The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Olakunle Abimbola

  • PDP: Old stab, new gash

    PDP: Old stab, new gash

    Idowu Akinlotan, the muse of “Palladium”, The Nation Sunday back-page column, near-prophetically declared the PDP won’t die: “Defections and wind of change”, October 19.  Maybe he is right?

    But except he used PDP as the opposition generic (as it was in the late 1960s/1970s, when the defunct Daily Times was so dominant it passed as a credible generic for other newspaper titles) — and not as PDP qua PDP — he just might be wrong.

    How?  Well, the Alliance for Democracy (AD), home to Yoruba pro-democracy heroes, and National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) veterans that wore a chip on their shoulders, as arch-conquerors of Sani Abacha and his political army goons, also died.  The AD died when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) delisted it on 6 February 2020

    Yet, in 1999, AD swept well-nigh everything there was to win in the South West, just as PDP, the special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the fleeing military, fearing a civil order puritanical backlash, made hay in other areas of Nigeria, save the defunct All People’s Party (APP, later, ANPP: All Nigeria People’s Party) redoubts mainly in the North.

    But Palladium was right on one score: even if PDP, as we know it now withers, the opposition won’t necessarily die with it. 

    There is a strain of AD in the present ruling APC (recall this chain: AD-Action Congress, AC,-Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN,-and finally, All Progressives Congress, APC). So, the PDP will also morph into some future opposition coalition.  The first stage of that is already manifested in the new SPV, African Democratic Congress (ADC).

    Therein then lies Paladium’s basic point: Nigeria would hardly succumb to a one-party rule, the hysteria the scattered opposition are now bleating, for cheap sympathy.  But with the havoc PDP had wreaked on Nigeria, may they long endure their blues!

    But even with its present bind, the opposition may yet, in future, clutch back at power.  That would power Nigeria’s democracy, as other global democracies that experience periodic power changes, by sheer voter power: for or against the ruling order.

    Yet, it’s joy, perverse and impish, seeing the PDP that, between 2001 and 2003, went berserk to kill the AD, now grouching, mourning and moaning, going through what seems the final dance of its own death!

    Indeed, it’s a classic comeuppance: the old cruel stabs PDP dealt the AD, and these no less ruthless gashes PDP is being dealt too! What goes around comes around!

    No less thrilling too: the two main orchestrators of the AD death and burial are very much alive, to see the PDP grand unravelling and chaotic meltdown.

    One is former President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007).  To, “by  force, by fire” seize a South West base, he must subvert and eventually kill the AD.

    The other is the martial Chief Olabode George, in their power heyday, Obasanjo’s dashing viceroy, in their joint scramble to “capture” Lagos!  Old man George did not retire as Navy Commodore for nothing!

    In that campaign was indeed mutual bliss: Bode George’s trophy as PDP National Vice-Chairman (South West) was nothing without the glorious vice of “capturing” — his very word! — his native Lagos!  Operation Capture Lagos was a task that must be done!

    For his imperial Abuja principal, seizing the crown jewel of Lagos was a worthwhile gambit: to consummate the grand surrender of his native South West which people, by the dire presidential results of 1999, didn’t exactly love him.  Indeed, they scorned him. 

    But the more the South West scorn, the harder Obasanjo’s will to crush!  PDP was the armoured vehicle.  George was the fearsome field commander.  AD was the nuisance to be squelched.  2003 was the year! 

    Mission accomplished?  Not quite! The South West did fall. But the crown jewel proved a bridge too far!  George would later tell Daily Champion (3 June 2025), though: “We also won Lagos but the result was manipulated.” Well, arch-delusion is democratic!

    Read Also: Jonathan’s ex-aide Dudafa dumps PDP for APC

    The same PDP opposition nemesis in 2003 is the same ruling party PDP nemesis now: Bola Tinubu, then the Governor of Lagos, now, the President of the Federal Republic!

    In closet, former President Obasanjo would wail for whatever befalls the PDP today, though the Owu chief makes a huge show of his divorce from partisan politics.

    Yes, the PDP might have been an Army Arrangement SPV, which was why Obasanjo, George, David Mark and other retired political soldiers, were very prominent in its ranks.  So, when folks wax poetic over some PDP founding ideals, Ripples just yawns! 

