Who Is Afraid Of Regional Government?

 By Ayo Baje

“To fight against untruth and falsehood. 

To fight for our memory; of what things were like. That is the task of the artist. 

A people who no longer remembers 

has lost its history and its soul” 

– Alekzander Solzhentsyn 

The recent wave of opposition against the proposed re-introduction of regional government, stirred by some senators – mostly from the northern geo-political zone of the country is both paradoxical and unjustifiable.

Dangote Refinery Is Here; Why Are We Unhappy?

 By Dele Sobowale

“I am beginning to wonder how many fools it takes to make the term ‘My Fellow Citizens’” -Honore de Balzac, 1799-1850, in LOST ILLUSIONS

You were probably one of those who eagerly awaited the completion of the Dangote Refinery while labouring under the illusion that it will crash the price of fuel nationwide. Welcome to the unpleasant reality. Underlying that self-deception was the un-stated but implied assumption that Alhaji Dangote was embarking on a venture designed to free Nigeria from fuel importation. Well, “when you assume, you make an ass of you and me.”

Gullible Nigerians, especially many media commentators, had committed the blunder of forgetting that Dangote is a businessman caught in a global race for position among the world’s richest people. He went into refinery primarily to make as much money as he can; and stopping fuel importation is a distant second objective – except that securing a monopoly of the domestic fuel supply would help achieve the ambition.

Nigeria@63: Politicians’ Jumbo Pay And Impunity Must Go!

 By Ayo Baje

To strike the delicate balance between Nigeria’s vast, God-given resources of oil and gas, fertile fields for huge agricultural practices, rare solid minerals, places of scenic, spell-binding tourist attractions and the persisting paradox of pervasive poverty of the led majority is not rocket science for Nigerian-born best of brains such as the Philip Emeagwalis, the Gabriel Oyibos, Jelani Aliyus  or Silas Adekunles. No! The salient reasons behind the ever-widening, socio-economic gap between the leaders and the masses is patently obvious.

In fact, not a few of our crop of political leaders-spanning the spectrum of the so called democrats and the military despots-have, out of overt greed, over the decades, brought the country to its begging knees. So, when yours truly refers to their antics as “a restless run of avaricious locusts”, it is stating it as it is. If in doubt consider these startling statistics.

Nigeria: Steal The Election And Let Them Go To Court

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Any ruling party can make even a goat win an election. The only exception to this great truism is Goodluck Jonathan who lost his baton. Nigeria had a much-ballyhooed presidential election on February 25, and there is not much to report except that the election was bought and sold. 

Any talk of the elections being free, fair and credible belongs to fiction. The election result was declared at the ungodly hour of 4am, and losers in the contest were asked to go to court. It’s a well-worn mantra – steal the election for me and tell the opposition to go to court very fast. 

Letter From Emeka Odimegwu-Ojukwu

 By Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha

If you had any doubts about the authenticity of this letter, let me assure you that I am still involved, very involved in all that you do, and experience in our beleaguered country, especially with the stupid wanton killings in the southeast, by unknown gunmen, the ubiquitous Fulani herdsmen, Eastern Security Network and the Buhari-government-outlawed-IPOB. And we are deeply upset hereabouts. Not even in the period preceding the 1967 conflagration did the nation witness so much brutality, hopelessness, uncertainty, and poverty. It is unbecoming of a nation so blessed with natural and human resources!

*Ojukwu 

How are you all? We know things are not rosy. The entire world is currently in a turmoil. Poverty and hunger are real. Indeed, Nigerians are coping better with the economic hardship than Europeans who have lived a life of luxury. Else, how do you account for a worker on a 30k monthly salary still paying school fees for three kids and feeding once a day and still smiling to church or the Mosque? It is not a happy thing. No, not a happy situation.

The Story Of Media Leaders In Nigeria’s Construction And Reconstruction

 By Owei Lakemfa

Nigeria was partly built by journalists who fought the British colonialists so ferociously that Frederick John Lugard, their colonial poster boy who amalgamated the country in 1914, was forced out as Governor General within five years. The media campaigns for the soul of the country went on through the colonial period and into the new century.

