Re: On The Purported Slight Of Nigeria At Madiba’s Funeral

By Kennedy Emetulu 

 

What I am going to say here will not be popular, but it needs to be said. Rarely do I disagree with my brother, Pius Adesanmi, because even in anger, his views on international affairs and national development are usually well considered. But, here, I disagree with him. Funny enough, I actually agree with his conclusions and exhortations to Nigerians at the end, but what I disagree with are the sentiments that made him to arrive at those conclusion. 

http://saharareporters.com/column/purported-slight-nigeria-madiba%E2%80%99s-funeral-pius-adesanmi


The sentiment that some African countries we have done a lot for pursuant to our foreign policy are not appreciative of what we have done or that they are insulting us is not true and that’s not a great sentiment to express even if there’s any level of truth in it, except where such countries are engaged in a war of aggression against us or proved to be involved in activities inimical to our national interest, whether alone or in cahoots with others. Nations are not like individuals where you expect a good turn to be appreciated by words or deeds by the beneficiary and to be noted by the benefactor and possibly known only between them. In the case of nations, while such expression of gratitude is expected, you don’t get to see the full facts of them in one or two excerpted speeches by the leaders of the beneficiary nations. I mean, look at the excerpts chosen by Professor Adesanmi. They do grave injustice to Liberia and Liberians.

If one looks at the whole inauguration speech by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, for instance, what you immediately see is her eagerness to address Liberians about the new vision, the new hope after two horrible wars that nearly took out the country from the map! She started with a prayer for Liberians lost in the conflicts, paid homage to her parents, prayed for the ailing Archbishop Michael Kpakala Francis, the then Roman Catholic Archbishop of Monrovia, now late – a tower of courage, strength and support for many afflicted during the war, a speaker of truth to power. She went on to thank the people for voting for a better future, promising that her government embraces this new commitment to change. It was after this she began her greetings of the foreign dignitaries and before even the remark excerpted by Professor Adesanmi, she said this:

“My Fellow Liberians:  Today, as I speak to you, I wish to state that I am most gratified by the caliber of the delegations of Foreign Governments and our international and local partners who have come to join us to celebrate this triumph of democracy in our country. I am particularly touched by the presence of the African Union Women Parliamentarians and others of my sisters, who are participating here with us today in solidarity.

“I wish to pay special recognition to several African Presidents who are here today. His Excellency Mamadou Tandja, President of the Republic of Niger; His Excellency Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; His Excellency John Kufuor, President of the Republic of Ghana; His Excellency Thabo Mbeki, President of the Republic of South Africa; His Excellency Tejan Kabbah, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone; His Excellency Blaise Campaore, President of the Republic of Burkina Faso; His Excellency Amadou Toumani Toure, President of the Republic of Mali, and His Excellency Faure Gnassingbe, President of the Republic of Togo. All of you, especially the Leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), have spent invaluable time, energy, and the resources of your respective countries to help guide and support the process of restoring peace, security, and stability to Liberia.

“To General Abdu Salam Abubakar and his Team, we thank you. We adore and respect you for your persistence and commitment in the successful implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement which gives closure to 14 years of civil conflict with my taking the Oath of Office today.

“My dear Brothers and Sisters of West Africa: You have died for us; you have given refuge to thousands of our citizens; you have denied yourselves by utilizing your scarce resources to assist us; you have agonized for us, and you have prayed for us. We thank you, and may God bless you for your support to Liberia as well as for your continuing commitment to promote peace, security, stability, and bilateral cooperation within our (sic). We thank you, and may God bless you for your support to Liberia as well as for your continuing commitment to promote peace, security, stability, and bilateral cooperation within our sub-region – and beyond”.

The above were exactly the things she said in that speech before the portion excerpted by Professor Adesanmi thanking Laura Bush and the US delegation, after which she went on to acknowledge the Transitional Government of Gyude Bryant, salute the Armed Forces of Liberia and the United Nations Military Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) before getting down to the nitty-gritty of what her administration will actually do for the Liberian people.

Of course, Nigeria helped immensely, no doubt; but we didn’t go in there as just Nigeria. We went there as part of an ECOWAS initiative and even though we naturally committed more resources to it as the head of the group and as the richest nation amongst them and undoubtedly the regional power, we weren’t doing it to be singled out for praise in an inauguration speech. Sirleaf did the right thing by praising all Liberia’s West African brothers and sisters. To be honest, I found nothing more powerful and poignant in that speech than when she talked about West Africans dying for Liberians, giving them refuge, agonizing with them and denying themselves scarce resources in order to help Liberia and Liberians. How else do we expect her to appreciate us on the occasion than she did in that speech by appreciating our effort as part of the ECOWAS group, acknowledging President Olusegun Obasanjo and particularly singling out General Abdulsalami Abubakar for extended praise for his role in negotiating the peace process?

