The Nation Newspaper

Category: Yomi Odunuga

Let’s go to London

FOR Nigeria, London is now the new Mecca. Somehow, I keep having this nagging feeling that what is cooking in London is more than the intriguing sauce of get-well-soon visitation to ailing President Muhammadu Buhari by his associates, his detractors and nosey packers who forever long for firsthand information on how well, or unwell, the President has been doing. The rate at which the hawks gather at the Abuja House in London these days should attract the curiosity of political pundits. The sudden upsurge in human traffic to that particular house is a pointer to the troubling spike in the temperature of our politics.

On one hand is a President who is still under strict medical observations by his team of doctors. And, on the other hand, is a coalition of cold-blooded, sniggering pretenders who would give anything to actualise their fatal wish that, by some twist of fate, the President becomes permanently incapacitated so that they can unfold their vaulting ambition with relish. However, since the rash of visits has been softened with the humane touch, the hypocrisy on display is likely to be dismissed with a wave of the hand. But that would be a dangerous thing to do considering the capacity of the average Nigerian politician for mischief. Who knows what is buried beneath the plastic laughter we see on those faces? Don’t get it twisted, nothing best describes the pall of distrust hanging over the country than this latest pilgrimage to the United Kingdom by different categories of highly-placed Nigerians to, once again, wish the President soonest recovery.

What it means is that not many of these persons believed Acting President Yemi Osinbajo when he said he met Buhari in high spirits during his one-hour interaction with him some weeks back. There is no gainsaying the fact that Aisha Buhari’s encouraging accounts about how her husband would soon return to deal with the hyenas and jackals slowing down the business of governance in his administration only fetched whiff of palpable skepticism. Many are too far in their wild thinking that it was practically impossible for them to see a convalescing Buhari dishing out orders from the presidential seat.

The fatalists among them had, in more than one occasion, killed and buried Buhari. It appeared they were only waiting for an official announcement so that an end could be put to the running soap. So, instead of seeing a living Buhari, they what they saw was a ghost! Things had gone that awfully awry before some All Progressives Congress governors and select members of the party dashed to the UK, to check on the President. If the delegation thought the picture that was released on the visit would douse the anxiety over the true status of the health of the President, then they must be living in Mars.

The picture, which showed Buhari comfortably seated in the dining lounge with the delegation, ignited fresh even if annoying questions from those who seem to be versed in the delicate art of diagnosing diseases through images. In spite of the array of fresh fruits on the table and the confirmation that Buhari not only enjoyed his lunch but also laughed over rumours of his ill health, his critics said the picture left many hanging questions unanswered.

They wanted to know why his poise and gait in the picture looked like that of someone that has been confined to the chair. Some said his looks betrayed the mien of someone in high spirits as testified by Osinbajo. Others said he was missing in another group photograph allegedly published by an online portal showing all the members of the delegation comprising Umar Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa State, APC National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi, Rochas Okorocha of Imo, Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna and Yahaya Bello of Kogi.

If you thought those posers were mundane, then you’ve not heard it all. Less than 24 hours after Okorocha spoke about the President they dined with and Al-Makura swore that the man was not condemned to the chair, one privileged, Cambridge-trained charlatan took over the cyberspace to claim that the photograph was actually shot at the Presidential Villa when that particular delegation broke the Muslim fast with Buhari.

His loud-mouthed counterpart, who had initially threatened to display Buhari’s picture on life support at a London hospital and vowed to commit suicide if proven otherwise, did everything criminally possible to rubbish the claim that the President was getting better and would soon be here with us if his doctors give him the green light. And there was another who faulted the authenticity of the journey just because a member of the delegation was seen at his Maitama residence in Abuja the following Monday. He wondered how someone who was in the UK on Sunday could be sipping tea in his Abuja mansion the next day.

Can you see how petty and irresponsibly stupid we have become? Shouldn’t it be clear to this Buhari-must-remain-sick activist that London is just some six hours to Abuja and it shouldn’t be rocket science to decipher why our man was home with his family? Be that as it may, I’ve once argued on this page that Nigerians deserve to know certain things about the health status of their President no matter how bad the news may be. If anything, the secrecy with which this matter is being handled has impacted the discourse negatively. Buhari’s minders should have known that the resort to feeding the public with his cameo appearances in his living room or dinner table with select groups would eventually backfire. It is either they come up with full disclosures or they forever remain silent as they did for many months. Commonsense and logic dictate that if the President was fit enough to throw banters at the dining table; he should be hale enough to speak with his subjects for some few minutes either in recorded audio or video.

Unfortunately, that never happened even during this last trip. Instead Nigerians were treated to third or fourth party narratives on how well the President was faring. This time, the Peoples Democratic Party was right when it accused the ruling government of being unfair to millions of its supporters. In the words of the party’s spokesman, Dayo Adeyeye, there was something unnerving about the APC’s approach with regards to the President’s health.

The fact that the President’s second medical journey has lasted close to three months means that the general public deserves concrete and verifiable reasons to justify the prolonged stay and not the cocktail of half-truths it is being fed with. And so, I align with Adeyeye when he quipped that: “It is very unfair to keep Nigerians in the dark concerning the health of the President only to be circulating just one photograph in the media for people who have been praying for the recovery of our President all this while.”

Let’s face it, it is the atmosphere of doubts that the APC created, more than anything else, which has resulted in the kinds of tourism jamboree we have witnessed in the last few days. In spite of Buhari’s letter to the Guinean President, Alpha Conde, that he was “making good progress” and “shall return to my duties and continue serving the Nigerian people,” another set of powerful delegate made of up seven governors from the six geo-political zones flew into London on Wednesday to dine, drink and discuss with him. For the first time, governors from the opposition PDP made the list even if the President’s fiercest critics were excluded.

The hope is that whatever fabulous tales the latest tourists come up with should finally put an end to the gale of doubts. But is that feasible? I honestly doubt because probing questions are being asked on the ‘state of the President’s left arm and other sundry matters” by these sworn critics.

They just cannot believe it! And that was after Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State said Buhari’s recovery was nothing but a miracle. As things stand today, even a benevolent pessimist in that group would tell you that it is practically impossible to erase the doubts over the President’s health without flying some notable key stakeholders to London to also pally with Buhari and medically certify him hale and hearty with their eyes. After the governors, close aides and party loyalists have taken turns to eat at Baba’s table, it is not unlikely that the next set of influence peddlers on the line to spend tax payers’ money on this medical visitation jamboree would be the leadership of both chambers in the National Assembly after which other associations would make a case for their inclusion. Already, feelers have it that a group of journalists is already lobbying to be sponsored by the government to visit London and bring ‘eyewitness reports’ to his teeming supporters.

The way things work here, it wouldn’t be a surprise if members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, National Association of Market Women, Association of Meat Sellers, National Association of Nigerians Students, Association Bakery Owners, Rice Millers Incorporated, Millet Merchants United, Nigeria Labour Congress, The Buhari Support Group, Women for Buhari, Men for Buhari, Coalition of No Vacancy in Aso Rock in 2019, It’s Buhari or Nothing Solidarity Group and all other shades of groups push for their immediate and urgent inclusion on the list of those that should be on this “seeing is believing critical trip” in order to confirm to the suffering masses how their President has been eating his fruits, enjoying his ‘fura’ and drinking his ‘kunu’ with a wild grin of satisfaction on his face in London.

That’s how we do it here. Now, let no one ask me where the funding for this all important junketing would be coming from since we are in a season of change. In times like this, there is always contingency plan to accommodate inanities in the name of political correctness. Or was it not reported that Wednesday’s visit by the seven governors was organised by the Office of the National Security Adviser? If I may ask: which is more believable between a five-minute video recording of our recuperating President and these endless junkets in and out of London? The choice cannot be that difficult for those who know how to make maximum gain from the simplest of things. Please, let’s go to London!

July 29, 2017
What did Aremu say this time?

RETIRED but evidently not tired former President Olusegun Obasanjo cannot stop being at the epicenter of controversy. For years, the symbiotic relationship between OBJ and controversy has become legendary. And because he appeared to have mastered the art of rebuffing every dagger of criticisms directed at him, we have learnt to accept the wily old fox for what he is. At 80, no one expects this leopard to change its spots overnight. Come to think of it, has Obasanjo written or said anything without digging up muck? I seriously doubt it. Some would say he exemplifies God’s divine favour in the affairs of men.

That is true. But how much of His overflowing grace does the man display when he speaks about his life’s journeys? Do we see a grateful Obasanjo on the podium or the image of a man with a bloated impression of himself, his conquests, losses and achievements? Well, what you make of him depends on what you are looking out for in the life of a man that has played different crucial roles in modern day Nigerian history. And, from the look of things, he is not about to slow down on his interventions in the Nigerian narrative, be it for good or for bad as long as he is firm and strong enough to do so. Obasanjo was at it again at the weekend in Abuja when his professional “colleagues” in the Nigerian Society of Engineers organised a belated 80th birthday bash for him. Recall that the real party had earlier taken place in Abeokuta in March. The late Adinoyi Onukaba was coming from the event when he met his untimely death.

