SSS, police invade printing press over Aliyu 2015 presidential posters

by  Adelowo Oladipo

SECURITY operatives, at the early hours of Saturday, stormed a printing press where posters depicting the 2015 presidential ambition of the Niger State governor, Babangida Aliyu, were being printed.

Findings by Sunday Tribune revealed that acting on a tip-off,  a team of police and State Security Service (SSS) operatives had stormed the press where copies of the A3 size posters were wrapped and billed to be transported  to Abuja and other major towns in Niger State.

It was further gathered that the printing of the posters, believed to have been sponsored by a group known as the Concerned Citizens for Change & Transparency, had bold pictures of the governor with the logo of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The posters simply read “Vote for Change, Chief Servant Babangida Aliyu Mu’azu (Talba Minna) for Presidency 2015. Insha-Allah.”

In his reaction, Governor Aliyu,  at a one-day North Central geopolitical zone security awareness workshop, in Minna, on Saturday, distanced himself from the development.

Aliyu told the audience, which included high-ranking police officers, that he had not printed any poster in connection with the 2015 presidential election. He appealed that should such posters be found, security operatives should not hesitate in destroying them and to ensure the arrest of the sponsors.

He added that the sponsors of such posters did not mean well for the country but were only out to heat up the polity and cause disaffection between him, the party and the presidency.

 “If you see any poster depicting me running for presidency between now and June 2014, please don’t hesitate to remove it. People pick anyone and put posters about them just to cause tension in the country,” he said.

He recalled that he had to order the removal of similar posters of Governors Sule Lamido of Jigawa State and Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State that were placed at strategic spots in Minna, the Niger State capital recently.

He insisted that the time was not right for electioneering campaign ahead of the 2015 presidential election, just as he called for caution among the political class and their teeming followers.

“It is not time yet both in the timetable of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the PDP. It is not time for campaigns. I am not a hypothetical person. If God wants me to run for presidency in 2015, I won’t shy away from it. Please help me to remove any poster and report the person pasting it.  If possible, apprehend the individual,” he said.

NigerianTribune

REVEALED: How 2015 gov race fuelled Nasarawa killings •IGP orders Nasarawa leaders to fish out killers; police widows continue protest

by  Tayo Babarinde

MORE facts have emerged over the recent killings of security agents in Nasarawa State with reports indicating that that the battle for 2015 governorship between Governor Tanko Al-Makura and the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, was the motivating force behind the killings, counter-killings and violence in the state.

Investigation by Sunday Tribune revealed that the Ombatse group behind the killings and counter-killings is the front for the majority Nassarawa Eggon people who are bent on producing the next governor of the state, while the state governor represents the other ethnic population of the state bent on retaining the governorship in 2015.

While the Eggon are said to be consolidating their hold on the majority through the Ombatse group ahead of 2015, those opposed to their aspiration and sympathetic to the incumbent governor are reportedly scheming to weaken and destroy the group before the next elections.

The confrontation reportedly led to the police raid of Ombaste’s shrine located at Alogani village in late 2012, an event that ended peacefully and was followed by peaceful demonstrations by Eggon people across the state. It was gathered that the state governor was then barred from visiting the shrine.

Following last year’s raid, Sunday Tribune learnt that the pro-Muslim group and pro-Ombatse group had stepped up their scheming with the Ombatse group said to be gaining the upper hand while selling their son, Maku, as a replacement for Governor Al-Makura.

The situation was said have reached a climax in December 2012, when the leader of the Ombatse group, Zachary Zamani Allumag, a retired magistrate, opened up on developments in the state, blaming the tense inter-ethnic relations on plot to stop the Eggon people from claiming their right in the state’s politics.

According to him: “The reason there is serious animosity against the Ombatse group is simply that they are aware that we went to Azhili and prayed for the political landscape of Nasarawa State to change for good; and, indeed, it changed. Our prayer is working. As 2015 is approaching, we are aware that some people are planning to ensure the Eggon nation is dislodged from the political landscape of the state. So, they call us all kinds of names so that they can hang us.

“We also discovered that some politicians from Eggon nation, the like of Solomon Ewuga, now a serving senator, who aspired to be governor of the state, was rigged out by Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu, the first civilian governor during the PDP governorship primary election. As I am talking to you now, the result of that primary election has not been declared, apart from their simply saying Abdullahi Adamu won it. Nobody has told anybody what margin he won with.

“As if that was the end, when his government got to power, he conspired with other tribes in the state and brought up a policy he called the deployment policy. In other words, according him, all Eggon should leave wherever they are settled in the state to Nasarawa Eggon. A decision that was challenged and we went as far to the Supreme Court and the judgment was delivered April this year in our favour, declaring such directive as illegal.

