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Tag: Patriots

  • My take on The Patriots’ proposal

    My take on The Patriots’ proposal

    About two weeks ago, a group of some eminent Nigerians – the Patriots, led by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, a former Commonwealth Secretary-General; met President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and made a germane proposal regarding the need to overhaul the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended; as part of the much needed political, structural and system reform for a better, more united and progressive Nigeria. The Patriots have taken the initiative to catalyze the very important conversation that has been in the front burner for a very long time, albeit the political will to deliver a concrete process and implementation, has been lacking. Therefore, I commend the Patriots for coming forward to present the proposal to President Bola Tinubu.

    I am also happy with the feedback that Mr. President gave the Patriots. Because the topic is very important to Mr. President as he stated in his remark to the Patriots. Indeed, the topic aligns with Mr. President Tinubu’s political philosophy and advocacies in his long-standing political journey. President Tinubu has been an advocate of true federalism, which in my view, we cannot achieve unless the 1999 Constitution is completely overhauled. The ongoing “peace-meal” amendment of the constitution will not address the key yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians. The yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians vis-à-vis; devolution of powers, genuine unity in diversity, cost of governance, fight against corruption, having the ideal political system and structure, and other fundamental issues like adherence and compliance with the constitution will only be addressed if we follow the right process and overhaul the 1999 constitution.

    Accordingly, I add my voice to the call for the review of the constitution. My feedback to those who are expressing pessimism with regard to the ongoing conversation is that I do not see anything wrong with a group of eminent Nigerians going to Mr. President to engage him constructively on matters of national unity and progress. The Patriots are not criticizing, or agitating; they are a group of respectable Nigerians that submitted a proposal to Mr. President as contributing to our collective good as a nation, which Mr. President graciously accepted and gave positive and appreciative feedback, which I consider is encouraging feedback to Nigerians. Therefore, I don’t think that the hue and cry is necessary.

    However, I agree with Mr. President that there are pressing socio-economic issues that are to be focused on and addressed as high-level priorities. That being said and noted, it will be good to include the overhaul of the Constitution as part of the overarching strategy of President Tinubu’s administration such that it could be a mid-to-long-term strategic objective in the Roadmap of this administration.

    Moreover, the discordant voices from amongst the Patriots are also, in my opinion, good for our polity. What is important is that from all the discussions going on this matter, it is very clear that there is a need to critically examine the Constitution. If we truly love Nigeria, then we should agree that the overhaul of our constitution is a critical success factor to the progress and development of Nigeria.

    It is worthy of note, that the issue of the proper view of the constitution is so important that, unless we are determined and come up with the right and creative process to achieve success, members of the National Assembly as currently constituted, that are beneficiaries of the defects of the subsisting constitution, may likely not be keen for an overhaul of our political structure and system that could impact on their current status-quo.  Even if it is for face value, all Nigerians should have a sense of belonging because it is true that there are Nigerians who currently do not have a sense of belonging in Nigeria due to the nature of the subsisting constitution. I also believe that excellence is a process, as we can see that the bastions of democracy like the United States of America, Canada, etc. had to undertake a critical review of their constitutions. Therefore, it will be good for us to undertake this very important exercise at this stage of our political evolution; after all, this constitution was not promulgated by a fully democratic process, and we have been using it for the past 25 years, while the defects are manifesting with negative impacts on our polity. The overhaul of the constitution will result in more unity of ownership amongst Nigerians, a better and more holistic and genuine sense of ownership, and an alignment of core values.

    I also believe that full implementation and compliance with the letters and spirit of the Constitution are crucial to the achievement of the objectives behind the contents of the Constitution. This is because even though the 1999 Constitution may have some shortcomings; I also believe that it is not such a bad constitution if the political, judicial, regulatory, and law enforcement leaders and their teams implement and comply fully with the constitution. Therefore, if we do not address the issue of implementation and compliance, then any amendment or overhaul of the 1999 constitution will be useless. Unless we address the issues of mindset and character, there will be no effective and efficient implementation of the Constitution, as we currently cherry-pick what we comply with in the Constitution. So, I also advocate that we undertake a review of the Constitution in ways and manners, that will ensure compliance and execution of the provision of the Constitution, moving forward.

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    Furthermore, the references made by the Patriots to Canada, Bosnia Herzegovina, India, etc as case studies are relevant to our situation. I am happy that real-life scenarios are used to make a case for such a critical national political structural reform. We need to learn from history, we also need to learn from success stories. We MUST move away from the “cut and paste” adoption of structures, strategies, policies, and systems; we should formulate and domesticate a democracy and political system that will suit our diversity, peculiarities and economic makeup. For example, there is growing consensus that the current Presidential system we operate with a bi-cameral parliament is not suitable for Nigeria in terms of effectiveness, cost, efficiency, socio-economic realities, etc.

    My call to the elite of Nigeria

    It is based on the aforementioned developments that, with profound respect, I find it necessary to speak to all well-meaning Nigerians, particularly the elites, on the importance of citizens’ participation in our political process as a crucial value-addition to the enactment of sound, far-reaching, and impactful amendments of the Nigerian constitution that will further unify Nigeria and ensure the delivery of good governance. 

    By “elites”, I mean the middle-class citizens, who are mostly educated, gainfully employed, and part of the governance and leadership structure of Nigeria in the Civil Service, Public Service, and Private sector. We are mostly employees or employers of labor as professionals, businessmen/women, entrepreneurs, academics, craftsmen, etc.

    We, the elites have been failing the masses of this Country by not really taking tangible actions that add value to our political processes. We mainly engage in “armchair “criticisms and cynicisms. The question is what are the contributions and sacrifices we are making to better the political process? It is not good enough to just lament and pontificate. What solutions are we offering and how are we part of the solutions? Only when things affect our relatively comfortable lives do we try to gaslight the situation and make it look as if “we are all in it together” with the poor citizens? That is one of the things that I call the “hypocrisy of our expectations”.

    However, in my opinion, good governance is not just about waiting for politicians to do as they wish while we lament about how things have been getting worse in the past 25 years since the return of Nigeria to democracy, but good governance is a process that includes citizens making demand and actually setting the parameters, standards of the kind of leadership their want and the accountability and performance framework based on which they will measure their leaders at all levels and hold them accountable. The elites of this country have been serially and unfairly undeserving of the political evolution of Nigeria by not being actively part of the political process. We mainly engage in “armchair “criticisms and cynicisms. The question is what are the contributions and sacrifices we are making to better the political process? It is not good enough to just lament and pontificate. What solutions are we offering and how are we part of the solutions? We should also note that not participating in the political process is also a vote of confidence on the status quo. And if we don’t participate, then we lose the moral ground to challenge and hold our leaders accountable because we would have a really failed ab initio in our roles as citizens.

     In closing, I hope that President Tinubu, at the right time, will seize the moment, to achieve the overhaul of the 1999 constituent and other critical political reforms during his tenure. I urge that all Nigerians should have constructive and civilized conversations and at the right time make the right contributions to achieving an inclusive, generally acceptable and sustainable constitution.

     God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • The Patriots and the push for a Constituent Assembly

    The Patriots and the push for a Constituent Assembly

    Chief Emeka Anyaoku is not a man disposed to frivolities. The respected former Commonwealth Secretary-General always publicly avoids politics, even while treading the same path with politicians. He keeps his political choice to his chest.

    The great diplomat does not belong to the crowd of clout chasers. In any group he aligns with, he only speaks when genuine concerns about essential national or international matters exist. When he speaks, people listen.

    This must be why President Bola Tinubu gave him all the attention his calibre of citizen deserves when he led The Patriot, a group of renowned politicians and activists, to the President in Abuja.

    The Patriots is pushing for another Constituent Assembly to produce what it called a People’s Constitution for the country.

    The agenda is popular for one single reason. The consensus is that the Nigerian federal principle is suspect; it does not resolve the fundamental national question. As a corollary, there may be a justification for reopening the discussion for peaceful coexistence among the diverse ethnic groups in this highly complex heterogeneous country.

