The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Random

  • RANDOM BLUES

    You may have my dead body

    But never, never, my dead Conscience

    Say, you may have my dead body

    But never, never, my dead Conscience

    I wade through Life’s turbulent waters

    With pride and measured patience

     

    What happens to a race horse

    Which springs a sprain in its favourite leg?

    Asking, what happens to a race horse

    Which springs a sprain in its favourite leg?

    What becomes of that veteran surveyor

    Who never knows where to find his peg?

     

    What pain unsettles the sinews of the yam

    Ask the knife

    Yes, what pain unsettles the sinews of the yam

    Ask the knife

    That sharp-toothed gallant of the fireplace

    With its flashy swagger and hungry strife

     

    The politician’s argument collapses

    Under the weight of its lies

    Yes, the politician’s argument collapses

    Under the weight of its own lies

    He promises bridges where there are no rivers

    His castle looms in the idle air

     

    What does Hope look like

    In the mirror of the dream-killer?

    Asking, what does Hope look like

    In the mirror of the dream-killer?

    He tells every lie to look like a leader

    But we know what he is: a ruthless dealer

  • Random musings on the state of the union

    EVER since ailing President Muhammadu Buhari‘s troubled and feeble voice resonated on the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Service, tongues have continued to wag about the propriety or otherwise of the President’s choice of language in extending best wishes to Nigerians during the recent Sallah celebration. Perhaps, the furore would not have come up in the first place if the President’s media handlers had not committed a grave error in releasing the audio tape from which they had earlier issued a statement in English to, presumably, douse suspicions over the possibility of a Buhari having the presence of mind to remember Nigerians on his sick bed in London.

    That, by the way, is the level to which we have sunk as a nation. In spite of the fact that the President had fulfilled constitutional provisions by handing over to his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, this band of critics would not just allow the poor man to tend his health without raking up muck. Some say the resort to Hausa was not only divisive but also clearly exposed Buhari’s ‘disdain’ for people from other parts of Nigeria whom he governs. Others, still on the persecution thread, said it was clear evidence of his utter disregard for Muslims from other ethnic groups except his kinsmen, the Hausa/Fulani. Hmmmm.

    And then, many others threw caution and commonsense to the wind by making unfounded and hate-laden statements about an obvious faux pas that has an explanation in the fact that the old man was simply being interviewed by a media organisation whose language of communication happened to be solely Hausa and for a select audience. And so, for daring to speak his language, the Buhari bashing took a dimension which further authenticates the deep-rooted divisiveness that permeates our national life despite the pretence of oneness. When you sieve through the criticisms, you discover that they are mostly fired by base sentiments than rational and nationalistic feelings.

    It is the same thing that is at the heart of the renewed call for the restructuring of this Lugardian contraption called Nigeria. Don’t get me wrong please. I am one of those people that concede to the logical reasoning that the fundamental architecture of this country needs some form of reengineering that would engender equity and fair play in the way the constituent parts relate with the centre. I have always kicked against the unitarist, not-so-federal feeding bottle policy that has been in practice from time immemorial.

    What I do not support is the call for regionalism just because it sounded right as the best thing to do because Buhari, a Northerner, is on the throne and he is perceived to be anti-South. If we must restructure, we must address the key issues which are at the heart of the present general angst in the land in order not to end up with a beautiful sepulcher. We must ask the hard questions if we want to get to the root of how Nigeria became this broken after many years of callous rape and abuse.

    Presently, the various interests that have spoken either for or against secession, restructuring or the institution of true fiscal federalism have done so from the parochial mindsets of their different geographical covens. No one seems to be speaking for Nigeria, the battered victim of the greed that has led us here. When people say our strength lies in our unity, how much of that statement comes from the heart? How many of these people remember that this country once boasted of the best of everything with a citizenry that wore its epaulets of nationhood with pride? Do we still remember the days of “Nigeria, we hail thee, our own dear native land, though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand?” Oh, that national anthem that evoked that sense of nationhood! Before Chinua Achebe’s ‘The Trouble With Nigeria’ (1983) which eventually culminated in ‘There Was A Country’ in year 2012, we need to understand that there was also a post-independence and post-civil war Nigeria that raised the flag of patriotism and promise of a greater future. Here, I speak of the Nigeria where the Nigeria Airways was the pride of all.

