The Nation Newspaper

Category: Louis Odion

  • Osundare @ 70: Talent not enough

    Osundare @ 70: Talent not enough

    A survey of Nigeria’s major newspapers last Sunday would reveal a complete blackout. Not even a quarter – let alone full – page advert featured to trumpet a major landmark.

    Save for a short tribute by President Mohammadu Buhari. Yet, it was the 70th birthday of one of Nigeria’s finest poets ever, a master prose stylist, an original thinker and, above all, a moral titan.

    Well, that should be expected in a land riven by philistinism. He is not to be counted among the tribe of politicians that can hardly boast any principle.

    Neither is he one of your wealthy tycoons with no identifiable business address, nor the false prophets in garish cassocks. Professor Oluwaniyi Osundare operates at a much higher intellectual and ethical frequency. Surely, only the deep can call to the deep.

    Indeed, what sets the Ekiti-born bard apart is not so much the gift of a unique facility that spews lyrical lines effortlessly – that prodigious power that infuses words with life and tweaks same to evoke the deepest meaning possible.

    (By the way, just anyone with writing talents can scribble anything.) Rather, what distinguishes Prof Osundare from the rest is a skyhigh moral capital, a fierce refusal to be purchased or captured, in an environment where intellectual promiscuity has quite become fashionable.

    He flourishes in the tradition set by Professor Wole Soyinka. Other than poetry, he has also been involved with Nigeria in the last four decades as a public intellectual. Whereas many have lost their innocence along the way in cavort with power, he remains uncorrupted and incorruptible.

    Two years ago, he was named winner of the coveted National Merit Award. Soon came the gossip that the trophy might begin to becloud his critical lens, muffle his trenchant voice, to the pleasure of the already fawning Goodluck Jonathan who had the statutory privilege of physically presenting him the prize in Abuja.

    That, as against spitting fire of old, the “people’s poet” might soon begin to “lick ice cream” like many others. It was a defiant Osundare who fired back a bazooka:

    “Nobody is keeping me quiet!” Speaking at a lecture organized in his honour in Ibadan, he clarified: “Nigerian government didn’t give me award; it’s the NNMA committee that recommended me; it’s a peer-review award. We were many academics on the list before I was chosen.

    This is the only award regiment in Nigeria that I recognize. “We must learn to celebrate the best in us. This is a beautiful country. We must not judge Nigeria by the thieves in Aso Rock and in the government houses in the states. There’s so much beauty in Nigeria.

    “We have a country to build, not a ragtag assemblage that we have now. It’s we that have to build it, not Indians or Americans. Don’t give up hope; don’t despair.

    It used to be said, ‘As long as there‘s life, there’s hope’, but for us, it should be ‘As long as there hope, there’s life in this country!’” Many happy returns of the day, Prof.

  • Ogbemudia: The perils of longevity

    Ogbemudia: The perils of longevity

    To secure a durable place in history, said John Kenneth Galbraith, you have to die young.

    By this assertion, the late great American economist would seem to underline the paradox of early bloomers, the hyper-achievers who, on account of packing so much Alphas into their early lives, often end up being sentenced to the drudgery of spending their remaining years on earth in acute redundancy.

    In a way, Dr. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia partly fits Galbraith’s typology.

    Before losing out in the power-play that trailed General Yakubu Gowon’s overthrow in 1975, the Edo-born warrior had undoubtedly become a household name and his visage engraved on the national memory.

    It is however debatable whether any thing significant was added to that golden identity by his political engagements in the decades ahead or any respect earned from the lesser company he found himself.

    One, his 3-month reign as civilian governor of Bendel State in 1983 was rather too short for him to make any appreciable impact that could, in hindsight, be cited as enough justification for accepting to be used by NPN mercantilists to truncate the progressive march led by Ambrose Alli of UPN then.

    Nor could his flirtation a decade later with the despotic and discredited Sani Abacha as Labour and Productivity minister be said to have, in good conscience, added any feather to his cap as a progressive maestro.

    His appointment, by the way, was an accident. Abacha used to be his boy back in the 60s. After he became head of state in 1993, Ogbemudia was said to have stormed Aso Rock with a view to having his nominee appointed minister.

    Instead, Abacha, never one to forget old favour or forgive ancient score, reportedly insisted his old mentor should join his cabinet as minister.

    Taken together, what could then be counted as perhaps the redeeming feature of the General with the trademark dimpled smile was that he, by a few inexplicable mercies of history, had continued to draw from an usual staying power that ensured he often rebounded to the zenith as often as he sunk to the nadir in the last four decades of his mercurial life.

    It then explains why, despite many personal setbacks, his shadow miraculously remained undiminished till he drew his last breath last week. Thus defying the Newtonian law of gravity.

    Now, since his obituary announcement last weekend, the supreme irony is that the wailings of those who had openly fought tooth and nail to make life miserable politically for the Bini folk hero in his old age seem the loudest at the doorsteps of his Benin home.

    Ogbemudia’s fame which they tried in vain to extinguish actually began to grow from the late 60s on account of exceptional valor as war commander and, more crucially, later as an administrator with visionary eyes and a Midas’ touch.

    His footprints and imprints stamped on the old Bendel have remained indelible across Edo and State States till date. In fact, they are now too familiar and well documented to warrant a recap here.

    But what came to be known as the idolization of Ogbemudia was over something much deeper than the issue of brick and mortal erected. It was partly fed by the communal sense of nostalgia of the denial suffered at one critical moment.

    There is a story the older generation of Mid-Westerners handed down to the younger ones. It is the story of alleged abject deprivation after the region was carved out of the western region in 1963 following a local referendum.

    The new region, dubbed the enclave of “minorities”, left the old union without benefiting much in terms of asset-sharing with the Ladoke Akintola- led western region government based in Ibadan.

    From virtually nothing, Ogbemudia built something. So, the communal adulation of him was in recognition of his creative spirit.

    The original Mid-West had morphed into Bendel State in 1967. David Ejoor who arrived after the 1966 coup is perhaps best remembered today for “disappearing” when the Biafrans invaded Benin City in 1967 only to re-appear in Lagos before the Commander-in-Chief with a rather apocryphal tale that he rode down on “a bicycle”.

    (Hence, the addition of “bicycle story” to Nigeria’s bourgeoning political lexicon.) Enter the brave Ogbemudia. He led the titanic rally of federal troops that dislodged the Biafrans from the land of Igodomigodo.

    In the years ahead, it took his vision, vigour and vivacity to turn Bendel (covering the present Edo and Delta States) into Nigeria’s new center of excellence in sports and mass industrialization despite the ravages of a fullblown civil war, thus investing the doughty people of that province with a new sense of identify marinated in pride.

    So domineering had Bendel become in national sports that it came tops in the National Sports Festival of 1973. The feat was easily attributed to Ogbemudia’s personal touch. And so impressed was the formidable Dr. Tai Solarin, ordinarily never one given to flattery, that he penned a glowing tribute for Ogbemudia in his popular column in Tribune newspaper then.

    On account of such sterling performance in sports and breakthroughs in other spheres of human endeavor, the appreciative people of Bendel naturally began to view Ogbemudia as a pathfinder.

    But, overall, the most nightmarish of his post- Army engagements should be his political association with the swashbuckling Chief Tony Anenih who, until Adam Oshiomhole’s emergence in 2008 as governor, held court over Edo landscape like a medieval potentate.

    Even though Ogbemudia’s golden name was leveraged to sell PDP at formation in 1998, he was soon shoved aside by the scheming Uromi chief. At a personal level, my earliest direct contact with Ogbemudia was about fifteen years ago as a newspaper editor.

    From time to time, he sent articles to Lagos from his Benin redoubt for publication, usually hand-delivered by his aide or couriered by our circulation driver on the Benin route.

    Ever so humble, there was usually an accompanying note “soliciting for space”, as if a mere line by the legendary Ogbemudia in itself was not already news-worthy. A deep thinker with restless mind, he found time to weigh in on national issues periodically.

    Two years later, this writer witnessed, in the course of duty, what one had considered quite abominable in Benin. A motley crowd of PDP chieftains were seated in a lounge.

    As Anenih, Obasanjo’s then reigning “Mr. Fix It”, walked in, Ogbemudia, otherwise a giant of history and orator with prodigious intellect, was – like the rest – obliged to rise in near idol-worship of the lesser Uromi chief who left the police unceremoniously as assistant commissioner, long after the great Ogbemudia liberated the Midwest from Biafra, invented the “Up Bendel” brand and had been inducted as an authentic modern hero of the acclaimed “cradle of black civilization”.

    He was harassed and oppressed with ill-gotten federal talisman. Such was the hands-behind-theback humiliation the foremost Army General in Bini history had to endure at the hands of his intellectual inferior in the twilight of his political odyssey.

    But as legends always prove, a true soldier can only be destroyed, not defeated. In a final act of defiance – thus self-redemption, Ogbemudia would muster the energy to stand up to his political hostage-taker for once in 2012.

    As then Information Commissioner in the Oshiomhole administration, this writer had the privilege of a ringside view of a bit of the dark conspiracies, feints and derring-do that paved the the road to the July 14 election in Edo.

