Lawyer and political activist, Dele Farotimi, claims that his aim was to organise a well-planned and calculated demonstration at the Lekki toll gate.

The decision made by Justice Doris Okwuobi's panel regarding the Lekki Toll Gate has become the focal point of the #OccupyLekki demonstration.

In an exclusive interview with Reuben Abati on City Talks, which was closely monitored by Abati Media on February 13, 2021, Farotimi made a bold statement. He expressed his intention to bring the operation of the Lekki toll gate to a complete standstill when they attempt to resume operations.

As per his statement, it appears that the plan is to drive the cars up to the toll gate and park them there on a daily basis. This action is expected to result in their arrest, but it seems to be a deliberate move to disrupt operations at the toll gate.

According to the source, they had meticulously planned to prevent the toll gate from starting operations by investing a significant amount of time in precision every day.

According to Farotimi, the toll gate appears to exclusively benefit private individuals, potentially leading to their enrichment.

According to the Advocate and Solicitor, there seems to be a sense of discontent among the residents of Lekki who are paying tolls. The reason behind this discontentment, as stated by the Advocate and Solicitor, is not because these individuals are wealthy, but rather due to other underlying factors that warrant further investigation.

He declared, "We will reveal the identities of those involved when the appropriate moment arrives."

Farotimi claims that the residents of Lekki are well aware of the malevolent forces at play and have made a collective decision to protest against the reopening of the toll gate.

According to the individual, they were able to drive without experiencing the usual frustrating traffic congestion that plagues their daily commute.

The claim made is that Lateef Kayode Jankande constructed roads over three decades ago that have never been subjected to tolling. It appears that a group of individuals who have recently taken positions within the government are pushing for the implementation of tolls on a particular matter. The matter in question has been in existence for 21 years and has not previously been subject to tolls. Further investigation is needed to determine the motivations behind this push for tolls.

Farotimi has made a statement regarding the reopening of the Lekki Toll Gate, stating that there will be resistance.

On Sunday, February 14, the Nigerian Presidency in a statement signed by spokesman Garba Shehu reportedly affirmed that President Muhammadu Buhari is determined to ensure the protection of all religious and ethnic groups in the country, whether majority or minority, “in line with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.” The statement added that the government “will not allow any ethnic or religious group to stoke up hatred and violence against other groups.” As if to give effect to this, the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) announced that the NSA, Major General Mohammed Monguno, was scheduled to meet with seven Governors of the North Western part of the country on Monday, February 15 as part of a “whole-of -government and whole-of-society” approach to address the recent spike in cases of insecurity across the country. The NSA and other security chiefs agreed on a series of Town Hall Meetings, to assess the national security situation, generate feedback, and build a synchronization framework with various stakeholders in order to find a pathway to sustainable peace and stability.

It all sounds so good, except that it is also so eerily familiar and formulaic. The Presidency needs not  issue a statement to remind us that the Buhari administration will protect all of us, whether we are from the majority or minority stock, or adherents of whatever faith. This is the primary responsibility of government in the first place. It is the job that President Buhari signed up to as spelled out in Section 14 (2)(b) of the same 1999 Constitution. The President swore to uphold this Constitution, and in Section 5 thereof and elsewhere, he is given enormous powers to so act and to recruit persons and deploy resources in pursuit of the directive principles in Chapter Two. The fact that the Presidency needs to restate its commitment to its own primary assignment, five years after the fact, is an indication of how there has been a gross omission in this regard.

In 2015, ahead of the first Presidential election that brought this government to power, the Buhari campaigners argued that he was the best man for the job, if not for any other reason, he, being a former military chief will know what to do, to address the crisis of terrorism, especially in the North East, and ensure stability across the country.  At the time, Boko Haram and the al Qaeda forces seeking to destabilize Nigeria were at the peak of their offensive. Many Nigerians embraced the Buhari option as the most attractive proposition: the war-tested General and military tactician whose very presence in power was expected to instill fear in the enemies of the state. But things have not turned out that way, as expected. If the dominant security challenge in 2015 was Boko Haram, the security situation in Nigeria since then has worsened.

Despite the government’s assurance that Boko Haram had been “decimated” or “technically defeated”, we all saw the terrorists gaining more in audacity and ferocity, with soldiers fleeing from the battle-front out of frustration, mocking their commanders, and protesting about their poor conditions of deployment. Nigerians thought the President should change his Service Chiefs, to inject fresh blood, but public opinion in that regard was ignored until the President finally decided to let them go on January 26, 2021. While the team of Service Chiefs led by General Abayomi Olonisakin remained in charge, the country had to face other challenges on other fronts in the shape of banditry, kidnapping, wanton criminality, ethnic conflicts, farmers-herders conflicts, and attacks on places of religious worship. Ordinarily, it was the duty of the Nigeria Police Force to protect lives and properties within the country, but the police were so disorganized, so poorly equipped, they couldn’t handle the situation.

Nigeria ended up deploying soldiers to do police work. They didn’t do much better. The Nigerian military was over-stretched, from fighting terrorists and insurgents in the North East to police check point assignments in the South South and South East. Somehow, everything got muddled up. The same security problems that the Buhari administration set out to resolve merely increased. In a cancerous manner, they metastasized.  Pro-government campaigners would argue that insecurity in Nigeria is being fueled by “fifth columnists” and the “political opposition” even when they have no concrete evidence to support their claims. Anti-government analysts would rather argue that Nigeria has become insecure because the government failed to do what is right, which is to simply deliver on its constitutional mandate – the same mandate that the Presidential Villa has now suddenly re-discovered!  When the people cried out that the Boko Haram was getting stronger and bolder, they were told the terrorists had been “technically defeated.” The Federal Government even brandished a seized Boko Haram flag. The terrorists have since made another one! When Governors in the North West later pointed out that the madness had spread from the East to the West, they were told that they were the Chief Security Officers of their states and should stop whining, even when they were not so empowered. The poor Governors of the North West decided to negotiate with the terrorists and gave them money but it turned out the criminals were not willing to sell their struggle. The curse of violence, crime and banditry soon spread from the North to the Middle Belt. One or two Governors wept openly. They were told to wipe their tears and expect a miracle. No miracle came.

By the time the crisis settled down in the Middle and Central parts of Nigeria, it had now taken on a primordial dimension: Muslim vs Christian; farmers vs herders. Religion and ethnicity are the two most divisive factors in Nigeria. Both have helped to expand the country’s fault lines in the last five years - negatively and dangerously. In the Middle Belt and Southern Kaduna, there were complaints about churches that were set ablaze. Communities were attacked and the security agencies were accused of looking the other way, in a striking demonstration of complicity, criminal negligence and indifference. Religious leaders including priests were abducted and killed. The major blame for the mayhem was heaped on the head of one major ethnic group: the Fulani. It is the seeming failure of the state to check banditry and other acts of impunity that has promoted the politics of ethnic profiling, and the consequential demonization of the Fulani.

The crisis soon crossed the River Niger and found another location in the South East. With a group known as the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) and its leader Nnamdi Kanu, young Igbos found a rallying point for their grievances against the Nigerian state and the place of the Igbo in its geo-politics. Young Igbos asked Northerners to stay in their North. They did not want any cattle to be grazed on Igbo soil. But rather than treat the delicate situation with the caution that was required, the Federal Government deployed soldiers to the South East. Operation Egwu Eke (Python Dance) I and II. Operation Atilowgu Udo. The confrontation that followed between state agents and IPOB was like setting the roof of the house on fire. On the question of cattle grazing, government added further petrol to the raging fire when it decided to set up a National Livestock Transformation Plan which a livestock settlement programme  called RUGA as its main offer. This merely ignited further division in the country, and widened the gap between North and South.

It did not take long before the crisis crossed the Niger again, this time to the Western part of Nigeria. The drummers of hate had taken over the beat and the main tune that they offered was the rhythm of hate. The drummers have been in frenzy, the dancers are drunk and yet no one can talk to the other because the music is in people’s heads throwing them into different patterns of spatial paroxysm. In the South East, the governors and the people have objected loudly to cattle grazing in their region. They have a group called the Eastern Security Network (ESN), to enforce this, very much like the Amotekun in the South West. In the North, the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) accuses President Buhari of setting the country on fire. They are asking him to ensure that all Nigerians, wherever they may be, are protected. The Northern Youths Council of Nigeria has called on the Northern Governors to evacuate Northerners from the South. They want Sunday Igboho, one of the by-products of the latest crisis, declared a terrorist. But will his people agree? Among the Yoruba, Sunday Igboho, the de facto Generalissimo of the Yoruba, is considered a very courageous man, Nobody knows exactly what he does for a living, but he is a respected able-bodied man, who stepped forward when it mattered most for his people.

This is the way Nigeria is at the moment. Every group nurtures and grows its own Igboho: Men who can lead them to battle. The problem is that this does not advance the cause of unity. Last Saturday at Shasha market in Ibadan, there was wanton destruction just because a Fulani trader and a pregnant Yoruba woman had a minor disagreement. In Ogun state, in the Yewa Division, Yoruba villages have been attacked. In some other Yoruba towns, traditional rulers have been abducted and killed. Can you imagine a Southerner killing a Northern Emir?   

Nigerians have lived together for centuries. Virtually every major town has a Sabongari where other ethnic groups live. The Fulani have interacted with the people of the South for more than a century. There are Southerners whose ancestors have also lived in the North almost forever. The people of Nigeria have thus shared history and culture across generations, but when government fails to promote the values that bind us together, language, ethnicity, and geography become tools of conflict.  It must be noted that no ethnic group targeted the Hausa-Fulani when Southerners were Presidents of Nigeria between 1999- 2015. Nobody did so either during the Yar’Adua administration. Certainly not in the kind of manner we now see. So what happened? Why is it that all of a sudden the friendly Northerner who has always been a partner of the Southerner has suddenly become a person to be suspected? Why should any group feel superior to the other or become a problem to the other just because his “kinsman” is in power?  I have seen some videos in circulation showing the scope of the division among the people.

What we are facing is frightening. It is shocking. It is disturbing. Yorubaland is divided. The traditional rulers are even fighting among themselves. The country’s only Nobel Laureate is threatening to become a mai suya should any herd of cattle trespass across his compound again. In Ogun, Ondo, Oyo and elsewhere, a thousand Igbohos are springing up, determined to defend their region. Igbos have served notice that they are no cowards on the battlefield. The North is not afraid either. How did we get here? It wasn’t nearly as bad in 1966? Can we have a nation if every group is mouthing the rhetoric of violence and threatening the worst possible?

No, and that is why it is not enough for the President to issue a statement telling us what we already know: that it is his job to make Nigeria safe. Is the appropriate response the Town Hall meetings being organized by the National Security Adviser. I have nothing against dialogue. The office of the NSA can gather a lot of useful intelligence through its “whole-of-government” and “whole-of-society approach” but this may not go far enough. The Federal Government needs to take pro-active steps to compel the drummers of hate to drop their sticks.  The way they are beating those drums, they may soon tear them apart, and the drunken dancers may graduate from their bibulousness to psychosis. What balm can government apply? Government needs to change the narrative. This is the right time to give the people something to occupy them, an assignment that will offer them hope, an opportunity to draw them back into the fold. Nothing keeps Nigerians more engaged than the opportunity to talk about Nigeria and its future. This will require a more structured platform than Town Hall meetings.

