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Tag: historic

  • Osun: History meets the historic

    Osun: History meets the historic

    You can’t step in the same river twice 
    —Heraclitus, Greek philosopher

    The excitement reached a head, as the party hit the November 27 interchange, that flies over Gbongan road, in Osogbo.
    He was no yokel; but in his excitement, prancing and skipping, he yodelled like one.
    “Ogbeni, the Awolowo of our time,” he chirped, “don’t forget the Bisi Akande trumpet!” — and, all zeal and fervency, he pointed towards Gbongon.
    The Bisi Akande Trumpet Bridge was some 40 kilometers away, at the old Gbongan junction, with Ibadan-lfe expressway.  But this enthusiast couldn’t imagine Osun Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, letting go of his Guild of Editors guests, without showing off his architectural wonder.
    It was March 18.  The Guild of Editors chose to hold its committee meeting at Osogbo.  The governor also seized the occasion to show the elite of the Nigerian media Osun’s developmental strides.  Though Ripples is no member of the Guild, he was invited to join the August visitors in March.
    The bussed company, with the governor himself in-situ, set out, from the Oke Fia Government House, quietly enough.
    But they lost their anonymity that moment, at the Olaiya junction of Alekuwodo,  in Osogbo’s commercial hub, someone sighted the  governor, and let go a yelp.
    Before you knew it, an excited, beaming, dancing company was pumping fists and flashing “V” (for victory) signs, with their two fore-fingers, a sign original to Winston  Churchill, Britain’s World War 2 hero; but popularized in these climes by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, first premier of the old Western Region.
    The governor, himself a study in boyish excitement, returned the “V” compliment;  and an impromptu carnival of love, mutual doting and appreciation ensued.  As the convoy rolled slowly by, on the newly named Workers Avenue, so did the excited people swell in their numbers.
    But everything got to a head on the November 27 bridge, when the governor and his entourage disembarked, the accompanying officials explaining the work-in-progress; and the governor himself chipping in now and then, especially the engineering and technical details.
    The first leg of the tour was on the Oba Adesoji Aderemi ring road, that ripples with history, old and contemporary.
    Oba Aderemi (1889-1980), was Ooni of Ife (1930-1980); and was first indigenous governor of Western Region, during which time Chief Awolowo, as Premier, performed his social transformation wonders, that hauled the old West clear of the other regions, of North and East.
    But, as Oba Aderemi offers today’s Osun a symbolic tieback to the Awolowo golden age, so does its 17.5-kilometre stretch project, to a future Osun, clear historical landmarks.
    Those monuments capture its infrastructural remake, from a backwater “civil service” state that rose and fell by Abuja’s dole; to a land poised to harness its resources, in the finest tradition of the Yoruba Omoluabi.
    It is a classic case of history meeting the historic-minded.
    Those monuments?  Four bridges, really.
    Five Judges, to commemorate the five Court of Appeal justices, whose verdict reclaimed the Aregbesola mandate, after almost a four-year struggle; November 26, the day that judgment was given; November 27, when the first Aregbesola administration birthed, and August 9, the day the governor won re-election, despite the hideous plots to skew the vote, by the Jonathan Presidency, flush with success in a similar gambit in Ekiti.
    By design or by accident, November 27 and Bisi Akande Trumpet bridges appear the grandest of the signature road projects, wrapped in political symbols, that would in history, define the developmental temper of the Aregbesola years.
    Bisi Akande immortalizes Osun’s very first attempt at serious governance (1999-2003), since its creation in 1991.  But that attempt was scuttled, during the Obasanjo South West electoral tsunami of 2003.  November 27, on the other hand provided a doughty root for August 9, that day in 2014 the Osun local forces trumped illicit “federal might” to renew Aregbesola’s mandate.
    The rest of the project tour, the Osogbo Government High School, one of the 11 avant-grade public schools springing up in different locations of the state; and the Nelson Mandela Freedom Park, Osogbo, are no less impressive symbols of developmental governance.
    But the Mandela Freedom Park offers something somewhat novel — an informal museum of leisurely history.  Mingling with park seats, on close-cropped lawns, is a special section bearing busts of Titans of the progressive politics of the West, from different ages: Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Bola Ige, Chief Bisi Akande and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
    Yet, another section of mini-galleries, boasts marble plaques, that encapsulate the tenure of every Osun governor, military or civilian, from Col. Leo Segun Aborisade, the first governor (military administrator) to Aregbesola himself.  So, as loungers relax, they can read up their history and civics.
    Dominating the park landscape is the impressive Atewogbeja Fountain, a tribute to the Osun river and its trove of fresh-water fishes.  The fountain waters are electrically programmed, at night, to tumble down in a rainbow of colours.
    Incidentally, the tour ended at Olaiya junction, with the unending tryst between an appreciative people and their governor!
    From the tour revelations, Osun, of the Aregbesola years, would appear in a flux of rapid change; to justify the Heraclitean quip: you can’t step in the same river twice!   Indeed, Osogbo had come a long way from the old rural town,  to a growing modern city, gradually holding its own in serenity and winning infrastructure, drawing new businesses across different sectors.
    So has Osun shrugged off its laggardness to, despite its puny resources, point the way in the schools feeding programme, which the Federal Government just adopted on a national scale.
    Surely then, the Aregbe legacy is assured, came what may?  Not exactly.
    Indeed, Osun is painfully poised at a critical juncture between the short-lived but enduring Western Renaissance under  Awo, before the SLA Akintola Demo forces blighted everything; and the  post-1999 Lagos of sound developmental governance and golden continuity, which has become a national reference.
    You could feel palpable panic, the way some Osun conservatives, in concert with Yoruba irredentists, tried to mould themselves into emergency Yoruba warriors against phantom Hausa-Fulani threat, when the Ife disturbance was nothing but mutual criminality.
    The Afenifere veterans that dived into bed with Femi Fani-Kayode’s subversive Yoruba nationalism would appear splashing in the Osun political river, panic-stricken that, after the Aregbe years, so much has changed you can’t step in the same river twice.
    So is Iyiola Omisore, with his trademark spew of verbal rot, perhaps gripped with the fear that, with the balance of forces, he might just be graduating, from serial failure to veteran failure, in his quixotic gubernatorial quest.
    Still, that would appear no done deal.  Even as Heraclitus declared nature was in a flux, Parminides, his Greek contemporary, countered nature was static and unchanging! That contradiction could give the conservatives some hope, no matter how tenuous.
    So, Osun could well be changing; but maybe not rapidly enough to banish that 2003 electoral ghost, that traded solid gold for glittering tinsel.  For that, the state paid a stiff price in hideous stagnation, in the dreadful pre-Aregbe years.
    However it goes, Aregbesola’s personal legacy, like Chief Awolowo’s before him, appears secure.
    But not the Osun developmental fate, ironically again, like the old West, where Awo wrought wonders only for the Demo renegades to blight everything.
    Osun’s best bet, therefore, is a post Aregbe-era of stellar developmental strides, anchored on present efforts.  That way, Osun may yet emerge the ultimate development wonder of the 4th Republic, just as the old West was the 1st Republic’s.
    Ay, Lagos holds that honour now.  But even the most doting of Lagosians would admit the post-1999 Tinubu movement (which incidentally Aregbesola was part of) only re-engineered a decaying former federal capital.  Osun, under Aregbe, never had such a head start.
    But the threat to Osun enjoying a Lagos-like golden continuation, and not enduring the old West’s reactionary roll-back, would appear to lie less with the Osun conservatives, no matter how desperate they may be, but with the governor’s own internal foes, craving pork but pretending all is cool.
    That is the direction to address, if Aregbe must, like Tinubu in Lagos, get the successor(s) to further entrench Osun’s unfolding renaissance.

