FOR GOD’S SAKE, LET’S DISSOLVE THE UNION

 

With the advent of this political dispensation, which began in May 1999, the north sank deeper into a sea of poverty, illiteracy and joblessness amidst the greed of rapacious, conscienceless ruling class, whose only target is to be at the centre of power irrespective of how the region fared.  Ignorance and medeocratism have taken over at the expense of saner minds.  The north, steeped in history of unity, compromises and leadership sagacity, has turned its back on its past.  While the late Sir Ahmadu Bello shone light on the region during the pre and the immediate post-independence period, the region is now so fragmented along ethno-religious lines that the emergence of another Sir Ahmadu Bello may be near impossible.  Our matchless source of power has been our unity, but we have abandoned this in favour of “elite power”.  Is it any wonder therefore that the region was brought to its knees in all facets of human endeavour right before its competitors?

The massacre of northern political and military leaders on the night of January 15^th, 1966 left a region trying to play catch-up with the rest of the country rudderless.  The unification decree promulgated by the Ironsi government was specifically targeted at the “feudal north”, whatever it may mean.  It was meant to curb the perceived overbearing influence of the region on the affairs of the country.  But if ‘truth be told’, to paraphrase the name of one of the January 1966 coupists books, the decree was meant to strengthen the hands of the Igbos in all spheres of the country’s polity.

Much as those who want to rewrite the history of the immediate post-independence Nigeria would want the rest of the world to believe that the secession and the subsequent civil war was a consequence of the isolated killing of Igbos in Kano, the north must strive to bring to fore the real version of history and the chronology of historical events that led to the thirty month old needless civil war.  The Igbos, by their actions on January 15^th, 1966 and the subsequent triumphal attitude displayed in northern towns ignited the fire that nearly engulfed them.  The starvation theory and the 20 pounds payout by a benevolent federal government to every Igbo person after their surrender can all be traced to the actions of their leaders.  We are now reliving this same attitude, which pitted brother against brother.

When Nzegwu and his band of killers murdered northern and western political and military leaders to the total exclusion of those of eastern extraction, the Igbos applauded them and basked in the mistaken glory of dominating the rest of the country.  Not a single Igbo elite condemned this barbarism.  When the north woke from its slumber, the cries of “pogrom” rented the air.  Killing the political and military leaders of the north wasn’t a crime but “retaliatory” action by northern military officers was worth branding a whole region as barbaric.  The killing of Ironsi was a result of the failure of his government to prosecute those who carried out the massacre of January 15^th.  To northerners at the time, those massacred by Nzegwu and company were men of matchless virtue, faith and character.

With the emergence of Nnnamdi Kanu on the eastern horizon and criminal silence from the Igbo elite, it may appear history is about to repeat itself.  An upstart, barely literate wanabe has taken to the airwaves in the last two years hurling insults at the leadership and people of the north with no single condemnation from the Igbo elite.  He was rather egged-on by those who should know better.  He is received in government houses and palaces with pomp normally reserved for royalty.  Action as is known begets reaction.  Getting fed up with the insults from Kanu and the deafening silence from the Igbos, particularly those living in the north, some northern youths came together and issued what they called “quit notice” to Igbos living amidst them.  That they should leave the region on or before October 1^st, 2017.  Then all hell broke loose.  A hitherto pliant government got to action by inviting various groups to Aso Villa for only God knows what.  The Igbo elites found their voice and those living in the north began running to government houses and palaces to pledge their allegiance to a united Nigeria.  Suddenly Kanu doesn’t represent anybody; he is on his own; he is a lunatic.  But is that what we see? Come on; please let’s be real.

The Igbos only now realised how the hospitality of the northerners made it possible for them to have investments worth N44 trillion in the region.  They forgot to tell us the total investments of all northerners living in the east.  While the hospitality of the average northerner made it possible for the Igbos to have this quantum of investment in the north, the hostility of the average Igbo man made it impossible for anybody, from any part of the country to live and invest in Igboland.

