The Nation Newspaper

Category: Louis Odion

  • What ails Chris Ngige?

    The one we knew was the petite David who turned the table against the Goliath of infernal godfathers in Anambra. They thought they had his hands tied with a dark oath at the Okija altar. He would be slave on the throne to slimy Chris Uba who had availed him the use of an illicit scaffold to the Awka White House.

    But once he grasped the handle of the power scythe in 2003, Chris Ngige proverbially chose to answer his father’s name by working for Anambra people, to the political bankruptcy of Uba and the demystification of the Okija gods. (It is however still debatable if mere renunciation of evil godfathers, affectation of populism in office and generally doing good to the larger Anambra society were enough eucharistic atonement for the referenced idolatry by a supposed Christian.)

    The more reason many are, therefore, confounded today at the pathetic character the once heroic Ngige is morphing into in Abuja, burning his old progressive flag. From speaking condescendingly of fellow physicians to setting the cat among the NSITF pigeons simultaneously, the man from Alor appears to be the new agent provocateur of Abuja.

    An unkind word from a brother hurts more than the poisoned arrow of an enemy, according to an African saying. Intoxicated by the office of Labour minister, Ngige chose the language of a cold-blooded slave-master against fellow doctors.

    Featuring on a Channels TV programme last week, he sneered that doctors are free to leave Nigeria: “I’m not worried. We’ve surplus. If you’ve surplus, you export. It happened some years ago here. I was taught Chemistry and Biology by Indian teachers in my secondary school days… (W)ho said we don’t have enough doctors? We’ve more than enough.”

    Those who go abroad, according to his simplistic argument, end up sending dollars home, thereby boosting the nation’s forex.

    What worsened the matter is the minister’s attempt to bamboozle us with sophistry following the backlash that the misspeak generated. He would regale us with a touted insider knowledge as someone who rose to the position of deputy director in the health ministry before joining politics. Then, the ingenious subterfuge: his discovery at the Labour ministry is that existing facilities at the nation’s teaching hospitals cannot accommodate all the doctors seeking residency, leaving a gaping deficit of 80 percent.

    So, sophist Ngige would have us believe that those so stranded are the ones he said are suitable for export.

    Now, let us subject even this spin to a simple test of logic. From statistics, out of over 72,000 medical doctors registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria as at 2018, almost half have migrated abroad in search of better pay and working environment. What that simply means is that Nigeria today can only boast of less than 40,000 doctors to a population of 200million, a far cry from the standard of one doctor to 600 patients set by the World Health Organizarion. That leaves us with one doctor to 5,000 persons in Nigeria!

    Incidentally, on the same day Ngige misspoke arrogantly, The Punch ran the second part of an in-depth nationwide report laying bare the very desperate condition in the nation’s health sector. We read ghostly stories of wards crawling with patients waiting on grossly disproportionate number of doctors. To say nothing about other ghastly tales of the afflicted made to sleep on bare floor!

    One patient at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital simply identified as Chinenye captured the miserable circumstances thus: “Since we came here (UPTH), mosquitoes have been biting us. Mosquitoes bite people here both in the day and in the night. I’ve been here for a week, but it’s only during the day that I sleep. I cannot sleep at night because mosquitoes torment us.”

    How then can Ngige, in good conscience, be claiming “surplus” of doctors – and by inference an overabundance of medicare – in Nigeria?

    Indeed, when the minister trained as doctor in the 70s, things were relatively better run in Nigeria. As a member of the nation’s political leadership in the last sixteen years, he should ordinarily be ashamed that generations after him are left to bear the crushing burden of a broken system.

    So, bearing all of this in mind, it is insensitive – if not insensate – of Ngige to speak of doctors’ exodus in the tone he spoke. It is like saying that Nigerian youths who, for lack of opportunities at home and out of sheer human instinct for survival, embark on perilous adventure on the Mediterranean Sea or Sahara Desert are free to continue on the callous premise that the nation is already overpopulated!

    It is the same bungling hands of Ngige’s that are currently at play at the NSITF (Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund). Once in the saddle, he apparently found the “juicy” commission saddled with workers’ welfare and benefits too irresistible to let go of ministerial oversight. Despite presidential directive, he has practically stalled the board’s inauguration through all known dirty tactics.

    True, the last board looted the place dry. But when an enquiry submitted its report outlining an action plan, Ngige was not in a hurry to allow normalcy return. Apparently to buy time, he floated yet another gambit – a committee to examine the findings and advise him on what to do. That afforded him a perfect alibi to delay the swearing in of the board long named in 2017. Until its chairman-designate, Frank Kokori, started a public agitation last year.

    Ngige only finally chose to let go last week, barely four weeks to the expected dissolution of the federal executive council. But in one last throw of the dice of impunity, he unilaterally smuggled in his own man from the Labour institute in Ilorin to replace Kokori as chairman, directing the latter to take up the lesser posting in Ilorin instead.

    Of course, the small party the minister planned as inauguration in Abuja had to be called off abruptly and indefinitely by aides on the appointed day on sighting the siege of notable Rottweilers in the nation’s labour community to the ministry’s secretariat, obviously scaring the daylight out of the pint-sized minister.

    The insistence of the workers that the erstwhile NUPENG leader prevail in NSITF should not be misconstrued. The Nigeria Labour Congress was directly involved in Kokori’s nomination in the first place, believing only someone of his moral stature and experience can better serve the interests of Nigeria’s long-suffering workers and resist attempt by any political interest to convert the place to a feeding trough as had been the tradition.

    So, only a reckless player like Ngige would think he could casually override the entire labour community on such a sensitive matter. In fact, the way he has been clinging to NSITF only lends credence to the belief in some quarters that the minister would rather the status quo remained indefinitely, since that helps him arrogate all critical decisions (including contract awards) to himself in the absence of a substantive board.

    Therefore, the growing whisper in town is that he would prefer a lackey as chairman in such coveted commission as part of his own “retirement plan” after Buhari’s cabinet.

    On a sentimental level, let it be said that someone like Kokori least deserves this sort of shabby treatment from Ngige. Here is a man whose exceptional sacrifice, whose courage under fire as NUPENG leader made all the difference in the June 12 struggle against the despotism of Babangida and Abacha between 1993/1994, making the restoration of democracy inevitable in 1999.

    Well, maybe Ngige confuses him with the cartel of counterfeit comrades often seen scavenging the corridors of power in funny costumes.

    In case the minister read the wrong version of the nation’s recent history, Kokori cannot – repeat, cannot – be counted among that tribe of renegades and charlatans on the military’s dough, who feverishly chanted Aluta in the day in the 90s only to sneak into the dictator’s lair at night to collect blood money to sell fellow comrades down the river, yet ironically ending up being listed among the heroes of that popular struggle.

    In a way, they are like Mugo, the traitor in Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s The Grain of wheat, falsely seen as hero by the same folks he had betrayed to the colonial overlord. The crown people had placed on his head in provincial innocence and illusion would turn a wreath of thorns, tormenting his conscience day and night.

