The Nation Newspaper

Tag: nonsense

  • ‘Teacher, don’t teach me nonsense’

    The caption of this piece is an intellectual property of afro beat legend and activist, the late Fela Anikulakpo Kuti. ‘Teacher, Don’t Teach Me Nonsense’ is one of his evergreen hits. In the song, Fela decries the ills embedded in the polity. In one of the verses, he labelled our brand of democracy as ‘Demonstration of craze.’ He questioned where the authorities acquired the culture of corruption and flagrant abuse of power, and sought for attitudinal change. According to him, vices will die in the polity if they aren’t promoted or nurtured by the powers that be: ‘‘…as soon as teaching finish, yes, the thing go die.”

    In his time, Fela was the conscience of the nation. The armed forces literally reduced him to a punching bag, beating him to pulp on countless instances. Fictitious charges were often cobbled just to put him behind bars. To worsen issues, on the night of April 30, 1974, over a thousand military men raided his house. In the ensuing drama, the soldiers threw Fela’s mother Funmilayo from the first floor of the storey building before setting the edifice on fire.

    She later died from injuries sustained during the incident.

    Inhuman treatment notwithstanding, Fela remained vibrant in activism. He propagated evergreen messages in his lyrics. A little over two decades after his demise, these lyrics remain so relevant. Take for instance a developing issue involving Governor Udom Emmanuel, the governor of Akwa Ibom and Senator Godswill Akpabio, the Minority Leader of the Senate. Akpabio held sway as governor of Akwa Ibom for eight years which elapsed in 2015 when he passed the baton to Emmanuel.

    Brought in from one of the leading commercial banks in the country, Udom had a brief stint as Secretary to the State Government under the Akpabio administration. He was understudying his boss, I hear you say. Well, it later went beyond mere suspicion to full blown evidence. A kindergarten rhyme apparently remixed by Akpabio’s wife, Unoma, bared it all: ‘What did you, I know; what did you, I know; Godswill Akpabio, a great teacher who taught Udom Emmanuel.’

    Campaign grounds were serenaded by the weird song. Akpabio, then in the dying days of his reign as governor, was packaged as a great teacher who taught Udom the art of governance.

    Now, Udom has become an ‘alumni’ of ‘Akpabio School of Politics.’ But what did he really learn from the ‘great teacher’? Well, few days ago at the Abak Independence Hall, we heard from the horse’s mouth. The ‘great teacher’ spilled his mind. For out of abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, so says the Holy Bible. The great teacher himself revealed Udom’s report card.

    Sampler: “2018 is less than one year to election, all is not well o; don’t allow anybody to deceive you that all is well. If the hotel in Ikot Ekpene (Four Points by Sheraton) rots after so much money had been expended, would that be a good thing?

    “That road from Uyo to Ikot Ekpene, is still the way it was (when I left office). In the 2018 budget, what is the percentage for Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District? My job is to say the truth because if at this level I cannot say the truth, then I am not doing well. So please I want us to start the hotel because when the Commissioner for Works addressed the youths in August, he assured them that the hotel would be opened in December, it will soon decay if urgent intervention is not given to the facility.

    He wasn’t done: “Please, let us check the budget to know what has been earmarked for that place. I am not interested in what I did and what I did not do; I am only interested in what I am going to do.

    “The truth is that Godswill Akpabio expects us to set our path straight so that we can take one route. Even when you are going for communion, you must be in a state of grace, so let us have something from the Senatorial District to use in talking about election; to use in convincing the people to stand by us. We are in opposition, we don’t have government, we don’t have Police, we don’t have INEC”, he warned.

    Akpabio told us what we knew, what we should know and what we didn’t know. ‘The great teacher’ pointedly accused Udom of marginalizing Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District. He painted his political son as a tribal bigot.

    Is nemesis not catching up with ‘the great teacher?’ Yours truly observes that Udom isn’t doing anything that Akpabio didn’t do. Permit my bluntness. Akpabio as a ‘great teacher’ was setting a dangerous precedent for his ‘student’ cum successor.

    Under Akpabio, the maxim ‘government is a continuum’ was abolished. His predecessor, Obong Victor Attah, having messed up with the Science Park project left office in 2007. However, given the strategic importance of the project, the yearning was for Akpabio to complete work on the project. He however shut his ears and abandoned it. Today, the remains of Ibom Science Park have become a den of criminals. The Ibom Science Park is just one in a long list of the Attah era projects abandoned by Akpabio.

    Akpabio demonized the Attah administration covertly and overtly. A man who became a hero in the resource control agitation was reduced to a pathetic case study. Obong Attah whined severally in the media, but received barrage of insults. Akpabio himself and his allies verbally whipped him for fun.

    Who forgets the infamous government sponsored ‘What does Obong Attah Really Want?’ advertorial on The Nation wherein few spent forces were fronted as signatories just to spite Attah for daring to question the rationale behind the Ibom Tropicana Project? That project which was a conduit pipe. Today, Ibom Tropicana lies in waste.

    From 2007 to 2015, tribalism bore its poisonous fangs. Akwa Ibom became a tribal cauldron. The 2011 gubernatorial poll particularly was more of an Annang versus Ibibio contest. I choose not to narrate several incidences here for the sake of allowing the proverbial sleeping dog lie.

