Greetings

Season's greetings to all followers of this blog. We wish you the best also in 2016.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

richard

Morning VP, be warned, you may be losing me!

Dear Sir,

For those who really know me, I may be one of the easiest persons that a Nigerian government can satisfy. This is for a reason. I know the depth of the challenge of running government in Nigeria and am familiar with what is involved. But I also know one chief reason why Nigerian leaders fail: they forget themselves.


Yes, one of the prime killers of good men in government in Nigeria is amnesia. The opulence and basic non-accountability of the system sucks them in and they lose their humanity. It is that simple. I have made this point in an earlier piece asking for the Aso villa to be turned into a fee-paying museum. I still hold that view and my premise is simple: as presently constituted, the villa is too big, too lavish and too out-of-touch with the reality of the mass of our people. It was built at another time when the ruling notions were about imperial domination, not democracy. Today it is an anachronism, a leech that sucks off the little innocence left in hitherto simple men. And Mr. Vice President sir, I am afraid that 'Aso Rock' has begun to get at you.


Trust me, this conclusion has not been arrived at casually. Rather, it is the product of reasoned, exegetical analysis. Months ago, I wrote a piece lauding your commendable involvement with the establishment and functioning of the Office of the Defender during your stint as Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State. Now it is my lot to conversely point out what Professor Wole Soyinka would describe as ‘the road you are not taking.’


So what is 'the new one you have now done' as my people would put it? It is simple. A few hours ago, you were credited with having stated in a parley with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria that: ‘we must be ready to accept that for a while, until things stabilize somewhat, (electricity) tariffs cannot remain at the levels at which they are today... It certainly means that there may be higher costs, but I don’t think that an option of not having power is really what we want. The real issue of course is that at the end of the day, some of the cost goes to the consumer, but a cost reflective tariff is an absolute necessity, otherwise, privatization and all of that simply doesn’t make sense.”


Sir, from where you are today, you make your point most indulgently; but let us also make ours. No one is really afraid of paying cost reflective tariffs. But we need to put things in their proper sequence. There must be service before costs. And again, you will really have to watch what you say and what signals you send out. Because you are speaking for the Presidency in a yet executive-dominated country!


Let me explain. The truth of our society today is that there are many contending agendas out there. There are the wishes of the masses and there are the schemings of the affluent. It is therefore the responsibility of those that govern us to always remember that their mandate must always be used to serve the common good.

Broken down, your current logic on our power conundrum may very well be serving primarily the interests of the DISCOs and notably, their insistence on continuing for as long as they can, with the ignoble and discredited practice of estimated billing.


Again, we say no one is afraid of cost-reflective tariffs. But like the House of Representatives has rightly argued, no one should also be compelled to pay for services he has not received. And your government must not join in propping up a system that compels consumers to pay for services not rendered. That, Professor, would not be right before God and man. It would also not qualify as one of the hallmarks of modern democratic living in Nigeria which you have been forsworn to defend.


Indeed, you got close to hitting the nail on the head when you talked of the estimated 40 percent losses in the current transmission and distribution chain. There is not only a primary challenge of halting these losses but also dealing with a second regretable fallout, that today those costs are being passed on majorly only to those Nigerians who haplessly continue to find themselves on the estimated billing platform! And figures suggest that well over 50 percent of electricity subscribers in the country fit in here. So you see why you need to be reminded that whenever you speak, it should be in the defence of the common good or at the very least, in the interest of the greater majority of our people whom you are elected to serve!

For this majority, the first call of duty is simply and squarely about putting an end to the estimated billing system. This practice is obnoxious and vexatious. And there is a sense in which it is also patently wicked given that it is really the poorer segments of our society that are carrying this cup of hemlock. And so month after month they continue to get bills that are heavily at variance with those served their neighbours who are lucky enough to have received the few prepaid meters that the current system has so grudgingly offered.

Mr. Vice President Sir, you had served in Lagos and seen first-hand the reason why for very many years, many of our people did not want to pay their taxes. They were not persuaded that their monies would be mis-applied! When successive governments put in more resources to work in schemes that the people could see, compliance rates rose. It is a similar situation with electricity fees. Improve supply, strengthen its justiceability and watch cost-recovery levels rise.

Your National Electricity and Regulatory Commission, NERC appeared to be getting close to a solution when it came out with its Credited Advance Payment for Metering Implementation, CAPMI scheme as a first step in ensuring that DISCOs provide meters for all. But that is largely being observed in the breach today. And even that scheme is not the first time that the DISCOs were asked to serve meters to their subscribers. Months earlier, NERC had commenced an initial pay for meters scheme. Under that cover, the DISCOs brutally jerked up their estimated bills for a few months while it lasted. Till date, they have kept mum on how the fleeced sums would be accounted for. Mr. VP sir, we may indeed have a cost-reflective tariff issue going forward, and will cross that bridge when we get there, but what is urgent today is that we do not have a just billing platform for over 50 percent of subscribers. That in any country worth its salt and led by people of integrity is a monumental scandal. And that is what we must first address.


So we request that you and your principal should get together on this subject and work out a 'Marshall Plan' to ensure that every electricity subscriber gets a prepaid meter that will facilitate his getting a just bill for electricity that he truly uses. I will really be surprised if you cannot fix this.


Sincerely,


Citizen Richard

Court restores inheritance rights of females

Court restores inheritance rights of females

The Nigerian Supreme Court has reportedly handed down a revolutionary ruling in respect of a long-standing suit on the inheritance rights of female children in Igboland.

According to a post on the blog of The Child Rights Awareness and Creation Organisation, CRACO, the court ’voided the existing traditional law and custom, which forbid a female from inheriting her late father’s estate, on the grounds that it is discriminatory and conflicts with the provision of the constitution.

The court held that the practice conflicted with section 42(1)(a) and (2) of the 1999 Constitution. The judgment was on the appeal marked: SC.224/2004 filed by Mrs. Lois Chituru Ukeje  (wife of the late Lazarus Ogbonna Ukeje) and their son, Enyinnaya Lazarus Ukeje against Mrs. Cladys Ada Ukeje (the deceased’s daughter).

Cladys had sued the deceased’s wife and son before the Lagos High Court, claiming to be one of the deceased’s children and sought to be included among those to administer their deceased’s father’s estate.

The trial court found that he was a daughter to the deceased and that she was qualified to benefit from the estate of their father who died intestate in Lagos in1981.

The Court of Appeal, Lagos to which Mrs. Lois Ukeje and Enyinnaya Ukeje appealed, upheld the decision of the trail court, prompting them to appeal to the Supreme Court.’

In its judgment, the Nigerian apex court concluded that the earlier ruling of the Court of Appeal, Lagos which voided the Igbo native law and custom that disinherits female children was right and proper.

Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour, who read the lead judgment, in her ruling asserted that “no matter the circumstances of the birth of a female child, such a child is entitled to an inheritance from her later father’s estate.

“Consequently, the Igbo customary law, which disentitles a female child from partaking in the sharing of her deceased father’s estate is breach of Section 42(1) and (2) of the Constitution, a fundamental rights provision guaranteed to every Nigerian.

“The said discriminatory customary law is void as it conflicts with Section 42(1) and (2) of the Constitution. In the light of all that I have been saying, the appeal is dismissed. In the spirit of reconciliation, parties to bear their own costs,” the learned judge affirmed.

All of the other justices - Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen, Claral Bata Ogunbiyi, Kumai Bayang Aka’ahs and  John Inyang Okoro -on the panel endorsed the lead judgment.

Says Uche Akolisa, a brands analyst at Hallmark newspapers on the development: ‘Bravo! It is huge step that will help in the economic empowerment of the girl-child. It will also help alleviate the problem of the disinheritance of widows. However, it will take a lot of social orientation and mobilization for it to be accepted at the grassroots.’

Buhari’s limitations and the new Nigeria momentum

President Muhammadu Buhari is on the spot. He is President of Nigeria at a time like no other. He is leading the country at a time where the aspiration of the people for fairness, equity, social justice and the good life is fever-pitch. Long held in the grips of incompetent and uncaring leadership, a heavily repressed people have cast off their chains: they want to be led with sensitivity, respect and honour.

Interestingly, it is this background that had helped Buhari to assume power three months ago; that is also the Achilles heel he is contending with today and which may make or mar the success-graphs of his tenure. But is he seeing it? Will he or won’t he? Or as the other writer put it: ‘to be or not to be, that is the final question.’


To fully understand the Buhari challenge, we have to go autobiographical. A man is largely a product of his story, it has been suggested. Sometimes this is not necessarily correct; many times however, it has been so. So how does our subject rank in this regard?


In this particular instance, Buhari’s story is indeed telling us a whole lot about where he is coming from, where he has been, where he is today and where next he is inclined to be headed, if left alone to himself and his natural inclinations, desires and the constraints of his internal space as it exists now.


Born in the Daura emirate 72 years ago in an era when the British colonial authorities had initially contended - but was later to be compelled to share power, values and systems - with the traditional emirate system, his family was persuaded to send him out to have a bit of the western educational experience that had then become an alternate reality in his milieu. He obliged and off to the ‘whiteman’s school’ did Muhammadu go.


