The Nation Newspaper

Tag: contradictions

  • Season of contradictions

    It would appear Nigeria is mired in a web of social contradictions. The scenario seems a verity of the Marxian dialectics. In the last couple of weeks, President Buhari’s regime has initiated actions in some fronts that appear to have opened the gateway to seemingly irreconcilable contradictions. Even when these actions are presented in their most altruistic form, they have had to come into conflict with exogenous forces with prospects for unintended outcomes.

    Nobody can predict the direction of unfolding contradictions. But if they continue in the manner they present themselves, chances are they may expose all that has been wrong with us as a country. They could also alter perceptions in the way this country has hitherto been run and the deceit that had characterized statecraft.

    But with hindsight of the social dynamics of history, they could also hasten positive outcomes that will alter stereotypes in the way our society is run. So these change elements, as scary as some of them appear, could turn out with unintended but beneficiary outcomes for the country.

    Thus, when the police accuse Senate President, Bukola Saraki of complicity in the serial bank robberies in Offa, Kwara State or Obasanjo alleges the regime plans to jail him on trumped up charges, the dynamics of these contradictions may have been activated. The conferment of GCFR on late Chief Moshood Abiola by Buhari and his apology to the family; declaration of June 120 as Democracy Day and the award of GCON to Abiola’s running mate, Babagana Kingibe may well fit into this dynamic process. They could have been designed by their authors to achieve set objectives. But they may throw up issues with more far-reaching consequences than originally anticipated.

    And as shall be seen shortly, each of these actions has thrown up contradictions of their own- contradictions that not only interrogate the substantive action but has prospects for outcomes of benefit to society. So when people dissipate energy on the motive behind Saraki’s travails (as relevant as it is) or defend the police for insisting on interrogating him, they inadvertently set the grounds for the positive things that could devolve from that conflict. Whether Saraki is being framed because of issues the Senate has with the Inspector General of Police, Idris Ibrahim or the police is trying to get even with him, is not the major concern of this column. Neither are we concerned with the scandal in associating the number three citizen with alleged culpability in armed robbery.

    If there was no frosty relationship between the executive and the legislature, the matter would hardly have come public. The fact that the police now asked Saraki to make his report in writing instead of reporting to their headquarters says it all. And it exposes the cover-ups and conspiracies that hallmark governance framework. Where does that leave us now?

    There are issues in the revelation of one of the principal accused that some of them have for years been political thugs to Saraki and the Kwara State government and they got their arms from their gang leader, Michael Adikwu, a dismissed policeman. Why the police failed to publicly parade Adikwu to take questions from journalists on how he got the arms and planned the attack remains curious even when he had earlier said he killed to avenge his sack from the police force.

    But the major contradiction brought to the fore by the development, is the phenomenon of thuggery in our politics. Politicians, all politicians make use of thugs. Thugs are capable of anything; everything. So to what extent can we possibly hold those who engage their services liable for their criminal conducts outside political gatherings? And what should be the right attitude to thuggery now we have been told it is the oxygen on which criminality thrives?

    These are the issues to ponder. Let the suspects face the raw teeth of the law. But if we do not substantially address the contradiction posed by thuggery in the nation’s politics, then the essence of the revelations would have been lost. That is the key issue the Buhari government must address since politicians in government and those in opposition benefit from their nuisance value. Given that thugs are emboldened by their association with politicians to embark on criminality, our governments are vicariously liable for the wave of criminality around the country. Even as our laws should take their normal course, the society stands to benefit if the turn of events culminates in dismantling the institution of thuggery in the nation’s politics. That should be the unintended benefit of the Offa incident.

    There are also contradictions arising from the award of the nation’s highest honour to late Abiola (as popular as it was), the recognition of June 12, as Democracy Day as well and the award given to Abiola’s running mate in that election, Babagana Kingibe even when he had repudiated the mandate by working with those who incarcerated Abiola to the point of death.

    For good reasons, the Southwest was agog for the honour done to Abiola and the recognition of June 12 as Democracy Day. It was evident from the showers of praise on Buhari for doing what regimes before him failed to do. Buhari appeared to have prepared the ground for the encomiums when he said the gesture “is only a symbolic token of redress and recompense for the grievous injury done to the peace and unity of this country.  It is not meant to be and it is not an attempt to open old wounds but to put right, a national wrong”.

