The Nation Newspaper

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  • Buhari in China: Beyond the loan

    What Femi Adesina, President Muhammadu Buhari’s media adviser noted and dispatched to Nigeria on his visit (with his principal) to the People’s Republic of China penultimate week isn’t different from what every traveller to that land of Mao Tse-tung observed.

    Sharing his findings with compatriots in his essay, Dispatch from China: what order, discipline did to China, Adesina quotes Buhari as saying of Beijing, the Chinese capital: “Did you notice the level of discipline in this city? Did you notice the cleanliness and order? Did you see anybody throwing litter or garbage anywhere? And did you see their security agents, how smart and dutiful they were?”

    The Nigerian leader spoke in a jet when leaving Beijing for Shanghai. As he and Adesina and another aide watched the city recede, they froze in wistful amazement at how a society’s hundreds of millions of citizens could be so shaped as to see discipline as the first patriotic duty. Femi Adesina was to exclaim: “Discipline is the name of the game, and it has done China a world of good.”

    A few decades ago, a commentator, Doak Barnett, not known for any love for Communist China also wrote: “Some years ago, a foreigner who had just toured Communist China came out to Hong Kong and remarked,  with awe in his voice: ‘I never thought that human beings and society could be reconstructed so easily’. If he meant that the changes of recent years had been relatively painless, he was very wrong. The plastic surgery that the communists had been performing on Chinese society for over a decade had been painful indeed for millions of Chinese… But if, in using the word ‘easily’, the visitor actually meant ‘rapidly’, it is easy to share some of his awe. The Chinese communists have dramatically demonstrated that an effective … regime can achieve extensive social change at a breakneck pace.

    What did the trick?

    Following the 1949 Revolution in China, the great Mao Tse-tung who led the movement shut the borders of the country to the outside world. He and his loyal communist leaders adopted a tough stance that ensured that the people and their rulers fed only on what was available inwards, locally. The cars they rode, however archaic, were what the “elite” Politburo (Communist Party Leadership) and the other working classes alike used.

    No palatial palate was cultivated to hunger for a billionaire’s breakfast. Since it was a peasant and workers socialist putsch in the first place, China under Mao couldn’t be allowed to tolerate the contradiction of a heavily moneyed class to exist side by side with the poor as we have in Nigeria. In this huge enclosure untainted by the unbridled spending and consumerist culture of the capitalist Western world, Mao began to remould China and its people.

    In 1958, the country embarked on the Great Leap Forward Programme (Walking on Two Feet). Agriculture and industry saw China match the old Soviet Union and the formidable Western powers of US and UK in industrial, scientific and technological production. The Cultural Revolution that followed disavowed the intrusion of destructive moral values that could either retard or bring down altogether the progress in the political, social and economic spheres of the new China. Actually, the cultural war was what deepened the discipline Mao sought for his people. It aided in reshaping and adjusting the mighty masses of the population. It poised them for the gigantic solemn task of forming a new society and freeing the people from dependence on foreign tastes. The Chinese nation has been described as a Spartan nation of “infinite patience and adaptability”. This enabled them to endure the painful pill Mao gave them. It has also helped them to survive tumultuous upheavals, all of which have finally pushed China to become the world’s number two economic power house, after the USA. Today, experts say in a few decades China will leap into the number one position.

    In view of all these, I am not at all moved by the loan coming our way in Nigeria as a result of our President’s trip to China nor am I excited that at last the Chinese will soon be here to upgrade our derelict and Neanderthal infrastructure. I am interested rather in what Buhari’s encounter with the Chinese has taught: unruliness in our politics, in how we handled our wealth when we had it a plenty, in our leadership template as the cause of all our woes today. And it would continue this way, and take worst turns if we don’t first battle this character drawback the way the Chinese did it.

    Let the Americans also bring in their dollars and the Britons their Pound Sterling and Europe its Euros in loans of any tenor. This will not solve our problems if we do not do the first things first. The Yoruba say if you fail to inculcate the virtues of integrity and self-restraint in your offspring and all you think of is to throw wealth at them in the form of building property for them and educating them without moral spinal cord, these ill-tutored children would end up becoming barbarians, destroying your legacy and prized name.

    We have built a nation of wealth-worshipping citizens and leaders who view the world through a prosperity telescope. We do not honour labour. Preferment, whether social, economic or political is brewed in the cauldron of corruption. Our youth and women who ought to be our treasured capital and engine of development are wasting because we don’t capture them in our vision. They have permitted themselves to be caged in the pigeonhole of idleness, refusing to breakout but turning to criminality. Who cares? Everybody is a felon. Everybody plays a smart one. We are all Smart Alec.

    It is the system thrown up by our lifestyle of indiscipline that is responsible for this mass social decay. The system has allowed too much foul money among the political class and their cronies. There is a surfeit of this wealth also in the civil service bureaucracy and its contractor entrepreneurs. When everyone aspires to join them, including students waiting to finish school, you have a perfect setting for the emergence of the patriarch and matriarch of indiscipline. Now, the ensuing cloying affluence of the few has as given Nigeria a pejorative world title: We are the biggest exporter of illicit money on the planet. Refer to the disclosure of the Panama Papers. And yet there is poverty in the land. This reminds us of the lament of the Ancient Mariner: water water everywhere but none to drink!

     

    • Ojewale is a journalist and writer in Ota, Ogun State.

  • The 8th Senate and matters arising

    I am really at loss about how to respond to the column of my friend, Femi Orebe of Sunday April 24, on the 8th Senate. He correctly identified my exasperation with things as they are. But more than being exasperated, Orebe might never understand the magnitude of the harrowing sorrow I daily feel pertaining in general to the sordid affairs of my country and in particular to the nadir of disrepute to which the Senate has been sunk. So discouraged have I been of late that by last week, I had begun to see myself as a colossal failure in my foray into Nigerian politics. I had seriously considered going back to Ilesa Grammar School, my alma mater, to teach science.

    In my previous incarnations as an academic and as a business man, failure or giving up had never been a considered option. In these earlier enterprises, my success or lack of it was largely dependent on my efforts and determination. By contrast, as a politician, I have perennially found myself walking and dancing in paths littered with opalaba (pieces of broken glass bottles). My success now depends almost equally or perhaps even more on others than on myself!

    I foresaw the current crisis in the 8th Senate long before its inauguration on June 9, 2015. I pleaded endlessly with Senators Bukola Saraki and Ahmad Lawan for a consensus that would make one of them the Senate President and the other the Deputy Senate President. I requested to lock both of them in a room and to open the room only after they have reached a consensus or after one of them had killed the other! Had my efforts succeeded, my party, the Senate and my country might have been spared the crisis of the last many months.

    Candidate Buhari campaigned on a platform that included a determined assault on corruption; he was hailed and resoundingly elected because a majority of Nigerians believed he was pre-eminently qualified to wage and win that war. I have always felt that if such a war were to be diligently waged, there will not be enough rooms in Nigerian prisons to hold public office holders who would be found guilty. And if the truth be told, these might include most of those supporting Saraki as well as most of those opposed to him! And I am talking here of supporters and opponents either from within or outside the National Assembly. The interview I granted to Tell magazine in 2009 revealed enough on crass legislooting.

    Many have wondered why I have been less vocal as a senator than I was during my tenure as a member of the House of Representatives. I feel great pain when insinuations are made that I had been bought. Those pains rose to the fore following the publication of the phone numbers of all senators by Sahara Reporters.

    I am probably the only Senator in Nigeria who has only one phone number. It would have been easy to get a new phone number. These days, phones come with apps that can filter out calls from numbers that are not on the phone’s contact list. Perhaps my error was my refusal to take either of these easy options. Instead, I chose to answer as many calls and texts as possible. They came in a deluge! I got calls from the UK, USA, Canada, Germany and far away Australia. A few of the messages included racy photographs from ladies who obviously had little interest in matters of public policy!  About half of the calls from within Nigeria were solicitations for help in securing employment or in getting financial assistance. Mercifully, some prayed for and encouraged me to keep faith. Some made legitimate enquiries and did so in quite civil language and tone. Others like Dokun Adedeji were unkind and needlessly rude.