But the country has been very badly used, so much so that today, it is in urgent need of reconstruction. The media, as one of the main builders of the country, convened a roundtable on Saturday, November 26, 2022, to examine its part in constructing the country and what role it needs to play in reconstructing it.

To do this, the Nigeria Media Merit Award, or NMMA  convened a conclave of experts led by Emeritus Professor Michael Abiola Omolewa, an education historian and diplomat who was the 32nd President of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.

The President And The Silent Trumpets

 By Dan Agbese

The late premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna Sokoto, was once quoted to have said that it was his duty to blow his own trumpet because other people were busy blowing theirs and would not bother to blow his own for him. There appears to be some unquestionable wisdom in that. President Muhammadu Buhari appears to have missed it. He has relied on his appointees to blow his trumpet, but they have failed him.

*Buhari 

On his working visit to Imo State this week, the president opened up on his frustration with the men and women in his administration for failing to trumpet his achievements in the past seven years as president. He has done titanic things worthy of being loudly trumpeted within and beyond our shores. Still, the trumpet is silent. He has waited this long and these many years for the president’s men and women to loudly blow his trumpet. All he keeps hearing is the rich sound of silence. He said: “Those who should be speaking about my government are not doing so.”

That is criminal. Why will the trumpeters padlock their lips as if they were mere observers in the administration whose achievements rub off on its appointees? One could offer one of two possible reasons for this. It is either that (a) his appointees are busy blowing their own trumpets they forget that blowing their principal’s trumpet is a duty incumbent on them or (b) they see nothing worth trumpeting in the sterling performances of the administration. If the president knows what he has achieved and his aides do not, there is a serious problem, I tell you.

Nigeria: The Conversation We Don’t Want To Have About Biafra!

 By David Hundeyin

Fourteen years ago, when I was a 19-year-old fresher at the University of Hull, I met Ify. She was at that time, probably the most beautiful girl I had ever set my eyes on. I immediately tripped, hit my head and went into an infatuation coma.

Ify was the quintessential social butterfly – witty, friendly, distinctly intelligent and culturally Nigerian, with a few notable modifications like her South London accent and a slight tomboy streak.

*Biafran children... 

I think my eyeballs actually turned into heart emojis every time I saw her, and within a week of starting university, my mission in life was to get Ify to be my girlfriend. The problem was, it didn’t matter how much time and attention I dedicated to her – Ify was not interested in me.

We were very good friends, but as time went on, it became clear to my great dismay that she and I as an item, was just never going to happen. Eventually, I gave up on Ify and retired to lick my metaphorical wounds, completely assured in my 19-year-old wisdom that I would never love again.

Same Country, Different Worlds

Is Nigeria A Mistake?

By Julius Oweh  

Of the three prominent early Nigerian na​tionalists, it was perhaps Nnamdi Azikiwe, the great Zik of Africa and a mentor to Kwame Nkrumah who believed in the unity and corporate existence of the nation. The other two, Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo at one time or the other expressed their reservations about the unity and oneness of the country. It is on record that Ahmadu Bello described the 1914 amalgamation as a mistake, while Awolowo described Nigeria as a mere geographical expression. 

*Buhari 

At the height of constitutional conferences that paved way for the nation‘s independence, Bello was quoted as saying about  the north ‘we are not going to be part of Nigeria again‘. The most powerful politician of the north at that time only had a change of mind when Awolowo explained the concept of federalism to the Premier of northern region.   I am embarking on this political voyage so that you can truly understand the situation and why after sixty years of independence, despite the abundant human and material resources, Nigeria is still the butt of dirty diplomatic jokes around the globe. 

Remembering Bola Ige

By Abiodun Komolafe

Ethno-religious leanings or socio-political ideology notwithstanding, it is almost improbable for any society to underestimate the contributions of some people to the emancipation of its people and the realization of the dream of its founding fathers. For instance, America will forever remain grateful to the likes of Martin Waldseemuller, Stephen Moylan, George Washington and Martin Luther King Jnr. for their contributions, one way or the other, to the realization of the American dream as a land of equal opportunity for all.

