The Nation Newspaper

Category: Opinion

  • Rebuilding Nigeria’s broken walls: From emotional patriotism to Nehemiah Complex

    Rebuilding Nigeria’s broken walls: From emotional patriotism to Nehemiah Complex

    I believe in Nigeria. This is an affirmation that I do not need to prove to anyone. It is just a simple affirmation that sums up my professional commitment to the very idea of a Nigeria that would regain her capacity to become great. Greatness, with regard to the Nigerian state, comes with a historical demand. Like most African states, the amalgamation conditioned Nigeria into a plural entity made up of various ethnocultural constituents willfully merged together into a mechanical unity that lacked any organic wholeness. Unfortunately, that mechanical unity seems to have been grafted wholesale into the constitutional framework that hold the Nigerian state together. And this began with the 1914 amalgamation and compounded by the Ironsi’s 1966 unitary illogic. And from 1966 to date, Nigeria has been struggling with the debilitations of that structural albatross. Everything that is wrong with the Nigerian state, from misgovernance to underdevelopment, derives from that historical misstep.

    It is this historical misstep that has made a mess of the issue of national integration, what we all call the Nigeria Project. It seems a pretty simple project: Nigeria needs to convert the ethnocultural loyalty of her varied constituents into a civic nationalism that makes Nigeria the center of an energetic patriotism, the type we witness with other nations. Nigeria needs to transform herself from “a mere geographical expression” into a fulsome nation made up of patriotic believers who have infrastructural backstops for their belief in the greatness of Nigeria. Nationhood derives from the conversion of Nigeria’s ethnic capital into national capital. And that conversion rides on the performances of the structures and institutions that undergird Nigeria’s democratic experiment. Without these performances, demonstrated by a high productivity profile and infrastructural development, the possibility of the national integration project manifesting is shaky.

    It is my ardent belief in such a possibility that is driving my institutional reform agenda. For me, leadership recruitment dynamic, values reorientation and institutional reform form the bedrock of Nigeria’s striving for greatness. And I have located this reform imperative within the governance space, and especially within the public administration system. In theory and practice, the public service, constitutional order and a development-rooted national value system are the genuine complements to an effective democratic governance. This means that, in the case of Nigeria, when the state system itself is caught within the grasp of Nigeria’s historical predicament and cultural illogic, the only change management instruments to deploy are reform, governance and institution. I believe in Nigeria because I hold strongly to the possibility of unleashing Nigeria’s greatness through an institutional reform of her governance and policy space in ways that are sufficiently developmental to backstop the efficiency of democratic governance.

    In a critical sense, Professor Oyewale Tomori’s emotional deliverance in the last few weeks lamented Nigeria’s institutional capacity that had gone bad. Everything he had to say about his educational maturation within a context of national security and moral dynamics pointed at a time when Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Simeon Adebo had a firm understanding of the relationship between politics and administration as the basis for good governance. It was a time of an acute awareness of the proper roles of the regions as genuine federating units for Nigeria’s emerging federal stature. And then, everything went historically and politically berserk

    My belief in Nigeria speaks insistently to the possibility of a providential and institutional rescue of her greatness. My fervent belief dispenses with any form of historical determinism founded on either the amalgamation or the entire colonial narrative and its epochal significance. A firm grasp of the political and socioeconomic dynamics of the present seems to lead inexorably towards pessimism. Gloomy statistics confirm and reinforce the harsh reality of living in Nigeria. It is as if we are tumbling towards a precipice. Even 2023, as the moment for an electoral repositioning of Nigeria’s fate, holds no succor given the level of political scheming that is already going on at the moment to secure or retain power by parties without any ideological clue as to where to direct the ship of state. However, if politicians do not have a clue, intellectuals and well-meaning patriots have the responsibility to provide one.

    This is where the Nehemiah narrative holds the most theological and political appeal for me. What sets Nehemiah’s patriotic blood boiling? It was just the news that more than half-century after the temple was completed, the walls of Jerusalem still lay in ruins. He just could not bear that news and all it connoted. He broke down and wept. But then as he wept, his mind was already exploring possibilities of remedying the situation. And his plan required theological understanding, leadership forthrightness and political acumen. In other words, he needed to know what God’s will is and, even more important, how God would enable him walk the tight rope of getting the permission of King Artaxerxes. This was crucial because building the wall of Jerusalem was a secular matter (compared to the religious assignment of building the temple, given to Ezra). Rebuilding the walls had a significance for the restoration of the State of Israel, and the possible threat that could connote. But Nehemiah was a pragmatic believer! He did not just sit lamenting the broken walls and waiting for God’s intervention. He acted. And his twelve years serving as the governor of Judah, with the economic and religious reforms that heralded his successes and achievements became significant.

    This is what I call the Nehemiah complex for rebuilding the fallen walls of the Nigerian state. The lesson is simple: the walls of the Nigerian nation-state are broken. And we have reasons to weep and lament. But then, after lamentation, what’s next? Like Nehemiah, I hold strongly to a belief about a providential understanding of the place of Nigeria in global order and in the transformation of the lives of Nigerians. But then, the evidence of that providential assistance lies in the reform imperatives for transforming the predicament facing the Nigerian state. The key element of the Nehemiah imperative, as I read it for the Nigerian condition, is two-fold. The first is the need to restructure the Nigerian polity. The second lies in the urgency of building a coalition of patriotic leadership across different sectors and strata of the Nigerian society.

    In calling for the restructure of the Nigerian polity, I know I am threading a dangerous path. It is dangerous essentially because of the abuse of the concept of restructuring. There are so many who hears the word and just tune off, not least the present crop of political class in Nigeria. Many members of this class hold the misplaced fear that restructuring is synonymous with the dissolution of the Nigerian polity. Nothing could be more illogical. What is logical is this. There is no one who does not agree that our federal structure is not working because it is lopsided under a unitary framework. No one will also disagree that outside of a functional federal arrangement, Nigeria’s democratic governance is doomed to keep failing. Nigeria’s strange contraption of unitary federalism denies the federating units the capacity for creative governance that regionalism afforded the regions in the first republic. To restructure therefore simply means opening up Nigeria’s plural dynamics to a constitutional arrangement that allows for the sharing of power among, in Nigeria’s case, three tiers of government. This federal arrangement not only allows for the various ethnic nationalities and cultural constituents to enjoy a modicum of self-determination that allows for the expression of their ethnocultural identities, it also facilitate a measure of fiscal autonomy for the federating units. The constitutional situation now, on the contrary, is that only the federal government enjoys constitutional overlordship at the expense of the state and the local government (of course the states also virtually obliterate the presence of the local governments and their autonomy). With this unitary arrangement, no federating unit is motivated to explore its comparative advantages. This is because there is now a bail-out mentality that drives everyone to Abuja to partake of the dividends of Nigeria’s virtually bankrupt mono-economy.

    The promise of fiscal federalism makes it possible to consider the six geopolitical zones as the regional alternative for rethinking federalism. These zones become economic corridors that function on the internal economic and cultural dynamics and advantages of the regions in ways that undermine the illogic of Nigeria’s mono-economy. And second, these zones take the burden of governance away from the federal government which is then allowed to focus on core national issues like currency and international relations. This regional alternative is not new; it is only Nigeria that is decidedly ignoring its possibilities. Or to recast, it is Nigeria’s political elite that has refused to take up the challenge of articulating that regional vision of federalism. And this is where the second leg of the Nehemiah complex becomes significant: if the political class is not seeing the connection between Nigeria’s lopsided federal arrangement and the need to restructure it, there is the urgency of building a broad-based coalition of leadership that has the capacity to see the situation as Nehemiah saw it. In building the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah called on those who saw the walls and what needed to be done the way he saw it. We need leaders across generational divide, from Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, Prof. Pat Utomi, Prof. Attahiru Jega, Olisa Agbakoba, Akinwunmi Adesina, Aisha Yesufu, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for instance, to what we can call the EndSARS generation; and from corporate professionals to intellectuals and scholars-people who share the patriotic desire to see Nigeria become truly great and responsible for the well-being of her citizens.

    Nigeria needs more than her political class. It needs all those who believe in her greatness-all those who can see the wood for the trees; those who are capable, unlike the political class, of seeing what needed to be done in taking Nigeria out of her predicament.

    In concluding, let me utilise some prose from my earlier contribution titled Federalism-Restructuring Fixation: What’s future for Nigeria. And my take is this, to move forward, there are three clear options for Nigeria to pursue. First, her political elites could resolve to put their acts together and get the basics right in the effort to move Nigeria forward on the federal path and achieve success like the United States, Switzerland, India or Australia. Second, the same political class could bury their heads in the sand and watch as everything degenerate to the point of implosion. This was the terrible fate of the former USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.

    Third, and even worse, Nigeria could just be allowed to keep up its dynamics of motion without movement that will either perpetually keep it as a reference point for academic and practical underdevelopment thesis and hypothesis for developing states (an exemplification of Princeton Lyman’s “greatness to irrelevance thesis”), or we eventually arrive at violent implosion due to lack of attention to what matters in nation building. So, is federalism the ultimate end to Nigeria’s hydra-headed predicament?

