Category: Yomi Odunuga

If I may ask, can we honestly say that President Muhammadu Buhari, in words and action, has survival plans for the All Progressives Congress beyond his eight-year tenure in office? Well, I seriously have my doubts about this. While party loyalists and the irredeemable optimists in the President’s camp who have decided not to see any evil nor speak against glaring evil may continue living in denial that the APC, as it stands today, remains its own greatest enemy; keen watchers of the internal rumblings in the party before and after  the 2019 elections know that the core of  its essence is whittling down daily. This, I must say, is not just about the latest macabre dance of shamelessness by the loyalists of two prominent national leaders of the party from Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, it is deeper than that. And the crisis, we must admit, is not in any way helped by Buhari’s confounding aloofness in a matter that could eventually sound the death knell for a marriage hastily cemented among strange bedfellows with the sole aim of grabbing power from an equally derailing Peoples Democratic Party.

I have said this before, and I believe it is worth repeating here, that Oshiomhole’s huffing and puffing and Oyegun’s recent hollow pontifications are pointers to the soullessness and ideological vacuity that pervade the ruling party. It reminded one of those days when the party apparatchik in the PDP made a song and dance of a non-existent internal democracy within its fold. Ironically, it was the absence of a working formula for the attainment of those core values that eventually nailed the coffin for the PDP. Now, four years after, the APC is still rolling in the folly of grabbing power without any idea about what to do with it. And if Buhari were to be serious about the future of the party under whose platform he rode to power, he would be doing much more than throwing furtive glances at the endless power show that diminishes its importance daily. What exactly has the APC learnt from the fall of the PDP? The answer is: Absolutely nothing.

Some would say the party is still basking in the euphoria of the victory it recorded in the last elections. That may be true. Yet, there is no better time than now to get off that needless streak of triumphalism and embark on a sobering moment of introspection if the APC hopes to survive a post-Buhari Presidency. First, the leadership, in its different shades and colours, ought to accept the fact that the APC is more divided today than it was in 2015. Its popularity has shrunk significantly and this is manifestly displayed in the number of states and legislative seats it lost to the PDP and other parties in the last election. When and if they have the time to do the arithmetic, the noisemakers at the party headquarters would realise that more PDP governors were administered the oath of office on May 29, 2019 as against what happened in 2015 when everyone thought the paradigm shift would last for a while. Well, records show that it never was. It should concern these persons that the figures are getting too close for comfort with the APC having just 19 governors, the PDP with 16 while the All Progressive Grand Alliance has one in Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State. Do they know what the figures were some months back? Maybe they should check the records if that would jerk them to the realities of the fire these guys have been playing with.

Perhaps, nothing typifies the rudderless low that the party has sunk into after the frenetic hoopla that heralded it into power than the pathetic melodrama that saw it losing Zamfara State in addition to the vainglorious display of tactlessness in states like Ogun, Imo, Oyo and even Kano. They say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Unfortunately, that wraps up the story of the APC. The leadership and stakeholders may continue to shift the blame but they are all culpable in what happened in most of those states. That is why, for example, Oshiomhole’s tough disposition and boastfulness to inject party discipline amount to nothing. Party discipline, I must note, was thrown out of the window the day President Buhari started his public display of solidarity to the same charlatans that flagrantly and impudently violated the party’s directives. While Oshiomhole was deluding himself about sanctioning the likes of former Governors Ibikunle Amosun, Rochas Okorocha and Abdulazeez Yari for anti-party activities, the President, who ordinarily should be the leader of the party, was busy hosting these renegades with their preferred candidates in the palatial presidential mansion with full complement of photo-ops.

Where others had expected the President to stand with his party’s leadership on issues relating to party supremacy, Buhari’s aloofness and seeming insensitivity were fully put to test in Ogun State when Amosun went to APC’s campaign ground with his preferred candidate who was running on the platform of another party. We all knew how that story ended with stones and pieces of broken bottles flying freely into the podium. It was a disgrace. The charade did not stop there. Till date, the President is yet to call Yari to order for threatening violent consequences on the Oshiomhole-led executive should any of its members dare visit Zamfara to conduct primaries. Yet, in the same party, Okorocha was made the crying baby in a fiasco that saw the Independent National Electoral Commission withholding his certificate of return as senator-elect. While Amosun still carries on as some sort of tin god, Yari would have been a leading contender for the Deputy Senate President seat had the Supreme Court not voided the APC votes in the state. Before then, he was pretty sure the party’s position matters less as long as he remains the de-facto leader in a state traumatised by bandits’ invasion. Now, all that bragadoccio has melted into pieces before their very own eyes.

In all this, all the President could do was to, jocularly though, whine about his disappointments that the residents of the Federal Capital Territory did not vote for him in the last elections. Unlike he did in the 2015 elections when he trounced incumbent Goodluck Jonathan at the Aso Rock polling unit, the PDP candidate in the Presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, defeated him in his backyard. Now, that should be a warning signal. It says a lot about how disenchanted the people are with his leadership style and, by extension, his party’s. Besides, it is, to my mind, unedifying to refer to a people as ‘necessary evil’ just because they decided to exercise their franchise the way they deem fit. The President needs to understand that this is a democracy and citizens are not under any compulsion to vote for his party even if he is adjudged to be a high performer. It is a question of choice and individual preference.