Just before he completed his secondary schooling, a new imperative came to the fore. Independence was coming and with it also some landmark changes. Power was going to be totally devolved to Nigerians, with the immediate implication that many young people who had already embraced western education were also going to be the first in line to fill up spots in the public services of the regions, municipalities and at the centre that the British were vacating. Those like Buhari who were already enrolled, were dutifully rewarded with opportunities and positions of worth and substance in the unfolding dispensation. His specific posting was the military and the rest as we say is history.


The event of military intervention in the nation’s body-politic also provided a boost for Buhari. He was during that era to be awarded critical political positions that helped to grow his name recognition and which he also utilized to grow the brand appeal of a Spartan and discipline-driven patriot which was to come in most handy in the making of the political Buhari three decades after. Now all of the cards look like they are neatly stacked on his desk, and the nation watches as he serves.


So how far has he served? While the jury is already out on this subject, and notably on the way he has used power this far, this writer would however rather prefer to focus on the things that he cannot serve. This is because, given our history as a nation and the range of variables that underpin our group structure, there is really very little that any leader, one leader can do.


Buhari can, and has indeed made mistakes at the moment especially as it has to do with his near-total absence of solid and all-encompassing political sensitivity. In this sense, he has not been able to infuse and bring along the integrative political nuances that mitigate elite mischief in an environment where visible national development is the core need. So he really has no one but himself to blame for the political flak that has greeted his appointments list so far.


Indeed, there is a sense in which in carrying on in the manner he has done so far, he does indeed give credence to the pre-election postulations of pundits that he was not really properly prepared for the task of running a 21st century Nigeria. Yes, he had held a sizeable number of appointments in different aspects of our national life in the past, but given his story and the fact that a lot of his earlier service had been done within the restrictive frames of authoritarian military rule, there has now arisen then a brand new imperative of his having to prove himself within the elective space. And as we are seeing by the day, this is clearly not the easiest of tasks for Buhari to handle today.


However, this writer would yet counsel that we do not on account of errors in rendering throw away the baby with the bath water. Yet. The truth is that when the Nigerian voters were making the choice in the April polls, they had the benefit of the facts on the table. They were presented with the same question marks that are showing up today alongside the promise marks of what he could deliver and chose to yet go on with him. For them then, there was a whole lot of work to be done to save Nigeria and keep her on course. And they concluded he was the best fit for the job.


But does that absolve him from dealing with his question marks particularly as it has to do with the touchy issue of geo-political balancing and leadership sensitivity. Never. However, seeing that he clearly does not have it; it imposes an additional responsibility on his immediate handlers, his sponsoring political party, other variable institutions of state, the media, civil society, the opposition and the nation at large to rise to the challenge and ensure that Mr. Buhari’s limitations would not yet impede our continuing march to get the new Nigeria we yet deserve. Aluta continua.

Buhari, a Washington trip and the rest of us

At this time of writing, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari is in Washington DC on what some would call a seeming breakthrough visit by a Nigerian leader to the American peak of governance, the White House, in a relatively long while. Given the apparent cold shoulder that the U.S administration had extended to the Nigerian government in the past few years and the fact that the visit is coming only days into the inauguration of Buhari as President, and even when he is yet to assemble a full complement of governing personal, let alone articulate sure-footed policies that would form the thrust of his term in office, it is clear that this ‘shift’ is essentially symbolic.


But even that has to be put in context. With some 60 percent of the total population of West Africa and about 15 percent of the total population of the 54-nation continent (which in turn make up over a quarter of the total haul of 192 states that comprise the United Nations), Nigeria is arguably no pushover in the comity of nations. It is therefore not the mere ‘good luck’ of the ruling APC at this point in our history (pun and all!), but rather the very non-strategic mismanagement of our natural weight that had led to our past marginalization in global affairs.


And it should never have been so. At Independence on October 1, 1960, the influential American weekly, Time magazine, looked into its crystal ball and all it could see was a veritable world-beater that needed only a few years to prove its worth. The spectacular successes that had been demonstrated in the immediate past seven years - when the three regional premiers who had been given limited self-governance powers had chalked giant strides in education, infrastructure, industrialization and political organization - was for them a veritable foretaste of the glory that lay ahead.


Again, when the leaders of the newly independent African states began to hold talks within the ‘Monrovia’ and ‘Casablanca’ blocs to forge the initial outlines of the continent’s first multi-state supra-national gathering, the Organization of African Unity, Nigeria’s voice and vote was a strong factor in ensuring the successful harmonization of the contending ideological aspirations and the result was the July 25, 1963 summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.


At about the same time, the Congo crisis became even more intractable and Nigeria was one of the first nations to be requested to come and help put out the fires. We went there and did our bit.


Indeed, so decisive was Nigeria’s voice back then that when General Murtala Mohammed who served as Nigeria’s Head of State for just 200 days spoke out in favour of an end to apartheid and colonial rule in Africa at the July 11, 1975 OAU summit, it was in the self-assured strength of a leader and people, who, to paraphrase the gospel artist, Sinach; know who they are! ‘Africa had indeed come of age.’ And the whole world was listening:


“Mr. Chairman, when I contemplate the evils of apartheid, my heart bleeds and I am sure the heart of every true blooded African bleeds. Africa has come of age. It is no longer under the order of any extra continental power. It should no longer take orders from any country, however powerful. The fortunes of Africa are in our hands to make or to mar. For too long have we been kicked around; for too long have we been treated like adolescents who cannot discern their interests and act accordingly…The time has come when we should make it clear that we can decide for ourselves…”


We can continue to list other strong stuff from our past but space constrains us. However this would include the first time outing of Muhammadu Buhari as Head of State when he and his colleagues attempted to use the institution of the military to correct the national shame that the Shagari administration had become and which in the face of its very grave leadership failings at the time had yet gone ahead to award itself a very vexatious second term in office. A coup is a coup is a coup but this writer knows more than a few Nigerians who were sincerely not amused by the scepter of Shagari continuing in office back then!


It is however also on record that during that first time out, Buhari very well knew the colour of national pride, honour and self-reliance that he insisted on exploring alternative, though controversial, approaches to resolving Nigeria’s economic crisis rather than acquiesce to adopting pro-imperialist solutions that have almost never worked in favour of beneficiary states anywhere. Hobbled as we are even today, it is that Buhari whom we expect to see in Washington. May God help Nigeria.




Note: This piece was penned on July 13, 2015

Is Buhari that politically naive?

The nomination last week of Mr. William Babatunde Fowler as Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS has indeed taken the political barometer of the nation one notch higher.


Coming days before the long-expected September date for the unveiling of President Muhammadu Buhari’s list of ministers, the commentary waves are agog as to both the significance of this nomination, and going forward, its contribution to the entire ‘sub-industry of appointments-guessing’ that has since arisen on account of the President’s holding the ball so close to his chest.
Of course, as the nominal captain of the Lagos Internal Revenue Service, LIRS team that grew the average monthly internally generated revenue profile of Lagos State from N3billion to N20.6 billion there is a sense in which Fowler could ordinarily be considered for the position. But there could indeed be more than meets the eye, as we say in these parts.


So why was Fowler nominated? Of course as with all other matters in the current Buhari dispensation, only the President knows. But given the nominees closeness to APC leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with whom the President has had a frosty relationship on account of the failure of critical earlier nominees which both Tinubu and the nominal APC high command had so authoritatively endorsed, there has necessarily come a reading of the Fowler nomination as a kind of rapprochement; a reaching out by Buhari himself to smoothen rough edges in his relationship with Tinubu.


But then there is another reading. And this is; that in nominating Fowler, Buhari may very well be throwing his cards on the table and like an accomplished Chess master, be goading the other levers of power in the APC and the nation to throw theirs in also ahead of the bigger fights that are ahead. These would include; the screening and clearing of ministers, nominations into boards, ambassadors-designate, as well as critical agencies like the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. And then there is the 2016 budget.


If this is so, and we can indeed demonstrate that there is indeed more method than randomness to the political moves of the President since his emergence on the scene, then it will suggest that so many of us been so glibly mis-reading Mr. Buhari and in the process giving him less credit than he actually deserves in the complex world of political brinksmanship.


Again if this is so, we should equally then be looking at a rather more determinate set of variables going forward even as we undertake a holistic review of every step he has taken so far since his return to the nation’s political frontlines.


Was Mr. Buhari’s decision to run in the 2015 presidential polls - after having earlier suggested he would not - be just a casual or indeed a programmed shift? Was his assiduously working with Tinubu and other opposition leaders to ensure the emergence and rise to prominence of the APC in those heady days of the party’s emergence not indicative of the fact that, he was, even at that time, already embarked on the path of an ambition that is definitely ‘made of sterner stuff,’ a la William Shakespeare.


There is even more. Was his carefully choreographed insistence on a 3-point agenda of ‘reversing insecurity, fighting corruption and curbing unemployment’ even when the APC manifesto and the mood of the nation indicating a much broader package not a deliberate act of only putting on the table what he was personally interested in? Was his relative ‘aloofness’ in the battle for the leadership of the National Assembly only coincidental? Is the delay in naming ministers merely attributable to what Femi Adesina has expressed as ‘slow and steady wins the race?’


