The Nation Newspaper

Tag: alone

  • Mugabe not alone in Africa

    Mugabe not alone in Africa

    The world had literally come to a standstill for the two weeks ended on Saturday November 25. It is not a threatened world war or a worldwide political or civic disorder; rather, it is the story of a country tucked in Southern Africa that has held the world hostage for about 15 days. Even the Boko Haram story in Nigeria was demoted to a mere gossip notwithstanding the fact dozens of our country men, women and children were mercilessly slaughtered by these dare-devil extremists.

    Robert Mugabe who had held sway for 37 years and at age 93 has literally bedevilled the world. What is the short story of this enigma? He was a nationalist, suave, daring and committed during the Zimbabwe colonial era. He confronted Ian Smith, the notorious colonial master of Rhodesia. For his guerrilla struggle, he was kept behind bars for 11 years. Relief came in 1980 when Northern Rhodesia became the independent Republic of Zimbabwe and Mugabe appointed prime minister. He did not at first show his fangs until he later converted himself President of the Republic.

    Once adjudged the food basket of Southern Africa with more than 50% of the arable land owned and developed into large plantations by white settlers who have in fact become Zimbabweans, Mugabe’s ruthless land policy soon landed the unfortunate country into food chaos and economic disaster. He probably meant well with his land redistribution policy, but it was executed with vindictiveness and sly that the country soon ran into troubled waters.

    Robert Mugabe, unyielding, self-assured, and always-right, literarily ran the country aground. Moving from one economic and financial chaos to another, the country lost hold of her national currency which in any case has become useless. In all of this, Zimbabweans were reticent, if flabbergasted. Unable to raise a finger, they suffered the agony of a vanishing past.

    The African countries around Zimbabwe looked on and were unable to dialogue with the all-knowing Mugabe.

    Sometimes along the line, he saw himself creating a dynasty with his new wife succeeding him. Even though there is constitutional provision for succession, he ignored this and continued to work and hope to die in office, having nothing to do with resignation or retirement. With all these, the armed forces and the people looked on helplessly.

    With the above, can one conclude that Robert Gabriel Mugabe was a lone-ranger among African leaders? No, he was in good company. Near us in Nigeria, we have Togo where the incumbent president and his father have both spent 50 years on the political throne. The Gambia was recently ruled by a political clown, a sergeant who believed he was destined to be king of a country of less than three million people for life. We have Uganda whose fast talking President took over from Idi-Amin about 25 years ago. Both Idi-Amin the slave dealer and his successor have held Uganda in slavery.

    The story is not different in Angola where freedom fighters graduated into oppressors after the demise of the colonialists.  Liberia under Doe or Taylor is not different from others. Reprieve came to neighbouring Ghana only when J.J. Rawlings lined up eight political leaders and shot them to death. After this, Ghana became a liberal democracy.

    One can see from the above that Robert Mugabe has been in good company all along. The exceptions in African are Lesotho, Nelson Mandela’s South Africa and Nigeria.

    One must continue to ask the question, must African countries undergo this incessant political turmoil before they settle down to civilized governance or must we undergo such violent political surgery as occurred in many countries?

    It must be admitted that both the military and civilian population of Zimbabwe behaved well and out of fashion with the trend with other African countries. The political and professional dexterity displayed by the military is un-African, considering our experience on the continent. For about a week, the military was alleged to have taken over without spilling blood and without social dislocation that go with such practice elsewhere in Africa.

    The military manoeuvred the recalcitrant Mugabe and egged him-on for almost a week before the old man agreed to step down. As of the time of writing this report, Robert Mugabe continued to be a free man without the harassment of the military or the reprisal of the civilian population. Indeed most Zimbabweans are sympathetic to the old fox. Remembering his fight for independence and the land he grabbed from the white population, they seemed to have forgiven him for the atrocities he allegedly perpetrated in his past 37 years in office.

    Africans particularly Nigerians must learn from the behaviour of the Zimbabwean military and civilian population to learn to accommodate each other to enable our country move ahead. Zimbabwe is a lesson in modern political history.

     

    • Chief Fasuan, MON, writes from Ado Ekiti.
  • Leave Jega alone

    Leave Jega alone

    •Any plot to remove the INEC boss tempts danger and disruption for Nigeria

    The warning is potent and unequivocal. Some senators belonging to the All Progressives Congress (APC) on February 26 cried out that the hierarchy of the ruling party under President Goodluck Jonathan planned within a week to oust Professor Attahiru Jega as the umpire of the postponed presidential and other polls.

    Whatever the merit of the alarm, we want to sound it loud and clear that all those who contemplate Jega’s ouster are not only cowards but weak-minded subverts of our law. They are courting disaster for this democracy, a system that now stands frail from ceaseless pounding of lawlessness from the bigwigs of the president’s party and their peevish cohorts.

    They mouth the rule of law in one breath, and in the other they act as dedicated gangsters who now see Nigeria as their fiefdoms of avarice and rapine.  The APC senators’ warnings may have been dismissed as partisan ranting, but they have not spoken out of a vacuum. Henchmen of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have not had flattering words for the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). They have accused him of holding meetings he is not on record to have held. They have accused him of cohabiting with northern hegemonists without evidence. They have also tried to tar him with partisan prejudice by saying he meets with elements of the opposition APC, also without proof.

