The All Progressives Congress, APC, party is currently at a crossroads. And that is putting it mildly. Whether the party leaders and ordinary members recognise the state of their party as such is immaterial. The point is that the party as an organisation is bursting at the seams and all the ingredients necessary for it to implode on itself appear to be coming together at an alarming rate.

Not being a party member there is no reason why I should worry about what happens to a party that is determined to self-destruct. As such I am mindful of what I say, lest I be accused of or be seen to be crying more than the bereaved. In calling attention to what is obvious to many Nigerians my heart goes out to the people of this country, most especially the ordinary people who bear the brunt of political misrule, that the failure of the APC is a case of a hope betrayed- yet another indication of how Nigeria’s politicians have condemned the rest of us to the repeated cycle of failure; of taking one step forward and many steps backwards.

Here was a party, the APC, that rode on the gale of national approval to electoral victory just about three years ago following the sixteen years misrule of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. That the party’s candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, a serial presidential-election manqué that had flunked three previous attempts at becoming the country’s president- the fact that a Buhari that appeared to have expired as an attractive presidential candidate would go on to win a national election was evidence of how disenchanted Nigerians had become with the PDP. By a deft reconfiguration of political alignments, the fact of the in-fighting within the PDP and God’s own intervention to take the country back from the brink of a political disaster, the APC was able to give the PDP a bloody nose in the 2015 elections in spite of the massive injection of money into the entire process by the party. Which is not to say that the APC was entirely innocent.

But PDP’s desperation led to a blatant manipulation and monetisation of the electoral process. This was in addition to a manipulation of the electoral date, a fact that is again threatening to pull the APC apart right from within its own living room as members of the party in the National Assembly are pitched against their counterparts in the executive arm. Or so the narrative goes. Which is why it appears that what happened to the PDP might turn out to be a child’s play compared to what the APC could yet go through in the event the Bola Tinubu peace initiative flounders. But as the elections drew near in 2015, practically anyone had their price from the perspective of the PDP, and anyone that could and wanted to be bought was handsomely bought.

It was an ‘open day’ for a few Nigerians who were either fortunate or unfortunate (depending on how they viewed their circumstances) to be part of or close to the PDP gravy train, to say nothing of members of the party who had a good time helping themselves to the free money that Goodluck Jonathan and his minders made easily available. Those who could helped themselves to the till, some worked on the side for the APC, already convinced that the PDP was a sinking ship, while assuring the ever incredulous Jonathan that he was ‘the man to beat’ as some are today assuring Buhari. Yet that did not give the PDP the day. If anything the party failed royally and handed the APC a victory many Nigerians deeply wanted, desired and prayed for. But that victory has since turned into ash in the mouth of many. We are back again to where we started from. This is the crux of my lament about the failure of the Buhari-led APC administration. Buhari has apparently frittered away a wonderful opportunity to turn things around for Nigeria. What we have now is more of the same thing. The reason Nigerians chose the APC over the PDP, the very reason most Nigerians wanted Goodluck Jonathan out now appears to be the same reason that will doom the Buhari government. Corruption was and had become an international embarrassment to Nigeria by 2015. Buhari promised to effect a change in this and Nigerians believed him. His reputation as an austere military ruler that dealt politicians of a different era a heavy blow for corruption preceded him and strengthened his aspiration.

But getting into office a strange concoction of nepotism, lack of will and inaction paved the way for corruption among members of the president’s own inner circle. The Buhari Nigerians thought they knew had been mellowed or simply went to sleep having gained the presidency. The verdict of that dereliction has come in the form of the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index that placed Nigeria at a dismal 148th position, 12 steps down from our previous position. All of this under a government that swore itself to an oath of anti-corruption.

Security is yet another electoral promise of the Buhari-led APC. Jonathan’s failure to rein in the activities of Boko Haram, indeed his less than enthusiastic response to the abduction of the Chibok school girls caused both national an international outrage. With between 250 and 350 school girls unaccountably driven into captivity in a country supposedly under the rule of law, the PDP government under Gooluck Jonathan had its days numbered. It tried particularly towards the end of its life but it could not live down that failure by the children of this country. Four years after, we are confronted with the abduction of over 110 schools girls of Dapchi by suspected Boko Haram operatives, even at a time the Buhari government had severally proclaimed victory over the murderous group. Now the government talks about an attempt to embarrass it where it is not accusing Transparency International of playing politics with its Corruption Perception Index about Nigeria.

