Nigeria’s Fantastic Corruption

By Francis Ejiroghene Waive

Except that it was a public slap on our face, the British Prime Minister’s description of corruption in Nigeria as fantastic is true.  Many blame President Buhari for referring to our country as corrupt on the international scene and so hold him responsible for the label. We forget that Transparency International has held this position for years. Perhaps, our grouping with a failed or failing State like Afghanistan is what shocks our sensibilities this time. To some Nigerians, however, this could be the wakeup call to kill corruption in our country before it kills all of us.

While social media is filled with Nigerians claiming not to be corrupt I doubt if there is any Nigerian who has not been a victim of the scourge of corruption. I agree that not all of us are perpetrators of this ugly phenomenon but the malaise is so widespread that one brush seems to fit all. There is no sector of our economy that is not affected. As a young person starts life, you encounter it when you want to get into school and while in school. When you rent your first house and need electricity and other utilities, it stares you in the face. When you begin looking for a job or you start a business, you will be overwhelmed by it. For a foreigner, you first meet it at our borders or entry points into the country. The harassment and extortion of staff of the several agencies will cow you. Even our religious institutions and leaders are not immune from this disease.

All our public institutions are infected by it. What document do you want to process in our courts or ministries, government agencies or departments that you won’t pay a bribe for? What business do you want to transact that won’t involve kick-backs and kick-fronts?  Shamelessly, even the private sector is now an integral part of corruption. Private companies are wrecked by mangers and other officials. Is it a bank loan you are processing or a dealership in a product manufactured by a local company? There is no need to discuss the image of our police force battered by corruption. Most of our parastatals are simply run aground with corruption. Nigeria Airways, Railways, NITEL, NEPA and an unending list of many others. Even the privatization option was compromised as our leaders used government money to appropriate our national assets to themselves and their cronies. Top civil servants ensure ghost workers exist and they pad budgets and thereafter award contracts for capital projects to themselves and political office holders.

Nigeria, As Presently Operated, Is Not Sustainable

By Gani Adams  

I would like to salute the organisers of this event for counting me worthy to deliver this lecture on an issue that threatens the very basis of our unity as we speak. There are many sides to the farmers/herdsmen’s crisis but let us just consider two, namely the political and the economic.

*Gani Adams

The political side

Now, Nigeria, for many of its over 250 ethnic groups, is obviously not a nation in the sense that we regard France, United Kingdom or South Africa as a nation. That is why, as recently pointed out by Mr. Dan Nwayanwu, former chairman of the Labour Party, during a programme organised by the Ondo State Government in Akure: given an option, many of the ethnic groups in Nigeria would prefer to opt out of Nigeria.

Already, groups such as the Indigenous People of Biafra and the Niger Delta Avengers, among others, have more or less shattered whatever illusions we may retain regarding the Nigeria that we are living in. While Nigeria would obviously be better off remaining a nation, it is also true that a surgical operation is required to take out the cancer of disintegration currently ravaging the country on every side. And this is quite simply because Nigeria, as it is presently operated, is not sustainable.

Nigeria is supposed to be a federal republic but it operates a unitary constitution where the states, like children, simply go to Abuja at the end of every month to collect food. They cannot even feed themselves. Is it not an utter shame that the descendants of the Oyo empire, Kanem-Bornu empire, Benin empire, and so on, have to go cap in hand to Abuja, collecting allocation that cannot even pay workers’ salaries when the traditional system which guaranteed full employment and a decent standard of living can be recreated through proper federalism like we had in the First Republic?

In the USA, it was the states that came together to form the central/federal government currently headed by Barack Obama.

In Nigeria, it was the Centre or Federal Government that created the states for political reasons and to achieve what the eminent Igbo scholar, Chinweizu, referred to as Caliphate Colonialism; a system whereby some people are born to rule. This is quite simply an aberration, and our consideration of farmers/herdsmen’s clashes must thus begin from this context.

If we have a federal republic that is nothing but a sham, a big fraud, why then are we surprised that a group of Boko Haram members masquerading as herdsmen have been terrorising innocent farmers across the country? If, for instance, there is state police, would the herdsmen have found it easy to attack farmers, rape women and slaughter them afterwards, burn down entire villages, and even carry out major robberies on major highways while the security agencies look the other way?

What Is Fueling Demand For Biafra?

By Chris Enyinnaya  

The word Biafra has been a taboo to successive governments in Nigeria simply because Republic of Biafra was defeated by a coalition of Nigerian Armed Forces and forces deployed by Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to join them in 1970. The first thing the government of General Yakubu Gowon did was to outlaw the word Biafra, and gazetted it; which is why any mention of Biafra got any Nigerian government angry. Yet, the Igbo cannot do away with the word Biafra. Why? Biafra is a spirit. You can kill the body but not the spirit. That is why the word Biafra keeps recurring like a decimal. To the true Igbo man, Biafra means freedom from operation in this country called Nigeria. The Igbo man feels, and events seem to justify it, that he is oppressed in Nigeria nation. The Igbo man believes in fairness and level playing ground in a competitive environment. Like all competitions, it is winner takes all. The corollary is that the Igbo man believes in merit-driven, just and egalitarian society. Nigeria is not providing the Igbo man the platform to freely express himself.

When the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) was established by the Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe-led Eastern Nigerian government in 1960, it was widely criticised as a glorified secondary school when compared to the University College Ibadan, which was actually University of London, Ibadan Campus which was established in 1948. UNN was awarding her own certificates to pioneer graduates in 1963, when University of Ibadan, established was still awarding the certificate of University of London.

Because the Nigerian nation is denying Igbo man merit in the scheme of things, and in the right sense of the word, Igbo man feels short-changed with Federal Government policies like federal character, state of origin, catchment area, and equality of states principle applied in admission to Federal Government owned secondary schools and tertiary institutions. That was why my daughter, born in Lagos and classified as an indigene of Abia State with a higher cut off mark than Lagos State (72% post JAMB) was denied admission to read Economics at the University of Lagos whereas her classmate from Ogun State that scored 65% was offered admission.

 The irony here is that my daughter was born in Lagos like her classmate. But when it comes to admission to Federal government college or university, she is classed as indigene of Abia State where my father comes from, and get knocked out by higher Abia cut-off mark being classed as an educationally advantaged state instead of Lagos State which at the time was lower.

Nigeria: The Futility Of Bandaging Septic Wounds

By Chuks Iloegbunam

December 1994 and June 2016 are two ep­ochs, separated by 22 years, which send an unambiguous and implacable message – the impracticality of the most mouthed of Nigeria’s platitudes.

Dig this: In December 1994, a hysterical crowd forced itself into a Police station in Kano and bundled out a detained Gideon Akaluka, a young Igbo trader and Christian, who had been falsely accused of using pages of the Koran like toilet paper. The mob decapitated Gideon, spiked his severed head and carried it around town like a trophy.

*President Buhari and Emir of
Kano, Sanusi

On June 2, 2016, Mrs. Bridg­et Agbahime (74), an Igbo housewife and Christian, was seized in Kano and lynched – on a false charge of blaspheming Islam. Naturally, there has been the anticipated outrage and up­roar from the afflicted camp. It could be treated just like an­other statistic: an old woman murdered because she was of an unwanted ethnic group, and because she professed a religion that, in the eyes of her killers, automatically made her an in­fidel.

There are screams for the cul­prits’ apprehension and punish­ment. But, that does not address the problem; it merely scratches at the surface of a malignant tumour. Of course, it is natural for some Nigerians to blow hot air in the face of difficult chal­lenges. Still a fundamental clari­fication is imperative because anyone unaware of the sources of their pummeling stands little chance of activating a defence mechanism.

The crucial point is the politi­cally contrived dispensability of the Igbo life. It started in 1943 in Jos, when the first massacre of Ndigbo took place. There is a documented history to it all, which the volume entitled Mas­sacre of Ndigbo in 1966: Report of the Justice G. C. M. Onyiuke Tribunal [Tollbrook Limited, Ikeja, Lagos], will help to ven­tilate.

First, some background in­formation. Following the po­grom of 1966, the Supreme Military Council of General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi set up a judicial tribunal of inquiry to investigate the grotesquery. But, days before the tribunal was to start sitting, Ironsi was assas­sinated and his regime toppled. Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubu Gowon, who succeeded Iron­si, promised that the tribunal would carry on with its assign­ment. When this promise was negated, Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, had no op­tion but to establish the Onyi­uke Tribunal via an instrument called the Tribunal of Inquiry (Atrocities Against Persons of Eastern Nigeria Origin: Per­petuation of Testimony) Edict 1966.

President Buhari’s Dissonance Problem!

By Reno Omokri

 How can two walk together except they agree? Now if two people cannot walk together except they agree how much more three, four or a hundred? For any government, company, family or association to succeed, there must first be unity of purpose. This unity of purpose does not mean that everybody must agree, but it means that behind close doors the groups meets to harmonize.

*President Buhari and APC National
 Leader, Bola Tinubu

Now that word, harmonize, is a much misunderstood word. Harmony does not mean that everybody has the same purpose, but it means that everybody’s purposes are brought together and through a process of give and take, a common thread is woven that encapsulates everybody’s agenda and when this is presented it produces an effect that is pleasing to the group and those it wants to serve. Both Christians and Muslims agree that God created the entire world with His words.

It is something we can all agree on and in agreeing to this, we agree that words are creative. They created the atmosphere of the world and they will create the atmosphere of our individual worlds. This being the case, we have to be careful, very careful, about the words we speak because if we agree that information is power, then the management of information is power and its mismanagement is weakness.

So often, many of us do not realize that the words that emanate from a leader and his surrogates must have credibility because those words affect everything within the domain of that leader. Every word that emanates from a leader is a promise. Don’t believe me? Try to get the British Currency. On every British Pound note you will find this promise ‘I Promise to Pay the Bearer the sum of’ £5, £10, £20 or £50. The promise on the British Pound is made by the Queen of England who happens to be the Head of State of the United Kingdom. There is nothing inherently valuable about the paper the British Pound is printed upon. It has no intrinsic value.

Atiku Should Define ‘Restructuring’

By Ochereome Nnanna

After one year of silence, Vice President Atiku Abubakar seized the opportunity of a book launch in Abuja last week to break his silence. He reviewed the state of the nation under President Muhammadu Buhari, which is what pretty much everyone else has done in the past one week. Of all that he said, I was intrigued by his call for a “restructuring” of the federation and the shade he threw at the leadership of Buhari, when he observed: “we also have a leadership that is not prepared to learn from the past and the leadership that is not prepared to lead”. Of this snide on Buhari, observers have already determined that it was Atiku’s first step towards a 2019 challenge for the presidency.

 

*Atiku

This may well be so because we all know about Atiku’s insatiable appetite for presidential contests, of which he has made five record bids in 1993, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. Atiku’s former boss, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, was the first to caper a similar political double shuffle some weeks ago when he described Buhari as a leader who is good in military matters (such as the fight against Boko Haram) but incompetent in economic and diplomatic areas. He gave the impression that after Buhari defeats Boko Haram another leader would be found (obviously the self-installed tin god of Nigerian politics, Obasanjo himself) to solve our economic problems. It is obvious that the mesmerism of Buhari is beginning to thaw as we steam towards the starting blocks of the next political transition, and it is going to be hot inside the All Progressives Congress, APC where, I am firmly convinced, Buhari will make a bid for a second term.

Atiku will definitely feature prominently in it, barring any earth-shaking circumstances. I am surprised that Atiku described himself as a “long term campaigner” for restructuring. Honestly, I have never come across that notion before. What is known to most Nigerians is that Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been a long term campaigner for true federalism and restructuring. For some quaint reasons, he has gone mute on this since the APC seized the reins of the Federal Government a year ago. It is on record that the APC had it as one of its long-winded litany of campaign promises. The party and the Federal Government it produced have backed out of many of these promises, but it’s not yet on record that the promise to establish true federalism is one of those.

Yet not a single word has been breathed of it either by Buhari, the APC or even its chief protagonist, Tinubu. If Buhari meant to implement this policy, I am sure he would have said so in his maiden broadcast on May 29th 2015. He would have seized the opportunity of his May 29th 2016 to spell out the pillars of the programme, with timetable attached. But of course, we have seen that Buhari’s fabled body language is not pointing towards any bloody restructuring of the federation. 

Kudirat Abiola: 20 Years After

By Hafsat Abiola-Costello

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the death of my mother, Kudirat Abiola.

A young woman, not quite 44 years old, Kudirat was different things to different people. She was a loving mother to her seven children, the youngest of whom was seven at the time of her death. She was also a dutiful wife and a principled Nigerian who believed that an electoral mandate given to her husband during the June 12, 1993, democratic election could not simply be set aside on the whims of a small band of men, whether they were armed or not.

*Kudirat Abiola 

I continue to draw strength and inspiration from her clear example in a country where, for most people, everything is negotiable. From her, I learned that it is better to stand with the truth even if it is to stand alone. 

It has taken so long for the tree of democracy that she and other women sacrificed so much to plant to show the promise that motivated them to take a stand. Yet, even now, it is still glaring in its failure to include women in elective positions. In this one thing, we reveal a flaw in how we understand and practice democracy. For if power were understood as primarily a tool to be used to serve all people, women would be encouraged to play their part. 

The absence of women reveals the fact that the current wind of change has not altered the fundamental perception of power as an instrument, not of service but of domination. Unfortunately, when used in this way, everyone loses as the cycle of divide and misrule that Nigeria has witnessed time and again will simply continue producing poverty, conflict and misery.

As we reflect on the fact that the National Assembly has only six percent women (6%), we need to be aware that Africa’s largest economy lags behind all but one other African country on this and gives us a ranking of 177 out of 193 countries.

Today, let us remember that when Chief Abiola was in detention when many pro-democracy leaders had fled the country to continue the battle against military dictatorship, Kudirat Abiola and others kept the flag flying at home. She led the marches. She sold her properties to support her husband’s household and to finance the movement. She gave interviews on national and international media channels. She was incarcerated and frequently threatened but remained undaunted. And ultimately she was gunned down on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria.

I remember her today as I do every day and pray for the continued peaceful repose of her soul. But on this day, 20 years on, I want to ask our leaders to be fair to the Nigerian women. No bird, no matter how strong, can fly with one wing. No country, no matter its potential, can thrive while keeping its women back. 

Most local government councils will hold elections this year and next, nation-wide. This time, parties should put in place mechanisms to ensure 30% women representation at the local administration level. The local government is a good level to begin fostering gender equity since it has purview over primary health care as well as primary education, issues of particular concern to women.

This democracy came at a price, which women and men paid, and should be made to work for everyone. It will work better when women are allowed to play their part.
 
*Hafsat Abiola-Costello is the founder of Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND)

W.F. Kumuyi, Quintessential Evangelist, At 75

By Banji Ojewale  

Preach Christ and live holy till you die
—W.F. Kumuyi

If the world would have its way, Pastor William Folorunsho Kumuyi at 75 should be the grand old man sitting by the fireside at night in a fenced house built for him by the Church. The young and the old would form a circle about the retired preacher, listening to great exploits of the man in his active days as an evangelist.

Pastor W.F. Kumuyi 

At sunrise the following day, he would sit in a cane chair overlaid with soft cushion, reading the Bible and watching the world go by, waiting for the moon to announce the delivery of more tales of the past to anxious listeners.

But the man God moved to found the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (Deeper Life Bible Church) in 1973 has confounded popular thinking about a so-called diminishing power in old age. As we mark his 75th birthday on June 6, 2016, he will be preoccupied with the Church’s main event every Monday: the Monday Bible Study.

He faces a large congregation of the faithful every Monday evening. Pastor Kumuyi will be on duty today again as he has always been every Monday, since that Monday on August 1973. He will be on his feet for close to one and a half hours opening the pages of the Bible to present the truth about the love of God for man. These days, the General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life has taken up more laborious work. He has become part of the Sunday evening House Caring Fellowship with a revival and miracle sermon which he delivers. The session sees him undertake a circuit tour of different locations in Lagos. Every Saturday, he preaches to the Church’s workforce, dropping nuggets of Bible truth to prepare them for worship service the following day.

In 2015, Pastor Kumuyi undertook a brawny 18-day city wide crusade with the Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN) and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) partnering Deeper Life for the programme. If you analyse his sermons in the past six months or so you would notice a literary style that would challenge even the masters of prose and poetry. For Pastor Kumuyi, the mode of presenting such a message is not less important than the content. At the end of the day, a Kumuyi treatise turns out to be a massive structure resting on a tripod with more three-legged contraptions inside.

Coming To Terms With Niger Delta Avengers

By Paul Odili

To correct a wrong, it is sometimes necessary to exceed proper limits’. This doctrine is attributed to Mao Zedong by his personal secretary, Lin Ke.

Mao, founder of the modern communist state of China was a man of power, who had no hesitation using whatever means he judged necessary to protect his power and the state he founded. In this context, Mao was justifying the use of terror. 

I do not ordinarily believe in the use of terror by legitimate forces of the state, yet there are times you just ponder what are the options before state actors under certain circumstances. If Mao were to be the commander of Nigerian state, there is no question as to what he would do in view of the dystopia in the Niger Delta area.

The senseless attacks and economic sabotage going on in the Niger Delta by a shadowy militant group( Niger Delta Avengers) claiming to be fighting for the interest of Niger Delta, you wonder if there is no great wisdom in Mao’s doctrine. We don’t have a Mao here of course, we have PMB and PMB is no Mao clearly. And Nigerian state is neither a communist state nor resembling a Chinese society. We are Africans with our cultural mores and social and economic structure. But we are a society that must survive and we are under attack by a merciless force. Nigeria is in a state of war.

In any state of war, economic assets are legitimate targets. So what do we do? Let’s get inside PMB’s head. A retired old school Army General, strict and unbending, prides himself in promoting order and discipline above everything else, is now faced with one of the greatest existential threat yet to his administration. At a period of great economic stress, in which the main source of the government’s economic power is being systematically sabotaged and somehow he is powerless to do anything. This must be his worst nightmare! Naturally, his first instinct would be to use military force and exterminate these saboteurs.

He said as much when he declared that the Niger Delta militants would be dealt with like Boko haram. So far PMB is wrong. The terrain and associated circumstances are different. NDA have called his bluff. Almost on a daily basis one asset or the other has been blown up. Minister Ibe Kachikwu is lamenting the effect of this on oil production down to 1.4 million; the lowest production in two decades. With the hapless situation he is facing PMB must be torn between armistice with the militants or military operation to conquer. With public panic rising and economic downturn worsening with the continuation of this act of war, what should be done and done to end this conflagration once and for all?

Ugwuanyi And The Potency Of Diplomatic Governance

By Nwobodo Chidiebere

“Constructive diplomacy doesn’t mean relinquishing one’s right. It means engaging with one’s counterparts, on the basis of equal footing and mutual respect, to address shared concerns and achieve shared objectives.”

           --Hassan Rouhani

In a democratic system of governance like ours, strategic diplomacy has been adjudged, tested and trusted as the best approach to finding lasting remedies to burning issues of governance. Great and age-long results have been made possible through constructive engagement and dialogue with relevant stakeholders than by the use of dictatorial methodology.

Gov Ugwuanyi

The developed democracies of the world like America and Great Britain have elevated potency of diplomacy cum diplomatic skills in managing public affairs issues to its rightful place. The advancement of democracy and its culminating effects on the development of these countries cannot be detached from the values they placed on diplomacy—which is the sturdy foundation of democratic governance setting benchmark to our contemporary world.

In fact, America for instance, rate and evaluate its presidential hopefuls on their diplomatic capacities more than other qualities, because American President will not run White House alone, but from time to time dialogue with congressmen and women, business tycoons in Wall Street, ICT magnates in Silicon Valley and other relevant stakeholders before major economic or socio-political policies are introduced and allowed to scale through the congress.

Since the advent of democracy in 1999, Enugu State has never witnessed a thorough democratic system of governance—where an incumbent governor will long to consult and interface with genuine stakeholders and iron-out grey edges before arriving at a consensus, in implementation of polices of his administration. There is no doubt that His Excellency Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi has not only redefined standard of stakeholders and community engagements in the Coal City via dialogue and diplomacy, but rewritten political template of Eastern hub; used previously by his predecessors in the art of governance. 

Before now, Enugu State had executive governors who operated like demi-gods, called the shots and determined who-gets-what without consultations with critical stakeholders and opinion moulders. They never bothered or alluded to overriding interests of Enugu people, provided they were in absolute control of the state government apparatus. Erstwhile governors of the state were feared more than respected. They propagated and enforced political ideology of absoluteness of power—which was averse to fundamentals of 21^st century democracy.

Buhari: Misguided Passion For One Nigeria

By Amanze Obi

President Muhammadu Buhari was recently quoted as saying that it is better for all Nige­rians to “jump into the sea and get drowned” than for Nigeria to divide. The president had his reasons. He said Nigeria fought a civil war which claimed over two million lives in or­der to remain united. This supreme sacrifice by Nigerians for Nigeria, he seems to be say­ing, cannot be thrown away just like that. The country, he also argued, is strong and united to­day because some people laid down their lives. For these reasons, he said he would not allow “kids” promoting the agitation for the division of the country to have their way.

*Buhari 

A few weeks into this outburst, the president is already living up to his vow. His army and po­lice have descended mercilessly on defenceless Biafran agitators, killing scores of them. The president has also deployed warships and fight­er jets to track down militants who have been blowing up oil installations in the Niger Delta.

Curiously, however, the president has taken no action against Fulani herdsmen whose mur­derous activities have become a clear threat to national unity. Maybe someone should remind the president that if Biafran agitators and Niger Delta militants are a threat to national unity, armed Fulani herdsmen are much more so.

There is no doubt that the president is pas­sionate about the idea of one Nigeria. But his passion appears to be driven by sectional, if not self-serving factors. That may explain why he has ignored or overlooked the historical fact that no country has ever survived two civil wars. If he is truly conscious of that, he will be less belligerent in his declarations and ac­tions on Biafra, Niger Delta militancy or any other separatist agitation in the country. The president is probably under the illusion that a segment of the country will rise against the fed­eration in the way it once happened with the possible consequence of an armed struggle.

Regardless of this extremity in language use by the president, we must indulge him by over­looking his flagellations about war and suicide and, instead, address our minds to the idiosyn­cratic convictions and motivations that inflame the language of passion in some old breed Ni­gerians.

We will, without relying so much on the pas­sions of the Buharis, the Obasanjos and the Go­wons of this country about one Nigeria, agree that the country, ideally, is better of as a united entity. We need not elaborate on this here. Suf­fice it to say that the aforementioned veterans are essentially driven by one passion. They do not want their labours over a united Nigeria to be in vain. Having fought in their individual and collective capacities to keep the country one, they would not want to witness a reversal of this in their life time. That is why they are always on edge whenever any reference, no matter how casual, is made to the possible dis­integration of Nigeria.

10 Reasons Why President Buhari’s No-Show In Ogoniland Is Bad, Bad PR

By Kennedy Emetulu

It seems true that President Muhammadu Buhari is not visiting Ogoniland for that much-publicised flag-off of the implementation of the UNEP Report on the cleaning up of Ogoniland and the Niger Delta. Honestly, this is a shocking and depressing development and it calls to question again the kind of advice President Buhari is receiving in Aso Rock. He may have the best of reasons or excuses for not going, but perception is reality in politics! Cancelling that visit is the last thing he should have contemplated today. Here are 10 reasons why it’s bad:

*Buhari 

(1) The Niger Delta Avengers have threatened that he shouldn’t come; not going there, despite the whole show of military force by the Nigerian Armed Forces for the visit of the Commander-in-Chief, hands the initiative to the Niger Delta Avengers. They have showed they control the agenda of his government and his own movement within the nation. Of course, the truth is nothing would have happened to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in Ogoniland; but, again, perception is reality.

(2) The Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed talked up Buhari’s impending visit thus: “Buhari would return to Ogoniland where he inaugurated a fish pond in 1984 where the once flourishing pond regrettably had been destroyed by oil pollution. The Federal Government is coming back to restore the ecosystem to what it used to be and as such restore the peoples’ source of livelihood”. Obviously, mentioning that the president was going to Ogoniland again after his 1984 visit as a military Head of State in the circumstances of both visits was a way of making the case that between then and now life has been snuffed out of the environment there and Buhari is now returning life to the people and that environment with his visit. The symbolism would have been nice. But what have we now? The president is after all not coming!

(3) Buhari’s visit would have been the most significant thing in Ogoniland since the judicial murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and for Buhari, it would have been a personal victory and a personal exorcism of some sort as well. Remember that Buhari was General Sani Abacha’s head of the PTF that was spending the oil money at the time Saro-Wiwa was killed. Buhari supported that killing as part of that government and Nigerians and the world condemned it strongly. As the world knows, Saro-Wiwa’s main message was not the political aspect of the Ogoni case, but the environmental aspect. Saro-Wiwa was essentially killed because he drew attention to the environmental destruction oil exploration brought to the Niger Delta. As president, Buhari would have used this opportunity to show with his presence his genuine commitment to cleaning up Ogoniland particularly and the Niger Delta generally. With that he would have come a full circle from his Abacha days. He would have used his presence to call for the unity of the Ogoni and the Niger-Delta with the rest of Nigeria, so we all find solutions to the problems of lack of development and environmental degradation ravaging the area.

Atiku’s Prognosis And The Prospects Of A Restructured Nigeria

By Olusola Sanni

I must confess I am not one of those who were excited by the call for restructuring the Nigerian federal system by former vice president, Atiku Abubakar. Anyone who knows the former vice president too well will understand that he is a passionate promoter of what has become a cliché of true federalism in Nigeria.

*Atiku and Buhari 

As a student of politics, I cannot pretend to be oblivious of the fact that federalism is more a system of government of itself, than in itself. By this I mean that a system of government can be unitary (or anything) in structure and remain federal in purpose, likewise it is possible for a structure of government to be federal in outlook and unitary in purpose.

Nigeria has had a long walk to its current state of governmental system and it can safely be said that the debate about how the Nigerian state should be structured is as old as the country itself. Right from the 1954 Constitutional Conference to the 2014 conference, Nigeria has spent the last sixty years asking the same question of how best it can be governed.

It may appear that perhaps something is intrinsically wrong with the political system in Nigeria, otherwise why should it take a people so long a time to find a solution to an easy puzzle and yet cannot crack it. Or, it may be that our Sisyphean experience is in the nature of federalism itself. In order words, no federal arrangement of government is ever perfect, and thus every federal system of government continually seeks perfection.

Therefore, we can say that while fiscal federalism was the bone of contention between resource-rich states and Abuja during the Obasanjo/Atiku dispensation, same way is conflicting judicial pronouncements currently the bone of contention between Washington and the state of North Carolina in the United States of America over LGBT rights. That means that even the world’s bastion of democracy and federation, USA, is still asking the same question of how best to be governed after more than 200 years of its being.

Will We Ever Get It Right In Nigeria?

By Bolaji Tunji

I have always agonized and been  concerned about this country Nigeria. My agony in most cases leads to headache and the problem is simply; why has Nigeria been the way it is? Why have we found it difficult to mesh as a nation? Why has development that would translate this country into a great country eluded us? Why is it that our leaders, over the years have always found it convenient to show concern for their own welfare rather than the collective welfare? Our leaders travel out of the country. They see some of the best of facilities and infrastructure in those countries- good road network, good medical facilities where they go in order to take care of themselves, unblinking electricity supply, welfarist programmes for the citizens.

*Buhari 

 All these our leaders see, why is it that they do not show concern or feel such would be good for their country and try to replicate here?

The answer I get is that our leaders really do not have any love for us. They do not care about the people they govern, they only pay lip service to all they claim concerning the masses, it does not touch their heart. We are just statistics to them. We are faceless. They do not see us or feel we are human. Decisions about citizens are always taken cold-bloodedly. The problem did not start with the person who holds the highest office in the land, definitely not  the president. He can not do everything and he can not be everywhere. That’s why we have ministers and other government officials to advise and make the job of governance easier. It also starts at our own level, the ordinary citizen. Do we, the ruled, show love to ourselves? That Hausaman that guides your gate, do you have any kinship with him or you only see a hired hand, who must open your gate or safeguard you while you sleep?

Do you ever wonder whether he has a wife or children? Have you ever wondered how he takes care of them and what he feels being so far away from his wife and children or we think he does not have the same feelings that we have? When you see two people fighting on the road and one breaks a bottle, what was the intention? And when you stab the other person, you now claim it was the devil. What was your intention when you broke the bottle in the first place? If you had considered the implications of that action or put yourself in the position of the other person, would you have considered stabbing or killing him? We are all responsible for our actions at every point in time.

At a macro level, one wonders at the action or inaction of people charged with minding us and why it never bothered them to take action when necessary.

The other day, there was an accident involving a vehicle belonging to Peace Mass Transport Company along the Umuahia end of the Enugu-Portharcourt  expressway. Of the 15 passengers said to be in the vehicle, only two people survived. The accident occurred on Sunday, May 22. Less than two weeks after, another incident occurred involving another vehicle belonging to the same transport company. The driver was said to have lost control and drove the vehicle into a ditch with all the passengers. Again lives could have been lost. 

13 Threats To Nigeria

By Tola Adeniyi  

With this title several readers will jump to the conclusion that the dreaded but now degraded Boko Haram terrorist group should occupy the Number one slot while the Fulani herdsmen terrorists and the new Ijaw Avengers would rank second and third respectively. They are wrong!

While the menace of the three mentioned terrorist groups constitutes grave threat and danger to Nigeria’s corporate existence and her economic resurrection, the combined menace of the three will pale into insignificance when placed side by side with the menace of the criminal silence of Nigerians in the face of the serious onslaught perennially and perpetually unleashed on the country by a handful of vultures who have bled Nigeria to near death with their insane looting of the country.

The Number 1 threat to corporate Nigeria is the unexplainable timidity of all Nigerians, the criminal silence of the masses in the face of the huge theft of their patrimony by a handful. Sometimes I wonder if Nigeria is the same country that produced legendary Aminu Kano, Madam Sawaba, Mrs. Olufunmilayo Kuti, Margaret Ekpo, Joseph Sarwan Tarka, Adaka Boro, Tai Solarin, Arthur Nwankwo, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Beko Ransome-Kuti and fiery Gani Fawehinmi among a few others.

Inability to speak out against evil, against injustice, against oppression, depression and deprivation is the beginning of calamitous tragedy. Nigerians have kept too quiet for too long that we now have a deadly monster that has almost swallowed us up as a people. Can we pretend not to know when our school drop-out neighbour who became chairman of local government suddenly started putting up a mansion and assembling porch cars in his yard? Did we not see Ghana-Must-Go bags being loaded and off loaded in the National Assembly? Did we not see our governors, presidents and other public officials suddenly becoming billionaires? We kept quiet.

Buhari And The Niger Delta

By Ken Agala

On Thursday morning news broke that President Buhari had cancelled his trip to Ogoni due to threat to his life from the Niger Delta Avengers. This is a very wrong move as the President must have handed over the required impetus to the militants and thereby emboldened them.

*Buhari

Even Jonathan’s ‘chickening out’ of going to Chibok at the peak of the Boko Haram insurgency, is less of a ‘Chickening out’ than this. But I know a President can’t move against his security report and I wrote about this when Jonathan was called names for cancelling his Chibok trip.

While Nigerians were shocked to read a report that our oil production has gone down from the agonizing 1.4 million barrels to 1.1, a few days ago the Avengers bombed three more crude oil wells even when the military carried out an invasion of Gbaramatu kingdom and other Niger Delta communities.

With the Presidents action, the Niger Delta Avengers have received credible endorsement as a group to be respected and I believe many conscripts will begin looking for how to join them .

Frankly speaking it is despicable to be talking about cleaning up some Niger Delta communities while more environmental degradation is strategically perpetrated by Niger Deltans.

But there is a law called The Law of cause and effect. Every effect is the result of a cause and every cause must have an effect

When President Buhari in his brutally frank manner told his US audience last year that he can’t in all honesty treat regions that gave him 95% votes equally to those who gave him 5%, I expected that his party men from these 5% regions would have openly protested and forced him to withdraw the statement. That statement was very wrong from a President who has a mandate to treat everyone equally.

I expected Mr. Presidents media team to tactically twist that statement in way that it’d give some form of confidence to people from the 5% region but they rather coined the name ‘wailers’ for these 5 percenters .

One Year After: Beyond The Blame Game

By Ayo Oyoze Baje  

Anyone still blaming the former President Goodluck Jonathan-led administration for all our current socio-economic woes, one year after leaving office, must be wallowing in self-deceit or simply living in fool’s paradise. Government is a continuum. Furthermore, when a leader takes over an institution, be it public or private, he inherits both the assets and liabilities. As he builds on the assets, he seeks ways to mitigate the pains inflicted on the people by the liabilities.

*Buhari 

One sweet victory leads to a new set of challenges. It is never a stroll in the park, nor a picnic in paradise. The top of the ladder, as the wise ones say, is not meant for dancing, or dithering to take decisive actions. Successful leaders find the reasons to succeed, not giving excuses for failure.

It would, therefore, do the spokespersons of our president a world of good to henceforth stop looking over the shoulder and laying all the blames of the failure of the Buhari-led government to frontally tackle and reverse the country’s dwindling economic fortunes, on the previous administration. Political campaigns, couched with sleazy slogans should have ended over a year ago. Now is the time for those who the electorate invested their trust and goodwill on to roll up their sleeves and get down to brass tasks.

After all, what is leadership all about? It is about having the vision to identify the led majority’s most pressing challenges and mustering the Capacity, the Character, the Courage and the Commitment to finding lasting solutions to them. It is about engendering team spirit; working with the best of hands and brain to deliver the so called ‘dividends of democracy’ to the good people of Nigeria. It is not about any individual, no matter how knowledgeable, to exhibit a philosopher-king mentality, pretending to know it all and foisting his views, sometimes puerile and out of sync with modern governance practices on his people.

Truth is, this administration needs all the assistance it could get. One of such is an economic think-tank, made of top technocrats who could read the next direction the global productive pendulum would swing and internalise it to proffer solutions to existing challenges. Such a group would have informed the president on the need to focus more energy, time and resources on revamping the tottering economy, soon after he took over the reins of governance. But one year after, there is no crystal clear direction where the ship of the economy is heading to.

Niger Delta And The National Question

By Dan Amor

To all intents and purpos­es, the raging war in the South South geopoliti­cal zone between irate militants and the security forces is needless and avoidable. Unfor­tunately, Niger Delta youths have once again played their much-abused region which, ironically, produces the wealth of the na­tion, into the willing hands of the establishment under the watch of a central government with an un­stated or hidden agenda to totally exterminate the goose that lays the golden egg from the face of the earth. Even while the region was yet relatively peaceful, when the reawakened restiveness had not reached fever-pitch, President Muhammadu Buhari, even in his inaugural speech alluded to how he would combat and defeat Boko Haram and Niger Delta militants. One can then safely assume that the current war is directly or in­directly orchestrated by the pow­ers that be just to create room for them to execute their plan against the region.

(pix: amnesty)

Yet, a fact too potent to be dis­puted, is that the deepening grouse of the people of the oil rich Niger Delta has largely gravitated to the growing consciousness that what the Nigerian state and the international monopoly oil com­panies take from their soil is not commensurate with what they give in terms of provision of social amenities, quality of life and the maintenance of a delicate balance between the human being and the natural environment. While not supporting the wanton destruc­tion of major oil installations in the Niger Delta and its concomi­tant degradation of the national economy, reason, no doubt, re­sides in this claim of neglect, which has further been justified and accentuated by the preda­tory disposition of some of the oil companies with the collabora­tive instincts of successive Nige­rian governments over the years. Most of these governments were military dictatorships lacking the requisite legitimacy, sufficient political will and constitutional mandate to protect the people and their environment.

As at Tuesday this week (May 31, 2016), the Senate and House of Representatives joint commit­tee on Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC), had is­sued bench warrant on seven oil companies operating in the Niger Delta region for failing to appear before a public hearing to defend themselves over allegation of non-remittance of statutory funds to the commission for the develop­ment of the region. That is how the multinational oil companies have been treating with levity is­sues relating to the development of the region due to their disdain for the laws of the land. Attitudes of successive Nigerian govern­ments actually created a dan­gerous class-a totally frustrated population- who now see the multinational oil companies and government as conspirators in the unholy and rapacious plot to drive them permanently out of their an­cestral homes in order to have free reign out the oil. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo was spend­ing N200million daily to maintain the Joint Task Force in the region whereas the people were dying from hunger and want. The per­sistent Niger Delta crisis is there­fore an economic process caught in a political web.