The Nation Newspaper

Tag: tomorrow

  • Night of Change to hold tomorrow

    Freedom Apostolic Revival International Ministry (FARIM) will tomorrow hold a programme, called Night of Change, with the theme: I Must Move Forward.

    The event, which will start at 10 pm, will take place at Ita Elewa open field, opposite NIPOST in Ikorodu, Lagos State.

    The General Overseer, Prophet Sam Omolojujesu, through his personal assistant, Abiodun Adebayo, said those who attend the programme will be elevated.

    Ministering with songs are: Aduke Gold, Dare Melody, Bunmi Adeoye (aka Omije Ojumi), Ola Johnson, among others.

  • Osun council poll: Today, tomorrow declared work-free days

    Osun council poll: Today, tomorrow declared work-free days

    • 318 candidates unopposed

    The Osun State Independent Electoral Commission (OSIEC) has said 318 councillorship candidates were presented unopposed by their parties to participate in Saturday’s local government election.

    Also, the state government has declared today and tomorrow work-free days, ahead of Saturday’s poll.

    According to the commission, the election will hold in 71 of the 389 wards in the state.

    OSIEC Chairman Segun Oladitan, who addressed reporters yesterday in Osogbo, the state capital, said 12 parties withdrew their participation from the election.

    He said only six parties would participate in the poll.

    The OSIEC chief also said the election would hold in six wards of the Central, 13 wards in the West and 52 wards in the East senatorial districts.

    Oladitan said: “For the purpose of this election, which is based on the parliamentary system of government, 38 parties registered at the initial stage out of which only 18 signified their intention to participate. I can reliably tell you that 12 political parties have withdrawn from participating in the election, remaining only six political parties in the race.

    “Of all the candidates representing the participating political parties in the 389 wards across the state, 318 councillorship candidates in 318 wards have been presented unopposed. They represent the candidates who satisfied the requirements of the law with reference to Section 41 of the Electoral Act (2011), as amended.

    “Therefore, there shall be elections in only 71 wards of the state.”

    The OSIEC chairman, who spoke about the injunction against the commission, said the State High Court, sitting in Ilesha on Tuesday, dismissed an application restraining the commission.

    He said a Federal High Court in Abuja, also on Wednesday, dismissed the ex parte motion seeking to restrain the commission from conducting the Saturday local government election.

    Oladitan assured all of a free and fair poll, saying there would be vehicular restriction from 7 a.m to 2 p.m.

    Also, a statement yesterday by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Mr. Sola Fasure, said the Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, had vacated its 2017 order restraining the commission from holding elections into the Local Council Development Authorities (LCDAs) and withholding local government allocations in the state.

    Governor Rauf Aregbesola urged Osun eligible voters to come out en masse to perform their civic responsibility in the local government parliamentary election without let or hindrances.

     

  • Navy Direct Short Service Course 25 test holds tomorrow

    Navy Direct Short Service Course 25 test holds tomorrow

    THE Nigerian Navy (NN) says the aptitude test for the Direct Short Service Course 25 Enlistment Exercise is scheduled to hold in eight centres across the nation tomorrow.

    Acting Director of Information, Naval Headquarters Capt. Suleman Dahun said this in a statement issued in Abuja.

    Dahun, therefore, advised applicants to visit www.joinnigeriannavy.com for names of the candidates shortlisted to write the test.

    The centres for the aptitude test include:

    Bauchi Command Day Secondary School, Shadawanka Barracks, Bauchi; FCT 1 – Army Day Secondary School Mogadishu Cantonment, Abuja; FCT 2 – Command Day Secondary School Lungi Barracks, Abuja and Imo – Nigerian Navy Finance and Logistics College, Owerrinta.

    Others are: Lagos 1 – Nigerian Navy Secondary School, Navy Town Ojo; Lagos 2 – Navy Town Secondary School, Navy Town Ojo; Rivers- Nigerian Navy Secondary School, Borokiri and Sokoto State – Army Day Secondary School, Giginya Barracks, Sokoto.

    According to the acting director, candidates are to come to the aptitude test centres along with parents/guardian consent form and local government attestation card.

    They are also to bring acknowledgment form, photocopies of certificates, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Discharge Certificate and writing materials.

  • When tomorrow comes

    Preamble

    This is not just an article. It is rather a letter of appeal coming to Nigerian politicians from the pulpit of ‘The Message’ column. Similar letters were written in this column some years ago to the same group of people. Letters of this type seldom come to the arena of politics where conscience is banished and everything in life is based on whim even as self aggrandizement is considered to be the ultimate goal. Coming up at this precarious period of political labyrinth in Nigeria, this letter is necessitated by the current frightening political tension that is fast becoming a bubble which may bust anytime from now unless the Almighty Allah decides to save our country by His special Grace. If you politicians think that you can escape any calamitous as a consequence of your ongoing political machination which you are tendentiously weaving around Nigeria you may be day-dreaming. Those who engaged in similar machinations before yours in the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s had ended up in a forlorn.

    Functions of Conscience

    Conscience”, according to Sheikh Uthman Dan Fodio, “is an open wound which only the truth can heal”. But one can talk of healing a wounded conscience only where and when it has not become cancerous.

    Prophet Muhammad (SAW) once gave a vivid description of the signs by which hypocrites can be identified.

    He said “hypocrites are known by three signs: When they talk they lie; when they promise they renege and when they are trusted they betray”. In other words, conscience is not an costume in which hypocrites can clad.

    Most of you (Nigerian politicians) so much typify this situation that one wonders if the Prophet had Nigerians in mind when he was expressing that axiomatic Hadith.

    Deceptive Motive

    It will be recalled that when most of you started agitating for a return to democracy in the late 1990s while a despotic military demagogue held sway, your seeming focus was on liberation of the Nigerian citizenry from the crushing claw of military despotism. And you did that in the name of freedom fighters or human rights advocates. But hardly had you succeeded in leading the masses to drive away the military boys than some of you began to agitate for your selfish interest by claiming to want ‘to serve your people’.