    Then, the now dead national carrier was said to be flying over “1500 destinations across the globe, generating what is equivalent to today’s value of billions of Naira yearly and providing jobs directly to 10000 Nigerians while Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates indicated interest in learning the magic from the “very industrious Nigerians” who ran the airline. When I posted a photograph of the hostesses of that now historical airline where the caption above was lifted, a colleague, Tony Ailemen, reminded me that it was also during the period when “Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo (as he then was) handed over a very highly prosperous economy including the Ajaokuta and Delta steel, rolling mills across the country, Nigeria Airways, Nigeria National Shipping Line, Nigeria Ports Authority, River Basins Development Authorities across Nigeria, Federal Housing Authority, emerging banking sector and petroleum sector with capacity to refine locally, to the Second Republic politicians who took over in 1979″.

    So, what is our story today? I ask. Isn’t it a cruel twist of fate that Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and the UAE now run stateof- the-art international airlines while those who took Nigeria Airways to the zenith at that time are either dead or living in anguish, in endless wait for pension and gratuities that are never paid? When you look back, you begin to understand how and when the shoes began to pinch us. You look at some of the charlatans and ethnic jingoists mouthing the restructuring slogan today and you wonder how they can be a solution to a problem they have manipulated to their favour over the years.

    What has changed now that they suddenly think this is the best time to rethink the state of the union? Is it borne out of patriotism or is it part of the narrative of deceit that has seen several constitutional reform reports buried under the debris of official impotence? Could it be because the cry for equity and a sense of justice is threatening, more than ever before, to bring down this edifice? Suddenly, those who rode roughshod on the collective angst of a nation in crisis are coming to terms with the consequences of the many years of neglect. Now, those noisemakers they once tagged as inconsequential in the scheme of things have forced them to have a rethink of the master/slave governance structure that the elite feed on. From the North, South, East and West, everyone now clamour for a re-jig of the construct called Nigeria.

    From Daniel Kanu’s IPOB to Arewa Youth in the North through the militants in the South-South and Oodua voices in South-West with the chants of exclusion by the Middle Belt people, the consensus remains that the centre can no longer hold us together as it was in those days when our ‘Nigerian-ness’ was our strongest point. So, how did we get here? Some would say the military left the carcass for the politicians to bury in a shallow grave. Others would say it is a mixture of religion, ethnic bigotry, nepotism and bad politics.

    For me, it is simply a failure of leadership. We lost it when greed started to define our governance with a populace that became so docile that it continues to tolerate every shades of thrash put before it by the leaders. Unfortunately, the corpse that was buried had its legs hanging precariously in the open. That is why the agitation grows stronger and more deafening by the day. We no longer stand in brotherhood in one entity called our native land. The natives have gone their different ways, cocooned within familiar plains.

    That is why it would be difficult for us to read nothing other than sacrilege to Buhari’s choice of language in times like this. That’s why there is this very disturbing feeling of mutual distrust in the land. That’s why we view every step taken by the men of power from the prism of their geo-political and religious leanings. That’s why the centre is crumbling, threatening to crash on our heads. The falcon no longer hears the falconer. We now live on the verge of a broken marriage. Everyone now speaks in broken tongues. We are living at the mercy of time. Yes, there seems to be a consensus that Nigeria needs to change structurally if it must make headway. Yet, the big question is: what kind of reform would reform a country that is always at home with lying to itself on the altar of political expediency. Will this fresh agitation yield the desired result without needless spilling of blood? Well, we wait on time.