    The PDP “founding ideals” were nothing beyond power and how to grab it.  That was why it made a hash of governance for 16 ruinous years; and even a greater mess of the opposition, these last 10 years, since it lost power in 2015.

    Even then, ex-President Obasanjo knows the PDP, no matter how vacuous, would still have turned out far better, without the inglorious anti-democratic manouevres, under his watch, that further denuded the former ruling party. 

    But God has spared his life, to witness the mess he created, in its final putrescence!

    Chief George lacks such closet luxury: hence his dramatic collapse in public, at the defection of Peter Mbah, the Enugu governor and ex-PDP wonder boy of Wawa country. 

    To boot: Mbah reeled out his strides, in infrastructure and sundry achievements, in his PDP sack speech, to boisterous applause on October 14.  The next day, Bayelsa’s Duoye Diri drove another knife into the PDP spine. You can imagine the further meltdown in the George camp!

    The sheer anguish from the old man: “The governor” — meaning Mbah — “we all waded in … You’ll get whatever is due to the South East,” he told Channels TV, “But the rationale and emphasis he gave, it was like I was in a very long dream” — the same long dreams that the AD fellows felt in the PDP glory days!  All is turned gory now!

    But not even that would stop the old man from crunching sour grapes; and putting on a sheen the PDP never had — or would ever have — given its dire public record, both in power and in opposition. 

    “We’ll campaign, go to the field,” he blustered, “and tell Nigerians what the APC has done or failed to do to put smiles on their faces …”

    Pray, what glorious legacy might PDP campaign on?  Galloping corruption that nearly sunk Nigeria in 2015? 

    Or the eternal fumbling as opposition: that childish, silly penchant to lie, bare-faced, about its past, thinking folks are too fickle to remember its horrors-in-government?

    A very good luck on that!  With old habits, this PDP might just be beyond redemption!

    The opposition, victim of PDP’s use of brute power, is the same under which the PDP now grinds!  So, it too should know a future life in opposition is very possible!

    Which is why it must learn from the PDP bind.  That’s the only way it can, in future, avert the PDP current blight.

    Multiple governors swelling the APC ranks are good for optics.  But the real deal will be the ruling order domesticating the gains of its reforms in most, if not all, households. 

    On that, from the data coming up, it has the momentum. But it’s time to go for the kill, make the people happy, and kill off any opposition dream to milk subversive sympathy, in the run to 2027.  

  • Jonathan and the ghost of Chibok

    Jonathan and the ghost of Chibok

    Nigerians first… Nigerians always!!! President Jonathan declares, theadvert swooned in false gaiety, as if there was some big carnival in town.  Instead, there is a big funeral.

    Which Nigerians is the Jonathan presidential declaration advert talking about?

    Those that Boko Haram daily slaughter in the North East?

    Those that have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) in their own country?

    Residents of Mubi (or is it Madinatul Islam?) and Gwoza (or is it Darul Hikma?), that Boko Haram has captured, from under the nose of the president and his mighty host?

    The distraught parents of the Chibok school girls?

    Or, nationwide, civil servants who don’t know when their next salary would come, because the Jonathan administration cannot trustfully manage the Federation Account?

    If President Jonathan is true to himself, even he would be unexcited at his so-called declaration today, to again run for the Nigerian presidency.  But if he is truly excited, he would have believed the lie told him by his flatterers.  If he did, that would be unflattering to his sense of judgement — and his conscience.

    Indeed, Aniete Okon, a former senator of the Federal Republic and the Jonathan declaration’s publicity sub-committee chair, betrayed the Chibok ghost by resorting to raw aggression to salve his conscience.  “Are you saying that until we find the girls, we should not renew our faith in the country”? The Nation of November 10 quoted him as saying.

    Some question!  But why is Mr. Okon so agitated — because of the manifest idiocy of the Jonathan declaration, in the face of looming disintegration?

    Is Mr. Okon seeing, in the mirror, the hateful image of a 21st century Nero, fiddling and playing politics, even as the country Jonathan inherited in 2011  is losing territory to Boko Haram anarchists?

    Jonathan and associates can delude themselves all they want.  Theirs is government of manipulation, for manipulation, by manipulation.