I therefore recommend that whereas the Buhari government may not like the idea of a National Conference, whereas it set aside the findings of the 2014 National Political Conference, and whereas this same government has shown much disregard for public opinion, the way forward lies in precisely that same direction. The attempt to suppress the people’s opinion or disregard it is in part the catalyst for the state of anomie in which the country has found itself. The Buhari administration needs to convene forthwith, a Conference of the Nigerian People. It can be given any other label: Conference of National Reconciliation, Conference of National Unity and Reconciliation, Conference of National Peace and Unity… Such a Conference will take the debate off the streets. It will rescue the Nigerian debate from the hands of Sunday Igboho, Nnamdi Kanu and their followers. Is it not disturbing enough that even senior lawyers and Professors now quote Kanu and Igboho as national philosophers? The people should be tired of living a lie. If President Buhari really wants to make a difference, he must provide an opportunity for a re-tabling and re-negotiation of the key issues at the heart of the Nigerian question: restructuring, federalism, constitutional review, state police, derivation, governance… 

The rancor that occurred, Saturday, February 6, at the sitting of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry investigating the shootings and alleged killings at the Lekki Toll gate in Lagos in October 2020, in addition to reported cases of police brutality is most unfortunate and disturbing. It will be recalled that the clampdown on protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate, the widespread mayhem that followed, in the shape of attacks on police men and police stations, the assault on warehouses where COVID-19 palliatives had been detained by unconscionable politicians, the attack on homes and businesses of both politicians and innocent persons, in general,  the needless loss of lives - attracted mass outrage. 

A meeting comprising the 36 state Governors, the FCT Minister, the Inspector General of Police and the Human Rights Commission  in October 2020, chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo resolved at the time that all state governments should set up panels of inquiry and organize public hearings to establish the truth and ensure that justice was done, and victims duly compensated. Most states promised to set up the panels of inquiry, 29 did eventually, but some did not. As at January 30, 2021, the following states: Borno, Jigawa, Kano, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara had refused to set up any panel of  inquiry. Kogi state announced that it had also constituted a panel of inquiry, but that panel has not met for even five minutes to date. 

In some of the states where the panels exist and have been sitting: Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Ekiti, Ogun, Edo, Ondo, Rivers, Delta, Cross River, Abia, Bayelsa, Anambra and the Federal Capital Territory, the pace of work has been rather slow and inconsistent.  In Oyo State, the panel commenced sitting in January 2021, two months after its inauguration! The panels in Niger State, Katsina, and Rivers have since concluded sitting.  But of all the states, Lagos State has been the most responsive, the most active, and one of the very first states to commit to doing a thorough job of ensuring justice and establishing the truth. The nine-member Lagos Panel of Inquiry and Restitution, as announced, was set up on October 16, 2020. Justice Doris Okuwobi (rtd) was named Chair of the Panel. It began sitting on Tuesday, October 27, 2020. The Okuwobi panel has received more coverage than any other panel in the country, perhaps because of its consistency, its proximity to the Lagos-Ibadan media, the international media as well, and the fact of the Lekki Toll Gate being the epicentre of the #ENDSARS protests.    

In October 2020, the Lekki Toll gate and its satellite, the Ikoyi Bridge Toll gate managed by the same company, the Lekki Concession Company (LCC) were the primary  locations of the protest against police brutality in Nigeria, with specific focus on the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). The protests soon spread to other parts of the country, even if the Northern parts of the country adopted another label and were significantly different in orientation from the protests in the South. Nigeria’s Southern protesters talked about an end to police brutality. Northern youths who would later be joined by Governors of the North and traditional rulers called for an end to insecurity. Both groups were linked by a common thread – the crisis of insecurity in Nigeria, the failure of the security agencies and the urgent need for government to deliver on its mandate under Section 14(2) (b ) of the 1999 Constitution, to wit: the responsibility to protect the people and ensure their welfare. Nigeria thus found itself in the grips of a movement: an organized, but decentralized rebellion against the Nigerian state and its ineffectuality, more desperate than the youth protests of 1962 against the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact and far more incendiary than the Ali-Must-Go-Protests of 1978. It was youth revolt in ebullition against mis-governance, bad politics, poor leadership and elite greed. The youths had five specific demands. The battle was fought on the streets and social media. The youths called for reform. They demanded change. They even asked for better welfare for policemen.  But then everything went out of hand. 

The Nigerian Government’s expressed commitment to accede to the five demands and to investigate the reported killings and acts of inhumanity and ensure justice gave intimations of hope. In the course of its proceedings, the Lagos Panel of Inquiry offered useful details that kept that hope alive: all those stories about the number of persons that died or were shot, whether or not live bullets or blank bullets were used, how and why anyone asked for the deployment of soldiers to confront harmless, unarmed and defenceless protesters, and shoot in whatever direction, the role of the police, the state government, state officials… Every week, testimonies and revelations at the Lagos Panel of Inquiry provided useful insights. But all of a sudden, that panel is now in disarray, and that is what is disturbing. Last Saturday, it must have been common sense that retrained members of the panel from engaging in fisticuffs.  How sad 

But the signs of impending chaos were foreseeable. Earlier in the year,  the Nigerian Army stopped appearing before the panel. Army counsel disclosed that their mandate with their clients, that is the Nigerian Army, expired in November 2020 and the panel had been so informed. Justice Okuwobi however, affirmed the rights of the panel, appropriately under the Tribunals of Inquiry Act, and adjourned the date for the response of the Army to already issued summons to February 27. I am not too sure any soldier will show up to respond to those summons. After the embarrassment that the Nigerian Army has received with its testimonies over whether or not its officers used live bullets and killed persons at the Lekki Toll Gate, the military hierarchy may have opted for the option of decided contempt in the face of and away from the face of the panel, knowing of course, that the likely penalty may be inconsequential. 

To worsen matters, the Lagos Panel of Inquiry degenerated into near-chaos on Saturday, February 6, 2021. The source of confusion was the decision of the panel announced by five panel members, including Justice Okuwobi, to approve the re-opening of the Lekki and Ikoyi Bridge Toll Gates by their managers, the afore-mentioned LCC. Four members of the panel objected to this resolution and immediately made public their position in a now widely-circulated Dissenting Opinion signed by Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa SAN. By the weekend, the same panel hitherto praised for being an exemplar, had become a divided house. The video of the proceedings that is in circulation is embarrassing to say the least. We saw  members of the panel having a shouting match. I do not want to re-hash the arguments: about whether or not a quorum was formed, the right of the civil society representatives to be in attendance and whether or not they were, the fact that a civil society member - Segun Awosanya (aka Segalink) is on the Chairperson’s side in the matter, and the reasonableness or not, of the dissenting quartet apparently led by Ebun Olu Adegboruwa SAN who has been accused of adopting tactics that would be considered strange in a Court of Appeal procedure even if the Okuwobi panel is quasi-judicial. The legal correctness of the proceedings of the panel, and the dissensions within would require a closer scrutiny of the facts to which we are not full seised but it is sufficient to express alarm about how a process that was meant to calm nerves and promote truth and reconciliation has now become a catalyst for conflict. By Monday morning, the matter before the Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry had spilled back onto the streets, with implications for public safety.

For, by the morning of Monday, February 8, a coordinated protest against the decision of the Lagos Panel of Inquiry to grant the Lekki Concession Company the permission to re-open its toll gates had gone viral on social media with such hashtags and banners as #RevolutionNow, #OccupyLekkiTollGate and a protest is purportedly planned for Saturday, February 13 at 7 am. The LCC had approached the Lagos Panel to ask for permission to resume operations. The two toll gates under its management have been shut down since October 2020.  The position of the dissenters  is that a reopening of the toll gates will compromise evidence and forensic analysis and hence, the status quo should be maintained until the work of the panel is concluded. The Okuwobi Five argued that the forensic investigation had been concluded and there was no justification to continue to shut LCC out of business indefinitely. Outside the panel,  those who want to #OccupyLekkiTollGate on February 13 are convinced that re-opening the toll gate will derail the course of justice. Whichever way you look at it, another Lekki Gate protest is not an encouraging prospect. The way the arguments are packaged on both sides, every proposition sounds and looks plausible and ominous. But I guess this is the time to advert our minds to a number of fundamental issues.  

One –in principle, the investigations and judicial inquiry emplaced by the state governments of Nigeria over the 2020 #EndSARS protests were meant to reassure the people and demonstrate government’s readiness to respond to popular yearnings. The Lagos Panel in particular had proved promising. Now, that it is divided, it is difficult to see how its objectives have not been compromised, and how this has not provided a bad example for other states where the panels have been slow and non-committal. Will the panel still be able to work as a team?   

Two - those who argue that the Lekki Toll Gate is a crime scene that should be left intact till the conclusion of the work of the panel may be missing the point. That toll gate is no longer a crime scene.  It was never treated as such. Elsewhere, crime scenes are preserved, cordoned off, to protect the integrity of evidence and investigations. This so-called crime scene was never protected. It was in fact subjected to a thorough clean up, and whatever was hidden was picked up by visiting inspectors and trespassers, including a certain camera, the content of which has not been disclosed.  Vehicles and motorists have been passing through, glad that they have not had to pay any tolls for more than three months. Whatever has not been established before now, may be difficult to prove again. The dissenters in the panel may have the legal right to hold a different opinion, but they risk being accused of sabotage and fuelling another round of protests.

Three- the Lekki Toll Gate is a public-private partnership scheme. The investors have to pay back loans, maintain the staff who have been kept at home for months, process insurance claims and fix the offices and infrastructure destroyed during the #EndSARS protests. But majorly, they are  paying a price for identity politics. Most of the protesters are angry in part, because of deep-seated suspicions about the ownership of the toll gate. Even in the absence of verifiable evidence, the Lekki Toll gate has become a symbol of power, oppression and graft in the eyes of many. Does it belong to the Lagos State Government or some oppressors? Whatever the truth is, the managers of the Lekki and Ikoyi Toll Gates have had to pay so much. They have lost money and time. They have been vilified. Their brand has been dragged in the mud. What if on top it all, they are truly innocent? How about their staff who have been jobless for months? Even in the worst of circumstances, the toll gates would still be re-opened anyway at some point.

Four – But will the re-opening sabotage the investigations? May be not. The US Congress was attacked by a domestic terrorist mob on January 6, 2021. Five persons died on that occasion. Congress has since re-opened and continued its work, but that has not stopped the investigations. What we are actually dealing with in our case, is a terrible lack of trust in the Nigerian process. Nobody trusts the government. The people would rather trust anybody who is willing and ready to attack the government or raise doubts about its methods. This alienation is self-inflicted by government itself. Here is an example: During the October 2020 #EndSARS protests, the Nigerian government promised to accept and address the five demands by Nigerian youths. But shortly after, the same government clamped down on the protesters. Bank accounts belonging to known leaders of the protests were frozen. The airports of Nigeria became a no-go-area for such persons.  Even now, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s decision to ban financial institutions from cryptocurrencies has been linked to an attempt to cut off financial oxygen for protests. Here is another example: the Governor of Lagos State was accused of lying to the public! The combination of these factors has ignited the anger of the average Nigerian youth again. The flame of that anger could result in an inferno that we do not need. The fire this time could be worse than the explosion last time. 

Five – will the Lagos panel of inquiry reverse itself because of the threat of a resumption of protest on February 13?  I doubt. But I worry more about the damage that may have been done to the Okuwobi panel. Nothing must be done to derail the work of this Panel of Inquiry. Its original mandate should be preserved: to investigate, to unmask the truth, to make recommendations that will ensure justice, and to ensure the compensation of victims. 

Nigeria lost so much last year. To shut down Lagos again and initiate another round of chaos is difficult to imagine. The security agencies, whatever the provocation, must not behave like goats this time around. The Lagos State Government must act and think wisely, must not tell lies, and take steps to prevent further trouble at the Lekki Toll Gate. 

