The Revolution Nigeria Needs.

A few days ago I asked my friends on Facebook what they thought we, ordinary citizens, could do to turn the fortunes of our dear country around. After all, after all is said and done, we are Nigerians and Nigeria is where we call home; Nigeria is where we return to after our sojourns. Therefore, the responsibility of making this "home" one to be proud of lies with each and everyone of us. Now to the responses of my Facebook friends. There was a lone voice in the wilderness which cried "nothing." I can relate with this line of thought and I will come back to it in a while. Other opinions were to the effect that we must use the power of the ballot to elect those who would steer the nation in the right direction. And there were some others who charged us all to cultivate the values of hard work, diligence, integrity and respect for self and others. 

In a country where there is a great disconnect between leaders and led; in a society which transformed from one in which people lived and let others live to one of survival of the fittest where only the strong survives. The strong being the one who is willing to climb on others to get what he wants; in this clime, the strong is the one who sees black and calls it sparkling white and calls bright yellow crimson red all to be in the good books of those in charge of our commonwealth. In Nigeria, the strong are those who win roads rehabilitation contracts and either do shoddy jobs or none at all not minding that the potholes on the roads are akin to death traps. These strong men are responsible for what has transformed our hospitals to mortuaries. It is due to the presence of these strong men that our pregnant women fast for days on end seeking divine assistance ahead of their due date. In my country, the bad guys are rewarded with the best accolades and awards while good people go unnoticed! And that is why I can relate with that person who thinks there's nothing we can do.  What can individuals possibly do when even a government agency's initiative to "rebrand Nigeria" hasn't been seen to have achieved significant success? The perks attached with political offices are so attractive, the desire to occupy such offices gets so consuming that politics is played in a do or die manner so much so that well intentioned citizens do not dare to go near the very murky waters of our politics.  Given such realities, it might appear as though the powers of transformation are not vested in us. Yet there are some of my friends and indeed many others out there who believe all we need to do is have an attitudinal transformation and be the change which we desire and (desperately) need. I agree! Absolutely! For in the words of Mahatma Ghandi, "We must become the change we want to see in the world."

However, this change will not come easy. For any meaningful transformation to take place, there must be a revolution. Yes! A revolution isn't an option but a fundamental necessity. 

Revolution. The one thing that will get us out of the doldrums and back on the path of greatness once again. Before you imagine the collateral damage that this would cause, I need to be clear that I don't mean revolution a la Arab springs. I am referring to a social revolution which Alexander Berkman defined to mean "the reorganisation of the industrial, economic life of the country and consequently also of the entire structure of society." And everyone of us - institutions and individuals - have an important role to play.

First, our vote is the most potent weapon of change. The next general elections come up in 2015. However, the tier of government closest to us is the local government. We do not have to wait till 2015 to stand up for change through the ballot. It is our responsibility to scrutinise the manifestoes of candidates for local government chairmanship in our respective LGAs and vote wisely knowing that every little step in the right direction will mean a lot in the bigger picture. It is of no use selling our votes for peanuts then having to cope with frustrations for another four years. Once bitten they say, twice shy. It is to our credit though that we participated in the last elections with high moral sense and made our choice(s) based on personal convictions. Whether these convictions were along religious and tribal sentiments is another issue altogether and not for today.

Our religious institution has enough powers for positive transformation. We are very religious and pray our way through everything. I am not against it which is why  I crave the indulgence of every Theist citizen of this country to pray that God will touch the hearts of His servants, our religious leaders, to say the truth as they see it not minding whose ox is gored. In our daily devotions, we should ask for special grace for our reverred religious leaders to resist the temptation to seek self aggrandisement and work for the liberation of the citizenry from economic and social bondage. Let us pray that they realise the enormity of the powers they possess for spiritual and temporal transformation. Our spiritual fathers have a big role to play in our social revolution and they must not be seen to be not on the side of the people. The material welfare of Nigerians and is important as the spiritual- that I am sure they are not ignorant of.

Not a few have argued that every people deserve the kind of leadership they get. Which is true afterall, our leaders are from amongst us and developed the traits they now portray as leaders while they were part of the led. To this end, the family shares a part of the blame. The African family was known to be close knit and derived pleasure in raising honest and generally well behaved members who believed in the dignity of labour. In retracing our steps as a nation therefore, the family which is the bedrock of the society has a very important role to play. Our family institution has slept for too long; we have churned out highly conceited individuals who are only interested in promoting self over the common good. Priorities are misplaced and values lost. We cannot continue to complain without helping to clean up this mess. Yes, we have the right to voice out against bad governance, but it is time to compliment talking with taking little stands and begin to work from our little corners towards the positive transformation of our dear motherland. 

I enjoin us to take a journey into the future and imagine where we would be if we continue on this lane we are on. On the other hand, we need to also go back in time and see where we could have been had we not embarked on the various enterprises of self destruction we are still engaged in. Enterprises that have set us on the brink of disaster. Every Nigerian needs to take time daily and tell the man, woman, child he sees in the mirror to be the change he wants to see. We cannot continue to pretend that all is well lest we become like the mad man who snores while his roof is  on fire. 

Muhammadu Buhari: Nigeria's sole problem!

BLAME IT ON BUHARI! By Uwuma Precious 

I blame Buhari for our calamities as a nation. Did he not say he will make Nigeria ''ungovernable'' for humble Mr. Goodluck Jonathan after the April elections? Since then, Mr. Jonathan has tried his best by Nigerians, but all to no avail!

After he lost, being a General, Buhari swiftly walked his talk-he took some boys to his backyard, taught them military tactics & IED-making techniques and behold Boko Haram was born!

Next, he went to Aso Rock, in one of those meetings where all the major ruiners of the Nigerian state gather to cross check notes with the extant undertaker, Buhari wispered to chief Coroner, Mr. Jonathan that removal of PMS subsidy will make a good new year gift for Nigerians. The sheep obliged the wolf.

This Buhari man not done wth his promise, two months ago, went to Ghana, removed a tire from a Nigerian cargo plane, derailed that plane and killed some Ghanians he thought were Nigerians!

Not done, he sneaked to Kainji and Shiroro dams and poured salt on the power-generating engines. Ever since, power supply has fallen from 3000MW to 127,000MW! Because of this sabotage, Prof. Barth Nnaji has increased electricity tarrif! Wetin we do dis Buhari self?

As if that is not enough, Gen. Buhari went to Lagos-Ibadan Express Way, sneaked banana peels under two tankers carrying petrol. The rest as they say is history!

Just because of a simple, harmless threat wipe to out Buhari Boys, popularly called Boko Haram by June, the General again went to Dana Airlines, gave the pilot some "egunje" to crash a Dana plane into a crowded Lagos suburb! In this instance, he succeeded in making the president cry!

As if such perfidy is not enough, we hear he now sponsors Fulani herdsmen to rape, behead and burn folks in Platue! What has Nigerians done to Buhari?

What next will this man do? Mr. Jonathan, we know is trying, but Gen. Buhari, SNG and other workers of iniquity and opposition people will not let us reap the dividends of democracy!

Last time, when the country was confused and in turmoil also in need of its president, he ensnarled Mr. Jonathan into travelling to Brazil in search of the exquisite nudities wasting away on exotic beaches!

Who does not know that Gen. Buhari actually told Mr. Jonathan to say "I DON'T GIVE DAMN" during a presidential media chat?- convincing him that that was the magic word Idiagbon deploys to frieghten Nigerians into submision?

He even threatened to 'betray, pester and challenge' Mr. President if he dares to declare his assets! On that, our humble president caught him by replying-''i wil not play into their hands!!'' Bravo Mr. President! One point there!

Have you not heard that Gen. Buhari is the one sponsoring the Lawan/Otedola 'colabo' with the aim of distablising the PDP?

Now we hear he's encouraging ASUU to go on a 10-year strike!

This same Buhari was the one who went to the White House, did "amebo" to our brother, Mr.Obama, and lo our sister, aunty Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was rigged out of her rightful position as WorldBank president!!

For this perfidy, Buhari is reposnible for the rising debt the Jonathan government is accumulating because if our sister had won that election, all Nigeria's debts would have been written off and the money used to renovate the 3rd Mainland bridge or atleast, host the FIFA World Cup!!!!

Personally, i blame Buhari for everything because Mr. Jonathan is doing his best to stop these killings in Jos, arrest Boko Haram, provide power, roads, hospitals, fight corruption etc. But Buhari is spoiling everything!

Wetin we do Gen. Mohammadhu Buhari self?

Laugh it off...

.... copied but edited.

"President Jonathan met with the Queen of England and asked her, "Your Majesty, how do you run such an efficient government? Are there any tips you can give to me? I want to help Nigeria"

"Well," said the Queen, "the most important thing is to surround yourself with intelligent people."

Jonathan frowned, and then asked, "But how do I know the people around me are really intelligent?"

