The Nation Newspaper

Category: Louis Odion

  • Lagos: A strong case for Sanwo-Olu

    Both I have known for over a decade. Having reported national politics in my close to thirty-year career in journalism and privileged to occupy the editor’s chair for two of the three decades, it is impossible not to have struck up acquaintanceship, if not friendship, with a good number of contemporary actors animating the nation’s political firmament.

    My bias for one over the other is, therefore, based on an evaluation of the contrasting characters Jimi Kolawole Agbaje (JK) and Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu (BOS) have shown respectively in the intervening years.

    While sitting with other Sun editors back in 2006 to grill Agbaje during his first shot at Lagos governorship on the platform of DPN, one could not help being seduced by his dimpled smile, the throaty laughter, this sociable air perhaps best illustrated by the shimmering gold necklace around his neck.

    Though he didn’t eventually go far in the election results, the mere spectacle of a pharmacist entering the political arena and promising to cure what ailed the Lagos polity was surely enough to capture the popular imagination then.

    The gospel of change he preached while the campaign lasted certainly echoed much longer in enlightened circles in Lagos.

    Conversely, three years earlier, one could not have failed to take notice of the story of the dashing whizkid who quit a senior portfolio in the banking world to take up a relatively “lesser” job of Special Adviser to the then Lagos deputy governor, Femi Pedro.

    BOS’s arrival in Alausa was, of course, preceded by a reputation as a committed member of then emergent evangelical movement in corporate Lagos canvassing the application of strong Christian ethic in the civil space – whether the public service or the business community, led by debonair Pastor Paul Adefarasin of the House on the Rock.

    However, from the lofty rhetoric of 2006, the JK we see today is, sadly, one toiling hard to profit from divisive politics by exploiting the Igbo sentiments, thereby unwittingly putting a razor on the tie that otherwise binds all of us together, seeking to poison the liberal climate that had fostered peaceful co-existence among the mosaic of ethnic nationalities over the years.

    The great Lagos we have always known is one whose values of accommodation and competitive spirit are blind to ethnicity, colour or creed. Its soil bred the legend of Nnamdi Azikiwe, prospered the mercantilist talent of the senior Ojukwu, inspired the activist instinct of Chima Ubani and nourished the prodigious intellect of Pat Utomi.

    When the nation was faced with grave moral crisis in the past, an illustrious Igbo like Ndubuisi Kanu, for example, was not known to have paused even for a moment to first make some cold ethnic calculations, before taking a stand. At a time when even many Yoruba elders had betrayed MKO to Abacha for the proverbial thirty shekels of silver, it is on record that Kanu was one of those who, at grave personal risk, stood for June 12 till the very end.

    The great Lagos we have always known provided the rendezvous for Ekiti-born Dele Alake to make friends with Danladi Bako (now the Koguna of Sokoto) and Abia-born Prince Emeka Obasi in the 80s; friendships that morphed into brotherhood and have endured till today.

    It is one where a Tunji Bello started as professional colleague of Delta-born Sam Omatseye in the 80s and both relate today more like biological brothers.

    Resident popular Fuji musician, Adewale Ayuba, is happily married to an Igbo lady.

    Indeed, there are thousands more of such stories of ethno-religious integration that have over the years deepened the fabric of Lagos as a melting-pot, a truly cosmoplitican city.

    It is, therefore, very troubling reading lately reports of violent clashes between the Yoruba and Igbo in some neighbourhoods in Lagos over electoral preferences in the ongoing general polls. In my nearly thirty-year residency in Lagos, I cannot recall any such violence between the Yoruba and the Igbo before. At worst, Yoruba/Igbo skirmish over election matter was a rarity.

    But many saw this coming the moment JK, obviously out of political desperation, began to sound more like Igbo champion than someone aspiring to be governor for hundred more ethnic nationalities in Lagos. I noticed that JK’s descent began in the build-up to the 2015 elections in which he found himself in PDP, this time as the governorship candidate.

    With Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) as the presidential candidate, the 2015 polls was characterized by a divisiveness never seen in Nigeria’s history. It became quite convenient then to dress “Ebele” as not only carrying the presidential flag on behalf of predominantly Christian Niger Delta, but also in the name of mostly Catholic Igbo.

    Naturally, such profiling redounded on Lagos PDP with JK eventually garnering substantial number in the governorship election in April 2015, predictably with a bloc vote from the resident Igbo community.

    Four years on, apparently lacking the creativity to proceed in his third attempt at the governorship, JK would now plumb deeper into the sewer of ethnic baiting. Of course, nothing forbids you from cultivating a base in an electoral environment. But the real danger is the reckless intensity JK has brought to bear this time by appointing himself an emergency Igbo advocate.

    Without shame, he now seeks to wail louder than the bereaved by reminding them of even the little things they lack, but none of the significant benefits they enjoy. But, shrewd as they are, I am sure the enlightened ones among the Igbo themselves know too well that, while not being averse to more concessions from the system, their collective interest and continued prosperity in a multi-ethnic milieu are best guaranteed under a liberal culture as has been demonstrated in Lagos over the years, as against the toxic ideology JK is retailing.

    In framing campaign messages that subtly incite Igbo against their host and neighbour, JK will, for instance, conveniently forget to acknowledge that those he accuses of “monopolizing” power in Lagos in the last twenty years have never discriminated against Igbo pupils when offsetting WAEC or NECO fees in public schools. No one has formulated deliberate policies to prevent Igbo from running their legitimate businesses in Lagos.

    Neither has the state employment policy ever been sectional. Non-Yoruba today account for over forty percent of teaching staff in Lagos public schools. Nor will JK also be charitable enough to acknowledge that an Igbo man, Ben Akabueze, made history as the longest serving state commissioner in Nigeria by serving four terms in Lagos in the strategic Budget Ministry under Tinubu and Babatunde Fashola.

    Like someone already put it jovially, to truly prove his love for Igbo, maybe Agbaje should have started by throwing wide open to them the doors to his community pharmacy in Apapa for free medicine.

    In contrast, I have not seen any signs of obsession for power or the desperation to do anything to attain same in BOS over the years. Rather, by personal example, he has demonstrated that you don’t necessarily need political power to impact the community. This perhaps explains why when he was not renominated as commissioner in 2015, not once did the charity outreach he had instituted and nurtured over the years stop. From his own personal pocket, he never stopped passing supports quietly to orphanages and lifelines to indigent patients unable to pay hospital bills.

    Of course, BOS is younger. But grey hair isn’t fair ground to put JK down. Rather, what should alarm us is the age of his ideas. Consider just one example. The PDP candidate has promised to funnel whopping fifty percent of state budget into education to create in Lagos what he fantastically dubbed “an education/knowledge economy” as the fulcrum to making it the second largest economy in Africa by 2029.

    Such outlandish proposition is bound to elicit a standing ovation in beer parlours and other unenlightened circles. But it only exposes JK’s shallow understanding of the basic rudiments of efficient resource-allocation in the public sphere.

    Even by United Nations standard, the universal benchmark for education-funding is 26 percent – a target most municipal authorities across the world still find unattainable. (The national government in Nigeria is, in fact, still struggling to meet six percent in the ratio of budget for education.)

    Pray, if JK packs 50 percent of Lagos cash into his quixotic education parks, what margin then goes into equally critical subheads like healthcare, environment and security in a jurisdiction of estimated 20 million people?

    To say nothing about the construction or maintenance of road infrastructure and traffic management!

    From his exuberant tone, it is possible that JK may have been leafing through the memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew, the philosopher-king who transformed Singapore (a city state like Lagos) from near destitution in the 60s to the First World within three decades by first prioritizing education.

    But if indeed JK or his handlers understood the South-East Asian visionary well, they should have realized that the Singaporean feat was not achieved by merely throwing more cash at education or indulging in empty sloganeering. Rather, it resulted from a sober diagnosis of the real challenge and a conscientious implementation of a sustainable action plan that soon ensured the availability of better educated and skilled workforce to meet industry demand within a reasonable time-frame.

    Well, maybe what JK meant is a re-ordering of policies, reinventing the curriculum with a view to ensuring the optimization of even the little fund available for education and equipping the Lagos school-leavers with usable skills and knowledge to take advantage of the boundless opportunities offered by the global economy in the twenty-first century.

    On the contrary, in my view, BOS has, through various public engagements in the last few months, undoubtedly demonstrated a sharper grasp of relevant issues in public governance, bringing to bear his rich experience in the private sector.

    I, therefore, have no doubt he is better equipped with the mental capacity and the emotional balance to be governor for all Lagosians.

