SSS probes Buhari over poll violence   Written by Nuruddeen M. Abdallah  The sources said the thinking in government is that there is a discernible link between Buhari’s speeches on the hustings and the election violence that trailed the presidential election. Buhari lost the election to Jonathan, but as soon as the results were announced violence flared up in about 10 states in the North. Government officials alleged Buhari’s insistence that voters should guard their votes had encouraged people to go on rampage as soon as it was announced that Jonathan had won the election. But Buhari and his party, the Congress for Democratic Change, had since dismissed the claim, saying that some prominent religious figures as well as the head of the electoral commission Professor Attahiru Jega had also asked voters to guard their votes. Daily Trust learnt that the investigation by the SSS began a few months ago and it had taken undercover agents to some electronic media organisations asking for Buhari’s campaign speeches and jingles. At least one of the electronic media organizations had declined to oblige the request, according to our sources. The request was then routed through one of the regulatory agencies, but it was not clear whether it was obliged. One television station, which co-incidently aired most of the CPC presidential candidate’s campaign rallies and jingles, reportedly turned down the security outfit’s demand, citing “ethical reasons.” Daily Trust also learnt that at the same time a parallel search for Buhari’s campaign tapes were going on by a group of lawyers in Abuja. They were going about inquiring from journalists how they could lay hands on such footages. At least four journalists confirmed they were approached and asked if they possess any recordings of Buhari’ campaign tapes, and if not whether they could ask around for them. But the lawyers couldn’t succeed with them. One of the journalists consulted by these lawyers told Daily Trust that the lawyers approached him recently requesting him to provide them with “some of the tapes of Buhari campaigns, particularly in the northern part of the country where he made inciting statements.” “One of the lawyers who approached me said that some of his colleagues are planning to drag Buhari to court over the recent bomb blasts and general insecurity in the country. They therefore wanted me to provide them with the tapes where the CPC presidential candidate made inciting statements, urging his supporters to resort to violence if the elections were rigged,” the journalist said. The source added that the lawyers were also ready to pay some tangible amount of money “for the service he would provide.” He told Daily Trust that they were ready to pay any amount “provided he would give them the tapes and even serve as a witness when the trial resumes.” SSS spokesperson Marylyn Ogar did not respond when Daily Trust called to get her comment on the matter. Questions sent to her phone on October 8 on the issues were also not answered. When Daily Trust contacted Buhari, his close aide confirmed that the CPC leader is aware of the plot. “The General has received some report over the SSS plot to implicate him,” the aide who spoke in confidence said. “Buhari is not bothered about what they are doing because all his campaign speeches were not made in secret; they were publicly made. Therefore, he has nothing to fear about whoever is investigating his political speeches,” the aide said. |
Monday, 5 December 2011
| 100,000 policemen carry handbags for wives of moneybags *Police Service Commission boss laments Written by Chris Agbambu, Abuja Wednesday, October 19, 2011 IT has been revealed that out of the 330,000 police staff strength, over 100,000 are attached to individuals, to be carrying handbags for their wives.
The chairman, Police Service Commission (PSC), DIG Parry Osayande (retd), who made the revelation on Tuesday while addressing the Senate Committee on Police Affairs, said that it was regrettable that only 230,000 policemen were left to police 150 million Nigerians. According to him, "are these 150 million Nigerians supposed not to be protected, if only a few fortunate individuals are being protected by over 100,000 policemen?" The chairman said that he had made it clear on several occasions that a special force be trained to serve as guards, because the use of policemen for that purpose had become a status symbol. He said that the police required surgical operation for the nation to get what it deserved. On his own part, the Deputy Senate Leader, Abdul Ningi, said that it was unacceptable that over 100,000 policemen were attached to a few individuals, leaving other Nigerians to their fate. He admonished the commission to rise up to its responsibility of repositioning the force, as its function was constitutionally provided and must not be usurped by anybody. Speaking further on the way forward for the Nigeria Police, Osayande noted that Nigerians had waited long enough to have a police force that would meet their aspirations, adding that even though government had commenced the reform of the police through the implementation of the government's White Paper on the MD Yusufu Presidential Committee, not much of its impact had been seen. On the factors militating against the force, the chairman named misuse, misapplication of available resources and lack of accountability through award of bogus contracts and outright diversion and misappropriation of the meagre resources. Also, he attributed failure to plan and lack of vision as some of the problems confronting the force. The chairman disclosed that corruption had assumed a great dimension and seemed to have been institutionalised, as some of the officers and men who engaged in the practice had been found to collude with and, sometimes, shield criminals, rather than prevent crimes. Some policemen, according to him, had been found to facilitate the escape of criminals from lawful custody, obtain money from suspects for closure of case files or to derail the cause of justice, escort contraband, steal from suspects and accident victims and supply police weapons and uniforms to criminals. |
From:
To:
"Eddy Ogunbor" <eddyogunbor@yahoo.com>
