Today marks the 59^thanniversary of Nigeria’s independence from British colonial rule. On Saturday, October 1, 1960, Nigerians gathered at the Race Course (now Tafawa Balewa Square) in Lagos as Princess Alexandra, the representative of Her Majesty the Queen of England handed over the instruments and symbols of independence to Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa. It was 12.01 am as the Nigerian flag of green white green was hoisted. It was a high moment for Nigeria. It was a major turning point since the amalgamation of 1914. It marked Nigeria’s exit from colonial, imperial rule. It was the birth of a new, independent nation. In his famed golden voice and clear, crisp diction, Balewa told the audience: 

“When this day in October 1960 was chosen for our Independence, it seemed that we were destined to move with quiet dignity to our place on the world stage. Recent events have changed the scene beyond recognition, so that we found ourselves today being tested to the utmost. We are called upon immediately to show that our claims to responsible government are well-founded, and having been accepted as an independent state, we must at once play an active part in maintaining the peace of the world and in preserving civilization. I promise you, we shall not fail for want of determination. And we come to this task better-equipped than many.” 

Hope, determination, readiness to partner with the rest of the world and confidence about the future were key elements in Balewa’s speech. The people were joyous, there was dancing in the streets. But 59 years later, do we still feel the same way? Would Nigerians dance on the streets on the occasion of the anniversary of their independence, one year to the diamond jubilee? Can any Nigerian leader today connect with the people as Balewa did on October 1, 1960? Nigerians had great expectations in 1960, and that was why three years later, when an attempt was made to sign an Anglo-Nigerian Defence Agreement, the people rebelled. They wanted Nigeria to be truly free, and not be tied in any way whatsoever to the apron-strings of the British Empire. That same year, Nigeria became a Republic.

It is often said that Nigeria got its independence on a platter of gold, a reference to the fact that we did not have to organize guerilla warfare against the British as was the case in East and Central Africa, or against apartheid as in South Africa but while that may be true, Nigerian history is full of reports of resistance to British colonial domination from the 19th century exploits of the likes of Ovonramwen Nogbaisi to King Jaja of Opobo, to King Kosoko of Lagos, all through the early 20th century with the protests over water tax in Lagos led by Oba Eshugbayi Eleko (1908), the nationalist press in Lagos, Aba women’s riots (1929), Abeokuta Women’s Revolt (1946), the Enugu coal miners’ strike (1949), the cultural protests by the likes of Hubert Ogunde, the nationalism of Herbert Macaulay and others including Labour Union leader Michael Imoudu, all leading to the various conferences, 1953 -1957. Independence in Nigeria was a product of struggle, no doubt. October 1, 1960 was therefore as much a tribute to the efforts of the then living contemporaries as it was to the valour of heroes past. 

When Tafawa Balewa said “we found ourselves today being tested to the utmost”, he probably was referring to the tensions that surfaced even as Nigerian political leaders negotiated the country’s independence. The British had amalgamated not just the Northern and Southern Protectorates and the Lagos colony to form a country called Nigeria, they had brought together more than 400 ethnic nationalities each with its own distinct culture and language or peculiarities or inter-ethnic affinities. And yet out of all these nations, three groups became dominant: the Hausa-Fulani (yet another curious amalgam of ethnicity and language) led by Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Yoruba led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and Igbos led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. In the negotiations, all the groups were united by the idea of independence, but they could not reach a consensus on when and how. By 1957, the minorities were beginning to feel left out. The effect of their protest was the setting up of the Willinks Commission (1957/1958) to address the minority question in Nigeria. Even as Nigeria celebrated independence on October 1, 1960, the foundation on which it sat already had so many cracks: religious, ethnic, geographical and ideological. The British have been accused of laying a weak foundation for the new Nigeria, with their divide and rule colonial administration policy, and the many booby traps they placed on the path of the newly independent nation, but let the point be made, the new leaders who inherited Nigeria from the British and on whose laps fell the mantle of leadership did not really see themselves as Nigerians. They were leaders of their own ethnic groups, doing business, on their people’s behalf, with an enterprise called Nigeria. 

I do not intend to write a short summary of Nigerian history. It is rather unfortunate that history was removed from the Nigerian school curriculum for many years only to be returned later as an optional subject. What kind of country plays with its own history, and deliberately grooms a generation of citizens without memory? 

Six years after independence, the tensions came to a head, and the country broke out into a civil war. It turned out that Balewa under-estimated the challenge of “being tested to the utmost” which he alluded to on October 1, 1960. Nigeria has not yet recovered from the blow-out that followed, from 1966 – 1970. There are persons who believe and we need not blame them that the Nigerian civil war has not yet ended, instead it has gotten worse over the years, and assumed new forms. But despite the war and the subsequent domination of Nigerian politics and space by the military, Nigeria once upon a time, looked different. The discovery of oil and the oil boom of the 70s turned Nigeria into a centre of growth and development. When the war ended, the Yakubu Gowon administration embarked on a programme of rehabilitation, reconciliation and reconstruction. The effect was far-reaching. Chinua Achebe has written that “There Was A Country.” Indeed, there was a country.

Nigeria was so prosperous at a time that the Naira was as strong if not stronger than the pounds sterling. Nigerians went to London as if they were going from Ikeja to Ibadan. Every weekend, they trooped to London to shop or have a party and returned to Lagos on Monday morning. They didn’t have to travel on any foreign airline. There was a national carrier known as Nigeria Airways. It had a big fleet and boasted of international standards and some of the best pilots and crew in the world. There was even a London office of the Nigeria Airways. Each time Nigerians showed up in London, the shops either shut down or the Nigerian got assigned a special attendant. We were the big spenders in every cosmopolitan centre of the world. Africans looked up to us. And we lived it up. In 1960, Nigeria’s population was about 35 million. Prosperity made Nigerians more fertile. Men acquired more wives and procreated recklessly. Our population figure shot up. Even if we could never conduct an accurate population census, it was obvious however that we were more populous than every other African country.

This wasn’t quite a problem because everything seemed to be going well. The military who had taken over from the civilians embarked on ambitious projects. There was construction everywhere. There was work to be done. I grew up to see a Nigeria that had a thriving manufacturing and construction sector. Every morning, staff buses ferried people to work in the Ikeja and Apapa industrial areas and to and fro the textile industries in Kaduna and other parts of the North. Nigeria moved from an agricultural phase to an industrial and manufacturing phase. There were car assembling plants in the country. Consumer goods flourished. There were super market stores all over the place: Leventis, Kingsway Stores, UAC.  Nigeria was a mini-London of sorts and even much better.

We built state of the art hospitals and universities. Ailing persons used to be sent on referral from other parts of the world to the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan because the teaching hospital had on its staff some of the best specialists in the world. The University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) had the most beautiful campus in Africa. It was a major tourist centre. The zoo at the University of Ibadan was one of the very best in the continent. There was a research laboratory in that same university that was regarded as a leading centre of knowledge. Scholars and students came to Nigeria to study, teach and learn. As an undergraduate, many of my teachers were expatriate scholars: from the United Kingdom, the United States and parts of Asia.  Secondary schools also recruited teachers from India, Pakistan and Ghana, who earned their living in Nigeria and enjoyed excellent working conditions. 

I saw a Nigeria that placed much premium on education. Secondary schools, even in the rural areas had libraries and good teachers. Education was practically free. The Naira had value then. You could get a university degree with less than N5, 000. I am not talking about Nigeria of the 60s. No, as recently as 1980, the standard of living in Nigeria was high and the cost was cheap. A flight ticket from Lagos to Calabar was as cheap as N50. Students were given rebates on flight tickets and so many other services. All you needed to show was your identity card. It was a great privilege to be a student in Nigeria. Things were so good, standards were so high, foreigners sent their children to school in Nigeria, in the same manner in which Nigerians now send their children to school abroad. University students were pampered. The Nigerian government gave us bursaries and scholarships. This country was so good teachers supported students with every talent and resource at their disposal. At a point, public hospitals dispensed prescription drugs free of charge. 

Unemployment was not Nigeria’s problem during the season that I describe. Talent hunters used to storm university campuses to look for bright students. The same with National Youth Service Camps. Many students got jobs even before they enrolled for NYSC. National service was something we all looked forward to. It was a place to get a wife or a job. Nigeria was generally a happy country. Suicide was very rare. Nobody wanted to die. Nigerians travelled abroad but there was no massive brain drain. Travelling abroad was a matter of choice not because Nigeria was hellish. National security was not a problem. People could move about at night, go to the cinema and have fun. There was armed robbery, yes, but kidnapping was uncommon and for a while before the civil war, and a short while after, Nigerians worked hard to live together as one nation. 

But everything has since changed. The current generation of Nigerians does not know the Nigeria that I have tried to describe. Nigeria used to be the Dubai of Africa. They don’t know that other Nigeria. In 1963, Nigerians rejected a defence agreement with Britain. In 2019, Nigeria is begging for defence agreements with any country that is willing to offer it. Nigeria once looked down on private schools, accusing owners of mission schools and private schools of compromising standards. Today, those who attended government schools at all levels will not send their own children to the same schools. All their children are either in private schools or somewhere overseas. We were proud of the Nigerian national anthem. Our own children can’t sing that anthem because they don’t know it. Our hospitals have collapsed. No serious member of the Nigerian middle class will patronize Nigerian hospitals except the ailment is mild, but there are many persons in that class who won’t even treat headache or malaria in a Nigerian hospital. 

Nigerians once looked up to their leaders, now they look down on them as thieves and opportunists. The discovery, exploration and exploitation of crude oil once brought us so much prosperity, today, the mismanagement of that resource places Nigeria on a road to Venezuela. In the Nigeria that I knew, every civil servant could afford to buy newspapers every morning. Nurses bought a Lada vehicle or a Volkswagen Jetta shortly after leaving Nursing school. Food was in excess supply in the country. Today, Nigeria is the poverty capital of the world. Our population is so large we don’t even know how many we are. I talked about a well-kept zoo at the University of Ibadan. All the animals in that zoo have either been stolen or turned into pepper soup or bush meat for sale. On October 1, 1960, Balewa boasted that “we are better equipped than many.” We certainly can’t say that today.  

We once blamed the military for Nigeria’s descent into the lower depths. We organized protests against the military and chased them out of power. But we have not fared better either after 20 years of civilian rule. Our civilian rulers have been very busy giving excuses. They blame others. Those who have tried to make a difference are demonized and blackmailed. My generation looked forward to Independence Day. We wore white and held the Nigerian flag and trooped to the stadium for a march past. Nigerians no longer celebrate Independence Day. In fact, they are afraid any form of celebration will only put more money in the pockets of corrupt state officials. They don’t think there is anything to celebrate. This is why every October 1 must be a day of sober reflection. What happened to us? When will Nigeria rise again and become a giant with the feet of steel?

President Muhammadu Buhari recently set up an Economic Advisory Council, to replace the country’s Economic Management Team. He also moved some departments and agencies of government to the new Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. I don’t see why this should become a source of agitation and frustration for some Nigerians. The Economic Advisory Council is chaired by Professor Doyin Salami, a seasoned intellectual.  The members are persons of great technocratic ability with a track record of achievement as economists and policy wonks. The Council will meet every month and meet with the President every quarter. The Nigerian economy can certainly benefit from new ideas and perspectives. It is also refreshing to see the President put together a team that is not made up of party members, dead woods, or sycophants. Each member of the Economic Advisory Council inspires confidence. There is a consensus that the President got it right with the list. What the Advisory Council needs is the President’s support and an enabling environment for it to be able to make a difference. How do we achieve double-digit economic growth? What are the fiscal and monetary policies that can position the Nigerian economy differently, for better performance? What do we need to do to reduce unemployment? What kind of injection does the real sector need? The Council can also help generate robust discussions within government on key issues that affect all of us. It is also a good development that the President is personally taking charge of the economy. The Council will report to him directly. I don’t have a problem with that. 

I also like the idea of a new Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. Such a sharply-focused Ministry should serve as a strategic hub for the management of the many disasters that keep occurring across the country. The missing link in existing efforts is the lack of co-ordination and synergy among various agencies and between the states and the Federal government. This ministry could help send a signal that the Nigerian government now intends to place a higher premium on human lives.  It is about time the country took disaster management and humanitarian care more seriously. 

I expected many Nigerians to focus on the value of these two initiatives. Instead, what I hear is a disturbing conversation about how both amount to an “enemy action” to whittle down the influence and authority of the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo. Previously, the Vice President was the chairman of the Economic Management Team and the National Economic Council. The first is an ad hoc administrative structure focusing on the economy; the latter is a statutory, constitutional body. I do not share most of the views that have been expressed, or the obvious attempt to politicize what in reality is within the authority of the President.  Afenifere says for example, that the “office of the Vice President has been rendered useless, impotent and irrelevant.” How? Just because the President sets up an Economic Advisory Council and created a new Ministry to ensure greater service delivery in a critical area of national concern? The Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) says Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is being “maltreated” and “that the unconstitutional stripping of Prof. Yemi Osinbajo’s official attributes amounts to …continuous humiliation of Christians in high positions of current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.” There you go. Nigerians are always quick to play the ethnic and religious card. Some other commentators claim that they see the hands of an anti-Osinbajo cabal in the matter. At least one Pastor has prophesied that the cabal will fail.  Others have argued that certain forces are determined to stop Vice President Osinbajo just in case he is nursing a 2023 Presidential ambition. Persons have been named who have been penciled down as the VP’s likely replacement. The various conspiracy theories seem suspicious.   

