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REUBEN'S VIEWS
The sociology of death and funerals is an important aspect of the African cosmogony. Parents pray that their children should outlive them in order to give them a befitting burial. They liken this to the same manner when fire dies out in the hearth, it is replaced by ashes, and when a banana tree withers, a sapling sprouts in its place. When Africans die, it is believed that they have merely travelled to another realm, and become ancestors, and hence, a funeral ceremony is a send-forth event. The death of a young person however, is considered a tragedy. This is why such obituaries are prefaced with the solemn declaration that “The wicked have done their worst”, “We love you but the Lord loves you more” or “A Painful Exit.” The tone of the elegy at a funeral is thus a function of the circumstances of the death, or the religious inclination of the family as in “With Total Submission to the Will of God…”, “Inna Lillahi wa inna Ilayhi Raji’un”. Age is indeed a factor. If the dead lived up to an old, ripe age, you are likely to see such announcements as “A Glorious Exit”, “With Gratitude for a Life Well Spent” or “Ä Celebration of Life”.
Among the Yoruba of the South West, the death of an old man or woman is described as “oku eba”, that is - a transition that is worth celebrating, with generous dollops of cassava paste. Other groups in the country also have varying patterns of burying their dead. Among Muslims generally, the burial of the dead is carried out swiftly in line with Islamic injunctions. The simplicity of Muslim burials, the solemnity and dignity of it, is incomparable to anything else I have seen, even if Muslims in the South West of Nigeria, still find an excuse to throw lavish parties that have more to do with the culture of the people, rather than the religion. One dictionary describes the Yoruba as the “fun-loving people of the South West Nigeria.” But in general, the manner of burials, the scope of the rites, the scale and tone, is a reflection of cultural norms and dominant values, at both community and individual levels across Nigeria. What is noteworthy is how the loss of a beloved family member could suddenly end up as a celebration, and the explanation for that is as complicated and diverse as the Nigerian society itself.
In this regard, something happened last week, in Oba, Anambra State, Nigeria: the funeral of the mother of a man popularly known as Obi Cubana, which would seem to be a metaphor for the collapse of values in Nigeria generally, the effect of poverty – spiritual, mental and physical – and how that pushes the people to desperate ends. The burial of Cubana’s mum may be seen as a form of celebration, she died at 75, but it was a lavish send-forth that was terribly obscene. The town of Oba has certainly never witnessed anything like that. Not even in the entire Anambra state has anyone organised anything so loud and extravagant. This was not a celebration of life. It was a celebration of Money. Obi Cubana’s mother died in November 2020. It took him more than seven months to plan the burial and when he decided that it was time for the dead to be sent forth, his obvious intention was to organise the mother of all burials, such that even the living would envy the dead and wish to die. The only problem is that not many Nigerians would rather die knowing that it is not every one that would ever get that kind of burial. Oba is ordinarily a quiet town of nine villages, located between the commercial town of Onitsha and the industrial town of Nnewi. During the civil war, it was the last frontier of the Biafran Army. But that community will now be remembered for a long time, for the burial of the mother of a certain Obi Cubana. The role played by the social media, and by Cubana’s friends is remarkable: how a country lost its moral centre and has produced a generation of new Nigerians who worship money, ego, kudi. The excitement generated among young Nigerians who could not make it to Oba but who followed the event on social media and became excited, is a measure of the extent of the crisis that Nigeria faces.
By Friday, the spectacle had begun to unfold. Social media managers of the burial who apparently had been engaged to do so – they are called influencers – told us and showed pictures, about the Obi Cubana Festival of Money. The first of the videos that I saw was that of a young man throwing Naira notes around, on the streets as if he was distributing candies to children. The notes were in packs, crisp new notes, and as each bundle was thrown at the crowd, people fell over themselves and rushed to pick up pieces. This was like a John the Baptist display. Many of Cubana’s friends and guests would soon arrive, and before they did, many of them posted on Instagram, the stacks of money they were going to spend. Cartons of Naira notes. In one post, a group of women were shown swimming in a pool, others were hanging around, scantily dressed, all looking like they had adjusted their biological features. That is now standard practice among a category of Nigerian women. They do a breast job, acquire a surgical, traffic-stopping butt, and they all look alike, fully bleached to their knuckles, with fake hair, strange eyelashes that protrude like pins, and of course foreign accents that have a combination of every dialect from Wales to mid-West America.
The boys by the pool threw money into the water and the girls scrambled to grab their share of the offering. This was the pattern throughout the burial. Naira notes, sorry bundles of Naira, were thrown about, sprayed, pasted so recklessly you would think this was a future Olympics Game, in which the athletes were preparing for a Gold Medal. Obi Cubana himself was at the centre of it all. One lady, simply identified as Livy was shown in one video throwing so many bales of money at Cubana that he exclaimed that he would need a Chest X-Ray! The way money was being thrown like pieces of cement blocks, I also thought that an ambulance should have been on standby. “Killed by money at Cubana’s mother’s burial” would have been an appropriate headline in the circumstance. The public was later informed that Obi Cubana got about 300 million Naira as contributions by his friends to bury his mother. He also received over 100 rams, and 400 cows, 46 out of that was supplied by one guy called Cubana Priest who not only announced the donation but also said that was just a tip of the iceberg.
Cubana himself did not disappoint. He wore a diamond pendant that was valued at N50 million. His mother’s casket, specially imported from wherever was said to have been about N40 million. This celebration of money was so unbelievable, the burial became a matter for social media punditry and the creation of emojis. Some people said it was certain Obi Cubana’s mother was already in Heaven as a saint, sitting on the right-hand side of the Almighty. Nobody has been to Heaven to confirm that, so we have no proof. Others said with the volume of money spent at the funeral, the Nigerian government should henceforth approach Obi Cubana for a loan and stop disturbing China, IMF and the World Bank. Other observers were worried about the source of the money that was being thrown around like confetti. Nigerian banks would also readily tell you that they don’t have new notes. They give out dirty notes to their customers. But there were more crisp, mint notes in circulation at Oba over the weekend than in the entire Nigerian banking system. And the notes were abused.
The Central Bank Act of Nigeria – Sections 5, 21 (4-5) prescribe penalties for the abuse of the country ‘s national currency. The law forbids the sale, purchase, and the plunking of the Naira, and prescribes penalties: six months imprisonment or a fine of N50, 000 or both. The penalties are so light, I don’t think they mean anything to Cubana and his friends or their likes. And why should that bother them anyway when the Oba funeral was attended by the same law enforcement officers who should know that it is an offence to abuse the Naira (truth is: policemen joined others to collect the notes that dropped on the floor), and there were lawmakers and prominent politicians in attendance too. In fact, nobody should be surprised if Cubana ends up as a Governor or Senator tomorrow. He has effectively used his mother’s burial to prove a point: that he has cash and the courage to spend it. Nigerians worship money. And that was why throughout the weekend: the popular saying was: who no dey Oba, na wahala him get? Women were turned into objects and debased. Whoever had not seen his girlfriend or wife was advised to go to Oba in Anambra State. And there was a particular video of one lady who collected up to three big bags of money, by just picking money from the floor like a mendicant! Nollywood stars fell over themselves to be seen and heard. One respected actor even got so carried away he began to act like an Area Boy on Instagram. I won’t mention his name because he is a man I like very much. Money is a Devil in Nigeria. It turns even the most enlightened into clowns.
At Obi Cubana’s mother’s burial, so-called celebrities, some of these characters who describe themselves as brands (whatever that means!) became ushers, bodyguards, “all-right-sirs” and videographers. Obi Cubana has every right to bury his mother the way he wants. But who is he? How did he make his money? How much tax does he pay to the Nigerian government? The Oba burial is over now, but the only thing anybody will remember is the Bacchanal orgy of money. I am not sure half of the people at the event even know who Cubana’s mother was. What kind of person was she? How did she relate within the community? Did she even ever see, handle, spend, a bundle of crisp Naira notes in her lifetime? Who are Obi Cubana’s family members? Does he even have siblings or extended family members? They were all blanked out! Members of the Oba community were advertised as crumb eaters. They struggled to grab the Naira notes that were thrown into the air. They stared at the money-miss-road invaders from a distance. When it was all over and the waka-come-Cubana crowd left, they struggled over the left-over crumbs of cow-meat barbecue. They were effectively reminded of their poverty.
Obi Cubana would probably not visit that community again until he needs to organise another show-off. Would it not have been better if he built a hospital in his mother’s memory? Or a school? Or a church? And then the people will remember her, and not how her son and his friends put money to shame at her funeral. And who are these friends? The kind of names that have been mentioned sound unfamiliar to me: E-Money, Internet Money, Pablo Cubana, Escoba, Jowizaza, Livy, Cubana Priest. Is the Nigerian Immigration Service, in charge of aliens and expatriates, the Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC) in charge of National Identity Registration and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in charge of Homeland Security, aware of the presence of these people inside Nigeria? Who are they? And why do they spend money like that? Not even Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet will throw money around like that!
The burial of Otunba Mike Adenuga’s mother in 2005 has been compared to that of Cubana’s mother’s burial, and certainly Otunba Adenuga should feel maligned. It is an unintelligent comparison. The point that has been made is that when Adenuga was burying his mother he donated a cow to every street in Ijebu-Igbo, his home town. Yeah. But there were no drunkards throwing bales of money on the streets or cleavage-bearing women, bleached from head to toe, with artificial physiognomy and a mass of excessive protoplasm, promenading here and there, with shameless, bedmatic display. Last weekend, we saw a new definition of womanhood in Oba.
My point is about taste, class and values, not melodrama, or the right of persons to live as they wish. And here, I also draw attention to the burial about the same time of the mother of the former Managing Director of Access Bank, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, which took place in Lagos at the Tafawa Balewa Square. The contrast is striking but I bring it up because it also says something about Nigeria: the emergence of two polarized publics, both of seemingly strong weight and whose difference lies is the inherited future of our children because of the way Nigerian leaders have failed the people. The burial of Apostle Mrs Aig Imoukhuede was a dignified, classy event attended by the Nigerian establishment from politics to business and civil society. It was the celebration of a woman who achieved distinction in her own right and whose accomplishments in that regard were properly show-cased. The funeral was not about her first son, the banker, investor, philanthropist, friend of every important figure. It was, most appropriately, a celebration of her life. Nobody had any need to throw money around. Even if Mrs Imoukhuede was a trader at Oyingbo market, there would have been no need to turn her funeral into a festival of money. And yet the richest and most influential Nigerians with the strongest pedigree were there. One weekend, two burials, different tales! I leave it to you to stretch the comparison. I have made my point: Nigeria is in trouble. Young Nigerians, products of a failed leadership, worship money and fakery. The gentrified class train their children in the best schools abroad, but those same children will return to a country that would have been taken over by the Oba crowd who are sadly, the future of Nigeria. Obi Cubana, and Aig Imoukhuede, our commiserations.
It is not often that cases before a court of law become so important that they get discussed in beer parlours, open places, other rooms and generate so much public attention beyond the court room, even after judgment has been delivered by a court of competent jurisdiction. But it happens, presenting, relative to context, the spectacle of concurrence and/or populism or a conflict between the court of law and the court of public opinion. This in itself is a reaffirmation of the role of the judicial system as a social modulator, beyond strict positivism, rather than a derogation from the relevance of the judiciary. Such cases are known in legal circles as “cause celebre” either for the attendant popularity and public interest or the precedence that they establish. Nigeria found itself confronted with such a case recently with the decision taken by the Court of Justice Taiwo Taiwo (Federal High Court, Abuja) in the matter between Oluwakemi Adeosun, former Minister of Finance of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Attorney General of the Federation. This is an interesting case that has the prospects of becoming a locus classicus, in its present form or on appeal (if that happens) with regard to the issues of citizenship, appointments into public office and participation in Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps Scheme (NYSC). I will tone down the legalisms involved, but what are the facts before us and what conclusions can we draw from this particular case?
In November 2015, Kemi Adeosun, born in 1967 in London, England, to Nigerian parents from Ogun State Nigeria, was appointed Nigeria’s Minister of Finance by the Muhammadu Buhari administration. Before that appointment, she had worked in the United Kingdom as an accounting assistant at British Telecom, London, also at Goodman Jones as a senior audit officer, as a manager at London Underground, and later at Prisms Consulting. She was also a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers. In 2002, she returned to Nigeria and took up an appointment as a Financial Controller with Chapel Hill Denham Management. She became Managing Director of that company in 2010. In 2011, Adeosun was appointed Commissioner of Finance in Ogun State by then Governor Ibikunle Amosun who promised to turn around the fortunes of his home-state. Four years later, Kemi Adeosun was further elevated when she ended up as Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, after President Buhari and Governor Amosun won a second term in office as President and Governor respectively.
It was widely assumed Mrs Adeosun earned that promotion due to Amosun’s influence. Amosun is a well-known Buhari ally and a prominent member of the ruling party. As Minister of Finance of Nigeria, Adeosun, an Economics graduate of the University of East London and a Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, further ended up as Chairman of the Board of the African Export-Import Bank (AfreximBank). Her profile was something made out of a fairy tale: amazing, well supported.
In 2018, that fairy-tale turned sour when an online newspaper, Premium Times Online alleged that Mrs Adeosun illegally obtained her NYSC exemption certificate. In Nigeria, no citizen, who is a graduate, is allowed to be employed in either the private or public sector, without having gone through a mandatory one-year national service. This requirement is spelled out in Section 12 of the NYSC Act and embedded in the 1999 Constitution. Premium Times, after calling out Mrs Adeosun, promised to conduct an investigation. And it did, with unsavoury outcomes. This generated tension, ethnic politicking and a heavy dose of blame game. In the middle of all that, and the ugly implications for the integrity of the Buhari administration, Kemi Adeosun resigned from her position as Nigeria’s Minister of Finance on September 14, 2018. Her resignation letter, addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari is available online. But let me quote the following paragraph from it. She writes: “I have today become privy to the findings of the investigation into the allegation made in an online medium that the Certificate of Exemption from National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) that I had presented was not genuine. This has come as a shock to me and I believe that in line with this administration’s focus on integrity, I must do the honourable thing and resign.”
Kemi Adeosun’s resignation was an unusual thing to do in Nigeria. Most of her compatriots would never have done so. Resign from such a “juicy position” as Nigerians call it? No! But she did. And there were questions about whether she jumped or she was pushed. Other questions were asked: was she set up and sacrificed by the same man who made her Minister of Finance, her former boss, Governor Amosun? Did she herself get too big for her boots, and forgot her own beginnings? Who blew the whistle about her NYSC Exemption Certificate? As pundits went to town, Adeosun left town. She has now returned three years later, with a bang. A month ago, she got a generous mention in the newspapers as the founder of a Foundation – “the Dash Me Store”, an online thrift-for-charity initiative that she has now established to support the vulnerable in society. It was her first major public appearance in 3 years. And it wasn’t meant to be just one of those events. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was in attendance for all the possible symbolic reasons, as Chair of the occasion. That was great optics. Adeosun may have left the country in 2018 for controversial reasons, but she has returned on a high note, with perfect timing.
For me, this was particularly confirmed by the court ruling dated the 7th Day of July 2021 in suit No: FHC/ABJ/CR/303/2021 between Folakemi Adeosun - (Plaintiff) and Attorney General of the Federation – (Defendant) before His Lordship Hon. Justice Taiwo O. Taiwo in the Federal High Court of Nigeria, Abuja Judicial Division. As it were, Kemi Adeosun had approached the Federal High Court to seek declaratory reliefs to the effect that (i) she was not under any constitutional disadvantage or prohibition at the time of her appointment as Minister with regard to her participation in the NYSC scheme, (ii) she cannot be subjected to any disability or disadvantage on the ground that she did not participate in the NYSC and that ((iii) being a United Kingdom Citizen as at 1989 when she graduated from the University of East London, UK, at the age of 22 years, she was ineligible to participate in Nigeria’s NYSC. The learned Judge observed as follows: “In brief the fact of this case is that sometime in 2018, while the plaintiff was serving as the Minister of Finance of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it was being paraded in the public space that she did not participate in the NYSC scheme and as such ought to have been disqualified from holding the office. It was further alleged that the said insinuations have remained unabated, thereby, consistently putting the plaintiff at disadvantageous positions in the pursuit of her career, both within and outside the country, this has therefore necessitated the plaintiff to file this action.” Counsel for the defendant relying on Section 12 of the NYSC Act and Sections 147 (5) and 192 (4) of the 1999 Constitution responded accordingly. The Court decided in favour of the plaintiff and granted the declaratory reliefs in her prayers before the Court. The ruling has been heavily criticised in the court of public opinion, and that has generated as much interest as the substance of the case itself.
First, there is this argument that the court did not address the issue of certificate forgery which was the basis for Mrs Adeosun’s resignation in the first place. Those who push this line of argument forget that this was not the matter before the court. A court of law is not duty bound to embark on a voyage of discovery or offer what has not been pleaded before it with admissible evidence. Procedure is critical in law and in common parlance, the court is not a Father Christmas. In this matter, a civil suit by the way, Kemi Adeosun had approached the court to protect her reputation, to which she claims much damage had been done by the circumstances of her exit from the Nigerian government in September 2018. It is perfectly within her rights to do so, one’s reputation being so fundamental to everything else.