The Queen took a sip off her cup of tea."Oh, that's easy; you just ask them to answer an intelligent riddle."The Queen pushed a button on her intercom."Please...send David Cameron in here, would you? "

David Cameron walked into the room and said, "Yes, Your Majesty?"

The Queen smiled and said, "Answer me this please. David, your mother and father have a child. It is not your brother and it is not your sister. Who is it?"

Without pausing for a moment, David Cameron answered, "That would be me." "Yes! Very good”, said the Queen. 

Jonathan came back home and asked Namadi Sambo his Vice President the same question.

"Sambo,” he said, “Answer this for me. Your mother and your father have a child. It's not your brother and it's not your sister. Who is it?"

"I'm not sure, said Sambo."Let me get back to you on this" He went to his advisors and asked every one, but none could give him an answer. 

Finally, one night, he ran into Ngozi Okonjo Iwealla. Sambo asked, 
“Ngozi, can you answer this for me? Your mother and father have a child and it's not your brother or your sister. Who is it?”

Ngozi answered sharply, "That's easy, it's me!”

Sambo smiled, and said, "Thanks!" T hen, he went back to speak with Jonathan."Your Excellency, I did some research and I have the answer to that riddle. It's Ngozi Okonjo Iwealla”

Jonathan got up angrily, frowning , he said to Sambo “No wonder Nigeria isn't moving forward, I don't have intelligent people around me.! You dummy! The answer is David Cameron!!!”

WHY WE NO LONGER BLUSH: CORRUPTION AS GRAND COMMANDER OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA BY PROF NIYI OSUNDARE (LECTURE DELIVERED UNDER THE AUSPICES THE SAVE NIGERIA GROUP (SNG) AT SHERATON HOTEL, IKEJA, LAGOS ON 9TH JULY 2012)

Something happened in this country in the very first week of this year that we can never forget: Nigeria’s civil society rose with one voice, one vision, one purpose, one agenda fuelled by extraordinary patriotism and irrepressible anger. The government of President Goodluck Jonathan had removed, against all warning and remonstration; against all hint of commonsense and fellow felling, the so-called ‘subsidy’ on the price of petroleum products, thus plunging the proverbially rickety Nigeria economy into a fatal tailspin, and the Nigerian people into needless agony and deprivation. And he sneaked in this cruel decree on the Nigerian people on the very first day of the year, no doubt as a salutary New Year gift from a caring, God-fearing leader.

President Jonathan’s drastic action and his uncharacteristic ‘No going back’ bravado thereafter came as a surprise to many people. Personally, I began to wonder: how could this fledgling president have braved a monster that defied the antics of the tricky Babangida, the murderous Abacha, and the morally indifferent Obasanjo, his illustrious predecessors in office who kicked and caviled at the ‘subsidy’ beast but only succeeded at nibbling at its toes? What gave Jonathan the ruthless courage to drive the IMF sword to the hilt into the Nigerian body? What gave him the confidence that he could decree that punitive price hike and get away with it? I came to the conclusion that the president must have been strengthened in his resolve by his reading of the Nigerian malaise. Afterall, his predecessors in power as well as all public functionaries have always treated Nigeria as a lawless fiefdom where public opinion counts for nothing, and Nigerians, the people over whom they rule, as civic orphans without alagbawi (advocate) and olugbeja (defender). “Let’s go ahead with the subsidy removal”, I could hear presidential advisers in their caucus, “we know Nigerians: they will only shout for a few hours and then go back to business as usual. We know Nigerians: they will quickly adjust”.

But in January this year, that mindset and its cynical calculations found their graveyard in Lagos, in Abuja, in Kano, in Kaduna, in Ilorin, in Ibadan, in Ado Ekiti. To protest the price hike, a coalition of Civil Society groups and the Nigerian Labour Congress called out a strike that shut down the country for a whole week, finally exacting a 33% climbdown in the decreed price. That reduction may look small, but the pressure and organization that brought it about, and even more important, the consciousness and will power generated by it, total up to an impressive chapter in the annals of Nigeria’s civil society organization. For, what I saw at Gani Fawehinmi Freedom Park which served as the epicenter of the struggle, was not just the demonstration of anger and enactment of protest; it was the platform of possibilities, of rising screams awaiting distillation into a unified voice; of a people sick and tired of their dehumanization; a people ready to throw off their yoke and demolish the sickening notoriety of Nigeria as ‘big for nothing’ country; masses saying to their rulers “Behold, we are PEOPLE/HUMAN; we demand to be treated as such!” It was a people who saw CORRUPTION, not oil subsidy, as the source of the country’s woes and bane of its people’s welfare.

And what a crowd that was at Freedom Park! What an intermingling of people beyond ethnic, religious, political, even personal barriers. For one long week, Nigerians saw themselves as people united by their common degradation at the hands of some of the most corrupt and most insensitive rulers in the world. Their diverse songs coalesed into a chorus of protest and anthem of resistance. For the first time in their beleaguered lives, many Nigerians found an avenue for the expression of their humanity; they had the rare opportunity to join others in the singing of their own song of defiance. Professional bodies responded with an infectious spontaneity: medical doctors/personnel in overcoat and other accoutrements took care of the weak and ailing free of charge; musicians, movies stars, and other social celebrities fired up the crowd; many food-sellers sold at reduced prices. Violence kept its place in the netherworld: the police found no work for their eager truncheons. In a manner reminiscent of similar gatherings at the Tahrir Square in Cairo at the height of the ‘Arab Spring’ revolts, Muslims in the crowd took time out for their prayers while adherents of other faiths formed a ring of solidarity and assurance around them. I wish a video footage of the Freedom Park events in January could be sent to our rulers to show them how united Nigerians are capable of being when motivated by a noble purpose and trustworthy, committed leadership.

So there we had it: the parable of Freedom Square: the selfless, rigorous, imagination that went into its conception; the thoughtful, meticulous method that was behind its organization; the exuberant, positive intelligence that saw it through. President Jonathan’s soldiers came too late: by the time they swooped in to cordon off the Square, the deed had already been done. The irrepressible Nigerian spirit had already registered itself. The events of the first week of this year have shown that it is possible to make the voice of resistance carry in this country; that we are not the dumb, feckless bums that we are thought to be; that unity among the people of Nigeria is not the distant hope their rulers have made it out to be. Above all, it has demonstrated the immense potentiality of civil society in the engineering of change and sociopolitical momentum. And to coast home to the specificities of today’s lecture, it has shown that Nigerians know the meaning, import, and ramifications of CORRUPTION as the canker worm in Nigeria’s body politic and poison in her soul. And, what’s more, that they are ready to do something about it!

The Save Nigeria Group, the principal civil society organization behind the January strike, deserves more than the cursory appreciation and gratitude that the constraints of time and space permit me to render in a lecture of this kind. We have seen this group before, sometime in 2010, when the former President Yar’Adua lay critically ill in a Saudi hospital, but a cabal whose satanic dominance and influence derived from Yar’Adua’s continued hold on power, insisted that the president must continue to rule, even from the grave. A bizarre and absolutely confounding absurdity threw Nigeria into a state of ludicrous paralysis. Hobbled by characteristic opportunism and tragic inertia, Nigerian politicians wringed their fingers and gnashed their teeth. The Nigerian people gasped and wondered. The outside world chuckled at this latest act from the unedifying drama of Africa’s delinquent giant. The president’s terminal illness was about to plunge Nigeria itself into a terminal coma. The Save Nigeria Group rose literally from nowhere and took up the challenge, rallied the Nigerian people, and marched on the National Assembly. The quaintly coded, ludicrously escapist “Doctrine of Necessity” passed by the Nigerian Senate as a way out of this utterly absurd imbroglio could not have come without the intense moral and political pressure from the SNG and similarly concerned Nigerians.

Thus, in its short existence as a pressure group, conscientizer, public opinion mobilizer in Nigeria, the SNG has taken up the role of ombudsman and tribunal, a kind of moral opposition in a country where the commonality of crime and mutuality of corruption has made a reasonable differentiation between/among the political parties a difficult if not futile exercise.

How, then, can I proceed with this lecture without paying due homage to the patriotic zeal and visionary acumen of Pastor Tunde Bakare (who, by the way, I’m meeting for the first time today!), founder and motivating force behind the SNG, a pastor who, unlike many other men and women of the cloth in Nigeria, has never failed to see the vital link between the religious pulpit and the political platform; one who like the prophets of old, is never afraid of telling truth to power – and making sure that power hearkens and heeds. I cannot review his political activities in the past decade or so without recalling the role of the advocates and practitioners of liberation theology which facilitated the end of military dictatorship in South America, or Rev Desmond Tutu who confronted the Apartheid behemoth with the stinging arrows of moral conscience. No country that I know has ever attained the heights of human development without a vigorous and consistent tradition of public opinion the type that is so helpfully evident in the SNG’s Rescue-and-Salvage Mission. Pastor Bakare, may your tribe increase!

