The Nation Newspaper

Category: Open Forum

  • Sam Omatseye: Pain in the heart of hate preacher

    The Chairman, Editorial Board of The Nation Newspaper, Sam Omatseye is in tears. He is in deep pain and regret. The pain in Omatseye’s heart began the day Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State was declared winner of the 2019 election.

    Omatseye knew that his emotion-laden commentaries enmeshed in acrimony as published on the back page of The Nation had failed to elicit the rejection of Governor Ortom among Benue people – a target he set for himself long before the polls. Omatseye’s diatribe on Governor Ortom sounds much like the frustration which reality thrusts upon a drunken debtor who must face his creditor the next morning. His pain is nonetheless understandable.

    I keep wondering what interest the Chairman of a newspaper’s editorial board has in the politics of a state as we have seen in Sam’s frequent outings on Benue State in the last one year. Wither goes Omatseye’s toga of neutrality? Why so much venom upon one governor?

    Sam’s latest column as published on the back page of April 1, 2019 edition of The Nation sought to paint Governor Ortom as a tribal warlord who preaches hate, division and fear using the herdsmen attacks on Benue communities. He in the same column portrayed Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong as a peace-loving man and one who cherishes the unity of all Nigerians living in his state.

    Omatseye has apparently lost the meaning of democracy which confers on the people the right to choose their leaders.

    The curious question is; who paid Sam Omatseye to denigrate Benue people calling them lovers of food and sex? His words, “I hear they make pounded yam by the day and make love at night.”

    Omatseye is clearly on a mission to trigger national hatred towards Benue people and leaders of the State. Quite unfortunate! It is sad because Sam is not known to own cattle. Even if he owns cows, his animals graze far away from the Benue Valley. So why so much anger that Governor Ortom signed a law and insisted that the legislation be implemented? Was Sam aware of the public hearings that took place in the three senatorial districts of Benue before the State House of Assembly passed the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Bill?

    Ironically, in the entirety of the 173-line column in The Nation, Omatseye has failed to fault the 2019 Benue election which gave Governor Ortom his 2nd term. There is nowhere in the piece that he said Governor Ortom was not genuinely voted by the people. This implies that he has also admitted that truly, the Benue State Governor is loved by his people despite vicious daily ‘sermons’ by angry men like Sam Omatseye who try to shred his reputation and political credentials.

    Perhaps Sam needs to be reminded that Governor Ortom scored one of the widest margins by any Governor seeking re-election. He polled 434,473 votes to beat his closest rival and candidate of the APC, Emmanuel Jime, who got 345,155 votes – a margin of 89, 318.

    Omatseye’s latest bile against Governor Ortom is a veiled attack on Benue people majority of who renewed the Governor’s mandate last month. By repeatedly playing down the herdsmen invasion and killing of hundreds of innocent people, Omatseye has not only chosen the path of infamy but also played the card of a conspirator and that of an editor who uses his medium to insult an entire state. Sam implied in one of his paragraphs that the January 11, 2018 mass burial of 73 Benue victims of herdsmen attacks was a mere political event. We forgive Sam Omatseye. But it must be stated that no dance on the graves of the victims can be more painful and shameful!

    Omatseye should have known that under Governor Samuel Ortom Benue has garduated 172 doctors between 2015 and 2018. He should also have known that regular payment of salaries resumed in the State since January 2018 while efforts are in top gear to clear the arrears.

    The Nation’s Editorial Board Chairman ought to have told Nigerians in his column that he is now a card carrying member of All Progressives Congress, APC. He didn’t need to hide under the journalism cloak of impartiality to play the political talking drum.

    • Terver Akase

    Chief Press Secretary

    April 01, 2019.

  • Tinubu as reactionaries’ nightmare

    ‘To be great is to be misunderstood.’—Ralph Waldo Emerson in: Self Reliance & Other Essays.

    There is an invigorating conundrum that many politicians currently in and out of power across the country have found a hard row to hoe. That riddle is Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu – the Jagaban of Borgu land, Asiwaju of black man’s continent and former governor of Lagos State, the centre of excellence. Tomorrow, March 29th, the enigma adds another year. Despite his being misunderstood by fickle minded reactionaries, his greatness continues to soar, limitlessly. The reality- Jagaban continues to wax stronger within the nation’s political firmament. Expectedly so, this is because he remains an astute political strategist and an unfaltering torchbearer of true progressive politics.

    Without sounding immodest, the reality today is that he remains the most-sought-after politician and perhaps, one of the few, if not, the most noteworthy of the progressive hue in modern-day Nigeria. At a point in the history of this country, the late sage, Pa Obafemi Awolowo, was the issue. Even after the great man’s death 32 years ago, most politicians in the southwestern part of the country still use his name to cuckold the electorate during electioneering season. Momentarily, Bashorun MKO Abiola appeared on the political horizon, but his attempted reign was short-lived by the feudal military oligarchy that denied him his electoral mandate by sending him into a contrived grave. Most politicians in contemporary Nigeria deploy the Tinubu political brand name to win grassroots support during election campaign period. Whether in the north, east or south, the touted Tinubu support for any political candidate is a big endorsement for realising political dreams. For those that show contempt for the brand name, they remain consigned to the limbo of political abyss. For sure, Asiwaju has become such a significant issue in the nation’s political firmament that a mere mention of his name amongst friends and even political foes sends a soul riveting impact.

    Since the passage of Awo and, perhaps Abiola, one doubts if there is any Nigerian that has taken the political emancipation of his people from the yoke of democratic tyranny and bottom-top governance seriously as much as Tinubu has been doing. The political ignoramuses might deride him; the grovelers of centrist conservative elements and the reactionaries in our midst are used to impugning his character, but that is the man still standing like the rock of Gibraltar. Asiwaju has the uncanny power of political liberation; he is imbued with an unusual economic skill, being a shrewd accountant with vast international and public service experience. This man of indefinable propensity for philanthropy has this creepy nerve for discerning a talent. This was reflected in the membership quality of his mostly well-endowed cabinet team that he assembled during his eight-year rein as governor of Lagos State. Asiwaju’s gift of seeing greatness in others when such people never give greatness a thought and guiding them to enviable heights is legendary.

    The man adds another year tomorrow, but many people prefer to criticise him, out of sheer envy of his result oriented political track record; others do simply because they could not rival his steadfast commitment to finding solutions to political and other challenges facing the country. Tinubu thinks Nigeria, dreams Nigeria; he lives Nigeria and sleeps Nigeria. From the north, east, west and south, people call him at random to seek his help or input on intractable political quagmire. These men and women are not necessarily members of the political elite class; this is because the former governor is also at home with the downtrodden whose interests form the thrust of his concern for a better country.

    The reactionaries, out of steep spite of his large-heart and enormous goodwill, will query his source of wealth: And simply because the man is doing what they cannot ever do or are not privileged to do since they are not in a position to do it, they harbour the ache in their bellies. Some see him as being immoderate. But Benjamin Disraeli had an answer for the Tinubu-phobia when he said: ‘Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.’ There are empirical examples of Nigerians, irrespective of tribes and especially among the Yoruba, the man’s cradle, that have benefited immensely from his political endorsements and large-heartedness. But sadly, these same people still hypocritically relish speaking ill of him or futilely try to bring him down. In the past or now, they has failed and even in the future, their evil plots against Asiwaju will fail.

    Surprisingly, Tinubu relishes welcoming such backstabbers back to his fold. Most of us see this as a weakness but he sees that to be one sacrifice of greatness that he must pay. One can only hope that this inclination of taking back backstabbers would not turn to be his undoing later in life.

    Whoever doubts Asiwaju’s progressive credentials needs to embark on historical excursion. At a time that the Yoruba states of Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Osun and Ekiti were falling to the gangsterism of dethroned People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2003 and 2007, it was only Asiwaju’s Lagos that stood to absorb the heat of conservatism before eventually launching, single-handedly, the worthwhile battle that liberated the former western region but Ondo, from the grips of rampaging agents of reactionary politics. The giant progressive strides that the nation is witnessing today are a consequence of Asiwaju’s political acuity. This gives credence to Walt Whitman’s statement: ‘Produce great men, the rest follows.’ Progressivism is indeed taking firm root in the country today because of the great political mind possessed by Asiwaju. Indeed, Charles de Gaulle was right by saying: ‘Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men and men are great only if they are determined to be so.’