    To cap it all, Akpabio was covertly and overtly accused of favouring the Annangs and commandeering the state’s commonwealth to his hometown of Ukana Ikot Ntuen. Today, Udom has followed suit, empowering his Onna brothers and turning his native Awa Iman hometown into a haven.

    The governor isn’t doing anything that his predecessor didn’t do. Governor Emmanuel as an ‘alumni’ of the ‘Akpabio School of Politics’ is exhibiting what he learnt with dexterity. Even the ‘great teacher’ is in awe. Akpabio abandoned Attah’s projects, today, Udom is abandoning Akpabio’s projects. Akpabio was severally accused of marginalizing the Ibibio’s; today, he is accusing an Ibibio son of marginalizing the Annangs (Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District).

    ‘They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind’, so says the Bible. Akpabio is harvesting his investment in Udom. Forget the fake smiles and hugs, ‘all is not well’ as Akpabio confirmed.

    Permit me to conclude this short piece by positing that nonsense must surely give birth to nonsense. You reap what you sow. To avoid becoming a nuisance, when you are taught nonsense, reject it promptly. Don’t hesitate to boldly say: ‘teacher, don’t teach me nonsense.’

     

    • Honesty is Public Affairs Analyst. He writes from Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

  • Tisa, no teach me nonsense

    In periods of national foibles, the immortal lyrics of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, himself the Abami Eda (strange creature), comes to mind.

    In one of his vintage numbers, he was at his irreverent best: “Teacher, don’t teach me nonsense”!

    That, to be sure, was brash.  But at least the Fela persona, even if a pupil, knew enough to rebel and challenge his teacher.

    The poor Kaduna children, whose teachers the Kaduna government accuses of dispensing ignorance, might not have been that lucky!

    That generational evil is, therefore, the tragedy.  Whoever now cares about the half-baked children, grinded out under the tutelage of these teachers (?), but consigned to a bitter future of half-education, which the popular idiom says is dangerous?

    For that blighted generation, there is no union to plead their cause.

    On the contrary, it is the wrong and the faulty now playing the victim.  That is the long and short of the orchestrated wail of the teachers and allied unions.

    They have — is there no more shame in this land? — launched an emotive blackmail to retain a name — teacher — they never deserved; and a pay they never earned, simply because — a harvest of whimpers and a bucketful of tears — they must “feed their family”.

    Some satanic feeding there, after pumping other families’ offspring with thumping ignorance!

    Of course, for Nigeria, where a sense of right-and-wrong appears to have vanished, this is yet another controversy.

    That would appear the lot of the country since 1993, when a reckless cabal in the military cancelled the June 12 presidential election; but sustained the crime because all it evoked was, not bristling outrage at a monumental injustice, but a sterile controversy to justify the unjustifiable.

    That loss of innocence Nigeria still battles till today, despite the return of democracy since 1999; and a deliberate ploy to placate the South West, with an Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, for the MKO Abiola injustice.

    But that is one direction the Kaduna teachers affair must not be allowed to head.  Education is just too important to be sorted out by political compromises.

    Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), the British clergyman and Industrial Revolution-era economist it was, that raised the spectre of wealth growing at arithmetical proportion; but population booming at geometrical proportion, thus forecasting mass misery and anguish.

    That didn’t come to pass, because the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840), as well as the discovery of the so-called new world (America, Brazil, Australia, etc) drew not a few Brits away, whether as outlaws shipped off as punishment; or just adventurers looking beyond the tiny British isles.

    But Malthus could also be applied to a looming tragedy, if this Kaduna case is not rightly resolved, without recourse to any sick political compromise.

    The 1999 Army Arrangement (again, apologies to the Abami Eda), which compensated the South West with an Obasanjo presidency, looked like political retardation, in “arithmetical proportions”; until the 2015 elections halted the Obasanjo era descent at its very nadir, the Goodluck Jonathan years, during which everything was going to crash.

    So long for political compromises, with neither soul nor equity!

    But the Jonathan-era political collapse would appear a child’s play with the current education debacle.

    Indeed — and back to Malthus — if politics and governance had collapsed by “arithmetical proportion”, education would appear collapsing by “geometrical proportion” — and the root is a rotten foundation, as exemplified by the Kaduna teachers scandal.

    That is why those who cry and wail about giving the quacks who claim to be teachers in Kaduna some soft landing entirely miss the point.  Indeed, such a stand would appear insensitive, if not outright unconscionable.

    Yet, there is a lot to be said about the rotten processes that installed these quacks; and the imperative of dealing with the rot from the fundament.

    For starters, how could the Kaduna teacher recruitment system be riddled with so much self-ruin, to the extent that those that lexically challenged end up as “teachers”?  And their victims, young impressionable minds, whose families are probably the society’s most vulnerable, given their lowly demographics?

    But before you point fingers at Kaduna, that state might well point to a nationwide rot.  That is why the Kaduna government should spare nothing to get to the root of the problems and ensure any racket in the teacher recruitment system is smashed; and there are vibrant checks-and-balances to henceforth continuously sanitize the system.