Back to the matter, instead of gloating irreverently about a people’s choice in exercising the power of the thumb, I think Mr. Buhari should focus more on how to bring the warring parties in the APC to the round table. The time to be the leader he ought to be is now. After spending the last four years blaming the opposition PDP’s financial rascality and utter recklessness for the lethargic crawl in his desire to impact the lives of hapless Nigerians, the country can ill afford a government that would spend another four years on shadow boxing, name calling and blame gaming while every other thing rots away.  Did I say the President was just joking when he castigated Abuja residents for taking up the ‘necessary evil’ role by voting the PDP? Scratch that. Remembering an earlier allusion by the President that those who gave him five per cent of their votes should not expect equal dividends of democracy that would be enjoyed by those who gave him 95 per cent votes, one begins to doubt if this President knows that he is a leader for all. Whither his magnanimity in victory? Does he even know that his party’s present show of shame and it’s failure to, maturely, handle its internal affairs could impact negatively on its future? Does the President care about all these things, really?

On June 6, 2015, after President  Muhammadu Buhari’s now infamous quote of “I belong to everybody, I belong to nobody” at his first inauguration as an elected leader, this writer had published a piece with the above title, setting some sort of targets for the man from Daura. Now, don’t ask me if he met my expectations or whether he scored above average in my estimation. In the same fashion, I had waited, with impudent impatience, for his speech during his second inauguration last Wednesday at the Eagles Square, Abuja. Unfortunately, the ceremony was at its lowest low, not just because it was shorn of the typical pomp and panache, but because it was eerily silent on speeches – no historically significant acknowledgements, no line for patriotic stirrings and no quotable quote! Nothing. Beyond the ritual of the administration of oaths by the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mohammed Tanko, every other thing was done in hushed tone. It was an inauguration ceremony wreathed with an ambience of confounding solemnity. Some say it was part of the low-key swearing-in promised by the government. Oh, is that so? Well, whatever it was, that was a redefinition of low key. Sadly, such formal historical procedure was laid bare of any magical moment. It was too dry with quite a number of the spectators wearing mournful looks, if you ask me.

Be that as it may, Mr. Buhari can still take some lessons from the nuggets of the 2015 piece as he settles down to be the difference he ought to be. The piece, with some modifications, reads:

Today, the mantle of leadership has changed hands and Muhammadu Buhari, a retired Army General and disciplinarian is the man of the moment. He has taken the oath of office and oath of allegiance like he did some four years back. Party over, Buhari needs to sit his bum down to tackle the accumulated multifarious challenges that continue to cripple the Nigerian nation. Clearly, he would be deluding himself and putting his reputation up for a bashing if he thinks Nigerians would exercise endless patience for him to plot his way through the landmines planted by the outgone government of President Goodluck Jonathan. The exit of that administration sets the alarm bell for Buhari to hit the ground running and not panting for solution in the dark. The populace has gone far beyond listening to any tendentious excuse about how bad the situation was before the May 29 handover date. All they want to see are visible nuggets that stand as roadmaps to recovery, especially by an administration that rode into power singing the change mantra. It may be tough, yet it is Buhari’s cross to deal with!

No matter how awry things have gone, excuses are simply not enough. Expectations are high that Nigeria’s real Mr. Fix It (that was the assumption some four years back) is in the saddle to bring the much-needed relief and put a smile on the faces of the long-suffering masses. Regardless of the humongous $63bn debt profile contained in Jonathan’s handover notes, the public expectation remains that Buhari would find the magic wand to revitalizing the critical sectors of the economy. Chief among these is the energy sector, which has inflicted the gravest pains on the psyche of Nigerians in spite of the multi-billion dollar investments. There are also the nagging issues of institutional corruption and infrastructural decay.

Now that Buhari is President again in spite of all odds, he cannot afford to fall into the same potholes that eventually swallowed Jonathan’s second term bid. Thankfully, Buhari is not a neophyte, neither has he given anyone the impression that he is one to be swayed by the genuflections of palace wannabes. See, one can’t really put one’s money on this again with what happened in his first tenure. Yet, with his age and experience, he should know what he was walking into when he decided to – once again – have a shot at the presidency. To demonstrate that capacity and understanding, he told a group of editors in a recent interview in the Sunday Trust that he was prepared to be his own man and find a way out of the exotic ‘cage’ that the Aso Rock Presidential Palace was to Jonathan. “I asked for it (to be President in Aso Villa)’, so whatever I meet there I cannot complain. I know, of course, that there is a lot of work to be done. The important thing is to make sure that the structures on ground are made to function; people are made to do their work and develop the capacity to supervise,” he had said.

Some have suggested that Buhari may not nurse a second term ambition. Well, you never can tell with politicians. (And I was dead right, abi?) Whatever happens, the fact remains that on his lean shoulders lie the future and fortunes of the ruling All Progressives Congress in subsequent elections. His four-year tenure offers a make-or-mar opportunity for the APC. No one is saying that it is going to be an easy task battling entrenched interests in a queer political system. It is just that Buhari has no option other than to walk his talk. There is no better time for him to display that courage, competence and capacity than now.

