The Nation Newspaper

Category: Louis Odion

  • Ekiti: The triumph of stomach infrastructure

    If history is classified as truly the prerogative of the victor, then one concept likely to be revisited in the times ahead will be the vexatious “stomach infrastructure”. Ordinarily, the imagery evoked would perhaps not be more than the entrails of oesophagus, kidneys, intestines down to the rectum in human skeleton commonly displayed in the biology lab.

    But not until after Ayo Fayose’s dramatic reincarnation in Ekiti in 2014. To rout then incumbent Kayode Fayemi (JKF) so resoundingly, the magic formula was easily narrowed down to the “empowerment” of prospective voters with edibles like rice, chicken enhanced with a few bank notes. An improvement on the tankers of water Fayose had dispensed arduously to thirsty neighbourhoods for months preceding the 2003 polls where he similarly secured an upset victory over incumbent Niyi Adebayo.

    Given its demonstrable efficacy over two election seasons, that illicit tactic, for want of a more elegant camouflage, soon became known simply as “stomach infrastructure”, patented as Fayose’s own unique contribution to Nigeria’s political evolution. Officially, a government department would even be designated in Ado-Ekiti for such transaction.

    But the supreme irony is that, today, not many would remember that the etymology of “stomach infrastructure” is actually traceable to the very denunciation of what it came to symbolize and the enunciator, its first notable casualty.

    To begin with, the sophisticate in JKF could not understand why his clansmen in his own native Isan would prefer his modest convoy still blare the siren, even in the dead of night, when returning from the state capital. Perhaps, just to remind those in neighboring communities that their illustrious son was now the “gomina” (as the locals pronounce governor).

    Again, while pontificating much earlier on the challenge of public service as Ekiti governor, JKF would express great difficulty in managing the expectations of party leaders.

    When the chips were down at party caucus, no one, he revealed with a tinge of frustration, ever disputed the government’s claims that public funds were being deployed with a view to meeting the deficits in social infrastructure. Rather, often audible at such party fellowship was a grumble that similar effort was not being made “to develop our own stomach infrastructure” as stakeholders. Put starkly, the party barons were sneering in the manner of buccaneers, “Is it road or hospital that will fill our own bellies?”

    For stomachs now distended from years of addiction to gobbling both the proverbial yam and seedlings, prohibitive is the cost of sustainance indeed.

    So, really, “stomach infrastructure” was meant to be despicable as against the populism now associated with it; a preference for self-interest against the common good.

    It is perhaps a measure of the debasement of politics that it became glorified under Fayose.

    Having said that, let it also be stated that no comfort was provided nor hope offered with the widespread reports that JKF’s camp too resorted to massive deployment of the same “stomach infrastructure” to overrun Fayose (aka Oshoko) and Kolapo Olusola-Eleka last Saturday.

    Going by reports, it was a big bazaar in which the highest bidder eventually prevailed. For once, Fayose was beaten at his own game. Civil servants received a curious N3,000 bank credit alert on the election eve for starters.

    Those able to show proof of “performance” on the D-Day got further N4,000 from PDP. With the aid of technology, that was not too difficult to ascertain. Snapshot of thumbprinted ballot taken with the camera device of the cellphone handset was all required to cash the money from the paymaster lurking around the corner.

    The process was known as “see and buy”.

    But not to worry, APC had the answer. Perhaps to exert the fabled “federal might”, the JKF canvassers outspent the main opposition by shelling out N10,000. In an economy where civil servants and pensioners had not received wages and pension for months, the bait was simply too irresistible.

    So, in a way, the most appetizing “stomach infrastructure” carried the day in Ekiti on July 14.

    All said, for Fayemi, this must be a tempting moment indeed. In the topsy- turvy of politics, staging a comeback is not always an easy feat, much less an opportunity to make up for yesterday’s failing. With hitherto blustering Fayose now left to clear the debris of the routing of last weekend, it will – let us face it – require uncommon self-restrant on JKF’s part to resist being triumphalist, even vengeful.

    Sweet must be the victory in which providence puts you in a position to exact from an old foe a pound of flesh, an eye for an eye. If Fayose trounced him in all the 16 councils in 2014 including the sitting governor’s own ward, APC pulled not only 12 councils but capped Oshoko’s humiliation by also flooring him in his own council this time. More, the memory many will probably clutch for a long time is the grotesque glimpse of a weeping Fayose in a makeshift neck brace lamenting police assault on the election eve. (To say nothing about the countless videos by mischief-makers currently trending in the social media making a caricature of those rare gubernatorial tears.)

    Of course, now easily forgotten is the no less pathetic picture of a Fayemi looking dazed in his first public appearance with Fayose after the shock defeat of 2014.

    For JKF, besides Oshoko, there must be a temptation to also stomp over Iroko in neighboring Ondo State. The bitterness against Olusegun Mimiko is undoubtedly fed by the feeling of betrayal in 2014. As Ondo governor then, the latter furnished the launching pad for PDP to annexe Ekiti and humble Fayemi.

    Intoxicated by the company of new political friends, Iroko had forgotten so suddenly the brotherhood they both shared during their epic battle in the court between 2007 and 2010 to recover their stolen mandates.

    Then, 2016 presented a chance to pay Mimiko back in his own crooked coin. Iroko was made to watch, with his own eyes, his bid to foist his surrogate as successor in Akure White House thwarted  by APC forces coordinated by Fayemi as federal minister. The operation was most savagely clinical. Perhaps, that should be expected of a man whose doctorate was on War Strategies.

    So, as Mimiko retreated to his native native Ondo town later in February 2017 with tail gathered between his legs, Fayemi’s throaty, gap-toothed laughter surely echoed through the surrounding Ore forest.

    Now, as the Ekiti Governor-elect contemplates his second coming, vengeance would be seductive. But from experience, witchhunt often ends up a costly distraction, sapping the energies that could have been put to more productive use.

    If nothing at all, the results of last Saturday’s exercise surely call for worry. Whereas voters’ turnout may suggest increased participation relative to 2014, the margin however portrays a population sharply polarized. In 2014, total votes cast was 360,455 compared to last Saturday’s 403,451.

    But whereas PDP had secured an emphatic 56 percent then leaving APC a distant 33 percent behind, APC won PDP by a narrow edge of less than five percent last Saturday. In case he chooses not to try the old dirty tactic of inducement to expand his support base, the incoming governor should brace for hostility from the state assembly dominated by PDP.

