The Nation Newspaper

Category: Louis Odion

  • Of Oko-croach and the incest in Imo

    While pursuing his feudal aspiration in Imo, Rochas Okorocha would appear to be reading Igbo history book upside down. Several decades after warrant chiefs appointed by the imperialists failed in Igbo land, how pathetic that the Imo governor still thought he could brandish an expired talisman and get a different outcome.

    The British assumed they were clever then. Since the Igbo were largely Republican and therefore unamenable to easy colonial predation, they resorted to assembling local quislings and robing them in royalty to lord it over their communities. The people, in turn, first chose to amuse themselves by watching the upstarts adjust their borrowed robes, revolting only after being asked to pay taxes to the white man.

    Armageddon would be let loose in places like Aba where women famously tumulted in 1929.

    Like the haughty warrant chief of old, Okorocha sought to dismantle democracy in Imo and erect a counterfeit monarchy. Until his sequined amulet failed him in the recent APC governorship primaries in Imo.

    Even among foraging gluttons, a code of conduct – even honour – is still expected. In the case of the Igwe of the Douglas House in Owerri, the trouble is that he attempted to take too much for the owner not to notice.

    If Okorocha had his way in the primaries, the coronation of his son-in-law and current Chief of Staff (Uche Nwosu) as possible successor in 2019 could only have meant a climax to the orgy of the worst political incest imaginable; one perpetrated without shame or the pang of conscience.

    Until the cookie crumbled, Nwosu had, in turn, begun to act the part. Whenever bullies taunted or whipped him in the neighborhood, he crawled back to the big daddy for a nose-wipe. He still dresses like his father-in-law. He tails him everywhere and mimics his idiosyncrasies. Perhaps, what remains to fully resemble the great Owelle is for him to grow a pot belly as well.

    Of course, Nwosu’s candidacy would also mean Okorocha’s daughter potentially taking over from her mother as Imo First Lady. With the governor anticipatorily awarding himself the Orlu senatorial ticket as part of his “retirement package” next year, and the wife also moving to Abuja potentially as House of Reps member, apart from the distinction of already being the queen’s mother in Imo. (Speculations had it that another of the Okorocha clan had been pencilled in as Nwosu’s running-mate!)

    Already, a sitting Minister from Imo (Prof. Anthony Anwukah) is father-in-law to Okorocha’s second daughter who, in turn, represents Imo on the board of a federal college of education. The Igwe’s younger sister is deputy Chief of Staff and doubles as Commissioner of Happiness. His son is APC’s House of Assembly candidate in Ideato. His eldest sister is said to manage all markets for the government, while the elder brother handles motor parks. Another sibling controls sand dredging across the state.

    Never in the history of otherwise fiercely independent Igbo nation has feudal enterprise been this extensive and audacious.

    So, now, you probably only need Okorocha’s Suharto cap, false smile and gaudy sash to frame the new perfect portrait of political greed.

    By the way, the credit for coining the word “Oko-croach” actually belongs to a world-renowned literary deity of Nigerian provenance in a lamentation voiced to a privileged circle when the latest chapter in Okorocha’s long-running circus opened.

    In one of an earlier two-part series, yours sincerely had indeed expressed puzzle at the nature of charms Okorocha was invoking to hypnotize Imo people – some of whom are thought to be scions of giants of Igbo history – into slavish acquiescence.

    Added to that is the infamy of erecting statues indiscriminately for those classified as heroes/heroines by Okorocha’s questionable standards. Or folks engaged in private business with him or those seen as potentially helpful in whichever direction the Igwe might wish to spread his commercial tentacle later.

    Not surprising, one of those so considered is the shifty Jacob Zuma, who has since been dethroned as president in South Africa on account of monumental sleaze.

    What made it even more laughable – if not treasonable – is that hundreds of millions of Naira was being splurged on such obscene statues and the unveiling ceremonies at a time workers were owed huge backlog of salaries and cheques issued pensioners were bouncing all over Imo.

    Having thus subjected the acclaimed “heartland” of the South-east to such unscrupulous privatization racket in the past seven and a half years, Okorocha apparently could not think of a better finale than having his son-in-law succeed him.

    But the Igwe underestimated the guile of the so-called Allied Forces. They understood the power of ambush and surprise. By plotting stealthily and pooling their forces together, they succeeded in outfoxing the garrulous Igwe to the party ticket eventually. Alas, the huge war-chest of dollars could not save Okorocha. (Someone alleged he was offered a bribe of $2m to rig the primaries but chose to vote his conscience.)

    Now, with his imagined fantasy political castle fast turning a mirage, it will perhaps require a miracle of biblical proportions if Okorocha will not have to depend solely on overdose of sedatives to battle insomnia for the remainder of his tenancy at the Douglas House.

    His possible anxiety would not be hard to situate. Denied the pleasure of picking his successor, Okorocha now has to face the worst nightmare of an insecure outgoing governor – the possibility – if not certainty – of a hostile take-over. Won’t the book of contracts be revisited? Won’t the unmarked graves be discovered and excavated and the hidden skeletons uncovered with malicious glee?

    Back in 2011, Okorocha hardly waited to be sworn in before exercising power. Long before the inauguration day, not a few banks received threat letters from the “Office of Governor-In-Waiting” against honoring cheques issued by the then outgoing governor.

    Now, opponents seem too impatient to even allow elections hold before pulling Okorocha’s legs. One of the opposition candidates has tellingly adopted the slogan, “Recovery Mission”, in what hints darkly of a revanchist plot against Okorocha’s “Rescue Mission”. He took a step further by announcing a “caveat emptor” on all the transactions by the present administration, with particular reference to land deals or disposal of government assets.

    Meanwhile, Okorocha, who sermonises on equity and justice outside, has continued to practise evil and impunity at home. Okorocha who has been thumbing his nose serially in contempt of court orders on the deputy governor (Eze Madumere) is also the one on the rooftop today flaunting, without shame, court papers purportedly restraining the national leadership from barring Nwosu’s candidacy.

    But without quorum and against a subsisting court order, Okorocha’s own faction in the state assembly had declared the deputy governor (Eze Madumere) impeached in July for nothing more than a temerity to eye the stool reserved for his boss’ son-in-law.

    Reminded of the futility of the exercise in the eyes of the law, the crafty Igwe thought he could outsmart justice. By the time the law would arrive to rescue DG, he seemed to have calculated, the tenure would have lapsed, thus rendering the whole exertion a mere academic exercise.

    But in a rare apportioning of poetic justice, the law rose redemptively for the DG a few weeks ago by quashing Okorocha’s kangaroo impeachment and restoring Madumere to office. Ever lawless, the Igwe responded by inventing new avenues to mock the law. According to reports, staff and security team attached to the DG’s office have been posted out. So, technically, that office now stands abolished! The Owerri prince is however free to parade himself as DG, if that will make him happy.

    Obviously, Karma has now arrived the Imo gate.

     

  • Alas, IBB’s admission of historic crime?

    Assailed all these years by the ghost of June 12, artful Maradona of Minna would now seem resolved to prey on the nation’s amnesia. So, while the public seem fixated lately on President Muhammadu Buhari’s certificate controversy, General Ibrahim Babangida chose to dabble into poetry curiously for Chief Arthur Nzeribe at the weekend on the latter’s 80th birthday.

    And what adjectival superlatives did the erstwhile self-styled military president not deploy in praise of the maverick politician. Samplers: “Since our paths crossed decades ago, You have remained a dependable ally”… “You still stretch your hands of fellowship, The beauty of true friendship nurtures your heart”… “A man with a different attitude, A Nigerian with a different orientation, whose understanding of the human mind, Gives you the cutting edge”.

    For the millennials (Nigerians below 30), Babangida’s referenced fulminations might not resonate much. The more impressionable among them might, in fact, even be tempted to consider him for a junior literary prize for a slightly audible nursery rhyme there.

    But certainly not with the older generation of Nigerians who are politically aware or were old enough to discern the momentous events that defined the country in the 90s, beginning with the climax of Babangida’s phony transition, and eventuating in the June 12 crisis.

    One, older folks could not have forgotten the leprous organisation called Association of Better Nigeria (ABN) led by Arthur Nzeribe. It was the shadowy group – a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of sorts – that was used to undermine the political process, set the cat among the pigeons and procure series of “black market” court rulings to scuttle the electoral victory of MKO Abiola in 1993.

    Of course, even though the chicanery was quite too obvious then, Babangida and his cult of dissemblers had continued to publicly disown the group till his disgraceful fall from power on August 27, 1993.

    With this Freudian slip of terming Nzeribe “a dependable ally”, Babangida has only inadvertently confirmed what many had known all the years: Nzeribe was his collaborator in scuttling the wishes and aspiration of 14m Nigerians who voted on June 12, 1993.

