at him, they choose the wrong weapon and the casualty as it were, are the very people who elected them in the first place.

    The members do not really deserve to stay because while they illegally appropriate fund for themselves, the state assembly workers suffer in silence. Greater numbers of the assembly staff are on casual basis and the members and its leadership do not deem it necessary to effect the necessary changes. The members did not also deemed it necessary to organize public hearings before laws are passed and there is never a time they reach out to their constituencies before major decisions concerning the people are taken among other offences or do we call them breaches?

    So our members are not so clean as they made the public to believe. They went for equity but their hands are soiled up to the shoulders. And the manner and haste they went about the impeachment process show apparent ignorance of the law and an immaturity that offends sensibility.

    No wonder they could not appear before the panel to defend their allegations. But litigation arising from the action of members would further expose their ignorance when it will be determined that they erred in law by all ramifications.

    We will be able to know at a later date whether  their purported service of Notice of the allegations of gross misconduct for the purpose of impeaching the governor, vide the media or Newspaper publication is valid or constitutional within the meaning of section 188(2) of the 1999 Constitution.

    We will also know whether or not the said purported Notice for the purpose of impeaching the governor was duly served on each member of the 24-member House as envisaged by section 188(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, let alone fulfilling the conditions for impeachment proceedings.

    The panel as it were, gave them soft-landing by merely dismissing the allegations and acquitting the governor and that is the most important thing to do at this juncture. The verdict has calmed fraying nerves and reduced tension across the state.

     

    • Inuwa wrote in from Akwanga, Nasarawa State.

  • Kwara: Lessons from Aregbesola’s victory

    The landslide victory of Governor Rauf Aregbesola and by extension, the All Progressives Congress (APC), in Osun State’s gubernatorial election is instructive. It has emphasized the truth about life that leadership only confers influence, followership, power and respect on the leader, depending on how much good or positive-impact or love for the people the leader brings to bear on the office. Not only that, it highlighted the folly of a leader simply being satisfied with the glamour and splendour of office, but looking away from the welfare, dreams and expectations of the poor and less-privileged.

    More than anything else, the APC’s clean sweep has shown that sustained good work and cordial relationship with the people form the basis of understanding and followership between the leader and the people, and that believability nurtured by trust arising from promises kept further helps to deepen such a union.

    Indeed, one lesson to take away from the Osun election is that Governor Rauf Aregbesola walked into the hearts of the people by first making them the essence of governance. In return, he became an indispensible friend of the people and so popular that the federal might which reared its ugly head before and during the election was summarily subdued by the peoples’ strong will to have the back of their man. It would seem that the people were determined to stop any intruder from deciding their fate as was the case in Ekiti and Adamawa states where external forces high on greed, intrigues and conspiracy, deceived and arm-twisted the people of Ekiti State to rig through the forces of arms; and conspired in the case of Adamawa, leading to the defeat of Governor Kayode Fayemi and removal of former governor Murtala Nyako, respectively.

    Today, the federal government which has continued to deny complicity in the Adamawa impunity, saying it allowed the constitution and the people to have their way, has typically looked away as the same constitution and due process it claimed to protect is raped as Adamawa lawmakers have yet to inform the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of the impeachment so as to make way for election within 90 days as stipulated in the constitution.

    While these point to the desperation of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP)-led federal government to cause confusion and disaffection where none existed among the people, the Osun election points to the resolve of the people to support the popular man so as to sustain the progress being made in the state, while consciously initiating what many see as a permanent coroner report on the PDP’s impunity. The Osun victory and the lessons from it, no doubt, would provide a veritable compass with which the people, first, and members of APC, on the other hand, can fight and resist enemies of their common good. Interestingly, federal might can only work in states where the people allow needless, division, blackmail, intrigues and hypocrisy to thrive.

    In my state, Kwara, blessed with a selfless, committed and working leader, Senator Bukola Saraki, who following in the footsteps of his father, has continued to touch lives positively through unprecedented philanthropy, the PDP and their federal might can only but scratch a dream! Globally, today, Dr Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jnr; Mother Theresa and Princess Diana of blessed memories, among others, are still fondly remembered and celebrated not because of the political office they held, but mainly because of the exemplary life of selfless service which they lived, especially, caring for the lowly in society. Many years after death, they remain stuck to the minds of the people; great and small, rich and poor due to their life of giving and hearts fixated on making positive impacts on society at large.