    When it became clear that Ogbemudia, a big PDP masquerade, would not openly identify with Charles Airiavere around Benin, a powerful team was drafted by the “almighty” godfather, the capon of Tuketuke politics, to persuade him to join the train. After listening to their impassioned entreaties that night, Ogbemudia reportedly began, in his characteristic sardonic humor, by asking them which road the emissaries took to his residence. Of course, they chorused “Iheya road”. “Good,” he continued genially.

    “Don’t you see how beautiful the newly constructed road is, not to talk of the streetlights shining brightly and the solid walkways?” At that point, his guests, unwilling to compliment Oshiomhole for the remarkable infrastructural stride, simply lapsed into a convenient silence. Seeing an opening, Ogbemudia then reportedly landed the killer punch.

    For ten years PDP ruled the state, he whined, Iheya never featured on the official radar, even if only to save him a personal shame. Now, it has taken Oshiomhole, his supposed “political opponent”, to revamp not only only Iheya road but also reclaim the adjoining 12 streets long written off to silt and erosion. So, his final big question:

    “Do you think the people in this area will clap for me if I tell them to vote against the man who did this wonderful job for them? I’m afraid they may not even hesitate to stone me.” Now thoroughly deflated, the PDP team gathered their tails between their legs and soon disappeared into the night. Of course, Ogbemudia saw tomorrow.

    By the time the votes were counted on July 15, Oshiomhole, an Etsako man, won an unprecedented 75 percent of the ballot, with the no less historic distinction of humiliating his opponent, the homeboy, right in his polling unit and ward in Benin City.

    That finally signposted Ogbemudia’s parting of ways with the now jaded godfather and his wrecking Tuketuke crew in Edo PDP. Expectedly, few months later, he formally renounced his membership of the party of umbrella and would henceforth wish to be addressed simply as a statesman.

    Ogbemudia’s accustomed prescience was again on display last year on the eve of Oshiomhole’s exit. He was the first notable political heavyweight to openly endorse Godwin Obaseki as the worthy successor. The rest, as they say, is now history.

    Doubtless, Oshiomhole did the right thing by celebrating and immortalizing Ogbemudia lavishly while alive – the last of such efforts being the hosting of a state banquet to mark his 83rd birthday last September.

    But that could only be decorative of the Ogbemudia mystique. For his past golden record had already etched his name in people’s minds.

    To live in the hearts of loved ones is not to die. It is precisely from that point that Ogbemudia attained political immortality.

  • OBJ’s missing guests

    OBJ’s missing guests

    It was inevitable that a deluge of stirring tributes and a contagion of saccharin smiles would pervade the unveiling last weekend of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s latest monument, the Presidential Library in Abeokuta, Ogun State, to mark his “estimated” 80th birthday.

    Doubtless, OBJ’s odyssey in the past sixty years is intricately woven into the nation’s own trajectory, as acting President Yemi Osinbajo pithily observed. But hard as family, friends and fans tried at the august occasion, the avalanche of eulogies still cannot, in all honesty, obscure certain truths.

    Justice is hardly done anyone desirous of fully isolating the facts and contexts of that segment of our recent history. Especially those still too young to understand things at the time of such momentous happenings.

    Out of charity, let us even evade the propriety or otherwise of a sitting president literally using incumbency factor to arm-twist state governors (as already attested to by Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti) and business tycoons into parting with a whopping N6b (then $45m circa) for an undertaking that is entirely personal.

    It is in the curious absences that day of some national figures who yet graced the fundraiser twelve years ago (and some of whose paths had also significantly crossed OBJ’s during his life journey) that some of the missing links of the said narrative will undoubtedly be found.

    The circumstances of their epic falling out should then offer some illumination on the other dimension of the OBJ enigma.

    Clearly the most notable among the absentees last weekend was General T Y Danjuma. In the power triumvirate that evolved after Murtala Mohammed’s assassination in 1976, Danjuma was the third leg (Army chief), the second being Musa Yar’Adua and OBJ as commander-in-chief. Upon OBJ’s release from Abacha’s gulag in June 1998, his erstwhile Army commander was among a power oligarchy that offered him quick rehabilitation and virtually railroaded him back to power on May 29, 1999 as civilian president.

    While deploying his awesome financial warchest ahead of the February 1999 presidential polls in support of an old comrade, Danjuma famously declared “I will go on exile if Obasanjo loses.” At inception of the Obasanjo administration, the Taraba-born General came out of political retirement by accepting the draft as Defence minister.

    But six years later, their relationship had deteriorated so irreparably that Danjuma would sensationally declare, “I will throw Daisy out of my house if she voted for a Third Term for Obasanjo.” As a parting shot at the twilight of OBJ’s second term in 2007, he unequivocally told an interviewer that “Aremu of Ota deserves another term in jail.” Whatever happened to the old brotherhood, the camaraderie forged during a grisly civil war to keep Nigeria one?

    An account has it that after Danjuma was dropped as Defence minister, OBJ rubbed salt on his wound by tampering with his Sapetro oil bloc considered the source of his fabulous wealth. Neither lost on anyone at the launching was the absence of Abubakar Atiku.

    Yet, the Turaki Adamawa was his deputy for eight years, with their relationship particularly tumultuous from the beginning of the second term. When the going was good, OBJ used to refer to his deputy affectionately as “my hand bag”.

    After a longdrawn murky fight, both ended in 2007 mutually bruised with the shameful distinction of constituting what is now commonly identified as the most acrimonious presidency in Nigeria’s history. Nor could anyone have also failed to notice Aliyu Gusau’s absence.

    The General had literally anchored the high-level mission that paved OBJ’s way from prison to presidency in 1999. He was named the National Security Adviser immediately Obasanjo took over.

    But few years down the line, the duo had become so estranged that the commander-in-chief was rumoured to have resorted to offering covert support to opposition governor in Zamfara State then to whittle down Gusau’s influence at home.

    We also did not sight Ibrahim Mantu at the event. At the height of OBJ’s imperial presidency, the senator from Plateau State was his key ally in the upper chamber and, as deputy senate president, widely seen as the arrowhead of the powerful lobby to ram the Third Term pill down the throats of other senators.

    In fond recognition of his past exploits, he was often hailed as “the magician” in OBJ’s inner cycle. Curiously, during an outing recently, the same Mantu allowed himself to be publicly introduced and complimented as “one of the key strategists that killed Third Term” at the senate in 2006. No less illustrious on the absentees’ list was Dr. Mike Adenuga Jnr. At the 2005 fundraiser for the Presidential Library, the Globacom boss shelled out N200m (then roughly $1.5m).

    The next moment, there was a rumour of some grumbling on the high table that the sum was “too small”. Few months later, the EFCC was viciously unleashed on the businessman over what events have proved to be nothing but a witch-hunt.

    Even when the dust raised by the EFCC arrest had not settled, OBJ, according to Awujale’s memoirs, still did not consider it inappropriate to invite embattled Adenuga over and, during a car ride together, allegedly asked him to donate an edifice to his private university in Ota. Equally missing in action was Chief Tony Anenih, the now retired political godfather of Edo. At the fundraiser in 2005, Anenih topped the list of PDP bigwigs who turned up to give Baba “moral support”.

    Earlier in his reign as civilian president, Anenih was the key sorcerer OBJ relied on to navigate the treacherous waters of party politics as “Mr. Fix It”. But he did not hesitate to trade in the Uromi-born chief for Atiku Abubakar to support his second term bid in 2003.

    He was booted out as Works minister. After several months in the “wilderness”, the retired old cop eventually found rehabilitation as chairman of PDP’s Board of Trustees.

    But in his desperation to wangle for himself relevance, no matter how illicit, after his third term adventure came to grief, OBJ masterminded the change of the pre-qualification for the BoT chair in a manner that clinically stripped Anenih bare.

    Before the old cop could figure out the hand that dealt him the sucker punch, OBJ had been coronated PDP’s new BoT chair. Put differently, he practically “stole” Anenih’s “pot of soup” (apologies Tom Ikimi). That marked the final dissolution of a political partnership that had weathered many dirty wars in eight heady years.

    Once, when Anenih was invited to lead the prayers after Umar Yar’Adua had taken over in Aso Rock and began to cut off OBJ’s apron strings, he reportedly started by beseeching God in heaven to furnish the new landlord the enablement “to clear the mess he inherited”.

    Of course, the missile could only be meant for OBJ. Momentarily, not a few among the supplicants present were said to have opened their eyes to exchange alarmed glances while Anenih intensified his ministration.

    Trust OBJ never to allow any dart or slight pass without exacting a pound of flesh. Once Comrade Adams Oshiomhole meted a humiliating defeat to the PDP godfather in the July 14, 2012 governorship polls in Edo State, Baba would soon made a stop-over at the Government House in Benin to pat then opposition governor on the back for “a job well done”.

    Truly, bizarre are the ways of the “Ebora” (strange creature) of Owuland.

  • Of 5% bargain-hunters & the London opera

    Of 5% bargain-hunters & the London opera

    Half a century ago, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu of the January 15 coup fame sneaked into the national lexicon the term “ten percenter” to describe the size of kickback demanded by politicians and other public officers then polluting the society.

    Over the years, descendants of “10 percent” would improve on their forbear’s technology by graduating greed to stratospheric heights, so much that increasingly, corruption in Nigeria was no longer content with swallowing the entire barn of seedlings, but “disappearing” the cache of cultivating tools like hoe and cutlass as well.

