Soyombo Opeyemi

“He was very articulate, very organised, diligent, hardworking, to the extent that all of his peers said he was out of this world because he wasn’t within the realm of what people ordinarily expected from him.
That was Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State speaking about his late father, Alhaji Abdul Lasisi Oyedemi Sanusi-Amosun, during the 20th remembrance event on January 21, 2017.
For those who regard the word “perfectionist” as disapproving, here are excerpts of the meaning from some dictionaries. Oxford Dictionaries: A perfectionist is a person who refuses to accept any standard short of perfection.
Cambridge Dictionary: A person who wants everything to be perfect and demands the highest standards possible: She’s such a perfectionist that she notices even the tiniest mistakes.
Collins English Dictionary : Someone who is a perfectionist refuses to do or accept anything that is not as good as it could possibly be. A person who strives for or demands the highest standards of excellence in work, etc.
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary: A person who likes to do things perfectly and is not satisfied with anything less. He was a perfectionist in his art and could be difficult to work for.
Of all the authorities above, the definition that appeals to me most is that of Collins English Dictionary: “Someone who is a perfectionist refuses to do or accept anything that is not as good as it could possibly be.” OR “A person who strives for or demands the highest standards of excellence in work, etc.”
The governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, “strives for or demands the highest standards of excellence in work.” Little wonder he enunciated in early 2012 a concept called “Ogun Standard,” which demands that every project executed or service rendered must comply with international best practices; it must be a model for others to emulate. Amosun “refuses to do or accept anything that is not as good as it could possibly be.”
We were once in Ijebu Ode to inaugurate a project. The governor had to call it off because it was “not as good as it could possibly be.” At Ota, Amosun once shook his head in disapproval and muttered, “This is not Ogun Standard!” On a number of times, brochures or pamphlets for events had to be reprinted at the last minute, into the early hours, because attention was not paid to details or some of the pages were defaced with ink or the entire booklets were not of excellent workmanship.
“Let’s manage it like that,” the usual refrain in our clime – a product of mediocre mentality. And you expect Amosun to accept that, to manage it? No. He won’t. And that’s the problem. Here in Nigeria, we tend to accommodate anything but the ideal: “Oh, it’s a minor mistake; let’s manage it!” No, Amosun will not “manage it” with you. You’ll have to correct the mistake. “Oh, it’s just a small error; nobody will see it!” No, Amosun will notice that error; he will see it. So, you’d better correct it.
As in the example above, Amosun is “a perfectionist in his art and could be difficult to work for.” Yes, he will be difficult to work for because he won’t accept your mediocrity. He won’t accept anything second-rate from you. It’s either we do it well or we dump it! That is why you see the governor almost everywhere inspecting projects all over the state, raising issues on work not done in line with the design or frowning at any attempt to shortchange the tax-payers through slap-dash jobs or structures of average workmanship. “We just have to be there to see things for ourselves otherwise they may do rubbish!” he keeps charging. Here in Ogun, the fear of Amosun is the beginning of wisdom for any contractor. You’d better do it well else you will start all over again! Amosun will not accept any excuses from you.
Being a perfectionist does not mean you are perfect. It’s just that you strive for perfection in everything you do. Perfection is the goal and your eyes are fixed on its attainment in every aspect of your work. Change is constant, yet it is usually difficult for people to accept change. To be more charitable, it also takes some time for people to imbibe new qualities or new ways of doing things. During the 2015 electioneering, we passed through a road leading to a particular higher institution where the Amosun administration had invested a lot. The sign board was literally in tatters. Yet, inside the school were first class structures. I shook my head in amazement and soliloquy, “Is it the governor that will come here to teach this institution about Ogun Standard? Do they need a lecture to know that the image of the institution is reflected also in its sign board?”
At another time, I saw a very good poster of an event on a large billboard, somebody trying to impress the governor. But the billboard had dents and undulating edges. The man had simply wasted his money. But I then empathized with the governor: “These people have not imbibed Amosun’s culture of excellence!”
The point is not lost on the governor himself – absolutely not. Sometimes he will shake his head over some “average” work and then whisper, facing another direction or people: “Ko get e!” (He doesn’t understand!) He allows it to pass because he’s human, hoping that next time, you will come with an excellent job. That is when nothing too serious is at stake. Otherwise such is only excused once in a blue moon.
Of course, the governor cannot see everything. I reckoned that some people might not see anything really wrong either with the institution sign board or the billboard. Change is necessary. It also takes time for people to accept and practise the change.
The good news is this: We’ve seen more and more of Ogun Standard displayed every now and then. We won’t get everything right at the same time. But it is noble to be seen to aspire to the highest ideals, to strive for higher standards in our work – the Ogun Standard.
Let’s imbibe Amosun’s sterling qualities of being industrious, meticulous, disciplined and highly organised. Let’s imbibe Governor Amosun’s culture of excellence in our work. This is the best gift we can give to him, as he turns 60 today.

Soyombo, media aide to Governor Amosun, writes via densityshow@yahoo.com

Akintola Benson Oke

The Lagos State Government is interested in both the personal and official development of the officers of the Lagos State Public Service.

In addition to developing the capacity of officers to discharge their official functions, the administration is also interested in assisting its officers to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in their personal lives.The importance of financial literacy in today’s economy cannot be over-emphasised. In the first place, ordinary consumers are shouldering more of the financial decisions: Retirement planning is one example of this shift. Past generations depended on pension funds to provide the bulk of their retirement funding. Pension funds are managed by professionals and put the financial burden on the companies or governments that sponsored them. Consumers were not involved in the decision making, typically did not even contribute their own funds, and they were rarely made aware of the funding status or investments held for their pensions. It is different today as employees are now required to take active part in making decisions that affect their pension assets.
Furthermore, there are more complex options confronting consumers of financial services. Consumers are today being asked to choose among various investment and savings products. These products are more sophisticated than in the past, asking consumers to choose among different products options offering varying interest rates and maturities, decisions they are not adequately educated to make. Deciding on complex financial instruments with a large range of options can impact the consumer’s ability to buy a home, finance an education or save for retirement, further complicating financial decision making.
Given the importance of the foregoing, the state government offers training organised by the Public Service Staff Development Centre. By honing and sharpening the skills of officers in the Lagos State public service, the PSSDC continues to carry out its core mandate as envisaged by the Lagos State Government. The state civil service and all civil servants owe a debt gratitude to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode for his dedication to the funding and prioritisation of staff development initiatives.
Investopedia, a respected source for financial matters, described financial literacy as follows: “Financial literacy is the confluence of financial, credit and debt management and the knowledge that is necessary to make financially responsible decisions—decisions that are integral to our everyday lives. Financial literacy includes understanding how a bank account works, what using a credit card really means, and how to avoid debt. In sum, financial literacy impacts the daily decisions an average family makes when trying to balance a budget, buy a home, fund their children’s education, manage their pension assets and ensure an income at retirement.”
Lack of financial literacy, it says, is not a problem only in emerging or developing economies. Consumers in developed or advanced economies also fail to demonstrate a strong grasp of financial principles in order to understand and negotiate the financial landscape, manage financial risks effectively and avoid financial pitfalls. Nations globally, from Korea to Australia, or from Germany to the U.S., are faced with populations who do not understand financial basics.
But, why should this knowledge matter to officers of the Lagos State Public Service and all public servants? Among others, sound financial literacy will help civil servants to enhance their money management skills; assist in the more effective management of debt; and become part of an important national drive to develop consumer skills, knowledge and behaviour in relation to money. Literacy in financial issues will also help them to recognise and avoid fraud; prepare for retirement; seek out help when needed; learn how to cope with dire financial situations; and get educated by experts.
In addition to benefitting the officers, the Lagos State Public Service itself stands to gain from having a financially literate public service. Among others, a financially literate public service adds value to the lives of employees, and empowers them, free of charge; influences productivity levels, by assisting with elimination of financial stresses; and teaches employees that despite our earning levels, we can all learn good money management habits and we can all aspire to a good level of financial security.
Furthermore, financial literacy training will also benefit the community as a whole because financial literacy within a community means community development and lower poverty and crime levels. Indeed, when both adults and children are taught sound financial management skills, then the fabric of families and communities is strengthened. The ripple effect is the enablement of families and communities to ultimately pursue their dreams, and secure a future filled with financial success.
The goals of the training, therefore, are to ensure that the participants become informed and prepared to be effective managers of financial resources, enabling them to achieve long and short-term financial goals and security; become engaged in establishing career goals that will provide adequate income and personal fulfillment; demonstrate an understanding of personal financial planning and money management skills; and understand the personal and societal consequences of financial decisions.
The training will include lessons on planning and goals; career preparation; pending and credit; consumer protection; Income and money management. Others are saving and investing; and risk management.
For those who may still be in doubt, let me mention a number of further reasons why the basic knowledge of financial knowledge matter to officers in the public service. First, longer life spans: We are living longer. This means we need more retirement savings than prior generations. Second, is the changing environment: The financial landscape is very dynamic. Now a global marketplace, there are many more participants in the market and many more factors that can influence it. The quickly changing environment created by technological advances such as electronic trading makes the financial markets even swifter and more volatile. Taken together, these factors can cause conflicting views and difficultly in creating, implementing and following a financial roadmap.
Third, there are now too many choices: Banks, credit unions, brokerage firms, insurance firms, credit card companies, mortgage companies, financial planners and other financial service companies are all vying for assets, creating confusion for the consumer.
I am, therefore, very confident that financial training will benefit the participating public officers, the Lagos State Public Service and the wider community as a whole.
Dr. Benson-Oke, Commissioner, Lagos State Ministry of Establishments, Training and Pensions, delivered this address at a training on Basics of Finance for Officers in the state’s civil service organised by the Public Service Staff Development Centre

C. Don Adinuba

 Alex Ekwueme, Nigeria’s venerable vice president from 1979 to 1983, gave up the ghost in a London hospital, November 19 last year. It has taken me a whole two months to write a tribute in his memory because I have yet to reconcile myself fully to the reality of his departure.

The relationship between us has been such that all those who know me, including those who do so only on the social media, would attest that I can brook insults to my person but not to Ekwueme.  I have been receiving condolence messages since his death, as though my biological father has just died.

Our relationship had a metaphysical touch. He breathed his last on November 19, 2017, exactly one year after my mother, whom I loved passionately, left this planet. He died at 85. My mother also died at 85. At my mother’s funeral on January 6, 2017, Ekwueme led us in a Catholic prayer for the dead, complete with some expressions in Latin, though he was Anglican. It was a prayer for the repose of the soul of the dead but also a reminder of our mortality. “Thou art dust”, as the priest, borrowing the words of the Bible, tells the Catholic faithful on Ash Wednesday to inaugurate the Lenten Season, “unto dust thou shall return”. In his memoirs, Bola Ige, another Anglican and the late old Oyo State governor who studied classics at the University College in Ibadan, recalled that he and Ekwueme participated very well in Catholic religious ceremonies in Kirikiri Prison where they were held for years following the military coup of December 31, 1983, because of their knowledge of Latin. An architect and lawyer with degrees in sociology, history and town planning, Ekwueme was a quintessential Renaissance Man. His love of learning and civilized conduct knew no bounds.

 Everyone knows that the former vice president was ever calm, reserved, measured and Socratic. In December, 1994, when Ekwueme was chairing the famous All Politicians Summit at Eko Hotel in Lagos, General Sani Abacha sent soldiers, led by a major who was his chief intelligence officer but now late, to disrupt the conference. As the soldiers, pretending to be thugs, started to beat up participants brutally, everyone ran helter-skelter. Only Ekwueme remained calm, watching the hullaballoo with philosophical equanimity. The dignified comportment must have frightened the soldiers who left him alone but went after Olu Falae and Arthur Nzeribe, among others. 

 Strangely, Ekwueme always displayed extravagance, if not exuberance, towards me. This display of affection was as inspiring as it was humbling. Towards the end of September, 2015, when I emerged from a private meeting with Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State in the governor’s dining room and met Ekwueme who was already seated in the governor’s living room preparatory to his participation in a public forum of Anambra State leaders, the elder statesman screamed repeatedly with child-like innocence on seeing me: “The one man riot squad!” It was a name he gave me when I joined his campaign to become Nigeria’s president in 1998. He almost temporarily ignored ex-Governor Chukwuemeka Ezeife as well as Labour and Employment Minister Chris Ngige as he began to lavish praise on me. Obiano could believe neither his eyes nor ears.

The encounter is reminiscent of an incident in Jos, Plateau State, in January, 1999, when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held its first elective national convention where the PDP chose Olusegun Obasanjo, rather than Ekwueme who practically founded the party and led it admirably, as its presidential flag bearer in the 1999 general election. Ekwueme was occupying one of the two rooms at Hill Station Hotel reserved for Chinwoke Mbadinuju, then the Anambra State governor-elect, and sent for me for a confidential briefing. As I was leaving their suite, Mbadinuju called me out and spoke to me in a whisper: “Ide (Ekwueme’s traditional sobriquet) gave an instruction that he would not see any person except you and Ochiora (Mrs Beatrice Ekwueme’s sobriquet) while he is working on his speech to the convention tomorrow. I understand you and I are from the same local government area. Ide has a very high opinion of you, so I want to know you better”. Mbadinuju, journalist, lawyer and former political science associate professor at the State University of New York, was Ekwueme’s special assistant until 1983.

I still remember my first close contact with Ekwueme. It was in December, 1993, at the VIP Lounge of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos where Bart Nnaji, who had just finished serving for three months as the Minister of Science and Technology in the Ernest Shonekan-led Interim National Government, and I had gone to receive his family visiting from the United States for the Christmas holidays.  Ekwueme was travelling out of the country and I went to thank him rather casually for his recent robust statements on Nigeria’s future.