    It is this same commitment to transforming Kwara State that has formed a meeting point for the late Waziri, Senator Olusola Saraki, the father, Dr Bukola Saraki, a former governor and the son, such that the mention of their names evoke great joy amongst the people. From road construction, job creation, skills acquisition centers, scholarships for overseas study for indigenes, healthcare centres and hospitals, affordable tuition fees in schools, training of pilots, rehabilitation of schools, agricultural revolution, loans to set up own businesses, Governor Ahmed has also sustained a culture of development and thus delivering on democratic dividends, which ultimately impact on peoples’ lives.  Ahmed’s popularity among the people has been helped in no small measure by the political influence of Dr Bukola, who like his father, has been a rallying point for both great and small. An undisputable dominant force in Kwara politics, the solid foundations laid by Bukola, no doubt, has helped Governor Ahmed in redeeming his promises and sustaining his bond with the people.

    This is why it would qualify for height of self-deceit and delusion to try to cause disaffection among the people in the face of the enormous achievements and giant leap the APC state has made in the last few years. Like Governor Rauf Aregbesola and Osun people, who voted the popular man, at the right time, the Kwara people will speak based on what they see, federal might or not. Or, is it not said that seeing is believing?

    In the face of dwindling resources from the federation account as a result of corruption and especially diversion of oil revenue, the state still embarked on massive project like the on-going Patigi/Pada, Share/Okeode and Kiama/Kishi roads, Ilorin water project, renovated more than 400 classrooms, world class general hospitals, among others.

    How else would the people appreciate the APC other than another endorsement through massive peoples’ vote?

     

    • SMO writes from Baboko, Ilorin

  • Agony of monogamy

    It was at the church service for the 90th birthday of the legendary matriarch of the Awo dynasty Chief Dr Hannah Dideolu Awolowo in Ikenne that the thoughts that prompted this article began. Some well known highly placed gentlemen and their wives were called upon to partake in the wine sipping, bread breaking ritual called Holy Communion. As soon as these respectable ladies and gentlemen, all of them past age 70, and amongst whom were renowned professors, high court judges, legal luminaries and business moguls, finished their spiritual blessing and were returning to their seats, they caught a pitiable sight in their over-flowing garb of hypocrisy.

    They wore forlorn mien plastered with furrowed frowned faces like some one afflicted with putrid smell of heavy dose of fart. They looked as if they were mourning a three-year-old boy mistakenly killed by his own father, or the passing of a poor woman who has just succumbed to excruciatingly painful cancer.

    They clung to their wives as if they were newly wedded. I temporarily forgot that I was in a holy church, the spiritual enclave of Christians. I almost laughed my head off because I knew each of the ‘holy’ ‘monogamous’ men intimately and by Jove, I knew of their second, third or fourth wives/liaisons/mistresses with whom they had sired several children. To the whole world they were champions of monogamy, but to their hearts and conscience they were celebrated polygamists, or at best, serial monogamists. Pshaw!

    I saw pain written all over them, the agony of living a lie, the unease of hypocrisy, and the shame of going through life pretending to be what you are not.

    This is the sort of agony a lot of the so-called monogamists go through all their lives. The series of lies they sell to their wives, and the double life they present to their pastors and church leaders, most of whom are actually equally guilty of hypocrisy and double life living.

    This piece is not set out to condemn or criticise monogamy. Monogamy is perfect for those who believe in its concept and can genuinely keep to it. I too have been married to one lovely woman for almost 45 years and it has been like a marriage made in heaven. I happen also to be the promoter along with some friends the 35-year-old Family Club of Nigeria which is dedicated to the upliftment and celebration of marriage and family values.

    The article is designed to expose the hypocrisy and pain associated with embracing false notions which are really not observed by any culture in the world, and to advise those who erroneously sentence themselves to a life of sadness and emptiness because they were deceived to believe that there is some utopia somewhere called monogamy.

    I am very much aware that this article will generate a lot of controversy most especially from those who live holier-than-thou life and have continued to deceive the world that they are upholders of a doctrine that is not supported by true and enlightened interpretation of any religious doctrine.

    The white men, I am yet to see any human being whose skin colour is like that of chalk, came and told the unfortunate lands they invaded that the cherished cultures, traditions and religions of such lands were rubbish, and instead indoctrinated them with values which they themselves never believed in or truly practiced. We know of King Henry Vlll, and several major historical figures in ‘Christian’ Europe who had more than one wife in  addition of a string of wives who their ‘laws’ forbade them to address as wives but who nonetheless perform all the functions of wife minus name.

    God bless President Mitterrand who openly confessed to having two women in his life, with the one in the other house with whom he fathered an 18-year-old daughter at the time he passed on.

    I have schooled, worked and lived virtually in all the continents of the world and I make bold to say with all emphasis at my disposal that no culture on planet earth truly practices monogamy. My Greek, Italian, Russian, British, American and other Caucasians routinely visit their other wives [called by other names] with whom they have children. But back in the homes shared with the one carrying the ring, they are monogamists!

    If God had wanted humanity to be monogamous, He or She would not have made the pigeon the only monogamous creature.

