Since Nigeria’s return to civilian rule in 1999, Deputy Governors have always tended to have issues with their bosses, that is the Governors, and the Governors in turn have often had problems with their Godfathers. Whatever shape the conflict takes, it has been more of a blight on our democratic process and the health of the polity.  Mini-dictators converting a democratic dispensation into an opportunity for self-aggrandizement and childish power games end up hurting us all. 

As Governor of Anambra state in 2003, Chris Ngige, now Minister of Labour and Productivity, had problems with a certain Godfather known as Chris Uba. In those days, Uba had the ears and eyes of the Nigerian Presidency. Ngige’s offence was his refusal to do the bidding of the Godfather and the Godfather of the mini-Godfather in his state. In July 2003, a letter of resignation from office was circulated on Ngige’s behalf.  He was also abducted by a faction of the Nigeria Police (the then Inspector General of police would later disown that “faction”). Ngige  insisted that he had not resigned. Subsequently, he was shown half-naked purportedly swearing to an oath of allegiance at what was then known as the notorious Okija shrine. He was named. He was shamed. The spectacle of a sitting Governor in shamanic garb looked really ugly.  Ngige’s detractors finally got him out of office in 2006. They made him. They unmade him. 

In Oyo State in 2006, Rashidi Ladoja, now the Osi of Olubadan, meaning a potential Olubadan of Ibadanland was pushed out of office because he refused to share the state’s security vote with Chief Lamidi Adedibu, the famous originator and promoter of alimentary politics in the politics of Ibadan and the South-West. Alimentary politics is known locally as “amala politics.” It was re-defined in Ekiti State by Governor Ayo Fayose as “stomach infrastructure.” Real meaning: “you-chop -I-chop” politics.  

Fayose himself fell foul of the powers that be when in his first term as Governor of Ekiti State, he made the fatal mistake of saying openly that he would not support a Third Term agenda for the Obasanjo administration. The witches and wizards of Aso Rock went after him. Fayose, who is ordinarily very boisterous, had to escape from the Ekiti State Government House in the trunk of a car. He was chased out of office in an overnight raid by a specially assigned police squad. He took the famous NADECO route and gave Nigeria a wide berth for a while. Again in 2006, Joshua Dariye, serving a second term as Governor of Plateau State, was impeached by eight members of the state’s 24-member House of Assembly.  He protested about the fact that 8 out of 24 members did not amount to a quorum. Nobody listened. His supporters protested. Two of them were gunned down by the police. Dariye was impeached. His offence was his refusal to respect the powers that be. The Supreme Court later returned him and Ladoja of Oyo state to office, but I doubt very much if they have both recovered fully from taking on those secret manipulators of the Nigerian political process. 

But while state Governors often get into trouble with their Godfathers, what we have seen is that the Governors themselves are just as power drunk as their own Godfathers. The target of their fascism is usually the persons they choose or who are appointed to serve as their Deputies. Since 1999, no Governor has made any conscious effort to hand over to his Deputy. In Plateau, and Oyo states, Deputies became Governors by sheer default: Michael Botmang in Plateau (2006 -2007), and Adebayo Alao-Akala in Oyo State (January – December 2006) not because their bosses wanted them as successors. In an exception to the rule in Kano state where Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso was succeeded by his two-time Deputy (1999 -2003; 2011-2015), the Deputy as Governor has shown great contempt and animosity towards his former boss, clearly indicating that there was never any love lost between them while they worked together.  The kind of passion that Abdullahi Ganduje has devoted to rubbishing and undoing his former boss is astonishing. 

But the battle between Governors and their Deputies is not just at the state level; at the level of the Presidency, the story is not much different. During President Olusegun Obasanjo’s second term, Nigeria was saddled with a divided Presidency. I covered the politics of that crisis in a series of columns tilted “The Bolekaja Presidency”. Going further, the story is often told of how under President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, his then Vice President -  Goodluck Jonathan was completely sidelined by a cabal that hijacked Presidential power and authority.  The only job President Yar’Adua’s people wanted Dr. Jonathan to do was to just read newspapers. They made sure his office got a good supply of newspapers and a short supply of state news. They showed their hands when they made it clear that they didn’t want him to succeed his boss who fell ill and had become incapacitated. President Yar’Adua died in office. It was a great ordeal to get Dr. Jonathan to succeed him. Concerned Nigerians had to stand up physically and emotionally, for the letter and spirit of the Constitution to be respected. Even when Jonathan became President, the cabal did not leave him alone. They made every day difficult for him.     

I have gone on this long, retrospective, voyage to draw attention to a few points: One, that Nigerian politics, even with the exit from military rule in 1999 is still based on a principle of clientelism and godfatherism. Some people just assume that Nigeria belongs to them and they must dictate what happens within its borders.  Two, people get into offices not because they are the best persons for the job but because they are the right clients. How many got elected because they swore to an oath in Okija or elsewhere? How many paid fees to get a nomination form? How many of these guys have become big men and women today because they had to trade off? When such persons try to stand up and assert themselves, they are shot down. Three, Nigerian politicians have little regard for the Constitution. 

It is also important to note that in real terms, Deputies in Nigerian politics are at best spare tyres. The Constitution gives them no real roles.  This is why it is possible for Governors and Presidents to treat their Deputies shabbily. In Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu trashed two Deputy Governors between 1999 and 2007. When Mrs Kofo Bucknor Akerele tried to stand up to him; she was shut down. Otunba Femi Pedro, her replacement also thought he could act like a man. He was shown the exit door. He would return later to beg and genuflect. His own assistant, someone he brought to the party is now the Governor of Lagos State, obviously in an attempt to complete his humiliation. I don’t see the current Governor of Lagos State fighting the powers that be. He only needs to look at Bucknor-Akerele, Femi Pedro and Akinwunmi Ambode, the immediate past Governor in the mirror. 