*Bola Ige 

In like manner, China’s economy wouldn’t have become “the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history” to the extent of having “lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty” but for the political sagacity and economic ingenuity of leaders like Chairman Mao Zedong and Den Xiaoping.

Nigeria Without Nation Builders At 58

By Martins Oloja

But for the way we are – as a country without leaders who are afraid of the people, I would have borrowed the title of an artful writer, Brett Baker who had on August 18, 2017 said of his country, ‘Don’t look now, but we are a country with no leader’. I mean, I would have liked the title of the anniversary essay on my country at 58 to be: ‘Nigeria @ 58: A Country Without A Leader’.

*pix: ThisDay

Despite the prevailing situation, I am still persuaded as we celebrate Nigeria at 58 that we are a nation with an absentee leader. There is a sense in which we can also look at the 36 states of the federation, 774 local governments and the three arms of government in this convoluted federation and claim too that we are indeed a country without nation builders (leaders) at all levels. 

2018 – Trouble Settles In Nigeria

By Kole Omotoso

It started small, like all big things.

Little drops of water

Little grains of sand

Make the Gobi Desert

And the sea by the strand.

As part of his settlement Mr. Trouble married Miss Rachelle Palaver. Miss Palaver was a gentle woman and although she now became Mrs. Trouble she remained an oasis of peace and tranquility in the midst of Palaver and Trouble. She wrote her name as Mrs. Rachelle Palaver/Trouble. It was later corrected as Mrs. Rachelle Palaver-Trouble. But this is not the matter of this piece, but for later on. For now, it is 2018 and the coming federal elections of 2019. Not about them either but about what it caused to happen in the country – carpet crossing. 

Elegy For Bola Ige: A Soul Uncle

By Lekan Alabi

On Saturday, 23rd December this year, it will be 16 years that the late Chief ’Bola Ige, SAN, a former Governor of Old Oyo State and sitting Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was assassinated in his Bodija Estate, Ibadan home.

*Late Bola Ige

I was a press secretary to the late Chief Ige, when he was governor of Oyo State and also the chairman of the Protocol and Publicity Sub-Committee of his Burial Planning Committee.

Restructuring Nigeria: Decentralisation For National Cohesion

By John Nnia Nwodo

Paper presented by President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief John Nnia Nwodo at Chatham House, London, on Wednesday, September 27, 2017 

Let me begin by extending my deep sense of gratitude to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, for inviting me to participate in this current series of discussions on Next Generation Nigeria: Accountability and National Cohesion. The involvement of this reputable British Institute in discussing and proffering suggestions for extant Nigeria’s problems is not only commendable, but I believe most relieving for the British establishment, who must understandably feel a deep sense of vicarious responsibility for putting together a country confronted with such grim future.

 

*John Nnia Nwodo

Nigeria became a united British colony by the amalgamation of its Northern and Southern Protectorates in 1914. In 1960 it attained independence, fashioned a federal Constitution which had three and subsequently four regions as its federating units. The pre-1960 and the 1963 constitutions of Nigeria were fashioned by the people of Nigeria as represented by the leaders of their ethnic nationalities. The coup of January 1966 and the counter-coup of the same year occasioned by ethnic tensions and disagreements within the military-led our country to disastrous consequences.

Our first Prime Minister, Rt. Hon Tafawa Balewa and the then premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, as well as the then Minister for Finance Festus Okotie-Eboh, were murdered. A massive pogrom was unleashed on South Eastern Nigerians living in the Northern Nigeria. A sitting Head of State from the South East, Major General Aguiyi Ironsi and a governor from the South West Col. Adekunle Fajuyi were murdered. The military suspended our 1963 constitution and adopted a unitary system of government to fit their command and control structures. Opposition to this move by Southern Nigeria led to constitutional talks in Aburi, Ghana. The agreements reached at Aburi were jettisoned. War broke out and claimed more than three and a half million lives mostly from the South East.

