The Nation Newspaper

Category: Yomi Odunuga

  • Of raving looters and wailing plunderers

    In the past few weeks of our continuous interrogation of Nigeria’s warped sociopolitical development, the discourse has shifted to the arena of graft in which most of the dramatis personae that contributed to the many failures that dot our landscape fret muscles over who was a bigger thief within the plundering band of Nigeria’s thieving elite. It is, indeed, ludicrous that while those who pilfer what we call ‘chicken change” in the local parlance here sometimes commit suicide to escape public odium in saner climes, Nigeria’s privileged pillagers of our national treasury are out there on the pages of our newspapers, audaciously beating their chests, celebrating the clinical dexterity with which the multi-level heist and other manipulations were carried out. Unlike in the past where the kleptomaniacs had a modicum of decency to hide their loot away from the prying eyes of a deprived populace, these modern-day looters flaunt theirs ever so impudently  – daring us to go take a dive in the Lagos lagoon if we can’t stomach their despicable profligacy. It is that pitiably laughable.

    On a serious note, I personally see no sense in the ‘list of looters’ recently released by the Federal Government to justify why the opposition Peoples Democratic Party should not be allowed to hoodwink Nigerians into voting its candidates back into power in 2019. The reason for this is simple: the All Progressives Congress-led government is yet to show us that it is not a significant, active participant in the deceit called governance in Nigeria. Come to think of it, we are in the 21st century and politicians here still employ outdated propaganda to con a docile population to buy into their treachery. If that tactical blunder culminated in the untimely exit of the President Goodluck Jonathan government in 2015, what gives the APC the assurances that this silly prank would not spell doom for it in 2019 with the shambolic and glaringly partisan way it has been fighting endemic corruption since inception?

    You ask: what was the government hoping to achieve by bandying an updated list of treasury looters containing selected names of recalcitrant members of the opposition party? Was it just to name and shame, with the aim of silencing them? That’s utter balderdash if you ask me. And that is where the APC is getting it all wrong. No serious-minded government wins the battle against corruption on the political ideology of ‘my graft cases are significantly lower than yours.’ In less than three years in office, the APC has shown that its members are not immune to the alluring temptations of corrosive corruption. It is not a jab below the belt but the irritating truth! And the least of all these graft-related cases is that of the dropped Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Babachir Lawal. I’m sure discerning minds would have known by now that the word ‘recalcitrant’ was used with utmost caution. Truth be told, the way the APC cleanses every defector to the broom side with the perfume of innocence confounds sane minds. It is not my responsibility to start pointing accusing fingers or listing some popular names that have quietly become pampered saints immediately they publicly defect to the ruling party. Even the brains behind the Guinness Book of World Records would marvel at the alacrity with which the pending graft cases against such persons have been consigned to the dustbin of history.

    Come to think of it, what could be responsible for the clear omission of the names of Nigeria’s past presidents from the list as updated? We must be lucky that our leaders, especially former presidents and Commander-In-Chiefs who are still living, are rarely linked to cases of humongous graft except the ones we peddle in beer parlours and burukutu joints. By the way, were the compilers of the list unaware of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s frustrating outburst the other day that a particular big man watched with glee as he superintended over the withdrawal and frittering of N100bn and $295m ‘in one single transaction” by officials of his party to procure electoral victory in the 2015 election? Did they know that the wife of this same man is presently battling to lay her hands on the millions of dollars allegedly linked to her in various banks and suspected to be stolen from the national treasury? Of course, they couldn’t have forgotten that some former governors who are currently engaged in the business of making laws for our collective good are facing various graft cases at the courts. How come the names of these persons were missing on the list including that of a leading man of law in the Red Chamber who allegedly doctored his Asset Declaration Form with the Code of Conduct Bureau? Why did they opt to buffet us with the names of petty thieves when the real cabal that has shred this nation to pieces is probably waiting for another kill as 2019 approaches?

    Unfortunately, the PDP is hitting the APC right where it hurts by asking it to remove the huge log in its eyes before talking about the specks in others. They are saying that, as plunderers of the national wealth part of which, they alleged, was used to herald the APC to power, they are at liberty to wail at the raving looters who only had the good fortune of crossing to the other side at the right time.

    Now, see how shamelessness has become a national virtue where common criminals flaunt their hollow triumphalism with psychedelic panache. No matter how you want to rationalise it, nothing justifies the tragic comedies on display by both parties unless, of course, both are taking all of us for a rude, whimsical ride. Where one had expected the ruling government to look itself in the mirror and hammer some home truth into its clogging brain, it is sickening that it has chosen to dance naked in the market square with the PDP, a party whose laughable public show of remorse is offered on the altar of deceit. Or how else can one justify the acceptance of blind looting even if most of the cases at the courts are moving at an annoyingly slow pace?

    The irony in all this is that those (the people) who should ask the tough questions are becoming part of the problem. Some said they would like to see a complete “liberalisation of the corruption sector” so that everyone can benefit—that the crumbs can trickle down after the big men had taken theirs in lump sum. They forget easily that that is how we got to this crazy bend where greed rules. It is this kind of thinking that gives the present actors at the federal, state and local government levels to steal us blind and even justify it. When we begin to mete out the right punishment to the killers of our dreams and abhor venerating them with all manners of chieftaincy titles; when we start insisting on them living within their constitutionally approved emoluments accruable to them after rendering quality service; when we stop playing the ostrich as our collective patrimony is being raided by a privileged few; and when we begin to take the ruling government to task about pursuing justice with blindfolded eyes, that is when all the nonsense of toying with our intelligence will stop. How long would we continue to wink in the dark and living with the deceit that things will get better without taking the right measures?

    This ambience of rationalising the plundering of a nation’s wealth on the altar of “our looters are more humane than yours” is a sure recipe for failure. It is one thing to preach change and it is another to be a witness to a change that breeds a medley of motionlessness—a movement without motion. Sadly, this is not how nations progress. It is only a compass towards sure retrogression and further underdevelopment of a consistently and deliberately over-plundered and underdeveloped nation. But do the charlatans on both sides of the divide understand this inglorious attribute of a failed governance process? Do they see the shame that others see in us as we display our ignorance to the outside world in an anti- corruption fight that in itself is corruption-laden? Do they?

  • Gates, Dapchi and human capital development (2)

    It is important that we place things in proper context before running our mouths against Mr. Gates for, some would say, daring to count our ‘nine fingers’ in our presence. Question is: why is the Nigerian elite and its fawning poor scared of being told the glaring truth about the way we ruin our future? We may not like it but the Dapchi girls, like many of us, are the collective victims of a dying health system which Adewole, our own Health Minister, said has not delivered qualitatively from all indicators and with meagre resources allocated, and mostly mismanaged, since May 1999 when democracy was reborn in Nigeria. They are potential startup entrepreneurs or part of the talent pool that the likes of Dangote would readily employ to drive the economy, provided they are allowed to get the basic skills, are in good health with good education to boot. When insurgents are allowed to implant such grave fear in the minds of the parents of these little ones about education, is there any hope that the narrative would change in the year 2050 when, as projected, Nigeria would be the third or fourth largest population in the world?

     

    For those who were not at the venue, Gates’ tone was not that of an arrogant billionaire rubbing the noses of the beneficiaries of his wealth on a rocky plain. Instead, his was an appeal to commonsense. Take, for example, what he said about the plight of the average farmer who, in spite of the availability of internet banking, has no access to any feasible loan initiative to grow his business. Now contrast that to the unlimited access that federal ministers, lawmakers and their cronies have to the banks where they are offered facilities running into billions of naira, just to satisfy their hedonistic taste! Just the other day, a Federal Minister boldly told Nigerians that the multimillion naira mansions linked to him within three years of being in office were procured through bank loans without anyone asking what collateral he deposited for the deal. To a businessman like Gates, this just doesn’t make sense. Unfortunately, that is the story the rest of the world read about us here—-investing in self, like senator who rake home N13.3m monthly as ‘running cost’, rather than on things that would benefit the generality. Gates and other development-minded persons just can’t understand the whole essence of these primitive proclivities in a modern world!

