The Nation Newspaper

Tag: truth

  • The truth about political posts

    It is only in Nigeria that a politician can campaign for a position with the word ‘serve’ to mean ‘occupy’ the position or to serve the people up to the god of his palates

    Indeed, true is the aphorism that change is the only permanent thing in this life. I remember clearly that as recently as the 1970s, if you had a government job, you could not be considered to have been gainfully employed. You were there ‘just for the time being… until you could find your feet’. A job with any government agency was not expected to enrich anyone who had just graduated from school. So, job seekers preferred to direct their feet towards manufacturing companies all around the country. That was where the real work was then, and the realer money. Government jobs only taught people to push papers; for that, you did not need to be paid much. Did I mention that unemployment was also low?

    Then something changed. From the eighties through to the nineties, I guess the government began to get so big it thought it could turn all powers to itself and still have a country. So, it broke the back of manufacturing companies, turned the job-seeking boys’ feet in the direction of the government agencies and parastatals, thinking to … I don’t know. What was it thinking?

    Alas! Many years down that lane of thoughtlessness, what do we have? We now have a people conditioned to believe that unless you are employed by the government, you do not have a job yet. This is why a fresh graduate employed in a privately funded school to nurture young minds does not consider himself employed until he can struggle to be absorbed in some local government where he goes to push papers and be paid much. How times change. I remember Lyte’s song of 1847 — change and decay in all around I see. Now, how many nurses are working in private hospitals? Few: most prefer to be paid by the government for sitting down and doing … well, not much. How many certified teachers are not in local, state or national schools? Again, few.

    Yes indeed o. Every Nigerian knows that government is the biggest employer now, and also the least fussy about making sure its job is done well. As a matter of fact, many government workers do not have to report daily at work to be paid. Just look at your MGAs – they scream job abuse to the heavens.

    Talking of job abusers, no group is guiltier than politicians. We have been told that the Nigerian assembly parades the highest paid group of politicians in the world. The Nigerian populace has screamed enough blue murder over that fact till we are all hoarse. Yet the group concerned has not flinched from continuing to collect their illicit gains. But, it is even more illicit when we remember that many of the members are not regular at work and even less regular in the country. We now know where they go: they go to Dubai to read newspapers.

    Government politics, like government jobs, obviously pays the highest and no one asks you for results, except godfathers who only ask for returns. This is why it is possible for people to be desperate about government positions. Sadly, the many stories of politicians killing off their political rivals stem from no other cause but the excessively lucrative nature of those positions. Yet, we all look on.

    In a small town somewhere in a foreign country, someone won an election into the mayoral seat. As he walked to his car on the road the next day, someone called out a congratulatory greeting to him, and hoped that he would have a good term. He graciously accepted the greeting but took pains to point out that the mayoral seat of the town is not won so much as taken in turns to serve their little town.

    Sadly again, that word ‘serve’ has been given various connotations in Nigerian politics. It is only in Nigeria that a politician can campaign for a position with the word ‘serve’ to mean ‘occupy’ the position or to serve the people up to the god of his palates. Perhaps indeed, the said politicians mean to go and serve the public. Who is to say what someone’s real intention is? Perhaps, somewhere along the line, this plentiful government money becomes a distraction. Who is to say?

    I have often asked myself this question: why are so many people struggling to get into politics, and be elected into some position or the other? I have some answers but I seek a better one of you, dear reader, if you are minded to give it. Basically, it appears to be on account of the ‘free money’ being doled out by the government as so-called allowances and emoluments.  Now, everybody wants their share.

    But how did it come to this? I think one of the reasons appears to be the rather lazy disposition of the Nigerian mentality: as a people, they just love the line of least resistance – to wealth-making, educational pursuit or keeping the law. Nigerians have been known to offer up as sacrifices their mothers, fathers, spouses, children or relatives (in short, their nearests and dearests) as sacrifices at the altar of wealth creation. The relatives are not only cheaper, they do not need to be searched for from far east, far west and far indies. They are ready made by the creator, sometimes just for that purpose, if you get what I mean. Worse, on account of this national malaise of slothfulness, it appears even the country’s earlier vaunted quality education is in great peril. And the law? The less said about the people’s attitude, the better. Let’s just say it’s easier for Nigerians to break the law than to keep it.

    Anyway, quite another reason for how all these came to be is that the government has effectively killed private enterprise and made itself the only worthwhile venture for any serious mind in the land. Many factories are closed down; many are working at half or less capacity; many more are groaning under the weight of the costs of doing business in a hostile environment such as this. The only ones not groaning in the land are the government-employed, and it’s theirs not to reason why. But then, some of them have begun to moan under salary failure. So, when you get a situation where a government pays higher emoluments than the private sector of a country, that country is effectively dead. Sooner than later, it is bound to come crashing down under the weight of its own excessive kindness: it finds itself too expensive to run.

    Right now, the people have stopped struggling for themselves, only waiting to get into political posts. Like someone said just today, a political jobber who sets out with nothing begins to construct gargantuan edifices within three months of assuming duty. Only in Nigeria. Why should that be? Naturally, people are ready to maim, gorge or kill anyone who gets in the way of their edifices. Can you blame them? I blame the conditions that breed their actions.

    It is important to act now; we can begin by having a charter. The government must, as a matter of urgency, re-empower the private sector again. In a capitalist economy, the government can only act in a regulatory capacity, a sort of controller, not the one doling out, except in defence, internal affairs and education.

    It is also important to find a way to truly discourage people from going into politics to rip the nation off. For a start, we can begin to insist that anyone seeking political office must be gainfully employed and must show it. Let us chew the fat on these ones for a while.