    These are very key statements that will serve as the fulcrum for the appraisal of future actions by Buhari. But even as he received praises from those bruised most by events of that annulment, they were not in doubt that they least expected him to be the one to bestow honours on Abiola on account of the June 12 event. They doubted his democratic credentials.  Abiola’s daughter Hafsat said that much and gave clear indication that the relationship between Abiola and Buhari was not cordial as she tendered family apology. That is part of the contradiction. What could have motivated Buhari to do the unexpected? He said it is to heal the wounds of the injury inflicted on the peace and unity of this country. But many believe political expediency was the prime motivation.

    The role Buhari played in the Abacha regime and his past dispositions to such issues are behind insinuations that the turn of events is motivated by the lure of political gains. Both Wole Soyinka and Femi Falana in their contributions harped on the web of contradictions arising from this singular award and recognition. Soyinka spoke of the confusion in the minds of the public created by honouring Abiola with one hand and with the other eulogizing his tormentor. Falana called attention to other national wrongs needed to be redressed. All these interrogate the president’s touted reasons for the action. What of the award to Kingibe, a man that repudiated the election he and his principal were said to have won?

    It is gratifying Buhari has pledged to right national wrongs. We will hold him to that as there are so many of such wrongs crying for urgent attention. The nation is more divided on its fault lines more than ever before. If the awards and recognitions bring about a change of attitude in Buhari’s responses and dispositions to national challenges, then something positive to society has been achieved. But if events point to the contrary, critics would have been proven right.

    It is good a thing Buhari has armed us with a new mirror from which his actions will be viewed. We will be looking out for credible evidence of a true democrat committed to an all inclusive government with an abiding zeal to give all a sense of belonging. He will be assessed against the capacity of his future actions to conform to the sentiments that propelled him to recognize the sanctity of the June 12 elections. If he keeps to these especially in the conduct of free, fair and credible elections, Abiola and June 12 would have indeed been immortalized. Anything to the contrary amounts to lip service.

    A common thread runs through Saraki’s travails, Buhari’s curious recognition of the sanctity of June 12 elections, and Obasanjo’s alarm of plans to jail him even when he had preferred jail than vote for Jonathan to ruin the country-contradiction. For now, it is unclear the direction of these contradictions. But they instruct utmost introspection and caution on the part of those entrusted with the leadership of this country.

     

  • Nigeria: A bundle of contradictions

    Recently I engaged a friend of mine in a lengthy intellectual

    discourse, and the crux of the discourse bordered on the hopelessness of the common man.

    My friend responded with one of the most common axioms that has over the years defined and positioned us for tyranny in the arms of an uninterruptedly wicked set of rulers masquerading as leaders – “when there is life there is hope”. After the discourse, I categorised hope in the Nigerian context into two -The pessimistic hopefuls and the religious hopefuls. The semantic recesses of the former hinges on paradox, given that the nation itself is a manifold of paradox. You might wonder if there is anything like hope in pessimism. Pessimistic hopefulness is a state of perfunctory hopefulness we found ourselves in which hope is just there as a mannequin; hope for only cosmetic purposes, a state where you have to be hopeful not because you see a hope of a brighter day, the elusive light at the end of the tunnel but rather it is an illusive form of hopefulness fanned by hopeless patriotism; the choicelessness of having no other country except Nigeria. The pessimistic hopefuls have a festivity dimension to their presumed hope, this is often expressed when Nigeria engages in her never-ending ceremonies and merrymaking – the new year, the independence day etc. situation in mild colours.

    The second category of hopefuls in the Nigerian context is that which borders on our religious piety; hopefulness that is motivated by religious teachings of confessing positively in the midst of storms and whirlwinds of life.

