I have given Chinua Achebe’s latest and highly inflammatory book, There Was A Country (A Personal History of Biafra), the first reading, so to say, poring through its 333 pages all night long to achieve what must be a record for this legendary slow reader.

I had to. The portion of the book that has been the subject of serious acrimony, particularly in the global social media, unsettled me. Hadn’t I just in my last column or two gone ballistic in my praise of him, declaring myself (albeit a new convert — having just acquired and read most of his books) a worshipper at the shrine of Achebeism?

Let us quote that portion again:

“It is my impression that Awolowo was driven by an overriding ambition for power, for himself and for his Yoruba people. There is, on the surface at least, nothing wrong with those aspirations. However, Awolowo saw the dominant Igbos at the time as the obstacles to that goal, and when the opportunity arose — the Nigeria-Biafra war — his ambition drove him into a frenzy to go to every length to achieve his dreams. In the Biafran case, it meant hatching up a diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly through starvation — eliminating over two million people, mainly members of future generations.”

The language is severe and of the bitterest kind; and from an 82-year old man, a sage, meaner still.

Unfortunately, Nigeria has become a country ridden by ethnicity or tribalism, and as Achebe himself said in the book “…part of the way to respond to confusion in Nigeria is to blame those from the other ethnic group…” And so, whatever one says would, sadly, be looked at from one’s “ethnic” point of view.

It was my PUNCH-columnist colleague, that hard-hitting young writer, Adunni Adelakun (on Thursdays), whose posting on her Facebook page first drew my attention to it with her terse comment:

“Personally, I disagree with Achebe on this. So, Awolowo wanted to reduce the number of Igbos so as to suppress their dominance? Too simple revisionism!”

But, again, Adunni is Yoruba, isn’t she? She can’t count. And that is why it is important that Igbos – intellectuals and politicians of weight – must speak out in this lest it be assumed Achebe has spoken for the “impression” of all!

My immediate response was:

“I am not in the business of defending Awolowo or anyone, and getting into this fray is also quite not in my character. Just that the kind of personality disorder it would take to fit into the mould of how Achebe has characterised Awolowo here as someone capable of making policies deliberately aimed at exterminating a whole race, if need be, and of seeing the Igbos as enemies fit for such, is beyond the pale.

“The weight and consequences of Achebe’s “impression,” given his status, will endure forever! If it is true, then the victim of his arrow deserves it. If it is not true, then, I’m back to my sob.”

And my sobbing is not for Awolowo, nothing can take from him, but for Achebe himself.

What emerges from it all, and from reading the book, is that Prof. Chinua Achebe is a very bitter man. And at 82, going to his grave, that is not a good thing to harbour.

Definitely, the ruins the Nigeria of his dream (with his place in it) came to and the Biafra War hurt him, hurt him to irrationality.

Achebe wrote in the book that, “Every generation must recognise and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.” Now, having read virtually all of his major works and particularly this latest one, it is clear that Achebe imagines the role providence thrusts on him as that of the Messiah of his Igbo people and he embraces it with fervour.

As he would say, there is, on the surface, at least, nothing wrong with those imaginations. However, they must be tempered with truth and objectivity, especially where you have a following, impressionable following that may be prone to taking your position as gospel truth.

It is also clear that my hero Achebe hates Awolowo the Great with a passion and he is fore-sworn to exact his pound of flesh from Awo with the tool at Achebe’s command — his pen — even if that is the last thing he does before he joins Awo yonder!

Achebe holds many views, strongly, especially about the dominance and God-given ‘supremacy’ of his Igbo people that leaves no one in doubt of his Igbo irredentism. But, as he repeatedly prefaces in the book, they are his “opinion” or his “impression.” So, what can anyone say!

But he also wrote, albeit in thinly veiled conceit of its own: “I will be the first to concede that the Igbo as a group is not without its flaws. Its success can and did carry deadly penalties: the dangers of hubris, overweening pride, and thoughtlessness, which invite envy and hatred or, even worse, than can obsess the mind with material success and dispose it to all kinds of crude showiness. There is no doubt at all that there is a strand in contemporary Igbo behaviour that can offend by its noisy exhibitionism and disregard for humility and quietness.”

How much openness, affection and respect Achebe has for other Nigerians not Igbo is hard to surmise.

But he owns up to witnessing “great intimations of affection” flow towards him “at critical moments” of his life from non-Igbos that his good “impression” would otherwise have considered “enemies” or “mortal rivals” or “envious” of Igbos.

Of this he had written: “More recently, after a motor accident in 2001 (that should be 1991) that left me with serious injuries, I have witnessed an outflow of affection from Nigerians at every level. I am still dumbfounded by it. The hard words Nigeria and I have said to each other begin to look like words of anxious love, not hate…”

I bear witness to that. Back in 1991 upon news of the accident and he being flown to an undisclosed hospital somewhere outside London, MKO Abiola of blessed memory had called me (at my HomeNews office in London) to help go look for wherever “this great son of Africa” had been taken to and hand him an envelope containing considerable cash towards the hospital bill. Abiola said he had never met Achebe in person.

I was born and I grew up in the north. I lived amongst Igbos and some of my best friends are Igbos. Maybe this makes my outlook different from that of someone from Achebe’s Ogidi. In times past (when life was kinder), Igbos I never knew before were amongst those I had sponsored in college. And so, I know nothing of the “enmity” and “envy” that my Achebe talks about, nor the sense of ‘supremacy’ he vaunts.

Yet, Chinua Achebe has told his own story. And, as the Yoruba joke goes, “Ma ja mi n’ro, ti e ni’o pa” (Don’t challenge my lies; tell yours!).

It is doubtful if the great novelist of our time, Prof. Chinua Achebe, expected his latest book, “There Was A Country” to be anything more than its subtitle says: “A Personal History of Biafra.”

In my own opinion, the old philosopher merely wanted (and needed) to unburden his mind before he left “this sinful world,” tell his own story of anguish and pain, of dashed hopes and unfulfilled dreams first for Nigeria and then even worse for a country that once “was” or could have been — Biafra.

In my estimation, he also wanted to use the opportunity to settle some scores; hit hard at perceived enemies and those who, in his reckoning, played unsavoury role in thwarting those dreams of his.

Finally, it is my opinion that for the griot, the Biafra War is not over — but suspended or transferred to another theatre — and there was need to rekindle the spirit of it in the Igbos, particularly the younger generation so they can know of what ‘sinew’ their fathers and fathers’ fathers were made and thus inspire them to their own greatness and bond them in their own confraternity.

Necessarily for the great storyteller, it would mean throwing many things into it in a mishmash of facts and fiction, of ‘pride and prejudice,’ of selective memories and selective amnesia; it means entertaining certain conceits and suspending certain disbeliefs; anything and everything to “make the book sweet.” After all, it is his personal story.

As a result, in the book, anything and everything that could detract from the wholesomeness of the Igbo greatness and the horrors they suffered as a result of it gained no admission or were made light of.

Examples abound:

In the opinion of the erudite professor, the entirety of the then Eastern Region was one and at peace, sans untoward ethnic conflict, domination or rivalry. And except those and where the enemies had infiltrated or corrupted by greed to corner the oil in their domain, the other ethnic groups — about 35 per cent of Biafra population according to Achebe — shared the same Biafran dream! But, cry not, it is our professor’s story.

When it came to the atrocities visited upon innocent Mid-West civilians by “retreating Biafran forces” when the Biafran invasion of the Mid-West was about to be terminated, our professor could find “no credible corroboration of them” in spite of the “several accounts” he had heard. But, cry not, it is our professor’s story.

Achebe endorsed the fallacy of misinterpretation of Awo’s “threat” of the West following if the East (was allowed to) leave Nigeria, conveniently joining the mischievous multitude to remove the caveat:

“Awolowo warned Gowon’s Federal Government that if the Eastern Region left the federation, the Western Region would not be far behind.”

But our Achebe has opened Pandora’s box. To open “Pandora’s box” is to start something or create a situation that takes a life of its own, flying out of control and causing unforseen troubles, miseries and evils.

Right now, the war of words has begun; the battle of wits is afoot. The cyberspace, in particular, is in a frenzy, with cyber warriors up in arms throwing vitriols, sense and nonsense, and everyone being forced into ‘defending’ ‘camps’ they never saw themselves as belonging to hitherto. So sad.

Meanwhile, as in all wars, the first casualty is the Truth. If oga Achebe has his ‘story’, so do other people. And the cankerworm is all tumbling out of the cupboard.

Now we are reminded of many things, some thrown in to muddy the already muddied water, some to truly contextualise issues, and some from the vilest of hearts.

We now know of Achebe’s ‘bad-belle’ on Soyinka’s Nobel Prize victory; we now know of Ojukwu’s recalcitrance that blocked Federal Government’s and international communities’ options to get food to starving Biafran children; we now know of how the great Zik and some other Igbo sage saw no sense in continued hardline that resulted in the horrific war and deaths of, some say, over two million people.

Biafrans hurt about the fate they suffered in the hands of their fellow Nigerians. But if I had watched and seen my father gunned down in cold blood for no crime but being a “northerner,” and seeing my ethnic leaders decapitated in one fell swoop, charged with no crime only for me to be mocked and taunted on the streets, nothing would be too much to avenge their death; nothing.

A new ‘war’ is raging, a war of words and a battle of wits. It is coming with its own unpleasantness and fears of degenerating into even something nastier. The two loud-mouthed and conceited groups are pitted one against the other — the Igbos against the Yoruba; while the others are watching and leaving them to ‘cancel’ themselves out.

Even my last week’s column on this topic has, regrettably, fallen victim of “ethnic camping” — the Igbo denouncing it and the Yoruba applauding it; some even angry at its “uncalled for moderation”!

The point I was making was totally lost on many: Achebe may be correct to infer that the great Awo was the architect of a wartime policy of blockade that had genocidal consequences on the Igbo. But to go farther to say categorically that Awo conceived of the “diabolical policy to reduce the numbers of his enemies significantly” because Awo “saw the dominant Igbos at the time as the obstacles” to his “overriding ambition for power” not only defied logic, but was unbecoming of the intellectual status of an Achebe.

For the avoidance of doubt, I was for Biafra. I still am. I empathise with the suffering they were subjected to, and sympathise with the great dream Biafra portended; but no more than I am for Oduduwa or Arewa, or Ijaw, or any such go-my-way aspiration.

But I also love Nigeria, the Nigeria of my youth when I could take off from my Kano base at night and drive all the way alone in my jalopy, arriving safely in Lagos in the wee hours of the morning; or be on the train to Enugu or Port Harcourt just for the fun of it.

Just that I’d any day rather a successful, vibrant, and progressive small entity than a bogus elephantine construct with inherent contradictions that may mean perpetual retardation.

This jaw-jaw has its own goodness. For those 50-and-above, it may prove cathartic, a way of finally letting it all out so we can move forward. But in doing so, the care we need to take is not to infect the younger generation with the poison of hate, mutual suspicion, and alienation.

As my good friend Okey Ndibe says, we need to “examine where the rain began to beat us, however painful the process of this searching of the soul.”

We must do so with some honesty, with the sincerity of knowing and accepting that there are two sides to a coin. Where that “rain began to beat us” was not the pogrom against the Igbo in the north, and certainly not in the civil war and its misbegotten policies. It began earlier; much earlier!

The past week has been an exciting and thought-provoking one for me in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as a participant-observer of the Eighth African Development Forum (ADF-VIII) that ran from 23-25 October.

It isn’t my first time of attending this biennial ‘talk-shop’ under the aegis of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa — my kind sponsors — and African Union Commission here and each time, I’m struck by the peaceful serenity of this Ethiopian capital, its atmosphere and certain cultural similarities with the northern part of Nigeria of my youth (before the present day corruption of its innocence), the fascinating juxtaposition of old traditions and modern acquirements, and, above all, the pride of its peoples who have never been conquered and have stuck to their language (Amharic) as a signifier of their independence and nobility.

This year’s central theme is “Governing and harnessing natural resources for Africa’s development.” As usual, a lot of statistics and a lot of economic jargons were thrown around, couched in all the ‘diplomatese’ the officials could muster, with some attempts to even make the continental picture look not as gloomy as it really is.

According to Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie, the Nigerian multi-lingual, ebullient and brilliant economist who is UNECA’s Director of Economic Development and NEPAD Division, Africa’s growth of between 6.5 per cent and 7.2 per cent has not translated into “development,” as the people have not benefitted commensurately.

Emmanuel or Emma, as the gentleman would rather simply be called, said it was crucial to look at how to harness the continent’s natural resources to reduce poverty. “Exporting raw materials is equal to exporting your jobs,” he said, urging Africa to get into the global value chain.

Exploitation of Africa, begun centuries ago with the slave trade, balkanisation and colonisation, has continued in various forms, as usual, with the connivance or complicity of our peoples and leaders themselves.

Dr. Stephen Karingi, UNECA’s Director, Regional Integration and Infrastructure, said despite huge net profits of over $110bn in 2010 alone made by the top 40 mining companies operating in Africa, what Africa has gained has been comparatively minuscule.

While the growth and development of industrialised and emerging economies of the world continue to be fuelled by Africa’s mineral resources, Jean Noel Francois, AUC’s acting Director, Department of Trade and Industry, says Africa still remains poor, under-developed and dependent on donor assistance for national budget support.

Nigeria does not even feature at all among African countries where mining plays a dominant or significant part of their export earnings. While “minerals accounted for more than 80 per cent of exports in Botswana, Congo, DRC, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, and more than 50 per cent in Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia,” Nigeria’s vast mineral resources, where not poorly or illegally tapped, lay strewn beneath the ground waiting for when there will be purposeful and visionary leadership to exploit them for the country’s industrialisation dream.

The truth is that Africa is still beset with leadership problems and poor governance.

Bedevilled by corruption, and crass neglect or de-utilisation of her competent manpower due to ‘tribalism,’ nepotism, or just plain stupidity, “illicit financial outflows from Africa is over $50bn per annum,” according to Nigeria’s Yinka Adeyemi, UNECA’s Senior Regional Advisor, Economic Development and NEPAD Division, during the pre-conference media workshop, brandishing his “Track It, Stop It, Get It” slogan.

