The Nation Newspaper

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  • Vindication of Wamakko

    The Nigerian political landscape is now active with frenzy of campaigns leading up to next month’s elections. Two political parties, All Progressive Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) dominate the jostling to capture voters’ attention. The voters are citizens of Nigeria whose fate is at stake. Since 1999 when the country returned to democratic dispensation, PDP has remained at the saddle of power. Power appurtenances enabled the party to swallow or destabilize other parties to maintain absolute power. And like Lord Acton observed that absolute tends to corrupt absolutely. This has metamorphosed to that level where dictatorship assumed unprecedented proportion.

    The death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua suddenly opened up the rumps of PDP. There emerged power vacuum that threw opportunists into power game. Completion of Yar’Adua’s tenure was well managed by eminent Nigerians that were determined to sustain the sacrifice of our past heroes for a vibrant, virile and great country; a country of hope for every black man. Though in cognizance of rotational arrangement the power vacuum as a result of the demise of late President Yar’Adua placed a disadvantage against the geographical zone he represented. Compromise was reached to allow constitutional procedure to supersede every other consideration to maintain status quo in order of succession for the vice president to complete PDP presidency as party that won the 2007 general elections.

    However, the confusion once again arose when it came to issues of 2011 general elections. The same eminent Nigerians rallied to douse the tensions on a gentleman agreement of just one term that would give President Jonathan a total of six years in office. It was a firm commitment as chronicled in video clippings from his speeches from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and within Nigeria with commendations at Eagle Square, Abuja by former President Obasanjo.

    Personalities like Governors Aliyu Wamakko, Sokoto State, Sule Lamido of Jigawa State and former governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako were tireless in concerted efforts to broker understanding with northern stakeholders to support President Jonathan for the 2011 election. These gentlemen drew odium from their people for what they saw as betrayal. But their efforts were seen in wider spectrum as a means to peaceful resolution of constitutional crisis that Nigeria suddenly got entangled. The country eventually smarted out of it. These gentlemen succeeded as patriots. However, events soon unfolded in bitter and unpalatable reciprocation where PDP leadership resorted to antics of use and dump. It reached climax under the chairmanship of Bamanga Tukur.

    Reform is desirable process to keep a system in tune with current realities. These realities emanated from the pulse of the grassroots which recurred with public opinion of the electorate at the baseline. Frequently, the governors of PDP nudged the national headquarters to listen and reason in the interest of the party and country. Governor Wamakko was an active mover in the voices for reform. But he became a target of vilification, orchestrated by some PDP members from Sokoto State that found permanent abode in Abuja. They are still the spoilers in Sokoto State structure of the party. They seemed more inclined towards their personal ambitions than welfare of the masses. In fact, that character reflected in the travails of other patriotic governors. In spite of their effrontery the governors continued to work towards amicable resolutions of issues.  The national headquarters sabotaged these efforts at every stage. The presidency, fed with enormous false insinuations was aloof and arrogant to address issues in the interest of the country.

    Expectedly, the alternative became abandoning the unwilling horse for a movable one ready to continue the race to rescue Nigerians from downward slide into poverty and continuous carnage. APC emerged as a formidable national party for the realization of that mission. It should not be surprising that the hitherto amorphous size of PDP has resulted into degeneration to complacency towards the plight of the masses.  Unfortunately, parochial sentiments are now the sing-song of the party to harangue Nigerians into deceptive promises of fixing the economy at the expense of innocuous shrinking opportunities.

    A few days ago, the national chairman of PDP, Alhaji Adamu Mua’azu, ruefully alerted President Jonathan on imminent collapse of the party due to what he called use and dump policy of the party. And that is exactly what caused the massive desertion of personalities from PDP to other parties. The present chairman of PDP made the very observation Alhaji Bamanga Tukur shunned from those patriots now in APC. They are vindicated. It is the carelessness that has plunged Nigeria into a rudderless state.

    The current situation has blossomed into general negligence to provide security for the citizens, ubiquitous uncertainties, unemployment, economic disarray and huge corruption nurtured and sustained by sycophants of the administration that position as perpetual beneficiaries of the common wealth. Their faces manifested in donations towards bankrolling PDP campaigns. But certainly, the country cannot continue this way.

    APC has provided alternative platform for progressives to converge and work assiduously to enthrone a government that shall rescue the drifting ship of nation. The party kicked off its campaigns from the southern part of the country as a demonstration that contrary to PDP insinuation, APC is truly a national party that transcends every jaundiced sentiment. It is a grassroots party as envisaged for PDP by Governor Wamakko and other governors that found their way into APC. PDP is now a cabal that protects interests of a few at the detriment of the Nigerian masses.

    In Sokoto, APC train is being propelled by Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal. The colossal experience he gained as the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall bear in his superintendence of Sokoto State administration. He is a nationalist that still holds together one of the most cohesive lower chambers in Nigerian democratic history. Sokoto State, the seat of the Caliphate shall continue to be beacon of administrative paradigm to the rest of the nation under the leadership of pragmatic and trailblazer Aminu Waziri Tambuwal under APC with people-oriented program for Nigerian masses’ emancipation.

    • Hassan is of North-West coalition of Professional Patriots. He writes from Sokoto  

  • Tinubu, Fashola, Ambode and baton of excellence

    For Lagos State, the last 15 years of civil administration had been an epic. Lagos has been able to live up to its alias as the “Centre of Excellence” as the successive administration continue to build on the foundation laid by the enigmatic pathfinder, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who became governor when the democratic ship berthed on our shores way back in 1999.

    With a professional background steeped in private sector audit, Tinubu was quick to realize the need to depend less on federal allocation by shoring up the revenue base of the state. This feat was achieved through a systematic re-engineering of the internally generated revenue regimes by plugging loop holes and leakages, keeping within existing financial guidelines in a way that does not impose additional burden on the people.

    In addition, he initiated far reaching policies in all sectors of the socio-economic spectrum such as transportation, education, judiciary, health, environment, commerce and industry as symbolized by the Lekki Free Trade Zone and other initiatives. The Enron initiative still remained unbeaten in the power sector in terms of constancy and quantity. Many a times in the history of our power supply, it has remained the only source of supply.

    His reforms in the judicial sector was quite legendary as governments, state and federal and some other African nations were falling on themselves to adopt the Lagos model in a bid to enhance their justice system.

    To ensure that these policies endure beyond the lifetime of his administration, he created institutions that will not only sustain the initial gains but to ensure that the policies and programmes continue to evolve to meet up with time dynamics.

    An astute statesman and strategist that he was and still is, Tinubu played safe with his choice of Babatunde Raji Fashola as successor, a capable hand he styled as the “The Best Man for The Job” to steer the ship of the state after him. Ever since, Lagos State and its people have been the better for it as the state continues to move from one level of advancement to the next. Tinubu has become the powerhouse of grooming successful leaders in Nigeria, a feat, yet unequalled in the history of the country.

    The Fashola administration has redefined the art of governance in the country through its numerous innovative and creative programmes and projects. He strongly demonstrated that with a focused, visionary leadership, and hard work, the Nigerian of our dream is not unattainable.

    From the outset, Fashola set out to do government business in an unusual fashion; completely different from what we are used to. That is why he always affirms an Albert Einstein’s maxim that: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

    Hence, Fashola set out to place Lagos among the prime investment hubs, not only in Africa, but in the whole world. His vision is to build a Lagos that is similar to reputable cities like London, Mumbai, Istanbul, Sao Paulo, Jakarta, Delhi, Dubai, Bangkok, and Cairo among others. With the relative success of the State Security Trust Fund in taming crimes in the state, Lagos has become the preferred point for investors as the business atmosphere has become predictable and stabilized.