    The burden thus imposed on the victor is the urgency to initiate moves that would rebuild trust and mobilize more of the unbelievers behind a common purpose with a view to making his second coming more impactful.

    Good enough, JKF already enjoys the vantage of experience, having served out apprenticeship in his first incarnation. For instance, Ekiti certainly does not need an airport at the moment; not with the Akure airport in neighbouring Ondo grossly underutilized. Its resources are better channeled into providing amenities that impact directly on the lives of the common people.

    Indeed, Ekiti of the future should seek to build on its area of comparative advantage. One such sector is the knowledge economy. Long before it became renowned as home to a chain of reputable higher institutions, Ekiti had earned the reputation as the community with perhaps the highest academic doctorates per capital in the country. lts compact topography makes it one of the most navigable provinces in Nigeria. It only requires clear thinking to cultivate these resources with a view to making it the preferred destination for education tourism, thereby amplifying its self-classification as the “fountain of knowledge”.

    What will JKF make of the uncommon gift history has now presented – a second chance?

     

  • As Benue bites the bullet…

    After weeks of speculations and denial, the truth finally unfurled Monday as Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State dumped APC for opposition PDP, citing “red card” issued him by the ruling party. Given the seemingly unending bloodbath inflicted on the coastal state by the genocidal herders, Ortom’s move is hardly surprising.

    The “red card” he alluded to could then be interpreted as being left in a position he could no longer defend before Benue people.

    But coming barely 24 hours after APC won Ekiti, losing Benue in the North-central only meant cancelling out whatever territorial gain the ruling party had just recorded in the South-west state, thereby re-balancing the political equation ahead of the 2019 polls.

    We are thus reminded of the three means by which power exchanged hands at the state level in Nigeria’s contemporary politics: ballot, court order or decamping.

    With the general polls still eight months away, it will undoubtedly be premature yet to foreclose more of such. Since its historic victory of 2015, APC has annexed Kogi, Ondo and Ekiti. But in what signals the now familiar musical chairs ahead of every general election, Benue has slipped away.

    Speculations are rife that two more states will follow. Such reading would seem reinforced last week with the sudden raising of rhetoric by Governor Aminu Tambuwa of Sokoto State.

    While reacting to the recent mass killings in his domain last week, Tambuwa blamed squarely “the failure of leadership”.

    There is no prize for guessing for whom that innuendo was meant. Those around in 2014 ahead of “n-PDP” decamping to APC would recall it was the same insider blow Tambuwa had deployed ruthlessly then as sitting Speaker of PDP-dominated House of Reps against the commander-in-chief at the Villa.

    Aside Sokoto, another state highly speculated to be on verge of slipping from the ruling party is Kwara State where diehard senate president, Bukola Saraki, holds sway.

    So, if Sokoto and Kwara also fall alongside Benue after APC had pocketed Kogi, Ondo and Ekiti, what we then have is cynically described in the game of tennis as a deuce.

     

  • Alas, APC’s illegitimate kids come of age

    The moment is here again that we pause from the routine to address the raft of words or phrases that have crept treacherously into national conversation lately.

    By furnishing the content and context, the idea is to strip such terms of all ambiguities to the clearest meaning possible, thereby helping the general public – particularly the casual readers or the uninitiated – to better understand.

    What better take-off point could there be than the latest tumult in the homestead of the ruling All Progressives Congress.

    “Reformed” as new con: To fully unravel the often dark recesses of human mind, Sigmund Freud, the immortal patriarch of psychoanalysis, enjoins us to look out not for the cues from quick expressions, but clues from the slips in-between. And what a bounty of Freudian Slips we are able to harvest from the song of lamentations rendered by the renegades who revolted last week in APC and are now parading themselves as “reformed”.

    One, to be reformed presupposes graduation from a course of redemption. It suggests a corps fresh from the validating crucible and, in this context, possessing already tested skills. It would, therefore, border on the abuse of language, if not delusion, for those who, by own admission, were shut out from the outset to now seek to insert themselves into the same proceedings almost at the twilight and yet betray a desperation to hijack ownership.

    In what then clearly suggests premeditated deceit, no sooner had a long membership list been unveiled than a good number of those so named came out with strong disclaimers. What now remains is more like a procession of double agents, career traitors, moral lepers, name-droppers and political rats hustling for the next morsel.

    To allow this pass is to dignify duplicity.

    While it will be patently dishonest to claim Buhari has fully delivered on the promise of 2015, it is however debatable if many Nigerians are truly bought by the false narrative now being retailed by the new renegades within APC. Naturally, the discerning are now beginning to take a closer look at the unfolding circus. That we cry does not also mean losing the power to see.

    By harping on being “marginalized” all the while, the “reformed” have only succeeded in giving themselves away as self-seekers. So, it is all about the stomachs and the pockets of the “reformed”, not the welfare of the people.

    Of course, it is understandable why they would rather keep a creative silence on the issue of the anti-corruption war given that some of them and their known patrons are still busy answering questions from anti-graft agencies. While it is the popular wish that more of the big thieves be caught, Nigerians will certainly not listen to anyone suggesting that those who stole were not made to vomit what they had swallowed. The “reformed” are aware that they would be lynched if they as much as dare to rail against efforts to curtail the looting of the public till.

    Indeed, the mantra APC chanted at its founding was to fix the economy as well as wrestle insecurity and graft. We would have expected that a truly altruistic inquiry by any self-anointed redeemer would begin with a point-by-point audit of the referenced benchmarks. But nowhere did any of such feature in the lamentations by the “reformed”, other than the whining about being denied patronage or being locked out of the feasting going on.

    But many saw this coming. What truly sustains associations is shared commitment. Part of APC’s enduring failing in the past four years is the inability to rally the disparate tendencies that had coalesced into a movement together behind a common value, beyond the utility of wresting power from PDP in 2015. Indeed, peace only prevails in a home until the illegitimate kids come of age.

    Rickety as it might appear, the “reformed” spectre is, therefore, only a manifestation of that organic crisis. If Buhari’s ethical reengineering exertions thus far were to be classified as an asylum, what we are witnessing could then be likened correctly to an audacious bid by some of the glaze-eyed inmates to topple the presiding therapist and take over the psychiatric ward entirely.