I was shocked that immediately I mentioned my name, he began to reel out my articles in the British press, including one on the modernization of NITEL’s operations and mentioned not only the number of telephone lines which had switched from analogue to digital but also the very issue of African Review of Business and Technology and even the pages. All the figures were correct! It was self evident I was in the presence of a genius. Our discussion quickly moved to his recent political advocacy. As I made to join Nnaji and his family, Ekwueme spoke to me solemnly: “I would like your generation to know that if this country is not restructured, it will not know peace, let alone progress”.

The 1994/5 Constitutional Conference provided an excellent opportunity for Ekwueme to campaign vigorously for the country’s restructuring. Despite the intimidating excesses of some parochial elements in the conference and elsewhere, Ekwueme stuck to his gun that the country be broken into six geopolitical zones, that the presidency rotate among the zones, that a person be elected as president for only one term of five or six years, that each zone produce a vice president, that the derivation principle in national revenue be increased from 3% to 13%, and that the governorship rotate among the three senatorial zones in each state. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, recognizing that these proposals were inevitable for national cohesion and unity, persuaded northern hardliners like Buba Galadima to accept them.

Only the recommendation for multi-vice presidency was rejected.

My household and I are very proud of our association with the great man, one of Nigeria’s best ever. We will always honour his memory.

Adinuba is head of Discovery Public Affairs Consulting   

Fred Nwaozor

The popular saying – make hay while the sun shines – would only be considered reasonable and rational when there’s still hay left in the bush as well as every arena where it’s usually found.

Of course, you can only be conscientized to grab something on time when the stuff in question is still available. For years now, several communities across Nigeria have been subjected to untold hardship and seemingly perpetual torture by the so-called Fulani herdsmen. I can’t forget in a hurry that virtually all the states in Nigeria have tasted at least a bit of this venom at one time or the other. The aforesaid set of farmers, rather than acting as guests while breeding their livestock, end up constituting evitable nuisance in their various host communities.

  This domineering and nonchalant idiosyncrasy of these armed herdsmen who parade themselves with unspeakable ammunition and weapons has over time been arguably overlooked by the government and other concerned authorities. Two years ago, precisely on Monday, April 25, 2016, a certain group of herdsmen unleashed astonishing terror on the people of Nimbo Community in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area (LGA) of Enugu State; an attack that ushered in an unimagined massacre. In the said crisis, reportedly scores died, countless persons maimed, about a hundred residents injured, several houses cum churches razed, thereby rendering over two thousand dwellers homeless.

  Though the incident may have come and gone, it’s imperative to acknowledge that the peril it inflicted on the living victims is an experience they will all live to recall. Myself, each time I recollect that a certain community in Enugu State sometime in the history of this country woke one morning only to be brutally taken unawares by a group of total strangers, I invariably take solace in the ‘notion’ that it could be a mere dream.

   As if that wasn’t enough, that of Nimbo never marked the end of the crisis as we anticipated; rather, it transcended to other states. Recently, it seemed Benue State had abruptly become the headquarters of the cruel herdsmen. Before now, no week that came on board we wouldn’t hear that a certain part of the state had been attacked by them.

   The last time I checked, the herdsmen imbroglio was occurring so ubiquitously in the country that it required only a severe and drastic measure to address it. Relocating the office of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to Benue State might be a step towards solving the menace but can never be the complete remedy to it. First, the Federal Government must be very sincere about how it goes about this. If the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) could be proscribed by the government, I wonder why this set of militias operating in the disguise of herdsmen should be spared. It is also appalling that till date, the Presidency is yet to address the Nigerian state concerning a situation that has eaten deep into our bone marrow. It’s worth noting that the continuous silence of Mr. President signals a great danger to the teeming Nigerians that are looking up to his person.

  However, it’s noteworthy that it isn’t all the herdsmen that are brutal. The vandals are some of them who unnecessarily intend to unleash terror on their host communities, probably owing to one or two frivolous reasons. To this end, the bad eggs must be fished out via the effort of the leadership of the herdsmen’s coalition, and thereafter brought to book. The relevant law enforcement agents ought to take this step very seriously. Nigerians aren’t just yearning for mere arrest but to adequately prosecute these suspected terrorists in our midst.

  I’m strongly of the view that the best way to holistically solve any problem is to duly ascertain its fundamental cause(s), and this very one isn’t an exception. Hence, I enjoin the relevant authorities such as the Police, in collaboration with other related agencies, to embark on a rigorous investigation with a view to ensuring that they ascertain the prime cause of the ongoing unrest. In addition, government at all levels should variously set up committees to look into the problem.

   Town hall meetings equally ought to be randomly scheduled to sensitize the general public to their civic responsibilities in this regard as well as to give the affected host communities a sense of belonging. We must note that we can’t completely unravel this quagmire without employing Community Policing, which would be thoroughly effective and efficient only if all the dwellers are carried along. We mustn’t take any action without involving the potential victims of the mayhem.

  There is also need for us, especially the security agents, to stop inserting ‘Fulani’ whenever we intend to speak or write on anything pertaining to the herdsmen; we must take into cognizance that anyone could be a herdsman, regardless of his/her place of origin. Besides, anyone who intends to hurt you might come in disguise as anything; needless to reiterate that someone or a group that had been longing to terrorise you, may decide to hide under the guise of herdsmen. Thus, we must be thoroughly guided on how we go about the so called Fulani herdsmen.

    Henceforth, cattle owners should be mandated to own ranches within their respective jurisdictions, so that their herdsmen would desist from defacing the outlook of our various major roads cum farms as it is invariably found whenever they migrate with their cattle. In other words, grazing or colony cannot remedy the plight.

I can’t round off this critique without reminding the various governments of the need to embark on a massive compensation programme that would touch the lives of all the families affected across the federation. Let’s make hay while the sun shines now that hay is still available in the bush.

Nwaozor writes from Owerri via frednwaozor@gmail.com

President Muhammadu Buhari’s dream to seek re-election in 2019 has suffered a terrible setback following this week’s vote of no confidence letter written to him by former President Olusegun Obasanjo advising him not to do so. In the letter entitled: “The way Out: A Clarion call for coalition for Nigeria movement,” Obasanjo wants Buhari to have a dignified exit from power; go home and rest and operate from the sideline like Obasanjo and others are doing.

The letter which summarized the two and half years’ regime of Buhari accused him of so many sins including nepotism, clannishness, gross dereliction of duty, buck passing, poverty, insecurity and poor management of internal politics. However, Obasanjo was too generous to award a pass mark to the tottering administration on only two key areas: the fight against corruption and insurgency but added that it is not yet uhuru.

The ex-President, who recently bagged a Ph.D in Christian Theology from the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), is versed in writing warning letters to sitting Nigerian presidents. He cherished writing those lengthy but thought-provoking letters. The ex-president has promoted the dying art of letter writing with those incisive letters.

And most of his predictions in those patriotic letters had come to pass. Recall his famous letter to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan entitled “Before it is too late,” prior to the build up to the 2015 presidential election and the unpalatable outcome to Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a party through which Obasanjo came to power in 1999 and ruled Nigeria for eight years.

Apart from repudiating the PDP, Obasanjo had openly torn to shreds his membership card and has since then shunned partisan politics, except the current one he plays from the sideline. Obasanjo was one of those that made Buhari’s victory in the 2015 poll against Jonathan (his political godson) possible. He was an ardent supporter of Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

If the same Obasanjo now advises Buhari to quit the stage, it should be safely assumed that the game is over for Buhari and his APC apologists who decided to look the other way while Nigeria burns. Obasanjo’s bombshell has sealed the fate of APC in 2019 and Nigerians have bought into it. No amount of APC propaganda will save the situation.

This must be the most distressing time for APC and its blind acolytes and praise singers. It is hoped that they see the wisdom in Obasanjo’s red card. What Obasanjo said in his letter is not novel. Many critics of the failed administration have said so times without number yet the party and its rudderless leadership kept moving as if nothing is happening.

The only difference is that the message is now coming from the oracle himself. And there is no doubt that the oracle has spoken so well and his message resonates with most Nigerians.  Obasanjo spoke the mind of most Nigerians and they are with him. Therefore, Buhari and his APC supporters must not ignore the message even if they want to ignore the messenger.

They should not throw away the baby with the bath water. To a very large extent, the message is significant enough in moving Nigeria forward. Obasanjo has in his letter dismissed the two main political parties in the country, the APC and the PDP and described them as wobbling. To some extent he is right. His views on the two parties tally with those of other Nigerians.

Whether the existing political party structures or a coalition of Nigeria movement/a new party can be used in the realization of Obasanjo’s vision is left for Nigerians to decide. By extension that will take us to discuss the way forward for the wobbling entity called Nigeria. For how long shall this country of great promise be fumbling and wobbling among comity of nations?

Nigeria’s problem has been profoundly reduced to leadership deficit by the late renowned Nigerian writer and polemicist, Prof. Chinua Achebe. I largely agree with him but wish to add that it is a little bit more than that. Nigeria has foundational structural problem. Until this edifice is reconfigured to suit our taste and temperament, it will continue to wobble and fumble till the end of time. Unfortunately, I do not see any messiah in sight that will clean the Augean stable. And there is no hope that they will come pretty soon.

Besides, the ruling party has demonstrated most disdain and insensitivity to the plight of Nigerians since it came to power in 2015. It has refused to fulfill its mouth-watering electoral promises and continued to blame the past administration for its own failings, including self-induced economic and political recessions. The leadership’s silence over incessant Fulani herdsmen killings of other Nigerians is the height of this disdainful treatment. The government’s inaction over the herdsmen killing of over 73 Benue citizens is the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

Buhari’s appointment of only members of his ethnic group to key positions of government is his greatest undoing. The APC reply to Obasanjo authored by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, though not confrontational, is feeble and hollow. His assertion that Obasanjo’s busy schedule might have prevented him from seeing the giant strides of the administration is an ingenious attempt to pull the wool over our eyes. That porous defence is rather begging the issue. It lacks fire and verve.

Instead of replying Obasanjo and committing more errors of denials and blame game, the APC should reflect on what Obasanjo has said and see if there is any way it can redeem the situation. Alas, there is no remedy in sight because the letter coming close to election year and scoring the change regime so low is devastatingly injurious. It has nailed the political coffin of the ruling party.

The party and its members can only ignore Obasanjo’s admonitions to their own peril. They should ask Jonathan and the PDP of their own experience. Nigeria is not a horse you ride anyhow without dire consequences. APC has ridden the Nigerian horse with reckless abandon. APC has treated Nigeria and Nigerians like a war booty.

The payback time is the 2019 general election. Obasanjo is not just an ordinary Nigerian. He has seen it all. He has been there as a military leader and as a civilian president. He has played at the global scene and he is well known and connected all over the world. When he speaks about political issues in the country, it is not only Nigerians that listen to him but the international community.

He is an authority on Nigerian affairs. You can disagree with his personal conduct but ignoring the thesis of his present argument will be at your own peril. Buhari and the APC should better heed Obasanjo’s timely and fatherly advice in good faith and treat Nigerians well in the remaining one and half years of their wounded tenure and forget 2019.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his usual form, stirred the polity with a letter to President Mohammadu Buhari not to run for 2019 because his tenure has been a major disappointment.

PMB did not meet the expectation of many people who had hoped on a renewal and rebirth of the country under his watch. The letter from the former president should not have come as a surprise to anybody. It has always been his style to speak to power. He had been extremely outspoken during the Gen Ibrahim Babangida administration when he condemned that government’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which he said did not have a human face. He likewise took on late Sani Abacha’s military regime. Abacha had sought to become a civilian president by coercing the five political parties described by former Attorney General and leader of Afenifere, late Chief Bola Ige as five fingers of a leprous hand, to adopt him as its candidate. There was tension in the land. Nigeria had become a pariah nation with Chief Tom Ikimi as foreign minister.

The situation of ostracism was further compounded with the judicial murder of late Ogoni environmental activist and writer, Kenule Saro Wiwa. Obasanjo was only saved from the gallows by the death of the late dictator.Obasanjo had done the same thing with his successors in office. He installed late Umar Yar’Adua and had advised the then sick president to relinquish his hold on power when no one was sure of the Yar’Adua’s health status and the country was adrift. He also did an 18-pager to former President Goodluck Jonathan. The letter which he entitled, ‘Before it is too late’ marked a turning point in Jonathan’s bid for another term. He accused Jonathan of driving the country to the edge and allowing corruption and mutual distrust to tear at the fabric of the nation, apart from which he was allowing his second term aspiration to decimate the PDP. Obasanjo said he decided to make the Jonathan letter public because his earlier letters were not acted upon neither were they acknowledged.

A master of the dramatics, he publicly tore his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) membership card to indicate his parting of ways with the party. Today, the rest is history.

His new letter was not without drama before its release to the public. Someone had drawn my attention to a video of Obasanjo dancing with his wife at the celebration of his PhD from the National Open University (NOUN). His dancing was unusual in the video clip that went viral. He would waltz his way towards one direction and abruptly turn towards another direction. With benefit of hindsight, one would conclude that he was trying to pass a message. One recalls that Obasanjo was a frequent visitor to the Aso rock villa in the early days of the Buhari administration, but those visits eventually dwindled, giving indications that all was no longer cordial.

With his latest letter, it is obvious that President Buhari’s second term bid would definitely not be smooth sailing. Prior to the letter, most Nigerians had started coming to the realization that Buhari was not really the messiah, to use President Obasanjo’s words that Nigerians were looking for. He is guilty of most of what the former president had accused him of. He had been described as clannish, surrounding himself with people from his immediate constituency. The obvious examples are the headship of all the security organizations in the country. They are peopled by members of one ethnic group, without respect to the delicate ethnic balancing in the country.  Someone had described the action of the president as obvious arrogance.  He never felt it was necessary to create a level platform for the entire country. His is the only exception in the history of the Nigerian presidency. None among former presidents had been so brazen as to surround themselves with people from one ethnic group or more precisely, their ethnic group. Obasanjo did not do it. Late President Umar Yar’Adua never did it. His immediate predecessor in office, President Jonathan never did it.