  • Random blues

    Colour is creed

    Appearance is destiny

    Say, colour is creed

    Appearance is destiny

    In this ‘just and egalitarian’ nation

    Many lies sustain our need

     

    The longest whip

    Is for those who forget

    Yes, the longest whip

    Is for those who forget

    The proverbs teach us

    To remember, not to merely regret

     

    Hapless like a fish without its fins

    Grotesque like a face without a nose

    Hun un, hapless like a fish without its fin

    Grotesque like a face without a nose

    They seek fast knowledge in open books

    Forgetting the wisdom in the ones they close

     

    There is more to me

    Than the face you see

    Hear? More to me

    Than the face you see

    So, tap me fair, touch me deep

    A million selves in a single me

     

    The scar is

    The memory of the wound

    Say, the scar is

    The memory of the wound

    In the castle of the skin

    Lives an old nagging quiz

  • Random blues

    Let sleeping words lie

    Spare them the truth of sound

    Say, let sleeping words lie

    Spare them the truth of sound

    In the land of sinister silence

    Whatever gets lost is never found

     

    The sweetest things never go

    Without their bitter trail

    Yes, sweetest things never go

    Without their bitter trail

    What is life, asks the sage,

    If not a long and complex tale

     

    The diva craves a wrinkle-free day

    And daubs her face with magic powder

    Ha ha  ha, the diva craves a wrinkle-free day

    And daubs her face with magic powder

    She walks down the road to the dizzying

    Gaze of every David and every Dauda

     

    Listen to your clothes

    Don’t wash them in unfriendly water

    Say, listen to your clothes

    Don’t wash them in unfriendly water

    Hear them flaunt the fable of their fabric

    In colours that never fade nor falter

     

    Battered several seasons, they no longer

    Know the way to the house of Anger

    Alas, battered so many seasons, they no longer

    Know the way to the house of Anger

    But if they pause and shake the shelves

    They may find solace in the book of Laughter

  • Random thoughts from X-mas to Ibori’s home-coming

    CONGRATULATIONS, 2016 has gone away, 2017 is here, young and fresh and brimming with hope that it would burn off all the dross and ugliness of last year. As I settled behind my desk last Monday, Boxing Day, to write this column, I couldn’t pin my thoughts down to gather steam for what has almost become a routine every first week of January… Alternative Medicine products to watch out for in the New Year. I guess that will come later. Instead, I settled for random thoughts and experiences in the days which formed a bridge between 2016 and 2017, what some people may call the “cross-over” days. The first thought was about the Christmas 2016.

    A saner

    X-mas

    2016

    This Christmas must be about the most spoken about in the last decade or so because many people had no money to splash on revelry. The Asian businessmen, notably the Indians and the Chinese, who import children’s dresses and fire crackers for this season, must be an unsmiling lot now. By May and June every year, they stuff available warehouses with their wares and pay fabulous rent for warehousing, waiting for December to arrive. Stupidly, Nigerians burn hard-earned money firing tons and tonnes of fire crackers of all designs, irrespective of repetitive police warnings that fireworks had been banned since the 1960s. The ban was imposed during the political crises of the then Western Region (Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Osun, Edo, and Delta state) and has not been lifted. Irrespective of this, Asians find their ways around the customs and excise Department and around the police to make a mincemeat of the Nigerian economy every December. Every Christmas season, the police would repeat their warnings but would arrest or prosecute no one to make good the warnings. In this process, Nigeria was drained of foreign currencies, especially the Pound Sterling, the Euro and the U.S. Dollar. As the drain occurred, the value of the Naira against these currencies dropped significantly, fueling inflation and scarcities. The story changed in Christmas 2016. Recession had come to town. Every-one began to watch spending critically, eliminating unnecessary expenses. With one bag of 20 pieces of sachet (“pure”) water doubling in price to N150 at the shops, many people began to buy directly from the sales trucks at between N100 or N120 a bag. That meant bad business for the shops. I have taught many people how to add plantain or banana peel to rice or beans or rice and beans to increase bulk, provide enough food for every member of the family and save money on food. In Europe and in the United States, it has been discovered that banana peel, like plantain peel, is richer in some nutrients than the fruit it covers, and that, on it own, it is actually food. In fact, a campaign is going on in the United States to educate the public that these peels are not food wastes, so that, by 2035, no banana or plantain peel would be thrown away.