Of course, I know that there is never a shortage of mischief-makers in the corridors of power. The relationship between Presidents and Vice Presidents and between Governors and their Deputies has also always been quite tricky in Nigerian politics. Should the President become incapacitated or he is removed from office, the Vice President replaces him. He is thus just a step away from the office.  Deputy Governors stand in the same regard to the Governors in the states. With the kind of politics that we play, Governors and their supporters always keep an eye on the Deputy Governor. If he shows any sign of disloyalty or ambition, all the hawks within the system will go after him and ensure that he is removed, marginalised or humiliated. Presidential politics is worse. The Presidency is clearly the highest office in the land, it is the home of even more vicious intrigues. And indeed we have had cases in the past of conflicts within the Presidency, between the President and the Vice President. Many will recall how the relationship between President Olusegun Obasanjo and then Vice President Atiku Abubakar deteriorated rapidly after the 2003 Presidential election. The Presidential Villa practically became a war zone. All kinds of opportunists cashed in on this and there was never a shortage of salacious tales emanating from the Villa, from faceless persons casually referred to as “sources within the Presidency.” 

Those “sources” are at work again. But we all need to learn from the past. A divided Presidency short-changes the people. Many will also recall the travails of President Goodluck Jonathan as Vice President to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. There was a deliberate attempt to frustrate him by those who did not want him as a successor to the late President whose tenure was defined majorly by the politics of illness and death. When President Yar’Adua left the country for medical treatment, there were persons within and outside the Presidency who insisted that VP Jonathan would not be allowed to act as President.  It took the intervention of men and women of reason and the National Assembly for the letter and spirit of the Constitution to take effect. When VP Jonathan became President, he chose Arc. Namadi Sambo, then Governor of Kaduna State, as his Vice President.  Arc Sambo and President Jonathan had a good, rancor-free working relationship, but that does not rule out the fact that certain mischief-makers tried to come between them. 

My view is that Professor Yemi Osinbajo would rank as one of the most influential and visible Vice Presidents that Nigeria has had since the return to civilian rule in 1999. With the possible exception of Atiku Abubakar between 1999 and 2003, he has been able to engage the public and connect with the people in a manner no other Vice President before him, did. This probably explains why there has been so much concern about his place in the Presidency, and his relationship with his principal. It also explains why he may attract envy and criticism. I like the fact that he has been very calm and dignified in the face of it all.  He has refrained from making any statement that may convey the impression that he also believes the narrative that some persons, wielding long knives, are out for him. He has not shown any desperation in the face of speculations that he may be removed, nor has he responded to any suggestion that he is under pressure to resign. His media team has not over-reacted. I commend him for his tact, and for staying above the fray. 

However, one person who is convinced that the Vice President’s office is truly under siege told me the other day that Professor Osinbajo should go to court. Why would he allow the President to take away his powers over the management of the economy, including bodies of which he is statutorily the Chairman? I laughed. I told the person that the Vice President will do no such thing.  He has no special powers of his own except powers delegated to him by the President, and even that is entirely at the discretion of the President.  It is not impossible that many of the persons who are protesting that the Vice President is being marginalized are also under the illusion that there is a power sharing arrangement between the President and the Vice President of Nigeria. No. There is no such thing. Even the VP’s Chairmanship of the National Economic Council, under Section 18 of the Third Schedule is at the pleasure of the President; in any case, the Economic Council, like the Economic Advisory Council, and many such bodies is merely an advisory body. There is only one President of the Federation. He is granted so many powers under the 1999 Constitution, the Nigerian President is almost a constitutional monarch. He is the country’s chief economic manager.  He is the “head of State, the Chief Executive of the Federation and Commander-in-Chief of the Federation” (Section 130(2). Whereas in defining the powers of the Federal Government, the Constitution vests legislative (Section 4) and judicial powers (section 6) in institutions and not individuals, Executive Powers (section 5) are vested in the person of the President. It is as follows:     

“5(1): Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the executive powers of the Federation – 

(a)          shall be vested in the President and may, subject as aforesaid and to the provisions of any law made by the National Assembly, be exercised by him either directly or through the Vice-President and Ministers of the Government of the Federation or officers in the public service of the Federation” 

In other words, the Vice President exercises executive powers only as delegated by the President. The manner and extent to which he does so is at the entire discretion of the President as provided in Section 148 (1): “The President, may in his discretion, assign to the Vice President or any Minister of the Government of the Federation responsibility for any business of the Government of the Federation, including the administration of any department of government.” The operative phrase here is “may in his discretion”.  And for the benefit of those wondering whether the President acted rightly by setting up an Economic Advisory Council, Section 151 of the Constitution refers - to wit: “The President may appoint any person as a Special Adviser to assist him in the performance of his functions.”  

This, to the best of my knowledge, is the position of the Constitution on how the Vice President stands in relation to Presidential powers. In the eyes of the Constitution, the buck stops at the President’s desk. His government fails or succeeds strictly on the basis of the choices that he makes. He is not first among equals. He is the boss. The Vice President is at best his number one aide and adviser. The circumstances, however, under which the Vice President can replace him or act on his behalf are properly spelt out in the same Constitution. It is not for nothing that the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in a ruling on the 2019 Presidential election recently declared that the Vice President is an ‘appendage.”    

When I canvass this view, I am told that I don’t understand the politics that is currently going on in the Villa. My suspicion is that the people who are playing politics are the people latching on to the announcement of an Economic Advisory Council or the revelation that the Vice President must take directives from the President (which is not a problem by the way), to project their own fears onto the national screen- namely their ethnic interests, religious sentiments and personal interests. They do so in rather hyperbolic terms. Just as there are persons threatening to march on the Villa “to defend our VP”, there are those who are seizing the moment to launch personal attacks on the Vice President. 

Those who claim to be defending him may be expressing their admiration of him – it is clear he has a followership and a constituency behind him - but they should be careful not to damage his politics and his relationship with his principal. There is definitely also a lesson here for the President and the Presidency. Perception is everything. Given Nigeria’s politics of suspicion, even the most innocent of gestures could create wicked problems; hence, government must always think ahead and communicate with greater clarity. Flip side: it is definitely clear that Professor Yemi Osinbajo’s followers want him to be given more responsibilities, not a demotion. They don’t want him to be used and dumped, no matter what. Off the books, beyond legalese: address this perception problem. Above all, something must be done about those so-called “reliable sources” in the Presidency. I never liked them. They only make things difficult for everyone.  

We are told that South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa apologised on Saturday for the xenophobic attacks against foreigners living in South Africa, particularly persons involved in business who are seen by the ordinary South African as enemies. He reportedly did this in Harare, Zimbabwe, at the funeral ceremony of former President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Most appropriately, the South African President was booed. He was offering too little too late, and other Africans have every reason to think that South Africans having behaved badly deserve to be booed and even shut out of the African Union, or reported to the International Criminal Court (ICC), as has been recommended in certain quarters. More than a week after the attack on foreigners on the streets of Johannesburg and elsewhere, it has now occurred to the South African President to send envoys to Nigeria and six other African countries. Jeff Radebe, South Africa’s Minister of Energy has visited Abuja to apologise to the government and people of Nigeria. 

It may be in keeping with diplomatic traditions to do this, but Africans in unison must make it clear that the hate-driven attack on immigrants in South Africa is totally unacceptable. What we know is that there is a tacit acceptance and promotion of a culture of hate by the South African authorities. That is precisely why it took so long for the South African President to take the matter seriously. Before now, South African Minister of Foreign Affairs Grace Naledi Pandor told the world that Nigerians in South Africa are criminals, drug dealers and human traffickers. Deputy Police Minister Bongani Mkongi said no other country would tolerate 80% of its businesses being dominated by foreigners as is the case in South Africa. South African Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula boasted, irresponsibly, that there is nothing South Africa can do about the xenophobic attacks because South Africa is an angry nation. 

These were the disturbing messages that came out of South Africa as immigrants were attacked, their shops were pillaged and plundered and Africans from other parts of the continent fled in all directions. Rwanda, Nigeria, Zambia, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo – government and nationals - expressed their anger in various forms but South Africa was studiously in denial. The only voices of reason in the midst of that crisis, as far as I could see, were Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters who condemned the deplorable conduct of South Africans; Mangozuthu Buthelezi, the Zulu Chief who gave a useful speech in which he reminded his compatriots of the sacrifice made by other Africans to free the black South African from apartheid. Then, of course, there is the testimony by many South African women, on social media – bold women who rose in defence of Nigerian men, who have been accused in this xenophobic crisis that they are taking over South African businesses and also marrying South African women to the discomfiture of the average South African male.      

Xenophobic attacks in South Africa have been so regular and so persistent since 1994, after apartheid. Objection to white rule and domination has been replaced by resistance to the presence of immigrants on South African soil, and this has played out as black on black violence, the hegemony of hate and intolerance, a kind of reverse, umbilical apartheid with the immigrant as victim. The matter is serious. It is disturbing. It is unacceptable. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s apology does not solve the problem. His decision to send envoys across Africa is belated. Is he sincere? I don’t think so. Has he shown required leadership and sincerity of purpose. No.  The South African authorities have a responsibility to protect foreigners on their soil. They have failed woefully. Accusations of xenophobia may be difficult to accept, and indeed embarrassing, and hence all that talk about criminality coming from South African officials, but the truth is that South Africa must see this crisis as an opportunity for reflection, review and penitence, and to ensure that these xenophobic attacks do not happen again. 

President Ramaphosa’s apology can only make sense if he goes further to take concrete steps to put an end to the growing culture of hate in South Africa. He must match his apology with action. What programme(s) does he intend to put in place to heal a South African nation whose people appear so alienated, confused and disturbed? Are there any concrete ideas on the table to address an issue that goes straight to the heart of South Africa’s relevance, and may be Ramaphosa’s eventual legacy? I doubt if there are any. It seems to me that the big problem is not necessarily the outsider but the failure of the post-apartheid African National Congress (ANC) leadership in South Africa and the emergent black middle class. The apartheid regime was constructed to dehumanise, de-personalize, and violate the black South African.  The end of apartheid in 1994 has not made much difference. The emergence in power of a black-dominated African National Congress, the ruling party, after apartheid may have given the impression of a power shift, but in real terms, the black South African has not yet seen the dividends of a post-apartheid South Africa. In the last general elections, the African National Congress (ANC) recorded its worst performance since 1994. The party is divided. It is led by corrupt people who cannot agree on ethical standards either within the party or outside of it. Unemployment rate is over 28%. The people who have benefitted from the end of apartheid represent a very small percentage of the black population. Many black and colored South Africans live under conditions worse than what they faced under apartheid. Nelson Mandela, the first post-apartheid President of South Africa was a universal icon who gave everyone hope. He talked about a rainbow nation and preached unity and reconciliation. Years after Mandela’s death, the average South African can no longer see the rainbow clearly. Most of the young people wielding pangas and sticks and burning down shops belonging to foreigners do not have a sense of history. Many of them were born after the Mandela era. Their hate is borne out of sheer ignorance. Those who know the history have refused to teach them. They just do not know that once upon a time in that same South Africa, a black man was the equivalent of nothing.   

The first task before Cyril Ramaphosa is to build a truly rainbow nation on a foundation of unity, reason, justice and service delivery. He needs to do this because the inheritors of Mandela’s legacy are clearly running South Africa aground and giving a bad name to the black man in Africa. This is the original source of the bad conduct of those South Africans who are killing their fellow Africans. They are busy blaming outsiders for the problems that have been created by their own leaders who don’t even have the decency to say the right things and who utter nonsense habitually. They have more or less disappointed the Madiba, with perhaps the only exception of Thabo Mbeki, whose Pan-Africanism contrasts sharply with the insularity and clownishness that we have witnessed from Jacob Zuma to Ramaphosa. 

South African blacks are complaining that foreigners are taking their jobs and women because post-apartheid, no sustainable, productive effort has been made to enlarge the black middle class in South Africa. Social mobility remains a problem. Educational standards for blacks have not improved significantly. The few who have crossed the social mobility line are selfish. They have imposed on their own kinsmen such terror and wickedness worse than that of the white architects of apartheid.  Those young South Africans venting their anger on Africans and other immigrants in their country are nonethe4less picking on the wrong target. Their problem is not the man from Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, India, Italy, Rwanda, Nigeria, Uganda, Angola, or Democratic Republic of Congo, let them look for their enemies in the South African parliament, the Presidency and government departments across the country. Those are the real enemies of South Africa not the Mozambican who runs a corner shop in the suburb of Johannesburg; not the Nigerian who believes that a South African woman is the sweetest thing since the apple in the Garden of Eden.