  • Some truth you might love to hate

    Some say Muhammadu Buhari is a sentiment; who isn’t? Perhaps Goodluck Jonathan, they would say. Let’s not be trivial and given to hogwash, President Goodluck Jonathan is an unjustifiable sentiment gone wrong.

    Shall we write-off Buhari, just because…stuck in the intricate webs of our internalised and yet collectivised perversions, we are desperate to make a Hobson’s choice? Shall we continue to compromise and seek the consolation of wonderfully wrought intellectualisations just because it is socio-politically correct to do so?

    If not Buhari, who? Goodluck Jonathan? Show me the candidate without a splodge to his name. Of all the charlatans we launder, show us the self-acclaimed Messiah without some murder, pillage or unsubstantiated and yet uncontested allegation of fraud or corruption to his name, save Buhari.

    And so may I in response to those who consider President Jonathan as Nigeria’s only hope, aver in Rand-speak that there can be no compromise between a property owner and an intruder; offering the intruder a single teaspoon of one’s silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender – the recognition of his right to one’s property.

    Simply put, there can be no compromise, however exquisitely couched, between us and the looters we tolerate; offering them a jolly ride to our corridors of power in the spirit of socio-political expediency would not be a compromise but a total and cowardly surrender – the recognition of their right of ownership and monopoly over what is essentially ours.

    Whether we like it or not, there can be no concession or wanton sophistry acceptable on basic principles and fundamental issues. There can be no compromise between truth and falsehood, reason and irrationality. Imagine a compromise between food and poison, isn’t it death that would win?

    Nothing corrupts, nothing disintegrates a culture or a man’s character as the principle of moral agnosticism; that is, the idea that one must be morally tolerant of anything and everything and that ingenuity consists in never distinguishing good from evil and taking sides. It is obvious who profits and loses by such a precept, isn’t it?

    Even as so many of us indulge in the propagation of political claptrap in the interests of Goodluck Jonathan, it wouldn’t hurt to heed the subtle warnings of our individualised and wholly subjective realities. It couldn’t hurt to heed the caveat of objective reality.

    Given that we put ourselves on trial every time we think a thought and speak it, it is only fair that we seek to institute, however difficult it seems, a measure of checkmating every propaganda and irrationality we so desperately project. It is only in our peculiar culture of amoral cynicism, subjectivism and hooliganism that we arrogate to ourselves the freedom to utter any sort of irrational judgement and expect to suffer no consequences like pitiful presidential court jesters, Femi Fani-Kayode, Doyin Okupe and company persistently do to our chagrin.

    In as much as we seek to impeach every other candidate but our preferred candidate on the basis of their antecedents in governance and outside it; in as much as we have chosen to play the biased judge and jury with such impunity that teaches the just to recant, so should we expect to be judged and impeached by every judgement we pronounce.

    You see, the things we condemn or extol actually exists in the objective reality that is open to the independent appraisal of others. The values we project become the essence of our socio-politics and being. Every utterance we make, as our mildest insinuations, presents the clarity or absurdity of our individual perceptions as well as the rationality and otherwise of every politic we choose to celebrate or repudiate.

    If we did not indulge in such abject perversions and pitiable evasions as the argument that some contemptible liar “means well” – that a mooching bum “can’t help it” – that an unrepentant murderer “needs understanding” or that a desperate, power-thirsty politician is driven by concern “for the public good,” the history of our past few decades would have been different. And even today would offer ceaseless practicalities to compose the best odes by.

    In the light of ceaseless hardships and evils foisted upon us by President Goodluck Jonathan and company,every man who struggles not to acknowledge that his administration is pernicious to Nigeria’s wellbeing will find it very much dangerous to identify goodness in whatever form. To such character, a person of virtue presents a threat capable of exposing and toppling all his perversions and evasions.

    Can we now identify and root for the candidate capable of resolving the conflicting characteristics of our tribal mentality? Can we identify the candidate who can validate and attain a worthy equilibrium between, say, the expediency of wiping off our slums vis-à-vis the desirability and affordability of beautifully planned cities and suburbs?

    Can we identify the candidate who can evaluate and project our given concretes by an abstract principle while exacting the most probable if not practicable outcomes in the throes of ruthlessly objective and rational processes of thought vis-à-vis his enfant terrible gut-feelings or hunches?

    Do we know the candidate capable of instituting such blueprint that would guarantee the provision and sustenance of good roads and electricity, standard and affordable health care, security, stable economy and quality education among others?

    I guess we know the candidate undeserving of our mandate right now; that candidate is Goodluck Jonathan. Let Fani-Kayode and his fellow harpies know that the cult of sophistry they project would never succeed by their sneaky and open rebellion against reason. Let them know that their negation of reason would never amount to some sort of superior reasoning nor would their most brutal rebellion stifle morality or metamorphose into a superior kind of virtue.

    The cult of sophistry they perpetuate approximates nothing but the ugliness of muted confessions and a plea for blanket forgiveness for Goodluck Jonathan – despite Boko Haram, the missing Chibok girls, declining economies, devalued naira, dying industries, unemployment, and thousands of innocent deaths by Boko Haram’s bomb blasts to mention a few.

    The depth or shallowness of each candidate and his political form is further accentuated in the following joke currently trending in Nigeria’s social media:

    1. APC: We will ensure power stability.

    1. PDP: Where is Mrs Buhari?

    2. APC: We are going to fight corruption

    2. PDP: APC tried to hack INEC computers

    3. APC: We are going to fight terrorism

    3. PDP: Some APC elder statesmen are garage touts

    4. APC: We will invest in agriculture

    4. PDP: S/South will collapse the economy if Jonathan loses

    5. APC: We are going to upgrade standard of education

    5. PDP: I will expose failures of our ex heads of state

    6. APC: We will curb degradation of environmental pollution

    6. PDP: Buhari doesn’t know his phone number.

    7. APC: Nigeria’s wealth must be enjoyed by all of us

    7. PDP: Buhari put Umaru Dikko inside a crate

    8. APC: We will encourage rural development

    8. PDP: Buhari cannot use a computer.

    Camp Jonathan no doubt epitomises philosophical default, the intellectual bankruptcy that teaches promising hearts to exist in a vacuum of sort, like a paradise of weaklings and the perverted in thought. Pity this truth will be ignored by some, come February 14.