    All these point to a past where the abnormal had been so brazenly pushed it has now become the norm.  The Nasir El Rufai governorship holds it a sacred duty, to the coming generation, that the rot is completely reversed.

    Then the below-par teachers and their so-called welfare, on which the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), have screamed and bawled, in the mistaken belief that you win a discourse by raising your voice, not your logic.

    Strictly speaking, if welfare is linked to work privileges, any Kaduna teacher deemed to have failed so dismally in his or her teaching duties is not entitled to work-related welfare.  This is trite: for you to enjoy, you must deliver value.

    Besides, it is not charity.  Indeed, in this very case, to resort to an appeal to charity is nothing but double jeopardy, for such failure ought to attract stiff sanctions, not reward, given the harm it has done to the victim-pupils.

    Still, in dealing with citizens, hardly any government would want to, Draco-wise, strictly apply the law, without mercy or compassion.  That would appear the only pillar on which the Kaduna teachers, with proven dereliction of duties, can access any favour.

    But whatever happens, present and future generation of public school pupils should not be made guinea pigs, in that laboratory of mercy.

    Except for the few that can be retrained, the others should be shipped off to that segment of the civil service, where they would cease being a menace to the future generation.

    To this legion, teaching must be strictly off-limits, more so with the evidence that there are qualified teachers ready and willing to fill the vacated positions.

    For those who could neither be retrained as teachers nor fit into other areas of the civil service, however, the Kaduna government should end their appointment but promptly pay them their dues.  That way, they can get on with their lives, with little or no dislocation of the lives of their equally innocent dependents.

    That is the line the teachers union and organized Labour should push.  Otherwise, NUT would be fairly charged as undermining its own professional essence; and organized Labour legitimately charged with, by its empty grandstanding, pushing no dignity in honest labour.

  • Contractual nonsense

    Strangely, the new Director-General, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), is singing a strange song about the status of a controversial contract with a controversial Niger Delta ex-militant. Dr. Dakuku Peterside was quoted as saying that Chief Government Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo, is still recognised as a NIMASA contractor.

    Peterside dropped the bomb on October 30 while speaking with reporters in Port Harcourt after attending the funeral of a leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Godpower Ake, in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni LGA of Rivers State.

    In reference to Tompolo’s company, Peterside said: “The contract is you, Global West, go and acquire assets for NIMASA. Acquire security boats, acquire intervention vessels and acquire helicopters. When you acquire all those things, we will pay you back within a period of 10 years. Now, you help us in the enforcement and whatever revenue you generate above what we are earning now, it will be shared between Global West and NIMASA. That is a different contract and it is still subsisting till now. It has not been cancelled. It was not terminated. I will continue to say that there was nothing wrong with that model but that model was abused and it is subject to investigation by the EFCC.”

    The question is: If the model was abused, what should happen to the abuser if the abuse is established beyond a shadow of a doubt? Surely, this is not a difficult question to answer.

    While the alleged abuse of the model is being investigated, there is another important question: How was Global West supposed to acquire the capacity to “acquire assets for NIMASA…Acquire security boats, acquire intervention vessels and acquire helicopters?” This approach to asset acquisition by NIMASA is ridiculous.

    On the question of helping NIMASA “in the enforcement,” it should be stressed that the dubious security contracts from which Tompolo benefited downgraded the regular security agencies in favour of militiamen and enriched militia leaders to the detriment of the country’s security personnel who should have been empowered to perform their duties.

    It is noteworthy that an October 27 report said: “Tompolo and others were arraigned in absentia on April 18 on 22 counts of conspiracy, stealing, advance fee fraud and money laundering.” The report also said: “EFCC, in the 40-count charge also before Justice Ibrahim Buba, said the suspects allegedly diverted N34 billion for personal use. It alleged the money accrued from the public private partnership agreement between NIMASA and Global West Vessel Specialist, said to be owned by Tompolo.”

    While it is true that allegations remain allegations, it is equally true that these allegations are weighty enough to weigh down any so-called contract with the accused. This is a case of contractual nonsense.

  • Nonsense at NNPC Mega stations

    The NNPC Mega Station was conceived under former President Olusegun Obasanjo in the wake of incessant fuel shortage to serve as storage for fuel. Filling Stations then would probably have 60,000 litre capacity for fuel which will last for two or maximum three day. An NNPC mega station was to have storage capacity of up to one million litres as part of the national strategic reserve to have fuel supply for 90 days.

    Secondly, it was to be a government guaranteed point of fuel supply, just in case the major and independent marketers decide to hold the nation to ransom.

    Thirdly, it was designed for reason of its being a mega station to be able to dispense fuel quickly and swiftly to at least 10 vehicles at a time, such that no matter how long the queue, it will get to one’s turn in a short while, if and only if, there is one queue.

    However, corruption killed these lofty ideas. I live in Osogbo, the Osun State capital but I travel across Nigeria and sadly observed that the mega stations have uniformly failed and failed spectacularly. Whoever is in charge should be ashamed of the farce that a noble concept has become under his or her watch.

    In the past week of the current fuel shortage, I saw the hell and bedlam that NNPC mega stations have become in Osogbo, Ibadan, Akure, Abuja and Lagos. Instead of one single line of motorists, there will be at least 15 other parallel lines, spilling to and totally covering the road, making vehicular movements impossible.

    The reason for this is corruption. In Osogbo, one of the officials of the station, pretending to be directing traffic would be extorting money from those forming parallel lines. So the more the parallel lines, the more the money he makes. With lines running into 15 and as much as five lines being formed even on the exit mouth of the station, he has employed assistants who now collect the toll on his behalf. Law enforcement agencies are not left out as they all help the parallel lines to expand in order to get their cut.

    This is not limited to Osogbo alone, it is standard practice at all NNPC mega stations. In Lagos and Abuja, operators of fuel black market in front of NNPC mega Stations always have fuel, while a motorist can be on the queue for a whole day and still return home empty.

    The corruption at the mega stations rewards bad behaviour of shunting and offering bribes while law abiding citizens are punished.

    I am therefore calling on Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu and those in charge of mega stations to sit up and get their acts together. They should enforce the policy of a SINGLE LANE QUEUE at all their mega and franchise stations. It is bad enough that they are incapable of providing fuel for Nigerians, but that they cannot manage this crisis is shameful.

     

    • Mike Ogundele,

    Osogbo, Osun State

  • The nonsense at UNN

    Every well meaning citizen must be flabbergasted at the determination of some shadowy forces to turn the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, (UNN) into a rustic village primary school, a far cry from the lofty vision of the founding fathers to make it an exemplary higher institution on behalf of the Blackman everywhere in the world. The battle cry in some quarters now is that an indigene of the Nsukka senatorial zone must be the vice chancellor of this institution, Nigeria’s first full-fledged indigenous university created in 1960, the year of independence. This battle cry was first heard three years ago when the race was on for the post of vice chancellor. Someone from outside the Nsukka zone was eventually appointed based on merit, provoking the shadowy forces to swear  to make the place ungovernable for him. These parochial forces could not be consoled by the fact that Professor Bato Okolo is from Enugu State, the host state of the university.

    Therefore, it could not have come as a surprise to perceptive observers that things became difficult for the vice chancellor the moment Enejere was appointed pro chancellor. Okolo, a former professor at Obafemi Awolowo University, could not understand why this foremost federal institution should be turned into an exclusive preserve of people from just one senatorial zone in the country. He could not understand why staff appointments should be indefensibly lopsided or how a university which is perennially cash strapped could provide amenities like electricity free to communities around it at a time of astronomically increasing electricity bills. Which public university has done so? Meanwhile, the vice chancellor has been facing one probe or another on the prompting of the pro chancellor.

    To save the university from further self-inflicted misery, the Federal Government decided to separate Enejere from the UNN. Hell has consequently been let loose. Every person of Nsukka extraction holding any significant position, whether in the non academic staff union or the Ohaneze youth wing, has been told to see the the action as genocide against the people of this senatorial district. The propaganda is akin to the type we saw in Biafra, marked by xenophobia, paranoia and an outright rejection of the notion of peaceful co-existence. In a well-circulated written statement in the media which should never have been associated with someone who has ever seen the four walls of a university, one Nwodo, said to be the Ohaneze youth leader,  says “the UNN is Dr Enejere and Dr Enejere the UNN”. The statement is reminiscent of the infamous declaration of King Louis X1 who said: “I am France, and after me comes a deluge!” This hubristic statement was one of the  immediate critical factors which led to the famous 1789 French Revolution in which the bourgeois got guillotined. Still, in Nigeria of the 21st Century a so-called academic would get his minions to declare that he is, indeed, the University of Nigeria and the UNN him. Have our values and sense of proportion collapsed so calamitously that there is now no difference between an academic, on the one hand, and an uneducated village politician cum rabble rouser, on the other?

    The Igboland must be in a profound social crisis. Can you imagine a group of scholars in, say, the Akoka community, shouting from the rooftops that they will make the University of Lagos ungovernable unless the vice chancellor is from their senatorial zone? Can such a thing happen  at the University of Ibadan or Obafemi Awolowo University at Ife or at Ahmadu Bello University at Zaria? The answer is hell no! The supreme irony is that while some elements of Nsukka extraction want to create the impression that they are discriminated against by not having one of their number as the UNN vice chancellor, they have carefully turned a blind eye to the fact that an Nsukka person, Professor Hilary Edoga, is the vice chancellor of Michael Okpara University at Umudike, Abia State, and that another one, Professor Cyprian Onyeji,  is the vice chancellor at the Enugu State University. How would  latter-day Nsukka ultra nationalists feel if people from the senatorial zones where these universities are sited should rise up in arms against the smooth administration of the institutions because these vice chancellors are non-indigenes?

    The UNN must be saved from backward-looking elements. Who would have imagined that the UNN Law Faulty, which once paraded such great minds as Professors Ben Nwabueze, Edwin Nwogwugwu, Cyprian Okonkwo, etc, could ever fail to meet the National University Commission’s accreditation test? The immediate past UNN vice chancellor, Professor Chinedu Nebo, the current Minister of Power, used to bemoan the fact that its medical school was publishing the least number of academic articles among first generation universities when he assumed office. And yet this is the university which up to 2001 was rated by the NUC to have the most rigorous academic programmes in Nigeria.