Second, some persons have expressed concern about the citizenship question raised in the ruling. They ask: Granted that as of 1989, when she graduated Kemi Adeosun was not a citizen of Nigeria, and therefore ineligible for participation in the NYSC scheme, under the then extant 1979 Constitution, when she then returned to Nigeria to work, what steps did she take to become a Nigerian citizen? They point out that the 1999 Constitution after all, does not automatically confer citizenship. There is a proper definition of citizenship under Chapter 3 of the 1999 Constitution, so at what point exactly did Mrs Adeosun become a Nigerian? And how could she have been appointed a state Commissioner of Finance and later, a Federal Minister if there was no understanding that she had become a Nigerian citizen although entitled to dual nationality? And why would she sue the Attorney General of the Federation? Again, these questions were not raised by the defence counsel before Justice Taiwo Taiwo. The issues for determination were clear and specific. What has been offered is a technical, Constitutional interpretation of what the law says with regard to participation in the National Youth Service Corps Scheme of Nigeria, and the legal status in that regard of all persons, of Nigerian parentage but foreign nationality, caught between the 1979 and 1999 Constitutions with regard to eligibility to participate in the scheme and the question of their citizenship. But does the ruling of the Court meet public expectations? No.
Third: Will the office of the Attorney General of the Federation appeal this ruling? I doubt. Will the Federal Government now file a suit to accuse the former Minister of Finance of the forgery of a certificate that everyone is saying is the main issue? Hmm. That won’t happen. This is Nigeria. Mrs Kemi Adeosun’s reputation with regard to the NYSC matter has been judicially restored, and all insinuations about her involvement in this quasi political-legal tango have been laid to rest. Her brother Dele Ogun has been quoted as saying Premium Times, the online newspaper, has questions to answer. So, should she sue Premium Times that generated the storm in the first place? She shouldn’t bother. There is no point fighting a battle she can’t win. Only the naïve would pick up battles with the media like those thick-headed characters who believe that they can restrict the freedom of information in society. I hope their advisers have seen the robust push-back by the Nigerian media community which started yesterday. Nigerian newspapers are now carrying placards against the government: from front-page advertorials to editorials!
It has been said that Kemi Adeosun’s legal victory is a victory for all Nigerians who were born abroad before the 1999 Constitution and who do not have to participate in the NYSC. Except that this is one case where the law does not answer all the questions. It must indeed be a fit and proper thing to serve one’s country, or even die for it. The NYSC was introduced in 1973, to move Nigeria beyond the pains and tragedy of the civil war and to promote national unity and integration. If things were normal, there would have been no reason for anyone to avoid the opportunity to serve the country. Kemi Adeosun was 22 in 1989, and she was not a Nigerian citizen. When she returned to Nigeria in 2013 at the age of 34, she was already beyond the age of eligibility for the NYSC. She has now succeeded in proving her case in court. But other foreign-born Nigerians with an eye on the future should study her case closely and learn a critical lesson about the importance of one’s roots. They need to realise that the Adeosun case does not automatically offer them any protection under the law. Adeosun probably never imagined that she would ever have anything to do with public life in Nigeria.
Many Nigerians in diaspora, a growing generation of children with Nigerian parents and foreign citizenship often overlook the umbilical manner in which they are linked to Nigeria by blood. They are proud to say that they have nothing to do with Nigeria and that they belong to other countries. But the pull of home and ancestral roots is forever strong. Most of the athletes in the D’Tigers Basketball team who represented Nigeria a few days ago and made history beating Team USA, the most dominant basketball team in the world, probably do not have a Nigerian passport, and may never have been to their ancestral home. They wore shirts emblazoned with the message: “Naija no dey carry last”. They stepped up and proved it. Every Nigerian child born in diaspora should look beyond Kemi Adeosun’s legal victory. A sense of home and roots, is the strongest DNA in our veins. The river may flow downstream into the oceans, without looking back, but it is bound to dry up if it loses touch with its source.
What is most unfortunate, however, is the crisis at home that drives a wedge between Nigerians at home and those in diaspora. While we urge the latter to identify with home, connect and remember, Nigerians born and bred at home, are in despair. They are either seeking to emigrate or secede. If they are lucky to graduate from a higher institution, they are not even happy to participate in the NYSC or serve the country. Nigeria is so insecure parents do not want their children posted to certain parts of the country. Nigeria has a way of killing dreams. The NYSC is one of those dying dreams. And that is why the Adeosun case, controversial as it seems, is bound to end up as just one of those things in the court of public opinion.
When a few weeks ago, President Muhammadu Buhari declared that those who seek to overwhelm and undermine the Nigerian state would soon be spoken to in the language that they will understand, this was immediately interpreted to serve as a signal of a declaration of war against the people of the South East because the President spoke in the context of war, as he referred to the civil war of 1967 -70. Subsequently, the President made it clear that the language of engagement would be communicated not just in the South East, but in every part of the country including the North West and North East and elsewhere in the country where attempts are being made to sabotage the sovereignty of Nigeria, and the government’s responsibility to ensure the security and welfare of the people.
Last week, Nigeria found itself in the grips of a security turmoil, and that promised confrontation with “language.” Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), and founder of the Eastern Security Network (ESN), two organisations promoting separatism or secession and committed to the actualization of a Republic of Biafra to be carved out of Nigeria, was intercepted, re-arrested/extradited, and rendered Nicodemously, back to Nigerian soil. Nigerians got to know about the operation through a press conference by the Attorney General of the Federation/Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami SAN who disclosed that Kanu was intercepted with the help of intelligence and security services. Kanu was re-arraigned in court on Tuesday, June 29.
The presiding Justice ordered that he should be remanded in the custody of the Department of State Services until July 26. Second incident: in Soka, Ibadan, DSS officials stormed the home of Chief Sunday Adeyemo, a.k.a, Sunday Igboho, the Yoruba co-promoter of the idea of an Oduduwa Nation, a modern-day defender of Yoruba territory against the incursion of criminally-minded Fulani herdsmen into the South West. The DSS has since declared Igboho a wanted man. He has reportedly said nobody can intimidate him, because he has not committed any crime and that he is in his house despite the attack on him, his aides and his properties by State Security. Third incident: the brusque manner in which the Nigeria Police put an end to the Yoruba Nation rally at the Freedom Square, Ojota, Lagos, on Saturday, July 3. Not only did the Police block the people’s right to protest (which is condemnable), the life of a young lady was snuffed out, according to one account by a stray bullet, but the police insist that she died from a knife-stab. She did not deserve to die.
These three incidents can be taken as an indication of “the language” that the President recently spoke about. It is the language of power, in form of an affirmation of the supremacy of the state. The only problem is the politics of it, the tone, nature and fall-outs and how the Nigerian government is doing the right thing in a wrong, untidy and controversial manner. What is right? And what is wrong? The Buhari administration has consistently insisted on the sovereignty of Nigeria, its indivisibility and indissolubility in line with the Preamble of the 1999 Constitution and Section 2(1) thereof, in addition to its resolve to uphold the same principles and provisions. In the face of calls for secession, restructuring and a referendum on the future of Nigeria and the state of the Union, government spokespersons have argued that whereas the Constitution can be amended, and the country can be restructured, as the people wish, this has to be done through the legislature, and not outside the extant Constitutional framework. Those who insist that the 1999 Constitution is a “military invention” and not a “Peoples Constitution” have also been told that the latter which they seek through a referendum, without the National Assembly would amount to an unconstitutional proposition. There is no provision for a people’s referendum, or any contemplation of secession or separation by any part of the Federation known as Nigeria, in the 1999 Constitution.
This is the source of the difference between the separatist groups led by the likes of Chief Sunday Adeyemo and Nnamdi Kanu and other ethnic nationalists. The latter argue that Nigeria’s 1914 amalgamation has since expired and since government is not prepared to re-negotiate the terms of the union, in the face of so much injustice, mis-governance and inequity in the land, it is better for those aggrieved groups within the Federation to re-define their own destiny. Self-determination is a universally recognised right under Articles 1(2) and 55 of the United Nations Charter. The Nigerian Government has been careful not to openly use that phrase, self-determination, but it rails against any effort to achieve that objective through the means of violence, or deliberate mobilisation to undermine Nigeria. “No responsible government will fold its arms” and allow non-state actors to overwhelm it is the common phrase we hear. Or something like the government’s responsibility to defend the rule of law or that the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable. This is of course readily dismissed as hypocritical by those who accuse the Nigerian government of having no regard whatsoever for the rule of law, and hence no moral high ground to stand upon.
Sunday Igboho is committed to the actualization of an Oduduwa Nation, which means the South West of Nigeria pulling out of the Nigerian Federation. He also defends the Yoruba territory. He has led rallies across the South West, in Ibadan, Osogbo, Akure, Abeokuta, Ado Ekiti to sensitize and mobilize the people. The proposed Oduduwa Nation has its own anthem and a national flag. The latest rally was scheduled for Lagos, July 3. Two days earlier, the DSS attacked Igboho’s residence in Ibadan in the middle of the night. In the case of Nnamdi Kanu, he had been arrested by the Nigerian government in 2015, and taken to court on a nine-count charge of treasonable felony and other offences. IPOB which he leads was later proscribed and declared a terrorist group. In April 2017, Kanu was granted bail, under strict conditions. In September 2017, he jumped bail and became a fugitive from the law. He was declared wanted.
While on the run, Nnamdi Kanu and his associates sustained an attack on Nigeria through propaganda and other organised activities in the South East. Without a doubt, both Igboho and Kanu had become persons of interest to the Nigerian state. Igboho had been invited in the past by the police. There was also an unsuccessful attempt by state agents to kidnap him on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on one occasion. Igboho has remained undeterred. He has pursued his Yoruba Nationalism with gusto. It is not beyond the state to take an interest in him. As for Kanu, what the state has proven in his case is that whereas the will of the state may be slow, it will eventually prevail, and that nobody is above the laws of the land. The argument that Kanu is a British citizen offers neither a defence or immunity under the law. Dual nationality which Nigerian laws recognise does not grant anyone the right to or seek to, overwhelm the Nigerian state and expect the affected state to look the other way.
What is wrong is how Nigeria has handled the two cases in question. Igboho’s house was attacked in the dead of the night, ostensibly without prior notice, in a Gestapo style reminiscent of those locust years of military dictatorship. The DSS claims that its team was attacked as it approached Igboho’s residence. So? In the absence of any prior notice, the DSS team could well have been regarded as intruders coming to do harm. Given his circumstances, any reasonable person would expect Igboho to have security arrangements at his home to keep intruders out. Did the DSS officials identify themselves before approaching the house, like the use of a Public Address system asking Igboho to surrender himself? In trying to assert the might of the state, the DSS adopted extra-legal tactics. Two persons were killed including an aide who was reportedly on a praying mat. Wives, including Igboho’s wife, were carted away, and released later. 13 persons ended up in custody. The vehicles in the compound were sprayed with bullets and damaged. This certainly cannot be a standard security agency operating procedure. DSS said it was acting on a tip off that Igboho was stockpiling arms in his home. The man says the few arms and ammunition that have been paraded do not belong to him. He is a traditionalist he insists, who deploys metaphysical powers. The DSS team was looking for arms, but they also ended up killing and arresting Igboho’s cats. Cats! Ologbo Iya agba. Ologbo Ijeun. Meow, Meow. Pussy Cat. How ridiculous. Did the cats also resist the invasion of Igboho’s residence?
The international community must be having a good laugh at Nigeria’s expense about this cruelty to animals and the ethno-theological assumption that it is possible for Sunday Igboho, a human being, to turn into a cat to escape arrest. The US SEAL Team came all the way to Nigeria in October 2020, on a special security operation to rescue a 27-year-old Philip Walton who had been kidnapped in Niger and brought to Nigeria. It was a precision operation, driven by science and professionalism. Nigerian security agents are always busy looking for fetish objects. Many of our own security agents will be better off joining the Vigilante, the Amotekun, the hunters’ guild or Ebube Agu. Igboho’s cats have not yet been paraded by the DSS. Those cats should also be allowed to have their day in court and their charges properly read out to them. I have no doubts that there will be more than enough lawyers who will take up their matter, pro bono, to make the simple argument that under Nigerian laws, an animal is not a juristic entity. Until that matter is determined, nothing must happen to those cats. Everything must be done to ensure that they do not end up in anybody’s pot of soup as a captured delicacy and spoil of war!
It is this same sloppiness that we have seen in the Kanu case. Ordinarily the matter should not have generated any controversy at all. A man runs away from the law. The law catches up with him. Simple. He should have his day in court. But the whole thing has been turned into something else because of the lack of clarity about the circumstances of his arrest. The Nigerian Government has not even disclosed how and where he was arrested, the international agencies or governments that provided support, and how he was brought back into the country. The secrecy has now given room to needless speculation, confusion, and conspiracy theories. The Kenyan authorities have said for example that he was not arrested in Kenya. Persons close to him insist that not only was he arrested in Kenya, he was also tortured by Kenyan officials before he was handed over to the Nigerian authorities. By doing the right thing wrongly, the Nigerian government is gradually turning the narrative against itself, and turning both Igboho and Kanu into heroes among their supporters, and across ethnic constituencies in the South and the Middle Belt. We have now reached a point whereby Nnamdi Kanu’s supporters in the South East are supporting and defending Sunday Igboho of the South West and vice versa.
The emerging conversation is gradually focussing on due process, the right to self-determination and why in speaking language to power, the Nigerian state has not deemed it necessary to arrest anyone involved in attacks on the sovereignty of Nigeria in the Northern parts of the country. Questions: Can the point be confidently made, that it is only in the South that non-state actors challenging the integrity of the state can be found? How about the Boko Haram and ISWAP in the North East and the bandits in the North West? Only yesterday, Boko Haram reportedly appointed a Governor of its own to oversee parts of Borno State. Why is the government not going after whoever is the co-called Boko Haram Governor? Will he appoint Commissioners too and collect tax? Why are Boko Haram terrorists being approached for negotiation and offered chances of rehabilitation unlike agitators in the South? These are the kind of questions being raised. No government that expects to be taken seriously can afford to lay itself open to such charges of double standards. Other commentators have gone further to insist that what needs to be addressed are the specific issues that continue to throw up non-state actors who question the value of the Nigerian state: these are issues of equity, fairness, justice, good governance and ensuring a collective sense of ownership and belongingness among Nigerians, not through vapid rhetoric but concrete actions. It is not an accident that these latter points are captured in spirit, in the communique issued at the conclusion of the meeting of the 17 Governors of Southern Nigeria held in Lagos on Monday, July 5, 2021.
The Government of Nigeria needs to manage the crisis of confidence it faces. It needs to rebuild trust. It can start by ensuring that the right things are done in an open and just manner, that is fair to all parties concerned. And the security agencies must play their own part by always acting professionally. On Saturday in Lagos, a young lady who was not even part of the Yoruba Nation rally lost her life. In less than 24 hours the Lagos Police Command told the public that no policeman fired any shots at all (something that was seen on television!), and that the victim did not die as a result of gunshot wound (did the police carry out an autopsy to determine the cause of death so fast?). State officials must learn to be truthful, otherwise whatever they do or say will be politicised and treated with doubt and suspicion.
“Where have you been, you this guy?”
“Omo, I no go deceive you. I just meet this girl wey dey turn my head. Shey you know, I no go deceive you. You don’t need to die to discover Heaven. Heaven is right here on earth, except you have not been lucky to discover it. This my new babe hen, I am convinced that she descended from Heaven at a special moment of the Lord’s intervention”
“I hope nobody has given you vegetable to eat. You sound like you are under a spell. I asked you where you have been and all you are telling me is how you met a girl as if you are in a trance. Well, I must assume you are talking about your wife”
“Which wife? That one? You don’t get it.”
“Ï don’t. Whatever has come over you, I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus will leave you. Because I don’t know why men will see danger and embrace it with their full chest.”
“Leave matter. Don’t Pastors also see women they love and desire, and they keep their Bible aside and obey the call of flesh, the evidence of their eyes and submit themselves to their own humanity and nature? Leave matter.”
“So, when are you going to introduce me to this your new woman that you are so ecstatic about? What is her name? When do I get to meet her?”
“Whenever you want to meet her. Almost a virgin. Fresh. Innocent. Her name is Chidinma.”
“Yeh! Blood of Jesus! Blood of Jesus!”
“Are you alright?”
“What did you say her name is, just now?”
“Chidinma”
“Oh Jesus! Ore, why are you doing this to yourself? You wan die? One Chidinma has just been paraded by the police in Lagos in a homicide case. She has been accused of killing one of your type, a successful young man with a great future, an entrepreneur with skills and talent, who gave access to a young woman, and ended up dying through her. Such a tragic story, such a sad event, it should make every man run away from any woman that bears the name Chidinma”
“Are you okay? Are you listening to yourself? You run the risk of group defamation. Every Chidinma in Nigeria should sue you, individually and collectively.”
“Na you sabi. I beg. Ï am speaking for myself. Since that tragedy was reported, I have been thinking of the pains of Michael Usifo Ataga’s family. He was someone’s son, cousin, brother, husband and a father too. He had a whole world ahead of him. It was even a day to his birthday. His family was looking forward to celebrating him at 50. And then the devil showed up in the shape of Delilah, Cleopatra and Helen of Troy, and destroyed him. I feel the pain in my bone marrows. These days, when I hear the name Chidinma or Adaora, I break out in sweat.”
“You see, this is the problem with you people. You like conspiracy theories. So, because one Chidinma committed a crime, every Chidinma has now become a villain. For your information, Chidinma means “My God is beautiful”. And Adaora means “the daughter of all,” that is the people’s daughter. What is in a name? When a crime is committed, it is for the police to do their work, and ensure justice. The case you are talking about has nothing to do with the name of the suspect. Candidly, I no longer understand how people reason in this country. Is it the poverty? Or the bad politics?”
“After what happened last week, if I hear Chidinma or Adaora, na race be that oh. A girl of 21 years, going out with a man of 50, and yet she killed him in such a gruesome manner. The whole story does not even make sense to me. It does not add up. It is a story about poverty, greed, peer influence, drug abuse, parental upbringing, infidelity, and frustration. Yes, every man should be careful and avoid an amoral life, but that is no reason why the Chidinma, undergraduate of the University of Lagos should kill, drug, tie up and destroy.”
“What if you hear Mary? You go run?”