    Land or death: Patrick Henry’s statement, “Give me liberty or give me death”, had always been one of the most easily recalled invocations in defiance. Now, almost two and a half centuries after that stirring verbiage by the American orator at the Virginia Convention, our own Femi Adesina would appear to have enriched us with what was undoubtedly intended naively as a plea for national understanding and accommodation, but now designated more as the metaphor of power contempt, even the unthinkable.

    In his own wisdom, the presidential spokesman last week argued it would not be too much of a sacrifice for families or communities to give up their ancestral land if that would guarantee the ravenous cows graze and the genocidal herders were pacified to return their bloodied swords to the scabbards.

    Only the living, he argued, are in a position to keep sentimental attachment to ancestral land.

    Obviously, Adesina’s counsel, uttered in a voice that is child-like if not entirely effeminate, could not be said to be cognizant of history. Dating back to antiquity, most wars have always been waged over land. Looking into foreseeable future, nothing suggests yet that the story will ever change.

    So, on account of its non-feasibility, Adesina’s proposition would now appear a new synonym in strictly Nigerian speak for the proverbial “Catch 22 situation” or Hobson’s choice.

    Therefore, being asked to give up land or reap death is to be faced with no choice at all.

    Video monopoly: Those assuming they had heard the most bizarre with the recent viral audio tape in which a female student, Ms. Monica Osagie, spurned demand of bouts of sex by her tutor, Richard Akindele, to upgrade her poor score to a pass mark must have been shocked further with the leaking of the defence the latter reportedly tendered before the varsity board of inquiry.

    While not denying that the illicit phone transaction held, the now dismissed Professor of Management Accounting hinted darkly at being outsmarted. More like being checkmated in the game of monopoly. Rather than being branded the aggressor, he saw himself as the victim. His own account is perhaps too lurid to restate fully here: from the claim of being tempted by the lady raising her skimpy skirt without underwear in his lonely office to being assailed with electronically delivered nude pictures in the dead of the night.

    As the steaming baits rained down, the old professor claims his own strategy was to gather as much evidence as possible before reporting; only for the lady to blow the whistle ahead of him.

    Given that it is now a case of his words against hers, we really may never know the whole truth. But what remains a big puzzle is how Akindele, a supposed senior ordained preacher in the local church, was able to continue to live with the abominable knowledge of his phone handset dripping with a trove of nude pictures for so long. Perhaps he should have saved himself the misery of the long defence by simply pleading Oscar Wilde: he “overcame the temptation by yielding to it!”

    Tears for justice: From the age-old custom of being ascribed to human emotions of joy or pain, the chemistry of tears was stretched into an entirely new harbor last week – adjudicatory application. Credit for this novelty goes to no other than Nkem Ekweozor, an Anambra-based lawyer-cum-politician.

    What became news was not the fact that he chose to enter an appearance for himself as the candidate of the Mega Progressive Peoples Party in the January 13, 2018 Anambra senatorial rerun election.

    Rather, it was the torrent of tears he shed half-way in his cross-examination of the winner, Senator Victor Umeh of APGA. Having struggled real hard to conceal his sniveling under his breath during that difficult moment, the cat was let out of the bag when Ekweozor eventually fished out a white handkerchief to mop hot tears streaming down his cheeks, to the consternation of the presiding chairman of the Election Tribunal, Justice H. A. Olusiyi.

    The visibly stunned judge then exclaimed: “What’s happening here? You’re crying. What for? Oh my God, a lawyer crying in court?… How’ll all these people in court see you? Do you think they will hire you tomorrow to defend them?… We (lawyers) are trained not to be emotional. This is not the final court; if you don’t get what you want here, you can go upstairs. Lawyers don’t cry.”

    After regaining composure, Ekweozor apologized and offered an explanation: “My Lord, I’m sorry for this. I was crying for justice. My opponents here want to intimidate me. My Lord, I’m weeping for justice.”

    In the event that Ekweozor wins the case, that will likely signal the age of tears as part of evidence. More and more attorneys will henceforth likely begin to round off their own submission by contriving some tears “for justice” as well.

     

     

  • Re: Flesh trader and the Idia spirit

    I was jolted to send you this after reading your column. A couple of  days ago l got  a recorded  message on my WhasApp. The message was in Yoruba  language  bitterly  crying  to be rescued  from slavery in an Arab country. The cry was  for Nigerian citizens misinformed and recruited for house-keeping  job in Saudi Arabia. The report said in Saudi, they were mostly Yoruba from Ibadan, Ogbomosho, Ilorin, Oyo, Ikirun etc.

    The message is begging anyone that got the message to help them to help amplify till the imformation reach the hearing of the government of Nigeria. The catalogue of woes of these unfortunate Nigerians include physical strangulation, non-payment of agreed salary and if they ask, they are threatened with police and portrayed as thieves or burglars. In some instances, the husband  in the  house  will  turn them to sex machine who if she got pregnant, would be made to be committing abortion and  must never allow  woman  of the house  to know. They, in most cases, work from dawn to dusk, seven days a week. They are  never allowed to go outside their place of abode. The recruiting  agent never  look back  as soon as they successfully  get them  out of  the country. The agents are many in Abuja and Ilorin. The cry of  these Nigerians is for the government  to come to rescue them from the mess they found  themselves.  Louis, please spread the message to save our fellow compatriots in great distress.

    F.O.O. Addie: 08028069101

    I particularly cherish the vehemence you deployed to excoriate all those complicit in the human trafficking business in Edo State. Especially the unconscionable parents. They collectively brought shame on a once proud people, who were known for their hard work, honestly, uncommon intellectual pedigree and sporting prowess.

    As you highlighted, we must go back to the root. A total reorientation of our values is mandatory – if we must survive, progress and flourish!

    Eddie Okojie

    While thanking God for the young lady named Blessing Okoedion for epitomizing the spirit of Queen Idia to gain her freedom, suffice it to say here that I cannot wait to see Josephine Iyamu being sentenced for her crimes against Nigeria girls.

    From your story, how many Nigeria girls would have died in the desert through all her transactions. We should as a matter of concern look critically at peoples’ antecedents before electing them into political offices.

    Joseph Obuele, Benin City

     

  • Flesh trader and the Idia spirit

    With the nation half immersed in soccer opium and half yoked with another mass slaughter by the genocidal herders on the Plateau this past fortnight, two otherwise profound morality tales would appear to have completely evaded the national orbit, denied the public attention deserved.