What am I trying to say? I am saying that Nigerian politics is dirty, crazy and incomprehensible. In the last 20 years, it has been overtaken by Godfathers, cabalists and fascists. They do what they like. If you stand in their way, they crush you. In effect, fear rules the land. In an environment dominated by power-mongers who parade themselves as good men and women, you can no longer trust anybody. Nigerian politics has never been so terrible.. In politics as in society, the picture of a mentally ill community looms large. 

But of all the things that I have heard and seen in the last 20 years, permit me to say that the most shocking, the most objectionable, the most fearful happened in Kogi state the other day with the purported removal from office of the Deputy Governor, Simon Achuba. Simon Achuba’s offence is that he is no longer in good terms with his Governor, Yahaya Bello. When a State Governor no longer likes his Deputy, he tells him to jump, if the guy refuses to jump, he pushes him. If the guy refuses to be pushed, the Governor gets the House of Assembly, obviously the largest collection of nitwits since 2019, to help push the Deputy Governor through the vehicle of impeachment. We have seen one or the other strategy adopted in Lagos State with Kofo Bucknor-Akerele and Femi Pedro by Bola Tinubu in Lagos, Rochas Okorochas against his deputies- Jude Agbaso and Eze Madumere in Imo, and Ibikunle Amosun against Segun Adesegun in Ogun State. In the case of Achuba in Kogi state they just threw the Constitution completely out of the window. The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria spells out the procedure for the removal of a Governor or Deputy Governor from office. In Kogi State, the State House of Assembly just decided to do whatever suited it. State Houses of Assembly are appendages of Government House. The Governors in the process become so powerful that once they don’t like anybody’s face they can get rid of him politically or buy him or her. Nigerian politicians can be bought and converted like commodities. Nigerian politics is a market. 

In Kogi state, Deputy Governor Simon Achuba chose to differ with his Governor. He got accused of all kinds of things which a House of Assembly in recess interpreted as “gross misconduct’ and then decided to put him up for impeachment and removal. A cash and carry House of Assembly set to work. The state Chief Judge was asked to set up a panel to impeach the Deputy Governor. A seven-man panel was indeed set up led by Mr. John Baiyeshea, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). The panel returned a verdict of not guilty on all the charges. What the Constitution says in Section 188, is that once the panel thus returns a verdict of not guilty on all counts, there shall be no further proceedings or process. The word “shall” in law is mandatory. It is a command. Still, in their wisdom, the House of Assembly in Kogi State, which is not even sitting, proceeded to sack the Deputy Governor. If anyone is looking for a classical rubber stamp Assembly and the most conscienceless legislature in Nigeria’s democracy since 1999, Kogi State House of Assembly fits the bill.  It has been more than a week since then and Kogi state is just hoping that this comedy of absurdity will disappear. It is a shame on all the people of Kogi state who have chosen to keep silent, and the most worrisome is that the  Federal Government and indeed the National Assembly and the Attorney General of the Federation who is the chief law officer of the Federation by virtue of Section150 of the Constitution have all chosen to be quiet in the face of this brazen abuse of the letter and spirit of the Constitution thus setting a dangerous precedent for the continuous abuse of the Constitution, the very fabric that holds the nation together. 

It is a rape of the Constitution, a slap on the rule of law. Members of the Kogi State House of Assembly should cover their heads in shame for projecting themselves as law breakers and persons who do not have the interest of the nation at heart.  But the biggest scandal is that of the Chief Judge of Kogi State, Nasir Ajanah. The biggest problem with the Nigerian Bar and Bench is the cancerous proliferation of a body of lawyers and judges who believes that justice is a mere slogan, who thinks equity is sheer nonsense and who behaves as if conscience is for the religious and not the legally minded. This is precisely what happened in Kogi State the other day. The panel set up by the Chief Judge in accordance with the 1999 Constitution reported back to the House of Assembly a verdict of not guilty on all counts. There is no way the Chief Judge could have claimed ignorance of this finding. Having been aware of this, the Chief Judge should not have gone ahead to commit an act of illegality by standing the Constitution on its head. It is not enough for him to claim that he is not a Father Christmas to act, suo moto, on a matter that had not been properly placed before him. 

Simon Achuba should go to court. Whether the eventual determination would be academic or not, let him fight for his rights and put the matter on record. His seat is not vacant in the eyes of the law. Edward Onoja has merely usurped the seat of the Deputy Governor of Kogi State, illegally and without conscience.  Political vendetta cannot replace the tenets of the law. The fact that other Governors also behave badly does not justify the reign of idiocy in Kogi state. 

When the Kogi Governor, Yahaya Bello was elected in 2015, he was advertised as a poster boy for the No-Too- Young-To-Run Campaign. He was seen as the young man who would make a difference. He was the youngest Governor in Nigeria. But he has dropped the ball in the same manner in which one Elisha Abbo, youngest Senator in the 9^th National Assembly (Adamawa North, PDP), has also dropped the ball. What’s the latest on Elisha Abbo? Young Nigerians want to be part of the governance process, but unfortunately, the ones who show up in the arena  are the strange, unprepared types who gamble with the opportunities that they have been given. Our belief that young Nigerians in politics will turn out to be change agents is defeated daily. Yahaya Bello, playing dirty games with the removal of his Deputy, does not deserve a second term in office. The people of Kogi state would be stupid to vote for him on November 16.  The absurdity in Kogi state should not be allowed to stand.     

Also read : Gowon at 85 and Fani-Kayode - Reuben Abati

Also read : Buhari’s Fake Social Media Wedding - Reuben Abati 

General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria’s military Head of State from 1966 -1975, turned 85 on Saturday, October 19, 2019. In a congratulatory message, President Muhammadu Buhari described him as a living legend and a symbol of national unity. The statement from the Presidency gushed with phrases such as “visionary leadership style, wisdom, disciplined outlook…elder statesman, simplicity and humility, good governance... sacrifices, wide respect....”. There were other tributes: The Senate President, Ahmed Lawan praised Gowon for defending and preserving the unity and territorial integrity of Nigeria. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, described Gowon as a “statesman and national icon who contributed enormously to Nigeria’s unity and development.”  Nigeria, he adds “owes Gowon a debt of gratitude”. Governors of the 36 states of Nigeria also concurred that “General Gowon is a rare gift to the state, Nigeria, and the world”. On Friday, October 18, The Institute for Governance and Leadership Studies in Africa organized a birthday dinner in Gowon’s honour where everyone got a chance to say something about his place and legacy in Nigerian history.  I attended General Gowon’s 80^th birthday church service in 2014 – I still have the gift item- a towel, distributed by his wife’s family as evidence- and I recall that the tributes were effusive then. They are even more so now, indeed, more saccharine. 

But the only man who seems to differ is Femi Fani-Kayode. Femi Fani-Kayode’s father, the historic and inimitable man who was popularly known as Fani-Power was one of the key figures in pre-independence and post-independence Nigerian politics, and significantly a miraculous survivor of the July 1966 imbroglio. In many ways, Femi Fani-Kayode, known also as FFK, has followed in his father’s footsteps.  He doesn’t take hostages. He is bold and assertive. On the question of Gowon’s anniversary at 85, he is the only one who has said publicly, that he does not think Gowon is a hero. He provides an explanation: he says Gowon as Head of State presided over a war situation where over 3 million Igbos were massacred, and that such war crime does not qualify Gowon to be celebrated as a war hero or an icon of national unity. Indeed, during the civil war, one million Igbo children suffered, many died, others ended up in Gabon and Equitorial Guinea, others died of kwashiorkor, many Igbos perished. The world at a point began to sympathize with Biafra because the war began to look like genocide.  Fani-Kayode’s point as I understand it, is that while we celebrate General Yakubu Gowon, we should not forget what he sees as the humanitarian disasters that occurred in this country under his watch. Ironically, Gowon saved his own father’s life! 

I note therefore, that in the past, Fani-Kayode had cause to praise General Gowon. So, I do not want to think that he despises him. But on the occasion of Gowon’s 85^th birthday, Fani-Kayode brings up an issue that may continue to impinge on the Gowon legacy. The lazy, intellectual definition of the problem would be to say that Fani-Kayode is raising the issue of the civil war and Gowon’s role because he wants to suck up to Igbos, and defend his access to privileges in the other room, his wife being Igbo, thus romantically embedded as he is in Igbo matters. I consider such thinking absolutely lazy and mischievous. I argue that with or without Femi Fani-Kayode’s intervention, Gowon’s management of Nigeria’s civil war would always be part of the conversation around and about his place in Nigerian history.

Whatever we know about this subject is available in bits and pieces in the extant bibliography on the Nigerian civil war, and that is quite a large, cross-border, multi-disciplinary and inter-generational bibliography. It is unfortunate that General Gowon himself, has chosen to remain silent. He has not written an autobiography. He has left his place in history at the mercy of the definition of others, the most authoritative book on his tenure in office being Isawa Elaigwu’s Gowon: The Biography of a Soldier Statesman (1986). Other books include Yakubu Gowon: Faith in United Nigeria by John Digby Clarke (1987); General Yakubu Gowon: The Supreme Commander by Olufemi Ogunsanwo (2009) and thousands of commentaries in academic journals and periodicals. Gowon owes us an autobiography. The import of Femi Fani-Kayode’s intervention is how he draws our attention to the fact that long after Gowon would have become an ancestor, his handling of the civil war would still form the epicentre of his legacy. So, why don’t we start the debate right now in the General’s presence, at a time when he can speak up for himself and enjoy the right of reply? Those who do not know Nigerian history can dust up their books and let’s have a conversation. Is Gowon a hero or a villain? Did he preside over a genocide? And is that what defines his place in Nigerian history?  

Let no one be in any doubt about it: the civil war, 1966-1970, will always be a big question at the heart of Nigerian politics and inter-ethnic relations. In many ways, there is indeed clear evidence that the war against Igbos has not ended. Nigeria nurses a huge, deep-seated prejudice against the Igbo man. It is the reason why there is so much dithering over whether an Igbo President should one day emerge or not. It explains why a Yoruba landlord is reluctant to lease his property to an Igbo man in Lagos, even if he ends up doing so in spite of himself, for economic reasons. Psychologically, he thinks the Igbo man will spread like cancer and over-populate the property with his kinsmen or probably take the property from him.  It is also why the Hausa-Fulani believes that the Hausa-Fulani-Igbo rivalry will never end and that an Igbo Presidency would amount to an admission of defeat more than three decades after the war. The divisive tendencies in the country at this time take us back in history to the spirit of that same season of anomie. Nigeria’s civil war is all about the being-ness of Nigeria, whether indeed a mistake was made in 1914 by the colonialists or not. This is the Nigerian problem. We cannot run away from it. Yakubu Gowon was not the cause of the war, however. He helped to manage it as the man in the saddle at the time it erupted. Nigerians complain about Hausa-Fulani hegemony and the threat it poses. Gowon is even of Angas ethnic extraction from Plateau State.  It is facile to argue that he was an agent of the Hausa-Fulani hegemonists. But those who cling to that should remember that after the January 1966 coup led by Nzeogwu and others, the Ironsi “interregnum”, and the July 1966 counter-coup, it was circumstances rather than design that threw up an Angas man as Nigeria’s Head of State.  