    The cultures that practice polygamy had always known that at any given time, the number of available marriageable women far out number available men plus the fact that an 80-year-old man, if he has money, is still very much in the market whereas a 60-year-old woman may not be that lucky. The biological limitation to a woman’s productive age is also a factor. Why should a woman therefore remain on the shelf till age 45 when she could jolly well get married as second or sixth wife to a man who can afford to share life’s responsibilities with her? Why should a woman leave a man with whom she is No 1, simply because took a second wife and end up being numberless in the hands of several men with whom she naturally shares bed just because of some doctrine she hardly understands?

    All the women who should go and marry but are saying they do not want to share their man with another woman in a polygamous setting, are sharing current boyfriends with several other women. Where is the logic?

    The argument that children in a polygamous house are always at each other’s throat does not hold water. Many siblings of monogamous families are known to have had worse and irresolvable, irreconcilable squabble, with dirty bitterness over inheritance than children from different mothers.

    The agony suffered by both men and women in the hand of unnatural laws and doctrines is too stifling for comfort. In 2002, 502 Reverend mothers were reported to have died while procuring abortion in Rome. Nigerian Tribune wrote an editorial on the unfortunate incident. And stories of Reverend fathers having children and sodomising young men in their care are legion! Why the hypocrisy? Why should the world continue to live the life of Ostrich?

    A well known Nigerian journalist hid his other wives from his wife because his religion would not permit of it and his wife, living in monogamy should not hear of it. At his funeral service, other wives surfaced and the woman parading the ring collapsed. It was the grace of God that prevented double interment that day!

    The Western world which had not learnt the art of living amicably with more than one partner under the same roof has indulged in multiple serial marriages, divorcing innocent wives under flimsy excuses so that another woman can move in should not be measure of standard for the world. Thank God Hillary Clinton in the US and Mrs Cook in England were very much wiser. They refused to allow some indiscretion on the part of their husbands to ruin their marriages.

    There was a well known American actor who passed on about a decade ago and all his 11 ex-wives with their numerous children attended his funeral. To ridicule the lie of their hypocritical existence, all the women were recognised and addressed as wives. As far as records show, the man had 11 wives!

    Society must rethink this issue of pretentious monogamy vis-à-vis polygamy so that in the not-too-distant future we do not end up with millions of unmarried women whose life style would be worse than prostitutes’ and millions of children whose fathers would be nowhere to be found.

  • Ebola and salt rumours

    M y mother called me at the tick of dawn on August 8. “The news is all over, from Jos and Kaduna, everyone is calling their people,” she said, her voice panicky, high-pitched. “You and your siblings must all bath with warm salt water before 7am today. It’s extremely imperative in light of the new epidemic.” I lay still, gripped by the news of the salty wonder. I got to work only to find it had become a national festival of panicky pre-dawn calls. This is Nigeria in the days of Ebola, unfounded rumour reigning unfettered.

    In actual sense, shouldn’t we all exhibit some form of anxiety at this mysterious illness which spares no mortals and spares no time in claiming its victims? Ebola, which a stubborn Liberian has brought to our homestead; which has already claimed almost a thousand lives in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and so far, at least at a nurse here in Nigeria. Ebola, whose end no one knows.

    Yet the crux of the matter is that in such national health emergencies, when the right public health messages and accurate awareness is not QUICKLY spread by the relevant authorities, rumour, with its all-knowing fangs would ride high on the crescendo of public ignorance. And, in this case, while we still run the risk of having the ebola virus spread to various parts of the country, people will continue to drench themselves with salt; the salt making companies will proverbially smile their salted ways to the banks and telecommunications companies, with pockets bulging with bucks accrued from frightened calls and SMSs, would look down and guffaw at our ignorance. Ebola, alas, turns adults – educated or otherwise — to victims long before their time.

    In all fairness, we must commend the Lagos State government and the Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, for rising relatively well to the occasion. The government has, to my knowledge, provided a number of isolated camps and wards, and in Lagos about 70 persons that came in contact with the infected Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, were screened after which six were quarantined and four certified infected with a nurse eventually dying.  A national committee has already been set up and presently, people entering the country are being screened at entry points. On their parts, many organizations in Lagos are also taking precautionary measures by providing hand sanitizers in their offices. Comparatively, and characteristic of our government, in pre-ebola, times, a ‘high-wired’ committee would have been set up, a day set for presidential inauguration and while the committee members are cocooned in the famous Abuja Hilton, sipping tea and throwing banters, waiting to get the brief of their work whose report we would never see (not to mention implement), ebola would have gone ahead to town and finished its business.