    Indeed, they contrast in circumstances, time and space. The protagonist in one is wide-lipped, the other chubby-faced.

    Again, one is the quitenssence of victimhood, the other the goddess of greed. But in-between the disparate narratives lays the masterkey to partly unlocking the psychology of the Edo woman often negatively profiled in national conversation over the years as willing victim in human trafficking.

    Josephine Iyamu used to camouflage as a nurse in the United Kingdom. But last week, it was proved that beyond the pungent smell of ether over white gloves and syringes, she lived more as pimp – part of a sex trafficking network that recruits vulnerable women from her native Edo State and smuggles them to Europe.

    Specifically, she was linked to the trafficking of five women to Germany and is due to be sentenced this week under a new law that targets modern slavery in Britain.

    But just as the gavel struck ominously at the British Court against Josephine last week in London, a solemn event befitting only a heroine was unfolding in faraway United States starring her townswoman, Blessing Okoedion.

    For her integrity to renounce prostitution in Italy and the uncommon courage to rise against those who lured her from Nigeria, the United States government found her worthy of the “2018 Trafficking in Persons Hero Award”.

    As exclusively reported by The Nation newspaper on Saturday, well-educated Blessing was a promising entrepreneur in Benin until she fell for the bait of the trafficking cartel who promised to smooth her way in Spain for a computer training programme. With that certification in mind, she had cause to dream of a more prosperous future.

    But the scheduled journey to Spain would end abruptly in an Italian brothel. She recalled that during their “orientation” rite in the dingy parlour, fellow victims – probably already browbeaten or bewitched into submission with voodoo – told her to accept her fate as resisting would fetch her more misery and reporting to the local police could land her in jail.

    After three days of forced sex slavery, a certain consciousness which Edo natives are wont to describe culturally as the Idia spirit stirred in Blessing in the dead of the night.

    For those unfamiliar with medieval history, Queen Idia is no ordinary character in Bini folklore. On account of her warrior instinct as the mother behind the monumental Oba Esigie and her virtuous standing as a tireless mobilizer who roused the kingdom behind a progressive purpose, generations afterwards would venerate her as the epitome of Edo womanhood.

    So, while others were snoring, Blessing chose to dare by tip-toeing out of the bondage into the chilling cold and managed to find a police station to squeal.

    Pronto, the Italian law enforcement agents swung into action by raiding the brothel. That signposted Blessing’s road to freedom. Thereafter, she decided to dedicate her life to combating sex trafficking. In an uncommon reversal of role, the former casualty now serves as a cultural mediator for trafficking victims in a rehab home run by Ursuline sisters in Italy.

    As a caution to those who might still be tempted, Blessing offered a jarring glimpse of the false life some of her fellow compatriots live abroad: “There are so many people who are victims but are afraid to speak out. I meet so many Nigerian nurses who are being trafficked in Italy. Many Nigerian graduates are here on the streets forced into a tortuous life of suffering. They post good pictures on social media, but they are afraid to speak because of stigmatization and the fear that people in Nigeria won’t believe their story.”

    Unfortunately, wisdom dawns on many when it is no longer useful.

    Now, the easy conjecture is to blame the worsening economic adversity at home wholly as the trigger of the migration of our women to the redlight districts in Europe. But from the two foregoing contrasting narratives, we can see that such conclusion and stereotypes are not always valid as they fail to take into account the other socio-cultural nuances, unable as it were to detail or fully explain the extraordinary circumstances that make the women vulnerable to such bare-knuckle exploitation, against which a good many would stand if ever given a fighting chance.

    Of course, there is stark difference between want and greed. And for those trafficked, the moral compunction is inelastic. The real defeat is the moment they choose to resign to fate.

    So, put simply, Josephine represents the worst and Blessing, hope, even redemption.

    Why the case of 51-year-old Josephine is particularly striking is because her stated professional address would ordinarily preclude her from being categorized as needy. In fact, frighteningly, she could have been sitting today in the Edo House of Assembly as lawmaker representing Egor council on APC platform. She had run a flamboyant campaign for the party ticket in 2015 and adopted the slogan “to inspire support for the empowerment of women and famlies”.

    Until her shameful story broke last week, there were signs she would vie for the ticket again for 2019! If elected, maybe she would be erecting brothels at home as constituency project instead.

    In the final analysis, the embedded lesson is for the parties and voters to be more thorough in the leadership recruitment and selection process. People like her often flock the town to flaunt ill-gotten wealth. They are mothers of kids whose spouses are unknown or unknowable.

    The Jezebel wants to be defined not by personal integrity but by the quantity of designer accessories on her body. She is a mobile signage for Gucci, Praza, Feragamno etc. With her over-bleached skin, contrived foreign accents, artificial Peruvian hair and nails, complete falsity is thus glomorised. But they only end up setting toxic examples for the young ones who then view migration abroad as the golden key to the good life.

    To rid the community of the Josephine virus, the challenge goes beyond the standard argument that government should create more opportunities for the teeming population at home. No less urgent is the need to reclaim the values that had nourished the society in the past. Perhaps, the first step in this direction should be a greater commitment to the sense of shame in the family and then the community, without which a nation slides in an ethical vacuum. Largely responsible for the nation’s moral crisis today is the pervasive knack for instant gratification, the get-rich syndrome.

    Unorthodox as it may seem, the recent cultural parade initiated by the Benin monarch, Oba Ewuare II, involving the invocation of ancestral curses could, therefore, be termed the cultural equivalent of fatwa against all those involved in the vice chain – from the greedy Madam, rogue native doctors to the conniving parents.

    Of course, such extreme step speaks directly to the the duality of the African spirituality. Custodians of orthodox faiths may preach or pretend otherwise; but this is indeed the African reality. On account of deferred consequence, many- if not most – are less likely to be compelled by oaths administered on orthodox faiths.

    But with the Oba’s mobilization of the much dreaded ancestral formula and its assurance of instant dire consequences, it is doubtful if the dark merchants of the flesh are still bold enough today to continue business the old way.

    With Blessing’s example, hope is kindled that the battle can be fully won some day.

     

     

  • FIFA: Takeaways from Eagles’ ouster 

    LONG after the ongoing FIFA soccer World Cup would have been won and lost in Russia, certain memories will definitely haunt us in Nigeria. One is the ghost of superstition and the other is the limitation of human judgement.

