My Trillion Naira Letter to President Jonathan By Dele Momodu

Your Excellency, I’m compelled to write you again today since I don’t have any other form of access to deliver this to you. I’m also not sure you read the other open letters I have written to you, especially ‘My Kobo Advise to Mr President’. If you did I hope that you digested the content and pondered on them as I expected you would. My doubts are due to your continued actions.

You must be wondering why I have chosen the present title. The reason is not far-fetched. Since my Kobo advice seems not to have resonated with you and your aides, and our budgets are now quoted in trillions, this title is ostensibly symbolic and truly emblematic of our latest craze and propensity for mentioning figures that most calculators won’t be able to evaluate.

The decision to write this latest epistle was reached after watching the bizarre movie that was acted by your fellow party men and produced by very senior directors of your seemingly formidable political organisation. Let me confess that no scriptwriter would have visualised such melodrama on any regular day. If anyone had ever suggested that such a humiliating scenario would occur we would have dismissed it as a product of a cruel imagination or lunacy. But we saw this one before our very eyes and became stupefied to say the least.

Let me assure you, Sir that it is in the nature of politics and politicians for such brickbats to occur. We must thank God for little mercies because we are lucky in these parts that citizens don’t pelt their leaders with rotten eggs and juicy tomatoes. You would remember that someone once threw shoes, javelin-like, at President George Bush during a Press conference and his face could have been badly bruised and readily bloodied but for the fact that his reflexes were superbly efficient and automatically responsive.

It is for this reason that I wish you can put the matter behind you as quickly as possible and forgive even if you cannot forget. It is sad that you apparently did not envisage the tragedy that was going to befall your party and tear your members asunder. Those of us on the side-lines knew it was a matter of time before the implosion would ignite and ricochet across the land like an Iraqi bomb. The collapse of a party that had held Nigeria by the jugular for the past 14 years was destined to carry some collateral damage with it.

If you and your aides were politically savvy, you probably would have managed the situation better. And if the truth must be told, most of strategists you parade are nothing but tyros who know little or nothing about the complexities that make up Nigeria. They sit in their gilded cage of Aso Rock and forget you are inhabitants of the place today through the sheer trickery of providence and convoluted collaboration of godfathers.

If your kitchen cabinet understood the rudiments of politics, they would have hopefully averted this monumental disaster by avoiding a war they were bound to lose before it even started. They allowed you to be messed up and tossed around due to their gross incompetence and pomposity. Your rabid supporters are behaving like the peacock or to be more precise like the soldiers of fortune that most political jobbers are often are in Nigeria. Pity is they still can see the handwriting on the wall nor decipher the code of grand conspiracy that is so palpable. They are gloating all over the place and deluding themselves about the power of life and death which you wield as the Nigerian President. But a power misused is a power wasted. Reality is not all wars are won through the use of force or violence.

I will now go ahead to highlight some of the terminal mistakes made by your embattled camp and juxtapose with what I consider to be the practical solutions to these humongous problems. Whether we like former President Olusegun Obasanjo or not he’s a man who truly believes in the unity of Nigeria. I cannot but be very charitable to him on this occasion. As a man who played a crucial role during the Nigerian civil war, I believe this has made him permanently paranoid and terminally neurotic about the likelihood of Nigeria ever breaking up in his lifetime or even thereafter. Obasanjo was therefore the one man God used to make it possible for an Ijawman to ultimately become the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces.

It is no longer relevant or important to us if Obasanjo did what he did genuinely out of love for the so-called minorities to have a chance or for very personal and selfish reasons. Even if his decision to install as President and Vice President a sickly Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua and a taciturn Dr Goodluck Jonathan is turning dangerously pyrrhic, credit must still go to Baba Iyabo that he fulfilled all righteousness by handing power to you through the backdoor, thus empowering you to grab the chicken that lays the golden eggs that we all savour today. The essence of this unusual but objective hagiography on Obasanjo today is that you should have done everything humanly possible to tolerate and accommodate his human foibles and overt idiosyncrasies.

The costliest mistake you ever made was to have allowed your relationship with a veteran of many wars to degenerate to the level fisticuffs or what the Yoruba call ‘roforofo’. It is a battle you can’t afford to fight because you have no chance of winning it at the end of the day. Please try and tell those illusionists who typically swarm around the corridors of power like locusts that if they have forgotten how God brought you to the pinnacle of the temple, your memory and gratitude are intact. And that you will never encourage Lucifer to send you on a kamikaze dive.

The second mistake was the manner your acolytes exposed your second term bid prematurely. It was totally unnecessary. As an African, you must be aware of the adage that a wise man always keeps the name of his impending baby to himself until after his wife delivers. The manner they’ve been threatening hellfire and brimstone if you don’t secure a second term has been very rude, crude and outlandishly provocative. No Jupiter can stop you from running if you so desire and eventually decide to try your luck again. It is true that you promised to serve only one term but it is still entirely your privilege and prerogative to change your mind. That can’t be a crime because we all do it most of the time. It is also your Constitutional right and you should not have been lured into dissipating some badly-needed energy on useless rigmarole and semantics.

Sir, if I were you I would have concentrated rigidly and passionately on delivering the dividends of democracy by making life better for the generality of Nigerians. Your greatest armour against real and imagined enemies is performance. If you can make conscious effort to curb the wasteful ostentation and the obsession for pomp and pageantry ascribed to your office I’m certain even your vociferous critics would become your assiduous fanatics. What you have advertently done by abandoning governance on the altar of pecuniary politics is to allow your common enemies to gang-up and have enough time to mobilise their war-chest, assemble their arsenal and fire their long-range missiles.

The third mistake is the commonest in all wars known to mankind. You opened up your flanks by fighting too many people on too many fronts. Only a poor General does that. In the haste to crush the rebellion of some of your former foot-soldiers as well as your implacable enemies, you got sucked in because you were stupendously engaged in too many directions. This was bound to take its toll on you and your combatants. Coupled with that was the obvious fact that you underrated your opponents. That is usually a regrettable strategy in guerrilla warfare.

It should have been clear to you that you had to employ a new, even if temporary, modus operandi once the Governors loyal to you were soundly and roundly beaten by the Amaechi supporters. If I were you Sir, I would have made a tactical withdrawal by sticking to the lie that I knew nothing about the Nigeria Governors Forum crisis and maintain my straight poker face. I would have reassessed the efficacy of those who sold the dummy that all was well but could not deliver the goods after fallen jejunely for the scam of collecting some fake signatures. What I expected you to do was to accept the temporary defeat with equanimity and invite Rotimi Amaechi into a room and embrace him warts and all.  You seemed to have done this at Port Harcourt Airport and expected you build on that window of opportunity. I was one of those who saluted your statesmanship on that occasion but was sorely disappointed when you allowed the opportunists to send you back to the trenches.

I still don’t know who subsequently persuaded you to fall for the self-immolating decision to continue to recognise the Jang faction when it was obvious the man lost the election fair and square. That was the moment you lost all moral authority and rights by allowing some political adventurers to drag you down the depths of their abject pettiness. You should have borrowed a leaf from Obasanjo’s experience with the once powerful Atiku Abubakar who controlled the Governors and practically brought the former President on his knees begging for support. As a veteran soldier, Obasanjo was sufficiently trained in the art and science of tactical retreat.  The crafty General knows that he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.

The example of Obasanjo’s strategic cowardice was very instructive and opulently didactic. As he told everyone who cared to listen: what Atiku did was tantamount to pulling out a loaded gun and pointing it at his head. He knew it was no use arguing with a man who could pull the trigger in a mere matter of seconds. The only option left was to use the power of native intelligence and foxiness by persuading the man not to commit premeditated murder. Once Atiku made the error of pitying his supposed prey and showing mercy, he became a dead man walking himself. Same goes for James Ibori who walked into a similar trap.

Sir, though your case is slightly different it still bears some resemblance to that of Obasanjo. Your infantry men wasted all your bullets without catching an antelope not to talk of capturing elephants, the king of the forests. You should have wooed Amaechi to your side at all cost because he was apparently equal to all your own combined forces. A hunter should always be proud of a brave son. You can do with a few guys like that in the days of tribulation. It is noteworthy that Governors control their states. How do you hope to secure your second term ambition if you control less than half of the states in the country? What is more, Amaechi is capable of delivering one of the largest votes to you from Rivers State or conversely waste most of it if he decides to be vengeful.

Finally, I wish to assure you Sir that it is not an act of timidity to seek peace and tranquillity in a country where everything seems to be going haywire. Whosoever tells you to unleash terror and mayhem on your enemies is not a true friend. Elections are won as a game of figures. The candidate who is able to attract the largest number of voters becomes electable. Rigging may never work like it used to due to several developments in the world. The New Media, otherwise known as Social Media, is breaking down walls of intimidation and oppression. Telephony and the internet combined have become more lethal than most conventional weapons. At the touch of buttons, many wonders can instantly unfold and make it possible to monitor occurrences in distant places. There is also the human factor, like the case of that Kwara man who rejected the fake election that awarded him victory when he knew in his heart that he lost. Mass education is beginning to change how we do many things even if slowly.

Your best bet is to stay on the path of honour, peace, equity, justice and unimpeachable truth. God has been too kind to you. Even if you return to your village today, you have enjoyed what no one has ever attained before which is being permanently in power and high positions since coming into relevance and prominence from relative obscurity. There is nothing more to add. If you work harder on a few of the content of your Transformation Agenda, you may easily end up as a hero. Getting a second term if you stay lucky will then be icing on your national cake. You don’t need all this stress and blackmail in the name of seeking what is not necessarily glorious. I read somewhere that a man is powerful when he controls power and powerless when power controls him. The choice is yours.

Sir, permit me to conclude with a powerful Yoruba proverb: when we are praying not to be put to shame but the prayer is not instantly answered we should start praying that God should at least keep us alive.
This is my story. This is my song.                  

