The Nation Newspaper

Tag: country

  • Lack in my country 

    Many of the messages and calls I get these days are very scary. Sometimes I hesitate to pick my calls and read some messages as I can guess what they are about.

    When I eventually do, my fears are usually confirmed. It’s usually one desperate request or the other for financial support which you cannot ignore even when I don’t have enough on me to help.

    What do you do when someone who looks up to you as a “Daddy”, senior colleague or even contemporary sends you a message that he or she has not eaten since the previous days and desperately needs anything you can send to find something to bite?

    When children of your neighbours, friends and others risk being prevented from writing exam because their parents don’t have money to pay again as they used to?

    These kinds of requests come in torrents these days that one gets overwhelmed.  I usually wish I can help with every case but it’s not possible as I may barely sometimes have enough to meet my own obligations to not only my nuclear family but extended ones.

    My wife got very agitated about such requests sometime ago as they usually come when she had just been paid some money she planned to spend for some personal pressing needs. “Is it that they know when I get some money?” she wondered.

    No, I responded, explaining that the requests are not only directed to her but many others who are perceived to be privileged to have enough at this time of economic recession in the country.

    If those making the requests are able to meet their obligations, they would definitely not be bothering others as they are forced to do now. Most are responsible persons who unfortunately have been rendered helpless by the economy of the country.

    I hear reports of landlords who don’t know what to do about tenants who used to pay their rents promptly but now owe for years. There are parents who have to continue to plead with school owners because they can no longer afford to pay their children’s fees.

    Not only are fresh graduates, some of whom their parents paid expensive fees to get tertiary education, unable to get jobs or get offered pittance, retrenchment is on the rise as many companies are faced with dwindling sales and high cost of production.

    Non-regular payment of salaries is not peculiar with private organisations; many government workers across the country are owed salaries for months with no hope of when they will be paid. Unfortunately, elected officials at all levels and others are living large at the expense of the citizens. Promises of providing employment and necessary infrastructure have not been fulfilled.

    Even those who try to make a living by engaging in some small scale businesses are not finding it easy due to lack of issues like light and patronage from those who need their services but can’t pay for them.

    Nigeria is not short of brilliant people who are ready to think out of the box as they are often urged to, but we live in a country where even the best idea can easily be frustrated by many factors.

    There is an urgent need to do something about the plight of many Nigerians who have been pauperised by the global recession and government policies.

    There is a Yoruba proverb that says one rich man in the midst of poor people is a poor man.

    We need more practical steps to revive the economy and provide a level playing field as many Nigerians want to make a decent living and meet their obligations instead of being forced to be burden to others.

  • The moo country

    This is one of those days Hardball is hobbled by headline headaches (call it HHH). You just can’t kick-start the piece because you cannot find a suitable headline. The very idea of this disquisition (!) is robust and wide-ranging but to encapsulate it into a concise title becomes a herculean challenge.

    Thus for today’s piece, one had considered “Cow disease”, to explore the idea that the country suffers an outbreak of epidemics arising from an inability to manage her huge cattle stock. This did not quite capture it. Then there is this one about “Cow goes to school”, a reflection of the sacking of a primary school in Edo State by a herd of cattle recently. This one too would not do the work at hand.

    So we settled for the one above: “The moo country”, which though is not quite apt, it is near enough. The message here is to say that the country and her people are no more intelligent than cattle and that is why something that has been mastered over the years in other climes as a huge economic value chain has been twisted here into an ethno-religious crisis which threatens to implode into a bloody internecine war.

    In the last two years, perhaps emboldened by the emergence of their chieftain as president of Nigeria, itinerant cattle breeders in the country have practically trampled the entire country. With a new-found impunity, they have run over farmlands, sacked villages, kidnapped, killed and raped communities in their trail.

    Yes, their used to be skirmishes over the ages along their nomadic trails, but they were mere skirmishes, with hardly killings or destructions reported. But today, no day passes without a report of violent trespassing and indeed a running over.

    The picture the world woke up to last week was that of a herd of cows which apparently grazed in the precincts of a primary school in Edo State. Uncontrolled, they strayed into classrooms over-awing the pupils and sending them scampering.

    The cattle-rearing menace or disease if you like, has almost engulfed the whole country. Apart from trampling farms and settlements, many universities and higher institutions are under the siege of the Fulani cattle rearers. And in their movement, they also traverse cities too. From the heart of the Federal capital Territory, they can be sighted crisscrossing other cities across the country, littering everywhere, snarling traffic and sometimes causing accidents.

    What one sees now is a cow country where everyone responds with a moo to a seemingly easy challenge. State governors only manage to bleat, federal government remains mute and the populace is set in utter confusion.

    But this is simply about the business of beef, milk, leather, pomo and bokoto. Why doesn’t someone think of a national conference on livestock animal husbandry?

  • Corn country

    The news that three ships berthed at two Nigerian ports with a cumulative 77,000 metric tonnes of maize worth U.S. $15.2 million (N5.8 billion) between April and May this year is a reminder that the Buhari administration must re-invigorate its agricultural self-sufficiency programme.

