The Nation Newspaper

Category: Louis Odion

  • Yuletide and the stars of a twisted firmament 

    Yuletide and the stars of a twisted firmament 

    The medley of pulsating melodies, riding the tranquilizing breeze from the ocean, had soaked up the swanky ambience at the emerging Eko Atlantic City tonight until youthful Darey Art Alade took over the band-stand.

    The celebrant, General T Y Danjuma and his wife, Daisy, were on the dance-floor of lush velvet, cheered on by a sizable number of the nation’s aristocracy gathered to celebrate the 80th birthday of unquestionably one of Nigeria’s surviving military icons.

    As transmitted by Channels Television to million of viewers at home and the Diaspora via the satellite, musician Darey Alade chose to stir the revelry up further with a number outside his regular hip-hop staple –  ”Lady” by Afro Beat icon, Fela Kuti.

    With T. Y. now bobbing softly to the ability – well maybe to the intensity dignifying – of an octogenarian, and dazzling Daisy shuffling regally to the admiration of guests, those ordinarily given to the sybaritic among beholders must have hankered for more.

    But certainly not those capable of precise interpretation of political semiotics. They definitely would not have found that Darey’s choice of song amusing at all.  Was it to taunt? Or was it to tantalize the new octogenarian? The fundamentalists among them may, in fact, likely feel violated.

    Those familiar with the verses of Nigeria’s difficult history of the 70s under martial rule would certainly find it hard to believe if told that, at the start of “Lady” that night,  the ancient gladiator from Taraba himself did not momentarily feel haunted by Fela’s svelte apparition.

    Flowing Agbada would conceal a lot. So, we might have been denied the opportunity of ogling the involuntary buckling of the knees or the twitch of the vein in the temple of a suddenly nervous General.

    Danjuma was head of the army in 1977 when Fela suffered perhaps the worst brutality in his career of protest music. His then current fast-tempo song, Zombie, thought to mock soldiers, bred deep animus in the barracks. He earlier peppered them with “Sorrow, Tears and Blood” with the punchline:

    “My people sef dey fear too much, we fear for things we no see, we fear the air around us, we fear to fight for justice, we fear to fight for happiness, so policeman go slap your face you no talk, army man go whip your yanch you go look like donkey.”

    So, a little traffic offense committed by a member of Fela’s entourage offered a perfect excuse for the full weight of the Nigerian Army to be visited on Fela’s “Kalakuta Republic”, with the enactment of mayhem and terror lasting several hours involving troops from nearby Abalti barracks in Lagos.

    Never in living memory had the full armada of the Nigerian army been ranged against a single individual, entirely choking the Moshalashi neighborhood where he was holed up.

    Fela never truly recovered from that brutal punishment.

    Following the national uproar that greeted the atrocity, the army under Danjuma’s command cynically feigned ignorance, famously blaming “Unknown Soldiers”. That affair has since sneaked into Nigeria’s political folklore and today remains an enduring puzzle with the victims unhealed and the masterminds unchastised.

    Without taking anything away from the enigma T Y continues to embody in Nigeria’s history, let it however be stated that what Fela stood for is subversive of such.

    So, only stark political illiterates – those ignorant of history or contemptuous of its sensibilities  – could have found themselves committing that sort of indiscretion by Dare, otherwise a remarkable R & B singer with enchanting voice. Invoking Fela’s name at a T Y gathering or echoing his baritone at his feasting is a big taboo indeed. More like the abominable incongruity of a serpent in a well.

    What makes Dare’s gaffe even more striking is that he is the scion of Highlife music impresario, Modupe Art Alade, who bestrode the nation’s entertainment landscape in the 70s and the 80s. A period that coincided with Fela’s own momentous moments in history.

    Well, Darey could be pardoned, for he most likely was oblivious of the dangerous territory into which he was trespassing. Such naivety is only reflective of the sort of diet he and a great many other contemporary pop stars were weaned. Perhaps, the easy explanation for this would be the thoughtless official policy which, at the dawn of 21st century and a new millennium, abrogated the teaching of history in our schools. But without understanding the past, how are the kids supposed to develop a sense of good or bad, differentiate heroes from villains?

    The education curriculum since unleashed only appears to be succeeding in churning out a new generation without social conscience and whose grasp of otherwise critical social issues is, at best, shallow. Their sense of discernment is abysmal. To them, taking more than a passing interest in the nation’s ongoing political engagement is to be prudish.

    So, more and more, the country is confronted by a generation of millennials with sparse knowledge of national history but are prodigious experts in, say, the art and science of European league, with near encyclopedic memory of all the gossips involving soccer celebs of a foreign land.

    But their loquacity soon grows dumb when the conversation switches to the local league.

    Such vacuity will also be seen in the new pop music culture that tends to expressly valorize cant. This manic obsession with opioids, booze, bums and boobs. We not only hear it in Davido’s explicit songs but also see it in his anarchic lifestyle preference. Our eardrums are constantly assaulted with the rants of “30 billion for account o”.  Recently, we saw how three of his hangers-on died in rapid succession of substance abuse.

    Why we should worry more is because celebrity confers huge powers. The grievous impact on the young ones with impressionable minds who look up to these pop stars as role models could, therefore, only be imagined.

    Davido’s contemporary, Burma Boy (Damini Ogulu), is not to be envied this Yuletide season. If Darey invoked Fela before a wrong audience, the grandson of music aficionado, Benson Idonije, once contemplated the Afro Beat immortal in wrong costume. He had caused a stir by appearing  at a memorial concert for Fela in Lagos in white pants. Though “Abami Eda” was famed for granting press interview in his lair in his briefs, not a few however considered Burma Boy’s stunt offensive to Fela’s cherished memory.  Sadly, the usually exuberant lad would spend last weekend in a dingy cell in Lagos in company of hardened criminals captured by SARS after weeks of playing hide-and-seek over alleged armed robbery. It is obviously a humbling experience for the dancehall star popular for his “Run My Race” song. Now, he surely needs more than stamina to finish the ongoing “race” with the law.

    While the young man is presumed innocent for now, however, the nature of crime he is accused of is a pointer to the sort of tumultuous life he seems to live.

    A fellow singer (or maybe a rival), Mr. 2Kay, was mobbed after a show at Eko Hotel and lost valuables said to be worth several millions. Claiming to have been openly threatened that night by Burma Boy shortly before the attack, the victim easily pointed finger at him as the mastermind. He only secured bail on Monday while the trial continues.

    This can hardly be good news for our entertainment industry.

     

    Re: Treaty-master and a nation at the nadir

    Thanks Louis for the thought-provoking  piece on Professor Akin Oyebode. I met Akin for the first time in Toronto in Canada as a Doctoral candidate in the University of Toronto (yes, the famous Toronto but the original one). Akin was in the neighbouring York University. Even then, he was already an accomplished  Lecturer  in University of Lagos. We had a robust assemblage of patriotic Nigerians there. Amongst these were Prof Julius Ihonvbere,  former Secretary to the Edo State Government and Presidential Adviser; Prof T. Bande now Nigerian Permanent  Representative  in U.N;  Prof. Nuhu Yaqub, ex Vice Chancellor, University of Abuja and Sokoto State University, and several others. Akin Oyebode was our rallying-point. He gave the Keynote speech at the Nigerian Day in Toronto  in 1982.  A very lucid address that was a critique of the Nigerian  condition  then. Unfortunately, 35 years later, nothing has changed, though some of us have also become part of the governing  class!!!

    I join millions in wishing him many more years of worthy service to humanity.

     

    Prof Ayo Dunmoye,

    Department of Political Science and International Studies, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

     

    Re: A Commodore’s last voyage

    Thanks a million for that little peck on Bode George. Not that it would have bothered me if such individual becomes the Chair of PDP because they thoroughly deserved it. What is annoying is what you rightly described as the ‘obscenity of self-adulation’ by somebody whose presence will only attract scorn in the gathering of true ‘Omoluabis’ in Yorubaland. Didn’t he admit he collected $30k during Jonathan’s single candidate convention when each delegate still went home with $10k in their pockets? Now, he’s wailing about ‘vote buying and selling’ which his party used to ruin Nigeria for 16 years. He can tell his ‘Omoluabi’ tale to the marines. He’s a mariner, abi? Have a great evening.

     

    Olu: 08033013597

     

    Soyinka’s commendation

    As a contemporary and one who knew intimately Louis Odion way back at the Federal Poly, Ado Ekiti, I attest he is quite deserving of the public commendations from the revered Professor Wole Soyinka and the rare honour of being featured in a new book by the Nobel laureate. At about the age of 17, Odion co-established Cable Communication with Olaitan Ibiyemi at the Polytechnic. The signs of a great writer were all over him. We knew this. His writing drew lecturers and other non-teaching staff to the publication board of Cable even when it was deemed student journalism on campus.

    I am really proud of him today.

