Category: International Diplomacy

‘Dead’ President And Dead Men in His Cabinet By Erasmus Ikhide

The discovery of dead persons names on President Muhammadu Buhari’s boards’ appointments made last weekend signposted a nation in constant trauma, plagued by inept leadership and a stubbornly disoriented clique that has held Buhari’s Presidency hostage, while the people who are at the receiving end languish in abject penury. We are talking about dead; its meaning and those in President Buhari’s government. Termination or expiration of existence sounds most profound — a dead government, organisation, organism or a person is dead to reasoning; emotion, recognition and feeling — or when leadership can no longer put a face to its name. Literarily speaking, President Buhari has been a dead ‘man’, as much as his presidency. He fails to put a face to his presidency by ensuring that he fulfils all or some of his electoral promises to the mass of Nigerian people. Buhari is ‘dead’ for refusing or failing to fulfil his 2015 Presidential manifesto to revive and reactivate our minimally performing refineries to optimum capacity. 

The president is ‘dead’ for his inability to see through his promise to ensure that the oil industry becomes one of the world leading/cutting edge centres for clean oil and gas technology by producing leading world Oil and Gas technologist, scientists, and owing mega structure installations, drilling, processing, and production facilities and engineers. He is ‘dead’ because Nigerians are yet to see the fulfilment of his promise that these facilities and scientists will be supported with the best services and research facilities. President Buhari is ‘dead’ since the promise to fully develop the oil sector’s capacity to absorb more of the nation’s new graduate in the labour market has not come to fruition. He is ‘dead’ governmentally because he told us that the oil sector will be funded to produce more home-grown, but world-class engineers, scientists, technologist, etc, and nothing has happened. Buhari government is ‘non-existence’ because his pledges to modernise the NNPC and make it the national energy champion has not been actualised. Buhari is ‘dead’ because he vowed to breakup NNPC into more efficient, commercially driven units and strip it of its regulatory powers, so as to enable it to tap into the international capital market, and Nigerians are still waiting three-year down the road.

Mr. Buhari is ‘dead’ since his promise to enforce the government master plan for oil companies to end flaring that pollutes the air and damages the communities and people’s health and ensure that they sell at least half of their gas produced within Nigeria has failed. His presidency might just be alive because he advocated speedy passage of the much-delayed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and ensure that local content issues are fully addressed. But he is ‘dead’ because he vowed to make Nigeria the world’s leading exporter of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) through the creation of strategic partnerships. President Buhari is completely ‘dead’ because he promised to stabilise oil price and the same oil price has quadrupled.

This President is ‘dead’ for not initiating policies to ensure that Nigerians are free to live and work in any part of the country by removing state of origin, tribe, ethnic and religious affiliations from documentation requirements in our identification of citizens and replace these with State of Residence and fashion out the appropriate minimal qualification for obtaining such a state of residency, nation-wide in accordance with his party manifesto.

President Buhari is ‘dead’ since he could not put in place a N300bn Regional Growth Fund with an average of N50bn in each geo-political region to encourage private sector enterprise and to support places currently reliant on only the public sector, to migrate to a private sector reality, as he promised. Buhari government is ‘dead’ for not creating a Social Welfare Program of at least Five Thousand Naira (N5000) that will cater for the 25 million poorest and most vulnerable citizens upon the demonstration of children’s enrolment in school, create 5 million jobs and evidence of immunisation to help promote family stability.

This government has ‘expired’ for not providing free antenatal care for pregnant women; free health care for babies and children up to school going age and for the aged; and free treatment for those afflicted with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. The APC government is at its ‘tipping’ point for not creating an Insurance Policy for our Journalists as the nation faces hard times and our Journalists face more dangers; for not establishing zonal world-class sports academics and training institutes and ensure that Nigeria occupies a place of pride in global sports and athletics as it promised.

Buhari cabinet is truly and ethically ‘dead’ for not assisting Nollywood to fully develop into world class movie industry that can compete effectively with Hollywood and Bollywood in due course; guarantee that women are adequately represented in government appointments and provide greater opportunities in education, job creation, and economic empowerment, and for not using the party structures to promote the concept of reserving a minimum number of seats in the States and National Assembly, for women.

This government is in abeyance for its refusal to create shelterbelts in states bordering the Sahara Desert to mitigate and reverse the effects of the expanding desert. There is a ‘carcass’ of government presently since Buhari refused to create 20,000 jobs per state immediately for those with a minimum qualification of secondary school leaving certificate and who participate in technology and vocational training.

President Buhari antigraft war is a mere ‘cadaver’ for not placing the burden of proving innocence in corruption cases on persons with inexplicable wealth. His anti-corruption crusade is a cynical mockery of due process because he refused to pursue legislation expanding forfeiture and seizure of assets laws and procedure with respect to inexplicable wealth, regardless of whether there is a conviction for criminal conduct or not.

The ‘demise’ of President Buhari and his government are loudly amplified by his failure to provide free tertiary education to students pursuing Science and Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), a promise he stoutly made to Nigerian students in 2015, prior to his presidency. His presidency is not ‘alive’ to provide free tertiary education to education majors and stipends prior to their employment as teachers, as contain in his manifesto; create incentives and dedicate special attention to the education of girls, ensure every child attending primary school is properly nourished and ready to learn by providing a Free Meal a Day.

Buhari government is a ‘skeleton’ for not achieving the construction of one million low-cost houses within four years for the poor; stop all travel abroad at government expense for the purpose of medical treatment. In fact, the president has been unexampled in this regard since independence! This government can’t be said to be ‘alive’ for not providing incentives for Nigerian doctors and health practitioners working abroad to return home, to strengthen the health care industry in Nigeria and provide quality care to those who need it, and making sure people at a local level benefit from mining and mineral wealth by vesting all mineral rights in land to states.

Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, former Lagos State Governor and currently the Federal Minister of Power, Works and Housing echoed one of his party’s manifesto when he jabbed at former President Goodluck Jonathan’s wobbling government that “a serious government will fix power problem in six months”. “There is a danger that very soon, we will miss the lesson we have learnt over the years. This is because if a government makes a public commitment, the government must fulfil that promise. Electricity was not discovered yesterday, it is over 100 years old and no excuses will be acceptable from the federal government for not providing electricity.
“We are the only nation that has oil and gas and no electricity to its citizens. Angola and Gabon don’t have the kind of oil we have. There are many countries that do not produce oil and they enjoy electricity. Very soon we will make a choice on the next set of leaders and this will be done through the ballot papers.”

By a twist of fate, Fashola has been made minister over the last two-year and has been aping at electricity generation and has failed woefully. Fashola is one of the ‘dead’ members of President Buhari’s cabinet. He has failed himself and failed Nigerians who he deceived to vote for Buhari. Buhari, Fashola and the likes of Ibe Kachikwu, Maikanti Baru, Mr. Abubakar Malami, Abba Kyari and other cabinet members are not different from the truly dead Senator Francis Okpozo; Rev. Fr. Christopher Utov, DIG Donald Ugbaja (rtd), Garba Attahiru, Umar Dange, Dr. Nabbs Imegwu, Magdalene Kumu and many more to be discovered in the disjointed appointments that took nearly three-year to materialised.

While we await national rebirth of some sort, it is of the essence that we think our way out of the present leadership conundrum offered by the PDP and the APC for nearly two decades, respectively. No nation can make meaningful progress when when her political, civil, economic and spiritual wellbeing is disorderly yoked together by military Fiat without the people’s input. Nations are doomed when the people lazy away in their irresponsibility to call leaders to account and sanction them with a verdict of rejection at elections. President Buhari deserves just that in 2019.

Erasmus, Public Affairs Analyst, writes from Lagos. 
Email: ikhideerasmus@gmail.com
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @ikhide_erasmus1

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Blame Passing, Social Media Automated Mumus – The New Year Gift To A Nation By Wole Soyinka

In the accustomed tradition, I wish the nation less misery in the coming year. A genuine Happy New Year Greeting is probably too extravagant a wish.

The accompanying news clipping from June,1977 came into my hands quite fortuitously. It is forty years old. It captures the unenviable enigma that is the Nigerian nation. It is however a masterful end-of-year image to take into the coming year, not only for the individual now at the helm of government, General Buhari, but for a people surely credited with the most astounding degree of patience and forbearance on the African continent – except of course among themselves, when they turn into predatory fiends. When many of us are blissfully departed, an updated rendition of this same clipping – with a change of cast here and there – will undoubtedly be reproduced in the media, with the same alibis, the same in-built panacea of blame passing.

Let this be called to our collective memory. Even before the current edition of the fuel crisis, other challenges, requiring immediate fix, had begun to monopolize national attention, relegating to the sidelines the outcry for a fundamental and holistic approach to the wearisome cycle of citizen trauma. This has been expressed most recently, and near universally in the word “Restructuring”, defined straightforwardly as a drastic overhaul of Nigerian articles of co-existence in a more rational, equitable and decentralized manner. Such an overhaul, the re-positioning of the relationship between the parts and the whole offers, it has been strongly argued, prospects of a closer governance awareness of, and responsiveness to citizen entitlement. An overhaul that will near totally eliminate the frequent spasms of systemic malfunctioning that are in-built into the present protocols of national association.

I recently ran the gauntlet of petroleum queues through three conveniently situated cities – Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan – deliberately, this Friday. Even with ‘unorthodox’ aids of passage, this was no task for the faint-hearted. Just getting past fueling stations was traumatizing, an obstacle race through seething, frustrated masses of humanity, only to find ourselves on vast stretches of emptied roads pleading for occupation. As for obtaining the petroleum in the first place – the less said the better. I suspect that this government has permitted itself to be fooled by the peace of those empty streets, but also by the orderly, patient, long-suffering queues that are admittedly prevalent in the city centers. It is time the reporting monitors of government move to city peripheries and sometimes even some other inner urban sectors, such as Ikeja and Maryland from time to time to see, and listen! Pronouncements – such as the 1977 above – again re-echoing by rote in 2017– are a delusion at best, a formula that derides public intelligence. Buying time. Passing blame. Yes of course, the current affliction must be remedied, and fast, but is there a dimension to it that must be brought to the fore, simultaneously and forcefully? This had better be the framework for solving even a shortage that virtually paralyzed the nation.

Just to think laterally for a moment – what became of the initiatives by some states nearly two decades ago – Lagos most prominently – to decentralize power, and thus empower states to generate and distribute their own energy requirements? Frustrated and eventually sabotaged in the most cynical manner from the Federal center! The similarity today is frightening – for nearly four days on that earlier occasion, the nation was blacked out near entirely. We know that one survival tactic of governments is to keep their citizens in the dark over decisions that affect their lives but, this was literal! And yet each such crisis, plus lesser ones, merely reiterate again and again that this national contraption, as it now stands, is simply – dysfunctional!. What this demands is that, in the process of alleviating the immediate pressing misery, we do not permit ourselves to be manipulated yet again into forgetting the MAIN issue whose ramifications exact penalties such as petroleum seizures and national power outage. These are only two handy, being recent symptoms – there are several others, but this is not intended to be a catalog of woes. Sufficient to draw attention to the Yoruba saying that goes: Won ni, Amukun, eru e wo. Oun ni, at’isale ni. Translation: Some voices alerted the K-Legged porter to the dangerous tilt of the load on his head. His response was – Thank you, but the problem actually resides in the legs.

