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Category: Mobolaji Sanusi

Muiz Banire’s perfidious hypocrisy

Since my Advanced Level study years at the Ogun State Polytechnic (now Moshood Abiola Polytechnic), Abeokuta, in the mid-eighties, I had come to admire one of the quotes in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s (1803-1882) “The Conduct of Life.” The edifying book is a collection of essays published in 1860. Emerson was the first American author known to receive payment for delivering a talk when he was paid $5 and oats for his horse.

The quote, which can be found on page 91 of the book, goes thus: ‘The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.’ The nuance of this quote was what came to my mind since the newest “political saint” in the Centre of Excellence’s political firmament, Muiz Banire, protégé of Oba Olatunji Hamzat and former Commissioner for Transport/Environment in Lagos State for 12 years, threw all decorum to the winds and in the process, portraying himself to the discernible as hypocritical harbinger of false-hearted struggle against what he calls political ‘imposition’.

So, when l read his largely duplicitous recent paper delivered in Osogbo, my immediate response was: ‘why would he be writing something that is capable of projecting a party he currently serves as national legal adviser as a bunch of dictators?’

While still ruminating over the genuineness of his intent, he, symptomatic of a loose cannon – this time in a November 9, 2014 – granted another interview to Premium Times, a popular online newspaper. His latest imprudence was titled: ‘APC may lose Lagos in 2015, National Legal Adviser, Muiz Banire, warns.’ He actually threatened brimstone when asked to name those he accused of using state resources to promote personal political causes. He declared: ‘We are going to define that very soon. Any time from December 3rd, we’ll start defining and documenting it appropriately.’

When asked if Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s influence is waning, particularly in Lagos APC, he said: ‘Number one, APC is a new creation, it’s not ACN. APC is a much bigger party, and it’s a conglomeration of several interests. So, to that extent, one person cannot be in charge again. So for now, everybody is in charge, every party member is in charge now unlike before. So that’s the difference.’ And surprisingly, Muiz deludingly thought himself to be one of those in charge, may be because he had the undeserving privilege of imposing candidates in the past.

His final word in the interview was that the people should not ‘feel intimidated by anybody because nobody is god.’ He equally stated that he believes that ‘…. we have equal rights to aspire to anything. And you need not have any godfather before you can be anything, particularly in APC.’ Let him tell the world the true statement of his bank statement in 1999 and whatever he is today is courtesy of Oba Hamzat and particularly Asiwaju. What are these people to this man of ingratitude?

Banire’s outbursts are covert vituperations on Asiwaju Tinubu, former Lagos governor and political iconoclast. Let me quickly state here that while Tinubu is fallible, being a human but Banire is an ungrateful element masquerading as champion of the people. What should be of concern is that Banire, for obvious selfish political reasons, has chosen to wash in public what he has overtime consistently benefited from. If he thinks he would at the end of the day benefit from his own hypocrisy by destroying Asiwaju, his waterloo awaits him.

Banire is the type of self professed leader that Nigerians, especially Lagosians should be wary of in 2015 and beyond. Lagosians do not deserve any young man who chooses to lead by precept rather than example. It is necessary at this juncture to give an adumbrated dissection of how this former poor ‘toddler’ lecturer (yes, he was a mister when he joined government) came into the political limelight of Lagos. He rode on the political influence of his mentor/godfather, Oba Hamzat, father of current Commissioner for Works in the state, to win Asiwaju’s confidence. In fact, Tinubu was reticent when Banire was recommended to him by Kabiyesi Hamzat who was using him as the caretaker (rent collector) for his estates and also to write minutes of meeting at political gatherings.

That was how he gained inroad, first as special adviser and later as commissioner for transportation in the Tinubu administration before he was later nominated by Asiwaju into the BRF government in his first term. He ended by spending 12 years in government. All he achieved was through recommendations from godfathers and after some years, he sees himself as a stalwart in Mushin area where he became a ‘master of imposition’, relying largely, on his reviled Tinubu influence within the party. It is surprising to read the same Banire saying as the Lagos APC primaries approach: ‘There is a tendency of imposition on the people…So, I believe that it must not even be allowed to happen now, even if it had been happening in the past. It is not progressive.’ At what time did Banire realise that imposition was not progressive? May be at the point where he believes he has made so much money because we know that he was far from being comfortable before he joined government when he was a proud owner of a ramshackle automobile.

Whoever doubts Banire’s profile as a master of imposition should go to his constituency in Mushin. Seye Oladejo, former chairman of Mushin Local Government and now Special Adviser, Commerce and Industry was a victim of Banire’s highhandedness. But for Asiwaju’s good sense of judgement, the man would not today be in the BRF government. It was BRF that nominated him but Banire wrote a letter to Asiwaju, threatening to leave the party if Oladejo was given the slot. He does not even have simple courtesy for the governor. For goodness sake, how do we qualify what Banire wanted Tinubu to do for him then if not master imposition? Up till today, this deceitful chief campaigner against imposition in APC is a leading light in that direction since he still writes names of ‘who gets what’ without recourse to the people. Yet, he talks about popular candidates when he was not even popular when Kabiyesi Hamzat rescued him from hustling in life.

Let us ask Banire if he is ready to henceforth follow due process himself. The other time when his ‘anointed candidate’ was not elected speaker of the House of Assembly, he threw decorum to the dogs because his bid to impose, as godfather himself, his will on the House failed. Also, he opposed Yemi Ali in Mushin Odi-Olowo but Tinubu stood his ground against his whims and caprices. This same man tried to smuggle at least four persons into BRF’s government without the governor’s consent. In the current ensuing Lagos governorship race, Banire says as ‘a national officer of the party, we are meant to be neutral,’ but his partisan neutrality knows who he does not want and that person according to him is the ‘so-called anointed candidate (Akinwunmi Ambode).’ What is the definition of this unjustifiable insolence?

Banire is fast becoming a misguided element that lacks the moral suasion to be in the vanguard of fight against imposition. Was it not through imposition that he became the national legal adviser of ACN and now APC? All those queuing behind him in his current outbursts, known and unknown had been at one time or the other beneficiaries of imposition from Asiwaju and by extension, the progressives’ leadership. His act of venting his spleen on Ambode, smacks of undue pride from a man who has acquired and is still acquiring so much from Tinubu and the progressive platform that he unthinkably wants to destroy because of selfish political ambitions.

Banire is a pious hypocrite posturing as virtuous. Anything that is not for him, in his warped view, is not democratic. He preaches the rule of law while his eyes are on the Lagos governorship that is far beyond his egotistic grip. Of course, yours sincerely knows that for people like him, there is always a hidden agenda. But he must realise one naked fact: The hypocrite is naturally doomed!

November 14, 2014
Welcome to President Jonathan’s world

‘As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him ‘- William Shakespeare

This week, there was a flurry of events depicting the abyss into which the current administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has plunged this country. Some were theatrical; others, pensive. In the expiring week, this column marvels at the garb of absurdity of the presidency and the farce that the first family, especially the first lady, Patience Jonathan reeks of.

