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  • Trump in turmoil: Not my fight

    By Brian Browne

    A fine house is prudently constructed by the hands of the able yet quickly destroyed by the whim of the foolish

    Once again my plans are laid to waste. I intended to write about the Brexit morass. However, the volley of events circling the Trump presidency was too tempting and potentially momentous to resist. The actions and counteractions of Trump and his political foes has the United States hurtling toward a constitutional showdown with no apparent exit in view. The United States is a fount of heightened political anxiety, the fallout from which is not limited to America’s shores. The Ukraine has been sucked deeply into the vortex. The armed incursion of Turkey into Syria is a fallout of this discord.

    Impeachment stares Trump in the face and neither likes the other’s visage. Trump is neither   gentleman nor statesman. He will not go quietly into the night nor will his fight be conducted in genteel fashion. He will make this a bare- knuckles brawl along a muddy slope. Anyone who tangles with him will emerge soiled. His angle is that he will take down those who seek to take down him. A strong hurricane brews in a pressure cooker. At some point, the lid will blow off; the ensuing storm will discomfit the American house.

    Donald Trump has no business being president of any nation, especially the most powerful nation in the world. He lacks the character and knowledge needed to hold the job. He cannot even properly govern his own emotions let alone restrain a nation prone to exact violence against weaker countries. He should never have sought the office. The electorate never should have cast the votes to place him there. However, these things happened.

    To try to undo them is a tempting elixir. Most Democrats have tasted handsomely of this cup. However, popular clamor for his ouster does not render it the right thing to do. It may well be a compelling political expedient for many but we must attempt to assess the claims against him objectively to see if they merit the punishment sought as well as our endorsement of the process.

    In making this judgment, we best not consider the character of the man. One cannot say the law is to be read one way because a man is good or because we adore his personality, then suggest that same law is to be interpreted more stringently when applied to a curmudgeon like Trump. Such arbitrary and flexible impressions have no place when measuring something so consequential as whether to abridge the democratic expression of the electorate by impeaching and potentially ousting from the White House the man the people selected as its tenant.

    It is easy to join the anti-Trump procession to impeach the man. Yet, my experiences as a black man advises the cautious approach. I say this not to protect Trump and not because I believe Trump cares about anyone but himself. He is a flat-hearted bully of racist disposition.

    As such, Trump is easy to hate and has accumulated a galaxy of enemies. However, we must not be fooled. That someone despises him does not mean they do so because the errant President has trammeled upon my interests as                                                          a black man. That other person may have interests divergent and even adverse to mine. By joining in the campaign against Trump, black progressives may well be setting the tables against themselves.

    The political establishment is irate; they see Trump as an interloper because of his minor policy transgressions and his ruffian style. Yet, he is and has always been a member of that establishment.  As a black man, I am acutely aware the system perceives me as an outsider with no legitimate claim to significant reform. I should be happy that I am allowed a seat in the room where I may listen to the establishment define what type of black man I should be as a reasonable, rational member of society.

    If I summon the temerity to rail against the definition they seek to impose on me, I will be considered an angry ingrate who makes the establishment feel uncomfortable. For it is wrong of me to petition them to commit to acts of justice which they care not to commit.

    Thus, if they ambush Trump who is of them, I know full well the wrath I will incur for seeking my truth. Thus, I cannot mindlessly join the anti-Trump procession. The tactics used to oust and perhaps imprison him will be used doubly against me.

    In this, I must act with the prudence of the 19th century enslaved African American who encounters the rare sight of white men whipping another white man with a lash usually reserved for the enslaved. The Africa takes no relish at the sight. He tactfully demurs at the tormentors’ entreaties to strike a blow against the beaten man. He does so not in fear but in wisdom. The black man either senses the trap being set against him or ordains himself to be next fatality. If this group of whites can so brutalize one of their own, the punishment they would mete to a black man would be devoid of even a sliver of mercy.

    Historic experience instructs me to look for an escape route whenever I see an approaching lynch mob. I join only as a last resort. In the end, the mob will surely turn against me and even forget its original subject if I was to speak my soul. If they want to besiege Trump, they can do so without my help just as they do everything else. I add not my contribution to what is essentially an intramural scrum between members of a club to which I never want to belong.

    My abstinence means they will not later be able to say my own actions in attacking trump preclude me from complaining about what they seek to do to me.  I join not in the push against Trump because I well know the tools they use against his false rebellion are actually being honed for more flagrant use against those of us who quest for genuine reform. When the time comes for them to enchain me, let it be done entirely of their own injustice and not by my contributory foolhardiness in having joined them in downing one of their own.

    The Trump saga reveals an underlying truth about America. This bastion of liberty can be among the most intolerant of nations. Trump has done nothing to the establishment. His policies are versions of theirs. He has not materially affected their core interests except perhaps to further enrich the majority of the establishment. Yet they chase him down as if he pawned grandma’s favorite costume jewelry thus exposing the fraud that the family sought to conceal. America is a tolerant society as long as you believe what the establishment wants you to believe. The minute you advocate differently, the plot turns against you. The entire weight of the state and associated apparatus, such as the mainstream media, descends on you as if by landslide. They malign you in manner so pervasive that you no longer recognize yourself. After slandering you so that even friends abandon you, they then crush you. At this point you make the painful realization that the liberty of which they speak is the liberty given the strong to silence the dissent of the weak.

    Because of this process, the Black Panthers barely lasted a decade before they were hollowed out and destroyed. As far as I know they never lynched a soul; they ran feeding and teaching programs to benefit the black urban poor. Yet, they were considered a menace impermissible. Conversely, the Ku Klux Klan stands as a monument to American society. It is as much a perennial American institution as baseball and fast food, as IBM and McDonalds. Its leitmotif is the lynch mob but the empire never rose to crush it.

    The establishment gives a sly but approving wink to the Klan and its neo-Nazi brethren because these groups offer no threat. Despite their insane rhetoric, such organs have always been allied with the power structure. Thus, they go about unmolested. The Klan thrives notwithstanding a trail of murders and lynchings over a century long. They can parade from town to town in their white hoods. A few brothers don flashy black leather jackets while feeding ghetto kids and the vast power of the state is deployed to erase them from memory.

    Trump did not cause this unjust disparity in treatment. The system that fights him did. Thus, why should I ally myself with that system against him when that system considers me a greater mortal threat than it will ever consider him? If the system can tolerate the Klan for so long, it should be able to tolerate this clown at least until the next election.

    Trump is fighting a two-pronged war that has                  nothing to do with my vital interests. He battles the Democratic Party leadership for political control of the government. While its talk is more soothing, that party’s leadership has never been a true friend of mine. There is no discernible difference between the plights of black America under Trump than under the last two Democratic presidents. The Democrats have shown me little courtesy; thus I am under no moral obligation to abet their dirty work.

    Second, Trump fights the intelligence community for control of the national security apparatus which includes the machines of war and levers of international intimidation. This is the same group of agencies that blackmailed Dr. King, abetted the murder of Malcolm X, destroyed the Panthers and wrecked every other progressive or militant black organization since then. For good measure, with the complicity of at least one Republican and one Democratic president, they purposely trafficked drugs into the black community. Then enacted stringent laws against drug use so they could imprison as many black people as possible.

    As far as I know, these agencies are still governed by the same vicious principles. This is why they helped lie American into war in Iraq and Libya at the price of hundreds of thousands of lives and counting. Pray tell why would anyone ally themselves with this rogue’s brigand unless one has the shortest of memories and the thickest of hides to absorb the drubbing bound to ensue.

    The intelligence agencies are much like Trump in that they behave like spoiled children. Their vindictiveness enjoys no limits much like his. They still obsess over Iran for an embassy takeover that occurred 40 years ago. They are irked by Trump because he bested Hillary Clinton. While definitely not a saint, she is the matron of the national security community.  There was not a war she did not back or a secret operation she did not approve. Despite his bluster, Trump is a more reluctant warrior than Clinton. His relative restraint at war threatened their dreams of global dominance. It also undermined their profit flow. The layman sees war as destruction. The insider sees it as guaranteed profit. Clinton was a charter member of this structure. Compared to her, Trump was deemed an undesirable alien by the intelligence community.

    Thus, they concocted the Russian election scandal. When that did not work, they moved to Ukraine. It is no coincidence the purported whistleblower on the Ukraine scandal is a CIA official. This is a declaration of war against the president but not for any violation of the constitution. This is but a naked power grab trying to dress itself in legal finery.

    Trump answered by withdrawing from northern Syria. The Syrian operation was a gravy train for covert operatives. They were making off-balance riches from trafficking arms to ISIS, Al Qaeda affiliates and any extremists willing to pay. In exchange, they were getting pilfered oil, gold and other contraband of war. Trump’s move ended one of their revenue flows. In so doing, he is signaling that he will hurt them the more they try to take him down. If they relent, he will open the door for them to return to their global capers.  If they persist in supporting the impeachment against him, he may threaten their stake in Afghanistan. Money being made in Afghanistan from the constant resupply of military hardware. This is a land where the heroin poppy and precious metals abound and immense wealth is to be made from the clandestine harvesting and mining of which the intelligence community is a consummate master. If Trump ever guts this operation, there will be audible groans and gnashing of teeth.

    In the end, the Trumpian drama reveals America is doomed for the foreseeable future to its current militarism abroad and inequality at home. Whether Trump is ejected or not is immaterial. What is material is the great animus against him for what are basically protocolary breaches. He has maintained the interests of the establishment. If he can attract such opprobrium for anomalies in leadership style, imagine the eruption that would occur if a person born of the African American progressive political tradition ever gained the White House. The entire power apparatus would fall on him like a meteor. He would not last a month before tarred with scandal and talks of mental instability.

    So much for reform and genuine democracy. You may only exercise your voice in America to the extent it coincides with what is deemed permissible. Meaningful change cannot be cultivated in such a barren controlled laboratory. For some time to come, America will carry on and stagger forth; it suffers under no imminent existential threat. However, if it continues in this manner, America shall ultimately whither on the vine like so much overripe fruit.

    This has nothing to do with Trump; the historic processes at work far transcend him. He thinks of himself as the central figure in short story of his own design. But he is mere a pawn in an epic play of cosmic forces of which he may not even be aware let alone comprehend.

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  • Oil rebounds on turmoil

    Crude prices climbed yesterday, building on a gain for the month, as the Saudis looked to defy President Donald Trump’s request to pump more oil and an uprising in Venezuela fed uncertainty over the country’s output.

    “Crude prices first caught a bid after Saudi Arabia refuted Trump’s comments that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will pump more,” senior market analyst at Oanda, Edward Moya, said.

    Global benchmark June Brent crude rose 64 cents, or 0.9 per cent, to $72.68 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe, with prices for the contract up more than seven per cent month to date. July Brent traded at $71.79, up 25 cents, or 0.4 per cent.

    U.S.-based West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery rose 24 cents, or 0.4 per cent, to $63.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices were poised for a monthly rise of 5.6 per cent—their fourth straight monthly gain.

    Meanwhile, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó has called for an uprising with military support to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro. The Maduro administration has said it’s moving to put down what it called a coup attempt.

    Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid al-Falih told Russia’s RIA news agency that the kingdom won’t rush to raise oil supplies to make up for Iranian oil lost due to U.S. sanctions, Reuters reported yesterday.

    Read also: DPR deploys satellite to halt $2.8billion loss to oil smuggling

    He also said the Saudis will adhere to the production-cut agreement led by the OPEC and may extend that agreement, which expires in late June, to the end of this year.

    “The banter between the Saudis and President Trump is somewhat expected,” said Moya.

    Oil contracts have moved in choppy fashion since late last week in the wake of Trump’s latest call on the Saudis and allies to boost crude production. OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo said he hadn’t spoken with Trump, in contrast to what the U.S. leader had said. The Wall Street Journal reported that al-Falih wasn’t part of those talks either. Trump later tweeted that he had spoken to Saudi Arabia. “Spoke to Saudi Arabia and others about increasing oil flow. All are in agreement,” Trump tweeted Friday.

    Meanwhile, the potential military uprising in Venezuela, “could be what is needed for oil to recover last week’s decline,” said Moya. “It is unclear if Guaidó has a significant amount of military support, but even if it is a small number of troops, it indicates he is making progress.”

    “The country is in meltdown mode and it could be a matter of time before (Nicolás) Maduro is forced out or decides to flee” he said. “Oil remains vulnerable on Venezuela but once Guaidó takes over, we could see oil selloff sharply. If Guaidó gets captured, oil could rise a few dollars.”

    Meanwhile, the Saudis may have some difficulty in finding an incentive to raise output. The Saudis need an oil price of about $85 a barrel to balance its budget this year, up from a forecast of $73 in September, Bloomberg reported, citing data from the International Monetary Fund.

    And the oil industry may take issue with Trump’s claim that oil prices are recovering too much, too fast.

    BP PLC said Tuesday its profit dropped by 12% in the first quarter due to a weaker oil price environment at the start of 2019, echoing anemic quarterly results recently reported by other Big Oil companies.

