By Ethelbert  Okere

 

A popular aphorism among the Yoruba has it that only a bastard uses the left finger to point at his father’s house. I am yet to find out the full meaning of this saying but I can for now interpret it to mean that a bastard, not knowing his father in the first place, would be fidgeting least the real son of the father he claims to be his shows up.  I do not know if there is an equivalence of it among the Igbo but no matter, I think the saying finds a good expression in the way and manner some so called Igbo critics have been reacting to the proclamation of Ebubeagu by the governors of the Southeast states.

I liken the scenario of the restless child with the fact that most of the so-called (Igbo) critics of Ebubeagu have been going about it nervously, evidently showing a dilemma over whether to be for or be against it. My own brother, Sam Amadi, was perhaps the first to betray this tendency. Barely an hour after news went out last Sunday that the five Southeast governors had proclaimed the formation of a security outfit for the zone to be known as Ebubeagu, Amadi made the following comment on Facebook. “Ebube Agu! What a name. Great!”

Yet, a few hours later, Amadi made a long post on Facebook as follows: “I have read the communiqué of the Southeast governors meeting on security in the region. I am sorry to say that I am not IMPRESSED (emphasis mine) with both the quality of thinking and political will displayed by the document”. He went further to say: “This communiqué is almost nonsensical”.

After these apparent contradictions, Amadi then wrote: “I was already rejoicing that Ebubeagu has come to protect the Southeast so there will be no need for a private security outfit ESN. Now I have read the communiqué and hereby withdraw my excitement”

Of course, Amadi had and has the right to change his mind but one thing he cannot change is that he made both the first and second comments in haste, as I have already told him in a previous comment also on Facebook.

I appreciate his honesty in admitting that he was initially excited but what I do not understand is why a social commentator and intellectual of Amadi’s standing would get that excited over a matter without getting the full story. It does not matter to me that he initially jumped up in praise of “Ebubeagu”, my worry is that he got excited without getting the full story. Objective critics and commentators do not get carried away by a mere wind of an issue. They wait until the whole matter plays out before going to town. Needless to say, Amadi will no longer find it easy to accuse others of going into “hasty” conclusions. Beyond him, however, it is this tendency to jump at issues that is the bane of public commentary among so many Igbo critics and social commentators.

In a previous article, he accused Imo state governor, Senator  Hope Uzodimma, of making “hasty” conclusions on the Owerri Correctional Centre attack and that the conclusions were “based on prejudices and preconceptions”. Today, he also stands accused of the same prejudices and misconceptions especially going by his subsequent posturing after reading and – expectedly  –  digesting the communiqué. He wrote: “If I know my beloved governors well, there will be no “Ebubeagu” at least not as an organized and equipped force. It will end as another PR gambit or it ends as a file pushing entity in Enugu where some beloved associates earn some salary… these governors are not engaged at all in solving difficult problems”.

I then ask: what worse preconception and prejudice than this can anyone have? A fellow  mentioned that Amadi changed his mind after a former governor of Imo state called him to register his disappointment over his, Amadi’s, hasty support for Ebubeagu. I cannot take that to the bank even though I know that he was an appointee in the administration of His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, the immediate past governor of Imo state, and that he is currently an arrow head in the former’s image management team. The above passage was Amadi’s response to insinuations that Ebubeagu will clash with the Eastern Security Network (ESN), a non state outfit around which some controversies arose sometime ago. Just like that? Not even sparing a second to contemplate a way out.

Amadi or any other fellow is free to insult the governors since we are in a ‘democracy’ but I make bold to state that his comment amounts to a talk down on the entire Igbo. To write off five governors as so inconsequential is a clear assault on the collective psyche of Ndigbo, no matter his grievances over certain matters in his home state, Imo. Critics like him elsewhere have their own personal scores to settle with political actors in their states but they do not, on a day like this and on a matter as sensitive as the instant one, openly ridicule their entire race.

Let me, for purposes of illustration, reproduce a passage from an article by Dr. Reuben Abati, a well known critic and writer, probably of Amadi’s caliber, on the formation of Amotekun, a similar security outfit in the Southwest. In an article on January 21, 2020 about two weeks after Amotekun was proclaimed, Abati wrote: “What the governors of the Southwest have demonstrated is that they have a “Responsibility to Protect” their people. Their recognition of that responsibility can only be meaningful in terms of intervention hence Operation Amotekun. They deserve to be commended and not harassed by an over-bearing federal government interpreting the law rather selectively …” (This Day Tuesday January 21, 2020).