THE CANCERWORM CALLED CORRUPTION

When some three weeks ago, Yinka Odumakin, prominent member of the SNG and, in a manner of speaking, its unacknowledged Minister of Information (and Strategy?), broached the idea of this lecture to me, he already had some sense not only of the likely burden of the lecture, but also the possible wording of its title. “Why We No Longer Blush”, he said more in the manner of a suggestion than a dictation. Personally, I do not respond favourably to prescribed titles. The poet in me always prefers to plumb his own depth for possible terms and denominations. But Odumakin’s phrasing issued from a steady fountain of passion and patriotism; the conviction in his voice was both palpable and infectious. I gave a tentative nod, and for a good four days, I rummaged through a bunch of possible titles. But the suggested phrase kept coming back to my mind as a result of its uncanny appropriateness. I finally decided to meet Odumakin half-way by amplifying his suggested title with my own subtitle; and that is how the full title of this lecture was born.

Why is it that Nigerians no longer blush? How did we come to lose our sense of shame after losing our sense of propriety and proportion? How did we come to develop a skin that is so thick that no arrows of degradation, no needles of dehumanization are ever sharp and violent enough to penetrate our body and rouse our senses! How did our nerves slide into their present state of stupor? How did we plunge into this state of dysconsciousness? Catastrophes that would shake normal societies to their very foundations hit and leave us unfazed. Tyrants in military uniform whipped us with scorpions; only a few of us protested.

Now their civilian inheritors are scourging us with serpents, and many of us respond with ‘ranka dede!’. Politicians and other public functionaries empty public treasuries and squander our patrimony/commonweal right before our very eyes; we pray to God to aid their effort. Time there was when these public thieves stole our money in millions of naira; now they do so in billions and trillions; and many of us urge them on and envy their luck.

Are we a psychologically intimidated, morally weakened, and politically wasted people so indolent about their rights, so unmindful of our dignity? Are we so reprobate that we become so forgiving, so oblivious of the crimes of those who rule us because we have lost the capacity to recognize their malefactions as crimes? In other lands, public figures go to jail for pinching our equivalent of 50,000 naira; in Nigeria, the huger the amount you steal the higher you go on the national order of merit, the closer you get to victory in the next election. As the inimitable Wole Soyinka has so aptly put it


You thief ten kobo they put you for prison
You thief ten million na patriotism. . . .
They go give you chieftaincy and national honour
You thief even bigger, dem go say na rumour
Monkey dey work o, baboon dey chop
Sweet pounded yam, someday i go stop

When, some 30 years ago, the illustrious Dele Giwa typified Nigerians as having gone beyond ‘shockability’, he should have reserved his remarks for the present Jonathan-led, PDP-bled crowd of insensate Nigerians.

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING

But things have not always been this bad, this dismal. Nigerians have not always lived in the present kind of moral desert. Time there was when we knew the difference between wrong and right, when shame coupled with remorse was the dreaded consequence of wrongdoing. Let me share with you a story I heard from my father, a story which illustrates the astonishing difference between the moral order of those days and the degenerate laxity of the so-called postcolonial era.

As this story goes, a young man in another part of town was beginning to give everyone around him a cause to worry. Already well into his thirties, he had no job; he hated farming, the major occupation at that time because it was hard and dirty. He was apprenticed to one or two trades, but he never waited long enough to complete his training in any of them. The extended family then called him and asked what exactly he would like to do for a living. He said the business of buying and selling was his prime choice, the one he dreamt about all the time, the one that would bring him the fortune and freedom he needed. And he insisted on doing this in some big and faraway town where his need to make profits would not be compromised by family obligations. His family taxed its members, raked together a tidy sum for him and sent him off with all their good wishes.

About six months later, it was Christmas time, and this young man returned to town, looking conspicuously prosperous. People wondered which shone the loudest: the gold chain around his neck or the gold strap of his exotic wrist watch. On Christmas day, he floated a feast whose lavish extravagance beggared a royal banquet. About five goats and countless chickens collided in his giant cooking pot, while all the palmwine tappers in town knew where to direct their kegs that day. The great feast was about to start when the guests sent for my father to join them. The first messenger came; my father refused to go; then the second. The third reported with the sardonic warning that whoever failed to get to the feast when the fireplace was still hot would only have himself to blame if all he met were half-picked bones and the loud belches of the punctual guests.

At this point, my father felt the need to clarify a few issues, and said something to this effect: Let me explain myself now before outsiders begin to explain it for me or read hostile meanings into my absence at our brother’s feast. He is our brother, and I have nothing against him. I know the way to our brother’s house, and I have been there many times before without being persuaded to come. And it is not that I woke up today of all days and could not find my appetite. But the question for our brother is: ibi se ti reo ree? (where did he get the money from?). Is this not the same young man for whom we had to collect all our toro, kobo (all our little pennies) some six months ago? How could he have made the profit that could fund the feast whose extravagance the whole town is talking about? No one who has made money the hard, honest way squanders it the way our brother is doing. So, without any envy or ill wish, I ask our brother again, ibi se to reo ree?.

My father never attended that feast; and as the story goes, there were some members of the celebrant’s molebi (extended family) who never did. Christmas over, the pots and pans went back where they came; the revelers dispersed; our young man returned to his ‘station’. But about two weeks later, when the new year was still very new and remnants of yuletide jollifications floated on the wings of the harmattan wind, an uncharacteristic hush fell on the town. The young man, that generous thrower of the Christmas party, was back in town. Only that this time he was securely handcuffed and sandwiched between two hefty policemen who had come to search his family house. The town was later told that the young man was charged with all kinds of crimes ranging from massive theft to embezzlement. He was already working hard for a one-way ticket to prison.

Ibi se ti reo ree? (Where did he get his money from?): that was the question people asked in those days when our society’s head stood confidently on its neck, and all manner of thieves and criminals never found their way to power from where they could choke us in their moral effluvia.

All kinds of interpretation could be read to this parable of a story. The society that serves as its setting is not a perfect one; otherwise that feast would have been boycotted by everyone. But it was a society that still had a conscience and where moral dissent was still the norm. Furthermore, it was a society where the Law still had its way and the restoration of order and good governance was still possible. It was a society which still operated by a hallowed observance of the rubric Aa kii (We do not do....i.e. it is not done; it is forbidden). It was a society of law and order; crime and punishment; good behavior and adequate reward. It was a society which recognized abomination (eewo) and kept it at bay; a society which put a healthy distance between oode (inner room) and aatan (the dunghill) in their literal and figurative senses. It was a society where people still blushed.

AS IT IS NOW

Ibi se ti reo ree? (where did he get his money from?). Now, wind forward the reel. Welcome to present-day Nigeria. Welcome to our moral desert and political jungle where the Law has been turned into a limbless ass; where order has gone under, where the criminal is Hero. Our world is upside down, like the bat of night. Crime pays. The criminal is hero. Let us consider three iconic cases.

A couple of months ago, justice finally caught up with James Onanefe Ibori, the famous ‘thief in the state house’, the ex-governor of Delta State of Nigeria, who stole over 10 billion naira of state money which he squandered on lavish estates and cars abroad while dumping huge sums of the people’s money in coded and un-coded bank accounts all over the world. Ibori’s case is so chronically symptomatic of the hopeless rot in the Nigerian system. Here was a man with a brimming rap sheet featuring criminal convictions both in the United Kingdom and Nigeria, but who wangled his way through our rickety legal and political wilderness, and ended up as governor of a state and one of the shot-callers of the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP). Many times he was taken to court in Nigeria to face the monster of his criminal past, but each time he was discharged and acquitted. (I remember one of his court appearances in Abuja at which the presiding judge said something to this effect: Yes, you are James Onanefe Ibori, but you are not James Onanefe Ibori. Pontius Pilate could have done better; but then he would have been infinitely less rich from the chests of cash that must have purchased that famous equivocation). And after each court ‘victory’, rented crowds trooped out in the streets of Asaba to welcome home their illustrious governor, conqueror of Abuja, the one and only Ogidigbodigbo of the universe! Church services were held in his honour to thank God for his victory and evoke hell fire on his traducers. When, in his post-office, post-immunity period, the EFCC tried to bring him in to account for his stolen wealth, he executed a rapid escape, headed for Delta State and holed up himself in his native village where armed home boys rolled timber logs on to the roads and drove off the anti-graft operatives intent upon his arrest.

These boys as well as all the other political jobbers and parasitic spongers who facilitated Ibori’s comprehensive criminality and sheltered him from the scorching sun of justice, are well beyond the possibility of ‘blushing’. Hardened and dehumanized into the status of small criminals who owe their livelihood to the machinations of a bigger criminal, they were not concerned about the source of Ibori’s wealth. All they knew is that their son had brought in their own share of the federal loot - a case of one thief stealing from another thief. With this kind of moral anarchy, how can anyone ask ibi se ti reo ree? Who the hell in present-day Nigeria has the mind for that kind of useless question?