    Lagos is safer today by any standard of the world. The state government’s intervention in the work environment in the areas of training, equipment, logistics and motivation and other crime management measures continue to yield results.

    Many have been trying to analyze the Fashola phenomenon in Lagos. Some analysts are of the view that the governor succeeded because he has a passionate commitment to connecting with the people, particularly the ordinary man on the street, and building their trust in the sincerity and noble intentions of his government. Others, however, ascribe Fashola’s success to his rugged determination to leave an indelible footprint in the sands of time. This, according to pundits, has really made him to focus totally on governance. Quite a few also attribute the success of the administration to the assemblage of a crack team of committed individuals, an intricate blend of professionals, administrators, scholars and politicians.

    It’s only a few months to the end of the Fashola administration, yet there are indications that the progressive train of governance in Lagos is not, in any way, ready to berth. The emergence of Akinwunmi Ambode as the gubernatorial candidate of the ruling party in the state, the All Progressive Congress, APC, is another indication that the party is not in short supply of capable hands to keep the state on the path of growth and progress.

    With the intimidating credentials of this candidate, it is indicative that the tradition of excellence in the state is about to soar to a higher heights. It is difficult to fault this line of reasoning for many reasons. For one, everything about Ambode sparks of brilliance and excellence.  At 21, he graduated in style in Accounting from the University of Lagos, Akoka. At the age of 24, when many of his contemporaries were yet to find their bearings in life, Ambode had earned a Master’s degree in Accounting and had also became a Chartered Accountant.

    It is, however, the selfless and committed stance of Ambode to the service of the government and people of Lagos that actually marks him out as a diligent and conscientious public administrator. An astute public servant, Ambode has had a highly illustrious and consummate career as a public sector accountant and administrator in Lagos State. In a most distinguished public service career spanning almost three decades, Ambode rose to become the Auditor General for Local Governments in the state, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Accountant General of Lagos State, a position he held till his voluntary resignation from the public service in 2012.

    A resourceful and ingenious administrator, part of Ambode’s enduring legacies as Accountant General of the state was the establishment of the State Treasury Office (STO), which transformed public sector financial budgeting, management, planning and expenditure in Lagos State. In his six years as Accountant-General, the financial position of the state recorded a great boost while budget performance averaged 85% per annum. A prudent and shrewd manager of public resources, Ambode strongly holds the view that public funds should be judiciously expended for the good of the people, whom it is primarily meant for.

    Indeed, Ambode’s meticulous process of re-engineering the state’s financial status was partly responsible for the development and sustenance of the Lagos mega city. The ingenuity of the Tinubu administration in overcoming difficulties and frustrations occasioned by the seized allocation of local government councils in the state by the Obasanjo administration has been traced to the amazing financial wizardry of Ambode. How the administration was able to stay afloat in those trying era remains a major talking point till date. Of course, there is no way that the political-economy of Lagos state of the period would be discussed without giving him a prime of place.

    With Ambode poised to take over from the incumbent, Fashola, as the state governor, Lagos would, indeed, be the better for it. The direction of things to come in the next few years became clearer recently when Fashola publicly presented the Lagos State Development Plan 2012-2025. The governor who publicly presented the document at the Banquet Hall of the Lagos House, Ikeja, with Ambode in attendance, added that infrastructure is being built to redress the infrastructure deficit that the state has suffered. He added that the Development Plan document is about the vision for the future and how it would affect the Lagos Mega City. The import of this development is that Ambode, when he eventually takes over from Fashola, already has a master plan with which he could realise his dream to take the state to a new level.

    The lesson to be learnt in the current development in Lagos is that continuity in governance, especially from one visionary leadership to the other is quite critical, for the social, economic and political stability of the polity. However, continuity must just not be embraced just for the sake of it. It must be laced with the attendant tradition of exemplary performance. Not the type of crude cluelessness we have been witnessing at the centre in recent times. Nigeria might have been a better place if the rudder of the ship is being steered by a person who has defined passion for the country and not a conscripted and unwilling individual. This is where Lagos differs. This is why Lagos continues to excel.

     

    • Raji is Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Information & Strategy.

  • 2014 discontents and lessons

    Finally 2014 delivered a fine baby despite all the pre-natal problems and apprehensions. We should congratulate   citizens for being patient witness to the turbulent pregnancy and birth and pray God for our collective good and prosperity. There were genuine grounds for much apprehension in 2014 about the fate of the country in 2015 especially because of the general elections and the predicted end time for the country.

    The year was difficult and testy in many respects but with useful lessons that helped to define right way forward. What about the ceaseless insecurity worsened by sectarian revolts in the North and kidnapping in the South? What about the extremely rough political tackles, the highly provocative words and actions that threatened to tear us apart even before the arrival of 2015-the predicted end time for the country?  There were so many discontents that deepened fear about survival. Our greatest worry was that the elites were not working hard to prevent or cure the ills that could lead to the predicted doom.

    Generally our collective memory ran short. Sinking primordial values were revived:  Tribalism, ethnicity and religion were wrongly mobilized and deployed to selfish end to deepen hatred and division. A President who shattered the myth of tribalism with a pan –Nigerian mandate in 2011 was hijacked by a few who declared him as their own- regionalizing him in the process to the consternation and alienation of many Nigerians who voted for him earlier.

    Such supporters forgot three critical points namely; that no region can produce a President  without due support of other regions; that a Nigerian president becomes automatically the ‘father of all’ the moment he wins an election; and that the pan-Nigerian Mandate of 2011 was a reaction to perceived sense of oppression and injustice and thus a  reminder that Nigeria belongs to all  and a strong message of hope  by the electorate  that any Nigerian no matter the circumstances of birth and belief can be President in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.

    With 2015 general election in mind such dream and aspiration was almost shattered in 2014 by wrong support of one cause or the other to our collective detriment. The lesson for progress is simple: let’s learn to support a cause for the right reason and allow our President be the FATHER of all.

    The year 2014 was a solidifier of evil and bad habits. Insecurity remained deadly with many people becoming more vulnerable.  Children were seized and are not found, many youths were wasted – some of them executed in their colleges and through road accidents and hostile flags flown in some parts of our land. Courage rose from within in form of youth vigilante including hunters to check insecurity to point the correct way: empower the youths and community members for security assignments, invest more on relevant technology for intelligence gathering and embark on mass ideological education to win souls for the nation. The armed forces and other security agencies will continue to be useful but they need the active support and collaboration of the community to fight  a WAR OF THE MIND  and faceless group of no fixed location such as Boko Haram and kidnappers.

    Incessant reports of corruption dominated the news media –perhaps the most sensational being the N20 billion or N10b reportedly missing from our oil account. The allegation might be false or true but nothing was heard about the outcome of investigation. This is the point 2014 made very evident-the inability to punish evil thereby sending the wrong signal. There were spirited efforts to fight corruption but it simply refused to budge- perhaps because the consequence management process was weak.  No nation is corruption free but empirical evidence shows that the ability to detect and punish crime is the greatest deterrence. Most criminals do not like exposure.

    Perhaps the greatest source of discontent was the economy. It was harsh to majority citizens. But this was not for lack of action but the wrong choice made. The economic policy was not people-friendly but elites’ bias.  This explains why otherwise pleasant news about the rebasing exercise which made Nigeria Africa’s biggest economy became suspect and controversial. Critics observed that progress made did not reflect on the quality of life of majority of the citizens. Instead of prosperity and well-being, poverty, corruption unemployment, under-development of infrastructure, neglected rural areas etc remained as acute as ever.