  • Sunset for the Sandhurst oligarchs

    Several hours before the winner of the 2019 presidential polls would officially become known, Fela Durotoye was already being treated to a feast of hi-fives and fist-bumps. Prior to the sermon Sunday morning, worshippers at the House on the Rock temple in Lagos were intimated of the presence of the presidential candidate of Alliance for New Nigeria by presiding Pastor Paul Adefarasin.

    No sooner had the announcement been made and the “homeboy” shown taking a bow on the multi-media screens than a thunderous ovation swept through the mammoth cathedral in Lekki.

    In the ensuing ululation, the congregants would appear to see moral triumph, though knowing that the trophy of electoral victory would go to someone else.

    To many a believer, overall, there indeed was reason to be thankful. Contrary to earlier apprehension across the land, Armageddon did not descend as the elections were relatively peaceful. Only in Rivers, Bayelsa, Lagos and Oyo were there reports of serious violence and death. Even the celestial forces seemed to have cooperated as nowhere was rainfall reported; only for places like Lagos to be drenched in heavy downpour the following day.

    In a voice suffused with emotion, Pastor Adefarasin then paid glowing tributes to a worthy ambassador of the church and one of the “exemplars” of new politics who “ran a campaign with a strong message” for national rebirth.

    “In no distant future, your time will come,” Pastor Adefarasin prophesied, to a deafening applause of the congregation.

    Though votes polled collectively across the 176,000 polling units across the federation by Durotoye and other debutants like Kingsley Moghalu and Yele Sowore may not have not amounted to a significant dent relative to behemoths like APC and PDP, the House on the Rock shepherd expressed the conviction that the activist flavor they jointly have injected into the national conversation in the last few months has triggered a momentum capable of birthing a new generation of political actors driven by altruistic values.

    Undoubtedly, the H.O.R pastor spoke for incurable optimists unable to give up on Nigeria, detesting the status quo as unsustainable, clinging to the stubborn hope of a miracle for a troubled nation to outgrow the iniquity of money politics some day.

    Such optimism is readily illustrated with beacons like that of fresher Bankole Wellington (Banky W) who ran on the platform of MDP. Bidding for Reps in the Eti-Osa Federal Constituency (Lagos), the articulate R&B musician-turned-politician made an impressive showing, besting the candidates of APC and PDP in some neighborhoods on the island.

    Even as the results were still being collated on Sunday, a confident Banky W tweeted: “Regardless of the final outcome, I hope we have inspired enough people in our generation to realize what we can achieve when we stand up for ourselves, and stand together. We must build this movement and sustain the momentum. This is only the beginning. MDP is the future.”

    Indeed, buoyed by what has been described as a new urban disenchantment fueled by growing self-awareness of the preponderant millennials, the language of Nigerian politics is undoubtedly changing. At no time in the nation’s political history has this sort of “rebellion” been widespread.

    For the Moghalus, what remains is to parlay that energy to erecting physical structure tomorrow to wrest power, even while unrelenting in clarifying and amplifying the message already framed. Once rooted in the urban centers where the big votes reside, it would not be long for the contagion to spread to the hinterland.

    But while that great rebirth anchored around a new generation is eagerly awaited, the nation would seem already conscripted into a political dirge of sorts for the surviving rump of perhaps Africa’s longest-reigning military oligarchy after a bruising battle.

    President Buhari’s victory in the presidential polls will only mean literally shutting the mouths of the likes of OBJ, IBB and T. Y. Danjuma. Other than the age of coup, at no other civil era has the nation witnessed such open confrontation of generals. Well, happily, the supremacy battle between the old warriors was finally decided by the ballot and not bullet last weekend.

    With the colossal casualties the Ota chicken farmer suffered in his polling unit in Abeokuta at the hands of APC’s Buhari, the humbling of IBB – the now tired “Prince of Niger” in his native Niger State, and muting of Danjuma – the hitherto much-dreaded Juku warrior across the Middle Belt, one could, therefore, not help chuckling at the coming to pass of the finale one had anticipated in an earlier piece entitled “Intifada of the old Guard” published last year: “Increasingly, the nation is left to witness the adaptation of martial tactics by vengeful old warriors for a purely civil outcome in what may signal the terminal battle within the oldest cadre of the once powerful military oligarchy.”

    Until now, on account of the fabulous wealth they came to own individually in retirement, it would not be an exaggeration to classify the three generals as emboding the caste weaned not only on a tradition of entitlement but also addicted to the culture of impunity. It will then appear a fitting closure to history and lending primacy of public morality that the regicide of the aristocratic/capitalist corps is undertaken by a rather austere fellow general.

    As for IBB, let it however be clarified that his demystification begun much earlier in 2010 with his humbling defeat by Atiku in the PDP primaries, hence a rather rapid deterioration as a political vegetable.

    Indeed, being alumni of elite Sandhust in the United Kingdom, fate had positioned the likes of OBJ, Danjuma and IBB well in the army before the abortion of the nation’s democracy in 1966. Fortune amassed from successful careers in political adventurism would mean they were in vantage place to dictate and shape Nigerian politics for the next half a century, the turn of which tellingly coincided with Buhari’s inauguration as civilian president (2015) and the subsequent parting of ways.

    As this writer had noted in the referenced article: “While they would readily cite ‘national interest’ as their only motivation, not a few Nigerians will contend that the generals’ uprising is actually fueled either by bruised egos or loss of class privileges and business concessions.”

    In last weekend’s endgame, Atiku Abubakar may indeed have worn the captain band in the challenge to Buhari’s reign, but there was no doubt that the PDP chariots were largely teleguided by Buhari’s former comrades in arms in utter repudiation of “esprit de corps”.

    From penning two acerbic open letters, daring OBJ had, in fact, graduated into steady hurling of verbal grenades at Buhari, urging Nigerians to vote out a man “weak in body and unsound in mind” as a matter of “national emergency”, provocatively addressing Atiku as the “in-coming President”.

    However, restating Buhari’s tragic flaws, as the generals did copiously, was not only opportunistic; it inadvertently painted a sickening picture of hypocrisy. Yes, his clinging to the brood, tribe or sect is toxic in the context of national politics. But the restive generals are no angels either. For instance, true, OBJ is relatively more detribalised by association. However, his concept of politics constitutes perhaps the worst violence to the idea of society. Not content at only “fixing” elections in his days as president, he also attempted what was arguably the worst atrocity conceivable in constitutional democracy – emptying the public treasury in the desperate quest to procure life presidency through the “Third Term Agenda”.

    Moreover, the Owu chieftain is forever quick to evangelize on good conduct. But his lifestyle – whether private or public – can hardly be held aloft as shiny model before a Sunday school assembly.

    On the other hand, Danjuma’s raising the alarm against the infamy of genocidal herdsmen and his allegation of a complicit military surely resonates well with the vast community of victims in the Middle Belt and all men and women of conscience elsewhere. However, many are left wondering whether such weighty statement came from the same man under whose nose as OBJ’s Defence minister Odi town in Bayelsa was completely wiped out by rampaging soldiers even as genocide was levied on the defenceless civilian population.

    Well, as an aside, maybe the general from Taraba might seek therapeutic escape now by channeling the remainder of his geriatric energy into philanthropy as a noble vocation started in retirement.

    As for OBJ, the pain of Buhari’s victory must cut deep for his remaining years. Had he kept his earlier words to quit partisan politics and transition fully to “global statesman”, perhaps what had remained of his old myth of invincibility would have been preserved. But the proverbial “shigidi” in the Yoruba fable would never hearken the voice of restraint until after a spell in the plantation of disgrace.

    How ironic that OBJ who, ordinarily, prides himself as Africa’s – if not global – statesman would, in pursuit of platform, descend into ethnic backwaters in his twilight as neo-Afenifere activist for traction against Buhari’s anticipated onslaught. In his desperation, how pathetic that he, like the proverbial returning prodigal child in soliciting posture at the door, would lately crave the company of – in fact, hustle for photo ops with – same Yoruba leaders he had spent all his presidency years either disrobing or persecuting.

    Now, should Buhari redeem his pledge to probe the $16b energy funds, it would require a miracle of biblical proportions for OBJ to completely avoid a day at the court.

    Meanwhile, it is now surely political sunset for the three musketeers.

  • Amosun’s treasonable mischief and other stories

    Not until Muntader al-Zaidi’s act of suicidal daring was the world jolted to shoe-throwing as a form of Arab expression of deep social anger. Visiting President George Bush was only beginning to warm into a joint press conference with the Iraqi leader in Baghdad in the winter of 2008 when the shoe missile came rocketing from the Iraqi journalist in the gallery.