The never-ending excuse is ‘marginalisation’.  Have the Igbos cared to know how the rest of the country fared under ‘their’ government of Goodluck Jonathan when Pius Anyim and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala held sway?  If my memory serves me right, the Yorubas were not worse than the Igbos now, yet they didn’t threaten the country; the north was turned into a battleground and was perpetually under siege from Yola to Sokoto with all its attendant consequences, yet they bided their time.  When the time came (2015 general elections), the north and the west, the two regions ‘marginalised’ by Jonathan and the Igbos, came together and kicked them out of Aso Villa.  The folly of those who supported Jonathan massively is now blamed on the rest of the country.  Every uncouth language hurled at the rest of the country by any lunatic fringe is fair game.

I do not choose to live under a union where the victim is always portrayed as the villain by an uncritical and biased press.  If the Biafra advocates, proponents of restructuring and purveyors of such other mundane clichés will have the courage of their convictions, let them come out to call for the dissolution of the union.  We can then sit at a round ( or even oblong) table to decide along which lines we will go our separate ways.  The marriage is not worth the insults.

Enough is enough

SAYONARA SALIHIJO AHMAD (SA)

“…Although we loved him dearly,

He could not make him stay.

A golden heart stopped beating,

Hard working hands to rest.

God broke our hearts to prove to us

He only takes ‘The Best’.”

Anonymous

Eighteen years ago today we lost one of our greatest teachers and mentors, the late Salihijo Ahmad.  The new political dispensation was barely a month into its takeoff when SA left us and since then many still find it difficult to believe he is gone for good.  He was larger than life and so most of us thought he will be there forever.  Alhamdulillah, he lived a fulfilled live and mentored a lot of us but unfortunately many amongst us failed him.  He taught me everything I know in life and made me a better Nigerian.

SA was an epitome of planning and meticulousness as can be attested by his last major assignment – Management Consultant to the defunct Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF) then headed by General Muhammadu Buhari, current president.  The PTF still remains the benchmark for project planning and execution despite the numerous efforts of many to discredit its unparalleled achievements in terms of timely and efficient project delivery.  The way the PTF operated earned General Buhari tremendous respect, which he is still reaping.  But where is the Afri-Projects Consortium (APC) alumnus?  General Buhari is today the president of Nigeria but we failed to see a replication of the PTF success story in the way the country is run now

with the former PTF Chairman is running the show.  Could the absence of SA among the team be responsible for the start – stop nature of this administration?  With SA on board, I know we would have had a different style of governance and the results would have started manifesting.

If SA were alive, I don’t believe the government will look this impotent in the face of assaults on its authority from ethnicists and religious bigots.  We are witnessing hypocritical leadership and we do not seem to care a hoot.  While the Igbo leadership are laying the red carpet for Nnamdi Kanu, those of the north are calling for the arrest of some youth who urged the Igbos to leave the north in a move that I think will only hasten the realisation of their dream Eldorado republic.  I failed to fathom the brouhaha that followed the ultimatum issued by the youth since it only affirmed what the Igbos wanted.  I would have loved to know how SA will have reacted to this but I don’t want to second-guess him in public.

SA was spared witnessing the various human carnage we experienced under this civilian dispensation unfortunately we lived through it beginning with the Kaduna riots to the Mambilla massacre.  Through it all, the narratives were as determined by the villains.  In his wisdom even at that time, he incorporated a media consortium – Blueprints Consortium – made up of a subscription-only Newsletter, a weekly, a daily, a magazine and a Radio station.  It was to have given another view and dimension to public discourse and broaden the minds and perceptions of many.  He went to the extent of bringing in Charles Sharp, the man credited with the establishment of the New Nigerian newspapers to do a technical report on the establishment of the media consortium.  SA only saw a preview edition of the Newsletter before his death.  We failed him and failed him woefully by not continuing this laudable endeavour of his.  At least Sam Nda-Isaiah took the concept and made it work.  Had Blueprints Consortium came to fruition, the narratives would have been different I am sure. We would have had an avenue of putting forth a counter narrative with facts and figures.