Well, life must go on and the living must celebrate. And so, Obasanjo was at his best elements as he usually was when the topic was about him and him alone. First, Obasanjo must have been miffed that someone had addressed him by his Christian name, Matthew, to the point of lashing out at the gathering that anyone that dares to call him that name would see his “red eyes”. In Yoruba land, it is a serious matter when an old man warns you against seeing his other side. It is double jeopardy if that person mentions the phrase “red eye”.

It is like drawing a battle line on the floor and daring you to cross it. From his choice of words, quite a number of the guests would have inferred the depth of his angst. His words: “If anyone does not want to see my red eyes, don’t call me Matthew again!” Ha! Baba don vex o. And don’t let us pretend here that we didn’t know how devastating Obasanjo’s red eyes can be if he decides to unleash them on anyone. Some examples would suffice. Ask former Vice President Atiku Abubakar what it meant to fall under the gaze of Baba’s red eyes and he would tell you truckload of stories. Ask some of his fallen close aides and you’d be treated to heart-rending tales sauced in unforgiving rage. Even the late President Umaru Yar ‘Adua would have had some unforgettable moments to rehash about Obasanjo’s bitter tongue if he had lived through the ailment that plucked him off mother earth.

In sickness, Obasanjo did not have the courtesy of sparing Yar ‘Adua the bitterness of his tongue. .And how could anyone have forgotten so soon how the Ota farmer’s proverbial red eyes haunted former President Goodluck Jonathan out of the same seat the retired Army General earlier claimed to be a perfect fit for the zoologist from the minority state of Bayelsa? Jonathan’s case was worse.

Those red eyes remained red hot until Jonathan moved his belongings out of the Presidential Villa. Everything in and out of the books was done to batter Jonathan’s political career. Every gesture, every attempt made to pacify Obasanjo was thrown out of the window. It was one do-or-die battle that spared no punches. From subtle warnings to fiery letter writing in which Obasanjo’s daughter, Iyabo, added her voice, it was evident that those red eyes would not budge until Jonathan was permanently snookered.

And didn’t it come to pass? Didn’t Obasanjo, in a fit of rage, tear his party’s membership card? And didn’t he laugh last? Although Obasanjo did not tell us why he dumped Matthew from his long list of names, his threat is enough to tell us that it must be something grave. Having said that, it is imperative for the old man to cease soaking himself in the despicable waters of self-glorification – as if he was the best thing that ever happened to Nigeria. While the choice of what name to bear or delete out of his birth certificate solely rests with him, his revisionist proclivities should not be tolerated. He cannot be the only true witness to all chapters of Nigerian history even if we have acknowledged the part he played in our socio-political development as a nation. Unfortunately, his greatest undoing has always been his showmanship of self-importance and aura of personal arrogant aloofness. His gravitas is hollow.

Here, I speak not of the belief that he remains the only incorruptible leader that Nigeria has ever produced. It is the height of self-delusion for any Nigerian leader to think that way. After all, it would be practically impossible to assume that a bankrupt Obasanjo in 1998 bounced into humongous wealth a few years after by judiciously investing the gift of $100, 000 from the founder of the Cable News Network, Ted Turner, and another $50, 000 from an international body in which he served. In any case, he confessed to spending a large chunk of the money on funding the education of his children some of whom had been barred from attending classes following Baba’s incarceration by the late General Sani Abacha over an alleged phantom coup! Some have suggested that Obasanjo probably dropped Matthew from his name because the Bible described him as a tax collector who later became one of the great apostles for Christ.

I seriously doubt that prognosis because what manifested in the life of the biblical Matthew was the grace of God which surpassed the understanding of men. I want to assume that it is that divine grace that has spoken in the life of Obasanjo. In his own words, Abacha had penciled him to be poisoned to death shortly before the grim reaper expired the life of the dark-goggled one. Not long after, he regained his freedom and was miraculously offered the rare chance of becoming Nigeria’s elected President in the 1999 poll on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party. From there, his elevation from zero to hero began to manifest.

Eight years later, he reluctantly retired to his home town in affluence following a botched attempt to get a third term ambition rubber stamped by the National Assembly. Nevertheless, it was a period stewed in divine providence, grace, fate and faith. Or did he think it was by his power? But what is Obasanjo saying today? He dashes himself all the glory for all those wonderful feats. As a ‘political engineer’ of no mean repute, he said he changed the narrative of corrupt and politically exposed persons in the military with his immediate retirement of 93 top military officers on assumption of office in 1999. He said he stabilised the nation’s democracy by that action.

To be fair, that is quite commendable. But did Obasanjo remember that his ambition to elongate his tenure almost threw the country into another crisis but for the maturity with which Atiku and some lawmakers killed the dream in spite of the millions offered as bribes? Did he remember that he never showed any remorse over the matter till now? Did Obasanjo recollect saying he could have got a third term or tenure elongation if he had asked for it from the God he worships? Okay, who was the double personality with the hand of Esau and voice of Jacob in that melodrama then? If only Baba can deaden the cells that activate those red eyes for a while and ruminate deeply over some events that shaped his life, he would understand that he owes this country more than he is ready to acknowledge.

The other day, he was summoned by the House of Representatives to come give account of how the billions of dollars his administration spent on power generation only fetched the nation megawatts of darkness and the old man became petulantly abusive. He acted as one that was above the law. Well, aren’t they all above our laws? This same man is fond of labeling every other person either corrupt or an outright thief with sheer arrogance. Yet, for calling him a name he was once identified with publicly, he is threatening to fight dirty! Can those red eyes ignite a cigarette, Baba? Maybe Obasanjo is far gone in his search for perfection that it has become too late for him to understand that no one is perfect. We are all rough diamonds waiting to be crafted by forces greater than us.

In justifying the sack of those 93 officers in 1999, Obasanjo said: “ Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola was one of the 93 officers, but in everything in life there may be a silver lining. If he hadn’t been out at the time, he may never have been governor. If Senator Gemade had not been kicked out as chairman (of PDP) he would never have become a senator. But I’m happy that I was looking for perfection and what is best for Nigeria”. Even in kindergarten, one out of 93 does not make good sense.

Isn’t it obvious that perfection is not under the grasp of one man? Shouldn’t it be clear to him by now that there is a higher being that turns the foolishness of men into wise counsel? Has Obasanjo ever accepted his inadequacies, failures and foibles or does he still think he owes no one any apologies for his action and inaction? If that remains his position, then he needs to grab a copy of the long treatise written by his beloved daughter, Iyabo, to psychoanalyse his personae. Who knows if a redemptive note is waiting to be discovered by the subject of that enthralling letter? Who knows?

July 22, 2017
Of lions, jackals, hyenas and other weaker animals

If you mingle with the kind of ‘crazy’ acquaintances I meet on the social media, a day would hardly pass without you opening your ‘32’ to let off some steam. And you would have to believe me if I say that your problems must be more than Nigeria’s if the jokes shared daily by this set of people fail to ease your tension. Here, I’m not even talking about the MoFeTo Clan, which is increasingly gaining more leverage by the day as the one-stop-shop to laugh your sorrows off, begin and end your day on a lighter note. Well, if you don’t want to be a recluse, utterly immersed in the multidimensional problems plaguing this country, you’ll have to devise a means of laughing through your pain.

And that’s the gap the MoFeTo laughter skits and commentaries try to bridge. However, today, I speak of the postings by guys like Kolapo Abiodun, Emmanuel Ogheche, Olaleye Olawale and others who have made the art of political commentary, sauced with whimsical wits, such a delight to read. Take, for example, Abiodun’s mischievous interpretation of Hajia Aisha Buhari’s subtle innuendo about how the ‘lion of the tribe of Aso Rock’ would devour all the jackals and hyenas that have constituted themselves into clogs in the wheel of progress of the country, mischievously latching on the President’s protracted infirmity.

For Abiodun, it was time to situate the matter within the political dialectics obtainable in a big zoo called Nigeria (Ogbeche actually called it Zooeria). Kolapo’s words: “When the First Lady said the hyenas and jackals will soon be sent out of the kingdom, I begin to wonder maybe Nigeria is actually a zoo kingdom like the rascally Nnamdi Kanu once said. Maybe it is not also coincidental that Nigeria has been governed, time and time again, by animal experts. OBJ is a poultry farmer, GEJ is a zoologist and PMB deals in cattle.

Maybe the late Fela Anikulapo (the Abami Eda) was right when he described us a “beast of no nation” and “animal in human skin!” Quite honestly, Fela hit the nail on the head many years back. It is just that most people never took him seriously. Those that believed in his music couldn’t raise their voices above the maddening cacophonous ranting on the streets. Yet, somehow, we are all victims of the monsters we unleash on ourselves in the name of governance. If, indeed, powerful cabals exist in the corridors of power as it is being speculated daily, then we need to interrogate how we – a docile, ever fawning populace – paved the way for this monstrous arm of the government to fester.

Unless we opt to play the ostrich, we do know exactly what Madam Buhari was talking about when she spoke of jackals and hyenas. Or don’t we? Are we going to deny the fact that some persons are presently abusing their privileges as close confidants of our ailing President to chain down the wheel of governance? Or do we ignore the fact that the mischief and deliberate act of sabotage on display by the legislature ever since Buhari jetted out for medical treatment in London form the integral part of a developing democracy under siege? Are we blind to the vicious circle of motion without movement in the corridors of power and the sacrilegious report that some dunderheads would rather seek approvals from some proxy claiming direct contact with London than obey the directives issued by the Acting President? For sure, Nigerians did not start getting choked with the wrong end of the stick under the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. The tradition has an unforgettable history under the endless reign of military jackboots while the so-called democrats borrowed a leaf or two from the aberration. It is for that reason that, oftentimes, the Constitution is always the first casualty in the power equation.

If the Constitution is given its prime place in representative democracy, I doubt if we would today be talking about some nebulous jackals, hyenas and all sorts of weaker animals trying to wrest the kingdom from the Lion King who happens to be Buhari in this instance. But because ours is a country run like an unstructured zoo (yes, most zoos do have structures), we have become yet another butt of jokes. You know it just occurred to me now that Buhari, or whoever was responsible for drafting his handover letter intimating the National Assembly of his desire to travel abroad while Osinbajo continues as “coordinator of government activities”, was up to some grievous mischief that is deleterious to engendering an atmosphere of law and order in The Presidency. I was one of the persons who didn’t take the joke that seriously until events started unfolding. Like Olaleye pointed out in one of his interventions on the matter, Buhari’s Freudian slip (if I may call it that) emboldened the hawks in the corridors of power to unleash their fangs.

Though Osinbajo has been painstaking in making the best out of a very bad situation, the gaps are too visible for one to conclude that he does not, in anyway, exercise absolute power in tandem with the position he presently occupies. So who are these cabals frustrating the works of the Acting President? They are the jackals and hyenas that dine and wine with their new boss but hold nocturnal meetings elsewhere, to circumvent his moves. Under the late Yar’Adua, we were living witnesses to how a previous band of hyenas and jackals made life hellish for the then Acting President Goodluck Jonathan whose misery was compounded by the fact that no letter was transmitted to the National Assembly before Yar’Adua was airlifted to Saudi Arabia for treatment. As the cabal spun one wicked tale after the other to perpetuate their evil agenda, a toothless Jonathan was eventually saved by the National Assembly which came up with a ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ that effectively gave him some authority until Yar’Adua’s eventual death.

If you really want to know how powerful the so-called cabal was, you may wish to read Olusegun Adeniyi’s book, ‘Power, Politics and Death’, where he dedicated some pages to the days of the cabal and how he watched scenes unfold from his privileged front row seat. It was obvious that this set of animals in human skin pushed Jonathan to his wit’s end with their stranglehold on power in the name of a boss that didn’t have the pleasure or presence of mind to know what was going on around him. It was, therefore, not surprising that the first casualty of the Jonathan presidency had to be members of the cabal. Yes, in cycles of similar events, history repeats itself. But you are wrong if you thought that lesson would have made Jonathan stronger by the time he mounted the saddle. Instead, Jonathan came in with a stunning revelation that as President, he was not the lion Nigerians wanted him to be. He said he was not also a Goliath or Commander in Chief. He would rather cuddle the attributes of a dove in power while others acted as the lions and lionesses under his reign. At least, we all know how that infamous romance ended.

Now that the present lion on the seat has been weakened by an ailment that is yet to be made public, we are back to the days of the long knives by these thieves in the night. Mrs. Buhari has aptly captured their wily shenanigan, hoping that her husband would be firm enough to tame them on his return. But then, wishes are not horses. For all we know, that might not be on Buhari’s plate for now.

The fact that Osinbajo had to make a few hours cameo appearance in London earlier this week at the instance of his boss was indicative of the fact that Buhari wouldn’t be coming home soon. He is on his third month, battling with an ailment that has seriously affected the lion’s capacity to roar. What a pity. Osinbajo’s words of reassurance that the President was high in spirit and recuperating fast, count for little. Haven’t we passed through this lane before? With that better-forgotten experience, we have become conversant with some tricks about political chicanery. This latest farce is evidently not far from it. First, Madam Buhari flew a kite of hope.

And, in less than 48 hours, came the palpable imagery of hopelessness by the Acting President. Our lion’s expected return from is tied to no fixed date and time. The anguish continues as the cabal grins with relish. And so, we are back to the whole charade in Zooeria where the jackals of power seem to be having the upper hand in this hazy political chess game. Some have said the visit to London should serve as a morale booster for Osinbajo to start acting like a lion if he doesn’t want to be consumed by the characters around him. Well, that is just within the precinct of conjecture as nothing has happened to warrant a belief that things would be different. Talking about leadership and animals, we don’t really know if Osinbajo has special interest in any. No doubt, he has comported himself with respectable poise and carriage, diplomatically avoiding the visible potholes put on his way by the jackals within and without. Would he hold for a bit longer or would be give in to the wiles of these despicable agents of doom as Buhari recuperates? Answer to that question hangs in the air as the pushing and shoving unfold in this animal kingdom where the weaker animals appear doomed to groan in the absence of the lion king!

July 15, 2017
Conclave of anarchists: A revisit

In conclaves, they plot to no good end. When you have shouted yourself hoarse and nothing seems to change, then you have no option than to assume that arrogance, emptiness and vain pomposity on display on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday was just a prelude to many other episodes that the Bukola Saraki gang would be unleashing on the populace in the nearest future. Early in April when I described this band of lawmakers as anarchists acting like Trojans on the power horse, I didn’t know I would be revisiting that piece this early. But here we are, just two months later, discussing the same issue of delinquent behaviour by presumed elders from whom much wisdom is expected. When you look at it, it becomes obvious that the resort to outright blackmail underscores the clear and present danger this democracy has been subjected to by the same charlatans who, ordinarily, should preserve its sanctity. But then, haven’t we expressed the fears in the past that these ones are just out to fight and die for self? So what does it matter if the people languish in anguish as their representatives gloat in an endless battle for self-preservation?

Today, I repeat the same piece with the hope that someone in those hallowed chambers would begin the process of self-cleansing that would probably put an end to the kind of shenanigan that was witnessed on Tuesday in which one of the senators threw decorum and commonsense to the wind by declaring the seat of the President vacant and whimsically suggested that Saraki should take over. Thankfully, his fellow coup plotters employed discretion and shouted him down. Was that a joke carried too far? Well, you never can tell especially in these dangerous times where a friendly handshake is offered with daggers clasped in the other hand! Enjoy the piece as edited…

It is obvious that, this time, the distinguished senators would not stoop low and allow anyone to extinguish their new found adversarial voice under the leadership of Dr. Bukola Saraki whose ascendance to the office of the President of the Senate was not without its putrid backlash. But this is not just about Saraki. It is more about how the mud house President Muhammadu Buhari built with spittle on a sandy beach is crumbling daily. And from the look of things, if the free fall is not halted, we may soon be singing dirges to mark the end of a movement that came with inspiring positive vibes but receding fast into oblivion. Like someone pointed out, the ironic twist in the APC tale is that its leading VIPs could end up being the ones that would strangle it to death. Already, we are seeing the signs from the endless and, sometimes, senseless face-offs between Saraki’s men and Buhari’s diehard supporters. Unfortunately, in this kind of fiery fight, no one is sure whether it is a contest between light and darkness or the usual ego-trip between two greedy camps.

However, there is one thing we cannot take away from the latest muck-racking—the fact that the lawmakers have greatly improved from the usual motor-park brawl where members exhibit their pugilistic expertise against one another. The Senate has refined that aspect of the show. Now, they engage in endless and frivolous popularity contest with the executive. By the way, one is not against members of the National Assembly indulging themselves in some reverie of self-importance and occasional display of tendencies that question their mental strength to maintain sanity at all times. Once in a while, they need to let off some steam. What is not acceptable is when these tendencies become the norm rather than the exception, especially in the Red Chamber which ordinarily should be the nest of wisdom, understanding and maturity. Sadly, what we get these days from that section of the parliament which has maintained some level of sanity in the first 16 years of our democratic experiment is the brash youthful exuberance that used to define the lower legislative chamber in those years. Interestingly, the Green Chamber now leads the way in fostering a working relationship with the executive while the Red Chamber is poised for an infantile ego war with the executive.

The question needs to be asked: Is the Senate fighting this war for altruistic reasons and for the benefit of long-suffering Nigerians gasping on the throes of an agonizing economic recession? How I wish that was the case. But the fundamentals simply do not tally with that expectation in spite of the riotous rage being exhibited by some of these senators. Let’s face it; these fully inebriated guys need to let off some wealth-induced soberness once in a while, lest they get choked by their ever-increasing humongous allowances and fat pay packets! So, some pugilistic artistry shouldn’t be of any major concern to us, so far as these folks do it for the common good. Question is: can they, in all honesty, swear that those fights were in the nation’s interest? Like it was the case in the then House of Representatives where Melaye held former Speaker Bankole by his testicles on the allegation of a corrupt practice running into billions of naira, this latest running soap opera in the Saraki Senatorial Empire has nothing to do with the price of gari or crayfish in the market. Neither is it about the growing public discontent over a cataclysmic economy. It is nothing other than an extension of the history of legislators’ brawls and an undiluted descent into hooliganism by characters who find it hard to pocket their oversized egos. If they are not fighting over allowances or allocations for legislative responsibilities, it’s sure they are flinging chairs and throwing punches in the interest of a nebulous paymaster.

In plain language, this power show is all about 2019 and beyond. When you have a legislature that spends more time on recess as justification for quarterly allowances paid in millions, it would be an unpardonable sin for them not to revel in the vanity of their good luck. And when you have an executive that is bent on stopping their excesses, no one expects them to watch idly with hands clasped in submission. This is worsened by a leadership that sauntered into power with truckloads of credibility baggage aside the shocking ascendancy that was made possible through a mortal seduction of the opposition lawmakers. Truth be told, the root of the unfolding drama was planted at that moment when Buhari played the ostrich where he was expected to stamp his authority. Now, he is being haunted by that grave political misadventure of belonging to everybody and nobody. The house he built on a frail foundation is now threatening to consume not only his government but the entire nation.

Remember why the former Majority Leader in the Senate, Senator Ali Ndume, was suspended? It was because he popped himself up as a candidate for the guillotine when he attempted to fault the reasons adduced by the Senate for rejecting Ibrahim Magu as the substantive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Second was his daring impertinence, demanding investigations into allegations that the Senate President ordered the procurement of a bullet-proof Range Rover Sports car worth N298m and that Dino, Saraki’s over-fed lackey, did not complete his graduate programme at the Ahmadu Bello University. As far as our politics of whim is concerned, that was a sacrilege.

Last Tuesday, the plot thickened. Magu became an excuse for the lunacy of a sitting in which purportedly angry lawmakers wanted Osinbajo to be dethroned for impinging on the integrity of the Senate and the senators who crave the liberty to smuggle anything they wish into the annual budgets without any question! They want Magu out because they couldn’t stand his guts and Osinbajo’s justification of retention on acting capacity despite the command of the distinguished lawmakers that he should be summarily dropped! They just didn’t want to say that they were pained that the Acting President said he wouldn’t tolerate their excesses in butchering budgetary items. They just cannot live with the facts that Osinbajo, Buhari’s spare tire and the one they despised as a common commissioner in Lagos State, is now lecturing them on how democracy should work! They can’t swallow that pill!

This is definitely not a one-off battle. It is one rift that poses a clear and present threat to the future fortunes of a party in limbo. The APC as it stands today is a party at war with itself. The government is also gasping for breath as the President battles for his health. With a Senate President on a triumphalism lap courtesy of his recent victory at the Code of Conduct Tribunal; with a Presidency that is sworn on prosecuting corrupt persons including members of its own party, majority of who still wield enormous power as senators; with some of the conniving forces within the executive and with a political system that thrives on the promotion of selfish interest, I doubt if Nigerians would be exhaling any fresh air of positive change that they craved. Now, they are caught between hope and despair after sending the Peoples Democratic Party of President Goodluck Jonathan packing. Could this long-running charade be all their reward for change? Are nightmarish vultures the change that we prayed for?

One thing is sure though; if we must halt this drift into anarchy, we must first insist that the clowns pretending to be fighting for us must get their priorities right. Anarchy, by the way, is not the absence of the law. It is the overwhelming presence of the will to silence the voices of dissent. The Senate cannot be the jury and judge it its own case. That is how anarchists transform into terrorists. Obviously, the endless battle for political relevance and this naked, shameless dance in the marketplace ought not to rank among the priorities of a well-meaning Senate! Or should they? So much for a change that changes nothing!

July 8, 2017
Random musings on the state of the union

EVER since ailing President Muhammadu Buhari‘s troubled and feeble voice resonated on the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Service, tongues have continued to wag about the propriety or otherwise of the President’s choice of language in extending best wishes to Nigerians during the recent Sallah celebration. Perhaps, the furore would not have come up in the first place if the President’s media handlers had not committed a grave error in releasing the audio tape from which they had earlier issued a statement in English to, presumably, douse suspicions over the possibility of a Buhari having the presence of mind to remember Nigerians on his sick bed in London.

That, by the way, is the level to which we have sunk as a nation. In spite of the fact that the President had fulfilled constitutional provisions by handing over to his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, this band of critics would not just allow the poor man to tend his health without raking up muck. Some say the resort to Hausa was not only divisive but also clearly exposed Buhari’s ‘disdain’ for people from other parts of Nigeria whom he governs. Others, still on the persecution thread, said it was clear evidence of his utter disregard for Muslims from other ethnic groups except his kinsmen, the Hausa/Fulani. Hmmmm.

And then, many others threw caution and commonsense to the wind by making unfounded and hate-laden statements about an obvious faux pas that has an explanation in the fact that the old man was simply being interviewed by a media organisation whose language of communication happened to be solely Hausa and for a select audience. And so, for daring to speak his language, the Buhari bashing took a dimension which further authenticates the deep-rooted divisiveness that permeates our national life despite the pretence of oneness. When you sieve through the criticisms, you discover that they are mostly fired by base sentiments than rational and nationalistic feelings.

It is the same thing that is at the heart of the renewed call for the restructuring of this Lugardian contraption called Nigeria. Don’t get me wrong please. I am one of those people that concede to the logical reasoning that the fundamental architecture of this country needs some form of reengineering that would engender equity and fair play in the way the constituent parts relate with the centre. I have always kicked against the unitarist, not-so-federal feeding bottle policy that has been in practice from time immemorial.

What I do not support is the call for regionalism just because it sounded right as the best thing to do because Buhari, a Northerner, is on the throne and he is perceived to be anti-South. If we must restructure, we must address the key issues which are at the heart of the present general angst in the land in order not to end up with a beautiful sepulcher. We must ask the hard questions if we want to get to the root of how Nigeria became this broken after many years of callous rape and abuse.

Presently, the various interests that have spoken either for or against secession, restructuring or the institution of true fiscal federalism have done so from the parochial mindsets of their different geographical covens. No one seems to be speaking for Nigeria, the battered victim of the greed that has led us here. When people say our strength lies in our unity, how much of that statement comes from the heart? How many of these people remember that this country once boasted of the best of everything with a citizenry that wore its epaulets of nationhood with pride? Do we still remember the days of “Nigeria, we hail thee, our own dear native land, though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand?” Oh, that national anthem that evoked that sense of nationhood! Before Chinua Achebe’s ‘The Trouble With Nigeria’ (1983) which eventually culminated in ‘There Was A Country’ in year 2012, we need to understand that there was also a post-independence and post-civil war Nigeria that raised the flag of patriotism and promise of a greater future. Here, I speak of the Nigeria where the Nigeria Airways was the pride of all.

Then, the now dead national carrier was said to be flying over “1500 destinations across the globe, generating what is equivalent to today’s value of billions of Naira yearly and providing jobs directly to 10000 Nigerians while Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates indicated interest in learning the magic from the “very industrious Nigerians” who ran the airline. When I posted a photograph of the hostesses of that now historical airline where the caption above was lifted, a colleague, Tony Ailemen, reminded me that it was also during the period when “Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo (as he then was) handed over a very highly prosperous economy including the Ajaokuta and Delta steel, rolling mills across the country, Nigeria Airways, Nigeria National Shipping Line, Nigeria Ports Authority, River Basins Development Authorities across Nigeria, Federal Housing Authority, emerging banking sector and petroleum sector with capacity to refine locally, to the Second Republic politicians who took over in 1979″.

So, what is our story today? I ask. Isn’t it a cruel twist of fate that Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and the UAE now run stateof- the-art international airlines while those who took Nigeria Airways to the zenith at that time are either dead or living in anguish, in endless wait for pension and gratuities that are never paid? When you look back, you begin to understand how and when the shoes began to pinch us. You look at some of the charlatans and ethnic jingoists mouthing the restructuring slogan today and you wonder how they can be a solution to a problem they have manipulated to their favour over the years.

What has changed now that they suddenly think this is the best time to rethink the state of the union? Is it borne out of patriotism or is it part of the narrative of deceit that has seen several constitutional reform reports buried under the debris of official impotence? Could it be because the cry for equity and a sense of justice is threatening, more than ever before, to bring down this edifice? Suddenly, those who rode roughshod on the collective angst of a nation in crisis are coming to terms with the consequences of the many years of neglect. Now, those noisemakers they once tagged as inconsequential in the scheme of things have forced them to have a rethink of the master/slave governance structure that the elite feed on. From the North, South, East and West, everyone now clamour for a re-jig of the construct called Nigeria.

From Daniel Kanu’s IPOB to Arewa Youth in the North through the militants in the South-South and Oodua voices in South-West with the chants of exclusion by the Middle Belt people, the consensus remains that the centre can no longer hold us together as it was in those days when our ‘Nigerian-ness’ was our strongest point. So, how did we get here? Some would say the military left the carcass for the politicians to bury in a shallow grave. Others would say it is a mixture of religion, ethnic bigotry, nepotism and bad politics.

For me, it is simply a failure of leadership. We lost it when greed started to define our governance with a populace that became so docile that it continues to tolerate every shades of thrash put before it by the leaders. Unfortunately, the corpse that was buried had its legs hanging precariously in the open. That is why the agitation grows stronger and more deafening by the day. We no longer stand in brotherhood in one entity called our native land. The natives have gone their different ways, cocooned within familiar plains.

That is why it would be difficult for us to read nothing other than sacrilege to Buhari’s choice of language in times like this. That’s why there is this very disturbing feeling of mutual distrust in the land. That’s why we view every step taken by the men of power from the prism of their geo-political and religious leanings. That’s why the centre is crumbling, threatening to crash on our heads. The falcon no longer hears the falconer. We now live on the verge of a broken marriage. Everyone now speaks in broken tongues. We are living at the mercy of time. Yes, there seems to be a consensus that Nigeria needs to change structurally if it must make headway. Yet, the big question is: what kind of reform would reform a country that is always at home with lying to itself on the altar of political expediency. Will this fresh agitation yield the desired result without needless spilling of blood? Well, we wait on time.

July 1, 2017
Our impassioned foxtrot with corruption

We are back to the gutters where the race started with some frenetic pace, some years back. For those soaked in its rhetoric and the endless theatrics on the pages of newspapers, it will take some time before they realise the futility of the whole showmanship. When you take a dispassionate look at Nigeria’s running battle against the gnomes of corruption, you cannot help but conclude that the frequent hysteria can be compared to the occasional disagreements husbands and wives encounter in relationships. Often, those who suffer the brunt are the peacemakers who refuse to step aside after the couples had gone into the ‘other room’ to iron out their differences. They eventually become the butts of derision by the same people whose homes they presumably, stick out their necks to preserve. This, unfortunately, is the Nigerian narrative in the fight against corruption. Yes, it may be politically cool to ascribe the whole shenanigan to corruption fighting back with vengeful rage. But that is pure balderdash. What is fighting back is not a vain word called corruption. It’s the incapacitation of justice which emboldens the corrosively corrupt among us to jeer at our impotence.

First, you ask, are Nigerians truly committed to this fight or are they just putting up a show to assuage the fears of concerned citizens and members of the international community who believe that we have gone past the redemptive bend? Well, the answer to that question is not too difficult to decipher. When suspected high caliber looters sit on the thrones of justice and dispensing goodwill by the whims, then we cannot be said to be serious or ready to hang the monster that has pummeled us for years. At the risk of sounding like the bird with the broken beak, we are the architects of our broken dreams. We may have set the best values for ourselves as a nation but no one is prepared to live by those principles because we all love the feel of making money without much of a hard work. In essence, deep down, we are all corrupt or we wouldn’t mind being a bit light fingered with the public treasury if placed under our watch. Question is: should that be a justification for the glaring powerlessness in taming the flaring plume of graft? The answer is an emphatic No! We are where we are because the system is designed to fail in combating the menace.

When this democratic journey started some 18 odd years back, the fad then was to blame the military goons who were accountable only to themselves for the humongous heist that was inflicted on our common patrimony. Not one single influential military officer signed out poor and that included the ones that were framed for treasonable felony and later granted amnesty by the General Abdulsalami Abubakar administration. It was also important to note that quite a number of those that were compulsorily retired to mark the beginning of a ‘fresh start’, according to Obasanjo, were also left to go with whatever they had illegitimately acquired. And so, Obasanjo unveiled a new regime of accountability, due process and good governance with the establishment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission headed by the no-nonsense Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of the Nigerian Police Force. Sundry other anti-graft agencies were also set up to augment the arduous task ahead.

We actually thought we had arrived when Ribadu and his team began to make the headlines with the discoveries of mouth-gaping financial fraud cases involving the high and mighty within the government. There was the national identity card scheme scam in which one of Obasanjo’s trusted cabinet members died before a verdict could be reached in his corruption trial. There was the harrowing case of the former Inspector General of Police, Tafa Balogun, who was thoroughly humiliated by the anti-graft agency headed by one of his boys. His reputation was rubbished beyond repairs. There was also the celebrated money laundering case involving the former Governor of Plateau State, Joshua Dariye, in London. Then came the notorious case of the late Dieprieye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State who miraculously found his way back into Nigeria after his arrest in London over allegation of money laundering. There were plenty other cases including the education budget scandal that led to the sacking of a minister in the Obasanjo cabinet and the eventual removal of Senator Adolphus Wabara as President of the Senate. There was also the scandal that broke over the sale of some choice government houses in Ikoyi and Abuja that also resulted in the removal of a female minister, Mrs. Mobolaji Osomo, for her alleged complicity in the scam which favoured top aides in the Obasanjo cabinet. And how can we forget the bribery scandal in the Halliburton case that was at the heart of the politically charged rivalry between Obasanjo and his then deputy, Atiku Abubakar? Quite remarkably, most of these cases never made any headway at the courts. And we moved on, waiting for big looter to emerge as the hero of our national shame!

I have gone back in time to paint the grim reality of the impotence of our laws to fight corruption without the political will and to stress the fact that we have always approached the fight in the breach. In all of the fights, there are always sacred cows—the untouchables that would glibly take a psychedelic stroll after committing murder. We do know them even if the laws says they are all squeaky clean—the vagabonds drunk on power, powered by excessive looting of the public till. Today, years after Ribadu declared all the governors in that era crudely corrupt and impoverishing their states, not one of them has been made to pay for his crime or even forced to cough out what was stolen like the ones the country has been able to retrieve from the haul of the late General Sani Abacha. The irony is that the only one that got punished for his crime had to face justice in faraway London where the law is no respecter of titles or stolen wealth. The one that was found guilty here simply paid a token three million naira as recompense for the billions under his control. Sad still, their counterparts are all over the place making laws for us or playing godfathers to others that would oppress us. This is our story.

Talk about hypocrisy, mediocrity and cheap sentimentality and you have them in truckloads in Africa’s largest gathering of black people. You look back in time and you cry for this country. Even under the super cop and ‘modestly-living’ Ibrahim Magu with the noise the EFCC is making in the media, nothing has changed. All the busted ‘thieves’ gladly saunter to the courts to get ‘justice.’ With the kind of justice being dispensed by our courts today, it would be suicidal for anyone to go into plea bargain even if billions of dollars were to be discovered in that person’s living room. It is that bad. The fear now is that a time will come when the EFCC would be ordered by the courts to return all the seized monies they claimed to have recovered from corrupt Nigerians to the “rightful owners” since no prima facie case could be established against them. After all, it is not a crime to keep one’s billions in the house. Or is it? We are in the era of ‘no case submission’ and poised to extend our palongo swing on the dance floor with corruption. We are daily bombarded with stories of cash hauls, seizures of properties and illegitimate acquisitions by different categories of persons. The drama leads us nowhere because the culprits always come out as heroes of a system that politically victimises anyone that is not on the same boat with it. It is mere sound and fury, signifying nothing. Is it a battle lost on the altar of incompetence of the prosecuting parties and the incompetence of our laws? Or is it the connivance of a corrupt judiciary fighting back the attacks on the judges by the State Security Services? No one is really sure.

Now boxed to the wall, a yet-to-be-confirmed Magu has given the most tendentious reason for the raging call for secession or restructuring by different ethnic nationalities in the country. In Magu’s fertile imagination, the agitators were being funded by the looters in the system. Now don’t bother to ask for any proof because that is immaterial. Even in cases where the EFCC under Magu claimed to have hard facts, the noses of its prosecutors get roughened on the hard floor at the courts. And so, this claim of looters funding agitators would have to be taken on its face value.

But that was not all that Magu said. He was quoted as telling the visiting Director-General of the National Council of Arts and Culture, Otunba Segun Runsewe, that: “Corruption has eaten so deep into the fabric of this country. It is a threat to our co-existence; it is a threat to our unity and the survival of Nigeria. The cost of corruption to this nation is much. It is poisonous; it is something that breeds Boko Haram, militancy, these boys calling for Biafra and those people calling for some parts to leave Nigeria. The looters actually funded these agitations. There are people behind these boys funding them to sabotage this country in order to have room to enjoy their ill-gotten wealth.”

Maybe Magu is right. Maybe he is not. But has he paused for some minutes to interrogate why public despair, angst and discontent continue to grow over the glaring dance of shame that all parties concerned are engaged in, to the detriment of the common good? Did Magu think anyone is impressed with his huffing and puffing that has failed to successfully prosecute and punish one notable big fish apart from lazy internet criminals? Is this charade on display by the EFCC and the thieving elite not enough reason for people to ask for restructuring? When will they put an end to this shameful circus and give corruption a deadly sucker punch? When will the dance of infamy stop?

June 24, 2017
2017 budget and its discontents

AND so, it came to pass that on Monday, June 12, 2017, a new chapter was written in the history of our budgetary process as Acting President Yemi Osinbajo appended his signature to the 2017 Appropriation Bill. As we all know, June 12 represents a watershed in Nigeria’s political trajectory. It was a day hope was cut short by the wiles of despicable goons in military jackboots. The day that marked the beginning of the end of the hero of Nigeria’s widely acknowledged freest and fairest election, the late Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola.

It was a day that democracy received its loudest applause and its greatest mortification in the hands of the hawks of power twenty-four years down the line. By some curious fate, it was that date that Osinbajo picked to sign the document labeled, “Budget of Economic Recovery and Growth”. As patriots, civil society groups and June 12 acolytes gathered in the South-West states to celebrate Democracy Day in honour of the heroes of the struggle, the nation’s acting Number One in company with the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and other officials converged on Aso Rock for the annual, even if belated, ritual of signing the 2017 national budget into law. But, like every other Nigerian story, the event was not without its drama and shocking revelations.