     

    Akintunde Maberu, Lagos: 08034743920

     

  • Newspaperman as icon and iconoclast

    Newspaperman as icon and iconoclast

    Always fight for progress and reforms, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged class and plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be dramatically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.”

    The foregoing is extract from what Joseph Pulitzer outlined as the journalist’s covenant with society. Though speaking at a different time and space, the great 19th century American publisher could as well be referring to Dapo Olorunyomi, one of the sturdy prodigies whose commitment and courage undoubtedly helped redefine Nigeria’s media space in the past three decades.

    The pleasant coincidence: the eponymous excellence prize instituted in the memory of the man who revolutionized America’s media practice is exactly a century old this year; Dapsy (as Olorunyomi is fondly called in Nigerian media circles) joins the sexagenarian club today.

    Olorunyomi’s engagement with the Nigerian public since the 80s has relentlessly been in the crusading mode. His odyssey traverses the media, advocacy community, academia and public service. As Pulitzer enjoined, he forever seeks to parlay each platform not to secure easy accommodation with power, but shake the system in a manner that extends the frontiers of liberty.

    Through the agencies of the Open Society Initiative, Freedom House, Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) among others, he seeks to build capacity for media practice not only at home but also at continental and global levels.

    Again, through such, we are reminded of what Pulitzer had written in 1904 in The North American Review justifying the founding of a school of journalism: “Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery.

    “A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.”

    Against this backcloth, the freshest scalp on Dapsy’s professional platter is that of Abdulrasheed Maina, the pension scam artist. Since his Premium Times, an electronic newspaper, broke the story of his secret reinstatement in the federal civil service last month, things have, of course, not been the same in Abuja’s otherwise usually tranquil sleaze factory, with the contagion of insomnia and the gnashing of deformed teeth in high places.

    So, when earlier this year agents of the Chief of Army Staff resorted to stentorian tactics and muscle-flexing around Abuja apparently to intimidate after Premium Times sensationally broke the story of Tukur Buratai’s swanky multi-million dollar property portfolio in Dubai, those who had closely followed Olorunyomi’s career over the years must have chuckled in sheer amusement.

    Having held his professional head high, having stared self-professed blood-hounds in the eyes without blinking when it was most suicidal in the 90s, only amateur bullies would imagine the battle-hardened media General would now easily be rattled by mere barking at the door or shadow-boxing by some upstarts in the driveway.

    If the term “guerrilla journalism” had sneaked into public conversation in Nigeria in the 90s (as brutal military despotism engulfed the country), Dapsy was among the daring tribe who, with the power of imagination and the written word, perpetually gave the presiding generals hell and, as a price, became the habitué of the gulag. TheNews magazine he co-founded in 1993 with the likes of Bayo Onanuga, Femi Ojudu and Kunle Ajibade was soon officially classified as enemy by the Babangida and Abacha juntas.

    His subsequent involvement with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) can be situated around his natural instinct for activist crusade – the impatience to birth a more ethic-conscious society.

    Indeed, while most historians may today readily ascribe EFCC’s early “revolutionary” strides and formidable brand it became within a relative short time to Nuhu Ribadu as the pioneer Chairman, not many know that the credit for the back-room exertions actually belong to Dapsy as the unobtrusive Chief of Staff. He certainly brought the organizational acumen of a shrewd manager and the forensic tenacity of a consummate newshound to bear. His boundless reach in the media community was easily deployed for EFCC. Which partly explains why even when EFCC would seem to have exceeded its limits in the line of duty, the attitude of the media then was often rationalization, if not collaboration.

    Will Dapo Olorunyomi now stand and take a bow on his 60th birthday.

     

     

     

    Re: Attorney Gen as ‘Atanni Je’

    Law generally in our country has been eroded and thrown to the dogs. They are first and foremost lawyers (liars). No doubt this gentleman Attorney Gen (Atanni Je) has made a mockery of legal jurisprudence. That is how they behave in courts that a simple criminal case will last for years.

    Elder Akinsanya, Ipara-Remo,

    Ogun State: 07035575968

    Great work! Powerful delivery. The Attorney General has through his actions since assumption of office shown that he lacks integrity as a person. He has been writing his unenviable personal history in the minds of Nigeria as a man too desperate to twist the law for personal gains. The shady midnight judgement he secured fraudulently to proscribe IPOB and despicable things he has done are still fresh in our minds. He acts as a sectional law officer. His days in office are numbered.

    Gilbert Nweke, Benin. 

    How did you expect commonsense from someone who got such a sensitive post on a platter?

    Lanre Oseni: 08022066663

    Ever deep, incisive and daring.

    Kayode Fasua, Lagos.

    This is a very good write up; the best of this week from a courageous gentleman.

    Denja Yaqub 

    Kudos to you for giving us the meaning of Attorney Gen in Yoruba. Thanks for the masterpiece.

    Oloruntoba Abiodun, Lagos

    AGF is simply incompetent professionally. His advocacy is low and a poor communicator at that.

    08037136174

    Love this piece for its uncanny word-smithery.  Yinka Fabowale

    I can only “cry for my beloved country”, Nigeria.

    Chukwuma Dioka, Imo State: 08063286727

    No better way to start the day. Thanks, Louis.

    Wordshot Amaechi Ugwele

    Brave and incisive. God save Nigeria from the “Atanni Je”.

    Kenneth Aikoye Ademu 

    Frankly, I am often amused when people take Nigeria’s  political office-holders very seriously. Not that there’s anything wrong with that because that should indeed be the norm. But, we all know that most of these guys were “donated” by political godfathers who have their own private agenda.. So, it is not surprising that the last two AGFs before him had corruption issues hanging on their necks. No doubt, Malami is on Maina’s gravy train and will do anything to save his neck, including standing justice on its head. If PMB wants to keep his anti-graft war on track, he should start waving his Fulani herdman’s knife right now.

    Olu: 08033013597

    God bless you, sir. It took Buhari how long to assemble these clowns telling us he was searching for angels to help him run the government? Alas, the angels turned out to be devils in human skin! Most of these guys in Buhari’s government are some of the worst elements to work as public officers in Nigeria’s history. I would not be surprised if these folks were complicit in Buhari’s sickness to use it as an opportunity to pervert the governance of the country.

    Maria.

    It took PMB six months to form a cabinet of the “best”. This is the “best” we got among lawyers to be AGF. I have ever been skeptical about PMB’s sagacity and I have not been proven wrong.

    Gabriel Onyilo, Markudi: 07038364845

    Nice piece as usual. However, we seem to be placing so much of the anti corruption onus on the appointed rather than the elected. These appointees serve based on the grace of the elected. If all you have highlighted concerning the AG is true does it not say something about the elected that appointed him without any consequences regarding his actions so far?

    Emmanuel Odeh

     

  • Attorney Gen as Atanni Je

    Attorney Gen as Atanni Je

    We thought we had seen the worst mutation of fawning depravity in Michael Aondoakaa, the pathetically loquacious character who, as Justice Minister and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), strove tirelessly to pervert justice by openly putting the law at the service of shady political players during the Umar Yar’Adua administration, thereby dragging the nation’s jurisprudence into utter disrepute.

    So embarrassed was the legal establishment that it barely waited for the earliest opportunity to publicly disrobe the buccaneering fellow as SAN after his removal from office in February 2010. For want of what to do thereafter, he retreated to his native Benue and resorted to rice farming, big time.

    Under Aondoakaa, the rule of law was perverted to the ruse of law.

    Today, Abubakar Malami, SAN is increasingly proving to be in a class of his own in professional misjudgement, if not worse.. His role in the Mainagate that unraveled last week seems to have, at last, helped drag into national spotlight what could only be termed a culture of zig-zag sprouting in the Ministry of Justice since 2015 and, more significantly, underscore in cold, bold print the grave danger a society faces ultimately having a Lilliputian in such big chair.

    From the facts now known, Malami undoubtedly diminished the integrity of that lofty office by repeatedly providing false interpretation of court judgements for the sole benefit of a common fugitive.

    Worse still, rather than hiding his head in shame and immersing himself in ashes and sackcloth in penitence, Malami was still arguing last week that he acted in “public interest” by availing the pension fraud suspect, Abdulrasheed Maina, the legal equivalent of a bulletproof jacket.

    A man already being sniffed at by the entire community as a prime suspect did not seem to see the folly in flaunting a little he-goat around.

    In drafting the three vile letters seeking to launder Maina before the head of service few months ago and smooth his way through the Interior Ministry, crafty Malami resorted to a poor imitation of what is called “imaginative omission” in literary theory. He harped, harped and harped on the 2013 judgement of an Abuja court which purportedly vacated the arrest warrant against Maina, as if that was enough to override the charge of absenteeism as the actual basis for his dismissal from the service in 2013 or to blot out the memory of the substantive criminal case against him over the looting of pensioners’ billions.