The providential image above sums up a defining moment for both individual and collective self-assessment, places in question the ability of a nation to profit from past experience. Vast resources, yes, but proved unmanageable under its present structural arrangements. As the tussle for the next round of power gets hotter in the coming year, the electorate will again be manipulated into losing sight of the BASE ISSUE. Its noisome claque in the meantime, the automated mumus of social media, practiced in sterile deflection and trivialization of critical issues, unwittingly join hands with government to indulge in blame passing and name calling – both sides with different targets. From the anguished cry of Charley Boy’s Our Mummu Done Do! to expositions from academics such as Professor Makinde’s recent intervention, the public is subjected daily to a relentless barrage of awareness, underlined in urgency. Nobody listens. One wonders if many people read. And certainly, very few retain or relate – until of course the next crisis. The labor movement declares that it awaits a guarantee of the ‘people’s backing’ before it embarks on any critical intervention. Understandably. There is more than enough of the opium of blame passing on tap to lull mummus into that deep coma from which – give it a little more time – there can only be a rude awakening.

Sooner than later, but not as soon as pledged, the fuel crisis will pass. And then, of course, we shall await the next round of shortages, then a recommencement of blame passing. What will be the commodity this time – food perhaps? Maybe even potable water? In a nation of plenty, nothing is beyond eventual shortage – except, of course, the commonplace endowment of pre-emptive planning and methodical execution. Forty years after, the same language of re-assurance? “There is something rotten in the state of Naija!”

Wole SOYINKA

Buhari’s Last Chance By Azu Ishiekwene

If the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, is offering advice on what President Muhammadu Buhari must do to rescue his government, then the President should know he has work to do.

The governor, who came to office over six years ago on the ticket of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, has since switched parties. He is currently the official clown of the All Progressives Congress. And with months of unpaid salaries and pensions, and state monuments bearing his family name, there’s enough wreckage to show for his status.

But that’s a digression. His advice to Buhari is on point and infinitely more sensible than the nonsense of his Kogi State counterpart, Yahaya Bello, who declared a public holiday to mark the President’s return but didn’t know what to do to save even one of the 60 persons that died from an abdominal infection in Kogi the same week.

Buhari has work to do and he has to start from home while the rodents in his office are being apprehended and the cobwebs cleared.

His six minutes national address was a mixed bag. But whatever its defects, he has made enough speeches in the last two years. It’s time to do what he has been saying.

As far as I can remember, Buhari is the first to win a presidential election depending almost entirely on votes from the North and the South West. What he should have done on assumption of office, was to rally the whole country and not give the regrettable impression that he would only be President for the regions that voted for him.

Azubuike Ishiekwene

That posture, compounded by a few skewed appointments in his early days, has fuelled separatist sentiments, especially in the South East, and popularised Nnamdi Kanu’s Biafra rhetoric.

Renaming Buhari “Okechukwu” (a share from God) or even “Onyenzoputa” (savior) will not solve the problem created by his initial faux pas. The government has to start an honest engagement with its citizens, especially groups that have been radicalized by official insensitivity.

The 2014 National Conference report and even reports from previous ones, which Buhari has inexplicably refused to read, would be a good starting point.

As I said in this column last week, Boko Haram appears resurgent and insecurity is assuming new, frightening dimensions. It would be naïve to assume that Boko Haram would be wiped out. The recent deadly attacks by the group suggest that there’s still work to be done.

Buhari cannot afford to take his eyes off the insurgents; nor should the even more difficult task of resettling the victims be ignored anymore.

It’s heartening to know that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had not submitted his committee’s report on the $43 million found at a Lagos residence before the rodents invaded Buhari’s corner.

The Vice President’s committee was supposed to find out how tons of dollars ended up in a private residence and if it was true as the former Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ayo Oke, claimed, that he sheltered the money on orders.

That report should be made public, along with the findings of Osinbajo’s committee on the role of the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, in the alleged case of millions of naira set aside for the Presidential Initiative on the North East, which ended up in private pockets.

The war on corruption appears stuck in the mud. But since the President was getting regular briefings in his London sickbay, he’s probably already aware of two court rulings asking his government to publish looted funds recovered since 1999 to date; looted funds recovered on his watch since 2015 and the names of the looters.

Corruption will kill the country if all we do is talk about it or turn a blind eye when the culprits are close to us. Some people close to the President are giving his government a bad name and he knows them.

If the National Assembly is still perceived as a den of corruption, it’s because Buhari has failed to use his leverage as leader of the ruling party to deal with it; and if the judiciary is making mincemeat of anti-corruption cases, it’s because Buhari has retained a minister of justice who is confused, if not incompetent.

If he seriously wants a change, he’ll have to make the right call. And time is not on his side. There’s merit in Okorocha’s advice that he might need to overhaul his cabinet.

Not only does he need to take another look at the Justice Ministry, he might also need to overcome the sentiment that to love a competent minister is to kill him with work: Babatunde Fashola is currently overworked with three ministries. He needs to be where the country can optimise his talent and energy.

In theory, the Ministry of Education should be able to handle the national strike by university teachers, which is in its second week. In practice, however, Buhari cannot afford to outsource the problem, which has lingered on now for eight years.

I recall that when The Interview interviewed Buhari in July 2016, he said one of the reasons why he dumped the National Conference report was that Goodluck Jonathan’s government used the money that ought to have been used to pay lecturers to host “a useless conference.” Now, he’ll find that the matter is a bit more complicated.

