Category: Yomi Odunuga

If inspiring speeches and test of character were to be the key indices that would define the outcome of the 2019 Presidential Election, perhaps President Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar would find it hard to be heard or received with much seriousness in some places. Unfortunately, the candidates that Nigerians ought to have serious interest in seeing or hearing are presently operating down the ladder, stridently trying to make their feeble voices heard in a political system that panders more to the hollow noise in the marketplace amidst a lackluster economic situation. Regardless of how hard they try to flaunt their intellectual capacity and varied experience both locally and internationally, these voices would continue to resonate in the wilderness until those who determine who gets what begin to see things beyond their selfish and parochial interest. Quite honestly, if Nigeria’s realities deeply matter, Buhari and Atiku wouldn’t be the two sides of a bad coin that Nigerians would be left to pick from in the coming election. Sadly, they remain the leading contenders.

To say the truth, what we have in our hands are two products of doubtful authenticity shrouded in self-claimed delusion of grandeur. And that’s what makes it a hard choice, really. When you ask those hankering for an articulate Atiku candidacy after he routed some more intellectually savvy aspirants in the race at their Port Harcourt convention, they gleefully tell you he is the best man for the job; they mumble something about his tested record of being an employer of labour, waving a list of his economic wizardry as deputy to former President Olusegun Obasanjo during an era in which they claim to have witnessed a profoundly positive turnaround of the economy. And when you try to point out loads of failed moves that cost the nation billions in losses under the same Atiku, they shout you down. Conversely too, the same vacuous adulation applies to those diehard Buhari supporters who blindly assert that he is the next best thing to happen in the history of Nigeria’s democracy despite his loads of crying failures that include gross indifference to rampant waste of human lives and an almost suicidal obduracy in pointing a gun to his own head where one had expected him to apply wisdom.

Let’s face it, the greatest lie anyone could spin about the Buhari administration is the propaganda that credits it with living up to its countless but unfulfilled electoral promises. How? In many ways than one, we must admit that this administration has been a huge disappointment especially in ushering in the positive change it adumbrated as the core of its mandate. Some bare knuckle truth wouldn’t be a bad idea in forging forward. It is also laughable for anyone to assume that the narrative would change if given another chance to enforce a change that has been carried out in the breach in the last three years unless Buhari has decided to adopt an all-encompassing leadership style which has been lacking for reasons best known to him. Sometimes, you ask if Buhari understands the complexities that define multi-ethnic Nigeria and if they matter to him in taking decisions. He doesn’t appear or behave as one who does.

On the flip side, when you ask the cheer leaders of the Atiku-must-be-president band to justify the optimism that his presidency would lead to economic prosperity, they tell you that he would allow money to flow freely and ‘everybody would get something as it was under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration!” Now, don’t dare ask how because you’d be pushing your luck too far. For them, it is enough to have a belief in an Atiku that would open the vault of the Central Bank of Nigeria for all to ‘chop’ according to their social status. With that, they assume Nigeria’s multilateral problems including insurgency would be over. Atiku is the cure-all medicine that would wipe away Buhari’s clannish and feudalistic reign, they tell you. If Buhari was, according to them, unqualified to rule the country because of the controversy around his secondary school certificate, it is a breath of fresh air that an Atiku, with a Diploma in Law, would work wonders on the Nigerian economy. His alleged past misdeeds as captured by Obasanjo and other bodies count for nothing as no single case of corruption is hanging on his neck at any court of competent jurisdiction, they argue. Besides, he is the only candidate with the financial muscle to tackle the ruling party naira for naira, dollar for dollar and pounds sterling for pound sterling. That’s the template for the 2019 election. It is a money contest and lots of it would flow.

Then, you ask: What is the fate of cerebral candidates like Donald Duke, a fine gentleman that exudes limitless sartorial elegance in and out of office as two-time governor of Cross River State? Is Duke, a qualified lawyer and tested hands in governance matters, not better than the one that holds an ordinary Diploma in Law? Shouldn’t we be looking at his chances with the Social Democratic Party? What’s wrong with putting our fate in the feminine but caring hands of Anambra State-born Oby Ezekwesili, a woman whose soul and heart crave nothing but a better Nigeria for all? By now, Oby, who holds a Master’s degree in International Law and Diplomacy from the University of Lagos and another one in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, her quality training with the firm of Deloitte and Touche and qualified chartered accountant, should be top on the lips of those who truly want change for the country. But that would never happen as long we always want to climb to the top through the window.