Remembering Christopher Okigbo Fifty Years On

By Kola Omotoso

Mbari Club was a natural draw for an aspiring writer. Situated a mere street walk from Mokola Roundabout, past the ancient Palm Chemist and you were there in the midst of Chinua Achebe, Ulli Beier, Amos Tutuola, Wole Soyinka, Duro Ladipo and Christopher Okigbo. Lindsay Barrett had arrived from Kingston Jamaica via London perhaps. Poetry published in their journal Black Orpheus was available at the counter bookstall. There was a bar somewhere at the back and a small performance and rehearsal stage, again somewhere in the two-storey building.

*Christopher Okigbo and Chinua Achebe

It was my second year as an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan. Student Union activities had been part of the life since my closest friend Ladipo was running for PRO of the student union government. Nigerian electoral politics was boiling over. The Action Group had imploded and the federal government of Ahmadu Bello in collusion with SLA Akintola had put Obafemi Awolowo out of action away in prison in Calabar for treasonable felony. Of course, nobody in Western Region believed any of this fable about treasonable felony. Awolowo as far as the region was concerned was still very much in action.

The federal elections of 1964 came and went. It was heavily rigged in the Western Region ensuring victory for the Akintola party now in alliance with Ahmadu Bello’s Northern People’s Party (jamiatu mutenen arewa). 

Of Arewa Hegemony And Afonja Quislings

By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Nigeria is living in very interesting times of power politics. Some pundits are saying that history is about to repeat itself through the forged political realignments. Some 12 days after Nigeria’s Independence in October 1960, the then Premier of the Northern Region and Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, said in The Parrot newspaper:

“The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the north as willing tools and the south as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over their future.”

*Buhari in Yorubaland, flanked by
Gov Amosu and Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun

Some Northern irredentists, notably Prof Ango Abdullahi and Dr Junaid Muhammed, insist at every interview opportunity that power must perforce return to the North. They have been countered by the militant voices out of Niger Delta, notably the very voluble Asari Dokubo. It is as though Nigeria is poised on a knife edge. In the alliances being put to play to win political power, the role of General Afonja in the fall of the old Oyo Empire needs to be recalled. 

According to Wikipedia, “The Ilorin Emirate is a traditional state based on the city of Ilorin in Kwara State, Nigeria. It is considered to be one of the Banza Bakwai, or copy-cats of the Hausa Kingdoms. At the start of the 19th century Ilorin was a border town in the northeast of the Oyo Empire, with a mainly Yoruba population but with many Hausa-Fulani immigrants or slaves. It was the headquarters of an Oyo General, Afonja, who rebelled against the empire and helped bring about its collapse with the assistance of the Fulani. The rebellion was powered by Hausa, Nupe and Bornu Moslem slaves. Afonja had been assisted by Salih Janta, also called Shehu Alimi, a leader of the local Fulani. In 1824 Afonja was assassinated and Alimi's son Abdusalami became Emir. Ilorin became an emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate.”

Afonja played a role akin to that of Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian politician who undermined the world by aiding Nazi Germany, for which the word “quisling” entered the dictionary. Some notable Southwest politicians have been drawn into a recall of the old Afonja debacle and the need to stop the quislings in the zone in their tracks. At issue is the divide of support between the two presidential candidates, incumbent President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and General Muhammadu Buhari of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). 

Buhari: Going Aborrowing On A Market Day!

By Dare Babarinsa  

President Muhammadu Buhari may have been persuaded that the best way to kick-start our economy again is to go to the world with the begging bowl. The austere Buhari, with his simple lifestyle, represents the mood of the nation which is in need of new kind of leadership. He is unbundling the presidential fleet and removing the fat from more conspicuous muscle of the government. He has been trying. But so far, his effort has not yielded the quick fix that Nigerians expect. After all, we are a nation where the danfo driver, in order to see more clearly, consumes more and more paraga. So is this new loan our paraga?

