The Nation Newspaper

Category: Louis Odion

  • Cow, colony and commonsense

    Cow, colony and commonsense

    As the second week of Lent opened last week, the mostly Catholic folks of Odiguetue community could not have envisaged murder and mayhem while in a solemn pursuit of the state of grace riding the steed of faith.

    But how mistaken they were; the ecumenical sobriety invoked by days of dedicated fasting would be shattered by the weekend. It was the turn of Odiguetue, my ancestral home in Ovia North East in Edo State, to be visited with murder and terror by genocidal Fulani herders.

    Throughout the weekend, my phone rang almost continuously as I was inundated with calls from relations and other folks in extreme anger and grief.

    Like most Edo communities customarily hospitable to all ethnic nationalities, Odiguetue had for ages been home to a considerable population of Igbira farmers. Things however took a sour turn last month when, in an unprovoked attack, these Igbira folks were reportedly sacked from their farms by AK-47-wielding herders and their yam tubers fed to the cows.

    On Friday, a farm labourer (said to be Benue indigene) was shot at while on his way from the farm.

    On Saturday, two other community members (one William Okpoko and an unnamed Igbo man) barely escaped death while tending their farms as the AK-47-wielding assailants opened fire, just to make way for their herd to graze.

    In fright and then in flight, one of the victims expectedly left his weather-beaten motorcycle behind.

    For the bullets thus “wasted”, the invaders grew madder. So mindless, they would not just stop at allowing their cattle plunder the farms; that bike was vandalized, even in its condition of decrepitude.

    The following day, the reign of terror was, in fact, escalated. The herders literally went berserk, shooting indiscriminately from one farm to the other. Caught unawares, not a few sustained gunshot wounds. This time, another community member (said to be of Igbira stock) was not so lucky as he was felled in cold blood by a bullet.

    I confirmed this with multiple credible sources.

    These atrocities, I am ashamed to admit, have actually been going on for long, largely under-reported, simply because the victims are poor folks. Forgotten by government, the only asset they own is the land, often inherited. The only skill they possess is farming. Now, the opportunity to even parlay that to eke out a living is being denied them.

    Meanwhile, as the news of the bloodshed spread by weekend and the now restive youths – ordinarily doughty descendants of ancient warriors who with bare hands had confronted British invaders in the 19th century – began to regroup in the communal square, a police team from Ekiadolor Division stormed the community and, predictably, counseled against reprisal, urging the people to approach the police headquarters in Benin City instead and formally lodge a complaint.

    Now, the curious angle: while profusely urging the wounded and the traumatized to exercise more equanimity, the custodians of legitimate firearms otherwise licensed to kill in the pursuit of crime or the defense of justice failed to say the words that would have made more meaning to the disaffected in the circumstance: a resolve to lead the youths and other volunteers into the bush right away to, at least, disarm – if not dislodge – the murderous herders who, besides heaping such gratuitous social insult on the community, have now virtually turned the farmlands to a no-go-area for the locals, thus undermining the people’s economic survival.

    Human endurance or patience is certainly tested when the victims are made to bear the additional burden of having to exercise restraint in the face of extreme provocation.

    Sadly, Odiguetue is not isolated. These tales of woe are replicated virtually across the length and breath of Edo State today.

    Across the land, the body count is mounting. In recent times, no fewer than sixty people have been reportedly killed in such gruesome circumstances. In Ojah community in Edo North, for instance, Jerome Obayemi lost an arm while fending off a herder’s machete blow meant to behead him on the way to the farm.

    Elsewhere in Ewu community in Edo Central, two elderly women, Christiana Ikheloa and Fatima Emoyon, were butchered by suspected herdsmen. In neighboring Ekpoma town,  Margaret Odiamehi, a grandmother, was allegedly raped and killed while working on her farm.

    At a personal level, this writer has had cause in the past to lament his own ordeal on this space. Once, we woke up one morning to find that the forecourt of my private residence in Benin City had been vandalized by cattle stomping past. Such is the sort of monstrosity we are being conditioned to accept as the new normal – cows willfully violating the sanctity of human dwelling.

    Responding to the growing siege, the Godwin Obaseki administration, apart from hosting a stakeholders summit, recently rolled out a slew of counter-measures, the highlight of which is the ban on overnight grazing. But as the Odiguetue killings in broad daylight last weekend have undoubtedly proved, such policy would no longer seem adequate.

    Already, the revered Benin monarch, Oba Ewuare II, has expressed worry over this clear and present threat. From reports, he has taken proactive steps by rousing the traditional sentinels to be on guard.

    What remains is to infuse the political space with equal sense of urgency.  The peace and security of the society, let it be stressed, is a shared commitment. Much as political values may differ, the challenge of the moment calls for a bi-partisan response by the political elite of both APC and PDP in Edo.

    A bill sent by PDP to the State of Assembly recently seeking a more stringent rule of engagement for the herders ought not be dismissed in entirety ab initio on account of its provenance as I read some  easily excitable APC stalwarts have been doing.

    It will be imprudent of Edo Government to keep lobotomizing itself with a cocktail of “soft” regulations in the hour of great peril when vigilant neighbours are adopting tough stance. That will only render the acclaimed “cradle of black civilization” the new preferred destination of these savages. Whose interest is thus served?

    Really, only those who have had to endure the torture and trauma inflicted by the herders over the time are perhaps better placed to attest that the devil rarely ascertains APC or PDP birthmark before wreaking havoc.

    When not sacking farmlands, it is now common knowledge that some of these killer herders convert their “down time” into either kidnap-for-ransom or bloody armed robberies along either the Benin-Okada expressway or the Benin-Agbanikaka axis or the Benin-Auchi corridor.

    So, if anyone ought to be incensed at this development and therefore impatient to cut the leash, it should be Obaseki, known to be champion of free enterprise. And for three critical reasons. With Edo’s still weak industrial base, there is no denying that farming remains the largest employer of our people.

    Two, mechanized agriculture is at the heart of the 200,000 jobs Obaseki promised to create in four years. With people now afraid to go to farm on account of AK-47-wielding herders lurking in the wild, we should know that existing agrarian jobs are being lost instead, with grave threat to food security as well.

    Three, Obaseki’s commendable offer to engage repatriates from Libya is empowering them to seize opportunities in the agriculture sector.

    Now, it will be doubly tragic if, after being enslaved and dehumanized in the accursed North African hell-hole, the unfortunate youths who choose to enroll at the new farming camps end up being used as target practice by these lunatics masquerading as cattle-rearers.

    So, just when will enough be enough?

     

     

     

     

     

  • The limit of sycophancy

    What the organizers intended was perhaps not more than a side attraction. But Chukwudi Iboko, it turned out, would steal the show on the night The Sun Newspapers crowned Nyesom Wike and Akinwumni Ambode best governors of 2017.

    Displaying a dummy cheque of N300,000 as cash component of Iboko’s posthumous award as “Hero of the Year”, the first son of the slain police Sergeant was about to respond on behalf of his mum and six siblings when the compere was signaled to pause. Up came Orji Uzor Kalu.

    Barely able to hold back tears, OUK reminded the packed hall the uncommon gallantry exhibited by Iboko during a fire-fight with robbers invading Owerri branch of Zenith Bank last year.

    He could have bolted, but chose to die fighting, killing one of the robbers, while others escaped with bullet wounds.

    “Looking at this boy tonight,” OUK continued, pointing at junior Iboko “I can feel his pains of having to live without a father.”

    The Sun publisher then converted his tears to “a personal donation of N500,000.”

    Indeed, many could recall Iboko’s exploits in a 4-minute video gleaned from a CCTV footage that went viral on the social media last year.

