The Nation Newspaper

Category: Louis Odion

  • CC: When will Trump see the light?

    CC: When will Trump see the light?

    From the apocalyptic Hurricane Harvey in Texas to lately the hellish wildfire in Los Angeles, these are surely agonizing moments for the United States. In a rather dazingly rapid succession, the two natural disasters, the worst in half a century, have forced America’s second and fourth largest cities to their knees, exacting heavy human toll and incalculable material loss.

    In Texas, apart from 47 deaths, material damage wrought by Hurricane Harvey is estimated at whopping $150b. Relief workers have documented at least 36,000 rescue efforts since the first wave on August 25. More than one million are displaced, with 200,000 homes wrecked on a path of destruction stretching almost 500 kilometers.

    In scale, Hurricane Harvey obviously dwarfs earlier Katrina (2006) and Sandy (2015).

    Texas’ river of misery had barely receded when Los Angeles began to blaze in the wildfire reminiscent of the biblical prophecy of Armageddon. So much that the authorities had to issue evacuation order to residents of no fewer than 500 homes, followed by a formal declaration of state of emergency by the Governor of California, Edmund Brown Jr.

    At this writing yesterday, another Hurricane named Irma was fast approaching the U.S. shores with Americans bracing for another bout of nightmares.

    A pity, despite all the earth-shaking inventions and innovations, despite all the extending of the frontiers of knowledge through human intelligence, the United States, like other nations of the world, remains vulnerable to the rampaging forces of nature.

    While the spirit of shared humanity obliges the rest of the world to identify with the United States in this trying hour, we can only hope that these natural disasters will serve as a wake-up call on President Donald Trump on the grim reality of climate change. Ever so eccentric in thoughts and deeds, the American leader is one of a small tribe who still live in denial of its existence in what bears a faint resemblance of the natural atrophy evoked in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

    By the accident of history, the little ones find themselves in a virgin island imagined by Golding. Unable to rise above their cognitive limitations and be united in the pursuit of things that bind them, the brats soon turn the paradisal bequest into a cauldron of horror and self-immolation. Charlatanism trumps reason. The pristine beach gets smeared by blood.

    But against the ruins of Texas and Los Angeles in the past few days, only Trump and other climate change deniers will perhaps still need rocket-scientists to help them connect the dots. While the Los Angeles fire tagged “La Tuna” probably erupted with a spark on the northern edge, powerful erratic winds resulting from a violated ecology helped fuel its spread across breath-taking 2,023 hectares, with thick smoke billowing skyward, thereby poisoning the air around most parts of the city as well as the suburbs.

    Of course, the raging inferno only adds to the global warming which has been responsible for the irreversible melting of the icebergs over the years, resulting in the rise in water levels. So, the volume of rainfall has risen globally. So are tsunamis and hurricanes. When it rains, existing waterways are increasingly unable to discharge into the rivers and the oceans as seamlessly as was the case decades ago.

    Last month in Sierra Leone, flash floods similarly sacked several communities resulting in at least 600 deaths, with many still missing. To say nothing of massive destruction of property.

    Back home, Benue river also overflowed last weekend leading to many deaths, displacement of tens of thousands and destruction of property worth hundreds of million of naira.

    Sadly, whereas Nigeria was quick to rush materials and troops to Freetown to assist in relief efforts, we are yet to see similar vigor and depth in the federal response to the Benue disaster in the past few days with victims left to waddle in neck-deep flood and vast number of houses immersed up to lintel level.

    According to experts, the worst may not be over yet for Benue. If the neighboring Cameroun, whose soccer World Cup dream was recently decimated by Super Eagles in a 4.0 massacre, decided to release water from the already overflowing Lagbo Dam, then more misery lays ahead for beleaguered Benue communities. You can never tell where national bitterness aroused by the humiliation suffered on the soccer pitch could lead in the times ahead.

    Flooded Benue, in turn, raises the spectre of famine for the nation in the next harvest season. With farmlands now completely submerged, our “food basket” is in great danger indeed.

    In sub-Saharan Africa, worsening desertification is triggering the migration of pastoralists to seek greener pasture for their herds in a manner never seen in history. The result has been the rise of the buccaneering herder quick to pull the AK-47 trigger against the subsistent farmer unwilling to surrender their farmland to ravenous herds of cattle.

    Taken together, there has, therefore, been a clarion call on mankind to shake off its lethargy and rise to the new existential threat by evolving more creative ways to heal and preserve the environment in a sustainable way. It is an advocacy some of us have been involved in our own modest way over the years. Being the centre of greatest industrial activities in the universe and ipso facto the “greatest polluter”, the U.S. has of course come under significant pressure to lead the crusade to preserve planet earth for the unborn generations.

    But ever so quick to theorize without evidence or research, President Trump once described the CC advocacy as a modern-day fraud. He tweeted: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

    Since stepping into the White House in January, Trump has sought to reverse the gains recorded under previous administrations against climate change, even as he frenetically pursues policies to foreclose any fresh advance.

    He began by appointing as new head of US environment protection agency a co-denier, Scott Pruit, former Oklahoma Attorney General. Next, he axed the agency’s budget from $8.1b to $5.7b. Thereafter came an executive order freezing the effort of the Barak Obama administration to limit the highly polluting coal industry under the Clean Power Plan, leaving the old plants open.

    Then came another executive order to expand offshore oil drilling and release formerly protected federal land to be explored for private interest. His predecessor, Obama, had tried to ban offshore drilling permanently, citing a 1953 law.

    Perhaps the unkindest cut of all was an order disabling Obama’s policy protecting waterways and wetlands which normally provide detention points for flood water in emergency situations.

    In case he stills harbors doubt, we can only hope this ugly harvest of natural disasters in the U.S. lately will disabuse Trump’s mind on the harsh reality of climate change and nudge him to mend his ways.

     

     

    Malami and the hierarchy of hypocrisy

    The issue with Buhari’s anti-graft war is often said not to be the efficacy or otherwise of the tools to apprehend, but largely prosecutorial competence. By various acts of omission and commission, the prosecution is often unable to present a water-tight case to secure conviction.

    The reason is not far-fetched: whereas brawn may serve you well to apprehend, you certainly need a lot of brain to forensically knock out a suspect in the court of law.

    We may not have to look too far to see why the roof appears to be leaking pathetically on criminal justice administration in Nigeria today. With the recent juvenile verbiage by the Justice Minister and Attorney-General, Mallam Abubakar Malami, on the Arewa youths who had taken liberty to issue quit notice to Igbo in the north as though Nigeria were their father’s exclusive estate, we, at least, now know the quality of thinking behind policies and programmes in a ministry tasked with otherwise critical responsibility of preserving law and order in the society.

    The shame is not just the possibility of harboring bias, but also not being intelligent enough to conceal it.

    Asked why none of these misguided political delinquents (of course, his kinsmen) was arrested and arraigned in court, Malami simply narrowed it down to “security considerations”. In order words, the nation’s chief law officer believes that touching the Arewa youths could either trigger an ethno-religious crisis or complicate the existing political tension in the land.

    Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State had ordered their arrest by security agencies. That was never enforced.

    Meanwhile, the same Malami mindful of “security considerations” vis-a-vis the Arewa youths hardly thought twice before rushing to the court seeking a fresh order to commit the little neo-Biafran braggart to prison for breaching his bail terms. He does not appear to think or care about the ethnic sensibility of the South-east and possible security backlash in the event that Nnamdi Kanu is re-arrested.

    Maybe because our fastidious legal czar assumes the guy and the mob behind him are nothing but kids of a lesser god.

    Nigeria is indeed in great danger if this is how best Malami thinks to interpret the law. A society is doomed if double standard is applied against two acts of perceived criminality.

     

  • Changing sitting order in a stuck Titanic?

    Changing sitting order in a stuck Titanic?

    The cartel of political prayer-warriors are bound to lay claims. But if anyone deserves credit for at least “fast-tracking” the return last Saturday evening of President Muhammadu Buhari to, as they say, continue his “good work” in Aso Rock, it must be the procession of contrarians who had laid a siege to Abuja and their comrades who barricaded Abuja House in London, regardless of official posturing to the contrary.

    By openly declaring himself fit but waiting for the doctor’s formal discharge, PMB had inadvertently made himself vulnerable to accusations of “moonlighting” away in London while the situation at home was growing precarious.

    Carried away apparently by the euphoria that engulfed the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport the moment the presidential jet landed or maybe out of sheer empathy with a patient struggling to rise from the nadir, the media would effectively downplay the candle-lit vigil by the motley crowd of Nigerians who had assembled in front of Buhari’s London camp and heckled the president all Friday night till the morning of the day he departed.

    Had PMB not taken off that day, there was a certainty those pesky Nigerians, who had secured London police permit to so assemble and protest, would resume their heckling behind the nation’s green/white flag with the prospects of the name-calling degenerating to an international embarrassment.