  • Mutiny: 12 Soldiers only spoke truth to power

    Mutiny: 12 Soldiers only spoke truth to power

    SIR: This is certainly not the best of times for the Nigerian military. It has continued to remain in the news for the very wrong and bizarre reasons. It is either the “late”? Abubakar ‘lunatic’ Shekau-led Boko Haram group is forcing its officers to consider a ‘tactical manouvre’ into Cameroun borders or officers within the force are engaging each other in needless internal bickering. As things presently are, our entire military set up appears to have lost the verve and patriotic bent to meaningfully prosecute the insurgency.

    The military is presently enmeshed in another round of fresh controversy. Just last week, the media reported the shocking verdict of a court martial that tried 18 military officers for allegedly attacking Major General Ahmed Mohammed, the General Officer Commanding of the 7th Division, Maiduguri over the mindless killing of their colleagues by insurgents. Delivering the judgment, leader of the court martial, Brigadier General Chukwuemeka Okonkwo, sentenced 12 of the 18 officers to death by firing squad. Expectedly, the verdict elicited loads of reactions, with many queuing behind the ‘condemned’ military officers.

    These men truly don’t deserve to die. Their action only drew global attention to the chronic stench, endemic rot, mega fraud and cesspool of corruption that the Nigerian military has become. Their action exposed a military where its top brass feed fat on its budget, sell arms and ammunitions to insurgents and arms its junior officers with dane guns to confront heavily armed insurgents.

    Frankly speaking, those presiding over the affairs of the entire military make-up in Nigeria are the very problem bedeviling the institution. These same elements are chiefly responsible for why the war on terror isn’t recording spectacular success as expected. The surest way to meaningfully take this war against terror to the bedroom of Abubakar Shekau (we learnt he’s dead?) and his fellow lunatics is to wield the big stick on the military’s top brass. Certainly, some of them should be shown the next available exit route. The nation cannot continue to shoulder the enormous wage bill of trained military officers who cannot live up to the task of stoutly defending the territorial integrity of Nigeria.

    Before either the President or the head of the military signs the death warrant of these soldiers, Nigerians and indeed the world request that the army’s top echelon should first and foremost subject itself to public scrutiny. Those who wish to go to equity must keep their hands clean. The military’s top brass should tell us in unambiguous terms how they have been expending the huge yearly budget approved for the entire military. We expect them to give detailed account of how they have spent or managed the money. It is only after then that they can go ahead to approve the firing of these men accused of committing insurrection.

    I keep saying this. The alleged attack on Major General Ahmed Mohammed wasn’t a premeditated one. The said soldiers were only helpless and frustrated. They felt the system deliberately ordered them to the war front without first and foremost providing them with all they needed to prosecute the war.

    This is one case that most Nigerians won’t want to see it go the way of others. These guys weren’t conscripted into the Nigerian Army. They willingly applied to serve their fatherland, with the hopes that our country will be better for it at the end. Unfortunately, instead of getting medals, cash rewards or national honour for service to fatherland, the same country has concluded plans to end their lives rather prematurely by facing the firing squad should their appeal fails to scale through.

    You cannot beat a child and expect him not to cry. We sent them to the war front with dane guns and expect them to crush Boko Haram in one fell swoop. These 12 military men only spoke truth to power and nothing more.

    • Abdullahi Yunusa

    Imane, Kogi State

  • Truth Jonathan’s fans won’t tell him

    If there was any doubt about the circle of sycophancy that surrounds President Goodluck Jonathan, which may eventually strangulate him like a noose, the reported secret remarks by Diepreye Alamieyeseigha (popularly abbreviated as Alams), a former governor of Bayelsa State, present sufficient evidence that he lives in a gilded cage. The background is this: Alams, in an interview with New Telegraph,spoke about the discord between Jonathan and Rotimi Amaechi, the Rivers State governor, which culminated in Amaechi’s exit from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Alams, ostensibly playing the role of peacemaker, came up with his own solution to the problem, saying that Amaechi who is now a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) should “retrace his steps, beg President Goodluck Jonathan and return to PDP.” Alamieyeseigha’s words: “I think there is no problem between Amaechi and Jonathan. I think Amaechi should be humble enough to go to the President and say ‘I am sorry’, because he has no place to go. A child that is not respectful will also not deserve respect from anyone. I have spoken to both of them.”

    He continued: “Jonathan has no issues. The President of Nigeria is very powerful. I even told Amaechi that the first entity you cannot fight is Almighty God and the second entity is the government (President Jonathan). No matter how you interpret it, nobody can fight the government (Jonathan) successfully…Rivers State will never be surrendered to the All Progressives Congress (APC).”

    It is easy to see that his choice of words reflects nauseating obsequiousness, which he is perfectly entitled to; and this is understandable given that he owes Jonathan, who was his deputy in his gubernatorial years, a huge debt of gratitude for his rehabilitation. Hardball remembers that Alams was convicted of money laundering and corruption and got a two-year jail sentence, but was later pardoned by Jonathan who controversially used his presidential powers to apparently wash him clean. Against this backdrop, Alams may be pardoned for imagining that Jonathan is invincible; but that is exactly what it is – imagined invincibility. Furthermore, it was the height of childishness for Alams to liken Amaechi to a child. Now, listen to Amaechi’s reply through his Chief Press Secretary, David Iyofor: “It is true that Amaechi does not have any personal issue with the President. And yes, when Alamieyeseigha came to the governor to discuss this issue, he said there was not much problem between the president and the governor, but he was not bold enough to say in that interview what he told the governor the problem was.”

