PDP "Broke" As Governors Turn Backs On Bamanga Tukur.

PDP chairman, Bamanga Tukur during the last PDP convention in Abuja.

 

By SaharaReporters, New York

Several sources at the headquarters of the Peoples Democratic Party have described the party as close to broke.

One source, who is a founding member of the party, told SaharaReporters that the poor state of the PDP’s finances forced officials to shelve any plans to organize a formal celebration of the 14th anniversary of the party’s existence.

Two of our sources attributed the party’s financial woes to a decision by several PDP governors to turn their backs on the Bamanga Tukur-led National Working Committee of the party. “Many of our governors are paying back President Goodluck Jonathan for imposing Dr. Bamanga Tukur as the national chairman,” said one source.

A member of the party’s NWC who spoke to our correspondent disclosed that he and his colleagues have been grumbling over the non-availability of funds to prosecute the party’s activities and programs.

“It is even difficult to receive their salaries,” said the source. Members of the party’s NWC had in June unilaterally fixed their salaries at scales that many governors reportedly criticized for being excessive. The NWC had fixed Mr. Tukur’s monthly salary at N2 million or approximately $15000. In addition, the deputy national chairman, Sam Jaja, was allocated N1.7 million per month; and the national secretary, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, N1.5 million per month.
Several other members of the National Working Committee were awarded salaries of N1.2 million each. Apart from Messrs Tukur, Jaja and Oyinlola, the party has 9 other persons as members of the NWC.
Our source within the NWC revealed that members now depend on cash gifts from a few friendly governors. “There are some governors who pay courtesy visits to the party headquarters once in a while, and they usually give us some funds,” said the NWC source.
The source cited the example of Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State who visited the party headquarters on Wednesday. He stated that Mr. Suswam gave some cash to party officials.

Our sources disclosed that the party’s cash flow crisis had rendered the party incapable of meeting numerous financial obligations to other organizations, including media houses.

Our correspondent learnt that the party had not been able to pay media houses which carried the obituary of its former National Youth Leader, Muyiwa Collins.  Mr. Collins died on Wednesday, January 12, 2011.

One source revealed that many party leaders were also unhappy with President Jonathan for setting up pseudo-groups that are unknown to the party’s constitution. “Mr. President has set up such alternative groups as Neighbor to Neighbor, Door to Door, as well as other pro- Jonathan/Sambo groups. The source said party officials at the Abuja headquarters were distraught that the president and vice president were now using these mushroom groups to pursue their political interests.

“We have never had it so bad,” said one official, a member of the NWC. He added, “Things are so bad to the extent that we cannot even party salaries of workers as and when due. It is indeed terrible.”

Poor leadership, cause of insecurity – Buhari.

Kabiru Dogon Daji.

inShare

General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd)

The presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), in 2011 general election, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), has attributed the prevailing insecurity situation in the country to injustice, bribery and corruption caused by poor leadership.

He made this assertion while addressing a mammoth crowd at the Halliru Abdu Stadium in Birnin Kebbi, the Kebbi state capital, where he flagged off campaigns for the local government election in the state slated for September 15, 2012.

According to him, governments at all levels were not living up to expectations because they have instituted corruption to be the order of the day which, he claimed, was responsible for the present predicament bedeviling the nation.

He added that unless something serious was done to avert the menace, “it is disheartening to note that corruption has killed every sector of the economy, especially in the petroleum sector that we now imports the commodity from other oil producing countries which clearly shows a sign of failure.”

He, however, called on CPC loyalists in the state to vote for the party in the forthcoming council election and to ensure their votes count.

Buhari, who presented the party flags to 16 chairmanship candidates of the party in the scheduled local council election, enjoined them to mobilise their supporters to ensure the party emerged victorious in the election.

Earlier, receiving the 2011 CPC presidential candidate at the Birnin Kebbi Government House, the state acting governor, Alhaji Ibrahim K. Aliyu, had thanked Buhari for the visit and assured that the state government has provided an enabling environment for all political parties participating in the poll.

The Imperative Of Unity Among Opposition Parties.

GARBA ALIYU USMAN.