    That is manifest in yet another Declaration Eve wrap-around advert in some newspapers, which the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) ironically entitled: “Be a witness to history … as HE President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR declares, in response to Nigerians’ demand …

    “As an outstanding performer,” the advert claimed, “he was under-reported.  We came, highlighting his verifiable achievements that have transformed every sector of Nigeria.  The story has now changed, with over 17.8 million Nigerians endorsing him for continuity.  Thank you Mr. President,” the self-serving ad enthused, “for yielding to the voice and demand of Nigerians!”

    Audacious?  Not yet!  See TAN’s stats: 1.6 million signatures from the North East want Jonathan to continue.  This 1.6 million must nurse some death wish — to wish some incompetent and soulless president should prolong their agony!

    Perhaps they also include the Chibok parents, who hail the president for not only having no clue as to recovering their children but also absolutely lacking in compassion on sharing their grief — a grief a president worth his seal of office would have averted.

    Corresponding figures from the North, according to the TAN advert, are: North West, 3.4 million and North Central, 1.85 million.  From the South, the zestful Jonathan Signature Fans Club, scribble: South East: 2.3 million; South West: 2.6 million and South South: 6.05 million.

    So, with all the noise and tempest from the South East on Jonathan 2015, that zone could garner only 2.3 million signatures; and the North Central, with the Jonathan camp’s serious goading of that zone’s Christians against Muslims, only 1.85 million signatures?

    Indeed, every ploy harbours the seeds of its own destruction!

    But forget all the media hype and advert foxtrots: the Jonathan strategy is simple — make a huge racket of sweet nothings, and all the ruts would vanish!  It is the old propaganda strategy: lies repeated often soon assume the garb of truth.

    Still, at every juncture, Jonathan comes a sad cropper — though his TAN racketeers egg him on — and the setback has its spiritual fount in the April 14 kidnap of the Chibok school girls.

    Before April 14,  not a few would grant Goodluck Jonathan the benefit of the doubt.  But after, he lost everything.  On Chibok, his government has shown no initiative, no sound judgement, no balls, no compassion, no remorse, no nothing — just condemnable petulance, arrogance and emptiness.

    That Jonathan was tardy after the kidnap, thus surrendering lead time needed to save the girls, was monumental bad judgement.

    That First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, tried to put the Chibok victims on television trial, showed presidential callousness without redemption.  Ironically — but justifiably enough — the First Lady bloodied herself with her “Dia ris God o” tragicomedy.

    Even more fittingly, that initial tardiness and failure to save the girls always comes back to haunt Jonathan, and his presidential re-run misadventure.

    At its last appearance, the Chibok ghost hit Jonathan where it pained most.  His spin doctors had, with fan fair, announced a ceasefire with Boko Haram; and coming with that package was a tantalising release of the Chibok girls, after which — at least the propagandists thought — their chief would gallop to victory, both at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) sole nomination (which, by the way the Jonathan camp has made a hash of), and at the election proper itself.

    But yet again, Jonathan ate crow, his presidency proving itself the dumbest and daftest Nigeria ever had (and may ever have), the way the so-called ceasefire shamefully collapsed!  Of course, all that desperation was to make inviolate today’s so-called declaration.

    Talk of a president so avid at pressing his constitutional right to run but is so remiss in doing his constitutional duty, to the satisfaction of his compatriots; save the multitude of hustlers urging him on, when it is crystal clear, to any right-thinking person, that the job is beyond his ken — intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.

    Despite all the media grandstanding, all the boisterousness, and all the braggadocio at Eagle Square today, it is clear that Jonathan and friends are stealing to the declaration, like some thief during broad daylight!  All the bluff and bluster is to cover the manifest irrationality of the Jonathan declaration.

    Besides, is it not grand irony that this same Eagle Square, in which the president is not bold enough to host National Day celebrations, at least in the last two years, is now where he exhibits the Dutch courage to declare his so-called bid for second term?

    Like Neighbour-to-Neighbour (N2N) before it, TAN is another equal opportunity racket and gravy train to sell Nigerians a pig in a poke.  While  N2N drooled about “a breath of fresh air” (which all too soon turned rancid) and a shoeless boy bidding for president, TAN is hallucinating about non-existent achievements.

