As Fashola Delivers ‘TheNiche’ Lecture

When the newspaper came on board in April 2014, the editorial policy captured its mission: “TheNiche will always anchor its position on the need for social justice, fairness and respect for human and communal rights … will be uncompromising against any form of discrimination and subjugation either by tribe, gender or religion.”

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

On Thursday, September 8, 2022, former Lagos State Governor and Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, will deliver the 2022 edition of TheNiche Annual Lecture at the MUSON Centre, Onikan Lagos.

Getting the minister to deliver the lecture is by no means a walk in the park. We didn’t expect it would be considering the fact that as a hands-on minister traversing the length and breadth of the country, ensuring that projects under the purview of his ministry are delivered timeously, time will always be a challenge.

But the theme of the lecture – 2023 Elections And The Future Of Nigeria’s Democracy – did the magic. Fashola is not only cerebral, he is an unrepentant democrat, always seeking ways of deepening Nigeria’s democracy, which is still fledgling at 23. The lecture provides him an opportunity to live his passion.

Five Challenges Buhari Should Tackle Now

By Martins Oloja

President Muhammadu Buhari, leader of the most populous black nation on earth, may not be well aware of what most of the citizens are saying at this time about his administration and how far they think he can take Nigeria. It is indubitable that most president’s men tell any president-in-council what they think he would like to hear. Presidential aides and even most cabinet members are not known to be ready to tell the president any inconvenient truth that can strain the relationship. What is more, our leaders at all levels like sycophants and mediocrities to be around them. 

*President Buhari 

But despite overt hostility to even groundswell of opinion and wise counsel, I think we should continue to wish our leaders well by advising them on what we think they should do for our public good. We should not be weary in doing good, despite their poor attitude to reading and listening. That is why I would like to join good people who have been suggesting some priorities to our leaders, especially since the build-up to the 59th anniversary of our independence early this month. 

From Falae to Funke – All Rhetoric No Action

By Martins Oloja

Before Governors Rotimi Akeredolu and Kayode Fayemi begin to speak in tongues again on the Ruga ambush now kicking the Yoruba nation in the face, let’s encourage them to look up first to the people of Ekiti and Ondo States before some ‘principalities and powers’ in Abuja. The body language and utterances of these two governors on the curious ‘colonisation’ agenda can implicate and injure them a great deal if they don’t manage perception well around them at the moment.

*Olu Falae 

But before anything else, these two prominent governors who will always be in the eye of the storm because of the preponderance of Funani settlements in their domains, should let the president know at this moment that as in Skakespeare’s Macbeth, “Here is the smell of blood still, all perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand”.

The Significance Of Citizen Peter Obi

By Martins Oloja

In a working democracy not polluted by soldiers of fortune, political parties and the power elite would have long courted former Governor Peter Obi as a presidential candidate to disrupt some dark forces and institutions that have held down a significant country like Nigeria. But this is Nigeria where the most important qualification to be a candidate for a high profile office is loyalty to ‘political party owners’ or the godfathers. This is the one of the reasons we have been battling with the spirit of near-success syndrome – since 1966 when we lost democracy and federalism. The vicious godfathers are still in charge even for #Project2019. 

*Peter Obi

Despite this prevailing political condition, I think Mr. Peter Obi, as running mate to a presidential candidate at this time should still be celebrated as a glimmer of hope for the most populous black nation on earth. The reason for this additional note to a series of contextual reporting of the man so far is simple. Current attacks on him by a section of the power elite in Eastern Nigeria and celebration of his nomination by the sophisticated Western Nigeria for instance, also illustrate a message of restoration for those who have lost faith in the optimism of the Mandelas who believe that it is only through Nigeria that Africa and the black race would be blessed and celebrated.

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. 

What Happened To APC Report On Federalism?

By Martins Oloja

As politicians are jostling to secure their positions within #PROJECT2019, defecting to different parties in pursuit of relevance for only themselves, subordinating the sanctity of the rule of law to personal interests, perfecting how to truncate press freedom, we need to ask political leaders in the governing party what they want to do with the most important document they produced and made public in January this year: ‘Report of The APC Committee on True Federalism’.

*Buhari and el-Rufai 

 I am fully persuaded that it is public interest to ask about this all-important document and failure to be genuine about how to implement the contents before next year’s election may undermine national security too. And here is the thing, those who always afraid of the hard questions in the governing APC, should not regard this question on what they want to do with their report as a political question: It is a question on nation building and the future of the world’s most populous black nation, Nigeria.

Before Buhari Tampers With Press Freedom Again

By Martins Oloja

Even if we encourage ourselves by wishing for peaceful coverage of the 2019 election processes, as journalists, there are warning signals for us to prepare for war with this administration. Reason: most of us are beginning to discern that despite their assurances since May 2015, they are set to tinker ruthlessly with press freedom for their ‘Project 2019’. 