“It was an infringement on the fundamental right of the Eggon people. They all know that the Eggon were on ground before whoever arrived in Nasarawa State. And now, you are the one telling us today that we should go to Nasarawa Eggon. I can assure you that no fewer than 20 of our people died as a result of resisting that policy and the hardship it created.” Sunday Tribune was told that all the ethnic undertones were captured in several security reports which allegedly suggested an attempt at ethnic cleansing by successive Muslim governors of the state.

NigerianTribune

Merger process is unstoppable – Buhari

Abuja – The National Leader of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), rtd. Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, said on Thursday that the merger process by opposition parties was unstoppable.

Buhari said this during the CPC Board of Trustee (BOT) meeting in Abuja, adding that it had also caught the imagination and attention of the nation.

The leader said that the party had launched its project for repositioning and pursuing the issue of merger.

“I have requested for and you approved the formation of a CPC Merger Committee to negotiate all issues pertaining to the merger and the holding of congresses in states run by caretaker committees, ” he said.

Buhari said that the party had adopted “direct primaries in elections and bio metric data card registration for party members”.

Others, he added, were the establishment of a secretariat to direct the work of the party’s legislators and empanelling of a Convention Committee.

According to him, the party has also begun the revamping of CPC propaganda machine, setting up proper accounting and auditing units and budget committee, among others.

He said the momentum and tempo that the merger developed had overtaken the work of some other committees created during its meeting.

He urged the merger committee, which concluded its assignment recently, to study the provision of the new APC constitution and determine whether it had adequate checks and balances in place.

Buhari advised the committee to consider the contents of the political association’s manifesto, to know if they were written in a way to facilitate the realisation of the mission of CPC.

He said the contents should also lead to the attainment of the goals the party had pencilled down for the people.

Buhari urged the committee to carefully read the options proposed for the transition management structure of the proposed party and choose which option would best satisfy the teeming supporters of the party.

The leader said that the conclusion on the work of the merger and convention committees would decide whether to pass the motion for the dissolution of the party (CPC).

On the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) before the National Assembly, Buhari said it was up to state assemblies to decide whether to accept and pass it as required by the constitution.

“I am very pleased that a number of governors have taken interest and are making their inputs into the review of PIB.”

CPC National Chairman, Prince Tony Momoh, said the All Progressive Change had no problem with its acronym, APC. 

Vanguard

Prologue: 2015: Delusional Omnipotence!

By Jide Ajani

First, just imagine:Abubakar Shekau, Kabiru Sokoto and Abu Qaqa stepping out of Aso Rock Presidential Villa after conferring with the President and Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria.  Mind you, these are leaders of the Jama’ atu Ahl-Sunnati Lil Da’awati Wal Jihad, also known as Boko Haram.  They have just met with Nigeria’s President of northern extraction.  This is year 2020.  Then imagine Qaqa, just a couple of weeks after meeting with Mr. President, coming out to threaten the country with chaos should that northern President not win a second term of office. Yet, that President carries on as if nothing is wrong; or nothing has happened.

Fast track to present day Nigeria!
Pessimists are still at a loss as to the type of legacy that President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan wishes to bequeath to the Nigerian people. Yet, optimists in his administration (read sycophants) tell the president that he remains the best thing that has ever happened to this country of over 150 million people.  For added effect, they tell him he is infallible – indeed, that he is omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient.

The real danger in all of this is that politicians never learn.
You would think they do but they don’t.
Especially in Nigeria!

Take, for instance, the man known as Matthew Okikiolakan Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo.  He was alive during the June 12 imbroglio.  He is a living witness to what has become of another individual, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.  Whereas some may argue, the facts on ground support a claim that but for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Babangida may have been honored as the one who gave Nigerians, Africa and indeed the black race a pure democratic culture. But he lost the opportunity with just one act.
For Obasanjo, he ought to have learnt from that but he didn’t.

He pressed his own self-destruct button tagged Third Term Agenda.

He wanted another term of office which the Nigerian Constitution did not permit. What to do? Amend the constitution to dig his fancy. He lost.

Now, perhaps the luckiest public office holder in Nigeria, President Jonathan, is already stockpiling wood for his own eventual bonfire.  Ignore the opposition’s propaganda that Jonathan has not achieved anything.  He is being slow and steady.  But for how long can Nigerians suffer a slow and steady leader who creates the impression that a burden has been forced on him.

President Goodluck Jonathan

Two years – just two years – into a constitutionally guaranteed eight years of two four-year terms, the President is already allowing his administration to replicate what Obasanjo’s government slid into in its fourth year and for which he remains the butt of jokes as an ordinary citizen today.

The idea and approach is all too familiar: Anybody and anything that would stand in the way of political ambition should and must be quashed.

Interestingly, because this is an environment where interests clash with the speed of light, there is expected to be so much wisdom in not throwing stones while in a glass house.