    Today, in a bizarre twist, there is a reversal of roles. Beginning from January, it is the supposed victim, the Federal Government, that now awards five percent cut as incentive to whistle-blowers on any loot located and unearthed.

    And a bounteous harvest it has been. Only penultimate Tuesday came a salacious report that N8.4b had been found nestling in an ECOBANK account, courtesy a tip-off by a whistleblower. Barely 24 hours later, 17 exotic cars were uncovered at a secret warehouse allegedly owned by former Customs boss (Abdullahi Dikko), courtesy another whistleblower.

    More including tricycles allegedly belonging to him were discovered at another location this week. Weeks earlier, a staggering $151m and N8b were similarly reaped within weeks the whistle-blower policy took off, according to the Information minister, Lai Mohammed.

    Apart from another haul of mould-smelling $9.2m dug out from Andrew Yakubu’s vault in a Kaduna slum. The whistle-blowing process is activated by furnishing the office of the Attorney General of the Federation or any of the designated channels with the lead. This, in turn, is forwarded to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for action.

    Typically, Abuja has since been making a song and dance of the scheme as yet another expression of a firm commitment to not only rid the land of sleaze but also raise its profile in the context of transparency and ease of doing business.

    Coming at a time of great financial stress in the land, the initiative would appear like the proverbial manna from heaven. So, what perhaps remains is for Abuja to let its town-criers add that the policy has, by default, availed citizens – particularly the unemployed – a means to earn a legitimate living.

    Only the unpatriotic would not see anything good in the latest gambit by the Buhari administration to curtail graft in the land. But one’s only observation is whether the time and energies presently dissipated celebrating the harvest were not better utilized towards institutionalizing the policy. We are told a bill had been sent to the National Assembly.

    So, who are those obstructing it? What happens where an informer has been paid but the ‘loot’ owner gets a court judgment invalidating the seizure? Any indemnity for such an outcome? For, in the absence of a durable legal framework, the present arrangement is perhaps only a shade better than a dignified racket.

    This is certainly not how it is done where the idea was copied from. In the United States, for instance, a bounty is not only assured the whistle-blower; there are adequate provisions in the law to save their necks against possible vendetta by those exposed.

    There is the Merit Systems Protection Board, a quasijudicial agency, that adjudicates whistleblower complaints. It draws oxygen from the Whistleblower Protection Act signed into law in 1989 by the administration of George Bush Snr.

    UNDER the European Union, officials are obliged to report fraud, corruption and other illegal activities under Articles 22a and 22b of the statute regulating staff conduct. In Britain specifically, there is the Public Interest Disclosure Act (PIDA) of 1998 to protect whistle-blowers.

    Only in Germany do we still encounter a reluctance on account of deep “cultural issues” despite repeatedly attempt by Angela Merkel administration to pull that through.

    There is a natural inclination to cloak things up. A mentality vividly captured by the very author of the German national anthem, the late Hoffmann von Fallersleben, who famously declared that: “The greatest rogue in the whole land is, and will remain, the informer.”

    So, what the Information minister should be telling us at this hour – almost half time of the Buhari administration – is what concrete steps are being taken in partnership with the legislature for a law to back and institutionalize the policy.

    Not until that is accomplished could we possibly have the comfort that Buhari had created a durable structure to sustain the anti-graft war and, more importantly, a guarantee that succeeding administrations would not turn back the clock’s hand.

    A corollary to the desired legal infrastructure will be a resolve to revisit the issue of fiscal federalism. When the huge sums so far harvested from whistleblowing are added to the colossal figures cited in Dasukigate, it is obvious that there is so much to steal in Abuja.

    By the current revenue-sharing formula, the Federal Government gorges on 52 percent of the nation’s earnings. While the 36 states and 774 councils with far greater responsibilities scrounge on less than 46 percent. Let it be recognized that it is partly this climate of glut that, in turn, feeds humongous larceny against which FG now ironically offers 5 percent “commission” to salvage.

    A more sustainable approach to cure the affliction is simply dismantle the structure that turns Abuja to a bazaar. In a way, Abuja’s culture of flatulence would also seem illustrated by the ongoing zig-zag from PMB’s medical camp in London where the notion of “awaiting result” now appears redefined as a euphemism for indeterminate presidential holiday.

    Before now, the mention of “awaiting result” would probably remind you of no more than the impressionable young adults in the neighborhood – the soon-to-be-undergrad – anxiously awaiting the results of the qualifying JAMB or WAEC exams.

    The phrase however acquired a new meaning four weeks ago when, on the eve of the expiration of PMB’s initial 10-day holiday, his handlers casually announced an extension to enable him “await the results” of the battery of definitive tests. Thereafter, mischief-makers took over.

    There was the pernicious rumor of death. Then last week, someone concocted the fable of “penis surgery”. The social media virtually went haywire following the report that “Muhammad Buhari” had undergone a medical procedure in the “private sector”. Coming when the only one widely known by that illustrious name was supposed to be on “medical vacation” in London, many did not wait to read the body of the story before concluding that, ha!, the jigsaw puzzle had finally fallen in place.

    It took hours before the purveyors of the “fake news” (apology US President Donald Trump), apparently now ashamed that it was a case of mistaken identity, began to roll back. It was eventually established that the Muhammadu Buhari that underwent penis surgery is actually a four-year boy who earlier suffered the misfortune of having his manhood severed by a wicked relation.

    But, truth be told, the flourish of “fake news” against PMB thus far would seem a bye-product of his own errors of commission and omission. Again, his publicists looked and sounded reactionary last Tuesday in another bulletin announcing yet another holiday extension. From the initial “awaiting result”, we are told the president had heeded advice by his physicians to “rest well”, till God knows when. This shifting narrative will only feed rumour mill the more. It is actually a self-inflicted ridicule.

    To be sure, I do not think any reasonable Nigerian would begrudge PMB for taking ill. What irritates is seeking to hush things up or make a subterfuge to a question otherwise requiring a simple answer. A more honest correspondence making it clear at the outset that the president needed medical attention the duration of which would be determined by his doctors would have saved all this embarrassment.

    Then, the mishandling of the softer issue. It is easy to see why things appear to be falling out of hinge. PMB’s two chief media handlers, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, are holed up in Abuja while their principal is cocooned in an undisclosed location in London and fiercely shielded from the public.

    ASSAILED relentlessly by a pesky public at home, the duo, ordinarily seasoned media managers, have had to resort to all sort of improvisations to manage an obviously awkward situation. It is difficult to tell how much access the duo have to their boss.

    From experience, I can tell that they can’t perform magic if they too have to depend on third party to source facts to compose releases. One can illustrate with the photographs of Aisha, the First Lady, and Sai Baba that made their way to the media a fortnight ago. In one, the wife, apparently perching on a side stool, was shown sidling to a rigid Sai Baba on the couch.

    The second picture was even more prudish: wife standing almost mechanically beside her husband, each bunching her/his hands and placing same gingerly on their lower tummy. Like starry-eyed pupils awaiting the teacher’s inspection at a Sunday school.

    But imagine if, for a change, Sai Baba had instead been shown placing an arm lovingly on the shoulders of his devoted wife. That is enough to cause a national sensation at home and maybe afford PMB a diversion he badly needs at the moment. By now, public attention would probably have shifted to the “loving Buhari”.

    The same way a make-over of bespoke Tuxedo and posh bow-tie had helped tweak public perception of him ahead of the 2015 polls. Surely, this is not the hour to envy Femi and Garba. The “Abiku” (spirit child) has turned the once revered native doctor to a laughing stock in the community.

  • Lo, this ‘Jungle Don Mature’

    Lo, this ‘Jungle Don Mature’

    It would sound a perfect ad lib to his most overly political song yet, “E be like say”. With a single Instagram anti-establishment post a fortnight ago, Nigerian pop star, Innocent Idibia (aka 2Face), stampeded the nation into what some, given the timing, began to fear might finally usher our own Arab Spring.

    His lamentation on social media was arguably prosaic of the biting poetry of the old song, “E be like say”, with this punchline: “They think money gives them power “But power is nothing if your people can’t get quality education “Power is nothing if your people keep dying of diseases and starvation “Power is nothing if your people have no peace, no peace “Power is nothing if your people can’t live in unity.” To say 2Face’s Instagram jeremiad sensationally altered the lilt of public conversation on the national condition would be restating the obvious.

    Momentarily, he captured our imagination. It was now 2Face’s project, even though the protest march was originally conceived by an advocacy group, EiE (Enough Is Enough). Not only the civil society became energized, even the authorities, for once, seemed in disarray.

    The police found themselves in an embarrassing situation having to issue a statement contradicting an earlier position in order to align themselves with the thoughtful and obviously progressive standpoint of both the presidency and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) that people’s right to protest was inalienable.

    But just after the nation began to spin in a dizzying frenzy of expectation came 2Face’s dramatic volte face that the historic march could no longer proceed out of new security concerns that hoodlums might hijack the procession. Without him, the marchers still trooped out simultaneously in Lagos and Abuja with the likes of Charly Boy, Omoyele Sowore and Chidi Odinkalu venting public anger powerfully. By all standards, it was a successful outing. So, it would seem 2Face’s fears were grossly exaggerated, if not utterly unfounded. On the contrary, to invert the title of another popular song of his, “Jungle Don Mature” for a national eruption.