For instance, how can the president and his presidency justify his picking up of the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) nomination form to run for in the 2015 presidential election when other qualified interested members of the party for same post were denied access to same form by the ruling party? The self over-exaggeration of the president’s wife, Patience, is really hurting the polity and nothing is being done to put the situation under control by the president. To start with, is the president truly in control of his home? Is he in truth a man of his words? This column appreciates the fact that a man who is not firmly in charge in his family life cannot be expected to be an effective manager of men and resources in a vast country like ours. Also, a man who cannot be taken for his words or honour is not what Nigeria needs to shepherd it out of the woods. Is President Jonathan any of the above?

This column knows that sometime in 2011, President Jonathan in a front page story in the Guardian, said he would not stay in power beyond 2015 if re-elected in 2011. But surprisingly yesterday, he was reported to have collected his nomination form for re-election to stay in power till 2019 at the PDP secretariat. He also at that period, promised to ensure significant improvement in key sectors of the economy including security, power, education, road and health among others. Sadly, as he wants to seek a fresh mandate next year, he has not achieved any admirable impact on any of the key sectors.

A close examination of the statement Mr President made while seeking re-election in 2011 will obviously expose him as a man of double-speak and one with no honour to stand by anything that comes from his mouth. What is astonishing is that he declared on the ravaging scourge of insecurity in the northern part and power in the country that year before the entire continent while interacting with Nigerians in the Diaspora and diplomats working in the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the African Union (AU) in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia, that: “Without security, there is no government. So, it is not debatable, it is something we have to address and we are working towards that with vigour. But if I’m voted into power within the next four years, the issue of power will become a thing of the past. Four years is enough for anyone in power to make significant improvement and if I can’t improve on power within this period, it then means I cannot do anything even if I am there for the next four years.”

President Jonathan at that session, added the clincher when he responded to a question on whether Nigerians in the Diaspora would be able to vote in 2011: “I would have loved that Nigerians in the Diaspora vote this year… Presently, the law does not allow voting outside Nigeria and so, this year, Nigerians in the Diaspora will not vote but I will work towards it by 2015 even though I will not be running for election.”

From the above, there are so many questions begging for answers as Jonathan picks his nomination form to run for re-election under PDP. Has he, through the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), put in place the structure that would ensure that Nigerians in the Diaspora participate in the 2015 general election? How will he explain to Nigerians in the Diaspora and the entire world that his promise, on his honour, not to contest in 2015 is now being unilaterally flouted without justifiable reasons? Is the unabated insecurity in the country a pointer to the fact that there is no government in the land under Jonathan’s supposed leadership? Does the abyss of electricity supply rate in the nation implying that even if Jonathan is given another four years, such would amount to a colossal waste? Can we justifiably infer that it is indubitable that there is an inept government in place today in the country? If this is so, the question is: Why does Jonathan still want to come back to power if his self-set parameters are anything to go by in judging his wobbling performance in power so far? Even, the nation under him has been globally adjudged as having been placed 143rd among 182 countries on the corruption index in 2011. By 2012, the nation was 139th among 174 countries. And in 2013, the nation abysmally soared to 144th out of the 175 countries.

On his self-set indices, the truth is that Jonathan has failed the nation and does not deserve to get a fresh mandate. But also on the theatrics which bother on his inability to rein his wife in, is the needless altercation the woman has been creating all over the states. Just like the wife of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, Grace Mugabe, Madam Jonathan is bringing shame on the presidency through her inglorious posturing. Zimbabwe’s 49-year-old first lady, while addressing veterans of the country’s liberation struggle in Mazowe recently, reportedly declared her intention to succeed her 90-year-old husband, when she said: “People say I want to be president, why not? Am I not a Zimbabwean?” Grace is also a subject of controversy over a doctorate she obtained from the University of Zimbabwe in September, just months after she allegedly enrolled there. Yours sincerely hopes Madam Jonathan will not get to this level one day.

Her follies: She fought with Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi and the governor reportedly put the reason behind the fight thus: ‘The quarrel between me and the wife of the President is because she said I should bring your money, Rivers people’s money and share with her.” The first lady is yet to give a reasonable response to this weighty allegations and the president is not bothered.

The woman was controversially made permanent secretary in Bayelsa State and he has recently resigned from the questionable position in the state’s civil service because of her perceived disagreement with the current governor. Yet, the president sees nothing wrong in her wife’s morally bankrupt elevation while others deserving of such could not even be considered in a country where unemployment soars to high heavens. The first lady will be collecting gratuity now for doing nothing while other old people that truly served this country are waiting endlessly to collect their pension. Madam Patience has no patience when she went to Oyo State where she left in her wake, more controversy in the state’s PDP. Her husband sees nothing wrong in his wife’s illegal summon on elected and senior officials of state. Welcome to President Jonathan’s world where himself and wife rule the nation with crass impunity. This column is sure that this is not the kind of presidency that Nigerians deserve to retain seat come May, 2015.

October 31, 2014
APC’s moment of decision

‘The ruling political machine triumphs because it is united minority acting against a divided majority’ – Will Durant

Personally, l doff my hat for those progressive leaders of APC for their selfless pursuit of their party’s registration to a fruitful end; and particularly their current open door policy that is garnering more followership for the party across the country: They sacrificed their self-interests and endured personal discomforts. When it looked as if the set goal of registration was impossible; when their political hecklers were already jubilating that they had reached a dead end, they remained unrelenting. They really strategised day and night to lay this unassailable foundation.”

The above is an excerpt from my column of Friday, August 5, 2013 titled: Will APC be PDP’s nemesis? At that time, the attendant euphoria of the eventual registration of the opposition party rented the air and in anticipation of greater things from the party, yours sincerely came up with this write-up. Ever since its publication over a year ago, this most publicly perceived leading opposition platform has made some serious incursions into the polity just as it has equally suffered visible setbacks.

The convention process leading to the election of its substantive chairman was expectedly riddled with malcontent that quickly eased off. But it is equally true that no political party’s election process is universally free from such unease and what matters is how such issue was handled subsequently. Someone like Tom Ikimi who sold out on the issue of annulment of June 12 Presidential election as chairman of National Republican Convention and even publicly justified the judicial murder of Ken Beeson Saro-Wiwa before the entire Commonwealth of Nations as foreign minister under the late despot Sani Abacha, abandoned the party because he could not get the position of chairman.

Bunu Sheriff, the former governor of Borno State widely believed to be a mole of President Goodluck Jonathan in the party and an alleged Boko Haram promoter led others from that part back to where their souls had always been, the PDP. That was when Chief John Odigie-Oyegun emerged as substantive chairman of APC. At this point, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president and presidential candidate of Action Congress party in the 2007 general election, also returned to ACN after his unsuccessful hibernation in the PDP.

After surviving that internal wrangling at its convention and with the return of Atiku, several political pundits predicted that the primaries for picking the presidential candidates of the party would lead its final disintegration with the main 2015 elections serving as its final death knell.

