Nigeria: Beginning of the End?

NIGERIA: BEGINNING OF THE END?

The riots that rocked London, Birmingham, Manchester and other English cities laid bare the fallacy that Muslims are to be found at the centre of every uprising worldwide.  This new found “theory” had gained currency since the advent of the so-called ‘New World Order’ as enunciated by George Bush Sr. at the beginning of Gulf War I in 1990.  It also coincided with the demise of the USSR and communism the world over.  Muslims everywhere are labelled terrorists for demanding social justice from their various governments.  The phenomenon has recently gained acceptability with the Nigerian government and media.  Am happy to note that the British media attributed the London riots to social problems and was not given any religious toga, the presence of Islamic Bank of England notwithstanding.  The Deputy Prime Minister of England, standing in for the Prime Minister who had gone for holidays, also blamed social problems for the uprising.

Though the wind of protests is sweeping many countries, particularly in the Middle East and the Maghreb countries of Africa, the Nigerian media chose to give them different names and labels depending on where the troubles are taking place.  In Bahrain, Yemen and Nigeria, it is Islamic fundamentalist while in countries like Libya and Syria, the troublemakers are freedom fighters to be glorified, egged on.  Even in Nigeria, Niger Delta brigands are called ‘militants’ fighting for “resource control” while those killed, maimed or kidnapped are just collateral damage; those in the North Eastern geo-political zone in particular and the north in general are Boko Haram ‘Islamic fundamentalist’.  Even where elections were rigged and people protested, it was a premeditated attack by goat herders and Boko Haram elements and not a protest by voters who felt short-changed by godfathers to armed robbers.   This profiling that slowly crept into our body politic is a very dangerous development but our pressmen seem to derive pleasure from.

The main difference between the riots in England and those in Nigeria, in my opinion, is the fact that despite the ferocious nature of the riots in almost all the major cities of England, the authorities diagnosed the causes as a socio-economic problem relating to poverty, unemployment and general dissatisfaction with the conditions of living.  In Nigeria, religious leaders were at the forefront of labelling protests against social injustice as an ethnic and religious uprising.  The media took up from where the clergy men stopped by making dumb analysis like – the north is protesting because a northerner was defeated; the Muslims are protesting because a Muslim did not win the election - very pedestrian, uninformed and myopic deductions by people claiming to be enlightened.  The fact that the people were protesting the unprecedented rigging and denial of their choice by a government bent on retaining power no matter how many people are killed was not an issue to those waiting for every opportunity to hang ‘northerners’ to dry.  When a man drove a car beneath a plane at the Calabar Airport last year, invoking the wrath of Christ on those considered anti-Christ by him, he was promptly labelled a loony; when some oil thieves exploded bombs in Abuja on October 1^st, 2010 and claimed responsibility, no less than the president came out to defend those who claimed responsibility.  The president went further to claim to know who did the dastardly act but certainly not from the Niger Delta because, according to him, he grew up there and therefore knew the people.  When Charles Orkar, their armourer was arrested, he was taken to Jos prison.

When Mohammed Yusuf was arrested, the authorities summarily and extrajudicially executed him and no so-called human rights activist shed a drop of tear.  While Orkar is a militant fighting in the cause of his people, Mohammed Yusuf was a terrorist fighting for no cause and therefore deserved to be shot like a mad dog.  And you wonder why Nigeria is not developed?  How can we develop like other civilised countries if after fifty years of independence we still cannot recognise truth wherever we see it; how can we ever hope of competing with such countries like Ghana, Botswana or even Malawi when our attitude is always ‘us against them”?  Today, Nigeria is divided into “ethnic nationalities”, “races” and “religions”.  This is what we continue to pretend doesn’t exist.  The recent general elections in the country lay bare what we refuse to see and accept.  Everything is alright now, according to our sectional media since the hated, parasitic north has “lost out” completely both politically and economically.

Much as I try not to apportion blames for my predicament, I have to admit that I have always held Babangida responsible for taking the north to where we are today.  In trying to expurgate his “sin” against the country, or a section of it as the press chose to see it, Babangida mortgaged the collective destiny of over 80 million northerners by going the extra mile to ensure an ex-jailbird became the president of Nigeria at the onset of civilian rule in 1999.  The annulment of the June 12^th, 1993 elections was done with Babangida’s interest only and the elevation of a psychopath to the exalted office of the president of this country was also done with his interest at heart only; so if there is fairness, why should I continue to pay for something that I wasn’t part of?  The ascension to the presidency of Obasanjo was the beginning of the disintegration of Nigeria, as we know it.  Suddenly ethnic assertiveness became the fad.  But if we really want to be truthful, the seeds of what we are witnessing today was sown during the wasted years of Babangida.  Most of the political actors today sprouted during his presidency and they are now at the forefront of insulting him.