    Those Ngige might have mistaken Kokori for are, in private, actually haunted souls today. Like Mugo, they are left to endure life in mortal dread, unsure how long their dark shameful past would remain secret.

    So, in case Ngige is desirous of salvaging what is left of his name, let him allow Kokori be. In fact, today.

  • Comedian as president, pregnancy in prison 

    There are some telltale signs of a perishing society, observed Alexander Solzhenitsyn. These, according to the Russian literary immortal and Nobel laureate, include acute scarcity of great statesmen and decline in arts.

    Conversely, a profound message must be intended when voters choose to go far outside the traditional power caste to anoint the least rated as new leader. It could only be an ominous sign that the existing political class had become toxic to national health, hence the vigorous call for the dissolution of the discredited hegemony.

    In expressing their own pent-up rage at the weekend, Ukrainians chose perhaps the most telling symbol: they settled for a comedian (Volodymr Zelensky) as political undertaker of incumbent President Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire chocolate tycoon. So, the nation of 44 million people now seem to be saying that it is better to have a certified jester ruling over them than being daily irritated by a bad clown masquerading as a philosopher-king.

    By sweeping over 70 percent of the vote, hope has, therefore, risen in the former Soviet satellite state for the fixing of a broken system; for a new generation of leaders committed to weeding out self-serving oligarchs and ending the culture of political corruption.

    From a global perspective, given the emphatic victory posted by a comedian in Ukraine, only time will tell if jesters and allied entertainers elsewhere will not be so inspired to start rushing into presidential elections henceforth, leveraging the power of social media like Zelensky, hedging their political fortune against just any sign of popular discontent in their respective jurisdictions.

    For, more and more, people across global divides are surely getting disillusioned about the notion of politics that doubles human misery at a time of supposed material surplus, strife at a time of supposed enlightenment birthed by colossal breakthrough in science and technology.

    In a way, coming in a week already marred by an inferno in the iconic Notre Dame in France; the continued farce in Donald Trump’s Washington, and the bloodbath in Sri Lanka, the news of Zelensky’s electoral upset would then appear a perfect comic relief to the international community.

    In literary theory, comic relief describes a momentary disruption of the serious or the tragic with a dose of humour, to defuse tension.

    In Paris, the grief of the iconic Notre Dame cathedral gutted was only being assuaged by a torrent of donations that hit record $1bn within 72 hours.

    In Washington, Trump took his theatre to a new low by tweeting a false interpretation of the Mueller report. The 400-page document was barely officially released when the American President claimed acquittal, selectively quoting some sections. But it took the rejoinder of his Democrat adversaries in the congress to draw public attention to several redacted portions expressly starting that Trump toiled hard to obstruct the investigations in manner suggesting he has a lot to hide. The picture we then see is only a little different from that of the biblical character running when no one is pursuing them.

    In Colombo, the very depth of degeneracy mankind has plumbed was graphically portrayed in blood-spattered debris of bombed temples and hotels following coordinated bombing by terrorists, leaving over 200 dead and more than 450 wounded.

    The great irony is that this act of extreme bestiality of man to fellow man came on Easter Sunday otherwise celebrated by Christians as the day of redemption after Jesus’ supreme sacrifice at the Golgotha on Easter Friday.

    So, going forward, Ukrainians would now seem resolved to seek comfort behind a comedian since votes cast for Poroshenko in the popular uprising of 2014 resulted in little or no difference in their lives.

    Back home, about the same hours of the Ukrainian electoral drama, a plot with milder flavor would unfold in Calabar. We woke up Easter Sunday to read reports of a seeming biological feat unparalleled in Guiness Book of records. It is not exactly a re-enactment of resurrection after crucifixion. It is the delivery of two bundle of joy (twins) by the most unlikely: a prison inmate.

    They include a boy and a girl.

    What brought the publicity was a fantastic donation of N1m by Cross Rivers State Government for their upkeep and a promise to ensure that the nursing mother not only receive better care at a higher medical facility but also a review of her case to “see the extent of the crime and know if the mother can be pardoned because of these two beautiful babies.”

    Not surprising, the tots have been named after Governor Ben Ayade and wife, Linda.

    But while every kind-hearted person must rejoice with the unidentified lucky woman, one difficult – if not mischievous – question is unlikely to go away. The report was silent on when exactly the woman found herself in detention.

    A puzzle of similar twist had cropped up a decade ago over British Samatha Orobator (with Nigerian heritage) after “miraculously” getting pregnant in Laos prison while supposedly facing trial for drug offence with death penalty. Facing global embarrassment, the authorities had to suspend her trial. It soon became clear it was a last-ditch ingenious manoevre to evade the hangman. It was not a ghost that did it; she secretly made herself available to an eager prison warden in-between court appearances. For, Lao law forbids the execution of pregnant prisoners.

    Now, unless it is established that the Calabar woman was already inseminated before being incarcerated, many are bound to wonder what “technology” she adopted to get pregnant while supposedly in detention.

    Otherwise, Governor Ayade could not get a better reason to be immortalized in world record as godfather of the “mystery twins”.

  • Like Ayefele, like Ilonah?

    Given the way the Ayefele affair ended last year in Oyo, one would have thought that mandarins of officialdom would be more circumspect in the way and manner they use and misuse power. From yet another saga of Idoko Illonah currently engulfing Abuja media space, it does appear no lesson has been learnt.

    Public outrage had trailed the partial demolition by Oyo State Government of the Ibadan-based FM station owned by musician Yinka Ayefele. The official reason given was that it had not only breached building plan but also violated town-planning in a manner likely to predispose road-users to avoidable motor accidents.

    But the discerning were certainly not deceived by that official sophistry. As events later proved, the punitive action had more to do with the station’s criticism of now-outgoing Governor Abiola Ajimobi. After a public apology by Ayefele, the state officials dramatically landed at an epiphany – em, em the station was actually not in breach of any law!

    So, it turned out that the same hands that Ajimobi used to demolish a section of Ayefele’s Music House were what he used to rebuild it, with his publicists left to manufacture a spin to disguise what was evidently a gross abuse of power.

    But unlike Oyo where hapless taxpayers had to pay the price for the someone’s elephantine ego and razor-thin skin, it is Ilonah presently bearing the costs of official intrigues in Abuja stalling the erection of an electronic billboard on which close to a staggering N1bn loan has been committed.

    After reading a recent indepth report by Premium Times, one could not but pity Illonah, the promoter of Lona Global Resources. Anyone familiar with how government runs will know that Ilonah’s project has become a victim of high-level malicious intrigues orchestrated obviously by powerful interests in the Federal Capaital Development Authority (FCDA) who simply went to work by overriding an approval earlier granted in 2017 by the Department of Outdoor Advertising and Signage (DOAS) for the construction and installation of the billboard.

    They started by saying that, em, em, the site allocated to mount the billboard was too close to the New City Gate for comfort. Then, another resolution was made. Ok, not to worry. Another location was offered; this time, close to the Centennary District along the Abuja airport expressway.

    But a still zestful Illonah had barely begun to tinker with the original design to reflect the new change when another obstacle came. This time, someone at the Centenary District raised a red flag with a petition citing perhaps the most ludicrous reason: the billboard will likely obstruct the view of the district from afar!

    Seriously? When exactly did it become possible for a finger to obstruct a whole face?

    Then came the father of all excuses – the superstition from official circles in Abuja that a billboard of such magnitude could distract motorists thereby causing motor accident, without any research or evidence!

    From the Premium Times’ report, two deductions could easily be made. One is Illonah’s indiscretion to have sought the intervention of higher authority through an SOS letter addressed to the Vice President. In the circumstance, it is only human that the little gods at FCDA would grow more adversarial.

    Two, perhaps Lona Global Resources publicized its potential Guiness Books feat too early. In a corporate environment often defined by vicious hate, you have to mind who you share your success stories with, lest you incur the wrath of the envious.

    But then, Ilonah’s apparent desperation could be understood. When bankers and other creditors are knocking furiously at your doors, one is not likely to be at ease.

    All things considered, it is high time commonsense prevailed on this matter. Someone should rescue Ilonah’s dream and save the young man from bankruptcy.

  • Regulating Anambra’s obituary economy 

    Anambra, the mercurial pearl of Igbo nation nestling River Niger, is in the news again.

    We are not about to revisit the ferment of executive intemperance that led the sitting governor into allegedly calling the whole leader of the pan-Igbo organization, Ohanaeze, “an idiot” for endorsing the presidential candidate of the main opposition party ahead of the just-concluded general elections.

    Rather, we are confronted by the audacity of a new piece of legislation by the Anambra State Assembly seeking to smash through cultural barriers into some dark necromantic alley. Unambiguously named “A Law To Control Burial/Funeral Ceremonial Activities” and passed by a majority of the legislature, the act expressly seeks to abolish ostentation and impose a new culture of modesty. All thanks to its sponsor, the iconoclastic Charles Ezeani (representing Anaocha II constituency), who says it “is aimed at cutting down the cost of burial activities in the state”.

    Should Governor Willy Obiano assent with his golden fountain pen, it then becomes a grave felony ”to deposit any corpse in the mortuary or any place beyond two months from the date of the death, while burial ceremonies in the state shall be for one day.”

    No person, it further forewarns grimly, shall subject any relation of the deceased person to a mourning period of more than one week from the date of the burial ceremony.

    To confer the sobriety thought appropriate in the circumstance, the law also forbids traditional gunshot salute, praise-singing, blocking of roads/streets during obsequies or assumed ritual destruction of property.

    In what could only be targeted at relieving the bereaved of financial burden or unreasonable expectations, another clause states specifically that the family of the deceased “shall provide food for their kindred, relatives and other sympathizers at their own discretion.”

    Taken together, these proposals are, to say the least, quite earth-shaking indeed. Before arriving at this historic juncture, the report however did not state how much of public buy-in had been secured through the agency of public hearing facilitated by the state assembly over a potentially explosive proposition.

    While Ezeani’s motive could hardly be faulted in nobility and public-spiritedness, however, considering that key provisions are framed by a thinking that tends to suggest extremism of sorts, one is persuaded to assume that not much consultation took place with the stakeholders. It is very doubtful if the vested interests in the obituary value chain would have just sat by and allowed an arrangement that seeks to dim their lights or simply take bread away from their tables without raising a voice of dissent.

    By that single law, a whole universe of professionals will undoubtedly be facing existential threat, if not extinction already. A more austere burial means bearish market for mortuaries and the morticians, for instance. So, how are caterers, “Aso Ebi” (fabric) merchants, event planners, vintners, lessor of marquee/canopy/plastic chairs expected to survive now?

    What then happens to the familiar hawkers of white handkerchiefs or hand fans? To say nothing about traffickers of mint-fresh banknotes for “spraying”. Or those who thought they had struck gold by stocking milllion units of the rave-of-the-moment – the pistol-like cash-spraying machine fabricated in – where else? – China.

    We have not even considered “professional mourners” on hire to wail louder than the bereaved when the latter become too tired or had lost their voices to too much sorrow.

    Moreover, big or elaborate funerals also create brisk business for the masters of the two contrasting realms – the cosmic and the secular: rainmakers and alchemists who solemnly prime the canon for traditional gun-salute on the one hand; and native drummers who fall over each other in the driveway to usher you into the party venues with soliciting crescendo.

    Well, we were also not told whether Ezeani had contemplated a ceiling to the cost of a coffin permissible in Anambra soil henceforth. That may, in fact, drag us into a corpus of morbid details like the apocryphal tale of a thrifty coffin-maker who, upon being pressed for a concession, promised the customer a discount the next time. Or the theatrics of the hyperactive curator of the communal hearse, gleaming from meticulous preservation probably by generations, its utility yet creatively extended by the current custodian to double as family car to church service on Sundays.

    And lo, the king of them all – the musician who makes a fortune from performing at the big parties which the new Anambra law seeks to outlaw. At a time piracy has virtually made album sale unprofitable, who does not know that most artistes now hustle for live performances for subsistence, aside endorsement deals with rich corporate bodies. Of course, praise-singing is the short-cut.

    As an editor some fifteen years ago, I remember being approached by one of our star reporters (Emeka Eyinnaya) saying a famous Igbo musician was aghast at the headline given his interview we had published the previous week.

    While responding to a specific question, the iconic entertainer had stated rather casually that he was not in a position to know whether the provenance of money sprayed on him by those he usually eulogized at soirées was tainted or not.

    I cast the said headline to reflect such self-acquittal from possible complicity on account of a murky source.

    Apparently, a good number of his big spenders – most probably bigtime conmen or money ritualists – had rang him up to express bitterness at his impudence to speak so uncomplimentarily of the hands feeding him.

    But note, the respondent didn’t disown or dispute any portion of the transcript which could have been cited as basis to fault the “offending” title, but was simply unhappy that the interview he was reluctant to grant in the first place was now going to pour sand in his garri.

    Such is the sensitivity that sometimes underlines the rendition of eulogy at social parties and the tightrope musicians have to walk thereafter to remain in business.

    But while all the foregoing merely pertains to the consequences, the new Anambra funeral act would also appear to be in cold contempt of something more substantial – cultural sensibilities or habits. While it is much easier to fix damage at the material level, altering things at the cultural realm is never an easy task. Those already thinking the proposed law will suddenly usher the desired change in social behavior in that jurisdiction will, therefore, need some reality check by simply recalling the anti-spraying law similarly pushed by the Obasanjo administration in 2007.