    Predictably, that eleventh hour somersault has drawn on the crooner a rain of barbs in the public space. The Sun cartoonist (Albert Ohams) jabbed on Tuesday with a depiction of a towering Police Inspector General teasing a little 2Face that national protest “is not like making babies”.

    His counterpart in The Punch joined more hilariously on Wednesday suggesting he softened probably after the IG plied him with some “African Queens”. We need not crucify 2Face for that. Those who expected him to stand up to the IG’s intimidation would seem to equate him to the likes of immortal Fela. But the young man from Benue, on account of his pedigree, certainly lacks the depth and breadth – therefore, the political sophistication – to have acted differently.

    By barging into the protest jungle musically from his accustomed pleasure zone, he was obviously punching above his weight. It was all reflected in his wearied look in the video message on Instagram Saturday evening announcing his withdrawal. With cloudy eyes, caked lips and froths in the mouth-corners, it was evident the ordinarily happy-go-lucky minstrel had carried his ritual offering past the proverbial mosque’s door post.

    As he usually croons, “No be small thing o!”. Otherwise, it requires very little political astuteness these days to read the national mood correctly against the backcloth of the rising misery index. It was, therefore, the height of naivety on Idibia’s part to assume that the clouds already loaded over the nation could, with a mere sleight of hand or a tepid Instagram post for that matter, be dispelled so casually from unleashing a downpour.

    Rather than ignite something he could not finish thereby bringing himself embarrassment, perhaps 2Face should have limited himself to his accustomed musical arena. He could, for instance, have composed a single speaking to the moment. Like his older colleague, Daniel Wilson, whose recent “Never Again!” is a blistering put-down of Buhari. (I wager that will be the opposition anthem in the elections ahead.)

    Also, the punches could have been delivered effectively by tweaking or adapting “E Be Like Say”. Or, the opportunity of a mega concert dubbed “Eargasm” (ha!) billed for Lagos tomorrow (hopefully to be transmitted live on cable TV), for which he is listed as the star entertainer, could be parlayed to detonate a dynamite.

    Taken together, the key lesson of this episode should not be lost. The volcanic possibilities of two powers: social media and celebrity magic. While the former provided the platform to galvanize the youths ahead of the protest, there is no denying that more sparks came the moment 2Face entered the arena. This is why, regardless of his last-minute cold feet, I believe we still owe the singer some credit for the popularity the idea quickly assumed.

    This was undoubtedly fueled by public appreciation of his past advocacy for non-violence in election with the “Vote Not Fight” initiative. In 2015 especially, he would earn further distinction by refusing, on principle, to partake of the naira bazaar political parties threw in the name of election campaign, unlike many of his colleagues who pocketed fat envelopes and became embedded on the train. As an aside, I can also attest from my close observation while serving as Information Commissioner in Edo that 2Face carried himself with contentment and humility rare among his colleagues.

    On the few occasions he was invited to perform at open parties Comrade Adams Oshiomhole hosted for Edo youths during festive seasons, he always acted professionally and was never one of those to be found in Government House the day after still scavenging for more “stomach infrastructure” even after being paid the appearance fees. Overall, perhaps the most enduring lesson is for the artistes to become conscious of the power of their arts.

    As icons of the pop culture, they should realize their voices – even silences – and public conduct carry much weight. To misuse that power or conduct yourself in a way that suggests otherwise is to commit a grave social sin. Those who, for love of money, had honored invitations to perform at Abacha’s Million Man rally in 1998 soon learnt from the ensuing public outrage that, under certain circumstances, melodies become meaningless without social conscience.

    Another good example is saxophonist Lagbaja who took a bold stand in 2015 refusing mouth-watering offer to play at PDP presidential campaign unlike others. His reason: he could not reconcile himself to playing for a political party he strongly believes was complicit in the gruesome murder fourteen years earlier of his mentor, Bola Ige.

    At the height of the Britain/Ireland Cold War, Sean O’Conor, the Irish songbird of “Nothing Compares To You” fame, once bluntly refused to mount the stage until a British symbol in the arena was removed. Only last month in the United States, a member of the iconic Mormon Tabernacle Choir would not be part of the band to play at Donald Trump’s inauguration because, according to her, she was unable to see any consistency in the band’s stated value and Trump’s professed racism and misogyny.

    Fela perhaps put it most succinctly: “Music is a powerful weapon, if you toy with it, you die young”.

  • Secrets Masaba took away

    Secrets Masaba took away

    CUSTOMARILY, love is thought to be two hearts beating as one. What then defined the enigma of Abubakar Bello Masaba was an uncanny skill to stir and replicate such heartbeat in multiple dozens of liaison, sustaining the magic till he drew his last breath last Saturday at a time the society had otherwise come under what could be termed an epidemic of divorce.

    As the remains of the nonagenarian were finally lowered into mother earth hours later in his native Bida after a clearly remarkable career in uncommon polygamy, what has unwittingly been unveiled is a record unparalleled in Nigeria’s recorded history, the surpassing of which would be Herculean indeed for future challengers.

    His brood consists of no fewer than 187 children. His fabled harem of over 100 wives is located in a nondescript, colonial-style two-storied building in Bida. Literally, he owned the lock, stock and barrel. In one of his rare interviews, he revealed his recruitment strategy on BBC in 2008:

    “I don’t go looking for them, they come to me… I’ll consider the fact that God has asked me to do it and I’ll just marry them.” Doubtless, countless lotharios exist within Nigerian borders whose clandestine exploits over the years, when aggregated, would make Masaba’s look like a child’s play.

    But not many had his honesty to openly declare their interests, nor the courage to assemble their conquests into a single community with an identifiable address. The closest anyone had come would be in faraway Saudi Arabia.

    A wealthy business tycoon, Saleh Al-Sayeri, is reputed to have formed the habit of keeping dozens of wives, even though he hardly remembers the names of most of them. But officially, he acknowledges four, to obey Islamic injunction which imposes a ceiling of 4.

    Even at that, Al-Sayeri still relies on an ingenious mathematical formula of elimination by substitution. In the past two decades, he says he has kept three as constant but shuffles the fourth candidate yearly. His cheeky explanation: “It’s the one for renewal… I like to change my fourth wife every year.

    ” But, not Masaba. For as long as anyone could remember, the maverick Islamic teacher and traditional healer had cultivated and nurtured a mammoth harem. At the last count, the population was put at at least 100.

    His legend grew not so much from his stamina to sustain a seemingly boundless matrimony, but obviously more from the equanimity and fortitude he showed in the face of tribulation and persecution suffered for his marital preference.

    A vivid example was the run-in he had with the Niger Sharia Council in 2008, eventuating in his imprisonment for the sake of love. At different times, influential institutions like Jama’atu Nasiru-Islam (JNI), the Bida Emirate Council and Islamic leaders had enjoined him to either dissolve his harem then put at 86 or winnow the number to 4.

    Masaba bluntly refused. He opted to go to jail instead. Typically, assorted apocryphal tales were soon spread by enemies to discredit him. One said he usually charmed vulnerable women seeking healing with juju before putting them in family way.

    So, it would then seem his teaching and healing were not just touching hearts; they touched lips as well. But in a rare show of conjugal solidarity in shared adversity, 57 of such women later staged a parade and solemnly declared that they married him on free will and could not be happier in their marriage.

    They attested he was not just a good husband, but also a fantastic father. With that, the authorities no longer had a strong excuse to keep in him in custody. On return from jail, Masaba never failed to continue exhibiting his accustomed grace under choking pressure from the immediate community, defiantly announcing instead a resolution to keep expanding his harem, only warning traducers who persisted were courting God’s wrath. His words:

    “I’ll keep marrying them as long as I’m alive. Whoever is fighting me because of my wives or love life, such an individual has missed it. Left for me, I would have married maybe two wives, but I’ll keep marrying till the end of time. I just want to advise those fighting against the number of wives to stop because such people are waging war against God, their creator.

    ” Ordinarily, a household of hundred wives and over hundred children of voting age should constitute a formidable bloc – or what more Americans are learning to rever as “electoral college” – to, at least, swing electoral victory in the locality, if not bargain for political concessions at higher level.

    But despite his ordeal at the hands of both secular and spiritual authorities at some point, Masaba was never known to have openly flirted with any political party out of vendetta or in search of protection. Since the trustees of the faith he professed seemed unwilling to reconcile with him till the end, it may entirely not be too outlandish therefore to view Masaba’s marital doctrine more as a cultural statement in the African milieu.

    His preference would easily have lent itself to two disparate interpretations: either positively as an expression of the values of sharing and accommodation indigenous to Africa or negatively as the vulgar way a man could display his material abundance. In traditional society, a man’s affluence used to be measured by the size of his harem.

    At 93, the super polygamist of Bida could not be said to have died prematurely in a country where life expectancy is a miserable 47. Regardless, the pain his passing brings is the nuggets of lessons not shared, both macro and micro, corporate and individual. Despite his extra-ordinary accomplishments and the long years he lived, he was not known to have gathered or documented his experiences to benefit researchers or the posterity for that matter.

    For instance, we would never know the management principles Masaba adopted to run his extra-large household. It surely required wizardry in financial matters to sustain such multitude under a roof. Each time economic recession beckoned over the years, what fiscal policy did he resort to to ensure no wife stayed hungry or kids’ school fees unpaid?