     

    What exactly is Knucklehead driving at in all this? Dapchi should not be another passing phase in our scandalous book of political chicanery and vainglory.  In any case, it shouldn’t have happened if those saddled with the responsibility of keeping the region safe didn’t shirk or abdicate that onerous responsibility. With the Chibok experience still fresh in our memories and the much-touted news of a ‘degraded ’Boko Haram insurgents, how did they regroup and succeeded in inflicting pain and anguish in Dapchi? What could have given them the courage to drive triumphantly into the same territory, playing with the residents and having ‘selfie’ moments with them before barking orders at them to stop sending their children to schools teaching Western education? Where does that leave us in a bid to tap the potentials imbued in our greatest asset as a nation—-the human capital?

     

    By all means possible, the primitive echo of the Boko Haram rant against the education of these young ones should be nipped in the bud. The schools in those areas must be open and made to function because any shut down of education in the region would have direct deleterious impact on the general health of the nation as a whole. In his observation, Gates warned that though the government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) speaks about the need to invest in the people, the “execution priorities don’t fully reflect people’s needs by prioritising physical capital over human capital.” He also noted that to anchor our long-term economic prospects on investments in infrastructure and competitiveness without sundry investments in the people through quality education and health is a recipe for a painfully unsustainable economy. And this, I must say, starts with the kind of scary scenario that played out in Dapchi. It resonates in the fact that these criminal elements are still holding on to Leah Sharibu for insisting on her fundamental rights to freedom of education, association and, above all, religion. That is the dream they want to kill at incubation. That is the fear they plan to inflict on the rest of us. And that is how they hatch the plan to kill our future!

     

    In fact, Vice President Osinbajo’s tokenism of a ‘school feeding programme’ and the “N Power project’ fell far short of the kind of response Gates was expecting. Reiterating his point in an interview with the Cable News Network, Gates said: “As a partner in Nigeria, I am saying that the current plan is inadequate. Nigeria has all these young people and the current quality and quantity of investment in these young generations in health and education just isn’t enough. So I was very direct. If they get health and education right, they will be an engine of growth not just for themselves but for all of Africa.” For me, that is the crux of the matter. We are being told to look into the mirror and confront the uncomfortable realities of the silly choices we are making for a likely blighted future. Sadly, that’s what the elite don’t want to hear.

     

    The Gates some of us abuse today has invested $1.6bn of his personal fortunes in our country all in a bid to improve our human resource. You may wish to contrast that with the billions of dollars that different categories of the nation’s fleecing leaders have creamed off the system building mansions their children would never live in; schools their children would never attend; hospitals they would never be treated in and luxury items that have never quenched an insatiable quest for more hollow acquisitions. In any case, what is $1.6bn compared to what these privileged kleptocrats steal from the national treasury yearly? We completely mix the point when the apologists among us fret nerves against Gates instead of demanding for a paradigm shift in investment in Nigeria’s human resource. How much longer would we continue to shift the blame and hide the truth under this bushel of deceit?

     

    In the course of writing this piece, a friend, Folaranmi Adegbite, reminded me of a blueprint which one of the founding fathers of this great nation, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, scripted and worked with in the then Western Region before greed became the language of politics in both civilian and military circles. “Remember free education, free health care, and rural development? A sage drew the blueprint for these 63 years ago and implemented it at every opportunity he had. He left a legacy of an educated region with potentials……And then the carpetbaggers came with their petro dollars quick money schemes and opulent lifestyles!”

     

    I’m sure we all know when the shoes started pinching us, right? And so, when the dust settles on the fanfare and jamboree with the hosting of the 104 Dapchi girls by President Muhammadu Buhari, I hope the authorities would remember that Bill Gates actually threw the challenge of a prosperous Nigeria back at the leadership, saying that “triggering that cycle (of bloom) will require bolder action—action you have the power to take as leaders, governors, and ministers focused on Nigeria’s future. And that means that the future of Nigeria depends on all of you—and your leadership in the years to come.” I hope they will ponder over these wise words when they summon the courage to visualize a Nigeria that is not subsumed under their bitter, petty and vindictive selfish politicking. I just hope so!

     

     

  • Gates, Dapchi and human capital development

    ON Thursday, during a special National Economic Council (NEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, governors from the 36 states or their deputies, the billionaire philanthropist and Co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr, Bill Gates and Africa’s richest entrepreneur, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the grim realities of the Nigerian nation sinking deeper into economic gloom if nothing tangible is done in terms of heavy investments in its vast human capital was echoed by everyone and anyone who mounted the podium. Whilst representatives of the development partners rolled out discouraging and, sometimes, heart-wrenching figures to buttress their arguments that we have, indeed, failed to invest in Nigeria’s greatest asset for a technologically and knowledge-driven future—its people, the pictures painted by the Minister of Health, Prof Isaac Ajewole and his counterpart in the Education Ministry, Alhaji Adamu Adamu, confirmed the ‘blunt’ depressing facts which Gates was to later reel out to the audience.

    One after the other, the various speakers rub the facts on our faces. Nigeria, they say, has the highest figure of out-of-school children in the world and presently without a functional investment in human capital. The country is also rated as “one of the most dangerous places to give birth, with the fourth worst maternal mortality rate in the world, ahead of Sierra Leone, Central African Republic and Chad”, in addition to the crying fact that, statistically, one in three Nigerian children is chronically malnourished. Those were the words of Gates even if they are the notoriously true. And, in spite of all the efforts presumably being made by the government to change the narrative, Nigeria remains a low income country no thanks to policies that are incapable of guaranteeing a ‘foundation for sustained prosperity” with the vast majority of its people barely living from hand to mouth. No picture could be grimmer than this I guess.

    Some would ask: what has all these got to do with Dapchi, a town in Yobe State where 110 girls were criminally abducted and, eventually, heroically returned earlier this week? Well, a lot. In my mind, Dapchi, like Chibok, is a metaphor for all that is good and bad about Nigeria. Since the abduction and return of the girls, Nigerians have been at their mischievous best in interrogating the matter. When I speak of the scary figures, statistics and data being rolled out to justify why Nigeria needs to do more in the area of investment in human capital, what those in authorities do about it would depend on their beliefs. For example, all the pontifications by Gates and the other partners may come to naught if the government views the figures as concocted or an attempt to smear its image and bring it into disrepute with its teeming supporters. On the other hand, the government could decide to sift through the messages no matter how distasteful they seem to be and kick start the process of investing on its future assets, the people. It’s all about the belief that would an action or inaction!

    And that is where Dapchi comes in because the abduction affects a key factor in human capital development for an economically sustainable future—education especially that of the girl-child which is already at an abysmally low figure in some communities. It is sickening that, in returning the girls in commando style back to their anguished parents, the insurgents were said to have strictly warned the Dapchi parents to stop, forthwith, the idea of sending their children to learn what they perceived as “Western education”, adding with irritating glee that the entire saga was not “terrorism but just to teach us a lesson!” Now, that should scare anyone that can make some sort of sense out of all that was said in the Banquet Hall of Aso Rock that day. When bandits enjoy the liberty to scare the hell out of hardworking parents whose only ‘crime’ was sending their wards to acquire the kind of knowledge that would place them at a competitive advantage in the foreseeable future, then we all need to get worried, don’t we?

    Listen to Gates: “The most important choice you can make is to maximise your greatest resources, the Nigerian people. Nigeria will thrive when every Nigerian is able to thrive. If you invest in their health, education and opportunities—the “human capital” we are talking about today—then they will lay the foundation for sustained prosperity. If you don’t however, than it is very important to recognise that there will be sharp limit on how much the country can grow.”

    And so, in looking at the long term effects of the madness going on in the North-East and some other parts of the country, we must admit that we may just be digging craters that would doom our future prospects especially with the silly rants and the shockingly inhumane attitudes some of us have displayed in expressing our opinions on the Dapchi abduction. In saying this, I must admit that this government didn’t help matters in its shoddy handling of information flow surrounding the abduction, search and subsequent return of the girls. When the government, through its officially-recognised spokespersons, started bandying different figures on the number of girls that were returned by the bandits, the negotiation that took place before they were taken back to their parents, why it didn’t insist on the return of the Christian lady that refused to succumb to the blackmail of converting to Islam, how five or four of the girls died in captivity and if ransom was paid or not, it goes without saying that the government created a veritable ground for mischief makers to make bankable permutations of what they tagged a stage-managed abduction drama. Pity.

    While conceding that certain things just didn’t add up in the many stories flying around concerning the Dapchi girls, I also believe that many of the commentators on both sides of the divide are far gone in their political coloration of events of such nature thereby making objective reasoning a near impossibility. Those Dapchi girls, we must remember, are just part of the lucky few that survived in a country described as ‘one of the most dangerous to give birth” with “one in three children chronically malnourished.”

  • What else is Mr. President unaware of?

    The opprobrious silence that greeted President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to a North-Central state, Benue, last Monday should be of major concern to anyone who truly wishes him well. For a President who, from all indications, is being prepared for a second shot at The Presidency, the Benue outing clearly indicated that the Buhari mojo that gripped most states in the Nigerian federation with such frenzied passion some years back has petered out. In its place, is a discomfiting, eerie petulance of a confounded populace still battling to understand where Buhari started missing his steps even as he bumbles through every opportunity offered him to change the narrative for the better.  Of course, he failed woefully to seize that rare chance again in Benue on Monday. By the way, if excellence in government were to be judged strictly on the number of naïve and tendentious excuses given to explain off self-inflicted impotence, this government would have no competition. But, unfortunately for the man Nigerians entrusted with the capacity to take them out of the woods, the Presidency is not a place for such inexcusable excesses where the nation’s Number One citizen would have the luxury of claiming ignorance of what goes on around him daily.

    And so, I ask: Was Buhari expecting the Benue people to hang on to an audacious hopelessness and accept their fate as mere victims of some murderous herd of herdsmen just because he was unaware that his directives to the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to relocate to the state was ignored. I froze in stupefaction when I first read the news! How could Buhari had spewed such an outlandish, hollow patter to the traumatised people of Benue who had bent over backwards to intimate his office with the sacrilege and sheer rape of their humanity by rampaging, cold-blooded herdsmen? When more than 80 innocent lives were smothered in one day in a community ravaged by war of attrition over grazing routes and farmlands, it is my considered opinion that the President should have more than a passing interest in how his aides handle the matter. On this one, Idris’ attitude to his directive is not just an act of insubordination to his direct boss but also a grievous act of sabotage and sheer irresponsibility. That is on one side.

    On the other side, however, is the import of the President’s expression of shock that he was getting to know that an order he gave more than a month earlier was never obeyed by his certified police chief. Ha! Unbelievable! Now, take a listen: “I am getting to know this in this meeting. I am quite surprised but I know that I sent him here.” Are we to believe that Mr. Buhari’s naivety is this shallow or do we take it that he was simply trying to dribble himself out of a bad situation? Whichever one it was, it is not in any way funny. With all that was said about the absence of Idris in Benue as at the time the presidential directive was given with Governor Samuel Ortom leading the outcry, it runs against all protocols and commonsense that the news didn’t filter to the President’s ears even of as a flying rumour in the corridors of power. Could it also have been possible that the President was unaware of the crisis that broke out between Ortom’s spokesman and the Force Public Relations officer, Moshood Jimoh, on a live television programme where the latter described Ortom as a sinking man for daring to accuse Idris of abdicating presidential directive? Was the President aware that, following the bitter exchange of words between these two spokespersons, some members of the National Assembly and a section of civil society were at the forefront of the imposition of a sanction against the police chief and his men for what they considered to be an unwarranted attack against an elected governor who also doubles as the Chief Security Officer of his state?

    If the President didn’t know about all these, then Nigeria is in deep trouble. What it portends is that those around him only avail him the kind of filtered information that would suit his ego. This kind of scenario painting is potentially dangerous to the health of the nation. No wonder Aso Rock fiddles while the nation burns with over 1,315 persons lost to violent deaths in just two months, this year. Sad enough, most of the deaths were as a result of attacks by unknown gunmen, bomb blasts in the volatile North-East, accidents and violent crimes across the country. According to a report published by a national daily last week, the number of deaths did not include those that died of natural causes. Evidently, this cannot be good news on the plate of a government whose fundamental responsibility is to protect lives and property of every Nigerian no matter where they live.

    Since he said he was unaware of Idris’s intransigence, it goes without saying that he wouldn’t know about many other things that have compelled his eternally frustrated citizens to gnash their teeth endlessly. Did he know, for example, that many Nigerians didn’t understand why he joined the Owambe train in Kano the other day just a few days after 110 school girls were abducted in Dapchi, Yobe State? Did anyone bring it to his notice that, in spite of his much-touted determination to halt the dastardly act, innocent citizens continue to come under the bullets, daggers and cudgels of killers across the country even as I write this? Did the President know that Nigerians have begun to question the administration’s selective amnesia in the fight against corruption? Did he know that, by his action and inaction, he is perceived to have lost the script while handling the manual of governance by deceit to the cabal in his fiefdom? Is he aware that his acceptance rating has dwindled no thanks to a benumbing fiddling while the nation sinks deeper into crisis?

    The Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement is only one out of countless groups asking questions that inevitably lead citizens to asking other questions. What exactly is Mr. President aware of? How did Dapchi happen and what is he doing about it? If he says he has his own way of getting the true picture of events as they break, how come no one briefed him about Idris’s errant behaviour and the collateral damage to additional lives and properties in Benue until he was told the crying truth by those who are chewing the pain of the senseless attacks?

    My Dear Mr. President Sir, the placard displayed by the youth in Benue with the inscription “Buhari, every Benue youth is Yusuf” encapsulates the grief we all feel against a system that has failed to protect the citizens or tame the rain of tragic impulses facing our nation. Ordinarily, all of us should feel safe under the protective arm of the state. Unfortunately, the Yusuf metaphor is a grim reminder of the Orwellian allusion to some animals being more equal than the other. Surely, that cannot be what this democracy is all about. But do they know in Aso Rock?

    I do not want to preempt the President as regards what he should do with his police chief. What is clear is that his huffing and puffing in Benue would amount to nothing if this sacrilege is swept under the carpet. When a security chief becomes irreverent, it is the responsibility of his Commander-In-Chief to tame him, ease him out or fire him. And in case the President is not aware, Section 9 (4) of the Police Act states that: “The President SHALL be charged with the operational control of the Force” while (5) instructs that “The IGP shall be charged with the command of the Force SUBJECT to the directive of the President.” Going further, Section 10 (1) says; “The President MAY give to the IGP such directions with respect to the maintaining and securing of public safety and public order as he may consider necessary, and the IGP SHALL comply with those directions or cause them to be complied.” And then, the 1999 Constitution in Section 215 (3) states: “The President or such other Minister of the Government of the Federation as he may authorize in that behalf may give to the IGP such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing public safety and public order as he may consider necessary and the IGP shall comply with those directions and cause them to be complied with”.