    But at the other end of the country, Boko Haram is busy showing off its “caliphate”, axed off Nigeria’s territorial space, courtesy of a video made available to AFP.  That is another concrete achievement of Jonathan and friends!

    For Jonathan, there is no escaping the ghost of Chibok — and, it appears, the worst is yet to come.

  • Principal officers arrive Abuja for National conference

    Principal officers arrive Abuja for National conference

    The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Sen. Anyim Pius Anyim, on Thursday in Abuja, received the principal officers of the proposed national conference.

    The principal officers are: Chairman, Justice Idris Kutigi (rtd), Vice Chairman Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi and Secretary Dr Valerie Azinge.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the officers, who arrived the office of the SGF at about noon, were received by Anyim after which they had a closed-door meeting.

    One hour later, they were driven out of the SGF office complex in company of Anyim.

    NAN recalls that the Presidency had on Tuesday, announced the appointment of the three principal officers of the national conference.

    Anyim had, while announcing the conference leadership, said that he would receive the principal officers on Wednesday.

    “The appointees are to resume in Abuja on Wednesday, 5th March, 2014 and would be received on arrival by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation,” Anyim had said.

    The SGF had also said that the conference would be inaugurated on March 10.

    The national conference will be attended by 492 participants representing all strata of the society.

    Already, almost all those who are expected to nominate participants have forwarded their nominees to the Presidency ahead of inauguration on March 10

     

  • Beware, Eastern Brother!

    The title of this piece is a pun of Chinua Achebe’s Beware, Soul Brother, the late novelist’s collection of poetry, written basically during Nigeria’s Civil War (1967-1970).

    The symbolism of the pun is clear: victims of past tragedies should be less gung-ho about future ones.

    Yet from the emotions over the Lagos-Anambra 14 “deportation” or “resettlement” saga (depending on which side of the divide you stand), that lesson does not appear to have sunk.

    As The Nation editorial on the unfortunate incident held, the Lagos government should have been more circumspect. But those at the receiving end too ought to have been more sensitive to the burden Lagos carries, without any extra help from Nigeria’s skewed federation. The matter can be amicably resolved with mutual sensitivity and understanding.

    Still, the intemperate reactions on the matter, for and against, forebode some future but avoidable tragedy; without clear ground rules guiding Nigeria’s so-called federalism, particularly on citizenship and native rights.

    Just check out the Babel of reactions: Anambra Governor, Peter Obi’s canonisation of President Goodluck Jonathan as some overarching prefect that must impose a diktat on inter-state disputes; Orji Uzor Kalu’s rather incendiary goading; Femi Fani-Kayode’s three-serial riposte, which started with fine points of history but dipped into some ribaldry about past trysts with Igbo girls just to prove he is a lover of truth but no hater of Igbo; C. Don Adinuba’s fine piece urging caution and strategic thinking on the part of the Igbo in Lagos; Joe Igbokwe’s bad tempered response that opened him up to vicious charges of a house Negro in the Lagos establishment; Senator Chris Ngige’s intervention that could well set him up for political blackmail; Andy Uba’s urbane protest-advertorial to Governor Fashola, and one Akubueze’s lunatic yak that Igbo are 46 per cent of Lagos population!

    But after all the excitement, something is clear: Nigeria is no settler community, like the United States or Australia. It is an indigenous corps of cultural entities, which had existed long before colonialism and Frederick Lugard’s yoking of 1914.

    So, those who do plastic legal analysis, without factoring in the objective and peculiar condition on ground miss the point. It is nothing but legal grandstanding.

    Every part of Nigeria is indigenous to some people, no matter the fortune or misfortune of the place. No matter how the Yoruba swarm Enugu, for instance, claiming ownership of the place or bragging about their teeming numbers there, is courting needless disaster. The same should be for Igbo in Lagos, no matter what rights they figure they have as citizens; and whatever rationalisations about Lagos being a former federal capital.

    That again leads to the Akubueze yak: “The Igbo are key stakeholders in the affairs of the state. We constitute over 46 per cent of the population of the state … It is the Igbo that are making Lagos tick; it is the Igbo that made Lagos what it is and without them, Lagos will go to sleep. In short, without Igbos, there will be no Lagos.” (as quoted by Daily Sun of August 6). Akubueze claims to be an Igbo leader.