    Elsewhere, May gasoline RBK9, +2.29%  was up 0.9% to $2.101 a gallon, with the contract up more than 11% for the month. May heating oil HOK9, +1.20% added 0.6% to $2.067 a gallon, with prices looking at a monthly rise of nearly five per cent. The May contracts expire at Tuesday’s settlement.

    June natural gas NGM19, -0.35%  fell 0.6% to $2.578 per million British thermal units.

    Late Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute will issue its weekly data on U.S. petroleum supplies, followed by the official government figures from the Energy Information Administration early Wednesday.

    Analysts expect the EIA to report a rise of 1.4 million barrels in crude stockpiles for the week ended April 26, according to a survey conducted by S&P Global Platts. They also forecast supply declines of 1 million for gasoline and 1.2 million barrels for distillates.

  • Kwara PDP in turmoil over rising anti-Saraki sentiment

    The ripples generated by the defections in the National Assembly continued yesterday across the country. Onyedi Ojiabor (Abuja) and Adekunle Jimoh (Ilorin) report.

    Loyalists and supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday staged peaceful rallies in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital drumming support for the re-election of the president in 2019.

    The procession began at about 10am in front of the state stadium complex. The protesters marched through Unity Road, Ibrahim Taiwo Road and the Post Office area.

    Motorcycle riders, artisans and students joined the protest.

    They urged Senate President Bukola Saraki to publicly declare which political party he belongs and also called for his resignation as the Senate President.

    Addressing reporters, the spokesperson of the group, George Towoju, said: ”The defection of some members of the National Assembly from the All Progressives Congress (APC) is one of the desperate attempts of Senator Saraki and his co-travelers to continue to embark on undeserving political negotiations and mortgaging the genuine interest of the masses for their personal and individual gains.

    “Having found their political bargains as unwarranted, frivolous, condemnable, barbaric and uncharitable to the overall interest of the entire Nigerian population, it is the resolution of this great movement to pass votes of no confidence in the National Assembly under the leadership of Senate President Bukola Saraki for their ill-political characters capable of initiating political disunity and derailing the executive arms of government from implementing masses oriented policies/programmes.

    ”We hereby call on Dr. Bukola Saraki to make his political party membership known to Nigerians and resign his appointment as the Senate President with immediate effect in order to allow for better legislative process in the interest of the masses.”

    He urged Saraki “to desist from politics of deceit and assassination of characters of constituted authorities in pursuant of cheap publicity, undeserving empathy from members of the public and international community as well as personal political gains”.

    Towoju hailed President Buhari for his total commitment to the values of democracy, freedom of choice as well as total willingness to work with all members of the National Assembly, irrespective of their political party, for the benefit of the nation..

    He said “We also declare our total support to President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election bid and we call on men and women of goodwill and conscience to rally round Mr. President in order to salvage the nation from the current political turbulence and always stand by the oppressed so that we can together build a virile and prosperous Nigeria.”

     

    Minister urges calm in Kwara APC

     

    Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed yesterday thanked APC members and supporters in Kwara for their unflinching support to the party despite gale of defection in the National Assembly.

    In a statement, the minister expressed gratitude to the party members and those from other parties for their solidarity for President Muhammadu Buhari.

    “That commitment has been reflected in the overwhelming support and solidarity that we have received, not just from our party members but also from other parties and stakeholders across the state since the melodrama at the National Assembly on Tuesday.

    “In particular, there has been an expression of overwhelming love and support for Buhari from across Kwara in the wake of the defections by federal legislators from Kwara.

    “I call on all our members and supporters in Kwara to remain calm, because there is no cause for alarm.

    “We are presently consulting with the national leadership of our great party, with a view to coming up with a programme of action that will take into consideration the recent developments,’’ he said.

    Mohammed assured the members and supporters that whatever decision taken after the consultations would be in their overall best interest.

    Some senators and House of Representatives members had on Tuesday announced their defection from APC to other political parties.

     

    I cannot work with Saraki,

    says PDP chair

     

    The Kwara State chairman of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo, yesterday said he cannot work with the incoming defectors from APC led by Senate President Bukola Saraki.

    Two senators, Shaaba Lafiagi (Kwara North) and Rafiu Ibrahim (Kwara South) as well as the six members of the House of Representatives from the state were among federal legislators who defected on Tuesday from the APC.  Saraki and Governor AbdulFattah Ahmed are expected to announce their  defection soon.

    But Oyedepo, who spoke on the development on a radio programme in Ilorin, the state capital, said the national leadership of the PDP set up a committee to interface between his group and the defectors. The first meeting is slated for next week, he said.

    The PDP chairman, who said he had just returned from a meeting with PDP leaders in Abuja, blamed the party’s national leadership for being allegedly insensitive to the political configuration in Kwara State and allowing themselves to be swayed by funding capacity of the defectors. To him, the option now before the leaders is to choose between his group and the Saraki’s.

    He said:  “We have not sat down with the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki and the state governor, Alhaji AbdulFattah Ahmed, even though I’m hearing several rumours that I have met with them and that they have offered me juicy positions. Those are all lies; the Senate President despite his humongous wealth, does not yet have what it takes to buy me. He cannot ever buy me because he cannot buy my integrity. If my bank account is not fat, my integrity account is very fat.

    “So they have not met with us but our national body said they have set up a committee to meet with the two sides next week and when that meeting comes up, we are going to tell the national body  that we cannot accept the formula they have put down which is 60:40, 60 percent for a state defecting with the governor and 40 percent for the existing PDP members. And if they said what of 50:50, or 40:60 or 30:70 or even 10:90, we shall not accept; we cannot accept any offer. Anything less than our not working together we cannot accept.

    “So, we will tell our national body to choose between us and them and I know that they will not choose us because we don’t have money but we are not worried. We will only know that an end has come to our journey and our relationship (in the PDP).

    “If we agree to work with them (Saraki), just imagine myself and (Governor AbdulFattah Ahmed) Maigida standing on the same rostrum, pledging to do things for the people. It will be a shame; many people will look at me and wonder what has happened. So, it is better not to be in politics again. Instead of a dog being the treasurer for the lion, it is better for both to part ways and go on their separate hunting game.

    “The blame is not from the Saraki camp; the blame is from our national leaders (in the PDP). Leadership in Nigeria is the conspiracy of the elite to punish the downtrodden. When they gave us the party, we inherited nothing and so whatever you see in the PDP today is the product of our efforts. For this alone we should not be interested in defecting from our own house but it is better we do so now and look forward to better future for our dear state.”

     

    Senators attack Adamu

    over defection list

     

    The ripple of Tuesday’s defection of some senators from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may be far from over.