“That is my mother’s name. Don’t bring my mother’s name into this matter.”
“You see yourself then? Are you aware that the alleged murderer had a fake identity with the name: Mary Johnson.? Will you now start running away from every Mary? What has happened is not funny? Nigerians should stop misbehaving, creating all kinds of theories and misinforming people. In case you don’t know, the Ataga family has issued a statement, appealing to the public to stop turning a family tragedy into a material for malice and mischief. I think their feelings should be respected. The police should be allowed to do their work. All self-appointed detectives should be told: Enough! And that should be enough”
“Since you know all of that, then people like you should learn your lesson. Stay with your wife. If you must have a girlfriend, then Know Your Customer. It is called KYC. Stay away from girls from problematic backgrounds. Don’t get carried away by young girls with so-called innocent looks. Mata Hari had innocent looks but she was evil. Every femme fatale is a vamp. Delilah. Helen of Troy. Cleopatra. And above all, don’t play around with drugs.”
“Thank you, preacher. Let he who is innocent cast the first stone.”
“Very sad the way tragedy occurs in this country unabated. It can get to somebody, you know, and it is beginning to get to me. I was reading the newspapers the other day, just going through an accumulated pile. I was depressed. If Chidinma is not murdering Michael, Maryam is killing Abubakar, Funke kills Femi, one husband kills his wife because of N2, 000, one fellow accuses his mother of being a witch and decides to kill her, a jealous step-mother throws her step son into a well, someone abducts another man’s wife and rapes her for five months, herdsmen kill farmers, farmers kill cows and herders and their kinsmen, a group of avengers claim they will ensure the permanent recession of Nigeria and humiliate the government, some other groups want to secede.. Is there hope? Tell me, where does our hope lie, those of us who fought for this democracy? Can someone help me make sense of this unending deluge of sad news?”
“Oh come on, there is hope. This is the way it has always been with Nigeria since independence. Things go wrong. But just when you think the country will collapse, it suddenly bounces back. What we need is Love. Unity. Understanding. The problem is that too many of our people are quick to imagine the worst. But I can tell you, Nigeria will survive.”
“But some prophets have said the country will break up. I know one or two Pastors who insist that Nigeria has come to an end.”
“You must stop listening to those spellbinders, futurologists and shamanists. Most of them do not know what they do.”
“It is the word of God. Can’t you see the signs?”
“What signs?”
“Are you not aware that a group of Southern and Middle Belt leaders have approached the African Union, the UN, the World Bank and the IMF that they must no longer do business with Nigeria, and must never give the country any loans, because the sovereignty of the country is now being disputed?”
“Don’t worry yourself. Nothing will come out of it. I can assure you that all of those institutions you have mentioned will continue to do business with Nigeria and even grant more loans.”
“But what of the restive youths of the Niger Delta who are threatening to humiliate the entire country? There is Operation Humble by the Niger Delta Avengers which is even led by a woman, former Field Commander of Operation Red of 2016 now Brigadier General Tu-ere, also known as Queen of the Creeks. A woman! There is also the Reformed Niger Delta Avengers, leading Operation No Mercy Alpha Piper Zero Oil. We also have the Niger Delta Liberators. They all want to cripple Nigeria.”
“No worry yourself. Na today?”
“There are separatist groups everywhere. In the East. In the West. In the South South.”
“Na so e dey be any time a major election is around the corner. Everything na hustle. Nobody dey go anywhere. Is it not this same Nigeria all of us dey inside?”
“Ï think it is different this time around. People are genuinely aggrieved and upset. Nigeria is at a breaking point. You make everything sound so light.”
“Too much grammar. That is our problem. And I keep saying do not focus on the moment, do a trend analysis of Nigerian politics over the years. When people need something, they will make noise, agitate, threaten to pull down the roof but when you speak to them in the language they understand, they will calm down and Nigeria will move on”
“Of course. That is exactly how Nigerian leaders keep postponing the evil day until one day, monkey will go market he no go return. This is the root cause of the civil war, the June 12 crisis, the menace of military autocracy, the #EndSARS protests, the thinking that some people can seize the reins of power and treat the people shabbily, refuse to listen to them and simply assume that nothing will happen. But I think we are dealing with a new Nigeria. There is a new generation that has emerged that can no longer be taken for granted the way their parents were. They are fighting back in all ways, from rented slaughter beds, short-time joints, to the streets.”
“That is what you think.”
“That is what I know. The dynamics have changed. This new generation is on drugs, they are high on all kinds of substances, they don’t care, they are not afraid of any authority figures. On top of it all, they are educated and outspoken, and they have access to technological means of instant communication. My advice is that the political elite should stop daring them. They will kill and maim, and look innocent. Nigeria has created demons, waiting to strike.”
“Can I make some predictions?”
“Ï thought you just condemned prophets and pastors a while ago”
“Yes, I did. But I want to speak as a pragmatist. Stop giving yourself hypertension. Nigeria is this. Nigeria is that. For example, have you not seen the desperation with which politicians have been fighting over party primaries in all the major political parties in Anambra State? The desperation. The theatre. PDP. APC. APGA. Does that give you the impression that everyone has given up on this country? No. All the gladiators have followership. They are all convinced that there is still something of value in this country. After their crisis-ridden political primaries, they have all rushed to Abuja to take instructions from the centre.”
“The Igbo political elite do not represent their people”
“Who told you that? So do the Yoruba or Fulani political elite represent their people?”
“Ï don’t know”
“My friend, wake up. Stop getting sick over Nigeria’s problems. Spread love. Get yourself one young girl who can make you happy, and drive away your sorrows.”
“God forbid. I choose to be on the level.”
“Everything God. God. Have you forgotten that everything good and ugly, the Lord makes them? It is the way of the universe. It is the way the Grand Architect has made it all.”
“No. I am okay. And you have not answered my original question before you went off on a tangent about how Nigeria is in a safe and secure place and how the obvious signs of implosion mean nothing to you”
“What was your question again?”
“Is there something to hope for? I no longer feel safe in this country. I can just pack my bags now, take my children and relocate to Canada with all my frustrations! Arrrgh!”
“And I told you to stop panicking”
“When even a nationalist and stateman like Baba Olusegun Obasanjo is panicking. He says population explosion is a ticking time bomb in Nigeria. By the year 2050, Nigeria could be the third most populated country in the world. A time could come when Nigeria could be the country with the largest population. Imagine the crisis that will occur. There will be an explosion of poverty, criminals, separatists, decayed infrastructure and too many useful idiots in high and low places.”
“Are you sure you the former President made that statement?”
“Yes. He was very factual, analytical and on point. Brilliant submission as always.”
“Of course. But I recall once reading a book by the same Baba Obasanjo in which he listed his biological and adopted children. I believe I saw more than 20 names, his direct personal contribution to the Nigerian population, not to add an emergent family tree that includes grandchildren and great grandchildren. Baba is my role model. I will like to be like him, and when we get to that stage, can we then discuss the population of Nigeria?”
“You always like to twist people’s thoughts.”
“Listen to me, don’t let anybody give you headache in this country. Get smart. Niger Delta Avengers claim they will humiliate Nigeria. I hope they have heard that electric cars are now in Nigeria, even at the University of Lagos, and that the same Nigeria has accidentally discovered about 206 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in addition to another 600 billion cubic feet. Accidentally! And the man that disclosed that information is a son of the Niger Delta, Minister of State, Timipre Sylva”
“The gas belongs to the people of the Niger Delta. That is the elephant in the room. The accidental discovery does not change anything.”
“You still don’t get the language. Okay. Okay.”
“Nothing is okay”
“Okay then”
Some of the major challenges bedevilling the electoral process in Nigeria, and thus abbreviating the integrity of democracy in the country include over the years: lack of access to polling units, the location of polling units in problematic parts, overcrowding, conflict, violence, the designation of places like shrines, mosques, churches and private residences as polling units which grant the owners of such premises unassigned powers of control over the voting process. There is also the general climate of fear, opaqueness, insecurity and manipulation during every election season. Last week, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) made notable progress in addressing these challenges when it announced the completion of its delienation of new polling units for the country.
The last time new polling units were defined in Nigeria was 25 years ago by the defunct National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON), as INEC was then known. At the time the country had on the voters’ register, 50 million voters. Over the years, it worked with an estimate of 120, 000 polling units across the country but an eventual census put the exact figure at 119, 973 polling units. As the number of voters nationwide increased, the number of polling units remained static. Section 22 of the Electoral Act says each polling unit is not supposed to have more than 500 registered voters. But as more persons attained the age of franchise (18 in Nigeria), the polling units became congested, with many of them serving up to 2, 000 to 3, 000 voters. As new communities also emerged, especially in urban centres, voters had to travel long distances to get to the next available Polling Unit (PU). Many did not even bother, because of the stress involved, and so voter turn-out in every election was not a true reflection of the people’s commitment. Analysts often explained this away superficially as voter apathy whereas there were underlying constraints that needed to be addressed.
In 2007, the predecessor of the current INEC Chairman, namely Professor Attahiru Jega tried to update the polling units in the country to reflect the changing voter statistics and demographics. The exercise ran into troubled waters on the grounds of ethnicity and religion. Jega’s INEC was accused of trying to give advantage to the North. He tried again in 2014. The exercise was, after a pattern, sabotaged by the politics of suspicion and motive-reading. In 2019, Jega’s successor, Professor Mahmoud Yakubu also tried to bring the polling units in line with realities. He also failed. What is common to all those earlier efforts is that the exercises were proposed very close to the elections in 2007, 2015, and 2019, and hence, in a country where there is mutual suspicion and angst, and doubts about the integrity of electoral umpires, the populace was sceptical. So, what has Mahmoud Yakubu done this time that is different? It has been a week since the new polling units were announced: a total of 56, 872 new polling units have been added, bringing the country’s total number of polling units up to 176, 846. Despite the fact that the 19 states of the North and the FCT got additional 31, 196 polling units, and the 17 Southern states an additional 25, 676 polling units, there has been no usual outcry about ethnicity and imbalance or complaints about any surreptitious attempt to manipulate the figures. The expected reaction may be delayed, especially as INEC has promised to publish the entire list of polling units in 37 volumes ahead of the commencement of the Continuous Voters’ Registration Exercise on June 28.
What is different however, is that INEC has conducted this exercise far ahead of the 2023 General elections. The new polling units have been created out of voting points and voting point settlements which the electoral body introduced during the 2019 general elections to enhance access and the sovereignty of the voter. When the process of reviewing what was done in 1996 began, the Joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on INEC received over 10, 000 requests from 26 states of the Federation for new polling units to be created in their areas. In the end, INEC has arrived at an addition of 56, 872 polling units. It also consulted not just the National Assembly but groups in civil society, including the political parties and development partners. The inclusiveness of the process must have helped but INEC must now go a step further and publish the entire volumes of the designated polling units. Transparency is crucial. That should provide opportunities for scrutiny, review and amendments where necessary.
INEC’s efforts in solving a 25-year electoral riddle is commendable. With the expansion of polling units, voter access and representation will be enhanced. The average voter would not have to travel across kilometres to get to the nearest polling station. The problem of congestion has also been addressed. Room has also been created for the test-running of the new structure long before the 2023 General elections. These new polling units will first be used beginning with the November 6, 2021 Gubernatorial election in Anambra state, and subsequently in the Area Council elections in the Federal Capital Territory, February 12, 2022, Ekiti state gubernatorial election on June 18, 2022 and the one in Osun state scheduled for July 16, 2022.
What many Nigerians would even find more instructive is the announcement by the INEC Chairman that 749 polling units have been removed from inappropriate places: shrines, churches, mosques and private residences. The figure that has been announced is probably modest. The publication of the polling units must provide room for the electorate to help identify more of such strange locations where the integrity of the electoral process has been routinely compromised. This may sound strange to the international community or even to the uninitiated in the mores of Nigerian politics. But it is true. Can you imagine anyone walking into an open, communal shrine in a village, with the Chief Priest wearing INEC tags, asking the voter to support a particular party? How much freedom of choice can voters exercise under such circumstances? Every election season, pastors and imams also become agents for candidates and political parties as they struggle to support members of their own faith, and clients. They help to rig elections and cheat in God’s name. Nigerian clerics do not see anything sinful or criminal in this regard. Their moral compass is dictated by the conviction that “heaven indeed only helps those who help themselves.” There is so much doubtful spirituality in Nigerian politics.
Traditional rulers are just as notorious. You can’t run for an electoral office in Nigeria without visiting the traditional rulers in your constituency. They are regarded as men of influence and authority who can determine electoral outcomes by simply telling their people what to do. Many of them are partisan politicians in traditional garbs. When they tell you that a traditional ruler does not promote any political party, or that he is everyone’s father, believe that and deceive yourself. Even if a particular traditional ruler would not support you and you know, you still must go to his palace to pay homage and receive prayers and the blessing of ancestors. Yes, those ancestors! Nigeria must be one of the very few countries in the world where the dead also have a say in elections: they are served kolanuts, bitter kola and exotic drinks! During the 2019 elections, we visited a particular traditional ruler, a few days to the election. When the king invited us to his living room after a reception in the palace premises, the first thing I noticed was a big box beside the king’s throne. It contained voters’ cards! Someone had actually told us that every election season, this particular king controls most of the polling units in his domain, and no one would dare challenge his directives. On election day, there were reports in other communities as well, of traditional rulers similarly acting as party contractors, and landlords threatening tenants with eviction or increased rent.
It is therefore, precisely for this same reason that I think good as the expansion and enhanced delineation of polling units by INEC may be, certain other critical steps would still have to be taken to safeguard the integrity of Nigerian elections. First on my list is the legal framework for elections. In 2018, the proposed amendment of the Electoral Act 2010 ran into troubled waters because the President refused to give his assent to the Bill, the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2018, as passed by the National Assembly. The excuse then was that the process was out of time, given the closeness of the submitted Bill as amended, to the 2019 general elections. The President refused to give his assent on three different occasions. The 9th National Assembly, upon its inauguration in June 2019, promised to make the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, a major priority to be treated expeditiously. Public hearings on the Bill have been concluded since December 2020, there was even a retreat of lawmakers over it in January 2021 but the federal legislators have been crawling at snail speed over this Bill and others, such as The Petroleum Industry Bill. They have been playing deaf and dumb.
It is as if there is a deliberate attempt to frustrate demands by the electorate and other stakeholders for a modernisation of the electoral framework in Nigeria in line with observed realities and omissions. The Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan even promised that the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021 would be ready by May 2021. One major concern is that in 2021, Nigeria should be able to have an electronic voting system, INEC must have a national data base through which results can be collated real-time with the aid of technology in order to ensure the transparency of outcomes. Many stakeholders have also called for a review of the cost of electoral participation, access for persons living with disabilities, and specific provisions to enhance women participation. There is obviously no political will to reform the electoral system. Ahead of the Continuous Voters Registration exercise beginning June 28, INEC has now introduced an online Voter Enrolment Device to enable voters register online. It should be possible for Nigerians to vote online as well. A hybrid system can be experimented with, whereby disadvantaged voters without access to technology can vote physically at polling units while in the urban centres, technology can be deployed. For this to work, INEC must have enough time to test run the new reforms. As things stand, the extant Electoral Act 2010 makes no allowance for the use of technology. Without the much-needed electoral reform, INEC’s innovations may be of no serious consequence.
The reviews of the 2019 elections by INEC and the high volume of litigations that followed the elections clearly indicated that the politicians and the political parties are part of the problem, if not the main problem, with elections in Nigeria. In the absence of an Electoral Offences Tribunal and the lack of capacity to pursue electoral offenders, big or small, to bring them to justice, Nigerian politicians have learnt to operate like bandits. They kidnap votes, disrupt the system, cheat, rig, promote violence with the aid of able-bodied thugs, high on dangerous, mind-altering drugs, and they get away with it. INEC Chairman Mahmoud Yakubu has also been preaching to Nigerian politicians to ensure internal democracy among their ranks, and to avoid a situation whereby excessive litigations place electoral outcomes at the mercy of the courts. Professor Yakubu’s admonitions sound like mere wishful thinking. For the Nigerian politician, the end justifies the means. He is groomed to win elections by any means possible, and those means do not exclude the assassination of opponents, arson, blackmail, and assault. The key strategy is this: win at all costs and let the opponent go to court. When the matter gets to the courts, another level of mischief is initiated. Nigerian judges are not as neutral as they should be in election matters. From dubious arithmetic to inverted judicial activism, Nigerian courts have gifted elections in surprising manners without ever stating their reasons. The INEC Chairman may preach as he wishes, but what powers does he have to stop the Nigerian judiciary from jumping into the arena of partisan politics?
Insecurity is another thing to worry about. In the last two years alone, 42 INEC facilities have been attacked in 14 different locations across the country. It got so bad INEC had to appeal to the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency over INEC units nationwide. The leadership of the electoral body also visited the President to present a detailed report. They were told that the government would ensure that those attacking INEC facilities will soon have “the shock of their lives.” Nobody knows what that means. What is known is that the biggest threat to future elections is the general insecurity in the country. INEC has increased the number of polling units. It does not have enough staff to man every polling unit. Every election season, it recruits ad hoc staff, which means from November 6, 2021 in Anambra, INEC would recruit more ad hoc staff. But who will allow his or her daughter or relation to work for INEC when there are threats that no election will be allowed in the South East? With kidnappers and separatists running riot? It is the same in the South West where promoters of the Oduduwa Nation have warned politicians to stay away from the 2023 elections. Will the Nigerian government provide security and protect the integrity of future elections? Otherwise, INEC will be grossly handicapped.