It is important for the party’s topmost hierarchy to be mindful of this prediction and must do everything possible to avoid any pitfall in picking its presidential flag bearer. By the party’s top echelon, this column means not only those in its national executive committee but also those top shots aspiring to get the party’s presidential ticket. The leading ones among them include Atiku, Mohammadu Buhari, and Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State. The news about the presidential ambition of Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, Speaker of the House of Representatives under APC remains a conjecture until he publicly crosses over to the opposition camp.

However, the opposition must realise that the struggle of Nigerians against impunity in power is akin to the proverbial struggle of memory against forgetting. The struggle against misgovernment by the ruling party at the centre has become serious albatross that has refused to go away and Nigerians are eagerly looking forward to APC as the only viable alternative at this point in time to take power from President Jonathan’s PDP.

And the moment of decision has come when the party must choose a candidate that can rescue Nigerians from the crass ineptitude and misrule of the Jonathan-led administration. The leadership of the party ought to realise at this moment in time that it is important for political practicability to triumph over partisan parochial interests as the party prepares to pick its presidential candidate. There are several questions begging for answers as the primaries get closer. Of the aspirants, how many can each easily deliver their states or regions for the opposition party in the presidential election? Can Atiku deliver Adamawa for APC in February next year? Yours sincerely’s guess is as good as that of the discerning public and the answer is ‘no’. If a politician cannot deliver his state, ensuring he gets the party’s presidential ticket is like throwing it away.

Again; is Kwankwaso politically in-charge and can he deliver his entire northern region for the opposition party in the presidential election next year? There is obviously no doubt that Kwankwaso cannot be ignored in the political equation of Kano State. But does that necessarily translate to winning the majority of the entire north for the opposition in next year’s presidential election? He cannot be easily written off, but can his political clout be effective on the presidential fortunes of the opposition party to rule the centre come 2015? My response is ‘no!’

Buhari stands out among the presidential aspirants of the opposition APC not because of his military leadership background which is tyrannical and oppressive or perceived religious fanatism, but because of his incorruptibility as a person and the commanding religious love that most northerners have for him. He was a former federal Commissioner for Petroleum, former GOC, former Head of State and former chairman of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) among others. He remains obviously the only Nigerian leader, living or dead, that has held such enviable positions and still lives an ascetic and unpretentious life of incorruptibility.

Can Buhari deliver Katsina, his home state, and most northern states for the opposition party? Yours sincerely can answer this in the affirmative. The reason is not because one likes the man but that is just the naked truth considering his electoral antecedents since his ANPP and later CPC years when he won millions of votes for the two political parties in the presidential elections and even secured some governorship slots for the parties on his singular honour. If this kind of political support base is merged with a southwest bloc votes and tokens from the east and south-south, then the ruling party is in trouble come February next year. Doing this by APC will prove that theorist, Will Durant wrong by showing that it is not in all instances that the ruling political machine triumphs, especially if its united minority is brutally dared by an equally united majority in the current opposition in the country. But will APC forge a united front of the majority after the presidential primaries?

The decisive moment is the moment of truth that takes us to the birth of the leading opposition APC. The party is formed by the compelling necessity to rout the rampaging and impunity infested PDP out of the centre. This is why the convergence of strange political fellows became possible despite all odds. The selfless toil of APC leaders, their sacrificed self-interests and endured personal discomforts ab initio will come to naught if they ignore pragmatism in reaching a consensus on who picks the party’s presidential ticket. Doing anything contrary will be laying the foundation that could allow their political hecklers laugh at them in the end, God forbid!

October 24, 2014
Fortifying frontiers of opposition politics

Nigeria clocked 54 over two days ago but the search for that great leader with the capacity to inspire the country to greatness continues. To this column, the pertinent questions are:Where in Nigeria is the opposition that is the blaze that tempers the rapier and the frost that calms fiery rage? Where is effective opposition of the mould that the nation could learn from? These questions are what political opposition in year 2015 should provide answers for as subtle planning for next year being one when fresh general elections will be conducted.

It is important for the opposition to rally support to uproot the current go-slow government from Aso-Rock. The opposition needs to rally by providing leadership option that would throw up a presidential candidate that can inspire us to be what we know we could be.

However, this is achievable provided the opposition will not submit to covert and overt official attempts to decimate them. President Goodluck Jonathan, like his predecessors in office, seems not to appreciate the existence of the opposition. He seems to have forgotten that the opposition is indispensable in any system. His political henchmen will be machinating on how to pocket the opposition before the next elections but if he allows this rather than good governance as his score card, then he will be acting un-statesmanly.

Walter Lippmann has some words for Jonathan when he said: ‘A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. Perhaps the current direction is that his supporters may push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise, he will often pray to be delivered from his friends who had already endorsed his sole candidacy for the ruling People’s Democratic Party(PDP), because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.’ This should act as food for though for the president in as 2015 approaches.

Again what does the nation’s political opposition have in stock for Nigerians in 2015?

Whenever one thinks of the current opposition politics in Nigeria, what readily comes to mind is the statement of that British statesman, Benjamin Disraeli when he said: ‘Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power.’ The statement becomes apt in view of the fact that President Jonathan’s ascension to power was a fait accompli, but his retention of power should not be viewed as such by Nigerians and especially the opposition. The president assumes power not by popular ballot but upon the death of his boss, late President Umaru Yar’Adua, despite high wired intrigues by grovellers of the late president against his constitutional choice. The opposition at this time should do everything to ensure that the president’s re-election bid in 2015 is truly determined by the people. But so far, what is the opposition doing to make sure the process is not hijacked from them? Is the opposition currently doing enough to stop Jonathan by making the votes count in less than six months time? What about the electoral tyranny from the centre government? How can it be stopped?

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former governor of Lagos state and national leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), unarguably Nigeria’s largest opposition party, in July 2011, delivered a lecture at London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs on “Democracy and the Rebirth of the Opposition in Nigeria” where he gave a dour admonition: “Our country’s democracy remains a parody of true democracies. Ours has mimicked some essential aspects of military and authoritarian rule.” While one agrees with this realistic submission, it will be opportune to equally ask what the opposition in the Nigeria’s political firmament has done to erase all traces of tyranny and authoritarianism in the polity. Are they not complicit in this oppressive game?

Yes, we might say that the opposition under this democratic dispensation has made remarkable onslaughts in some areas, rising glowingly to the occasion by saving the nation from avoidable periodic tyrannical blows. Let’s have a peep into two of such occasions. One was the attempt by former president Olusegun Obasanjo, a master in the game of tyranny, to elongate his tenure that has now been commonly referred to as the Third Term Agenda, even when the 1999 Constitution (as amended) allows for two terms of four years each. The opposition with the support of some conservatives vanquished the idea. Another was when the opposition party in the south-west mobilised the people to route out of power the oppressively conservative PDP administrations in virtually all the Yoruba speaking states.