    The emergency legal alchemist must have prayed fervently that no one also remembered that Interpol was still on Maina’s trail. Of course, his ramshackle letters paved the way for slimy Maina to not only return to office but also reap a triple bonanza: receipt of whopping N21m in back pay, double promotion to Grade Level 16 and a chance to sit for further promotion exam.

    Never in recent history has official collusion in gross illegality been this audacious and the full weight of the state vigorously thrown behind open criminality.

    What confounds is not just that Malami’s actions violates logic and decency; more shameful is that someone who occupies such very high office still does not appear to have the commonsense after the fact and seems too inured by the shimmering ambience of power to figure that something was ever amiss.

    Yet, in the eye of the law, that office is deemed the next ranking after the President and Vice President in the Federal Executive Council; not even the position of the self-preening Chief of Staff to the President comes close.

    For the ease of reference and maybe reverence for the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, many have over the years formed the habit of addressing occupant simply as Attorney Gen. But on account of the foregoing case of duplicity entered against Malami, I can almost bet that those now left disillusioned in, say, Yoruba-speaking South-West, are likely to discountenance the acronym Attorney Gen literally as “Atanni Je” (the deceiver) henceforth.

    If faith were lost in the chief law officer, in whom shall the common-man trust?

    So, let it be recognized that, with the nation’s supposed legal czar mired in such noxious sewage, what is left of the credibility of President Buhari’s anti-corruption agenda only gets further eroded.

    Worse still, while indulging in the orgy of self-righteousness now, Malami hardly seems bothered by the monumental global shame his perfidious act has certainly brought the nation, nor the contempt with which bodies like Interpol (earlier pressed into worldwide manhunt for Maina) are now likely to view the country.

    Indeed, if public anger is stoked to boiling point over the Maina scandal, it is partly because of the memory of how the monster had evolved. He was invited by President Jonathan to plug the leakage in the pension scheme. Like a typical rogue plumber, he ended up making matters worse.

    True, he recovered some loot and unmasked the rats. But he soon took the place of the swines displaced. Because he already knew their tricks, he was more savage in his own pillage. Unlike the principle Mobutu Sese Seko preached, Maina gobbled too much for the owner not to notice.

    By one account, the Grade Level 14 civil servant, whose known wage was less than N250,000 monthly, suddenly had enough to shell out staggering $2m cash on a property in an upscale Abuja neighborhood in 2012. So, just as the now late Zairean kleptocrat-in-chief already forewarned in the circumstance, the whole town and the Interpol were soon in a hot pursuit of Maina.

    But Malami and the conniving Interior Minister soon hatched a counter-plot with the apparent blessing of the shadowy enforcer at the DSS.

    Of course, their hearts were too deadened to feeling. Otherwise, they would have been enraged that what Maina is accused of stealing is actually blood money, being what was either stolen from senior citizens who died in unspeakable pain or those left to stew in abject penury at old age.

    Malami’s knack for poor judgement was also very much in evidence in the Misau-IG affair. The senator from Bauchi had leveled sundry weighty charges against the no 1 cop including allegation of inseminating serving female officers, thus insinuating that the title, Inspector General, could perhaps now be rightly taken as “Inspector Genital”.

    Documents tendered by Senator Misau exposed the IG’s profligacy. The First Lady’s staff requested operational passenger vehicles. But Father Xmas IG chose instead to bless them with two hefty SUVs, even when his men on the field do not have vehicles to chase criminals. A calculating fellow, the IG obviously acted with the expectation that the tale of his generosity would, at least, reach Madam’s ears.

    Malami’s response? He rushed to the court to press grave charges against Misau.

    It is perhaps a reflection of the AGF’s cluelessness that, under him, the justice ministry has been unable to secure any conviction in all the high-profile cases.

    Yet, like all deluded power-mongers, Malami seeks to acquire more; to perform more magic, maybe. He wants to bring the far more aggressive EFFC under his infirm thumb. In the final analysis, only an AGF unworthy of his title will not feel diminished by Aso Rock developing the infernal habit of disobeying court judgements as illustrated by the Dasuki and El Zakzaky cases.

    Even where the government appeared to have a good case, he plays the spoiler by throwing a spanner in the works. At least, we saw his bungling hand in the graft case brought by ICPC against Godsday Orubebe. The reason the multi-billionaire Malabu case is also stalled.

    Again, we saw his wrecking hand in the case of alleged theft of N2.1b against a certain Ahmed Saleh. The independent prosecutor was about to deliver the killer punch when Malami suddenly appeared and filed a nolle.

    Initially, they cited “conflict of interest” against Adeogun Phillips, the lead prosecution counsel. If that was the only reason, how come the matter was not sustained after he withdrew?

    Curiously, Saleh, against whom the weighty charge of complicity in the diversion of N2.1b as the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court was entered, would almost immediately be ushered into the more sensitive office of the Secretary of the National Judicial Council (NJC).

    One would think that, being the custodian of juridical values and therefore emblematic of jurisprudential integrity, only men and women squeakily untainted would be accorded the rare honour and privilege of sitting at that supreme council.

    So, if the public loses faith in the AGF, whom shall we trust then?

     

     

     

  • National condition and the OPC franchise

    National condition and the OPC franchise

    On his inaugural ride in the cultural chariot as the Yoruba generalissimo, he perhaps will first have to contend with that eerie numbness – the odd feeling experienced when euphoria mixes with trepidation. Joy at attaining an epic height; anxiety about meeting very high public expectation that comes with it.

    This might then tempt Gani Adams to imagine himself in a Freudian stream of consciousness. His most humble beginnings, and his political re-education in the aftermath of June 12 while Sani Abacha plagued the land. Then he became a fugitive, who was later manacled and paraded like a scum by Obasanjo on a certain day in 2001.

    If daring spirit against military dictatorship thrust him into national limelight in the beginning,  the new Aare Ona Kakanfo will soon find he needs more of wisdom to navigate his Yoruba homeland now increasingly ensnared by political treachery. With various factions of the political elites pursuing different interests, the jostle for the warlord’s endorsement by competing suitors will only get more intense.

    The new Aare is therefore well advised to apply more gumption in picking the company he keeps to preserve his own personal dignity and save the integrity of the office he occupies. Only then can he tentatively be said to stand a chance of demystifying history and staving what is now commonly termed the Aare curse.

    Coming when dark political clouds appear to be gathering over the land with the nation’s ancient fault-lines looking further magnified, curiosity is  bound to be aroused among neighbours as to whether the descendants of Oduduwa are, with the appointment of a war Filed Marshall, already bracing for possible eruption of hostilities in the times ahead. As they say, it is to deter the madman outside that you breed and station one at home.

    Such apprehension rooted in fear of a possible throwback to the primitivity of warfare by bow and arrow and fetishism will however be too far-fetched in the 21st century in sub-Saharan African. The only war that is certain and which prospects will always remain is, of course, that of the mind. The locale includes the cultural realm, the intellectual front as well as the political sector.

    But if nothing at all, Adams’ rise as Aare will invariably subject the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) to a new interrogation as a body, particularly its policing franchise in the South-West communities. Already, he says he will delegate more functions to subordinates but remain the supreme leader. How that works out without casting the body formally as the standing “army” available to enforce the generalissimo’s command should interest the nation’s formal security establishment in the times ahead.

    While OPC will increasingly come under pressure now to clean up its act given the greater sense of responsibility the new office imposes on Adams, there is no denying that it has always enjoyed the confidence of a substantial section of the public. If the voice of the authorities has over the years become muted to their operational excesses, it is probably borne out of a sense of guilt. The OPC monster of today is only a product of official failure to device creative policing solutions to rapidly changing communities and demographics.

    Part of the enduring elite hypocrisy is that whereas they may deride its undisguised lumpen identity and openly speak ill of the OPC roughnecks in daylight with the most magisterial diction, but in the shadow of the night, they yet rely on same OPC’s vigilante services – backed with the crudest of munitions, charms and amulets – to secure their tenements against relentless marauders amid police abdication.

    Indeed, were opinion survey to be conducted today across the South-West on who they truly believe will be more swiftly responsive between the police and OPC on receipt of distress call at night, the latter may carry the day.

    Overall official attitude has no less been dissembling. For instance, Badoo cultists had more or less overrun Lagos suburb of Ikorodu in their homicidal campaign recently with the police looking clueless until OPC weighed in and landed the decisive blow.

    Under the Jonathan administration, the group similarly bagged the multi-billion contracts for pipeline-protection in their South-West catchment area on the eve of the 2015 polls in what would unwittingly look more like a state surrender. Government had lost faith in the efficacy of its own institutions of coercion that it resorted to recruiting non-state actors to secure its own valuables.

    While a desperate Jonathan acted obviously more with an eye on votes – specifically OPC’s fabled 6 million registered members straddling the South-West and parts of North-Central, that singular gesture perhaps signaled the formal accreditation of the OPC as a bankable franchise by the Nigerian state.