    That could not be the kind of atmosphere you expect an old patient to convalesce effectively. His misery would only have been compounded.

    But of all the spectacle that later unfolded in Abuja that day, the most unsettling must be the appearance of Governor Nyesom Wike. A political master-stroke no doubt by the wily PDP gladiator from Rivers against his rivals now holed up in Abuja. Political difference, he seemed eager to demonstrate, should not result in death-wish. (Not surprising, his bitter political foe and Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, was missing at the welcoming party.)

    Expectedly, since Saturday, sycophants have been trying to outdo each other across the land in continuation of the culture of “eye service”. Not helping matters are those whose deeds tend to border more on profanity than holiness by issuing loud statements announcing plans to fast or pray for Buhari, as if the creeds of all faiths do not already oblige genuine believers to always remember leaders in prayers as a matter of compunction.

    The vitality of the king, we are already told, is the wellbeing of the community.

    One governor declared public holiday for “thanksgiving” even though he had for a whole week lived in denial of a grave pestilence that claimed no fewer 60 people in his state.

    Buhari’s sudden return would, however, seem to have spoilt things for someone like Sat Guru Maraji, just when many were beginning to expect to hear the day he would make his own appearance in London. Long before the much revered Pastor E A Adeboye of the Redeemed Church wrapped up penultimate Thursday the flurry of of august visitations from Nigeria, the Ibadan-based mystic had relentlessly offered to heal the ailing president like “I cured IBB”.

    But while laying claims to omni-potence, it seems completely lost on the self-styled prophet that the same IBB has over the years continued to bear the pain resulting from an injury sustained during the civil war with grace and today cuts the perfect portrait of forbearance against the agonizing ravages of radiculopathy.

    Well, we can only hope that with Buhari’s return and gratitude formally expressed in his Monday broadcast for all the “prayers”, such comical distractions will now stop.

    Reacting to the same broadcast, however, embattled Rep Abdulmumin Jibrin (of the “padded budget” fame) said what he heard sounded more like a “coup speech”. On the contrary, I thought I saw a president very much in a hurry to get back in Abuja groove and reassert his authority. Maybe, Jibrin was tempted to say that because the president evoked the picture of antiquity by not availing himself of latest technology in a teleprompter and instead chose to read a script, clumsily shuffling the sheets before viewers.

    Anyone familiar with the production of television broadcast by a political leader will readily attest it can be very, very exacting indeed, much more for a recuperating septuagenarian.

    In terms of content analysis, the speech was rather too fleeting to speak to the nuances of burning national issues the president obviously wanted to address.

    Hopefully, as he gets more briefing in the coming days, the commander-in-chief will gradually get a fuller picture to enable him better appreciate the dangerous shape things assumed while he was away.

    Perhaps the most memorable line in the broadcast was this: “The national consensus is that, it is better to live together than to live apart.”

    Clearly, Buhari, being a war-tested General, seems obsessed with only the security dimension of the national question.  By recalling his extensive conversation in 2003 with Emeka Ojukwu, the now late Biafran folk hero, Buhari appears too eager to demonstrate  to neo-Biafrans the futility of seeking to disinter the old sepulcher.

    But the real challenge is the need to understand what could have led Ojukwu’s political grandchildren into a nostalgia for the path abandoned 47 years ago. What this grave hour calls for is exquisite leadership skill to win back their trust and enlist their talents in the enterprise of nation-building.

    Overall, it is reassuring to hear Buhari speaking firmly, restating his promise to tackle decisively merchants of hate, kidnappers and “farmers versus herdsmen clashes” (sic). But the president needs to understand that these are only symptoms of deep structural defects long detected in the federal union. What remains is to summon the political courage to fix things and guarantee the union’s sustainability.

    Issuing threats or deploying maximum force will, at best, only secure temporary relief. Without rooting out the cancerous growth, administering tranquilizers today is tantamount to the laughable futility of thinking that merely changing the sitting order in a Titanic in the face of an approaching iceberg will eviscerate the looming existential threat. As we read of the proverbial Titanic that succumbed in the Atlantic Ocean, clueless janitors were busy rearranging the decks even as the sybaritic band continued playing while the vessel was sinking.

    In Buhari’s absence, the Council of State directed the Inspector General of Police to explore the possibility of community policing. This could only have been inspired by the realization that the present policing architecture can no longer meet today’s needs.

    Hopefully, Buhari will also get to know in the coming days that even his party, All Progressive Congress (APC), has since realized the futility of living in denial that generally speaking, the national structure as presently constituted is sustainable. Apparently reading the national mood correctly, it has already raised an in-house committee to fashion its own response.

    This inevitability was succinctly expressed by Tunji Bello, the Secretary to the Lagos State Government, in a keynote delivered at the Nigerian Bar conference which opened in Lagos on Monday. His words: “The practice of the current skewed federalism or what I call “military federalism” being camouflaged as genuine federalism must stop as most of the States are currently hemorrhaging  socioeconomically.

    “Even by logic, a federation derives its strength from its constituents. So, how then do we reconcile  the recent proposal that the power to organize local government elections be taken away from  the states and added to the functions of the national electoral body controlled by the government at the centre? If we say the reason is because the ruling party in the state tends to win all seats in council polls, what is the guaranty that it will also not become the turn of the party that controls the government at the centre to make a clean sweep of all the council seats as well?”

    The ailment has been diagnosed; what remains is to cure it.

     

     

    Trump and the psychiatric test 

    IF a bill proposed by a US Democratic congressman by name Zoe Lofgren from California sails through, then increasingly embattled President Donald Trump will sooner than later be forced to the psychiatrist’s studio.

    Lofgren’s bill, coming on the heels of Trump’s misstatements on racial issues thought long settled, would seem inspired by the growing concern over the mental health of the American leader.

    He impulsively tweets on even matters considered far beneath the dignity of the American presidency, raising hell when calmness will do, trailed by a litany of unforced errors.

    First to raise the red flag months ago is the American association of psychiatrists. It broke old convention by issuing a public alert that Trump, from their own observation, clearly exhibits disturbing symptoms.

    Lofgren’s bid appears to lend a new poignancy to the fear Hillary Clinton, Trump’s rival in the 2006 presidential polls, had expressed: “A man who is quick to tweet at the slightest provocation is not to be trusted with the nuclear button at the Oval Office.”

    Back in Nigeria, the Lofgren proposal surely resonates. Longstanding has been been the agitation by some including mental health experts that such legal instrument be applied in the leadership recruitment process. However, their own concern is informed mainly by the perceived craze of our politicians and public officials to amass stupendous fortune most unlikely to be expended in three generations assuming each had the DNA of the biblical prodigal child.

  • Evans: Rise of the invisible neighbour

    Evans: Rise of the invisible neighbour

    Mathew Hassan Kukah (MHK), it was, who perhaps best framed a key ethical question bogging the contemporary society with collapsing values. To reclaim the moral boundary, the engaging Catholic Bishop once argued that it is no longer enough for the cleric to expressly grant request by a congregant to bless their endeavor out of shared ecumenical spirit without first ascertaining its nature.

    To gloss over such little details is to risk donating the ecclesiastical seal to an undertaking likely to fail the integrity test, thus inadvertently allowing the impression to be created that mere sprinkling of “holy water” could confer the same hygiene outlaws usually crave in seeking to have their loot laundered. And in case such “enterprise” turns out to be less than licit, the shepherd stands as condemned as that calculating Pharisee.

    Of course, we can take liberty to assume that implied in MHK’s sermon is also a frown at pastors who readily demand and accept gifts of private jet or limousine from their “spiritual children” who, in reality, were no other than those already officially certified as fuel subsidy thieves or vampires sucking crude from the nation’s pipelines. Today, against the backcloth of the fabulous revelations since last Saturday of the exploits of kidnap king, Chukwudi Onuamadike (a.k.a Evans), MHK’s words could not be more pungent.

    Until he met his Waterloo, Evans would easily have passed as a celebrity next door. He possessed and flaunted all that are now discounted as the only success indicator by the increasingly materialistic society: big houses at home and abroad, front-row seat at the temple, big cars, big titles, big family often on foreign holidays etc. At his upscale estate, neighbours recall he was the perfect resident.

    He paid his dues promptly even though he avoided community meetings like a plague. Watching him driving by in exotic automobiles or power bike, many must have eyed him with envy, wishing God put them in his shiny shoes.

    At the car wash, he would sit inside his wonderon- wheels with the engine running while the cleaning lasted. In his village, we read about his step-brother describing him in flattering terms as “nice, kind-hearted guy”. We also read of fat envelopes donated by him to charity homes and temples of worship. One account (though unconfirmed) states he was arrested and arraigned in court earlier this year alongside his wife but, predictably, soon bought his way to freedom.