    So, what was the problem as Alams saw it? Iyofor’s statement said: “He told Amaechi that he cannot understand why Mr. President cannot rein in, control or manage his wife. For him to say something else is, indeed, most cowardly and timid.”

    It should be considered charitable that Alams was described as “cowardly and timid”. Perhaps it would be useful to do a word search for a less generous description for a man who exhibits such two-faced and double—tongued character. With creatures like Alams around Jonathan, who will speak truth to power?

  • My truth is truer than yours (2)

    Tyranny is brought to ultimate refinement in the news columns; this brings to mind that memorable jest by Norman Mailer that “Once a newspaper touches a story, the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonists.” Journalists are often the butt of the most demeaning jokes and premeditated put-downs in the social arena. Nobody thinks much of a journalist; in the eyes of big business and the ruling class, the journalist whatever his designation or job title, is the manipulable pawn and necessary evil that has to be courted and tolerated.

    The descent and humiliation of the journalist however, begins in the hands of his employer; very few media today are paying fairly. Many are not paying at all and among the few establishments that pay, salaries are very poor.

    Just three media houses endeavour to pay fairly and while three may claim exceptionality in this respect, the reality is known to the government, big business, advertisers and general public that the Nigerian journalist is an endangered species, haunted by his employer and tormented by the public he serves. These sad realities lead to daily exodus of skilled and promising hands from journalism and a daily influx of quacks and brigands into the profession.

    This resonates badly for the Nigerian mob; the nation’s critical mob to be precise. Mob culture requires that he who would adorn the cloak of defender of the masses’ rights should be upright and flawless in character, professional and personal ethics. Such admirable traits are rarely attributable to the Nigerian journalist manager and the press in general.

    The Nigerian mob, like every other rabble, seeks fulfillment of tyrant fantasies; such fantasies often vary between the destruction of an unpopular government, despot or worn-out civilization. Reality however, affirms the impotence of the Nigerian mob. The latter is continually tamed and kept on a leash by a ruling class that capitalizes on its obvious handicaps: its impulsiveness, insensibility to reason and judgment, poverty of soul and intellect, its irritability and overt sentimentality – which are undeniably characteristic of beings belonging to inferior forms of evolution, like savages and carnivores.

    Despites it handicaps, the Nigerian mob conveniently picks on a scapegoat for its infinite timidity and cluelessness: the press. The journalist is expected to serve as the conscience and moral compass of the society, challenging the government and checking the excesses of the ruling class, uncompromisingly and selflessly.

    As utopian fantasies go, these are noble expectations of the journalist but the Nigerian mob ignores the cultural shift of the society from conventional morality to unbridled hedonism. It assumes, hypocritically, that the press will continually give it honest and developmental news even as every segment of the society strive to unmoor the journalist from his role as a crucial appendage of the nation’s critical mob.

    The public, comprising big business, the government, and civil societies among other mob segments, vilify any journalist or news medium that seeks to educate and engage rather than entertain and perpetuate their biased definitions of reality.

    Contemporary Nigeria embraces the emotional pageant that has turned news into paid publicity and mindless entertainment and the journalist in response kowtows to lusts and vanities of modern society. Beneath the mindless glamour and cultural decline however, an insidious reality festers in the death of hope and incandescence of tragedy.

    Prevalent socioeconomic tragedies necessitate the emergence and elevation among the citizenry of the bungling and sadistic, and the beginning of a differentiation cum tyranny of social grades.

    At the centre of the turmoil is the journalist whose fate is so critically bound with the country’s but he obviously does not know that hence the cluelessness, treachery and brazen recklessness that characterizes his work. Consequently, the Nigerian journalist manifests as an accident to society. He perpetually loses his grasp of the issues at stake; fundamentally hollow and benumbed to valor, he shamelessly resigns to the powers that be, blaming the tyranny of the ruling class and the proverbial ‘system’ for his inability to fulfill his professional and moral obligations to the society.

    Rather than pose a challenge to the system that domesticates and enslaves him, he chooses the easiest way out and plays junkyard dog to tyrant cabals and the predatory bunch constituting the nation’s ruling class. He assumes the role of a poseur and pretends to fight for the interest of the public. This sad charade is continually perpetuated across esteemed leader-writers’ polemics in foremost newspapers’ columns.

    The Nigerian journalist today, nurtures an abiding wariness for shattering his ego and dignified notion of the press; consequently, he shuns the inclinations to function ethically and measure up to lofty perceptions he tirelessly projects of himself and the press. But really, he prefers not to face the fact that the truth as he has learnt to say it is acutely relative.

    The contemporary journalist trades in all manners of truths, deploying sophistry and shades of impressive fallacies in the interest of whatever social divide fulfills his lust for relevance and survival. I am a journalist and I shamefully acknowledge that my clan and I hardly epitomize hope to our world. Not yet. Rarely does our work signify hope, self-sacrifice or a promise of future honesty and gallantry in the interest of all. We can blame the society and advance all forms of isms and ostentatious arguments to justify our descent the steep slope of amorality and socioeconomic expediency; it wouldn’t excuse our treachery to our calling and the Nigerian citizenry.

    If Nigeria chooses to exist as a land of savages, it’s our responsibility to nudge her back on to the path of humanity and progress – for only in such clime can we positively evolve and prosper. Our failure as journalists indicates severance from a progressive and moral culture while we institutionalize bigotry, lies, depravity, base sentimentality and pitiful fantasies.