    Despite that section 21 subsection 1-4 of the CBN bill passed by the sixth National Assembly prescribes heavy penalties beginning with arrest and a prison term of six months or N50,000 fine, Nigerians have not stopped spraying crisp Naira notes at social parties.

    Let us face it: the Igbo in Anambra are certainly not alone in turning burial to carnival of sorts. In most African societies, loud funerals are not only deemed fitting finale to an illustrious life but also considered one last debt owed the dead.

    Therefore, the common prayer among folks is not just the grace to die not faraway from one’s wardrobe only but also in the arms of one’s offspring who should be in material position to meet often high expectations of the community.

    So, whereas the bereaved in, say, western societies might consider as parting gift memorializing the departed by instituting a foundation to propagate the idea they cherished while alive, the average African would rather preserve the memory of their dead by hosting a shindig to be remembered as the grandest in a generation.

    In Yorubaland, such jollification falls under the rubric of “Owambe”. In Edo, it is called “Obito”.

    It is, therefore, doubtful if this age-old lifestyle can be legislated out of existence overnight like the Anambra’s funeral act envisages. The “Owambe” industry in Lagos is reportedly worth a whopping N26b, for instance. While the culture of ostentation must be seen as constituting ready normative offence, one would rather suggest the adoption of a civic engagement approach to wean the society off such hang-over. The underling mindset speaks to what psychologists call the edifice complex. It partly explains the obsession for bogus things – big cars, big houses, long convoys.

    We also see this showoffishness manifesting in the knack for titles that make many insist that their names be prefixed with “Sir, Chief, Dr, Engineer…”

    There is an urgent need for a re-orientation of the society to begin to see the nobility in simplicity. The crusade is not for government alone but also the traditional and religious institutions as well. Meanwhile, rather than prohibit loud parties, what stops the authorities from imposing punitive taxes on those who choose to exceed the threshold considered modest?

     

     

    Sowore’s affirmative gesture 

    Given the popular notion that lack of accountability is one of the chief ills of our politics, how amazing that an affirmative gesture a fortnight ago by the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, went almost unnoticed.

    Without any prompting, AAC released a statement of account of its campaign spanning a year. We are told the party was able to raise a total of N157 million through a GoFundMe vehicle opened with Zenith Bank.

    It covered assorted costs ranging from travel, accommodation, renting town halls, refreshments, mobilizing attendees to “N740,000 spent on security and intelligence”.

    With this, Sowore, publisher of Sahara Reporters (the hard-hitting citizen-journalism platform), has undoubtedly set a record in campaign financing in Nigeria and demonstrated a responsibility and accountability rare among recipients of public donations towards a civic cause.

    Well, it surely will be a tall order asking the older, more established parties to render similar account or open their books for public scrutiny. More like the futility of looking for a virgin in a maternity ward. Interestingly, Sowore, a one-time student union president at University of Lagos, would seem the biggest revelation of the 2019 general polls, coming sixth ahead of a few big names in the contest involving 73 candidates.

    It is quite instructive that AAC’s GoFundMe account swelled from the widow’s mite sent by tens of thousands of Nigerians sold on Sowore’s advocacy of a new Nigeria. There couldn’t be a better way to show fidelity to those who sowed in faith and who, potentially, could become the foundation of Sowore’s captive audience for future aspirations.

    While Sowore has given an account, not a few other parties are still embroiled in bitter fight over money. We hear of party executives bickering with their standard-bearers either over not making full disclosure of cash donations or spending without transparency.

    It is as if some did not see a border between their personal pockets and the party’s pouch.

    The puzzle then: if such folks cannot account for little purse of a small party, how are we to trust them with the nation’s treasury?

  • Dangote, Arewa and the multi-billionaire truth

    It is not exactly new talk; the news is that it came from the lips of Aliko Dangote, thus breaking the age-old culture of silence.

    Summoning a moral courage rare among the elite, the Forbes-certified richest black man came down hard on northern governors while lamenting the clear and present danger extreme poverty poses to his native Arewaland.

    Speaking at the fourth edition of the Kaduna Investment Summit (KadInvest 4.0) in Kaduna last week, Dangote wondered why a region endowed with vast land that should have been exploited to drive agrarian revolution is, instead, wallowing in abject misery.

    His words: “It is instructive to know that the 19 Northern states which account for over 54 percent of Nigeria’s population and 70 percent of its landmass collectively generated only 21 percent of the total subnational IGR in the year 2017. Northern Nigeria will continue to fall behind if the respective state governments do not move to close the development gap.”

    The severity of the reality Dangote speaks to is perhaps better appreciated when juxtaposed with the existing classification of Nigeria as the world’s poverty headquarters. The Arewa situation could only be described as something worse than grim therefore if the broader picture of the nation seen from outside had already been termed beggarly.

    As he put it: “Nigeria is ranked at 157th out of 189 countries on the human development index. While the overall socio-economic condition in the country is a cause for concern, the regional disparities are in fact very alarming. In the North Western and North Eastern parts of Nigeria, more than 60 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty.”

    Indeed, the symptoms are visible in Boko Haram, abysmal literacy level, decrepit healthcare system, exploding Almajiri population and lately widespread drug abuse.

    Unless drastic measures are adopted to reverse the trend, one does not need to be a sociologist to know that the region’s preponderant poor are condemned to perpetuate the dynasty of poverty. According to reports, the North-west has 77.7% of its population living in relative poverty while the North-east comes second with 76.3% and the North-central 67.5%.

    Read Also: Dangote to boost local refining to 1.095m

    Dangote’s candid words in Kaduna are a reminder of the melodrama in Abuja last year when visiting Bill Gates cast diplomatese aside before a much wider audience and decided to shock his hosts with bitter hometruth.

    Decrying what he saw as a misalignment in government’s spending and the people’s needs as reflected by the economic blueprint unveiled, the world’s second richest man gave it straight to the special session of the National Economic Council led by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. To achieve sustainable growth, he counseled that investments in infrastructure must go hand in hand with human capital development. According to him, building roads, ports and factories without skilled workers to manage them cannot sustain an economy.

    Of course, no one could accuse sexagenarian Gates of mischief or insolence. Through Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the American billlionaire and philanthropist has shelled out more than $6 billion of his personal fortune fighting polio and other charity causes in Nigeria since 2006.

    Taken together, if there is any lesson to be learnt from the cold statistics reeled out by Dangote it is undoubtedly another sad reminder of the curse of rent-seeking. On top of the over-abundance of natural resources, the nineteen states of the north collectively get the bigger share of the national cake monthly. But this hardly translates to prosperity for the generality of the people other than oiling a feudal system that nourishes a tiny few and immiserates the vast majority.

    Indeed, philosophers and scholars had long diagnosed cancer afflicting the north; what remains is the will of the political leadership to effect the prescriptions outlined. Central to a sustainable recovery strategy will be education and re-education, as well as the pursuit of an economic rehabilitation and reconstruction through agriculture.