    Yet, much more needs to be done in terms of disseminating information that is really accessible to people in every strata and corner of the country. While the urbane Lagosian can easily digest the information and take precautions, what about the market woman in Oturkpo, Benue State? What about the farmer in Kebbi State? What about the trader in Ariaria market in Aba? What about the fisherman folk in Ikarama, Bayelsa State? The messages must be broken down in broken (pidgin) English,in the major languages as well as other minority tongues. In this matter, media houses (TV, radio, print) and even those that straddle the cyber space must see it as their civic duty to spread the message, actually, the right message (in the end, it will be life-saving for us all since at this point, everyone is vulnerable).

    Because information is key, again, media organizations should see it as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility to ensure that the viewing or listening public remains safe as much as possible. For now, from what one can glimpse, only a few are up to the task. The majority others are still busy playing raunchy videos of  ‘do-me-I-do you’ or ‘baby-baby’ crooners complete with repulsively suggestive dance-steps even with an emergency at hand.

    Now, in the absence of that, the salt merchants will continue to reap the proceeds from our collective ignorance.I hear already that bitter kola has since run out of stocks in places like Abuja. Without any doubt, in the days of ebola, when government doesn’t take charge of the information machinery, rumour will ride very high in salted waves and salty merchants and communication giants (who have in recent times made fortunes from selling prayer points to cracking dry jokes) will smile their pot-bellied ways to the banks through fueling news of fake panaceas. We must leave big grammar in the days of Ebola!

    The unlucky Nigerian public has always been left to its fate, sometimes even to its devices in times of national emergencies, such as the ongoing, virulent ‘salt water therapy’.  This gap in contact and communication is also exactly why many families are still huddled and sleeping inside bushes in the North-east, out of fear of Boko Haram, children in internally displaced camps dying of hunger or cholera, while politicians continue their self-centred political fisticuffs and the Presidency insisting on an extra $1 billion to sweep Boko Haram into oblivion. This is ebola, this is about life and death, and the response must be different.

    The Ministry of Education, National Orientation Agency, the National Emergency  Management Agency (NEMA) and most importantly, the Ministry of Health must collaborate seamlessly with relevant groups, agencies and governments at the various levels, working across party lines, dispensing duties irrespective of tribal or religious sentiments, to tackle the deadly virus before it wrecks more harms, and now, before rumour takes a destructive stronghold on our people, sometimes so easily gullible. While America holds back its secretive serum and may hold us to political ransom to have a sip of it, we can keep ebola at a distant, perpetual bay, armed to the teeth with information.

    The public must be told in plain terms to take extra precautions during massive religious gathering and the now ubiquitous political rallies. People must be told in everyday language to reduce body contacts with sick persons, and wash hands with disinfectants regularly, health workers must use protective gears in dealing with suspected cases, and the public must be discouraged from eating bush meats especially bats and monkeys,  made to know that ebola is not an airborne disease and can only be transmitted via contact with body fluids such as blood, saliva, urine or semen.

    Also, that ebola symptoms, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) includes fever, vomiting, diarrhea, sore throat, joint and muscle aches, stomach pain, headache, rashes, red eyes, hiccups and bleeding from body openings. We must increase the current level of public health information. This is a major public health emergency, and we stop Nigeria from reaching the casualty levels of affected West African countries.

    Meanwhile, let people know that salt (sodium chloride) does no good to our bare bodies. According to medical experts, direct contact with the blood stream may actually increase the risk of high blood pressure and heart failure.  An added ebolarated ‘wahala’.

     

    • Abah is a Lagos-based child and women’s rights activist, and public health advocate.

  • Enugu politics: God forgive them?

    If some had cynically held that Enugu was not working between 1999 and 2007 (it worked) and was fiercely brutish, many are holding that today’s Enugu is not only crude and boorish but also paedophilic; ‘consumed’ in reverie and display clinical wickedness. And that is why many Enugu watchers hold that administration officials waddle in thought and actions thus advertising the state as that run by men with kindergarten ambition, ignoring the socio-political of reality of time.

    We wouldn’t miss the point: perhaps, here we compare the apples and oranges – all fruit desserts but different specie! Although Enugu is run by the same political structure, its administration has no resemblance with the past, in style and candour in the display of political power and strategic manoeuvres. History will be a witness as it will tell the story in more graphic picture. Then, sentiment would have been lost and disinterested observers distilling the facts would present essays that say it.

    These essays will speak of the glamour of power and the ways of the powerful. It may be noted in the process that power, real power, is not about mister bad guy if the holder is to ride on the crest of ovation and the realities of history.  It is not only about appropriate use of strategy to deny any other power contender a hold but also the ability to run along the course of morality even though those who  enjoy its sweet scent and perks would not allow it to slip into the hands of opponents. They use all absurd and insensible methods that refuse decency and honour. Wicked!

    This word, wickedness, is the trade mark of the leviathan. But do those who hold power in Enugu care? Press comments on its inaction are mob ovation.  It fades as soon as they come.  And their world moves in ‘grandeur’ of their fantasy.