    The traditional, conscientious journalist is going extinct today along with true, dependable news culture because Nigeria obsesses and migrates to the pseudo-reality of the internet and reality shows. It is no doubt ironical and unabashedly hypocritical that the masses would turn around to blame the press for not fulfilling its roles to the society.

    The only profiteers from the status quo are those skilled in the art of manipulation: the government, politicians and corporate establishment – but this despicable band can rarely function without the support of the journalist hence the urgent need for the Nigerian press to retrace his steps.

    Journalism will thrive and Nigeria will prosper if we neglect the culture of the news spectacle to focus on progressive pursuits, like development and socially responsible journalism. It is about time we stopped narrowing the debates and spotlight to the shenanigans and petty differences of the ruling class and instead aspire to serve as a true voice to the voiceless.

    There is no magical antidote to our decline and death as a crucial part of the nation’s critical mob. Real progress will manifest in the country when we start demanding that the ruling class march in virtual lockstep with promises they make. Whatever the tone and dialect of intellectualisation that characterizes our news culture, posterity will judge us by how truthfully we fulfill our roles as conscience and watchdog of the society.

  • Time for home truth

    Time for home truth

    Today’s column is informed by the startling result of the governorship election held last Saturday in Ekiti State. Many are still in shock that the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate and current governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi lost woefully to Mr Ayodele Fayose of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). A frank dissection of that defeat calls for some home truth. After all, it was Mahatma Gandhi that once said: “Truth never damages a cause that is just.” Permit me to add that it strengthens it.

    The cause of progressivism being pursued, especially in the Southwest by the APC, needs critical re-appraisal if the party plans to sustain its power-grip and continue to make meaningful impacts in the political firmament of this important region. The Ekiti electoral defeat portends perilous consequences for progressive politics.

    Voters in Ekiti, in that free and fair election, have demonstrated that indeed, sovereignty truly belongs to the people and that the people’s power held in trust by the elected officers of any polity can be withdrawn by them during periodic elections. Hitherto, the public had held tenaciously to the belief that the political party in power will always win any election because of what is commonly referred to in this part of the world as ‘incumbency factor.’ This power of incumbency is euphemism for executive tyranny in all parts of the country – without an exception. It is not only President Goodluck Jonathan that is ruling the country with fistic grip; other states’ governors have been ruling their jurisdictions as if such states were annexes of their private homes.

    This attitude is responsible for why most of the governors have refused to conduct local government elections despite the fact that the lowest rung of government must constitutionally be governed by democratically elected people. Even when such council elections were conducted by the State Independent Electoral Commission (SIEC), the party in power clears all the seats. The debacle: Most governors flagrantly disobey the constitution they swore to uphold, while in the other case, some governors and their parties organised elections that do not truly reflect the wishes of the people. This development has been the sad tale in both the PDP and APC-controlled states among others.

    Unknown to most of these governors, not conducting the constitutionally required local government election will actually deny them the opportunity of knowing the genuine feelings of the people for their government. After all, most governors usually surround themselves with bootlickers who may never be inclined to letting them know the truth until after their individual tenure. This confirms Oscar Wilde’s affirmation: “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” This, in the column’s view, was partly responsible for Governor Fayemi’s ouster from power through the ballot box last week. Most of our governors are so power-drunk that they are usually not ready to test their popularity through such elections. Yet, Socrates, the inimitable philosopher, once bemoaned that an ‘unexamined life is not worth living.’

    The consequence of executive aloofness from the genuine needs of the people was seen in the way Fayemi was massively voted out of power by the voters in that state. As a digression, permit me to say that after June 12, 1993 Presidential election, that Ekiti State election was another unique election that gave hope that the country can, if the right thing is done in the right direction, get it right electorally by the INEC. The election was free and fair – and even transparent. Fayemi merely did the honourable thing by congratulating Fayose, the winner of that election.

    Doing anything contrary under the circumstance would have cast him as an intolerant democrat. What could have further gone wrong in that state? Afterall, Fayemi has reportedly transformed the state to the admiration of all. He builds roads, drainage channels and is turning the state’s environment into admirable sight for all to see. Not much is known by this column about his onslaughts in the realm of agriculture, transportation, education and health to mention but few. But yours sincerely could glean that his relationship with party stalwarts and other important stakeholders is equally poor.

    However, because of the derelict state of roads in Nigeria generally, it is easier for any governor that embarks on road projects to be easily celebrated by the people. Under the current dispensation, the APC governors have smartly exploited this lacuna in road infrastructure to gain aplomb. But this is not enough developmental efforts in a country where there is huge graduate unemployment, widespread insecurity, insufficient food production capacity and poor transportation system in place. So, in the midst of these largely un-tackled challenges, it will be wrong for any governor or even president to think that tarring and expansion of roads alone will guarantee re-election. The people in power need to ask themselves how affordable the services being provided by their governments are to the people that in most cases are poverty-stricken and deprived. It is clear that university tuition is beyond the reach of poor children of struggling civil servants and largely peasants living in virtually all states.

    The peanuts called salaries and other allowances are mostly paid in arrears by most state governments while elected/appointed people in government live in opulence. How far has the huge construction going on in these states been of benefit to locals? Have such projects benefited members/foot soldiers of the party that worked tirelessly for the election of these governors? Are these governors implementing the manifesto of their party or just following whatever interest them as projects? Do these APC governors give majority of their party loyalists the desired sense of belonging?

    While this column agrees that these challenges contributed largely to why Fayemi lost in his re-election bid, it equally wants to state that the day he refused to give Fayose the then ACN party’s senatorial ticket was the day the foundation of his political loss was laid. Fayose is reportedly popular among the grassroots people, while Fayemi is an intellectual elite that is far alienated from his people and this further compounded by the fact that he is not schooled in political empiricism.