APC Governors: The Hope Of A New Nigeria By Joe Igbokwe

Every nation has its own heroes and villains, cerebral and non-cerebral, strong and the weak, educated and non-educated, performers and non-performers, the good and the bad leaders, etc. In every serious nation, it is the work of the intellectuals to help fish the good guys out for the good of the commonwealth. It is the same intellectuals (the honest ones) that set the template for the leadership. They prepare the road map and the way forward. This is because they know that whatever good things that are happening in any successful country are byproducts of the good thinking of the honest intellectuals. They act as a bridge between the poor and the rich, the leaders and the followers. They are stars in conflicts resolution mechanisms.
Today, I want to once again take the calculated risk of engaging Nigerians on the need to embrace the eleven APC governors and some performing PDP governors as the new face of leadership in Nigeria. As we get closer to 2015, history is beckoning on anybody that wishes Nigeria well to stand up to be counted in the quest for a New Nigeria. We must admit that we have a leadership crisis in Nigeria. We must ask questions on how we got to this sorry pass in a country so blessed with both human and material resources. I am told that crisis in any serious country helps to usher in good and dedicated leaders. Yes, we must ask questions because those who ask questions can only be fools for five minutes but those who do not ask questions remain fools forever. The future belongs to the curious, the man who wants to know and the efficient.
Asking the right questions and opening our eyes to the realities of today can compel us to look at the direction of the opposition governors in APC and their friends and colleagues in PDP. I am talking about the Fayemis, Okorochas, Fasholas, Aregbesolas, Oshiomoles, Al-Makuras, Amosuns, Ajimobis, Shettimas, Yaris and the Geidams. Their colleagues in PDP like in Babagida Aliyus, Amaechis, Nyakos, and others are also in the picture. These men have what it takes to drive Nigeria to greatness. Nigeria is like a brand new vehicle without a driver. A brand new car needs a good driver to move it to a destination. The APC has thrown a frontal challenge to take Nigeria away from the paths of ruination. They are doing this through the performance of their governors and staking that as the most enduring requisite for future leadership of a misgoverned country like Nigeria. We have wasted fourteen long years of our national life and the APC is advertising itself as the credible alternative to recovering the long years lost to locusts.
A school of thought suggests that since we go to driving schools to learn how to drive a car, why should our leaders not go to leadership school before governing. Having served their states for four or more years and did well too I want to believe that they have got some reasonable training to move this country forward. Nigeria cannot be still looking for leaders with these trusted and tested guys in place. I suggest that Nigeria should trust these men even for a change. This is the time to make investment on these men for the benefit of Nigeria. This is the time for Nigeria to put its best men forward for the job to recue the sinking giant. This is the time we make deliberate efforts to fish out the brightest and the best for leadership. Leadership of Nigeria should no more be a game for mediocres and incompetent men who do not know the route to progress and success. I believe that is the greatest challenge the APC offers to Nigerians today. It is the greatest issue the coming of the APC and its make up brings to the Nigerian table.
The biggest problem facing Nigeria today is what to do with federal government of Nigeria. When you look around, there is nothing on the ground to justify the trillions of Naira Nigeria budgets every year. The positive developments one sees in Nigeria are always at the state level which leaves one to wonder why the center records little or no progress while appropriating hefty chunk of the national revenue. How do we get good drivers to drive the functional vehicles? How do we manage the huge human and material resources to build the new Nigeria of our dreams? How do we address the excesses of impunity in Nigeria? How do we deal with the power problem? How do we create jobs for our children? How do we feed our teeming population? How do we deal with the health sector that has gone almost bankrupt while our people die from preventable diseases? How do we create a healthy population? How do we deal with the problems of insecurity in Nigeria? How do we reduce corruption to the barest minimum and free our national wealth to work for our people? I can go on and on.
One good man on the Presidential chair in Abuja in 2015 can make the difference. One good man supported by these governors cannot derail. We cannot solve our problems with the level of thinking that created them in the first place. This is the central message the APC governors are sending today and they have shown, by words and performance that they are the future hope of the country. Nigerians should hearken to this call.

FG Vs. ASUU: The Game Goes On By Raheem Oluwafuminiyi

What has consistently escaped most Nigerians in this entire travesty is the fact that mediocrity destroys the very fabric of a country…ushering in all sorts of banality, ineptitude, corruption and debauchery. That…is precisely where Nigeria finds itself today! —Chinua Achebe

Since the beginning of yet another strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU last month, which not surprisingly has entered its second month, one wonders when we as a nation would remove ourselves form this wanton mortification of making the education a laughing stock among comity of nations. The question all stakeholders enmeshed in this opprobrium should be asking is whether something fundamental is not wrong with our collective consciousness, else, how come that in every two to three years, the news of ASUU demanding that its overlords in Abuja implement an agreement both entered into and which in turn leads to a painful strike, reverberates the whole nation?
Are we lacking in foresight as to understand that the Nigerian universities are dying gradually? Have we looked around to ask ourselves why the nation, whose youth out-numbers the old and very young, cannot remove itself from the shackles of societal malfeasance and hold forth the appellation: “we are the future leaders of tomorrow” by taking their destinies into their hands? For as long as the Nigerian youth accepts redundancy, fails to think for himself, cannot see where the rain began to beat him or take the bull by the horn, like many of their counterparts in developed nations, then it will be succinct to claim that the education sector which is supposed to train, build, inculcate, mould and educate vibrant youths against the morrow have failed in its entirety to bequeath such for a people who will take up the reigns of leadership from the old guards, a fault which is not theirs anyway.
If ASUU once again and for the umpteenth time has called for a strike, it is not because they do not see the peck in their own eyes, as it is evidently known that their own house is also not in order, but because from the very first day government whose responsibility is to pay very good attention to the education sector keeps faltering and reneging on agreements she entered into. For many who are of the belief that ASUU has no reason or justification to embark on this strike which has become one too many in recent times, they must understand that though it may look more like Oliver Twist asking for more, in the situation our education sector finds itself, once and for all, drastic measures ought to be taken in ensuring we do not become a pointer to ridicule anywhere in the world anymore.
If we have to look well enough the reason ASUU had decided embark on this strike and we feel the shame our universities have put up with, especially if we have to balance it with the education the likes of our parents had in the 60s, 70s and 80s and the pitiable ones our children have today, we then must understand ASUU’s pain and anger. Nobody likes to strike, nobody wishes to allow it take so long, in fact, it is not a good story to tell in our nascent democracy. Yet when a country is bequeathed with leaders who have no foresight, lack understanding of the socio-political terrain, remain clueless in tackling simple political arithmetic, and is occupied with how to remain in power until 2090, then strike becomes an option and a weapon to bring such government to its senses.
Many Nigerians cannot understand how we practice democracy in the country. Democracy and good governance go hand in hand and therefore, policies embarked upon by one government or the other must necessary be a continuum and should not shift unless necessary. One finds it very difficult to grasp well the story peddled by this government that the agreement it voluntarily entered into in 2009 with ASUU should be re-negotiated. It is the worst of arguments this writer has heard in decades and one wonders if this government is truly committed to transforming the education sector, if the so called campaign promise in 2011 is anything to go by. One would have thought the government of the day should have put forward the same argument during negotiations with the Nigerian Labour Congress NLC in the last subsidy protest. Perhaps, the vast majority of Nigerians wouldn’t be where they are today looking weary, fatigued and hopeless in the midst of plenty.
Even if government in its usual volte-face had thought the agreement needed to be re-negotiated, why didn’t it bring it to ASUU’s table long before the latter deemed it fit to embark on its ignoble strike? From this, there is no disputing the fact that there is so much insincerity among those in power and it is the reason the vast majority of Nigerians do not trust their leaders.
It is an irony that the education sector, more than ever, faces this type of humiliation, especially when the president of this country was once a university teacher and his minister of education, a professor in a vibrant field of academic study. No country in its right senses would have such individuals in power and watch as rot engulfs their education sector. With leaders like that who cannot engineer viable transformations within the sector they once held sway, we cannot but feel sorry for the entire country.
Our universities are no more role models for other countries to follow. Even the so called first generation universities have lost it, while mediocrity reigns supreme in the new ones. Individuals who lack the capacity to teach or engage in ground-breaking discoveries now fill our faculties and departments. Students who lack the intellectual vigour to learn now fill our departments with little or no capacity to communicate, write or engage their lecturers in intellectual debates. Most worrisome is the fact that one cannot find viable tools to hold experiments in our respective laboratories, reminding one of the total neglect in our secondary school laboratories. The structures which the Sardauna, Azikiwe and Awolowo had patriotically erected over 48 years ago still stand rickety today with nothing to show for a better one or even critical repair of the old. One could count the number of ICT-driven universities in the country and if one is lucky to find any, the structure is not enough to train students who are supposed to have pre-requisite knowledge of the ICT world like their counterparts elsewhere.
Our classrooms have become a national embarrassment where students now sit on windows and outside to receive lectures. University libraries are littered with books the like of Isaac Newton had used during his time yet librarians are employed year in and out without any innovation coming from them to transform their departments into world class. It is most saddening that more than 80 Nigerian universities cannot boast of a state-of-the-art library where students can get up-to-date books to embark on their research. It is no wonder that even reference materials used for PhD thesis today are as old as the country itself, when new materials have been churned out by the same author over five times. Most PhD thesis today appears unconstructive, lack coherence and almost adds nothing to problem-solving. A don once pathetically noted that there are a lot of questionable PhD’s today in Nigeria.
We seem to forget that strikes in our ivory towers have lasting implications for the future direction of the country. A medical student who is supposed to spend seven uninterrupted years in medical school suddenly faces a three month strike in his quest to become a medical doctor. At the end, he spends about eight to nine years for a seven year medical programme and is in turn given license to practice thereafter. If we do not know, we have bred a murderer and with his shaky training as a medical doctor in the murky world of medical school as a result of incessant ASUU strikes, we are bound to find our loved ones at their mercy. God help us if they survive with the way things keep going in this country!
If we continue to pretend as if all is well, we will only find ourselves to blame if not now then tomorrow, as the future does not even hold anything to cheer about

A Word For Those That Call Me A Tribalist By Femi Fani-Kayode

Those that call me a tribalist are simply misguided. Perhaps they do not know the meaning of the word or its true import. Those that know me well can confirm the fact that I am not a tribalist, a racist or a bigot and that I consider such sentiments as being unworthy of a man of class, good breeding and culture. I am however a firm believer in the propagation of truth and I appreciate the value and importance of history. Sadly many of our igbo compatriots do not believe in that. For them history consists of only one thing- how other Nigerians have always marginalised them and treated them badly.