    As I pointed out to my good friend, Ebelo Goodluck, who highlighted these constitutional provisions on his Facebook wall, the operative word in the quoted sections is ‘Shall” which means the IGP does not enjoy the luxury of a dissent. What Mr. Idris did was a clear violation of our laws, a total lack of respect and disregard for presidential directive. It beats me hollow that the President has chosen to clasp his hands on his lean chest, whingeing inaudibly as the nation continues to wail in loud silence!

  • If only ‘witches’ were horses….

    If only ‘witches’ were horses….

    For once in a very long while, something good is coming out of Imo State – a breath of fresh air lullaby that is remarkably different from Governor Rochas Okorocha’s well-documented audacious dalliances with the mundane and outright foolery with governance matters. This time, a serving Senator, Sam Anyanwu (Imo East), has gratuitously offered a fix-it-all solution to the problems plaguing Nigeria’s aviation sector. While some see it as a rude joke that pokes a discomfiting leprous finger at the crude hollowness of our primordial beliefs, it is my considered opinion that Anyanwu’s prognosis can be employed to fix Nigeria’s basket of problems instead of waiting on a government that is forever wailing with arms thrown up in surrender to the elements.

    Tired of the endless news of near-tragic air mishaps in the past three months, Anyanwu, in his contribution on the floor of the Senate last Tuesday, said it would be better to resort to the old age trusted tradition of flying by witchcraft as it has become manifestly clear that the government and those saddled with the responsibility of preventing aircraft from falling off our skies have failed to discharge their duties. Listen to an exasperated Anyanwu: “It is shameful that Nigeria does not have any national carrier. I think every responsible government should look at this issue. If the aircraft cannot be maintained, let’s use witchcraft and start flying. That is the truth!’

    From the moment he vomited that statement, the social media has been swarming with fiery interrogations of Anyanwu’s state of mind. Quite a number of his critics assume that he must be under some form of delusory attack hence the hallucination about the powers of witchcraft whose efficacy or existence cannot be proven scientifically. And that is where I disagree with them. Witchcraft is what it is and it shouldn’t be subjected to the rigour of scientific findings. In any case, how many of these critics who are pontificating on the social media would offer themselves as guinea pigs in their desire to test the efficiency of witchcraft? And so, rather than castigate the Senator, we should begin a process of exploring the possibility of adopting the method to tackle the clear and present dangers that confront us all, as it is continually becoming impossible to deal with them with the common methodologies used in advanced democracies within and outside the African continent.

    For those who still doubt how this can work, they need to take time out to watch the astonishing feats that were accomplished in the wave-making Black Panther movie that has shattered all records at the cinemas. If that was not black magic at its best, then what is? For all we know, Black Panther’s Wakanda may have set the template for Anyanwu’s recommendation. If majority of us still believe the phantasmagoric fables of the magical prowess about witches and wizards that we are scared stiff of visiting our dying ancestors in the villages in spite of the modernity around us, why take Anyanwu to the cleaners? In a country where we continue to do things the same way with abysmally depressing results to boot, wouldn’t it be nice to call on the never-failing ancestral spirits to come to our rescue as postulated by a concerned Senator?

    On a serious note, have we given a thought to how the use of witchcraft can begin to change the narratives of the sickening stories that break daily in Nigeria? The ‘truth’ in Anyanwu’s suggestion is that witches hardly fall off the sky neither do they overshoot runways like our airlines do these days. From tales of old, they rarely miss their targets when used as weapons of mass destruction except in cases where they come in contact with superior powers. There is also the possibility of reducing casualty figures in air mishaps as witches travel at the speed of light with few passengers on board. Now, let no one think this is a joke because it is not. With witchcraft, we would all be privileged air travellers with first class treatment extended to Senators and other VIPs on board coupled with assurance of safe landing for all. Some would even be privileged enough to be dropped off in their bedrooms. Yes, flying witches and wizards, we were made to believe, were that good. That, my readers, is the truth.

    What many do not know is that, if and when it becomes successful in our aviation sector, the witchcraft facility can be expanded to other sectors that are presently suffocating under the heavy burden of bad leadership including the National Assembly. Just imagine how witches would have dealt with all the despicable rampaging herdsmen and all manners of AK47-wielding killers in our midst. Since the government’s vow and directive to the security agencies to arrest, interrogate and arraign the culprits have yielded nothing but more deadly attacks, wouldn’t it be such a relief to set our ever-active witches brigades against these ‘unknown’ marauders in our midst? Is there not a possibility that those criminals that abducted our girls and criminally abuse them would have been caught by now if the Federal Government had employed the infallible services of our witches and wizards?

    Since the numerous aircraft deployed in the efforts to locate and rescue the 110 abducted Dapchi girls is yet to return with any positive result, shouldn’t someone somewhere be wearing his thinking cap and tap from the informed insights offered by our hard-working Senator?

    Besides, witches can be efficiently used to drastically tame the monster called corruption in Nigeria. All it takes is to empower them to deal mercilessly with anyone found to have dipped his crooked hands in the public till regardless of what ‘holy book’ was used to administer oath of office and oath of allegiance on such a person. In an era where snakes and monkeys reportedly swallowed millions of naira hidden in safe havens within the homes, witches can be the only dependable alleys in retrieving such funds intact as they can penetrate anywhere with their powers. With them, the anti-graft bodies will no longer be sweating profusely in their bid to recover stolen funds as such would now be the responsibility of highly-trained witches who would be compensated with mouth-watering percentages from the recovered loot in line with fine principles embedded in the whistle blowers’ law! They can detect and swiftly eliminate the perennial problems of budget padding and inject some form of sanity in our appropriation process.  Personally, I cannot help but marvel at the humongous funds that these witches would return to our treasury in addition to the number of looters that would face the music in our embarrassingly slow justice system! The authorities would even have the added advantage of ordering the witches to fly to all the countries where these slush funds are hidden and, without signing any bilateral agreements, freight our collective patrimony back to our land. How wonderful.

    Just this week, it was announced that the Federal Government had written the National Assembly to intimate it of the return of fuel subsidy regime to allegedly curb the criminals activities of oil marketers that ‘divert Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to neighbouring countries in which about N774m was lost by the government daily.” Anyone with a brain as small as a mustard seed within the government ought to know that the menace can be curbed with the services of specially trained, red-eyed elite witches strategically stationed in our borders. For years, our security personnel have wasted billions of naira and countless man hours on patrol without any radical change in the sorry state of our porous borders. But, with witchcraft, I am sure we would be spending less while making a giant leap in the reduction of this seeming intractable problem. It is even not impossible that the wizardry of these witches can be injected into our policy formulation strategies at all levels of government to ensure maximum effect. That, to my mind, would be our home grown way of technological advancement—deploying the services of witchcraft for the good of a country whose leadership has consistently refused to think outside the box beyond paying lip service to what other serious minded leaders are irrevocably committed to doing——service to humanity!

    And so, here we are in the 21st century with leaders monkeying around with unverifiable tales of an all-knowing witchcraft handling issues that other less-endowed countries tackled with commitment, service and loyalty to the state other than to self. It is such a pity really!

  • Could these be APC’s faltering steps into oblivion?

    Could these be APC’s faltering steps into oblivion?

    For those who must have forgotten, the then ruling behemoth, otherwise known as the Peoples Democratic Party which its promoters expected to rule for sixty years, did not collapse into relative political oblivion in one day.  The signs had always been there that the systemic fragmentation of the party by internal centrifugal forces would eventually spell its doom. But, rather than take proactive steps to halt the drift, the egocentric elements within and outside the Wadata House headquarters of the party would, instead, pay attention to the sharpness of their starched agbada and flowing babanriga, barking orders with repugnant impunity. Today, the PDP is ruing the day that it failed to act despite repeated warnings by observers that the pillars of representative governance cannot be built on the foundation of political nihilism and brigandage. It was that gaping lacunae that the ruling All Progressives Congress adroitly exploited for emphatic ascent in Nigeia’s democratic space, with President Muhammadu Buhari as the Chief Navigator some three years down the line.

    Having identified these facts, it is important to interrogate how the APC has fared in its quest to do things differently. In short, has the APC learnt anything from the failures of the PDP such that one can conclude that it has escaped the likely fate of stepping on the same banana peels that pulled the rugs off the PDP’s faltering legs? Unfortunately, the same arrogance, needless power show and total disregard for the fine principle of internal democracy have crept into the administrative governance structures of the APC at all levels. Of course, those who have chosen to live in denial will conveniently wish it away as one of those teething problems that a party still grappling with the best way to deploy the enormous power at its disposal must experience. Is that a tangible excuse to cite for a party that is shamelessly monkeying around? Let me say, without any shred of doubt, that the argument is pedestrian, jejune and untenable. The crying truth is that the APC, which is a gathering of strange bedfellows, is fundamentally factionalized right from inception. It is a national party with regional warlords whose main objective seems to be focused on grabbing a larger chunk of the national cake as a plaque for hollow triumphalism. This is the main reason why the APC is a crumbling house of cards; with varied leadership cells battling for its soul as the 2019 general elections draw near.

    On one hand is the leadership cell in the National Assembly led by the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, who, for the plum job, sold off his party’s birthright to the opposition in utter disrespect and total disregard for the party’s directive. Today, that force has grown into a big monster and, in cahoots with like minds in the House of Representatives, it regularly frustrates the executive on policy issues while hiding under the venerable cover of legislative powers conferred by the nation’s constitution. On the other hand is an executive that has woefully failed to engage the legislature productively without throwing tantrums. And we have an APC-led majority forever in a mortal combat with an executive thereby jeopardizing the prospects of marching together on common grounds for the good of all. The mutual feeling of suspicion that pervades the executive/legislative dealing has gravely put spanners in the works, even if no one would readily admit this by parties whose outward show of conviviality is buried in the plastic laughter etched on their faces. There is also another power bloc led by the governors who would stop at nothing to be in full control of the party apparatus in their various states. And then, the power cell at the party secretariat with all the intrigues and endless battles for relevance by a growing rank of disgruntled members who seek a fairer treatment having worked tirelessly for the success of the party during the last election!

    Here is short snippet into the APC’s steaming pot of wahala. While the national body is busy pushing for a renewal of Buhari’s mandate, there are forces within the party singing discordant tune. While some state governors are in a do-or-die battle with dissident party members vowing to wrest power from them, the National Assembly leadership is also contending with its home grown ‘terrorists’ in a fight that has seen the noses of some lawmakers scratched on the concrete floor. We all know that, contrary to the flighty reasons given by the lawmakers, there is much more to the change in the order of elections, don’t we? Under what democratic norm did the Senate derive its power to ‘sanction’ fellow lawmakers holding contrary views to the ones held by the majority in passing a bill? If Senator Ovie Omo-Agege had not tendered unreserved apologies, wouldn’t he have suffered the same fate that Senator Abdullahi Adamu suffered for daring to speak his mind on national issues including what he thought was the motive behind the change in the order of elections and why Obasanjo should be tried for corruption? Or could it be that the APC caucus in the National Assembly does not have an in-house mechanism to resolve its crisis without the resort to brigandage and highhandedness? Talk of legislative rascality and you have in ample supply under Saraki’s armpit!

    On a serious note, the alarming rate at which impunity is on display in the states should bother the party’s hierarchy beyond the peripheral gestures of setting up a reconciliatory committee. Perhaps, the PDP would still be in power today if some of its powerful governors had not defected to the APC when they became fed up with the laughable impotence of the leadership to rein in the elements of disaffection within. Today, the level and spread of internal wrangling within the APC dwarf that of the PDP. From Benue State, Governor Samuel Ortom is firing all cylinders, huffing and puffing over the fortunes or misfortunes of the party if Buhari didn’t do certain things to assuage the people following the deadly clashes between herdsmen and farmers. In Kano, Senator Rabiu Kwakwanso is at daggers drawn in a popularity contest with his former deputy and, now, the Executive Governor of the state, Abdullahi Ganduje. In Kogi, Senator Dino Melaye and Governor Yahaya Bello’s endless fight has been well documented in addition to the bitter internal party rivalry that has torn the APC apart even while the governor seems busy engaging all and sundry, including the state’s civil servants, in mini epic battles. And in Kaduna, the supremacy battle between Governor Nasir el-Rufai and a splinter group of the party led by two serving senators reached its head when the ‘secretariat’ of the faction was pulled down on the excuse that the owners of the building defaulted in the payment of ground rents!

     

    While Kwakwanso was prevented from visiting the state he ruled for eight years before ‘anointing’ his former deputy as his successor, images of under-aged voters’ thumb printing ballot papers for particular candidates in a local government election went viral on the cyberspace. And here is a party that promises change in all its ramifications!

    If Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a major stakeholder in the party, has any magic wand to spin, the time to do it is now. Needless to say that the APC would be sitting on a time bomb thinking that all the crises sprouting from left, right and centre are nothing but a storm in a tea cup that would soon fizzle out with time. That was the same assumptions that the PDP had until the reality of an imminent rout hit it hard. You see, in politics, a mere storm in a teacup can become a tsunami that washes away hitherto mighty mountains. Those little droplets of angst here and there coupled with the sickening act of vicious intolerance in Kaduna should be more than enough motivation for the party to begin an all-encompassing healing process. The APC needs to look itself in the mirror and cobble some home truth into its deadened cells. And that can only happen if the leadership begins to see the multi-layered crises as faltering steps that may spell doom for the party. Even on the highest podium, a descent into oblivion is very possible. But do those concerned really realise that they are dancing on the edge of a precipice?

  • 919 million reasons to laugh…

    919 million reasons to laugh…

    Some tragic impulses in our national life would fittingly pass as rude jokes but they are, nonetheless, pitiably laughable. The funny thing is that we seem to never run short of this melodrama where sense and the utterly benumbing collide in equal measure as we burst into dry laughter. Ordinarily, we should all be concerned about this. But what do you do when, more often than not, you are buffeted by the same bout of tasteless and destiny-altering shenanigans almost every day? You hardly settle down to dissecting and psychoanalyzing one event before another one takes preeminence. Take, for example, the events that unfolded before us in the week and how they impacted our lives in one way or the other.

    In those days when the feeling of mutual distrust was not this agonizingly pervasive, the appearance of the former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr., Olisa Metuh, on a stretcher at an Abuja High Court last Monday would have reawaken our humanity regardless of Metuh’s alleged financial ‘crimes’ against the state. Instead, Metuh’s images as he was being pulled from the ambulance onto the stretcher and delicately wheeled into the courtroom, bandaged ghost-like from the legs to the neck and wrapped in white clothing became the butt of jokes on many social media platforms. He was lampooned for making himself available to be used as a drama king when he could have faced the law and allow justice to take its course. The entire drama, to say the least, was pathetic. It was not funny either. Whoever scripted the plot deserves a medal of artistic perfection from the eggheads in the multi-billion naira Nollywood industry.