    Seeking to make light of the grave embarrassment after ducking, chuckling Bush was famously quoted as remarking that, “This was a size 10 shoe he threw at me, you may want to know”, soon after the assailant had been wrestled down and bundled down the hallway by secret service agents.

    Culturally, hurling shoe at someone is Arab expression of grave insult. So, the nationalist in the journalist wanted to thumb down Bush for perceived emasculation of Iraq in that decade in pursuit of what turned out phantom Weapon of Mass Destruction. A ritual gesture that resonated well that winter across the entire Arab world increasingly made to feel humiliated under America’s vaunting supremacy.

    In Abeokuta last week, we saw a rehash of the Iraqi script for an entirely profane cause. Without fear, without respect, unruly party stalwarts threw missiles at President Buhari as he tried to stamp his patriarchal authority at APC campaign rally. So spontaneous was the assault, so intense was the heckling that a column of bodyguards with fierce look had to form a cordon, thus framing momentarily a portrait of presidential vulnerability.

    Nothing could be more defiant, more irreverent of Nigerian sovereignty as embodied by PMB.

    Cynically, host Governor Ibikunle Amosun would then urge the thugs in Yoruba to stop and “don’t disgrace me before our father… (T)his sort of negativity is what they always wanted to happen” in a tone that sounded more like jest than an appeal to reason.

    But it was too obvious their sole mission was to spoil what would have been the finest moment of Dapo Abiodun, the governorship candidate of APC.

    Many saw it coming, though. Long before Buhari’s helicoptered over from an earlier political engagement in Ilorin that day, the Ogun governor, who has not hidden his bitterness over his anointed’s loss of the party’s governorship ticket, was sighted fraternizing with the “rebels” at the campaign ground. To the perceptive, it was too obvious from that moment that Amosun had much more concealed in his sky-high, “shalake” (machete) cap than readily meet the eyes. You don’t bring the cat to the gathering of the pigeons and not expect disorder.

    If nothing at all, such patronizing statement to the rampaging thugs by Amosun surely confirmed his familiarity – if not complicity – with those who came to assault the president. By bringing battalions of the “rebel” Allied Peoples Movement (APM) to such assembly, it was clear Amosun sought to forcibly enlist his illegitimate children in APC family meeting. Even after the community had said they found their presence abhorrent, they still would not stop grating the public ears further with the proverbial unsolicited song.

    Not only Abiodun was targeted for embarrassment in the circumstance. The tumult and booing were also contemptuous of the usually self-effacing Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Ogun’s highest-ranking political figure presently.

    Nor could such low conduct be flattering of Aremo Segun Osoba, two-term governor of the state, who was also present and undeniably one of Ogun’s best in the last three decades on account of his tireless contributions.

    So, what else could have goaded the provincial to saunter into the metropole in loincloth other than contempt for others who are urbane.

    When Amosun whines, shouting himself hoarse today against “the Lagos godfather” like a schoolboy dispossessed of candy, people are left wondering whether it is not the same benefactor of yesterday, the one whose round specs exemplify embroidered broken shackle in the invocation of the motif of liberty, whose generosity had afforded him the incisors to dare and bite then rampaging OGD in 2011 and on whose back he rode comfortably to the Abeokuta Government House in 2011.

    Well, it is one of the supreme ironies of life that the tramp we offer shelter in the hour of need, the one we gave teeth would later use same weapon to attack us, even without offence.

    Taken together, the Abeokuta show of shame is undoubtedly another symptom of the deep fissures within APC, exacerbated by the mismanaged primaries. It is obvious that the ghost of the last primaries is still haunting the party, awaiting decent interment and proper repose.

    Even at that, truth be told, President Buhari partly shares in the blame for a number of monstrous abberations since. The seed of confusion was inadvertently sown when he hosted APC’s governorship candidate at Aso Rock and in another breath, was sighted smooching the main contender in the same contest. At best, a mixed message is thus sent.

    It is easy to situate Buhari’s psychology in the hour, though. He seems sold on the promise by his party’s enemy to work for him in the presidential election. Apparently, the trade-off is for him to enjoin voters at such rallies to “vote your conscience in the other election”. But such convenient deal only imperils the party’s candidates in other elections, undermining the party’s larger interests in the long run.

    To be fair, the spirit of justice surely obliges us not to feign incomprehension of the grave words Amosun has continued to expressed in parables. Of course, very familiar now is the salacious tale of how some little men in big offices had convulsed and constipated on a dollar binge over APC tickets during the party primaries on a scale that caught the likes of Amosun and their anointed completely unawares.

    But that will still not be a justification for the show of shame in Abeokuta penultimate Monday nor can it excuse the grievous public assault on the office of Mr. President. The popular reading is that the old fakir from Daura is well aware of the lurid details of the the murky buying and selling that transpired and, on account of his fabled near psychotic aversion to barter of this nature, is only showing native prudence by waiting for the elections to be over before acting.

    So, while it is quite legitimate for Amosun to seek a pound of flesh for his failed investment, he and his supporters should have exercised a little bit more patience for Buhari’s expected avenging scythe on the extant dollars debauchery and not carry their anger across the border of treason like they did recklessly last week.

    The same apparition of mixed message is also manifest in Imo. When his campaign train earlier stopped in Owerri on January 29, Buhari had similarly romanced the candidate of the “rebel” party there. While the party’s position would seem a fierce denunciation of Okorocha’s monarchical aspiration – a progressive stand worthy of commendation, Buhari would rather cut a deal insofar his presidential stool is secured.

    And those familiar with the semiotics of his much-touted “body language” would then argue that his open flirtation with the Imo Governor during the Owerri fiasco of January 29 was a coded quip that he was equally aware of the abominable story of dollars there and the trafficking of party tickets to the highest bidders.

    Meanwhile, in Rivers, the dagger that stabbed APC in the back in still dripping fresh blood. It is a catastrophe of epic proportions that a ruling party is completely defenestrated from the ballot in perhaps the most strategic state in the Niger Delta, both at the state and National Assembly levels. It is a first in Nigeria’s electoral history.

    All the facts considered, there is no doubt that if the spirit of compromise had been imbibed the crisis would have been averted. Egos were not well managed. And those who should tell the truth were either distracted by the aroma of dollars (or “Aroma-dollars”, as someone pithily put it) or busy negotiating venal trade-offs in self-interest.

    Surely, APC will have to exorcise these demons after the elections to ensure the return of harmony and balance.

     

     

    Before we crucify INEC boss

    It is doubtul if INEC boss, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, would have had a rest of mind since last weekend. What with the torrents of barbs that greeted the last-minute shifting of the February 16 presidential polls to February 23.

    Naturally, various conspiracy theories have since mushroomed with some either suggesting he is APC’s agent or PDP’s mole.

    True, keeping the nation in the dark over the much-awaited polls till the eleventh hour is condemnable. But beyond that, it would appear nation is only back to a familiar sport – shopping for scape-goat for a crisis long foretold.

    While it is now politically correct to abuse Yakubu, no one will addresss the odds INEC faced all along. Funds were released to the commission less than two months to the elections. Had the cash been received as and when due, perhaps the electoral umpire would have been able to mobilize printers and contractors on time and the materials delivered ahead of time.

    In fact, a reliable source told me a cargo plane bearing some of the vital documents from Belgium only landed Abuja in the early hours of February 16!

    Another issue is the necessity to unbundle INEC. Going forward, it surely will be helpful to set in motion the process to streamline its functions after this general election. Given the nation’s exponential growth, sticking to the old template of election administration will only result in the kind of embarrassment of last weekend. For more efficiency, INEC should be reconfigured in a way that enables it focus essentially on its core manadate: conduct of election.

    To this end, three successor agencies have been proposed. The first should cater for registration and regulation of parties, the second for electoral offences and the third for constituency delimitation commission.

    Proposal for this has long been prepared. What remains is the political will to execute. For instance, part of the reforms is the formulation of legal ceiling that ensures that disputes arising from elections are dispensed with before the inauguration of the new dispensation. This is to ensure litigations don’t last forever or give custodian of a disputed mandate the unfair advantage of using public funds to fight their legal battle.

  • PMB and the Lagos crowd

    The ugly monkey is full of wiles and revels in iniquities. As the magic-realist tale from the folklore common in the coastal communities of Edo north goes, the comical primate makes a long career of betraying friends, conning neighbors and raiding communal trough for banana in assorted human guises and disguises.

    Then, come the day of reckoning. In the climax of the profound morality yarn, sly monkey goes to the market and fails to return home.