Almost always, those who had tried in the past to oppose sitting presidents either on principle or on other such mundane matters, with mere phrases like “what is wrong with Mr. President”, had ended up being consumed one way or the other.

During Obasanjo’s eight years, he launched a voyage of vendetta against real and perceived opponents.  The list is as impressive as it is ridiculous.

Using every possible agency of government, he dealt with Joshua Dariye where just a handful of legislators purportedly impeached the Plateau governor; in Bayelsa State, where President Jonathan hails from and where his “benefactor”, Diepriye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, was governor and he, deputy, Obasanjo used the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to hound and haunt the legislators into impeaching Alamieyeseigha; because Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State allegedly had a loose mouth, Obasanjo caused emergency rule to be imposed on the state and Fayose made an outcast; in Oyo State, Rasheed Ladoja was removed from office illegally for keeping another company different from Obasanjo’s dictate; Orji Kalu of Abia State and Bola Tinubu of Lagos State were becoming loose cannons and had to be dealt with but in both cases – just as was the case in Ogun State where Gbenga Daniel held sway – Obasanjo bit the dust because he could not cause these state governors to be removed. For Boni Haruna, Atiku Abubakar’s protégé, and Chris Ngige, Obasanjo made life unbearable for the former while he unleashed the Ubas on the latter.

And because politicians do not learn, the same plot is playing out.
Timipreye Sylva, the former governor of Bayelsa State, has been having issues with Jonathan for quite a while.  Even while the latter was Vice President, Sylva allegedly attempted to rub his face in the mud over a certain library project in the state. Added to this was an alleged diarrhea of the mouth suffered by Sylva, allegedly creating the impression that he made some funny statements that he had to clarify.  Sylva was arrested last week while hiding in a dingy, decrepit corner of his house in Abuja – these after over a year when he was removed as governor and after about three years since Jonathan became President despite Sylva.

Mind you, James Onanefe Ibori, who thought the world was created when Umaru Musa Yar’Adua became President, is cooling his feet in a London jail; no thanks to the instrumentality of the Federal Government of Nigeria.

The streak goes on.
The latest is the face-off between Jonathan’s Federal Government and Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State.  Rivers State cannot be said to be enjoying governance as it is understood by right-thinking members of the public.

Granted that Amaechi could wear omniscience as an armour; does that excuse a Presidency that continues to carry on in a very petty manner?
Granted that some Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, leaders cannot distinguish between politics and the constitution of Nigeria, that does not grant the Presidency the magna charter to needlessly dabble into the affairs of the Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF?
Worse still, the Presidency is watching as some ministers continue to foment trouble in their states all in their vain bid to demonstrate that they are on the side of their President in his quest for second term.  Yet, a former dissident granted amnesty, after visiting the Villa some weeks ago, came out threatening that if Jonathan does not get a second term, there would be no peace in the land.
Pray, vanity upon vanity, all is vanity.

But before the essence is lost, all parties in the Rivers dispute must understand that their party, PDP, is one huge glass house where the throwing of stones is not only silly but very dangerous.  Amaechi’s stone-throwing has caused the NCAA, NAMA, the Police and EFCC to turn the searchlight on him.

Obasanjo, after eight years as the main man, is today edging towards irrelevance – but he remains an irritant that can inflict pain.

What President Jonathan can learn from Obasanjo is that some of his actions today would make a hero of Governor Amaechi.  Atiku Abubakar was a gentle deputy until Obasanjo started hounding him and that catapulted the former’s image. It would only take President Jonathan’s remaining two years in this first term; and another four year term for his Presidency to come to an end.

Therefore, what happens next?  Stones would still be thrown during his tenure and even after. In that same PDP, there are elders with good sense from whom the party and the Presidency can draw wisdom.  They can stem this tide.  And it is not that Nigeria may not be better off doing away with the party in the estimation of the opposition. Individuals, a party and the Presidency that engage a paradigm of acrimony stands to suffer the consequences of  the whirlwind that would follow.  The people of Rivers State deserve better than this gradual slide into chaos and anarchy.

Vanguard

Who are the Yoruba people? (1)

By Femi Fani-Kayode

The Yoruba people of south-western Nigeria are a nationality of approximately 50 million people, the vast majority of whom are concentrated primarily within Nigeria, but who are also spread throughout the entire world. They constitute probably the largest percentage of Africans that live in the diaspora and they have made their own extraordinary contributions in virtually every field of human endeavour throughout the ages.

Descendants of the Yoruba and indeed various ancient derivatives and forms of the Yoruba language can be found and are spoken in places like Brazil, Haiti, Cuba, the United States of America and various other parts of the western world.

Today, first, second and even third generation Yoruba have settled down and spread all over the world and are amongst the best and most sought after lawyers, nuclear scientists, doctors, industrialists, academics, writers, poets, playwrights, clerics, theologians, artists, film producers, historians and intellectuals. Wherever they go they tend to flourish and excel.