    Few months back, no one would have thought that Metuh would find himself in such a pitiable condition and this is without any prejudice to the true state of his health. For all we know, he could, like all mortals, be truly ill. The only difference is that he remains the sole architect of the charade that played out at the court on that day due to his deft adroitness in frustrating the court sitting over a corruption and money laundering case brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. How could we have believed him when he had dribbled himself to his wit’s end in and out of the courtroom? And so, the stunt that was pulled at the court premises ended up appealing to base sentiments of those who have followed his antics with dumb admiration until Monday’s cul-de-sac. For a man who allegedly chewed and swallowed the papers on which he penned his confessions at the office of the EFCC; someone who has tried all the tricks in the books to prolong his trials and a man who was once accused by his co-workers at the PDP of some financial misdeeds, it wouldn’t be out of place to queue behind those who read mischief and deceit to his grand entry in an ambulance. It was not for nothing that the one month reprieve his packaged condition fetched him was without some tough words from Justice Okon Abang who affirmed that: “A court of law must be firm in its decision. A court of law must be fair to parties in a matter placed before it. And, when occasion demands, a court of law must also be humane.” Abang’s analogy, I hasten to note, also applies to those of us who have chosen to give Metuh the benefit of the doubt even as we cannot but join those who immersed themselves in a sea of laughter over the intriguing comedy skit starring the once-vocal spokesperson of a self-styled Africa’s largest political party, a behemoth that has gone into limbo.

    Nothing could be more amusing during the week than the tango between Mr. Kassim Afegbua and the ever bumbling Nigeria Police Force.

    Afegbua, a renowned columnist, ex commissioner in Edo State and former party chairman, was declared wanted by the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris. Afegbua, who is also the spokesperson of former military president, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, was to be arrested over a statement he issued on behalf of his boss, calling, among other things, on President Muhammadu Buhari to jettison calls for him to contest the 2019 elections and vacate the stage for younger brains. That simple advice by one of the privileged citizens that contributed to the systemic rot of this nation must have irked Idris to the point of acting without weighing the consequences of the irrational and unconstitutional order. It was that bad that the news of Afegbua’s ordered arrest went viral before the ink could dry on IBB’s statement and a subsequent damage-control rebuttal from his camp. I had actually nudged myself several times in disbelief that an IGP, who has so much on his plate, would have time to dabble into the mucky waters of politics by Nigeria’s fat cats. In any case, how does an opinion that was freely expressed and which the President is not under any obligation to subscribe to, amount to defamation of character and act capable of inciting public disturbance? Sometimes, you wonder if the IGP and his men understand that they are expected to operate within the bounds of the law that sets the Nigeria Police up. Must they always prop themselves up as a subject of public odium and ridicule? I assume Idris was out of the country when former President Olusegun Obasanjo issued an acidic statement, offering an unsolicited advice for Buhari to pack his bags from Aso Rock for a younger person to take mount the throne! Abi Oga IGP dey fear the Ebora Owu ni? Well, it is good that, this time, the police deem it fit to bite the dust by rightfully apologising to Afegbua. By the way, under which law would Afegbua have been arraigned for the crime of character assassination and inciting public peace? It is not only comical but hilariously shallow.

  • Ode to ‘their distinguished honourables’

    Ode to ‘their distinguished honourables’

    If honour must be given to whom it rightly belongs, all lawmakers in the 8th National Assembly and the leadership in both the red and green chambers deserve our unalloyed obeisance for their uncommon display of loyalty to the nation and patriotic zeal towards the realisation of our collective dreams. But for the maturity and absolute dedication of these lawmakers to the national call to duty despite the extreme provocation by the executive, the change mantra of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government would not have been translated into the visible achievements that most Nigerians talk about today. Though the insistence of these distinguished and honourable lawmakers on the need to operate within the principle of separation of powers was without some collateral damage, it is to their credit that they had shunned all entreaties and have refused to be silenced by the antics of a hard-faced executive. It is for that reason that Knucklehead is dedicating this page to these iconic men of timbre and calibre who have re-engineered the narrative of an otherwise docile legislative body to a focused and result-driven one.

    I know some people still hold certain ‘sins’ against these exceptional patriots in our democratic experiment. While it is my belief that they reserve the right to do that, I hasten to forecast that they would be wearing the toga of absolute contrition and tender unreserved apologies to the lawmakers by the time I finish highlighting some of the finest moments and the arduous lawmaking encumbrances that these rare Nigerians have had to meander through – all in the course of formulating laws for the good governance of the country.  Okay, I confess to being one of their fiercest critics in the past for what has turned out to be a perceived misjudgment of their action and inaction especially when they appeared to be spending more time on recess than on actual legislative duties. Before I saw the sense in their operational style, I used to lambast the senators and house members for betraying public trust with their abysmally slow response to issues that bother on the wellbeing of the people while huffing and puffing over their allowances and general wellbeing. Now, I have seen the light. Without this set of Nigerians, the candle of our democratic journeys would have burnt out. A few examples would suffice.

    It is ennobling to see that the serious business of lawmaking has shifted from the mundane quarrel, random tantrums and rough fisticuffs over allegations of budget padding, leadership highhandedness or internal crisis on the sharing of one thing or the other. On resumption this year, the legislature has been strictly focused on matters of national importance. In the House of Representatives for example, the honourable members were mindful of the implication of the order of elections in the 2019 poll to the growth of our economy in this financial year that they had to swiftly effect a change such that the Presidential poll would now be held last. That was no mean feat at all! In fact, for me, it came at a great cost and personal sacrifice by the lawmakers contrary to the belief in some quarters that the move was selfish as the lawmakers were conscious of the implication of the fortunes or misfortunes of a presidential candidate on their electoral mandate. Some had even alluded to the fact that most serving lawmakers had trotted on the crest of Buhari’s monstrous popularity to make it to the hallowed chambers and now that his fame has dwindled due to a harvest of failures, it would be better to leave him to his fate on the last day of the elections. Well, that is just within the realm of mere conjectures. As far as I know, these noble lawmakers have spent more time in making laws for the general wellbeing of the common Nigerians despite the meager allocations at its disposal in the last three years or so. That is why the Senate has quickly bought into the idea of a re-tuned order of elections in line with the powers conferred on them. The little discomfort that the change would cause the electoral body notwithstanding, we must applaud them for making hay while the sun shines before any member of the executive would use his own blues to spoil their reggae dance in the market place!

    If they so wish, the lawmakers could have opted to laze around, cruising back and forth from the luxurious cars that was procured from tax-payers’ sweat; luxuriate in their specially-designated elevators and still end up sharing the usual millions monthly without anybody raising an eyebrow. They could claim to have been elected to enjoy in Abuja, on behalf of everybody but, being conscientious citizens bent on turning things around for the good of all, they chose to stoop low and occasionally hitch a ride on the elevators meant for the few lucky ‘commoners’ working with them. However, instead of appreciating and venerating them for this humane gesture as was the practice in developed countries in Europe and the Americas, one of those yamhead ‘commoners’ violently abused the privilege last week by attempting to slap an aide to a whole distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic.

    Quite honestly, I was fuming with uncontrollable rage when the story filtered through my favourite websites. You mean a Nigerian, known for his docility and dumb genuflection to a constituted authority, could have the temerity to raise his filthy hands against the law itself?

    I wouldn’t have believed that story until the astonishingly beautiful Senate Minority Whip. Senator Biodun Olujimi (PDP, Ekiti South) relayed what transpired during that moment of madness and unprovoked insult against the highly-revered office of a lawmaker. Thankfully, Olujimi said it was merely an ‘altercation’ between her aide and some unruly elevator user who wondered why the aide was protecting a senator that was hitching a ride on the ‘staff’ elevator. Just imagine how some commoners toy with their lives. What would have happened if the senator’s aide or her security details had decided to employ the use of his gun during the altercation? Would the heavens have fallen if the senator had ordered her aide to slap the disrespectful bush man? Or would the commoner be left off the hook if he had dared to decorate the senator’s pretty cheeks with hot slaps just because she decided to share the elevator with them instead of taking a distinguished ride on the one set aside for people in her class? Respect please!