Apologies alone will not be enough. The South African government must embark on a national healing process. The Black South African is not done yet with the anger or the pains of apartheid, and the slowness of post-apartheid recovery. When he finishes chasing the outsider away, he will turn his gaze and anger on his own compatriots, and the Mandela legacy would have been ruined. President Ramaphosa must take South Africa through a new process of healing and reconciliation, South Africa needs an anger-management programme for its citizens on a  very large scale. It is bad enough for an individual to slip into depression; it is worse for an entire country to be depressed. South Africa is in the grips of an obvious clinical depression. History may well help. The young South African who is attacking foreigners needs to be taught the history of his own country and present reality. South Africa is a free country today because liberals and progressives across the world stood up to condemn the evil of apartheid: a system that treated the black South African as a non-person on his own soil. The black man in South Africa today can go to a mall, sit in the same bus with a white person, inter-marry freely, in fact feel like a human being because other Africans supported the liberation heroes of South Africa. Here in Nigeria, civil servants had to surrender part of their salaries to support the anti-apartheid struggle. Many musicians: Fela, Bongos Ikwue, Sonny Okosun, Majek Fashek, Onyeka Onwenu, the Mandators, Ayinla Kollington, Sunny Ade waxed records to condemn the dehumanization of the black man in South Africa. Ghanaians, Zimbabweans, Ugandans decried the maltreatment of our brothers and sisters in South Africa. Today, the same South Africans whose parents and grandparents were saved from the clutches of white oppression are proving to be a generation of ingrates. History saves a nation. South Africa must teach its young population the history of their country. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa should not just send envoys to other African countries.  He should personally embark on a diplomatic shuttle across Africa.  He should also have a national address devoted to the challenge of xenophobia. He must resist the push by the hawks within his own administration who nurse xenophobic ideas and who in particular convert their sentiments to state policy. His Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Defence Minister, and Deputy Minister of Police should be fired. They may be good people ordinarily, but they have proven to be very bad diplomats and spokespersons. Ramaphosa must make it clear that these persons do not speak on this subject for either the government or the people of South On Monday, September 16, President Cyril Ramaphosa is said to have sent Jeff Radebe, Minister of Energy to apologise to his brother, President Muhammadu Buhari for the attack on Nigerians in South Africa. Radebe reportedly told President Buhari that 50 suspects have so far been apprehended and that the South African government will not tolerate xenophobia. Radebe is a very experienced politician. I have no doubts that he would manage to convince President Buhari.  But as he returns to South Africa, after what is clearly a reciprocal exchange of special envoys, President Buhari must tell him that the matter between Nigerians and South Africans is now beyond the Presidential Villas in Abuja and Pretoria. This is one mismanaged case in which international relations has gone from official corridors to the streets. Mr. Radebe should also tell President Ramaphosa not to listen to those advisers who believe that Nigeria is over-reacting.  The only solution is that no Nigerian or Nigerian business should ever be harassed or attacked again in South Africa. It is within South Africa’s rights to determine and enforce its immigration laws but if any foreigner manages to set up home or shop in South Africa, then the country itself has an international responsibility to protect all persons within its territory. President Ramaphosa and his team must take that duty seriously. 

I should end this commentary by commending the outflow, in fact the overflow, of patriotism by Nigerians over the attack on Nigerians in South Africa. This is not the first time the attacks would happen. There were cases of xenophobia in South Africa in 1994, 2008, 2015, and now 2019, but this time Nigerians have set aside political differences, and ethnic and class sentiments and insisted that an attack on one Nigerian is an attack on all Nigerians. If the Nigerian government had declared war and called out volunteers, there would have been a ready army of citizens ready to fight the South Africans. Nigerians don’t always praise their governments. But there seems to be a consensus of opinion that President Muhammadu, Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Nigeria’s Diaspora Commission got it right this time by making it clear that every Nigerian life matters, including the lives of those Naledi Pandor and her likes regard as criminals. The hero in all of this melodrama, however, is Allen Onyema, the CEO of Air Peace, a Nigerian airline, which provided aircraft to evacuate Nigerians, free of charge from South Africa. He deserves a Presidential handshake and a national honour. 

The Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Administration in Nigeria (2010 - 2015) has generated quite a number of post-tenure publications which significantly, in varying degrees of articulation, veracity and delivery shed light on key developments during that momentous phase in Nigerian politics. The books under reference offer accounts of  individual experiences or outsider perspectives, but altogether, they stand out as remarkable contributions to the growth of the bibliography on governance, politics, democracy and sociology in Nigeria. They include, in this particular regard, Reno Omokri, Facts vs. Fiction: The Story of the Jonathan Years, Chibok, 2015 and the Conspiracies (2017); Olusegun Adeniyi, Against the Run of Play: How an incumbent President was Defeated in Nigeria (2017); Bolaji Abdullahi, On A Platter of Gold (2017);Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Fighting Corruption is Dangerous: The Story behind the Headlines (2018)and Goodluck Jonathan, My Transition Hours (2018).

There is in addition a number of pamphlets, scores of hack writing (which I do not consider worthy of mention) and essays in academic journals around the world which subject the Jonathan Years to scrutiny. The review of a President’s tenure, or the telling of stories by both insiders and outsiders in a government ultimately provide hitherto unavailable information, beam a searchlight on history and provide a platform for engaging specific questions of governance and accountability. That this tradition, taken for granted in advanced democracies is beginning to gain ground in Nigeria, is a welcome development. The outpouring of books on the Jonathan administration in Nigeria from both participants and observers alike should be understandable given the historic and controversial circumstances of that administration and its exit.

The latest contribution in this regard is the publication of Mohammed Bello Adoke’sBurden of Service: Reminiscences of Nigeria’s former Attorney-General (London/New York: Clink Street, 2019), 270 pp.The book is due for official release on September 16/24, but copies are already in circulation through Amazon.com internationally and locally, through Roving Heights Books in Lagos. It is a semi-autobiographical book, a reflection by Adoke on his role as Attorney General and Minister of Justice (2010 – 2015) during the Jonathan administration, his take on his own legacies in that role and his ideas about the reform of the justice administration system as well as governance in Nigeria. In this book, Mohammed Adoke also practically writes back, and I use that term advisedly, in relation to the major issue that seems to have hovered around his service to Nigeria, namely his role in the controversial OPL 245 dealings, ordinarily known as the Malabu Scandal. In Burden of Service,Adoke tells his own side of the story in a far more comprehensive and detailed manner than he has done hitherto. He pleads his innocence, and accentuates his undiluted commitment to Nigeria’s national interest contrary to the yet unproven allegations against him. 

When the Buhari administration assumed office in 2015, it reminded Nigerians that the new government was determined to take measures to strengthen the Nigerian economy, fight corruption and address the menace of insecurity in the country. Exactly as promised, the government reinvigorated the war against corruption as it launched an onslaught on persons who had served in the Jonathan administration. It was in this context that Mohammed Adoke’s name was mentioned in connection with the probe into the management of the dispute over Oil Prospecting License 245 (OPL 245), one of Nigeria’s most fertile and enormously endowed oil fields, which had been in dispute from the Obasanjo administration to that of Jonathan. The state’s allegation was that national interest had been subverted on the altar of personal gains. Adoke went to court in Nigeria to argue against charges that he had betrayed his country and to insist that the state was out to witch-hunt him, whereas he had done no wrong. 

In 2018, the Federal High Court, Abuja presided over by Honourable Justice Binta Nyako ruled that insofar as Adoke was carrying out the lawful directives/approvals of the President acting in accordance with his executive powers under Section 5 of the Constitution, he could not be held personally liable for his role in the implementation of the OPL 245 Settlement Agreement of 2011 and therefore had no case to answer. Adoke kept explaining his own side of the story in newspaper interviews and comments. But he remains in exile ostensibly out of fear for his life. After he left office, he proceeded to the Netherlands to study for a degree leading to the award of an Advanced LLM in Public International Law at the prestigious University of Leiden. While he was on that programme, a group of international investigators, under a Mutual Legal Assistance framework, working with the Nigerian authorities kept him under watch as a result of all the allegations made against him by the authorities in Nigeria. He felt haunted.     

He tells us in the Introduction to this book that as Christmas 2016 approached, he thought of ending it all. “Being hunted for what I did not do felt like a death sentence on its own. It is time to force my exit from this world, I told myself, …Death, rather than life, seemed very attractive to me now…. (But) then I came to my senses” (p. 1). In other words, he eventually changed his mind and refused to commit suicide. He decided that rather than help his traducers to get away with negative stories about him, he would live to tell his own story by himself. This is the motivation for this book. Adoke submits that public service comes with a burden, a burden he understands and is willing to carry no matter the odds.  “I did my best for my country”, he declares. This book, Burden of Service is the product of that resolve, a kind of cathartic, ameliorative therapy; that is: his conviction that whereas public service may come as a burden, and there may be persecution designed by traducers, telling the truth heals all wounds and the truth invariably outdistances and exposes falsehood. 

For readers who may be in a hurry to read Adoke’s side of this story with regard to OPL 245, see Part II of the book, devoted fully to “The OPL 245 Conundrum” at Chapter Six, appropriately titled: “The Facts of the Matter” (pp. 53 – 67); Chapter Seven: “The Witch-Hunt” (pp .68-78); Chapter Eight: “The Witch-Hunters” (pp. 79-87), and Chapter Nine: “The Mischief” (pp. 88-102). In these chapters, Mohammed Adoke lays bare the manner and details of his travails.  He talks about his role in the OPL 245 Settlement Agreement, and the role played by a certain Mohammed Sani Abacha and his collaborators, or rather the Abacha family, the Obasanjo government, arbitral proceedings leading to a Settlement Agreement, the role of the Dutch and the Italians, his harassment by the Nigerian authorities – raids on his houses and the home of his brother, the destruction of his practice, and the hostility towards him by security operatives and others.  In Chapter Eight, he identifies those he calls the “witch-hunters”. This is a chapter that should be read by the EFCC as an organization, Senator Ali Ndume, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the Abachas and someone Adoke refers to as a “diminutive lawyer… who is a darling of the Nigerian media.” In Chapter Nine, Adoke says he seeks to “ask pertinent questions and set the records straight.”  This Chapter is essentially a response to all the charges levelled against him by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). In Chapter Ten, Adoke writes about “My Vindication”. He says: “I have won my case against the Federal Government in court…not a dime has been traced to me” (p.113).  Thus, Adoke’s book is in these parts, lawyerly; it reads in part like a summary of evidence and a brief of argument. 

But this is not a book entirely about self-advocacy, OPL 245 and allegations of fraud and bribery. Adoke uses the book to give an account of his stewardship as Nigeria’s Chief Law Officer - beyond the controversies. But before he does so, he takes us, very early in the book, on a journey to see how he emerged as Attorney General and Minister of Justice, through a call of destiny –what he calls “a missed opportunity” at first and then in Chapter Two, “The Appointment”.  And in Chapter Three, “The Baptism”.  In Chapters Four and Five, in a strictly autobiographical tone, he offers us a glimpse into the journey of his life, from humble beginnings to the ascending heights of senior advocate and public life. Adoke calls himself “The Boy From Nagazi (p. 39)”. Nagazi is an Okene village in Kogi State in Nigeria’s North Central region. Ethnically, the author is of the Ebirra ethnic stock, one of Nigeria’s many ethnic minorities. Adoke tells quite a bit of his personal and family story in a humble tone and with details that many young persons will find motivational. 

Students of recent Nigerian history would perhaps be more interested in Part III of the book which deals with major highlights of the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan administration, specifically the internal controversies within the government and the PDP, the politics of Jonathan’s interest in a second term in office, the 2015 Presidential election and Jonathan’s transition out of power. Chapter Twelve is titled “The Buhari Test”, dealing with the same familiar questions that are still in the public domain in Nigeria: “Did Gen. Buhari really obtain a secondary school certificate? Should he be disqualified from participating in the presidential race?” (p. 125). Adoke reports tellingly: “In the fullness of time, though, President Buhari would come to realise and accept the whole truth: that God used me, and two other high-profile Nigerians whom I will not name for confidential reasons, to make sure he was not disqualified by the courts from running in 2015. The two individuals have like me, also suffered indignity in the hands of Buhari and his men. It must be emphasised here, though that I did not oppose the disqualification because I wanted to help Buhari. Rather, I was being faithful to the Constitution”. (p. 126). Subsequently, hawks within the Jonathan Presidency insisted that Buhari should be given the “Pinochet treatment” and be put on trial for his past “misdeeds” in order to stop him from contesting the 2015 Presidential election. President Jonathan rejected that suggestion outright and opposed the idea of playing “bad politics”. 