    Except for the retired diplomat, almost all other members of the group are card-carrying members of ruling and opposition parties and public officials who are now dissecting the national question on a non-partisan platform. As major actors in governance in the last 25 years, they have witnessed – and may have also contributed to – the conditions that have culminated in progress and, at the same time, national adversity.

    The Leaders of Thought avoided the word: “Sovereign National Conference” as if it was politically inflammable while submitting the proposal to President Tinubu. The group does not claim to have the mandate of all Nigerians for the visit. But the eminent citizens must have been propelled by a noble intention and genuine concern for the nation’s survival.

    Observers have noted that despite the uniformity of goal, today’s The Patriots tends to differ significantly from The Patriots under Rotimi William/Ben Nwabueze/Ayo Adebanjo in composition. Relatively young turfs recruited into the fold have tactically ensured that their contrasting personal and political ideological leanings do not obstruct its agenda.

    Three factors may have accounted for their journey to Aso Villa in Abuja to confer with the President.

    The visit coincided with the 10 days of protest and rage over national economic crisis, which conveyed the glaring impression that something was wrong with the country. Therefore, to them, the intervention was timely. But opinions about the protest differ.

    The Patriots, like many other stakeholders, believes that the 1999 Constitution is a fraud because it lied against itself through the preamble: “We, people of Nigeria.” The document was imposed by the military and the periodic piecemeal amendments have not erased the label of imposition, centralisation of power and autocracy.

    The elder statesmen are also conscious of Asiwaju Tinubu’s pedigree and antecedents as a federalist and an irrepressible advocate of power devolution when he was governor of Lagos State and titular national opposition leader.

    The group’s demand might have been borne out of the trust it has in President Tinubu as an unpretentious democrat who would take genuine advice from honest citizens who mean well for their country. The Patriots must have seen an amiable leader they can always approach for discussions on important national issues. Given President Tinubu’s antecedents, the elder statesmen were undoubtedly confident that they could hold his hands and embark on a national voyage of reforms and restorations through an unambiguous constitution for Nigeria.

    But it may also be that they are not satisfied with the steps the current administration has taken so far to return the country to the path of federalism without another constitutional conference. Therefore, a tactical blackmail may not be ruled out.

    Evidently, The Patriots does not also believe in the capacity of the National Assembly to produce a democratic constitution that would restore generally acceptable federalism.

    The Patriots sent delegates to past national conferences which produced laudable reports that provided answers to their demands. But the group avoided a cost-saving measure, urging President Tinubu to organise another conference, like former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan did during their times, instead of retrieving the past reports from the dustbin and lobbying the Parliament for its implementation.

    The Patriots suggested that the proposed Constituent Assembly should comprise people elected on a non-party basis in a relatively politically stable country where political parties are holding on to being the entrenched, influential stakeholders and key institutions of democracy.

    Also, it appears that the pre-existing senatorial districts would be adopted as constituencies where three delegates per state, as suggested by The Patriots, would be voted for. The districts already have 109 senators and 360 House of Representatives members in the National Assembly. These lawmakers may perceive potential elected delegates as rivals.

    Predictably, the tendency is for these legitimate representatives in the national parliament, working with governors, to influence the election of delegates to the Constituent Assembly from the districts under their influence.

    How the election into the Constituent Assembly would be conducted is not in the proposal to the President. Since the group has suggested that delegates should be elected, an umpire has to organise it and determine eligibility for contest, the mode of screening, method of election – either open or secret ballot system, physical counting of voters on queue – reminiscent of the Third Republic method. In Nigeria, there is no shortage of experience.

    Instructively, some members of the group have reviewed their positions on the mode of representation to the Constituent Assembly. Instead of pressing for representation based on ethnic demography, they have adopted the states as broader constituencies. The implication is that the governors, who pay the piper in the states, would dictate the tunes.

    The time frame of ‘six to nine months’ may be unrealistic. The tenure of past conferences was, at least, one year. More issues are likely to come up for discussion, if the Constituent Assembly is set up today. The challenges of development have multiplied in recent times.

    The suggestion by the group that the Constituent Assembly should consider the 1960 Independence 1Constitution and the 1963 Republican Constitution underscores its disposition to a parliamentary system and nostalgic feelings about regionalism. This is nothing short of a retracing of steps. It would be recalled that the late Chief Williams, the first leader of The Patriots, who presided over the 1979 Constitution Review Committee, gleefully recommended the American executive presidential system.

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    As a global citizen, Anyaoku is influenced by the sad experience of disintegrated countries. He fears that Nigeria may follow that path of doom and oblivion if it fails to address its basic pluralism through a federal constitution, warning that the country may go the way of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. His warning reechoed foreign organisations’ prediction two decades ago that state failure was looming and that Nigeria may not survive beyond 2015.

    The summary is that 64 years after its flag independence, Nigeria, in the opinion of these eminent leaders, is not functioning effectively as a federation.

    From being a truly federal nation-state in 1960, the country has wobbled on in a unitary decoy under its self-appointed military modernisers-turned albatross. The over-centralisation of power in the 27 years of dictatorship under militarism have somehow been carried over to the Fourth Republic.

    The coup of 1966 marked the end of federalism. In its perpetually distressed condition, Nigeria has failed to become a united nation. Unity in diversity is a tall order. The multiple crises of nation-building, including the fundamental identity crisis, and the challenges of participation, integration, and distribution of resources, have remained unresolved.

    Therefore, the elder statesmen were obviously seized by nostalgia and nationalism. They yearn for the comparatively saner and productive past when Nigeria was projected as a potential medium-ranking world power, judging by the quality of its diverse population and abundant endowments.

    However, the proposal by The Patriots is not new. Its elements, including the call for a referendum, are not novel. Nigeria has almost become a country of boring ‘confabs’ where billions of naira are spent on jamborees that have led to nowhere.

    In 1989, the Evil Genius, Military President Ibrahim Babangida, set up a Constituent Assembly. Both the 1989 Constitution and the Third Republic never saw the light of the day. In 1994, another Military Head of State, the late General Sani Abacha, organised a Constitutional Conference. It was not an effective outing. It was an ambush against “June 12.” The lack of credibility most citizens attached to it soiled its outing.

    President Olusegun Obasanjo’s 2004 Abuja Conference produced a report. It was sacrificed on the altar of an inexplicable Third Term agenda. President Goodluck Jonathan also set up a talk show; described by Tinubh as a Greek gift and a jamboree. He lacked the courage to implement the recommendations. He pleaded time constraints, saying he could not implement the report because the country was preparing for a general election. His successor, President Muhammadu Buhari, never upheld the report. Past efforts were in vain.

    Perhaps, the only advantage, so far, is that anytime a national conference is held in Nigeria, hope is rekindled and an atmosphere of peace generally pervades the country.

    But in the country’s quest for restructuring through constitutional reforms, there has not been a correspondingly determined effort to tackle corruption and bad leadership across the tiers. This has remained the bane of development. It has to be determined whether or not the current constitutional structure of governance contributes to the subsisting graft and sleaze in high places and the totality of poor governance.

    A federal structure is crucial. So also are operators of the system. The First Republic collapsed, not due to the failure of federalism, but as a result of the stiff struggle for power, ethnic tension, and election rigging. Legitimate authorities could not put their house in order. They played into the hands of the military.

    Also, the Second Republic collapsed not due to defective federal structure but economic mismanagement, electoral malpractices, and monumental corruption. The mistakes of the First Republic were repeated.

    In the past 25 years, there has been unprecedented political stability. If the National Assembly had been up and doing, its legislative activities, particularly the amendments, would have corrected the defections in the 1999 Constitution and paved the way for a true federal structure.

    It is gratifying to note that the Supreme Court is filling the void. Its pronouncements on local government autonomy and interventions in conflicts arising from federal/state relations are clear examples of how the judiciary has lent support to the evolution of a true federal state.