    Come to think of it, it is that lack of respect for constituted authority that almost put the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hammed Ali (Rtd.) into trouble with the Senator Dino Melaye-led Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Economic Waste in the Nigeria Customs Service. For a set of people that is constitutionally empowered to summon the President and Commander-In-Chief of the country at the whim, Ali ought to have known that he was fishing in troubled waters with his refusal to personally stand at the gate house, to usher in members of the committee when they paid a fact-finding visit to the Wuse, Zone 3 Headquarters of the Nigeria Customs Service last Monday. Contrary to Ali’s warped beliefs, senators are not ordinary people. They are to be feared, worshipped and treated with utmost genuflection in order get the best out of them. And that was the point Dino was making in expressing his displeasure with the way Ali welcomed the committee to his office. Speaking with the authority vested in him by the Senate President as leader of the committee on national duties, Dino said: “Let me make this small remark on what we have just observed here in form of breach of protocols. Mr. CG, rather than meeting us here at the conference room by way of courtesy, you are supposed to have met us at the ground floor on arrival into the premises.”

    And what did Ali do? Rather than treat Dino’s outburst with the seriousness it requires and then proceed to kowtow before the powerful persons before him, Ali impudently stirred the hornet’s nest by his needless obduracy. Ordinarily, he could have quelled the fire of dissonance by fanning the egos of the Dino group with some tasteful jokes about his indiscretion and seek forgiveness. Instead, he fired a riposte on protocols and etiquette, disdainfully looking at their most distinguished as a village school headmaster would look at his pupils! Listen to him: “I don’t need to come downstairs to receive you just as nobody in the Senate or House of Representatives has never come out to receive us anytime we visit the National Assembly. So, there is no breach of protocol for not coming down to welcome you since the appropriate officers have been assigned to do so. Our protocol is our protocol and should be allowed to be. In fact, by way of etiquette, it is the committee that is supposed to come to my office first on arrival and not just come straight to the conference room.” Chai! Ali!!!

    Well, Knucklehead may not be versed in matters of protocols and etiquette in official quarters. He is not even interested in knowing who was right or wrong between the two muscle-flexing noisemakers. What I know is that it is extremely dangerous for an appointee of the President to brew a potentially festering hostility against a rampaging National Assembly that has publicly declared technical bankruptcy some few months to an electioneering campaign. If this heady Ali does not fear those who can throw out the water in the pot, shouldn’t he be a bit circumspect in dealing with those who are ready to throw out the water in addition to breaking the pot? What’s my own? I’ve grabbed my seat on the front row, eagerly waiting for another round irritatingly intriguing drama that has no effect on the soaring price of fish!

  • Obasanjo has come again o!

    Obasanjo has come again o!

    In the last few days, former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s long letter, advising President Muhammadu Buhari to forget a second tenure bid for The Presidency has been trending both on the social media and as a national discourse. Personally, I would have been shocked if Obasanjo had not written that letter considering his knack to seize every available opportunity to robe himself with the ornamented garment of an untainted statesman. It did not start today and it is definitely not going to end with the Buhari under-the-belt thunderbolt as long as the former military warlord has the energy to interrogate our national affairs at the highest level. Getting into the fray and making a political capital out of it is something Obasanjo relishes and flourishes in with profound aplomb. For those who have followed his letter writing proclivities, it is not debatable that the wily old fox is merely setting the template for another round of intriguing political chess game that may see him triumphing just like he did in the past. Some would say he is an opportunist, Well, that may not be entirely wrong. Yet, it is troubling that those he had unclothed in the market square in the past, either in the executive or legislature arm, had always placed before him the ammunition he used to shoot them down.

    In Buhari’s case, Obasanjo’s scathing criticism couldn’t have come at a better time regardless of what the Minister of Information, Culture and National Orientation, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, would want us to believe. The ominous signs that a bomb could be fired from Ota, Obasanjo’s farmhouse, had always been there. For long, the government sat on its hands and watched as things go from bad to worse while the citizens gnash their teeth in anguish. This was not helped by Aso Rock’s loud silence and manifest incompetence to deal with the killings in the North Central region by rampaging herdsmen. If the government was doing anything to stop the bloodletting, such action was obviously not known to those who continue to lose loved ones in a pogrom that defies logic and commonsense. Was it a fight between brothers over grazing rights on farmlands or was it an invasion by foreign agents with the backing of some religious bigots? Even the government couldn’t give an answer to the vexing question as the body bags mount!

    And so, beyond the poor management of the economy and Buhari’s vacillating attitude to governance, Obasanjo’s main disaffection could be gleaned from his allegation that the President is clannish and nepotistic. Surely, these are not light words that can be waved away with a list of achievements reeled out by Mohammed on Wednesday. In any case, it is an elementary fact that the table of achievements is meaningless if it does not have direct positive impact on the people. The question to ask is: Are Nigerians safer now than they were some years back and are they economically-secured under the present regime? I doubt if the government will get the kind of response that would make it thump its chest to justify the achievements listed on that sheet of paper. The government should also be concerned that Obasanjo, while acknowledging that Buhari did record some strides in the fight against corruption and insurgency, pointedly accused him of condoning the basest form of corruption and financial crime with the “allegations of round tripping against some inner caucus of the Presidency.”

    If we took former President Goodluck Jonathan to the cleaners for attending a party rally in Kano a day after the Nyanya deadly bombings and the abduction of over 200 Chibok school girls, it would be inhumane for us to look the other way when Buhari, who rode on the crest of that Jonathan’s errors, makes the same mistake with cold-blooded equanimity. Now, listen to Obadanjo: “The herdsmen/crop farmers issue is being wittingly or unwittingly allowed to turn sour and messy. It is no credit to the Federal Government that the herdsmen rampage continues with careless abandon and without finding effective solution to it. And it is a sad symptom of insensitivity and callousness that some governors, a day after 73 victims were buried in a mass grave in Benue State without condolence, were jubilantly endorsing President Buhari for a second term. The timing was most unfortunate!”

    To say the truth, Obasanjo was mild in dissecting this particular irreverent attitude of the governors and the man they were nudging on to place his ambition before the lives of the citizens he plans to rule over for a second term. This unpardonable revelry at the seat of power was nothing other than spitting on the graves of the murdered sons and daughters of Benue. Jonathan, I repeat, was practically roasted alive for this same ‘sin’ even by some of the characters who are now trying fruitlessly to justify the senseless action that happened inside Aso Rock that day. Like Olurotimi Anifowose noted, the government’s puffed-up response failed woefully to address the main issues raised by Obasanjo. The theories espoused in that list were not convincing enough to douse the growing belief among a crowd of disenchanted populace that another four years of a Buhari Presidency would be nothing short of a monumental mistake!

    On the eleven-point achievements listed by Mohammed, Anifowose asked some germane questions which, I believe, should tug the unfeeling hearts of those in the corridors of power if they are truly committed to beating Obasanjo to his game this time. He wrote: “Theories! That’s what I read to the government’s response to the carefully-woven facts itemised by the former President. How have these achievements translated to improvement of lives? Did these submissions address the nepotistic disposition of the administration? Did it address the penchant for clannishness? Did it address the condonation of Fulani herdsmen by the administration? Did it address the condonation of corrupt individuals in the corridors of power by the administration?” Unfortunately, the answer is an emphatic no. And it is a pity.