Matters have not been helped by the President’s contemptuous and divisive rhetoric on the key issues agitating the minds of the people. President Buhari says nobody will be allowed to restructure Nigeria under his watch because there is nothing to restructure. “No country will allow that”, he says. He is also opposed to the idea of a completely new Constitution. He has declared that his government will speak to those who want to dismember Nigeria in “the language they will understand”. President Buhari at the twilight moment of his tenure should be more concerned about his legacy. The least he can do, is to leave behind a Nigeria that does not tip over the edge of the precipice, after him.
I have been privileged to interview quite a number of world leaders in the course of my journalism career. These include President Olusegun Obasanjo, President Ketumile Masire of Botswana, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Commonwealth Secretary General Shridath Ramphal, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan etc..not to talk of holding the microphone across the world in the presence of countless Presidents in my then capacity as President Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesperson. But no other encounter held as much memory and nostalgic feelings for me as my return to the Aso Rock Presidential Villa on Wednesday, June 9 to interview Nigerian incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.
It was my first return, not to the Villa itself, but to the President’s Residence since President Jonathan was driven out of that environment on May 29, 2015. As I walked from the parking lot in the Residence as we call it, I took in the familiar surroundings. I recalled I used to walk along the same paths, on a daily basis, as frequently as duty demanded. One day, we all followed our principal out of the Main Gate. How transient power can be. A sense of home and exile is definitely imprinted on the pavestones in the corridors of power. Today, you can pound it as if you were the mason who arranged the interlocking stones. Tomorrow, you could be exiled by circumstances from the same space, and your brief sojourn, with the effluxion of time, becomes a distant, fading memory.
As I stepped on every stone leading to the Residence, my mind travelled to the past. I felt as if I was in a trance. I was soon woken up by the words of welcome of the security men at the entrance. I was surprised some of the boys from the past were still on duty. Past the security check-point is the Red Carpet, the outer reception of the Residence. I walked in and sank into a seat. Red Carpet! This was where President Jonathan held his early morning devotions, with members of his family and some aides who were always in the Villa for early morning worship. The Christian devotion usually started around 6 am, by which time, in those days, the President would have shown up at the Red Carpet to start the day with prayers. Christian Presidents in Nigeria usually appoint a Chaplain for the church in the Villa. His job includes overseeing this early morning devotion. The red carpet was also where we, members of the President’s Main Body – Special Adviser Media, Chief Physician, SCOP, CSO, ADC, Chief Detail, PA, often sat if the President was sitting in the main living room, attending to a guest and we needed space to chat and relax. I saw some members of President Buhari’s Main Body last week also sitting in that same Red Carpet, as we waited. It was like old times. I was in the Villa with Prince Nduka Obaigbena, Chairman of the Arise/ThisDay Media Group, owners of ThisDay newspaper and Arise TV, along with Olusegun Adeniyi, former Presidential spokesperson during the Yar’Ádua administration, now Chairman of the ThisDay Newspaper Editorial Board, and Ms Tundun Abiola, lawyer, daughter of the late Chief MKO Abiola, winner of the 1993 June 12 Presidential election and Arise TV anchor, to interview President Buhari.
The interview was aired on Thursday, June 10 during The Morning Show on Arise TV and has been repeated in other bulletins on the station since then. This is one media interview that has generated more commentary than any other in the past five years in Nigeria. Quotes have been taken from it. It has been curated to the last detail. It has been reproduced on virtually every channel, local and international. Essays have been written on it and every part of it dimensioned for analysis. This particular media interview has thus exerted an elephantine impact on the public imagination with each viewer or commentator slicing off his or her own share of the meaty conversation. Others have described it as an exclusive and a scoop.
On Friday, June 11, another interview with President Buhari was aired by the government-owned Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) but that has been treated as an anti-climax, an afterthought and a veritable evidence of the lack of trust in government and its institutions. Nonetheless, the excitement that has been demonstrated over the Buhari interview(s) owes in part to the status of public perception about the President’s unwillingness to communicate directly with the people who elected him into power in 2015 and 2019. For the better part of his six years in power, President Buhari has engaged more with Nigerians through third parties, spokespersons and press statements. Other Presidents before him appeared regularly on Presidential Media Chats during which they responded to the people’s concerns. Not this President. In six years, he has not granted one Presidential media chat. Other Presidents gave one on one interviews to media houses, or even stand-up interviews with reporters. This President has been unusually reticent and absent. On the few occasions that he has spoken to the press, he did so with foreign journalists, a counter-productive move that merely infuriated Nigerian stakeholders. As his spokespersons churned out press releases and statements clarifying previous releases, in the face of rising wave of insecurity, violence and confusion in the land, Nigerians demanded that they would rather have the man they voted for speak to them.
The absence of the President’s personal voice eventually resulted in conspiracy theories which flourished unabated. Opposition elements argued that Nigeria no longer had a President but a Presidency that had been taken over by a cabal. They argued that the elected President died a while ago and had been replaced by a body clone called Jibrin from Sudan. For effect, they added that even the First Lady was aware of this and hence, her trenchant criticisms of the government and her husband’s aides. Commentators like Farooq Kperogi, claiming insider knowledge of Aso Villa and its actors, in seductive prose, told Nigerians many tales about how their President had succumbed to a combination of dementia and senility and government had been taken over by unscrupulous persons who call the shots in the President’s name. The big lesson in retrospect is that when a President distances himself from the people, and refuses to engage them as we see leaders in other parts do, he unwittingly encourages conspiracy theories about a vacuum in power and the politics of absence and/or indifference at the highest levels.
Whoever advised President Buhari to grant media interviews last week and also address the nation on Saturday, June 12, did him a big favour. The intensity of media appearance was a good move, even if it came rather late. Nigerians may disagree with some of the things the President said in his media outings, but many of the myths constructed around him have been exploded, and that must be helpful to his administration. The man that our team sat with and interviewed didn’t sound like a Jibrin from Sudan. He was alert, alive, informed, confident, relaxed, witty and capable of disarming humour. He was not the invalid or the senile old man that his critics say he is. He didn’t sound weak either. As the interview progressed, he had another function that he needed to attend, and we didn’t leave the Villa until about 11 pm. Less than 12 hours later, the same man, the following day was in Lagos to commission rail, maritime, and security projects. His submission to a media conversation is also a form of protection for his spokespersons. Many have accused Garba Shehu, Femi Adesina and Alhaji Lai Mohammed of speaking for themselves, and not for the President, but we have all seen a President, speaking for himself, whose views do not contradict what his aides have been telling us. Our interview with him also proved the point that there is no doubting the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari is effectively in charge. He knows what is going on. And he showed no hesitation in restating some of his reported views and taking ownership of them despite the controversial nature of those views. Every President has his or her own style but deliberately playing possum should not be part of that style. President Buhari should speak more often to Nigerians. He should sit down at Presidential media chats. Nigeria is not a feudal system where the aristocrat treats the people with disdain. In a democracy, the man of power is accountable to the people who expect their leaders to continually justify why they must be in power and office.
The reactions to our interview have been mixed, I guess, understandably. The problem with being a journalist however, is that everyone claims to know the job better than the man in the arena, more so because Nigeria is afflicted by a yet undeclared pandemic that I have since labelled opinionitis. We must get a vaccine for that. Nigeria is the only country I know where everybody is a universal expert on every subject, including the mating habits of porcupines and the nightlife of witches and wizards. People wake up in the morning with ready-made opinions even about news that they have not read or seen, and they are ready to go town with all the energy they woke up with. With due respect, I think our team asked serious and relevant questions, which brought out Buhari, the man, the person, the persona and the leader. But Nigerians still raise questions. I have been told for example that when the President said he would keep the question about what his government intends to do about Twitter to his heart, we should have followed up with an attack. Fine. The President spoke his mind. But were we supposed to rip out his heart from his chest to find out what he was keeping there? His answer was revealing enough. When he spoke about the neighbouring Republic of Niger, he focussed more on the economic advantages of engaging Niger, on government to government, business to business and people to people basis, but the only word his critics heard was that he referred to having cousins in that country. Were we expected to turn into his media advisers at that point? I do not intend to defend our work. But the conversation and debate that have been generated by the Arise TV interview is enough proof that this was a useful, impactful, and path-finding contribution to public conversation. What we did was not a celebrity showcase, but serious journalism.
The ground-breaking nature of that interview must be further situated within the context of the different reactions to it along the North-South Nigerian divide. It must be noted that the feedback from the North has been overwhelmingly positive. From the South, majorly negative. The President referred to IPOB, the Indigenous People of Biafra, as a “dot in a circle”. He proceeded to talk about how IPOB, he meant Igbos, are in every part of the country and how they will not be allowed to exit. He repeated the point that if they try to do so, government will speak to them in the language they will understand. The police and the military will be sent after them. Southerners including the Yoruba Afenifere group are angry about this. But the Hausa/Fulani are happy that the President spoke firmly. It didn’t matter to them that he also added in that interview that bandits in the North will also be spoken to in “the language that they will understand.”
When asked what he will do after retirement, whether he will set up a Presidential Library or not, the President did not refer to any library, he said he will return to his farm in Katsina and tend the cows in his farm. In that breath, the President identified with every cattle owner in the country. Southern commentators think he should set up a library, but the man made it clear he would rather attend to cows. He would later talk about grazing routes that need to be reinstated in line with a First Republic Gazette. Southern Nigerians have been up in arms because of that statement. They are quoting the ruling of Justice Adewale Thompson in Suit AB/26/66 of April 1969 in the Abeokuta Division of the High Court in which the learned Justice described the grazing of cows as “repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience”. That ruling has not yet been set aside 52 years after. They also quote Sections 1 and 2 of the Land Use Act which vests ownership of land in the states, which means that in 2021, the President is not in a position to enforce a 1960s gazette on open grazing, more so as states of the South and the Middle Belt have imposed a ban on open grazing in their jurisdictions. Many Northerners think Southerners are talking nonsense, and are just being intolerant.
When asked about zoning and succession within his party, the President made the point that determining the future of the party is the responsibility of the party not his, and that it is not something that anyone can sit in Lagos and decide. This turned out to be the most salacious part of the Arise TV interview. Southern commentators have stretched that comment to its point of elasticity and attached a name to it: that of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The Presidency has had to issue a statement to debunk the auto-suggestions. Southern Nigerians are not impressed. They see this, and the President’s laboured justification of his nepotism in appointments as a confirmation of the fault lines in his government. Northerners don’t see any issue here. Similarly, there have been, in the course of the weekend, equally partisan, ethnic responses to the President’s claims about creating 10.5 million jobs in 2 years and the sectional spectacle of June 12 protests and celebration. What came across to Buhari’s opponents is the persona of a President with a military mind-set, an ethnic champion who is still fighting the civil war, and who cares little about public opinion.
The Buhari interview has further revealed how divided we are as a nation, and the crisis of social cohesion that we face. Nigeria is more divided today than at any other time in our history. And certainly, the President’s responses reinforce this conclusion because his main constituencies and supporters see nothing fundamentally wrong with his media statements in the last few days. With his responses, Buhari chose his audience tactically. People should stop saying he did not understand the questions. He did, and he made his point. And I insist: that was a very good interview, and an opportunity for the entire country.
PHOTOS FROM THE INTERVIEW
“Omo, I see you are still on Twitter. How you dey take do am? Come and teach your brother…”
“Eishhh, Ishhh…Will you keep quiet?”
“But I noticed you tweeted something not long ago, despite the suspension of Twitter operations in Nigeria”
“Hey…hey. My family offend your family? This man. I commit crime to know you? What is the matter with you? Have you not heard that anybody that uses Twitter in Nigeria is now considered a criminal? You want to send me to jail? Please, please, please.”
“But I saw a tweet that came from you?”
“Hey he. Which kain enemy of a friend, friend of an enemy be this?”
“I just want to if you have joined VPN. I have been looking for someone to teach me how to by-pass the suspension and join VPN. I hear it is the only option available to users of twitter in Nigeria.”
“I am not saying anything to you. If you want to go to jail, God help you. But don’t come and drag me into it. Where were you when the Federal Ministry of Justice said that any Nigerian that uses twitter should be ready for prosecution?”
“Oh, I get you now. You dey fear? All of you are afraid. I can tell you for free, nobody is going to any jail for using Twitter. Dem just dey Shakara you. If all of us use Twitter, where dem go put us? Dem go jail us tire, hey, hey, hey, dem go jail us tire, how many people dem go kill. This is the time for us to show our power.”
“Dey there. I don’t want to show any power. In fact, as you see me, I no get any power. I am busy looking for money to send to my children who are in school abroad. Naira is now N720 to the pound sterling, N500 to the dollar. If I get locked up because of Twitter, who will help me? Jack Dorsey is running his own business. If he and the Nigerian government are fighting over a tweet or a video, how does that help the government of my bedroom? If they tell us not to use Twitter, then let us leave them and Twitter to fight themselves. Do I know Jack Dorsey? Does he know me? Why should I fight the Nigerian Government because of him?. Even the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria have since complied. They have since blocked access to Twitter on their networks.”
“Cowards. Those ones are cowards.”
“They have a duty to obey their regulator. Regulatory risk is the biggest threat to business in Nigeria. Why should telecommunications operators risk their own business to protect Twitter which is another man’s business?”
“Bootlickers. The speed with which they even complied is laughable. They didn’t even try to spare a thought for their customers. They acted like zombies. Shut down Twitter now! Yes sir! …. I will like to see someone take them to court and sue for damages.”
“I can’t blame them. Even the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has directed all broadcast stations in Nigeria to get off Twitter.”
“NBC? What has NBC got to do with Twitter? When the Minister kept referring to NBC, I actually thought he was mixing things up. The telecommunications spectrum is regulated by the National Communications Commission.”
“Both are involved. It is the case of Okeke and Okereke. NCC controls the network infrastructure. NBC controls the content on the networks. They are both determined to teach Twitter and other social media networks a lesson. I don’t want to be anybody’s scapegoat.”
“You have to stand up for the freedom of expression, and the right of every Nigerian to protest.”
“You are already doing so. Continue to do it on our behalf. No carry me join wahala.”
“What people like you do not know is that the suspension of Twitter operations in Nigeria means nothing. The internet network is an open system. Once you are online, nobody can ban you. It is a world wide web. It is not a Nigerian web. Twitter doesn’t even have a Nigerian office not to talk of operation. When Twitter decided to set up its headquarters in West Africa, they chose Ghana. They avoided Nigeria because as they put it, Nigeria is not a good environment for free speech.”
“Grammar. The way you are carrying on. When they arrest you, you will go and prove all these points in court.”
“Under which law?”
“The Attorney General of the Federation has told you that when you get to court, they will tell you which law binds both you and Twitter.”
“Who des that? Nobody can be prosecuted for an offence under a non-existent law at the time the alleged felony was committed. Section 36(12) of the 1999 Constitution. Aoko vs. Fagbemi. A.G. Federation vs Isong.”
“We are both saying the same thing. You don’t need to quote the law here. Go and do that in court. But when they first arrest you to make an example out of you, don’t forget that they will start by keeping you in detention for as long as they wish.”
“No. The maximum time is 48 hours, Okay, may be 72 hours, otherwise that will amount to a violation of my fundamental human rights which we will enforce.”
“I say don’t worry! We are both saying the same thing. Just remember that before you go and create problem for yourself and your family, judicial workers have been on strike for months. They will lock you up and tell the public that your matter cannot be determined until the courts resume. When the courts return, they will then get some injunctions to keep you for another two weeks. While you are languishing in one dingy cell, the Federal Government of Nigeria and Twitter will settle their matter. Twitter top executives will even pay a courtesy visit to Nigeria. By the time they finally remember you and sign your release warrant, you will be lucky if you don’t get home only to discover that your wife is already pregnant for another man.”
“Don’t insult my wife. I will not take that.”
“Ah sorry oh. Wetin be my own?.”
“Everything you have said is the theology of the coward. We are dealing with tyranny in Nigeria. We are back to the era of military dictatorship. This is a time when real men must stand up and speak truth to power.”
“The thing go shock you, choke you. The President of your own country has told you categorically that those who are trying to pull down the country will receive a shock treatment. He has threatened that he will speak to them in the language that they will understand. And now, he has taken the first step by descending on social platforms, and you are here quoting the law and lawyers, fundamental human rights. Are you aware that the enforcement of those rights will cost you money? And affect your family? Why not focus on what is important to your life? Twitter? Didn’t we live when there was no Twitter?”
“You don’t get it. This is the problem with many of you. Twitter censored President Donald Trump in 2020. He got angry and issued an Executive Order to restrain big tech. In January 2021, after the attack on Capitol Hill, Twitter went a step further and banned President Trump for life. Facebook has also banned him. Nothing has happened. Nothing has happened because the institutions in the United States work for the people. But here in Nigeria, the President only needs to sneeze and all departments of state will start running up and down. What we have is the rule of one man, not the rule of the people. Haven’t you seen the way government appointees and institutions have been running up and down to abuse Twitter, and show that they are loyal to the President? What has Twitter done? It has only enforced its community rules?”
“You are comparing apples and oranges. I don’t agree. Twitter Community Rules. Are those rules superior to the corporate existence of Nigeria which the Federal Government of Nigeria says has been constantly violated on Twitter? Shouldn’t international companies and multinationals be subject to the national laws of their host countries? If you were President of Nigeria, you will fold your arms and allow one tech platform to become a forum for promoting propaganda, hate and secession?”
“Just a moment, please. In 2015, and 2019, this same government used Twitter and Facebook and WhatsApp to campaign for elections and promote propaganda, and demonise the opposition. Why are they now protesting? They don’t want to hear feedback? The truth hurts?”
“What truth?”
“The truth that Nigeria is not working and government has failed. The truth that Nigerian youths are angry. The truth that there is violence and insecurity in the land. Unemployment is 33.3%. Stagflation. Hunger. Banditry. Arson. Terrorism. Ethnic violence. A near-complete return to the state of nature.”
“Clap for yourself. Just listen to yourself. See how you are de-marketing Nigeria, your own dear native land.”