    Thus, based on that claim, your godfathers or godmothers warmly embraced you not minding your hidden agenda especially when such agenda did not contradict theirs. That claim, which was the bait with which you deceptively lured ordinary Nigerians into the struggle that ended up in raising your own political pedestal to the height upon which you stand today was a covenant. And that covenant was not just between you and the people you claimed to want to serve but also between you and the Almighty Allah who knows every manifest and hidden agenda. And He will surely hold you accountable for it.

    To you, it does not matter whether you were genuinely elected or surreptitiously smuggled through the back door by depriving others, who were more qualified than you, of their legitimate rights.

    Your original claim before you were smuggled into whatever position you occupy today will be weighed against your action or inaction in that position or after you might have left the stage. And you will be judged accordingly.

    Just as you will call on God for justice if you were in the shoes of the deprived ones so they will take your case to God’s court in quest of justice. And the prayer of a cheated person, according to Prophet Muhammad (SAW), never suffers a divine denial.

    Remember

    As some of you once shamelessly graded figure 16 higher than figure 19 sometime ago and audaciously classified theft as a lesser crime than corruption all in the name of politics, you must remember that God’s justice can neither be manipulated nor subverted. And no matter how long it may take, Allah’s justice will take its courae perhaps when you least expect in life. When some of your colleagues were made to face the music of their criminal acts recently, you were expected to learn a lesson from their disgraceful plights. But since a dog that will die in perdition can never heed the warning whistle of a hunter it is not surprising that you are still arrogating the nation’s leadership to yourselves without thinking of the lessons that the younger ones can learn from your conduct on their way to the top. You have evidently demonstrated that you are not on antway qualified to bequeath any sensible legacy to the future generations.

    If anything, your thoughtless public utterances, your shameless public actions and counter actions as well as your devilish body language are more destructive to Nigeria’s future than ever imagined. In fact, you can be called anything but patriotic gentlemen of honour which you call yourselves and as such you are unprecedentedly a disgrace not only to Nigeria as a country. But since you seem to have permanently enlisted immorality as a vital instrument of politics without thinking of its consequences and thus behaving like intoxicated horses gallivanting around without reins.

    Life without Justice

    In Islam, two issues are fundamentally sacrosanct both of which Allah does not take lightly. These are sacredness of life and dispensation of justice. It is a great iniquity for any human being, especially Muslims, to engage in murder and injustice under any guise. Thus, anybody who kills fellow human beings extra-judicially in the name of religion or politics is nothing but an unbeliever of a sadistic nature. In Islam, killing a fellow human being deliberately under whatever guise, without passing through a due process of law, is such a grievous sacrilege that cannot and should not be perpetrated without commensurate penalty, if not here on earth, definitely in the hereafter.

    Allah’s Wrawth

    Besides paganism, nothing draws the wrath of Allah as fast as these two crimes which Satan may continue to ask you to ignore at your own peril. Murder is physical termination of the life of a fellow human being. Injustice is killing a person mentally, psychologically, politically or spiritually by denying him his legitimate right. Now, which of these has not occurred officially and severally in the course of your political sojourn? How will you explain it to Allah?

    Legislative Duty

    In Islam, rule of law is the foundation of justice but legislation is the material with which that foundation is built. Those of you who voluntarily chose to legislate for the rest of us hardly see yourselves as the foundation layers of justice who should not betray the course of justice. As legislators, you are looked upon by most Nigerians as honourable leaders neither because you are more qualified intellectually than those for whom you are legislating nor because you are wiser and more experienced than them. What makes most of you legislators in the lower or upper chambers of the legislative arm of government is sheer expediency arising from queer inadequacies sadly fostered by our so-called political system which gives room for gerrymandering and manipulation. If such opportunity comes your way illegally, let it not be mistaken for good luck. It may rather be a calamity waiting to strike in future.

    And when it strikes, no one except Allah can tell the extent of its effect. At least you can see how the consequences of the heartless annulment of June 12, 1993 Presidential election have become a draconian spectre chasing the ghost of every Nigerian even after almost two decades of licking our political wound.

    Subversion

    Due to lack of conscience, most of you may have forgotten, but you need to be reminded that shortly after you took oath of office either in 1999 or 2003 or 2007 or 2011 or 2015, you started subverting the covenant into which you voluntarily entered with the people who elected or nominated you directly or indirectly. That covenant is to serve them (the people). And those who serve are nothing but servants. But no sooner had you been sworn into office than you started calling yourselves leaders and not servants again. By implication, you have so dangerously promoted desperation and impunity to the front burner of Nigerian politics that whoever thinks of serving the country, today, through any public office is seen as a devil that must be kept at an arm’s length. From your public conduct, any right-thinking person can vividly see the types of families you are breeding for the nation.

    Executive Duty 

    As members of the Executive arm, when you travel abroad officially, at people’s expense, you are never alarmed by the way the systems work in those countries. You never bother to ask questions about the effective functions of electricity, the smoothness of roads, the flow of portable water and the excellent of educational system that promotes probity and decorum in those countries. Rather, your primary concerns are the personal ephemeral gains accruable to you at the expense of the present and the future. For the past 16 years of Nigeria’s fourth republic you have been at the saddle of government without being able to show in concrete terms what value has that length of time added to the lives of ordinary Nigerians. Your emphasis is power rather than governance and you often go about it in such a manner that gives the impression that government is much more about destruction than construction.