Most galling about the President Buhari’s behaviour is his inability to take action when accusations are leveled against those close to him. Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu had raised issues concerning the running of the nation’s cash cow, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC). He claimed to have written memos which never got to the president. His attempts to also see the president were equally stonewalled. The people responsible are still in government.

Prior to that, issues had been raised about the lopsided appointment in NNPC in favour of the president’s section of the country; the status quo has not changed.

It took the public outcry and media condemnation before the president eventually acted on the corruption accusation leveled against former Secretary to the Government (SGF), Babachir Lawal. The report submitted by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo committee on the matter was gathering dust before the president had no choice than to act.

What really have been the gains for Nigerians since Buhari came to power? Have we fared well under him? The indices are negative. Unemployment rate in the country increased to 18.80 percent in the third quarter of 2017 from 16.20 percent in the second quarter. Meaning that more Nigerians lost their job within that period. Poverty has increased to unimaginable level. Families have found it difficult to meet their obligations. People can no longer feed. It was under Buhari that Nigeria had an unprecedented level of suicide. Suicide cases had never been that high in the country. Nigerians have always been the happy -go -lucky- type. They hardly demand too much of their leaders. They mind their business so long as their job is secured, they are able to feed and meet some of their basic needs. But all these worsened under the Buhari administration. Jobs were lost, thriving companies closed shop. Crime, especially kidnapping went haywire because people had lost legitimate means of livelihood.

To compound the inefficient running of government, the administration found it difficult to take responsibility for its actions and inactions. When the economy went into recession, it was attributed to the profligacy of the Jonathan administration. While not exonerating that administration from its intransigencies, Nigerians voted a new government in order to correct the glaring deficiencies of the Jonathan administration. Nigerians were growing tired of the excuses.  It became obvious that the excuses were being given to cover the deficiencies of government.

Thus Obasanjo’s letter is a reflection of the mood of the country. Nigerians have come to the unpalatable realization that the administration has been deficient in fulfilling its promise. The administration’s economic or more precisely, (no economic) policy has failed. It became obvious too that Buhari is not the president that would take us out of the present situation on account of his provincial and sectional bent. Indeed, Obasanjo’s letter brings a biblical passage involving Prophet Samuel and Saul, Israel’s first king to mind.

Anyone interested should read 1Samuel 15: 1-28. For those interested in analogies, they should look at verses 27-28.

Austin Braimoh

General Olusegun Obasanjo, erstwhile military dictator and civilian despot, is so predictable, one could almost set a watch by it! The country goes through crises phenomena; people and governments are looking for the most suitable solutions, the man smells an opportunity, and he strikes! Obasanjo has done the same thing over and over, that his predictability is one that all of us have become familiar with. He went for the Shagari administration, when Nigerians began to complain about the economic situation; took the Babangida military regime to the cleaners in the days of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP); he did same to the Abacha regime, but ended up in jail, for the crime of accessory to treason; he hand-picked the late President Umaru Yar’adua, but was shocked to find that the man was not going to be a Quisling; and the last time he expressed his messianic delusion, was against his ‘boy’, President Goodluck Jonathan, in the lead to the 2015 elections.

 There are basic threads running through the actions of the old despot. Obasanjo has messianic delusions! In his troubled soul, there cannot be any leader of the Nigerian state greater than himself. He is the beginning and the end of all that is good about leadership here; the ultimate point of embarkation and the terminus! This complex is related to several factors that animate the soul of the man. Obasanjo lives with a very troubled soul. His years in power were filled with controversies. These range from the privatization policy that saw the sale of national assets to the kleptocratic despot and his cronies; the massive issues of corruption exemplified by the wastage of $16B in power projects that yielded wattages of talk but no electricity, and then the billions of Naira that went down the drain of the fruitless pursuit of a Third Term Agenda! It was this deluded despot that used state power to enter ‘Nolle Prosequi’, in the corruption charges against his cousin, Permanent Secretary Makanjuola, in the Ministry of Defence, who had pilfered money and was exposed by General TY Danjuma!

 Obasanjo’s greatest fear is to be exposed for his duplicity in corruption cases. So the first thing he does is to ensure that he burrows permanently inside the entrails of the nation’s power complex; he must be the main manipulator of the process, and thus securing the vintage place to shield himself from scrutiny. That explains why in every government, he makes a deliberate show of his entrances and exits in the seat of power; he adroitly exploits the photo-ops and drops hints about his strategic value to the governance structures in place in the country. Obasanjo exploits that proximity at two levels. First, he offers the impression of care about the state of the administration and the country; and he then buys extra time to deepen forgetfulness in the nation’s political and social spaces. And aren’t we a very forgetful lot? We easily forget the crimes that individuals like Obasanjo perpetrated, even when he had all the opportunities to put in place the building block of national development, that would have worked for the Nigerian people. The despot returned from prison, near-bankrupt; but in eight years, built up a mind-boggling enrichment that catapaulted him into the ranks of some of the richest individuals in contemporary Nigeria! This is the same man that is so presumptuously deluded to the point of thinking that he has earned the right to teach Nigeria lessons about governance.

 Obasanjo’s most recent outing this week surprises no right-thinking citizen. It was a perfidious, but not surprising effort to exploit another moment of national crisis. There are controversies around killings in clashes between nomads and sedentary farming communities; there is an increasing polarization of the country, as we descend into the season of politics; and there are determined efforts by the political forces that lost out in 2015. They have been out of the loop of power for a few years; have resided in political wilderness since, but are determined to find newer routes to access public money-access to which has been blocked by TSA. They are fighting back furiously and these forces have substantial interest in media and in social media. 2018 offers the most serious preparatory point for an onslaught on the Buhari administration.  But these forces suffer a credibility issue with the Nigerian people, who have not forgotten what they made of power in the previous 16 years, before they lost it in 2015! Now who was the head of that monstrous era but the old, disgraced despot, Olusegun Obasanjo? Obasanjo is fighting for his corner, and that is not a pretty place to be in, because even he knows that he does not occupy a moral high ground in Nigerian politics and administration. The despot has no lesson to teach contemporary Nigeria!

 So when Obasanjo spoke glibly from both sides of his mouth, that “I will consider no sacrifice too great for the good of Nigeria at any time”. The discerning Nigerian would be obliged to ask where the evidence was of that pledge of sacrifice, considering what mess he made of the eight years that he administered a civilian regime, that he distorted with his dictatorial proclivities; and a laissez faire gluttony, which made him turn privatization policies into an avenue of personal enrichment and of instituting the worst excesses of crony capitalism. It is the consequences of his actions and inactions, that have collectively haunted every administration since his Third Term Agenda was defeated in parliament, and with tail between his legs, the disgraced despot made a hurried departure from power in 2007. Lest we forget, the same man then presided over the worst elections in Nigeria’s recent history in 2007, as part of his vengeful wrath against the same Nigeria, he now sheds crocodile tears for!

 The old despot is behaving true to type. He is desperately exploiting a moment of national pains to claim a bona fide of patriotism. And as is his wont, he also wants to damage the credibility of the government of the day, to further his own personal agenda. He ranged over several issues but in the long run, the agenda was very personal even when clothed in the garment of patriotism; that old refuge of the typical governance scoundrel. And the despised despot occupies a disreputable place in Nigeria’s pantheon of anti-heroes! Ever scheming; irrationally besotted with his own place in the scheme of things and a messianic delusion that grew as political charlatans of all hues fawned to him, General Obasanjo fancies himself as the best thing that happened to Nigeria. We can walk the shores of hindsight, to the days when sidekicks like Chief Olabode George described the old despot as the ‘architect of modern Nigeria’! In that state of delusion, he assumes, dangerously, that he earned the right to teach lessons, even when they are unwarranted! And knowing that he might be crossing a leader who genuinely connects with the mass of the Nigerian people, in a way that he never did, in the years that he occupied power, he even forewarned, that “praise-singers and hired attackers may be raised up against (him) for verbal or even physical attack”. But to even think out such irresponsible scenario only exposes the depth of trouble in the soul of the despot that fancies himself as a reference point and final stop on the route of building our country. The verbiage might be plentiful and the times might seem opportune for him to be perfidious as usual, but the sense we have is that President Muhammadu Buhari will not be distracted!

 There is too much work to do to fix the Nigeria, that the old despot Olusegun Obasanjo and his denizens in the PDP of his time, destroyed! It was the Obasanjo era’s PDP, which the unforgettable Chief Sunday Awoniyi described so brilliantly as ‘a basket of scorpions stinging themselves to death’! Obasanjo presided over an era of rogue politics; where assassinations became a weapon of political domination; the same despot used money to buy support in the party and parliament and his foot soldiers ferried boxes of mint currencies around the residences of members of the National Assembly, in a desperate search for ignoble votes, to ensure the Third Term Agenda that we collectively defeated to his eternal shame! And as he played his rogue politics, he entrenched the worst species of prebendalist, crony capitalism, that ensured the farming out of the national patrimony to the man and his hangers-on.

In politics and economy, Olusegun Obasanjo, was the reference point of all that was despicable on our national scene. Olusegun Obasanjo cannot accept that Nigeria moved on, and are far away from his delusions. He neither possesses a sense of gratitude or of loyalty to causes that he would not profit from. And his eternal assumption of possession of some ethereal powers of administration that the nation must always learn from, makes him play to the fool’s gallery most of the time. And that is why he constantly positions to take advantage of moments of vulnerability of the national process, to strike like the serpent that he actually is!

 By striking at this moment in our national history, the disgraced despot merely shows the depth of his depravity. He hopes to take advantage of adversity to pursue a new political project. The platform that he eloquently describes today which unfortunately, he refused to provide a basis for its emergence when he ruled the roost for eight years. And typically of Obasanjo, he has stoutly refused to take any responsibility for the rot that he claims afflicts Nigeria. Yet for eight years, he had all the opportunity to do better than the personal enrichment and rogue politics that defined his era. It is the consequences of Obasanjo’s failures that government and Nigeria have continued to deal with in the present. There can be no affliction worse than a despot’s messianic delusion; that is Obasanjo’s incurable condition!

Austin Braimoh, Coordinator, Buhari Media Support Group, BMSG.

By Abdul AbdulLateef

“There is no way anyone can manage a megacity State such as Lagos, unless you have this atmosphere of peace and harmony. A State as vast as Lagos, with multiplicity of needs and complex interests of her huge and diverse population, requires much more than the gifts of intelligence and competence; it requires more than hard work, diligence and dedication, it requires special spiritual touching by God. I have always loved to touch lives; to me it is a spiritual thing and a devoution; the more I do this, the more I receive assurance and inspiration from the Lord God, that if I continue to touch humanity, He would provide a bigger space for me to advance humanity on a bigger scale. Here I am doing it with Governance, with you, for you, for me, for our dear Lagos” – Governor Akinwunmi Ambode.

This quote from His Excellency, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, to spiritual leaders at the Inter-Faith Parley in the State House, on Tuesday, December 12, 2017, shows that Democracy, ideally practised, could indeed be an instrument for adequately meeting the needs of the people, stem strife, promote peace and prosperity, address corruption, banish ignorance, increase literacy and generally advance human worth and bring much happiness to a vast number of citizens. Or is this not how democracy – as espoused by Governor Ambode – should be?  For experiences in our part of the World and even in advanced countries – recent and ancient – here and in many other climes, had and continue to convey unpalatable contrary impressions. 

President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Secondary Speech of 1893, during the American Civil War, was merely echoing what John Wycliffe, a 14th century English theologian and philosopher, wrote in his notation on a Bible 500 years before the Lincoln Address that “A Government of the people, by the people for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”

Lincoln’s predecessor by many years, John Adams, First Vice President and Second President, in 1864, portrayed a rather melancholic picture of democracy when he said, “Democracy never lasts long; it soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.” These two American Presidents were expressing views of democracy from two contrasting perspectives: Lincoln described what democracy, ideally, should look like, while John Adams’ submission stemmed from experienced and recorded consequences of how democracy was actually being implemented. 

A direct people-participation in governance or participatory governance, is not a recent concept. It can even be traced to ancient Athenian Greek when all adult male citizens actively participated in parliamentary proceedings. This model was not practicable as societies became bigger and more complex. But democracy as we know it today, took form after the German Revolution, when the Weimar Constitution promulgated at the end of First World War in 1919, put a minimum voting age at 20 and subsequent reformations brought the age further down to 18. Could we then assume that Democracy ideally means “the right of adults to vote without the restriction of race, class, education level and social position?” NO! In fact, this widely-held assumption and practice of democracy as just a matter of electioneering had been the reason for many unwanted consequences associated with it.

To reiterate, apart from periodic election and voting, other features of ideal democracy include independent judiciary, rule of law, unfettered exercise of fundamental rights (freedom of association, speech, access to basic amenities, etc.), adequate and proper representation, majority rule and minority right, multi-party system and free Press. Yet, in developing democracies, and even in most of the advanced ones, achieving the ideal seems elusive, but not because the solutions for the attainment of higher form of democracy has not been identified. Participatory Governance is a method where all channels of influence are explored, strengthened and engaged in a political process to achieve accelerated solutions to meet citizens’ needs and aspirations. It is a means where all citizens, affected by issues, are engaged, involved and benefit from the outcomes of collective efforts and jointly-arrived solutions.