It won’t happen because, like Oby’s Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, Dr. Obadiah Mailafia’s African Democratic Congress is handicapped not only due to inadequate funding but also because the hawks of power are either in Buhari’s All Progressives Congress or Atiku’s Peoples Democratic Party. And, in this game, Mailafia’s deep knowledge of the Nigerian economy and rich resume as a Career Economist, Banker and International Development Specialist coupled with service to fatherland as a Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and Special Adviser to the President on Economic and Policy Matters, mean nothing. He is just another candidate that would fill the space and record a couple of thousands as votes if not hundreds. So also is Kingsley Moghalu of the Young Progressive Party. You wonder why people waste precious time making a song and dance of Buhari’s school certificate or celebrating Atiku’s diploma when they could have easily switched allegiance to Moghalu, who happens to be more than qualified to be in that office. His resume speaks volume: He is a political economist, lawyer, former United Nations official and Professor in International Business and Public Policy from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Moghalu is also the Founder of Sogato Strategies LLC and a Senior Adviser of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) having worked with the Central Banking Journal as Contributory Editor. When you hear him talk, you just get that feeling that his passion for a transformed Nigeria is skin deep. But does that really matter?

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There are many others in the race who, given a level-playing field, would have silenced the cacophonous ululation over the emergence of an Alhaji Atiku to face his Northern brother in the presidential contest. I’m sure the North has better qualified persons who would have vied for the job if the dynamics were to be different. But since this is all about permutations and deft calculations that would ensure the continuation of the mercantilist’ grip on power by proxy, we are stuck with what we have in our hands. Already, Atiku is up to the intriguing game by flying the kite of a single term of four years in power. He has decided reenact a script he once penciled Obasanjo as lead character in the run-off to the 2003 elections—the Nelson Mandela role. Rather that succumb to Atiku’s blackmail which was part of his sinister plot to become President as early as possible, Obasanjo had rebuffed the move, snidely pointing out that while the Madiba had the luxury of handing over to a soul mate in the name of Thabo Mbeki to continue with the ideals of the African National Congress, there was no Mbeki-like character on hand for him to relinquish power to. For those who followed the politics of that period, that was the beginning of the prolonged war between Obasanjo and Atiku until the recent reconciliation in Abeokuta.

Now that Atiku seems to have assumed the position of Mandela by opting to sign an undertaking to serve one term, one is tempted to ask if he has found a willing Mbeki in his running mate and former Governor of Anambra State, Dr. Peter Obi. If that were the case, is it possible to know the worth of that undertaking? What guarantees are there that Atiku would be compelled to walk his talk when he mounts the presidential seat? Is that agreement binding on all other party members both in the South-East where Obi comes from and the other five geo-political zones? Was there a time in the history of our political permutations in Nigeria when such undertakings were obeyed to the letter? As it was in the past, would Atiku not become a captive to power by succumbing to pressures by his ‘teeming supporters’ to spend another four years so that he could finish the job? And, like Buhari, would he not come to the realisation in office that four years is too short a time to make an impact that would stand the test of time? Should that happen, would his ‘Mbeki’ to-be not cry blue murder and fight tooth and nail like Atiku did to Obasanjo in 2003?

Only time will unveil the fascinating possibilities that may emerge from these pregnant questions. We wait for time to unveil the hidden secret. Time.

In his book, “My Life And Nigerian Politics”, Chief Tony Anenih confessed that though he was not thrilled by the ‘Mr. Fix It’ sobriquet which had stuck with him till the grim reaper came knocking on his door last Sunday, there was nothing he could do about it. He expressed shock that the influence he wielded in military and political circles must have informed the belief that he could never fail in any task he set before himself. Fortunately, he said he didn’t believe in that delusion as he was just a mere mortal, stretching himself to the limits with the aim of achieving result. And there was no doubting the fact that he did miss some steps on his life’s journey while he got his nose rubbed on the harsh floor a couple of times to make him realise that he was just human after all. He had power yet power did not avail him at one point or the other. That, to him, exemplifies the dynamics of quotidian living. Nothing is fixed. Nothing lasts forever. Everything is in a flux and it is subjected to the vagaries of time. And then, the ultimate reality that death fixes all humans at its chosen time.