The level of decay in governance, the high level of corruption and impunity, the brazen robbery committed on Nigerians in the name of Privatisation and all other sundry issues are things SA didn’t see or experienced.  Today, with the Privatisation of the power sector, Nigeria has been taken back to the dark ages.  We hardly get electricity for three hours.  All this is happening when his hero is on the saddle.  I would have given anything to know how he would have reacted and his thoughts on the current situation.

He was a man who was the proverbial knight in a shining amour to many of us; he taught you how to fish and made sure you know how to fish.  He led many out of darkness into light.  His satisfaction was in knowing he served.  He had a diverse constituency – the retired schoolteacher who still lives in a rented house despite giving thirty-five of his prime years to those who confined him to his condition; the lady who had to go to the farm before her family could feed.  SA’s masters were the widows, the poor, the less privileged; the anonymous barber in Mayo-Belwa; the retired teacher in Bole; the forgotten classmate in Gorobi.  The unselected and uncelebrated.  In short, the wretched of the earth.

SA was one of those people the sane world will never forget.  Because of his kindness, his gentleness, his concern about others and his care.  That was who he was.  A workaholic to the core – he was happiest whenever he was busy in the service of others.  Always quick to lend a helping hand.

SA’s desire was to serve and serve he did.  His vision, his courage and his strength came from his spirit.  Living his vision and providing service to mankind was achievement and fulfillment.  He never rested for a day in his quest for perfection in his desire to serve.  I pray he is resting in peace

WE ARE ALL SICK

We are sick in this country – yes we are. Or how else how can we be debating about phrases in presidential communication to the Senate and not the failure of the Senate to pass a budget laid before it by our “sick” president almost six months ago?  In the interim we allowed the Senate to divert our attention from its failure to pass the Appropriation Bill by pretending to be angry that Col. Hameed Ali, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service refused to wear the Service’s uniform; we permitted the spoilt brats at the National Assembly to entertain us with clowns like Dino Melaye appearing in a ceremonial academic gown in the supposed hallowed Chamber of the Senate.  We spent quality time speechifying on the superiority of Section 171 of the Constitution over Section 2 of the EFCC act with regards to Magu’s continued headship of the Commission in an acting capacity.  We are sick if we believe the mundane is more important than the substance.

What is our take on the suspension of Babachir David (BD) Lawal?  He was suspended because he is a Kilba minority Christian from Adamawa who the Hausa and Fulani Muslims wouldn’t want to see appointed as the Secretary to the Federal Government if not for the benevolence of Tinubu and Akande, forgetting that the man who appointed him in the first place is a Fulani Muslim.  He was not suspended because he turned the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE) into an initiation into pain by hundreds of thousands of those who lost their loved ones, their economic power and dignity, their households and all worldly material.  He forgot the essence of establishing the PINE in the first place.

The essence of establishing the Initiative, in my opinion, is to give an undemanding assistance to the victims of insurgency in the North East; to give them a strong arm and a crutch to stand-on and pick the pieces of their shattered lives.  It is also meant to be a vehicle for extending comfort and aid to our unfortunate brethren whose only desire is to get resettled to the monotony of their past lives.  The PINE is meant to jump-start economic activity and restore economic dignity in communities that has seen their economy ravaged by mindless insurgency and help reintegrate families who hitherto engaged in one form of business or the other but are now reduced to living in IDP Camps.  These are the people the SGF denied the opportunity to live again like him and other fellow human beings – live with dignity and the privacy they have been denied in the recent past.  They don’t belong to these camps but the failure of the past government to secure their lives and properties brought them to this sorry state.

The SGF believed that the PINE was specifically established for him to satisfy his yearn for money.  He cared less for the integrity of the one who appointed him to the office nor the dignity of the supposed beneficiaries, now living in Camps that has been adjudged to be not fit for human habitation, no thanks to BD, who turned the iniative into his chequebook.  We have seen the quantum of monies transferred to his company or personal accounts by contractors engaged to execute these palliative projects in the zone.  We have seen the crudity and the wickedness; we have witnessed the inhumanity and vulgarity in “chopping” the widow’s mite meant to provide succor to the needy in the SGF’s locality.  We are sick if we still believe the SGF’s religion has anything to do with his suspension.  We are doubly sick if we believe he should be walking around freely when Dasuki is rotting in jail for almost the same offence.  Dasuki is guilty of diverting monies meant for the purchase of arms to fight the insurgents who put these people in the IDP camps in the first place while the SGF is guilty of denying them their humanity by stealing monies meant for their reintegration.  Same difference in my opinion.