    To say gambling is part of the global football fiesta is to restate the obvious. Of course, this has led to the rise of voodoo and myth-making as stakers bay for the dough. Animal species have been dragged into the racket. In the last World Cup, for instance, we were treated to the fairy of Octopus.

    This time, the ancient Octopus morphed into the mystic pig credited with predicting outcomes with uncanny accuracy, match after match.

    On the eve of the crucial Nigeria Vs Argentina match penultimate Tuesday, the anointing of prophecy apparently transposed to a smaller animal – cat. A short video began to circulate in the social media showing the feline creature tipping Nigeria’s green/white/green flag for victory over Argentina’s.

    Such depiction was enough to sway those easily given to superstition. So, not a few supporters of Super Eagles I know in Lagos made a huge bet and had begun to salivate in anticipation of bumper harvest even before the match kick-off in faraway Russia that fateful Tuesday.

    But one and a half hours later, the tally only meant one thing: the oracle had failed spectacularly. So, it is safe to state that some of those who later wailed bitterly and gnashed their teeth across the country the night Eagles lost did so not only for national pride hurt but also the purse lost.

    In summary, there can only be two possibilities: the cat’s prophecy was made up by fraudsters to con the gullible. Or, the outcome is yet another validation of the extant existentialist argument that nothing is predetermined; that man’s reward is a function of his exertion.

    On the other hand, FIFA’s vaulting claim that its VAR (video assistant referee) recorded 99.3 percent success rate in the prelimary stage will hardly make any meaning to still distraught supporters of Eagles. The promise of VAR was to minimize – if not erase – the possibility of human bias. But we didn’t see that in the moment of doubt over the Argentine player whose left hand clearly touched the ball in their penalty box.

    We all held our breath as the Turkish referee halted the game in the dying minutes to consult the VAR tube on the sideline.

    Alas, our suspicion of bias was confirmed when he returned and ruled out a foul. Had the penalty been awarded, it potentially could have closed the game early for Nigeria.

    The implication: whereas machine may bear dispassionate witness, there is no guarantee man will not be subjective in his judgement.

     

     

  • Between Oshiomhole and the desperadoes

    Steven Igbinosu

    Louis, your column of May 16, 2018 entitled “Verily, Oyegun’s cry-babies need a nose-wipe” refers. I must say that I agree substantially with your submissions in the article under reference. However, one critical point I thought you missed is that the whole drama of mischief we are currently witnessing on the political landscape, particularly in the countdown to the historic APC national convention of June 23, is not being engineered only by those you refer to Oyegun’s “cry babies”, but also a motley crowd of PDP agents in Edo State who see the emergence of Adams Aliu Oshiomhole as National Chairman of APC as their political funeral.

    I am making this assertion with the insight of a home-based retired civil servant and a keen follower of political trends in Edo State right from 1999 to date and, therefore, can call myself a witness of truth.

    As we say in Bini, it is the rat at home that sends signal to the ones in the bush to come in and feast. The renegades within APC who view the fall of our amiable Chief Odigie Oyegun as APC National Chairman as the loss of their meal ticket are unhappy at the development and so have joined the PDP mischief-makers in their campaign of falsehood with the myopic assumption that their tales-by-the-moonlight will be enough to stop the oncoming train which Oshiomhole has become.

    Well, keen observers of Edo politics would not have been surprised by this dramatic turn of events, given that Edo PDP leaders were recently arraigned by EFCC in Edo court over alleged receipt of hundreds of million of Naira from Dasukigate on the eve of the 2015 general elections. Money meant to procure arms and ammunition for our troops fighting Boko Haram was, to borrow President Muhammadu Buhari’s phrase, shared out like buffet by these unconscionable politicians.

    Having spent a weekend in Oko Prisons before perfecting their bail, we knew these shameless political actors would fight back dirty.

    In the recent times, no lies seem too ludicrous to tell by these desperadoes, forgetting that he who God Has Blessed politically, no man can curse. The latest in their series of mischief is the petition being circulated in the social media and a section of the media accusing Comrade Oshiomhole of all crimes imaginable under the sun, an unimaginative rehash of the lies told on the eves of 2012, 2015 and 2016 polls.  By the time you calculate the various sums they are accusing Oshiomhole of “stealing” as governor in Edo, you begin to wonder if the entire cash earnings of Edo in 20 years can even equal that.

    Smart propagandists, these mischief-makers came up with an innovation this time by branding the latest petitioner a “Bishop”. But their cunny failed them in the sense that this “Bishop” is of no known church or temple in Edo State or anywhere in Nigeria.

    Well, it is all familiar dirty tactic PDP has perfected and would apply on the eve of any election. Going through the funny petition composed by the “Bishop”, one cannot but be assailed by too many contractions and illogicalities. On the one hand, it is insinuated that impropriety was committed by the governor in “acquiring” Federal Government’s land. In another breath, it was stated that the governor actually issued a personal bank cheque payable to Edo State Government. Then, the “Bishop” expressed wonder where the governor got the money in his personal account from! As if Comrade had not worked and earned income legitimately all his life! Thank God, the “Bishop” did not stretch his warped imagination further by claiming a dud cheque was issued.

    There is another hear-say about the “Abuja palace” Oshiomhole built to serve as his new abode after completing his tenure in 2016. This had formed the basis of another frivolous petition to the ICPC. We are aware that when ICPC conscientiously took up the matter, the petitioner eventually grew dumb as he could not provide the address of the said property or even the photograph!

    But the more they had persecuted Oshio Baba, the more popular he seemed to get. Not only did he disgrace the “godfathers” by winning landslide (18/18) in 2012, he succeeded in ensuring victory for his party, APC, in 2015 despite the deployment of “federal might”. It was only in Edo that APC had 45 percent in the presidential election in the South-South while some states in the region could not even boast of 5 percent. Thanks to Oshiomhole’s popularity and aggressive campaign skills.