If only they knew their own history, where they are coming from, what they used to be, where they were 100 years ago and what their forefathers did to the rest of Nigeria over the last 80 years they would know why they have always had such a hard time in this country. Sadly because they dont know any of these things they cannot learn from them. And if they cannot learn from them they will continue to make the same mistakes. That is why they can come to another mans land and territory and call it their own and when we say ”no” they tell us to shut up and call us tribalists.

I was not a tribalist when I wrote a tribute to Colonel Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu after he died or when I condemned the ’60′s pogroms that took place in the north in which their people were slaughtered like flies. I was not a tribalist when I wrote against my good friend Senator Ahmed Sani Yarima and child marriage in the north. Yet now I am a tribalist because I spoke the truth about our history and who the yoruba are. I was not a tribalist when I had a long-standing and intimate relationship with Miss Bianca Onoh, an igbo lady, who many years later married Ojukwu and who is now our Ambassador in Spain. I was not a tribalist when I had a long-standing and intimate relationship with Miss Chioma Anasoh, another igbo lady, who I almost took as a second wife. I was not a tribalist when I had a long-standing and intimate relationship with Miss Adaobi Uchegbu, another igbo lady, who was exceptionally close to me and who is now at the National Headquarters of the ruling PDP.

I was not a tribalist when I wrote essays defending the rights of the igbo and every other Nigerian nationality to exercise their right of self-determination and leave Nigeria if that is what they wanted to do. I was not a tribalist when I consistently wrote that Nigeria must have a Sovereign National Conference where the rights and obligations of all its various nationalities would be clearly defined and agreed upon. I was not a tribalist when I employed more igbo people as a Presidential spokesman and a Minister of the Federal Republic than even my own yoruba. I was not a tribalist when I wrote an essay, just two years ago, extolling the virtues of igbo women and telling the world about their sudden and meteoric rise and how far they had gone in the power circles of this country in the last 10 years. I was not a tribalist when I condemned the bombing of predominantly igbo and catholic churches and the killing of the igbo and others by Boko Haram in the north over the last three years.

I was not a tribalist when I risked my life by consistently writing against Boko Haram and urging our President to do a better job at protecting the lives of all Nigerians even though I live in the north. I was not a tribalist when I wrote against political sharia in the late ’90′s and I participated in protracted and sometimes acrimoniuos debates with islamic fundamentalists and islamists. I was not a tribalist when I was in NADECO and when we fought against military rule in Nigeria. I was not a tribalist when I fought for a President from the south-south or the south-east. I was not a tribalist when I wrote in defence of the igbo when it came to the abandoned property issue. I was not a tribalist when I wrote about the excesses of the Federal troops during the civil war.  I was not a tribalist when I commended Azikiwe and the virtues of the NCNC in Nigerian history. I was not a tribalist when I wrote that it was unfair and wrong for the Federal Government of Nigeria to leave the igbo with only 20 pounds each after the civil war. I was not a tribalist when many years ago I attended and gave my life to Christ in a church called TREM which was established by a great igbo man by the name of Bishop Mike Okonkwo. I was not a tribalist when my grandfather, Justice Victor Adebiyi Kayode, taught Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe at Methodist Boys High School in Lagos and when my father, Chief Remilekun Fani-Kayode, was appointed as the leader of the predominantly igbo NCNC in the Western Regional House of Assembly. I could go on and on. These people have very short memories and anyone that does not agree with them all the time or that says one word against them at any point in time is labelled a tribalist for life.

They called Chief Obafemi Awolowo a tribalist, an igbo-hater a genocidal maniac and a child-killer simply because the man refused to join sides with them in the civil war yet they forgot that on one of the occassions that Awolowo ran for the Presidency his running mate was from the east and not from the north. They called Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, Chief S.L Akintola and Sir Ahmadu Bello igbo-haters and tribalists simply because they saw through the igbo agenda at a very early stage in our history and they marked and killed them all for it. They called General Yakubu Gowon a genocidal maniac, a child-killer, an igbo-hater and a tribalist simply because opposed Biafra, stood up to Ojukwu and insisted on keeping Nigeria together and even though he declared that there was ”no victor and no vanquished” after the civil war.

They accused President Olusegun Obasanjo of being a tribalist and an igbo-hater even though he appointed an igbo man as the first GOC in the Nigerian Army since 1966 and even though he appointed more igbos into key positions in his government than any President before him. They accused President Shehu Shagari of being a tribalist and an igbo-hater even though he pardoned Ojukwu and allowed him to return back home after a long period in exile. They have accused the Nigerian people of being tribalists and igbo-haters simply because we have not had an igbo President since 1966 forgetting that Nigeria was magnamonious in victory and that she not only gladly welcomed them back into the fold after the civil war but that she also gave them the Vice Presidency of the country only ten years later. They have labelled the northerners as tribalists and igbo-haters simply because the north has refused to tolerate their excesses and accept their complicated ways. They have labelled the Niger Deltans as tribalists and igbo-haters simply due to the ”abandoned property issue” and because historically many of them have always resisted the idea of igbo domination.

They have labelled the yoruba as tribalists and igbo-haters simply because we have refused to accept their claims to our land and territory and even though we were more charitable, hospitable, accomodating and generous to them than any other nationality in Nigeria after the civil war. The yoruba particularly have been too kind and gentle with them. That is the problem. They see our liberal and accomodating nature as stupidity and weakness. That is why they always call the yoruba cowards forgetting that the history of the yoruba proves otherwise. It is now time to tell the truth. They despise the yoruba and they only pretend to believe in one Nigeria as long as they can always have their way and laud it over others. Worst of all, generally speaking, they have no restraining factors because money and the acquisition of wealth is their sole objective and purpose in life.

Someone ought to tell them that this is not a virtue but a vice. It is a cultural deficiency which is borne out of not having any history. If they did they would be less aggressive, more restrained and far more civil to others even where and when they disagree with them. If speaking these bitter home truths and yearning and fighting for a better Nigeria makes me a tribalist then it is a toga that I would be happy to wear. I will not sit by quietly and allow my people, the yoruba people of south western Nigeria, to be rubbished, insulted and cheated by anyone no matter how aggressive and given to extreemities that anyone may believe he is. I make or offer and no apology for my views. My numerous assertions on the igbo stand.

Meanwhile I have read all sorts of strange submissions in various newspapers and blogs that have held themselves out as rejoinders to my two articles titled “Lagos, The Igbo and the Servants Of Truth” and “The Bitter Truth About The Igbo”. Sadly other than the usual abuse and ungodly clap-trap not one of them has been able to address ANY of the issues that I raised in either of the two articles, answer any of the questions that I posed in them or successfully challenge my presentation of historical facts.

The bellicose nature and sheer crassness of these so-called rejoinders goes to prove two things. Firstly that those that I have descibed as being collectively unlettered, uncouth, uncultured, unrestrained and crude in all their ways really are all those things and a lot more and secondly that they cannot put up any reasonable or serious arguement to discredit or refute the message so instead they are attempting to destroy the messanger. Meanwhile the two essays have been published in various newspapers in our country and outside and it will continue to be published by others long into the forseeable future.

The message is clear and it is already out there. It cannot be called back in. The horse has bolted from the stable and the falcon has left the nest. No matter how hard those that are attempting to intimidate us into silence may try it will not work and we will not be cowed. The message is already out there and the genie is already out of the bottle. Those that seek to continue to denigrate and belittle the yoruba and lay claim to what is rightfully ours should desist from doing so. They should grant us our peace and give us our due respect and they will get the same in return. If they do not do so those things will elude them and eventually history will repeat itself again in this country.

Meanwhile when anyone reads a rejoinder that addresses the issues that I raised in my essays and that has some level of scholarship and intellectual content they should please let me know and I may well dignify it with a response. The shameless and emotional thrash and disjointed verbiage that have been described as rejoinders so far are just not up to scratch. They are bereft of any scholarship and intellectual content. They also invoke pity in me for the faceless plebians that wrote them and those they claim to be speaking for. When the igbo, or anyone else, find a real champion that can cross swords with me and give me a good run for my money someone should please let me know. I am itching for a real debate with a worthy adversary on this issue.

Like the great Achilles I feel that I have no match. Are there no Hector’s out there? Sadly it appears that my accusers, traducers, opposers and haters cannot find one. All they have is their hate, their ignorance, their insults and their inbred crudity and vulgarity.

