THE POLITICS OF ETHNIC NATIONALISM

The campaign of hate and the popularisation of hate speech in Nigeria is a legacy of Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign tactics which many people failed to see it for what it was because we were blinded by one sentiment or the other.  It first reared its head in the final days of the late Umaru ‘Yar Adua, his former principal.  After the death of ‘Yar Adua, it became Jonathan’s mantra – with his no shoes slogan saturating the airwaves and the print media.  We all forgot that most of us went to school without shoes.  Most of us were blind to the real meaning of the slogan – it was a barb directed at most Nigerians.  The other oft repeated refrain was Jonathan’s ethnic minority status and his religion.  These were presented as if there were people out there who are against the candidature/ presidency of Goodluck Jonathan on the basis of these two issues.  With the connivance of our security agents, Jonathan made it back to the Aso Villa.  The man’s true colours began manifesting.  All the credentials one need to be accepted into the president’s inner circle is your hatred for the north.  Apart from the likes of Edwin Clark, Reuben Abati and Asari Dokubo, Igbo leadership was falling head over heels to outdo all.

Igbo jezebels like Stella Oduah and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala were brought on board and given sensitive ministries to head.  They have so far discharged their briefs with diligence, may be surpassing their expectations.  The duo have effectively “igbonised” their respective ministries by ensuring that all departments and agencies under their ministries are headed by Igbos to avoid for a situation where a non Igbo may prove to be a spanner in the works.  Two examples of Oduah’s “success” may suffice here.  She worked extra hard to make Mallam Aminu Kano Airport redundant and one would not be wrong to rename the Nigerian College of Aviation, Zaria as Biafran College of Aviation because 90% of the management staff in the school are all Igbos.  Not to be outdone by Stella Oduah, Okonjo-Iweala ensured that almost all agencies and parastatals in the Finance Ministry is headed by an Igbo man or woman.  The Nigerian Stock Exchange, Securities & Exchange Commission, Bureau of Public Procurement, Budget Office, Debt Management Office, etc.  No one cares that the actions of the two damsels is in direct contravention of the Federal Character principle which is easily laid on any northerner who had the guts and the gumption to try something akin to equity.  But knowing the whole Igbo leadership and followership will stand by them and give them covering fire; they trudged on not minding whose ox is gored.

The recent revelation by the Nigerian Customs Service that the country lost about N1.4tr to waivers and concessions under Okonjo-Iweala’s watch put a question mark on the woman’s much vaunted integrity and economic expertise.  It only proves that she is not averse to telling lies under oath as was recently shown by her response to the House of Representatives Finance Committee.  With a straight face, she claimed waivers and concessions granted to some people “only” amounted to N170.7bn.  This was a woman whose arrival from the World Bank was heralded with a lot of hype on her numerous qualifications from Ivy league business schools around the world.  Nigerians were made to feel honoured that such a personage has “stooped” to be in our midst and be Finance Minister, a position her paid pipers made us believe is beneath her.  That she is sacrificing a career at the World Bank to come and fix a broken country and a battered economy.  I had cause to point out then that wasn’t it ironical that Christine Lagarde, the then French Finance Minister, was on the verge of leaving her post to take up the Managing Directorship of the IMF, the junior partner to the World Bank, while our own Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was resigning as the Managing Director of the World Bank to be a minister of a third rate rentier economy like Nigeria’s.  What we were not conveniently told was that she was a Managing Director - one of three Managing Directors - and not the Managing  Director.

While Madam Wahala was holding brief as our “Co-ordinating Economic Minister”, $49.8 billion got “missing”.  She presided over the voodoo explanations that Nigerians were subjected to without blinking her eyes.  For daring to question Okonjo Iweala’s integrity, we got heaps of insults from the Igbos.  We do not know whether the monies were stolen on behalf of the Igbos or not – what we know is that this huge amount of money got missing when Okonjo-Iweala is sitting pretty tight as the ‘Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy’.

