The Nation Newspaper

Tag: anarchy

  • ‘We need to prevent a slide into anarchy in Southsouth

    The Nigerians United for Democracy (NUD) has stated that a slide into anarchy in the Southsouth geo-political zone and other parts of Nigeria must be prevented.

    It also told the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), especially its Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to insist on the use of card readers, to ensure free, fair and credible elections on March 28 and April 11 this year.

    NUD described the card readers as Nigeria’s biggest hope for addressing electoral malpractices, while declaring that the persons who are against the use of card readers are election riggers.

    The pro-democracy group in the defence of Nigeria’s democracy maintained that INEC must hold elections on March 28 and April 11, in order to move the country forward.

    The Southsouth Convener of NUD, Anyakwee Nsirimovu, accompanied by the Chairman of an Abuja-based Partners for Electoral Reforms, Ezenwa Nwagwu, and other human rights activists, in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, admonished Nigerians to kick against electoral terrorism.

    The pro-democracy group said: “We need to prevent a slide into anarchy. We need to take our destiny in our own hands. We need to ensure that darkness does not once again descend on our country. We are insisting that nothing must change the new dates of March 28 and April 11. Elections must be allowed to hold on these dates. Nigeria is on the march again. This time, no one will be able to halt the decisive will of the people for democracy and sustainable livelihood.

    “We are also worried by the current move to frustrate INEC in conducting credible elections, by pushing for the use of Temporary Voter Cards (TVCs), which will not allow for the use of card readers, already procured for checkmating election rigging. We wish to emphasise that the use of the card readers is Nigeria’s biggest hope for addressing election day malpractices. The quest to remove the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, in the middle of a context, further confirms the attempt by President Goodluck Jonathan’s government to undermine the use of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) in the country’s forthcoming elections, which the main purpose is to perfect plans to rig the March and April polls.”

    NUD also noted with utmost concern, the growing political tension and killings in various states of the federation and their potential to undermine the electoral process.

    It particularly stated that the violence recently witnessed in Rivers state required vigilance, impartiality and professionalism on the part of the security agents, while urging the security agencies to ensure their fidelity to the constitution and that the citizens are not in any way undermined by political considerations.

    The pro-democracy group also condemned the buying of PVCs by politicians and bribing of voters, stressing that the electorate would not be able to vote with stolen PVCs, describing any attempt to illegally procure PVCs as an exercise in futility.

    The group said: “In rejecting the manipulation of the political transition, the NUD will continue with its rallies across the country, to condemn the conspiracy of the ruling clique against Nigerians.

    “The rallies are for Nigerians to stand hand-in-hand to speak with one voice against electoral terrorism, against any further polls’ shift, against any attempt to remove the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, before his terminal date of June 29, 2015, against any attempt to introduce an Interim National Government (ING), against any military incursion into politics, against corruption, against the devaluation of the national currency and conspiracy to use the court to frustrate INEC from conducting credible elections.

    “Civil authority is a delegation from the people. You cannot hold the country in darkness. Stop struggling against increasing light and liberality in the land. Allow Nigerians their inalienable rights and ensure the correction of abuses before we are completely destroyed under your (President Jonathan’s) leadership. It is a fact in political history that power abuse justifies resistance.”

    NUD also called on Nigerians to come out in large number to assert themselves and take control of their destiny, by fully participating in the nationwide rallies and to always give peace a chance.

     

     

  • Mark: polls shift necessary to avoid anarchy

    Mark: polls shift necessary to avoid anarchy

    The Senate President, David Mark, has urged Nigerians to put the country first before any partisan consideration.

    Mark said this in a statement in Abuja following the postponement of the elections.

    He noted that no matter the political divide, “we all must take the path of caution in order not to jeopardise the process towards a successful exercise in the Nigerian project.”

    The Senate president cautioned against the noise trailing the shift in the conduct of the polls, saying: “It is a necessary step to avoid anarchy and chaos because of some shortcomings and insecurity fuelling the already charged atmosphere.”

    Mark, in the statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Paul Mumeh, said: “To conduct a peaceful, free, fair and credible election that meets international best practices, unarguably demands that all stakeholders and participants be on the same wave length.

    “It is a process that must of necessity be followed religiously. Any of the steps not taken or subverted could produce a questionable result.

    “That is why, we must all be careful in what we do or say.”

     

  • Interim govt …A blank cheque to anarchy

    Interim govt …A blank cheque to anarchy

    Ordinarily, Tunde Bakare is known as a man of the pulpit. His calling is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and this he has done to a notable point for more than two decades. However, anyone who, having observed him pontificating and gesticulating for hours, comes to the conclusion that he is a General would not be off the mark. The mien, the gait and the quick step marching suggest that he gives serious thoughts to his words and would not condone any form of opposition. Pastors  are not known to be Generals. So, when Bakare takes on national leaders or colleagues on the pulpit, he seeks to mow down every form of dissenting opinion, even on matters as minor as the arrangement of a church auditorium.

    It was a surprise when he chose to step on the political dais in 2011. He toured the country; attacked opponents of his political party of choice and insisted on being the running mate to Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, even when expediency dictated that taking on the incumbent could require a coalition of forces that could have necessitated a trade-off.

    Many of those who had come to love or dislike his style had looked forward to his position on the current political setting. It was predictable that he would say something that would provoke a debate. That prediction came to pass on Sunday as Pastor Bakare chose to address the forthcoming general elections. The title he gave his speech at his church, The Latter Rain Assembly, was enough to give away his thought. He provocatively addressed the issues under the headline: “The gathering storm and avoidable shipwreck: How to avoid catastrophic Euroclydon”

    The thoughts of the leading cleric and probably now retired partisan politician on the way out of the crisis in the land are enough to show that a lot has happened between his last time out and the current juncture. The analysis is certainly slanted. First, he pointed out that the storm is gathering____an indication that the nation is perching on a tightrope. Second, Pastor Bakare is suggesting that the ship of state is about sinking and that urgent steps must be taken to avoid such a dire occurrence. Three, he considers the situation so alarming that he compared it to a catastrophe. This is probably a good description of the state of the Nigerian state today.

    But, going further, the former chieftain of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), deliberately refused to apportion blames. This could be pardoned because he ostensibly wants to be an agent of peace. But, if he could not explore the path to the chaos and rot in the land, how would he come up with far-reaching suggestions on the way forward? How did he come to the conclusion that the only way out is putting in place an interim government?

    In analysing the situation, he concluded that there must be a change. He pointed out that Nigeria could slide into anarchy if concerted efforts were not made to stem the slide. But, his recommendation that the same government largely responsible for the rot should be empowered to spearhead the change stands logic on the head. In advocating the continuation of the Jonathan administration, by whatever description, for another two years, the convener of the defunct Save Nigeria Group is suggesting that the President be rewarded with two unearned years in order to conduct landmark political, social and economic engineering. It could be argued that the pastor is merely advocating a broad coalition of forces that would encompass Nigerians of diverse backgrounds to support the current government, thus injecting capacity, but the critical factor in government is leadership. Has President Goodluck Jonathan demonstrated capacity to lead? Would this be a solution or a new dimension to the crisis? What would a government lacking spine do at a time like this?

    The Shonekan experiment

    History could be a worthy guide, when carefully explored in charting the path to the future. But, it could also be disastrous when its lessons are wrongly applied. Pastor Bakare was obviously oblivious of the disaster that the last experiment at having a transition government generated. Disgraced and seeking a soft landing, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida decided to put in place a lame-duck administration headed by Chief Ernest Adegunle Shonekan. It was obvious to all analysts that the edifice lacked any form of foundation, let alone a solid one. It lacked legitimacy, being neither elected but backed by the brute force enjoyed by a military regime. It lasted a mere 82 days. Another general, Sani Abacha, struck at will and the house of cards crumbled. What would make the new interim government better? The interim government headed by Shonekan, too, had been canvassed by many Nigerians; a number of them eminent and considered credible. Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, then a former military head of State and an international figure, had canvassed the option of a transition government. Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, an academic of repute, wanted an interim government headed by Chief MKO Abiola as a way out of the impasse. But, as they called for the option, the military strategists were also at work. They had their joker and played it out the way they wanted.

    Even when Shonekan was ousted like guinea worm, the Gen. Abacha regime pretended to be a friend of the people. To gain legitimacy, it danced to the popular tune for a while. Appointments that appeared to accede to popular demands for a progressive government were made and a “constitutional conference with full constituent power” was promised. The regime, latching on to the credibility of its Attorney-General, Dr. Olu Onagoruwa, quickly put together the conference. It was sheer gimmick. That regime was to last almost five years. And, its leader sought a transmutation to a civilian President. His dream was aborted only by the intervention of death.

    It must be recalled that, in putting the Interim National Government contraption together, leaders of the two existing political parties were involved as were the civil service, the civil society and with the concurrence of the military. Yet, it all led to an abyss.

     

    Legitimacy and governance

     

    In the twenty-first century, what makes the difference between a despotic government and a democracy is the mandate freely handed democrats in power. They are expected to decide how the society must run based on a choice freely made at an election where options were canvassed. It is inconceivable that after five years in power, President Jonathan could be handed a two-year extension outside the people’s mandate? What would be the authority of the hand-picked people to decide members of the cabinet? What role would the National Assembly play? Would there be an extension for the lawmakers, too? What about the states? As the constituent units of a Federation, would there be elections for the lawmakers and Chief Executives at that level? And, if as being suggested, the recommendation is implemented at all levels, what new thing are we introducing? In many states where the people are advocating a change, mainly because of new development on the political scene, how would an extension necessarily tantamount to progress?

    It would take a new government to mobilise the people for the change necessary in the country. Jonathan might have spent N7 billion on the National Conference jamboree, however, it amounts to another insult to suggest that only his administration could implement it. Why did he wait till the tail end of his tenure to empanel the body? It appears part of an unfolding script. While the conference was on, even when the President and henchmen of his administration insisted that there was enough time to carry through the recommendations of the parley, Chief Ayo Adebanjo and the Odumakins were already canvassing the extension option. Curiously, many other leading lights of the Southwest on whom the people had previously counted kept mum, thus suggesting that they were in agreement with the dangerous suggestion.

    Jonathan was elected for a four-year term in 2011, after a fortuitous 23 months bonus off the Yar’Adua government. Anything that tampers with the People’s Mandate is a coup against the constitution and the Popular Will. Section 135 quoted by Pastor Bakare does not envisage the situation in the country today. Nigeria is not the only country in the world where insurgents have taken arms against the state. In Europe, Africa and South America, the central authorities have been and are being challenged in many countries. It has taken the political will of those in power to curtail the terrorists and ensure that the state survives. Even in Nigeria, it is not new. In the Second Republic, there was the Maitatsine challenge in Kano. It took prompt and decisive action by the Federal Government and the military to suppress it. At another point, there was incursion into the Nigerian territory through Chad Republic; it took a courageous push by the military to check the move. Either of those could have imperiled the Nigerian state as the Boko Haram terror is doing today, if not given adequate attention.