But in the civilized tradition of the United Kingdom, that question is of paramount importance. When it was asked and Ibori provided no credible answers; when they opened back the book to his previous felonies, when they confronted him with unassailable evidence of his rampant thievery and allied transgressions, they gave him enough years to keep him sober in jail. More than anything else, the Ibori case has put in bold relief the difference between the British legal system and the Nigerian legal anarchy, the difference between civilization and barbarism, between orderly jurispudentiality and capricious legal ad-hocism, between the rule of Law and the rule of thieves.

This may sound strange to some people, but all things considered, Ibori was just a scapegoat whose case blew into the open at the most inauspicious time. There is something almost Shakespearean in the unfolding of the Delta man’s unraveling . Were Umaru Yar’Adua still alive today, James Onanefe Ibori would still be gallivanting up and down the terrain of this unfortunate country in his capacity as one of the principal financiers of the Yar’Adua presidential campaign, who has therefore earned his enviable status as a formidable power broker and the de facto second most powerful man in Nigeria. But death, that inscrutable juggernaut, took his powerful beneficiary away and exposed him to the whimsical wiles of a Vice President he once despised and whose presidential emergence he did everything possible and impossible to thwart. Put another way, Ibori’s final conviction is absolutely no indication of the health of Nigeria’s legal cum political system. On the contrary, it is a powerful pointer to its medieval rot and dysfunctionality. And, finally, Ibori is just one tiny (though significant) pimple in a body politic ravaged by a plague of boils. There are infinitely bigger, more rapacious thieves among Nigeria’s public functionaries today, walking freely and calling the shots because their own lid has not been blown. Who still has the capacity to blush in a country ruled by thieves?

Now, before you start thinking that the Ibori saga was unique and that the people’s toleration of his crime was unbelievable, consider the case of another big party wig from the same party, from another part of the country, convicted for blatantly illegal manipulation of contract awards in his position as Chairman of the board of Nigerian Ports Authority. When chief Bode George got a two-year jail term (considered as grossly in-commensurate with the gravity of his crime), his “teeming supporters” thumbed their noses at a Nigerian legal system that was so blind to the proverbial imuniti which should naturally serve as shield for a man of the Lagos chief’s military and political record. Many even couched their anger in sardonic rhetorical questions: Ki lo se teni kan o se ri? Owoo baba ta na sope o ji? (What did he do that no one had done before? Whose father owned the money they said he stole?). And, to back up their protest in a typical Nigerian fashion, on the day the Big Chief completed his term in jail, “teeming supporters” in dazzling aso ebi lined the route from the prison gate to his house, chanting party songs and other vocal ammunitions of perverse resistance. A lavish party followed, crowned with a thanksgiving service in which the officiating clergy berated the Chief’s political enemies, and beseeched God to shower him with further blessings. The Lagos sky was rent by the resounding “Amen” of party chieftains, “teeming supporters”, and kindred spirits. Tell me, with this sanctification of crime and beatification of the criminal, could anyone in the crowd have asked: ‘Ibi se ti reo ree?’

Let us move quickly now from the debauchery of Nigeria’s political gladiators to the iniquity of electoral functionaries who facilitate their ride into office. Remember Maurice Iwu, the Ebola Professor who infected Nigeria’s body politic with the plagues of the 2003 and 2007 polls (who can forget the infamy of the Ido-Osi jumbo numbers in a hurry? Certainly not Femi Orebe, my compatriot and intrepid columnist!). Well, when he finally left office and retired into well-earned comfort, he was treated to an uproarious homecoming by an appreciative crowd including kinsmen and women, party faithfuls, (for he was profitably faithful to the ruling party), honourable legislators, and musical celebrities. Did anyone in the crowd ever ask their son to give account of his years in office? Were they ever concerned that their son supervised an electoral heist of such phenomenal enormity that nearly tore Nigeria apart and which brought the country the searing contempt and opprobrium of the international community? Did any of them blush at the abysmally low esteem in which their son was held by an honest sector of the Nigerian population? Blame not the Iwu clan, for he has equally famous antecedents in Nigeria’s history of ignominious election umpires. Blame them not for in obodo dike Nigeria, the rogue politician is man of the people; the thief is hero. Our skin has become so coarse, so thick, our blood so pale with perfidy that we have lost our capacity to blush.

IF NIGERIA DOES NOT KILL CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION WILL KILL NIGERIA

That was my somewhat epigrammatic rejoinder some two months ago, to a touchingly thoughtful memo by Mobolaji Aluko, the Nigerian academic and public intellectual, on corruption in Nigeria and the possible role of the country’s elite in stemming its spread. Corruption kills by blighting our blossom, frustrating new shoots while stunting the growth of the old stem. Like a virulent weed, it does not just smother the good crop; it shoves aside its carcass and usurps its place. Thereafter, it starts reproducing itself in multiple folds, carving out the entire terrain in its own image, developing new shells and shields against possible assaults, completely erasing every trace of the old virtuous order, and taking on a false originary aspect. Its operational lackeys are degradation and decay; its ultimate harbor is death. Consider the ubiquity of death and mayhem in our country today and you appreciate the more the absolutely morbid repercussions of corruption.

The last day of May and the first three of June this year shocked Nigeria with a near-apocalyptically morbid timeline:

Thursday May 31: 8 loaded petro tankers burnt to carcass on the Lagos Ibadan expressway

Friday June 1: over 30 vehicles private and commercial caught fire and roasted on the same Lagos-Ibadan expressway

Saturday June 2: a Nigerian cargo plane overshot the runway and killed about eight people in faraway Ghana. Poor Ghana became a victim of Nigeria’s culpable incompetence.

Sunday June 3: Father of all disasters. Nigeria brought the tragedy home; DANA airplane crashed in the densely populated village of Ishaga-Agege near Lagos, killing all 153 people on board and some half dozen on the ground.

That same day, Boko Haram, Nigeria’s dreaded Nemesis, exploded their trademark bombs in Bauchi, dispatching over a dozen Christian worshippers in a bloody inferno.

In four short days, Nigeria harvested a bulk of tragedies that many countries do not experience in many years. This cluster of calamities came in such a breathless succession and with such alarming reverberation that some Nigerians felt the country was just one bang away from Apocalypse. Some saw it as a sign that Jonathan’s rule had brought Nigeria a fate that is the exact opposite of his first name (Goodluck). Some were already seeing it as the first hint of the unraveling predicted for 2015. But the rational, hard-nosed discerned the pattern in it all, sensing the deleterious implication of Nigeria’s number one killer: corruption.

To know what these incidents have to do with corruption, let’s ask the following questions:
Why has the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, the principal artery connecting the rest of the country to its commercial heartbeat of Lagos, remained a death trap in the past 10 years? What has happened to the loudly touted plan in the past five years to rehabilitate and expand the expressway? Is the company called Bi-Courtney still interested in the ‘concessioning’ arrangement? And, by the way, what about the billions of naira budgeted for road rehabilitation every year? What happened to them?

What, if not corruption, is responsible for the presence of so many patently non-roadworthy vehicles on Nigerian roads? Time there was when Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO’s) made sure only fit and proper vehicles plied the roads, and the traffic police took care of the sanity and competence of Nigerian drivers. Now, the VIO has literally disappeared, and, with the right bribe to give, you could speed along with your brakeless vehicle and kill as many people as your tyres can crush.

What about those long articulated vehicles and loaded petrol tankers which pummel the roads with their heavy weights and park anywhere that suits their tyrannical fancy? What became of the Nigeria rail system that should have relieved the road of their heavy haulage? Is it true that we have the bribing generosity of trailer magnates to thank for the untimely demise of the Nigerian railway? Pray, to which cabal do we owe the death of the once active Nigerian railway?

And, regarding the planes, why is the Nigerian air space full of Tokunbo aircraft? (As if the carnage being wrought by Tokunbo automobiles on our roads is not enough!). Why is the Nigerian sky littered with cheap, creaking carriers from foreign scrap-yards, refurbished jalopies imported to serve as shortcut to wealth for their ruthless owners and one-way ticket to death for Nigerian passengers?

How are the inspection schedules and oversight procedures of planes plying the Nigerian space handled? Is it true that some ‘inspectors’ certify airplanes in the manager’s office, declaring them air-worthy after collecting their brown envelopes or bulging Ghana-must-go’s – without ever laying their eye on the very object of their inspection? There were rumours that this kind of malpractice contributed to the crash of Sosoliso airplane in Port Harcourt on December 10, 2005 and the Bellview one just two months before - rumours that have been blowing in the wind ever since owing to the non-availability of the post-crash investigation reports

And so we ask: where are these reports? Why have they not been made public? Why have the recommendations therein not been implemented? On whose shelves have they been gathering dust?