We have also seen how the issue of Stella’s kleptomania is turned into an ethnic rather than a national issue as the Igbos went on a threat-issuing spree.  Another instance of this Igbo politics of threats is the announcement by Professor Ango Abdullahi that the Northern Elders Forum is contemplating filing of a case before the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Ihejirika, for atrocities committed by his troops in the country’s fight against insurgency.  It is becoming increasingly clear that the Igbos have a separate agenda from that of other Nigerians.  The threat by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) eastern region that the north should be prepared for a tribal war in the event the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) carried through its intention of taking Ihejirika to the ICC is very revealing to the unbiased.  What are the Igbos afraid of, what are they trying to hide?  Was Ihejirika an Igbo or a CAN, eastern region, Chief of Army Staff?  Was he not a Chief of Army Staff of the Nigerian Army?  Were there things that the former COAS did at the behest of the Igbos and the eastern region CAN that they are scared may be laid bare by a trial?  Or that people of Igbo extraction should not be held responsible for their actions or inactions, commissions or omissions while in office?

The fire of ethnicity and religiosity ignited by Jonathan in his 2011 campaign has turned into a conflagration with groups from the former eastern region trying to re-enact their despicable actions of January 1966, which took the country through a needless civil war.  While his kith and kin are insulting the rest of the country, Jonathan is busy summoning from pulpits across Abuja.  Nigeria will not survive another war and going by the beatings of the drums of war by the president’s supporters, we have to pray hard that one isn’t thrust on us.  An amicable parting of ways as happened in the defunct Czechoslovakia,  may be in the best interest of all concerned.  We can go our separate ways without a single shot fired and with everybody’s integrity intact.

It is also high time northern leaders across board wake up to the ;ossibility of such inevitability.  The display disdain, hatred and raw animosity is becoming more and more provocative.  It is apparent that what Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, Okoro and company began on January 1966 and which Tony Nyiam, Jonathan’s white-haired boy, tried to finish in April 1990 but failed must be completed for these people to be satisfied.  The inheritors to the ‘five majors’ diabolical blueprint believe there won’t be more auspicious time than now – with a pliable and guillible president on seat – to realise their lifelong ambition.  Arewa, Ronu!

DANBABA SUNTAI: THE POLITICS OF RELIGION

Sometimes in December 2013, there was a news item in the newspapers to the effect that Danbaba Danfulani Suntai, the elected vegetating governor of Taraba State will be attending a Church service at the Dunamis International Church in Abuja.  According to the reports, all security arrangements have been completed including the installation of body scanners at the entrance of the Church.  Congregants were given thorough body search to forestall anyone with any unwholesome intention gaining entrance into the Church.  Alas, all the arrangements came to nought as Danbaba failed to turn up.  The explanation was that the service was very close to his flight schedule back to Jalingo, the Taraba state capital.  The man was to later “appear” at a crossover service on new year’s eve that was fortuitously witnessed by columnists who only accompanied friends to Jalingo from other places.  It was also reported that the governor went to his office and clearly remembered the things he wanted to do before his unfortunate accident.  A miracle of no mean proportion, if you ask me.  This is apart from the contrived “sightings” of this eighth wonder of the world.  For God’s sake, Danbaba is not Harley’s Comet to be sighted by a chosen few.

From all that has been happening in Taraba State since the ‘return’ of Danbaba in late August from his treatment in New Jersey, it is becoming glaringly clear to all that those who appropriated the man to themselves don’t give a hoot to his health status so long as he remains alive to give life to their ambition.  With a conniving and acquiescing wife, Danbaba is gradually being turned into a religious symbol rather than the politician that was voted as governor by all the people of Taraba State.  He is now usurped by a few to the exclusion of the rest of the people of the state.  He has being taken to everywhere bar the most important place of all – the State House of Assembly complex – lying next door to where he is imprisoned by those who love him and the state the most.  We have seen pictures of the man at a fishing pond and at the church but we are yet to see him at either the state’s legislative House or the NUJ Secretariat in Jalingo.

Their recent junket (pilgrimage?) to Abuja to see T. Y. Danjuma and Goodluck Jonathan “preparatory to Danbaba’s resumption of office”.  I wonder why go to all this trouble when they can simply walk the man into the legislative chamber to address the lawmakers and may be as an aside address the Correspondents’ Chapel in Jalingo instead of going to Abuja just to see T. Y. Danjuma, Goodluck Jonathan and then “address State House Correspondents”.  What purpose could the trip to Abuja serve that won’t be served by convincing those who elected him as their governor or their representatives in the state House of Assembly?  What is so important in visiting Taraba’s biggest masquerade and not the Speaker of the State’s House of Assembly?  How can addressing State House Correspondents be more useful than the correspondents in Jalingo?  Why are they scared in giving Danbaba unfettered access to his “people” – those that put him in the government house in the first place?

It may appear to objective minds that Danbaba is a hostage to religious bigots masquerading as politicians whose objective is to maintain the political strangle hold they have on the state.  The issue of good governance, the Taraba people or Danbaba’s recovery is of no significance to these vultures that are not averse to amplifying our religious fissures as long as they maintain their grip on the state.  Their attitude so far has shown that Danbaba symbolises religiousity not politics.  I would have advised them, ex gratia, to go the whole religious hog by paying homage to Ayo Oritsejafor, our numero uno religious ideologue.  They have succeeded in polarising the state along religious lines, which may not be of significance to them but it should and ought to be. 

If power shift is all that matter to these clique, why are they fixated to taking Danbaba to churches only and not other places that matter like the legislature or even the occasional State Executive Council meetings?  Are we to inteprete the actions of some few bigoted people as representative of the majority of the people of southern Taraba?  Can the Muslims of Taraba be fair to their Christian brethren by thinking that the shenanigans of these conceited few is the mind-set of Christians in the state?  Have these modern day “Turaiast” realise the implication of their actions on a state that is struggling with developmental problems?

Walking Danbaba Suntai to the State House Assembly will do all of them a whole more good than the merry go round of churches and visiting figures in Abuja, who cannot stand the heat at the national level and scampered to the comfort of their laagers to unnecessarily generate their own heat on a smaller platform.  Those hired to write on witnessing “miracles” on the night of the crossovers are doing more harm to Danbaba than good.  They are also doing more harm to the political and social cohesion of Taraba state.  Danbaba Suntai is mortal – he is human for God’s sake – with all human frailties and fallibilities.  Why are we trying to make him something else?  One of the unintended consequences of the clique’s desperation is to show the world that Danbaba was only a governor for the Christians to the exclusion of Muslims.  I don’t want to believe so.

Another unintended consequence of their actions is the unmasking of T. Y. Danjuma as a religious bigot and not Sardauna’s heir, as mistakenly believed by so many across the vast north (yours sincerely inclusive).  History presented an opportunity for T. Y. to play a statesmanlike role in resolving the stalemate in his state, but he chose to be on the side of those whose motives are far from noble.  The old general had gone down notches on the scale of respect people use to have for him across all divides.

Danbaba’s health status should be resolved post haste by all serious people irrespective of creed or ideology and should not be left in the hands of unscrupulous politicians looking for relevance or fading old men trying to play god.

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HEALTH VERSUS WEALTH: THE TRIUMPH OF GREED

There was this joke making the rounds in the social media about the physical and metal fitness of Taraba state governor Danbaba Danfulani Suntai.  Though the situation is critical and serious one cannot but see the funny side of such postings and ingenious thoughts of our people even in the face of tragedy.  The author posted something like this – since Danbaba is a pilot and his supporters keep saying he is fit to take back administrative reins from Garba Umar, it is only fair that they fill up a plane with the likes of Hauwa Danbaba, Emmanuel Bwacha, Emmanuel Bello, Aminu Jika, Gibon Kataps, Sylvanus Giwa and the rest.  Danbaba should then fly the plane to Abuja, take a stroll to the Aso Villa, say hello to Jonah and Dame Patience; fly to Katsina for lunch with Turai ‘Yar Adu’a, Tanimu Yakubu and Abba Ruma, then fly back to Jalingo and drive to the state Assembly Complex and address the doubting legislators.  This, according to the author, will bring to an end the brick-a-brats going on about his health condition.

Though it may sound funny, I agree with the author that this will have been the fastest and surest way of permanently shutting up the naysayers.  Almost a month after Danbaba was brought back to the country, he is yet to appear in public, not even once – him of the flying hobby.  I have never doubted God’s miracles and sparing the life of Danababa from certain death is one such miracle, for not many survived a plane crash.  But those hiding behind the chair that the governor is sitting are trying to stretch the miracle to ridiculous levels.  Be that as it may, why are they afraid of allowing the man free reign in public to do as he wish just like the old Suntai before that fateful evening when he had the plane crash.  Hiding the man in the darkest recess of his bedroom and issuing press releases in his name or running to the courts to seek for constitutional protection will neither help the people of the state nor Suntai.

Garba’s antagonists went to the court purportedly seeking for the enforcement of section 190 of the 1999 constitution (as amended) but if truth be told, the unstated intention is to stop the acting governor from taking over governance from a vegetative (permanently?) person.  The clear and unambiguous intention of section 190 is the smooth transfer of power between a chief executive and his deputy whenever the need arises.  It was inserted in the constitution after the ‘Yar Adu’a saga and is meant to avoid a repeat of that traumatic period.  The constitution and its framers didn’t take into account the machinations of some unscrupulous elements holding a chief executive captive and governing in his name.

The constitution is made for men and not the other way.  This was the same scenario we were confronted with two and a half years ago when the national assembly in its wisdom invoked what they called “the doctrine of necessity”; a doctrine alien to the constitution and nobody challenged that.   Emmanuel Bello, the vociferous spokesman of the anti-Garba group was an Editor at that time and I can’t remember him opposing the doctrine as propounded by the National Assembly.  Why is he stridently opposing the application of the same thing in the case of Garba Umar – after all, Suntai has refused to appear in public and there is no independently verifiable report on the true state of his mind.  Apart from a video released showing him purportedly swearing Kataps as Secretary to the State Government, which was grafted with another one where members of the House of Assembly visited, no one has seen Suntai in public.  His handlers are turning him into an enigma.  Howard Hughes did it and got away with it because he was running his private organisation.  Katap’s oath taking is a subject for another day but in my opinion any oath taken without the presence of a Commissioner of Oath shall be invalid.  If the Taraba state Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) is up and doing, they should look into this.

Seeing the unnecessary tension that gripped the nation during the twilight days of the ‘Yar Adua’a administration and the manner his wife and her co-conspirators handled the issue and the resultant bad blood it generated, one should be forgiven to think that Suntai’s praetorians will spare the struggling state of Taraba and her poor people the traumatic experience the country was forced to go through then.  By taking the case to the court, these conscienceless individuals are trying to drag the judiciary into their habitat – the pigsty.  When in 2010 the national assembly contrived the doctrine of necessity, I can’t remember anyone running to the courts, so why will any lover of Taraba state go to the court shouting “constitutionalism” because the House of Assembly, after visiting Suntai, pronounced him incapable and unfit to go through the rigours of governing a state?  I see similarities in the national assembly’s action in 2010 and that of Taraba state legislators in 2013.  I must say they were both guided by nationalism.