In other post-Jonathan publications, many accounts have been given of how and why President Goodluck Jonathan conceded victory to President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. In Chapter Thirteen: “The Historic Concession”, Muhammad Adoke offers what I, as a participant in all of that drama myself, consider the most truthful and authoritative account that has yet been written so far on the matter. Part IV of the book: “The Challenges, The Controversies” is devoted mainly to Adoke’s interventions as Attorney General and Minister of Justice. The issues covered include- “The Impeachment Menace” (Chapter 15) dealing with whether or not the Federal Government should support the plan by the PDP-dominated House of Assembly in Nassarawa state to impeach Tanko Al-Makura (APC) as Governor of Nassarawa State; (2) whether or not the President after declaring a state of emergency in some local governments in the Northern Eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states in May 2013, should have gone ahead to remove the Local Government Chairmen and Governors in the affected States (Chapter 16); (3) the judgment debt scam that the author observed as an established tradition in the Ministry of Justice and how he addressed it (Chapter 17); (4) the Halliburton and Siemens bribery scandals (Chapter 18);  (5) the Bakassi Handover (Chapter 19) and a number of other controversies – “Pardon for Alamiyeseigha”;  “the Justice Salami Saga”;  “The Gulf War Windfall”; “the Azura Power Project”; and “The Oyinlola and Aregbesola Saga”. 

In Part V, titled “The Footprints”, Adoke embarks on a bit of “advertisements for myself” to borrow Norman Mailer’s phrase or as Africans would put it, “a lizard-like act of self-congratulation” – if nobody will praise me, I will praise myself! And so he outlines how as Attorney General and Minister of Justice, he functioned strictly as a constitutional purist and defended both the rule of law and the national interest.  The specific episodes on which he reflects include the recovery of the Abacha loot, the Ajaokuta Steel Settlement; reforming the justice system, the Evidence Act 2011, the Freedom of information Act 2011; The Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011; the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 and other reform laws (2011- 2015). Adoke brings this book to a close in the remaining two chapters by drawing attention, as he looks back and forward, to specific steps that may still need to be taken to strengthen the justice administration and delivery process, and the constitutional framework for Nigeria’s system of government. 

Were it possible to insist that every senior public officer must write a book after office, I would insist that this should be a compulsory pre-condition for appointment to office. Adoke remarkably is the first Attorney General and Minister of Justice in Nigeria to give this kind of account, to the best of my knowledge. And it is a refreshing contribution, an even-handed, authoritative, compelling, and well-written account of his stewardship and experience. The controversies and the responses in kind that this book may generate can only further enrich our understanding of what transpired in Nigeria’s recent politics. Burden of Service is packaged like a supermarket, with something in it for every reader. The compelling take-aways for me, are the issues of service, leadership, friendship and loyalty, governance, the rule of law and Nigeria’s peculiar politics, and I am reminded, reading it thematically, of James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership (2017). Whereas Comey, former US FBI Director, had difficulties working with President Donald Trump, Adoke as Nigeria’s Attorney General seems to have had an excellent working relationship with a President Goodluck Jonathan who believed in the rule of law.        

My favorite passage from the many essays by the 20th Century management theorist, prophet of customer-centricism, and dialectician, Peter F. Drucker, on the subject of change and innovation has to be his argument that we now live in a modern era where everything changes at the speed of light. To be able to cope in this season of creative destruction, and disruption, the manager of the future must constantly innovate and grow. Skills die faster in the age of constant change, hence, it is only the worker who is constantly developing himself and his or her skills-set that would in the long run survive. People are the biggest resource of any organization, but to remain relevant to the organization, the worker must develop the capacity to adapt to change almost at the same speed with which the changes occur. Peter Drucker was not right on everything he predicted, but his insistence on the nature and speed of change and innovation has proven to be a piece of compelling truth. Whereas his core competence was management theory and organizations, I find his ideas of change useful and applicable to everyday living, to changes we have seen in culture, human circumstances and psychology. Everything seems to have changed indeed at a dizzying pace. It was Peter Drucker that dominated my thoughts as I reflected the other day on this, and the cultural, individualistic, psychological, and nomenclatural dimensions of change with regard to Nigeria.  

I begin, cautiously, with the media industry. Growing up, we referred to journalists who worked in radio and broadcast stations as announcers or newscasters. The people who reported the news were called reporters. There were editors, producers, sub-editors, line editors. But all of a sudden, the game has since changed in the media industry. If you have not been following the trend, you can’t understand the new labels and the social and psychological transformation that goes with it. Today, announcers, newscasters in the broadcast industry now go by the label OAP. OAP simply means On-Air-Personality. The first time I heard that phrase, I started wondering whether some broadcast journalists, male and female have become flying objects, like drones, in the air. It is no longer fashionable to be called a TV host, no, no no, it has to be anchor or OAP. 

There is no broadcast journalist in Nigeria that would like to be addressed as a continuity announcer as was the case before now. Try that and you would get some strange glances. You are not allowed to call someone who is on air, most times of the day, an announcer. He or she is a personality, a celebrity!  The likes of Mike Enahoro, Fabio Olanipekun, John Momoh, Soni Irabor, Bisi Olatilo, Cyril Stober, Mani Onumonu and the older generation - Dr. Christopher Kolade, Kunle Olasope, Olu Falomo, late Segun Olusola, Kevin Ejiofor, down the line must be wondering why there is today, so much emphasis in Nigerian broadcasting on title and personality rather than diction, poise and professionalism. In those days, Nigerian broadcasters went through rigorous training. The FRCN Training School was as good as any Department of Mass Communication in the country. The products ruled the airwaves from a position of excellence and difference. They had bosses who monitored every minute of on-air appearance and wrote notes.  There were female broadcasters too, so many of them across Nigeria. They were not obsessed with being called OAP. They didn’t want to function as drones; they were willing to excel. From Anike Agbaje, the first woman to appear on Nigerian television, to Julie Coker, Bimbo Roberts-Oloyede, Ronke Ayuba, Sienne Allwell Brown, Ruth Benamaisia, Lola Ogunbambi, Kehinde Young-Harry, Eugenia Abu, Modele Sarafa-Yusuf, Abike Dabiri, Aisha Falode, Nigeria built a generation of TV girls who were distinguished by their knowledge of the job and professionalism. These days, female broadcasters are often recruited on the basis of hotness, sexiness and Western accents!    

Peter Drucker talked about innovation and changing with the times. The current social media revolution has changed the way of the world; it has shifted emphasis beyond Peter Drucker at least here in Nigeria. The age of voyeurism and click-baits has changed the way we think, behave and perceive. In the broadcast industry, and even print, the attitudinal change that I have seen is at the level of titles and self-description. Every tyro is now a media executive. Anybody with access to an Instagram account is either a media-preneur or a fashion/social media influencer. Professionalism has been replaced by glamour, perception management, impressions and the number of social followers. The words: circulation, rating, and impact have been replaced by “followership”. There are even some persons who call themselves content experts and providers. A reporter is no longer a reporter. He or she is a content provider! The problem is that many of these content providers have never heard of such traditional organizations as the Nigeria Union of Journalists or the Guild of Editors or the Broadcasting Organization of Nigeria. They are not bound by the traditional rules of engagement in the industry. Good education, skilful writing, integrity and professionalism used to be standard requirements in Nigerian journalism, today, all you need to be an OAP is a beautiful face, a foreign accent, real, acquired or affected, even if your pronunciation will annoy Daniel Jones and the Queen. The OAP girls of Nigerian journalism routinely jazz it up: make up that transforms them, body works that turn around body shapes from the anterior to the posterior. The men are no less guilty. Fakery is the new way of the game. Too many hacks exploiting the social media to promote fraud and narcissism.

It is better to begin at home and I have tried that. But it is not only in the media that we have seen a downward inversion of the curve. Growing up, we heard of tailors, sew mistresses, London tailor and “ejika ni shop.” Today, there has been much talk about being a fashion designer. Tailor and sewing mistress are titles that have been thrown out of the window. We are in the age of fashion designers, or stylists or even fashion entrepreneurs.  Nigerian tailors cut and sew. But nobody wants to be called a tailor anymore. Tailor ke. They are now stylists and fashion designers. They all have Instagram accounts. One of them is so popular she even sells herbal drinks that gives men more energy in the bedroom. She doesn’t only style clothes, she also encourages style in the bedroom. The excuse for this conflation of professional identity is explained, in Yoruba parlance as “ona kan o wo oja”: multiple roads lead to the market or in Western parlance, what is best is the search for a “multiple income stream”.  I guess that is not exactly what Peter Drucker was talking about when he spoke about creativity and innovation. But Nigerians have become so innovative they add everything to it. A man who sells stolen vehicles by the road side, hoping that he would never get caught is actually a front for government officials looting the treasury.  The car mart, with a fashion boutique by the side, run by Madam, is actually a money laundering unit. And if there isn’t enough coming from the looters in official corridors, the man and the Madam work on their computers and engage in “Yahoo, Yahooo” and do “wire, wire”.  These are euphemisms for internet fraud, the new scourge of the age. Whichever road leads to the market, as long as it brings wealth, is interpreted as being in accord with the spirit of the times. Nigerians refer to it as the re-distribution of wealth. Every small-time hustler is an entrepreneur. Every bricklayer is an engineer.    

Growing up in this same country, families looked down upon anyone whose source of wealth could not be explained. Parents told their children that a good name was better than silver and gold. Any trace of strange wealth, of prosperity without work, was frowned upon. Families gave their daughters to men with known means of livelihood. Teachers and priests took pride in grooming men and women who would inherit the kingdom of Heaven, and serve God on earth. In this new age of change and innovation, all that has changed. There is a whole population out there, of girls, men and women who have taken the philosophy of innovation far too literally. They will do anything for money and attention, and that includes the spiritual guardians of the realm, pastors, imams and herbalists. We also now have in Nigeria, men who claim that they have become women, and who are openly promoted by the media. They have no biological explanation for their conduct other than that their innovation is a very lucrative business. They represent some zoo-like curiousity; and they get paid to be advertised as some circus-like monstrosity. Age of innovation! 

Growing up, when you met a woman, you knew it was a woman you were talking to. Today, here in Nigeria, a very conservative society, you cannot be too sure anymore. Even when you are most certain you have met a woman, you still cannot be sure that particular woman has not undergone some transformation. In the name of looking good and “being myself,” Nigerian women of today now do what they call butt job, they enhance every item of their body, including eye lashes, stomach, waist, lips and skin colour. They wear artificial wigs. You can see a woman totally dark-skinned in January, by December, she would be Cuacasian-white. The same woman used to speak, rustic Ijesa dialect in January; by December she would sound like a mis-mash of Welsh and Cockney plus something from the American mid-West. How they do it baffles me. The only problem is that some of these persons may never have been to any International Airport. They sound like they learnt the mongrel accents from television and the social media. There are men like that too. They not only speak strange. They dress strange, even if their fashion style is an imitation of the fashion of American correctional facilities.  

Growing up, our parents did not tolerate nonsense. They queried any child who showed traces of unusualness. Outsiders called it madness. They tried to beat every child into the path of commonsense and communal adjustment. Fathers threatened to disown any problematic child, and shamed any mother who could not raise a disciplined child. These days, parents look the other way. They may not know what their son or daughter does for a living, but as long as he or she is rich by whatever unknown means, the parents are pleased. Young girls below the age of consent suddenly become the bread winners of their families. The parents are too glad to have access to money. Their daughter may be a part-time prostitute, they don’t care. It is their daughter and she is creative and managing change and innovation very well. Their son may have dropped out of school. They only see him around with a laptop and an expensive phone which they did not buy for him but as long as he brings money home, they will not ask questions. The father will boast that his son has taken after him: “Who born stupid pickin?” 

Once upon a time, that same son would have been banished from the family home, but not any more. Years of bad governance in Nigeria and rising displacement of order in households have resulted in destruction of values in homes and communities. Parents no longer care if their daughter is a professional prostitute on the streets of the High Mountains in Italy or the dark corners of Spain. The son that is an online fraudster is a breadwinner. When the bubble bursts and the child is arrested abroad and punished, there is no sense of shame.  We have had cases of young Nigerians who were executed for drug or online scam in Asia, their corpses were brought back home and they got lavish burials. Once upon a time, their families would have been so ashamed, they would not dare invite anyone to such embarrassing burials. 

And yes: In those days, offices used to have messengers, and the persons so called, were proud to do their job. You sent them to buy things, to run odd errands, to assist the office. In Nigeria’s new-found age of expression, there are no messengers anymore. They have become Personal Assistants or Executive Assistants. We used to have persons called house girls and house boys. In the new age that Peter Drucker predicted, these ones have graduated to the grade of Special Assistant (Domestic).  I also can’t remember when last I met anyone who introduced himself or herself in a Nigerian office as a Secretary. The Secretary of old is now a Business Development Officer (BDO) or Executive Office Manager. Being a Single Mother in Nigeria also used to be a stigma, now they have put a fine label on it too: a Single Mother is now known as a Baby Mama, an increasingly prestigious title, especially if the woman is a serial romance scammer with children from about five men. 