    As a political scientist and institutional reformer, I am sufficiently aware of the limit of theory especially in a complex political and institutional situation presented by the Nigerian state. Thus, while it is futile to hanker for what is often termed “true federalism,” there is no doubt that federalism serves a critical purpose in Nigeria’s political rehabilitation and restructuring. In other words, federalism is not an end in itself, a panacea to end all national evils. In simple language, one that should be intelligible to expert political scientists with sufficient knowledge of comparative federalism in the democracies around the world. It is this, that the worst thing that could happen to Nigeria’s envisioned future is for her to have gone full-swing, to restructure the federation with a “true” federal constitution to boot, only to discover that her developmental problems have not been resolved by far.

    As should be obvious, the whole Nehemiah complex requires committed leadership-a new breed of patriotic individuals and political elites who instinctively understand what is required to make Nigeria great. This new breed of Nigerian leadership will be committed to a pan Nigerian ideal or dream-a pax Nigeriana-around which a strategic governance framework can be built to rally Nigerians to the urgent imperatives of sound development blueprint, good governance and social justice. It goes without saying that such a leadership will immediately recognize the significance of education and value reorientation as key elements in the restructuring of the mindset and attitudinal behaviour of Nigerians. Education instigates in the citizens a state of mind of that is reflective, respectful and ethically aware of the shades of difference-ethnic, sexual gender, cultural-that makes up a plural state.

    This is the ultimate challenge of the Nigerian political class: to dedicate its attention and political capacities and competences to articulating a vision of what Nigeria should be, and how to achieve national integration. And at the very heart of such a vision is the blueprint for building an active citizenship that will be patriotic and willing to contribute to the challenge of national development. Outside of these, Nigeria’s future is very bleak, and all debates about Nigeria’s envisioned greatness is sham.

  • The Pope and his invisible divisions

    The Pope and his invisible divisions

    There are some quotes which stay at the back of your mind with such tenacity that they merge with the background in such a way that they are brought up time and time again sometimes even when their relevance should be questioned. One such quote that invaded my mind recently concerned human relationships with power. I have known for a very long time that Stalin, the one-time all powerful Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party was once moved to question the authority of the Pope by asking contemptuously how many divisions the Pope could deploy on the field of battle. There was no doublt in my mind that Stalin said this but when I looked up this quote on Google, the certainty with which I regarded it became eroded to the point that I began to wonder if Stalin asked that question at any time during his long and bloody career. This is because he was supposed to make this curt remark under so many different circumstances and to so many different people that the most reasonable conclusion must be that there was no time that Stalin challenged the Pope in the manner that the warlord was supposed to have done. Still, the import of this quote cannot be dismissed out of hand because what was at the heart of this famous quote is the relevance of soft power in a world ruled by men of violence, those whose every word could be backed up by iron and steel, with tanks, warplanes, armoured ships and bombs with the capacity to enforce whatever the dictator decided was the law or rather, the Law. Ranged on the opposite side of the Law divide however is moral power which is derived from nothing more powerful than the spoken word but which has the power to command greater and more widespread obedience than the diktat of some powerful warlord at the very height of his considerable powers.

    Stalin was a standout participant in the events of the first half of the twentieth century which changed the world in a very profound manner marked as it was by the greatest antihuman atrocity that the world had ever seen. The National Socialist German Workers’ Party led by Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 and systematically planned and carried out murder on what some people have described as an industrial scale during World War ll. Men, women and children were murdered on what can only be described as an assembly line principle in the same way that Ford revolutionised the industrial scale production of motor cars in his factories in Detroit. By the end of Hitler’s rampage more than twelve million human beings had been gassed and roasted in giant ovens situated mainly in what is Polish territory today. Those human beings were ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of spurious racial purity and manufactured superiority. Hitler and his henchmen were convinced that the only real people in the world were some ill defined Aryans who had a right to own everything and take from others anything that they wanted including their very lives.

    The tragedy of the first half of the last century was caused by warped racial profiling but the world did not learn any lesson from this tragedy as another tragedy was in the making in South Africa and indeed in other parts of the benighted continent of Africa. In 1948 in a so called election in South Africa, the Nationalist Party of South Africa with the imposition of Apartheid as their battle cry was swept to power by the whites-only electorate secure in the knowledge that the Nationalists were determined to reduce the status of all the non-white peoples of South Africa to a subhuman level within which they were to be regarded as economic units good only to serve the whites who were to control all the levers of power to the severe exclusion of all other races. The world which had just overcome the racist practices of the Nazis in Germany after a costly war looked on askance as a minority group of whites denied the human status of the majority black peoples. Within South Africa, a few whites put up what could only be described as feeble resistance to the Apartheid regime. One of such resistance fighters was Trevor Huddlestone, an Anglican Bishop who fought for the rights of Africans to claim some level of human dignity in the land of their birth. And it was this Englishman who introduced me to the odd world created by the government of Apartheid South Africa. Huddlestone wrote a book, Nought for your comfort which attempted to draw the attention of the world to what was happening in the Apartheid enclave of Souht Africa. His Church was in Sophiatown, an area which up till then was home to people of all races but which had suddenly been re-categorised as a white’s only area. Sophiatown was bulldozed, the nonwhites moved out and the area renamed Trionf in Afrikaans, the language of the triumphant Boers, the new rulers of South Africa. Whatever I gleaned from the pages of Huddlestone’s seminal book was solidified by another book, this time a novel by Alan Paton, Cry, the beloved country, a story of human loss brought about by the hateful policy of apartheid. These were white men who devoted their talents to anti-apartheid struggle because they could not remain silent in the light of the sins which were being committed in their name by people who looked like them and claimed that they were working for their comfort.

    The situation in South Africa came to a head in 1948 but blacks had been struggling against marginalisation for several decades, at least from 1912 when the African National Congress was formed to  protect the interests of black South Africans. In spite of their struggles, there was little they could do about the relentless expansion of the separatist policies of successive South African governments. By 1960, Apartheid had become entrenched in South Africa and blacks had been reduced to pass carrying entities who had no identity beyond what was captured on their passbook. They were restricted to living only in the slums which had been created for them within the urban centres where they worked at the pleasure of their white employers. It was decided that black South Africans had no need for any but the most elementary level of education as they were to be restricted to the performance of the most menial jobs for which they really had no need of education. After all, all they needed was to be know enough to appreciate their lowly status within their country. By this time the fight against Apartheid was not left to liberal whites as many Africans had joined the fight. Some of them were convinced that like Stalin and other such leaders, they needed their own army divisions with the capacity to show the whites the error of their ways by reacting violently to the violence which was daily visited on them by the whites who had set themselves over them illegitimately. Such violence was met with even greater violence by the much bigger divisions which were at the disposal of the whites. Even those who had little stomach for violence were arrested, locked up, exiled, tortured and worse, were hanged for doing no more than raising the most feeble  resistance to what they were being subjected to.

    Desmond Tutu was the son of a teacher and was growing up towards becoming a human being when the cloud of Apartheid began to blot out his young sun. In his father’s generation before Apartheid grew fearsome fangs, it was still possible for young black boys and girls to aspire to an education which prepared them for life as lawyers, doctors, teachers and other professionals as indeed his father was. With is background, it was not strange that the young Desmond wanted to study to become a doctor but it was not long before he came to the realisation that training to become a doctor was rather expensive, at least more expensive than his family could afford. He was therefore forced to revise his ambitions a little downwards and decided to become a teacher just at the time that the powers that be decided that black children did not need an education so that no man with any ambition would become a teacher under the changed circumstances of the time which is why the young Desmond decided to become an Anglican priest in the mould of another Anglican priest, Bishop Huddlestone who used his pulpit as a platform from which to oppose the forces of apartheid. Like his mentor, Desmond Tutu rose within the Church hierarchy and by 1985 had been consecrated Bishop of Johannesburg and a year later the Archbishop of Cape Town, the first black man to hold either of those positions. His pulpit was, until then a platform for broadcasting his anti-apartheid message but with his preferment the whole world became his pulpit and he exploited position to speak truth, not just to the disciples of apartheid but to all men of conscience all over the world. Not all men were persuaded by the Bishop’s voice of reason and some of them occupied positions of real power with the authority to mobilise scores of fully armed divisions with which to force their version of truth down millions of throats.  Those terrible twins, Ronald Reagan and Margaret  Thatcher,  swimming against  the  powerful  currents of  history  threw  their not inconsiderable weight behind the authors of apartheid giving them all the encouragement they needed to continue their murderous policy of denying the humanity of the majority black population of South Africa. Tutu and other anti-apartheid activist, without a single division at their disposal did not relent in their struggle and because of the sheer weight of their moral construct they prevailed in the end and the Archbishop, in his trademark purple robes danced his way into the polling booth to contribute his own nail to the coffin of Apartheid.