Money won’t bury all the problems in the universities, though. Sure, the universities require more resources, but even if we hand over the key to the treasury to them, nothing will change as long as the market continues to think that university graduates are useless and that a good number of lecturers themselves need teachers.

What is required is a comprehensive overhaul of the educational system – the kind that Oby Ezekwesili tried to implement as Education Minister before vested interests fought her to a standstill. Fixing education is a presidential assignment.

It’s good to know that, so far, there are no reports of well-wishers falling over themselves to visit Buhari at home since he returned. They can send him cards with a spray can or two of pesticides for his office use, if they can afford it.

The man has work to do and should be left alone to face it, squarely. 

Ishiekwene is the MD/Editor-In-Chief of The Interview magazine and board member of the Paris-based Global Editors Network 

 

​President Buhari’s Message    The Verdict By Olusegun Adeniyi

Email: olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com

After more than 100 days away from the country, President Muhammadu Buhari returned last Saturday to a tumultuous welcome. It was an indication that he still commands the popular appeal that brought him to power despite the glaring failings of his administration. But his address to the nation on Monday fell far short of expectations. First, he started with a wrong salutation. ‘My dear citizens’ does not convey the fact that we (the president and the rest of us) are equal stakeholders in Nigeria. In case he has forgotten, Nigerians are not to him what Britons are to the Queen of England where he has put up residency in recent weeks.
Perhaps, we should not read too much into just one speech. The president may yet surprise us if the style and substance of his leadership change for the better in the coming weeks, though there remains the small task of first chasing away the rodents that have taken over the number one office in our country! However, those writing their own speeches in place ofBuhari’s six-minute address would have to wait until they become president of Nigeria or that of their own little dream enclaves.
Meanwhile, as we wait for the Change we were promised by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), I want to rehash what I wrote on 28th May 2015, a day before the president assumed office. Titled, “A Word for Muhammadu Buhari”, I believe the short intervention is still very much relevant today:
…What is perhaps President Buhari’s biggest selling point today is that he comes to office with what is usually described as “Referent Power”. He is generally trusted as a man who would not fiddle with the treasury in a society where integrity in the public arena is very much in short supply. But leading by example does not make Buhari a perfect man, and that is what worries me about the way some of his supporters are going on as if we have just elected a prophet.


Buhari will do this. Buhari will do that. Those are the tales we have been hearing from some time-servers who may not even know the man but are already positioning themselves in the media in a bid to hijack the man and our collective destiny. Yet, the reality of our national condition today is that Buhari can do practically nothing without seeking the patience and understanding of Nigerians. And for that to happen, Buhari must be seen to be human. That means having the courage to admit to mistakes and failings (where they occur) along the way and being bold enough to make course corrections.
As I wish the president-elect well, I want to end my piece with a simple story that will serve Buhari who should be wise enough to dispense with the cult of personality being built around him if he does not want to fail. Concerned that her son was addicted to eating a lot of sugar, a mother sought appointment to see the legendary Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi. When she finally did, with her son in tow, she said: “The whole nation listens to you, please tell my son to stop eating sugar, as it is not good for his health”. Ghandi replied, “I cannot tell him that. But you may bring him back in a few weeks and then I will talk to him.”
Upset and disappointed, the mother took the boy home.Two weeks later, she came back. This time Gandhi looked directly at the boy and said “Son, you should stop eating sugar. It is not good for your health.” The boy nodded his head and made a solemn commitment to heed the admonition. Puzzled, the boy’s mother asked Ghandi, “Why did you send us away two weeks ago when you could have simply told the boy what you just did?”
Gandhi smiled and said:“Two weeks ago, I was eating a lot of sugar myself.”
ENDNOTE: There are several lessons in that simple tale but I will point out just a few. One, Ghandi demonstrated an uncommon capacity for introspection which made him to admit to his own imperfection. Two, Ghandi was not ready to be a hypocrite by preaching to the boy what he himself had not been practicing. Three, Ghandi was ready to make course corrections so that he could, in good conscience, offer an honest advice to the boy. Four, flowing from the foregoing was the recognition by Ghandi that he was accountable to every citizen, young or old. Five, Ghandi had the grace to admit to the boy’s mother that he was but an ordinary man who was prepared to rise above himself when occasions demanded.
I join in thanking God for President Buhari’s health recovery and return to the country even as I wish him all the best in the remaining months of his administration.
MKO Abiola At 80