     Nigeria as OPEC Member

    As so-called political leaders, you do not even feel ashamed that Nigeria is the only OPEC country that imports refined petroleum products for domestic consumption simply because you are beneficiaries of the corrupt device which you deliberately put in place in the name of subsidy. Even if Nigeria never had electricity before now and wanted to start one to boost her economy, is a period of 18 years not enough to provide a functional one especially given the enormous amount of wealth with which she is endowed? In modern time, no technological device provides as much opportunity for jobs and economic growth as electricity. Yet, it is that major device that you deliberately hold down to deprive the populace of the wherewithal to rise mentally and intellectually so that you can turn them into perpetual slaves to be ruled forever. In such a situation, why wouldn’t corruption be unconscientiously legislated into legitimacy? And now, Nigeria is held to a standstill because every one of you must personally have a chip of any juicy future now without caring about what may become of your own children in future.

    As fathers and mothers, most of you will want your children to grow up as responsible men and women, yet, you have nothing in you that can serve as good examples for those children. You tell lies with relish. Yet you want your children to be truthful. From where do you expect them to inherit truthfulness? You steal public funds with unbridled audacity. Yet you do not want your children to be called thieves. What other names should the children of thieves bear other than thieves?

    Sermon

    The Message hereby implores you Nigerian politicians to search your conscience and fear God. Remember that some people had governed this country in the past. Among them were those who tried to combine the roles of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary together, in the name of military rule, made possible by coup d’état. Where are they today?

    Governance has its tenure. Four years may look endless, but for the wise, it is not more than a flash of lightening  which only a fool will rely upon to walk his way through the darkness of the night. You are in government today. But remember that you will soon become former this or former that just like those before you.

    Duties of public Servants

    Ordinarily, the duty of Civil Servants as government officials, whether in the executive, legislative or judicial wing, is to serve your country in such a way that you can create a historical window for yourselves through which the future generations can retrospectively peep into your lives with reverence. But since everything in Nigeria has been peculiarly monetized (courtesy of Obasanjo regime), it has become a rule that those who hold sway in government, in whatever capacity, must take the lion’s share of our national cake through our lean annual budget. That is why you randomly but embarrassingly throw some damaging pebbles into our political brook to cause unnecessary ripples in the serenity of that brook to the total disadvantage of today and tomorrow.

    Observation

    Some of you think or talk of impeachment only when your salaries, allowances or extra budgetary largess suffers a reduction or delay. It does not matter to you whether or not the entire workforce in Nigeria remains unpaid for years. Once you are able to amass whatever comes your way legally or illegally the rest of the populace can go on hunger strike forever. It is rather shameful and disappointing that even some of you who claim to be Muslims are participating in such an evil charade despite your proclamation of Islam.

    Conscience, though invisible, has a mirror which only a few people know of. That mirror is shame. A person without shame is a person without conscience. And that is the main distinction between a genuine Muslim and a nominal one.

    Prophet Muhammad (SAW) admonished the Muslims thus in respect of shame: “once you are bereft of shame, you can go ahead to do whatever you like”. This means that without shame you are a nonentity who can even strip naked in the market place in readiness for a brawl. We can all see the example of this in a former President of this country who is now menstruating through his mouth at any public place.

    Admonition

    Dear Nigerian politicians, let it be kept permanently in your brain that the only thing which keeps people alive in history even long after their demise is service to humanity. Prophets Isa (Jesus), and Muhammad (SAW), had neither bank accounts nor estates to bequeath to anybody. Their heritage is more than any material wealth for the entire world today. That heritage is service to humanity. What is your own planned heritage if only for posterity? That is a big question which only people with conscience can answer. And, as Muslims or Christians, you should be able to answer it if you truly follow the right guidance of those noble men of impeccable character.

    Remember that you are in a ship already voyaging on the high sea towards the shore. And at that shore are fierce customs officers waiting to check the contents of your cargo. Be always at alert. Remember that if you cultivate friendship with Satan he will favour your wish. But if he grants you one favour, he will take ten from you in return. Be Muslims by name, conduct and mannerism. Whatever you do as Muslims will affect the image of Islam in one way or the other. I hope you will return home as Muslims that you claim to be and not as renegades. Remember all this and adjust now that you may be able to raise your head aloft when tomorrow comes.

  • LAKE Rice: Ambode saw tomorrow

    Visionary leadership is not by words of mouth but by action and actualisation of plans that make life more abundant for the greatest number. This assertion is true of Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode who has in the last 18 months executed many people oriented policies with seamless ease.

    The latest which is novel in the country and which took many by surprise is the agricultural collaboration between Lagos and Kebbi states for the production of rice. The end result of the agreement is the recent launch of the Lagos-Kebbi rice called LAKE Rice.

    It all started in March when the Lagos State Government entered into an agreement with the Kebbi State Government and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on massive production of locally grown long grain rice. It looked like an ordinary MoU which we are all used to, the ones that would be signed and thereafter ended up in the dustbin of the two parties.

    The MoU involved the government of Lagos State investing about N10 billion in rice production and the rice would be ready and available in Lagos around December. Lagos government built a rice production plant in Kebbi which can produce 20 metric tonnes of rice per hour. The rice is called Lagos-Kebbi rice otherwise called LAKE Rice. The rice is out in record time and it is available for sale all over Lagos as planned, at a subsidised price of  N12,000 per 50kg bag and N6,000 per 25kg bag while the imported rice ranges between N17,000 per bag to N22,000 per bag.

    The success of the LAKE rice is very instructive. It shows that Ambode is a thinking governor who has a vision and worked towards realising same. Ambode knew that with the skyrocketing price of foreign rice called (aroso) in local parlance, it will not be affordable to the common man so he decided to embark on the local production and processing of rice which would be affordable which yielded result. Apart from the revenue which would accrue to the Lagos state government, it will encourage local farmers to go into rice production while thousands of direct and indirect jobs will be created in both Lagos and Kebbi states. The rice will not only be available, it will also be affordable. As it was done last week when the rice was launched, it was distributed across the 57 LCDAs in Lagos State.

