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Tag: exit

  • Aregbesola: Exit in blaze of glory

    Former American President, Barrack Obama’s valedictory speech remains one of the greatest in the annal of political speech-making. I lifted the lines below from that speech finding them significantly relevant to this piece.

    Obama had said to his audience with tear-laden eyes on his exit from power: “If I had told you eight years ago that America would reverse a great recession, reboot our auto industry, and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history…if I had told you that we would open up a new chapter with the Cuban people, shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program without firing a shot, and take out the mastermind of 9/11…if I had told you that we would win marriage equality, and secure the right to health insurance for another 20 million of our fellow citizens – you might have said our sights were set a little too high.

    “But that’s what we did.  That’s what you did.  You were the change.  You answered people’s hopes, and because of you, by almost every measure, America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started.”

    For a moment, imagine the outgoing Governor of Osun Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s expected speech on November 27, 2018 when he is constitutionally expected to hand over the baton to his successor, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola: “If we had told you that we would create another Osun where a new set of values and orientation in tandem with the Omoluabi ethos would take over; institute good governance that would ensure provision of infrastructure that had never been witnessed in this state before; change the face of our education system and make it functional again with state-of-the-arts facilities and raise the performances of our students in WAEC from a miserable 15% to 70 per cent; create a new network of roads that map the path to future progress and developments; halt the expanding and frightening population of unemployed people and create a new empowerment and employment template that Nigeria and indeed Africa would find most ingenious and applicable; enthrone sustainable peace that would make this small corner of the globe a beckoning attraction for businesses and holidays, you would have said those amounted to mere figments of and in political demagoguery.

    “But today, we stand before you, proud that we have even surpassed the very targets we set for ourselves. That, however, is because you have made it possible for us to redirect the ugly course of our state with your cooperation and involvement. The lesson we have learnt, we must admit, is that development, real development, only happens when the people are involved.”

    There shouldn’t be doubts over the state in which Aregbesola is handing Osun over to his successor. The eight-year tenure has simply redefined the over four million populated-state in so many ways. We admit that naysayers might controvert this, but it is certain that history will record Ogbeni as the visionary who came to make Osun rediscover itself with a new life that confirms its sustainability.

    Controversial? Yes, he may have been! But in this part of the world, it is doubtful if anyone in such critical position would make any headway, set new records and templates if he elects to go by the existing norms and afraid to break the rules.

    In the dogged pursuit of his Messianic mission, there were no ways the resolve to phase out the old order in the educational system would not  have triggered some uproarious protestations. There was no way tearing down structures including mosques and churches and schools to give ways to developments and urban renewal would not have caused some hoopla. And was it really possible for a new government to seek an overhaul of the bureaucracy for effective service delivery without inviting some condemnations unto itself?

    For every sector where Aregbesola recorded resounding and remarkable achievements, there was always one brick wall or the other that had the capacity to truncate the dreams. But with his wills, there were always the ways out.

    It is within those context that you would get the explanation for the controversies that hallmarked the eight years of the Aregbesola administration.

    Aregbesola sought doggedly to give his state a new life. But in doing that, he must necessarily thrash some existing orders. Some people took Aregbesola’s controversies as needless creations of the governor. However, he is currently basking in the euphoria that most of the experiments he risked and endured have been adopted by majority of those who called him unprintable names in the middle of his relentless experimentations.

    These were not only even about the physical developments of the state he governed. Critical examinations of the Aregbesola ways showed a systematic challenge on some of the anomalies of the federal system Nigeria claims to practise. Without saying so, Aregbesola indirectly bailed the states of the federation out of their lethargy that had also somehow trampled them into some kind of servitude.

    Until the rebranding of Osun, components of which were a new crest, an anthem and a flag, not many states of the federation realized the enormity of their independence from the federal might. And until the then Vice President Namadi Sambo visited the state and Aregbesola was not on hand to receive him, it never occurred to many Nigerian states and their governors that they were not constitutionally bound to obey such protocols.

    The message is this: In many ways, federalism has been better served as Aregbesola sought to build his state creating that awareness that states are not in master-servant relationship under a true federal system.

    In some ways akin to how the government of Ahmed Bola Tinubu stood up to the Federal Government to claim the rights of Lagos as a constituent unit of the Nigerian federation, the Aregbesola administration sought to and succeeded in giving fillip to the independent entity that Osun represents within the federal system.

    Taking cues from that, I doubt if there is any state in Nigeria today that has not keyed into that; created its own identity and sought to reinforce it as part of the prerequisite for economic, social and political prosperities.

    And so, the story of the successes under Aregbesola transcends the physical, gigantic infrastructure that the state is now blessed with. Though we know many would easily want to applaud the feats of this governor on the strength of the size, colour, aesthetics and grandeur of those educational institutions; innovations as exemplified by the birth of Tablet of Knowledge (Opon Imo): the quality and durability of the wide network of new roads; the state-of-the-arts security equipment, ambulances stationed in strategic points throughout the state. Those who recognize the indices of true development would appreciate his eight years of hard work infusing a new culture that appreciates productivity and responsible citizenship.

    Through the instrument of one of the widely acknowledged empowerment initiatives, the Osun Youths Empowerment Scheme (OYES), there is a new orientation that elevates work ethics above the increasingly unbridled desires for wealth.

    In an age where wealth without work has seeped into the culture of the people, the Aregbesola administration has, while seeking an ingenious solution to the growing unemployment scourge, killed two birds with one stone (as Yoruba would say) by ensuring that the over 60,000 Osun youths who have passed through the rigors of the scheme emerge as ambassadors and preachers in the new work ethics and orientation gospel that comes with the volunteer scheme.

    In the same vein, the people of Osun have been made to accept taxation as being synonymous with responsible citizenship. It is part of the ways to teach our people that you cannot hold any government accountable for good governance if you are not a partaker through the instrument of tax commitment.

    There is a new spirit in town. At least, as far as Osun is concerned. Governance has been given a new definition never known to those who had suffered stagnation.

    For the first time, the state has been given a 10-year development plan through the efforts of its economic strategists. A good understanding of the model of development which has lifted the state to what Aregbesola will be handing over to Oyetola come November 27, 2018 shows that the people will be better off with continuity.

    No doubt, the years ahead promise to demonstrate how a solid foundation has been laid. May the people, the focus of the whole efforts, reap the benefits of the superstructure.

    • Okanlawon is Special Adviser, Information and Strategy, State of Osun.

     

  • Exit of a  deft  political  fixer

    Anytime I read or heard anything about the late Chief Anthony Anenih in his lifetime, my mind always went rightly or wrongly to Mayor Richard J. Daley, who was mayor of Chicago in USA for 21 years (1955-1976). In his lifetime, the late Mayor Daley, dominated the politics of Chicago as the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Committee for 23 years. In this capacity, he fixed Chicago politics as a ruthless political machine whose fame transcended Chicago. Many people felt that he fixed the presidency of USA for the late President John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. It is still believed that he helped Democratic Party candidate, Kennedy to beat Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate narrowly in the election, by releasing the poll results from his state very late after calculating the votes needed by Kennedy to beat Nixon. The late Chief Anthony Akakhon Anenih, the Iyasele of Esanland who like Mayor Daley stayed long in politics was a regular feature  in the Nigerian politics for the past 40 years. He was known for his political doggedness and astuteness and this made him to be referred to as ‘Mr. Fix it’ by friends and foes in Nigerian political circle.

    The late Chief Anenih rose from a very poor background where opportunities were very limited to an enviable position of a Commissioner of Police in the Nigerian Police Force. He retired from the Police Force  in 1976 and immediately after this,he plunged himself into business. He was involved in the management of hotels and establishment of oil palm plantations and  according to him, his success in business was due to the help of the late Collins Obi and the late Shehu  Musa Yar’Adua  who later became his strong  political associate. In his autobiography  titled ‘My Life and Nigerian Politics’, the  late Anenih joined in 1980 the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), the ruling party then as a full member and financier. It was through politics that  the late Chief Anenih became a household name in Nigeria and he first caught the attention of  the nation when he wrestled the leadership of NPN in the then Bendel State from the late Chief Anthony Enahoro, one of the most astute politicians ever produced in Nigeria. Interestingly, the two of them were from Uromi  in Ishan Division of the state. It is to be noted also that apart from these two political heavyweights, Ishan Division had produced other notable politicians such as Professor Ambrose Alli, the first civilian governor of the state, Tom Ikimi, the Foreign Minister in the infamous Abacha government, Shaka Momodu,  Big Ewah and  military politician in person of Admiral  Augustus Aikhomu who was the second in command to General Ibrahim Babaginda.

    As  the leader of the NPN in the then Bendel State , the late Chief Tony Anenih helped the party to unseat his Ishan compatriot, Professor Alli as governor of UPN and to instal the NPN candidate, Chief Sam Ogbemudia at the 1983 gubernatorial election. This government of Ogbemudia together with the others in the  federation came to grief as a result of the military coup of January 1, 1984, that  brought General Muhammadu Buhari to power. After the coup, the late Anenih was detained for 18 months by the military regime,  first at Kirikiri and later at Kano prison.

    When politics resumed during the regime of Babaginda, the late Chief Anenih  was  elected as the chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which was one of the parties decreed into existence by the unpredictable General. The other party was the National Republican Convention (NRC) headed by his mercurial compatriot Tom Ikimi. In his autobiography, the late Anenih said that he organized the party under the guidance of the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua whom he described as ‘a master strategist and inimitable tactician’. According to him, he promised to deliver to his party, the late Chief M.K.O Abiola as president by winning the presidential election. True to his words  Abiola won the presidential election of June 12 , 1993 as the candidate of SDP under the chairmanship of the late Anenih. Unfortunately, the military president at that time General Babaginda,  for reasons which are still unclear to the Nigerians and the world till today annulled this freest election ever conducted in the history of our country.

    The annulment of the this election although not carried out by the late Chief Anenih,  became an albatross on his neck and blighted his political image up till today. Many people felt that he was a sellout on the issue of June 12 election because of his very tepid  reaction to this unfortunate annulment. His support for the setting up of the Interim National Government by the then wobbling and dying  Babaginda government together with his romance with the Abacha government that took over from the Shonekan’s interim government on November 17, 1993 gave credence to this feeling. In my opinion, the  defence he put up in his autobiography for his actions during this  difficult period in our history was not convincing. However, the naivety of Chief Abiola in trusting both Babaginda and Abacha during this period did not help matters in the struggle to revalidate his mandate.

    The death in  June 1998 of Sani Abacha who plunged Nigeria into political darkness brought new hope for a  new march towards an unfettered civilian administration in the country. As expected, the late Anenih was in the forefront of political activities after the demise of the malevolent Abacha. He pitched his tent with the People Democratic Party (PDP) and immediately took over the Obasanjo/Atiku presidential campaign team. He used the old formidable political machinery of the People Democratic Movement (PDM) which was formed by the ever scheming late Shehu Yar’Adua to galvanize support throughout the country for the Obasanjo/Atiku presidential team.  The team won convincingly at the polls  in the 1999 presidential election and the feat was repeated  subsequently in other elections until  the party was booted out of power in 2014. He was made  the Minister of Works in the new Obasanjo administration in 1999 and later  he became the chairman Board of Trustees of the party. He was well respected in the party by all the movers and shakers of the party and this was the period he got the name ‘Mr. Fix it’ for his political sagacity as he  turned PDP into an awesome political machinery that rolled over the country. The only person that tried to rattle him with little effect was Uzor Kalu then Abia State governor who accused him of diverting the money voted for road construction for other uses.

    The political fortune of the late Chief Tony Anenih nose dived with the coming of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as the governor of Edo State, the home state of  the late Chief Anenih  in 2008. With his election, the ever ebullient trade unionist turned politician destroyed the late Chief Anenih political base by comprehensively beating all  the candidates sponsored by the late Tony Anenih in subsequent elections. His acclaimed sensitive political antenna was blunted. This action of the feisty Oshiomhole, coupled with the rejection of the PDP nationally at the 2014 presidential election  no doubt destroyed the political myth surrounding the late Anenih and  it appeared that the late chief never recovered from these political humiliations before he died.

    Chief Anenih was involved in many good causes in tertiary and traditional institutions in the country.  I am a witness to the enduring legacy of the late Anenih at University College Teaching Hospital (UCH) at Ibadan.  At this teaching hospital, the late Chief Anenih endowed the Geriatric Centre which is impacting positively on the lives of aged people. I was so impressed with the work going on in the centre that I sent the following text message to the vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan just last August: “My dear VC, I write to you on an issue which I want you to consider. People close to me who  have had health reasons to be treated at the geriatric unit of UCH gave glowing reports of the good services the unit is doing for humanity. I have visited the place myself to ascertain and I can attest to the good work going on in the unit. It is my belief that if one judges by the good work going on in the unit , then the founder should be honoured with an honorary Doctorate degree of University of Ibadan..I am aware that an award may be late for this year but it could be slated for next year. Let me tell you without any equivocation that I detest the politics of Anenih especially his stand on June 12 debacle, but I put it aside to  make this suggestion because of the good work he is doing at UCH through the Geriatric unit he donated.  Thank you.”

    I never met the late Anenih in my life an I wrote the above because I appreciate his good deed at Ibadan which is not common  among his contemporaries who only know how to bleed the country dry leaving little for the teeming masses who wallow in abject poverty. In his life time, many institutions have appreciated his numerous good  gestures. He was made the Iyasele of  Esanland by his people and many universities like University of Benin, Ambrose Alli University and  Rivers State University of Science and Technology has conferred honourary doctorate degrees on him. One may not agree with the politics of the late Anenih,  but there is no denying the fact that he bestrode Nigerian political scene like a  colossus in his time. He was a consummate politician feared by friends and foes.

     

    • Prof. Lucas writes from Old Bodija, Ibadan.

  • Exit, boss of the bourse

    •Hayford Alile, an apostle of integrity in the spiritual and temporal realms, departs in a blaze of glory

    Apostle Hayford Ikponmwonsa Alile, who just passed away, was a classic example of a citizen taken care of by his country and who, all his life, served in different capacities, diligently paying back that same country.

    Had everyone of his generation been blessed with the Alile temper, perhaps Prof. Wole Soyinka, another leading light of that generation, wouldn’t have dismissed them all as a “wasted generation”.

    As director-general and chief executive of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), spiritual leader of St. Joseph’s Chosen Church of God International, Benin City, and Empathizer-in-Chief at the Hayford Alile Foundation, to cater for the less privileged, Alile gave his all to his country and compatriots. Nothing less was expected of a patriotic soul.

    Yet, his country had earlier taken good care of him. Gaining admission into the University of Ibadan (UI) in 1962, he earned four scholarships: one, UI scholarship for the top 10, on the nationwide matriculating students’ merit list, for 1962 (he was fifth on that perking order); two, from Loyola College, his secondary school, to go study at Cock University, Cock, Ireland; three, from the Federal Government, for his dazzling brilliance; and four, from the Western Region government, before the creation of the old Midwestern Region.

    In an interview with Vanguard, the late Alile spoke of his golden memories of UI, the life of scholarly comfort, radical student politics and general excitement, as secretary-general of the National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS), precursor of today’s National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), reeling off NUNS’ activism during the 1963 census, and the anti-Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact protest at the Parliament in Lagos, as the young and newly independent country hobbled, in early mistakes and teething problems.

    He also spoke of his fond experience at Loyola College, Ibadan, where though the second smallest pupil among the college’s first set, his principal made him a prefect and recruited him as a teaching staff, only two weeks after passing out — so sure was the man that the young Alile would clear his papers, which he did.

    But Alile would burst on the Nigerian public consciousness, with his stellar exploits as top dog at the NSE, where he was director-general and chief executive from 1976 to 2000. It was a delicate period of Nigeria’s transition from state-led economy to a market-led one. Whatever NSE has become today — its present operational headquarters at the vortex of Nigeria’s financial district in Lagos, the automation of its trading, which has greatly boosted international access into NSE’s share trading and the launch of the NSE All Share Index — carries Alile’s imprimatur.

    Gushed Oscar Onyema, present NSE chief executive, in a tribute to Alile’s memory: “Apostle Alile’s contributions to the capital market and organised private sector will continue to be referenced. He was indeed a visionary leader, whose  foresight  and impact on the operations of the NSE remain evident several years after the end of his tenure as D-G of the Exchange.”

    But leaving NSE in 2000 wasn’t the end of living for the famed apostle. Leaving the management of shares, with his apostolic probity and integrity, he moved onto something more spiritual, as Spiritual Leader of St. Joseph’s Chosen Church of God, Benin City. On the more secular though humanitarian lane, he set up the Alile Foundation, to care for the less privileged. His spiritual career dates back to a miraculous healing of his mother, by a spiritual church, when all hope seemed lost; even if neither of his parents was even a converted Christian then!

    But the foundation, from what two of Alile’s eight children told The Punch, is no more than the structured version, of the Alile family charity and compassion tradition. The junior Aliles revealed that as growing children, they were part of the family cherished practice of sharing their munificence with the poorer folks.

    Alile died a doting father and fulfilled family man, a corporate man of integrity and a spiritual head that lived strictly by the example of his teachings. He was a model citizen, to whom not a speck of scandal was traced, throughout his long and illustrious public life, in the Nigerian private sector. Like the full barrel that makes no noise, illicit self-projection was also not his style.

    A towering Nigerian has departed, a fit and proper study, for youths in search of role models. Whence comes another?

  • Saraki, Tambuwal, others exit had no dent on APC, says Buhari

    •Conservatives have moved away, says Oshiomhole

    President Muhammadu Buhari and All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole yesterday reflected on the defections from the party and concluded that they had a feeble effect.

    Senate President Bukola Saraki, Governors Aminu Waziri Tambuwal (Sokoto), Abdulfatai Ahmed (Kwara) and Samuel Ortom (Benue) and some members of the National Assembly, defected in a move believed to have planned to cripple the party.

    Buhari and Oshiomhole spoke at the party’s sixth National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja – the first under the Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC).

    The President, who arrived at the APC national secretariat at about 11.20am and departed at 2.16 pm, said the party must ensure hitch-free, fair and credible primaries which will be a precursor to a free, fair and credible general elections in 2019.

    Buhari congratulated the new NWC leadership, saying:  “The team emerged at a turbulent time when there were rumours and speculations of massive defections in such a way that could rock the very foundation of the party.

    “Despite reconciliatory attempt to keep the house together, some members were hell bent on pulling down the roof. They left, threatening to go along with scores of people. But due to the work of the new party leadership, the exit barely made a dent on our super structure as they could not muster the figure they had envisaged to cause an upset, particularly in the two chambers of the National Assembly. The APC remains in control and is increasing by the day with quality people joining the party.”

    The President added that as the party marches towards the primaries, “I ask all and sundry to ensure that we play the game according to the rules. Let us come out with free, fair and credible primaries which will be a precursor to free, fair and credible election next year.

    “Let us shine the light through our primaries and the rest of the country will find the way. Our primaries must be in complete compliance with the provisions of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended, the Electoral Act and, above all, the constitution of the party.

    “This is the time we must work for unity, harmony and togetherness. Let us all join hands to move the party forward. We must take our party to the next level and I urge all and sundry to give support to our National Working Committee.

    “The new National Executive Committee members assumed duty at a very critical time. With the general elections coming very early next year, 2019, any political party worth its salt must get its internal dynamics right and march as a team.”

    Buhari assured of his commitment to fulfilling his electoral promises, saying “Hope is rekindled in our heart that we will give our country purposeful leadership and improve the quality of life of the people.

    “We will continue to secure the country, fight graft and reposition the economy in such a way that jobs can be provided for our youth and give them a future and hope. We will fulfill all the promises we made to Nigerians. We are fulfilling them and will continue to serve with heart and might to build a nation where peace and justice and prosperity shall reign.”

    Oshiomhole said ambition was responsible for the exit of those who defected and not because of any thing done to them by the party.

    He said: “I stumbled on a quote which might interest Mr President and I think it summarises what has happened to us. I can’t find anything more appropriate.

    “I do not know exactly the occasion and I don’t know the date this statement was made by one of Nigeria’s foremost political leaders who was described as the best president Nigeria never had, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

    “In one of his works, he said, ‘For the Progressives to be in power, they need the support and collaboration of some Conservatives. After attaining power, the conservatives would on their own move away. The progressives, once the conservatives have moved away on their own, would now build a great party that will move the nation forward’.

    “Mr President, the conservatives have moved away. So, this was bound to happen because when we promised change, they all sang it, but it had different meanings to different people.

    “For some, it was to be the change that would lead to more of the same but for the Nigerian people; they know that change meant a move from a political order that services only the political elite at the expense of the poor and the masses.

    “When it became clear that this change cannot allow business as usual, the conservatives left on their own. Our party is stronger, smarter, more cohesive and there is no better evidence than the fact that we have won all the major elections after they left the party.”

    He recalled the efforts of his NWC to persuade those who defected to stay adding that although some people left, the efforts paid off with many senators and Representatives staying in the party.

    “I made a comment which seems to have been misunderstood in some quarters, when I said that if some individuals of no particular fixed political address decide to leave, I will not lose my sleep.

    “I speak of no particular fixed address because if you have a history of moving every season from one political party to the other with one constant thing in mind, to contest, now what is your political address? So, for people like that who are migrant politicians, rolling stone politicians, I am not able to identify their political address and, therefore, I refuse to miss my sleep.”

    On defectors, Oshiomhole said:  “We have seen people who go back to their communities to defect and we see ‘uncommon defectors’ but the others sat in their chambers, in a guest house and prepared their defection notes. Some are known to have remained in Abuja, detained by their own conscience and unable to visit their constituencies.

    “So, I want to assure you that we have purged ourselves of excess fat that would have possibly interfere, with the flow of blood in our veins. We are stronger, more determined and we are much certain of our future.”

    Turning to the President, he said: “We asked the President to continue to provide leadership to deal with the vices that have detained Nigeria and which seem to explain the paradox that has detained Nigeria, a country that is so rich and its people so poor.

    “Mr. President, God has a purpose for sparing your life and that is because you have not finished the mission that He entrusted to you, to lead the forces of change, to reposition our country, reorder our values and to encourage all of us.

    “Those who submit to change, in spite of their past, still have a chance to play a role in the commitment to rebuild the nation and ensure it offer hope to every citizen.

    “Mr. President, you are the only one who has had the courage to look at western leaders eye ball to eye ball and ask them to return the stolen money. If you have stolen money in their vault, you won’t have the courage to say so. None of your predecessors has had the courage to say so in the manner that you did. Those are things we are proud of and they give us courage and confidence that Nigerians will not be fooled come 2019.”

  • Musdapher: Exit of a judicial reformer

    “As we sit at trial, we also stand on trial” –Dahiru Musdapher (July 15, 1942 –Jan 23, 2018 )

    In virtually all his speeches as the new helmsman of this deeply-fissured judicial institution, he spoke so poignantly about an edifice about to cave in. He would take the burden of salvaging this structure, bearing the weight of its decay on his frail, elderly shoulders, and for 11 months, even as he reeled and staggered on wobbly legs, he had vowed still that “this house will not fall under our watch”. And although by the time he had fretted his hour upon the judicial stage, the ‘house’ had still not been re-built, yet it had also not fallen. Thanks to the juridical wisdom of one who believed the law both in ‘statute’ and in ‘action’. Because even as they feared that he might be conservative and attempt to preserve an un-progressive status quo, he had turned out to be a radical-revolutionary, prescribing drastic reforms that the conservative judicial order is still un-receptive to.

    And soon ‘The Nation’ Newspaper in its ‘Comment and Analysis’ page of 11/20/11 would say, about him: “we have a radical jurist in the mould of the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi at the apex of the country’s judiciary”; and the ‘Leadership’ Editorial of 09/25/11 had said: “Though Musdapher has been an establishment person… he has made some pronouncements… which indicate he can spring some radical surprises”.

    Eleven Months

    Justice Dahiru Musdapher was appointed the 12th Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN on 28th August 2011, succeeding Justice Katsina-Alu. And although he had barely 11 months to serve, he made the most judicious use of his tenure by instituting what many Nigerians believed was the most holistic and most widely propagated Judicial Reform Program targeting, at once, the institution’s juridical malady, its infrastructural decay and a negative public perception. Musdapher was in fact the first Chief Justice to arraign the Judiciary to the court of public opinion -stirring a judicial hornet’s nest that was both an inquisition on the system and a clarion call for its urgent reform. And it was about this vision that Itse Sagay would say “all these indicate the actions of a man who wants to leave a lasting legacy… If he carries on like this, what he is going to pack into his short term of 11 months is going to be something we have not seen for the 10 years before that.”

    And so it was. Justice Musdapher would tell Nigerians sordid truth about the Nigerian legal system that no Chief Justice ever did. It was about the much he could do in the little time that he had. He was the first Chief Justice not to follow the sedate, publicity-shy style of his predecessors because he was not about to keep quiet and sanctify the aura of judicial secrecy that had always shrouded the operations of the judicial system. And so to entrench the reforms, Musdapher had made his tenure a very public one, constituting himself into a crusader, breaking the yoke of judicial esoterism by publicly confessing to serious challenges bothering particularly on the ethical and moral substructures of the Nigerian judiciary, its dilapidated courts, its decrepit administrative machinery, and worst of all its dismal continuing education program, which, he would admit, had occasioned serious decline in the intellectual capacity of judicial officers to effectively deliver justice.

    Interfacing with the public was the Chief Justice’s clever way of getting a crucial message across to Nigerians, namely that the legal system was bedeviled no less by archaic laws and moribund procedures, than it was by a decaying infrastructure and by a corrupt bench. And this situation Musdapher said, was not helped by a culprit Nigerian Bar which -although outside the court is famed for moral suasion and a toga of ‘corrective’ disposition- in the court it had always been prosecutorially indecorous, permitting abuse of ethics and rules of professional conduct. Nor was it helped, he said, by a moribund, technically-manipulable body of laws which at best only give unconscionable lawyers a field day in court to advocate in a manner that clogs rather than free the wheel of justice.

    The consequence of these Musdapher said naturally manifested in a serious downturn in the public’s perception of the Nigerian Judiciary; so that over the years the Judiciary had lost a great deal of the confidence of the public, and Nigerians no longer believed they could get justice from the courts of their land. Many in fact saw the Judiciary more like a zone of despair than the proverbial ‘last hope of the common man’ that it ought to be. It was blunt confessions like these by Justice Musdapher that prompted the ‘Independent’ Newspaper in its Editorial of 12/16/11 to admit “Not in recent times has any Chief Justice… spoken the minds of Nigerians, and echoed their frustrations and disappointments with such fearless candor and unremitting boldness”.

    The Avenging Angel

    By openly admitting to the existence of a judicial Augean Stable, Justice Musdapher had first fulfilled the righteousness in the maxim which requires that ‘those who come to equity must come with clean hands. And thus having confessed to the existence of a malignant state of affairs in an institution to which he belonged, he had set for himself the moral basis to mount the chivalry charge of redemption and to assume the role of an avenging angel. And because his ideas on how to reform the Judiciary were revolutionary, Musdapher, in order to get the victim-public own the reform, had picked especially popular and controversial causes that resonated deeply with the people. The Guardian Editorial of 11/25/11, credited him with fighting obnoxious causes such as “plea bargain, which he described as of dubious origin and alien to our Constitution, the indiscriminate granting often of frivolous ex-parte motions to delay judicial process, the flagrant abuse of citizens’ fundamental rights by the granting of ‘holding charges’ to ill-prepared prosecutors, and the granting of injunctions to restrain officers of the law from performing their duties in the course of justice”

    But like the 18th Century American jurist Roscoe Pound, Musdapher believed also that although “The law must be stable, it must not stand still”. Because he had publicly also propagated the idea of ‘Special courts’ with judges dedicated strictly to cases on corruption and also the idea of ‘suspended sentence’ as practicable remedy to the problem of prison congestion in Nigeria; When he announced publicly that Nigerian judges had no reason whatsoever to hear criminal matters beyond a period of 6 months, it was the much that a Chief Justice –without the luxury of judicial fiat to issue corrective orders- could do to advance the course of speedy dispensation of justice. And if this revelation –coming from the nation’s number one judicial officer, had done nothing to reverse the malaise, at least it had exposed to the public ‘truth’ of a judicial kind, that the problem of our justice system is not only about complex or defective laws but also about the attitude of judges and lawyers towards complex and defective laws.

    Said ‘The Independent’ Newspaper in its Editorial of 12/16/11: “At a time when the much touted fight against corruption is tottering and enveloped in doubt and uncertainties, the statements of the Chief Justice certainly hit the bull’s eye and struck a resonating cord in the collective conscience of the people”.

    Radical Reforms

    But Musdapher’s was not all about lamentation and no salvation. His reform program had in fact recommended changes that were no less holistic and many of which, in fact, were radical and revolutionary. He had proposed among other things: (1) review of the requirements for appointment of judges so that in addition to pure ‘merit’, ‘morals’ should also count, whereby nominees for judicial appointment are subjected to public scrutiny by way of publishing their names for public comments; (2) extension of the current mode of judicial appointments beyond only judicial officers to include those outside the Judiciary with ‘distinction in legal practice’ (namely private lawyers) and those with ‘academic excellence’ (intellectuals) -the objective being to provide wider diversity of experience and add quality to judicial deliberations in court and (3) appointment of ‘lay persons with integrity, experience and courage’ to serve on the National Judicial Council, NJC.

    He also proposed: (a) creation of a separate specialized institution in place of the National Judicial Council, NJC to handle discipline and removal of judicial officers and thus to allow the NJC concentrate on the duty of formulating broad policies for, and judicial appointments in, the Judiciary; (b) review and streamlining of the structure of courts with a view to making the judgments of courts clear, fair and just and consistent with the doctrine and rules of judicial precedents –to avoid conflicting judgments especially from the various divisions of the Court of Appeal and (c) expansion of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to include ‘Advisory Jurisdiction’ on application by the President or Governors -so that rather than by normal appeals, the Apex Court can handle a good number of matters by ‘advice’ instead

    And since many of these recommendations required legislative amendments –not merely administrative action- it’s been about seven years now since Justice Musdapher submitted a Constitutional Amendment Proposal to the NASS to consider. But suffice it to say that virtually nothing has been done since then -proving again that the problems of the Judiciary, transcend the mere existence of defective laws, or the advocatorial manipulations of unconscionable lawyers or yet the judicial indiscretion of corrupt judges. Most of the problems of the Judiciary result from the ineptitude of a legislative arm not willing to propose legal reforms and not responsive even to the proposals by others, for reform.

    Epilogue

    And as we still mourn the death of this great judicial reformer, Dahiru Musdapher, it is auspicious to end this modest tribute with the ‘National Mirror Editorial of 09/29/11 in which the Paper wrote “Let it be on record that Justice Musdapher’s tenure restored Nigerians’ faith in their Judiciary”.

    May his soul continue to rest in peace. And may Allah grant him Aljannat Fiddaus.

     

    • Adamu was Media Adviser to the late Chief Justice.

  • Babalola; exit of a patriotic activist

    There was a period in this our troubled country when the students of the tertiary institutions were the conscience of the society. When students in those days took positive actions on society’s problems, the people listened because such actions were altruistic and usually they are for the betterment of the society. This is a far cry from the present situation where our students in the tertiary institutions are rudderless and are readily available to be hired for all sorts of malfeasance which are detrimental to society’s orderly growth and development. A key figure during the golden era of students’ activism in the country was Chief Moses Abidoye Morakinyo Babalola who was buried at Ibadan on February 9. The late Abidoye Babalola was a selfless students’ union leader, quintessential administrator and a caring community leader. He was born in 1934 to the family of Joseph Omowumi Babalola, the Alatunse of Ipetumodu in the present Osun State. The family is noted for its love for education and the family has produced notable scholars among whom was Professor Adeboye Babalola, the renowned Yoruba literary icon.

    The late Abidoye Babalola attended Offa Grammar School between 1950-1956 and in his final year was the Senior Prefect and won the coveted leadership prize. In 1957 he entered the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology where he caught his teeth as a students’ union activist. In the college, he was elected secretary of the students’ union in 1958/59 session and later as a Public Relation Officer of the defunct National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS), which was the umbrella organizations of all the students in the tertiary institutions in the country then.  It was in this position that he became one of the honoured senior ushers during the Nigerian independence celebrations. According to him, ‘he was within a whispering distance’ of the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and other shakers and movers of Nigeria in those days during the celebrations.

    By 1960, when the late chief entered the then University College Ibadan, he was already an accomplished student unionist and his reputation as a unionist prevented him from being admitted to do an honours degree in English because that department detested students’ unionism. He was subsequently admitted to a more liberal department of history for an honours degree.  In the 1961/62 session, he became the president of the Students’ Union, University College Ibadan and his tenure as the students’ union president was the golden era in students’ unionism in this country and it is yet to be surpassed. Unknown to the generality of Nigerians, our pre- independence leaders signed a secret pact with the British government for the establishment of a British military base in Nigeria after the attainment of independence by our country. This was at the height of the cold war and such a base could have made Nigeria a target of attack by the former Soviet Union in case of any conflict between the Soviet Union and the Western powers which included Britain, the owner of proposed military base in our country. Somehow, the arrangement for the secret base was made known to the students at Ibadan.

    The students under the late Abidoye Babalola quickly mobilized themselves into action so as to thwart this secret agreement. A strategic committee under the late legendary student union leader, Dapo Falase was set up and on November 21, 1961, Ibadan students under the late Babalola trooped to Lagos from their base at Ibadan. They carried their protest to the parliament buildings where the parliamentarians were meeting. Many parliamentarians on seeing the students ran for cover in their flowing agbada and babaringa. The demonstration, planned without detection by the authorities at the University of Ibadan and security agencies of the federal government, awoke the whole nation to the danger of having a military base in our country. The whole of Lagos was turned upside down on that day as a result of the students’ demonstration. The demonstration by these students which many people in the country regarded as a patriotic act jolted both the Nigerian and the British government and as a result the defence pact was abrogated on January 22, 1962.

    The second patriotic action taken by the students at Ibadan during the tenure of the late Abidoye Babalola was the protest against the insulting description of life in Nigeria in a postcard written by one Miss Marjorie Michelmore, a member of American Peace Corps. In the postcard, the young American who probably had never left her country before, wrote about the squalor and primitive conditions in which Nigerians lived. The students at Ibadan protested against this unflattering image of Nigeria and their protest nearly derailed the Peace Corps programme which was designed by the late President John Kennedy to win the friendship of people in the third world. Although the young lady apologized for her unguarded comments, she was sent home but the demonstration had salutary effect as the programme subsequently enjoyed improved training and orientation for those taking part in the programme. It is interesting to note that 58 years later, the President Donald Trump of USA also described the situation in our country in the same unflattering terms.

    The first Rag Day ever held by the students at the tertiary level was held by the students’ union of the University College Ibadan led by the late Abidoye Babalola. It helped to boost the image of the students not only in the eyes of University authorities but more importantly in the eyes of members of the public who regarded university students, because of their privileged position in the society as aloof and arrogant. The idea was mooted by the versatile Professor John Ferguson, the renowned Professor of Classics of the University. The rag day programme was designed to make ‘young privileged, able-bodied, mentally alert, future leaders of the nation to identify with the poor and the unfortunate in the society.’ The money collected from such venture was donated to the poor and charity homes. This is unfortunately a far cry from what happens nowadays when students in tertiary who participate in rag day event use the money collected for their personal upkeep instead of giving the collected money to the poor.

    On completion of his university education at Ibadan in 1964, as an history graduate, the late Abidoye Babalola joined his alma mater as an administrator rising to the post of Senior Assistant Registrar. One important post he occupied in the university was the post of an assistant to Mr. John Harris who was the acting Vice- Chancellor of the university when the country was at the verge of breaking up during the political crisis of 1966 and 1967 which led to the civil war. From the University of Ibadan, the late Abidoye Babalola was appointed pioneer Director of Administration of the Nigerian University Commission (NUC)  in 1974 and before he could settle fully into this job, he was appointed in 1976 as a commissioner in the then Western State  by the military governor of the state Brigadier David Jemibewon. He served at various times as commissioner for trade, industries, and co-operatives; education and agriculture and natural resources. After his stint as commissioner, he returned to University of Ibadan from where he eventually retired. As a seasoned administrator, he put his thought and administrative experience down in a book titled ‘The making of a University Administrator.’ In this book, he gave an insight into the administrative and political debacle faced by the authorities at the University of Ibadan before and during the Nigerian civil war. It should be a compulsory reading material for any aspiring university administrator. In retirement he helped to mobilize his people at Ipetumodu for the development of the town and for this he was conferred with the title of Alatunse of Ipetumodu , a title previously conferred on his father and brother.

    The late Abidoye Babalola is gone but the legacies he left as a students’ leader should be emulated by students in our tertiary institutions. His generation made the views of students on national issues to be known and respected. Nowadays, it is difficult to know the stand of our students on important national issues such as restructuring of the governance of the country, the quagmire in the security sector of the country, decay in the educational sector and other issues. This is tragic because the future belongs to them. Our students need to articulate their stands on how to get our country out of the present political, economic and social debacle so that they themselves will not turn out to be another ‘wasted generation’. The life of late Chief Abidoye Babalola is a pointer to how our students can make themselves relevant to the society.

     

    • Professor Lucas writes from Old Bodija, Ibadan.

     

  • Solidstar announces exit from record label

    Solidstar announces exit from record label

    Joshua Iniyezo, known as Solidstar, has started the new year on a solo note, having announced his separation from erstwhile record label, Achievas Entertainment.

    He said on his Instagram page: “I Joshua Iniyezo aka Solidstar, wish to use this opportunity to thank my former label Achievas Ent for being there for me over 10 years. Words cannot express how grateful I am, Special S/O to @ossyachievas @colepeter my bosses and the entire team for having my back. You are still my family even as I begin another chapter career wise.”

    The record label, while responding to the artiste’s disclosure via the same medium, confirmed Solidstar’s mutual exit in an official statement.

    “We wish to hereby inform the public that Achievas Entertainment has ended its contract agreement with musician, Solidstar,” the statement reads.

    Continuing, it says, “The two parties reached a mutual decision to end the contract after working for over 10 years together. All previous recording audios, music videos, albums of the singer remain property of Achievas Entertainment. We wish him all the best as he starts a new life.”

    While with the record label, Solidstar released two albums, ‘One In A Million’ in 2010 and ‘W.E.E.D’ in 2016.

     

  • Recession exit: Manufacturers renew push for local products

    Recession exit: Manufacturers renew push for local products

    Mostly driven by an improvement in oil prices and production volumes, the economy is out of recession and the manufacturing sector is also gathering momentum due to improved foreign exchange liquidity. But, to sustain the recovery tempo, manufacturers are seeking for increased patronage of locally-made products by the government. They argue that the government, being the single largest spender in the economy, holds the ace to boost the industrial sector by increasing its patronage of made-in-Nigeria goods.  Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA reports that the government’s patronage of local products will increase revenue through taxes and job creation, among other positive spin-offs.

    Manufacturers are unrelenting in their push for patronage of locally-made products. Even before the exit from recession, their heart cry was the promotion of goods and services produced locally. Their argument: it is the fastest way of pulling the country out of recession.  According to them, cutting down on the insatiable appetite for imported material to the detriment of locally-produced ones will reduce the pressure on Foreign Exchange (forex) triggered by the nation’s huge import bills and low receipts from exports.

    They further argue that curtailing the growing demand for forex for consumption, rather than capital products and equipment; will strengthen the local currency (the Naira).

    Besides, the patronage of locally-produced goods will stimulate economic growth by revitalising the manufacturing sector and boosting its competitiveness thereby creating jobs.

    Bouyed by the benefits, local manufacturers have again renewed their clamour for increased patronage of their products, following the country’s exit from recession, stating that doing so will sustain the recovery of the economy.

    The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has confirmed in one its reports gave the economy, which slipped into recession for the first time in more than two decades in August last year, a clean bill of health. According to the NBS report, in the second quarter of 2017, the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 0.55 per cent (year-on-year) in real terms.

    The Bureau described as an indication that the economy has exited recession after five consecutive quarters of contraction since the first quarter of last year. It attributed the recovery to improved performance of oil, agriculture, manufacturing and trade sectors of the economy.

    Experts at multinational consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Nigeria also confirmed the out-of-recession claim. The PwC attributed the recovery partly to a sharp recovery in the oil sector, driven by an improvement in global prices and production volumes.

    The experts said that in addition, the non-oil sector recorded a positive growth for the second consecutive quarter, boosted by a strengthening of the broader manufacturing sector, reflecting impact of improved foreign exchange liquidity.

    In a report made available to The Nation, PwC experts led by Partner & Chief Economist,  Dr. Andrew S Nevin, said that besides the improvement in real GDP, the performance in other macro-indicators suggest that the economy is on track for a broad-based recovery.

    The report entitled: “Nigeria’s Q2’17 GDP: From Recession to Recovery” was a projection that Nigeria’s real GDP will attain full recovery by 2019, with growth moving closer to its long-term trend of 6.7 per cent.

    Latching on to the recovery trend, particularly in the manufacturing sector, manufacturers are renewing their clamour for increased patronage as a viable, credible and win-win strategy to sustain and strengthen the sector’s recovery process.

    At the forefront of the push is the President, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Dr. Frank Udemba Jacobs, who has identified the government as the largest single spender and could drive industrial development and economic growth by increasing its patronage of locally-made products.

    Jacobs, who spoke in Lagos at the 50th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Ikeja Branch of MAN, appealed to the government to increase its patronage of made-in-Nigeria products, noting that this will boost the manufacturing sector, resulting to increased revenue to government through taxes and employment creation, among others.

    The AGM had as its theme: “Building a Competitive Manufacturing Sector: Road Map to Nigeria’s Economic Recovery”, with special emphasis on “Monetary and Fiscal Policy Measurers: Catalysts to Restoring the Growth of the Real Sector”.

    It offered a platform to review the activities of the branch, the performance of the manufacturing sector as well as the economy in the past year.

    Udemba, in his address at the AGM, noted the Federal Government’s efforts at reviewing the current Public Procurement Act (PPA) at the federal level and the introduction of the Executive Order on improved patronage of made-in-Nigeria products as well as the current build up against smuggling and counterfeiting activities in the country.

    The MAN president, who was represented by the Vice President of MAN, Lagos Zone, Rev. Isaac Ade Agoye, however, said it was pertinent to note that public procurement is not just mere purchases, but a strategic fiscal tool that has been used by other countries, including advanced nations, to develop their manufacturing sector.

    The Federal Government, through the Minister of Industry, Trade & Investment, Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah, announced that at least 40 per cent of government procurement spending will be on made-in-Nigeria goods and services.

    The minister also said the government was working at moving up 20 places up the ranking on the Ease of Doing Business index this year and it has to start from growing made in Nigeria.

    The development was sequel to the signing of three strategic Executive Orders by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, when he held the forte for President Muhammadu Buhari, to promote patronage of made in Nigeria products, transparency and ease of doing business in Nigeria.

    Going forward, Enelamah said that any document issued by any Ministry, Department and Agency (MDA) for the solicitation of offers, bids, proposals or quotations for the supply or provision of goods and services shall expressly indicate preference to be granted to domestic manufacturers, contractors and service providers and the information required to establish the eligibility of a bid for such preference.

    All documents of solicitation shall require bidders or potential manufacturers, suppliers, contractors and consultants to provide a verifiable statement on the local content of the goods and services to be provided.

    Defining ‘local content’ as the amount of Nigerian or locally-produced human material resources utilised in the manufacture of goods and services, Enelamah said that made-in-Nigeria products shall be given overwhelming preference, or at least 40 per cent, of the procurement spent on locally manufactured goods and service providers.

    He listed some of the priority items to include: uniforms and footwear; food and beverages; motor vehicles; pharmaceuticals; construction materials; information and communication technology, furniture & fittings and stationery.

    The Nation, however, learnt that government agencies have not lived to the manufacturers’ expectations in their compliance with the Executive Oder on patronage of local goods and services.

    The MADs’ attitude has prompted the manufacturers and other private sector operators’ renewal of advocacy with the hope of getting more government patronage.

    Justifying the MAN’s position at the AGM, Jacobs said: “It is an established fact that when we buy foreign goods, we pay the returns to factors used in producing them in the originating countries; that is to say that we pay wages, rent, interest and profit to foreign countries with our local resources.”

    He said greater patronage of made-in-Nigeria products, on the other hand, will enhance the manufacturing sector and in turn, result to increased revenue to government through taxes. It will also reduce social vices as well as guarantee peace.

    The MAN chief specifically called on the Lagos State government to set a minimum percentage threshold for its purchases of made-in-Nigeria products.

    He said: “At the federal level, a 40 per cent minimum threshold of purchase has been fixed for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through the Executive Order One.

    “Also, we want you (Lagos State government) to give an acceptable Margin of Preference (MoP) of about 35 per cent in terms of price consideration for those products as against foreign ones.

    “This will mean that even if local products cost a little more than foreign ones, the local ones should be patronised within the set margin of preference,” Udemba said.

    According to him, this is in consideration of the prevailing high cost of the operating environment in and the need to keep local manufacturing companies in production. Besides, he said there is the need to retain jobs and create new ones.

    Udemba pleaded with Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and his colleagues in other states to ensure patronage of made-in-Nigeria products in their states’ procurement policies and processes.

    The thinking is that the made-in Nigeria campaign must be driven by all the states if the targeted objectives must be met.

    Not a few operators and stakeholders in the various sectors believe that if the made-in-Nigeria campaign must succeed, it should not be the challenge of the Federal Government alone; the 36 states must have a role to play.

    A voice for robust monetary, fiscal and exchange rate policies

    Prof. Ademola Oyejide of the Faculty of Social Science, University of Ibadan, who was guest lecturer at the AGM, noted that countries that have developed did so on the back of the productivity of the manufacturing sector.

    In his presentation entitled: “Monetary, Fiscal and Exchange Rate Policy Measures for Restoring Nigeria’s Real Sector Growth,” Oyejide said the manufacturing sector can only be productive and competitive with the appropriate mix of macroeconomic policies.

    According to him, having more than one exchange rate distorts the market and hurts the manufacturing sector.

    Dr. Okechukwu Kelikume of the Department of Economics, Lagos Business School (LBS), noted that indeed, Nigeria exited recession, starting from the second quarter of 2016, precisely February 2016, when oil price started moving up gradually.

    He, however, said that if the recovery momentum must be sustained and strengthened by riding on the back of the renewed campaign for patronage of local goods, it was important to ensure that “if we make policies, we must also stop distortions.”

    Citing the government’s policy to encourage local production of rice, the expert said it was critical to halt the distortion in the policy by way of halting the smuggling of the product.

    For instance, he said that at a time a bag of foreign rice cost about N13, 500, the price of a bag of local rice cost N17, 500. He said even though the policy to encourage local production of the product was in place, it made more economic sense for consumers to buy foreign rice because it was cheaper.

    Kelikume, who blamed it all on smuggling and high of doing business in the country, traced manufacturing contribution of a meagre 0.6 per cent to the GDP to the inability of the government to curb smuggling.

    Govt re-assures real sector operators

    In his remarks through the Commissioner for Commerce, Industry & Cooperatives, Prince Rotimi Ogunleye, who represented him at the AGM, Ambode said that his administration has intensified efforts at making the environment conducive for manufacturers and other private sector operators to thrive.

    He listed some of the efforts to include the state’s contribution to improving Nigeria’s rating on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index; automation of Lands Bureau to facilitate unhindered and smooth access to members of the public and other stakeholders who transact business with the institution; aggressive infrastructure development across the metropolis.

    Prof. Osinbajo had also assured that the Federal Government will not rest on its oars on improving the economy. He said the latest impressive ranking in the World Bank’s latest ‘Doing Business’ report, was an indication that the President Buhari-led administration’s reforms were producing results.In the World Bank report, Nigeria achieved the unprecedented step of climbing 24 places in the rankings, and earning a place on the list of 10 most improved economies in the world.Many stakeholders have described news as cheery for real sector operators, even as some of them argue that if government could complement this by increasing its patronage of locally made products, the current economic recovery momentum will be sustained and strengthened.Some operators who spoke with The Nation have advocated the urgency to address the lack of supportive infrastructure and challenging monetary and fiscal policy environment that weaken the manufacturing sector’s capacity to produce goods and services for local consumption.

  • Ekwueme: Exit of a loyal lieutenant

    Ekwueme: Exit of a loyal lieutenant

    The curtains were drawn on the life of former Vice President Alex Ekwueme in the wee hours of yesterday. He passed on in a London hospital. Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU revisits his political career, his style in office, accomplishments and failed bid for the presidency.

    He was an excellent example of a technocrat in politics. To him, politics was not an occupation, but a vocation. His compatriots describe him as a gentleman who could not ruffle feathers. He was a man of peace. As a private and public figure, he avoided controversy like a plague. Till he breathed his last, he was a man of integrity.

    Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, architect, lawyer, sociologist, historian, philosopher, businessman and former vice president, knew his onions. He was a successful man who ventured into politics with optimism. The motivation was service to his fatherland. Although he operated in a rough era when opulence and kleptomania filled the hearts of major operators, he was isolated from the pack as a politician who was above board.

     

    Life full of lessons

     

    As vice president to Alhaji Shehu Shagari in the National Party of Nigeria (NPN)-led Federal Government in the Second Republic, Ekwueme was believed to have joined a bad company. He was like a sheep in the midst of wolves.

    The eminent politician was not in the class the illustrious pathfinders and nationalist politicians, who laid the foundation for an independent Nigeria. He was not even a lieutenant or associate of the men of the old order. No historian will describe him as a colourful politician, a vocal megastar and highly influential chieftain in the Second Republic, the era that threw him up as the number two citizen. It is debatable whether Ekwueme can be described as a giant of history. But, many would agree that he played his meagre role in the history of presidential democracy.

    Yet, his life embodied a compendium of lessons. Ekwueme was a man of contentment. In office, he was as gentle as a dove. He acknowledged the constraints of his exalted office. He was a vice president handicapped by constitutional limitations. It may be argued that he had much prospects as a deputy president. But, he was not under any illusion that he was a deputy commander-in-chief. Under former President Shagari, he was a loyal deputy; a great spare tyre with a narrow sphere of influence, unlike flamboyant Transport Minister Dr. Umaru Dikko, party chairman Chief Adisa Meridith Akinloye and pompous NPN National Secretary Senator Uba Ahmed. A long pole separated Shagari and Ekwueme in terms of education. Despite his five degrees, including one in law and a doctorate degree in architecture, he was, according to the dictate of the presidential system, an occupant of a powerless office and a shadow deputy leader.

     

    ‘Accidental’ deputy

     

    Although Ekwueme was not Shagari’s choice, he became a running mate by sheer fate. The former president wanted a woman as his vice.

    But, the woman he had in mind, an Igbo from the same Southeast, declined the offer, saying that the job would be rigorous for a woman.

    The First Republic Minister of Trade & Commerce, Dr. Ozumba Mbadiwe, also lobbied for the slot. But, Shagari tactically turned it down. Both were ministers under Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa. When his candidature was rejected, the man fondly called the “man of timber and caliber”, described the position was a “repeater station to a major station”.

    Mbadiwe was later appointed as Presidential Adviser on national Assembly Matters and much later, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.

    In 1983, Anambra State was a battle ground between the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) Governor Jim Nwobodo and Chief Christian Onoh of the NPN. Ekwueme was happy that his party finally made an in-road into Zik’s prime territory. It was in the days of winning by moon slide. The euphoria lasted for three months. Onoh, like other governors, was booted out of office by soldiers.

     

    Loyalty as a virtue

     

    After the 1983 general election, Ekwueme’s political fate was sealed. There was no evidence that he would succeed

    Shagari despite his loyalty. He was a tested and trusted ally. He was indirectly groomed for the number one position. But, loyalty, competence, experience and proximity to the prime position were not enough criteria for succession. The Yoruba in the NPN believed that the presidency would shift to the Southwest in 1987. The charismatic chairman, Akinloye, was already warming up for the office. In the four years and three months he served, there was no evidence that Ekwueme undermined or subverted his boss. But, he was not in the calculation of the party hierarchy for succession.

    During the NPN national caucus meeting, the former vice president usually sat beside his boss. Both president and vice president were only distinguished members of the caucus presided over by Akinloye. In that atmosphere of party supremacy, discipline was the watch word.

    That discipline was usually exhibited by the duo of Shagari and Ekwueme, to the applause of Akinloye, Alhaji Mohammed Makaman Bida, Alhaji Shetima Ali Mongonu, Alhaji Suleman Takuma, Senate President Joseph Wayas, Chief Lulu Briggs, Senator Wash Pam and Senator Olusola Saraki. In fact, Ekwueme was taken aback in 1999, when that scenario could not be re-enacted in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) when Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo became the president.

    Already a rich architect and businessman, Ekwueme refused to participate in the widespread festival of graft that permeated the life of Shagari administration. The two leaders – Shagari and Ekwueme – watched helplessly as the looting went on. Yet, Ekwueme suffered a collateral damage. When the military that toppled the inept government went after its functionaries, the former vice president was not spared. There was no evidence of financial crime to nail him at the tribunal. He only languished in detention without justification for almost two years.

     

    Politics in the blood

     

    Ekwueme had been interested in politics as a young man. In the First Republic, he had wanted to serve as a member of the Eastern Regional House of Assembly on the platform of the defunct National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC). He failed to get the ticket at the primary.

    That was his first baptism of fire in politics. After that, he became a dormant member of the party until it was banned by the military in 1966.

    His credentials are fascinating. He was highly educated. Ekwueme was also a blue blood. He was a community man. Yet, when the throne was vacant, he declined to mount it. He was the Ide of the Oko kingdom in Anambra State, where his younger brother, Prof Lazarus Ekwueme, a music teacher, reigns as the traditional ruler. He was also honoured by the Council of Traditional Rulers in the old Aguata as the Ide of Aguata Local Government Area. The local government comprise of 44 towns.

     

    Career

     

    Ekwueme started primary school at the St John’s Anglican Central School, Ekwulobia. He proceeded to King’s College, Lagos. As an awardee of the Fulbright Scholarship in the United States of America (U.S.A.), he attended the University of Washington where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture and City Planning. He obtained his Master’s Degree in Urban Planning. Ekwueme also earned degrees in Sociology, History, Philosophy and Law from the University of London. He obtained a Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of Strathclyde. He earned the BL (Honours) Degree from the Nigerian Law School.

    A distinguished architect, Ekwueme started his professional career as an Assistant Architect with a Seattle-based firm, Leo A. Daly and Associates, and also with the London-based firm Nickson and Partners.

    On his return to Nigeria, he joined ESSO West Africa, Lagos, overseeing the Construction and Maintenance Department. He later set a successful private business with his firm, Ekwueme Associates, Architects & Town Planners, the first indigenous architectural firm in Nigeria. His practice flourished with 16 offices spread all over Nigeria. He was the President of the Nigerian Institute of Architects.

    He also presided over the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria. Ekwueme served as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Nigerian Institute of Architects.

    A philanthropist, Ekwueme has an active Educational Trust Fund that has been responsible for sponsoring the education of many youths to universities in Nigeria and abroad. He was a member of the Housing sub-committee of the Adebo Salaries and Wages Review Commission. He also served on the board of the Anambra State Housing Development Authority.

     

    Roles in constitutional

    development

     

    Ekwueme did not quit politics after his release from prison, unlike Shagari who went into political retirement. He was a delegate to the Nigeria National Constitutional Conference (NCC) in Abuja set up by the dreadful dictator, the late Gen. Sani Abacha. He served on the Committee on the Structure and Framework of the Constitution. His views were respected at the conference as an elder statesman. Ekwueme’s famous proposals at the NCC for a just and equitable power sharing in Nigeria based on the six geo-political zones have been accepted as necessary for maintaining a stable polity. The former vice president mobilised the group of 34 eminent Nigerians who risked their lives to stand up against Abacha’s dictatorship. The late Chief Solomon Lar was mandated to take a ‘sack’ letter to Abacha in Aso Villa. He was a member of the Board of Directors of Canada-based Forum of Federations. He is also a member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Council of Elders. Ekwueme was leader of the team assembled by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) for pre-election monitoring for the parliamentary election in Zimbabwe in 2000. He was the leader of the Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU) Observer Team to the Tanzanian presidential and parliamentary elections in 2000. He also co-chaired the 28 member-NDI/Carter Centre sponsored Observer Team to the Liberian presidential run-off election in 2005.

     

    Unfulfilled life ambition

     

    Ekwueme had a life-time ambition to serve as the president. It conformed with the collective political aspiration of Igbo to produce the president. To the race, it is critical to its full integration into Nigeria in the post-civil war ear. However, his thinking and style betrayed an understanding of national politics. He worked actively for the establishment of the PDP. He was full of expectation.

    But, at that time, two issues were at play. The retired generals had constituted themselves into a formidable bloc in the party. Also, the Southwest was in despair and crying wolf over the annulment of the historic June 12, 1993 presidential election won by the late Chief

    Moshood Abiola. The party zoned the slot to the Southwest to appease the aggrieved zone. Although Ekwueme and the late Alhaji Abubakar Rimi threw their hats in the ring, the zoning notwithstanding, they met their waterloo at the primary. Obasanjo, who did not know how the party was formed, got the ticket. Ekwueme was bitter and he did not hide his feelings.

    Former President Obasanjo decided to wield both government and party power, to the consternation of the founding fathers. The PDP chairman, Lar, was shoved aside. Gradually, the founding fathers and party elders were sidelined. Although Ekwueme did not leave the PDP till he passed on, he was not active at the twilight of life. He was on reconciliation mission on many occasions, but they were almost futile.

    The PDP gladiators turned a deaf ear to his words of wisdom to the party’s peril. His daughter was the running mate to Osekola Obaze, the Anambra State PDP governorship candidate in last Saturday’s poll that produced Willy Obiano Life full of lessons

    . Former Governor Peter Obi and Obaze explained that it was a tribute to his stature as a father figure.

    Ekwueme was honoured with the Order of the Republic of Guinea and Nigeria’s second highest national honour of the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON).

    He left behind a country trying to recover from the multiple ills of corruption, economic upheavals, disunity and insecurity. More importantly, he did not realise the dream of an ‘Igbo Presidency’ in his life time.

     

  • Exit Mugabe

    With his ouster from the presidency of Zimbabwe last week, old man Robert Mugabe’s dream of dynastic reign in a republican setting came to a rude closure. His iron grip on power was broken and his hope of posthumous rule through forced spousal succession – what his former allies in the war veterans association dubbed “coup by marriage certificate” – was upended.

    The 93-year-old had the record of being the world’s oldest president, and that isn’t counting his being the most enduring ruler in Africa’s peculiar club of power gnomes, having held fort for 37 years. His sole peer in the cohort is Angola’s Eduardo dos Santos, who stood down from office a few months back. Mugabe had been the only leader his country ever had since independence from Britain.

    The nonagenarian actually planned to hold out for much longer. He was already served up by Zimbabwe’s ruling party as its candidate in the general election due next year. The ticket positioned him as the world’s oldest contender on the hustings – and that, without formidable challenge from the country’s splintered opposition. And with the inexorable swamp-in of degenerative elements of mortality, Mugabe schemed to install his overly ambitious but upstarting wife, Grace, as successor. He progressively sidelined veterans of the anti-colonial struggle like him, whose credentials resonated with the power elite, so to entrench his wife who had nix exposure to that historical cause. At the last count, he sacked his long-time ally and next ranking member of the ruling party, Emmerson Mnangagwa, as deputy president at the open bidding of Grace. His swing was widely construed as a ploy to install the wife in Mnangagwa’s office and, thus, position her as heir to the presidency.

    Curtains fell on the Mugabe universe last week when soldiers rolled out their tanks to seize the country’s nerve centres. The same military had over the years been the spine of his political clout and sustained affront on basic democracy norms, obviously owing to a shared history of resistance to Britain’s colonial hegemony that was cast off in 1980. Mugabe at Independence assumed republican leadership of his country, but subsequently slipped into despotic trenches where he hoped to cement a dynastic reign over the country. What he seemed not to have reckoned on is that for every representative who veers off into the narrow and self-serving corridor of despotism, there always comes a breaking point where co-travellers get to reappraise the journey. And when that reappraisal shows the despot up as too far gone on his solo trip, he gets taken off track, unless he has formidable structures of his own to overawe the original base.

    Mugabe crossed that breaking point last week, and he apparently didn’t have a counter-structure when his erstwhile power base – the military – moved to cut him out. His final point of departure with the military, as it seemed, was his emasculation of liberation struggle veterans within the ruling party, which peaked with the removal penultimate week of 75-year-old Mnangagwa as deputy president, just so to empower a factional band of youths loyal to 52-year-old Grace. He had in 2015 sacked another deputy president, Joyce Mujuru, without incurring repercussions; but there is always a red line not to be crossed.

    The putsch in Zimbabwe left unique imprints on global benchmarks for the practice of democracy and tolerance level for its interruption by sleigh of arms. For instance, coups are by their very nature ambush crafts. Zimbabwe’s is the first in common knowledge of which advance notice was openly served before it was carried out. Less than 48 hours before the act, the country’s military chief announced to a press conference in Harare that his squad was poised to strike if the purge of Independence veterans within the ruling party continued. But the jackboots couldn’t wait for that warning to register before they butted in.

    Of course, the Zimbabwean military has insisted its intervention was a cleansing act of sorts, not a coup, and it has managed to conduct the country’s affairs since then as a dicey balancing act. Whereas it effectively severed Mugabe’s hold on power and kept him under house arrest while negotiating his future with him, the old man was retained in nominal status of leadership, such that he made a public appearance on Friday to open the graduation ceremony at Zimbabwe’s Open University in Harare where he is chancellor. The word as at the weekend was, he doubled down on remaining president until the upcoming elections.

    But Zimbabweans, almost without exception, were euphoric over the military intervening to terminate Mugabe’s autocracy that has seen their country from a great promise of prosperity at Independence to the basket case it is now. Perhaps in effect, the international community seemed thrown out of step on the standard tack of rejecting putsches against constitutional governance for whatever reason offhand. And that is really unhelpful for securing the culture of democracy against military adventurers in restive climes like we have in Africa.

    In response to the Zimbabwe putsch, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari glibly called for preservation of the constitutional order, which the military action seemed anything but. Not that he was alone. The leader of Zimbabwe’s neighbour and regional powerhouse, South African President Jacob Zuma, initially rejected “unconstitutional changes” to the government in Harare offhand; but he dialed back soon after to canvass amicable resolution of the impasse, while urging the Zimbabwe defence forces to “ensure…maintenance of peace.” He has since headed up regional mediation efforts to ease Mugabe out. Also, the African Union (AU), which in the past summarily kicked out countries like Mali and Mauritania because of military coups, is quavering for now on declaring Zimbabwe’s as a coup and acting accordingly.

    Further afield, former colonial overlord, Britain, just about cheered the removal of Mugabe, even though by force of arms. United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, in a statement to the House of Commons last week, flayed the old man’s legacy and suggested that a transition offered a “moment of hope” for Zimbabweans. And the United Nations (UN), as at the weekend, was unsure what to make of the Zimbabwe experience. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported Secretary General Antonio Guterres to have described the situation as confusing, saying: “I never like to see the military involved in politics, but I have to recognise it’s a confusing situation. I hope first of all that there is no bloodshed, that this is done peacefully. I hope that (it) will…lead to a political and democratic solution, and that the next elections that are scheduled are free and fair elections for the people of Zimbabwe to choose their own future.”

    The point here is, Mugabe did so much damage to the economy and democratic culture in his country that the method necessitated to get him out now in some way imperils democracy across the African continent. That is the legacy the nonagenarian is bequeathing to posterity.

     

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