    I had taken a decision to respond to each call or text message in its own tone.  I would match civility for civility, diligence with diligence, rudeness for rudeness, and curse for curse. Contrary to the accusation of Dokun Adedeji, I did not partake of selling my party’s majority to reactionaries.  I have betrayed no one. Rather, on many occasions, I have informed my party caucus, APC leaders, and my Senate colleagues of my readiness to give up my office as Chief Whip for the sake of resolving the most embarrassing quagmire in the Senate. I did so as recently as last Wednesday during the executive session of the Senate.

    In decrying my choice of deprecatory epithets to respond to Dokun Adedeji, Femi Orebe obviously saw no wrong in my being unfairly portrayed as a sell-out. Orebe also left out my latter response to Dokun Adedeji that included my reasons for not speaking on some matters.

    Back in High School, there was a Negro Spiritual we often sang “NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I SEE.” Two days ago (Friday, April 22), I was on my way to Osogbo so I could see my governor and thereafter proceed to Ora Igbomina, my hometown, when I got a call summoning me to Abuja for a meeting with the President at 3 p.m. I made an immediate U-turn racing to the Ibadan Airport while praying for a miracle to catch a flight. I was panting and sweating by the time I boarded the plane which miraculously had waited for me. The plane took off immediately I took my seat. However, as I switched on my phone after landing in Abuja, a sms message was delivered with a message that the meeting in the villa has been postponed!

    Despite the intense pain and sorrows that I have borne in the last many months, I remain grateful to God for the rare opportunity to serve as a senator of my country. I am particularly grateful to Femi Falana who counselled me last week not to resign as senator. Although every forest begins with a tree, I have found out that the adage that a tree does not make a forest is particularly most apt in the forest of politics. Although Dokun Adedeji’s text did not say so, perhaps his vilification is not directed at me personally as Orebe alluded. Perhaps! Hence, I apologize to Dokun, Femi Orebe and others whom I have disappointed for taking the issues so personal. We live and learn.

    Prof Adeyeye is Chief Whip, Senate of Nigeria.

  • Cry, Beloved Confluence State

    The event was planned as a grand celebration of some sort. But before it ended, the chief celebrant converted the arena to a mournful spectacle. That was on Wednesday, January 27, when Yahaya Bello took his oath of office as governor of Kogi State. The 40,000 capacity International Confluence Stadium, Lokoja was reasonably filled with guests made up of party members, government officials, religious leaders and a very large contingent of cultural groups and masquerades. When it was time for Bello to deliver his inaugural speech, he suddenly remembered his father who died when he was a toddler and inappropriately chose the occasion to cry openly in his memory, as if he was freshly bereaved. While many people called it tears of joy, others tagged it crocodile tears. Showmanship or not, and whatever the motive of the weeping governor, the ironical funeral dirge of that day, has turned out to be a perfect prelude to the tears his ascendancy has brought to the people of Kogi State. Tears heralded his coming and most of his actions or inactions, like canisters of tear gas, have continued to make the people cry, cry, and cry.

    The epitome of the governor’s thoughtless policies is the removal of all road roundabouts in Lokoja, the state capital. Operating with the type of energy found in a demented soldier, Bello ordered the demolition of the roundabouts within days of his assumption of office. The order was carried out in a jiffy with clinical precision. In most cases, the demolitions took place in the dead of night. Thus, most residents woke up with rapture-like experience to find the roundabouts gone with the winds. The affected roundabouts are Paparanda Square, Kogi Circle and Lugard Circle. Others are Kogi Hotel, Welcome to Lokoja, Zone8, NTA and Ganaja roundabouts. With their removal, motorists now regularly overrun the crossroads with the attendant risks to life and property.

    The governor’s media aides offered incoherent, indolent and lack-lustre explanation for the demolitions. When tongues began to wag, they said that the roundabouts were unfit and too old for the anticipated modern state capital Lokoja is supposed to be. However, there may be other reasons. Unofficial sources claim the demolition exercise was at the behest of marabout and voodooists who advised to that effect. Their reasons? The roundabouts were evil and have been used as vaults for dangerous charms and amulets which past governors kept hidden under them. If Bello must have a successful tenure, he therefore needs to first smoke out the powerful charms from their comfortable zones beneath the roundabouts!

    Such thinking is certainly anachronistic in today’s world. Without doubt, the governor’s religious and spiritual persuasion or the lack thereof, is part of his privacy. Nevertheless, this privacy should not be a drawback to his public life. It is worrisome when governance degenerates to the level of diabolism or witchcraft. Government’s ostensible reason is a misadventure in the extreme. The roundabouts are legacy projects that commemorate the history of the state. While some of them like Paparanda Square and Kogi Circle were as old as the state, others like Lugard Circle and Zone 8 were constructed by the immediate past administration headed by the aviator, Capt. Idris Wada. They were all constructed with taxpayers’ money. Painfully, they have now also been destroyed with the same taxpayers’ money. No doubt, it will take far more than the original cost to reconstruct any of those legacies. People are now asking, “What manner of governor, who is an accountant, is this new Sheriff?”

    The governor does not leave anyone in doubt that he is in charge of the cluelessness in the Confluence State. His obsession with power is stupefying. On becoming the governor his first assignment was to convert the double lane road along his private residence and adjacent to Lugard House, into a single lane. His arbitrary and retrogressive blockage of the road inflicts pain on road users who are forced to endure harrowing traffic delays. The state chapter of the People’s Democratic Party shouted itself coarse about the impropriety of the blockage and called on the governor to dismantle the ‘illegal barricade’.

    Policy somersaults and the over amplification of powers of the governor have defined his incursion to power. Two issues will drive this point home. In his first week in office, Bello exercised the powers of his office retroactively by directing that all appointments and promotions approved by his predecessor since January 2015, one clear year before the end of that tenure, be reversed. Included in this category were about 1,000 teachers employed by the state Teaching Service Commission TSC, much needed engineers employed by the Ministry of Water Resources and other professionals validly appointed by his predecessor. The policy has effectively pushed back these people into the saturated labour market from where they were only recently liberated. This has caused much pain and gnashing of the teeth for the affected families.

    When he came on board, he considered a reformed local government administration as soft target to impress the grass roots. In truth, years of maladministration and nepotism have kept the third tier of government prostrate in the land. Bello frowned at the tradition of percentage payment of salary in that tier, blaming it on the meddlesomeness of his predecessor. Summarily, he cancelled the Local Government Joint Account and promptly announced full financial autonomy for the councils. The decision was praised to high heaven. In spite of this however, no council has been able to pay full salaries since the so-called approval of autonomy. It is also gathered from the grapevine, that the aforesaid autonomy was fake. Most of the deductions he frowned at have been restored through the back door, with a few others added.

    That is not all. The governor has now arrogated to himself, the power to seize the funds of any ‘offending’ council. That is the experience of Ofu and Ijumu Local Councils for their February allocations. The governor was said to have ordered the withholding of Ofu LGA’s allocation because of gross insubordination by the cashier of the council. The said official allegedly flouted the governor’s directive that all cashiers, treasurers and other top level finance staffs proceed on indefinite compulsory leave to give room for a thorough checking of the books. To enforce compliance by this erring official, the governor ‘wisely’ held on to the allocation of the whole council thereby denying the entire LGA its due financial accrual.

    The case of Ijumu, home of Hon. James Faleke, the governor’s formidable political opponent is more worrisome. The governor’s wife, Hajia Rashidat Bello was said to have been embarrassed during an ill-advised visit to the council. She had gone to Ekinrin-Adde, Faleke’s home town to re-commission a community-initiated and financed health facility that was first commissioned in 2007. Apart from the charge of giving her imperial Excellency cold shoulders during the all important engagement, a grotesque masquerade was said to have scared the First Lady away from the community. Now, the chairman of the council has been asked to produce the daring masquerade or forfeit the council’s monthly allocation! Bello at his tyrannical best?