By It is not enough for the opposition parties in Nigeria to seek to displace the ruling PDP in 2015 without doing the necessary ground work and building strategies to achieve that tough objective. No ruling party gives up power on a platter of gold, which makes the job harder for the opposition.
Entrenched in power for 14 years and enjoying the advantage of incumbency, do the opposition parties expect the PDP people to lower their guards and allow them take power just like that? As Bola Ahmed Tinubu of ACN once reminded General Buhari, the perceived disenchantment with the PDP is not automatically enough to remove the party from power unless the opposition parties work hard and work out good strategies to achieve the objective.
One of the onerous challenges facing the opposition parties is internal unity. The Congress for  Progressive Change (CPC) made a formidable start in 2010 and instantly became popular among the ordinary Nigerians. Unfortunately, however, the party’s national leaders introduced unpopular policies, such as the substitution and imposition of candidates which is currently the main cause of the bitter internal crisis facing the party.
Since the end of the 2011 general elections, the CPC leaders have been battling with the challenge of rebuilding and re-uniting the party. These efforts require sincerity and respect for internal democracy. Party members and supporters are still angry at the unjust policy of the imposition and substitution of candidates.
As a mark of commitment to unity, the party leadership should officially discard the policy of imposing candidates and disrespecting the choice of voters at the primaries. The CPC should not take unity for granted in order to effectively confront the PDP in 2015.
Despite these worries, one is however impressed by the recent show of unity among CPC supporters in Kano State last week when the party’s presidential candidate in 2011 general elections, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, came to open the party’s head office in Kano.
Putting behind the bitterness of 2011, the party’s gubernatorial aspirant, Mohammed Abacha mobilised his supporters to welcome General Buhari to the event. In fact, the crowd was so huge that the General couldn’t find the space to come down from his car to carry out the event that brought him to Kano. He had to commission the office from his car because of the surging crowd that overwhelmed his vehicle.
Many people have openly hailed Mohammed Abacha for his commitment to the unity of the CPC. He is a pragmatic politician who believes that the unity of the party is greater than the ambition of any individual member. In fact, the mammoth crowd that turned up to receive General Buhari was a real sign of reconciliation and solidarity among CPC supporters in Kano State. The massive mobilisation of his supporters to welcome General Buhari demonstrates Mohammed Abacha’s unwavering loyalty to the party.
Commitment to a political party doesn’t end with the conclusion of elections. Mohammed Abacha is not like those politicians that desert their party once they lost the election and join the party in power for personal relevance and survival. If he was aspiring to be a governor in 2011 for personal gain, Abacha would have left CPC to join the winning party.
He didn’t do so because he joined the CPC with the firm conviction that it is a people-oriented party for change. At the opening at the party’s secretariat in Kano, the evidence of Mohammed Abacha’s popularity dominated the scene with chants of songs of solidarity with him. His popularity among the people was unmistakable even to the casual observer.
With many opposition parties, including APGA, crying out that the ruling PDP is allegedly behind their internal division, the event in Kano should serve as a starting point for CPC unity. Many of those who thought that Mohammed Abacha had parted ways with the party because of the way he was treated in 2011 must now be disappointed because their prediction fell flat.
The scale on which Mohammed mobilised his supporters to welcome General Buhari is a revelation to those seeking to capitalise on the internal division in the CPC to destroy it. What happened in Kano was a significant message to the ruling party that the CPC supporters and members are determined to stand together and bounce back.
It is, however, important at this point to remind the CPC national leaders that they must never rest on their oars until all factions and chapters of the party across the country are reconciled and re-united. They must reach out to Mohammed Abacha and embrace him. No political party should isolate and antagonise members and leaders with formidable grassroots support.
Mohammed Abacha has proved his detractors wrong that he is an opportunistic politician. If he was, he would have done what Senator Adamu Aliero did in Kebbi State by abandoning the CPC and going back to PDP for political survival. Abacha took his own initiative to mobilise his supporters to welcome General Buhari with open arms.
There were rumours that Mohammed Abacha and General Buhari were not on speaking terms. The event in Kano, however, had put to rest such insinuation. Despite the unfortunate events of 2011, Mohammed Abacha has always held General Buhari in high esteem. He regards the General as a father and therefore, no good son could have remained angry with his father without ultimately reconciling with him.
As the CPC prepares for the 2015 election, the party leaders should learn lessons from past mistakes. The people should be allowed to choose their own candidates at all levels. Imposition and substitution of candidates is inconsistent with democratic principles. The outcomes of primaries must be respected provided the elections are free and fair.
Party leaders have no business tampering with the results of elections to favour their own aspirants. In fact, as a party aspiring to be a better alternative to the ruling PDP, the CPC should set the highest standard of internal democracy by allowing justice, fairplay and a level playing field to prevail.