The sum of all of this is that we may need to be more thoughtful than we are presently. It would appear that some persons may not have been reading Mr. Buhari correctly. It would appear that the man may be packing far-more political muscle than we have currently bothered to ascribe to him? And the implications would indeed be most interesting in the days ahead.


Which would then leave us with one final point; and this has to do with the ends to which this presently unraveling sense of political astuteness of Mr. President would be deployed to serve? Is it going to be in the larger interests of Nigeria, patriotically defined, or would it be to some self-serving or parochial ends?


Whichever way it would go however, this writer is comforted by the infallible verdict of history which ultimately yet brings every hidden matter to light. Dribble as brilliantly as you can, every mystery on earth eventually comes into the light. And then there is a second truth: propositions, no matter how lofty, do not really stand except they accord with the will of God.
So there is no fretting over our new-found discovery that Mr. Buhari is indeed packing more than what some had thought he had. Indeed, there is even a reassuring ring to the fact that he is this much endowed given the fact that many of our pundits have actually not based their earlier profiling of him on hard and immutable evidence that can stand the test of logical and exegetical inquiry. So let the real Mr. Buhari stand up to be counted and this nation will back him only to the extent that his agenda does indeed correlate with the greater interests of our people. God bless Nigeria!

NNPC: Agenda for Ibe Kachikwu

As was widely expected, President Muhammadu Buhari has continued on his already promised decision to restructure the nation’s long-ailing oil sector by effecting critical personnel changes in the system.


After dissolving the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, he next moved on to relieve the erstwhile Group Managing Director of the corporation, Dr. Joseph Thlama Dahwa of his position, replacing him with the former Executive Vice Chairman and general Counsel of Exxon-Mobil Africa, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu. Equally fired and replaced are several top management staff of the corporation as well as heads of its component subsidiaries.


On assumption of office, Kachikwu has also moved very swiftly to carry out further personnel changes that have seen even more members of the old guard at different levels equally relieved of their duties. He is also literally swearing that he has the mandate of Mr. President to turn things around at the heavily mis-governed corporation. We want to believe him.


Indeed, evidence of the fact that a new order may certainly be brewing at the corporation can be seen firstly, in the fact that not only is a wholesale sweep is presently being undertaken within the cognate leadership cadre of the corporation, a sizeable number of their replacements are being brought from outside the system, thus signaling a resolve at the moment towards ensuring that new broom does indeed take charge of the reform agenda that is expected to be executed.


But that exactly is the point: the full details of the agenda need to be put on the table so we can comprehensively critique it. This is because though carrying out wholesale personnel reform to bring new and fresh good men on board is a good idea, it is even much better when the governing mechanisms around which the organization is run, are built around enduring institutional formats that have even greater overall impact and more assured sustainability on the job being done.


Even as the agenda is being worked out, it is important that we go beyond a lot of the limitations of the Nigerian environment that continue to hobble the NNPC and by extension our overall national petrochemical complex. In this wise, we make the case for the adoption of global best practices in the running of the corporation going forward. We also counsel on the need for very robust and meticulous exegetical studies on the global petroleum industry today with a view to ensuring that we are working and build with a wholesale appreciation of where the industry is today, as well as where it is definitively headed in the years ahead. For example, with green being the vogue now, this is not a time to undertake ecologically-insensitive carbon-heavy projects.


One other area of concern is over how much operational space the new GMD would be granted to carry out his set duties. This is because while we commend President Muhammadu Buhari for the appointment of this well-heeled and diversely experienced technocrat to preside over the affairs of the NNPC, there is also the need to take into consideration the fact that political actors through the years have seen the NNPC as the most handy, if not omnibus piggy-bank of government and as such constantly taken steps and measures to compromise its integrity, governance bearings and accounting structures. And with an increasingly assertive citizenry insisting at every twist and turn for even more and more transparency in the operations of the corporation, the easy way out for many a political actor has been to lay all of the blame for the failings of the corporation at the doorsteps of successive GMDs and go ahead to relieve them of their duties each time the temperature of public disdain rises. Little wonder then that the NNPC penthouse has been graced by as much as six GMDs in the past five years!


On his own part, we want to call Mr. Kachikwu’s attention to the fact that there is a sense in which by his appointment, he is indeed a poster-boy of the long-awaited new Nigeria that is run by men and women of professional candour, integrity and good conscience. As he tackles the day-to-day challenge of running and administering the corporation, he should be conscious of the fact that there are indeed a ‘cloud of witnesses,’ this writer included, that are cheering him on; hoping and praying that he succeeds. This definitely then is not a time to start weaving, or kowtowing to, silly self-enrichment schemes at the expense of the corporation and the Nigerian people who indeed are his ultimate employers. The nation is depending on him at this critical moment in time to run a changed and reformed NNPC that would demonstrate to all and sundry that indeed that new Nigeria that we have long yearned for is indeed possible and here. Mr. Kachikwu must therefore not fail.

Engaging Boko Haram correctly

When the immediate past Goodluck Jonathan administration, after a long season of pussy-footing, gerrymandering and buck-passing finally embarked on a large-scale aerial assault on positions then being held by the Boko Haram insurgents in North Eastern Nigeria, many applauded the move seeing it as the beginning of the end of the sect. However, some of us who wanted the sect gone forever but also knew that everything that was needed to achieve that outcome had not been put in place were nonetheless circumspect: guerilla wars are not exactly won from the air. We have been proved right sadly.


Indeed, though the Boko Haram insurgency has gone on for about a six years now, one notable failing in the entire saga is that as a nation, we are yet to come to grips with what exactly it is. And the sect continues to feast on our somewhat deliberate insistence on not correctly perceiving it for what it is. ‘My people perish because they have rejected knowledge.’ This surely has to change.


When the sect first emerged in Kano, the reaction of the local community was to see it as one other proselytizing movement that was seeking converts for its variant of Islam. The history of the religion was such that time after time, sects and tendencies have continued to show up introducing one dialectic or emphasizing one point. This was one more like the others and in their view, the canvas was big enough to accommodate it.


But they should have looked deeper. This is because, though the sect was doing everything it could to expouse its own variant of the religion, there was also something else that it was also promoting. In declaring all the heritage of western education as a taboo to be discarded, the sect was in a very troubling way demonstrating a certain fanaticism that resonated with the extremist
Shiite attitude that had seen its highpoint in the Iranian revolution of 1979.


The last straw for Boko Haram was its alleged murder of a rival imam and the sacking of his mosque over theological differences. This was the time that the muslim ummah and indeed the Nigerian state should have instituted a very comprehensive enquiry into the teachings, reach and dangers of the sect, but they failed. It was also the best time to scorch the hydra. In this also, they failed.


Rather than embark on this most logical course of action, the sect was literally permitted to flee to the north eastern fringes of Borno and Yobe.


Tragically also, local political juggernauts were soon to do a deal with the sect to help them clinch power at the state level, a move that after its success, came to confer quasi-official legitimacy on the outlaws. This was accentuated by the fact that the resultant administration incorporated one of its leaders as a commissioner for religious affairs and ethical orientation.
Almost inevitable differences soon crept in however, resulting in a strained parting of ways. But this was not after the sect had grown astronomically in personnel, influence and resources. A state of mutual animosity was therefore the norm between both old-time associates and this was to continue until the Yar ‘Adua-led Federal Government was encouraged to unleash the military upon them, a move that led to the killing of the sect’s founding leader, Mohammed Yusuf.


To be sure, there is a sense in which the critical error of terminating Yusuf’s life without proper trial and investigation of the origins, motivations, nuances and depth or otherwise of the group resonates with the latter-day error of authorizing aerial bombardments of the group’s locations without a corollary plan on how to equally contain the inevitable outcome that the sect would in this situation very likely vote to slip back into regular society to save itself and plot fresh ways of continuing to advance its insurgent activities. Now the chickens have come home to roost.


With the benefit of hindsight, the road that should have been taken then may have been to have left the insurgents corralled in the towns and villages that they had already taken and then plotted a comprehensive plan to remove every trace of them. Speed is of essence in matters like this and we recall Chadian President, Idris Deby, asking then for permission to fully pursue after the insurgents and bring home their leadership. Foolish pride; we shut him down. When the blind lead the blind, the Bible surmises, both are guaranteed to fall into the ditch.


From our ditch position today, the options before us would clearly be more gradualist. We need to grow our intelligence infrastructure so it can fully infiltrate the group and bring us much needed information from within. We need to train and retrain our troops to realize that carrying the civil population along, no matter the risks involved, is non-negotiable. And then we need to get mosques across Nigeria and the other affected nations to vote decisively against the insurgents and to play their own part in ensuring that their adherents do not fall prey to the deceitful and beguiling rhetoric from the sects recruiters. We shall overcome, some day.


http://hallmarknews.com/boko-haram-getting-the-terms-of-engagement-right/

Comrade, you’ve taken the wrong path

I like explaining my titles, particularly when they are borrowed. And this one is not any different. It is the title of one of a set of four act plays in Chinese literature. And it deals with issues relating to revolution, change and ‘errors in rendering.’ In Osun State, Nigeria today, we may very well be on such a page.