    Had he written a book, such would definitely have been strongly recommended to political leaders of contemporary Nigeria to borrow one or two leaves not only in the husbandry of material resources, but also in the management of human diversities. Masaba selected his women from many ethnic nationalities. He might have had a few runs-in with authorities; but we never heard police regularly visited his home to settle quarrels or fights. With that, he and his clan undoubtedly provided a model in peaceful co-existence.

    Today’s leaders who revel in fanning the embers of division – whether sectarian or political – would also need to learn from him the virtues of tolerance and inclusiveness. On the other hand, even if only out of curiosity, I imagine young men of nowadays would have sought Masaba’s clarification or guidance at a time when not only the marriage institution is increasingly undermined by upsurge in divorce, men’s virility is also being redefined by an explosion of indulgence in performance-enhancing substance hawked at the street-corner.

    In a veiled reference to virility, he told another interviewer: “A man with 10 wives would collapse and die, but my own power is given by Allah… That is why I have been able to control 86 of them.” With such breath-taking outlay, some might want to further ascertain, even if only for academic purposes, whether the great Masaba still had any appetite left to look outside.

    If Masaba then relied solely on God’s power to service his harem, many would have wanted to find out whether he kept a roster. If there was, was it cast in stone or subject to revision periodically? In the first place, was it imposed by fiat or benefitted from vigorous debate by every member of the harem before being ratified in the fine tradition of democracy?

    And most symbolic of all, the old soldier of intimacy chose to take a bow on the eve of February, the acclaimed season of love, whether Agape or carnal.

  • The age of AK47 Pastor

    The age of AK47 Pastor

    Like the proverbial stubborn grass that defies the gardener’s sickle – quick to sprout after every cut, the lexicon of public conversation has undoubtedly grown with a raft of terms and phrases since the last compilation on the page. Consistent with our tradition, we shall be undertaking an update – an induction, if you like – of the new entrants today, the first in the New Year.

    “To be forewarned is to be forearmed”: At normal times, the spectacle of a cleric bearing arms would appear abominable, even heretical. Lesser mortals could be forgiven if they lacked faith and surrendered to fear. Certainly not a Pastor or Reverend Father.

    For the clergy to bear a rifle would, therefore, likely be interpreted as doubting God’s sovereign words to guard and protect His children, always. If the shepherd would succumb to fear, what becomes of the flock? But these are surely abnormal times.

    Nothing tells the story of an emerging ecclesiastical oxymoron today perhaps better than the image of a Reverend Father with a loaded rifle, much more ruthless AK47, slung on his shoulder ostensibly while conducting a church service (pictured here), flanked by a company of soldiers in battle fatigue.

    The powerful picture has been circulating in the social media in the past few weeks. With digital clarity, it surely speaks to the palpable tension in parts of the north where Christian worshippers are increasingly coming under relentless attacks by those identified as Fulani herders but strongly suspected of harboring darker sectarian agenda.

    Maybe, a counterpoise to Boko Haram’s sepulchral imagery of deranged Shekau with AK47 against the grotesque backdrop of a black flag. While responding to the recent killing of Christian worshippers in Southern Kaduna, the Archbishop of the Abuja Diocese, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, in what ominously signaled the hardening of position, stated that it was no longer conceivable to expect faithful not to defend themselves henceforth.

    Since the picture came un-captioned, it is difficult to tell where this happened. Regardless, its message is unmistakable: a steely determination to continue preaching the gospel in the face of mortal danger, exhorting people never to doubt God’s omni-potence in the hour of peril, never mind if the preacher’s other finger is firmly on the AK47’s trigger.

    It obviously mirrors the season of danger. …Omega Fire!: Chants of “Holy Ghost fire!” are common refrain when Christians are gathered in supplication to God Almighty in Nigeria. It is a powerful invocation of celestial forces against perceived enemies.

    “Omega Fire!” surreptitiously joined the diary two days ago following the reported attempted arrest of the General Overseer of the Omega Fire Ministry Worldwide by DSS operatives in Ado- Ekiti. His sin? Commanding his faithful to kill any of the murderous herdsmen that dares come close to him or the church.

    Apparently, like many Christian leaders unhappy at perceived official indifference to the continued mass killings of Christians across the country, balding Apostle Johnson Suleiman had reached his own tether’s end. No longer prepared to turn the biblical other cheek, the Auchi-based cleric is now ready for “action” or “Omega Fire!” According to media reports, but for the agility of the Ekiti Governor Ayo Fayose who had graciously extended his now celebrated executive vigilante services to Pastor Suleiman following a mere distress call to him in the small hours of Wednesday, the man of God would have been herded to DSS detention camp. (The cleric was in town on a two-day crusade.)

    Like Rambo, Fayose, who once rescued the wife of a PDP chieftain in similar circumstance, stormed the hotel and personally led the Omega Fire Pastor to the safety of the Government House.

    Coincidentally, in Ekiti, a stern law was already in place seeking to regulate herders’ conduct. Just as there remains a standing rule from Fayose himself expressly empowering Ekiti hunters to “kill any armed herdsmen before they kill you or rape your wives.” To an extent, Suleiman’s threat, even if restated in Ekiti, could, therefore, be situated in the context of an exercise in self-defense against possible physical attack by the murder gang masquerading as herders.

    In the circumstance, we can only appeal to those with powerful voices like Suleiman to refrain from incitement to violence, out of a shared sense of civic responsibility. But that hardly absolves DSS’ glaring partisanship. Or this tendency to flex big muscles only against those who already could be described as the victims.

    At this writing, DSS was yet to explain if the cleric had spurned any invitation for a “chat”. But everyone knows Suleiman’s address in Auchi, Edo State where the “inflammatory” statement was reportedly made. Why this new obsession with waylaying targets at night? Couldn’t the arrest wait till the morning? Couldn’t it, in fact, be deferred till Suleiman returned to his Auchi base? Again, how come we hardly see this sort of “rapid response”, this razor-sharp efficiency, this fanaticism for law and order on the part of DSS elsewhere when armed herders are on their own rampage?

    Instead, the killer herdsmen thereafter get appeased with cash payments to “forgive” their victims. Big puzzle indeed. Grass-cutter: From the dawn of time, this species of rabbit has undoubtedly been the mouthwatering delight of bush-meat connoisseurs and patrons of pepper-soup joints by the street-corner. It is the wild rat, a mammoth rabbit, the jumbo-size of the regular domestic mouse house-keepers are familiar with.

    Perhaps more in recognition of its pre-eminence in the rabbit family than the ferocity of its canine on the grass, everyone got used to addressing this creature exclusively as “grass-cutter”. But not after a little scandal exploded around the clearing of grass around some IDP camps in Borno and elsewhere in the North-east in which no less a political heavyweight than the Secretary to the Federal Government, the avuncular Lawal Babachir, is gravely implicated. According to the findings of the Shehu Sani-led Committee on Mounting Humanitarian Crisis in the North-East region, Babachir allegedly helped himself to a chunk of the money paid to the firm in which he had a substantial stake before his current appointment and, worse still, is accused of being the sole signatory to its bank account until recently.

    Suddenly, political adversaries and other mischief- makers have begun to see grass-cutter in a different light. So, the mere mention of grass-cutter anywhere in Aso Rock or Abuja today is now interpreted as a coded reference to the award of any murky contract. Well, the good news is that Babachir, I am reliably informed, is hardly fazed by such side-talk, much less the outrageously malicious whisper of the uncharitable who go a step further by insisting they see some semblance between his sparse mustache and the whisker of that hunter’s favorite in the bush.

    Accidental bombing: Over the years, hapless Nigerians have learnt to reconcile themselves to the reality of “accidental discharge” whenever a policeman extrajudicially shoots anyone dead. The standard official response is that “It’s a case of accidental discharge”, a euphemism that the weapon mistakenly fired. But when a whole fighter jet of the Nigerian Air Force chose to rain, not Manna, but bombs on a camp sheltering citizens displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency – like we witnessed at Rann in Borno State a fortnight ago, the language understandably changes to reflect the magnitude, the gravity of the catastrophe.

    Acting on what turned out a false tip-off from an unnamed western power that absconding Boko Haram fighters had found a new sanctuary, the pilot supposedly on routine aerial patrol sadly ended up hitting the IDP camps not once, not twice, but – Lord – thrice! Worse still, whereas officialdom tried to downplay the casualty figures by admitting between 50 and 57, independent sources including international relief bodies quoted figures in excess of 200. Now, it does seem whereas police’s “accidental discharge” refers to killing of the innocent on retail basis, “accidental bombing” describes killing of the defenseless and the traumatized on industrial scale.

    God save us! Jammeh: If mortal fear had gripped many quarters – both high and low – at the height of the recent political face-off in The Gambia, the reason was undoubtedly partly a reading of the name of her now disgraced dictator. The word “jam” surely conjures less-than-pleasant imageries. In street parlance, “to jam” means “to hit” something. To “jam wahala” connotes serious kerfuffle. Any motorist in urban centre will, for instance, attest “traffic jam” is no pleasant experience. So, when a power-drunk dictator began to beat war-drums frantically and his name is derived from stressing “jam” to become “Jammeh”, the trepidation in the hearts of ordinary mortals could then only be imagined.

    But history teaches us that most bullies and braggarts are in reality cowards seeking to hide their dark inadequacies in some coarse facade. Yahya Jammeh turned out not to be exception. As they say, those who made a career from beheading others will hardly continue to sit easy at the sight of a sword-wielding stranger. Surrounded by ECOWAS’ far superior weapon of mass destruction, the brutal Jammeh, who had ruled the tiny West African country with an iron fist for 22 years, finally surrendered last Saturday.