    Not surprising, the unorthodox arrangement was summarily annulled after President Buhari upon assumption of office. But stories of oil theft soon became rife again. If the negative SITREP around the Arepo sector ever since is to believe, it is therefore only fair to admit that OPC at least helped to protect critical oil assets.

    Of course, it was very convenient for Adams to later rationalize his open flirtation with Jonathan in the context of the convocation of the 2014 national confab and the promissory note to implement its resolutions, some of which are quite consistent with OPC’s extant position on the national question. Doing business with Jonathan on account of the foregoing would then seem to be premised on Lateef Jakande’s self-serving theory that “half bread is better than none”..

    But if that were to be conceded, no sophistry can ever excuse the sheer outlawry, the undisguised banditry later enacted when gun-wielding members staged a long procession on Lagos highways for Jonathan on the election eve in 2015.

    Taken together, those then expecting finesse or chivalry of OPC in public engagement could not be said to be fully aware of its difficult history and vexatious genealogy. It started as a South-West’s solidarity – if not rebel – movement in the 90s in the aftermath of June 12 against the backcloth of Abacha’s murderous repression. Its early conscripts were mostly urban urchins.

    Then, Abiola was in captivity and wife Kudirat in untimely grave.. Wole Soyinka, Bola Tinubu and others were in exile. OBJ was in the gaol over alleged coup plot. Bola Ige hibernated in the gulag as POW (prisoner of war).  Abram Adesanya miraculously survived a rain of assassins’ bullets.. One Admiral was car-bombed to pieces few meters from Lagos airport on mere suspicion of facilitating NADECO secret mails.

    I was working at near-by Concord Press then. Till date, I can still hear the echo of the apocalyptic sound of the bomb exploding. Darkness was fast enveloping on the land…

    The foregoing climate naturally conditioned the minds of the OPC recruits for the indoctrination that “Yoruba’s liberation” had become a historic necessity. Since the presiding military oligarchy at the centre already classified the proposition of “a sovereign national conference” a taboo, it was too obvious something now had to give. For the OPC, the turning-point however came in 1999 following the coronation of Obasanjo as civilian president by the retreating generals. Obviously, it was meant to be Yoruba appeasement over June 12 and MKO’s eventual mystery death in custody.

    Whereas the intellectuals like Frederick Faseun within OPC saw the Obasanjo opportunity as enough compensation and were therefore willing to collaborate and in fact bask in a triumphalism of sorts, the tendency Adams represents remained dogmatic about the sanctity of the original doctrine and was fiercely opposed to any form of accommodation with the new dispensation.

    The former seemed to have mistaken the mere ceremony of Obasanjo presidency for the substance of the dream of a just nation they always had.

    Meanwhile, realizing there was no more Abacha to fight, the underground army already groomed and indoctrinated over the years had to diversify into vigilante service and reassign themselves as implacable avenger of any Yoruba injury in the South-West and parts of Kogi and Kwara States.

    Following another eruption of OPC/Hausa violence in Lagos in 2001, OBJ finally found an opportunity to bring the full weight of state powers against the irritant from provincial Arigidi-Akoko. He was put away in detention for a long time. Newspapers’ front-page photograph of half-clad Adams in handcuffs was perhaps all OBJ needed to send an emphatic message to his foot-soldiers still in the trenches.

    It is a measure of Adams’ resilience and focus that he survived OBJ’s bulldozing tactics and would spend the years ahead rebranding himself as a cultural ambassador of the Yoruba nation, amassing not less than fifty chieftaincy titles, equipping himself as an influential political player and, at some point, would appear to have won the long-drawn supremacy battle with now senescent Faseun.

    Today, the latter is content with being addressed simply as the “Spiritual Leader” while his younger quarry remains the National Coordinator.

    Today, OPC should rank as the most formidable socio-cultural group in the country.

    Indeed, those who still speak lowly of Adams are perhaps only the ones fixated on the old memory of the starry-eyed, hungry-looking carpenter who barged into national spotlight in the late 90s. The new Adams is suave and remarkably corporatized. He has vastly improve himself academically by enrolling in the university for a degree in History and acquired requisite political education so much it won’t be an exaggeration to say some of his largely proletarian following now depend on him for their own intellectual nourishment.

    This must be the finest moment of the young man from rural Arigidi-Akoko, Ondo State.

     

  • NNPC: Buhari’s autumn as moral Czar?

    NNPC: Buhari’s autumn as moral Czar?

    Iron-clad integrity was the chief credential General Muhammadu Buhari flaunted to win power in 2015. Today, that golden badge appears under grave erosion in view of rising tide of sleaze and tales of apparent presidential indifference.

    Last week’s leaked memo by scorned junior oil minister, Ibe Kachikwu, provides what potentially may now be the tipping point.

    In a rather rambling response Monday, the NNPC boss, Maikanti Baru, could not but admit that approval was still needed from a superior for any big transaction he entered. The big question then: was President Buhari granting such behind Kachikwu’s back?

    In any case, that a man supposedly saddled with overseeing the nation’s fattest “cash cow” (as a presidency official recently classified the NNPC) could not access the principal for more than seven harrowing weeks until the confidential letter leaked cannot be a compliment. It perhaps best describes the squalor of the prevailing governance process in Abuja.

    Before now, we saw a pathetic president unable to muscle the way for the EFCC boss Ibrahim Magu. Twice, he nominated him to the Senate. Twice, the congress torpedoed him utilizing ammunition supplied twice by no other than Buhari’s own appointee at the DSS.

    Now, a national outrage has been spreading since Kachikwu’s epistle became public last week with many still unable to understand how a tiny circle could incinerate the Procurement Act and, within few months, consummate a raft of contracts whose $25bn value is more than the nation’s entire budget for 2017 and only a little less than Nigeria’s current foreign reserve.

    Now, official spin doctors appear to have pushed the gear to overdrive. We are, for instance, told ”no cash involved in the $25b transactions” at NNPC’s expense. Does that foreclose the prospect of bribes exchanging hands before or after the sweetheart deals?

    But Nigerians would probably have got even madder had they the presence of mind to contemplate the words left unsaid between the lines in Kachikwu’s petition. Though the junior oil minister didn’t name names, only few Nigerians are in doubt the character allegedly blocking him from seeing Buhari could be other than Chief Of Staff Abba Kyari who, interestingly, doubles as NNPC board member and, tellingly, is known as the dean of the now notorious cabal at the Villa. Wasn’t the president being briefed by the CoS about happenings at the NNPC all along?

    It was in anticipation of conflicts of interest like this that many had questioned the propriety of Buhari’s own CoS being involved in NNPC board in the first place. Now, it is open secret that out of the ten slots allotted to the north in the recent appointment bazaar by Baru two went to ex-employees of a commercial bank which Kyari once led. So, who does not know how to hide meat in the mouth and pretend otherwise?

    After the NNPC scandal blew open, a rather wild allegation has been circulating linking the head of the Villa cabal to one of the firms that cornered the multi-billion dollar contracts at issue. In fairness, this remains only an allegation. But public suspicion will fester with the officer referenced refusing to deny or confirm.

    According to Kachikwu in the same letter, attempts earlier by Baru to smuggle some illegalities in through the backdoor while “Mai Gaskiya” was with his physicians in London were stoutly rebuffed by then Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, insisting due process be followed.

    Again, Kachikwu stopped at faulting Baru’s recent appointments in NNPC procedurally. A review of the particulars hints of something worse than sleaze. South-East where Abia and Imo States bear oil got nothing, but the section of the country that does not produce even a drop of oil cornered the lion’s share. And when recruitment was to be made into the DSS much earlier, more than fifty percent of the slots were reserved for the president’s native Katsina.

    If we are to believe that PMB didn’t know or couldn’t have sanctioned all these all along as being canvassed by his advocates, then there can only be a more frightening certainty: the president must be utterly oblivious of key happenings around him, being technically out of power even though ceremonially in office.

    This might sound apocryphal. Recently, a top-flight media player tried to apprise foreign professional colleagues at a workshop in London of the progress report at home, stressing that Buhari’s honesty was making all the difference. After listening to his sweet tale, the story is told that someone then sought a clarification of that honesty since, as they continued to hear, the same man was finding it exceedingly difficult to share with his fellow countrymen the nature of the ailment that was keeping him on a foreign soil indefinitely at taxpayers’ expense.

    If Kachikwu truly was found wanting before Baru was handed the rein of power in NNPC last year as already being whispered around today, the question: why was he kept a day longer? Let him face the music squarely in the name of equity. Or, the more unsettling probability: is his continued retention merely a cosmetic to seduce the militants in his native Niger Delta from resuming the sabotaging of oil exploration?

    Amid this raging moral storm, it is quite instructive that Buhari’s longtime advocates like Tam David-West have kept a studied silence thus far. Just how did a supposed nun get diagnosed of STD? This certainly is not the promise of 2015.