Abati, a hard hitting journalist of several years who has maintained one of the best newspaper columns in the country, could by no means be the best of friends of all the six governors of the Southwest. If anything, he was a deputy governorship candidate in the 2019 general election in his state Ogun, and if we know how elections go, it would be surprising if Abati has made up with those he slugged it out with, including the fellow who won the election.

So, it is most unlikely that Amadi, who was a mere governorship aspirant in  the All Progressives Grand Alliance, (APGA) would be more aggrieved than Abati who threw the regrets of that set back aside to encourage the governors of  his home region over the very vexatious issue of insecurity. Yet, witness Abati’s level headedness in approaching the matter.

That is not all. As against the sheer vitriolic and violence with which the likes of Amadi have descended on their own kit and kin, here is what Abati, from far away Yoruba land, wrote  about Ebubeagu. “What would be IGP Usman Baba’s response to Ebubeagu? The timing of the initiative is striking. The Southeast governors did not even give Baba enough time to settle down in his new office. Given the worsening security situation in their region the stand on a high moral ground “ (Thisday Newspaper, Tuesday April 13, 2021). Does this not settle the matter that Southeast governors have been afraid of proclaiming a regional outfit for their area?

In the frenzy over Ebubeagu, these Igbo critics have inadvertently repudiated their Igboness, or at best sounding as returnees from Equatorial Guinea or Liberia. A faceless group that goes by the name, Inter Society, through its spokesman, one Emeka Umeagbalasi,  an entirely unknown fellow, made the following statement on Ebubeagu: “Ebubeagu is inspired by the caliphate to truncate or weaken non-state actor arrangements. The outfit can never operate successfully in the Southeast where 100% of top security, especially military and police, are in the hands of officers from other regions most of who are Muslims of Fulani-Hausa extraction”. The question to ask is: Are all the heads of security agencies in the Southwest where Amotekun operates indigenes of the Southwest itself?

Then there is one Ozioma Izuora, an Abuja-base lawyer, according to a newspaper report, who wrote that Ebubeagu “… does not exist at the moment. That was not how Amotekun was established. There has to be enabling laws first”. This comparison is, however, drawn from her ignorance of what actually happened in the Southwest; in that it was only after the governors proclaimed Amotekun that the different State Houses of Assembly enacted laws backing it.

Even the query over the nonexistent of a law backing the ban on open grazing is misplaced. Yes, the Benue state government made a law prohibiting open grazing but it had earlier made a pronouncement of that before the law was enacted. I ask: what makes these Igbo critics believe that the five Southeast governors are that daft that they do not know that there has to be an enabling law? Must we make a song and dance out everything in Igboland? Must we continue to be this despondent? No government reveals its strategies on security openly but alas, our Igbo critics wanted the governors to reveal all their plans in a mere four- page communiqué.

It is possible that some of these critics feel aggrieved because, as brilliant lawyers and public affairs commentators, they have not been brought in by their respective state governments on the matter. But perhaps they are not aware that there exist in each of the five states Attorneys-General who are among the brightest in the country. It is preposterous for these so called critics to assume that the state Attorneys-General do not know that laws are needed.

If these activists had taken some time to inquire – and not post hasty comments on the social media –  they would have been told that a draft bill on open grazing already exist in each of the five states of the Southeast, waiting for enactment. They would have been told that for the past one year, the Attorneys-General of the five states have been meeting on the matter and that the final draft was made not too long ago. They would, therefore, have learnt that the governors wanted to arm themselves properly before making their pronouncements last Sunday.

 

By Tunji Olaopa

 

The plural status quo of the Nigerian state gives rise to series of discursive issues from federalism and restructuring to religious fundamentalism, from good governance to democratization, and from economic degradation to nation building. It will not be an exaggeration to say that Nigeria’s social discursive space is one of the most vociferous on the continent. This is in no small measure due to Nigeria’s larger than life status as a continental driver of ideas, and even problematic, around which the continent is perceived. Nigeria generates both rational and irrational but impassioned arguments as to what has happened and the how and why it has happened, as well as what is possible and what is not. From the newspapers stands to the social media, and from the informal settings to the formal academic and intellectual fora, individuals have one opinion or the other to contribute to how it got to where it is and what should be done.