This is nothing new and indeed has always been the case. The first Nigerian to be called to the Bar was a Yoruba man by the name, Sapara Williams, who was called to the English Bar and started practising as a lawyer in 1879. Yet Sapara Williams was not a flash in the pan or a one- time wonder.

Other Yoruba men followed in his footsteps in quick succession and were called to the English Bar shortly thereafter. For example, after him came Joseph Edgarton Shyngle who was called in 1888, then came Gabriel Hugh Savage who was called in 1891, then came Rotimi Alade who was called in 1892, then came Kitoye Ajasa (whose original name was Edmund Macauly) who was called in 1893, then came Arthur Joseph Eugene Bucknor who was called in 1894 and then came Eric Olaolu Moore who was called in 1903.

Ironically Sapara Williams was not the first Nigerian lawyer though he was the first to be called to the English Bar. In those days you did not have to be called to the Bar to practice law and the first Nigerian lawyer that practised without being called to the Bar was a Yoruba man by the name of William Henry Savage. He was described as a ‘’self-taught and practising lawyer’’ and he was a registered Notary Public in England as far back as1821.  These were indeed the greats and every single one of them was a Yoruba man.

Femi Fani-Kayode

My friend and brother, Mr. Akin Ajose-Adeogun, who is a historian by calling and a lawyer by profession, is a man for whom I have tremendous respect. I have often described him as the ‘’living oracle of Nigerian history’’ simply because he has a photographic memory, a knack for detail, first class sources and has read more books on Nigerian history than anyone that I have ever met before in my life.

Akin has an extraordinary mind, he is a living genius and I have often urged him to write a book. You can ask him anything about anyone or any event in any part of our country, since or before independence, and he will give you names, dates and the sequence of events immediately and without any recourse to notes, books or sources.

After he has given you the information he will then cite his sources and tell you which books to go and read in order to confirm what he is saying. I have learnt so much from him that I must publically acknowledge the fact that I owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. He once told me something that I found very interesting and that reflected the semi god-like status that our earliest lawyers, including some of the names that I mentioned earlier, enjoyed amongst the people.

These men were not only revered but they were also admired by all, including members of the British intelligentsia, legal fraternity and elites. Akin told me that many years ago in the mid-80s, Sir Adetokunboh Ademola, who himself was one of the legal greats, who was called to the English Bar in 1934, who was the third Nigerian to be appointed as a magistrate in 1938, who was the third Nigerian to be appointed as a High Court judge in 1948  and who was the first Nigerian to be appointed Chief Justice of the Federation in 1958, said the following words to him.

He said, ’’When you saw the way the earliest Nigerian lawyers conducted themselves in court and argued their cases you would have been filled with pride and you would have wanted to become a lawyer yourself. Members of the public used to fill the court rooms to the brink and sometimes even the forecourts and passages just to watch these great men perform and enjoy their brilliance and oratory.

They spoke the Queen’s English and they knew the law inside out. It is not like that today’’.  This is a resounding testimony from an illustrious Nigerian and it speaks eloquently about where the Yoruba, as a people, are coming from and the stock and quality of minds that they are made of.

Yet the dynamism of the Yoruba and their innovations and ‘’firsts’’ did not stop there. It went into numerous other spheres of human endeavour. Permit me to cite just two examples. The first lies within the field of medicine. Dr. Nathaniel King was the first Nigerian to become a medical practitioner.

He graduated from Edinburgh University in 1876 and he was a Creole of Yoruba origin. Next was Dr. Oguntola Sapara who was the second Nigerian to become a medical practitioner and who also graduated from Edinburgh University in 1884.

He was followed by Dr. John Randle who graduated from Durham University in 1891, then Dr. Orisadipe Obasa who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1892, then Dr. Akinwande Savage who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1900, then Dr. Curtis Adeniyi-Jones who graduated from Durham University in 1901. Others like Dr. Oyejola who graduated in 1905, Dr. Kubolaje Faderin, Dr. Sesi Akapo and Dr. Magnus Macauly who all graduated in 1912, Dr. Moyses Joao Da Rocha who graduated from Edinburgh University in 1913 followed.

The second example lies within the ranks of the clergy. The first African Anglican Bishop and the first man to translate the Holy Bible and Book of Common Prayer to any African language (outside of Ethiopia) was a Yoruba ex-slave who gave his life to Christ, won his freedom and rose up to become one of the greatest and most respected clerics and leaders that the African continent has ever known by the name of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther.

Unknown to many his original name was Rev. John Raban but he changed it in his early years. Crowther got his first degree at the famous Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone (which at that time was part of Durham University). He was ordained as an Anglican Bishop in 1864 and in that same year he was awarded a Doctorate degree from Oxford University.