It turned out that the piece of document signed by Osinbajo was nothing but a painted sepulcher, bereft of any substance inside. Although Osinbajo struggled to bury the executive’s seething rage in his carefully crafted speech during the ceremony, it was technically impossible to hide the truth as the distortions in the document were too grave to be discussed behind closed doors. With that kind of scenario, you cannot help but wonder if this economy is ever going to tread the paths of recovery and growth. Why the pessimism? Well, it is very simple.

Our budgetary process is yet to be weaned of the shenanigans of the past. Year in, year out, it goes to the National Assembly as rough estimates and comes out as mutilated carcass. Its roughness hardened by the antics of a legislature with a collective disposition to embed into the sub-structure, some selfish agenda.

It was always a major cause of friction between the executive and the legislature in the rancorous years of the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency. It did not abate under the tenure of the late Umaru Yar’Adua neither did it take a flight of fancy with the ‘cooperating’, almost condescending, predilection of the Goodluck Jonathan administration. In 18 years of this democratic experiment, the budgets always suffer the collateral damage of humongous padding running into billions of naira. And this, I dare say, is not funny! By the way, didn’t Saraki and Dogara find it a bit discomfiting that Osinbajo chose the occasion of the budget signing ceremony to appeal to the legislature’s sense of patriotism in putting an end to the recurring cases of budget padding? Well, some would argue that Osinbajo did not use the word ‘padding’ in his speech.

That is delusional even if it would calm some nerves. What is not in doubt, regardless of Osinbajo’s tongue-in-cheek approach, is the allusion to the fact that what was being signed that day was a fudged piece of document which would have to be returned to the legislature for proper corrective surgery and implementable measures to be carried out. I assume the import of that wasn’t lost on the leadership of the National Assembly as they giggled when Osinbajo muttered that the delay in signing the budget was caused by the errant activities of the legislature in injecting strange projects into the document that was returned to the executive after several months of their ‘patriotic’ deliberations. Magnifying what this could mean for the government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) in the short and long term, a frustrated Osinbajo quipped that these changes that were unilaterally introduced by their most distinguished and honourables would fundamentally affect “some of our priority programmes and would make implementation extremely difficult and, in some cases, impossible”.

Then followed a staccato of ego-massaging phrases about how Saraki and Dogara had displayed “patriotic and statesmanlike approach in resolving these critical issues” before the cliffhanger that the grave error would be rectified via “virement by the executive which they have agreed will be expeditiously considered and approved”. Do you now see why I say that we have learnt nothing and obviously not ready to change for the better? Now, the scary truth: After more than six months of intense lobbying, harassment and soft blackmail from both arms of government, what we have on our hands as budget for this fiscal year is a piece of document which is long on promises but abysmally short on deliverables. That, to my mind, is the thrust of Osinbajo’s veiled admonition of the National Assembly.

Or how else do you explain the work of a National Assembly which, in its weird wisdom, removed the budgetary allocations from projects like the railway standard gauge, the Mambilla Power Project; the Second Niger Bridge; the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in addition to injecting new projects for the executive to implement? If that is not padding, then what is? And let no one come up with the stale argument that it is the responsibility of the lawmakers to ratify and adjust appropriations as they deem fit.

That is absolute balderdash. On this matter, the National Assembly has an unassailable record in abusing the appropriation powers conferred on it by the Constitution just as the lawmakers do with oversight functions. In the long run, it is the Nigerian economy and the people that would suffer. Already, Osinbajo has given us some hints on the likely consequences when he flagged off the 2018 Budget and ERGP Implementation Plan Development Process a day after signing the 2017 Budget.

To the Professor of Law, it was obvious that the National Assembly does not understand the limits of its function as far as the budget process is concerned. How, for example, does a body saddled with the responsibility of allocating funds to projects end up introducing entirely new projects or even modify listed ones? Where do the lawmakers derive this power from? Osinbajo asked. It was this same vexatious question that was at the heart of the Yar’Adua’s fierce disagreement with the Senator David Markled Senate when it was discovered that 10 different items were smuggled into the budget in addition to a questionable increase in the amount appropriated for constituency projects! Yet, many years after this unfortunate incident, Osinbajo was to lament that,

“This is something that we experienced last year and then again, this year. It then leaves the question about who is supposed to do what”. How I wish that question would be answered before the executive rushes the 2018 appropriation projections to the National Assembly later in October. How I wish I could also share in Osinbajo’s measured optimism that, this time, the lawmakers would fast-track the signing of the 2018 by the end this year to enable us “return to the January-December life circle for national budget”. By the way, feelers from Saraki and Dogara on Thursday indicate their readiness to enter the same boxing ring with the executive as they insist they are empowered to toy with the appropriation bill as they wish.

They are poised for a showdown, they warned. Unfortunately, the wishes above remain in the womb of time as nothing suggests that those concerned are ready to get off this horse of deceit and sheer arrogance. Here we are in June 2017 discussing the unworkability of a budget with a life span of less than nine months if it spreads into March 2018 and we are being told to expect a magical recovery into growth with an economy under intensive care.

How can a budget buffeted with all these repulsive incongruities be the panacea for a terminally ill economy? How? In his speech, Osinbajo went lyrical about how the nation would soon bounce into abundance with the “resilient, resourceful and hardworking” spirit of the Nigerian people and that the “bleakness of recession is about to witness the uplifting dawn of abundance”. All these, he said, were based on the projections of the budget he just signed. Sadly, the next day, all that crumbled with the realities that the returned document was unrecognisable to those who submitted it for vetting by the yamheads in the National Assembly. Now tell me, is that now we have been retrogressively ‘progressing’ for ages?

June 17, 2017
Are we really alright?

I honestly did not give more than a passing thought to this seemingly innocuous question posed by my friend of more than 30 years, Kolapo Abiodun, on his Facebook wall. Actually, it was a medley of posers wherein he asked: “Am I alright? Are you alright? Is anybody alright in Nigeria? Is Nigeria alright?” In fact, I had concluded that it was one of those jokes that Kolapo occasionally deploys to ward off tension from a tasking but lucrative printing business. An unrepentant supporter of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Kolapo never minced words on where he stands on issues, no matter the comical glint in his postings. He is resolute in his belief that while Jonathan may not have been anywhere close to the best thing that ever happened to Nigeria; Buhari – with his vexing missteps in office since May 29, 2015 when he officially stepped into office – is never an alternative.

And so, I was quick to add my comment in the “I dey kampe” style, popularised by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. But was that what the post was all about—to poke fun at one another and laugh off the never-ending, Nigerian cinematic tragedy? No, I was wrong because it was deeper than that. A few comments down the line and the true picture of how bad things have gone began to unfold. These comments, more than any other thing, paint a grim picture of the gripping realities of a country gasping for breath in the hands of caregivers decked in undertakers’ cloak. Kolapo’s poignant imagery is painted in words that should prick the hearts of those who still have a conscience to spare in this season of diminishing values. After taking in all the soft punches directed at him by friends who jocularly questioned his mental acuity, Kolapo asked: “A country where a mudu of gari is N600, is that one alright? A country where someone steals billions and walks free and the one that steals a mobile phone gets lynched by a mob, is that one alright? A country where names disappear from INEC register, is that one alright? A country where the government will disobey court orders, is that one alright? If you say Nigeria is alright, then you are not alright!” Now, this really got me thinking about the state of the mental, physical, economic and spiritual health of this country.

With a plethora of self-inflicted problems confronting the peoples of Nigeria, we would be deluding ourselves should we mark ourselves alright. How can anyone be alright with a system of governance that impoverishes and dehumanises us as a people? The reality is that we live in a society where human dignity counts for nothing. This is not just about the social stratification because every society has a semblance of that. It is more about the crude meanness and greed which have turned many a good person into psychopath. There are simply too many perverts on the loose in our land. The depravities are too numerous to mention and the collateral damage to our collective psyche is unimaginable. How can anyone be alright in a country that keeps bouncing from one problem into another? It is ludicrous really that we continue to do same thing the same way with the belief that we would get a different result.

How is that possible, I ask? Yes, we voted for change. But how come the change we have on our hands is the one that wobbles on four legs backwards? This change that progresses in retrogression! Obviously this putrefying stench cannot be the replacement for the breath of fresh air mantra that only enriched a set of fawning hangars-on at the seat of power. And then, we thump our chest that we are as fit as a fiddle. Is everything alright with us when, in June 2017, the year’s budget is yet to be signed with another controversy brewing over allegations that the National Assembly pumped up the documents with 400 strange projects? Again? How can we be okay in a country where officers and men paid by the state to ensure our safety and security now demand sex for favours from Internally Displaced Persons across the North-East? Is it alright to recall judges to continue with their responsibility to dispense justice just because the courts couldn’t find sufficient reason to convict them for alleged perversion of justice for a fee? What happens to morality? Is it alright for kidnappers to lay siege on our schools, abduct our kids and brazenly demand ransom weeks after weeks? Is it really alright for us to feel cool when our so-called primary healthcare institutions can hardly provide the basic health needs of our people with thousands dying yearly when such afflictions would have been treated if the system is allowed to work? Yes, it is not impossible that quite a few persons among us would claim to be alright in the midst of the human tragedies that surround us.