All Nigerians are ardent critics of their leadership. Nigeria generates criticisms from below and from above. The artisans, food sellers, traders, and others have something to say. The entrepreneurs, doctors, accountants, sports persons, musicians and other professionals hold perspectives. Academics, scholars and intellectual generate critical analysis. From the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti to the late Gani Fawehinmi, from Wole Soyinka to Odia Ofeimun, from Tam David West to Burna Boy, and from the ASUU to the NBA—there is a broad spectrum of socially discursive individuals and organizations that weigh in regularly on the imperatives of understanding and ameliorating Nigeria’s postcolonial and post-independence predicament.

Social discourse is usually situated in the academics and the media – print, broadcast and social. The university, for instance, as a citadel of learning, has come to denote that space for constant instigation of public and civil discourse on the Nigerian condition. And it becomes all the more interesting because the university, as the emblem of higher education, is also complicit in the predicament of the Nigerian state. This is to the extent that intellectuals and academics have all played one role or the other in the determination of Nigeria’s current situation. Academics have been ministers; and Nigeria’s last president holds a doctoral degree. However, you have also found intellectuals who have attempted to stay true to the understanding of the university as an ivory tower that enables a detached perspective from embodied participants.

David Gauke, the British politician and former Lord Chancellor, once remarked that “A willingness by politicians to say what they think the public want to hear, and a willingness by large parts of the public to believe what they are told by populist politicians, has led to a deterioration in our public discourse.” Yet, the schemes of politicians and their populist tactics and tantrums have been the source of trenchant social political analyses. Nigeria, and the social media, has facilitated the emergence of many social and political commentators and analysts, as well as public intellectuals. In this mix, Professor Toyin Falola—the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas in Austin—is unique. He is not just a mere intellectual who has made a significant mark in disciplinary history. On the contrary, he has left an indelible mental print on the African humanities. He brings to the analysis of the Nigerian and African conditions a deep sense of historical awareness, elderly wisdom and pragmatic dynamics that is uncommon in the analysis of significant elements of our collective predicament.

And recently, he added a unique element to the social discourse on Africa through what he called the Toyin Falola Interviews. This constitutes a new modal framework in Falola’s pan-Africanist credentials, and the objective of achieving excellence in African studies. The objective of the interviews is very simple: “to promote the work of great minds and to spread knowledge to the general public about current intellectual projects that these great minds are pursuing.” This requires having profound conversations with scholars, intellectuals, policymakers, politicians and public figures on past events, current projects, influences and all things relating to Africa and her development and progress. Why is this project unique? It is a profound means by which to excavate and link past actions with present circumstances in order to generate current thoughts and blueprints on Africa’s predicament and the way forward. The interviews are more current, cogent and immediate. The interview format allows the audience to crisscross the interviewee’s mind and motives from what has been done before to what is being done and what is then possible. Essentially, and this is pure brilliance from the master historian—the interviews therefore present social discourse as an alternative source of future historical reckoning.

So far, many significant Africans and Africanists have been interviewed: Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, President John Kufuor, Aisha Yesufu, Tunde Kelani, Prof. Paul Zeleza, Hon. Kojo Yankah, Ebenezer Obey, Prof. Kenneth Harrow, Prof. Nimi Wariboko, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, Prof. Jonathan Haynes, Dr Awolowo Dosumu, Segun Odegbami, Prof. Abiodun Ogunyemi. From this list, Nigeria takes on a huge proportion of the significant personalities interviewed so far. And for a fundamental reason: Nigeria’s political development resonates at the moment across the continent. The plural dynamics manifesting in Nigeria reflects similar incidences across Africa, from the Congo to Senegal, and from South Sudan to Mali. When the Toyin Falola Interviews commenced, Nigeria was just making sense of the COVID-19 pandemic which morphed almost seamlessly into the #EndSARS protests. The latter was a violent chain of reactions by Nigerian youths, powered by the social media, against police brutality, represented by the dreaded and unsupervised Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). The protests eventually metamorphosed into a call for wide ranging socioeconomic and political reforms that reechoed the existing outcry for the restructuring of the Nigerian polity.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the views of the actors interviewed present a robust and fiery estimation of the Nigerian state and society. The interview started, of course, with Aisha Yesufu, one of the most outspoken faces of the #EndSARS protests. Ms. Yesufu honed her activist teeth with the Bring Back Our Girls Movement that was in itself a reaction against state failure in the abduction of the now famous Chibok Girls that were kidnapped by the Boko Haram insurgents. Next in line was former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former head of state and executive president as well as iconic statesman. This was followed by Bishop Matthew Kukah, the radical cleric who constantly speaks truth to power. And then we have Dr Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu who embodies the political legacies of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. These stentorian voices converged on what ails Nigeria, from their different vantage points; and how Nigeria can get out of the woods.