Clearly, the speech was not programmed as a “Thank You” speech. That she acknowledged the presence of the African leaders and Laura Bush, the then First Lady of the United States is just protocol, quite apart from the fact that the story of Liberia is strongly linked to the United States. Liberia was the first independent state in Africa in 1847(outside Ethiopia that was never colonised), because elements from the United States and freed slaves founded it on the same principles of freedom that ruled at home. It didn’t start off as a colony; it started off as a beacon of hope to black people everywhere, black people who went on to attempt to kill the dream, of which the occasion Sirleaf was speaking at was just one in several of such attempts to salvage that dream. And yes, after more than a decade of ECOMOG shilly-shallying in Liberia, the United States was very instrumental in directing affairs through pressure on ECOWAS with the formation of the new ECOMIL in 2003 which finally stopped the rebel forces trying to occupy Monrovia at the height of the peace talks during the Second Liberia Civil War. ECOMIL was the force that held ground before the arrival of UNMIL. It should also be noted that despite attempts to pretend otherwise, the UN has always been involved with the Liberian affair from the beginning through the United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL), set up by Resolution 866 of 1993 and they have always been fully on the ground in Liberia. So, honestly, if we read the whole of that speech dispassionately and not just the excerpted portion or the editorialising that Professor Adesanmi has encased it in, we will come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with that speech in its intent, structure and tenor. I will go as far as saying it is a brilliant speech by any standard.

The second excerpt by Professor Adesanmi is even more routinely appropriate. President Sirleaf was visiting the United States and was addressing her hosts. So, what do we expect of her there than to say those things she said? Should we be angry that again she thanked God, thanked the people of West Africa whom she said give hope to her people? Is it inappropriate to praise President George W Bush for exactly what she said there which is that Bush’s “strong resolve and public condemnation and appropriate action forced a tyrant into exile”? Is this a lie? Now, let’s be honest, we were all witnesses to what happened at the time.  Or did we not all read the infamous Charles Taylor “Farewell Speech” where he lampooned the same United States in August 2003?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3140211.stm

Of course, we all know why! This was because of President George Bush’s insistence that he must step down for there to be peace in Liberia, despite Taylor’s cosy relationship with Nigeria’s then President, Olusegun Obasanjo and a lot of the members of the Nigerian military that served in Liberia and other members of the Nigerian ruling elite with economic interests in Liberia under the protection of the murderous Taylor regime! Yes, we were helpful, but we know our ruling class from the day of Ibrahim Babangida through Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Olusegun Obasanjo were hands in glove with Taylor ruining that small country in the name of private business arrangements! If not for Bush’s insistence, Taylor would have remained to continue killing his countrymen and women, because the most likely people in the region who could stop him, Nigerians were in his pocket! In the end, Obasanjo had to put together an arrangement for him to come to Calabar in Nigeria from where he was shipped away to the Hague in murky circumstances! To be honest, I’ve met quite a number of Liberians who do not think Nigeria’s hands are clean over the affairs of Liberia, despite the help we offered through ECOMOG and all that.

The point I’m making here is that excerpting speeches to indicate that Liberia does not appreciate Nigeria’s effort is fraught with dangerous injustice, because one or two speeches during some public occasion does not or do not say the whole story. There are many ways countries relate or show appreciation to one another in the international system. Not all of these would readily be detailed in the public domain. In fact, if we want to use presidential speeches on occasions to indicate shows of appreciation, Ellen Sirleaf speeches on Nigeria would yank the scale. See these, for instance:

…
See how repeatedly she shows appreciation to Nigeria on the occasion of being honoured by the Nigerian Defence Academy:

http://www.emansion.gov.lr/doc/Acceptance%20Speech.pdf



See how she gave Nigeria pride of place ahead of the US right there in Monrovia:

http://www.emansion.gov.lr/doc/20110211_President_2011_AFDay_Speech.pdf


Here is the Liberian Vice President doing his own extolment of Nigeria:

http://www.emansion.gov.lr/2press.php?news_id=90&related=20&pg=sp&sub=41

There are countless speeches of this nature. We all know that the Liberian leadership and people in their government are always in Abuja and other parts of Nigeria for one thing or the other, so this whole idea of them not showing appreciation has no basis really. It certainly has no basis if we are going to be looking at excerpts of speeches.

The same applies to this whole story about South Africans insulting Nigerians or not showing appreciation. I don’t know what constitutes this supposed insult or how it is that whoever is behind these stories come to the conclusion that they haven’t showed appreciation. Whatever Nigeria did as part of the fight against Apartheid or to restore peace in Liberia is part of her responsibility as a responsible member of the international community (along with several others in each case) and rather than waiting for those we have done these things for to come and prostrate before us, we should be looking to show that same responsibility we show outside at home because, let’s face it, most of the aggro we get from others mostly revolve around the serial failure of our leadership at home. For instance, we watched in 1995 and 1996 how the Sani Abacha government carried out a sustained attack against then President Nelson Mandela, because he refused to kowtow to the consensus of the then members of the Organization of African Unity and the Commonwealth to let Abacha be. Ultimately, the old man has been proved to be on the right side of history, but not before Abacha’s minions led regrettably by Tom Ikimi and Bashir Tofa have lampooned Mandela, describing him as an ingrate for not supporting Nigeria, as though support for the murderous Abacha equated to support for Nigeria. They even organised special rallies where government hirelings and rented crowd protested against Mandela in Abuja! And this was in spite of the fact that Mandela did everything to get the Abacha regime to see reason, including dispatching Archbishop Desmond Tutu to have confidential talks with the Nigerian leadership before the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Today, I have no idea what the complaint is about, but if it is about President Goodluck Jonathan not speaking at the Mandela memorial service, then, for the first time, I have to agree with the president spokesperson, Reuben Abati when he described this as much ado about nothing. Six leaders were chosen to speak and that is not indicative of how South Africa feels about any country. I certainly do not think we should be judging international relations on the pedantic levels of excerpted speeches or unprovable insults. As I stated earlier, I agree with Professor Adesanmi’s exhortations and conclusions, even if I do not agree with how he got there. There is no use screaming outrage over how we perceive others to have treated us. Our responsibility is to think critically about how and why we got here, but I do not think we should be blaming ourselves for spending big on others in defence of values that are dear to humanity, no matter how we think these others feel today about us. Yes, there is a connection between how some of us feel about others’ feeling for us with the quality of our leadership at home. Chinua Achebe diagnosed it proverbially with that old woman who’s always up in arms when bones are mentioned in a proverb. Citizens of the world have a right to judge our governance as fellow members of the international community and it does not help to attack them with retorts such as saying it is not their business or that they should not stereotype and all that. Of course, we can deal with each individual case of ignorant criticism, but the problem is not in our stars; it’s with us.