Among this class of persons is the elite who sit on our collective patrimony and fleece the treasury with glee. We see the evidence daily. The briefcase billionaires with no fixed addresses; the distinguished and honourables who hardly converge to make laws for the general wellbeing of the people; the bootlickers and fleas who tell our leaders what they want to hear and not what they need to do in order to ease the anguish in the land and the opportunists who are content with the crumbs while millions live in abject poverty in a land where the rich waste billions of naira tending vanities? If this privileged few can be a bit introspective, just a little, they would understand that there is really nothing to gloat over or bleat about. How can any reasonable person feel cool amid these demeaning human depravities that question our humanity and waning sense of commonality? Just the other day, we were told that some fast-fingered kleptomaniacs made up of a mixture of government officials and business men have creamed off N1.4 trillion from the system in the last 16 years.

These are funds that could have been used to build infrastructure, improve health facilities, develop the education sector and provide jobs. Yet, in our usual docility, these persons are worshiped and venerated for their heroic aggrandizement. Some of them, who are still battling to clear their names at the courts, have been compensated with the additional responsibilities of making laws for the good governance of we, the people. Others are in the executive, occupying one juicy position or the other. And then we claim to be alright? The fad now is that hardly does any suspected or confirmed treasury looter gets convicted in our courts. The more you loot, the more likely it is for you to get a slap on the wrist at the court. For some queer reasons, the anti-graft agencies always get their noses bloodied for some technical reasons while the alleged culprits walk off with a large chunk of the money. Is it any wonder that plea bargain is no longer attractive to the VIP thieves in our midst.

They prefer to fight it out at the courts where victory is a definite assurance. Are we really alright? Those who get convicted are petty thieves and armed robbers who steal goats, cows and recharge cards. The ones who rob the banks, maim and kill innocent Nigerians are rarely docked before their lordships. And we think we are alright? If I may ask, which of the battles have we won as a nation that should make anyone to roll out the drums and dance naked in the village square? Is it the fact that, after our exit from the Paris Club debts, our foreign and domestic debt portfolio now stands at N7.1 trillion in just two years of the Buhari administration? Is it in the corruption fight where, aside the laughable huffing and puffing over fiscal responsibility and accountability, the National Assembly now tells us it is investigating how $15bn worth of crude oil money was never captured in the report of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation? Is it in the area of job creation where the National Bureau of Statistics says over 29 million Nigerians are now jobless as at the end of 2016 as against the N27 million recorded in the third quarter of the same year? Is it in education where millions of our children are out of school due to the inability of their parents and guardians to bear the cost? Is it in poverty alleviation where over 70 per cent lives below the standard ratio of a dollar per day? Maybe it is in the health sector where the rich hardly treats the simplest of ailment here while the poor place their survival on a forlorn of hope injected into their system by their faith. And we think we are alright in this ebbing sea of hopelessness? We have not even touched on the vexing issues of ethnicity and religion—two things that have festered the feeling of mutual suspicion and distrust in the land. But the irony is that these peoples are often united in looting.

There is no ethnic or religious coloration when it comes to impoverishing the poor and making life “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. Just take a look around you, drop the ego and focus on the silent but suffering voices of decay and tell me if you think Kolapo is not right if he says everything is wrong with us as a nation. Or does anyone really think we are alright in spite of the seeming insurmountable morass? Who really dey kampe?

June 10, 2017
Budget: Why Nass deserves our plaudits

As one of the unrepentant critics of the activities of our lawmakers in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, I never imagined that a day like this would ever come where I would be penning nice words in awe of the humanitarian gestures of this known set of light-fingered elite. For a group I have taken the personal liberty and mouth-watering delight to decorate with loads of expletives for every bumbling curve in their errant legislative ineptitude, it is humbling that I have, for once, found a reason to be on the same page with these jesters on how best we can engender a people-friendly budgetary system. Who would have thought that it would take the much vilified, and justifiably so, 8th Assembly, under the leadership of Senator Bukola and Hon. Yakubu Dogara, for us to reach this bend of sense and sensibilities? Yes, it is true that they have spent more time tending pieces of legislation that protect their group interests than that of the general good. They also can’t wash off the accusation that they have taken more breaks, with the silliest of excuses, from duty than necessary neither do they have any convincing justification for the way they engage the executive in flighty pugilistic battles that demean the aura of grey-haired wisdom that should ordinaryly pervade the ambience of the hallowed chambers. Yet, these set of lawmakers deserve nothing but our applause for demanding that, within two weeks, the Presidency should direct all government agencies to submit their 2017 spending projections for proper appropriations as required by the laws of the land.

Quite honestly, it is sickening that we would be sitting here to discuss this vexatious matter 18 years into the Nigerian democratic experiment when it should have been tackled right from the onset. Question is: How on earth did we allow more than three dozen government agencies to have access to the national treasury, withdraw billions of naira and spend as they wish without any legal backing? It is bothersome that some of these agencies are expected to set the benchmark for fiscal responsibility and financial discipline. Could it be that the legislators, who should have stopped the madness from its steady growth into this monstrosity, deliberately glossed over the abnormality because it made it easy for its bureaucracy to justify its equally benumbing policy of carting billions in bulk from the national till without tendering any budgetary highlight? Was that how the blind has been leading the blind for ages on this perilous trajectory until persistent public outcry forced the National Assembly to open up its budget for public scrutiny like it did some weeks back? That may be the case even if it does not, in any way, diminish the fact that the lawmakers have shown courage by demanding for an end to the government-approved fraud!

In the words of the President of the Senate, it flies against the principles of logic for a government that claims to be fighting corruption to turn the blind eye when the statutory corporations under it spend money without approval; any legitimate budgetary outlay or appropriations. It is not enough for the affected agencies to justify their reckless act, hiding their shamelessness under the protective custody of the letters and spirits of the various acts setting them up as the Central Bank of Nigeria usually does. To be candid, the Fiscal Responsibility Act is nothing but a useless piece of legislation without the kind of accountability that would ensure checks and balances in the system. That is why I concur with the Senate when it dismantled the semantics and insisted that government must operate within the bounds of Section 21 (1-3) of the Act which states that: “The government corporations and agencies and government-owned companies listed in the Schedule to this Act shall, not later than six months from the commencement of this Act and for every three financial years, thereafter, and not later than the end of the second quarter of every year, cause to be prepared and submitted to the Minister, their Schedule estimates of revenue and expenditure for the next three financial years. Each of the bodies referred to in sub-section (1) of this section shall submit to the Minister not later than the end of August in each financial year: (a) an annual budget derived from the estimates submitted in pursuance of subsection (1) of this section and (b) projected operating surplus which shall be prepared in line with acceptable accounting practices. The Minister shall cause the estimates submitted in pursuance of subsection (2) of this section to be attached as part of the draft Appropriation Bill to be submitted to the National Assembly.”

If it is true that all the listed corporations operating under this Act have religiously refused to comply with the provisions, then it is not just a case of an abuse of power as the Senate puts it but a direct antithesis to what the Act sets out to achieve. No wonder the Senate described it as an “economic sabotage aimed at frustrating the current economic measures being taken by the current administration to address the economic recession.” Kindly overlook the lack of economics in the choice of words! Of course, when you give room for bodies like these to maneuver the system without clear cut records of what they take or give back to the consolidated revenue fund of the federation, you prepare the ground for financial recklessness and fiscal irresponsibility that continue to bleed the national economy. If we insist that the National Assembly must tender records of what it does with the N125bn it takes in one single tranche from the consolidated accounts, why should we exclude big spending corporations like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the CBN, the Bureau of Public Enterprises the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Nigerian Customs Service and the National Communications Commission among others from opening up their annual appropriations to the general populace? As Senator George Sekibo asked during plenary, “if a man who is to give the law fails the law, what happens to him?” In Nigeria, nothing happens most of the time!

I just hope the Federal Government or whoever is expected to handle the matter in The Presidency understands the intricate implications of the poser raised by Sekibo. On this matter, the government cannot afford to play dumb. Like the Deputy Senate President pointed out during the debate, democracy becomes endangered when those that should strictly operate within the provisions of the Constitution (as amended) use all sorts of under-the-table tricks to subvert its supremacy. This government clattering silence is deafening. Listen to Ekweremadu: “We are here talking about responsibility of governance. There cannot be any hard responsibility than Fiscal Responsibility because that is the beginning of all evils; we must begin to ensure that we live by the laws we make for ourselves”.

We must all be interested in the revelations by the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on Misuse, Non Remittance and Fraudulent Acts of Internally Generated Revenue by Government Agencies chaired by Senator Solomon Adeola. If the name of the committee was mouthful, its findings are definitely not something that should be swept under the carpet. With its declaration that all the 12 federal universities that appeared before it presented fictitious documents with figures that never added up, you’d understand why the accounts of these highly revered citadels of learning are in bad shape with Adeola saying that: “the financial management of our universities is in such a parlous state with many of them like the FUT, Minna presenting obviously fictitious documents and figures all in an attempt to exonerate themselves from non-remittances of revenue generated while completely expending all revenues generated on sometimes, frivolous expenditure heads”. And then a report quoted Adeola as putting an icing on the cake, wondering “the type of education that these universities will be giving to the students if they are run with the Vice Chancellor not being able to recollect the number of students in his school, the number of bed spaces available and paid for by students as well as present development levy fees”. Ouch!!!