This extraordinary man who was blessed by God with an exceptionally brilliant mind was, as far as I am concerned, one of the greatest Africans that ever lived. He not only translated the Holy Bible and the Book of Common Prayer to Yoruba (an extremely difficult, complicated and painstaking venture which he began in 1843 and which he completed in 1888) but he also codified a number of other Christian books and he translated them into the Igbo and Nupe languages. He was literally the pillar and foundation of the Anglican Church in West Africa.

Throughout his adult life he courageously stood up and fought for the rights and the dignity of the African and he, more than anyone else, was responsible for the spread, influence and power of the Christian faith in Nigeria in the late 19th century. He was also the maternal grandfather of the great nationalist Herbert Macauly who, together with Nnamdi Azikiwe, founded the political party known as the NCNC in 1944.

Crowther was also the father-in-law of Rev. Thomas Babington Macaulay who founded the Christian Missionary Society Grammar School (CMS Grammar School) in 1859 in what was then the Lagos Colony. CMS Grammar School was the epitome of excellence and a citadel of great learning in those days.

It was also the oldest secondary school in Nigeria and the main source of African clergymen and administrators in the Lagos Colony. It is not surprising that it was the son-in-law of the great Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther that founded such a school and that it was his grandson that founded one of the greatest political parties that the African continent has ever known.

Vanguard

Big for nothing? Nanometers to the rescue! – A lay, secular sermon in a light mood

 by: Biodun Jeyifo

Esu threw a rock yesterday; it kills a bird today/Esu throws a rock today; it killed a bird yesterday/ Esu sleeps in the courtyard; it is too small for him; Esu sleeps in the bedroom; it is still too small for him; Esu sleeps inside a palm kernel; now he has space large enough for him to sleep in!

From the praise chants to Esu, the Yoruba trickster god Nano: a combining form with the meaning “very small, minute” used in the formation of compound words, e.g. nanoplankton. In the names of units of measure, it has the specific sense “one billionth”, e.g. nanosecond, nanometer, nanotechnology.

Dictionary.com (online)

If my memory is not playing tricks on me, one of the words that had a deep and exceptional fascination for me when I was a child in primary school was the Yoruba word, ‘firi!’ (Yes, with the exclamation mark). Roughly translated, it means something that happens, something that flashes by in the twinkling of an eye. More expansively, firi! (please think of it only with the exclamation mark, compatriot) means something that is so brief, so instantaneously transient that it is gone even before you have perceived it, even before its presence has registered in your mind, leaving only the trace of its passage. Firi! Oh word and concept that filled my youthful imagination with wonder! In my imagination, in my mind’s eye, you opened up vistas for which, at that very tender age, I had no words and no speech! That is until about five decades later, when I encountered the word, the concept “nano”, especially as compounded with those units of space and time, meters and seconds to give us nanoseconds and nanometers. In nanometers especially, I at last found a scientific, technological correlation to firi! But more on this later in this lay, secular, iwalesin “sermon”. First, we must talk about that other phrase in the title of this piece, that term of abuse, “big for nothing”, that I remember now also in the reflected light of a particular use that we had for it in my youth.

In Nigerian pidgin, “big for nothing”, as we all know, stands for huge size or number without sense, without discernment and sometimes without compunction. In my youth, boys who were corporeally and vertically challenged by being much smaller than their age were the special prey or target of bullies who invariably tended to be physically much bigger than their years. For the small boys, the ultimate putdown for their gigantic tormentors was, yes, “big for nothing”! Of course, this was usually shouted from the presumed safety of considerable distance between the abused child and the bully. I remember also that in my school’s football team that we called the “First Eleven”, the positions of full backs, right and left, were usually reserved for the biggest boys in the school. The thinking behind this, I suppose, was that you needed size, combined with cunning, to counter the nimble-footed strikers of opposing teams. On the whole, the calculation worked, sometimes so much so that some full backs who were as big as our teachers had legendary renown as terrors to all strikers, nimble-footed or not. But sometimes, the thing did not work and then one encountered the incredible spectacle of a swift but pint-sized centre forward running circles around a full back the size of a giant. I remember in particular one big fellow with the nickname of “Akanmu Jaji” who had size but not – shall we say – a lot of grey matter inside his occiput. As a result of this, we could not dispense with his renown as a right full back, but neither could we be indifferent to the fact that, with his lack of discernment, he could as much cause our “First Eleven” penalties as save it from almost certain goals by the jitteriness that took control of strikers when he approached them. For this reason, though we all thought of him as “big for nothing”, this was whispered only among us; no one dared to say it to his hearing! [Akanmu Jaji, this is all coming back to me from memory of things that happened more than a half century ago. If you are still alive and happen to be reading this piece, please know that I was not one of those who called you “big for nothing” behind your back!)