Despite these notable landmarks however, one could still not fathom why the opposition, especially in the south-west, refused to field a presidential candidate in 2003 Presidential election while surreptitiously rooting for the candidate of the centre party? It still remains baffling why and how ‘go slow’ President Jonathan cleared the entire votes in south-west, except Osun state, in the 2011 presidential election when the ruling progressive Action Congress of Nigeria(ACN) party, presumably the most popular party in those areas had its own presidential candidate. This I consider to be a gaffe and do hope such will not repeat itself in 2015 because the partisan and the non partisan are now regretting the 2011 electoral choice of Jonathan.

As we begin the race towards 2015, no rapprochement between the centre party and opposition political parties will foster any good result that could be of common benefit in the end. The fact that something has not been achieved before does not mean it would not be achieved one day. Some might allude to the fact that in the First and Second Republics, efforts geared towards upstaging ruling parties through mergers failed. Fingers will be pointed to the First Republic when the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) comprising the National Council for Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and the Action Group failed to upstage then ruling centre party – the Northern People’s Congress (NPC). Also in the Second Republic- the National Party of Nigerian (NPN) remained the central ruling party, despite the alliance under the name- People’s Progressive Alliance (PPA) by the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), People’s Redemption Party (PRP) and Great Nigeria People’s Party (GNPP). Since the advent of democratic rule in1999, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has forcefully sustained this curious tradition that led those two Republics to nowhere.

It is a good thing that the All Progressives Congress is soon to present its own presidential candidate that will face President Jonathan next February but the leadership must ensure that the process leading to that do not lead to the decimation of the leading opposition party. The need for the opposition party to be truthful, sincere and steadfast in pursuit of the priced political position is now. This is necessary so as to upstage the ruling PDP centre government. In 2015 expectedly, the opposition will have no excuse for failure because Nigerians eagerly look forward to seeing it lay the foundation for a formidable front necessary for achieving meaningful political re-orientation and desired democratic change.

NOTE: This piece was first published in this column on January 4, 2013 but reproduced here for its continuing relevance to prevailing situations, with slight modifications.

October 3, 2014
2015: Where’re politicians of conscience?

‘The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard’ ————Gaylord Nelson

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was that quintessential English philosopher who is best known for his political thought on the problem of social and political order. He wrote about how human beings could live together in peace so as to avoid civil conflict through his advocacy of obedience to an unaccountable sovereign that could be a person or group empowered to decide every social and political issue; failure to do this according to him, could lead to what he called a “state of nature” that is anarchical. The consequence of this, in his view, is that the life of the people under that state of nature becomes ‘brutish, nasty and poor.’

But looking at the past and current situations in the country, it is doubtful if Hobbes contemplated human beings, especially the developing countries’ politicians, as purely particularly egoistic. This riddle has been the speck on the theory of this founding father of modern philosophy because it gives no reverence to the need for good ethics, morality and conscience as parameters for leadership obedience by the governed.

The afore-stated adumbrated intellectual scrutiny of Hobbes’ works is informed by last week’s blanket approval of President Goodluck Jonathan by all the directing minds of ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as the party’s sole presidential candidate for the 2015 general elections. The PDP governors led by its forum’s chairman, Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, its Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman, Tony Anenih, Adamu Muazu, PDP national chairman, Olisa Metuh, its national publicity secretary; Senate President David Mark and members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) that serves as its highest decision-making appendage recently adopted Mr. Jonathan as the party’s consensus candidate in next February presidential election. That game, obviously an exercise in impunity, made mockery of the well-espoused principle of internal democracy of political parties. And quite presumably, the hearts of most discerning Nigerians have since not ceased bleeding!

The way and manner that otherwise men of honour “regurgitated” superlatives about the president and his leadership style at the event compelled yours sincerely to wonder if they were talking about the same man whose tenure has put the nation in the worst turmoil than any past leadership of the country. One wonders if these adults truly mean that Jonathan should continue after 2015. The mind went on peripatetic adventure and accompanied by surging questions: Could it mean that they, who are mostly serving top officers of state and from the ruling party, are indifferent to the plight of suffering Nigerians and debilitating state institutions? Are they unaware that five months after, the over 200 Chibok abducted girls are still in the bondage of the Boko Haram insurgents? What about the corruption of subsidy surrounding the management of crude oil proceeds by this administration? Are these supposed party chieftains saying that the odious exportation of $9.3million government money in privately owned aircraft where the president’s close pastor friend has residual interest is in order?

Again: Could they be saying that one of the reasons for reposing confidence in the president is because South Africa seized Nigeria’s hard-earned illegally transported funds to her territory? Or could it be because of the abysmal human rights record of his administration as depicted by Amnesty International through the illegal torture of Nigerians by the police/military institutions? Does President Jonathan deserve a re-election for spending over a trillion on a Boko Haram war that is far from being won due to the nation’s military that is witnessing its greatest low and de-motivation under his administration? Could the president be deserving of another term for hobnobbing with alleged sponsors of Boko Haram? Could this wobbling handling of the Boko Haram criminal nuisance be the reason why the Senate hastily approved $1billion loan for the president to fight the insurgents while people are generally aware that the loan will eventually be deployed by the commander-in-chief to prosecute his 2015 re-election ambition? They could not even be bothered that the president has not accounted for the trillion already spent on the battle against the Boko Haram rebels.

Based on the fore-enumerated necessary questions and several others not asked owing to space constraint, this column wonders if morality has any impact on a politician’s decision to run or pursue a re-run for office; or whether such is pertinent before endorsing anybody seeking to contest an election. The impunity against morality and character that is going on in especially the ruling PDP has underscored the fact that conscience as the inner voice that warns us in our overt conducts that somebody may be looking is lacking in the ruling party—and perhaps in other parties too. The directing minds of most parties, especially as depicted by the nauseating endorsement of Jonathan have shown, quite vividly to groaning Nigerians that character, which means the doing of things that one would not want to do but is conscientiously and morally right to do, is lacking in the country’s embattled polity.

This column winked at the phoney and incongruous epithets used to describe Mr Jonathan as if he is inimitable, just to save their daily bread. These are historically insincere politicians, pretenders, interlopers, charlatans and irredeemable impostors that ended believing themselves by fooling the undiscerning public. They did same to Ibrahim Babangida, the despot who was ignominiously forced to step aside. They cajoled late tyrant Sani Abacha; and few of them despite their old age called former president Olusegun Obasanjo ‘baba’ just to ensure that he got to their well orchestrated disgraceful end in the saddle. One will perhaps be unduly alarming to state that Obasanjo ended abysmally with the ultimate collapse of his Third Term agenda through which billions of state funds were reportedly disbursed as alleged gratification to politicians perceived to be strategically positioned to help in fructifying that satanic ambition.