You know what? Should the Federal Government fail to accede to the demands of the National Assembly this time, let no one trouble its bureaucracy about the need to explain why it has budgeted N13.38bn on travels; N7.77bn on vehicles; N74.06m on sewage charges; Management of National Assembly: N14, 919, 065, 013; Senate: N31, 398, 765, 886; House of Representatives: N49, 052, 743, 983; NASS Service Commission: N22, 415, 712, 873; Legislative aides: N9, 602, 095, 928; PAC Senate: N118, 970, 215; PAC House of Representatives: N142, 764, 258; General Services: N12, 584, 672, 079 NASS; Legislative Institute: N4, 373, 813, 596 and Service-wide-vote: 391, 396, 169. Why should we bother them anyway? After all, it is their N125 billion and they are free to do whatever they like with it since the arm of government that gets the lion share of the entire budget is still wringing its hands in stupefaction while its errant statutory corporations are bleeding the treasury with glee.

One good corruption, it must be said, deserves another. That’s the idea, right? So much for change!

June 3, 2017
When corruption gets a makeover

IF we do not kill corruption, present and future generations may end up being consumed in unusual ways by the audacious monster. This has always been well known and well interpreted too, in popular sayings in this country. The problem is that this swansong has been corrupted by too many years of voicing it without potent joint action to bury it. Instead, our collective inaction has emboldened corruption to sneer back at us with imprudent haughtiness. Consider the fact that since the unfortunate event of Nigeria’s first coup d’état in 1966, there is hardly any regime in Nigeria, be it military or civilian, which did not pick up boxing gloves and some measured rhetoric against corruption. More often than not, it is always top on the agenda. Ironically, this endless ‘battle’ has witnessed the monstrous growth of this killer of our dreams and aspirations. The few persons that lay siege to our economy right from independence have perfected the art of deception so much that they have continued to pass the blighted torch of white-collar crime to a select few till today.

Together, they have become a cult of ravaging elite whose records are never tainted by the corrosive corruption that persists even if no one has been able to link their stinking lucre to any visible money-making venture or industry. Yet, they are the ones holding this nation by its balls and daring it to free itself from that tight grip. We, the people know these rapacious and unscrupulous lots who taunt us all daily with such daring effrontery.

The grim picture notwithstanding, hope (or something like that) that the battle is still winnable with the right attitudinal change was rekindled earlier in the week when those that should know gathered in Abuja to proffer solutions to the cankerworm. It was a rare occasion where the high and the mighty left their comfort zones to interrogate this topic with such bizarre openness and frankness that all Nigerians should be proud of. Credit, I must say, should go to Senator Dino Melaye who seized the opportunity of his book launch on corruption to make a big statement about his uncommon political relevance in a country where hypocrisy, laden with prudish mischief, walks on four legs. Or how many ordinary Nigerians, no matter how well-meaning, can pull the kind of show-stopping stunt Dino pulled at the prestigious Shehu Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja last Monday with a book said by some to be so light on substance? It is not for nothing that the Kogi State-born politician brought some of the known generalissimos of the corruption debacle to a roundtable, for an introspective exchange of ideas on the way forward. Way forward – what audacity! What makes the occasion spectacularly special was the patriotic sense of purpose that pervaded the atmosphere.

Suddenly, everyone that is somebody became an expert, pontificating on why the President Muhammadu Buhari administration would continue to suffer deadly blows as long as he engages corruption in the ring with neither sense nor style. Chai! Buhari don suffer! So, what exactly is the problem and in what way can Dino’s book, ‘Antidotes for Corruption: The Nigeria Story, help in giving the needed fillip to an issue which is a major cardinal point in the Buhari change mantra? If you will pardon this slight digression, I want to assume that the fundamental grammatical flaws in Dino’s book title can be blamed on the hastiness with which he rushed to the publishers to meet the set date for the triumphal launch. In less than five days, the title has hovered between the original title above and another one, ‘Antidotes for Corruption: The Story of Nigeria’. In both, the English grammar received knocks. I am sure an antidote against the multiple blunders would reflect in the revised version. But that is beside the point.

The answer to the poser on what the book, which is largely a collection of essays, bills and badly written pieces – thoroughly badly written, in some instances – on corrupt cases, offers to the corruption discourse lies more in the hidden truth behind what was voiced at the event which had, as special guest of honour, the inimitable Dame Patience Jonathan, a self-acclaimed victim of the present administration’s “selective war on corrupt and corruptive elements” in the recent past. The occasion, which was chaired by the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na’Abba, was bolstered by the presence of the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki; his Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Bello Mohammed; Labour and Productivity Minister, Senator Chris Ngige; former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim; and a host of other heavyweights. It was nothing but a productive gathering for the intellectual elucidation of a cancer that has been killing this nation for years without any headway. With this gathering, no one should blame us if we conclude that help is on the way, right? No! Did the speakers make any sense of this vexing matter? Yes, they did with twist of the tale in their favour. Dino, the self-acclaimed anticorruption czar, mounted the rostrum to chant about how endemic corruption has eaten deep into the fabric of the nation.

He blamed the petrol attendant, the orange seller and the market woman for the little bits they steal from their hapless customers. To him, not much need be said about our tribe of elite kleptocrats in the corridors of power but all have fallen short and abysmally failed the integrity test as long as corruption is the topic. It is not just about the looted millions and billions stashed in vaults across the globe by a generation of Nigeria’s sickening kleptomaniacs. All are thieves and that is all there is to it. What we need is a systemic change, a preventive rather than a punitive measure which has yielded nothing. I guess Saraki took a cue from Dino when he had his chance on the podium.

For a man still grappling with multiple allegations of graftrelated cases brought before him by the state, there couldn’t have been a better time to knock the government and reel out some hard facts on why the pushing and shoving would never serve as deterrence to those with professional expertise in stealing from the public till. But before treating the audience to his prognosis, Saraki gave his testimonial about the author—his staunchest supporter in the Senate and, if you like, lackey. In the foreword to the book, Saraki paints Dino thus: “He is the kind of man who would not call a spade by any other name because he wants to be in anybody’s good books. Dino’s story is such a remarkable testimony to courage and single-minded determination. His is a classic grass to grace story which would undoubtedly inspire generations of young people for years to come”.

Hmmmmm! If only the Kabba group that recently accused him of being an antithesis of his people’s cultural traits would agree. Admitting that corruption has somehow “defined Nigeria’s politics over the years”, Saraki, speaking from the mindset of another victim of Buhari’s anti-corruption battle, would go on to suggest that winning the war would take more than what he called the ‘showmanship’ by the various anti-graft agencies. He said they would have to dwell more on the substance which is basically preventive. In other words, instead of sweating over the recovery of funds that had made some grass-to-grace stories effectively easy for some persons without any link to legitimate earnings, it would do all of us a world of good to develop mechanisms that would curb the blind larceny that defines public service here.

I can only imagine that the thunderous applause that greeted Saraki’s proclamation would have been inappropriate were it not to be a conclave of like minds. Perhaps, Saraki and his co-travellers were right when they argue that placing punitive measures before deterrence would never solve the problem as long as our democracy and judicial system care more about the innocence of an accused until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction “beyond all reasonable doubts”. But, if the truth must be told, we must agree that these fundamentals of democracy have merely legitimatised the tyranny of the rich over the poor in our society.

Seated among those urging Saraki to fire on that day were powerful Nigerians who continue to breathe the fresh air of freedom outside the gallows today because they have accumulated enough wealth to buy justice from a patently corrupt judicial system. These ‘innocently guilty’ ones appear to be winning the battle. And so, Monday’s parley was, at best, for self-enlightened interest and they seized the moment to snigger back at those on their trail. That’s the kind of thing you get in this warped system of ours. The funny thing is that it is this same privileged set that now speaks glibly about the need to make the anti-corruption agencies not only empowered to be thorough in its painstaking investigative strategies, but also to be “truly independent and manifestly insulated from political interference and manipulation”.

How wonderful! How can that happen when they make it practically impossible for the anti-corruption agencies to operate independently? In climes where integrity counts for something, the crowd that converged on the Yar’Adua Centre that day wouldn’t have happened. At most, majority of them would have excused themselves until such a time when they would have cleared their names from the various cases of blind looting hanging over their necks at the courts. Among this set of people are the ex-governors-turned-senators who would also grab a seat to read the hard copy of Dino’s book which sells for N50,000 and which the National Assembly leadership has gratuitously agreed to buy for all the 109 senator and 360 House of Representatives members. When you do the Math, you’d find out how much Dino would be taking home for his efforts. Now don’t ask me if the fund for the purchase has been captured in the 2017 appropriation bill as approved by the lawmakers. It shouldn’t be an issue even if the books rot in the National Assembly warehouse.

In a country where rent seekers, portfolio contractors and light-fingered political elite butcher the national cake at whim, doling out about N24m to Dino for a yeoman’s job in compiling records on corruption shouldn’t be a difficult task. In any case, why should that be difficult in a National Assembly that projects to spend N74m only on sewage charges this year. Or would it? Hey, did they just gather to reinvent corruptive practices and dab it with a graceful scent? Even corruption is rolling in laughter!

May 20, 2017