    Two senators, Abdullahi Danbaba and Isa Hama Misau, yesterday attacked Senator Abdullahi Adamu over his claim that the defections were fraught with fraud.

    Danbaba (Sokoto South) and Misau (Bauchi central) condemned the statement credited to Adamu in which he allegedly claimed that Senate President  Bukola Saraki, “merely collated the list of Senators he feels are not happy with the APC and announced them as defectors.”

    They said it was unbecoming of Adamu to mislead Nigerians about the defection of senators when he knows the truth.

    The two Senators, in a statement, said: “Adamu thought all Nigerians were dumb by saying names of senators were just announced when in actual fact the concerned senators were individual political leaders in their different constituencies and were present on the floor when their names were read out from a letter signed by all of them.

    “People like Senator Adamu have become agents of instability and division in the Senate. This same Senator, who was genuflecting before Saraki to get a Senate committee chairmanship at the beginning of the Eighth Senate, suddenly made a turn-around to become a lap-dog of the Presidency because he is afraid of his past. It is public knowledge that the axe of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is dangling on him and one of his sons.

    “How possible is it for somebody to just announce the change of party on behalf of a Senator without the legislator concerned giving his consent? We can assure him that more Senators are preparing to leave the sinking ship of APC and Senator Abdullahi Adamu will have more fabrications to do.

    “It is surprising that a man of Adamu’s calibre will say that the only defecting Senators are from Kwara. We wonder if Senators Danbaba (Sokoto), Isa Misau and Suleiman Nazif (Bauchi), Monsurat Sunmonu (Oyo), Barnabas Gemade (Benue), Ubali Shittu (Jigawa), Suleiman Hunkuyi (Kaduna), Usman Nafada (Gombe), Rabiu Kwakwanso (Kano), Abdulazeez Nyako (Adamawa), and Dino Melaye (Kogi) are also from Kwara State.

    “Senator Adamu is struggling to save his skin but he should at least care about the credibility of the information he is giving out. At his level, he should refrain from circulating fake news.”

     

  • Turmoil in PDP over Tambuwal

    Turmoil in PDP over Tambuwal

    •Jonathan, associates kick
    •Obasanjo schemes to impose crony on CNM

    A fresh crisis is looming in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the 2019 elections.

    The threat to party peace stems from alleged plan by some powerful forces to hand over the PDP presidential ticket to Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State.

    Tambuwal is currently in the All Progressives Congress (APC) but he is being wooed by Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and some other PDP governors to return to the party he dumped ahead of the 2015 elections.

    Also pushing for the Sokoto governor’s candidature is a prominent traditional ruler in the North, party sources told The Nation yesterday.

    Simultaneously, the Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM) appears to be narrowing its choice of presidential candidate in next year’s election to one of the three ex-governors it is currently wooing as a possible replacement for President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Ex-governors Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), and Ibrahim Shekarau (Kano) like Buhari, are all from the North-West geo-political zone.

    The Nation gathered authoritatively that their names feature prominently in ongoing consultations by CNM bigwigs.

    But there is a condition: any of them seeking the Olusegun Obasanjo-inspired coalition’s support must first identify with it publicly.

    Wike, fresh from installing Prince Uche Secondus as party chairman despite vehement opposition from the likes of former Military President Ibrahim Babangida and ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, is said to have drawn the ire of Jonathan and many of his supporters for promoting Tambuwal’s presidential ambition in PDP.

    Party sources said the anti-Tambuwal elements are uncomfortable with him in view of the role he played in the loss of power by the PDP in 2015, especially the defeat of Jonathan.

    The Jonathan associates and some PDP governors have vowed to stop Tambuwal’s bid to secure the PDP presidential ticket.

    Tambuwal was Speaker of the House of Representatives under Jonathan and his defection from the PDP to the then newly formed APC laid the foundation for the defeat of the PDP in the 2015 polls.

    Party sources also said he might return to the party on the basis of an alleged unwritten agreement between him and Wike.

    He is the only APC governor that has not yet identified with the 2019 re-election bid of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    A source conversant with the ongoing intrigues said:  “Jonathan’s associates and some PDP governors are not comfortable with Tambuwal for betraying the party to pave the way for the victory of APC and President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015

    “They believe that, as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, he  was used by the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN ) to destabilize the PDP, giving the ACN control of the House from  2011 to 2015

    “They accused Tambuwal of working for ACN and later joining APC to fight Jonathan. Jonathan’s kinsmen and his associates have not forgotten the role he played in bringing down their man. To that extent, the ex-president’s camp sees Tambuwal as a hard sell in the South-South, particularly in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers states.

    “Some PDP governors and leaders believe he will also be difficult to sell in the South-West because of the role he played in the defeat of Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila in the Speakership race in 2015. Whereas the South-West supported him to become the Speaker by defeating Hon. Mulikat Adeola from Oyo State in 2015, he was implicated in working against Gbajabiamila, who was the zone’s choice for Speaker in 2015.

    “Some PDP governors also believe that Tambuwal will be no match for Buhari in the north since his major political platform belongs to ex-Governor Aliyu Wammako who APC and strategists of Buhari are lobbying to remain in the ruling party.

    “Wammakko, politically known as ‘Alu’, may prefer to return to the Senate on the ticket of APC as long as he can be allowed to single-handedly pick a successor to Tambuwal to consolidate his political base.”

    But a PDP source said: “With Wike’s backing, Tambuwal may get the ticket. I think those making a strong case for Tambuwal have gone far on this project to be underrated.

    “If Jonathan and his associates can be cut to size during the National Convention of PDP, Wike and others can have their way on Tambuwal.

    “The aftermath in PDP might affect the chances of the party in 2019 because those in favour of the former Interim National Chairman of the party, Sen. Ahmed Makarfi as the preferred candidate for the party’s presidential mandate may cause an upset. Adopting Tambuwal will amount to abandoning the agreement with Makarfi by PDP governors to make him the party’s presidential candidate.

    “I think a member of the Interim Caretaker Committee saw this coming when he advised Makarfi to seek a firm commitment from Wike and others. Makarfi preferred to have trust in these governors.

    “Whatever it is, it is just a matter of when Tambuwal, who pulled the strings behind the scene during PDP convention, will move to PDP.

    “Realising the danger of APC plot against him, Tambuwal has gone on the fast lane by winning prominent Emirs to his side and reconciling with the likes of ex-Governor Attahiru Bafarawa. This was what accounted for the enlargement of his cabinet to 25 on February 5. He also pulled the rug from under  Wammako’s feet by appointing his younger brother, Ahmed Barade Wamakko  as Commissioner for Social Welfare.