There is a sinister pattern to these catastrophes, a sickeningly predictable chronology to their narratives. First, the predisposing condition: a corruptly compromised equipment that is nothing short of an accident waiting to happen, lives true to expectation and precipitates a tremendous catastrophe. Then a ritual of oohs and aahs, gnashing of teeth and rending of garment, and profuse outpouring of condolences. Then a visit to the disaster site by the president and the governor and a gaggle of other public functionaries, complete with a formidable press crew. The team perform (what a word!) a guided tour of the disaster site; the president manages to shed a tear or two, proclaims before the camera how broken-hearted he is; declares a period of national mourning; talks tough about the cause of the accident, and promises to bring to ‘bring to book’ all those responsible for it; sets up an investigation panel; then heads out for his next overseas trip. Weeks later the panel submits its report with full publicity fanfare. The president thanks them for their patriotic service, repeats his former threat to ‘bring to book’ all those responsible for the accident; accepts the report and dumps it in the national archives. End of story. Well, no, until another round of accidents and . . . .

Investigations without end. Reports without result. Recommendations without implementation. Crimes without punishment. This is the sorry order in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We learn nothing from history, and that is why for us History frequently repeats itself as a running mix of tragedy and farce. We are like that nanny goat in the tale whipped countless times for a repeated offence. Buffeted by political banditry, anesthesized by gross religiosity, inundated by injustices which stink to the high heavens, our senses have been dulled, our nerves critically undone, our sense of reality twisted to look like something straight out of the theatre of the absurd.

Or what could be more absurd, more jaw-droppingly nightmarish than the present sensational bribegate involving the Right Honourable Farouk Lawan and the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on the probe of the oil subsidy scandal? As the story goes, Honourable Lawan, chairman of this committee, is alleged to have asked one of the oil magnates for a hefty bribe so as to remove his company’s name from the list of those being penciled down for investigation and possible sanction. But he barged straight into a setup and went home with marked dollar bills. By the time he began to badger his affluent briber for the outstanding balance of the three-million dollar deal (after collecting the initial 620,000 dollars), the police were already knocking on his door. In the past three weeks or so, our minds have been smothered by the slush and sleaze of this unedifying saga. Now our Honourable Representatives are trying to set up another committee to investigate the disgraced investigators.

Round and round in a cycle of shame
The bribed, the briber, all the same
In a land so decrepit, so decayed
Justice always denied, for ever delayed

To think that this unforgivably silly charade is what our so-called elected representatives are making of a serious scandal involving the oil subsidy, the removal of which precipitated a virtual shutdown of the country in the very first week of this year, subjecting millions of our people to untold suffering, and in some cases, death. From the very beginning, we never trusted the Jonathan government’s propaganda regarding the existence of subsidy, nor were we persuaded by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s IMF-induced campaign for its removal. Many argued that the problem with Nigeria’s oil business was not the so-called subsidy on the price at the pump-head, but the wanton hemorrhaging caused by vulpine oil cabals who collected billions of naira as subsidy on oil which they never supplied. The Nigerian government had, therefore, been subsidizing corruption all along, and was bent on getting the Nigerian people to cough out more for that ignoble purpose. The people said no in January, and the thunderous reverberations of their voices gingered the House of Representatives into instituting an investigation.

To be sure, the Farouk Lawan ad hoc committee started off on a salutary note. Its initial revelation of millions of dollars collected as phantom subsidy by oil companies endeared it to the Nigerian people whose strong suspicion it only served to confirm. For once, the people thought they were about to crush the subsidy conundrum and expose, at last, the cabal that held Nigeria to such exploitative ransom. The canonization of Lawan and his committee was just about to begin when the Otedola dollars threw a wrench into the works. Now attention has shifted from the reports of the committee to the misconduct of some of its members. The oil cabals must be laughing in their sea of subsidy dollars while many Nigerians are still wondering: is this the end of the probe? When will President Jonathan and Dr. Okonjo-Iweala ask Nigerians to submit their backs for the yoke of another “subsidy” removal?

Round and round in a cycle of shame. . . . Just a few months before Lawangate, there was Hembegate. In a classic case of “YOU HEMBE ME AND I’LL OTEH YOU”, Arunma Oteh, then Director General of the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) surprised the whole world with the allegation that the chairman of the committee set up to probe her had earlier demanded from her a bribe of 44 million naira. Before then, Honourable Hembe was said to have also received travel funds, including estacode, from SEC for a foreign trip he never made and the money for which he never returned. Again, a carefully calculated distraction had supplanted the main issue: serious allegations of mismanagement of funds and reckless spending preferred against Ms Oteh became a side item in the panel’s menu of egregious entrees. The accuser had become the accused. Up till now, the nation has not got to the bottom of the serious allegations against the SEC Director. As usual, in response to public outcry and anger, the Very Honourable House of Representatives referred the case to its Ethics and Privileges Committee for further investigation, the outcome of which may never see the light of day.

Round and round in a cycle of shame. . . Before the two
‘-gates’ above there was Elumelugate. In 2007, Dimeji Bankole, then speaker of the House, surprised the entire nation with the revelation that the Obasanjo government had invested 16 billion dollars in the power sector with nothing practically to show for it except the conspicuous darkness that enveloped the nation. In January the following year, the House Power and Steel Committee chaired by Godwin Elumelu was mandated to probe the power sector in respect of the alleged 16 billion dollars. After an extensive tour of power project sites all over the country, the committee wrote and submitted a report containing a searing indictment of many of the major players in the country’s power sector, including the President himself, and recommended them for possible sanctions. It was at this crucial juncture that the allegation of a 100-million naira bribe was hurled at the committee. Again, the case was referred to the House Ethics and Privileges Committee which investigated and cleared the Elumelu committee which then went ahead to submit its report. Then, this macabre drama by the very honourable members of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, as brilliantly captured by Samson Ezea of The Guardian on Saturday:

Curiously and shockingly, virulent verbal attacks were launched against Elumelu. Nigerians were amazed at the effusive manner majority of the members cursed the recommendations, making many to wonder whether these were the same people that spoke so “patriotically” in praise of the report when it was submitted. (p.50)

After reading this one feels like screaming as Kunle Ajibade did a couple of years ago: What a Country! Thereafter, Honourable Elumelu was arrested by the EFCC for mismanaging the 5.2 billion naira rural electrification contract funds, an allegation he took to a Federal High Court where he was cleared though the presiding Justice declared that he and some of his committee members still had a case to answer.
Dear listeners, at this juncture, I find myself wondering with the Narrator in my play The State visit:


How many, oh how many shall we count
Of the teeth of Adepele:
There are twenty incisors, fifty canines,
While uncountable molars lie buried
In the caves of the jaw

From every indication, it appears that those in positions of authority in Nigeria especially in the political and economic spheres have been waging an undeclared war on the country’s resources and general welfare. And it is a war that is savage in its method and dehumanizing in its impact. I have never seen or heard of a country in the world in which public functionaries are as pathologically perverse, blindly rapacious, brutally cannibalistic, and callously unpatriotic as the ones that hold this unfortunate land in thrall. Consider the mind-boggling scam by the Pension Reform Task Team and the two billion naira cash discovered cruse and raw in the home of one of the officials. Two billion naira of pension funds in a country where old, feeble pensioners starve to death in their little hovels or collapse from exhaustion on mindless “verification parades”! What about police bosses who embezzle funds meant for the welfare of the Force (For an instructive story of Tafa Balogun, one of such bosses, see Wale Adebanwi’s A Paradise for Maggots: The Story of a Nigerian anti-Graft Czar, a meticulously detailed, eloquently written biography of Nuhu Ribadu, a book that should be compulsory read for every public official in this country – from the local government councilor to the President, from the micro-finance banker to the Central Bank governor).

What about suspected public officials and the EFCC’s revolving door? Again, another narrative with a shameful chronology: allegation of extensive graft, arrest, arraignment, brief detention, (with all the publicity razzmatazz), then bail, and silence, Finis. . . . Virtually every former governor since 1999 has gone through this deceptive ritual. Dimeji Bankole, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, went through his own motions recently, with the same result. Somehow, the huge sums the ‘arrested’ officials are suspected to have stolen/embezzled/mismanaged resonate in the public domain for a while, then fade away as we move on to further, bigger scams. The Nigerian people have seen and heard about so many colossal sums being stolen that they have lost their awe for numbers.

Time there was when millions raised the brow
And a millionaire was deemed the super rich
Then came the billions and their ceaseless itch
And now we talk in trillions in a tall and tidy row

We have not only lost our capacity to blush; swarmed by the grossness of fraud-fraught numbers, we have also lost the ability to count. Or to put it another way, we have been afflicted by a chronic number fatigue. Those who steal the nation’s money have not only ruined our economy by devaluing the national currency; they have also impoverished our spirit and devalued our capacity to be human. Nigeria today is suffering from moral inflation: outwardly big and bloated, internally empty and weak.

CORRUPTION, NIGERIA'S FASTEST-GROWING INDUSTRY

Let’s face this fact: corruption is the fastest-growing industry in Nigeria today. It is the real money-spinner, the oil which lubricates the engine of Nigeria’s politics and economy, a sine qua non in business deals, a desideratum for advancement in all spheres. Come to think of it. How/what would our politics be without corruption? If our electoral processes were less corrupt, how would judges on the Election Petition and Appeal Court get a few ‘gifts’ to secure them in their retirement? What about the lawyers who rake up their billions from litigating cases that should have been determined in the polling booth? How would the Distinguished Senator and Honourable Rep. live up to their billing as lawmakers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria without securing millions of naira from acts such as anticipatory approvals, or incidents such as Lawangate or Hembegate? If you are in the aviation sector, how can you boost your profit margin if you refuse to bribe oversight officers and inspectors whose duty it is to pass your rickety, octogenarian air plane as eminently air-worthy and litter the Nigeria sky with flying coffins? If you are a banker, how can you join the big league of billionaires without cooking the books, proliferating unsecured loans, liquidating your bank and running away with the money while hundreds of depositors perish from the stress engendered by your fraud? Yes, indeed, corruption is Nigeria’s most viable industry, the largest employer of labour, engenderer of an economy that knows no recession. In obodo dike Nigeria, corruption pays; it pays handsomely.. . . And this is why we no longer blush . . . .

THE WAY OUT

Corruption is one hell of a demon which virtually everyone in Nigeria talks so about, but which only few are ready to confront head-on. This is because, as hinted above, corruption is the very lifeblood of Nigeria’s politics and economy. As run in this country, the so-called presidential system does not only feed on corruption; it actively encourages it: the huge deposits expected from office seekers, the large sums that exchange hands among party ‘stakeholders’; the perverse tradition of patronage through booty-sharing and largess-dispensation; the shocking combination of immunity and impunity by public functionaries; the absolute lack of transparency and accountability.

It is in the light of the above that we must appraise President Goodluck Jonathan’s recent statement on asset declaration vis-à-vis corruption. Boasted the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces:

It is personal and I don’t give a damn about that [asset declaration]. The law is clear about it and so making it public is no issue and I will not play into the hands of the people. . . . I declared (assets publicly) under late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua because he did it, but it is not proper. . . It is not the President declaring assets that will change the country

The Nation, Mon.June 25, 2012, front page.

And President Jonathan sees all this as ‘a matter of principle’. Whose principle? What principle, you are tempted to ask? For him, asset declaration is ‘personal’, ‘not proper’; it will lead to ‘play[ing] into the hands of the people’. Again, which ‘people?’, you want to ask. Can it be the Nigerian people to whom he owes his mandate and to whom he swore to be transparently accountable? ‘I don’t give a damn’, swaggered the once God-fearing, meek-looking Jonathan, with an egregious arrogance so redolent of his “No-going-back” braggadocio when he unleashed that untold agony on the Nigerian people in the opening hours of this year, and his unilateral re-christening of the University of Lagos as a grand May 29 gesture . ‘I don’t give a damn’: that must have been his reaction to the public outcry when Gitto Construzioni General Nigeria Limited, a company with substantial construction business deals with the Nigerian government, refurbished a church in Otuoke, his hometown as a ‘friendly’ gift, and the President and his entourage trooped to that church to give thanks to the Lord for his blessing.

Watch out, Nigeria: a new Jonathan seems to be emerging, one who confuses cockiness with confidence, tactlessness with toughness, strong-manship with statesmanship. Is Nigeria witnessing the rise of another ‘African President’, obstinate even when wrong, intolerant even of positive criticism? President Jonathan’s combination of naivety and amorality is as profound as it is injurious to the health of this country. Can a corruption-compliant ruler really lead a corruption-free country?

The American people know the answer to that question (And I am using the America example since the United States is one country in the world Nigeria is aspiring to copy). That is why they hold their leaders to high ethical standards. That is why those leaders treat them with unstinting respect. In the first quarter of this year, President Obama made public his tax returns, and later his total assets. Mitt Romney, though a presidential candidate, followed suit. Those are leaders who ‘give a damn’ about the just, the proper, and the decent; leaders who know that ‘the President declaring asset [can] change the country’. Those are leaders with demonstrable respect for their people and the rule of law.

To fight corruption in Nigeria we must first get our rulers to change their attitude to the ruled via the rule of law. And we must do this by changing our own attitude to those in the position of power. Too often we the Nigerian people encourage the criminality of our rulers by kow-towing to their every whim and caprice; we invite their disdain by denying ourselves any claim to self-respect; we court their oppression by readily offering them our backs to ride upon. We cow when we should kick; we temporize when we need to toughen up. We smile when we should smite. We need to change the Kabiyesi Syndrome that forbids the asking of critical questions and the insistence on having them answered. It is the typical Nigerian attitude to power that has turned our rulers into aseyiowuu (the one who does as s/he pleases), and encouraged them to corrupt the immunity innocently enshrined in the constitution into the impunity of criminal rulership.

Let us interrogate the way the Nigerian system pampers public officials with extravagant emoluments: the bloated cabinets at all levels of government, the slew of personal assistants, special advisers, ministers of, ministers for, ministers on, ministers under, ministers to, and suchlike spongers who constitute a drain on the national economy. Not to be forgotten: the estacode regimen and its use and abuse by functionaries in the political realm as well as those in the civil service. Let every Nigeria ask their councilor, assembly man/woman, representative, and senator today: how much exactly do you earn? What is the difference between your stipulated salary and your actual income? How much is your constituency allowance and how much of it actually goes to your constituency? Let us ask the president and the governors: how much exactly does the nation spend on security votes? How is the money spent? Where is that ‘security’ in a country so beleaguered by wanton violence?

We need to ask these questions and more because experience has shown that Nigerian public functionaries steal so greedily while in office so as to stow fortunes away for the continuation of their extravagant lifestyle when their term is over. (For instance, a governor, minister, senator, permanent secretary, or vice chancellor already used to flying first/business class at public expense, or being fussed over by a crowd of ‘personal assistants’, will have a serious withdrawal problem letting go of these privileges and perks. The solution? Steal all you can in preparation for the rainy day!

Nor can/must we forget the issue of religion and its ironic role in the sanctification of corruption in Nigeria. It is a known but hardly acknowledged fact that Nigeria boasts one of the highest church/population ratios in the world and yet ranks as one of the most corrupt countries on planet earth. As concerned compatriots such as GA Akinola, Biodun Jeyifo, Ebenezer Obadare, Eddy & Bene Madunagu, Okey Ndibe, Festus Iyayi, Pius Adesanmi, Ogaga Ifowodo, Abimbola Adelakun, and others have frequently observed, for the most part, religion in Nigeria is nothing more than superstition, a crafty mask, and grand pretence. This is particularly so with the country’s swelling ranks of Prosperity Gospel preachers, those faith-vendors who purchase sins and sell forgiveness at equally exorbitant prices. If you are poor, we are told, it’s because of your sin; if you are jobless, it’s because you’ve strayed from the straight ‘n narrow way. Absolving the creators of the corrupt socio-economic system that turns its victims into paupers and social cannibals, these preachers portray every crook in power as God-chosen, even when that power has come through rigged elections and murderous brigandage. They conduct thanksgiving service for notorious political jobbers and perform homecoming ceremonies for returnees with looted fortunes. When the wealthy crook hands them the key to a luxury car (or private jet), they shower the ‘cheerful giver’ with blessings, beseech God to ‘prosper his ways’, and extol his virtues to the heavens. Hardly do they ever ask, as father did in those days: ‘ibi se ti reo ree?’.

And, very important, Nigeria’s super-structure and the phenomenality of corruption. This may sound rather far-fetched to some people, but one of the ways of tackling graft in this country is to address the structural corruption in the very composition of Nigeria itself. The present rickety, loosely assembled contraption with all its Lugardian paralysis is riddled with dissonance and disconnect. A succession of visionless, close-minded rulers has made the country both loveless and unlovable. To many Nigerians, Nigeria is ‘their country’, some distant no-man’s-land where you go to scoop your own fortune and take your loot back to your own clan. They may call it stealing in Abuja, but as far as the home crowd is concerned, you have only brought back your/their share of the ‘national cake’. The cases of James Ibori, Bode George, and Maurice Iwu mentioned above owe their peculiarity to this kind of double consciousness and moral ambivalence. The erudite political scientist, Peter Ekeh, has put this mentality down to the existence in Nigeria of two republics: the primordial/ethnic/pre-colonial and the modern/national/post-colonial, the former exacting near-sacred loyalty, the latter begrudged with faint political observance. This curious situation has led to the relativization of morality in Nigeria, as what is wrong and condemnable in one republic is but right and commendable in the other. In a nutshell, to solve the problem of corruption in Nigeria, we must first face head on the issue of the national question.

AND FINALLY

If Nigeria does not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria. Corruption has taken over the commanding heights of Nigerian society. It is, without doubt, the Grand commander of the Federal Republic. Like a frightfully aggressive cancer, it has metastasized to the vital cells of our body politic, and the debilitating symptoms are everywhere: perverted moral values, a rig-prone electoral arrangement designed to throw up criminals in place of leaders, fraud-choked banking and finance system, irregular power supply, dry water-taps, death-trap roads, death-dispensing hospitals, a progressively illiterate educational system, global notoriety, . . . .. Melo la o ka leyin Adepele?. (Oh how many shall we count/Of the teeth of Adepele?. . . .) The malaise is massive, the dysfunctionalities are daunting. But we must NEVER allow this situation, grim as it is, to plunge us into cynicism and despair. Yes, indeed, Nigeria is worth fighting for. And this fight will have to be carried out by the people of this country. The soldiers have shown by their many years of misrule that our national salvation is not in their hands. The present gaggle of civilian rulers is proving to be no different. At no time, therefore, is the role of civil society more crucial, more imperative than the present. Let there be more of the coalition of civil society organizations that brought Nigeria back from the chaos that ensued from the politicization of President Yar’Adua’s illness; the type that forced the “No going back” Jonathan to back down on his callous, inequitable fuel price hike. This country has enough to make life comfortable for ALL of us and generations yet unborn. Let us begin to ask: Why are a few Nigerians so rich and the rest of us so poor? Let us go beyond this and engage in a massive civil action for change, knowing full well that our fate is in our own hands. It is organized massive action from the Nigerian people that can eliminate the canker worm of corruption that is sucking the lifeblood of this bountifully endowed but criminally misgoverned country. We must make sure that we kill corruption before it has the chance of killing Nigeria.

I thank the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) for inviting me and you for being such an obliging audience.

Yio see se o (May it be possible).

Niyi Osundare


Special thanks to Ayo Arannilewa for this document.

A Blast from the past: Awolowo & the need for a virile Opposition in present day Nigeria's political sphere

OBAFEMI AWOLOWO'S LETTER FROM PRISON TO MAJOR GENERAL AGUIYI IRONSI PRESSING FOR HIS RELEASE AND THAT OF HIS COLLEAGUES (DATED 28TH MARCH 1966)


CONFIDENTIAL
28th March, 1966

The Supreme Commander and
Head of the Federal Military
Government, Lagos.

Thro: The Director of Prisons,
Prisons Headquarters Office,
Private Mail Bag 12522,
Lagos.

Sir:

PREROGATIVE OF MERCY: SECTION 101 (1) (a) OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FEDERATION ACT 1963

1. I am writing this petition for FREE PARDON under Section 101 (1) (a) of the Constitution of the Federation Act 1963, on behalf of myself and some of my colleagues whose names are set out in the Annexe hereto.

2. Before I go further, I would like to stress that the reasons which I advance in support of this petition, in my own behalf, basically hold good for my said colleagues. For they share the same political beliefs with me, and have intense and unquenchable loyalty for the ideals espoused by the Party which I have the honour to lead.

3. There are many grounds which could be submitted for your consideration in support of this petition. But I venture to think that SEVEN of them are enough and it is to these that I confine myself.

(1) In the course of my evidence during my trial, I stated that my Party favoured and was actively working for alliance with the N.C.N.C. as a means, among other things, of solving what I described as ‘the problem of Nigeria’, and strengthening the unity of the Federation. In October 1963 (that is about a month after my conviction and while my appeal to the Supreme Court was still pending), a Peace Committee headed by the Chief Justice of the Federation, Sir Adetokunbo Ademola, made overtures to me through my friend Alhaji W. A. Elias to the effect that if I abandoned my intention to enter into alliance with the N.C.N.C. which, according to the Committee, was an Ibo Organisation, and agreed to dissolve the Action Group and, in co-operation with Chief Akintola (now deceased), form an all-embracing Yoruba political party which I would lead and which would go into alliance with the N.P.C., I would be released from prison before the end of that year. I turned down these terms because I was of the considered opinion that their acceptance would further widen and exacerbate inter-tribal differences, and gravely undermine the unity of the Federation.

TODAY, THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT, OF WHICH YOU ARE THE HEAD, LEAVES NO ONE IN ANY DOUBT THAT IT STANDS FOR NIGERIAN UNITY. BUT IT MUST BE EMPHASISED, IN THIS CONNECTION, THAT IF I HAD PRIZED MY PERSONAL FREEDOM ABOVE THE UNITY OF NIGERIA, I WOULD HAVE BEEN SET FREE IN 1963. IN THAT EVENT, THIS PETITION WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN NECESSARY, AND THE WORK OF CONSOLIDATING THE UNITY OF THE COUNTRY TO WHICH YOU AND YOUR COLLEAGUES NOW SET YOUR HANDS MIGHT HAVE BEEN MADE EXTREMELY MORE INTRACTABLE AND IRKSOME.

As recently as 20th December, 1965, identical peace terms (the only variant being that the alliance with the N.C.N.C. which was now a reality should be broken) were made to me here, in Calabar Prison, by a delegation representing another Peace Committee headed by the self-same Chief Justice of the Federation and purporting to have the blessing of the Prime Minister, with the unequivocal promise that if I accepted the terms my release would follow almost immediately. I rejected the terms for the reasons which I have outlined above.

(2) One of the monsters which menaced the public life of this country up to 14th January, this year is OPPORTUNISM with its attendant evils of jobbery, venality, corruption, and unabashed self-interest. From all accounts, you are inflexibly resolved to destroy this monster. That was precisely what my colleagues and I had tried to do before we were rendered hors de combat since 29th May, 1962.

On two different occasions I was offered, first the post of Deputy Prime Minister (before May 1962), and second that of Deputy Governor-General (in August 1962), if I would agree to fold up the Opposition and join in a National Government. I declined the two offers because they were designed exclusively to gratify my self-interest, with no thought of fostering any political moral principle which could benefit the people of Nigeria. The learned Judge who presided over the Treasonable Felony Trial, commented unfavourably on my non-acceptance of one of these posts and held that my action lent weight to the case of the Prosecution against me. I must say, however, that in all conscience, I felt and still feel that a truly public-spirited person should accept public office not for what he can get for himself — such as the profit and glamour of office — but for the opportunity which it offers him of serving his people to the best of his ability, by promoting their welfare and happiness. To me, the two aforementioned posts were sinecures, and were intended to immobilise my talents and stultify the role of watch-dog which the people of Nigeria looked upon me to play on their behalf, at that juncture in our political evolution.

(3) This leads me to the third ground. From newspaper reports, it would appear that you and your colleagues — like all well-meaning Nigerians — are anxious that on the termination of the present military rule, Nigeria should become a flourishing democracy. Now, democracy is a political doctrine which is very intimately dear to my heart. It was to the end that it might be accepted as a way of life in all parts of the Federation that I campaigned most vigorously and relentlessly in the Northern Provinces of Nigeria, from 1957 to 1962, to the implacable annoyance of some of my political adversaries. It was to the end that this doctrine might survive the severe onslaught of opportunist and mercenary politics that I refused to succumb to the temptation of the National Government. Many views — some of them well-considered and respectable — have been expressed about the value or disvalue of opposition as a feature of public life in a newly emergent African State. Speaking for my party, I submit that the Opposition which I led did, to all intents and purposes, justify its existence and was acclaimed by the masses of our people as essential and indispensable to rapid- national growth. This was so, because it was unexceptionably constructive. The abrogation of the Anglo-Nigeria Defence Pact was one of the feathers in its cap. Some of the policies which the Government of the day later adopted — such as the creation of a Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the introduction of drastic measures to correct our balance of payments deficit — were among those persistently and constructively urged by the Opposition inside and outside Parliament.

The point I wish to emphasise here is that it was not out of spite or hatred for any one that I chose to remain in Opposition instead of joining the much-talked-of National Government. I did so in order to serve our people to the best of my ability in the position in which their votes had placed my Party, and to ensure that the young plant of democracy grows into a sturdy flourishing tree in Nigeria.

(4) Since the declaration of emergency in the Western Region on 29th May, 1962, political tension has existed in Western Nigeria. My conviction on 11th September, 1963, together with the surrounding bizarre circumstances, has led not only to the heightening of that tension in Western Nigeria but also to its profuse and irrepressible percolation to the other parts of the Federation. The result is that it can be said, without much fear of contradiction, that today the majority of our people are passionately concerned about and fervently solicitous for the release of myself and my colleagues.

The work of reconstruction on which you and your colleagues have embarked demands that all the citizens of Nigeria in their respective callings should give of their maximum best. A state of psychological tension, however much it may be brought under control or repressed, does not and cannot conduce to maximum efficiency. In spite of themselves, people labouring under emotions which this kind of tension automatically generates are bound to make avoidable mistakes which in their turn have adverse effects on national progress.

It is, therefore, in the national interest that this tension should be relaxed, if possible, without further delay.

(5) A petition of this kind is, by its very nature, bound to be replete with self-adulation. I hope and trust that, in the circumstances, this is excusable. It is in this hope and trust that I assert that my colleagues and I have the qualifications and capacity to render invaluable services to our people and fatherland. Every day that we spend in prison, therefore, must be regarded as TWENTY-FOUR UNFORGIVING HOURS OF TRULY VALUABLE SERVICES LOST TO OUR YOUNG COUNTRY. Even my most inveterate enemies have given the following testimony about me: ‘AWOLOWO HAS STILL A GREAT DEAL TO GIVE TO THIS COUNTRY.’