When the civil war broke out, it was Gowon’s duty and responsibility to keep Nigeria together. We have a country today because he refused to shirk his responsibility. His training and office required him to defend Nigeria’s sovereignty and integrity. We owe the survival of Nigeria to Gowon’s determination. If he had dropped the ball, Nigeria would have long broken up. Those who refer to him as the “father of modern Nigeria” are in order to say so. Every believer in the idea of Nigeria must give credit to Gowon for the heavy burden of 1966-1970, and how his team of young men kept this country together in the face of the first major test it faced after independence. I use the word, team advisedly, because Gowon was not alone. Nigeria survived because he had around him and there were in circulation at the time, men and women who believed in the Gowonian ideology that keeping Nigeria One was a task that must be done. But there is another side to this viewpoint. The Igbos showed great valour in the battle-field.  They demonstrated skills in engineering and warfare which if sustained and assimilated could have made Nigeria an industrial nation today. But Nigeria has failed to focus on the strength and qualities of the people. We focus instead on blame-games, and thus, Igbos may never forgive Gowon over the Aburi accord, the loss of their properties in Port Harcourt and the North, the failed 20-pounds policy and the killing of their people.  

In this regard, in case the comment by Femi Fani-Kayode represents a mind-set, shared by a group or by others, I submit that it should be subjected to further interrogation to understand it properly. Fani-Kayode says, for record purposes, inter alia: “When the real history of the country is written, the role of Gowon and the other Nigerian commanders during the civil war will be put in proper perspective…The slaughter of 3 million Biafran civilians in that war is the greatest act of black on black genocide in human history. I cannot celebrate the birth of a man who presided over such carnage and neither can I describe him as a hero. Nigeria cannot make much progress or truly prosper until she apologises to the Igbos and Biafrans for the great evil that we visited on them during the civil war.”

It is right and proper to protest about genocide. Any form of humanitarian abuse is unacceptable be it in Northern Syria or Afghanistan or Biafra, Darfur or Srebenica. But General Yakubu Gowon does not deserve characterization as a war criminal. He is in every true sense a statesman of the first rank, for keeping Nigeria together in line with his professional mandate and for the steps he took subsequently to build a united nation. As soon as the war ended, he declared that there was “no victor, no vanquished.” Latter-day successors in a democratic dispensation probably need to learn something here. For them, every national issue is either “do-or-die”, and winner-takes-it-all with no in-betweens. Gowon introduced the concepts - the 3 Rs: Reconciliation, Reconstruction and Rehabilitation. Decades later, Nigeria has not succeeded with Reconciliation. Nigeria remains a divided country as seen in the various cases of violence in the country and the prevalent politics of division and distrust. It is the reason Igbos will not accept any apology. They are convinced that Nigeria is a country of insincere people. So much progress was made with Reconstruction. Gowon rebuilt Nigeria. The oil boom made that possible even if his critics also claim that the Gowon administration laid the foundation for the culture of waste, profligacy and corruption that turned Nigeria adrift. The Gowon administration simply went on a spending spree as oil money poured in, they say.  Gowon even reportedly boasted that Nigeria’s problem was not money but how to spend it. 

At the time he became Head of State in 1966, Gowon was just 32. He was the first and the only Nigerian Head of State to date to marry in office. He exchanged vows with a certain Ms. Victoria Zakari at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, Lagos in 1969, meaning he ruled Nigeria initially as a young bachelor!  It was nothing unusual at the time– many of his colleagues and others in other professions who were the leading lights of colonial and post-colonial Nigeria were all young men. Today’s youths in Nigeria have been unable to start at the top as early as their fathers and grandfathers did. Many blame Gowon for this: Rather than diversify the economy, he squandered Nigeria’s riches. He was allegedly too obsessed with how to spend money, he failed to prepare Nigeria properly for the future. 

But there was Rehabilitation. Under Gowon, a lot was done to move beyond the civil war. Igbos were given an opportunity to re-integrate into Nigeria. he was instrumental to the formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). He built new universities. He established the National Youth Service Corps to promote national unity. However, his critics allege that although he did so much after the civil war, much of it was anti-Igbo, he also saw too much money and he began to over-enjoy his stay in office. He had planned to leave office in 1976, but he changed his mind, and that led to his being pushed out of office by his own boys in a bloodless coup in 1975.  Gowon made the mistake of getting too comfortable in power. That is his hubris. He was even accused of involvement in the February 13, 1976 coup that led to the death of his successor, General Murtala Muhammed. He had to remain in exile in the United Kingdom until President Shehu Shagari granted him state pardon in 1981.  He returned to Nigeria in 1983.  

Nonetheless, in his years out of office, General Yakubu Gowon has remained a stabilizing force in Nigerian politics and society. He is the main spirit and influence behind the “Nigeria Prays” movement, a spiritual, inter-denominational movement that believes that a country can be made wholesome through spirituality. Gowon is the prototypical father-figure in the public space. He supports every government. He attends every state event that he can. He stays away from every kind of public combat or disagreement. He has tried to make up with those who disagree with his civil war policies including Professor Wole Soyinka who was detained under his watch. Gowon, the strong military dictator, has mellowed into a gentle old man who prays for Nigeria. He is also the first former military Head of State to develop himself educationally after office. He obtained a Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Warwick (1983). At 85, he can look back on Nigeria’s progress through the years, and reflect on the role he played, but whatever he thinks of the rot that has overtaken the country he keeps that information very closely to himself, perhaps out of guilt or hope or regret. The best tribute that Nigerians can pay in his honour is to rediscover the ideals of the three Rs and ensure that Nigeria never experiences another civil war. Gowon will be remembered as the Nigerian leader who fought a civil war and became an “apologetic” advocate for peace and reconciliation. But he must tell his story: what exactly happened in Aburi? 