On at least two keys issues that constituted the core of its campaign exercise in 2015, the APC has failed Nigerians. Many cannot see the justification for the continued retention of Aso Rock tenancy by the party or its leader, President Muhammadu Buhari. To compound an already abysmal situation the party cannot seem able to identify its centre.

Members are at loggerheads and there is no telling where the current struggle for the control of the party among it members would end. If Bola Tinubu could look beyond his relegation by Buhari’s relations and new found friends soon after he became president, it would be something close to a political miracle if he could soothe the frayed nerves of members of the party across the country. 

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian recently welcomed wife Serena Williams back to tennis with a series of billboards in Palm Springs, Calif.

Ohanian posted photos of his gesture Tuesday on social media.

"These just went up on alongside I-10 into Palm Springs. Junior & I wanted to welcome her back to tennis," Ohanian wrote on the posts. "Designed them myself, with some help from baby O [and assist from Initialized startup, AdQuick, where I searched + bought the billboards]. #GMOAT @ Palm Springs, California."

The billboards featured several photos of baby Alexis Olympia Ohanian, on a series reading "Greatest. Momma. Of all time." The final billboard he shared read "Serena Williams G.M.O.A.T. [Greatest Momma Of All Time] - Alexis Jr + Sr."

Williams, 36, will compete at the BNP Paribas Open from March 5 through March 18 at Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells. Calif. The 23-time Grand Slam champion returned to the court for the first time in December, losing in three sets to Latvian Jelena Ostapenko in Abu Dhabi. Before that appearance, Williams hadn't played competitively since winning the 2017 Australian Open. She was expected to participate in the 2018 Australian Open, but pulled out of the tournament before it began.

Alexis Olympia was born on Sept. 1, while Williams and Ohanian were married in November. Olympia and her dad were in the stands in early February to watch Williams and sister Venus Williams compete in a doubles match at the 2018 Fed Cup in Asheville, N.C.

UPI

We join other Nigerians and well-wishers in congratulating the foremost Labour organisation in the country, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, as it turns forty today, February 28, 2018. Its establishment in 1978 was a continuation of the enviable and progressive role the Trade Union Movement has played since the late 19th Century when mass paid employment was introduced in the country.

It has also built on the solid foundations laid by trade unionists like Chu Gogo Nzeribe, Michael Imoudu, Wahab Goodluck, Aminu Kano and Haroon Popoola Adebola. The NLC had as its founding President, Alhaji Hassan Sunmonu whose leadership  built the administrative foundations of the Congress, secured its first headquarters in Lagos, popularised the NLC in the consciousness of Nigerians, promoted the culture of collective leadership and won the first National Minimum Wage in the country.

His successor, Alhaji Ali Chiroma, fought titanic battles to resist mass retrenchment by the military regime, check unreasonable increases in the prices of petroleum products and mobilised the populace  against the repression of the Student Movement and  the entrenchment of military dictatorship.

Comrade Paschal Bafyau who succeeded Chiroma after a ten-month interregnum by a government-imposed Sole Administrator, was not a particularly popular figure given his pro-military regime politics. However, his administration had the distinction of building quite viable institutions and structures for the NLC including the Labour Transport Service (now, the Labour City Transport Services), the Labour Bank, LALICON, a huge Education Fund and the 12-Storey Labour House in Abuja which has The administration of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole which came after another interregnum of government-imposed Sole Administrators on the NLC, returned the Congress to the path of mass popularity and support. That administration is noted for the numerous strikes it led against the constant increases in the prices of petroleum products. Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar who took over from Oshiomhole, with lesser effect, continued the resistance of its predecessor against unpopular government policies.

It, however, has the record of organising the largest and most effective street protests in the country’s contemporary history with its January 2012 anti-fuel price protests.

Unfortunately, due mainly to parochial and  individual interests, the NLC  split after the Omar administration in 2015. This  eventually led to the rise of the rival United Labour Congress  (ULC), the tragic consequences were noticeable in the abysmal failure of the 2016 fuel deregulation general strike. Today, the once vibrant trade union movement lays prostrate and workers are lacking the cohesive, pragmatic, vibrant,  principled and proactive leadership the NLC once offered.