    “Also, the anti-Tambuwal elements in PDP and APC are not relenting. For instance, the alleged hounding of Prince Kassim Afegbua, who is the spokesman of Babangida, by security agencies might have been more about his role as a political strategist of Tambuwal than the ex-Military President.”

    Notwithstanding, it was learnt that some PDP governors are considering Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo.

    A third source said: “These governors say Dankwambo is young, well educated, urbane, cosmopolitan with less baggage.  He was in Asaba last week when the governors met with the Secondus-led executives. He is also very close to Governor Ayo Fayose

    “Their worry is whether or not he has the stature to defeat Buhari.”

    Another PDP source added: “Dankwambo is too close to Governor Nasir el-Rufai for comfort. We are suspecting that APC is propping him up as a weak candidate to make it an easy ride for Buhari. We know their game plan.”

    Investigation by our correspondent on Obasanjo’s CNM revealed that contrary to claims by the former president  that he has no preferred candidate for the 2019 presidential race, the coalition  may  make strong recommendations on some candidates for Nigerians to vote for.

    A source in the group however said that whatever action taken by it will be guided by utmost caution to avoid acts capable of derailing its plans to “ease out Buhari” at all cost.

    “Whatever may be the pretence by ex-President Obasanjo, the ultimate target of CNM is to get a replacement for Buhari in 2019,” the source said.

    “The group may recommend any of the three former governors from the North-West as being capable of replacing Buhari.

    “The three leaders are Rabiu Kwankwaso, Sule Lamido, and Ibrahim Shekarau who are all from the North-West like Buhari.

    “I think a major challenge of CNM is how to work to the answer in 2019 on any of these three presidential aspirants.

    “This is why CNM, through Obasanjo, is opening talks with top politicians from the six geopolitical zones.”

    But the group is still working on the platform it will use to actualize its plan to replace Buhari.

    “The choice of platform is a challenge,” the source explained.

    He added: “PDP is the strongest opposition party which Obasanjo does not want to associate with in order not to return to his vomit having torn his membership card.

    “The CNM is trying to recommend a merger of PDP and other parties with a new name to be able to push its agenda for any of Kwankwaso, Lamido and Shekarau.”

    The CNM believes it has made a substantial inroad into the National Assembly as one of the institutions to promote the anti-Buhari agenda.

    Continuing, the source said: “The CNM has been implicated in a romance with some Senators and members of the House of Representatives which led to the reversal of INEC’s Order of Elections in 2019.

    “Nigerians should expect more radical resolutions from the National Assembly which can promote the coalition’s plans against Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC).”

    Analysts however see Obasanjo’s motive as selfish and playing gambling with Nigerians.

    One analyst asked: is it his birth right to choose president for us? He imposed Yar’Adua, Jonathan, now he is scheming to impose on us the next President. He must be stopped.

    “On Wednesday, Obasanjo insisted that CNM would remain a socio-political movement.

    “He said he would cease to be a member if the coalition becomes partisan.

    “He said: ‘In the year 2015, I said I would no longer participate in partisan politics. And I still stand by my decision. Everybody, irrespective of his or her political affiliation is free to come here for advice, I will gladly do that. I have no candidate, whatsoever, for any political office. I just believe that things must be done differently in Nigeria to get different result.’

     

  • Turmoil on S/African varsity campuses

    •High fees spark riots quelled by police in a manner reminiscent of apartheid era

    They were like scenes straight out of the benighted era of apartheid in South Africa.

    Unarmed demonstrators chanting songs of protest and defiance of that era were clubbed and beaten and kicked and tear-gassed by riot police who seem to be holdovers from the apartheid years, executing orders from above.

    But the protesters were not challenging the apartheid state and the brutalism that was part and parcel of its ideology; that era ended more than two decades ago

    The protesters, most of them black, were demanding free tuition in the country’s tertiary institutions, and those seeking to disperse them with main force were the law-enforcement agents of the post-apartheid state.

    This was the grim reality that the international news media captured splendidly and relayed across the world in recent weeks.  The wheel has turned full circle in South Africa, pivoting on the pernicious legacy of apartheid, which is likely to endure well into the present century.

    In its rawest form, apartheid education policy was designed to equip the majority black South Africans               with just enough knowledge and skills to fit them to be dutiful servants for the minority whites.  More by force of circumstance than by design, the policy changed gradually to widen educational opportunities for blacks, but not significantly.

    The state spent at least six times for the education of a white child than it did on the education of a black.  At almost every level, blacks received an inferior education.  The state had enough wealth to give all South Africans quality education.  But that would have gravely undermined the supremacist underpinning of apartheid.

    Just as the apartheid authorities did not believe in sharing power, they also did not believe in sharing opportunities.

    It took the solicitude of Oprah Winfrey, the African American television show host and media entrepreneur to build and operate the first world-class secondary school for black and so-called coloured girls in South Africa.

    The end of apartheid opened up opportunities hitherto closed to blacks.  It witnessed, across the educational landscape, an explosion in numbers and demand that the new South African government has been struggling to cope with. Today the student population in South African tertiary institutions has grown three-fold since the end of apartheid.  But official grants to the universities have not grown correspondingly.

    To meet the shortfall the South African government permitted the 26 public universities to raise tuition fees by a little under 10 per cent and promised to cover the increase for students from low-income families, comprising some 75 per cent of the student population.

    But the students will settle for nothing less than free tuition, and took to protests that at times turned violent and drew violent police response.  They are also demanding the appointment of more African professors to the faculty, and reforms to make the curriculum more focused on Africa, and on the problems of what they call the subaltern, the less privileged in society.

    To cater fully for those staggering numbers as the students are demanding cannot be an easy task for the South African government, especially at a time of economic contraction.  Demand in other areas that also suffered cruel neglect during apartheid — especially health, housing and electricity —is just as compelling, as the government has pointed out.   Besides, the government said, the repayment rate on student loans, an important component of the funding structure, has been abysmal.

    The crisis has resulted in a stalemate, with many campuses shut down and the possibility that an entire academic year may be lost.

    As Bishop Ziphoziihle Siwa, the respected president of the South African Council of Churches has suggested, a return to the negotiating table, with an impartial mediator, is the first step toward resolving the crisis. Different models for funding tertiary education will have to be explored.

    This crisis is further testament that apartheid as official state ideology may have died, but its pernicious legacy endures and will constrain and haunt the post-apartheid South African nation for long.

  • Buhari: Nigeria would ’ve been in turmoil, says Jonathan

    Buhari: Nigeria would ’ve been in turmoil, says Jonathan

    •APC seeks international probe 

    President Goodluck Jonathan was all gratitude to Allah yesterday for sparing the lives of former Head of State Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and top Islamic preacher Sheik Dahiru Bauchi.