    The current administration’s determination to pursue state police and decentralise the railway gives a ray of hope.

    President Tinubu is not aversed to restructuring, devolution or what is now described as true federalism. His response to The Patriots is two-fold: the government is currently focusing on the economy, and Anyaoku would be invited back for more discussions on The Patriots’ suggestions.

    Till then, the debate over the proposed Constituent Assembly and, indeed, the future of federalism in Nigeria, continues.

  • Against fair weather patriots

    Against fair weather patriots

    There is no wisdom in appointing Nigerians who have ‘Japa’ to man sensitive public offices in Nigeria. This is akin to luring the proverbial skunk from its forest grove into our royal bed chamber, if it doesn’t sully the quilted sheet with its faeces, it will ruin the palace with its stench.

     Those who would ‘Japa’ to escape the ‘hell’ Nigeria has become should never be allowed to superintend our healing, ultimately because they lack the character and competence, native intelligence and maturity, selflessness and integrity, patience and sense of responsibility required to manage our healing process.

    It was disheartening to see a Governor’s recent appointee scoff at his fortune, stressing that he never needed the appointment – even though he barely survived as a canned fruit hawker and cab driver who squatted with friends in the United Kingdom.

    If we must invite a Nigerian from the Diaspora to serve as the country’s Petroleum Minister, one primary requirement should be his previous employment in a similar capacity. The same logic requires that only a seasoned General can become Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS).

    That said, it is often ill-advised to appoint an overseas cab driver, who is contemptuous of Nigeria, as a federal minister or director of a public agency. When Nigeria needs cab drivers with international experience, we may recruit such individuals. Our public offices are best reserved for patriots who keep faith in the Nigerian enterprise. It’s about time we stopped appointing leeches into public office. When the going gets tough, they simply pack up and leave. Nigeria’s public office is not a rehabilitation camp for fair-weather patriots.

    This is not to forestall, however, the likely benefits of appointing Nigerian expatriates, who have a lot to contribute to the rejuvenation of public governance and accountability. But where do we draw the line?

    We have seen governors appoint internet fraudsters and human traffickers as cabinet commissioners. We have also seen supposedly first-rate technocrats flaunting Ivy-League certificates earned abroad, sully our public offices. So, it’s not by the class of degree or the school that produced them, an individual’s academic or professional honours hardly translate to excellence in public governance if he is corrupted by arrogance and greed.

    Yet we have Nigerians doing well back home, despite the odds. They are the type that stay the course when the going gets tough. They do not bend and sway to every favourable draft nor pack up and leave at the onset of a storm. They stay back and withstand its flurry, surviving with tact, perseverance, faith, goodwill and native intelligence. They understand that only by salvaging what we have and who we are can we achieve our Nigerian dream. These are the ones deserving of public office.

    Still, it’s everyone’s prerogative to either stay or flee from perceived hostility in our homeland. But hostile politics and economies aren’t caused by phantoms or poltergeists. They are the result of our lack of humaneness and frantic avarice.

    The looters prowling our streets and corridors of power did not fall from outer space. They are the fruits of our mother’s wombs, sired with seeds from our fathers’ loins. They are the monsters we raised in our families.

    Modern Nigeria is a product of the joint efforts and inactions of our families, schools, worship houses, the streets and the media.

    Japa nomads taking the education or scholarship route, eventually find that their admission into elite schools overseas was purely a business decision by the schools and their host countries. The benefits are ploughed back into their host society.

    By the time they graduate, they are superbly conditioned for the drudgery of second or third-rate employment overseas. Some occasionally secure first-rate employment. But the very smart ones among them relocate back home to seek employment with Nigerian or multinational firms who prefer their foreign certificates.

    Many return to Nigeria as agents of metacolonialism. Hence the preponderance of journalists, writers, teachers, economists, social workers, engineers, and health workers, to mention a few, who function as glorified stooges of the so-called developed nations of the world.

    The faithlessness and moral corruption that makes Japa possible is similar to the one that drove African enablers of the transatlantic slave trade. This degeneracy remains largely unchallenged.

    To prevent its recurrence, we must hinder the social mechanisms that render people capable of such. And this can only be achieved through education. The Nigerian school must begin to impart more than money-making soundbites and status-conferring skills.

    Our schools must begin to teach values and history with a didactic bent. If they do not, another transatlantic slave trade is possible; we have seen it happen in Libya, where Europe-bound Nigerian youths were bound and gagged, raped and murdered by African slave drivers cum human traffickers; it happens every day to thousands of Nigerians crossing to Europe through irregular migration routes from Agadez through Tripoli to the Mediterranean bight.

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    President Bola Tinubu must understand that it is not enough to seek foreign investment and cooperation from abroad; such initiative, while appreciable, could be doomed by a lack of quality personnel and citizenship required to nourish whatever benefits accrue from his nation-building enterprise.

    If Nigeria truly seeks sustainable socio-economic growth in the long run, we must groom generations of men and women capable of nourishing and preserving the Greater Nigeria enterprise.

    Nigeria needs patriots amply groomed to understand that the most important achievements aren’t measurable by a title or figures. The true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers, and as Deresiewicz writes, only a small minority have seen their education as part of a larger intellectual journey or have approached the work of the mind with a pilgrim soul.

    Nigeria must furnish an educational system driven by the sweat and exploits of such pilgrim souls. The country’s education curricula must be overhauled to impart a Nigeria-centred educational experience that could resonate with the progressive social re-engineering of the country.

    It doesn’t matter what quality of degrees are acquired if the recipients are furnished to operate like mindless robots, praise junkies, fortune hunters and crowd pleasers.

    William Hazlitt noted at the beginning of the 19th century that men do not become what by nature they are meant to be, but what society makes them. European society, according to Hazlitt, violently wrenches and amputates her citizenry thus making them unfit for intercourse with the world, something in the manner that beggars maim and mutilate their children, to make them fit for their future pigeonhole in life.

    This imagery of beggars maiming and mutilating children is discernible in the fate of the Nigerian kids birthed abroad; some are shipped overseas as regular or illegitimate migrants purportedly to grant them access to a better life.

    The lure of Japa validates Bulhan’s theory of metacolonism. The syndrome has taken so much from us, including our loyalty, language, history, and the cultural values that bound our community together.

    All that is left is our sense of attachment and moral responsibility borne of nostalgia. Yet Japa has corrupted even that.

    These days, I look at my children and wonder how much of Nigeria and their culture they will get to keep. How much of their Nigerianness will matter in the long run?

  • Because we fail as patriots

    Nigeria is still not the greatest country in Africa. She is not the greatest nation in the world. Some have called her a creature borne of violence. But she is hardly the ‘contraption’ frequently alluded to by generations of revolutionary poseurs and armchair Trotskys.

    The latter would wish our problems away by simply calling for secession; an end to the ‘forced marriage’ of cultures and ethnicities by British colonialists. This is shallow reasoning.

    Nigeria fails as a nation because we fail as patriots and progenitors of humane civilisation. We do not muster a superior culture of nationhood and society, rather we curate the worst that our forebears dared espouse, coating it as the ‘Nigerian factor,’ and embellish it as a flamboyant code of conduct.

    Thus we covet an incestuous relationship with self – the dark, chthonian parts of innate nature, and mould our clans where ethnic foolery fraternises with vile. 

    Senior citizenry molest our young in a never-ending cycle of sleaze and moral paedophilia. But the young are hardly the prey we think they are. Every second, they morph from starry-eyed victims to eager participants in our dehumanising ritual of violence, mental and biological aberration.

    Ours is a classic tale of Darwinian waste and mayhem, the squalor and rot of Nigerianness – a distortion of African civilisation. But we block the true import and consequences of this hideous cycle on our psyches and our future as a nation, that we might retain our integrity as brutes and eternal wildlings?

    Western science and cultural aesthetics, predictably, become apparatus in our frantic attempt to revise the Nigerian horror into imaginatively palatable form.