All these got tacit support from our so-called opinion leaders who thought that since they are not at the receiving end of our hardships, Obasanjo and his successors can roast all of us in hell.  With very few exceptions, the northern leadership – political, traditional and religious – have failed the region woefully.  Those of my generation are the worst hit and our current crops of governors are the worst culprits.  Our own docility and timidity cannot not be excused no matter how you look at it.  The campaign of hate against the region which began over fifty years ago will not come to an end until the day we decide to go our separate ways and go we must.  What I don’t know is if it is going to be the Czechoslovakia way or the Sudan way.  If our leaders are comfortable at being called parasites, I am not.

A couple of years ago, a US based Think-Tank made a prediction that Nigeria was unlikely to remain the same nation with the same borders and characteristics that we all know by 2015.  This analysis drew a lot of condemnation across the length and breadth of the country.  Giving recent developments in our polity it will be foolhardy to continue to think that this is not a possibility.  As for me, I can clearly see the writing on the wall.  Don’t you?

Nigeria: Beginning of the End?

CONSENSUS, NONSENSUS, DISENSUS? HOW ABOUT EQUITY?

CONSENSUS, NONSENSUS, DISENSUS? HOW ABOUT EQUITY

Mallam Adamu Ciroma was once, not long ago, hailed as a nationalist par excellence by the same politicians, journalists and public affairs commentators who are falling over each other in castigating him as an ethnic bigot and an irredentist today.  He was the toast of our commentators when he directed the re-election campaign of Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003.  At that time Mallam Adamu was hailed as a politician with foresight for insisting that the likes of the late Abubakar Rimi and Barnabas Gemade were not allowed to contest because of an existing agreement signed in 2002 for power rotation between the north and the south.  That each region should be allowed to lead the country (whether we like it or not) for eight continuous years.  Today Mallam Adamu is vilified for insisting on the implementation of the same agreement, freely signed by all present – the difference this time is that the shoe is on the other foot and those who believe Nigeria belongs to them are of the opinion that others shouldn’t be allowed to come near political power in the next hundred years.

I have had numerous arguments with friends and colleagues on the propriety or otherwise of the zoning principle enshrined in the constitution of the PDP as a mechanism for ensuring that all sections of the country at one time or the other attained the presidency of the country and as an instrument for satisfying the diverse ethnic and religious groups of the country.  I have never being comfortable with the arrangement, though if this be the best instrument that is devised for those who believe Nigeria must remain one, no matter what, I said so be it.  Besides, being not a member of the PDP, I feel I do not have the moral justification to question how the party choose to govern its internal affairs, though in the long run, it will affect me one way or the other.  And then ‘Yar Adu’a died.  Zoning took on an entirely different meaning because the advocates of the policy believe they can hoodwink the rest of us into believing their own interpretation of zoning, contrary to all known English or legal language.  Some even went to the ridiculous level of saying though the north is supposed to “enjoy” the arrangement for eight uninterrupted years, with the demise of ‘Yar Adu’a, Jonathan is now in pole position to complete the north’s turn.  The zoning antagonists polarised the country by their actions and utterances – blackmail, harassment by security officials, bribe, insults, etc.

While the brick-a-brats were going on, the Adamu Ciroma Committee emerged with a view to pruning the number of northern aspirants seeking to contest for the presidency on the platform of the PDP.  This was the first quiver fired from the arrow of the zoning protagonists that sent shock waves down the spine of Goodluck’s patrons and cronies.  Goodluck’s handlers targeted Babangida, one of the quartets under consideration by the Ciroma Committee, thinking he will be the one to be selected as the consensus candidate of the northern branch (?) of the PDP.  The attacks were so reckless that his campaign director general was hauled-in on charges bordering on treason and wilful murder in the aftermath of the Abuja bombings.  Skeletons were rattled in Babandida’s closet and dead issues were exhumed.  Already some gullible voters were beginning to believe that Babangida was the worst thing to happen to the country - a twentieth century reincarnation of Dracula.  Suddenly the issues of Dele Giwa murder, the Ejigbo airforce plane disaster and other unsavoury policies of Babangida became topical issues.  The whole Goodluck train passengers’ minds were conditioned to the fact that Babangida will be selected by the Ciroma Committee.  When the Committee’s selection was announced, they were all dumbfounded as their reactions revealed.  It means going back to the drawing board for them.