Good enough, he has started on the right template by insisting on being his own man. That’s my reading of his ‘everybody’ and ‘nobody’ statement. However, Mr. President ought to understand that being his own man would surely come with a price even right within his own inner circle. His success would largely depend on how he employs wisdom in dealing with both the centripetal and centrifugal forces within and without. That, by the way, was the cage reality former President Jonathan was talking about. This subsequently beclouded his ability to stop the systemic rot.

Now that Buhari is President again, the buck stops right on his desk. When he points the finger at Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party for being an economic and political disaster in the first 16 years of our democratic journey, I just hope he understands that the remaining four fingers point right back at him. Therefore, he needs to, in the next four years, display the strength of character that would bring drastic change in the state of the economy and infrastructural development. In that Sunday Trust interview, he said his focus would be on education, healthcare, security, infrastructure, fighting corruption and blocking the various leakages, which resulted in the multi-billion dollar losses that found their ways to personal pockets of our rapacious, fleecing elite. Good talk. But then, didn’t they say talk is cheap? Is there really anything new in this that Jonathan did not vow to confront when he was inaugurated on May 29, 2011?

Now, Buhari is waltzing lyrical and sending waves of romantic sound bites into our ear lobes. We know about his legendary Spartan living and we can vouch for his stance against corruption. What we really do not know is if that would still be applicable immediately he gets giddy with the allure of that exotic cage. We really cannot fathom how he handles the pressures and sweet-coated offerings of the men in the corridors of power. Like I once admonished in an earlier piece, Buhari needs to hold himself to the mirror because he does not have the luxury of tendering excuses for any failure. Nigerians voted for good governance and not good luck. They heeded his call and it is now time for him to remember his promises. For the avoidance of doubt, I’ll list the some of the promises he made in 2015: He told us of his strategic plans to ensure that we now enjoy constant electricity; tame the cabal in the petroleum sector and reduce petrol price; return the naira’s lost glory against foreign currencies; give one free meal a day in all public schools; open a vista of opportunities for Nigerians to access better living conditions; create employment for the millions slapping the streets in dejection; fight corruption head-on and ensure the safety of lives and property. Surely, Buhari could not have forgotten so soon that daily foraging for bread and beans has become such a hellish reality that the citizens’ patience could not stand another bumbling whining from any government that is long on canticles and short on delivery.

Now that Buhari is President again, the time ticks for him. He should rest assured that no one wants to hear his lamentations about his experience in the gilded cage called Aso Rock. Let him fix his gaze on the voices from the market place – the ones whose hopes and votes earned him an indisputably popular passage to the highest position in the land. That, by the way, is the constituency that he belongs. He is definitely not an island of everybody and nobody! We just hope he remembers, hopefully! And it is my prayer that he remembers all this even in his speechlessness last Wednesday. It is his call. Let him grapple with it as he settles down for his final four years in office. History beckons!!!

Let me start on a precautionary note: this piece is not to be misconstrued as an infallible prophecy that the Senate Leader, Senator Ahmed Lawan and his counterpart in the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila (Gbaja), would emerge as Senate President and Speaker respectively, in the 9th National Assembly which is scheduled to convene in June. In politics, especially the sword and dagger treachery that goes with its practice in Nigeria, nothing should be taken for granted. These two leading candidates for the top jobs in both houses are experienced enough to know that not all those hugging them with self-assuredness should be taken seriously in a legislature where loyalty has been shred to pieces by once upon a time political soul mates. The reality is that the two, in this fresh bid to reclaim a mandate that was snatched out of their hands with the most virulent internal political coup ever hatched on the floor of both chambers sometimes in June, 2015, would need more than mere words to influence the support of the rather strange bedfellows who have the power to determine their fate. Yet, something tells me that, this time, they may just be second time lucky having had a deeper understanding of the game plan of the enemies within. For, if we must state the truth, the greatest challenge for the realisation of an All Progressives Congress-led National Assembly is the gang of saboteurs within its rank and file—folks who are more than ready to sell their birthright for a piece of pottage – just like a prodigal son would.

My concern really is not much about the capacity of Lawan and Gbaja to steer the affairs of the chambers respectably and creditably for the benefits of the citizens given the fact that the country can ill afford the kind of adversarial legislature foisted on us by the outgoing leadership of the 8th National Assembly which, true to type, has scored itself high in discharging its responsibilities. Well, even the lizard does praise itself for scaling a wall by nodding its head against likely derisive abnegation by onlookers. And so, I won’t contest Hon. Yakubu Dogara’s declaration of a 100 per cent support for President Muhammadu Buhari in the last four years neither would I fault Sen. Bukola Saraki’s ‘cordial’ relationship with not just the executive but also the ruling party even after he defected. We would have to leave that verdict for history. But, having listened to Lawan at a media luncheon in Abuja some weeks back coupled with a few notes I have read on why Gbajabelieves he remains the best candidate for the job, I am beginning to have this nervy doubt regarding whether they would have the courage to walk their talk when the chips are down. It becomes more doubtful when one weighs the consequences of the political concessions they would have to give in their bid to realise their ambitions.