On this occasion, we urge all groups and tendencies in the trade union movement to reunite and ensure that the next forty years are more glorious for workers and the toiling masses of the country.

Vanguard

Nigerians do not, and should not, expect their houses to be pulled down peremptorily by political opponents, deploying governmental power.  Thus, no matter how the Kaduna State Government headed by Governor Nasir El-Rufai spins the demolition of Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi’s storey building situated at No. 11B Sambo Street, Ungwar Rimi, Kaduna, it must take responsibility for what is clearly the most vicious and politically motivated administrative high-handedness in the country, in recent memory.

We had thought Nigerian politics had progressed beyond such narrow, despotic cruelties.  Alas, the demolition of the structure which houses an opposing faction of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state is a warning on the insidious despotism in the state.

It is no secret that the APC is factionalised in Kaduna State, and that a week or so ago, the faction of the party led by Senator Hunkuyi handed down a six-month suspension to Governor El-Rufai for “anti-party activities.”  Senator Hunkuyi’s property that was demolished was being used as the office of his APC faction in the state.  The demolition of that property by the Kaduna State Government cannot, therefore, be a coincidence.

We appreciate that the Land Use Act vests tremendous powers in the governor of a state.  It is the duty of the governor to issue the Certificate of Occupancy.  He could also revoke it for certain reasons.  But, the law also provides that before the governor takes penal action, he must give sufficient notice.  The Kaduna State Urban Planning and Development Agency (KASUPDA) has claimed responsibility for the demolition on the claim that it was performing its normal functions.  The agency had invaded the property at the unnatural hour of 4 am.  The bulldozer was accompanied by armed soldiers who blocked both sides of the road leading to the building. The excuse for the demolition is that the property was allocated for residential purposes and not political activities.  The agency also alleged that the building was demolished for a flagrant violation of Land Use and non-payment of ground rent since 2010.

It is easy to see through the administrative fiction cleverly woven to justify this blatantly tyrannical exercise. According to the Kaduna State Geographic Information Service (KADGIS), the demolition was apolitical, and the land has now been allocated to KASUPDA “for the purpose of developing and maintaining a public park that will provide a green area and a serene place for recreation in that residential neighbourhood.”  The KADGIS is challenging the senator to go to court to test his rights, vowing to be vindicated by the courts.  Indeed, it also issued the senator a fresh N30.4 million ground rent bill for his private home, with an ultimatum to pay within 30 days.

Even if, for the sake of argument, the senator had violated some parts of the original purpose of the allocation, there is no provision in the Land Use Act for demolition as the sanction for such a violation.  And, it is inconceivable that the punishment for late payment of ground rent would be the demolition of the property.  Besides, the Kaduna State Government has not shown any proof that it followed the regular process, as the senator is entitled to fair hearing under Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, and should not have been deprived of it.

This ill-tempered, vengeful action is political vindictiveness at its height.  It is astonishing that Governor El-Rufai was tempted to resort to such an underhand tactic, in spite of his high education and experience.  The demolition is an indication of weakness rather than strength.  Nigeria’s politics degenerates into warfare because of actions like this, and Nigerians should in unison not just frown at such actions but actively protest against them, whenever they occur. Senator Hunkuyi should seek legal redress and compensation for the demolition of his property.

Sun

For the second time since it began its terror campaign, Boko Haram has scored another odious landmark mass abduction of schoolgirls. In an uncanny replication of the April 2014 kidnap of 276 Chibok schoolgirls, the Islamists raided the Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State last week Monday night. To the country’s dismay, the terrorists abducted 110 girls out of the 906 on the school’s roster, according to the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed. The repeat escapade in Dapchi, in spite of the Muhammadu Buhari administration’s cheap propaganda that it has “technically defeated” the Islamist sect, provides irrefutable proof that the terror group is still a force to be reckoned with. For the government to really decimate the murderous group, the time has come for stronger, decisive political leadership, a tougher and more effective anti-terror strategy and greater collaboration between Nigeria and other countries, particularly on intelligence gathering and sharing.