    Tinubu is indeed and always politically determined to succeed. And it is this uncommon determination to be great and to politically liberate the masses from the yoke of reactionary politics that compelled him to take with zeal, progressive politics, since year 2014’s merger of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) with other opposition parties – far beyond the west and to all parts of the country. This gave birth to All Progressives Congress (APC) that today controls the seat of power in Abuja. The move at that time generated spite, covetousness as much as cynicism from those who always see impossibility rather than possibility in Tinubu’s laudable political initiatives. The difference between Tinubu and the rest in the political arena is that he sees possibility where others predict doom. His often-talked-about political superiority complex does not mean haughtiness, although it might appear to be so in the eyes of the mischievous among politicians and political watchers who want to see it so. Tinubu feels a higher esteem over the obstacles he desires to surmount and he is blessed with the rare courage of overcoming them, with enough energy reserved for any eventuality. The outcome of the 2019 general elections underscored this fact.

    The positive roles of Tinubu in the successful political merger of the opposition parties; the outcome of the 2015 that sent the ruling party out of power and the consolidating 2019 general elections that cemented the ouster of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP), and the fact that a precedent has been set that makes it impossible for a ruling party, especially at the centre, to take others for granted in the political space have become a burden of envy in the minds of most politicians that see Tinubu as a threat. Rejection of Tinubu’s political ingenuity is nothing but a deliberate creation of avoidable amphitheatre of perfidious hypocrisy.

    Despite the sleaze of political mudslinging by mostly beneficiaries of his political large-heartedness, Tinubu’s democratic scorecard remains very glittering and unassailable. The current firm control of the centre by erstwhile opposition, hitherto considered as impossible, and the invaluable role played by the Jagaban of Borgu land in bringing it to fruition merely confirmed him as the definitive contemporary political leader of the progressives in the country.

    Like Awolowo during his lifetime, Tinubu has, in contemporary Nigerian politics, become a thorn in the flesh of conservative/reactionary/progressive politicians with lesser candour. This unjustifiable kvetching syndrome by some of the current political elite class against Tinubu has become a catalyst that gives him more inspiration to surpass his present enviable feat. But for a politician like Tinubu, it would most likely have been impossible for Nigerians to have the golden opportunity of looking back and saying today: We are free at long last from the shackles of democratic feudal that see power at the centre as their birth right!  This writer wholeheartedly wishes Asiwaju, the hubby of adorable Yeye-Asiwaju/Senator Oluremi Tinubu,  plenteous happy returns of today in sound health and continuing political relevance. Happy birthday to you sir. And as the Yoruba would pray: Igba Odun, Odun kan!

  • Odumakin’s anxiety over vanishing feeding-bottles (1)

    One would have thought that a recent strong-worded rebuke by a moral authority and erudite professor of law, Itse Sagay, would serve as a cautionary tale to Mr. Yinka Odumakin, to turn a new leaf. In the article under reference, Professor Sagay dismissed the self-styled spokesman of Afenifere as the very opposite of the high principles that the Yoruba socio-cultural organization founded by Obafemi Awolowo is supposed to stand for. He likened him to a jackal addicted to carrion, dead meat.

    But Yinka is far too steeped in political hustling to be dissuaded by the sobering words of an elder. Otherwise he would not have shamelessly accepted his latest hatchet job nicely packaged as “Orange Movement advocacy” in Lagos even after the cat had already been let out of the bag that it was an agenda of vendetta hastily put together by the Peoples Democracy Party (PDP) after seeing their dream of returning to Aso Rock ending in smokes on February 23 on account of the reeelction of President Muhammadu Buhari by the Nigerian masses who endorse his anti-corruption stand.

    Having been displaced by the “Otoge” movement in Kwara State the way the “Arab Spring” swept tyrants from power in the Arab world in 2011, Yinka’s clients recruited him and other political hirelings to try a similar experiment in Lagos. But they forget that Lagosians are enlightened people who appreciate conscientious and visionary leadership, not the feudal lords who impoverished the people and rode on their backs like tin-gods in Kwara.

    If they were still in doubt, the results of the gubernatorial poll in Lagos last weekend which gave an emphatic victory to APC should show political neophytes like Odumakin that Lagosians know quality and know the party that best serves their interests. Only the blind and the deaf will not see or appreciate the remarkable transformation of Lagos in the last twenty years it has been under a progressive leadership inspired by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. It is not for nothing that Lagos is acknowledged today as the “Center of Excellence” and a good model which other states proudly copy from.

    But, out of malice and envy, the Odumakins of this world would abuse Tinubu rather than salute him for the progress report in Lagos. Yinka is hardly restrained in calling the Jagaban names. But it is the essential unconscionable Yinka who instinctively bites the finger that fed him once he finds a juicier offer elsewhere. Who will believe that Tinubu that Odumakin calls unprintable names today is the same man who had provided him a lifeline years back when he suffered a life-threatening affliction that almost led to his arm being amputated. In his usual generosity, Tinubu provided the funds for ailing Yinka to be flown abroad for proper medicare.

    Having apparently found new paymasters, it is the same arm that Yinka now uses to write lies and libel against Tinubu.

    Today, many are quick to chant Awo’s name in vain and also make a show of putting on Awo’s cap. But Awo was known for consistency. Not so with self-proclaimed inheritors of Awo’s legacy like Odumakin. That explains his career in political harlotry. Awo played the politics of principle, not convenience or “stomach infrastructure”.

    What is quite amusing is the self-delusion of the likes of Yinka, totally oblivious of the fact that most Nigerians are now too sensible to be deceived by the antics of fake activists who wear fake Awo caps and mouth Awoism in vain but who, in reality, are nothing more than hungry hustlers looking for what to eat.

    The story involving Pastor Tunde Bakare years back perhaps illustrates this better. Of course, at some point, Odumakin was following the convener of Save Nigeria Group all over the place. During a visit to then President Goodluck Jonathan, typical of the culture in Aso Rock at the time, a fat envelope containing dollars was passed to someone on the entourage of the Latter Rain Pastor as the usual “appearance fee”. The information of the illicit collection only reached Pastor Bakare after he arrived back in the hotel in Abuja.

    A highly principled man, Pastor Bakare instantly ordered that the unsolicited money be returned to the sender. We challenge Odumakin to deny that he was not the one ordered to return the “Egunje” to the Villa.

    Today, Nigerians are certainly a lot wiser to distinguish true activists like Gani Fewinhimi or Chima Ubani who led conscientious lives from the cash-and-carry ones. We are surely not dummies not to recognise fake comrades with couterfeit khaki now derided as “come-and-raid” who are not ashamed when addressed today as billionaires without visible source of income other than the “struggle”.

    For instance, stories have been flying around about a gargantuan printing press located in one of the South-West states which ownership has been traced to an “Afenifere activist”. Again, we challenge Yinka to deny he is not the one being referred to here. If in the affirmative, be sure that the next question he will have to answer is whether merely issuing press statement in Afenifere’s name has become so rewarding to make him afford that, since he is not known to be engaged in any other gainful employment.

    The same challenge was thrown at him pointedly years back during a media war with the publisher of THISDAY, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena. While decrying what he described as an attempt to blackmail him, Obaigbena alleged that Odumakin had tried to “hustle” him for some bucks during an encounter. He, therefore, asked the “highly principled” Yinka to explain to Nigerians what else he did for a living apart from parading himself as “Yoruba/Southern leader” by virtue of being Afenifere’s “spokesman”. —a charge Yinka is yet to respond to satisfactorily.

    Nowadays, Yinka chooses to be intemperate when criticising President Buhari, often resorting to gutter language. Yet, the same Yinka was Buhari’s hyperactive media aide and errandboy while the General was vying for president on the platform of CPC in 2011.

    But this cheap hireling has no stomach for any cause that does not bring him “stomach infrastructure” in the short term. Hence, after Buhari lost, it did not take long before loquacious Yinka migrated to a greener pasture in Goodluck Jonathan’s kingdom. Once the price was right for Yinka, without shame, the same Jonathan he had abused thoroughly as “clueless” during the 2011 campaign became “Awo’s reincarnate” worthy of his praise and worship. What a shame!

    The same inconsistency could be seen in Yinka cringing sheepishly while appearing in newspaper photographs with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo today as “Afenifere spokesman” in an orgy of political opportunism. Suddenly, to Yinka, OBJ is now a sage whose statements should be treated as Holy Grail since it is anti-Buhari. Yet, this is the same man Yinka literally took to the cleaners with his commercial fountain-pen in a watery piece of hagiography commissioned by his paymaster as at 2014. Since Obasanjo was opposed to Jonathan’s bid for second term then, Yinka went to town with his hatchet job.