The Horizon By Kayode Komolafe.

Kayode.Komolafe@thisdaylive.com.

A Return to Malabo

Some alumni of  the University Calabar recently returned to their alma mater in a journey that was suffused with both nostalgia and projection. That was no surprise given the purpose of the gathering: the occasion was organised by the university to honour just a few of its many accomplished former students located in different parts of the world. These alumni were appointed Goodwill Ambassadors. The idea itself is a product of a synergy of purpose between the university management and the alumni association under the leadership of the energetic Kennedy Dike. Always exuding enthusiasm when discussing the progress of the university, Dike has explained that the goodwill ambassadors and indeed all alumni are expected“ to project the image of the university positively and also use their  positions to attract funding and projects to our alma mater”.   

The grand reception and awards were reasonably preceded by a tour of the campus in which the vice chancellor, Professor James Epoke, and other members of the university management laid bare the developmental problems and prospects of the institution. In sum,  the alumni saw on ground challenges in the form  a number of projects begging for actualisation or completion  such as the proposed complexes for the faculties of law, engineering and education. They also saw progress as Unical has since moved from being a campus of the University of Nigeria in 1975 with 500 students receiving tertiary education in the premises of the Duke Town secondary school.  The university began awarding its own degrees in 1980. Now, with over 32, 000 students in nine faculties and 54 departments the university has indeed come of age.

There are in addition three institutes and three directorates. In fact, a brand new campus has been built with new lecture theatres, auditorium, laboratories and an ultra-modern library equipped with digital facilities. The ICT Directorate ensures Internet services in every part of the campus including the halls of residence. With a large expanse of land still available for construction despite recent encroachment, the university still promises to be one of the most beautifully located campuses in the country. In a power-point presentation during the lunch the deputy vice chancellor (academic), Professor Austin Obiekezie, told the alumni that the geographical location offers “opportunities and challenges”. As Obiekezie, who was the first Ph.D. candidate of the university, reminded his audience in his presentation aptly entitled “Unical: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”, the campus is “one of the few to straddle a major river with direct access to the sea amid a lush mangrove habitat”.

For any visiting former student who was in Unical in the early days, a comparison of the campus today with the those days when a section of the campus was named Malabo is inevitable. By the  way, the name Malabo was given by the students  to the section of the campus where three of the male halls of residence, the refectory and the students’ union building were located. The name, a protest of sorts, was borrowed from Equatorial Guinea, the central African country whose capital is called Malabo. With a population of fewer that 700,000 and daily production of over 360 barrels of crude oil, the tiny country has the highest Gross National Income per capital in Africa. Yet, 70% of the population lives below the poverty level.

In fact, in the 1970s, the condition in the country ( especially the plantation workers)  was that of excruciating poverty largely caused by  the plundering of the national wealth by a dictator. The name Malabo was, therefore, the students’ way of capturing the physical deprivations they encountered in the early days. Hence, male students and alumni are called Malabites and the female ones, Malabresses. So, as the alumni made that journey back to their former school, they knew they were not just visiting the exceptionally neat and serene city of Calabar again, they were indeed seeing Malabo after many years. 

The good news is that unlike the real Malabo in Equatorial Guinea that corruption and neo-colonial exploitation has stultified its development, the Malabo in Calabar has good products to show for its years of transformation. From the period of the pioneer vice chancellor and   the eminent historian, Professor Emmanuel Ayankanmi Ayandele, to the current Professor Epoke, a measure of progress is undeniable. This was evident in the warmth with which Epoke received the alumni.