    This clearly is a voice from the lunatic fringe. But it betrays a condition, which thanks to Prof. Achebe and his classic, Things Fall Apart, you could call the Okonkwo syndrome: that tragic self-goading to disaster, simply because action gallops, in false triumph, miles ahead of thinking.

    But if Okonkwo self-martyred to protect the integrity of his land and culture, on what basis is Akubueze baiting disaster as virtual owner of Lagos?

    Indeed, Akubueze-speak is a worrisome streak, which the Igbo themselves must ponder and decry. Triumphalism-induced host community provocation preceded the northern pogroms. Same provocation rebranded the Nzeogwu coup as “Ibo coup”, with tragic consequences.

    That brings the discourse to the Orji Uzor Kalu -Femi Fani-Kayode face-off. Mr. Kalu disregarded his high position as former governor with his incendiary comments. Mr Fani-Kayode too did his former position as minister no honour by embarrassing Igbo ladies (now married) he had once dated. Both behaviours are to be decried.

    Still, in Mr. Fani-Kayode’s intervention were some bitter truths which the Ndigbo must ponder, in their relationship with other ethnic groups: Charles Onyeama’s 1945 statement that “Igbo domination of Nigeria is only a matter of time” and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s 1949 quip that the god of Africa had created the Igbo nation to lead all.

    Of course, these statements, especially Zik’s, could have been made in the context of cultural pride, not unusual in a pluralistic and competitive setting, necessitating federalism, which Nigeria claims to run. But they could also have been made to push cultural irredentism, the sense Mr. Fani-Kayode quotes them.

    Question is: which is which? Now, back to Things Fall Apart, the pristine Igbo society that Achebe painted did not betray any streak of others’ domination. But is there something in the psyche of the contemporary Igbo that craves domination of others – but after embarking on such escapades, end up scalding themselves?

    Aguiyi-Ironsi’s Unification Decree 34 of 1966 was the panic button, after the 15 January 1966 coup, that triggered the pogrom. The fear? Igbo domination. Then, post-Civil War seizure of Igbo property in Port Harcourt, fraudulently dubbed “abandoned property”. The fear again? Igbo domination!

    Even in Lagos, there are allegations of Igbo crushing non-Igbo out of legitimate trade. The Nation columnist, Sanya Oni, told a sad tale of how he was crushed out of business when he once traded in spare parts at Ladipo Market, Mushin, Lagos. Utuk Motors and Inyang Ette, transport companies in Eastern routes, also have sad tales alleging Igbo sharp trade practices.

    Also, the Igbo must ask themselves: Nigerians of every stock live all over the country. Why is it that it is mostly the Igbo that witness tension with their host communities?

    Well, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, former Anambra governor, claims it is Igbo envy. Even Achebe, in his There was a Country, hinted as much. Other Igbo flatly claim wherever they settle is their home as Nigerian citizens, and they could well do as they pleased. But how many Nigerians could claim such brazen rights in Igboland – or are they less Nigerian? Or is it just protecting yours but encroaching on others’?

    The Igbo deserve to give themselves frank answers to these questions. Otherwise, their past tragedies would be no learning dam against future ones.

    Irredentism and the penchant to dominate is no monopoly of any ethnic group. Indeed, that is the crux of Nigeria’s crisis of nationhood.

    Still, the Yoruba are famous for their twin ethos of Afenifere (live and let live) and Omoluabi (good breeding). That cultural liberality would explain why Igbo investment literally melted from Port Harcourt after the “abandoned property” swindle, but continues to thrive in post-Civil War Lagos.

    The Yoruba have no cause to ogle Igbo property or envy Igbo success. But the Igbo in Lagos must not give the impression of ogling Lagos territory or any other part of Yoruba land.

    Such crass and cavalier insensitivity is courting sure disaster.

     

  • Presidential anarchy

    Presidential anarchy

    Can the president of the Federal Republic levy war against a state and get away with it? From the conduct of President Goodluck Jonathan’s henchmen and women in the Rivers contrived crisis, that appears the case.

    It is nothing short of criminalising the presidency. But how much of this impunity can the civil order bear before something terrible gives?

    The especial tragedy of the Jonathan Presidency is, with reckless regularity, it repeats history as farce.

    But neither the first Nigerian president to boast a PhD, nor his hyper-educated aides, seems fazed by this roller-coaster cascade into infamy. Such is their total gobble of the sweet poison of naked power – powers they don’t even have, had they not chosen to criminalise the presidency, if they ever bothered to read between the lines of the 1999 Constitution, warts and all!

    Take the latest trigger in the contrived crisis: the Rivers House of Assembly mayhem of July 9. Now, between the Goodluck Jonathan and Rotimi Amaechi battling camps, there is enough villainy to gift a multitude, with some left-over.

    How can an immaculate, fiery and all-conquering mace-battler, with the moral ardour of some bathetic Christ clearing his father’s house of worship of a den of thieves, morph into a sanctimonious victim, nestling in a hospital bed; and peeping at millions of sympathisers, from the vantage point of the lead photo, on the front page of a national newspaper?

    But before you condemn that battler, meet his victim: an apparent constitutional criminal, one of the G-5 renegades who, backed by some subversive federal power, felt they could impeach the Rivers Assembly Speaker and, like some tragic-comic pantomime with voice-over, were already on the subversive ritual, seconding motions, suspending imaginary legislators, voting, getting “elected” and giving “acceptance speeches”!

    Must Nigerians be assaulted by such power lunacy?

    To apologists or self-proclaimed purists, who insist “constitutional criminal” is jumping the legal gun, since no one has been tried and found guilty, this riposte: if the courts had serially voided such legislative banditry in Oyo, Plateau and Anambra states, during the Obasanjo-era presidential anarchy, can it be less culpable now because Jonathan-era legislative lunatics are repeating the farce?

    And here really lies the crux: if Obasanjo could grandstand that Nuhu Ribadu was undermining the Constitution to get rid of allegedly thieving politicians, what noble cause can the current rascals attach to their own subversive activism?

    Those who nail Governor Amaechi for “invading” the Rivers legislature to clear the mess miss the point. Yes, a governor should be a gentleman. But with a president that tweaks rules for illicit gains, that could be fatal.

    If you doubt, ask Rashidi Ladoja, the bitter-sweet former governor of Oyo State. He shunned President Obasanjo’s diktat that he surrender his gubernatorial authority to Lamidi Adedibu, Obasanjo’s beloved Ibadan garrison commander, only to holler in the cold for no less than 10 months, victim of an illegal impeachment.

    To those who still want to play the ostrich, pushing “law” without factoring in the lawless temper of its operators, the odyssey of Justice Isa Ayo Salami, under this same Jonathan Presidency, is instructive. Salami did his duty by law. But to the lawless in government, that was near-capital crime, for which the no-nonsense president of the Court of Appeal is paying.

    Yes, the Judiciary saved Ladoja; and voided the allied legislative rascality in Plateau and Anambra states. But with the Salami experience, it is doubtful if that judiciary had not melted into Heraclitus’s state of flux, no thanks to a hostile Jonathan Presidency.

    Amaechi certainly was not pretty, “storming” the legislature to nip in the bud the putative coup against his office. But he did the needful to preserve his position in an emerging presidential anarchy. For all you know, if the coup against him had succeeded, he would now be shrieking, Ladoja-like, from the wilderness, while his traducers would be mouthing “due process”! No society thrives under such cynical manipulation.

    But it is instructive how this Jonathan-era rascality empties into the Obasanjo-era mother river, even if Jonathan’s bumbling, to use Malthus-speak of basic economics, is “geometrical” while Obasanjo’s “original sins” now appear “arithmetical”.

    Talking about “original sin”, the dramatis personae of the current crisis appear to have cleanly forgotten the first outrage of 10 July 2003 (the Rivers outrage followed almost 10 years after, 9 July 2013!), when some Abuja-backed criminals tried to unseat controversial Governor Chris Ngige. It was the classic malevolent godfather’s challenge, before the plague of illicit impeachments based on “simple minorities”, which the latest Rivers jokers essayed with devastating consequences.

    What happened to the ring leaders back then: AIG Raphael Ige, the apparent Abuja viceroy in the crime, Tafa Balogun, then sitting IG, and even Obasanjo himself, the sitting president who, throughout the crisis, pushed the theory of plausible deniability?

    AIG Ige, the apparent fall guy, suffered abrupt retirement (even if his retirement time was close) and later, sudden death. Mr. Balogun suffered eventual humiliation, though his role, beyond being the Police IG was unclear; and his comeuppance was not directly linked to the Ngige saga. Even Obasanjo has continued to suffer progressive devaluation, to the point of irrelevance, since his presidential glory days.

    Do all these speak to Mbu Joseph Mbu, the commissioner of Police deep in the Rivers crisis, given his inappropriate conduct and reckless utterances? There are always spiritual consequences for political rascality that hurt the silent and innocent majority.

    Festus Eriye, editor of The Nation on Sunday, in his penetrating piece of July 14, described President Jonathan as Pontius Pilate, in a piece he headlined “Pontius Pilate strikes again”. That was a brilliant metaphor because before Jonathan, there was Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister, and Pontius Pilate I of Nigeria’s troubled political horizon.

    Sir Abubakar launched political insurrection at the Western Region, with his suspect proclamation of state of emergency, after a contrived crisis in the Western House of Assembly, just to cripple Obafemi Awolowo.

    Jonathan, Pontius Pilate II, is doing the same, in what would have been the old Eastern Region, although this time, against a party mate; but with no less partisan bile, despite his aides’ comical denial. Jonathan court historians should check their history books and tell their principal how the Balewa gambit ended.

    Which brings us to the Jonathan denial ensemble: two “doctors”, Reuben Abati, Doyin Okupe and a Gulak, who obviously thinks everybody’s thinking faculty is, as his own, locked in Jonathan’s gulag!

    Ahmed Gulak, sounding every inch a power brat, told Prof. Wole Soyinka to be “responsible” (a counsel his principal ironically needs more than anyone!), because of Soyinka’s stance on the contrived Rivers crisis.

    Well, Gulak should check his history books. When Balewa was being led astray or even Obasanjo, Jonathan’s political creator, was leading himself astray, Soyinka was there, an ever consistent voice of reason, which nevertheless is the proverbial harsh hunter’s whistle, to the hearing of a doomed dog.

    Those who engage in double-speak, let them. But true friends of Goodluck Jonathan must tell him to withdraw from his Rivers misadventure.

    It is a wide and merry way that leads to infamy.

     

  • Golden boy, golden age

    Golden boy, golden age

    There is something decidedly golden in the tenure and temper of Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, the governor of Lagos, who turned 50 on June 28.

    From “Babatunde who?” in 2007, Fashola has become an emblem of excellence. Perhaps never in the history of Nigeria’s fits-and-starts democracy has a rookie politician taken the public service lane by storm, posting a slew of solid performance, reaping tremendous accolades.

    Governor Fashola would rank second only after Alhaji Lateef Jakande, 2nd Republic Lagos governor (1979-1983) in the sheer race to nip the proverbial low hanging fruits, giving very early signals of a golden morning which forecast an even more golden tenure, which still has almost two years to run.

    Mr. Fashola is second to Alhaji Jakande because while Fashola had a solid foundation from which to launch his own campaign, Jakande was masterly master of his own destiny, despite the rot left by the departing military in 1979, at the end of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo’s first coming.

    Indeed, in the Tinubu political court, this “foundation” has assumed the high fetish of hallowed debate, on which many stake their honour. Many would argue – and correctly so – that without Tinubu’s solid foundation, Fashola would have been nothing. Other would counter, with equal vehemence – and they are no less correct – that without Fashola keeping faith and brilliantly executing his brief, Tinubu’s own place would have been less assured.

    The truth of the matter is that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Mr. Fashola, his high flying protégé, are akin to King David and King Solomon of the Biblical Kingdom of Israel.

    Like King David who fought endless wars to secure the kingdom against fiery and implacable foes, Tinubu did fight gruelling wars: against a purported elected president with gruff military temper; against a federal constitution with a unitary soul; against general environmental crisis with sky-towering refuse, like Goliath over David; against military-era mindset that state governors were despicable prefects at the whims of an arrogant and insufferable presidency; and even against an impatient, if not outright cynical media, which all but declared Tinubu’s first two years in government as total disaster.