    The duo escaped assassination on Wednesday  when the fundamentalist sect, Boko Haram, detonated two bombs in Kaduna.

    Jonathan, receiving Muslim leaders in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on the Eid-el-Fitri Sallah homage at the Presidential Villa, said that the country would have been in turmoil if the terrorists had succeeded.

    The President who fasted during Ramadan, described the period as a time to reflect and be our neighbours’ keepers.

    He said: “Not too long ago, we had these dastardly attacks in Kano and Kaduna. We stand to condemn these acts of terror on our people. And we extend our condolences and sympathy to the bereaved and those who might have been injured. The recent attacks in Kaduna, especially where Sheik Dahiru Bauchi was a target and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari was also a target.”

    “You can imagine if these two people had died in those attacks. Shiekh Bauchi is one of our top Islamic preachers; he has millions of followers. Buhari, former Head of State, a leading political figure, has massive supporters.”

    “On the same day people wanted to kill them; those who planned the attacks are clearly sons of the devil. If they had killed these two people, we wouldn’t have been here today. This country would have been in turmoil; we couldn’t have gathered here to celebrate.”

    The President went on: “We thank Allah for saving their lives and preventing a major calamity that would have befallen our country. I use this opportunity to call on all Nigerians to work with government to see that collectively we bring to an end the excesses of Boko Haram and other terrorist groups. We are doing everything humanly possible to end it.”

    Jonathan urged clerics to always preach peace and unity and not hate.

    Nigeria, he said, cannot develop without peace and unity.

    “In a conflict situation people move away from such zones and we cannot develop our communities, our local governments, states and our country in a conflict situation,” he said.

    He said the government was looking at ways to raise funds to cater for widows and orphans as well as those whose business premises were vandalized. Worship places that were destroyed.

    Stressing that the government cannot do it alone, the President said that the fund would be launched on Thursday.

    He said: “Government cannot do it alone because we will need huge sums of money. The Nigerian private sector are vibrant and willing if they see sincerity in government. We have demonstrated that very clearly and we are hopeful that that day reasonable amount of money will be raised.”

    “And we will continue to raise money until we are able to cushion the effect of these excesses and at the same time we are strengthening our security services so that they will be able to confront this menace,” he added.

    Speaking earlier, Vice President, Namadi Sambo thanked the President for accepting to receive them as they celebrate the end of the Ramadan.

    Praying God to continue to give the President wisdom and guidance to rule, for peace and for all the evil including Boko Haram, to end, he praised him for fasting alongside Muslims during the Ramadan.

    He also urged Nigerians to be their brothers’ keepers, as he prayed for tranquility in the country and for total reconciliation and stability.

    Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Bala Mohammed said: “We have always enjoyed humane and civil disposition; that is why you see Muslims and Christians coming to pay homage – in line with your exemplary leadership.”

    He prayed for courage and wisdom for the President to continue to steer the ship of leadership despite the security challenges.

  • Oil rises above $107 as Iraq turmoil intensifies

    Oil rises above $107 as Iraq turmoil intensifies

    The price of oil rose above $107  as violence worsened in Iraq with reports of a massacre by Islamic militants, raising fears of widening instability in the country, a key energy producer.

    The northern town of Tal Afar became the latest to fall to the militants, who have already captured a vast swath of territory including Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. The militants, who on Sunday posted graphic photos of truckloads of Iraqi soldiers that they apparently captured and killed, vow to march on Baghdad.

    After rising 4.1 per cent last week, benchmark U.S. crude for July delivery rose 36 cents to $107.27 — the highest in nine months — in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

    Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils, gained 63 cents to $113.09 a barrel in London.

    The capture of Mosul, a key gateway for Iraqi crude, raises worries about whether the country can rebuild its energy infrastructure and raise production to meet global demand.

    A U.S. aircraft carrier has moved into the Persian Gulf as President Barack Obama considers military options, though he has ruled out sending in American troops.

    “The U.S. has ruled out putting troops on the ground, raising fears of a protracted period of tensions that might spill over into the wider Middle East,” Mizuho Bank analysts said in a report.

    “With no signs of any decisive U.S. actions to enforce the security situation, oil prices continue to price in fears of supply disruptions.

  • Turmoil in Governors’ Forum

    Turmoil in Governors’ Forum

    After the vicious cut and thrust of the past 10 days in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), few within and without the association now expect it to remain the same, either as influential as it was before, or as cohesive as it had hoped when it was founded. It may be premature to write it off, considering that the convulsion tearing it apart is essentially trivial and limited to disagreements within the ruling party, but in the long run it is really hard to see it retaining the kind of relevance that thrust it to the forefront of national politics. Indeed, with the creation of the Peoples Democratic Party Governors’ Forum (PDP-GF), after the Governor Amaechi-led NGF refused to yield to the entreaties of the President Goodluck Jonathan government, it will take some doing to bring the governors back to the sort of unity they were accustomed to. For in fracturing, the governors did not just go their separate ways, they went about it acrimoniously using words that neither dignified their offices nor showed the kind of character many naively thought inhered in state executive mansions.

    For NGF, fame has become a double-edged sword. Founded in 1999, the Forum only became notable when it played prominent role in abating the constitutional crisis triggered by the illness of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. Since then, the body has flexed its muscles on a number of exigent national or party issues including the election of party chairmen, excess crude account, constitutional reform, and electoral reform, among other things. Until now, it had also been fairly stable, with no overt leadership squabbles. So far, too, it has been chaired by five governors, including the long-serving former Governors Abdullahi Adamu and Bukola Saraki of Nasarawa and Kwara States respectively. Before the presidency took the Forum apart using the willing hands of a few governors, in particular, Governors Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom and Ibrahim Shema of Katsina, the public thought governors reasoned more expansively and with admirable depth. Their supposedly copious rationality was thought to be a bulwark against the meddlesomeness of higher powers, including the presidency.

    The reason given by the presidency for undermining the unity of NGF is that the association had become a trade union. According to the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Ahmed Gulak, “The leadership of Amaechi in that forum has completely gone contrary to what PDP expects a PDP governor to do. The Nigeria Governors’ Forum has really become a trade union. Some elder statesmen have really come out to explain things in that perspective. For instance, about three weeks ago, Prof. Jubril Aminu came out publicly to say the NGF was not supposed to be a trade union. It is supposed to be an association of governors coming together to discuss common challenges in the country, not to hold the country to ransom.”