    Then, the dam of kindness literally broke loose tonight. Senate President Bukola Saraki (decorated as “The Politician of the Year”) topped OUK’s with N.5m (the cash was handed the family right there). Followed Senate PDP caucus’ N.5m; Methodist Church’s N1m and NDDC’s N1m plus scholarships to his seven children up to university level. In summary, N8m was raised instantly for the Iboko family beside the N300,000 offered by The Sun.

    The message should not be lost. It shows that when our common humanity is aroused, Nigerians, irrespective of tongue and tribe, are one family. Coming when national unity is increasingly being questioned in many quarters on account of negative politics, nothing could be more reassuring.

    Overall, it is quite pleasing to see that the idea conceived back in 2003 is helping to bring lifeline to the needy.

    As pioneer editor of Sunday Sun, I recall when we floated the idea of Sun Man of the Year then, we sought any individual or institution that best embodied our corporate value. I am proud to see that my brother and friend, Eric Osagie (now the Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief) is sustaining the tradition.

  • The Bayelsa children are coming

    The Bayelsa children are coming

    The debate on the corrosive impact of social media is certainly not about to end. It continued last week in the little aquatic city of Yenagoa at a colloquium hosted by the Bayelsa State Government as part of activities marking the sixth anniversary of the Seriake Dickson administration.

    The theme was: Managing Government Information In This Volatile New Media Age – A Matter Of Theory Or A Question Of Practice ?

    This writer joined a panel of three former Information ministers namely Professor Jerry Gana, Labaran Maku (also one-time Deputy Governor of Nasarawa State), John Odey and social media influencer, Oche Elias, as discussants with Freeston Akpor as moderator.

    To begin with, by settling for such an explosive but nonetheless germane topic, Dickson and his people deserve commendation for courage. You don’t frame such hypothesis for public discussion without expecting to be told uncomfortable truths. No less symbolic was that this conversation was taking place as the first official “transaction” in the newly built Information House in Yenagoa. With such rite as “opening ceremony”, it would seem a new template has been set for civic interrogation – if not intrusion – of government business henceforth.

    Of course, after a robust conversation spiced with personal anecdotes by the panelists from their diverse hands-on experiences, the consensus was that even as it sometimes becomes a source of irritation and easily lending itself to blackmail, social media has nonetheless redrawn the schema of public discourse substantially, forcing the democratization of information in a manner no government or its spokesperson will find convenient or comforting.

    The obligation therefore imposed on government today is to be open and accountable. Given that the perception of the average citizen is that all that transpires in public office is probably not more than “chopping”, those in public office should learn to comport and conduct themselves in a manner that not only inspires confidence but also retains public trust.

    Gone, it must be realized, are the days when negative stories could be “killed”. Be assured that there is a sniper somewhere, often tipped off by a disgruntled insider, more than willing to pull the trigger to the cyberspace with the mouse of a laptop or button of a smart phone.

    Indeed, at a time of political promiscuity when actors are hardly distinguishable anymore than their social values can be discerned, social media has become the new opposition. The situation is not helped by countless pirates on the prowl peddling fake news. To drown them, the official voice must seek to be distinct by the civility of tongue and the fidelity to facts.

    So, the smart information manager will be the first to leverage the various platforms offered by social media to engage the public intelligibly thereby subtly dictating the narrative and determining the plots. Hoarding information only creates ample space for rumour-mongering.

    Apart from content, the process also counts. Public communication must be worded concisely. At emergency, chances should never be taken. Information must be updated constantly. Moreover, the information managers must keep an eye on the ball. Self-promotion, let it be said, is different from public communication. It manifests when the supposed spokesperson is more obsessed with photo ops or becoming the story themselves. With hard-core professionals like Daniel Iworiso-Markson and Francis Agbo around, the governor should not have any difficulty.

    Dickson’s avowed commitment to openness aside, visiting OBJ would list peace and stability among feats achieved by the administration in the past six years. One cannot agree more. Anyone familiar with Bayelsa’s tumultuous past cannot but salute the new air of tranquility, undoubtedly the first critical resource for any sustainable development.

    The lust for a share of the oil money had always fueled vicious elite rivalry, weaponizing the scramble for territory. Idle youths were thus easily recruited.

    But Bayelsa of today is no longer the pronoun for youth militancy or cult violence involving state actors symptomatic of overarching climate of official intolerance. In fact, that folks like yours sincerely could now even contemplate honoring invitation from Yenagoa at all is quite illustrative of how times have really changed. That would have been quite suicidal at a time. So much that “blackmarket” arrest warrant had to be procured once against this writer as Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of National Life newspapers alongside the Abuja Bureau Chief (Akin Orimolade) for publishing a lead story the then governor did not find amusing.

    Akin was more or less abducted on Abuja highway in a gestapo fashion, flown to Yenagoa and locked up in a dungeon.

    Of course, while the melodrama lasted amid a national uproar, we refused to be intimidated, eager to remind those now intoxicated by transient power that we had survived a more deranged Abacha without flinching. After days of stand-off between us and the state authorities, common-sense eventually prevailed. Akin was released without us recanting our report, the facts of which we were dead sure of.

    Today, Dickson’s footprints are equally visible in the health sector. An audacious Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme floated late last year now covers 66,000 residents. What that simply translates to is that once registered with as little as N5,000, a subscriber enjoys comprehensive healthcare including treatment for serious ailments like cancer.

    To deliver on this promise, solid institutional frameworks have been laid. They include a state-of-the-art Diagnostic Centre (commissioned by OBJ last week). There is also a Drug Centre strategically located in Yenagoa acting as the clearing house for all medicines sold and consumed across the state. Each of all the big-time pharmaceutical companies maintains an office there. The idea was sold to the governor by the late NAFDAC Amazon, Dora Akunyili. The goal: complete eradication of the menace of fake drugs in the state and disruption of the flow of hard drugs to the communities.

    But, in my view, the most far-reaching is the gain in the education sector. Apparently humbled by the negative profiling of Bayelsa over the years as the hotbed of militancy with denizens characterized as being condemned to lumpen existence and therefore easy conscripts for mischief, Dickson would seem to have realized from the outset that one single most powerful weapon to change the story was education.

    Six years on, emerging statistics clearly show tens of billions pumped into aggressive education reforms is paying off. Impressive showing in national examinations lately has, in fact, led to the state being formally declassified as educationally disadvantaged.

    For instance, from the shameful 25th position in WAEC’s performance chart in 2012, Bayelsa had improved spectacularly to the 5th position by 2017. With my own experience  as Information Commissioner under Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and his unique “red roof revolution” unleashed in Edo State, I can attest such transformation is always hard-earned.

    As they say, such is never a “sexy” project materializing quickly in fancy edifice. Rather, the outcome is intangible and entails clear thinking and pain-staking follow-up.

    To achieve such quantum leap in the WAEC chart, Dickson could not have stopped at merely fashioning a fancy blueprint, but going further to bring greater vigour into enforcing the reforms. Incentives had to be created for the kids to shun vices in the creeks and stay in the classrooms.

    Boarding system has been brought back in Bayelsa secondary schools. Free tuition, feeding and accommodation are part of the motivation to ensure that no less than 10,000 students are now boarders. Additionally, model secondary schools have been constructed in all the councils. The flagship being the Ijaw National Academy in Kaiama reserved for the best and the brightest students across the state shortlisted based on their academic performance.

    At the primary level, over 600 schools have been constructed with functional facilities across the eight councils equipped with teachers’ quarters.

    For higher education, a generous scholarship scheme has ensured that no fewer than 140 Bayelsa indigenes have been exposed to various PhD programmes and 400 in Master’s degree in various courses in universities in the United States and Europe. Indeed, with the dizzying pace technology is now advancing, the most secure asset a nation can possibly bank on futuristically is no longer mineral resource but the human capital. How illusory therefore for those still thinking tomorrow is secured with just receipts from oil (which technology has since proved is not an inexhaustible resource anyway).