Participatory Governance, as simple as the phrase is and as noble and natural as the concept is, must have proven effectiveness and profitability. Only very few politicians would be brave enough to adopt it though, let alone, championing same the way His Excellency, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode is currently operating. The practice can be very laborious, physically demanding and mentally tasking. It requires that you give primacy to, and pursue pro-poor policies; it requires correct attitude of humility, transparency and accountability; it is a process of constant consultations and engagement of people affected by issues throughout the lives of the programmes designed as solution(s) to address the issues. It requires that you carry out (along with the people involved), analytical research and assessment of needs and problems, design appropriate programmes (solutions), form network of suitable technical partners and allies who will enrich the values of the process and outcomes, monitor each step in the implementation process, review, correct or reinforce measures, disseminate efforts (especially in mass and social media) and document best practices, so that legacies achieved will be enduring and sustainable.

All these best practices are features that are inclusive in governance – they are essential parts of Ambodeism. The concept of participatory governance permeates all developmental thrusts of Ambode’s Administration: health, security, roads and transportation, energy and power, education, housing, infrastructure, agriculture, employment generation, etc. Let’s take education for instance, you cannot run an all-inclusive government if the majority of your population is unlettered and ignorant on important issues. To prepare our future leaders for quality and universal participation in politics, he has achieved dramatic improvement in the education sector by employing no fewer than 1,300 qualified teachers for the Primary schools and by spending over N1billion to renovate and upgrade infrastructure in secondary schools. As a listening Governor, in order to address the protracted problem of Lagos State University (LASU), the Governor came up with an Executive bill which gave 5-year single tenure to the Vice Chancellor, increased the retiring age of professors to 70 and made the University a residential one. Now there is peace in LASU and the institution is gradually reclaiming its lost glory.

To further strengthen the communication gap between His Administration and the people, improve the understanding of problems behind issues, explain challenges and solutions and rally the required support around his policies, programmes and activities for highly rewarding outcomes, Ambode has evolved a strategy of constant consultations and engagements of people in different fora of specific and general nature. It is a highly demanding venture, but a worthwhile one nonetheless, bringing immense benefits to the State. To proliferate gains of programmes and projects, Ambode continuously carries out massive awareness promotion of beneficial information and messages, especially on health and socio-economic services. Ambode’s Administration has developed a cogent partnership with the media. Here again, the prominence of government policies is unrivalled. The Governor is the most trusted, the most famous and the most liked by the press and the public among all governors in Nigeria. This is evident in the responses and feedback process from such platforms as Inter-Faith parley and Town hall meetings, among others, held periodically with the people.

Much in tune with the people yearning for more roads and other public conveniences, Ambode is gradually addressing these needs including general infrastructural growth and renewal. The Governor deservedly continues to receive accolades. He has constructed many new roads and fly-overs, including those in Ipaja, Mosan-Okunola, Oshodi-Isolo, Ikotun-Ejigbo and Somolu and directed that 2 new roads be built in each of the 20 Local Government areas and 37 Local Council Development Authorities.

He undertook massive rehabilitation, modernization and expansion of Federal roads and more than 500 roads have been rehabilitated, while about 190 have been earmarked for the next phase. To meet the modernization quest of Lagosians, His Excellency is implementing ambitious and game-changing projects at strategic locations, across the State; at Oshodi, Yaba and Surulere axis, Badagry-Seme corridor, Epe-Lekki-Ikoyi axis etc; integrated infrastructural amenities, such as multi-lane express ways, state-of the art fly-overs and bridges, railway, hotels, recreational centres and parks, stadium and ICT centres are converged in each of these single locations. Definitely a bright and beautiful future awaits Lagosians as they prepare to inherit their new and Greater Lagos.

Changes are occurring at a rapid and unprecedented rate, because the people have bought into Governor Ambode’s vision and have consequentially become part of the driving force. They are ready to make the necessary sacrifices and hopeful that greater destiny awaits Lagos State. Ambode is aligning democracy with Abraham Lincoln’s definition of its ideal form: “government of the people, by the people and for the people,” and Lagos shall not diminish but will continue to grow in peace, progress and prosperity.

Dr. Abdul Hakeem AbdulLateef, Lagos Commissioner of Home Affairs

ADEZE OJUKWU

In 2015, the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) listed Fulani herdsmen as the fourth deadliest terrorist organisation in the world, even as its latest report named Nigeria as the third most terrorised country globally. This damning verdict is a profound assessment of the  brutal and atrocious destruction of lives and property, allegedly perpetrated by the group across the West African sub-region, with Nigeria as the epicentre.
Since the January killings of Benue State indigenes, many others  have been murdered or injured, while farms worth billions of naira, were destroyed allegedly by Fulani herdsmen  in Taraba, Kaduna, Zamfara, Plateau, Ogun, Delta, Abia, Ekiti and Delta States. The case of the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief Olu Falae, is pathetic as Fulani herdsmen kidnapped him two years ago, and razed down his farm for the second time a few days back. As a result of this relentless onslaught on innocent citizens, Nigerians have criticised and challenged President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to classify Fulani herdsmen as terrorists, in tandem with their global status.
However, Federal Government is yet to assent to this demand. Indeed, gory reports of  violent attacks and several crimes against humanity attributed to this group have escalated public outcry in national media discourse, particularly the social media.  Of particular interest to this writer and most Nigerians is the apparent proclivity and frenzy for senseless and endless wastage of human lives by these cow rearers, with daily reports of  gruesome slaughter of  children, pregnant women and their foetuses, as well as the aged and security operatives.
What a shame! Where else can one see such bizarre  butchery of humans by fellow citizens? Yet, the perpetrators of this crime against humanity and their backers are up in arms, mounting all kinds of illogical defenses for the carnage, from economic and environmental reasons to nomadic and socio-cultural idiosyncrasies. Nigerians, and the rest of the world, are watching with bated breath for the end of this national tragedy, that has turned the country into a killing field.
With this notoriety for bloodletting and standing justice on its head, the country is derided as ‘one of the shit-hole countries.’ The bloodbath and wanton destruction of lives and property, associated with nomadic shepherds have escalated to exponential proportions, with their uncensored access to firearms, including AK47 guns and other dangerous weapons to the shock of many. Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, could not have put it more succinctly when he stated: ‘They have declared war against the nation and their weapon is undiluted terror. Why have they been permitted to become a menace to the rest of us? That is the issue!’ In a recent statement tagged: ‘Impunity Rides Again,’ Soyinka blasted the Federal Government and security forces for their ineptitude on the unmitigated killings of citizens by herdsmen.  This savagery  has again dragged Nigeria to the international security radar, as many foreign bodies have been chiding the Buhari administration and its security apparatus for failure to protect citizens, the primary duty of any responsible and credible government. The European Parliament, in its recent resolution on the spate of violence in the country, asked Buhari to uphold the sanctity of human lives.
It deplored ‘the ongoing violence and attacks in northern Nigeria, whose targets have been Christian communities,’ and urged ‘government to focus on upholding human rights and dignity in all policies to ensure peaceful co-existence among citizens irrespective of their religion, beliefs and political affiliations.’
What an indictment from the EU. Obviously, as lamented by Benue State Governor Sam Ortom, ‘the killing spree has  continued, despite the presence of security forces in the region, hence the vituperations from several quarters.
This orgy of violence and barbarity points to failure of leadership and security at the highest levels.  Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, said  ‘indeed, at no time in the recent past has the nation’s peace and unity been so vigorously and persistently challenged. However  peace is the sine qua non for justice, hence the perpetrators must be fished out and punished, as a deterrent to others. This is the position of many socio-cultural and religious organisations notably Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Catholic Bishops, Ohaneze Ndigbo, Afenifere, Middle Belt and South South leaders.
These and other issues have dominated national discourse, but efforts are being made by the National Assembly and other interest groups to douse the tension and calamitous conflagration, due to the underlying religious and ethnic dimensions of the crises.
Meanwhile, prominent Nigerians, religious leaders, as well as several interest parties have continued to react to Federal Government’s apparent inability to halt the carnage and enunciate effective legal and security measures on modern animal husbandry. Secretary of CAN, Rev. Dr Musa Asakea, called on Nigerians to stoutly reject the cattle colony proposal, saying: ‘The Miyetti Allah organisation should be tagged a terrorist organisation. Its leaders should be arrested and prosecuted for the genocide against the Christian minorities in the Middlebelt.’
Obviously Buhari cannot legislate or pontificate about peace and unity, while equity and justice are undermined in all spheres of governance. No person or group has the right to  overrun any community, under any guile or  guise. It would simply be a declaration of war. It is unjust, illegal and inimical to internationally acceptable principles of human rights. These rights are inalienable and must be protected by Nigeria, as a signatory to this treaty. Clearly, the Benue massacre is a gross violation of the rights of Nigerian citizens to life and security. The recalcitrant demand to halt the anarchy is urgent. But the burning question is: Does Buhari have the moral courage and political will to rein in these Fulani herdsmen, given their kinship.
The buck stops at his table, as the president, It is in his interest and that of the nation to urgently stop this madness.

Ojukwu, an alumnus of United States (US)-sponsored Hubert H. Humphrey (HHH) Fellowship and journalist,writes via adezeo@yahoo.com

Tayo Ogunbiyi

Prior to his 2015 electoral victory, President Muhammadu Buhari had contested for the presidency thrice (2003, 2007 and 2011) and lost on all three occasions. But, by 2015 when he made the fourth attempt that eventually enthroned him as the nation’s latest horse rider (apology to  Chief Olusegun Obasanjo aka ‘Ebora Owu’), his popularity had soared to an all time high.

The chant across the country was simply: ‘Sai Baba’.  Except, perhaps, for the late Chief MKO Abiola in the annulled 1993 presidential election, no presidential candidate in the country’s political history had garnered so much widespread approval.
A couple of factors were responsible for the change in Buhari’s political fortune. First, his predecessor had squandered all the goodwill that offered him the presidency. Second, Nigerians saw in Buhari a man of spotless integrity who could be entrusted with the nation’s treasury. Third, Nigerians believed he could decisively tackle the nation’s mounting security problem. Fourth, the coalition of political parties that formed the APC gave Buhari a better platform than he previously had. Fifth, Nigerians were simply fed up with then ruling political party and were willing to give Buhari a chance.
So, Buhari rode on the back of all these aforementioned dynamics to become, perhaps, the most widely elected President in the nation’s political annals.  But then, in a funny twist of events, the once famous Buhari, who could do no wrong, has suddenly become a villain. Suddenly, the man Nigerians love to hail with the chant of ‘Sai Baba’ is literarily being slain on a daily basis, curiously by his erstwhile fanatical promoters.
Just recently, fiery Lagos Pastor and a top notch Buhari advocate, Tunde Bakare, held a State of the Nation parley at the headquarters of his church in Lagos. The verdict? Buhari has failed the country. In quick sequence came Buhari battering from across the country. Various organisations and individuals that were once avowed Buhari backers have suddenly become his strong critics. Indeed, a famous priest who once predicted Buhari’s ascendancy to the presidency recently warned him not to take Nigerians for granted.
At the home front, the President isn’t equally finding things easy as the First Lady was once alleged to have said that she wouldn’t campaign for the President’s re-election except he puts his political house in order. The latest in the catalogue of anti- Buhari sentiments currently pervading the country, came from no other source than the self-acclaimed ‘Conscience of the Nation’, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
Now, the question is: How did the President fritter away the goodwill he so much enjoyed at such a critical moment as this? Why is Nigerians’ patience suddenly running out with the president?  Well, like every such intricate socio-political issue, the answer to the questions is multifaceted.  For one, the president is perceived by many to be too slow in his handling of salient national matters. It took him about six months to put in place a cabinet while appointing members into the various boards of national parastatals took him much more. This is just to mention a few instances.
Also, the President has been broadly accused of engaging in unconcealed nepotism. It has been alleged that the sacred cows in his government are his kinsmen who are largely untouchable. The President has also been accused of favoring those from his part of the country in terms of appointments. In this case, appointments into top national security posts have particularly been alleged to be lopsided.
Additionally, the President’s handling of the tricky killer herdsmen’s question hasn’t been too convincing. While speaking on this particular subject, Pastor Tunde Bakare accused the President of gross bias. He cited the example of how the military were swiftly deployed to fish out Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB gang. He wondered why same speed was not employed in the case of the Benue genocide where hapless people were gruesomely murdered. All over the country, herdsmen are becoming a nuisance and great security threats, but there seems not to be an all out onslaught against them. The insinuation in many quarters, therefore, is that the President is not willing to tackle the knotty issue because ‘his’ people are involved.
Now, in spite of the recent decline in the President’s approval rating, if he wishes, he could still warm himself back into the hearts of his disgruntled compatriots, especially the masses who so much believed in him. For one, the President needs to become swifter in his handling of urgent national matters. His recent assertion that he needs to take his time in taking certain decisions doesn’t really suffice.  A man whose house is on fire does not have the luxury of time.  Swift decisions and actions must be taken on critical national matters to move the country forward. What we need at this critical time in the country is strong leadership. Shying away from taking the right decisions and actions at the appropriate time won’t do the country much good.
Also, the President must be wary of sycophants whose stock in trade are lies and deception. They are hypocrites with self-seeking agenda. They did the same with Abacha. For the right price, they can wine and dine with the devil himself. Therefore, the President needs to be discerning with the kind of stuff such people feed him with. He needs to pay more attention to what his critics are saying. In most cases, critics are better than sycophants.
Equally, the President needs to be more visible. Nigerians want to see and hear their President. It has often been said that president is a man of few words. No! This shouldn’t be the case. He is the leader of a nation of over 170 million people and they are eager to see and hear him. He needs to allay their fears. He needs to say things that would encourage and inspire them. He needs to sometimes move out of Aso Rock to relate with ordinary Nigerians. The Vice-President did this quite well while the President was away on medical treatment.  He needs to engage the people on several burning national issues. There are several platforms through which this can be done.
Finally, the President must allay the fears of Nigerians on the allegation of bigotry leveled against him. He must see the entire country as his constituency. After all, his mandate is a pan Nigerian one. Thus, he must not be seen to favour one section of the country at the expense of the other. In the words of former Senate President, late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo: ‘If you are emotionally attached to your tribe, religion or political leaning to the point that the truth and justice become secondary considerations, your education is useless. Your exposure is useless. If you cannot reason beyond petty sentiments, you are a liability to mankind’.
For the President, the clock is ticking and time is running out. History would not be kind to him if he squanders the unique goodwill upon which he rode to the presidency. We have had enough tales of failure. He cannot afford to fail!