    The echo of the foregoing folklore could not have completely evaded those perceptive of the more dominant of the contending arguments between APC and PDP in Lagos ahead of the 2019 general elections. After losing the presidency in 2015, after pillaging Abuja and elsewhere for 16 years, PDP desperately sought a consolation prize. Shiploads of dollars were rushed to the Lagos coast. Smart Lagos voters gorged on the free dollars, but typically voted their conscience.

    So, it turned out that the proverbial monkey that entered Eko market did not return.

    Now, PDP is seeking to resurrect itself in this general election. But it is not certain yet if many are willing to buy its own counterfeit version of history in Lagos.

    With 6.6 million voters, Lagos is undoubtedly critical to deciding the direction of the electoral pendulum in the presidential duel.

    If enlightenment makes Lagos crowd easy to engage, that also makes it difficult to deceive them. The Lagos crowd is too discerning to mistake apples for oranges, too astute to easily forget the lessons of yesterday. Drawing from the best and the finest across the federation, the predisposition to a cosmopolitan character then means the Lagos crowd is not easily seduced with cheap sound-bites or detained by provincial prejudice that ordinarily poisons the air elsewhere.

    For instance, older Lagosians would easily recall the destitution of two decades ago. From the near wasteland of the 1999 when the soldiers retreated, Lagos has since morphed into the fifth largest economy of the African continent out of sheer innovation and consistency of a visionary leadership pioneered by Asiwaju Tinubu.

    If we then undertake a comparative audit, there is scarcely any enduring evidence or monument to prove that PDP acquitted itself appreciably in any of the five other South-West states it had opportunity to administer at some point in the last two decades. In Ogun, voodooism had infected politics. “Garrison fever” displaced folksy civility in Oyo. Ekiti degenerated to “stomach infrastructure”…

    So, when PDP feverishly seeks to preach the gospel of salvation today, it is as if they assume Lagosians have forgotten yesterday so quickly and that the people are incapable of the independence of thought. So sadistic, so power-drunk was PDP that federal might was used to barricade Lagos highways against even the deployment of ambulance – ordinarily designated universally as totemic of human compassion and charity.

    Who has forgotten how then works minister Seye Ogunlewe’s goons blocked on “federal highways” ambulances procured by Tinubu from ferrying the wounded and the bleeding at point zero, thus erasing the last chance of survival?

    Grumpy OBJ, in turn, needed a magnifier to read and digest Supreme Court judgement on withheld Lagos council funds while innocent school children waited on teachers owed salaries.

    It was that acutely discerning and reflective multitude that President Buhari came to face last Saturday as the APC train lumbered into Lagos.

    It was a moment for popular local music idol KWAM 1 to demonstrate the distinction of “Eko for Show”. The host governor, Akinwumi Ambode, made a modest rendition of “Shaku Shaku” shuffle. Governorship candidate Jide Sanwo-Olu gave a glimpse of the magic wand to expect before the ecstatic crowd.

    Amid song and dance in the Lagos sun that day, we heard the homeboy, “three-in-one minister” Babatunde Fashola detail an account of how Buhari had delivered in social infrastructure in Lagos despite the paucity of fund. Tinubu, in turn, reminded the people of yesterday. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo brought evangelical, if not professorial, fervor.

    With his distinctive “Kenny Rogers” white beard, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo could not have been mistaken in the mammoth crowd. Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo shuffled in belatedly in an unaccustomed Agbada. I saw my friend – one that sticks closer than a brother – Festus Keyamo too on the stage.

    Everything considered, given its sophisticated sense of judgment, the Lagos crowd will be the first to frown at President Buhari’s inadequacies in the past four years. There is no doubt that perhaps a better outcome would have been achieved had more clarity been brought to charting the economic direction early in the day and a broader prism adopted in selecting and recruiting from the over-abundance of talents across the land.

    But notwithstanding, there is no denying that, but for Buhari’s austere spirit, the economic carnage already inflicted in 2015 by the departing PDP vultures would have proved more intractable.

    Again, either idle mischief or sheer economic illiteracy is demonstrated when PDP accuses Buhari of borrowing too much money since 2015. PDP’s larceny and squandermania had bled the economy so much that by the time Jonathan was exiting, even federal workers were being owed back pay for the first time in Nigeria’s history. So, Buhari’s borrowing to fund the construction of infrastructure surely helped substantially to stanch the inherited hemorrhage as well as re-inflate the economy in adaptation of the Keynesian principle.

    True, some other promises of 2015 may not have been fulfilled, but the Lagos crowd remember that Buhari has delivered on ceding the ownership of key federal assets to Lagos as well as cementing its status as oil-producing state.

    Perhaps the most evocative is the construction and delivery of brand-new rail-track connecting Lagos and Abeokuta, complete with modern coaches. Ditto Lagos-to-Ibadan. Even an instinctively critical Professor Wole Soyinka had to attest at its inaugural ride from his native Abeokuta last week that such could only have resulted from “do-and-do politics” – a needlingly poignant innuendo against yet again OBJ, the most recognizable exponent of its vile opposite – “do-or-die politics”, born and bred in the very Abeokuta itself.

    At a sentimental level, Lagos, despite its variegated demographics, rarely ever forgets true comrades. On June 12, Buhari has undoubtedly kept faith. Those accusing him of seeking cheap plaudits by bestowing the highest honours in the land on MKO and the people’s authentic advocate, Gani Fawehinmi, conveniently assume that Lagosians have forgotten Buhari’s physical role during the popular resistance of June 12 annulment in 1993.

    As a young Concord politics reporter then, I covered countless street protests in Lagos, one of which Buhari was in the forefront alongside the likes of Pa Tony Enahoro. So, the Lagos crowd never forgets those who stood for something or truly identified with them in their hour of need. Not fair-weather friends. Or traitors who chanted ”alluta” in daylight in fake costumes only to collect Judas’ blood money from the military at night to sell unsuspecting comrades down the river.

    So, for Buhari, last Saturday must have been a reunion of sorts with the old Lagos crowd.

     

     

    Glo in world ring with Joshua 

    For boxing aficionados like us, reports of a dalliance between Glo and world’s new golden boy of boxing, Anthony Joshua (AJ), couldn’t have passed unnoticed. The meteoric rise of the Nigerian-born world heavyweight champion to global superstardom from the humblest of circumstances is only matched by the extraordinary run by the Nigerian telco on the continental turf.

    The cheering news is that with the reported “partnership” between brand Glo and brand Joshua, a powerful Nigerian story is presented to the global audience. We gleaned that from the schemer of marketing activities and innovations by the telco for 2019 unveiled last week.

    In boxing parlance, such deft marketing coup by Glo could be likened to the perfect fistic poetry of bobbing and weaving, capped with the knock-out of the opponent with a masterly delivery of hand combination.

    For effects, AJ declared: “I respect the ownership and management of Globacom and as a Nigerian, I believe charity must begin from home… We’ve the fastest speed, longest reach and the Nigerian fighting spirit as game changers.”

    In terms of international relations, the benefits of Glo-Josh partnership are undoubtedly immeasurable. One, when Joshua potentially mounts the rope square in June for the first time on U.S. soil against Jarell Miller, he will not only be defending his coveted world crowns but also showcasing Glo as well. National pride will be drawn from the resilience both have shown from little beginning to the zenith. No one gave Josh a chance initially in his fatherland. He would thereafter rise from the depression of personal turmoil as a teenager in the U.K. to conquer the boxing world.

    Similarly, Glo overcame the pains of losing $20m deposit in its initial bid for telecom license to becoming not only Nigeria’s preferred telco within a record short time but also a major player on the African continent.

    Two, by collaborating on the world stage, the benefits that the two big Nigerian brands are drawing are not only mutually beneficial, but also redound ultimately in PR mileage on Nigeria whose international stocks are, sadly, perennially blighted by the negativity of unabated terrorism and poor development index.

     

  • Re: Onnoghen: The wasp on the nation’s scrotum

    Louis, I am one of the regular and avid readers of your column, THE BOTTOM LINE, in The Nation newspaper. Keep up your patriotic and good articles please.

    In your said column of January 29, you wrote emphatically, “But until the provisions of the current law is discharged, the NJC is the only body empowered to recommend such summary action against an errant CJN”.

    You also wrote about ‘the relatively “inconsequential” Code of Conduct Tribunal’, CCT.

    With the greatest respect sir, I humbly and respectfully plead to disagree with you on both issues.  The 5th Schedule of our extant Constitution has vested the CCT and only the CCT with awesome powers, as affirmed in 2013 by Onnoghen himself in Ahmed vs. Ahmed & Ors.

    Onnoghen in the said 2013 judgment held that the CCT has exclusive jurisdiction over matters pertaining to the Code of conduct for public officers.