  • Anenih: The bitter-sweet memories

    Our first encounter in 2000 was simply apocalyptic. The old cop was at his bewitching best – marshalling provincial tactics of intimidation and seduction.

    An editor with THISDAY then, I was in Benin City for the weekend and happened to have been with then Governor Lucky Igbinedion at the White House that evening before the then acclaimed “strongman of Edo politics” appeared like an apparition.

    Nothing, in my wildest imagination, had prepared me for the coming volcanic eruption while chatting with the Edo governor over wine. As the day wore on, folks – a few familiar faces and the others unknown – began to trickle in, until the main lounge was packed full with the “powers and principalities” of Edo PDP then, ahead of a pre-scheduled state caucus meeting.

    Easily recognizable among them was the durable Chief Sam Ogbemudia, debonair Mike Oghiadome (deputy governor), gangling Samson Ekhabafe (now late) and feisty Aguele (state chairman).

    Then, the air would freeze as Chief Anenih sauntered in a white kaftan with everyone standing up in courtesy to “The Leader”.

    It didn’t take long for his sharp police eyes to notice the oddity of my presence.

    “Youngman, who are you?”, he muttered, before taking his seat on the two-seater sofa by the national flag.

    “I’m Louis Odion.”

    “Louis Odion, the journalist?,” he asked, eyes dimmed quizzically behind his trademark thick bi-focals, while others watched with growing curiosity.

    “You guessed right, sir.”

    What remains difficult to tell till date is whether it was that casual retort or the self-assuredness it was expressed that stoked Chief Anenih’s anger the more. With a voice now almost breathless in anger, he chose to direct his bazooka instead at the chief host (Igbinedion) and let out a fiery shot: “Lucky, what’s this enemy doing here?”

    “My Leader, Louis is my friend o. He’s in town and came for a drink.”

    “What friend?!” he exploded further in a paroxysm of expletives and imprecations, too harsh – if not mean – to restate here. He continued: “He cannot be a friend. This boy abuses everybody every day with his pen. I used to think he was even an old person. I didn’t know he’s such a young boy like this.”

    In the brief, testy silence that followed, the building would seem to be quaking in the tremor of his venomous rage.

    Then, the earth parted again and the volcanic eruption resumed in its blazing severity, with Chief Anenih finally thundering: “Young man, will you get out of this place!!!”

    Of course, by now, such dark hint was enough to activate my survival instinct.

    As I made for the door, the stentorian voice boomed again, “Young man, come back here!”, with the same Chief Anenih beckoning me to come and sit next to him on the sofa!

    Never in my life had I been this publicly embarrassed before.

    After hesitating at the door, I turned back, more out of respect for someone old enough to be my grandpa.

    Only then did the gathering of party grandees return to a cacophony of banters, but their voices muffled, in deep reverence of the monumental presence of “The Leader”, while awaiting the meeting to be called to order.

    In our corner, a completely new drama began to unfold. After you chastise a child with the right hand, they say, you’re obliged to cuddle him with the left. From the earlier bullying, “The Leader” suddenly and astonishingly resorted to patriarchal charms. The way he went about it was most disarming. He wasn’t looking at me as he began to speak in soft voice, having pulled closer on the sofa.

    Cupping his mouth with the right hand so that not even anyone standing by could eavesdrop while facing the crowd, he whispered conciliatorily to me: “I can see you’re really angry at the way I spoke to you now. Louis, that’s me. Go and ask my children, when I’m angry I tell them off. After that, we’re family again.”

    To break my last wall of defence, he doubled the flattery, “Louis, I never knew you were even this handsome,” his face now lit with a broad smile. “But if I may you, why do you always like attacking me in your writings?”

    “Sir, I’m only a journalist doing my work,” I finally found my voice “As a reporter, I report facts. As a columnist, I only express my personal opinion. I may be wrong, but don’t mean to be disrespectful, sir.”

    Then, he sent for his aide, Odion Ugbesia, and asked him: “Do you know this man?”

    “No sir.”

    “That’s the famous Louis Odion, the journalist. He’s your namesake and also from Edo. Take his number and give him all my direct numbers in Abuja and Benin and make sure you’re in touch with him.”

    Indeed, that night marked the next phase of the complicated relationship I would have with Chief Anenih in the next decade. Which journalist – especially one whose forte is political reporting – will not swoon at securing unlimited access to arguably one of the biggest players in Nigerian politics at the time. A rich news source, undoubtedly.

    But such access also comes its own perils.

    Unfailingly paternalistic, he would henceforth often ask THISDAY publisher (Mr. Nduka Obaigbena) whenever they met, “How’s my son?”, referring to me. And whenever Mr. Obaigbena wanted to pull my legs in the office, he would tease, “I wonder what you’re looking for in the circle of those old men.”

    The morning after a “political solution” was contrived to the Onshore-Offshore dichotomy palaver in 2002, I was the first journalist to get the exclusive, courtesy Anenih who presided over the presidential panel that sat all night to resolve the issue. That singular recommendation helped defuse mounting tension in the Niger Delta and brought immediate succor in particular to Akwa Ibom which had had to endure zero oil receipt for months.

    His sense of humour was something else. After being introduced publicly to Azu Ishiekwene, then editor of The PUNCH (against which he was vigorously pursuing a libel suit in court), Anenih quipped: “Ah, I never knew you already look lean,” referrring to Azu’s petite frame. “By the time I would have won my case again you in court and you’re forced to pay heavy penalty, I only wonder what flesh you will have left on your bones!”

    Doubtless, Anenih’s power and glory in the OBJ years were never in doubt. The Anenih-Atiku story is a riveting one indeed. Both being disciples of the mercurial Shehu Yar’Adua, it is amazing how OBJ they brought to power also separated them later.

    When OBJ’s campaign continued to limp late 1998 under Iyiorcha Ayu, it was Atiku Abubakar, as a popular acccount goes, that helped conscript Anenih, against OBJ’s initial reservations. No sooner had he taken charge than things changed dramatically. The secret? He simply reactivated the old boys’ network of Yar’Adua’s PDM by coopting members as OBJ’s field commanders in the 774 councils across the country. Only then did OBJ’s presidential campaign leap froward like tiger, a testimony to Anenih’s extraordinary talent at organizing and mobilizing.

    So, he instantly gained OBJ’s confidence and cemented his fame as the new “Mr. Fix It”. When the PDP’s presidential flagbearer later sought his counsel on the choice of running-mate after the party’s convention in Jos in 1999, “The Leader” did not hesitate before recommending Atiku as “the deputy you can trust” from the shortlist of five names.

    The story of how dire circumstances would set the two old Yar’Adua collaborators apart three years later is a story for another day.

    But a man of uncommon passions, he similarly triggered extreme emotions in others – cult worship among disciples and fierce hostility in adversaries. In what could only have spoken to a hangover from his professsional creed as policeman, he never seemed able to tolerate neutrality: you were either an ally or an enemy. To him, loyalty must include a willingness to inherit the leader’s enemies as well.

    That peculiar psychology would invariably redound on our relationship. He was never able to see reason in drawing a distinction between the professsional and the personal. Hard as I tried, I never succeeded in making him understand that I could only be held personally accountable for views expressed in my column, and not for reports published as objective representation of facts in the finest tradition of journalism.

    When the report was positive, he would call me and affectionately say, “My son”. When the story was unflattering and I called and began by saying “Daddy”, he would angrily snap back, “Will you stop ‘daddying’ me! You’ve done it again. You’re a bad son!!”

    When I wrote a column in his defence in 2004 as Sun editor based on my personal convinction in the heat of his skymish with then Governor Orji Kalu of Abia, he was deeply emotional when he called and spoke Ishan in expressing appreciation of my courage to write against the owner’s interest.

    But that “father-son” amity only endured till another negative story appeared in the Sunday Sun I edited till January 2008 or the National Life I was MD/Editor-In-Chief for the next three years.

    He would seem to finally give up on me after I accepted an offer to serve as Information Commissioner in the Adams Oshiomhole administration. “The Leader” would appear to have found it too hard to bear hearing the voice of his once beloved “son” speaking against him on national television or local radio stations or issuing statement denouncing “the  Edo godfathers” on behalf of Edo State Government. Again, he seemed unable – or unwilling – to accept the philosophical distinction between the professional and the personal.

    Then came February 17, 2012, the day Oba Eradiuauwa gave out his daughter in marriage. While exiting the marquee at the palace, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of neighbouring Delta State stopped to compliment me “for helping to reposition Comrade’s information management. I notice things have changed since you took over.”