    However, it has to be said that Desmond Tutu did not restrict himself to bashing apartheid. He criticised his great friend and fellow anti-apartheid fighter, Nelson Mandela for carrying on an open affair with Gracia Marchel. He did not think that his was a good example to the people of South Africa and did not relent in his criticism until Mandela made Gracia the only woman who was married to two heads of state was married to Mandela. Following independence, Desmond Tutu became one of the sharpest critic of the ANC, an organisation which he stood by steadfastly during the struggle against apartheid because, in his opinion that the party was not doing enough to right the wrongs of apartheid in respect of the majority that had suffered under apartheid. Unlike many members of the clergy who inserted themselves into bedrooms all over the world and castigated homosexuals, Desmond Tutu not only refused to condemn homosexuals for their sexual orientation but announced that he did not want to go to a homophobic heaven at the end of his life. As far as Desmond Tutu was concerned every human being, irrespective of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or any other form of categorisation had to be treated with respect and consideration fro their human status. Had many people shared this belief, we would have been spared the horrors of the holocaust and apartheid, not to talk of racism and religious intolerance.

    Desmond Tutu was a little man who nevertheless was way larger than life. He was a consistent voice of reason who, to quote him could not shut up when hard things needed to be said. He was physically as hard as nails having survived tuberculosis at a time when because of the absence of a  reliable cure the diagnosis of the infection was something of a death sentence and lived with prostate cancer  for more than than two decades during which time he could not be kept down whenever he needed to be up and about.

    Some years ago, I remember listening to an episode of his long running correspondence report from the USA by the great Alistair Cooke. That particular episode was devoted to the iconic jazz pianist and band leader, Duke Ellington who had just died. At the end of that appreciation he announced all over again that the Duke was dead but, ‘you don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to’. Desmond Tutu is dead but do you have to believe it?

     

  • Addressing the menace of bullying among students

    Addressing the menace of bullying among students

    Bullying, a situation where stronger children prey on the weakness and vulnerability of others, has sadly become a worrisome issue among children in our country, especially those in the secondary schools.

    It is a common phenomenon in Nigerian schools especially, among boarding schools’ students.  Though unacceptable, it is becoming the norm, rather than an aberration and has become very dangerous and bizarre.

    Bullying involves negative physical or verbal actions with hostile intent. It is sometimes intended to cause harm and distress to the victims, and it is repeated over time. It is characterized by a power differential between the bullies and their victims.

    Bullying manifests in many forms, which include harassment, hounding, maltreatment, intimidation, oppression and discrimination among others. It is normally inflicted by the senior students on the juniors. In fact it is seen as a rite of passage in some schools. It is shocking to discover that children that are presumed innocent could perpetrate such evil against fellow youngsters.

    Naturally, compassion, sympathy, empathy, care, kindness, love, and forgiveness, to mention but a few, are usually associated with children.

    Normally, the sight of pain, weakness or vulnerability should elicit compassion among children. Thus, a situation where the reverse is the case signals a deep-rooted problem.

    Globally, the impact of this despicable act among children cannot be over-emphasized. There are cases of children who have become victims of depression, suicidal tendencies, bitterness and hatred as a result of the negative impact of bullying.

    The death of 12 year-old Sylvester Oromomi, a student of  Dowen College, Lekki, as a result of injury sustained in school via physical assault by a group of bullies, has, no doubt, taken bullying to a disturbing dimension in our country.

    It is rather distressing that a life so precious could be snuffed out in such very pathetic circumstances. What could have led to such depravity of character?

    How could such have gone unnoticed in a school setting, which is meant to be a safe haven for children? What form of upbringing and training were these children actually exposed to?

    These and many other questions begging for answers, have been generating a wide range of reactions and ripples across the country. What has actually compounded the whole issue is that many others have been coming out to recount their own diverse tales of bullying.

    In order to reverse the ugly trend, teachers, parents, guardians and caregivers need to be on the lookout for signs of bullying and address them promptly.

    In most cases, the victims of bullying don’t want to speak out or report for fear of the aggressor.  However, there are signals or signs that could readily show that a child is being bullied.

    These include constant loss of personal belongings such as shoes, beverages or socks, which is usually taken by the aggressor. Often, the victim is denied these personal things by the bully, while the parents usually assume that the child was careless.

    Similarly, when you notice unexplainable injury on your wards, you must investigate until you get to the root of the matter. At times, such injuries could be inflicted by the aggressor. Anxiety, withdrawal syndrome and loss of sleep are other notable signs of bullying.

    Read Also: Dowen College and the dawn of a tragedy

    Also, school teachers, caregivers and school owners must be able to account for the whereabouts of every student during school hours and thereafter. A situation where a junior student is serving punishment or locked up somewhere, while classes are on or when siesta is being observed should not be condoned.

    It has been observed that most boarding schools in the country don’t separate junior hostels from seniors’ and most of the bullying takes place in the hostel where the senior is more or less the lord. It is, therefore, necessary to separate the hostels and ensure that any senior found within the residences of the junior is dealt with.

    Specifically, schools must educate students on the ills of bullying and outlaw it. The school system, culture and value should be such that they do not condone or encourage bullying in any way. School prefects should be taught to correct, not to punish; correction doesn’t have to be always punitive.

    It has been estimated that children that bully are mostly from troubled backgrounds, broken homes and might have suffered varied forms of abuse or low self-esteem at one time or the other.

    Every individual is an extension of a home and a family; armed robbers, criminals, terrorists are from a family. Likewise, crime fighters, missionaries, philanthropists, inventors of life changing inventions and the likes are also products of a family.

    Essentially, the family is, perhaps, the most powerful unit of socialization and change in the society. Hence, parents and guardians have a crucial role of imparting morals and ethics in their children/wards.

    This is not to be done by mere teaching or speaking, but by deliberating inculcating vital virtues and norms in the children through positive action and reinforcement because children model their parents.

    As parents, you don’t teach a child to love without showing love to that child. In the same vein, you don’t teach a child kindness without treating people around you with kindness. The way you treat your house helps or domestic workers speak volume and these children learn by example.

    Equally, the way that couples relate with themselves and the children also go a long way in forging a stable loving environment where children can thrive and develop the right emotional, physical and social attributes that will enable them add the right value to the society.

    Accordingly, the society must be seen to promote and encourage principles that engender truth, fairness and equality; children must not only be seen, they must be heard and protected.

    We must all come to realize and accept that when society permits or allows the prey of the innocence and vulnerability of the weak, then it digs its own grave. The society must, therefore, stand up and say no to bully in every ramification.

    • Aruya is Assistant Director, Public Affairs, Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja
  • As Obasanjo chases shadows on Buhari

    As Obasanjo chases shadows on Buhari

    Former President General Olusegun Obasanjo or Baba Iyabo as he is fondly called is one Nigerian that loves to be in the spotlight, giving sermons, criticisms and homilies on self righteousness. Even though he sees the press as mindless and godless folk and placed them in the same category with dogs, Baba still revels in using whatever medium he finds to pontificate on national issues.

    You see Obasanjo as a statesman has a thing for criticizing everybody, a habit he found too pleasant years ago when he was a potbellied military head of state. He loved taking potshots at the nation’s greats and even the likes of Azikiwe and Awolowo were not spared from such diabolical like criticisms.

    Away from power, Obasanjo kept up the boogie, waltzing and traipsing with his Asheju rhythms in which he told every leader who came after him his life history. He chalked up points with the general public for his barbed like litany of polemics, he hemmed and hawed criticizing everything under the Nigerian sun, unfortunately when fate ushered the General in for a second stint as president, the same Obasanjo could not live up to his “talk on policies with a human face” or his disdain for the corrupt elite, Obasanjo’s eight years as president witnessed in monumental proportions the very issues he criticized all for.

    So when an Obasanjo engages in a shadowy denouement of President Buhari’s yet to be completed tenure by stating that the incumbent had done his best to proffer solutions to the security challenges confronting the nation and that expecting more from the Katsina-born retired major general was akin to kicking a dead horse.

    This is vintage Obasanjo, Obasanjo the all knowing, Saint Obasanjo, the man who disappointed his numerous supporters like us so early in his tenure and yet here he is attempting to eclipse the Buhari administration two years to the end of his tenure.

    Obasanjo in that missive simply dismissed whatever hopes Nigerians are expectant of in  President Buhari in terms of security. Now while this is not to say that President Buhari in his six years as President has been on top of his game as our Commander in Chief, in terms of results. it is however common knowledge that no President in the annals of Nigerian history has sought to tackle the nation’s insecurity problems like President Buhari. Critics like Obasanjo who seek to dismiss such efforts by Buhari should simply tell Nigerians how much arms they procured for the Nigerian Army or how well did he or his administration try to boost the morale of the armed forces or other security agencies? What did Obasanjo do with the security reports he received on Mohammed Yusuf’s numerous activities which metamorphosed into Boko Haram, perhaps had Obasanjo being more proactive the NorthEast would not have become a theater of war as presently witnessed.

    So it can be seen that Obasanjo is merely chasing shadows on the performance of President Buhari in terms of security, Obasanjo in his criticism does not even care to proffer solutions on how to help nip the situation in the bud like every statesman worth his salt ought to do. It’s just one form of mindless criticism, to make the incumbent look weak and indecisive.