  • Buhari’s historic burden

    As a young university student in the 1950s, I saw my country beginning to blossom in the world. As one of the leaders of various student organisations, I had the privilege of travelling fairly extensively in Africa and some other parts of the world. I could see that as independence approached, other countries of Africa looked up hopefully to Nigeria to provide the needed leadership on their continent.

    One day in Addis Ababa, a few months before Nigeria’s independence, the Ethiopian Minister of Education (later Prime Minister), Endaktachu Makkonen, placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “My young Nigerian brother, congratulations in advance on your country’s coming independence. All of us Africans hope that as you Nigerians prepare for your independence, you are also preparing for the leadership role expected of you in our Africa. A lot of things on our continent will soon depend on your Nigeria. We hope you Nigerians understand that.”  Those remarks filled my heart with pride and joy and my eyes with tears – and I can never forget them. (They still tend to fill my eyes with tears today).

    The greatness has never happened – and it may never happen.  We started to stumble in the very first years after independence, mostly because the persons in charge of our federal government at independence failed us abysmally. They developed the destructive ambition of making the federal government the controllers and commanders of all of Nigeria, instead of striving to make the Nigerian federation work harmoniously along the lines in which it had been structured by our pre-independence leaders. We are used to blaming the soldiers who then seized control from these first federal rulers, because these soldiers then went on and twisted our federation beyond recognition, and thereby destroyed the prospect of orderliness and harmony in our multi-nation country. But it was our first civilian federal rulers that started the downward spiral – and it is still their thoughtless and dangerous ambition that still guides the relentless destruction of our country even now.

    Quite early in the course of the destruction, one of the pre-independence makers of our federation, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, even though he had suffered battering and brutalisation at the hands of his colleagues, came back, and tried to return our federation to its right course.  He gave everything to this new effort, studied widely and intensively in order to be a solid and faithful servant of his country, and attracted armies of patriotic, mostly young Nigerians, to work with him in the noble venture. We in those patriotic armies, working under his guidance, were ready to work sacrificially to return our federation to its rational structure, and employ our country’s growing incomes to turn our country into a land of stable prosperity and greatness – a land of equal educational opportunities for all children, of skills promotion for all youths, of rural development and agricultural progress, of rapid entrepreneurial and business growth, of high quality productivity in all fields, and of great commerce, with emphasis on exports, connecting with the whole world.

    Unfortunately, the escalating rot and corruption proved too strong to be overcome by Chief Awolowo and his patriotic armies. Nigeria continued its relentless fall. By 2005, many informed observers worldwide were predicting that Nigeria could not possibly continue to stand – and that Nigeria would soon fall. Today, those predictions are getting more and more frequent, and more and more plausible.

    As I have watched this dismal picture day after day in my old age, I can’t believe that this is still the Nigeria I used to know. When Muhammadu Buhari stepped onto the scene as elected president, I breathed some sigh of relief. We all knew him as an enemy of public corruption, and he was true to that reputation when he immediately declared war on public corruption. But, in his hands in general, our country has fallen faster and faster – and appears now to be about to experience some sort of terminal collapse.

    Sadly, this is mostly because Buhari obviously cannot free himself from the clutches of the ideas and ambitions of his little corner of Nigeria – his Fulani ethnic group. I don’t think that any objective observer would now doubt that what is closest to Buhari’s heart are the plans and projections of his Fulani people. Even though most sections and peoples of Nigeria are demanding that the Nigerian federation should be returned to its pre-independence structural health, Buhari has flagrantly responded that he has no respect for their voices and no intention to look at what they are saying. His appointments to leadership positions in the security forces seem to indicate that he believes that the security forces will do for him and his clansmen the work of silencing the many other peoples of Nigeria.

    But the worst of all the signs of continued decline of Nigeria is now the relentless and unrestrained attacks on security and peace in Nigeria by Fulani nomadic herdsmen, a section of President Buhari’s kinsmen. In most parts of Nigeria (but particularly in the Middle Belt and the South),  Fulani herdsmen are destroying farms with their cows. If farmers dare to protest, the herdsmen, armed with some of the modern world’s most sophisticated weapons, then fall upon them, killing and maiming men, women and children, and destroying their villages. In some parts of the Middle Belt indeed, the herdsmen have been shown to the whole world to be engaging in systematic ethnic cleansing and genocide. To all this, the Buhari federal government has not shown any firm and effective response. In fact, from many parts of the country, the outcry has been that the local victims tend to suffer more from the responses of security personnel than the villains tend to do. Farmers are afraid to go to their farms, and some have been reported as saying that they have totally given up farming.

    This is no longer politics. For most peoples of Nigeria, it is a potent existential threat. And the fear is making a lot of Nigerians edgy about Fulani or Hausa presence in their midst, since most people do not recognise the difference between the Fulani and the Hausa. Thus, in Ile-Ife in the Southwest, a city in which a Hausa trading and labour community has lived for probably centuries, an assault by a Hausa or Fulani on a local woman easily exploded into a conflict in which some Ife indigenes were killed – provoking a response which then led to the death of many Hausa and Fulani. In the light of what Fulani herdsmen are reported to be doing all over Nigeria without much official resistance, aggressive actions by Fulani or Hausa residents in any part of Nigeria can quickly be seen by the locals as another show of Fulani arrogance, impunity and disrespect of others.

    In short, we Nigerians have now reached the absolutely highest level of fear, distrust and explosiveness in our living together as peoples of one country. And it is a pity that all this has come in the time of Buhari’s presidency. Can he change things? I pray so.

  • A historic election

    The National Association of Students of English and Literary Studies (NASELS), Imo State University (IMSU) chapter, has held its election, which was described by students as the most competitive in its history. CHIDIEBERE ENYIA (400-Level English and Literary Studies) and MERCY OPARANOZIE (200-Level English and Literary Studies) report.

    All activities were suspended at the Department of English and Literary Studies of the Imo State University (IMSU) in Owerri for election of the National Association of Students of English and Literary Studies (NASELS) last week. The exercise, it was observed, was the most competitive in the history of their association.

    Some three weeks before the poll, the department came alive with campaign in which students saw the good, the bad and the worst. Excitement filled the air. The electioneering was characterised by political intrigues, tension and propaganda.

    Chukwuebuka Ogoeke, a 400-Level student, headed the seven-man electoral committee set up by the outgoing president Johnpaul Nwadike, while Nneoma Okoro, also in 400-Level, was the secretary. The committee was composed of students from each level.

    No sooner had the electoral committee lifted the ban on political campaign and released the timetable than the sale of nomination forms began. Nineteen students were screened for the executive positions by the association’s Staff Adviser and security personnel.

    The election began with the manifesto, where the candidates presented their programmes to the students.

    The presentation was greeted with applause and glee. When it was the turn of the presidential contenders, there was a pin-drop silence. Students were attentive and recorded every word said by the two candidates.

    Ikenna Dikeocha, outgoing Treasurer, who contested for the top job, said he had a dream to transform the association to a vibrant one. He unveiled a two-point agenda to “revive the literary life of the students” and to enhance “students’ relationship with lecturers”.

    His opponent and outgoing General Secretary, Sixtus Agbaegbu, said: “I have the experience to pilot the affairs of the association to a greater height. If I am elected, the department would publish journals and other literary materials to enhance knowledge and welfare of the members.”

    At noon, the election started and ended at 3:45pm. Mr Solomon Ihedigbo, a lecturer, and Dr Psalm Chinaka, who represented the Staff Advisers, monitored the process.

    “The election was successfully conducted without hitches,” Chinaka said.

    Johnpaul, after vesting his vote, said he was happy the process was acceptable to students. He urged winners and losers to accept the result in good faith. He said: “We have succeeded in organising a free and fair election; I would implore both the winners and losers to accept the results and work together for the overall development of the association.”

    Chukwuebuka, who was elated about the hitch-free exercise, said there were rumours that the election would be rigged in favour of a candidate, praising the Staff Adviser for his quick intervention by appointing four-man independent monitoring committee to oversee the process. “The election was free and fair and most of the candidates’ agents were satisfied with the outcome,” he said.

    When the election results were announced, there were mixed feelings among the candidates. Sixtus won the presidential contest after he garnered 127 votes to defeat Ikenna, who polled 118 votes.

    Nwachineke Onyedikachi beat Chidera Nwosu with 25 votes to become the Financial Secretary.

    Others elected are Adanna Iheka, Vice President, Ignatius Okorie, General Secretary, Precious Mgbudemobi, Assistant General Secretary, Bright Emeagi , Treasurer, Onyedikachi Nwachineke, Financial Secretary, Frank Iheagwaram, Director of Socials, Arthur Anunonso, Director of Information, Precious Njoku, Liberian, Gideon Nneoma, Editor-in-Chief, James Chinonso Edson, Director of Sports, Caleb Ezinwoke, Provost and Jennifer Umeodinka, Director of Literary Development.

  • A historic moment

    A historic moment

    This is not the first time Nigeria will experience a grand alliances that pits a giant against another. But except the party by fiat under the militaristic logic of the Babangida administration, this is the first time that we shall have a de facto two-party system, which the partisans see as enduring. We will not conjecture whether, with the birth of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in another expanded form with the absorption of five governors, it will amount to a new era of binary politics.

    What is clear however is that this republic has coalesced forces of ostensible harmonies, and today it offers an apparent choice of the APC versus the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). The coalitions of the first republic and the second did give us the parties as melting pots but mosaics where different interests in ethnicity, faiths, businesses and other demographics cohabited. They lived together in a pig-in-a-sty prostitution without regard for differences in world views or ideologies. Their targets were to win elections.

    That intention rigged our politics out of a desire for an enduring two-party system. By implication, it robbed us of historic opportunities to build a tradition for our political elite, recruitment of enthusiasts, the building of core values and the encrusting of the right platforms on which to govern. Rather, we have spun in an endless rigmarole of repetitions and futile experimentations.

    The announcement that the APC now embodies a stature that carries 16 states of the federation is salutary news not because it gives the new party advantage but because it promises to rid the body politic of the monarchist tendency of a one-party state and potentially offers a choice for the Nigerian people.

    It might be true that with 16 states, APC has superior electoral value, a majority in the House of Representatives, dominance in the big cities as massive vote bags. It might be true that, with the widespread sense of drift that the Jonathan administration has evinced in his few years in the saddle, a window opens for the opposition. But the APC must be wary of the sins of which it has accused its opponent. It must serve as an arbiter of the people’s will and clarify its platforms in ideas and character.

    Without these, Nigerians will have parties without a choice. That will be a tragic pass. The APC is soldering together quite a number of parties, tendencies and personages, and that has helped it to build a force that the PDP observes with worry.

    But that is not enough. Its ability to serve as an alternative party will lie in crafting a party with an alternative judgment. The judgment must be sublime, persuasive and transformational.

    The PDP, on its part, ought to respond by doing same and entrench itself by instilling a peculiarly Nigerian charm into its brand of conservative politics just as APC evangelises a progressive standpoint.

    We cannot say we have a two-party state if the parties are about persons or tribe. So, the parties ought to show to us what distinguishes them. Otherwise, we shall have the old script of Nigerian politics where a disenchanted member of a party can swivel to another and be embraced. That makes the parties sties rather shelters of ideological faithful.

    That is how we can build an enduring tradition. The parties are populated by a welter of partisans who believe and who doubt. But this is the time for the parties to establish a set of internal values that will hold in scorn the opportunists, spies, carpet baggers, bigots, militarists, dedicated plutocrats and dividers.

    This happens successfully when fidelity to values bests any loyalty to strong men. Yet we cannot remove powerful personalities from politics since politics is essentially about people. However, the strong personages should help to strengthen the values rather than slacken them. Where individuals mean less values will mean more. This way, the virus of the religious and ethnic bigot will gradually lose its hold on our society.

    While the parties enjoy the presence of the big men, it must chisel its position and not allow itself to be held hostage to the interests of the powerful over the party. If the parties fail to abide by these ideals, they risk falling into the miasma of past decay.

    This will also entail selling the parties to the grassroots, and this will fulfill the saying attributed to a former speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Tip O’neil, that “all politics is local.” It should be a two-party system of co-owners and not of oligarchs.

    The PDP now controls 18 states, the senate and the centre, and for now it enjoys the advantage. It does not have to build a party hierarchy, elect officers and is assured of its loyalties. The APC now faces the challenge of working together. This is the time for vigilance. It has to avoid any disruptive rancour but must channel all discord into strength rather than division.

    Both parties must avoid coming across as champions of any tribe or faith but the higher values of a unified nation.

    As the party in the centre, the PDP must not be seen as hounding the opposition. This is the time for civilised dealing, and not the pursuit of Hobbesian advantage. If we have an opposition party, it has an equal right to the protection of the institutions of state. If the Jonathan administration takes advantage of the defection of five governors to intimidate them into silence, it has abused the prerogative of power as the president of all.

    The decision of the Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, not to join the party is perceived to come from President Jonathan’s intimidation tactics. We do not want to believe that in order to corral rebels into his camp, the President has unleashed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on his foes. That is a familiar tactic. Rivers State governor Rotimi Amaechi has thrown this accusation at the president but the presidency has shied from any credible response.

    We abhor corruption of whatever type. But it is an act of corruption to punish a thief because he does not belong to the family.

    Whether it is the police, army, the State Security Service, the EFCC, it amounts to an abuse of power to deploy them for undue advantage and hound opponents with them because they do not belong to the president’s party. Worse still, the Independent National Electoral Commission has acquitted itself as an adjunct of the ruling party. A two-party system will not succeed when, either by perception or concrete action, the election umpire pitches its tent with the ruling party.

    We need to build a party system so that we can install a great and vibrant nation. Without great values, the party will lose character. Without character, it cannot establish a tradition. Without a tradition, it will lapse into oblivion.

    We do not want a party system that fritters away over tribe, faith, the hubris of big men and the failure of values. Neither should President Jonathan prostitute it with his dictates nor should the new party falter through internal contradictions. Never has the future of our country depended on one moment than now and never has it relied on two organisations than the APC and PDP as they try to turn a balance of power to advantage.