    The Recession change the face of Christmas 2016 in ways far too many to mention here. It provided a saner environment to observe a Christmas. A Christmas is a reminder of the High Nation of the Lord Jesus to this sinful earth to light up the darkness which had enveloped it, so that some of the inhabitants longing to get out of the rot and return to their home in paradise as perfected spiritual beings may find their way out of the suffocating embrace of Lucifer and his minions. It is a time for sober reflections in which Christians ought to put themselves on the scale and see if they had lived their lives so far the way their Lord came to tell them they should. It is a time for everyone to lock himself or herself up in his inner room. But it became a time for wandering about, almost aimlessly in revelry because the pocket were filled with easy money. The scale of wining and dining decreased last Christmas. Traffic was down on the highways, suggesting many people were indoor. Deafening fireworks were not to be heard in the streets, and the Indians and the Chinese must have gone home, Sullen. Goodbye Christmas  2016.

    Wonders

    Always

    Pop up

    ON this earth, wonders never end. On Christmas Day, I walked into my neighbour’s place in the evening to share with him the season’s greetings. He has a tradition of more than one decade behind him of welcoming his guests with meals and drinks. Beside me sat a gentleman who had been one of my acquaintances in the housing estate for many years. We often met at the relaxation centre. He had a huge appetite for Stout beer. He never stopped drinking despite a bad cough which yielded no ground to self-help pharmaceutical or herbal medicines. Even prescription drugs were of no use. Often, I would tell him I suspected his heart was enlarged and he could come down with congestive heart failure, and even die. I suggested he go to hospital and check with his doctors. But all the suggestions sounded to him like “Greek”. He said Stout beer made him sleep soundly. I said it made him sleep only because it depressed his brain. In any case, the drink could be overworking his liver and kidneys, and these organs may be hardening, resisting blood flow and causing the heart to enlarge in a bid to pack more force to pump harder. An enlarging heart will get weaker in the course of its enlargement, and it may become so weak that it may not be able to pump blood out of the lungs. Blood overstaying its tenure in the lungs would irritate these organs as unwanted guests. To free themselves of the irritation, the lungs would try to expel the blood through the mechanism of a particular cough. This cough hardly responds to popular cough medications.

    After a long debate which involved his children giving him an ultimatum,  our friend went to hospital where his condition was diagnosed as enlargement of the heart. He would prove stubborn still by saying his doctor permitted him to knockoff with this beer provided he did it in moderation.

    To cut a long story short as we say, his cough worsened, his energy began to sag and he could hardly walk. Last Sunday, I saw beside him not a bottle of Stout beer but a glass of water. “What happened?” I asked, shocked. He told me his doctors asked him to give up beer if he wanted to live longer. We joked about the human capacity to chase away killer old habits in the face of death. Then, I advised him the medications he was on would not necessarily reverse enlargement of his heart. They would only slow down the heart so it doesn’t kill itself with work overload thrust upon it by other misbehaving organs. He would have to heal his liver and kidneys of many years of needless punishment. These organs take a lot of bashing when we consume alcohol. Then, he would have to put more energy into his heart on a therapy of Ubiquinol, Hawthorn berries, Vitamin E, Vitamin B Complex, Essential fatty acids, Selenium, Magnesium, and the likes of them, including L-Arginine.