    For instance, Boko Haram and the festering Almajiri culture are fruits of cultivated ignorance. So, the sort of education Arewa kids need at this age is the type that truly liberates the mind, purges the mind of undue suspicion and channels their creative energies in the right direction.

    In Kaduna, it is reassuring that Governor Nasir El-Rufai is leading the way by taking sometimes draconian but necessary measures to change the story in the acclaimed political capital of the north by insisting that only qualified teachers remain in the classrooms to teach the pupils the right ideas.

    But there is also need to be broad-minded to receive offer of genuine help from outside. For instance, an otherwise patriotic initiative, though token, by Bishop Hassan Kukah to help address the issue of Almajiri by persuading them off the streets and enrolling them in free schools has received the harshest criticism from bodies quick to read religious motives to it. But while in a hurry to shoot down the idea obviously to protect their sectarian turf, such critics fail to offer a viable alternative to curbing the social menace.

    While the Almajiris today offer ready recruitment ground for thuggery for unscrupulous politicians, let it be acknowledged that the original incarnation was innocent. The word, Almajiri, derives from the Arabic word “Al-muhaajirun”. It describes a learned “ulama” who propagates the peaceful cause of Islam.

    But the concept has since been bastardized to also become the by-word for child begging/destitution and potential recruits for the terror enterprise.

    With its vast land resource, the Arewa states have the comparative advantage to engage not only in growing but also processing agricultural products. A partnership between Lagos and Kebbi States two years ago created the LAKE rice. With collaboration among the governors of states like Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Zamfara, Jigawa and Kano, the envisaged economic turnaround of the region can, in fact, be catalyzed by harmonising policies and programmes to fully exploit their huge rice potentials, incorporating the Fadama for mechanised production.

    The time has come for the political leadership of the north to incentivize the migration of the Almajiri back to their respective communities rather than allow them to continue to loiter around the cities. Of course, no one should stop them from professed desire to study the Qur’an. But they should also be made to understand that nothing stops them from being gainfully employed on the farms on the side.

  • The baptism of ‘Born-Again’ DSS in Rivers

    The governorship elections in Rivers State is surely now won and lost, but the controversies stirred will certainly linger for a while. One of such is the reported brazen partisanship of soldiers during the exercise, setting a dangerous precedent.

    It is commendable that the Army high command has instituted an inquiry to establish the truth. It is the least the Chief of Army Staff owes the public with a view to redeeming the name of that critical institution of state. Soldiers owe loyalty to country, not parties.

    Without prejudice to the panel’s investigations, let it however be stated right away that it is also quite possible that those caught in several viral videos in the social media could be impostors in fake Army uniform, just to intimidate political opponents.

    While expressing grave concern over alleged misconduct of a branch of the security establishment, it is only fair that those that discharged their duties creditably be commended. The one that readily comes to mind is the DSS.

    Given its “notoriety” in recent past as the “multi-purpose enforcer” of sometimes dirty political jobs, it is quite significant that the service was not implicated in the bloodshed that characterized the Rivers polls.

    The international tradition is that the secret service plays the Big Brother on the nation, adept at anticipating threat and cutting down evil in its track. It is anonymous in identity and unobtrusive in operation. Stealth is its philosophy.

    But the DSS we saw until recently was one that seemed quite excitable and did not seem to care about that long-cherished optics. This was very much in evidence in its midnight invasion of homes of top members of the judiciary and made quite a big drama of huge cash (including hard currencies) hurl from operations many thought should have been left to the regular police.

    Nor was the spy service spared of spotlights when the “testimonial” it prepared became the chief plank on which the Senate stood to deny Ibrahim Magu of confirmation as substantive chairman of EFCC consistently in the last three years against the repeated recommendation of President Muhammadu Buhari, thus deepening national curiosity.

    The height was last year when the service again showed a partisan hand at the National Assembly. In what was considered a brazen assault on a critical institution of democracy, hooded operatives barricaded the gate in a complicated power-play, acting like the proverbial Praetorial Guard that became master over the sovereign to whom it was supposed to be subordinated. That murky outing led to the suspension of then supremo of the service.

    By resisting the temptation to be drawn into the Rivers conundrum, it does seem DSS has learnt from the past. Kudos to the new leadership. We hope this new-found professionalism is sustained.

  • The shame of Zamfara’s zig-zag

    The old squirrel, according to an ancient Edo riddle, habitually sips from the gourd of iniquities. His lineage is forbidden from eating the palm kernel near its warren. But out of ancestral curse, the duplicitous mammal soon finds himself in an abominable web. Not only is he caught mating a neighbour’s maiden, he, forever triggered by opium-fueled phallus, is also found romancing her menopausal mother. Shattered by the unthinkable tale and another shock discovery of the infernal powder, his much-besotted psychedelic bride flees abroad with a broken heart.

    Then, the wrinkled squirrel is left to gnash his scanty teeth smeared with opium, more in mortal dread of his darkest secret being uncovered by the entire community.

    It will hardly be difficult to recognize the sepulchral footprints of the proverbial squirrel in the political farce currently unfolding in Zamfara State. Taboo committed by a few evil men have brought dark plaques to the acclaimed “Home of Agricultural Products”.  The fruit of a seed sown in ethical quicksand is surely fated to be bitter indeed.

    Now, just like the fabled squirrel, the ruling APC in Zamfara increasingly faces the prospects of losing its bride – power, by default. At least, going by the Appeal Court judgement of last week voiding the candidature of all its candidates in the March 9 polls in one fell swoop.

    Indeed, no clairvoyance was needed to foretell the sorry outcome of last week. The story we heard originally was that no valid primaries held in Zamfara ab initio. Afraid of democracy even though masquerading as democrat, Governor Abdulaziz Yari wanted the process of producing the candidate to be by affirmation – a euphemism for imposition.

    His arch-rival, Kabiru Marafa, chair of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), preferred direct primaries. Enter a stalemate. When Yari, who had already built a reputation as an absentee governor, later brought a list to INEC the commission understandably refused to accept it not only on the grounds that no valid primaries held, but also that the deadline for its submission had already lapsed.

    So, when a counter-narrative later surfaced barely a week to the March 9 polls that the embattled Governor Yari’s anointed would vie for Zamfara governorship on the strength of a sudden curious judgement by a Zamfara court, many were left wondering whether it was Yari’s widely televised threat to ensure those initially standing in his way at the national secretariat of the ruling party end up in body bags or the power of the now ubiquitous dollars that did the magic.

    But let no one lose sight of where precisely the rain began to beat Zamfara in the present circumstance. The bungled primaries of last October by the ruling party actually set off the wider circus where courts in Gusau, Abuja and Sokoto later found themselves fabricating and issuing conflicting orders eventuating in last week’s political novelty in which the supposed “winner by landslide” of the March 9 governorship polls will, alas, not be handed the trophy – the certificate of return.