    Did Obasanjo do anything to nip kidnapping and the series of crisis which his government experienced such as the Plateau crisis or Niger Delta crisis in the bud when he was President ? Did it not take the gentle diplomacy of the late President Umaru Yar Adua to restore peace and normalcy to the area years after Obasanjo had left office? Where is Obasanjo’s scorecard on security, unlike Buhari where are the milestones or achievements of the Obasanjo administration on security? Should I delve into the numerous political assassinations that happened under his watch, including that of his Chief Law Officer, Chief Bola Ige, Marshall Harry, Aminosoari Dikibo and countless others that have today remain unsolved , did these men just drop dead or as Professor Soyinka candidly put it that there were vipers in that nest that did strike inwards?

    Finally, I do not think President Buhari or his coterie of handlers ought to respond to Obasanjo, except by doing more to arrest the ugly situation and rekindle the confidence of the Nigerian public in the government’s efforts to tackle insecurity all over the country. Patriotic Nigerians would love to see Buhari address the disturbing situation in the NorthEast and NorthWest in particular with improved results, this way he would prove naysayers and shadow chasers such as the likes of Obasanjo wrong as well as etch his name in the minds of numerous Nigerians as a man who kept to his promises of delivering Nigeria from the gloomy hold of insecurity.

  • Afenifere and the burden of reconciliation

    Afenifere and the burden of reconciliation

    The deep-seated hostility, rivalry, mutual animosity and protracted egotism among the vestiges of Awoists may continue to either tear apart the ethnic mouthpiece, Afenifere, or progressively weaken the socio-political group.

    For years, fence-mending among the antagonistic members of the polarised and crisis-ridden political family has proved abortive. The tragedy is underscored by the permanent features of the group.

    One: forgiving spirit is alien to the organisation. Two: reconciliation or crisis resolution remains elusive within the group

    An unresolved personality clash resurfaced during the week between two Yoruba progressive elders, who seem to have parted ways a long time ago. Chiefs Ayo Adebanjo (93) and Adebisi Akande (83) are eminent Yoruba nationalists, politicians and Afenifere leaders.

    It is up to their contemporaries in the Awoist camp, who are now few, to broker truce between the two leaders.

    The recent outbursts have implications for the Yoruba group. While Arewa Consultative Group (ACF) is weathering the storm of change in the dynamic society and Ohanaeze Ndigbo is trying to stay afloat in the face of mounting challenges, Afenifere, to say the least, may be static. Unless some steps are taken, the group may face identity crisis in the future.

    The dark side of post-Awolowo era is that the political machinery built by the late sage is now in disarray. Things have fallen apart and the centre cannot hold. Awoists are now scattered across some political parties like sheep without shepherd. The political idea subsists, but the men and women on the field in the Awoist political vineyard are at loggerheads. They are not divided by idea or goal, but by conflicting approaches.

    These erstwhile disciples are locked in the hot race for power and influence.

    The yearly remembrance for Chief Obafemi Awolowo, particularly the Awolowo Foundation lecture, usually brings his loyalists and followers together at Ikenne, Ogun State. They attend as chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressives Congress (APC), Alliance for Democracy (AD), Labour Party (LP), and as members of Afenifere, led by Chief Reuben Fasoranti, and now Acting Leader Adebanjo; Egbe Ilosiwaju Afenifere, led by the late Senators Ayo Fasanmi and Biyi Durojaye, and now by Prince Tajudeen Olusi, as well as the intellectually driven Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), led by Olawale Oshun.

    There is always a reunion among the old ideologues, but there is no more renewal of contact as venerable comrades.

    Also, Awoists in the conservative bloc in the Southwest have joined die-hard reactionary collaborators to wage a curious war against the progressive fold in the zone. Politics of principle seems to have given way to the pursuit of money and other selfish interests.

    Unlike in the past, there is no more clear ideological divide. Afenifere has supported aspirants on conservative platforms, the claim usually being that they are progressives and they are at liberty to seek office.

    The inherent contradictions, ideological slide and lack of consistency have blurred the vision of the once potent platform.

    Afenifere of today is a wide departure from the Afenifere/AG of yore, christened by Adisa Akinloye. Yet, it was the main backbone of NADECO from the Southwest angle during the anti-military struggle.

    However, cracks had appeared on the wall before Awo died. The first test was the split in the defunct Action Group (AG) in 1962, when Awo and Samuel Ladoke Akintola could not agree on principle. Tension brewed between the protagonists of mainstream politics, represented by Akintola, Chief Ayotunde Rosiji, Oba Cladius Akran, Chief Adisa Akinloye and others on the one hand, and Awo, Enahoro, Chief Ohu Akin-Olugbade, Alhaji Soroye Adegbenro, Dr. Samuel Ikoku, Chief Bola Ige and others who loathed fraternity with Northern conservative forces, on the other hand. They could not find a common ground.

    Ahead of the critical party congress in Jos, the Plateau State, Awo and Akintola’s mutual friend, Venerable Emmanuel Alayande, the AG chaplain,  admonished the Party Leader, in a letter, to demonstrate “extreme sacrifice and self-abnegation”. They also suggested that Awo should be less inflexible and more condescending. The party split at the historic Jos Convention and Yoruba became polarised.

    In the Second Republic, the political family faced two challenges. More loyalists, including Enahoro, Joseph Tarka, Akin-Olugbade, Ikoku, Toye Coker, and Akanbi Onitiri left the camp.

    Also, in Remo land, two promising lieutenants – the late Chief Ola Yesufu and Chief Olu Awotesu, who quarrelled with Awo over the Constituent Assembly election of 1978 – moved to join the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN).

    Awo, who had declined to participate in the constitution-making exercise, supported Chief Awoniyi. But Yesufu and other “Awolowo boys” supported Awotesu, who defeated Awoniyi. Reflecting on the incident in his memoir, Yesufu said that Awo later discouraged them from the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) when it was being formed.

    In 1983, the Awo camp was further decimated by the internal struggle for power among deputy governors and commissioners in LOOBO (Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Bendel and Ondo) states. Allies, including Chiefs Akin Omoboriowo, Sunday Afolabi, Soji Odunjo, Busari Adelakun, Joel Babatola, Olawumi Falodun and Sikiru Shitta-Bey, left the bloc.

    A succession battle also broke out among Awo’s loyalists, especially Lagos State Governor Lateef Jakande (aka Baba Kekere), Oyo State Governor Bola Ige, (Arole Awolowo) and Ogun State Governor Bisi Onabanjo (Ayekooto.) Ige’s political career was to be neutralised at the UPN congress in Yola (the then Gongola State capital), when Adelakun reported his romance with former Military Head of State, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, to the party. Obasanjo had waded into the conflict between the former governor and his deputy, Sunday Afolabi.

    To the UPN, that amounted to anti-party activity. Awo saved Ige during that night of long knives. But he held grudges against his colleagues who acted as prosecutors.

    When Onabanjo died, his family complained that the testimony of a top UPN member before the military tribunal made the military to send him to prison where his health deteriorated.

    Following Awo’s demise, the mantle of leadership fell on the former Ondo State governor, Chief Adekunle Ajasin, who was the last President of Egbe Omo Oduduwa. This did not go down well with some young turks who continued to hold meetings in the Ikenne home of the late sage because they felt that the widow, Chief Hannah Dideolu Awolowo, should lead the political family.

    Awo’s children also harboured grudges. When Dr. Tokunbo Dosunmu contested for governor of Lagos, Jakande said he was not ready to serve father and daughter in quick succession.

    At a ceremony in Ibadan, Oluwole Awolowo also canvassed the dynasty route to power, wondering why Nigeria could not take after India and other Asian countries, which made political authority a family inheritance.

    Awo’s men also embraced the dubious transition programme of Ibrahim Babangida regime, despite the sage’s counsel that they should learn to dine with IBB, the “Evil Genius” with a long spoon.

    After Ajasin’s demise, the mantle of Afenifere leadership fell on Senator Abraham Adesanya, a staunch National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) chieftain and man of principle and honour. But the group somersaulted as its prominent members – Jakande, Ebenezer Babatope and Wumi Osomo – were allowed to accept ministerial appointments under the General Sani Abacha regime, following persuasions by the late Chief Moshood Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential poll annulled by IBB.

    When the ministers were asked to withdraw, they refused. Later, Abacha kicked them out of the cabinet. In 1998, they were banned from Afenifere meeting.

    Afenifere/Alliance for Democracy (AD) also ran into turbulence in 1998 at (Walan) D’Rovans Hotel in Ibadan. The 23 wise men rejected Ige in favour of Chief Olu Falae, a former Secretary to the Federal Military Government, at the presidential primary. Their time-tested criteria of age, hierarchy and contributions to the family were jettisoned.

    Apparently to spite the group, Ige accepted a ministerial appointment under President Olusegun Obasanjo. His colleagues distanced themselves from him. Although a plan to suspend him as the deputy leader of the group was mooted, Adesanya objected to the idea. Unfortunately, Ige never returned alive.