What Jonathan might not easily remember also is that these same choristers helped Obasanjo to change the party’s constitution to allow former president unfettered access as the leader of the party and to have a say in who becomes future president. But quite ironically, it is instructive that the same Obasanjo, though alive, was not at the venue where the current ‘who-is-who’ (his former allies in mis-governance) in PDP converged to endorse Jonathan. What a lesson to the incumbent! Is it proper to describe these PDP politicians and others like them in the other political parties as politicians with conscience? The answer is absolute NO! For not upholding sincerity of purpose, truthful justice and realistic reliability in this odious blanket endorsement of an inept “ruler” in Jonathan, it is almost certain that the words of the presently suffering Nigerians and the future generations will not be kind on these political jesters in PDP.

September 26, 2014
Greed as incitement for class war

‘The most dreadful of all wars, the war of the poor against the rich, a war which, however long it may be delayed, will come and come with all its horrors.” ———Orestes Brownson (American Unitarian, Catholic convert and founder of Workingmen’s party)

It was in the course of flipping through newspapers some days ago that I came across a mind-boggling story on Aare Afe Babalola, an incandescent legal luminary. He reportedly escaped being stoned to death by protesting angry students of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado Ekiti. The students’ grouse was against power outage in their community for over one month. They also attempted to vandalise one of the hostels of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), owned by the topmost advocate, which is located opposite the Polytechnic. The students, in their wild reverie, hijacked vehicles and blocked the Ado-Ijan-Ikare Highway. They queried why ABUAD campus should enjoy uninterrupted power supply while they wallow in darkness in their Erinfun community.

But for timely intervention of the police, the story may have been different despite police’ claim to have arrested 30 students which they thoughtlessly plan to charge to court for breach of public peace. The legal icon was actually trying to intercede in the matter before the incident got out of hand. The likes of Babalola are blessings to any community. As far back as the second republic, he deployed his influence to bring the Federal Polytechnic to Ado-Ekiti, his area and reportedly donated many gigantic structures to the institution. But the fact in issue in this case is not about an individual; it is beyond that because what happened in Ado-Ekiti could be a reflection of what to expect on the national scale-an imminent revolt of the poor against the rich and that of the governed against their government.

The transferred aggression of the students against hard-working people like Afe Babalola, who ordinarily should be spared such torment, should not be waved aside as misplaced. The reality is that when anguished people vent their spleen against a degenerative system, both the guilty and the innocent fall victim: No one is spared. It could be said that his university was established from his decades of toil in the legal turf. But can this be said several past leaders who had passed through the corridors of power? More precisely, we have leaders, past and present, whose pastime remain the destruction of public educational system in the country only to come up later to establish their own universities? That is the reason behind the debilitating state of education and fall in standards across this defective federation. A largely poor and exploited populace pretending to be educated could be serious threat to the wealthy and those in power in any nation. That is what transpired in Ekiti state. Afterall, Abraham Lincoln once said that ‘wealth is like manure, and does no good unless spread around.’

For instance, Ibrahim Babangida holds the infamous record of running a government under which the egregious degeneration of public universities began in the country. He later established his own private institution called Al-Amin International School. Olusegun Obasanjo’s first tenure as military leader witnessed serious contempt for university students’ welfare as epitomised by the ‘Ali Must Go’ saga in which soldiers brutalised the students. His second coming as civilian president for two terms of eight years witnessed unreasonably prolonged lecturers’ strikes in tertiary institutions. He too also established The Bells University in Ota, Ogun State. His then deputy, Atiku Abubakar also went ahead to establish The American University somewhere in the north. There are others like them too numerous to mention for space constraints.

Rather than dissuade this odious trend, successive administrations have consistently shunned the rational path of proper funding of not only public universities but other publicly owned educational institutions in the country. Some top government functionaries, past and present, gleefully flaunt private universities and secondary schools built with questionable income while occupying public positions.

Shamefully too, the amenities they would not provide for the public schools despite budgetary provisions for such have suddenly become the beacons of standards in their privately owned odious schools replete with opulence and grandeur at the expense of public till. Apart from the avalanche of infrastructure in these schools run with ill-gotten funds, lecturers there don’t go on strike while children of the poor are priced out of attending them through prohibitive tuition fees. These men of power’s schools continue to thrive for as long as the undermining game against public schools continues.

The role of religious organisations including mosques and especially the churches is quite un-encouraging. In the face of blinding poverty, the churches exploited the religious weaknesses in Nigerians by collecting tithes from the poor as well as stolen money from public till from highly placed Nigerian members to build universities and secondary schools that underprivileged members cannot afford to send their wards. The corruption in most churches has denied that sect the opportunity of sustaining its position of being the moral fulcrum of the Nigerian society. If anything, the graft in such places of worships has further amplified the class disparity in the larger society.

The traditional institutions have lost its moral steam in communal and societal guidance. What exist mostly in virtually all communities are traditional rulers that glorify criminals and till looters without any tinge of conscience thereby aiding the widening disparity between the rich and the poor. Of course, the once momentous role of the upper middle-class intellectuals that once served as the conscience and repository of policy/ideas formulation for the country has since disappeared. The quality of knowledge/competence oozing out of citadels of learning is quite low, while mostly apolitical high grade civil servants of yore have vanquished from this clime. The middle class has disappeared as what we now have are lumping bourgeoisie that perpetually relies on shady deals to sustain their questionable lifestyles.

To sustain the increasing unequal class disparity in the country, some Brettonwood institution’s propelled economists have been strategically positioned in the current administration to come up with economic theories that would further make life more miserable for the common man on the street. They see economics, in their pursuit of capitalist ideals, as a circle where market economies automatically adjust themselves. But John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) who was one of the greatest economic thinkers of the 20th century came up with an idea that puts a lie to this through his call for deficit financing and state intervention. This has manifested through World Bank officials in government’s concocted and insincere bailouts and other intervention policies that at that time saved capitalism from self annihilation. Again, here in Nigeria, state interventions, relying on the Keynesian political-economic model during economic crisis was usually predicated on fraudulent aegis that has no direct benefit for the common man but pockets of those in power, thus broadening the already wide gap between the rich and the poor. The rich/powerful in the country always seize such opportunity for nepotistic advantage and to further solidify their economic foundations.

This continuing state economic affront is why class struggle might be imminent in the country. After all, Karl Marx once said: ‘The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle: lord and serf, patrician and plebeian, gild master and journeyman; they all stood in constant opposition to one other; engage in now hidden, now open fight; a fight that result in revolutionary reconstitution of the society at large or in absolute ruin of the contending classes.’ The ruling elite class in the country must do something drastic about the worsening exploitation and tyrannisation of the less privileged in our society. Otherwise, it is they that have more than something to lose and not the common man who has got used to suffering in the midst of plenty.

September 19, 2014
Deboye Obasanjo: Parable of unequal fingers

“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” — Jane Addams

Tear-jerking events on the Boko Haram-led battle field are happening with tumultuous speed. And so bothersome is the fact that the more they happen, the more the impenitent insurgent sect befuddles the people of a nation under siege. More puzzling is the fact that the insurrection against the Nigerian state has unravelled the ingrained rot and value degeneration that the nation’s military institution epitomises. With largely de-motivated soldiers that reject postings at will and randomly defect in the face of heated battle among others, one needs no soothsayer to tell that things are not well within the rank and file of that vital institution of state.

The event that happened early this week is as repulsive as it is disconcerting. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s son, Lt. Col. Adeboye Obasanjo, a military engineer, was reportedly shot in the leg as his platoon battled the insurgents in Bazza, Michika Local Government Area. Instantly, it became news that was widely reacted to by even the Federal Government. Adeboye was flown out of Yola, the Adamawa State capital, to an undisclosed place.

To this column, what happened to Adeboye was just routine occupational hazard that should be expected by any soldier engaged in war situations. That is the equivalent of what is happening on all fronts in the battle against Boko Haram in Borno State. Soldiers, as professionals upon enlistment, expectedly concede their lives to their countries. They sign off their lives through pledges of unalloyed allegiance to their nation. On the day of his commission, the former president’s son must have done that which is why he would not have any other option but to return to duty post upon recovery from the injury.

What this column finds very disgusting is the undeserved and morale killing preferential treatment being accorded the boy at the detriment of other better valiant but less privileged soldiers in similar circumstance by the Nigerian state. This unjust concession has no basis or explanation in military law or even our collective grundnorm. Sadly, it is absurd that the military hierarchy failed to seize the Adeboye incident to demonstrate equality of treatment among the soldiers who despite avoidable inadequacies are audaciously battling the insurgents.

For instance, is it not hypocritical that the federal government and the Defence Headquarters commented on the state of health of Adeboye alone when not less than 20 soldiers lost their lives in the same operation without anybody paying tribute to them or condolences to their families? To add insult to injury, top dignitaries of state, past and present, started jostling to pay the guy visits. At least, two cases will suffice here: Ahmadu Fintiri, Adamawa State Acting Governor visited him on his hospital bed at the Federal Medical Centre, Yola. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar also visited him before he was flown out of Yola. Even the media shamefully celebrated this guy’s gun shot injury as if it did not happen in line of military duty. Yours sincerely is compelled to ask: What for?

The actions of these present and former top officers of state is nothing but hypocritical. Atiku and Fintiri among others never visited any of the previously wounded soldiers or even families of those soldiers that lost their lives on the battle fronts. None of these deceitful men of power deemed it fit to visit Chibok, Borno state, to commiserate with the parents of the Boko Haram abducted school girls. Again, why is such August visit reserved for an Obasanjo son? The federal government or these dishonest men of power never passed comments over the plights of other officers and soldiers who were unfortunate not to have been born by an Obasanjo. So far, no top federal government functionary, past or present has visited the families of 20 police officers of the Nigeria Police Mobile Force (PMF), Gwoza Training camp, Borno State that were declared missing by the Acting Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba.

This column also recollect that one Captain Sule was recently reported by Saharareporters, an online newspaper, to have been killed on the battle front against the sect’s insurgency barely eight months after wedding his heartthrob. No single top government official reportedly visited his family members to commiserate with them. Some army officers were declared missing as Nigerian military clashed with Boko Haram in Gwoza and nobody high-up cared about their roots. Again, their major misfortune was not to have been born by an Obasanjo.

What the biased official handling of the Adeboye’s gunshot case has taught us is that the destructive politics of inequality that is threatening the war against Boko Haram will continue until when the government and the military authorities realise that no life of a soldier, whether born of silver spoon or not, is unimportant. To continue with this inhuman approach is to destroy the occupational incentive and team motivation necessary to propel soldiers/officers to action. To sustain this kind of nepotistic conduct in future is to avoidably kill the spirit of resistance/commitment by enthroning selfish/greedy interests that could deflate the country’s nationalistic fervour.

Adeboye, for no fault of his but ancestry, was unduly given preferential treatment by an hypocritical Nigerian military and civilian system. But one thing must be noted and that is the fact that in a military where justice is denied and where class disparity is enforced and where a privileged class is made to feel that society is an organised conspiracy to oppress and degrade, the security and territorial integrity of such country can easily be compromised.

The military in any parts of the world is that important institution of government that is authorised to use lethal force and weapons, to support all interests of the state. But in view of the military’s unequal treatment of soldiers/officers in the ongoing war against Boko Haram, can it be justifiably said that the same military can look forward to getting the best of results from soldiers?

When the on-going skewed treatment combines with the already prevailing suffocating chronic low operational readiness and endemic corruption that have further exposed the military’s inherent contradictions and incongruities, then, the nation’s touted giant reputation becomes illusory. If this badly managed battle against the Boko Haram must be won, then, the military topmost hierarchy must not turn its rank and file in to George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ where inequality is the painful norm.

September 12, 2014
Stephen Davis’ Boko Haram bombshell

‘I have learned to hate all traitors, and there is no disease that I spit on more than treachery.’ —-Aeschylus (525 BC – 456 BC)

This column has sturdily believed that the current inscrutable myth behind the Boko Haram rebellion would be unravelled one day, but when that would happen is what remains cloudy. Blissfully, a salient layer of deceit on its operations was torn last week when an Australian exploded by revealing scintillating clues about the likely characters behind the cankerworm. Stephen Davis, a 63-year-old political geography expert may not be known in Nigeria’s public domain, but he is definitely not new to the country’s power house having served as an adviser to ex-presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and late Shehu Yar’Adua. This Australian hostage negotiator was involved, on behalf of the current federal government, in efforts to secure the release of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted in one day by Boko Haram militants in Chibok, Borno State. So, he could not be described as a neophyte in the political conflicts engulfing the nation.

No wonder that his recent interviews on Arise Television, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), THISDAY newspaper and subsequently Sahara Reporters, an online newspaper on the identity of some secret sponsors of the notorious sect is generating so much hullabaloo in the right quarters because two of the mentioned names are those of Nigerians that had held powerful positions in the past.

Davis alleged in the reports that former Governor Alli-Modu Sherriff of Borno State and a former Chief of Army staff, General Azubuike Ihejirika (rtd) are alleged top backers of the Islamist rebel group that butchered and is still abducting and slaying vulnerable Nigerians and foreigners in the north-eastern part of Nigeria. In his words: “First thing to do is to arrest the former Governor Sheriff. Former Governor Sheriff has been funding this for years… There is a former Chief of Army Staff, who retired in January, rightly sacked by the president, who is another sponsor.’’ Davis was cocksure of what he said for he declared in the course of the interview that he had information on some of them “…from Boko Haram about three years ago; one of them four years ago,’’ and that “one sponsor particularly was providing money and also in one case provided six (Toyota) Hilux vehicles used for suicide bombing.” This is indeed a money-guzzling adventure in the midst of poverty-ravaged people of the entire north.

