The Nation Newspaper

Category: Yomi Odunuga

  • Beyond the colonies of cattle

    Beyond the colonies of cattle

    In those days, one of my lecturers was fond of making an issue out of Nigerians’ love for ‘high sounding yet meaningless patter’ in an endless attempt to show off. His words come to mind as I settle down to digest the latest solution that the Federal Government is proposing as a perfect answer to ending the perennial bloody clashes between herdsmen and farmers—colonies for cattle. Suddenly and from the blues, the government woke up to realise that it has done little or nothing to help the cause of these fully armed so-called herdsmen who have been on a slaughtering binge of human lives in the last few years. There is hardly any part of the country that these seemingly unknown killers have not inflicted pain and anguish with ferocious equanimity, especially in communities that dare question the impunity with which they allow their cattle to graze and destroy farmlands. That, if we must knock the truth on its head, is the crux of a crisis that continues to take lives daily with the latest being the mindless bloodletting in two local government areas in Benue State.

    With over 80 lives lost to the pogrom and with tongues wagging that President Muhammadu Buhari, being a Fulani, was playing the ostrich without any signs that a decisive action would be taken to stop the dastardly act, it was not surprising that the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, an influential Benue indigene, would have to lend his voice to the raging debate one way or the other. But rather than douse the tension or erase the belief in some quarters that the President was passively shielding his kinsmen from arrest and prosecution over the killings, Audu’s intervention merely added to the confusion. Standing on the threshold of political correctness which oftentimes defers to vacuous prognosis, Ogbeh would pick his examples from Europe where every farmed cow gets, according to him, six Euros per day. He said while rice, maize and cocoa farmers in the country enjoy some sort of subsidy from the government, nothing significant has been done for livestock development. Unfortunately, that’s the category the herdsmen fall into.

    And then, Ogbeh’s clincher: “We have done next to nothing for the cattle-rearer and, as a result, his operation has become a threat to the existence of our farmers. The government is planning a programme called cattle colonists, not ranches but colonists where, at least, 5000 hectares of land would be made available, adequate water; adequate pasture would be made available. We also want to stop cattle-rearers from roaming. The cattle will be provided with water and adequate security by rangers, adequate pasture milk collection even security from rustlers to enable them live a normal life. This has been done in India, Ethiopia and Brazil.”

    Honestly, I can understand the frustration of the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, when he said he couldn’t grasp what Ogbeh meant by colonies for cattle herders. I don’t too. If it is not ranching, what then is this colony slang all about? Would it be restricted to a particular geo-political zone or would the colonies be set up in whichever fertile ground or communities that these wandering and armed herdsmen pick as veritable grounds for ‘colonization’, in the interest of their cattle? What guarantee do we have that those who have based their continuous movement on tradition and customs would accept this offer of cattle colonies with rangers in charge of security when they have learnt to waste human lives in exchange for any rustled or killed cow as it was the case in Benue?

    I have tried, without much success, to identify a marked distinction between Ogbeh’s colony of cattle and ranching going by Google’s description of the word. By definition, ranching is “an establishment maintained for raising livestock under range conditions” or “a large farm used primarily to raise one kind of crop or animal (Western USA and Canada).” If Ogbeh says 5000 hectares of land would be made available for the cattle colonists, shouldn’t it be commonsensical that this is ranching by another name even if the security personnel in the colonists would be addressed as rangers? How much longer will we continue to dwell on the dispatch of meaningless patter to describe our impotence in handling issues that require our immediate and urgent attention?

    Possibly, cattle colonies as grasped by Ogbeh may just be an adoption of whatever stretch of land for cattle-rearers’ use without paying for same – just the way colonialists took up vast stretches of land across Africa and carved them up whimsically. Ranching may as well, imply paying for a determined size of land under the economic terms dictated by commerce, economics and the principles of capitalism – you pay before you own. We really don’t know how this would work for now.

    Yet, beyond all the verbose even if sometimes mendacious arguments from both sides of the divide on what moniker to give the place where the excesses of these herdsmen would be curbed, the government in a seeming haste to placate the vicious killers in the midst of this set of people should summon the courage to deal with the criminality embedded in their action in accordance with the law of the land. Ogbeh’s tendentious excuse that many years of neglect of the herdsmen’s travails resulted in the harvest of blood in the land does not, in any way, vitiate the fact that these persons must face the full wrath of the law. It is, to say the least, sickening that these killer herdsmen have justified their insane action on the alleged rustling of 1000 cattle in Benue State. And then you ask, how many more lives would they snuff out that would equate the monetary value of the somewhat priceless cattle?

    The Buhari government will continue to be peddled with stones, public odium and indecent flak if it keeps dangling the carrot before these demented killers instead of wielding the stick in response to ferocious attacks by the herdsmen. The same law should apply to anyone that takes the law into his hands by attacking the herdsmen. In this particular matter, the question has been asked: Where is the stick in Ogbeh’s intervention? In those years when rice, maize and cocoa were farmed without any subsidy, did the hapless farmers resort to any violence-induced self-help? Under whose authority did the herdsmen derive the power to ravage farmlands – all in the name of getting feed and water for their cattle? And what gives Ogbeh the assurance that these persons who have rejected all efforts to station them in areas where they wouldn’t have to trample on the constitutionally guaranteed rights of others would buy into his cattle colonies idea?

    The riotous angst in the Presidential Villa notwithstanding, the uncomfortable truth is that the buck stops on Buhari’s desk. That’s what he signed for when he became President. And so, it is not enough for him to chastise those linking the conflict to ethnic cleansing or religious war. It doesn’t help either that he sees the barrage of criticisms against his action or inaction as “simplistic reductionism.” By now, we should be tired of blowing grammar to the wind as the cloud of gloom grips the land. Now that the herdsmen have turned their weapons against the officers of the law with the reported slaughtering of two police officers and inflicting life-threatening injuries on another, it is expected that the nation’s security apparatchik would carry out Buhari’s order to haunt these devilish men down with the same dose of viciousness they have visited on thousands of our citizens.

    A change from eternal roaming of cattle herds across the country should be a welcome idea. Ranching is even a better option if those involved would freely subscribe to it without scrounging up extraneous factors and primordial fallacies that would frustrate efforts being made to implement it. But, in doing this, nothing should be done to gloss over the fact that the blood of those felled in the insensate tragedy deserves justice. It is the least the country owes them as we hope that, someday, the herds of cattle would be tamed within a colony under the firm grip of humane ranchers. In the end, what should concern us is that Nigerian lives, regardless of creed, colour or religion, matter. Is that now why we have a constituted authority in place?

     

  • This coated canvas of doom

    This coated canvas of doom

    We are barely into the first week of a New Year and the Nigerian narrative has taken yet another turn in our endless tale of senseless bloodletting. Yet, the blood sucking characters that perpetuate these monstrous acts across the six-geographical zones of the country are hardly under the radar of the law. The intriguing thing is that Nigerians have given these despicable characters names based on the areas where they operate. For example, in Lagos, they tag them Badoo boys. In the North Central, they are strictly rampaging herdsmen. In the North-West, they are called terrorists or Boko Haram insurgents. In the South-South, rival cultist gangs murder innocent citizens at will. In some other parts of the country, they may be called cattle rustlers. And the South-East has IPOB and sundry dangerous criminals to contend with. In all this, the common denominator is that these folks carry out the most heinous of crimes with a benumbing cold bloodedness. Guns, knives, grinding stone and anything imaginable is daily used to dispatch scores of victims to the great beyond. It is like they derive surreal pleasure in inflicting extremely horrible pain, anguish and sorrow on their victims. In most cases, they not only steal but maim and kill men, women and children, relishing the communal tears and sorrow that flow after they had wreaked havoc!