Many Nigerians were understandably shocked, surprised, if not alarmed last week, when they suddenly heard the news that the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari had finally decided to relieve the service chiefs appointed in 2015 of their appointments. The popular response was couched in such phrases as “oh… at last... finally”, “better late than never” – general expressions of relief about a security team that many Nigerians concluded could not deliver on the President’s promise to make Nigeria a safer and better place for all or at best, tackle the menace of insurgency, terrorism and banditry. The Service Chiefs led by General Abayomi Olonisakin (Chief of Defence Staff) – Lt. General Tukur Ibrahim as Chief of Army Staff, Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok Ekwe Ibas and Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar were generally considered inefficient and incompetent by many Nigerians. This has to be put in context. 

When President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in 2015, and  during the Presidential elections that preceded his emergence, his managers sold him to the Nigerian electorate as a man who would put an end to Nigeria’s security woes especially in the North Eastern corridor where the Boko Haram and the Islamic State held sway. Buhari had been an Army General, a civil war veteran, a soldier.  He talked about fighting corruption and fixing the economy, but his unique and strongest selling point was the proposition that he would address the country’s security challenges. Even his most ardent critics had great expectations in that regard. He appointed Olonisakin and co. and gave them the assignment of stamping out terrorism and insurgency.  But this would soon turn out to be a major source of frustration for Nigerians. Rather than abate, insecurity worsened. 

It became cancerous. Every measure that was introduced only brought more problems, and the cancer of terrorism assumed new forms, mestasizing, mutating like corona virus, from terrorism to banditry, worsening insurgency, kidnapping, communal strife, and open madness on the part of criminals who were determined to sabotage the country. The government and the service chiefs adopted the strategy of telling Nigerians that the Boko Haram had been “technically defeated”. Later, the narrative was that they had been “degraded” or “decimated”. This was sustained by unending public perception management schemes that amounted to nothing more than motion without movement, empty rhetoric and  the overt politicization of military strategy. More military operations were launched in the last five years than at any other time in Nigerian history, including the Nigerian civil war: These include Operation Lafiya Dole, Operation Crocodile Smile I and II, Operation Python Dance I and II, Operation Sharan Daji, Operation Harbin Kunama I and II, Operation Dokaji, Operation Egwu Eke, Operation Karamin Goro, Operation Ayem Akpatuma, Operation Last Hold, Operation Ugwu Eke, I – III, Operation Cat Race, Operation Positive Identification,  Operation Atilogwu, Operation Rattle Snake, Operation Ruwan Wuta I- III… In all, there were over 40 such Operations under the watch of General Abayomi Gabriel Olonisakin and his team. Whoever was in charge of the naming of the Operations enjoyed himself so much, there was nearly no animal in the forest that he didn’t blackmail as part of the government’s attempt to find a solution to the crisis of insurgency in the country. I must say this though: they cleverly managed to avoid naming an Operation after the Tortoise! The Nigerian military even set up what it called “Super Camps”. The truth is that there was nothing “Super” about those camps.

Nigerians saw through it all. They saw images of killings and insecurity, and waste and wanton destruction. They saw Governors like Professor Babagana Zulum of Borno State openly challenging the Nigerian Army for adding to the people’s woes. In the Middle Belt, the Governors cried out for help. In other parts of the country, herdsmen wreaked havoc as they destroyed farms, lives and livelihoods. In the South East, the Nigerian Army was labelled an army of terrorists. Within the military itself, the stories were sordid. In the course of five years, many soldiers deserted the war-front. In one famous case, a soldier said he was tired of service and he would rather go and take up a traditional rulership position! At the war front, soldiers reportedly fled in the face of superior Boko Haram fire-power. Generals complained about the realization that terrorists fighting the Nigerian state had better equipment and appeared more motivated than Nigerian troops. The rank and file recorded videos in which they abused their Commanders and Generals. In another notable video, a General was recorded complaining about the weakness of the Nigerian Army. Nobody is even sure how many soldiers Nigeria has. 

For five years, the same Nigerian military that had issues at the battle-front, was very vocal on social media. At a point, I was tempted to think that the Nigerian military was more of a social media army rather than  a critical force on the battle-field. You only needed to make a critical comment and their trolls would descend on you, with lies and blackmail. As a form of military strategy, that was a terrible demonstration of sloppiness and I hope the first thing that the new Army Chiefs would do is to get rid of the loafers in charge of military communications who have reduced anti-insurgency operations to Twitter tittle-tattle. The Nigerian Army’s comeuppance came with the #EndSARS protest of October 2020, and the abduction of the Kankara Boys. Before then, Nigerians, stupefied, overwhelmed, and bewildered, had called on President Muhammadu Buhari to change his security team. From the groundnut seller by the roadside, to leaders of socio-political and cultural groups, and the two Houses of the National Assembly, Nigerians demanded that the security chiefs should be sacked. The people wanted new ideas. They talked about a new security architecture – in fact that phrase became a cliché as every Nigerian became a security sector bricklayer. It was up to the President to listen and act. He alone has the power to hire and fire. The Constitution gives him broad powers to choose his own team as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Now and then, the President would invite the Security Chiefs and give them “marching orders”. Now and then, the Presidency assured Nigerians of the determination of the government to put an end to terrorism and impunity.  The statements were so frequent, so formulaic, the people no longer thought anything of them. I have been accused of putting in place a Rapid Response, automatic answer Robot in the Presidency when I led the Presidency’s Communications team. My critics say so. I plead not guilty. 

And so, in the statement announcing the exit of General Olonisakin as Chief of Defence Staff along with other Service Chiefs, we were told that the President had accepted their offer of resignation and retirement. Truth is they were fired. Sacked! As recently as November 2020, the President had expressed confidence in their abilities. For 5 years, he kept them beyond their retirement, exit date.  And he didn’t disgrace them out of office though. He talked about their “overwhelming achievements”. “Overwhelming” is a two-sided word. It can be positive or negative. Was the President “overwhelmed” by the performance of the service chiefs in a positive sense? Were the people of Nigeria, overwhelmed by their under-performance? We have it on record that during the handing-over ceremonies last week, former Chief of Defence Staff, Abayomi Gabriel Olonisakin said that under his watch, the Nigerian military rescued 20 out of 26 Local Governments that had been taken over by the Boko Haram. The then Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai was also quoted as saying he transformed military operations and improved professionalism in the military. I think the former Service Chiefs are in a hurry to assess themselves and control the narrative. They should relax. They should  learn to enjoy their retirement. They have been to the war-front and back. Many who started the journey with them died at the battle-field, but they got to the very top and have been pulled out of service alive. They are going home in one piece. Not every soldier enjoys such grace. Concerning their performance, they should leave that to us, the Nigerian people, history and posterity to judge. 

They have the option of writing their memoirs, of course, when public service rules permit, and they can tell us all the stories on earth, including that undisclosed story about how Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai was almost sacked by President Olusegun Obasanjo 21 years ago, when he was just a Major in the Army. Buratai made it to the very top, spent 40 years in the Army, but as he handed over the flag to his successor – Major Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, the true irony of the moment was lost on him. He talked about Obasanjo. He missed the irony of the moment.  In 2017, he had also tried to push Major General Ibrahim Attahiru out of the Nigerian Army. The guy survived. He took the flag from him. How truly ironic! 

But it is not enough to move the flag from one pair of hands to another. Nigerians have very strong expectations. They expect that the change of personnel will bring new dynamism and better results. There is now a new team in place: Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor as Chief of Defence Staff, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru as Chief of Army Staff,  Rear Admiral Awwal Gambo as Chief of Navy Staff,  and Air Vice Marshal Isiaka Amao as Chief of Air Staff. I am told that some rigour went into the selection of this new team. Okay. I am also told they are tested hands within the system. We can all see that. They are also friends who may not have any problem working together. I hope so.  When they met with the President last week, Lucky Irabor was reported as having said that he and his team are determined to “add value”.   

And as it happened, on Sunday, January 31, Irabor and his team went on a visit to Borno State and they engaged with stakeholder-communities. Irabor must have been watching Western movies, and what it means to “hit the ground running”. Good James Bond move! Except that in this matter, Nigerians are not looking for actors and movie addicts. They want action and real performance. This  is an  important assignment  and I assume we do not need to give Irabor and co a tutorial on the politics of power seeing that they have paid their own dues in their chosen line of work. President Buhari says they must pay attention to the welfare of the rank and file. We have seen videos of Navy and Army rank and file celebrating the exit of former Service Chiefs. Those videos may have been isolated, sponsored, video-shopped attempts at blackmail. But the new Service Chiefs must be attentive to their environment. They cannot make any difference if they are leading a demoralized, trigger-happy, undisciplined and unprofessional  military that is likely to take to its heels in the face of Boko Haram only to escape to the nearest pepper-soup joint or short-time joint! Nigeria deserves a disciplined military, that is well-motivated, well equipped and energized to deliver on its constitutional mandate. 

The public perception of the Nigerian Army has been created by the Army itself: Do you expect anyone to respect soldiers who discredit their own institution? Soldiers who lie openly to the people? Generals who run away from the war-front? Military commands that spend more time on twitter, wasting resources on mentally challenged trolls, fighting ghost enemies? Major-General Irabor needs to change the orientation of the Nigerian Army. We also need to know the actual capability of the Nigerian military? If we were to put up a fighting machine tomorrow to confront any form of external aggression, do we have the wherewithal? Irabor and his team must start with a very honest audit.     

The military must also  withdraw from police work. This was a shameful legacy from the recent past. It got so bad Nigerian soldiers joined the police at checkpoints to extort money and oppress citizens, especially vulnerable women. If the Nigerian Police is weak, and yes it is, the Nigerian government must address that challenge and make the institution more credible and useful. For General Irabor and his team, there is  also the unresolved matter of the military’s refusal to appear henceforth before the judicial panel of inquiry on the #EndSARS protests in Lagos. Justice Doris Okuwobi, Chairperson of the panel, has given the Nigerian Army a new date of February 27 to respond to already served summons.  Maj. Gen. Irabor should look into that and make it clear that the Nigerian military is not above the laws of Nigeria!  Finally, President Muhammadu Buhari has one more Service Chief to appoint: the Inspector General of Police as the incumbent IGP Muhammed Adamu ended his tenure on Monday, February 1. He must choose wisely. We wait. We watch.  

In the past week, in the South Western part of Nigeria, we have been treated to stories of conflicts in Ondo and Oyo States between herdsmen, identified as Fulani, and the Yoruba owners of indigenous communities. In Ondo state, the issue at stake is the conversion of the state’s forest reserves into a criminal space by herdsmen who violate the integrity of the reserves and a hide-out for kidnaping, extortion and killings. Governor Rotimi Akeredolu affirming his powers as the Chief Security Officer of the state gave a seven-day ultimatum to the herdsmen in the forest reserves to vacate the place immediately. He also directed that the open grazing of cattle on main roads and within the city has been outlawed. The Governor further asked for a proper registration of all herdsmen within the state. Governor Akeredolu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria has been praised for his courage and assertiveness by Yoruba socio-cultural groups and leaders of thought. He has been condemned by groups and stakeholders from the North of Nigeria who classify his objection as a case of ethnic cleansing. The Governor insists however, that his directive is based on security considerations. His ultimatum expired yesterday, the same day that a meeting of South West Governors, their counterparts from Kebbi and Jigawa, and the leadership of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) was summoned by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, to chart a path for peace and reconciliation. 

In neighbouring Oyo State, the people of the South West were faced with a similar situation in areas identified as Ibarapa East, Ibarapa North, Igangan and the whole of the Oke Ogun area. Whereas in Ondo State, the Governor led the protest against the menace of the so-called Fulani herdsmen, in Oyo State the state Governor, Seyi Makinde sounded more accommodating.  Despite reports of wanton killings and destruction by herdsmen in parts of the state, the loss of valuable lives and properties, the Oyo State Governor chose to toe a safe, acquiescent path. He ignored the yearnings of those who asked the government – state and Federal- to stop the killings and come to the people’s rescue. He in fact was on record as having asked the authorities to arrest and sanction anyone who raised any objections to the situation in the troubled parts of the state. With the state Chief Security Officer, from whom empathy and action was expected, behaving in such manner, the people of Oyo State found solace in a certain Chief Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho. Igboho is from Oyo state, precisely from a community known as Igboho. He grew up in the Modakeke part of Ile-Ife. He was reportedly involved in the intra-ethnic conflict between Ife and Modakeke in the 90s, as a warrior on the Modakeke side. Over the years, he acquired quite a reputation as a very powerful man. His critics describe him as an able-bodied man for politicians as he once was for Alhaji Rasheed Ladoja, the bi-lingual former Governor of Oyo State, or they dismiss him as a land-grabber, a label he vehemently denies.  Igboho’s admirers regard him as an ethnic patriot, a defender of the Yoruba nation, a man of justice, an activist and a freedom fighter, who has chosen to stand up for the rights of the oppressed. 

The Igboho phenomenon deserves some close attention. Sunday Igboho showed up in the fight against criminal herdsmen in Oyo State because of the shocking absence of leadership. The state Governor failed to defend the people’s interest. He did not stand up to the truth like Governor Akeredolu of Ondo state. He provided a vacuum which a Sunday Igboho decided to fill. The failure of leadership from the right quarters has its consequences and this is what we are seeing in Oyo State. In Ondo state, there may be other Sunday Igbohos, with as much fire in their bellies, but they did not step forward in a similar fashion, because they could see the man they voted into power making an effort to put the people’s interest first. Akeredolu was challenged by the Federal Government, indeed the Presidency in a statement through Garba Shehu, Presidential spokesman,  tried to teach the Ondo Governor some elementary Constitutional Law. This was widely interpreted as an attempt by the Buhari Presidency to defend Fulani interests. Akeredolu stood his ground. In so doing, he got broad support, from lawyers, community leaders and major Yoruba stakeholders. By the time his one-week ultimatum to those who had seized control of the Ondo forest reserves expired yesterday, the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) already offered its services to help enforce the Governor’s directives. Governor Makinde may well in the long run pay a heavy political price for his apparent cowardly mishandling of the current crisis in his state. He is perhaps being careful, but there are certain moments that demand sincerity. He failed the test. 

Sunday Igboho took full advantage of the situation. On his own, he visited Igangan and Ibarapa East Local Government Area, without any governmental authority behind him. He had the support of the youths of the area, and also the backing of traditional rulers, one of whom had to pay a ransom to get his son released by kidnappers. Igboho was reportedly shot at, but bullets we were told could not penetrate his heavily fortified body. An axe was raised against him, but again, they said it had no effect. He confronted the Seriki Fulani in the community, and asked him to produce the herdsmen who were terrorizing the people so the law could take its course. He gave a seven-day ultimatum. If the criminals could not be produced, he expected the Fulani community to leave the territory. And he promised to return in seven days. And he did. His demands were not met. The result was mayhem. The home of the Seriki Fulani was set ablaze. His vehicles were torched. He and his family ran into the bush. The Seriki is said to have fled all the way to Ogun State, where we are told a group of herdsmen backed by the military recently lined up recalcitrant traditional rulers and gave them the beating of their lives, for having the audacity to say they do not want Fulani herdsmen in their community. Igboho, the latest strong man in Yoruba politics is a product of myth, history and the failure of the Nigerian state. 

How on earth would any individual openly boast that nobody, not the Governor of the state, not the Inspector General of Police not even the state Commissioner of Police can arrest him, and get way with the temerity?  During the weekend, Garba Shehu using the platform of the Presidency, announced that the Inspector General of Police had ordered the arrest of Sunday Igboho.  Igboho laughed it off. He said he was waiting for anyone to dare arrest him. In the end, nobody did. In fact, the Oyo State Commissioner of Police who should have carried out the directive, ended up having a meeting with Sunday Igboho! He proved untouchable. This merely deepened his myth. The man and his supporters talk about Igboho’s formidable spiritual prowess. He even wears a coat of amulets to Church. He can command guns to appear and disappear at will.  Nobody knows how much of that is true or not, but Igboho has managed to capture the public imagination. He won’t be the first of his type. When the state fails the people, people like Igboho emerge to provide leadership. He is again a symbol of the mistrust at the heart of the Nigerian arrangement: like Isaac Adaka Boro in the Niger Delta in the 1960s, Odumegwu Ojukwu defending the interest of the Igbos  in 1967 and beyond, Ken Saro-Wiwa leading Ogoni nationalism and the cause of environmental justice in the 90s, Dr. Frederick Fashehun and Ganiyu Adams of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), Nnamdi Kanu of the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB), and all the aggrieved persons from Southern Kaduna the Middle Belt, Adamawa and elsewhere who believe that they have been served badly  by Nigeria, for both ethnic and religious reasons. 

Of all the many ills that afflict Nigeria, the most prominent recently has been the conflict between indigenes and settlers, and specifically, between pastoralists and farmers, and the animosity between both over land and access to resources. It is an old, historical problem tied to ethnicity, religion, the politics of space and primordial sentiments. This conflict has caused so much mayhem in the past, exactly at those moments when the state was complicit in promoting one side against the other, and when the politics of proximity was privileged over the national interest or the objectives of peace and stability. It is a double-edged sword, for those who end up playing the politics of proximity end up short-changing their own people. The Fulani question which is now being played up is related to this. The people of Fulani stock have lived across Nigeria, in different communities for more than a century. Cattle rearing is not new. Cattle herders have lived amongst other Nigerians for as long as anyone can remember, and so attractive is the business that there are closet cattle owners among virtually every Nigerian group. The real owners of the cattle are not the stick-wielding, now gun-wielding herders, who add banditry and kidnapping as side vocations, the real owners are the big men in high places – and they are not all Fulani- for whom the ownership of cattle is business, and a source of prestige. How does this cross-ethnic elite class behind the modern mutation of the business fuel the conflicts? This is a question we need to interrogate. Who provides the arrogant and criminal-minded herdsmen with guns, or state protection or the kind of oxygen that blows into their heads and grants them the confidence to boast that they are in charge of Nigeria, every land and every resource? 

Nigeria’s history has been one of constant tension between push and pull factors, centripetal and centrifugal forces which often threaten to tear the union apart. It will be remembered, no matter what government spokespersons say that the Buhari administration has managed to create an impression that it is pro-North, pro-Islam, and pro-Fulani and that anything to the contrary is not likely to attract the same empathy. This is the crux of the matter. In Igangan, Sunday Igboho was told that only President Buhari can ask the herdsmen  to leave Oyo state. In Ondo state, similar sentiments were expressed. To an average Yoruba audience, this is bound to throw up primordial attachments about the ownership of land. The Yoruba have not forgiven the Fulani and  Afonja, who betrayed the Yoruba race, for the implantation of a Fulani Emirate in Ilorin. The battle of Osogbo (1840) which was where the Yoruba, led by the Ibadan army, put an end to Fulani incursion into Yoruba territory is still referred to as if the war was fought yesterday. 

Any talk about the Fulani laying claims to space and authority in Yorubaland is  bound to cause enormous tension. It should be understandable therefore why Sunday Igboho has received praise from key Yoruba figures,  Governor Akeredolu has various socio-cultural groups behind him and the Alaafin of Oyo has penned an open letter to President Buhari. Those who criticize the Buhari administration for openly supporting the Fulani agenda have a lot to point to:  the seemingly open and undisguised support for Miyetti Allah, the aborted RUGA settlement idea, the justification of grazing routes, which has now been countered afresh with a detailed reference to a 1969 judgement by late Justice Adewale Thompson of the Abeokuta Division of the High Court (as he then was) and the repeated failure of the government to bring errant herders involved in criminal conduct to book. The arrogance of certain commentators has not helped matters either: how dare anyone claim so insensitively that every piece of land in Nigeria belongs to the Fulani? Perhaps there are certain elements out there stoking the embers of  crisis for their own purposes. It is also not impossible that there are so many cattle herders out there, who are not even Fulani, but who hide under the ethnic label even when they cannot speak a word of Fulfulde. But when government fails to deal with the obvious challenges of poverty and criminality, and considers the defence of an ethnic group a major priority,  this is what happens - it widens the gaps among the people, and encourages the kind of resort to self-help that is represented by the Igboho phenomenon.  It has been said that Sunday Igboho has political ambitions which  probably explains the opposition to him by the incumbent Governor of Oyo state. And that is part of the problem: we play politics with everything in this country.  

But those who lost their loved ones will not remember the politics of it. They will remember their loss and the pain that they now live with: the women who were raped, the children of late Fatai Aborode, Ph.D who have lost a father, the farmers whose farms were destroyed by cattle-rearers, the families that paid ransom and still had to pick up the corpse of their loved ones by the roadside, the many untimely widows and orphans in Ondo, Igangan, Imo, Southern Kaduna and elsewhere. Will they ever get justice?

On November 2, 2016, a week before the US Presidential elections of Nov. 8, 2016, Wole Soyinka, Africa’s first Nobel Laureate in Literature told a group of students at Oxford University’s Eretgun House that if Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, he would leave the United States and cut his green card into pieces. The Green Card is a permanent residence permit that allows you to live and work in the United States.  For more than 20 years, Professor Wole Soyinka had lived in the United States teaching in many universities including Harvard, and the New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs where he was a scholar-in-residence at the time of the 2016 Presidential election. “The moment they announce his victory, I will cut my green card myself and start packing up,” he announced. He called this, “Wolexit”, a pun on “Brexit”.  Nobody has any evidence whether the Nobel Laureate actually wielded a pair of scissors and physically sheared his green card, but it was confirmed that he rendered it “inoperable.” Soyinka said he “felt disaster in my marrow”. 

He added: “I had a horror of what is to come with Trump…I threw away the card and I have relocated and I am back to where I have always been.” Nigeria, that is. Soyinka was 82 at the time. He was further quoted as saying: “Trump’s wall is already under construction…Walls are built in the mind, and Trump has erected walls, not only across the mental landscape of America, but across the global landscape.”  Soyinka in 2016 decried what he called the rise of “ultra-nationalism” and its inherent dangers. He kept his promise. He gave Trump’s America a wide berth, and in the four years that Donald  J. Trump served as America’s 45^thPresident, Professor Wole Soyinka was proven right up till the very last moments of the nightmare that was the Trump Presidency. 

The “horror of what is to come” that Soyinka spoke about, the nightmare that he foresaw, will end at noon EST tomorrow, January 20, as Donald Trump exits the White House. He will be doing so after four years of pulling down bridges, and erecting walls of division within America and between America and the world. In four years, the Trump Presidency became a “thing around the neck” of the United States, and a fish-bone in the throat of the world. As he leaves the White House tomorrow, rather reluctantly, with a terribly low approval rating of 29%, the 74 million Americans who voted for him, in the November 3, 2020 Presidential election, the pro-Trump coalition, the ultra-right Trumpers that he pumped up with the oxygen of hate, the insurrectionists who bought into his politics of delusion meant to delegitimize the victory of Joseph R. Biden, that is - those who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, may feel pain that their era has ended, at least for now, but for the rest of the world, Trump’s exit is a big relief, the end of horror and a terrible nightmare.

It may be too early to make a final statement on the legacy of the Trump administration, legacy being a function of actual performance in office, post-office realities and a number of other factors, but for Trump, it can be confidently said that he was a bad President, or that he will end up as one of the worst Presidents ever in the history of the United States. He was the architect of his own undoing. Trump broke down the norms and traditions of the American Presidency and sought to reconstruct the office in his own image. He tried to govern through Twitter. From that platform, he rained personal insults on perceived enemies or opponents, curses as well, and tons of mistruths and outright lies. He promoted conspiracies, hate, right-wing extremism and racial wars. No institution was too strong for him to denigrate. No individual was considered deserving of respect. He insulted and attacked members of his own cabinet.  His administration had the highest turnover of staff in the history of America’s Presidency. He wanted to bend the entire American institution to his own will, and whoever raised a voice of objection was immediately tagged an enemy and fired. Foreign leaders were not spared either, not to talk of leaders of American institutions. The only thing that mattered was Trump’s opinion and ego. He ran a narcissistic Presidency that confounded even the historians. They had never seen anything like that before. 

Trump’s politics was hidden under the cloak of American exceptionalism or America First. Pretending to be defending the interests of the United States, he embarked on a twin policy of isolationism and unilateralism in international relations. He reversed the gains of the Barack Obama era, internally and internationally. Every major agreement was not good enough for him: be  it with Iran or America’s North American neighbours, the Paris Climate Accord, trade with Europe or any existing multilateral obligations. Trump blocked the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute resolution mechanism and sought to impose his own will on the multilateral organization. He reversed the US policy on the Middle East situation, even if he claims credit for the normalization of ties between Israel and some of its Arab neighbours. He built walls against immigrants from Latin America, Muslim countries and those countries he labelled “shithole countries” which included Nigeria, by the way.  He separated children from their mothers and was never reluctant to violate the rule of law or the course of justice. 

The critics of his critics argue that he is not given enough credit for what they regard as his accomplishments. Trump’s base is the Christian evangelical community in the United States and other parts of the world including Nigeria, the extremist, conservative wing of global ideology for whom any form of liberalism is a scriptural sin. His other base is the ultra-right, ultra-nationalistic band of racial haters, for whom his slogan “Make America Great Again”  simply means “Make America White Again”, the neo-fascists, the Ku Klux Klan, the so-called Proud Boys who under Trump’s watch reversed the gains of the racial justice movement in the United States. Trump claimed that he created more jobs for African Americans and other minorities, and that he stood up against China and America’s enemies like Iran and North Korea. He also claims credit for economic growth and tax reforms. But the damages that he brought about dwarf whatever he achieved. It will take a while to repair the damage. It will take years for the United States to recover from the Trump nightmare. It may take even much longer for the Republican Party, the Grand Old Party, the party which he now leaves behind, divided and shell-shocked with the prospect of uncertain mid-term election prospects. 

Trump’s real undoing was in the last year of his Presidency. It was in the last year that the cookies crumbled and he had to pay the price for all the lies and deception of the first three years. First, COVID-19 happened. It was Trump’s nemesis. His failure to properly respond to the pandemic exposed the underbelly of his Presidency. Trump was blinded by his own ego. He became more of a scientist than the scientists themselves whose informed views he openly derided and contradicted. He even prescribed his own drugs for the virus, cutting many lives short in the process. He launched Operation Warp Speed  but that anti-COVID response could not achieve its objectives because Trump stood in its way most of the time. He even politicized the wearing of masks. By the time his Presidency entered its last week, 23 million Americans had been infected, over 400,000 Americans had died. The vaccine reserve that his administration had promised Americans turned out to be a lie at the critical moment. Those who argue that if there had been no COVID-19, perhaps Trump would have won a second term may well be right, but then leadership is the sum total of what those in positions of authority elect to do. 

Second, there was the mishandling of racial justice following the death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans, victims of police brutality and criminal injustice in the United States who became the catalysts for the unveiling of the racism and fascism at the heart of the Trump Presidency. Every Black vote for Biden in the red states that turned blue, and in the swing states, was a vote in protest against the wanton dehumanization of minorities and the rise of extremism  under Trump’s watch, a vote as it were, for the Black Lives Matter movement.  

Third, Trump burnt his fingers with the desperate attempt to push the narrative that the Presidential election was fraudulent and that he, Trump won the election. He cut a pathetic figure pursuing recounts which changed nothing and litigations which only further affirmed Joseph R. Biden as the rightful winner of the election. He was humiliated on November 3, the day of the election. He lost the popular vote by 7 million votes, the first American President to lose the popular vote twice. On December 14, he was again humiliated when the electoral college confirmed Joe Biden as winner. He was further disgraced on January 5, in the two Senate run-off elections in the state of Georgia which the Republicans lost giving the Democrats a narrow majority of 50 -51 in the US Senate.  No other American President has been so consistently humiliated. 

The last straw that broke the camel’s back was on January 6, 2021, when President Trump ordered his supporters to storm Capitol Hill to stop those who wanted “to steal the votes” by ratifying the election of Joe Biden as President of the United States. This incitement of domestic terrorists against the seat of American democracy was an attempted coup, appropriately classified as high misdemeanour and a crime against the state by the House of Representatives which has since impeached Trump. He is the first American President to be impeached twice, first in 2019 and now in 2021. He faces the prospect of a trial and a conviction by the US Senate and the likelihood of his being barred for life from ever holding another public office in the United States.  Trump leaves office tomorrow as a one-term President, a tragic figure done in by his own hubris. Corporate America has since abandoned him. His Twitter account, the platform from where he held court for four years has been banned permanently. He faces a barrage of criminal and civil suits after office. 

He remains stubborn nonetheless. On the eve of his departure, he insists on exercising Presidential powers by announcing an expansive list of presidential pardons. It is hoped that he would not take the extra-ordinary step of including himself or his family members in the list, for that would raise Constitutional issues and amount to an express admission of guilt. He has also chosen to break with tradition. He has refused to reach out to the Bidens. He has not invited them to the White House. He is not even likely to leave a farewell note for his successor on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. He wants it on record that he is not happy he lost the election. He is such a sore loser, isn’t he? He won’t even attend the Inauguration on January 20. He is the first American President in modern history to shun the inauguration of his successor. But he is not the first in American history and he probably would not be the last. 

In 1801, John Adams, America’s second President was so angry he took the 4.30 am coach for Baltimore out of Washington DC, on the day his friend and successor, Thomas Jefferson was being sworn in.  His son, John Quincy Adams, the sixth US President, similarly shunned the swearing in of his successor, Andrew Jackson in 1829. He went horse-riding on the day of inauguration.  The contempt was mutual. Andrew Jackson blamed John Quincy Adams for the death of his wife! In 1869, Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln’s successor, also did not attend the swearing in of Ulysses S. Grant as President. Johnson was in the cabinet room signing some bills and chatting with friends as another President assumed office. In 1974, Richard Nixon missed Gerald Ford’s swearing in. He had just resigned, so he left Washington immediately. 

Tomorrow, Trump intends to leave Washington early morning for Palm Beach, Florida, about 1, 000 miles away. He will still have in his possession the nuclear briefcase and the nuclear codes called the “biscuit”. But that would not matter. The nuclear codes will be changed at noon EST. Trump can then keep the empty briefcase in his possession as a memento! The nightmare is thus over. It is a new dawn in the United States. But will Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka restore his Green Card and embrace Biden’s America? Just asking.  

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was in the news for all the wrong reasons in the year 2020. The agency that was established 20 years ago to bring development to the nine oil-bearing communities of the Niger Delta became an embarrassment to the Nigerian government. In 2019, President Buhari had ordered a forensic audit of the agency’s accounts, a move that was hailed as long overdue by many Nigerians. This was also said to be consistent with the administration’s anti-corruption campaign. What should be a smooth administrative process however, became a battle for the soul of the agency itself. The conflict was in the shape of controversies over the appointment of a Board for the NDDC. A Board was constituted only to be suspended and replaced with an Interim Management Committee. While the President opted for Interim Management Committee and urged the team of auditors looking into the books of the NDDC to do a thorough job, the National Assembly also launched an inquiry into the affairs of the NDDC. It was like opening a can of worms.

The drama that unfolded was the stuff of box office hits: from the Minister of Delta State Affairs accusing former NDDC Interim Administrator, Joi Nunieh of being a serial monogamist (four husbands, one woman, he boldly stated on Television). By the time Nunieh hit back, it was as if someone had used a coconut to break the Minister’s head (“He tried to touch me!, Nunieh declared!). This drama had many episodes including an attempt to abduct Nunieh and Governor Wike of Rivers stepping in chivalrously to protect a daughter of Rivers who was being harassed by powerful forces. Niger Delta Stakeholders and particularly Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) activists took over every available airwave and media space to expose the extent of corruption and abuse of due process in the NDDC. Many Nigerians were so shocked they called for the scrapping of the NDDC or at best an immediate reform of the agency to realign it with its original objectives. Anyone and everyone ever associated with the NDDC became a suspect, because the details were eye-blinding. Those who made the allegations were often armed with tons of documents with confident public affirmation that they had duplicates. Accusations and counter accusations flew all over the place. Opposition parties heaped the blame on the Buhari administration. Which was wrong and unfair because the NDDC had been enmeshed in institutional failures long before President Buhari won election at the fourth attempt in 2015.

The more disturbing part of the drama unfolded at the National Assembly where NDDC IMC members openly accused Chairmen of NDDC Committees in the National Assembly of being the main culprits behind the award of emergency contracts, which were all abandoned after more than half of the contract fees had been collected as mobilization fee. Out of all the projects earmarked for the Niger Delta in the last five years, lawmakers simply used their positions of influence to collect rent, and do nothing. Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, speaking on behalf of the IMC on several occasions, provided the names of lawmakers and the companies that they used to cover up their tracks. The lawmakers fought back of course. On one occasion, the House of Representatives had tough questions for Professor Daniel Pondei, the then Head of the IMC and right there on live television, the man fainted. On another occasion, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio whose name had featured prominently in the entire circus made some very hard revelations before the House Committee. He was told “Hon. Minister, off your mic. It’s okay. Off your mic.” Fainting in the face of serious interrogation and the phrase “Off your Mic” became part of Nigeria’s popular lexicon. Both Chambers of the National Assembly wrote their reports, but as these things go, nobody is sure of the true copy of the reports as there are many versions in circulation.

What we are sure of is that in August 2020, the Federal Government named a group of auditors led by Ernst and Young to do a thorough forensic audit of the NDDC. The expectation was that they would complete the assignment by December 2020. The public was skeptical. Many thought no forensic audit would go well, with the Pondei-led IMC still in office. In April 2020, the tenure of that committee had been extended. On December 12, 2020, President Buhari dissolved the Daniel Pondei IMC, in response to a Federal High Court Abuja ruling which declared the Interim Management Committee illegal. He named as sole administrator, Effiong Akwa, a lawyer and accountant, former Special Assistant, Finance at the NDDC, and former Acting Executive Director, Finance. His mandate is to fast-track and facilitate the conclusion of the audit process. Anything NDDC attracts controversy like bees to nectar. In just about 3 weeks in office, Akwa’s appointment has generated a huge volume of smear campaign, name-calling, objections, protests, sponsored content, a series of articles in the newspapers, for and against. President Buhari’s decision must have been borne out of a determination to re-invigorate the NDDC audit. Nigeria has invested so much money in the NDDC over the last 20 years. Nearly all the projects remain abandoned, including the abandoned city roads that are a perennial source of conflict with state governors. Perhaps the only project that the NDDC can point to, with very small fingers, are the roads leading to the Nigeria Maritime University in Okerenkoko. Oil spillage remains an unresolved problem. The people are poor. The objections to Akwa show just how complex the politics of the Niger Delta and the NDDC is, and why a far-reaching reform is required. Akwa enjoys the support of an umbrella group called Niger Delta Change Ambassadors – a coalition of over 50 civil society groups, and especially, the Oron Union who vowed that they would resist any attempt to ridicule Akwa. The Oron people have a long history of nationalism, dating back to the determined struggles of the early 80s led by Professor Okon Edet Uya with the slogan: “Oro-n-phobia! The Oron Union argues that the attack on their kinsman smacks of “Oronphobia”. His main attackers operate under the banner of the Niger Delta Renaissance Coalition, Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and Mothers of Oil Producing Communities of Niger Delta (MOPROCOND), who have promised a “grand nude protest” in front of the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt. I will leave out the name-calling and deal with their substantial points.

The first argument is that by appointing a sole administrator, the President has acted in an illegal and unconstitutional manner. They insist that the NDDC Establishment Act (2000) as amended, does not provide for a sole administrator. It provides instead for an interim management committee whose tenure is defined in law. One of the protesters also claims that the President has broken the law. I don’t see how the President has broken any law in this instance. The President is sworn to defend the Constitution which is superior to any subsidiary legislation. Section 5 of the 1999 Constitution grants the President executive powers that are personal to him and his office. He may also delegate authority to Ministers, aides and any person of his choice as he de ems fit. He cannot however exercise powers that are not granted to him under the Constitution. It is as simple as that. Whoever is not pleased has every right to challenge the President’s decision in court, rather than engaging in disruptive manoeuvres with a hidden agenda. Already one K.C. Okpo has filed a suit at a Federal High Court citing breaches of Sections 2, 3, 4 and 12 of the NDDC Establishment Act. No date has been fixed for hearing.

The second argument is that Effiong Akwa is a stooge of the Minister of the Niger Delta. How does anyone determine that? It is strange that since Senator Godswill Akpabio assumed office as Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, he has been fingered as the man calling all the shots at the NDDC, with the sub-text of projecting him as a man who is so powerful that he can dictate to the President of Nigeria. There are too many people who are described as great and powerful Ministers in the media, but who in the corridors of power kneel down like schoolboys in order to keep their jobs. It is delusional to think that an aide of the President can impose on him. Presidents can delegate powers but they do not share it. Akpabio may be the supervising Minister but he cannot, must not and should not be allowed to become a one-man Board of the NDDC. The Federal Government has made it clear that immediately after the completion of the audit, a new NDDC Board will be constituted. But even then, the NDDC forensic audit cannot continue forever. Akwa’s tenure must be properly defined and the team of auditors must be given strict deadlines. Senator Akpabio should be given clear Presidential directives to steer clear of the audit to build trust and confidence in the process.

The third argument pushed by the Ijaw Youth Congress, which I find ridiculous, is the view that Ijaws are the only true Niger Delta people so they should be allowed to lead NDDC. How can an Akwa from Akwa Ibom be less Niger Delta than an Ijaw person? What determines true Niger Deltan-ness? It is precisely this kind of ethnic in-fighting that makes other Nigerians worry about the politics of the Niger Delta. Has anybody heard any similar stories since the North East Development Commission was established? Never. But our brothers and sisters in the Niger Delta are busy fighting over appointments, money and contracts. Ijaw Youth cannot claim any extra-ordinary privilege in the Niger Delta. It is true that oil was discovered in commercial quantities in Oloibiri, Bayelsa state. Ijaws also gave us the hero of the struggle, Isaac Adaka Boro. But so have other parts of the Niger Delta through the years. Akwa Ibom can boast of the likes of Obong Victor Attah, who fell out of favour with the Obasanjo administration because of his insistence on an upward review of derivation and the likes of Udom Inoyo, Air Commodore Idongesit Nkanga, Senator Anietie Okon and many others who fought for justice in the Niger Delta. In terms of crude oil output, Akwa Ibom accounts for over 40% of the total crude oil output in the Niger Delta with 80% of that from Oron, where Akwa hails from. Akwa Ibom is followed by Delta State, Rivers, while Bayelsa is No. 4 on the list. Ijaws have benefitted more than any other group in the Niger Delta. And yet, I have not seen any record of Akwa Ibom people bombing oil pipelines or kidnapping expatriates for ransom.

The objections are disruptive and distractive. IYC and other stakeholders should unite with others to confront the major problems of the region instead of fighting over appointments. There are big problems: pollution, Ogoni clean up, gas flaring, amendment of the NDDC Act, reform of the NDDC itself etc. Those former officials of the NDDC who are having battle with their conscience and are looking for every means possible to cover up their tracks or discredit the audit should be reminded that “catching the thieves” is only an expected derivative of the audit, the bigger picture is how to transform the NDDC from a sinkhole, a leaky bucket, a vehicle of rent distribution into a true development agency with measurable benefits for the people.

Within 3 weeks of assuming office, Effiong Akwa has engaged with the National Assembly to get approval, finally, for NDDC Budget 2020 which will run till June. But he must remain focused and refuse to be dragged into the politics of the job. His assignment is simple: facilitate the completion of the forensic audit. By now, he should know that all eyes are on him. All the paid agents within the NDDC will monitor everything he does or says, looking for loopholes and omissions with which to nail him when the opportunity arises. He must be firm but sensible. He has already been called Godfrey Akpabio’s stooge. It is important that he does not behave like one. NDDC is not a revenue generating agency. It is a development agency with budgeted outlines. He must put an end to the trend of rent-distribution. Ninety percent of contracts awarded by the NDDC are emergency contracts. These contracts are a conduit for fraud. Every procurement in the public sector is governed by the Public Procurement Act (2007). The Act requires that every contract to be awarded must be backed by Appropriation and “a Certificate of No Objection” from the Bureau of Public Procurement, the violations of which amount to a criminal offence. Effiong Akwa should get a copy of the Procurement Act and commit it to memory. He will be glad he did… When will the Niger Delta rise above atomistic politics?

Nigerians are playing with COVID-19, and in so doing, they are playing with fire and death. Why are we so blest and yet so suicidal? When the index case of the virus was announced on February 27, 2020, and the government proceeded to adopt lockdown measures at both national and sub-national levels, the people were gripped by fear and anxiety. COVID-19 was something strange that they could not deal with. The fact that it turned out to be a global pandemic, spreading like wildfire, burning down lives and hopes, made the situation more frightening. When government, following the pattern observed elsewhere decided to ease the lockdown, and businesses were allowed to re-open in order to save the economy from total collapse, Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief and began to run their lives in spite of the virus. They respected the non-pharmaceutical interventions which government prescribed for a while, but in due course all the masks disappeared. Even the isolation centres that were set up in different parts of the country became inactive. Many of those isolation centres were shut down and the healthcare workers were re-assigned. 

We began to hear less and less of those phrases that defined the pandemic at its peak: contact tracing, physical distancing, social distancing, use of sanitizer. When the lockdown was eased, the Presidential Task Force and the state governments rolled out a number of prescriptions. Religious bodies were required to reduce their gatherings to half the capacity of the hall in which their events took place. The register of those who attended such gatherings was expected to be kept so that in the event of an outbreak of infections, it would be possible to trace contacts and contain any form of community spread. I love going to the market to buy vegetables, sea food and other items. Over the years, this has provided me the opportunity to mix and mingle with the real people of Nigeria. A typical Nigerian market has a life of its own. 

As the pandemic raged, there were local government officials manning the entry points to the markets. I recall being sent back to the car more than twice, with a very polite reminder that without a mask, I could not be allowed entry. I dutifully obeyed with apologies, or I promptly fished out my mask and wore it, following which I would stretch out my hand for a shower of sanitizer. Supermarkets insisted on the same protocol, but that didn’t impress me, because once you got into the store, you could see all manner of reckless persons yanking off their masks.  Because there were no sanctions and Nigerian leaders who made the rules did not show the example, the people themselves gradually began to conclude that COVID-19 is a scam, some form of “play-play” (that is a Nigerian term) with which Nigerian politicians siphon money from the state treasury.  They could see politicians organizing rallies at which they disregarded COVID-19 protocols. They could see government officials walking about as if they had a form of divine immunity. The religious leaders did not help matters. Some of them pointedly told the people that there is nothing called Coronavirus, and that a Christian is covered by the blood of Jesus. For some reason, the prevalence rates in Africa was quite low, except perhaps in the colder parts of the continent (the Cape Province and Gauteng in South Africa and in the countries of North Africa). Every one relaxed. Corona Virus became classified as a rich man’s affliction, from which the poor were allegedly protected.     

I recall attending a small family get-together at the time when everyone was almost forgetting about the virus. I arrived at the event wearing a mask. Really modest gathering, to honour a friend who had recorded yet another significant milestone in his life. The moment my friend welcomed me into his compound, he kept telling me to remove my mask. I refused. I wasn’t prepared to take any risks. He then asked me to look around if I could see anyone wearing a mask. Indeed, nobody else wore a mask. The jollification was in full swing. I looked around. There was this woman gyrating like a cone on the dancing floor, thrusting her chest and derriere in a tantalizing, mermaid-like, manner, enough to distract a man of gentlemanly manners. I got carried away for a moment as I fixed my gaze on her wondrous assets. 

“Dr, I say remove this mask. You can’t be the only one wearing a mask at this gathering. People will laugh at you.” 

“No. I will keep it on. Coronavirus is real. It has not gone yet. Have you not been following what is going in the United States and Europe? We even hear that the situation could get worse before the end of the year.” 

“That is in those places. They are the ones who know what sin they have committed that God is punishing them for. In this our own town, there is no Corona here. Evil is not our portion in the name of Jesus!” 

“There is Corona in this your town my brother. Every day on Arise TV, we track the Corona virus trend, and offer analysis. I know what I am talking about.”

“That is television. You people must have something to say every morning. Even if nothing exists, you will create it and use sweet mouth to convince people. I beg, come and sit down and eat and drink. Let me see whether you will drink through the face mask. Mr. Co-ro-na!” 

When it was time to take pictures with my friend and his family, and I showed up in front of the camera, still with a face mask, he was the one who personally removed my mask with his hands. “My friend, respect yourself, you want to take pictures with me, you are wearing a mask. How would I convince anybody that you travelled all the way from Lagos to honour me?” It was the last community, family-oriented event that I attended in the year 2020. As if I knew…!  

As the year drew to a close, we began to hear reports of a second variant of the virus, that is deadlier, more dangerous and 70% more transmissible than the original virus named COVID-19. The mutant variant was reportedly sighted in the United Kingdom where a Third Wave had already forced the authorities to impose a tiered system of lockdown on the entire country. The same variant was also sighted in South Africa and in due course in other countries of the world: 33 as at the last count. Many countries began to shut their borders again as the virus remained capricious. Meanwhile, the emergence of a new variant of it, abbreviated the joy that the world had experienced with the emergence of vaccine candidates with impressive safety, efficacy and immunogenicity profiles which had already been granted emergency authorization and deployed across the world. Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Astra-Zeneca-Oxford and the vaccines they came up with raised hopes that humanity would at last beat the virus. In the US, UK, Canada, UAE, Russia, China and across Europe, clinical trials and vaccinations were in progress. Scientists worked round the clock to reduce and checkmate the terror of the virus. There were hiccups and concerns, but it was instructive to see the amount of devotion that the war against coronavirus generated across boundaries. 

Nigerian authorities would eventually wake up. They began to warn afresh about the need to #take-responsibility. The Presidential Task Force and the National Centre for Disease Control announced that the infection rate in Nigeria was going up. They further disclosed that the new variant that was reported in the UK in September had actually been identified at a Genomics Laboratory at Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria, in a research led by Professor Christian Happi and his team. If the UK had probably not raised the alarm,  Nigeria would not have drawn attention to this fact. By the last week of the year 2020, the country was already recording over 1, 031 infections per day, and that grew steadily to 1, 074 cases per day. Still, the people couldn’t be bothered. They defied government counsel and continued to hold all kinds of parties: weddings, funerals, house-warmings, naming ceremonies. The counsel that people should stay away from large gatherings during the Yuletide and New Year season was ignored. Lagos and other state governments re-imposed curfews  and threatened that there would be sanctions. Lagos declared what it called “Operation No Tolerance”. Government could well have been talking to the deaf. 

The people rang in the New Year on their own terms. They trooped to the beaches in large numbers. One video showed a sea of heads at a beach in Lagos! Entertainment spots were filled up. End of the year parties were held. On cross-over night, the churches welcomed end-of-year revelers who brazenly advertised their violation of the law. We stepped into the year 2021, against the background of fears that the numbers will rise and there may be chaos lurking around the corner. When reminded of their own folly, the average Nigerian would tell you that COVID-19 had disappeared with the year 2020! When told that in one week alone, 20 doctors died and that more celebrity deaths were recorded, the people ignored the message. To have a community where the people do not care whether they die or not is a classic representation of Nigeria’s descent into anomie. 

In one word, Nigerians refused to take responsibility. The government failed to enforce its own rules. I used to urge the  Nigerian government to pay more attention to public communication and adjust its strategies. At this point, I am beginning to doubt my own prescription. It may now be difficult to convince anyone that strategic communication is the problem. One year after the virus, I do not think that there is anyone in the world who has not heard of COVID-19. People in the rural areas have relatives and friends living in the cities. Both rural and urban residents know at least one person living in Europe or North America and Asia. The No. 1 topic in the media has remained the scourge of COVID-19. We are paying the price for the lack of trust between government and the people. Why should Nigerians trust the same political leaders who kept COVID-19 palliatives for themselves and used them as birthday gifts? One of the most enduring images of 2020 was that of poor Nigerians forcing warehouses and the homes of politicians open to liberate COVID-19 palliative materials. Thus, when government officials talk about saving the people, nobody takes them seriously. The people would rather resort to self-help. 

In Nigeria, this has proven to be costly. The vacuum created by the government has been filled by merchants of faith, spell-binders and mercenaries engaged in a “Plandemic war” – a war of misinformation by anti-vaxxers. Their main arena is the social media and the pulpit where they spew conspiracy theories about how COVID-19 is an artificial creation by Big Pharma and a greedy, cross-border capitalist elite, or as they argue, unconscionably, a ploy to create a World Government under the control of the Illuminati. There are now about 31 million people following anti-Vaccine groups on Facebook and YouTube. The church is part of this anti-Corona movement. Pentecostal Pastors are particularly notorious. They hide under divine immunity to mislead their congregation and impose their own alternative facts. There is a video in circulation for example of Pastor Chris Oyakhilome where he tells his captive audience: “Let me show you something. A calendar.” And then he goes on to indoctrinate the people relying on a calendar nobody else has seen. 

It must be possible for the Congregation to interrogate pastors and ask cogent questions. No Pastor should be allowed the affectation of Solomonic imperialism that we now see in Nigerian churches. It is even more disturbing that some politicians have joined the trend. There is this other video showing Senator Dino Melaye speaking evangelically about COVID-19 and the vaccine. He asked people pointedly not to take any vaccine. I thought the man in the video was a body double. But he looked like Melaye quite alright. I was alarmed. Melaye was not dancing, singing, or making comedy, for which he is well known. He was dead serious. That is the reality of our situation. I won’t be shocked if my carpenter suddenly shows up tomorrow as the Anthony Fauci of Nigeria and he gets a sizeable followership!    

It is the failure of government and the crisis of leadership that is at play. Towards the end of 2020, we had the untidy situation whereby the Presidential Task Force openly blamed state governments for failing to sustain the interventionist pathways funded by the Federal Government and the Organised Private Sector under the auspices of CA-COVID and the Central Bank of Nigeria. The states were asked to reopen the isolation centres. But how many of those isolation centres and laboratories are still functioning or in good shape? They have probably been looted. The Federal Government also asked the states to suspend the re-opening of schools till January 18, 2021. Some of the states are insisting they would re-open schools anyway. One state government’s spokesperson reportedly said they would listen only to the Governor of their State. So is this about ego then?  What does this tell us? Lack of synergy. The Federal Government says we should expect vaccines by the end of January. How? Which vaccines? Are we on any waiting list? Have we made orders? Is there an operational plan in place? We are in January already. Nigeria needs to learn how other countries like Greece, for example, manage these things. And then the other day, the Federal Government published a list of 100 passport numbers, travellers who failed to observe the 7-day post arrival, mandatory PCR test. Of what use are those passport numbers? Is it not better to name the owners of the passports?  Nigeria needs to get its acts together. We are far behind. We need new thinking. 

My favourite end-of-the-year quote, which I have shared with many others,  is the following passage from Chapter 3 of the inimitable Chinua Achebe’s Things Falls Apart, a novel of monumental, evergreen relevance, translated into over 50 languages, a product of pure genius, a milestone in world literature. Achebe wrote:   

“...The year that Okonkwo took eight hundred seed yams from Nwakibie was the worst year in living  memory. Nothing happened at its proper time; it was either too early or too late. It seemed as if the world had gone mad. The first rains were late and when they came, lasted only a brief moment ... The drought continued for eight market weeks and the yams were killed. The year had gone mad. When the rains finally returned, they fell as it had never fallen before. Trees were uprooted and deep gorges appeared everywhere.

That year, the harvest was sad, like a funeral and many farmers wept as they dug up the miserable and rotting yams. One man tied his cloth to a tree  branch and hanged himself. Okonkwo remembered that tragic year with a cold shiver throughout the rest of his life. It always surprised him when he thought about it later that he did not sink under the load of despair. He knew he was a fierce fighter, but that year had been enough to break the heart of a lion. Since I survived that year," he always said, "I shall survive anything."

Chinua Acbebe, the master story-teller wrote Things Fall Apart in 1957. He was just 27. Today, his words ring true. His narrative summarizes what we have been through in the year 2020. Writers are prophets. They see ahead. They map the trajectory of human experience even before it happens. The year 2020, better known as the year that was, indeed went mad. In terms of harvest, there was very little to talk about. Not yams sprouting from farmlands, but the negation of everything by a pathogen known as COVID-19 which left our world in dire straits. The last time the world witnessed a similar tragedy was in 1918-1920. That was the Spanish Flu. It lasted for two years and left a devastating imprint. We are sadly back to that past 100 years later. Across the world, from Europe to Antarctica, over one million people have died. Over 81 million persons have been infected. Many more will die, as the virus mutates and demonstrates a capacity equivalent to evil in extreme proportions. Indeed as the sage wrote, If we survive this, “we shall survive anything”. The year 2020 is the perfect “annus horribilis.” It is not a year “on which we shall look back with undiluted pleasure”. 

 It was the year that everything failed. Marriages collapsed. Businesses failed. The world’s demand and supply chain was disrupted. Man was humbled and humanity tried to catch up with an existential accident. The limits of science was tested.  The idea of  community was redefined, as human beings were forced to stay in their own natural enclaves, and avoid each other. This was the spectacular year when even grandparents were advised to stay away from their own children. Hospitals were overstretched. The entire world became an isolation centre. The words: physical distancing, social distancing, masks, hygiene, guidelines, protocols,  task force, leadership, yes, leadership, and responsibility became the most famous words of the year.   

The cemetery is a public place. It became even more popular in the year 2020. It was indeed an unusual year of paradoxes. Hi-Tech owners and investors made big money, so did Big-Pharmaceutical companies and so did the undertakers and funeral homes who made a fortune from the harvest of deaths.  In our country, Nigeria, there was another kind of harvest, which added to the people’s misery and pain. Kidnappings. Banditry. The failure of the Naira. The collapse of the oil and gas sector. The madness of the people who in the face of COVID-19 chose to be skeptical, saved ironically by the fact that the disease was not as terrible as it was in other continents. The economy of course failed also. Nigeria slipped into a second recession in five years. Many lost their jobs. It was a sad year in all sectors, more or less. And it was the year when Nigerian youths rebelled against police brutality and bad governance. 

We lament but we must also look at the other side of the picture: What lessons have we learnt and how can those lessons help us in the years to come? As the year 2020 ends, we are looking forward to a New Year. And somehow, everyone thinks that in 2021 COVID-19 will disappear. But not quite. The year 2021 looks very much like the year of the Vaccine and the politics of vaccination. Getting  the people to take the vaccine is likely to be a big challenge. Going forward, I recall a few lessons that we may have learnt.

Number One: Could anyone have ever imagined that we would give up some of our usual habits as human beings? All of a sudden the year 2020, showed us that if we do not shake hands, hug each other, exchange intimate social affections, we would not die. I do not, as the year ends,  remember the last time I hugged anyone or shook hands with a friend. A handshake was once a symbol and expression of brotherhood.  The year of the virus made that impossible as we all had to mask up, and observe physical and social distancing. Here we are at the end of the year and so much has changed in terms of how we relate to other people. Someone was telling me the other day that we are now in the Harmattan season, or put more correctly, the flu season. But you try and sneeze at this time. Or cough. Every sneeze or cough is considered a sign of Corona Virus. I know persons who go about with a can of aerosol spray in their bags. You sneeze. You get sprayed for constituting yourself into a threat to public health. A lady that I know, will spray Aerosol on you from head to toe and tell you: “ma ko bami jare!” Before the year 2020, it was normal to sneeze and cough. People will tell you: “God bless you.” Now, that has become a crime. Nobody asks God to bless you. They look at you with what Nigerians call “corner-eye”.

Number Two: Nigerians love parties. But in the year 2020, it became a crime also to attend parties, wear aso ebi, and party all day long. I have bags of traditional party attires, agbada and all sorts, but this year, I have not opened any of those bags. There was no need going everywhere. We were told to keep safe and stay at home. Can anyone ever imagine that a year would pass like that without all the communal parties? Some people defied the protocols, year 2020 was not like any other year. But some of us obeyed the government. It was quite clear at some point that even persons who followed the directive that everyone should #take-responsibility were not spared by the virus. The high and mighty died. The most talented in our community died. COVID-19 was so egalitarian, it did not respect anybody or national boundaries. 

Number Three: One of my  teachers, many years ago, in a 400 level course titled “Theatre and Mankind” told us that man considers himself the most wondrous being on earth and regards himself as Master of the Universe, but repeatedly, man realizes that he is really not as important as he projects himself to be. Again and again, nature humbles him. The environment reminds him that he is not a Master but a gnat. The more this happens, the more man struggles to master the Cosmos and it is in that eternal struggle that we find the substance of epistemology and wisdom, and human drama. This is the story of our lives, and it was played out, poignantly, in the year 2020. In that year, that now ends, we were confronted with the uncertainty and the vulnerability of our lives.  We are now at a point where scientists are saying they have found a vaccine. The drama of 2020 was that of man’s conflict with  a pathogen, and as we were taught, this is just the beginning of another end. Man’s place in creation is that of Sisyphus and Atlas. If anyone believes that our struggle is over, he or she misses the point. 

Number Four:  It was a year we were told to stay away from one another and that taught us a lesson about how interconnected and interdependent we all are in a real sense. And of course the freedoms that we often take for granted became more precious than we ever considered. We were asked to stay at home, lock down, and avoid others.  Even students could not go to school. We were required to bear responsibility for the health and well-being of others. It was a big issue that we all needed each other to survive, and if you were infected, you were told not to risk the possibility of infecting the other person.   That was a big lesson in human solidarity. But it was tough. In times of pain and despair, the natural instinct is for people to reach out to each other, stick together as family, and seek help. In the year 2020, we were told to change the way we have always lived so we could remain alive. In Africa and Nigeria, the people took that for granted, but now that there is a second wave, we can only hope that the people will learn and not submit to conspiracy theories or the thinking that Corona virus is a big man’s disease which it is not. 

Number Five: And still on how connected we are as human beings and how Corona Virus advances the struggle for equality, it became clear in the year 2020, that  health is wealth, and that a failed healthcare system such as exists in many African countries would affect everyone. The African rich class had this habit of running abroad each time they fell ill; headache, ear-ache, indigestion, diarrhoea, even malaria. But in 2020, that became a suicidal option. Our leaders were taught the lesson that they have a responsibility to develop and strengthen the health systems in their own countries.  For reasons not yet fully analysed, the African continent did not experience a corona virus blow out. This was the surprising miracle of the year  considering the behaviour of the people, the misconduct of African governments and the reign of superstition from Tanzania to Burundi, Ghana  and Nigeria. 