    Remembering this gentleman, reminded me of the book SUGAR BLUES in which the author narrates how he had to give up sugar and sugar foods after many point-of-death battles with unresolved hypoglycemia which masked itself in many other disease symptoms. When he got his health and life back, he would bump into sugar consumers unceremoniously, urge them to give up sugar and sugar foods, they would insult him, he would not give up at the risk of a fiasco and he would go home a sad man. Then, one day, an observer admonished him not to burn up his energy over recalcitrant people. One day, a thunderbolt would hit them. Only when the student is ready does the teacher emerge. Isn’t this the way it has been for many of us health repentant people?

    Holiday,

    Holiday,

    Holiday…

    In the last two weeks, Nigeria has granted workers six days public holidays. To worsen matters, the first work day in 2017, a Monday, (January 2) is a public holiday. The holiday on December 26, a Monday, was understandable. That was Boxing Day, traditionally a public holiday in many Christian countries when Christmas gift sent in boxes or in other packaging are unwrapped and acknowledged. Tuesday, December 27 need not have been a public holiday. But it was so declared to compensate Christians for the Christmas Day which fell on a Sunday, a work free day in the country. January 2, a Monday and a work day, was declared a public holiday for the same reason that New year’s Day fell on a Sunday, a work free day. The thinking has gained deep roots over many decades that if a holiday falls on a work free day, a compensation or a gift with a work day has a work-free day has to be made. This holiday, holiday, holiday mania is a disease of corporate Nigeria which, in many other ways, has eaten the nation deep into its marrows.

    Many people think the season of Change laced with the season of Recession would have swept away this unproductive habit of corporate Nigeria. How many people go on these types of holiday in the informal sector, anyway?

    A recession means backsliding or retrogression. To move from Recession to Ascension, the energy for upthrust or upward propulsion must first be generated. A car driven into a ditch isn’t gotten out of there without some work. Moving Nigeria out of recession cannot be easily achieved, if it will be attained at all, through pleasure seeking irresponsible holidays. If an investor who is to create jobs needs 60 days to repay, say, a N100million bank loan, robbing him of six days work in two weeks isn’t going to be fun to him. If he thinks he can make mincemeat out of the country and get by, his first option may be to inflate his price to make up for the holidays. In other words, some of the pangs of Change many people are complaining about may very well be the price they are paying for the irresponsible holidays they are enjoying. Irresponsible holidays are rare in Japan and China. Often, the Japanese and the Chinese have cultural links to their own holidays. In the Western world, holidays are not frivolous matters.

    That said, there is some sense on the other side of the road, or of the other side of the coin presented by a devil’s advocate. The informal sector, not the corporate sector, may have become the bedrock of the economy, the driver and stabiliser. Here, workers work their hearts out from sunrise to mid-night, taking no organised vacation except when the government declares a public holiday. But this isn’t a fool-proof argument? Do not many of us in this sector troop to work on public holidays which have no religious rings to them?

    There are many things in Nigeria crying for Change which haven’t changed. The culture of too many needless holiday is one of them.

     

    Ibori, a free man

    Former governor Ibori may surface in Nigeria to a tumultuous welcome, having completed his jail term for money laundering in England. His reception in England is an indicator in this regard. In the video, Ibori proudly boasts that, while he was in jail in England, he masterminded the election of some governors in Nigeria. What I can deduce from this is that he would be a major player or king maker in the 2019 Presidential election.

    Gone are the days when only success had many fathers and failure had none. The crowd which milled around Ibori at the reception suggested it is no longer taboo to be seen in public hobnobbing with a former prisoner.

    In the days long gone by, it would be appropriate to tell these people SHOW ME YOUR FRIEND AND I WILL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE or BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER.

    One of my friends reminds me that, in human history, only the FORM ever changes, the CONTENT never changes. The FORM is we human actors or the circumstance in which we act. The CONTENT is what we like to do. Over 2,000 years ago, we sang Hossanah after Jesus Christ on a Friday and shouted CRUCIFY HIM on a Sunday. Pontius Pilate was warned by his wife to protect Jesus. She had been warned in her dreams Jesus was blameless and she should guide her husband to let Him go. The mob threatened Pilate, colonial Roman governor of Judea, he would be reported to the Emperor, Herod, as an enemy of the emperor if he did that, claiming Jesus was seditious in acclaiming Himself as KING OF THE JEWS. Pilate feared that Herod may sack him or even imprison him. He lacked courage, thought of Self and let go. On the part of the mob they preferred that the life of a common criminal be spared while a blameless person should be murdered simply because the leaders of Jewish religion thought His influence over the people would rob them of power and influence.