    Promptly, there was renewal of old rivalries in the Awolowo political family. Two Afenifere chieftains – Venerable Alayande and Justice Adewale Thompson – rejected Adesanya’s leadership of Afenifere and they became President and Secretary of Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), which people thought had the backing of Ige.

    “Is it because we asked him (Adesanya) to carry the gown of Dingle Foot that he now sees himself as Yoruba leader?” Emmanuel Alayande queried.

    Ige, who was bitter, decided to wield more influence in AD, having lost the confidence of what some called the Ijebu-Igbo “Mafia,” which Wale Oshun described as the “controlling leadership” of Afenifere.

    The former Oyo State governor anointed Ahmed Abdulkadir as AD National Chairman. Alhaji Lam Adesina and Chief Bisi Akande, governors of Oyo and Osun states, also sponsored Michael Koleoso for deputy chairman, thereby robbing Adebanjo of the chance of bouncing back to the position. The Adebanjo, Ganiyu Dawodu, Senator Femi Okunrounmu bloc queued behind Ambassador Tanko Yusuf as chairman.

    The state chapters of Afenifere/AD were also not at peace. Remarkably, many politicians who did not believe in the Awo credo had joined the Afenifere/AD to realise their ambitions. But, even among the old order, there were suspicions.

    In Osun State, Akande and his deputy, Iyiola Omisore, were locked in a war of attrition. In Lagos, there was no love lost between Governor Bola Tinubu and Deputy Governor Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele. In Ondo State, the 2003 governorship battle had divided Governor Adebayo Adefarati, Health Commissioner Olusegun Mimiko and Dr. Akerele Adu. In Ekiti State, there were frictions between Governor Niyi Adebayo and two Afenifere chieftains, Dayo Adeyeye (National Publicity Secretary) and Funminiyi Afuye.

    Fed up with the protracted crises, Afenifere advised deputy governors who could not cope with their bosses to resign. Omisore and Bucknor-Akerele defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    Two Afenifere chieftains warned that the group was running out of ideas. Former Foreign Affairs Minister, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, and another diplomat, Dr. Dapo Fafowora, who had joined the fold, bowed out. They were surprised that Afenifere was not adapting to modern trends and ideas in an age of political dynamism. Akinyemi decried the lack of openness to new ideas.

    “Nigeria and Africa have been plagued with the tensions arising from making a transition from political systems dominated by founding fathers to systems managed by first among equals,” said Akinyemi, whose father, Canon Akinyemi, was an Action Group (AG) regional and Federal legislator.

    Others in Ige’s camp later alleged double standard in the fold, for while Senator Cornelius Adebayo, a non-AD member of Afenifere, was appointed minister by Obasanjo, criticisms by Afenifere did not trail his acceptance of the slot, unlike when Ige accepted a similar offer.

    Also, former Secretary Ayo Opadokun asked to vacate his position for fraternising with a former All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) Kwara State Governor Mohammed Lawal. In 1999, AD and ANPP had teamed up for the presidential election.

    A gale of defections hit Afenifere/AD as from 2002/2003.

    Lagos AD ran into a crisis. Adesanya saw danger coming ahead of the 2003 polls, urging a truce in the chapter. The Olaniwun Ajayi Committee suggested a 60:40 formula for the distribution of appointive and elective offices between the two groups led by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Ganiyu Dawodu. It did not work.

    Afenifere turned its back against Tinubu. Although the organisation endorsed Governors Lam Adesina (Oyo), Segun Osoba (Ogun), Bisi Akande (Osun), Adebayo Adefarati (Ondo) and Niyi Adebayo (Ekiti), they lost their re-election bid. Only Tinubu survived. AD never fielded a presidential candidate, following its controversial pact with former President Obasanjo.

    After the 2003 polls, Ige’s group split as AD prepared for national convention. Akande, backed by Tinubu, and Mojisolowa Akinfenwa, backed by Adebanjo, clashed. At the parallel conventions held in Lagos and Abuja, Akande and Akinfenwa became factional chairmen.

    When Adesanya died, the Acting Leader of Afenifere, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, inherited the crisis. However, at the Akure meeting of the group, Fasoranti declared Akinfenwa as the authentic AD National Chairman, claiming that the convention that produced him appeared to have satisfied laid down guidelines.

    Afenifere/AD was finally balkanised. Akande/Tinubu/Osoba/Adebayo forces rejected the ‘Akure Declaration’. However, by the time a High Court pronounced Koleoso as the authentic chairman, AD had become a shadow of itself. Tinubu and other governors, except Adefarati, formed Action Congress (AC) and other Afenifere leaders floated Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA).

    Then, the battle shifted to Afenifere. Tinubu, Adesina, Akande, Osoba, Olabiyi Durojaye and Niyi Adebayo rejected Fasoranti’s leadership and proclaimed Chief Ayo Fasanmi as Deputy Leader in succession to the late Bola Ige. But Ajayi, Adebanjo, Okunrounmu, Olu Falae and Wumi Adegbonmire insisted that Fasoranti, who was appointed by Adesanya before he passed on, was the leader.

    Fasoranti was named Acting Leader by Adesanya, based on the counsel of Adeyeye and Afuye, who explained that making another Ijebu or Remo man his deputy would make other sub-Yoruba ethnic groups feel that they lacked a sense of belonging.  Both Fasoranti and Fasanmi had joined AG in 1951.

    To reconcile the two Afenifere factions, ARG tried to broker peace at the IITA Hall in Ibadan. The meeting failed. While key members of the two factions appreciated the need for reconciliation, they backed their dream of unity with hypocritical commitment.

    Awo’s widow, Yeyeoba Dideolu, also tried to reconcile the two groups but without success.

    Although Adebanjo’s 80th birthday provided another opportunity for both camps to unite, an inflammatory interview he granted angered Tinubu and Osoba because the octogenarian put the blame for the crisis in Afenifere on the two former governors who he described as new comers into the fold.

    Osoba fired back, saying that he, Peter Ajayi and Felix Adenaike enjoyed recognition from Awo, who fondly called them the “three media musketeers.”

    In 2011, Afenifere pitched tent with the PDP in the Southwest. In 2015, its Controlling Leadership supported the party during the presidential and governorship polls.

    Irked by the misplaced priority,  Fasoranti once resigned as leader, citing indiscipline, membership disloyalty and gradual erosion of the group’s goals. “The youths don’t listen to elders again,” he fumed. He eventually stepped aside on account of old age.

    The solution to Afenifere problems are not beyond reach. The late Durojaye said he had advised Adebanjo to bring all together and subscribe to a peace deal; to foster cohesion.

    The organisation must return to the undiluted vision of its founding fathers: defence of Yoruba interest and the battle for federalism in a diverse, but united, Nigeria.

    The elders should not bequeath to the younger generation a divided and weak group, but an ethnic mouthpiece that will stand the test of time.

  • Between Trump and Duterte: And the beat goes on!

    Between Trump and Duterte: And the beat goes on!

    Exactly a year ago, I averred on this very wall that “Expecting Donald Trump to stop junking the recently concluded US Presidential Election (of November 2020) is akin to hoping for snow to fall in the Equator.”

    And so the beat goes on with never-ending calls for “Stop the Steal” and for Americans to take back their ‘democracy’ by fire and force, and not true democratic elections.

    With all the stench oozing from the emails voluntarily passed on to the January 6 Insurrection ad hoc investigative panel by Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, before his lord and master ordered him to stop cooperating, it is now clear that most people in Trump’s camp – his eldest son, Fox TV hosts, etc – initially perceived the insurrection the way the rest of the world did.

    The released email messages clearly showed that they were all pleading with Meadows – the only official who could reach Trump during that chaotic period – to get the then-president to exhibit leadership because “the situation was getting ugly and out of control.”

    Even the GOP leader in the House of Reps, Kevin McCarthy, and his counterpart in the Senate, Mitch McConnel, publicly accused Trump of inciting the insurrectionists in their respective chambers on Capitol Hill.

    But they all shortly shamelessly swallowed their words and started singing a new song and dancing to the beat of the master puppeteer in the nearby GOP bush. They never knew that a day of reckoning would come when all the dirty secrets would be exposed to the American public.

    A released email even showed a yet-to-be-unveiled Congressman profusely apologizing to Trump via Meadows because “We tried everything we could (to destroy over 200 years of American democracy) but it just didn’t work”!

    Shame to the Republican Party whose values, principles, and grandeur have since gone to the dogs.

    But while the purported global bastion of Democracy is showcasing how not to practice democracy, a 3rd World (shithole?) country like Philipines, where a mindless dictator called Rodrigo Duterte rules with an iron fist, is refreshingly making a real difference.

    Duterte seems to have lost his political footing after his plan on two occasions to engineer a friendly succession for his handpicked successor totally flew out of the window.