    Somehow, we had thought such tragic and episodic rendering of these sickening tales would diminish as the Federal Government affirmed its preparedness to beat the criminals to their games. However, the rampaging hoodlums did not wait for the ink to dry on President Muhammadu Buhari’s New Year speech in which he laid bare his plans for a secure, peaceful and developing nation before they unleashed yet another round of bloodbath to, presumably, rubbish whatever arguments the President had pushed forward to further hoodwink hapless citizens. The question has been asked: what exactly is the worth of human life in this Lugardian contraption? The answer is not that difficult. It is visible in the hundreds of body bags that we harvest monthly through various man-made tragic impulses. It is seen in the growing number of mass graves where the charred and mutilated bodies of our citizens are lumped. We see it in the way newspaper headlines replace lives with contradictory figures. It is like the grim reaper has taken a permanent abode in the warped minds of the killers in our midst.

    In a piece published on this page on March 4, 2017, I had surmised that Nigerians lives would begin to matter when we all take a decisive action to do away with the primordial sentiments that have tied us to the apron springs of religion, ethnicity and class. We only burst into collective national outrage when certain categories of Nigerians are affected by the murderous whirlwind of bloodletting going on in our land. In that piece, I opined that: “It is becoming clearer that no one would take the dignity of the Nigerian seriously until such a time when we collectively stop rating ourselves from the prisms of tribe, religion and social class. We are too bigoted to these things to the point that our revulsion or otherwise to the decimation of our citizens is propelled by those factors. Is it not sad that you rarely get that feeling of general angst or spirit of communality in our reaction to issues that touch on the wellbeing of the collective? We need to bond if we must conquer. But we rarely do, it is when we stop this social and ethnic stereotyping of our humanity – an odious thing that our black tormentors in South Africa have taken a step further – that we can positively tackle the enemy within and without. We rarely pay serious attention to the vilest monstrosities visited on our fellow citizens if they had the misfortune of coming from a different socio-political zone. Worse still, we easily perceive that subjective enemy gene in those born outside our ethnic cum religious backgrounds such that it defines our adversarial temperament. And, if we must say the truth, the xenophobic attacks in faraway South Africa are merely a rehash of the local violence that has permeated our quotidian living as a people from time immemorial. That explains the revulsion we nurse against that Hausa Fulani, that Igbo man, that noisy Yoruba man or that Ijaw minority who is always asking for self-determination.”

    Back to the present, it is a shame that the adversarial mentality still persists. It is killing us silently even when we chose to live in denial. The facts grin back at us. Though the records of ignoble deaths, in the last three days of the year, may be mindboggling, it is the new reality of our existence. On Christmas Day, the serene satellite town of Bwari, Abuja went up in flames over an alleged chieftaincy tussle between the Gbagyi and Hausa community. Lives were lost with the collateral damage of property worth millions. This is not counting the number of lives that were lost to the intermittent and under-reported cases of suicide bombings in the North-East, especially Borno State where the Boko Haram insurgents appear to be kicking back after a temporary lull. By Monday, early on New Year’s Day, it was the turn of Rivers State to witness another gory tale of heart-shattering killings. By the time a gloom of weeping and gnashing of teeth settled on the hail of bullets, 17 church worshippers, who were returning from the crossover vigil, had gone with the wind. Families wailed as they demanded to know why and how this gift of death was packaged and delivered to them on such a day. For now, no one has answered them aside the prosaic platitude extended to them by the Presidents, directing the security agents to fish out the perpetrators.

    Well, it is clear that Buhari’s security apparatchik would have to expand its fishing net to cover other parts of the country especially Benue State where the ubiquitous herdsmen were at their deadly best again, hacking down over 20 lives and injuring 30 others in a sickening rage on the inalienable right of their livestock to trample on farm produce. This recurring superiority battle is never complete without wasted souls hacked down in their sleep. The pictures, from the latest madness in Guma and Logo Local Government Areas of the state, were not only gruesome but they affirm the banality of the human mind. The agents of terror were out for the kill. Children were not spared as they were stabbed or butchered and left for dead. It was obvious the attackers had come for the jugular of the enforcers of the state’s anti-grazing law which was meant to forestall the repeated deadly killings in clashes between local farmers and herdsmen. How many more of these callous killings would we experience before concrete steps would be taken to rein in these soulless marauders? Besides, do state governors have the resources to fight the menace even if they are described as the chief security officers of the states? And why do they always run to the Federal Government in tears when these agents of death berth on their states just like Governor Samuel Ortom and Nyesom Wike are presently doing? Doesn’t this imply that something is fundamentally wrong with the structure and process we run in the name of federalism?

    To be candid, it is delusional to conclude that all we need to do is fix the process and the structure would naturally adjust to the challenges. It is hogwash. In federalism, governors shouldn’t be crying babies, often seen running cap-in-hand to the President each time calamities knock on their doors. Besides, there is something fundamentally wrong with having an all-powerful center that picks when to act and when to play dumb on issues of national security as we have witnessed over the years.

    In his interventions on the ongoing restructuring debate, the Abia State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, calls for a deeper reflections on those things that have set us against one another. He believes we would be swimming round the issues if we restructure without a reorientation of the mindset. The same primordial sentiments I mentioned earlier. Hear him: “The present times therefore call for patriotism, tolerance, strength in our diversity, fair play, self-sacrifice, hard work, selfless service and commitment to public wellbeing. It is in the interest of our nation that we build bridges of accommodation, understanding and brotherhood. The political class and leadership must demonstrate exemplary conduct in terms of probity, integrity, transparency, consistency and altruistic commitment in order to mobilise Nigerians to face our common challenges of poverty, ignorance, infrastructural decay and under development. Stellar leadership at various levels in our country is also a critical requirement.”

    It is not that we do not know when the shoes began to pinch us. It is just that the pretentious lot in power and the genuflecting majority have continued to kick the truth on the groin as the tin gods of doom dare us to paint a different picture beyond the crimson, ghoulish images that haunt us daily. With the benefit of hindsight, we all know that a presidential order that the killers should be hunted down is nothing more than a sound bite of politically correctness. What has been lacking, over the years, is the political will to do that which is right no matter whose ox gored. And we ask: Is Buhari ready truly make a difference or will he continue to play the ostrich as this nation sinks deeper into bloodcurdling crisis sauced in senseless carnage and pogrom?

     

  • Whose Christmas was that anyway?

    Despite the very low-key celebration in many states of the federation, Aso Rock, the seat of power, brimmed with lush hysteria. On Christmas Day, last Monday, the bells jingled and the rhythmic fluidity resonated across the country as President Muhammadu seized the opportunity provided by the yearly ritual of a visit by the Minister of the Federal Territory Capital, Mohammed Bello, to regale us with an enthralling testimonial of God’s hands in his miraculous healing from a yet-to-be-disclosed ailment. For the President, it was a Christmas of thanksgiving and double celebrations as he also recently clocked 75, awesomely bouncing to the shame of his known and unknown detractors who had pronounced him dead countless times in the outgoing year. Truth be told, there is a mystique about the Buhari personae which is beyond human understanding. And so, he was right when he said 2017 was a tough year for him and the entire country. This is not just because he spent the better part of the year in London undergoing medical care. It is also because it was a year that almost tore into shred, the thread that held this nation of many nations together as one single entity. It was by some miracle that we are still tagging along in spite of everything.

    Hear the President: “It has been a tough year. I am thinking I am 75, I thought I was 74 but I was told I was 75. I have never been so sick. Not even in the 30 months’ civil war that I was stumbling under farms of yam or cassava. But this sickness, I don’t know but I came out better. I used to give orders, now I take orders. The doctors told me to feed my stomach and sleep for longer hours and that is why I am looking much better.”

    How I wish we can continue on this positive note devoid of such distractions like the heart wrenching tales of other citizens. However, the sickening reality is that one is yet to see the nexus between the President’s spritely wellbeing and the nation’s failing health economically, politically and physically. To deny this crying truth would be tantamount to living in denial. Hugging a grandiose delusion, which was exemplified in the happiness that permeated Aso Rock on Christmas day as Buhari told his story, without looking at the grander picture of angst and dejection on the streets, is a recipe for failure. It could, in my mind, spell doom for the All Progressives Congress in the coming election if this matter is treated with the same levity with which the ruling party has been waving off every legitimate criticism against its presumed preparedness to govern differently and with positive aplomb.

    What exactly is this all about? It is about a Christmas that was celebrated with languid fixation to the lethargy of bad governance and inept leadership. It steers from the state of mind of a sudden shift from a natural, if almost crazy inebriation and trust in the Buhari magic to turn things around for the benefit of all, to this hollow sobriety of a lost opportunity. No matter how we look at it, this government has lost the script. That is why it now wallows in self-pity, running away from its shadows and conveniently blaming everyone but itself for failing to live up to the targets it sets for itself. Pity.

    It is laughable that, for the umpteenth time, the Buhari government has chosen to pelt a so-called ‘saboteur’ in the oil sector with stones over the utterly despicable fuel scarcity in the country. As the crisis rages, the government continues to search for excuses to justify its obvious incompetence in handling the matter. Yes, hapless Nigerians had gone through harrowing experiences at the filling stations at festive periods in the past. None, I dare say, could be compared to the gratuitous insults extended to them by this government on Christmas Day. Even the usual fire brigade approach that had saved many other regimes from public opprobrium failed this government this time around. Fathers, mothers, the young and the old did not only spend their Christmas on long queues waiting for the supply of the almighty Premium Motor Spirit, but thousands also slept in their cars. Those who couldn’t take the risk and spending hours on the queues drove home with cars running on near-empty tanks only to return to the grueling battle the next day. What could be more humiliating for citizens of the oil-producing ‘giant of Africa’ than this?

    The story was not any better for the ones who managed to travel for the yuletide. With fuel scarcity biting harder and with no respite in place, transport owners feasted on the lean purses of travellers. Transport fares rose astronomically. If Christmas was said to be a season of love, peace and giving, this was an exception. If you must travel, then you must be ready to pay through your nose as fuel scarcity became a perfect alibi to drain your pocket. For example, transport fare to Lagos was just two thousand Naira short of the National Minimum Wage for a one-way trip. Now what does that mean for the impoverished common man already pummeled by the harsh economic conditions? Wherever you looked, it was the same sickening story. People gnash their teeth. Some shook their heads in disbelief. Others expressed it in broken teardrops. Did they make a mistake in believing that things would get better once Buhari revved the governance gear? No one could have imagined that a faceless cabal could hold this government to ransom such that, three days after Christmas, the narrative remains the same as the blame game continues.

    And what did the President have to say about it all?  Oh, he expressed his regrets, sympathizes with Nigerians who have had to contend with ‘needless’ queues, adding that he has also directed his men to increase surveillance, stop price hikes and hoarding of fuel by faceless marketers. Hollow verbiage. Dry canticles. Buhari sits in Aso Rock and gets briefed regularly by the same set of people who had initially told the populace that everything was being done to ensure that the artificial scarcity created by errant marketers would not spread to the last week before Christmas. It was all a ruse. That week turned out to be the most traumatic, agonizing and dehumanizing week for the common citizen. It was a Christmas that was without any mass appeal.

    Unfortunately, as the substantive petroleum minister, the President has no excuse. He has let the people down. Whatever his regrets, he should realize that Nigerians won’t buy his appeal for more sacrifice and understanding at a time when all they need was to feel his humane touch in their lives. That was the opportunity he missed during Christmas. Millions of Nigerians just went the through the grill, swearing to speak with the power in their thumbs when that time comes. Knowing how skewed the President’s feedback mechanism can be and how tempting it could be for one to become disconnected from the wailings in the marketplace as soon as one gets entrapped in the allure of Aso Rock, it is not impossible that Aso Rock may take these early warnings lightly. If that happens, I can only hope the President would not come to rue the day he ignored those who didn’t have the liberty to feed their stomachs but had to endure keeping vigil for far longer hours at the petrol stations, waiting endlessly for Godot and the actualization of baskets of failed promises. By the way, does he know that one’s humanity is not measured by the razzmatazz of the klieg light but the positive whispers it imbues into the noiseless cacophonies of quotidian living especially among the voiceless? Put succinctly, does a tiger need to proclaim its tigritude? I wish him good luck!

     

  • Joan Oji: The real woman of steel

    Joan Oji: The real woman of steel

    I’m almost certain that a puzzling questioning gaze would accompany the listing of Dame Joan Iheoma Oji among the privileged rank of movers and shakers, majority of whom had their uninspiring input tying this country to its benighted rudderless status. Unfortunately, these are the faces you see gracing the front pages of glossy, celebrity magazines as icons. Not the affirmative face of Joan Oji, a woman who has lived it, felt it and now sharing her unbelievable triumph over artificial boundaries and denigrating fixations placed on the girl child in many societies. Some would even ask, in their usual arrogant posture and with noses thrown to the sky, ‘Joan Oji? Who is that?’ Somehow, I wouldn’t blame them. In a society where mediocrity is celebrated with pomp and panache while true heroes often end up unsung, the Joan Oji narrative may sound commonplace to those whose humanity has been weighed down by the mercantilist idealism of the modern world. Yet, the remarkable story of this 60-year-old woman is that kind of stuffs that should inspire hope in many who have given up the dream of ever triumphing over the inexplicable tragedies of life and living. In a sense, Oji could be described as your everyday Nigerian woman who confronts the harsh realities of surviving in a society where little or scant regards is placed on the dignity of the woman mostly by men who gloat over their vain superiority. In another sense, it is more about a determination to break through the enervating societal barriers and emerging triumphant on the other side of a vexing divide. That, in a nutshell, is why I find myself writing about the riveting trajectory of Joan Oji this festive season to a add a glint of hope on the faces those who, though alive to witness yet another Christmas, have refused to smile.