    It is clear that there are issues in Kogi State. Salaries are not being paid, yet government officials are acquiring the most exotic SUVs – the types never seen in the state. The House of Assembly is functioning with only five members while 20 others are being denied the ability to function as elected official of their respective LGAs. For a governor still grappling with legitimacy as a result of challenges at the electoral tribunal, his abrasive style does not bode well for him on the long run.

    It may be too early to evaluate the new Sherif in Lugard House. But since morning shows the day and his tenure is absolutely circumstantial, an early appraisal of this style and nature may be an effective remedy to halt the free flow of tears.

    Weep not, dear fatherland. For though weeping may endure through the night, joy comes in the morning.

     

    • Abudu writes from Lokoja, Kogi State.

  • Ekitigate: INEC and conspiracy of silence

    There are some discernible parallels in the response of Nigerian Police and the Yoruba governors to the menace of Fulani herdsmen. The only difference is that while the former has been hypocritical, the later has been comical. For instance the Inspector General of Police, after almost seven years of mindless killing of armless men, women and children without anyone being brought to book, now says the police will “continue to monitor them, degrade them and continue to amputate them whenever they come up”. Perhaps now that the police have pledged to do the job for which they are paid, it will not be out of place to remind IG Arase that if the report of the judicial inquiry instituted under Jonah Jang of Plateau in which a former IG was indicted cannot be revisited by the police, he has the latest Agatu massacre as a lead. At least the Gan Allah Fulani, which is the umbrella body, for Fulani herdsmen, has taken responsibility for the Agatu killings.

    For the South-west governors, their response has been as absurd as it has been comical.  While the battle rages, Fayose who seems incapable of appreciating the challenge facing the Yoruba people is amusing himself sharing “ponmo” (cow skin) with his grassroot supporters in local markets. Mimiko has been holding clandestine meeting with aggrieved farmers and elders who are preaching secession.  Aregbesola is said to be targeting production of 10,000 cows per annum while his counterpart in Ibadan has been dissipating energy on the biggest abattoir built in Ibadan by his political rival. The feelings one gets from the discordant notes is an absence of a coordinated effort at responding to the challenges of meeting the demand of those, who like the Epicureans, consume 10,000 heads of cows daily in case forces of demand and supply force the principals of the embattled Fulani herdsmen, driven only by profit motive, to seek a more profitable market.

    But first an ode to our South-west politicians. Being a politician itself is a major nightmare. It is often a call for rejection of candour, honesty and acquisition of special skill for the exploitation of our common infirmities. It also calls for brinkmanship to balance the interest of those impoverished by their class members without endangering the health of group members or posing a threat to their ill-acquired fortunes if they are to avoid  ‘the Saraki treatment’ after becoming the whistle-blower in the N1.6trillion fuel subsidy scam. To be a successful politician is to be faithful to Adedibu’s precepts which include engaging in public brawl or swearing falsely by the Holy Koran.

    How many of us who pontificate on the pages of newspaper are like Bode George, prepared to go to jail for helping party members? How many can, with the help of thugs attack a judge in his court premises, chase out elected law makers of town, take over the House of Assembly to pass an unread budget ? How many critics have the guts to collect $34m of taxpayer’s money from a president who says ‘stealing is not corruption,’ for the purpose of rigging an election? How many of us can, with Awo cap delicately balanced on our heads, join ‘PDP governors without character’ to publicly declare 16 greater than 19?  How many of us can, like Fayemi, Opeyemi and Oni, men whose dressing is incomplete without Awo’s cap delicately balanced on their heads, engage in a brutal war of attrition over the governorship seat  and after losing it by default  move to Abuja, seat of power as champions of Ekiti cause? How many can like ex-Governor Daniel of Ogun lock up the state House of Assembly and rule like a sole administrator?

    Our new political leaders are no doubt versatile, daring, courageous, adventurous and very ambitious.  It is just that their best is not good enough for the Yoruba. In this regard, they have the records of their predecessors who regarded public service as sacrifice to contend with. They are being challenged by the standards set by Awo, Bode Thomas, Rotimi Wlliams, Adekunle Ajasin, Osuntokun, Adesanya, Enahoro etc, all honourable men who cooperated to form a formidable class with faith in a common destiny and a single purpose of creating a more egalitarian society in the Yoruba country. They served selflessly. When Oba Adesoji, the then Ooni of Ife was rejected by the colonial masters as representative of Yoruba, no other Yoruba was ready to step into his shoes until the colonial government was forced to swallow its pride. When Akintola, who Awo said could debate the same topic from both sides and win, became a thorn in the flesh of the colonial masters and those he then regarded as northern feudal lords, was asked to be replaced, Awo said he had searched without finding any more competent man to represent the Yoruba. Akintola retained his seat. This is precisely why many believe the struggle for power and influence by many of our today Yoruba politicians are not motivated by service and altruism.

    And one way of validating this thesis is the ongoing menace of Fulani herdsmen and the challenge of 10,000 cows a day. Rewind back to 60 years ago. Awo and his group encouraged their compatriots who wanted to eat cow to domesticate one. They imported cow adaptable to the Yoruba environment from Argentina. In the Second Republic, Ajasin a leading member of that set of visionary Yoruba leaders established the Otun Cattle ranch. Ex-Governor Segun Oni was the only person who had the presence of mind to have revisited the project. But half of the cows he imported from South Africa died while the project collapsed under Fayemi.   Our new leaders seem to prefer the philosopher’s cap to his philosophy.

    The current Fulani herdsmen incursion to the South-west is an economic war by the elite and the response can only be economics. We run a capitalist system which is about the survival of the fittest. A group of privileged northern elites and others from the rest of the country invested heavily on cattle farming with the aim of harvesting huge dividends. Instead of establishing ranches, they opted to maximize profit by hiring and arming underprivileged children who must graze the cattle until they get to their designated market in the South-west. Within the capitalist system we operate, the Fulani’s herdsmen share a common fate with underpaid factory workers or underpaid journalist.

    When there is a demand that cannot be met locally, there must be supply usually in the form of imported labour of other people. The answer to the menace of Fulani herdsmen is therefore local production to meet demand and not secession. What the Yoruba want is a more organized federation without the tyranny of a centre trying to decree the education of our children, the water they drink and the air they breathe. Yoruba is receptive to other Nigerians who live by the rules and equally thrive among strangers in far away Sokoto, Kano, Jos and Minna.

    Our governors are not doing enough. We must be able to feed ourselves. As suggested on these pages not too long ago, Tinubu must return to Lagos to coordinate the activities of governors who unfortunately have been made Leviathans by the Nigerian constitution. His first responsibility is to the Yoruba. Awo who was a mere regional premier and Ahmadu Bello who rejected the option of becoming the Prime Minister in order to serve his people today live in the hearts of their people.

    hen you throw a stone into a pool of water, in a matter of seconds, the stone disappears but that is not the end of your action, as ripples will appear and will take some time before the surface of the water is calm.

    This is exactly the matter with the Ekiti State gubernatorial election held since June 2014 where Ayodele Fayose was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and was consequently sworn in as governor on October 16, 2014. The controversy surrounding the victory of Governor Fayose has refused to go away 21 months after the election.

    The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) not satisfied with the result of the election, especially as its candidate did not win in any of the 16 local governments contrary to the expectations of many bookmakers and APC supporters, took the matter to court. The party exhausted all legal options but the victory of Fayose was upheld by the Supreme Court.

    Despite the affirmation of Fayose’s victory by the apex court, the APC leaders and supporters are yet to overcome the shock of that unusual defeat. It was not the APC alone that was shocked; the PDP was equally shocked by the magnitude of that defeat. This was attested to by Dipo Anisulowo, current Chief of Staff to Fayose when he said: “We are surprised by this victory. Though we were expecting victory but not of this magnitude.”

    Such was the nature of Fayose’s victory that has endlessly set tongues wagging. Many analysts adduced reasons for Fayemi’s loss and Fayose’s victory but none was convincing that an incumbent with unassailable record of performance while in office could lose with such a wide margin to someone with unenviable antecedents such that his first tenure as governor was abruptly aborted.