    Fayemi’s failure in this regard calls to question the supremacy of political party that was so ingrained in western region’s political culture since the days of late Papa Obafemi Awolowo. Does it mean the leadership of APC across Yoruba land cannot call him to order before things degenerated to what we witnessed last weekend? Now that the man has lost, the problem becomes not only his personal affairs but that of the entire party with the fate of diminishing progressive politics in the region hanging in the air.

    The election in Ekiti State has come and gone, but the nostalgic feelings of the thrills and trauma will for a long time remain worthy reference point. The APC leadership must come together to save the party from looming danger. Members of the leadership of the party, in most states, are enmeshed in crisis of ego with the governors. Something urgent must be done since an admission of this fact will save the national leadership from incurring in future the kind of electoral ridicule witnessed in Ekiti. This column believes that only deep-rooted honest introspection and an embrace of truth can rescue APC. The haughty disposition of governors can only last a short while. And the reason is simple: Historical antecedents have shown that such always fall in the end like a pack of cards. Simply put, the APC needs more of home truths to sustain power in states that it presently controls.

  • The truth about Nigeria

    It never stops coming. The truth – the lesson – about Nigeria never keeps coming and striking us in the face. It never stops coming too – our uproarious reactions to the pains inflicted by Nigeria’s truth.

    The Nigerian truth came upon us strongly again last Saturday in Ado-Ekiti. And it will keep coming, no matter how loudly we scream our pain. One more mother among us lost a son –the last of the thousands of Yoruba mothers who have lost sons to violence caused by Nigeria’s culture of violent electioneering and election rigging. And more and more mothers among us will keep losing sons in the same circumstance. That is the inescapable ramification of our nation’s membership of Nigeria.

    In a speech by Prof. Banji Akintoye to a large gathering of Yoruba leaders in Lagos on April 26, 2010, I find the following words:

    “In Nigerian politics, the controllers of federal power will never cease rigging the elections, and will never cease using federal resources and power to (do it).

    As long as we Yoruba are in Nigeria, there will always be some of our men and women who will be recruited, and some who will think it is smart to take advantage of the things being offered (by the rigging of elections). The majority of our Yoruba  people, on the other hand, will always detest rigged elections and reject the insult that the rigging of their elections represents. What this has meant is that many of  our young men have been dying violently and needlessly in the course of elections.

    It also has meant that some of our most educated and most productive men and  women of all parties have routinely had to waste their trained and productive lives  before so-called election courts  – and that those who find themselves in state governments are never able to settle down and govern properly. For us as a people,  it is an awful prospect of “head you lose, tail you lose”. For how long should any people surrender its life to this debilitating bleeding? All our political leaders are forever blaming one another. But as a perceptive elder in our nation, all I see is that they are all to be pitied – because our whole nation, like other nations in Nigeria, is trapped in a debacle and is not sure of a way out. I see all of our politicians, strong and strongly nurtured men and women, compulsively acting on a stage that we their people did not choose and do not want but cannot quit – like a pet tethered to a post, circling the post perpetually”.

    The only way to get out of this terrible prospect, of course, is that more and more of us should commit ourselves to finding the way out of it. As Chief Awolowo often used to say, if you want to go to the moon (no matter how difficult that may be), the first step is to take the firm decision that you want to get to the moon; that way, you create for yourself the problem of finding how a person can get to the moon. People who do not so decide, who do not commit themselves to reaching a goal, cannot reach any goal. All I see and know about the Yoruba nation convinces me that the destiny of a nation like the Yoruba nation cannot possibly be to sink forever in a country like Nigeria. As the ancient Greeks used to say, “One may not be able to prevent the birds of misfortune from flying over one’s head; but one is certainly able to prevent them from settling and making nests in one’s hair”. The Yoruba nation needs to stop and consider the path it finds itself upon. The Yoruba nation needs to stop and take stock – no matter what any Yoruba persons might have gained, may currently be gaining, or may be hoping to gain, from the corruption, confusion and mess that is Nigeria. The Bible says that it is only a fool that trades without stopping to take account. The Yoruba nation is not a fool – and Yoruba people are no fools.

    To return to the Ado-Ekiti incident in particular,and to the probability that such incidents will soon multiply, not only in Ekiti State but also in Osun State, I would wish to counsel the president of Nigeria, President Goodluck Jonathan. As we Yoruba are accustomed to doing, we have been watching you intently, Mr. President. Your attitude to, and relationship with, the Yoruba nation have developed in ways that can only be described as weird.

    Hardly any of us Yoruba knew anything about you when your boss, President Yaradua, died five years ago and there arose a strong demand that he be succeeded by another Northerner – according to established agreements in your political party. Yet, out of principle (because we are a people dedicated to principles), we arose stoutly to support your right to become Acting President on the basis of the Nigerian Constitution. While some of our leading citizens at home led great demonstrations in the streets to support your right, some of us abroad spoke out boldly. You became Vice-President, and later President.

    Throughout your tenure in these exalted offices, you have generally treated the Yoruba people with disrespect – in fact with a kind of petty disrespect unusual to the Nigerian presidency. If you are convinced that you are president of all of Nigeria, then you have never, in your appointment of people to high offices in the presidency,regarded the Yoruba people as part of Nigeria. Concerning this, some of our topmost rulers and leaders visited you again and again, all without much effect.

    Now, the fear has grown among the masses of our people that, for unknown reasons, federal powers will be used to generate conflict and confusion in the Yoruba South-west. The calculation, it is said, is that a state of communal collapse in the Yoruba South-west will somehow help your re-election bid in 2015. Certain recent changes of senior federal personnel in Ekiti and Oshun States, where state elections are due in June and August respectively, are said to be part of the federal preparations for this scheme. And the Ado-Ekiti incident, in which the federal Mobile Police reportedly employed excessive force to break up a peaceful rally, resulting in the death of a citizen, is regarded by most of our people as the kind of federal behaviour to expect in the South-west in the months to come.