    It is an irony that Lagos chose to partner with Kebbi State instead of partnering with one of the South-west states in the spirit of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN). This perhaps could be explained in terms of the track record of Kebbi State as a rice growing state just like Ebonyi with the famous Abakaliki rice, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kano, Katsina, Niger, Kogi and Ogun known for Ofada rice, are all rice growing states. It is pertinent to note that Igbemo rice used to be more popular in those days before it was overtaken by Ofada rice produced in Ogun state.

    It still baffles many observers that the once rice growing states of the South-west, especially Ekiti state with the famous Igbemo rice, have taken the back seat in rice production. Ekiti State case is very pathetic in the sense that this is the time the rice farmers would have made a kill in sale of their brand of rice which is in high demand all over the South-west.

    Igbemo rice is so delicious such that many people across the Southwest especially in Lagos booked in advance to buy and this may take up to one week. Simple economic sense then dictates that the high demand for the rice ought to have gingered the state government to seize the opportunity to tap into the mass production of rice by encouraging local rice farmers to grow more.

    This may have possibly encouraged Lagos State to partner with such South-west state government even if it would still have partnered with Kebbi State. An investment of N5 billion in rice production in a state like Ekiti means a lot and this would have revolutionised the agricultural sector in the state. Alas, this was not to be in a state where the major programme of the present administration in the state is stomach infrastructure. What a missed opportunity!

    The Ambode example is a wake-up call for the governors of the South-west under the aegis of the DAWN. They should collaborate with Lagos State in the production of rice in the region. If it is only rice they produce, they cannot meet up with the rice demand of the South-west states alone not to talk of the whole country or export. Rice farmers are the richest in the USA and I believe the same thing could be replicated here with the right policy from the government. Lagos has little or no land to grow rice in commercial quantity but it has resources to make this happen in other states as we have just seen in the case of Kebbi State.

    Figures available from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics showed that 2.1 million metric tons of rice is imported into the country yearly. This amount to 42 million 50 kg bags of rice worth N360 billion while five million metric tons of rice, amounting to about 100 million 50kg bags of rice, is consumed yearly in the country. This is a lot of revenue to local rice farmers if the right environment and tools are available to them.

    Local rice production on a large scale will take many rice farmers out of poverty and make many millionaires in the value chain of clearing, planting, harvesting and processing. This will only happen if the problems militating against the commercial production of rice such as low technology base (mechanisation), high interest rates, poorly funded research institutes and corruption ridden fertiliser distribution and low public sector investment in agriculture are effectively tackled.

    Ambode’s initiative on the LAKE rice is commendable and should be emulated by other governors not only the South-west but in the country. Little wonder that President Muhammadu Buhari showered encomiums on Ambode and his Kebbi State counterpart during the launch of the LAKE rice in Lagos. The President noted, “What the two states have done is evidence of a new base being laid for the Nigerian economy, founded and propelled by agriculture, away from substantial dependence on oil and gas for national revenue”.

    The production of the LAKE rice should be sustained while other South-west governors should take a cue from this by encouraging local farmers to grow rice in commercial quantity. The Lagos State government should not allow the LAKE rice to be hijacked by shrewd merchants who are only after huge profits to the detriment of the common people whom it is meant for. If that happens, prices will skyrocket beyond the reach of the common man and the purpose would have been defeated.

    Congratulations to Lagosians who are enjoying the real dividends of democracy since Ambode assumed office over a year ago.

    • Akintunde, a public affairs analyst wrote from Surulere, Lagos.

  • How Yoruba governors mortgaged our tomorrow

    First, an ode to politicians. Being a politician itself is a major nightmare. Because politics accommodates the cheat, the egoist and the unscrupulous, even those driven by noble objective are often tarred with the same brush. But politics is not all about intrigue. It is also about service and without the versatility and brinkmanship of those driven by noble objective to meet rising expectations of those without hope, society will descend to in to chaos. Those who chose to spend their time, talent and resources to serve society therefore deserve our gratitude. It must also be added that politics is even a more hazardous profession especially in our own multi-ethnic society where as Governor Ajimobi put it during the governors’ parley initiated by the Development Agenda For Western Nigeria, (DAWN), ‘We were coerced by the British overlords in the evergreen magical marriage of inconvenience called amalgamation of 1914 with nationalities and their different worldviews, different ideologies, different cultures, different political beliefs, soldered into one component by the British colonial masters’.

    This heterogeneity fortunately was acknowledged by the majority of our founding fathers except Zik who said our ‘cultural differences had been exaggerated by accident of colonial rule’.  That was why they settled for federalism with each group mapping out a socio-economic blueprint informed by the innate ingenuity of their forebears. To build on the ‘cultural welfarism’ which defines the world-view of the Yoruba, the starting point for Awo and his group was the result of a commissioned survey of Eastern Region which showed that the East had between 1934 when Zik returned to Nigeria and 1951, caught up and outstripped the Yoruba that was once ahead in area of education, with more secondary schools, more hospital bed spaces per thousand and more mileage of tarred roads. This informed the AG manifesto ‘of free education, free health and full employment’.

    Sadly, 64 years and 17 years into the fourth republic, after a group of Yoruba youths first exploited our uniqueness to build a secured future for their people, Ajimobi and his current governors of the Yoruba states are just coming to the realization that “the key to leveraging our uniqueness is the regional approach to dealing with our afflictions, overcoming our difficulties, as well as creating sustainable pathway to progress together”. Unfortunately this belated acknowledgement is coming after so much harm has been done that not a few including Dr. Olapade Agoro, the chairman, National Action Council (NAC), who says ‘the parley portrayed ambient culture of self-deceit, and insincerity   for deviating from western region self- sufficiency’, have much faith in the governors’ new initiative.