As usual, the latest abduction has clearly shown that many things are still awfully wrong with the Buhari government’s war on terror. Initially, the Yobe State Government, the police and the military denied the incident, claiming that the girls, who fled into the bush when the terrorists attacked the school, had returned in batches. This turned out to be false, much in keeping with the earlier mishandling of the Chibok girls’ abduction. It took the alarm raised by the girls’ parents for the government to own up to yet another strategic blunder. Reports said that the terrorists, during the invasion, fired gunshots and made straight for the food store, while some insurgents, dressed in military camouflage, waited outside the school’s perimeter fencing in their get-away trucks.

The incident has once more made Nigeria a laughing stock: an unstable country where insecurity and impunity are the order of the day. Since then, the global focus has rightly been on Governor Ibrahim Geidam’s insensitivity, Buhari’s cluelessness and the security agencies’ incompetence. Geidam exonerated himself, lamenting, “I blame the whole attack on Dapchi on the military and the Defence Headquarters, who withdrew troops from Dapchi. The attack occurred barely a week after the military withdrew the soldiers from there.” This is the fallout of government living in denial of Boko Haram’s dangerous reach.

What is most striking in this unfortunate incident is the total failure of the authorities to learn from history. Nearly four years ago, precisely on April 14, 2014, Boko Haram terrorists took advantage of the porous security in the rustic town of Chibok in Borno State to take into custody 276 schoolgirls. In one of the most tragic and heinous fates that could befall schoolchildren, the terrorists invaded the premises of the Government Girls Secondary School, in the dead of the night, just as the girls were preparing for their final examinations, and carted away truckloads of them.

Even more surprising is that the Dapchi schoolgirls were taken away in trucks that plied major roads that had no military or police roadblocks to prevent easy escape. Instructively, Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states are currently under the military’s redeeming Operation Lafiya Dole, just as they were under a state of emergency when the Chibok infamy occurred. Apparently, the security agencies have learnt no lesson in their nine years of counter-insurgency. Soldiers’ withdrawal from Buni-Yadi town in 2013 saw its secondary school attacked by the insurgents a week after, and 29 students killed.

These tumbles in military operational strategies deserve critical evaluation and remedial action. A former Chief of Defence Staff, Alex Badeh, in his valedictory speech, confirmed that fifth columnists in the military and other security agencies were making the war against the insurgency difficult. Operational plans and schedules have often been leaked to the terrorists, leading to soldiers being ambushed, killed and armouries looted since the Islamic jihadists seized the North-East landscape.

All diplomatic efforts should be made to secure vigorous military cooperation from Chad, Niger Republic and Cameroon. More crucially, it is essential to secure the assistance of friendly countries, especially the United States, France and Britain in liberating the girls. For Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, the states in the vortex of this terrorism, henceforth, every school should be provided with heavy security. Where schools are located close to external borders with no strong military fortifications, they should be closed and the students merged temporarily with others in safer zones and the extra expense should be fully borne by the state. Boarding schools in contested areas should be made day schools for now. Geidam bears responsibility for not protesting when the military withdrew from Dapchi.

Buhari should for once be shaken; he should critically review the performance of his security chiefs and the officers whose lapses, misjudgements and incompetence led to this debacle. US authorities fired two admirals and several captains after four ship collisions in the Pacific Ocean last year. Investigations should be launched to find out why Dapchi was undefended, why the military could not launch a swift response to recapture the girls, to verify the claims and counter-claims of troop withdrawals in Dapchi and Buni Yadi only for Boko Haram to strike, and ascertain who is responsible for the misinformation that fostered inertia in the critical first few hours and days after the attack. The 12-man committee set up to investigate the security lapse must get to the root of the abduction.

The police, State Security Service and paramilitary agencies that should have some presence in the area must explain their roles. The intelligence services – the SSS and National Intelligence Agency – need to be shaken up urgently. Nine years after the insurgency began, intelligence gathering appears to be still very weak and unable to adapt to the challenges. Defeating Islamist terrorism is not restricted to the battlefield as the world’s most powerful militaries have found out. The game-changer is intelligence and it is a long-drawn operation as Islamist terrorism is ever mutating. The use of technology is essential: drones, electronic surveillance applications and human  intelligence, using locals and undercover agents will help neutralise these depraved Islamist terrorists from our midst.