More significantly, the progress could be measured by the quality of the university’s products represented by the following goodwill ambassadors: Chief Godswill Akpabio, Governor Akwa Ibom State; Barr. Efiok Cobham, Deputy Governor, Cross River State; Senator Ita Enang, Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business; Senator Bassey E. Otu, Chairman Senate Committee on Banking. Senator Victor Ndoma Egba SAN, Senate Leader, National Assembly; Mr. Ita Ekpenyong, Director-General, State Security Service; Hon. John Owan Enoh, member, House of Representatives; Hon. Dr (Mrs) Rose Okoji Oko, Member, House of Representatives; His Eminence, Dr. Sunday Ola Makinde, Prelate, Methodist Church of Nigeria; Udom Inoyo, Executive Director, Mobil Producing Nigeria and In-country HR Manager; Dr. Reuben Abati; Special Assistant on Media & Publicity to the President; Ekpo Una Owo Nta, Chairman, ICPC; Dr. A.B.C Orjiako, Chairman Ordrec Group; Barr (Mrs) Mfon Usoro, former DG, NIMASA.

Others are Rt. Hon. Bright Omokhdion, former Speaker, Edo State House of Assembly and Chairman, Board of Trustees UNICAL Alumni Association; Chief Joe Agi SAN, first Malabite to be elevated to the position of Senior Advocate of Nigeria; Hon. John Kennedy Opara, Executive Secretary, Nigeria Christians Pilgrims Commission; Dr. Barclays Ayakroma, Executive Secretary, Nigeria Institute of Cultural Orientation; Dr. (Mrs) Anthonia Ekpa, Director, Monitoring & Evaluation, Federal Ministry of Water Resources; Prof. Hillary Inyang, Duke Distinguished Professor of Environmental Engineering and Science, Professor of Earth Science and Director of the Global Institute for Energy and Environmental Systems at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte (he is currently the President of the International Society for Environmental Geotechnology (ISEG) and the Global Alliance for Disaster Reduction (GADR)); Chief Charles Okon, Corporate Security Services Manager, Nigeria LNG Ltd; Sunny Akpan, Finance & Administrative Manager, Catering International & Services, Siera Leone and Hon. Justice Emmanuel Akomoye Agim ORG, Chief Justice of The Gambia, Judge of the Supreme Court of Swaziland.

Also honoured are Stephanie Okereke, Actress, Director and Nollywood Producer; Keppy Bassey Ekpenyong, Actor, producer and movie director; Dr. (Mrs) Christy Atako, Director, Community & Rural Development, NDDC; Ibanga Akadi Udofia, HR Manager, Deep Water Projects, Shell Petroleum Development Company; John Odey, former Minister, Ministry of Environment; E.C Osondu, Professor of English, Rhode Island University, USA; Emem Isong, Screenwriter, Movie Producer/Director; Dr. Sam Amadi, Chairman, Nigeria Electricty Regulatory Council (NERC); Hon. Justice Franklin Edem, Ebonyi State Judiciary, Abakaliki; Hon. Justice M.E Njoku, Judge, Customary Court of Appeal Imo State Judiciary; Sir. Chika Chiejina, Chairman/CEO, Savannah Suites Group; Odigha Odigha, Chairman, Cross River Forestry Commission, and this reporter.

Not all the goodwill ambassadors were able to make the investiture. Senator Enang who responded on behalf of the awardees asked all alumni to work for the progress in their different locations in life. It is also remarkable that the awardees represented different periods in the history of the institution. For instance, one awardee was born 30 years ago when another one, this reporter, graduated from the university in the third set.

From the available facts, the above is just a tiny representation of distinguished men and women in different spheres of life who passed through Malabo. This  invariably compels some deep reflections about the quality of education in public educational institutions and the lingering question of funding. Doubtless, the Uncial story is a proof   that public educational institutions have produced quality graduates.  The debate on the funding of tertiary education in particular will  certainly continue. Unfortunately, in this debate the voice of those rationalising the failure of government to fund education is louder.

It is as if only private institutions, where education is now treated as any other  commodity, is the only sure source of quality education. For the majority of those in need of university but who could not afford the prohibitive fees in the private institutions, public schools will still remain the answer. A former colleague at THISDAY, who is now the Ogun state Commissioner for Information, Yusuph Olaniyonu, used to raise issues on this page about the need for former students to go back to their alma mater and see how they could help improve the condition of the schools. The moral challenge for graduates of public schools, especially those in position of power, is how to ensure that the conditions of the schools are such that their own children could make  a choice of applying for admission into those schools. 