Worse still, he also accused an unnamed senior official of the Central Bank of Nigeria as well as another man based in Cairo, Egypt as facilitator of illicit funds and purchaser of military uniforms and arms for Boko Haram. Despite his allusion to other powerful politicians as being members of the powerful ring, he surprisingly said that no Boko Haram commander has mentioned any of the leading chieftains of the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC) including Mohammadu Buhari and EL’Rufai’s as sponsors of the sect. Hitherto, wild accusations calling APC janjaweed promoters of the insurgent group by PDP henchmen particularly some APC defectors to the ruling party including security top shots went in the air. The PDP presidency has not woken up from the deep slumber that the Davis revelations threw it into and the earlier it did something effective and prompt in the interest of the stability of this nation, the better.

The Davis’ allegations are so damning for he also said that Sheriff was ‘… satisfied that he will be picked up and he has now switched to the ruling party, PDP, in the hope this will give him protection.’ This compelled the former Borno governor to threaten in his reaction to the allegation that he would travel to Australia to sue his accuser. This column dares him to embark on this option in earnest for Nigerians are waiting with baited breath.

Despite the theatrics in the responses of these alleged Boko Haram sponsors, one would expect the President Goodluck Jonathan administration to have got the strong message and for it to move against these and other elements swiftly. The Australian negotiator, despite his toil, at the peril of his life, is no doubt fed up with the tepid handling of the sect’s matter, for inexplicable political reasons, compelling him to speak out. His understanding of the problem is quite overwhelming but the angst and frustration in his voice are quite discerning over a problem that has avoidable held our president captive. He raised pertinent posers that are indeed minds agitating: Is it true that a man resident in Abuja, whose three nephews had been identified as being behind the Nyanya bus station bomb blast that killed 77 people, was one of the financiers of Boko Haram?

Davis said that the sect, “…slip back and forth between two countries.’’ And that “they go in convoy to attack a town for about six miles in an arid land with about 60 vehicles with armed personnel without any interception by security forces; they stay for an hour or an hour-and-a-half and get out. That is enough time to hit them.” The question: Is this not a consequence of a high-level conspiracy somewhere along the security chain? Is it true that France, UK and the US, contrary to agreement reached in Paris to assist Nigeria, Cameroun and Niger work on this matter, especially on intelligence, has done very little to assist? Davis also exposed the president’s lack of grasp of the problem ab initio, when in October 2010 the first bomb exploded in Abuja and President Jonathan prejudiced investigation by publicly declaring that MEND, a notorious Niger-Delta militant group, was not responsible for the bombing. MEND had claimed responsibility and then the question: Was the president shielding MEND? Does he truly know who was responsible and had shielded Nigerians from sharing such vital information? Is the president afraid of stepping on toes of powerful elements in the Niger-Delta and the north generally? What then is the essence of his being the commander-in-chief if he remains a lilly-livered leader over all institutions in the country?

This column considers baffling how this security compromising scandals and heart rendering revelations can be happening in a country with a military service chiefs and a commander-in-chief. It is indefensible that with all the touted bogus military budgets of the country, the rag-tag Boko Haram, according to Davis, is running about six major camps in the northeast and neighbouring countries with 700 fighters reportedly inhabiting each camp? These entirely points at nothing but leadership loss of focus?

More distasteful is the revelation that the various intelligence units in the land are, according to Davis, not cooperating with one another by refusing to share information that could aid quick annihilation of the sect. This is the dilemma of a nation so endowed and yet so bereft of potent leadership and institutional strength. This Davis bombshell has indeed shell-shocked Nigerians that are daily rattled by President Jonathan administration’s crass display of lack of capacity and capability to contain the Boko Haram insurrection against the nation’s collective sovereignty. So sad!

September 5, 2014
‘Mutineer’ soldiers and test of patriotism

‘If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin’ – Samuel Adams’

In recent times, a flurry of heart-rending events has questioned the profundity of patriotism among Nigerians. The latest of such, despite the face-saving denial by Defence Headquarters (DHQs), was what passed for a theatre of the absurd: The report that the 480 Nigerian soldiers deployed to fight the implacable Boko Haram insurgents not only fled to Cameroon out of trepidation, but were also disarmed after voluntarily surrendering themselves!

This frightening event was preceded by another recent incongruous military denial about some soldiers’ shots aimed at a car carrying Maj.-Gen. Ahmadu Mohammed, former General Officer Commanding the 7 Division in Maiduguri, Borno State.

Another theatrical scene, also within the military domestic families with a tinge of serious hilarity was the reported protests by wives of soldiers against the deployment of their spouses to flashpoints of the Boko Haram onslaughts. Some soldiers, as depicted by the shameful but survival-motivated move, fled to Cameroon, ostensibly to underscore their discontent with “deadly” postings to better-armed insurgents’ territory. In crass contradiction of the routine official lies of the military’s high command, some of mutinous soldiers’ involved in afore-stated acts from the Army’s 7th Division are currently undergoing court martial. Who is fooling who under the prevailing corrupt executive/military conspiracy against the Nigerian state?

The military in well managed climes are well cherished national asset with officers/soldiers that are always combat-ready to defend the territorial integrity of their nations against internal insurrection or external aggressions – even at the point of death! Soldiers as professionals upon enlistment expectedly concede their lives to their countries. It is pertinent at this juncture, in view of scandalous happenings in the military, to rue over the issue of military patriotism and soldiers’ commitment to their oath of allegiance to this nation. Is it possible for soldiers to disobey superior orders, no matter the circumstances, as is being witnessed in this country today?

In an ideal legalistic situation, soldiers sign off their lives through pledges of unalloyed allegiance to their nation through respect for her flag and commitments to contents of her national anthem. But this cannot be replacements/justification for the shameful killings of ill-equipped soldiers as are being witnessed on the Boko Haram war front. The question to ask is whether the country’s leaders/service chiefs think they can preserve her liberties if they failed to realise that the people, including soldiers, have the right to resistance if things are avoidably going shady and irresponsible.

Nigerians are all living witnesses to a time when police went on strike in this country. If they thought what happened under that former President Olusegun Obasanjo draconian rule was an exception, then, they got it wrong; what is happening under incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan is unthinkable for military men to attempt to kill their commander and to resist official and lawful deployment. This underscores the abysmal level of motivation in the military as a result of military/civilian leadership collusion in the corruption of military affairs. In a country where military budget amounts to around N1trillion, such military should boast the best war equipment and highly motivated officers and men of valour. President Jonathan as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and his appointed Service Chiefs must publicly tell Nigerians why the contrary is the case in the country today. It is sad that the president and his military top echelon are better adept at deploying soldiers to handle election matters than at protecting the nation against insurrection fuelled by the Boko Haram. If purported leaders are not, in all conscience patriotic in deeds, how can the citizenry, including soldiers, be propelled to embrace the concept when the need arises?

It is obtuse hypocrisy that the extremely corrupt military/political top brass that are doing everything to destroy all good things in the land, through inane misrule and odious graft, are the quickest to crave deceitful patriotism and court martialling of these aggrieved soldiers. The acts of the soldiers no doubt are egregious and legally incomprehensible. But the truth must be told that the difficult ethical and social problems created by a corrupt-laden leadership class that laid the foundational basis for the justifiable grievances must first be resolved. This is where a simplistic generalisation of this military challenge becomes crude and combustible. The soldiers are true reflection of degeneracy in the entire Nigerian society.