Ogunbiyi writes from Ikeja, Lagos

SEUN OLAMILEKAN

In 2010, South Africa was invited to join BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and many wondered why Nigeria was not picked ahead of South Africa, considering its population size, abundant oil and gas resources and strong growth prospect.

Today, BRIC has become BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), a group of five newly industrialized or developing economies which sought to have closer economic, financial and political ties among themselves and to use their combined influence to shape the world’s socio-economic and financial narratives. The countries of the BRICS are drawn from four continents (South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa) and they are the largest or among the largest economies in each of their regions.
Indeed, Nigeria could have learnt and benefitted a great deal from membership of the association, particularly in the area of taxation. Only recently, the BRICS’s tax authorities signed a taxation cooperation memorandum. Among other things, the agreement is expected to foster greater cooperation among members on taxation efficiency, capacities, policies, collection, improving consultation procedures on taxation, and encouraging information exchange on taxation. These are areas Nigeria could have gained critical insight and knowledge.
Nigeria continues to struggle with its tax system and administration. The country’s tax authorities are still burdened with obsolete tax laws, dearth of technology in tax administration and consequently inefficiencies in tax collections and poor compliance levels. The Nigerian tax system, according to experts, is still largely “characterized by complex distortions and inequitable taxation laws” fostered by “multiplicity of rates and unnecessary exemptions.” Many of the country’s tax laws are obsolete and out of tune with current reality. It is not surprising therefore that the country’s tax-to-GDP ratio is a mere 6%. The BRICS’ economies, on the other hand, earn an average tax-to-GDP ratio of 24% (Russia’s tax collection is 19.5% of its GDP, China 20%, India 17.7%, South Africa 26.9%, and Brazil 34.4%). PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) tagged Nigeria’s 6% “abysmal”.
However, Lagos State seems to have taken a few pages out of the BRICS’ tax book and the state is reaping the benefits. Aside the deployment of technology, the state is working with its House of Assembly to upgrade its tax laws for simplicity, equity, certainty, relevance, and efficiency. Recently, a public hearing was held by the state House of Assembly on a bill to repeal the 17-year-old Land Use Charge Law and enact a new one that will consolidate all property taxes in the state (tenement rate, neighbourhood improvement tax, land rates) into one tax, the Land Use Charge Law.
The legislators promised at the hearing to undertake an impact assessment of Lagos State tax laws with a view to amend and or enact new ones, where necessary, to meet the present and urgent tax needs of the state. The new Land Use Charge Law is comprehensive enough to satisfy the basic requirements of a good tax. By collapsing the multiple property tax laws in the state into one law, the government has simplified the law. The new law will be equitable and standardized; assessment of tax due is to be calculated based on the property type and the market value, unlike the old law where valuation is arbitrary and the taxpayer is not certain of his tax obligations. All this, coupled with deployment of e-filing, is expected to help the efficiency of the law.
Lagos already boasts of about 30% tax compliance rate. This is far better than the country’s 6% and even higher than the BRICS’ average of 24%. It is expected that the new tax administration, with up-to-date tax laws, will further boost this compliance figure and provide the Lagos State government with additional resources to execute its developmental agenda.
But most importantly, residents appear to trust the state government to deploy tax revenue judiciously. For long, Lagos residents, and indeed Nigerians, had complained that the impact of government is hardly felt. That is no longer the case in Lagos. The state government has demonstrated good faith and has shown that it can be trusted with taxpayers’ money to deliver people-oriented and impactful projects. The government is investing in a modern and efficient transportation system: rail (Okokomaiko-Marina; Iddo terminal-Alagbado); Automated Guideway Transit (Ikoyi-VI-Ajah line); Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) plying routes across the state; channelization of the waterways (construction of jetties and provision of ferry services); roads rehabilitation, upgrades and maintenance. It is equally investing heavily in social infrastructure; upgrading schools, health facilities and working hard to protect the environment.
Compliance remains a major challenge to unravel for Nigeria. At the 2017 Stanbic IBTC/Standard Bank West to East Africa Investors’ Conference, the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, told the audience that the country’s “tax burden is not being shared fairly… being carried by those who are least able to afford it.” According to Adeosun, the country “only has 14 million taxpayers out of about 70 million people that are economically active.” And even at that, “majority of that 14 million are people who have their taxes deducted at the source, largely lower income workers.” Very few voluntarily file tax returns.
To be concluded tomorrow

Olamilekan writes from Lagos

Emperor Chris Baywood Ibe

The issue of state police creation has engaged the generality of Nigerians for long. Recently, the idea popped up on the floor of the Senate with the senators joining other Nigerians expressing their views on the subject.  The senators in their submissions leaned heavily on the recent killings in Benue and Taraba states and other security concerns in the country. They sounded firm and vocal, maintaining that if there were state-controlled police units in the affected places, the marauding Fulani herders could have been checked. 

The Senate added that if there were existing state police, the recurrent break down of law and order would be a thing of the past. The senators went on to recall that the growing need for state police had brought to the fore, a reminder that amendment to the existing 1999 Constitution was an unfinished business. They reflected that the need for state police clearly demonstrated the growing need for the restructuring of the country.

Indeed, the debate on state police creation did not begin with the Senate. It might not end on the floor of the House either. Therefore, it is a matter that needs caution and careful consideration.  The Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Mr Abubakar Malami agree that much. In September last year, he cautioned the promoters of the state police agenda to tread softly, urging them to be guided by the overall interest of the country. In his submission, he tasked Nigerians eager to see the flip side of the idea, reminding them that although it might be noble, there was need to consider the fears of other compatriots. One of such fears was what the state governors and other influential Nigerians might do with the state police when it is created. He drew attention to attendant arms proliferation, stating that it had the capacity of worsening the country’s security situation.

Now, the issues raised by Mr Malami and other stakeholders are still with us. These are issues no promoter of the state police idea is yet to fully address. The concerns might be casual and cursory, yet combustive. Therefore, everyone promoting this novelty needs to fully and adequately assuage the genuine fears of Nigerians by outlining how it is going work in a system like ours.

As an analyst recently put it, the state police idea is a potential catalyst for chaos, although he agreed that it was an essential defining element of true federalism. He, however, contended that the Nigerian system was totally different from every other one, concluding that the country was not ripe for the idea yet.   A quick reminder here that, some states already have their own security outfits operating like state-owned police. Lagos State has the Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) Brigade; Kano State, the Hisbah Corps while Kebbi State has created its own Hisbah corps. 

For long, the aforementioned security organs of the first two states have been in place. We all know how they operate with highhandedness, with many non-ethnic nationals at the receiving end of their overzealousness.

In Lagos, the KAI Brigade easily treats persons with levity while the Hisbah Corps is a law unto itself. Both organs often trample on people’s rights with impunity. In all honesty, would non-indigenes get justice in any state where people of the same ethnic group are in the majority? Is this not a silhouette of what to follow when we create state police?

Now, many have argued that the state police idea will increase the tempo of ethnic militia in the country; I concur. It is bound to ensure that every tribe in the country has its own ready army. It might be too early now to imagine where this impending conflagration will lead us.  

It is feared that some influential people will manipulate the state police to harass and intimidate others who are not from the same area. Indeed, this fear is well founded. Even now, this is happening and nothing has been done about it. Given the kind of system we operate, many people are bound to utilise the state police to achieve their selfish ends. Therefore, many poor persons are bound to suffer on account of this idea.

And now, here is the big one. The state governors will definitely use state police as willing tools to oppress, clubber, intimidate and run their perceived enemies out of town. When this begins to happen, it will be serious. Therefore, it is a disaster waiting to be unleashed on those who will be at the receiving end of the governors’ wrath, knowing how powerful governor are right now.

Now, have we forgotten in a hurry what the governors are doing with the state independent electoral commissions under their watch? Have we forgotten how the ruling party in every state wins local government elections landslide? Have we forgotten how the state governors have hijacked the local government areas in their states?  If the governors have so successfully done all these without any challenge, how is anyone then sure that state police will not be politised? How is anyone sure that we will see something different when each state is allowed to own it police force with the head being the governors’ appointees?

Now, has anyone imagined what the plight of people of ethnic minorities will be in a state where there are ethnic majorities? When the major tribes begin to have issues – as there are bound to be – is it not clear that the majority will unleash its numerical might on the helpless minority using the full force of the state police with their man at the helm? This is very critical in the light of the clamour for state police.  

Over time, we have repeatedly seen how policemen attached top officials of government at the centre clashed with the state governors’ security details, leaving the ordinary man watching a show of power. This is bound to happen even on a larger scale if the country succumbs to this time bomb called state police. Its progenitors may mean well, but the time for it is not now.

Emperor Chris Baywood Ibe, of Save Awgu Forum, Enugu, writes from Lagos  

Sam Edoho

At a period when the economy was shrinking, job losses were recorded in threatening figures and the exchange rate nosedived, thinking about industrialization was simply out of the vision of many political leaders across the country. The most urgent challenge was the fight against ravaging hunger and near famine on the economic landscape of Nigeria.

In Akwa Ibom State, the biting economic circumstances were not difficult as the impact of the depressed economy touched the state.  The only difference was the feeling of responsibility and burden on the shoulders of the governor to fulfill his campaign promises in which he predominantly stressed industrialisation as a pivotal focus of his administration.

Faced by obvious unfriendly economic circumstances that would naturally not attract investors to Nigeria, Governor Emmanuel Udom performed near magic by attracting FDI to Akwa Ibom State, overtaking 34 other states in the federation in the process.

To deliver on this, the governor had to rely on his extensive national and international network built over the years and on the economic model of Public Private Partnership (PPP), a model which many economic analysts have severally advised government at all levels to adopt for the sake of encouraging Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) to their domain.

Notably, PPP ensures the sharing of risks amongst the partners, and  overwhelming evidence in the past 50 years of the use of PPP structures indicates that these arrangements are relatively cost efficient, foster best practices for sharing and transfer of risk, assure superior value for money, save time, streamline  contracts, simplify procurements, facilitate innovation through public-private cohesion, eradicate bureaucratic and political processes, encourage technology transfer and act as a vehicle which adopts life cycle approaches to delivering infrastructure and services.

PPP is a model that has gained wide acceptability across the globe and has benefitted countries, states or provinces that have consciously taken advantage of its   For example, in Singapore, the world’s largest Sports Hub, estimated at $978 million, has been developed under a PPP arrangement and so many success stories also abound, courtesy of PPP.

While PPP transactions are more recent in Sub-Saharan Africa, there are already a number of success stories. For example, the Kenyan government, in expressing its commitment to encouraging PPPs, envisages that 80% of its projects will be financed through PPPs by 2030. The Nigerian government has also taken some steps at using this model to co-finance infrastructural projects, especially in the South West of the country.  

Today in Nigeria, Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State is leading the trend amongst state governors who are bold enough and are armed with the economic and intellectual wizardry to woo and convince foreign investors to partner state governments to invest in their states, especially during biting recession.

One interesting thing to note is that Governor Emmanuel is not exploring PPP only for the purpose of basic infrastructural development, but has gone ahead to draft and propose viable business and industrial ventures loaded with benefits to the two parties, chief of which is employment generation for the host state.

For example, many have continued to wonder about the miracle behind Gov. Udom Emmanuel’s government’s ability to create jobs and economic prosperity through the establishment and operation of one revamped and five brand new  manufacturing industries in Akwa Ibom state in less than three years, even at a period of seemingly unfavourable economic climate in the country.

Many Nigerians are still amazed about the syringe manufacturing company, the electric meter manufacturing company, the toothpick and pencil manufacturing factory and the Akwa Prime Poultry and Hatchery Industries, all brand new business ventures conceived, built,  commissioned and producing under three years of Gov. Udom Emmanuel’s tenure.

The secret is that this maverick of a Chief Executive sat down to think out of the box and came up with creative business initiatives that are very viable. Take the syringe manufacturing, for example, this is a product with a ready market. Data obtained in January 2018 indicates that in less than five months after commissioning, the factory produces more than a million pieces of the product per month for a waiting market.

The same goes with the meter manufacturing facility which produces electric meters locally, to salvage electric power users in the country from the anachronistic model of estimated billing which makes customers pay for electricity they never consumed. Obviously electricity consumers are tired of waiting for imported meters which are largely in short supply across the country, hence Akwa Ibom made meters are going into a ready market to ‘save the day’.

Through these partnerships, the state government has succeeded in bringing foreign Investors who for sure have the scientific and technological prowess, while the state government provides them with basic facilities like land, power, security and administrative support as part of the equity to enable them navigate through the economic bottlenecks in our country.

For Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, NBS, to name Akwa Ibom as only second after Lagos State (the economic headquarters of Nigeria) in attracting FDI to Nigeria in 2017, is an indication that someone somewhere is doing a great job and that person is Gov. Udom Emmanuel.   It is also heartwarming to know that through partnerships, more manufacturing facilities are underway in the state.

Recently, some equipment arrived the state for a plastic manufacturing factory and construction work is on-going at the privately owned Flour Mill company. At the same time, Chinese investors are about now commencing the construction of Eket International Market. The modern market is expected to seat on an area of 62,000 square metres, having about 3000 shops within a 2-storey complex.