    But what many must still find most puzzling is how a man dreaded for sowing fear and terror across the land for years, almost thought invincible as to warrant the police placing big bounty on head, would eventually be found not in a fortress or catacomb, but at a regular tenement. This could in part be attributed to the dysfunctionality of the three socializing agencies: family, the neighbourhood and those sociologists describe as “the significant others”.

    That Evans could inhabit Magodo for so long and remain invisible is a reflection of the new reality in our big cities. Everyone is in a hurry. People rush out even before dawn in pursuit of a living. On return at dusk, they are mostly too broken by the pressure at work, agonizing over what awaits them the next day. By weekend, most prefer to remain indoors, lying in bed more or less, trying to recover the breath they lost during the past grueling working days.

    In place of old-fashioned hearty chatter in neighborhood recreational parks over drinks, we now find it more convenient to set up WhatsApp conference on the go. Social media platforms are taking the place of the clubs and confraternities of old as the new socializing venues. Phone calls are replacing physical visits. Fawning symbols contrived by computer are now accepted as substitute for the bonhomie of old, that throaty human laughter in real life.

    Territorial boundaries have collapsed. So, over time, the big paradox unfolds: neighbours grow into strangers even when social media is supposed to bridge distance. While rapid urbanization is robbing our communities of their soul, technology is increasingly rendering our humanity impersonal. Only that could explain why no one still seemed to have taken notice of sneaky Evans in Magodo even three years after the police placed a ransom on his head.

    In the days gone by when intimacy defined the community, Evans would not have been able to hide for so long. Neighbours were each other’s keeper. Suspicion would have easily arisen if anyone chose to step out of line. Once upon a time, when three or four people were gathered, someone was bound to break the ice soon. But not any more.

    Today, rather than chat up an acquaintance at a public space, we would rather now spend the time fondling our phone devices – texting or browsing. In a way, the concept of society has changed. Instagram, Facebook and other cyber platforms constitute the new society. Seamless as access could be, the values are false, the language vile.

    They have become arena to show off. It used to be said that when your yam harvest was bountiful, shared communal sense of proportion dictated that the news be hoarded, if not entirely hidden. Today, we all seem in a hurry to even exaggerate our worth on social media as if modesty has become a cardinal sin. We glory in spending what we don’t earn.

    It explains why soon it took only few moments after Evans was paraded Monday for pictures of his brood to surface online, oozing opulence. Though the source was not stated, it is most likely to be screengrab from either Instagram or Facebook entry.

    Such is the perversion of the new society. On the other hand, family failure is undoubtedly illustrated in Evans’ evolution from a petty thief to becoming the czar of the underworld. According to reports, his parents knew he was into crime and unwittingly aided and abetted him by keeping silence.

    At least, his father reportedly admitted his son once told him he was into drug trafficking. While the mom was said to know of the kidnappings but never gave her blessings. Planning, conducting reconnaissance and executing kidnaps on Evans’ scale and keeping victims for months, evading security dragnet, definitely require uncommon intelligence.

    If only Evans deployed his in a positive way. Parental deficit of the Onuamadikes could be situated in the context of what is now commonly termed the “micro-wave” parenting model. It consists of the abdication of responsibility by the authority figures at home often under the excuse of pursuing daily bread. When the parents cannot meet the family’s basic needs, they often end up forfeiting their voices all together at home.

    When a son without visible source of likelihood brings home brand new SUV or undergraduate daughter begins to flaunt the next generation I-phone, how many parents still possess the moral authority to ask questions? Surely, the bottom of sudden wealth is often very murky indeed. Overall, more poignant questions certainly await the Onuamadikes.

    Apart from possible tepid reprimands uttered understandably beyond the earshot of a third party or immersion in the usual “fasting and prayer”, what other concrete steps did they take to really wean their ward off the life of crime early in the day? A parent who cherishes the family’s good name, is conscious of the inevitability of Karma and un-desirous of eternal shame would not have quickly thrown up their hands in cheap surrender.

    Even more abominable is the role of the wife. Evans reportedly confessed that his spouse sometimes cashed the ransom on his behalf. Could he have lied to her on the real nature of his “business”? But it would have been humanly impossible for her to remain in the dark all these years while her hubby rolled in billions without an office address.

    The only logical conclusion to make under the circumstance is that she knew about all the secrets trips, the nocturnal calls and why the bales of dollars bore bloodstains. We are then let into the grotesque shadow of Jezebel and Saphira rolled into one. And then, what sort of business could they been telling their children daddy was doing? Again, what sort of a woman – a mother of five at that! – would happily go to bed with and wake beside a devil like Evans each morning? And she was not scared of having her children trained with such blood money? We can only pray the iniquities of the evil couple don’t come back to haunt the little children who must be treated as innocent in the circumstance. As for the “significant others”, the guilt list will certainly stretch from the social circuits to the conclave of miracle merchants and allied specialists who partook of Evans’s tainted dollars.

    He often introduced himself as “international businessman”. Nigerian ambassador to Ghana reportedly attended a shindig once held in his honour in Accra. Evans also reportedly confessed that he gave fantastic donations in form of offering to churches, thereby implicating pastors in his web of sin. What then remains is for him to name all his spiritual fathers – both orthodox and traditional – who collected dollars in appreciation of “special prayers” or ritual sacrifice to help him either beat police traps or evade arrests all these years.

    Then, you can be sure many in cassocks across the west coast will be losing sleep in the times ahead. This leads us back to MHK’s golden charge. More would certainly be achieved if more and more of our pastors, imams and traditional priests join in helping to enshrine a custom that dishonors wealth which provenance is either suspicious or unknown.

    No more recognition or glorifying so-called business moguls of no visible merchandise and who purports to run an office without an identifiable address. Of course, that will only mean massive pay-cut for many self-styled prophets.

    Recall the story of a popular Lagos-based prosperity pastor implicated in the theft by a church member sometime ago. The latter was found out by his employer in the hospitality industry to have systematically stolen tens of millions of Naira as account clerk.

    He later confessed to the police that more than half of his loot was donated to his church either as offering or “seeds”. He said each time the pastor made an altar call for “anyone blessed or expecting miracles” to sow a seed, he was often overpowered by a spirit to give and give.

    The bigger shocker came when the implicated pastor was eventually confronted. While not denying receipt of millions and a giant generating set, he categorically ruled out the possibility of a refund even after it became clear the source was unclean.

    So, the impression invariably created in public mind could be put roughly as this: were Judas Iscariot to offer ten percent of his infamous 30 shekels of silver to that same pastor, it would be game as well. Such is the new ethical bind we now have to deal with. Now, a little quiz for the day:

  • Re: Oyegun and the Abuja disease

    Re: Oyegun and the Abuja disease

    Louis Odion’s recently published article entitled “Oyegun and the Abuja disease” in which he savages Chief John Odigie-Oyegun the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is very odious, indeed. In the article, he begrudges Chief Odigie-Oyegun for downplaying the roles of Oshiomhole and former governor of Lagos state, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his emergence as APC National Chairman in 2014.

    Political loyalties aside, any right thinking person would know that Mr. Odion’s account would have been unbelievable for a party like the APC formed by powerful interests and individuals. It is important to remind Mr. Odion that decisions like the appointment/election of the party chairman and other party executives require the consent of all the voting blocs or majority of them to be successful. Party politics and election usually involve negotiations and horse-trading.

    This is a legitimate component of a political process, which by the way the APC solidly stands for. Chief Odigie-Oyegun emerged as National Chairman through the collective efforts of a coalition of individuals and interests within the APC fold at the time.

    That is the fact and it is likely that if the same question is posed to Oshiomhole and Tinubu, their responses will not be too different. That Chief Odigie-Oyegun could not deliver his ward in either the presidential or gubernatorial election does not render him as politically ineffectual as Mr. Odion surmises.

    Jonathan simply swept the South-South votes in 2015. However, after the loss of the Edo South votes in the 2015 presidential election, Chief Odigie-Oyegun immediately put his political influence to work by ensuring that the House of Assembly elections in Edo South went to the APC to prevent the possible impeachment of the then incumbent Governor Oshiomhole as threatened by the PDP at the time.

    On the outcome of the Edo state governorship election of 2016, the point needs to be made that, it was demographically impossible for Chief Odigie-Oyegun to win in the polling unit (Oredo Ward 2, Unit 1 in the Government Reserved Area, Benin-City) where he voted, since he had to contend with the large families of Igbinedion and Ize- Iyamu who reside in the area. Naturally, their friends and associates voted for the PDP who had Pastor OsagieIze-Iyamu as the PDP governorship candidate.

    There are reports that the PDP in collusion with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ensured that Chief Odigie-Oyegun and his wife voted in separate poling units, in a bid to neutralise APC votes in the area, while concentrating PDP votes in the polling unit where Chief Odigie- Oyegun votes.