Also, it is undeniable that the patriotism imbued in citizens, soldiers inclusive, is one akin to a religion that forbids reason but demands impulsive faith and sentiment. If our country, on paper, is worth dying for in time of war, can it be said that it is truly worth living for in time of grave yard peace with staring astronomical unemployment, wanton official corruption, militarised democracy and palpable greed among others? Today’s soldiers spout undue sentiment and compelling partisanship which have diminished their grit. Instead of being the nation’s greatest resource, they have been turned to the nation’s burden. So sad! In the battle against Boko Haram, we have read reports of wounded, crippled and dead soldiers, in this great Boko Haram charade, being swiftly carted away as mere refuse of war. The battle continues to rage but the nation’s leadership is not noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose.

Where is the occupational incentive and team motivation necessary to propel soldiers to action? To kill the spirit of resistance under the prevailing circumstance is to allow selfish/greedy interests deflate the country’s nationalistic fervour. It is high time we differentiated between patriotism to a country and to a government. After all, Mark Twain once said: “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.” This column believes that a patriot, whether in civilian robe or military camouflage, must always be ready to defend his country against a prevailing endemically corrupt government, like we currently have in place.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), a great military leader/warrior, former governor and 26th US president further corroborated this position when he declared: “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him in-so-far as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”

The truth, which I hold to be incontrovertible, is that the current bunch of service chiefs has failed the country and the Commander-in-Chief is vicariously liable for this. Rather than the official goose chase after these officially designated ‘mutineer soldiers,’ this administration will do better for self, the nation and history, by coming up with a military policy plan of action to rejuvenate the current badly demoralised and battered military. This voice of reason is a desideratum at this moment, please!

August 29, 2014
New face of Yoruba politics

Those who say that life is worth living at any cost have already written an epitaph of infamy, for there is no cause and no person that they will not betray to stay alive.’ —–Sidney Hook

The crass degeneration of values that has hooked the contemporary Nigerian society by the jugular must be of serious concern to right-thinking Nigerians. As a bona fide Yoruba son, yours sincerely is worried to the marrow. Reason: The menace is getting dangerously pronounced and creeping abysmally and unchallenged into the fabric of my ethnic group’s political and economic life.

The Yoruba are known for their political sagacity; they are known for providing the developmental direction that other ethnic groups in the country admirably embrace. No wonder, there is an unabashed rush of indigenes of other areas to the southwest because of the abundance of educational, economic and infrastructural opportunities that abound in the region. This would not have been possible but for the presence of mind of visionary political leaders in the defunct Action Group (AG) led by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo (SAN). They had reasonable integrity and pursued lofty goals that served not only the interest of western region but the country as a whole.

This trend can continue but those reactionaries in pursuit of mainstream politics among the Yoruba ethnic group are undermining the growth of the region. They did it during the Second Republic and even during the truncated Fourth Republic when the military, under despotic Ibrahim Babangida as Head of State, went viral with dubious democratic ideas. ‘Mainstreamer’ ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and company brought nothing but shame to the southwest after eight gruelling years that came to an anti-climax with his inordinate pursuit of his ill-fated Third Term Agenda.

Now, the remnants of Obasanjo’s mainstream politics will not allow the southwest to rest through deployment of hurtful politics. It is left for the people of the region to quickly discern that these people are out to injure the region to the advantage of the centre that has abandoned the southwest for over almost two decades. They frustrated the Enron Power Project that former Lagos State Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration initiated and see nothing wrong with the dilapidated state of Lagos/Ibadan Express road for ages, among others.

The emerging mean face of Yoruba politics are Musiliu Obanikoro, current Minister of State for Defence; Buruji Kasamu, supposed chieftain of People’s Democratic Party(PDP) in Ogun State and Femi Fani-Kayode, a virulent critic of Obasanjo and later compromised former Minister of Aviation under the same man, among others.

With these kinds of impostors as Yoruba leaders, the future of the region is stinking nothing but lies. They radically crawl like genuine patriots to reach the top, making fake promises in the process. They’re cunning although they think they are clever, while they live with the bounties from the betrayal of their people. This ruling PDP new face of Yoruba politics is heartless, hardened and cruel. Integrity means nothing to them. It always makes this column really mad that politicians like these, under the erroneous guise of protecting the ruling party’s interest, act so badly in the southwest. They wear those smiles on their dials whereas they are plotting democratic evil all the while against the region of their birth. Their desperate pursuit of mainstream politics has left the poorest folk in the region in the shackles of squalor and want.

Thomas Wentworth, the first Earl of Strafford once said: “More precious is want with honesty than wealth with infamy.” The characters projecting the new face of Yoruba politics have jettisoned good conscience and honesty in their want of political relevance and wealth. They have aligned with a ruling party which in over 15 years, has proved that it would stoop to any infamy to realise its ambition to seize power. That is why anywhere elections were to hold in the southwest, these men had gone to barbaric heights to circumvent the people’s will. This column could not easily forget how these men went to Osun State during its August 9

Governorship Election to display impunity never heard of in the history of election in this country. It would forever remain indelible how hooded soldiers and other security men protected PDP chieftains and harassed common Yoruba people under the nose of Obanikoro, a Yoruba man.

Obanikoro’s defence powers is derisively being deployed to fight for land in Lagos through wrongful use of soldiers at a time that soldiers are needed to combat the rampaging menace of Boko Haram. It is only in a party like PDP that Obanikoro can thrive because his managerial acumen was put to test when he was Commissioner for Home Affairs during Tinubu’s first term in Lagos, through his inept management of pilgrimage issues. It was Dele Alake, the serviceable Commissioner for Information and others that rescued him from severe sanction from Tinubu. Kashamu’s alleged antecedent is still as controversial as his involvement in subjugating democratic values in the southwest. Femi Fani-Kayode lacks electoral value of any kind but only uses his father’s name and thuggish intellect to rabble-rouse those in power that unduly attach undeserved importance to him.

The trio and others that are undermining of southwest’s electoral fortunes have brought to fruition, Edmund Burke’s statement that: “The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling for others but from over-sensibility for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires.” These men are only enjoying the goodwill of being Yoruba and are not willing to support the region when it rains but only when it shines through undue currying of federal favours that never get down to the grassroots people.

This is a warning: The Yoruba across the globe must take note of this bunch of opportunists that see no wisdom in Ludwig Tieck’s admonition that: “He is not dead who departs from life with a high and noble fame; but he is dead, even while living, whose brow is branded with infamy.” Some of them should learn from their family’s history, while their co-travellers should equally draw a cue from the rich political history of the Yoruba. The Yoruba, they must be quick to realise, have no place for political rodents as 2015 general elections approach.

August 22, 2014