Peter Drucker meant well when he preached innovation and creativity in the face of change. The predicted future is here, but does it look good? It is sad that in Nigeria, that principle seems to have worked out negatively. We are saddled with Governors and leaders who think creativity means better skills at looting, a growing youth population that finds crime attractive, an education system that produces intellectual wimps and a social community that valorizes unexplainable wealth. In Nigeria, we don’t get things right. Our leaders don’t do the right things. They even use state resources to defend personal interests. Peter Drucker obviously wasn’t thinking of the Third World when he came up with his theory of management and innovation. He wasn’t thinking of a community where innovation will be interpreted negatively to promote adverse values and reverse the advancement of public good. 

On August 27, 2015, that is four years ago, Nigeria lost Professor Adebowale Adefuye, one of our most dedicated public servants, a fiercely patriotic, loyal and hardworking diplomat and an accomplished academic who brought to every assignment such level of energy and panache that won him the admiration of all and sundry including his critics. At the time of his death, he had just completed his tour of duty to the United States as Nigeria’s Ambassador, having been recalled along with other ambassadors, by President Muhammadu Buhari. The general belief was that President Buhari was going to give him another assignment. Before he was asked to step down Adefuye had organized President Buhari’s first official visit to the United States as Nigerian President to much acclaim.  For him, that was characteristic. He was a result-oriented diplomat who knew how to surpass the expectations of his bosses with nothing but sterling performance. He could talk. He wrote well. He worked hard. He was media-savvy. And he understood global politics in an educated and intuitive manner. He was well-prepared for the high office that he occupied by his scholastic background (Ph.D in History, Professor of History) and his rich exposure and experience spanning over 40 years. 

Adefuye was appointed Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States in 2010 by President Umaru Yar’Adua, following the recall of General Oluwole Rotimi over differences with Ojo Maduekwe as Minister of Foreign Affairs and the very controversial rejection of Professor Tunde Adeniran as ambassador-designate to the United States. Before then, Adefuye was Nigeria’s High Commissioner to Jamaica, with concurrent accreditation to Belize and Haiti (1987 – 1991), Deputy High Commissioner at the Nigerian High Commission in London (1991 – 1994), Deputy Director of Strategic Planning at the Commonwealth Office, UK (1994 -2008) and Special Advisor with the Economic Community of West African States – (ECOWAS), (2008-2010). Adefuye’s exceptional skills and previous accomplishments stood him in good stead in his role as Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United States. He was Ambassador to the US at a period of testy, often frosty and contradictory relationship between Nigeria and the United States. It was his job to promote better relations between Nigeria and the United States, to look after the interests of Nigerians in the United States and to defend Nigeria. When Barack Obama emerged as the 44^thPresident of the United States in 2009, many African diplomats had imagined that his tenure would mark a new era of golden relationship between Africa and the United States. This was understandable given President Obama’s African roots. But this did not quite work out for Nigeria’s benefit as expected. Nigeria’s relationship with the United States under President Obama was quite uneasy and tepid for all kinds of reasons. 

In 2009, a year before Adefuye was posted to the United States, the underwear bomber incident had occurred involving a 23-year old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, now in jail in the US. Abdumutallab confessed to working with the Al-Qaeda to detonate plastic explosives hidden in his underwear while on a Northwest Airlines flight to the United States on Christmas Day, 2009.  That wasn’t a very good moment for Nigeria and Nigerians. Nigerians were looked upon in the United States as potential terrorists, and Nigeria as a watering hole for terrorists. Nigeria was placed on the US terrorism watch list.  By the time Adefuye arrived as Ambassador to the United States, the situation had even become worse with the escalation of Boko Haram insurgency, back home in Nigeria. In August 2011, there was a tragic bomb attack on the United Nations building in Abuja resulting in the death of 21 persons. The international community was outraged. In November 2013, the United States designated Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Adefuye in the face of all this, spoke up for Nigeria. He understood the implications of Nigeria being branded an outpost of ISIS or Al-Qaeda: implications for investments in Nigeria, and the national brand and identity. He would soon become very well known in the US State Department and across policy and diplomatic circles in Washington DC. He arranged President Goodluck Jonathan’s first and subsequent meetings with President Obama. He was instrumental to the re-energization of the US-Nigeria Bilateral Commission. 

It would be correct to say that Adefuye threw his entire weight, energy and intellect into the work. He wrote newspaper articles to defend Nigeria and even published a newsletter. It was a tough time to be Nigerian Ambassador to the United States. But Adefuye would not give up. He was constantly in touch with his home base, sometimes I used to wonder if he was in possession of a transponder that brought him back and forth. He was in every sense a diplomat. He always had something nice to say. Nigeria was also his passion. But the more he tried, the more Nigeria had issues with the Obama administration. In 2014, the Chibok girls were abducted – 276 of them. This further affected the relationship between the US and Nigeria. The US accused Nigeria of negligence in prosecuting the war against the Boko Haram. Nigeria was also accused of human rights abuses in Baga, and for that reason the United States refused to support Nigeria as much as it should in fighting the terrorists. There was a lot of blame game between Nigeria and the United States. Adefuye defended his country. He accused the United States of not doing enough to support Nigeria’s war against terror. He would soon be labelled by the Americans as an aggressive, talkative and argumentative Nigerian diplomat, but that did not deter him from speaking his mind.  In the event of the Chibok girls’ crisis in 2014, for example, then US Republican Senator John McCain had publicly advised that the US military should invade Nigeria and free the girls without reference to “some guy named Goodluck Jonathan.” Adefuye went after McCain. He told him off and accused him of ignorance. This was not the first time he would take such a stance. In 2011, Ambassador John Campbell, now of the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a prolific commentator on Nigerian Affairs, published a book titled Nigeria: Dancing On the Brink. Campbell was US Ambassador to Nigeria between 2004 and 2007. In his book, Campbell made some apocalyptic predictions about Nigeria including the claim that if President Jonathan became Nigeria’s President in 2011, this could pose a threat to Nigeria’s stability and even result in a military intervention. Adefuye dismissed Campbell as a prophet of doom.  He accused him of “seeking attention” “bias”, “mischief” and “pessimism”. When later, John Campbell was to give a lecture at the Atlantic Council on the invitation of J. Peter Pham, Adefuye protested vehemently that Campbell was a bad choice. Following Adefuye’s death in 2015, Campbell refused to make a comment. Adefuye would have insisted that he did not need Ambassador Campbell’s opinion about him.   

Which takes me to the next point about Adefuye. He was a very loyal man, and he was especially loyal to both Nigeria and President Jonathan. I have been told by those who know that in the midst of Nigeria’s turbulence in 2010, over whether or not President Jonathan should be sworn in as acting President, or run for election in his own right in 2011, Ambassador Adefuye was one of those loyal persons in the background who insisted on the supremacy of the Nigerian Constitution and the idiocy of the cabal that was seeking to violate the Nigerian Constitution. As Ambassador to the United States, Adefuye was always happy to welcome President Jonathan and his team. Every September, we attended the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. Every ambassador considers a visit by the President a special moment. The Ambassador is the President’s representative in the place of posting. The President is the country’s chief diplomat. Adefuye understood these underpinnings. We were always well-received. In the United States, we have a peculiar situation that does not obtain in other countries. In Washington DC, there is the Ambassador of Nigeria to the United States. In New York, there is the office of Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Ambassador Adefuye and Professor Joy Ogwu worked together so well; even if there was any friction between Washington and New York, nobody noticed. Both Professor Ogwu and Professor Adefuye always displayed much tact and maturity, working together in Nigeria’s interest, which made the United States one of our favorite destinations during the Jonathan administration. In some other countries, the relationship among staff in Nigeria’s missions is so toxic and poisonous. 

I was privileged to have worked with Ambassador Adefuye. His posting belongs to the class of Grade A postings. The United States is also one of Nigeria’s most strategic partners. This meant that the perception of Nigeria among the political and business elite in the United States could have serious consequences for Nigeria’s place in the world as well as its influence in continental politics. Adefuye took that very seriously. He did everything to cultivate not just the policy establishment in the US State Department and Capitol Hill, he also cultivated the American media and the business establishment. He was fearless. He wrote rejoinders to unfriendly articles which he often shared with me before publication, and often shared his knowledge of the American media. I was President Jonathan’s Media and Publicity Adviser. Whenever the need arose to send a team to the United States to put out fires, and manage perception, Ambassador Adefuye would have done all the ground work, and he would be on the ground to assist. He understood media politics and perception management. 

I recall President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to Jamaica. Adefuye was often drafted to join us on some of those important trips because of his vast experience. He had been High Commissioner to Jamaica, so he joined us on that trip to Jamaica. President Jonathan habitually held meetings on his arrival in any country: to review his speeches, the programme schedule and Nigeria’s priority interests. One look at the speech that we had prepared from Abuja to be presented before the Parliament of Jamaica, Ambassador Adefuye told the President that there were some omissions in the speech that should be corrected. He argued that the speech did not reflect the history of Jamaica and the cultural and historical affinities with Nigeria. He insisted that a reflection of this would connect  with not just the leaders of Jamaica but the entire country. He added that it is not every President that is granted the honour of addressing a country’s Parliament. No one could argue with him. He had served in Jamaica. He knew the country very well. It was my call to rework the keynote address. Professor Adefuye worked with me. He practically dictated Jamaica’s historical background and its cultural affinities with Nigeria as I hit my laptop’s keyboards. I was impressed. The final script was an improvement on our earlier script. He was indeed a very resourceful man. Apart from being an Ambassador, he also frequently offered advice to the President and the Villa. In retrospect, I would think he enjoyed unusual access to the Presidency because of his humility, loyalty, exceptional brilliance and aggressiveness. 

When it was obvious that the United States was not too forthcoming in supporting Nigeria with necessary hardware to engage the Boko Haram, Nigeria turned to Israel. There was no way this could have been done without Adefuye’s input. I recall the meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his office, with his National Security team and Nigeria’s top security team. PM Netanyahu was very friendly and enthusiastic about Nigeria. He wanted to help and he promised to support President Jonathan. We even got a chance to sit in his personal office, very small space, a cubicle by Nigerian standards, but PM Netanyahu had small bits of interesting history around his office. In the end, Israel could not help us with the Boko Haram war. The US under President Obama blocked Nigeria. We turned to Russia. But I would rather not say more on this, only to report that despite the issues with the Obama administration, Ambassador Adefuye managed to convert Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as she then was, into a very good friend of Nigeria. He also encouraged many American investors to sustain their interest in the Nigerian market.        

Adefuye was not originally a diplomat. He was an academic. Nigerian professional diplomats are fond of territoriality. They resent the incursion of non-professional diplomats into their trade. Adefuye was obviously an exception to the rule. He distinguished himself and made a difference, performing far better than those who started out originally in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Adefuye obtained a Ph.D from the University of Ibadan in 1973, and was later a Fulbright scholar in the United States at Columbia University, the University of North Florida, and the University of Florida. He later taught history at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, eventually becoming a Professor of History and Head of Department of History (1985 -1987). He made his mark as a scholar as well. 

Perhaps his most seminal contribution to scholarship and knowledge may not be the many students that he taught and supervised, (that can be taken for granted) but his seminal contributions to research and intellection, notably for me, his main works: Culture and Foreign Policy: The Nigerian Example (1992), and History of the Peoples of Lagos (1987).  Cultural diplomacy is an often ignored and underplayed area of emphasis in Nigeria but through research and praxis, Adefuye was a leading exponent of the nexus between diplomacy and culture as a vehicle of international relations and soft power politics. Adefuye’s compelling hypothesis has since been affirmed by the rising acknowledgement of the diplomatic value of such cultural events as Nollywood, the Osun Osogbo Festival, the Calabar Carnival, the Eyo Festival and the global mainstreaming of Nigerian sports, cuisine, fashion, music and artistes. His writings on the city of Lagos represent an important contribution to the scholastic study of cities as diverse spaces, infrastructure units and the physicality and semiotics of cities. Adefuye was in addition a prolific researcher and it is not for nothing that a befitting tribute was paid to him, before his death, in a book titled History and Diplomacy: Essays in Honour of Ade Adefuye, edited by R.T. Akinyele (2018).                     

Professor Adefuye died suddenly, with cause of death identified as “cardiac arrest.” He died too soon. He was just 68. Death, the grim reaper, is treacherous. It often takes the good and leaves the bad and the ugly, and it has been consistently unfair in its Nigerian operations. We take solace in the kind testimonies and tributes that have attended Professor Ade Adefuye’s death. In 2015,   John Peter Pham, director of the Africa Centre at the Atlantic Council, who worked closely with Adefuye praised him for the “establishment of strategic dialogue between the US and Nigeria.” He added that “there are ambassadors who are here for years and pass on and no one notices that they were ever here.” That certainly wasn’t the case with Ambassador Adefuye. Wherever he served, Adefuye made his mark.  He left significant footprints. He is unforgettable. May the Lord strengthen and protect Professor Adebowale Adefuye’s family.  