    As the ongoing simulated crisis at the University of Nigeria indicates, if there is any group of people marginalizing the Igbo, it must be a handful of our own folk who are parochial, backward, opportunistic and greedy. The Great Zik of Africa who established the UNN as a first class liberal university “to restore the dignity of man” must be turning in his grave in utter disappointment at the attitude and antics of some of its stakeholders.

    Enough of all this nonsense.

     

    • Ubadike is an engineering consultant in Abuja.

  • IGP Abubakar to politicians, police: enough of nonsense

    IGP Abubakar to politicians, police: enough of nonsense

    The Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Abubakar has read the riot act to the political actors and police personnel drafted to provide security in the crisis- ridden Rivers State.

    In a statement by Deputy Force spokesman Mr. Frank Mba yesterday, Abubakar warned both the political actors and police personnel found acting out of order would not be spared, regardless of their positions or connections.

    The IGP has set up an investigation panel to identify the police personnel that were present during Tuesday’s mayhem at the Rivers State House of Assembly and the firing of tear gas into the Government House, Port Harcourt on Wednesday.

    The panel is headed by the Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) in charge of Operations, Mr. Philemon Leha.

    Leha has been mandated to investigate the circumstances surrounding the impasse.

    Abubakar charged the warring parties to seek civilised and decent means of resolving their differences, devoid of any form of violence and confrontation.

    He reminded the people that the maintenance of peace remained paramount to the well being and development of the state, adding that the police needed the maximum cooperation and understanding of the people to optimally discharge its statutory responsibility.

    “While the Force continues to do everything within its constitutional powers and means, to provide a safe, impartial and conducive atmosphere for legitimate social, political and economic activities to thrive in the state, it will not tolerate any form of lawlessness or acts amounting to threats to public safety and public order.

    “The success of our democracy depends on our collective efforts and contributions”, the IGP said, adding: “We must as a people, manage our differences to the advantage of our growing democracy for the good of all”.

    Abubakar assured the people of police’s readiness to ensure their security at all times, imploring them not to further heat up the polity through hateful, inflammatory, and unguarded statements and actions.

    He enjoined them to consciously work towards the enthronement of peace, stressing that they must seek civilised and decent means of resolving their differences, devoid of all forms of violence and confrontation.

    “The police high command uses this medium and opportunity to remind the citizens of the state, irrespective of their ideological leanings, of the need to play by the rules.

    “The Force will not spare anyone found to have fallen foul of the law, irrespective of placement and status”, Abubakar said.

    He enjoined the people to go about their legitimate businesses without fear of intimidation.

    The State Security Service (SSS) yesterday summoned the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to Amaechi to Abuja for interrogation on his alleged role in Tuesday’s fracas at the House of Assembly and why he allegedly exposed the governor to danger.

    The invitation was said to be based on alleged video footage which captured the CSO as having pushed someone in the Assembly.

    But the summon has fueled anxiety that the CSO, allegedly regarded as loyal to the governor, might be recalled from his beat.

    The CSO is expected to appear before a panel on why he did not advise the governor against going to the tension-soaked Assembly Complex, knowing the inherent danger.

    A reliable source, who spoke in confidence, said: “The CSO was invited to the SSS Headquarters on why he was allegedly involved in the fracas. The camera captured him pushing someone with his pistol exposed, a trend which was unusual of the service.

    “What if one of those aggrieved had removed the pistol to attack the governor or any of those fighting.

    “The opinion of the service is that the CSO should have been with the governor to protect Amaechi from any harm and not seeing him in the middle of the fracas.

    “The job of a CSO is to protect his principal (the governor), you cannot even leave your principal an inch.

    “The camera showed security lapse which exposed Amaechi to danger. The CSO should have advised the governor against going to a place where he could be injured or killed.”

    Asked if the purported action of the CSO was meant to defend the governor from danger, the source added: “When he comes to Abuja, he will be able to explain why he acted in that manner.

    “No one is withdrawing the CSO now but it is a routine thing to seek clarifications from officers on duty. The SSS wants its officers to be strict to their mandate or schedule of work.”

    But there were fears that the summoning of the CSO was a subtle move to recall him from the governor.

    Another source added: “I think this is a fresh ploy to withdraw loyal security details from Governor Amaechi. They are desperate to leave the governor bare so that hoodlums can deal with him.

    “It is clear to everyone that the CSO had been loyal to the governor and protective. Some forces in Abuja and Rivers State had been uncomfortable with the diligence of the CSO.

    “We have got information that they want to withdraw the CSO and redeploy him for being loyal to his principal and doing his duties according to his conscience. He is a thoroughbred and non-partisan officer.

    “As for the governor and his aides, the invitation of the CSO is just a smokescreen of a hidden agenda to deal with Amaechi.

    “It was obvious that an unseen force is behind the invitation of the CSO for a purpose. The SSS should instead investigate who has been pulling the string from China on how to cripple Amaechi’s security.