    The Jonathan administration that had canvassed a single tenure of seven years does not deserve an extension that would fulfill that aim through the back door. The Nigerian electorate should not be shut out of the political process. If, in 1946, the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) mobilised Nigerians, under colonial rule, against imposition of a constitution, this cannot be accepted in 2015.

    Pastor Bakare should limit his involvement to praying and preaching for a new Nigeria. If he must get involved in calling attention to the ship of state, he should stay on the side of law and the good order. An interim government is an invitation to chaos, anarchy and purposelessness.

  • Nigeria on the brink of anarchy!

    ‘Of all things that a prince must guard against, the most important are being despicable and hated, and liberality will lead you to one or the other of these conditions’

    I start this week with some lines from Machiavelli’s The Prince (1513). ‘A Prince’ (i.e. a ruler), he writes,  … must not object to be called miserly. In the course of time, he will be thought more liberal, when it is seen that by his parsimony, his revenue is sufficient, that he can defend himself against those who make war on him and undertake enterprises without burdening his people, so that he is really liberal to all those from whom he does not take, who are infinite in number, and niggardly to all to whom he does not give, who are few. … if he wishes to be able to defend himself, to avoid becoming poor and contemptible, and not be forced to become rapacious; this niggardliness is one of those vices which enable him to reign …

    This simply means that a ruler must be seen not to yield too easily to his friends’ requests at the expense of the state. He will risk being called miserly with state funds and resources by his friends but that would be better than allowing state funds and resources to be at the whims of those friends and associates. The larger majority, saved from being overburdened by excessive taxation when the ruler does need money, would rise and call that ruler liberal, maybe even blessed. Machiavelli’s treatise on ruling has often been called ‘cold-blooded’, ‘cunning’ or ‘cynical’, but one can hardly doubt its reasonableness when pitted against the present Nigerian situation, where a very expensive governance style is threatening to plunge the country down the lane of insolvency. The reasons are not far-fetched: either because the state has managed to rope itself into insolvency by overpaying its legislature and friends or the president has not been too wise in his choice of beneficiaries for state largess such as fuel subsidy payment, even to those who do not import anything remotely resembling fuel.

    By its own admittance, the federal government stated that the fuel subsidy was no higher than two hundred (200) or so billion naira before the elections. A few months after the election, however, the bill jumped into the trillion brackets. This means the president picked up some wrong friends along the way. It has also been rumoured forever that electricity tariff would be hiked up too. Spoken in any of Nigeria’s 450 languages, all these translate to only one thing to the people: the president has lost the sense of fellow-feeling they voted for and the people feel very hurt and betrayed for several reasons.

    To start with, people of different religions, tribes and political persuasions had turned out in large numbers to vote for the president. In the people’s dictionary, voting for someone is as good as offering that someone a finger to feed him/her. And no one, absolutely no one, bites the finger that feeds, err, votes for him. Removing the subsidy on fuel, something the country has enjoyed for a long time, is tantamount to biting the people’s finger.

    Furthermore, the government’s argument that the subsidy payouts are benefitting only a small group of people, a ‘cabal’ constituted of some well-placed friends of the government (who are too lazy to work like you and I) does not cut it for the people. This cabal of friends also appears to be well beyond the punitive arms of the president as the government has been heard to declare that it cannot deal with them as economic saboteurs as the law demands because its hands are tied, the government’s, not the law’s.

    I think that’s why the people are really angry as it stands for everything that has been wrong with this country from the beginning. Successive governments’ inability to deal with its friends has been the root of Nigeria’s corruption from the years of import license scandal to policy changes and now to fuel importation. In any case, what government ever admits that it cannot make a citizen of its own bend to the law? Tis a strong one indeed who prays, ‘God save me from my friends; my enemies I can handle.’

    Then, the government announced unashamedly that it was placing a great deal of faith and hope on the charity it intended to dole out as ‘palliative measures’ for removing the much-loved subsidy. This consisted of the amount of money that it would distribute to the federal, state and local governments who ‘would’ use the money for the ‘good’ of the people.

    Unfortunately, each time the government extended some carrots at the end of a long stick to the people to nibble at as palliatives for a bitter economic policy, the people would start to laugh out loud. They laugh not just because they are used to the trick but more because providing a few carrots in each state to cushion the effects of an unpopular policy is indeed laughable. It also says a lot about the intelligence of the thinkers-up of such palliatives. They also laugh because of pain.

    The people know that we live in a country riddled with corruption (we will soon have ‘Corruption Street’), where governors, assemblymen and sundry political party individuals have pilfered large sums from the government’s own treasury into their own private pockets. I heard that a politician bought a house costing hundreds of millions of Naira for his girlfriend. How then are the people to believe that any accrual from an economic policy will not go further to fill some rapacious party fellow’s pockets (the monthly allocations have already lined them)? This is just a sign of the corruption which is really at the bane of this problem.

    Now, owing to the economic profligacy of the country, there are not enough buffers to withstand the new economic downturn brought on by the sliding price of oil in the international market. Everywhere you turn these days, people are groaning that ‘there is no money in town’ or ‘the nation’s pockets are dry’. Yet, everyone agrees that the rapacious appetites of the voracious group called politicians continue unabated.

    What the people are asking for is simple enough. The people want to be provided more serious infrastructure such as train services, affordable housing, industries, a constant flow of electricity, well equipped hospitals, and other good signs of statehood for which people pay tax. Are all these too much to ask, I ask you?

    More importantly, the people want a government that can save the weak from the strong, keep the strong from destroying himself and the state, and stop pushing the people’s button. For, when the people’s button is pushed, they will react again and again and again. Their reaction, however, is not what takes the country to the precipice. No sir; it is when the country is handed over to cronies and friends and party members that the country will be pulled into certain anarchy. It is government liberality to a few that has led to the corruption that has taken us to where we are now; it is this government liberality that the people are fighting. “That government is best which governs the least”, says an adage. I end as I started, with Machiavelli’s The Prince:

    There is nothing which destroys itself so much as liberality, for by using it you lose the power of using it, and become either poor and despicable, or, to escape poverty, rapacious and hated. And, of all things that a prince must guard against, the most important are being despicable and hated, and liberality will lead you to one or the other of these conditions.

     

    • This article was first published sometime in 2011 but has been modified because its continued relevance today cannot be held in doubt.

  • Looming anarchy in Edo State

    Looming anarchy in Edo State

    •Police look away as hoodlums sack legislators, threaten governance

    The drama in the Edo State House of Assembly took a dangerous turn as miscreants last week invaded the official quarters of the state lawmakers, destroyed properties and attacked their families. It was a sign that the crisis that had grounded activities of the House since May might indeed have pitched the Federal Government and its agencies against the state government, to the detriment of the welfare and security of the people for which the governments exist.

    The police whose duty is so germane to protecting the peace of the state seem to have read the political barometer and taken a decision to favour the party controlling power at the centre. This runs contrary to the expectation of the state government whose leader is dubbed not just the chief executive but also chief security officer.

    The claims and counterclaims by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the centre and the All Progressives Congress (APC) that provided the platform on which Governor Adams Oshiomhole rode to power are so long and the noise so deafening that one would be correct to liken it to the noise made by tanks and ballistic missiles in modern warfare. The facts of the crisis are so clear, but the use to which they have been put are so befuddled that it would take the most brilliant judge time to make sense out of it.

    It is a fact that four members of the assembly, namely Abdulrahzaq Momoh, Jude Ise-Idehen, Patrick Osayimwen, and Friday Ogeiriakhi defected from the APC to the PDP. The state governor and his party frowned at the move, which was seen as a grand plan to destabilise the state and impeach Oshiomhole. Realising that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, the APC that still controls 15 of the 24 members of the assembly immediately hatched plans to suspend the four legislators.

    It was against this background that we could understand the slide to violence and seeping anarchy in the state. The PDP claims that the earlier assault on Momoh was executed by the APC, with cover allegedly provided by Governor Oshiomhole, while the invasion of the legislators’ quarters and the mayhem unleashed there last Saturday was regarded as the handiwork of the PDP.

    The tragedy of the situation is that all we have are claims by parties. The state police command has its voice muffled as it is regarded as a party to the fray. Governor Oshiomhole alleged that he personally got the police commissioner informed of an imminent attack on the legislators. Rather than respond by beefing up security around the legislators and the quarters, the police were said to have merely found a way of withdrawing those already attached to the quarters, thus paving the way for easy operation by the murderous gang.

    This is quite unfortunate as it falls into a discernible pattern evolving in different parts of the country. In Rivers and Ekiti states, similar drama had earlier played out. This is clear and present danger to democracy. Where an institution like the police fail to perform its task professionally, the people are encouraged to resort to self help and the result is total breakdown of law and order.

    The people of Edo State want and deserve peace. We therefore call on the police to lift the siege on the House of Assembly, win the confidence of the gladiators and work with democratic institutions in the state towards ensuring that all act within the parameters prescribed by law. We also call on the major political parties and their leadership to restrain their members and ensure that all conform to the requirement of the law. Should the existing tension in the state be carried to next February when the governorship and legislative elections would hold, violence is likely to be the by-product. This is an avoidable ill wind.

  • S-NC in 2014? Combat govt anarchy: Nigeriawhistleblowers.com; FERMA-a failure?

    Critics of Sovereign National Conference (SNC) emphasise that the federal government has misled us before. Indeed at every turn federal government, comprising small-minded petty people in uniform- military, babanriga, agbada -has serially abused its power and disenfranchised, disappointed and failed millions of Nigerians through subterfuge for sectional power and personal gain. These little people are as guilty of anarchy as gun-wielding terrorists. Once in power they mainly claim the power for themselves.

    Government anarchy is evidenced by unbridled mega-corruption and arrogance, viciousness and violence by officials. The disbandment of several agencies of state government for corruption, assault and battery is welcomed but we need prosecution of guilty officials, not discharge. Indeed their leaders should face prosecution for failing to supervise staff and unleashing staff to abuse the authority their uniforms. We need more staff for regular forensic financial and social auditing to prevent fraudulent financial and moral behaviour in government. Imagine a meeting hearing that a vehicle costs N70m, doubling the cost and taking a bank loan, unavailable to Nigerians, and paying three times the inflated cost over three years. Is that not corruption and money laundering? First Bank should face sanctions and a boycott threat from Nigerians. Investigation must dissect the minutes of aviation meetings and identify who took the crazy repayment decisions. Who were the final beneficiaries of the Aviationgate N255m? Was this just standard procedure and part of the ‘Secret Internally Generated Party Revenue Programme’- a large party cut from every contract done at state level as well- with funds to be funnelled to the party preparing for 2015 elections? We know it is the tip of the ‘Inflation of Contracts Iceberg’ by which governing parties get their money. We should have a Nigeriawhistleblowers.com website where Nigerian whistleblowers register all suspected cases for scrutiny, exposure and clearance.

    Since we have mass unemployment, why not increase staff auditing, supervising or monitoring corruption and incompetence in the public service, police, and parallel organisations like road and traffic control organisations? How many citizens have been killed by police –public encounters recently? In addition anarchical government is manifest by politically motivated demolitions of buildings, throwbacks to the civil war. Such activities are thinly disguised ‘Abuse of the Master Political Plan’.

    Is the end of any hope for good governance in sight or should we consider this sudden interest in NC by the presidency and the milito-democracy of the Senate President as an olive branch? Or is it a poisoned olive branch to affect all those who touch it or is it an olive branch coiled around a dagger to stab us with or to cut us as a two edged sword when it is withdrawn after we have grabbed it with both hands leaving us bloody and crippled yet again? Only time will reveal the true government agenda drawn up in secret by the little men hiding under the cloak of governance while millions of our children have no textbooks and potholes fill the roads.

    Whatever government’s agenda, the S-NC, a people’s forum beyond just politics, should go ahead immediately in early 2014. Already the first order of business has been suggested: Adopt and incorporate most of  past reports and summaries of political and social significance including the 118 clauses already proposed by the National Political Reform 2005 committee, the Belgore Committee and others highlighted by ex-Governor Bola Tinubu and other concerned Nigerians. Once in place that will not take a month let alone the whole of 2014.

    Who will be the delegates? The suggestion that existing LGAs should be the basis for the S-NC on the principle of one person /LGA sounds like a sound principle if you are ignorant of Nigeria’s politico-military history. These LGs are a main problem of true federalism needing solution and a deliberate mis-creation of the morally corrupt military and feudal federalism to always favour the North by giving them ‘sovereignty, senatorial and representational and therefore financial superiority’ as many revenue allocations and other fiscal advantages are based on LGAs. Such brazenly fraudulent illegalities in LGA creation were legalised in the 1999 constitution and the trademark of Nigeria’s military regimes waywardness. They remain un-reversed and irreversible even during the democracies of 1999-2013 because of the advantage in the NASS to the cheats. Which senator/representative will vote himself out of power? Suffice to say that Lagos has 20 federally recognised LGAs while Kano and Jigawa formerly one state Kano have 77 LGAs. The Census tribunal and Festus Odimegwu the executive whistleblower exposed the flaws in this corrupt distribution of LGAs. Is justice, emphasised by Professor Soyinka as the bedrock of decent society, served by cheating Lagos in 2013? It is such devious financial and political discrimination that created the animosity resulting in this festering feudal federalism in need of a S-National Conference.

    Meanwhile multibillions in salaries funding FERMA’s inactivity fail to translate into filling Nigeria’s potholes except at holidays like December or governor’s or president’s visits? So we can die January to November? Why should FERMA not be disbanded for failing Nigeria’s road challenges? Why did FERMA not predict, anticipate and avert the flood and subsequent three-hour traffic jam on Sunday afternoon at the lowest point of the bridge/road just before Otedola Estate on the Lagos Ibadan Road by maintaining functional drainage holes in the bridge walls? FERMA should defend itself against incompetence charges or is it so underfunded that it cannot fill potholes?

     

  • APC warns against anarchy in Imo

    APC warns against anarchy in Imo

    •Plot to remove Okorocha condemned

    The alleged plot by the Presidency to remove Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha from office through the instrumentality of the Supreme Court, has attracted criticism in the state and beyond.

    Decrying the reported gang up against the governor, the Imo State Coordinator of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Marshal Okoroafor Anyanwu, warned that any attempt from any quarter to derail the state would be resisted by the people.

    He said such a plan to return the state to the era of maladministration, corruption and recklessness, after it was beginning to recover, would not only fail but would also demean those behind the plot. “We have had enough of looting and irresponsible government. The Presidency should leave Imo State alone. We are better the way we are and they should leave us alone,” Anyanwu said.

    He went on: “How do they think they can manipulate the court to return Ikedi Ohakim as the governor, after he has exhausted his case from the tribunal to the Appeal Court? I don’t know how one can plan to truncate a government that has been running in the last two years.

    “If the Presidency succeeds in removing Okorocha and bringing Ohakim, how will they explain to the youth currently enjoying free education and other dividends of democracy? How will they expect them to fold their arms and watch as outsiders destroy their state? Enough is enough, we have had enough of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) madness. We are ready for them.”

    A youth body, the Imo Progressive Youth Forum, has cautioned against any plot that would throw the state into anarchy. It said the court should not be manipulated in the governorship suit, adding that the nation’s constitution was above every person no matter how highly placed.

    The group’s president, Mr. Onyegbule Kelechi Goodluck, said: “Truth must be told, the Okorocha administration is a departure from the era of waste and non-performance. Youths have been partnered and empowered and any plan to truncate this through dubious means will be resisted.

    “We do not want any policy reversal that will end the development going on in the state. The free education, Youth Must Work programme, building of rural roads and improved health care delivery among others are some of the reasons the youth will support Governor Okorocha.”

  • Rivers sinking into anarchy, says Amaechi

    Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi has said Friday’s kidnap of the Anglican Archbishop of the Niger Delta North Diocese, Rev Ignatius Kattey, is an indication that the state is sinking into anarchy.

    He said this was a pointer to the deteriorating security situation in the state.

    The governor, who was represented by his deputy, Tele Ikuru, spoke yesterday at an interdenominational thanksgiving service to celebrate Port Harcourt Centenary at St. Barnabas Anglican Church, Elekahia, Port Harcourt.

    Amaechi said: “It is very unimaginable that our Bishop, whose only asset is in the Lord’s vineyard, could be so abducted.

    “The times are very challenging. The only way we can plan for the next 100 years for the state and our children is through prayers.”

    The guest preacher, Rev. Anga Nyanabo, who is the Bishop of Northern Izon diocese of the Anglican Communion, said the centenary celebration was an opportunity to assess the past, chart a course for the future and appreciate the contributions of men and women, who had been instrumental to the growth of Port Harcourt City.

    Nyanabo added: “We have received numerous blessings from God and it is only right that we thank Him.

    “When people return to thank God, the Lord blesses them even more. The celebration could not have come at a more appropriate time than now, when we have witnessed unprecedented development in Port Harcourt City.”

    Police spokesman Mrs. Angela Agabe assured that with the efforts of the policemen, the Archbishop would be released unhurt and the kidnappers apprehended.

    The gunmen seized Kattey, an indigene of Aleto-Eleme, and his wife around 11:30 pm.

    The wife, Beatrice, was abandoned with their car.

    Members of Council of Clergy of the Niger Delta North yesterday appealed to the abductors to release the cleric immediately.

    The group in a prayer session/briefing in Port Harcourt yesterday evening called on security operatives to expedite action to secure the bishop’s safety.

    The prayer and news event was organised in collaboration with the members of the Council of Knights in the zone.

    The Chairman, Council of Clergy, Ven Richard Opera said: “The news of the kidnap came to us as a shock.

    “The holy reed abhors kidnap and so we condemn it and so we ask for the unconditional release of Rev Kattey.”

    The Chairman of the Knights, Sir Charles Ogundu-Chukwu said: “The council is appealing seriously to his captors to please in the name of God who created us all to release the servant of God who was on his way to carry out God’s work.”

    The church said the kidnappers have not contacted the family. “The church does not believe in ransom payment and would not pay any.”

    Members of the clergy were dressed in black and the knights in red and white to demonstrate their grief.

  • Presidential anarchy

    Can the president of the Federal Republic levy war against a state and get away with it? From the conduct of President Goodluck Jonathan’s henchmen and women in the Rivers contrived crisis, that appears the case.

    It is nothing short of criminalising the presidency. But how much of this impunity can the civil order bear before something terrible gives?

    The especial tragedy of the Jonathan Presidency is, with reckless regularity, it repeats history as farce.

    But neither the first Nigerian president to boast a PhD, nor his hyper-educated aides, seems fazed by this roller-coaster cascade into infamy. Such is their total gobble of the sweet poison of naked power – powers they don’t even have, had they not chosen to criminalise the presidency, if they ever bothered to read between the lines of the 1999 Constitution, warts and all!

    Take the latest trigger in the contrived crisis: the Rivers House of Assembly mayhem of July 9. Now, between the Goodluck Jonathan and Rotimi Amaechi battling camps, there is enough villainy to gift a multitude, with some left-over.

    How can an immaculate, fiery and all-conquering mace-battler, with the moral ardour of some bathetic Christ clearing his father’s house of worship of a den of thieves, morph into a sanctimonious victim, nestling in a hospital bed; and peeping at millions of sympathisers, from the vantage point of the lead photo, on the front page of a national newspaper?

    But before you condemn that battler, meet his victim: an apparent constitutional criminal, one of the G-5 renegades who, backed by some subversive federal power, felt they could impeach the Rivers Assembly Speaker and, like some tragic-comic pantomime with voice-over, were already on the subversive ritual, seconding motions, suspending imaginary legislators, voting, getting “elected” and giving “acceptance speeches”!

    Must Nigerians be assaulted by such power lunacy?

    To apologists or self-proclaimed purists, who insist “constitutional criminal” is jumping the legal gun, since no one has been tried and found guilty, this riposte: if the courts had serially voided such legislative banditry in Oyo, Plateau and Anambra states, during the Obasanjo-era presidential anarchy, can it be less culpable now because Jonathan-era legislative lunatics are repeating the farce?

    And here really lies the crux: if Obasanjo could grandstand that Nuhu Ribadu was undermining the Constitution to get rid of allegedly thieving politicians, what noble cause can the current rascals attach to their own subversive activism?

    Those who nail Governor Amaechi for “invading” the Rivers legislature to clear the mess miss the point. Yes, a governor should be a gentleman. But with a president that tweaks rules for illicit gains, that could be fatal.

    If you doubt, ask Rashidi Ladoja, the bitter-sweet former governor of Oyo State. He shunned President Obasanjo’s diktat that he surrender his gubernatorial authority to Lamidi Adedibu, Obasanjo’s beloved Ibadan garrison commander, only to holler in the cold for no less than 10 months, victim of an illegal impeachment.

    To those who still want to play the ostrich, pushing “law” without factoring in the lawless temper of its operators, the odyssey of Justice Isa Ayo Salami, under this same Jonathan Presidency, is instructive. Salami did his duty by law. But to the lawless in government, that was near-capital crime, for which the no-nonsense president of the Court of Appeal is paying.

    Yes, the Judiciary saved Ladoja; and voided the allied legislative rascality in Plateau and Anambra states. But with the Salami experience, it is doubtful if that judiciary had not melted into Heraclitus’s state of flux, no thanks to a hostile Jonathan Presidency.

    Amaechi certainly was not pretty, “storming” the legislature to nip in the bud the putative coup against his office. But he did the needful to preserve his position in an emerging presidential anarchy. For all you know, if the coup against him had succeeded, he would now be shrieking, Ladoja-like, from the wilderness, while his traducers would be mouthing “due process”! No society thrives under such cynical manipulation.

    But it is instructive how this Jonathan-era rascality empties into the Obasanjo-era mother river, even if Jonathan’s bumbling, to use Malthus-speak of basic economics, is “geometrical” while Obasanjo’s “original sins” now appear “arithmetical”.

    Talking about “original sin”, the dramatis personae of the current crisis appear to have cleanly forgotten the first outrage of 10 July 2003 (the Rivers outrage followed almost 10 years after, 9 July 2013!), when some Abuja-backed criminals tried to unseat controversial Governor Chris Ngige. It was the classic malevolent godfather’s challenge, before the plague of illicit impeachments based on “simple minorities”, which the latest Rivers jokers essayed with devastating consequences.

    What happened to the ring leaders back then: AIG Raphael Ige, the apparent Abuja viceroy in the crime, Tafa Balogun, then sitting IG, and even Obasanjo himself, the sitting president who, throughout the crisis, pushed the theory of plausible deniability?

    AIG Ige, the apparent fall guy, suffered abrupt retirement (even if his retirement time was close) and later, sudden death. Mr. Balogun suffered eventual humiliation, though his role, beyond being the Police IG was unclear; and his comeuppance was not directly linked to the Ngige saga. Even Obasanjo has continued to suffer progressive devaluation, to the point of irrelevance, since his presidential glory days.

    Do all these speak to Mbu Joseph Mbu, the commissioner of Police deep in the Rivers crisis, given his inappropriate conduct and reckless utterances? There are always spiritual consequences for political rascality that hurt the silent and innocent majority.

    Festus Eriye, editor of The Nation on Sunday, in his penetrating piece of July 14, described President Jonathan as Pontius Pilate, in a piece he headlined “Pontius Pilate strikes again”. That was a brilliant metaphor because before Jonathan, there was Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister, and Pontius Pilate I of Nigeria’s troubled political horizon.

    Sir Abubakar launched political insurrection at the Western Region, with his suspect proclamation of state of emergency, after a contrived crisis in the Western House of Assembly, just to cripple Obafemi Awolowo.

    Jonathan, Pontius Pilate II, is doing the same, in what would have been the old Eastern Region, although this time, against a party mate; but with no less partisan bile, despite his aides’ comical denial. Jonathan court historians should check their history books and tell their principal how the Balewa gambit ended.

    Which brings us to the Jonathan denial ensemble: two “doctors”, Reuben Abati, Doyin Okupe and a Gulak, who obviously thinks everybody’s thinking faculty is, as his own, locked in Jonathan’s gulag!

    Ahmed Gulak, sounding every inch a power brat, told Prof. Wole Soyinka to be “responsible” (a counsel his principal ironically needs more than anyone!), because of Soyinka’s stance on the contrived Rivers crisis.

    Well, Gulak should check his history books. When Balewa was being led astray or even Obasanjo, Jonathan’s political creator, was leading himself astray, Soyinka was there, an ever consistent voice of reason, which nevertheless is the proverbial harsh hunter’s whistle, to the hearing of a doomed dog.

    Those who engage in double-speak, let them. But true friends of Goodluck Jonathan must tell him to withdraw from his Rivers misadventure.

    It is a wide and merry way that leads to infamy.

     

  • Anarchy at the gate

    Anarchy at the gate

    Nineteen years ago, in February 1994, The Atlantic magazine published an article with the apocalyptic title “The coming anarchy,” in which its national correspondent, Robert Kaplan, advanced the thesis that poverty, overpopulation, disease and crime would conflate in urban areas of West Africa – and ultimately in other parts of the Third World — to set the stage for the meltdown of civil society.

    Nigeria, Guinea (Conakry) and Sierra Leone had furnished the raw material for Kaplan’s prognostication. Liberia was already being convulsed by a barbarous civil war.

    Fast forward to 2013; add to Kaplan’s toxic brew corruption on a scale almost beyond belief, massive and growing youth unemployment, free flow of firearms of every description, syndicated kidnapping, serial sectarian violence of which last week’s carnage in Baga, in Borno State, is only the latest installment, as well as degradation of the environment in oil-producing areas.

    Exacerbated and unaddressed, any of these factors could drive Nigeria to the edge. Together, they constitute a potent potion for disaster. Anarchy, it now seems clear, is not merely coming; it may well have arrived at the gate already.

    But the authorities seem all too distracted to notice it, or they notice it all right but do not give a damn, persuaded that they can ride the storm and live happily ever after Sometimes they even appear to be wringing their hands out of sheer helplessness, if not abject surrender.

    When they think at all about ameliorative measures, it is all in the future. By baking bread from cassava flour instead of wheat flour, the public was assured about a year ago that some three million jobs would be created. Some N4 billion that would have been spent importing wheat flour would be pressed into more productive use that would generate still more jobs.

    But well before a steady stream of the cassava crop has been assured, contracts had been awarded for purchasing and installing cassava-processing plants all over the country. The much-advertised bread has thus far been reserved for the breakfast table at Aso Rock. The jobs are yet to materialise.

    The same strategy has been applied to rice. Growing and processing the stuff locally will save billions of naira in foreign exchange and create thousands of jobs. Ahead of an assured and sustainable harvest stream, industrial-scale rice mills are being purchased to process rice for the local market and perhaps even for export, to earn foreign exchange. Meanwhile, the projected jobs remain just that.

    Every year, hundreds of thousands of young men and women armed with degrees and diplomas for the universities and other institutions of further learning are released to the job market to swell the ranks of those who had graduated three, perhaps or even five years earlier but are still pounding the streets looking for jobs that are just not there.

    Yet every year, the Federal Government and the states routinely establish more universities and institutions of further learning, most of them ill-provisioned, to produce yet more graduates destined to suffer the fate of those who had graduated much earlier.

    Not too long ago, a university degree was the passport to a career that was rewarding and full of promise. In Nigeria today, a strict cost-benefit analysis will lead the hard-headed to regard it as a disinvestment.

    The business mogul Aliko Dangote placed an advertisement to recruit university graduates as truck drivers the other day and could not cope with the deluge of responses, a good many of them from persons with higher degrees, including doctorates. Since I commented on the natter, hardly a week passes without my getting an inquiry from a graduate about the method of application, and whether I could provide a recommendation.

    Entertaining no illusions about what awaits them at the end of their service year, many youth corps members, now assure themselves a second term in the schemed and its anaemic pay by deliberately under-performing.

    The Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, pivoted her ill-fated campaign for president of the World Bank on a promise to create jobs for the world’s youths. Why can’t she devote her abundant energies to doing just that on a national scale? Rarely does she mention the subject these days, though it once ranked high on the “Transformation” agenda of the Jonathan administration.

    Epileptic power supply has ruined small-scale businesses that served as a cushion against poverty for millions of Nigerians. Poverty is as visible as never before, just as hunger stalks the land as never before. Crime is just around the corner, and insecurity is a constant companion.

    This conjuncture ought to concentrate the minds of our policy-makers as never before and move them, if only out of a healthy instinct for self-preservation, to devise measures to stem what is clearly shaping up as a slide into ungovernability.

    Instead, they are focusing all their energies and resources on the general elections scheduled for 2015, frantically instituting measures to cripple potential or wholly imagined challengers, and scheming to impose a new Constitution on the country through the back door, in the process eviscerating yet another opportunity – some say it may well be the last one – to design a healthier union.

    The kidnapping saga of Kehinde Bamigbetan, the dutiful and unassuming chair of the Ejigbo Local Council Development Area, in Lagos, ought to serve as a wake-up call to all of them.

    The syndicate that abducted him was on routine reconnaissance, looking out to seize anyone for whose freedom they could obtain a hefty ransom. Bamigbetan seemed that kind of person. He was being chauffeured in an SUV, not in itself a sure sign of affluence in most Nigerian cities, but some indication that the fellow in the “owner’s corner” is not exactly a pauper.

    As the stalkers overtook his vehicle, a shot rang out from their Kalashnikov assault rifle. His driver jerked the SUV into reverse gear and tried to change course but hit an electric pole and stopped. More shots rang out from the AK-47, narrowly missing the driver who somehow opened the door and fled.

    Bamigbetan was now effectively in the hands of his abductors. They bundled him into their car, blindfolded him, and drove furiously toward Badagry. But not before they had kicked out of the car a captive who, they told Bamigbetan chillingly, had just been ransomed with hard cash.

    The kidnappers, numbering seven, split up into two groups. One group comprised “hardened” individuals, according to Bamgbetan. This was the group that administered the beatings and the blood-curdling threats. The other was more “humane.”

    It says something of the sophistication of the syndicate that they sent “spies” to mingle with the staff of Bamigbetan’s office and monitor what they were saying about their abducted boss. Their report apparently moved their principals to settle for a reduced ransom, and to release him after one traumatic week in their custody.

    Bamigbetan was lucky. Several weeks earlier, a former deputy governor of Anambra State, Dr Chudi Nwike and a chieftain of the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) was killed by his kidnappers after they had collected a negotiated ransom.

    Now, here is the point that should set our policy-makers thinking: The kidnappers, Bamgbetan said, “seemed to have been forced into criminality” by the prevailing circumstances. Many of them are graduates but had been unemployed for years. They could not understand “why we budget billions of Naira and graduates cannot get jobs.”

    So, they took to kidnapping as a way of registering their anger against “the system.”

    Continuing on the present trajectory and hoping to muddle through somehow is not a public policy option. If policy makers could summon just one tenth of the creativity they employ in enriching themselves and their cronies and apply it to devising sustainable employment schemes for the burgeoning army of restive young persons, they may yet stave off the looming prospects of anarchy in those parts of the country that have not been overrun by Boko Haram.

     

    For Funmilayo Olayinka:  A Postscript

    Funmilayo Olayinka, the deputy governor of Ekiti, whose remains were buried in the state capital last week, was an uncommon public figure. Abjuring the pomp and circumstance that went with the office, she was unpretentious through and through.

    Gracefulness – suavity, to employ a more evocative term — perfused every step she walked, every word she spoke, and every gesture she made. She battled the ravages of the cancer that ultimately claimed her life with great dignity and continued until the end to complement Governor Kayode Fayemi in devoted service to the people. She gave public service and politics a human and humane face.

    We are all the poorer for her passing. May her soul find peace. Her family will take pride and consolation in the outpouring of grief and affection that attended her passing. Her example inspires and ennobles us still.