    Uduaghan’s kind words only seemed to annoy “The Leader” who stood beside him. Then pointing finger at me menacingly, he growled: “Odion, you’ll soon see what’ll happen to you!” He repeated that four times.

    So, when on April 29, 2012 a band of gunmen laid siege to my private residence in Benin City and only retreated after the local vigilante boys engaged them in gun duel, it was humanly impossible for me not to draw a parallel between that descent to barbarism and the undisguised threat of February 17 and, therefore, become paranoid at “The Leader”.

    In remembering his flaws as a mortal, charity nothleseless obliges us to also acknowledge his strengths, chief of which was his generosity to unquestioning loyalty.

     

  • Anenih: The bitter-sweet memories

    Our first encounter in 2000 was simply apocalyptic. The old cop was at his bewitching best – marshalling provincial tactics of intimidation and seduction.

    An editor with THISDAY then, I was in Benin City for the weekend and happened to have been with then Governor Lucky Igbinedion at the White House that evening before the then acclaimed “strongman of Edo politics” appeared like an apparition.

    Nothing, in my wildest imagination, had prepared me for the coming volcanic eruption while chatting with the Edo governor over wine. As the day wore on, folks – a few familiar faces and the others unknown – began to trickle in, until the main lounge was packed full with the “powers and principalities” of Edo PDP then, ahead of a pre-scheduled state caucus meeting.

    Easily recognizable among them was the durable Chief Sam Ogbemudia, debonair Mike Oghiadome (deputy governor), gangling Samson Ekhabafe (now late) and feisty Aguele (state chairman).

    Then, the air would freeze as Chief Anenih sauntered in a white kaftan with everyone standing up in courtesy to “The Leader”.

    It didn’t take long for his sharp police eyes to notice the oddity of my presence.

    “Youngman, who are you?”, he muttered, before taking his seat on the two-seater sofa by the national flag.

    “I’m Louis Odion.”

    “Louis Odion, the journalist?,” he asked, eyes dimmed quizzically behind his trademark thick bi-focals, while others watched with growing curiosity.

    “You guessed right, sir.”

    What remains difficult to tell till date is whether it was that casual retort or the self-assuredness it was expressed that stoked Chief Anenih’s anger the more. With a voice now almost breathless in anger, he chose to direct his bazooka instead at the chief host (Igbinedion) and let out a fiery shot: “Lucky, what’s this enemy doing here?”

    “My Leader, Louis is my friend o. He’s in town and came for a drink.”

    “What friend?!” he exploded further in a paroxysm of expletives and imprecations, too harsh – if not mean – to restate here. He continued: “He cannot be a friend. This boy abuses everybody every day with his pen. I used to think he was even an old person. I didn’t know he’s such a young boy like this.”

    In the brief, testy silence that followed, the building would seem to be quaking in the tremor of his venomous rage.

    Then, the earth parted again and the volcanic eruption resumed in its blazing severity, with Chief Anenih finally thundering: “Young man, will you get out of this place!!!”

    Of course, by now, such dark hint was enough to activate my survival instinct.

    As I made for the door, the stentorian voice boomed again, “Young man, come back here!”, with the same Chief Anenih beckoning me to come and sit next to him on the sofa!

    Never in my life had I been this publicly embarrassed before.

    After hesitating at the door, I turned back, more out of respect for someone old enough to be my grandpa.

    Only then did the gathering of party grandees return to a cacophony of banters, but their voices muffled, in deep reverence of the monumental presence of “The Leader”, while awaiting the meeting to be called to order.

    In our corner, a completely new drama began to unfold. After you chastise a child with the right hand, they say, you’re obliged to cuddle him with the left. From the earlier bullying, “The Leader” suddenly and astonishingly resorted to patriarchal charms. The way he went about it was most disarming. He wasn’t looking at me as he began to speak in soft voice, having pulled closer on the sofa.

    Cupping his mouth with the right hand so that not even anyone standing by could eavesdrop while facing the crowd, he whispered conciliatorily to me: “I can see you’re really angry at the way I spoke to you now. Louis, that’s me. Go and ask my children, when I’m angry I tell them off. After that, we’re family again.”

    To break my last wall of defence, he doubled the flattery, “Louis, I never knew you were even this handsome,” his face now lit with a broad smile. “But if I may you, why do you always like attacking me in your writings?”

    “Sir, I’m only a journalist doing my work,” I finally found my voice “As a reporter, I report facts. As a columnist, I only express my personal opinion. I may be wrong, but don’t mean to be disrespectful, sir.”

    Then, he sent for his aide, Odion Ugbesia, and asked him: “Do you know this man?”

    “No sir.”

    “That’s the famous Louis Odion, the journalist. He’s your namesake and also from Edo. Take his number and give him all my direct numbers in Abuja and Benin and make sure you’re in touch with him.”

    Indeed, that night marked the next phase of the complicated relationship I would have with Chief Anenih in the next decade. Which journalist – especially one whose forte is political reporting – will not swoon at securing unlimited access to arguably one of the biggest players in Nigerian politics at the time. A rich news source, undoubtedly.

    But such access also comes its own perils.

    Unfailingly paternalistic, he would henceforth often ask THISDAY publisher (Mr. Nduka Obaigbena) whenever they met, “How’s my son?”, referring to me. And whenever Mr. Obaigbena wanted to pull my legs in the office, he would tease, “I wonder what you’re looking for in the circle of those old men.”

    The morning after a “political solution” was contrived to the Onshore-Offshore dichotomy palaver in 2002, I was the first journalist to get the exclusive, courtesy Anenih who presided over the presidential panel that sat all night to resolve the issue. That singular recommendation helped defuse mounting tension in the Niger Delta and brought immediate succor in particular to Akwa Ibom which had had to endure zero oil receipt for months.

    His sense of humour was something else. After being introduced publicly to Azu Ishiekwene, then editor of The PUNCH (against which he was vigorously pursuing a libel suit in court), Anenih quipped: “Ah, I never knew you already look lean,” referrring to Azu’s petite frame. “By the time I would have won my case again you in court and you’re forced to pay heavy penalty, I only wonder what flesh you will have left on your bones!”

    Doubtless, Anenih’s power and glory in the OBJ years were never in doubt. The Anenih-Atiku story is a riveting one indeed. Both being disciples of the mercurial Shehu Yar’Adua, it is amazing how OBJ they brought to power also separated them later.

    When OBJ’s campaign continued to limp late 1998 under Iyiorcha Ayu, it was Atiku Abubakar, as a popular acccount goes, that helped conscript Anenih, against OBJ’s initial reservations. No sooner had he taken charge than things changed dramatically. The secret? He simply reactivated the old boys’ network of Yar’Adua’s PDM by coopting members as OBJ’s field commanders in the 774 councils across the country. Only then did OBJ’s presidential campaign leap froward like tiger, a testimony to Anenih’s extraordinary talent at organizing and mobilizing.

    So, he instantly gained OBJ’s confidence and cemented his fame as the new “Mr. Fix It”. When the PDP’s presidential flagbearer later sought his counsel on the choice of running-mate after the party’s convention in Jos in 1999, “The Leader” did not hesitate before recommending Atiku as “the deputy you can trust” from the shortlist of five names.

    The story of how dire circumstances would set the two old Yar’Adua collaborators apart three years later is a story for another day.

    But a man of uncommon passions, he similarly triggered extreme emotions in others – cult worship among disciples and fierce hostility in adversaries. In what could only have spoken to a hangover from his professsional creed as policeman, he never seemed able to tolerate neutrality: you were either an ally or an enemy. To him, loyalty must include a willingness to inherit the leader’s enemies as well.

    That peculiar psychology would invariably redound on our relationship. He was never able to see reason in drawing a distinction between the professsional and the personal. Hard as I tried, I never succeeded in making him understand that I could only be held personally accountable for views expressed in my column, and not for reports published as objective representation of facts in the finest tradition of journalism.

    When the report was positive, he would call me and affectionately say, “My son”. When the story was unflattering and I called and began by saying “Daddy”, he would angrily snap back, “Will you stop ‘daddying’ me! You’ve done it again. You’re a bad son!!”

    When I wrote a column in his defence in 2004 as Sun editor based on my personal convinction in the heat of his skymish with then Governor Orji Kalu of Abia, he was deeply emotional when he called and spoke Ishan in expressing appreciation of my courage to write against the owner’s interest.

    But that “father-son” amity only endured till another negative story appeared in the Sunday Sun I edited till January 2008 or the National Life I was MD/Editor-In-Chief for the next three years.

    He would seem to finally give up on me after I accepted an offer to serve as Information Commissioner in the Adams Oshiomhole administration. “The Leader” would appear to have found it too hard to bear hearing the voice of his once beloved “son” speaking against him on national television or local radio stations or issuing statement denouncing “the  Edo godfathers” on behalf of Edo State Government. Again, he seemed unable – or unwilling – to accept the philosophical distinction between the professional and the personal.