Punch

Transparency International (TI) revealed last Wednesday that corruption in Nigeria is now worse under President Muhammadu Buhari than it was before he took over. That was sad, but it was not as sad as the presidency’s response to TI’s verdict.

Surprisingly, but not uncharacteristically, the presidency released a statement with a thinly veiled accusation that former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his former minister of education, Oby Ezekwesili, both conspired to use their influence as founding members of TI to prod the anti corruption watch dog to give the negative rating it gave on Buhari’s anti-corruption war.

President Buhari must move away from seeing leadership as something tied to an office or a position or a designation. Leadership is about influence and impact. If you don’t have both, you are not a leader, no matter how many titles come before or after your name.

If I was the president, instead of looking for scapegoats, I would be more concerned about the reasons why Nigeria moved 12 places backward from 136 to 148 in this year’s CPI?

And the thing is that going by the revelations that have been unearthed this year, Nigeria is looking like it may have an even worse CPI rating next year. For instance, I have heard of man-eating snakes but I have never heard of naira eating snakes before in my life! I have also heard of monkeys stealing food, but this new tale of a monkey stealing money is certainly strange.

In fact, it seems like providence just wanted to show President Buhari the limitations of propaganda. On a week after President Buhari boasted that he had fulfilled his two biggest campaign promises of security and anti-corruption, The #DapchiGirls incident and TI’s latest CPI showed him the limits of propaganda.

After the 2014 abduction of the Chibok Girls, how could we leave any school unguarded in the Northeast? Boko Haram precisely means that Western education is sin. These people were not cagey. They announced their intentions clearly and unambiguously. That 110 girls were kidnapped in Dapchi, Yobe State, is just unimaginable. It shows that we did not learn anything from the Chibok Girls saga.

If it happened to Chibok in 2014 then the shame was on Boko Haram, but when it happens again in Dapchi, the shame is on us this time around. This incident will be aired all over the world. It will affect investor confidence in Nigeria and portray us as an unsafe country. If we did not learn a lesson from Chibok, let us at least learn it from Dapchi.

I urge all Nigerians not to politicise this tragedy. We must unite to rescue the girls and defeat the ideology that is against education. The federal government must provide armed military guards at all schools in the Northeast. If this is not possible, then the students in such schools should be moved to safer locations nearer the state capitals.

Nigeria has spent literally hundreds of millions and perhaps billions trying to promote girl child education especially in Northern Nigeria. Incidences like Chibok and Dapchi have negated all that work and will set girl child school enrollment back several years. We must give citizens the assurance that when they send their children to school, the end result will be positive for both the students and their parents.

Having said this, I sympathise with the parents of all the missing girls. My thoughts are with you and I will do what I can to mobilise the world to look for and help return your daughters.

The truth is that if we are asking our youths not to make the perilous journey to Europe through the Libyan desert, we must give them hope in Nigeria. What hope is there when you can be kidnapped from school in Nigeria? What hope is there if you work and your salary is kidnapped by corrupt government officials?

And talking about salary, let me say that in the last three years, life in parts of Nigeria has become like in the Stone Age – short and brutish. With a minimum wage of N18,000 it will continue to be so. We must increase the minimum wage. If we can afford N1.1 billion to clean the National Security Adviser’s office, we can definitely afford to increase the minimum wage.

And we do not have to increase recurrent expenditure to increase the minimum wage. We only need to cut out wasteful expenditure that does not impact on the life of the common man like the afford N1.1 billion to clean the National Security Adviser’s office, and the N4.8 billion for electrical maintenance in the presidency.

For too long, Nigeria’s leaders have been thinking about the next election instead of the next generation. That is why our recurrent expenditure is huge and our capital expenditure is minute. If Nigeria is not growing or going backwards we must look at ourselves and make changes instead of looking at our predecessors and make blames.

Too many Nigerians climb the ladder of success and burn it. We need to have a paradigm change such that we help others climb the success ladder. Singapore was like us. Lee Kuan Yew took her from the Third World to the first in a generation. We need our own Lee Kuan Yew and it should not be a PDP or APC affair. We want the best Nigeria has to offer, not the best a party has to offer.

It is dangerous to be overzealous and to run too far ahead of the pack when there is social tension. In a democracy, it pays for government officials to consult thoroughly, think carefully through policies and apply circumspection in their execution to carry the public along. True democrats are always mindful of conducting public affairs in a manner as to maintain legitimacy and public approval.