    In these high octane wars, an embattled Governor Tinubu had to juggle politics with policy, fix his state’s financial infrastructure, and engage the judiciary to push for the rights of the states against a behemoth federal government, among others. By the third year, the new vision was taking shape. By the eighth year, after a second term, the foundation was solid and ready.

    Then came “Solomon” Fashola: fresh, cool and focused to take the “kingdom” to higher heights. One of his low-hanging fruits, which by their plan he would quickly move to pluck, was the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which secured lanes were already in the works at the latter end of the Tinubu era. Fashola plucked it with admirable speed and pluck. It was his brilliant morning that foreshowed a dazzling day. The rest, as they say, is history.

    History would come to record Fashola’s many feats in high-grade urban infrastructure. When he eventually delivers on the urban transit trains in the works in the Orile-Iganmu-Mile 2-Badagry Expressway corridor, he would have put his own bold and brilliant signature on the new Lagos multi-modal transportation of his party’s dream. That would be a stiff mountain for the opposition to climb.

    Fashola has brought into the implementation of these programmes a rare reasoned passion – friends call it focus; foes call it coldness – that is nobody’s imprimatur but his alone.

    His healthy obsession with the environment is legendary. Want to know how creatively restless Mr. Fashola is? Beam your gaze on the ever-changing flora and continual landscaping, ever in a state of flux, that is the governor’s never-ending Lagos urban beautification, which he calls “greening”.

    After the impressive greening and lighting of the Lagos Marina, the Lagos inner ring road corridor, spanning Third Mainland Bridge, Iyana Oworo, Ogudu, Alapere and Ikeja Toll Gate, aside from other areas, have become clear evidence of the governor’s stellar environmental policy. Still, it is morning yet, on beautification day!

    What is more? From about the dirtiest city on the face of the earth, Lagos has become progressively cleaner; and ever more secure. The audacious bank robberies of yore have become but distant memory, thanks to a robust public-private sector security initiative that other states have copied. And whoever thought the Oshodi human-vehicular traffic logjam, on Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, could ever be dislodged!

    But Fashola’s distinctive legacy is changing the focus of governance from politics to development. That later South West governors of his party have followed suit gives the happy feel that the glorious Awolowo days are here again.

    Still, the Solomon allusion is, for Fashola, a double-edged sword. Solomon, the wisest being that ever lived, was no fool. Yet, his fault, uxoriousness – excessive love of a woman – all but messed up his famed wisdom. That led to the violent split of the kingdom David gave blood and gore to build.

    Governor Fashola’s admirable focus on policy, almost to the total isolation of politics, is ironically the chink in his golden armour. But that tiny chink may well expand, for in the Fashola gubernatorial persona looms a disturbing peep of Thatcherism – a policy wonk’s cold resolve on the integrity of his initiative, even in the face of furious public outcry.

    In the Okada restriction policy, that resolve worked excellently well. The governor was the visionary leader who would enforce the welfare of the generality of his people, even if the affected ultra-vocal minority threw tantrums and cried blue murder.

    But not so in the LASU fee hike policy – and the reason is simple: for a developing country, education is key. Trite: there is nothing like free education. It is “free” because the state is paying for it. Even then, a developing country, in a vast swamp of poverty, cannot afford the Thatcherite conceit that there is nothing like community; and everybody had to carry his or her own educational can.

    Besides, all of Fashola’s now glittering infrastructure would eventually fade and decay. Only education would appreciate with time: in quality, world-class human resource.

    A serious, progressive state must, therefore, make strategic investments in that sector to justify its essence. The Awo credo, that gave Western Nigeria a great head start, was all about that strategic investment. That is why Governor Fashola cannot afford to be sanguine about high fees in the state university, despite the government’s admitted lean resources.

    The political cost of such sanguinity could be devastating. Sound policy might be the hallmark of good governance. But more often than not, even the best of policies are choked by hostile politics.

    Fashola has mastered his policies. But at 50, he must begin to master his politics, if he hopes to go far in statecraft. So far, however, he is sheer gold to Lagos and to his generation.