PDP playing dirty politics - Dan SuleimanWritten by Abbas Jimoh Saturday, 13 August 2011 00:00 Air Commodore Dan Suleiman, (rtd) a member of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and had been a member of Gen. Murtala Muhammed’s Supreme Military Council and also a former military governor of Plateau State. In this interview in Abuja, he says that it is wrong to zone the PDPs national chairmanship post to North East on religious basis. He also complained about his exclusion from the BOT’s meetings. Excerpts. As a founding member and a member of the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT), why are you not attending BOT meetings? This issue of BOT is very painful to me because I am one of the founding fathers of the party and the BOT. I have been a regular member of the party and a constant attendant before I went to Moscow. But since I came back from Moscow, I have discovered that I have not been welcomed to the BOT. When did you come back? I came back July 2010. I attempted to attend two of the Board of Trustees meetings and to my surprise, I found that the meetings are now being held in the villa rather than in Transcorp Hilton which used to be the venue of our meetings before I travelled to Moscow and invitations are no longer extended to people as it use to be. When Jerry Gana was the secretary of the BOT, he will write to you as a member of the BOT to invite you to the meeting, giving you the date, the venue and the agenda of the meeting; but these days, I discovered they mainly announce it through the media and you will find your way there. So, whenever I got there to enter the venue of the meeting, they will embarrass me by saying that my name is not on the list of those invited. When that happened twice, I said I will no longer disgrace myself. So, I wrote a letter of complaint to the then PDP national chairman through our North East zonal chairman, Paul Wapama, I did not get any response. This is why I fail to attend because I don’t want to be embarrassed by going to the meeting where I will be told that I am not invited when I am a founding member and nobody has charged me with any offence. The only thing that kept me away from the BOT meetings for four years was when I was serving my country in Moscow. Having come back, I thought I will be welcomed back. I have seen others who served in the past, especially people in my own state as Ambassadors and came back and joined the flow of the BOT meetings. Did you also reach out to the national leadership of the party rather than reach out to only the North East zonal chairman of the party? Yes, that is the best thing to do, through the zonal chairman. I wrote through him. I have made calls to the BOT secretary, Abdullahi Adamu, the former governor of Nasarawa State asking him why this error. He said that my name was not on the list of those handed to him when he assumed office as secretary of the BOT. That is how far I have gone. Well, the secretary himself told me that he has realized the same problem. Why do you think this is happening? I think it is some of the dirty politics that they are playing in the party. If you are a person who speaks your mind, what the people do is to set you up. I discovered that I was not the only one but at that time, anybody who was vocal among the BOT members was excluded from the meetings. The day I went there, I found that there are other members who were standing outside after being asked to stay aside for clearance. So, we waited for about an hour or so. When the clearance was not forthcoming, we left. I don’t think I am the only one who was targeted. I remember that even Bamanga Tukur complained to me once that he was excluded from meetings. So, from the ugly political manipulations, they weed out those whose voices are considered to be either hostile or too critical. Now that the PDP is set to elect the national chairman of the party, which has been zoned to the North East, your zone, are you interested in vying for the post? Two things arise from the question. First of all, it is being resolved to let the North East have the slot because if you are looking at the present dispensation, the North East don’t have any top post. The zone’s top post have been the SGF before, now it has been shifted to the South East. So the North East deserves that post. To me, I think the idea of zoning it to the North East is very much in order but there is a lacuna here. I didn’t attend the National Working Committee’s (NWC) last meeting but I heard that the decision was taken that the position of the chairman of the party is expected to be zoned to a muslim. If that is correct and if that is the case, then it is a very dangerous precedent and I reject that in all its totality when you begin to zone party offices on religious basis, then we are treading on dangerous ground. That is why I have objection to that provision if it exists. I believe there are christians as well as muslims who are eminently qualified and eligible in the North East to run for the post of the chairman of the party. There should be a level playing ground and everybody who is qualified whether a muslim or christian should be allowed by the PDP to run for the post and not to restrict to it to a particular place. Are you gunning for the post? No, I am not interested in the post. I was once a chairman of a party, the UPP. It was the UPP that merged to form the PDP that is how I became a member of the BOT. Let them resolve the fear first of all, not necessarily me, but I will tell you I know people both christians and muslims who are competent. What is your take on the six year tenure? Let me tell you something, the idea is a good idea. This idea of a single term, as far as I am concerned as a person, I think is something that I would have supported at a given time, I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. In fact, it is going to help resolve the problem of election malpractice concerning incumbency. However, what is wrong is the way it was presented. The idea shouldn’t have come direct from Mr. President at this time that is why it is creating suspicion. There should have been a tactical way of bringing those issues to the public and so that the public now creates it and then it will become a national consensus from there, the president will take up the matter. I think it would have carried some weight and will now have less acrimony. I believe in the idea if it is well articulated, presented and taken to the National Assembly because at the National Assembly, the elected representatives will be there to listen to the debate. I support a single tenure to avoid these crises we are having in the states. How would you rate the performance of Governor Murtala Nyako? It has been dismal, Nyako himself claims that he has recorded successes since assuming office. If that is true, he should not be afraid of a free and fair elections, yet, he is the one perpetrating this idea of lopsided representation by handpicking people to various posts, that is not good. Chairmen of local governments who were duly elected, Nyako’s administration has been arranging their disengagement by removing them arbitrarily and imposing candidates, is that true good governance? |
Insecurity: ‘Government mismanaged US security report on Nigeria’Written by Seyi Gesinde Sunday, 23 October 2011 The security report, as purportedly released by the United States during the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, had predicted that “Nigeria will collapse as a sovereign state by the year 2015.” But speaking against government’s insensitivity to the report, the Adamawa State governor, Admiral Murtala Nyako, was quoted to have frowned at the manner by which the Federal Government handled the situation, by an online news medium, The Will, while addressing journalists recently in Adamawa. He wondered why government did not further probe into the situation. Nyako was also quoted to have supported the appointment of three separate Accountant Generals of the Federation, instead of only one that manages the country’s treasury. According to him, aside the one managing the federal account, he said there should have been one to manage state governments’ account, one for the local government. “You know, I was not happy the way we handled the situation. “If your friend says you are in trouble, you are entitled to ask him why he says so. Now if the U.S thinks we may disintegrate by the year 2015, for me, being positive about is more helpful. “I may ask them why they think we may disintegrate by 2015 and the assistance they could give us to make sure that we remain one country especially when they think it is in their own interest and the interest of all of us that we remain one country. “Now, definitely we are in difficulties in terms of economic activities which to some degree have adversely affected our wellbeing and security,” Nyako was quoted to have said. He was quoted as saying that in his state, Adamawa, government would reshape the situation of things. “In Adamawa here, I believe that the stage we are as of now is that we are in very good shape, I believe by the year 2015 we are going to be even a better state than we are now. “We are going to begin to create wealth from the various activities we have embarked upon in agriculture in particular and indirectly through the skills acquisition facilities we have created. “So I am very optimistic and whenever I attend the meeting of governors, I think the governors have realised that we have a big task before us to secure the nation, and our individual states. I am very happy that our president is also aware that the Federal Government has a lot of responsibilities in this regard and also needs the support of the state governors. “The president has been giving a listening ear to the governors in their need for support to make sure they do a better job. “I believe that we will, like somebody said, be in very good shape and better position to deal with our circumstances in the future leading up to the year 2015 and be better than we are today. “I think the warning is good; it has given the sensible ones the time to examine what they are doing and make amends to make sure that we and our people understand the challenges our modernising society is facing. “We are not the only ones facing these difficulties. Europe is facing huge difficulties, and you can see the financial situations they have to deal with now, “Nyako said. |
The Problem With Nigeria Is You And Me!By Prince Charles Dickson Nigeria, ideally is one of the best places to live in, it is not a Police State like so-called Western Democracies. In Nigeria I can urinate anywhere and not get fined or arrested, I can get a ladder and climb the electricity poles and effect a change of power phases, that is if the problem is not from the nearby power transformer which anybody can repair with dry wood. For a government that prides itself in placing transformation as its agenda and keeps spending billions for power it is interesting to see how there is no improvement, it is equally mind boggling and baffling that the available power supply is not paid for by both government and the governed including me. Many persons for good reasons had seen in Jonathan nothing but good luck including you and me, an opportunity for a reawakening despite the roguery and treachery of the PDP. A lot of us had lost hope in the system, the structure, the leadership, but with each passing day, it is becoming obvious that Nigeria may be just an empty plastic cup, to light to hold a cup of coffee cold or hot, because the problem is you and me. I voted because he was South-South, he was Christian, was Niger Delta, he had a smile, for millions like me and you who never had met him, he seemed a nice guy--well quite early in the morning we are living witness to the result, from labour strikes to expected subsidies and a deteriorating state of security. I am writing this essay about us because lately I have discovered that I have tried hard to write nice stuffs about leadership, but that is a hard ask, I criticize a lot and hardly give solutions, my reason, simple, there are enough solutions to Nigeria's multi-dimensional problems, enough to fill an American Congressional Library. Until I am ready, until you are ready, the solutions would remain utopian. I have watched us being reminded of the successes of far Malaysia and lately nearby Ghana, a success that was championed and achieved simply because of purposeful leadership, a leadership and people that have collectively gone about bringing economic prosperity, industrial strength, intellectual pride and dynamism. Unfortunately I am part of a circus, of both leadership and citizenry. A new Nigeria cannot unfold, with fast paced infrastructural development, rapid push in human resource development, healthcare delivery, when of the approximately 150,000 graduates expected out this year, only 4% possess a chance of a job, with time the remaining 96% slowly became an unemployable lot with redundant qualifications and no form of entrepreneurial educational, is it not easy to see how we are part of the problem. Today's Nigeria, lacks education, health and development with all the wealth, we are breeding terrorists, frustrated young men, sad mothers, senior citizens that daily curse the nation because we have refused to give them their dues, children without a hope for the future in light of public school utilities. The Nigerian big man makes a law, those wanting to be Nigerian or already big men proceeds immediately to look for a way to break the law; he explores loopholes and escape clauses, like the Immunity clause used for stealing. Ordinary Citizens would do it their own way, they will jump queues on no-excuse, they will do u-turns on an expressway, stop in the middle of the road to say hello to a long lost friend without parking. How can I say I am not the problem, when in power I love affluence and will do anything to stay put. In religious matters, I fake it; in business, my cheques bounce. In the civil service forget the noise of 'servicom', files get missing and only re-appear when you, and I mean you reading this is given the right price. The pain of this essay, is we know that we are the problem and rightly so too, but how about the Nigerians in their millions that want to be good for the right reasons. Those Nigerians, not easily understood because they will not give bribes, all their actions are in line with tradition, society's good norms and rationality. They largely are old now, although a few young ones and most times reside in rural areas, though a few stay in urban areas. They are generally good and untribalized, they believe in the principles of live and let live. These Nigerians are neither the bottom power women nor the moneybag men like you and me. They strive daily to remain patriotic and committed to the Nigerian dream despite the reality, they are disciplined and are hardworking, and they battle the stark reality that as patient dogs they may never have any bone left. These set of Nigerians suffer the Nigerian experiment because of the larger majority's inability to curb greed, inability for me and you to be fair and rational towards other peoples perspectives, opinions, positions and interests. My continuous inability to make sacrifices for the common good, and your unwillingness to respect our institutions means that if others do not stand as a people and resolve to fight for what rightly belongs to Nigeria, the problem with Nigeria will continue. Time will tell. |