Let us therefore begin to seek ways to get the type of leaders who can think properly and deploy critical intelligence into position. As individuals and members of civil society, we have to ask ourselves the tough questions about exactly what type of country we want. Unlike Pius Adesami though, I’m not hopeful about 2015 for reasons time and space will not allow me state here with the appropriate analysis. But suffice it to say that the best 2015 can do for us if we play it right is to be a proper springboard for the kind of future we desire. I mean, if anyone is expecting that a vote for anybody under the structure and system we have now is going to herald any change, they’ve got another think coming. Our task is to situate an appropriate foundation upon which we can build our dream of the future, not hope that a foundation built on very shaky grounds will sustain our dreams once we vote in those we think are the right people. The tide will sweep the good, the bad and the ugly; so, let’s begin to think how to protect ourselves against that tide first in order to have the right conditions to build the kind of nation we want. It’s no tea party, I know; but there are no short cuts.

Full Ellen Sirleaf’s inauguration speech:

http://www.emansion.gov.lr/doc/inaugural_add_1.pdf

Saharareporters

Jonathan, PDP Govs Decide Tukur's Fate Saturday

 Bamanga Tukur


• Why president is undecided about party chair

Emmanuel Bello and Chuks Okocha 

President Goodluck Jonathan has scheduled a meeting with all Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors for Saturday to discuss the clamour for the ouster of the party's National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.

Saturday's meeting, it was learnt, was part of efforts by the president to finally resolve the crisis rocking the party, whose one of the root causes is Tukur's leadership style that has alienated many top party members.

THISDAY gathered yesterday that the president, who is on a two-nation visit to South Africa and Kenya, fixed the meeting after his talks with members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Monday night. He is billed to return tomorrow.

PDP governors, in recent weeks, have renewed the clamour for the removal of Tukur who is being accused of running the party like a personal fiefdom.
They have held three successive meetings on how to remove Tukur as the national chairman of the PDP and at their last meeting, attended by no less than 13 governors, they  reiterated their position that the national chairman must go  to enable the party manage its preparations for the 2015 general election.

In all the meetings of the PDP governors, they have consistently accused the party's national chairman of being the cause of the crisis rocking the PDP.
One of the PDP governors, Dr. Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu from Niger State, had accused Tukur of administering PDP as a personal estate, while other governors are blaming the national chairman for pushing five PDP governors to join the All Progressives Congress (APC).

It was gathered that Jonathan who was in South Africa yesterday for the national memorial service for the country's former President Nelson Mandela, would be in Nairobi tomorrow to attend the independence day anniversary of Kenya.

On his return, he will go to Jos on Friday for the burial of the former National Chairman of the party, Chief Solomon Lar.

According to a source, the president, after his engagement for the week, will thereafter meet with all the PDP governors on Saturday to discuss their grievances  against Tukur and take a decision of how to finally tackle the crisis in the party.
However, multiple sources have told THISDAY why despite the recurring demand for Tukur's removal from office, the president is unwilling to bow to pressure to sacrifice him for  peace in the party.

It was learnt that the Saturday meeting between the president and the PDP governors would decide the fate of the national chairman and the way forward in resolving the crisis in the party.

But ahead of the Saturday meeting, party and presidency sources told THISDAY that the president may not endorsed the sack of Tukur.
  They said the president was in a dilemma on how to handle the matter, hence his pussyfooting.

“The inner caucus around the president is often bothered about the unpopularity of Tukur. In fact, he has become an albatross around the neck of the president. But the president cannot see a situation where Tukur would be disgraced out of office. Tukur has been very loyal to the president and he (Jonathan) believes giving the man the boot is totally unfair to the old man.

Of course, the president is concerned but he is doing everything to save Tukur. He believes Tukur is the best person for that post. Don’t forget that Tukur is even married to a South-south lady and he is not a radical even in his faith. Tukur, though a thoroughbred northern leader, is committed to the prospect of retaining power in the south,” one of the sources said.

He added that Jonathan has explicit faith in Tukur to deliver on his succession bid in 2015 and he doubted the fact that any “other northerner in the shoes of Tukur would be able to actualise his hope of becoming president in 2015."
"The president always counter his kitchen cabinet, when the matter comes up, that Tukur is the only one he can trust especially as a buffer against top northern politicians like Atiku Abubakar. "Besides, Tukur appears materially comfortable enough to be bought over by the president’s opponents. Tukur is a fierce fighter and can take on all of the president traducers, especially those from the north. Tukur himself has told the president that only those oppose to his succession bid want him out of the way,” he said.