    “The threats to destabilise Rivers are worst than the era of the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha. At least Abacha made a pretence but those calling for Amaechi’s head do so with impunity because of the backing of some forces in government.”

  • Don’t teach my student nonsense

    February was really bad for some of us. For me, certain things came up that shook my stoic deportment to life. I had borne the pains and anguish for some time before I decided to reach out to a dear friend on phone in the middle of the night. I’m glad I made that call. I was able to pore out my heart and at the end of the early morning, I was much better.

    When I thought mine was the heaviest burden to carry, one of my mentors/father made a phone call to me that I should see him. As soon as I got there, he begged that as part of my work schedules for him, he needed me to teach him the basic use of the computer. I was surprised at that request. This is one individual who wouldn’t care about sending SMS let alone learn the use of the computer. Why the sudden interest? I needed to know. Not one to display emotions, he told me that a large sum of money (enough to buy me a clean house in a good part of Abuja) had been transferred from his account without his knowledge. The money has been traced to Hong Kong and he’s hopeful they nab the people who did it.

    While investigations are going on, he would like to dedicate just one hour per day to teaching him how to use commands on the computer so he would begin to open his emails himself, do internet banking and generally be literate enough to ensure that no one else has his passwords.

    I couldn’t refuse that demand. Yet, I couldn’t say that yes, not only do I have more knowledge of the computer than an average user (after all, I’m an author who has written all my published books straight from my laptop) I actually learnt to use the computer on my own. I didn’t’;t go to any computer school for that. Years of practice and on-the job efforts got me this far and made me a pro. I prayed that he wouldn’t ask me to teach him how to recognize your letters without looking at the keyboard – those are things they teach you in computer schools. Asking him to go to a computer school would mean special schools that open from 7.00pm to 8.00 would need to be located for him. (All big people are always on the move and 9.00pm is still day time for a lot of them).

    Lo and behold, Baba wanted to teach him what I had prayed he wouldn’t ask me to – recognizing letter without looking at the keyboard. Up till now, I don’t know how I managed to take his mind off that. What I know is that today, after just four days of teacher/student arguments, he is able to boot his computer, type words and start new paragraphs, highlight letter to increase font sizes, close files and a few other things. I have to sometimes remind him of commands like ‘Enter’, ‘Backspace’and ‘Control’, but we’re getting there.

    The highlight of the lesson is that since Baba has never been alone with a woman since the years I’ve known him the lessons are done in the presence of his PA and his son. Baba obviously doesn’t understand why these young men laugh when I say things like , ‘open’, ‘close’, ‘enter’, ‘control’, ‘go down’ and ‘shift’. As they are idle when we are busy, their minds must be playing some silly tricks and they are enjoying it.

    As for me, I pray I’m able to help Baba computer literate before the end of March and while I laugh at the games of these young men, I pray they don’t end up teaching Baba nonsense.

  • Humongous nonsense!

    Humongous nonsense!

    It would have been a breeze of pleasant surprise had Dr. Doyin Okupe, the President’s adviser on public affairs decided to keep quiet for once. Curiously, none of those in Nigeria’s perverted corridors of power has dared to take up the challenge of squaring up with Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili in a public debate over allegations of “brazen misappropriation of public resources” levelled against the Jonathan administration. Nonetheless, it would have been shocking if Okupe had not sought to bring down the full weight of his office (no pun intended) to bear on Ezekwesili for daring to finger President Goodluck Jonathan as one of the major players in the ‘misapplication’ of $67bn foreign reserve left by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

    The Okupe I know is not one that would allow a Labaran Maku to take the shine off his office through a hurriedly-arranged press conference. By the way, Ezekwesili used to be a highly visible member of the economic think-tank in the Obasanjo administration. Popularly called ‘Madam Due Process’, she was appointed a minister after injecting some measure of credibility into the due process unit. From Knucklehead’s point of view, unlike her traducers, Ezekwesili’s intellectualism, passion and love for this country has never been in doubt. For a woman that enjoyed the support of Obasanjo, I had labelled her ‘crazy’ when she walked out of the ministerial appointment and accepted to serve with World Bank as Vice President for Africa. Why abdicate such ‘juicy’ post as a cabinet member for a regulated pay which could end up being a toothbrush allowance for a Nigerian minister, any minister? Yet, Ezekwesili made her choice!

    Perhaps, if she had decided to play by the rules and keep a permanent smirk on her chubby face as the transformation train wobbles on a slippery rail, Ezekwesili would not be in the eye of the storm today. But, ever since our encounter in Aso Rock when she was a senior aide to Obasanjo, I knew Oby was not one to suffer fools, especially the parasitic elite, gladly. Her mission seems quite simple: stop the looting and fix the nation for good! In our countless interactions, I never fail to remind her that she was probably the lone dreamer on that train. To her, I was just being a cynic. Today, I doubt if she is still bustling with blind optimism about people in power and their intent to raise the nation a notch higher than the derelict structure they met. There were simply too many pretenders even in the Obasanjo cabinet and they wore split images. Most of them would sacrifice an arm and a leg to belong to that group of rapacious elite that Oby so much despises because of the callous way they continue to impoverish the poor. And I guess she knew any confrontation with this clique is bound to be met with something close to a deadly, custom-built earthquake.