    Interpreting Paragraph 12 of the Fifth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) as regards CCT’s jurisdiction in Ahmed v. Ahmed & Ors (2013), Justice Onnoghen JSC (as he then was) held:

    “… the said paragraph 12 provides as follows; ‘Any allegation that a public officer has committed a breach of provisions of or has not complied with the provisions of this Code shall be made to the Code of Conduct Bureau.’

    “The foregoing provisions are clearly unambiguous and so construed literally mean that any breaches of any provisions of the said 5th schedule or matters of noncompliance with any provisions of the Code shall (meaning that it is mandatory i.e must) be made to the Code of Conduct Bureau that has established its Tribunal with the exclusive jurisdiction to deal with any violations of any provisions under the Code.

    “If I may emphasize, any violations shall be made to Code of Conduct Bureau. The provisions have made it mandatory to take any matters so covered by the 5th Schedule (supra) to the Code of Conduct Bureau and not to any ordinary regular Courts as has been done in this instance.

    “If I may repeat, the Code of Conduct Tribunal has been established with the exclusive jurisdiction to deal with all violations contravening any of the provisions of the Code as per paragraph 15(1). This provision has expressly ousted the powers of ordinary regular courts in respect of such violations.

    “The Tribunal to the exclusion of other courts is also empowered to impose any punishments as specified under sub-paragraphs (2) (a), (b), & (c) of paragraph 18 as provided in sub-paragraphs 3 and 4 of paragraph 18 while appeals shall lie as of right from such decisions to the Court of Appeal.

    “Simply put, to tackle any violation of the Code starts before the Code of Conduct Bureau Tribunal to the Court below on appeal and on a further appeal to this Court.

    “As can be seen, the lower Court exercises appellate jurisdiction over the Code of Conduct Tribunal and no more.”

    All public officers including The President and all judicial officers fall under the CCT as listed in Part II of the 5th Schedule.

    Only the CCT has jurisdiction to try cases of violation of the Code of Conduct for all the public officers listed in Part II of the 5th Schedule.

    If the CCT finds any public officer guilty of violating the code of conduct for public officers, it may impose any of the three sanctions listed in paragraph 18 (2) of Part I of the 5th Schedule.

    “The punishment which the Code of Conduct Tribunal may impose shall include any of the following – “(a) vacation of office or seat in any legislative house, as the case may be.”

    With the greatest respect sir, it is humbly submitted that the CCT is an awesome Tribunal with awesome powers including the removal from office of ANY public officer who violates the Code of Conduct for public officers.

    The CCT, sir, is not “relatively inconsequential”. It has awesome powers to remove any public officer from office if it finds such officer guilty of violating the Code of conduct for public officers.

    It follows therefore that the CCT has inherent powers to order the suspension from office of any Public officer before it, as it did in Onnoghen’s case since Onnoghen had admitted in writing that he had violated the code of conduct for public officers with respect to his Assets Declaration.

    The fear of the CCT by all public officers in Nigeria is indeed the beginning of wisdom, sir.

    The awesome powers of the CCT are understandable. All public officers take Oaths of office in which they swear among other things that they will abide by the Code of conduct for public officers.

    If any public officer violates the code of conduct for public officers, he has lost all basis to remain in public office sir.

    Thanks.

    • Dr J. O . A. Abalaka,

    08127340836;

    Jerry4aba@gmail.com

    Well done Odion, you have given me the first complete view of the story. The crime is a bad sickness but the drug chosen to treat it is not most appropriate.

    • Evang. CHRIS E.,

    Abi Local Government Area, Cross River State: 08126327915

    I’m surprised and disappointed that could suggest that a self-confessed criminal ought to have been called aside quietly, shown the weighty dossier and then advised to resign. What impact would this action have on the anti-corruption war of this administration? In effect, you are suggesting some cover up. Why? Aren’t we all equal before the law? If we don’t treat everybody and all institutions equally, we shall not win the war against poverty.

    • Udoma Uboh, Ota: 08022025169

    My brother, thank God for this Buhari man. As a minister in the temple of jusitice for thirty years, my eyes have seen a lot. A conscientious lawyer can’t win a case. The judges are trading in justice. Last week, my client lost her case at the Supreme Court for being unable to deposit the bribe demanded upfront. Justice is endangered. We are in trouble. Thanks.

    • 08033397362

    The Facebook argumentators would never see a detailed piece like this on the issue of CJN before coming up with their jaundiced arguments.

    Thumbs up!

    • Adeleke Adebayo

    The judiciary on its own can’t be corrupt if not influenced by an equally corrupt executive, legislature and the larger society. Take notice that Onnoghen was never wanted by the powers that be. Didn’t you observe the snail speed that occasioned his appointment as opposed to the rush in treating the petition against him, his trial and suspension?

    In the thoughtless support of Buhari, some people take hook, line and sinker what he says and does without due regard to the legal provision as in the extant case. Buhari is not the law. Some people either by design or accident are leading him to his political grave.

    That order was a fraud. It also came from one who still has the real corruption charge hanging on his neck. In climes that the law acts as an ass, Buhari, after the yet to be resolved saga of his own certificate and clear violation of court orders, would have resigned or be forced out. It is neither here nor there.

    We are all casualties in a collapsed system, not just the issue of Onnoghen.

    • EDET ESSIEN ESQ,

    Calabar, Cross River: 08037952470

    Louis, great piece on Onnoghen. My take on the issue is that it smells like a plot gone awry. First quesrion is: why did it take almost an eternity to confirm Onnoghen’s appointment? The grapevine has it that the Senate actually saw some things which, for reasons best known to them, they overlooked. Politics?

    Two, it is glaring a huge chunk of all that cash came from politically exposed sources. Not the safest, you’ll agree? And the bottom-line: the high wire politics of 2019. Looks like there’s a plot to do a job on PMB, but they got hit instead. That hurts real bad, isn’t it?

    Lastly, why on earth should anyone arrange a “dignified” exit for a dirty corrupt CJ?

    Enjoy the rest of your day.

    • Olu: 08033013597

  • Onnoghen: The wasp on the nation’s scrotum

    An otherwise solid moral argument against Justice Walter Onnoghen is, alas, weakened by those uninformed enough to draw a parallel with the Ayo Salami affair, to justify the suspension of the Chief Justice of the Nation (CJN) last Friday.

    Nothing could be more offensive to either the spirit of natural justice or the memory of the just.

    True, both fell short in the eyes of the presiding king, but for markedly disparate reasons. As President of the Court of Appeal, Salami refused to cut a deal with the devil to keep a job. Put simply, PDP had suspected him of romance with the opposition, but without a cast-iron proof or what they call “smoking gun”.

    For under his lordship, that temple of law was fast becoming the cemetery of many a PDP gubernatorial usurper who had managed to beat the election tribunal. And still hovering across the national space then was the ghost of the Sokoto governorship case hurriedly buried in a shallow grave, but with the proverbial foot still sticking out.

    So, anxiety – if not panic – stalked high places in Abuja.  For Justice Salami’s conscientious diligence had ensured stolen mandates were retrieved in Ondo, Edo, Ekiti and Osun States, thereby altering the nation’s electoral calendar forever.

    In desperation, PDP’s scheming undertakers wielded their trump card. They brought Salami a whited sepulcher in form of unsolicited promotion to the higher bench. All kind of chicanery known or strange to judicial service were brought to bear to contrive a stalemate till then embattled Salami became ripe for retirement statutorily. To finally do Salami in, Jonathan, even as notoriously tardy and nefarious as he was, still had to invoke NJC’s report, induced undoubtedly. How then does the foregoing epic confrontation between a noble judge and those who believed in nothing compare to the unfolding Onnoghen sacrilege in which a man expected to be the embodiment of virtues and nobility is, instead, found to be luxuriating in moral filth and even confessed to grave misconduct?

    Seeking justification by lumping together the two referenced judicial actors who actually represent both extremes of a compelling mortality tale – as Buhari supporters have done, could only be a product of faulty reasoning. If anything, they betray their idol by giving him away as perhaps no better than his predecessor in moral judgement and lacking the gumption to know his limits in the intercourse of democracy, however altruistic his intentions.

    To be sure, all genuine patriots must applaud the rigour apparent in the forensic inquiry that unearthed Onnoghen’s hidden billions in dollars and real estate. From what has been revealed thus far, one could not be accused of malice to speculate that the supposed chief priest in the temple of law had parlayed his sacred stool to judgement racketeering. If the court has been identified as the last hope of the common man, a society is in grave danger indeed if unimpeachable evidence suggests in anyway that the chief legal officer is of doubtful character, let alone attests a long career of impropriety.

    Other than deciding which colluding judge handled which “juicy” case, it would then seem the man had all along been left alone to devote the remainder of his official hours to the obviously more pleasurable – but nonetheless abominable – task of monitoring the regular beeps of bank alert to his conglomerate of bank accounts – local and offshore.

    On that ground alone, it had become clear that Onnoghen was already ethically fractured that he probably would be requiring an overdose of the moral equivalent of steroids to even make an appearance in the public, much less dare wear a wig and gown to sit in judgement over someone else.

    Given the sheer weight of the sleaze now excavated, a more self-respecting official would have long spared himself the shame of more indignity arising from further exposure by voluntarily throwing in the towel. Someone mindful of the integrity of the judiciary as an institution and protective of its pride would not wait till things degenerate to this sorry state that the task of defending him publicly is now being championed by a motley crowd dominated, in turn, by known shady characters.

    Among them also may be found those who had probably paid dollars and were issued receipts for “black market” judgements in the past and so now afraid Nemesis might arrive their own doors soon.

    Having said that, let it however be stressed that a shallow understanding of Montesquieu’s doctrine of separation of power is what is betrayed when the head of the executive branch takes liberty to cite an order from the relatively “inconsequential” Code of Conduct Tribunal as enough grounds to suspend the head of a “sister” branch. Only one word best describes any attempt to short-circuit the due process in the circumstance – arbitrariness.

    In order that things do not get too complicated and the original question lost, let us, for now, conveniently ignore the growing insinuations of official hypocrisy here by not remembering that the issuant of the very order with which Onnoghen was clobbered too is yet to fully wash himself clean of similar allegation of receiving bribes on duty.

    Or the no less salacious report of a creeping power incest in that the spouse of the acting CJN is a known agent of the ruling party, aside the open secret that the spouse of the critical Court of Appeal is also seeking to represent Bauchi at the senate in the coming general elections under APC.

    That singular precipitate action of last Friday, let it be said, spoils Buhari’s argument and invariably creates a moral baggage for what should otherwise be supported as a worthy battle to combat graft and make a better society. Everything considered, genuine patriots defensive of the inviolability of the institutions as the most sustainable recipe for the harmony and balance of society could not have failed to contemplate other scenarios to resolve the Onnoghen challenge without having to drag the entire bench out for public ridicule as currently being witnessed.

    In specific terms, we are not in a position to know yet whether any sort of “soft landing” for the CJN was ever negotiated in confidence before the scandal blew open. Were the do-gooders in the executive branch truly committed to preserving the prestige of the judiciary as they would have us believe as the basis for the current course of action, a few other options could have been pursued with a view to achieving the same outcome.

    For instance, would it not have been more prudent to call the errant officer aside quietly, show him the weighty dossier and then advise him to resign voluntarily, if only to preserve what is left of his public image and also the integrity of the judiciary as an institution? Was this done? If yes, did the man refuse?

    Regardless of the hell-raising at the gate by Onnoghen sympathizers, something is quite undeniable now. If we were observant, we should have since perceived the pathetic picture of an absconding man or a troubled character shutting himself in. It explains why Onnoghen would suddenly adjourn indefinitely the sitting of the National Judicial Council statutorily headed by the CJN. And when some busybodies circulated a false report that his abode had been encircled by EFCC hounds, he quickly put out a statement debunking the story.

    If we also listen carefully above the babel, we would observe that, even in their irreverence, none of his advocates thus far has an answer to the startling cash revelations which, ordinarily, would recommend Onnoghen strongly for the next issue of Forbes magazine as perhaps the richest judicial worker!

    True, we live in dangerously treacherous times in which what is known cannot be detailed in words, and what is written is clearly an understatement of reality. For instance, it is known that the legislature in Abuja is now led by Buhari’s enemies and, ipso facto, is not expected to see things his own way. So, seeking the concurrence of a partisan National Assembly to ease out the mortally injured Onnoghen seamlessly would be herculean indeed.

    But until the provisions of the current law is discharged, the NJC is the only body empowered to recommend such summary action against an errant CJN. It is clear Onnoghen cannot continue. The NJC must however be allowed to assert its authority, even if it means summoning the grace to devise a more dignifying exit for its head that has fallen into infamy.

  • Andy Uba’s ‘traders’ versus Igodomigodo

    Known to be intensely shy, Andy Uba would ordinarily not utter a word if he thought silence was adequate. Which is why one’s curiosity was aroused by the outburst attributed to him recently against what was described as an attempt by “traders” and “illiterates” to hijack the political process in Anambra.

    While making a passionate pitch for his constituents in Anambra South senatorial district to renew his mandate, Uba uncharacteristically took a swipe at the opposition ahead of the February 16 polls: “The Senate is a serious place… It’s not a place for traders. But what you see is that some people contesting the position with me cannot write their names… It’s disheartening that these young men… have abandoned their businesses to vie for political positions. Any illiterate trader who goes to the Senate will not be able to sponsor a single bill in four years.”

    Though Senator Uba did not name names, it is easy to infer that among them must be his scruffy sibling, Chris Uba, better known as “the godfather of all godfathers” of Anambra politics. Not surprising, the latter is contesting on PDP’s platform.

    Apparently tired of being “outsmarted” by those he sponsored to political office in the past (including incumbent Labour minister Chris Ngige), the younger Uba has become wiser and so decided to discard surrogacy by marketing himself directly.

    Another character unlikely to find the missile by the senior Uba funny would be a fellow Anambra senator wearing the colours of the ruling party in the state. Other than his trademark mountain-high red cap and a viral media photo showing him snoozing once during plenary, the fellow already distinguished himself as a senate bench-warmer. Against this backcloth, it is then easy to understand the alarm by the senior Uba. Consider, for instance, the prospects of the ninth assembly parading the likes of the famed “grammarian” Patrick Obahiagbon (“Igodomigodo”) from Edo State, now said to be the toast of folks in the Bini-speaking area desirous of a louder voice at the Senate.

    If debates then got too grammatical, the “traders” Uba mentioned would probably be left to engage themselves by punching figures on their accustomed calculators when the likes of “Igodomigodo” begin to unpack their artillery, while the “illiterates” would either stare vacantly at the high ceiling or conveniently doze off.

    Well, we have less than three weeks to establish whether the “traders” and “illiterates” will prevail in Anambra.

  • The last of Awo’s cavalrymen

    It appeared odd, if not outright farcical. Reappearing after disappearing briefly from the dinning-table that memorable morning in 2001, the steward miraculously produced a medium jar of Milo, to the culinary relief of the choosy one among the guests.

    Not until our chief host casually waved off the chef who had tried to tender the change from the little grocery shopping did it become clear to some of us why Chief Bisi Akande had momentarily been distracted from the hearty banter earlier as he gave out some bank notes from his pocket for an errand obviously intended to be discreet.

    Actually, one of the visiting editors would prefer beverage drink to the Lipton tea available for breakfast. It happened that such “indulgent” brew was not normally served at the governor’s table at the Osogbo White House then, reflecting his abstemious taste.

    On noticing the abstention at the other end of table from the feasting going on, Baba Akande, long famous for his disdain for protocols, beckoned the waiter and simply mobilized him from the pocket of his trademark “danshiki” to do the needful just across the road outside the Government House, rather than show off power to the august guests by summoning the whole department supervisor, lest he ended up making a big ceremony of a simple matter.

    Fleeting as the foregoing drama might appear, it typified the culture of frugality Osun State would know after Akande was sworn in as the second elected governor in 1999.

    Such virtue is surely now a rarity in high places in Nigeria as extravagance is commonly glorified instead of modesty, debauchery preferred by those of whom chastity is expected.

    As Baba Akande then joins the octogenarian club, there can be no better moment to pause and reflect on an exemplary life, whose cocktail of trials and triumphs truly inspires, a reminder that politics is at its noblest when guided by high principle.

    Today, on account of the prevalence of political “cross-breeding” of the past three decades in the South-West in which actors often switch parties and forswear allegiance with the unpredictability only matched by the fabled volatility of British weather, the term “Awoist” clearly now bears different meanings.

    Well, let it be first acknowledged that it is within the perimeter of liberty by mutants to lay claims. A fact already conceded by the sage himself. While offering clarification on the prospects of immortality, Awolowo had famously declared those who could truly be called “Awoists” in future would not necessarily be those related to him by blood or old association, but by shared values.

    So, if Awoism could be defined in broad terms as a fierce fidelity to a progressive ideology, stubborn resolve against compromising principle however the temptation, and that unquestioning loyalty to the cause of friendship as exemplified by the very literal meaning of “Afenifere”, then Baba Akande could perhaps rightly be described today as Awo’s last general standing in more than one way.