If, so far in this “sermon” I have given the impression that “big for nothing” is a malaise that comes from nature, let me quickly and emphatically assert that this is not the case at all. Whether one is big, medium or small, in height or girth, has no inherent connection at all to being brainy, resourceful or humane. What is at issue here is the extremely fatuous notion that the bigger a thing or a country is the better, together with the associated belief that with size and numbers come superior endowments or status. And on this account, which country in the world is more benighted than our own country in the association of size and numbers with inherent worth? Which nation, definitely on the African continent but also perhaps in the whole world, is more smitten by this ideology, this false consciousness that equates size with status than our beloved country, Nigeria? If, compatriots, you feel that this observation, this claim is an exaggeration, an expression of the habit of seeing nothing good in Nigeria that is itself a very Nigerian habit, than I ask you to please carefully consider the following few observations that I have randomly selected from a myriad of commonplace realities in our national public life.

First, there is the widespread belief among Nigerians from every part of the country that because we are the most populous nation on our continent we are, or have a manifest destiny as the “giant of Africa” no matter how foolishly and wastefully we use our national wealth. Secondly, there is the regularly bruited boast of the ruling party, the PDP, that it is the largest ruling party in Africa, as if that claim can rid the party of the odium, the colossal scandal of the abysmal level of its misrule in every single one of its three presidential administrations since 1999. Thirdly, what of the claims of Nollywood directors, producers and actors that the Nigerian video film industry produces more films annually than any other national film industry in the world, not excluding Hollywood and Bollywood, the national film industries of the United States and India respectively? No one has done independent research to validate this claim, but even if it is factually or literally true, does this erase the fact that we produce more trashy products, more extremely poorly made and distributed video films than any other country in the world? Finally, what of the fact that with the President and the Executive Governors of our thirty-six states we have more major and mini heads of state than any other country in the world with the possible exception of the United States? And yet what good has this done the country? Has it not in fact made us the country with one of the very highest administrative cost of governance in the world? And are these not all indications or expressions of “big for nothing” writ large and inscribed into the very lineaments of our national psyche? To put this in the plainest form possible, hasn’t the obsession with size and numbers become a fetish that we tend to see as a magical or divine protection against all the things that are terribly wrong with our present way of life?

If my observations and reflections so far in this piece point to the simple ethical and spiritual proposition that big and numerous are not necessarily or inherently good, I would like to say that this is definitely part of my purpose in this piece. So also is the corollary proposition that oftentimes, small and minute will do as well if not more than big and numerous. But this “sermon” has far more important or substantial things to explore than such undoubtedly beneficial moral and psychological truths. This leads us to the enormously important world of ideas, practices and technologies connected with nanofabrication whose central place in the productive and communicative processes of contemporary global civilisation is absolutely not in question.

I have two and only two purposes in bringing this discourse on nanofabrication to bear on this lay “sermon” on our national obsession with size and numbers. One is this: Compatriots, please pay attention to nanofabrication; it is central to many of the things we take for granted in the contemporary global civilisation of which we are a part, things that we ignore or pay scant attention to only at our cost. This is the second of my two objectives in this piece: In one way or another, the ideational and practical applications of nanofabrication have always been with us, with our humans species; if this is the case, we are only returning to some of the best and most positive aspects of our heritage as humans when we turn our attention, our curiosity to nanofabrication.

Is one billionth of a second or of a meter thinkable, not to talk of being practicable? I confess that with only the evidence that I can collect or sense or even intuit with my five senses, the answer to this question is a ringing, categorical no! If you, dear reader, can think of not a billionth, not even a millionth but a thousandth of a second or a meter, I can’t. But then here is the core of this conundrum: there are now so-called super-colliding super-computers that can measure and calibrate at the rate or speed of one billionth of a second or meter. Not only this, there are now thousands of devices and practical applications in everyday life that give concrete proof to this dizzying idea and claim of the measurement of space and time in infinitesimally minute but phenomenally efficient quantities.

For want of space, I will in this discussion give only one example, partly because it bears direct relevance to my profession as an academic and partly because I have never stopped being simply dazzled by it. This is it: In my travels around the world in connection with my work, I carry with me a mini laptop computer that weighs less than five pounds; in the little carrying case that comes with this mini laptop are small pouches into which I place flash drives each of which has a dimension of about two inches weighing a few ounces. And yet, and yet again, with this extremely compact baggage of mini laptop and flash discs, I carry with me books and monographs of hundreds of thousands of pages. In other words, anywhere I am in the world, I have nearly everything I need to keep on working without the need for checking out books and journals from the local library.