    Duterte first planned to use federal might to make his daughter, Sara, mayor of the southern Davao city stronghold of her father (her brother is now slated to succeed her), run for the presidency but she baulked, choosing instead to run as vice-presidential running mate of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the late Philipines dictator ousted in a 1986 “people power” pro-democracy uprising given life by Catholic Archbishop of Manilla, Cardinal Sin, amid unspecified differences with her father.

    While the American experience is teaching us that political candidates must never accept the results of an election unless they are declared the winners, that of Philipines is showcasing the suzerainty of the electorate. The mood of the populace forced a very powerful autocratic president to cave in.

    Compare that to Nigeria where governors see the Senate as a retirement home once they end their gubernatorial tenure. They just go there to sleep, collect their monthly/yearly pensions as it were, and do little or nothing to improve the welfare of their constituents. But their ‘shuffering and shmiling’ constituents are the same ones who will dash them landslide electoral victories again and again. Who is really fooling who?

    Another lesson we ought to imbibe from the Philipines/Duterte case is that the only thing that matters in politics is permanent interests, not permanent friendship or loyalty. But try telling that to one or two political zones in Nigeria and you will be hit with a fusillade of abuses and curses.

    The Ferdinand Marcos clan and the Dutertes are sworn political enemies but just see how Sara courageously broke the mould of bitterness, antagonism, and hatred.

    During the first republic, Alvan Ikoku, the consummate educator, and his irrepressible radical son, Goomsu, were in the National Convention of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and the Action Group (AG) respectively and the heavens didn’t fall.

    The same thing happened in the second republic when Wahab Dosunmu, a federal minister, and his elder brother, chairman of the board of Eko Hotels, were in the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) respectively and still maintained an amiable sibling rivalry.

    How did matters retrogress over the years to the point that the falcon is now contemptuously and derisively refusing to hear the falconer and the centre can no longer hold? These days, it has become a question of do-or-die politics. How do we recover from this rot?

    Politics is about numbers and building winning coalitions. If any zone fails to do that then it must be ready to produce “hewers of wood and fetchers of water” and keep screaming ‘marginalisation’ until the cows come home!

    Duterte next wanted his former Chief of Staff and now a sitting senator, Christopher ‘Bong’ Go, to run in his daughter’s stead. However, after initially filing the nomination papers, the senator announced on Monday that he was withdrawing his candidacy because his family has seriously frowned against the move and the national mood wasn’t inclement.

    Late in the night of that same day, Duterte who had filed nomination papers to contest a senatorial seat – a volte-face from his pledge to retire to his farm and not ever run for elective office again – was forced to make another U-turn when he conceded that opinion polls showed that a vast majority of Filipinos hated the idea.

    Political pundits contend that, just as conscienceless and unscrupulous politicians with foul-smelling skeletons in their wardrobes are known to do in Nigeria, Duterte is simply manoeuvring to remain politically relevant in order to sidestep the International Criminal Court investigation of his gruesome so-called “war against drugs” as well as a barrage of lawsuits expected to hit him as soon as he lives office.

    It is telling that both men – Trump and Duterte – who insufferably talk and act like Siamese twins and two peas in a pod when it has to do with how they perceive politics and governance have totally opposite elastic limits when it comes to appreciating reapolitik.

    I can categorically declare that If we don’t mend our ways very quickly in Nigeria, all the clamour for President Buhari to sign the new Electoral Bill into law would amount to wishful thinking because pouring new wine in old wine skin would avail little as long as politicians continue to carry on with their lying, treacherous acts and the Nigerian electorate continues to give block votes like zombies.

    I don’t see any solution in sight. However, let me at least congratulate you the readers on seeing the month of December because if you think of the numbers of people blood-thirsty bandits have despatched to the world beyond since January till now, you ought to be thanking Almighty God that you’re not part of another abstract statistics.

    As my spiritual mentor is wont to say: “To be ungrateful is to remain a great fool!”

    Happy Yuletide celebrations y’all!

  • Vicious cycle of petroleum subsidy and naira devaluation

    Vicious cycle of petroleum subsidy and naira devaluation

    The twin evil of petroleum subsidy and naira devaluation manifested during Ibrahim Babangida military administration. In fact, the two were part of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) draconian conditions to grant our request for loan of 2.4billion naira, equivalent of 2.4billion dollar when naira was NAIRA. In April, 1983, the country’s application for the 2.4billion naira loan was formally presented to the IMF. But negotiations dragged over a number of unacceptable conditions prescribed by the fund. Among these were:

    *Reduction of government subsidies, especially on Petroleum products.

    *Trade Liberalisation and adjustment of naira exchange rate commonly known as devaluation.

    Alhaji Shehu Shagari whose administration initiated the move, started the implementation of some of the conditions through the imposition of austerity measures. The discontent generated by the austerity measures was part of the reasons for the ouster of Shagari through a military coup that saw Muhammadu Buhari’s first coming as head of state. Buhari on assuming office had to grapple with the problem of satisfying the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians and maintaining economic programs acceptable to the IMF. Buhari knew as did many Nigerians that the IMF conditions for devaluation of Naira, trade liberalisation and lifting of petroleum subsidies were not in the best interest of Nigeria. The feeling of majority of Nigerians about the IMF conditionality was summed up by the Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters, Major General Tunde Idiagbon. He told the Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Garret Lambert, who paid him a courtesy call at Dodan Barracks, “I don’t like the IMF both in principle and in practice.” He told the High Commissioner that the conditions given by the IMF before granting loans to Nigeria were unacceptable. Watchers of international affairs knew that the statements were politically expensive. We woke up on the early hours of 27th August, 1985 to hear of a military coup replacing Buahri’s administration with Major General Ibrahim Babangida.

    Babangida set up a committee to organise public debate to determine the desirability or otherwise of the IMF loan. The IMF debate kicked off as planned and ushered in a new dispensation, converting all and sundry to emergency economists. The argument ranged from outright rejection to cautious approval. Babangida announced the end of the IMF debate, with a NO to the IMF loan, but concealed his administration’s intention to implement the IMF conditionality; even as Nigerians lauded the rejection of the loan…

    Read Also:Union to Fed Govt: don’t remove subsidy on petroleum products

    Babngida administration skilfully started the implementation of the IMF conditions. It announced what it called partial withdrawal of Petroleum subsidy, by raising the pump price of gasoline (petrol) and diesel oil. Import liberalisation was introduced through the government announcement that the use of import licence for goods coming into the country would gradually be phased out. It was obvious that curtailing frivolous and reckless importation would be difficult. In the estimation of the government, the naira has been overvalued. It therefore, announced that it would continue its policy of realistic adjustment of the external value of the naira, with a view to reducing the degree of over-valuation. All these measures came under what was christened Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). For the devaluation of the naira, the government introduced Second Tier Foreign Exchange Market (SFEM) and this started on September 29, 1986. That was the day of the first bidding as one American dollar could fetch as much as 4.7Naira and one British pound 6.7Naira. The staggering revelation did not help the already over-inflated price-tags in the local market. Government painstakingly defended SFEM, and continued in its determined move to find the “realistic” value of the Naira. But some of its programs received the bashing of SFEM. One of its programs that suffered setbacks was the pricing of petroleum products locally. As the value of the naira dropped further, more subsidies emerged. And to achieve government goals in the area of subsidy removal, the resulting subsidies must be removed. So, government usually schemed to remove part or whole of the resulting oil subsidy. These have been replicated by subsequent administrations in the country. I don’t envy Buhari at all, as circumstances force him to accept what his military administration rejected. Quite, Nigerians have right to protest the new plan to remove subsidy, but we must realise from the brief history, that subsidy removal goes with Naira depreciation. So, the truth is that as long as we continue searching for the realistic value of the Naira, so long shall we continue the search for the appropriate pricing of petroleum products. In other words, as the Naira continues to depreciate, so will the so-called subsidies continue to emerge and these as part of the economic imbroglio, must always be removed. It is a vicious circle. So, appropriate pricing of the petroleum products should be seen as part of the new economic order.

    Nonetheless, we could ameliorate the situation through some measures, such as diversification of the economy to increase foreign exchange earnings. Until the discovery of oil in Nigeria in 1958, agriculture was the country’s mainstay of the economy with different regions boasting of different cash crops like groundnut, cocoa, rubber, palm oil produce and many more. Then, the country was a net exporter of food and earned most of its foreign exchange from agricultural produce. The economic potentials lying untapped in the solid minerals sector are enormous, and can completely transform the economic fortunes of the country.

    We should resuscitate the four government owned refineries through Public Private Partnership (PPP). Public Private Partnership is a contractual arrangement which is formed between public and private sector partners which involve the private sector in the development, financing, ownership, and or operation of a public facility or service.

    One critical aspect worth realigning is our insatiable and voracious appetite for foreign and imported goods. We need a major shift and attitudinal overhaul from our preference for imported goods to the detriment of our local contents.