If anyone is looking for a valid illustration and the most scandalous evidence of fake news, fake speech, and hate speech, such a researcher needs not look farther than the comedy of errors and the misanthropic drama that overtook Aso Villa, the seat of Nigeria’s Presidency, during the weekend that just passed. 

We all woke up, Thursday morning to be told that our President, 76-year old President Muhammadu Buhari was going to take one of his female ministers, 44-year old Sadia Umar Farouk, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs as wife, on Friday, October 11. Nigerians by nature, love gossip, mischief and entertainment, but this was something different, far more dramatic than theatre itself. Understandably, the story trended on social media and caught public imagination. It became hot news. It was a perfect the Lion and the Jewel material. Is Buhari, 76, trying to celebrate his victory at the polls and at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal with some renewed activity in the same “other room” that he himself reminded us of?  Would he behave like Bala Mohammed, Governor of Bauchi state and take a new bride to celebrate electoral success? If he were to do that, he would not be the first old man to grab a jewel at old age. Olokun Eshin in Wole Soyinka’s award-winning play, Death and the King’s Horseman had to drop something in the “other room” at old age. But the wife of the President that we know, is Aisha Buhari. Has she fallen out of favour? Is Baba Buhari trying to replace her, more so as she suddenly disappeared from the other room and the Villa after the elections, and stories went around that she was somewhere abroad on vacation instead of staying with her husband, to provide some special attention that old men require? Islam encourages but limits variety. Is the President seeking variety?

Soon enough, the story gained traction. On social media, invitation cards were distributed and persons were invited to Aso Rock to attend the Fatiha, that is the Muslim wedding after mosque on Friday. Samples of the invitation card were distributed electronically with the Buhari family of Daura and the Farouk family of Zamfara inviting friends and associates to the marriage of their son, Muhammed and their daughter, Sadia. Congratulatory messages were posted online too, and there were images showing that some foreign dignitaries were already in Nigeria to attend the wedding of the year. Conspiracy theories also surfaced to address such questions as: where is Aisha Buhari, the wife of the President? Why would she abandon her husband for months and nobody would know where she is?  Some commentators concluded that the cabal had finally managed to get rid of her, by getting for the President, a less confrontational woman who would stay out of politics and leave the cabal in Aso Villa alone. Friends of Aisha Buhari expressed concern about her plight.

They asked: Has the Aso Villa Cabal now become so powerful that they would also choose a wife for the President? The tales lingered. One compatriot called me to ask if I had heard anything about the President’s alleged marital crisis. I told him I knew nothing, and that I thought Nigeria had far more important issues at hand than the President’s bedroom choices. The guy told me off, noting that Nigerian journalists are the laziest in the world!  “The President of Nigeria is about to sack his wife and marry another one, and you are talking about Nigeria’s budget? Is that the kind of journalism you people are practising?,” he quipped.  Photos of the would-be bride were circulated widely with such comments as: “she actually looks like Aisha Buhari”, “she will make Baba happy,” “she is a pretty one, Baba chose well”.   For hours, President Buhari was presented on social media as a Romeo or better still, an Adonis who managed to catch the fancy of a pretty 44-year old young, delectable woman. Some spoil-sports raised questions however, about the appropriateness of an incumbent President having an alleged amorous relationship with a woman he has just appointed a Minister and to whose Ministry he has assigned responsibilities and assignments taken away from his Vice President. There was no limit to the stories.

But the bubble eventually burst. It took the intervention of the woman who had been married away to debunk the story. She published a number of tweets to confirm that she was not about to marry President Buhari. She was not even in the country! We later learnt that there was no wedding in the offing, the invitation cards were fake, and there was indeed absolutely no competition in the President’s “other room”. Many heaved a sigh of relief. Others felt that their fun had been spoilt. Millions just kept quiet wondering about the manner in which a lie caught up with an entire nation, seized the multitudes and became the truth for more than 24 hours. The dust finally settled when Aisha Buhari suddenly returned home to claim her bona fide rights.  There was even a video making the rounds, again on social media, showing that she was not allowed access to her room in the Villa. It turned out that this was an old video, criminally de-contextualized to promote a lie. But it was a true video nonetheless as confirmed further by one Fatima Daura, another commentator on the Aso Rock saga, who has also been quoted as saying her father is not arranging a new wife for the President.  So, is it the President’s body language that is fuelling this? Or is there mutual distrust in the President’s bedroom? 

Four quick takes. One: Students of fake news, hate speech, and fake speech would find in the Aisha Buhari marital fake drama of 2019 a locus classicus. It is furthermore, an indication of the kind of damage that persons who have access to social media can wreak. The way it is, any one with a miserable smart phone, one of those cheap little things with internet connection, or a blog site, an Instagram or twitter page can just sit in an unknown corner of the universe and cook up a story about innocent persons, put their photographs together and allege anything from romance to rape, dalliance and an actual wedding. Last weekend, Nigerians gave President Buhari a wife, married her off, collected bride price on her family’s behalf and gave the First Lady of Nigeria, such a massive heartache that smoked her out. Human beings are very wicked. I am now tempted to see the reason in the argument that there should be some regulation of social media content, despite my commitment to free speech. A situation whereby any anonymous character can just hide in one corner, create a terrible tale and disrupt the public order is dangerous for our democracy. It is an abuse of free speech. What happened last weekend is enough to be treated as treasonable felony. 