*Buhari 

Borrowing is sweet; it is the repayment that is bitter. The President is looking for $29.9 billion from the European, the Asian and the African markets. He explained, in his letter to the National Assembly, that the money is needed for infrastructure development. With this jumbo loan, all federal roads would be reconstructed to last forever after. We would have electricity and our universities would be first class. Of course, members of the National Assembly too want their own part of the action. They believe the good time would soon be here again once we can borrow money. After all by the time our grandchildren would be paying, most of the members of the National Assembly would have already changed addresses to God’s own headquarters. Now they want the party to begin.

For us, however, it is a familiar road. During the First Republic, our leaders inherited the tradition from the British of trying to balance the budget. There was no need to spend more than you have earned. The leaders who led us to independence were great men who had great vision and tried their best to pursue their dreams. To understand the value of their service, you need to go to the universities they built. I do not know of any university in the South-West of Nigeria, and there are few in the world, that is better built than the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife. It was a product of the government of Western Region during the First Republic. Ditto could be said about Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, built by the regime of Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Premier of the defunct Northern Region during the First Republic.

The Dirty Little Lies Of Buhari’s Biographer

By Femi Fani-Kayode

Professor John Paden, President Muhammadu Buhari’s official biographer, is a man that is very comfortable with distorting the truth and telling lies. He is also a man that has been doing so for virtually all his adult life.

Anyone that doubts that should read his biography on the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, which was written in 1986 and titled Ahmadu Bello, Saurdana of Sokoto: Values and Leadership In Nigeria, and which is essentially a self-serving and comprehensive compilation of Bello’s numerous virtues with little or no mention of his many vices. I read that book twenty years ago and I placed it in the “light entertainment” shelf in my library because it lacked gravitas or any real intellectual stamina.

Aisha Buhari, President Buhari, Gen Gowon,
Gen Obasanjo at the October 3, 2016 book launch
 in Abuja 

It was, at best, a beautiful public relations job for Bello and, at worse, a compilation of disjointed verbiage fit only for the dustbin. Paden’s book on Buhari falls into the same category. It is nothing but an illusion: an extraordinary and fantastic fairy-tale built on a shady foundation of pseudo-intellectual clap-trap and garbage.

To him, President Buhari is infallible. He is, at best, an angel of light and, at worst, a perfect mortal with no warts. Paden’s latest contribution is the greatest exercise in dishonesty and historical revisionism that has ever been undertaken by any foreign or Nigerian historian since independence. The only one that comes close to it in this respect is the book that he wrote on the Sardauna and a number of other books that he authored over the years which were primarily about core northern Nigeria.

Writing rubbish seems to be Paden’s stock in trade. In his latest book, amongst many other glaring and shameless mendacities, he indulged in two particular lies that are an eloquent testimony to his perfidy. The first was that three names were sent to President Muhammadu Buhari for the position of Vice President, namely Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Yemi Osibanjo and Babatunde Raji Fashola in 2014 for the 2015 presidential election. This is false and it is simply an attempt to demean and belittle Tinubu and the role that he played in the whole exercise.

The truth is that it was Tinubu and Tinubu alone that forwarded the only name that was given serious consideration for the Vice Presidential slot by President Buhari. That name was Professor Yemi Osibanjo. Senator Olorunimbe Mamora was also considered by Buhari but he did not have the backing of Tinubu and neither did Tinubu forward his name. The idea that Tinubu’s name was forwarded to be Vice President alongside that of his two protégées in the persons of Osinbajo and Fashola is nothing but fantasy and it was a beautiful and tasteful dish and tale that was spiced cooked up and prepared in the kitchens of Aso Rock.

Nigeria’s Unity Is Negotiable, Mr. President

By Godwin Etakibuebu

A few days ago, President Muhammadu Buhari was quoted as telling a group of agitators from the Niger Delta region of the country that “Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable”. He went further by pulling from a former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, most popular quote while the Nigeria/Biafra war lasted to buttress his point. That quote said: “to keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done”. 