    The year witnessed unprecedented fall of price of oil to an all time low at the global market,  the announcement  of planned increase of electricity tariff  by the electricity regulatory agency for the new year- an election year,  complaints of non-payment of December salaries by Labour Unions, heightened piracy of oil etc. Any lesson?  Yes it was time to show patriotism, sensitivity to the plights of the consumers by some agencies and to rethink and redirect our economic policy. It must be stressed that the economic thrust of the mid-1980s days of SAP through to the privatization drive under Obasanjo to the present has failed to deliver the country to the Promised Land. Year 2014 reaffirmed this reality.

    Some institutions were misused and violated. The National Assembly was barricaded and tear-gassed thereby making the theory of separation of power meaningless. A court was invaded and sacked. According to foreign observers human rights were abused.  New meaning of arithmetic emerged: those who scored lower marks were declared winners over those with higher points.  Some minority but powerful politicians sacked the majority members in some states House of Assembly. It is needless to say that some of these depressive stuffs made one to look unto 2015 with gloom and trepidation.

    The year 2014 was bad and difficult almost throughout but it was also an eye opener to the vast opportunities around and a pointer to what can be done to become a better nation.  As usual there was the tendency to blame the leader for nearly everything bad under the sun as though one man can do it alone. It was forgotten that the leader had a vision to transform society but lacked the right elites to actualize the dream. He was weighed down by a most debilitating leadership culture ever. Wrong notion of leadership and the absence of development –oriented elites fouled the air and hindered progress. Whoever wins the presidency must reckon with the hindering leadership culture- the unclean environment and grossly incapable elites around the leader. The past year reminds us that the superman theory of leadership is wrong. While a leader is one person, leadership is a process of collective action of a group-some seen, others not. The leadership culture in Nigeria has been poor and putrefied since Independence and it remained so in 2014.

    Many more sad developments can be recalled but these are sufficient to show the hardship and attendant discontent of year 2014. But they offer useful lessons which resulted in self-discovery and general awareness on the way forward in 2015. For instance we must fight corruption with greater vigour, instal morality, sound ethical conduct, discipline and pearl integrity in our national life and evolve better leadership culture. We must reorder the economic system with a good mix of state and private capital to promote employment and reduce poverty, build more refineries to meet local demands and settle domestic debts, diversify the economy to reduce dependency and enhance infrastructure including rural development. We must promote patriotism with the interest of the individual subordinated to that of the country, selfless service and good governance. However for its pains and attendant self –discovery and heightened awareness, we would continue to appreciate 2014 for lessons to navigate our way to a better future.

    • Dr Abhuere writes from Uromi, Edo State

  • Are you Abraham Lincoln…No, I am Buhari

    History has bequeathed to some an avalanche of experiential knowledge, that speaks multitude for those who remain dogged at realizing purpose, for their nations. As the saying goes “the downfall of a man is not the end of his life”, and another, “…live to fight another day” – all pointing to the reality before the Nigerian state, in the person of General Muhammadu Buhari, and another man in remote history of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln. Both holding synonymous traits, in the pursuance of purpose and desire, ultimately guided by wild principles based on convictions. These convictions rule their thoughts, mannerisms and followership in their various times.

    The story of Abraham Lincoln has been taught in schools, and universities across the world, and has been entertained, over and over again, at various points of intellectual and political history.  A phenomenon of immense courage, exuding fervor for the stubborn pursuit of nothing short of the actualization of vision, for dear fatherland. And so, in March 1861,  after several attempts at clinching elective positions, Abraham Lincoln became the16th president of the United States. That glorious and earnestly sought after victory did not capitulate the mission, on the altar of vain jubilation or celebrations. He went straight to the mission, for which he had fallen several times, and eventually made history.The uniqueness of his victory orchestrates for Buhari, a platform to locate, for himself, a historical identity. An identity that shall permeate the annals of Nigeria’s geo-political history, bringing to view a comradeship of historical semblance with President Lincoln.

    Abraham Lincoln came into power at the time in America, when a break-up seemed imminent, as the case is with the Nigerian state today. He saved the Union during the Civil War and then fostered the emancipation of slaves. Nigeria today is faced with a new reality that craves for a binding leadership – a leadership that would fanatically sustain her unity and territorial integrity, in the face of a rising challenge of terrorism, lawlessness and wanton corruption. Nigeria has been drawn into a religious battle ground, with a political flavour. Meanwhile, no historical justification supports the new political dynamism in this direction. It only points to a new reality, of a ‘politico-religious strategization’ for the heart of the Nigerian state. A binding leadership has become necessary for a peaceful Nigeria. A leadership supported by a majority of regions, and craved by the poor majority. It must be a leadership that would emancipate the Nigerian people, from 21st style of slavery, to a freedom quest for self-realization.

    “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Abraham Lincoln said. Buhari had only began to sharpen his axe, as a military leader, when 604 days (December 31, 1983 – August 26, 1985) into his administration he was overthrown from power. In that short period of time, Nigeria had acquired some developmental speed (and of course, discipline), and had gradually become a force to be reckoned with, internationally. His zero tolerance for corruption was second to none.

    In no distant past, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari had embarked on a mission to become a democratic President that would foster a developmental agenda, that would bring Nigeria to the international limelight of relevance. Prof Tam David-West, a former Minister of Petroleum resources, lending his voice to the crusade for truth, had stated clearly  that, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, had never lost in any election in the country – pointing out that he had been ‘serially rigged out’ when he contested in 2003, 2007 and 2011. This reality was further corroborated, when, in 2007 after the elections, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua admitted that the election that brought him to office was not free and fair.

    As he stood before delegates, at the third National Convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC), laden with emotions in his voice, he had this to say:

     ”We seek a new Nigeria. It starts with us. It starts today. I have placed myself before you seeking your help to nominate me as your standard bearer for our progressive party, APC. Personal ambition does not drive me in this regard. I seek to be the next president of our beloved nation because I believe I have something to offer Nigeria at this time of multiple crises. Insecurity, corruption, and economic collapse have brought the nation low. Time is past due that we work together to lift Nigeria up. I am ready to lead Nigeria to its rightful future”.

    Meanwhile, the major catastrophes bedeviling Nigeria today are Boko Haram, corruption, and over dependence on oil resources. Buhari a zero-corruption-tolerant leader, during his 604 days as military head of state, dealt a deadly blow to the institution of corruption (that had just began to develop at the time), but corruption fought back, and he was overthrown from power. Within this very short period of his administration, he commissioned two of the six units of the Egbin Thermal Power Station. The Jebba Hydroelectric Power Station was officially commissioned on April 13, 1985 under Buhari. With unwavering fiscal discipline, he took inflation down from near 23% to 4%.  According to Index Mundi, the inflation rate of Nigeria in 1983 was 22.222%. The EconStats, of the World Economic Outlook (WEO) data (IMF) veritably lays out the figures, displaying that by 1985 when he was overthrown from office as President, inflation rate had come down to 3.226%. These are, but a few. These were all during his term as military head of state, for just 604 days. General Muhammadu Buhari’s environmental sanitation policy has remained a landmark influence on the Nigerian state till date.

    The no-nonsense attitude of General Muhammadu Buhari has also earned him serious opposition, in the corrupt Nigerian society of today. For these reasons, and more lies, he had been denied electoral victory all through the Nigerian democratic years. These lies may have created a soft-landing for the reasons why he was ‘serially rigged out’ when he contested in 2003, 2007 and 2011 as opined by Prof. Tam David-West.