From the four avatars interviewed by Toyin Falola, Nigeria faces daunting problems, which Falola metaphorized as the four horsemen of the biblical apocalypse. From insecurity to economic underdevelopment, and from infrastructural deficit to incremental poverty, listing these issues is no longer enlightening. Yet, their various diagnosis and prognosis, indeed the very activism of Yesufu, Kukah and Dosumu, as well as the outspoken criticism of Obasanjo, is a cry against despondency and resignation. To fight for one’s nation is to display implicit trust in her capacity to overcome her predicament. Almost all these significant actors agreed on the present state of Nigeria, and her internal contradictions. As was to be expected, the issue of security took the front burner in all the discourses. And security underscores the most minimal of indices to judge the capacity of any leader. It is the very complicity of the law enforcement agents in fomenting troubles, and undermining the security they are meant to secure, that led to the #EndSARS protests in the first place. If, according to Father Kukah, security is not too much to ask for from the government, it becomes significant, in Obasanjo’s assessment that leaders must possess some modicum of experiences, like knowledge of economic matters and global relations. And as Obasanjo came to understand from the grilling he received from the interviews, leadership is a sine qua non for good governance and political stability. The choice of Yar’adua and Jonathan as presidents after him was considered by all to be a disservice to the future of the Nigerian polity.

The issue of federalism and restructuring underlies the very challenge Nigeria is facing, as became very glaring in the interview with Dr Dosumu and Father Kukah. The struggle to federalize Nigeria’s structures and processes points at a critical lopsidedness that keeps weakening every effort at making democracy work for development and well-being. Restructuring has been interpreted in so many ways. Yet, it simply means adopting a federal system of government that adequately addresses Nigeria’s plural existence. It means, for instance, decentralizing critical institutional framework in Nigeria to cater for the aspiration of the people. The idea of state police, for instance, might have been a panacea to forestall a monolithic security structure like SARS. Indeed, the issue of decentralizing the police was prominent in the #EndSARS protest that Ms. Yesufu participated in.

With the #EndSARS protest, the legitimacy of protest as one of the elements for watching over the existence of democracy came alive in Nigeria. That the protest was overwhelmingly youthful speaks to several morbid symptoms of the Nigerian state. For instance, it speaks to the alarming fact of youth unemployment that stands at 14.2 percent. It equally speaks to the preying of the law enforcement agents on a hapless youth population finding means of making ends meet. While the 419/yahoo boys’ phenomenon is a byproduct of raging unemployment, it is a mark of unprofessionalism for the police to use that as an excuse to dehumanize the youths. And so, while Ms. Yesufu represented the positive potentialities of the Nigerian youths and what they are capable of, Chief Obasanjo canvassed for a very active structural dynamics that involve the Nigerian youth in the democratization and governance process in Nigeria. In this way, it will become very difficult for unscrupulous politicians and cleric to keep harnessing the unemployed energies of the youth for nefarious religious and political agenda.

Let us give Father Matthew Hasan Kukah the last word: no one gains anything if Nigeria should break up. In drawing the voices of significant individuals into critical conversations about the Nigerian condition, Professor Toyin Falola has brought into existence a crucial framework that keeps social discourses about Nigeria alive and current. The essence of this conversations is found in the aphorism that it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. There is nowhere that the ominous signs of war and dissolution are more frightening than in Nigeria. Speaking about our condition can bring us to a point of agreement about what to do to alleviate our collective circumstances.