On completion, the main investors: the Yiwu International Mall Investment Limited, China, would take over the management of the market, bringing to the City of Eket, China town of some sort.  The benefits of these initiatives are incomprehensible. 

They include, among other things, employment for the youths both at the construction stage and at the operational stage after completion. 

Beyond the expected gains of creating employment opportunities (both at the construction stage and at the operational stage),  contributing to both the GDP and IGR of the country and state respectively, there is bound to be a massive transfer of technology from the foreign experts to local employees, in addition to wide spread wealth across the state.

 It is, indeed, fascinating that the governor has found a leeway in PPP to bring industrialization to his people in fulfillment of his campaign promises. This is a firm testimony that Udom is working for his people and these are  lessons Nigeria can learn and benefit from. 

Edoho writes from Akwa Ibom

Chinedu Nebo

It is time to say farewell. Certainly, a time like this must come. No amount of sentiment, no amount of longing, fears, trepidations and anxieties can stop it. Otherwise, instead of this dispiritedness, instead of this bemoaning, the iroko would have been standing still, for everything would have been done to stop it from falling. And what a fall!

Indeed, if it were in the power of man, many would have created a human barrier and stepped on the way to stop the cold hand of death. If it were in the power of man, this deed would have been reversed. If it were in the power of man, our Ide, the pillar, would still be very much around today.

For with humanity, Dr. Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme maintained an unending kinship that stretched beyond the ordinary, a symbiotic conviviality that made him inseparable from the society and the people he loved – love that saw him at times, mock at danger, confront most daunting odds and defy roaring lions. For their sake. But, like every iron must return to the furnace, it is not in the power of man to interfere in what God, the divine creator, has made his exclusive preserve. For His, it is, to make that eternal call. And when he calls, no man, no matter how powerful, can or will refuse to answer. 

For this icon, one of the greatest men that ever breathed and strode the landscape of Nigeria, nay, the world, a rare gift to humanity, whom at every point, that call came on November 19, 2017.

With that, a chapter was closed and a new one began for this sage, who used his life to teach humanity the raison d’etre of God making man the highest of earth’s creatures.

Yes, with Ekwueme, humanity learnt that man is not on earth to live, eat grow and die, but on the contrary, must strive to impact his environment positively, always. He must do so by developing his latent instincts to the full and putting all the products therefrom at the disposal of his fellow beings, all in the service of God. That was what he espoused and his life reflected at every turn in his 85 years on earth.

Although not trained, like Alexander the Great, with whom he shared the same name, Ekwueme was no less a soldier. He was indeed a soldier’s soldier. For in him were countless and demonstrable evidences of uncommon courage as he fought several battles and wars on different fronts. But unlike the Macedonian General, who earned his title by going about conquering physical territories, his territory was quite different – the frontiers of humanity and how to enhance it.

Imbued by this special love for people, he had to pick up the gauntlet at the time it mattered most, and fought one of the most ferocious battles, post independent Nigeria, against the dark forces in the bid to create an atmosphere of a free and democratic society.

At the time his contemporaries and many others were cringing in fear and reclining to their cocoons to escape some palpable unpleasant consequences of confronting the military anti-democratic forces, Ekwueme led other prominent Nigerians to confront the late General Sani Abacha in his heydays as Nigeria’s most dreaded ruler.

He did this, not minding that the many unpleasant outcomes including threats to personal liberty or even death. But, it was all about courage.

Far from being reckless, Ekwueme’s rare bravery in forming and leading the G.34 against the late despot and asking him to give up power, was not because he had no blood in him, but borne out of a more compelling and ennobling need for democracy. For that alone, personal liberty and life, itself, were no barriers or at best a secondary consideration. It was his way of re-echoing that epochal declaration of Patrick Henry to Americans – Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.

He also had another opportunity to press home the point that his uncommon sacrifice was not being driven by the quest to satisfy personal ambitions and goals, but to pursue the greatest good for the greatest number of the society.

After the military was eventually eased out, the lot fell on him once again to organise the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), nurture it and make it one of the most formidable political platforms in the country. But, at the time for him to savour the glorious fruit of his labour, he was shoved aside by some more formidable forces, which denied him the opportunity of contesting the presidential election under the same platform and becoming President.  Yet, contrary to expectation, and perhaps the scheme of his traducers, he brushed aside the negativity of the obvious conspiracy and climbed to a higher ground.

Indeed, having been a former Vice President, stupendous material wealth, tremendous political influence, and the sympathy that trailed his unfair treatment, the natural reaction, were he any other Nigerian, would have seen him breaking away to form another platform. But no, to emphasise that it was not about personal ambition, he again, submitted himself and subsumed his ambition to the democratic ethos of the majority.

Twice, he was given this treatment, and twice he remained resolute and not only made himself available to the party, but continued to avail it of his wealth of experience as the Chairman Board of Trustees (BOT) and later, an elder statesman. How many Nigerians have displayed such a great show of selflessness, resilience, forthrightness and resoluteness to a common cause? How many in politics today, are willing to bury personal ambition in pursuit of common good?

A consummate scholar, philosopher, uncommon philanthropist, versatile professional, author and teacher, this sage, in spite of reaching to the zenith of human expectations, never even assumed a cavalier attitude common to his class, but also hobnobbed with the ordinary folks in the society.  His philanthropic gestures epitomised Christ’s example of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing, as he used his wealth to lift the downtrodden. Because he would remain always at the background, very few today can associate him with building churches, schools and public-spirited works that enhanced the society. Fewer yet, know about his scholarship foundation, through which he became the bridge through which many indigent persons within his community in Oko, Orumba North Local Government Area, of Anambra State, and beyond, also acquired education and attained great heights themselves. Always finding solutions rather than being the problem, his six-zonal structure, which he canvassed and gave Nigeria, has become the basis on which a major problem of Nigeria has eventually found a solution.

One of the founders and patrons of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the highest decision-making body of the Igbo people, he was the arrowhead of the Mkpoko Igbo, an intellectual and influential body that aggregated the Igbo position to the 1995 National Constitutional Conference, organised by the then government of Abacha, where the idea was given its flesh and blood.

Here was a man, who was arrested and thrown into jail in 1984 for his role as the Vice President, by a military government, on charges of corruption. But, after rudimental judicial sieve, he was not only pronounced completely blameless and unblemished, but was described as leaving government poorer than he went in.   Farewell, Ide.

Prof. Nebo is the immediate past Minister of Power    

Preparation for the 2019 General elections is in high gears. This fact is especially reflected in the website of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which has a countdown stating that the election has 379 days, 17 hours, 10 mins to go, as at yesterday, February 1, 2018. More specifically, INEC has given February 16 and March 2, 2019 for the presidential and governorship elections. I have issues with the timetable, but that is a matter for another day. The presidential election is of paramount importance as it determines how the political parties would fare in the other offices being vied for. Once a particular party wins the presidential election, the bandwagon effect always swing the eventual outcome and performance of the contending parties in favour of the party that had already won the presidency. But as stated earlier, this is a matter for another day.

As Nigerians warm up towards the election, there had been issues in the polity about the appropriateness of incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari to seek for a second term in view of the administration’s (poor) performance in office.  On a daily basis, opposition to President Buhari’s second term bid had continued to grow. Before former President Obasanjo’s letter to the president not to put himself forward, there had been other prominent Nigerians who had equally urged the president to shun the unrealistic praise singers and acolytes who have not been able to correctly read the mood of Nigerians who had grown tired of the administration. One of the surprising figures of opposition to President Buhari’s second term bid, is fiery overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare who said the president should forget the 2019 election but instead focus on restructuring the country in line with the agitation of many Nigerians. The pastor took it further that he would contest for the presidency. Bakare’s statement is surprising especially in view of his relationship with President Buhari.

He was the president’s running mate in the 2011 presidential election. His statement thus signals the loss of confidence in the administration and especially in the way the president had been running the country. Another opposition figure to President Buhari’s continued stay in office is Catholic Rev Father Ejike Mbaka.  Mbaka, director of Adoration Ministry in Enugu, had consistently voiced his opposition to the continued stay in office of former President Goodluck Jonathan in the build up to the 2015 elections and had encouraged his members not to vote the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He had thrown his weight behind candidate Buhari in 2015. After the President’s inauguration, Father Mbaka visited Buhari in Aso rock.

 But it is a different story today, in his new year message, Mbaka said, “As I was waiting on the Lord, I’m asked to advise you, don’t come out for second tenure; after this, retire peacefully.” “Come back to yourself or you will cry by the time you will be sent out of office. Those who are encouraging you to come out and run again want to disgrace you shamefully and publicly.”  

But of major concern is the fact that even if President Buhari decided to heed the warning of his erstwhile supporters and decided not to contest, the candidate that Nigeria requires today has not manifested. The only serious candidate who had signified interest in the office of President is former Vice President, Abubakar Atiku. Many Nigerians see him as highly qualified. He is detribalized; he has the experience and has built bridges of friendship across the country. The only minus is his age. Today, Nigerians are clamouring for a young, vibrant, articulate and cerebral candidate. Atiku does not fill the bill of what Nigerians want today. His age is a minus. Indeed, the words of human rights lawyer, Femi Falana comes readily to mind here when he opined that it would be a monumental tragedy if Buhari and Atiku are the only two candidates for the 2019 elections. Nigeria cannot afford that again. This is a rescue mission, to take the country back and set it on the path of development.

The present administration got into office on a false premise. The whole country, especially the youths and social media nerds were swept up in the storm of change like angry, uneducated mob. They never interrogated the purveyors and promoters of change. They were swept up by the frenzy of change. Some of them were not born when President Buhari was a military Head of State, but they listened and swallowed the straw house that was built around candidate Buhari. Now the house has collapsed. Buhari has shown all his supporters his true colour as a nepotic, clannish leader who is uneducated in the nuances of governing a complex and multi-ethnic country like Nigeria.  In the words of former President Obasanjo under Buhari, “national interest was being sacrificed on the altar of nepotic interest”. According to the former president, the president’s poor understanding of the dynamics of internal politics   has led to,   “wittingly or unwittingly making the nation more divided and inequality has widened and become more pronounced. It also has effect on general national security”. Though, many have raised highbrow about the writer, saying his tenure did not fare better, but Obasanjo’s verdict should not be ignored as it reflects the mood of the country

 Thus, the idea of the likes of Donald Duke, Olisa Agbakoba, Pat Utomi coming together to form a political group is good, but it is by far not the solution to the myriad of problems besetting the Nigerian nation. The Nigerian Intervention Movement (NIM) is good coupled with the Coalition for Nigerian Movement floated by the former president. Its relevance would be enhanced by providing a platform that would give opportunity to Nigerians with the quality that is required to govern a 21st century country, but who would not have had the opportunity because of the present structure of political party system in the country. Here, I am not referring to the presidency alone.  Apart from that, the would- be candidate aspiring for the topmost office must be prepared and seen to be prepared for the office.

There must be clear cut vision which must be   interrogated. It goes beyond promising to do certain things to move the country forward, the how and why should be clearly stated. The philosophy behind an idea must be clearly stated. It is not about some technocrats sitting in a room and coming up with programmes and shoving it down the throat of the candidate. If it is not the candidate that owns the idea or commissioned the idea, it would not work. That is what we have today. The programmes and party manifestoes must first and foremost reflect the candidate. It must be part of his vision.

There must be a clear cut blue print that would touch on all areas of development. During the second republic, parties like the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) stood for something. Some of us could also identify with the programmes and manifestoes of the parties. The UPN had its four cardinal programmes while NPN had Green revolution as its agricultural policy, among others. The parties stood for this and the candidates bought into it. To move forward and get the Nigeria of our dream, this should be encouraged. It should also be the basis to judge the parties and the candidates.   

Gbemiga Olakunle

“Jonathan should resign if he has no solution to the violence being unleashed on some parts of the country”  – Nasir El’Rufai.

The above quotation was allegedly credited to Mallam Nasir El’Rufai, (now the Governor of Kaduna State). This salvo was reportedly fired at the immediate past Administration of the former President Goodluck Jonathan when the administration was confronted with myriads of security challenges; and notable among such challenges was the Boko Haram insurgency which the current Administration is still fighting today even though the capacity of the deadly sect to inflict collateral damages on  lives and property has been drastically weakened and downgraded.

The above quoted outburst credited to the outspoken Governor of Kaduna State could be justified in the light of Boko  Haram exploits that have claimed much of the landmass of the Local Government Areas in the Northeastern part of the country, especially in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. The insurgents even went as far as declaring their  captured areas as a caliphate where they hoisted their flags and started to collect taxes, levies/tributes from the traumatised residents. In the days of the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, the Boko Haram insurgents who were Islamic fundamentalists or Jihadists spread their tentacles to the North -Western and the Middle-Belt parts of the country.    

As a matter of fact, the Islamic terrorists launched at least seven suicide bomb attacks within the Abuja Federal Capital Territory and neighbouring states with several causalities and loss of property in millions of naira. In fact, they were so daring in their attacks that they launched attacks on the headquarters of the Department of State Security (DSS) located within the vicinity of the Presidential Villa on two occasions in futile attempts to rescue some of their members who were in the custody of the DSS then. And of course, the shock waves reverberated and shook the occupants of the Presidential Villa and the State  House then. To say the least, the then Administration was really overwhelmed and yet the man at the helm of affairs then refused to receive help from foreign powers like America, even when it was offered on a platter of gold. The former President was still referring to the Boko Haram insurgents as his brothers until he was almost sacked and uprooted from the seat of power in Abuja.

Apart from the issue of monumental corruption in high places which seriously plagued Jonathan’s administration, the former president’s inability to decipher and get the right clues on how to tackle Boko Haram led to the downfall of his administration as the then opposition  party, All Progressives Congress (APC), capitalised on these obvious weak  points to outsmart him and unseat him from power.

