Nigeria: The Return Of Decree 4

By Abraham Ogbodo

Last week, I wrote on a proposed bill, which seeks to calibrate free expression into love and hate speeches, with the latter attracting serious penalties including 10 years imprisonment and death. As I wrote from one end, a colleague, Mr. Don Okere, editor of Daily Independent Newspaper was at another end battling to call public attention to the unlawful detention of the Abuja Bureau Chief of the newspaper, Mr. Tony Ezimakor by the Department for State Security (DSS). The reporter was kept for days and incommunicado for refusal to disclose how he got information that the DSS had paid a princely $2 million to secure the release of some of the Chibok schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram terrorists in April 2014.

I do not know, who between Lawal Daura, the Director-general of DSS and President Muhammadu Buhari should take the blame for this. From the little I know of Daura, he is loaded with a lot of native enthusiasm that forbids him from pretence. Most times, and perhaps, without realising it, he presents himself more as a Fulani than he does as a Nigerian. He also does not pretend about his big stake in the Buhari presidency.

Aisha Buhari’s Insurgent Self-Assertion

By Alade Rotimi John  

It is perhaps appropriate to begin with the view echoed approvingly by narrators, commentators and analysts with respect to the comments of Mrs. Aisha Buhari in her a recent BBC interview to the effect that a new meaning (or, in fact, a refreshing niche) is being carved regarding the role of the wife of the President. The facile response of her husband rather than complement the deep thoughts of his wife, sadly casts a dark pall on a subject matter that is at once profound and vigorous. 

*Aisha Buhari 

Aisha has bemoaned the absence or non-inclusion in her husband’s government, of “Change!” elements representing the matrix of APC distinctiveness. She has metaphorically contrasted the scenario with a situation in which “Monkey dey work, baboon dey chop”. In this case, the proverbial monkey has worked its arse out but the baboon is mindlessly reaping the fruits of its labour to the chagrin of the apostles of change and their hangers-on.

There may dialectically be discerned in Aisha’s diatribe an almost incoherent ideological ministration regarding conflicting but germane issues of statecraft, intra-party relations, high-wired politics, cronyism, jobbery, etc.’inter se’. All these are critical or significant factors in a moral-ideological situation of a hotchpotch political arrangement which Aisha misleadingly refers to as “a movement”. The idea of a party of all-comers is in itself flawed ab initio. No unifying sense of purpose is discernible in APC’s conception or execution of policies and programmes.

There is no allegiance or commitment, among members, to a common ideal or goal. Groups within the party are working at cross purposes for the achievement of their respective group interests. In such a situation, as we unfortunately have on our hands, governance suffers groaningly. Aisha’s worry, no matter how deep or concerned, cannot take the place of the opportunism or crass selfishness that has already been factored or ingrained into the party’s processes; it cannot reverse or undo the damage which a desultory administration has wreaked on a faithful or trustful people these one and half years. The social and ideological framework for the change of our present unethical or amoral situation lies in the cultivation of a deep-seated culture of a popular democratic social order devoid of ethnic chauvinism, disrespect for hallowed institutions of state and impunity regarding order and set rules, etc.

The response or reaction of President Buhari to his wife’s comment in which he limits her roles to the kitchen, the living room and “the other room” will appear to be anachronistic in this age of proven women super-sonic performance of roles in rocket science, engineering, the professions of medicine and law, the arts, diplomacy and, even, in governance. Buhari’s faux pas is rendered even more repulsive or distasteful as it was made in a clime that has long overcome the bogey of the presumed prowess of the male person in all spheres of life, including in “the other room”. Our exhibit is no other than the headship of affairs and events in such an advanced country as Germany by a ruthlessly efficient Mrs. Angela Merkel. At a most distinguished level, there is now an evolved distinction not glibly as between a man and a woman but between the creative energies, cultivated gravity and gracefulness as may exist between a particular man or a particular woman.

Amina, Sambisa And The Parable Of A Wobbly Nigeria

By Okey Ndibe

A peculiarly Nigerian type of frenzy happened last week. The event was triggered by a report that a young woman named Amina Ali Nkeki, one of the more than 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted in the night of April 14, 2014, had been rescued. The initial reports disclosed that a vigilante group rescued Amina last Tuesday, as she wandered along the edges of Sambisa Forest in the company of a man, who claimed to be her husband, but was suspected to be a Boko Haram insurgent, and a four-month baby in her arms.

*Amina Ali Nkeki, rescued Chibok girl
meets President Buhari 

From there, it was brouhaha all the way. Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State feted the 19-year-old mother. Then, a day later, President Muhammadu Buhari welcomed Amina and her baby to Aso Rock, his official residence. The misfortunate woman was cast in a dizzying drama that featured photo-ops, speeches and global media coverage. The president cradled Amina’s baby in his arms, as he and others beamed for the cameras. Speaking on behalf of the Nigerian state, the president promised that Amina would receive the best physical, psychological and emotional healthcare Nigeria can provide.

You’d think, watching all the excitement, that all 219 schoolgirls, not just one, had been spirited from their abductors. But that was the one narrative, thumbed with the imprimatur of the Nigerian state. There was an album of counter-narratives, running the gamut from those who insisted that the whole thing was an abject hoax, a stage-managed political theatre, to those who believe that the abduction saga never happened in the first place.

Last Thursday, two days after Amina’s rescue, the Nigerian military announced a second rescue, of a youngster named Serah Luka. It was as if a slow momentum was building up, Nigeria on the cusp of finding and liberating the 200 odd victims, who are not accounted for.

But the second success story turned out a dud. Chibok parents as well as activists, who pressed former President Goodluck Jonathan – and are pressing Mr. Buhari – to bring back the schoolgirls questioned the military’s claim that Serah was one of the schoolgirls. Neither her name nor image was on the roster of the missing schoolgirls.

Whether it was an honest mistake or a calculated fib, the misidentification of Serah, as one of the Chibok schoolgirls further fueled conspiracy theories. The first and second rescues were seen as politically orchestrated maneuvers, a plot by the Buhari administration and its champions to deflect attention from biting economic crises and deepening social misery.

Some doubters wondered why Amina, who was supposed to be sitting certificate exams at the time of her abduction, was incapable of expressing herself in English. Her apparent incapacity fed speculations that she was chosen and cast in a contrived melodrama.