    Superimpose the political developments building towards 2015 national election in Enugu, and the fore picture is here beholden. What’s up! The deputy governor, Sunday Onyebuchi’s job is on the line. The state House of Assembly was goaded into levelling frivolous allegations of insubordination to his principal – governor, Sullivan Chime. That would amount to impeachable offence. The state Chief Judge has raised investigating panel, according to law.

    The deputy governor was accused of holding a commercial chicken farm in his official residence.  Allegation number two: refusing official representation of his principal during the flag-off of the construction of second Niger Bridge in March this year.

    He has replied all saying that these were false, arguing that the rearing of birds in his official quarters has historical antecedent: all those who lived there from the government of Michael Okpara in the 60s raised birds there. Don’t even mind that the governor himself, he had added, runs cattle ranch and poultry at the same precinct. The second, he replied with video and newspaper clippings faulting the accusation that he refused to represent the governor at the flag-off of the second Niger Bridge.

    The process of removing Onyebuchi is on and we are all watching as if nothing is amiss with the state house of assembly acting Esau and Governor Chime acting Jacob. Why all these? Ifeoma dina iru (good things are ahead) shouts the governor’s Chief of Staff, Ifeoma Nwobodo’s campaign billboard for 2015 Enugu East Senatorial seat which the deputy governor is interested in.

    There are three scenarios to the plot to remove Onyebuchi: The docility of the state House of Assembly, the banal penchant of Governor Chime to do in his deputy to ensure that his powerful Chief of Staff is not reined in by the national anti graft agency, Economic and Financial Crime Commission, – EFCC – at the close of a sleaze; and the uncouth silence of Nkanu political leaders, the deputy governor’s political zone.

    It may not be baffling how or why Governor Chime ridiculed the state assembly by goading the legislators to raise such  puerile allegations against his deputy, allegation that  even a moot court in any law school can easily quash if the wronged decides to seek justice. Above all, the content of the allegation does not show that Enugu thinks   as represented by their lawmakers’ and the sponsors’ actions. In fact, many observers in and outside Enugu laugh at these allegations and this also advertised the much-taunted inadequacy of natural intelligence of Enugu people by people outside our borders. The legislators too never showed that they were in-charge nor hid their laziness.  They were simply pawns.

    Did the governor ever show, in this matter, that as a lawyer with many years in practice before his school-friend Senator Chimaroke Nnamani rescued him, and appointed him his assistant on legal matters preparatory to Commissioner and guber race, in-spite of protests from political class in Enugu in 2006, that the gown does not only make the monk but the charisma the practitioner bears on the vocation confers the dignity? Can somebody think constructively? Nobody cares about Enugu’s image. Too bad!

    Have the sponsors of the impeachment respect for the political zone from where    the deputy governor comes? Onyebuchi’s traducers know the hatred or the dirty politics in his native Nkanuland and are not losing their sleep to humiliate him. They know that as I write, there are or is no political king in Nkanuland. God forgive them? The deputy governor may nurse his wound but the fact remains that this war is about Agbaja versus Nkanuland and it is also for governor Chime to further rubbish Senator Chimaroke Nnamani who is the patron of both.  Our wife is at war with her husband, our own son. And we throw our face the other side. Dirty!

     

    • Nvene lives in Amagu-nze, Nkanu East LG, Enugu State

  • Nigerian women and elections

    “When I was elected President of Ireland, I was determined to show that I brought to it the fact that I was a woman and was going to do it with various skills and I felt that they were enabling, problem solving, being more inclined not so much to want to lead in a kind of a natural way, but rather to lead by discussion and empowerment of others—to lead by example, lead by nurturing.”  -Mary Robinson 

    Ekiti State governorship election has come and gone. That of Osun State comes up tomorrow, August 9. As the 2015 elections approaches one question that keeps running through my mind is “Why are there so few Nigerian women in Nigerians politics?”

    In Rwanda today over 64% of the elected officers are women. And that makes it the only female dominated government in the world. However they paid dearly in order for this to become a reality in their country.

    Do you know that because Rwandan women didn’t stand up fast enough against injustice and acts of impunity in their land, about one million Rwandans ended up dead in the genocide that took place 20 years ago? They were not actively involved in the decision-making process that plunged Rwanda into a terribly civil war. The Rwandan women unfortunately left the decision making to the men and as a result the women (and children) ended up paying a high price for it when the war broke out. As the work of rebuilding the nation started soon after the genocide, Rwandan women aggressively moved to front line to actively participate. And this has had a dramatic and positive effect on the economy of Rwanda. According to the World Bank, their economy doubled between 2001 and 2010. Isn’t that interesting?