To be sure, this is not about competence. When you look at their trajectory in both chambers, Lawan and Gbaja, as attested to by colleagues, are enamoured with the requisite educational and practical experience to lead the 9th Senate. But that also comes with a baggage that questions where the pendulum of loyalty would swing to in matters that involve certain key elements in the party and the nation. Would they stand firm with the people and ignore the directives of these key party hawks if they run contrary to the will of the majority in the discharge of their duties? Do they understand that there is a level to which one operates such that party loyalty becomes a byword for a rubber-stamped legislature in which the executive takes full charge of legislative processes by proxy? That, I must confess, is my greatest fear in this new found drive by the APC to patch up its broken walls of executive/legislative dissonance of the past years. Would the principle of Separation of Power not be a sub-text in an attempt to please a powerful executive that may simply ignore an unwritten code of mutual respect? Surely, if that happens, we may as well bid farewell to the practice of constitutional democracy and embrace benevolent dictatorship signs of which have begun to manifest in the last couple of months before the general elections. Put bluntly, that explains the subtle battle of wits between the 8th National Assembly and the executive in which truckloads of unsigned bills were returned to the chambers by the President while countless threats of vetoing the bills never materialised. Question is: in what way did this cat and mouse game benefit the average Nigerian?

Asked how he plans to make a difference in spite of his alleged troubling closeness to the powerful hawks in the executive and his party, Lawan, at the media luncheon, said: “I believe that we have to work together with the Executive with mutual respect and address the challenges that confront Nigerians today. Where we differ, we are going to resolve such issues in a very credible and respectful manner. We are not going to go into the market square to throw stones recklessly and we believe that there is interdependence between both arms and such would be respected. We believe the openness which has been introduced by the National Assembly should be continued and that would make us to function as representatives properly.”

Not one to be left out, Gbajabiamila, in his recent tour of the South East where he met the governors of Ebonyi, Anambra, Imo and Enugu to lobby for votes, also said he was not in the race “for the sake of it but to contribute to nation-building by using the legislature to better this country.”  Like I have always pointed out, this nation has never lacked leaders who mumbled the right words to explain away their visionless ‘vision’. They always talk the talk but hardly walk the walk. Besides, openness in governance is not as cheap as Lawan proclaims. The National Assembly, as it stands today, is run like a cult with a powerful cabal shielding the facts from the rest of us. Just nudge its bureaucracy to unveil its budgetary allocations from the direct withdrawals that accrue to that arm of government yearly and you would have touched their raw nerves. They speak glibly about transparency and all-inclusiveness yet those ideals are alien to their practice. In other climes, the electorates know what their lawmakers earn and they have access to them. Here, our almighty lawmakers sidetrack all the rules in the books to appropriate humongous allowances to themselves in addition to allocating state-of-the-art cars to their offices. In fact, this has become a ritual aside the monetization of oversight functions. This narrative has not changed even under an administration that professes change. And that is why budgets still get padded yearly with the usual exchange of diatribes between the executive and the legislature. It is a shame, really.

For me, Lawan and Gbajabiamila have their work cut out for them. Good enough, Lawan seems to understand exactly what Nigerians want. He quipped: “What do Nigerians want today? They want to have an improvement in the security of their lives; an economy that works for everyone and they want corruption brought down to its knees. Nigerians want to live in peace with one another.” As simple as these things look, they would remain a mirage if we continue to nurture a legislature that is long on promises and abysmally short of delivery. Unfortunately, where one has thought the 8th National Assembly would be different, it shamelessly trod the same path in which its members fed fat as a gang of feisty investors rapaciously reaping the gains of their forays into Nigeria’s lucrative political system. Before the 2015 invasion of Saraki and Dogara, a report said a whopping N1.15 trillion had been spent in 10 years by the National Assembly with little value added to the polity or policy. I honestly doubt if anything has changed since then. The National Assembly is soaked in the misery of its confounding mystery and warped understanding of how its affairs should be conducted. It is a jumbled maze of incongruities trying to unlock a puzzle without any clearly mapped out strategy..

And so, when Lawan says he would ensure that budgets are passed at the shortest possible time, you just wonder if he would be working with a different set of people who have resolved to subsume pecuniary interest under a more ennobling focus on enacting laws that take care of the wishes of hapless Nigerians. You wonder if the members of the 9th Assembly would not, at the drop of a cap, go on the usual endless breaks while abandoning critical bills in the closets. You wonder if this anticipated new beginning would not soon dovetail into the old order where the more the citizens look, the less they see. You just wonder if Lawan and Gbaja can make a difference and walk the talk of running an independent legislature that works in an atmosphere of mutual respect with an executive that, most often than not, views itself from a prism of an overarching implacability. Would we end up with the proverbial tale of the puppet and the puppeteer? In a clime where anything – including the impossible – is possible, you can only wonder about what lies ahead in the corridors of power. We wonder.

WHY are more Nigerians opting for untimely death, putting an end to their lives via varied means? Unfortunately, the answer is not that simple. Even where the victims had left notes behind, they hardly address the ‘why’ poser as the loved ones they leave behind reel in anguish, looking to the sky for a solution to the tangled riddle. In an attempt to put a finger to the scary rate at which people now commit suicide with brazen aplomb, analysts have come up with divergent permutations. With the little I have read on the social media and during interactions with friends, there seems to be an agreement that we have, over the years, paid scant attention to the reality that depression and mental health issues pose serious danger to the society at large. And, to be sincere, death is not an easy route for anyone. Something triggers the thought in the human mind and it is that thing that pushes the individual concerned to embrace the grimness with some sort of fatalistic equanimity—some sort of escapism from the psychotic torture that has put the victim on a cliff hanger, killing him slowly. Those who have felt it before know what I am talking about.