    By devoting more resources to developing Bayelsa’s own human capital, Dickson is undoubtedly already helping to equip Ijaw children for the future.

     

     

  • Valentine in the age of ‘digisexuals’

    Valentine in the age of ‘digisexuals’

    The joke, as originally told by Segun Adeniyi, was explicit, if not apocryphal. In-laws summit had to be convened at the height of a cold war between a new couple.

    After the husband was acquitted based on oral submission, it was the wife’s turn to be cross-examined. At the end of what turned out a tortuous probing, the truth finally emerged: she was simply no longer able to cope with her man’s libidinous fire-power almost round the clock.

    Exchanging knowing glances at this juncture, the more experienced in-laws put it all down to the usual youthful adrenaline. The wife was then persuaded to take it as a demonstration of the intensity of her husband’s faithfulness.

    Going forward, a new conjugal time-table was mutually agreed, phasing out such coital activities on a sustainable basis, even while making generous allowance for the husband’s prodigious energy.

    The new template however collapsed even before it started the next day. By afternoon, prolific Romeo had already exhausted the agreed daily ration. Long-suffering Juliet’s eruption could therefore only be imagined when the husband later tapped her for more at bed-time.

    Reminded of the day’s agreed quota, he had a ready solution: “Then, let me borrow from tomorrow’s”.

    Well, if we plumb deeper, we will find a parallel between the referenced tale and the latest craze in town: hyper-realistic sex robots enabled by artificial intelligence.

    By pushing the limits of human endurance, mankind would also seem to be drawing dangerously from tomorrow already. Welcome to the age of mechanized or automated sex – a chilling fulfillment of the 2006 prophesy by Henrik Christensen, the chairman of the European Robotics Network at the Royal Institute of Technology, University of Stockholm, of man/machine intimacy.

    More and more, perversion encroaches humanity.

    By the way, such carnal mindset could also be adduced for the corruption of the idea of Valentine from the pristine chastity it denoted in the beginning to the hedonism it connotes today.

    The original Valentine was a Roman priest who, in the throes of war, defied the emperor’s decree to perform the sacrament of marriage for young men the king thought were better engaged at the battlefield at that material time.

    Valentine’s defiance was out of a deep conviction that marriage was consistent with biblical injunction. His beheading was ordered by Emperor Claudius II.

    Two centuries later, in appreciation of his martyrdom, Pope Gelasius I declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day. Romanticization of the day started many generations later by great writers like Geoffrey Chaucer and Shakespeare in their works.

    Today, we hardly view Valentine anymore in its original sacrificial lights, but now more as invitation to debauchery – the feast of conquest and forbidden seduction.

    Now, rising from a conference at the University of London recently, researchers predicted that within the next few years, robots will be our sexual partners of choice.

    The manufacturer- Sinthetics – had unveiled the female doll named Roxy in 2010.

    Variously nicknamed Rocky, Gabriel, Akira or William, the male version joined in 2015. Responding to popular demand, the U.S-based firm is reportedly now contemplating putting heat in the synthetic phallus to make it feel more real.

    Already, Barcelona has beaten the rest of the world to it by welcoming the adventurous to a brothel sizzling with sex dolls squeakily scoured with special antibacterial soaps before and after each service.

    Elsewhere in China, Touch, a sex toy maker, has developed an App called “Shared Girlfriend”  that enables customers to customize the dolls they want before renting them for a few nights, with the suggestive payoff: “With one touch of a key, you are no longer single!”

    The rise of sex dolls has led to another provocative proposition by David Levy, an artificial-intelligence expert, that by 2050, robots “will have the capacity to fall in love with humans and to make themselves romantically attractive and sexually desirable to humans.”

    Levy’s prophesy may, in fact, have come to pass rather prematurely. In Botswana recently, Paellas Mohule, a wealthy car dealer reportedly divorced the mother of his four children to be left alone with a sex doll he imported from the United States.

    Claiming to be sick and tired of women jostling after his money and giving him diseases on top, he said his wife is no match to his import from US in “the other room”. As penance, he offered to support his ex-wife and kids financially if they let him be.

    Taken together, the idea of sex dolls or “digisexuals” could only have been inspired by man’s instinctive greed, the dark quest to rig perfection against the law of nature, drained completely of humanity in an increasingly materialistic world. Also, some women now hunger for cosmetic surgery to make up for perceived physiognomical inadequacies.

    Of course, with the rise of “digisexuals”, long-held epistemological principles are inevitably being challenged with dire implications for existing psycho-sexual norms, potentially signaling the redefinition – if not the end – of humanity.

    With “digisexuals”, Segun Adeniyi’s hyperactive Romeo hardly needs to waste time negotiating with the hostile spouse anymore. When Levy’s species enter the mix, the human equation will only get more complicated.

    The concept of polygamy and polyandry may also have to be redefined. Future couple may no longer have a choice than happily accept “digisexuals” as the “shadow hubby or wife” under the same roof.

    Of course, machine will go farther, but with no soul, shorn of emotion; its touch is cold, kiss tasteless.

    There precisely lies the real danger. Addiction to such devices would breed maladjustment from unrealistic expectations in real-life situation. When machines take the place of lover, what happens the divine protocol for procreation? Can the machine-lover comfort the broken-hearted? Can it shed tears of joy or pain? What hope remains for the perpetuation of mankind till the expected Judgment Day?

    Machine is certainly incapable of compassion without which life is misery. Robots imply the freezing of human labour in the production process. “Digisexuals” will also mean filling homes with zombies and draining community of humanity. The more romance gets automated, the lonelier life then becomes. It is impossible to be in love with machine and still have space left to form normal relationship with other humans.

    Could this be the apocalypse foreseen by Mahatma Gandhi when he warned against the advance of science without humanity?

     

  • The parable of Odili’s ginger farm

    The parable of Odili’s ginger farm

    In a way, the unveiling of PAMO University of Medical Science in Port Harcourt last weekend speaks not just to Nigeria’s dark reality but also its possibilities. All contemplative Peter Odili ever dreamt when he acquired a vast swath of land in Elelenwo forest in 1989 was no more than a gigantic ginger farm complete with processing equipment.

    That was before his foray into politics.

    Other ideas cascaded as the years rolled by and urbanization approached. First, the farm was converted to a training and empowerment camp for vulnerable women. Later, it yielded to scholarship as an outreach of the National Open University. Then, last year, following an epiphany of sorts, the kaleidoscope of derelict structures were spruced up preparatory to the take-off of the first privately owned university in Rivers State, with a faculty drawing from some of the best professionals around.

    The fruition was the brief but colorful ceremony of last Saturday.

    But much more significant, I think, is the fortuitous circumstance the varsity idea was conceived. Dateline: December 2016. A four-hour flight delay brought Dr. Odili and a total stranger together inside the VIP lounge of the Abuja airport. The acquaintance turned out to be the Executive Secretary of the National University Commission.

    Both being intellectuals, their conversation along the line veered into the increasing educational tourism abroad for training attuned to global trend particularly in specialized areas like medicine and the concomitant drain on the nation’s meager resources.

    For Odili, that was the epiphanic moment. The rest, as they say, is now history.

    Now, while acknowledging the record despatch with which PAMO’s application for registration was treated, the Pro-Chancellor was effusive in his praise of the NUC boss, Professor Abubakar Rasheed, who is not a fellow Niger Deltan nor Southerner but a northerner.

    According to him, Rasheed, a complete stranger to him until the 2016 encounter in Abuja, literally moved mountains to ensure PAMO saw the light of the day. More, no less an elder statesman than former head of state, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, also accepted, without hesitation, his nomination as Chancellor of the new institution.