    Nigerian women have had a great influence in almost every aspect of our national life except politics. Why is that? Why is there is an embarrassingly low representation of Nigerian women in elected offices at all levels of government? Why are there not more women in the political arena? Why is it that in the 2011 elections, the female candidates were just about eight percent of the total number of candidates? Why is it that there are only 32 women elected at the National Assembly out of 469 members?

    The first female governor in the history of Nigeria came only in 2006. That is well over 46 years down the line after Independence. Her name is Dame Virginia Ngozi Etiaba and she was the governor of Anambra State. However many countries today can boast of producing female presidents.

    In the last 50 years, we have seen a number of women become heads of state, presidents and prime ministers –  like Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain, Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, Indira Gandhi of India, Golda Meir of Israel, Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Violeta Barrios De Chamorro of Nicaragua, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, Mary Robinson of Ireland, Helen Clark of New Zealand, Angela Merkel of Germany, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina, Sheikh Hasina Wajed of Bangledesh, Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania, Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica, Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago, Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Atifete Jahjaga of Kosovo, Yingluck Shinawatra of Thailand, Helle Thorning-Schmidt of Denmark, Portia Simpson Miller of Jamaica, Joyce Banda of Malawi, Park Geun-hye of South Korea, Alenka Bratusek of Slovenia and Erna Solberg of Norway. Meanwhile, here in Nigeria we are still waiting to produce more female governors and hopefully one day soon, a female president.

    In 1995 at the Beijing conference, it was recommended that 35 percent of the political positions, power positions and decision making positions be allotted to women.

    If we had more Nigerian women in politics, wouldn’t our economy grow faster like the way Rwanda’s economy has grown?  If we had more Nigerian women elected into political office, wouldn’t that help to give us better policies?  If we had more women elected in political office, wouldn’t it help to give us a more balanced and sensitive government? If we have more Nigerian women elected into political office, wouldn’t we have a more people friendly government? If we have more Nigerian women elected into political office, wouldn’t government’s actions be more proactive?  Wouldn’t we have fewer crises in our country? Why because women and children always end up paying the high price for crisis in any nation. And as such women will ensure that they do everything possible to prevent anything that would put women and children in harm’s way.

    In 2008, a research was done by Pew Research Centre (http://pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/gender-leadership.pdf) and they looked at the eight important leadership traits. From the research they discovered that American women outperformed the men in five out of the eight areas and tied in two. Women were ranked higher in honesty, outgoingness, compassion, intelligence and creativity. The women tied with the men in hard work and ambition. According to the survey the only leadership quality that the men scored higher in was decisiveness. However men are seen as overall better leaders. Isn’t that interesting?

    Asides from Rwanda, do you know that there are a substantial number of African nations in top 20 countries with a high representation of women in parliament? These countries are Angola, Seychelles, Uganda, South Africa and Mozambique. Is there something we can learn from these other countries as well? What are they doing right? How are they getting women to participate in politics? How are they getting more women elected into political offices?

    Nigerian women need to get involved in politics now so that we can avoid making the same mistakes Rwanda made 20 years ago! Nigerian women need to mobilize and to get involved in politics now so we can change the Nigerian society for good! As Charles Malik said “The fastest way to change society is to mobilize the women of the world.”  Nigerian women need to get involved in politics now so that we can complement our men in politics and help Nigeria reach her full potential! As the true architects of society, Nigerian women need to get involved so that we can design and build the Great New Nigeria we desire!

    Nigerian women must find their voice because they are Nigeria’s major untapped pool of gifts, talents and abilities. Nigerian women are our gold nuggets in the dirt of crisis, chaos and confusion in our country! Nigerian women are like diamond stones hidden in the soil of Nigeria’s madness of negatives!

    Someone once said that “If Nigeria will be saved it starts with the women!”

    And I couldn’t agree more!!!

    Nigerian women have been political spectators for way too long! It is time for that to change. It is time for Nigerian women to get into the game! It is time for Nigerian women to play their leadership role in our nation’s political affairs! It is time for Nigerian women to come out of their comfort zone and play their part in Nigeria’s game of politics!

  • Osun election: Why it matters

    I write this piece on the gubernatorial elections holding in Osun State. Its objective is basically to remind my friends and fellow compatriots in the south-west geopolitical zone of our country of what is at stake in tomorrow’s polls; the huge price they will have to pay if by dint of what is now called ‘stomach infrastructure’ or sheer complacency they allow an irredentist, warped and corrupt central authorities to usurp their autonomy.