I think of the wondrous fascination with the word, the idea of firi! (always with the exclamation mark, remember compatriot) in my childhood. I think of the lines of the first epigraph to this essay and the beautifully poetic enigma of Esu’s abrogation of simple, literal and linear conceptions of time and the paradox of his finding the most ample room for his being only in the tiniest of spaces. I see in these two prefigurations of nanofabrication. “Big for nothing”, your day of reckoning has come! Let all our rulers, all our political parties, all our emergency contractors, all our corrupt public officeholders hearken to these good tidings and take note!

TheNation

Ojukwu would have joined APC — Okorocha

Governor Rochas Okorocha, the host of the rally, spoke to select newspapers on why he dumped PDP, APGA leadership crisis, why he chose to join APC and the prospects of the mega party in the South-East zone. The Nation was there.

At the beginning, when the APC was to be formed, there was the fear among some South-East leaders that the interest of the zone may not be fully protected in the new party. What is the merger deal and why are you so sure Ndigbo would be better secured politically under APC?

The APC in the South-East is a done deal. I said so because the South-East has not had it good in PDP. The South-East is looking for a political party that will have a say as to what happens at the national level. Today, the South-East has no say at all as to what happens at the national PDP, because any time in any political party or setting, a particular zone does not produce the president, the vice president, the speaker, the senate president, and is not the chairman of the ruling party, then any other thing you’re talking about does not give them any good representation.

But for the South-East, they’re better off in APC. APC came as a result of failure of PDP. There wouldn’t have been any APC if PDP was doing well as a party. So, Nigerians are yearning for a change, something that can provide them an alternative hope due to the failure of PDP, especially in the South-East. If you look at the history of South-East since the inception of PDP, there is nothing to show as a PDP zone, nothing, absolutely nothing.

Today, the issue of the Niger Bridge is still a political discourse. The road from Enugu to Port Harcourt, a very simple thing to do, is still an issue of politics. So, the South-East is worst off with PDP, and APC is indeed their best alternative, their very best alternative. And I can assure you that every South-Easterner, majority of people in the South-East will be in APC, except for those who have made politics a business, and who have always enjoyed the patronage of PDP. Such people may still be found hanging around PDP. But in the real sense, the ordinary person in the states of South-East will be in APC.

Talking about the issue of APGA, it has been… APGA to me is not a political party. APGA is just like a cultural thing for Ndigbo; it’s not really a political party. You cannot say that APGA controls the South-East, no! South-East is being controlled by PDP. So, this notion that APGA is a South-East party does not really arise. It’s only with my emergence as a governor now that we began to give APGA that sense of an Igbo party thing.

If you look at it critically, you’ll agree with me that APGA is still a minority even in the South-East. People are comparing APGA with ACN that controls the South-West; that’s called a regional party. A party becomes regional when it is in total control of the region where it operates. I was in PDP. I didn’t come under PDP because I know their failure of internal democracy would not guaranty me a free and fair election on primaries.

But for us, APGA is like an identity for Ndigbo. It’s like a way of life, so it’s not a bad thing. It is rather a thing that belongs to us, that’s why I say to people that every Igbo man in any other political party is in APGA; every PDP member is an APGA man; every APC member is an APGA man. APGA is not therefore a party per se, but it’s like a fallback thing for Ndigbo, assuming politics is not played the way it ought to be played nationally.

But for now, we should not allow ourselves to miss this opportunity, where you have the South-West that has the control of their zone giving up their identity of ACN; CPC giving up their identity; ANPP giving up theirs in a merger, not in a coalition, not in an alliance to form a brand new party to challenge PDP, and APGA will say it will not join, what will you be after the merger? You become so inconsequential that you either have to go and chose with PDP.

The question remains all these our marriage and alliance with PDP, how have we faired? There is nothing APGA can show for their support for PDP in the last election, absolutely nothing. I will not deceive Ndigbo. For me, I’m not ready to deceive Igbos; I must take them to the right place.

We must have a party that cuts across the length and breadth of the entire nation. Why will I be in a party that I cannot have a say in what happens in the North or South-West or South-South simply because I find myself in the South-East?

I want to go to Maiduguri and see my party members receiving me in their local angle, go to my place, the same thing applicable. I don’t want to be a 100% shareholder of a N1000 business. I’m the Chief Executive of N1000 company. I want to be a one percent shareholder of $1 billion business, even if I’m just an ordinary member. So, we’re looking at the bigger picture for our people. I hate to sound like a sectional or tribal leader, because having being born in the North, having being an Igbo man brought up in the North, and having being empowered by the West, Nigeria remains my constituency. So, I’m looking at the bigger picture.

There is this fear that APC is a party owned by Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Will it be healthy to give up everything and join such a party?

ACN could be described by critics as Tinubu’s party but not APC at all. Some people have also said it is Buhari’s party; it’s not anybody’s party; it’s a Nigerian party. APC is a Nigerian party, and to what advantage will Tinubu make out of it? What advantage will Buhari make out of it? How are you sure they’re even running for the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? If they do, they’re Nigerians.