Since the official announcement of his final exit, loads of political heavyweights have been trooping to his homes in Abuja and Edo to rehash the usual nice things we say about the dead here. They go through the drill of signing condolence registers and write about the legacies the dead left behind even when they were not sure about any. After that, we proceed to celebrate the life that was well spent in the service of God and humanity even if the dead were an atheist with a fatalist mentality. We are wired never to speak ill of the dead. Be that as it may, are we also programmed not to learn hard lessons from the dead and readjust our lifestyles? I ask because I’m yet to see if any of those power drunk politicians huffing and puffing has taken time to think about the vanity of it all. At least, it should count for something that a man reputed with the ability to fix anything including who should occupy the highest office in the land (he was famously known for his ‘no vacancy in Aso Rock’ declaration to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar) would just die like that, having disappeared from the limelight for quite a while.

When I think about Anenih’s death, it occurs to me that, instead of rushing to his homes to score cheap political points and fill condolence registers with hollow, flowery words, our pretentious, modern day ‘Mr. Fix It’ should have a deep introspection and decide whether it was worth the trouble to insist on planting their preferred stooges in power. And here, I speak specifically about the crisis the leadership of the All Progressives Congress is facing within its fold. Sometimes, you wonder what is so special about power that makes men to adorn the toga of demi gods. In Ogun State, for example, Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s bloated ego is pushing him to the precipice of self-destruct. To say the truth, all the attributes I used to admire in Senator Amosun in those days in Abuja before mother luck elevated him to the position of state chief executive were no longer there. Now, he is all pumped up; self-serving and egoistic.

They say you would never know the true colour of a man until you try him with three things—money, women and power. In all these, power appears to be the greatest intoxicant which depresses common sense and imbues the individual with a false sense of infallibility. It is that kind of dubious arrogance that pushes Amosun to imagine that he could unilaterally fix his choice lackeys into all positions open for electoral contest in the state without the consent of equally powerful stakeholders in the APC. If you ask me if there was anything wrong with someone in his position having a preferred aspirant as successor, I will tell you it was nothing out of the ordinary going by the kind of politics we play here. What is unacceptable was the crude and irrational method he sought to bully his way through. Listening to him in one particular occasion, he sounded as someone whose decision cannot be questioned by any other person, flaunting his presumed closeness to President Muhammadu Buhari as an ace. If the game had been played that way eight years down the line, Amosun wouldn’t have been governor. It took a lot of horse-trading, negotiations and sacrifice by other people before Amosun got the green light to contest after the humiliation he suffered then as the candidate of the All Nigerian Peoples Congress. No one knew he had the force of power to bully his way then. And, if all politics are local as they say here, he should have known that he doesn’t have the capacity to lord it over other party members who care less about the frequency with which he drops Buhari’s name!

Some would say his counterparts in other states got away with the same thing. Yes, that may be true. But did Amosun and Imo State’s Rochas Okorocha find out if the dynamics were the same? Even the late Anenih would tell you that, in political battles, a wise man should know when to withdraw and reach a compromise to avoid ending up with a bloody nose. And he did receive some devastating blows in his lifetime. I’m sorry to say that Amosun and his co-travellers now threatening fire and brimstone over the outcome of the party primaries in their states didn’t tread with that wisdom tucked in their flowing babanriga or oversized fila. When you look at the fate of Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State in his attempt to foist his handpicked candidates on the party, you would see the folly in underrating the other camp, which works clinical dexterity to deflate the ego of an overrated Mr. Fix It. It is not just about the deployment of raw power. It comes with a large dose of intricate political intrigue with measured accuracy. The truth is that these persons, though powerful with access to huge war chest, are neophytes on the tuft. Now, they are at their wit’s end trying to fix the mess they found themselves. They have been sulking for weeks, wondering what hit them. Well, I can only wish them luck as they run from pillar to post on a salvage mission that may end up in disgrace.