    Given the sheer enormity of these charges, it is doubtful if the old professor of Virology, himself an implacable apostle of truth, transparency and all that is noble, would not have been sufficiently provoked to shoot someone right away before even bothering to ask further question.

    Again, PMB’s continued silence almost two months after the submission of the probe report on suspended SGF, Lawal Babachir’s alleged scam and Ayo Oke’s $43m mystery cash haul only refreshes the sad memory of the 53 suitcase scandal of 1984.

    A deadline had been announced for the change of currency notes. Against the prevailing official order seeking to choke out currency traffickers then, Buhari’s ADC would storm the Lagos international airport to smooth the way for the evacuation of the curious foreign cargoes said to be filled with Naira notes. The owner was a powerful northern figure. Even after the facts became established by the crusading media, no heads rolled.

    Also, an obscure professor who claims to be PMB’s townsman was in July accused of immersing himself in incestuous contracts award at the NHIS to the tune of N1bn. He only accepted to go on suspension following a national outcry while the president was still undergoing medical treatment abroad.

    He was only recently suspended indefinitely. But what does that mean? Another dirty laundry stored in a crowded closet?

    As if that is not enough, an ethical storm is also engulfing the Nigeria Police today with the No 1 cop at the centre. So far, only a few are convinced by the Inspector General’s response through fumbling aides to weighty allegations of promotion racketeering and untidy payment by big corporate players for protection leveled by Senator Misau. A charge corroborated in the Vanguard last Saturday by no less a credible figure and insider than the Crime Fighter boss.

    Misau lobbed in more hand grenades last week with another expose that the IG has been putting serving police women in family way against service rule and granting one of them accelerated promotion and a wedding band. If any doubt ever existed about the veracity of the latest salacious story, it was removed with a photo splash by The Sun newspaper last Saturday of who is who at the lavish wedding threw by the love-smitten IG (someone already mischievously interpreted online as “Inspector

  • Edo cultural icon in bondage 

    In the last four decades, he has relentlessly deployed his talent in anti-establishment activism, forever seeking fairer deal for the downtrodden. The reason it came as a supreme irony, if not a rude shock, few days ago that Osayomore Joseph (a.k.a The Ambassador) had been seized in Benin City by kidnappers cruel enough to also shoot his wife in the head.

    No sacrilege could be more abominable.

    By so doing, it is not only law the abductors have broken; they would also seem to have betrayed the custom of the very underworld they inhabit – obligation not to harm the poor nor their advocates. On account of his countless runs-in with successive military administrations and their civilian successors over the years, the Ulele Power Sound exponent has undoubtedly been the consistent spokesman of the oppressed. Little wonder he became known also as the “Fela of Benin”.

    Indeed, people of my generation grew up enamoured of his portraiture of Benin rich culture, to say nothing of the prodigious facility at making melodies of transcendental folk-tales.

    Overall, in contemporary times, no other performing artiste in Edo musical industry adopting “pidgin English” as vehicle would appear to possess his reach in the propagation of Edo culture outside its borders.

    In terms of output, only the much older Victor Uwaifo could be said to surpass him in the cultural arena. But then, he clearly stands head and shoulders above “the guitar boy” in material sacrifice by being overly political in his songs. He sings not to make himself rich, but free the poor. It is obviously more lucrative to praise-sing power; OJ would rather haul missiles at thieving politicians.

    So, why hurt a man like that?

    Maybe, OJ’s abduction and the brutal harm done his wife were in error. So, the least expected of those holding the people’s Ambassador today is to set him free, unconditionally.

     

     

  • October 1 and the torment of memory

    October 1 and the torment of memory

    Forget the rose-scented official statistics, the sweet words of the establishment. There can be no procedure to tracking Nigeria’s progress graph more efficiently, more intimately than a gesture as ordinary as dusting up old copies of newspapers or journals to find just how much of yesterday’s promises were eventually delivered and the gradient to which current lamentations in the land bear resonance with the cry of yester-years.

    The first likely surprise on that excursion into the past: not a few of yesterday’s heroes would have dramatically morphed into today’s villains, with old crooks now miraculously canonized as saints.

    The annual national ritual resumed last Sunday as we marked another October 1, the 57th actually. Listening to President Buhari making his fourth outing that day as either civilian or military head of state, perceptive older Nigerians were unlikely to miss the recurring decimals in all. Always permeating his National Day speeches from 1984 to date are the themes of anti-corruption, containing centrifugal forces and titanic exertion to fix leaking economy.

    One, the noble duel against Boko Haram which has dominated PMB’s October 1 in the past three years slightly echoes back to what was said against no less aberrant Maitasene sect in 1984 as military head of state.

    Talk of salvaging the national economy out of recession last Sunday bears same cadence with what we heard in 1984 after failed politicians had reduced “our hospitals to mere consulting centres”. The same way the anti-corruption rhetoric persistent today had also featured back in 1984 amid a national crackdown on those who looted the exchequer during the preceding dispensation.

    In a way, it all tells of a nation hopelessly locked in the frenzy of motion with little or no movement.

    Turning the pages of Sunday Concord of October 5, 1997 last Sunday, this writer, for instance, could not but shudder at the striking plagency the points made some donkey years ago by respected columnist, Mr. Lewis Obi, still bears with current human condition in contemporary Nigeria.

    With democracy then in retreat under dictator Sani Abacha, the national mood was perhaps best captured by Obi in a piece entitled, “37 Years in The Wilderness”, contained in that edition. His grim observations after listening to the Independence Day broadcast by the then head of state:

    “(A)fter the speech, most households in Lagos went out in search of water. A cholera epidemic is imminent in Lagos unless the water supply is restored and increased. Most homes in Lagos get two days electricity a week. Since only the rich – indeed, even the rich can no longer run their electricity generating sets – only the obscenely rich still has a set working. The reason is that the Tokunbo generators have had to be overburdened and the cost of running them is driving their owners mad.”

    With trillions of naira since expended on power by Abuja in the succession of five administrations and surfeit of reforms in the past twenty years, generating set market has, in fact, boomed further with fuel cost completely out of reach of the common man as the nation still largely wallows in pitch darkness.

    Back in the 70s, a federal rolling plan panel led by Chief Olu Falae had projected the nation’s energy need would be over 10,000 megawatts by 2000. More than 40 years later and with the population almost tripled, electricity generation is still officially estimated at a controversial 7,000. Yet, by 1988, official records indicated the 4,000 mark had already been attained. Even after pouring more than $16b into the energy sector by 2007 (according to the House of Reps in 2009), Chief Olusegun Obasanjo only delivered a miserable 3,000 megawatts.

    Today, statistics from an international agency, WaterAid Nigeria, indicate that 40 per cent of the population still lack access to potable water despite hundreds of billions voted yearly by various levels of government. In short, ten percent of the world’s thirsty today are in Nigeria.

    So pervasive has the sinking of private boreholes become that authorities in many states have since enacted assorted regulations not to lose out in making profit (by way of levies) from the misery of the thirsty populace desperately seeking quick-fix. Of course, no one seems to bother about the adverse consequence for the environment ultimately.

    Sadly, the generation that drank from efficient, hygienic public taps in the 70s/80s sat by idly and over the years watched in surrender as the cartel of “pure water” merchants gradually displaced state water boards across the country and today have proved to be far more efficient, even carcinogenic, in water supply.

    Now, let us fast forward to October 2007. This is what Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife, one-time Anambra governor, had to say about the activities of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) then under Mallam Nuhu Ribadu:

    “As you know, all of us are in support of anybody or institution that is anti-corruption. The only problem is the right process to take in fighting corruption. We need to know that selective justice is injustice… And so far, the EFCC has been doing selective justice, pursuing people it is asked to pursue.”

    Today, with yesterday’s opposition now in power at PDP’s expense, what could only be said to have changed is the voice; the complaints of “selectivity” have not stopped trailing the anti-graft war.

    Then, fast forward to 2017. Ezeife’s reaction to the October 1 broadcast by President Buhari as published by Vanguard two days ago (October 2), no doubt turns a darker page on a different issue altogether – national unity/integration: “Buhari … is trying to push the South-East out of Nigeria by marginalizing, dehumanizing  and humiliating them.

    “We didn’t have these problems under President Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua or Goodluck Jonathan but immediately Buhari took the oath of office and swore to protect the constitution, he reneged on such things as federal character. He told us he belongs to everybody and to nobody but we have seen that he belongs to Katsina.”

    At Nigeria’s 47 anniversary, these were the reflections of Chief Falae as published by  Sunday Sun of Sep 30, 2007:  “At 47, Nigeria has a lot to grapple with, the insecurity of lives and property, unemployment among the youths which has turned young ones to prostitutes and armed robbers, unstable economy which is telling seriously on the downtrodden, the masses and massive rigging that is pervading our electoral system and other vices of our leaders.

    “There will not be meaningful development unless our leaders are ready to change their attitudes… Tell me, how you do think the nation will develop when a whole deputy governor was snatching ballot boxes in the presence of voters? I mean this nation needs a lot of reforms and sanity, otherwise the nation may not witness any meaningful development.”