Chief Audu Ogbeh, who is privileged to be appointed Minister for the second time, is repeating a mistake he made over 30 years ago when he was the Minister of Communications under President Shehu Shagari. At that time he had threatened to shut down the Radio Lagos FM station for reaching other states with its broadcasts.

Meanwhile, he ignored the Radio Rivers FM which could also be picked up in Imo, Anambra and Cross River States. But, Lagos State was under the opposition Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, while Rivers State was governed by the National Party of Nigeria, NPN, to which Ogbeh belonged. The legal battle which was brewing was only aborted when the military returned in 1983. Recently, Ogbeh announced the Federal Government’s intention to create cattle colonies which he claimed would be established in every state of Nigeria. Ogbeh ignored the fact that the state governors have constitutional powers over land matters in their states. He made it appear as if the states had no choice over the matter. His enthusiasm was buoyed by the response of the Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who quickly volunteered to make land available for the project, though several interest groups across Kogi State angrily kicked against it.

It was the same Minister Ogbeh who jumped into the fray as soon as he was appointed Minister of Agriculture, and promised that Nigeria would import grass from Brazil to feed our livestock without consulting stakeholders who would have told him that Nigerian researchers had already developed suitable improved grass varieties for the same purpose.

On Saturday, February 10, 2018, President Buhari put the nail on the coffin of Ogbeh’s idea of establishing cattle colonies by declaring that he had no powers to create them.  From all indications, the Minister acts alone on most of these knee-jerk plans. The result is always that he is forced to backtrack, and that is not a dignified way of exercising public authority.

Minister Ogbeh is advised to be more sensitive to public opinion. This is what comes of effective consultation. It is the height of insensitivity for him to even propose the cattle colony idea without caring about the way his people of Benue State and other Nigerians would feel about it, especially for someone who claims to be a seasoned democrat.

It pays to tread with caution.

Vanguard

The period allowed for 2019 elections campaigning is fast approaching and predictably the number of insults, threats, and dire predictions is increasing as is the degree of their severity. Detractors of President Buhari are demonizing him, rubbishing his appointees and not recognizing his successes, while his supporters are deifying him, denigrating all opposition and not recognizing his failures. In the growing political confusion talk of another “mega-party”, political decamping, ethnic violence and preparedness for election rigging, is making many people wonder if Nigeria is coming to its long predicted end.

The thing called an “end” doesn’t exist in relation to a country. Whether or not it still bears the same nomenclature, the land mass currently called Nigeria will still be here when all the major political actors of today are long gone. Former Military Dictator Ibrahim Babangida has said the path to a better nation is for people to support the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with their “Reposition, Rebrand and Regain agenda”. The problem with that suggestion is the adage in Nigeria that no matter how many times a snake sheds its skin, it remains a snake! The return of PDP cannot possibly be considered as a forward step or viewed with any positive anticipation.

Consequently the attempt to set up a “third force”. But in all truthfulness there is no need for another “Mega Party”. 

They have no illusions about the morality of governance, because they know that those who hold power in Nigeria do so for themselves, their friends and families.

The idea of the State being an instrument for people’s development is a Western concept. Intelligent Nigerians should stop talking as if the country is in Europe where the ideas of democracy have been refined believe over centuries. Nigerians are used to being ruled by paramount rulers to whom the idea of equality is alien. They do things the “Nigerian way” in which compassion and accountability are treated as inapplicable foreign western concepts. 

Nigeria is a typical African country and people must stop entertaining the illusion that a day is coming when the nation will look like America or Europe. Our future will be determined by our continuing mass illiteracy and the fact that our politics will continue to be driven by tribal sentiment. Those commentators forecasting that Nigeria is coming to the end don’t realise that we may be actually coming to the beginning of a real African country away from Western illusions of exceptionalism. Nigeria is not some outpost of European values, yet what makes people restless about the nation’s future is that they have western models in mind. The “end of Nigeria” is an expression of a Western value system where the rule of law, accountability, political morality, reason, and compassion, are absent. 