    Today, this shameless hack writer has made a complete somersault by praise-singing OBJ. Both are brought together by nothing more than common hatred for Buhari.

    Of course, the story of how this political quisling literally forced himself on Afenifere as “spokesman” is now all too familiar. According to a NADECO hero and Afenifere original, Ayo Opadokun, Yinka used to be like an idle “verandar boy” who showed extraordinary enthusiasm once the real leaders had risen from a meeting and drafted a communique and were looking for someone to help them circulate the statement around media houses in Lagos. With time, he started allowing himself to be introduced as “Afenifere spokesman”!

    That Afenifere platform is what Yinka has used for social climbing. What is supposed to be an honorary, “part-time” commitment is what he has now turned to full-time job for meal ticket.

    Column-writing is supposed to be dedicated to canvassing views without doing any violence to public sensibilities or morality. Not so with Odumakin who has turned the space given him in Vanguard weekly to either marketing his “jeun-jeun” (chop-I-chop) rackets or peddling falsehood or embarking on ego-trips by dropping names or telling fables portraying him as rubbing shoulders with the high and the mighty or on first-name basis with truly recognised Yoruba elders.

    We live in a free society where free enterprise is assured. So, ordinarily, one should not begrudge Yinka for looking for where his bread is buttered. But what I find rather sickening is his attempt to masquerade his purely commercial ventures as a noble cause done to further Yoruba interest. Of course, he was errandboy and hitman for the PDP gang that wrecked some Yoruba states until the APC hurricane of 2015.

    For instance, when thuggish Ayo Fayose was busy storming courts and beating up presiding judges for delivering unfavorable judgments, Odumakin did not see anything wrong with that, as long as the gates to the Government House in Ado-Ekiti were not shut against him.

    But with the enthronement of APC in most of the Yoruba states in 2015, the “pipelines” of patronage that sustained commercial activists like Odumakin were blocked, hence their hysterical cry and maniacal agitation against APC. Now, with the re-election of APC for another term, Yinka and co. are terrified by the prospects of spending another four years without PDP “feeding bottles”.

    So, when next you hear Yinka say “Aluta”, you have to probe who he just had lunch with or who he is hoping to have dinner with.

     

    • Mr. Segun Ibirogba is the Executive Director of Youths Leadership Training Centre based in Lagos

     

    • Louis Odion returns next week

  • Ethnic strain as PDP’s election weapon

    For Lagosians, this Saturday’s governorship election promises to be decisive. It will put many issues finally to bed. One of the issues that must be put to rest is the chasm that some are trying to create and exploit between Yoruba and Igbo people in Lagos. Even among brothers within the same family who love and care for each other, differences arise at times. No two people can see eye to eye on all things. But because of the bonds of affection, shared interests and common objectives, brothers usually mend their differences and this process can even evoke a stronger, more empathetic relationship.

    The same holds true for the relationship between the two tribes. The relationship is a complex, multidimensional one running the full gamut of socio-cultural and political interaction and exchange. This means there will be points of harmony and convergence of interests as well as points where interests diverge. This is but a function of human nature and thus should generate no unique animus between the two groups. Truth be told this same dynamic is at work within each group. Neither Yoruba nor Igbo are entirely monolithic. Subdivisions and divisions exist within the groups that are as profound and telling as those between the two groups. The real issue is not that there are differences. The more pertinent issue is how we treat those matters. Do we allow these differences to enflame ethnic passions? Or do we resolve these differences as Lagosians seeking to resolve matters in a way that benefits us all as citizens of the same Lagos.

    Lagos has been very accommodating because the people and the government in the state are cosmopolitan and broad-minded in outlook. The Lagos model has been a very good one. On a functional, day to day basis, we have tried to minimize the harsh distinction many places draw between indigene and others.  We want people to function and see themselves as Lagosians. With the inclusion of Igbo in appointments as commissioners and chairmen of agencies in the state, which began during the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s era as governor, Lagos has set a standard of ethnic inclusion in the governance of this state.

    The prism through which we view Saturday’s governorship elections has been altered by the results of the presidential election. Prior to the presidential contest, the PDP doused the nation with fulsome boasting that the election was already in their hands. They were celebrating victory before the players had even taken the field. Then reality came. They lost and lost by a great margin. Buhari won over 15 million votes. Barely clearing 11 million, Atiku Abubakar’s and the PDP’s defeat was a resounding one. They can shout as loud and as long as they want, they lost and they know they lost. The reality of this loss has set them on the path of desperation. Being rebuked from the seat of federal power, they have become adamant that they must conquer Lagos. They crave Lagos because they need access to government funds to maintain themselves and their party.

    They are still not accustomed to being the party in opposition. The funds they amassed after 16 years with their hand in the federal purse have been sorely depleted. If they can’t have access to federal money for another four years, then tapping into the Lagosian treasury is the next best thing in their estimation.  If they cannot eat of the fruits of Lagos as their electoral consolation prize, they fear they will collapse from political starvation.

    Additionally, a sense of revenge motivates them to attack Lagos.  Lagos is the home of the APC National Leader Asiwaju Tinubu. The PDP understands the pivotal role Tinubu played as the co chairman of the winning presidential campaign council.  He was at the heart of the campaign planning and strategy that culminated in the deracination of the PDP’s presidential hopes. So, in an act of desperate revenge, the PDP and many of its key personalities have shifted their angry attention and dwindling resources to Lagos in a bid to capture the state. They pledged to themselves that they would stop at nothing and let nothing stop them in this mission of misplaced revenge.

    PDP Presidential Candidate Atiku, outgoing Senate President Bukola Saraki, who also succumbed by tumultuous defeat, and their agents have committed themselves to this spiteful objective. The PDP hopes to stoke the embers of Yoruba-Igbo animosity in order to accomplish their aim.  The PDP believes Igbo were the bulk of the vote that Atiku achieved in Lagos during the presidential poll. The PDP has misread this as a sign of a great divide between Yoruba and Igbo in the state. Thus, the PDP now weaponises the divide and frames the governorship election as some sort of battle between the Igbo and Yoruba. This is far from correct but close to reckless.

    Part of the dynamics at work during the presidential election has much to do with the presence of former Anambra State governor, Peter Obi, on the ballot as running mate to Atiku. Thus a vote for the PDP in the presidential election was a vote for a popular fellow Igbo and not a vote against Yoruba or an indictment of the present state of relations between the two groups. Again, we must remember that the relationship is a complex one with many points of interaction. Some will be in unison but some will be different. Just as the Yoruba may understandably gravitate toward the APC because of VP Osinbajo, Igbo may have favored the PDP ticket because of Obi.  Yet, this should not be construed for animosity. It is a point to develop greater understanding of each other for such is the way of human nature.

    Contrary to the prejudiced wagging of PDP hired tongues, Igbo in Lagos have fared well. Many important businesses and investments in Lagos belong to them. Ethnicity is not used as a bar to prevent anyone from realizing their dream and seeking their fortune in Lagos. No one is denied school, medical care or housing because of their surname. The Igbo who live here are fully Lagosians. They have a stake in the state and the state is better because of their contributions and the contributions of all who live here. Having invested in Peter Obi in the February 23 vote, many Igbo will likely vote for Sanwo-Olu as governor, not due to any ethnic factors but simply because he is the most qualified and prepared candidate and because the PDP is not a viable alternative in Lagos since the PDP’s designs on Lagos are to drain the state resources not to use those resources for the people. In the end, people are wise enough to vote for their daily interests and those interests are better served by the APC and not by being coerced into a game of ethnic rivalry that has no victors.

    Whereas the APC and its candidate are moving to douse whatever tension may have been engendered by any unfortunate and isolated incidents that occurred during the presidential poll, PDP and its candidate Agbaje are eagerly stoking discord because they believe such confrontation will profit their harmful aims. A few people may be taken in by these tricks. However, most people will maintain their rectitude and reason. Most people inherently know that such an important election – no election for that matter – should be reduced to ethnic bitterness and contestation. Rather, a meaningful election must be a contest of ideas between the candidates and a decision as to which candidate shall lead them to a greater Lagos. A greater Lagos benefits all while a lesser state impairs us all, irrespective of whether we are Yoruba or Igbo.

    You don’t need to look too deep to see the difference in posture between the two parties. The APC leaders and its candidate, Sanwo-Olu, have re-doubled their efforts, meeting Igbo leaders and people and members of other ethnic groups to ensure harmony, which remains our hallmark even during the intensity of the electoral period. This is why the atmosphere is one of tranquility and cooperation at the massive Aspamda Market and Balogun Business District among other places with heavy Igbo presence.

    Only on Tuesday, Asiwaju Tinubu met with NURTW leaders in Lagos where he appealed to them to eschew violence. According to him, people have the right to vote for any candidate of their choice. He pleaded with them to resolve the crisis within their rank and to behave in all things without rancor.

    Conversely, the PDP wants to rend the links between the Yoruba and Igbo in Lagos. Agbaje’s talking about Igbo allegedly receiving a short end of the stick in Lagos is but a cynical attempt at winning votes by lighting an ethnic bomb. But ask Agbaje, what has he ever really done for Igbo or anyone when he had a chance? He has only acted in his self-interest. Has he hired many people, given scholarship or provided medical care to people. The answers are no, no and no. he is in it for himself. If he thinks he must use you as his battering ram, he will not hesitate to dash your head against the wall of ethnic hatred if it sufficiently profits him.

    In the final analysis, however, what will win the election is not who best ignites ethnic dispute but who presents the better way to guide the state forward so that all of its people enjoy prosperity, live under equal justice and carry the hope of a greater future. Such things are not to be found with those who sow discord. These greater things are only found with those who have vision and who are compassionate and wise enough to understand that division only reduces what the future may bring.

    Lagos is for Lagosians and Lagosians must be for Lagos. That must be our standard. Any ploy to divide us is but a plan to ruin us.  Lagosians should vote for a greater Lagos where Igbo and Yoruba as partners join hand in friendship and productive cooperation and not for a Lagos where our hands are at each other’s throat because we were deceived to see one another as enemies. If we are true to the spirit of Lagos, then we know that we are of each other. On Election Day, let us vote down animus and the PDP brokers of hatred. Let us vote for and realize our dream of an even greater Lagos.

     

    • Rahman, former Editor Thisday on Sunday Newspaper, is Media Adviser to Asiwaju Tinubu.

  • Tomorrow never dies

    America and Europe are again falling for easy lies over awkward truths

    President Muhammadu Buhari has campaigned in this election exactly as he has governed since 2015, true to the values in which he has believed all his adult life: our security, a diversified economy and an administration free from the scourge of corruption and the sleazy mediocrity it fuels.

    Buhari has not changed, and with good reason. Without these attributes, Nigeria will not know peace, prosperity or the rule of law: the only real foundations on which free and fair elections and genuine democracy can thrive. He is stubborn and resolute in defence of these values. This irritates quite a number in the elite, and especially those who, four years ago, thought that they could play the President and use his popularity to continue to steal and cheat the people.

    These players have failed. They are angry but they have not yet given up. They have some unlikely allies. Our traditional friends in the US and Europe say they want nothing from Nigeria except free and fair elections. But if you look at what their representatives here actually do rather than what they say, the unmistakeable signs of a quite different agenda are plain to see.

    It’s easy to forget where we were, a country falling apart, unable even to protect school girls and where corruption defined every aspect of so much of our public life and private business. Today our media ignore the revelations in a Milan court of how oil companies and fixers stuffed cash in suitcases and the nine-figure bank accounts of former PDP justice ministers and spy chiefs and Presidents. This failure goes beyond individuals or particular political parties, although it is true that our decline accelerated under the PDP after the end of military rule in 1999, a betrayal that Atiku Abubakar and many of his allies hope forlornly to revive and celebrate.

    Our young people see only the devastation that has been visited upon them, too young to remember the vibrant rural economy that once gave us the wealth for the schools and hospitals we are only now beginning to revive.

    They cannot imagine the rubber plantations where for decades Dunlop and Michelin made tyres for Nigeria and the world. The factories are long since closed. Our palm oil was once a world leader but it is only now, under this government, that we are reviving an industry on life support. We have timber, we have hardworking people – and yet we came to be importing even simple school desks and bedframes. We have so much of what we need for fertilisers, yet government after government preferred to let the plants we had already built go to waste for easy commissions on second-rate imports. Textiles used to employ thousands, and will do again, when we allow our talent fairly to compete on the international stage.

    A major crude producer with four refineries that once delivered petroleum products for home consumption and export, Nigeria was reduced to importing petroleum products as if we were Burkina Faso or Bangladesh, not a leading member of OPEC. Our golden goose was starved. The military and the PDP took all the money, they didn’t pay oil partners what we owed and only now, after this government’s efforts, speaking plainly and finding real solutions, can we begin to grow exports that have stagnated for 30 years.

    When our private banks collapsed (again) in 2009, the outstanding liabilities were N5.7 trillion. It is hard to imagine a sum of money, so vast, owed by so few, to so many. The list of decay is long. And yet this was the inherited culture of government – ‘to those that have, give more’ – that we have challenged, a culture where every declared reform was in fact a disguise to privatise profit and leave the rest of us with all the risk.

    Nigeria has almost as many problems as we have people. But it also has all the resources to meet our needs, if they are properly managed and honestly marshalled. Think where we would be today, but for all the time wasted, the prosperity we would enjoy and the better partner we might have been to our friends in the region and further afield! Buhari is not a populist but he is popular because he is delivering on our most basic needs first.

    Do our foreign friends simply not understand what is at stake, or do they actually want us to fail? We know we are not equal partners, and do not pretend to be so. In our own time in government, the US, the UK and the EU let us know subtly, and often not so subtly, what we should be doing on everything from currency reform to fuel deregulation and the import of toothpicks.

    They have their own subsidies to protect key strategic interests, their farmers and steel plants,  but condemn our own efforts to protect the poorest and most vulnerable from an unregulated market for food, transport and housing, or to create and protect space for new opportunities and innovation to flourish. This is not so much a question of policy, but integrity: we, at least, mean what we say. So many past governments in Nigeria did not.

    Our transition has been difficult because Nigeria needs radical change, which we have been delivering, despite ingenious and often disingenuous resistance from vested interests and the business-as-usual brigade. Which begs the question: is there a difference between what suits Nigeria’s real national interest and what suits the interests of the Great Powers? The years of failure were characterised by hypocrisy and betrayal by our leaders, who were in turn easy targets for manipulation – much easier for foreign powers to manage than a government genuinely looking to repair and revive today so that we can build tomorrow. And tomorrow never dies.

    I always knew that business-as-usual had a powerful self-interest in resisting CHANGE. I had hoped their tentacles did not stretch so far or so easily beyond our borders, that a good case, well made, would receive a fair hearing. In three and a half years in government, I have learned that decent argument and hard facts face stiff competition from vested interests that seem so easily to sway people who should know better. A convenient lie is not better than an uncomfortable truth.

    Nowhere is this more clear than the contrived debate on the conduct of elections. Buhari’s commitment to the democratic process is a matter of record, time and again. All of the work to rebuild our public institutions, restore our values and recalibrate our future prospects can succeed only in a democracy in which the integrity of elections is sacrosanct.

    Instead of judging Nigeria by our actions, it seems altogether too easy for foreign partners to be swayed by the expensive words of lobbyists. Riva Levinson has been hired by Bukola Saraki. She was trained by Paul Manafort and Roger Stone (both caught up in the probe into interference by foreign powers in the US elections in 2016) and guide earlier in her career to dictators like Siad Barre, unprincipled warlords like Jonas Savimbi, or frauds like Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, the man who neo-conned the Bush White House. We are meant to be believe that Ms Levinson, like the others who are paid by one of the contestants, wants only to promote a free and fair race. And that it is only a coincidence that this language for hire is identical to what we hear from accredited diplomats!

    By omission or commission,  it appears it may actually suit our friends, deep down, below the pious words, to see Nigeria a basket case, begging bowl in hand, than the partner we could, should and will prove to be. And we have been here before. At the end of 1984, British diplomats predicted a coup against the then Buhari government, with whom London was quarrelling over everything from apartheid to economic policy (as we knew then, and as it turned out, Buhari was right). Glowing profiles of Ibrahim Babangida were prepared and telegrams of congratulation were drafted. Mrs Thatcher put the project on ice, at least for a few months, but it was not long before foreign powers concluded that their best interests would be served by people who told them everything they wanted to hear on democratisation and reform, but, as they could and should have known, meant precisely none of it. Nigeria lived through the consequences of this systemic deception. We lost so much in the 30 years after 1985, but nothing so precious as the loss of confidence in our values and what we as a nation could be.

    In the 19th century, Lord Palmerston, Britain’s Prime Minister and one of the country’s most celebrated diplomats, observed that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” We have been delivering on a programme to restore the rule of law, to build democracy and strengthen security, to deal with corruption and to create opportunity in a new meritocracy. It is a platform that helps tackle violent extremism, illegal migration, trafficking and financial crime. These  are the very issues that are central to the interests of our foreign friends, and we are producing results.

    Nigeria will make its choice on Saturday. It has never before had a government that has more clearly demonstrated through words and actions its commitment to transparency and the rule of law, protecting good judges and decent public office-holders from the corruption of their peers. Voters are free to move forwards to a better future or back to the desperate past from which we are now beginning to emerge. Our election commission is independent and has all resources it needs to do its job. We should all be wise to the risks, including partial and premature announcements of unofficial results from unverifiable sources, especially when one party has already declared well in advance that it cannot lose unless there is rigging. There should be no interference from any quarter, including foreign powers who say one thing but do another – exactly the formula that their friends here have employed for years to bring us so close to despair.

     

    Abba Kyari is Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari

  • Curbbing corruption and illicit financial flows

    The Chairman of the Africa Union High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) and former South African President Thabo Mbeki, in 2015, reported in the findings of the panel, that the African continent was annually losing a staggering $50 billion, due to illicit financial outflow.

    In the report, Mr. Mbeki estimated that about 40 per cent of this illicit outflow of funds was from Nigeria, and came in different forms including corrupt business practices, tax evasion and transfer of profits by multinationals.

    To state that this is very worrisome is to state the very obvious. At the recently concluded African Union (AU) High Level Panel on IFFs inter-ministerial meeting held in Abuja, Mbeki said the loss has increased exponentially from $50 billion to about $80 billion annually.

    Indeed, this estimate may well be short of reality as accurate data does not exist for all financial transactions out of Africa. This increase in illicit financial flows indicates a serious breakdown of international borders and barriers facilitated by innovative schemes and practices of the financial sector operators.

    Globalisation has turned the world into a global village with broken down borders. Yet, the advent of technological advancement such as online transfers and a range of e-payment platforms, informal IOUs/Halawa Schemes, and crypto currencies among others, have made the movement of funds and assets from one jurisdiction to another so very easy.

    It is estimated that over $40 billion (about N30.6 trillion) was fraudulently transferred out of Nigeria in the last five years through various sources, such as money laundering, tax avoidance, corruption, tax evasions, illegal mining activities, drugs and human trafficking.

    Unfortunately, illicit financial outflows are facilitated by some international tax havens that permit creation of disguised corporations – shell companies, anonymous trust accounts, and fake charitable foundations which in most cases are cover for corruption, terrorism financing tax evasion and money laundering.

    The complex nature of corruption and money laundering investigations generally require assets recovery efforts beyond domestic borders. Where stolen assets have been stashed abroad, successful tracing and recovery of such assets often depends on assistance from foreign jurisdiction which makes international cooperation essential for the successful recovery of assets.

    The issue of a concerted need for international collaboration particularly on the part of African countries formed the thrust of the Eighth Commonwealth Regional Conference for Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa, which was hosted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in May this year at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.

    On the part of the EFCC, a lot of work has been done in creating a robust international framework for tackling corruption and illicit financial flows in Nigeria. There are a number of multilateral treaties or instruments which Nigeria is a signatory that requires countries to cooperate with one another on matters bothering on investigations, asset confiscation and returns.

    Nigeria has agreement with several countries including the Swiss, UK, UAE and the U.S. just to mention a few for the return of stolen assets and successes have been achieved, especially with the Swiss authorities in repatriation of about $322 million Sani Abacha money back to Nigeria. Agreement to this effect was signed recently at Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GFAR), which took place in December 2017 at Washington DC U.S.

    In the same vein, the United Kingdom returned assets worth $85 million from the controversial $1.3 billion Malabu oil deal which revolves around “OPL 245” believed to be the most valuable oil field in West Africa in a case that is being described as the largest corruption scandal ever witnessed in global oil industry involving Malabu Oil & Gas and oil giants Shell and ENI. Efforts are ongoing for the recovery of hundreds of millions of dollars of the Abacha loot stashed in financial institutions in London, Paris, Jersey and Liechtenstein.

    Recognising the adverse effects of corruption on the African Continent, the AU Heads of States and Governments declared 2018 as African Year of Combating Corruption under the theme “Winning the Fight Against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation”.

    To further emphasize the resolve to fight against graft in the continent, the leaders endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria as its Anti-Corruption Champion that will lead the continent’s war against corruption in 2018 and beyond.

    No doubt, for there to be successes in combating IFFs, there must be a resolute and firm political will, which has been evident on the part of Mr. President. This is made obvious in his tremendous support given to the EFCC in its enforcement activities, which has contributed in no small measure to the successes so far achieved.

    Nigeria has been at the forefront of sponsoring resolutions on asset recovery and return and IFFs which have been adopted at various conferences of states parties of the United National Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).

    In terms of domestic efforts in curbing IFFs, the EFCC has recorded tremendous success in its enforcement activities by the number of money laundering and corruption cases undergoing investigations and proceedings in court. Progress has been recorded in strengthening the anti-money laundering legal framework and the compliance regime. But, monitoring the movement of cash outside the financial sector remains a major challenge due to the country’s predominantly cash-based economy. Recently, cross border physical cash movement has been on the increase. To curb this menace, the EFCC set up an interagency task force.

    The Money Laundering Act 2011 (As Amended) provides for the total forfeiture of funds that are not declared to the Nigerian Customs at the entry and exit points of the country. The EFCC has therefore confiscated large sums of money at our airports and land borders and several offenders have been arrested, prosecuted, convicted and the cash forfeited to Federal Government.

    The agency has also recorded significant convictions from 2015 to date. While conviction records stand at 703 over the same period, about 35 was in respect of cross border cash movement involving forfeiture of about $28.5 million to the government. The success recorded is as a result of cooperation and synergy that exist between the EFCC and sister agencies such as the Nigerian Customs Service and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.

    EFCC is also prosecuting an international bribery case, involving Malabu Oil & Gas, Shell and Nigeria AGIP Oil, bothering on bribery of Nigeria officials for the allocation of oil well in the Niger Delta.

    The recently introduced whistle blower policy which provides for monetary reward for whistle blowers is a wonderful tool that has assisted the commission. Such successes include: $43.8 million discovered in Ikoyi; Lagos; N40 million abandoned at Kaduna International Airport; 250 million discovered in a ware house at Balogun Market in Lagos and $9.8 million discovered in Kaduna at a building belonging to a former GMD NNPC.

    The commission has effectively utilised legislations on conviction and non-conviction-based asset recovery to recover billions in cash and assets linked to military generals and other politically exposed persons – domestically and abroad.

    The agency is prosecuting not less than 16 former governors and ex-top government officials for money laundering and related offences with convictions recorded this year in the cases of former governors Jolly Nyame and Joshua Dariye (both former governors) for procurement and money laundering offences.

    Between 2015 to last month, the commission recovered over N794 billion made up of interim and final recoveries for third parties, corporate organisations, government agencies and individuals.

    Recoveries have also been made in real estates, vessels, automobiles, machinery/equipment, shops, petroleum products and other perishables.

    EFCC’s desire to curb IFFs further led to the establishment of a dedicated special tax investigation team to work closely with officials of the FIRS and the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission in identifying and prosecuting culprits who have evaded tax. The synergy between the commission and these agencies have led to the recovery of N27,712,334,455.64 between January to December last year.

    However, a lot still has to be done by countries in the area of asset tracing, recovery and return by putting in place the necessary legal and institutional framework for repatriation of stolen assets. More resources have to be dedicated to the legal and technical expertise to handle complex and costly cases involving developing countries.

    On the continental stage, the need for African anti-corruption agencies to collaborate and synergize more than ever to ensure maximum cooperation devoid of complex technical policy and legal intricacies, cannot be overemphasized.

    There must be a robust international legal framework for combating IFFs and enduring assets recovery regime in Africa. Traditional challenges militating against effective international cooperation must be surmounted.

  • Anenih: Demise of ‘Mr. Fix It

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is bereaved. Death sneaked into the inner chamber of the conservative party on Sunday, snatching one of the power brokers, Chief Tony Anenih, retired policeman, one-time Minister of Works and Iyasele of Esan Kingdom, Edo State. He was 85.

    He was an outstanding politician held in high esteem for his experience, wit, sagacity and problem-solving, especially the PDP way. He was loyal to his platform and highly protective of the self-acclaimed largest party in Africa, until certain circumstances forced him into pseudo-retirement. He was a colossus. At the height of his influence, the former power-loaded president, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, used to refer to him as “my leader.” It was not a matter of political flattery. He earned the adulation as the pillar of the conservative forces in Nigeria as “Mr. Fix It.”