    Overall, the political mess Zamfara now presents underscores partly the failure of party leadership. When his presidential campaign train stopped in Gusau on February 11, President Muhammadu Buhari had expressed the confidence that the crisis would be resolved before the election. But apparently, the usually aloof PMB underestimated the magnitude of the problem or over-trusted the competence of his underlings to fix things.

    Following a judgement on February 13 by the Sokoto Division of the Court of Appeal dismissing one of the appeals on the ground that the appellant had filed an application of withdrawal, the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, entered what would seem a last-minute, self-serving order by asking INEC to postpone the elections in Zamfara (originally scheduled to begin on February 16).

    On the whole, we will never know how much dollars exchanged hands under the table over the Zamfara ticket such that those who ought, to tell the truth, became tongue-tied.

    However, Zamfara is not the only state where the party self-destructed following what appears the collapse of moral authority by the party leadership. The ghost also haunted Imo. In Bauchi, the oxygen mask wangled from the fortuitous “inconclusivity” declared by INEC on March 9 turned out to be grossly inadequate to save APC from being asphyxiated by its own self-contradictions in last week’s re-run.

    The same virus of dollars is easily cited as one of the reasons the party lost Adamawa. Exasperated beyond self-restraint by the shenanigans that transpired in her own home state, the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, dismissed it as a bazaar quite unprecedented in scale and obscenity.

    To begin with, it is a big shame that a certified political leper could be shepherding APC in Zamfara. In saner climes, Yari’s voice should not be heard in this season at all. He is certainly leaving Zamfara worse than he met it in 2011. Even by elementary development indicators like access to portable water, basic education and primary healthcare, the state has remained at the nadir. To say nothing about widespread insecurity with bandits’ murderous siege unabating; such that even the governor himself was sufficiently shaken enough to infamously offer to vacate power recently if that would appease the marauding murderers.

    Neither is there any redeeming feature at personal level. Yari’s garment is undoubtedly soiled indelibly from what a court of competent jurisdiction declared the primitive looting of the state exchequer. In 2017 for example, it was established that a princely sum of N500m looted from Zamfara’s share of the Paris Fund refund was used to offset Yari’s personal loan obtained from First Generation Mortgage Bank Limited.

    Apart from that, an Abuja Federal High Court ordered an interim forfeiture of another $500,000 looted from the Paris refund earlier made by the Federal Government to states as part of a creative measure to bail them out of financial difficulty. Apart from First Generation Mortgage Bank Limited, the name of the other conduit linked to Yari in the pillage was Gosh Projects Limited.

    To be sure, let it however be stressed that the excoriation of Yari’s leadership deficit here is not to make a case for his rival, Marafa, who seems to betray a carnal desperation for power. From experience, desperate politicians are not to be trusted. If the true motivation is service, you don’t begin to act or sound as though your life depended on being elected into power.

    In what evoked the memory of the biblical claimant to the disputed baby before King Solomon’s court, Marafa, by action, did not seem to care if APC was completely decapitated in Zamfara. Like the vulgar “mother” before King Solomon, Marafa had begun to gloat over APC’s defenestration before the curious judgement restating the party few days to the elections. He seems too obsessed with the governor’s perch that he was willing to bury his party and state if the prize eluded him.

    Now, unless the Supreme Court ruled otherwise, the door is already left ajar technically for the runner-up in the March 9 polls (PDP) to simply approach the court for a consequential order to be declared winner of the elections in place of the feuding APC.

    A classic example of a self-inflicted perdition by political prodigals.

     

     

    ‘Buhari, please fish out the greedy emperor’

    The story of a greedy emperor you mentioned in your “Buhari, governors and state debauchery” article on Tuesday is disturbing. Does Kemi (Adeosun) replacing NOI (Ngozi Okonjo Iwuala) tell us who?

    07034994311

    Great piece, Louis. The big question, though, is how do you make this work? Another is: who controls the cash – federal or state? If it’s state, then they, the “Emperors”, as you called them, will still hold the yam and the knife? You know what that means. Nothing changes. The bazaar going on in Abuja is one of the ignoble legacies of the PDP started by the crude narcissist called OBJ.  It’s a “deal” between executive banditry and legislative gravy hunters.

    Olu: 08033013591

    Reading your column of March 26 really left me with serious anger. I hope President Muhammadu Buhari read the piece or his attention was drawn to it by relevant aides. The scale of sleaze is just mind-boggling. You mean one greedy governor took big loan in dollars from an international money-lender and diverted it to black market with the connivance of a bank Managing Director and the proceeds used to import foreign “Ashewo” (harlots) or laundered to buy mighty houses in Florida and Dubai? And the former governor is today walking freely in Nigeria? This is one looting too many. It is a clarion call on NGOs and civil society organizations to take over this advocacy. On behalf of the poor masses of Nigeria, I call on President Buhari to direct the relevant security agencies to fish out the heartless rogue and use him as scapegoat in the renewed fight against graft and those who connived with him in the financial secotor because that kind of money could not have been diverted and laundered abroad without their connivance.

    Alhaji Isa Mohammed, Abuja.

  • Buhari, governors and state debauchery

    A critical pillar of democracy will be cemented if President Muhammadu Buhari followed through a course of action initiated last week. Apparently emboldened by a renewed mandate, he has finally raised a committee to implement the historic fourth amendment to the 1999 constitution with a view to ensuring better separation of powers in the Nigerian polity.

    Led by the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, the 16-man panel is to give teeth to Act No 16 of 2018 of the National Assembly granting full financial autonomy and independence to the Houses of Assembly as well as the judicial arm in the states.

    PMB earlier signed the act into law in June 2018.

    The long and short of it is that the credits of both arms will henceforth be paid directly to them as their expeditures will no longer be tied to the budgetary processes of the executive arm at the state level.

    To be sure, the fourth amendment would not have been necessary had the political actors been charitable enough to obey existing provisions of the 1999 constitution which already granted financial autonomy to the two arms of government.

    For instance, as for the judiciary, section 81(3) of the 1999 Constitution stipulates that: “Any amount standing to the credit of the judiciary in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation shall be paid directly to the National Judicial Council for disbursement to the heads of the court established for the Federation and the states under section 6 of this constitution.”

    But even after the Federal High Court made a landmark pronouncement to enforce that extant section in 2014, the governors conveniently found one excuse or another to disobey.

    In a few cynical cases, some responded by merely calculating the salaries and allowances of the Chief Judge and judges and transferring same to the former. Of course, the state emperors are unwilling to accept the autonomy that enables the two arms have any discretion or decide their own priority in terms of projects and execution.

    But by its terms of reference, the Malami team is now expected to, within three months, assess and review the level of compliance by all the 36 states with Section 121(3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), monitor, ensure and cause the implementation of financial autonomy across the Judiciary and Legislature in each state.

    They have a three-month tenure.