This is not the best of times to be identified as a Nigerian, especially if you are a Nigerian in diaspora. It is indeed the worst of times to be Nigerian because of the kind of daredevilry that our compatriots have demonstrated in recent times, in criminal pursuits of such scale, texture, volume, and depth, not at intervals but at an alarming pace and regularity, not just in one country or continent, but from continent to continent, country to country, giving such impression that perhaps apart from the traditional Cosa Nostra, the Italian Mafia, or the Russian Mafia, or the Colombian Mafia, Nigerians probably run some of the most notorious underground crime networks in the world today. In the last few weeks alone, there have been so many reports of Nigerians being involved in one crime or the other, and apprehended for the same reason, and these are reported cases from Singapore, Malaysia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and the United States. There may well be many other cases that are yet unreported or that may never be reported. Nigeria is thoroughly embarrassed. The Nigerian brand is damaged. Our national identity takes a bashing, even if the crimes are committed by a minority. “What a country?”, you may ask? The sharp increase in the frequency and scale of these international crimes involving Nigerians is something worthy of closer interrogation. What is wrong with our people?

The Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) reports that in 2018, 73 Nigerians were sentenced to death in Malaysia for drug-related offences. When the figures for 2019 are collated, that number is likely to be higher. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, there are 144 Nigerians serving various jail terms for drug crimes; and according to the NDLEA, all 144 convicts are from one Nigerian village – “Nnewi in Anambra State”. In Thailand, 650 Nigerians (650!) are in prison for drug trafficking. In Saudi Arabia, there are, according to reports, 23 Nigerians currently on the death row, again for drug-related offences. Saudi Arabia is a religious and spiritual destination for many Nigerians. It is shocking that some of those Nigerians who go to that country for pilgrimage also carry on them narcotic and psychotropic substances. Saudi Arabia has a very strict death penalty law. Not a few Nigerians have been executed in the Kingdom for drug-related offences. 

Many Nigerians live and work in the United Kingdom. Perhaps for reasons of historical affinity, Nigerians troop to the United Kingdom in search of a home away from home. But our compatriots are also gradually becoming far too notorious in that country. In March 2019, six Nigerians were members of a 10-man gang of fraudsters who were found guilty of online fraud, hacking software, in a total of 228 diversion frauds over a period of four years. They were convicted and sentenced. The gang was led by one Bonaventure Chukwuka. They robbed their 69 victims of a total of 10.1 million pounds. In May, a 28-year old Nigerian, Gloria Makanjuola, described in the UK media as a “Nigerian serial robber” was also convicted. Her specialization: theft of bank cards which she used to make contactless payments. There is also the report on three siblings (the Nakpodias) who in August 2019, were jailed in the UK for a total of 16 years for helping “the Black Axe syndicate” to launder about one million pounds through the UK banking system. The trio and their patron also face criminal charges in Greece for advance fee fraud.    

In the last decade alone, more than 10 Nigerians have been executed in Indonesia for drug-related crimes, four of them by firing squad in 2015, despite pleas for leniency by Nigeria, the United Nations and Amnesty International. About 153 others are still on the death row in Indonesia. Across Asia, it is reported that about 16, 500 Nigerians are in prison, and in South East Asia alone, up to 600 Nigerians are on the death row. 

But perhaps the most shocking report of criminal conduct by Nigerians would be two major cases reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States. The first case involves Obinwanne Okeke, 31, also known as “Invictus Obi” who has been arrested by the FBI over an alleged $12 million fraud. Okeke’s case is interesting in that he seems to fit perfectly into the typical profile of those Nigerians refer to as “Yahoo Boys”. These are young men who live large, and conspicuously, and who may on the surface run what looks like legitimate businesses as cover for the wire and internet fraud that is their main occupation.  Obiwanne Okeke, especially, just 28, when he launched out, cultivated the image of a role model for young persons in Africa. In 2016, in recognition of his investments in real estate, oil and gas and the construction industry in Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia, he was listed by Forbes Magazine among Forbes 100 Most Influential Young Africans. He was also nominated for the All African Business Leaders Award. In 2017, Okeke was recognized as a panelist at the Wharton Africa Business Forum. In 2018, he gave a TEDx talk in Lagos. Okeke was also later featured on BBC’s “Focus on Africa”. The BBC described him as “an inspiring entrepreneur”. Forbes must be ruing its error of judgment. The BBC must be wondering what is still inspiring about the guy. It is up to Obiwanne Okeke to defend himself.  

The second topical case is the indictment again by a US Federal Grand Jury of 77 Nigerians on August 22, 2019, for their involvement in massive conspiracy to steal millions of dollars through Business E-mail Compromise (BEC) scams, romance scams and other fraudulent schemes. The FBI has already arrested many of these persons while the remaining suspects are believed to be at large, in Nigeria and elsewhere. This is said to be one of the largest scam busts in the history of the United States, involving victims from about 11 countries. In the past, Nigerians talked about 419 (Section 419 of the Nigerian criminal code dealing with fraudulent advance payments and obtaining by pretense), but the scammers soon raised their game and began to engage in online scams, (the yahoo boys as Nigerians call them), then of course, there was the growth of romance scams, and now, the proliferation of of hackers and business account compromise scammers. Nigerians scammers are determined; some of their antics are unbelievable. One Amos Paul Gabriel, a 48-year old Nigerian was jailed for money laundering in Singapore. He went to jail but he remained a criminal even in prison. He has now been convicted and jailed again for defrauding a fellow inmate of $37, 800. He remained active even in prison! Obviously, imprisonment was not enough deterrence for him. 

In all of these cases, Nigeria’s name gets dragged in the mud. The collateral damage is collosal. It explains why for example, in South Africa, Nigerians are looked down upon and treated with utter contempt by persons who were beneficiaries of Nigeria’s generosity and solidarity during the fight against apartheid. South Africans accuse Nigerians and other Africans of coming to spoil their country and steal their women and businesses. In Ghana, next door, Nigerians are not popular either. When stories are told of how a group of Nigerians once robbed a bank in Dubai, and all these other stories of internet scam come up, security agencies, diplomatic missions around the world and other persons are likely to latch on to a stereotype about the Nigerian brand and identity, even if unfairly. Days after the arrests by the FBI hit the airwaves, the US Embassy in Nigeria cancelled all appointments for visa by Nigerians and by that effect also abolished its “Drop Box” policy for visa applications. There has been no public uproar among Nigerians. What can we say?

The Nigerian Government through its agencies has made it clear that it frowns upon any form of misdemeanor or criminal conduct by Nigerians either at home or in diaspora. It affirms its readiness to co-operate with international security agencies to track down any Nigerian, complicit in international criminal allegations. The Nigerian President, we are told, may also sign an Executive Order to address the issue of online fraud. But while government may have been hitting the right notes on this matter, the emergent public conversation has been dominated by ethnic and religious name-calling, further reflecting Nigeria’s fault lines and moral turpitude. 

The arguments that have been put forward in this heavily conflicted public conversation are as follows: (i) that it is not fair to tar all Nigerians with the same brush because the Nigerians indicted, convicted and punished abroad represent only a very small fraction of Nigeria’s 200 million plus population; (ii) some other Nigerians insist that it is mostly Igbos, that is Nigerians of South Eastern extraction, that are usually guilty of international crimes. They insist that all the 77 Nigerians indicted in the recent FBI case in the US are Igbos, and most of the drug cartels are led by Igbos; (iii) Igbos retort that crime has no religious or ethnic face. There are criminals in every community, and in every religion and so it would be unfair to put the blame on Igbos, and that in any case, the FBI failed to observe Federal Character which is a constitutional requirement for everything Nigerian! (iv) Nigerian Muslims have pointed out that most of the arrested and/or identified suspects in the US are Christians and Southerners, but they are also immediately told that Nigerians on death row in Saudi Arabia are basically Muslims and they are not Igbos, but Northerners, Yoruba and other ethnic groups; (v) some other commentators argue that Nigerian drug dealers and internet fraudsters get caught because they are petty fraudsters who can be easily caught. They argue that the biggest criminals in the world are not in Africa, but in Europe and the US, and that the FBI and similar organizations should focus more on the big scammers instead of trying to harass small-time fraudsters; (vi) there are other Nigerians who try to strike a moral tone and advise that crime does not pay, all that glitters is not gold and that every criminal should expect to be caught someday. 

Nigerians always find it difficult to form a consensus on anything. Football used to be a unifying force but with many Nigerians now addicted to European football leagues, teams and players, even football has become a source of division. Certain points need to be made. Nigerians behave like aliens in their own country. When they travel abroad, they are worse. Since the civil war, 1967-1970, there has been an abiding sense of alienation between the state and the people and the gradual erosion of a sense of what it means to be Nigerian. The country’s value system and ethical codes have failed. The leaders, military and civilian, have not set good examples, the institutions function at habitually sub-optimal levels, civilian rule has not led to expected rise in standards and values. Under the military, theft and impunity became the order of the day, under civilian rulers in the last 20 years, the threat of impunity has doubled, the collapse of morality has tripled. 

Nigeria is one country where gain without work is acceptable as long as everything glitters. It is one country where a man or lady, who had no job in January can suddenly become a multi-billionaire in dollars in August and nobody will ask questions. He or she doesn’t even have to pay tax or declare the source of income. He will get the best women, the best cars, the largest circle of friends, chieftaincy titles, national honour, and a government appointment. He will dine with the high and mighty, childhood friends in high places whose election campaigns he would have funded anyway, and in addition, he will enjoy massive police and military protection. The media will celebrate him or her. If the police try to arrest him, the military will set him free! To play big in this kind of a-normative environment, where the state itself is a criminal enterprise, where credibility is on decline, many Nigerians resort to criminality on a bigger scale, locally and internationally. When they get caught abroad, in places where the systems work, even if they are convicted or executed, they may still be treated as heroes by their relatives and kinsmen back home in Nigeria who will simply argue that they were just unlucky to have been caught. Nigerians are likely to blame a Pastor or shamanist for failing in his or her spiritual duty to the convict. One drug trafficker who was executed abroad was given a lavish burial in his community in 2016, in a golden casket and hailed as a savior!

Nigerian leaders need to provide good leadership and lead by example. Institutions in Nigeria have to be strengthened. Religious leaders, who wield so much influence over the Nigerian public mind, must stop acting like rogues and teach the truth. Nigeria needs a Ministry for Ethical Re-orientation!  Unemployment drives young Nigerians to the Devil’s workshop. We must do something about that.   In April/May, Zainab Habib Aliyu, 22, and one Ibrahim Abubakar were saved from being charged in Saudi Arabia in a drug-related matter after the Nigerian Government intervened. In Singapore, another Nigerian, Adili Chibuike Ejike, 39, barely escaped the death row because the court acquitted him. It is not every Nigerian criminal suspect abroad that will be so lucky. The rest will be punished, they will tarnish Nigeria’s image and they will inconvenience the rest of us.

The report that a commercial court in the UK has ruled that Nigeria must pay a UK firm, Process and Industrial Development Limited (P & ID) a sum of $9.6 billion or have its assets in the UK to the tune of that amount forfeited has generated more than a little interest. For a country with a foreign reserve of $45 billion and sovereign debt profile of over $80 billion that judgment debt is quite a lot, potentially capable of rendering Nigeria even more technically insolvent. Dayo Apata, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Solicitor-General of the Federation has told the public that Nigeria will appeal the judgement and apply for a stay of execution to forestall the enforcement order that has been granted. Whereas this may be a logical step to take, even if it may achieve nothing in the long run other than putting more money in the pockets of counsel, there are specific issues that have been thrown up by Nigeria’s (mis)management of the case so far and the ruling of the UK court. 

The first issue is Nigeria’s habitual disregard for the sanctity of contracts and terms of agreement, and the failure of Nigeria’s representatives in many cases to enter into agreements that are in the best interest of the country. The facts of the case in Process & Industrial Development vs. Federal Republic of Nigeria (2019) EWHC2241 (Comm), by way of summary are as follows:  In January 2010, the Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN), through its Ministry of Petroleum Resources entered into a Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) with P&ID. Under the terms of the agreement, Nigeria “was to supply natural gas (wet gas) at no cost to P&ID via a government pipeline to the site of P&ID’s production facility.” P&ID was required to construct and operate the facility, process the wet gas and return to the government of Nigeria, lean gas to be used for power generation at no cost to the government of Nigeria. P&ID was entitled to other derivatives stripped from the wet gas. The GSPA had a tenure of 20 years from the date of first supply of wet gas. Clause 20 of the GSPA provided for (a) the agreement to be construed in accordance with the laws of Nigeria; (b) in the event of a dispute over the interpretation or performance of the Agreement, which cannot be resolved amicably, either party will serve on the other a notice of arbitration, (c) the Arbitration award shall be final and binding upon the parties and (d) “the venue of the arbitration shall be London, England or otherwise as agreed by the Parties.”  Two years later, a dispute arose between the P&ID and the Nigerian Government, and as this could not be settled amicably, the former served a notice of arbitration on the Nigerian government on the grounds that Nigeria had failed to make Wet Gas available in accordance with the GSPA.      