No country however advanced and civilised can afford to waste any of its talents, be they ever so small. Nigeria is too young to bury some of her talents as she was compelled to do under the old regime.

It is within your power to restore my colleagues and me to a position where our fatherland can again rejoice at the contributions which we are capable of making to its progress, welfare and happiness.

(6) Nigeria is now SIXTY-SIX MONTHS old as an independent State. The final phase in the struggle for Nigeria’s independence was initiated by my Party in the historic Self-Government motion moved by Chief Anthony Enahoro and supported by me on 31st March, 1953. IT SHOULD BE REGARDED AS MORE THAN IRONICAL, AND AS PALPABLY TRAGIC, THAT TWO OF THE ARCHITECTS OF THAT INDEPENDENCE AND, INDEED, THE PACE-SETTERS AND ACCELERATORS OF ITS FINAL PHASE SHOULD BE UNFREE IN A FREE NIGERIA.

In precise terms, I have spent FORTY-SIX out of the SIXTY-SIX MONTHS of independence in one form of confinement or another. I happened to know that the leaders of the old civilian regime, in spite of themselves, did not feel quite easy in their conscience about the plight into which they had manoeuvred me in the scheme of things; and I dare to express the hope and belief that you, personally view my present confinement with concern and disapproval.

(7) It is usual — almost invariably the case — on the accession of a revolutionary regime, for political prisoners and, indeed, other prisoners of some note, to be released as a mark of disapproval of some of the doings of the old regime, or in token of the new dawn of freedom which comes in the wake of the new regime.

It would be invidious to quote unspecific instances. But in the case of my colleagues and myself, by courageously and adamantly opposing the evils which your regime now denounces in the former civilian administration, I think we are perfectly justified if we expect you to regard us as being in tune with your yearnings and aspirations for Nigeria, and therefore entitled to our personal freedoms under your dispensation.

4. In view of the foregoing reasons which clearly demonstrate

(i) that I have always and, under trying circumstances, steadfastly and unyieldingly

(a) stood for the UNITY OF NIGERIA,
(b) been opposed to POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM with its attendant evils,
(c) fostered the growth of DEMOCRACY in Nigeria;

(ii) that my incarceration

(a) has led to the heightening of political tension among Nigerians, which tension can only be relaxed by my release,
(b) has deprived our fatherland of invaluable services such as we have rendered before, and can still render now and in future, in greater measure; and

(iii) that the evils which my colleagues and I condemned and valiantly refused to compromise with in the old civilian government are what you now quite rightly denounce, and are taking active steps to remove in order to pave the way for national and beneficial reconstruction,

I most sincerely appeal to you to be good enough to exercise, in favour of myself and my colleagues, the prerogative of mercy vested in you by Section 10 (I) (i) (a) of the Constitution of the Federation Act 1963, by granting me as well as each of my colleagues A FREE PARDON. If you do, your action will be most warmly, heartily, and popularly applauded at home and abroad, and you will go down to history as soldier, statesmen, and humanitarian.

Yours truly,
OBAFEMI AWOLOWO


A. THOSE CONVICTED FOR TREASONABLE FELONY

1. THOSE STILL SERVING THEIR TERMS

1. Chief Obafemi Awolowo
2. Chief Anthony Enahoro
3. Mr. Lateef K. Jakande
4. Mr. Dapo Omisade
5. Mr. S.A. Onitiri
6. Mr. Gabby Sasore
7. Mr. Sunday Ebietoma
8. Mr. U.I. Nwaobiala

2. THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY SERVED THEIR TERMS

1. Mr. S.A. Otubanjo
2. Mr. S.J. Umoren
3. Mr. S. Oyesile

B. THOSE WHO HAVE NOT YET BEEN TRIED

1. Mr. S.G. Ikoku
2. Mr. Ayo Adebanjo
3. Mr. James Aluko

Of a Nation, Her Weeping Leaders & Complacent Followers

My first reaction to the above picture was of immense sadness, for the President. I really did feel for him after all, aren't we all human? However, my anger against the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan led administration which was in repose mode reactivated itself. Indeed, I was not alone as comments on the above picture on my Facebook page shows. People are angry and deservedly so. Now, I have had conversations with different people and exchanged opinions on the culpability (or otherwise) of the President in the DANA Air tragedy that befell the nation. So monumental was (is) the proportion of this loss that people across the length and breadth of the country couldn't but shed tears at the grief evoked by such misfortune.

"How is this Jonathan's fault?" I have been asked. And my response has remained that I do not think, and never thought, he was personally responsible. But for crying out loud every buck stops at his table! For heaven's sake, he is the President. Every success and failure recorded during his time in office will be credited to his name because he is responsible for this country; therefore, I fail to get it when people try to exonerate him of inefficiencies he should be accountable for. If members of his cabinet are not living up to the expectations of Nigerians then it could be that there is a lack of communication between the President and his ministers on his vision for Nigeria. And by this I mean that either Mr. President has not effectively told his henchmen what his transformation agenda is really about or they misunderstood him. On a second thought however, transformations have been going on no doubt: prices of goods and services are at an all time high without commensurate quality; security of lives is at its ebb; infrastructures are dilapidated and worst of all, public trust has been eroded. Some transformation definitely!

In this case, he appointed Ms. Stella Oduah as Minister of Aviation and the Agency (NCAA) that certifies air crafts to fly fall under her purview. With all the emanating reports relating to the state of health of the 0992, MC Donnell Douglas (MD 83) from staff of DANA Air, it means that while our dear Minister was supposed to be ensuring that all agencies under her ministry discharged their duties diligently and effectively, she was at loggerheads with British Airways and Virgin Atlantic over their high fare of first class tickets in Nigeria in contrast with other African countries. She went chasing shadows and gave room for some unscrupulous elements to mess up with the substance of her Ministry. Maybe the aftermath of the fuel subsidy scam gives other public officers the impetus do as they wish. After all, is the Minister for Petroleum Resources not in office till date in spite of a damning probe report? Why should anyone act responsibly? President Goodluck Jonathan might not be a Pharaoh or a lion or even a General, but he is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and it is high time he sees himself in that light and starts acting it!

After the crash, Ms. Oduah was reported to have cried (I didn't see that as weeping or crying) but I wasn't moved. True air accidents occur everywhere but there's a very marked difference between an accident and the consequence of a negligent act. An act that claimed over 160 lives! Putting many more into permanent grief; creating vacuums that will never be filled.

Next were the President's tears. Hmmm. Wasn't that how a certain Minister cried on Lagos-Ore-Benin Express-way on August 6 2007 when she visited the road and saw the dilapidated state? Hasn't the road claimed lives in their hundreds since then? We are tired of weeping leaders. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying leaders should become robots devoid of emotions; God forbid! What I am saying is that we should not get carried away forgetting the antecedents of our leaders.

And how about the rest of us? We forget so easily; scratching all of our problems on the surface and never getting to the root of any. Someone summarised our attitude thus: "All their indifference and mad obsession with their own self interest will ultimately come to haunt them. A lack of integrity in all sectors of their life means that all processes are compromised. Police lending out guns, doctors operating for the sake of the costs associated with it, government official selling free donated drugs meant for the poor, fake medicines being made, no emergency response because contracts awarded and looted! Teachers selling exam papers, people importing fake fuel! Soon, their building will be falling, bridges will collapse and yet they will still continue to smile and praise themselves for being able to navigate this hell they have created for themselves! After the Dana crash, I listened to them, not a statement about the ills that have created this crisis, not a single appreciation of the scale of the social ill that engulfs them! Tomorrow they will all go about their normal lives, cheating, lying and looting! Come friday/sunday, they will pray for the deceased and in particular that they themselves do not enter a plane destined to crash!" How true! How so chilling true!! Deeply religious we are, and yes, we must pray because God himself is in charge of all the affairs of man. But we need to realise that God blesses our actions. Or isn't it instructive that two-third of His name (go) is an action word? 

The DANA Air mishap has happened and is in the past. But we must fight collectively to ensure justice is done. And this goes beyond suspending DANA Air's operating license. Everyone found culpable in this criminal act has to be punished. Will this bring back the dead? No. But the essence of any punishment isn't to undo the past but to assuage the feelings of the bereaved while serving as deterrent to others. In addition, I believe a good number of us have read the report on Air Nigeria. We need to call on government to order a thorough examination of all air crafts on operating locally and sieve the wheat from the chaff. We should not go back to business as usual. Every one of us must wake up from this deep slumber. We cannot continue to haul criticism at government while sitting tight on our behinds. We can, have to and must do something to change our world in whatever little capacity we have. Everyone of us must in the words of Michael Jackson, think of the change we want, take a look at ourselves in the mirror and start the change process with the man/woman we see.

May God bless us all, keep us from evil and grant us the wisdom (and all it will take) to rebuild our nation. So long folks, be kind! xoxo