The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Excellencies

  • Their excellencies’ first steps

    In the days immediately following their recent inauguration, President Muhammadu Buhari and the 29 state governors whose respective tenure commenced in-season (seven others have their respective tenure commencing out of season) headed out to portentous beginnings in office.

    Fresh from taking the oath, the President sprinted off to a summit of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) in Saudi Arabia where security and economic concerns reportedly topped the deliberation bill. In the sensitive context of our diversely fissured nationhood, some interest groups, among then the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), raised the red flag over the import of Mr. President’s choice as first port of call in his new tenure. One would wonder at the fuss, however, since it should be obvious the said summit was arranged way ahead of the May 29th inauguration date in Nigeria and the President was only keeping up with a prior commitment. Except, perhaps, that nothing gets taken for granted in this country.

    Then, there is the worn question of style and speed of the Buhari presidency. This is his second coming in the high office and he isn’t exactly one for dramatics, neither for early unveiling of his cabinet composition. Hence, it’s yet all cold in those regards at the power capital.

    To underscore that point, we could cite some other African leaders who have been famous for either their start-off dramatics or speed of policy action upon inauguration in power. When President John Magufuli of Tanzania came to power in November 2015, he shook things up on his first full day in office by walking unannounced into the country’s Finance ministry, peering into empty offices and interrogating frightened staff – letting it be known that a government long characterised by laxity in work ethic was in for some major overhaul. And much more lately South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was inaugurated for a new tenure on May 25th, unveiled a cabinet four days after, which was apparently aimed at rewriting the narrative of governance in his country. Coming from the embattled legacy of sleaze bequeathed by Ramaphosa’s predecessor, ex-President Jacob Zuma, the new cabinet not only pointedly exclude persons tainted with allegations of corruption, it is leaner – having 28 portfolios, down from 36 in the previous administration – and it is perfectly gender-balanced with 14 of the ministers (that is, 50 percent) being women. This puts South Africa at par with Ethiopia and Rwanda as the African countries with such record of gender equity.

    Nigerians await the composition of President Buhari’s cabinet as a pointer to his administration’s governance tack in this second coming. It took six months coming in his first tenure, but is well expected to be much more early this time around.

    Down in the states where governors lately got inaugurated, they have been busy making random statements on what their respective administration holds in store. Security has been top on the agenda – not unexpectedly – and among the first steps of many of their excellencies, especially those freshly taking office, was calling early consultations with security chiefs in their respective domain, apparently to get abreast of the realities they were taking charge of. President Buhari himself, at the weekend, locked down with all the state governors and security chiefs at the national level in a crucial meeting.

    Some of the governors as well held initial contact sessions with the civil service bureaucracy that constitutes the engine room of every government. In many cases, even though the state cabinets were yet to be unveiled – perhaps only Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal has so far announced his cabinet – the governors have named key officials like the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) and principal personal aides. And in the patronage mentality of Nigerian politics, those appointments are already being deconstructed by interested stakeholders in respective state for compliance with zonal / ethnic balancing. For states where newly installed governors have been at odds with their predecessors like Oyo, Ogun, Imo and Zamfara, the new helmsmen got down bright and early to dismantling some structures and policies inherited from the preceding administrations.

    Amidst the official bustle, the new Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni, made the time to enhance his marital status as one of the earliest steps he took in office. A day after being inaugurated, he tied the knot with Ummi Adama Gaidam, daughter of the immediate past governor of the state, Ibrahim Gaidam, who is said to currently be a student in Saudi Arabia. You could infer a statement of sorts that the former governor not only handed over the reins of power to Buni, he as well handed over his daughter, coming after two other wives Buni already had, to be one of the state’s ‘first ladies.’ The backdrop to this, of course, is that the new Yobe governor, who is the immediate past national secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), was anointed and supported by Gaidam to emerge his successor.

    Lagos State has witnessed a bustle of another kind, and that is the blitz of policy actions by the new Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. The new Lagos helmsman stands out in showing an early grasp of critical issues at stake in his domain, and in seeking to make the impact of governance felt from his first day in office. In the mega city-state, the biggest challenges include willful abuse of the environment by residents, which largely accounts for flooding whenever it rains, and as well the dilapidated state of roads and poor user culture that perennially fuel traffic gridlocks.

    On the heels of his inauguration, the Lagos governor signed his first executive order, which is on refuse management, traffic control and public works. By that order, the new administration tightened the noose on environment abusers and frontally tackled the challenge of traffic gridlocks by posting agents on roads all day to direct the traffic. It has also promised to mend the potholes (in many cases, manholes) that hamper motorists’ movement on most roads. Sanwo-Olu, in his first days as governor, as well personally visited the notorious Apapa gridlock crisis created by container trucks seeking access to the ports. His carriage so far bears out his charge to civil servants upon resumption as governor that Lagosians must feel the impact of governance from day one.