 

• Olaopa is a Retired Federal Permanent Secretary & Directing Staff, National Institute For Policy and Strategic Studies

(NIPSS), Kuru, Jos  tolaopa2003@gmail.com                     

 

By Stephen Buranyi

 

It can be quite easy, reading the press, to believe that the pandemic will never end. Even when good news about vaccines started to arrive in the autumn, this grim narrative managed to harden. In the past month, you could read “five reasons that herd immunity is probably impossible”, even with mass vaccination; breathless reports about yet-uncharacterised but potentially ruinous variants, such as the “double mutant” variant in India, or two concerning variants potentially swapping mutations and teaming up in a “nightmare scenario” in California; get ready, some analysts said, for the “permanent pandemic”.

Among many people I know, a sort of low-grade doom has set in. They think the vaccines are a mere sliver of hope, only holding back the virus for a short time before being worn down by a rush of ever-cleverer variants that will slosh around us, perhaps forever. Things might briefly get better, they believe, but only by a little, and even that is tenuous.

However despite such dark talk, and the potential difficulties along the way of vaccine rollout, I still remain optimistic. Since about the midway point of last year I have believed that extremely potent vaccines are going to end the pandemic. They’ll do so by either driving the disease down to near-extinction, or so constraining its force and spread that it becomes a manageable concern, like measles or mumps. I actually think this will happen fairly soon, as long as we get everyone – the whole world, not just the rich – vaccinated.

The scientific case for optimism is straightforward. The vaccines we have are beyond very good, they’re among the most effective ever created. They appear to be potent in real-life situations, and results so far show that protection is long-lasting. Crucially, new results in the US show that the mRNA vaccines used there effectively prevented coronavirus infections – not just serious symptoms – in results similar to those previously reported by a UK-based study. And another study in the UK suggested that vaccinated groups were less likely to spread coronavirus infection overall. This is exactly what we need to choke out the pandemic: vaccines that don’t just protect, but actually halt the virus infecting people and spreading.

When it comes to variants, it is clear that some are more infectious, and some are more deadly. But their interaction with vaccines isn’t yet clear. Some lab-based results show that certain viral mutations may make some immune responses less potent. And one study suggested the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine might be less potent against the South African variant. But the majority of scientists believe that vaccines have so far held the line, and will continue to do so. If variants continue to make small advances, vaccines can be updated. A doomsday strain may be possible, but exceedingly hard to predict. Evolution isn’t an on-demand miracle worker for viral supremacy; even over decades most viruses don’t escape vaccine protection.

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The stories suggesting a dismal and dangerous future aren’t wrong, per se. There is clearly a long way to go in ending the pandemic. A few pieces are sensationalistic (some scientists have taken to calling the rolling panics accompanying each new mutation “scariants” or “mutant porn”), but most are good-faith reporting of what experts say, or attempts to tune public discourse away from naive false hopes (most articles) or, more rarely, away from miserable and abject doom (this article).

What they do, in aggregate, is try to describe the future in a time of incredible uncertainty. And, as a rule, we’re quite bad at dealing with uncertainty. During the pandemic the public sphere sometimes appears to be in the middle of a full-blown epistemic crisis over this, with wildly different claims about what “the science” portends. The truth is that the science we see now is itself uncertain. It’s not a process of years-long studies that provide near-definitive answers. We’re all mucking about behind the scientific curtain, looking at science as it’s being done; at inferences and hypotheses; incomplete and ongoing studies. Often, what is parsed publicly these days as “science” is just informed guesses by experts.

This can pile up and become paralysing. Especially since the pandemic itself exploded our horizon for negative possibilities. It seems like each day there are a thousand new paths the future might take, and no way to know how solid each might actually be. Even more, as each piece of good news comes freighted with new caveats and doomsday scenarios, it can feel like things are nearly as uncertain now as they were at the beginning of the crisis. Like everything we know could suddenly and radically shift, the same way it did last March.

That isn’t the case. There are two massive and opposing fronts of uncertainty facing us. We don’t yet know for certain if vaccines will effectively halt transmission. On this, we have some indication that it looks good, and conclusive answers are coming. And we don’t know what (terrible) variants might yet emerge. But even though that unknown seems massive, variants aren’t some immunological antimatter destined to suddenly and totally vaporise the vaccines.

Seen this way, the possibilities don’t look so grim. Early in the pandemic we had nothing, the timeline for vaccines and whether they would work was uncertain, the outside chance was that they would take years, or they would fail. The horizon was the virus, and just how bad it could get. Now the vaccines are the horizon, and it is the virus that has only the outside chance to delay or disrupt our path there.