    For the vulnerable ones who have thrown in the towel and have surrendered it all to the gripping tales of hopelessness, the Joan Oji story is a testimonial to the saying that impossibility is nothing only if we believe. Born on June 6, 1957, Joan, an only surviving child of five siblings, barely managed to complete her primary education in the civil war-ravaged South-East Nigeria having lost her father at the age of 11. For a young girl, one can only wonder what the experience was when hail of bullets, fire and anguish reigned supreme in those better-forgotten days. At a time when early marriage had truncated the educational pursuits of many women, Joan Okparaeze’s marriage to Mazi Josiah Oji at the age of 16 appeared to be the engine that fired her resolve for academic excellence. Remarkably, Joan was already a mother of six (6) out of her eight (8) daughters when she was admitted to study Language Arts at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Before then, she was already a proud holder of a Teacher’s Grade Two Certificate and Nigeria Certificate in Education. She topped it with a First Class Honours Degree in Education (Language Arts), emerging as the winner of the Dean’s Prize for the Best All Round Graduating Student in the Faculty. Other laurels, too numerous to list on this page, were to follow.

    The word multitasking is deeply enmeshed in the life of Joan going by the testimonies given by friends and associates at a reception held in her honour last Sunday in Abuja. To some, she is the best teacher of the English Language with the simplicity with which she dissects the knotty crevices of the grammar. To others, she is a moralist, humanist and orator. Some see her as an author of inspiring books which traverse different genres of literature including a collection of her late husband’s witty sayings and quotes. Some would even stick with her philanthropy amid the arduous task of raising eight graduate daughters spread across major professions including law, medicine, accounting, sciences, engineering, architecture and town planning. How, if I may ask, was this woman, whose story began to unravel that late in life, able to stand firm in a world where many in her shoes would have given up childbirth? This question could be the singular reason why most of the women that spoke on the day said she remains the quintessential role model and one of the strongest voices for the girl child as reflected in her book, The Girl Child: How We Raised Eight (2017).

    For Knucklehead, the Joan Oji story is fascinatingly humbling because of the way our path crossed some 16 years ago in my local church here in Abuja. Whilst etching that infectious smile through her pains and anguish following the death of her husband at age 50, she excelled as the first female people’s warden (treasurer) and many other positions that she was eminently appointed to make a difference. Arguably one of the leading practical Christianity preachers around, Joan employs her personal encounters, travails and challenges to elicit the fine principles of fate and faith in our journeys through life. She breaks the teachings of the Bible into simple doctrines and challenges the congregation on the dire consequences of treating with levity the spiritual context of quotidian living. And, as a chorister since 1965, you are doubtlessly sure that Joan’s preaching as a Lay Pastoral Assistant would be incomplete without her embellishing it with songs and praises. That was my first attraction.

    The second is not necessarily personal but gleaned from the testimonies of those who know her. Of course, to say that she is without fault would be dressing her in borrowed garbs. Joan would be the first to reject such jejune moniker. She knows when and how to apply the brakes especially when a handshake is going beyond the elbow. She can be firm and decisively stubborn. This is what some misread as arrogance. Naturally, it hurts when such people decide to speak truth to power be it in the church or elsewhere. Above all, she loves what she does and has not stopped horning her skills as she looks forward to becoming a PhD Degree holder in English Language in few weeks from now. Retired but not tired at 60, Joan has established a foundation—the Josiah and Joan Oji Foundation for Girls and Teens with the sole aim of “getting parents to appreciate their children by giving them equal opportunities to attain greatness in life.”

    With eight daughters living their dreams in different fields of human endearvours, Joan Oji has broken the artificial glass ceiling placed on the education of the girl child in our society. This grandmother to 14 children and mother-in-law to 7 men and still counting do have a lot to thank God for.

    If she had sat with arms crossed as a teenage wife without her husband spurring her to soar higher, we probably wouldn’t be celebrating her today as a living symbol of the can-do-it spirit in those who dare to question a presumed fate with the faith that better things are always in the horizon for those who dare to be different. That is the story of Joan Oji, the woman of steel whose steely resolve shook down the barricades of limitations. It is a story that should spur those who are silently chewing their pain as if their destiny depends on the evil machinations of leaders that continuously impoverish them over the years. What Joan says is that we all need to shake it off because, in the final analysis, there is nothing “that you have that is not given to you.” Is that not the crying truth?

     

    Merry Christmas!

     

  • Oloyede: When leaders walk the talk

    Sitting down and fighting off the occasional writers’ block virus that has become the bane of many newspaper columnists, I was almost tempted into giving up on writing this week. If that had happened, it wouldn’t be because there was no plethora of topics to whine about. After all, this, week like many others before it, didn’t go without the melodrama that defines us a people. The Nigerian narrative did not run short of the usual screaming headlines of divisive politics, gargantuan corrupt practices in high and low places, killings of hapless citizens and the elevated deceit padded as the highest display of patriotism by a fleecing, egoistic and selfish elite. Our country is never lacking in the paradox of a morally deflated leadership that waxes strong on the theoretical and lofty ideals that make a society great. The problem is that they hardly set the example for anyone to follow. They are the practical examples of failed theorists and the evidence is seen in how we have wobbled endlessly in search of a redeeming hero as Nigeria wanders from pillars to post. Bugged by these scary thoughts and after a frustrating session of fiddling with the computer keyboard, I had resolved to let this week pass by without an input on this page until I stumbled on a tiny piece titled “JAMB Chief Oloyede’s Example” written by the hilariously serious Gbenga Omotoso, the Editor of ‘The Nation’ newspaper and published on Thursday. That piece encapsulates what I hasten to describe as the missing link in the governance structure of the Nigerian state.

    Perhaps, I would not be writing about the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board, Prof. Ishaq Olarewaju Oloyede (according to Wikipedia), today if I had followed the herd mentality of the religious puritans and ethnic jingoists in our midst who marked him out as being unworthy of that office simply because of his field of expertise in the academia. On assumption of office on October 8, 2016, the lingo on the tongues of those who couldn’t wait to see his faltering steps in a ‘difficult terrain’ as the JAMB office was: “What significant or tangible reform can a Professor of Islamic Studies bring on stream in that office?” Of course, this was also tainted with the refrain that President Muhammadu Buhari had appointed his ‘Muslim brother and co-Northerner’ to that examination body with the aim of ‘Islamizing’ the educational system. In spite of the fact that Oloyede is a Yoruba name, his longtime professional sojourn in a North Central state, Kwara, was enough to tag him as a Northerner out to implement a Buhari agenda in JAMB. This, I believe, was running wild in the warped imaginations of some persons. No one bothered to find out the fact that this man, who has rewritten the story of transparent leadership in governance in less than two years, is an indigene of Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State. A simple search on the web would reveal more about how he traversed the educational and entrepreneurial sectors of the university system before he was picked to head JAMB. But that’s the story for another day.

    In a society with an abysmal dearth of quality leadership, Oloyede stands out as a symbol of hope for millions of people who have lost a belief in any redemptive moment for this country. In his piece, Omotoso, in unraveling answers to how JAMB was able to return a princely sum of N8bn to the treasury under Oloyede, wrote: “Simple. He plugged all the loopholes and reined in the fat cats that had been preying on the agency’s cash.” Yes, that may true. But it is more than that. In the past and even presently, heads of governments, ministries, departments and agencies have spoken glibly about how they have curbed corruption by strictly implementing all that Omotoso had mentioned above without any impact to the national treasury in terms of inflows. Such measures didn’t stop the ritual in which various corruption-certified MDAs gather at every end of December to ‘share unspent funds and cook up papers” to blot out the larceny. I am almost sure some crooked officials in JAMB would have suggested that Oloyede should take this route—a safe haven of pilfering billions. But for his firmness and resolve to walk his talk while holding aloft the flag of integrity, Oloyede could have fallen for the sweet coated lure of the bureaucracy like many before him had done in the past,

    One thing is sure, Oloyede’s action is not accidental neither was it influenced by the fear of Buhari. It is, to my mind, built on his moral convictions to live by the standards he set for others. On assumption of office, he was very clear about his leadership style at his first meeting with the Management Staff of the Board and State Coordinators, saying: “Indiscipline is a serious form of corruption. Many people who criticise others are also corrupt by virtue of their sheer indiscipline. The first rule in heaven is order and the bane of our development as a nation is indiscipline.

     

    Distinguished colleagues, indiscipline begins from attitude to time but it does not end there. Discipline requires that the right thing is done at the right time for the right purpose. Discipline requires that we all clean our corners in our respective capacities. Lateness to work, laziness at work, disrespect for deadlines, insubordination and so on are viruses that often cripple an organisation. I will implore you to hold discipline sacrosanct because indiscipline is corruption.”

    Can we, for once, be serious about sifting the grains of wisdom from Oloyede’s speech copiously quoted above? Without self-discipline, how could he have resisted the temptation to keep ‘some billions’ for himself from the N8bn that has been remitted to the Federal Government’s coffers as unspent funds? Or do we take it that this Professor of Islamic Studies, a father and head of an extended family does not have people that rely on his generosity to survive the tough times? Not really. It is just that, like he said, discipline requires self-cleansing before one can instill same on others. Contentment is also key to attaining that reality. That is what Oloyede has brought into bear in running JAMB.

    Truth be told, Oloyede’s activities, since assuming office, are not without some shortcomings especially in the technicalities of the conduct of the exams. He could have faltered in one way or the other, yet the things that define his leadership far overshadow those faltering steps in his bid to correct the lapses in the system. Oloyede has shown that he is unshakably committed to transforming JAMB while he remains transparent and accountable. For a man who, among many other positions, performed creditably well as the “Chairman of the University of Ilorin Holdings Ltd where he served as Director, Unilorin Consultancy Services’, it is not surprising that he has placed his integrity as a priceless commodity that cannot be bought with tempting billions of which most of his predecessors never bothered to remit. His singular action is the reason why the government has decided to probe those agencies that feed fat on the system—the ones that eat everything and go back to the government to beg for more to waste of frivolities!

    When we look around us, there are scores of government agencies that rake in billions yearly and resort to under-the-counter sharing of the excess to ‘close the books’ in times like this. As I write this, the crooked hands in those agencies are preparing for another kill in spite of the stellar example being set by Oloyede’s JAMB. Some may even be sniggering at Oloyede as the killjoy puritan that has come to ‘spoil the show’ for the harvest of looting that has impoverished millions and rendered a nation impotent—a country that is scared of freeing itself from the grip underdevelopment. If only many of us would truly follow Oloyede’s decision to shun greed and live by example by embracing the highest ethos of self-discipline, maybe the process of a rediscovery of our humanity can truly begin. But are we ready to walk through that arduous road to success in a country where selfishness is the norm rather than being an exception? That’s the troubling question that the Oloyede example throws back at us. Let’s answer him!

  • Hugging happiness in a season of wonky legs

    Hugging happiness in a season of wonky legs

    Back then in those days in school as a student of English Literature, the phrase ‘laughter as catharsis’ was quite fascinating to most of us in the late Sesan Ajayi’s class. Though Ajayi’s candle burnt out at a very early stage of a blossoming teaching career with an amazing passion for molding his students into intellectual brainbox in the various genres of literature, he etched an unforgettable memory in the consciousness of the lucky students who passed through his mentorship at the then Ogun State University, Ago-Iwoye.

    And it is not for nothing that, some two decades and more after his shocking death, those words of his aptly describe the shenanigans that unfold before us in the name of governance in Nigeria’s endless season of wonky legs—-laughter as a catharsis for the herd of the oppressed forever foraging for fate! In fact, I have no doubt that every Nigerian needs a shot of the medicinal drug called laughter, to maintain a semblance of sanity in this country of a thousand and one surprises.

    But for the fact that we are a blessed people with the rare gift of having clowns in positions of authority, many would have been candidates for any of the ill-equipped psychiatric facilities scattered across the country. Thankfully, a salacious dose of unmitigated even if shambolic melodrama that plays out in government quarters daily has somewhat doused what could have been a deleterious relapse into lunacy for many who couldn’t understand why we are so cursed. Laughter as catharsis.

    But for the wonderful medicine, how would we have waded through the silly antics of leaders who talk the walk rather than walk the talk? The problem is that the average Nigerian politician is unabashedly shameless while the citizenry’s beggarly docility is unprecedented. And that is why many of these persons wearing the toga of leadership of whatever hue practically walk away with murder in this clime. Somehow, we always find a reason to laugh our pain off, knowing that the leopard is not about to change its spot soon no matter the pretenses.

    The other day, Nigerians received, with laughter-laden sarcasm, the good news that Switzerland would soon repatriate a humongous sum of $321m Abacha loot back to the national treasury. And that was without any prejudice to that fact that this great news was revealed by no less a personality than the country’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN).

    Does anyone need to guess why they are not building their hopes on such a promising story? It is very simple. If your desire is to live long in this country, you must avoid laying your foundations of a promising future on the government’s sound bites. With the benefit of hindsight, they can conveniently assume that this fresh Abacha loot recovery may go the way of others. At least, we all know that, right from the days of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, recovered loot and properties have always been re-looted the high and mighty.

    For the records, no one has told us how the funds recovered under this administration are being spent. Some would even say that story of callous looting and recovery in Nigeria is like the proverbial case of asking the cat to watch over a plate of fried meat.  How, for crying loud, do they expect the public to dance to this new tune of millions of dollars of Abacha loot coming into the country? You now see why laugher has become some sort of soothing balm with which we ease the pain of impotence in governance.

    But it is not just about that. It is about so many other self-inflicted sufferings that plague the land. Even the strongest optimists among us are fast giving up hope on any redemptive moment for a government that seems to be trudging along on the throes of failure.

    How does one begin to parody the story of a government that claimed to have created seven million jobs at a time the National Bureau of Statistics brought forward its realistic data indicating that over three million jobs were lost to the bargain within the same period? No wonder a serial defector like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar giggled from ear to ear, exploiting that scary figure to justify his latest defection to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party? We laugh even when it is not a laughing matter. With an estimated population of 193 million people, according to the new figures, how many more citizens’ family lives are being enveloped by misery, depression and death in our ever-shrinking employment market?

    But the good thing is that, in all this, we always have outstanding heroes who keep the candle of hope burning on this democratic journey. Here I speak of characters whose personal peccadilloes make us laugh through our torrents of tears. Among these categories are state chief executives who are busy building mansions across the globe as civil servants in their domains groan under the yoke of unpaid salaries.

    One even went about building and erecting statutes! We can conveniently sauce that list with the antics of our well-meaning patriots that boisterously dance on the graves of suffering pensioners as trillions of naira that could have been used to ease pensioners anguish have been diverted into the private pockets. To add salt to a festering wound, these pension thieves always kick justice in the groin each time they walk away with a slap on the wrist. That’s if they ever get to face justice anyway. So why won’t we shrug the pain off with tearful laughter?

    How do you, for example, wrap your brains round the story of a state chief executive who casually dashed his overfed lawmakers state-of-the-art cars worth N400m while blaming his inability to pay students’ foreign scholarship on ‘paucity of funds’?  And how many of these jokers waste millions of Naira on inanities and cultural carnivals – unperturbed by the burdens of structural and infrastructural decay sharing the same fence with them?  Even the ones whose reputations have been grievously wounded by the findings of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have started a queer but rewarding romance with the powers that be. We all know that the likely outcome would be the wiping off of the sins of the past with the emergence of a squeaky clean patriot at the other side of the tunnel. We just laugh at the silliness of fighting a battle that is often won and lost on the altar of political correctness.

    Unarguably, the only one that is truly bent on etching permanent laughter on our faces is the uncommon Governor of Imo State, Owelle Rochas Okorocha. For me, it doesn’t matter if mischief makers in the cyberspace have feasted on his rude joke about the alleged appointment of a Commissioner for Happiness and Purpose Fulfillment. The fact that he could consider his well-educated blood sister and Deputy Chief of Staff for that juicy office underscores the milk of human kindness that runs in his hyperactive veins and the undying love he has for the long-suffering people of the state. I pity those who have called him all sorts of despicable names just because they couldn’t think outside the box like this governor for all seasons. What more could assuage our fears if not the free offering of happiness mixed in the best tradition of a purpose-driven hysteria of fulfillment? That, to my mind, is the driving force behind what some have dubbed the Rochas’ lunacy and policy psychosis.  If only other leaders at the state and national levels could identify that one single individual in their states that could provide the services His Excellency’s sister has been tasked to provide in Imo, Nigeria would sure bounce back to our once-revered status as the Happiest People in the World. Oh, I remember with nostalgia how we relished hugging happiness then no matter what sour grapes our leaders cast at us. Was that not how we clung to hope as things grew from bad to worse?

    Instead of lampooning the rare feats under the leadership of that man in Imo State or questioning weird sense of humour, I personally think he deserves to be bestowed with the highest national honours in the land for this brainwave-inspired portfolio of Happiness and Fulfillment. Or is happiness not the ultimate dream of each and every one of us? If that is the case, why are we bothered about his debt profile; the dilapidated state of infrastructure; the 15-month salary arrears he allegedly owe the workers or the fact that he spends quite a huge sum on erecting statues for national and international personalities that catch his fancy? Who cares as long as laughter can wipe out the abject poverty while the charlatans in power go on a flight of fancy with the epaulets of stupidity emblazoned on their puffed up shoulders? Who cares when laughter has always come in handy to calm frayed nerves in an uncertain season such as this?

  • Still on the Maina conundrum

    The way things stand today, President Muhammadu Buhari would need to stake more than his famed integrity to meander his way through the intricate yet reputation-damaging web of intrigues surrounding his administration’s dalliances with the embattled Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina. For, if we must say the truth, the surreptitious move by the government to reinstate Maina was not only dumb but despicably irresponsible regardless of whatever ‘good intentions’ that could have informed that decision. It is a double jeopardy that that scandal had to take this crazy bend under the leadership of a President known for his zero tolerance for corruption and corrupt manipulative practices which are at the crux of the Maina scandal. While Maina remains the poster boy for all that is good and bad about the multi-billion naira pension scam, the unfolding plot is an intriguing serial drama of a gut wrenching contest between forces of corruption in a supremacy battle in a country that has lost its moral compass.

    Yes, Buhari did order Maina’s immediate disengagement as a Director in the Federal Civil Service having realised that he is an ill-wind that blows no one no good following the public odium that greeted his shocking recall through the backdoor. That action, it seems, came a little too late. Now that hurricane Maina is singing like the bird with a broken beak, the songs he strings together with his broken chords are not the type that the Buhari administration would want to wriggle its waists to. Already, tongues have begun to wag concerning how Buhari’s trusted cabinet members blindly went into a deal with a man known for his double-faced dexterity at passionately playing the hero and the villain in one breath without missing a beat. If a more receptive President Goodluck Jonathan could become exasperated with Maina’s antics when he allegedly recovered billions of stolen pension funds from a so-called powerful cabal, one had assumed that a Buhari would not have the patience to listen to the rant of a fugitive of the law. In fact, many would have wagered their entire savings on Maina being pointedly told by Buhari to, first, have his day at the court just like those he implicated in the multi-billion naira pension scam before any plea bargain can be struck with him.

    Unfortunately, what happened has left most of us stunned, stupefied and drowned in a sea of disbelief. Throwing bait to the government about an unverified capacity to recover a humongous sum of N3tr for the government within his first three months as a reabsorbed director in the civil service, Maina succeeded in hoodwinking an unthinking government into speeding up his recall process without due regards to the dire consequences of that action. I assume the ears of those involved in the shenanigan must have been twitching with ecstasy when they visited Dubai to hatch a plan on the reinstatement of a fugitive who was said to have, while clinically nailing the billionaire thieves of the pension fund, feasted with salacious gusto on the same funds. Precisely, he was said to have cornered billions using crony firms and invested the money in buying choice properties in and outside the shores of this country. In any case, that was how he became a potential suspect for the interrogation unit of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission whose report indicted him.

    Interestingly, it turned out that the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Shehu Malami (SAN) would copiously quote from the EFCC findings while testifying before the Hon. Aliyu Madaki-led House of Representatives Committee probing the matter, to justify why the memo advising the bureaucracy to reinstate Maina ‘couldn’t have emanated’ from his office. If we give it to him that the letter must have been issued without his knowledge with the likely probability of a forged signature, do we also concede that Malami’s alter ego was transmuted to Dubai to hold a critical meeting with Maina while he was busy in his office attending to some matters of national importance? And if he knew as much as he revealed during that session to wit he categorically described Maina as an integral part of the cabal that ruthlessly looted the pension funds until he fell out with the gang, why didn’t he consider the implication of hiding behind legalese in bringing Maina’s sordid past back to our consciousness in such a contemptible manner? Or could it be that the Head of Service, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, was being brutally economical with the truth when she said that her candid advice that the runaway public servant should not be brought back into the system was rebuffed by these Buhari’s trusted aides who must have obviously dropped the President’s name to boot?

    Now, to the real issues. It is becoming clearer by the day that the decision by this government to eat in the same plate with Maina may be its greatest mistake ever. No matter how one wants to rationalise it, things do not smell nice at all. It is not just about the nerve-racking revelation by Malami that over 220 property that were seized from indicted pension thieves were sold cheaply to some EFCC officials, renowned legal luminaries, federal lawmakers in both chambers, members of the pension task force and even highly-placed government officials. No, that would not be the first time seized loot in hard currencies and landed property would be re-looted. It is not also about the fact that Maina, in an interview he granted a national television from his hideout, has admitted that he is far from being a saint even if he would rather we see him as a good person that works for the rights of pensioners to enjoy the fruits of their labour. Well, it is obvious he has no qualm excusing his demeanour on the fact that he doesn’t operate on the same pedestal as saints!