    It is important to note that General Muhammadu Buhari, may not be in line with the political reality of today, which is rife with gross anomalies. A political system that births terrorism, and lays blame on the innocent to score undeserved political goals. In all these, Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State has also lent his voice to the call for a Nigeria ruled by Muhammadu Buhari, saying that at this critical time that Nigeria has been driven to a precipice just as he (Buhari) came at the nick of time in 1983 when the conservative National Party of Nigeria (NPN) had crippled the country through bad leadership.

    Abraham Lincoln’s historic victory to become the 16th President of the United States of America, is a fore-warning to many that a man who rises up after every fall, is well fortified to understand the value of victory. General Muhammadu Buhari understands the value of the Nigerian mandate, and maintains a direction to the democratic relevance of development in a Nigeria of the 21st Century. He is not Abraham Lincoln, he is General Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria.

  • Budget for gluttons and the tortoise

    The day double-portfolioed Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala heralded the dawn of austerity, she sounded like an amateur ventriloquist. She broke the news with a borrowed pathos. It was so unlike her. She was the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, the one who always looked through her rose-colored spectacles, the one who always medicated our doubts with a cocktail of statistics.

    We didn’t quite need her help to awake to the times. We could see the superpowers toying with the price of crude oil. They are using oil price as a lever for diplomatic interests. They are equal matches in resoluteness, stamina and pride; contesting for energy and for power. They will fight to no end. The depression will linger. We would need prudence to survive since crude oil is our national lifeblood.

    However, Okonjo-Iweala emerged a few weeks later, brandishing a dare-devil budget. A budget that negates the reality of the hour. A budget that ignores the fall of Nigerian crude production. A budget that pretends that the crash of the price of crude below $60 per barrel doesn’t matter. A budget that covenanted half a billion naira to pamper the bellies of President Goodluck Jonathan, Vice President Namadi Sambo and other cadres of Abuja aristocrats. A budget that earmarks N174.6 million to meals and refreshment in the State House, 7.4 percent or 11.98 million naira higher the sum approved in a relatively prosperous 2014.

    For me, the most frustrating challenge of being Nigerian is that the government is always gnawing at the little faith one has in its capacity for seriousness as guardian of the state. The government constantly requires you to scavenge for some scrap of sense in its horrific stupidity. The government keeps demanding that you reconcile its voice of Jacob with the hand of Esau – to marry its words with its contradictory actions. Yet this open-ended food allocation is provocative.

    The message is overly loud. The appetite of the powers that be is sacrosanct. The tables of the mighty must increase in season and out of season. Their kitchens have no excuse to look lean and ordinary. This is part of the immunity privilege.

    When Jonathan and other incumbents campaign on the theme of continuity, they mean to say they have yet to eat to their heart’s content. They actually plead like Oliver Twist, “I want some more”. And “more” is an elastic word, amenable to stretching even in the oddest, incongruent times.

    Looking at the item, one is tempted to ask whether the VIPs would risk suffering kwashiorkor if they make do with one third of that amount. Minister of Agriculture, Akinwunmi Adesina, has been singing about the revolution he wrought in Nigerian farmlands. He declares that “our national food production expanded by an additional 21 million tonnes within three years” and food import bill has “declined from 1.1 trillion naira in 2009 to 684.7 billion naira by December 2013 and continues to decline in 2014”. Why is the government proposing to pay more for food when our barns are bulging with bumper harvest? Has the price of foodstuff gone through the roof? Would President Jonathan not go on whirlwind tour of Nigeria, collecting samples of the fruits of his transformational labor in huge sacks – salt from Abakaliki, rice from Adani, yams from Zaki Ibiam, plantains from Ikom, tomatoes from Jos, crayfish from Oron, chickens from Ota and corn from Zurmi?

    What’s the basis for hiking the Presidency’s food bill? Are the gains in million tonnes of food still accumulating in the airwaves, yet to fall, like manna, on terra firma? Do we import cassava bread? Is the government plagued by bulimia? Do we anticipate a surge in the numbers of eaters this election year?

    Of course, eating has grown beyond satisfying a biological need. These days, it’s more serious than ingesting a plateful to fuel the body’s metabolic processes. Eating has morphed into a bizarre political phenomenon. It’s been renamed stomach infrastructure, to reflect its transcendent significance in our worldview.

    We have heard that invitation to assume a public office in Nigeria is basically a summons to the fattening room; a call to come and chop. This budget affirms that that the concept of leadership as opportunity to feast is as valid today as when candor erupted out of the rage of then Internal Affairs Minister Sunday Afolabi and impelled him to castigate his Justice counterpart, Chief Bola Ige, a pick from the opposition, for criticizing government instead of minding his cutlery.

    Afolabi revealed that in the realms where the affairs of the country are decided, the default mentality is hedonist. People are tapped for positions so they can eat. They are redeemed from Adam’s curse. They don’t have to earn their meals from the sweat of their brow. They could keep vegetating at their post and never be fired. They are there to eat.

    A cursory look at the physique of our leaders shows that their mental and physical energy are rarely tasked. Their term in office is usually the best time of their lives. They look more nourished than they have ever been.

    One of the governors in the South-east exemplifies how a leadership position can revive dead bones. When his predecessor anointed him in 2007, there was a great stir. What energy did the elderly man have left? He had already traveled far into hoary years. A couple of months later, he had reversed his age. He became two decades younger.

    Leaders who bear who bear the weight of their post are easy to spot. Their very frame shows that there is a government upon their shoulders. Their faces have lines of worry. So working in the Oval Office alters the boyish looks of the rockstar. He is aging fast. His hair is growing grey. The job is sapping him of youth.

    President Jonathan is different. Nothing about him suggests that he is doing anything more challenging than holding a sinecure. Without doubt, he fulfills the easy part of his duties. He can wave at a crowd and dance at rally. He speaks animatedly when the Super Falcons visit for dinner. He is a nice leader in the comfort zone. But he feels offended and irritated when he is reminded that he is not on paid vacation to Aso Rock. He so detests the pressure of his office that he combats it with aloofness. He would skirt questions as though he was too shy or timid to proffer an answer or to be quoted. Still, he won’t brook any suggestion that he needs to embrace his job. No, he is a victim. A creature buffeted by bullies, in constant need of pity and sympathy.

    That budget estimates the hypocrisy of the Jonathan administration. He and his aides are ballooning out their consumption while priming citizens to fast more. Austerity measures are bad for advocates of austerity measures and good for others. The poor can skip one more square meal so that advocates of austerity may add one more course of one instance of eating. The Nigerian dream is to live Pharoah’s dream. To create a bifurcated country of fat, sleek cows and thin, bony cows.

    This appeal to executive gluttony has soiled the budget. It has subtracted legitimacy from a document that should speak to the greater need of the citizenry. In its present state, it resembles a fraud hatched by a selfish clique in the name of the people. This budget could well have sprung from the fabled cunning of the Tortoise.

    The tale goes. People of the firmament invited the birds to a banquet. It was a season of famine. The tortoise begged to join. The birds agreed and contributed their feathers. They made him one solid mass of rainbow. Midway into their flight, he advised that they needed to answer new names for the event. He appropriated the name ‘’All of You’’.

    When the meals were served, the Tortoise asked the hosts who all the meals were for. They told him that they were for All of You. The Tortoise claimed he was the single plurality, the only one eligible to eat. He gulped the whole food while the birds watched and salivated.

    They paid him back. They took back their feather donations and left the Tortoise stranded. He returned to earth by falling from the heights and breaking his shell.