It is quite easy for those who have not experienced the mildest of depression to jump into the fray and condemn those who decided to end it all in a world that continues to place self-preservation above humanity. People ask, why should anyone commit suicide just because of a love gone sour or because of joblessness or even because one was being bullied in school? How, for example, can anyone justify those who, presumably, had everything going for them and still ended up jumping into the Lagos lagoon or cut off a blood vein and bleed to death, slowly? They say it was cowardice on display and such persons should not be pitied. Some cultures even dubbed it a taboo and anyone who commits suicide is cast into the evil forest. That is a savage mentality. Instead of digging deeper in order to understand why people take such drastic action, some society’s yamheads would rather treat it with levity. I once watched, with incredulity, as I sat at a gathering where people argue that only spoilt brats take ‘the easy way’ out. Now, isn’t that an unfortunate comment?

See, in our typical way of living in denial, we have lived the lie far too long in this country. But the reality is that depression is real and it is dangerous. We all have gone through one depressive moment or the other. That some are lucky to shake it off or come out of it doesn’t diminish its deleteriousness to society’s wellbeing. Societies that take all forms of mental illnesses seriously are more focused on its treatment and it is high time we start focusing more attention on it. Let’s face it, Nigeria, as it is presently structured, gives little hope to its citizens especially its teeming youth. The errant aloofness and despondency that one witnesses daily in its governance structure depress the soul. A governance policy pegged on a pseudo-welfarist construct that impoverishes and alienates the citizens can only breed this harvest of deaths by a disoriented populace.

We miss the point when we assume that the society doesn’t owe the citizen anything in the battle for survival. Communal living shouldn’t be like a game of thrones in which the fittest finds the niche to exhale while the weak and vulnerable is damned. It is one thing to condemn some persons’ overreaching sense of entitlement which, when denied, pushes them to commit suicide. It is another thing to accept the fact that alienation sets in at the point where the society has lost its moral compass and fails to attend to the basic needs that depress the alienated citizen. It is a gradual process that eventually culminates into the tragic impulses that we now read about daily. Here I speak not of the tokenism of gifting cash, shelter and food materials to those in need. That should be appreciated. Yet, it is sometimes more of helping a depressed citizen to merely stay alive for some few days more. When hope dims, evil thoughts become such a soothing balm. I was once a victim. I was once on the edge of ending it if help had not come at that time. For eight harrowing years, this writer, who is now bursting with life and a measure self-assuredness, was a complete recluse. Mine was a depressive ailment inflicted by the inability to secure a job even with a top notch certificate and awards for exemplary performance. When I remember the aimless walks on the tough Lagos streets with certificate-laden file tucked under the armpit and the negative response one routinely got from one office to the other, I always marveled at what kept nudging me on, with a glimmer of hope  that it would be well someday. How many nights did I sleep in despair with an overwhelming feeling of alienation? And how many countless times did that voice keep pushing one to end it all, especially when one’s aging parents were the ones paying the bills? Wasn’t life cruel and was living worth this pain?

The point to note here is that suicide becomes a tempting option when every other thing appears to have failed. Here I do not speak for suicide bombers even when that could also be a function of depression which exposes the victims to easy manipulation. I speak of the regular, otherwise happy-go-lucky guy or girl in the neighbourhood who suddenly turns into a recluse. When we ignore those early signs, we are only preparing the ground for a tragic end. Just look around and you’d see how the harsh economic realities of modern day living have affected the mental health of most Nigerians. Perhaps, it was that brilliant, young graduate who has become tired of counting the years of endless wait for a job or that father or mother of children who could barely afford a round meal a day as the bread winner has been retired or fired due to the downturn in the fortunes of the firms. It could be that tongue-speaking, fire- spitting fiery pastor that bellies his innermost torment in the outward display of faith with a doomed fate. It could even be that young lady or man who gave it all to love and had been reaping a whirlwind of sorrow. Alienation breeds nothing but ill wind. We cannot afford to just sit by and think everything is okay. No, nothing is okay until all is okay. Sometimes, the deepest sorrow is expressed in weird laughter. Certain things are too deep to comprehend with ordinary mindset. That is why people say depression is deep.

We may not have the right answers to all cases of depressions, but we sure can find a soothing balm to halt the recourse to suicide by those who feel hard done by this strangulating economic policy. At its plenary sitting on Wednesday, the Senate linked the general insecurity in the land to a palpable sense of inequality and joblessness. It also advises the President Muhammadu Buhari government to “declare a state of emergency on unemployment,” create more pro-poor safety nets and dedicate 20 per cent of recovered loot to fund same and take urgent measure to stimulate production. These steps, if taken, might reduce the tension that this legacy of non-inclusive economic policy has inflicted on the psyche of the populace. Bad as things are, it is not everybody that can embrace criminality in this battle to survive against all odds. There is nothing ennobling about slapping the streets daily for jobs that exist for the sons and daughters of the privileged to grab. Joblessness is a disease which not only alienates but also depresses. It takes more than words on the marble to convince those who have lost hope to continue holding on when all they see are motions without movement. It may be true that suicide cannot be an option. But we may also ask ourselves what we have collectively done as a people to positively engage those suffering silently amid the hedonistic display of wealth by those who hold the yam and the knife?