 

• This article was first published in www.theguardian.com

By Nnedinso Ogaziechi

 

Democracy in Nigeria has been a journey of growth and a cocktail of experiences in all sectors. The description of Nigerian democracy as nascent seems very apt when one overlooks the intrigues and horse-trading that goes on the political sphere. The education sector despite its challenges seems to have grown progressively in terms of the growth of women in leadership at the tertiary level.

Gone are the days when the idea of a University Professor was mainly associated with the male gender possibly because of the number.   Felicia Adetowun Omolara Ogunsheye (née Banjo) was the first female professor in Nigeria. She was a professor of library and information science at the University of Ibadan. There has been progress albeit slow.

The number of female Professors has grown since Professor Omolara Ogunsheye. A 2017 statistics shows that there are 1,428 female Professors as against 7,824 male professors in Nigeria. There is a 15% presence of female professors in the country. On the political sphere, Nigeria has the lowest global, continental and sub-regional percentage of women in parliament with a paltry 6.9% as against Rwanda’s 61.3% and South Africa’s 42.1%.  So women on their merit can achieve but the political space seems closed somewhat.

However, the leadership of Universities and polytechnics was largely a male affair until a 1985  appointment of Professor Grace Alele-Williams,  a professor of Mathematics Education  by the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (Rtd.) military administration as the first female University Vice Chancellor at the University of Benin making her the first female not just in Nigeria but in Africa to hold such a position.

Her tenure at the University is on record as a very focused and successful one given the hydra-headed problems of cultism, confraternities and other  tertiary institutions social ills that rocked the Nigerian education at that level at the time. She brought with her the tenacity of purpose and the diligence of the hands that rock the cradle. She brought with her vast academic experiences from a global perspective having served on the governing council of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other continental and regional organizations especially in the field of Mathematics and the sciences. Ironically, these are academic fields that were earlier seen as a male exclusive.

However, the trail Professor Alele-Williams blazed has opened the door and served as inspiration to other women to dare to achieve beyond academic laurels. The women are today Rectors, Provosts, Deputy Vice Chancellors, Education Ministers/Commissioners, Vice Chancellors and other  highly influential leadership positions in both the education ministry and  leadership in all levels of education including the tertiary institutions.

Today, Professor Lilian Salami is the substantive Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin coming more than thirty years after Prof. Alele Williams. In Imo state University, Victoria Adaobi Obasi is the Substantive Vice Chancellor. The Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO) a few days ago appointed Professor Nnenna Oti as its first female Vice Chancellor who came tops with a 75.5% as against that of her closest rival Professor  Ikechukwu Dozie with 69.7%.

The Roundtable Conversation is obviously observing that the academia seems to be yielding to the values of merit and democratic transparency and are beginning to yield grounds even if very slowly as against what obtains in the political field where various factors have affected the  full and globally acceptable gender parity in politics.

For a country of the status of Nigeria to lag behind in global gender parity chart shows that a lot of questions remain unanswered about the stalled development in the country. At a time when countries across the globe being led by women are experiencing excellence in leadership, we think that the country must make a conscious decision to maximize the value of its educated women. These women will not only bring leadership at the tertiary level, they have the capacity to be mentors and join the political class even at research and curriculum development levels for a country with the largest out-of-school children in the world and one of the lowest literacy rates for women.

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We sat with Professor Patricia  Lar, a professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Jos who incidentally is the only female  candidate in the race for the chair of the Vice Chancellor of the University, an institution she has served in since 1987 and became a professor in 2015 after rising through the ranks as both a Head of department and many excellence in leadership awards from the institution and other global bodies.

The Roundtable wanted to find out her experience in the academic world being one of the dozens of female professors at the University of Jos. To her, the academic environment is different from the core political field in that in the academia, there is somewhat of an intellectual battle rather than a brawn and financial battle that obtains in the political space. The men to her seem more appreciative of the balance women bring in the academic field and often encourage and commend them. On the contrary, politicians seem to merely offer some tokenism to women.

The academic field has more collaborative relationship between the genders because it is more of a field that thrives in team work not necessarily because politics is an individual game but because in politics ego seems to interfere and party politics could be an issue but in the academic world we tend to be supportive of each other because of the peculiarities there and shared goals. We are those who do the research, draw up curriculum, take care of the students and groom them to be worthy in character and learning.