Were he to be alive, Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola would have marked his 80th birthday today. He was born on 24th August 1937. And without any doubt, today would have been a remarkable day in Lagos, for Abiola was indeed a man of the people. Yet, he is practically forgotten despite the fact that the democracy we currently enjoy can be credited to his sacrifices and that of a few others who challenged the military that had practically held the nation by the jugular. And he paid a very big price for that: He was incarcerated under a most dehumanizing condition, his wife, Kudirat was murdered, his businesses were ruined and eventually, he lost his life.
What that compels is a reflection on the part of those who only remember Abiola on June 12, essentially for political reasons even when they do nothing to advance the cause for which he died. Granting holidays on June 12 every year in a section of the country when Abiola’s appeal was national, is cheap and meaningless. What would be more enduring is to have a befitting centre in Abiola’s name, like that of his friend (now also of blessed memory), Shehu Musa Yar’Adua that stands as a lasting memorial in Abuja. There must also be a compelling book on Abiola that would deal with four notable areas of his life: Politics, business, philanthropy and sports. That is the sort of legacy Abiola deserves and it is possible if there is a commitment to it, especially as we move towards the 20th anniversary of his death which is next year.
Meanwhile, as a State House Correspondent in the early nineties, I was a member of the African Concordmagazine delegation to Jos in April 1993 when Abiola contested the Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential primaries and I followed all the political drama from the beginning to the end. In August 1997, as an Assistant Editor at Sunday Concord, I wrote a book to commemorate Abiola’s 60th birthday at a time he was in detention. Titled “Abiola’s Travails”, the publication was partly financed by the then PUNCH Chairman, Chief Ajibola Ogunsola, easily one of the few genuine friends of Abiola and for me a professional mentor.
Although I no longer have a copy of the book, on Tuesday I asked whether Louis Odion (a friend I know to be very meticulous in keeping records) still has his. Not surprisingly, Louis still does and he lent me the copy I autographed for him on 28th August 1997 with a stern warning that I must return it to his library. In future, I may merge the book with ‘Fortress on Quicksand’ (on how and why 23 presidential aspirants were disqualified in November 1992) and ‘The Last 100 Days of Abacha’ since they follow the same thread and rework them before republishing as a single book. But that is not a priority project right now.
In the foreword to “Abiola’s Travails”, Mr Lewis Obi, the then Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of African Concord (now defunct like most other Abiola businesses) wrote: “Abiola was prevented from being president by approximately seven army officers and less than half a dozen politicians who subverted our institutions and committed the worst treason ever committed against the Nigerian state. That a few desperate men could do so demonstrated the fragility of our institutions—from the army, through the political parties to the National Assembly and the judiciary. None of our national institutions could stand the rampage of a few power mongers and, thus, Nigeria was reduced to something slightly worse than a banana republic…Abiola’s travails are actually Nigeria’s travails. He promised the country prosperity. Now the country is the seventh poorest in the world. He promised democracy. Nigeria is today under the grip of a regime regarded in the world as one of the most repressive and lawless. He promised to open up the country. Today, Nigeria is an international outcast. He promised a united country and the voters responded. Today, Nigeria is more divided than it was in 1914.”
It is indeed instructive that those words were written about the Nigeria of 1997!
On 16th January 1993 when he declared his intention to run for the presidency, Abiola said most memorably: “Everywhere you go, you find the African at the bottom of the ladder; some can’t even find the ladder. I will provide that ladder and help them to climb.” He went on to run a most interesting campaign both for the SDP primaries which he won and subsequently the election that was aborted before the result could be announced. There was of course no doubt as to who the victor was.
Aside documenting Abiola’s political struggles from the moment he joined the presidential race to night he was arrested as recounted by Kudirat to how his businesses were ruined and the drama of the court appearances in the treason trial which I witnessed, I also highlighted a few personal indignities he suffered in detention. For instance, on 23 August 1994, Abiola had a scuffle with DSP Lawal Katsina in the office of ACP Felix Ogbaudu while his lawyers watched helplessly. The fight began when Katsina sought to prevent Abiola from taking possession of the newspapers brought by his lawyes on the flimsy excuse that he wanted to screen them for concealed documents. In the process Katsina pushed Abiola who fell down. The police would later issue a silly statement that “it was chief abiolawho assaulted the officer” in the office of an assistant police commissioner!
Since the only opportunities he could speak came during the few court appearances before they were terminated in August 1987, Abiola on one occasion narrated his ordeals: “Up till Saturday morning I was at Bwari police station in a cell. At 2am on Saturday, some people entered the room and without telling me who they were or what their business was, they took everything in my room, including my tooth brush. No answer was given to any of the questions I asked them. Since that time I have been unable to have sleep of any kind. On Saturday evening, I was moved to Kuje police station and there I was locked up in the room until the two occasions when I had visitors and once when I had to spray the room. The environment the police provided is not conducive to any sustenance of life. No amount of medical care would be of any help in that environment. I don’t have access to newspapers or radio. The food provided is good but the environment does not enable one to eat the food. I am terribly concerned for being asked to go back to such a place is like sending me to an early grave.”
On the specific case of his brush with DSP Katsina, Abiola said since the court had granted him rights to newspapers, he saw no reason why he should be denied. “I respect every person that deserves respect but I have paid my dues. I could have forced the newspapers from the hands of the policemen. They cannot beat me up. I am not afraid of death. This is not the type of country I want my children to live in; that is why we must change it. And we will change it,Insha Allah. I have been kept in five places. They took me to Kuje, then Bwari and last night, I slept on bare floor.”
While this is not an attempt to tell the story of that era, there is a way in which what happened to Abiola contributed to the challenge of nationhood that we are facing today and the military should take the blame. In 1998/99, Babangida and his men thought they could right the Abiola wrong by bringing General Olusegun Obasanjo from detention and working by sleight to have him emerge as the president of Nigeria. What they failed to understand is that the bond of trust that had been broken by the manner in which the June 12 crisis was handled would take more than such cynical appeasement of Yoruba people to heal, especially within the context of Nigeria’s ethnic relations. But those are issues that we must deal with another day.
As I therefore conclude this piece in commemoration of Abiola’s 80th posthumous birthday with a reflection on what might have been, for the Twitter generation that may still be wondering about who this Abiola was, let me leave them with the words of Babangida. In January 1988 when Abiola was conferred the title of Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yoruba land by the Alafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, the then military president wrote him a public letter which I reproduce below:
“Dear Generalissimo,

“My family and I heartily rejoice with you today on your installation as the 14th Aare OnaKakanfo of Yorubaland. The symbolism of the title vividly illustrates virtually every aspect of your life history which has been marked so far by one gallant battle after another. Your installation today is therefore a testimony to the inspiring success story of your life.
“You scored your first victory in your infancy being the first among many children of your parents to survive, after whom many others follow. Also, remarkably, you survived various odds not the least of which was grinding poverty to prepare yourself for the many battles ahead. You challenged racial prejudices in high places and won for your fellow citizens and black people, the right to fully realize their potentials in their chosen careers. Your charity and deep concern for the less privileged are now legendary. While congratulating you on today’s richly deserved installation, we pray Allah to continue to guide and guard you in your sincere services to fellow men and to HIM, the almighty.”
M.K.O. Abiola may be long gone, he can never be forgotten!
Ayisha’s Love Win Pius