“No. I am not a native. In fact, I am so angry, I would prefer to relocate to the United Africans Republic (UAR) where I can tweet and enjoy my human rights.”
“When you get to that UAR in your head, may be Twitter won’t work there or it may get suspended, banned or abolished. I put it to you that one of the big challenges we face in the world today is the tyranny of big tech companies. There are countries that have refused to cede their sovereignty to the supremacy of technology. Nigeria has not done anything extra-ordinary. Twitter has been either banned or suspended in China. North Korea, Egypt, in 2011, during the Arab Spring protests, Turkey, Iran, Uganda, Cuba, Turkmenistan, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Pakistan.”
“Look at the countries you are comparing Nigeria with. Dictatorship. Tyranny. I just hope that one day, the Nigerian Government will not wake up and we will be told that oxygen has been banned because it poses a threat to the Buhari administration.”
“Excuse me. That is hate speech!”
“I will rather say fair comment because the way we are now carrying on, this government will blame anything and ban anything. The people who are considered enemies of government are the ones asking for justice and equity, and human rights. People with access to platforms. Protesters. Writers. Opinion leaders. I really won’t be surprised if the Nigerian government wakes up one morning and decides to ban access to oxygen in certain parts of the country.”
“I don’t have to argue with you. I think it is good that you and people who think like you understand the point that after God, it is Government. If you disturb government, government will disturb you. And if you ask me, I actually think that some people don’t deserve to enjoy Nigerian oxygen and work against the same country.”
“You will support that oxygen should be banned in Nigeria?”
“Why should you enjoy Nigerian oxygen if you don’t believe in Nigeria? We are in the age of technology. Go and ask Twitter to give you oxygen.”
“Before it gets to that stage, some of us will speak up. We will stand up. We will remind people like you that on June 12 democracy we stand. We will go to the streets and say No. On June 12, we will shout on top of our voices. We will write poetry on the streets of Nigeria.”
“You will go and confront people who have told you that you will be taught the language that you will understand. And that you will be shocked? As a Christian, I don’t encourage people to commit suicide. You know I like you, even if I don’t agree with most of the things you say.”
“I am not afraid to be part of the Nigerian Revolution”
“Sure? Have you visited Omoyele Sowore who got a small warning for talking about Revolution? Na ordinary tear gas cannister one Nigerian police woman take joke with am the other day oh, and him get wound. If anybody tries any protest on June 12, these government people, na armoured tanks dem go take send message oh.”
“They will attack Nigerians with armoured tanks? The same tanks that they can’t deploy to fight insurgents and terrorists? We don’t ever get our priorities right. Who advises government?”
“Nigerians like you and I. The ones who don’t want to go to Oduduwa Republic, Biafra or the proposed UAR. The push-me-I-push-am, na here I go dey crowd. “
“When something is not working, allow it to develop a rhythm of its own. It is possible to renegotiate the expired amalgamation of Nigeria. What are we afraid of? I’d rather die”
“Why not? It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But don’t commit suicide.”
“Those of you who do not want a new reality can stay in Nigeria and die in it. Some of us are ready to have a new country. Even Daddy G.O. Adeboye has joined us. Pastor Kumuyi too.”
“You people have a hidden agenda”
“Oh, are you now afraid to die inside Nigeria?”
“No. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved the faithful with His Blood on the Mount of Calvary. Every living being, every good thing, will pass away and the world will be renewed. What we can do is to watch and pray.”
“Watch and obey. Your kind obeys every government commandment.”
“Pastor Temitope Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) just ascended to the Heavens to join the Saints Triumphant. His death leaves a very strong message for Nigeria.”
“Are you okay?”
“Have you not noticed that all the Saints, in our midst, are returning to Heaven, one after the other? They are leaving Nigeria. Can’t you see it?”
“What I see is that the demons have seized control”
“Be careful. These are dangerous times.”
“So when are you leaving, Mr Saint, so you can go and join Twitter Nigeria in Purgatory.”
“Ï shall not die any death.”
“Then keep safe and stop knocking your head against people who have served notice that they will shock anybody like potent electricity.”
“Bad sign. What will tomorrow bring?”
“Let tomorrow worry about itself. Most of the people who claim they will die for Nigeria have dual citizenship, multiple visas in their passports, an open ticket to other countries, and foreign bank accounts. The only thing you have is your mouth. When things get rough, they will be gone in a jiffy. My friend, don’t end up as an unknown corpse. Dem don warn you well, well oh, make you borrow yourself sense na im remain. This our Nigeria no balance again”.
“No. We no go gree oh. We no go gree.”
The cold-blooded murder of Hon. Ahmed Gulak, former Speaker of the Adamawa House of Assembly, former Special Adviser on Political Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan, former national co-ordinator of the Goodluck Support Group (GSG) and former Governorship aspirant under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is yet another tragic indication of the crisis of insecurity that Nigeria faces. It is disturbing and frightening because this was a Northern politician who had gone to the South East only to be brutally cut down by “unknown gunmen” on his way to the airport after concluding his visit to Imo State.
This was a clear case of assassination. There were two other persons with him according to reports. The assassins, true to type, identified their quarry, murdered him and didn’t bother about the witnesses. It is all the more curious because Gulak has a recent history of association with Imo State. He was the leader of the APC team that organized the controversial party primaries in Imo State ahead of the 2019 Gubernatorial elections. Gulak it was said, was under pressure to sign the papers declaring an associate and relation of the then Governor Rochas Okorocha, as the winner of the primaries. Gulak refused and sneaked out of town under the cover of night. He alleged that he was offered a $2 million bribe and a private jet. Whatever may be the circumstances that took him to Imo State this time around, he obviously also wanted to sneak out of town without drawing attention to himself. If he had known that he was a person of interest in that part of the country, he probably would have stayed away. Or did anyone trail him to Imo State, monitored his movements and struck at a convenient spot and time? Did his assassins choose the place of attack deliberately to hide their trail, and divert attention?
In most cases of this nature, the Nigeria Police are often so lazy, so unimaginative. They easily jump to conclusions, latching on to the most convenient lead. This explains why the initial reaction from the Imo State Police Command was that Gulak made himself a target by not asking for security escort. For us to feel safe and have a good country, it must be possible for anyone at all to move around freely in Nigeria without having to seek police escort. Section 14(2) of the 1999 Constitution states clearly that the security and welfare of the people is the primary purpose of government. Section 41 of the same Constitution guarantees the freedom of movement. Section 34 talks about the right to the dignity of the human person. These are three major areas in which the Nigerian government has failed the people over the years. Why should citizens seek police protection in order to travel from their homes or hotel rooms to the airport? If we all do so, there will no policeman left on routine duty.
The sad part of it is that we live in a country where no one is safe anymore, not even school children, students and their teachers, wives, husbands, and the ordinary man. The state is in recess. It is absent. Its institutions are too fragile to help the people. The people are like orphans in their own country. Gulak’s death should be a warning sign of how dangerously Nigeria sits on the brink of the precipice and the edge of a knife. This is why the security agents handling the investigations must learn to think before opening their mouths. In less than 24 hours after the killing, the Police not only blamed Gulak for killing himself (because he did not ask for police security! Imagine!), they also immediately concluded that bandits were behind the killing. In 24 hours, they opened a case file and closed it. This kind of beer-parlour-policing is unacceptable. I expect the Police headquarters in Abuja to take charge directly from the office of the Inspector General of Police. We have been told that the Police have since apprehended Gulak’s killers. So fast? Are the suspects in custody really the killers? Or is this a case of lazy policing?
The murder of Hon. Ahmed Gulak is bound to widen the distrust between the South and the North. The optics are bad. The signs are ominous. Gulak did not go to Imo State to graze cattle, and even if he did, he did not deserve to be murdered. It should not be surprising therefore, that his murder is being located in the growing North-South politics of difference, and the rights of every Nigerian under the Constitution. Hence, much effort has been made to ethnicize his murder, or lend it an ethnic colouration. That is the dangerous part of it, and it is the reason the Nigerian government must not treat this as just another murder. The First World War was ignited by the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo by Serbian terrorists, the Black Hand. He was the presumptive heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne. The Great War started a month after his death, and went on for four years. And over 20 million people died. It takes only one incident to ignite others and turn embers into a huge conflagration.
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, Ondo State Governor, Chair of the Southern Governors Forum and APC chieftain, is right to have described the killing of Ahmed Gulak as “one murder too many” and an attempt “to instigate Nigerians against each other, particularly Northerners against the Igbo living outside the South East.” Toeing the same line, human rights activist, author, and politician Comrade Shehu Sani, member of the 8th National Assembly, who represented Kaduna Central, has also appealed to youths in Northern Nigeria not to seek vengeance for the murder of Ahmed Gulak in the South East. Nigeria’s civil war, 1967 -1970 was ignited by ethnic sentiments and reprisal killings. No country survives two civil wars. We all have to be careful. There is an evil wind blowing across the country. On Sunday, the Coalition of Northern Groups issued a statement to say that the murder of Ahmed Gulak is an indication that the North can no longer continue to co-exist with people of Igbo extraction inside Nigeria. The group accused South East leaders of funding the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Eastern Security Network (ESN) to cause havoc and “replicate the ugly events of 1966”. The Northern Youths Council of Nigeria (NYCN) also called on the Governor of Imo State to produce Gulak’s killers within two weeks or risk being declared “persona non grata in the North”. This same NYCN has since toned down its rhetoric and praised the police. The volte-face is suspicious but helpful.
It is good news also that the IPOB and ESN, the militant, political and security units defending Igbo and secessionist Biafra interests have declared that they have no hand in the Gulak assassination, and that in no way was he a person of concern to them. What no one can deny however, is that the South East has become a war zone. Whereas it is possible to talk about insurgents, terrorists, and kidnappers in Northern Nigeria occupying the Sambisa Forest or what they now call, the Timbuktu Triangle, the South East of Nigeria is now the operation field of a strange phenomenon called “unknown gunmen.” Nigeria must be the only country in the world where ghosts and unidentifiable objects cause so much havoc and the state is so terribly helpless. From Ebonyi to Anambra, Abia, Enugu, Imo and every part of the South East, human beings are being killed, kidnapped, murdered, assaulted, offices and facilities belonging to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the police, the immigration service, the judiciary are being set ablaze and all we hear is that “unknown gunmen” are behind it all. Is there anything that is known to the Nigerian government at all?
In the last 3 days, there have been other assassinations: The Chief Provost of Nigerian Immigration Service, Imo State Command, Okiemute Mrere was murdered on Saturday night on Owerri-Port Harcourt Road. In Niger State, bandits are on rampage. They have set a police station ablaze and kidnapped persons, including 200 school children. In Ibadan, Oyo State a popular businessman, Maduabuchi Owuamanam was also assassinated on Saturday, May 29, along Mokola-Sango Road. In Abuja, yesterday, Omoyele Sowore, leader of the #RevolutionNow movement had a life-threatening encounter with assassins in state uniform. In his own case, he lives to tell the story, asking his followers to carry on with the revolution even if he gets killed. Dead men don’t tell stories. The truth is this: nobody is safe in this country anymore, and whereas this may sound repetitive, note this: not even the foetuses in blessed wombs waiting to join the Nigerian nightmare are safe. The country is that bad.
I knew Ahmed Gulak. We worked together in the Jonathan administration. He advised the President on Political Matters, and was later the co-ordinator of the Goodluck Support Group. In the latter capacity, he stepped on some powerful and sensitive toes as he went around the country in the lead up to the 2015 elections, and that was what led to his exit. I announced his appointment and his exit. But the Ahmed Gulak I remember, is a political man of action. He was articulate, knowledgeable and experienced. Having served as Speaker of the House of Assembly in Adamawa, and entrenched as he was in party politics, he carried himself with the aplomb of a man who had been here and there. He was friendly and approachable. In a sense, he was one of us, the boys in the Jonathan inner circle, that is the “the main body”. There were persons who were not permanently with the Principal but who wielded much influence because they had access. He was one of them. President Jonathan liked him a lot. The story of his exit will not be told here, except to say that one Governor at the time felt Ahmed Gulak had the temerity to visit his state without his permission and held meetings without his approval, and that was it. The Governor raised hell. Those were the days. I am under no obligation to say more. With his death, we have lost a man who enjoyed the art of politics and sought to excel in it. He was confident, assertive and always well turned out. He was one of the shining stars in his part of the country. He was detribalised. His murder on the streets of Imo State is most unfortunate because that was a man who felt at home in any part of the country. Nigeria has lost a gem, and as always, it is the country that has been shot in the foot. His death should not end up as another item in Nigeria’s long list of unresolved political assassinations.
I was in Abeokuta on Tuesday, May 25, to attend the commissioning of a Press Centre at the Government Secretariat, Oke Mosan in honour of Chief Olusegun Osoba, two-time Governor of Ogun State (1992 -1993) and (1999 -2003). It is curious that the Ogun State Government since 1976 when the state was created had no press centre for journalists reporting on the activities of the state government. The main infrastructure, before now, where press meetings could be comfortably held is the Nigeria Union of Journalists Press Centre at Oke-Ilewo, opposite the old secretariat. This NUJ centre is a multi-purpose arena. It is one of the most popular Amala and Suya joints in Abeokuta! When Governor Dapo Abiodun assumed office in 2019, he promised to build a modern-day, state of the art media centre for journalists in Ogun State, to facilitate their work and promote the freedom of information. He has kept his promise. I was one of the guests.
Immediately after The Morning Show on Arise TV, on May 25, I hit the expressway. I was curious. I also wanted to honour Chief Olusegun Osoba, after whom the new edifice is named. Chief Osoba may have been a two-time Governor (Social Democratic Party and Alliance for Democracy), he may be known today as a co-founder and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), but his main bona fide is in journalism – the profession where he proved his mettle, and rose to become a living legend of the art and craft of newspaper reporting. At 82, Chief Osoba identifies himself first and foremost as a newspaper reporter. He was the man who as a Daily Times correspondent discovered the bullet-ridden body of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa in January 1966. He also reported the civil war. He was the only reporter of his time who had a telephone at home. He also had a Vespa scooter. He broke stories, gained many scoops and took the paths where angels of the trade feared to tread. Reporter, sub-editor, deputy editor, editor, General Manager, Managing Director from Daily Times to The Herald, to The Sketch newspaper and back to The Daily Times in 1984, Osoba’s story is well told in his autobiography, Battlelines: Adventures in Journalism and Politics which, in my view, is a must read. Osoba, first Nieman Fellow in Journalism from Nigeria, is highly revered, deservedly.
Governor Dapo Abiodun has built a befitting media work station to honour him. Even if they were not in the same political party, there is no other person more deserving of the honour. In the past week, as Prince Dapo Abiodun marks his second anniversary in office, he has been showcasing his achievements in various sectors of the state economy and how well he has fulfilled his campaign promises and delivered on them. I was asked to say a few words at the event, and I made it clear that I am impressed. Ethnic one-upmanship is the biggest problem in Ogun State. By playing neutral and liberal politics, Prince Abiodun has been able to stay above the fray.
The high moment of the event was when Chief Olusegun Osoba disclosed that the last time he got a good reception at the Ogun State Secretariat was his last day in office in 2003. For eight years, his immediate successor declared him a persona non grata. For another eight years, another successor fought him. And yet, 18 years later, he returned to see a Press Centre being commissioned in his honour. He said he wore an “aso etu”, a special Yoruba garment, to show how important the event was for him. Many lessons to be learnt from Osoba and Dapo Abiodun’s examples. Thank you, Governor Abiodun. Congratulations, Chief Osoba.
PHOTOS FROM THE EVENT
The Nigerian Air Force is the youngest arm of the Nigerian military having been established only on April 18, 1964. In the course of its 57 years of operation, defending the air space of Nigeria and the country’s territorial integrity, the NAF has seen action in many theatres of operation: the Nigerian Civil war, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, the Gambia and Nigeria’s zone of terror, the North East, producing in the process some of the finest officers that have served their country in the best traditions of military service. Modern warfare is no longer all about boots on the ground or physical combat. Advancements in technology and Artificial Intelligence have motivated more countries to invest more in technology, brain power and air power, in the same manner in which having a large Navy was the fashion at the turn of the 19th Century.
In terms of military aircraft strength, Nigeria is ranked 65 out of 140 countries in a 2021 Global Firepower Index, far behind Egypt (10), Algeria (22). Morocco (40), Sudan (51), Tunisia (58) and Kenya (59). But whereas it is generally agreed that Nigeria needs to re-tool, fund, and re-position its military, especially in the face of the spread of terrorism, the more urgent concern is the manner in which Nigerian Air Force aircraft have been crashing from the skies. The Nigerian Air Force operates Nigeria’s Presidential Fleet. Either now or in the past, whenever an aircraft under the control of the Air Force crashes, much anxiety is necessarily expressed about an arm of the Nigerian military whose motto is “Willing...Able..Ready”. The question is reasonably asked: how able or ready is the Nigerian Air Force?
Air accidents no doubt occur, and there have been over 60 of such accidents in Nigeria since 1925 when the first aircraft flew across Nigerian skies. This could be due to technical error, sabotage, inclement weather, or an act of God. Where a military aircraft is involved, conspiracy theories are generated. A quick look at the history of air mishaps involving the Nigerian military indicate until now, a pattern of occasional, even if tragic occurrences. On September 26, 1992, a Nigerian Air Force Hercules C-130 crashed just a few minutes after taking off from the Lagos Airport, leading to the death of all 158 persons on board. On September 12, 1997, a Dornier 228-212 belonging to the NAF also crashed with 10 persons on board. Nobody survived. Nine years later, precisely on September 17, 2006, a Dornier 228 military plane crashed at Vandekiya, Benue State killing 14 military officers including 10 Generals. In August 2015, another Dornier 228-212, NAF 030 crashed in Kaduna, all seven on board died. On September 28, 2018, a Nigerian Air Force Pilot died after two aircraft crashed around Katampe Hill, Abuja, while rehearsing for the nation’s 58th Independence Day celebrations. In each of these incidents, valuable men were lost; families were thrown into sorrow. In at least two incidents, it was widely speculated that the officers who lost their lives were victims of sinister power play within the military. Each time such an accident occurs, the public is told that investigations would be conducted and that the Accident Investigation Bureau had taken charge of the famous “Black Box”. But nobody ever shares the “secrets” in that Black Box with the public, whether the air mishap was civilian or military.