    Notwithstanding our frantic lunge for substance and acclaim on frontiers, where the world’s more advanced civilisations project their race and illusions of oneness, Nigeria remains hideous in name and status.

    While we make exaggerated gestures in fields of space science, information technology, industry, sports, and so on, Nigerian children die at birth and thousands of mothers die in painful labour.

    The youth are unemployed. Public officers loot public coffers with impunity and disregard for Rule of Law. Law enforcement officers turn violent affliction on the citizenry and society they are meant to protect; and the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government mesh in a fetid whirl of strife and plunder. Anarchy rules our hinterlands and metropolitan Nigeria.

    Within such stew and stink, Nigeria ranked 152nd of 188 countries in the 2016 African Human Development Index (HDI) according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

    Thus we are back at the crossroads of vile and extinction. There has been little improvement in our plight.

    While this piece too, resounds as hackneyed howl and lamentation, a regurgitation of towering monstrosities we have become, it need be said that our ultimate nemesis is the Nigerian youth.

    The youth epitomise the nub of discord and deathly rally ripping the tide and march to progress of our fatherland. But why do promising youth evolve like brutes and loathsome trolls? How did our once incandescent spokes of dawn erupt in moonshine?

    Many have attributed the affliction of the Nigerian youth to bad leadership, endless dominance of the predatory ruling class and tiring recalcitrance of the younger generation to engage in communal and national politics in a beneficial manner.

    Many more would readily diagnose the maladies of the nation’s youth to structural bane and the perverse culture of citizenship by which they are weaned and ushered into adulthood.

    In the wake of plausible and often far-fetched analyses, too many ‘patriots’ conveniently excuse themselves from the nexus of blame and severally propound the sad realisation that Nigerians are innately incapable of self-determination and self-governance.

    Many have recommended the American example, the British palliative, the Chinese abracadabra and Malaysian ingenuity to mention a few, as the ultimate measures to resolve the nation’s ills. How?

    These arguments have overtime, attained a language of their own and thus evolved as a dialect of dissent and exaggerated self-abnegation. The nation’s academic elite, political and economic ruling classes frequently marshal clashing precepts as solutions and justifiable putdown of the ruling class and the lower working class as their politics dictate.

    A more damning view identifies the breadlines’ persistent ‘claims to victimhood and sense of entitlement’ as whiny and symptomatic of a dense and irresponsible citizenry. Between the conflict of hyperboles and sentimental vituperation, Nigeria suffers the affliction of intellectual miscreants and disillusioned youth.

    As youths, the coordinated tragedies afflicting our consciousness daily, append the only real structure to our lives as impoverished Nigerians. The burdensome reality of fast slipping youth, the recurrent rites of bigotry and ethical quandary of coping with the strict moral code of adulthood and ideal society, obscures our understanding of life’s ultimate purpose and meaning.

    It spurs millions of misguided youth to engage in desperate pursuit of fast, fleeting riches even as ripples of their actions keep hundreds of millions more in the doldrums and binds of despair.

    Consequently, the revolutionary dissent that sprouts from oppression is pitiless and unbending. It radically splits our world into ‘insensitive ruling class’ and ‘clueless lower class,’ ‘elite’ and ‘downtrodden,’ ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’

    It fosters even more fragmented discord that continually pits Nigerian Christians against Muslims, Hausa against Igbo, Igbo against Yoruba, Yoruba against Ijaw.

    It fosters spurious segmentation of our society into moral and amoral, good against evil, and apostates versus believers. Within this poisonous clime, the Nigerian child is born. If he survives birth hour, he is violently thrust into adolescence and misshapen adulthood.

    From Boko Haram and Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) terrorism, internet fraud, cyber-terrorism, financial/bankers’ terrorism and political terrorism emblematic of the ruling class, recent developments in the country present a sad prologue to a heinous and wider conflict between the nation’s rich ruling class and the impoverished majority of the breadlines and disappearing middle-class.

    A bloody and protracted war thus ensues: this war, caused by diminishing resources, chronic unemployment, substandard health facilities, rising food prices, big business and government conspiracies against the Nigerian state, manifest at alarming proportions daily and by the second.

    Thus our society is flung rudderless on a seething sea of sleaze. Now that our world as we have made it, begins to collapse, we withdraw from the possibility of rebirth, and choose to exploit ‘infinite possibilities’ in our fragility and doomsday predictions.

    The youth predictably become prominent actors in the theatre of ruin and discord. They become the muscle to actualise the ruling class’ blueprint of collapse. But if we consider our plight deeply enough, we would find that no child of the ruling class is co-opted in the drama of violence and bloodshed. They are tucked safely, abroad.

    Picture the NDA, Boko Haram, MASSOB, IPOB, OPC, and so on with sons, daughters and wives of Nigerian ruling class. Let our governors, legislators, and presidency, people these groups with their sons, daughters and wives.

    It’s about time we shunned the politics of spurious militancy, bloodshed and devastation to embrace growth and immense possibilities of progressive endeavour, like a political platform founded by the youth, for all and posterity.

  • Nigeria: In search of patriots

    In the past week, we heard news of Boko Haram victories and unprecedented number of casualties amongst Nigerian soldiers engaged in the fight against the religious extremists. The police hierarchy is also locked in a blame game with a very highly placed Niger Delta elder who was a victim to what was again described by the police as an ‘unauthorized’ raid by some of its men.  While all of this is going on, there are men currently lining up behind the flags of their political parties to indicate their interest in charting the course of the country, for good or bad.

    In truth, the country needs a determined leader to take it through the coming years, especially as we are in a make or break phase of development in many areas. This crucial time in our history is proving tough, as should be reasonably expected in a country with so many diverse interests. There are times when one is simply proud of what we have achieved and the potential that we still hold, while at other times the daunting task of nation-building seems to be a lost cause. In the end, it is the people who hold this union together, through their acts and their belief in our prospects and survival as a country. This is where the trouble lies.

    Nigerians are amongst the most mobile groups of people in the world. After the Chinese and Indians, Nigerians are probably the most likely group of immigrants you will encounter in most parts of the world, even in regions with stark differences in weather, culture and language. The average Nigerian considers it a step forward to be able to pack their belongings and leave the country behind, even to uncertain fates in foreign countries. This does not portray a picture of people who have faith in their chances at home or a belief in the prospects for a good life in this country.

    Sometime after our independence, Nigerian immigrants moved freely to the United Kingdom where many families remain rooted till this day. When the British began tightening their borders, there was a concentration on American visas, and many Nigerians can now be found across the vast territory there. Again, the Americans tightened their borders through more stringent visa requirements and now the exodus is concentrated on Canada, where the signs of restricted intake of Nigerians are already materializing. Wherever the next destination may be, life in the country is still pushing people out, even at times when there seems to be improvement. When will visas stop being more important than national identity cards or voters cards?

    Every day, more people make the seemingly bold move to restart their lives in other countries, sometimes uprooting entire families in order to give their children a fighting chance in the vastly competitive world out there. We no longer believe in dreams made in Nigeria, but want to be part of the American dream, or share in the openness of Canadian society. Nigerian children are learning to speak languages in continental Europe where the natives themselves are looking to expand their horizons and teach their children more of the popular culture in Britain or America.

    We are so quick to trade our identities for the safety of a working society that we leave gaps in our own country that contributes to the poor development of our sectors. Many Nigerians serve in the British army or in the American military, even recent migrants, when the Nigerian army is engaged on multiple fronts at home and abroad. One cannot fault their decisions, as everyone is responsible for themselves, especially when it seems that we are faced with insurmountable obstacles at home.

    Promising entrepreneurs and employers of labour flee the country to become employees in foreign countries where they get lost in the demographics and lead ordinary but safe lives. Ideas that can make positive impact in our society are sold to the west for the promise of a life there, only for the end products of those ideas that were conceived in the mind of a born and bred Nigerian, to be imported into the country at a premium.  Our biggest employers of labour are foreigners who are mining the potentials of our unique market and repatriating the proceeds to their home countries. Behind crude oil and maybe the products of a rejuvenated agricultural sector, our biggest export is labour, and unlike oil and agricultural produce, it is a negative to national development.