Pius Adesanmi, who arrived from his Ottawa (Canada) base on Tuesday and goes back tomorrow, will this evening join Ayisha Osori at the Thought Pyramid Art Centre, 18 Libreville Street, off Aminu Kano Crescent in Wuse 2, to discuss her recent book, ‘Love Does Not Win Elections’. The highly revealing and very entertaining book captures Ayisha’s 2014 experience as she sought an elusive Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket to represent AMAC/Bwari constituency at the House of Representatives. The book is a compelling manual for any professional seeking political office in Nigeria or trying to understand how in her words “Nigerians keep getting leaders they say they do not deserve”.The book will also be available for sale at the venue.

What is wrong with our president? By Umar Sa’ad Hassan

The rumour mill has been agog with stories that President Buhari could be returning to the country any time soon. This is coming shortly after photos of him with some visiting governors were greeted with wild excitement by his supporters. On the other hand, there couldn’t be a more rueful time for the patriotic Nigerian who places the nation first. That Nigerian is more concerned with the unanswered question: What exactly is President Buhari suffering from? Over the last week, that Nigerian has had to contend with imbecilic comments about how Buhari is overcoming death and how those who have dared to ask questions will die in his place.

We already know his medical costs are expensive enough to be tagged a “matter of national security” by Lai Mohammed, the minister of information. The same Lai Mohammed who demanded daily updates on the late President Yar’Adua’s health from the ministry of information when he was receiving treatment abroad. The country reportedly pays as much as £4,000 daily for the presidential plane parked in London while £1,000 per day is been bandied around as the official sum and even at that rate, we have spent over N43 million on just having a plane ready for him alone.

While the nature of the President’s ailment is serious enough to be kept secret, it bothers the true Nigerian with the best interests of his nation at heart whether he is coming back to stay indoors, sit out FEC meetings and take pictures with files in his office in an attempt to hoodwink us before heading back to his doctors or if he is coming back to face the rigorous job we voted him to do.

His performance while on seat has been lacklustre at best and it baffles me why anyone would overlook the extra burden we have had to contend with. The man simply isn’t fit to be in office.

I still can’t seem to get my head around how a man would plunge his people into hunger,run the country to the brink of disintegration, have them cover his medical expenses and yet return home to a thunderous ovation.

Our number one priority when and If he does get back is to have him disclose to us what he is suffering from. If he conveniently justified his incessant trips abroad in the early days of his administration with claims that he was courting foreign aid and investments, then it is important to know not only if he is going to be around, but also strong enough to do things as “important” as that.

If the federal government thinks medical costs are “matters of national security”, then it would be sheer madness to classify the nature of Buhari’s ailment as such. We need to know in emphatic terms, not only if he is capable of carrying out his duties but also exactly what we are spending our money on. No one expects him to resign any more like he once said he would if he fell very ill because of the luxury of having to treat himself with taxpayers money.

A medical report surfaced online before the 2015 presidential election indicating President Buhari was battling prostrate cancer and some of his photos, especially ones taken since his last return have shown vivid signs of a man undergoing chemotherapy. But all these have stayed in the realm of speculation, we need to be told unequivocally exactly what our ailing president is suffering from.

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Dear Acting President Osinbajo, Saraki Is Coming, Act Fast!, By Akin Fadeyi

“Nelson Mandela was an extra ordinary human being. He put a strong “truth and reconciliation” committee together. He was not insulting everyone and anyone. It earned him global respect.

“Leadership matters when you want to heal a divided nation. Donald Trump hurls abusive speeches at every perceived opposition in sight and that has greatly damaged America”.

These were very punchy and incisive comments of Ed Luce, Financial Times‘ chief commentator on Fareed Zakaria GPS on the night of Sunday June 18, 2017.

The opening topic was on why GOP Congressman and Louisiana Rep, Steve Scalise, was shot by an obviously disgruntled 66 year old American who had nursed disgust for Donald Trump’s style of racially divisive politics. James T. Hodgkinson was lurking in dark shadows like an untamed reptile. He struck before anyone could cage him and dealt a great blow not through the injury caused Scalise but actually to the ideals of diversity America once proudly represented.

I have written against Donald Trump before, describing him as a “bad dream for a fragile world”.

But nonetheless, I love Trump because he is down to earth, sometimes recklessly though, but again, you cannot fault his unconventional radicalised Republican brand of politics. Hate him all you like, he has millions of followers who look up to his “rascally” tweets. In a democracy with all its faults, it is figures that still count. Trump seems to have the figures, albeit within a nation now beleaguered by naked hate and prejudice.

Having said this, there are learnings to pick from Fareed’s GPS guests’ stance that a nation is full of divergent political interests, social alignments and cultural leanings; and therefore, you cannot be insensitive to the feelings of the led as a leader.

In terms of Nigeria, I have no doubt the acting president, Yemi Osibajo is probably genuine in his efforts at harmonising various positions in this nation and bridging the divides. The same Sunday on Channels TV, I saw his rapprochement with South-East Leaders. He has been to Cross River; and a few days ago, he hosted the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to a very private meeting at the Villa.
Osinbajo is writing some plausibly good history as a strong believer in a compact Nigeria. Awesome.

But let me give the acting president a piece of advice. David Blankenhorn, activist and president of “Better Angels” does something for America that Osinbajo needs to do in Nigeria. His organisation brings grassroots people together, despite their political differences. His organisation believes people can get angry at each other, debate emotionally against each other, but they must all be heard with a sole focus on nation-building and genuine national healing. He strongly recommends a public square engagement.Another guest on Fareed’s GPS warned against “dehumanising” Steve Scalise’s shooter, James Hodgkinson and painting him totally evil. He describes the shooter as a symbolic representation of certain hurt, frustrated and shattered feelings after Trump shaped America’s political narrative with racial colourations. He wants this hush-tone section of the nation to be heard, understood and brought back to the mainstream.

The acting president, at this stage, cannot engage with elites and leaders alone while assuming that the real agitators are committing heresy. The anger and agitation is down here, Mr. Acting President. I doubt those “leaders” have the ears of the crowd you are trying to rein in. If they did, IPOB would not arise, OPC will not flourish and Arewa Youths would never have issued an ultimatum.

The acting president must necessarily open up strategic and far-reaching processes of honest and robust engagements, where every tribe is allowed to openly express where and how they have been hurt. Where no tribe feels superior to the other. Where citizens will now believe and trust the government. Where leadership is handed to competence and not federal character, but is also well managed within the delicate thresholds of our interests and diversities. Where federal government vacancies are not presumably filled up “already by their children” despite paid advertorials. The government must identify with the genuine youth who want to discuss without angling or positioning themselves for pecuniary gains. Many “youth leaders” seize the microphone and utter gibberish once they have access to the media. The job of identifying the truly aggrieved and the honestly prepared in national discourse must be factored into our engagement template.

The executive, I dare say, must confront our fears and maybe revisit the national confab report which is about to evolve into a nuisance-value boobytrap that ex-President Jonathan inadvertently put in place for this administration.

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo must carefully manage how he serves into the hands of the NASS, whose members are now demanding for the consideration of the 2014 confab report, without falling naively for a populist goal about to be scored against the presidency. The presidency has conceded many of these recently.

I am still in doubt over what the underlying motive of our senators are. If it is positive, then that is great for Nigeria. Not a few, though, will be pleasantly surprised. On Channels TV a few days ago, even the then confab chairman, Senator Femi Okunrounmu expressed reservations about the National Assembly’s sudden interest in the report, so soon after Senate president, Bukola Saraki was let off the hook in a no-case submission and acquittal by the Code of Conduct Tribunal, which Professor Itse Sagay has been losing sleep over. For the NASS to now open the books of the confab report, this will be a masterstroke move to “buy-the-public” applause in a political chess game. But hey, who would not like to us to discuss the issues tearing us apart for which we have been living in denial? In-here lies why the National Assembly might trounce the Executive once again, and in a silly manner too. If Saraki organises a national grassroots forum today for these discussions, he would have a huge crowd. The presidency must act fast – they either play this game or glide painfully into public irrelevance.

Overall, we must all mean well for this nation no matter which desk we occupy. Corruption is still a damning monster and it is actually getting brazenly bold. Leaders should visit social media occasionally and find out the huge extent to which the people have lost faith in the government’s anti corruption fight. We must go back to the drawing board and re-strategise. The acting president should read the Chatham House report where a holistic approach involving grassroots behavioural change is recommended as a great tool for tackling corruption.

We must patriotically work towards building a nation where no one sees any other person as inferior. Where Yorubas don’t feel Hausas are “hungry for power” and where Igbos don’t feel “Yorubas can’t be trusted”. I have met fantastic Northerners, civilised Igbos and golden-hearted Yorubas. Those dividing us don’t mean well for us. Their intentions are not beyond their ambitions.

This country is beautiful and holds a promise: But the frank realities confronting us cannot be skirted over. Doing so may damage us irredeemably.

Shall I say, God bless Nigeria? For those who believe there’s some God somewhere; and an ‘amen’ might mean a lot at this critical moment in our nation’s history.

Akin Fadeyi is Convener of the Not In My Country Project.

​Neo-Biafra: Of Sense And Nonsense By Louis Odion

Just when the rest of the nation on Wednesday began a postmortem of the Biafra Day celebration following media reports of “total compliance” in Igbo land of a sit-at-home-order by IPOB/MASSOB, the following are excerpts from the riposte by one Ken Henshaw, obviously from the South-South, trended on social media:
“I think the current generation of ‘Biafrans’ are the most (unprintable) so far. How dare you sit in your home or offices and draw your Biafra map and include places like Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom etc as part of of your empire? Did you consult them? Did you seek their opinions?

“You are forcing people to join a country whose commander-in-chief you have already anointed – Nnamdi Kanu; whose currency you have already decided – Biafran Pounds; whose official religion you have already adopted – Judaism; whose God you have already chosen – Chukwu Abiama?

“Do you not realize that you are doing to those people the same thing you accuse the British and Nigeria of doing to you?”

With this, Henshaw no doubt reopens the untold stories of counter-agitation within the Biafran enclave for the 30 months it lasted. Stories passed down by surviving older generations of co-opted minorities in present-day South-South hardly suggest the new lords of Biafra then were any better than the feudal overlords they were running away from the so-called rickety wedlock Lord Frederick Lugard had cobbled together in 1914 in terms of the way they related with non-Igbo conscripted into the rebellion against the Nigerian state.

As legitimate as Henshaw’s observations of the neo-Biafran agitation may sound, there is no denying that Biafra as an idea lives. With major streets deserted across the South-East out of civil disobedience and the Igbo community in the diaspora reportedly staging marches in key countries across the world, it is evident that attempts by the Nigerian establishment over the past half century to exorcise its spirit have failed woefully.

This official failing, in turn, speaks directly to a more dire frailty: collective failure of the estimated 386 ethnic nationalities to make a nation of the contraption Lugard bequeathed. Rather, what we continue to see is the pathetic self-canceling struggle of serpents and scorpions trapped in a squalid basket.

But forget the saber-rattling by the exuberant IPOB ideologues raising hell on the airwaves. If we are observant, we would recognize that the cry of Biafra today is only the formula of the Igbo elite to protest being schemed out of Nigeria’s power equation in continuation of what has become a rat race for bargain, control and dominion.

Beneath this hell-raising would appear some cold calculations. It seems being perceived in the “land of the rising sun” that the momentum for Obasanjo’s political coronation in 1999 was made irreversible by sustained resistance by Yoruba intelligentsia after June 12 coupled with OPC’s guttural brinkmanship. So much that, for the first time in Nigeria’s political history, the two main political parties were tele-guided by the retreating military oligarchy to field Yoruba candidates in the presidential contest of 1999.

Such mindset also assumes that if not for the sustained pipeline bombings and other calculated acts of economic sabotage by Niger Delta militants during the Obasanjo administration, an Ijaw would not have been “planted” as Yar’Adua’s running-mate in 2007 in what, in hindsight, would now appear a complex chess game to sneak in a South-South minority as a substantive president on May 5, 2010.

The neo-Biafrans also seem to reckon too that Buhari’s ascendancy in 2015 was substantially aided, abetted and made inevitable by Boko Haram’s genocidal insurrection in parts of the North once a Southern Christian minority was declared winner of the 2011 presidential election.

So, they now seem to have concluded that without raising hell or threatening to levy war, no one will give Igbo their dues in the bazaar Nigeria has always been. It explains the various mutations of the Biafran franchise since the return of democracy 18 years ago. First was Ralph Nwazurike’s MASSOB during the Obasanjo years with the beatification of Emeka Ojukwu, even while still alive, and merchandizing Biafran memorabilia on the side. APGA, as a political party, would tap into the same emotion.

Then, enter the social media-savvy Daniel Kanu-led IPOB with far more thunderous words and apocalyptic pronouncements.

But it must be recognized that the neo-Biafran cry attained the present crescendo only after the winner-takes-all culture instituted by Buhari upon ascending power two years ago. While the Igbo were prospering under Goodluck Jonathan on account of key political appointments and patronage, we never saw this sort of scare-mongering; the separatist rhetoric was at best muffled then.

Truth be told, this is a dangerous mentality to cultivate in the context of genuine nation-building. History already teaches us that no durable nation ever germinates from such make-shift arrangement that seems to reward only the biggest bully. The first condition is to create a climate of mutual respect and incentives for all to realize their full potentials.

That is why I think the colloquium held in Abuja on May 25 to mark Biafra’s 50th anniversary was significant indeed. That such a talk shop held at all and drew a quality audience including no less a personage than the Acting President is very unprecedented in history. It should be seen as official shift from living in denial. Once upon a time, such idea would have been unthinkable, taken as an affront to the “constituted authorities” in Abuja. Once the news broke, the security establishment would immediately have taken steps to abort it.

In this regard, I think we are making progress.

But the real challenge is to institute a culture that gives every section of the country a sense of belonging. Speaking that day, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, I believe, used the right words by sounding conciliatory and harping on the sentiment that we are “greater together than apart.”

Truly, nationhood is a shared commitment. Otherwise, it is a bondage fated to break some day.

But, words remain what they are: cheap. Indeed, while the erudite professor of law with demonstrable progressive credentials was pontificating that day, genuine patriots truly committed to national reconciliation and integration must have wished the voice was Buhari’s. Were Osinbajo’s boss in his shoes on the dais that day at the iconic Yar’Adua Centre, it is very doubtful if he, judging by the maximalist tendencies he has exhibited since assuming power in 2015, would have spoken in the same conciliatory tone or evince a disposition to engage those in the cold.

If the dominant feeling in South-East and South-South today is that of alienation, the exclusionist governance model Buhari has pursued with zealotry is largely to be blamed.

Indeed, the challenge today, as always, is to have a leader who can look beyond the narrow prism of the voting pattern in the last election, rise above pettiness and give every section of the country a sense of belonging. In case Buhari does not know, he needs to be told that nation-building is not helped when a leader goes ahead to fill all key national positions with only people from his locality.

To be fair, Buhari is not a pioneer here. He could only be accused of improving on the existing records of political greed and nepotism. Under Jonathan, it was Ijaw triumphalism we witnessed, thus putting to shame all those who earlier championed the crusade that he be declared acting president early in 2010 in the name of natural justice once it increasingly became clear that Umar Yar’Adua would not make it back to Aso Rock from his sick bay in Saudi Arabia. Jonathan, in turn, only chose to break the record of Yar’Adua who, despite his impressive academic standing, seemed detained all the way by the little god of the province. When he still had the presence of mind, his inner circle were drawn largely from a small district in Katsina. And as pericarditis – a rare medical condition – began to sap the last drops of vitality from his anatomy, his executive staff was summarily hijacked by a tiny cabal from the same provincial stock.

But to birth a more cohesive Nigeria is not the only duty of a broad-minded leader. Patriotism should oblige citizens themselves to stand and speak against injustice wherever it occurs regardless of ethnicity or faith. Only this could explain why when self-styled military president Ibrahim Babangida mindlessly annulled June 12 won MKO Abiola, the push for its revalidation largely became mostly a Yoruba project eventually.

Today, on a milder scale, we are witnessing a reenactment of the same civic complicity in the continued public silence, in the loss of the sense of national outrage, over the indefinite incarceration of the Shiite leader despite repeated court orders.

But nationhood is not an abstract construct. One of the key pillars is social justice.