    Poor Chief Falae. While uttering those sanctimonious words in 2007, little did the Akure high chief know that he would find himself being implicated nine years later in the alleged unsightly receipt of N100m from Dasukigate.

    Ten years ago, Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi, one of the nation’s surviving moral authorities, had wept at the nation’s wasted opportunities, urging prayers for the country’s salvation. His views as published by Sunday Sun of September 30, 2007: “Our nation needs serious prayers and God’s intervention. Our leaders, instead of listening to the cry of the masses and engage in developmental projects that will alleviate the sufferings of already downtrodden masses, they were busy looting the nation’s treasury. Therefore, we need to intensify our prayers so that God can touch the hearts of our leaders. You can see that at 47, the nation has little to show for it.”

    Today, the octogenarian, after a decade of fervent prayers, seems to be giving up. His comment in the Punch three days ago (October 1): “(M)ajority of the politicians join politics not to serve the people but to serve their pockets. That is why I always say these so-called politicians lobby for positions in order to get possessions to enrich themselves. Look at the way they are stealing billions from the treasury and keeping them in their private accounts in Nigeria and abroad while many Nigerians are suffering.”

    Pity, the more things change in Nigeria, the more they appear the same.

     

    PMB’s lexical inflexibility 

    Columnists Sam Omatseye and Segun Adeniyi drew attention to the abuse of language in official quarters the last time. But President Buhari’s speechwriters appear too immersed in their hubris to accept that republican spirit forbids them from addressing the rest of us in a certain fashion.

    From “My dear citizens” of August 21, the president only slightly modified to “My dear Nigerians” to preface his October 1 national broadcast without mitigating the extant epistolary goof.

    Under feudalism, the community grovels at the ruler’s feet. He is therefore at liberty to treat and address everyone as “my subject”. He may wish to wave the horsetail with an imperial swagger as well.

    But such predisposition is taboo in a republic, let alone democracy.

    Shared patriotism is however implied at the invocation of “My fellow Nigerians/citizens/compatriots”. That bespeaks a leader viewing others as fellow stakeholders. Conversely, “My dear citizens/Nigerians” only suggests an insufferable condescension, being duplicitously affectionate. It reeks of a conceited aloofness. It is the language of an emperor. An assault on the civic dignity of Nigerians. Even putschists in the past always started courteously with “Fellow countrymen and women…” in announcing regime change.

    What confounds is not so much the occurrence of this gaffe at all, but the obvious unwillingness of the presidential speech-writers to climb down from their high horse after the dust raised by the August 21 episode and attune themselves to the simple syntax of democracy. If we can’t get PMB to yield on little things like this, what hope is left that he could ever be sold on more abstract imperatives needed to change Nigeria for the better.

     

     

  • A thought for the watchdog

    A thought for the watchdog

    Technology is undoubtedly impacting journalism in the manner not many anticipated and, so, only a few are able to adapt. The concept of time and space is being aggressively redefined. The newsroom is no longer demarcated by walls. The market becomes invisible. The consequence: more and more professionals of old are the new casualties of the emerging digital divide.

    The foregoing tectonic shift in the media landscape provided a perfect backdrop for a 2-day conversation at the 13th All Nigerian Editors Conference and Extraordinary Convention held at the iconic Presidential Hotel, Port Harcourt last week with the theme, “Nigerian Media: Balancing Professionalism, Advocacy and Business”.

    Given the relevance of the topic, little wonder that the turnout was staggering. It was a parade of generations of editors. From professional patriarchs/matriarchs like Ismaila Isa Funtua, Segun Osoba, Najeem Jimoh, Ray Ekpu, Nduka Obaigbena, Kabiru Yusuf, Bayo Onanuga, Comfort Obi to Dupe Ajayi-Gbadebo.

    From Dele Momodu, Victor Ifijeh, Tony Oyinma, Tony Akiotu, Eniola Bello, Raheem Adedoyin, Gbemiga Ogunleye, Eric Osagie, Bonnie Iwuoha, Waheed Odusile, Gbenga Aruleba, Shola Oshunkeye, Simon Kolawole, Steve Osuji, Steve Nwosu, Rose Moses, Kelly Elisha, Azuh Arinze to Abraham Ogbodo.

    Excited Guild President, Mrs. Funke Egbemode, attested: “This is largest gathering of Nigerian editors we have had under one roof in recent times.”

    Long before the economic recession was formally declared by the Nigerian state, the media industry had surely long been afflicted. As Times editor 35 years ago when national population was less than 70 million, Ekpu recalled that his paper sold over half a million copies. Today, with the population now over 180m, dozens of national dailies hardly sell up to 150,000!

    This has resulted in exceedingly hard times in the industry with editors and reporters often left to endure irregular pay.

    To simply assume diminishing income is the only factor will be reductionistic. The keynote speaker, Azubuike Ishiekwene (of the wave-making The Interview magazine) argues that only a return to “robust and honest journalism” offers the hope of recovery. The sort that gives readers value for money.

    With the deep encroachment of social media, today’s media entrepreneurs need to bring depth and perspective to breaking news to attract readers and retain their loyalty thereafter.

    To put the current decline in bold relief, Azu shocked the packed hall by dredging up a piece of history: “The West African Pilot (founded by immortal Nnamdi Azikiwe) of Thursday, May 19, 1938, Vol. 1, No 148, had on its front left ear the net circulation figure for the previous week: 8,264 copies. Seventy-nine years later, in 2017, newspapers are hiding their print figures under the table.”

    Of course, circulation figures are being fiercely kept secret in order to keep advertisers.

    To survive the harsh economic climate, discussants agreed the time has come for managers of the media business to tweak their models to focus more on content where their core competence lies and explore means of outsourcing problematic aspects like printing and transport to professionals in order to maximize their bottomline. These two cost centres often dig the biggest holes in the balance sheet.

    Smart investors might, therefore, wish to take advantage of this window by setting up a concern that provides printing solutions at competitive rates.

    In the 80s, for instance, MKO Abiola’s Concord Group floated the idea of Bulk Delivery with a view to helping the industry achieve cost efficiency in haulage.

    But big ego would not allow competitors take advantage of this relatively cheaper option. Some felt it was like exposing their miserable rump to a rival. So, they continued to hemorrhage in silence until their publications finally disappeared.

    Expectedly, the conversation was most animated when it entered the material welfare of the editor. Of course, opinions were divided on ethical limitations vis-a-vis the hot pursuit of bread and butter. Those who, disillusioned by reports of veterans reduced to indigence, therefore argued passionately that the editor should not shy away from taking advantage of any opportunity to better themselves materially were readily countered by the idealists who harp on the ethics of the profession.

    On the other hand, some mooted the idea of the editor “not eating alone”. That is, they should not pursue their own prosperity in so exclusive a manner that leaves their organization to die of starvation. Holders of this view were, of course, also reminded of the ethical obligations of the fourth estate of the realm as the designated custodian of the society’s moral boundaries.

    Fiery as the fireworks were from both ends of the spectrum, the consensus at the end of the day is that the hour has come for the editor to wake up from complacency, if not lethargy. The pressure of work is no excuse for them not to seek to acquire other skill/proficiency which may become handy after relinquishing the editorial throne.

    They were also advised to cultivate lifestyle that is sustainable when no longer the darling of the high and the mighty. The glamour of the office should not occlude them from saving for the rainy day. Financial literacy is critical.

    There were few success testimonies. Someone recalled how taking a degree in law on a part-time basis became her fall-back position after a career in journalism. Another narrated how a modest amount invested in a piece of land in Abuja from a personal saving as editor yielded more than fourteen-fold capital appreciation when the property was sold few years later.

    The other highlight of the event was the review of the constitution of the Guild with new far-reaching provisions to reflect the growing influence of electronic newspapers as well enable more transparency in the Guild’s administration.

    As is customary, the convention climaxed with a review of infrastructural strides by the host, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State. And “Mr. Project” has a surfeit to showcase. Those interested joined the tour of a number of ongoing projects within the Garden City. We helicoptered to Bori in the heart of Ogoniland where the administration unveiled re-constructed Birabi School and Abonema where massive sand-filling of the swamp was ongoing to build a road to link the community to the jetty.

    Of the sites visited, the most significant – if not sentimental – is, in my view, the effort to uplift the Creek waterside as part of the urban renewal initiative in Port Harcourt. When completed, it will give a new lease of life to estimated 40,000 people among the urban poor. One of its features is an ultra-modern jetty to provide for the swamp-dwellers a better access to the oil city.

    The Creek waterside rehabilitation was listed in the citation for the recent United Nation commendation for the Wike administration on environment regeneration.

    On a jovial note, the governor and his aides would, however, not be drawn into reacting to comments by the opposition lest “We donate political oxygen to our opponents now gasping for breath in Abuja”, insisting “They usually tender newspaper comments against Wike for relevance in Abuja”, but “We will rather remain focused on working for Rivers people”.