    In the larger context the plan failed. Although, Chief Odigie-Oyegun lost in his polling unit to the PDP by just 9 votes (APC-69, PDP-78), APC won in the polling unit his wife voted. In any case, Chief Odigie-Oyegun delivered in Edo South Senatorial zone including Oredo Local Government Area.

    So the bottomline is that the APC National Chairman delivered his state and particularly Edo south, home to his Bini ethnic stock. Don’t forget that he convincingly won the governorship election in the state in 1991! What Chief Odigie-Oyegun brings to APC is perhaps one of the most redeeming faces of the party.

    It’s an unquantifiable moral value addition. And the party is much better for that quality. One may ask, who made Chief Odigie-Oyegun one of the youngest permanent secretaries in our nation’s history after only thirteen years in service, or governor of Edo state in his first foray in politics?

    Duke Edobor Oshodin, Benin-City, Edo State.

     

    I have heard stories of pedestrian thinking in high places but I never imagined the drivel I read from Chief Odigie Oyegun’s camp being circulated in social media by way of response to a brilliant and courageous article written by Louis Odion with the entitled “Oyegun and the Abuja disease”.

    Among others, Oyegun’s hireling called Oshodin wanted us to believe that his paymaster, who could not saved himself the shame in the first round of elections on March 28 (2015) as APC national chairman losing his polling unit, was the one who “pulled the strings” that ensured that APC won the second round of elections in April so as “to stop PDP lawmakers from impeaching Adams Oshiomhole as Edo governor” then.

    Ha! All hail Oyegun the political physician who could not heal himself. Shameless political flyweight, Oshodin and his paymaster would not concede that Oshiomhole’s stellar performance within the context of Edo politics and the Buhari hurricane of March 28 combined to influence the pattern of voting in subsequent rounds of election.

    It is called bandwagon effect. As a mark of appreciation of Oshiomhole’s performance, Edo people voted massively for APC in the local elections so much that APC won 22 to PDP’s miserable 2. How can Oyegun, who could not win his own polling unit, now say he “pulled strings” to make that happened? Consumed by the web of his poor-quality lies, Oshodin forgot that new lawmakers elected on April 11 were not sworn in until June 2015.

    In Oshodin’s warped reasoning, it was as if there were no legislators with subsisting mandate on the ground as at the time elections held. (APC still had overwhelming majority in the state assembly up till May 29 2015.) Let us even assume that PDP had won majority in the local election, would that have empowered them to “quickly commence Oshiomhole’s impeachment”?

    Haba, even primary school pupils are too smart to think like that! In any case, through Oshiomhole’s inspiring leadership, Action Congress of Nigerian won 20 seats in the assembly polls in 2011 to PDP’s 4 (the same election where Oyegun similarly lost his polling unit, ward, council, senatorial zone and entire Edo state even as vice presidential runningmate to Shekarau on ANPP platform). Despite PDP’s heavy financial inducement and raw intimidation between 2014 and 2015, APC under resolute Oshiomhole was able to retain 16 seats while 7 PDP members, backed with “federal might”, took over the assembly complex under police protection. I believe Odion was even too charitable to Oyegun in the same piece. Or maybe Odion is not aware that virtually all the appointment slots due to Edo State have been cornered by greedy Oyegun to his family members. I challenge him to deny this. In fact, in one sickening instance, an appointment due to Edo indigene was given to Oyegun’s in-law who does not even hail from Edo State.

    What a shame!

    Stephen Igbinosa, Benin City.

    Odion, this article on Oyegun is my best breakfast ever. I just decided not to read it in a hurry. It aptly captures the hypocritical lives most of our southern politicians exhibit in a stupid rush to assure their northern masters of their loyalty. This even becomes more comical when they delude themselves that we do not have the memory of the recent past.

    When I read Oyegun’s interview, my below-average perception of his personality dipped further. I was not surprised because he has never impressed me politically. Tom Ikimi would have done better. As the National Chairman of APC, Oyegun has not been seen to do anything about the flagrant political alienation of some parts of the country by the President. No word from him concerning the state of the nation. He watched helplessly while APC under his watch mismanaged their electoral victory. Every day, Oyegun who is the Chairman of the ruling party diminishes politically in my sight. Although I never expected much from him, he should have done better than this if his hallucinatory claim of integrity is anything to go by. Thanks for this piece. I look forward to seeing more.

    Gilbert Nweke, Benin City: 08074614100

     

    That piece on Oyegun was dismal. Oyegun is principled. You want him to kowtow to other men?

    07031025925

     

    With a party chairman with self-declared “personality and integrity” like Oyegun in office in 2019, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Chief Bola Tinubu and other genuine progressives should gird heir loins.

    Elder L. O. David, Efon Alaye, Ekiti: 08059096244

     

    Sensible politicians who know or have read you will rue the day you write their political epitaph. It will obviously be a sad irreversible final comment. A “curtains” call.

    D. Birmah: 08065508355

     

    APC should not follow PDP’s step of changing their party chairman at will after all the APC chairman has done well to remain the APC chairman. Those calling for his removal are not wishing the party well. From his assumption as APC chairman he has done well to deliver Edo, Ondo and other elections. They should allow him be because his removal might cause crisis in the party as it occurred in PDP. As 2019 is around corner let them be united to win.

    Chika Nnorom: 08062887535

     

    I hope Oyegun understands that what goes around comes around.

    Ayodele Jayeolatunde

     

    He has not learnt the lesson from the saying that never bite the hand that feeds you, no matter what. His end is very near. A real sycophant he is.

    Odion Okaka

     

    This wonderful writeup could easily pass for a parable about the Hubris inadvertently stalking ESAN progress and ultimately development. We have had seemingly emancipated sons and daughters from the legendary Air Hostess Ahabue (50’s) to the UAC magic, Abebe (60’s). However, it was the political miracle, Prof. Ambrose Alli, that actually sowed the seed, followed by yet another leader (the Esan naval chief). One very much hopes the way forward is this objective critical stance, not minding whether those in question are elderly Esans. More grease to your writing elbow!

    Pius S Omole

     

    This is a masterpiece and highly revealing. Nigerians, particularly Edolites are interested in this matter. Thank you Odion.

    Odidison Omans

    Oyegun’s is a political disaster to APC. A money-monger, he helped in the total destruction of our great party in Delta State. His time is up.

    Nathaniel Igwubor

  • Oyegun and the Abuja disease

    Oyegun and the Abuja disease

    ABUJA disease is a peculiar affliction in Nigerian politics. It refers to the tendency of an actor with otherwise modest endowment or from humble station to transmute to a monstrous creature once he/she enters the nation’s capital and begins to frequent the power circles. Intoxicated by a new false sense of identity, such upstart does not consider it abominable to now point at their cradle with the proverbial left hand, mocking old benefactors, before their new friends. Chief Odigie Oyegun would appear the latest sufferer of this pathology. With a straight face, the National Chairman of ruling the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been toiling hard lately to deny allies who smoothed his path to office.

    Perhaps the most audacious of such exertions is an interview published by Vanguard on Monday where he sought to disavow a known truth: the decisive role played by both Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in his emergence in 2014. Specifically, the interviewer asked: “Some are alleging that you’ve not been fair to those who assisted you to emerge National Chairman of the party, especially Bola Tinubu. Is this true?” Hear Oyegun: “Everybody assisted me to this position and I’m grateful to all of them. The only thing is my personality and integrity; I don’t joke with these two things because they’re the only currency that I’ve and I’ll defend them at any time. I don’t believe one particular person solely assisted me to this position.” And in what sounded more like a poor imitation of Buhari’s now famous inaugural “I belong to everybody and nobody” phrase, Oyegun added: “Some day, the story of how I became chairman of APC will be told. You will then see that everybody did assist me to become National Chairman. This means that I’m there for everybody.

    I don’t belong to any camp in the APC. I belong to all members of APC high and below.” With that, the APC chairman could, however, only be said to be deceiving himself in his desperation to impress a national following that does not exist. In the same interview, even more disturbing was his showcasing a poverty of ideas so blissfully over the reported insolvency of the party’s national secretariat. We shall return to this presently. Now luxuriating in a new-found glory, Oyegun must be assuming that the nameless – but nonetheless discerning – porters at Benin airport have forgotten the wilderness days of 2013 and early 2014 when they often would relieve an elderly man, regularly clad in French suit, of his little bag after rushing in from his hermitage on the sedate Reservation Road in Benin GRA to catch evening Arik Air flight to Lagos – tellingly at predictable intervals.

    Easily given away by the littleness of his luggage, no one needed further proof that his mission in Lagos could be other than political meetings, hosted by folks whose generous hospitality he now belittles. So, when Oyegun speaks in such imperial tone these days, he must also have assumed no one remembers how the Edo chapter of APC had unilaterally issued a statement endorsing his then arch rival, Chief Tom Ikimi, solely for the office in 2014, obviously to foreclose his (Oyegun’s) chances. Unhappy with what he considered “an anti-democratic maneuver” and “a crude attempt to close the political space”, then Governor Oshiomhole had to make a passionate appeal to the state party executive to shift ground. They were incensed that even with the convention barely few days away, Oyegun still had not thought it courteous to formally intimate them of his interest in the big job. Following Oshiomhole’s intervention, the Anselm Ojezua-led state exco backed down and granted Oyegun audience to make a presentation.

    Thereafter, the Edo APC recanted its earlier position by issuing a statement also acknowledging Oyegun and wishing both contenders good luck at the national convention ahead. That development would cost Oshiomhole his political relationship with Ikimi seen largely as the man to beat for his greater national visibility which he was too eager to flaunt to the point of hubris.

    If Oshiomhole ensured home anointing for Oyegun, Tinubu sold him to his allies at the national level, obviously out of a nostalgia for – and maybe over-romanticization of – their NADECO past. We are talking of the days of innocence of APC when key gladiators still related as comrades united by a shared resolve to oust Goodluck Jonathan from Aso Rock; when the atmosphere had not become poisoned by mutual suspicion and deep bitterness arising from a sense of alienation. Of course, it is open secret that over the years Asiwaju and Ikimi never got on well over the former’s memory of the brutal repression suffered as NADECO exile under dictator Sani Abacha in the 90s with the Oduma of Igueben serving as the voluble foreign minister. It is a measure of Tinubu’s blistering networking that Ikimi eventually faced stiff resistance from almost everyone who held the ace within APC then except Turaki Adamawa (ex Vice President Atiku Abubakar). Out-muscled, he had no choice than withdrawing few hours to the commencement of voting at the convention. In pulling out of APC eventually, Ikimi brought drama and a lengthy epistle dripping of bile and acid.

    Reminding the public how he had hosted several exploratory meetings that led to APC’s birth in 2014, Ikimi likened what happened to “someone taking away my pot of soup”, more or less dismissing Oyegun as a political merchandise with little or no electoral value. Indeed, in hindsight, Ikimi would now seem vindicated. At home, Oyegun has in the last three years been exposed as grossly impotent politically. In the 2015 general polls, not only did the APC national chair fail to deliver his polling unit in Oredo, his ward, local government and the entire Edo South senatorial district were also lost to PDP. It was only Oshiomhole’s rally in his native Edo North that ensured APC eventually deliver 45 percent to Buhari’s victory in the historic March 28 polls. Even more humiliating was the outcome of the state governorship primaries in 2016.

    Oyegun’s anointed in the shadow polls came a distant third to Godwin Obaseki. In the September 26 governorship polls proper, Oyegun, the great national chair, failed again as PDP won his polling unit right there in Oredo, the heart of Benin City. Back in 2011, even as the presidential runningmate to Shekarau on the ANPP platform, Oyegun’s showing at home was no less disastrous. ANPP performed woefully across Edo. In fact, on account of the sparse number of votes recorded in Benin City, it would not be exaggeration to say no one outside Oyegun’s family members and few loyal neighbours came out to support a ticket that supposedly had “the son of the soil” as the vice presidential candidate.

    Taken together, no one is begrudging Oyegun whatever super stardom he thinks APC leadership now confers on him. But what we only only expect of those whose palm kernel has been cracked by benevolent gods is simple – humility. While Oyegun now makes a fetish of self-declared “personality and integrity”, we only expect a demonstration of this very virtue in a fidelity to the facts of history, particularly when the memory is still fresh. Acknowledging those who provided you ladder to climb to a height will not in anyway dim your stardom. On the contrary, it confers greater nobility. Only those incurably afflicted by the Abuja disease would seek to belittle, without qualms, their key enablers of yesterday.

    On APC’s state of financial health, Oyegun also misses the point by dragging PMB’s name at all into the story of APC’s illiquidity. Contrary to his insinuation, no one is saying or expects Buhari to dip hands into public treasury to fund party’s activities. I think the issue is whether enough incentives are being created for party members or blocs to have a sense of ownership that will, in turn, ginger them into freely bringing their widow’s mite. How was the party able to finance itself before gaining power? Theoretically, a party is supposed to draw oxygen substantially from membership fees, dues and levies by those who subscribe to its charter of values. To be fair to Oyegun, party finance remains a sticky point even in the so-called mature democracies. In the United States, the corrosive influence of Wall Street was a big issue in the both the primaries and general polls last year.

    The challenge has been how to evolve institutional bulwark against kickbacks, influence peddling, embezzlement and extortion on party’s behalf. In the present circumstance, it is, however, debatable whether Oyegun has been able to draw on his much vaunted “personality and integrity” to provide an exemplary leadership that towers above the squalor of partisanship and therefore commands greater loyalty and trust of all and sundry. It then explains why the national secretariat appears increasingly deserted and the earth vanishing under Oyegun’s bare feet.

    Nothing illustrates graphically that loosening grip than the reported tumult in Abuja on Tuesday by state chairmen of the party. While Oyegun would typically choose to live in denial, the party’s chief spokesperson, Bolaji Abdullahi, was forthright enough to admit that the state leaders were bitter over Buhari’s “lopsided appointments” which have only succeeded in casting the government as sectional; a total negation of the promise of 2015. With the deafening rabble at the door, the question now is whether Oyegun, as the embodiment of the heart and soul of APC, has the courage and the gravitas to convey the message to Buhari with a view to winning back those who genuinely feel alienated. That may be a tough call for a pensioner feverishly afraid of losing his own share of the spoils of office in Abuja. Meanwhile, with his kinsman now appearing to totter under the weight of office in Abuja, I can see Ikimi taking another sip from his favorite cognac this moment, smiling mischievously.

  • AJ Vs Klitschko

    HISTORY beckons tonight at the iconic Wembley Stadium, London when Nigerian-born world heavyweight boxing champion, Anthony Femi Joshua, steps into the rope square against Ukrainian legend, Wladimir Klitschko, in a world titles unification fight. Patriotism obliges me to root for my countryman.

    But beyond that is the yearning for a redemption of the heavyweight class. The last time we saw real excitement in that category was more than fifteen years ago when Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Lennon Lewis jabbed. Without taking anything from the legend of the Klitschko brothers (Wladimir and Vitali) who reigned for more than decade non-stop until British-born Tyson Fury handed “Dr. Iron Fist” a shock defeat in November 2015, the fact remains that they are too mechanical in style, robbing the nights of fury we once saw. More and more, we see elephant-overweight guys who ought to be in rehab against obesity still panting all over the ring, giving “the noble art of self-defence” a bad name. At another time, we saw a champ suddenly break down in hot tears under fire in the ring.

    Undefeated in 18 fights since turning pro in 2013, AJ has brought a fresh breath. In him, Muhammad Ali’s charisma, George Foreman’s animal brawn and Mike Tyson’s menacing aura and Lennon Lewis’ charming chivalry appear to converge. More, he is just 27! In a way, AJ also speaks to the Nigerian condition: wasted opportunities. Early in his amateur career, he came down to Nigeria, wanting to jab for Nigeria and possibly wear Nigeria’s colours at the 2012 Olympics. But no one looked at him. In frustration, he returned to United Kingdom where his talent was spotted. He crushed everyone lined up before him to give U.K. gold medal at the London Olympics. But a level-headed guy, AJ never fails to give Nigeria a worthy mention in his inspiring story. AJ, go bring back the glory.

  • The shame of a diminished Senate

    The shame of a diminished Senate

    INCREASINGLY obsessed with sleaze and scandals, it is unknown how many of our conniving senators still have the presence of mind today to ponder history. Those who do would perhaps have encountered the name Oliver Cromwell, the British general, who turned England a republic and taught it puritan values.

    Convinced the parliament had transmuted to the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah by the middle of the 17th century, the new lawgiver did not hesitate to dismiss the assembly. But not before he made a searing speech at the House of Commons on April 20, 1653, the echo of which must have haunted the buccaneering lawmakers for the rest of their lives. His words:

    “It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

    “Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? “Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil’d this sacred place, and turn’d the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?

    Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress’d, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. “In the name of God, go!” Well, the perfidies and iniquities Cromwell lamented in the Long parliament in the 17th century Europe would seem very much alive in Nigeria’s upper legislative chamber today as personal interests are shamelessly camouflaged as public cause.

    To be fair, even in mature democracies often held up as model for the fledgling ones, the legislative chamber is never always the best place to find angels. But elsewhere, there is always a concerted effort to hide, to conceal the dirty linen, out of respect for public sensibilities and shared commitment to preserve the corporate integrity of that very space. Certainly, nowhere is venality and rascality so glamorized as we are beginning to see in the Nigerian Senate lately.