But has anything changed now, security–wise? We doubt it, as your guess is good as ours. As a matter of fact, as it was in the days of the former President Goodluck Jonathan, so it is in this present administration in terms of security challenges even though the government has been doing its best to curtail and manage the ugly situation.  If anything has changed at all, it is the change of batons from the hands of Boko Haram insurgents to Fulani herdsmen assailants who are busy wreaking havoc across the country. While Boko Haram’s capacity has been downgraded,  the Fulani herdsmen assailants seem to have upgraded capacity to unleash terror on anyone or group of people  who dares to  question their efforts to annex or colonise the lands of their host communities nationwide.

For the past decades, if not centuries, some of these host communities have learnt to accommodate and tolerate the excesses of some of the Fulani herdsmen popularly referred to as the Bororos in the South -Western part of the country. But, gone are the days when the Fulani herdsmen used to settle their quarrels amicably with their host farming communities, especially when their cattle strayed into farmlands and allegedly destroyed crops. Such disputes used to be settled sometimes without the intervention of the community heads. But nowadays, the peace  loving Fulani herdsmen of the olden days have suddenly become thorns in the flesh of their host communities;  sometimes, with unprovoked attacks on their victims.

It was in the aftermath of these ongoing Fulani herdsmen attacks  that the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo-led Committee comprising of ten governors was constituted to find a lasting solution to these incessant clashes between the suspected Fulani herdsmen and the crop farmers. But, it was not made clear whether it was the decision of this committee when the Vice President directed that there should be more military presence at the hot spots. If this presidential order is aimed at forestalling the breakdown of law and order between Fulani herdsmen and  farmers, it is okay and welcome. But, if the order is aimed at checkmating reprisal attacks after some assailants must have unleashed surprise attacks on their victims in their unguarded moments, then this presidential order may need a review. Already, the military and, indeed, the rest of our security agencies are overwhelmed by not less than 13 categories of criminal activities ranging from Fulani herdsmen menace, Boko Haram insurgency, kidnapping, armed robbery, cultism, just to mention a few. And so, the military cannot be everywhere at every time to prevent certain unprovoked attacks from the Fulani herdsmen since these herdsmen are found in every nook and cranny of the country. And so, for the Presidential Committee on Fulani herdsmen/Crop farmers crises led by Vice President Osinbajo to succeed, it should take the bull by the horns and proffer a  holistic political solution to the problem.

In our own candid opinion, the way out of this  impasse that is occupying number one position on the list of security issues that  are threatening the security of the country, is cattle ranching and not colony. The Presidential Committee should, therefore, adopt and recommend cattle ranching so that the rising political/security tension that is shaking the President’s second term ambition or re-election bid in 2019 can be doused. If there is no  hidden agenda or vested interest in certain circles, cattle ranching is the way out and it is the consensus of the greater section of the Nigerian electorate to which this government is answerable. To do otherwise may be akin to courting low rating and poor performance  of President. Buhari in the 2019 general elections. We hope the relevant authorities and stakeholders are listening. “You will know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”, say the Scriptures  in John 8:34,KJV. But, this known truth or revealed truth needs to be acted upon before it can do its work of freedom.   

Olakunle, General Secretary, National Prayer Movement, writes via  gbemigaolakunle@yahoo.co.uk

Musa Simon Reef

He is gradually becoming Nigeria’s proverbial witch that cries in the night, and the child dies the following day. His letters to sitting presidents, military or civilian, often serve as prologues to their sundown. He commands an impressive followership as well as an army of die-hard opponents. Those who claim to know him and how he played to the drums of Northern military officers after the assassination of General Murtala Muhammed in 1976 would readily describe him as timid, but in his providential comeback in 1999, he danced where even angels fear to tread.

Seen as a lackey of the North who was trusted not to bite the fingers that fed him, Obasanjo’s eight years in power as civilian president set fire in the camp of his Arewa political godfathers. By the time he was through in 2007, he had reconfigured the political dynamics of the North and turned the once peaceful Sardauna’s House into a combustible home between the ruling Hausa-Fulani class against its politically enslaved minority ethnic groups

Hate him or like him, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has become the defining political phenomenon of our nation. From Sokoto to Port Harcourt; from Maiduguri to Lagos, only the politically naïve and the undiscerning mind would underestimate the relevance of his influence. Though guilty of the country’s present predicament, Obasanjo, both in and out of uniform, has become a talisman that guides and sometimes destroys  governments before or after him. More than a Nostradamus that sees through the future and predicts what tomorrow holds, Obasanjo, the Ebora Owu, is our political prophet and oracle rolled into one. In politics, he has no competitor. Endowed with amazing native intelligence on the dynamics controlling the centrifugal forces in our politics, the chicken farmer personifies the Nigerian quintessential leader.

When Obasanjo speaks or writes, everyone, especially those in the corridors of power, must pause to listen or read. Ignoring him is always at one’s distressing peril. And the consequences may be shattering for those unwilling to heed his message. The former president, who recently bagged a PhD in Theology, is an indefatigable godfather, neither wary nor weary of any fight. Against him, dogged and experienced fighters have lost battles, while those who have escaped his fangs of vengeance for disloyalty still grope in the dark, licking their wounds.

Like all mortals, the Ota Farmer has his shortcomings, but his footprints on the sands of the country’s political life bear indentations of divine conspiracy with mortality. Though passed four scores in age; the former president remains sprightly and of sound brainpower. Amidst allegations bordering on morality, nothing has diminished Baba Iyabo’s awesome status in the nation’s socio-economic and political discourse. Those who fell apart with him have bitter tales to tell. If you doubt me, ask former President Goodluck Jonathan, who forgot the source of his elevation to the nation’s top position and attempted to wrestle his ‘chi’, the Egba chief. Out of power, Jonathan is now more knowledgeable and quick to advise former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to clear with Baba and obtain his blessings before embarking on yet another presidential march.

The road to Obasanjo’s recent ‘Special Press Statement’ is fraught with patience and behind-the-scene maneuvers. For those close to Obasanjo whom the gods love to dine with, his frustration with the current government became public over a year ago. Apart from abstaining from visiting President Muhammadu Buhari for photo shots, as was his practice in the early life of this government in 2015, he had restrained himself from commenting on national issues.

When finally Obasanjo released what some describe as a blistering assessment of Buhari’s performance profile since assuming power on May 29, 2015, opinions differed  both content and rationality behind the statement. While critics lampooned him for not possessing the moral high ground to excoriate the Buhari-led government, the club of wailers has warned against emphasising the messenger, rather than the message. Reading through the lengthy epistle that took the nation by storm, it was a studied silence from the seat of power that had initially said it was studying the statement before coming out with a full response.

The day after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC), the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, thanked the former president for his statement, but went ahead to reel out what he considered as highpoints of the Buhari government. Unlike Jonathan’s men who had sought to denigrate Obasanjo, Buhari’s men were smart enough to avoid opening flanks for further sparring or stone-throwing sessions.

Beyond the various issues on Obasanjo’s statement, the advice to Buhari to perish the thought of seeking re-election has also attracted varied responses. While the Catholic Bishops have called on the President to heed Obasanjo’s advice on 2019, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo explained at this year’s World Economic Forum that 2019 race is not presently Buhari’s pre-occupation. Though the Ota Farmer commended Buhari for tackling insecurity, he nevertheless warned that the rampaging footprints of murderous herdsmen in various parts of the country portend uncertainties for the country’s security.

Agitations to set up of a Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM), following Obasanjo’s condemnation of both the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), hold double-edge implications for 2019 and Nigeria’s political future, including the current clouds of economic uncertainties hovering in the nation’s skies. Calling on Nigerians not to allow politicians control the political process, the former president has urged critical stakeholders to confront challenges bedeviling their country in order to change the embarrassing narrative trailing the nation’s democracy.

Certainly, some of us may not like Obasanjo, but we can’t repudiate the enviable position he occupies in the courtyard of Nigeria’s politics. Maligning him as one bereft of morality does not destroy or obviate the truth contained in his statement. Let those who have powers to tackle the dangers of Obasanjo’s truth work hard to avert the fire next time, as we may not be so lucky to escape the wrath of power merchants plotting to either secure a fresh term of power or access the corridors of power in 2019.

Reef writes from Lagos

Percy Owaiye

AT a time like this, the counsel is appropriate: Concentrate on the message, and leave the messenger safely alone. So, I will resist the temptation to discuss Obasanjo and concentrate on the value of his message.
Obasanjo, as he admitted in the letter, had advertised Buhari’s so-called weaknesses on the economy and foreign relations to no end. And, yes, Buhari may be weak in those areas, but there are certainly men of quality and vision helping out in those areas. Buhari’s Economic Team, though understated and often maligned is proving to be one of the most effective yet in the nation’s history.
The failing of past governments has been clear. From a rural agricultural base at independence, the country transformed to an import-dependent economy upon the discovery of oil at the turn of the decade. Instead of growing our agricultural base and using the new wealth from oil to transform to a globally-competitive human capital and industrialized giant that we could be, we abandoned even the rudimentary agriculture that had served us very well until then and engaged in the export of crude oil for the personal aggrandizement of the new men in power and their collaborators, home and abroad.
This was the challenge that faced the country for several decades until the inception of this democracy in 1999, and which Obasanjo as president couldn’t do much to reverse unfortunately. So, when Obasanjo talks of ‘round-tripping’ in the inner circles of the present government, one wonders what exactly he means. In fact, my enquiry did not yield much apart from the mild rebuke: “You know Obasanjo knows everything!” But on reflection, the retired General must have had the humungous sums in local and foreign currencies found in the NIA vaults and in places where they should not be in mind. What he accuses the Buhari government of however has indeed been the business of every past government, and that it is much in the public domain these days means that the present one is serious about eradicating it or at least reducing it to its barest minimum.
If anyone, more so Obasanjo who knows the inner workings of government, wants to be fair, what is on display, whether with the former SGF Babachir Lawal, NIA’s Oke and now Maina’s cases, is deep rooted systemic rot which needs painstaking and proper interrogation to get to the root. Especially in the Maina case, he is certainly not alone, but in fact represents a racket that has been at the bottom of the many failed civil service reforms. A purported sack cannot be enough, no matter how quickly executed. Obasanjo, I recall, was part of the Mohammed experiment, full of fury and decisiveness, which many later adjudged to be a failure, and in fact, having the opposite effect of promoting the malaise that it sought to cure in the first place.
Buhari lived through it all. And that is why when he made his recent statement about taking his time to come to decisions and having to live with his conscience thereafter, I thought that instead of the insults he got, what he deserved was praise. This is indeed our country, and we have seen it all. The good, and the mostly bad times!
Which makes one to ask: do we really know the nuances of the system of government we have chosen and the change we voted for? Sadly, even Obasanjo betrayed his ignorance of both in his recent communication. Like God’s mills, the mills of democracy grind slowly, but unlike God’s mills, they hardly grind exceedingly well. This is the bitter truth we must tell ourselves. I remember many commentators judging Obasanjo’s first term (1999-2003) as having achieved very little. In fact, the most that could be pointed to was the reforms in the military and the liberalization of the communication sector. Of course, a lot more was cooking on the economic front, like the debt-forgiveness negotiations which benefit was reaped in his second term.
Change, by its very nature, is like birth pangs of a woman. It comes with excruciating pains and dislocations. It can be slow and gradual too. As an individual, I am perhaps one of the worst affected. In my middle years and with no gainful employment, apart from a part-time job, I admonish myself and millions of others in my shoes that we may be hungry now, but we must never fall for the trap of anger. Anger is a negative emotion which does not yield anything good and lasting. What the present situation of the country requires is a deep introspection and to understand that every great nation went through these painful birth pangs before setting on the path of irrevocable development. The often cited Lee Kwan Yew’s Singapore endured his benevolent dictatorship for 15 years before the breakthrough came; Gorbachev’s USSR swallowed the bile of Glasnost and Perestroika and the dismantling of the anachronistic USSR to break forth in the 15 wonders of freedom and progress that it has become today.
The journey that the immediate past government and the PDP as the party then in power was taking us on, could only have arrived at one destination: Golgotha! Obasanjo cannot completely absolve himself of blame from this outcome. As soon as he took the reins of office, he re-created the PDP that brought him to power in his own image. The organs of the party which are supposed to facilitate a robust generation and processing of government policy were discountenanced and completely discarded. The few, like the present agriculture minister, Audu Ogbeh who had the presence of mind to caution, were humiliated and thrown out. Under who did Chris Uba’s Anambra, Zaki-Biam and Odi massacres occur? Under whom did EFCC become a vindictive machine for achieving narrow and little political ends, despite the best efforts of the pioneer leadership of the outfit?
All this go to show that the problems we have in our polity, go beyond strong men. We need institutional and structural reforms. I am glad that stakeholders including the ruling APC which committee just submitted its report continue’s to interrogate the issue. Some of the lapses observed so far under the present Buhari administration should have proved conclusively to all doubters, if there are still any, that our country is in urgent need of real reforms.
And unlike, the maddening crowd out there, that is not something to take lightly or without deep contemplation. That is why again, instead of crucifying President Buhari for calling for more reflection on the subject in his New Year message to the country, we ought to take a step back and reflect. He may not be necessarily averse to restructuring like many career reformists would have us believe. His might rather just be a caution that we cannot run away from the reality that men run, and processes would be built on, whatever structure we eventually come up with.
Owaiye writes from Lagos.