    Overall, for the Nigerian editors, it was no doubt a convention for deep introspection for a new self-awareness.

     

    My error on Stalin

    Contrary to my claim in last week’s piece as regard the circumstances under which Joseph Stalin’s uttered “How many division does the Pope command?”, it was unrelated to the demise of Pope John Paul II. It was one of the occasions my spell/fact check software failed me before production deadline. Apologies to readers for committing what could be mistaken in today’s Nigeria as “hate speech” against the memory of the likable Pope.

    First, Stalin predeceased the Polish-born Pope by about half a century.

    Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah was among readers who wrote to draw my attention to the error of fact. He was gracious enough to provide more illumination:

    “First, I was at the funeral of Pope John Paul 11 and had a good front seat and  I  can attest that I did not see Joseph Stalin there. He could not be there because he died on 5th March, 1953 while Pope John Paul 11 was buried, April 18th, 2005. If he resurrected, he definitely was not at the Vatican that day.

    “Secondly, true, the much used quotation belongs to Joseph Stalin, but he made the point in response to the French whose government had requested that Stalin stop persecuting the Catholic Church. He spoke to the then French Foreign Minister, Mr. Pierre Laval in 1935.

    “I hope this clarification helps the readers of your much respected column.”

    Many thanks to the Bishop, J.O.O. (a.k.a “London Boom”) and my brother, Prince Emeka Obasi, and others too numerous to mention.

     

     

  • Parable of the stubborn fly

    Parable of the stubborn fly

    True to prophecy, the mere shadow of armoured tanks approaching River Niger bridge last week was enough to dismantle the rather imposing castle of conceit Nnamdi Kanu had erected across the South-east in recent times, like straws under a Category 5 hurricane. The little braggart who had romanticized rebellion so vigorously, who had threatened fire and brimstone so darkly, suddenly went into hiding when war arrived his doorstep.

    Today, how pathetic that lieutenants of the absconding coward who yesterday spoke the language of thunder, evoking the imagery of bloodshed and Armageddon, are suddenly defending that “IPOB is non-violent”.

    For clarity, keen followers of this column will attest yours sincerely has consistently been a vigorous advocate of a Nigeria that guarantees accommodation for all, irrespective of size, tongue or creed. One, therefore, has no inhibitions whatsoever in conceding that Igbo are entitled to their grievances over feelings of alienation under the Buhari administration. The renewed cry of Biafra would sound quite legitimate against that backcloth..

    But uncouth Kanu, half British citizen, adulterated the idea. He seemed unprepared for the fame he was thrust into by President Buhari’s goof in jailing him in the first place. With insecure Igbo governors and shameless political leaders swooning over him for photo ops outside Kuje Prisons, he began to see himself as larger-than-life. Sensible ones were afraid to speak out lest they were branded sellout. Then, he graduated into a con-man.

    While observing the galaxy of world leaders gathered at the Vatican for the funeral of Pope John Paul II during the Cold War, a bemused Joseph Stalin, communist Russia’s lawgiver, had famously asked an adviser, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” It was obvious the blood-thirsty tyrant never realized the good Pope possesses something mightier – moral authority.

    Notwithstanding his latter-day pretensions to some Jewish genealogy, no such moral authority could by any stretch of imagination be attributed to Kanu, nor has his conduct reflected any common sense, especially lately. In seeking to actualize Biafra, his toxic rhetoric against non-Igbo would only be tolerated by those without any ounce of self-respect. The man bemoaning injustice ironically appeared to find pleasure in speaking lowly of others who themselves are mostly victims of the same perverted order.

    To achieve liberty, this political illiterate did not realize he first needed the solidarity of fellow captives to push against a common enemy. Disaffection with the Nigerian state is not enough justification to call your ethnic neighbours unprintable names. Myopic Kanu apparently only thought of returns from merchandising Biafra and did not seem to realize the big danger posed to fellow Igbo living elsewhere by his incendiary rantings.

    He claimed the same DNA as Ojukwu. But the Ikemba Nnewi was certainly not foolish like him. Ojukwu controlled battle-ready battalions before he dared Gowon. But Kanu’s lack of common intelligence became obvious when he started circulating video recordings of himself reviewing “guard of honour” mounted by nothing but a phantom guerrilla army. He was living a lie. He gave them different funny names – Biafran Secret Service, Biafran National Guard, the Lion Squad etc..

    With that, he only succeeded in playing into the hands of the enemy. So, his fake army became easy meat for the Nigerian Army too eager to utilize them for target practice. Anyone who watched last week the videos of troops brutalizing the young “Biafran fighters” armed with nothing more than Biafran memorabilia cannot but see an obscene picture of the disproportionate balance of power. As a parent, I wept seeing young boys being dehumanized needlessly. But you don’t begrudge the swooping hawk for the violence to the chick; you blame mother hen careless enough to expose her sucklings to danger.

    In a way, the shallowness of the thinking in Abuja was also inadvertently exposed last week while Abia burned. While defending PMB against the charge of “marginalizing” the Igbo, a presidential spokesman had the temerity to, among others, insinuate that the headship of the nation’s two main “cash cows” – CBN and NNPC – have been left in the hands of South-East indigenes. Seriously? But verifiable public records only indicate that both Ibe Kachikwu, the junior oil minister, and Godwin Emefiele, the CBN czar, hail from Delta State located unmistakably in the South-South. (That is assuming Kachikwu still today has “real powers” after the NNPC was “excised” from his portfolio and a northerner made the head.)

    But it all seems expedient this hour for the emergency cartographers in Abuja to casually gerrymander Delta into Igboland in the new geography of political perfidy.

    Assuming such fallacy was not actually bred by mischief, there can only be a much more abominable possibility: poor understanding of the ethnic identities of the citizens who populate the South-east and the South-South by those who arrogate to themselves the right to rule over us and the veto to determine our fate..

    Maybe, that mis-recognition of Kachikwu is why no other Igbo was considered in the recent appointment bazaar in the NNPC. Out of 15 slots, the north cornered 10, even when that region does not contribute a single barrel to the nation’s crude export. But South-east which is oil-producing on account of Imo State got absolutely nothing. Could it also be a coincidence that two out of the 10 slots got by the north came from UBA where PMB’s Chief of Staff once worked? Where is the equity?

    As always canvassed in this column, ultimately, the historic responsibility lies with PMB to foster national unity, give every section of the country a sense of belonging, irrespective of the voting pattern in the last general election. That is the surest way to lobotomize the virus that feeds ethnic entrepreneurs like Kanu. Sure, the easy part is the rendition of Python Dance. But history teaches us that the peace that endures is one rooted in justice.

    It is never late for Buhari to begin to act differently.

     

    War of words in Rivers

    Joseph Mbu – does anyone still remember that grotesque character today? Those who followed political events in Rivers between 2013 and 2015 should. He was the Police Commissioner used relentlessly by then ruling PDP to “persecute” the opposition governor in the Garden City.

    But the table has since turned. PDP and APC have traded places.

    From the look of things, one Akin Fakorede is the new Mbu giving incumbent Governor Nyesom Wike “hell” on behalf of the current ruling party in Abuja. Not once or twice has the Rivers governor publicly bemoaned the activities of the head of the Special Anti-Robbery (SARS) unit as undermining him. The same way Rotimi Amaechi often complained bitterly against Mbu.

    In the bloody election re-runs held so far in Rivers, Wike consistently accused Fakorede and his unit of acting as though they were the armed wing of APC during the exercises.

    Things took a rather dramatic turn last week with Wike leveling a weightier charge against Fakorede’s SARS. A member of the squad was allegedly killed during a shoot-out with the independent police unit deployed by the Inspector General that foiled a kidnap attempt on one Ifeanyi.

    Following the distress call, the IG’s special forces swiftly arrived in the nick of time near the Fidelity Bank branch in Port Harcourt where the kidnappers took Ifeanyi at gun-point to withdraw N500,000 cash from ATM as ransom.

    Ordinarily, the IG’s special unit initiative should be commended as having thus helped rescue a citizen in distress, with the glory being ultimately IG Ibrahim Idris’. But the devil was in the details. By the time gun-fire smoke cleared, it turned out that the bullet-riddled body that lay on the ground was alleged to be that of a SARS operative!

    Strangely enough, while addressing the press conference, Wike went further to identify the slain officer as the one who accompanied Fakorede to allegedly tamper with PDP’s ballots at the collation centre in the last election re-run in the state.

    Interestingly, Wike’s claims were dismissed 24 hours later tersely as “nonsensical” by the IG. The Police PRO in Rivers had earlier declined comment. While not denying that a cop was killed, Idris attributed it to the IPOB upheaval in Port Harcourt that day..