    Western Nigerian matters for a number of reasons. One, its people have an inherent quest for freedom to express itself, a streak that runs through its history and the consequent civil wars in the pre-colonial era and the resistance of the immediate post-colonial years. Two, in post-independent Nigeria, largely dominated by the Hausa-Fulani oligarchy, the peoples of the South-west and their cousins/neigbours in the Mid-west have ensured that the federal essentiality of the Nigerian state remains on the front burner of national discourse and its most abiding philosophical guide are contained in the deep philosophical writings of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, such as Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution (1966). Chief Obafemi Awolowo, an accomplished thinker, argued that peoples with different culture attributes such as language and religion are best organised under a federal system. In his words, “In this connexion we should be reminded that of all the cultural equipments of a people, language is the most formidable, the most irrepressible, and the most resistant to diffusion, not to talk of fusion. It lies at the base of human divisions and divergences. And historical evidences of an irrefutable nature have shown firstly, that you can unite but can never succeed in unifying peoples whom language has set distinctly apart from one another; and secondly, that the more educated a linguistic group becomes, the stronger it waxes in its bid for political self-determination and autonomy, unless it happens to be the dominant group (emphasis in original).”

    Western Nigeria has made the quest for education a categorical imperative from which the people elicit their abiding strength for freedom. With education comes what Paulo Freire has called ‘transitive consciousness’ out of ‘semi-transitive consciousness’ underlined by a limited sphere of perception, resistance to challenges outside the sphere of biological vitals into the  former,  a world typified by “in-depth interpretation of problems”, acceptance of responsibility,  rejection of passivity, and embrace of rationality. This is why the dominant paradigm less explored by scholars and which I have explored in “My Politics in Western Nigeria” (forthcoming) is the development paradigm. It is the defining element of Yoruba politics; when it detracts from it, it has suffered consequences because those who often deviate from the course of freedom and development are usually lackeys of the irredentist centre aforementioned and they are often imposed by undemocratic means and they are not short in supply these days of politics being the only business in town.

    Politics in western Nigeria much earlier in the 1950s demonstrated that politics was for philosopher-kings; to be in politics is to serve and to seek wealth in monetary terms is to be in business, a fact that is now stood on its head by irredentists and bashers of the Nigerian estate.

    The challenge of development in the country today often draws its strength from what the state actors in this geopolitical zone have always done in the abiding faith and with Platonic conviction that justice inheres in the pursuit of the common good. As I have said elsewhere, western Nigeria is news, an event in the social order called Nigeria, always pointing up hitherto unimagined possibilities. It established the first television station in Africa, pursued a rigorous free education policy and sundry other innovations which feudal and conservatives forces elsewhere in the country would struggle to imitate. It was the Yorubas who introduced that competitive spirit into our development and governance universe. It is a fact that our country have always struggled on the edge of tyrannical order; the counteractive force against all dictatorial tendencies, arguably, has always come from the western Nigeria.

    There is a general perception today among Nigerians that any Nigerian from any part of this country can now govern this country with the mandate of the people. This was not the assumption some years ago. When the June12, 1993 election was annulled, the logic was that the Lugardian architecture, which meant that power must always reside in the north, should never be altered. Chief M.K. O. Abiola paid the supreme price and many of us managed to be alive in that titanic struggle. The resistance altered the power succession process in the country. This has come to stay and any attempt to revert to status quo would result in consequences of unimaginable proportion. The transient nature of power is a value that we must all cultivate.

    What is the plot of the irredentist centre under the watch of President Jonathan? The plot is to subvert the above values by huge monetary inducement, all foul stratagems and in particular the use of force, especially the military whose esprit de corps has been destroyed by past military regimes and are now be subjected to a re-enactment of the ‘Glover syndrome’ in which the citizens are perceived as the enemy (and we are already reaping the consequences in the so-called war against insurgency in northeastern Nigeria). The military is to protect the state and its citizens, not the government of the day because sovereignty, an essential element of the state, resides in the people.

    The clarion call therefore is that the well-meaning people of western Nigeria must live up to those fine values of their history and ensure they are entrenched with a vote for the incumbent government of Osun state under the leadership of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. To lose Osun to a backward, disoriented, anti-development and irredentist central authorities is to deepen the misery and abjection of the good people of the southwest and Nigerians desirous of an alternative vision of development. Osun election matters, as the Europeans would say to the fascists, and we should say it loud and clear to the irredentists and anti-people forces in the saddle today that they shall not pass. Osun, Ipinle Omoluabi should not fall to known felons. The soul of the country is at stake and to lose is to halt social progress.

    Dr. Akhaine is a visiting member of the Guardian Editorial Board.

     

     

  • As Omisore’s desperation mounts…

    In normal times, one should not respond to a bastard article – bastard, in the sense of lack of authorship – apparently planted in the In and Out section of Nigerian Tribune of August 4.

    But this response is imperative because the article is not only sloppy – and that calls into question the rigour of the ghost writer and of editors of the newspaper that let it slip into their publication.  It also hinted at an unfazed intention to subvert the democratic process, with its sinister reference to “10% of federal might”.