The Challenge Before APC By Olusegun Adeniyi

Political scientists are always preoccupied with the issue of succession. Incidentally, this is not a challenge associated with constitutional governments alone. Even in the old primitive tribal societies of kings and priests, there were always questions about what would happen after one ruler or how he could be replaced.
In his book, “Succession of Kings”, for instance, Sir James Frazer recounted a story from the ancient Congo: “The people of Congo believed that if their Pontiff were to die, the world would perish and the earth, which he alone sustained by his power and merit would immediately be annihilated. Accordingly, when he fell ill and seemed likely to die, his prospective successor entered his house with a rope or club and strangled or bludgeoned him to death.”
You could argue that the practice was barbaric in that the people tended to nudge fate in a predetermined direction but it was nonetheless one way of resolving the issue. In modern constitutionalism, however, this problem appeared to have been settled with the codification of a set of rules and procedures on how people are to get to power and how they can be replaced. The essence of the constitutional method though is that it tended to expand the space for reasoned elaboration. That perhaps explains the idea of multi-party system, which affords the electorate the opportunity to choose between a set of alternatives.
It is within the foregoing context that one should view the recent registration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of the All Progressive Congress (APC) which is set to effectively challenge the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 general elections. In the last 14 years of our democracy, we have had presidential elections with predictable outcomes because of the dominance of the PDP and the fragmentation of the opposition political parties. That then explains the excitement of Nigerians about the formation of the APC, notwithstanding the misgivings that many may have about its promoters and their anti-democratic inclinations.
Personally, I am excited about the prospect of the APC because I spent my year as a Fellow at the Weathehead Centre for International Affairs, Harvard University, between 2010 and 2011 interrogating the issue of incumbent presidential elections in Africa. (http://programs.wcfia.harvard.edu/files/fellows/files/paper_adeniyi_final.pdf). My conclusion was that the narrative of elections on the continent is that of a process which presents little or no risk of defeat for the incumbent. “It is my contention that defeating the ruling party/incumbent in Africa would require the creation of strategic coalitions of political parties in which personal ambitions are sacrificed for group goals”, I argued. I then added: “While elections are indeed more transparent when the incumbent leader is not on the ballot-either by reason of death or expiration of tenure- it will take the formation of a broad coalition of opposition political parties to expect victory against a sitting African president seeking re-election.”
Now I want to see how relevant my thesis will be to our local environment. Because if the APC leaders can put their acts together, then we may indeed have a proper presidential contest in 2015. And that, I believe, can only help to strengthen our democracy.

Agriculture…The Future Nigeria Is Avoiding

In the 1960s, before it turned to oil, Nigeria was one of the most promising agricultural producers in the world. Between 1962 and 1968, export crops were the country’s main foreign exchange earner. The country was number one globally in palm oil exports, well ahead of Malaysia and Indonesia, and exported 47 percent of all groundnuts, putting it ahead of the US and Argentina.
But its status as an agricultural powerhouse has declined, and steeply. While Nigeria once provided 18 percent of the global production of cocoa, second in the world in the 1960s, that figure is now down to 8 percent. And while the country produces 65 percent of tomatoes in West Africa, it is now the largest importer of tomato paste.
Nigeria’s minister for agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, reels off these statistics with regret as he discusses the country’s deteriorating agriculture sector. “Nigeria is known for nothing else than oil, and it is so sad, because we never used to have oil – all we used to have was agriculture,” he says.
Nigeria’s oil has come at the detriment of the agriculture sector, he claims, “and that is why we had a rising poverty situation. We were having growth but without robust growth able to impact millions of people because it is not connecting to agriculture.”
That might explain why Nigeria’s economic statistics are so puzzling. While the country has been posting high growth figures, and makes it into Goldman Sachs’ ‘Next 11’ emerging markets group, absolute poverty is rising, with almost 100 million people living on less than a $1.25 a day. The National Bureau of Statistics says 60.9 percent of Nigerians in 2010 were living in absolute poverty, up from 54.7 percent in 2004.
But it is not just oil that has hollowed out the agriculture sector, with knock-on effects on poverty rates. Restrictive trade policies also had an effect, especially in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Tariff increases, a rise in import licenses and duties, and export bans and tariffs – as well as a centralisation of marketing of agricultural produce through the formation of crop-specific commodity boards – all created a lumbering, inefficient private sector, as well as opening up many opportunities for corruption. Today, Nigeria has transitioned from being a self-sufficient country in food to being a net importer, spending $11bn on imports of rice, fish and sugar. “It just makes absolutely no sense to me at all,” says Mr Adesina. “My job is to change that.”
Not everything is in the minister’s hands, of course. Climate change poses a threat to Nigerian agriculture – the World Bank recently predicted an up to 30 percent drop in the country’s crop output due to erratic rainfall and higher temperatures. But when it comes to achievable changes, Mr Adesina seems well placed to act on what lies within reach, combining an encyclopaedic knowledge of his country’s agriculture sector with a clear strategic vision.
While ministers’ portfolio’s are often fast-changing, giving them limited time to develop expertise in any given sector, Mr Adesina has a strong background as vice president of policy and partnerships at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra), and a decade at the Rockefeller Foundation. He was appointed by UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon as one of 17 global leaders to spearhead the Millennium Development Goals. His energy is palpable, and he looks well positioned to engineer a major turnaround in Nigerian agriculture.
The change needed, he says, requires a shift in mindset. “We were not looking at agriculture through the right lens. We were looking at agriculture as a developmental activity, like a social sector in which you manage poor people in rural areas. But agriculture is not a social sector. Agriculture is a business. Seed is a business, fertiliser is a business, storage, value added, logistics and transport – it is all about business.”
He wants to change the sector’s image, putting it at the forefront of national development. “Agriculture is the future of Nigeria. And agriculture that is modernised, that is productive, that is competitive. We must be a global player,” he says.
Nigeria’s respected finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, speaks positively about Mr Adesina’s reforms to date – especially in cleaning up the corrupt fertiliser industry. Now, rather than directly participating in the delivery system for fertiliser, the government leaves that to the private sector and only provides the subsidy. This change has tackled 40 years of corruption, and ended it – Mr Adesina claims – in 90 days.
Ms Okonjo-Iweala says it has been easier to work with Mr Adesina than previous ministers. “It is not only about doling out subsidies which do not reach farmers,” she says. “That was frustrating for me the first time [I was finance minister]. Now he came and cleaned up the fertiliser issues.”
Nigeria is now seeking to add 20m metric tonnes to the domestic food supply by 2015 and to create 3.5 million jobs through agriculture. This requires more sophisticated thinking about the value addition of individual crops – cassava being but one example. “We are the largest producer of cassava in the world, at 40m metric tonnes, but I want us to become the largest processor of cassava as well,” Mr Adesina claims. “We can focus on using cassava for starch, dry cassava chips for export to China, cassava flour to replace some of the wheat flour that we are importing. So we are restructuring the space for the private sector to add value to every single thing.”
Finance is the critical catalyst to growth, and in Nigeria it has proven hard to link the two. “You find that only 2 percent of all bank lending in Nigeria goes into agriculture – a sector that is 40 percent of GDP and 70 percent of employment. The reason was because banks could not find the money trail in the agriculture sector,” Mr Adesina says.
That is beginning to change, with banks starting to look again at the opportunities offered by agriculture – which in part follows the reforms implemented by Mr Adesina’s administration to root out corruption and improve efficiency. Last year, his ministry developed a facility with the Central Bank of Nigeria – helped by donor assistance from the UK, German and US development agencies – called Nirsal, an agribusiness initiative that provides risk management, financing, trading, and strategic solutions.
The $50m facility, which leverages $3.5bn, reduces the risk of agricultural lending by providing credit risk guarantees and brokerage services to buyers and sellers of agricultural commodities, including structured buyer forums. It also, selectively, buys on its own account to bring stability to markets. In addition, Nirsal offers advice designed to connect suppliers with downstream buyers.
This is part of a market-smart initiative, rather than a heavy handed intervention in the sector. “With banks you cannot beg them to lend because they are taking care of their people’s money, so you create the value and they see the value and lend,” he says.
While banks have often had a high perceived risk of lending to agriculture, the terms can be competitive if the sector functions well. Mr Adesina worked directly with the managing directors and chief risk officers of Nigeria’s banks in order to tackle what he saw as a misperception of risk, at least if the sector’s flaws – including inefficiencies and corruption – could be cleaned up. “What we have shown the banks is that agriculture gives as high and competitive a rate of return as other sectors if structured properly. But for banks to lend, we had to fix the agricultural value chain. Now the banks are all exploding on agriculture in Nigeria.”
The percentage of lending by banks to the sector was just 1 percent in 2010 – now it is 4 percent, with a target of 10 percent. Last year, banks embarked on lending to seed companies for the first time in Nigeria. “We did an assessment at the end of the season,” recalls Mr Adesina. “The central bank governor asked the banks how much money did you lose lending to these guys last year? All the banks said zero percent. This year we expect the banks to lend $400m to seed companies alone. The reason their losses are zero is because we have changed the way we structure our agriculture sector.” The best performing stocks in the Nigerian Stock Exchange are now not banks, but agricultural companies.
Crucially, it is institutional reform – rather than simply heavier public spending – which can best unleash financing in the sector. “I do not think that throwing money at anything solves problems. It is all about policy reforms, creating incentives, getting the private sector in there, getting financial markets behind agriculture. Our goal is to become an agriculturally industrialised economy. Nigeria should be like Brazil, as far as I am concerned,” says Mr Adesina.
“Of course you need public financing of critical things like infrastructure, roads, and irrigation facilities – those are public goods that governments are obviously spending money on. But the greatest way is through the private sector.”

Source: The Nation

Before This Elephant Dies By Funke Egbemode

Most of the time, elephants do not die of old age. They can die of broken hearts, for instance but for the most part, they die of starvation. They spend most of their lives eating vegetation which requires a lot of chewing. Over time their teeth grind down and then another takes its place. Similar to the way humans lose their baby teeth as we grow older and then a new set comes in. With elephants  however, this will happen four times in their lives after which they no longer can eat and therefore starve to death. Elephants  travel many miles to end up at the place called ‘elephant graveyard’. They in most cases know when it is their time and will travel to elephant graveyards if they are able.