    Coming at a time the nation’s fault-lines are getting magnified on account of negative politics championed by ethnic entrepreneurs, the story of PAMO’s conception and delivery is undoubtedly teachable indeed. It speaks to our potentials once we refuse parochial considerations to influence our sense of judgement.

    Sounding somewhat emotional at the inauguration Saturday, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State expressed government’s willingness to accord PAMO unqualified support not just out of a moral duty to help the private sector, but also in the confidence that, given the professed vision, it will soon add Rivers to the global map in the field of medical research and study.

    Coming six months ahead of his 70th birthday and over forty years he was certificated as medical doctor, Odili could indeed not have conceived a worthier professional legacy.

  • The collapse of Kwankwasiya’s test-tube baby

    The collapse of Kwankwasiya’s test-tube baby

    For a myth that took so long to construct, how sad that it took just a fleeting moment for Kwankwasiya to be finally dismantled. Sadder still, unlike the loud song and wild dance witnessed at its christening years ago, there was no ceremony – much less the customary parade of iconic red caps – the day Governor Umar Ganduje of Kano publicly disowned his mentor and predecessor, Rabiu Kwankwaso.

    Speaking in Dakata, the estranged godson described his godfather in very grave terms: “Most contracts undertaken by Kwankwaso were carried out with several misdeeds and betrayals which I’ll soon expose for people to know the calibre of person my predecessor was.”

    Then pressing the equivalent of a nuclear button, Ganduje alleged a grand plot against President Buhari vis-a-vis the 2019 succession: “Some people have been trying to undermine President Buhari with all sorts of things. We’ll not tolerate it again here in Kano because we’re tired of his (Kwankwaso’s) atrocities… People who are now telling all sorts of things are sycophants. They don’t want Buhari to succeed.

    “These people know themselves. When it gets to that stage, I’ll name them one after the other. We’re solidly behind President Buhari and his programmes and the people of the state will not support anyone or groups of people working against President Buhari and his programmes.”

    Indeed, a crisis of confidence had been brewing quietly between Ganduje and Kwankwaso since 2015. At the root is what seems an ego. Things finally went out hands early 2016 when the Kano governor lost his mum. A version of the story has it that Kwankwaso was the first person Ganduje broke the sad news to. But rather than personally attend the burial which happened same day, the former sent a representative. This apparently did not go down well with the grieving governor, considering that the Federal Government deemed it appropriate to send a high-powered delegation and distant friends like Governor Aminu Tambuwa of Sokoto found time to attend despite the short notice.

    When Kwankwaso finally turned up three days later, he, in his own wisdom, put up a carnival of sorts. The story is told that his associates in each of Kano’s 44 councils were mobilized to join his convoy at the city gate in two buses per district. By the time the senator’s caravan stopped in the governor’s native Ganduje village, no fewer than 150 vehicles were counted.

    Given the tension already in the air, the governor’s camp were quick to read politics to Kwankwaso’s showing. In fact, the hardliners likened it to dancing on the fresh grave of the governor’s mother.

    Ganduje himself lent credence to this in his outburst shortly afterwards: “God wanted to expose his (Kwankwaso’s) antics perpetrated against the President, he chose my mother’s death to launch (his) presidential campaign. But we leave him with the people.”

    So far, Kwankwaso has not responded. In the interim, we can only speculate on the real forces fueling the sudden turn of events in Kano today. But one thing is certain: Kwankwaso’s vulnerability is exposed and the durability of his eponymous movement severely questioned. If truly there is any depth to his Kwankwasiya postulation as a tentative preface to a progressive ideology, it remains to be seen in a coherent articulation, beyond the vanishing comedy of the procession of a rambunctious mob in gaudy red caps.

    Obviously, Kwankwaso’s bragging right on the national state today is premised on a claim to the dominion of Kano’s political space. As governor, he delivered all the 44 councils to APC in 2014. To rub it in, he would take space on the front page of leading national dailies to advertise PDP’s humiliation in Kano under his command.

    In the subsequent general elections of March 28, 2015, not only did Kwankwaso also inspire APC to rout PDP in the presidential poll, he made a clean sweep of the senatorial and House of Reps seats as well. He magisterially cemented his invincibility by annexing one of the senatorial seats to himself. But with Ganduje now up in arms, it is obvious Kwankwaso already has an insurgency to deal with at home. The falcon can no longer hear the falconer. Tellingly, members of the Kano Assembly reportedly passed a resolution forbidding the wearing of the fraternal red caps, symbolically marking the severance of allegiance to Kwankwaso.

    From what is now known, questions are bound to be asked about Kwankwaso’s own sense of political judgement from the outset. Before then, no further diagnosis is needed to certify what is already a clear and present affliction: the onset of the familiar post-power withdrawal syndrome. Having been lord and master of Kano for eight years, it would seem Kwankwaso, like most mortals, is still unable to reconcile himself to the diminution of status now as former governor. Alas, Kwankwasiya, contrary to the inaugural promise, has woefully failed to deliver to him a blanket immunity for impunity. In the circumstance, the senator, therefore, deserves our pity.

    Years ago, Pius Anyim Pius found himself explaining to an august gathering why he arrived a national event terribly late. “Please pardon me,” began the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation. “You know, we politicians, our ways are never straight. When we say we’re coming, you can never be too sure because condition may warrant that we make a stop somewhere on the way.”

    Candid as that may sound, the other truth is actually unspeakable. If we bother to dig deeper, we will find that two chief factors make it near impossible for the quintessential Nigerian public office-holder to be punctual. Other than congenital indiscipline, the other would be narcissism rooted in delusion. The political emperor barely sleeps, often busy doing nothing. And that is only because, in his base vanity, he simply can’t bear or imagine, even for a second, moments sleep would naturally steal from him. Being awake forever, therefore, means a carnal opportunity to suck every waking moment of the pleasure possible, the same way an infant ravenously lick the candy wrapping for the last trace of honey.

    After rail-roading his deputy to succeed him, it is only human that the least Kwankwaso would have expected is that the existing sitting order in Kano’s temple of power remain. His Ganduje gambit in 2015 was no doubt a novel card on the table. Indeed, the nation’s memory was already littered with the relics of succession experiments that had failed. In Enugu of 2007, for instance, Chimaroke Nnamani had dusted up a political nobody, Sullivan Chime, to succeed him as his second term was nearing end. But no sooner had INEC declared the latter governor-elect than he dramatically declared a fatwa on his political benefactor, thus exposing the inherent deformity of Nnamani’s Ebeano movement.

    Elsewhere in Cross Rivers, with his childhood buddy, Liyel Imoke, riding to the Calabar White House in 2007, debonaire Donald Duke thought he had found a perfect guy to sustain his legacies like the Tinapa Project. But not only did they begin to have disagreements shortly afterward, they practically were no longer on greeting terms by the time Imoke’s first term ended in 2011.

    Indeed, very rare it is in Nigeria’s peculiar political landscape for an incumbent governor to allow his deputy succeed him like Kwankwaso enthusiastically did last year. Many quickly interpreted that as the political circumcision and confirmation of Ganduje, who had cut his first tooth in politics as Personal Assistant to Kwankwaso in the early 1990s, as the new heir apparent to the Kwankwasiya stool. A maximalist, Kwankwaso did not stop there. He also ensured that Hafiz Abubakar, his old classmate at the Kaduna Polytechnic more than forty years ago and his one-time Political Adviser and Finance Commissioner, was made Ganduje’s running-mate.

    With that, the flanks were supposed to have been secured for Kwankwaso’s complete dominion of Kano’s political space in the foreseeable future. Alas, that prospects now look threatened.