The coming into office of the incumbent Governor of Osun State was truly the stuff of which heroic revolutionary epics are made. Doggedly, he took on foes that at a first glance, could be said to be immovable. Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the man he ousted was not just a retired army General, he was also a fiery no-nonsense one to boot. And then he was equally an incumbent, in addition to the fact that he also had the then most awesome PDP machine at his behest.


But he was worsted by the dogged Comrade in a battle that had all the trappings of the classic ‘David and Goliath’ saga. Indeed, so humbling was the eventual outcome that the supreme lesson of Oyinlola’s defeat even then was a repeat of that oft stated truism: gods do have clay feet. You only need to take the right aim and they will tumble down.


Today however, a lot has changed. Unlike the situation when he came into power, a slew of economic reversals have since come to expose the shallowness of many a state economy. And Osun is high up on the ladder. With very little to contribute in the arena of Internally Generated Revenue, the state is then regularly constrained to wait on the federation account for whatever it will disburse. And with that ‘ATM’ being presently stymied, Osun bleeds.


To be sure, when the going was good, Aregbesola rode on a dizzyingly populist wave of welfarism. Free meals and uniforms for students, creation of public sector jobs in the thousands, free train rides for Osun indigenes resident in Lagos…the cash was rolling, the man was spending.


Now the bubble has burst and salaries are no longer coming. Pensions are not being paid. Workers are on strike. And Comrade continues to wait for bailouts from the centre to get his groove going on once again. And this indeed is the bigger challenge: that in waiting to simply return to grooving mode, Comrade may not have learnt the first lesson of the Osun challenge that he is enmeshed in today.


Evidence of this can be seen in his own rhetoric on the crisis, the unhelpful comments of his aides, and associated diatribes from the state chapter of the ruling All Progressives Congress. And there is no better evidence of this than in the instance of how the entire machinery has presently being laid out against the hapless judge of the Osun High Court who dared to look the king squarely in the face and proclaim that indeed, His Excellency was no longer wearing any clothes!


Now this is not to say that the learned justice may have indeed got all of her facts right. But hunger really excites anger. And non-payment of public service wages in a nominal civil service state is indeed an invitation to anger. And by the way, as chief executive of the on-going concern that is ‘the state of Osun,’ Comrade’s primary order of business is to manage its resources and affairs in such a way that it meets its existing contractual obligations in a timely manner (wages and pensions included) and provide the greater good for the greatest number of the citizenry.


And we do not think that it is mature and responsible when the governor continues to shift the blame for the current state of affairs to dwindled receipts from the federation account. Yes, there have been dwindled receipts; and so what? Did we all not see it coming? When every other nation in our backyard and beyond began to strike oil, did we not know that there were going to be fewer buyers of the crude which provides the bulk of the federation account receipts that we are bewailing now? The truth of the matter, dear comrade is that, by omission and commission, the administration which you lead has brought in the proverbial ant-infested faggots; you cannot therefore be so hypocritically self-righteous in responding to the consequent arrival of the delegation of lizards! Were you not expecting them? It will indeed be a greater pity if you were not.


So my dear Comrade, the learned justice is not the issue; you dug yourself into this ditch, you will do well to get yourself out. And please do everything to be humble and contrite while doing so.

A Vice-President's dilemma

Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s incumbent Vice-President sure needs all the prayers that he can get at the moment.


A professor of law, former Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State and pastor within the Redeemed Christian Church of God, those who know him say he is a gentleman and indeed one Nigerian that can be trusted to do his best for his country.


This writer’s first interaction with Osinbajo was in the course of his service as Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State. Within that tenure, yours truly who then lived in Oregun, Lagos State had received some summons from the Office of the Defender, one of the institutions set up by Osinbajo as Commissioner for Justice, to provide alternative dispute resolution for Lagos residents.


The particulars of the case in question had to do with a landlord who wanted to summarily evict the writer from his premises on the stated ground that he wanted to renovate the building while in reality all that he wanted was to raise the rents! Osinbajo’s team intervened and very professionally mediated in such a way that yours truly kept his accommodation while the landlord got some raise.


His next encounter with Osinbajo had to do with the latter coming over as a guest of the Men’s Fellowship of the House on the Rock Church in Lagos to speak on issues relating to integrity and doing business as a Christian in today’s Nigeria. That event was held at the Federal Palace hotel and also featured Dr. Christopher Kolade as a second resource person. Instructively, the Professor spoke to the subject and many participants left the venue refreshed.


Beyond these, he had also encountered him now and again on the pages of newspapers, the Covenant Christian Centre’s Platform events, the campaign circuit for the 2015 presidential polls and now as Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And in most of these appearances, Osinbajo’s talk has not only been upbeat, it has been largely good. So why does he need the prayers we are canvassing at this moment? We will tell you.


Today, Osinbajo stands in a very difficult position as a bride that is betrothed to three suitors! And the Christian that he is, he would be familiar with the Bible reference: ‘you cannot serve two masters!’


Politically, Osinbajo’s master is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the presently estranged ‘national leader’ of the All Progressive Congress, APC. His second master is Muhammadu Buhari, the incumbent President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that he was elected on March 28 by Nigerian voters to work alongside. And third, he has the Lord Jesus Christ who watches over his soul and also called him to serve as a pastor under his under-shepherd, Pastor Enoch Adeboye.


With unanimity of purpose and commitment to a common purpose, there should really be no issues on the table. But there is nothing presently to indicate that the values of Tinubu, Buhari and the Lord Jesus Christ are in concord. ‘And can three, sorry two, work together except they agree?’ So you understand why the prayers are needed.


However, Osinbajo’s task is really not a hopeless one. On the contrary this writer is much persuaded that if he juggles his cards correctly, he would yet come out as one that will do his bit in the Nigerian reconstruction story.


To achieve this outcome, he must begin from a dispassionate analysis of the situation in which he is presently enmeshed. Politically, his leader remains Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He must continue to show allegiance to him on this score. At the governance plain, his boss is Muhammadu Buhari. He must also be totally loyal and supportive of him.


As things stand, in carrying out his schedules and relating with these two bosses he is already getting to testy crossroads. This is where his third boss, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he must always emplace at all times as a super-boss, comes in. In all circumstances, He alone must lead. And this Osinbajo must always live by no matter the costs.


And there could be costs, humanly speaking. Bola Tinubu may complain that he is not getting enough political support from him. Buhari may aver that he is giving too much support to Tinubu. To all of these, Osinbajo simply has to ensure that he does what he knows to be right and gives to all of his Caesars what belongs to them. But to God he must give his all. That is how his illustrious predecessors on this thorny path - the Josephs, Davids and Daniels - survived. And here also lies his path to safety; and glory.

A matter of justice

First a disclaimer. This piece is about power; no, not the other convoluted one, but rather the primary one that has to do with electricity. And in this wise then, the second person to bring into the dock (the first of course is the government with which we would not really bother much here) would be one with whom yours truly had fought and crusaded for a progressive Nigeria during their time at the University of Calabar; namely, the Chairman of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC,
Dr. Sam Amadi. So there is indeed something personal.


But then that is as far as it goes because the critical burdens of our nation and indeed of life would not really be discharged by personal relationships. They will rather be built on nobler ideals like the fidelity to truth, values, hard work, sacrifice, honour and justice. Yes, many of the subsisting realities of today’s Nigeria are clearly at conflict with this ‘Olympian heights rationalization,’ but a deeper appreciation of history will confirm that sloppy grandeur never lasts. ‘Vanity on vanity, all is vanity!’ So to justice we return.


The fundamental premise that we take in this piece therefore is that to fix the most enervating power incubus in the land today, we will need to return to a critical exegesis of the foundations of the system to confirm whether there is indeed any justice in it. For years, the old Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN), National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA) and the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in turns, carried on like ‘lords of the manor.’ They inflicted injustice on Nigerians via their operations, billing systems and disconnection practices and there was virtually nothing that distraught consumers could do about it. In one instance for example, yours truly had strongly protested a very ridiculous act of over-billing. At the then PHCN office on Oba Akran Way, Ikeja, the official looked at the bill and tersely responded: ‘I know how you feel, Mr. Mammah, but you have to go and pay.’ He was lying! How could he know how I felt!! But then it was a state-controlled monopoly; and ‘the king could do no wrong.’


A few years ago, the government commenced an unbundling and privatization programme and the metrics seemed to be promising; until they bungled it themselves! This piece is about a promise deferred and the way out for the nation. And we say again, it is about justice.


A business, indeed every business that will thrive, must run on an intrinsically sustainable model. This involves a number of core variables that must be in place. It must have an organization to carry out its activities. It must develop a quality product that the market needs. It must take the same product to, and canvass potential buyers to pick and pay for it in the market. It must correctly price the product. And finally, it must put in place a robust and efficient feedback mechanism that would help it continue to gauge the satisfaction levels of customers and promptly make adjustments as they arise so as to continue to sustain critical customer interest.


The trouble with power in Nigeria today then is that between the government and the firms that presently run the complex, they have not taken heed to observing these commonplace rules. And there is no alternative.


Even more telling in all of this fiasco is the relative helplessness of the regulator to step in strongly with a view to putting square pegs in square holes. By its mandate, NERC is in a good position to corral all actors onto ensuring that basic performance matrixes are observed and met. To its credit, it moved to do same a few weeks ago when it announced sanctions on the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, over infractions related to the unscrupulous practice of estimated billing. If it could do that, then it means that it always had, and still has the nominal capacity to get all actors within the system to shape up or ship out. Now that it has begun to use its power, our plea is that it simply continues. There is far too much rot in Nigeria’s house of power that compel such confrontation.