But another source explained that  although he is bent on saving Tukur’s job, the president might eventually cave in to pressure if it becomes too much for him to bear.
“The president is being reassured on a daily basis that sacking Tukur may not affect his ambition. He also being told that there are other northerners who can commit to the cause even more than Tukur. They are telling the president that Tukur’s sack may actually strengthen the party and restore goodwill rather than weaken it,” the source added.

In a related development,  the party's  National Disciplinary Committee yesterday waited in vain for the suspended National Vice Chairman (North-west) of the PDP, Ambassador Ibrahim Kazaure,  to appear before it.

The committee had adjourned until yesterday to enable him to appear before it, explaining that Kazaure’s case was different from that of the suspended National Secretary of the party, Oyinlola Olagunsoye and  Dr. Sam Sam Jaja and Alhaji Abubakar Baraje.

But  members of the disciplinary committee waited in vain for Kazaure to honour their invitation. No reason was given for his absence.
The disciplinary committee had two weeks ago recommended   the expulsion of Oyinlola, Baraje and Jaja for anti-party activities.

The trio of Oyinlola, Baraje and Jaja had written to the  committee that they would not appear because of a subsisting case before the Federal High Court, where they are asking the court to allow them enforce their rights to fair hearing.

ThisDay

Corruption: Presidency Faults Tambuwal

President Goodluck Jonathan

•APC backs speaker's comments on president

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja with agency report

The presidency Tuesday fired back at the House of Representatives Speaker, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, over his scathing comments on President Goodluck Jonathan's alleged reluctance to fight corruption.

It described as unfortunate, the speaker's comments on Monday that the president's body language was encouraging corruption.

But Jonathan's Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Rueben Abati, in a burst of tweets, faulted Tambuwal, saying the administration would not fight corruption based on  "speculations or bad politics." 

Unlike the presidency, the All Progressives Congress (APC) lauded Tambuwal for plucking the courage to speak out on how the Jonathan administration has been encouraging corruption by its lack of diligence in tackling the menace.

A report by an online news medium, Premium Times, quoted Abati as saying via his twitter handle, @abati1990, that the administration was doing all it could to stem the tide of corruption in the country.

Tambuwal had spoken while responding to questions on Monday after he presented a paper titled the ‘Role of the legislature in the fight against corruption in Nigeria’ at a one-day roundtable to mark the international anti-corruption day, organised by the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja that the president seemed to be undermining the anti-graft war by his handling of some notable corruption cases.

“Take the subsidy probe, the pension, the SEC probe and recently the bulletproof car cases. After the House of Representatives did a diligent job by probing and exposing the cases, you now see something else when it comes to prosecution.

“In some cases, you have the government setting up new committees to duplicate the job already done by the parliament. Take the bulletproof cars case, the NSA, with all the security challenges confronting the country, should not be burdened with a job that can best be handled by the anti-corruption agencies,” the speaker  had said.

In his reaction, Abati, in a series of tweets, said: “Tambuwal should focus more on the efforts of the administration in fighting corruption, and comment on what he knows. The administration is not going to fight corruption on the basis of a mere speculation, or the bad politics being played by some people. I think it is unfortunate that a man that is occupying such a high office is talking about body language.

“He is certainly in a position to know the truth and defend both his party and the government. He should make the effort to know that government is investigating various matters and working on them in accordance with due process. President Jonathan will not condone any act of proven corruption. The fight against corruption is ultimately a collective responsibility.” 

The APC however differed from the presidency on Tambuwal's comments as it expressed support  for the speaker over what it described as his principled stand on the Jonathan administration's tepid fight against corruption.

In a statement  yesterday by its interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the speaker exhibited a leadership trait that was rare in this part of the world by shunning partisanship to say that the president's body language showed that he lacked the political will to fight corruption.
It said: ''Hon. Tambuwal and President Jonathan belong to the same political party, but this did not deter the speaker from rising above crass partisanship when the issue involved borders on national interest. This is the stuff of good leadership.

''Hon. Tambuwal has shown that he is indeed the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives and that the entire country is his constituency, unlike President Jonathan who has transformed himself to a PDP and a sectional leader by viewing serious issues of national importance from the prism of partisanship and sectionalism.''  

According to APC, it is delighted to be in the same company with the speaker over Jonathan's nonchalant stand on corruption, which has eaten deeper into the national fabric under the present administration.

"We have raised the same issues raised by the Hon. Speaker several times in our regular intervention, but the administration has dismissed our concerns on the altar of partisanship.

''However, now that no less a personality than the country's number four citizen and a top member of the PDP is the one raising the issue, and coming against the background of Nigeria's slide in the 2013 ranking  released recently by the global anti-corruption body, Transparency International, we hope the administration will realise that it has only been paying a lip service to the anti-graft battle and perhaps make amends,'' the party said.

It added that the speaker was right in talking about the president's body language, which is a reflection of the deceptive actions he (president) has taken over very serious issues of corruption, including the monumental fuel subsidy scam, the pension scam, the fraud involving the excess crude account, the Sure-P scandal and Oduahgate.

''These are slam-dunk corruption cases that should have been handed over to the anti-corruption agencies for summary disposal. Instead, the president - thinking Nigerians will merely scream and forget after some time - engages in his usual distracting method of setting up committees, the report of which he will then put away to gather dust....until another corruption case rears its ugly head.

''Nigerians are not stupid and they understand very clearly that the president is shielding corrupt people, as long as they are willing and able to contribute massively, from their ill-gotten funds, to his (president's) campaign slush funds," it said.