    Taken together, the chief lesson to be drawn from the Ganduje/Kwankwaso conundrum is that there is no substitute for substance. There is no short-cut to political immortality other than working selflessly for community in way that your name eventually get etched in people’s subconscious, not necessarily while still in power. What will endure has to grow. Without God’s approval, the architect, however aggressive, soon finds he toiled in vain. Really, only a deluded leader is carried away by the glut of cenotaphs named after him while still in office. Or when disciples, out of sycophancy, begin to dress like him or make a badge of his name to pick crumbs from his golden dining table. The true test of a leader is whether the same folks will still obey their command when they are no longer in a position to doll out cash or favour.

    Those who, therefore, assume they can inherit the future by disguise or condoning the obscenity of hero-worship today will sooner than later realize it is all an exercise in futility. Ahmadu Bello, for instance, earned immortality in the north by the durable castle he built in people’s minds, not the financial empire bequeathed to his brood. Awo’s fur cap assumed transcendental halo only after his transition. In contemporary terms, Bola Tinubu today has grown much bigger out of office than when in power only because yesterday he was willing to die for his convictions in the grave hour when compromise was more convenient and lucrative. Greater is he who is able to exercise authority in the society without political power.

    In Kano, the gloves are now obviously discarded as the ancient megalopolis south of Sudan braces for certain political turbulence ahead.

     

    • First published in March 2016, this piece is rerun to provide a backdrop to the infighting currently bedeviling Kano APC
  • Reggae in Nigeria, Blues in Ethiopia

    Reggae in Nigeria, Blues in Ethiopia

    Hip-hop musician Harrisong, it was, who grafted the slang into the national lexicon two years ago with his hit, “Reggae and Blues”. Invoking the protest word “reggae” as metaphor for war and “blues” for peace, he muses about the desirability of making up after falling out.

    “After the reggae,” he croons, “Play the blues.”

    Bearing this in mind, the casual beholder will likely interpret media photographs of President Muhammadu Buhari and General Olusegun Obasanjo locked in bear-hug weekend in faraway Addis Ababa as making up even when the skyline back home was still smoldering from the cataclysm caused few days earlier by the latter’s “letter-bomb”.

    Euphemistically entitled: “The Way Out: A Clarion Call for Coalition of Nigeria Movement”, the 18-paged document is his latest offering in what is now easily acknowledged as a chequered career as busybody. Nothing perhaps readily bespeaks that overarching hyperactivity of his than the tautology in the very title of that composition.

    For heaven’s sake, after “coalition”, what is “movement” for?

    What’s more, as if by some telepathy, this Baba would surface in Addis Ababa bedecked in garment made of turquoise blue just like PMB.

    But it is all what it is – a make-believe or “photo trick”, if you like. Reading rapprochement to it by any stretch of imagination will be a colossal error indeed. Considering the certainty that the invitations to the African Union event predated the OBJ’s epistolary equivalent of nuclear bombardment, the duo could therefore only be said to have lived up to their professional billing as battle-hardened Generals.

    Non-attendance by either of them after the “letter-bomb” would have meant losing the first round in the psychological warfare programmed to follow.

    Of course, OBJ’s predilection for physical eruption and hell-raising when provoked is now well known. His quarry may appear withdrawn and fragile, but experience already cautions that the way a cat walks at leisure is different when pursuing a prey.

    OBJ himself once gave what would seem the deepest insight into PMB’s mental make-up. (That was before the now historic 2015 general polls when both Generals found themselves collaborating to oust Goodluck Jonathan from power.)

    Fielding questions on why PDP hierarchs appeared to dread the prospects of a Buhari presidency then, the Ota chicken farmer quipped it was because of his reputation “as a hard man. Those who found themselves in an encounter with him in the past as head of state ended up either in jail or grave.”

    So, from PMB’s transparently plastic smile and OBJ’s affectation of a bonhomie before media cameras at the AU gallery last weekend, no psycho-analytic skill was indeed required to recognise the two old gladiators sizing each other up on a foreign soil, with the one that cast the first stone probably undertaking additionally a close Reece to assess the impact of the first cut.

    It will therefore seem only prudent to put the nation on notice for a long-drawn slugfest between the bull and the slow poison in the times ahead.

    Meanwhile, today, as is now customary, we shall, in exercise of our poetic license, press the still button on otherwise nagging public issues and proceed to attend to a slew of words and phrases that have treacherously crept into the national conversation lately, that the uninitiated may better comprehend.

    Lice: If anyone truly deserves to be celebrated on account of OBJ’s epistle, it surely is lice hitherto dismissed as a despicable, good-for-nothing, blood-sucking creature. OBJ copiously cited it as the reason why no man’s fingernails are ever completely ridden of blood-stain until the parasite had been totally banished. By its adoption as metaphor for continued leadership deficits in the land, lice is now more or less another word for the iniquities of incompetence, impunity, bigotry and “condonation of evil” in high places.

    Such phenomenal transformation of status!

    Nepotistic Court: In his classic: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, French novelist Victor Hugo unveils the “Court of Miracles” crawling with the treachery of mendicants who feign infirmities to solicit alms by day but miraculously get healed by nightfall to savour their loot.

    But with OBJ’s epistle, we learnt there is also a “nepotistic court” presently deployed in the land to create the illusion of grandeur around the presidency.

    For clarity, the latest mutant simply describes the new incest of power where a President is so chronically suspicious of all and sundry that he decides to fortify his inner circle with only blood relations ranging from his uncle, cousins, nephews and nieces. They, in turn, constitute a cabal seeking to put a gloss on the monstrosity of state capture. The king may truly be abstemious in appetite, they on their own chose to fatten on the spoils.

    Finish: The Italians gave another variant as “finito”. It described the state of completion or finality. We would learn another few days from no other than our Defence Minister, Mansur Dan-Ali. Rising from an emergency meeting of the national security council in Abuja, after emphasizing – if not justifying – that denying the herders “the right of way” on grazing routes delineated since the nation’s independence is at the root of the ongoing deadly clashes in Benue, Taraba and elsewhere, he ended by saying “finish” (actually pronouncing “pinish” due understandably to a peculiar condition described in linguistics as the “mother tongue interference”). The new word of power to convey immutability.

    Colony: Until the British imperialists annexed the coastal city of Lagos in August 1861 and declared it their colony, we in this corner of the globe probably scarcely conceived of the word “colony” beyond being the synonym for the family of beavers. Of course, that illustrious member of the rodent family native to North America is credited with near human intelligence.

    It was only after the initially stated “commercial partnership” had transformed years later to British domination of the local people completely that the latter learnt to associate “colony” with pain and exploitation.

    Now, one and half centuries later, evolution seemed to have entered a golden phase in the animal kingdom. Thanks to the uncommon ingenuity of Agric Minister Audu Ogbeh in the face of pervasive and seemingly intractable herder/farmer violence, it is now the turn of cows to exercise dominion over the earth in this part of the world by having communities forfeiting land to them directly and having such officially demarcated as “cow colony”. So, the real big news is that, by this singular gesture, cattle of Nigerian ancestry have been catapulted to the zenith in the order of precedence adopted in the animal world.

    Cow: More and more derivatives are surely coming from cow as the animal increasingly gain visibility in national conversation. Apart from being a rich source of protein, the species, we are beginning to realize, also lends itself to describe human circumstances. We already know that “to cow” is to intimidate others. When you add suffix of “ard”, you have coward.

    Now, in a burst of linguistic craftsmanship, some mischief-makers have stretched the word further to birth “cow-mander-in-chief”. A respondent was even more impish in a post just sent to yours sincerely electronically. He tweaked “herd” to “herd of state”.

    Well, as a law-abiding citizen conversant with the letters and spirit of the new “cow-mand” (sorry, command) given security agents to hunt down online peddlers of hate, I thought I should share these as something they may wish to immediately adopt as tip-off, well not completely ruling out the possibility of a reward for the “whistle-blower” here.