There is however a need to insist on transparency. Air mishaps involving the Nigerian military have now become so regular, so unbelievable. The latest occurred on Friday, May 21, 2021 when a Beechcraft KingAir 350i, NAF 203 crashed near Kaduna International Airport. Eleven military officers, including the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Ibrahim Attahiru, lost their lives in that mishap. General Attahiru assumed office on January 26, 2021. He was appointed by the President along with the current Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, Chief of Naval Staff – Rear Admiral Awwal Gambo, Chief of Air Staff – Air Marshall Oladayo Amao. The Irabor squad hit the ground running, with Attahiru visiting the war front immediately to address his troops. He was a hands-on General, He had fire in his belly. His voice echoed the amplitude of his position. It was as if he needed to prove a point having been removed previously, rather unceremoniously, as Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole by the man he succeeded, that is his former boss, now retired Gen. Tukur Buratai.
With Attahiru in that ill-fated aircraft was Brigadier General Abdulkadir Kuliya, then acting Chief of Military Intelligence described by his colleagues as a detribalised Nigerian with a kind heart, Acting Provost Marshall of the Army, Brigadier General Olatunji Olayinka, Chief of Staff to the COAS, Brigadier-General Mohammed Abdulkadir, Aide-De-Camp to the COAS, Major Lawal Aliyu Hayat, Major Nura Hamza and the pilots. Flt Lt. Taiwo Olufemi Asaniyi was looking forward to his wedding. Flt. Lt. A.A. Olufade got married only two months ago! Sergeants O.I. Adesina, Umar Saidu and ACM Olamide Oyedepo also had a bright future ahead of them. Sgt Opeyemi Adesina of Iddo Community, Egbedore LGA, Osun State died three weeks after his daughter’s dedication. But now all that is ended. Gone. Flt Lt. Olufade’s father is devastated. Who wouldn’t be? Asaniyi’s fiancée has posted a touching tribute on social media. It is heart-breaking. Hopes aborted. Potentials unfulfilled.
Nigerians are outraged that the Federal Government did not handle the tragedy well. They expected the President to attend the funeral. He wasn’t there. They thought if the President could not make it, then the Vice President would show up. Here, the problem is that the Vice President can only represent the President if he is directed to do so. He cannot go on a frolic of his own without the President’s permission. The President sent the Minister of Defence, General Bashir Magashi to represent him, but this particular representative only ended up adding petrol to public anger. General Magashi could not deliver a written speech in a fluent manner. He expressed displeasure on behalf of the President. Displeasure that a funeral ceremony was taking place? He mixed up titles in a rather windy protocol list. He ruined it all by conveying “heartless felt condolences” on behalf of the President. Heartless! Magashi obviously was not prepared. He probably did not read the script. People find themselves in important positions in line with Peter’s principle and when they do not rehearse before engaging in the task of public communication, they stutter and descend to lower depths. Magashi is a lawyer and a distinguished soldier in his earlier career. But all geriatics in government who may have issues reading prepared speeches should just be allowed to speak vernacular going forward. General Magashi could just have spoken Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba and have someone translate it for him. Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba languages are officially recognized in the Nigerian 1999 Constitution in Section 55. Why struggle with the English language under difficult circumstances when you can just speak one of the three languages recognised by the Nigerian Constitution! As if that was not enough, it took the Federal Government till Monday, May 24 to direct that the Nigerian flag should be flown at half mast in honour of the dead. The gesture was so belated, it was seen as an afterthought. And then the President declared a May 24 holiday for men of the Nigerian Air Force in the middle of a war in the North East. Nigeria is probably the only country where a whole division of the Armed Forces would be directed to go on holiday for 24 hours!
One of the spokespersons for President Buhari has offered the explanation that the President could not attend the funeral ceremonies for the fallen officers for security reasons. We have been told that the President needs 48 hours’ notice before he can move from the Villa. Are we being told that the President is now being held hostage? Or what? He is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, for crying out loud. He has an entire Brigade of Guards protecting him and the FCT. What 48-hour security clearance does the President require to protect his movement between the Villa and the National Cemetery to honour his own troops who fell while on official duty? It also took the Vice President more than 24 hours to issue a condolence message via Twitter. Was that also for security reasons? Governance is about substance, symbols and gestures. The consensus among Nigerians is that the President showing up at the funeral ceremony would have been a morale booster for the military. I think so too.
We had a guest on The Morning Show, Arise TV on Monday, May 24, Retired Air Commodore Abayomi Balogun, NAF pilot for more than 30 years. He was of the firm opinion that nobody should worry about the morale of the troops. Soldiers he said know what they signed up for. They are ever prepared to pay the ultimate sacrifice. And whether or not the President attends a funeral of fallen men, the task of defending Nigeria goes on. Commodore Balogun is a very articulate man who knows his field like the back of his hands. That was how he came across. But upon further reflection on his views, I disagree with him. Loyalty to one’s country, serving and dying for it, is not an automatic obligation. Soldiers are human beings. They also have families. They expect to be appreciated for their sacrifice. That is why recently, they have been bold enough to complain about welfare, rebel against their commanders, and post uncomplimentary videos on social media about the Nigerian military. A strong morale emboldens the soldier. We need to be more sensitive to their needs, feelings and concerns.
And this: While the big men dropped the ball, their wives picked it up. We must commend Mrs Aisha Buhari and Mrs. Dolapo Osinbajo for their empathy, compassion, and beyond the-other-room responsible citizenship. Mrs. Osinbajo, the Vice President’s wife visited the wives of all the 7 Abuja-based officers from Niger Barracks to NAF Base. She was accompanied by Senator Remi Tinubu and others. First Lady, Mrs Buhari also visited the wife of the late Chief of Army Staff. She was accompanied by her children and others. President Buhari has now made phone calls to some of the affected families. We are glad he finally got security clearance for that.
Beyond our review of responses to this tragedy, what remains is to raise questions about what needs to be done to check the crisis of repeated crashes afflicting the Nigerian Airforce. Three aircraft belonging to the military have been involved in accidents within the last 90 days, this year alone. The affected aircraft were not involved in combat. They did not crash in a theatre of war. They were engaged either in a reconnaissance operation or utility transportation. Three months ago, that is on February 21, 2021, a Beechcraft KingAir B350i plane belonging to the NAF developed engine failure on its way to Minna. It was asked to return to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, from where it commenced its journey. It crashed on its way back. All seven personnel on board died. On March 31, 2021, NAF Alpha Jet 475 on a reconnaissance mission was declared missing. Its wreckage was later found in Bama, Borno State. The body of one of the pilots (Flt, Lt. Chapele Ebiakpo) was found intact. The other pilot (Flt. Lt. John Abolarinwa) could not be found. Two months later, there has been no word from the Air Force authorities.
In Nigeria, accident peril is treated as top secret. This must stop. Secrecy in matters involving loss of human lives breeds distrust against the system, and promotes speculations. The May 21 crash that took the life of the former Chief of Army Staff Ibrahim Attahiru has been linked to the self-immolation, a few days earlier, by Ibrahim Shekau, leader of the Boko Haram who was reportedly cornered and ambushed by the rival Islamic State of the West African Province, and who chose to commit suicide. Could the NAF plane crash of May 21 be a form of reprisal attack? Did the Nigerian military know anything about the reported death of Ibrahim Shekau? The Presidency said President Buhari had to stay away from the funeral of the dead officers for security reasons. Is there something we should know that no one is willing to tell us?
Whatever anyone is thinking, nobody can live forever. There will be people today who will be calling the former Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai, to congratulate him on his good luck of having been removed from office. Attahiru and his team were on their way to Kaduna to attend the Passing Out Parade (POP) of recruit officers. That could indeed have been Buratai performing the same function. That is life. Exits and entrances. Each man at his own time. But one thing: Attahiru and his crew would not have died in vain if every effort is made to check the emerging trend of Air Force planes crashing in non-combatant situations. Not even in Colombia do military aircraft drop from the skies like this! The Nigerian Government must institute an independent inquiry and review beyond the preliminary findings of the Accident Investigation Bureau which appears to be part of an entrenched culture of secrecy.
The standard response from the Nigerian military is to deny any wrong-doing. Spokesperson of the Nigerian Air Force, Commodore Edward Gabwet has said that the aircraft involved in the 2021 mishaps were all brand new. Really? Is he sure? New things can crash, yes, but how new? We would like to know. Safety is the first consideration in aviation. How safe are the NAF planes? How often are they maintained? It is not enough to blame the weather, the most convenient fall-guy in situations like this. How well does the NAF maintain its aircraft? How capable are its personnel? Is the NAF “willing…able..and ready?”
Finally, the coffins of the fallen soldiers had not yet been sealed before those interested in their positions began to jostle for space and opportunity, with stories and permutations – ethnic, class and religious – about who should emerge as the next Chief of Army Staff. It is the prerogative of the President to choose his own lieutenants. He should act swiftly, decisively and wisely. Our heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased.
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On Tuesday, May 11, 2021, 17 Governors of the Southern States of Nigeria met in Asaba, Delta State to discuss issues of common interest. They came up with a 12-point communique in which they raised key issues about the future of Nigeria and the Southern region. This was not the first time Southern Governors would meet under the same roof. They are all members of the Nigerian Governors Forum –a pan-Nigeria Forum for all CEOs of Nigeria’s sub-nationals. There is also the Progressive Governors’ Forum which is the umbrella body of the Governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the ruling party in Nigeria. There is the Northern Governors Forum. Nigeria also has the North East Governors Forum. The South West Governors Forum. The South East Governors Forum. And the PDP Governors Forum.
But the meeting of the Southern Governors attracted special interest for a number of reasons: the symbolism of it, the timing (at a time of serious existential crisis in the country), its bi-partisan character and the weightiness of the outcome. The 17 Southern Governors comprise 9 Governors of the Peoples Democratic Party, seven Governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and one Governor of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). Two Governors were absent – Ben Ayade (Cross River, PDP) and Gboyega Oyetola (Osun State, APC). The Governors of Imo and Akwa Ibom were represented by their Deputies. As far as meetings go, it was a successful outing, nonetheless, and one week later, there has been no voice of dissension – the Southern Governors seem to be united on all the 12 points that they raised. That there has been such unanimity of purpose is in part responsible for the furore that the statement by the 17 Southern Governors has generated.
Their submissions can be divided into two parts: the non-controversial and the controversial. In the former category, we can group such declarations as the expression of commitment to the unity of Nigeria on the basis of justice, fairness and equity – that is more or less a familiar cliché from official quarters; co-operation among the Southern states – that is understandable; strategies needed to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic – of course, yes; the need to address the security challenges in the country – that is obvious enough, the need for the activation and establishment of ports in other states of the Federation to create new jobs and promote socio-economic activities – with Nigeria’s unemployment standing at 33.3% according to the National Bureau of Statistics, it would be difficult to fault this proposal. The problem, however, is with the controversial observations and resolutions of the Southern Governors Forum, beginning with their declaration of a ban on open grazing of cattle in every part of Southern Nigeria, their call for the convocation of a national dialogue; their demand for restructuring (state police, review of revenue allocation formula in favour of the sub-national units, and practice of true federalism) and their resolve that appointments into Federal Government agencies must be reviewed in line with Federal Character.
The meeting of the Southern Governors’ Forum has been regarded as an affront by many Northern stakeholders. This has thrown up ethnic and geographical sentiments – a veritable indication of the fault lines in Nigeria and the inherited culture of mistrust that has been the bane of the country’s development process. The Leaders of the North and the South first met together in Ibadan in 1950. Northern Governors have been holding meetings since 1959. Even if that has not at any point translated into any concrete benefits for the Northern masses, at no point did leaders of the South query the right of Northerners to discuss issues of interest in their region. A Southern Governors’ Forum was announced and hell literally broke loose! The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) says the meeting of the Southern Governors is “a call for secession” and that the Southern Governors are “confused and mischievous”. Northern Leaders - Tanko Yakassai, Professor Usman Yusuf, Senator Ali Ndume and curiously enough, the Senate President, Senator Ahmad Lawan - have also faulted the position of the Southern Governors.
The sub-text of their argument is that the Southern Governors should have consulted their Northern counterparts because the issues they addressed at the May 12 meeting were of national interest. But when have the Northern Governors ever consulted Southern Governors when they take decisions about security, education, the Sharia and the development process in the North? There is an independent forum for the meeting of all Governors and that is the Nigeria Governors Forum. Governors across the country have been meeting on a regional basis and that is why we have the North East Governors Forum, and the South East Governors Forum and the South West Governors Forum, because every region has its own peculiar concerns within the Nigerian Federation. To condemn Southern Governors for meeting in that context would amount to a sheer display of intolerance and pretentious censorship. And what gives anyone the audacity to think they can dictate the format of a meeting of any concerned stakeholder-group in Nigeria?
Further, the presence of the Southern APC Governors at the meeting was considered an act of rebellion against the President of Nigeria and disloyalty against the ruling party. How? The Southern Governors asked for the support of the Federal Government to develop alternative and modern livestock management systems as a way of ensuring the ban on open grazing is upheld as declared. How is that an act of rebellion against the President? Southern Governors also asked for a review of appointments into Federal Government agencies in line with Federal Character. They are more or less in that regard reminding the President that the Federal Character Principle is enshrined into the 1999 Constitution: Section 14(3) thereof. It is common knowledge that the Buhari administration has been criticised heavily by other Nigerian stakeholders for gifting key positions in government to persons from his own ethnic group.
Most recently, the people of the South East protested that a decision to introduce yet undisclosed security measures in that part of the country was the outcome of a meeting which had no person of South Eastern extraction in attendance, who could have at least expressed an opinion and have an idea of the secret measures targeted at the people of the South East. The point needs to be stressed that being an APC Governor is not a wilful submission to slavery or mental lobotomy. Bi-partisanship is a civilized, public-spirit mode of politics. Membership of a political party should not turn politicians into zombies without a mind of their own. The President of Nigeria is not a monarch, even if the 1999 Constitution gives the impression that he is. Even members of his own party should be at liberty to criticize his government. Southern APC Governors attending the Asaba meeting should not be vilified. They should refuse to be intimidated. Since the Asaba meeting, I have seen reports that APC Governors in the South are being summoned to meetings, ostensibly to whip them into line. It is shameful that this is the kind of politics we play.
The decision of the Southern Governors to ban open grazing, already a matter of law in some of the states: Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, Ebonyi, and elsewhere has been described as illegal and unconstitutional to the extent, so the argument goes, that it is a violation of the Land Use Act and Section 41 of the Constitution and therefore a derogation of the fundamental human rights of the cattle herder. A notable academic of Northern extraction, a good friend of mine, has also argued that before the Southern Governors can ban open grazing of cattle, they must first of all give land to the Fulani herdsman, otherwise they would be violating the Land Use Act. But this is incorrect. There is nowhere the Constitution of Nigeria talks about the exclusive rights of cattle herders. If a cattle rearer says he is entitled to land in the Southern part of Nigeria, can a farmer or fisherman make a similar claim in the North? Section 1 of the Land Use Act vests the ownership of land, in public trust, in the Governor of a State. Not even the President of Nigeria can control land in the states. He can only do so in the Federal Capital Territory. There is no law that makes the President of Nigeria and/or his kinsmen owners of the Nigerian territory. By the same token, Section 41 of the 1999 Constitution is clear enough.
Section 41 talks about the right of every citizen to move freely throughout Nigeria, to reside in any part thereof, and not to be expelled from the country or refused entry or exit therefrom. The Constitution in Section 41 does not grant the right of free movement to cattle. It refers to human beings. What the Southern Governors are opposed to is the free movement of cattle on foot, a phenomenon that has created herders and farmers conflicts with grave implications for national unity and stability. The impression that the President of Nigeria, a patron of the Miyetti Allah, and himself, a cattle owner, is biased in the matter is the key problem. In defining the emergent conflict as North-South, it is however noteworthy that some key voices in the North also agree with the Southern Governors. Umar Ganduje, the Governor of Kano State, Bala Mohammed, his colleague in Bauchi state, former Governor Saminu Turaki of Jigawa State, now, Deputy Chairman of the Justice and Equity for Peace and Unity Initiative (JEPUIN), and the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) think that the Southern Governors are right. The peripatetic movement of cattle from the North to the South and backwards is not a matter of tradition or culture or ethnicity. It is more about commerce and the best way to maximize returns on investment. The Southern Governors are therefore, calling for modernization, progress and stability. It is again a function of where we are as a country that this has been reduced to the politics of ethnicity.
The Southern Governors are also calling for a national dialogue and restructuring and this is considered rebellious? There is no harm in having a dialogue. We can talk from now till 2023, but from our experience, how many people pay attention to dialogue or are ready to have a conversation? Nigeria, most unfortunately has reached a point where persons, groups, constituencies, or communities believe that their own version of reality is the only possible interpretation. For a country that gained independence and emerged as a Republic through dialogue and negotiations, this new reality is tragic. Communal leaders have lost control. The government has lost the people. The people have lost trust in government. The country has lost direction. Non-state actors have filled the vacuum. Nigeria is now at a point where non-state actors can declare openly that there will be no elections in 2023 because they will not allow it to happen in parts of the country. Bandits and terrorists now share palliatives to the people and they are enthusiastically embraced. Thugs have become local heroes. Pastors no longer preach hope and endurance. They preach anarchy and ask the Congregation to have a Plan B. Citizens in successful countries do not have Plan B. They are committed to the land of their birth. Nigeria falters. It has become fragile, because it is a country in search of committed citizens. To worsen matters, the word restructuring has become a cliché in popular parlance. It means too many things to many people.