Isn’t the Peoples Democratic Party just like the elephant? Let’s look back and consider how many times this largest party has gone close to destruction. Are the members counting the number of times they have danced at the edge of destruction but somehow survived? Is this not a party that is taking it for granted that it will survive every earthquake and self-inflicted pestilence? Unlike elephants who know that there is a limited number of times they can replace their teeth, it does not look like the largest party in Africa realises that even the cat with nine lives eventually dies. Because the PDP has survived many near catastrophic moments and seasons, it seems to have forgotten that there is always that day when  monkey go go market, he no go return.

PDP is like the Yoruba child named Folorunsho (it is God who keeps this one) who climbs the palm tree with a climbing rope made from plantain tree. Folorunsho would eventually realise that his nice name would not protect him from the sure consequences of attempting suicide.

PDP has made a career of climbing all kinds of trees with ropes made from even rubber. It thinks it is invincible. It is in trouble and doesn’t seem to know it. Or maybe it knows. Maybe it is just an elephant nearing its end and heading for the elephants graveyard.

Maybe this great party has finally lost its teeth, for the last time, and is about to die. Maybe it knows and people like me are just worried for nothing and wasting our emotions. Just maybe.

As far as I can see, PDP is in trouble. It has been in trouble for a while actually. And when I had a dream and saw the party leaving the Garden of Eden on its own, without God pursuing it, I knew there must be a community of snakes on the party’s roof. We can all see the snakes but this party is partying away anyway. Even when the snakes started descending into the dance arena, PDP continued swigging its whiskey and dancing like a man possessed by a thousand demons.

What exactly is wrong with this PDP? Why is it bent on self destruction? Okay, you don’t understand why I’m worried on behalf of the party that has, for years, threatened to rule us forever? I do not understand why the members are forever fighting and determined to change the meaning of the word ‘reconciliation’. It is a simple enough concept but in PDP, it is difficult to comprehend, least of all realise. Members of this party are like a husband and wife who are perpetually giving each other a bloody nose and a black eye while insisting that their marriage is intact.

How come the PDP can’t see that it is in trouble when a small fry like me can see it dangling on a thread from an Iroko tree? Why can’t the elders tell this Folorunsho that it is about to fall into the abyss?

Why is Folorunsho smiling?

You see, as I savoured my cow tail pepper soup on Wednesday after I heard that INEC had finally registered APC, I said to myself, PDP is in soup, hot cow tail pepper soup. But does PDP know it? No, it is too far gone in its reprobate ways to notice that this elephant may well be close to its graveyard. Like the elephant, PDP seems to need no push. It is doing it all on its own, this destructive no reconciliation business. That is why they can still talk about why Governor Seriake Dickson is too small and inexperienced to head a reconciliation committee for this party. I can’t stop shaking my head.

Is this party, at this moment, in a position to reject Dickson? It was okay when a few witches were on PDP’s case but not now when the ruling party is being hemmed in on all sides by witches from within and without. PDP is up against what the Yoruba call apapo eleye. All the political witches in the land have landed at the front door of PDP, set to not just pluck out the party’s eyes but to devour it for dinner. Is this then the time to start checking out irrelevances? For all they care, Dickson Committee may be their last hope, their final chance at closing ranks. Come to think of it, when the old men headed the past reconciliation committees, why didn’t the party mend its fence? The problem with PDP is that members have a knack for ignoring their leprosy and scratching the itch. It is in their DNA. Why worry about Dickson’s age and experience when there are tons of thorns to extract from the party’s bleeding side? Here’s a man who has stepped into the Ekiti troubled waters and convinced the axe and broken bottle-wielding politicians to drop their weapons. He has convinced the Anambra contenders to the throne to concentrate on the elephant they are carrying on their head and quit looking for ants with their toes. And then the PDP convention may just hold. Countryman Dickson has also got the angry men in court to withdraw their case against the party. If he had experience and more grey hair than Prof Soyinka, can anyone deny that Dickson has not done badly in less than a month? Whether your son reads all day and plays all night or reads all night and plays all day, if he passes his O’level exams with seven distinctions, will you worry about the fact that he’s barely 14 or celebrate his success?

But in PDP, whatever does not tear the umbrella is not impressive. You’d think PDP would be worried about the implication of their enemies forming a union instead of asking for Dickson’s birth certificate. You’d think they’d be worried about the fact that they now have governors whose votes they cannot count on anywhere. You’d think PDP elders would rally round any reconciliation committee and close ranks. But they would not. Nobody seems to be concerned about the now swollen ranks of opposition in the National Assembly and what that could mean if someone decides to move for any kind of impeachment in either of our chambers. No, that is so not important. What is important is the side of town Countryman Dickson was born and how many years he had spent in PDP. Is he an elder or not, blah blah blah?

My heart goes to this party that came with so much promise and grew so confident it promised to rule us until the return of Jesus Christ because now, from where I stand, the APC is lacing up its boots to  kick PDP’s teeth in forever.

Peter Obi’s Opera By Sam Omatseye

A few days earlier in Dakar, the humble capital of Senegal, on the seaside tranquility of one of its tony hotels, I contemplated Camara Laye, the under-song author of Africa’s most realised novel, Radiance of King. The book is a localised rendition of Kafka’s mad work of genius, The Castle. There the German Jew tackles the epic emptiness of search.
I had not resettled here in Nigeria on my return when I picked up the rumble between Lagos State and Anambra State, and I could not but take another journey – mental this time – to Senegal. I recalled another author, Aminata Sow Fall, who wrote an African classic titled, The Beggar’s Strike.
Governor Peter Obi, the feminine-voiced matador of Anambra State, should read that book, if he has not. If he has, he should read it again. It is the story of the revenge of beggars against the patriarchal art of oppression in Africa. In 2011, Gov. Obi did not show much empathy for the mendicant profession. The beggars came from Akwa Ibom State, and Obi did not like them. He ordered, according to the reports, about 29 of them out of the streets of Awka and Onitsha.
Unknown to him, the wraiths and spirits of the beggars would haunt him, just as the beggars stalked the government bullies in Sow Fall’s novella. The alternative title Fall gave her book is Dregs of Society.
Fast forward to 2013. The Lagos State Government of the governor of example, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, ordered the repatriation of 14 destitute persons to Anambra State, and Obi is crying foul. The beggars have come home to roost!
No hoopla attended the Akwa Ibom incident from Godswill Akpabio, the ebullient governor of the state. This author does not know if Obi wrote Akpabio and handed the beggars to a government person. The Anambra State Government has not, as Lagos has shown, demonstrated in public any exchange of correspondence with the other government before the repatriation order.
But as documents have evinced, the Lagos State government rescued the Anambra State citizens from the streets. They were not just lunatics but destitute. They were not child beggars as in the case of Anambra State, but adults. Unlike in Anambra State, the destitute received humane treatment. They enjoyed relocation from the severity of the streets to the serenity and comfort of shelter, food and medical treatment. The Lagos State Government also wrote the Anambra State liaison office to inform them that they had the persons under their care and wanted to relocate them. The State replied asking for details of the persons, and Lagos provided the facts. According to the state, the care was costing the state. So a plan was put in place with the knowledge of the state to repatriate the persons.
Officials of the Anambra State Government were, according to the arrangement, to wait on the Anambra end of the Niger Bridge. But when the Lagos State bearers of the destitute persons arrived, the Anambra State Government representatives did not show up. The persons were then handed to a government office nearby. This negates the claim by Obi and some of the mischief makers that the persons were dumped at the bridge. I would concede that the Lagos State officials should have consulted Lagos and should have returned the fellows to Lagos.
But this does not mean that the Lagos officials erred. Any government office ought to have taken custody of them and reported to the appropriate authority. What this shows is that Obi was probably not duly informed of the proceedings up to that point by his officers in Lagos and Awka, or the whispering, solemn-faced governor was doing havoc with the situation.
The issuance of letters from Fashola’s government to Obi’s liaison office reflected earnestness and respect not only for the government of Anambra State but also for the persons involved.
That explains why some Nigerians have expressed dismay at Obi’s irritability and emotive recklessness in his letter to the President as though Fashola had declared war on the people of Anambra State. It shows that Obi and his government do not operate on Fashola’s due process style. A letter from a government to another is sacrosanct, and a governor should not shout hoarse, and Obi cannot shout if he tried. But the virus of accusation has been read in many quarters as opportunistic and defensive.
In the atmosphere of the registration of All Progressives Congress, Obi should be wary not to conflate an innocuous matter into an ethnic virus. This is dangerous and reckless. The Igbo form a significant population in Lagos, and the record shows that the Igbo have enjoyed warm reception in the state. They do business without let, and have earned rights in the state like any other group. It can be argued that other than Yoruba, the Igbo are the most favoured. They also play roles in government that Obi has not given any outsider in Anambra.
In these days of ethnic rage, we do not expect a man like Obi to be what the Bible calls, “the accuser of our brethren.” In spite of evidence of letters, Obi lied that Lagos State did not communicate with the authorities of Anambra State.
As Fashola has noted, why did Obi not call Fashola before escalating the matter into a potential Igbo versus Yoruba matter. Obi’s eyes are also set on the battle for Anambra State governor polls scheduled for November 16. He wants to pour venom into the relationship between former governor Ngige and his people by tagging him with the brush of the friend of the enemy, or the friend of the Yoruba.
Akwa Ibom recently sent two destitute persons to Lagos, and Lagos did not raise any hubbub over it. The letters between both states also tell the decorum between both states. The use of the word deportation is not only wrong but tendentious. This is a federation, and the relationship between Lagos and Anambra is not between nations but parts of a nation.
It is wrong and wrong-headed to exploit the destitute. The destitute is the worst any human can get materially. If Obi reads the Russian classic Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyvsky, he would accompany the old drunk who distinguished the destitute from the poor. The poor may have a little, and survive. The destitute person is like an empty well.
But Obi should be careful not to fall into what is worse than material destitution. That is moral destitution. That wreaks of dishonor, and that was what I saw in a play titled, Three Penny Opera written by German playwright Bertolt Brecht. It is the story of a leader of a beggar’s colony who wants to take advantage of them for profit. He lost the pride of his daughter to the bargain.
Obi should not prostitute the pride of Anambra State on the platform of political and ethnic opportunism.