The party said now that a person of the calibre of the speaker had added his voice to the burning issue, the president should decide to "either move to redeem the image of his administration or continue to swim in the ocean of corruption."

ThisDay

From The Villa To The Village

By: Abba Mahmood 

President Goodluck Jonathan has come a long way since he left his village, Otuoke, in Bayelsa State to the presidential villa in Abuja. He was jointly elected with the late Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007. He was elected for a second term in 2011. Some of his supporters are insisting he should contest again in 2015 which, in reality, means they want him to go for a third term, something that is alien to the constitution. He was almost certain to continue residing in the villa until he got Bamanga Tukur as national chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. With the way Tukur has been handling the affairs of the party, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Dr Jonathan is leaving the villa for his village.

 The PDP’s special convention of August 31, 2013, marked the beginning of the end of the PDP as a credible platform. On that day, some governors of the party and other influential members walked out of the convention venue and announced the formation of a faction, the G7 or new PDP. Instead of the party leadership to endeavour to address their grievances, they were threatened with suspension and even expulsion by the party. Collectively and individually, the G7 are leaders in their own right. What the party leadership did was not how to keep the president in the villa but to send him to the village.

 The Court of Appeal gave a ruling that the authentic national secretary of the PDP is Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, who incidentally belongs to the G7 faction of the party. The party leadership not only refused to reinstate Oyinlola to his position but even suspended him from the party. That act showed that the PDP is now above the law. It also gave the G7 higher moral ground since what they said with regard to fighting impunity is now proven beyond doubt. This is a very good way of sending Jonathan out of the villa to the village.

 The G7 governors came to the Kano Governor’s Lodge in Abuja for a meeting. A police DPO led a detachment of Nigeria Police personnel to the venue of the meeting and told the governors that he was asked to come and stop their meeting! Not only governors, even ordinary citizens have the constitutional right to assemble, associate and speak. Among these governors is a retired admiral who, by age and official rank, is the father of that DPO. This embarrassing act is a sure way of making the people vote the president out of the villa to the village.

 Soon after that, the minister of Abuja threatened to demolish properties owned by some members of the G7 faction. The Economic of Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) started arresting officials of some of the state governments of the G7 as well as two sons of Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa. EFCC even arrested some bankers who keep the accounts of some of these states. It is very clear that a pharaoh-nic order is being brought to Nigeria. Is this going to help the president remain in the villa or send him to the village?

 The actual genesis of the PDP crisis is the act of reckless abuse of power by the national chairman, Bamanga Tukur. Nyako of Adamawa had the entire structure of the party taken away from him. Amaechi of Rivers had the PDP structure taken away from him. Then Kwankwaso of Kano had the PDP structure taken away from him. If the president is naked without the party structure, how can the governors remain quiet when their states’ party structures have been taken away from them? That is why these three governors in particular are in the forefront of moving to the All Progressives Congress (APC), which is a sure way to vote out the PDP from the villa to the village.

 With an approaching election year President Jonathan does not seem to know that he needs these governors more than Bamanga Tukur. Those advising the president do not seem to take into consideration the consequences of a ruling party losing Kano, Lagos and Rivers to another party. These states, which are now APC, not only have the highest number of registered voters but are the main economic centres of the country. If this is not a game-changing event, I don’t know what else is. For the PDP, the journey has begun out of the villa to the village.

 Another consequence of this political shocker is that the PDP is set to lose its majority in the National Assembly as most members of the new PDP move to the APC. This will be a very good political development as it may lead to proper checks and balances. The excesses of the executive arm will now be checked by the legislature. The unconstitutional acts will not go unpunished. The impunity and disregard for due process that characterise the era of the cult-like control of the National Assembly by the PDP will come to an end. The journey has indeed begun for the PDP to move out of the villa to the village.

 President Jonathan came to power with enormous goodwill. That goodwill has been squandered. He inherited a lot of problems. None of these problems has been solved; instead, they are even getting compounded. The party leadership that saw his victory is left in the cold. The governors that nominated him and made sure he got elected are being driven out of the party, if not their offices. Except for a few self-appointed ethnic champions, there is no real national leader that is close to the president anymore. Are these not signs that he is hastening to go out of the villa to the village?

 The militants can’t make him get elected. Their threats and insults on others are only making the president more unpopular. Balance of terror is only possible when terrorists are allowed to terrorize people. Instead of making reasonable people convince the electorate to continue to support the president, mad people are unleashed on the innocent public who keep shouting and threatening the whole country. And one keeps wondering: are these people interested in remaining in the villa or going back to the village?

 Bamanga Tukur cannot help the president either. Since assuming office as chairman of the PDP, he has destroyed the party. There is no organisation and there is no cohesion in the party anymore. Directly and indirectly, Tukur has sent away seven governors who are either in, or heading for, the APC. Even Bola Tinubu brought six ACN governors to the party. Thus, Tukur is the greatest benefactor of the main party in Nigeria now, the APC. For good, the PDP is leaving the villa for the village.

 But by far the greatest threat to President Jonathan today is corruption. The economy is collapsing due to corruption. Elections are not properly conducted due to corruption. Budgets are not implemented due to corruption. Armed robbery, kidnapping and insurgency are all attributable to corruption. There is no single institution that has not been tainted by corruption. Corruption is sending the PDP from the villa to the village.