On the question of national dialogue, what does it matter if people insist that they would rather talk than fight? But notably, one major objection to the idea of another round of national dialogue as currently shaped, came from the South. Mike Ozekhome, SAN holds the viewpoint that there is no point spending so much money organizing another national dialogue when the last one in 2014, of which he was a participant, had already raised all the cogent points that the Southern Governors believe will move the country forward, to wit: the devolution of powers, review of revenue allocation formula, state police and the need for restructuring. Ozekhome defends the outcome of the 2014 National Conference. He believes it could have marked a new beginning for Nigeria and the search for a new way forward.
It is unfortunate that the same conference gathers dust in the people’s memory. Nobody should be surprised if the paper on which it is written is now being used by road side hawkers on the streets of Abuja to sell roasted corn and groundnut. The reason has nothing to do with the common good but the politics of ego and difference. Whatever is wrong with Nigeria is well known and had been debated before now. The courage to do what is right by the people is what we miss.
The organizers of the Southern Governors Forum can pat themselves on the back, despite it all, that they got the attention they wanted. What do they expect? All the Governors of the Southern part of Nigeria coming together under one roof is in itself enough “act of provocation” and surprise, in the eyes of those who understand that the country is truly at a precipice. What is required is a little push and yet nobody wants to go down in history as the catalyst for such an end-game moment. All of a sudden, even the National Assembly is divided. Southern lawmakers have all aligned behind the Governors of their part of the country. Northerners are supporting their own region as well, with the exception of a few. Not even before the Civil war (1967 -70) was Nigeria this clinically polarized along geographical lines. This proves a point: Nigeria is in need of redemption, rescue, and leadership. Those who think otherwise are enemies of the people.
“Bros, how country?”
“Omo, we live in perilous times. Ilu le. Country bad.”
“I agree with you absolutely. It has never been this bad in peace times”
“You think Nigeria is at peace? If you call this peace time, then what exactly does war look like? For me, the country is at war already. Nigeria is at a tipping point. I visited my Aunty the other day and I was telling her how politicians are already preparing for 2023, her response shocked me, because she is ordinarily an optimist.”
“She said…”
“She said we should pray to get there first as a country before we can begin to talk about elections in 2023.”
“Hmm. Let us pray if that gives us psychological relief, but I know my country. Nigeria will always survive. When the storm rages and it looks like the country is teetering on the brink, and Armageddon looms in the horizon, somehow Nigeria always pulls back, and finds its feet.”
“I hope so. I pray so too. But I assure you this country is at war. War. War can go by any other name but it is still war. Symmetric war. Asymmetric war. You know what Yorubas call it? Ogun abele. Rogbodiyan. Ruke rudo. Airoju airaye. Ogun gbon misi Omi o to”
“That is civil war.”
“Okay. Whatever. Translate it as you wish. What I know is that what is going on in the country today is worse than the civil war of 1967 -1970. During that period, the war was concentrated in one part of the country. The Nigerian soldiers that fought to defend the country knew the location of the rebels. International diplomacy was involved. In the end, peace reigned, even if 51 years later the war against Igbos is yet to end.”
“You can say that again. But do you know what my big fear is, following your line of thought? Can you see that the South East is becoming another theatre of war?”
“Yes. I can see that.”
“The government of Nigeria appears to be making the same mistake in the North East about 12 years ago and it got a monster called Boko Haram in return.”
“I can see that”
“History is about to repeat itself, this time in the South East. And what do I mean? You will recall that Boko Haram became a problem shortly after the killing of one Mohammed Yusuf. The Police at the time said he was trying to escape from custody and so, they gunned him down. The reprisal attacks by his followers has now turned the battle into an endless war, that has spread from the North East to the Middle Belt, to the North West, the South West and the South East. Now, in the South East, there has been no peace since they killed that guy Ikonne. Abi na Ikonso of Awomama Village? The war commander of the Indigenous People of Biafra. Deputy to Nnamdi Kanu. IPOB and Commander of the Eastern Security Network (ESN. They have have turned him into a hero.”
“I hear they have even named the Imo State Government House after him. Apparently, IPOB now runs an alternative government in the South East. Naming a Government House that they do not control after one of their leaders.”
“IPOB is a proscribed organisation but it remains very active and untouchable. My suspicion is that many leaders of the South East support IPOB and the ESN. Have you seen any prominent Igbo man coming out to condemn IPOB? They all want to retain their positions of privilege inside Nigeria, but they are not ready to condemn those young Igbo boys who are helping them to continue the civil war and keep the Biafra ideology alive.”
“That is what our country has become. Sad. A country of ethnic militias. The Hausa Fulani have their herdsmen. The Yorubas have their Amotekun and the Oduduwa Nation gang. The Igbos have IPOB and ESN. The South South is for now, the only peaceful part of the country. But when those ones start and add their trouble to it, that will be the undoing of Nigeria because the South South is where the country’s food basket is.”
“The country’s food basket is in the North.”
“You don’t get the point. Oil is Nigeria’s major revenue earner. If militants in the South South join the madness, nobody will be able to prospect for oil in the South South, not even in the deep offshore. Nigeria will have no revenue. The oil majors will shut down and run away. Chaos will follow. There will be no Christmas trees.”
“But to go back to the earlier point about another Boko Haram front emerging in the South East. I noticed that since the murder of Ikonso which the Nigerian Army and Police celebrated, the East has not known peace. There have been attacks on police stations. Attacks on offices of the Electoral Commission. Abduction of students and innocent citizens. Even a prison was attacked in Owerri and the inmates were set free. It looks like there will be no quick end to this. At a point, we were told the Governor of Imo State had to run away to Abuja.”
“Oh, yes. I actually heard from reliable sources that many state Governors no longer stay in their states”.
“But something tells me Igbo militants will not like to turn the East into a theatre of war and get their own people killed.”
“You don ‘t know what you are talking about. This kind of war does not obey normal logic. Many of the boys involved in it are well educated, exposed and far more ideologically oriented than their fathers and grandfathers. You should not expect them to adopt the tactics of 1967.”
“Are you saying IPOB is behind the mayhem in the South East then? What I hear is that it is the handiwork of unknown gunmen”
“Yeah. Unknown gunmen. Just like unknown soldiers. Unknown policemen. Unknown civil servants. In a country of ghosts. You are free to believe the fiction they feed you with. Enjoy the illusion.”
“So what do you think can be done to nip the situation in the bud.”
“What are you nipping in the bud? The security crisis in Nigeria has gone beyond the bud. It has grown flowers and fruits. Nip ke?
“And to think I voted for President Buhari in 2015 and again in 2019. Now I pity the President and I am so sorry for myself. I feel like crying.”
“Omo, wake up! This matter has gone beyond President Buhari.”
“How? The buck stops at his desk. He is Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. He campaigned to address security challenges and we all trusted him to do it given his antecedents.”
“Ër bergi. Leave sewage for LAWMA. Kayamata no good for ugly girls. There is a way the buck will stop at a President’s desk and he won’t know what to do. Have you not seen that President Buhari is now appealing to terrorists to calm down? He used to talk tough. “We will crush them. We will deal with them. No stone will be left unturned”. Baba Bubu don change tone oh. Na beg him dey beg now. Last Friday, he even appealed to local leaders to advise their youths not to work against Nigeria. Before then, he complained that some people are mercilessly sabotaging every government policy. He even begged the Americans for help.”
“Oh, God. The Nigerian situation has never been so scary as it is today. But the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces cannot become a motivational speaker when the people are dying daily. He should leave motivational speaking to Fela Durotoye and Pastor Paul Enenche. He should not spoil their market.”
“What else do you want him to do? On April 27, he asked for the assistance of the United States. He told US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken that the US should relocate the African Command in Stuttgart, Germany near the Theatre of Operation in the Sahel and Gulf of Guinea, but the US Pentagon has now blinked at that request. They say the US cannot afford it and that Nigeria opposed the idea of AFRICOM in 2007.”
“Well, of course, the US will blink at the idea and that is beyond Secretary Blinken. The US is primarily interested in its own strategic foreign interests. It may have been a good idea in 2007 to locate AFRICOM in Africa. But 24 years later, the world has changed and America’s interests have shifted.”
“But the US European Command is also in Germany. Why take the African Command there?”
“Bros, America will decide what is in its best interest. No country does Father Christmas diplomacy. The only country I know that does Father Christmas International Diplomacy is Nigeria. To address the challenge of insecurity, Nigeria must help itself, even while foraging for external help. The government of Nigeria has a responsibility to protect the people. It is the very minimum that any government can do.”
“My view is that the time has come then for President Buhari to set up a War Cabinet.”
“What is that?”
“Simple. I am not saying he should change his Ministers. I know some of them are your friends and you will not like to miss the muna muna you get from them.”
“These ones? Na Araldite government oh. Shishi dem no dey give. Before you ask sef, dem go tell you say nothing dey. Nothing. Nothing. But na dem dey chop pass.”
“Na today? But my point really is that the President should set up a National Defence Council that will meet on a daily basis, do a regular audit of the security situation in the country, and advise government accordingly.”
“You just want to create another problem. Before you know it Femi Falana and co will say the Defence Council is illegal, unconstitutional, null and void and therefore of no effect whatsoever. And they will threaten to go to court. They will say it is a duplication of the functions of the National Security Council.”
“No. I don’t think so. The strategy for security is different from the strategy for war. And a National Defence Council is not illegal. It is not unlawful. It is in the Constitution. Check Section 153 of the 1999 Constitution. Check the Third Schedule of the same Constitution.”
“What does the Constitution say? Tell me about it.”
“Tell you what? This is the problem with you Nigerians. You all have Holy Books, the Bible and the Koran which you carry about 24 hours. You have the Bible at home. You have it in the car. You have it in the office. When you return home in the evening, you read the Holy Book, pray with it, and keep it under your pillow to protect you from witches, wizards and village people. Many of you even go about with talismans: a small copy of the Koran, the rosary, and anointing oil. But the Constitution of Nigeria, the same document that elected Nigerian leaders use to cheat and abuse you, a document that spells out your rights, you don’t have it, you don’t read it, you don’t know your own rights and yet you complain. My friend, go and buy a copy of the Constitution.”
“I am not a lawyer. Why should I read the Constitution?”
“You read the Bible. Are you a Pastor? You read the Koran. Are you an alfa or Sheik? The same way every Holy Book is available to everyone: Bible or Koran, it is the same way we all have the right to know the laws that govern us.”
“Do you want to tell me about this your war strategy or not? Don’t let us deceive ourselves, please, there is no difference between the National Security Council and a National Defence Council. It will still be the same dem dem. These guys have no answer to our problems”.
“I agree. But my other point is that this moment calls for national unity. We all have a role to play.”
“In principle yes, but have you heard that the Federal Government wants to reduce the cost of governance and that the starting point is to cut the salaries of civil servants?”
“What madness is that?”
“The statement was credited to the Minister of Finance and Budget Planning, Zainab Ahmed.”
“Come, do they now add small marijuana to Shisha?”
“I can’t answer that question. I am not in a position to know what combination the Minister of Finance takes and whether or not she even takes Shisha.”
“We are thinking of how to achieve peace and stability and some people want to cut salaries? What do they want to cut? The same minimum wage that many states have refused to pay? The same minimum wage that can not buy a bag of rice? A Kongo of rice is now N1, 000. If government cuts salaries, they should expect that other things may be cut too, along with such a stupid decision.”
“Like what?”
“Like the heads of stupid people. Na so revolution dey start! What happened to Oronsaye Report? Why not cut all the leaky buckets in government? Cut the cost of governance. In the midst of this COVID-19, headline inflation is now 18%, food inflation is 23%, unemployment is 33.3%. It will be the height of madness to cut people’s salaries. Abi I dey craze?”
“Come to think of it, yes. You don kolo. Kolo- men- tal. But you mentioned COVID-19. I hear the Federal Government has now imposed new restrictions. The Presidential Steering Committee has decided that effective from Tuesday, May 11, all event centres and night clubs should remain closed till further notice. Weddings and religious gatherings can be held at 50% capacity of the venue. Meetings should be held virtually.”
“My honest opinion, I think the intervention does not go far enough. They should tell us more about what they know that we do not know. Especially now that we are hear armed robbers are now attacking the Presidential Villa and Pastors are telling the Congregation to have an escape Plan B. Armed robbers don enter Aso Rock oh!”
“Like seriously? No. No. No. Bros, you make it sound like Nigeria is finished. I am done with you. May 11 is the 40th anniversary of the death of that absolute genius, Bob Marley. Can you listen to one of his evergreen songs and calm down? Good cure for this madness.
Fr Ejike Mbaka, Spiritual Director of the Adoration Ministry, Enugu attracts controversy the way flies are attracted to dung. He is completely unfazed about it. He comes across as a priest who does not mind what Pope Francis once referred to as “the sin of scandal”. Last week, Fr. Mbaka stirred the hornet’s again when he announced to his congregation that he had changed his mind about President Muhammadu Buhari, or perhaps he had received another message from God to the effect that if Nigeria’s President Buhari does not resign for failing to find a solution to Nigeria’s problems, he should be impeached. This came as a rude shock to many. Fr. Mbaka was a staunch supporter of President Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 and 2019 general elections. He used his pulpit to campaign for the APC. In 2015, he openly opposed then incumbent President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Patience Jonathan. He would later claim that an attempt was made on his life. Mbaka wields enormous influence in the Eastern Region of Nigeria. He runs a personal ministry, more of a personal business which he calls Adoration Ministry which deploys a combination of the Scriptures, combined with faith healing, theatrical, spell-binding tactics, metaphysical hallucinations and a bit of shamanism to hypnotize an attentive audience. In a country where poverty is widespread and the people are looking for Salvation on earth and in the hereafter, anyone who is able to offer a combination of these elements is bound to be a celebrity. And Mbaka is. He is a celebrity. Something of a Rock Star! But where and when did he and his APC friends part ways? He did not really say anything earth-shaking or original, but coming from him, a Buharideen and an APC apologist, the weight of his new revelation attracted the right measure of attention.
In the past few days, we have been treated to a tit-for-tat between the Presidency and their Enugu-based star-gazer. Presidential Spokesperson Garba Shehu did not allow the saliva in Mbaka’s mouth to dry up before issuing a statement to state that Mbaka, the Catholic priest is not what he projects himself to be. Shehu gave an account of how Mbaka once visited Aso Villa to see the President with three contractors in tow. He wanted contracts from the Federal Government of Nigeria. But the President directed that due process must be followed. Garba Shehu, an experienced spin-doctor thus used Mbaka to score three quick points: (1) that Mbaka is a businessman in priestly garment and an influence peddler; (2) that his so-called prophesies are at best personal opinions depending on his calculations of likely benefits and (3) Mbaka should be grateful that when he visited the Villa, the Presidency was kind enough not to expose him by publishing his photographs.
Garba Shehu was not alone. Yekini Nabena, the Deputy National Secretary of the APC also found it necessary to advise Mbaka to desist from making statements that could destabilise the country, and if he fails to do so, he would be reported to the Vatican. Nabena even quoted the Bible to remind the Catholic priest of his priestly obligations and the Example of Christ. Beyond the Villa and the APC, other Nigerians waded in, including Reno Omokri, the self-confessed “Buhari Tormentor” who accused Mbaka of hypocrisy and further sent “An Open Letter to Pope Francis” to draw his attention to the delinquency of one of his priests in Nigeria. The Department of State Services has also since reminded religious and political leaders to eschew divisive politics, because the Nigerian state will not hesitate to defend the country against all forces of destabilization.
Clearly, the Nigerian government is embattled and it is not ready to tolerate additional pressures from any quarters. Even the World Press Freedom Day statement that was issued by the Presidency yesterday, May 3, while expressing commitment to free speech and the freedom of information, condemned licentious freedom, and gave a small lecture on responsible journalism. And it does not matter whether you were once a friend like Fr. Mbaka, the priest or Eedris Abdulkareem, the artist. The other week, Eedris Abdulkareem dared to criticise the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, SAN in a new album. Keyamo promptly released text messages between him and Eedris in which the musician begged the Minister for money to pay hotel and hospital bills, in exchange for his support for the Buhari administration. This may be a new tactic. Nobody should be surprised if one of these days state officials release images of some vocal critics eating jollof rice and fish bone as Nicodemus guests at the Presidential Villa.
But Fr. Mbaka is taking it all as they say, on his chest. He is practically making a mockery of the reactions to his statements. He says it is stupid “to be attacking a messenger of God” and that yes, he took three white men who are contractors, who asked for his assistance, to the Villa, so what? They were asking for security contracts for themselves, not for him, and they didn’t get the contracts, so what? He accuses the Buhari government of not having “ä reward mechanism”: “All the people they have been giving contracts, are they better than me? Am I begging them, do they know how many people I fed? Fortunately, they reported that they denied me of the contract – which contract? …They have shown that they don’t have what we call reward mechanism. If Shehu is a human..I don’t even know who the Shehu is. He should be apologising that they have not come down to say Nagode Allah for surviving what they are passing through. The last person this administration should fight is Father Mbaka talking here because if they speak against me, the anger of Heaven will be upon them and their end will shock everybody…”
This is really a different kind of priest. It is not beyond him to rain down curses like confetti at a wedding! I find his response naïve and contradictory, and strange, given the fact that the Catholic Church traditionally provides their priests the benefit of a sound education and clerical training. He is not the first Catholic priest to be controversial or outspoken in recent times. Recently, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Sokoto Catholic Diocese pointedly accused the Buhari government of nepotism. The government and its agents hemmed and hawed. There were threats that Kukah will be expelled from Sokoto. But in the end, nothing happened. Kukah has since then delivered more stinging homilies and public lectures on the state of the nation. They have learnt to leave him alone. Nobody accused him of bringing contractors to the Presidential Villa. Fr. George Ehusani is another prominent Catholic Priest. He succeeded Kukah as Secretary General of the Catholic Secretariat. He is not afraid to express his mind. He is consistent and blunt. He sings. He preaches. He runs a public-spirited NGO on Leadership. Nobody has disturbed him because he does not phone politicians or government officials to ask for favours. In Ewu, Edo State, there is Fr. Anselm Adodo, the Benedictine Monk who is pushing the frontiers of Alternative Medicine and Epidemiology at the Pax Herbal Clinic and Research Laboratories. Fr. Anselm is so busy with research, he probably does not know where the Government House of Edo State is. To go higher within the hierarchy, John Cardinal Onaiyekan has been in the business of speaking truth to power before Mbaka gained admission to the seminary. Nobody has ever accused him of drinking tea with a cup belonging to the Nigerian government.