    Mr. President, I would urge you to reconsider this whole situation, and to use your great power and influence to ensure free, fair, and peaceful elections in Ekiti and Osun states. In spite of the usual lines separating citizens belonging to different political parties, Yoruba people know their interests and their friends. And Yoruba people have acquired, worldwide, an enormous capacity to defend the interests of their nation against any person, no matter how high in Nigeria, who may try to hurt their nation. As a friend, I wish you good success, Mr. President.

    Needless to say, I speak for, or against, no political party. I speak only for the well-being of the Yoruba nation.

  • The truth about Nigeria(ns)

    On my way out of a birthday party of a dear friend a couple of nights ago, a neighbour confronted me thus, ‘what are we going to do about the Boko Haram on our street?’ To my question of ‘which Boko Haram?’ he retorted: ‘have you not noticed about six ‘Hausa boys’ who always converge at No 3? I was at my dismissive best and with my usual warmth I called him an ignorant bigot. I must say that everybody on his table sided with him! The very next day there was the unfortunate bomb blast in Jos with scores of lives senselessly and brutally terminated. I was inundated with messages on my phone with one saying, ‘this is getting too close to home, we must now all say what we have felt but refused to air – the northerners must be told to go!

    To me the two tendencies above are myopic and laughable. It would however appear that to many southerners who live either abroad or in the south of Nigeria, what is nonsense to me makes perfect sense to them. In the event that our country is being driven to the brink of anarchy by ignorance, it is the duty of the sensible patriot to broaden the narrative beyond the present tendency.

    If not for ignorance, how can we see northerners as Boko Haram members or sympathizers? Or is that not the same attitude we condemn as ignorance, when non-Nigerians glibly catalogue Nigerians as fraudsters? Surely we must appreciate that the same way we feel when we are stereotyped because of the actions of a tiny criminal minority must be the way northerners feel when they are referenced as Boko Haram. It is painfully illogical when those bearing the brunt of the Boko Haram devilishness are those being labelled as such. It is probably the case that the young boys on my street, ran away from Boko Haram to Lagos, yet they are the threat! How unthinking, how ignorant! I will advise my neighbour to have a chat with those boys for his own education.

    The penchant of scapegoating any group of people on account of actions of persons traceable to that origin is by no means a Nigerian phenomenon but it does not make it helpful or less combustible. After 9/11 many actual Arabs or Arab looking people were attacked and some killed as revenge. This does not make sense the same way the killing of innocent Igbos in 1966 as revenge for the actions of a few Igbo army officers will never make sense. That is why the proliferation of all these divisive groups with diverse motivation is very worrisome and why it behoves us to liberate our thinking so that we can educate our people to see through the present cloud of ignorance. Otherwise we will wake up one day and start killing ourselves senselessly.

    All these talk about the artificiality of Nigeria is counter intuitive. In life we never get to choose who we commune with. Even in the family setting, nobody has ever chosen fellow family members. Just like any country we are born into one. The families that thrive and live harmoniously together are those in which the members practice ‘live and let live.’ It is the erosion of communalism in our country that has now tuned our national conversation to the station of divisiveness and warmongering. We have allowed the few in the callous and selfish power class to appropriate our sovereignty and fan the embers of discord as part of their power and money games. The only message that makes sense for us as a whole is that we are all human beings and that it is the divisions that are artificial. We have found ourselves by whatever ‘mistake’ or happenstance in one country and given that we are blessed with sufficient resources for all, we need to build the spirit of communalism and enthrone a reliable organizational method to guarantee fairness to all irrespective of tribe or religion. There is no magic wand organizational method, be it parliamentary or presidential or whatever; any system can work provided it is operated fairly in the spirit of communalism. With the level of greed, impunity and territoriality in Nigeria, no system will work! And guess what? Divide Nigeria into as many countries as you want, agitation will not stop because it is wrongly directed, we should be agitating for fairness and good responsible governance not divisions.

    Let me take Akwa Ibom for instance, I understand that under the Eastern Region government, ‘my people’ were seriously marginalized by the majority Igbos. South Eastern State was created as a result of the agitation. The Ibibios were now majority but were soon agitating that they wanted out of South Eastern State because of marginalization! Akwa Ibom was created and with it the Ibibio, Annang and Oron divide was exacerbated. Now the agitation is that the Annangs have cornered all the resources and marginalized the Ibibios! I wonder if any ‘missing funds’ exist in the name of Annang people. Rather than agitate for good accountable governance we keep on chasing shadows! We should be more discerning and then perhaps we will discover that the agitation is being promoted by individuals who did not personally benefit from the squander-mania?

    There is no denying the fact that we live in a fragile country, but that is the more reason why well meaning patriots must rise to counter the ongoing deceptive and hypocritical narrative. The atmosphere of xenophobic hysteria is exactly what led to ‘Ghana Must Go’ about 30 years ago. We blamed Ghanaians for every societal ill including rising crime and unemployment. In mob fashion, we dispossessed them of their property and hounded them out of town in the most barbaric of circumstances with many of them especially children and women dying at the chaotic Nigerian border (choked and overflowing with a dehumanized multitude.) Yet the same Nigerians who have now flocked to Ghana have the temerity to complain that their ‘brothers’ are asking them to pay trading levies which they categorize as unfair! Did expelling Ghanaians solve any problems? Of course not, because they were not the problem but merely victims of misdirected aggression. We must direct our aggression at bad governance because that is the problem. Bad governance thrives throughout the country because we are focused on the wrong targets and the perpetrators from all sections are having a good time at our collective expense.