    And so when the retired World Bank chief kicked the Jonathan government in the groin, accusing it of wasting a large chunk of an estimated $67bn (N10.8trn) left in the nation’s foreign accounts by Obasanjo as at May 2007, she must have anticipated some sort of angry rebuttal from the President’s men. For a woman who rarely cuddles controversy, I want to assume that she was sure of the authenticity of the figures before rolling them out in a lecture delivered as part of the convocation ceremonies of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She must have been truly troubled to have coined the fiery words used in passing on that message. She must have been convinced that something needed to be done to reverse the gradual slide into economic stagnation. This is not just about what she said but the way she couched it.

    Listen to her: “They squandered the significant sum of $45billion in foreign reserve account and another $22billion in Excess Crude Account, being direct savings from increased earnings from oil that the Obasanjo administration handed over to the successor government in 2007. Six years after the administration I served handed over such humongous national wealth to another one, most Nigerians, but especially the poor, continue to suffer the effects of failing public health and education systems as well as decrepit infrastructure and battered institutions.

    “One cannot but ask what exactly does this level of brazen misappropriation of public resources symbolise? Where did all that money go? Where is the accountability for the use of these resources and the additional several hundred million dollars realised from oil sale by the two administrations that have governed our nation in the last five years? How were these resources applied or, more appropriately, misapplied? Tragic choices.”

    For an administration with a short fuse for absorbing criticism no matter how flexibly constructive, it was not long before the dogs were let loose on this wife of a pastor. For daring to raise questions on accountability in governance in addition to having the effrontery to table humongous charges bearing on sheer waste against Jonathan and his late predecessor, Umaru Yar’Adua, Ezekwesili has come under ferocious attacks. She has been called a liar; a rabble-rouser; an unqualified interrogator; shameless peddler of incorrect figures and a grand-stander that should not be dignified with a public debate to verify the true figures. Between Maku and Okupe, picking the winner in the craze to unleash verbal expletives remains too close to call. They are sure earning their pay!

    To be candid, no one had expected them to stay on the topic without hitting Oby below the waist band. As far as they are concerned, all is fair in this verbal war. Still, it was uncharitable for Maku to insinuate that Oby mis-managed the ‘humongous’ funds released to the Ministry of Education whilst she in charge of that sector. Unless he wants to confirm our fears that files bothering on corrupt practices by people in government are kept in a special cabinet in the President’s office to be employed just they can be employed as tools for blackmail should the need arise, I really cannot figure out what Maku wants us to make of his allegation that Oby squandered over N430bn without any remarkable shift or improvement in the fallen standard of education. I just hope Minister Maku, a one-time deputy governor in Nasarawa State, was not too young then to understand the damage the term ‘policy summersault’ has inflicted on the polity. He couldn’t have forgotten so soon that after Oby resigned and joined the World Bank, that sector was put under the care of a former governor who was more concerned with the grandiose arrangement for the celebration of his marriage anniversary than fixing a sector that was in complete tatters after Oby’s reform was thrown out of the window. In spite of the fact that lecturers had been on strike for over nine months and those who could afford it had sought admission for their wards in neighbouring countries including Togo and Cameroun, didn’t the minister go ahead to have the shindig of his life? In any case, if the government thinks it has a strong case against Ezekwesili, the appropriate thing to do is to drag her before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and not this whimsical allegation of wasting a ‘humongous’ N430bn by a regime accused of frittering away a whopping N10.6 trillion in five years.

    Yet, we return to the real issue at hand. This outlandish and utterly humongous joke must stop. Ezekwesili’s allegations are too serious to be trivialised or waved aside by the government as yet another ranting by someone who once ‘mis-applied’ money entrusted in her care as a public officer. That argument simply doesn’t wash just as the primitive tactic of name-calling begs the question. If the government truly wants to come clean on this matter and convince us beyond any reasonable doubt that Ezekwesili manipulated figures in order to give it a bloody nose, then it should gladly accept the public debate. This issue surely deserves a dignified response and not the usual bulldozing whereby the “accuser or agent provocateur”, as Okupe puts it, is shouted into silence. Nigerians deserve to know whether it is true that we are in this quagmire due to the “tragic choices” made by some people in Aso Rock. We need to know when and where the rain started beating us!

    It is soul-lifting that the National Assembly, specifically the House of Representatives, has stepped into the matter. We wait to see how far Okupe can go with his puerile argument that spent fund cannot be described as squandering of riches simply because it was budgeted for! Would the lawmakers accept the laughable excuse that Ezekwesili was merely ‘ playing to the gallery’ and that it was yet another calculated but ‘unsuccessful’ attempt to maliciously “incite” the public against Jonathan and bring his administration into disrepute unjustifiably? Surely the government would need more than Okupe’s gabbling and foul-mouthing Ezekwesili as a “wilfully perjured individual not worthy of any respect or recognition whatsoever.” Hmnn, maybe these attributes were parts of the things that endeared her to the World Bank where she excelled!