    Disclaimer: First, it was BUA’s Isyaku Rabiu. Followed by svelte Ayo Obe in the spate of disclaimers against fledgling political pressure group named National Intervention Movement. By weekend, Aiteo’s Benedict Peters had also dissociated himself from OBJ’s CN.

    In denying membership, the significant thing is that neither Rabiu nor Obe faulted the democratic values the NIM espouses as counterpoise to the perceived inadequacies of the existing political parties. As for the two tycoons among them, the easy conjecture is that they took the step obviously for economic reasons. Not many will readily offer themselves to be thrown under a moving bus that a sitting government represents and be run over.

    Indeed, the discerning saw the gale of disclaimers coming once an unwieldy list began to circulate. Many could accept genuine patriots like Femi Falana, Olisa Agbakoba, Donald Duke, Akin Osuntokun and Issa Aremu. But not the inclusion of some known political hustlers and double agents on the list. Obviously, the unspoken message for the truly committed volunteers among them is this: in seeking to set a new template for leadership selection and recruitment for the nation at large, NIM itself should not fail the first crucial test – setting very high ethical standards for its own membership. Only then will it inspire public confidence and command respect.

     

  • Cow, colony and commonsense

    Cow, colony and commonsense

    Truth, as one likes to say, is a pest. It is left for those haunted to device their own coping strategies. As for President Muhammadu Buhari, it does appear that when silence is not deployed fiercely as shield against uncomfortable questions, a few other tactics are improvised with a view to purchasing time or rehabilitating the truth.

    The Osinbajo peace panel convoked last week in the wake of the bloodletting by herdsmen would seem the continuation of a familiar theatre of looking for what is not missing. The victims are left to grieve alone. The crime scene is known. The culprits have owned up.

    Regardless, the motion would still go on.

    But even before the Osinbajo panel’s inaugural sitting, the air would seem fouled up with bad faith already. Miyetti, a key party in the conflict, has pooh-poohed the idea, objecting to the inclusion of governors of Benue and Taraba for “promulgating military decrees” against Fulani in their states.

    While accusing the two governors whose states have undoubtedly borne the heaviest casualties in the latest round of carnage, Miyetti yet did not appear to see anything prejudicial in the comment by the Kano governor, another member of the peace panel. Barely concealing sympathy – if not solidarity – with the herders, Governor Ganduje had argued at another forum: “You’ll find a herdsman from a West African country moving about with a herd of cattle of 1,000 which narrow cattle routes cannot contain. Hence he needs to trespass farms in search of fodder, which often led to very dangerous disputes.”

    Nor could the rest of the nation find comfort in the memory of an earlier statement in 2016 on NTA by no less a figure than PMB himself which tended to provide blanket rationalization for the herder’s trespass. Apparently drawing from experience as a notable cattle farmer himself, Buhari reportedly said that it is humanly impossible for a man herding 400 cows not to breach someone’s farmland.

    At the risk of sounding like a broken vinyl, this writer wishes to restate his conviction that ranching remains the best option for the nation given the grave circumstances we have found ourselves and if we are truly desirous of preserving what is left of public confidence.

    Given what the airwaves and cyber space are filled with these days, one wonders the kind of security reports PMB is daily furnished with. Unless his security adviser has been selling him dummies, PMB should by now have become aware of the ratcheting up of rhetoric in the Christian community lately.

    The reason is not far-fetched. Christians appear more worsted in the unending bloodshed.

    Indeed, at no time in Nigeria’s history has a broad spectrum of Christian leaders been so frontal, so vociferous in denouncing political leadership and invoking thunderous imprecations against those perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be aiding and abetting the persecution of the church.

    From the Onaiyekans, the Oyedepos, the Bakares, the Mbakas to the Suleimans and several others, there is a lengthening list of aggrieved Christian leaders.

    Waving a PVC, one of them, the leader of Dunamis, Paul Enenche, in fact, pointedly urged congregants to go register and be prepared to vote out “evil leadership”.

    If the influential Redeemed’s Enoch Adeboye is yet to openly join the growing tumult from church, it is perhaps only because Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is not just a top member but also his anointed.

    So, a responsible and responsive leadership should be seen to be tackling the issue head on by adopting the option that is sustainable and consistent with global best practice, not acting in a manner that suggests it is not averse to mortgaging or subordinating the dignity of the majority to the commercial interest or convenience of a few.

    Had the government found the political courage to adopt ranching, what the Osinbajo panel should be doing now is simply enforcement.

    When Agric minister Audu Ogbeh now proudly declares that 16 states already signed up for his much touted “cow colony”, one only wonders if he still has the presence of mind to discern the grotesque picture the graph illustrates.

    Of course, all Southern states and the associated socio-cultural organizations have formally foresworn the idea of yielding even an inch in their domains as cow colony. Ogbeh’s 16 states are in the north with the exception of Benue and Taraba. So, what is unwittingly revealed is a nation again dangerously polarized along ethno-religious lines.

    By adamantly pressing ahead with the quixotic idea of “cow colony”, Abuja could only be said to either be living in denial or coldly indifferent to fears genuinely harbored in many sections of the country about the future of such “cow colony”.

    Such anxieties are nourished by bitter memories. The legend of Othman Dan Fodio is thought to have followed a similar trajectory.

    Over two centuries ago, the Fulani pathfinder, we are reminded, had depended on the generosity of host King Yunfa, the Hausa Sarki in Gobir, for a piece of land to settle as camp. Few years later, the settler toppled the king. Thus, began the Sokoto Caliphate and the Fulani suzerainty and the subjugation of what used to be Hausa civilization.

    That history was duplicated elsewhere in Ilorin where migrant Alimi double-crossed his host, Afonja. Thus, what ancestrally used to be a Yoruba outpost was added to the Fulani empire.

    More contemporaneously, the same undercurrents are at the root of the ethno-religious eruptions we continue to witness in Plateau.

    In the 80s, the Babangida administration yielded to powerful lobby by creating Jos North for the minority Fulani lamenting marginalization. Many years later, the Fulani became emboldened enough to insist their own cultural head be treated as a five-star paramount ruler in the state – a proposition the indigenes considered a taboo.

    The same way the indigenes of Southern Kaduna woke up one day to find that the migrant Fulani they gave land to sell cattle had taken over and crowned their own head as First-class emir of Jamaa with the entire Southern Kaduna now obliged to pay tribute to the Zazzau emirate.

    With such tales of treachery and perfidy now refreshed in public mind and then massively telegraphed with the power of social media, it should have become clear to Ogbeh why, outside the North-West and North-East, most other people only tend to view the notion of “cow colony” as a hidden agenda to spread deep South in foreseeable future what Othman Dan Fodio began in Sokoto in 1804.

    Abuja may choose to live in denial, but this precisely is why only 16 states will sign up for Ogbeh’s “cow colony”.

    Again, despite the bold handwriting on the wall and the continued deft footworks on the field, the president and his publicists are still evasive over his candidature in 2019. Even in the unlikely event that PMB does not eventually run in 2019, those who truly care should be concerned about how his political epitaph would be worded upon exit.

    Already, it is perhaps safe to assume that, with the mounting cadavers across the Middle Belt and the entire south and with the rampaging herders still looking unstoppable in their genocidal foray, a key issue for the 2019 contest is being framed unwittingly.

    By the way, when PMB now harps so passionately about his generosity such that the Igbo who offered him miserly votes in 2015 ended up being ravished with four juicy cabinet posts, the puzzle is whether his typology also includes the national security council and other critical power centers whose membership is almost exclusively from a section of the country and one faith.

    Such brazen imbalance, let it be restated, is at the heart of the now often stated alienation in the land. So, when such council meets at crunch moments such as this, what gives the other sections of the country the confidence that their cause would be championed?