As we write, distribution companies continue to collect a very dubious flat rate charge for consumers with prepaid meters even as they fleece other subscribers - that they are doing very little to provide with meters - through the pre-privatisation practice of ramming outrageous estimated bills down their throats. And now, they are posting notices of an intention to raise tariffs! On which service? This is plainly annoying, vexatious, unjust and contemptible and NERC must stop them now.

Nigeria is not blighted, I insist!

Nigeria is not blighted; it is our leaders that are. And there is evidence everywhere attesting to this fact.


In 2002, the conveners of the annual Lagos Bookfair which had made its debut at the University of Lagos Sports Centre in 2000 staged the 3rd edition at the National Museum, Onikan, Lagos. Amongst other guests at that event was a very hard-working young writer, Chude Jideonwo. A student of Mayflower College, Ikenne, he was the author of the novel, My Father’s Knickers.


Seed grows. Chude went on to work as a researcher on Funmi Iyanda’s show that aired on the then NTA Channel 10, Lagos and is currently one of the anchors of The Future Awards, RED Media and YNaija.


Our people are not blighted, only the leaders are.


There is a second witness: Tolu Ogunlesi. While yet a science student at the University of Ibadan, Tolu discovered that his first love was really writing and stuck to it. When this writer met him on the portals of Krazitivity, an arts-inclined listserve, about 2003, Tolu was moments away from picking up a Bachelors degree in Pharmacy.


Post-graduation, Tolu found space as an analyst at Accenture and later in the Corporate Affairs Department of Visaphone. But writing kept tugging at him and he moved on to bag a Masters from the University of East Anglia, won the CNN Africa Journalist of the year and has gone on to be one of the country’s most enterprising bloggers and ‘freelance journalists!’
Today he writes steadily for The Punch, Voyager Media and The Financial Times. He is also the West Africa Editor at The Africa Report and runs WoweMedia.


I have referred to these young everyday leaders to illustrate my thesis that our nation is at heart a God-blessed land where a thousand flowers are almost guaranteed to bloom. But to achieve this potential, the nation simply needs better leaders than it is getting today. I refer here to leaders that will stop abusing our collective potential by their shameless display of incompetence, greed and kleptomania. We need leaders that will commit themselves to ruling within the context of this critical axiom: ‘godliness with contentment is great gain!’


Daily, we read of governors wringing their hands, waiting for bailouts to pay basic wages to their workforce. Your Excellency sir, your bailout is lodged between your obtuse convoy and your asinine security vote! We also read about party leaders who believe that the first order of business is to emplace their cronies in juicy 'toll gates' and not the cultivation of viable and visionary solutions that will get this nation out of the social and economic quagmire that it is presently mired in. They were wrong yesterday, they will still be wrong tomorrow.


But we will not give up. Every problem has a solution. And the first thing to do is to get a handle on things. In 1983, the writer, Chinua Achebe, published a slim tome on the Nigerian condition. Titled The Trouble with Nigeria, Achebe went on to pen those very famous remarks: ‘The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership!’ He could not have been any more exact. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, Nigeria is not a blighted country and 'the fault is not in our stars;' ‘it is our leaders, stupid!’


When people seek to get into power and sadly do get there without knowing that the first order of business is to serve and serve and serve, then that country indeed has no champions. Leaders by their job description are simply expected to lead! To do this they must understand the people and society they want to lead. Let no one be befuddled about all the sophistry that is usually brought into the discourse on leadership in these parts. The average Nigerian father leads his home daily without any grand speeches and rationalizations. What our so-called national leaders are being asked to do is to multiply same on the national scale. What the minister of power is expected to do is to learn from the millions of his citizens who daily use local electricians to connect ‘I better pass my neighbour’ generators that give them light when they switch them on! He should simply escalate this already existing practice onto the grid! To paraphrase Paul's letter to the church in Galatia; 'O, foolish Nigerians, who has so bewitched you!!'


Our leaders must simply do the jobs they ostensibly applied for! They must be in front to lead our people. They must serve us and not themselves. And to do this, they must have a vision of where they are taking us all, corporately speaking! This for this writer is an irreducible minimum. Life is indeed too short and too impactful to spend valuable time behind leaders who are going nowhere or even more insidiously, ‘whose belly is their god!’ Tufiakwa!

This dear reader is the 'common sense revolution' we now need.

Why did he do it?

To those who believe that they are the first best thing to happen to the world of column writing, Yours Sincerely has almost nothing to say. The little that he knows about humans and the expression of strong personal opinion would suffice. Column-writing is at its most basic the simple but strong expression of views. And from Genesis days, man has not only always been at liberty to express his opinions; he has always also done so. ‘This surely is the bone of my bones and the flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman,’ our progenitor, Adam, had reportedly quipped. Humbled by this long-ranging genealogical find, yours truly no longer worries over whether what he writes would be completely original. To borrow once again from that most original book: ‘surely, there is no new thing under the sun.’


And so when the recent tiff between factions of the APC over the election of principal officers of the National Assembly broke last week, he went searching for an explanation in the records of man. And it is here that he was to chance once again on Achebe’s very puzzling one-line explanation about why the tragic anti-hero, Obi Okonwo condescended so low as to accept a most fatal career-destroying 20 pounds bribe. As the writer’s ruminant voice in that context quizzed the situation: ‘Everybody wondered why he did it?’


By extension, so is it with the principal player in the NASS crisis today, the mercurial Bola Ahmed Tinubu as pundits are looking over themselves, searching for explanations as to why he did not see the very obvious brick wall coming as he kept pushing to have his way in the now tragi-comic Senate leadership saga. Did he not see the outcome before it emerged?


There is power in power and Tinubu of all people should know this. As Governor of Lagos, he had used the power he so ebulliently collected in 1999 to begin to politically recast the city-state in his own image and likeness. Even in those early years, there were indeed other contenders for the throne but Tinubu out-paced them and they were soon to fade-out of the grand picture of things. Wahab Dosunmu. Sikiru Shitta Bey. Lanre Razak. Dapo Sarumi. Ganiyu Dawodu. J.K Randle. Yomi Edu. Kofo Bucknor. Funsho Williams. Adesewe Ogunlewe. The list is endless.


But it was a better prepared Tinubu that was entering the scene and he soon shone above them all as a very wily and most combustible power dynamo. Additional help also came in the form of his association with the late Iyaloja of Lagos, Alhaja Abibat Mogaji, the late MKO Abiola and NADECO on the one hand; and ambitious and determined patrons, co-labourers and foot-soldiers like Olatunji Hamzat, Musiliu Obanikoro, Tokunbo Afikuyomi, Babatunde Fashola and Ganiyu Solomon, that were all ready and committed to working with him. He rose to the occasion then; the rest is history. So solid was this coalition of the brave, determined and fighting; and so gracious and covenant-al were they in carrying out their briefs that together, they could take on any storm that emerged. And there were indeed many storms that showed up. Funsho Williams. Chicago-gate. Gani Fawehinmi. LGA funds witholding. Second term. Working together, they bravely weathered the storms.


Even in the recent issues of the emergence of the APC and its initial power fights for factional control, Tinubu and his factional allies, with several of the variables in his favour, won over others in the critical inner fights. Choice of National Chairman. Picking the flagbearer. Choice of Vice presidential nominee. He was the unbeatable Lord of the Manor.


One reason why Tinubu could win in all of these encounters was because he and his inner circle held the aces in all of the instances. But something happened on March 28 that the Jagaban Borgu did not comprehensively reconcile himself to at first. His adopted son, the strong-willed and long suffering, Muhammadu Buhari was successfully elected as the nation’s new Number 1 citizen in a country where ultimate power yet flows almost completely from the Presidency. His limited appreciation of the import of that shift is what is presently responsible for the short end of the stick that he is presently holding. As Bessie Head would have written, it is a question of power. And in this world of endless warring, taking hostages can indeed be most costly. They invariably bid their time and break out as soon as that almost inevitable crack shows up. Cheer up Jagaban; it is the least you can do. Today.

Adesina, AfDB and the African development challenge

In a matter of weeks, the recently elected helmsman for the continent’s prime developmental agency, the African Development Bank, AFDB, would be taking up his post.


Across Africa and the world, the jury out there is that Akinwunmi Adesina, the pick for the position of President of the pan-Africanist agency, has performed creditably well in his immediate past posting as Minister of Agriculture. They are therefore pleased that he is getting the job.


Indeed, when and wherever dispassionate performance reviews on the outgoing Jonathan administration ministers have been done, Adesina routinely scores above a B. Some punditocrats have even gone on to suggest that if only the outgoing President was insistent enough to have had as much as five Adesinas in his team, his story would invariably have been different now. H would have very easily been returned for a second term in office. But that is, as they say, medicine after death.


But the Adesina story did not start with his captainship of Nigeria’s ministry of agriculture. For those who have cared to carry out the expository background checks, this is a well-grounded international public servant in every sense of the word. His salutary performance at Nigeria’s agricultural ministry adds to his billing no doubt but it is also to be noted that this is one bright wit that has shone and excelled in his service to the African continent at different levels.