    From the above dissection of hopes, it is suffice to say that none of our dimension of hopes hinges on empirical facts, hence they are void of application in 21st century knowledge-driven economy. Its inapplicability is obvious in our nation state bedevilled with a harem of paradox. Is it not a paradox that despite her endowment with bodies of water, the citizens don’t have access to water? Even the pure water sold in Nigeria’s environment is as poor as the country that produces it. Is it not a paradox that in the midst of arable land, 70% of food items are imported? Is it not a paradox that we have spent so much on electricity only to have darkness as the only tangible result?

    As 2019 elections beacons another dynamics of contradictions that have defined our atrophied existence are to be displayed poignantly.

    In Nigeria, where life is so suffused in poverty and politics, such civic expression might be novel. Moreover, the oppression of the masses by the political elite is a deliberate one, purposed to ensure incumbency in perpetuity.

    The Nigerian elite are much aware of this contradiction, hence the oppression of the masses is deliberate. Our hope only resides in wonderland until we decide as a people, a nation, to collectively fan the embers of our unity, put collective prejudices aside and work for the collective good of the Nigeria nation; that is when we will truly escape from the cauldron.

     

    • Oluwatosin is a writer in Abeokuta, Ogun State
  • Caliphate and contradictions

    Caliphate and contradictions

    The ghost of Ibn Khaldun

    If Adelabu Adegoke, the gifted stormy petrel of pre-Independence politics, were to be alive today, perhaps he would have penned another classic called Nigeria in Second Ebullition. It may well be the case that there is a more profound nation-defining struggle in the offing obeying only its own circuitous logic. An ebullition is a sudden and violent outburst, or -let us call it— a commotion of unusual vigour.

    At no point since independence, and certainly not since the advent of the Fourth Republic, has Nigeria been gripped by commotions on all front, be it communal, economic, spiritual, political, ideological and even intellectual like this. Yet it is also the case that at no other point in Nigeria’s history of civil governance has a more self-conscious super-security state presided over the affairs of the nation than this period.

    However, it could also be that in the brisk unravelling of the old order, the seeds of regeneration can be found. Last week, in a brief off the cuff remark, President Mohammadu Buhari was said to have noted that Nigeria faced a greater problem after Boko Haram. The vicious sect might have spawned even more vicious mutants. Boko Haram appears to have leveraged itself into the global bloodstream of anti-western, anti-capitalist and anti-nation theocratic Islamic militancy that is convulsing the extant international order. Consequently, Nigeria might have been dragged into the vortex of global insurgency.

    It is not enough to militarily defeat or degrade the Boko Haram sect as an effective fighting force.  This is not just a battle for the minefields but a battle for the mind. The embattled mind also has its own minefield where ideas opposed to the mind-set are summarily vaporized. So far, despite the sterling valour of our troops, we have not shown enough political resolve to combat the intellectual, ideological and spiritual disequilibrium which has produced the Boko Haram insurgency in all its theocratic malice and genocidal irrationality.

    This foundational problem of a post-colonial state without ideological anchorage or national core values will simply not go away, or disappear by military fiat. Rather, it will manifest in other spheres giving rise to multiple fliers of impending implosion if there is no attempt at restitution or if the government were to develop a weak will in confronting what has now effectively become a consuming national emergency.

    Given the humongous scale of national larceny evident in stupendous cash stashed away in the most unimaginable of places, why would the hardy, thrifty and evidently abstemious Boko Haram notables not hold us in bitter contempt together with our jaded notion of the modern secular nation where anything goes? If we are not ready to redistribute prosperity and inclusive growth, the pernicious sect has shown that it is ready to redistribute poverty and inclusive discomfort no matter the outrage.

    And the discomfort is fast spreading. There is a multi-pronged battle for the soul of the nation. Given the ideological occlusion under which such battles for the soul of a people take place, not even the principal actors are completely conscious of what is known as the cunning of history. The new fronts are as interesting as the principal combatants.

    From the Funtua-Malunfashi- Katsina sector, Nasir el-Rufai, the pint-sized and implacable governor of Kaduna state, has seized the executive wing as well as the legislative arm of his own party by the jugular, first firing an acerbic memo of virtual disavowal at the presidency and lately by virtually upending the legislative cartel of Yakubu Dogara and the paddy-padding House of Representatives. From metropolitan Kano, the Emir, Mohammadu Sanusi 11, has joined the fray in a series of withering dismissal of the entire northern ruling class which is as unusual as it is confounding to the uninitiated.

    Taken together, these political whirlwinds portend a ripening of the Northern Question as an integral part of the National Question. Whether the solution to this profound question of conflicting regional and national identity will be imposed from outside or found within, or whether they can ever be resolved within the current structural configuration of the nation remains to be seen. But they point at the political ferment of a country in the grip of profound ebullition.

    If these political gladiators are jockeying and jostling for political ascendancy with an eye to the immediate future, if they are positioning themselves for the presidential sweepstakes of 2019, they may discover to their chagrin that it doesn’t quite work like that. The north is in a combustible state and it is not going to be a walkover for self-anointed messiahs no matter their feudal provenance or royal pedigree.

    In the event, we need not be delayed by Malam el-Rufai since he is already in power and government by the grace of the Buhari phenomenon. El-Rufai has himself admitted that he had no political base except the one made possible by the Buhari momentum. It is the Emir that is beginning to look like a most dangerous customer for the old northern establishment and its power masters.

    The irrepressible and indomitable Emir of Kano, formerly known as Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, a notable polemicist and intellectual pugilist in his prime, has been causing some tremulous tremors among the northern power mafia of late. They view with consternation and indignation his attempts to disrupt the old, stiffly hierarchical order where everybody must know his place and placement and where emirs must maintain a stiff upper lip and a rigid posture of impassive royal hauteur. They resent his withering critique which lays bare the staggering inequity behind the regal plumage and stylized footwork.

    His interlocutors are not persuaded by this unroyal hell-raising. They see him as a dangerous and excitable opportunist who does not care a hoot about a feudal order that has brought stability and order to the whole north as long as he is able to satisfy his ambition. In any case, what else is there to achieve, they ask. After being gifted with the throne of his ancestors, why is all not quiet on the Kano front? From their body language whenever and wherever Sanusi is present, it is clear that all is not well in the House of Usmanu Dan Fodiyo.

    But this froideur completely misses the point. The Emir of Kano is a dogged careerist for sure. But he may also be responding to political stimulants and existential pressures beyond his ken. Nothing last forever, not even the most durable thrones. Empires, kingdoms, nations rise and fall while history marches on relentlessly.

    What is important is for change to be managed in such a way that it does not eventuate in violent upheavals or bloody commotion. When and if it does, both the poor and the privileged will find themselves in the same “one chance” vehicle. The Boko Haram insurgency ought to have been a divine showcasing of how a little local difficulty can snowball into a dire national emergency and how the rich are not exempt from biblical misery when the zero hour descends.

    Despite his implacable tirades against the old northern establishment, there are many who believe that the emir is merely grandstanding or astutely positioning himself for enhanced royal status in an unyielding feudal order. It is argued that in many instances he himself remains complicit in the political, economic and social devastations of the north that he inveighs against so brilliantly and passionately. Some sections of the north may be worse than Afghanistan but this did not start yesterday.

    Going forward, charity demands that we give the emir the benefit of the doubt. A notoriously complex man who can act the prince and the pauper-pariah at the same time, it may well be that the powerful contradictions thrown up by an empire in severe decline may be reflected in the powerful contradictions of its surviving power players.

    But if the Emir of Kano were to be a visionary prophet, this would have been the time to wish for a northern version of the Yoruba bourgeois class that he so mercilessly assailed in his younger incarnation as the problem with the nation. The Yoruba middle class has acted as a vital bridge to political and economic modernity between the residual feudal class and the Yoruba multitude and as a blunting instrument against the severity of social eruptions. In an irony of ironies, a faction of this bourgeois class was to be influential and instrumental in Sanusi’s own royal ascendancy and would play a stirring role in the current inter-region experimentation.

    Why has it been impossible for the north to come up with this regnant bourgeois class acting in concert and in sheer critical mass? It is not because the west is better or superior to the north. It is due to the historical and social forces at play. The Yoruba middle class owes its origin to four interlocking factors.

    First, accessibility to the coast which made contact and interaction with western civilization inevitable.  Second, the centuries old battle of will and wits between empire and its forward-looking subjects. Third, the sacking of the old Oyo Empire which spawned new social and military forces with no ties to the old order and the resulting demographic turmoil which led to a reconfiguration of the entire  Yoruba population.

    Finally, conquest by a western power and the rapid buy-into by a Yoruba people wracked by revolutionary convulsion and social tempest. Defeat can also open up new vistas for a conquered people. It is not defeat that people must fear but the atrophy of the human will and spirit.

    The north, on the other hand, was geographically, politically and economically structured in a way and manner that blocked off these possibilities. Indeed the revolution of Uthman Dan Fodio consecrated in the north a radical theocracy which belonged to the classical formation of Islamic feudalism. If this authoritarian feudal order guarantees political stability and superior cohesion over the rest of the country, it also undermines rapid economic development and modernization in the long and short run.

    As a result of this peculiar structure, the Northern Question looms portentously over the National Question. Under the current structural configuration of the nation, and short of unilaterally and unitarily handcuffing the rest of the country, it is hard to see how the north can be made to catch up with other sections of the country. This cannot even be contemplated without provoking a severe backlash which can result in the fracturing of the country.

    The absence of a durable and organic middle class as a buffer zone and safety net leaves the northern feudal ruling class at the mercy of its restive peasantry. President Buhari may have had a visionary glimpse into the immediate future and what it forebodes. As long as the conducive conditions of poverty and mass immiseration prevail, there will always be radicalised sects feeding off the insecurities and millennial underdevelopment.

    At the moment, Nigeria is like a four-wheel vehicle with the front and back wheels facing different directions in perfect misalignment. There is bound to be a lot of friction and commotion but no movement. This is why those who advocate for a radical restructuring of the country which will allow the north to solve the problems of underdevelopment and modernization on its own terms and deploying its own residual strengths should be seen as genuine friends of the north.

    The likes of Emir Mohammed Sanusi 11 have their work cut out for them. If there is any Ibn Khaldun, the great fourteenth century Egyptian progressive historian and philosopher of Asabiya and cyclical change who anticipated Spengler and Karl Marx out there, this is the time to step into the ring of post-colonial ebullition.

  • Puzzles and contradictions

    •The Buhari administration has to reconcile areas of extravagance with its intention of discipline

    Other than the forex policy and treasury single account, it was the first real economic statement of intentions from the Muhammadu Buhari administration. But it sizzled with a few puzzles and what might be regarded as contradictions or inconsistencies.

    The elements of it that gave cheer to the country and fair-minded economists included the emphasis on power, infrastructure and housing as well as transportation, two ministries that operate under two appointees designated as super-ministers.

    They are Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) in charge of the former while Rotimi Amaechi rules the roost of the latter. We have also observed that, unlike its predecessor, the budget moves a notch in capital expenditure, lapping up about 30 percent. The Jonathan administration gulped over 90 percent as a matter of rite. From the perspectives of generating liquidity for the economy, Dr. Kayode Fayemi’s ministry of mineral resources must be seen as brilliant.

    This shows that the Buhari administration taps into the popular yearning for infrastructure work and renewal as the springboard for national rebirth. We also accept with optimism the ratcheting up of energy for agriculture and education, the latter expected to include a free meals programme for wards in the primary schools. The Lagos State government has already announced its plans to flag it off once the academic session takes flight.

    At the bottom of the whole budget though is the sense that discipline and a pruning of the Federal Government’s appetite for extravagance will take a pride of place. Yet it is hard to reconcile this with some of the features of the budget, which include the allocations of over a billion Naira for entertainment in the presidency, about N4.6 billion to acquire BMW cars, N5 billion to build new homes for the vice president, the senate president and the speaker of the House of Representatives.

    For the budget of a government that evangelises its virtues of discipline and austerity, those figures reflect an inexplicable contradiction. Where many citizens gripe over lack of basic amenity, our leaders should not snore in marble places and fatten on cuisines from gold plates. The presidency has responded to criticisms with uncoordinated logic, but it shows that it has a lot of work to do to reconcile integrity with experience.

    Also puzzling is that the budget is based on $38 per barrel of crude oil. This is more than a little sanguine given the volatility of the crude oil market, and the warning from experts around the world that the price will continue a giddy spiral downwards. The budgets in the past often pegged oil prices conservatively and gave much elbow room for a slide. The oil price already has fallen below $34 dollars, and prospects of a rebound remain bleak.

    With this bad news is the value of the Naira. At the time of writing this article, the Naira had fallen to close to N280 to a dollar. This problematises our ability to generate robust commerce and source bountiful foreign exchange.

    The forex policy will compound this scenario as the nation has discouraged foreign investors. How do we reconcile a cash-strapped economy with a policy that discourages inbound investors since they are allowed to bring in money and not take it out? For ministries like mineral resources and agriculture, this will present great challenges. We know many big corporations flush with money want to reflate our economy with their investments. We should not quench the spirit.

    A lot more imagination and tinkering of policies, especially with regards to profligacy and investment restrictions, will help to make this year’s budget relevant to the needs of the day.

  • Auto policy and its contradictions

    Hardball knows the trick too well (now don’t ask him how); for want of a better description, let’s call it acting stupid for a ‘higher’ purpose. It is akin to the gambit trick in a game of chess: you sacrifice a smaller piece in order to capture your opponent’s bigger piece in the course of the game. But the difference here is that the star of this story, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, (MITI) is neither stupid nor making any sacrifice. In fact, he is supposed to be one of the star technocrats head-hunted from Wall Street to come help turn Nigeria’s economy around. It is, therefore, not possible that Aganga would make such elementary mistakes in policy articulation, enunciation and implementation.

    As you may have guessed, Hardball is interrogating the Automotive Industry Policy Development Plan (AIPDA), known as auto policy for short. Let us remind ourselves that the AIPDA or some variant of it is not new. Nigeria has had auto policy for ages which drove the setting up of about six auto assembly plants in the 80s. It also necessitated the establishment of the Automotive Development Fund (ADF) and the subsequent thriving of the auto component parts industry. Time was in the late 80s and early 90s when Nigeria supplied West and Central Africa the bulk of their auto batteries, light covers, glasses and other small plastic based replacement and ancillary parts.

    But all these initial strides towards achieving a self-sustaining auto sector atrophied and vanished the way of all Nigeria’s policies. Now like a strange people without history, the Federal Government through MITI, woke up one bright day last October, realised Nigeria is wasting huge sums through automobile importation and promptly dredged up a policy to build auto plants in Nigeria and effect an immediate stoppage of importation of fully built vehicles. Before you could say ‘assembly plant’, government had rolled out a vacuous policy whose main objective, apparently, is to increase tariff and levy on imported vehicles. It was done with the speed and alacrity that we do not experience from our governments anymore and that is indeed, alien to us these days.

    Setting up auto assembly plants in Nigeria is a great idea and Aganga would earn accolades on this space, if the motives are by chance altruistic but Hardball is in shock that this technocrat would embark on a major landmark policy such as this without factoring in some basic elements. We have not seen a review of the old order to determine the factors that led to its collapse; there are no assembly plants running anywhere yet; the oil sector which would yield the petrochemical base materials for vehicle components is in the doldrums; no electricity to power the envisaged automotive manufacturing clusters; no steel mills; the only tyre manufacturing firm in Nigeria migrated to Ghana long ago as a result of unfriendly business environment; no cushion or alternative mode of transit for the people in the event that vehicles become unaffordable in the face of Aganga’s crazy, new tariff and levy.

    How come then that Aganga thought of nothing else in the entire mix but tariff and levy hikes? How come what ought to come last has been put upfront? Hardball wagers that the purpose of the auto policy is a scam, a ruse to gather up billion of naira in a nebulous auto fund that is never accounted for. We wager again that Aganga does not give a damn about any assembly plants or Nigerian-built vehicles. Why is everything done post haste as if there is a (2015?) deadline to be met? This hurried auto policy is the exact scenario in the so-called rice policy in which the Agric Minister, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, hiked rice tariff and levy so high, so arbitrarily that it has become stupid for any businessman to import rice through our ports. Nigerians now consume smuggled rice while the rice fund is never applied to the development of the Nigerian rice.

    What manner of government is this?