    The budget purports to represent All of You. But the figures show it represents the gluttony of a few. It literally taunts the electorate to withdraw President Jonathan’s wings.

    • Ugwu is a public affairs commentator

  • Imoke, Efiks and the coming elections

    These are very sobering times in Cross River State. Negative tendencies that were buried several years ago are being exhumed all in a bid to score cheap political points. ýStrangely, good guys are now being made to look like devils all in the name of politics. Nothing is more distressing than the on-going campaign by some embattled and failed politicians to portray the state governor, Senator Liyel Imoke as one who hates Efik people of the state. Yet in truth, no other politician, including Efik sons and daughters, in recent times, has done more to uplift the Efiks than Imoke. Until 1999, no Efik man or woman was ever elected the governor of Cross River State. Indeed, the buzz words on everyone’s lips then was that no Efik could be governor of the state. In truth, this position had nothing to do with the competence of the Efiks to hold such an office. Rather, it was a simple case of all the other ethnic groups loosely referred to as Atam, coming together to form a huge voting bloc, to ensure that only their own ruled.

    But the Efiks were able to break that jinx in 1999 with the election of Donald Duke as governor. One man who played a pivotal role to ensure that this revolution of some sort took place is Senator Imoke. By 2003, it was looking almost impossible for Duke to get a second term in office. The other ethnic groups had banded together under the auspices of the Atam Peoples Congress with the sole aim of wresting power. It was the same Imoke who is now being painted as one who hates Efik, that confronted his own people and neutralized them so that his friend, an Efik, could get a second term in office. When Imoke, who is from the Central Senatorial District of the state won the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) governorship primaries for the 2007 elections, he settled for none other than Barrister Efiok Cobham as his running mate. Cobham is Efik. Unlike his predecessor and even some of his current colleague governors, who change their deputies like one changes garments, Imoke has kept his deputy. And everyone in the state knows that unlike other deputy governors, Cobham is actively involved in the running of the state. The story of the no-love lost relationship between the state governor and his first deputy in 1999 is well documented and needs no rehashing here. Cross River State is divided into three senatorial districts; Southern, Central and Northern. While Imoke is from the Central, his deputy is from the Southern Senatorial District. Despite occupying the office of deputy governor, Imoke nominated another Efik man, Edem Duke for ministerial appointment. That office was originally meant for the North. Under the present dispensation, three Efiks are ýcurrently serving as Nigerian ambassadors. These appointments are made by the President with recommendations from governors. In the Cross River State Executive Council appointed by Imoke, Efik sons and daughters occupy very strategic ministries. They include Etim Caifas, Commissioner for Finance, Prof Ndem Ayara, the State Economic Adviser, Prof Offiong E. Offiong, Commissioner for Education and Prof Angela Oyo-Ita, Commissioner for Health.

    It must also not be forgotten that the chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Senator Ewa Henshaw is Efik. This is not to forget Senator Florence Ita Giwa, an Efik daughter, who is on the board of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA). The senator representing the Southern Senatorial District, Prince Bassey Otu is an Efik man. The district is made up of seven local government areas. Two of these local government areas, Biase and Akamkpa are non-Efik speaking. Today, the phrase ‘Five Alive’, mischievously and selfishly coined to draw a distinction between the five Efik speaking local councils and the rest two, Biase and Akamkpa is proof that the latter two are ‘dead’ and serfs of the Efiks. Besides appointments and elective offices, Imoke has also favoured the Efiks more than any other ethnic group in the state when it comes to location of capital projects.

    Tellingly, the location of key capital projects in Efik land by Imoke started long before he became governor. As Minister of Power and Steel, Imoke got the Federal Government to site one of its Independent Power Plants (IPP)ý in Odukpani, an Efik land. His administration in the state has uplifted Calabar South more than any other administration has ever done with the construction of over 44 roads. There is also the Margaret Ekpo International Airport Bypass with an interchange flyover, the first of its kind in the state. The civil servants housing estate constructed by the Imoke-led administration is located in Akpabuyo, an Efik land. Other major capital projects being built in Calabar by the administration include the impressive Calabar International Convention Centre, the over 200-bed Specialist Hospital, 18-hole international golf course, monorail, a new upscale housing estate, ultra-modern indoor sports hall and many more. One of the new General Hospitals built by the Imoke administration is located in Ukem, Odukpani Local Government Area, an Efik land.

    In their haste to tar Imoke with a hate brush, these faceless ethnic jingoists exposed themselves for who they truly are; political hirelings paid to do a hatchet job for a fee. In effect, this group cannot be said to be representing the Efiks, but a narrow political interest masquerading as the voices of the Efiks. Else, why did the group find it rather difficult to unveil the so-called Concerned Citizens of Calabar by revealing signatories of the advertorial as published by The Nation of Monday January 6 and Tuesday January 7? Obviously, the content reveals clearly that the so-called Concerned Citizens of Calabar are agents working for a particular politician. It is also worrisome to find that the term Calabar is now loosely used to designate a people or tribe rather than a geographical location. Are these hirelings speaking for all the people, including those from the North and Central residing in Calabar or the Efiks as a people? In particular reference to the Peregrino meeting where Imoke was said to have voiced his concern about his alleged hatred for Calabar people, was the gathering a party affair or one for the Calabar people? When has a PDP or a party affair become that of the entire people of the state?  Is every Calabar resident or Efik man a PDP member?

    In an open letter to President Goodluck Jonathan, the faceless group claimed that Imoke hates Efik people ýwhich is why he is opposed to the idea of incumbent Senator Otu returning to the Senate. According to them, the governor favours Gershom Bassey who is unacceptable to them.  Let us, for the purpose of argument, concede that Gershom Bassey enjoys the support of the governor. But is Gershom Bassey not an Efik man like Prince Otu? Does support for one Efik man over the other amount to hate for a tribe?

    Another claim that flies in the face of truth is the purported neglect of the Obong of Calabar by the Imoke-led administration. If anything, Imoke has tried to restore the dignity ýof that highly revered stool that was needlessly desecrated by the previous administration led by an Efik son. The Mercedes Limousine the current Obong of Calabar cruises in was bought for him by the Imoke-led administration. Besides the monthly stipend that is paid to every member of the state Traditional Rulers Council which the Obong is a member, he gets an additional one million naira every month from the Imoke government. Let these purveyors of falsehood tell the world what car the Obong was driving when their son was the governor? We will also like to know what he was getting from the government on a monthly basis prior to the emergence of Imoke-led administration.

    In what clearly signposts a ‘clear and present danger’ to an incoming administration, this faceless group has revealed the imminent danger and threat it constitutes to its existence and survival in office. In an act of desperation and coupled with bare-face scheming for relevance, the Concerned Citizens of Calabar is already inciting the undiscerning among them against an administration that has yet to contest an election, much else secure a victory to form a government. In its febrile attempt, the group listed positions already shared out in the incoming regime that purportedly seek to exclude Calabar people!

     

    • Okon  writes from Calabar.

  • Jonathan’s sun sets in the East

    President Goodluck Jonathan has missed being the sun of the nation’s life and that of the pit of degradation, called the Niger Delta. Everlasting night has settled upon Nigeria, spurred by moral

    bankruptcy and the clueless chaos of his governance. There is nothing his administration has done that inspires hope in the people within the last six years.

    Nigerians have grown accustomed to the deafening cacophonies of missing billions in the oil sector and the NNPC accounts, pension fund looting, oil bunkering, abandoned projects, devaluation of the

    nation’s currency, spilling of innocent blood by the nihilist Boko Haram militias etc. Most of all, mega-corruption and the government’s inability to tame the bloodcurdling insurgents Boko Haram has been President Jonathan’s undoing.