What if the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, had collapsed and slumped upon hearing that her husband planned to take another wife? What if Sadiya Umar Farouk’s family had acted on the information and accused the President openly of kidnapping their daughter? His position as President certainly does not give him the right to grab another man’s daughter without due process, especially as he took an oath of office to respect the rule of law! What if Aisha’s children had confronted the President to defend their mother only to realize that they were responding to fake news and hate speech? Whoever tried to cause a revolution in the President’s household should be identified, investigated and sanctioned. Who released that fake video? For what reason? Who published the fake wedding news and arranged to make it go viral? Fake news is unacceptable. It runs contrary to all known principles of journalism: truth, accuracy, objectivity and fairness. If the security agencies know what they are doing, they will take a deeper look at this matter. 

Two: This is also about the private lives of public persons. It is a trite point that when you take on a public role, you give up a part of your privacy. The President of a country in particular is public property: voters have every right to ask after his well-being, pry into his personal life, raise questions about how he conducts himself, because whatever he does can easily affect the fortunes of the country. Only God knows for example, how many foreign investors heard the story about a cooked up conflict in the President’s household, and simply decided in the last 72 hours to hold on until there is concrete information about the situation. But how far should the public go? Is there a little zone of privacy available to the President and his family?  I guess stretching this democracy thing all the way to the President’s bedroom and his choice of women may be a case of too much democracy. It is also a kind of auto-suggestion that should be ignored by the President. We need some order in the President’s household to enable him focus properly on his job.   

Three: Mrs Aisha Buhari has since disclosed that she went abroad for medical treatment and also decided to take a little vacation based on her “doctor’s instruction,” and that explains her absence from Nigeria. I note that she has not disclosed the nature of this ailment. Couldn’t she have consulted Nigerian doctors? Don’t we have enough doctors in Nigeria to attend to whatever ails her? 

Four: I think the Presidency mismanaged the messaging process. They allowed the rumour to spread for far too long before intervening.  Is it possible for the President of Nigeria to take a second wife and plan an El-Fatiha wedding without the entire Villa knowing?  Couldn’t they have shut down the rumour much earlier?  Their silence caused the frenzy. 

A colleague of mine, a young lady wondered why Mrs Aisha Buhari, also seeing that this was a case of fake news and hate speech had to rush back from the United Kingdom as if her life was at stake. She asked whether Mrs Buhari doesn’t trust her husband. My response to her is that Mrs Buhari has shown great courage, determination and promptitude by defending her territorial control over the President’s “other room”. Let no one blame her for as they say, “possessing her possession.” It is Minister Sadiya who owes us an explanation for that wedding that didn’t happen

Meanwhile, as Nigerians enacted various scenes in the melodrama of the President’s private life, I spent part of the weekend attending birthday parties. Hajia Bola Shagaya, former banker turned oil industry magnate and leading entrepreneur was 60. She had a party in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory on Thursday and another party for the Lagos crowd on Saturday. I attended the Lagos party which was held at the Eko Hotel Convention Centre. This was a party that showed class, influence and relevance. It was one of those don’t-miss-it parties. 

Anybody who is somebody was there: an indication of the scope and extent of the influence, impact, and reach of the celebrant, who in more than two decades has become one of the leading lights of the Nigerian political, social, and business establishment. Not many know about her involvement in politics, but in Kwara State, she is one of the major political influencers even if she chooses not to advertise the scope of her influence publicly on the national stage. Many politicians in that state owe their ascendancy to her support and influence. The Bola Shagaya that I know is a very humble and kind woman, affable and approachable, and very prayerful. As Presidential spokesperson, she was a strong behind-the-scene pillar of support for me. She would always call to guide me or draw my attention to certain developments within the crazy space of Nigerian politics. She also supported my family. When my son Richard was born she came visiting, not minding our humble abode. She is a mentee and role model to generations of young women who look up to her. She is an absolutely wonderful woman, a good citizen and an asset to the Nigerian community. She deserves to be celebrated. Congratulations, Hajia. Long may you live! 

I left the Shagaya party at a little after midnight, but by noon on Sunday, I was at yet another 60^th birthday party: that of my friend and brother, DIG Taiwo Lakanu. Taiwo turned 60 last week Friday and was pulled out of the Police Force. On Sunday, his wife and children threw a special birthday party for him. Lakanu, the Aare Akogun of Lagos is one of those rare persons anyone would wish to know. He is that kind of friend that everyone must have. He is loyal, frank, straightforward and very dependable. I must have written tons of articles criticizing the Nigeria Police and policemen in the last 30-something years but Taiwo Lakanu is exceptional. He is a good ambassador of the Nigeria Police and one of the finest officers I have ever met.  It is not surprising that he has distinguished himself in every posting that he has had: from being Head of SARS and DPO in Lagos, SA to IGP Tafa Balogun, to Ekiti to Imo to the Headquarters in Abuja. There is even a street named after him in Imo State! I had nursed the hope that he would one day become Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police because he has all it takes: the knowledge, the operations experience, the intellect, the personality, the social network and the right attitude. But now, he is 60 and in line with the rules, they have sent him home. Akogun of the Universe, salute!... Great tour of duty…I believe Nigeria can still make use of his talent. As he starts a new life as a retired DIG, a lawyer and an expert, we wish him well.      