    Indeed, the referenced mission to Osogbo that fateful weekend in 2001 was more of fact-finding. Osun had been engulfed by a debilitating industrial crisis. Workers wanted higher wage. Akande, in turn, opened the books to show that the state’s meager earnings could not fund the raise the labour wanted.

    As tension swirled around the province of the fabled “living spring”, a homeboy who happened to be a senior journalist decided to weigh in, perhaps as a civic contribution to his troubled homeland in search of solution. Drawing on “professional solidarity”, he pressed this writer as THISDAY editor then and a few other newspaper editors to visit from Lagos to not only engage the governor directly but also have a first-hand feel of Osun reality with a view to better understanding the raging crisis.

    So, for more than two hours, we literally grilled the governor in a brutally frank exchange in which no hard punch was spared. Like a seasoned matador, Baba Akande took all the darts, not dodging any, sometimes resorting to native humour to explain his difficulties.

    From that frank conversation, his position was unambiguous: the only option available to meet the workers’ demand then was to go on borrowing spree. To him, that was unthinkable on ethical grounds. It simply meant stealing from the unborn generation.

    There were a few other things he also could not contemplate, out of ideological fidelity to welfarist values. One of which was the bias for social spending in form of free and compulsory education to Osun children so much that between 1999 and 2001, a colossal N522.85m had been spent as subsidy on education. The magnitude is better appreciated considering that Osun’s entire annual budget then was a few billions of Naira.

    Expectedly, before leaving town, we visited a number of projects being undertaken by Akande including the construction and furnishing of hundreds of modern classrooms to meet the inherited huge deficit at both primary and secondary levels.

    Leaving Osun two days later, one could not but now see Akande and the Osun impasse in two inter-related lights. One was the uncommon fortitude he brought to bear in defending Awo’s core value – free education as a tool to fostering an egalitarian society. Second was the dialectical crisis arising from the former. Osun’s fiscal failure spoke, in turn, directly to the crisis of federalism in Nigeria. Indeed, the state, like most others across the Nigeria, would only continue to manage poverty, given the prevailing queer federal architecture.

    For instance, studies confirm that Ilesha is rich in gold. But Nigeria’s own warped federalism forbids states from exploiting the riches of their soil to better themsleves. Everyone is made to forfeit ownership to a buccaneering Leviathan at the centre which, in turn, dispenses crumbs to the federating units by a principle that glorifies predation than production.

    So, the gripping irony: even though living by the river, the proverbial swamp-dweller is left to die of thirst.

    In hindsight, it would perhaps not be too harsh now to accuse the early optimists in 1999 of sheer naivety in trusting Obasanjo too much on account of merely professing being “born-again democrat” and expecting a fulfillment of the inaugural promise to consider structural change.

    But adapting military stratagem of ambush for a purely civil outcome, OBJ would intensify such lip-service to seduce the grandees of the progressive community in South-west into lowering their guard at home until they were routed electorally in one fell swoop in 2003.

    Alas, the newly politically displaced would realize too late that the hyena remains and acts like the hyena, regardless of the fancy apparel deployed as disguise.

    Ironically, that electoral defeat of 2003 would now appear Akande’s own defining moment. Others would have willingly entered into any deal to secure comfort, however temporary. But Akande was not ready to compromise his principle of prudence and accountability. Not even OBJ, the eternal narcissist, would fail to admit Akande’s honesty in a rare acknowledgement of good in any human being other than himself.

    While fielding questions a year after PDP’s historic capture of South-West (except Lagos), he said: “Chief Bisi Akande of Osun State is the only governor whose integrity I can vouch for.”

    But honesty is only one of the qualities that set Akande apart. Equally discernible in his political odyssey is the virtue of consistency – a rarity in a political environment where folks would trade honour and betray associates just for mere accommodation by anyone in power.

    Rather than be tamed, he parlayed that political adversity to an opportunity to rededicate himself to the advocacy of progressive values.

    Not surprising, his has since remained a trenchant voice for a return to fiscal federalism as originally conceived by the 1960 constitution as the most sustainable prescription for equity and justice in the increasingly conflicted Nigerian family.

    A true measure of character is said to be where an actor stands in the season of moral crisis. Nigeria’s 90s was undoubtedly defined by the popular resistance of military despotism symbolized by June 12. When it was most perilous, Akande stood to be counted among those who valiantly fought the military.

    By falling for the carrots dangled by IBB and Abacha, not a few Awoists would forfeit their own reputation. Those who returned from the dingy dalliance with the military during that momentous decade found themselves carrying mortal scar forever. They became enfeebled by emotional fracture arising from being estranged from old comrades, thus losing their voices in the civil space henceforth.

    Also, the murk that permeated the Jonathan era would prove pestilential for some other Awoists of old. Ordinarily, being found in varying compromising positions with barons of the then presiding conservative party would be enough political heresy already. With the details of how dollars meant to buy arms to fight Boko Haram was also generously shared in South-West ahead of the 2015 general elections by desperate Jonathan to buy support now public knowledge, many more have since become a bit more subtle in openly displaying their Awo cap in Yorubaland, more out of shame than self-restraint.

    In their quiet moments today, those implicated in that abominable tryst must be feeling bitter regret, humbled by shame at being found to have toiled all their youth building a worthy name only to be caught in strange – if not seedy – company in their hoary days.

    Coincidentally, it was in the same season that Akande’s political stock rose sharply. The titan from Ila-Orangun would undoubtedly go down in history as the man who as Interim Chairman inspired a broad coalition of progressives and some conservative rebels to unseat the ruling reactionary party in Nigeria in 2015.

    Thus, Akande would seem to have fulfilled yet another of Awo’s old prophecies: “For the progressive to be in power they need the support and collaborations of some conservatives. After attaining power, the conservatives would on their own, walk away. The progressive would now build a great party that would move the nation forward.”

    If we then remember the sordid circumstances under which likes of Atiku broke away from APC last year, we cannot but be in awe of the sage’s prescience.

    No less compelling, therefore, is the need to also salute Akande’s abiding faithfulness as the last of Awo’s cavalrymen standing.

  • Parliamentary debate: Adede’s sobering insight

    Long before the National Assembly became known more or less as a “fattening grotto” for lawmakers on account of humongous compensation package recieved, that same arena was once inhabited by not a few actors with slender appetite, even modest taste.

    That is the generation that first warmed the seats at the iconic Green and Red chambers at the birth of this republic in 1999; the pioneers who viewed their purpose in Abuja as probably only a little different from a missionary assignment to help get back to her feet, a nation left broken by sixteen years of military occupation.

    Well, in hindsight, that would now seem the age of innocence.

    So, when colossal figures are reported today as monthly salaries of federal legislators, it is only natural that many of the “ancestors” will feel a sense of revulsion.

    One of them is Senator Musa Adede, who represented Cross Rivers North between 1999 and 2003. What had begun as a casual chat between the aviation aficionado and this writer in Lagos recently would lead to a trough of revelations about the fourth Assembly, providing practical insights that will surely bring some illuminations to the renewed debate to return the country to parliamentary system of government.

    Well, I’ve his consent to declassify the conversation. I choose to render it in a Q and A format, lest his often genial voice is muffled, stripping the message of its intimacy.

    Unequivocally, Senator Adede is for a massive review of the current presidential system, if not a wholesale return to parliamentary system: “What I advocate is picking the best of both systems to form what you may call the Nigerian hybrid that is workable and sustainable.”

    Having served as the chairman of the strategic committee on Transport of the Senate, the sexagenarian spoke with the authority of an insider, his immaculately white hair radiating a somewhat oracular halo.

    Expectedly, our parley touched the now vexed issue of lawmakers’ earnings. Indeed, Senator Shehu Sani recently confirmed that they cart home staggering N13.5m monthly as “running cost”, beside N750,000 entered as salary. There is another N200m entitlement for “constituency projects”.

    Barely concealing his outrage at the figures, Adede reeled out figures senators of his generation earned which sounded relatively like “chicken feed”:

    “My salary was N87,000 in 1999 as senator per month.”

    How about the hidden allowances?

    “With all the allowances consolidated, every thing was not more than N220,000 monthly, unlike today. The records are there.”

    Having had a first-hand experience of the system as Senator, what is exactly wrong with the presidential model?

    “First and foremost, I don’t want to join issues with anyone on this matter. I’m looking at what is practicable in our circumstances. If you look back at 1960 when we had parliamentary system, regions were exporting whatever they had – cocoa, groundnut and palm oil. We had lot of foreign exchange relative to our population then.