    With those early policy exertions, it remains for the new Lagos administration to diligently carry through with its intentions and promises. Take the traffic situation, for instance. If the potholes are earnestly fixed, bottlenecks will be eased on many roads in the metropolis and the huge economic waste resulting from man-hours trapped in traffic gridlocks plugged. Besides, the new administration must stay alert so that the massive deployment of agents to the roads to direct traffic does not become abused and hence rendered counter-productive. One of the reasons the immediate past administration of ex-Governor Akinwumi Ambode restricted the operations of some traffic agencies on Lagos roads was because the agents were stalling traffic flow by intercepting motorists to endlessly inspect vehicle documents and other appurtenances, for which they ended up extorting many members of the public. To achieve its aim therefore, the Sanwo-Olu administration will need to ensure all agents on the roads facilitate traffic and not otherwise.

    Back to speaking across the board: the bloated cost of governance has been a huge challenge to our democracy in this country and as cabinets are being forged by the President and respective state governor, it is the most opportune time to ensure strict functionality of portfolios and eliminate appointments for mere political patronage.

     

    • Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.
  • To their Excellencies

    To their Excellencies

    I would have written you all individually. But since you are all brothers from the Southsouth, I have taken the liberty to make it a joint New Year missive.

    Consider this my New Year contribution to the development of the goose that lays the golden egg, which has made us all lazy and unable to diversify.

    Permit me to start from Akwa Ibom. Governor Udom Emmanuel, please pardon me for poke-nosing into your affairs. Why? It is all about the Uyo Church tragedy on which I have written a couple of times.  In the spirit of the New Year sir, ensure the victims of the tragedy do not die in vain by punishing those complicit.

    Sir, last December marked the first anniversary of the tragedy at the Reigners Bible Church. On the occasion of the anniversary, I had raised some posers:  Will we ever see the White Paper of the report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry, which you received on July 7, last year? That day when  Justice Umoekoyo Essang, who chaired the panel, presented the report to you at the Executive Council Chamber, Government House Uyo, you said: “I want to thank you for this great job that you have done and to assure you once again that the recommendations of this report would be taken seriously. We would do everything to implement and prevent future occurrence of this tragedy. May this affliction never occur the second time”.

    You also used the occasion to commiserate with families of those who lost their loved ones in the tragedy.

    Sir, one of those it took away was Josephine Effiom. You too survived by the grace of God. The founder of the church, Pastor Akan Weeks, had his leg broken.

    Effiom, who was a polytechnic student, a friend said, “was one of the first three brilliant chaps in my class”. Effiom was the face of a tragedy in a house of God, where fear should have been the last thing on anyone’s mind.

    As typical of our nation, no one appears sure of how many people died. The day after, we saw figures as high as 160 in the media. It was attributed to the Chief Medical Director of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, who later denied it. Police gave the figure as 29. Commissioner for Health Dominic Ukpong said 26 people died in the unfortunate incident.

    Your men who crawled out of death’s hole had interesting testimonies to share. Your Chief Press Secretary Ekerette Udoh said an iron rod nearly cut his neck, but eventually hit him on the back. The cap of his left knee was broken and pains travelled all over his body.

    Your Commissioner for Information, Charles Udoh, who joined the State Executive Council only some one week earlier, thought he was watching a movie when the pillars started coming down. He was on his way out of the church to catch a flight when tragedy struck.

    The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) said the tragedy was caused by shoddiness. Sir, I want to plead that you should please ensure that those who overtly or covertly contributed to the tragedy must be punished. The Reigners Bible Church Int’l Inc tragedy must not happen again. One way to do this is to implement the recommendations of the Justice Essang panel. Anything short of this will be a disservice to the memories of the dead.

    Let me move to your brother in Rivers, Governor Nyeson Ezenwo Wike. Sir, I write this with fear in my mind because the last time I wrote you, my friend who is your media aide, Simeon Nwakaudu, described me in terms I am still contemplating.

    But that notwithstanding I will make my New Year request. On Monday, you addressed the good people of Rivers State on the January 1 killings in Omoku. 23 innocent persons were killed.

    In that broadcast, you released a list of 32 who you accused of being responsible for violence in various local government areas of your state. According to you, some of them embraced the Amnesty Programme you initiated but later reneged.

    You offered to pay N20 million to any person who volunteers useful information that will lead to the arrest and prosecution of any of the 32. You had harsh words for the late Don Wanny, who you described as “notorious cultist, kidnapper, terrorist and murderer”.

    You also assured the security agencies of your determination to continue supporting them to have these criminals apprehended and brought to justice.

    My request Your Excellency is that you should work with all possible to see that the bad boys are run out of town or arrested and prosecuted. Rivers is a beautiful state and should be for only beautiful people. The ‘ugly’ ones should have no peace.

    Let me stop there Your Excellency before I write anything that will incur Nwakaudu’s anger. Your Excellency, Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson, my request is simple: find a way to manage the former First Family. I know you will disagree with me about your not-too-good relationship with the former First Family, especially embattled ex-First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan.

    I foresee a situation your loyalists and the former First Family’s will be at war over who gets what in the state.

    My next stop is at the doorstep of Your Excellency, Governor Godwin Obaseki. Sir, towards the end of last year, a battle broke out between two business moguls, Alhaji Aliko Dangote and Abdulsamad Rabiu over a mining site in Okpella.

    Since the battle started I have had cause to feel that the state government is taking sides with one of the parties.

    Your Excellency, I want to believe that these signs are not clear enough. May be I need to change my eye-glasses. That notwithstanding, my plea is that both Rabiu and Dangote have contributed immensely to our economy. They are men who without many will be jobless. So, when a dispute arises between them, the right thing is to allow it to be resolved through civilised means. There is a court case over the dispute and I plead that the law should be allowed to take its course.

    Your Excellency, I am troubled each time your media aide issues statements which give the impression that you are willing to sacrifice one of these men. Please, let the law take its course. Abeg!

    Delta is a state dear to my heart. A part of my wife comes from there. I don’t have a request Your Excellency, Governor Patrick Okowa. Let me just congratulate you for allowing the train of charade called local government elections in Nigeria to berth in your state. I will not expatiate.

    I end this all with Cross River helmsman Prof. Ben Ayade. My request is simple: get the doctors back to work. The Cross River State Branch of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) earlier in the week directed all its members to immediately withdraw their services following the abduction of another of its member, Dr Emem Udoh, in Calabar.

    Yes, this is not Your Excellency’s fault largely but as the chief security officer, it is your duty to ensure safety of life and property. On this basis, do more to end kidnapping and other crimes in the state.

    The doctors must come back to work to ensure innocent lives are not lost to non-availability of medical hands to attend to emergency cases.

    I also appeal to Your Excellency to work with the Cross River State House of Assembly to pass a law prescribing severe punishment for those convicted of kidnapping in the state. They should be made to lose the proceeds of the crime, such as houses, hotels and so on.

    Bye for now, Your Excellencies.

     

  • Your Excellencies…death may come in your spittle

    Someday, you may choke on your spittle. You may die if you do. Death could come in your saliva. Your face will bulge with varicose veins straining to go ‘splat!’ in your head. In that moment, neither medicine nor the finest surgeon will be available to help you. Your money will be useless. Your power, ‘street credibility,’ thugs, charisma, will disappear in plain sight. Your concubines, trophy wives and sycophants will be unable to charm death. Many of them will be glad that you are dead.

    Whatever your degree of affluence, you will discover that you are worthless, like brittle toothpick in the paws of a mongrel. In split seconds, death will maul you the way boondocks crowd chew tinko (horse meat of the impoverished) they purchase with your hand-outs.

    You will remember the smile on your face and the sneer in your heart as you lured starving citizenry to sell their votes to you for a N500 hand-out, a quarter of rice and stale bread.

    Death will find you in common hours. And when it does, it wouldn’t recognize you as the powerful governor, senator, council chairman, vice president, president.

    Your title will be worthless and your name, insignificant, in the estimation of the one who would rid your pockmarked hide of your gluttonous soul. At death’s door, nothing else would matter. Your life will probably flash before you and you would relive for an instant, the most crucial aspects of your finished life. You will remember the monies you stole from public coffers at the expense of the electorate that voted you into power.

    You will remember your guilty and diabolic pleasures: the aides and concubines whose anuses you plowed for bewitched wealth; the newborn and seven-day-old infants whose heads and intestines you pounded in a mortar to make black soap and anti-death talisman. You will remember the sons and daughters you sacrificed or ‘used’ if you like, to ascend the ladder of man-made gods.

    You will remember the poor primary school kids you left at the mercy of nature’s wild elements – harsh sunlight, torrential rains and windstorms – because you had better things to do with State money, like the acquisition of mansions abroad, the seduction of a trophy bride or purchase of sinful pleasures.

    When death comes, you will remember the infant children, parents and youth whose lives never mattered to you even as they died in ghastly auto accidents on the cratered roads you refused to repair.

    Death will find you while you read commentary on your latest social and political theatric. The grim reaper will claim you while you exult in the praise of your fools and court sycophants; in that moment, you will find that you are the greatest of fools.

    The power drunk who dances to the hum of pain and symphony of grief of our devastated wastelands, did you think the music will never stop?

    When death comes, you will remember how paranoid you were. Then you will understand that had you being the statesman you promised and professed to be, you would have no need to be so paranoid and suspicious of everyone, even your own wives and mother.

    Even so, paranoia need not prevent a leader from holding down his job, taking rational, pro-citizenry decisions and conducting himself effectively.

    Mr./Mrs. Excellency, your crimes are so great that everybody casually assumes that you must in some sense have gone mad. You who steal billions from public coffers only to bury it in sewages, water tanks and crop farms excites the passing tribute of a sigh.

    At death’s door, you will lose the courage and deviltry by which you battled and conquered your most dreadful foes. You won’t have your great war chest and grand armies of thugs and corrupt law enforcers to command. At death’s stare, you will go blind in the face and your mind’s eye.

    You will understand why it was so easy for you to subdue political enemies and not the enemy within you. You will understand why you could contend with recalcitrant underlings, cantankerous wives, stubborn wards, treacherous aides and associates. You will understand why

    you could look on earthly tempests and not flinch. But you will never understand why death will take neither gold or silver to spare your life.

    Mr./Mrs. Excellency, there is no gainsaying that your life is the stuff dreams or the wildest fantasies are made of. You have grown from the desperate politician with tall dreams and modest wealth to become filthy-rich, power-drunk and self-possessed. You have become the titan who is quite successful at ‘cancelling out’ and overpowering other titans.

    Your virtues have turned to failings and you soar in a fetish cloud of lust and arrogance. As you exult with lust that will kill you, remember greater men and women who expired in the throes of fetishes like the ones that afflict you.

    Remember Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator who collapsed, coughing up blood in 1925. The X-rays showed he had severe gastro-duodenal ulcer. Thereafter, ulcer pain was ever present. Then he suffered increasing insecurity, paranoia and finally became detached from reality. By late 1942, his mental health had caught up with him. All the bombast and pomp had gone. He had no reserve of courage or wile and he yielded to ulcer, deep-seated depression among others.

    The Greek war became his unmitigated disaster, the shame from which Italy had to be rescued by the Germans. Power intrigues with Germany quickened his latter descent. In July 1943, he was in effect, imprisoned by fellow Italians on the island of Ponza, then moved to a naval base in Sardinia and later to a ski resort. After Italy surrendered in September, Mussolini was rescued by a German SS glider team and flown to Munich. The Germans then returned him to Italy and installed him as the puppet dictator of the remnant Italian Social Republic.

    He was eventually captured and shot by Italian partisans near Como; his body was flung in the back of a truck and driven to Milan where, on April 29, 1945, it was strung upside down alongside that of his mistress in Piazzale Loreto, where 15 Italian partisans had been shot in August 1944.

    Mr./Mrs. Excellency, like Mussolini, the time for humouring yourself will soon be over. Although your circumstances differ from Mussolini’s, your end will come varied, like the whimpers and howls of  poor, helpless Nigerians, whose miseries never matters to you.

    The indices of your brutal end emerge but you are too blinded by power and ego to see them; there is widespread poverty and unemployment in the land; Boko Haram afflicts the northeast, herdsmen invade southwest and Biafra’s dead bones jut from the grave across the southeast.

    Death travels with the restive wind but you think you will escape its scourge by simply hopping on the next plane to join your families abroad. Hmmm…What if it comes in your spittle?

  • Oh God! Heal our dear nation, so pray their Excellencies

    Oh God! Heal our dear nation, so pray their Excellencies

    Only their heartbeats and the voice of the one leading the supplication could be heard. Their Excellencies —Moslems and Christians — were united in this cause.

    The Moslems raised their hands . The Christians did not. All had their eyes open — suggesting they were praying  the Islamic way.

    It was all at the meeting of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja yesterday.

    Who will blame their Excellencies for seeking God’s face? What with salaries waiting to be paid? What with Labour asking for minimum wage to be raised to N54,000 from N18,000? What with fuel scarcity refusing to go away despite all the efforts of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)?

    Their Excellencies also have the herdsmen to worry about. From Enugu to Benue, Delta, Edo and others, the herdsmen are spilling blood.

    Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi in whose state herdsmen killed 44 people — a development which made him cry — sure has reasons to pray for the repose of the souls of the victims and for such not to happen again.

    Governors Nasir  El-Rufai (Kaduna), Ibrahim Hassan Dankwabo (Gombe), Badaru Abubakar (Jigawa) , Aminu Bello Masari (Katsina) and Abdullahi Ganduje (Kano) are also battling one challenge or the other — the chief being dwindling finances. So blame not their  Excellencies for praying for fruitful deliberations and the wisdom to come up with decisions that will lead to betters days for all.

    In Kaduna, for instance, the Sh’ite challenge is still there for El-Rufai to worry about. His Preaching Bill has also generated controversies and, above all, there is no enough money to give the people the basic amenities they  so much need.

    Pray on, your Excellencies. Prayer is the master key — when all else seems to have failed.

  • Excellencies or heads of killer squads

    So, Professor Festus Iyayi is dead. It is painful enough that such a man committed to the struggle for a better society had to bid the world bye at 66. Some of us had expected that he would be around for much longer to tend the flowers he had planted in the more than 30 years he had worked in the academia. By reputation, I had known him since the early 80s when young comrades in University of Nigeria saw the young radical lecturers at the University of Benin as models. Iyayi’s name was everywhere. He worked; he lectured, he taught about what to do to rid the society of parasites.

    Till he died in the cause of the struggle, the Professor of Business Administration and celebrated writer remained focused. At the time he was killed, he was on his way to Kano to join others in finding a lasting solution to the crisis in the education sector. If I knew Iyayi, he was not just concerned about this phase of the struggle. He could not have seen the fight for earned allowances as an end in itself. He was one of those who saw the bigger question in the devalued and denatured system of education in the country. He must have seen the ASUU strike as a weapon to beat the government to line- to appreciate that the Nigerian students deserve much more than they were being offered.

    And then, the man did not just die. He was killed. The murderous leaders are happy driving the people off the road and ramming into them. True, all the truth may not yet be in the public domain. We need to know all about the circumstances that snuffed life out of Iyayi. We need to have the autopsy report. The report of eye witnesses could be crucial. The court would probably have a role to play in resolving the matter for or against the Kogi State government.

    But, the much that we know and the general experience in the country is enough to call for decisive action against those men brought to power but would rather use the teeth we gave them to bite and inflict pain on us. What sort of people are these leaders? How do they lead? Each time I am on the road and the arrival of a governor is announced by siren blaring outriders and vehicles, I feel bitter. I know it is not the experience even in neighbouring countries. So, from where did we pick up the tradition?

    The Kogi State governor’s convoy is reputed for crashing into objects and men. The other time, the governor himself nearly lost his life. It was a reminder that he is human, too. It was a lesson he was expected to pick up that recklessness kills. He failed to imbibe the lesson. But, this time, his me killed Iyayi.

    All lovers of democracy must rise up to demand that the driver of the vehicle that knocked off Iyayi must be prosecuted for at least manslaughter. Anyone who engaged speed as an agent of death should be brought to book. The Federal Road Safety Commission, too, must pick up part of the blame. Agreed, the President, Vice President, Governors and Deputy Governors enjoy immunity from prosecution, but do they also enjoy immunity from investigation? Shouldn’t the FRSC periodically come up with reports on how the executive office holders are faring on the road? What sort of mindset drive governors who aside dishing out poor governance, fail to adhere to common traffic rules?

    We also owe it to ourselves to start campaigns against governors who have transformed their convoys to killer squads. Why do they need convoys of ten vehicles and more? What are they afraid of? Why blare the siren to drive others off the road? The other day, when Ikedi Ohakim was still governor of Imo State, he was in Lagos and left his convoy to harass a poor woman and her little children for having the effrontery to keep driving when His Excellency was passing through the same Ikoyi roads. As the poor woman was dragged out of her car, the small kids ran out of the car and across the road. They could have been crushed.

    When Her Excellency the Dame came to Lagos, it did not occur to her that the city is at the heart of the nation’s economy. She got the former capital city shut down. No one must move when a Dame has business to transact through the roads. For the hours it took her to move from the airport to the city centre and back, her security details kept everyone else off.

    For her husband, whenever he had to move, the airport is shut down; no aircraft could take or land. Those already airborne must stay in the air until His Excellency is done with his own transaction. Anyone who dare disobey is flogged and kicked about. He is brutalized and dumped somewhere until the agents of the emperor are satisfied he has learnt his lesson. It is impunity; oppression and repression.

    Working through the lawmakers, we need to call attention to these murderous actors and call them to order. The murder of Iyayi should be the last. Nothing we do can bring the Professor back, but we can, and must, ensure that no one else is sacrificed to the gods of gubernatorial power.

    Sleep on, dear Brother Festus; a genuine comrade.