    He could not use his “Omnipotent Government” to suppress the vices because he is a beneficiary of the self-inflicted crises. President Jonathan’s government has been a major source of mischief and disaster ever witnessed in Nigeria. Granted that the worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by governments in human history, but there come a time the people strive for change, and the time is now.

    The above statement was echoed – not exactly the same – by no less a personage than the fierce and fire-spitting Catholic Priest Rev. Ejike Mbaka. The iron cast priest obviously ventilated Ludwig Von Mises, the Austrian School economist, sociologist, and classical liberal who became prominent for his work in praxeology, a deductive study of human choice and action. “There is no more dangerous menace to civilisation than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men”, Von said.

    Rev. Mbaka hits the bull’s eye when he told President Jonathan the stark truth he hates to hear: “What is the fate of our children? Tears fill my eyes when I see our young graduates hoping and walking our streets. What is the meaning of kidnapping? Kidnapping is the grandson of unemployment. Boko Haram is a great grand child of the same unemployment, mass looting, and poor governance”.

    “President Jonathan cannot lead Nigeria. As things stand right now, from the oracle of the Holy Spirit, Jonathan should honourably resign quietly and let Nigeria be. The destiny of Nigeria is greater than

    Goodluck Jonathan. The Goodluck in Jonathan has become a bad luck to Nigerians. Whatever brought him in should send him back and let Nigeria be. By this time in few months to come, many are going to lose their jobs and there is no alternative”

    “During election, Jonathan will answer Azikiwe, Ebele and become an Igbo man and after election, the Ebele, the Azikiwe and Goodluck will vanish from his identity. Who is fooling who actually? Look at our federal roads, we are not even asking for new ones, roads built by Buhari and Babangidas — the so called Hausa people— cannot be maintained. Follow Enugu here to Onitsha, children born some years ago do not know that there was a lane along the other side of Isiagwu and we are all saying continue. The continuity of Jonathan means disaster to Nigeria”.

    “When there is no road, no power, all this fake promises… where is the power? That Onitsha Bridge, has it now been built? No. After six years, and Goodluck has what it takes to do whatever. He surrounded himself with hooligans. By the time he comes down, he won’t have anybody to

    work with. He played himself into the hands of hooligans. My interest is about the wellness of this country. Nigeria must survive. What we are passing through is by the help of God. The same

    God who saved us from Ebola will save us from this bad luck season”.

    “Look at it, there was a time there was an argument about pension fund – such billions. Who is talking about it now? Billions and we were hearing it… from excess crude oil money, where is the impact of the excess crude oil money? Now from oil boom, it has met a bad luck; it’s now oil doom. If my father will be my leader and my siblings will all die, let a stranger be my leader and let my family be”, Rev. Mbaka said.

    I quoted the Catholic Priest at great length because of his religious standing, his following, his geopolitical firmament and the ethno-religious sentiments that have dampened Nigeria political

    growth. Political leaders who failed to fulfil electoral promises to the electorate deliberately appeal or exploit ethnocentric and religious sentiments of their selfish gains in sections of the country. No Nigerian leader has gained popularity through divisive politicking, ethno-religious grandstanding than President Goodluck Jonathan. Then what is government if it is not to promote human happiness and welfare?

    All the blemishes plaguing this administration came as a result of the parasitic sycophants who give the president a halo of false glory and are hell-bent on feasting dangerously on the nation’s easy oil wealth.

    The reason, lamentably, is that Jonathan didn’t attain ideological maturation before he found himself in the corridors of power. He is being goaded on by dint of virtual providence and veritable luck.

    Minds more developed and ideologically balanced have proved that one of the greatest bequests to modern civilisation and governance is not entirely humility, but a great deal of granite hardness, as the need arises to trample on closest friends who stand in the way of the masses.

    With one stroke of abhorrence for corruption, President Jonathan could have transformed Nigeria. In President Jonathan’s administration, Nigerians have lost one of the nation’s supposed great educationist whose products we have not yet found in our time their fullest use, to corruption! He missed the chance to wear the cap described in Mein Kampf, The Struggle Of My Life:

    “From millions of men, one man must step forward who with apodictic force will form granite principles from the wavering idea-world of the broad masses and take up the struggle for their sole correctness, until the shifting waves of a free thought-world there will arise a brazen cliff of solid unity in faith and will”. World-historical men – the Heroes of an epoch – must therefore be recognised as its clear-sighted ones, their deeds, their worlds are the best of their time”.

    You can now gauge why President Goodluck Jonathan government is beset by treachery, overwhelmed by violence visited on it by the Boko Haram, drown in blood and will go up in flames in an orgy of self-willed annihilation which will answer some terrible longing question in the minds of Nigeria. The President who ought to be a man of staggering political genius, an incredible reformer by the reason of his education and experience has yielded to crass opportunism and mega-corruption.

    Which ever way, President Jonathan’s sun has set at midnight in the Eastern part of Nigeria, at the Adoration Ground, where he holds a portion of the nation to a grand illusion of oneness and slavish

    • Ikhide wrote in from Lagos.

  • Reflections on the army mutiny

    I am a bloody civilian. But I know what mutiny is not. Mutiny is not the caricature the Nigerian Army is passing it off to be. Mutiny is not hesitating to charge into battle empty handed. Mutiny is not bringing your superiors into cognizance that you need proper weapons to have a fair chance of putting the enemy to rout. Mutiny is not pleading to be equipped before being deployed to the front line.

    The Nigerian Army has bastardized the spirit of the word. And the new definition is made to serve our unique malady – like a Peugeot 504 built for Nigerian roads. Mutiny is now the manifestation of reluctance to dash off in the right direction, like some suicidal robot, when you are gifted an opportunity to self-destruct.

    Last week the Nigerian court martial found a new batch of soldiers guilty of mutiny. The Nigerian Army had to find them guilty of mutiny. The court martial set out to discover mutiny and they wound up landing a treasure trove. They found 54 cases. Their find confirms the validity of the scriptural guarantee: Seek, and you shall find.

    The mutiny sentence represents an abuse of the power of life and death. This is the revenge of army chiefs for the embarrassment of being asked to produce what they didn’t have. I learnt on a couple of Christmas shopping that asking anyone for a thing he cannot provide had consequences. The child in me wanted to rid the whole market of all colorful items I liked and pointed at. Needless to say, such requests fluster the nicest parents and can force a feeling of inadequacy.

    But the soldiers did not make a frivolous demand. They didn’t ask for toys or cigarettes. They asked for working tools. They asked for instruments that they could not function without. And that’s not indiscipline.

    Isaac asked Abraham, his father, midway into their mountain climb, where the lamb they were going to use for sacrifice was. The lamb was what would give meaning to their exertions. Abraham didn’t produce any sensible answer. Instead, he tried to make a sacrificial lamb out of the boy. Today, the Nigerian Army is playing Abraham on 54 Isaacs.

    The soldiers are no cowards like the accusers say. They didn’t shrink from the call of duty. They had signed up to defend their fatherland voluntarily. And they knew before time that they would be required to plunge into life-costing scenarios. But they did not sign up for martyrdom. They didn’t pledge to submit themselves to be killed for their belief in the territorial integrity of Nigeria.

    This mutiny bazaar is a shame. It reflects the slump from the sublime to the ridiculous of an army that used to be the toast of the peacekeeping world. In those days, our troops acquitted themselves creditably in trouble spots of the West African sub-region and beyond. Our soldiers did not mutiny. The ECOWAS and UN missions tended them. Now they are learning mutiny on home soil.