    Most of our public servants are not left out of the race for greener pastures. The ones that do not themselves have dual citizenship have ensured that their children have not missed out on the massive advantage of citizenship in successful countries where dreams are born and nurtured for the advantage of those societies. In many cases, their offspring identify more with the foreign nationality, for obvious reasons, and never visit or return home. For the ones who return, they are met with plush appointments facilitated by the standing of their parents or the natural advantage of their foreign background and education.

    The returnees become policy makers and leaders of industry who understand the theoretics of global business and public management, but are deficient in the practical knowledge of how things work in the country. As a result, they are deceived, exploited and used by those that know but have no moral integrity. The shock of being jolted to reality leads many to leave or join the band of exploiters, having never felt, first hand, the consequences of their elitist ideas. They join a class of Nigerians that consciously or unconsciously propagate a growing class divide, widening the wealth gap through an established system of elitism that ensures non-inclusion.

    A striking thing about the most developed countries is the sense of patriotism of the citizens there. Those that think Nigerians are patriotic merely confuse our natural defensiveness for patriotism. Over 80 per cent of Nigerians will readily trade their Nigerian passports for British or American passports and never look back. About 77 per cent of Nigerians are currently living below the poverty line and it is without question that they will be willing to make such a trade. Of those living above that line, one assumes that a quarter already have dual citizenship or are working on a migration plan.

    What may encourage patriotism in the Nigerians that choose to live here, or simply have no choice, is not so difficult to decipher. Everyone wants to be able to lie down at night peacefully and wake up in the morning with peace of mind. For those living in the north east or outside fortified areas like military cantonments in other parts, this may be difficult. Security, therefore, is an important factor. This is closely followed by the guarantee of a respectable means of livelihood and access to affordable healthcare, education and other daily needs.

    There is no shaming or praising people that leave or stay as everybody’s experience is personal. What is clear is that it does Nigeria no good when its best brains are in flight or when there is no belief in the country by its own citizens. Dora Akunyili of blessed memory tried to launch a rebranding programme that evidently has not sailed, like the vision 2020 plan that failed several years ago. We need to believe in our own strength to fight the obstacles we are faced with, before our country can emerge from the ashes of yesterday’s failures.

    The measure of a country, it is becoming clear, is not by the wealth of its richest people, but by the aggregate of citizens actively working and succeeding at making a better life for themselves. We are grateful for the work of people like Aliko Dangote, Oba Otudeko, Tony Elumelu and others who are inspiring the next generation and creating a dream for Nigerians to follow. But there are obstacles that even they cannot help many cross, and we may have to rely on the resilience of the Nigerian spirit, channeled into nation building and growing together. This is what we expect today’s politicians to do, not ganging up to loot our common patrimony as it were.

  • Because we fail as patriots

    Nigeria fails as a nation because we fail as patriots. We do not muster a superior culture of nationhood. Instead, we curate the worst that we dared espouse, labelling it the ‘Nigerian factor,’ and embellishing it as our flamboyant code of conduct.

    We have murderous knaves controlling our ruling and opposition parties; promising youth enslaved by dangerous tokens, and a sly, desperate electorate confined by greed, poverty of tact and the purse.

    Nigeria won’t progress, until we overcome the incumbent ruling class. We shan’t progress until we overcome ourselves. Yet, we covet an incestuous relationship with self – the dark, chthonian parts of our innate nature.

    We mould our clans where tribal foolery fraternises with vile. Senior citizenry molests our young in a never-ending cycle of sleaze and moral paedophilia. But the young are hardly the prey we think they are. Every second, they morph from starry-eyed victims to eager participants and masterminds of our dehumanising ritual of violence, mental, biological aberration.

    Ours is a classic tale of Darwinian waste and mayhem, the squalor and rot of Nigerianness – a distortion of African civilisation. Nevertheless, we block the real import and consequences of this hideous cycle on our psyches and our future as a nation, that we might retain our integrity as brutes and eternal wildlings, perhaps.

    Western science and cultural aesthetics predictably, become apparatus in our frantic attempt to revise the Nigerian horror into imaginatively palatable form. Notwithstanding our frantic lunge for substance and acclaim on frontiers, where the world’s more advanced civilisations project their race and illusions of oneness, Nigeria remains hideous in name and status.

    While we make exaggerated gestures in the fields of space science, information technology, industry, sports, and so on, Nigerian children die at birth and thousands of mothers die in painful labour. The youth are unemployed. Public officers loot public coffers with impunity and disregard for Rule of Law. Law enforcement officers turn violent affliction on the citizenry and society, that they ought to protect; and the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government mesh in a fetid whirl of strife and plunder. Anarchy rules our hinterlands and metropolitan Nigeria.

    While this piece too, resounds as hackneyed howl and lamentation, a regurgitation of the towering monstrosity we have become, it need be restated that our ultimate nemesis is the Nigerian youth.

    The youth epitomise the nub of discord and deathly rally ripping the tide of our march to progress. Why do promising youth evolve like brutes and loathsome trolls? How did our once incandescent spokes of dawn erupt in moonshine?

    Many have attributed the afflictions of the Nigerian youth to lousy leadership, a nonstop dominance of the predatory ruling class and tiring recalcitrance of the younger generation to engage in communal and national politics beneficially. Many more would readily diagnose the maladies of the nation’s youth to structural banes and the perverse culture of citizenship by which they are weaned and ushered into adulthood.

    In the wake of plausible and often farfetched analyses, too many ‘patriots’ conveniently excuse themselves from the nexus of blame and severally propound the sad realisation that Nigerians are innately incapable of self-determination and self-governance. Many still recommend the American example, the British palliative, the Chinese abracadabra and Malaysian ingenuity among others, as solutions to the nation’s ills. How?

    These arguments have overtime, attained a language of their own and thus evolved as a dialect of dissent and exaggerated self-abnegation. The nation’s academic elite, political and economic ruling classes frequently marshal clashing precepts as solutions and justifiable putdown of the ruling class and the lower working class as their politics dictates.

    A more damning view identifies the electorate’s persistent claims to victimhood and sense of entitlement as whiny and symptomatic of a dense and irresponsible citizenry. Between the conflict of hyperboles and emotional vituperation, Nigeria suffers the affliction of intellectual miscreants and promising youth-turned-foetal-adults.

    As youths, the coordinated tragedies afflicting our consciousness daily, append the only real structure to our lives as impoverished Nigerians. The disturbing reality of fast slipping youth, the recurrent rites of bigotry and ethical quandary of coping with the strict moral code of adulthood and ideal society, obscures our understanding of life’s ultimate purpose and meaning. It spurs millions of misguided Nigerian youth to engage in mad, desperate pursuit of fast and fleeting riches, even as ripples of their actions keep hundreds of millions more in the doldrums and binds of despair.

    Consequently, the radical dissent that sprouts from oppression is pitiless and unbending. It splits our world into ‘insensitive ruling class’ and ‘clueless lower class,’ ‘elite’ and ‘downtrodden,’ ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ It fosters even more fragmented discord that continually pits Nigerian Christians against Muslims, Hausa against Igbo, Igbo against Yoruba, and Yoruba against Ijaw. It promotes spurious segmentation of our society into moral and amoral, good against evil, and apostates versus believers. Within this poisonous clime, the Nigerian child is born. If he survives the birth hour, he is violently thrust into adolescence and misshapen adulthood.

    From Boko Haram and Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) terrorism, internet fraud, cyber-terrorism, financial/bankers’ terrorism and political terrorism emblematic of the ruling class, recent developments in the country present a sad prologue to a heinous and wider conflict between the nation’s wealthy ruling class and the impoverished majority of the breadlines and disappearing middle-class.