    It will not be an exaggeration to describe Oshiomhole as perhaps the most investigated governor in Nigeria since the return of democracy in 1999. For being so vocal against the “PDP godfathers”, no measure was considered too extreme to use against the Comrade as the governor of opposition state of Edo while PDP was in power at the federal level. In fact, the present deputy governor of Edo State, Right Honorable Philip Shuaibu, a notable Oshiomhole’s supporter, was once detained in police cell over a spurious allegation that he did not graduate from University of Jos. Just as another political ally of the governor was incarcerated for a whole week over a laughable charge of a discrepancy in the name of the hospital he claimed to have been born. Just to tell you the extent this political desperadoes could go in seeking to hurt Oshiomhole.

    Given our short memory, many may have forgotten now; but twice Oshiomhole’s scheduled flight on helicopter was aborted at the Benin airport ahead of the 2015 general elections following “orders from above”.

    In order to hang him, petitions alleging “massive theft” were being churned out and addressed to EFCC and ICPC almost on daily basis by the same PDP elements to get at Oshiomhole since he proved invincible at the polls. To the extent that, at some point, engineers from Federal Ministry of Works under Mike Onolememen (the protege of the godfather, Chief Tony Anenih) were dispatched to Edo to measure and verify the bills of quantity listed in the contracts awarded by the state government. In broad daylight, these engineers from Abuja were carrying tape-rule and sweating all over the place including the Benin Airport Road like colonial overlords auditing the district officers.

    They did not stop there. Who has forgotten how PDP procured some lawmakers in the state assembly and with a minority were beginning to fine-tune an impeachment plot in their desperation to get Oshiomhole. Backed by police controlled by then ruling PDP, the minority of 9 lawmakers took over the assembly complex! While the majority of 16 lawmakers had to relocate the Edo Government House for their safety.

    Almost on a regular basis then, Edo officials including commissioners of finance, environment and Accountant General were guests of anti-graft agencies in Abuja where they were subjected to all kind of intimidation and humiliation with a view to extracting anything that could be used against the governor.

    At the end, they found nothing to incriminate Oshiomhole. In anger, I recall that Oshiomhole then threw a challenge to the then President Goodluck Jonathan to make public how much the Federal Government was paying per cubic feet of asphalt and concrete to be compared to how much Edo State Government was paying to show who was more prudent and frugal with public funds. This was because both FG and EDSG were using the same contractors in the state namely RCC and Setraco. I can’t remember the PDP Federal Government taking up this challenge then. In fact, what soon came to light was that whereas the Oshiomhole administration had turned down an invoice of N140m sent by one of the contractors for the construction of a culvert in Benin City on the grounds that it was excessive, Federal Ministry of Work gave out the same job with the same specifications for N280m!

    Today, among the fake Bishop’s writ is also the old fable of Oshiomhole’s “N20b mansion in Iyahmo”. Of course, everyone knows Oshiomhole’s existing country home located on the roadside in Iyamho originally built in 1993. Simply because he had embarked on some renovation work and added a wing to accommodate increasing number of guests after becoming governor, the mischief-makers photoshopped a breath-taking sprawling palace. But those who bothered to double-check later discovered that the image photo-shopped was actually the ranch-like home of popular American rapper, Drake!

    Perhaps realizing their own folly, this time, the PDP story-tellers decided to review the value of the imaginary Iyahmo’s palace from N20bn to N10bn in the current bulletin in circulation. Such idiocy!

    Really, Oshio Baba must really be a bone in the neck of these dudes to concoct this sort of mean lies. I recall there was also the pornographic tale circulated at some point. On the eve of the July 2012 elections, Oshiomhole’s head was photo-shopped and placed on the neck of a well-down stud surrounded by unclad ladies. That was meant to portray the governor in bad lights. Of course, just before the largely Christian Edo electorate could express outrage, the truth emerged. It was discovered to be a big lie.

    Who will also forget the fable of ForteAdams Airline valued at $1bn. This was floated shortly after Oshiomhole married his beautiful wife, Iara, in 2015. The mischief-makers simply announced Oshiomhole had set aside a whopping $1bn for the airline in honour of his wife. Pictures of non-existent Boeing 737 vessels with FortrAdams Airline colours were displayed as proofs. But so illiterate in mentality, these tale-bearers did not reckon that aviation business is not the same as “Tuke Tuke” (rickety bus) or hawking of “pure water” along Ring Road in Benin. A simple click on the google search engine revealed their claim as another cheap lie.

    In the final analysis, what I am sure of is that, no matter the tones of lies told, Oshiomhole is the people’s choice and is destined to lead APC to greater heights.

     

    • Chief Steven Igbinosu, a retired civil servant, wrote from Benin.

     

    Re: June 12, military cult and PMB’s ritual offering 

     

    Sir, your  write-up was good but something very factual is missing there. You did not mention the first hero of that June 12 , Professor Humphrey Nwosu. Was it deliberate or an oversight? Without Nwosu’s part mentioned, what you told us is nothing but half-truth.

    • Joseph: 08168882628

     

    May I add my voice to say “congratulations” to all Nigerians goodwill. Long live our darling President Buhari. Please, help pass this message: the Secretary of NEC during the June 12 saga should not be forgotten too. He is late Alhaji Aliyu Umar.

     

    AUDU PADA, Minna: 08036064812

     

    After all said and done, I expected you to make comments on the western leaders, some of whom attended the June 12 investiture, and asked why they failed to persuade the UNILAG Community to accept the first gesture by former President Goodluck Jonathan remaining the university Moshood Abiola University, Lagos. They erred to me. Mind you, I am a Yoruba man.

     

    Lanre Oseni: 07030303636

     

     

  • June 12, military cult and PMB’s ritual offering

    It is difficult not to read politics to President Muhammadu Buhari’s avowal of June 12 last week. If posthumous awards for MKO and Gani Fawehinmi were truly intended to re-connect the President to the progressive community in an election year, it has turned out a master-stroke indeed, going by the outpouring of goodwill for the general in the past week.

    The man likely to be biting his finger this hour discreetly must be Goodluck Janathan. Like many things he attempted in five years, the immediate past president bungled the bid to appropriate some mileage from June 12. His renaming UNILAG “MAU” (or MAU-MAU as traducers cheekily chose to echo in a backhand invocation of Kenya’s notorious coloinial Mau-Mau guerrillas) dried up almost immediately with the ink it was written.

    Perhaps, this time, the fakir from Daura was shrewd enough to engage the right medicine man for a better charm. Only that could explain while whereas the Fawehinmi family flung back medal similarly offered posthumously by Jonathan (just the same way Gani had rejected Umar Yar’Adua’s earlier in 2008), Buhari’s has been accepted with both hands in gratitude.