However, the cry to mitigate the flow is being wrongly directed at foreign benefiting countries. Such staggering figures provoked some participants to wonder if there isn’t some inherent, or even genetic, problem with the African!

A case in point that rang throughout the media workshop was that of one Ibori, a former state governor in Nigeria who is now serving jail term in a British prison after having been freed by Nigerian courts on the same charges of wanton corruption and laundering of stolen state funds.

It was recounted to the consternation and amusement of all how even Ibori’s successor attempted to burst the charges against his benefactor, claiming that the state has not “lost any money,” only to file for the “money” to be repatriated to the state once the British court convicted Ibori!

Of course, it’s not gloom all over. There are pockets of sanity here and there, with Botswana, Seychelles, Cape Verde, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and even Ghana, along with a few others, demonstrating purposeful governance and committed leadership.

But Africa remains a sad case. And if this dismal picture has to change, the media must be up in arms, highlighting issues, promoting good examples, and exposing and decrying undesirable tendencies in governance.

And the Iroko stands…

It’s all over — the Ondo State gubernatorial elections with its rancour and bitterness.

A winner has emerged and his victory, in my view, is comprehensive and convincing enough to remove all doubts as to which candidate the obstinate people of Ondo State want.

I had kept off meddling in the politics of the election after my first “intervention,” hoping to persuade Governor Mimiko to bring his one-state, go-alone party (LP) into the fold of the western zone-dominant party (ACN) for what I was persuaded may serve the Yoruba race better at this important juncture of their cultural and socio-economic resurgence.

That “interventionist” column, rhetorically entitled, “Can an Iroko make a forest,” met with a flood of angry protests, even castigation, by many Ondo State citizens who faulted my position, stating that the governance delivery of Mimiko was good enough for them and his re-election was assured.

Reports coming to me were conflicting. Some friends from Ondo State whose objectivity I relied on swore that Mimiko had under-performed and was merely hoodwinking the people. Yet, some other friends, including Richard Akinola, carried the Iroko banner and trumpeted his achievements to high heavens.

But Mimiko has carried the day, and President Jonathan chalks another democratic credential not only by allowing a reasonably free and fair election but, as with Oshiomhole’s Edo State victory, been quick to congratulate the victor even though not of his party.

It is not a pleasant thing that the ACN party leadership has not been gallant in defeat by not graciously conceding victory to Mimiko, but rather, looking to see what grounds may exist to discredit the election.

As one of my readers, Abimbola Agbaminoja, wrote:

“Ondo people have voted and they voted for the man who tried his best for the state. The ACN is definitely a great political party, a party that understands politics and has the interest of the people at heart. To ensure this great party does not lose focus, an opposition, no matter how inconsequential it appears, is needed. This will keep the leaders and representatives of this party on their toes.”

This may be the time to count losses and gains; but in the larger interest of the region, extend hand of brotherhood to the Iroko for a richer forest.

I am doing the unusual today. I am bringing my readers an abridged version of the first address of Chief Obafemi Awolowo as President of the Action Group to the party’s Conference at Owo on April 28, 1951.

It tells so much of the minds of our heroes past and, seeing how much the country continues to totter, with the issue of restructuring reverberating anew, serves us lessons and ideals to borrow from, not just in the West but in Nigeria as a whole. (All emphasis throughout mine)

Titled, Freedom For All, it goes thus:

“Gentlemen,

The pleasant duty of introducing the Action Group has been entrusted to me.

On the 21st March of this year, the Action Group was introduced to the public through the Press, and its aims and objectives were clearly set out.

Since then the Action Group has been unfolding itself and fulfilling its aims and objectives more by action than by words.

There are, however, two items in the aims and objectives which I should like to emphasise, since they are the very basis of the Action Group. I refer to items (1) and (3). The two are complementary and they read as follows:

(i) To bring and organise within its fold nationalists in the Western Region, so that they may work together as a united group, and submit themselves to party loyalty and discipline;

(ii) To prepare and present to the public programmes for all Departments of Government, and to strive faithfully to ensure the effectuation of such programmes through those of its members that are elected into the Western House of Assembly and the Federal Legislature.

If any group of people fail to agree as to basic principles and as to the methods to be adopted in applying those principles, it is impossible for them to work within the same fold, and to submit themselves to party loyalty and discipline.

The basic principles which have brought the members of the Action Group together are summarised in the following motto: Life more abundant; Freedom for all.

It is our belief that the people of Western Nigeria in particular, and of Nigeria in general, would have life more abundant when they enjoy:

(i) Freedom from British Rule

(ii) Freedom from ignorance

(iii) Freedom from disease and

(iv) Freedom from want.

In our view, the rule of one nation by another is unnatural and unjust. It is maintained either by might or by complete subordination, through crafty means, of the will and self-respect of the people to the political self-aggrandisement of the tutelary power. There can be no satisfactory substitute for self-rule.

An ignorant and poverty-stricken people are the easiest preys to political enslavement and economic exploitation. Diseases of all kinds follow in the wake of ignorance and want.

The basic principles which, therefore, have brought us together within the fold of the Action Group may be stated in the following words:

1) The immediate termination of British Rule in every phase of our political life.

2) The education of all children of school-going age, and the general enlightenment of all illiterate adults and all illiterate children above the school-going age.

3) The provision of health and general welfare for all our people.

4) The total abolition of want in our society by means of any economic policy which is both expedient and effective.

Having agreed on these basic principles, it becomes necessary to take the next step, namely: to agree as to common methods in the application of those principles. This is a very important step: because, even though people may agree as to principles, if they don’t agree as to methods of application it would not be possible for them to work together.

All that we would need in addition would be persistence and consistency in the pursuit of our principles, and resolution and discipline in the execution of our common methods of application.

Only we must make sure about two things, namely: that our principles are just, and that our methods are practical; for nothing defeats their own ends so easily as unjust principles and impractical methods of approach.

In the first release of the Action Group, it has been made abundantly clear both in item (5) of the aims and objectives and in the body of the release that it is not the intention of the Action Group to embark on Regional politics exclusively. It is sheer necessity that has compelled us to decide to get together to put our own house in order.

As an earnest of our good faith, the subjects on which policy papers have been prepared are not confined to Regional subjects but cover Central subjects as well.

We have promised, and we mean to abide by our word, that if a countrywide organisation acceptable to all is established, we would not hesitate to become the Western Regional Working Committee of such an organisation.

It must, therefore, be our hope and our endeavour that as soon as we have duly consolidated and strengthened our position throughout the Western Region, we should, in cooperation with nationalists in other Regions, influence the formation of a countrywide organisation on the same realistic and scientific lines as the Action Group.

We are a party — in fact, the only party in Nigeria with definite ideas and practical programmes for the advancement of Nigeria towards early freedom and prosperity.

Our enemies and detractors are already at work… It is not an easy matter to resist the temptation of being dragged down the drains of bitter recriminations and press war. But if we are to attain our objectives, we must resolve to pursue our cause unflinchingly without paying the slightest heed to ‘the envious, and the asses that bray.’

What our people want to know, above all things else, is not the defect or incapacity of this or that organisation, but the plans and programmes which we have for improving their lot and the relative merits of such plans and programmes.

Our line of action is therefore clear. Whilst our enemies and detractors busy themselves with abusing and decrying us, we should direct all the machinery of our publicity towards the propagation of the excellence and the relative superiority of our programmes and the suitability of the men who we put forward to execute them.

In this way, we would succeed in commending ourselves to the public by our sheer merits and our merits only. This, in my view, is a nobler attitude; and if we remain true to it, we are bound to succeed where our detractors fail.”

Taken from “Voice of Reason: Selected Speeches of Chief Obafemi Awolowo” Vol. 1, Fagbamigbe Publishers (1981) Pages 195-200.

Many were amused but few shocked by former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s warning, last weekend of an impending revolution in the country. It falls in character of the man who sees himself as the greatest thing to have happened to Nigeria.

The warning came in a speech at an OECD/ADB sponsored conference in Senegal on youth employment.

In Saint Obasanjo’s eyes, his tenure as president recorded the least youth unemployment; the least corruption; the most poverty eradication; the highest power supply; even the best democratic practices!

Saint Obasanjo is quick to see the speck in others’ eyes ignoring the log in his. It counts little the rottenness of succession (the hallmark of great leadership) he bequeathed to the nation; counts little the decay (to roads, rail, power, health, etc) he left after eight  years and trillions of naira; counts little that he came to office broke and left as one of the richest Nigerians around.

He beats his chest that he forecast the ignominious end of the governments of Shagari, of Buhari, of Babangida and of Abacha – and it all came to pass.

Well, now that he has, once again, sounded his gong of doom from faraway land, we wonder if he read this column of June 24, abridged below, titled: When The Die Is Cast. If he didn’t, he should.

When the die is cast

The setting is a disused produce warehouse on the outskirts of town. It is dingy and bare.

Within are over 500 persons picked from all over the country “without fear or favour” to ethnicity, religion or status. According to the captors, who have gone on air under the self-proclaimed tag of People’s Revolutionary Group,  those picked were those they called “ruinners of the country and their collaborators.” A sentry had looked in, the rays from his searchlight piercing the darkness and blinding the herd – they couldn’t have been better than a herd of cattle. The massive steel gate slammed shut with a crushing bang, jarring the ears and soul of the villains who were yet to get accustomed to their new environment and ritual, as the sentry withdrew hissing and muttering under his breath.

Villain 1 (V1): What did the zombie say?

V2: Didn’t hear him well, but something like “bastards, your end don come”.

V3: Na hin mama be bastard, na hin papa be bastard.

V4. Ha, no be Baba voice I hear so? Baba is here too? Can’t believe it.

V2: (angry) What can’t you believe, who else should have been number one to be here? Isn’t he the one who got us into all this mess in the first place? Always believing he knows it all! Yeye Baba.

V3: Go on, say any nonsense you want, but count your luck it’s dark in here and I can’t see your face to land you better blow. Silly, rude boy.

V5: Why can’t you just shut up, you this old man. This is not the time for acrimony, it is time to unite and pray. There’s nothing God cannot do; the Lord of hosts who saved Daniel from the den of lions. By His grace we will not die here. All weapons fashioned against us shall not prosper.

V6: Will you shut up please! Prayer is too late. We are all guilty as charged and I am ready to go to heaven or hell, whichever. We had the opportunity to run the country well but the insatiable greed of the few got us all here now.

V2. Me I never ready to die o. Wetin I get no even reach one billion naira.

V1: You National Assembly people got us into this mess with the amount of money you guys allocate to yourselves monthly and endless bribe taking and blackmailing. It was clear the bubble would burst one day.

V4: Rubbish! The amount of stealing and squandering going on in the Rock nko? Billions and trillions being spent without appropriation, and when we say anything, the Niger Delta card will be flashed, saying if anything happens to their man, the country will explode.

V7: So is that why you guys began your Boko thing, bombing everywhere and destroying the peace of the country?

V4: Which peace? Peace of the graveyard!

V6: Anyway, it’s all over now. I just wonder what they want to do with us, bring us out one by one to shoot or what?

V2: I overheard one zombie saying they will use poison gas on us like Nazi gas chamber.

V3: Any tin wey dem like, me I dey kampe.

V2: How you no go dey kampe, yeye Baba. Na your own crime pass. You tif pass everyone and you go dey shout tif tif. You had the opportunity to put the country on good footing but you squandered it all on the altar of your ego. Then ended up giving the country to someone who has no clue. May Allah not forgive you in aljana.

V8: Please you don’t have to insult me. Na me no get clue? Clue to what, clue to your greed? Not one day did you guys give me a chance to do anything. It’s all harassment and blackmail just because I am not Hausa.

V9: I beg don’t bring your tribal talk here, that’s what finished the country in the first place. Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani, Minority, all nonsense. Now death is coming to sort us all out.

V10: My only regret be say I for don allow Oyinbo people jail me instead of escaping back here dressed like a woman. I for no dey inside this mess now. Chei, see how James come dey lucky o.

V1: I wonder how many of us dey here sef?

V2: I overheard one zombie saying about 520.

V9: 520? No, it can’t happen. Nigerians and the world community will not let it happen. Hell will break loose!

V4: What hell? I beg don’t deceive yourself anymore. But if it’s only 520, then the job is not finished. If they want to truly catch every person who has ruled and ruined the country, then the number can’t be less than 5,000. Otherwise, it’s an unfinished business and that’s where katakata go soon burst!

V9: Who are they anyway? I hear they are not the military.

V10: Military ke? Those ones worse pass. Even here in this chamber at least half of us are former military officers from what I sniff.

V2: (Laugh) You still dey sniff that your cocaine?

V10: You dis small yaro, mind yourself o.

V9: Let me do small arithmetic of those here: NASS-100, military (ex and serving)-100, civil service (ex and serving)-100, Executive (ex and serving)-50, business elite and contractors-100, others-50.

V10: Oga mathematician, change that military to 250 and reduce civil service and business people by 50 each. All the bunkering wey dey go for the country na military people dey behind it, giving it cover.

Outside there’s commotion, a large mob had gathered shouting: “Kill them, kill the rogues;” “This is the beginning, there are more;” “Get rid of them, we want our country back”… and so on.

No one knows exactly those behind it and what will happen next. Then darkness fell, the darkest hour just before  dawn.

President Goodluck Jonathan must be commended for finally bringing to an end the debacle of a road contract that was clearly long amiss. The surprise is that it took this long to come.

The damn “concession” granted Bi-Courtney company since 2009 was a bloody mess from the start; a wheeling dealing political patronage cooked up in some president’s bedroom, with scant regard to the enormity of the challenge or for due process and diligence that would have ensured real evidence of capability existed in the first place and not some fancy abstractions.

The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is by far the most important motorway in the country. With Lagos as the commercial capital of the country and her ports handling over 80 per cent of all imports and exports, the road is the main artery carrying lifeblood into the country’s heart.