    Anenih was the Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Chairman of the Obasanjo/Atiku Campaign Organisation in 2003 and Chairman of the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA).

    Anenih will be missed by the main opposition party and the numerous politicians he created in his own image. He was a mentor and role model in his party. He will be remembered by the titanic political battles he either spearheaded and coordinated, the successes he recorded in the area of power consolidation and his failed attempt to return the party to power in Edo in the post-Adams Oshiomhole era.

    But, the astute politician will also be remembered for his lack of pretention. He was not an ideologue. Therefore, he was not identified with any political ideology. Yet, he had focus. He was a man of tactics. His preoccupation was power acquisition, and indeed, consolidation of control. To him, power was not served a la carte, and political relevance was underscored by power retention.

    It was thus distressing to him that, two years ago, the acclaimed ‘Mr. Fix it’ of the Nigerian politics was in a fix. The master strategist and schemer aparently lost relevance in his native Edo State in 2008 when Oshiomhole, who became governor on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), waged a ruthless war against godfatherism. Anenih’s candidate, Prof. Oserheime Osunbor, was defeated. But, the old political warhorse did not desert the battle. In 2014, another governorship candidate supported by him, Gen. Charles Airhiavbere, could not fly. In 2016, another Anenih’s candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, also lost to Governor Godwin Obaseki. Later, both Osunbor and Airhiavbere left the PDP for the All Progressives Congress (APC).  It was evident that the eclipse of political influence was imminent. The old man embarked on a sort of retirement. He refused to stir controversy. But, younger elements, especially his fanatical supporters in the party, still visit his residence for counsels.

    Three years ago, the chief was said to have undergone a heart surgery abroad. A source said he survived the operations. Life was full of ups and down for the Iyasele at the twilight of life. To his consternation, he was forced to step down as the PDP BoT chairman. His ego was deflated. Also, his party ceased to be the ruling party at the centre as from 2015 after holding the forte for 16 years, despite its formidable structure, financial war chest and bravado. Anenih became an opposition figure. The adjustment was difficult for the man of power. Ahead of the critical poll, some of his colleagues who are founding fathers of the party had been sidelined. Although he was still the undisputed leader of the party in Edo, it was a far cry from his previous status as a national party leader.

    Also, the loss of a wife and a son was pathetic. When these tragedies occurred, he was locked in sober reflection. He embraced the reality with understanding and superlative calmness.

    When the PDP lost power in Edo, many supporters of Anenih were left in the cold. Crisis broke out in the troubled chapter. Former military governor of the Old Bendel State, who also served as an elected governor for three months in the Second Republic, the late Brig-Gen. Samuel Ogbemudia, rejected Anenih’s leadership.  After orchestrating some defections from the APC to the PDP, he also played the ethnic card, ahead of 2015 parliamentary polls. His strategy was wiping sentiments against the APC presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, by encouraging Mrs. Rosemary Subaru, the daughter of the former governor of Bendel State, the late Prof. Ambrose Ali, to remind constituents about how his father was jailed by the former military Head of State, following the December 31, 1983 coup.

    But, Oshiomhole was smarter.  At a rally in Uromi, the governor reminded the district that Anenih was the Chairman of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which ‘rigged’ Ali out of power in the Second Republic. He also asked the Iyasele to stop using Ali’s name to score cheap political capital. Instead, Oshiomhole advised him to concentrate on wooing voters by listing his achievements  in Edo Central as the leader of the PDP since 1999.  In his opinion, Anenih would not have worked for the political downfall of Ali, if he is a patriot. He wondered why the Uromi chief, who connived with others to remove the crown and gubernatorial robes of Ali, has turned around to twist history. “Which disgrace and humiliation of Edo Central is more than that?,” he queried.

    Oshiomhole also raised other posers: As the Minister of Works, what did Anenih do for Edo Central? Which project did he attract to the district? Ali built a university. What has Anenih brought to the area?  “Since 1999, he has been a powerful and influential man. He is labeled as the leader; he has nothing to show for it in Edo Central,” he added.

    In 1981, Anenih came to limelight. His first political battle was fought with a strong resolve, vigour and zeal. He entered politics after retiring as a Commissioner of Police. But, he overtook those before him in a battle of wits. Anenih surprisingly displaced the late Chief Tony Enahoro as the Bendel State Chairman of the NPN. He also confronted former Governor Ali, the professor of Morbid Anatomy, who was facing serious internal crisis in the Bendel State chapter of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) by rallying forces to install Ogbemudia as governor. That marked the beginning of Anenih’s meteoric rise to fame.

    In the Third Republic, Anenih was a founding member of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP). He was a member of the most powerful caucus in the SDP,  the People’s Front (PF) led by the late Maj. Gen Shehu Yar’ Adua. In fact, during the botched presidential primaries, he was Gen. Yar’Adua’s campaign manager. When Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe vacated the SDP national chairmanship, Yar’Adua’s political machinery, the Peoples Front, which later became to be known as the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), installed Anenih as chairman. Under his leadership, the late Chief Moshood Abiola and Kingibe defeated Alhaji Bashir Tofa and Dr. Sylvester Ugoh of the National Republican Convention (NRC) during the June 12, 1993 election. But, when the historic poll was criminally annulled by Babangida, the chairman failed to defend the mandate. While political leaders and rights activists were agitating for the de-annulment, Anenih looked the other way. Anenih’s aloofness enraged many politicians. But, according to sources, it was his unique style.

    Anenih’s tenure as party chairman was brief. When the military Head of State, the late Gen. Sani Abacha, sacked the interim contraption headed by Chief Ernest Shonekan, the SDP and the NRC were disbanded. He became a delegate to the 1994/95 Constitutional Conference, which set a terminal date for the military rule.

    In 1999, Anenih emerged as a founding father of the PDP. When the late Chief Bola Ige saw Anenih, Chief Arthur Nzeribe and other Abacha politicians at one of the preliminary meetings, which culminated into the formation of the PDP, he withdrew his participation, saying that he did not want to be contaminated by the ‘Abacha virus.’ Both Anenih and Ige later served as ministers under the PDP administration.

    Anenih was the first Minister of Works under Obasanjo’s administration. He was also a member of Obasanjo’s kitchen cabinet.  But, critics alleged that his attention as a minister was always diverted by the demands of high wire politics. In their contention, the infrastructure battle, which should be his primary responsibility, was not vigorously fought.

  • Why I endorsed Zulum

    IN the politics of Borno State, at least since 1999, we have had and maintained a tradition in which major stakeholders of a ruling party, expect from an outgoing Governor, a sense of political direction in the choice of a successor. Some people may see this tradition as a form of dictatorship but to many others, politicians with varied experiences, such an honor provides the critical step needed by our party in its transition processes.

    In the last couple of days, I have come under intense pressure from many stakeholders insisting that I should anoint a successor. In all discussions, I have maintained one divine statement, which is, only Allah gives power to whom he pleases and at the time He pleases. I, Kashim Shettima am but human, a first amongst equals. I do not and cannot give power. I can only make recommendation based on my own human but informed analysis. Even at that, my recommendation cannot foreclose the fundamental right of any legitimate aspirant to contest the primary election.

    We cannot pretend not to be aware that an otherwise leader in our party, the APC, has deliberately created an unnecessary division within its membership in the state. This has led, to borrow from the satirical wisdom of Distinguished Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, the existence of what is akin to a match between “home based players” in the majority and with local support and a minority “foreign based players”.  Four months ago, when we received some fleeing leaders back into the APC fold, I had thought that those who choose to work against the majority have learned lessons. I had expected us to once again, fuse into one indivisible family so that together, we could give our party a direction and confront our opponents as a united force. How wrong I was! Perhaps, I ignored the common saying, that a leopard does not change its spots.

    As we all know, we have 21 cleared governorship aspirants, if I am right. I will like to first, place on record, my deepest respect for all aspirants, including those who have joined forces to fight the majority.

    Some people have tried to make mockery of the sheer number of Borno’s governorship aspirants. To me, the high number only goes to show the enthusiasm, passion and determination of many citizens who want to contribute in the post conflict repositioning of Borno. All our 21 aspirants, I believe, are only eager to build on our modest efforts in order to take Borno to the next level. I salute all of them and I dare say, that all our aspirants have immense qualities which make everyone of them eminently qualified to be the Governor of Borno State especially in ordinary times. However, as we know, Borno is not in ordinary times and regardless, there can only be one Governor at a time.

