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Tag: gathering storm

  • Averting the gathering storm in Imo

    Sir: Imo State sits at the heart of Igboland and is usually referred to as the Eastern Heartland. But recently, the state has been in the news not for its rich Igbo cultural heritage or her great human and material resources but for the wrong political reasons.

    Whether it is about erection of effigies of foreign leaders or politics of nepotism and exclusions, the truth is that all is not well with the state. With the palpable ominous signs in the political ambience of the state, caution should be the watch-word.

    In Nigeria, intra-party crises are always carpeted as family affairs but it is yet to be seen how APC will handle its current myriads of political intransigencies and the corollary parallel political structures in many states.

    Either as a way of punishing the incumbent governor of Imo  State who had  denounced the tenure elongation of the out-gone National Working Committee of the party or an attempt to stop the imposition of his son-in-law on the party, some party members became willing tools used to humiliate him.

    In Nigeria, it is an acceptable norm since the inception of the fourth republic that heads of the executive arm from the ruling party also double as leaders of their parties whether at the state or the federal level. But in what was generally seen as an aberration in Imo State, the incumbent governor was even denied the privilege of either knowing the venue of the said congress or sighting the electoral materials.

    This situation informed the press briefing by the governor with heads of security operatives in the state where he declared that there was no congress in the state. But the party’s appeal panel ignored all that and went ahead to affirm the congress and the controversial party officers were sworn in amid all legal encumbrances.

    But the outcome of the party’s national convention has left no one in doubt about who still calls the shot in the party. It was therefore too early and of course infantile for some people to have boasted that they have washed the governor’s hands from the politics of the state.

    Though with his imperfections and indiscretions, the governor, Rochas  Okorocha would still remain a reliable bridge which the party would find very useful to access not only Imo State but the entire geo-political zone.

    The governor may have felt betrayed as those he had fed ended up biting his finger, but what makes great leaders is not the pound of flesh taken from the offenders but how much they are willing to forgive.

    While vengeance is sweet when an opportunity presents itself but the late anti-apartheid legend -Nelson Mandela taught the world an important lesson as he forgave those who incarcerated him for more than a quarter of the century.

    The reconciliation committee set up by the state government elated many of us who are friends of the state. But the gale of suspension now blowing against perceived enemies in the state assembly and the rumoured plot of impeachment of the deputy governor should be handled cautiously.

    Yes, this is obviously about the next election but one should not be oblivious of the next generation. The current callous blood-letting in the country should call for restraint as the hapless citizens would be at the receiving end of all these needless political tussles.

    We still hope that reasons will prevail over vengeance and true reconciliation would engender the much needed peace in the state.

     

    • Itaobong Offiong Etim,

    Calabar.

  • APC and the gathering storm in Ondo

    APC and the gathering storm in Ondo

    NOW that the dust on the political imbroglio of who would fly the All Progressives Congress (APC) flag to continue Gov. Adam Oshiomhole’s accomplishments since the past eight years in Edo State has settled with the overwhelming votes of the delegates for Godwin Obaseki in the just concluded primary, focus is now being rightly shifted to Ondo State in the hope that the APC will reverse the destructive trajectory upon which Gov. Olusegun Mimiko has set the state during the same period if the party should take over the governance of the state in the next political dispensation.
    And there are reasons for the party and its leadership to be extremely concerned. The two states are not only contiguous, wherefore the re-emergence of PDP in Edo and the continuation of probably the most profligate party in the world in Ondo would be a throwback to the years of locusts that Nigerians are struggling very hard to forget, but a disgraceful blight on the party in the states whose cores has always been progressive political ideology.
    It has been reported that no fewer than fifty aspirants are ostensibly holding the broom and are poised for the primary election in Ondo state. While there’s a significant school of thought that sees this motley crowd of aspirants to the state’s highest political office as one of the beauties of democracy which also exemplifies the fact that the APC stocks are astronomically high—which in turn may create the complacency, if not the illusion that it’s the party to beat—it also fundamentally speaks to the levity with which our so-called politicians treat the business of governance in our clime.
    Our society is pathetically configured in such a way that someone will suddenly start to envision himself in a leadership position that requires the highest degree of preparation, not to talk of the moral and intellectual presence of mind just because he has been paying some children’s school fees other than his own; or he had procured big cows to some communities around his locale during some festive periods.
    These undertakings are too far from being the determinants that makes a leader in any civilized clime. However, one can also see the gravitational pull of all manners of people to this exalted political office because all a governor pretty much does is go to Abuja with his collection basket every month for the federal allocation with which more than eighty percent—on good times—of this monetary collection goes into paying the salaries of state employees that he cannot even down size when times are rough and hard. It is time that this all comers approach to governance is discouraged now that there’s a paradigm shift in the mono-economic template that had undergirded the country that must also, and of necessity, change the country’s governance architecture.
    How the governorship elections will turn out in these two states will be pointers to the overall strength of the ruling APC in the centre in the country’s southern region, most especially the South West zone. While it’s a given that a significant number of the delegates will always see their participation in the election process as their meal tickets every four years—when aspirants are to be ‘milked’—those delegates with the sense of history as well as eyes on a greater future of the people of their state should have the greatest amounts of introspection and circumspection before choosing the party’s flag bearer. This is especially important now that the old, unthinking, ineffectual and lethargic ways of governing must give way to thinking outside the box because of the new socio-economic reality that has come to stay. While it cannot be argued that not a few of the aspirants are—on their face value qualified to clinch the exalted seat—there should be no pretence by the delegates that the onus is on them to indicate to most of these aspirants to collapse whatever structures they may have before the Decision-day for the sake of party cohesion as well as to demonstrate their loyalty to the overall cause of obliterating the PDP from the state.
    Out of this lot of aspirants, names such as Mrs. Jumoke Anifowoshe, Olusola Oke, Tayo Alasoadura, Rotimi Akeredolu, Segun Abraham and Robert Ajayi Boroffice keeps surfacing in the state’s political discourse like recurring decimals. While other aspirants may also be qualified to contest the governorship seat, the aforementioned political gladiators possess the requisite political credentials that will make them to be formidable in the governorship election if anyone of them is elected in the primary. In this primary election process, one should also be cognizant of the principle of rotation (although played down by the party), which is still the safest way to prevent perceived sense of political alienation of sub-ethnic groups in a woolly political environment such as we have in Nigeria. And Ondo state is not an exception. It’s therefore a safe bet that the party’s flag bearer is more likely to come from the Ondo North Senatorial district from where the aforementioned aspirants are issued except Olusola Oke and Tayo Alasoadura.
    In a mature socio-political environment in which the people are guided by history rather than base instincts and some value-depleting primordial considerations, the odds would have by now been glaringly in favour of Mrs. Anifowoshe as the party’s flag bearer, having been sired by Pa Adekunle Ajasin whose contribution to the growth of the state is still a reference point up till today. Mrs. Anifowoshe’s impeccable political lineage would have been enough to convince not only the majority of the delegates but the electorate at large that there’s probably a strong and dominant family gene that will always compel any member of the Ajasin family to do good by the people whenever anyone of them becomes a ‘shepherd of the flock.’ But this may likely not happen because of a society so pathetically patriarchal even for its own good.
    Olusola Oke has the inalienable right to be voted for, let alone identify with a party he believes has the goodwill of the electorate to advance his personal political objective. But the haste with which he left the PDP and the post-haste with which he joined the league of APC aspirants—it seems to me—leaves a sour taste in the mouth. It should be recalled that Barr. Oke defected to APC less than 72 hours after Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential election. One therefore must ask if Oke, who was not just an ordinary member of PDP but the party’s Legal Adviser bolted in order to save his skin—as Nigerians are now witnessing the party’s fantastic corruption—or it was a genuine Pauline conversion.
    Oke would have most definitely remained in the PDP today had Jonathan won where he would not have seen anything wrong with the direction in which this profligate party is taking the country. Oke’s political harlotry not only insulted the sensibilities of those members who have always worked hard for and kept faith with APC, but his quest to become the party’s candidate is particularly distasteful, if not morally reprehensible.
    What Oke should do—it seems to me—is to vigorously campaign for the party’s victory in the South Senatorial district which, for all practical purposes, is a stronghold of his erstwhile party. If he helps in bringing his senatorial district into the APC column in the next dispensation, there would not be any doubt about his brighter future if he stays in the APC long enough. The aforesaid also applies to those aspirants who are former members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party to first deliver their respective constituencies to APC in the governorship election to demonstrate their “rite of passage” after which they would be adequately represented in an administration of a committed, loyal and ideologically-grounded APC governor. More importantly, morality must begin to have a pride of place in the nation’s body politic while loyalty and commitment ought to have their privileges.
    Senator Alasoadura’s bid for the governorship seat probably should be the easiest decision to discount, if not shot down before the primary not because he’s unqualified, but because Alasoadura has shown himself to be a loose cannon in whom party cohesion and supremacy means nothing. One may never know the real reason(s) why the senator’s politics is at variance with the political party on whose platform he was elected, but rewarding him with another ambition will be counter-productive, if not spell the death knell of the party in the state, just as his “Like Minds” gang-up in the senate whose arrowheads are the despicably corrupt duo of Saraki and Ekweremadu is now proving to be a clog in the wheel of the Buhari administration. The senator’s heart truly lies with the PDP. The APC was just a mere vehicle used by him, and many others like him, to convey them to their desired destinations when they realised that their beloved gas-guzzling vehicle had run out of gas.
    Just as he had emerged almost from nowhere to become the governorship candidate of the party that has now transmuted into the APC, the odds may still be in favour of Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) to emerge, once again, as the party’s flag-bearer in the state’s November 26th governorship election. As much as one cannot discount the structure that brought this highly principled Senior Advocate of Nigeria into prominence in his first outing—even though it may have been significantly dissipated by other heavy-weight aspirants—there is this eerie and ominous feeling that Akeredolu can be very unyielding and cantankerous to the party leadership if he becomes the chief of state once he takes a stand on issues that are of importance to him, which may not necessarily be favoured by the party leadership.
    Other critical stakeholders in the state are more likely to be politically alienated by this unyielding attitude. The news that made the rounds that Akeredolu warned the party against imposition was indeed unfortunate and this statement should not have been made by him. As much as imposition—as opposed to preference which the party still reserves the right to have—should be discouraged, Akeredolu is in the least position to have issued this warning as he was its sole beneficiary in his first attempt to the exalted seat in 2007. The Aketi Campaign Organization should have been more circumspect before issuing such warning.
    If there’s anyone of these formidable aspirants with enduring structure and the name recognition to boot who is yet to be adequately advertised in the politics of the state, it is none other than Olusegun Abraham. Perhaps he’s too distracted with the daily grind of politicking to attract the attention of the media or his media aides simply lack the skill and understanding to articulate his political pedigree as a consistent critical stakeholder who has contributed in no small measure to the state’s progressive party since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, Abraham is a giver to the state’s progressive cause that should not be dismissed with a wave of the hand.
    The open secret that the then ACN hierarchy in the South West including the National Leader that this billionaire water engineer should contest the governorship election in 2007 was not unconnected with his contribution in building the party coupled with his integrity. Abraham was then, for all intents and purposes, the anointed aspirant by the leadership, which had informed some people in the inner recess of the party’s decision-making to suggest that yours truly should be embedded in his campaign team as a media consultant and being an indigene of the state, which I gladly accepted.
    And just like a bolt from the blue, Akeredolu emerged almost from nowhere through imposition by the same party leadership. This sudden change of fortune for Abraham and his campaign team was shocking, to say the least. While we were no doubt disappointed, we also realised that since nothing is guaranteed in life and politics being the most of all the fleeting illusions of life, our principal was advised that some of his strategists should be embedded into the Akeredolu campaign since we could still be useful to the overall interest of the party as well as securing his own political interest if the ACN becomes victorious at the poll. It was another shock of our lives when we heard that our principal had gone to North America where he stayed for months on end, leaving us and the party in the lurch. The true test of a great leader is where and how he stands in the time of adversity.
    As much as one can empathise with the school of thought that Robert Ajayi Boroffice should not be in the running for the governorship seat because he’s already into his second term as a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, this simplistic viewpoint is another attestation of the lack of seriousness that people attach to the business of governance in our clime. There’s no better time to look for an astute manager of people and resources than now. In a state where the current governor has bastardised and debased the socio-economic fabric, not to talk of the deliberate pauperisation of the people, an experienced person to rebuild governance architecture and bring the state to modernity cannot be overemphasized.
    Senator Ajayi Boroffice may well be what both the economists and the political scientists ordered in these trying times. Aside his being a team player who never left the party in the face of enormous pressure by none other than then Senate President David Mark, Sen. Boroffice cuts the image of a trustworthy, fair and transparent father figure who can effectively unify the state after the exit of the “whitlow of the South West” who had turned brothers against sisters, husbands against wives in his Machiavellian predisposition just as Goodluck Ebele Jonathan did at the federal level before he was unhorsed by Muhammadu Buhari the “Builder of a Modern and Morally Upright Nigeria.” In Sen. Boroffice I also see a ‘little Buhari’in Ondo state. Therefore, the delegates may be well advised to look in the direction of the man always in white apparel to salvage a state that has gone through so much needless socio-economic and political trauma in the hands of Olusegun Mimiko and his profligate PDP.
    •Odere is a media practitioner

  • Riding out the gathering storm (1)

    Riding out the gathering storm (1)

    In the past week, I received numerous messages in my inbox, all about the forthcoming elections. These range from the clearly well-conceived and well-articulated State of the Nation Broadcast of Pastor Tunde Bakare, the passionate shepherd of The Latter Rain Assembly End-Time Church, to the confused partisan and jingoistic rants of some desperate defenders of the status quo. This latter group would have us remember past alignments and affiliations in which some groups, especially the Yoruba, were embarrassed and harassed and cheated out of their entitlement. But they thought they were being clever because they failed to point out that they were co-conspirators in the so-called humiliation of the Southwest. I defer discussion on this till next week. Today I would like to focus on the gathering storm and why and how we must ride it out.

    Let me start by expressing my profound respect for Pastor Bakare. He has demonstrated his patriotism beyond doubt or reproach. He has been consistent in his advocacy for true democracy and transparency in government. He has more than any clergy in Nigeria today spoken true to power. When some others cringe or move near the table inside the Rock for the crumbs that soil their mission and ministry, he remains steadfast. And when he was called upon to run for the second highest office in the land, he did not refuse because of the religion of the man whose ticket he complemented. And today, even when he is not on the ticket, he has openly endorsed that same man. That is consistency of the highest premium. Therefore when Pastor Bakare speaks, we know that it is out of the greatest concern for the good of the nation. And we are bound to examine the basis of his apprehension as dispassionately as possible.

    It is probably not a coincidence that The Washington Post ran an editorial on Wednesday January 7, 2015 with the title “Nigeria on edge”, in which the paper expressed the same fear that has triggered the address of Pastor Bakare. According to the Post, “Africa’s most populous nation (i.e. Nigeria) may be careering toward trouble.” And it goes on to suggest that “the most immediate threats to the country’s stability are not bullets from Islamic militants, but ballots.”

    It is as interesting as it is frustrating for the theory and practice of democracy that Nigeria now faces a threat to its stability because it is in fact becoming more democratic. Why, in the name of decency, should the probability of a change of leadership at the centre constitute such a headache for a democratic system? In the past 16 years, one party has controlled the centre. The Post observes that this time around, “the contest will be close.” This is because, “the APC, formed last year from a coalition of opposition parties, threatens its dominance.” And the paper goes on to note that “This is a sea change in a political landscape already inflamed by north-south tensions, an overly militarised political culture and pressure on the economy due to falling oil prices.”

    In both interventions-from Pastor Bakare and from The Washington Post– I see a genuine concern for the good of the nation. And while the Post doesn’t go as far as Pastor Bakare to suggest a postponement of the elections, it is clear that the concern for peace and stability is there.

    I cannot match Pastor Bakare’s mastery of the scripture. Indeed, the passage he used has always been an enigmatic one for me. The fact that Paul was sent to Rome is not a mystery. He appealed to the Emperor even before Governor Festus could render a verdict. Therefore to Rome he must go. Then they had to ship for Italy knowing full well the time of the year with its weather hazards. From Cyprus, the winds did not favour them; the sailors did their best under the circumstance, slowing down and taking a different route until they got to Fair Havens. That is what sailors do; they must make the best of the wind that nature throws at them. There is a lesson there for us as well, I surmise.

    Fair Havens sounds like a good place to relax and reflect on the journey ahead, especially if there was a way of knowing or forecasting what the journey ahead might look like. Pastor Bakare did not fail to get us to understand the symbolism of it all. The passage reads that “it (Fair Havens) was not a commodious haven to winter in”; or as Pastor Bakare puts it, “the harbour was not suitable to winter in.” Though the name Fair Havens implies a peasant environment, it was unsuitable at that time of the year. It was not safe for them. They would be exposed to the weather which they were not prepared for. Is Nigeria’s present Fair Havens really commodious to winter in?

    Besides, there is something to the reasoning that “even if it is pleasant and fair, this is not our destination; and we must make haste to depart. We must run and make it to the destination that we desire.” And though Paul volunteered the information revealed to him, it was not persuasive to the centurion and the ship owner. The relevant point here is that it was a civil discourse with even a prisoner of the state being given a say in the matter of when to set sail. Let everyone have a say in the matter of sailing forth in our present harbour of relaxation. The way to have a say is to have an election!

    Is Nigeria at a Fair Havens? Should she set sail and ride out the gathering storm? Or must she winter in at the harbour?

    Several arguments have been advanced for the need to winter in where we are instead of setting sail. I will try and tease out each of them.

    The major concern is that there is a gathering storm ahead, or as The Post puts it, Nigeria is on edge because there is (i) a North-South tension in the polity; (ii) a geopolitical monstrosity; (iii) a perilous economic structure; (iv) an anomalous constitution and (v) an ill-prepared electoral umpire. I think that (i) – (iv) go together because the tension noted in (i) is driven largely by the anomalies noted in (ii)-(iv).

    The North-South tension is nothing new and it is not going away anytime soon. It was planted there from the beginning of the republic by the colonisers who were convinced that it was how they can continue to dominate the country. This is why we have always had a geopolitical monstrosity, a perilous economic structure, and an anomalous constitution. The tension was certainly there at the 2014 Confab and didn’t end with that gathering of eminent and rational Nigerians. The tension remains there because it works for the political elite at whose beck and call the masses react. But the proverbial falcon may now be ignoring the voice of the falconer as the masses are seeing through the peeping Tom. Did MEND just endorse Buhari for the presidency?

    One possible solution has been suggested by an egg-head and a good friend: “Let the two major parties pick their candidates from the same zone”, he says. “And the tension would be over.” This is a fascinating approach to zoning. But will it still be a national presidential election, though?  Besides, I predict that if we go for this, it will sooner than later become clear that the tension has never been about North or South but about the brigandage of the partisan elite. For the parties will then show that they are the real problem, not the ethnics. This is nothing out of the ordinary. Politicians pursue their interests with a vengeance. This is why primaries are fought as if they were the main elections. If the two presidential candidates of the major parties were to come from the same town, not to talk of the same zone, it would not lessen the tension between the parties.

                                                                                                                                                                                                             (To be continued)

  • Ekiti: The gathering storm

    Someday historians and political scientists will oblige us with some books as to why the federal government just would not allow the internal political dynamics of Ekiti—a state with no drop of oil, no access to the Atlantic, and neither a gateway to the world—to play themselves out during elections in that state without its heavy-handed intervention. The federal government would rather fight rough and dirty in that state’s elections even with the predictable outcome that it is more likely going to leave the scene limping with bruised body and a bloody nose. It’s amazing why the federal government is always willing to invite self-inflicting wounds on itself and its integrity further damaged, not only before Nigerians at home and abroad but also in the international community. The emergence of Ayo Fayose, a former governor of the state as the flag bearer of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the June 21 governorship election may very well be a strong indication that there probably will be a sequel to the 2007 classic Ido-Osi drama in which Ayoka Adebayo, the lead cast of characters, played the fantastic role of both the protagonist and antagonist in rapid succession. The storm is, once again, gathering.

    Fayose’s emergence as the winner of his party’s primary election was at best an electoral decoy and at worst realpolitik in its raw form. Either way, these two trajectories are intended not to terminate at the water’s edge of Fayose but that of Opeyemi Bamidele, a credentialed progressive renegade and a potential Labour Party (LP) flag-bearer. The two, who will eventually become conjoined political twins, are to be the main catalysts in both the micro political component of winning Ekiti State – however unrealistic – and securing the constitutionally required 25 percent of the votes from Ekiti State for Jonathan in 2015, which is the macro political agenda. If this grand scheme works, Ekiti will then become the guide to be used to forcefully pry open the impregnable South-west (minus Ondo State) geo-political zone for the one-quarter of the votes necessary for Jonathan’s re-election. This is the end game, and most certainly the most important to the party.

    Ayo Fayose emerged the PDP flag-bearer not only because he has managed to build an aura of political indispensability around himself –rightly or wrongly believed by his party – but the party also (s)elected him because he’s well-suited to play the leading role in the thuggish component that rigging needs in order to thrive. It is pointless trying to draw President Jonathan’s attention to the dangers that the emergence of Fayose portends by concerned Ekiti groups, however well-meaning because reversing course by the party will negate its pre-determined goals. Every political space has its own realities that its gladiators must either deal with or change. Because Nigeria is still very much at the rudimentary level in its democratic political evolution, thuggery and rigging, unfortunately, are some of the “known knowns,” that will remain part of the body politic for some time. It is therefore important for the Fayemi administration to factor-in this egregious human political behavior not because it’s willing to participate but because it wants to mitigate.

    As a war strategist, it’s a given that Fayemi knows that the best guarantee for peace is to prepare for war. He may therefore have to constitute a ‘war cabinet’ within his campaign organization to nip in the bud any impending violence or other forms of brigandage usually characteristic of Nigeria’s elections. This will no doubt be very tasking in light of the fact that ‘David’ Fayemi will face ‘Goliath’ Jonathan, by extension, in a political duel. Since he did not ask for this looming war, Fayemi’s chances of victory are quite high not only because of his strong performance records, but because the June 21 electoral war would be won not with brawn but brain, which the ruling party has demonstrated repeatedly that it has very little of. What then are the options available to Fayemi and/or this ‘war cabinet’? He must choose one of these three strategic policies which are Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), Balance of Terror (BOT), and Containment.

    MAD is a non-starter. It is suicidal and Fayemi cannot compete with the federal government for the materiel needed for this option. The Balance of Terror strategy is appealing because it would force the opponents to seriously weigh the implications and consequences that their actions would have on their own safety not to talk of their overall objectives. Though it seems appealing, the problem with this option is that it would not only be out of character for the Fayemi administration to raise a terror machine equal to that of his opponents but that this option would give the opponents cover to do that which they know how to do best: rigging. And this is self-defeating. Containment is probably the best option. Simply put, it is the concerted efforts to make it impracticable for the opponents to carry out their nefarious activities. But its implementation can be equally tasking. Since Fayemi will no doubt be fighting on three fronts (local, Ondo, and the federal), he will need a good dose of financial resources and the involvement of a good chunk of his people for effective intelligence gathering, which will play a central role. The governor and his ‘war cabinet’ must know who is coming to town now more than ever and who they are visiting. Ekiti State may have to maintain outposts in its borders most especially with Ondo and Kogi states in order to keep track of official vehicular movements coming from these states and where they go once they’re in the state. The containment strategy is not to restrict anyone’s movements but to let those coming into the state with the intention of wreaking havoc that they’re being watched. This option is best because it also places the Fayemi administration on a higher moral ground.

    As earlier said, Fayose may be the PDP flag bearer; his utility value for his party is to spearhead the thuggish aspect of the electioneering which would make rigging to be relatively easy in some areas. It’s also to energize whatever it is left of the party’s support base in the hope that this base will coalesce into block votes. With the votes of PDP supporters solidly behind Fayose, and with Opeyemi Bamidele being able to have raided a significant chunk of the progressive votes from Fayemi, the governorship election would have been goaded into a run-off between Fayemi and Bamidele. With this scenario, Abuja can then throw everything in its arsenal behind Bamidele whom it is hoped could either win the run-off or would have secured enough votes to guarantee the President at least his 25 percent from the state in 2015. Either way PDP will consider itself to have won Ekiti State.

    • Odere is a media practitioner. He can be reached at femiodere@gmail.com.

  • The gathering storm

    The gathering storm

    At no time since the civil war was Nigeria in more perilous times than now. A new report entitled ‘Nigerian Unity in the Balance’, authored for the United States Army War College has, again, warned Nigerian leaders to beware of another civil war or an outright break-up following what it called ongoing divisive trends in the country. The report, released by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S War College, was written by two former American servicemen, Gerald McLaughlin and Clarence J. Bouchat. The foreword written by the Director, Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College, Professor Douglas Lovelace, observed that secessionist tendencies are endemic in Nigeria. Under such stresses, it emphasised, Nigerian unity may fail. Should Nigerian leaders mismanage the political economy and reinforce centrifugal forces in the country, Nigeria could break up along its previously identified fault lines, the report concluded. Unfortunately, in Nigeria where we are content with living in denial, presidential spokespersons will readily lecture you as to how ‘political wrangling among competing interests has no consequences on the nation’s political stability whatsoever’.

    Conversely, unlike us Nigerians, Americans scholars don’t just talk; rather they talk, based on observable and verifiable facts which are then subjected to serious interrogation at the end of which the most likely probabilities are drawn.

    In tandem with these American views, a Nigerian Oxford scholar, Dr Antony Akinola, recently observed as follows on our current circumstances: “At the national level, we are getting more and more divided on sectional, ethnic and religious bases during Jonathan’s regime than at any other time in our national history. The Nigeria Governors’ Forum is fractured; further bringing out the divisive tendencies in the polity. The governing party itself is fissured, wobbling towards collapse. The president has had to assume emergency powers, the most extreme of presidential powers, to provide security, failing even the most basic ingredient of governance, that of passing national budget,” even in the third quarter of the financial year.

    Neither Papa Edwin Clark nor Asari Dokubo is helping matters with their bellicose tantrums. The north is not sitting idle. But while the north is yet at the visualising stage, the presidency has moved, deliberately stoking the fires of avoidable conflagration all over the place. And to them it matters not if that move is the most banal or the most illogical, as long as they can show us they are in power. Therefore at the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, the president is backing those who stand logic and common sense on the head, claiming, tenaciously, that 16 is greater than 19 and, funny enough, a whole state governor permits himself to be so paraded. From there their agents have gone to the Rivers State House of Assembly, desecrated it under the watchful eyes of a federal agent, doubling as a police commissioner. Also, in Rivers State, in what has become the norm, the presidency is earnestly backing those who claim that 5 is greater than 27 and Mr President is believed to have since received in the Villa that great joke – one Evans Bipi – who claims he is Speaker and mouthing the profanity that Mrs Jonathan, the President’s wife, is his Jesus, albeit with a small j. And you can bet that if push comes to shove, the state police commissioner will be backing him all the way in that ludicrous claim. But that wasn’t the first time either.

    Before inviting Gov Jang to the Villa Mr. President had first recognised him as his own NGF chairman at the PDP Family Dinner at which Baba Anenih pretended to be the seminal author of the automatic nomination idea even when he was nothing more than a puppet. A perspicacious scholar has recently asked if there would be a President Jonathan today if Chief Clark had succeeded in his ‘Gowon forever’ campaign of the ’60’s or Anenih in both his Abacha forever campaign as well as his support for Obasanjo’s ill-fated Third Term Project.

    Now, while the north is restive and both the east and the south south appear to be working in tandem, mum is the word in the southwest and since nature abhors a vacuum, the presidency is assiduously working on how to use the zone as its launching pad for 2015. Today, all manner of discredited politicians attend Afenifere meetings just as some otherwise respected elders, who had, without a doubt, rendered sterling services in the cause of the Yoruba, are being had on the cheap for no other reason than to weaken the region ahead of the 2015 agenda. How, for instance, were some of the elders going to fund the spurious ‘political parties’ they are exhuming or claim to champion if not through some underhand means like the so-called oil security contract, since hopefully successfully shot down, and, what electoral purpose are they supposed to serve other than act as agent provocateurs and spoilers of the majority wish of our people in the region? Today, no thanks to them, there is not a single Yoruba leader who can successfully call a meeting of Yorubas across the political divide except in a dire emergency which we do not pray for.

    But it would still have been tolerable if the presidency was content to stop at that. Rather, they have much more dangerous designs on the southwest beginning from the 2014 governorship elections in both Ekiti and Osun states during which they intend to test run their 2015 do-or-die but extremely risky electoral shenanigans, using none other than some Yoruba politicians, in the typical ‘use a monkey to catch a monkey’ scenario.

    As at the moment, the story in town in Ekiti is that the President is rooting for his one-time benefactor, and now Minister of Police Affairs, Navy Capt Caleb Olubolade, which we learn is why one of their candidates, former governor Ayo Fayose, who believes he stands the best chance to square up to the sitting governor in the election, is dead set against a consensus candidate. He has just now been suspended. But also going the rounds, is the whispering information that the President is keen on supporting Olubolade so that once the minister resigns, he would be gifted the opportunity to name a ‘do or die’ member of the colony of Ekiti PDP gubernatorial wannabes as the new minister whose primary duty, he would be instructed, is to ‘win’ Ekiti for the PDP, no matter how.

    This should not come as a surprise because Obasanjo had set that precedent. Determined to win Ekiti for PDP in 2007, he manufactured the inchoate impeachment of Governor Ayo Fayose so he could put his kinsman, the Emergency Administrator, in place to ensure that. The events of the night of the election, 14 April, 2007, when results dramatically changed when Ekitis were already dancing on the streets for Dr Fayemi’s victory, more than confirmed that. And Nigerians know all that followed.

    Today, things are worse for the PDP in the southwest and in Ekiti, in particular. Apart from PDP’s utter confusion as a party, Ekitis have come to see and know the meaning of multi-sectoral development and the finer differences between PDP and AC N. Thanks to the administration of Dr John Kayode Fayemi. It is therefore in the best interests of professional riggers, and do and die politicians, no matter how seemingly powerful, not to think of any ‘Fehingbepon’, meaning, there would be no room here in the southwest for any act of impunity.

    Two egregious errors

    Last Sunday, on the Law makers’ salaries the following explanatory words: “figures represent proportion of persons per GPD’, was mistakenly cut off.

    Also, I wrote that Professor Oritshajolomi Thomas was sacked on 17 November, 1973. No, it should have read 17, November, 1975.

    Both errors are duly regretted.

    Arthur Medeiros, adieu

    We lost a wonderful friend this past week. We are here referring to the likes of Chief Bayo Famotibe, Engr Dave Oni, the Oniwinde twin brothers, Taiwo and Kehinde (Junior), and, of course, Akin Medeiros, his own brother and Mrs Bimbo Johnson, his niece. Arthur, a dashingly handsome and absolutely gregarious young man in our Apapa road days, when COOL CATS INN was our watering hole, passed on as a result of complications arising from a stroke which he suffered some years back. We will sure miss him.

    We commiserate with the family he left behind: the wife, the children, Kemi and Femi, the grandchildren and his siblings.

    May the good Lord rest him.