    Today, we worship criminalism and other vices in this country as the Jewish synagogue leadership and mob. Like Pilate who lack courage to confront evil, we, too, lack courage to confront evil and crime, and this is why our land is filled with criminals and nothing that is right seems to work in it. The officers who man and run our public institutions lack courage, noble human character and candour. Who, today, in this country, can look the king straight in the eyes and say his mother is a witch? who can tell Ibori and people like him to take a bow from the public theatre and retreat to the back stage, nay, the shadows? Once he was appointed a Public Prosecutor irrespect of the Monica Lewinsky affair, Mr Ken Starr pounded President Bill Clinton in the dock as if the President were an ordinary strict man. Who, today, can face a Governor, let alone a President in Nigeria? In my days as a University student in the 1970s, students would have become so irritated about the huge sums of money being recovered from corrupt Nigerian leaders of yesterday that they would have surrounded the homes of this people and the National Assembly in support of the government. Such students of those days are no longer anywhere to be found today. The system may have absorbed them. And so we may discover that President Muhammadu Buhari as a lone tree, may not make a forest in 2019, and Ibori and Co. may call the shots.

  • Random Reflections

    There are times when a writer wants to enter abridged comments on a number of issues, rather than an extensive comment on a single issue. This is such a time for me, and here goes:

     

    June 12 and the lost innocence

    Yesterday marked the 23rd anniversary of the June 12, 1993 presidential election – a landmark poll in Nigeria’s political history and a symbolic high point of our nationhood experience. The election was landmark because it was the first to demonstrate a potential in this country to stage an election that is globally applauded. That potential has been reenacted and enhanced with the 2011 and 2015 general elections – particularly the 2015 presidential poll that was the first in this country’s history where a contesting incumbent was unseated through the ballot box by an opposition challenger; and that, without a challenge from the defeated incumbent contender.

    June 12 was symbolic because Nigerians, for the first time, broke from historically besetting ethnic and religious straitjackets in casting their votes. Of the 30 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the country at the time, Chief Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) won in 19 and the FCT with over eight million votes, while Alhaji Bashir Tofa of the National Republican Convention (NRC) harvested 10 states with some six million votes. Despite that the late Abiola, a professing Moslem, fielded another Moslem, Babagana Kingibe, as running mate, his victory was so resounding that he won nearly 60 per cent of the total votes cast, and only in two states (Kebbi and Sokoto) did he fail to secure at least one-third of the ballots. He actually defeated the NRC flag bearer in his home state of Kano. Again, this feat, to a limited extent, was reenacted in the 2015 presidential election where incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari won across ethno-religious lines.

    Why do I bother to belabour June 12 if, as we hold, Nigeria has encored its high points and moved ahead with recent elections? The reason is this: that election revealed the possibility of forging a rare consensus in this country on national values. Such consensus, as we have noted, would be blind to primordial fault lines that historically pitched citizens against one another. Nigerians in 1993 wanted an end to long years of military rule. They perceived that then ruling regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida was in no hurry to cede power, despite promises to the contrary; and so they rallied after the cause of democracy, for which the Abiola-Kingibe ticket only offered a preferred choice within provided alternatives. Voters across ethnic and religious divides cared less if Abiola came from the outer space, or if his running mate were his younger blood brother. They made the choice that indexed a common resolve to force the hand of the military regime.