     

     

    The limit of sycophancy 

    Even by the often pathetic standards associated with eye-service in Nigeria, the stunt by a certain Atonte Diete-Spiff on January 15 must rank as simply bizarre.

    Recall that no sooner had news broken in December that President Buhari’s son Yusuf was involved in a grave bike accident on the Abuja highway than the national airwaves turned a babel.

    Almost immediately, career sycophants were stepping on genuine well-wishers to gain the attention of the First Family in the outpouring of sympathy and goodwill. They either caused words to be passed around that they had not recovered a bit from deep shock inflicted by reports of the sad news or directly issued statements detailing the great length they had gone to commission, at huge personal costs, platoons of prayer warriors to conjure Yusuf’s recovery as quickly as divinely possible.

    Perhaps not wanting anything abridged or edited in the course of reportage, Diete-Spiff took out a whole full-page in the newspaper with the banner headline, “Yusuf Buhari Will Survive”. The novelty he added was rendering his own prayer points in a four-verse poem and in giant point-size.

    Expectedly, as a footnote , he did not forget to indicate his e-mail address.

    True, most faiths expressly believe that prayers are answered and that miracles do happen to those who believe. But none of the known holy books has ever told us prayers must be said on the roof-top and amplified with a mega-phone or publicized as newspaper advertorial to get answered.

    There is a biblical name for those who act in that manner: the Pharisees.

    To be sure, shared humanity would oblige everyone of us to stand with the Buharis in those trying moment. Only the children of Satan would not have rejoiced following reports that the young lad had healed and been discharged from the Abuja hospital.

    Let it however be emphasized that God’s evident mercy on Yusuf could only have been triggered by genuine prayers said quietly before many Godly altars in nondescript homes across the land, by true Nigerians without big titles; certainly not by the bare-faced sycophants like Diete-Spiff looking for what to eat.

  • Re: Benue pogrom: Dancing on victims’ graves

    Re: Benue pogrom: Dancing on victims’ graves

    The ulterior motive of those behind this dastardly act would not allow them to subscribe to modern and best practices as it’s the norm in civilised world. Their motive is expansionist and Jihadist in nature.

    • Ejire

    God bless your thought, your pen and your thoughtful readers.

    • Cyril: 07038687534

    Yes, it’s pogrom and it’s brazen. I’m often pained when all all the fury lands in the lap of the President for doing little to curb the criminals because they’re “his people”. This may not be right, but the President’s no-nonsense profile speaks to the fact that if he commits himself to ending this menace, it should have ended by now. That’s one dent he has to remove. I am one of those who believe that a 50% fit PMB is better than the tribe of gravy-hunters ogling his job. I think he must act fast before ‘his people’ becomes his nemesis.

    • Olu: 08033013597

    These Benue killings make a case for community police in Nigeria.

    • 08157816971

    Governor Samuel Ortom says he does not understand “colony”. Please, remind him, Britain colonised Nigeria. It’s the turn of Fulanis.

    • 08037007442

    You are part of the problem. Where were you when killings occured in Kano, Katsina, Zamfara? Please, be patriotic.

    • 08037866444

    The southerners have called on the Federal Government to bring back illegal immigrants who went Libya without permission in order to commit crimes, but at the same time they are saying that Fulanis should not move their cattle from one place to another within Nigeria. How many Fulanis die every day as a result of cattle rustling? But nobody talks about that because the Fulanis don’t have control over media? This is totally unacceptable. Let the Benue state governor continue to deceive ignorant Nigerians since he has failed in his state but disguising with the issue of herdsmen to say he loves his people. Let him continue to make inciting statements and see whether that will bring peace and stop hatred.

    • Truth

    I decided to read a copy of the National Grazing Reserve Council Bill and I was surprised at what I saw. The Bill creates a council to be chaired by a Chairman to be appointed by the president. The council shall have the power to take your land anywhere the land is located in the country and then pay you compensation.

    Your land, when taken, shall be assigned to herdsmen who shall use your land for grazing purposes. They shall bring cows to the land and you shall lose the land permanently to those Fulani cattlemen.

    If you feel that the council was not right to take your land, you can go to court but before you go to court, you must first of all notify the federal attorney general of your intention to sue the council. Apart from notifying, you must get the consent and authority of the Federal Attorney General before you can sue.

    So that means that if the Attorney General refuses to give his consent to the suit, you have lost your land forever to the herdsmen.

    And this law, when passed, shall apply to the whole country so it means that your land in the village or anywhere is not safe.

    The National Grazing Reserve Council would have the power to take away your land from you anytime they want and pay you whatever they want as compensation (even when you don’t want to sell, and remember that for you to get compensation, you must have documents showing or proving ownership).

    So I think that we all in the South-West, South-South and South-East must rise up and reject this Bill. We must do all things to force our national Assembly members from passing that bill into law.

    That bill is a deliberate attempt to take our lands and hand the land over to the Fulani cattlemen since it is only the Fulanis that rear cattle in Nigeria.

    That law, when passed, shall fulfil the directive of Uthman Dan Fodio and other northern leaders to take over other parts of Nigeria.

    I implore you to use all available means to implore your senator and Rep not to pass that law.

    That law will destroy Nigeria. All over the world, ranches are established and used to rear cattle. The farmers buy land and put there cattle there. There is no country where the land of the citizens are compulsorily acquired and given to others.

    This is evil, and designed to favour the Fulanis where the president comes from. We must resist the passage of that bill into law to save Nigeria, and to protect our future generations.

    We must defend our land and protect our children.

    • 08036622436

    Thank you to the writer. You have expressed what every right-thinking person knows, that is, scientific ranching is the only way.

    The continuous violence and backwardness in Nigeria is evidence that Nigeria’s arrangement is not working and we must RESTRUCTURE if we want to progress.

    We can all be united under the banner of insisting on RESTRUCTURING (after a Referendum) so that those regions that want herdsmen roaming about can have that, while those regions that want scientific ranching can have that. Restructuring is the answer to much of what is destroying the country.

    • Ndidi

    We cannot borrow from the models that work because the eyes of the greedy is always fixated on the resources of others, both natural and acquired.

    • Justice and Fairness

    Truth must be told. If Nigeria must be one, then cattle should be ranched or limited on people’s personal lands. Fulani should embrace this because this is 21st century.

    • Venger Fater

    Louis, I am really tired. It is only God that can save us from this culture of double standard. The herders have become untouchable.

    • Bamisaye Ayodele

    Nice essay as usual.

    • Yay Yay

    In the case of Nigeria, the owners of the cattle are tin gods to be protected with our common patrimony.

    • Tony Opara

    Great write-up. May I join in asking “Why are we unable to borrow from models that work?” Corruption of course, laced with wickedness.

    • Adeyemi Soetan

    Why has Buhari not outlawed Miyetti the same way he outlawed IPOB that is ironically a non-violence movement. Double standard!

    • Igwe Timothy

    The master craftsman at work.

    • Chris Ochonu

    Not speaking up is the problem. They are not affected. So, they don’t speak up for perceived enemy.  But they should realize the people whom they claim they love suffer.

    • Olufemi Adekunle Rotty

    I bet the article will not be read by “herdsmen in government”. You only enrich us – the learned farmers.

    • Oloyede Olu

    This is what we are saying. How many Fulani’s die everyday from cattle rustling? The answer is: they have refused better ways of cattle rearing, period. You cannot roam freely on other people’s land. Why should the govt help run a Fulani man’s business at other people’s expense? Cattle ranch is the only option- the crisis in Benue and other states mean Nigerians say no to uncontrolled grazing.