    Our soldiers of fortune have produced different maps including one by ‘The Southern Peoples Assembly’ comprising four new countries of Oduduwa, Sharia North, Middle Belt and Southern people. So these days, things have changed so much that the Niger Delta minorities desperately need to form a country with the Igbos only? Hopefully the capital will be in Uyo, whose people were dancing on the streets when Cross River State oil wells were ceded to it and as one taxi driver victoriously declared to me at the time – ‘Now let us see what they will eat?’

    Suddenly in a country where a child from Enugu State cannot because of ‘indigenisation’ enjoy free education in Abia State but will enjoy same in Sokoto State, we are glibly talking of Southern Nigeria!

    I would not have been so worried by all these inanities, but I am, because Nigerians are so shockingly gullible. All manner of stories are being bandied about and fact, fiction and fantasy are mixed together in a form of crude osmosis where ‘dem say’ is the only required proof of all manner of ‘evidence’.

    The Almighty loves Nigeria very dearly and perhaps why he has provided South Sudan as an example to warn us to retrace our steps and embrace the path of unity, without which there can be no progress. Also we must in serious matters draw the line between flighty phantasm and foolishness. We must take the admonition of Martin Luther King seriously -’We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools’

    • Ukpong is a Lagos based Legal Practitioner

  • ‘He stood for truth, justice’

    ‘He stood for truth, justice’

    A group, Afenmai Youth Congress (AYC), and the 1992 set of Anglican Grammar School, Igarra, Edo State, the secondary school the late Chief of General Staff (CGF), Vice Admiral Okhai Mike Akhigbe attended, have described his death as a big loss to the country.

    A statement by the president of the 1992 Old Boys’ Association (ANGSOBA ‘92), Philip Mayaki, described Akhigbe’s death as a loss to the school.

    “We first heard about this great alumnus in 1986, when the school was celebrating its 50th years of existence. He was then the military governor of Lagos State, and we were fascinated by his achievements as a military officer. He crowned this by becoming the No. 2 citizen of Nigeria. He was a great ambassador. We pray God to take his soul and comfort the family he left behind,” Mayaki said.

    Also, a statement by the President and Secretary of AYC, Dr Philip Ugbodaga and Ronke Ojeikere, described the late Akhigbe as a “very disciplined Naval officer who rose through the ranks to become a Vice Admiral in the Nigerian Navy and Nigeria’s No. Two citizen during a trying period in the history of our nation”.

    They recalled that the late CGS “held the highest political office in Afenmai land”.

    “He (Akhigbe) stood for truth, justice and equity. We recall with nostalgia his contributions to the development and articulation of the Southsouth position during the 2005 national political conference, convened by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. His unwavering stance on the Niger Delta agitation for resource control culminated in the historic walkout by the Southsouth delegation, following the refusal of the other zones to grant our prayers with Chief Edwin K. Clark and others.”

  • Don’t kill the man who tells you the truth

    SIR: I write in respect of the current/ongoing strike embarked on by Nigerian universities. I am an academic with deep passion for the development of Nigeria in all its facets and sectors – education, health, water, roads, housing, transportation (infrastructure in general). I am saddened that education which is the most vital sector of our economy is allowed to decay monumentally. For example, in the University of Calabar the same set of hostels we used in my school days Halls 4, 5 and 6 for males and 7 and 8 for females are still the hostels we have for students 34 years after. I am ashamed as a Nigerian that things have not improved as it should in the education sector.

    ASUU is on strike not because of earned allowances but because of infrastructural decay and the inadequacies in our tertiary institutions. Matters have been made worse by the federal government’s refusal to honour the agreement it willfully entered into with the union four years ago. When President Jonathan came on board as a former constituent of the ivory tower, we rejoiced that the dawn of a new era for education sector have set in. In fact, President Jonathan was the only contestant in that year’s election I voted for. I feel very much frustrated that with him also education will not receive a new lease of life. I expected him to wade in in a decisive manner to honour the said agreement.

    On Monday, ASUU University of Calabar was prevented from embarking on its scheduled enlightenment campaign around Calabar metropolis. Government Police (hordes of them) were mobilized to nip this campaign in the bud. I am asking: is Nigeria now a police state? Have we abrogated from our constitution freedoms of speech and movement? Then, if this is so, whither the Nigeria of our dream?

    To have been denied of three months salary is enough sacrifice and shows that ASUU is serious with her present cause. We call on the federal government to show more commitment to the agreement not just by releasing money to the universities, but by ensuring that the monies are used for the infrastructural development for which the money is meant.

    – We are asking for more decent hostels for our students.

    – More lecture halls, auditoria in our public universities.

    – Better equipped laboratories for our science based disciplines.

    – Constant power supply.

    – Comfortable offices for lecturers and a conducive learning environment in all our tertiary institutions.

    Of concern to me is the studied silence (conspiracy of silence) observed from the members of the National Assembly. Could it be that they are incensed that members of the Ivory Tower have been exposing the jumbo salary and allowances they are receiving? It is only fair that they fight along with us because what is good for the goose is good for the gander. They are elected to mediate in all critical matters that concern our nation. They seem to have failed woefully in this respect.

    They are enjoined to wake up from their slumber before the present imbroglio escalates beyond manageable proportions.

    Government should show sincerity and honest commitment. They should also monitor and supervise projects in the universities to avoid the money going down the drains. ASUU is not insisting that all the money should be provided in one fell swoop but that genuine commitment should be made by government as they mobilize to start work in our universities to stem imminent collapse.

     

    • Prof. G. O. Ozumba

    University of Calabar

    Calabar – Nigeria.