    The president has openly shown displeasure with Prof.  Jega over his disagreement with him over whether the postponed elections should have held. In the last presidential chat, he let everyone hear that he had the powers to remove Jega, although the media weighed in on words to the effect that he had no intention to eject the electoral umpire. The point though is that his intention is not material to the law. He has no powers of any arbitrary sort to remove Professor Jega as the arbiter of the polls now scheduled for March 28 and April 11, 2015.

    The APC senators, led by Senator George Akume, noted that the cynical strategy to remove Jega is the well-worn path of sending him on a terminal leave. They know that if they do that, they can settle on a pliant figure to conduct the polls and do their bidding in rigging the polls in their favour.

    Two fundamental things are wrong with this fiendish design. One, it is against the law. The president has no powers under the law to remove the INEC chief without the support of two-thirds majority in the senate. The president is probably aware of this, and that accounts for the alleged subterfuge of going through the route of an epistolary brigandage. They are alleged to be plotting to ask the head of service to write Prof. Jega to proceed on a terminal leave. The INEC chief has said his term of office does not end until late June this year. So why not ask the man to complete his duty to his fatherland? But because of fear of the outcome of the elections, some desperadoes in the inner sanctum of the president, with his apparent backing, have decided to ratchet up the tension in the country. As the APC leaders quoted from the memo of the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation dated 11th August 2010, “I am to further inform you that paragraph 1 of the Circular clarified that the content of the Circular is only applicable to core officers who run the civil service to retirement at thirty-five (35) years of service or sixty years of age and not for a definite tenure as is the case under reference.”

    Prof. Jega is not a core officer of the civil service but he was appointed for definite tenure. He does not fall into the bracket of those who can be slammed with an indefinite leave prior to leaving office.

    Two, even if the INEC chief falls into that bracket, it reeks of indecency for the presidency to plot his ouster knowing full well that every right-thinking person will believe it is done out of spite and fear. It therefore lacks commonsense to contemplate Jega’s ouster under whatever guise.

    The Jonathan administration was unhappy with the press statement from the INEC chief when he attributed the election postponement to the failure of the service chiefs to guarantee security, especially in the northeast because of the rampaging presence of the Boko Haram sect. The service chiefs have come under vehement hammer over what many see as the undue militarisation and corruption of the top tier of the military. The same military has been accused of lack of spunk and discipline in mowing down the vicious sect in the northeast. Gains have been recorded in the past weeks, and much of it has been attributed to the skill and ferocity of the neighbouring countries, especially Chad Republic. The president, in ceremonial combat fatigue, visited the reclaimed territories while it is still not clear how much our military contributed to the good news.

    Yet, the same military is now being urged by Jonathan loyalists to conduct the polls, even though the Court of Appeal has said it is against the law, and only in emergencies can soldiers play a role in the civil society.

    We must draw the nation’s attention to a group that operates under the amorphous name Southern Nigerian People’s Assembly. Some of the members include former Federal Commissioner of Information Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, former Governor of Anambra State, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, a member of a Yoruba group called Afenifere, Femi Okurounmu and former information minister Walter Ofonagoro. This group that lacks wisdom or any discernible patriotic zeal has called for Jega’s ouster, and the nation should beware of them.

    The president cannot claim ignorance of the bombardment of advertorials in the media from his known loyalists calling for the replacement of Professor Jega. If the president cannot restrain them, it is because he is in sync with them. That is dangerous. The nation is fragile enough as it is, and we do not want the president to take the tension up by any notch.

    Optimists have asserted that Nigeria is familiar with crises of this sort and we, somehow, finagle our way into peace. That is ominous optimism. The first and second republics, the June 12 crisis, and other crises have never been resolved. We went through patchworks only to return to the sanguinary moment we experienced before. Bloodshed and systemic disjuncture often tore down the society. Even though Nigeria has managed to survive, it is not always a guarantee that the past survival will determine the next one. It could be the disaster next looming. That is why the best path is law and decency. Following a path of ousting Jega negates this spirit and tempts anarchy.

  • Leave Nigeria alone

    I often marvel at the attitudes of some Nigerians to issues of national importance. Many people do not yet feel that this country belongs to them and whatever affects her affects them also. They erroneously believe they can go on with their lives independent of whatever becomes of the country. They,therefore, think that the issues that fill newspapers and the television are the business of the politicians and those in government. When they make comments on national issues using social media, most Nigerians are irrational, reckless and portray a disturbing degree of ignorance concerning very basic issues.

    One issue that seems to haunt this nation from its very formation is the question of unity. Typical Nigerian behaviour is to look for somewhere to put the blame. It is the fault of the British. It is the fault of the first post-independence government. It is the fault of the military. It is the fault of the elite. It is the fault of the constitution. For the past fifty years, all we have succeeded in doing as a people is to argue over whose fault it is that Nigeria today is not what she ought to be.

    Pretending to address the nagging issues of mistrust, ethnicity and dangerous competition for political power among the various components of the nation, many people often talk about breaking up Nigeria: let the North and the South each go its way.

    Probably because we do not realise the full weight of such development or because it benefits some of its loudest proponents, we talk about breaking up Nigeria as lightly as if it were nothing important. Each time an election year draws closer, one hears this agitation often. Some politicians have found it a veritable tool constantly harassing the rest of us with the threat of disintegration and making their way to power. They say if they don’t win the election or if somebody from their side of the country does not win, they cannot guarantee the continued existence of Nigeria as a single entity. More recently, the disintegration card has been dangled more dangerously and quite arrogantly at the on-going National Conference.

    Some delegates – obviously spoilt by the fat allowance paid by the Federal Government and desperate to appear to the people at home as doing something – threaten the unity of the country almost every time an important decision is to be made. If the conference does not accept their view on the matter, they threaten to walk out.

    Even under the best circumstances, there will still be people across Nigeria who will express absolute dissatisfaction over the unity of the country and call for a break-up. This is to be expected in every country. Even in the United States of America, some people in some states still talk about leaving the union. However, when this agitation is done at such a high level, it is something to worry about.

    Recently, a medical consultant in my school asked me, “What is the meaning of the ‘Education for one Nigeria’ that you have inscribed on your laboratory coat?” I answered, “I believe the greatest goal of education in Nigeria is to preserve national unity.” The time has come in this country when we must stand up – everyone of us – and make it clear that we would not sit down and watch some people constantly harass this country left and right with the threat of disintegration.

    A few questions will drive home the reasons Nigeria has little alternative than to continue as one nation. When people talk about breaking up the country, what will they break her up into? Often they say, let the North break from the South, or the Christians from the Moslems. Then I ask, “Where is the boundary between Moslems and Christians in this country?” Again, you cannot break up a country peacefully and you are never certain of the outcome – how many pieces for instance will result from the break up?

    I want to submit – and I do on behalf of myself and the citizens who will be my children – that these people talking about breaking up Nigeria should leave her alone. We are a people who do not have the ability to agree on anything. We do not want to spend the next 50 years arguing, holding conferences, sponsoring insurgencies and killing innocent people over the formula for breaking up, or over where the boundary between the Republic of Northern Nigeria and the resulting Republics of Biafra or Oduduwa should lie. People who have lost ideas on how this beautiful land can go on together in the future should quietly retire from the national scene and pave way for some of us who can see the great future of peace and prosperity beckoning our dear nation. Just leave Nigeria alone.

     

    Msonter, 300-Level Medicine, BSU

  • Jonathan can do it alone, so to speak

    Jonathan can do it alone, so to speak

    In less than a week, President Goodluck Jonathan managed both by his blandness and by his irrepressible extemporaneousness to stoke three fierce storms. On Thursday, he announced the appointment of new service chiefs, and as if justifying the suspicion in the Southwest that he was indifferent to the sensibilities of the zone, no one from the zone was appointed to that exalted hierarchy. The implication, say analysts from that zone, is that when the president takes top level security decisions, he will have to assume he knows what the zone thinks. The second storm was the declaration in his Independence Day speech that Nigeria’s rating in the anti-graft war had improved to number three in terms of real efforts to combat corruption. He ascribed the improvement to a study said to have been carried out by Transparency International (TI). But the global corruption watchdog said it carried out no such study, while presidential aides glumly explained they took the information from a newspaper.

    Before Independence Day celebration, the president, at a church service, argued that no one person could save a nation. Comparing himself to the biblical Nehemiah, the president suggested that only the cooperation of the people could make a leader achieve feats. Not so, said analysts. The president must first show the way, offer brilliant and principled leadership, and then persuade the people and mobilise them to achieve the impossible. The president is unlikely to be persuaded by such analysis, for he summarily jettisons anything that does not fit into his worldview. He wants cooperation first; he wants critics, whom he sighed always abused him, to sheathe their swords first; and he wants the snobbish Southwest to drop its political and media opposition to his government first. That, to him, is the only way the virtues of Nehemiah can be brought out.

    It is certainly not the fault of Jonathan that the quality of leadership in Nigeria has fallen. It has been falling since independence, not only in Nigeria but elsewhere in Africa, and indeed all over the world. In the turbulent decades of the mid-20th Century, it was rare to hear the president of a great nation plaintively declare he could not do great things alone. Great leaders have the capacity to walk alone, look only to their inside even if they take advice on the outside, judge right, take bold decisions, and swaddle their policies, which are often prescient, with messianic conviction. Somebody must persuade the Nigerian president to talk right, speak more persuasively and inspiringly about his visions, and believe implacably in himself. Somebody must tell him that by his endless waffle he communicates his hesitations to the whole country.

    Last Sunday, the president told the church congregation in Abuja he alone could not do the job of taking Nigeria to great heights. He is absolutely wrong. He alone can do it if he puts his mind to it. The rest of us are available to be mobilised and led, since we must, for the sake of democracy, endure the remaining years of his first term as best as we can.