How successive governments over the last 30 years have seen and handled the 40-something-year old Lagos-Ibadan Expressway typifies the casualness and criminal negligence of governance in Nigeria.

In a country where the vital railway has become moribund due, again, to the same casualness and criminal neglect, the 105-kilometre stretch of the arterial road had become trailer-logged, with thousands of trailers and tankers lining considerable portions on both sides, narrowing the already inadequate lanes, and further endangering lives of road users already endangered by unimaginable potholes on the derelict road.

The road is a crying shame and has remained so, particularly in the last 20 years! No one has escaped the wrath of that road, directly or indirectly. We will never know the number of lives lost on that road, not to talk of property, due to accidents occasioned by the state of the road or the recklessness of many drivers.

On numerous occasions, fuel tankers have upturned on the road, spilling their inflammable contents that quickly got inflamed, sending forth streams of inferno and consuming lives in their thousands and property in the billions of naira! At other times, horrendous traffic jams have been encountered on the road, with the often occurrence of articulated trailers jack-knifed or capsized to block the entire width of one direction of the road. Many have had to spend entire day or night in such traffic jams. Incalculable loss of man-hours, unimaginable business and economic losses have been wrought on that road.

Personally, and this opinion is shared by millions of Nigerians, those who have been responsible for what Nigeria and Nigerians have suffered as a result of that road, along with many others in the last 20 years — presidents and their ministers of works and their contractors (they know themselves!) — should be lined up and shot, preferably on that very road — as atonement to the gods!

Trashing the “concession” is, however, no relief beyond saving the public further ridicule and insult by both Bi-Courtney and the government – selling stories upon stories of why work had not commenced and empty displays of billboards that work is about to start!

The government has been quick to announce that the firms of Julius Berger and RCC would now be handling the “reconstruction” of the expressway, with Julius Berger on the Lagos-Sagamu half and RCC on the other half. What consideration or bidding process went into the selection of the two? Or, are the choices simply whimsical?

What structural documents of their respective portions of the road have the two companies studied and what reconstruction costs were demanded? Or are these an “As we go along” business? What are the contract conditions, particularly the time frame for completion? Just too many questions begging for answers!

Julius Berger we know, and all Nigerians can swear of their competence and work integrity. The minister has also taken great pains explaining that RCC is engaged in some other road jobs. What I know of RCC is the lousy job it made of the Ife Road in my state of Osun. Going by that Ilesha-Ife-Gbongan road, RCC cannot be the company for the Sagamu-Ibadan stretch or any part of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. We have suffered too much and too long to be messed up again.

For now, Jonathan has done right cancelling the concession. He has proved right the saying: No one is always wrong; even a dead watch is right twice a day!

A son’s call to the bar

The joy of fatherhood (well, parenthood) is immeasurable at great moments like the graduation of his child. Such was mine last week when my eldest child, Adekunle, was called to the Nigerian Bar at the ceremony held at the Conference Centre, Abuja, with all the pomp the learned ones could muster.

For Adekunle, however, the Nigerian Bar is but a call to one’s country’s service, having become an attorney-at-law of the State of Maryland in the United States, graduating with a Juris Doctor from the prestigious University of Maryland School of Law since 2001.

In 2002, he became the first lawyer of Nigerian descent to receive a Professional Legal Excellence Award, conferred by the Maryland Bar Foundation “in recognition of his exemplary work in pioneering community change” through successful litigation over environmental hazards on Maryland’s Eastern shore!

My son wasn’t expecting me in Abuja; after all, he, too, is now a parent. But I showed up nevertheless, and though late (talking of the notorious Ibadan-Lagos Expressway, it took me five hours to get to Lagos from Ibadan, missing my earlier flights), my presence couldn’t have been better appreciated.

And here is an edited account he e-mailed to his siblings on dad’s “magic:”

“Please join me in saying a big thank you to dad! Yesterday was my formal ‘call to the Nigerian Bar’ ceremony in Abuja. I had spoken with dad a couple of days earlier, and it was mutually understood that he would not be making a trip to Abuja from Lagos for that purpose … considering the cost and stress.

“Dad sent me a cash gift, which he called his ‘widow’s mite’… an amount that would have gone towards his travel expenses, and which seemed like a fortune to me at that hour of need.

“Apparently, that was not all that the old fox had in mind. He sent me a text message asking for my location, as a friend of his was bringing me a surprise package.

“Well, what a surprise of my life when I went outside to receive the surprise…

“Standing there was dad, in Abuja! He had made it up here notwithstanding the extraordinary logistical difficulties he had apparently encountered in Lagos all day trying to get to Abuja. He managed to get on the very last night flight to Abuja, just to be there with me on that day, even after the ceremony proper.

“His presence made me feel like each and everyone of you folks had come there that very minute I saw him. Teary stuff.

“I am so deeply touched by this. I would really appreciate it if you would all just send a ‘thank you’ e-mail to dad on my behalf.

“Dad, thanks for making my day extra special! I was truly totally and pleasantly surprised, and filled with joy. Thank you, thank you, thank you! – Kunle.”

Congratulations to Kunle and his numerous colleagues called to the Bar that I met, including Fatima Dangote, Solape Seriki, retired Gen. Olagunsoye Oyinlola and others.

Dear Tunde,

Your write-up on the Kigali Memorial Centre (Genocide Museum) is so moving, it reminds me of excursion to similar museums in Kiev, USSR and Poland during my undergraduate days in Moscow in the late 60s-70s. Those were museums dedicated to the victims of Jewish pogrom by Nazi Germany during the World War II.

I’m quite happy for Eric because his strong Christian faith has made him forgive the perpetrators of such dastardly and ignoble acts.

Many of the perpetrators of the Jewish pogrom were brought to justice and investigations continued for many years after to accost those the law had not caught up with. Is the same effort being made in Rwanda to bring such criminals to answer for their crimes?

It is pertinent to ask this question because, in the name of God, Africans sometimes tend to leave their responsibilities to God.

As a Christian, I believe that Christ’s redeeming sacrifice has the power to forgive even the gravest of sins, and to bring forth good from even the most terrible evil. At the same time, God’s justice summons us to give an account of our actions and conceal nothing. People must be submitted to the demands of justice without losing hope for God’s mercy.

Our country is replete with examples of crimes for which the state apparatus has been indolent and the masses are inundated with pious sentiments rather than concrete actions from people in authority.

The assassination of Chief Bola Ige and Funso Williams are examples of individual targeted killings, while the Boko Haram mass murders, kidnappings and oil pipeline vandalism illustrate security ineptitude of inexcusable dimension, that it’s insulting to our wellbeing when those who should be responsible for our security resort to faith sloganeering for solutions.

Hopefully, Nigeria will eventually attain those heights we used to ruminate about.

—Muyiwa Oladimeji,

muyiwa.oladimeji@gmail.com

Mr. Fagbenle.

Thank you for the courage it took you to write that sad narration you gave about the Rwanda massacre. I have to point out that, nevertheless, in my opinion, the article is far from complete.

The Hutu and Tutsi had co-existed peacefully for centuries before the Belgians arrived. The Belgian government created the enmity when they intentionally changed the balance of power and unwritten political and economic hierarchy between the Hutus and Tutsis, with the purpose of dividing and conquering; while the side that was favoured by the new system naively believed that the Belgians were doing them a favour.

The same thing was done by the British in Nigeria when they rigged the 1959 parliamentary elections in favour of the North. The North thought the British loved them and were doing them a favour, not knowing that the British were only using them to achieve their dirty political and economic objectives at our expense.

Unlike the Rwanda government, the Nigerian government has done little or nothing to heal the wounds of the civil war that claimed the lives of more than three million Igbo. No monuments, museums, etc…

While the Rwandans, with the leadership of a visionary leader like Paul Kagame, are making concerted efforts to heal the wounds of 1994 and move forward, Nigeria, since 1970, is still groping in the dark and has been tied down by corrupt, visionless, incompetent and morally bankrupt opportunists who call themselves leaders.

There is a high probability that the tragedy of 1967-1970 and/or Rwanda could repeat itself in Nigeria!

—Bode Eluyera (@Nigeriavillagesquare.com)

Hi Tunde,

I enjoyed reading your column in Sunday PUNCH of December 9, 2012; but permit me to say you should not swallow all you heard from the Tutsi side exactly the way they have dished it out in their quest to whip up sympathy.

Indeed, one of the greatest ironies of the present age is the manner in which Paul Kagame and his cabal have been aping the behaviour of the Israeli leaders who delight in whipping up sentiment about the harrowing experience of Jews in WW2, only to turn round and use that as an excuse for unleashing havoc on innocent Palestinians in the present age and time.

The problems between the Tutsi and the Hutu in Rwanda and Burundi are complex. They are historically rooted in manipulation by the Belgian colonialists.

In any case, how can the mayhem that Kagame has been unleashing on the innocent population of Eastern Congo for several years now be justified?

—Ola Balogun

Prof. Duro Oni @ 60

For many of us his older friends, Durostic (as we fondly call him) can’t just be turning 60 — he’s been around much longer and, as they say, been there, done that!

He has packed into the 60 years he turned only yesterday (15/12/2012) an admirable array of achievements and occupied lofty positions in the public sphere, as in the academia of his singular devotion.

Although Duro and I share the same Minna (Niger State) childhood beginnings, we were not to meet until sometime around 1974 in Kano when he was in the employment of the Centre for Cultural Studies of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, just after his diploma from the University of Ibadan.

Those were fun years of bubbling youth and dare and we treated life as if we owned it. There was the dance maestro and now renowned choreographer Peter Badejo, Demola Williams, late Rufus Orishayomi, Isaac Oloyede, late Eyitayo Akinyemi, Ezekiel Kofoworola (Baba!) also of Minna childhood and now a retired professor, among several others with whom we were regular nightly congregants at the Anene joint in Sabon-Gari, Kano, before doing the Moulin Rouge and stuff of those years.

Suddenly, Duro bolted away from our midst and headed south to become the Theatre Technical Manager at the University of Lagos! And from then on, there was no stopping him; his mind firmly fixed on breaking into the academia, and conquering it the way he had stamped his authority on theatre lighting and design!

Duro and I met again in London in the late 70s (the Ipi-Tombi years) when he came on one of his numerous overseas training and workshops, and we have remained bonded like brothers ever since — belonging to the Family Friends Club with Prof. Tunde Makanju, Prof. Kayode Oguntuase, late Yinka Craig and many others.

In the public sphere, Duro served as the Special Adviser to the Minister of Culture and Social Welfare and later, Youth & Sports from 1990-1992. He was also the Chief Executive of the Centre for Black & African Arts & Civilization (CBAAC), 2000-2006.

He holds the BFA and MFA degrees from the California Institute of the Arts and a Ph.D. from the University of Ibadan. He was 2006-2009 Professor and Head of the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos and has been the Dean, Faculty of Arts since 2009.

His wonderful and charming wife, Francesca, always made me welcome to their home with her Ogoja delicacies (hmmm) and my cold beer; and she can expect me for more as our Duro turns 60.

Something is happening in Ekiti State that needs to be told. And I will, since I bear witness to it.

Quite a few folks, including my good friend and brother Femi Orebe and Sam Omatseye, both columnists in The Nation newspaper, have written volubly, extolling the “quiet revolution” going on in Ekiti State. It is difficult reading some of the stuff written by them and not think, ‘there’s some exaggeration afoot.’ I needed to be there to see with my own eyes.

I finally wrestled the demon of procrastination and made it to Ado-Ekiti last week, my first time there since Dr. KayodeFayemi became the governor two years ago.

Ekiti had really never been a favourite destination for me. Tucked within the heartland of the old West, it seemed its only distinguishing tourist feature was some “miracle of nature” somewhere in the denseness of the Ekiti forests at a village called Ikogosi, where cold and warm water springs out side by side from the ground into a running stream; and her only claim to fame was that old high school of excellence — Christ School, Ado-Ekiti — along with Ekiti’s renown as the land where every household has a PhD holder!

But, over the years, even those little graces had wilted and become virtually the stuff of distant memories. Ekiti land, with all its vaunted brains, had proved not immune to the malaise of a country gone to the dogs: although nature had remained faithful with its ‘miracle’ warm spring at Ikogosi, the forest had reclaimed its own and it would’ve taken a dare to venture there in a hurry (the way it was fun for me to do some 30 years or so ago). Christ School had become a sham, with neither ‘Christ’ nor ‘school’ in place. Gloom was evident all over the land, the roads were impassable, and even Ado-Ekiti had become no more than a glorified village!

In the few times I had strained to be in Ekiti in the last 10 years — essentially for one ceremony or the other of friends like the late Rufus Orisayomi and Akin Osuntokun — the experiences had been some ordeal.

But there was no mocking of Ekiti, the fate that befell her had befallen virtually the entire old West. Successive governments had been preoccupied with the glamour and self-opportunities of office. Lacking in depth, vision and commitment, governance was essentially cosmetic and nothing beyond how to share the monthly dole from Abuja between individual pockets and token gestures of attention to desolate infrastructure within a governor’s very limited horizon. Everything was about politics — politics of the stomach and of longevity in office.

I was in Ado-Ekiti last week at the instance of Governor Fayemi who rightly felt this old man has been unfair in not visiting Ekiti since he became governor, even when we shared some common history in the struggle against Gen. Sani Abacha and for the enthronement of democracy. Of course, Fayemi’s antecedent and role far outstripped mine in those years — be it as the brain-box of Radio Kudirat or as intellectual strategist for many global institutions and governments, having himself acquired a doctorate in War Studies from the prestigious King’s College, University of London.

Accompanied by my barrister son, Kunle, and my friend from way back in England, Taiwo Adedoyin, I was provided with a vehicle and guides (led by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, ex-PUNCHer Yinka Oyebode) to tour the state and go as I pleased.