    Nothing has changed in the geographical frame of Nigeria since 1993, unless perhaps the loss of the Bakassi Peninsula in 2008, and the only structural difference is the creation of six additional states in 1996. But the nationalist innocence is lost and separatist sentiments have since boiled over. There is the (thankfully, now largely contained) Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, the resurgence of militancy in the South-south, and heightening pro-Biafra activism in the South-east. The separatist sentiments severely hazard our national security as well as economic well being, and no one would deny in good conscience that these sentiments are fierce enough to advise another look at the Nigerian nationhood. This perhaps explains renewed wise counsel by eminent Nigerians, including former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, that the country be restructured into a true federation.

    Restructuring seems to me a most sensible option to address the separatist agitations presently plaguing our nationhood. But there is a challenge: how would this be done short of convening another National Conference if President Buhari, as he had made clear, would not touch the report of the 2014 National Conference? A fresh National Conference seems a tall order in Nigeria’s present economic circumstance.

    Some have argued that Nigeria’s problem is not about structure, but long years of bad leadership that fostered the current economic woes and stoked separatist sentiments. They may have a point, if June 12 evidenced a latent gene in Nigerians for commonality of purpose when inspired by good leadership as was envisaged in Abiola. But then, I would bet that the innocence of June 12 is irremediably lost at this juncture of our nationhood.

    Now, if we can’t assay the restructuring of our nationhood in the short term, as it seems highly unlikely that we can, the onus of history heavily rests with the Buhari administration to provide the kind of inspirational leadership as could fan even the cold ash of nationalist commitment that was the making of June 12.

    Hillary History Clinton

    Upon the conclusion of United States’ Democratic primaries last week, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emerged as the party’s presumptive nominee to run against Republican Donald Trump in the presidential poll scheduled for November. Her resounding victory over Senator Bernie Sanders in ‘Super Tuesday’ primaries in California, New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico made Hillary the first woman to secure the nomination of a major political party in America’s 240-year history.

    She came a long, dogged way to the nomination – having given President Barack Obama a tough run for the Democrat ticket in 2008 and falling barely short, but with a notice served that the glass ceiling on women in United States politics had been shattered. An exultant Hillary alluded to this last week when she told a crowd of jubilant supporters: “Tonight caps an amazing journey – a long, long journey. It may be hard to see tonight but we are all standing under a glass ceiling right now. But don’t worry. We’re not smashing this one. Thanks to you, we’ve reached a milestone. The first time in our nation’s history that a woman will be a major party’s nominee…Tonight, we can say with pride that, in America, there is no barrier too great and no ceiling too high to break.”

    More than a dozen women previously launched a bid for the White House, starting with Victoria Woodhull in 1872, nearly half a century before women even had the right to vote. Hillary is closer to the mark than anyone to date – being the first woman to lead a major political party’s bid for the presidency. Her chances are bright to ultimately win the presidency.

    With the cost intensity of Nigerian politics and propensity of partisans for violence, you could well say there is a brass ceiling on women’s aspiration for political offices in our country. But women of mettle can yet cut through if they would be dogged and relentless like Hillary, and if they would define the rules of decency for electioneering as would isolate male desperadoes.

    Not as His Lordship pleases!

    Code of Conduct Tribunal Chairman Justice Danladi Umar isn’t one to fight shy of controversy. Amidst the dust being raised by ongoing trial of Senate President Bukola Saraki before him, the judge was last week reported as canvassing the return of Decree 2 to punish journalists.

    Speaking at the end of Tuesday’s proceedings in reaction to media reports that the trial had been adjourned indefinitely, Justice Umar reportedly said “journalists should be punished” for publishing falsehood. “It is a criminal offence. If not that we are under a democratic setting, I would have advocated for the retention of Decree No. 2,” he stated.

    Decree 2 under the former military regime of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari gave the Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, power to detain anyone considered a security risk for up to six months without trial. It was a precursor of the Protection Against False Accusations Decree 4.

    It is helpful that His Lordship recognised that we are now under a democracy. Isn’t then the craving for the return of Decree 2 a symptom of military hangover?