 Shehu Shagari launched the ethical revolution. Buhari launched the War Against Indiscipline. Obasanjo set up the anti-corruption agencies, ICPC and EFCC, and fought corruption vigorously. This government is not even pretending to fight the cankerworm that is destroying the country. Like an old rag, they don’t know where to start. President Jonathan came to power on a national platform. Now he is being sold as an ethnic and regional commodity. No wonder he is a failure. Corruption and sectionalism are sending them out of the villa to the village. History is on the side of the oppressed.

Leadership

The Founding Father

By: Sam Nda-Isaiah 

The strong expressions of emotion, the statements from statesmen and virtually every head of state in the world within 24 hours of the announcement of his “departure” by President Jacob Zuma should really not surprise anyone. Nelson Mandela deserves every good thing that has been said about him since he died on Thursday.

If Mandela had not happened on South Africa, the story of the entire southern Africa would have taken a different trajectory. His speeches when he was still much younger and on the run from the evil apartheid leaders, and during the Rivonia trials, showed a leader even in those days. Those speeches would still have been great speeches today. At a time when the apartheid regime had disenfranchised and even de-civilised blacks, when it could have been in order for a black leader to call whites non-South Africans or even non-Africans, he declared as an ANC leader that he believed that South Africa was a multi-racial country. He also declared his belief in a democracy on the basis of one man, one vote. In other words, he was much more civilised than his white repressors. During the Rivonia trials, when the judgement could have been the death sentence, he gave a speech and a declaration which became the defining credo of not just the struggle for the soul of his country but of mankind itself. “I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination,” he said. “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and to see realised. But my Lord, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” He also repeated this statement 27 years later in Cape Town after he was released from prison, showing that truth and the best ideas always stand the test of time. During the trial, he also declared that, “We are not anti-white, we are against white supremacy… We are against racialism no matter by whom it is professed.”

In spite of all these, the apartheid regime branded Mandela a very dangerous man and a terrorist. But Mandela never gave up. He was always a leader wherever he found himself. Even in prison, the warders said he was clearly the leader. He was the most optimistic of the lot in prison. He himself said that when he discovered that everything in prison was designed to dehumanise them, he made up his mind that his oppressors would never succeed. He refused to get dehumanised or lose hope because he needed the hope to continue to lead and to defeat the evil regime. Saki Macozoma, a much younger person who was in the Robben Island prison with him, said that Mandela continually beseeched them to continue to educate and prepare themselves for leadership because South Africa was going to need people like them eventually. Nelson Mandela prepared himself for leadership.

When the apartheid leaders eventually saw that their system was not sustainable, they opened up a channel of communication with him. That was after the entire world was mobilised against them. The first apartheid leader to allow contact with Mandela was President PW Botha. Even though the world remembers PW as a vile apartheid leader, apart from his successor President F. de Klerk, Botha was probably the most reformist apartheid leader. This only gives an indication of how evil the other apartheid leaders were. He was the first to allow inter-racial marriage in South Africa. Interracial marriage had been completely banned in the 1940s. He was also the one that lifted the constitutional prohibitions on multiracial political parties. He also relaxed the Group Areas Act which barred non-whites from living in certain areas. But he was nevertheless a mean human being. That was why he and his successor, President de Klerk, never saw eye to eye until he died.

When the talks with Mandela started while he was still in prison, President de Klerk said he noticed that Mandela was more distinguished than he had imagined. It was clear that, even in prison, Mandela had better strategic clarity than the white leaders. With time, Mandela was released and the process of healing began.

While Mandela was preaching peace to the blacks after his release, another charismatic black leader who was much younger, Chris Hani, was preaching a more radical message. Hani preferred the military solution and was also the head of the Communist Party. He had lots of followers among young blacks and, even though he was considered the second most popular black leader after Mandela himself, he posed a challenge to Mandela. In a sense, Chris Hani was to Mandela what Malcolm X was to Martin Luther King. Not long after Mandela was released, Chris Hani was assassinated by a far-right Polish immigrant. A white Afrikaner lady, Hani’s neighbour who watched the whole incident, alerted the police immediately and the assassin was promptly arrested. South Africa was tensed again and was on the verge of a violent eruption. Even though Mandela was not yet president, he addressed the nation in a very presidential manner that made all the difference at the time: “Tonight, I am reaching out to every single South African, black and white, from the very depths of my being. A white man, full of prejudice and hate, came to our country and committed a deed so foul that our whole nation now teeters on the brink of disaster. A white woman, of Afrikaner origin, risked her life so that we may know, and bring to justice, this assassin. The cold-blooded murder of Chris Hani has sent shock waves throughout the country and the world… Now is the time for South Africans to stand together against those who, from any quarter, wish to destroy what Chris Hani gave his life for – the freedom of all of us.” Even the eventual statement from the president didn’t beat this one. Mandela was always a leader.

When he eventually won the election and became president, he made sure that he became the leader that he had always promised to be. During his inauguration ceremony, he made sure that his jailers sat side by side with his family as a sign of practical reconciliation. As he walked to the venue, he stopped to speak to a white police colonel whom he spotted standing at attention. He told the colonel that, as from that day, there shall be no “us and them”. As from today, he told him, “we have all become one South Africa”. Mandela’s white bodyguard who narrated this story said the colonel started shedding tears. Mandela also instructed all his new cabinet ministers never to sack anyone who had been loyal to the old apartheid regime. Mandela knew there can be no future without genuine forgiveness.