Of Leaders And Dealers: Soyinka Vs Clark By Olakunle Abimbola

A community with worthy elders never comes to ruin – Yoruba proverb

When do elders morph from leaders to dealers?

The latest foxtrot on the Rivers crisis, by the South-South Elders and Stakeholders, a group led by Pa Edwin Clark, Ijaw leader and presidential godfather, might just offer a clue.
The Clark-led elders, on July 24, told Governor Chibuike Amaechi to stop blaming President Goodluck Jonathan and Patience, his ever-meddling wife, for the contrived Rivers crisis; told the governor to shape in or shape out; told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to kick out the governor to serve as warning to other power renegades; pooh-poohed the four northern governors that went on a solidarity visit to Amaechi as cynical meddlers; and branded Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, as an arch-hypocrite who wept more than the bereaved at the legislative banditry of the Rivers G-5, while he kept mute in earlier legislative outlawry in Oyo (where Governor Rashidi Ladoja was illegally impeached) and Soyinka’s native Ogun State (when Governor Gbenga Daniel inspired legislative lawlessness in his gubernatorial dying days).
Indeed, they practically did a pun on the famous author of The Man Died and his work: that the man died in the Nobel Laureate for his alleged quiet at constitutional outrages in Oyo and Ogun states; while jerking awake at the repeat of the same crime in their Rivers!
But, of course, Clark and his “elders”, in their release, never bothered with the rigour of reason. All they barked, conceited folks, was the language of power, boasting neither wisdom nor reason.
The whole thing was some dumb smartie’s response to the five northern governors’ “Save Democracy tour” to former President Olusegun Obasanjo (Jonathan’s estranged godfather), Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, three former soldiers ironically pitched to help save democracy under Jonathan’s reckless assault!
But again, the Clark gambit was a classic from the brilliant dullness of the Jonathan court: no tactics, no strategy, just stark power blundering and bumbling!
Even then, if the so-called elders wilfully lost a bit of their wisdom in anticipation of some power gravy, can’t their young Turks at least work hard to safeguard the integrity of their claims?
The Clark group made the fantastic claim that Soyinka kept mute during the legislative anomie in Oyo and Ogun states. But this claim is either criminal forgetfulness or plain mischief.
On the Ladoja illegal impeachment, Soyinka called for Obasanjo’s impeachment, linking the Oyo legislative crisis to his complicity – just as Jonathan’s link to the present Rivers affront is crystal clear.
“Obasanjo has acted sufficiently against the constitution to warrant his impeachment,” Soyinka declared on 20 January 2006. “There is more than enough evidence to warrant his impeachment”.
That was even a case of 18 (a simple majority) removing the governor in a 32-member legislature, which nevertheless fell short of the constitutionally required two-thirds majority: not a case of Rivers’ “simple minority” of five versus 27! AFP, with Nigerian newspapers, reported the Soyinka stand.
On the Gbenga Daniel legislative shenanigans in Ogun, where the minority G-9 overthrew the majority G-15, Soyinka was no less hard-hitting. “I wish to state, categorically, this cannot and must not be allowed to stand. I call on the citizens of the state to ensure democracy is restored. A minority” he insisted, “cannot sack a majority”.
Indeed, since Soyinka’s famous “Daani Elebo” laconic putdown, he had visited every OGD misdeed with ringing condemnation, including dismissing OGD’s as “government by billboard”.
But where was Clark’s beloved presidential godson in all of these? Feigned culpable disinterest enough to name and retain Daniel as his South West presidential campaign coordinator! For Jonathan, it was, it is and ever shall be: to win and keep power, every constitutional breach is tolerable!
All these were in the public space. They are eminently verifiable with a push of the computer keyboard. Yet, Clark and his elders made such an outlandish claim! Might these elders suffer criminal senility, just to patch up the ultra-bad case of their beloved godson?
Even if Soyinka had kept mum: does that justify the criminality in the Rivers Assembly of five (with a fake mace to boot!) trying to overthrow the will of 27, simply because of collusion from Jonathan’s Nigeria Police? That is the futility and hollow arrogance of power, while these so-called South-South elders ought to have built their case on rigour and reason. It falls flat – even in the ears of the dumb!
But Soyinka was right: if Obasanjo had been impeached for the Ladoja outrage or Jonathan seriously reprimanded for playing dumb, for electoral gain, on the OGD-inspired Ogun legislative crime, this nonsense would not have repeated itself; and the Clark “elders” would not ridicule themselves with woolly thinking to back constitutional evil.
But maybe it is good Jonathan is pushing his good luck. And maybe, if he pushes it enough, he just might be impeached to avert any future presidential rascality! Did these elders ever think of this dire possibility?
Really, it is amusing Clark of all people would doubt Soyinka’s total commitment to a Nigeria driven by equity, justice and fair play, and not arbitrary power. Indeed, when Soyinka landed in Ibadan in 1969, after his Civil War Kaduna incarceration, his first response to the war-time jingle, “To keep Nigeria One …” was a snappy riposte: “Justice must be done!”
A younger Clark was busy collaborating with the same northern forces he now wants to demonise, to willy-nilly protect his godson – a power he doesn’t even have. But that is the way of Nigeria’s power men and women of all seasons!
Soyinka comes from a diametrically opposed culture: justice men and women of all seasons. And names like Obafemi Awolowo, Tai Solarin, Ayodele Awojobi, Gani Fawehinmi, Femi Falana – do they ring a bell? They stand for justice and fair play and would battle anyone, no matter where he comes from, even within their own Yoruba stock, that essays impunity.
So those orchestrated merchants of vulgar abuse, who claim the Yoruba are their problems because Soyinka told Jonathan to rein in his henchmen and women in Port Harcourt, miss the point.
The Nigerian Presidency is not South-South property. Whoever occupies that post must play by the rules or face the flak of right-thinking citizens – Nigeria is a republic, after all! So it is with President Jonathan.
As for Clark’s grouse with the visiting northern governors, the late Chuba Okadigbo called it “political arithmetic”. If Jonathan, with his power delusion and certified incompetence, alienates a wide swath of the North and a good chunk of the South West, how does he hope to win a second term? Indeed, if his party is in disarray and he is, for ego, planting further insurrection in his back yard, how does his centre hold?
Elders are supposed to be wise. Clark and co must do some hard thinking, save Jonathan from self-inflicted ruin and stop playing to juvenile gallery.

Nigerian Jet for Malawian President

Nigerian jet for Malawian President
WHEN Nigeria dispatched a jet from its Presidential Air Fleet late last month to fetch Malawi’s President, Joyce Banda, to Abuja, it unwittingly drew attention to our government’s fiscal recklessness. It was lost on President Goodluck Jonathan that while Banda had sold her cash-strapped country’s only presidential jet to save costs, he has, in three years in office, expanded Nigeria’s executive fleet to 10 aircraft.
Neither the reality of over 60 per cent of the population living in poverty, nor the recent alarming revelation by the Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that government’s revenue inflow had dwindled to a dangerous level, has persuaded Jonathan to pare down the size of the Presidential Air Fleet.  Instead, it is projected to rise as provision has reportedly been made to purchase two additional helicopters to ensure the President, Vice-President, their families, and other top functionaries travel in luxury at public expense.
Banda was in Nigeria to deliver the keynote address at the Global Power Women Network Africa summit in Abuja at the invitation of Nigeria’s First Lady. To ease her trip to Nigeria’s capital, our generous government dispatched a jet to pick her from Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, and return her home after the event. That is to be expected since Malawi lacks a presidential aircraft.
Shortly after assuming the presidency in 2012, Banda had taken a critical look at her country’s economy. Almost 40 per cent of the national budget came from aid donors, while revenues from its major exports – tobacco, tea, coffee and sugar – were falling due to lower global demand and prices. Moreover, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank had withdrawn most aid in response to the purchase in 2009 of a presidential jet by Banda’s predecessor, Bingu wa Mutharika, and his abandonment of an IMF-dictated adjustment programme. Other donors followed the World Bank/IMF lead.
Besides selling the presidential plane for $15 million, Banda also sold off a fleet of 35 Mercedes Benz limousines reserved for the president and the cabinet. She cut her own salary by 30 per cent, among other austerity measures. Her actions won praise around the world and convinced the IMF and other aid donors to return with credit and handouts to back the government’s ongoing painful structural adjustment programme.
But Nigerian leaders will not sacrifice their own comfort for anything. Even in a rich country like Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron and cabinet members took pay cuts in response to the global recession and the spending cuts that the government introduced. Here, our leaders are obsessed with living in luxury, regardless of the mass of people who are poor, the lack of infrastructure, mass unemployment and dwindling revenues. Okonjo-Iweala’s warning that the government may run out of money to pay salaries by October in the face of massive oil theft and vandalism of pipelines that have sharply reduced oil production and revenues has not jolted officials. Neither the wasteful Executive nor the overpaid legislators are ready to give up their luxurious lifestyles.
But British leaders often take commercial flights and, occasionally, trains when travelling for state functions. Japan, with its Gross Domestic Product of $4.52 trillion and per capita income of $36,200, (at Purchasing Power Parity), has only two aircraft – Boeing 747 – 400 – for use of the prime minister and the emperor; the Netherlands, with GDP of $770.2 billion and PCI of $42,300, has two; the British Queen, Elizabeth II, and Cameron travel on chartered British Airways flights, despite their country’s $2.32 trillion GDP and PCI of $38,700; South Africa has just one presidential aircraft with its GDP of $678.6 billion and PCI of $11,300, though it expects another soon, while Malaysia has one, but has also ordered a second; but with its GDP of $492 billion  and PCI of $16,900, like others cited, Malaysia is ahead of Nigeria with a GDP of $450.5 billion and PCI of $2,700.
Given these scenarios, it is high time we ended this absurdity. Today, the aviation sector is in dire straits. How does one explain that only two domestic airlines – Arik, with 23 planes, and Aero Contractors with 14 – have larger fleets than this one kept for a few at public expense? Over N9 billion is believed to be spent on the maintenance of the presidential fleet each year, while the PAF required 47 Nigerian Air Force officers, 173 airmen/airwomen and 96 civilian employees on full time call in 2012.
Nigerians, however, desperately need a government that exists to serve the people, not a few. Successive governments have demonstrated incompetence and abused and misused public funds. There should be minimum ethical standards and decorum in public office. Other developing nations like Ghana where a former president, John Kufuor, once disposed of a spare presidential aircraft, retaining only one, should shame us into prudent conduct.
Jonathan has no excuse to continue keeping 10 aircraft and our under-performing legislators have no reason to keep approving new purchases or the billions of naira they appropriate for their maintenance each year. But, ultimately, it is only when the electorate shakes off its lethargy and demands accountability and responsibility from public officials that things will change for the better.


Source: Punch Newspaper

Yerima’s Original Sin by Abimbola Adelakun

Nigerians worship two gods in their political affairs: tribe and religion. Both are more vengeful than Soponna, the Yoruba god of smallpox, but religion is more easily provoked and invoked. So, in 2010 when Sani Yerima — the man who kick-started the Sharia law controversy in Nigeria — married a minor, he reached for a choice armament: religion.

When he was questioned on the illegal –and immoral- act of snagging a child from the cradle, he claimed it was consistent with his religious beliefs. From painful experience, we know when someone like Yerima yells that his religion is threatened, the almajiri army in his constituency would need no further prompting before they commence burning anyone and everything. Yerima was thus left alone with his bride. Until the fury that the failed constitution amendment generated last week, Yerima’s marriage was a latent issue. It is remarkable that the ongoing debate did not even start with the malignant problem of child marriage, yet, it has become that all the same. Yerima is the face of the hoopla because of his original sin.

The Senate has feverishly explained, understandably though, that Nigerians misunderstood them but I am afraid it is too late. They will be hardly heard above the din. Another interesting dimension to the whole affair is how the good people of Ondo State have descended upon their lawmaker, Ayo Akinyelure, who has since been hashtagged as “the only Yoruba man who voted an obnoxious law.” The collective Ondo rage reduced Akinyelure to weeping like a wet puppy. He apologised and claimed he voted in error because he was not technologically savvy –a story that can be told only by politicians. It is almost comical. If only this wrath were directed at issues of corruption or bad governance too!

For the records, I support the removal of the problematic clause. If Section 29 4 (a)(b) of the Constitution says that a married woman of any age is of “full age,” it presupposes that a marriage to a female-minor is valid, and that the minor is married to someone older than 18. Otherwise, if a 16-year-old woman marries a fellow 16-year-old, does that mean she is considered of full age and he is not? How does “full age” account for the possibility of, say, a 19-year-old woman marrying a 17-year-old? There are various grey areas, some of which have been vigorously expounded in the media. It is best the Senate sits down and makes this a more extended conversation. And before it votes again, it should show the Akinyelures where to press their hand. This is a social discourse that should not be drowned under the usual debate-killing notions of “African culture” and various religious precepts.

Since the conversation turned to early marriages, there has been support for the practice, even among very educated people. Most of the proponents of child marriage plank the major parts of their discourse on what they termed women’s “sexual immorality.” To these unscientific theorists, preoccupied as they are with their standards of feminine morality, marriage becomes the ultimate solution; a fallacy passed down through the ages via the scions of patriarchates.  Their model of social redemption is so phallocentric that it does not stop to ask why things are the way they are. Rather, it assumes that young women have sex because of an itch between their legs and, they –mostly men — have just the right instrument to scratch it. Their fallacious paradigm does not seek to tease out why boys too indulge in pre-marital intercourse; they cannot spare time for such extended thinking because they are too fixated on women’s bodies. To them, early marriage is convenient and that is why they shag it to death.

The debate — and surrounding misunderstandings — is actually a very good one. It exposes the underbelly of the Nigerian situation. It shows there is disconnect between the ruler and the ruled in Nigeria. Those who give out their baby girls in marriage do not care about the law; to them the Constitution might as well be written for the members of the elite and a contented middle class. While the Constitution provides a good reference point, I do not see how it stops people who marry their daughters off at puberty because of poverty, culture and religious dogma. The reality of the Nigerian underclass differs from what exists in Abuja.

The controversy also shows the question of patriarchy in Nigerian politics. The 35 Senators who voted for this contentious clause to remain unchanged were men. If there had been more women in the House, perhaps things would have been different? Thanks to this debate, we can also confirm that some of our lawmakers are in Abuja to do nothing but earn outrageous fat salaries (that is why they yawn on live TV!) and they have zero understanding of what they do in the hallowed chambers. Otherwise, why would Akinyelure ask for forgiveness for a sin he did not quite commit?

The ongoing debate, however, reechoes Yerima’s original sin. In 2010, he declared he was within his fundamental religious right to marry a 13-year-old and, instructively, added that as a Muslim, he regarded the Islamic law and precepts above any other laws in the world. The question then and now is, if Yerima believes in the primacy of Islamic law, why is he in the Senate? Is he pretending not to know that the Senate is a tradition founded and evolved on Roman/ Western traditions? So, why did he not stay in Zamfara State and start his madrassa?

The point is not that a religious person should not participate in modern political systems since the laws of even secular countries evolved from religious cultures. The problem is that when people like Yerima straddle secular and religious laws, they do so not to reconcile their contradictions for social development. Rather, they exploit the opportunities and shortcomings inherent in both. When it suits Yerima, he reaches for Islam. When it is too stifling, he becomes a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

This ideological two-timing is Yerima’s original sin and the ongoing rage –largely misplaced as it is — sees him as the face of a sickening hypocrite. His Janus-faced behaviour, by a curious twist of fate and the power of social media, has returned to haunt him.

Thoughts on Chinese ‘invasion’ of Africa By Uche Igwe

We  face neither East nor West, we face forward

—Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

The former President of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, was a wise man. But no one is sure whether the man popularly referred to as Osagyefo, which means the redeemer, by his devotees really saw the future when he made the above statement. Today, the reality of Chinese “invasion” of Africa is here with us. There are many who will disagree with the point that China has invaded Africa just like the Western countries did during the colonial era. There are those who will see this view as contentious and who see China as the “do gooders” who have come to help Africa out of poverty. Really? Is Africa poor? The debate about China’s return in Africa is raging both among academics, politicians and the civil society. Views are often fragmented amidst a belligerent conversation. Yet, there is a need to have a nuanced view to ascertain what it is all about. When one sees the divergence in terms of infrastructure between Africa and our “traditional” friends, then one seems to succumb to the argument that Africa’s relationship with her former colonisers is largely a master-servant one. References to the inherited and exploitative state apparatus from the colonial era is a valid direction to argue in any candid conversation about patronage politics and underdevelopment in Africa. Yet, it is simply unfair to blame all the woes of Africa on the colonial masters more than five decades after they retreated.

President Goodluck Jonathan recently led a multi-sectoral delegation to the Asian country ostensibly to boost China-Nigeria economic and political bilateral cooperation. It is believed that the President secured low interest loans worth about $1.1bn for infrastructural development. That is very commendable. Nigeria is currently the largest trading partner of China with a trade volume of about $10.57bn and an estimated non-financial investment of $8.7bn. The rapid growth of China’s GDP per capita from $1,135 to $6,100 with the attendant enhancement of Chinese 1.3 billion population – one fifth of mankind, offers a lot of interesting lessons to Nigeria. Chinese appetite for oil means that they may be buying up to 200,000 barrels of oil per day in 2015. However, there are few myths about China in Africa that one ought to discuss and possibly debunk.

First of all, I dismiss as cheap diplomacy the talk that China or any country for that matter is or has been in Africa for the single motive of helping the continent to develop. No. That is superlative falsehood or at best hocus-pocus. Those countries that are in Africa are here because of what they stand to gain. Period! Cheap diplomacy about tradition ties or the demonisation of colonialism does not hold water. The reality is that China is in Africa like the West to satisfy the dire need for energy resources to power their own economic growth. Anyone who is not prepared to stomach this inescapable reality should get ready for a hollow diplomacy. Diplomacy is about self-interest and no country is in the business of helping another without expecting anything in return.

I recommend an afrocentric audit of the activities of China in Africa. It is time to integrate both the criticisms and compliments of China in Africa with a view to distilling a coherent engagement strategy that will advance the interest of the continent. The sad part, however, is that there is still a gap in the articulation of a structured African engagement with China. It is either that a clear African agenda is missing or it is articulated from outside Africa. How can any external entity now claim to love Africa so much that it will usurp the space of how a continent will engage its partners? Why have continental organisations in Africa chosen to take a back seat to be a receiver of diplomatic orthodoxy and all forms of external narratives? The prevalent orthodoxy and assumption about the convergence of interests and values between the Chinese and Africans should be discarded forthwith.

Africa, instead, should respond to China armed with its own interest and demands. This is called the strategy of reciprocal engagement. Many countries still see China as an emerging power it used to be rather than a global power that it has lately become. Acknowledging China as a key global stakeholder and sequencing the perspectives of the historic rise that is transforming the historic rise of a fifth of mankind is imperative for a reality based Africa foreign policy. For instance, Africa must get China to align its economic and political practices across the continent with international best  practices.