    While undertaking that national audit in the weeks ahead, the body will likely find that Lagos is perhaps the only exception where relative autonomy is already enjoyed by the two arms of government, hence the ability of the legislature to provide robust oversight to the executive arm. While the remaining state chief executives have grown accustomed to the life of a demi-god in their respective jurisdictions, with the  Speaker and Chief Judge more or less reduced to poodles of the governor in sheer mockery of the lofty ideals espoused by Frenchman Montesquieu in the 18th century.

    It is, therefore, natural that those emperors will interpret this reform as a diminution of their imperial powers.

    So far, the situation at the state level has indeed been one of untold despotism. The Speaker is free to indulge himself or herself as “lord” in the “hallowed chamber”, but is soon reminded of who is “supreme” when made to wait, sometimes endlessly, in the Governor’s Office to discuss money matters. And for fear of losing favor in the eyes of the Government House, the judge is, in turn, scared of entering judgement that displeases the governor, often left therefore to use their discretion in scouting for legal technicality to either excuse the infractions involving state officials or dilute justice.

    This perhaps explains why the struggle to push financial freedom for the state legislature and judiciary has been a tortuous one. While the National Assembly was championing the fourth amendment, we saw farcical dramas in many states where the lawmakers, the supposed beneficiary-to-be, were heard raising their voices shamelessly against the motion. Of course, they were either following the cue from the paymaster in the Government House or unsure if his door would not be shut against them when next they called and their next meal ticket withdrawn, in case they spoke otherwise.

    Of course, once allocation to the other two arms of government is made a first-line charge, the Speaker and the Chief Judge will find themselves less at the mercy of the governor in the discharge of their duties, thereby enhancing the separation of powers as intended in a truly federal state.

    However, while conceding autonomy to the two arms, the Malami panel will serve national interest if it is able to prescribe creative measures to strengthen the acountability mechanism within them to ensure that we do not end up unwittingly replacing the “tyranny” of the executive with the irresponsibility in the other two arms, thereby merely “democratizing” looting.

    Those who harbour such fear will cite the case of National Assembly as graphic example. As recently revealed by Senator Musa Adede, when the fourth republic took off in 1999, senator’s monthly salary was only N89,000. When other allowances were added, the total was still less than N220,000. The culture of humongous eight-digit salaries only began when financial autonomy was similarly granted the federal legislature.

    Without any sense of patriotism or the pang of conscience, the federal lawmakers simply resorted to self-help upon receipt from the finance ministry by sharing the money among themselves. Thus began dubious terms like “quarterly pay”. Such that Nigerian federal lawmakers otherwise notorious for sloth and absenteeism now ironically rank as perhaps the highest paid in the world with senators carting home a staggering N13.5m each monthly as “running cost”, aside N750,000 entered as “salary” and another N200m entitlement for “constituency projects” annually.

    The challenge then: how do we ensure that the bug is not replicated in the state legislature and judiciary?

    But beyond ensuring financial autonomy for state legislature and judiciary, let it be recognized that the polity will also be better for it in the long run if greater attention was accorded the recruitment process for the law-making arm arguably the most critical given its foundational value. If we realize that the law is the fulcrum on which the society revolves, then we will better appreciate why legislature is the mother of democracy.

    As the supremo of the ruling party, PMB will, therefore, be helping to fertilize the tree of democracy in Nigeria by ensuring his own party sets good examples. Of course, worthy candidates cannot emerge in a situation whereby party primaries become bazaar in which those with most dollars are awarded party tickets.

    More rigour, greater diligence ought to attend the recruitment process for the legislature at the state level, therefore. Today, what you find is that in most cases, sitting governors practically determine those fielded as party candidates to occupy the state assembly. While there is wisdom in saying the governor needs “like minds” to ensure a legislative concurrence for his vision in the next tenure, the sad truth is that such argument often becomes a smokescreen to extend the frontiers of cronyism. Those who end up in the fabled “hallowed chamber” are usually only a little better than political slaves who will not consider any boundary too sacred to cross nor any errand too ludicrous to execute for their masters.

    Often told today, for instance, is the story of a greedy emperor who, on the eve of exit from office, secured a hefty loan from a global money-lender and practically pocketed the dollars. Colluding with the managing director of one of the nation’s leading banks (who kept dashing in and out of the state capital in private jet) and rogue regulators of the financial sector to abridge due process, he immediately diverted the humongous sum to black market at a time dollar exchanged at N520 and the official rate was N302. Not only was the difference in billions of Naira pocketed, even the balance was also booked spent on largely phantom projects!

    But such rape could not have been contemplated, much less executed brazenly with impunity, if a virile legislature exists in the said state and the “hallowed chamber” had not sadly become a camp of political slaves and hallelujah boys and girls.

    Of course, the easy money milked from such cowboy transaction was predictably parlayed to funding a lifestyle of unspeakable debauchery amid mass poverty in the said state; acquisition of palaces in Miami and Dubai, and regular jet-load of foreign harlots for orgiastic buffet. So extensive was the looting by this kleptocrat that his name on the title of castles also acquired all over Abuja with stolen money was hurriedly changed to fictictious ones weeks before leaving office!

    Now, the severity of the referenced financial atrocity visited on the relatively poor state is better appreciated when realized that it is indeed the unborn generations obliged to repay money looted by dollar-obsessed unconscionable ancestor.

    Since the wound is still fresh, it won’t be too difficult for sniffer dogs to unravel that monumental heist in one of the southern states if Buhari truly means business.

  • Karma and the parable of ‘Filadefia’

    So, after the mammoth burnt offering at the altar of greed, Rochas Okorocha will still end up with the bread of political sorrow?

    The Imo west senatorial seat meant to be a “consolation prize” after the defeat of his stooge in the governorship polls of March 9 has been withdrawn by INEC over allegation that it was secured at gun-point on February 23.

    Now, not only is the humbled Imo emperor left to mourn the defenestration of his son-in-law (Uche) and his daughter’s inability to succeed her mother as Imo First Lady in a failed aspiration at monarchy, he also has to endure the taunts of a gloating victor in his remaining days at the Douglas House.

    From the camp of the governor-elect, the cosmopolitan Emeka Ihedioha, came a raft of disturbing accusations. Suggesting Okorocha may have decided to help himself for the two months left of his tenure, the victorious PDP candidate has alleged a last-minute looting of Imo.

    Specifically, massive cash withdrawal amounting to N17b was allegedly made from Access Bank, Zenith Bank, Unity Bank and Skye Bank (Polaris Bank Limited).

    Expectedly, the official response to these grave allegations has not only been denial but a counter-accusation that Ihedioha is a busybody too impatient to grab power.

    Well, this is a political season when facts get twisted willfully and lies are dressed as truth or a little grain of truth magnified beyond the borders of logic.

    So, it might be very imprudent yet to crucify Okorocha or applaud Ihedioha here.

    But nonetheless, it is impossible to deny the shadow of Karma now engulfing Okorocha. Some eight years ago, he too barely waited for then Governor Ikedi Ohakim to write his hand-over notes before bombarding banks with letters from the “Office of the Governor-Elect” to dishonor cheques presented by the Government House then. So pathetic did the situation become that the State Accountant General reportedly absconded from work, obviously to ingratiate himself to the incoming governor. Throughout his imperial reign of eight years, Okorocha relentlessly pursued a policy of vendetta against his predecessor, even refusing to pay him his statutory entitlements.

    Alas, the wheel of retribution has turned full cycle. It is now Okorocha’s turn to taste the bitter portion generously administered on Ohakim with malicious pleasure.

    Seeking to rationalize Uche’s drubbing on a surrogate platform, Okorocha’s cited a gang-up by “those who “traded away the people’s mandate in Imo”.

    In the final analysis, let it however be admitted that Okorocha is no guiltier than the fawning hypocrites who, for the love of dollars, mortgaged APC interest away in Imo, thereby making the party forfeit its only foothold in Igboland. Were Action Alliance’s 195,364 votes added to APC’s 96,458, the aggregate would have dwarfed PDP’s 277,002.

    Instead, the visiting scavengers from Abuja were busy counting dollars while poor, unsuspecting party women sang and danced barefoot around Owerri streets.

    It is alleged that Okorocha also made a dollar bid for the party’s ticket, but apparently lost out to “market forces”, as the highest bidder carried the day. So, during the party primaries, the air literally stank of the aroma of dollars (or “Aromadollars” as the episode is now commonly remembered).

    Of course, everyone within the family knows the dark truth, but they have been keeping a sepulchral silence, perhaps only awaiting the swish of President Buhari’s acclaimed moral sword in a redemptive rite of propitiation.

    The tail of Okorocha’s serpent may indeed have been dealt a savage axe blow by Imo voters, but the reptile’s lips are still managing to twish, as he now lays boastful claims to the senatorial seat withheld by INEC, even while lamenting “the wickedness of man”.

    But elsewhere in South-west, the story is different. It is a case of funereal quiet in Abeokuta as hitherto loquacious Ibikunle Amosun still appears unable to comprehend what hit him. What we now see are furtive glances of the subdued, too shy to make eye-contact.

    By audaciously seeking to enthrone his anointed (Omilade) as successor on the surrogate platform of APM even while sitting as APC governor, Amosun undoubtedly wanted to prove some political omni-potence. But that dream was cut short on March 9 as Dapo Abiodun trounced Omilade.

    It is not only Amosun’s claim to invincibility thus invalidated; the stock of the fashion item he glamorized has also fallen. The usually impish social media has lately been agog with the shaming of Amosun’s trademark flamboyant, sky-high cap. “Fila” is Yoruba word for cap. To capture Amosun’s humbling, mischievous folks now whisper around “Filadefia” – a corruption of the popular Philadelphia city in the United States. It is the new onomatopoeia of mischief.

    Of course, Amosun’s now rumpled hat would henceforth be designated as a monument to hubris and self-demystification. Outside the governor’s family circle, it is doubtful how many would continue to proudly wear the Amosun cap once his tenancy expires on May 29. It is not unlikely therefore that many a perceptive tailor in Abeokuta would, in fact, have started offloading their huge stock of “Filadefia” at give-away price to cut their losses.

    All said, the supreme lesson should not be missed: power is transient. The message: humility.

  • Oseni Elamah @ 60

    The rapid footfalls on the staircase were eerily amplified by the pervading silence of that ungodly hour. Wiping sleep from my eyes instantly, I then could perceive the urgency in his now audible voice near my bedroom door.

    “Louis, we just lost Olaitan!,” screamed Chief Oseni Elamah as soon as I opend the door. “They shot him at close range at home.”

    “What?!!!” I yelled back in disbelief, trailing him as he paced back downstairs to his study which door was ajar.

    The desk was yoked with a mountain of files awaiting scrutiny, the Plasma TV on the wall humming softly.

    There we now stood in grieving shock on May 4, 2012, but still trying to imagine we were dreaming, hoping to be awakened from a nightmare.

    Time was roughly 2AM.

    What made the moment all the more chilling, more ghoulish was the haunting memory of one’s encounter with Olaitan Oyerinde (also a top functionary of Edo State Government) just some moments ago – fraternal banters over what would now appear the Last Supper; and one’s own near-death experience barely five days earlier.

    It was the season of political peril, treachery and dark conspiracies in Edo State.

    Earlier on April 29, providence had led me to pass the night at the residence of a fellow commissioner, Clem Agba, and so was absent when the gunmen stormed my private Benin residence at 2.30AM. They only fled after gun battle with the gallant vigilante boys who came to my folks’ rescue.

    So, I was supposed to be in “protective custody” in Elamah’s GRA home when this tragic news of a colleague’s killing broke. From emerging facts, it is quite debatable if Olaitan’s brutal murder could not have been avoided. Critical intelligence was not shared. It is a story for another day. More insights will be offered in snippets from my soon-to-be-unveiled Edo memoirs.

    Well, today is about the celebration of life. In recalling how the news of Olaitan’s passing reached me, I only wanted to draw attention to the often grueling routine less acknowledged actors like Elamah kept to change the Edo story at some point. Through creativity, courage and uncompromising stance, he, as the Chairman of the Edo State Inland Revenue Service, inspired the team that drove Edo’s IGR (internally generated revenue) from paltry N300m to N2b at some point. With Godwin Obaseki as the chairman of the Economic Team.

    Elamah’s work ethic is quite exemplary. Then, he was always at his desk by 8AM and would be the last to leave the office. Even then, at home, he would treat files, forever concerned about fresh ideas to pursue to further boost the state’s revenue.

    Such sterling qualities must have impressed the reverred Benin monarch, Oba Erediauwa, to later decorate Elamah, an Auchi indigene, the Okaoivbiore of Bini Kingdom.

    His outstanding record in Edo obviously led to his being head-hunted later in 2017 to serve as Executive Secretary of the Federal Revenue Service in Abuja headed by Tunde Fowler.

    Indeed, shortly before my Edo odyssey, my big brother and media icon, the durable Nduka Irabor, had made some comments that turned out prophetic. Having himself left the newsroom to serve the Ika Federal Constituency at the House of Reps between 1999 and 2003, he counseled that I would likely find the new environment very strange as against the values of candour, self-criticism and forthrightness of the newsroom, jovially hinting that I would certainly encounter swines, ugly monkeys, serpents and rats, but reassuring: “I’m sure you’ll also find a few decent ones like Oseni Elamah. With people like Oseni around you, you’ll never feel lonely there.”

    True, after the trauma of April 29, Elamah proved more than a true brother for the remaining period I was in Benin. I attest to his generosity not only in material terms, but also in spirit. Despite wide age gap, he has remained a loyal friend also.

    The Okaoivbiore of Bini Kingdom turns 60 on Sunday (March 24), incidentally a day ahead of my own. Here is wishing the fellow Arian happy birthday in advance!