    Then came February 17, 2012, the day Oba Eradiuauwa gave out his daughter in marriage. While exiting the marquee at the palace, Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of neighbouring Delta State stopped to compliment me “for helping to reposition Comrade’s information management. I notice things have changed since you took over.”

    Uduaghan’s kind words only seemed to annoy “The Leader” who stood beside him. Then pointing finger at me menacingly, he growled: “Odion, you’ll soon see what’ll happen to you!” He repeated that four times.

    So, when on April 29, 2012 a band of gunmen laid siege to my private residence in Benin City and only retreated after the local vigilante boys engaged them in gun duel, it was humanly impossible for me not to draw a parallel between that descent to barbarism and the undisguised threat of February 17 and, therefore, become paranoid at “The Leader”.

    In remembering his flaws as a mortal, charity nothleseless obliges us to also acknowledge his strengths, chief of which was his generosity to unquestioning loyalty.

  • Yusuf: The insolent child of impunity

    Those tempted to view corruption only in materialist terms, overlooking the abstract subversion of norms and values, will perhaps be forced to have a rethink by simply following the farcical drama currently unfolding at the National Health Insurance Scheme.

    Equating his kinship with President Buhari to a talisman, Usman Yusuf was not content at only breaking all extant service rules as the Executive Secretary; he went a step further by daring constituted authorities at the health ministry to hold him to account.

    Directed by the Acting President to examine a slew of petitions against the NHIS Executive Secretary, Minister Isaac Adewole had little or no difficulty in asking him to proceed on a three-month suspension to enable an unimpeded investigation.

    Unsatisfied with the defence made by the embattled ES to the weighty charges, Adewole wrote: “Consequently, you are directed to proceed on three months suspension with immediate effect to pave way for an uninterrupted investigation, in accordance with Public Service Rule.”

    Tellingly, the workers’ union in the agency were the first to applaud the minister’s action as the right step to curtail what they described as the “primitive stealing going on”.

    But in a leaked memo dated July 12 (2017) addressed to the Minister responding to his suspension over alleged massive graft among other actions unbecoming of a public officer, the Katsina-born professor pointedly declared he was not answerable to anyone other than PMB, casually hinting he would rather sit tight.

    Drawing confidence apparently from a mis-reading of sections of the NHIS law, he claimed that only the man who appointed him on a renewable term of five years was capable of questioning his actions or conduct. His words: “By virtue of the NHIS Act particularly section 4 and 8 thereof, my appointment and removal from office whether by way of suspension or otherwise is at the instance of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

    The waters would be muddied further following a counter-motion by the House of Reps ordering Yusuf’s reinstatement. According to the House, Yusuf’s suspension is prejudicial to an ongoing investigation into the whereabouts of N351m allocated to the agency between 2005 and 2016. Well, let it be said that the freedom of the House to issue express orders does not include the power to compel the minister’s obedience in the circumstance.

    In any case, when mighty logs fall on each other in the bush, as they say, common sense dictates that evacuation starts with the one on top.

    Yusuf’s thinly disguised arrogance surely bespeaks a mindset never seen in public service at that level in recent history. By his academic standing, a man assumed to be professor can hardly be accused of illiteracy and, therefore, cannot be excused for confusing the meaning of delegated authority. By virtue of being a member of federal executive council, a minister is the president’s agent and the principle of agency therefore entitles him to exercise his principal’s authority in his assigned station.

    In the absence of PMB, an Acting President is supposed to be in place, whose power the health minister would seem to invoke in directing that Yusuf proceed on suspension.

    So, only sheer impunity and contempt for everyone except PMB could have led Yusuf to word his reply to the minister in the insolent manner he did. Intoxicated by transient power, the little wayfarer from Katsina seems incapable of realizing yet that such indiscretion invariably does incalculable damage to PMB, his benefactor. If nothing at all, this will certainly be cited as another exhibit in the now not-so-subtle protestation  against the lopsidedness in Buhari’s key appointments, seen as  a form of sleaze on its own.

    Obviously a product of nepotism, Yusuf instinctively has been feeding the web as well. Among his first actions in office was said to be the appointment of his younger brother as General Manager (Legal) and his niece, a level 8 officer from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), catapulted to grade level 13 at the NHIS.

    Already, there are reports that the suspended ES has been telling people that he was being “persecuted” because of his refusal to meet an “illegal financial request” by the minister. Well, we honestly cannot rule that out. But even if this were true, it hardly absolves this clear case of mutiny.

    Nor will that be sufficient immunity not to answer the substantive charges of impropriety against him. Therefore, the relevant authorities had better ensured appropriate sanctions are meted to him as restitution for this act of rank insubordination in the first place, even if he was eventually found guiltless for the litany of sins he was originally accused of.

    Indeed, legion and weighty are the charges against Yusuf. The last straw that apparently broke the camel’s back was his decision to buy himself a N58m SUV from NHIS funds way above his N2.5m approval limit without the knowledge nor the concurrence of the supervising ministry despite that his office already had a number of serviceable SUVs.

    Before he landed the “juicy” appointment in 2016, very little was known of Yusuf beside his stint at an obscure medical address in the U.K. and later being found around one influential Kaduna-based contractor. Considering the nature of the operations of NHIS, not a few industry experts had expected someone with managerial or financial bias would be appointed.

    When the professor of “hematology, pediatrics and oncology” was eventually named the new NHIS boss, many were inclined to assume that his kinship with President Buhari largely influenced the appointment more than merit.

    But no sooner had he assumed office than alarm bells started chiming literally all over at NHIS, the same way domestic fire alarm is triggered by whiff of smoke. He seemed in a great hurry to turn the office into a vending machine for contracts often grossly inflated and incestuous.

    First was a phony N400m training contract allegedly awarded to his “benefactor and confidant” with a view to decimating the N860m set aside for “training” in NHIS’ 2016 budget.

    But in reality, according to one of the petitioners, “In one of the trainings, a course fee of N520,000 per staff for three days was approved without recourse to diligent planning but with the mindset to profiteer (sic) his cronies. After a lot of hue and cry from the general staff the fee was cut to N270,000 under suspicious circumstances.

    “Thus the fraud began, most of these trainings which were scheduled to hold across the 36 states and the FCT never held, while those that held was incomparable to the funds which had all being released for the trainings. There was absence of training materials in most of the designated venues of the trainings.

    “Multiples payment vouchers ranging (from) N19 million, N18 million (to) N21 million were raised to cover up for the payment of over N400 million for these trainings.

    “All these spendings he carried out were above his approval limit, but he was always heard to claim that he has the ears of the president, they being from the same state, and whatever your complaints, they will go nowhere.”

    There is another allegation that the contract for supply of e-library equipment to a company (Promatrix Global Resources Ltd) to the tune of N28 million was pre-paid before execution against procurement rules.

    In another deal, a princely N150 million was allegedly paid to a consultant “in the training of report writing”. The beneficiary? Yusuf’s own brother.

    For now, we can only hope the administrative panel will carry out a forensic investigation and ensure justice is served.

    But while awaiting the outcome, we can at least take solace in being provided yet another aperture onto why output never really measures up to input in Nigeria. Sleaze or “job for the boys” certainly was not part of the promises made to the nation when the NHIS was first unveiled in 1999. Rather, the mission statement outlined its goal as a quest to bridge the deficit in the nation’s healthcare, targeting government employees, the organized private sector, the informal sector, children under age 5, disabled persons and prison inmates.

    Between then and now, a whopping N351b has been expended on NHIS with little or no impact felt by the citizenry. In fact, eighteen years after, national coverage is today put at an abysmal 1.5 percent. In the current year, revitalization of over 10,000 primary healthcare centers (PHC) was listed among NHIS’ priorities, targeted at the most vulnerable in the society including rural women and children. But the funds earmarked for essential drugs for the people are rather diverted into providing luxury and comfort for officials. Life expectancy remains at 52 years. Malaria prevalence rate is still around 11 percent. Maternal mortality rate is still high. Under 5 mortality rate is still over 10 percent.

    Meanwhile, as things continue to fall apart in public hospitals on account of stolen budgets, more and more Nigerians now resort to churches and shrines in search of healing.

  • Intifada of the old guard

    Intifada is Arab word for uprising. It perhaps best describes the emerging battle formation in Nigeria’s expanding coliseum ahead of the 2019 polls.

    Indeed, today, only the utterly naive will still need an interpreter to decode the dire signal from the nation’s fraternity of restive generals.

    Other than in the heyday of coup in the 70s and 80s, never have we seen a gang-up of old soldiers this massive, with the sole objective to wrestle down a comrade (President Muhammadu Buhari) from whom they now appear irreconcilably estranged.

    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.

    So, 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.

    The insurgency intensified at the weekend with former President Olusegun Obasanjo opening heavy artillery fire from faraway Indonesia on Buhari. In what would have been considered high treason under military rule, he motioned the international audience to await a new leader that would sign a pending treaty to ease global trade, not PMB whose “hands are too weak.”

    It was a daring follow-up to a declaration a few days earlier in Abeokuta in which OBJ dramatically recanted his old political fatwa on Atiku Abubakar, proclaiming him “President-to-be”.

    The fireworks would appear to have been ignited the previous weekend with the electoral abracadabra in the Garden City bearing the military hallmark: numbing stealth. Like the ominous owl, Aliyu Gusau suddenly materialized at the crunch hour during the PDP convention. He it was, according to reports, that whispered a coded message to the influencers of the night to tilt the scale so overwhelmingly in Atiku’s favor, so much that the votes garnered by the second runner-up was only half of his.

    Dollar was no problem.

    Dazed by the forceful hijack of what he probably had considered his show all along, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers States, the generous host who barely concealed an affinity for Aminu Tambuwal, was soon sighted retreating hastily to his lair before the votes were counted. The young turk from Obi Akpor must have realized by now that battle-hardened generals tackle differently.

    Expectedly, coy Maradona of Minna is ever too timid to openly show his hands. But wherever Gusau goes, we can see his distinct shadow. Ditto the white-bearded Abdulasalami Abubakar.

    Only the uninitiated would remain unmoved when, suddenly, no word is heard anymore from spectral Theophilus Danjuma, the one with a dark scowl.

    While the old generals gear up for the final supremacy battle ahead, there can be no dispute that Atiku, otherwise considered a “lesser” retired officer on account of being of a paramilitary progeny, is the ultimate beneficiary. How pleasurable it must be for the man from Jada to sit back and watch his ancient foes now joining the battle to advance his interest.

    Apart from the sigh of relief from OBJ suddenly agreeing to make “peace” with him, Atiku must also feel a sense of closure on IBB who could perhaps be classified as the first to teach him the true meaning of political adversity some twenty-five years ago.

    Who would imagine that the man who in 1992 had mindlessly axed his political hero and mentor, Shehu Yar’Adua, when the latter appeared set to clinch the presidency on SDP platform at the height of the phony transition programme conducted by the shifty general, would today voluntarily be in his corner?

    Taken together, the generals’ onslaught against PMB could only mean one thing: a boost to the Atiku momentum.

    In squaring off to the new challenge, therefore, it will be fool-hardy for Buhari not to re-appraise his strategy and frame a new message that truly connects with the populace with a view to restoking flagging hope. If muck-raking or scare-mongering becomes the only agenda –  as it increasingly appears, the cacophony so generated is likely to completely drown whatever positive message there might be.

    Indeed, there is a growing drudgery – if not danger – of a one-plot narrative. There are few things commonsense teaches. When a vinyl is overplayed, for instance, no one needs any reminding of the inevitability of a crack, mangling the melody intended into a grating offence to the eardrums. The strategy of recycling old tales of corruption against Atiku may soon become counter-productive, especially as a seemingly resurgent PDP begins to catalogue APC’s own contradictions in the otherwise noble war against graft.

    True, few ghosts are unlikely to go away in the times ahead, notably the herdsmen violence and lopsidedness in PMB’s appointments.

    But it will be most unfair to say Buhari failed completely. What then has been a big puzzle is why Buhari and his people seem incapable of crowing more now about their own miracles. People readily connect with the issue of bread and butter.

    While it is true hunger remains, it bears restating that the situation could have been worse today without a more scrupulous management of the nation’s earnings since 2015. And if the economy indicators now suggest the nation has navigated its way out of perhaps the worst recession in more than three decades inflicted undoubtedly by the profligacy of the preceding PDP administration, how come the people are not being reminded the more that that redemption is largely due, not to a sudden oil windfall, but Buhari’s frugality and insistence on value for money?

    Again, while Boko Haram may not have fizzled out completely, let no one however distort the memory. Unlike 2015 when the murderous sect controlled no fewer than 23 councils across states in the North-East and would hoist their sepulchral flag audaciously, a more tenacious commander-in-chief has since inspired the military to recover most of the lost grounds, thereby restoring national pride.

    These are verifiable facts.

    But for Buhari, beyond the immediate challenge of mobilizing resources to tell his own success story more forcefully in the times ahead, what would also seem prudent now is to summon the humility to undertake a self-evaluation of sorts, resisting the temptation of complacency and being carried away by the glory of past electoral exploits.

    True, over the years, the myth of a captive 12million following in the north has been woven around Buhari on account of his showing in the 2003 and 2011 polls. (As for 2007, so mindless was the rigging inflicted by PDP under OBJ’s watch that Buhari’s ANPP was “allocated” 6,607,419 against his fellow Katsina townsman Umar Yar’Adua’ unbelievable 24,784,227.)

    But let it not be forgotten that a partnership with the dominant progressive forces in the South-West was still needed to finally muster the knockout punch that PMB had so craved direly over a decade to tilt the pendulum decisively in his favor in 2015.

    Against this backcloth, a counter-factual argument could then be made that the 12m-man myth of 2003 and 2011 is in the context of a Muslim Buhari of the north vying against Christian contender from the south. Today, with Atiku hailing from the North-East, the North-Central largely hurting from the herdsmen crisis, there is no denying that the fabled 12-million-man hypothesis is about to face the stiffest test yet. The PDP optimists are, therefore, wont to speculate on an entirely different outcome in 2019 in the context of Buhari running against a fellow Fulani and Muslim of Atiku’s clout. Of course, PMB’s base remains largely the Talakawa and other courtesans of the underclass in the fanatic worship of the ascetic spirit he easily evokes, with the feudal class and other elites likely to cast their lot for luxuriant Atiku out of enlightened self-interest.

    With the Arewaland likely to be divided between Buhari and the anointed of the old order, it is now certain that victory in 2019 will be decided on the Southern soil.

    As for South-South, besides a few token gestures here and there, it is doubtful if any other strong argument could be made that PMB has made any appreciable offering in Niger Delta in the past three and a half years to cause a tectonic shift in public sentiments and significantly alter voter behavior, which saw the zone voting PDP overwhelmingly in 2015.

    As for South-East, with frugal, holy-communion-taking Peter Obi as running-mate, Atiku is already guaranteed not only bloc Igbo vote but also potentially a buy-in of the significant Catholic community across the country.

    By the way, less weight should be attached to the reported grumblings at the weekend of the Igbo governors and a few leaders who rose from the Enugu meeting to say they were not consulted before Atiku made the Obi choice public. Taking a second look at the line-up at that meeting, you would find that at least three of those present were earlier speculated among those being considered. What else is expected of political rivals in his native Anambra like Governor Willy Obiano and “godfather” Chris Uba? A case of sour grapes, no doubt.

    In any case, with Atiku promising to do one term, usually hard-nosed Igbo are likely to view the PDP option as the shortest cut to Igbo presidency and, therefore, less likely to listen to any governor to vote otherwise.

    So, the South-West invariably becomes the fierce battleground. Now, the hard questions: what will Buhari flaunt as dividends to the Yoruba who voted him in 2015 to justify renewing his mandate? Could the national policy options pursued in the last 42 months be said to be enough to win more support in Yorubaland this time?

    For APC, the ready good news is that considerable energy and resources will be conserved in Osun, Ekiti and Ondo States where no governorship poll will hold except in the state assemblies. Their combined arsenal can then be mobilized to reinforce the defence of the party interest in Oyo, Ogun and Lagos.

    But in specific terms, APC will have to really dig deep into its creative reserve for a coherent message to counter the Atiku’s gospel of restructuring which undeniably resonates well with the largely progressive values of the zone, beyond the ready excuse that having a Yorubaman as Buhari’s runningmate is an assurance of the return of Yoruba presidency by 2023.

    By and large, the time ahead will be interesting indeed.

     

     

    Peter and the Last Supper in Ekiti

    With the return of Kayode Fayemi to the gubernatorial perch yesterday, Ekiti State undoubtedly validates both the promise and beauty of democracy. It is the only state in the south-west won, lost and regained in turn by both PDP and APC (dating back to ACN and AD).

    Adding to the myth is the evocation of apostolic imageries: the two dominant characters in its fable in the last fifteen years bear names that remind one of two of Jesus’ closest disciples. One is John (Kayode Fayemi) and the other Peter (Ayo Fayose).

    As His final biblical hours approached over 2,000 years ago, the Bible tells us, Jesus hosted what would become the definitive fellowship – the Last Supper, during which he, through parable, hinted of the coming betrayal.