    Legal titan, Professor Itse Sagay, is the latest to be dragged into the seedy arena. The chair of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) Tuesday took an unprecedented step by issuing the Senate an ultimatum to eat its words, failing which he would slap it with a suit for daring to as much as contemplate subpoenaing him over an earlier comment that the senators acted “childish and irresponsible” by refusing to screen 27 Resident Electoral Commissioners over President Buhari’s retention of Ibrahim Magu as acting head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

    Predictably, the law professor has meticulously outlined the futility of Senate’s plan in a statement, citing legal authorities to back his argument. Whether the Senate sticks to its guns and Sagay resorts to court is, however, not the issue. Rather, what is invariably exposed is the obsession of certain elements at the Senate to impose their own will on the nation and the ridiculous length they will travel in pursuit of a personal agenda.

    To be sure, this writer is sold on the imperative of the independence of both the legislature and the judiciary as the surest institutional valve against executive tyranny. But in the present circumstance, those deploying such fine argument in defence of the ongoing Senate intransigence however suddenly turn dumb when reminded of the underlining certainty of blackmail in the Magu blockade.

    By describing the senators as “childish and irresponsible”, Sagay could, in fact, be accused of being too charitable. By harbouring a nest of former governors standing trial for massive theft while in office, failed contractors, certificate impostors, a practising bearded pedophile, a fugitive who jumped bail in London and one “drug baron” absconding from American justice, Nigerians who choose to view the red chamber as presently constituted as a den of shifty characters cannot therefore be accused of libel or hyperbole.

    It is, therefore, more in the interests of these “suspects” that a hard-tackling Magu is prevented from continuing at the EFFC than the advertised fixation on the so-called disabling memos by the DSS. To argue otherwise is to assume all Nigerians are big fools.

    Last week, Ali Ndume, senator representing Borno South, was thrown out of the chamber based on the report of the Ethics Committee that he had raised a false alarm over the imported bullet-proof SUV belonging to senate president Bukola Saraki and Dino Melaye’s counterfeit academic claims.

    In short, they seemed to accuse Ndume of exaggeration. But exaggeration, as Khalib Gibran tells us, is only a truth that has lost its temper. What’s more, Ndume also happened to be Magu’s only vocal advocate in the chamber. What a clever way to silence that dissent once and for all. But without Ndume’s raising the red flag, how would we have known that an SUV imported for Saraki was cleared with forged documents?

    Without SaharaReporters championing the public scrutiny of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) records, how would we have known that loquacious Dino entered the school with “incomplete” result and spent record eight years to graduate with a pass, yet again in the most shadowy circumstances, in what would have taken even a poorly endowed student four years to finish?

    And that the chain of “Harvard, Oxford degrees” he used to flaunt on social media were actually not more than glossy letters acknowledging attendance of nothing more than a week seminar? For the temerity to impound on the highway the SUV meant for the use and comfort of the Senate president, our almighty senators had summoned Customs boss Hameed Ali and, to exact a pound of flesh, thought of the harshest humiliation possible for him.

    He would not even be allowed a seat in the chamber until he wore the service uniform. Again, the Senate is diminished when the other side of Lawal Babachir’s grass-cutting scam is told. Sure, the yarn spurned by the Secretary to the Federal Government to absolve himself of complicity in the contract scandal is hard to believe.

    Conversely, it does our senators no good either when Babachir’s apologists squealed that the Senate chose to blow the bugle and, in fact, asked Buhari to fire the government scribe only because he had insisted it was not the job of federal lawmakers to execute constituency projects. To be fair, among the irredeemable in the red chamber are a few conscientious senators.

    But as the upper legislature continues to hobble from one scandal to another, they, unfortunately, are also vicariously liable and so lose respect in the eyes of the Nigerian people.

  • Nigeria without Dangote?

    LISTENING to Alhaji Aliko Dangote speak at a colloquium held penultimate Tuesday in Lagos to mark Asiwaju’s 65th birthday, one could again not help feeling the magnitude of the Nigerian tragedy inflicted by leadership deficit.

    He did not feature in the original programme. But who is better qualified to speak authoritatively at a ceremony where entrepreneurship is broached than someone who started humbly as a merchant in his native Kano with loan from an uncle as capital and, forty years later, is now rated the richest black man on earth?

    Though impromptu, Dangote spoke with the depth and clarity of a professor. His facility with statistics is remarkable indeed. His prescriptions: entrepreneurs in Nigeria will do better with stable power supply on the one hand, and policy consistency/coherence on the other.

    A doer himself, he has walked the talk in the cement sector. From being world’s second biggest importer of cement a decade ago, Dangote has helped his fatherland achieve not just self-sufficiency in the commodity but also pushed her to becoming a big cement exporter, thereby earning the much needed forex.

    Obviously a pathfinder, Dangote has since shifted his luminous lights towards crude refining. Denied in 2007 the custody of Port Harcourt Refinery he earlier acquired with his friend, Femi Otedola, through privatization, Dangote thereafter chose a more tortuous path to make the loudest statement.

    He is currently building from the scratch a brand refinery already rated Africa’s biggest with the capacity to refine a whopping 650,000 bpd and the largest single train of its kind in the world. (The combined capacity of all Nigeria’s refineries is less than 450,000 bpd with actual utilization today less than a miserly 10 percent, despite billions of dollars splurged on them over the years in the name of Turn-And-Maintenance.)

    To pull this through, he has had to substantially tap international lenders to raise a colossal $12b for the project. The good news is that, just as we no longer waste forex on cement import, Dangote Refinery located in swampy Lekki, Lagos will, beginning from 2019, ensure that Nigeria no longer wastes forex on importation of petrol, diesel and kerosene, thereby helping to conserving at least $10b yearly.

    That way, Dangote would, at least, have helped end Nigeria’s shame by lifting the old curse of “a nation importing what it already has”. The emerging Dangote Refinery will not only save Nigeria N10b annually, it will also create 250,000 fresh jobs for Nigerians. Already, fables and gossips are fast mushrooming around the gargantuan plant currently under construction day and night. The most widespread being that it occupies a land mass (2,200 hectares) that is six times the size of the upscale Victoria Island in Lagos.

    However, my own take-away is different. To power the humongous plant, Dangote has had to build an independent power plant, just like he did for the Cement factory in Obajana, Kogi State. From records now made public, it costs him an average of $400,000 to build one mega watt. But wait for the figure often quoted by the Federal Government for the same item – $2m! What makes it doubly tragic is that with $400,000, Dangote delivers mega watt that brings real electricity. Nigeria squanders $2m to generate pitch darkness.

    Under Obasanjo, not less than $16b, according to House of Reps reports in 2008, was spent on power projects. A decade later, that colossal expenditure has not translated to a marked improvement in energy generation. Fifty-six years after independence, power generation still oscillates around 4,000. Back in the 70s, a national committee chaired by Chief Olu Falae had projected the nation’s energy need to be 10,000 mega watts by 2000. Sadly, with a population of less than 100m in 1988, official records indicated NEPA’s generation capacity was 4,000 mega watts. When Obasanjo left office ten years ago, power generation had fallen to 3,000 mega watts.

    Ten years later, and with population now around 180 million, we are back to generating 4,000 mega watts. However, with $16b, Dangote would have produced mega watts in excess of 6,000. Is anyone still wondering why Nigeria remains poor infra-structurally today despite hundreds of billions of dollars received through oil sale and squandered in the last fifty years.

    On the mega watt alone, Aliko has, perhaps unwittingly, exposed Nigeria’s culture of waste and systemic theft. Entrepreneurs with depth and creativity like Aliko and Dr. Mike Adenuga Jnr are few. Theirs is real production and wealth-creation ultimately, not rent-seeking.

    In their daily grind of turning raw materials to finished good, they send a clear message that the country has no business with poverty; that much more could be attained with far less.

    Indeed, if any progress has been made in the national economy at all in the last decade, the credit substantially belongs to the patriotic tenacity of a few like them. All said, the new Lagos Refinery is a monument to vision, courage and tenacity of one man – Aliko, whose 60th birthday is, by the way, next Monday.

    There can’t be a better time to salute a Nigerian patriot, a truly deserving Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON).

  • Asiwaju @ 65: To fight is to live

    Asiwaju @ 65: To fight is to live

    He who has not discovered what he/she can die can die for is not fit to live. – Martin Luther-King

    The organizers probably only intended an entertainment for charity. But, beyond raising cash for the needy, the brainchild of the novelty duel would, at the end, find they have also helped fashion an enduring allegory for what often animates enlightened conversations in Nigeria today: the Tinubu role in the nation’s riveting political narrative in the last two decades.

    Sure, pitting world heavyweight boxing champion Evander “the real deal” Holyfield against Asiwaju, a warrior in Nigerian politics, in a bout slated for May in Lagos is the stuff legends are made of. What Bola Tinubu lacks in physiognomical weight against the Goliath from Atlanta, for instance, he easily makes up where it counts most – will power.

    But the real excitement should be more in the countdown. Will there be the customary weighin ritual where the combatants, flaunting sweating 6-packs, exchange icily cold stare before television cameras transmitting to a global audience? Will ex amateur boxing champion Wale Edun (the inspiration behind the monthly Lagos amateur boxing tournament) volunteer to be sparring partner to much older Jagaban ahead of the big night? (As a former amateur boxer himself, this writer can vouch for Mr. Edu’s terrific footwork and even more terrifying hands combination).

    Now, the evaluation of the arsenal. As any Tinubu insider will attest, Asiwaju’s most dreaded weapon against neighbourhood bullies while growing up in Isale Eko was a ferocious head-butt. Could that also be deployed after the sound of the bell against the man whose mystique is partly framed by the humbling two decades ago of the once menacing Mike Tyson?

    Then, the dramatic punch of Professor Wole Soyinka, a literary giant with global reach. With his immaculate white mane that readily evokes the shadow of boxing icon Don King, it will be interesting to observe Kongi’s agility in still “holding rapid dialogue with” his feet even at 83 while officiating the exchange of blows and upper-cuts in the rope square on the night ahead… Now, away from the sweat-bespattered arena of “the noble art in self-defense”.

    In characterizing Tinubu as the “Asiwaju of the universe” on Tuesday, boxing could not have featured, even remotely, on President Buhari’s mind. In his tribute at a colloquium held in Lagos as prelude to his 65th birthday Wednesday, PMB further described the celebrant as “the most outstanding politician of his generation”. Indeed, the president only restated what is already well known.

    Viewed closely, the theme of struggle and liberty is easily discernible in all of Asiwaju’s political engagements. They remain a study in uncommon courage, forbearance in adversity, grace in denial. Those who dare him don’t know him; those who know him never dare him. He carefully picks his friends. He relishes the company of activists and the likes.

    His titanic exploits and huge sacrifice in NADECO in the 90s while Abacha tormented the land are already well documented. The illustrious memory of that struggle is what, according to him, now partly finds constant expression in the motif of a broken chain embroidered in his cap. (The now recognizable Asiwaju insignia, that is.) As he puts it, the broken chain epitomizes freedom.

    What’s more, if you come over to his private office on Lagos Island, a giant signpost, “The Freedom House”, welcomes you. Since 1999, compared to the poverty of ideas and acute leadership bankruptcy suffered at the national level for the 16 straight years PDP controlled Abuja, Tinubu’s Lagos has continued to sparkle as the ultimate center of innovation and excellence, holding aloft the flicker of hope for other states.

    Nothing readily illustrates this perhaps more than the very location of the forthcoming novelty boxing fight. Planted in a soil reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean, the emerging Eko Atlantic City is a shining monument to human ingenuity in seeking to quench a megacity’s thirst for more land space and, at a personal level, a golden testimony to Tinubu’s fecundity as a man of ideas.

    From being the “last man standing” in 2003 in the South-west after Obasanjo’s ambush of the Alliance for Democracy confraternity, Tinubu held out bravely in Lagos in the subsequent years against the rampaging PDP. With an uncanny application of populism, uncommon daring and innovative ideas, he inspired a progressive resurgence that eventuated in ACN’s total control of South-west in 2011, except Ondo State. Of course, that created the momentum that would alter, on a seismic scale, the national landscape in the years ahead. If Hurricane Buhari overwhelmed Jonathan in 2015, it was only because, for once since June 12, the usually fractious progressive community across the nation agreed to pool their resources together and confront a common enemy. The turning-point was undoubtedly Tinubu’s self-sacrifice in accepting to forgo his own personal ambition and putting in the service of the renascent progressive coalition his vast political assets. Since Buhari took over in Abuja, opinions are definitely divided today if Asiwaju has got a fair treatment relative to his toils and whether sufficient space is created for the infusion of his fabled winning ideas in the governance process at a time of economic pestilence. Some would argue he was too trusting to agree to lead a battle without first agreeing on the terms of compensation after victory. Regardless, only those who don’t know Tinubu intimately would, by any stretch of imagination, continue to peddle the fallacy of any regret on his part. In planting the seed, a farmer acts in faith. It is rarely within his powers to also determine how bounteous the harvest would be. Before throwing himself into any battle, all Tinubu often bothers about is whether such is consistent with his core value as a human being – social justice, the pursuit of what is best for the community. The formula for sharing the war booty can wait. So, in spearheading the coalition against PDP between 2014 and 2015, Tinubu must have reached a personal conclusion that the clearly sybaritic and clueless Jonathan now posed grave danger to Nigeria’s continued survival as a corporate entity. That principle was very much in evidence in 2011. Apparently not unmindful of the just cry of the people of Niger Delta over the years for power shift, Tinubu would seem to have chosen not to mobilize fully his political forces against Jonathan in the South-West in the historic presidential election of that year. It was, therefore, not a coincidence that Jonathan won big in Yorubaland in that poll, save in Osun State where hard-tackling Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, for once, broke ranks. But in appreciation, one of the earliest projects embarked on by Jonathan with much zealotry after being sworn in was to put Tinubu on trial at the Code of Conduct tribunal over what turned out to be false charges. The cost of that political folly must have dawned on Jonathan four years later following his forced return to his native riverine Otuoke, humbled and battered electorally. Jagaban had resolved to stake his all to rout PDP from Aso Rock. At a personal level, to say Asiwaju is a reporter’s delight will be an understatement. As governor, he preferred to host journalists at informal sessions periodically to foster personal relationship, deftly seizing the moments to create for them a sense of ownership of his administration. On the whole, his charms derive largely from his humility, not deeming it belittling to share even the darkest secret or seek the opinion of someone who, by stature and status, could not be considered an equal. All he has to establish first is your trustworthiness. As administrator, his strength lies in surrounding himself with mostly those who can disagree with him. In an environment where only sycophancy seems most desirable and fashionable, this is quite significant indeed. In fact, Tinubu craves intellectual jousts, often at the dinner table. At such moment, you could mistake him for a hyperactive schoolboy, either punching the air or banging the table while marshaling his point before equally unyielding quarries, luminaries of varying talents themselves. From such hot distillation of ideas, what then emerges as consensus at the Bourdillon roundtable is a robust prescription to identified challenge. So, when at a crossroads vis-a-vis policy options, it is often this formidable faculty Asiwaju engages. And when in the dark at personal level, it is the sense of judgement of that inner circle Tinubu depends on. The depth and range of that leadership recruitment and grooming process is clearly reflected in the constellation of Tinubu boys and girls who today occupy the commanding heights of the nation’s political economy and are individually proving their mettle. In a close encounter, Tinubu is not your fasttalking braggart. A man of deep emotion, he carefully picks his words in a deep guttural voice, gesticulating occasionally. But don’t be fooled; behind that seemingly vacant stare is an encyclopedic mind. No less engaging is his self-humour. He would recall with nostalgia his early childhood exploits on Lagos Island under the wings of a doting father. As was common with Muslim homes then, an Alfa (Islamic tutor) was contracted by Pa Tinubu to teach his brood Koran verses at home after school hours. To get pupils to memorize long verses, most Alfas took extraordinary measures, especially a generous application of “atori” (horse-whip). So, for then little Bola and other kids, the mere thought of Alfa was a source of fear, if not terror. For a long time, Pa Tinubu would only sit in his reclining chair in the veranda, savoring the evening breeze, not bothering to enquire what transpired between the bearded Alfa and the kids in the courtyard behind. But following a shriek cry by one of the kids one day, the old man broke his rules by walking over. To his chagrin, he met the Alfa still thrashing his beloved little Bola mercilessly not just with a big whip; his left hand clutched another one. Many decades later, Asiwaju, a glint of boyish mischief in his eyes, would recall what had transpired next that fateful evening: “My daddy came to our rescue by telling the Alfa off, ‘Will you stop this nonsense! I pay you to teach my children Koran, not to kill them for me with cane!!’ ” Of course, that was the last day that particular Koran teacher came to their home. In yet another fit of self-humor, Asiwaju would recount, with photographic clarity, his ordeal at the hands of night marauders during his early days in politics in the early 90s. The party caucus had just risen from a meeting ahead of a campaign date. As the treasure, he was handed cash to share to the foot-soldiers the following morning. Later that night, he was barely half-asleep in the hotel room when a cold hand violently roused him. Looking up, what he saw sent shivers down his spine: a gunman stood by the bed menacingly. Quickly wiping the last trace of sleep off his face in the half-lit room, Asiwaju’s instinct to duck vanished the moment he beheld two other assailants brandishing equally dangerous weapons just on the other side of the bed. Given the timing of that unholy visit, he needed no reminding that his quarries were acting on insider information. Realizing the futility of resisting in the circumstance, he did the most sensible thing by not waiting to be asked before dragging out the bag of cash he earlier carefully stashed away under the bed. His recollection: “I found myself cooperating without a question.” To see the emotional side of Asiwaju, you only need to steer your conversation to his very humble beginning or the question of comradeship or loyalty to friends or ideas. He never forgets a favour, however minor. Just as he is ready to stake his life defending anyone he considers a true friend. Little wonder he is fondly called the “Lion of Bourdillon”. •This piece, slightly abridged and updated to reflect recent developments, first appeared as a chapter in a collection of essays entitled “Asiwaju – Leadership In Troubled Times” published in 2012 to mark Tinubu’s 60th birthday.