I want to convince myself that the President meant this “clarion” call of “non-negotiable of the Nigerian nation’s unity” for the attention of all militant groups or agitators in the country. This is necessary because what is good for the goose of the Niger Delta geo-political region of Nigeria is even better for other and all geo-political zones of the country. Of course, this slogan of “Nigeria’s Unity not negotiable” is not new; it is an age-long and over-used phrase by most political leaders in Nigeria. Proof at hand is that this slogan has failed the test of time.

It is time for us therefore to go to the other side of the current bargain of “non-negotiable” in finding solution to the peculiar and perilous challenge that may likely put Nigeria asunder sooner than expected by exploring the benefits of “negotiating the unity” of this geographical enterprise called Nigeria. First and foremost, there was no country by the name Nigeria until 1914 when the amalgamation took place under the watchful eyes of Lord Lugard. He happily adopted the name ‘Nigeria’, a loudly pronounced thought of that British journalist, Dame Flora Louise Shaw [1852 – 1929], who later became Lady Lugard – the adoption itself was negotiated.

 In a well-researched lecture given very recently [2013] by one seasoned and old British Scholar in the Nigerian House, London, under the chairmanship of Dalhatu Sarki Tafida, then Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, the revelation on the reason for the 1914 amalgamation by the British Empire was laid on the table. I was there at the lecture just by co-incidence of events. The two separate protectorates of both south and north coming together in 1914 was “based on the economic consideration of running the protectorate of the north which could not pay its bill”, according to the scholar/researcher, adding that “while the south protectorate was economically self-sufficient, the north protectorate was not”. It is in the face of this reality that the decision was taken by the Home Office to fuse both north and south protectorates together “so that the ‘unified’ country would be self-sufficient economically.

We, the people of this “area of the Niger”, as opined by Lady Lugard, were “negotiated” into a nebulously packaged unity by powers and influences out-side, even the continent of Africa, purely for the economic exigency of the British. I want to submit therefore, that a clarion call for the survival of this fraudulent unity that is operational in Nigeria presently should be negotiation-based, by the Nigerian people. Any opposition to this is begging for rapturous disaster. Let us pull from one major historical event of the past to be surer of the most likely profitable route, in enduring national survival, which we need to follow in this matter. 

Grazing Reserve Is Ethnic Imperialism

By Ochereome Nnanna

 The All Progressives Congress (APC) Federal Government led by President Muhammadu Buhari appears hell-bent on imposing the establishment of grazing reserves across Nigeria in spite of the many unpalatable implications it will unleash on unsuspecting Nigerians. On Thursday, 31 March 2016, I wrote an article on this column entitled: “Ranching, Yes; Grazing Reserves, No!” The article called attention to what was then speculated as intentions of the Federal Government to launch this obnoxious policy aimed at handing over lands belonging to indigenous communities to Fulani cattle owners in the guise of establishing “grazing reserves”.

Now, the masquerade has been unmasked: the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Audu Ogbeh, has disclosed that President Buhari has directed him to implement the programme. According to him, he will start it from the North, where he will establish 50,000 hectares of grazing reserves. Then, he will import his beloved Brazil grass to feed the cattle. When he is done with that, he will, in his own words: “move South”. With the Fulani herdsmen now settled in their newly-acquired grazing lands, perhaps without paying a kobo or even negotiating with landowners and obtaining their express permission to use their land, the herdsmen will stop invading communities, destroying the farms of poor villagers, killing, maiming, kidnapping, raping and dehumanising innocent Nigerians.

Nigeria will become self-sufficient in animal and dairy products, and everybody will live happily ever after. That is the picture Ogbeh and his paymasters are painting for us. However, we have very strong reasons to suspect that the establishment of grazing reserves is an ancient agenda of ethnic imperialism which dates back to the Fulani Jihads that Islamised the North about two hundred years ago.

I read an interesting article by one Dr. Gundu of the Department of Archaeology, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He gave a useful insight into the grazing reserves phenomenon, which should jolt our complacently ignorant countrymen, especially those from the Southern parts of the country. Gundu’s article is entitled: History Class On Grazing Reserves: Why Fulani Herdsmen Want Your Land.