With all of this, Adesina surely comes prepared as the man to take on the gargantuan challenge of the hour and do the job of literally fixing the development crises of the African continent; identifying the long-standing specific and general challenges and working with other critical stakeholders in their resolution.


And there is indeed a sense in which the success of the AFDB is indeed Africa’s success. For one, about none of the fifty something states that today dot the African landscape, by themselves or even together, have presently demonstrated a solid capacity to drive growth on the continent in such a way as to ensure the gradual erosion of the trend where the continent is widely perceived as being the least developed in the world. Evidence of this for example would be seen in the facts that Africa contributes less than two percent of the global world trade and industrial productivity tally; is the biggest net receiver of foreign aid and has no permanent member on the Security Council. Meanwhile, the continent where human life almost incontrovertibly began, contributes well over a quarter of the total 193-seat membership at the United Nations!


One core reason for these continuing lapses is the failure to seriously find and drive a solid socio-economic development paradigm for the continent. This was the reason why the global development community pushed for, and encouraged the transformation in 2001 of the politically-leaning supra-national umbrella body, the Organisation of African Unity, OAU, into the relatively more pragmatically defined African Union, AU. But the AU was supposed to be more than a definition. Like some of its contemporaries the world over, it was expected to come to the table with a slew of active and regularly functioning support institutions that were staffed by officers whose ultimate pull was not going to be the political leaders that chose them, but rather the technocratic institutional framework within which they operated. At the apex of these institutions were platforms like the continent’s standing army, its parliament and development bank. There were also the New Partnership for African Development, NEPAD and the African (Leaders) Peer Review Mechanism, APRM. Critically evaluated then, it will soon emerge that at the heart of the continuing under-performance of the AU and the continent therefore is the fact that these, and other associated agencies have yet to grow and bloom.


In a precise sense, the AFDB must as a matter of necessity, rise up to be counted. One of the realities of the global environment today is that even when the world has assuredly come to be a global village, for many of its peoples, the familiar and the proximate still take pre-eminence over the distant and exotic when it comes to core details of trade and interaction. Equally, there are issues of infrastructure, logistics and politics that continue to impede global trade relations amongst nations and peoples. This is what accounts for the continuing expansion of intra-European, intra-Asian and intra-North American trade today. It is practically, yet, a world of regions, thus there is no alternative to the deepening of intra-African economic activity today and this is where a well-led and strategically focused AFDB comes in.

David Mark: Never again!

At the valedictory session of the Senate last week, outgoing Senate President, David Bonaventure Mark made some remarks that were clearly not casual. Of course, he gloated over his very impressive performance as leader of ‘the hallowed chamber’ but then he also went on to lament how pained he was that the senate that he had led in the past eight years could not pass several very important pieces of legislation, including the very critical Petroleum Industry Bill. Crocodile tears. Even as Mark waxed lyrically off-key, the corollary House of Representatives (which equally has been another relative disappointment) was choosing to work some more on the PIB which it finally passed on the same day that Mark had rather preferred to throw his self-adulating eulogy party!


Indeed, the putrid obscenity of that valedictory event was most depressing. It was more of an ‘Ali, Baba and the forty thieves’ (get my drift?) scenario as one ‘distinguished’ senator rose after the other rose to celebrate the grandeur of Mark’s leadership. It reminded this writer of a comparable scene in the medieval Roman senate, when the reprobate Emperor Caligula, completely overtaken by vainglory, hedonism and debauchery, allegedly enthroned his horse, Incitatus as consul!


To put the obscenity in better context, the reader will recall that only the day before this ill-fitting charade, the same David Mark had superintended over a most bewildering passage of 46 bills in ten minutes! And even as he was gloating over the fact of his brilliant leadership, the senate was also revealing that in the past four years, it had received a total of 591 bills with only 123 passed! And then 46 of those 123 were passed in one day!! Is this the great feat that Mark and company were clinking glasses over?


Getting beyond Mark’s team of in-house cheerleaders, what do we the people say about his tenures? Are we impressed? To put it in another mould, has Mark done enough in his eight year leadership of the Senate to merit the plaudits that his colleagues are flinging at him?


For us, a critical analysis of the Mark years as leader of the senate would begin from his home Benue South senatorial zone where the reports are categorical that virtually all of his recorded victories to even enter the senate in the first place have largely been Pyrrhic encounters, with each of his pre-leadership wins being seriously disputed and contested.


Our analysis goes next to value where the senate under his watch has clearly not been seen to stand robustly with the people in the critical issues of the day. Starting with the fuel subsidy protests through the mystery of exactly how much senators earn, the verdict is that the senate that Mark led was a critical under-performer in real terms. What is the value of his great brilliance and chequered leadership when for over a year after its sad occurrence, victims of the immigration saga failed to find succour in the senate? What about the constitution review charade that ended as ‘a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing!’ And to return to the crisis of PIB under reference, it is equally to Mark’s great leadership credit that he has now presided over two sessions of the Senate that consistently failed to pass the critical industry-shaping enactment.


Rather the Senate under Mark preferred to sit lamely by and be accomplices in the maladministration of a great nation and people. Rather than excoriate a criminally fumbling executive over its culpable inability to fix the fuel challenge, it is sending a lame handover note to the new administration to ensure that it fixes the problem. Oh Mark, where did we find you?
But we know the answer. We found you in a Nigeria where values had long gone askance. As Minister of Communications in the Babangida era, you had remarked that telephones were not for the poor. When Abacha came, you could not be found. You are the archetypal system player, deal maker, what some will prefer to call ‘the real trouble with Nigeria.’


On the other side, some have argued that you have represented a stabilizing force in the nation. But what is the texture of your stabilization programme and at what costs? Mr. David Bonaventure Mark, Nigeria will not miss your departure from the hallowed seat of Senate President of the republic. And here is hoping that your successor and indeed the slim band of returnee senators and the motley crowd of new Senators also get it: it is bye-bye to rege-rege.

A thank you note

Here is saying a very big 'Thank you' to all of you who have, and continue to take time to visit and follow this blog. I truly appreciate.

-richard mammah

When the citizen is his worst enemy

The declaration by President-elect Muhammadu Buhari that he would abide by traffic rules upon his inauguration come May 29 has continued to generate reactions of a diverse hue. Among other commentaries is a strand asking him to reconsider! In making this point, the purveyors cite the tragic circumstance of February 13, 1976 when General Murtala Muhammed was assassinated in traffic.


In their view this was only made possible on account of what they term, a similarly populist security disposition, ignoring the other facts that coups and attacks on other government functionaries had also taken place during administrations before and after Murtala’s and which had more paranoid security systems.


Indeed, the mere fact of citizens asking their leaders to carry on with the bewildering practice of willful violation of the law of the land – under the nebulous guise of ensuring their security – points to a deeper crisis of perverted psyche and mental dislocation. It is a stark demonstration not only of the very little value we place on ourselves, but also of how much down the road, we the people, have travelled to now be unconscionable accessories to our debasement and dehumanization.


I had not finished with my cogitations over this state of abeyance when I chanced upon a post by my friend, Innocent Chukwuma, who dared to make even more outlandish requests! Read him:


‘I woke up this morning thinking that the best symbol of true change the Buhari government can give Nigeria is to convert Aso Presidential Villa to a museum dedicated to study and reflections on how not to govern a country. In its stead, he should make the Defence Guest House, where he is currently staying, the State House. The Guest House is accessible, simple, elegant and presidential enough!’


Before those-who-love-their-leaders-more-than-themselves pick up stones to hurl at Chukwuma, let’s permit him to close his submission:


‘It is simply not possible to retain Aso villa (a city in its own right) and think that the gulf between political leaders and citizens in Nigeria can be bridged. Anybody who has been to the villa knows that it is not part of Nigeria though within the territory.’


That is the point. The first and real challenge of change in Nigeria today is not infrastructural, no matter how laudable that equally is. It is symbolism. Over time, the symbol of governance has been dictatorial, militaristic, alienated and oppressive. We got a military-contrived constitution fraudulently imposed on us. Our leaders take delight in not being like us. Governance is so strained, so distant, that the people really do not hope to get anything from ‘them!’


There is a sense in which this is historical. And here we flashback to the end of the colonial experience in Nigeria, and indeed Africa. According to Frantz Fanon and others who have studied the phenomenon intently, one of the factors that seriously retarded the development of the former colonies is the fact that the emergent ruling class that replaced the overlord was more concerned with taking up the booty rather than properly organizing self-sustaining societies that would last. Contrast the stories of Zimbabwe and Singapore and you will see what we are talking about.


The truth that must then be established is that there is a ringing connection between how we think and what we receive. If the people think more valuably of themselves, they will get better results.


The problem with Aso Rock to put it squarely is that it is too hollow and therefore not true. Aso Rock is a bloated piece of real estate, too opulent for its intended occupant and therefore takes too much resource to maintain. While this also has its direct antecedents in the siege mentality of our military past, it, like our blighted federal structure, is an anachronism that seriously impedes national security!