The reactions that trailed the announcement are my concern and not the announcement itself.  Two groups continue to baffle me – the Goodluck and the Babangida groups.  While Babangida overtly congratulated Atiku for emerging as the consensus candidate, his coterie of “die-hards” keep lampooning Mallam Adamu Ciroma and his Committee members.  Many will now tell you with a straight face that the Committee was populated with Atiku supporters that why why he emerged as the Committee’s consensus candidate.  Some even said the Committee was bribed by Atiku.  I have never liked Atiku or Babangida’s politics, but I feel it will be wrong for Babangida’s supporters to start such a campaign only after their candidate failed to make the grade.  The right thing to do was to have pointed out the lopsided nature of the Committee’s composition well before the announcement and not after.  And if truly the quartet were trying to worst Goodluck politically for flouting his party’s written agreement (which he was a signatory) then the most honourable thing for Babangida to do is to keep mum because they will also be guilty of what they are accusing Goodluck of – flouting a written agreement.  The Committee had the presence of mind to make all the aspirants sign an agreement to abide by the outcome of the Committee’s work.

The reactions from the Goodluck group are, to say the least, nauseating.  A representative of their reaction is where someone called the Committee’s work “...nothing but a display of primordial sentiments”.  I cannot fathom what the man means because I thought the whole thing began from Goodluck’s corner when tribal organisations, herded by ethnic potentates, endorsed him as their candidate in 2011 in flagrant disobedience of Section 7.2(c) of the PDP’s constitution.  The south west governors endorsed him, South-South Peoples Assembly and their governors “anointed” him, Oha Naeze and the south east governors crowned him.  There is nothing primordial in all these.  But if some northern PDP members decide that the right thing must be done, it is “sectional” and retrogressive.  For daring to insist that the authors of the agreement respect their work of fiction, the Ciroma Committee members are labelled “primordial sentimentalist”, while the authors of the agreement. who are the primary beneficiaries of the contraption, are “pan Nigerians”.  For Obasanjo, Clarke and Ralph Uwechue to “anoint and endorse” Goodluck in flagrant disregard of a subsisting agreement, they are forward looking, not minding the dangerous precedent they will be setting, even if the corporate existence of the country is threatened.

It is perfectly alright for this group to dredge up the murder of Dele Giwa (which was taken to the Supreme Court) and the Ejigbo air disaster and try obliquely to hang these on Babangida’s neck and sweep under the rug the recent brutal and unsolved murders of Marshal Harry, Bola Ige and all those killed during Obasanjo’s tenure including complete obliteration of Zaki Biyam and Odi.  What sort of a country are we trying to build?  The Ciroma Committee was among other things accused by this group as essentially set-up to subvert Goodluck because he is a southerner yet they conveniently forgot to tell Nigerians that subverting a subsisting agreement put in place in the first instance to allow all components of the country a sense of belonging is not just subverting the political interest of the north, but the corporate existence of the country. 

To me, Babangida, Atiku and Goodluck are all the same and none will get my vote.  I do not have an iota of political sympathy for the trio and never will.  My sincere advice to Babangida’s supporters who feel robbed by the outcome of the Ciroma Committee’s work and strongly believed a northerner must be voted as the president of Nigeria come 2011, they have a choice from among the plethora of candidates in the other parties.  For Babangida to question the selection of Atiku by the Committee is tantamount to coming to equity with not only soiled hands, but soiled underpants.

NIGERIA HAS REALLY COME OF AGE - BOMBS IN THE FEDERAL CAPITAL

NIGERIA HAS REALLY COME OF AGE – BOMBS IN THE FEDERAL CAPITAL

Nigeria has really come of age – what with the spate of kidnappings including primary school children four days to the N7billion carnival, in the run up to the 50^th independence anniversary celebration that culminated in the senseless killing of innocent revellers through the detonation of a bomb in Abuja.  Yes, Nigeria has really come of age and did celebrate in style by spilling blood in Abuja, far away from the theatre of war in the Niger Delta, where perceived grievances are settled through the use of brutal force against the innocent.  The south-south is really in charge of the affairs of the country as attested to by the ease of access the bombers have into the capital city despite the heavy presence of security men all along the road from the Niger Delta to Abuja.  Though this is not the first time the militants “invaded” the seat of government because earlier this year they were given “safe passage” by the powers that be to come and terrorise people on the Airport road when traffic was brought to standstill for more than three hours.  If anyone entertains doubts about the assertion that Niger Delta militants are in charge of the country, the defense put up by Goodluck on behalf of MEND should leave no one in doubt though MEND chose to disclaim him.

The double standards of the government in handling security situations in Nigeria can be attributed to this brazen show of bravado by these vagabonds, who believe they hold the country by its jugular.  This state of affairs began with Obasanjo’s cuddling of killers and rewarding them with government patronage and appointments.  OPC killers like Gani Adams who was once purportedly declared wanted by the Police surfaced at his own sweet time only to be appointed into a so-called Leaders of Thought Committe by the same government that declared him culpable for the mass killings that then swept the south western part of the country.  Rather than being taken to court like those accused for attempted murder Gani Adams was treated as a conquering hero returning from a war of attrition.  Then in 2009 after the army overran the compound of one of the warlords, a certain Tompolo, the government halted military operations and granted amnesty to murderers who never gave any amnesty to their victims.  The military will have routed these oil thieves by now and Nigerians will be the better off for it.  But what do we have now?  Since the release of their armourer – Henry Okah – and the fortuitous ascension of Goodluck to the number one seat, we have seen heightening of activities by these crooks.  Two weeks ago I had cause to comment on Goodluck Jonathan’s declaration speech.  In enumerating his achievements since ascending the ‘throne’, the president mentioned the provision of security for life and property as one area he has excelled.  We have now seen the level of the security we have attained under Goodluck.

With the surfeit of security men on our highways and airports, I think Nigerians deserve explanation on the way and manner the bombs were smuggled into Abuja.  No one will convince me that there is no official connivance in all these.  While discussing with a friend during the earlier ‘invasion’ of Abuja by the militants, most of whom came in Bayelsa State Transport Company buses, I told him that I was of the opinion that some highly placed people must have brought them to Abuja to make a diabolical point.  It was my very strong believe that were they to be some bearded, gown wearing mallams in just one bus, they will have been promptly arrested at the first road block they encountered on their way to Abuja and labelled Boko Haram terrorists. 

What have we actually celebrated?  Is it the resurgence of ethnic assertiveness which has taken a dangerous turn as exemplified by the increase in kidnappings and bombings by criminal elements masquerading as freedom fighters?  This can be seen in the emergence of the Boko Haram group, a group of people disgruntled with the way and manner the country is being run and the way social justice is dispensed to different parts of the country under the same set of circumstances.  While oil thieves and illegal bunkerers, who turned to kidnappings and murder, are treated with kid gloves, glamorised as heroes by the media and given red carpet reception by the government.  Boko Haram, the group that nearly resembled the Niger Delta militants in terms of brutality in the north, on the hand, were hunted and killed like rabid dogs.  We all remember the footage aired by Aljazeera sometimes back where policemen were seen killing helpless people with glee.  We have seen how Mohammed Yusuf and Baba Fagu after their arrest while Tompolo, Boyloaf and their likes were treated like royalty.Is it this enclave mentality that we just celebrated or the inherent lack of justice that turn otherwise sensible people to beast?  Or is it the lies fed to Nigerians by its callous leadership that was worth celebrating?

Goodluck Jonathan’s government is blaming the South African government for the blasts – but what has the government of Nigeria done with the information they claimed was passed to them by the British government which in turn they said was passed to the South Africans?  Did they passed the information to the South Africans and then went ahead with their preparations for their jamboree leaving others to do their work for them?  What did our government do after learning from its media friends about the press statement sent media houses by MEND in which the bandits claimed to have planted explosives in cars and trash cans in and around the Eagle Square, venue of the celebration?  Why are we looking for scapegoats and spoiling for a fight with another country because of our ineptitude and irresponsibility?  Why did we allow Okah to leave the country in the first place knowing his antecedents?  Truth be told, I don’t trust our leaders or what they say.  Our president is on record as a man who signed an agreement when it suits his then purpose only for him to turn round and disclaim what carried his signature.  If his signature is not worth a dime to him, why would his word mean anything to me?

I would have joined Goodluck in celebrating if what we were to celebrate includes the geometrical growth of corruption, the phenomenal rise in banditry, kidnappings, darkness, unsolved murders, dilapidated infrastructures, vote rigging and such other vices nurtured by the government.  We would have been honest with ourselves by celebrating our achievement of joining such nations like Mexico and Colombia as a haven for kidnappers; or Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq as countries whose breakfast consists of the occasional explosions and human entrails on the street as part of the scenery.  Let’s not kid ourselves – we just blew up in firecrackers.  We certainly don’t have anything to celebrate.

Jauleru Nchokoh: Candidate Goodluck Jonathan: A Man To Trust?

Jauleru Nchokoh: Candidate Goodluck Jonathan: A Man To Trust?: "CANDIDATE GOODLUCK JONATHAN: A MAN TO TRUST? Now that Goodluck Jonathan has summoned the courage to let the poor folks he leads as president..."

Jauleru Nchokoh: Candidate Goodluck Jonathan: A Man To Trust?

Jauleru Nchokoh: Candidate Goodluck Jonathan: A Man To Trust?: "CANDIDATE GOODLUCK JONATHAN: A MAN TO TRUST? Now that Goodluck Jonathan has summoned the courage to let the poor folks he leads as president..."

Jauleru Nchokoh:

Jauleru Nchokoh: