Tag: Nigerians

Dear Comrade B J., thank you for your article entitled “Comrade Professor, you’re caught between a rock and a hard place”, published in the Sunday Nation of 1st October 2017.

First, I am flattered by your views about my character and beliefs.  I know you are a hard task master not known for suffering fools gladly.  Personally, I could not have given a better testimonial to myself. So, I shall add that article to my bundle of certificates.

However, with due respect, I disagree with you when you say both or all sides of the struggle for the soul of Nigeria and the promotion of the welfare of Nigerians are of the same texture – hard like rock.  I am one of the few lucky Nigerians old enough to have observed or participated in the politics of the first Republic and the first six years before independence, i.e., from 1954 – 1966.  My views of First Republic can be summarized thus:

“Whatever the differences they might have had amongst themselves, the political elite of the pre-independence era and the first Republic, 1960–1966, had one thing in common – the spirit of whole-hearted service without personal gain.  Ahmadu Bello, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, and their colleagues all wanted to serve and sacrifice for Nigeria or their Regions in Nigeria.  There was not a whiff of corruption, acquisition, and accumulation of wealth etc., in the orientation of any of these great men and their colleagues and followers.  The only benefit they enjoyed in governance was to see Nigeria grow, develop and progress.  Some of them (particularly Ahmadu Bello), might have justifiably been accused of being ruthless and oppressive in the pursuit of power, but once in power they all worked tirelessly to promote the interest of the people without a thought for themselves.  Ahmadu Bello’s service to his people transcended religion and ethnicity.  For him, anyone within the borders of the Northern Region was his responsibility.  He distributed government largesse, appointments and infrastructural development to all sectors of the Region.

All of these great Leaders had spotless reputations with regard to corruption and all exhibited a high level of integrity in carrying out their duties and responsibilities as Statesmen and Leaders. It is no surprise that Awolowo operated as Premier of the Western Region from his small house in Oke-Bola, Ibadan and that after they passed away, neither Ahmadu Bello nor Tafawa Balewa left any significant house or building for their families.  They were all too consumed with the passion to serve their peoples to think of material wealth.

Post First Republic, Nigerian public service culture has taken a dive to abysmal depths. The end of the 1st Republic was followed by a rapid decline in the moral tone of public life and loss of such values as honesty, integrity, honour and the service ethic.  Since then, with each succeeding Republic, with the exception of the present Administration, the quality of the political elite has declined sharply.  Nigeria has been plunged deeper and deeper into a socio-political wilderness, or worse still, a jungle, overwhelmed by indiscipline, greed, insensitivity, corruption and mindless violence.  This is a country naturally endowed by God with limitless resources, but has nevertheless become a caricature of harrowing poverty, destitution and suffering humanity. This catalogue of misfortunes was compounded by a complete loss of values, heedless cult of money worship and obsessive love of acquisition.  Our current ruling class has no values, no honour, no vision, no integrity and no compassion for the suffering of the masses of fellow Nigerians.

I had in fact given up the possibility of seeing a Federal Government run by humane, principled men of integrity motivated solely by the zeal to serve Nigeria.  Then came 29 May 2015; enter, Buhari and Osinbajo!” Am I carried away by sentiments or overwhelmed by concrete facts of a change of orientation and “hard” concrete achievements?  Let us examine the following developments.

The first major appointment the Buhari/Osinbajo Administration made outside the appointment of Presidential Aides, was the establishment of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption on 10th August 2015 – a clear statement of intention and orientation almost revolutionary and definitely unprecedented in Nigeria’s political history. PACAC was established to coordinate the anti-corruption war, reform and promote the efficacy of the Administration of Criminal Justice in relation to corruption and to build up the capacity of the Judiciary, the Prosecutors and the Anti-Corruption Agencies in the fight against corruption. These Agencies suddenly acquired acute dynamism courage and zeal.

Petroleum subsidy fraud (N380 billion a year) has totally been eliminated and the fear of corruption by high-profile Nigerians is now the beginning of wisdom. There is a major decline in acts of corruption at the political and bank levels.  The whistle blower policy of this Government has brought in a rich haul of Nigeria’s looted assets.  Nigeria is therefore on the way to social and economic sanity and development once more.

One of the major achievements of the Buhari/Osinbajo Administration in the Anti-Corruption war is the recovery of Nigeria’s stolen assets from the looters.  Billions and billions of naira, in landed properties and other types of valuable assets have been recovered from home and abroad and a new policy of non-conviction based assets recovery, is now in operation, and is yielding remarkable fruits.  In fact, the value of recovered assets since 2015 is in the region of 1 trillion naira.  Nigeria’s hemorrhage from a thousand wounds has been staunched and real recovery has commenced.

Outside the sphere of corruption, this Administration has effectively brought the fighting capacity of Boko Haram to an end.  Previously, Nigerian soldiers fled away from Boko Haram insurgents because they (Nigerian Soldiers) were unarmed and unkitted.  The budget for equipment and ammunition had been shared by those in authority, leaving our fighting force weak and vulnerable.  Now fully re-armed, the military has restored Nigerian territory and its own honour.

Under this Administration, numerous social intervention programmes intended to raise the underprivileged masses from passive victims of society to vibrant and productive Nigerians, have been introduced. The feeding of school children nationwide has commenced.  That may be the only solid and nutritious meal millions of these children can have every day.  This has also provided jobs for caterers and promoted the financial capacity of farmers.

A programme involving the provision of financial credit particularly to women, known as “Government Enterprise and Empowerment” has been introduced.  Another program, titled “Conditional Cash transfer”, targets the poorest of the poor in Nigeria with a grant of N5000 a month per family, provided they produce evidence that their young children have been immunized against children’s diseases.  Thus, both family social well-being and infant health are being promoted in one fell swoop. There is also a program known as N-power designed to help young Nigerians acquire and develop life-long skills to become solution providers in their communities and players in the domestic and global markets.

There are numerous other social investment and social protection programs; all targeted at raising our poor masses from grass to grace, thus enhancing the productivity of the Nigerian masses, and therefore that of Nigeria as a whole. This is total commitment to Nigeria and compassion and concern for the struggling masses.

So, my response to your article is that with the Buhari/Osinbajo Administration, we are in a very SOFT place indeed. Indeed, the achievements of the present Administration in all facets of governance are greatly underestimated.  As I state frequently, this Administration is on a rescue mission. Nigeria was bleeding from numerous open wounds when this Administration took over, over 2 years ago.  All the bleeding has been staunched.  Recoveries are under way.  What is now needed is the positive support of the citizens of this Country in this titanic struggle. On a personal level, I had given up all hope that Nigeria would be blessed by such a Government of Transformation in my life time.  What is happening now is, for me, an Indian Summer.  Dear B. J., the Buhari/Osinbajo Administration is not only a “SOFT PLACE”, but the softest place since January 1966.  I intend to enjoy this sudden sunny break in the dark clouds that covered Nigeria.  I am happy, with this Government.  I know it and I clap my hands.

 

Your Comrade in arms

Itse Sagay.

 

A very brief response from me

Dear Comrade Itse, thanks for your response to the open letter to you that was published in this column last week. Incidentally, only once before had I ever published in the column itself a response to something I had written in the column. Interestingly, that previous instance concerned a criticism I had made of President Buhari very early in his administration and it was written by Garba Shehu, the President’s Special Assistant on Media and Publicity. Now here is yours, also for the most part written in defense of Buhari and his administration!

I shall be very brief in my reply to all the observations and claims that you make in your open letter to me. This is for a very special and concrete reason that may perhaps surprise you. What is this reason? It is this: with all due respect, Comrade Itse, you are wide off the mark of the observations and claims that I made in my piece last week. As a matter of fact, you are so off the mark that, to use an analogy from your own profession of the law (especially as reflected in evidentiary principles and procedures), your observations and claims seem very much like basing the defense of a client on charges and allegations that the prosecution never made! In the likely event that you may respond to this charge of serious evidentiary error on your part by saying that I am playing abracadabra with language and ideas, let me quote directly from your piece: “However, with due respect, I disagree with you when you say both or all sides of the struggle for the soul of Nigeria and the promotion of the welfare of Nigerians are of the same texture – hard like rock”.

Comrade Itse, my open letter to you focused, exclusively and completely, on the struggle for the soul of the APC, not the soul of our country! This was because in your own verbal jousts with the APC party bosses, you had based yourself, also exclusively and completely, on factions, characters and forces within the APC; not once, not even fleetingly, did you mention any forces or people or movements outside the APC.

If I didn’t know you well both as a colleague at the University of Ife and as a comrade at arms in struggles in the larger Nigerian society over the last several decades, I would probably have come to the conclusion that you deliberately changed the parameters of the discussion from the party to the nation at large because you wanted to use the switch to write that glowing endorsement of the Buhari administration at the heart of your response to my open letter to you. But knowing you for the man of integrity that you are, I think that what we have here is an honest mistake, one probably caused by a genuine belief that, as you so insistently declare in your piece, the Buhari administration is the best thing that has happened to Nigeria since 1966.

This declaration is, to say the least, stunning. I cannot think of any progressive and patriotic comrade that you and I have known and worked with over the years and decades that would agree with you. To the contrary, most would consider your claim preposterous, if not outrageous. What do I say? This is what I say: let a great debate begin! And so, in next week’s piece in this column, I will take up the issue, not as a continuation of a two-person dialogue with you, but hopefully as a sort of outline of what our political elites and their ruling class parties – including the APC – have been doing to the masses of our peoples everywhere in the country since 1966.

 

• Biodun Jeyifo bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu