Nigeria: The Rule Of Man

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

President Muhammadu Buhari chose the most auspicious place to officially declare his disdain for the rule of law and his avowed preference for the rule of man, his own rule, in the Nigerian nation-state, where he has been deploying his might in its vast capriciousness and whimsicality since he stepped in the saddle on May 29, 2015. 

*Buhari 

The declaration was last Sunday at the International Conference Centre, ICC, in Abuja, venue of this year’s Nigerian Bar Association conference. Members of the Bar and the Bench were there in their numbers. The assemblage of officers in the temple of justice was representative of the nation’s judiciary, an independent arm of the trinity of government.

Nigeria: Of Treacheries By Political Mercenaries

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

“As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him. 

So Jesus told him, what you are about to do, do quickly”

– John 13:27 (New International Version of the Holy Bible). 

Those who are conversant with the verse of the Bible quoted supra would remember very vividly what happened and the context in which Jesus made the statement.  

*Buhari and Saraki

But for those who are not, what transpired was that the time that Jesus Christ would be crucified was at hand and it has been written that one man, Judas, a son of perdition, who would fulfill a negative prophecy, would betray him to those who sought to carry out his arrest for the purpose of His trial and crucifixion. Jesus knew from the outset of creation that Judas had been predestined to accomplish that task in human history.  Judas, therefore, did not have the grace to resist the supernatural obligation to keep that grisly appointment with destiny.

Gale Of Defections And The Buhari Factor

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

The coming together of political forces of the oppositional hue in the build-up to the 2015 general election portended a grave danger for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In any case, the behemoth, which the PDP typified at the time, had imprudently and lightly treated the ill-omened development and paid dearly for it.

*President Buhari 

The PDP was brought down in prostrate surrender to the supremacy of the rainbow coalition of opposition parties that formed the All Progressives Congress (APC) on which platform Muhammadu Buhari clinched his historic victory over Goodluck Jonathan. That defeat of an incumbent president was novel in the annals of the nation’s presidential elections. 

Forgery: Kemi Adeosun’s Disdain Without Remorse

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

From the way the federal government is hedging over the saga of the forged National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) exemption certificate by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, it is clear that the felony is enjoying condonation by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari; otherwise, the matter should have been decisively dealt with by now and consigned to the dustbin of history. Or, put differently, Adeosun should have, by now, become history. 

*Kemi Adeosun 

But this is not the situation. The minister, who is in the eye of the storm, has taken refuge in feigned meekness and has, in fact, continued to benefit from the paraphernalia of her office, perhaps, in the hope that the matter will die naturally. This is not only nauseating but also treating Nigerians with disdain. It is obvious that the administration is acting true to type, either mollycoddling wrongdoers or vacillating before giving them the boot.  Adeosun is, without a doubt, being pampered; this is, perhaps, the reason she has not deemed it fit to show remorse.

From Buhari To Adeosun: The Ethical Question

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

The resolution of three episodes of corruption between 1999 and 2005 in the federal legislature and the executive arm of government under the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo had initially indicated the seeming gravitas of that administration.  But, to be sure, it was not Obasanjo’s persona or the magnitude of his philosophical swagger that gave fillip to the seriousness attached to the anti-corruption actions, which fatally extinguished the luminous epochs of some politicians and public office holders at the time.

*Kemi Adeosun 

The soberness, in fact, derived from the interplay of the unfortunate tomfoolery in government and the collective appreciation as well as interrogation by Nigerians of the universal concepts of good and bad or right and wrong that defined public perception of governmental interactions in the ecology of the nation’s prevalent cloak-and-dagger politics. The whiff of that political correctness had conferred on the administration a false garb of propriety in official conducts and public finance management.

Carnage And Poverty As National Tragedies

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

Two existential issues – security and poverty- that bear great relevance to the assessment of performance of governments globally reared their heads back-to-back, last week, in Nigeria. Both issues were so tangible that they could not escape essential appraisal and indictment.

While the carnage in Bakin Ladi local government area of Plateau State on June 23, 2018 was so self-evident such that it could not be denied by the Federal Government, the Brookings report that Nigeria has overtaken India as the global poverty capital has been rebutted by government through the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah. 

Of Abacha Loot, Malami And Twisted Narrative

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

A narrative in a section of the media about the repatriation of our national assets stashed in a number of foreign jurisdictions by the late former head of state, General Sani Abacha, has been insidiously skewed against the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN). The narrative has become so routinely rehashed that the underlying motive has now become writ large to the uncritical readers: it is purely to tar Malami with the brush of malfeasance in the loot repatriation. The overarching goal is to damage the Malami persona, discount his integrity capital and contaminate the whiff of his discretionary prowess in decision-taking.

*Gen Abacha 

The rash of calumnious campaigns against Malami finds anchorage in the determination of the contract of the Swiss lawyer, Enrico Monfrini, and the engagement of a team of Nigerian lawyers-Oladipo Okpeseyi (SAN) and Tope Adebayo-in Monfrini’s stead to complete the processes that he began. The Olusegun Obasanjo administration had engaged Monfrini in 1999 to trace, confiscate and repatriate looted Nigerian funds kept in coded accounts by Abacha. From 1999 up until 2016 when Malami disengaged Monfrini, the Swiss had turned the repatriation into a slush fund in service of a cartel. The good news is that Malami had since dismantled the cartel to the chagrin of vested interest.

Abacha Loot: Matters Miscellany

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

I got a credible information last week from some grapevines in Abuja that the much-talked about outstanding sum of $322 million (not $321 million as has been widely reported) stashed away in some secret accounts by former military dictator, the late General Sani Abacha, in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland, routinely referred to as Abacha loot, has been repatriated and it is sitting pretty in a dedicated account in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

This calls for pomp and ceremony, especially by the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), which had committed to ensure that the loot was repatriated, regardless of the shenanigans and blackmail from within and outside some official quarters in Nigeria. 

*Late Gen Abacha

 A powerful Nigerian delegation, led by Malami and comprising a team of Nigerian law firm of Oladipo Okpeseyi and Co., had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Swiss Federal Council and the World Bank on December 7, 2017 for the repatriation of the loot, composed of $250 million traced to Liechtenstein and $72 million traced to Luxembourg, which was confiscated by the Court of Switzerland. 

That Danjuma’s Significant Outburst

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

We mean to hold our own.  I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire, said the indefatigable Prime Minister of Britain during World War 11, Winston Churchill, in 1942. But unfortunately, that was what he was compelled to do as recounted by Peter Clarke in his book titled: The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire. In a rave review of the book, Allan Massie surmised that Churchill rightly dominated the book as he was shown, warts and all, from the drawing on the diaries of Alan Alanbooke and Sir Alec Cadogan, as infuriating, often boring, sometimes wandering, arriving at meetings without having read his briefing papers, often unrealistic in his demands, hell to work with.

*Gen Danjuma

Curiously, the more Churchill’s weaknesses were exposed, the more splendid he seemed. According to Massie, If at times Alanbrooke and others wondered how they could win the war with him, they all knew it would have been impossible without him.  To be sure, Churchill, soldier, writer and politician, was one of Britain’s greatest heroes, particularly remembered for his indomitable spirit while leading Great Britain to victory in World War 11.  Churchill wrote his war memoirs and titled the last volume: Triumph and Tragedy. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 among other great accomplishments.

Dapchi Girls: Of Sham Release And Cynical Citizenry

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

Between February 19, 2018 when the Dapchi schoolgirls were abducted by supposed Boko Haram insurgents and Wednesday, March 21, 2018, when the news broke that 101 of them had been released, I had offered perspectives on the incident in two articles. The first was titled: “Chibok and Dapchi girls: The whoredom of Karma” while the second was titled: “Gbomogbomo as metaphor.”

The second article, in particular, provides the take-off point for the current intervention. Therein, I had expressed a concern at the role abductions of schoolgirls play in our presidential politics.  My thesis was that our abducted schoolgirls in the northeast zone have become objects of political bargain in the hands of our modern day real or prearranged gbomogbomo, a Yoruba word transliterated as stealer of children.

2019 Election Sequence: Overriding President Buhari’s Veto

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

By writing to both chambers of the National Assembly to express his reservations about the Electoral Act 2010 Amendment Bill, President Muhammadu Buhari has  withheld his assent and cast doubt on the rationality of the lawmakers to review or amend the contentious provisions of the Act. What this means, in legislative parlance, is that the president has vetoed the bill. Consequently, the National Assembly is now in a position to override the veto  by two-thirds of its members at separate sittings.

*President Buhari and Senate President Saraki

There is no doubt that the nation is about to witness another executive-legislature face-off in constitution reviews, amendments of Acts of Parliament and lawmaking process where the executive arm of government feels its interest is threatened by the spirit and the letter of the proposed laws or amendments. To be sure, the National Assembly has performed its constitutional function in the circumstance to the dissatisfaction of the incumbent head of the executive arm.

Hello, Buhari Is Beatable In 2019

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

In 2015, serial presidential contestant, Muhammadu Buhari, emerged victorious through the instrumentality of enclave politics to which the north adroitly resorted in the face of plans by Goodluck Jonathan to ensconce himself in power for another four years. Had Jonathan succeeded, the north, barring any unforeseen circumstances, would have been out of presidential power for ten unbroken years following the demise of President Umaru Yar’Adua.

*Buhari 

 That cold fact apparently nudged the north to throw everything into the mix of 2015 presidential power politics. Many key northern elements in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) deployed political brinkmanship, dismantled loyalty that characteristically underpins leadership-followership construction, betrayed trust and deceived Jonathan in the utilisation of campaign and election funds in order to ensure the defeat of a sitting president, for the first time, in the annals of Nigeria’s presidential election.

The Myth About Buhari’s 12 Million Northern Votes

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

Short of saying, whether you vote or not, we will win, Kano state governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, who is locked in a supremacy battle with his erstwhile boss, former governor of the state and current senator, Rabiu Kwankwaso, for the political soul of Kano, was boasting, the other day, of his capacity to mobilise and return five million votes for President Muhammadu Buhari, if he contests, in the 2019 presidential election. That is quite massive in a situation where it is realistic or doable! 

*President Buhari 

For me, Ganduje’s declaration was nothing but a day-dream. But then, it could be preparatory to some advanced forms of rigging because, in the first instance, the figure of registered voters in Kano in the 2015 general elections was 4,943,862. Assuming, arguendo, that the figure goes up to between five and six million after the continuous voter registration, can the governor guarantee that five million voters would cast their votes for Buhari, especially if the leading opposition party decides to field a formidable northerner and possibly a Fulani man against the president? 

Southern Kaduna Massacres On My Mind

By  Sufuyan Ojeifo

“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and, therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” John Donne

Southern Kaduna is a microcosm of Nigeria.  It is, by any stretch of the imagination, emblematic of our collectivity.  The people, who are marooned in their troublous ancestral Kaduna locale share a common civilization with us who are, somewhat, liberated in the ambiance of the expansive Nigerian-nation. Therefore, the killings of southern Kaduna indigenes by Fulani herdsmen, for whatever reasons, are nothing but fatal assaults on the humanity in all of us. 

The south of Kaduna has, historically, become a minefield of mindless genocide that has left the people immersed in eternal fear.  Scores of indigenes have been killed by installments.  Unfortunately, many more will, painfully, be victims of Fulani herdsmen’s fatal rampages as there are yet no verifiable foolproof measures in place to avert the incessant cold-blooded massacres that have been the tragic narrative of the hapless people.

One is continuously diminished by the killing of a man or woman, youth or child in southern Kaduna, an enclave that is predominantly occupied by Christian population.  “One life taken in cold blood,” according to the late inimitable journalist, Dele Giwa, “is as gruesome as millions lost in a pogrom.” 

Nigeria: A Dishonest Political Circus

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

I have watched with amusement the hollow rituals of “comic tragedy” or tragicomedy, which the defection of politicians from one political party to another typifies. The polity has witnessed, in recent times, movements by some politicians who were, doubtless, respected leaders of their people up until their sudden volte-face and gravitation to other political parties, characteristically for obvious reasons.  Anytime I see them on television or read about them in the print media announcing, with glee, their decision to jump ship because they have suddenly realised how bad their original party has been and how disciplined and forward-looking their newfound party is, they cut a pathetic picture to the sight and create a sardonic impression in the mind.

What they, perhaps, know but which they do not give a heck about is that they do not enjoy the respect of well-meaning Nigerians, including, most of the times, their followers, especially those of them who can hold their own without the usual compromising handouts from “the lords of the manors.” This dimension reinforces the age-long subjugating notion of stomach infrastructure, which has, only recently, been so elegantly described and tagged in the aftermath of the 2014 Ekiti governorship election that swept Ayodele Fayose into power.

Nevertheless, political leaders’ movements have characteristically thrown up the loyalty question.   As supposed leaders, they have failed the critical test of loyalty by wavering in their commitment to the party on which platform they have been voted into elective offices.  Rather than consistently and persistently inspire confidence in their followers, they have disconcerted them, dealing a strong blow to their pristine sense of conservative attachment to the party.  It thus becomes crystal clear that the followership that has remained unwavering in its support is, indeed, the nucleus of the tribe of enthusiastic and enchanted party faithful, not the opportunistic political elites who, always wanting to be politically correct, lack the discipline to promote and embrace any well-defined ideological standpoint, which the followership can relate with or approximate under their tutelage.