    Starkly put, they intend to use the security agencies to rig.  Well, we wish them good luck.  All these, are of course, clear evidence of desperation, as Iyiola Omisore’s desperation mounts.

    To start with, the writer was so self-harassed that he got his facts wrong, right from the first sentence: “Next Saturday, August 4…”  Saturday is August 9.  Even if the writer was confused because he did not believe what he was writing, what of the editors that let the copy pass – bemused too?  It stinks of a planted job, a hush-hush affair that comes back to haunt the thief.

    Then he went ahead to tell a lie about himself: that he was not partisan.  Did this guy think his readers were fools?

    Then, a voodoo vox pop, trotting out the lies and old wives’ tales of the Omisore camp – a camp completely barren of any ideas, no matter how simple or basic: Aregbesola’s commissioners were brought from Lagos, Aregbesola is a jihadist, Aregbesola has not completed any inter-city road, Aregbesola is very rude in speech, Aregbesola compelled everyone to wear same uniform allegedly awarded to a sole contractor – and the most asinine of all: Aregbesola is anti-education, even though he bought I-Pads for pupils and students!  Is this a thinking mind at all, or a person consumed by the torments of his own soul, long since sold to the devil for filthy lucre?

    Even with the voodoo poll, Omisore still came across as a terrible and pitiable figure: as even the writer admitted the gruff PDP candidate still has the Ige murder albatross on his neck.  Yes, he got some justice of sorts from the courts, which cleared him of allegation.  But he appeared to have doubly lost the case in the court of public opinion.  The court has said what it had to say.  But the people believe what they believe.  A classical case of court justice versus social justice!

    After all said and done for the writer however, a great deal more had been said than done in his nefarious attempt to pool the wool over the eyes of the unwary.  He now came out with it: the Omisore camp would try to use the so-called federal might to rig the election of August 9.

    Hear him wax lyrical with his own embarrassing and tormented thoughts: “… APC doesn’t have an anti-dote to the 10% of the Federal might.  If Aregbesola is aware of this 10%, as I’m sure he must, his anxiety must doubly mount.  What will they do about the crouching tiger called “Federal 10% might’?  Can they insnare (sic: he probably meant ensnare) it?  Can they mobilise the hoi polloi to insnare (sic) the lurking tiger?

    So, this country has got to the nadir that even election robbers would profane legitimate arms of the state, and brag about it and be shamelessly published by a newspaper that Awolowo founded?  Wish Chief Obafemi Awolowo were alive to read this article in his dear Tribune of August 4!

    Chief Bisi Akande got it right: the PDP are electoral robbers.  They have always been.  They will always be.  The added tragedy however is the new-found brazenness to use state arms to steal votes and openly brag about it.  That can only happen by a commander-in-chief that is too eager to look the other way, as his errant ministers and party men court disaster by using the army and police to rig elections.  What happened to those who did it in the past?  They ended up in the belly of their own wild pets!

    Still, all these are mere braggadocio.  The other day, Femi Fani-Kayode, scion of the Femi Fani-Kayode who was among those that killed democracy in the First Republic and put Nigeria on a journey to perdition, sounded rather like his dad.  He admitted that three former governors: Bisi Akande, Isiaka Adeleke and Olagunsoye Oyinlola (the last two formerly from the PDP ranks) were campaigning for Aregbesola.  So, who else does PDP have in Osun?

    Of course, like father, like son, Fani-Kayode the son bragged like Fani-Kayode, the father, that despite the overwhelming odds facing their candidate, Omisore would triumph.  Well, everyone is entitled to their illusions!  But surely the son knows how his father’s pipe-dream collapsed back then?

    Omisore and his party are dishonourable.  Omisore’s personal notoriety was borne out of the campaign of threats and intimidation he ran, never once articulating his own programme but burning all his bad-tempered and ill-bred energy at demonising Aregbesola’s glittering achievements Omisore would wish never existed but which his troubled eyes see and his jagged soul hates, but which the people roundly applaud.

    Omisore is set for electoral guillotine – and he, and his wilfully misguided people know it.

    Even then, the ghost writer concluded with Freudian slip that hinted at Omisore’s gubernatorial pipe-dreams.  He quoted the scriptures.  But he forgot the Bible says people that believe in their arms, to force evil over good, would be humbled by the superior might of the Almighty.  So long for Omisore’s federal might!

    On the secular front, he even quoted Napoleon Bonaparte!  “Justice, so slow, is sure to over-take the wicked.”  That, is a straight Omisore fit – hot, fresh and smoking from the past!

    And Napoleon!  Did this writer ever hear of Napoleon’s waterloo?  That, for Omisore, is what Osun would be, even with his rogue federal might!

     

    • Salako writes from Ikirun, Osun State.