These are lofty ideals proposed by philosophers like Socrates and Hegel who were not Nigerian. Together with constitutionalism they are concepts far ahead of us as a people and are not part of who Nigerians are. The real hindrance to progress in Nigeria isn’t the number of political parties, it’s the absence of leadership. What needs to be replaced isn’t the APC or PDP, it’s the entire political class which has collectively failed and continues to take the nation for granted. A new political order is required because our current crop of politicians are short-sightedly only interested in their personal progress and winning the next election rather than national development. Nigeria is in dire need of farsighted leadership. 

In Singapore the Finance Minister presented a budget which proposed tax increases from 2021 to 2025 to fund the social services required to take care of their aging population. In Nigeria we don’t even have a 2018 budget! Those who claim to be trying to create a new Nigeria must not get starry eyed. Amilcar Cabal the liberator of Cape Verde used to tell his followers never to confuse the idea in their heads with the reality on ground. Nigeria’s problems are not only about political leadership.

There is no leadership from the clergy, civil society, intellectuals, or from businesses in the “organised private sector”. Nigeria is in decline because the likes of Volkswagen, Michelin, BATA, Nigeria Airways, and BEREC batteries are no more. 

Even though Nigeria is the fifth largest consumer of Japanese products there is no assembly plant for Toyota. Incredulously Nigeria doesn’t assemble any of the vehicles massively imported by government annually for their own use! In spite of Nigeria’s huge electronics market the nation doesn’t have a single production plant for Samsung, Sonny, Nokia, or HP appliances. Corporate executives and politicians prefer foreign training, foreign medical services and foreign clothing. All major software development contracts are farmed out overseas. 

Worst still Nigerian brands now sponsor foreigners. The voice over in Arik Airlines is done by an Englishman! Nigerians now prefer foreign football teams, foreign holiday destinations and foreign drinks to their own. It’s time to take a reality check and accept that the “Giant of Africa” nomenclature is simply a myth.

To reverse the decline in the nation isn’t a matter of increasing the number of political parties or altering election time tables, it’s about ensuring that those elected are not simply opportunists fighting for their personal interests, but far-sighted leaders who understand the problem and can provide a viable solution.

One of my many positive flaws is bursting the pipes of miscreants. Detractors have often complained about my hard-ball approach and the way I just rip off band aids without notice. It is not in my genes to dance around a bonfire or do the ring around the roses. However, to set a background for today’s discourse, I must tell a tale. It is a story not so quaint but bountifully apt for getting into the crux of today’s matter.

She would scream for help and our mother would come running. So much satisfaction I derived from it. I would guffaw endlessly into the night and my mom would pacify my upset and scared sister. This went on for years until one night; I became the centre of my joke. My mom and sister made a meticulous plot to give me a dose of my medicine. I would be writing a prolix to go into it but I learnt my lesson by having a taste of my own poison. That was the end of my night time pranks.

It was Nelson Mandela, in his autobiography the Long Walk to Freedom who said, “A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire”

Benue State is oppressed and has been oppressed by Fulani herdsmen for almost a decade. As a matter of fact, Governor Samuel Ortom in one of his numerous elegies sang, “for several years, these attackers have turned our beautiful and endowed land into their killing fields”. It is no longer news that Benue is under serial herdsmen attacks, but this did not start yesterday.

According to Governor Ortom, these attacks, which started since 2011 have led to the loss of illustrious sons and daughters of the state as well as approximately N95bn.

The manner in which Ortom now conducts and oversees mass burials like a priest amidst sobs and wailing, reminds me of the screams of my sister in the dark decades ago while I plagued her with my mischief.

Recently, he cried wolf while accusing the Federal Government and security agencies of abandoning the citizens of his state to be slaughtered by rampaging Fulani herdsmen. Didn’t Ortom hear the words of the great Madiba? The point has come when one can only fight fire with fire not, with salty tears or lamentations.

One would wonder, what was Governor Fayose doing with hunters? Is he planning to learn a few tricks with the Dane gun? The answer to these questions has been reported but I must again make reference to them to form another layer of substratum on this discourse.

Fayose, clad in camouflage to reflect the mood of the nation, urged hunters from the 16 local government areas in the state to defend their territory while explaining that, based on intelligence, some ‘Bororos’ have surreptitiously gained entrance into the state with the mission to maim and make a mockery of his anti-grazing laws.