Number Six: The free market system flourished ironically and China, where the virus sprouted from became the biggest economic beneficiary. Vaccine nationalism flourished counterpoised by vaccine hesitancy, two instructive phrases of  the moment. We are confronted, in the face of the Virus, with the urgent need for new global narratives. 

Number Seven: Leadership. The year 2020 showed that leadership matters. We saw through the year, good and bad leaders in terms of how they managed the COVID-19 challenge. Good leaders help society. Bad leaders punish and frustrate the people. 

Number Eight: Our world of work has changed forever. Before the disaster that was 2020 happened, we all enjoyed the thrill of the daily commute to and from our work places. Even when we spent hours on traffic-congested roads, we loved it.  In 2020, we were told to stay at home and work from home. And just like that: the world of work changed forever, with analysts telling us that human beings tend to be more productive when they work in isolation, from home. Tech companies have gained a lot. Stock markets have appreciated.   Corona Virus may have robbed us of aspects of our lives, but it has also shown us new possibilities. What does tomorrow hold, then? 

I have no idea. I am not too sure anyone can answer that question. What we know is that human beings are capable of new discoveries in the face of pain, suffering and tragedy. And so it has been with the year 2020. So, what do we hold on to? Hope, I guess, the oxygen of human existence. 

Sam Nda-Isaiah, our friend and colleague who died the other day, aged 58, will certainly be remembered as one of the major contributors to the practice and promotion of the journalism profession in Nigeria, in the last moments of the 20^th century and the early part of the 21^st Century, with his craft, writings, enterprise and involvement in the politics of the trade. His death was sudden and shocking. A few days earlier, he had been actively involved in the activities of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), precisely at the change of guards ceremony which led to the emergence of a new executive in charge of the association. The communique issued at the end of that NPAN meeting talked about the need for the Nigerian government to take allegations of a second wave of the COVID-19 more seriously, and begin to make arrangements for the procurement, the distribution of vaccines in Nigeria and the inoculation of our over 200 million vulnerable population. 

Days later, it was reported that Sam Nda-Isaiah had succumbed to COVID-19, and had gone the way of ancestors. Some close associates insist that his death had nothing to do with COVID-19. Whatever it was, his death is an affirmation of the ugliness of the year 2020, an annus horribilis, in which lives were cut short by a virulent, mutating and vicious pathogen called COVID-19 and other afflictions.  It is true that many survived, but millions died. The world was taken back to a century earlier: the Spanish Flu of 1918 – 1920, a bad case of history repeating itself as a tragedy.  Sam’s death was most painful because he was a man full of life, energy, ideas, passion and promise. In the same week that he died he attended the NPAN meeting, chaired a Board meeting at his company’s headquarters and was in the middle of the formation of new projects. And he died…If death had wanted  money we could have given him, if death wanted Kolanuts, we could have littered his path with the biggest Kolanuts from great grandfather’s barn, but death, the greedy, grim reaper rejected both money and kolanuts and took our beloved most worthy brother instead…and now we mourn. We mourn. 

Sam Nda-Isaiah was a shining light in our community, that is the literary and intellectual eco-system. He was the publisher of the Leadership newspapers, an influential newspaper, which literally grew from grass to grace. It was a great pleasure and a delight indeed to have been able to relate with, and engage Sam Nda-Isaiah in the course of my assignment as President Goodluck Jonathan’s media adviser and spokesman. But I knew Sam Nda-Isaiah, long before then. I met him through his writings before I met him in person.  Writers are often led by their own words and thoughts: they unlock doors which may be forever invisible with their turns of phrase; they connect with souls that they may never even meet in physical spaces. Their words can cause revolutions across minds, across generations and yet their only touch with that vast space are the words that they spoke or wrote. 

Sam Nda-Isaiah first came into major public reckoning as a columnist, and editorial board member with the Daily Trust newspaper, whose founder is now the President of the NPAN, and whose inauguration he attended as one of his last minute activities. To say that he wrote brilliant columns is to create a new cliché. Of course, he did.  Sam Nda-Isaiah’s columns titled “Last Word” and “Ear Shot” were a compelling read. They brought him to national attention. Sam Nda-Isaiah’s career path was all the more interesting and remarkable because he was originally a Pharmacist. He studied Pharmacy at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife. For a while, he worked as a Pharmacist, during his National Youth Service Year at the Ekiti General Hospital, and later at the Kano Specialist Hospital, the General Hospital, Minna, and at Pfizer Products Limited. Journalism would eventually become his calling and the defining vocation of his life. 

Persons who are privy to his background would not be surprised. His father, Clement Nda-Isaiah was a journalist in the 70s. He was at a point,  Sports Editor at the New Nigerian newspaper. As a secondary school student, Sam Nda-Isaiah was often dropped off to join his father at the New Nigerian newspaper premises after closing from school. Any surprise then that the son of a journalist who went to study Pharmacy eventually ended up as a journalist, publisher and media entrepreneur?  At the Obafemi Awolowo University, his interest in journalism and public affairs was notable. He was Editor of The Pharmacist, a departmental magazine. He later sustained his interest in public affairs by writing for the Daily Trust, the platform that brought him into public reckoning.

His most compelling outing in this regard was his publication in 2004 of his collection of writings in the Daily Trust.  The Book was titled Nigeria: Full Disclosure: Selected Writings on Governance, Democracy and Statecraft, May 1999 – March 2004 by Sam Nda-Isaiah. It  effectively put a fence around his public commentaries up to that point, but it was also a major event on the cultural calendar. Sam was able to attract the high and mighty in society to the book presentation. From the event, he reportedly made a sum of 17 million Naira, which became the seed money for the rejuvenation of his own newspaper, Leadership, which he had founded in 2001. Leadership newspaper then, was a very modest, subscription-only,  effort, not more than a few pages of straggly newsprint, but a popular offering all the same because it was an outright, left-wing anti-Obasanjo newspaper. Day after day, one edition after another, Sam Nda-Isaiah’s newspaper drew blood literally as it highlighted the shortcomings of the Obasanjo administration across Ministries, Departments and Agencies and the policy spectrum. The newspaper pandered to popular sentiments. The launch of the  book in 2004 and the gain of N17 million gave the newspaper project a new bump and verve. In those days, N17 million was a lot of money. Many other columnists would follow in Sam Nda-Isaiah’s footsteps and publish collections of their writings. It was political season and you could make as much money as possible if you had the right connections. In Sam Nda-Isaiah’s case, that singular event, that is the publication of a selection of his writings promoted him and gave him the platform that he needed to scale up. In 2004, his project, the Leadership newspaper grew into a big enterprise and a major contribution to popular culture, journalism and ideas. In terms of focus and mission statement, the reader was told: “We shall stand up for good governance. We shall defend the interests  of the Nigerian state even against its leaders and we shall raise our pen at all times in defence of what is right. These are the values by which we intend to be assessed.” 

Sam Nda-Isaiah built the paper with the force of his own industry, ideas, and connections within the Northern establishment.  He was a fearless, aggressive and say-it-as-it-is writer. He took on everyone and any one. He paid close attention to the governance process and did not spare any fool in the corridors of power. Everything in the Leadership newspaper was purposeful. In the past, we used to complain about a tradition of newspapering in the North which supported the Islamic religion and the Northern aristocracy, and hence offered, perhaps with the notable exception in this regard of Citizen magazine, a tendentious form of journalism which played the usual Nigerian game. Leadership newspaper was slightly different in its early beginnings.. It was avant-garde and the market responded accordingly as the newspaper attracted attention and respect. Sam Nda-Isaiah recruited some of the best hands in the business, including Azu Ishiekwene, a former editor of The Punch newspaper and a gifted master of the prose who helped to further raise the newspaper’s quality of delivery across board.  In later years, however, I observed that the newspaper became somewhat tainted with Sam’s partisan politics. But that is another story.

Newspapering was Sam’s passion nonetheless. He would later branch out into other businesses and investments: manufacturing, telecommunications,  hospitality, agriculture, and real estate. There was this upscale eatery close to where I lived in Asokoro, Abuja. Banana Republic. I was shocked to discover that it was owned by Sam. I couldn’t make the connection between Sam Nda-Isaiah, the writer/publisher and Sam, the curator of a pepper soup, suya and Chinese/African swallow joint. His energy was boundless. His appetite was large. His talent was huge. He was a prototypical renaissance character. He was either Chairman or member of many boards, and over the years, he built the Leadership newspaper into a group of companies. He pursued entrepreneurship and leadership opportunities with great enthusiasm, and with equal if not bigger appetite, he pursued knowledge, acquiring multiple academic degrees. Media ownership is a form of power, and with that power comes influence, privileges and attention. Sam Nda-Isaiah did not shy away from the latter. He took an active interest in community leadership. He was not only involved in the politics of the newspaper industry, he also took chieftaincy titles.  

In 2011, he was honoured with the title of Kakaki Nupe. In 2012, he became the Aare Baaroyin of Akure. In 2013, he was made the Uguwmba Ndigbo by the Igbo community in Abuja. He was also Jakadan Potiskum. Sam was a bridge-builder. He had friends across the country and all aisles.  In 2015, he ran for the Presidency of Nigeria during the primaries on the platform of the All Progressives Congress. He lost to General Muhammadu Buhari who later went on to win the 2015 Presidential election in one of the most historic elections in Nigeria. Incidentally, way back in 2003, he was the head of General Buhari’s Presidential publicity campaign committee. I hold the view that Sam’s partisan politics affected and conditioned his political views and relationships. It would be wrong however to question his engagement with the country of his birth at the level of both ideas and action. It was a choice he made which should be respected. In 2015, this was his campaign slogan: “It is Time for Big Ideas.” Indeed Nigeria needs “Big ideas.” New ideas. A new way of thinking and being. 

As Presidential spokesperson and Media Adviser,  I had cause to visit his office, and invite him to meetings with the President at the Villa. President Goodluck Jonathan always told me that he was his friend. This was regularly confirmed by other members of the President’s team. Occasionally, the President would ask after him, and if we had any meetings with editors at the Villa, at House 7 especially, he was always one of those media chiefs who would stay behind and have a one on one with the President. But that never stopped Sam Nda-Isaiah from criticizing the Jonathan administration. Each time he attacked the government either in the Features pages of his newspaper or through one notorious editorial cartoon called “Ghana Must Go”, people who knew that he had direct access to President Jonathan would ask: “Is this man still our friend? Is he our friend?” People in the corridors of power often make the mistake of thinking that they could make friends out of journalists. Nigerian journalists are like Nigerian policemen. They don’t really have friends. They are governed by the pressure of the breaking news. What you don’t want a third party to hear, don’t confide in a journalist. If it is newsworthy, they will tell the story. They will analyze it. They will tell the public, and defend the people’s right to know. The same journalists however will go to every length to protect you if you are their primary source. Every good journalist knows the basic rule: you are only as good as your sources and you are not obliged to unmask them.  

 Sam Nda-Isaiah knew how to walk this proverbial tightrope of journalism. The only problem was that for the most part, he was capable of looking his own friends straight in the eye while poking his pen in their eyes with a smile and an overdose of politeness. He loved his country though. He was passionate about Nigeria. He wanted the best for this troubled society and its people. He was a patriot. He was internationally acclaimed for his accomplishments. What remains is how to sustain his legacy. Many other lives drew oxygen from his, and now that he is no more, the best way to preserve his memory is to ensure that his various contributions are kept alive – “For God and country”.