*President Buhari and his adviser on media,
Femi Adesina

On March 16, 2015, the then candidate Muhammadu Buhari told the newspapers’ proprietors and editors: “I won’t tamper with press freedom…”  

Buhari, who then said a change revolution was imminent in the country without firing a shot also assured the influential members of the Newspapers’ Proprietors Association of Nigeria( NPAN) and the Nigerian Guild of Editors ( NGE) at an interaction in Abuja:

‘Redemption Songs For Buhari’s Presidency’

By Martins Oloja

In an ancient political plot captured by Shakespeare in his classic, Julius Caesar, a minor character, Artemidorus, prepares what he calls a caveat for Caesar. 

*Buhari

He reads the warning aloud that he (Caesar) may escape an evil plot by his friends and members of his ‘inner circle.’(Reading aloud from the letter) Artemidorus warns in clear terms:

“Caesar, beware of Brutus. Watch Cassius. Don’t go near Casca. Keep an eye on Cinna. Don’t trust Trebonius. Pay attention to Metellus Cimber. Denius Brutus doesn’t love you. You’ve wronged Caius Ligarius. These men all have one intention, and it’s directed against Caesar. If you aren’t immortal, watch those around you. A sense of security opens the door to conspiracy. I pray that the mighty gods defend you! Your friend, Artemidorus.”

Nigeria: Before Bad Politics Relegates Good Policies

By Martins Oloja

Combined effects of bad politics within governing party (APC), president’s aloofness and strange executive procrastination appear to have stolen some thunder from two good governance policies that would have shaped good public opinion for the Buhari administration last week.

*President Buhari 

In other words, curious focus on do-or-die politics in Ekiti and the implications of incipient implosion within the governing party where some born-‘again(st) reformers’ are scrambling for new platforms seem to have taken the steam out of what would have been reported last week as the Buhari government’s special focus on building institutions for strengthening democracy and the economy.

2019: Because Buhari Is Too Old To Run

By Martins Oloja

I would like rely on some ancient words of a wise king who once said, “there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heaven”. Yes, there is a time to be quiet. There is a time to be loud; a time to be politically correct in the interest of peace. And there is a time to refrain from political correctness and speak truth to power in public interest. And this should include a time to tell our best friends the truth and nothing but the truth, especially the one to set them free from unnecessary fear. I am therefore fully persuaded that it is time to tell our friends, especially in the far North, some plain truth about Nigeria. Yes, Nigeria whose destiny all of us are gambling with at the moment. 

*

For the record, I have more friends in the North. I have had some personal relationship with the North that spanned about three decades. My professional profile was remarkably shaped in December 1990 when the premier newspaper in Abuja owned by investors from the North appointed me Editor of their newspaper, The Abuja Newsday. I once narrated part of the remarkable story of the first newspaper in the nation’s capital here. I had then noted that Alhaji Bukar Zarma, former editor of New Nigerian who hails from Borno state, set up the newspaper and appointed all the editors without consideration for religion and ethnicity. The Chairman of the Board of Directors was Alhaji Hassan Adamu, Wakilin Adamawa.

Will President Buhari’s 2019 Ambition Ruin His Anti-Graft Agenda?

By Martins Oloja

Verily, verily, we should say it to President Muhammadu Buhari and the men and women who are assisting in running his government that this is not the best of time to say ‘silence is golden’. Surely, silence can’t be a strategy in Nigeria at this time when there are serious concerns and questions about the future of the most populous black nation on earth.

*President Muhammadu Buhari 

Before the president’s reputation managers start screaming blue murder and resume their blame game on the previous administration, the concerns raised today are not about them. They (concerns) are about the office of the president from the office of the citizen. The president and his men should note that before they begin to raise huge funds for the 2019, there are weightier matters of governance, especially about corruption that they should settle quickly, lest they will be the last in 2019.

Indications are daily emerging that politicking around 2019 is beginning to becloud sound judgment in the presidency. As I noted here last week, there is no need reading the president’s lips anymore: I advised us to read his leaps in Kano the other day. 

The Robert Mugabe In Most Of Us

By Martins Oloja

This week I have had to deepen my understanding of why Master Jesus had to be angry with (religious) hypocrites of his time. Jesus is introduced to us in the scriptures as a calm, cool and collected teacher, preacher and healer until he encounters hypocrisy and speaks angrily about hypocrites. In the account in Matthew 23, Jesus who for the first time shows that he can lose his cool too, pronounces a series of woes on the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees. 

*Mugabe

He condemns the Pharisees’ lack of spiritual values, as shown by the arbitrary distinctions they make. For example, they say: “If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing; but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is under obligation.” They thus show their moral blindness, for they put more emphasis on the gold of the temple than on the spiritual value of Jehovah’s place of worship. And thus, they “have disregarded the weightier matters of the Law, namely, justice, mercy and faithfulness.”​ (v-16-23).