In this regard, the resourceful step taken by Unical to attract the contributions of the alumni  to the development of the university should be welcome. As the alumni who made the journey back to Malabo observed, the university is in dire need of huge investment of funds to ensure production of quality graduates like those making waves in the public and private sectors today.

Presidential Persecution Complex.

The Verdict according to Olusegun Adeniyi. 

Without conducting a poll or a content analysis, Dr Goodluck Jonathan has declared himself the most criticized president in the world. That I guess is what he is being told by some favour-seeking politicians and ‘media consultants’. But from experience I know why the people who peddle those tales to the president do so: one, to make his media managers look bad; two, to bring in their own men if possible; and three, to make money. Before I however conclude on what President Jonathan’s real problem is, I want to share my experience with the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on this same issue.

In my first year working for him, I was aware that many people were telling my late principal how his efforts were not appreciated by Nigerians because of media opposition. Both the Minister of Information, Mr John Odey, and myself were blamed for this situation. These were, however, mere whispering campaigns until the day I got a document from the president directing me and Odey to read before meeting with him to discuss it. The document in question was a media strategy paper from one of the aides retained from the President Olusegun Obasanjo era. Even though the man wrote that it was strictly a secret paper, the president forwarded copies to myself and Odey.

The paper brought to the fore the challenges I faced and which I think any serious journalist in government would face. My understanding of an effective media strategy was for government to address the issues critics were raising and that was the approach I adopted which my late principal appreciated even though there was also pressure on him that by not “fighting back”, I was not showing enough commitment to his administration. This was the same argument advanced in the ten-page paper which the author apparently never imagined would come back to me.

The “foundation” to the submission, according to the man, centered on the fact that “Nigeria is today being led by a visionary, self-less and committed leader but how many Nigerians know about him or his vision? Whereas government has done so much and achieved positive results in so short a time, most of the achievements are not known to the public and other critical constituencies, largely because of the barrage of negative press coming out of the Nigerian and international media—both in hardcopies of Nigerian newspapers and other internet media.”

According to the official who incidentally was brought to the villa by Obasanjo, and is a Yorubaman, a good media manager should be able to sell Yar’Adua’s “gentle mien and approach (dialogue and consensus building) in contrasts to President Obasanjo’s aggressive and combative approach” aside Yar’Adua’s “personal integrity and simplicity which Nigerian masses can identify with and the ambitious vision 20-20-20 can be positively projected for maximum redefining.”

After the long preamble, the official now recommended a Media and Information Management Team which would require “co-option of good writers drawn from editors of Nigerian newspapers” to be domiciled in his office! There were other recommendations that would require huge capital outlay for both domestic and international propaganda.

When I got a copy of this paper with a directive that myself, Odey and the man should meet with him (Yar’Adua) four days later, I could not contain my anger as I sent a memo back to the president that same day. I am reproducing excerpts from my memo which underscores my own understanding of what I consider to be the role of a journalist in government.

“I have received an invitation to a meeting with Your Excellency on Monday with an accompanying document on ‘Media and Information Management’ and I hasten to say that the meeting is not only unnecessary, the motive behind it is unfortunate. I wish to inform Your Excellency that the so-called strategy paper is a rehash of an eight million Dollar proposal from a consultant promoted by…to me upon assuming office last year but which I turned down because I believed then, and even more so now, that that is not the way to go.

“While I will in a separate paper counter each of the false assumptions which inform the conclusion that there is information management deficit, I wish to reiterate my stand that on balance, this government and indeed President Yar’Adua has a relatively fair media image. While it can be better, the approach being proposed is unnecessary, wasteful and will at the end be counterproductive.

“This ridiculous idea of selective newspaper cuttings (of negative media news reports or articles) to the president has a purpose: either to portray me as incompetent or create the image of a media siege so that some consultants (and necessarily huge resources) can be deployed to combat this exaggerated problem. While some people can bring in ‘experts’ who they assume have the magic wand to ensure that the media begin to celebrate the president and the government without any criticism, the problem is that the only beneficiaries of such self-deluding enterprise are the consultants and their promoters, not the president or the government.