For hours and hours, we drove with our mouths drooping in amazement at what we saw. The renewal of the urbanity of Ado-Ekiti as the state capital was clearly evident: arterial roads that had been half-heartedly begun by preceding governments have been widened and dualised, with streetlights installed all along the median. As old roads are being reconstructed and retarred to high standards, new ones are surfacing everywhere; city centre is buzzing with new energy — buildings wear new look, shops and petty businesses are all over; new impressive structures are springing up; an arcade here, a centre there.

But the development was not limited to the state capital. As we drove for miles and miles, we were stunned to find dualised roads running for long stretches and high-grade roads interconnecting most towns and villages. I learnt other governors wonder how Fayemi has been able to have so many roads done in just two years!

Our eyes connected with schools beckoning with renovated or new buildings wearing bright new looks and we are told about 100 schools have already benefited in the first phase and the exercise would continue until all public schools have been restored to their old glory.

However, even all would be nothing were they limited to these externalities. Truly concerned about the rottenness of the education standard, Fayemi has embarked on a holistic restructuring and restitution of education in the state: re-equipping the schools with appropriate furniture and sporting equipment, and starting the teachers on a whole range of training and retraining after the discovery that a scandalous less than 10 per cent of teachers in the state primary schools could pass a primary four exam!

At secondary school level, Fayemi has done something unprecedented, perhaps in the entire country. He has provided customised and solar-powered laptops to about 30,000 pupils and 18,000 teachers. The stunning achievement has encouraged the manufacturers of the computers — Samsung — to set up a computer engineering centre in Ado-Ekiti that would be a manpower training and development centre and assembly workshop for their computers! The buildings’ foundations have been laid and work is going on apace.

It is difficult, nay impossible, to write all there is to write about what Fayemi has done or is geared to doing in Ekiti State in just a thousand-word column. And yet, it is important to let the world know about every aspect of this amazingly resourceful and talented (genius, I’d say) governor’s programme in their uniqueness and developmental pace.

His style of government is similar to that of Fashola of Lagos State in intellectualism, seriousness and time management, shorn of frivolities and giving no room to entertaining jesters and debilitating stream of unhelpful visitors. And similar to that of Osun’s Aregbesola and Edo’s Oshiomhole in pace and vision.

Fayemi pioneered a Social Security Programme for the aged, paying a monthly stipend of N5,000 to all registered elderly people and provides free medical services for children, pregnant women and the aged.

His investment programme spans agriculture and industry. The moribund Ire Bricks Factory and Odua Enterprise Centre have been resuscitated. More spectacularly, he is developing a ‘tourism corridor’ around the Ikogosi Warm Spring, which is already redeveloped with villa chalets and an amphitheatre, outsourced to a top South African tourism company, to include vast stretches of game reserve, Disneyland type of amusement complexes, etc.

To be honest, I do not know and cannot even imagine how this guy does it. He says he has managed to raise the state’s IGR from a paltry N109m to N600m monthly, mainly by blocking existing loopholes in the tax collection and management systems.

Above all, I think what stands Fayemi in good stead are his frugality, integrity, intellectual base, and his vast international connections and credibility, all of which have been deployed in the race to making Ekiti a positive example in Nigeria, nay Africa.

If I sound like I’ve been paid to be Fayemi’s megaphone, I apologise; but I challenge the reader to go there and come out sounding different!

Last week’s column on my visit to Ekiti State and the good job Governor Kayode Fayemi is doing raised a few eyebrows and drew the ire of one professor aburo of mine abroad, who was virulent in his attack. But the good thing is that an overwhelming majority of readers shared my views and were grateful for bringing to light the ray of hope in our otherwise gloomy horizon.

Here’s the edited version of what the professor wrote. I withheld his name since it was a private mail.

Dear Uncle TF:

I just read your piece on the miracle KF has apparently wrought in Ekiti.

Between us: I find it absolutely disgusting. Your piece is an epitome of exactly the kind of journalism that will ensure that we do not progress as a nation.

I apologise if my language sounds harsh. You know how much I respect you, and where my political sympathies lie with respect to KF himself. That will never change; but yours is the kind of ‘endorsement’ that KF does not need.

If, indeed, he has transformed Ekiti into a little paradise, which I very much doubt, that is his job, and he should be allowed to do it in peace. He should not be praised for it — at least not in the pornographic manner in which you have gone about it.

Uncle TF, It does not matter whether or not you were paid to write it. It’s an abuse of forum and an attack on journalistic impartiality.

Our country, facing a severe crisis, deserves better than this, and you know it.

 Respectfully as always,

Name withheld.

 To which I then responded:

Ojogbon ati Amoye …

I’m not shocked by your vituperation, in case you think I will be! But, nevertheless, it is appreciated and taken in the spirit I presume you want me to.

Listen, though: you are wrong in thinking I am a ‘journalist’ in the strict sense of it. And I don’t pretend to be one either. So, all this talk about the ‘kind of journalism’ and ‘journalistic impartiality’ is not my cup of tea, for real. I am an opinion writer and one who doesn’t pretend to be value-free.

The greatest columnists the world has seen write their own opinions unabashedly, be it for a cause or in damnation of one. And, in my opinion, the business of a columnist is not to get into some “balancing” rubbish or give a load of “facts and data” like an encyclopaedia.

I write it “the way it is” from my viewpoint and my heart. And I always try to be upfront with my bias or value where and when necessary. I don’t make pretences.

Fundamentally, I’m guided in my writing by my own four-way rule — Is it verifiable truth? Is it free of any inducement? Is the cause deserving of praise or damnation? Is it in the overall public good?

And, coming to praising the Fayemis or Fasholas or Aregbesolas for even what is “his job,” I subscribe to the theory or principle propounded by sociologists (like you) of “positive reinforcement” — which needs no explanation. I think they should be praised for doing their job when doing it well, and lash out at them when and if they fail or disappoint. I have no problem with that.

I’ve gone over the piece and I am happy with it, in all honesty. We need guys like this and they need our praises and encouragement, and not for us to just be finding fault in the belief that that’s the way to “keep them on their toes.”

Professor, lo wa’se se! Agba ‘n’ t’ara mi!

TF

If I should expatiate further, all over the world, people who have excelled in their job that they are “paid” and meant to do still get honoured and praised on occasions, hence you have reputable organisations (and nations) giving awards of “Banker of the Year” “Governor of the Year,” etc.

Some readers have wondered if I really could write differently, considering the fact that I was in Ekiti on the invitation of the governor. The honest truth is that I certainly would not come out speaking falsely, and would not count pedestrian activity — like “boreholes” and “transformers” — as an achievement.

This column started about 16 years ago under the logo Damn It. Of course, I was much younger and was out to just tear and tear and tear, for which I became “Eleke eebu” (a rude person). I have a friend who would say the column is “not sweet” if I am not blasting someone or another.

Then it became All Abroad in Abacha years, and subsequently underwent a couple of other metamorphoses.

That’s my column: Saying It The Way It Is!

Dear Sir,

I read your column in the Sunday PUNCH of December 23, 2012. I must say all you wrote is absolutely the truth. I visited Ekiti State for the second time in many years and I was totally amazed at the level of development I met.

Governor Fayemi has turned the state into a construction yard of sorts. Everywhere I turned to had gravels, sand, tractors and, most importantly, workers, who were seen working on the projects. So, it wasn’t like the usual abandoned projects.

I am so, so, proud of this progressive Nigerian. He is doing a very great job. He is definitely the kind of leader Nigerians are looking for. I urge other non-working governors to please take a drive down to Ekiti State and learn from the master strategist.

—Mesimo ‘Damilare

damilaremesimo@yahoo.com

Dear Egbon,

Compliments of the season to you. I’ve just read your column in the Sunday PUNCH. Nice one; but please, also try to focus on some PDP states. Some of the governors are doing well.

—Femi Alafe-Aluko

femialafealuko@rocketmail.com

Femi,

I welcome information on any such governor of any state, regardless of his party affiliation, who is performing well!

E ku ojo meta.

TF.

Dear Sir,

You are right about the “quiet revolution” going on in Ekiti State. You may not believe it: my wife and I missed the way to my in-law’s compound the last time we visited Ado-Ekiti.

God bless Dr. Fayemi and the team.

—Pastor Paul Kilanko.

Dear Mr. Fagbenle,

Thank you for your write-up on Ekiti State today. I also wish to thank Dr. Fayemi and his team for trying to restore the glory of Ekiti.

The last time I travelled to Ikogosi, I felt the same way you felt. I am a development economist, a retired don of Obafemi Awolowo University. I felt that Fayemi is not only doing Ekiti sons and daughters proud, he is proving that theoretical policies can be made practical. He is proving we don’t have to join them; we can beat them.

More power to your elbows, Governor Fayemi. I am praying for you and your team.

—Dr. (Mrs.) Feyisayo Odejide (nee Bewaji).

Dear TundeFagbenle

Thank you, sir, for your column on Ekiti State. Fayemi must have read all your praises on Aregbesola and wanted you to do the same for him.

Those roads were done before Fayemi came; in fact, he could not maintain Ifaki-Omuo road which I pass regularly to Kabba.

You are a highly respected writer. Please, get away from praise writing.

Prof. Adeniran, Ilorin.

If anyone was left in doubt, the President – or those pushing for him – have sounded the beagle; forget any pretence to the contrary: the race for 2015 has begun!

Ghost posters appearing overnight all over the capital city, with the President waking up to deny (not denounce!) having a hand in it isn’t anything new. Same politicians, same old trick.The President or his “promoters” are making an early start of it, sending the message to his party folk that the issue of him having a “second term” is foregone and those who want to negotiate (and benefit) or fight (and lose) can make their choices.

The truth is 2015 is just around the corner. Yet it is far: it is a long time yet for the hopelessness the people face; a long time yet for the suffering they still have to endure under the present government.

President Goodluck Jonathan has disappointed those who voted for him (outside his Niger Delta sectional interest) with the benefit of doubt in his favour: that here comes a young man; here comes a graduate (with PhD); here comes God-knows-what-else! In the last couple of years, when their President speaks, the people cringe. He displays a shocking lack of eloquence and depth, even of a good school certificate holder.

The economy mimics his stupor. Corruption has become byword for doing government business: Halliburton and Siemens scandals have been left untouched; petroleum subsidy scandal running into trillions of naira suffuses the air with its pungent stench; Otedola and Farouk bribery scandal has been swept under the carpet; everywhere the President and his men (and women!) turn, corruption and ineptitude follow.

But the President tells us he has performed wonders so far and promises us some more good luck to come! His poster canvassers have also reminded us how staid and unimaginative everything has been, with fatigued words like “No vacancy in Aso Rock,” and “A good term deserves another.” It is all so sickening!

But the President and his party are welcome to their interpretations of what the country has undergone and is undergoing under Jonathan. The choice is for Nigerians to make, and the job starts today, as the President’s poster pasters have alerted us.

Back in 2009, with two years to the 2011 elections as we have now, this column ran its “Will the youth arise?” clarion call. It opened with an exhortation from Prof. Wole Soyinka thus:

“The ball is now in your court… Election is still two years away…What is wrong in identifying now your candidates and beginning to mobilise support for them? Why can’t you invade your homeland…Use your mobile telephones now to mobilise the people and guard democracy… the way Barrack Obama used the Internet technology to mobilise the youths to strengthen democracy… Mobilise the youths to guard the ballot boxes from start to finish… Defend the vote; nobody is going to do it for you…”

I went further to remind our youths of their historical charges:

“All over the world, students have been active agents of societal change. Propelled by their youthful vigour, fearlessness and imbued with a passion to make a difference, student activism has forced progressive legislation and even brought down unpopular governments.

“Student protesters inspired much of the civil rights movements of the 1960s in America. In 1968, over 800,000 students, teachers and workers marched through Paris, demanding the fall of the de Gaulle government. Similarly, students’ protest spurred the 1989 China Tiananmen Square revolt; Hungarian Revolution in 1956; the Ukrainian “Orange Revolution” in 2005; Indonesia’s revolts in 1967 and 1998; Iran against the Shah in 1979; and numerous others worldwide.

“Of course, Nigeria has had her own fair share of meaningful student activism: from 1965 when students of the University of Ibadan barricaded the chambers of the Legislative House in Ibadan in protest against the results of an openly rigged election by the NNDP in the Western Region; to 1971 when a student, Adekunle Adepoju, was shot dead by the police while students demonstrated over generally deteriorating conditions in their institutions; to 1978 when Segun Okeowo led university students in “Ali Must Go” demonstration, demanding the sack of the then education minister, leading to the death of a student, Akintunde Ojo; to the 1989 anti-SAP and 1992 anti-fuel scarcity riots.

“But times have changed, sadly so, and the Nigerian students of today are just as mired in the enveloping decay and have themselves become even agents of the forces of regression and political brigandage.

“…The nonsense going on in Abuja, in the National Assembly by legislators that do more looting than legislating, would have received some jolting. The serial electoral rape in the country (Halliburton scandal, Otedola/Farouk scandal, petroleum subsidy scandal, etc.) would have faced the collective wrath and denunciation of a vibrant student body.

“But there are no student protests to force issues or make the leadership know that the youth, whose tomorrow is at stake, are unhappy.

Then about this time last year, this column again brought to the fore the need for Nigerians to “do something” if they truly desire – and DESERVE – positive change.

It began with an idea propounded by Pius Adesanmi, the Nigerian activist professor in a Canadian university. Adesanmi posted a plea on his Facebook status titled, “Desperate thoughts from the precipice of despair,” in which he urged Nigerians to take the matter of the president they want into their own hands by “drafting” someone they would want as president and massing in the millions behind such a person.

Although Adesanmi proposed Bishop Hassan Kukah as his choice, his idea serves for any such person. And I wrote:

“…Nigerians must not sit and mope about their fate… (They should) identify someone who they can trust to lead the country by his dynamism, inspire the country by his selflessness and character, and galvanise the country by his intellect. And having identified such a person, start from this moment to build a consensus around the person, mobilise, and strategise to give the person a political base with which to make their mandate manifest.”