    The reason for cynicism is obvious. Our governors with exception of few since the fourth republic have behaved like locusts eating and sharing the proceeds of efforts of a more visionary generation.  Many believe the poor quality of leadership they give is but a reflection of lack of preparation for leadership. Unlike those Obasanjo (he once boasted of achieving what his better educated Yoruba compatriots could not achieve) picked from the streets and made governors, Awolowo paid his dues before becoming the Premier of the West. He was surrounded by men with quality education and of solid character such as Adekunle Ajasin, Ladoke Akintola, Remi Fani-Kayode, Bode Thomas, Rotimi Williams, Olaniwun Ajayi, Ayo Adebanjo, Abraham Adesanya, Oduola Osuntokun, etc. They were assisted by a think-tank consisted equally of men of solid character and of excellent academic achievements such Professors Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, Samuel Aluko, Banji Akintoye, Oluwole Awokoya etc.

    These young visionaries  set up the Western Regional Marketing Board in 1954 which  developed the cash crop industry in the west and together with other regional boards “became the dominant economic system in the Nigerian economy controlling 63% of the foreign exchange earned by the country in 1961”.

    They established the National Bank. They later bought Nabani Estates, a fully owned subsidiary of the bank and turned it to WEMABOD which became the biggest property builders and estate managers in the country. They went on to set up the National Investment and Properties Company Limited (NIPC). They also set up the Odu’a Investment Company Limited, which became Nigeria’s biggest conglomerate in the post-independent years with Ikeja Hotels Ltd, Vegetable Oil Nig. Ltd. and the Great Nigeria Insurance Company as some of its subsidiaries.  They did not only establish industries, they empowered entrepreneurs irrespective of political leanings.

    Tragically between 1985 when Babangida started his liberalization programme and 1987 when Obasanjo completed the sharing of Nigeria’s $100b worth of investment at a giveaway price of about $1.6b, many of the investments built through the blood and sweat of Western Region cocoa farmers and taxpayers were sold. Between 1999 and 2007, under Obasanjo’s new privatization policy similar to his “Commodity Boards Decree 1977” which destroyed the Western Region’s economy, Yoruba governors presided over the sale of some of the companies.  Equally taking the advantage of the Obasanjo’s government monetisation policy with which the political class confiscated our national patrimony at the federal level, some of the Yoruba governors descended on choice properties built by their predecessors. In the dying days of Adebayo Alao-Akala as governor of Oyo State, the Alaafin of Oyo reminded him that such malady was unacceptable within the Yoruba culture.

    In total disregard for the entrenched Yoruba culture of check and balance which had existed long before the advent of participatory democratic system, there emerged a new generation of Yoruba  governors who behave like sole administrators or sometimes as outlaws, locking up Houses of Assembly and chasing lawmakers out of town, governors who publicly fought over who was to buy government banks they did not establish, entangled in the Ikoyi choice government property sale scandals or hunted by EFCC for acquiring choice properties with stolen funds. Yet this is a region where neither Oduola Osuntokun (later died a school teacher) who  as a minister, supervised the building of the Bodija Estate , nor Awo, Akintola or Rotimi Williams have mansions  within the estate or within the Ikeja GRA also built by their government .

    Bola Tinubu, in spite of his personal political travails remains our political leader. As our revered Pa Adeyinka Adebayo reminded him not too long ago, “fate has put him in a prime position to determine to a large extent the direction the Yoruba people will go”. He must now deploy his political genius to mobilise those who have quietly and selflessly served the cause of the Yoruba race such as Wale Oshun, General Alani Akinrinade without leaving out ex-President Obasanjo (the “ebora of Owu) since in Yoruba cosmology, we can achieve nothing without first pouring libation to Esu the god of confusion. Tinubu was able to manage Obasanjo before the last election; he can do this again for the peace and progress of our people.

    And the time for action is now. The Yoruba, of the three dominant groups in the country, as Pa Adebayo reminded Tinubu, remains the weakest link. While our governors groom area boys and political thugs, the West’s economy has been taken over by the north and the east through Dangote and the Igbos; while our governors build airports, governor’s mansions and flyovers, industries are springing up in the East. While we once harnessed the energy of our youths through farm settlements and became self -sufficient in food production, we today depend on the north to feed ourselves. It is time to implement the DAWN agenda painstakingly put together by Yoruba professionals and intellectuals.

  • Deconstructing tomorrow’s leaders

    I met recently with some young men and women to brainstorm about some of Nigeria’s intractable problems. On the table was leadership in its entirety, corruption, federalism, farmers/herdsmen conflict, kidnapping, terrorism, militancy, unemployment, state police etc. If given the opportunity, how would they do things differently and proffer solutions to these and other knotty problems? But as it often turns out in discussions of this nature, we ended up discussing only about leadership, barely touching other issues.

    The session was indeed an eye opener for me even though I had always known that a large number of our so called leaders of tomorrow know so little about their country and the complexity of ruling a multicultural and multiethnic entity like Nigeria. The argument some of them put forward are sometimes pedestal and calls for serious concern. However, there are some bright ones whose grasp of issues are highly commendable; these give me hope that all may not be lost after all.

    We made headway by first looking at leadership. I set the ball rolling by going back in time to pre-colonial times. During this period, the success of a leader – be it family, clan, or kingdom head – lay in his capacity to listen well and to put the community’s interest first. Future heads/chiefs were taught and groomed to examine social issues and their effects on the community. Each clan leader enjoyed a certain amount of autonomy. They learned from experience how to represent and defend community interests without provoking the anger of the people they govern.

    Fast forward to post-colonial Nigeria; whenever the word “leadership” is mentioned people conjure a mental image of those few individuals who steer the nation at the helms of power as politicians, bureaucrats, religious leaders and business moguls. This is vertical construction of leadership which is a top-down affair where the fulcrum of power is concentrated at the top of the social, economic, and political hierarchy.