    “Given our current exconomic reality and the fact that we don’t manufacture anything in this country, we don’t have infrastructure, no power – and you require power to drive your industry, the time has come for us to tell ourselves the truth based on experience. The presidential system is damn too expensive.

    “How are we going to continue to fund our men and women in the National Assembly, not to talk of their supporting staff.

    “My worry is the current reality where a legislator is earning tons of millions monthly and his father or uncle or mother or sister who had served this country diligently for more than 35 years cannot boast of a million Naira. Something is wrong. In a parliamentary system of government, there is no way you run this kind of scheme and go scot free.

    “And so when I read that 71 members of the House of Reps came together to announce their resolve to work towards the actualization of a return to parliamentary system of government, I was happy.

    “On the one hand, I feel for the members of the National Assembly. I know there are duties they have to perform, some of which are imposed by the federal system. But on the other hand, I feel more for the country because we’re not getting value for our scarce resources.

    I think we should take another look at the report of the 2014 conference. In that conference which I was privileged to serve, we proposed an inclusive legislature that is part-time, to review our current presidential system to be sure we’re benefiting. I want us to look at the area of waste. Not only at the National Assembly, but across the board.”

    Which is more accountable between presidential and parliamentary system?

    “From experience, I can tell you parliamentary provides for more accountability. For instance, take the budget. What the National Assembly spends yearly runs into billions. Yet, the National Assembly is supposed to be a part-time affair. It is not a full-time job. When it comes to accountability, the legislator in a presidential system of government is not quite in control of the resources that go into his constituency.

    “The budget is such that even if you are allowed to make suggestion or you go and plead with the appropriations committee that they should take care of your constituency, even if they decide to assist, they have their own limitations. Take the case of roads, for instance. If your constituency does not fall on federal road, there is no way they will appropriate that funds to you. Whereas in a parliamentary system of government, you can make imput to assist your local region or constituency directly. But in presidential system, whatever suggestions you make is still subject to the approval of the executive arm of government. And if they approve, it must fall under federal roads or else there is no way it can be done.

    “On the issue of accountability, just look at the way the parliamentary system is practised in the UK. You see how the prime minister is held accountable during question time. For his actions and inactions. Whereas in presidential system, the 1999 constitution as amended gives certain powers to the president that makes him untouchable, that he can do anything he likes.”

    How come the lawmakers lament being overworked so much that they award themselves “hardship allowance”?

    “You see, in a presidential system of government, the legislature is expected to do so much. When in the National Assembly, you’re representing a federal constituency or a senatorial district. At the same time, you belong to between five and ten committees. If you’re chairman of the committee on appropriations, you’re dealing with minister of finance, minister of planning, the minister of budget and all other ministers put together, just as you’re dealing with your own chairmen. So, you spend 90 percent of your time working for Federal Government. So, you’ve very little time to devote to matters affecting your own constituency directly. That is why members of your constituency are often upset with you that you’re not coming home to attend to their needs.”

    How about the popular view that oversight functions are parlayed into extortionate schemes by lawmakers?

    “I held positions in the Senate and as regard all the committees that I was involved in, I can state categorically that I never extorted money from anyone. You can go and verify. In fact, I made sure I fought for the country. I was chairman of the senate committee on transport. I wanted to know what the government was doing in term of port rehabilitation, port decongestion. The training of our seamen. “We thought it unacceptable that despite the vast coastal resources we’ve as a country, we had no viable shipping line. Over the years, bad policies by successive governments had killed our shipping lines. Our patriotic efforts in this regard eventually led to the promulgation of the Cabotage Act signed into law by then President Obasanjo in 2003. Before then, it was difficult for Nigerian players to bid for the supply of crew boat or utility vessels in the oil industry. They would say you didn’t have the vessels or the capacity or the financial muscle. We said no. We insisted Nigerians must participate. That was how we came up with the Cabotage Revolving Fund through the Nigerian Maritime Authority at the time, now NIMASA.”

    Holding Obasanjo to account?

    “I can vouch for the patriotic commitment of someone like Senator (retired General) Ike Nwachukwu as the chairman of the senate committee on power. By 2000, we had realized that the government had spent billions of dollars to provide power without anything to show for it. That is why in 2001, we decided we were going to investigate the non-compliance with the appropriation acts signed into law by then President Obasanjo. But many didn’t understand what we set out to achieve. They thought we wanted to impeach Obasanjo and derail the nascent democracy. Far from it. One, impeachment process is cumbersome and takes time. We only wanted to ascertain the truth and help the system. Once something is signed into law, you’re bound to implement it.”

  • Finally, the Buhari effect

    There are variations in the tale of plots that eventuated in his dethronement some thirty-four years ago.

    But one account has never been in dispute – the introverted king had fore-knowledge of the dark conspiracy against him by his estranged military comrades.

    Others would have reacted savagely.

    On the summer night of August 1985 they finally came for him, the commander-in-chief chose to keep the posture of imperturbability till the very end, only offering to play martyr for something else – fidelity to service etiquette. According to multiple autobiographical accounts, not until the mutineering junior officers offered him full military salute as their superior did General Muhammadu Buhari eventually agree to surrender at Dodan Barracks.

    More than three decades later, faced with another stiff challenge to his power, it is an indifferent Buhari we see all over again.

    In the realm of psychology, there is surely a stark difference between being carefree and careless. The former describes a nobility of spirit that stultifies desperation; the latter hints of the negative instinct likely to result in self-destruction.

    Given the circumstances of his rise and fall in his first incarnation as military law-giver, it is safe to categorize Buhari’s affliction then as being “carefree” in power, other than the possibility of a fatalism fueled by faith.

    For a man often bad-mouthed by political opponents as too wooden and lacking spontaneity, how remarkable then that PMB finally managed to improvise a battle sign in a difficult moment and in an unlikely territory recently.

    While the opposition forces booed and heckled him at the National Assembly during the presentation of the draft budget, the old infantry general, exuding self-confidence even under fire, flashed his now famous eight-finger salute with a flourish that could only be meant to taunt traducers present.

    It was left for the political palmists to interpret that to the rest of us as a short-hand for eight years (term terms of office). And regardless of spirited attempts by opponent to draw a parallel between that sign and the symbol of a discredited extremist Islamic sect in Egypt, the Buhari people are not ashamed to show this off as their new mobilization tool. Overall, if truly Buhari is desperate about retaining power this time, we are yet to see the symptoms, even less than five weeks to the presidential election. One of the ready means of gauging the desperation of an incumbent seeking tenure-renewal is the willingness to throw cash around, even long before the race is declared open.

    While it is true that the hangover from the economic recession will ordinarily predispose politicians to keep an eye on the wallet, even more compelling is what is now generally acknowledged as Buhari’s proclivity for austere taste. This has obviously redounded not only in the character of his government and the options opened to his party but also the larger inter-party contest.

    When they say a lot depends on the presiding administration in an election season, it is partly because the power of incumbency enables it determine the shape of the battle and dictate the rules.

    In a recent article, Femi Ojudu, one of Nigerian journalism’s best currently making a difference in national politics, declared the forthcoming general elections as potentially the cheapest in the nation’s history. I cannot agree more.

    By deliberately keeping the campaign budget low, Buhari has, perhaps unwittingly, helped reduce the financial pressure on his opponents, thereby availing them a fighting chance.

    On a jovial note, the side talk in town today is, therefore, the epidemic of a “strange thirst” or “dry campaign” – euphemism for electioneering with very little or no provision of the customary freebies. No one has seen free dollars yet. But the freeloaders are unwilling to give up yet. Those who had anticipated such “rain” early, salivating lustfully, are now forced to scale down their expectation to, maybe, the last days of the campaign.

    Indeed, what Nigerians were used to on election eve is the culture of bazaar and feasting. Incumbency simply meant the license to open the public treasury to oil the electioneering wheels of the ruling party.

    Perhaps, the APC people have learnt from what befell PDP.  Same hour four years ago, the then ruling party took the nation on an infernal path in what would later be known as Dasukigate. Defence budgets set aside to fight Boko Haram rampaging at the door were instead heaped on the buffet table at the PDP caucus and the party barons casually took turn to make a kill.

    Well, maybe the trouble was semantics. One, the books expressly indicated the money was for arms. Perhaps, the PDP leaders’ only undoing was applying some creativity by simply settling for liquid arms instead to prosecute what they considered more nagging – the pending elections.

    But with the hostile takeover of Aso Rock on May 29, 2015, it was inevitable the prodigals would be made to vomit what they had gobbled. Many are still answering charges today. Everything considered, this development is surely good for our democracy. It is a good step to begin the demonetization of electoral contest in Nigeria.