No one is in any doubt that terrorism poses one of the gravest threats to humanity in today’s world. Here in Nigeria, within a decade and a little, unconscionable acts of violence by persons pursuing heinous ideological, religious, and political objectives has resulted in wanton destruction of lives and property, making Nigeria one of the most difficult places to be in the world, especially in the North Eastern part of the country where a notorious group known as Boko Haram holds sway as a local terror group and as a wing of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of the West African Province (ISWAP). The Nigerian government has since adopted a military option to stop the Boko Haram in its tracks and to prevent it from seizing Nigerian territory. Boko Haram has indeed proven to be a threat to the  sovereignty of Nigeria and the integrity of the state itself. The Nigerian Government argues that it has been able to “defeat” the group “technically” or “degrade” it but all of that is no more than mere rhetoric. The reality is different and that includes the Boko Haram attacking an Emir’s palace in broad daylight reprisal attack. It includes brazen assault on Nigerian military camps, with Nigerian soldiers, ill-equipped, poorly motivated, war-weary troops, taking to their heels or putting up feeble resistance. Since the crisis began, more than 2, 000 lives have been lost and it has been more than 2,000 days since 276 girls were abducted from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno state. 

Terrorism being an asymmetrical war, not even the smartest Generals know when or how any war against terror will end. What we know is that Nigeria has a terrible task on its hands, it is like fighting the Devil, in an unknown space, where there are no rules, and the enemy wears a mask. The worst part is the creeping mutation of the security crisis in the country: the crisis keeps spreading like cancer as if the terrorists have engaged independent contractors of their own: bandits in Zamfara, kidnappers in Kaduna, pipeline vandals in the South South, killer-herdsmen from the Middle Belt to Osun and Eastern Nigeria, ritualists, rapists, yahoo yahoo boys in the South West and everywhere else… in one word, we live in a country where the population of rogues appears to be rising and the unusual has become the norm. No serious government will fold its arms and allow a country such as we have to collapse. To that extent, I am in total agreement with our compatriots who argue that the government must adopt multiple approaches in dealing with the country’s security challenge.  It may be true after all that intractable problems require desperate solutions, but what is now of interest, in my view, is the latest recourse to a spiritual solution to terrorism and the seriousness with which some highly placed persons are promoting that metaphysical option. 

It all started with Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai who around September 30, 2019 said at a seminar in Abuja, that clerics within the Nigerian military and religious leaders across the country would need to help the military win the war against terror with the aid of spiritual warfare. The Seminar organized by the Nigeria Army Resource Centre was reportedly titled: “Countering Insurgency and Violent Extremism in Nigeria through spiritual warfare.” Buratai said: “It is easier to defeat Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorists than their ideology because while we degrade the terrorists and their havens, the ideology grows the group. Therefore, communities, families, and groups should join in the fight and narratives to reject and prevent the ideologies of the terrorists and extremist groups. Religious bodies and organizations in particular who interface regularly with the grassroots should be at the forefront of the spiritual battle and fashion out ways of stepping up their roles. The fight against terrorism, Boko Haram and ISWAP as well as other security threats, cannot be left to the troops in the battle field alone.” 

This statement drew all kinds of interpretations with the general public wondering why the military would be asking for spiritual warfare. Does it mean that the Nigerian military with all the weapons at their disposal now want to fight terrorists with anointing oil and holy water and amulets and charms? Is Buratai suggesting that we should withdraw military Generals from the frontlines and send the likes of Pastor Enoch Adeboye, Pastor David Oyedepo, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Apostle Johnson Suleiman, Pastor Chris Okotie, Guru Maharaji and all the big Islamic clerics that we can deploy from Agege to Kano to Mali and Senegal? One lawyer has since said Buratai was misinterpreted in what I consider a needless revision. It will be recalled that the same Chief of Army Staff was reported as having said at the commissioning of a remodeled All Saints Military Church at the Maxwell Khobe Cantonment, Rukuba Barracks, near Jos in June, that the military also have spiritual needs!  I suspect very strongly that if Buratai were not a soldier, he would probably be a cleric, given the consistency with which he apparently draws attention to the spiritual side of warfare. In a superstitious country such as Nigeria, I do not imagine that there will be too many who will disagree with his views, and it should not be surprising that his focus on spirituality resonates with the people. Nigerians in the 21^st Century are basically still living in the Medieval era. Their worldview is dominated by a daily conception of saints and enemies who are trying to do harm, evil spirits lurking in the air, and animism as the sole explanation for natural phenomena. When the head of the country’s military tells them that a particular war is beyond the capacity of his men and that spiritual warfare will be required, what comes to their mind is the kind of warfare that their ancestors fought, or the type that Christian and Islamic evangelicals introduced, resulting in a syncretic religious order in colonial and post-colonial Africa. 

Buratai, Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff is obviously frustrated, tired and exasperated. He used the words: spiritual and ideology. Boko Haram is a spiritual and ideological force. Its soldiers seek to create an Islamic State and impose a Sharia orthodoxy on Nigeria. Boko Haram is not just a religious war; it is a spiritual violation of Nigeria. Boko Haram adherents do not believe in Western civilization. They regard it as sin. That is an ideological war. To mobilise recruits and sustain the battle, Boko Haram leaders indoctrinate young people. They attack their minds. They get them to buy into an ideology of hate and violence. Every revolution starts in the mind of men. Buratai is certainly right when he says the war against terror cannot be won by the military alone, or that it should be a collaborative effort.  Is there a role for religious groups in the matter? The Nigerian military is more or less giving up, so, I think, yes. The religious mind in Nigeria is stronger than the political mind, even if there is a gap between private and public attitudes. Nigerians troop to churches, mosques and shrines, some do so every day, claiming to know the mind of God, but when it comes to public attitudes, they act differently. 