    The other day in Maiduguri barracks, wives of soldiers formed themselves into a roadblock. They stopped trucks that was packed full of troops from reporting to the war scene. Their husbands had not been furnished with deployment materials. They had nothing to fight with. The soldiers were being shipped off to go and die.

    In September, the Army sentenced a dozen soldiers to death on the same charge. The newsbreak generated outrage. The Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh, was flabbergasted. Nigerians did not give him compliments. These civilians are not grateful for the extraordinary favour of being informed about the sentencing. Why are they raising hell and making noise about the military trivializing human lives? Did we want him to regret not using the other option? Did we know he could have had those soldiers tried and dispatched in the evil forest and we would have been blissfully unaware?

    The Nigerian Army has made an exhibition of the sentencing. This is to pass the message that some truths consume the men who tell them. Weapon or no weapon, you must run towards the adversary, like a Usain Bolt eager to breast the tape.

    Our arms deficiency is proverbial. Everybody knows we are trying to snatch victory from the jaws of a near empty armoury. The damage we manage to inflict on the Boko Haram camp once or twice a week often results from very desperate situations. Our deprived soldiers produce those flashes of brilliance when they are cornered and have no choice other than to fight for self-preservation. The US no longer sells us arms. And we can’t fetch arms from South Africa without making ourselves the butt of a joke. But our soldiers cannot complain.

    The fact that Nigeria is missing arms in this war is accentuated by the rising profile of poisoned arrows and cutlasses in dispatches from the combat zone. The locals are throwing their crude weapons in the fray because the dearth of arms on the Nigerian side leaves their villages vulnerable to attack. They are defending their own homesteads.

    Governor Kahim Shettima of Borno State once called for the boosting of our military capabilities. He said that he had observed that Boko Haram insurgents were gaining momentum because they were more motivated and better armed than our troops. The Federal Government dismissed his concerns. He was of the opposition. He did not contribute any beneficial insight. He was just slandering the Presidency.

    President Goodluck Jonathan tried to make Shettima apologize. Jonathan threatened to prove that the governor was wrong by ordering the withdrawal the soldiers that guard Borno Government House. The governor would know that the Nigerian Army was still of use if he found himself stripped of all protection. The President made his point. There is an inviolable ban on expression of certain kinds of opinion. Don’t say the troops are in need of anything. Don’t say it even if it is obvious.

    Interestingly, only small soldiers stand trial for mutiny. Only little men deserve to die. The big chiefs who squirrel monies away from Nigeria’s multi-billion naira defence budget deserve to live forever. It would be too awkward to knock them off their pedestal and try them for sabotage.

    Everywhere the mode of defence spending is a delicate matter. It is a top state secret. The problem is that secrecy is more likely to breed criminality. And our experience is that security vote and other defence related allocations are stolen and spent like pocket money. It’s the money our defence chiefs and politicians binge on.

    The Nigerian Army can find among its top brass a dozen Judas Iscariots who kiss well in the public and steal from the purse in secret. They can make mutineers out of those who have been minting money out of the blood of our soldiers. They can make mutineers out of the generals whose greed perpetuates the conditions that make the eagerness to deploy tantamount to suicide attempt. The healing of the bitter waters must start at the spring.

    The Nigerian Army cannot shy away from addressing the fundamental issues of lack of battle equipment and appalling troop welfare. These issues will not vanish into the thin air. And the Nigerian Army cannot solve them by criminalizing legitimate complaints and creating a batch of scapegoats every three months. If it persists in “sharing”  mutiny to just about anybody, we will arrive at a point when youths be unwilling to enlist in the Nigerian Army.

    • Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu

  • Letter to General Buhari

    Our dear country, on account of its tremendous potentials in human and natural resources, was the envy of the Third World including neighbours Ghana, South Africa and the Asian Tigers, when you were born 72 years ago. As you grew up, you must have watched with high-tension indignation, like other zealous patriots, how those less-endowed competitors gradually but steadily overtook the fearsome-looking Nigeria, ultimately establishing a commanding, near-unassailable lead in the marathon race of national development. Such indignation has caused you to seek on different platforms, the opportunity to put in your

    patriotic quota in reversing the ugly trend, typified, for example, by the callous manner Second Republic politicians compounded the nation’s woes between 1979 and 1983. But the agents and promoters of rot in uniform, agbada and babariga, pampered by intellectual gangsters, have always conspired to prevent you from doing for Nigeria what Jerry Rawlings, armed with your brand of zealous patriotism, courage, sincerity and discipline, did for Ghana.

    In a similar letter of mine (Lamentations to Jeremiah of May, 2011) to “the best president Nigeria never had” in the great beyond, I lamented about how the woes of the country which he laboured hard for an opportunity to fix had worsened since he departed. You will recall that after his yet unsuccessful attempt at the opportunity in 1983, he told the nation he would not personally press for it again.

    Rather, “when Nigerians need me, they will call for me,” he had closed. Unfortunately, by the time Nigerians realized he was the best president they could have had, it was too late!

    You will recall, also, the desperate attempts, before then, by those whose very essence and livelihood depended solely on profiting from the woes of their nation, to ensure he never smelt that opportunity to do for Nigeria what he did for the Western Region. Then, raw falsehood competed violently with pure treachery. If River Kaduna overran its banks, sweeping away Aliyu’s hut, Emeka’s car failed to start in Abakaliki, or Aremu’s wife in Ogbomoso went into prolonged labour, Awolowo surely had a case to answer!

    This is why I did not start by congratulating you on your overwhelming endorsement by your party for the 2015 presidential election. Already, you have become, more than ever, the object of similar mischief, falsehood and treachery coming from your opponents and those who provide the intellectual fillip on the opinion and other pages of newspapers.

    You are such an intimidating and fearsome “semi-illiterate” that the super literates in the land have had to go on gruelling academic research in yet futile attempts to rubbish you.

    They accuse you of once threatening to “make the country ungovernable,” even though those who actually made the particular statement at the time of a tragicomic internal succession war belonged to the camp of your opponents. You are desperately labelled sponsor of Boko Haram, even when those who have been able to capture evil resources large enough to sponsor terror are as close to them as they are distant from you. They describe you, with several Christians on your intimate personal staff, as “unrepentant religious bigot, northern irredentist and political demagogue.” Yet the political heavyweight your military government packaged in a crate from London en-route Nigeria to answer for economic crime against the country was a fellow northerner and fellow Muslim.

    In other such attempts, they have found it a “visible fact” that you are not abreast of some imaginary “global issues of today and tomorrow.” Ordinary Nigerians on the streets however, know that the global issues you are allergic to are the mindless looting of the treasury, insensitive cornering of people’s commonwealth and “gluttonous accumulation of wealth.”

    You are described as one to whom “there are blue bloods and talakawas whose place in life is hewing wood and drawing water”! If you who have refused to steal from the rich, the not-so-rich and the talakawas could be so described, how then do we describe the demonic gluttons who gleefully corner talakawas’ pension funds in hundreds of billions while they watch, callously, as the poor souls perish on the queues waiting for their rightful entitlements?

    In fact, dear General, some plots have been about sheer trivialities, some so ridiculous they begin to border on intellectual idiocy. That it took you seven days to announce the identity of your running mate has become an issue of campaign of calumny, as if the time taken in making a choice is of greater significance than making a right choice. They say the firmness and activeness of your military government could only be credited to your Second-In-Command as he was actually in charge. But if your deputy was actually the one in charge, why then was he Number Two?