His words were: “I’m not going to Abuja to start crying like a woman. I will take steps to protect my people. There is nobody that is greater than the laws of the land. We must stop the killers; they must not enter our land. My people arise and defend our land. It is those who want to take our land that will die for us.”

I wasn’t in great Madiba’s head when he wrote Long Walk to Freedom but I can place a wager that this was exactly what he meant when he talked about mirroring the methods of the oppressor.

Nigeria is under attack from Fulani herdsmen and like Noble Laureate Wole Soyinka pointed out, they have declared war against the nation using the weapon of undiluted terror. What can better quench terror than fiercer terror? What can better stop intimidation than a greater form of it?

If Ortom did not read Madiba’s autobiography, he could at least watch Fayose’s actions and take a cue from him.

In a failed republic like ours, waiting for help from big brother is as good as signing one’s death warrant. No, big brother would not be coming to fight off the bullies. The sad, hard truth is this; it has become an ‘On Your Own’ nation. So, if Ortom chooses to fiddle while Benue burns, I am glad for Ekiti that there is a Fayose who will face fire with reinforced fire.

On Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2018, Jacob Zuma resigned as the president of South Africa. The resignation occurred less than 24 hours before his party, the African National Congress (ANC), was scheduled to debate a no-confidence vote on him by the parliament. He had been asked by the party a week earlier to resign or be removed.

These scandals provoked public opprobrium, which was expressed in the media, in litigations and street demonstrations by civil society groups. But Zuma tried to subvert the independence of key state institutions. For instance, he abused his powers by handpicking judges heading commissions of inquiry and hiring and firing the operational heads of the police and national prosecuting authorities. He also long employed a strategy of fighting judgments through the courts. As the leader of the majority party, he was able to subvert several no-confidence votes in the parliament. He virtually turned parliament into a rubber stamp, in spite of the persistent cries of opposition voices like Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters party.

Meanwhile, Zuma’s presidency had been devastating for the ANC. Disillusionment with corruption led to hundreds of thousands of ANC voters abstaining during the 2016 municipal elections. The party list (proportional representation) electoral system enabled opposition parties to win seats in Cape Town and Tshwane, in the biggest city, Johannesburg, and in the former ANC heartland, Nelson Mandela Bay. Thus, in the December 2017 elective conference of the party, Cyril Ramaphosa won the day after Zuma’s faction antagonised other members in an attempt to rig the vote through gatekeeping. Since then, resentment against Zuma within the party had deepened. Thus, the ANC leadership perceived victory in the forthcoming election to be clearly threatened by Zuma’s remaining at the helm. He had to go.

The recall of Zuma owes to the party’s view of all government officials, including the president of the country, as “deployees” of the party who are required to follow party orders. Thus, when the party leaders considered that  Zuma’s unpopularity had become a threat to the ANC’s electoral victory, they recalled him.  Even so, it took the threat of certain defeat in a no-confidence vote in parliament, to be brought by an opposition party, to force him to resign.  Given the institutionalisation of the party and the clear and direct threat to its victory in the forthcoming election, Zuma had to resign. Before the party’s move, he had resisted Constitutional Court orders, surmounted the vocal opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), ignored the media, and disregarded the protest by South Africa’s citizens and civil society groups in order to remain in power.

Although the parliamentary and proportional representation electoral system contributed to the centrality of the party and party discipline in delivering the eventual positive outcome, it is the collective force of these groups that prevailed on the party to put an end to Zuma’s calamitous and corrupt reign. Active citizens, persistent and courageous opposition parties, determined civil society groups, independent courts and the media united against corruption and irresponsible governance and forced the party’s hand. In Nigeria, parties have remained fragile and uninstitutionalised. Disagreement over matters of propriety and national values often end in schism within the parties. This is because such disagreements are quickly undermined by religious and ethnic cleavages.

The elite have not been able to uphold the morality, propriety and national values enshrined in the constitution as foundation for democratic governance. A president quickly rises above the party. Factional leaders and sections hold sway as the quest for power fails to reckon with the aspirations of citizens. These negative behaviours must be corrected for party discipline and party institutionalisation to occur. Upholding the values of integrity, discipline, social justice and rule of law, values that are enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, is essential to strengthening governance institutions for democratic advancement and economic prosperity.

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