    But not until huge cost had been incurred by Nigeria and others in mobilizing thousands of battle-ready troops and dozens of fighter jets to Gambia’s shores. Dramatically, not a single bullet was fired before the emperor finally fell. So, the word “Jammeh” is now generally accepted as synonym for empty boast or needless clowning.

    To play a Jammeh is to squander the altar of glory and instead offer oneself for international ignominy. (Meanwhile, whereas there are conflicting accounts on the actual number of luxury super cars taken and the quantity of cash looted in his last two weeks in power, a lie has been put to the claim that a cargo of $11m was physically hurled into the private jet that ferried Jammeh from Banjul that Saturday night to an uncertain fate. Out of rare magnanimity, Nigeria’s Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had allowed his jet to be used to finally break the 48- hour stand-off.) FRC code: Movie aficionados will certainly recall the American epic entitled “Da Vinci Code”.

    The 2006 thriller explores ancient Christian mythology which the Roman Catholic establishment found too outlandish, if not blasphemous outright. In the circumstance, the more controversial a work of art is, the higher its chances of commercial success. Little wonder then that it netted a whopping $224 million worldwide in its first weekend of premier and proceeded to gross a hefty $758 by the turn of 2006.

    Eleven years later, a milder variant of Da Vinci Code would seem to assail the Christian community in Nigeria and bears a more cryptic acronym, the FRC Code. In principle, the Federal Reporting Council code expressly seeks to compel heads of not-for-profit bodies, including religious organizations, to be more transparent in the rendition of their financial records.

    But portions considered “intrusive” and “offensive” by the leaders of the Pentecostal sector of the Christian community include those that prescribe term and age limits for their General Overseers. With the charismatic G.O of the most populous RCCG, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, dramatically tendering his resignation, thereby volunteering himself as the “martyr” of the protest against the FRC code, sectarian tempers naturally flared up across the country.

    Jim Obaze, the rambunctious executive secretary of FRC, was the next casualty as he was booted out unceremoniously by President Buhari, with the enforcement of the code suspended entirely. Soon, a new twist entered the narrative when the vocal Pastor Tunde Bakare, head of the Latter Rain Assembly and by no means an influential voice in the Pentecostal community, weighed in forcefully in defense of the FRC code, sensationally squealing that those preaching against it were actually money-launderers scared of the law and afraid of losing access to easy money.

    Ever since, funereal silence has descended on the entire FRC business. The last time the issue popped up among some top players in the Pentecostal district in Lagos, one account quoted a prominent Pastor as reducing every thing to a joke by likening the FRC Code to an attempt to tamper with his own “stomach infrastructure”. It was needless seeking any confirmation, to avoid further trouble.

    Alternative facts: Anyone still doubting the power in a name should consider the example of Sean Spicer, the chief spokesman of the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump of the United States. Still wallowing in the triumphalism that has defined the Trump camp generally since their shock victory in the November 8 polls, Spicer was all fire in his maiden press conference at the White House last Saturday. However, what became news after that outing was not his hauteur nor the fact that he chose not to answer questions to his rather tempestuous briefing in what seemed a continuation of Trump’s self-declared “running war” with the media.

    Fresh dust was raised by his rather sensational claim that the crowd that witnessed his boss’ inauguration on January 20 was “the largest in history”. Ah! But trust CNN not to take the line, hook and sinker in the circumstance.

    The sheer ugliness of that fat lie was soon exposed when the popular global TV channel flashed an over-view of the audience at the epochal Washington event. With the many empty patches in the broad canvass, it was crystal clear Trump and Spicer had, as usual, sexed things up.

    Trust CNN still, another of Trump’s spin doctors, Ms. Kellyanne Conway, was soon cornered shortly afterwards on the same issue. In a moment of costly verbal indiscretion (mental exhaustion?) on a live programme, she cautioned the CNN corespondent not to “over-dramatize” Spicer’s comment, defending that her colleague was simply “giving the alternative fact”.

    Like shark smelling blood, CNN thereafter made a sing-song of “alternative fact” for the rest of the day. Forty-eight hours later, it was an evidently subdued Spicer who showed up at another world press conference with a new spin. Clearing his throat, he clarified that his theory of “the biggest audience” actually referred to those physically “present and watching across the world”. Ah! Well, perhaps the joke is actually on the rest of us.

    From the mere intimation of his name, it would completely be out of character if Spicer did not “spice” things from the outset. Many thanks to Conway, “alternative fact” should henceforth serve as further annotation to “post truth” – a new word added to English lexicon in 2016. Roughly put, post-truth refers to circumstances when the reality does not correlate with the objective facts.

  • Endgame & Abacha’s last disciple

    Endgame & Abacha’s last disciple

    Those skilled in psychoanalysis could not have missed the telltale hint. Newspaper images we saw of Yahya Jammeh receiving ECOWAS emissaries at the Banjul airport last Friday clearly depicted acute weight loss, accentuated by a distant look on his face.

    Really, it would have been humanly impossible to be haunted at home and heckled from outside like Jammeh in the past seven weeks and remain unruffled. An unconfirmed source even quoted him jokingly beseeching the leader of the august visitors, Nigeria’s Muhamnadu Buhari, “Mr. President, please don’t invade my country.” If true, it would seem the self-confessed herbalist (he claims HIV/AID cure) who prefers to be addressed elaborately as “His Excellency, Sheik, Professor, Alhaji, Doctor” had, alas, become aware of the limitation of his muchvaunted talisman.

    But like the proverbial doomed house-fly destined to join the coffin in the grave, The Gambian buffoon failed to take advantage of the olive branch offer by the ECOWAS peace-makers in the last-ditch effort to save him from himself. Not even another face-saving offer of asylum by the Nigerian congress would dissuade him from the path of perdition.

    On Tuesday, he took liberty to impose a threemonth state of emergency even when his legal mandate would expire less than twenty-four hours (Wednesday night). Before then, the Government House had almost become deserted and Banjul a ghost town following the exodus of fearful citizens to Senegal and other neighboring countries.

    No fewer than eight cabinet members (including the Information and Foreign Ministers) had resigned and defected. The floodgate of resignations was opened by no less than the chief electoral officer himself, Alieu Momar Njai. After declaring Adama Barrow winner of the December 1 polls, Njai had admitted some glitches in the process of tabulating the results.

    But despite that the reconciled figures still did not alter the outcome significantly, Jammeh, who had ruled the tiny country for 22 years, suddenly found a cheap alibi to recant his earlier concession of victory to the opposition.

    From initially accepting defeat, the Gambian desperado now wanted a re-run. Njai’s responded by sneaking out of the country, upsetting Jammeh’s crafty trap. So, as the Nigerian war ship and ECOWAS troops begin to mass along the Gambian coast in the days ahead for what now appears an inevitable invasion of the presidential fortress in Banjul, the nay-sayers – like Nigeria’s deputy senate president Ike Eweremadu – need not misconstrue the historic necessity of the task at hand.

    The mission to dislodge Jammeh for refusing to obey the electoral verdict of December 1 should not be seen as a favour to a fellow West African nation. Rather, it is a moral duty owed the long-suffering people of The Gambia. The argument of Ekweremadu and those preaching against the military option is essentially based on the otherwise thoughtful notion that “to jaw-jaw is better than war-war”.

    But such pacifism is tenable only on the premise that we are dealing with a sane man. From his conduct over the years, especially the odd symptoms seen in the past 49 days, it should be clear to everyone now we have on our hands a power psychopath, if not a first-class psychiatric patient. Those presently worried about the material costs of a military invasion are only being myopic.

    They should consider the price ECOWAS would pay if the Jammeh cancer was not quickly staved and excised but instead allowed to metastasize into a full-blown civil war with the attendant humanitarian crisis and instability for the sub-region.

    If nothing at all, ECOWAS’ swift and robust handling of the issue thus far should be a source of pride not only to the people of the sub-region but the rest of the Africa that democratic norms and values are fast taking root and, most significantly, that the people themselves are now developing the mechanism and capacity to resolve issues arising therefrom in the spirit of African solidarity without the prodding of any external neo-colonial power.

    Overall, perhaps only those with fairly long memory today could attest that Jammeh is indeed a calamity long foretold. After seizing power on July 22, 1994 as a young Army officer, he never hid his admiration for then Nigerian fledgling despot, Sani Abacha.

    As the infantry general in Abuja was increasingly isolated by the international community on account of his murderous proclivities, Jammeh became a regular visitor to Nigeria for fellowship at Aso Rock in his trademark gaudy costume of over-sized white Agbada, conspicuous sword and giant-sized prayer-beads, offering the public ceaseless comic entertainment.

    One salacious account has it that his preference for big Agbada in public outing is to conceal a permanent bulletproof vest. But unlike Abacha who, lacking self-confidence, chose a rather serpentine route in pursuit of a transmutation from Army law-giver to civilian president, Jammeh short-circuited his own metamorphosis to a civilian president within two years in the relatively much smaller The Gambia.

    Like his hero in kleptocracy in Abuja, the little read Jammeh ruled his tiny country with iron fist, even as he mindlessly purloined the bulk of the little that trickled into the national treasury mostly from peanut and tourism. And while the vast majority of Gambia’s population of 2 million wallow in indigence, the megalomaniac leader lives a life of debauchery and filthy extravagance.