He was also a very fair leader. Alhaji Shehu Malami, Nigeria’s first ambassador to South Africa, remembers the day Mandela invited him to his office to send a message to General Sani Abacha, Nigeria’s head of state. That was when the issue of which African country should get the permanent Security Council seat when the issue came up to be discussed. There were then debates on whether it would be Nigeria or South Africa. South Africa was of course the continent’s biggest economy. Mandela told Malami to tell Abacha that South Africa was not competing with Nigeria in the quest. Nigeria was by far the most qualified to get it, according to Mandela. That was the quality of leadership of Mandela. Nigeria was helping to free several African countries including South Africa with its resources and was the largest black nation; why shouldn’t it be Nigeria? Mandela said.

Another leadership quality Mandela showed was serving only one term. If Mandela wanted to change the constitution of his country to serve as many terms as he wanted, he could have succeeded. Instead, after his second year in office, he practically started grooming a successor. That was leadership. That immediately set a standard for his country and, when his predecessor wanted to start playing tricks, he was quickly thrown out by the system Mandela had established. And when he left power, he did not interfere with the running of the country as we see with several African leaders like former president Obasanjo who left power but didn’t want to leave the scene.

Yes, Mandela taught the world to forgive but he also taught the world leadership. He gave us enduring leadership lessons. He was the greatest man of his generation and that is clearly obvious from the way the world is celebrating him today.

Today, Nigeria urgently needs a Mandela. We need a Mandela who will bring the whole bickering constituents of the nation together and not one who by his actions and petty private talks divides the very people he is leading. Nigeria needs a leader like Mandela who will be a leader to all. We need a leader who will harness the resources of this country to move it to a first-world nation, as we have all it takes to get there.

In announcing the passing on of Mandela, President Zuma said, “South Africa has lost its greatest son”. He was only half-correct. It was Africa that lost its greatest son. He was also the founding father that Africa would have loved to have. The world will remember him forever.

EARSHOT

Nigeria To Be A Major Exporter Of Indian Hemp?

The chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Alhaji Ahmadu Giade, has raised the alarm that, I think, we should all take very seriously. He said Nigerian farmers are abandoning traditional crops and now prefer farming cannabis because it is much more profitable. He said last year more than 1,400 hectares of land was used to cultivate Indian hemp. Knowing Nigerians very well, I predict that if the federal government does not take a tough position on this issue, this may get to 10,000 hectares within a year. If the Jonathan government treats this matter with the levity with which it has treated every serious matter, it will be a serious disaster for Nigeria. This is one issue that the president needs to give a damn.

I will seriously advise a collaboration of the local, state and federal governments on this matter. And the time to start is today. Nigeria already has enough problems. This one should not be added to the bunch. We must never acquire the dubious reputation of being the largest cannabis producer in the world, which is what could happen if we do nothing.