And in case no one is getting the drift of the argument about disillusionment, despair, alienation and depression, here is a graphic picture of what it means as described by billionaire businessman and Founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Mohammed Ibrahim, to depict Africa’s crisis of motion without movement.

Listen to him: “This continent is a continent of young people. Half of our people here are below 20 years old, look at the average age of our presidents; it’s about 63, 64 years old. We are the only continent in the world where we have presidents at 90 years old starting new terms; I mean you guys are crazy or what? We see people in wheel chairs, unable to raise their hands standing for elections, this is a joke. Yes, you are right to laugh because the whole world is laughing at us.

“Look around you, look at the United States an economy of 15, 16 trillion dollars. We, all of Africa, are less than 1 trillion dollars. This (US) is a 15, 16 trillion dollars economy right? The most important country in the world, like it or not. Obama, who happens to be half African anyway became president when he was 46, 47 years old. If Obama was in Kenya, what will he be doing now? He will be driving a bus, maybe. Clinton became president at 46 years old; J.F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became president. Why do these big countries, much bigger than us, entrust their economies, their nuclear weapons and all resources to people in their 40s? And we (Africa) only pick people at 90 years old to lead us. To lead us where? To the grave?”

And so, I ask: Can this government aloofness resolve the riotous rage troubling the soul of a disillusioned, alienated and depressed citizen without an impactful safety net or feasible policy to cushion his suffering?

Natasha (not real name) has become a shadow of her bubbly self after a nightmarish encounter with the gang of ‘one chance’ bandits that abducted her for more than four hours on the Kubwa/Abuja road some months back. In the last two months, I had wondered why her two phone lines were switched off. Could she have traveled out of the country without telling her close friends like this writer? Was she undergoing some form of challenges that she didn’t want anyone to know about? And why wasn’t she in church for so many weeks? Oh, maybe she has moved out of that dingy apartment on the other side of the suburb to some new cozy place, in the usual manner of lucky Abuja babes. What on earth could have happened to her and why this discomfiting silence from Natasha? Well, the answers to all these puzzles were unraveled by Natasha last Sunday when we, finally, bumped into each other after church service. Clearly, her physical appearance indicated she had gone through some terrible moments. The effervescence and boisterousness that her presence exuded in the past had vanished. She was looking gaunt and downcast. Asked why her lines had been off for weeks, she incoherently muttered: “Mr. Yomi, they stole my phone. I will call you later and explain to you.” With that, she disappeared into the crowd.

When her call came in some hours later, it was a tale laden with grief rendered in teardrops with intermittent hisses here and there. She was a victim of the now popular ‘one chance’ operators of cabs in Abuja. What was thought to be a fifteen-minute drive to the city centre to hang out with friends turned out to be the most horrendous experience in Natasha’s life. No sooner had she boarded the painted taxi that ill-fated evening at precisely 6:30p.m by the NYSC Junction on Kubwa Expressway did these agents of sorrow made up of two male ‘passengers’ and the driver descended on her. Threatened with knives, an axe and other dangerous tools after repeated hot slaps, she was asked to surrender her ATM card and phones. Unfortunately, her own account had an insignificant amount and this further enraged her captors. By this time, she wasn’t even sure where they were and blood had already covered her face from the slaps and stabbings. The second ATM card on her belonged to her sister and the cash balance was of interest to the animals in human skin. Quickly, they forced her to put a call through to her sister in order to get the pin numbers. They withdrew what they could and transferred various sums to some friends before dropping the dying Natasha, four hours into the ordeal, on a lonely road after Deidei Market close to Zuba. But for the help of an Okada rider and a motorist who helped in taking her back to Kubwa, Natasha could have been history today. It took four weeks of intensive care, surgeries and counseling for her to come back to life. The doctors had to shave her hair to the skin before any treatment could be carried out. That was Natasha’s story in a nutshell. Bruised, battered and dehumanized in a capital city that is said to be one of the safest in the country. It’s all a façade. Abuja has opened itself up for the crime and criminality that have become daily occurrences in other parts of the country. Abuja’s virginity has been raped with bestial gusto.

But Natasha is just one out of many residents of this town that are daily robbed with ease in spite of the noise being made about how secured the nation’s capital is. Sadly, Abuja’s famed impregnability is being demystified. Bandits and kidnappers have become so brazen that they now ply their trades in our faces. Just the other day, two gun-toting boys accosted a man who was about entering his car. They forced him to drive them to an ATM facility and withdrew a lump sum only for them to hold him hostage till midnight so that another round of cash withdrawals could be made. It was after this that the man was left to go home, hopeless and deflated. He was lucky just as Natasha. It could have been worse. At least, these two were considered fortunate to have been alive after being waylaid by unknown criminals who now people the streets of Abuja. Many have had to pay the supreme price. As usual, they have filed complaints with the police and, according to Natasha, investigations are ongoing to unravel the criminals even as more people fall victims to this band of despicable characters.