Does APGA still exist?

The party exists with Victor Umeh as the National Chairman. The party cannot just fold its maps and join the APC because we still have issues in court, but I’m optimistic that once these matters are all over, we will come to the round table, discuss about the full merger with other parties. I don’t think APGA will like to be a very tiny party in Nigeria that cannot even guaranty itself a state, and it is not ready for that. But because of the issue in court, and that is why I think that it is not proper for APGA to submit their certificate now. Since I’m there already as the APGA APC, that is good enough.

So can you conveniently say Imo is now an APGA state?

Imo is an APGA state until the merger is consummated. Once the merger is consummated, then we’ll be in the APGA APC as far as this state is concerned.

I also know we are not in disagreement with the national leadership of APGA. Umeh remains the chairman of APGA as far I am concerned, but I am saying that there is a better picture for us that will benefit our people and you will see that the moment we conclude this court case.

But some are alleged to have been planted by the Presidency to ensure APGA becomes an annex of the PDP…

For PDP, they want to annex APGA, really really, but I can’t be annexed by the PDP. So, I’m telling you that in the last election, there was what is called alliance with the PDP for presidential election. We did, especially in my state, it was people like us that guaranteed victory for PDP in the presidential election. It wasn’t the PDP governorship candidate then, no. It was people like us that had the magic that brought about that victory. We’re saying that we need a better thing; this is all about politics really.

When you said that APGA is the minority in the South-East, controlling two states, the PDP see it the other way round; they see those two states as very strategic…

When you talk about APGA as a party, it is a minority party. But if you ask APGA as an Igbo thing, then I’ll tell you that everybody is APGA. I think I made that point clear. So, there is different APGA, when you bring the term APGA. Let me shock you that if Ojukwu is alive, he would have been the first person to join this merger, because if you remember his relationship with Buhari and the rest of them at the time of ANPP, Ojukwu was the chairman of Board of Trustees of ANPP. So, he would have been glad to join this. I’m sure he wouldn’t have joined the PDP. I think we’re doing what Ojukwu would have done if he is alive today.

In 1998 you were denied the ticket, do you have any regret that if you were allowed then you would done better?

If I say I have regrets, I would be questioning my creator and I don’t want to do that. But there is nothing now in this my head that I didnt know as at that time. I have been consistent with my policies. If you remember as far back as 1998, I have been talking about Rochanomic; Rochas’ economic theory. The four tier system of government is there, decentralization was there. I had all these things lined up. So, there’s nothing that I am doing now that I wouldn’t have done then. That is why when I came into government, it did not take me one hour to key in, in fact I stated working on the 28th of May before my swearing-in. And since that day, there has not been a one hour break. Because I knew what to do from the onset. So I am not in this to learn. If not how could I have come up with a thousand projects in two years. It is unprecedented in the history of mankind.

The truth is that what this government has done within this period has not been done in the history of Imo State in the past 30 years. What is happening here can only be the handwork of God.

Some of us are not in this business to look for money. We want to use what we have to give to the system. Then, when I wanted to be governor they refused me so I went and picked a party, APGA, and won the election. If I had run under PDP one million times and the whole people wanted me, I would have lost.

PDP has this characters that do not produce for Nigeria the much needed leaders but politicians who are not thinking of the next generation but the next election, that is my grouse with the PDP.

The only election I won before this one was when PDP had no hand in it, when Abacha conducted the elections for constitutional conference. PDP has this kind of trend that if you are independent minded or have a mind of your own, then PDP will not allow you to have political power. Unless they feel you are a dummy that could be controlled and that is not what will bring progress. Until they change from that, they cannot move this nation forward.

If your mother had been alive, would be doing things the same way you are doing it?

Oh my God! Today when somebody mentioned that, I wept. If my mother had been there, that would have been a different story because she was indeed an inspiration but all the same, for whatever she is not there for, my wife quickly jumped into the shoes, providing motherly care and encouragement because sometimes it is not easy to run a government, sometimes you get pissed off by people’s attitudes, at times you feel like taking a walk out of the whole system. You ask yourself what is even there for you but somebody is there to pat your back and say listen, ‘you are on a divine mission.’

Will you seek reelection in 2015 or are going to …?

2015! I tell you, I have not decided. But I’ll soon make a decision, but definitely, I will run for an election.

Was there a pact that you will do one term?

No, there was never a pact. But it has always been my desire to serve in Imo State for one term, even now, I desire to do a term. But that is where I need help and prayers because here, I might take a risk of being lynched if I say I am not going to continue, unless I do something to make them hate me, but now it would be difficult to get out of that entanglement.

And again remember, I have always run for president and it has always been my desire to be the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to give that which is inside me which would bring about the development of the country. So, these things are conflicting at the moment so I would simply wait and see.

TheNation