Should that happen, the reason is quite simple—they didn’t take time to study Anenih’s template on how to fix and unfix. According to him, the manual has little to do with the cacophonous and empty grandstanding that these persons have displayed in the past few weeks. Instead, it involves strategic planning and the ability to accept what cannot be changed so that one can lick one’s wound with some bit of dignity.

Listen to Anenih: “In this story of my life, I have not tried in any way to portray myself as a saint or the ideal politician. I have only set out what I know, what I did and what I believe in. Though I may not be a saint, this is not to say that I am singularly or particularly a sinner or devil. I am just a pragmatic and altruistic individual who is not given to abstract theorizing but more inclined to practical realities and solutions. I walk the path of the possible. I cherish planning for targeted goals and the careful choice of means to a given or envisaged end.

“All I do is to devise ways and means to tread such paths rapidly and as smoothly as can be. In the process, I have acquired a reputation for never failing. I am aware that some have given me the sobriquet of “Mr. Fix-it.”  I am not thrilled by the nickname but there is nothing I can do about it. On the Nigerian political scene, I have only tried to play my part in the true Shakespearian sense of

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts.”

This is not the right time to interrogate those moments of betrayals and base treachery that we are all too familiar with especially the events that led to the murder of Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, the true hero of the June 12 saga. However, it is instructive enough that Anenih acknowledged the fact that he was never a saint neither was he a wholesome devil. He fixed a number of things and his fingers were burnt in many others. He knew when to apply the brakes and chew his loss within the four corners of his wall. It is this vital lesson that those who are struggling to emulate him by insisting that governance should be run by their cronies, lackeys and relatives alone have failed to imbibe. And that is why, right before their eyes, the power is slipping out of their hands as they cry blue murder. Can they fix it?

How many more innocent lives would be wasted before we come to the reality that this unfettered depravity puts a giant question mark on our collective humanity? I have tried to wrap my head around this, yet I couldn’t just make headway. Why, I ask, do ordinary men take up the job of killing for God? Which indoctrination pushes a man to pump hot lead into the bodies of his unarmed victims in the name of a religion that criminalises the faith and fate of others? Why do they kill faithful of all religions and what makes their own brand of faith superior? And when will this sickening madness stop? Where in the holy book was it written that the path to godly living is founded upon this extremely sadistic flood of innocent blood? In short, where do men borrow the script to play God in the affairs of men?

As I sit down to write this, my head aches. The keyboard tasks one’s patience with its stiffness. Yet, with trembling hands, the words struggle to find expression on the blank page. If we don’t speak out, how would the world know that we were never tired of appealing to their sense of reason? And it didn’t start today. It started when the bombs kept flying and the body bags were being counted in hundreds of thousands. We said Abuja could play all the politics but it cannot afford to turn its back on the raging fire of an insurgency that appears to be crippling its existence. We saw death when it came too close for comfort in the plume of flames that damaged the United Nations building in Abuja; we saw it at Banex Plaza when once-bubbly lives were darkened by the campaign of hate that was delivered through IEDs; we saw it in Nyanyan that fateful morning when charred remains of human flesh were splashed on the streets. We felt the grief in Adamawa, Kano, Yobe, Plateau and Borno where death became so cheap that living became a matter of luck. We recorded flashes of terror here and there. We couldn’t have forgotten Buni Yadi or even Chibok and many of those conflagrations. We just knew it didn’t smell good. Terror can never be good news and it was taking too long to nip it in the bud.

Now, before our very own eyes, it has taken a life of its own. The enemy is closer home than we thought. They say this faceless enemy is a coward. Yet, his cowardice keeps shredding us into pieces. He is adept at hitting us below the belt, leaving us crestfallen with teardrops flooding down our eyes. When we cry, he sniggers back with rabid lunacy. Or how else can we justify the senselessness in the callous murder of 24-year-old Hauwa Liman, a midwife who was abducted whilst on humanitarian duty in Rann, Borno State? All Hauwa wanted to do was to help the vulnerable, sick and displaced to have a belief in the hope of a better tomorrow.  What she got back was a brutal end to her inspiring life. Put bluntly, she was murdered by the mindless imps who parade themselves as warlords for the gods. She was an aid worker but we didn’t come to her aid when she needed it most. Her captors wasted her the same way they did her colleague, Saifura Ahmed, last month.