    A bloody and protracted war thus ensues: this war, caused by diminishing resources, chronic unemployment, substandard health facilities, rising food prices, big business and government conspiracies against the Nigerian state, manifest at alarming proportions daily and by the second.

    Thus, our society drifts rudderless on a seething sea of sleaze. Now that our world as we have made it begins to collapse, we withdraw from the possibility of rebirth, and choose to exploit ‘infinite possibilities’ in our fragility and doomsday predictions.

    En route 2019, the youth, predictably, becomes ruling class muscles in the theatre of ruin and discord. Yet, no child of the ruling class is co-opted in the ritual of bloodshed and death. They are tucked, safely abroad.

    Picture the murderous herdsmen, NDA, Boko Haram, MASSOB, IPOB, OPC, and so on with sons, daughters and wives of Nigerian ruling class. Let our governors, legislators, and the presidency hand machetes and guns to their sons, daughters and wives.

    It’s about time we shunned the politics of spurious militancy, bloodshed and devastation, to embrace growth and immense possibilities of progressive endeavour, like a political platform founded by the youth, for all and posterity.

     

    • To be continued…

     

     

  • Passage of three patriots

    The news of the serial deaths of the three great Nigerian patriots and pan-Africanists namely  Abubakar Momoh,(1965 – 2017), Funminiyi Adewunmi (1960 – 2017) and Yusuf Maitama Sule (1929 – 2017)  in quick successions further point to the inevitability (no less the unpredictability) of death! Both Abubakar Momoh, until his death Director General of the Electoral Institute of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja and Funmi Adewunmi of University of Ibadan were non-state good friends, comrades and teachers; Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule (the Dan masanin of Kano), the last founding father of Nigeria, elder-statesman, democrat-politician, and unarguably a colourful acclaimed orator diplomat.

    Certainly there would be no gathering of progressive and democratic forces in Nigeria and Africa and indeed in the world without mentioning these great Nigerians separated by both birth and death days but bonded by uncommon commitment to humanity, African liberation, justice and equity.  True to his earned, deserved progressive and radical reputation, Momoh easily came to my mind as hundreds of members of the National Union of Textile and Garment Workers, (NUTGWN) civil society ally members, women and youths gathered to observe the official Democracy Day at Textile Labour House, Nasarawa Expressway in Kaduna on Monday May 29. More than twice, as the pioneer DG of Electoral Institute, Abubakar  had enthusiastically supported our initiative on improving on the political/electoral literacy of thousands of our members. Naturally  I remembered Abubakar Momoh that singular destined day recalling my last conversation with him a month earlier  about the need to continue on our electoral literacy workshop series to which he was ever enthusiastically  ready. We had invited my good friend, radical activist lawyer, Barrister Festus Okoye to lead the discussion on the proposed amendments of the Electoral Act by both the Senate and the House of Representatives.  Barrister Festus Okoye, a member of Uwais Committee on Electoral reform and a delegate to 2014 National Conference true to his callings heeded our call at the shortest notice. Few minutes after we exchanged pleasantries, Festus’s mood hitherto up-beat changed for the low. He then showed me serial text messages indicating that Abubakar was dead early that morning.  It’s now an open knowledge that the late patriot was buried same day at Auchi as a Muslim. May Almighty Allah grant him the mercy the holy month of Ramadan in which died.

    Abubakar’s death is a loss to his wife, Tawa and his son, as well as his students and those privileged to have associated with this great African and global citizen.  Africa and Nigeria have indeed lost an intellectual democrat on an officially declared Democracy Day. Only the death of Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, a pan African progressive intellectual, (also a friend  of Abubakar) who died in an auto accident on May 25 Africa Liberation Day in 2009 in Nairobi Kenya invoked similar spiritual paradoxes and coincidences.

    Similarly we received with great shock, the death of our friend and comrade, Professor Funminiyi Adewunmi of University of Ibadan after a brief illness.  A brilliant scholar, committed activist and socialist, Funminiyi lived a life dedicated to the upliftment of the working class and service to humanity. His academic sojourn took him across several universities in Nigeria and abroad including prestigious universities like the University of Ibadan, Osun State University, University of Lagos and University of Namibia. He deployed his intellect researching and publishing in critical areas of labour relations in relation to globalisation, trade union development, workers right and decent work. Even in deaths, they reminded us of their core principles; unity and liberation of Africa and equal rights and justice for all respectively! What core principles do we the living stand for? Blessed are the late comrades for they lived and stood for not just something but many positive things worthy of recalling today. The deaths of both were huge losses to the labour movement, academic community and the country in general which they diligently served in various capacities for many years.

    My union as well as the Nigeria Labour Congress, in particular have lost resource fellows and activists of the labour movement. General elections in Nigeria since 1999 have become periods for anxiety and tension about what the outcomes would be. Would the elections be free, fair, credible and devoid of violence? Undoubtedly there have been noticeable improvements in the conduct of elections since the emergence of leaderships of Professors Attahiru Jega and Mahmood Yakubu. But further improvement can be achieved through mass mobilization and sensitization of workers and the self-employed on basic voters’ rights and responsibilities. Given this background and the fact that majority of Nigerian workforce constitute the Nigerian voters, our union partnered with INEC on Voters Education Project for Workers and the self-employed in Lagos and Kaduna on 14th and 20th February 2015 respectively. The pioneer Director General of the Electoral Institute, the training arm of INEC, Professor Abubakr Momoh was the lead resource person. He explained the voting processes and time schedule for registration and voting and counselled workers to remain good citizens by coming out en masse to exercise their civic right. He urged them to resist the temptation to vote based on inducement or even sell their voters card. The workshops had in attendance key non-state actors like the distinguished former governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Comrade SOZ Ejiofor and representatives of INEC in the states. In Lagos, the Resident Electoral Commissioner Akin Orebiyi addressed the participants and assured of INEC’s preparedness to conduct the 2015 free fair and credible elections. Abubakar was a regular star resource fellow at our 30-year old Annual Education Conferences.

    Funmi Adewunmi as an accomplished academic, served in international and national development and labour market institutions like Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), Michael Imoudu National Institute of Labour students (MINILS) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to further support the struggle of working people for decent work and humane society.

    Paradoxically it was at the tribute session for both Abubakar Mommoh and Funmi Adewunmi on Monday by Lagos State University and progressive forces that the death of Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, acclaimed orator diplomat elder-statesman was announced. Alhaji Maitaima in his 30s was in the forefront of the struggle for liberation of Nigeria against century long British colonialism. In 1960, he led the Nigerian delegation to the Conference of Independent African States. In 1976, he became the Federal Commissioner of Public Complaints, a position that made him the nation’s pioneer ombudsman. He was appointed Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations during the Second Republic and commendably championed the campaign for the struggle against apartheid in both Namibia and South Africa. Again the death of Alhaji Maitaima Sule was a huge loss to my union, where during the pointed military dictatorships of Sani Abacha, he courageously identified with the working people to demand for decent work and life and independent and democratic trade union movement. He was a special guest of honour at the last 11 Delegates Conference of the Union in Kano in March 2015 who at his age came promptly with quotable quotes of wisdom and patriotism for the participants.

    At a time Nigeria seems to be under attack by misguided local and external centrifugal forces of various hues, Nigeria has indeed lost voices in the departed compatriots. The best tribute in honour of the dead is for the living 170 million compatriots to rise and heed the clarion call of our national anthem “To serve our fatherland, With love and strength and faith” such that the “The labour of our heroes past, shall never be in vain”.

    May their souls rest in peace.

     

    • Comrade Aremu, mni, is General Secretary, National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers, Kaduna.

  • Arise O Nigerians, take your country back: A story of two patriots

    One day soon, Nigerians will meet these people-hating kaffirs who think only of themselves.