    One of the defects of this model is the stifling of grassroots initiatives necessary for social cohesion. Another is that it does not consider how individuals, in collectivist contexts, can exercise leadership that will address problems, create solutions, and benefit the common whole.

    Horizontal leadership, on the other hand, lays emphasis on individuals being empowered to benefit the larger community and ensure basic human rights by responding to the dictates of the situation. It recognises the value of individuals beyond mere instruments for turning profit – as Western leadership models do – and instead empower individuals to implement leadership at the grass-roots levels to make necessary changes by identifying opportunities and putting them to effective use.

    We all agreed that this model best suits our country because it requires that each Nigerian take responsibility for improving society. This type of individually empowered leadership will fuel the full-spectrum of social change that Nigeria needs, from the base of the pyramid to the apex. Indeed, horizontal leadership is the cultural heritage of Nigeria, embedded in Nigeria’s traditional narratives, myths and civil religion. We jettisoned this type of indigenous leadership theory but need to revisit it as a viable vehicle for making institutions accountable to Nigerians and Nigerians accountable to each other.

    This then translate to the fact that we need new “toolkits” of leadership, particularly leadership education. Without access to quality education, the next generation of Nigeria’s leaders would be crippled. Because our educational system has not kept pace with the practical demands of the world, our graduates are not fully equipped with the necessary skills and tools to favourably compete with their peers elsewhere.

    Our educational system produce graduates who can regurgitate information, but not those who can innovate, create, and lead according to dictates and demands of changing times. Going forward, our system must equip students to solve problems through innovation for the betterment of society. To accomplish this redefinition of the goal of education and reorientation towards viable skills, we need to transform our curriculum.

    In developed societies, students are not only engaged in traditional education, they are tasked with solving real-life problems, working in groups to innovate, and provided platforms to implement change. But in Nigeria, if education in its current state cannot help us live better, we need to change our understanding of what education ought to accomplish. When students are untrained in skills that matter, how can we expect Nigeria’s factories, hospitals, and businesses to operate well and employ Nigerians? The byproduct will always be unnecessary conflicts.

    Teaching skills that will enable students to proffer solutions to issues is critical. Engaging them to tackle lack of clean water, fix dilapidated roads, organise mock local government administration, or source for funding to build community centres will ultimately prepare them for leadership roles in future. I have participated in sessions where students are given real live issues – both locally and internationally – to crack and the results were astounding as each student reaches to the recess of his or her mind to seek for answers.

    Leadership therefore plays a crucial role in the development of any society, a look at the leadership structure of a society says a whole lot about that society, which is why John Maxwell said everything rises and falls on leadership. Leadership can either move a people forward or backward, it can cause incalculable damage that in some cases may require decades to correct. As a student of history, I’ve studied the critical path of nations, and in my studies and research, leadership plays a fundamental role.

    Let’s take three Southern African nations as a brief case study to drive this point home. South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia all share a common thread of history; they were at a point ruled by whites with vocal and militant black opposition movements in tow. In South Africa we have the ANC, in Namibia there is the SWAPO and in Zimbabwe there is ZANU-PF. All these liberation movements later transformed into political parties after self-rule was actualized. They still govern to date.

    While South Africa and Namibia were able to rise above the bitterness and oppression of colonial rule and domination to make headway into the 21st century, Zimbabwe remains a basket case of monumental failure; at a time having the highest inflationary rate in the world! South Africa and Namibia had leaders in late Nelson Mandela and Sam Nujoma, who were willing to forgive and move on while Robert Mugabe’s stock in trade is to stoke the spirit of revenge and bitterness in his people and whip them to a state of “patriotic” frenzy in his determination to cling to power perpetually.

    So, there is no doubt in my mind that a perennial challenge faced by any political system remains political leadership. Get ten Nigerians into a room and allow them to start talking and it wouldn’t surprise you that eight would most probably talk about the failure of leadership in the country. While most advanced countries have a somewhat unwritten laid down criteria and blueprint for leadership grooming and selection such cannot be said about ours and most of Africa.

    I love the Chinese model and would readily recommend it. Under the model, the process of grooming of leaders has two dimensions: First is the active participation of young persons in existing governance structures, particularly on matters which directly affect them. This takes place through appropriate representation of youth bodies and young persons in agencies of government and public enterprises. Second is a deliberate grooming through the political and administrative systems, for youth participation in politics and administration now and for the future.

    Leadership selection and grooming is planned and serious nations embark on it to ensure continuity of socio-economic and political progress that serves the common good. China, even though some will say runs a political system that is not “democratic” in western sense, still has lessons to teach Nigeria on leadership. Why is this huge country courted by the west though it runs an “oppressive” socialist system? What is China doing right that we can learn from? With a large rural population, what are some of the lessons in poverty reduction we can imbibe from China?

     

     

  • Community Day tomorrow

    The Aiyegbami-Isiwo Community Development Association (CDA) in Ijebu-Isiwo, Ijebu-Ode Local Government Area of Ogun State, will hold its second Community Day and Fundraising tomorrow.

     In a statement, the chairman, Bisi  Olawunmi, said the day is to bring together community members and their friends in a social environment to foster bonding and mobilise funding for community projects.

    Olawunmi, a senior lecturer at Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, said one of the challenges of self help community development efforts in rural areas is the fact that many indigenes are absentee landlords and landladies.

    His words: “They come home mostly during major religious festivals and social parties.

     “It has become imperative to devise various strategies of mobilising community members to appreciate the need to make sacrifices for the provision of some facilities in their native localities rather than leave everything to government.

    The don listed some of the CDA’s priority projects  to include road rehabilitation to mitigate erosion and power and water supply .

    He indicated that part of the year’s project is accessing government’s counterpart for community projects.

    “The mobilisation is to ensure that we are able to show progress on our priority projects as a bargaining chip with the government.”

    The Lamodi of Ijebu-Isiwo, Oba Adedoyin Salisu, is the royal father of the day.