There is also Ignatius Ayua Kaigama, former Archbishop of Jos who is now the Archbishop of Abuja. No contractor, white or black, would ever dare ask him to wear his cassock to go and lobby for contracts. But Mbaka is truly different. He is the priest of “reward mechanism”. His public persona is that he is a Catholic priest of election seasons. He is a one-man Electoral Commission that can predict election results or anoint Gubernatorial candidates. In 2015, he reportedly rejected money that was donated to the Adoration Ministry by the Jonathan administration. One of his proclaimed achievements is that he correctly predicted that Senator Hope Uzodinma would become Governor of Imo State through the Supreme Court. But now, Uzodinma no longer picks his calls. He was also once a friend to former Governor Chimaroke Nnamani. It didn’t take long before they quarrelled and the Oracle of Adoration began to see new visions. In December 2018, former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi apparently did not understand the meaning of “reward mechanism” when he attended an annual harvest and bazaar celebration at the Adoration Ministry. He was accused of being “stingy.” Mbaka attends road commissioning ceremonies. Only the God he worships knows how many contractors he has taken around the South East in search of contracts.
The Diocese of Enugu, to which Fr. Mbaka belongs has often disclaimed his remarks as his personal opinion. The Catholic Bishops Conference has also always warned against the promotion of partisan politics in the context of Mass. But Mbaka appears untouchable. Reno Omokri, who is himself a preacher of the word, has reported Mbaka to Pope Francis. But Mbaka is thoroughly amused. He tells his critics: “Ïf Rome hears that Father Mbaka is challenging evil governance, Rome will clap for me, so quickly go to Rome…” He is probably amused because he knows that those rushing to the Vatican may not know how the Catholic church system works. The Pope does not get directly involved in the disciplining of priests. Under the Code of Canon Law, it is the responsibility of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith which deals with crimes of an ecclesiastical nature committed by priests. But the Rules stipulate that the local church must take the first step in disciplining a delinquent priest, and outcomes of investigations and conclusions can then be forwarded to Rome. Omokri’s petition will be referred to the local church in Nigeria. Will the local church act? Does Mbaka’s Bishop see anything wrong in what he does? Is his Adoration Ministry so rich and so supportive of the Church that not even the Catholic Bishops Conference can apply the essential norms? The problem is probably not Mbaka, but the Catholic Church of Nigeria and its leadership. Mbaka’s style is also probably environmentally determined. He has received words of encouragement from Nnamdi Kanu of the Independent Peoples of Biafra Organisation (IPOB). Ohanaeze Ndigbo has also publicly supported him. Nnamdi Kanu even said Mbaka also has the right to change his mind like Sheikh Isa Pantami! In Nigeria, religion and ethnicity provide ready cover-ups for anything.
Mbaka represents an emerging face of the Church, a living embodiment of the rise of utilitarian capitalism in the Church of Christ, and the conflation of priesthood with hedonism. Catholic priests were known ordinarily as persons who had taken the Oath and dedicated their entire life to service and prayers. They disconnect from earthly pleasures. Riches do not mean anything to them. They are happy to commit to the task of salvation. It is therefore most shocking that a priest like Reverend Mbaka as far back as 2016 was described in one report as the owner of a Ministry within the Catholic Church, the Adoration Ministry, which he runs as a personal “business”. When he was asked to move from Christ the King Parish, Enugu to Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, Emene, his main concerns were the assets of the Adoration Ministry and the fact that he would “suffer.” This new tendency of priests who do not want to suffer, who would rather choose the hedonistic life, explains the new character of the Church. Priests no longer get enough financial support. Priests now want to own estates. They drive exotic cars if they can. They want to travel First Class too. They argue that even St. Paul had a business on the side that gave him extra income. Hence Mbaka can tell the Presidency: “...do they know how many people I feed?” We are in the age of billionaire priests who run business empires. With the offertory no longer generous, since members of the congregation are mostly poor, and in need, some enterprising priests can no longer rely on their meagre stipends. They are creating businesses and opportunities in the name of God to live well, and to support others and whenever they can, take care of the Bishops too. They have forgotten that the Lord Jesus was born in a rented manger. He was buried in a borrowed tomb.
Where is the Church? In November 2014, Pope Francis gave an interesting homily on this same subject at the Saint Martha Guesthouse at the Vatican. His focus was the Gospel of Luke. He said that “there are two things that the people of God cannot forgive: a priest attached to money and a priest who mistreats people. This they cannot forgive! It is scandalous…” Quoting the Gospel of Luke, the Pope recalled how Jesus turned tables and drove away people who were selling inside the church: a sacred place of prayer which had been turned into a business place. He added: “Ï think of how our attitude can scandalize people with unpriestly habits in the Temple: the scandal of doing business, the scandal of worldliness…It is scandalous when the Temple, the house of God becomes a place of business…” The Bishop of Rome has certainly not yet heard of the Nigerian phenomenon. Everyone who has had cause to comment on the Federal Government and Fr. Mbaka’s saga, including Yekini (!), has been quoting the Bible. Let me add this passage from the Gospel of St. Mark, Chapter 11: 15-17:
“Then Jesus went to the Temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seat of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them: Is it not written, my house shall be called a House of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves.” This is the word of God to us. May the Lord bless His Word...
“Omo, wetin dey shele. What’s gwan man?”
“Helloooo. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, my bro”
“Can you speak English? I don’t get your drift. All these your what’s gwan, and yeah, yeah, I hope you have not gone to take your thing again. If you want to engage me in a conversation, then speak straight English and stop saying yeah, yeah….”
“Bros, you sef, you too dey do. Who cares anymore in this country?”
“Ï do”
“This country don kpeme”
“What is that?”
“Country no level”
“Excuse me?”
“Ëverything don scatter scatter, Nigeria don jaga jaga. Na where we dey be that oh”
“Ï see you are a fan of Eedris Abdulkareem. Festus Keyamo will soon come after you. Have you not seen how Keyamo came after the musician for attacking and ridiculing the Buhari government? He exposed the young man as a hypocrite who is criticizing government because Keyamo did not give him money to pay his hotel bills and his mother’s hospital bills too. All these your social critics by day, and hustlers by night.”
“Na lie. Eedris sef don reply Keyamo. And Twitter don remove Keyamo’s tweets.”
“Please. Please. If you insist on speaking pidgin, I will end this conversation. I don’t engage in beer parlour talk.”
“Änd who told you pidgin English is beer parlour English. It is a major West African lingua franca. A major contribution by colonized peoples to the evolution of the English language. It represents the Empire speaking back whether you call it patois, creole or pidgin. But let’s leave that matter. I think we should go beyond Keyamo vs Eedris Abdulkareem. This is not about personalities, really. Eedris begged for money. Keyamo did not give him. Eedris asked to be sponsored to support the Buhari campaign. Keyamo thought he was an extortionist. Fine. I don’t want to focus on personalities. I am happy for Eedris Abdulkareem. He has been off the musical scene for a while. Now that he has dropped just one album, everywhere is shaking. We should focus on the message of his music. Eedris Abdulkareem has shown a capacity to use music as a weapon of protest. The rebuttal by Keyamo is just an aside.”
“Festus Keyamo also has a right to defend himself. He was accused of being a member of the cabal.”
“Änd what is the problem if Eedris says so. He merely stated the obvious. In fact, it is a compliment to be referred to as a member of the cabal in Nigeria. Isn’t that what all of you want to become? Common Keyamo wey all of us dey chop rice and dodo together for Anthony Village don become Nigeria cabal. Him suppose dey happy. Him suppose know say Eedris dey do him own cabal job too with his music. Instead, he begin talk about money wey no miss.. He even publish text messages sef dey sound like say heaven wan fall. Er begi. Because of how much? A whole Senior Advocate of Nigeria.”
“Can you translate that into correct English, please?”
“Dey there dey form. I think this Ikoyi wey you dey go everyday don dey affect you. You no dey hear our slang again. Whatever Eedris Abdulkareem did right or wrong in the past should not be held against him. That is what I am saying. Simple. He was a young man when he begged for money and asked to be mobilized to support Buhari. Like Isa Pantami, the Sheik Minister of the Federal Republic, he has now recanted. He has seen the light. And he has conveyed his position through music. Jaga Jaga Reloaded. We should listen to him. He should be allowed to have his say. Na today? When Eedris released the original Jaga Jaga album in 2004, the Obasanjo administration was so angry, they banned the song on radio.”
“So what is he saying this time around?”
“I will advise you to listen to the song. My kind of music. Yes, you may listen to all these artistes who do techno music. Sound without sense. But I prefer music that makes sense. Eedris is simply saying that the country is hard. This country is hard. Nothing has changed since 2004. In fact, the situation in Nigeria has worsened. President Obasanjo may have been angry with Eedris Abdulkareem in 2004, but today, Obasanjo is a Nigerian hero. Seventeen years later, Obasanjo’s Nigeria looks in retrospect like a shade of Paradise for the average Nigerian. And so in this remake of Jaja Jaga, Eedris Abdulkareem calls Obasanjo his father because him sef know say country don change. He collaborates with Mr. Raw, and Madarocha Chi to sing about bad governance, police brutality, the October 20, 2020 moment of crisis at the Lekki toll gate and the suffering in the land. He calls for restructuring and federalism. He speaks for us. Jaga jaga eh, suffer, suffer eh.. everything scatter scatter eh… Yeah mon.”
“Hmm. Hmm.”
“You get the point now?”
“To be honest, Ï get the point. Eedris Abdulkareem, Mr Raw and Madarocha are speaking for the Soro Soke (Speak Up) generation. But I hope Eedris will not again suffer his 2004 fate. Radio stations could be banned from playing the song. But I guess he and his collaborators are right. Nigeria is in a tough place at the moment. Can you imagine what happened over the weekend? Governors of the South East and the Ohanaeze Ndigbo had to meet to discuss how the Governors of the South East, all five of them can be protected from the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the group’s militant wing, the Eastern Security Network (ESN). When state Governors, who are constitutionally described as Chief Security Officers of their states are no longer safe, then what can ordinary people do?”
“Ordinary people have become victims of banditry, kidnapping, terrorism, ritualists, and scammers. Once upon a time in this country, criminals used to steal money and personal belongings. Today, in Buhari’s Nigeria, it has become more profitable to steal human beings! Nobody is safe. I won’t be surprised if one of these days, a sitting Governor is abducted and the state is asked to pay ransom before he is released.”
“Ï want to guess that the first Governor that is likely to be kidnapped will be Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State”
“Why? Do you hate the man that much? No. I cover him with the blood of Jesus”
“Cover him as much as you want. Have you not seen the statement by IPOB and ESN? After the killing of Ikonte Commander, the Vice President of IPOB, and six others, at Aworama Village, Emma Powerful, speaking for IPOB and ESN issued a statement accusing Governor Uzodinma of colluding with the Nigeria Police, the military and State Security Services to kill their men. Extra-judicially. The same day, Uzodinma’s country home was set ablaze. His expensive Rolls Royce vehicle was damaged. One of his security guards was killed. He was told he should be prepared for the IPOB sting. I wonder how the man can still govern Imo State going forward.”
“He will govern, I beg. Which Emma Powerful? Have you not heard that Channels TV has been suspended by the National Broadcasting Commission because they interviewed this same Emma Powerful? What power does he have? Some people should not be allowed to go about just causing problems no matter how hard the country is”
“Channels TV? No, I missed that. But if it is true, that’s pure rubbish. Are we in a dictatorship regime?”
“You can ask me again. They say it is a democracy”
“I don’t support any attempt to harass and intimidate the media. The job of the media is to air all shades of opinion. It is in the interest of the government that the media does so. It is the best way to collect and curate open intelligence. No media house should ever be punished for promoting the democracy of opinions. When a government begins to repress public opinion, it is a sign of desperation and confusion. The NBC may have been misquoted.”
“Ï don’t think so.”
“But as you well know, we have been through this route before. Media houses in Nigeria are used to the adversarial character of government and state actors. Since 1859 in fact. But somehow, you can treat the media whichever way you like, the truth is that journalists will always outlive every government. They will be the ones to have the last say. They can build you up, but they can also pull you down. I advise the NBC to apply its rules with caution and wisdom. Things are bad enough, adding media repression to the Nigerian crisis is unhelpful.”
“But it is your brothers and friends that are in charge””
“Ï am not discussing personalities. Let’s focus on issues.”
“I hear you. But there are also people who think the Nigerian media is part of the problem. Journalists are always putting pepper and salt in everything. Country hard like this. Journalists go dey put petrol. Too much sensationalism. Government’s position is that the media should help government. But no. They will go and carry enemies of the state and put microphone in their mouths. I am sure if Shekau the terrorist wants to grant interview tomorrow or announce a World Conference, Nigerian journalists will be the first to get there. They will carry microphone and say they are doing their job.”
“News is news. News is what happens. Government has no right to determine what is news. You can’t blame journalists for doing their work. And don’t forget that the role of the media is constitutional. Sections 22 and 39 of the Nigerian Constitution recognise the rights of the media as watchdog, and the citizen’s fundamental right of free speech. So, whatever Emma Powerful says, let the government deal with it. Why are they fining and suspending Channels TV? How about Igbere TV where more critical statements are made on a daily basis? Even Igbere TV should be allowed to serve the people without hindrance.”
“But all of that should be within the ambits of the law. No country will allow a lawless media institution. That is the whole point about regulation.”
“The whole point is about freedom of speech”
“There are no absolute rights”
“That is not what we are dealing with here. Musicians cannot sing. Journalists cannot speak to people. Where are we? Idi Amin Dada’s Uganda?
“You want to hear the truth?”
“What truth?”
“The truth is that the Nigerian government does not respect, and does not trust the Nigerian media. They think most Nigerian journalists are like Eedris Abdulkareem. Friend today. Enemy tomorrow. Too many journalists looking for contracts, and money, running from one government office to the other to grab consultancies, or brown envelopes, or handouts. And yet they talk to enemies of the state.”
“That is libelous. You can get sued for group libel. People should stop blaming journalists. Fix the country.”
“Come and sue me”
“I fear for Nigeria”
“Ï pity my country”
“My big fear is even the fact that Nigeria is now surrounded by a ring of evil. There is crisis in Chad. Their president Idris Deby Itno is dead. There is very febrile succession politics in that country. Under Idris Deby Itno, Chad provided some kind of buffer zone for Nigeria, Libya and the Sahel region. If that country implodes, Nigeria will be in serious trouble. The Libya-nization of Chad will add to our woes. Niger is also unstable. Nigeria may have helped to install a new President in that country but we can suffer for doing so, particularly with the dubious role France is playing in Chad and Niger. Cameroon next door is also troubled. The Republic of Benin is another zone of uncertainty. We have trouble at home. We have crisis abroad.”
“Let’s deal with the trouble at home first.”
“You don’t see the connection?”
“Ï am not blind. I see it. But let our leaders begin charity at home before they begin to worry about other people’s problems. The big problem with Nigeria is that we tend to take pain-killers for other people’s problems while overlooking the cancer at home. Who does that? This is how you people send policemen to Somalia to help stabilize Somalia whereas there is no stability at home. We go everywhere giving others what we don’t have at home. We even refine petrol abroad and set up refineries in other people’s countries. I don’t get it.”
“What you don’t get is that the world is now a village.”
“I am not into slogans. I understand the point about global solidarity. But nobody should take Nigerian money to go and stabilise Niger and Chad or create employment in other countries.”
“We are the giant of Africa”
“Hey, Hey. Mr Giant. In one part of your country, the entire North West, 618 schools have been shut down in five states because of the lack of safety in schools. Many students do not want to go back to school. Over 10, 000 students are in Boko Haram captivity according to one Governor from that part of the country. Parents are anxious and depressed. For the past one month, 29 students of the College of Forestry Mechanization, Afaka, Kaduna State have been in the custody of bandits. Three students of Greenville University have been murdered. Two more yesterday. The whereabouts of the remaining 35 who were kidnapped along with them remains unknown. What do you say to their parents? The entire South East is in a state of war. The South West is suddenly at war with the same Hausa-Fulanis who have lived in the region for centuries. Boko Haram has just taken over a whole town. Geidam in Yobe state. Your security chiefs are busy wearing fine uniform in Abuja. Your country’s unemployment rate is 33.3 %. Headline inflation is 18.17%. Food inflation is 23%. Your country is the second most unelectrified country in Africa. My heart aches.”
“Mine too. I have nothing to say other than to quote Chinua Achebe.”
“The problem with Nigeria is leadership”
“He also said there was once a country”
“So Eedris Abulkareem, the rap artist is right then. Keyamo misses the point.”
“Let’s say the two of them are doing their job. This life is a hustle. Every man according to his stomach.”