    In February 2015, eight months after the election was conducted, the mystery behind the outcome of the election began to unfold. Army Captain Sagir Koli released an audio tape he secretly recorded at a meeting he attended with his boss before the election. The recording, which is now famously referred to as the Ekitigate audio tape, is all about the graphic details of how to rig the June 21 election perfected by Fayose and other PDP chieftains, including then Defence Minister, Musiliu Obanikoro; Police Affairs Minister, Jelili Adesiyan; Senator Iyiola Omisore, Commander of 132 Artillery Brigade, Akure, Brigadier-General Momoh; with Capt. Sagir Koli and one Hon. Abdukareem.

    One important revelation from the audio tape by Fayose himself is the one that concerns INEC as an umpire and it has been a cause of worry to many ever since.  Fayose’s excerpts in the tape: “…today we agreed on how to work, myself and Omisore and all the heads. We agreed on a strategy to use, and the men that would join us and all you expect me to do, I have done….”Today, they went to Efon, they carried all the…where we are supposed to be collating. I think it was this man, the thing INEC gave to us, soft copies we now printed and everything, because they see INEC thing on top of it….

    ”He now told me, why is my contact man not with them?” I convinced this man (General Momoh) to leave these men. It took me more than two hours to get this man to release these people. We have been subjected to serious embarrassment.”

    That was Fayose harassing Brigadier Momoh for arresting a vehicle with printed materials collected from INEC on its way to Efon where Fayose said collation took place and this was two days to the election proper.

    Fayose, a gubernatorial candidate at that time, admitting to electoral fraud by copying voting materials provided by the INEC calls for serious concern and should have elicited probe by INEC if the organisation is not to be adjudged guilty of the conspiracy of silence. This costly revelation by Fayose who didn’t know he was being recorded is too grave to be ignored. It is surprising that since Fayose made this revelation in that audio tape, INEC has been unusually silent. If INEC feigns ignorance that it didn’t listen to the tape nor read it in the newspapers, it cannot claim ignorance of the latest revelations by one of the principal actors who was the PDP state secretary at that time, Dr. Tope Aluko, who bared it all on Channels TV.

    Aluko corroborated most revelations in the audio tape and confirmed that the tape was real and added a new one not in the audio that INEC officials in Ekiti and Osun states collected N1 billion from the Presidency without the knowledge of the then INEC Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega. Such an amount of money could only be a bribe and that was enough to compromise the election.

    Fayose’s aide, Lere Olayinka, had earlier denied that it was his boss’ voice that was in the audio but Fayose himself admitted it was his voice. Among the documents presented on live television by Aluko was a request for extra result sheets and this confirmed that the soft copies of materials collected from INEC according to Fayose are sensitive materials such as ballot papers, result sheets and analysis of results sheets.

    One of the grounds of the APC’s petition at the tribunal was that the ballot papers used for the election were photo-chromic papers such that it didn’t reflect  true votes as the paper is water marked and hence capable of manipulating votes. This was dismissed by the tribunal for lack of proof.

    Even at that, the audio revelation, which was recently corroborated by Aluko, has put INEC on the spot as its officials cannot be excused from the electoral heist. My main worry is that the main benefactor has confessed and INEC has not denied it didn’t give the candidate sensitive materials.

    One would have expected that since the damning Ekitigate revelations, the REC and his officials should have been placed under investigation, but this is not the case. It is a case of the more you look, the less you see.

    In this serious revelation, all INEC senior officials who were in Ekiti during the election such as National Commissioners, the visiting Resident Electoral Commissioners and the local INEC staff are all culpable. Even though Aluko tried to exonerate Prof. Jega in the whole saga, once INEC as an institution is guilty, the whole INEC is guilty, including Jega.

    It behoves on civil society organisations, election monitors, international observers and the discerning public to ask INEC the following questions:

    Why did INEC give one of the candidates soft copies of the sensitive materials? Did INEC also give the materials to other candidates?

    Why has INEC not instituted any probe into the role of its officials during that election after the revelations by Fayose in the audio tape and corroborated by Aluko recently?

    Is it true that some INEC officials in Ekiti and Osun states received N1 billion without Jega’s knowledge?  Was the money official? If not, what was it meant for?

    Why has INEC not told us if it actually released soft copies of materials as claimed by one of the candidates at that time, Ayo Fayose who was later declared winner? Is it true as claimed by Fayose that collation of an election which was conducted on June 21 actually took place in Efon on June 19, two days to the conduct of the actual election? Did INEC officials take part in that collation? Were the representatives of other candidates present at the Efon collation? What was actually collated?

    Answers to the above questions will go a long way in restoring confidence in INEC as an impartial umpire as against the present perception of INEC as a partisan organisation always backing one party against the other during elections.

    Edo and Ondo elections are coming and we don’t know if these mafia are still in INEC to release soft copies of sensitive materials to a favoured candidate.

     

    • Bamitale, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Benin-City.

  • Senate in Search for Redemption

    It is apparent that the 8th Senate of the Federal Republic is on a redemptive mission to salvage whatever is left of its battered image. The legislative chamber late last week ate the humble pie and reversed itself on some of the giddy measures it had set onto, which reeked of legislative brigandage. The coming days will show whether the chamber’s back-pedalling was sincere enough, and not too little too late in the day.

    The Senate had carried on, to the consternation of many Nigerians, as if the weighty task of lawmaking was a gutter fight motivated by the ongoing trial of Senate President Bukola Saraki before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). On the heels of a ruling early last week by the chairman of the tribunal, Justice Danladi Umar, that he would henceforth hold day-long sittings everyday to try the Saraki case that had dragged forever since last year, the Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions Committee of the Senate issued a summons on the same judge to appear before it “unfailingly” by 2p.m. on Thursday. Well, seriously?! The time scheduled for Umar’s appearance before the Senate committee conflicted flagrantly with the trial routine he had already made public. And so, the timing and coincidence of that summons were obvious even to a nincompoop as retaliatory against the tribunal judge and targeted at frustrating the Senate President’s trial. Discerning citizens and interest groups, of course, tackled the Senate over the summons and counselled that the tribunal judge should ignore it. Not that anyone thought it was it was helpful for our emerging democracy that legislative authority should be defied. But the legislative chamber, by the summons, undermined its own legislative dignity. It was thus in enlightened self-interest that the Senators, two days later, stepped down the invitation to Umar.

    The chairman of the summoning Senate committee, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, was reported as saying the legislative chamber reconsidered because the tribunal judge wrote in to officially ask for an extension of time. But, trust me, the legislative chamber is better off letting the matter lie, because it cannot at this time conduct any probe the tribunal judge that would have any shred of credibility. Isn’t there something generally known as ‘conflict of interest’? In any event, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was in the news late last week as having cleared the judge of the N10million bribery allegation pending against him. That clearance, from all indications, has made nugatory any plan by the Senate to proceed with its investigation of Justice Umar. A caveat though: EFCC is an interested party in the trial of the Senate President before Justice Umar, and I would personally have nursed serious reservations against the timing of its clearance of the tribunal judge, just like one did against the Senate summons on him. But the latest clearance was said to be reinforcing an earlier one issued under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan by the former leadership of the EFCC under Ibrahim Lamorde, and that minimizes the chances of sinister motivation regarding the Saraki case.

    Besides the sudden summoning of the tribunal judge, the Senate had earlier on set onto a fast track legislative process to amend the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal Acts, as well as the Administration of Criminal Justice (ACJ) Act. Notice that the Conduct Bureau is the Senate President’s accuser even though he is being prosecuted by the EFCC, while the Tribunal is the trial court; and a major plank of the proposed ACJ Act amendment was to exclude the Conduct Tribunal from the application of that Act, such that the tribunal would no longer have jurisdiction to try criminal matters as it is doing now in the case of the Senate President.