There is a second point. In countries around the world that encourage a more self-accounting infrastructure and which paradoxically continue to help subvent the bloated lifestyles of our leaders through foreign aid allocations, their state houses contribute substantial revenues to the national till. Tourists daily throng the White House area just as they do in 10, Downing Street. So why not the villa?


A final failing is what Chukwuma was talking about. Queen Antoinette was so alienated that when the rioters of the revolution-era France came protesting the high cost of bread, she instructed her aides to give them the substitute of far more expensive cake! Aso Rock as constituted today, and indeed our overall infrastructure of governance, encourages our leaders to be unfeeling morons. This too must change. I still believe.

Who will help my children?

This piece is flowing from a reflection shared on Facebook last week. It is a sad tale about a young lady who said she was writing the now-ended Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations to prepare for a career in architecture. Asked about her subject combination, she was incredulously off-track: she was an all-art student!


There were immediate reactions to the post. One however stood out most cryptically and it came from the University of Ibadan professor, Obododimma Oha. Hear him: ‘There are many like her. Some don't even know what they want to be and what they are looking for at school. Even university students! Sad.’ Need we say more? So we write about the challenge of a generation.


The crisis we are addressing is indeed most graphic because we are today in the post-knowledge age. It is an era in which nations are no longer being judged by the mass of their population and the abundance or otherwise of their natural resource endowment. Rather the focus is on brain power. And it is therefore how developed a nation’s human capital base is that gives it the competitive edge.


Today’s youth is therefore confronted with challenges that we may not have properly bothered to fully investigate and find responses to. It is a generation that is caught between and betwixt in the manner of the archetypical transition child. With not many ennobling role models in sight, it is not routinely motivated and almost cannot find inspiration. It is one that is expected to give its best without being helped with the appropriate tools, skills and mind-sets. To paraphrase the saga of the Israelites in the era of the ‘Pharaoh who did not know Joseph,’ they are being told to make brick without straw!


Another parallel we can sum up is the archetypal dilemma of Nwoye Okonkwo. As an offspring of the strongly driven hero of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Nwoye could not match Okonkwo’s energy-sapping standards. Coupled with this was the fact that the overall society was also in a state of flux attendant upon the coming of the white man. With Okonkwo bearing down harshly on everyone and insisting that all that was needed to excel in the world were the sheer physical strength that men brought to their tasks, coupled with the adrenalin rush that attended fear-driven individuals who did not want to fail, Okonkwo was plainly being imperceptive and therefore most surely headed for destruction.


But Umuofia had its Obierika, the wise elder who helped situate the dilemma in the death of Ikemefuna and later on put in perspective the issue of the white man’s coming and the disruption it was to introduce into their lives. The white man came, quietly and somewhat innocently, Obierika would reminisce and Umuofia did not see the disruptions inherent in his entry. “Now he has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.’ Indeed one of the wishful exertions of this writer is about how Achebe’s text would have spawned entirely new readings if this elder of balance was given more space to breath!


Back to the crisis of the next generation. On account of errors in its upbringing, this generation now suffers from its unhelpful possession of an entitlement mentality. This has to do with a feeling and attitude that it should literally get everything on a platter of gold. It is a manna-fed generation.


In terms of history, this may be a post-Independence outflow. Here we are referring to the disruptive influence of colonialism and the latter-day reactions that come from post-colonials having to come to grips with a new reality that getting back flag independence may not be worth more than the shop-floor value of the flag itself!


But it is more than that. While the generation that clamoured and fought for Independence at least had the ultimate prize of freedom - no matter how badly defined - in front of them, the current generation has believed a lie that Nigeria owes them everything and they do not have to do anything about it. It is just enough that they are born Nigerians! And many elders are not doing much to re-orientate them. Yes, Nigeria owes the youth all. But the question to ask next is what do they do when the nation is not delivering on its promise? They invariably have to roll up their sleeves, burn the midnight oil, labour at learning a skill and make a life for themselves, anyways.


Our children need help. We need to help them understand their reality. And it is only then that they can begin to behold their future. I still believe.

Jagaban and the change we desire

The March 28 presidential polls ended with a publicized verdict. The candidate of the All Progressives Party, APC, General Muhammadu Buhari trounced incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan to emerge winner.


For the political gladiators on the APC side, it was indeed a hard-fought contest. Initially scheduled for February 14, the election dates were to be shifted in circumstances that clearly suggested that the ruling PDP was feverishly trying to prevent their looming defeat. Too much ground had however been lost. The APC still won.


Critical to the APC victory was the activity of one man. As National Leader and alleged prime financier of its efforts, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, aka Jagaban, put in enormous time and resources into the scripting and execution of his ‘commonsense revolution.’ And in doing this, he was to demonstrate once again that youth do grow. The fledgling political neophyte who left his corporate post to pitch his tents with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) during Ibrahim Babangida’s ‘crafted’ transition project in the late 1980s had now matured into a political colossus of sorts.


To be sure, Tinubu’s road to his current status as principal patron of the incoming administration has not been without controversy. However, what is more germane for us at this point is to situate his new role within the context of our historical moment as a nation and to attempt to help him appreciate his history-assigned role in the days following the victory at the polls.


Here, two imperatives clearly stand out. One is a re-examination and sharpening of the visionary paradigm on which the victory was secured and the other is the shortlisting and promotion of the appropriate personnel that would drive the vision so outlined.
Understandably, there has been a lot of movement in the days after the election but this writer has observed that much of it has been on the latter and very little of the former. Which is sad. It is the dog that wags the tail and not the other way round.
Vision, my dear Jagaban is everything. Without vision, a people perish, the Bible outlines. It is all too important that we can almost begin to foretell the end of this matter even now. And the probable outcome that we are seeing is not looking good.
On that critical day of reckoning, you may want to exculpate yourself by arguing that you were not the one elected to govern.


That would not be true in a fundamental sense as not only do we all know that the President-elect could not have emerged without your buy-in; you have equally continued to loom large as the man with the critical vote as has emerged in instances as the choice of the National Chairman and the Presidential and vice-presidential candidates; as well as the overruling of the President-elect’s barring of AIT from covering his transition activities. It is still playing out as we write, as regards the jockeying for personnel placements in the new dispensation. There is therefore no controversy that the ball yet lies in your court. The question to ask is how well you are playing it?


And history indeed is a most patient witness. Like has been the case with leaders like Olusegun Obasanjo and lately, Goodluck Jonathan, who had so much opportunity and clout to push our nation to far more successful heights than their limited visionary prisms could fathom, if you continue to carry on with your current focus on ‘who gets what’ at the expense of ‘what is to be done’ you may very well wake up a few weeks or months into the future, asking yourself that oft-repeated question: when exactly did all the support and goodwill that the Nigerian people invest in your mandate leak off? With the benefit of hindsight, Obasanjo can point to matters like ‘Third Term’ and Jonathan to ‘Ojota;’ would you let yours be ‘shoddy and unprincipled transition management?’


Let us break it down. Every administration is defined by its core essence. Thomas Sankara called it ‘historical mission’ and Shehu Yar Adua used the words ‘National Purpose.’ Great leaders like Mandela, Lee Kuan Yew, and arguably, Murtala Muhammed, are remembered for it. Your core mandate now is in our view not carion-hunting but to help your nominees get the vision right. And make no mistake here; just like ‘the Transformation Agenda’ was truly ‘all sound and fury, signifying nothing,’ your mantras of ‘Change’ and ‘Commonsense revolution’ today really mean nothing.


And yes, you may not have been the one elected, but so was Nehru. Invest in enjoying your future Jagaban. Make the right choices. It is that simple.

How are you running?

Attitude is everything. And there is a recommended attitude for him that would no longer be disabled. For this one, he is required to cultivate the attitude of the champion long distance runner. It is called running the race with patience.


It happens like this. All of the participating athletes are called up to the starting block. This is not a sprint event, no; it is long-distance and they are lined up, waiting for the take-off whistle. It goes and even when a few so visibly beat the gun, the mature referee does not ask for a repeat of the starting formalities. He has been this way many times.


The sophomores are going on strong, anxiously competing for the front places so early in the day. A few other recliners are simply trotting along, conscious of the fact that the journey is as long as their breath supplies are short. Hedged in-between these two are the champions. They had been up many dawn hours, practicing their routines and building capacity. Through this, they have picked up an internally consistent rhythm where their body clock has been synchronised with their running pace. They are not overly bothered by the external gyrations taking place all around them but are rather led by the internally structured running time-frames that have now become a part of them. They are running essentially against themselves; to meet and better the times achieved in their frequent training sessions. By the time the third lap begins, they are clearly the ones to watch.


Like the long distance runner described above, the race of life and indeed of success is such a winding and constantly changing one that you will miss the point if you do not come to it with a comprehensive strategy to last the whole distance. ‘All the days of my appointed time, the Holy Bible champion of patience, Job, encouraged himself, ‘I will wait until my change comes.’
Job sure knows and can therefore teach us a few things about patience. Here was a man who had everything going for him. Great family, great wealth, great reputation, great grace, great friends, great parties, great faith, great worship; indeed he was the quintessential example of one who was living the proverbial good life.


And then tragedy set in and by the day, he began to experience grief in unparalleled dimensions.