Biggest Scandal In Oil “Subsidy Removal” Fraud By Farooq A. Kperogi But there is an even more treacherous scandal in this “oil subsidy” scam that the Nigerian national media is either not aware of or has chosen to ignore. Two weeks ago, when I compared fuel prices amongoil-producing nations of the world and showed that Nigerians pay the highest price for petrol even though they receive the lowest minimum wage among their peers, I actually did a gross disservice to my argument. The situation is a lot worse than that. I will come back to this point shortly. I pointed out that the petrol I use for my car in America burns A LOT SLOWER than the one I use when I visit Nigeria, meaning that, at the current rate, Nigerians (with a miserable minimum wage of N7,000 per month or about $45 per month— against America’s over N180,000 minimum wage per month) actually pay more than or about equal to Americans for petrol. It takes a remarkably heartless person to ignore this heartrending fact. But that’s an issue for another day. A Nigerian online citizen investigator who goes by the handle “Viscount” revealed on a Nigerian Internet discussion forum recently that Nigerians not only pay the highest price for fuel in OPEC; they also consume the worst imaginable grade of petrol among oil-producing countries. That means comparing fuel prices between Nigeria and other oil-producing countries—or even countries in Europe and North America— is actually like comparing apples and oranges. These countries not only pay considerably lower prices than us for high-quality petrol, Nigerians have been paying unconscionably high prices for toxic fuel for the past 12 years, as you will see shortly. And they will pay even more for it next year. If this is not sufficient reason to give up everything and “occupy” Nigeria until the oppressors are brought to a standstill, I don’t know what is. At the center of the tragic importation of toxic petroleum products into Nigeria—and other West African nations— is an Amsterdam-based multinational company called Trafigura. Keep that name in mind as you read this. Many Nigerians know that the fuel they consume domestically isn’t derived from the crude oil their country exports. They also know that they have one of the world’s best and finest quality of crude oil. What many of them don’t know is that the cabal of rapacious oil importers that the Jonathan administration—and the administrations that preceded him—mollycoddle with “subsidies” actually import toxic, low-quality oil that is not fit for consumption in Europe or North America—or in any society that cares for the welfare of its citizens. In 2010, a group of journalists from the UK, Norway, and the Netherlands won a prestigious international journalism award for a series of investigative reports they did on Trafigura’s barbarous dumping of toxic petroleum waste on Cote d’Ivoire. The waste killed scores of people and sickened thousands more. In July 2010, an Amsterdam court found the company guilty and fined it 1 million euros. (The caustic petroleum residues were dumped on Cote d’Ivoire on July 2, 2006). But this wasn't a one-off occurrence. It's been happening for over a decade. So, ordinary Nigerians are being forced to use their hard-earned money to buy inordinately overpriced and demonstrably harmful petroleum products. Yet the Nigerian government says this isn’t bad enough; it wants to increase fuel prices again next year. And the government has no plans to repair our refineries so that we can refine our own crude domestically and bring down the cost of petrol. But the bigger scandal is that in January this year, the Jonathan administration signed a multi-billion-dollar annual contract with the same Trafigura of toxic fuel dumping infamy. And there was no due process in the award of the contract. According to Business Day of January 4, 2011, “Under the agreement with the Nigerian government, Trafigura is expected to pick up Nigerian crude oil and in return, supply her with refined products; but it is unclear why the firm, which has supplied refined products to Nigeria in the last 12 years, was favoured for the deal. “Trafigura agreed to an annual contract with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on the basis of taking 60,000 barrels of crude oil per day in exchange for refined products such as gasoline and gas oil of equivalent value estimated at around $3 billion a year.” An oil industry expert who spoke to Business Day said just “$1 billion of the amount would have put the four refineries in proper shape.” When I wrote two weeks ago that Nigerians were faced with a choice between death and life, I didn’t even know about all these. I am going to leave the reader with “Viscount”’s parting thoughts: “Nigeria will give Trafigura (confirmed supplier of bad petrol), 60, 000 barrels of oil per day in exchange for their mega tonnes of DEADLY-sulphurous petrol! Yep, Jonathan's government is paying a foreign company to systematically KILL Nigerians. And poor Nigerians are being asked to be happy jare! “So, Nigerians, when your brand new Tokunbo engine knocks - just like that, thank Trafigura! When your I-better-pass-my-neighbour generator's fume smells funny and leaves a film like Casper the Ghost - just like that, thank Trafigura! When you are walking in Lagos, or any other Nigeria [city], and you are experiencing a choking sensation from the mundane act of breathing in - just like that, thank Trafigura! Nigeria!” |
Regime change and popular disaffection
By Tatalo Alamu
In most of Africa, peaceful regime changes are so infrequent that violent seizures of power or loss of hegemony by a particular faction of the ruling class often appear like revolutionary upheavals. By the time the storm clears and the din of contention recedes, it is obvious that nothing has changed, or that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Whereas in advance democracies with durable and well-developed institutional mechanism for regime change, fundamental changes in societies often appear normal and routine developments.
Just about a century or so ago, it would have been unthinkable for a female to accede to the reins of power in leading western countries. Yet today, and barely a century after adult suffragette was extended to women, you have female leaders firmly in pole position in several western countries. Britain had earlier elected the tough no-nonsense Margaret Thatcher. America, a deeply conservative and thoroughly patriarchal country despite grandstanding to the contrary, has had three female Secretaries of State in quick succession, namely Maidelene Albright, Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton. In 2008, the USA elected its first black president ahead of a female president.
Despite deeply entrenched vested interests against change, institutional mechanisms that facilitate peaceful changes allow these countries to experience revolutionary changes without revolutionary upheavals. In most of Africa, on the other hand, the absence or weaknesses of these institutional changes often lead to violent ruptures or even a temporary collapse of the state when it comes to a mere transfer of power from one faction of the ruling class to another.
In Liberia, the two Congos, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Burundi, Cote D’Ivoire, Uganda, Angola and many others, elections that ought to have heralded peaceful change led to civil wars and a calamitous collapse of the state. In Nigeria after the debacle of the June 12 1993 presidential election when the dominant military faction refused to hand over power to the legitimate winner, it took some intricate elite pacting and the Obasanjo Settlement to effect a transfer of power from the military to a pan-Nigerian civilian coalition.
As this column never tires of preaching, elections do not resolve national questions. In fact, they often worsen and exacerbate the national question, leading to a dramatic resurgence of ethnic, regional and religious polarities. Despite being hailed as relatively and reasonably free and fair, the 2011 presidential election would appear to have worsened intra-elite contention for power in Nigeria and its nuclear fall-out. Never in its modern history has the country appeared more spectacularly adrift and rudderless. There is an upswing of national disaffection on a scale that has never been seen before. Once again, the storms are gathering. This is the time for the political elite to put on their thinking cap.
Yet despite sharing in the continental aberration of non-democratic elections, Nigeria remains a unique and perplexing paradox. In the last presidential election, power appears to have been prised away from a power cartel that has held the nation hostage either directly or by sly proxy since independence. Goodluck Jonathan’s mandate appeared to have been divinely ordained; a darkly mysterious intervention in the body politic and a pan-Nigerian resurrection of the great national dream. It spoke to the possibility of a new beginning if a famously “shoeless” boy from the tidal backwater of Otueke could accede so effortlessly to the Nigerian imperial presidency.
Ordinarily, this ought to have greatly warmed the heart. It ought to have strengthened our collective resolve for a new beginning. We have been looking for signs and signals of that new beginning, of a great stirring of the huge black behemoth. Alas, it has turned out to be a backbreaking mirage; a damp squib that suffers a huge disconnect from the great yearning of the Nigerian multitude. Apart from its profound symbolic possibility, the Jonathan presidency is turning out to be a continuation of the past by other means.
Because it was ordered from above through the instrumentality of state power and its coercive machinery, because it was a product of a manufactured elite consensus rather than a genuine national rupture of the old order, what we thought was a peaceful revolution has turned out to be nothing more than a mere revolt by an ascendant faction of the ruling class. In the event, we have been saddled with a mere change of personnel rather a change in the personality of the post-colonial state. Some will even aver that that will do for now.
Part of the problem stems from the fact that many voted for Jonathan for different and mutually exclusive reasons. In the restive riverine enclave which has been clamouring for resource control and power shift based on the ownership of a mono-cultural economy, Jonathan enjoyed the home-boy advantage.
The west gave him a tactical nod in order to give the “auld” northern enemy a historic black eye. But it hedged its bet by giving complete power to a party campaigning for regional autonomy and the resuscitation of the old federalism and the fiercely competitive spirit which drove change and innovation up to the demise of the First Republic. The east played the traditional good boy naively and opportunistically hoping that this good gesture will guarantee its eventual turn at the till.
The north was fissured, fractured and fragmented down the line. While the masses were obviously yearning for change powered and driven by one of their own, the traditional power barons, outsmarted at their own game of divide and rule, outfoxed on their own natural turf, lapsed into a surly bewilderment and bitter misgiving which has continued till date.
Rather than a genuine national consensus, this was the cocktail of contradictions that has borne the Jonathan presidency aloft and may yet shipwreck it. It requires a sober rectitude, tactical astuteness and strategic brilliance to plot one’s way out of the labyrinthine maze of conflicting and conflicted passions. But for a man who has found himself in a great foxhole, Jonathan has continued to dig in with frenetic fury. Apart from a series of unforced errors, Jonathan has been helped along in his perilous misadventure by a string of inexperienced advisers and the stony resolve of the general who will be democratic president.
Enter the tall ramrod war-lord with the aristocratic forbearance of his Fulani forebears. In certain moments of history and in the tumultuous flow and ebb of vital events, a particular exceptional individual may incarnate the contradictions of the age to an unusual degree. No other contemporary personality encapsulates or emblematizes the paradox of the contemporary Nigerian situation and the dilemmas of democracy more than the taciturn and ascetic former infantry general. His short spell as military dictator was distinguished by its draconian measures and the sheer ferocity of the effort to turn Nigeria to the path of rectitude.
Riding on the crest of popular revulsion with politics and politicians, the general did not even bother with a programme for the return of civil rule throughout his tenure. Even after he was kicked out in a palace coup masterminded by his Chief of Army Staff, Buhari has never publicly expressed any remorse over that seeming lacunae. If this abiding contempt for politics and politicians is his sterling strength, it is also the source of his undoing as a contemporary political figure.
It is a perplexing irony that it is an unabashed former military autocrat who has done most to deepen the democratic process and to return sovereignty to the Nigerian electorate in the Fourth Republic. Buhari’s quest for the Nigerian presidency has become the stuff of fabled legends. In fact it has become the general’s odyssey and far more intriguing than his military exploits on Chadian territory or the battle fields of the Nigerian civil war.
General Buhari has already bested Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s record appearance at the presidential polls. He has also been at the Appellate Court to overturn presidential verdicts more than any other Nigerian living or dead. In the process, he has helped to deepen the judicial process and gifted the judiciary with some landmark dissenting judgements, particularly Oguntade in 2007 and the brilliant minority judgement of 2003.
Slowly and imperceptibly, General Buhari has also transformed from a military dictator to a cult political figure particularly among the northern masses who view him as the messiah in waiting and the equivalent of the mythical twelfth imam. For a man who is not gifted in the elocution department and who disdains oratory as sheer fraudulent rhetoric, this is no mean achievement. For the old northern political class and its diminished power masters, the fear of Buhari is the beginning of wisdom.
Snooper has had the opportunity of watching and interacting with the general at close quarters. One cannot but be impressed by his stark simplicity and sincerity of purpose and the patriotic fervour that underlines every statement of his. There is an incandescent rage about the plight of Nigeria and its people. If only Buhari can lay his hands at the scoundrels.
But there is also a misdirected piety; a puritanical self-righteousness which sits oddly with a politician and which is touching in its idyllic and idealistic naivete. This leads to a mental, professional, ideological and spiritual blockage which prevents the general from seeing the total picture as it is and not as it ought to be. Politics is the art of the possible. The paradox is that General Buhari is a non-professional politician. In the murky jungle of Nigerian politics, that is as short as a suicide note can get.
In the light of this, it is a bit rich for the Federal Executive Council to attempt to prevail on General Buhari not to seek redress at the Supreme Court. This is a classic case of chutzpah. It is reminiscent of the man who has murdered his parents asking the court to set him free on the grounds that he is an orphan. Where were they when the judicial stakes were being openly manipulated and deliberately rigged in favour of a preferred outcome? This column warned then that the removal of Justice Ayo Salami from the Appellate would strip the judgement of any legitimacy and authority. This is precisely what has happened.
It is feeble and futile at this point to ask General Buhari to act in the greater national interest when the temporary and transient custodians of the same national interest act in a way and manner that threaten national interest. This is either cynicism gone haywire or some idle postprandial rap. Of course it is obvious that the dour and impassive general would treat the appeal with stony and affronted contempt.
But having said that, it is now time for General Buhari to take political, spiritual and ideological stock of the struggle for the democratic emancipation of Nigeria and his own signal and sterling role in this. As a tested general, he should know that there is no point fighting a new battle with old weapons. All over the world, the adjudication of presidential electoral disputes is rigged beforehand in favour of the status quo. Luckily for Nigeria, this is not an ethnic, religious or regional affair but a pure class act.
The protocol of judicial elders who adjudicate in these matters belongs to a caste within a class. Their revered lordships may frown and scowl but they are also not disposed to disrupting an on-going party. In any case, it is standard practice in boxing adjudication that to dethrone a reigning heavyweight, you not only have to beat him, you have to beat him up. If General Buhari’s sole ambition is to enrich the judicial process, he can continue with his quest for justice but out there in the real power canvas, the PDP will have to be beaten silly before it agrees to go home punchdrunk.
Luckily Jonathan is providing ample ammunition to the enemy on that front with ill-judged anti-people policies and his flagrant misreading of the national mood. But first Buhari’s party will have to put its own house in order. This is bound to be time-consuming and energy-sapping. As it is, the CPC is neither cohesive nor coherent. It is a mass-action movement gone haywire.
The masses may vote en-masse all right, but they lack the discipline and organization to see this through. Once the vote-counters appear to shortchange them, they desert in droves to look for petrol cans or burn their voters’ card in a ritual act of electoral suicide and political self-immolation. This was what happened in the north the last time which allowed the PDP to claw its way back into contention in a suspect and suspicious manner.
A period of sober strategic reflection is now imperative for the much-admired general. To start with, the CPC will have to break out of its regional and ethnic cocoon to become an authentic national platform. In the absence of that, the party will have to cut the much detested deal with other opposition parties. If the general finds the wheeling and dealing, the shabby horse-trading so customary of contemporary Nigerian politics too dishonorable, too disreputable and too demeaning for his puritanical mind-set, it may be time to yield place and become the Mathama Ghandi of his movement. Here is wishing Mohammadu Buhari many more years of patriotic service to the fatherland.