    I would like to say that the task of recommending one aspirant to our stakeholders has more than anything else, tested me. I have faced the test of choosing between my personal interest, my friendships, and my political associations, all on one side and on the other, my conscience and the future of Borno State.

    Borno state has seen the darkest side of history. The type we cannot wish for worst enemies. Parents, brothers and sisters, have witnessed first hand, the public and brutal execution of their loved ones. We have lost thousands of persons. Nearly two million persons were displaced. Majority ran for their lives, trekking for miles before arriving different safe destinations. Today, Borno still has citizens displaced in all parts of Nigeria and neighbouring countries. Thousands of children have been turned into orphans after the gruesome murder of their parents, and similarly thousands of women have become widows of the conflict. Wealthy merchants in hundreds of communities have been transformed overnight from prosperity to penury.. Landlords have been turned into hapless tenants, and even among the homeless.  Prosperous and economically viable communities were turned to graves and war zones.

    Borno has witnessed a long period of gloom and doom.

    Our peculiar experiences in Borno State have to my mind, made the task of choosing a potential Governor a difficult one. It was a task, which required and forced me to set aside personal interest and consider the greater interest of our dear state.. Borno is greater than Kashim Shettima and Borno is greater than any one of us.

    As Governor from 2011 to date, I can say without any iota of doubt that handling the affairs of Borno State is as complex as steering the affairs of some big countries. The challenges before Borno are more than whatever anyone might imagine.

    Making the choice of my potential successor was beyond my thinking alone. Such a choice required a combination of very deep thoughts and wisdom. I therefore had to undertake very extensive consultations. I consulted to extents never reached in the recent political history of Borno State. I have met virtually all the critical segments that make up our dear State. I have held closed-door meetings and had frank and open discussions with our royal fathers and elders. I have visited homes and met with past and serving leaders, party stakeholders and professionals of various fields. I even went as far as employing the services of agents unknown to each other, which I sent to communities across our 27 local government areas to feel the pulses of our citizens. In all my consultations, I created one-on-one atmosphere to get undiluted opinions. I held one on one meeting with public office holders across different levels of Borno. I made sure I was getting the honest opinions of everyone. I was able to collate views as comprehensive as humanly possible. I looked at these views as objectively as possible.

    Of our 21 aspirants, if I were to support and hand pick what some people might call any of my closest boys as successor; I most certainly would go for Barrister Kaka Shehu Lawan or Adamu Lawan Zaufanjimba. If, on the other hand, public service is the only consideration, none of the aspirants can be more qualified than our elder statesman, Ambassador Baba Ahmed Jidda. If loyalty to political association is my main consideration, Distinguished Senator Abubakar Kyari has proved unalloyed loyalty to political association with me. If years of sincere and mutual friendship are my main consideration, Distinguished Senator Baba Kaka Bashir Garbai and Alhaji Mai Sheriff are my closest friends amongst all our aspirants. If the consideration is about humility and ability to carry people along, His Excellency Shettima Yuguda Dibal is legendary. I have relationship and so much respect for majority of the aspirants, the likes of Hon. Umara Kumalia, Makinta, name them. In fact, two of the aspirants, Mustapha Fannarambe and Umar Alkali are my relatives. All aspirants have divergent qualities. However, because of the situation we found ourselves, considerations for the next Governor of Borno State requires specific quips tailored to our needs for now.

    From the generality of feedbacks, there is no doubt that what will define political debates in Borno’s 2019 Governorship election will be promises in the aftermath of brutal conflict, deaths and destructions of communities.

    Everywhere in the world, post conflict rehabilitation, restoration, reconciliation & resettlement are complex, composite & interwoven.

    From overwhelming opinions and feedbacks, the aspirant with an edge in understanding the Peace-Development Nexus of Borno’s post conflict future is Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, mni.

    As Commissioner for Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement since September 2015, Professor Zulum has been in the thick of our recovery and restoration efforts. He has proved to understand the dynamics. He has established enormous amount of contact in the post conflict development sector and has earned the confidence of local and international stakeholders. Borno needs such confidence in the task of completing our ongoing social and economic recovery, rebuilding of communities and livelihoods.

    For our peculiar situation, Professor Zulum has shown the potentials to take Borno State to the next level. His age is also an advantage. At 48, Professor Zulum is in his prime, he is head & shoulders above me in terms of intellect, capacity & indefatigability. Zulum is without the slightest doubt, a workhorse!

    My recommendation of Professor Zulum does not, should not and will not stop any aspirant from contesting in the primaries.

    It is easy to market Professor Zulum before delegates. If we succeed, Insha’Allah, we shall go round Borno State, to remind electorates from Gwoza to Chibok, Bama to Damasak, Konduga to Kaga and all over Borno State. We shall tell electorates to look around their neighborhoods and see how Professor Zulum was able to rebuild their communities—from thousands of homes, hundreds of schools to healthcare centres and restored their livelihoods at the risk of being attacked by Boko Haram.

    I will forever remain grateful for the overwhelming support and honour I have enjoyed in serving the good people of Borno State.

  • The real price of ‘changing the change’

    Top opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members have been granting press interviews and addressing zonal political rallies talking about “CHANGING THE CHANGE” in next year’s general elections, without defining what exactly that means.

    As the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) gears up to celebrate the completion of three years of the Buhari government in the centre on May 29th, Nigerians need to be reminded of what the reversal of the achievements of this administration will amount to.

    The real meaning and cost of the “Changing the Change,” is that if they win the next election, they will not take us back to where we were in 2015, they will mostly reverse the progress the APC has brought to the nation. The main reason for the defeat of the PDP in 2015 was corruption. The present administration at the centre led by President Muhammadu Buhari has so far presented a corrupt-free image of itself. It has also succeeded in abolishing grand corruption at the top and as attested to by the American President, Donald Trump. The government has significantly brought down the level of corruption in the whole country. It has, however, warned over and again that corruption was fighting back.

    Many who are discerning would have read this from President Buhari’s speech when he inaugurated the impressive new headquarters building of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) a week ago. He narrated how and why he was overthrown as a military Head of State in the 80s.

    In that speech, he said not only was he kicked out because he fought corruption, the ones who took power freed all those that he had jailed, and whatever they stole was returned to them. He took their place in prison and stayed there without trial for 36 months, until that day when a journalist in Benin, now in Edo, broke the story that he had lost his mother. That was when he was allowed to go home.

    The real difference between the PDP and the current APC administration is that although they mouthed a flood of rhetoric against corruption, in fact rightfully lay the claim of founding the institutions now in the forefront of fighting corruption as a government, the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, they had intended to keep them as toys, or bulldogs which teeth had been removed. No, they never intended that the war against corruption would be taken this far.

    To change the change would mean that the teeth of the bulldog will be removed. It would then only bark but not bite.

    In this country, politics is often considered as synonym of corruption. The previous government came under huge criticism for scandals like that discovered in arms procurements in the office of the National Security Adviser, NSA which transformed itself into a major source of funding of the PDP; NNPC crude oil thefts, broadband spectrum licensing scandal, oil subsidy scam and so many others but the present government has not faced any such corruption allegations.

    Although he said he was unafraid and would not bend, the President’s concern, and fear on the part of many is that if a corrupt leader takes over, it will be happy days all over again for former Oil Minister Diezani Allison-Maduekwe who has so far forfeited USD 153 million, N23.4 billion, and USD 4m and USD 5m in separate accounts. “Change the Change” would mean she will get the money back. So would the former Managing Director of the maritime agency, NIMASA get back GBP 578,080 seized from him and the Ikoyi apartment owners have back their USD43.4m; N23m and GBP 27,800.

    The hidden owner of the Lagos cash shop may then step forward to reclaim their N449.6 million; the ex-Naval Chiefs will have returned to them the already forfeited N1.8 billion; the Governors Forum paid back their N1.4 billion and the major oil marketers, from whom the EFCC has so far seized N328.9 billion will smile their ways to the bank.

    The banks themselves will equally join the party, happily getting back N27.7 billion they “ate” from taxes they failed to remit; the scion of the Akinjides, Jumoke will have N650 million awarded to her while those scammers in INEC who coughed out N1 billion will equally get money back and charges standing against them in court may be dropped.

    But the happiest of them all will be Mrs. Jonathan, who will get the first priority when the refunds start coming for obvious reasons. The former First Lady would not anymore need lawyers to keep her mountain of gifts, counted in huge millions of dollars, billions of Naira, hotels and buildings.