Leadership

Dons at war: Fallout of Prof Uka’s Interview

There are many issues contending for attention this week. For one, last week’s Sideview entitled, “JONATHAN AS THE FIDDLER IN CHIEF?” stirred the hornet’s nest in many quarters, yielding so many responses that deserve a space.
But the biggest story, of course, is the passage of one of the world’s greatest personalities of the century, Nelson Mandela. If all things remain equal, it would be my desire next week to explore the spirit of Mandela.
But before then, one of the principles for which Mandela is revered is dogged integrity, especially in public office. If so, the article below by Dr. Peter J. Ezeh of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, who is challenging the disingenuous and less than honourable way Professor Emele Mba Uka became the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, adding to himself a strange honorific for a Presbyterian, “Prelate and Moderator” and splitting the church in the process, seems a germane subject to explore on the eve of Mandela’s exit. Beware though, for Ezeh’s article published below, may set off a battle of the dons:      The beam in his eye.
By P-J Ezeh 
Sunday Sun’s interview with Professor Emele Mba Uka, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria (10/11/13), makes an interesting reading. It brought out in high relief the problem that some of us who are familiar with the Presbyterian tradition knew that this eminent clergyman and scholar would have any day he tried to comment on Nigeria’s national issues. After he came to his present office the way he did, Professor Uka lost the moral ground to comment on any social or political issue that has to do with institutional, in contradistinction to individual, strength. Unfortunately, excepting the biographical bits the rest of the interview under reference was all about how Nigeria as a polity grapples with its current institutional challenges. It was pathetic to read how the clergyman went from one point to another entangled at each turn by bundles of contradictions, vis-à-vis the situation that he has helped to create in his own church.
But it is only human to find it all too easy to counsel on how another person or group may correct their ills but not see how enmeshed in equivalent or worse things you yourself or your group is. It made me think of the words of that unbeatable wit, Mark Twain: “Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.” And before him, it was Christ himself who had famously said, “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (Matthew 7: 3).  Beam as the vehicle in this metaphor is a long piece of timber.
Anyone who is familiar with the Presbyterian global tradition and the excellent record of that church in the history of modern Nigeria was worried about the trouble that Professor Uka’s mode of access to the headship and his controversial style of leadership might create in this ecclesiastical system. These would be in two basic ways. One is the loss of the seriousness that the voice of the Presbyterians had always been taken in Nigerian national life. If you can’t intervene by the example of your own conduct as a group, or as a person, no one considers you as credible. All you manage to say amounts to no more than hot air. Second, the Presbyterian Church in Nigeria will become a negative institutional crackpot in the family of the Presbyterians in the world. It becomes all the more disconcerting when the basis of this discrepancy lends itself to being construed as being motivated by a quest for power and grandioseness, the very opposite of the reputation that the Presbyterians have earned themselves everywhere in the world.
Now, let us look at the key points of the clergyman and professor in that interview. Apart from the remarks on his life story, other points were about his disappointment on how Nigeria was founded and how it is being run. For him, the amalgamation in 1914 was, to quote him, “a great error”.
As a citizen he is entitled to his view. There are also those who think that the problem with Nigeria is not that people of diverse ethnicities are grouped together as one nation-state. The entire Africa can be run as one nation-state very effectively as long as the institutions are treated seriously, much less Nigeria. It is not about size, or religion, or ethnicities, or whatnot. It is whether there is respect for the rules of live and let live, expressed in the institutions of the nation-state. Once institutions are vitiated even if you make a small rural community a nation-state it still won’t work. Recall that a survey of the world economies by the Michigan State University in 1963 rated Eastern Region of this self same Nigeria the fastest industrialising economy in the world. Why? Institutional strength, which we have now lost. Professor Anya O. Anya referred to this in 1993 during an immortal speech on an anniversary of Hope Waddell Institute, one of those tremendous contributions to modernization of Nigeria that the Presbyterians have made.
In a church, in a country, in a university; in anything else, once respect of rules is lost; once the principle of might is right is enthroned, nothing else can be firm, or orderly or make progress. Once you start splitting up along racial lines as in United States Jim Crow laws or Apartheid South Africa; ethnic lines as in present-day Nigeria; sectarian lines as in Northern Ireland of recent history, present Syria, or even the burgeoning Boko Haram experience in these parts; once you start giving undue space to a negative us/them dichotomy, every truly useful thing is lost. And the loser will include the stupid side that imagines itself as the top dog. It happens that in such an ill wind everything is always dangerously in a state of flux.
But the cases of the United States and South Africa have also demonstrated very clearly that once the people return to fairness and genuine rule of law, most social defects are healed. So, pace the likes of Professor Uka, the problem of Nigeria is not amalgamation.
It is the problem of the loss of the mental attitude of love of one’s neighbour which all great religions preach. Here the term, neighbour, is used in the meaning that Christ himself gave it in his parable on that topic (Luke 10: 29 – 37). Free will in terms of choosing a geo-political, or any other human group is important but it is not a sufficient condition. If it were, you will not be having the sort vicious politics that goes on in such micro political groupings as the village assemblies, university senates, local government councils, national assemblies, churches (including currently the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria), and so on.
If it were, such post-Independence federations like the Mali Federation (merging Senegal and former French Sudan), and Senegambia (merging Senegal and Gambia) that were formed by Africans themselves would not have collapsed. Mali Federation did not even last one full year.
So, the strength of a country is as good as the strength of its institutions, which in turn is as good as the attitude of the ruling class to those institutions. But more importantly for the purposes of the present discourse, the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria under Professor Uka’s leadership is mired in the same malaise of disrespect of its own institution, and so the erudite clergy man lacks the moral ground to preach to Nigeria on how to cure its own political illness, which is very, very comparable to that of his church.
He came to the leadership of the church through a process which a great number of his members allege was rigged. Indeed the protestation that greeted it (first of its kind in the nearly 170 years’ history of that church in Nigeria) has lead to a split. In consequence there are, scandalously, now two factions of the Presbyterian Church in Nigeria. As that goes on, Professor Uka takes up the title, Prelate and Moderator. This is another negative first.
Two things stand out from this. One, it suggests self-aggrandisement in that it flies in the face of everything that is known about the Presbyterian Church historically and everywhere else in the world and previously at any other time here in Nigeria. Presbyterianism is the opposite of Episcopalism.
The first is a system that is rooted in the position of the French church reformer, John Calvin, borrowed by his pupil, John Knox, who took it to his native Scotland and eventually spread it wider in the world. Presbyterianism is the humble position that church government is in hands of elders, clergy and laity. The person who is called the Moderator at the national hierarchy of the church is therefore a mere primus inter pares; first among equals. Episcopalism is a system of church government whereby the Bishops or the Prelates are in charge and hold sway over the rest of their members. This is the one that is now accepted by Professor Uka.
This seems wrong on three grounds: Episcopalism and Presbyterianism are contradictory in terms; you cannot be both Presbyterian and Episcopal at the same time. Second, no other Presbyterian Church anywhere in the world is in a similar position. Third, there seems to be no sustainable justification for this in the Nigerian case, except perhaps in the apparent prestige of the title, Prelate, itself, which contradicts the humility with which Presbyterianism was founded and has carried on with in all other places in the world, as well as in Nigeria, before Professor Uka’s tenure.
Here again Professor Uka is on a precarious moral ground when it comes to advising on Nigeria’s secular politics. When he said during the interview under reference, “Worldliness is creeping into the church”, I am one of those who agree completely with him. But then that is the irony. If the world and the church are now in the same boat, then the church should first of all remove the beam in its eye before it can advise on the mote in the eye of the world. Professor Uka should go and put in order his own organisation that is much less complex before coming to advise us Nigerians.
Dr Ezeh teaches anthropology in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and is the Coordinator, Social Sciences Unit, School of General Studies of the same University,  HYPERLINK “mailto:pitjazi@yahoo.com” pitjazi@yahoo.com, Tel: 08052377132

TheSun