    But if we care to look deeper, there is surely a silver lining yet above the cloud of partisan opportunism here. Coming twenty-five years after the fact, the gesture could, in a way, be taken as an act of penance by a penitent member of a military caste that had violated democracy.

    As the ululation continues to echo across the nation over Buhari’s proclamation, Ibrahim Babangida must be a sad man today. His melancholy must be compounded by the shame of being finally exposed as nothing but a con man.

    Deluded IBB obviously wanted to do what none of his military forebears had done. He coveted eternal power but lacked the courage to come out openly and say so. While attempting to steal MKO’s popular mandate, he not only sold the nation a lie but also sought to cauterize national memory against remembering. Beaten to a corner, the “evil genius” then conceived the devious Interim National Government to wipe the memory of June 12.

    The same way OBJ could not be happy that the man, whose huge sacrifice he toiled so hard to deny even as little as a mere mention, is now being festooned with the nation’s highest garland posthumously. Neither could the Ota chicken farmer be amused that Gani who peppered him relentlessly with the worst invectives imaginable as “imperial president” would now be officially addressed as GCON.

    Nor could General T Y Danjuma also possibly have any cause to pop champagne at the good tidings. When the old Taraba-born warrior made himself available at one of the early “pro-democracy” summits in Lagos immediately after the annulment, he could barely conceal his impatience for the niceties of democracy. At some point, he was famously quoted as telling off pesky journalists: “Gentlemen, you know I’ve little or no time for all this your long talk about democracy. I’m here simply because I don’t like that man (IBB) there.”

    Or can thieving Sani Abacha, memorably dismissed as “intellectual midget trying to bring the nation down to his level” by Professor Wole Soyinka, be mollified for that matter. How depressing it must be for him wherever he is today to hear that MKO chained down for four years till he (the captor) died and who would curiously drop dead exactly a month later after him would now share the honour as fellow GCFR!

    Undoubtedly, June 12 annulment was the last act in a concatenation of defilements by two generations of buccaneering generals.

    In all its historicity, June 12 was a powerful expression by a nation that would appear to have outgrown the military that had held it down for a decade. By overwhelmingly endorsing a Muslim-Muslim ticket and voting above ethnic cleavages, the people could only be telling the generals the excuse of national fragility they kept retailing for hanging on to power was no longer tenable.

    In what must then be a fitting closure to history, it has now taken a general to uproot a lie planted by a fellow general twenty-five years ago. It is in the same spirit that we continue to yearn for a closure to the puzzle over the liquidation by parcel bomb of citizen Dele Giwa 32 years ago when the same general was law-giver. The same way the nation would seek an update on Buhari’s earlier order that the police reopen the murder cases of Bola Ige, Marshal Harry et al during the reign of another general.

    Now, let no one downplay the therapeutic benefit of establishing the truth. For that is the first sure step to national healing. Truth may hurt initially, but it heals ultimately.

    This moral joint is what is missing in the argument by the likes of former Chief Justice Alfa Belgore who seem obsessed with the letter – rather than the spirit – of law. They had argued that since it is impossible to have MKO and Gani physically present, awarding the honour would be vain.

    Not surprising, one Umar Ardo, an OBJ’s barefoot lackey, has floated the laughable idea of going to court to challenge Buhari’s decision.

    Though Femi Falana, SAN has done well to shine the light on the portion that might have appeared grey to the nay-sayers, it bears repeating that that is just what the spirit of law could also have envisaged. June 12 is never a speculation. It is a truth. To act or argue otherwise is to continue to dignify the big lie IBB told 25 years ago.

    The spirit of fundamentalism is inevitable in those who truly knew June 12 and lived its dark days intimately. I confess my own extremism here, having worked then as a young reporter in Concord Press owned by MKO.

    For the nation at large, perhaps what had made the trauma more unbearable was the culture of denial foisted and sustained with state might over the years. That lie first manifested in the specter of Ernest Shonekan who did not consider it dishonorable to seek to exercise power he neither won by ballot or secured by bullet.

    When the supremos of the now discredited military finally accepted to relinquish power in 1999, they strategically chose the eve of June 12 to disengage. The culture of denial was sustained by OBJ, ironically the biggest beneficiary of June 12, who now proceeded to indulge in perhaps the worst act of Gregorian incest by proclaiming May 29 (his own inauguration day) as Democracy Day in sheer contempt of the historic day Nigerians truly voted a new nation and in cruel denial of the supreme price paid by MKO and other martyrs.

    The Ota-based narcissist probably saw acknowledging June 12 as a favour to MKO, forgetting it was a historic duty to the nation actually violated. What’s more, soon after OBJ took over, the teaching of History was abrogated from our school syllabus, perhaps in order that the young Nigerians would never have the opportunity of knowing such sordid aspects of the nation’s past.

    No one put it better than Adams Oshiomhole, labour icon and former Edo governor, in a reaction to Buhari’s offering: “How ironic that over the years, those who emerged the beneficiaries of June 12 would toil real hard to designate their own coronation day falsely as Democracy Day over the moment Nigerians actually voted democracy.”

    If nothing at all, with the executive proclamation of June 6, credit must be given to Buhari for somehow bringing integrity back to national award. What further elevates the medals bestowed on MKO and Gani is its exclusivity. This is the first time the administration is awarding national honours since assuming office in 2015. A sharp departure from the past when national medals were dispensed yearly on industrial scale to recipients, many of whom in real life embody anything but honour. So much that at one of such bazaars, President Goodluck Jonathan was left to merely read out names of awardees without handing out commemorative medal or certificate, simply because his people kept updating the list until the last minute!

    Later, rumour of a racket began to swirl involving a ranking member of the administration. It was as if “bank alerts” were still pouring in while the brochure was already at the printer’s. In sum, award of national medal must be tied to idea or exertion that truly advances community or country. Only then will it have meaning or value.

    As for Baba Gana Kingibe, the fact that he is decorated with GCON being MKO’s running-mate can hardly launder his hands. He has benefited only from the technicality of history.

    By the way, curiously missing among surviving SDP top brass invited by Aso Rock to the June 12 ceremony was Chief Tony Anenih, ironically the chairman of the winning party. It could not have been an oversight, but an omission borne out of emotional intelligence and due regard for the sensibilities of a nation still haunted by a difficult memory. For the education of Nigerians yet unborn or too young to understand the main issue during that historic decade, Chief Anenih’s moral stamina failed him in the hour of temptation.