There is some merit in the argument that perhaps our problem is not structural alone, but also men and attitude! And one does not cure the other.
Buhari, on the contrary, has been a good student of democracy. He has been patient with its methods and inherent frailties. There is a question that is often asked of in-coming American Presidents which I paraphrase: Who would you want in the room when you are faced with your must difficult decisions? For J.F. Kennedy, it was his brother Robert, his Attorney General. For Bill Clinton, it was Hillary. For George W. Bush, it was his deputy, Dick Cheney. I do not remember Obama’s response, but if it was asked of the incumbent Trump, it would most probably be his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. So, why must we kill Buhari now, because he has chosen his senior cousin, Mamman Daura, as confidant and counsel, even if in an unofficial capacity as many allege?
The nepotism that Obasanjo accuses Buhari of therefore is not the same many of the president’s traducers have in mind. They say that no Igbo man is in the commanding height of the government or security architecture. That it is not a surprise because Buhari had said that you cannot expect to treat those who gave 95 per cent votes the same way you treat those who gave five per cent. Whereas, the corollary to that supposedly offensive text was that: I will treat all fairly. So, they conveniently forget the caveat and go to town with the hate message: Buhari hates Ibos!
Otherwise, this government has done reasonably well in equitably and fairly distributing patronage. The Ibos, I dare say, have got their fair share of cabinet, board and other appointments. It started with the then president-elect dowsing the obviously excessive expectations witnessed in the world celebrations heralding his victory at the polls and the many and unfortunate loss of lives that followed it. Recall too that the papers were awash with congratulatory messages for two otherwise eminently qualified personalities from the South-East who were supposed to be in the front running for appointment as SGF.
Those were early danger signs of expectations going overboard. Of course, the President’s interaction with the civil service and other structures of government inherited already suggested a deeper rot than could have been imagined. I believe this largely resulted in the delay to appoint a cabinet which was roundly criticized and perhaps rightly so. But to say as some have posited, that the cabinet is rubbish cannot be correct. This cabinet is made up of stars and mostly technocrats, some who later strayed into politics. Amina Mohammed who is today the Deputy Secretary-General of the UN was a member of this cabinet and had done a damn good job of laying the foundation for a proper Ogoni and indeed other Niger delta impacted communities clean-up before she left for the new assignment.
People criticize Buhari for appointing Fashola as a “Super Minister” but forget that the most important component of his charge, Power has been largely privatized. Government as a continuum is dealing with the inherited issues and obviously dubious investments and processes initiated by previous administrations which have combined to slow down progress in that very crucial sector. Obasanjo’s administration is on record to have spent about 16b USD with very little to show before he left office.
The Ogoni clean-up, investment in diverse power resources like that of the Mambilla hydro plant and the receding Lake Chad Basin, the latter which is at the root of the Boko Haram insurgency and the herders/crop famers clashes, are some of the investments which should have been done about 40 years ago, but which this government is now undertaking. The required investments are huge and not within our domestic purview, and so would require time to deliver, no matter how detractors politicize it.
The Buhari government, from what I can see, is also focused on a massive infrastructure revamp, plus getting all of us to redirect our energies to agriculture and solid minerals for a real and enduring diversification of the economy. The CBN-driven Anchor Borrowers’ Programme has seen about 17 states grow and harvest their own home-grown brands of rice.
Buhari promised a 3-point agenda of fighting insecurity, fighting corruption and rebuilding the economy, and he has largely kept faith with his promise. What he deserves from everyone and especially the likes of Obasanjo who have once sat in the saddle is encouragement and not disparagement. In the end, Obasanjo’s letter is no more than a distraction.

Adetokunbo Pearse

Reform in the fiscal and the security sectors can aid the effort to alleviate the growing tension between nomadic herdsmen and sedentary farmers which has captured national consciousness lately. Unfortunately, these clashes are fast becoming a way of life in Nigeria. In 2017 alone, deadly confrontation between roving herdsman and local communities were reported in every geopolitical zone except the North-west. Sometimes, it is the herdsmen who get the worst of it as in the celebrated case in 2000 when the then General Muhammadu Buhari led a delegation to Governor Lam Adesina to protest the killing of dozens of Fulani herdsmen in Oyo State. At other times, it is the local communities who suffer as in the most recent incident of January 1, 2018 with the massacre of some 70 citizens of Guma and Logo local government areas of Benue State by herdsmen or their agents.
In all cases, human lives are lost, the economy is battered, and trust among neighbours is undermined. All people of goodwill must do all they can to reverse this negative trend in our body politic. It is arguable that the ideology of restructuring which is gaining in popularity nationwide can contribute significantly to the effort to build a better Nigeria.
The security aspects of structural reform, as presented in the 2014 confab report, is quite insightful and can impact positively on such disasters as we have seen in herdsman/farmers clashes across the country. The recent tragedy in Benue State will serve as a case in point. The lapses in security and failure of law enforcement in that state could have been avoided by the presence of a state police force. When Governor Samuel Ortom and the Benue State House of Assembly passed the “Anti-Open Grazing Prohibition Law 2017,” the Fulani socio-cultural group the “Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Fulani” openly challenged the edict. The group insisted that land belongs to all who need it, particularly the Benue valley area which the Fulani claim is their ancestral land.
This face-off between the Ortom administration and Miyetti Allah called for a drastic and rapid intervention by the police. Unfortunately, the security forces were caught napping, evidenced by the carnage in Logo and Guma local government areas of Benue State. Sadly, what happened here is commonplace in Nigeria. The police force is notoriously inefficient. Corruption is rife in the force. A policeman will take a N200 bribe, and look away from a crime. Recently, the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) posited that “a centrally-controlled security outfit cannot be effective in a heterogeneous multicultural country like Nigeria.” The main reason why law and order failed the people of Benue is because a “centrally-controlled” police force; that is the Nigerian police was in charge of operations in that state. A Nigerian police officer gets his instructions from the federal government. He is paid by the federal government. He or she could be posted at anytime to any part of the country or outside of the country. His loyalty is not to the state, but to the federal government.
On January 1, 2018 Governor Ortom and the people of Benue learnt a bitter lesson, experienced everywhere the herdsmen have struck. The federal police will not stop the mayhem. They will not fight the herdsmen, and if you fight back killing herdsmen or their livestock, you fall into the dragnet of the police. Consider what is going on in Benue State today where Governor Ortom is being accused by the Nigerian Police of arming militia groups with AK-47.
A local law enforcement structure will bring sanity to the system. A state police officer on the payroll of the state is more likely to be committed to the state. He lives in the community, and is not a faceless individual like a federal policeman from Katsina or Enugu posted to Benue. He is known in the neighbourhood as people in the neighbourhood know him. Apart from this human perspective, there is the technical argument. When a state government enacts laws, it should have a state police force to enforce those laws.
Fundamentally, the herdsmen-farmers clash is an economic issue. Herdsmen wish to feed their cows, and farmers wish to grow their crops and animals. Some of the fiscal recommendations of the 2014 National Conference can help to alleviate the economic challenges faced by both parties. The Land Use Decree of 1978 which cedes ownership of land to government gives the federal government the impression that it can empower its allies with land. Devolution of power from the federal to the states will enable states to determine whether to sell, lease or co-own land with herdsmen. The federal government must not be allowed to continue to abuse its powers of Eminent Domain.
It is also not to be overlooked that herdsmen are operating under frustrating, even desperate circumstances. Global warming has reduced the availability of grazing land, and growing urbanization is making nomadic cattle rearing, a normally dangerous occupation, even more dangerous. Cows kept in controlled conditions of the ranch will produce better quality beef; more tender and more robust. Under the ranch condition, cattle owners will multiply their herd and develop the full potential of the cattle industry. The gun-totting Fulani herdsmen remind us of the gun-swinging cowboys of the notorious 19th century American Wild West. Both carry arms to fend off cattle rustlers, and by wandering around the land, both threaten farmlands and settled communities. The American cow herding activity transitioned into ranching and big business financed by banks. Modernization in Nigeria dictates that the Fulani herdsmen and their employers adopt a restructured business model which will promote peaceful co-existence and enhance productivity.

Dr. Pearse is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Lagos

Peter Obi

Our continent is rising despite its numerous challenges. Africa is home to many great and deeply admired people; I am an African and proudly so. This is not to say we in Africa are averse to public opinion or criticisms, or that Africa does not have serious issues – far from it.

We are open to constructive criticisms, constructive engagement and constructive suggestions. We cherish and uphold the values of democracy and free speech, but naturally, we shudder and push back on collective denigration or criminalization of Africa.
While President Trump’s recent expletive comments – referring to Africa as shithole countries – on supposedly world’s poorest countries which include most in Africa, is derogatory and worrisome, as a student of philosophy, I see his remarks as a clarion call for reflection and re-examination for African citizens, and their leaders, especially on how to build a better future for their people.
It is noteworthy that such negative comments are no longer being directed at Asian countries as they continue to improve. And to elucidate the situation further, it will be necessary at this stage to compare the situation in Africa to China. My reason for using China as a comparison, is that “much has been made of China’s influence in Africa”, but China-Africa relations present some instructive lessons for us to draw on.
Comparatively, the population in China was twice the population of Africa in 1980 and to date, remains about 200 million more populated than Africa (In 2015, China’s population was 1.371 billion while Africa’s population was 1.186 billion). In 1980, China, with a population of 981 million, recorded a GDP of USD341 billion, translating to a GDP per capita of USD347, while Africa, with a population of 478 million, recorded a GDP of USD556 billion, which translated to a GDP per capita of USD1,168.
Now, let me illustrate why Africa must see her negative situations or negative comments directed at her as a call to quick action. In the Year 2000, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which consist of eight benchmark goals with measurable targets and clear deadlines for improving the lives of the world’s poorest people, over fifteen years (2000-2015), was established. In partnership with the United Nations system office in China, China committed to integrating the MDGs goals fully into its national development strategies from the national to local government levels. The country ensured effective and coordinated planning and managing of its economic growth.
China’s successful integration of MDGs into its national development planning helped it achieve an unprecedented transformative result. Examples, using goals number 1 and 2, are mind boggling and are as follows a. China lifted 439 million people out of poverty. b. China achieved universal primary education ahead of schedule, achieving 9 year compulsory education and elimination of illiteracy among adolescence in local government units covering 100% of population. It achieved 98% enrolment rate among primary school age. C. China recorded tremendous improvement in healthcare of women and children, in control and prevention of diseases. You can go on and on.
Specifically, by lifting 439 million people out of poverty during the period of the MDGs, China’s achievement in MDG goal 1 singularly helped the UN to achieve its goal of halving the number of extremely poor population by 2015. Such success would have been impossible without China achieving its goals.
Within this period, what did Africa achieve? Evaluation reports show clearly that the African continent was off-track. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, became the only region in the world where poverty rose from 290 million in 1990 to 414 million in 2010; undernourished children rose from 27 million in 1990 to 32 million in 2012; and children affected by stunting rose from 44 million in 1990 to 58 million in 2012.
Africa’s greatest achievement during the MDG days, which was in the area of education where male enrolment increased from under 60% to about 70% still fell short of the over 90% achieved in China. Presently, over 60% of out-of-school children globally reside in Africa (with over 10 million living in Nigeria). The task before us now is to find ways of turning adversities and challenges confronting Africa into positive gains.
With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), its set of 17 Global Goals with 169 targets, we aim at transforming our world in 2030. SDG is a universal call to action that will end poverty, protect the planet and ensure peace and prosperity (2015-2030). It is a follow-up on the MDG – the only difference is that while the MDG is demand-driven, SDG is supply-driven. China has made great efforts in its implementation, linking the 2030 Agenda with its domestic mid-and-long term development strategies. The domestic coordination mechanism for the implementation, comprised of 43 government departments, has been established to guarantee the implementation.
Great efforts have been made to publicize the 2030 Agenda nationwide in order to mobilize domestic resources, raise public awareness and create favourable social environment for the implementation. China will also strengthen inter-sectoral policy coordination, review and revise relevant laws and regulations to provide policy and legislative guarantee for the implementation.
In the next five years, China is determined to lift all the 56 million rural residents living below the current poverty line out of poverty, and to double its GDP and people’s per capita income of 2010. Meanwhile, in Africa, the SDGs have not been mainstreamed into the development agenda of various countries or domesticated at regional and local government levels, as in China. Consequently, there are no set out goals that are measurable and achievable even in key areas like increase in education, lifting people out of poverty, growth in the economy.
Why this difference? The reasons are simple. In China, we witnessed visionary and committed leadership.Chinese Government integrated measurable and achievable goals into development planning from national to local government levels. Diversification of the Chinese economy towards export-driven agricultural and manufactured products added value.
On the contrary, in Africa, we observed lack of visionary and committed leadership across the continent. No African country has integrated the goals within development planning across Africa – in fact in most countries, SDG only exists in name. There is no coordinated planning from national to local government levels. Africans need to act in concert or toward a commonly defined objective, by ensuring the emergence of a focused and committed leadership that will be transformational rather than transactional.
Like China, African states can make tremendous progress if they can collectively focus on building viable and growth-oriented economies, managing their resources, investments and infrastructure more efficiently, while expanding their productive sectors and investing hugely in education. Greater introspection is called for.
Despite the much touted dividends of democracy and globalization, today, very few African countries meet the UN recommended budgetary threshold for funding education. Yet, we know that the more a country invests in education, the greater its developmental stride.
Excerpts from Remarks by former Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

Now that we in Africa are shifting away from baggage economy and embracing knowledge economy, investment in Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education has become critical and fundamental.

After all, this is a sector waiting to be explored as the world is going to have over a shortage of 25 million STEM workforces by the year 2020.
So, Africa has come of age, but despite vast global aid and contrived altruism, its sustenance and unfettered development must now be based on an introspective approach and an assessment of what is best for Africa. True enough, in this post- globalization era, Africa and its people must still contend and survive in an interdependent world. However, the freedom to choose must be theirs—so too what models of development to choose. And, if the Chinese people-oriented development model works best for Africa, so be it.
Excerpts from Remarks by Mr. Peter Obi at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, on January 24, 2018