When big things happen to some people, they go gaga – and I believe nothing bigger has ever happened to our SGF in his entire life than being appointed into this office – occupied by the likes of Alison Ayida, Liman Ciroma, Gray Longe, Shehu Musa and even Yayale Ahmed.  He pictured himself as this “big man” in this “big office”, without a dime to his name.  And then he got to work to remedy the situation.  What then do we tell those among us who are in IDP camps until God-knows when?  Those who cannot afford smartphones and tablets to see the primitive defence we are putting up on behalf of their tormentors; or for those who still possess smartphones among them, the cost of data is contrasted with that of a hot meal; or to those whose daily survival is a trauma not knowing where their near and dear ones are; those whose present in hopeless and their future bleak.  Where is our humanity?

We have spent the better part of this year talking about Buhari’s health.  First he is dead, then he is suffering from dementia, then he is terminally ill and when he came back from his treatment in England and we all saw him walking from the plane to the helicopter we changed the tune.  After addressing the nation on how sick he was and even disclosing some of the treatment he underwent and alerting Nigerians on the possibility of going back for further tests and treatment, we still insist he conducts a media chat or should pack out of the Villa.  We are so filled with hate that we cannot empathize with a seventy five year old man in his hour of trials.  Who is sick – Nigerians or Buhari?  The recent case of former Taraba state governor James Danbaba readily come to mind.  Here was a pharmacist whose love for flying nearly ended his life.  His plane crash in late 2012 turned him into a vegetable to be wheeled around by those concerned with maintaining the political status quo in Taraba state, yet not a single voice was raised against the charade that we were treated to in the name of bigotry.  Nobody asked Danbaba to be shoved aside for a healthier person to take over.  We are truly sick if all we do is harangue an old man facing health challenges and needs our sympathy and prayers.

We have seen how first Andrew Yakubu, erstwhile Group Managing Director of the NNPC, stashed away $9.8million dollars in the ghettoes of Sabon Tasha, in Kaduna and then Ayo Oke, the suspended Director General of the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) warehoused about $47million in an apartment in Ikoyi Lagos.  Monies that have been denied Nigerians because they have been removed from circulation but all we are thinking of is their religious affinity and not their criminality.  How did their thieving benefit their religion?  Is their any religion that encourages one to steal? Is there anywhere in our holy books that provided for the glorification and protection of thieves?  Can you in all honesty and good conscience kill an armed robber and a kidnapper while sparing these two?  Common folks, if this is the way you think, then you better consult the next psychiatrist you meet.

The life of the 2016 federal budget came to an end on May 5^th, 2017 while the 2017 federal budget is bogged down in the National Assembly.  The president presented the budget to the National Assembly towards the end of 2016.  So what was the National Assembly doing all this while?  Nobody is asking them questions because we are occupied with the president’s death or ill health.  Knowing our proclivity for the humdrum, they staged plays, which cannot be staged by NTA of years gone by.  They picked a fight with Hammed Ali over the issue of uniform because most of them are smugglers whose nefarious business have been affected by his tough guy stance; they refused to confirm Magu on two occasions because most of them live on corruption and are scared of the wooden-face Magu and their poster-boy, Dino Melaye’s academic status remain hazy.

What was our reaction when all this was going-on?  We clapped for them and egged them-on.  We forgot there is a budget to work-on and pass to the executive for assent and implementation.  In less than twenty days (June 5th), if the budget is not passed and assented to, we will have a government lockdown and then the blame game will start all over again with the vilest language reserved for the president.  That is when we will conveniently forget that the budget was presented to our representatives long before now.

You tell me we are not sick?  We are sick my friend.  Buhari may be the only healthy person among us.