    The legislative chamber, of course, justified the proposed amendments and argued that persons accusing it of aiming to benefit the Senate President thereby were just ill-informed. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Aliyu Abdullahi, was reported as saying since the Saraki case commenced in 2015, any amendment of the law in 2016 could not retroactively affect an ongoing case.”The proposed amendment would still take a minimum of six months, given the long process that law-making requires. This process includes committee hearing, public hearing, reporting back to Senate Committee of the Whole, the concurrence in the House of Representatives, and assent by the President as the final stage. There is no way we will even complete the process of finally effecting the amendments before the completion of the Saraki case. So, those who read selfish or ulterior motives to this ordinary legislative activity are either mischievous or ignorant of legislative procedures,” he told journalists last week.

    All that may well be true. But again, the timing of the amendments was indiscretionary in the extreme, as some members of that legislative chamber had cared to counsel; and the haste that attended the first two readings of the amendment bills was spurious and uncharacteristic of the notoriously sticky legislative process. Really, what was the rush for? Even if the Senate truly had noble intentions with the proposed amendments, its timing and haste were irremediably suspect; and it was redeeming for the chamber to have decided last week to suspend further legislative action on the bills. The proposed amendments had looked like a legislative foundry to fashion spanners that could be thrown at the ongoing tribunal trial of the Senate president, and no alchemy of whitewash by the legislative chamber could have altered that perception.

    I am a firm believer in the presumed innocence of an accused person until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction. But the Senate President must submit himself to trial and prove his innocence, if he is indeed innocent of the charges against him. So far, he has exerted judicial energy more on stalling the trial than in putting up a robust defence against the charges, and that does not add up to the profile of someone who really has a defence.

    Still, it is good that the 8th Senate is in search of redemption. While at it, the legislative chamber would need to get Nigerians to terms with its decision to procure a fleet of foreign-made exotic vehicles amidst severe drought of foreign exchange and dire economic difficulties facing this country. It had last week confirmed taking delivery of 36 units of Land Cruiser VXR V8 model, at N36.5million unit price, and not a few consider the procurement as insensitive and affronting to public sensibility. The chairman of the Committee on Senate Services, Senator Abdullahi Gobir, told journalists last week that the 36 units were all that would be acquired in view of the harsh economic conditions. “We bought 36 cars because each senator in each state is either a chairman or a vice-chairman and we gave one car to each state. We don’t have money to buy 108 cars, “he said.

    Well, the question arises as to how the number of states became a determinant factor for the Senate in acquiring those vehicles. If they were operational vehicles and not mere patronage items, how come the vehicles were not assigned on the basis of Senate committees or committee clusters, but rather on the basis of states? And if they were given in patronage, then the procurement of even one unit of the vehicle was a mindless rape on the national treasury. There is need for more explanation.

  • The unspoken silence

    A stitch in time saves nine! Time flies supersonically these days, more than we all ever imagined. The nation was in a stupor, deflated to her withering economic effigy, strengthened by nothingness but the loud noise of drowning men; visionless but well-heeled on stolen wealth.  The nation was crawling on her knees in the last years of PDP’s Goodluck Jonathan, but robustly kept alive, running feverishly, suspiciously on borrowed time and funds, or now that we all know, on  massively, criminally depleted nation’s treasury. Any wonder PDP blundered and their ship of deluded hope crashed. A party packed full of enormous goodwill, and income spent on best of straw intentions, damned-up behind aggrandizement and braggadocios! The nation’s strength faltered on all alternatives but a subtle, solemn revisit of an old wine, repackaged in a seemingly holier bottle; proved a stroke of a genius. Subliminally packaged political messages of hope on: The Mantra of Change, were the key words to revive a nation belaboured in spirituality, political, economic and a roundly flawed image. A treatingly pined-down nation in A JIHADIST GUERILLA INSURGENCY WAR!

    The unspoken political reality on ground today needs be put in perspective. Oh! You don’t think Bola Ahmed Tinubu fought on the dirty-mud-slinging-war front absorbing all the lethal darts and missiles to be apportioned and spited with a back seat role in the spoils of war!  In the euphoric dance of victory, we are bound to step on each others’ toes but chain not, nor pin-down no one as the race of progress on THE CHANGE MANTRA begins to accelerate in view. Things need be revisited and very gently caressed, then facts will reveal glaringly and reality will finally dawn on us all. The strained unity of purposes in APC VICTORY, still haunting and must be back on course, on logical course in the greater interest of all. We ordered CHANGE JET PMB-BTA 2015,TURBO-CHARGED, not to be powered by host of TAIWAN’S IMMITATIONS of political neophytes backed by charlatans and renegades but proven resilience: Turbo-Charged, Powered by Tinubu-Buhari’s Engines running full throttle in political and economic spheres. In Saint PMBuhari; we expected our VAULTS are stoutly guarded, enriched and gated! The General in shining armour of Integrity, Honour but appears has limited knowledge in economic matters nor wherewithal in THE THOUSAND AND ONE MINED FOREST OF NIGERIAN DIRTY POLITICS, says PMBuhari’s credentials!!! I reasoned.

    Nothing novel about this arrangement in our beleaguered political archives, history and economic conundrum. In retrospect, some of us are old enough to know but are merely being clever by half. Gowon and Awolowo, a memorable pair in governance, though miles apart in intellectual weight in silver, nuggets of gold and clear crystal blue diamond’s worth; The wisdom of the fate anointed young General Gowon and Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo, bailed us out in a similar, in fact we were in identical situations in the very early seventies; posterity crowned both of them HEROES! Gowon’s image was never diminished, Awolowo’s image stood primed-all-times-enhanced. No Victor No Vanquished! A solemn paradox, haunting us now, challenging our conscience today! Let the truth ring out loud and clear. In spite of all unprecedented privileges entrusted by fate upon the Fulani nation, she has yet not, worsted the Yoruba nation in anything significant! The Fulani’s claim of “born to rule” might be ego-soothing but may be effectively confined to the Sokoto Caliphate should PMBuhari, fail his people and the nation this time around. It is Messianic expectations from the wretched of the earth; the Talakawas deserve much more than just foot notes when history summation arises, when tomorrow dawns.

    This is one of the best political  combinations of all times ever to be crafted in this nation’s best of interests; heroic deed but full of indigestion and bad blood; it was built on hidden  or misty ambitions, assumptions, blind trust  and hop; rather than: THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS SHOULD HAVE BEEN EARLIER SETTLED! IT WILL BE MOST TRAGIC, IF THIS GREAT MISSION OF CHANGE; EMPTIES THE TANKS; WASTED ON THE ALTAR OF TRIBALISM AND EGO TRIPPINGS ON NON ISSUES; A NATIONAL CALLING IS IN THE AIR! BATinubu is a reservoir of political exigencies and sagacity. Mark you, my take on our current boldness in eloping with the Chinese nation, is another masterstroke but it will be foolhardy to expect our long time allies; Americans and Europeans clinking glasses of champagne! We just ruptured their underbelly. Challenges lie ahead; please steady BATinubu for the cloudy skies ahead.

    Our nation’s beleaguered political predicament will be limping for a long time to come and our economy writhing in continuous struggling mode if this opportunity  is mismanaged or vanished into inconsequential or heightened, or hung on ego tripping modes! We must all be primed and alerted to the success of this republic. I have heard severally and variously how deep the minds of Fulani men are, and how unforgiving they could be; AVENGING WHAT?

    They honestly have themselves to blame for their people’s backwardness and predicament. They have been blessed, much, much more than any other nation in this union, in national politics! But since my growing up years; and now crowding my Biblical age, I have severally, intensely watched the Fulani nation WASTE TREMENDOUS POLITICAL CREDITS, IN VICTORIES OFTEN EARNED OR STOLEN! What they seemingly amassed aplenty in political sophistry, they fritter. They appear not capable, or able to translate victories into economic blessings for their people, left alone the nation. They often burn it all to the detriment of their own people, coasting home always at all time lows on intangibles, titles, privileged positions  and frivolous wealth accumulation in wrong hands; negating the hope and plight of millions of their peoples, those who mattered most in their society living on pittance; acceptable as the will of Allah? Save alone for a few “RANKA DEDEs” who are very highly privileged but negligible few benefiting far less the Talakawas, than they earned on vote or dominance in power by other means! The Talakawas simply serve the currency of political struggles; defend mandates and victories but disposable in the end! The critical mass in poverty that needs be rescued NOW! They deserve unfailing attention now; most especially in Education and Agriculture; powered by steadied supply of generated power for all and sundry.

    For a teaser; the Fulani herdsmen; viciously cantankerous, but hardworking are still beggarly or forcefully  grazing or cattle ranching in other people’s green pastures with virtually no clothes on their backs; in the year of our Lord 2016! While the rich cow owners are comfortably, unconscionably nestled in pleasure, their wards drift rudderless with cattle; at almost the same value for their own lives, wasting away  in generic  ignorance of enslavement . The infiltration from Chad and Niger Republic through our very porous borders compounds this recurring national  dilemma; very embarrassing! They are like gypsies army of occupation planted in other people’s neighbourhood nation-wide. Despite decades of opportunities of their leaders in politics, power and governance, they have failed woefully to arrest this volatility, sustained in silence, on this festering and lingering situations  in their backyard  and beyond. FOUR OR EVEN EIGHT YEARS IN GOVERNMENT COULD AGGREGATE LITTLE OR PROFOUND GREATNESS IN THE LIFE OF A NATION! THIS OPPORTUNITY HERE MUST NOT BE FRITERRED OR IT MIGHT LAY FULANI’S MYTH AND MIGHT A THREAD-BARE CLAIM.

    The apparent economic instability in our nation today, cannot be divorced from the high stakes in the political disequilibrium of disquieting proportion, in grand permutations from the PMBuhari’s wing in APC. They have succeeded in trying to put a lid on BATinubu’s very domineering ego! Such men’s larger than life ego is better managed; than scotch-snaked. Because ego reigns in politics and is justified in the murky terrain of competing men in political power, on very high stakes but probably less intense in style than BATinubu’s famed variant but the truth is, most great political leaders are weaned on it and it is often a common-denominator in successful great leaders of means; especially THE BREEDERS OF OTHER MEN FOR POLITICAL FAME AND FORTUNES. That is what they often anchored their trust and loyalty on: ABSOLUTE COMMAND IN LEADERSHIP! President Vladimir  Putin is a master in these games of dictatorial  tendencies. It is a price often paid, it inconveniences others, seals the fate of many, upgrade others but most usually they stand muted in silence of the majority to placate their leaders but their leaders; often achieved much in the interest of all  human species, especially  the certificates-uncensored and a population of illiterates as in our case are difficult to espouse  to reason.

  • How did we get here?

    The debate about the future of our dear country is at its peak right now. An independent survey to get opinions of twenty young people selected randomly between 18 to 30 years of age about what they foresee Nigeria’s future was pitiably astonishing. Fourteen of them don’t believe this country has a future they can premise their own tomorrow upon; four of them were sceptically neutral while only two have strong arguments to project a brighter future for the country.

    I deliberately played down issues around the problems inhibiting Nigeria from achieving its full potentials to focus on solutions to our problems. “We need to change the way we think” is oft repeated more commonly than ever before. Who really needs to change their thinking pattern? A school of thought believes leadership is the problem while the other believes that the negative impacts of poor leadership have eaten deep into the fabrics of an average citizen. They argue further that a good citizen will sure make a good leader when given opportunity to serve.

    When I moved motion for mandating the teaching of indigenous language in all primary and secondary schools in the state, my state of mind was deplorable given the rate at which we voluntarily jettison our languages, obviously one of our greatest values as a people. It is confusing to know who is actually a bush man between one who uses fork to eat ‘amala’ at the local restaurant and the one that ate with his fingers. When we began to label as error, primitive, unhelpful, local and secondary the use of our own indigenous languages (the vernacular), then I knew we had approached moral turbulence and deliberate castration of our value system. Even an adult now ‘sags’ with pride; young girls walk almost naked with growing effrontery. Whither the hope of a people!

    In the good old days, the entire community is responsible for preventing a child from entering moral decadence. My own mother beat me to stupor for picking money on the road as a young pupil in the elementary school, in spite of my unbridled honesty to have told her the source of the money! It could be worse if my perceived indiscipline for reckless ‘road side pick’ was discovered before I could tell.

    We now prefer foreign clothing to local fabrics – the more reason our local currency will continue to humble against other foreign currencies.

    The western way is good, but the local opens door for identity and originality.  Hip-hop music only got better when domesticated by our talented youngsters.

    Everyone needs identity, and a clear identity for that matter. You will never mistake a Chinese for an American. A little borrowed culture for the sake of globalisation and interdependence is not a bad idea, but killing indigenous values is as good as encouraging neo-colonialism. The people walk into slavery voluntarily by packing off their known ways of life for foreign habits they do not really understand.

    We made our own language a prohibited means of communication in the place of learning. Embracing more foreign clothing than the local is perceived to be status definition in our eyes. Even, ‘foreignisation’ now affects our economy as local currency continues to suffer for indiscriminate patronage of foreign currencies.

    All the countries that ever attain greatness in any ramification did so believing in their identity and sticking to it. Good examples of countries hitherto referred to as third world countries but who have moved up the ladder of highly industrialised nations are Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and more. Who is in doubt? We can make Aba our Alabama; our Oyingbo in Lagos can become an Oregon; the Totoro in Abeokuta can be developed to a Toronto. But our identity and intellectual freedom must be upheld first!

    Renewing orientation about who we are can solve our entire problems; stealing was never part of us; and if we don’t steal, we won’t be talking about corruption. It is the character of a man that must first corrupt before his pocket does. We were never in the habit of celebrating criminals and men of the underworld until we have lost our values completely.

    Who says we cannot do it again? We want to see a green-white- green that we will be proud of again. Everything about us used to be our pride; from good food to decent clothing; to our beautiful currency and hospitality; our hair do and lots more. If the labours of our strength will not be in vain, we need to go back to the basics.

    In my opinion, our movie industry, the Nollywood, which is the fourth biggest in the world and has potential of raking-in huge forex to support the nation’s revenue.

    We want to see a country stronger than its challenges. Personal and collective successes are only possible by making right and positive attitudes the bedrock of our vision.  Begging, whether direct or corporate was a shameful act that consumes one’s pride like fire eats up a dry wood; when has begging become a thing of pride? How did we get here?

    Like countries that have redefined their identities and used same as catalyst for moving up the ladder of great nations in the world, we can brace up and catch up with greatness. Our nation has produced heroes around the world; we can be proud of what is ours and challenge the world. Tomorrow, we can bequeath a nation that our children will be proud to call home, not a nation with unbearable deficit of values and loss of vision.

    • Olulade is a Member, Lagos State House of Assembly, representing Epe Constituency II.

  • Rethinking heroism and Nigerian civil service

    Unarguably, the dominant perspective about heroism in Nigeria today is that of a land where that species is endangered. Aside the political exploits of the Obafemi Awolowos, Nnamdi Azikiwes, Ahmadu Bellos, on the economic spheres, the Da Rochas, Aminu Dantatas, Louis Phillip Odumegwu Ojukwu; public service, the Babatunde Ajoses; literature, Amos Tutuolas, Chinua Achebes; education, Adekunle Ajasins, Chike Obis; the musical turf, the Hubert Ogundes, Dan Maraya of Jos, Rex Lawsons etc., whose unifying thread of heroism in their works was patriotism and excellence, the pantheon of that class and creed is becoming an anachronism in Nigeria today. This has been attributed basically to the maximal character and texture of capital in the Nigerian society, the abandonment of societal values of communalism for individualism, leading to survival-of-the-fittest and its subsequent derivative of elimination-of-the-weakest and ultimately, an erosion of values. The latter was effectively prosecuted by a combine of successive governments and the abetment of that vice by even the governed themselves.