The matter went before an Arbitration Tribunal, under the Rules of the Nigerian Arbitration and Conciliation Act 2004, with London, England as place of Arbitration. After affirming its jurisdiction in the matter, the Tribunal began its procedural hearing to determine whether or not there was any repudiatory breach of contract. At this point, there was an attempt by the Ministry of Petroleum to reach a settlement agreement with P&ID to the tune of $850 million, payable in instalments. This was submitted for Presidential approval a week to President Jonathan’s departure from office. It would have amounted to tying the hands of the incoming government to grant the approval for the payment of that sum. Meanwhile, the Arbitration Tribunal had bifurcated the case and by July 2015, it affirmed that indeed Nigeria had failed to perform its obligations under the GSPA and then unanimously decided that P&ID was entitled to damages with interest. It took the new Nigerian government more than 4 months to respond. The excuse given for the delay, by Ms. Folakemi Adelore, witness for Nigeria, was that there had been a change of administration in Nigeria and that Ministers, including the Attorney General had only just been appointed. Nigeria asked for an extension of time to act on the outcome of the Arbitration Tribunal. 

The Commercial court led by Phillips J. dismissed that appeal and the explanation for the delay at the time. Unsuccessful in having its way in England, Nigeria took up the matter at the Lagos Judicial Division of the Federal High Court of Nigeria, seeking essentially the same reliefs that were rejected by Phillips J. When notified of the proceedings in the Lagos High Court, P&ID dismissed the proceedings as “abusive and as a deeply unattractive attempt to forum shop”. There was a back-and-forth exchange of emails between the parties involved and the Tribunal over the meaning of venue or seat of arbitration. The Tribunal would eventually rule that London is the seat of arbitration “in the juridical sense”. The Nigerian government then went back to the Lagos High Court to set aside the Tribunal’s Procedural Order No. 12 and got favourable judgment. The Arbitration proceedings in London continued nonetheless to determine the quantum of damages and on January 31, 2017, the Tribunal issued its Final Award. The Tribunal insisted that P&ID would have played its own part in the contract if Nigeria had not repudiated its own obligations. It therefore ruled in favour of P&ID and ordered Nigeria to pay US$6.597,000, 000 being net present value of the profits which would have been earned by the P&ID. The Federal Government was also asked to pay interest on the amount at 7% per annum from March 2013. This final ruling was given in 2017. The Nigerian Government refused to pay and also failed to appeal the ruling! Why? 

It may be routine conduct in Nigeria to ignore court orders, and assume that nothing will happen but things don’t work like that in the international domain. In March 2018, P&ID went to the Commercial Court in England to institute proceedings for the enforcement of the Final Award as declared by the Arbitration Tribunal. The Nigerian Government again did not respond in time. It waited till October 2018 before it finally acknowledged service and applied for relief for sanctions. The matter would finally be heard by Justice Christopher Butcher. It should be noted that on all the issues raised before the court of Butcher J. viz: the seat of arbitration and the order of the High Court of Lagos, issue estoppel, the conclusions of Procedural Order No. 12, (that is the ruling of the Arbitration Tribunal), public policy, pre-award interest and whether or not, the Final Award in favour of P&ID was excessive and punitive, the Court found in favour of P&ID on all the issues. Justice Butcher’s ruling raises cogent and recondite points of law, in a learned and rigorous manner; but in one word, he butchered Nigeria. The manner in which he did so, I intend to indicate shortly.

For now, what is clear to me is the reckless manner in which Nigerian officials often enter into agreements, on behalf of the country, without paying attention to the small print of the agreement and thinking through the feasibility of the agreement entered into. The net result is that the country incurs liabilities that are detrimental to corporate interest. On the face of it, the GSPA with P&ID would have been beneficial to Nigeria, particularly in terms of the constructive use of associated gas and the supply of lean gas to the national electricity grid for both industrial and domestic use. The GSPA was signed by the Ministry of Petroleum on behalf of Nigeria: was the Ministry not in a position to know the volume of wet gas that would be required to fulfil Nigeria’s obligations? What happened to the proposed pipeline? It would appear as if Nigeria signed the agreement in 2010 and just went to sleep. Where international contracts are involved, and we breach the terms of agreement, we end up projecting the country as an unfit and risky destination for investment. Even the private sector has been accused of failing to respect contractual agreements, the most recent example being the case of Nigerian airline operators and Boeing which has more or less blacklisted Nigerian airlines from leasing its aircraft. As it is with the Federal Government, so it is with the states. The Lagos Metro line project conceived by the Lateef  Jakande administration in 1983  could have solved the perennial mass transit crisis in Lagos but it was soon politicized. When the Buhari military regime came to power, the project was eventually cancelled in 1985, without regard for the terms of the contract. The foreign contractor went to court and Nigeria had to pay a penalty of more than $78 million. The contractor was compensated for doing nothing!    

Another issue is the lack of diligent prosecution of cases in which Nigeria is involved by those whose duty it is to do so. I assume that this is due to our tendency to either politicise everything or focus more on personal interests, or failure on the part of either representing counsel or the Attorney General’s office. As stated, it took Nigeria in this case about five months to respond to the initial ruling of the Arbitration Tribunal in London. The excuse that Nigeria was busy with elections and that new Ministers were not in place until November 2015 naturally appeared strange and laughable. When final ruling was given, Nigeria also did nothing. It had to wait until P&ID sought enforcement. 

Butcher, J. in his August 16, 2019 ruling made heavy weather out of several acts of omission on the part of the Nigerian authorities. He observed in one instance, that “…the FRN had remedies for any procedural unfairness, but it did not utilise them”. Nigeria could also have objected to Procedural Order No. 12 or question the Final Award. In the words of Butcher J., “it did neither and the time for doing so is long past.” This is a serious indictment (see paragraphs 64 -66 of the ruling). The energy that should have been devoted to the Arbitration in London was diverted towards obsession with “seat of arbitration” and getting a favourable judgment from the Lagos High Court which in Nigeria’s contention was the “supervisory court”, a point about “sovereignty” both the Tribunal and the Court dismissed. Nigeria failed to pursue relevant questions: Questions for example about the quantum of damages. Or the tax that would have accrued to Nigeria through P&ID. Besides, what is the profit value of Nigeria’s 10% equity? And why were questions not raised about in-door management rules? It is also curious that Nigeria failed to insist on something quite obvious: the competence and the failure of P&ID to build the facility stated in the GSPA. Equity aids the vigilant, not the indolent. Could the Nigerian team have been making needless mistakes in order to help the other party? In a country that is perpetually in search of patriots, particularly in official corridors, this is a relevant question. 

The Commercial Court in London has held that the Final Award by the Tribunal in favour of P&ID is not punitive or excessive, rather it is compensation for damages suffered. The Court gave an order enforcing the Final Award. There is no guarantee that Nigeria will succeed with either its appeal or its request for stay of execution. Whatever happens, the (mis)handling of this case requires introspection and steps to be taken to ensure that this kind of embarrassment does not occur again, hoping that there are no such similar cases in other jurisdictions or in hibernation which may soon come to the knowledge of the Nigerian public. The success of P&ID may well embolden other parties with similar issues with Nigeria to go to court. Our case is not helped either by the politicization of the matter with the on-going trading of blames. It may be necessary for the National Assembly when it returns from its recess to conduct an inquiry into how Nigeria, with all the concerns about revenue and growth, is now faced with a judgment debt of $9.6 billion, with daily interest accruing.  Who are the state officials and their collaborators if there are any, who failed to ensure due diligence, both at the level of the contract and the management of the dispute with Process and Industrial Development Ltd? Why was wet gas not made available? Did the Attorney General’s office even vet the GSPA at all? From all indications, the dispute could have been settled out of court. Why did that option fail? $9.6 billion is about 20% of the country’s external reserves and 2.5% of GDP. Every single person, dead or alive, lawyer or state official, who has a hand in this mess must be called out.  

If anyone is looking for a perfect illustration and confirmation of the “coming anarchy” in Nigeria, that person needs not look farther than the on-going conflict and crisis of mutual distrust between the Nigeria Police and the Nigerian Army. Turn away, for a moment, from Boko Haram (Nigeria is still unable to find a solution to the menace of terrorism), turn away from bandits and kidnappers (it is sad that the state seems to be aiding and abetting criminality and impunity due to its incompetence, negligence, and impotence). But you can not turn away from the crazy drama being enacted by the Nigeria Police and the Nigeria Army, two strategic security institutions assigned the responsibility of safeguarding lives and property of Nigerians and the sovereignty of the country itself. Both institutions have been in conflict in recent times. I argue that this is disturbing.  

It is as follows: Nigerians woke up the other day to hear the sordid tale of how in Jalingo, Taraba state, soldiers from the 93 Battalion in Takum, Taraba state killed three policemen and three civilians, who had gone to arrest a notorious kidnap kingpin, one Alhaji Hamisu Wadume. The three policemen were members of an elite police squad, the Intelligence Response Team (IRT), and they had been involved in many operations in which they distinguished themselves namely the arrest of 22 kidnappers involved in the abduction of Chibok girls, the arrest of Evans, the notorious Lagos-based kidnapper and the rescue of the Magajin Garin Daura, the traditional head of President Buhari’s village who was abducted earlier in the year. These same policemen and their colleagues had been working on the Wadume case. They had investigated him and tracked him down. 

With the help of three civilians who volunteered as informants and guide, the police sent the crack team to go after Alhaji Wadume. When they got to Jalingo, the policemen reported at the police state headquarters and documented their mission. They then set out and arrested Alhaji Wadume and put him in handcuffs. The next step was to take him in and interrogate him in line with standard procedure. Mission accomplished? No. In Nigeria, the unexpected is known to happen, nothing is ever certain. Just as the police were busy tracking down the alleged notorious kidnapper, the Army in Taraba reportedly got a distress call reporting that kidnappers had abducted one Alhaji Wadume, and asking the military to come to the rescue. As it turned out, the 93 Battalion sent out a team to rescue Alhaji Wadume. The dispatched soldiers gave the police team the chase. The police version of the story at this point is that the police men identified themselves and told the soldiers that they were carrying out a legitimate duty, and that Alhaji Wadume who was in handcuffs was the suspect. But instead of the two teams to co-operate and work together, in line with the principle of “esprit de corps”, the soldiers opened fire on the policemen, at close range, killing three of them instantly. They also gunned down the three civilian-informants.  By the time the dust settled, the arrested suspect, who had been put in silver ware, disappeared into thin air. The soldiers also vanished, leaving “blood on the grass.” 

The police are rightly outraged. They have since issued statements and have gone on a twitter rage, to question the conduct of the Nigeria Army. They are angry that despite the police identification of the slain policemen as officers on lawful duty, the Nigerian Army chooses to refer to them as “suspected kidnappers”.  The police are asking the army to hand over the soldiers who pulled the trigger, effectively marking them out as cop-killers. They have also raised five questions for the Army Headquarters to respond to viz: “Where is the notorious kidnapper, Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume “rescued by the soldiers”?, (2) How could a kidnap suspect properly restrained with handcuffs by the Police escape from the hands of his military rescuers? (3) Why were the Police Operatives shot at close range after they had identified themselves as Police Officers on legitimate duty as evident in the video now in circulation? (4) How and why was Alhaji Hamisu Bala Wadume released by the soldiers?  (5) If Alhaji Wadume is a “victim of kidnap” as claimed, and properly rescued by soldiers why was he not taken to the Army base for documentation purposes and debriefing in line with the Standard Operating Procedures in the Nigerian Army?’  These questions are pertinent and there are many more that should be raised. 

The Nigerian Army has not been able to respond to any of these questions; their only close-to-intelligent response has been the self-indicting explanation that the whole incident is due to lack of co-ordination and communication between the army and the police. It is sad to hear that. If there is rivalry, conflict, lack of co-ordination and communication among the various law enforcement and security agencies in Nigeria, then the average Nigerian is in serious trouble. The country itself is in danger.  The utter vulnerability of the average Nigerian is show-cased by the fact that whereas the army and the police have been trading brick-bats in the Taraba matter, no mention has been made so far of the identity of the three civilians who were murdered by the soldiers. The police seem to be more concerned about their men. The Army are more concerned about protecting their men too. To compound the situation, whereas a joint investigating panel has been set up, the army and the police are at best working at cross-purposes. 