    As his own final hours as two-term governor neared last weekend in tranquil Ado Ekiti, retiring Peter (Fayose) chose to host a symbolic rite – a dinner. Ever feisty, the outgoing governor must have counted it one last chance for communion with those he considered his political disciples and associates.

    But in vain his wait ended. According to reports, less than 20 of the long list of guests had shown up even by 12 midnight for an event scheduled to commence 7P.M.

    Conspicuous with their absence were the retinue of commissioners, members of the House of Assembly, political appointees and the hangers-on.

    Also, none of the top civil servants was sighted. Ironically, these were the same folks who, until Fayose lost his bid to install his anointed as successor in the July polls, would be falling on one another chanting, “My Governor! My Governor!!”

    Now, everyone is locked in a frenzy of eye-service around Ado-Ekiti, to ingratiate themselves with the new lord of the manor.

    With banquet hall deserted and the air soon filled with rancid smell of rotting feast and sour wine, it later became the lot of the government spin doctors to explain the embarrassment away.

    One of the fairy tales concocted was that the information pertaining to the dinner could not be disseminated well across the state because of the subsisting ban on the state broadcasting service.

    That lie had to be told only because the truth is bitter. Power is transient. Lesson for those still too cocky to wear their crown lightly.

     

  • Lessons from the Ambode gamble

    Like Phoenix in the storybook, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos seems on the rebound after political cruxifixion at the APC Golgotha. In his post-defeat broadcast last Wednesday, grace and sobriety had replaced the bile and bitterness in his tongue only three days earlier when he thrust a blunt dagger at the jugular of Jide Sanwo-Olu, his opponent to the ticket for the 2019 governorship. The voice we heard in that speech was no longer of a rebel, but a penitent covered in ashes and sackcloth at the party altar.

    His few words – taut with emotion – dwelled on the urgency of healing within the family after the deep hurt of a bitter primaries.

    To those who probably expected open tears, he managed to put up a smile, even if only skin-deep.

    That apparently laid to rest wild speculations that he might yield to the temptation of a waiting ticket in the opposition PDP. But truth be told, those expecting him to so act could indeed not be said to love him genuinely. As they say, he on whose head coconut is broken hardly ever partakes of the feast thereafter.

    He has since followed up with what would seem a carefully choreographed photo ops to depict a desire to be reconciled with the estranged party establishment in the state. For instance, we saw him locked in a bear-hug with Babatunde Raji Fashola (BRF) at the APC national convention at the weekend (the latter is his immediate past predecessor with whom he had been immersed in a cold war since 2015).

    In another telling glimpse of the Abuja Eagles Square that night, we saw Ambode in Agbada sandwiched between BRF and Jide Sanwo-Olu in what frames a portrait of restored brotherhood. In yet another newspaper picture, we saw him beaming with smile beside Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the man whose support could have made a big difference on the now historic October 2.

    While Ambode would do well to sustain the rapproachment with a view to guaranteeing the stability of the remaining months of his administration and futuristically securing total reconciliation with the party establishment, the lessons from his experience should however not be lost for those seeking fresh perspectives on not only the dynamics of politics in fledgling democracy but also the nature of man and the perils of wrong choice at the defining moment.

    In a way, the epic drama that had unfolded surely mirrors a common morality tale: never rule out the posssibility of an accident between the cup and the lips. Just when many thought Ambode had grasped the handle to APC second term ticket came the great turbulence, eventually tipping the fragile mug and content in a ghastly crash.

    By the time the storm settled penultimate Tuesday evening, the incumbent Lagos governor would, against custom and tradition, suffer a pathetic loss in the direct primaries, polling only a scanty eight percent of the roughly one million votes cast.

    Most telling perhaps is the outcome of the voting at the ward at the Alausa secretariat, the very seat of government, where the challenger polled a colossal 963 to Ambode’s lean 4.

    In Ward C2 of the critical Alimosho Local Government, Sanwo-Olu’s fairy tale continued with an emphatic 16724 votes to Ambode’s solitary 3 votes.

    By the time the votes from Lagos’ 20 councils and 37 development areas were eventually tallied by dusk, what we then saw of Ambode’s ordinarily fine, sturdy and chubby visage was almost unrecognizable from what must have been a torrent of concussive electoral blows.

    To Sanwo-Olu-Olu’s total 970,861 votes, the incumbent got 72,901.

    Now, let us return to the referenced metaphor of turbulence, then transposed to the context of a tempest. We must note that that natural phenomenal rarely occurs without foreboding; it is usually preceded by a lightning and foreshadows the storm resulting in a disruption, even if temporary, of the harmony and balance of the nature.

    Many saw the tornado of October 2 against Ambode coming.

    If nothing at all, the episode has underscored the supremacy of rank and file as an indispensable factor in party politics and the efficacy of direct primaries to test the popularity of incumbents. Given the tumultuous turnout of party faithful across the 245 wards of Lagos that day, it was too obvious that the matter had transcended Tinubu and he would have been risking a revolt of the very mob at the gate had he succumbed to intense pressure in the last-minute to save Ambode.

    Given such widespread seething hostility, how strange then that Ambode’s handlers ever imagined they could still pull through without the support of not only Tinubu but also the influential Governor’s Advisory Council (including Vice President Yemi Osibanjo), 57 council chairmen and party hierarchs at both state and ward levels.

    In seeking to proceed regardless, Ambode was probably inspired by the literary fulmination of Earnest Hemingway that, “To be defeated and not surrender is the ultimate victory.”

    But at some point, it had become too obvious that, even though a brilliant accountant, the retired bureaucrat from Epe was however acutely lacking the aptitude to comprehend the elementary arithemetic of politics: little things truly matter more. While it is true that the civil service weans and conditions you with its cardinal value – anonymity, the Ambode tragedy, it would now seem, sprang from the inability to overcome the social limitation imposed by his professsional career.

    One, introversion is never an asset in realpolitik. Those who have interacted with Ambode personally often recall a certain shyness. Viewed through the lens of psycho-analysis, shysters are known to prefer to conceal their fragile condition in self-withdrawal which, in turn, could be mistaken for arrogance by the casual observer.

    Had he the luxury of a second chance, perhaps Ambode would have realized by now that, in realpolitik, not just the party leaders deserve attention, but also the ordinary rank and file who expect their calls be answered, no matter how late and no matter how unreasonable their demands.

    In some cases, what the ordinary folks want is not necessarily silver or gold, but a mere feeling of belonging – the thrill of access, being made to feel like part-owner of power. To such class of party faithful, mere handshake or selfies during project inspection is more treasured than a meal ticket to the next party buffet.

    Again, what the episode has underlined is the danger of surrounding the throne with men of shallow vision or feeble character, incapable of telling the king the truth even while the Titanic is fast approaching an iceberg. The pest of sychophants and freeloaders, that is.

    This was very much in evidence in the way and manner Ambode’s handlers continued to live in denial even against the backcloth of widespread hostility. To say nothing about the insolence that underpined the messages framed and retailed.

    In egging Ambode to take-off precipitously even in the face of gathering dark clouds, it was clear they were only setting him up for a big crash.

    Nothing perhaps illustrates this better than the “world press conference” arranged for the governor two days to the primaries. It was an unqualified disaster, in both form and content.

    As Ambode lobbed grenades at his challenger during the Q and A session after his address that Sunday afternoon, how pathetic watching the nest of palace courtiers and jesters laughing aloud in one corner (as captured by live television cameras) while engaged in bear-hugs and backslapping.

    That is often the mentality of poor tacticians more interested in cheap sound-bites; fixated, as they say, on the condition of the axe’s blade in the frenzy of felling a giant tree without a thought for the direction the trunk is tilting ominously. They seemed carried away by the ceremony of the moment. If at all they knew, they did not show any appreciation of the enormous cost of the course of action they were nudging the governor to pursue.

    First, deploying a teleprompter would have helped project a governor affecting confidence by establishing and sustaining eye contact with viewers, sparing him the embarrassment of struggling with sheets of paper in the open air in a rather windy afternoon, made worse by the incoherence of a statement apparently scrapped together in the storm of a difficult moment.

    Again, note, the contest was purely an internal affair. So, pitching communication to a national audience only showcased the deficit in tactics and the vacuity of strategy. Unless, they only wanted to whip up public sentiments. Even if any public applause was generated at all, how could that have translated to votes at an exercise that was purely a domestic affair of the party?

    Worst of all was the off-the-cuff comments made by the governor during the Q and A in which he literally hit his opponent below the belt with grave allegations not only against the latter’s personal integrity but also his mental health.