     

    Obasanjo simply waited to hit the government he helped in bringing to power where it would hurt it the most. And, like the others before it, history may repeat itself if Aso Rock choses to dismiss him as a rude joke whose flame of would soon burn out with time. He is more than that even if I would be the first person to admit that the Ota farmer is an opportunist that knows when and how to play to the gallery with the sole aim of reaping the full benefits, undeservingly so. He did it after he failed to get a third term sanctioned by the National Assembly by imposing a Yar’Adua/Jonathan ticket on the nation after blackmailing a number of his presumed loyalists like Peter Odili, Donald Duke and Nasir el-Rufai. He did it with the same callous mien he is now tracing to Buhari when he pushed his then deputy, Atiku Abubakar to the precipice of frustration, dejection and political obscurity. That is why Atiku still gloats in the dark today for political relevance despite his goodwill and hood heart. He repeated the same aura of invincibility when he cunningly imposed Jonathan on his party following the untimely death of Yar’Adua. And when he fell out with Jonathan, he didn’t hesitate to stake his cards with Buhari who eventually became President. Now, the plot thickens as Obasanjo is on the move again in search of another crown prince to make and mar. Will it then be politically wise for Aso Rock to wish Obasanjo’s stinging letter away as it is presently doing? Those who did it in the past are still biting their fingers in regrets. Will Buhari’s case be different?

    End. End. End.

  • When today’s greed rapes our future with impunity

    When today’s greed rapes our future with impunity

    I have often pondered over how Nigerians keep trudging on with either smiles or in difference amidst the unending self-inflicted calamities that confront their nation daily. For a country that bleeds from all pores, it is amazing that its people wreathe themselves in an ambience of happiness in spite of the agonizing realities of daily frustrations. We are, indeed, a rare breed to the point that horror doesn’t even shock many again going by the way we recklessly abuse the use of the social media platforms. Some would say it is part of our weird sense of humour. But I disagree.

    On the contrary, those things are emblematic of the warped and disjointed systemic failures that define us to the outside world. We are the perception we make others to see in us. Take, for example, the gory pictures of accident victims that were spread on the walls of some persons on Facebook with dispassionate stupidity last week. Aside the errant disrespect for the charred remains of the said accident victims on the Minna-Bida road in Niger State; it was heart-wrenching that only few persons drew the attention of the sharers of the pictures to their benumbing, inhumane and atrocious banalities. It was shocking that otherwise enlightened citizens had publicly come out to justify the post, arguing that it was an indictment on a governance system with little or nothing on ground to prevent such calamities or reduce the impact of the disaster. And, I ask, couldn’t they have passed the same message without insulting our sensibilities with those pictures? But then, I digress.

    In the past few days, I have fruitlessly searched for the reason why our political elites continue to mortgage the nation’s future with their insatiable appetite for personal aggrandizement as they watch millions of hapless citizens barely eking out a living. It is not just about the warped and hopelessly inane incongruities in our budgetary process. For me, it has more to do with how we are regaled with tales of how people with no known vocation or means of livelihood suddenly happen into humongous wealth in local and hard currencies. We may not know how low we have sunk until such a time when we begin to take more than a passing glance at the figures that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission allegedly traced to the coffers of some of these personalities. The question is: how many more shocks will they inflict on the Nigerian economy before it starts caving in to the many years of endless abuse and callous rape? I ask this question against the backdrop of the news of fresh discoveries of the looting bazaar that was perpetuated by the last administration and the rumours of mindless economic carnage being wrought under the present government. Let me also state that I am not unaware of the fact that nothing concrete has emerged to justify the allegations against this administration. However, that does not mean that we shouldn’t be concerned with the way it dispenses funds as the dates fixed for the next general elections in 2019 draw near.

    Do you want to know how funds meant for projects that would impact lives in budgets get into the hands of the shameless pilferers in the system? The answer, according to findings by a civic technology non-profit organisation with a focus on the Nigerian budgeting process, BudgIT, can be gleaned from the vexatious ‘one-liner’ sub-heads which “gives room for financial indiscretion and the potential abuse of funds.” The process is also said to be “antithetical to what the government continually professes to stand for.” In a nut shell, what BudgIT is saying is that this government, regardless of its public posturing on accountability and due process, will continue to fight a lost battle against corruption as long as it provides the avenues for the rape of the system. It appears that the government has done little to plug the loopholes through which these privileged economic fat cats feast on our collective patrimony. This, I belief, is how humongous funds get diverted into the private accounts of characters like the ones the EFCC is now chasing from pillars to post to retrieve bits and pieces of stolen wealth and probably prosecute.

    How does this happen, you ask. Well, this is how BudgIT puts it: “Approximately N744.48bn or 42.9% of the N2.65tn capital allocation proposed by the Federal Government would go into administrative items like procurement of cars, retrofitting of government offices, trainings, consultancies, purchase of furniture and computers and so on. Our scope of developmental capital projects as urgently needed should include the acquisition, upgrading, construction and maintaining of physical assets such as hospital, schools, roads, railways, power plants, street lights, and boreholes among others. In contrast, administrative capital items are projects that cannot be easily accessed by the general public and have very little or no developmental impact on the population.” You see why we have been perennially in motion without movement?

    When you break it down, what BudgIT is saying is that we need to reframe the nation’s budgetary architecture in such a way that it would be people and developmentally driven. For now, it is structured to pander to the salacious taste of the men in power and their cronies. That is how we fritter our future away. We have a legislature whose appropriations remain shrouded in secrecy with an added burden of allocating billions of naira annually to buy cars, junket across the globe and line their pockets with questionable funds with dubious allowances. Unfortunately, the executive is not any better in the bazaar with Aso Rock leading the pack with humongous figures captured either to buy all manners of wonders-on-the-wheel or buy cutleries to feed the lucky few being invited to dine with the President.

    It is not surprising either that millions of naira would also be needed to pack the waste in sewages and feed the rare collection of animals in the presidential zoo while Aso Rock Clinic hardly stock its pharmacy with commonly prescribed medications. This yearly ritual has bled us dry!

    And here is the screaming irony. In this same economy with sickening developmental figure and growing tribe of the abjectly poor, the citizens get fed daily with annoyingly irritating discoveries of billions of naira and millions of dollars in the private homes of those they entrust their future wellbeing with. Sometimes, it is that bad that wives of the high and mighty would shamelessly be competing for the prestigious prize of who emerges as the bigger thief in the family! And when you question the source of the wealth, you would be told that the office they once held in trust for the people conferred on them the right to be ‘stinkingly’ rich. Oh blimey!

    In all this, the unfortunate thing is that nothing points to the fact that things are being done differently under the Buhari administration if figures in the 2018 breakdown are anything to believe. As highlighted by BudgIT, the 2018 expenditure projection is laden with too many buckets of ‘suspicious items’ including a N5.5bn allocation in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for “support for infrastructure, projects and coordination services”, N4bn for “building maintenance works for other MDAs in Abuja” in the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing; the N2.21bn for “Social Media Mining Suite” in the Directorate of State Security Service; the N1.14bn for “cleaning and fumigation services” in the office of the National Security Adviser; the N19.3bn “export expansion grant” domiciled in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment; and, wait for it, the N4.9bn for ‘annual routine maintenance of mechanical/electrical installations of the Villa in the State House Headquarters!

    For those who don’t know. It is this kind of one liner subheads that the smart alecs and the not-so-smart crooks dip their crooked hands into and, in due course, they become billionaires and multi-billionaires with no question asked. Hundreds of these gaping holes, we are told, are being exploited to ruin our present and future realities. Will things change as these incongruities are being brought to the fore? Well, no one is sure as BudgIT insists that the eggheads at the Ministry of Finance have shown utter ‘disdain for accountability”, thereby frustrating all efforts to make them tread the straight and narrow path to economic wisdom. One thing is sure though; the greatest tragedy that could befall this administration would be for it to be accused of some sort of mindless larceny ever witnessed in our looting history months after its key actors would have left office. Surely, that cannot be the legacy that a government that makes a song and dance of its endless battle against corruption would want to be remembered for. Or is it?