    So, it is now a question of Wike’s word against the IG’s. But the Nigerian public deserve to know the whole truth given the gravity of the charge. Where is Ifeanyi? Was a member of the IG unit truly injured during the shootout at Fidelity Bank? By who? If alive, where is/are the suspect(s)?

    Besides, no less curious is that it was the local APC branch which started speaking for the police vigorously long before IG was “ambushed” by the press at the Presidential Villa in Abuja for comment on this puzzle. It all looked like a throwback to the absurdity we witnessed when Amaechi was at the receiving end of “federal oppression” only few years ago.

    Having promised “change”, let the Rivers APC be told the best way to demonstrate superiority of value is to conduct themselves in a more civilized manner. Taking over the job of police PRO as they seemed to have done here is laughable. Otherwise, they risk being accused of breaking PDP’s records in infamy.

     

  • PMB, Atiku and illusion of party

    PMB, Atiku and illusion of party

    Part of the cultural carnage bequeathed by prolonged military rule is rendering the contemporary soldier to be too much of a civilian while the political actor now appears militarized in thinking and behavior. Thus, the language of politics has become corroded by war terms and phrases.

    Those versed in military warfare are therefore most unlikely to have any difficulty in decoding as pincer movement the double whammy against the presidency last week from ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar and his political goddaughter. The motive is to disorient your quarry by launching attack from two flanks simultaneously.

    What then makes it particularly striking is that this adaption of military stratagem for a purely civil outcome was masterminded by a mere retired customs-man with an otherwise war-hardened infantry general at the receiving end.

    Minister Aisha Alhassan opened the offensive by saying that President Muhammadu Buhari would not have her support for second term having, according to her, sworn in 2015 to do just a tenure. The sucker punch was hardly fully absorbed when Atiku added what could only be classified a thunderous blow by declaring emphatically that PMB had also swindled him.

    Addressing guests at a book launch in Abuja that included no less a person than Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the Waziri Adamawa lamented that Buhari dumped him soon after climbing into power on the back of folks like him.

    Specifically, Atiku listed what he had invested as cash and influence.

    Ever since, things have not been the same in Abuja with the Buhari people appearing to running helter skelter, tentatively resorting to abuse as defense strategy. Not surprising, the spineless party leadership under Chief Oyegun has gone into hiding in this hour of moral crisis.

    At the Buhari camp, some accused Mama Taraba of bad faith and greed by coveting the perks of the ministerial office even when her loyalty lies elsewhere. Well, they seemed to have forgotten to remind us of Alhassan’s old baggage at this treacherous moment. According to media reports in 2014, some of the ladies who had served under her on the refreshment committee for APC’s inaugural convention in Abuja claimed they were abandoned once Mama Taraba was handed the N32m vote.

    As for Atiku, they mocked him as perennial candidate still sulking over his loss at the presidential primaries of December 2014. The boldest among them, one Mohammed Lawal, not surprising one of those recently appointed into the “juicy” NNPC board, even came with a rather apocryphal theory that the former Vice President was a fifth columnist who took off abroad after the primaries, pointedly challenging him to name the amount he contributed to the APC presidential campaigns of 2015.

    Other self-acclaimed “Buharists” like Governors El-Rufai of Kaduna, Ganduje of Kano and Amosu of Ogun and Bello of Kogi have taken it upon themselves to declare interest in 2019 on Buhari’s behalf.

    Put together, the tribe of Buharists are free to continue to live in denial. Though they may be unwilling to admit it, Atiku already scored the preliminary strategic point: framing the 2019 debate within APC and baiting Buhari to declare his stand.

    But beyond the brickbats between the Buhari people and Atiku camp are the weightier issues. Hard-hitting as they may sound, let it be said that varied responses by Buhari’s agents so far hardly address perhaps the core question inadvertently raised by the Atiku/Alhassan challenge: how much of a party has been made of the disparate forces that coalesced into APC in 2014?

    The truth is APC has failed abysmally to live up to the historic promise of 2015. In the past 28 months, the nation has had to watch with incredulity, if not shock, as what was thought to be the broadest opposition coalition in Nigeria’s history rapidly withered into a ghost assembly where weary denizens communicate via the dark augury of “body language”. Weakened by shame, they have had to suffer in silence.

    However, when the Buharists rush to make a stake on 2019, they naively assume that the spatial circumstances presented by Jonathan’s fumbling and wobbling and the golden national coalition of contrarians that made the Buhari victory possible in 2015 remain intact. Only those luxuriating in fool’s paradise reason like that. Were Buhari’s charm enough, his presidency would have materialized much earlier.

    If nothing at all, issues will certainly be made of PMB’s health should his present low-energy tactics continue to serve him in the months ahead and he chooses to present himself for a second term. The other possibility – most likely – is for him to hang in there, maximize incumbency powers to a point he could dragoon the party to adopt his stooge as flag-bearer in 2019..

    Either way, it certainly will not be a walk-over as his zealous supporters appear to think. The bad – well, maybe good – news is that 2015 has shattered the myth of the invincibility of presidential incumbency in electoral contest in Nigeria. If APC was a beneficiary two years ago, who says it cannot yet become a casualty in two years’ time?

    For now, it will be an abuse of language to term what remains of APC a political party. At best, it is a caricature of one. While common antipathy against Goodluck Jonathan helped rally the disparate tendencies against PDP in 2015, as events have since proved, a political union only endures when not only the values are shared, but the victory spoils as well.

    Whereas only a tiny cell within Buhari’s CPC has fattened on the spoils of electoral victory of 2015, others toiled as hard, if not more, to deliver APC’s victory of 2015. In private, most chieftains of ACN, ANPP, a faction of APGA and the “nPDP” say worst things than Atiku has said of Buhari.

    By opting to enshrine provincialism instead of cosmopolitanism as governance model ever since, the ruling faction in APC has only ended up inflicting a paralysis of sorts not just on itself, but also the nation at large. The arrogance of power will not pre-dispose the new potentate to seek, much less accept better ideas. Scholar and Catholic cleric, Bishop Mathew Kukah, classified this rare condition as the paralysis arising from the inability of the central nervous system to take advantage of the full complement of otherwise functional veins in the anatomy. Taken to the realm of physics, it will be called the curse of perpetual low battery.

    It manifests in the inability to articulate a coherent economic vision and advancing infantile excuses for the cocktail of epic failings and unforced errors. It manifests in impulsively mumbling nonsense when dignified silence would have sufficed.

    At the party level, it manifests in the inability of the ruling party to either hold even routine national meetings, host national convention after three long years or constitute something as elementary as the Board of Trustees.

    Indeed, the Buhari we saw before the historic March 28, 2015 presidential elections was a pan-Nigerian patriarch who charmed voters in the South-West with Yoruba’s gobir cap, wowed Niger Delta in sequined jumper and sashayed Igboland in the iconic red cap. In another snapshot, he affected corporate gravitas in dapper dinner suit and bow tie.

    But we never saw any of those costumes again after he won the election. The old Daura tortoise hastily retreated into his accustomed Zanna crown.

    Worse, ever since, no official effort is even made to reassure those whose hearts are burdened by the bitter feelings of being swindled. We see that in the continued lopsidedness in federal appointments in favour of either his beloved cell within APC or a section of the country.

    As Bini folks say, people are earnestly watching to see how the Buharists hope to roast the rabbit in the fire in the times ahead without getting its tail burnt as well.

     

     

     

    Don Williams: The contradiction of talent

    The global community was perhaps too fixated all of last week on Hurricane Irma pounding the Caribbean down to Florida to have taken notice of the exit last Friday of country music icon, Don William. Coming when his native Texas was still lying disfigured after no less catastrophic Hurricane Harvey, it is obviously doubly tragic indeed, even though the “Gentle Giant” lived up to 78.

    In a way, poetry could be read to the circumstances of his passing after “a brief illness”. Maybe, the unsuspecting “Good Ole Boy….” was forced to be “Standing Knee Deep In A River”, only for approaching Hurricane Irma to make him “Listen To The Radio”. Alas, he cried, “Lord Have Mercy on A Country Boy”. Realizing he could not wait “Till The River Run Dry”, he became aware that “Some Broken Hearts Never Mend”…

    With a deep baritone voice that enchanted and lulled, DW surely lured the rest of the world into the rich groove of country music native to white America, offering the curious a peep into the cowboy tradition.

    The millennials in Nigeria are unlikely to recognize or remember DW in his full artistic regalia. But not anyone with an ear for the world music cultures of the 70s and 80s. I grew up hypnotized not just by the sheer honey of his rendition but also the themes of contentment, romance, forbearance and simplicity that permeated his huge oeuvre consisting of 35 studio albums in a career spanning almost a half century.

    But like most creative geniuses, the Gentle Giant was not without a dark part, a grave contradiction. How ironic that the man whose songs preached love had his own heart soiled by racism. Without apology, he would declare that his music was not for negroes and would refuse to play in the ball-room if any black was present.

    Certainly, “Goodbye Isn’t Really Good At All”.