It is no news that some of the goods pouring in from China are sub-standard. Can someone tell the Chinese companies that our willingness to trade must not be taken to mean that we want to become a dumping ground? The influx of Chinese workers into Nigeria is discouraging the employment of our own local population. Part of the leverage that should be provided by Chinese companies working in Nigeria is the provision of jobs. Many of our young people are currently unemployed and that could constitute a demographic time-bomb for the future. The trickledown effect of whatever thing the Chinese are doing in Nigeria will be lost if they do not create jobs. Some of the few Nigerians who work in Chinese companies still complain about unfair treatment in terms of compliance with labour laws and environmental standards.

 Another aspect of demand of many Africans on China is in the area of transparency and accountability. A relationship of mutual respect must permit the free flow of information on both sides. This is not currently happening between China and Africa. Some sections of the civil society recommend that China should join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative to ensure that Chinese companies in the extractive sector publish all they pay to their host countries in Africa. African countries must scrutinise all the deals they get into in line with global best practices.

In all, Nigeria nay Africa must not ignore China. That country currently contributes about 20 per cent of the world’s economy. We must also not turn our back to our traditional partners but should not allow anyone to dictate to us. Africa’s oil remains an important component of the world’s hydrocarbon demand and supply balance and so our continent must be in a hurry to use her natural resource endowment to draw substantial global capital to trigger a futuristic economy that will be less dependent on natural resource.  Afrocentric enlightened self-interest must guide our conversation henceforth. That is the only way Africa can come of age in the eyes of the world. Africans are the ones that will get Africa out of the poverty loop to sustainable development and self-reliance. Not any one else.

A Dame and Her Ways By Steve Nwosu

I think we are gradually losing our humanity in this country. And nothing better confirmed this to me than the three text messages I got yesterday morning. They were from a readers who had learnt of the auto accident that claimed the life of Mrs. Charity Iwarioba (aka Sisi), mother of First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan.

Rather than mourn with the First family, as Britons (who, by the way, have a lot of issues with the Royal family) are celebrating over the birth of a future king, Nigerians who have human blood flowing in their veins called and texted to jeer at Mrs. Jonathan. Many were actually happy that these bad roads that have been claiming the lives of many Nigerians had also touched Jonathan’s family. They did not even bother to find out if it was indeed caused by ‘bad road’.

Somebody even asked me to list all the people old and young who have died in road accident in the last six months to prove how all the deaths were caused by Jonathan’s non-performance.

Of course, virtually everyone of us has lost one friend or family member in road accidents, but we also know that the experience is not what we would wish for a fellow human, rich or poor, in or out of government.

Have things gone so bad that we have lost every sense of human feelings and sympathy? How then are we any different from Boko Haram and their suicide bombers? Why do we suddenly wish everyone in government dead? Why do those who have not wish all those who have dead?

The Monday accident is sure an eye-opener, to have we have slowly lost the capacity to empathize. And it is not a feeling of confined to the lower rungs of the economic ladder. Even in the media, we found a way to still squeeze partisan politics into our report s of the accident. Several reports quietly celebrated the fact that the body of the first lady’s mum was taken to the morgue by Evans Bipi, the lawmaker who was elected Speaker by the group of five lawmakers who tried to impeach the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly penultimate week.

So, even in her bereavement, the first lady still manages to attract a lot of bashing – which I think is unfair who I consider the most transparent and uncomplicated player out there on our crowded political field. For with her, what you see is what you get.

In fact, watching her from a distance, one thing that regularly comes to my mind all the time is that Dame Patience Jonathan would probably be one of the toughest principals to ever work with – either as an adviser or spokesperson. It is always like that with people who bring a lot of native intelligence to the public sphere (or office).and that is no insult.  It was a problem the media managers of the Obasanjos of this world, the Orji Kalus of this world and the MKO Abiolas of this world always have to put up with. Just when you’d think you’ve reined them in, got them to shut their mouths for a change, and pushed out what you feel is a more politically correct media statement, they suddenly break loose, snatch the microphone and blow the lid on that which you had been trying to keep under cover. And they would say it in the ‘crudest’ of language – without any embellishments or pretensions. Of course, what they say is usually the truth, the naked facts.  And they never really mind whose ox is gored. But what they forget is that it is not all the time that the truth can be said.

Yes, Dame Patience is like that. That was why I was afraid for Prof. Wole Soyinka, when some mischievous fellows were suggesting a television debate between the Nobel Laureate and the First Lady to put an end to the little media war that was going on between the two of them. They reasoned that if such a debate ever took place, Soyinka would take Dame to the cleaners. That our sartorial professor would have started and concluded the debate before the First Lady succeeds in stringing together her first correct sentence. But that was where they got it wrong.  They forget that Soyinka only speaks better Queen’s English than the First Lady, but his Pidgin is not nearly as impeccable as hers. And, whoever said that debates are only conducted in Queen’s English?

And, don’t forget, apart from speech and fluent speaking, recent developments in the Rivers State House of Assembly have even shown that there are several other ways of ‘debating’ without actually speaking. In fact, when your mouth gets tired of talking – or fails to achieve the result a quickly as you want it, you can always bring your fists into the ‘debate’. If the fists don’t do it, you deploy the chairs. And if those are still not enough, you could also articulate your argument better by bringing the mace and camera tripods into the mix – after all, they say war is also a form of negotiation. But that’s just by the way.

As for the first lady, it is only a pity that the poor woman is now bereaved, but of the thousands of politicians bestriding the political landscape and constituting one form of obstacle to true democracy or the other, I still believe Dame Patience is the only one that would see white and tell you that it is actually white.

I wouldn’t know if it has to do with her upbringing, expose or touted limited vocabulary (English vocabulary, that is), but the fact remains that the current first lady is not one to play around with words. So, she just hits the nail on the heady, brushes aside all our insinuations about etiquette and finesse, and just moves on. And by the time we are through filling up newspaper pages, analyzing this latest booboo, she would have said or done another one. With her, it’s non-stop drama.

That is why I tell whoever cares to listen, that if Mrs. Jonathan were to seek elective office, I would be among the first to vote for her. At least, with her, you know that what you see is what you get. If the economy is not working, she will, like the rest of us, see it like any other market woman – no psychedelic theory about single-digit inflation, 7.5% growth in GDP, and all that.  She would just check the price of gari or rice and tell you; ‘gari never come down, so economy never improve’. She’s not going to confuse us with cleverly woven grammatical constructs which say essentially nothing.

And because she does not lie, she would not also allow you to tell a lie on her behalf. Or better still, she could allow you enjoy yourself by telling the public whatever you think the public should know about the situation, but you can be sure that whenever she gets the chance to talk, even if it is at the same event where you just spoke, she would just carry on like you never said anything, and would go ahead to tell the whole truth – including the part you left out for both ‘decency’ purposes and for purposes of political correctness. Of course, after she has finished, you might have need to do some damage control and image-laundering, but she would have said her own.

Take for instance when she had that medical scare that saw her spending several weeks in Germany and all manner of stories were flying from all quarters about what was actually happening. Some said she went on vacation, others said she went to visit her ailing mother. But when we probed further, they said; no, it was not the mother, but the step mum. Some even took to the social media to announce that she was actually on a jewelry-shopping spree. That she had started off in Dubai and then headed to Europe from there. It was only one report that alluded to the remote fact that she may have had food poisoning. In all these, my colleague, Funke Egbemode, and I told whoever cared to listen, to exercise patience, that Dame Patience does not lie; that whenever she returned, she would, in her own words, tell us what actually happened. All we needed to do was to pray for her safe return. The rest, as they say, is now history. The woman returned and dragged the same President Jonathan (whose presidency handlers had actually joined in the media spin to cover up the First Lady’s ailment) to church for thanksgiving. And during ‘testimony time’, Dame Patience came out with the whole truth: how she died for seven days, how the surgeons brought out all her intestines, how even her closest friends thought she had died and were even sharing her property. She thanked those who needed thanking and cursed those who needed cursing. Vintage Dame!

It was against the backdrop, therefore, that I patiently waited,  over this ongoing Rivers crisis, knowing that the First Lady would open up on the matter sooner than later. So, while the president’s men kept telling us that Jonathan was not involved in the crisis in the Nigerian Governors Forum and that there was no link between the NGF crisis and the madness going on in Rivers State, I did not disbelieve them. I just resolved to believe it only if Dame Patience tells us the story. For with her, there is no script, or any coaching before speaking. She always speaks from her heart and ‘naively’ lays the fact as bare as she knows them. Like Lamidi Adedibu of blessed memory, she is not one to go crosscheck what the constitution says about her position before she expresses it. Yes, remember, Adedibu, for instance, just could not understand why the Rashidi Ladoja that he made governor was refusing to give him a share of the governor’s security vote every month. For Dame Patience, like Adedibu, if we can afford to do something secretly, there can be nothing wrong if we also talk about it openly.

She made no secret of the fact that she and her husband are not happy with Amaechi, that Amaechi hurt her ego with his handling of the Okirika demolitions and urban renewal project, as well as his treatment of the then local government chairman – the ‘boy’ that, according to the First Lady, was removed soon after he hosted her.

Of course Dame Patience would not also feel that she owes us any explanation that a crony of hers led four others to impeach a speaker who had the backing of 26 others in an assembly of 32 members. After all, it’s only the case of one ex-aide that she’s pushing. Others impose their wives, sons, daughters, in-laws and all on the same government, and pass them on as having emerged through a transparent and democratic process – simply because the imposition was done with finesse.

So, while her more urbane counterparts do worse things underground, Dame Patience, probably for lack of capacity to cleverly play the intrigues of power politics, puts everything on the table. She does not understand why she should go the mind-tasking process of mobilizing people to come and ask her husband to run for 2015, when she already knows he wants to run and she wants him to run. So, even while the President is waiting for the politically correct time to declare his interest, she can begin to tell people; ‘if una like me and my husband, make una vote for us again o’.