    So, what exactly is the problem? It is the way Maina has, through the recklessness of some government officials, succeeded in roping the esteemed office of the President into the scandal. Whilst we thought Buhari’s disengagement order which came with a dint of military fiat had put an end to the festering wound, Maina’s lawyer said the presidential words carry no weight as his client still receives his salaries and other monetary entitlements from the Federal Government. Well, it turned that that lawyer was lying under oath and that revelation has been disproved with facts by the government. Even at that, there was no reason for any of them to pontificate about the senseless reinstatement of Maina back to the seat he shamelessly defecated on before he went on exile in Dubai. And as if that was not enough scandal too many for the government to swallow, Maina released another masterstroke claiming that Buhari ordered Malami to meet him in Dubai to negotiate with him on his possible (triumphal) return to office! And then this clincher, Maina, the cat with nine lives, craves an audience with Buhari not only prove his innocence but to also “help the system” to recover trillions of hidden pension funds with his ‘I’m not a saint” posture.

    Surely, this joke is no longer funny. This thing called Maina maze of intrigues is annoyingly fascinating and depressingly laughable! Sadly, it calls to question all that the current administration has labored to build in proving itself to be all about transparency. It’s a shame. Big shame.

  • A HOLLOW RITUAL CALLED BUDGETING (2)

    A HOLLOW RITUAL CALLED BUDGETING (2)

    In a country with a criminally high unemployment rate, the vibes one gets from the President’s speech does not give any hope that the teeming youth roaming the streets would smile any soon. You wonder why jump into such hasty conclusion when the details of that budget remain somewhat shrouded in secrecy.

    It is because the few nuggets one have read about that documents leave one breathless. For example, this paper published some worrisome subheads last week wherein it was state, among other things, that the sum of N1.3bn out of the Presidency’s total proposed allocation of N51.4 would be expended on breathing a new life into the State House Medical Centre otherwise known as the State House Clinic.

    While it is no longer news that our ‘patriots’ lawmakers at the National Assembly and the bureaucracy have rebuffed all entreaties to go public with item by item details of the N125bn they cream off the budget annually, it is surprising that The Presidency and the security services appear to be competing for the prize of the highest spender on the purchase of state-of-the-art gadgets running into billions of naira. This is aside the funds ‘eyemarked’ and earmarked for all manners of things as it was in the past.

    These include but not limited to the N145 million for food stuff / catering materials supplies; N165 million for maintenance of motor vehicle / transport equipment; N132 million on fuel and lubricants; N67 million for vehicles’ fuel; N45 million for generator fuel; N18 million on gas; N135,668,651 on refreshment and meals while honorarium and sitting allowance would take N478,313,996. I guess if our leaders must live in splendour, then we must understand the pocket-friendly N12.4m to take care of the ongoing rehabilitation work on the Presidency’s animal enclosure and procurement of its veterinary lab equipment and the N28.9m to upgrade the presidential villa ranch and construction of the proposed wildlife mini-zoo with a token N24m for local flowers’ nursery, irrigation and upgrade of a helipad grass field.

    The report went further to disclose that the “annual routine maintenance of mechanical/electrical installations at the Presidential villa is being proposed for N4,860,392,146, outstanding liabilities on routine maintenance and other services for 2016 is allocated N565. 6 million while N83. 7 million is allocated for the purchase of tyres for bullet proof vehicles, trucks, jeeps, ambulance and other utility vehicles. The routine maintenance of State House Lagos facilities (Dodan Barracks, VP Residence/Guest Houses at Ikoyi) is to be undertaken at a cost of N145,869,150 under the 2018 national budget.” In fact, the routine with which gigantic allocations are made for routine services has become a norm that no longer attracts our angst. If the narrative remains the same in the 2018 projections, why should we hope that it would change in the nearest future?

    Now, let’s dissect Buhari’s speech a little. With the effective presidential order placed on fresh recruitments by Ministries, Departments and Agencies and an increment in recurrent expenditure which would be used mainly to take care of salaries and overheads of a bloated, hydra-headed monster called public service, those who have been dusting their papers with a probable hope of securing white collar jobs in the MDAs may as well shelve that idea in spite of Buhari’s caveat that such recruitments would only be carried out after the affected bodies must have ‘obtained the requisite approvals.” The other window of opportunity that is likely available for anxious “any-job-would-do’ applicant is in the armed forces for obvious reasons. Even that is subject to some underhand terms and conditions which are not easy to scale through without the influence of a powerful interest! Here, the ‘Nigerian factor’ is always at play all the time.

    While it is commendable that the President has cautioned the MDAs on the imperative of operating strictly within the cost-saving measures adopted by his government, the best example, I insist, should be set by The Presidency and the National Assembly in their expenditure layout for 2018. By this, Nigerians would want to see a remarkable departure from the amazing maze of appropriations by these bodies in the past. Sadly, it seems we are all waiting for Godot in that department. Is it possible that, this time, logic-defying figures would not be ‘captured’ as funds to be spent on cutleries, toiletries, computers, Internet facilities, bullet proof cars, local and foreign trips including feeding the exquisite animals in the palatial mansions of those who offered themselves for service? Would we see a transformative change and an open system in how perks and perquisites are allocated such that what we see on paper would exactly be a reflection of what was actually paid to public officials? Would the key sectors of the economy duly get what has been allocated them as and at when due so that the percentage of implementation would boost the economy and subsequently lead to the creation of jobs in the private sector since the public sector has been placed under lock and key?

    The viability of a budget is not based on its projected promises but rather on the practicality of the deliverables—how they impact on the people down the social strata. Senate President Bukola Saraki recognised this fact when he admonished Buhari that the implementation of the 2018 budget will be “a defining element of this administration” because there can never be a consolidation without steadying the “ship of this recovery.” What this means is that all the leakages would have to be plugged because no one would buy the staid excuse that the economy draining pipes were unleashed by the past administration to frustrate this government. Having spent more than two years on the saddle, tightening those economic holes shouldn’t be rocket science to any serious minded government unless it chooses to wring its hands in helplessness while the rape of the national till persist. Let them fix it please!

    Listen to Saraki: “As the country emerges from that period of uncertainty, the question on the lips of many Nigerians has been this: How does the recovery translate into tangible economic benefits for me? We must remember that the real gains must be felt on a personal level by the individual, for economic recovery to have meaning. People are seeking to get back to work but cannot find jobs. Deliberate steps must be taken to make the 2018 budget a job oriented one.”

    In matters like this, our leaders have never failed in striking the right chords or hitting the bulls’ eye in listing the reasons why Nigeria remains a sinking giant. The sad reality is that most of these leaders work assiduously to frustrate the identified panacea to lifting the country out of its self-inflicted pernicious inertia. No doubt, they have spoken with one voice. But would they walk the talk after the public show of conviviality? This time, would the people feel the impact of their outlandish show of patriotism or would they recoil to their shell to begin yet another journey to the path that got us here?

  • A hollow ritual called budgeting

    The opprobrious farce and skepticism that, most of the time, herald the Nigerian President’s yearly ritual of laying the budget papers before the joint session of the National Assembly have become needless rites that end up adding little or no value to the eventual outcome of the entire drama. The sickening reality is that, one budget presentation after the other, the fate of the hapless citizen still hangs precariously in the balance no thanks to speeches that are long on rhetoric and abysmally short on delivery. That is the tragedy of our situation as President Muhammadu Buhari made his third visit to the lawmakers’ haven to deliver his administration’s financial projections for the year 2018 on Tuesday, November 7 As you would have noticed, even this simple exercise was not without the colourless shenanigan acted by seemingly petrified National Assembly members against what they tagged the failure of the executive to come clean on how well or otherwise it has been able to implement the 2017 budget which was signed into law some months back.

    To be candid, I knew that the badly-choreographed cacophonous rant that played out on the eve of the actual date picked for the budget presentation and which was said to have been quelled by the ‘swift’ intervention of the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representation, Yakubu Dogara, was the symbolism that the executive had been waiting for to confirm that the event would take place as scheduled. We have witnessed far too many huffing and puffing over budgetary issues in Nigeria’s democratic trajectory to get unnecessarily worked up over a script that has become part of a huge scam. We may not be that confident to predict that the latest face-off would be resolved with the usual backslapping by the parties involved after a compromise of some sorts must have been reached. Yet, we wouldn’t be far off the mark to assume that it is just another storm in a tea cup that would, first, culminate in tales of abuse of power with salacious snippets of budget padding to satisfy the needs of the irritants in power rather than the yearnings of the most vulnerable citizens and the general public. By the time the figures come crashing down, those the budget was drafted for would be holding the wrong end of the stick–left to grapple with the tasteless reality that they had been taken for another rude, bumpy ride for the umpteenth time.

    In his speech, Buhari echoed the traditional sound bites that earned him the rapturous admiration of his audience—the same set of persons who would soon assault our sensibilities with details of how a poorly-packaged budget would have to be reworked with their eagle-eyed expertise by juggling the figures with some magical zeros. If my memory is not fading, all budgetary processes had been made to pass through this route since 1999 when President Olusegun Obasanjo presented his appropriation bill to the joint session of the National Assembly. For now, and with the benefit of hindsight with what happened to Buhari’s two earlier budgetary journeys to the hallowed chamber, nothing suggests that his Budget of Consolidation would not suffer the same fate.

    Stripped of the technicalities and the humongous figures being bandied around key economic sectors, the President didn’t say anything that we have not heard before. Even the moniker that the 2018 Appropriation Bill was adorned is not new. We have always been consolidating one thing or the other since independence! It is, therefore, interesting to hear the President informing us that the N8.6tr estimates for 2018 would be partly funded by over N500bn recovered loot when no one has told us how much of such funds were channeled into the 2017 budget whose capital expenditure is said to have performed below 10 per cent. How much exactly has been recovered and what is the projected figure that the government hopes to rake in from these looters next year? Does that include the famed Abacha loot which runs into millions of dollars and scattered around the world?

    As a number of economic analysts have pointed out, it is one thing for the government to pat itself on the back for being “gender-sensitive, pro-poor and interested in catering for the most vulnerable” among us. However, it is another kettle of fish to walk that talk. The positive prognosis that has greeted the event notwithstanding, the 2018 budget proposal remains a promissory note like many others in the past. With the dismal performance in the appropriation of funds to itemized projects in the 2017 budget, it is difficult to understand why the President thinks anyone would believe him when he said the N500 billion allocation to the Social Intervention Programme has been retained in addition to the N100bn that would be set aside for the Social Housing Programme. In any case, how much has the government been able to release for the same programme as the 2017 budgets slowly grinds down and what impact has it made in the penurious lives of the vulnerable millions in our midst. With over 67 per cent of the population wallowing in abject poverty, what guarantee do we have that the N100bn, if ever released for the SHP, would be used to build houses to be inhabited by the truly poor in a society where such houses are often willed to the rich after completion?

    In a country with a criminally high unemployment rate, the vibes one gets from the President’s speech does not give any hope that the teeming youth roaming the streets would smile any soon.

  • Now, a time to wail against this hail of errors

    Now, a time to wail against this hail of errors

    Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, it was that branded those noisemakers who would not allow President Muhammadu Buhari to settle down and tackle Nigeria’s multifarious problems decisively as wailing wailers. Honestly, it was a fitting moniker for this set of people who always rev with fits and venom, throwing commonsense to the dogs in their bid to rubbish the Buhari personae. I must also admit that those of us that were busy hailing every moves of the President then did so with unrivalled blind passion. We were not ready to sift the facts from the loads of lies being peddled from our forever-whining neighbours. We just assumed that they were calling a dog a bad name just to hang it in the sun to face a fated slow and painful death. Somehow, we were right because the creepy things being revealed on the dirty dealings and humongous pilfering that allegedly took place under the nose of former President Goodluck Jonathan were more than enough reasons for those wailers to fight dirty. After all, when you deny a crying child the luxury of his feeding bottle, you should be prepared for an endless wailing. And so, we were unperturbed in spite of the high decibel howling in the marketplace.

    Even when our faith in the man was shaken by a number of what we chose to tag administrative missteps at a point in this journey, we were still standing firm with Buhari. Some of us who were unabashedly sold to hailing him could swear on our ancestors’ unmarked graves that the disheartening tales of brazen looting exacerbated the illness that led to his temporary incapacitation and forced him to spend the better part of the year in a London hospital. We concluded that our hero’s many years of Spartan living, self-discipline and integrity could not just comprehend how those entrusted with state power sailed comfortably with a career in public stealing! Oh, those wailers were just kicking when the rug had been pulled off their corruption-infested legs. This new Sheriff in town, we fantasised, would never allow such malfeasance and brutal rape of our public till to continue. You either shape up or ship out. Those were the signs we saw in his body language as he meandered through the dark crevices of the monster called the civil service and a crooked political class. And these things strengthened our resolve to keep on hailing, with blind loyalty. That we did relentlessly until the veil started falling off our eyes. How?

    It started when we noticed clear signs of cronyism and nepotism in his governance style. When those our neighbours started beating their hate drum and raising dust over it, we were quick to explain the infraction as an acceptable norm and tolerable practice with the sole aim of giving the President the leverage to pick his trusted men regardless of the discomfiting geo-political slant in the appointments especially in key sectors. Earlier in the life of this administration, we could have cautioned the President to pay particular attention to how these trusted aides around him had been working at cross-purposes to diminish his image as the poster boy for the anti-corruption battle during the failed confirmation battle of Ibrahim Magu as Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. However, we did not. Instead, we brushed the shenanigan off as democracy in practice as the President stuck to Magu while the Senate and the Department of State Security Services crave just anyone but Magu.

    Elements of the discordant tunes being played in and around The Presidency on how best to confront the monstrous corrosive corruption plaguing the land were quite visible in the million naira grass-cutting scandal involving the suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal. It was also there in the deafening silence hovering over the report of the multi-million dollar cash discovered at a ‘safe house’ allegedly belonging to the Nigeria Intelligence Agency whose Director General, Ayo Oke, was also quietly removed. Months after those reports were submitted to a rejuvenated Buhari, nothing suggests that the findings and recommendation of the three-man investigative panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would ever see the light of the day. Yet, Babachir and Oke’s fate is uncertain as the perception grows that they could have been indicted by a report no one has seen. Wither justice and fair play by an administration that came in on the mantra of change?

    Yet, in all that have been recounted above, nothing leaves a sour taste in the mouth than the scandalous reinstatement of the former Chairman, Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdulrasheed Maina, back to the civil service with a promotion to boot. Shred of all the legalese woven around a simple case involving a public officer who absconded from his duty post following an alleged indictment in the theft of pension funds running into billions of naira, the secrecy surrounding his reinstatement by an administration that purports to be in a pound-for-pound fight against corruption is nothing short of national disgrace.

    It is as simple as that. And we miss the point when we blame the original wailers for lashing on this egregious error to take the Buhari administration to the cleaners when the actual crime was committed under the Jonathan government. So what?

     

    • Continued online