    Two of the vessels, Intrepid Eagle and Interlink Utility, landed at the Lagos Port Complex with 22,000 tonnes and 35,000 tonnes, respectively, while Ocean Glory docked at Rivers Port with 20,000 tonnes. At current rates of $217 per tonne, it meant that Nigeria had spent over $15 million of its scarce dollars on importing a crop that it is virtually self-sufficient in.

    Nigeria is Africa’s largest maize producer and the tenth largest in the world. It was the country’s fifth most important commodity in terms of production volume between 2005 and 2010. Maize importation was banned between 2005 and 2008 in acknowledgement of the nation’s production capacity, but the ban was rescinded due to its alleged inability to meet the demands of industry.

    In 2008, the country imported maize worth $119,762. In 2009, this rose to $1.249 million after the ban was lifted. In 2012, $8.296 million worth of maize was imported, rising to $14.594 in 2013 and $20.026 in 2014.

    These figures show that the removal of the ban on maize import created a situation in which many end-users of maize products simply chose to import it rather than strengthen their local sources of supply. The fact that some $15 million worth of maize was imported in just two months in 2017 clearly demonstrates that the importation rage has continued unabated in spite of the country’s foreign exchange challenges.

    There is absolutely no reason why Nigeria should import maize. The country produces 7.5 million metric tonnes of the product annually, in comparison to the 200,000 metric tonnes that are imported every year. It is in a good position to produce enough for local requirements, due to the large and growing market for maize, which is a pan-Nigerian food staple and used in the production of beer and malt drinks, animal feed, syrup and dextrose.

    In June 2015, the Maize Association of Nigeria (MAAN) urged the Federal Government to ban the importation of maize, arguing that local farmers could meet local needs if they were given the necessary support. In February 2016, agriculture minister Audu Ogbe declared that Nigeria would export 37,000 tonnes of maize, then worth N4.7 billion to Malawi in response to that country’s requests. It is doubtful if that promise was kept.

    If there is one lesson the economic recession has taught the country, it is that it makes no sense to waste scarce foreign currency on importing what can be produced locally. This has been applied to rice with significant success. It should now be applied to maize.

    The importation of maize should either be banned or subject to high import tariffs. Increased support should be given to the nation’s farmers who have demonstrated their capacity to produce high maize yields largely without the assistance of modern farming techniques and equipment. Special attention should be paid to the vexed issue of storage in order to ensure that the country’s huge maize output is effectively utilised.

    Manufacturers and industrial concerns should be compelled to develop backward integration programmes which incorporate the use of locally-grown maize rather than imports. Large-scale farmers should be encouraged to take advantage of the relatively favourable world prices for maize and seek to develop markets in other countries.

    Nigeria must fully utilise its untapped potential as an agricultural powerhouse. The country must return to the glory days of the groundnut pyramids and the vast output of cocoa, rubber and palm oil. It is a strategy that will diversify the country’s economic base and provide it with the manufacturing and value-added elements that it has long lacked.

  • Dino: How to corrupt a country

    Now let all good men in the land rise and join hands in retrieving our country from Dino Melaye and his ilk. The handshake now seems to have reached the elbow and it is of course, no longer felicitation as the Igbo would say. And the Yoruba admonish that if you hesitate in apprehending the thief in your farm, he will promptly arrest you. A season of pernicious role reversal seems to be creeping fast into our polity and this is a wake-up call.

    The looters of our national treasury are now flaunting their booty in our face and indeed deploying it against us. The Minna parade of private jets last week is one example. In 2014, Nigeria was ranked 30th  of the world’s top 50 countries with private jets. Even though it’s a most impoverished country, it ranks ahead of such highly developed countries like Japan, Sweden, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Finland among others.

    Here is another example of corruption getting emboldened and acting up. This time it grows into a monster and threatens to eat us raw. It’s as concerns the power conundrum in Nigeria. Recall that Nigeria’s power sector was privatised a few years ago so that it would enjoy the fillip of the private-sector efficiency and growth. But three years down the line, the new owners who are mainly part of Nigeria’s corrupt political cabal now practically hold the nation hostage.

    Power supply remains at pre-divestment era when the government controlled it. Apart from getting the plants and installations at near non-competitive rates, new owners have not invested in commensurate measures, especially in the distributive stock. In spite of various credit facilities from the government and banks, consumers seem to reap only fresh excuses from power investors. It now appears to have resolved to hold the nation by the jugular. Metering which is the major plank of the new power roadmap has been stalled. Such is the extended dynamics of corruption plaguing the land today.

    With President Muhammadu Buhari voted into office on the strength of his anti-corruption stance now critically ill and the anti-graft agencies much flawed in their systemic and operational contradictions, the auguries are dark.

    What this means is that the country may have returned to her crass licentious state where public officials did not seem to know the difference between public funds and private bank account; we may be back to our inglorious years when public officials gloried in stealing and were honoured based only on how much of our treasury they could hijack.

    This explains the two troubling events that happened last week: the Minna display of private jets by former public officials and their contractor allies and the supposed book launch by a supposed senator. If the feast of locusts which took place in Minna is excused as one of those natural aftermaths of the depravity of the elite, the so-called book presentation is an affront and a present danger; it was cynical show redolent with un-nuanced insult on our collective psyche.