    The list of people who oppose the Buhari government and yearning to ”change the change” include a number of parliamentarians, policemen, customs officials, immigration officials, civil servants now rooting for other political parties, not leaving out those various businesses and platforms owned by these political parties directly or indirectly.

    The Buhari win in 2015, and the possibility of four more years have crumbled their dreams of endlessly looting the state and the growing list of achievements of the administration is not doing any good for them.

    “Change the change” means also that the biggest tax revolution since independence, the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS) now being implemented, and about which many of our rich citizens are unhappy may be scrapped. A recent report shows that there are four million new taxpayers, including companies and individuals, resulting in N700 billion increase in tax revenue in 2017.

    The early casualties of ”changing the change” may include initiatives like the Whistle Blower policy by which the government is able to recover stolen or concealed assets through information provided by citizens. This has changed the ethical and moral tone of the business transaction space in the country. The whistle blower is entitled to between 2.5%-5.0% of amount recovered.

    Sometime last year, the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, told the world, “we are going after those who have stolen our money. We have put in place a very successful whistle-blower programme that is delivering results and allows those who report illicit activity to receive up to five per cent of any funds that we recover.”  The response has been so fabulous that in just four months, it yielded N17bn, as revealed by the Acting Chairman of EFCC, Ibrahim Magu.

    Another formidable group unhappy with the change and wish it reversed are the importers of diesel and generators. Nigeria ranks as the second biggest importer of generators all over the world.

    Buhari is bad business for them because he has raised electric power availability from 2,600 MW in 2015 to 7,000 MW and is targeting 10,000 megawatts by the year’s end. Increased power availability means less purchase of generators and less consumption of diesel. Noticeably, they are rooting for parties that are bent on changing the change. Rooters of ”Changing the Change” campaign also include the beneficiaries of the malaria economy which costs Nigeria N132 billion and 300,000 lives annually, an economy now threatened by the administration’s National Malaria Elimination Programme, NMEP, by which tens of millions of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (ITN) are being freely distributed. A part of this order is now made in Aba, Nigeria.

    The government’s moves on ease of doing business which has attracted international attention and investment and significantly improved the ranking of Nigeria as a place of doing business, in fact achieving a place in the World Bank’s top 10 reforming economies would suffer a hit from those bent on proving that on-going change is not working. But this is how the World Bank saw Nigeria: “Overall, the 10 top improvers implemented the most regulatory reforms in the area of getting credit, starting a business, dealing with construction permits and paying taxes,” the report said.

    It’s really hard for the beneficiaries of the old order to see and appreciate what the Buhari government is doing considering that they ran an economy based purely on oil, the price of which was as high as US$140 per barrel. They reticulated oil revenue through personal spending and corruption, wasteful expenses and salaries. Nigeria did not record a single major infrastructural project in the 10 years before the Buhari administration. The money was mismanaged. No savings were made. To compound the problem, they borrowed heavily and owed contractors, and international oil companies.

    But again, as we have seen from the heist in the national security establishment, even Boko Haram was an industry from which money was scooped. Boko Haram was the hallmark of a flourishing business of corruption. The beneficiaries won’t like that the security threat is eliminated. Yes, for them, “Changing the Change” is an opportunity for a resumption of business as usual.

    • Garba Shehu is Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media & Publicity)

    May 20, 2018

    • Olatunji Dare returns next week

  • Search for sustainable education

    Education, in most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, is in crisis today. For many years, African Universities have at a geometric rate waned in quality, substance and prestige.  Over the last two decades, many of our Universities have become classic examples of what American scholar, Gareth Hardin, described as the Tragedy of the Commons.  Hardin theorised that assets that are commonly held by members of the public often perish as a result of neglect and lack of proper care.  Soon after independence granted to African countries by Colonial Masters, African Universities started experiencing severe dosage of financial starvation, infrastructural decay and political neglect. Those who attended or taught at any Nigerian university between 1965 and 1990 could easily appreciate the extent of the geometric depreciation of necessary physical structures and facilities in our universities. A combination of lack of adequate funding, dearth of qualitative practical training curriculum; and inability to attract the best teaching minds have all stagnated Nigerian institutions of higher learning to the current appalling point whereby the Centre for World University Rankings, and other global rankings that rank Universities based on facilities, programme and instructional content, mention no African University in the top 500 category. This is in a continent with over 1000 universities.

    Some scholars cast the blame for the current decline in the quality of education in Africa on pedagogical approaches of colonial education that eroded and devalued traditional African cultures; perpetuated intellectual servitude and technological dependence; and enshrined societal inequality that remain deep-rooted till date.

    Some blame the falling standard on the arbitrary partition of Africa by European powers in Berlin in 1884 by lumping together historically incompatible people independent or antagonistic groups, animists, Christians and Muslims into political units which continue to wobble with widespread intertribal wars, religious and boundary disputes, civil disobedience, pervasive lack of internal democracy within political parties, insurgencies, kidnapping, ferocious terrorist acts, killings, murder and widespread destruction of properties.

    As you all know, most if not all these countries have failed to transform into viable nation states thereby rendering attainment of quality education unattainable.

    Some blame the ‘decline’ of  falling educational standards in Africa post colonialisation, on the failure of African leaders to replicate and consolidate on the modest achievement of the colonial era with respect to qualitative education. Those in this school of thought point to failure of successive African governments to properly maintain educational institutions and structures that were put in place by colonial leaders and failure of governments to devote significant portions of yearly budget to education.

    To demonstrate the incompatibility of the ethnic groups lumped together arbitrarily by the European powers, I have compiled the number of tribes and ethnic groups in each of the areas of influence allocated to each of the European powers at the Berlin Conference in 1884. In Dahomey now known as Benin Republic, there are 42 ethnic groups including Yoruba; in Nigeria there are 370 ethnic groups including Yoruba. In Cameroun, there are 250 ethnic groups.

    I align with the last two schools of thought. The search for sustainable education in Africa cannot continue to follow the simplistic argument of blaming the European powers. We must genuinely ask ourselves, what have successive African leaders done to transform into viable states those areas carved out arbitrarily by the European powers in Berlin? What have they done to build upon and improve colonial structure on education? What can we do to transform the incompatible ethnic groups in each of the areas of influence carved out for the European powers into a nation?

    I have conducted a survey of the quantity and quality of education during colonial times in Africa to determine where we were, ascertain where we are now; identify how we got here; and then prescribe how we can get to where we need to be.

    In the education sector, perennial failures by successive governments to prioritise investment in education, has resulted in a situation whereby several of the infrastructure in place in several African universities are those erected pre-independence. Aside from the dilapidated classroom and laboratory infrastructure in several African universities due to age, many of the structures have been stretched beyond their original carrying capacity due to excessive demand traceable to over population. As the United Nations Regional Bureau for Africa, recently noted:

    The pace of skills and technology development and innovation has been slow in Africa, mainly because of the absence of a critical mass of highly university-educated skilled labour, and lack of high quality laboratories and scientific equipment…

    Lack of facilities, and deterioration of infrastructure as a result of age and rapid expansion, have stifled innovation, research and academic scholarship across Africa.  Many of our best brains, such as Professor Wale Adebanwi, are here in Oxford, Harvard etc and have been unable to come back home due to poor working environment and lack of an innovative and supportive academic environment for world class scholarship. As a World Bank study titled The Challenge of Establishing World Class Universities, noted:

    In academia, the adage “you get what you pay for” appears accurate regarding better-quality work being done where salaries are relatively highest. World-class universities are able to select the best students and attract the most qualified professors and researchers.

    In conclusion, it is evident that a combination of factors has rendered the search for sustainable education in post-colonial Africa illusory and utopian. They include:

    (a) lack of true federalism among the states created at Berlin conference in    1884 having regard to amalgamation of many incompatible tribes,

    (b) failure of successive African government to invest adequately in     education

    (c) failure of the government to sensitise the public that no government alone can fund quality and functional education

    (d) lack of support for private institutions for research and educational development by government.

    (e)  inadequate emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship in our     educational institutions,

    (f) poor leadership,

    (g) uncontrolled population,

    (h) poor working conditions and environment in our University, and

    (i)  failure to adopt global approach to learning.

    All hope is however not lost.  We all as Africans, and major stakeholders and leaders in the higher education sector, have pivotal, sacred and indispensable roles to play in contributing our strategic opinions and efforts to reversing the current trend. As John Galbraith, an economist and public intellectual, once noted:

    All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major problems of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

     

     

    • Excerpts of a paper delivered by Aare Babalola at the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford, United Kingdom