By Tatalo Alamu
In most of Africa, peaceful regime changes are so infrequent that violent seizures of power or loss of hegemony by a particular faction of the ruling class often appear like revolutionary upheavals. By the time the storm clears and the din of contention recedes, it is obvious that nothing has changed, or that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Whereas in advance democracies with durable and well-developed institutional mechanism for regime change, fundamental changes in societies often appear normal and routine developments.
Just about a century or so ago, it would have been unthinkable for a female to accede to the reins of power in leading western countries. Yet today, and barely a century after adult suffragette was extended to women, you have female leaders firmly in pole position in several western countries. Britain had earlier elected the tough no-nonsense Margaret Thatcher. America, a deeply conservative and thoroughly patriarchal country despite grandstanding to the contrary, has had three female Secretaries of State in quick succession, namely Maidelene Albright, Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton. In 2008, the USA elected its first black president ahead of a female president.
Despite deeply entrenched vested interests against change, institutional mechanisms that facilitate peaceful changes allow these countries to experience revolutionary changes without revolutionary upheavals. In most of Africa, on the other hand, the absence or weaknesses of these institutional changes often lead to violent ruptures or even a temporary collapse of the state when it comes to a mere transfer of power from one faction of the ruling class to another.
In Liberia, the two Congos, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Burundi, Cote D’Ivoire, Uganda, Angola and many others, elections that ought to have heralded peaceful change led to civil wars and a calamitous collapse of the state. In Nigeria after the debacle of the June 12 1993 presidential election when the dominant military faction refused to hand over power to the legitimate winner, it took some intricate elite pacting and the Obasanjo Settlement to effect a transfer of power from the military to a pan-Nigerian civilian coalition.
As this column never tires of preaching, elections do not resolve national questions. In fact, they often worsen and exacerbate the national question, leading to a dramatic resurgence of ethnic, regional and religious polarities. Despite being hailed as relatively and reasonably free and fair, the 2011 presidential election would appear to have worsened intra-elite contention for power in Nigeria and its nuclear fall-out. Never in its modern history has the country appeared more spectacularly adrift and rudderless. There is an upswing of national disaffection on a scale that has never been seen before. Once again, the storms are gathering. This is the time for the political elite to put on their thinking cap.
Yet despite sharing in the continental aberration of non-democratic elections, Nigeria remains a unique and perplexing paradox. In the last presidential election, power appears to have been prised away from a power cartel that has held the nation hostage either directly or by sly proxy since independence. Goodluck Jonathan’s mandate appeared to have been divinely ordained; a darkly mysterious intervention in the body politic and a pan-Nigerian resurrection of the great national dream. It spoke to the possibility of a new beginning if a famously “shoeless” boy from the tidal backwater of Otueke could accede so effortlessly to the Nigerian imperial presidency.
Ordinarily, this ought to have greatly warmed the heart. It ought to have strengthened our collective resolve for a new beginning. We have been looking for signs and signals of that new beginning, of a great stirring of the huge black behemoth. Alas, it has turned out to be a backbreaking mirage; a damp squib that suffers a huge disconnect from the great yearning of the Nigerian multitude. Apart from its profound symbolic possibility, the Jonathan presidency is turning out to be a continuation of the past by other means.
Because it was ordered from above through the instrumentality of state power and its coercive machinery, because it was a product of a manufactured elite consensus rather than a genuine national rupture of the old order, what we thought was a peaceful revolution has turned out to be nothing more than a mere revolt by an ascendant faction of the ruling class. In the event, we have been saddled with a mere change of personnel rather a change in the personality of the post-colonial state. Some will even aver that that will do for now.
Part of the problem stems from the fact that many voted for Jonathan for different and mutually exclusive reasons. In the restive riverine enclave which has been clamouring for resource control and power shift based on the ownership of a mono-cultural economy, Jonathan enjoyed the home-boy advantage.
The west gave him a tactical nod in order to give the “auld” northern enemy a historic black eye. But it hedged its bet by giving complete power to a party campaigning for regional autonomy and the resuscitation of the old federalism and the fiercely competitive spirit which drove change and innovation up to the demise of the First Republic. The east played the traditional good boy naively and opportunistically hoping that this good gesture will guarantee its eventual turn at the till.
The north was fissured, fractured and fragmented down the line. While the masses were obviously yearning for change powered and driven by one of their own, the traditional power barons, outsmarted at their own game of divide and rule, outfoxed on their own natural turf, lapsed into a surly bewilderment and bitter misgiving which has continued till date.
Rather than a genuine national consensus, this was the cocktail of contradictions that has borne the Jonathan presidency aloft and may yet shipwreck it. It requires a sober rectitude, tactical astuteness and strategic brilliance to plot one’s way out of the labyrinthine maze of conflicting and conflicted passions. But for a man who has found himself in a great foxhole, Jonathan has continued to dig in with frenetic fury. Apart from a series of unforced errors, Jonathan has been helped along in his perilous misadventure by a string of inexperienced advisers and the stony resolve of the general who will be democratic president.
Enter the tall ramrod war-lord with the aristocratic forbearance of his Fulani forebears. In certain moments of history and in the tumultuous flow and ebb of vital events, a particular exceptional individual may incarnate the contradictions of the age to an unusual degree. No other contemporary personality encapsulates or emblematizes the paradox of the contemporary Nigerian situation and the dilemmas of democracy more than the taciturn and ascetic former infantry general. His short spell as military dictator was distinguished by its draconian measures and the sheer ferocity of the effort to turn Nigeria to the path of rectitude.
Riding on the crest of popular revulsion with politics and politicians, the general did not even bother with a programme for the return of civil rule throughout his tenure. Even after he was kicked out in a palace coup masterminded by his Chief of Army Staff, Buhari has never publicly expressed any remorse over that seeming lacunae. If this abiding contempt for politics and politicians is his sterling strength, it is also the source of his undoing as a contemporary political figure.
It is a perplexing irony that it is an unabashed former military autocrat who has done most to deepen the democratic process and to return sovereignty to the Nigerian electorate in the Fourth Republic. Buhari’s quest for the Nigerian presidency has become the stuff of fabled legends. In fact it has become the general’s odyssey and far more intriguing than his military exploits on Chadian territory or the battle fields of the Nigerian civil war.
General Buhari has already bested Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s record appearance at the presidential polls. He has also been at the Appellate Court to overturn presidential verdicts more than any other Nigerian living or dead. In the process, he has helped to deepen the judicial process and gifted the judiciary with some landmark dissenting judgements, particularly Oguntade in 2007 and the brilliant minority judgement of 2003.
Slowly and imperceptibly, General Buhari has also transformed from a military dictator to a cult political figure particularly among the northern masses who view him as the messiah in waiting and the equivalent of the mythical twelfth imam. For a man who is not gifted in the elocution department and who disdains oratory as sheer fraudulent rhetoric, this is no mean achievement. For the old northern political class and its diminished power masters, the fear of Buhari is the beginning of wisdom.
Snooper has had the opportunity of watching and interacting with the general at close quarters. One cannot but be impressed by his stark simplicity and sincerity of purpose and the patriotic fervour that underlines every statement of his. There is an incandescent rage about the plight of Nigeria and its people. If only Buhari can lay his hands at the scoundrels.
But there is also a misdirected piety; a puritanical self-righteousness which sits oddly with a politician and which is touching in its idyllic and idealistic naivete. This leads to a mental, professional, ideological and spiritual blockage which prevents the general from seeing the total picture as it is and not as it ought to be. Politics is the art of the possible. The paradox is that General Buhari is a non-professional politician. In the murky jungle of Nigerian politics, that is as short as a suicide note can get.
In the light of this, it is a bit rich for the Federal Executive Council to attempt to prevail on General Buhari not to seek redress at the Supreme Court. This is a classic case of chutzpah. It is reminiscent of the man who has murdered his parents asking the court to set him free on the grounds that he is an orphan. Where were they when the judicial stakes were being openly manipulated and deliberately rigged in favour of a preferred outcome? This column warned then that the removal of Justice Ayo Salami from the Appellate would strip the judgement of any legitimacy and authority. This is precisely what has happened.
It is feeble and futile at this point to ask General Buhari to act in the greater national interest when the temporary and transient custodians of the same national interest act in a way and manner that threaten national interest. This is either cynicism gone haywire or some idle postprandial rap. Of course it is obvious that the dour and impassive general would treat the appeal with stony and affronted contempt.
But having said that, it is now time for General Buhari to take political, spiritual and ideological stock of the struggle for the democratic emancipation of Nigeria and his own signal and sterling role in this. As a tested general, he should know that there is no point fighting a new battle with old weapons. All over the world, the adjudication of presidential electoral disputes is rigged beforehand in favour of the status quo. Luckily for Nigeria, this is not an ethnic, religious or regional affair but a pure class act.
The protocol of judicial elders who adjudicate in these matters belongs to a caste within a class. Their revered lordships may frown and scowl but they are also not disposed to disrupting an on-going party. In any case, it is standard practice in boxing adjudication that to dethrone a reigning heavyweight, you not only have to beat him, you have to beat him up. If General Buhari’s sole ambition is to enrich the judicial process, he can continue with his quest for justice but out there in the real power canvas, the PDP will have to be beaten silly before it agrees to go home punchdrunk.
Luckily Jonathan is providing ample ammunition to the enemy on that front with ill-judged anti-people policies and his flagrant misreading of the national mood. But first Buhari’s party will have to put its own house in order. This is bound to be time-consuming and energy-sapping. As it is, the CPC is neither cohesive nor coherent. It is a mass-action movement gone haywire.
The masses may vote en-masse all right, but they lack the discipline and organization to see this through. Once the vote-counters appear to shortchange them, they desert in droves to look for petrol cans or burn their voters’ card in a ritual act of electoral suicide and political self-immolation. This was what happened in the north the last time which allowed the PDP to claw its way back into contention in a suspect and suspicious manner.
A period of sober strategic reflection is now imperative for the much-admired general. To start with, the CPC will have to break out of its regional and ethnic cocoon to become an authentic national platform. In the absence of that, the party will have to cut the much detested deal with other opposition parties. If the general finds the wheeling and dealing, the shabby horse-trading so customary of contemporary Nigerian politics too dishonorable, too disreputable and too demeaning for his puritanical mind-set, it may be time to yield place and become the Mathama Ghandi of his movement. Here is wishing Mohammadu Buhari many more years of patriotic service to the fatherland.
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