And as if the innocent blood on their hands was not enough, they have threatened to perpetrate heinous crime against the other women in captivity including Leah Sharibu who was abducted in Dapchi with over 100 of her colleagues. While the others were released after a fruitful negotiations with the government, Leah, the only Christian in that group, remains in the hands of the terrorists. As days run into months, the hope of her release dwindles. Thoughts of what could happen to her shatter us. We become hopelessly hopeful. You ask why nothing has been done in effecting her release and those that should know within government circles would tell you ‘everything humanly possible’ was being done to ensure her safe return to the comfort of her anguished parents. Those words, when vocalised, were meant to sooth the nerves. But do they?

In the past, we had upbraided government for its sanctimonious offering of platitude when disasters happen as if that was its main responsibility. We had thought that that era had gone with the reported daily aerial pummeling of the fortresses where the insurgents were said to be hiding in the North East. But, with the brazenness and cold depravity the insurgents displayed in the killing of the two aid workers and the palpable anger one feels in their threat to make Leah and the other worker slave for life, I doubt if Nigerians still have the patience to listen to platitudes. When President Muhammadu Buhari told Hauwa’s parents that the government did its best to prevent her gruesome murder, there was that strong temptation to assume that he was merely playing the politics of political correctness. Question is: how far did the government go in saving the aid workers’ lives? If they could reach an agreement with the terrorists in the release of over 100 abducted school girls in Dapchi, why was it difficult to secure freedom for Leah Sharibu in all these months? What’s the point in crying when the head is already cut off?

When Hauwa’s mother said she wouldn’t believe in the fate that was said to have befallen her daughter until she sees her corpse, she was merely looking for an escapist route in fantasy land. Like the parents of Dapchi and Chibok girls, it was not impossible that Hauwa’s mum must have placed implicit trust in the government’s capacity to bring her daughter back to her, broken but not hopeless. Unfortunately, that was not to be. The Limans might not even enjoy the privilege of organising a befitting burial for their wonderful Hauwa. In a country with a scary figure of over 13 million out-of-school children foraging for fate, it is depressing that we daily witness the killings of the lucky few who, through dint of hard work and determination, have been able to cross that barrier of illiteracy. Saifura (a nurse) and Hauwa (a midwife) were examples of how a nation kills its future when criminals are allowed to inflict a reign of terror on hapless citizens by a government that tends to have a close affinity with morbid inaction!

The prognosis becomes scarier when one interrogates the unmitigated killings that go on daily even in relatively safer locations in the country. Here, we are not talking about the bloody clashes between herders and farmers with hundreds of deaths recorded across the land or even the communal clashes that turn brothers against one another in an elimination battle that exposes the bestiality buried in our plastic laughter. What I speak of is the senseless killings, ritual murders, vicious attacks and accidental discharges that have sent many to their early graves. Just these snippets: Somewhere on the Jos/Bauchi road, a recently retired Maj.-Gen. Idris Alkali went missing. Though his car was later discovered in a lake in what appeared to be premeditated murder, his body is yet to be found. In Kaduna, bandits shot dead two mobile policemen on active duty. In Abuja the other day, four policemen were killed in like manner by yet to be apprehended bandits. And in Mpape Extension, a suburb in Abuja, a trigger-happy policeman in a four-man patrol team opened fire on Miss Anita Akapson and killed her instantly. While the family of the young lady was left to bury the dead, the initial police report indicated that it was a case of mistaken identity. And then you ask: for how long would the police hold on to this silly excuse to explain away its irresponsibility? How come the bullets are being unleashed on innocent citizens while those who have embraced killings as some sports by employing religion as a camouflage keep on inflicting the most horrendous terror on the society? Why?

Well, so long as Leah Sharibu and other captives remain in the den of the wanton blood suckers holding them, so long would we continue to question the government’s ability to secure the lives and property of all citizens. Would the government continue to wring its hands in surrender as the agents of death ply their trade or would it, for once, stand up to be counted for taking decisive action when it historically matters most? The answer ominously hangs in the sky.

I do not know how much longer the leaders of the All Progressives Congress can go on with their loud pretense that the party, which was heralded into power some three years back, is not under any intense threat. The reality, as of today, is that the APC is being positioned for the kill in the coming elections by the same gang of leaders who helped it into power. Having listened to reasons given by those who have defected to its main rival, the Peoples Democratic Party which sustained a brand of notoriety in its hey days, it is obvious the options before the electorate have been clearly cut out for them—they would be making a choice between the devil and deep blue sea. That, by the way, is if they truly have the franchise to freely pick who leads them as Nigeria continues a democratic journey that has been anything but rewarding or representative of the fine ethos of democracy that we see elsewhere, As it is, we are just going through the same motion where one deceit takes over from the other and leaves the majority of the people grasping for crumbs. That has been the narrative since 1999 and nothing suggests that lessons have been learnt to raise our hopes as we inch closer to another general election.

Why do I say so? In this season of defections, everyone that has jumped ship has placed the blame right at the footsteps of President Muhammadu Buhari for being such an abysmal failure in office. It was as if the defectors just woke up from a deep slumber to realise that they were on the wrong bed with the wrong woman. And suddenly, Buhari, the bride they jostled to woo some four years back, has become the most talked about divorcee in our recent history. In defence of his defection, the Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, said the party he joined with pomp and panache as Speaker of the House of Representatives has become “a sanctuary for the corrupt, a machine for rigging” whilst the PDP has learnt a great lesson from its defeat in 2015 and now conditioned to do things better. Senate President Saraki also echoed what the 14 senators he superintended to join the PDP gave as reasons for jumping gun. He merely added that he was a victim of intimidation, harassment and blackmail just because he insisted on fair play, equity and justice. And then, the former spokesperson of the APC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, blamed his exit on what he described as the high-handedness of the party Chairman, Adam Oshiomhole, for subjugating his duties to that of subordinates. Even Benue State’s Samuel Ortom had his fair share of the washing down of Buhari as the presumed architects of the gory and condemnable killings in the state.

All these conjectures, I assume, are politically correct and it is in that regard that I hail all those who have decided to try their political fortunes elsewhere. I can only, like Buhari said, wish them luck since it is within their constitutional rights to do so. Having said this, it is important to note that most of these political prostitutes were never truly part of the real fulcrum of the APC. In actual fact, they were the real scallywags that derailed whatever momentum the party may have gained at the inception of the Buhari administration. That is the wailing truth. When you look at it, Saraki’s Senate and Yakubu Dogara’s House of Representatives remain the greatest threat to the Buhari Presidency and they did everything within their powers to ridicule not just the President but also the party.

When you listen to Saraki, Tambuwal and Ortom reel out records indicating the abysmal rate of poverty, unemployment, low literacy, workers apathy and Buhari’s inability to fight corruption, you would think that the Federal Government denied them whatever was due to them from the Federation Accounts which rendered them impotent to be the change agents in their constituencies or states. With all the billions that Ortom is said to have allocated to his office as security vote, you wonder why the state remains under the siege of herdsmen attack. What, for example, did he do with the billions of naira that was approved to settle workers’ salaries that, at the point of his defection, he owed more than seven months in arrears? And does Tambuwal, in his good conscience, believe that this administration is as corrosively corrupt as the gangsters he has gone back to pally with on the other side of the fence? If yes, what are the facts at his disposal that would dwarf the humongous sleaze linked to some of the key figures in the PDP then? And when, if one could ask, did the APC become a “machine for rigging” knowing that, prior to the Ekiti election, the PDP had been coasting home to victory in most of the elections.

It is one thing to pander to the whims and caprices of the politics of long knives and daggers here. It is another thing to excuse this vilest means of politicking on concocted maze of deceit. It is, to me, laughable that everyone now claims to be a victim of Buhari’s high-handedness. Those who have followed recent developments in our political history would easily name one or two leaders who wouldn’t tolerate half of what this ‘devil’ of a Buhari had stomached in the last three years where members of his own party in the National Assembly decided to be his worst nightmares even before he could settle down on the job. Even when he bent over backwards to work with the queer leadership structures, did those involved not frustrate all moves to inject some level of sanity in the relations? And is the present gale of defections not the culmination of a coup long foretold? So, what is really new other than a realignment of the same self-conceited forces that got us in this mess?

In dissecting Nigeria and its politics, the inimitable icon of goodness and democracy in Africa, the late Nelson Mandela, lamented that the country has simply refused to take its pride of place as the leading light of democratic governance in Africa. In the much quoted article written by Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, Mandela gave his thoughts on why Nigeria remains in this puddle of untapped potential and seeming hopelessness. In brief, he said we not only let our country down but Africa and the entire race too. He said in spite of the immense resources we have been blessed with to be great, Nigeria is “known principally for its dictators and its criminals.”

And then, the clincher: “The world will not respect Africa until Nigeria earns that respect. The black people of the world need Nigeria to be great as a source of pride and confidence. Nigerians love freedom and hate oppression. Why do you do it to yourselves? Your leaders have no respect for their people. They believe that their personal interests are the interests of the people. They take people’s resources and turn it into personal wealth. There is a level of poverty in Nigeria that should be unacceptable. I cannot understand why Nigerians are not angrier than they are. What do young Nigerians think about your leaders and their country and Africa? Do you teach them history? Do you have lessons on how your past leaders stood by us and gave us large amounts of money? But what about the corruption and the crimes? Your elections are like wars’. Now we hear that you cannot be president in Nigeria unless you are Muslim or Christian. Some people tell me your country may break up. Please don’t let it happen.

“Let me tell you what I think you need to do, you should encourage leaders to emerge who will not confuse public office with sources of making personal wealth. Corrupt people do not make good leaders. Then you have to spend a lot of your resources for education. Educate children of the poor, so that they can get out of poverty. Poverty does not breed confidence. Only confident people can bring changes. Poor, uneducated people can also bring change, but it will be hijacked by the educated and the wealthy’.

As I mull over those immortal words by the Madiba after many years of democratic governance in Nigeria, all I see is the same old stunts being repeated again. And the question pops up: where is Nigeria headed this time?

Note: Knucklehead will be off for some weeks as I go on annual vacation, away from the firing line of my editors and their persistent reminders about deadlines. See you in September.  

When the Minister for Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, fumbled on the podium by mixing up the name of his party’s gubernatorial candidate, Kayode Fayemi, with that of the outgoing governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, it just occurred to me that the chasm of numbing shenanigans that has pervaded our politics for many years is not about to end anytime soon. Instead, it is becoming fashionable among those we tag political elites here to shamelessly clown around with issues that many noteworthy political figures elsewhere had voluntarily stepped down without much ado.

Oftentimes, such resignations may be due to what we have come to accept here as slight indiscretions or ideological differences. It may be true that the general principle and first rule of politics is never to resign. Elsewhere, people have serially ignored this rule either on moral grounds or when they are of the convictions that it would deepen democracy and strengthen the institutions of governance. Here, the opposite is the case. In the United Kingdom, for example, reports say many politicians “have been forced to quit in scandals involving sex, theft, drugs, double-crossing, call girls and even attempted murder.” Add that to the fact some of the resignations came out of the principled stands of these individuals against certain policies and you would understand why, in most of these developed countries, democracy is not a knife and dagger engagements.

Some years back in Canada, the story was told of a high-ranking government official who had to throw in the towel for allegedly using government money to pay for a cup of tea in a café. It is that serious. In Nigeria, the narrative is different. It is no news that the local champions operating in our political space can, if they desire, walk away with murder. We have so bastardised politics that those fleecing our collective patrimony are worshipped as heroes in a failed system. That is why, for example, someone like Ngige may not read much meaning to the heresy he committed last Tuesday, campaigning for the opposing candidate at a political rally organised for his party’s candidate. Yet, I concur we would be asking for too much if we had demanded for his resignation as a Minister of the Federal Republic. After all, is it not in this same government that a serving female minister swore not to back President Muhammadu Buhari’s second term bid, threatening to resign her appointment as her loyalty for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar was unshaken? Months after Buhari declared his intention to re-contest for that post, has that minister resigned either on principle; clash of interest or even on moral ground? So, why should we berate Ngige for having his share in this farcical politics where the blind leads the lame and deaf?

Nothing demonstrates the ineffectualness of our politics to break away from the clowning around than Monday’s reported amalgamation of 39 political parties with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party with the aim of wresting power from Buhari and his All Progressives Congress in the 2019 general elections.

The first question that agitates one’s mind is: where on earth did these 39 mushroom parties spring from such that they now have the capacity to be partners in an orchestrated coup by the PDP to remove an incumbent government? When you sift through the names of the so-called titans in that hall that day, what you get is the same band of Buhari foes—those who couldn’t make any difference in the lives of the citizens when given the opportunities in the past. And when you realiSe that the sole agenda was to get Buhari off the presidential seat, you begin to get a clear understanding of the huge web of deceit that informed that mob action. It is, simply put, a personal battle by disgruntled elements riled by the fact that it is extremely difficult to lay hands on the national till as it was the practice in the immediate past.

Let’s take a peep into the Memorandum of Understanding read by no less a person than good old Chief Tom Ikimi of the “Obasenjo” fame. The signatories, among other things, resolved to field a joint presidential candidate which, I assume, would necessarily have to emerge from the PDP. They would also pick common candidates for governorship, National Assembly, state assemblies and even the Federal Capital Territory. They would, at the same time, promote core values for the restructuring of the country, sharing of political offices among persons and groups across the six geo-political zones while promising to install a unity government with a joint manifesto that will usher in a structured economic and fiscal federalism. Gibberish!

You ask: what is the difference between this new MoU and the one the estranged members of the new Peoples Democratic Party signed with the APC before they became the Reformed APC and eventually return to their original heritage, the PDP? The answer is muted in the things that were left unsaid at Monday’s event. As someone puts it, the devil is in the details. Buhari may not have performed exceptionally well in that office but those who laid the booby traps that led to his incompetence shouldn’t be the ones to be selling us a dummy about how they are poised to transform a system they had a hand in ruining.

If the truth must be told, a large chunk of the politicians that assembled to plot the downfall of Buhari at that forum should have either shamelessly retied from politics or cooling their heels somewhere in our prisons for the callous rape of our collective patrimony. But because no one resigns from politics here, they are the ones latching on to the same old tricks that empowered them to glibly impoverish the vulnerable majority.

Don’t get it twisted, there is nothing wrong with a coalition if such would truly lead to the advancement of democratic governance and enhance the nation’s economic development. But this concoction being brewed in Wadata House is a poisoned chalice. It doesn’t smell nice. It riddled with the scallywags of our infamous past and confessed election riggers. It is peopled by persons who thrived on nothing but treachery. In my mind, the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) is couched in the meanest form of political chicanery funded by the same persons who betrayed the ruling APC and sold its birthright for a morsel to the opposition PDP at the inception of the Buhari administration. The same persons who told Buhari to keep on dancing as they securely watch his back are the same elements to thrust a dagger through his back, targeting his delicate positioned heart. They know themselves. At the onset, we saw the earlier signs, warned Buhari to be wary of letting off his guards. He didn’t listen neither did he show any signs that he realised how serious the matter was until they started to urinate on his head from their privileged positions. Now, they want him out in the sun to roast pledging what they couldn’t provide in their sixteen years of rudderless leadership.

When you leverage on the percentage of those with corruption cases hanging on their necks at that gathering including those who have failed to account for the billions of naira they collected from the Office of the National Security Adviser to run the 2015 presidential campaign, you can only conclude that these persons would try all the tricks in the books, including blackmail, to make sure that the control of the treasury returns to them. They have already started by directing the President to suspend action on the Executive Order on Asset Forfeiture which was signed last week. We do not need to look far to know why this is expedient.

With majority of the elite and political office holders living way beyond their means, it is inevitable that implementing a law that empowers the government to seize assets suspected to be proceeds of crimes (either economic or otherwise) would not sit well with the direct beneficiaries of a system that runs on corrosive graft.

No wonder it became a subject of discussion at the CUPP’s signing ceremony where a serving senator treated the audience to his usual musical buffoonery of returning ‘home’ with a fake apocalyptic heresy that Buhari is doomed. If men, especially Nigerian politicians, were God, won’t we all be doomed by now?

True, this country needs to divorce itself from the shameful past and begin a true process of political rebirth. It is one thing that has eluded us, not for want of trying but because the task of doing that was often placed in the hands of political buccaneers masquerading as patriots. Unfortunately, the 2019 election process has begun with the charlatans serving a gullible nation with the same phantasmagoric tale that leads to nowhere but the path of damnation. Will we ever exhale someday and have our peace?