     

    • Onovo writes from Plot 18 Whitesand Avenue, Lekki, Lagos. Tel: 08184553078,

    Email:  jekwuonovo@gmail.com     

     

  • Decline of values and political culture in Nigeria

    Decline of values and political culture in Nigeria

    The history of Nigeria’s politics since the coming into being of the Fourth Republic, like its earlier democratic experiments has shown intractable but avoidable defects and deficits in the practice of participatory democracy. To interrogate this ugly phenomenon, this essay will focus primarily on the role played by undemocratic attitudes, unwholesome values, objectionable beliefs, and sentiment, in short, the declining values and political culture, ‘ala Nigeriana’.

    The impetus for this discourse is borne out by the incessant, reoccurring incidences of fraudulent, dishonest, and sometimes violent elections in Nigeria which has culminated in engendering undemocratic attitudes, values, and behavioural patterns that the politicians carry into the political terrain.

    Values are a set of shared beliefs, convictions, and attitudinal dispositions and supportive idiosyncrasies, towards the socio-political system in the society. Yet there is sometimes a significant disconnect between what Nigerians are willing to uphold in principle and how they behave in practice.

    There are certain requisite political norms, orientation and attitudes that create and sustain the environment for credible and democratic political evolution. This unfortunately is lacking in the Nigerian political space.

    On the contrary, what we have, is a situation where electoral competitors engage the electoral process and system with anti-democratic values and attitudes that frustrate the enthronement and attainment of political development in Nigeria.

    From the colonial period, Nigeria has conducted about 21 general elections to date:  Apart from the inconclusive June 12 elections of 1993, they were all congenitally marred by electoral corruption.

    There is a consensus that the integrity of elections has been on the decline since 1959 with the 2007 general elections widely assessed by both local and international observers as the worst in the country’s history.

    Electoral crisis in Nigeria has been attributed to several factors which includes weak electoral laws and institutions, lack of independence and bias of the electoral umpire, long years of military involvement in politics and several other factors.

    Any meaningful explanation of the phenomenon of ‘declining political culture’ must therefore begin with a conceptualization of the generic term, ‘political culture’. This refers to the dominant pattern of orientations or popular attitudes to the political system, its processes, and institutions, among the members of that nation. In other words, political culture consists of people’s shared, learned beliefs about their political system and their role within that system.

    Political culture influences the way people see their political world and what they expect from it.

    Political culture has normative and subjective qualities. It is about the ideals that influence citizens’ perceptions about how governance ought to be carried out. It is this subjective realm which underlines and gives meaning to political activities as well as the level of the citizens’ involvement in the politics of the state.

    There are three types of political culture: Parochial, Subject and Participant.

    In parochial political cultures, there is poor political socialization, and the citizens are apathetic towards government, its structures, functions, and its functionaries;  leading to poor political participation on the part of the people.

    Participant political culture on the other hand, is geared towards active involvement of the citizens in government. Unfortunately, what we have here since the departure of the military has been a politics of de-participation. Connoting a nonchalant attitude to the political process: A disposition borne out of despondency and frustration.

    It is the major cause of low-voter turnout, exemplified by the recent Anambra gubernatorial election with less than 25% of the electorate voting. It was an election without the electorate.

    The 2019 presidential election recorded the lowest turnout of voters in the history of recorded elections in Africa, with a 34% turnout. States such as Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi witnessed the lowest turnout, with less than 30 per cent of their registered voters marking the ballot. This is in stark contrast to 1999 when 70 per cent of all registered voters turned out to usher in Nigeria’s new democracy. In 2015, the lowest turnout recorded was about 42 per cent, owing to issues such as voter apathy and the heavy activity of Boko Haram in the Northeast. The average, so far, has remained consistent at 34.7%.

    Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman in a report this year said voter turnout across Nigeria hovered around 30 to 35 percent of registered voters in the last two electoral cycles. He cited the case of a recorded 8.3 per cent voter turnout in an urban constituency of over 1.2 million located in the nation’s most densely populated city.

    The INEC Chairman, Yakubu said that some CSOs had submitted reports to the commission concerned about the declining voter turnout in elections in Nigeria.

    No doubt, military dictatorship engendered a subject political culture because of the restricted channel for political participation. The input of the people does not count to a great extent in terms of determining who gets what, when and how. This is unhygienic for the growth of democratic governance.

    In similar vein, the polity that is dominated by subject political culture are passive as they see themselves as subjects of government rather than participants.

    Nigerian political turf is dominated by parochial and subject political cultures. The citizens do not voluntarily and effectively participate in the political system and its processes because they are highly cynical and distrustful of their political leaders. They are also not loyal and proud of the political system because the system is not fair and responsive to their interest.

    Moreover, it is hard to argue that elections have promoted positive change in the country. Nearly every elected government has underperformed. Successive governments have failed to reduce poverty, build infrastructure, and maintain law & order. Instead, Nigeria seems to be regressing.

    Apart from the citizens, the leaders  are not patriotic or nationalistic and altruistic in outlook. They are always ready and willing to sacrifice the democratic tenet of the rule of law to grab and sustain political power.

    In their struggle for power, the citizens are seen as pawns to be used, abused, and dumped. This explains why elections in Nigeria are characterised by electoral corruption, violence and the abuse and usurpation of the inalienable rights of the citizens to decide who will govern them.

    The products of undemocratic elections are distinctively exclusive, dictatorial, lawless, corrupt, predatory, and unresponsive to the needs and yearnings of the populace; the ultimate outcome is governance that falls short of the expectations and needs of the people.

    Governance in Nigeria seems to be a zero-sum game producing leaders as winners and electorate as absolute losers. This pseudo-reality has shaped voter behaviour during election cycles, eroding the moral zeal to vote. With a long history of disappointment, individuals who choose not to participate in political activities can be forgiven for treating elections without reverence.

    It can be argued that those who vote do so out of moral suasion, selfish agendas, or a distant hope that their vote would somehow make a difference.

    Like in other post-colonial states, the political class is associated with the culture of using political power for primitive accumulation of wealth. It is an acknowledged fact that the wealthiest people in Nigeria are generally people who have acquired wealth through mismanagement and unlawful use of state power and resources.

    However, there is a historical context and explanation of the undemocratic culture and politics associated with Nigeria’s political class. It is traceable to the origin of the Nigerian state. The Nigerian state is a creation of colonial capitalism, which was charged with the singular aim of exploiting the country’s people and resources. To enable the state, achieve its major objective, it became totalitarian, brutish, pervasive, and predatory. The colonial state’s politics was also divisive as well as it alienated the people.

    The post-colonial Nigerian state, rather than change the exploitative nature of the state, bestowed on it by colonialism, assumed the character of its predecessor and continued with its policies and politics of dis-empowerment and exploitation.

    As a result of its distorted growth under colonialism, the Nigeria ruling class is economically unproductive and weak. Lacking an economic base, the Nigerian ruling class has used political power, particularly the control of state power, to amass wealth to consolidate its material base to the extent that political power is now the established way to wealth. Thus, the capture of the state power inevitably becomes a matter of life and death. This is the primary reason why the struggle among political elites is so intense, anarchic, and violent.

    They compromised participatory and inclusive democracy as well as replaced the rule of law with the whims and caprices of men.

  • On money rituals, logic and life

    On money rituals, logic and life

    Just some few days ago—Thursday, December 2, 2021—and in her Punch column and article titled “The logic of what Nigerians call ‘money rituals’,” Abimbola Adelakun in her usual incisive manner attempts to pierce through the conceptual and existential fog that suffuse the idea of money rituals that has captured the imagination of Nigerians. Any violent death becomes all the more sensational because, in the people’s imagination, it could only have been due to the senselessness of those who violate the sacredness of human life in search of the charm or portion that will make them stupendously rich. And in the Nigerian post-independence context of extreme poverty and unrelenting underdevelopment and infrastructural deficit, such killings and the hype that surrounds them become all the more pronounced. Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its global economic implications, so many Nigerians—about 11 million from the last statistical update—have now been further pushed below the poverty line.

    The “logic” in Adelakun’s article refers to the rationality of trying to piece together the relationship between the ascendancy of the money ritual phenomenon and the depth of existential crisis in the lives of Nigerians that makes the appeal to money ritual meaningful for them. Abimbola connects the logic of the belief to the possibility of becoming rich through ritual killing to the parlous state of governance in Nigeria. For her, “there is nothing like money rituals. By that, I mean there is nowhere in the history of humankind where anybody has made cash appear through magic means.” What is the case, however, is that the sensational nature of the violent ritual killing generates what she calls “an economy of belief” that instigates a trade in human parts. Thus, the more violent ritual killing is hyped, the more people belief that others participate in it because it is efficacious, and the more those who benefits in the trading in human parts oil the demand and supply chain.

    This logic seems unassailable. In other words, Nigeria’s precarious situation creates all manner of terrible beliefs and practices that are, to say the least, incredulous. I am too much of a political scientist, and not too taken by my Christianity, not to notice, for instance, the role that Pentecostalism has played in accentuating Nigerians’ belief in the spiritual, and the spin that this provides for all endeavors in life. In deep poverty, the miraculous seems like the way out of the terrible grip of ill-fortune and bad luck—or an economic situation that has remained unfavorable for many years without relenting. And this is made all the more poignant by the power of the media and its unrelenting projections of possibilities, either through prophesies, miracles, prosperity theology, betting, lottery and the possibility of being instant billionaires. Thus, if government has not been able to undermine the infrastructural deficit that undergird the bad governance that has trapped Nigerians in impoverishment, then heavens help those who help themselves. The tragedy of this slogan is that in helping oneself, one is forced to lay waste the lives of others in the belief in the capacity of magic to conjure money out of the body parts of those brutally murdered.