    At an analytic level, if you could find ten of that rare breed of nature’s creation per thousand of surveyed Nigerians in the 1960’s, even up to the 1970’s, you could barely encounter one per thousand of that same sum in the Nigeria of today. Indeed, it is running against the mill to be heroic in Nigeria of today. While basic components of living were relatively easy to access in the former times, securing them is war today. Jealous and seeking to curtail rivals in its vicinity, heroism does not approve of friendship with Nigerians’ current maximalist search for capital. In other words, it is almost impossible that heroes could be found in the same trenches where people are pursuing wealth and survival.

    Some people have posited that it was easy to discover heroes in the 60’s and 70’s Nigeria because the environment was conducive to heroism. Broken into basics, they said that the Awolowos, the Azikiwes, Bellos could pursue societal good because their personal and individual good was a given. It is more complex for emerging youth and children of today. The environment is hostile to heroism.

    So when Tunji Olaopa, holder of a doctorate in public administration, consummate civil servant and prolific writer, posits that there are heroes in Nigeria and seeks to intellectualize their process of heroism, his proffer cannot but be likened to a Copernican theory in geography, and an against-method of Paul Karl Feyerabend, an Austrian-born philosopher, which are basically revolutionary. Olaopa had, in a previous engagement, in a book he authored on a renowned scholar kinsman of his, confirmed the theory of the dearth of heroes in the land. Ojetunde Aboyade, close companion of and a fellow “ecumenical spirit” of Professor Wole Soyinka, former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, former lecturer at the University of Ibadan, and a multiple-tested economic adviser to successive Federal Governments in the 70’s into the 90s, was Olaopa’s subject in the biography. In the biography of the late professor entitled A Prophet is with Honour – The Life and times of Ojetunji Aboyade, Olaopa had literally acknowledged that heroes, who belong to a rare and special class, are unusual to come by. His position was corroborated by the renowned professor of political science, Claude Ake, who wrote in a foreword to the book that “The country has no heroes, acknowledges none, and it devalues and derails those who could be…The project of nation-building and development which Nigerians espouse is a journey without maps, undertaken in moral anarchy towards an uncertain destination.”

    Recently, Olaopa seems to have submitted that that same rare species is witnessing an explosion. In a recently authored book entitled The Labour of Our Heroes published by Ibadan-based Bookcraft, Olaopa painstakingly, in an eleven-chaptered book, outlined paths to the Nigerian project, the national question, education and the human capital dynamics, the Nigerian predicament, Nigeria’s position in the continent, civil society and national integration, civil servants and entrepreneurs, among other classifications.

    In the same vein, Olaopa churned out of his intellectual smithy another book, published by same Bookcraft, which he entitled Civil Service and the Imperative of Nation Building which, on the whole, places a telescope to the Nigerian civil service of the past and the present, looking into the dark contours of its dysfunctions, failings, successes, progress and future possibilities, from theoretical and practical perspectives. He submits that the Nigerian civil service “stands at the critical nexus between grand infrastructural and service delivery efficiency and effectiveness and the trans-ethnic and trans-religious loyalty which is necessary to promote and sustain the civic bond of unity that will truly transform Nigeria into a nation.” Coming from a man reputed to be one of the most fecund-minded civil servants in recent times, this proffer would definitely need to be taken seriously by a Nigeria seeking ways out of the bind of drudgery and lethargy that are associated with the civil service.

    Two Nigerians whose intellect could be likened to a description of French philosopher, Voltaire as one of the most agile brains to have ever inhabited a human skull – the renowned bard and gubernatorial aspirant in Edo State, Odia Ofeimun, and emeritus professor of Geography, Akin Mabogunje – did a critique of the books in the form of foreword. Ofeimun sees Olaopa’s effort in The Labour of Our Heroes as an attempt at “memorializing  (the) feats, up-raising the heroic status of (such Nigerians)”

    Using the old theory of charismatic political leadership, he said, “Quite heartily (it) engages a Pan Nigerian landscape in which religious and political leaders, academics and intellectuals,  entrepreneurs,  philosophers, physicians,  scientists and creative writers, actors and filmmakers, musicians and community leaders,  are placed in the same force-field, as heroes.  Politics is not thereby downgraded or degraded but visualized, in context, as one of the theatres in which leadership may manifest within a contingent network of outstanding performers.”

    However, Ofeimun wondered why, in spite of the long heroic clientele that Olaopa gathered, the assemblage which he ascribed to the author’s “admirable gumption in letting objectivity and balance be his measurement through which he hewed out their outstanding display of honour and uncommon pedigree and elan”, Nigeria is still grappling with teething issues of development and is deemed a failed state in virtually all respects.

    In Civil Service and the Imperative of Nation Building, Mabogunje, who referred to the book as a “very opportune publication” said that the Nigerian Civil Service, especially at the Federal level, has had a very chequered history. His analysis was largely historical, pontificating on the certainty for a rosier future for the civil service if it collapses the virtues of the past with the challenges of today, an amalgam he opined would ooze out a promising future.

    “Coming with the confidence to advise on policy decisions and the secured tenure of the Colonial Civil Service in the early years of our political independence, the Service was soon forced to confront the profound national crisis that led to the military intervention in the administration of our nation in 1966.  Those years of crisis and military rule leading to the Civil War of 1967-70 saw the Civil Service virtually operating effectively at both the political and the bureaucratic levels of governance.  A subsequent military regime re-acted against this conflation of responsibilities and almost literally “decapitated” the top echelon of the Service by forced retirements, leaving the Service bruised, disorientated and no longer possessed of its earlier confidence and sense of security,” Magobunje said.

    He concurred with the author on the need to stress the fact that democratic progress all over the world responds more to the consistent reformulation of the operational dynamics of the Civil Service System which is the recognized engine room of national development and progress.  “The Civil Service is especially a sine qua non for national integration in a country like Nigeria racked by pangs of post-colonial ethnic, religious and cultural agitations for identity, a sense of belonging and social inclusiveness.  Indeed, the Civil Service stands at the critical nexus between grand infrastructural and service delivery efficiency and effectiveness and the trans-ethnic and trans-religious loyalty which is necessary to promote and sustain the civic bond of unity that will truly transform Nigeria into a nation,” he said.

    On the whole Mabogunje recommended the book to President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration as a writ to be used in undertaking “the unfinished nature of the reforms of the Federal Civil Service and be decisive in re-focusing its operational processes and procedures towards the goal of efficient and effective service delivery and national integration.”

    • Dr. Adedayo is on the editorial board of the Tribune.
  • Ortom at 55

    Ortom at 55

    “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed no help at all.”
    — Dale Carnegie

    THE above words of renowned American writer and teacher, Dale Carnegie, aptly tell the story of the present Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ioraer Ortom, a man who rose through the ranks of life to occupy very high offices in the land.

    According to another American writer, Casey Stengel, “There are three kinds of people: Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who ask, ‘What happened?”. Samuel Ortom obviously belongs to the fist group in Stengel’s classification. The 55 years Governor Ortom has so far spent on earth have brought smiles to the faces of many and wiped tears off the cheeks of more.

    Born on 23rd April, 1961 in Nzorov, Nongov in the Guma Local Government Area of Benue State, young Samuel Ortom, who rose from humble beginnings, ultimately overcame poverty and launched himself into state and national reckoning.

    Governor Ortom’s story is that of determination, focus and burning desire for success. It is the same thirst for success and greater success that led the former Chairman of the Guma Local Government Area, top party official and minister to aspire to govern his state. So it came to pass that the revelation God made to Samuel Ortom way back in 1992 and reaffirmed in 2012 was fulfilled on April 11, 2015 when the people of Benue State came out in their thousands to vote for him as their  governor.

    Flying the flag of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Ortom was clearly up against the tide as he faced the candidate of the then ruling party, the Peoples Democratic party, PDP. The rest as they say is history. Today, Samuel Ortom holds the record as the fist candidate of an opposition party in Benue State to defeat the candidate of the ruling party.