  • Because of tomorrow

    In those days—those days of innocence —life began and ended with going to school in Agege and going on holidays in Epe and basking in the grand-motherly alms of Iya Alate. No worries at all. Worrying was beyond the purview of my office as a child. Eating fresh fish, savouring Ikokore, eja yoyo (yoyo fish) and all those Ijebu niceties must have created in me the impression that life was meant only for good things.

    It meant little that people were dying because my brain was not developed enough to grasp its essence. Other evils of the time were just too much for my childish brain to decipher.

    But the innocence disappeared with time. From secondary school days, it started being clear to me that life did not begin and end with schooling and holidaying.

    Journalism — which makes minding other people’s business my business — finally cleared my brain of any fog. It opened me to the reality of the world we live in: this wicked world where rat race has robbed many of their humanity.

    How does one begin to explain a situation where men with blood in their veins will storm a home in Rivers State and kill the father, the mother and a son? They were not done: they cut off the father’s head and went away with it. In another instance, they clubbed a fellow human being to a state of coma and set him ablaze. There have been instances where they had no time for such time wasting and they simply just pumped hot lead into their victims, thus ending dreams and shattering hopes.

    When I see man’s cruelty to man such as these, I long for those days when life began and ended with schooling and being cuddled by Iya Alate.

    The other day in dear Rivers State, some 25 people were killed one after the other. Some of them were lucky to have their heads still intact; some were not that lucky. The heartless men who killed them severed their heads and went away with them. To renew their money-making rituals? To show evidence of job well done to their patrons? Questions upon questions have dominated my mind since then and I long for those days when life began and ended with schooling and holidaying in my dear Epe Alaro.

    Were these blood-thirsty men not cowards, I would have sought them out and interviewed them. I would have asked them if they have children. I would have asked them if they have blood flowing in their veins. I would have asked them if they were born of women. I would have asked them if they have conscience— that open wound which can only be healed by the truth. I would not have forgotten to ask them if they are paid for the nasty services they are rendering.

    I certainly would not have forgotten to seek some vital clarifications: Were their victims rival cultists who fell to superior power? Or were the victims taken out because of their political leanings in order to scare others from following their path? I would have confirmed from them if it is true that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is appropriating all dead bodies in Rivers State just for cheap political mileage.

    But here I am with no one to answer my questions and I long for those days when life began and ended with schooling in Agege and holidaying in Epe in the grand-motherly alms of Iya Alate.

    I have further worries and questions, which will help reduce my longing for those days of innocence when I cared less. I will share those worries and ask those questions hoping that in this social media age someone will hide under anonymity and provide me all I need.

    Is life really worth all these killings? We are killing ourselves because of tomorrow forgetting that tomorrow is not ours. Tomorrow belongs to God. It is today that is somehow ours.

    Death can take us away before tomorrow, which we are trying to secure by beheading fellow human beings. We can be taken away through auto crashes. We can be taken away by cardiac arrest. We can be taken away through heart failure. We can be taken away by simply missing a step and not living to tell the story. Why then are we cruel to ourselves because of tomorrow when all we are supposed to do is to treat today well so that our tomorrow can be better?

    The killings in Rivers have made me wonder what happens in the hereafter. Where do killers go when they die? If I judge by my understanding of the Bible, the answer is simple: hell. What happens to them there? Are they flogged regularly? Do they meet one-on-one with their victims? Questions and questions and questions and I long for those days when life began and ended with schooling in Agege and holidaying in Epe in the grand-motherly alms of Iya Alate.

    The recent killings in Omoku have brought back the memory of the Adubes. On April 3, last year, men without brains stormed their home in Omoku and killed Christopher Adube and three of his children. They also killed the family driver and a family friend who was in the home when they came, dressed like soldiers, that evening. The bullets they pumped into 15-year-old Paul Adube’s leg have ensured he is wheel-chair bound. The hot lead they released unto Ogechi Adube’s legs have also seen rods inserted into her bones and because of this, she cannot fold her legs. You can imagine the pains of walking around with legs that feel like wood or stone.

    Of the 12 children Adube had with his two wives, three were killed with him; two were left practically crippled and the others now live with shattered dreams. They are not sure of where the next meal will come from. Their father’s sin, I am made to understand, was his affiliation with the APC. His children’s sin was being born by him. The evil men applied the Law of Moses forgetting that the coming of our lord Jesus Christ marked the end of that law, which encouraged taking out the father’s sin on the son or daughter.

    The report of the Rivers Commission of Inquiry headed by the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, said a monthly average of 19 killings occurred in the state between November 2014 and April 2015.

    The Commission noted that of the 97 allegations of killings it received, 94 of them occurred between November 15, 2014, and April 11, last year.

    This report, Odinkalu said, reaffirms that no state or country should allow a repeat of such violence in the name of politics. It also shows how and why Rivers State and Nigeria must end impunity for political violence.

    He added: “The evidence suggests a significant incidence of internal displacement resulted from political violence in many parts of Rivers State.

    “The Commission of Inquiry also received evidence which strongly suggested that sexual violence was part of the arsenal of political violence in some areas.

    ”We met some of their survivors. There were children orphaned. The youngest we met was 9 months old when his father was killed in his presence. He was still breastfeeding.

    “We met young widows of political violence, as well as grand-mothers who had to bury their grand-sons killed in violence. Their stories deserve to be told and heard. They deserve justice as well as political leaders and security agencies that will protect their best interests.”

    The justice Odinkalu spoke about has not been served, just as political leaders and security agencies are still scampering for answers on how to protect the people. Those who suffer for this failure are the people. And going by recent media reports, over 30 people have been killed this year alone.