    But if anyone has profited from Ambode’s gaffe here, it is ironically Sanwo-Olu himself. By responding in a language that is far more civil and gracious, and taking the stated allegations apart with proofs and exposing the inconsistency and illogic therein, the challenger undoubtedly succeeded in turning the tide against the accuser.

    Well, all said, it is a big lesson to other incumbents on the totality of responsibility: the gradient of performance in office will not be measured only by the surfeit of brick and mortal but also to what extent the owners of the platform – the party’s rank and file – are carried along.

  • October 1 and the torment of memory

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    With trillions of naira since expended on power by Abuja in the succession of five administrations and surfeit of reforms in the past twenty years, generating set market has, in fact, boomed further with fuel cost completely out of reach of the common man as the nation still largely wallows in pitch darkness. Back in the 70s, a federal rolling plan panel led by Chief Olu Falae had projected the nation’s energy need would be over 10,000 megawatts by 2000. More than 40 years later and with the population almost tripled, electricity generation is still officially estimated at a controversial 7,000. Yet, by 1988, official records indicated the 4,000 mark had already been attained. Even after pouring more than $16b into the energy sector by 2007 (according to the House of Reps in 2009), Chief Olusegun Obasanjo only delivered a miserable 3,000 megawatts.

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

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

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

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

    “As you know, all of us are in support of anybody or institution that is anti-corruption. The only problem is the right process to take in fighting corruption. We need to know that selective justice is injustice. That is the point I want to emphasize. And so far, the EFCC has been doing selective justice, pursuing people it is asked to pursue. It cannot claim to be following due process.”

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

    Then, fast forward to 2017. Ezeife’s reaction to the October 1 broadcast by President Buhari as published by Vanguard two days later (October 2), no doubt turns a darker page on a different issue altogether – national unity/integration: “Buhari … is trying to push the South-East out of Nigeria by marginalizing, dehumanizing  and humiliating them… The young ones (IPOB) couldn’t understand what he was up to and so they reacted as young people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

    • First published in October 2017

  • Osun tie: Matters arising

    With the air across the national space currently fouled up by partisanship, there can never be a consensus on the propriety or otherwise of the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare the Osun governorship polls of last Saturday inconclusive.

    The ongoing babel is certainly not helped by merchant lawyers who probably only see an opportunity to tout for briefs after the fact.

    Indeed, PDP’s Ademola Adeleke came tops with 254,698 votes; APC’s Gbeoyega scored 254,345 and SDP’s Iyiola Omisore polled 128,049 to finish third.

    In its own wisdom, INEC ruled that potential votes from seven polling units amounting to 3,498 (earlier set aside for sundry reasons) are now too significant to be overlooked given that PDP only led eventually with marginal 353 votes at the end of counting and collation Sunday morning. Hence, supplementary elections for September 27 to decide the winner between PDP and APC.

    Interestingly, a report had trended in the social media on Sunday purporting that erstwhile INEC boss, Professor Maurice Iwu, poohpoohed the idea of holding a re-run. But just as many began to wonder what moral credentials qualified him to so speak given the sheer outlawry that had defined his own stint as the nation’s chief electoral officer came a strident rebuttal by the man himself on Monday.

    Alas – another instance of fake news, thus exposing once more the increasing vulnerability of our airwaves to the vector of lies and disinformation.

    Well, putting the referenced distraction aside, to me, there are four preliminary takeaways from the last Saturday’s epic electoral battle in the province of the fabled “living spring”.

    By design or default, in terms of critical electoral weight, the stated seven polling units have somehow evoked the memory of “Modakeke-lization” now almost four-decades-old. Older generations of citizens might readily recall how Modekeke, a rustic town bordering the far more historic Ile-Ife, was literally conjured in the 1983 general polls by then ruling National Party of Party at the centre (largely seen as the ideological progenitor of today’s PDP) to perform a magic never seen in the nation’s electoral history.

    Noticing that the tally of figures from the provinces across the old Oyo State was tipping the scale in favor of rival Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), what NPN desperadoes simply did was to tender the results from Modakeke (considered their stranglehold) inflated on a scale that defied even sanity or reason: the stated figures were far in excess of all registered voters on FEDECO’s register in order to deliver Victor Olunloyo over the then incumbent Governor Bola Ige. (It is from the old Oyo State that Osun State descended.)

    Now, the 3,498 number has been summoned by providence to break the tie in the re-run.

    Secondly, the outcome of the last Saturday’s exercise offers sufficient ground to test the hypothesis of the popularity or otherwise of the two leading candidates within their respective parties. The results undoubtedly prove yet again that Adeleke still betters his arch rival in the PDP primaries. He had similarly scored a slim margin with 1,569 votes to defeat Akin Ogunbiyi who got 1562.

    But, taken together, it would have been more interesting had Iyiola Omisore not defected from PDP in the eleventh hour to seek the crown on SDP’s platform. He came third on Saturday with an impressive 128,049.

    As for APC’s Gboyega Oyetola, it is indeed another validation for the innovation of direct primaries being championed by the new national chair of the party, Adams Oshiomhole, with a view to banishing imposition and “restoring ownership back to real party members”.

    Oyetola’s arch rival in the APC’s shadow election was Moshood Adeoti, erstwhile Secretary to the State Government, who only scored 49,742 in the exercise on ADC’s platform. Having failed to secure APC’s ticket, he resigned from the Rauf Aregbesola administration and pitched his tent with ADC.

    Three, if any doubt still existed about the place of substance and morality in contemporary politics Adeleke’s remarkable showing last Saturday has undoubtedly erased such. At some point in our history, proof of academic brilliance would be an added advantage, if not the sole clincher, in the contest for public office. Such concession would undoubtedly stem from a common thinking that public trust was too lofty, too fragile to be left with a fickle mind whose mental reflex could not be trusted at critical moments.

    Adeleke’s rise would then appear to have shattered that myth. For not only has it been established that the PDP candidate was an academic failure having bagged F9 in the only paper (English language) he sat for in WAEC close to four decades ago, his apparent attempt to make up last year in fact ended up allegedly a big scam altogether.

    According to police charge sheet, Adeleke, as a sitting senator, procured NECO results awarding him credits in seven subjects without evidence he ever sat for the exams at Ojo-Aro Community Grammar School, Egbedore LGA, Osun State. Police had last week tendered records to show he was earlier quizzed last year over the matter.

    However, the suggestion of tainted integrity or insinuation of a dodgy academic profile seemed not enough to sway voters against the PDP candidate in the polls, given the hefty votes he posted to place him slightly above the better read, more articulate and far more composed Oyetola of APC.

    Few days to the D-Day, fearing police arrest might deny him chance to participate in the election, Adeleke quickly fortified himself by obtaining a restraining court order.

    While the principle of fair hearing obliges us to grant him benefit of doubt for now, what is however beyond dispute is his complete intellectual vacuity.

    How strange then that a man aspiring to lead the state that once sired the likes of the great Bola Ige, home to the great Obafemi Awolowo University, is a self-advertised disco freak, whose instinctive answer to any invitation to public scrutiny is to simply break into sometimes clownish dance routines, thus exhibiting, not revulsion, but the air of personal fulfillment at what ordinarily should be considered a derogation – being addressed as “the dancing senator”. As if what statecraft is all about is the ability to switch seamlessly from “Skelewu” to “Shaku Shaku” on the dance-floor.

    As a congressman, Adeleke is not known to have, so far, espoused any grand idea at the senate chamber even with the dismal standards of the current denizens; nor lent his voice to any lofty debate outside for that matter.

    Without shame, thrice, he consistently dodged televised debates organized for candidates and was never lacking excuses.

    Maybe substituting the debate with dancing competition would have lured Adeleke out of hiding; he probably would have been more comfortable with questions bordering on which song is the rave on the billboard charts than with posers on the fiscal prescriptions needed to lift Osun from present economic challenges.

    But the truth: what is required in the Governor’s office is more of sobriety only made possible by a presence of mind, certainly not the mere possession of a pair of dancing shoes.

    Fourthly, the September 22 exercise in Osun has proved that, once various stakeholders exercise high sense of vigilance and the umpire evinces will and commitment, the possibility of the ruling party to deploy incumbency mindlessly is minimized. This was very much in evidence last Saturday. That the results were close between ruling APC and main opposition PDP is an unassailable proof of relatively high level of integrity of the Saturday exercise.

    If nothing at all, President Buhari deserves kudos for providing a level-playing field, resisting the temptation to put security agencies at his party’s disposal to impose its will.

    In a show of statesmanship, PMB even overruled the police after they declared the PDP candidate wanted few days to the polls over otherwise grave allegation of NECO certificate racketeering. An unscrupulous power broker could have seized that as a perfect excuse to put Adeleke away in the name of due process.

    This is very much unlike the scenario in both Osun and Ekiti back in 2014 when then ruling PDP, in a brazen flaunting of raw power, not only cracked down on a good number of political opponents but also ruthlessly let loose battalions of hooded state goons to harass and intimidate the opposition before and during the elections.

    Of course, there were reports last Saturday of votes-buying in Osogbo and Ede, but certainly not on the industrial scale witnessed recently in Ekiti involving both the ruling party and members of the opposition. In what suggested at least a new fear, those engaged in the “stomach infrastructure” this time resorted to a novelty – swearing to oaths before sums ranging from N5,000 and N6,000 exchanged hands on the night preceding the election. Unlike in Ekiti recently where such illicit transactions were openly consummated.

    There was also the tale of an extraordinary show of valor that Saturday night by cops who overpowered hoodlums attempting to snatch ballot boxes at the collation centre in Osogbo after shooting into the air and shattering the rear windscreen of a Sports Utility Vehicle.

    Let us hope this resolve to defend the sanctity of the ballot, this noticeable sense of official restraint is sustained by the ruling party in the bigger national contest months away, so that the nation’s democratic culture is deepened.

  • Kogi and the end of politics

    It is quite hard to reconcile the plague currently engulfing Kogi’s political space and the memory that the province is also the cradle of the great Sunday Awoniyi. Or the colossal Silas Daniyan.

    Before he drew his last breath in November 2007, the Aro of Mopa, once private secretary to immortal Ahmadu Bello, was an embodiment of political accommodation, temperance and intellectual profundity.

    On the other hand, though a political rival to Awoniyi, Daniyan was cut from no less durable fabric. Serving as private secretary to monumental Nnamdi Azikiwe about the time his kinsman served the Arewa folk hero, Daniyan never really ever lost sight of the larger critical duty – deploying politics as tool to advance the community.

    Though preferring to invest most of his energies in the corporate world and philanthropy in the later years, he nonetheless provided what could then be termed a healthy ideological counter-foil to the Awoniyi tendency in the quest to push the development frontiers in their native Kogi State, until his death in 2011.

    But, apparently, harmony and balance prevail in the household only to the point when the political bastard has not yet come of age.

    Viewing the ongoing show of shame starring infantile Yahaya Bello and delinquent Dino Melaye, both Awoniyi and Daniyan must be turning in great discomfort in their graves indeed. The rich political heritage bequeathed by the two referenced Kogi patriarchs is now under grave assault.

    To say Kogi has been unraveling in the past few months will, therefore, be an understatement. A partnership forged between Governor Bello and Dino in sheer opportunism and perfidy has, alas, broken down irredeemably, exposing politics in its hideous form, the character flaw of man at its basest.

    With little or no inhibition, the parvenu from Ebiraland has, for instance, continued to demonstrate the grave danger a society faces when a small mind – an intellectual midget – finds himself in custody of the gubernatorial staff.

    Allowing himself to be hailed publicly as “White Lion” by barefoot sycophants, it is however clear only the metaphor of a rodent befits Bello’s ways. His ingrained infantilism was very much in evidence in a little drama at the Government House in March.

    Fresh from his habitual peregrination to Abuja, he announced the sack of the state cabinet and 21 local council administrators.

    But the ink with which the statement was written had barely dried when he had another brainwave. In less than an hour, he reversed himself.

    Maybe, that should be expected. The young man found himself in power only by the grace of perhaps the darkest political sorcery in recent memory. He ran away with the trophy earned by someone else who had suddenly dropped dead on the battlefield after slaying the enemy. The same way Dino’s victory in the Kogi West senatorial polls of 2015 was tainted by allegations of electoral heist.

    Obviously, the robe is oversize and the shoes too big for Bello’s pygmy feet ever since.

    Decked in one of his trademark gaudy apparels, this was how then groveling Master of Ceremonies Dino once introduced the governor at the Lokoja stadium: “The Almighty God voted Yahaya Bello!… May I also have the honour of introducing the youngest governor of the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!…intellectually mobile and sagacious!!!… indomitable and indefatigable!!!!… powerful and enterprising!!!!!… young but married!!!!!!… join your hands together (sic) for Yahaya Bello!!!!!!!”

    Predictably, disagreement over political spoils soon set them apart.

    Today, were a case to be made against entrusting leadership position to youthful players in contemporary Nigeria, Bello and Dino would undoubtedly furnish a robust exhibit. In the absence of ideas, filth has been elevated as the sole driver of government policies and programmes in Kogi.

    Nothing perhaps illustrates this shared seething psychosis by the duo more graphically than the very circumstances they both suffered physical handicap lately. It was not until tongues started wagging following Bello’s appearance on crutches for a crucial party meeting in Aso Rock with a leg cast in POP that his publicists admitted that it was all caused by a minor domestic incident.

    But unofficial accounts provided a clearer picture. Actually, the usually easily excitable governor was said to have lost his balance in a failed stunt after jumping off a moving bullet-proof SUV while throwing Naira notes at a crowd hailing him.

    Precisely the same story we heard after the Kogi senator was stretchered into the Intensive Care Unit of an Abuja hospital.

    In what clearly belittles the exalted office he occupies, Dino had also reportedly jumped off a moving vehicle in an escape bid from police custody. This followed an earlier self-diminishing admission on what had transpired at the Abuja airport when the Immigration barricaded his way.

    He probably thought it cool to boast on Tweeter that, “I snatched my passport back after the Immigration snatched it from me.” But it did not seem to occur to the supposed distinguished senator that only cheap thugs act that way.

    The viral video of a senator sitting on bare asphalt of Abuja highway apparently battling to recover his breath after that suicidal jump was no less pathetic. The image of a subdued overweight adult bellowing “I can kill myself!” in that clip certainly contrasts the picture of a fearless superman Dino had tried to build for myself through relentless homemade musical videos poured into the social media in the past eighteen months.

    As for Bello, not done with the outlawry of double-registration for voter’s card, farting loudly at the communal feast and auctioning inherited state assets to pay debts and fund today’s ostentation, his political tomfoolery seems further exposed by the outcome of the recall verification exercise conducted last weekend by INEC.

    How pathetic that the governor and his fixers could not summon the rigor to finish what they started zealously with state might last year. Having dissipated much energy and resources in mobilizing locals to  append their signatures to the originating petition, Bello’s fumbling enablers apparently forgot that the verification exercise was even more critical.

    Not only was the turnout abysmally poor, of the 39,285 signatures eventually verified, only a miserly 18,762 were found to be genuine. Yet, a whopping 188,500 were earlier conjured to support the recall petition filed against Dino last year.

    In most locations last weekend, a grotesque pattern emerged. Signatures of constituents were either shabbily forged or the dead mindlessly impersonated in the farce.

    The dire implication of the foregoing is that the 5 percent turnout is a far cry from the 50 percent + 1 constitutionally required to set the stage for a referendum to seal Dino’s fate.The Kogi West senatorial district has a voting population of 351,140.

    Not surprising, comical Dino has seized the result as another platform to gloat, summing it a blanket endorsement of his performance at the Senate chamber, if not solidarity with him in his present ordeal.

    It is not only Bello’s political nudity thus invariably exposed; no less culpable is the INEC. That the voter’s registers displayed across Kogi West senatorial district on the verification day were mostly riddled with multiple name entries and forged signatures as widely reported by the media surely says a lot about the corporate integrity of the umpire. Otherwise, one would have thought such impurities would have been sorted administratively before INEC announced voting.

    As for Dino, if nothing at all, no one can deny him credits for creativity. Shortly after falling out with the governor in 2016, that ingenuity supervened. He had no difficulty in adapting a Yoruba folk song, “Ajeku Iya Nio Je…”. It translates roughly as “Woe betide an inferior who challenges his superior to a battle”.

    The skit was still topping the national chart of political mischief when Dino followed up with another blockbuster which literally prophesied that his political enemy in Lokoja was jail-bound at the expiration of his current gubernatorial mandate.

    But with the dramatic turn of events in Abuja last week, the maverick senator would now seem cast in a role reversal of sorts. For his current travails only mirror the unsavory ending he himself had predicted for Bello in the melange of caustic songs.

    One, even though the Kogi police have cited gun-running as the charge against Dino, not a few however believe his real trouble started the moment he challenged the Kogi Governor to a public duel.

    Meanwhile, while the poor turnout at the verification exercise for the recall process last weekend may have put paid to attempt by those bent on yanking him off the Senate chamber, it will however be premature to assume the sword of Damocles has thus vanished.

    Now, with the gravity of the charges preferred against him, Melaye’s supporters will indeed have to intensify their prayers, lest he be the first to don prison’s uniform long before the foe derided in his song.

    But by and large, the cruel joke is on Kogi State.