    Widely regarded as a reliable bridge between the poor and the rich, Governor Ortom has positively impacted on many lives in Benue State and the country at large. Before he became Governor, Ortom was Proprietor and Chairman, Oracle Business Limited, the firm that owns Goshen Water which produces bottled and sachet water; Oracle Oil Mills, Oracle Printing Press, as well as Oracle Farms Limited which handles mechanized farming and animal husbandry.

    He was also Chairman, Capital Prints Limited which handles commercial printing, publishing and documentation as well as Chairman, Achive

    Engineering Limited which is into civil and mechanical construction. The companies have offered employment to hundreds of people.

    One of the greatest manifestations of Governor Ortom’s humaneness lies in the establishment of Oracle Business Limited Foundation which handles redemptive and empowerment services.

    Under the foundation, Dr. Ortom set aside funds at Bishop Murray Hospital, Makurdi and Rahama Hospital, Gboko Road, Makurdi for free treatment of hernia and snakebite patients.

    These were among numerous other indelible qualities of this humble son of Benue that endeared him to the people of the state who overwhelmingly gave him their mandate as governor on April 11 last year.

    Though he inherited an empty and deficit treasury, Governor Ortom did not let that fact discourage him from hitting the ground running with good governance.

    Today, a number of projects are ongoing across the state, while numerous others are in the process of being awarded. Applications for the construction and rehabilitation of 700 primary schools in the 23 local government areas have been received by the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB, and bidding for the contracts will soon commence.

    The Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, has deservedly rated Benue as the first state in the payment of marching grant for primary education projects. This feat has been achieved following the efforts made by the Ortom administration which set aside N7.6 billion in collaboration with UBEC for the 700 school projects.

    Within the same period, Benue State has become the first state to achieve the 2015 Round of MDGs/SDGs Conditional Grants in Nigeria for the construction of primary health centres, skills acquisition centres, among other projects in over 30 communities of the state.

    After 12 years of stagnation, medical students of Benue State University breathed the air of graduation following Governor Ortom’s payment of the accreditation fee for the School of Health Sciences at the university.

    The Ortom administration has also embarked on 116 water projects under the Benue State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency, BERWASSA, in parts of the state.

    Governor Ortom has approved contracts for the facelift of 64 post-primary schools across the state.

    Work on the School of Nursing and Midwifery is near completion ahead of the reaccreditation of the

    institution.

    Contractors have been remobilized to site on ten roads abandoned by the previous administration while work has commenced in earnest on two new roads in the state  the Mobile Barracks  Yaikyo  Apir Road and

    the  Origbo  Imande  Akpu  Gbajimba Road.

    Sanity has returned to public service in Benue as financial leakages are plugged in compliance with the change mantra of the present administration.

    Governor Ortom has left no one in doubt regarding his zero tolerance for corruption as shown in his administration’s efforts to recover N107 billion looted during the previous government.

    This achiever, industrialist, philanthropist and administrator par excellence has turned 55 and has chosen to thank God and dedicate his stewardship for the state to the creator instead of organising a lavish birthday party where the meagre resources of the state will be spent. There is, therefore, every reason for the people of Benue to join the governor in praising the name of God for his life and praying that he receives greater wisdom to enable him steer the affairs of the state. Happy birthday Governor Samuel Ortom!

    • Akase is Chief Press Secretary to the Benue State Governor

  • Turkish tales of right abuses

    For every advocate of good governance and true democracy, the events and developments in Turkey would be of serious concern. Revelations on the happenings in that country indicated that Turkey has finally become a recluse state, where rights of individuals are not regarded.

    As a keen follower of activities in Turkey, I realized that the people of Turkey have found themselves under a government that has a penchant for abuse of fundamental human rights. It has become a recurrent occurrence. The Justice Development Party-led government has proven beyond doubt its likeness for suppressing opposing views.

    For instance, a recent report by the United States of America on rights abuses perpetrated in Turkey under the Justice Development Party (AKP) revealed that the media, the judiciary and other business interests owned by perceived enemies of the government were targeted.

    The last November election in Turkey saw the height of human right abuses. It was an event that saw the biggest clampdown on the press through forceful takeover of privately-owned media by government forces. It was a sour taste for those who chose to be in the opposition parties.  It is on record that opposition parties were denied level playing grounds as their campaign were grounded by government forces. It was not different for the judiciary; judges were coerced to do government biddings. Justice became expensive as access was denied citizens because of government’s insistence on compromising the course of justice in Turkey.

    Turks continued to lament under the draconian rule of the AKP. It was a challenging security environment as captured by the US reports on the rights abuses in Turkey. The election that produced the present government of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was, to say the least, a terror of sorts meted on the opposition. For example, reports have it that during the build-up to the election, attacks on opposition party officials and campaign staffers in some cases “hindered contestants’ ability to campaign freely”. A number of Turks expressed concern that media restrictions during the campaign period “reduced voters’ access to a plurality of views and information during the election process on November 1, which led to the formation of a government on November 24 by Prime Minister Davutoglu, even though it was considered a generally free election”.

    Another disturbing experience was that prior to the November election in Turkey, the authorities had arrested estimated 30 journalists, most charged under anti-terror laws or for alleged association with an illegal organization. What is more, Turkish government also exerted pressure on the media through security force raids on media companies; confiscation of publications with allegedly objectionable materials; criminal investigation of journalists and editors for alleged terrorism links or for insulting the president and other senior government officials; reprisals against the business interests of owners of some media conglomerates; fines; and internet blocking.

    I read with displease the reports that revealed that pressure on Kurdish-language and opposition media outlets in the Southeast reduced vulnerable populations’ access to information about the conflict with the PKK. A number of media outlets affiliated with the Fethullah Gulen movement were dropped from digital media platforms (cable providers) and five outlets were taken under the control of government-appointed trustees. Representatives of Gulenist and some liberal media outlets were denied access to official events and in some cases, denied press accreditation.

    It was obvious that the AKP led government is fighting a perceived enemy when their action led to most Gulen-affiliated television channels to lose a significant portion of their audience after the pay-television platforms dropped them, beginning with Tivibu on September 27. By October 15, four (out of six) digital pay-television platforms had dropped the channels. The government’s media regulatory institution, RTUK, had warned the operators that the removal violated broadcasting requirements for platform operators to be fair and impartial and was inconsistent with standard legal procedure. Despite the RTUK warning, a fifth pay-television platform, Turksat, dropped Gulen-affiliated channels on November 16.

    Turkish government has the culture of manipulating the legal system to get at opponent. It was emphasized in a report that Turkish authorities used the anti-terror laws during the year to detain individuals and seize assets, including media companies, of individuals alleged to be associated with the Gulen movement, designated by the government during the year as the Fethullah Gulen terrorist organization. For instance, on October 28, police used teargas and water cannons to disperse crowds of supporters in front of the office building housing the Kanalturk and Bugun TV television stations, then forced their way into the building and shut down the two channels during a live broadcast. The police action was the result of a court ruling creating a board of trustees to manage the stations’ parent company, Koza Ipek Holding. Critics of the takeover cited procedural irregularities and asserted that the media outlets were targeted for criticizing the government. Government officials denied any political motives, stating the connection between Koza Ipek Holding and Gulen justified the action.

    In the report, it was also noted that writers and publishers were subject to prosecution on grounds of defamation, denigration, obscenity, separatism, terrorism, subversion, fundamentalism, and insulting religious values. It said authorities investigated or continued court cases against myriad publications and publishers during the year. On December 15, a Gaziantep court ruled that the books of three authors, Hasan Cemal, Tugce Tatri, and Muslum Yucel, would be pulled from bookstores because the books were found among the possessions of two persons arrested for PKK membership.

    The report said that with the consolidation of media outlets under a few conglomerates that had other business interests, media entities increasingly practiced self-censorship to remain eligible for government contracts.

    Human rights organizations such as Freedom House noted that certain companies with media outlets critical of the government were targeted in tax investigations and forced to pay fines.

    The State Department report also stated that several organisations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Freedom House, reported authorities’ increased abuse of the anti-terror law and criminal code to prosecute journalists, writers, editors, publishers, translators, rights activists, lawyers, elected officials, and students for exercising their right to free expression.