    For the APC, the recent killings are because of tomorrow’s re-run polls ordered by the Court of Appeal into the House of Assembly and National Assembly. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the APC is at its propaganda best again. And I long to get one of the killers to clear the air on why they are killing and beheading people. And in the absence of an answer, I long for those days when life began and ended with schooling in Agege and holidaying in Epe in the grand-motherly alms of Iya Alate; those days of innocence when my brain lacked the capacity to understand this evil of gargantuan proportion.

    My final take: Tomorrow is not worth killing and beheading people for. Tomorrow does not belong to us. Let’s not appropriate to ourselves what belongs to He who when he says yes nobody can say no. Only when we understand this simple fact will we appreciate that we may not live to see the tomorrow that we are killing to secure.

  • When tomorrow comes

    In other societies where lives matter, Abba Moro, former Minister of Interior, would have been fired immediately after the 2014 Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment tragedy in which 19 people died. As the minister under whose watch the tragedy occurred, Moro should have carried the can, but he passed the buck. He sought to use former NIS Comptroller-General (CG) David Parradang as scape goat.

    There was nothing Moro did not do to ensure that Parradang became the fall guy. He accused Parradang of abandoning his job for a party in Jos, the Plateau State capital, on that fateful March 15, 2014 when the recruitment took place nationwide. Where was Moro himself that day? What was he doing where he was – monitoring the exercise? I doubt if he was anywhere near any of the centres for the exercise. Is it not expected that for such a huge exercise, the minister and the head of the agency should be in constant touch?

    Was there such interaction between them to ensure that things went smoothly? There was not and this was why the tragedy happened. Both of them are guilty of failing in the discharge of their duties to the nation. But Moro should take the larger share of the blame as the supervisory minister of NIS. It does not speak well of his office that he would descend so low as to start blaming his CG for the tragedy when he too failed in the discharge of his statutory obligation. Moro, it seemed, was more interested in the multi-million naira contract for the recruitment than in ensuring that preparations for the exercise were hitchfree.

    When the Board of Immigration Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence, Prisons and Fire Service appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts on March 19, 2014 over the matter,  it blamed Moro for the tragedy. A Commissioner on the board, S.D Tapgun, said  only Moro and the consultant he engaged for the exercise could tell Nigerians exactly what happened. He said Moro ignored their letter not to hire the consultant, adding that the CG was not “part of the recruitment at all”.

    The consultant collected N1000 each from the over 520,000 applicants, who also bought tee shirts for N500 at their centres. The problem with our public officers has always been that of money. When money is involved in any deal, they will show more than a passing interest in it. Once they get the money, they will turn their backs on the project. Could it be that Moro became disinterested in the NIS recruitment after his consultants reported back to him on the money collected? In all good conscience why will he expect Parradang to monitor the exercise when the former CG was not aware of the preparations for it? Where is the money collected from the applicants – in the treasury or private pockets?

    Another leader would not have wasted time in dealing with the matter.  But former President Goodluck Jonathan pussyfooted. In his characteristic manner, he did nothing, waiting for the storm to blow over. That is the kind of leader we had; a see nothing and do nothing leader. Even when his country is burning, he will pretend as if all is well. Little wonder that Moro got away with the death of those poor guys. If we had a decisive leader then,  Moro would not have stayed a minute longer in office after the tragedy. But what did we have? He served out his tenure until Jonathan lost the April 28, 2015 election to President Muhammadu Buhari. Moreover, those who should have pushed for Moro’s sack in the National Assembly were criminally silent over the matter. Moro was a protege of former Senate President David Mark, who pushed through his clearance at the Senate. With people in high places to watch his back, Moro was not brought to justice for the death of these young, promising Nigerians who only applied for jobs with NIS. Did they commit any offence by so doing to warrant their death in such a callous manner?

    All calls for Moro’s sack were ignored by Jonathan. Instead, he left leprosy to treat ringworm. Since he knew his compatriots to be gullible, he promised members of the bereaved families jobs and N5 million compensation. To him, that was the end of the matter. The lost lives did not matter to him. The money and the jobs will settle everything, so he thought. He forgot that everything is not money. His action emboldened Moro, who rejected calls for his resignation and also had the temerity to blame the victims for the stampede that led to their death. ‘’They failed to obey instructions’’, he said, alleging that some unauthorised persons came to the centres to cause problems. Adding insult upon injury, he declared: ‘’I will set up a probe panel’’.

    See who wanted to probe who!  The person that should be tried, saying he would probe those, who out of desperation for work, subjected themselves to harsh conditions in order to be employed. Is that an offence? The offender suddenly became the complainant in order to save his own neck. His ploy worked with Jonathan, who instead of punishing him allowed him to be. All we heard was that the former president told him in private that ‘’I am highly disappointed with your performance. I cannot tolerate this’’. And the matter ended there.

    In 19 days, it will be two years since they died. It is painful that the Jonathan administration carried on as if nothing tragic happened on March 15, 2014.  If Jonathan had returned to power, by now, everything about the case may have been forgotten. What is more, Moro too may have returned with him, if no longer as interior minister, but still as a member of the cabinet. His retention would have been Jonathan’s way of paying him back for a job well done as if the death of those job seekers is a good thing!

    But the day of reckoning is here for Moro. He will soon get his just deserts long after he thought he had gone scot-free.  Thank God, we now have a Pharaoh who knows no Joseph in power. This is why Moro is being called upon to account for what happened in 2014. Though it is rather late in the day, but I do not think it is too late to do justice to the memories of the dead. Their families have suffered for long in silence. What is happening now is heartwarming and reassuring to Nigerians that though the wheels of justice grind slowly, they grind finely. Let Moro take his stand in the dock and tell Nigerians all he knows about the Immigration recruitment tragedy. This is also a lesson to all of us that no matter the office we occupy today there is always a tomorrow when we will give account of our stewardship.

    There is nothing we do today that we will not account for tomorrow. Moro’s tomorrow has come and it is left for him to give a good account of himself or face the consequences of his actions.