Is President Buhari’s Integrity Overrated?

By Martins Oloja

This thing called integrity is the most powerful weapon of mass distraction General Muhammadu Buhari’s point men used to win most supporters’ hearts in 2015. Yes, their intangible but lethal missile got us at our very point of our need as a nation. We had then really needed a man of integrity, a good Nigerian indeed in whom there was no guile. We wanted a clean and strong vessel who could rescue us from the years the locusts had eaten at least up to that point. And most of us found a man we could trust in the lanky General from Daura. And in March, 2015, the election agency we all believed said he (PMB) defeated the then incumbent President, Goodluck Jonathan, who also meekly joined the nation in congratulating Mr. Integrity who trounced him to the delight of many.

*Buhari 

But is appears that barely two and half years after the election, the arrogant illiterate of the 21st century around ‘the man of integrity’ are making most of us to have a rethink that the integrity of the taciturn former head of state may have been massively overrated after all, just as Collin J. Browne, an organisational culture expert, noted in a 2015 classic titled, “Integrity is massively overrated”.

Meanwhile, the concept of “the illiterate of the 21st century” is not original to me too. It is to Alvin Toffler I have quoted several times here. The sociologist and writer on organization development and leadership says, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”.

Buhari: Where Is The Change Promised?

By Martins Oloja 

This is not a time for speaking in tongues. It is a time to tell President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) and all the governing APC chieftains that two years should be enough to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, as someone once put it comically too, there is neither a tunnel nor light in the country where mediocrity is daily nurtured by sycophancy. 

*Buhari

Indeed, a season of sycophancy is here again and the cheer leaders and mega sycophants who are members of a mega party called AGIP (Any Government in Power) will heap mega praises on the Buhari administration for dealing decisively with corruption and insecurity in the North East. And we in the media will readily assist them in propagating the ‘monumental achievements’ in the last two years. In fact, their consultants within the media have begun the journalistic legwork. And from tomorrow (May 29, 2017), we will be reading balanced stories with headlines such as “Knocks, Kudos For Buhari’s Two Years In Office”. In the end there will be more “kudos” than “knocks” for the 'wonderful' administration, an idea no force on earth could have stopped in May, 2015. We are indeed in an era of sycophancy that has shaped massive mediocrity everywhere we go in the country.

Why Is Governor’s Office So Seductive In Nigeria?

By Martins Oloja

The ecclesiastical saying that there is a time for everything comes in handy today to interrogate some political matters that are weightier than the stale and inevitable tango between the sleepy executive and the restless legislature in Abuja. And here is the thing, it is time to examine what is so constantly seductive about the office of the Governor in Nigeria, that most politically active persons, federal and state legislators, returning foreign envoys, retired public servants, retired clerics, repentant militants and insurgents, special advisers and former Speakers want to contest that office.

It is curiouser and curiouser that even former governors that have run for only one term and even serving as ministers, a former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) all want to be nothing but governors. What is in it for the aspirants and even occupants of that office? Are they going to fulfill a constitutional provision for ‘welfare and security of the citizens, which shall be the primary purpose of government? Political intelligence has it that at the moment, Senator Chris Ngige, a former governor of Anambra state, a former Senator representing Anambra state, currently serving as a Minister is in a dilemma even as he is mobilizing fund to contest the 2017 election for governorship. So is Dr. Kayode Fayemi, former Governor of Ekiti State, a serving Minister who wants to return as Governor.

A former CBN Governor, a Professor of Economics who once contested the office, is said to be warming up again to plunge into the murky governorship waters. Mr. Dimeji Bankole, former Speaker of the House of Representatives who never had little or no experience before he was elected member of the House of Representatives, has been fighting to be governor of Ogun State, not minding the principalities and powers that would always frustrate him in his state. When his successor, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal raised his hand to be counted among those to challenge PMB, in 2015, he was quickly drafted by the powers behind the throne to accept to be governor of Sokoto State as a settlement. All protocols and legal processes were bent and broken for him to emerge as the only candidate. But the seducers got him with governorship ticket bait. What is in that office the occupants have added a qualifier to as “executive” governor” that is not in the constitution?

“There are a few exemplars that are quietly setting the tone for federalism at the moment: Lagos, Akwa Ibom,  Ekiti, Kano states, etc are strategically evolving as federalism brand ambassadors.” 

Ifeanyi Uba, an oil magnate, a successful football club owner and publisher of The Authority newspaper, in the eye of the storm over some allegation of missing N110 billion in his domain, would like to do all that is politically possible to be the next governor of Anambra state. Nothing else appeals to him. He had taken that road before. What is in that office?