    The indisputable enfant terrible of the NASS, Senator Dino Melaye, representing Kogi West, is said to have written a book: “Antidote for Corruption: The Nigerian Story.” The book in itself is a fraud going by what is reported. It is said to be a 600-page compilation of media reports, bills and motions relating to the anti-graft campaign and major corruption cases under the current administration.

    One would have thought that Melaye was presenting Nigerians with a fresh distillation from the deep recesses of his mind, insights and knowledge about this canker that is eating up our polity. Why would a senator of the Federal Republic compile reports from the public space, tag his name to it as author and go ahead to make huge pecuniary gain of it at a public presentation? Is there a worse corruption? Yet he titles the so-called book “Antidote for Corruption…?

    Prominent at the public launch were Mrs. Patience Jonathan, wife of immediate past president, Goodluck Jonathan. She who is currently in court over tens of millions of cash in foreign currency traced to her numerous bank accounts among other indiscretions. Yet she would have sat there and probably proffered a few tips on the ills of corruption.

    Just in the same way the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, seized the moment to sermonise and teach us the basics and correct modalities for tackling corruption. He who is facing trial for money laundering, not mentioning the matters and allegations surrounding the collapse of Societe Generale Bank among others, took the podium and obliged us a disquisition on how not to…

    As my former lecturer would say, these fellows are really sucking it to us. Now we the victims of mindless corrupt practices are prostrate, taking lessons from our tormentors. We think Senator Melaye should write a book on how to suborn and loot a national treasury – that is the book he owes us. At a time like this, one would expect the legislature to stand in the gap; but the National Assembly, especially the 8th Senate, is even much more mired in its muck of sleaze and odious beginnings which have refused to blow away.

     

    It’s a grey republic!

    You may also call it the grey republic – that part of government in which impunity, fiscal irresponsibility and gross abuse reign. This is what happens when government agencies refuses to prepare budgets. This is especially troubling when such agencies control more funds than some state governments.

    Is it possible that parastatals like NNPC, CBN, FIRS and about 35 others are yet to submit their budget proposals for this year?  Is it true that such agencies have been living on huge extra-budgetary expenditures with the year nearly half gone?

    Deputy Senate Majority Leader Bala Ibn Na’Allah raised this point on Tuesday on the floor of the Senate, noting that it was wrong and indeed illegal for any government agency to spend funds not appropriated by the legislature.

    This matter of unbudgeted expenditure has been with us for a long time and these are some of the systemic abuses we expected this government to curb in its bit to combat endemic corruption in our polity.

    Apart from budgets, statutory agencies of government, especially the revenue-yielding one, are also supposed to render and publish financial accounts annually and promptly too. This is among the most critical ways of reducing the corruption in the system.

    But it is a grey republic we live in.

  • Tale of an impossible country

    SIR: What more ominous signs do we still wait for here? Do we still await more indicators or pointers before coming to the supposition – Nigeria is clearly and obviously on the brink of collapse?

    Everything foretold, foreseen and even the unimaginable has happened here. Nigeria has been brought to its knees while most Nigerians now wish they had originated from Ghana or Cameroun.

    The country is on the precipice. Nigeria now wobbles and dangles dangerously in a direction only decipherable to discerning minds. Like a directionless, muddled and thoroughly whipped lad, the nation now bleeds profusely and uncontrollably.

    Who can cure Nigeria of this melancholy? How did the giant end in this jumbled state? A country that parades an array of technocrats and intellectuals of uncommon measures; a country, just two years ago, was decorated as the largest economy in Africa.

    “How are the mighty fallen?” How are the giants crushed? We must have squandered what should have been preserved and thrown away what could have been kept. We must have emptied our treasury and kicked away the treasurer

    Hence where we found ourselves – atop third Mainland Bridge for suicidal committals; hence we are jinxed at the main market where parents now trade their wards for “a pot of porridge yam.” Hence we are right at the bottom of world economic pecking order.

    The world must have been dazed at the turn out of events here, just as many Nigerians who are already wondering if there is any round-headed economist in the present economic team of the executive at all.

    But how on earth can a good economist function effectively in an administration, where its Secretary to the Government of the Federation allegedly accepted spending over N270 million in merely clearing grasses in the nation’s IDP camps?

    How can this government make a meaningful impact when of course, it is glaringly true the government is pitched against itself?

    The cloud clearly gathers and hovers over Nigeria and Nigerians. There is the fear of uncertainties here and there. And there is fear of the unknown everywhere across the 36 states of the federation.

    President Muhamadu Buhari’s health challenge is “taking a toll on our governance,” apologies to Chief Bisi Akande. And the secret handlers of President Buhari’s health have done him no favour by hiding the status. Thank God they have crawled out of their cocoons and flew him away for medical attention at last.

    Nigeria is indeed, an impossible country, defying every practical solution; a country where government officials live in self-delusion and dereliction; an enclave where the love of oneself is very much stronger than the love of country is in trouble.

    Nigeria is bigger and stronger than any individual and will outlive most of us. Hence it must be guided and guarded against destruction by political termites. The long standing saying “to keep Nigeria stronger is a task that must be done” is important here.

    The government of the day must at this juncture, collate and harmonize all our human resources within reach and set them in motion towards rescuing a country on the brink of collapse. Then we can have a country one will be proud of.

     

    • Gwiyi Solomon,

    Abuja.

  • Arise O Nigerians, take your country back: A story of two patriots

    One day soon, Nigerians will meet these people-hating kaffirs who think only of themselves.

    Nigerians are no longer ready to take prisoners; ravaging hunger has seen to that and before long, I can see them properly holding looters accountable either through the legal system or by direct, physical combats , if the courts would not change their complicit ways – no thanks to some identifiable senior lawyers who you see happiest defending looters, all smiles in newspaper photographs after they would have bludgeoned judges into granting long adjournments to persons who, in China, would not even have the luxury of a trial. Nigerians are still wondering whether the jailing of former Adamawa State governor, Bala Ngilari, was a dress rehearsal or a mere token to frustrated Nigerians. They have profaned the temple of justice enough you don’t know what to make of the Ngilari comeuppance.

    I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with Mr. Adedayo Kolade, 84, this past week; a very distraught, super Nigerian patriot, whose pain is so huge you can cut it with a knife. He is so sad about what has become of Nigeria, he now believes he has what can be described as a ‘heart agony’, a yet undiscovered medical condition. His story shortly, with copious quotes from his dirge of an article, written as far back as October, 2016 on what corruption is doing to Nigeria. So miffed is he that he is not averse to suggesting that Nigerian constitution should be suspended for four years and President Muhammadu Buhari be given all the powers he would require to save Nigeria from the ravages of  a corruption that has become so systemic it is comparable only to the drug epidemic President Rodrigo Duterte is handling with unprecedented savagery in the Philippines. Consider this excessive, if you like, but so compulsively nauseating has what Steve Osuji of this paper recently poignantly described as ‘an acute and chronic systemic corruption’ become in her ‘compressed economy’ that nothing should be considered over the board. Though this is somewhat impracticable, it is the feeling you get after listening to the soul-twitching video recording by Dr Sota Omogui, one of the co-authors of our National Anthem; an anthem whose tenets are now being completely stood on its head.

    If that doesn’t get you yet, then this trending Whats app chat. And, concerning it, should our legislators feel perjured, they should, tomorrow morning, through their respective spokespersons, address a press conference at which they will bare it all to Nigerians, and unlike Senator Ndume, none of their members would ever again be punished for having the guts to want to know the details of their, for now, shadowy budgets. I have re-named it CHANGE CAN START WITH THE NASS:

    “Here’s a thought-provoking suggestion to the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    A senator earns N36 Million monthly.

    If this is divided into two, he gets N18 million and the balance N18 m can be used to employ 200 Nigerians who will earn N90,000 per month

    200 persons multiplied by 109 senators = 21800 employees.

    This means that 200 Nigerians can live comfortably on half of a senator’s

    monthly pay.

    A House of Reps member earns N25 Million per month

    If this is divided into two, he collects N12.5 Million per month. The balance of  N12.5 million will employ 135 Nigerians who will earn N92,500 per month..  135 Nigerians multiplied by 360 members in the house = 48600 employees.

    135 Nigerians can comfortably live on half of a monthly income of just one rep.

    This government can employ 70,400 Nigerians who will earn N90,000 and N92,500 from this simple reduction in the salaries and allowances of our less than busy legislators.”

    But then, there are more surprises from our ‘servants turned masters’ as just to ensure that the miliki continues, as a result of poor Nigerian masses paying more for an already overly expensive kerosine and other petroleum products, the senate in its wisdom, and speaking through Marafa Kabir Garba, Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), now wants the removal of subsidy and a total deregulation of fuel price.

    One day soon, Nigerians will meet these people-hating kaffirs who think only of themselves. With the ravaging economic recession, which has seen some Nigerians commit suicide, what minutest sacrifice have these people made to show that they empathise with the people?

    All days for the thief, indeed!

    Back to Mr. Kolade whose article you read with your lacrimal artery almost surrendering to tears (for Nigeria) which he actually once did.

    “OH NIGERIA,” he wrote, “a land blessed with milk and honey but has been turned into ANGUISH and HEART BREAK for her citizens! An English colleague of mine, who knows my disposition towards Britain concerning the predicament of this nation, asked me one night in August, 2013: ‘Dayo, as things are in your country today, is the British still the problem?’ I cried till I slept off that night because it was such a dispiriting question. The number one problem is corruption, a pungent recalcitrancy which President Buhari is fighting tooth and nail. But corruption is aggressively fighting back, using very senior lawyers and the courts; lawyers who, in other jurisdictions are the bulwark of society. Or isn’t it a shame that individuals who should be languishing in jail houses are shamelessly gallivanting about being celebrated by the people, the very victims of their malfeasance, by royalty and even the church. It is such a shame,” he concluded.

    Dr Omogui’s a pathetic rendering of the Nigerian condition. Brother to the amazing ex- FIRS boss, Mrs  Ifueko Omogui-Okauru, the U. S based medical practictioner was, at youth, highly bullish about Nigeria and showed that by co-authoring the Nigerian national anthem. The leitmotif for his story is the gruesome loss of his mother, Mrs Grace Omogui, a lawyer and life-time public servant, who fell, in Benin city, to the ferocious hot lead of some god-forsaken armed robbers who trailed her from a bank. The pity of the story is that at the very time mama needed a country she  served  ever faithfully, both as Vice Principal of a Federal Government College and in the Lagos state judiciary, Nigeria, with its decrepit and archaic infrastructure, failed her miserably. Omogui dwelt extensively on the first line of the Nigerian anthem he co-authored which is: ‘Arise O Compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey’, which he regrets no longer means anything to Nigerians. The country, he says, is totally broken, more like Somalia, a war-torn country, with nobody being held accountable for anything whatever. He bemoans the total lack of pipe borne water which, in the 60’s, was everywhere on Benin streets at a time you won’t find a single bore hole. Then, he says, there were functioning institutions of higher learning, land telephone lines that worked, hospitals with running water, whereas today, even in the intensive care units of teaching hospitals, water has become a luxury. There was, also an airline that was the pride of a nation. But, he laments, returning after a 30 sojourn in the United States of America, he meets a country which has become a shadow of its self; all gone down the drain.

    No thanks to corruption and impunity.

    A country where customers are trailed from the bank and attacked, even fatally, with anybody being held accountable. One in which Fire Services have neither diesel nor water and so cannot put out the minutest fire outbreak. Politicians, he says, amass huge amounts of money illegally, and yet, nobody is in jail.  His is a description of Nigeria, as it actually is, by a proven patriot.

    And so, I ask: where do we, as a country and people, go from here?

    The only man we all know in our hearts as having a record of unimpeachable public service record as: a former state governor, former Head of State, former head of an oil agency and  our serving President; a man who, in spite of  having been all these, has no hilltop mansion, no Presidential library, no petrol/gas station, not to talk of an oil block, yet we continue to demonise him,  with not a few sully Nigerians wishing he would just drop dead. As I have always said, it is those who want President  Buhari dead  who will replace him in the morgue. Together with him, patriotic Nigerians will arise, and save this largest agglomeration of Blacks, the world over.

    Itsee.

  • Ibori return to ‘fantastically corrupt country’

    David Cameron, the former British Prime Minister while briefing her majesty the Queen, Elizabeth the second of Great Britain about an official visit of President Muhammadu Buhari described our country as “fantastically corrupt”. He however added that President Buhari was not corrupt but he has inherited a corrupt country and he needs all the help he can get from the international community to make a success of his regime. Many commentators said Buhari should have asked for an apology for the derision with which his country has been treated. Buhari, a simple soldier, asked ruefully what he would do with an apology when what he needs is the return of the billions of pounds stashed by corrupt leaders in British banks.

    If there are people who  still believe Buhari should have asked for an apology, the return of Ibori in a chartered aircraft to Benin, followed by a long convoy of cars to Oghara his home town where he was celebrated by virtually the entire town, has settled the argument. Corruption is as Nigerian as apple pie is American. It seems our people have willed the commonwealth to their leaders to do whatever pleases them with it. In other parts of the world, an ex-convict would go quietly home to his family and lie low for years hoping that people would see his contrition and forgive him of his crime. But not in Nigeria where ex-convicts return to society on horseback or on the backs of their poor people who while sweating carry the unrepentant renegade on their backs while dancing wildly after consumption of poorly produced local liquor. What a life!

    It was not just the ordinary people who may have been rented to demonstrate support for Ibori. Political elite in Delta State and perhaps in other states in the South-south and possibly in other parts of Nigeria went to felicitate with Ibori. Senator Nwobosisi had earlier on, on behalf of Ibori, boasted that while in prison, he was responsible for electing his daughter into the House of Representatives and he also claimed he helped Bukola Saraki to become Senate President. Obviously Nwobosisi himself became a senator because of Ibori’s backing from prison.

    Before he returned home from London, it was reported that the Delta State government had paid him several millions of Naira in back gubernatorial allowances and other financial support befitting a former governor in spite of the British saying he robbed the state blind an offense for which they sentenced him to 13 years. He was released after serving half of his time in jail.

    The result of all this is that the international community is likely to sit on the proceeds of corruption in their countries’ banks. They will argue that if they returned the money, our various governments may return same to the thieving looters. This of course will be a convenient excuse for not releasing the money which can be put to better use in their countries. It is a case of fools would soon part with their riches.

    With the kind of leaders we have in this country, Nigeria is in trouble. One thing that baffles me is the general ignorance of the people, not just the uneducated but the apparently superficially educated persons who always demonstrate more enthusiasm than wisdom in politics. Some of these people do not mind Ibori soiling his hands and spoiling the name of our country. They will go on to say he is not the only one who is guilty as if this is a justification for his bad behaviour. Unless there are laws preventing this type of people from aspiring to the highest post in the land, one would not be surprised if Ibori runs for the presidency. His supporters would argue that the British were unfair to him and would cite the fact that a corrupt Nigerian court had said he had no case to answer when he was faced with 170 violations of the criminal code. Although the EFCC appealed the case and technically the case has not been dispensed with. This is the problem. How many corrupt cases have been decided even during the current dispensation?

    Many of the previously accused individuals are now senators earning humongous salaries and allowances as well as collecting millions of Naira as former governors. Until everybody realizes that there is a possibility of revolt by the suffering masses which in blind fury would terminate our lives, our leaders will continue to behave with the impunity which makes them inured to all criticisms.

    Recently the police displayed millions of Naira seized from INEC officials after the bye-elections in Rivers State. These monies were allegedly given to the officials of the electoral body by the governor of Rivers State. The governor has denied the accusation but we have some kind of evidence of Nigerian currency running into hundreds of millions displayed by the police as if they were chiffon de papier – mere pieces of paper as the French will say. When I saw this, I was depressed seriously because our national currency has been so thoroughly abused that one feels humiliated working to earn the dirty money so carelessly displayed by the police. With the Naira so easily available to be dispensed by governors, is it any wonder why the Naira value has so totally collapsed? In a country where salaries are not being paid when due, the sight of so much money on display can make the poor desperate. This desperation manifests in the current wave of kidnapping and waylaying of people on the highways.

    All people of good conscience must support this current government to rein in this monster of corruption. This brings me to the unkind, uncaring and hateful rumours peddled over the president’s medical condition. This is a man trying to slaughter the demon of corruption for which some are wishing him dead. Can people not make a connection between the vastly reduced price of crude oil on the world market and Nigeria’s total dependence on earnings from much reduced oil production because of sabotage in the Niger Delta and our present economic situation and recession? When apparently sane people tell the government to immediately diversify the economy, I ask myself whether these are serious people. To do that will take time. If we want to grow enough rice to feed ourselves and industrialize the country to stop imports, will these not take some time? All this whingeing will amount to nothing unless we radically boycott all luxuries we current indulge in and make use of local goods. I want to end this piece by parroting Buhari’s words that if we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill this country.

  • Cry, the beloved country

    Until last Thursday, it was believed in certain quarters that nothing shocks Nigerians. No matter how serious an issue is, it was said, Nigerians won’t be bothered. It was argued that we have developed a thick skin to everything and that no matter how gargantuan an issue may be we will turn a blind eye to it and move on. I used to believe so too. If we are looking for a society where the people do not care about what is happening around them, Nigeria is it.

    Our leaders know us inside out; they know how to manipulate us and get us eating out of their hands. It does not cost them anything to sway us to their side. All they need do is to throw a few wads into the air and we will go rushing for the cash like kids scrambling for candy. Even kids will join in the mad rush for these crumbs from the so-called leaders’ pockets. Yes, these are crumbs compared to the billions now being recovered from them.  Are they really leaders or looters?

    They are more of looters than leaders from what we have seen in the last 21 months. In less than two years in office, President Muhammadu Buhari has exposed some of our past leaders for who they really are. These leaders  were chosen to be the custodians of our patrimony, but  they opted to be destroyers of the economy they were expected to protect. The immediate past administration, especially,  failed the country in every area of human development despite having high calibre professionals to run the economy.

    But I daresay, the ruination of the economy did not start with the Jonathan administration. The question is what did it do about the mess, if any, that it inherited? Did it just keep quiet in order not to ruffle feathers? Did it help the country by sticking to the age-long practice of business as usual? Has it not shot itself in the foot by upholding that asinine policy under which a past  administration covered up its predecessor to enable it commit greater evil against the country during its own time? It takes a determined administration; an administration with the love of the people at heart to break from the past to expose the evil deeds that have kept us underdeveloped for ages.

    The Buhari administraton has chosen to tread this path and from revelation so far, it is a step in the right direction. Our country has been stripped bare by those who should manage it. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo left $45billion as external reserve for the late President Umoru Yar’ Adua in 2007. The late Yar’ Adua grew the reserve to $64billion before he died in 2010. But when former President Goodluck Jonathan was leaving in 2015, the reserve had been depleted to $32billion, despite having some so-called World Bank experts working with him. It was not only the reserve that was depleted, many in the administration helped themselves to public funds. They turned the whole thing to a bazaar of sorts. It was as if they were in a competition over who will steal the most from the public till.

    The military too joined in the looting. Some Service chiefs diverted billions of naira and dollars meant for the purchase of arms and ammunition to their personal use. They built exquisite houses in Lagos, Abuja, Kaduna and their hometowns, while they sent their men to fight Boko Haram insurgents with bare hands. It was the height of  sheer wickedness. Their ongoing trial is quite revealing. It shows how they used our money to acquire properties all over the world. Many of them stole money which their generations yet unborn will never finish spending.

    We have heard of the Abacha loot stashed in different parts of the world, thinking that we will never travel that road again. But here we are today confronted by another set of perverts probably worse than the late Gen Sani Abacha, who held power between 1993 and 1998.  What has so far been recovered from former Petroleum Resources Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke alone is mind-boggling. Then there are others like former First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan, former Chief of Defence Staff Alex Badeh, former Air chiefs Dikko Umar and Sola Amosu, former National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki, some former governors and ministers and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains. And what about the $151million in a fictitious bank account?

    The latest recovery is from the former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Andrew Yakubu, in whose house in the slum of Sabon Tasha in Kaduna State, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) found $9.7million and  £74,000 cash. We should not be surprised that such a huge sum was found in Yakubu’s house. Those who should know once told us that the ‘’GMD’’ as the NNPC boss is called in government circles is the supplier of cash for all the needs of government. The NNPC, which should be bothered about ensuring all-year supply of fuel nationwide is saddled with other responsibilities, such as meeting the cash needs of the ruling party and top government officials.

    In such a situation, why won’t the GMD help himself? The GMD cannot be watching, while others are looting, abi. On a more serious note, what this shows is that our leaders and public officers are more interested in feathering their nest than looking after the interest of the people. For all they care, the people can die of hunger and illnesses for lack of money and good hospitals as long as they have the means to take care of themselves and their families in some of the best hospitals in the world. Yakubu sought refuge in a slum because he thought nobody will ever think of looking for such cash in such a place.

    The dour looking Yakubu may have seen himself as wise by taking the money to that out of place community, but his wisdom did him in. The same people he relied upon to cover his track may have betrayed him because he never took care of them. He did not take care of them because he did not want them to know that he is keeping what the EFCC describes as ‘’proceeds of crime’’ in their community. This shows how greedy and inhuman our public officers are. They are only interested in themselves and are not concerned whether people are dying beside them or not.

    How do we stop this mindless stealing? It is by holding all public officers to account at the end of their tenure. We, the people, should also open our eyes. When we see evil, we should talk evil. We should not help looters to cover their tracks. By helping them, we re killing our country slowly. The result of all these years of looting culminated in the recession we are in today. In a recession when the country is looking for $30billion to borrow, someone has $9.7million stashed away in a slum, and others have $151 million hidden in a bank, not to talk of the various sums hidden in other places here and abroad. And they say Buhari should not fight corruption. Haba!

  • Death is still that undiscovered country…

    Death is still that undiscovered country that we shall all visit. In that country, everybody shall be stripped of titles and accumulated wealth. Nobody shall be referred to as “Your Excellency,” “OON, CON, GCON” “Africa’s richest billionaire” and so on. In that country, the truth of our follies and the septic belly of our idiocies shall become even more pronounced and visible to all. Those of us, the billionaires particularly, who send so-called “prayerfully powerful” Alfas on holy pilgrimage to Mecca to seek for Allah’s forgiveness and infinite mercies on their behalf shall realize that they had simply been foolish. No amount of prayers-by-proxy, sacrifices and so on, shall move Almighty Allah to forgive them and grant them eternal peace and paradise if their handiwork is tantamount to evil.

    They shall all die eventually. It wouldn’t matter if they are buried in Victoria Court Cemetery or Atan Cemetery; it wouldn’t matter if their remains are unrecoverable in the event of their demise in a ghastly accident or assassination. Immediately they pass on, they shall begin to pay for their handiwork like the rest of us. They shan’t escape the trials of the grave.

    No priest, highfaluting ceremony of absolution from ‘original sin,” redemption and so on shall ennoble the Christians among us with the “infinite grace” of Almighty God if they remain evil at heart. If they like, let them build as many gigantic Churches and temples as they like, let their offerings and tithe tower beyond the rafters and sky-high, it shall never make them pious before God. May it not make them pious before God.

    No priest or Alfa can intercede with God on our behalf. We shall all die: President, governor, first lady, special advisers, ministers, accountant, journalist, activist, dibias, babalawos and so on. And even our tiniest depravity shall be summoned to witness against us.

    Those who profess to be godly live like they answer to some blind, stupid, and partial god. Almighty Allah is not stupid, silly or blind. Jehovah is neither partial nor handicapped by greed for worship houses, outlandish sacrifices and exaggerated humility. Chineke, Eledumare is surely no perverted wimp that we could corrupt by wile and insincere tokens of sacrifice and worship.

    He will judge us all according to our handiwork. In the face of such imminent reality, it’s amusing to see the ruling class administer our lives like they are answerable to no one. It’s even more bizarre to see our youth lend themselves as willing tools to the antics and designs of the ruling class. Many a self-styled professor of truth and champion of the masses’ rights have become junkyard dog and dunghill mongrel for the same ruling class they used to criticize.

    Talk is cheap really and Nigerians love to talk a good game. That is why everyone: literate, semi-literate and illiterate, display flawless capacities to decipher and summarize the political and socio-economic problems afflicting Nigeria, just for the fun of it or the benefit of applause.

    Besides a few good men and real heroes who have staked their lives and personal comfort to protest the gross ineptitude and bestiality of the ruling class and the society at large, most of us have accepted to remain acquiescent. When we are criticized for being unacceptably docile, we respond that there is infinite wisdom in choosing our battles wisely and keeping our mouths shut.

    Nonetheless, we continue to mount the soapbox in our living rooms, around our dinner tables and in the ubiquitous ‘beer parlours’ criticizing our leaders, casting blames and justifying our pathetic and apologetic existence.

    The tragedy subsists in our customary lamentation about the state of the Nigerian nation; every time our conscience is roused with a damning report, as it is still customary of us, more racist politicians and activists suggest that we split and go our separate ways touting it as the only solution to our league of extraordinary problems.

    There is no wisdom in secession unless it serves to eliminate the same bogeys that make Nigeria a living hell for us. Secession, I maintain, is the fruit of ‘reason’ that we need to be wary of and I will continue to say this hoping every prospective muscle – that is, the youth – by which the separatists hope to achieve their dreams of dissolution, would listen and learn to let the secessionists risk their skins and their lineages to actualize their platitudes.

    Let every political godfather, public office hopeful and so on send their sons and wives and daughters on to the streets to wield cutlasses, guns and bombs. Let the ruling class recall their children from their Ivy League schools and exclusive mansions abroad to march on the streets and hack to death perceived oppositions to their political ambitions. Let every youth from humble background and the breadlines mobilize instead to collectively seek an end to the ruling class’ reign of terror.

    Violence and bloodshed is never the answer. Secession is never the answer to our woes.

    The biggest misconception about separation, insurgence, self-determination or whatever the separatists choose to call it is that it could be peaceful and that the end result would be a conscientious and citizenry-centred dispensation.

    It’s all dirty, greedy politics. The separatists want the youth to fly the flags of their dream nations, they want everybody to brandish a bumper sticker that bellows, “Death to the Federal Republic of Nigeria!” They call anyone that’s anti-war and anti-secession, “pacifist,” “traitor” or whatever colourful adjective suits their rage. Then they promise the youth a prosperous future and better fate under their dream nation. Consequently, youth that ought to know better buy into such farce and they all begin to dream and talk of the great uprising that would set them free from the living hell Nigeria has become.

    Even when we see through the promises of the separatists, we choose to ignore it for the love of paltry inducements and instant gratification. It’s about time the Nigerian youth started postponing immediate gratification and endure hard sacrifices spurred by conviction that the future can be better than the past.

    But we face a far more difficult problem at our moment in history. What do you promise youth who have been told they can have anything they want, who are repeatedly urged to seek the best of all possible circumstances without shedding sweat for it? How do you tell them that “the good times,” as they have known them or heard of them, will definitely come back?

    The Nigerian youth needs a new vision to help them deal with reality, a promising story of the future that helps them let go of the pains and disappointments of the past. We need a grand vision of possibilities that Nigerians may pursue and dream on: the country’s rich socio-cultural and political tradition, the right of all citizens to larger lives. Such dreams should never be about getting richer than the guy next door or accumulating obscene wealth for applause and to show off but the right to live life more fully and engage more expansively, the elemental possibilities of human existence.

    Sophistry and deceit are the springboards from which our civilization evolves. Add mediocrity, mindlessness and greed and you have a perfect representation of the contemporary youth. We were wrong to think it a matter of years and decades that we would improve in citizenship and tact. We forget that true citizenship essentially translates to being an emissary of truth, hope, superior culture and progress to the benefits of the literate and unschooled.

    It should above all be the appendage of that fine adjustment between reality and the growing knowledge of life – an adjustment which discovers the secret of civilization and the solution to its seemingly intractable problems. Insanely, to this end, we apply bigotry in politics and religion. Thus by every manner of faith we commit the worst of inhuman transgressions – like terrorism and mass murder, inordinate acquisition of wealth and acclaim.

  • One country, two rules

    Let’s start with two wise but complicated sayings. The first is about the hunter shooting for game and hitting repeatedly. In exasperation, he wonders whether his arrow was designed for the tree for why would it always miss the game and hit the same tree.

    And the explanation here is simple: why would one simple problem dog a country for about 50 years. It must jolly well be that such a woebegone country is either created for such a calamity or the tumour is meant to see off the country. Or both, perhaps?

    Well, dear reader, let’s proceed to the next saying because in  African tradition to explain a proverb is to suggest that either the listener is dumb or the recounter is cynically mischievous or vice-versa. The second wise word is: if you treat one wife the way you treated the other, there would never be bad blood or such a need to harvest skulls and break jaws to make one’s point in situations of tenuous polygamy.

    Dear Hardball buff, this excursion in the land of proverbs is all about two recent events in the polity. The first is Kano Magistrates’ Court freeing five persons standing trial for the alleged murder of a 74-year-old woman trader.

    Chief Magistrate Muhammad Jibril discharged the five accused and terminated the case as advised by the attorney-general of Kano State. Said the Principal State Counsel, Rabiu Yusuf, who represented the state’s attorney-general: “Having gone through the case diary, the attorney-general of Kano evaluated the facts in accordance with sections 130 and 150 of the Criminal Procedure Code, presented legal advice.

    “The legal advice presented to the court dated June 24, states that there is no case to answer as the suspects are all innocent and orders the court to discharge all the suspects.”

    The world had been outraged on June 2nd this year when Madam Bridget Agbahime was murdered by a mob in Kano market over allegations of blasphemy. As the story went, she had questioned a neighbour-trader in the market why he would do ablution right in front of her shop. And the neighbour, chanting blasphemy, mobilised a mob.

    The second matter is like unto the one above: the Executive Committee members of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Northern Chapter, last week met President Muhammadu Buhari in the Presidential Villa. The matter that is heavy on their hearts which seems to have defied every rule, authority or institution – including commonsense – is the abduction of a 14-year-old Christian girl, Habiba Isiyaku, who is being held in the Emir of Katsina’s palace.

    CAN had made a representation to the palace; it had made a plea to the Katsina State Police Commissioner without any headway. Now it has taken its case to Aso Rock, hoping that good sense would prevail.

    Let’s close with another wise word: it says, let he who knows how to pound use the mortar and he who knows not let him pound on the floor.