“Your Excellency, I scan the Nigerian media everyday and I also do same for American and British media and I am aware our media is not as cynical and contemptuous of their government and the man in power as the British or American media. While some people have issues with the style of government, there is still a general perception that the president is a man of integrity and has his plan but rather slow in his approach. Because some key issues like power emergency/Niger Delta Summit/Infrastructure are yet to be resolved, I am aware of current media challenge. But I also know that this can be an advantage because when the media create low expectations, as they do now, results will be easy to see and appreciate as it would ultimately happen in this instance. On the other hand, when you pump the people up with expensive media propaganda, then you create problem when results don’t match expectations…”

After reading my memo, President Yar’Adua cancelled the meeting earlier called and just directed that myself, Odey and the man should iron out the issue. Not surprisingly, the man felt so small at our meeting chaired by Odey and three weeks later, he was sacked by the president. But it would not be the end of the intrigues I would survive in the villa nor of the constant bombardment of the president with insinuation that the media was his problem.

Now that President Jonathan is also facing a barrage of criticism, he has promised to be “the most praised president” by 2013. If I understand that statement clearly, what it means is that the critics are justified because the president has not met their expectations and that by next year, his performance would have been such that they would begin to sing his praise. But we all know that is not what President Jonathan meant to convey. He feels he is being unfairly attacked by the media.

That, however, is not true. The fact is that the conventional media is not more critical of President Jonathan than his predecessors. The real problem this president is facing is from his social media “friends”, the crowd he carefully cultivated and set out to please as the first “Nigerian Facebook President”. Unfortunately, he ought to have been warned that the social media can cut both ways. So if he in 2010 enjoyed public adulation at the expense of the “Yar’Adua cabal”, it is naïve not to understand that he is playing in a jungle where rumour peddling, hate mongering, bitter retorts, malicious gossips and innuendoes are also fair games.

It is, however, patently dishonest for his handlers to argue that those who criticize or hurl personal abuse at the president do so because he is from Niger Delta (or whatever other ridiculous reasons being invented). No, it is because he is the president of Nigeria while his implacable traducers even enjoy attacking him for the simple reason that he has made them to know that they are getting to him.

What makes the situation so pathetic is that those close to the president refuse to locate when the real problem began, especially with regards to genuine supporters who now feel disappointed. It all started in January following the sudden withdrawal of fuel subsidy on the first day of the year. Not only was the timing inauspicious (with many still in their villages) there was also the question of trust since government officials had announced that the policy (which by the way I wholeheartedly endorse) would not commence until the second quarter of the year.

To compound the situation, revelations began to come from the probe of fuel subsidy payments in 2011 of how billions (in Dollar) of public funds were practically shared by some unscrupulous marketers and their government collaborators, all under President Jonathan’s watch. Then, on a rare interview on national television which was watched by many Nigerians (at home and in the Diaspora), he angrily proclaimed that he doesn’t give a damn about what people feel on his refusal to publicly declare his assets. With all these, the president frittered away enormous goodwill though there is still time to make amends not with the critics but with the silent majority of Nigerians who only desire good leadership and appreciate genuine efforts.

What Dr Goodluck Jonathan must, however, come to terms with is that presidents don’t crave momentary applause as he seems to be doing; they target history. To his credit, the power situation has improved significantly but the things that would earn him enduring legacy in the sector (or in any other sector for that matter) are not necessarily decisions that would provoke instant praise. The way things are in Nigeria today, the president is like a man charged with leading an orchestra. To succeed, he must learn to back the crowd.

But here is the greater lesson for President Jonathan: Asked on Monday how he took actor Clint Eastwood’s bizarre attack on him (characterised by an empty chair) at the Republican Convention, President Barack Obama said: “One thing about being president or running for president—if you’re easily offended, you should probably choose another profession.”

In Memory of Gani Fawehinmi, Master Of The Rolls By Ogaga Ifowodo.

Gani Fawehinmi

On 5 September 2012, it will be three years since Gani Fawehinmi died of cancer and joined the ancestors. The void he left in our political life remains unfilled, for so large was his presence while he breathed.  The park at the Ojota area of Lagos named in his honour has since become Nigeria’s primary spot where the suffering masses gather to expose their wounds and protest their unrelieved oppression worsened by the staggering corruption of their so-called leaders. There is no doubt that every true patriot, every lover of freedom, democracy and good governance, mourns still the untimely departure of Fawehinmi.
On 8 September 2009, a slightly different version of the following tribute appeared in the defunct NEXT newspaper.  I republish it here in the light of the declining influence of lawyers and the Nigeria Bar Association in our public life.