    To further secure himself, he lately decided to mix politics with religion by proclaiming his country an Islamic country in blatant disregard for the sensibilities of a good number of citizens who are practising Christians.

    But one of the supreme ironies is that though he gave an executive order banning women from appearing in public without scarf consistent with Sharia practice, that hardly stopped his psychedelic Moroccan wife from continuing to flaunt openly her own procured assorted Brazilian hair at every opportunity. Indeed, “Abachaology” and the darkness it embodied had since unraveled in the land of its birth. But the enduring tragedy is that the infatuated like Jammeh still seem detained by that sordid past, refusing to read the ominous handwriting now on the wall.

    The savages are unwilling to accept that, with a more conscientised electorate, fixing elections results or disobeying its outcome is fast going out of fashion in Africa.

    It then explains why Jammeh, whose own family has since reportedly fled the country, seems still incapable of appreciating – much less following – the worthy footsteps of Ghana’s John Mahama who, tellingly, is among the ECOWAS peacemakers today. Mahama vied for a second term in the Ghanaian polls and lost precisely a week after the exercise in The Gambia.

    Once fully in receipt of the figures from the polling units, he promptly called the opposition candidate to congratulate him, even before the results were officially declared by Ghana’s electoral empire.

    Now, even after 22 years in the saddle, the political glutton in Banjul is still unwilling to let go. But he no longer has a choice.

  • Buhari & the RCN affair

    Buhari & the RCN affair

    For once, President Buhari on Monday chose to act with a despatch and clarity rarely seen in his tenancy at Aso Rock in the last twenty months. The ink of the reports of the forced resignation of Pastor Enoch Adeboye, arguably the dean of Pentecostal district of the nation’s Christian community, had barely dried before someone was made to lose his job in Abuja.

    Not only was the voluble Executive Secretary of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, Jim Obaze, summarily given the boot, his controversial Corporate Governance Code has been suspended as well. Drawing from the FRCN Act of 2011, Obaze not only insisted that religious groups among other not-for-profit organizations registered under the Companies and Allied Matters Act began to obey some of the rules of the regular market, but apparently crossed the red line by also attempting to impose age ceiling and tenure limit on clerics.

    In announcing his resignation bombshell to a captive audience numbering tens of thousands gathered at the monthly Holy Ghost fellowship at the iconic Redeemed Camp located along the Lagos-Ibadan highway (now sometimes dubbed Africa’s longest “miracle corridor” on account of the proliferation of worship centres), the septuagenarian with seemingly imperturbable look temporarily lost his temperance. With Obaze hell-bent on full compliance, “Daddy G.O (General Overseer)” declared that the churches in Nigeria were now clearly under attack.

    Until now, according to FRC, only 89 out of 23,216 registered churches in Nigeria had complied with the regulation floated under the Goodluck Jonathan administration. (With Pastor Adeboye’s compliance last week, it is safe to assume that the number would have climbed to 90.) Of course, it is obvious someone lost sleep in the executive bed of Aso Rock the night after Adeboye’s apostolic equivalent of a declaration of war. It is, therefore, a matter of conjecture whether Buhari, probably with eyes on 2019 already, would not have been more frightened by “Daddy G.O’s” subsequent battle cry to his flock across the country (obviously in millions) to go register with any political party of their choosing urgently with a view to taking more than a passing interest in politics and elections henceforth.

    Coming from the very flock where Vice President Yemi Osinbajo descended, nothing could be more ominous for Buhari. But FRC distraction was utterly avoidable had commonsense prevailed. From his rhetoric in syndicated newspaper interviews, it is obvious Jim Obaze had all along opted for a showmanship incompatible with the restraint and sobriety expected of a bureaucrat, much less the regulator of a sensitive sub-sector.

    IF truly the policy objective was to ensure stricter adherence of good corporate governance, there is a surfeit of provisions in extant “Code of Corporate Governance in Nigeria” to compel fidelity among religious organizations wishing to dabble in profitmaking enterprises. One, it is a moot point, whether in municipal or international law, that whoever comes to the market-place must submit to the prevailing rules of engagement.

    I do not think any religious group going into commercial ventures would contest this. Such subsidiaries are obliged to pay taxes just like players of secular progeny. In fact, workers in the church or mosque are not exempted. Religious organizations are obliged by extant laws to remit PAYE deducted from workers to tax authorities. Any violator or accessory is liable and it does not require much litigation to prosecute and commute anyone to prison here.

    On these settled points of law, only an unreasonable pastor or Imam would seek exemption. So, it was needless for Obaze to over-dramatize the subordination of church organizations involved in commercial activities to the customs of the corporate world.

    He and his meddlesome cohorts need not have attempted to reinvent the wheel. But where I think Obaze went astray was seeking to blur the dichotomy between ecclesiastical calling and commercial intercourse. Lumping religious organizations among NGOs under the broad canopy of non-profit organizations, as the controversial FRC regulation expressly seeks to do, is quite anomalous. And for Obaze to thereafter take liberty to tell off differing Pentecostal leaders to “take your churches to heaven if you cannot obey the new law” is the most idiotic thing to say. So power-drunk, Obaze even tried to personalize the issue.

    Hear him: “In keeping other peoples’ money, you have to prepare account. That is why churches fought me so badly, took me to court as a person and then my office too. Mosques and orthodox churches freely complied, but those Pentecostal churches called me to ask questions. They said: ‘This church is church of God and we are accountable to God.’ And I told them: ‘Very good, so you must take this church to heaven, you can’t operate it here’. When public funds are involved, government needs to ensure proper accountability.”

    From the foregoing, it is easy to locate Obaze’s fundamental conceptual error. Church’s money is not public (government) money from the poor legalistic lens he seemed to view things. But this is not to dismiss one weighty insinuation. One suspects that, like most critical observers today, Obaze’s aggression was fed largely by an unstated annoyance at the manifest material contradictions in the miracle industry in contemporary Nigerian society.

    For instance, whereas the Pastor continues to luxuriate in obscene opulence, the flock wallows in abject poverty. Some have converted the church to family business. Tithes and offerings are used to buy private jets for the pastor while majority trek to the temple every Sunday.

    Detestable as it is, the truth is that the onus to challenge such shenanigans afflicting the temple today ultimately lies with the adherents themselves, certainly not a meddlesome political authority seeking to wail louder than the dispossessed. To do otherwise is run the risk of arbitrariness, if not a crude throwback to the Stone Age.

    BEGINNING from the middle age, the consensus among those who subscribe to the concept of democracy is that, for harmony and balance in the society at large, the state needs to keep a dignified distance from the temple. The moral basis for this is perhaps best captured by an enlightenment philosopher, John Locke, with a submission that since rational people are unwilling to cede their conscience to state control as the liberty of conscience is intrinsic to man, the government therefore lacks the capacity to exercise any authority whatsoever in the spiritual realm. Nigeria cannot now aspire to be an exemption.

    But had RCN, deploying the ample facilities of existing laws, found any Pastor wanting in the remittance of PAYE due to government or evading taxes on any commercial undertaking or engaged in clear act of money laundering, I doubt if the Christian community would have spoken in unison like we have witnessed in the past one week. So, Obaze’s thinly veiled activist sophistry against the “internal affairs” of the church would then seem misplaced indeed.

    By the way, if such a regulation could not be fully enforced during the tenure of Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian, what could have given Obaze the effrontery it could be imposed under Buhari, a Muslim, without raising sectarian dust? As custodians of the spiritual realms, let it be recognized that churches/mosques/shrines cater for peculiar social needs. In liberal democracy, it is never the remit of the political authorities to meddle or interfere in the leadership preferences of the faithful or the tenure. It is not the business of the state to dabble in what people worship and how they choose to relate with their shepherds or idols.

    The most government does is keep an eye on the boundaries: ensuring that in exercising your freedom of religion you do not violate the right of others. Otherwise, FRC would, by the same token, be empowered to order Sat Guru Maraji to immediately turn in his handing-over notes having spent more than twenty years commanding his sprawling temple located at the gate of Ibadan.

    Overall, while Obaze’s swift dismissal may have temporarily assuaged anger in Christian community at a time of mounting sectarian tension in the land, it hardly absolves the dereliction at the top, which would seem to enable the FRC insolence in the first place.

    According to media reports (which remained undenied at this writing), the storm had incubated since October, with Obaze allegedly flexing muscle with the supervising Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah. The former was said to have bluntly refused a simple directive from his superior who, as a political appointee, was obviously better equipped to weigh the grave costs of such precipitate action. The question then: at what point was the attention of the president drawn to the insubordination of the erstwhile FRC boss?

    There could only be three possibilities. If he was kept in the dark for so long over something so potentially destabilizing, then the reporting template of the Buhari administration urgently needs to be dismantled. But if he knew but chose to dither, then president is well advised to rethink his own conception of national security.

    In case the president first read about the otherwise long-running brouhaha only last Saturday like most Nigerians, then he is truly in dire need of salvation himself. IN the final analysis, we can only hope that PMB is now politically bornagain and will henceforth accord emerging issues of grave national importance the same blazing urgency the FRC nuisance was treated on Monday.