    While saying “there is nothing like money rituals” assumes logic, and the logic of economic calculation, it is to assume too much about the capacity of logic to explain the whole of life and its many mysterious and dark crevices. These dark crevices are then wrapped differently in cultural knowledge and practices that people turn to for a coping mechanism that makes life meaningful in the midst of the vicissitudes of human existence. Professor Toyin Falola’s response would be for anyone not to disregard the strength and tenacity of what he calls cultural cognition. Cultural worldviews make people amenable to different beliefs and practices that do not need logic or reason to flourish. In simple terms: what people believe is what people believe. And what people chose to believe cannot be undermined by the disruptive strength of abstract and cold logic, like the one deployed by Abimbola Adelakun. That article, read by millions of people will not stop ritual killings, or the belief in it. What would rather happen is that those who read it would likely shake their heads in consternation: how could anyone say there is no money rituals? And a possible answer from them would likely be: well, only someone who is well-to-do and lives in oyinbo land.

    Can logic encapsulate the whole of life? That is by itself a logical impossibility. And this is why the line of discourse Adelakun has started is not something she is equipped to carry sufficiently by far, by the logic of her logical explanation. And this is because that logic obviates the possibilities of those realms that different faiths and religions gesture at, the realms that occultic practices take for granted, and the realms that even philosophy dares not disregard. One foundation for the intellectual and perceptive fame of Karl Marx is the argument that religion is the opium of the people. Religions and their liturgical practices, for him, perpetuate the oppressive dynamics of capitalism. However, religions all across the world also give tremendous hope and courage to billions of people across the world. And that hope is hinged on the eschatological possibility—a realm that no one can ever logically affirm or disaffirm. Many have been able to live and bear the utmost Sisyphean burden with that singular hope in the hereafter.

    To say “there is nothing like money rituals” is to say there is nothing like mysticism and occultism. Indeed, to stretch the logic of that denial, it is to say there is nothing like “God.” And the idea of God is central to many occultic and mystical explanation about life and the deeper underbelly of life and reality. Many believe that there is a mystical side to the nature of God. There are Christians who believe in what philosophers call the transubstantiation of substances—the transformation, for instance, of the water and the wine into the body and the blood of Jesus Christ once they are consumed in the Holy Communion. What about the mystical explanation of the Trinity that sustains the existence of the belief of many Christians? How about the account in the gospel of St. Matthew chapter 17: 24-27 and the mystery of Christ conjuring a four-drachma coin from the mouth of a fish at the lake of Galilee so he could pay his tax?  Indeed, the very evolution of Christianity itself and its theologies of the existence of God is founded on mystical events and incidences. We come to the knowledge of God through a mystical experience of knowing him. Here, science and reason fall far short of what is possible.

    Many others, like Lobsang Rampa, believe in mystical transformations. Cyril Henry Hoskins—popularly known as Lobsang Rampa, was the world’s most famous mediator of Tibetan mysticism. But his mediation began with his belief that his body was taken over by the Tibetan mystic, Rampa. Thus, what others saw as an identity confusion, and a possible psychotic disorder, he saw as a mystical event. And on the basis of that belief, Lobsang Rampa produced series of insights and lessons about spiritual consciousness, and the relationship of the self with others, that makes Tibetan mysticism a form of non-violent religion that could heal the world of its violent anxieties. Lobsang Rampa’s elucidation of the idea of the “third eye” points at the possibility of an insightful perception that transcends normal sight—the gateway to deeper enlightenment.

    Outside of the arrogance of scientific explanation, the universe is suffused in mysteries. Philosophy, with its inherent skeptical orientation, is open-minded sufficiently to allow for alternatives to logical and scientific explanation—like a mystical or intuitive knowledge of the universe. Philosophical open-mindedness demands that science, logic and reason must be aware of their limitations in the understanding of the mysteries of life. Within the Nigerian context of bad governance, the irrational often trumps the rational. And the irrational possesses its own logic that is not just explainable by the rational.

    Violent ritual killing is bad business. It totally violates the sacredness of human lives and the sacred order of the human society. There is no society that can make any progress in terms of decency as a marker of cultural enlightenment if the killing of others is a means to wealth-making (rather than an entrepreneurial and innovative spirit). And the logic behind Abimbola Adelakun article is to undermine such a tragic phenomenon by appealing to reason, by pointing out how illogical such a belief is. This is admirable, as it goes. The point however is that both logic and the law (to the extent that the latter is also founded on logic) are powerless to serve as the basis of dissuading those who would not be dissuaded from their culturally cognized perception of the world and their place in it. Of course, the law has the power to nip in the bud any attempt at senseless killing in the name of making money. Maybe that is all that is needed to stop ritual killing in its track. And this is because people will keep believing what they want to believe.

  • Justice for Citizen Itunu and Sylvester Oromoni

    Justice for Citizen Itunu and Sylvester Oromoni

    I first came across the Citizen Ituunu’s story when I stumbled upon a tweet in which her travails in the hands of the Ivorian Police were mentioned, I assumed that our authorities here would intervene and get Ituunu out of the Ivorian gaol like every respectable nation ought to do. Sadly, this was not to be as I again stumbled on the news story which announced Ituunu’s demise. The poor lady had died in sordid circumstances in the Ivorian gaol while the Nigerian authorities did little or nothing to come to her aid.

    Citizen Ituunu like every other Nigerian had sought to find greener pastures in Cote D Ivorie only to have her home burgled and goods worth 300,000 Naira stolen from her home. Somehow, she was able to make out who the culprit was and reported the matter to the police there, in the mix of things the culprit’s relation, who is a police officer invited Ituunu and offered her 100,000 Naira as compensation for her goods which were originally valued at 300,000, Ituunu declined the offer and insisted on a better deal, she was later framed up on trumped up charges of  human trafficking and sentenced to twenty years in prison.

    Now, while the Nigerian authorities in NIDCOM  have explained their own efforts to help Ituunu before her demise, efforts such as getting her a lawyer, paying a part of the legal fees and seeking also the intervention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I am of the opinion that for NIDCOM to have had five months from when Citizen Ituunu’s unjust incarceration was brought to its notice and yet it could not get her out simply spells out the incompetence of the people handling her case.

    What stopped NIDCOM from bringing the matter to the nation’s diplomatic spotlight as any serious nation would do? Where efforts made to inform the Minister for Foreign Affairs who would then reach out to his Ivorian counterpart and see both nations reaching some amicable settlement restoring Ituunu’s freedom and dignity while she was still alive. Could it be that NIDCOM enmeshed in its superiority battle with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a battle so inordinate and much capable of hurting the nation’s attainment of its foreign policy goals, had decided to go about the Ituunu affair alone without the input of the Ministry? I may be wrong but NIDCOM surely has some serious explaining to do.

    Citizen Ituunu surely did not deserve to die, as a citizen of Nigeria, the acclaimed Giant of Africa, it is the duty of the Nation to protect its citizenry within and outside its borders, the nation failed Ituunu just as it has failed numerous of its citizens.

    Had Ituunu high ranking status or was the child of a big man in Nigeria, I am sure the Nigerian authorities would have swung into a blitzkrieg of foreign policy overtures to see her released. Had she some high ranking official as a relation, I am sure no stone would have been unturned to see her immediate release, we have sadly become a country of two nations.

    Nevertheless, I hope the authorities will live up to their promises of getting justice for her, perhaps they could use such as some form of atonement for their initial shambolic handling of the matter. Ituunu’s treatment I am sure breached a number of protocols and conventions for which the Ivory Coast is a signatory to. It is indeed about time the Nigerian nation begins to move its weight as the giant of Africa, otherwise Ituunu like every other case before now would be said to have died in vain.

    The case of Sylvester Oromoni, the twelve year old student of Dowen College who died recently is also a cry for justice. Such justice though when served should make examples and scapegoats of certain persons.

    In the case of Sylvester Oromoni, heads should begin to roll in Dowen College since it seems the college authorities there are bent on covering up the truth on how the poor boy died. I mean it is not enough that they failed to arrest the situation before the poor boy met his demise, this is despite the fact that a number of complaints had been filed to the college authorities with the authorities glossing over such complaints.

    More frustrating is the statement emanating from the Management of Dowen College which claimed that Sylvester was injured while playing football. How an injury sustained while playing football results into what we witnessed in the gory video of Sylvester with blood in his mouth, swollen legs and a bloated stomach is suggestive of an attempt by Dowen’s authorities to cover up its own mess. Thankfully the real reasons behind the poor boy’s demise will soon be public, but till then every voice must continue to seek justice for Sylvester Oromoni.