    Lacking character when it mattered most, Anenih led the colluding faction of SDP leadership that acquiesced to Babangida’s inducement to trade June 12 away. Even while the knife that stabbed MKO in the back politically was still dripping blood, Anenih and co had earnestly begun to position themselves for seats in the ING.

    His career of treachery continued when his old political mentor and benefactor, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, later ended up in Abacha’s gulag in 1995 after valiantly spear-heading the lobby at the 1994 Constitutional Conference that fixed January 1996 as exit day for Abacha.

    Without hesitation or shame, jobbing Anenih again made himself available to be used to torpedo the popular motion championed by now incarcerated Tafida Katsina, removing the last obstacle to Abacha’s self-succession circus.

    So, had renegades like Anenih dared to gatecrash June 12 memorial yesterday regardless, it would have been entirely surprising if the ghost of doughty MKO did not haunt them around the gallery relentlessly.

     

     

  • The politics of age

    Easily given to ceremony than substance, it is no surprise that we seem carried away yet again by the enactment last week of the “Not-Too-Young-To-Run” Act. By “we”, I refer to citizens of my generation and the millennials, many of whom probably view the development as no more than a tacit official acknowledgement of “our own turn to eat”.

    True, there can be no downplaying the import of lowering the age ceiling for the the highest office in the land at a time the geriatric seem reluctant to relinguish the leadership stool. Now, a 35-year-old is anointed to contest the presidency against President Muhammadu Buhari next year, as against the old minimum of 40. Just as a 25-year-old is fit to become member of state assembly or the National Assembly.

    Of course, this change, championed by the “Not-Too-Young-To-Run” movement, was undoutedly inspired by electoral hurricanes outside our shores in recent years that swept young Turks into power.

    At 39, Emmanuel Macron emerged the youngest President in the history of France last year. The same age as Leo Varadkar, the Irish Prime Minister.

    In Austria, 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz is Chancellor.

    In Canada, 43-year-old Justin Trudeau emerged Prime Minister. Thirty-seven-year-old Jacinda Ardern is New Zealand Prime Minister. Volodymyr Groysman was only two years older when he emerged Ukraine’s youngest ever prime minister. 38-year-old Emil Dimitriev took over in Macedonia. His age-mates – Carlos Alvarado Quesanda and Jüri Ratas – are leaders of Costa Rica and Estonia respectively.

    Back home, with a demographic of under-35 accounting for more than 65 percent of national population of over 180m, at no time in history have the Nigerian youths been this reminded of the power of electoral veto within their reach.

    But let it be noted that opportunity is not exactly the same thing as purpose. The easy conjecture is to assume today that the prospects of merely having public offices overtaken by the youths is all that is required to cure the obvious leadership deficit afflicting the country. Nothing could be more futile.

    Weighing into the raging debate, Sam Omatseye, fellow columnist and inimitable connoisseur of poetry and history, cautioned against toasting a mere “paper victory” in his last outing.

    I would rather add that the new Act would not be in vain only if the youths themselves see this as an impetus to frame the next agenda: mobilizing and driving a new campaign to redefine the purpose of politics as service and not a transaction. This, to me, is at the core of leadership crisis bedeviling the nation.

    Truth be told, what has always ailed our politics is not age but the mindset we bring to electoral contest. The issue is not the age of our politicians but the age of our politics. Azikiwe, Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello chanced upon the national stage in their 30s. The second generation of leaders consisting the military faction seized and exercised power also in their 20s and 30s.

    In terms of the integrity test, those found to have looted the public till over the years did so in their prime years. We can then see that youthfulness is hardly an inhibitor of the itchy finger.

    So, if we all agreed that the nation has under-achieved relative to her potential in almost six decades of independence, it is only logical that the failure be attributed substantially to the leadership recruitment and training template adopted.

    Now sorely needed is a new politics driven by values. I share the view that perhaps the easiest take-off point should be the resolve of good people to take more than a casual interest in politics in their local communities, thereby helping to crowd out the political hoodlums. If sustained, we will sooner than later help force a new ethic that ensures politics is no longer the vocation of men without verifiable second address or the rehab centre of women of easy virtue.

    Indeed, more than any time in history, the time has come for us to see a nexus between votes bartered for few banknotes before thumb-printing on the election day and the subsequent incidence of public treasury being stolen by those who bribed their way to power.

    But the thieving politician is just as culpable as members of his constituency who put them under pressure by making unreasonable financial demands. Few years ago, a popular senator from one of the South-west states narrated his “ordeal” to this writer.

    To make a visit to his constituency every week from his Abuja base, he required at least whopping N5m to cater for all manner of requests ranging from someone doing “remembrance party” for their ancestor who died last century, to someone taking a wife. So much that he often returned to his Abuja station the next Monday broke.

    His “coping strategy”?: “Whenever I’m unable to raise such amount of money,” he said, “I simply avoid going home and so it is cheaper for me then to fly to London to spend the weekend.”

    Of course, there is no prize for guessing where the senator had to source the slush money from to indulge his constituents weekly.

    Again, how many of us can genuinely volunteer for any form of civic act like joining in mobilizing more political participation in our respect local communities without expecting instant gratification from the resident “political leader”?

    I think the first step to sanitizing political contest is to disincentivize public office. So long as the unemployed graduate realizes that a federal legislator, for instance, carts home N13.5m monthly as “running costs” apart from the documented N750,000 salary, the more intense his envy and the greater his desperation to have the lawmaker displaced in the next election round and claim their plum seat.

    Of course, displacing the current order cannot be achieved overnight. It requires some activism of sorts which the youth themselves can help champion, bearing in mind that it is only when we have men and women of conscience in the position of decision that whatever is available is judiciously applied for the need of the majority, not the greed of a privileged few.

     

  • For Sunday Dare @ 52

    Tones of nice words were written or said in tributes by friends to Sunday Dare last week as he turned 52. What remains to add is his extraordinary drive. His knack for excellence is only equaled by a prodigious stamina to stay awake all night until the task is completed. Above all, he is a loyal friend indeed; one that sticks closer than a blood brother. Here is wishing the Oyo-born Commissioner of the Nigerian Communication Commission many happy returns of the day.