‘This is just too much; curse God and die,’ his distraught and exasperated wife chirruped. His answer: ‘Shall we receive good from The Almighty and not take bad when it comes?’ ‘We have found you out, o pretender and deceiver. Holier-than-thou! Cunning hypocrite! You are experiencing all of these because of your sins,’ his great friends, surmised; ‘repent pal, repent!’ His answer: ‘you guys really do not get it. My integrity was never a game and remains speaking till date!’ Indeed Job was not only just a quintessential fighter, but equally one who was well aware of the fact that there was indeed a lawful way to achieve mastery and victory. And so he ran his race with patience.


(from my forthcoming book; Stand up disabled!)

Gov. Okowa, behold your brief!

Your Excellency sir,

Let us not argue over nomenclature. I am calling you Governor and not Governor-elect deliberately. It is because I really want you to know that the party is over. Yes, you may yet meet some of your opponents in the election that has presently changed your status at the petitions tribunal. But if history is our guide and given the way we yet are, it is looking like you may very well serve out your tenure as Governor until May 29, 2019. So let us cut to the chase.


You are no stranger to the politics of the state and indeed the country. Since 1999, you have been a standing fixture in the text. From Commissioner to Secretary to Government to Senator and now Governor, your dossier is clearly a most loaded one. This ordinarily should be an asset. But as we have seen in several other instances, there is really no guarantee this would truly be. The critical point then would be YOU. What do you understand your brief to be; and what would you insist that you do?


A recourse to history would help. The territory of Delta State is one that predates the military grant of statehood in 1991. It is an area peopled by hard-working and self-assured peoples who established diplomatic treaties with Europe as far back as the 16th century! At least one of the traditional institutions in the state was led in the 17th century by a graduate king who had trained at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. It is also a state that has had and continues to sustain a rich stock of merchants, intellectuals, professionals and now comedians! To paraphrase my publisher, you are clearly not presiding over a two kobo state!


I have gone into this much detail so you can connect with the fact that the least you must do is to, as we used to say in Government College Ughelli, keep the ship sailing! As Governor, you no doubt would be a most powerful person. But all power comes with a burden: and it is that of looking forward to the end of the day, when, we the people, would ultimately score you. Make no mistake about it sir; that day will come.


From where I am standing then, there is no ambiguity in my mind about the job that you are gearing up to take up soon. You are Governor of Delta State to improve the lives of all of the people that live in the state. You are not a Governor for your party members. You are not Governor for your predecessors. You are not Governor for your community of origination, sub-geography or linguistic area. You are also not a Governor for ancestral Deltans only. No sir; you are Governor for the improvement of the lives of all of the people that live in the state.


I make this point very clearly because as a student of Delta and Nigerian political history, I know that this is the only way to make a critical impact on the lives of the people and indeed the state. To do otherwise would mean that you are yielding yourself to be torpedoed by the elite forces of reaction and opportunism that have continued to ensure the underdevelopment of the state and its peoples.


You would already be familiar with the self-styled advocates for ‘fair sharing of the resources of the state to all interests.’ This Your Excellency, is merely a euphemism for elite grabbing. When you pass it on to the promoters in the manner of appointments, contracts, etc, as they are pressuring you to do and will continue to do over the next four years, you may very well need to go back and check whether the jobs really get done and the perks do indeed trickle down to the people of the communities and interest-blocs in whose name they had approached you in the first place. This has been the pattern. Of local government chairmen who live outside their council areas. Of commissioners who do not even touch base with their people. Of contractors who feed only their stomachs. Opportunism upon opportunism, all is opportunism.


If you permit this state of events to continue, you should also be prepared to go into the growing hall of infamy; of former leaders of the state who have colossally failed to impact on the real lives of the people. And there will be very few tears shed for you that day. But it need not be so if you take our counsel today.

Someone paid the price…

One of my most inspirational Christian hymns is the song, "It is well with my soul." It is said to have been written by the lawyer, Heratio Spafford.

As the story goes, the build-up to its crafting was not pleasant in any way. As the apostle Paul would put it in his own case, Spafford was literally ‘being poured out as a drink offering.’ His only son died at age 4 in 1871. On October 8 of that same year, The Great Chicago Fire wiped out huge chunks of his estate. In 1873, he sent his wife and four daughters over to Europe on a recuperative trip aboard the SS Ville du Havre, planning to join them subsequently. SAVED ALONE is the text of one of the world’s most famous telegrams ever. It was dictated by his wife. The ship had sank and with it, their daughters.

That was not all. A fire equally claimed his law firm. Insurance refused to pay, arguing that it was "an act of God!” Now penniless, he lost his house.

The Christian gentleman that he was, Spafford yet looked ‘up to the hills from where his help came.’ This was the down payment for the epigrammatic hymn that has continued to bless generations of Christians and indeed many others that have heard it, through the years.

‘When peace like a river, attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul

It is well, it is well
With my soul, with my soul
It is well, it is well, with my soul.’

Troubles are not pleasant when they occur in our lives. But trust God, they are more than the painful incidents we see and experience. Have a faith-filled day!

(extracted from my forthcoming book: Stand up, disabled!)

Nigeria, pan-Africanism as saviour

The concern over the possible northernisation and Islamisation of Nigeria in a Buhari-Tinubu presidency and the recent comments credited to the Lagos monarch, Oba Rilwan Akiolu, attempting to put the Igbos and indeed other non-indigenes ‘in their place’ flow from the same source: Nigeria has not yet defined itself and located her national purpose. It is yet a babel of opportunistically contending fiefdoms that must yet strive to disprove the Sisyphian construct that all of its attempts to build and develop a strong powerhouse in Africa south of the Sahara ‘is vanity and a mere grasping for wind’ (apologies, the Bible Book of Ecclesiastes).


Your correspondent is a Christian who believes that the almighty God carefully pre-determines all that he does. So British scheming notwithstanding, the question to ask when interrogating the Nigerian construct would simply be why he permitted God amalgamation of disparate territories and nations into a unified Nigerian nation in 1914?


Like America, Nigeria, this writer contends, was only designed to make sense within a larger construct of an expansionary developmental scheme. When Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the pilgrims elected to leave the covering of imperial Britain to not only found a brand new nation, but to also give to themselves globalist institutions that would match the broadness of their vision; they were responding to a divine pull to establish a mega-state that would subsequently stand up to be counted years later for earth-redeeming values like anti-slavery, world peace and the universal brotherhood of man. And so Uncle Sam’s country continues to play its role in the promotion and perpetuation of values like democracy, religious tolerance and global development.


If America was designed to do as much on the global stage, Nigeria this writer is most persuaded, is to do same within the context of Africa. However, when Nigerian leaders retreat into their small and most limiting cocoons and therein push their small, divisive and intra-competitive agendas, what happens is a colossal mismatch. Like fish out of water, the nation can no longer hold. A nation designed to pursue large causes and undertake great schemes has now been so sorely hobbled to the very disgusting travesty where lions now feed on carrion!


One Nigerian leader in our history who was very well placed to advance the pan-Africanist purpose as about the most rational ideological underpinning for Nigeria was the late Nnamdi Azikiwe. In capitulating to the reductionist schemes of his rivals of his time, quitting the Western House of Assembly and returning to displace Eyo Ita in the Eastern Regional Assembly, Azikiwe was putting a sultry knife into the Greater Nigeria project. I stand to be better educated but contend that it is not enough to argue that Zik was pushed out by the antics of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and his co-travellers then. What is germane is that in not standing up for the long-term values of the pan-Africanist enterprise that he had long been associated with, and continuing to canvass his case within the framework of the Western House of Assembly and the evolving Nigerian nation, a heroic opportunity had been lost. And so today, we continue to live in fear over what Buhari could do even as the Oba Akiolus of this world now and again shock us with similarly obtuse revisionist perspectives that have never built great schemes, cities and nations.


To advance Nigeria therefore would mean a conscious attempt to look at 'the road not taken' and return to a path of course correction. If the Nigerian elite continues to mis-lead the peoples of Nigeria into seeing the nation within the insular constructs of ethnic and religious atavism as the Akiolu gaffe and the lopsided voting patterns of the just concluded presidential elections clearly epitomize, then the same elite must wait to be judged for squandering the potentials and possibilities of a great nation ‘whose builder and maker is the almighty God himself!’


Indeed, Nigeria’s failure to enter into its ordained role as a mega-African champion is continuing to provoke very frustrating reactions from fellow Africans who can see what is all too obvious and are troubled that we just do not get it! In an encounter with President Robert Mugabe a few years ago, he tersely dismissed the nation as ‘big country, big problems.’ The latest pained expression is from former President Jerry Rawlings who stridently charges President-elect Buhari to see his victory within the context of Nigeria’s pan-Africanist purpose. And he makes sense.


Postscript:

As this script was being reviewed for publication, the dominant news was of the xenophobic assaults in Jacob Zuma's South Africa. He clearly is not a Madiba. And of course he equally does not know the first thing about the pan-African enterprise. It is really very troubling but the sad events there equally reinforce our basic thesis that African leaders must in the main, look for a higher value other than their own parochial limits as the core organisational basis for the nations they have been favoured to govern. It is only then that 'the labours of our heroes past shall never be in vain.' We still believe!