    For instance, had similar sense of urgency been shown early over the Southern Kaduna disturbance, the nation could have been spared the needless trauma of the recent pogrom of Christian minorities that lasted days. On Christmas Eve alone, no fewer than 800 defenseless citizens were butchered in cold blood by suspected Fulani herdsmen. The killings continued unabated all through the Yuletide season.

    It took more than a whole week for the president to finally rise from a curious midday slumber and rally the military to curtail the rampaging murder gangs. Alas, they started mounting frantic roadblocks only after the beasts had leisurely walked away. Abdication of authority could not be more scandalous.

  • OBJ vs Adenuga: A memory

    OBJ vs Adenuga: A memory

    The following, an abridgement of a twopart series entitled “Michael Ishola Adenuga” and “Of War, Stray Bullets & P.O.Ws” first carried 11 years ago (2006) by Sunday Sun, is rerun today with a view to offering readers some illumination to better dissect the epistolary grenade hurled Wednesday by former President Olusegun Obasanjo against Oba Sikuri Adetona of Ijebuland over the latter’s claims in an autobiography, “Awujale”

    Though isolated by space, a correlation of irony is easy to decipher at two events in Brussels and Lagos in July 2006. In a landmark pronouncement, the European Union fined Microsoft a whopping $357 million for its refusal to obey an anti-trust ruling, thus opening yet another epic chapter in international jurisprudence.

    The computer software giant, it is alleged, would not avail rivals of technical information pertaining to its Windows operations. Earlier in 2004, the EU had levied a record 497 million euro fine on Microsoft and ordered it to hand over communication code to rivals that complained that they were being crippled by its vice-like hold on the market. Naturally, Microsoft objected to both rulings. As the world awaits the outcome of Microsoft’s objection, the political undertone of this potentially explosive international legal slugfest will certainly become audible soon.

    Microsoft, owned by American Bill Gates, is being challenged by competitors on European soil. True, America may be signatory to relevant international info tech protocols which owns make its corporate citizen, Microsoft, liable. But notwithstanding, it would be entirely surprising if the dominant mood back in the States would be that of a lynch mob, due primarily to the spirit of nationalism.

    Now, contrast that with the spectacle witnessed in Lagos on the night of July 8, 2006 when business mogul, Otunba Mike Adenuga, was seized from his residence by a team of gunmen who practically broke down walls in a mafia-like operation.

    When the news broke Monday, many feared the worst had happened. Until the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) issued a statement claiming responsibility, followed with another disclosure Thursday that the Globacom boss is still innocent after all; that no felony had been established against him yet. From the latest seven-point release, perhaps the only fresh angle the anti-graft body gave is that the investigation of the business mogul has “international dimension”.

    To be sure, this writer is one of those who subscribe to EFFC’s puritan philosophy to reclaim the nation’s lost moral territory, setting a new creed in corporate conduct. But as one had observed on this platform countless times in the past, for EFCC, the big challenge remains the ability to enforce moral order without creating an atmosphere that, in turn, stifles or weakens the very basis of society itself: loss of human dignity by individuals.

    True, conflicts are inevitable in the dog-eatdog world of business, much less in an underdeveloped political economy such as ours. What counts really is the degree of the benefit of doubt a state is indeed willing to concede to a defendant, especially if he/she happens to be its own national. National interest – much more, pride – is certainly not served if operatives of a national agency begin to conduct themselves in a way that suggests that its own nationals, against whom a protest is purportedly lodged by a foreigner, is treated ab initio as guilty even before trial.

    No self-respecting nation acts that way. That perhaps explains why a Bill Gates would readily enjoy the sympathy and solidarity of the American establishment in the times ahead in case the EU monitors seek instrument to shut the cyber space against Microsoft.

    In its statement, EFFC stated that the investigation of the Globacom boss has “international dimension”. In the absence of further clarification, perhaps it is safe to assume a conflict of international dimension has ensued. In the circumstance, what could then be considered a bigger tragedy is if it’s proved that Adenuga’s detention was indeed prodded externally, as the EFCC statement seems to suggest.

    Given his role in many jobs-creating enterprises in Nigeria, the least Adenuga deserves is some respect. With a business empire straddling banking, oil and gas, and lately, telecoms, the magnate singularly provides a source of livelihood for tens of thousand of Nigerians, and much more indirectly. Who, in turn, pay taxes to the state and tithes to the temple.

    At a personal level, with the deeply contemplative eyes, avuncular agility and folksy sense of humor, the merchant from Ijebu could, in fact, be described as the personification of that daring instinct, optimism against adversity, the can-do spirit that readily set the average Nigerian apart from the rest of the human race.

    Really, nothing could be more iconic of the very new liberal economic order the Obasanjo reforms seem to envisage. In terms of scale, perhaps the only other Nigerian entrepreneur in his category is he whiz-kid of the sugar/salt/cement market, Aliko Dangote.

    For instance, in the telecoms sector, it is doubtful if the GSM line would have become so readily accessible to the Nigerian poor today without Adenuga’s Globacom. After the first GSM line buzzed in 2001, we were told thereafter by South Africanowned MTN that per second billing (PSB) was not feasible in the nearest future. Of course, the GSM landscape was still monopolized then by foreign players.

    When we made a second call then, we were billed by the minute, giving glamour to a new form of corporate heist. But not after Adenuga stormed the arena. Globacom started PSB from the outset. Suddenly, PSB became possible for others. By that gesture alone, Adenuga no doubt gave one thing to long-suffering Nigerian consumers: victory.

    Of course, given what is now known to the public, there is surely more to the Adenuga/ EFCC romance. This becomes even more evident if we put the theory of “international dimension” to some scrutiny. So far, we were told that the detention of the tycoon extra-ordinaire was in connection with “international crime”. Isn’t ironic that the same man, apparently no longer sure of his own safety, has since taken the “NADECO route” to London, a supposedly now hostile territory for financial criminals from Nigeria?

    Of course, the phrase “NADECO route” is euphemistic of the somewhat ingenuous self-preservation tactic adopted by “dissidents” when Sani Abacha began to limit the political space beginning from 1994. Since the hunter had resolved to police all official gateways, the hunted too soon learnt to plot their gateway through border bush-paths.

    There have been conflicting accounts on how Adenuga was seized on the night of July 8. Whereas EFCC claimed that “minimal force” was applied when the Globacom boss repeatedly rebuffed invitation to its office, the Adenuga people insisted that the operation was cruel and humiliating, typical of Hitler’s Gestapo. Apparently, it took public uproar before the business mogul was released from detention.

    In letting him off, the anti-graft commission made us believe that investigations of the alleged “international crime” was ongoing, hinting that the matter was not over yet. Indeed, from the constellation of information now put in the public domain, Adenuga’s “sins” can be reduced to a four-count charge: that the PTDF placed deposits in Equitorial Trust Bank owned by Adenuga; that public fund was converted to augment payment for GSM license of Globacom in 2002; that he donated a building to ABTI University owned by the Vice President (Atiku Abubakar) apparently as “gratification” for his influencing the lodgement of PTDF money in ETB; that the Vice President owned a stake in Globacom.

    The last charge would seem to have been informed by the fact that the Vice President presided over the FEC meeting that approved the GSM license for Globacom while the president was on official trip abroad. The inference to be drawn here, therefore, is that, left to the president, Globacom would not have secured the license.

    But truth be told, these facts can hardly be said to correlate today when subjected to the rigour of simple logic or even common sense. If Adenuga must be nailed, then it is better to start digging elsewhere for skeletons. For instance, it is well documented that Globacom paid for the license in 2002 with a loan facility from BNP Paribas while the PTDF money was lodged in 2003.

    Again, it is hardly a secret too that in the pre-consolidation era, banks in Nigeria mostly specialized in jostling for public sector funds to bolster their liquidity. So, how could it now amount to a crime for ETB to have been favored to bank PTDF money? Again, on the issue being made out of donation to ABTI University, it is also well documented that Adenuga had donated generously to causes involving the president (including the Presidential Library in Ota).

    Against this backcloth, argument by the Adenuga people that the man is only being witch-hunted would, therefore, now seem strengthened. What is invariably left unsaid is that perhaps authorities are just unhappy that Adenuga, known to be very close to the Vice President, refused to squeal information to nail him on his alleged “shady deals” in Obasanjo’s desperation to nail his deputy since they fell out.

    Of course, it is now also public knowledge that Adenuga had famously committed a grave verbal indiscretion early in 2006 in the heat of the desperate manouvre by Obasanjo’s strategists to wangle tenure elongation. At one of the nocturnal conclaves to which he was invited to fine-tune the strategy, the guileless business mogul had reportedly proposed the idea of a “Plan B” in the event that the Third Term bid refused to fly.

    Just as he feared, not only did Third Term fail like a pack of cards even after billions of naira was given to federal lawmakers as bribes, Obasanjo’s political humiliation was compounded by the lack of any dignifying “Plan B” immediately. There is, therefore, some sense in the argument of those interpreting the new frenzy of clampdown by EFFC on perceived “opposition elements” and anyone related to them upon the collapse of the tenure elongation agenda at the National Assembly gallery in May 2006 as OBJ’s vicious fight-back.

    Like the NADECO exiles of old, Adenuga can only pray that the Abuja warriors (OBJ and Atiku) bury the hatchet – a remote possibility now – to enable him return home and continue his normal life. God save the P.O.Ws (prisoners of war).