    While it is true the NGF has been forceful in championing certain causes, even appearing to act as an opposition party to the ruling party, dismissing the Forum as a trade union masks the imperceptible undercurrents in the PDP and in the polity. First, there is a general feeling of dismay that the Jonathan presidency, with its sometimes baffling pronouncements, its mystifyingly uninformed policies, its general lethargy and incompetence, its wastefulness, and its gross inability to inspire the country into innovation and greatness, is unable to rise to the occasion the times demand. The NGF is not inoculated against these frustrations, nor, even if it sympathised with the ruling party, could it pretend to be indifferent to the country’s massive drift towards aimlessness. There is also a limit to how the NGF could promote the interest of the PDP or pull its punches when the ruling party is overreaching itself. After all, the NGF is an umbrella body of 36 governors, not a PDP creation for PDP governors.

    Second, much more than merely reacting to what the presidency described as Amaechi’s boisterousness and opposition politics, one of the chief reasons for the president’s hostility is Poll 2015, an ambition that would be endangered if the NGF consistently wrong-foots the presidency. In addition, presidency officials rightly or wrongly believed Amaechi himself nursed presidential ambition, and was probably using the NGF platform to boost both his leadership credentials and countrywide appeal. Amaechi in fact did not help matters by playing the revolutionary. He had a highly publicised disagreement with the president’s wife in Rivers State in 2010, and openly disagreed with the president on a number of issues including disputed oil wells situated between the borders of Rivers, his state, and Bayelsa, the president’s home state. The Rivers governor in fact began to come across as Amaechi the Just, or even Amaechi the Revolutionary. And if left alone, perhaps, he could, in the secret opinion of the Jonathan presidency, start to come across as Amaechi the Great.

    But having created those heresies and infused them into Amaechi, the PDP leadership and the presidency committed themselves to burning the new wizard at the stakes. It is no small matter that the Rivers governor himself provided the fuel for the lynch mob. He often spoke candidly when circumspection would have been sufficient. He thought aloud instead of silently, though his thoughts were nothing but alarming revolutionary heresies. And he seemed incapable of stopping at simply playing David to the presidency’s Goliath; but must paint by his words, connotatively or denotatively, a Goliath that is clumsy, vacuous and intemperate. Worse, he seemed to enjoy the new role circumstances thrust upon his shoulders, for he was trusted by his colleagues in the Forum, and they knew he was earnest and honest in his utterances and predilections. Everything about Amaechi, however, drove Jonathan and his aides up the wall.

    At any time, there will always be many governors in Nigeria and in the NGF (if it survives) who think rationally and patriotically. They will resist the coercive and corrosive influences of the presidency, and their pride, as well as their natural inclinations, will make them abjure the tendency by the presidency to corral the entire country into one lobotomized whole. Unfortunately, however, there will also be a few governors who think rather obtusely, whose convoluted patriotism is interpreted in terms of the private yearnings of the president, and whose definition of unity and example of duty are rooted in monarchism and focus primarily on a servile relationship between the president and his subjects.

    Last week, in the final hours of the collapse of NGF resolve, it was thought only six or seven governors believed Amaechi led the association improperly or imperially. Suddenly after a meeting with the president on Tuesday, and for reasons reporters only speculated, about 16 governors had been persuaded to vote for partisanship over common sense. Thereafter, Akwa Ibom’s Akpabio exuberantly rationalised the creation of PDP-GF and talked of kicking out the Judases within the PDP governors’ ranks. The PDP national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, also exulted about a new spirit sweeping through the party, which spirit he believed would engender greater things and open a limitless vista of achievements for the party. It wasn’t apparent to both gentlemen that their newfound enthusiasm could in fact be a reflection of puerile politicking or of betrayal of general and party principles, values and virtues.

    It was expected of Tukur, as party chairman, to grandstand unscrupulously before the country in favour of the president, for the president had provoked an earthquake in order to crown and canonise him. On the other hand, the same ingratiation was not expected of Akpabio, for he is legally recognised as chief executive of a state, with rights and immunity vouchsafed to him by the constitution almost as powerfully as the same constitution has done for the president. That he chose to forswear those powers and instead read the politicking in the NGF through the president’s prism was a matter of choice to him. More, however, they were also an indication of a major flaw in his character. By speaking gutsily and with striking imperturbability against Amaechi, Akpabio gave notice of his capacity to listen to his heart rather than his head. That single embrace of the presidency, and the risible justification he lent his action, has probably defined and tarred his politics for all time. It is an action he may not be able to live down.

    The turbulence in the NGF was inevitable. The association was indeed becoming more powerful than even opposition parties, and its leadership, when it was personified by a Saraki or an Amaechi, had bigger halo than both party and national leadership. Its strength and ascendancy were underscored by the corresponding weakness and decline of a mediocre presidency. A clash was, therefore, unavoidable. And such a clash, thankfully, always helps to sharpen contradictions and expose leaders and politicians overrated by their accomplishments rather than rated by their lack of virtue and character. This is why I think that while NGF’s future is in doubt, the dismal future and political retrogression of both Akpabio and Shema are not. All it takes sometimes is just one wrong turn to consign a politician to the dustbin of history.

  • A nation in turmoil

    A nation in turmoil

    Nigeria, my beloved country, is obviously in turmoil, as every patriot now suffers from unceasing headache inflicted by daily brain-spanking news from official quarters. In fact, that I started this piece without the slightest idea of a title to christen it, an indication of trouble. Trouble within ! Trouble without! Please, let someone bail me out. How can any sane person, particularly a full-blooded Nigerian, without any other home than this stupendously rich but stupidly poor entity, possibly calm his ever-riotous brain that can’t but reflect on so many things at the same time, 24 hours daily?

    Which of these‘peculiar mess’ should I take first. The wit-twisting Lamido Sanusi’s mass sack economic advocacy? Or the Bamanga Tukur’s latest comedy on PDP’s status in relation to national security? Yet, the wind of fear and trepidation that recently shook the National Assembly to its foundation caught my fancy, as I struggled to contextualize Pastor Oritsajefor’s latest ironic concern over the Boko Haram phenomenon.

    Next is this mouth-gaping N2.2 billion approved by the Federal Executive Council for the construction of yet another event hall in the Presidential Villa. I doubt that the fate of Olubiyi Odunaro, the ex-employee of Hallmark Bank Plc, who has just bowed to pressure to suspend his indefinite hunger strike over the failure of the authorities to facilitate the payment of his terminal benefits as well as that of over 14,000 other ex-staff of unconsolidated banks ever got a mention during this federal cabinet meeting.