And as if the kidnappings, killings and banditry plaguing a country in distress were not enough headache for a government parading its crying incompetence, the ubiquitous ‘bad eggs’ in the nation’s security architecture seem bent on eroding whatever hope the despairing populace could be latching on. In the not so distant past, reports from the field in the various Internally Displaced Persons’ Camps spread across the North East indicted some military men who threw decorum to the wind whilst abusing victims at the camps in exchange for food or other materials as low as menstrual pads. Some were even found to be involved in selling food items meant for the IDPs for pecuniary gains. Till date, not one single officer has been punished for the atrocious and despicable sin against humanity. And, to be candid, it is this kind of official impetuousness that oils the inexplicable debauchery being displayed by some policemen who allegedly sexually abused, maltreated and brutalized some ladies that were arrested in a night club for, wait for it, dancing nude. By the way, I didn’t know that the Nigerian Police now have the powers to arrest, prosecute and punish anyone seen to have violated the laws of the land. Without any prejudice to what the law says about the illegality or otherwise of prostitution, it is barbaric that officers of the law-trained with taxpayers’ money to protect the citizens would be the ones that would wrap ‘empty pure water sachets’ around whatever was dangling between their legs to callously rape the so-called arrested sex workers or lap dancers! What a shame!

Sometimes, you cannot help but wonder when and how we sank this low. And where you would have expected the leadership of the police and armed forces to move swiftly to protect whatever is left of its waning integrity, they wield the annoying flag of esprit de corps, a byword for all that is wrong with the system, to cover up the putrefying mess. That is why quite a number of people believe that nothing would come out of the latest promise by the police to identify and punish the mad men in its fold that abused the ladies. If past examples of police inquest were anything to follow, the case may soon be consigned to the dustbin of history like many others before it including the countless heart-wrenching tales of sadistic killings by the men in uniform and other extra judicial killings. The irony is that while the authorities are busy hacking down hapless citizens, inflicting pains and anguish mercilessly on a defenseless populace, the real criminals are getting emboldened by the day. They now block roads and operate for hours all in a bid to harvest victims for ransom payment like they did recently between Osun and Oyo states in which Professor Olayinka Adegbehingbe of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the Obafemi Awolowo University was abducted and had to fork out N5 million before he was released. We also recall the swiftness with which ransom was paid and the abducted Chairman of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar and his daughter were released. For now, only the families of the slain driver of the UBEC chair on the notorious Abuja/Kaduna road are left to rue the ill luck that visited them that inglorious day. There abound many of these sad tales throughout the federation while the ‘degraded’ Boko Haram insurgents persist with the killings, abductions and bloodletting.

And so, people like Natasha and those who lived to tell their stories belong to a class of the lucky few even when they are depressed and looking, with grim expression, into the future with forlorn hope. Yet, the question is: can that hope be boosted with a President’s incredulous allusion to the fact that the nation’s Acting Inspector General of Police, Abubakar Mohamed Adamu, must be battling hard to stem the tide of insecurity in the land as can be gleaned from the rate at which “he is losing weight” coupled with the fact that the under-performing Service Chiefs even have extended tenures to continue in offices as they all sit on their hands with insecurity biting harder and growing deeper?

Make I ask sef: na who curse us? God bless Nigeria.

For daring to say the truth about the nation’s known capacity to export its trained medical doctors to different continents across the globe in exchange for the much-sought after foreign exchange, Nigeria’s Minister for Labour and Employment, Chief (Dr. and Senator) Chris Ngige, has been pilloried by his fellow countrymen and women. Without pausing to dissect his prognosis on the promising economic gains accruing to Nigeria with unplanned relocation of these doctors to countries where their services would be appreciated and adequately compensated, some uninformed critics, especially those cantankerous know-it-all inhabitants of Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms, have dabbed him with unprintable names. A comment I read somewhere said he must have spoken under the influence of ‘expired tramadol’ or something more deadly. That – he thought – could be the only logical reason for that kind of ‘unintelligent vomit’. Now, that is an unfair comment.  An unkind cut. Criticism should be done with at least a bit of logic and common sense and without employing gutter language regardless of how we feel about the subject of the discourse.

Ordinarily, I would have queued behind Ngige’s critics on the matter. But I can’t. My conscience just wouldn’t allow me to join the band of those bent on pulling a good man down. Those who castigate him simply don’t know what the man stands for.  If they had taken time to psychoanalyze him, they would have come to terms with his mastery of political escapism. It is the failure to understand this aspect of him that informs his critics’ submission that he talks recklessly without facts or sense. How can? Do they know that the man is a certified medical doctor, a former state governor no matter how brief his tenure was, a once abducted sitting governor and former Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? Do they know that he had fought and won many battles including an ongoing dissonance against a presidential directive to inaugurate a board of a parastatal simply because he didn’t like the face of one of the appointees? Do they also know that, as the man in charge of the labour, productivity and employment sector in over three years now, Ngige should have the authentic data on the issue he was being derided by many?