    Nigerians are no longer ready to take prisoners; ravaging hunger has seen to that and before long, I can see them properly holding looters accountable either through the legal system or by direct, physical combats , if the courts would not change their complicit ways – no thanks to some identifiable senior lawyers who you see happiest defending looters, all smiles in newspaper photographs after they would have bludgeoned judges into granting long adjournments to persons who, in China, would not even have the luxury of a trial. Nigerians are still wondering whether the jailing of former Adamawa State governor, Bala Ngilari, was a dress rehearsal or a mere token to frustrated Nigerians. They have profaned the temple of justice enough you don’t know what to make of the Ngilari comeuppance.

    I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with Mr. Adedayo Kolade, 84, this past week; a very distraught, super Nigerian patriot, whose pain is so huge you can cut it with a knife. He is so sad about what has become of Nigeria, he now believes he has what can be described as a ‘heart agony’, a yet undiscovered medical condition. His story shortly, with copious quotes from his dirge of an article, written as far back as October, 2016 on what corruption is doing to Nigeria. So miffed is he that he is not averse to suggesting that Nigerian constitution should be suspended for four years and President Muhammadu Buhari be given all the powers he would require to save Nigeria from the ravages of  a corruption that has become so systemic it is comparable only to the drug epidemic President Rodrigo Duterte is handling with unprecedented savagery in the Philippines. Consider this excessive, if you like, but so compulsively nauseating has what Steve Osuji of this paper recently poignantly described as ‘an acute and chronic systemic corruption’ become in her ‘compressed economy’ that nothing should be considered over the board. Though this is somewhat impracticable, it is the feeling you get after listening to the soul-twitching video recording by Dr Sota Omogui, one of the co-authors of our National Anthem; an anthem whose tenets are now being completely stood on its head.

    If that doesn’t get you yet, then this trending Whats app chat. And, concerning it, should our legislators feel perjured, they should, tomorrow morning, through their respective spokespersons, address a press conference at which they will bare it all to Nigerians, and unlike Senator Ndume, none of their members would ever again be punished for having the guts to want to know the details of their, for now, shadowy budgets. I have re-named it CHANGE CAN START WITH THE NASS:

    “Here’s a thought-provoking suggestion to the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    A senator earns N36 Million monthly.

    If this is divided into two, he gets N18 million and the balance N18 m can be used to employ 200 Nigerians who will earn N90,000 per month

    200 persons multiplied by 109 senators = 21800 employees.

    This means that 200 Nigerians can live comfortably on half of a senator’s

    monthly pay.

    A House of Reps member earns N25 Million per month

    If this is divided into two, he collects N12.5 Million per month. The balance of  N12.5 million will employ 135 Nigerians who will earn N92,500 per month..  135 Nigerians multiplied by 360 members in the house = 48600 employees.

    135 Nigerians can comfortably live on half of a monthly income of just one rep.

    This government can employ 70,400 Nigerians who will earn N90,000 and N92,500 from this simple reduction in the salaries and allowances of our less than busy legislators.”

    But then, there are more surprises from our ‘servants turned masters’ as just to ensure that the miliki continues, as a result of poor Nigerian masses paying more for an already overly expensive kerosine and other petroleum products, the senate in its wisdom, and speaking through Marafa Kabir Garba, Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), now wants the removal of subsidy and a total deregulation of fuel price.

    One day soon, Nigerians will meet these people-hating kaffirs who think only of themselves. With the ravaging economic recession, which has seen some Nigerians commit suicide, what minutest sacrifice have these people made to show that they empathise with the people?

    All days for the thief, indeed!

    Back to Mr. Kolade whose article you read with your lacrimal artery almost surrendering to tears (for Nigeria) which he actually once did.

    “OH NIGERIA,” he wrote, “a land blessed with milk and honey but has been turned into ANGUISH and HEART BREAK for her citizens! An English colleague of mine, who knows my disposition towards Britain concerning the predicament of this nation, asked me one night in August, 2013: ‘Dayo, as things are in your country today, is the British still the problem?’ I cried till I slept off that night because it was such a dispiriting question. The number one problem is corruption, a pungent recalcitrancy which President Buhari is fighting tooth and nail. But corruption is aggressively fighting back, using very senior lawyers and the courts; lawyers who, in other jurisdictions are the bulwark of society. Or isn’t it a shame that individuals who should be languishing in jail houses are shamelessly gallivanting about being celebrated by the people, the very victims of their malfeasance, by royalty and even the church. It is such a shame,” he concluded.

    Dr Omogui’s a pathetic rendering of the Nigerian condition. Brother to the amazing ex- FIRS boss, Mrs  Ifueko Omogui-Okauru, the U. S based medical practictioner was, at youth, highly bullish about Nigeria and showed that by co-authoring the Nigerian national anthem. The leitmotif for his story is the gruesome loss of his mother, Mrs Grace Omogui, a lawyer and life-time public servant, who fell, in Benin city, to the ferocious hot lead of some god-forsaken armed robbers who trailed her from a bank. The pity of the story is that at the very time mama needed a country she  served  ever faithfully, both as Vice Principal of a Federal Government College and in the Lagos state judiciary, Nigeria, with its decrepit and archaic infrastructure, failed her miserably. Omogui dwelt extensively on the first line of the Nigerian anthem he co-authored which is: ‘Arise O Compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey’, which he regrets no longer means anything to Nigerians. The country, he says, is totally broken, more like Somalia, a war-torn country, with nobody being held accountable for anything whatever. He bemoans the total lack of pipe borne water which, in the 60’s, was everywhere on Benin streets at a time you won’t find a single bore hole. Then, he says, there were functioning institutions of higher learning, land telephone lines that worked, hospitals with running water, whereas today, even in the intensive care units of teaching hospitals, water has become a luxury. There was, also an airline that was the pride of a nation. But, he laments, returning after a 30 sojourn in the United States of America, he meets a country which has become a shadow of its self; all gone down the drain.

    No thanks to corruption and impunity.

    A country where customers are trailed from the bank and attacked, even fatally, with anybody being held accountable. One in which Fire Services have neither diesel nor water and so cannot put out the minutest fire outbreak. Politicians, he says, amass huge amounts of money illegally, and yet, nobody is in jail.  His is a description of Nigeria, as it actually is, by a proven patriot.

    And so, I ask: where do we, as a country and people, go from here?

    The only man we all know in our hearts as having a record of unimpeachable public service record as: a former state governor, former Head of State, former head of an oil agency and  our serving President; a man who, in spite of  having been all these, has no hilltop mansion, no Presidential library, no petrol/gas station, not to talk of an oil block, yet we continue to demonise him,  with not a few sully Nigerians wishing he would just drop dead. As I have always said, it is those who want President  Buhari dead  who will replace him in the morgue. Together with him, patriotic Nigerians will arise, and save this largest agglomeration of Blacks, the world over.

    Itsee.

  • Uncommon patriots

    Uncommon patriots

    •The Nigerian contingent to the Paralympic Games taught their able-bodied compatriots one or two lessons in courage, focus and patriotism

    Just as the modern Olympiads echo the sporting heroics of ancient Greece, Team Nigeria, to the just-concluded Paralympic Games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, echo so sweetly the heroics of the Greek, Philippides (530 BC-490 BC), a mail runner for whom the modern marathon run is named.

    Philippides brought news of Athens victory over Persia (modern day Iran) at the Battle of Marathon (490 BC).  He raced about 240 kilometres (150 miles) in two days; then, using his last burst of energy, ran another 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Marathon battlegrounds to Athens. “We win!” he broke the news to Athenian elders — but collapsed and died that instant!

    Paralympic Team Nigeria have not died after their feat — eight gold, two silver and two bronze medals — contrasted to the able-bodied, who only returned with a solitary bronze from football. But their feat is no less astounding than Philippides — courageous, focused, determined and patriotic.

    And the grand but sobering irony: the preening able-bodied dismally failed. But the so-called disabled triumphed!

    Though Team Nigeria suffered the normal shambolic preparations, the Paralympians would appear more determined and more motivated, than the conventional athletes, despite their physical challenges.