What has happened is unacceptable. Those who argue that the police should not complain because it is Karma at work, the police having a notorious reputation for the kind of brutality that has been inflicted on their men by the Army, are simply unfair. No human being deserves to be killed in such brutal fashion. It is also unacceptable that the three civilian-informants who were murdered have not been part of the story. In the course of the fight against terror and crime in the country, both the President and the service chiefs have always advised that the battle can only be won if the people themselves assist the security agencies with information. The death of those three informants in the hands of the Nigeria Army will certainly discourage every future informant! In the past, the Nigerian military used to attribute every act of impunity committed by soldiers to a certain “unknown soldier”. Under military rule, particularly, the unknown soldier could do as he wished. The Nigerian soldier was above the laws of the land. But the times have since changed. The Nigeria Army certainly cannot claim not to know the soldiers who committed murder in Taraba State. As the police have demanded, those men and the officer who gave them unlawful orders, if that was the case, must be named and made to face the full wrath of the law. The six victims of that Taraba massacre and their families deserve justice. In a democracy, an army of occupation, a gun-totting military on the streets of the nation, turning its guns on innocent persons is an aberration, and a threat.

But this is the price Nigerians pay for giving the military police work to do. The military and the police have two completely different training manuals and operational orientation. The primary job of the police is to ensure peace and safety, and to protect and serve. Soldiers are trained by their drill sergeants to shoot and kill the enemy: “One shot, one kill”, at close range. The culture of restraint at the heart of police training is unknown to the military. This is why it is dangerous to involve soldiers in the kind of police work that they have been doing in Nigeria. In the 70s, Nigerian soldiers lived in the barracks, usually located out of town. When they came to town, they were rare sightings. But that was until soldiers began to mix with civilians and soon got involved in politics. Gradually, Nigerian soldiers began to behave like those they call “bloody civilians”.  It was Alozie Ogbugbuaja, a police man who once drew attention to this when he complained that Nigerian soldiers had become “pepper soup drinking soldiers”.  The metaphor was so apt; it drew the ire of the state. Ogbugbuaja was punished for his effrontery. 

If anybody were to say the same thing today, however, I guess the person will be hailed for saying the truth. Soldiers are now so involved in “pepper soup” work it is terribly ridiculous. The other day, some soldiers assigned to escort money (N400m?) belonging to an officer were accused of having escaped with the money. The said soldiers are still at large. Whoever reported a case of kidnapping to the Army in Taraba, assuming that was true, had no business calling the Army. The call should have been directed to the police. When Governor Nyesom Wike wanted a notorious criminal called Bobrisky arrested in Rivers State, he didn’t call on the police. He called the Army.  In Abia State recently, a soldier reportedly killed a motorcyclist who refused to give him bribe. Once upon a time in this country, nobody would dare offer a soldier a bribe, and no soldier will ask for it. Today, soldiers now mount check-points where they collect tolls like the police. 

It is absurd.  The excuse that Nigeria is under-policed and therefore the police need to be supported by the military overlooks the difference in the orientation of the two teams. The result is the disaster we are witnessing. During the recent general elections, the Nigerian military was accused of having perpetrated violence in parts of the country. The militarization of open spaces violates Nigeria’s democracy. In Zaria in 2015, Nigerian soldiers trying to clear the road for their boss gunned down about 348 members of the Shiite movement! Our military should concentrate on their professional duty of protecting Nigeria’s territorial integrity, while the police should focus strictly on their mandate. Isn’t it curious that in the light of the Taraba incident the military is now advising Nigerian soldiers, travelling on pass, to hide from the Police by wearing mufti? Is that the end of police/army collaboration? If the police are overwhelmed by the crisis in the country, and unable to function efficiently, the leadership elite should think more creatively beyond the current resort to hollow rhetoric and ad-hoc measures. More police men can be recruited. Better training and equipment should be provided. Police stations should be rebuilt and made to wear a human look. Bad eggs within the force should be identified and flushed out, honest and hardworking police men and women should be encouraged and supported.      

Perhaps the time has come for Nigeria to consider the establishment of a National Guard, to serve as a bridge between the police and the army.  Where there is any incident that is beyond the capacity of the police, the National Guard can be called in.  In the United States, the National Guard is a cross between the police and the military; its members are basically civilians, but with enough training as both police and soldier. For a start, the proposed National Guard should not be a regime-protection mechanism, the type that was introduced briefly in 1993. It can be a merger of the National Civil Defence Corps and the vigilante groups in various states, trained differently and empowered. To set up a National Guard in Nigeria however, there must be a thought-driven review of context: who will control the National Guard? How will it be deployed? What kind of Nigeria can accommodate a National Guard: a truly federal system, a restructured Nigeria or a completely new Nigeria?  

“So, did you join the #RevolutionNow protests yesterday?”

“Which Revolution?”

“The #RevolutionNow protest led by Omoyele Sowore. The security people grabbed him ahead of the August 5 protests, but the Grand Coalition for Security and Democracy still came out in full force in Lagos and Abuja.”

“Yes. Yes. We did. But it rained in Abuja.”

“And were you part of it? The Coalition for Revolution in Nigeria”

“I am part and parcel of it. This country cannot continue like this. We need a revolution. Nobody can tell us that the change they promised in 2015, we now have it. The 2019 General election, did they get it right? No. Revolution is about change. We need to change this system. They told us in 2018 and 2019 that they will take us to the Next Level. But nothing has changed. Look at Nigeria. Look at our country! Our country has become a theatre of fear, regret and failure. Six months after election that they claim they have won, we are still fumbling and wobbling like the Super Eagles.”

“You didn’t answer my question. I asked you: were you part of the protests?”

“No. I wasn’t. It rained in my part of the town. And by the time I set out to join the group at the National Stadium in Lagos, I heard that the agents of state capture and their tools were already tear-gassing the people. Tear gas is not good for my system. The last time I inhaled tear-gas I sneezed for three years non-stop. I am not so young anymore. I have to be careful. But aluta continua! Victoria Acerta! But why were you yourself not at the barricades? We have a collective responsibility to save Nigeria from this drift, this creeping anarchy, this reign of confusion.”

“I am sorry. Speak for yourself. I am not a revolutionary like you. I am simply a realist, a pragmatist, a student of realpolitik.”

“Are you saying what the Buhari government is doing is okay? Have you not heard that we face the threat of a return to the Abacha days, and the possibility of losing everything that we worked for to secure this return to democracy?”

“You mean civilian rule?”

“You call this civilian rule? As far as we are concerned in the revolution, this is still military rule masquerading as civilian rule. When you look at anybody in this present darkness, do they look like any one of us? This is Sowore’s message. We must take back our country. We must seize the momentum. We must seize the day.”

“I am sorry. I don’t join revolutions.”

“Yes. You won’t because the Middle class has failed Nigeria. You talk like one of them. You belong to the class of non-citizens who think Nigeria must be kept the way it is so that they can thrive. You selfish Nigerians! They link up with the establishment and get subsidies for their businesses and imports. They contribute funds to support political campaigns and when the time comes they ask for returns and insist on entitlements. Those are the real enemies of Nigeria, the soldiers of the stomach vs we the people who want national progress, security and development. Our #RevolutionNow is about long-lasting changes in the system. We want to make Nigeria better.”

“Sowore says he is going to take back Nigeria. In other words, what he could not achieve through the ballot box on February 23 when he was Buhari’s rival as Presidential candidate on the platform of the African Action Congress (AAC), he wants to take through a revolution.”

“You are putting words in his mouth. You are an enemy of the revolution, just say so. He did not talk about regime change. We are focused on system change.”

“Did he say or not say that the government will cease to exist?”

“No. He talks about positive change for all Nigerians and better life for all. Minimum wage. Free tuition and access to quality education. Employment opportunities and justice.”

“Those are populist campaign issues. I disagree with you. The Presidential election ended on February 23. If anybody is aggrieved, the place to go is the tribunal, not the streets.”

“Sowore is the voice and the symbol of the emerging revolution in Nigeria today. He is prepared to lay down his life if need be. I stand by him, the same way Professor Wole Soyinka stands by him. Femi Falana SAN, Shehu Sani. Amnesty International Nigeria. Street credibility. We no go gree.”

“And you? Are you prepared to die for Nigeria? Where were you on August 5?”

“I have a very busy week ahead. Besides it rained in my neighbourhood. This climate change. Nobody can tell. And as I told you, I don’t do well with tear-gas. My bones are fragile too. I have not yet recovered from the last protest I took part in. “

“I don’t blame you. It is very easy to talk. The people I blame are the security agencies. They have turned Omoyele Sowore into a hero. He has become the symbol of the opposition in Nigeria. In Uganda we have Bobi Wine. In Sudan, they have the African Queen. In Hong Kong, there is Andrew Leung, leading the revolution from behind bars. In North Africa, the Arab Spring spread from Tunisia to Algeria to Egypt. In Nigeria, we now have Omoyele Sowore. I believe the Nigerian government has played into his hands. Big mistake. Big, big mistake. They could have managed the situation differently”

“You are beginning to sound like one of them. I must tell you that whatever you think, or believe, this Revolution will survive and when it is over, we will remember those of you hiding in your comfort zones to talk nonsense.”

“I am not talking nonsense. I don’t believe in the idea of a Revolution.”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word. It is a terribly mis-used and mis-understood word. This same ruling party, the APC, used the same word when they fought President Goodluck Jonathan. You didn’t complain then. You are a hypocrite. You are one of them.”

“Anybody that wants a Revolution should do so through the ballot box. Or go to court. I understand what Revolution means. The French Revolution. The American Revolution. The October Revolution of 1917. The Velvet Revolution in former Czechoslovakia in 1989. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine after the 2004 Ukranian Presidential election. The Arab Spring in the Middle East. The recent people’s revolution in Algeria, Egypt and Sudan. The on-going Revolution in Hong Kong. Tell me about one revolution that did not result in a cycle of crisis and violence. Nigeria is too fragile. One careless push right now, we could become another Somalia or the old Rwanda.”

“You don’t understand the meaning of Revolution, then. Don’t you get it? We are saying this government lacks legitimacy. It lacks the capacity to deal with Nigeria’s pressing problems. There is insecurity in the land. The people are hungry and poor. The government can’t even inaugurate a cabinet, six months after the elections. Rapists and bandits have taken over the land. Only a Revolution can save Nigeria.”

“That is treason. Mind what you say. I will be the first to hand you over as an accessory to the fact of treason.”

“A protest march is not treason. Free speech is not treason. Freedom of assembly is not treason.”

“I just need you to know that in this country, the threat to commit suicide is a felony. If you succeed however, you are on your own, totally free.”

“The people have the power and the right to express their grievances. If they won’t allow us to protest inside Nigeria, we will do so in every Nigerian embassy in every part of the world. No government should ever test the people’s resolve. No. Never again!”

“I see that the government will still need to arrest more people. Please don’t call me when they come for you.”

“Let them arrest all of us. This is not a one-man protest. This is a movement. This is how it starts. They have taken the bait. They will keep making mistakes. Nigeria is now on the front pages of the world media. After the 2019 election, chaos in Nigeria! The Coalition for Revolution owns the game right now.”

“Let me ask you: who are your sponsors? Who is the author of this hidden agenda?”

“There is no hidden agenda. The people of Nigeria are angry.”

“Please speak for yourself. Members of the Coalition of Northern Groups are not angry.

They say they are not part of the Revolution. The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) is also against the idea. You people cannot be allowed to blow up this country just because you lost an election.”

“Point of correction. We have gone beyond the election. And for your information, this is not an anti-RUGA protest. It is a struggle for the soul of Nigeria.”

“You cannot convince me that the declaration of a revolution is well-meaning.”

“I don’t know what you are afraid of. Have they given you an oil bloc, or they have promised you something? You are busy opposing the Revolution. Where were you when the US announced a visa ban on Nigerian politicians who promoted violence and rigging during the 2019 general elections in Nigeria?”

“Please. Please. Please. Nigeria is a sovereign state. The Americans have their own problems and Nigeria’s election should not be one of them. If I were the Nigerian President, by now I would have asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to issue a travel advisory on the United States telling Nigerians to stay away from that country where hate and white supremacy are on the rise. I will insist that Nigerians should stay away in particular from the troubled states of Texas, Ohio and California until further notice. America. America. America. Please.

Is Donald Trump better than President Muhammadu Buhari?”

“Yes”

“No”

“I say Yes”

“Let me hear word, with this copycat revolution. To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done.”

“That’s analogue thinking. Wake up! We are in the age of social media. If you and your people block the streets, we will have a revolution on social media and you people will watch it online.”

“This is precisely the problem. The social media has become the space where anarchists and subversive elements are bred. Will I be correct to say that you are an online revolutionary?”

“Get it right: We are determined to occupy every space, including the offline space of revisionists like you. Your people made a mistake to have ordered the arrest of Comrade Yele Sowore. The Coalition of the Revolution cannot be intimidated. I hope you won’t spoil everything by saying we are terrorists.”

“Is Sowore also a comrade?”

“Yes. A comrade of the Revolution over a 30-year period, a tested fighter of the people’s revolution.”

“I am trying to get it.”

“You can say what you like.”

“But please, one more thing. This Sowore: does he have a family? Children? A wife? And why would he run to the gym to hide when state security came knocking on his door?”

“Irrelevant questions. The Revolution is all that matters.”

“Toh. It’s aw-right. Make all of us siddon begin watch this season film, then. Whether you like it or not, the Devil has rented a flat in people’s heads inside Nigeria.”