The unequal relationship  in politics ironically is rooted in the hands of women because from homes women make the mistake of raising boys as leaders and they grow up with that sense of entitlement to leadership. They often treat women in politics as strangers to the game even when we have very qualified and committed women who in most cases are even better than the men who tend to see leadership as their birthrights.

However, Lar believes that politics and education are not mutually exclusive because all the players exist in the same society and often share same socio-cultural values.  However, the education sector grooms the politicians and so they have more in common than differences.  However, the synergy in the two fields is the role of good leadership.  Any field with good leadership thrives whether man or woman.

We as a country must begin to reevaluate our position in the world. The issue of gender parity in all fields is not just a Nigerian problem. However, the difference between the leadership issues  in Nigeria is that Nigeria as a country seems not to realize that it must be faithful to progressive laws that assist growth and equity. The United Nations treaties and conventions as it relates to affirmative actions, gender justice and civil rights must be obeyed by Nigeria. We have to internalize certain progressive values. We must respect international conventions.

Nigeria must be aware of the factors affecting our progress as a country. What do we do with those aspects of culture that are retrogressive and which the UN for instance have evaluated and found to be deficient of progressive ideals? We must begin to address those aspects because culture is not cast in iron. The issues of women in politics and leadership for instance are hampered by the idea that some cultures tend to discourage women from full participation in politics.

It is though for women in Nigeria because they are often locked out of certain areas of politics with some men citing religion and culture but we can all see that that has not favoured us as a nation. We need more women in leadership at all levels because leadership is not gender sensitive. It is a mental and commitment issue and both genders are capable of providing leadership at any level.

For women in politics, they are to be pitied given their numbers but again the few women must stand up more to be counted. They must be able to organize themselves and meet more regularly with their constituents because in some cases constituents complain of being alienated by the female and male politicians. The female politicians must engage more beacues of their nature. They must be closer to the people. The women politicians must come together and support each other. There must be mentorship of younger women to take the baton from the older generation.

The women must continue to engage each other in all fields, the corporate world, the businesses and in politics. We must work across cultures and mentor each other. Leadership blossoms with mentorship. Participating in a training program by International Women Forum in America for instance saw us gaining experiences   across Europe, Canada, America and France in  collaborative mentoring and leadership.

There must be use our exposures and invest in each other. For instance, in the University, we the women try to mentor younger ones in every way we can and even our mere existence and achievements stand as inspiration to many female students and in a way the men gain too because they too learn how to encourage their daughters, sisters or nieces to be the best they can be. Female politicians must learn to mentor.

The academic environment is slowly but steadily supporting gender parity by making the selection processes for leadership more of a merit-driven process than a gender issue. This would of course be better for a country battling huge education deficit across genders and will be encouraging more women to contribute fully to the development of the country.

The Nigerian politicians must take a cue from the academia because the world is ruled now by ideas and technology and not brawn and cultural obstinacy. Nigeria must begin to go with the times.

The dialogue continues…

 

By Emmanuel Oladesu

 

There is a sudden phobia for zoning in the All Progresives Congress(APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Yet, both parties are bound to make decisions on whether the presidency is to remain rotational or zoning should be put in abbeyance.

Zoning is on the front burner as Nigerians gaze at 2023. The reason is not far-fetched. The number one seat, which is usually a bone of contention, is never a unifying factor in a country that is divided by ethnicity, religion and official nepotism.

It is also because presidential power is being perceived as an ethnic tool for bargaining for more political opportunities and promotion of sectional interest by the leadership.

In essence, the tribe producing the president anticipates a sort of comparative advantage, which the number one citizen can secure, to the exclusion of other tribes.

The exceptions are too few. But, generally, the trend has persisted because the presidents of Nigeria seem to lack national outlook.

The reality has fuelled the intense agitation for the presidency, and a fierce contest, not only among individuals and political parties, but also among diverse and antagonistic tribes and ethnic groups.

The usual complaints revolve around domination, marginalisation, exclusion, and suppression of other tribes by the ‘reigning ethnic group’ at a given time.

Under the prevailing political tension unleashed by the intense struggle, the notion of merit takes a back seat. But, this argument may also be subjective. There are competent Nigerians in the North and South who can pilot the affairs of the country.