    • Ima
  • Benue pogrom: Dancing on victims’ graves

    Benue pogrom: Dancing on victims’ graves

    As the nation groped in fuel darkness during the Yuletide season, the Nobel laureate’s distraught words perhaps best described the shame and tragedy of it all. The authorities in Abuja would rather indulge in the profanity of buck-passing, lamented Professor Wole Soyinka.

    That climate of shame would appear to have grown even more inclement and the midnight children of impunity more daring with the resumption of terror and bloodletting early in the new year by Fulani herdsmen.

    Citizen Peter Aboh had his dream of better life aborted eight months to graduation from the Federal University, Lafia. The final-year student of Microbiology was felled in his home in the midnight attack by rampaging herders. The 27-year-old was one of the 10 gruesomely killed last weekend.

    Sixty-one others – including old women and little children – were similarly wasted five days earlier in five Benue communities in apparent reprisal attack over the loss of nothing more than cows.

    Being cowards themselves, the butchers stole in on their victims in their sleep, in their most vulnerable state.

    Those silenced by booming AK-47 would even consider themselves oddly fortunate at the lightning speed of murder and therefore less abuse of their human dignity. A good many others suffered additional trauma of slow death by being hacked perhaps with primitive and blunt daggers, making the cruelty more intimate and the killing bestial.

    Even as it haunts, truth also heals. But nothing would hurt the bereaved of Benue more than the peddling of callous lies or engaging in mischief despite the sobriety imposed by the dark ambience of the funeral parlor. Such distractive chatter only mocks the dead.

    We saw that oddity in the allegation by Paul Unongo that Atiku Abubakar, as chief patron of the herders’ fraternity – Miyetti Allah, was a key financier of the mass murder. A charge the former Vice President not only denied stoutly but added that his accuser, being Buhari’s political appointee, was only out to impress his paymaster.

    Then, the Northern Elders Forum of which Unongo is chair came out to lampoon him for dragging their corporate name into petty political squabble with Atiku.

    Soon, another publication, ostensibly cobbled together by Buhari sympathisers, surfaced online portraying even Goodluck Jonathan, the instinctive mariner, as a backer of increasingly controversial – if not notorious – Miyetti Allah. We were served a bromide of Miyetti letterhead certifying the former president a “grand patron”.

    With that, it is easy to discern an elaborate scheme by do-gooders who think they are championing Buhari’s interest but in reality are only worsening things for him, to link several other high-profile political players to Miyetti possibly with a view to forcing a new narrative on the public that decouples Buhari as the only known “grand patron” of Miyetti Allah and therefore not the lone “accomplice” by association.

    That nagging characteris   ation undoubtedly sprouted from a long-standing affair with Miyetti that once led him to, even as former military head of state, unwisely accept to lead a herders’ delegation to Ibadan in 2000 and famously read a bitter petition against then Governor Lam Adesina of Oyo to “stop maltreating my people”.

    Of course, that was ages ago.

    Unfortunately, such tainted memory subliminally fills people with prejudice against Buhari even when he has the best of intentions. It is easy to understand why a Buhari, Atiku or Jonathan could have easily ended being garlanded as “patron” by Miyetti in the first place. Public office holders daily have to engage countless publics among which the herders count.

    True, no section of the law of the land forbids such liaison. However, there is one moral obligation Miyetti patrons like Buhari, Atiku and Jonathan owe the nation – finding the courage to condemn the wanton shedding of human blood to avenge the loss of cow. The culture of silence in high places is what emboldens them to kill more. Consider what will happen is the exclusive “body of patrons” jointly read the riot act to the blood-hounds to desist, failing which they will renounce their patronal affiliations in the first instance.

    Courage is ultimately required of those in position of influence never to hesitate in painting evil in its truly sepulchral colors. Such virtue would, for instance, have obliged PMB, a notable cattle farmer himself, not to feign ignorance in his New Year national broadcast over the emergency the herdsmen/farmers issue now clearly represents. This pestilence, let it be said, is today the starkest manifestation of a widespread threat to the peaceful coexistence of Nigeria’s multi-ethnic union since the Civil War.

    In countless other communities across the nation, these migrant killer herders are similarly engaged in supremacy battles with the locals over the right of way and grazing rights.

    The outcome is ugly. In my own community in Edo, Fulani herders routinely sack farmland and violate women as well with impunity. We are often consoled by complicit authorities to accept that the aggressors are aliens. The puzzle then: why is it still so difficult to round them up and accord them the treatment due the enemies of society. Truth stands on its own; it certainly requires no prosthetics.

    Surely, courage is needed to bring a murderer to justice, especially when they happen to be a relation. The Inspector General of Police needs it. Otherwise, he would not take liberty to term the Benue killings the consequence of a “communal clash” even when the leadership of Miyetti Allah are audacious enough to formally claim responsibility for the killings as “revenge” for cows stolen.

    And Audu Ogbe, otherwise a good man and great communicator, also suddenly became tongued-tied, perhaps because of the strange company he today finds himself in Abuja. To the reports of a premeditated slaughter of his kith and kin Benue, all he could mutter was a plastic “extremely disturbing”.

    But Ogbe should have seen this coming when, against commonsense, the law of free enterprise and the spirit of natural justice, he found himself having to justify the importation of “special grass” at taxpayers’ expense to feed the now sacred cows belonging to private individuals.

    Courage is also needed to make Miyetti Allah submit to the law of the land and respect the cultural sensibilities of states like Benue and Taraba which have enacted anti-open grazing law. It is a reflection of insufferable outlawry for the herders to openly vow they would defy the law. They ought to realise that their commercial right to breed cows does not exclude others from living in peace in their ancestral lands.

    Looking ahead, courage is certainly required to sustain the enlightenment to make Miyetti Allah accept ranching as the most sustainable solution to the herders/farmers clash consistent with global best practices. It bespeaks poor reasoning to continue to cling tenaciously to an antiquated notion when science and technology already unlocked the door to infinite possibilities. Or to insist there is no alternative to the primitivity of herding cattle from the dizzying height of Futa Jalon to the swamps of Niger Delta, fattening on the crumbs of ignorance as it were. That amounts to cruelty to the animals themselves.

    Prosperous Denmark readily offers an inspiration. Agriculture – of which dairy industry constitutes a significant portion – accounts for 20 percent of her export. Their cows are ranched, not herded all over Europe. Controlled atmosphere that a ranch provides ensures farmers are able to expose their herd to modern techniques to maximise yield. Little wonder the country is ranked the happiest nation on the planet.

    With estimated population of 22m, Nigeria’s cattle stock represents a significant two percent of the world’s total. With her own 22m dairy cows, Brazil accounts for 8.7 percent of world milk production. Since ours ranked among those yoked needlessly, Nigeria is hardly featured among countries with the elite 274m dairy cows dedicated solely to milk production.

    Why are we unable to borrow from models that work?

     

     

    Raymond Dokpesi’s sacrifice

    Following last week’s piece, yours sincerely was inundated with calls and text messages from readers sharply divided on the place of Raymond Dokpesi in the events preceding PDP’s December nation-al convention and the aftermath.

    For clarity, no honest chronicler can downplay Dokpesi’s contributions, particularly during the party’s trying moments when rampaging Ali Modu-Sheriff, buoyed by external forces, would seem to have secured a legal sword over the party.

    At some point, no one could honestly tell how the “hostage-taking” would end. It was in the demonstration of a fierce resolve against evil that Dokpesi, at personal costs and in consultation with some other leaders, registered another platform as potential shelter for true party faithful facing displacement.

    By losing at the convention eventually, Dokpesi actually won. To be defeated and not surrender, as Ernest Hemingway tells us, is the ultimate victory. Despite his misgivings over the process, Dokpesi was the first to congratulate the winner in a rare display of sportsmanship.

    So, let no one belittle the High Chief from Agenebode.