    Insanity begets insanity. For quite a while, I have been at pain to rationalize perceived widespread insanity amongst my fellow citizens. For instance, regular visits to different newspaper stands every morning have gradually filled me with some passionate hatred for fellow citizens who congregate daily to, relive their excitements and passion for the beauty of European football. I have got no hassles with the popularity of the round leather game, particularly the commonplace Nigerian admiration of its near perfect reality cum seemingly irresistible beauty in that saner clime. Where I have a problem is a situation whereby daily captions of mass killings, bombings, kidnappings and other occurrences of Nigerians’inhumanity to fellow Nigerians have come to mean nothing. Rather than feel the slightest pity for victimized compatriots or show little tinge of concern over a raging fire speedily racing towards even their own abodes, they get moved to morbid anger only by news of match losses by their darling clubs or even partisan ridicule from ‘fans’ of opposing clubs.

    However, I think I now know better. A people beleaguered by insane leadership for too long can’t but be mad. Nigerians have hardly had genuine causes to smile since independence. One happy piece of news is usually overwhelmed and relegated into insignificance by countless sad headlines trailing it in quick succession.

    Most are now incurable pessimists, no longer expecting anything good from the Nigerian landscape. They are so accustomed to bad news that bombing of millions now means nothing but just another event. Perhaps, the people’s obsession for European soccer is merely an escapist tool of living outside their sick society.

    At a time concerned citizens are shedding internal tears of fear over the grave security implications of the new traffic laws in Lagos State on the long-existing sky-rocketing unemployment situation, the recent call by Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Central Bank Governor, for the sack of 50% of the civil service, to boost the availability of fund for true economic development, is nothing but depressing.

    Really, Sanusi is blameless. Sincere blames should aim at a system that destroys itself through perpetually cyclical elevation of people far removed from the grassroots into leadership positions. People who are not Nigerians in the true sense. People who never come into contact with the masses as they struggle to survive on less than a dollar daily, cramping themselves, in fours and fives, on bikes, competing with dogs for bones.

    And, just like Sanusi, Bamanga Tukur’s effrontery in absolving the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) of any blame over the general insecurity in the land is incensing to patriots, who have long lost sleep in self-imposed assignment of drumming the beats of reason into the ears of our erring leaders. For the chairman of a party that has been wielding power at the centre since 1999 to claim that since his party is not a security agency, Nigerians should not blame it for the current reign of terror in the land, is, to say the least, an official certification of sick leadership.

    Meanwhile, the National Assembly would have curatively filled the gap of hope for Nigerians, if its members had previously been half as agitated as they were on probable bombing of their congregation, instead of their usual lip-service reactions to attacks on the masses.

    I feel our lawmakers should beam their searchlight on Pastor Oritsajefor and his ilk, if they ever want to avert what they passionately dread. Let’s all address the cleric with the bitter truth: “Our Dear Pastor, please forget about your junketing round the risky areas to calm frayed nerves, to realize that you and your ilk are indeed the problem. Sir, you can’t possibly deny that Boko Haram is terror unleashed by the frustrated lots against the Nigerian State and its leaders who, in their opinion, have been flourishing in wealth and ostentation while they stand neglected in yawning poverty. Sir, you recently unmasked thy ‘holy’ self as one of those who possess and flaunt questionable wealth, through your newly-acquired jet, discretely helping to groom potential suicide bombers within your pauperized flock and the generally impoverished citizenry, further frustrated by your recent entry into the Nigerian Association of Private Jet Owners”.

    “The approving presence of our President during the celebration of your saddening feat only revealed that the man that once had no shoes has been infected by the maddening lucre of office and the typically dominant unthinking companions in the power corridor. Wishing you and all others up there a speedy recovery from the acquisition malady, sir”.

    Perhaps, the terse response of a younger brother to my recent poser on why we seem so doomed aptly diagnosed our national ailment as residing in the kind of people that we are. Thus, since I have every reason to subscribe to the truism that the quality of leadership in any society is a mirror of the led. At least, our leaders did not emerge from a vacuum or a foreign land. It’s indeed time for holistic citizenry cure.

    • Olokode, a Communication Strategist, wrote from Lagos.

  • Boko Haram, senators and turmoil in the Northeast

    Boko Haram, senators and turmoil in the Northeast

    It is an understatement to say the war on terror in Nigeria is not going too well for Borno State and the Joint Task Force (JTF). In spite of the deployment of considerable ordnance in the Northeast, the sect is no nearer to being subdued today than it was at the beginning of its revolt some three years ago. Worse, the war is getting messier, with highly placed public officials and legislators dragged into the war in very unedifying ways. The latest example is Senator Ahmad Khalifa Zanna (PDP-Borno Central), who is alleged by the JTF to have harboured at his Maiduguri home a wanted Boko Haram terror suspect, Shuaib Mohammed Bama. The senator, however, immediately denied the claims and instead explained that the suspect was in fact arrested at the home of former governor Ali Modu Sherrif. Sherrif has in turn denounced Zanna’s allegation as spurious and escapist.

    The Boko Haram problem has unfortunately graduated from an uncomplicated terror war to a much more complex revolt that seems to defy categorisation and rationalisation. In response to the invitation extended to him by the secret service, Zanna alleged that the JTF had by engaging in extra-judicial killings breached the military’s rules of engagement. He cited the instance of a group of 15 schoolboys shot in cold blood recently in Maiduguri by the JTF and the razing of a row of buildings in retaliation against the killing of an officer. He also claimed that the JTF tactics had been intimidatory and unfriendly. In addition, the JTF failed to consult with the people of Borno and wouldn’t take advice, he said. It will be recalled that in July last year, and again many times this year, Borno Elders criticised the JTF and called on the government to withdraw the military task force from Borno State on account of indiscriminate killings that are exacerbating the revolt.

    Though Zanna’s alleged links with Boko Haram are still being investigated, it is not too early for the army to examine the complaints of Borno Elders and the allegations of extra-judicial killings levelled by the senator against the JTF. If indeed the objective of the state and the JTF is to quell the revolt and restore peace in the northern part of the country, they must be amenable to suggestions that will help them gain the confidence of the people on whose behalf they claim to be fighting. Surely, going by the festering of the Boko Haram revolt, no one can claim that the affected northern states are enjoying more peace today than they did in 2009, when this problem first reared its practical head.

    The allegations against Senator Zanna are truly disturbing and should be investigated diligently. But his counterclaims against the JTF are also deeply unnerving. These too must be diligently investigated without cover-up. The consequence of ignoring these allegations, especially against the security agencies fighting Boko Haram, is to encourage the problem to fester the more until it becomes unmanageable and the sect’s leaders begin to nurse territorial ambitions as Northern Mali has shown. The Boko Haram menace is a potent enough problem; the government must not add the hostility of an alienated citizenry to its many headaches.