The battle for zoning underscores a competition that goes beyond political parties. Those who usually coordinate the battle on behalf of the competing races are not only the ethnic organisations serving as  mouthpieces, but few privileged principals and principalities whose influence could overwhelm the political parties.

Due to the subsisting identity, integration and penetration crises, there is no tribe that will not be a complainant when its kith and kin are not holding forte in the levers of power, particularly Aso Villa, Abuja. The antidote is the emergence of a nationalist president who will generally regard the entire country as his constituency and resolve to promote equity, fairness and justice for all ethnic groups.

The search for such rare candidates should be the priority of the two dominant parties.

Zoning is inevitable and non-negotiable, although it is not a constitutional matter. The national caucuses of political parties usually adopt zoning, without publicising it, to give a sense of belonging to the different ethnic groups, which serve as the pillars of the country.

However, political parties have a way of de-emphasising the ethnic groups by trying to premise the decision on rotation or zoning on the North-South dichotomy. Yet, it is evident that the tribes-Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo-are more vociferous in their demand for the slot than the “North” and “South’” or each of the six geo-political zones.

That was why the attempted abrogation of zoning generated an uproar in the PDP, when the Bala Mohammed Panel Report recommended that the party’s presidential ticket should be thrown open to all the six zones. Reactions promptly came, not from the party-based leaders  from geo-political regions per se, but ethnic activists from umbrella socio-political and cultural organisations domiciled in the Yorubaland and Igboland. They feared that a pattern of leadership recruitment was about to be jettisoned.

When the late military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, evolved the idea of six geo-political zones, he had zoning in mind. In post-military period, it was expected that it would become a factor that will promote unity and hope in the country.

Read Also: 2023: Will zoning play role in APC?

 

The presidency is more powerful than all the 36 state governments and 776 local governments. It generates more money and controls more resources. There is the pervading feeling that when somebody from a particular tribe is in the saddle, it is the ethnic group that is ruling.

Also, the merit is that through zoning, there is no perpetual domination, but the prospects, if not certainty, of power rotation.

The PDP was the first party to uphold zoning by entrenching it in its constitution. The leaders of the party described it as “turn by turn.” The core element of zoning envisaged by the party included rotation of the presidency, not among the six geo-political zones, but between the North and the South. But, there is also a provision for the distribution of the six unequal topmost federal offices among the six geo-political zones to guarantee a sort of accommodation, relevance and a sense of belonging to the zones.

According to the PDP Constitution, zoning is sacrosanct. Article 7(2)(c) of the party’s constitution states that “in pursuance of the principle of equity, justice and fairness, the party shall adhere to the policy of rotation and zoning of party and public offices, and it shall be enforced by the appropriate executive committee at all levels.”

But, zoning is not restricted to the presidential ticket. By implication, once the presidency is zoned to a particular region, other key offices are zoned to other zones. The offices are vice-president, Senate President, House of Representatives Speaker, Secretary to Government of the Federation, and National Chairman of the party.

The PDP has maintained fidelity to zoning, until in 2019 when former President Goodluck Jonathan truncated the arrangement. He lost the poll.

The APC also followed the PDP example when its founding fathers agreed that power should shift from the North to the South after President Muhammadu Buhari completes his second term. That is why chieftains, including Governors Abdullahi Ganduje(Kano State), Aminu Masari(Katsina), Babagana Zulum(Borno), Senator Ali Ndume, Labour and Employment Minister Chris Ngige and his Works and Housing counterpart, Babatunde Fashola (SAN) are asking the party to stick to the fundamental agreement to ensure zoning and power shift from the North to the south in 2023.

Although the APC is inclined to pretension about zoning, there is a particular clause in its constitution that points to a semblance of zoning. A proper interpretation of the hidden clause is required so that proper operative content can be given to it.

According to Article 20(iv)(d), “the National Working Committee shall be subject to approval of the National Executive Committee make rules and regulations for the nomination of candidates through primaries. All such rules, regulations and guidelines shall take into consideration and uphold the principle of federal character, gender balance, geo-political spread and rotation of offices to, as much as possible, ensure balance within the constituency covered.” The country is the constituency of the president.

When the body language of a party supports zoning, aspirants outside the targeted zone may contest in the exercise of their constitutional right to vie for the presidency. But, during the party primary, they contest in vain.

It is too late to abandon what is now becoming a trend. The consequences are better imagined for the parties in particular  and the disunited country in general.