Now, what exactly did he say that has forced most people to put their mouths, with abrasive gusto, on the abusive gear? Asked if he thought the Nigerian health sector was not snaking towards an imminent collapse with the rate at which medical personnel, especially doctors and other professionals, have been jetting out for greener pastures in advanced countries in Europe and America, Ngige said there was nothing to worry about as the country had enough doctors to treat its millions of ailing citizens. What! Well, that was my initial exclamation as I watched the live transmission of the popular breakfast show, Sunrise Daily on Channels Television last Wednesday. Even Maupe Ogun, who anchored the programme from Abuja, could not hide her disbelief. But knowing that the bearded minister would always come up with logical analysis to support his position, I became more interested in the discussion and, as expected, Ngige didn’t disappoint.

Listen to him: “I am not worried about doctors leaving the country. We have surplus. If you have surplus, you export. It happened some years ago. I was taught chemistry and biology by Indian teachers in my secondary school days. They are surplus in their country. We have surplus in the medical profession in our country. I can tell you this. It is my area, we have excess. Who said we don’t have enough doctors? We have more than enough, they go out and they sharpen their skills. You can quote me. There is nothing wrong with them travelling out. When they go abroad, they earn money and send them back home here. We have foreign exchange earnings from them and not just oil. Those guys go there, they are better trained because of the facilities they have there.

“I know some of them who have come back home and opened medical centres here. I know a doctor from America who left in the 80s, we were in medical school together. Now he has a facility in Imo State. He has about four facilities in Maryland where he is practicing, and so you tell me that it is a brain drain. They set up medical centres back home, and in their centre, they have CAT scan, MRI scan which even the government cannot maintain. So, I don’t see any loss. Brain drain will only be inimical when, for instance neurosurgeons travel and we don’t have neurosurgeons here.”

Now, let’s cut this man some flak. He made quite some sense and that is why I don’t understand why some persons have chosen to use him as a tooth pick. In all honesty, would it not be better to allow this set of professionals to spend their active years in developed economies that can procure the needed state-of-the-art equipment to ease their job while we make the best use of the quacks and traditional healers here? Or are we saying our local ‘doctors’ and their herbs are no longer good alternatives to those expensive chalks they give us in those death centres called hospitals? Is it not better for the rich and privileged few among us to fly to the end of the earth in search of medical care in the hands of these our expatriate brothers and sisters than subjecting them to the eyesore and harrowing experiences that the poor go through in accessing healthcare here? Would it not be to our own eternal satisfaction if these our sons and daughters come back to establish hospitals and clinics here and charge us through the nose for the services provided? And was Ngige not right in saying that these facilities being brought home by the doctors abroad are for our general wellbeing as the government lacks the capacity to maintain what individuals can easily manage?

Personally, I believe Ngige was just being diplomatic when he said brain drain would only be inimical when Nigeria starts having a shortage of neurosurgeons. How? We can never have a shortage going by the number of witches and wizards including witch doctors that most Nigerians are forced to consult here. How about the millions of prayer warriors who lay claim to curing all ailments? They can conveniently take over the services of these neurosurgeons who may, if they wish, join their counterparts like Ngige and Senator Bukola Saraki in the National Assembly or the banking sector. So what if records show that an average 12 doctors emigrate from the country weekly? Does it really matter that the Nigerian Medical Association has faulted the minister, saying that only 40000 out of the 75000 registered doctors with the body are currently practicing in the country? Moreover, should Ngige be bothered if Nigeria has a doctor/patient ratio of 1 to 5000 as against the World Health Organization’s recommendation of 1 to 600? How does that affect the value of dollars that the likes of Ngige cart abroad yearly to treat dysentery and toothache anyway?

It is laughable that the NMA and sundry critics have called the minister out for placing the economic benefits of doctors’ emigration before the value of human lives or, put succinctly, the life of the Nigerian? On a serious note, I thought most Nigerian doctors and medical personnel have long abdicated the values embedded in the Hippocratic Oath which is their code of engagement. Maybe Ngige’s pointless outburst has reignited their interest in human lives as opposed to what many of their victims had suffered.

With the figures being bandied by the NMA, you wonder how these people still feel comfortable abandoning seriously ill patients on the dying beds in pursuit of a so-called welfare. Wouldn’t it be better if they all take that flight to where the grass looks greener or, at best, tend to their private clinics and hospitals where they frequently refer patients to instead of the current façade of healthcare in the public service that continues to waste many citizens?

Back to Ngige, I’m truly impressed that he didn’t deviate from a pattern I had credited him with in a piece published in March, 2016, titled “Ngige’s sickening resort to political escapism” when he wailed discourteously about the dearth of white collar jobs and the administration’s preparedness to convert many professionals to teachers, adding with annoying impetuousness that the government would not “give the N5000 stipend for people to go and sit down at home and be sleeping, we won’t give the money to loafers and indolent persons.” In that same interview, Ngige quipped; “I don’t know what you mean by hardship and those you call Nigerians. Are they the federal civil servants getting their monthly salaries as and when due? We do not owe them, not even allowances and there is no reason they should be unhappy with the APC government. Are the Okada riders among those complaining when they are making brisk businesses or the graduates? We will soon address their problem of unemployment after the passage of the budget.”

With all this, why do people vent needless anger on a man who is on voyage of political escapism, struggling to blot out the crying realities of yet another hope deferred? If Ngige says we have more than enough doctors to take care of a perennially sick nation, why should anyone argue with his phantasmagoric escapism? Why?