    The truth of the matter, however, was that you were such a liberal and selfless leader who believed in sharing service and limelight with your deputy. Hence you chose a man with similar sterling attributes, as you have done again, to do more of the interaction with the public.

    To your detractors, you are by far the oldest human being ever to aspire to lead a nation. The global icon, Nelson Mandela, fresh from 27 years in prison, became South Africa’s president at 76. Americans who elected John Kennedy president at 41 were the same people that made Ronald Reagan president at 70. Tunisians, progenitors of the recent Arab Spring, have just elected an 88-year old uncle of yours as president in continuation of their revolution.

    Unlike most Nigerian political leaders, past and present, you have not been moving in and out of hospitals on account of ill-health. Yet they accuse you of lack of vibrancy. At 99, your mother, (her first three children are all older than you), Yeye Oodua, Mama HID Awolowo, still bubbles with such inspiring vibrancy that she still coordinates the affairs of the descendants of Oduduwa.

    General, your haters are not relenting. And they are not expected to relent even though, as fresh as their focus had been presented to be, they still have not been able to clear the cobwebs of economic rascality, institutional lawlessness and political brigandage in which the Nigerian nation has been entangled for decades. You should expect them to become even more desperate, dangerous and deadly in coming weeks. They will do all in their political and intellectual capacity to cajole and instigate the Nigerian people against you. But it is left for the people to decide not yours but their fate.

    Have a fruitful, glorious campaign, General, and a Happy New Year.

  • Adamawa: Halting the bitter cacophony

    In every contest, there is bound to be a victor and a vanquished; a winner and a loser. In principle, to jostle for a political office among a horde of aspirants, is to consent to the fact that one person is bound to triumph and the rest obligated by the rules of the game to accept defeat.

    Indeed this belief is a golden rule.  It is not exclusive to politics. Even in the prominent faiths that we adhere and believe in, magnanimity in victory and gallantry in defeat especially, is what distinguishes real sportsmen from dilettantes and desperadoes. The outcome of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary election in Adamawa State has exposed some politicians to belong to the latter category of sportsmen.

    A few disgruntled politicians and their hangers-on, who lost in the race for the PDP’s ticket, have succumbed to the pull-him-down-syndrome, hacking down the winner and throwing venom at the party’s hierarchy. The tracks of the journey that culminated in the December 10 Adamawa governorship primaries are sadly being missed in the hysteria of the bitter defeat that the unsportsmanlike aspirants are finding hard to swallow.

    The outpouring of vitriol being orchestrated by a few individuals at the flag bearer of the PDP, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, is a defective strategy. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.  Playing the victim by individuals who displayed crass sense of lawlessness and undemocratic tendencies from the very day the whistle was blown can be counter-productive for people who have always believed in eating their cakes and having it. The trait they showcase today – which is akin to the character of a bull in a China shop – was the same thing that marked their actions from the very day that Ribadu decided to join the PDP.  But a political party is an assembly of like-minded people seeking the advancement of their nation, state or community. It is not a personal fiefdom.

    For a party that is known to be accommodating, some mischievous individuals in its Adamawa chapter are fighting as much as they can to keep Ribadu at arms length. The reason is not farfetched. For individuals who are so used to “business as usual”, and feed from the wreckage of Adamawa’s underdevelopment, the coming of a man of Ribadu’s inclinations will never be a comforting development.

    Enter the party primaries. The same people who are crying wolf where there is none now were the same people who kept throwing spanners in the wheels of the party, in the run-off to the primary elections in Adamawa State. The first misbehaviour was the production of a dubious delegates list which contravenes the rule of having the Congress Committee conduct the delegate congress and compile a list using the result. And, eager to push that illegality down the throat of the party and its leadership, those desperate politicians went ahead to publish that purported delegates list in what many now know to be in gross contravention of the electoral guidelines of the party.

    Moreover, when the national headquarters of the PDP sent a committee to conduct the state assembly primaries in accordance with the INEC and the party rules, the experience of the committee members became so harrowing and unbelievable because of the personalities that the committee itself blamed. It was something like an offshoot of a Nollywood blockbuster. The committee was intimidated, harassed, and even unlawfully imprisoned by top officials of their own party.

    In effect, the environment was not only uneven and dangerous for the conduct of free and fair primaries; it was the quintessence of the most heinous behaviour, so unbecoming of the status of people who have been in leadership in a state for that long. That horrendous experience of the Ambassador Tim Ihemadu-led committee has been well documented in the print and electronic media for posterity, as recounted by the committee, to the chagrin of the Adamawa people who, for mere selfish reasons have been made to look as most uncivilized, given bad name, and are now being described as backward when compared to the rest of the country all resulting from the actions of a selfish few.

    It was the nasty treatment meted out the Ihemadu Committee in an attempt to manipulate the process of coming up with the party candidates that first stoked the alarm. It was obvious, with the kidnapping of that committee during the state assembly primaries that those desperate to hijack the process were not in politics for the benefit of the people. Not only was a level playing ground denied the aspirants in Yola, but even the safety of officials that would conduct the election became ominously undermined and compromised.

    The National Working Committee of the party, therefore, tapped into its powers provided in the party’s constitution to move the primaries out of Yola. By way of answering those parroting a breach of constitutionality, it should be stated that the same constitution that directed the conduct of primaries at constituency headquarters, foresees the likelihood of special, yet unwarranted situations and therefore empowers the party hierarchy to name alternate venues of primaries, irrespective of location.

    It was for this reason that the party relocated primary elections of some 10 states to the Federal Capital Territory. Adamawa was therefore not an isolated case, as some disgruntled individuals would want the gullible and ordinary people to believe. As stated in the Electoral Act, the party duly informed aspirants and INEC, of the change of venue ahead of time. It is also why those who were crying wolf are not complaining of time, because they have been duly notified and given ample notice but angry with relocation to further their unholy mischief. The truth is that were it not for the harassment of the committee and the informed fear of loss of lives, since thugs were drawn into the business by the people who had no hope of winning, even if the ballot had been held in Yola, the result would still have reflected the truth. Thus, one can say without any iota of equivocation that those who chose to stay away from the primaries in Abuja would still have shouted foul if they had lost in Yola too. As it was to be expected, the elections in Abuja were conducted in a very orderly manner under a most transparent and peaceful atmosphere.

    In fact, it is in the cacophony of voices after their loss that the defeated politicians showcased themselves as bad losers who are prepared to drag anyone with them to the abyss of bitterness. Theirs is a case of a stubborn corpse that refuses to go peacefully.

    But thankfully, some of the desperate politicians have come out to show their selfish agenda. In the past two weeks, some three to four of such wannabe politicians have jumped to little known party platforms in a do-or-die style of realizing their dreams. But even more dangerously are the few who have chosen to half-heartedly accept the verdict of the people by remaining in the PDP, but yet have not desisted from exhibiting anti-party tendencies.

    Importantly, however, the Adamawa State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stakeholders are with the party’s flag bearer Malam Nuhu Ribadu and the process that produced him. The cacophony is coming from a few disgruntled losers and their cronies. Hiding under the toga of the hapless word, “stakeholders”, they are shouting themselves hoarse in a bid to demand dubious legitimacy. Those that are not happy with the outcome of the Adamawa governorship primaries are a very few individuals who for a long time have always had things their own way. Democracy, the saying goes, is a game of numbers and the people have indeed, spoken.

    As the general election nears, it is evident that the people of Adamawa State are ready to give their votes to the candidate that will inject meaning in their lives and their state and no bitter politician can change the destiny of a people to whom fate has brought an emancipator.

     

    • Kwantangara is coordinator of Neighbour2Neighbour for Ribadu.