Buratai in calling for a religious solution may have heard a little about the concept of the psychology of terrorism. Terrorists are first and foremost human beings and there is a science to their behavior as is the case with every other human being. Is there a way in which religion can moderate that behavior? Can our priests and alfas use the pulpit to change the behavior of persons and communities? Can ritualists and shamanists call on the elements to turn Sambisa forest into a place of value rather than a forest of evil? Can the clerics use holy water, fasting, days of prayer to turn the eyes of the Evil One away from Nigeria and bring peace and happiness? In seeking such meta-solutions, the religious-minded is apparently proclaiming the failure of the state, but with state officials themselves saying the war against terror requires a metaphysical approach, this may well be a subject for further interrogation. A failed state yes, but may be not yet. 

What is required is a translation of the proposal into a strategy, with proper co-ordination and management. What kind of spiritual warfare is the Nigerian military asking for? How can we deploy all the spiritual resources, agents and organizations in the country to achieve results and defeat Boko Haram? In the absence of proper strategy and co-ordination, we could have all kinds of persons doing their own thing in their own corner. Already, perhaps in response to the call by the Chief of Army Staff, a spiritual warfare against Boko Haram has begun in Borno State, where the Governor, Babagana Zulum, a Professor of Engineering, has chosen to recruit 1, 000 traditional hunters to face the Boko Haram terrorists. These hunters we are told, have supernatural powers. They can resist gun shots. They can appear and disappear at will.  They can kill thousands in a minute. The hunters have been reportedly provided with dane guns, and swords, and they have sworn to an oath to defeat Boko Haram. In addition, Governor Zulum has engaged 30 prayer warriors for daily supplication around the Ka’aba to pray for peace in Borno state. He has thus recruited a group to report Boko Haram directly to God, in Mecca, the holy land. 

The Nigerian military cannot afford to have every state Governor running with their own script of spiritual warfare. To save Nigeria from Boko Haram, we must all work and pray together. This is why I recommend strategy and synergy. The Chief of Army Staff should appoint a Boko Haram Counter-Spiritual Warfare Co-Ordinator or Adviser.  The person should be a very senior statesman, preferably an old, retired soldier, who once upon a time in his life understood the value and application of the “Juju option” to military warfare/international diplomacy and who at the same time is very knowledgeable in Christian theology, and has a good relationship with Muslims and Nigerians across ethnic, religious and geographical boundaries. He must have enough influence and gravitas to be able to reach out to the spiritual leaders of Nigeria, across various persuasions.  He must be an elderly man whose only interest is the survival of Nigeria as a sovereign entity. He will not be paid for the assignment. He should have a military background. His team should be treated like a battalion of the Nigerian Army to be known as the Spiritual Counter-Insurgency Rapid Response Division. 

No member of this proposed team will receive any form of compensation. But whatever they may need for their purpose should be provided directly by the Presidency. The team should be organized as follows: all Muslim clerics should work together as one division. They should all storm Sambisa forest and hold prayers there non-stop for 40 days and 40 nights to exorcise the spirit of evil from the forest. Leaders of white garment churches should lead another division. They should be deployed to every part of the country to cleanse Nigeria with prayers, anointed oil, lit candles, and holy water. They should fast and pray and call on the Lord of Hosts, the I am that I am, Jehovah Jireh. Sat Guru Maharaji, the Living Master, should lead all children of Light in prayer. Nigeria needs the touch of all all Masters, Living and Ethereal, to envelope Nigeria with Light and banish darkness. Leaders of the Pentecostal Churches led by GO Enoch Adeboye can organize a 100-day Marathon prayer and fasting session to take this country’s case to God, to plead for Divine Favor and forgiveness. 

Animists should not be left out. Every ethnic nationality should be asked to visit every shrine or grove in every community in Nigeria and place curses on anybody who commits any evil on the soil that is known as Nigeria. In calling for national spiritual warfare, Buratai may have heard of what happened in the city of Benin not too long ago. When criminals began to seize control of that city, the Oba of Benin called out his priests and in broad daylight, all the priests wearing blazing and frightening red colour cursed the criminals and warned them to stop or face the wrath of the gods of Benin. There has been peace and security in Benin since then. The same criminals who do not respect Nigerian Police and Army or the Nigerian Constitution have been very careful with the gods and ancestors! There must be something that the Benin palace knows that the Nigerian military probably needs. How about asking the Oba of Benin to co-ordinate an anti-Boko Haram operation? 

There is also the recent case of Oke Owa community in Ondo state. Some Fulani cattle herders took their cows to a sacred hill in that community in defiance of the community’s traditions and rules. The cows, 36 of them were struck dead mysteriously by lightning and thunder. The traditional ruler of the Oke Owa community usually spends a night alone in the sacred grove where that incident occurred. He should be taken by the Federal Government to Sambisa forest. Let him spend a night there and summon whatever spirits are protecting his village on a sabbatical in the North West and North East of Nigeria. The Governor of Borno State has mobilized some hunters who we are told have bullet-proof bodies. The Are Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Ganiyu Adams should also be recruited to lead the Yoruba Agbekoya to support the Nigerian military in the war against terror. The Egbesu of the Niger Delta should also come to the rescue of the Nigerian military. 

I commend the Chief of Army Staff for his humility. It is not easy for a General to admit that what he and his men are facing at the war-front is rather daunting and that they need spiritual help. It is not easy to accept DEFEAT. Where are all those pastors who claim that they can make the lame walk and the blind see? Nigeria needs HELP right now! If we defeat the Boko Haram through spiritual warfare, Nigeria would have made a very original contribution to the science of modern warfare.    

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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