  • Re: Ogbemudia: The perils of longevity

    Re: Ogbemudia: The perils of longevity

    Reading through the write up on late Ogbemudia by Louis Odion, I have no problem in coming to the conclusion that he is unrepentant. A case of defamation filed against him by Chief Tony Anenih is still pending in the court.

    It is sad that Louis Odion who is one of our own people in his naivety has continue to give reprobate and depraved interpretations to issues in his interrogation of the great works and achievements of Chief Tony Anenih which speak for themselves nationwide.

    What on earth could possible be the reasons for bringing Anenih into a publication in honour of the late Ogbemudia if not pure mischief? What has Ogbemudia’s death got to do with all the nonsense he chose to write about Anenih in that publication?

    Let him ask Ogbemudia ‘s children how much of a father Chief Tony Anenih has been to them! I seriously think it is better to ignore people like Louis Odion with fixated satanic mindsets and without respect for the old age! If Louis thinks Anenih hasn’t done enough for Edo people or as much as Ogbemudia, let (he) himself try.

    History will have the record and I assure him that the record will be objective! Peter Abulu, Edo State. LOUIS Odion got it right on Ogbemudia. My dear Louis Odion, greetings. I have read your various writes up many times. I may not have agreed with your views on some occasions and that is within my liberty to so do.

    This one on Ogbemudia and the under dealings of certain power mongers to politically undo him in his life time, you were spot on. It will be difficult to have another Ogbemudia in a long time from this region. He was industrious, hard working, studious, research-oriented, reative and an uncommon administrative finisher of high quality.

    But he was too trusting of some of his contemporaries and very often donated his good will to them. They ended up compromising his political interests each time he so trusted them. He was too simple and humble as a person. I was often amazed with such humility each time I had the privilege to be around him.

    I was an active member of Edo Mass Movement (EMM) led by Dr. Ogbemudia in 1998 and was privy to how he accommodated a much smaller body known as Edo Peoples Congress (EPC) led by Chief Anenih, despite being warned by many to tread carefully in that relationship at Dorris Day hotel in Benin City. Months later, the PDP was given birth to and the union of EMM and EPC was the mainstay of the party in Edo State.

    A few months down the line Ogbemudia was sacrificed by his contemporaries and like a mirage, his national relevance vanished gradually and those who wore his borrowed cap soared like the eagle. One thing is sure, Ogbemudia in death would be like death that never dies, as many will gather in his name to seek future directions for the good of Edo State. May his worthy soul be received by Almighty God, the giver and taker of life.

    Good night General! Like your colleague, General Douglas McAthur, said: old soldiers never die, they just fade away! Dr. Ehiogie West-Idahosa, (Former Chairman, House of Reps Committee on Petroleum), Benin City. LOUIS, I had thought I had read the most reprehensible thing imaginable about man’s self-centreness after reading your piece until I encounter the foul verbiage by one Peter Abulu (who I suspect to be a pen name of some shameless hireling) that was put on social media (The South Post) by way of response to your insightful article.

    It is clear he is Chief Tony Anenih’s apologist. To the charge that his paymaster stabbed Ogbemudia in the back politically, his defence is “Let him ask Ogbemudia ‘s children how much of a father Chief Tony Anenih has been to them!” Is that the issue? Why are they always in a hurry to flaunt blood money in our face? By that, I assume he is insinuating what his paymaster has extended to Ogbemudia’s children. What a shame! Must every thing be reduced to financial handout to Ogbemudia’s children. We are talking of principle here, not sharing of crumbs from ill-gotten wealth. In any case, we did not see Anenih at Ogbemudia’s burial event in Benin.

    All notable political figures in Edo State were gathered at the event, including former head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, who is an octogenarian too. If all was well between Ogbemudia and Anenih in the former’s last years on earth as the busy-body Abulu would have us believe, how come he could not honour his “Comrade” before his remains were lowered into Mother Earth in Benin on March 17? Was he afraid of being stoned by the crowd of mourners who know the truth? What a shame! At least, one is glad and consoled to note that Ogbemudia will be remembered for great landmarks in Edo and Delta States.

    Some other characters will be remembered mostly for ill either as ‘Mr Fix It’ – the election rigger or the squandering of N300b federal budget for roads, a crusade Chief Orji Uzor Kalu once championed. John Osazuwa, Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, Edo State. LOUIS, I was quite surprised at the level of your knowledge of the “oppression” Ogbemudia suffered at the hands of Tony “godfather” Anenih in PDP. Now, you can see your own ordeal at the hands of The Godfather in 2012 is no big deal at all. You can see that a whole Ogbemudia also tasted the bitter portion brewed by The Godfather.

    In 2012, you had alleged that Anenih openly threatened to deal you while serving as Information Commissioner under Comrade Adams Oshiomhole during a ceremony at the palace of Oba of Benin in the presence of then Governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Nduaghan. You said Anenih said to you “You will soon see what will happen to you” four times. An accusation Anenih never denied.

    Two months later, some gunmen stormed your Benin residence and you narrowly escaped being killed. In your reaction, you addressed a world press conference in Benin urging the security agencies to quiz Anenih over this chain of bizarre development.

    But nothing was done. Because, I guess PDP still controlled Federal Government then. Four days after the incident at your residence, Oshiomhole’s Special Adviser, Olaitan Oyerinde, was brutally murdered at his own residence. But it is well, Louis. The God of justice reigneth in heaven. Alhaji Ahmed Abubakar, Mississippi, Maitama, Abuja. Iknew of Late Ogbemudia while I was in Primary a Class 2 and 3 (1970-1971) under “General Paper”.

    His name alongside J. Esuene, Olu Rotimi, Mobolaji Johnson, D. L. Bamgboye et al rang bell as performers despite being military regime. Where are the socalled civilian rulers (not leaders) of today? May his (Samuel Ogbemudia) soul continue to Rest In Peace. Amen. Lanre Oseni: 08023023745 AMONG all the miltary governors appointed by General Gowon as the then Head of Federal Government, Brigadier S. Ogbemudia shone out.

    His performance in Bendel State had no match in civilian garb as he did not take Edo State’s affairs for granted. The onus is now on Governor Obaseki to be captured in the performance net by continuing in the tradition of good leadership in Edo State. Let him rejuvenate/upgrade the Afuze Sports Centre and rename it after the visionary and ‘Edoistic’ leader for youth and sports development. You recalled,”From virtually nothing, Ogbemudia built something”.

    It was “Up Bendel!” Elder L .O David; Efon-Alaaye, Ekiti State: 08059096244 LOUIS, I just read your piece on Dr Ogbemudia. You are such a great writer. Keep the flag flying. 08029982779 GROWING up, Ogbemudia was a legend in my hometown of Ogori. He, it was, who built the main road through Akoko Edo ending at Ogori market even when we were part of Kwara State.

    This ensured Ogori became a transit point for vehicles going to Auchi, Ikare, Oja, Ojirami, Ibillo, Igarra And Okene among others. My father named my younger brother Ogbemudia as he was a huge admirer of this man. Fate played a part in ensuring that his wife also delivered a baby at the same time my brother was born at the famous Lagos Island Hospital (I think that is the one they call Massey Street?). Indeed stories abound that many fathers named their sons Ogbemudia around 1967 because of their admiration for him.

    It broke my father’s heart that Ogbemudia joined the NPN in 1982, my father being a great admirer of Obafemi Awolowo (of UPN). He could not imagine Ogbemudia would be in a party different from Awolowo! Sadly, my father died at age 53 in 1988 and would not see the final redemption of Ogbemudia. He will be celebrated. He should be celebrated by algorithm people too.

    The road he built many years ago is now decrepit. When passing through Okene to Lagos, the only thing that tells you a land exists called Ogori is a solitary signboard pointing towards Ogori at Magongo just before the Edo border.

    No one passes through Ogori to Auchi or Ikare anymore. Rest well, Ogbemudia. Mekafiye Kilem Adebija Nice job. God bless you my dear brother. Aduloju Sikiru, Lagos. A great ode to the incarnate General. Abdul-azeez Ahmed Kadir VERY well done, Mr. Odion. Please keep up the good work of celebrating the best of our beautiful nation!!! Adedamola Jolaoso A wonderful piece, Odion. Kanayo Madu