    For that rare but laudable patriotism, acting out the sporting equivalent of the John Kennedy dictum of asking not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country, the Paralympians deserve everyone’s applause. Patriotism never shone so brightly!

    Yet, given that the medal haul — powerlifting, shot-putt, etc. — came from areas where the athletes needed an extra push to challenge themselves, a lot must be said for solid investments in technology, which clearly drives most of the Paralympic sports.

    Aside from events where the competitor only needs to drill himself more than his rivals, technology has gifted many of the athletes ability from near-absolute disability.

    An example is a variant of football, in which players are blindfolded, the pitch is hemmed in by advert panel boards but a chip, inserted into the football, guides the players on the movement of the ball! In this technological wonder, the blind even score goals!

    On the field of play, such a game is mere sports. But looked at closely, it is a whole gamut of economics, driven by the disabled community. For starters, kitting this sporting commune affords entrepreneurs and investors ample opportunities. Then, products forged for the disabled athletes kit them for the sports and regular competitions give their lives a fresh, busy and productive meaning.

    Gone are the days when the disabled are an unfortunate community to be pitied or scorned. Welcome: the times where, even with their physical challenge, they are immersed in productive endeavour — sports — and add value to themselves and their respective communities, with all the human dignity they could muster.

    That is the evolving thinking in the world of the physically challenged. Nigeria should key into this promising way, which though new here, is already a settled way of life in other climes, of Europe and the Americas.

    The Paralympians’ patriotism has earned them a right to demand of their government: see what we have done for you. What will you do for us in return?

    The Nigerian government, and sporting authorities nationwide, should take up this challenge. It is indeed sweet to the ears, the reported resolve to start a football league for the physically challenged.  That is as nice a place to start as any.

    But the major thing is to explore the use of technology to make as many of our disabled, but talented, live as happy and productive a life as possible.

    But beyond sports laurels and better deals for the physically challenged, the Paralympic triumph leaves behind powerful symbolism. In this most difficult of times, when the able-bodied just whine and scream and screech and cry about how bad things really are, the so-called disabled just got out there to get things done!

    Talk of the able showing crass disability but the disabled displaying glorious ability!

    That is a profound national paradox, in this season of anomie!

  • If ‘press boys’ were patriots…

    This year, our practiced clasp may gather into a punch, if we let it. This is the year in which we accord our leaders their rights to everlasting madness – that they may see the bite of the frost against their naked butts, as much as they feel it.

    This year, we birth the truth, or learn to silence it, as usual. I could plead that we summon our will to defend the interests of our people and State but that would be tantamount to imploring the pirate to pilfer riotous raindrops from the Pacific, wouldn’t it?

    This year, our practice lumps together, two crucial yet haunting questions into some tiresome rhetoric: (a) As the polls approach, what should our values be? (b) Who should be the beneficiaries of such values? Predictably, we pervert the first to foster an even more insidious perversion of the second, as usual.

    Thus we evade the task of evolving and defining a rigid code of moral values that we could be led by. Hence the appalling immorality, chronic injustice, gross double standards and the insoluble conflicts and contradictions that plague journalism practice in the 21st century as it does the Nigerian society, under all questionable variants of leadership and altruist ethics.

    Observe the indecency of what characteristically, passes for our moral judgement and the consequences today: self-acclaimed democrats and looters who rigged their way to power, political thug-fathers and gangsters who shot their way to power and then, out of it – having amassed their fortune by looting state coffers, are enabled and patronised by us as the next best elements to happen to the Nigerian state. Even so, we ignore the promising aspirant who gives up the pursuit of peace and fulfilment in order to support our dreams of bliss and realisation of it. Such an aspirant is regarded by many of us as a hopeless radical; a tiresome irritant to our democratic process.

    Ultimately, we label wearisome tyrants and desperadoes, beacons of hope, while explaining unspeakable atrocities they commit as their altruistic contributions for the love of the good and the benefit of all. Observe what this leadership and beneficiary criterion does to the life of the average man on the street. The first thing he learns is that morality is his enemy. He has nothing to gain from it as he can only lose in his pursuit of it. And were he to challenge the system by seeking to pursue such ideal or propagating it, self-inflicted loss, agony and the gray, debilitating pall of an incomprehensible citizenship is all that he gets.

    Were he to hope for that proverbial leadership that might occasionally sacrifice itself for his benefit as he endeavours, grudgingly, to attempt likewise in the interest of others, the shortfall will foster ceaseless agony and resentment instead of pleasure and gain.

    If we could endeavour to rise to fulfil the duties characteristic of natives of the Fourth Estate, we could among other things, assure our poor and helpless compatriots that even though citizenship they endure hardly provides them with benefits of nationality and an automatic form of survival, we – that is, natives of the Fourth Estate – could serve as the means to the attainment of our proverbial vista of progress and abundance.

    If we could rise to truly observe our role in Nigeria’s democratic process, we could teach the citizenry to discover among other things, the fraudulence implicit in such politics as our redefinition of President Goodluck Jonathan as a true democrat; an impractical sloth as a brilliant Statesman.

    It’s about time we taught the citizenry to identify the fundamental moral differences between leadership that seeks its effluorescence in rampant corruption, treasury looting, politics of death and institutionalised violence vis-à-vis leadership that has the interests of the poor hapless masses at heart.

    We could teach Nigeria to understand that the evil of such soulless leadership hardly subsists totally, in its bid to perpetuate itself in power eternally but also in what it considers as its interests for doing so; it lies not in its tenacious cling to the reigns of power but in its practice of the science and art of leadership at a sub-human level.

    In the flurry of currency-activated campaigns and shallow-talk, we could shun the envelopes that bind to pay good mind to the issues that matter. We could acknowledge our premises and inclinations for or against every aspirant as the products of our inherent values and evasions and thus understand that the electorate in turn chooses its values by both a conscious and probably more hyper-active subconscious process of thought and acceptance by default.

    This is oft predicated on some form of social osmosis or blind imitation thus the urgent need to educate the electorate to fashion the measures by which the patriot-leader we seek shall emerge. It is the simplest measures that get to count, like the institution of the primacy of rule of law and frank talk.

    Shall we now institute a worthy flagship with platform upon which we would challenge our self-appointed Messiahs, drill them, analyse them and beam as much of their adroitness as their incapacities through the country, across the continent, to the whole wide world.

    So doing, we could teach the nation to support our dreams of bliss and its realisation by no other means but dint of our heartfelt efforts. We could help natives of our failing state to understand that the politics that leadership we loathe and endure seek to perpetuate permits no view of us except as clueless bums and sacrificial lambs, hapless victims and parasites; that it permits no concept of beneficent co-existence with us.

    We could educate the electorate to understand that among other things, the reasons for our dumb acquiescence to cynicism and despair and rebel against them: cynicism, because we neither practice nor accept the incumbent leadership’s debilitating inhumanness and  despair, because we lack the courage and will to reject it.

    We could inspire Nigeria to rebel against such devastating evil by urging the citizenry not to be deceived by promises of unblemished altruism for if anything, the advocates of such altruism are often times and right now, still unable to base their ethics and projections on any dependable philosophy of human existence and politics. For instance, President Jonathan still offers “life-boat” solutions as lifelines from which to derive his philosophy of governance and moral conduct even as he pays lip-service to his much-publicised bid to actualise our most unrealistic fantasies.

    For all our vaunted ability to challenge the worst of tyrants and speak truth to power, we are yet to get the hang of it, although we love to beat our chests that we do. If we do really, then we would have enlightened the electorate to identify the candidate whose politics deserve our mandate and patronage. If we do, we would have alerted the electorate to those expectations and demands we are meant to enshrine and perpetuate in the flurry of political campaigns primed wholly to befuddle and entertain.

    It is time we affect such dauntless courage, professionalism and understanding of our socio-politics, that we may in good time teach the nation to explore the politics and soul of at least one candidate in order to trust him.