    Be that as it may, the dusts being raised about how the nation’s money is being managed provides Jonathan an opportunity to clear his name that, in words and deed, he has truly transformed the much promised mirage of “breeze of fresh air in governance” into a reality. All he needs to do is to avail the nation of the facts, figures and what exactly the funds were spent on. Evidently, this is not the time to gloat about imaginary enemies hiding behind the huge ghost of misgovernance to damage anyone’s reputation. Good enough, Ezekwesili’s questions are routine and should be quite easy to deal with by any self-respecting government. Was there a brazen misappropriation of public funds? If no, then why was the nation’s foreign reserve gravely depleted and what was the money used for? Can someone render accounts on how the additional billions of dollars realised from oil sale by the two administrations that have governed our nation in the last five years have been applied? How were these resources applied or more appropriately, misapplied? And did we end up wasting the resources on what Ezekwesili dubbed ‘tragic choices?’ Haha, answering these questions shouldn’t be rocket science for eggheads in the corridors of power.

    Obviously, these questions couldn’t have emanated from the warped rambling of a perjured mind. So, why are some people bent on heaping this humongous nonsense that shames a nation in historical proportions on us all? Must opaque management of public resources and crass disregard for genuine accountability forever remain a directive principle of state? Maybe while our VIPs plan a centenary to celebrate what citizens know not, it is beyond us to ask them to account for how they have spent our money. If they continue treading this wayward path, one day, the Arab spring would look like a picnic when the people rise to ask questions with one voice ringing loud and clear across the land!

     

  • Obama/Romney: The sense and nonsense of polemics

    Obama/Romney: The sense and nonsense of polemics

    By popular acclamation, President Barack Obama of the United States lost the first round of the presidential debate to his Republican Party challenger, Mitt Romney. Two more rounds of the debate are outstanding before the November polls. In that first round, Obama was said to have debated like a bored university lecturer, while Romney went in like an aggressive bull ready to do battle. Both incumbent and challenger stretched their stories exceedingly tall and ladled out inaccuracies like confetti, but Romney disrespected facts and figures much more, in fact far worse than our own President Goodluck Jonathan did with the Transparency International (TI) figures. Democratic Party faithful expect Obama to be ruthless in the next two rounds of the debate, that is, assuming his genial nature will permit him to bite in the clinches.

    Romney’s performance has predictably revived his chances in the November poll, and he will seek to press home the advantage. If Obama is not to be buried alive, he must bring his talents as a law professor to bear, for now more than ever he needs them. But that precisely is where the problem lies. Polemics is by no means an easy art, as indeed many victims of unsparing polemical pugilism can testify. Victory in polemics does not always go to the most astute, most intelligent, most oratorical, for polemics consists of dangerous chemical and metaphysical elements with unpredictable properties. Even if it were listed on the periodic table, anyone who succumbs to polemical defeat would still be unable to fathom what hit him or what the properties of the elements are.

    The inimitable Mark Twain captures for posterity one such polemical disaster as contained in the story of Abelard and Heloise in Chapter XV of his book, Innocents Abroad. It is a love story between a cold-hearted and ungrateful priest, Abelard, and a trusting, warm and innocent nun, Heloise, whose passionate love was unrequited. In the end Abelard betrayed Heloise, and he in turn was vanquished by a skilful debater called St.Bernard at the debating ground – fittingly, said Mark Twain. Hear Twain: “Abelard, a man of splendid talents, and ranking as the first debater of his time, became timid, irresolute, and distrustful of his powers. He only needed a great misfortune to topple him from the high position he held in the world of intellectual excellence, and it came. Urged by kings and princes to meet the subtle St. Bernard in debate and crush him, he stood up in the presence of a royal and illustrious assemblage, and when his antagonist had finished he looked about him and stammered a commencement; but his courage failed him, the cunning of his tongue was gone: with his speech unspoken, he trembled and sat down, a disgraced and vanquished champion.”

    The effect polemical defeat has on the vanquished is akin to a crushing defeat suffered by a politician at the polls: both would rather die than live, for such defeats, having been publicly delivered, are impossible to live down. Obama probably did not experience a crushing blow to the medulla, but there is no doubt he knew he was thrashed, a fact that two-thirds of the 58 million people who watched the debate conceded. Too many people have had their reputations ruined on the debating ground. The sensible thing to do, therefore, is to avoid being pinned down to a formal debate. Nigerian politicians are adept at doing this. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo avoided the Yale-educated Chief Olu Falae of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the aborted 1999 presidential debate; Umaru Yar’Adua scorned Abubakar Atiku in 2007; and both Muhammadu Buhari and Dr Goodluck Jonathan simply ignored the Young Turks of the opposition in the 2011 debate.

    Romney may have outperformed Obama last week, but America would be the poorer with him as president, as indeed the country was under George W. Bush. And as many women whose chastity and reputations have been ruined by smooth-talking men can attest, the most oratorical is often the most avidly libertine. If Obama does not turn the table against Romney in the next rounds, he must pray that Americans become as sturdy as Nigerians who in the First and Second Republics relished the oratory of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe on the stump but still went ahead remorselessly to vote for their candidates and champions.