I suggested further that “the way to go about it is to start compiling signatures from now on through the various media of social mobilisation and set a target of, say, five million names between now and 2014, and see how far we can get with that. It must be said that for me at the level of realism, Kukah is only a metaphor, our moral and integrity compass for the calibre of person and character trait we require in our next president.  

“Our Kukah-model may come from any part of the country. A guy (a neuter term in this age) can take a five million-strong endorsement to the bank, literally! A backing of that magnitude is enough to start a movement. And, as the Iroko of Ondo (Mimiko) has proved, a popular candidate can win elections on his own steam and party choice. But whether Iroko’s paradigm is translatable unto a national level remains to be seen.”

2013 is here. It remains to be seen how serious Nigerians really are or how much more nonsense they can really take!

Good luck and Happy New Year.

The Nigeria media world was thrown into mourning on Thursday as news of the sudden death of one of their most distinguished veteran sports columnists seeped out into public space with the morning dew:  Ayo Ositelu is dead!

By cockcrow, the news had gone viral on the Internet, while business increased for the mobile phone companies as everyone sought to confirm (or spread!) the sad news. Sports journalist and family friend of the Ositelu’s, KayodeTijani, was being quoted as saying: “Spoke to his wife. He was watching TV (Wednesday night) with her and the next (thing) he was dead. I’m in shock.”

As an early riser myself, I had caught the news by dawn here in England and put a call to mutual friend ex-international soccer star Segun Odegbami in Nigeria, seeking to confirm the “murmurings;” only to find that I was breaking the news to him.

“I’ll call his wife straightaway,” Segun replied, dumbfounded, reminding me that those abroad always get news of happenings in Nigeria before those back home do. The big brother was just preparing to celebrate his 70th birthday again!

Since then, there has been an outpouring of emotions in the media, all extolling the geniality and greatness of Arena (as Ositelu was fondly called — after the name of his popular column).

Praising the dead is a favourite pastime of Nigerians. We give little thought, or get outright miserly, to telling our loved ones, our heroes, how much they are loved or appreciated while they are alive. Often, through meanness of heart or envy, we recoil at praising good deeds or appreciating excellence. Yet, it is those kind words, the little appreciation that are greater than gold and propel even greater deeds. And nothing is greater than an endorsement by one’s peers.

My heart rejoices as I recall the good feeling Deacon (yes, he was a deacon too) Ayo Ositelu felt on reading portions of my write-up that dwelt on the quality of his works in my column of 08/09/2002. 

Titled, “Tribute to the writer,” the column was a eulogy to those writers, past and present, whose writings inspired or gave me joy. They included older ones like Peter (Enahoro) Pan, Sad Sam (Uncle Sam Amuka), Allah De (Odunewu); succeeding ones like Pini Jason, Adebayo Williams, etc; and younger ones like my Azu, Kayode Samuel, and others.

I was effusive when it came to Ositelu. He called me immediately on reading the piece, saying after reading what I had written, he was prepared to meet his Maker. “O Tunde,” he said, “you really know how to rub one on the right side.”

Here is an excerpt of the column (also published in my book, Nigeria — A Thousand Laughs, A thousand Cries):

“When I get a mail (thanks to the Internet and the speedy communication facility of the e-mail) as I now and then get, complimenting my writing style (rather than the argument) or telling me what a ‘great writer’ I am, I do not jump in joy. Even while appreciating the kind thoughts of the mailer, what I do is wonder how much writing the mailer has been exposed to. Has he or she really read great writers…?

“I am glad to still see Ayo Ositelu doing his thing now in The Guardian. Ositelu is a sports writer par excellence. No writer — not even Esbee of the old Daily Times fame, captures sports mood and captivates the reader with sports writing as does Ayo Ositelu, especially on tennis. Ayo writes beautifully, he takes you unto the court or, with boxing, unto the ring. He is a passionate writer.

“I remember when he was with The PUNCH in the 70s as the Sports Editor. Then, sadly, he got promoted to become the Sunday PUNCH Editor. I promptly sent him a letter of regret in place of a congratulatory one, explaining what disservice the promotion was to the nurturing of a genius. But he was too happy with his promotion to pay me any attention.

“Nigeria, as in all other things, does not know how to behold its own writers, how to keep and nurture them. Nigeria smothers. I could not see how an Ositelu could not remain in his field of specialisation and be granted a status (in wage and office) equal to, if not higher than, that of the Editor…”

Egbon Ayo was classmate of my elder brother (Layi) and another egbon, Dele Adetiba, at Igbobi College, and also went on to the United States, Chicago too, for his higher studies. Ositelu not only wrote tennis, he ‘did’ tennis and had once made me “eat” my challenge to him on court! It hurts to put him in past tense.

Sleep well, Egbon. Respect!

And farewell to Tunde Agbabiaka too

It is a cruel irony that just as the Nigeria media was set to bury one of its old respected hands, another was being pronounced dead.

So it had been this past week. The remains of one of the toughest beat crackers of his time, TundeAgbabiaka, were interred on January 11, 2013. Sadly, I could not be around for it. But “Afroguard,” as some of us close enough to know, fondly called him, was my friend.

Agbabiaka died aged 62, which makes him my aburo and so harder to bear. But his achievements far outstrip that age. Agbabiaka had been around “forever,” as they say.

A Facebook blog by a friend and old Daily Times colleague of his, my brother Remi Akano, captures a little of the essential Tunde Agbabiaka.

He said, “One of Africa’s top flight editors with a truly international, crisis and low-intensity-conflict reporting experience, Tunde had his baptism in the theatre of war when, in February 1976, he toured the frontline Southern Angolan city of Huambo where remnants of UNITA insurgents were still putting up a stout resistance. He also filed reports from other flashpoints: Liberia, Chad, Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Northern Ireland (accompanying British troops on surveillance operations in the hostile, sniper-ridden IRA stronghold of Belfast).

“Agbabiaka was one-time European Editor of the Concord Press of Nigeria, in which capacity he masterminded the acquisition (by late Chief MKO Abiola) of the award-winning, million-dollar Africa Economic Digest business weekly.

“An English Language graduate and alumnus of Times Journalism Institute, Tunde was a versatile professional who, in between jobs, set up his own companies, published Nigeria Banking and Insurance magazine and later, Fraud & Theft Alert International, a newsletter that helps African financial institutions track white-collar crime trends in the world’s emerging markets, among others.

“(Tunde) suddenly slipped into a coma in the early hours of December 14, 2012 and was not revived…”

I remember Afroguard (one of his ideas) fondly as a man of ideas, great business ideas. In this, he had an equal in his bosom friend, Yomi Lajide, and I never ceased to marvel at the pair when they were in full flight conceptualising ideas! Tunde was a brilliant fellow.

Send those ideas down from heaven, Tunde; folks need them!

Fare thee well.

“Eyin ibeji, eyin ibeji” (you twins) is how market women call out to us on the few occasions my brother and I find ourselves in any Lagos or Ibadan market.

Twins-looking, yes — sporting the same grey beard and often scruffy sideburns, close in height and look — but the compliment is my brother’s, not mine, for he is almost five years older than I am even if I happen to be his immediate younger one. So, he must be looking good — and I oldish!

My elder brother, Layi, a retired but far from tired distinguished professor of mechanical engineering, turned 70 a few days ago on the 17th.

I grew up wanting to “be” him, as all younger siblings are wont to of their elder. And I recall during our growing up years in Minna, Northern Nigeria, the joy (and honour) it gave me to carry big brother’s school box (we used metal boxes in those days) at the end of each school day; standing sentry by his class at the sound of end-of-school bell, to earn the ‘honours’!

But he was (is) too far good and different from me in brilliance and personality for me to catch up. No greater evidence of this than in him turning out a great scholar and renowned energy consultant (hired by the UN as Director of Energy for Botswana and on the Energy Board for Southern Africa for about four years in the ‘90s) and me a poor pen-pusher, publisher and entrepreneur of sorts — far from my earlier dream of becoming a professor too – if not in engineering, at least in something!

We have our similarities, of course. We both were into sports growing up. He was on his school’s (Igbobi College) football team as junior; and on holidays played on the Minna township team occasionally (with our cousin, the late Ojo Latilo who had fame as one of the country’s first soccer academicals in those glorious years).

And talking of Igbobi College, I erred in last week’s column, saying that the late Ayo Ositelu was classmate of Broda Layi and of Egbon Dele Adetiba. Not so.

As a reader, Onnuola Adewunmi, reacted: “He (Ositelu) was my classmate at Igbobi (‘58-’62). Your brother, Layi and Dele Adetiba, were senior to us by one year – a very important aspect of our life at Igbobi. We dared not call them by name!” I apologise.

As for me, aside from doing a little of this and that, I was part of the Western Region’s Olowu Cup (table-tennis) winning team for my school, the then great Kiriji Memorial College, Igbajo, 1963 to 1965 (we won it in 1963 and were in the finals subsequently).

Broda Layi and I also share great values our parents instilled in us, most of which I have my brother to thank for: leadership, simplicity, humility, integrity, eschewing malice and bitterness, kindness, love, truthfulness, strong family, faith in human beings, and making the world a better place than we met it!

He was one of the early beneficiaries of the African Scholarship Programme of the American universities in those years. He went on to the prestigious University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, both in the USA, obtaining his BS and PhD from the former. He returned to Africa in 1973 via the University of Technology, Kumasi, Ghana, and Nigeria in 1974  to The Polytechnic, Ibadan, where he was a beloved teacher of students, including the State of Osun’s Aregbesola and ex-soccer international, Segun Odegbami.

He became the founding rector of Iree Polytechnic (part of The Polytechnic, Ibadan), Iree, Osun, and moved to the University of Ibadan where he rose to become a professor, having been Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering for many years, before retiring some five years ago. Presently, he is a professor at the OAU, Ife; and consultant on energy to international organisations and governments.

He thus fulfilled the promise he made at age 14 (I was nine) to our grieving parents when their eldest child, our sister Bisi Fagbenle died in 1957 at the then University College, Ibadan, a national figure in her own right (vice-president of the UCI students and the World Universities Students Union who welcomed the Queen on her visit to UCI) — that he would grow to attain the academic heights Bisi would have attained had she lived!

I join his wife and loving kids in Botswana and America, the very large Fagbenle family all over the world, numerous friends, colleagues, students and admirers of this great brother of mine — Professor Richard Olayiwola Fagbenle — to say happy 70th birthday.

May your tribe multiply, brother. I love you.

When it gives joy to be Nigerian

With all the pain and frustration Nigeria makes her citizens suffer, there are times and things that fill one with pride just being Nigerian.

It’s not a feeling one gets often these days, unlike way back in the ‘70s when, with some exaggeration allowed, every black person wanted to be Nigerian. We held our heads high abroad and, except for those who genuinely were out to pursue a course of study, being out of the country for more than a week or two was intolerable.

Then things went from bad to worse for the country; corruption and evil took over; 419 and moral decay replaced honesty and hard work. And being a Nigerian became leprous; the green passport we used to flaunt became something to hide in the innermost pocket until it becomes inevitable to show it.

Therefore, coming across something or someone, a product or an individual, exhibiting some excellence that one can identify with is unimaginably soothing.

Two such products emerged on the international market as 2012 drew to a close and they make me chuckle with pride – yes, I am Nigerian!

One was a city of Lagos edition of the popular board game, Monopoly. It was launched in December and I was able to buy a copy at Terra Kulture, the avant-garde books and arts joint in Lagos, during the launch of Prof. Wole Soyinka’s latest book: Harmattan Haze on an African Spring.

Perhaps only those who are avid players of the board game would share in my enthusiasm. It is a game only now displaced by scrabble and chess in my family, no thanks to the computer and the Internet.

Although the City of Lagos Monopoly may have been produced under ‘licence’ of the original owners of the game, the ingenuity and imagination brought to bear by the Nigerians whose idea this was is simply outstanding. Surely, they have opened the eyes of the world, including the original game company, to the amazing commercial possibilities the game offers in the real world. It made my son gasp in awe, remembering our family fondness for the game: “Dad, how come we never thought of this?”

They simply turned the entire board into marketing space, inch for inch, but in an admirably innovative, non-repulsive, non-obtrusive way. Not to talk of the rib-cracking, yet positive value-loaded messages borne by the chance and community chest cards.

Few examples: “For attempting to bribe a law enforcement agent, pay a fine of M15 (again, imaginatively using M sign to escape the awkwardness of volume of naira that would’ve been needed in transactions); “For Riding an Okada without your helmet on, pay a fine of M100.”

I took my copy to London over the holidays and every Nigerian I know is itching to get a copy. Seeing familiar names of streets and places, touched by the wholesomeness of the product, makes one proud.

In this remarkable effort, mercantilism and nationalism beautifully meet.

I am imagining the sort of conversation that would have taken place between President Goodluck Jonathan and one of his close aides after the knowledge of (it would be too presumptuous to think our President has time to sit and watch) Channels TV’s exposé on the pathetic state of Nigeria’s 73-year old premier police college, Nigeria Police College, Ikeja, formerly Southern Police College:

Aide: Oga, you been hear wetin I hear, sir? Say Channels TV show plenty photo of the inside of the Ikeja police college?

GEJ:   Wetin be dat? You still dey watch Nigerian TV? Abeg make I rest.

Aide:  But, my Oga, this one is explosive o. They really take camera dey show Nigerians how wowo the place be.  Breeze don blow feather commot for fowl yansh, sir, for this one.

GEJ: Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Aide: Good and bad, sir.

GEJ: Look, my friend, I don dey tell you I no like all this ambiguous nonsense. Make up your mind. Is it recorded? Oya, show me make I see.

(After viewing it)

Aide: I think someone is out to embarrass this government with this sort of unpalatable show. Our enemies must be behind this.

GEJ: Why would Channels do that? Sebi una say John na our friend?

Aide: Maybe he is being used without him knowing it.

GEJ: We have more enemies within than outside. Sebi I said that before about the Boko Haram thing. It’s an insider job. But we’ll catch them. Everyday na for the thief, one day for the owner. No worry.

Aide:   I have an idea, sir. When in Lagos, on our way to Cote d’Ivoire, why don’t we just jump on them, sir. We will see with our korokoro eyes the nonsense rot they are talking about and catch unawares the oga wey allow Channels.

GEJ:    Good idea. You smart small o! Be like you neva take your tin this morning.

Aide:   Hehehe, my oga!

And so it also came to pass that our President stopped by the NPC on that fateful Friday to “catch the enemies unawares” in their “calculated attempt to damage the image of this government.” In the process, he blew a great PR opportunity the unscheduled visit would have earned him as a “responsive President” instead of the appellation people (sorry, enemies)are calling him, which I refuse to repeat.

Enemies or no enemies, what the President saw with his “korokoro eyes” was enough to evoke a lament: “Why are you treating people like poultry chicken?”

And some media quoted trainees at the college said: “The facilities at the college are so bad that the place is not fit for human habitation; There is no water and we hardly have up to one hour electricity a day since we arrived (I thought our President said on Cable News Network that we now have good electricity?); poor toilet facilities and no beds, we sleep on cardboards on the floor.”

However, to be fair to Mr. President, enemies of the government must really be at work if the rot in the police college, (or the police as a whole, or anything wrong with the country for that matter – corruption, insecurity, bad roads, etc) is laid at the feet of President Jonathan. Like the hydra-headed electricity problem, it predates him by decades! And Goodluck Jonathan did not ask to be President in the first place. It was Obasanjo’s idea! So why blame Jonathan?

Some people will argue that we have the most corrupt and evil police in the world. And going by the recent lamentation of Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole, the “medal” is well earned.

Oshiomhole called for the immediate dismissal of the Deputy Inspector General in charge of Criminal Investigation Department, Mr. Peter Gana, for allegedly bungling the investigation of the murder of his Principal Secretary, Olaitan Oyerinde, who was murdered on May 4, 2012 at his Benin-City home.

Speaking in Abuja at the launch of the Police Code of Conduct, he charged: “According to the police entry, the gun that was tendered as the one used in killing Oyerinde, was a gun that was recovered from a previous crime scene that was already in police custody. The DIG frustrated the investigation using another senior police officer to thwart investigation. I demand that the DIG and that police officer be dismissed immediately. They are unfit to carry on with their duties. They should not be allowed to continue with police job.”

He added, “I feel terrible that as a governor, I can’t get justice. If I can’t get justice, then an average Nigerian cannot expect justice and we can’t have justice if we can’t tell the truth.”

The truth is the police is an open sore of the country. And there is very little that the current leadership of the police can do. The problem is systemic and structural.

Way back in 1999, I had written in my column (published in my earlier book: Nigeria: This Is My Country, Damn It!) that: “In a country with an unenviable and unbeaten five-year record of being the most corrupt country on earth, the police have become the very epitome of the rottenness of the society. The police have stood for the most ignoble of character in mankind: they lie, they cheat, they steal, they molest, they destroy, they aid and abet the most heinous of crimes that they are employed to combat.

 “But the poor police need pity, not condemnation. The country has been overrun by evil, and expecting that the police could be different from the rest of the larger society is unreal and unfair. Our policemen are abjectly ill-equipped, ill-trained, ill-kept, ill-fed, and ill-raised.”

As it stands today, most of the improvement on the equipment and selective encouragement of the police are provided by various state governments either to win those within their domain to their sides or in genuine empathy with the requirement of the police to meeting its policing obligation.

This supports the call for state police. The police is a humongous monstrosity; unmanageable and ineffectual. Like the country itself, our police have to be unbundled for manageability and efficiency.

The youth in search of a president for 2015

We are in interesting times; very interesting times. Following my column of 06/01/13 titled, “2013 is the window to 2015,” it is heartwarming to find the youth, nay Nigerians, responding to the call that: “…Nigerians must not sit and mope about their fate… (They should) identify someone who they can trust to lead the country by his dynamism and his ability to inspire the country by his selflessness and character. And having identified such a person, start from this moment to build a consensus around the person, mobilise, and strategise to give the person a political base with which to make their mandate

It’s not just the magnitude of the looting and corruption that goes on in Nigeria that is mind-boggling and harrowing, worse is the impunity with which they are carried out. And nothing feeds the impunity more than a low probability of getting caught and, in the uncommon event of getting caught, the knowledge that there is always a judge out there, as corrupt and evil as the felon, eager to be bought with part of the loot.

The latest case of one John Yakubu Yusuf, who as  assistant director of the Police Pension Office, connived with others to defraud the office and pensioners of N27bn has raised the bar on the scale of national malady.

This John of a guy, according to newspaper reports, specifically pleaded guilty to three counts of betraying public trust; stealing N2bn (presumably his share of the loot); and conniving with the other suspects – Essai Dangabar, Atiku Kigo, Ahmed Wada, Veronica Ulonma, Sani Zira, UzomaAttang, and Christian Madubuike – to convert N27bn belonging to the pension office to their personal use!

What sentence did he get for the crime? 20 years with hard labour and forfeiture of money and assets traceable to him beyond his income level, right? Wrong! In the eyes of Justice Abubakar Talba of an Abuja High Court, Yusuf’s crime is nothing but petty crime for which he should suffer no more than a slap on the wrist. All John Yusuf needs do is pay a fine of N750, 000 and he can walk away a free man, failing which he would have to spend, not 20 but two years for his confession.

We may never know how compromised, or not, Justice Talba is in this case; what went under or over the table or not. In serious countries, it would be easy to discover but in a place like Nigeria, such expectation would be forlorn. Nevertheless if the judgment Talba handed down to Yusuf in this case is a measure of his wisdom and integrity, then woe unto the system that bred his ilk.

It is to be assumed that all of the N2bn was already recovered from Yusuf, if it is so, it has not been enough to assuage the outrage over the incongruity of the judgment to the enormity of the crime.

The enormity is not just in the billions involved, it is in the heartlessness of stealing money belonging to poor pensioners who have laboured all their lives and now look forward to some pension, paltry as it may be, for whatever is left of their lives. That is enough for a life sentence.

We should remind ourselves that this pension scam was exposed this time last year when on February 2, 2012, the Chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina, revealed how his team “caught a top civil servant in the pension unit at the office of the Head of Service with cash of N2bn stashed in his private residence.”

Maina went further to reveal how another civil servant was caught with a pile of dollars in his house stressing that, “some officials of government had over the years been involved in mindless looting of the pension arrears of helpless retirees, many of whom had died, while many others were stricken with ailments arising from denial of their pensions…” He added that the team had “recovered the total sum of N151bn” looted by officials saddled with the task of managing the funds!

We cannot knock Justice Talba entirely. He may be taking consolation in “precedents,” and wondering what the whole furore is about.

Wasn’t this the same country, he would ask, where, as C.V. Akuta, a Nigerian Rights campaigner in the UK reminds us, an “Olabode George committed a fraud of over N85bn and was only given 2.5 years’ imprisonment?; A Cecilia Ibru was jailed six months for stealing N54bn?; With both of these spending their sentences in their homes or chosen hospitals.”

And many more, from the case of Lucky Igbinedion to that of Peter Odili (of “perpetual injunction”) to that of James Ibori who was discharged and acquitted in Nigeria only to be jailed for the same offences in the UK, etc.

Those sentences were not passed by Talba. And nothing happened to their “Lordships” in the cases. Did the National Judicial Council immediately send those judges packing like it happened to the silly referee of the Nigerian vs Zambia match in the ongoing African Cup of Nations football competition? No. They were elevated probably.

And so is the problem with what is prescribed as punishment for crimes such as this in our statutes? As Justice Talba alluded in his judgment, “Section 309 of the Penal Code, under which the accused person was charged, stipulates a two-year prison term with an option of fine or both.”  Talba exercised his discretion in favour of Yusuf!

According to EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, the option of fine granted Yusuf by Justice Talba “runs contrary to the understanding between the prosecution and the defence wherein the convict consented to a custodial sentence with the forfeiture of all assets and money that are proceeds of the crime.”

Again as Akuta reminds us, “In China, the penalty is capital punishment. Another example is America, where for instance, Bernard Madoff, who committed a fraud of $85bn, was sentenced to 150 years in jail!”

Our country is in a total mess, everything is upside down; morality is thrown to the winds. It is a country in which so-called leaders (presidents, governors, ministers, and all) are trying to outdo one another in how large and how brazen they can loot the public treasury and yet come out sounding like saints and pointing fingers at everyone else.

Someone was saying to me the other day that the prevalent kidnappers in different parts of the country have got it wrong. There should be a “Society Cleansing Group” which would go after each and every public official “publicly known” to have stolen huge public funds or are stinkingly corrupt. They should be kidnapped one by one and made to disappear to serve as a lesson to those in office. I’m not sure how that would work though; such law of the jungle, such arbitrariness. “But we already live in a jungle don’t we?” he quipped.

Let us return to rogue John Yusuf and his N2bn loot in the jungle called Nigeria.

Obviously disturbed by the public outrage over the virtual “release” of Yusuf, it was reported that the EFCC rearrested Yusuf with fresh charges of “non-declaration of his assets and liability in his asset declaration form,” bla, bla,bla. And an obliging judge, Justice Adamu Bello, has promptly remanded him in jail (without bail!) on the fresh charges.

If you ask me, the difference between the fresh charges to which Yusuf is held without bail and the old ones to which he was allowed home on option of fine, is one between death and sleep or day and night. But discretions are at large. Our prisons cannot contain the number of public servants guilty of the new charge.

The looting of the country has gone on for too long and too mindlessly. Something must give!

This perspective on Nigeria is an adaptation of my letter to my child. Enjoy:

 My dear daughter,

 This is to let you all know of my safe arrival in Nigeria and that all is well – so far!

I came straight to Ibadan on arrival at the Lagos airport. It is the first time that I would not stay even a day in Lagos. I guess it helped that I took a night flight out of London and arrived in Lagos so early in the morning that the only thing on my mind was a quick but quiet reengagement of the country and outstanding matters: home, business, politics, etc.

I must admit that one can see some positive development in the country if one is not too cynical and blocking one’s mind to it.

The airport is undergoing impressive remodelling and, if the pace and seriousness is maintained then we may, at last, have an airport worthy of the name. And let us pray this new effort would not lapse into the usual Nigerian syndrome of non-maintenance. It will be a big shame if it does.

I hope the authorities would complement this impressive development with comprehensive education and enlightenment of all concerned, engaging conscientious public relations stratagem, and establishing an airport efficient and user-friendly monitoring team or task force.

As I have hinted you in the past, Lagos is moving on with its own renewal in the hands of the admirable Governor, Babatunde (yes, dad’s namesake) Fashola, and driving from the airport and all the way out of Lagos was certainly a less agonising experience. Sanity, development, and beautification are evident.

The “expressway” from Lagos to Ibadan is back under repairs — an interminable thing! But it looks like the Federal Government of President (Goodluck) Jonathan means to slay the demon of that road this time. We shall wait and see.

On getting to Ibadan, it was a joy to see the new Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, really going serious about the facelifting and urban renewal of Ibadan — once the largest (and most populous) city in black Africa! Construction is ongoing at frenetic pace and pervasively. It’s incredible that it is possible to tackle the mess Ibadan had become over the years and restore some sense of order and development. Roads are being cleared and widened (though with its pain on the petty traders and roadside artisans whose sheds, kiosks, stalls, etc have been demolished and cleared — but development has its own price and sacrifice), flyovers are under construction here and there, and traffic enforcers are ensuring sanity on the hitherto chaotic roads.

The most cheering news — for me — on getting home was the (pleasant) shock of finding that there was light and there still is! I almost cannot remember when last I experienced an uninterrupted power supply for three days at a stretch! I am keeping fingers crossed and hoping this power thing is not a fluke.

Electricity has nothing to do with the government of Ibadan, mind you, this is a Federal Government thing and it seems Jonathan is having a good crack at the hydra-headed monster! If he succeeds with it and gets the federal roads (motorways) and the rail working, the horrifying corruption and ineptitude Nigerians have associated with him and his government may yield to a kinder perception before he gets booted out in 2015 which is the next election time. Either way, his party will be booted out — Nigeria cannot afford another term of the Peoples Democratic Party in power — but, at least, he wouldn’t go out with the ignominy of being the worst president Nigeria ever had!

It is incredible what difference good  (as  in  responsible,  responsive, and visionary) leadership can make to a community, state, or nation. Seeing all the refreshing changes going on, the question on my mind is, “but where were those in charge of these places before, what were they doing?”

I mean who were those in charge of the airport(s) for all those past years? The expressway? Ibadan (Oyo State)? Electricity? And so on. Did they just not see the rot? Did they lack in vision or were they just too busy converting all the funds that would have gone into effecting these transformations into their personal uses?

Makes me think there should be a time (and hopefully soon) when they would all have to be rounded up and shot! This country has been messed up too badly and too long.

Whatever I have said above does not in any way suggest that all is now well in Nigeria. Far from it, but at least there are some few things to cheer one up.

So long darling.

Dad

PS: Alas, I spoke too soon, light is gone – just as I was signing off.

Rooting for Super Eagles all the way

As a rule, I don’t watch any live match of any sport in which I have strong emotional attachment. I love myself and wouldn’t put me through any unnecessary stomach upset, or worse, hypertension!

Consequently, I don’t watch either of the Williams sisters playing my favourite sport, tennis, unless I already know the result and a Williams has won. Well I take that back, I do watch, fleetingly – an occasional glance at a rally, serve or spectators’ applause.

The same goes for when the Nigerian Eagles (Super, Golden or whatever) are in any important engagement. You wouldn’t catch me dead watching them in a live encounter. Our Eagles are particularly notorious heartbreakers!

The ongoing African Cup of Nations was not an exception, indeed my attitude to it was that of complete disinterest in what I thought would be no more than their usual jamboree of bloated egos, estacodes grabbing and riotous improprieties.

Then I was at my regular “watering hole” in Ibadan minding my own business when I “glanced” at the TV in one of their matches just to catch a referee blowing his whistle to award a penalty against our national team. I have never in my life seen an officiating more disgraceful, more absurd – equalled in outrageousness only by that which was awarded against Burkina Faso in their match against Ghana on Wednesday!

Our game ended in a draw. We didn’t win because we were cheated of victory. But our players played their hearts out.

Then came their quarterfinal match against the overwhelming tournament favourites Cote d’Ivoire. I could watch that because “it wouldn’t matter if they lost, the conclusion was foregone anyway.” So I, and millions of Nigerians, thought. We thought wrong.

From the blast of the start whistle to the end, our Super Eagles almost couldn’t put a foot wrong as they completely outplayed the haughty Ivorians in all departments of the game. Our Eagles put all detractors to shame and soared higher than any kite could, forcing the attention and respect of the soccer world to themselves.

I sat and watched their next game, the semi-finals, against Mali and, again, saw the Eagles make mincemeat of the formidable Malians in a 4-1 rout. I’m Mesmerised!

In today’s final against Burkina Faso, the conquerors of mighty Ghana, I will sit down and watch all of the game. I will be able to because in my heart, the Super Eagles have already won and it wouldn’t matter even if they lost on the scoreboard. They must be accorded heroes’ welcome!

Our  Super Eagles are the champions of Africa football and I want to thank them for restoring some pride in being Nigerian – even if momentary.

This may sound incredible but it is real for I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own very ears: There is a Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina somewhere who has proved himself bigger than the National Assembly! And only in Nigeria full of surprises of the most outrageous kind would this happen.

 Last Wednesday, live on a national TV network, I chanced upon the coverage of a Senate debate on the corruption-ridden pensions office(s) and how this Maina of a guy who is supposedly the head of a “Presidential Pensions Reform Task Force” sent to cleanse the pension’s rot, would not answer the summons of the higher chambers of the NASS.

I sat and watched as speaker after speaker, from Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, Senator (Prof) Sola Adeyeye, Senator Smart Adeyemi to Senator Uche Chukwumerije, and many others, expressed dismay and disgust with the utter impunity and disrespect Maina has treated the upper legislative house by completely ignoring their call whilst going about everywhere under the most glaring exhibition of power, with a retinue of siren-blaring armed personnel of differing forces in tow.

By an account of the aggrieved senators, Maina was seen on one occasion at the Abuja airport to welcome President Goodluck Jonathan! In what capacity, they queried, would “an ordinary civil servant” of the mere rank of an assistant director be qualified and emboldened to do that? Questions, questions, questions; anger, anger, anger!

There were imputations of protection, if not complicity of the executive arm of government. If not, they ask, what would give Maina the audacity to repeatedly ignore the call of the Senate in their oversight function? Why, they asked, would the Inspector-General of Police be unable to bring Maina to the House as demanded?

Maina on his part is said to have worries that the interest of the senate committee on him is unwholesome, he was also said to have imputed that bribe was demanded from him by some members of the committee, and that his safety was not assured on account of his exposé on corruption in the pensions system.

Readers would recall my reference to Maina’s lamentation on the discoveries of his team when they first began work last year. I had quoted him as saying that his team had “recovered the total sum of N151bn” looted by officials managing the pension funds.

What is the story of Abdulrasheed Maina?

A top civil servant (by far higher than Maina in position) is of the opinion that it may be true that when Maina took over the pensions fund, the scale of corruption he found was staggering and unbelievable. There were multiple entries of the same name in variety of ways on the pensions records through which millions, nay billions, were swindled; and that resulted in the real pensioner owners of the names not getting paid.

But that in the course of Maina fighting corruption, he found corruption fighting back in many disguises, including the many allegations that Maina himself had soiled his hands over time, having discovered the enormity of funds available and the other ways by which anyone could also help himself to large sums without smelling filthy.

He went further to buttress the suspicion on Maina’s credibility with how Maina had figured some way of “settling” or compromising many highly-placed people, especially in the different arms of government and security forces, by putting them on the list of those to go on some “overseas familiarisation tour” of comparative pensions systems; and using that to credit their bank accounts with stupendous sums far above imagination; and how some of the officers implicated had owned up when they found those sums in their bank accounts unsolicited but unreturned!

What then is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Whatever. The Senate has now bared its fang swearing to its readiness to bite “if pushed to the wall,” which makes one wonder which other wall beyond that to which its ‘distinguished’ face has now been smashed? It has asked President Jonathan to sack Maina, or else… Hehehe.

Truth is, the country is one big racket and a hellhole of impunity.

Nigeria’s predicament and Senator Ojudu’s lament

It was a delight to read on the Internet last week the views and outpouring of mind of Babafemi Ojudu, a senator representing Ekiti State, who I must confess is a good friend and aburo of mine, one whose brilliance, courage and forthrightness I have always admired.

It is important to give wider publicity to cogent aspects of what Senator Ojudu has said, his lament on a country that is evidently dysfunctional and frustration with the seeming hopelessness of our situation.

To refresh the minds of my readers, Femi Ojudu is that fiery professional journalist of repute who, together with Bayo Onanuga, Kunle Ajibade and Seye Kehinde, co-founded The News magazine and other publications in the stable including the now rested Tempo – the scourge of military rule and thorn in the flesh of late General Abacha who drove it underground into “guerrilla publishing!”

Driven by the urge to move his activism from mere “theorising” unto the level of practical engagement, Ojudu dropped his journalistic toga to run for Senate in 2011 under the Action Congress of Nigeria and won.

Hear him: “But getting here (Senate), I saw that the problems we have are so entrenched that it will need 1001 Femi Ojudus to bring about any change. Our country is really in the grip of evil elements at all levels of government and something has to give.”

Asked if he is of the opinion that it is difficult for the country to move forward given the picture painted, he says: “It’s nigh impossible. If we want to move forward through the formal and normal process, it is going to take us another century. But if there is a rupture from below, that may just bring a quicker resolution to what is happening in Nigeria.”

“It is about leadership. I am not even talking of leadership of today, but I’m much more worried about the leadership of tomorrow. We are saying today is bad, but tomorrow is going to be worse.”

On why the report of his probe panel has been ignored by the executive, he states, “From the first day, I knew nothing would be done. But they said we should go ahead, believing that we would achieve something. So, the systems are too interwoven for any decisive thing to be done about what we need to do about Nigeria. The interests of those who sold those companies and those in power now are interwoven. How do you expect those who are in power now to fight them when they are drinking from the same pot?”

On fears of crisis in Ekiti State ACN over the 2014 governorship election, Ojudu says, “All of us, minus one person, have endorsed the governor. If you know my history, I am not a praise singer. But I will invite you to go round Ado Ekiti. I was talking to some chiefs in my town and they said we have never had it this good and that if me, an Ado indigene, becomes governor, I wouldn’t do better than this. And that goes for all the areas of the state.”

Yes, the Senate may need 1001 Femi Ojudus to move the country forward; one down, a thousand to go!

I had an experience last weekend that troubled my mind and got me really thinking about the enormity of the challenges facing us as a nation and as peoples inhabiting this geographical space which by ordinary civilised urges, we should all be engaged in trying to make better and better still.

There was I, with my family (of wife and child), in Ijebu-Igbo for my wife’s annual ritual (well, she would not be Ijebu otherwise!) in memorial of a father who departed three decades ago. It is not in my place to criticise my in-laws (not publicly) but really, isn’t there some other way to memorialise the dead than feeding the neighbourhood and quaffing beer? But that is not the issue here, before my mouth gets me into Ijebu trouble.

As I was saying, we were in Ijebu-Igbo. We did not plan to spend the night there but night caught us (surprise?) and since I’ll take anything but having to travel once dusk sets in, Mrs said we should move on to Ago-Iwoye, a neighbouring town of tolerable distance and kill two birds with one stone: visit some relation of hers and spend the night in some hotel.

Cut a long story short, we got into our (“Presidential” –haha) suite in this “top” hotel only to discover that water was not running from the taps, and did we need a wash badly! I am usually not calm when I think I’m getting less than I paid for, or in plain language, being ripped off, but I managed to keep my cool on learning that it was merely a minor problem which a technician was looking into and water would soon be restored.

So we left the suite to bide the time at the restaurant. Before long, the sky was heavy with impending rain and storm was afoot. Then I saw the “technician” also come into the restaurant to “relax;” his job done, water was back. My mind immediately went to what that could mean for the many hotel baths, showers and water basins that might have been turned on and left so when water was not running.

“Hello, Mr Technician,” I said to him, “I think you or someone should go round all the rooms and ensure no taps are running now that water is restored. Otherwise there is danger of flooding from unclosed taps.”

“Thanks, sir,” he answered but did nothing simply carried on with his “relaxing”. I drew my wife’s attention to my concern.

Again, cut the long story short, an hour later, we were back on our hotel landing and what did we find? Lo and behold, the corridor was a pool of water. From two rooms on just our landing alone, water that had overfilled the sinks and baths had flooded the rooms and seeped through the doors to form a confluence on the corridor!

Alarm went out and panicky staff went “fire-fighting” something that did not have to happen in the first place. The mess, the damage and the loss can be imagined!

It got me thinking. This has nothing to do with our leaders, this is a people’s problem; our work ethics. We are in real big problem in Nigeria. All over the place, both in public and private offices, the attitude to work is so sickeningly casual and lackadaisical. We have lost it. Everywhere, everyone is there to just do as little as possible and make as much as possible – even more.

There is little real interest in the job for which we earn a living (true, most jobs do not pay a wage to live on). There is little concern for the protection of the provider, be it a small or a big corporation or government. We hardly take pride in our job. And so, it is always a relief, a thing of joy, to see the rare exceptions of someone really enjoying his or her job and going the “extra mile” to do the job as it should be done whether someone is “watching” or not.

It is always a joy to see the traffic controller who is pacing up and down and gleefully directing traffic; a cleaner humming and moon-walking as he/she does the job; a nurse or doctor truly concerned to get the patient back to good health and so checks even outside the usual working hours to say hello; the teacher who is absorbed in his/her teaching and lives it, wanting and striving to have a 100 per cent success rate of his/her students in examinations; a governor who with rolled-up sleeves is seen paying surprise visits (without sirens) to construction sites, schools, hospitals, etc in his domain; a government official doing his job without waiting for an inducement or egunje to work on a file; and so on and so forth.

Never met her but I won’t forget the features editor (she knows herself) in this newspaper (PUNCH) who took so much joy in her job that she always sent me a “thank you, sir” whenever I emailed my column early enough, as if she owned the paper. She is no longer on the desk but she was an example in “joy in the job.”

Let us go back quickly to the hotel. By morning, I woke up to find some unusual serenity around; an abandonment with no worker in sight. It turned out it was prayer time of whatever faith the owner held. Everyone had been herded into a part of the premises into enforced devotional service. This, it was learnt, was observed every day. Perhaps it was the proprietor’s way of “putting the fear of God” in the workers, perhaps it was his way of atoning for his sins about the way he makes his money. Whatever. It clearly had not helped in improving the workers’ devotion to duty beyond also looking for ways to help themselves to whatever they safely can.

We’ve got a long way to go

A friend posted something on his Facebook page a few days ago. It was a set of photographs taken by a tourist, Michel Denis, on the Safari in Kenya. They are amazing pictures of some sibling cheetahs that came across a young impala and rather than pounce on it and kill it, they caught and patted it playfully awhile before walking away without hurting it. It carried a caption: “The Law of the Wild Says Kill Only When You Are Hungry!”

I posted a retort of an observation: “We must be worse than the wild (jungle) in Nigeria then since we kill (loot the treasury) even when we are not hungry; stealing more than we may need in many lifetimes! Shior.”

A couple of columns back I hinted that some group was in the offing the group is made up of patriotic Nigerians both in the Diaspora and within Nigeria, we are concerned about the continued deplorable level of development in the country, the shenanigans of the political leadership and their parties, and, in particular, the unimaginable rottenness and corruption in the system that get worse by each succeeding government.

Patriotic and reasoning elders in the country have voiced their concern on the trend, some have in despair opined that only a revolution, even of a ruthless kind, can get the country back from the brink of eventual collapse.

      In the midst of it, those benefitting from the system and the present rot are quick to call these patriots and their patriotic concerns ugly names or perhaps even set their evil dogs loose on them.

There is palpable despair in the land. The youth worry and wonder about their future as millions roam the streets jobless and futureless.

      Those who have hijacked the democracy that was hoped would correct the ills of the past and bring about rapid development hold the country and the so-called democracy by the jugular, ensuring by subterfuge and other obnoxious means, that the peoples’ votes do not count, where and when they even take the courage to vote.

 And so, a country with most of the best brains in Africa, nay the world, totter on in perplexity.

As if drugged, she manages to get led by a succession of politicians or politrickcians hellbent on keeping the country in perpetual underdevelopment. But that is how they and their gangs are fed – looting the country blind in the billions or trillions whilst over 80% of the citizens live in penury.

One thing remains clear: nothing will change if the country and her peoples do not do things differently. New ideas have to be developed and new paradigm engaged on the process by which leaders that can truly represent and best approximate the amazing intellectual and creative resources of the people could emerge.

A key contributory factor to the ease by which the past electoral heist kept succeeding is the lethargy and disinterest of the electorate in the whole process, a syndrome the new group calls “siddon look,” that has turned the electorate into “spectorates” as coined by Pius Adesanmi, professor at Carleton University, Canada, and a leading member of the group.

The group thus adopted the name “Kick Out Siddon Look 2015” as its clarion call to action rather than inaction, to reason rather than unreason. And the new paradigm envisaged by the group is one in which the youth (those within the ages of 18 and 40) constituting at least 60% of the electorate can decide by themselves (through scientific polling) on who they would want as their president and who the deputy. And having thus identified and settled on the persons pull their resources, of numbers and material, to sell the candidates and get them elected into office.

      The novel idea is not without its own imponderables. But it is feasible as can be glimpsed from the Iroko example whereby Dr. Olusegun Mimiko twice rode to governorship victory in his Ondo State, virtually solo on a (still) relatively unknown party. In any case, democracy is a game of numbers and (free and fair) elections are the avenues for the masses to show where the real power lies.

It is a revolutionary concept which if successful, may become a variant of the Arab Spring and such. Essentially, it is that regardless of party platforms, the electorate can use their voting power to bring those they truly desire to power, provided and once their consciousness is awoken and appropriately channelled into positive “Spring!”

In a way, Professor Wole Soyinka (one of the few surviving but ageing patriots who have spent their lives fighting the cause of the common man and development even at the risk to their persons) clamoured for such possibility in his 2009 speech at a London event of Kayode Ogundamisi’s Nigeria Liberty Forum when he called the youth to action for the 2011 elections.

“The ball is now in your court…Election is still two years away…What is wrong in identifying now your candidates and beginning to mobilise support for them…Why can’t you invade your homeland…Use your mobile telephones now to mobilise the people and guard democracy… the way Barrack Obama used the Internet technology to mobilise the youths to strengthen democracy… Mobilise the youths to guard the ballot boxes from start to finish…Defend the vote, nobody is going to do it for you,” he said.

The new group sent out a press release a few days ago that went viral on the Internet and social media, indicating the sort of criteria those to be suggested for president would have to satisfy. They include: demonstrable history of standing on the side of the masses; proven track record of achievement; and scoring high on “the three Es and I (education, exposure, experience, and integrity).

Listed among initiators of the group are intellectuals and professionals, including, Okey Ndibe, Pius Adesanmi, Safiya Musa, Ndubuisi Victor Ogwuda, Modupe Debbie Ariyo (OBE), Tunji Ariyomo, Soni Akoji, Kinglsey Ewetuya, Anozie Ebirim, Yommi Oni, and yours truly.

In the coming weeks and months, the “Kick Out Siddon Look 2015” group will be drumming their messages into the ears of Nigerians, young and old, home and abroad,provoking their minds and engaging their thoughts, utilising all avenues including door-to-door mobilisation and enlightenment; they will ask Nigerians to come up with names of people they believe can lead the country out of the present morass; that done, the “spring” will then be unleashed, galvanizing the electorate and massing the numbers in the several millions in readiness for 2015 when they will demonstrate that no force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come!

Re: We’ve got a long way to go

Dear Sir,

Just read your above titled article of your experience in a hotel in Ago-iwoye(which happens coincidentally to be my home town, though I have never stayed or slept a night in the town in the fifty plus years of my life).

Apart from corruption and leadership issues, the greatest problem facing us as a nation is our poor and terrible attitude to work, both in government and private establishments.

Have you wondered why so many small and medium scale businesses die prematurely in Nigeria? Most times it’s due to the attitude of the workers, the usual complaint is, “afterall how much am I paid’ and my answer is, “why not stay at home and refuse to collect the salary and see which is better.”

I am not advocating that workers should not be

Over 50 years of independence from colonial rule, the country still finds itself tottering and wobbling, muddling and messing about – sans national consciousness, sans any collective sense of values to be preserved and held sacrosanct, the violation of which would provoke collective national outrage and damnation.

50-something years after independence and sadly, with nothing much to show for it, on the contrary many of us who were alive and old enough to appreciate the quality of life at the time the British colonialists were leaving in 1960 feel there’s been a gradual and sequential retrogression in the quality of life in our dear Nigeria.

Apologists for this are quick to say 50 years is a “little time” in the life of a nation and we should not be in too much of a hurry! Nothing could be sadder to say as it lulls one into slumber, deadens the creative, competitive, spirit, and encourages the profligacy and reckless looting that have characterised governance. If there is no sense of urgency to development a country literally goes to sleep.

Let no one be deceived, 50 years is a long time, a damn long time!

It took the government of Obafemi Awolowo in Western Region of the First Republic less than 10 years to establish the first television station in Africa; the first international standard stadium in Africa; the tallest building in Black Africa; a vibrant and flourishing industrial estate; world class university; free minimum and compulsory education; enduring road infrastructure; and numerous other benefits of life. And there was no oil money then. His government felt challenged; it had a sense of urgency to bring development and “life more abundant” to the people; and all energies and thoughts were so directed.

It took the government of Abdul Razak Hussein in late 60s less than 10 years to transform Malaysia from a country that came to “borrow” palm tree seedlings from Nigeria to becoming the largest producer of palm oil in the world and set it on the path of industrialisation.

Similarly, it has taken the government of BabatundeFashola no more than four years to build on the foundations of his predecessor to transform the face of Lagos from the suffocating mega-trash of the past to, slowly but surely, make the state the pacesetter in modernity and better living.

Similarly, in less than four years of being in government, people of other western states are feeling the impact of good governance in their lives through competitive fast-paced urban renewals, social engineering and cultural revival in the hands of their young and dynamic governors. All over, there is discernible sense of purpose that lifts the spirit and gives hope. One also hears of similar development in Amaechi’s Rivers State, Akpabio’s AkwaIbom State and a few others.

There is only one answer to all of these achievements: Good Governance. Good governance is about the people being governed; it starts with the people and ends with the people. It is about the consuming passion of the government to add value to the lives of the masses, to make life easier for them by an ever thoughtful process of helping to ease their pains and give them the opportunity to come out with their best – each and everyone.

Good governance is proactive; it not only thinks about today, it thinks about tomorrow and the day after tomorrow; about 10, 20, 50 years hence. Good governance is about seeing the people stand long hours in the rain or sun waiting for buses and saying to yourself, “wait a minute, something’s got to be done to help these folks,” then going ahead to provide them some shelter. It is about planning and adding quality to the lives of the people; providing gardens and parks, even in villages; not anarchical constructions, crazily turning everywhere into concrete jungles. It is about loving and respecting the people.

It starts from very simple things like that, right on to larger issues of thinking, like America’s President, J.F. Kennedy said: “We gotta get to the moon,” and challenging America’s scientists to work out the feat. It comes from a leadership that thinks, thinks about the people and thinks about making their lives better. It is about a leadership that inspires and dreams big dreams.

We are faced with myriad of challenges, but our President and governors must be able to think through them for solutions. Our scientists, our engineers must be called upon and encouraged to help out with creative ideas for products and patents (not to go to the moon but) to make ordinary things of life simple for the people: cheap and easy roof over their heads; tools to make farming and harvesting easier; getting power in their homes to eliminate generators and the astronomical costs to life and property entailed in frequent fire disasters; clearing rubbish off the streets; towing breakdown vehicles, especially the huge trucks and trailers that turn middle of the highways into instant repair garages; hygienic methods of selling meat or scrapping fish scales in the market; and things too numerous to mention.

Nigeria has the advantage of a huge population with a market potential that’s the dream of many an investor. The private sector (financial institutions and big corporations) would partner a government they see as serious and sincere.

But it doesn’t start with just “summoning and challenging” engineers, the basics need to be in place: passion for positive change and a government that the people believe in. Then, putting the building blocks of right technical education like the trade centres of old in place; committing national resources to education, and education, and education – for that is the bedrock to any meaningful development.

Above all, good governance must eschew corruption. The corruption in our governments and country stinks to high heavens. No lasting good can come out of a situation as presently exists, where we lack the courage to do the right thing; where self and individual interests are supreme over the common good; where the National Assembly members that should be on part-time earn inordinate sums of money squabbling and bickering over non-important issues; where appearances are more important than substance in a country obsessed with titles.

Good governance is not about throwing big agbada around and blasting people off the streets with sirens. It is about rolling up sleeves and getting down to work. It is not about draining the people of their blood; it is about putting flesh on their crying bones!

We’ve got to get it right this time. Our President, governors and lawmakers must be “in a hurry;” and they must inspire us to greatness by their lifestyles and vision.

Good governance is what we must demand of our leaders; and our votes in elections must be the cudgel against poor performers.

(This is an adaptation of the article under the same title published in this column in the Sunday PUNCH of 29/05/11)

At age 60, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Alams for short, is no longer a young man. Indeed, going by the conventional opinion on life expectancy of the average Nigerian, put at about 40, Alams has been 20 years in the “departure lounge” of this world, to borrow from the popular self-deprecating joke among our politicians.

If you run into Alamieyeseigha, say at the departure lounge of Lagos or Abuja airport, as I once did, you are bound to mistake him for a priest from the monastery or a lost sojourner from Mars – gentle, quiet, and lost.

But no mien could be more deceptive. Wily and mean, Diepreye was lord and master of his Bayelsa State as governor from 1999 to 2005 and given the appellation Governor-General (of the creeks). In return for the obeisance of his people, Alams raised a private army of militants (thugs) to ensure his word was law; he turned the state treasury into his private purse, doling out millions of dollars as patronage, and siphoning billions out of the country to extend his “empire” beyond our shores while the state remained undeveloped and despoiled.

Before long however, Alams fell out with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, then president of the country, who in his selective witch-hunting anti-corruption campaign turned the dreaded Economic and Financial Crimes Commission loose on Alams until he was literarily driven out of the country.

Not assuaged, the Nuhu Ribadu-led EFCC pursued Alams to his England redoubt until the irreverent British police nabbed and charged him to court on many counts of stealing his Bayelsa State blind, money laundering, and sundry other crimes which could earn him many years in jail. But neither the EFCC nor the British police reckoned with the wiles and capability of the “governor-general.” Reportedly dressed as a woman – shaven, boobs and all – Alams escaped and fled the UK and its law back to Nigeria and its lawlessness and impunity.

Back to the beginning, one of those who benefitted (by some stroke of luck) from the whim and largesse of former Governor Alamieyeseigha was one schoolteacher named Goodluck Jonathan, who was plucked from the classroom to run as his deputy. Goodluck’s stroke of luck did not end there. With Obasanjo’s EFCC not relenting, a thoroughly harassed and dazed Alams soon got impeached, prosecuted, convicted and jailed to the benefit of his weakling stooge who stepped in to act out their term.

And the story did not end there and has not ended yet. Through a succession of luck and machination of that same Obasanjo, that same Jonathan became President of Nigeria and here we are!

Jonathan is human; and only a villain of the most rotten kind would not remember whom he owes his ascendance to.

Not long ago, and as if preparing us for what was to come later, our President Jonathan made it known publicly and to all Nigerians that his benefactor and rock is Alamieyeseigha, who the rumour mill says has transferred his abode to the President’s Villa in Abuja.

Still Nigerians did not expect what was to follow. How could we? President Jonathan has granted “state pardon” to Alams! State pardon to a rogue and fugitive who is still wanted by the British police and would step unto the English soil at his peril or under yet another wily disguise.

President Jonathan gave the cover of night, literarily, to his devious deed by mixing a number of other state ex-convicts within the prerogative. Clever? Not nearly so. These others are almost all victims of military governments and politics.

Why would president Jonathan who though had once said he doesn’t give a damn throw this in our face? Why is it not enough for Alams to live quietly and luxuriate in the billions he has stolen and would still have coming to him by virtue of being a kingpin of the Niger Delta and a benefactor of a sitting President who cares little about the market noise on corruption that is about to kill Nigeria?

Why, why, why?

Of course it is clear that the stage is only being set for worse “in your face” to come when Alams will run for Senate and (not to be ruled out) even President of Nigeria.

Oh dear! Jonathan can do anything he wants in his privacy and to his private estate, but to assault the conscience of the nation in this most disdainful manner is the unkindest cut of all! Yet for anyone to assume this is how the country will always be run is to live in a fool’s paradise. One day, and soon enough, a Pharaoh will come who will not know Joseph. Nigeria shall rise!

 AshikiweAdione-Egom has left the world alone

 I first got the news from my friend Uzor Uzoatu’s Facebook timeline of March 10 using the word “late” to describe yet another great friend of mine, AshikiweAdione-Egom, aka “Motor Park Economist” of the old Guardian newspaper fame.

Uzor’s posting was a repeat of what Ashikiwe had written some years ago of his experience during the sad Nigeria/Biafra civil war.

Wrote Ashikiwe: “I am of the Igbo stock from Ukala-Okpunor in Oshimili North LGA of Delta State. I am 61 years of age and have from late 1965, during my undergraduate days at Downing College, Cambridge, England, been fascinated by my people, the Igbo, and specifically by what makes them such a pulsating enigma of a people…”

I screamed when I read Uzor and commented, “Motor Park Economist” is late? No, no, no, can’t be. He and I have a story to tell…! And the story was actually Ashikiwe’s to tell. He had sworn to tell it and “embarrass” me.

I ran into him at the NIIA, in Victoria Island, Lagos a few years ago when I went to book the place for the launch of my book: Nigeria, A Thousand Laughs, A Thousand Cries. I had not seen him in years but his sculptured face wasn’t one to be forgotten.  “Ashikiwe,” I cried. “Tunde! Tunde!Tunde!” he bellowed in his characteristic boisterous way. “Tunde! I can’t forget you, hehehe, and I shall one day embarrass you, ehehe. I shall embarrass you publicly,” he continued right there on the ground of NIIA to my discomfiture and befuddlement. What does he mean, what could I have done?

“You think I have forgotten, Tunde! In England when you were running your Home News newspaper, I came up to your office and told you I had completely run out of money. You took me and gave me lunch and handed me what was to me a lot of money in that circumstance even though you had never met me. I shall embarrass you publicly when I have the opportunity to tell people what you did. Hehehe.”

       You can imagine my embarrassment but relief. So that was it. But that was Ashikiwe in his boisterousness and classic humour, a genius even if eccentric of mind. True I had never met Ashikiwe before then in person but had been reading him and his populist economic postulations in Nigeria’s flagship The Guardian newspaper.

      He told me of his changed person and changed life, of his conversion from Bohemianism to active Christianity. He had even changed his name and was no longer Ashikiwe and was now simply Peter Alexander Egom!

He took me to his office in the NIIA and brought out his latest published works: “Economic Mind of God,” “Economics of Justice & Peace,” and “Compass for Economic Reform” – all autographed “To Tunde Fagbenle, with joy and hope – 06/05/2010.”

I understand he died of cancer as did my friend Yinka Craig, leaving this unkind world alone!