The office of Master of the Rolls does not exist in Nigeria. And even if, given our stunning lack of self-belief, we had also copied that most British aspect of the administration of justice, the post could not have been held by Gani. Why then do I permit myself this allusion? Because I first “knew” Gani while a freshman law student. As virtually every Nigerian law student will testify, the late Lord Alfred Denning, Master of the Rolls, added something exhilarating to the rather staid and predictable study of law. And he personified the office in a way no predecessor or successor did. Denning’s many astounding, even if occasionally controversial, decisions had unprecedented impacts on the development of the common law. A man of great erudition, his writing style, more flexibly literary than rigidly legalistic, was cultivated for the purpose of simplifying the law in homage to the great dictum, Ubi jus, ibi remedium: for every wrong, the law provides a remedy. So dedicated to this principle, whether the plaintiff be a smug citizen or a harried immigrant, was he that Denning often wrote the dissenting opinion. He would even abdicate his seat on the House of Lords’ appellate division just so that the plaintiff might have one more chance of obtaining justice! Denning became known as “the people’s judge” and retired as perhaps the greatest jurist of his time. In the late Sapara Williams, Gani found the embodiment of this principle of the lawyer as the conscience of his society.

In Gani’s dogged commitment to the law as an instrument of social change, he became for me the master of the rolls, that is, keeper of the records of our travails. You could take this literally and point to his meticulous documentation of the decisions of our superior courts of record through the law publishing arm of his practice. Every judge and lawyer, whether friend or foe, would gladly admit that without Gani’s law reports and indexes legal practice today would be a portrait straight out of Charles Dickens’s Bleak House. To be sure, the courtrooms remain, by and large, owlish edifices that admit no light of day but for the illumination provided by Gani’s Weekly Law Reports and other publications. But that is hardly the half of my meaning.
The untrammelled reputation Gani enjoyed was as much a product of his forensic legal mind as of his role as the people’s plaintiff who filed countless suits to challenge the excesses of power. Yet, though he swore by constitutional means of struggle he saw clearly that “the mountains of costly nonsense” that emanate from the courtrooms could not be expected to break the yoke of tyranny, military or civilian. In filing case upon case, then, he merely sought to bring into the court of public opinion those high crimes and malfeasances that would otherwise be protected by secrecy. Inevitably, he embraced defiant political activism, too often in ways that alienated many natural allies, and offered his body as the notice board of the nation’s woes. In and out of prison, at certain periods more than he was in and out of the courtroom, his body bore in every tissue the whip and lash of our successive governments’ terrorism. I speak of Gani, then, as the embodiment of the rolls of wrongs that our self-appointed leaders have unrelentingly visited on us for five decades.

I said that I first met Gani as a law student and it is on that more personal note that I wish to end this brief tribute, too brief, alas, to be just to his greatness. In collaboration with Professor Itse Sagay, founding dean of law at the University of Benin, Gani had endowed an annual Justice Idigbe memorial lecture. Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, then still on the Supreme Court, had come to deliver the second lecture in the series. Imagine this for a starry-eyed law student, awakening to a social consciousness that bode no peace of mind if restricted to the complacent acquisition of knowledge and who wasn’t sure his future lay in law. The cast was assembled for me, you might say. Following my subsequent involvement in the student and democracy movements, I became a regular visitor to Gani’s Anthony Village chambers. I had managed to complete my studies, in any case, thanks to the legal precedent of fair hearing he had fought to establish on unshakable grounds in what would become the locus classicus on the subject: Garba & Ors vs University of Maiduguri. I recall now two visits in 1992 that helped in no small measure to resolve the conflict I was undergoing as to which to make a career: law or literature? On the first, I had gone to seek Gani’s counsel and help on my return from Makurdi after completing youth service. Counsel given, he wrote a check for N1000 to help me with the immediate need of furnishing the room Sagay had kindly given me rent free in the Boys Quarters of his chambers in Alaka Estate, Surulere. When on the second visit I presented a money-making venture that would purportedly help me to meet the costs of setting up practice, Gani chuckled and dismissed it out of hand. Then he looked at me and said, “Ogaga, you are a writer. I believe that is your true calling, not that of going to court everyday to nod and say, My Lord this, My Lord that. I think you should follow your heart’s desire.”

I didn’t get the loan I had asked for to underwrite my business venture, but what I got was validation of a sort that every budding writer needs. And it was even more valuable because we do not think of Gani in literary terms. If he could discern promise worth encouraging in my tenderfoot days, then I had just been handed a fatter cheque than he could have written. In this, too, Gani was a master of my personal rolls.

We ‘ll appoint new power, defence ministers in two weeks – Jonathan.

ABUJA—President Goodluck Jonathan said Wednesday  in Abuja he would forward names of replacements for ministers of defence and power immediately the Senate resumed from recess on September 22.
The President disclosed this at the inauguration of the reconstituted Presidential Action Committee on Power and Presidential Task Force on Power.
At the ceremony, Jonathan directed the Minister of State for Power, Mr Darius Ishaku, to take charge of the power ministry in the interim. He said it was important to reconstitute the two committees on power so that the achievement recorded in the sector would not relapse. The President set up the two bodies in 2010 to closely monitor and implement the Power Reform Agenda.

President Goodluck Jonathan addressing the Nation at The State House in Abuja. on Tuesday

The President said: “Definitely immediately the National Assembly comes back especially the Senate, we will clear the two vacancies that we have. They will get cleared and we will place people accordingly so that the Ministry of Power will come up.
“But, in the interim, the Minister of State Power is holding on to that. But whether the Minister of Power comes or not, we want to reconstitute the two teams because Nigerians will not be happy if we relapse and I believe that as we progress from now till December if Nigerians can go home in December and do their parties without generators and can drive to their States without gutters (potholes) on our roads stopping them, I think the rating of government will improve. So we must work hard to get to this level.”
Dagogo-Jack appointed as NIPP chairman
The President appointed, Mr Reynolds Dagogo-Jack of National Integrated Power Project, NIPP, as the Chairman of the reconstituted Presidential Task Force on Power.
The body was hitherto chaired by the former Minister of Power, Prof Barth Nnaji, who resigned his appointment on ground of conflict of interest.
“We have done it this way because, the other time when Nnaji was the Chairman, the secretary was my special adviser; so there was a lot of conflict between the two of them because they say two captains cannot drive a ship. This time around we just want one captain and others will work with him.”
Members of the task force include Messrs Rumundakaa Wonodi, Olusola Akinniranye and Abdulganiyu Umar, the managing directors and chief executive officers of Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Plc; Transmission Company of Nigeria; and Abuja Electricity Distribution Company respectively.
Others are Mr Paul Umunna and Mr Oladele Amoda, the chief executive officers of Ughelli Power Plc and Eko Electricity Distribution Company respectively, as well as the Managing Director of Niger Delta Power Holding Company, Mr James Olotu.
The MD of the Nigerian Gas Company, Mr Saidu Mohammed and the CEO of Geregu Power Plc, Mr Adeyemi Adenuga, are also members of the task force. The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Power, Dr Dere Awosika, will serve as the Secretary of the task force.
Meanwhile, the Presidential Action Committee on Power will be chaired by Jonathan with Vice President Namadi Sambo as Deputy Chairman. Members of the committee are the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Sen. Anyim Pius Anyim; the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Alhaji Ali Sali; and the Chief of Staff to the President, Mr Mike Oghiadome. The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Mohammed Adoke;  Minister of Finance, Dr, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; and Minister of Labour and Productivity, Mr Emeka Wogu, are members.
Some other members of the committee are Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezzani Allison Madueke; Minister of National Planning, Dr Shamsudeen Usman; and the Chief Economic Adviser to the President. The special adviser to the President on Performance Monitoring and Evaluation; the directors-general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises and Bureau of Public Procurement are also members of the committee.
Others are the Group Managing Director of NNPC and the Chairman of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission. It will be recalled that the President, on June 21, relieved the former Minister of Defence, Dr Haliru Bello of his appointment. The President is expected to name replacements for Haliru and Nnaji, who while in office, represented Kebbi and Enugu States in the cabinet respectively.

Vanguard.