Those pulling the strings of this puppet show will surely be responsible for the disharmony pervading the state and should be held accountable by the people whenever the dust settles.  Garba Umar was trusted with the affairs of the state for ten months without derailing from a course charted by the puppeteers, whose sole interest is in keeping the acting governor under a tight leash for personal gains – both political and pecuniary.  When he decided to kick out some thieves from the cabinet he inherited from Suntai, the puppeteers became desperate which led them to bundling back a bumbling, sick and “brain damaged” Suntai.  Suntai was never meant to see the light of the day by this group.  All anyone needs to know is that he is ensconced in the Government House in Jalingo, purportedly dishing out orders through his special assistants and a Secretary to the State Government who administered the oath of office on himself.

In the recent past governors Liyel Imoke and Sullivan Chime of Cross River and Enugu states respectively had cause to travel abroad for medical treatment.  They came back, address their people through the mass media and continued with their gubernatorial responsibilities and duties.  Why is it difficult for Suntai to toe the same line as his colleagues?  A healthy and fit person shouldn’t be hidden from the people who voted him into office; Danbaba Danfulani Suntai is the property of the people of Taraba state from the day he decided to go into public service.  For some few people to appropriate him to the exclusion of the rest of the populace is criminal.  Please sir, come out and drive in an open top motorcade to shame those who say you are sick; failing that then take the advice of your legislators and go take care of your health.  They love you more than those whispering sweet nothings in your ears.

THE RIGHT TO CONTEST: GEJ & THE CONSTITUTION

In a suit instituted by Buba Marwa against Nyako (later joined by four other goveors and INEC), the Supreme Court of Nigeria delivered a landmark judgement on January 27^th, 2012, asking the five governors to step down from their offices handover to their successors.  For those among them eligible for second term in office, they were to submit themselves to the electorate for another mandate.  But critically, the court pronounced that the tenures of the five governors elapsed since May 29^th, 2011 thereby bringing to an end the issue of tenure elongation or otherwise.  The governors, who were made to go for re-runs for the 2007 elections always assumed the period they spent governing their states before their victories were annulled was “awuf” – bonuses if you may.  The Court was emphatic that the Constitution does not make room for anybody elected into an executive office spending a day more than the maximum allowable eight years and if we are to go by the governors’ reasoning, then some of them might have stayed in office for a period of nine years or more.  The Supreme Court ruling was very clear and unambiguous. 

With this Supreme Court ruling in mind and the provision of section 135 subsection 2b, which is similar to section 180 subsection 2b, I find it hard to comprehend the “no vacancy in the Villa” campaign going on. I am also at a loss as to whether the Supreme Court ruling was only for the governors or that it encompasses all executive offices seeing the similarities in sections 135 and 180 of the constitution.  The noise about Goodluck Jonathan contesting or not in 2015 and its legal implications taking into account the said ruling readily comes to mind.  Section 135 of the 1999 constitution (as amended) deals with the issue of tenure and is explicit on the period.  Subsection 2 of section 135 says “subject to the provisions of subsection (1) of this section, the president shall vacate his office at the expiration of a period of four years commencing from the date when:  (a) in the case of a person first elected as president under this constitution, he took the Oath of Allegiance and Oath of Office; and (b) the person last elected to that office took the Oath of Allegiance and Oath of Office or would, but for his death have taken such oaths.

Taking the Supreme Court ruling and Section 135 (2b), one will be forgiven to assume Jonathan is legally barred from contesting in 2015 irrespective of how high the decibel level of Clark and Anenih’s chorus singers – the likes of Abba Gana, Ameh Ebute, Jerry Gana, Asari Dokubo, et al.  Before Jonathan’s attack dogs descend on me, I would like us to study these legal positions carefully and dispassionately in order to locate where Jonathan’s ambition fit in.  The Supreme Court ruling says maximum allowable period of eight years made up of two terms of four years each. Therefore if Jonathan is to contest in 2015 and be forced once again on Nigerians for another four years, that will make him president for nine years since he took over from the late Umaru ‘Yar Adu’a on May 6^th, 2010.  This goes against the grain of the Supreme Court ruling and since by convention all rulings and judgements from the Supreme Court are part of our sources of law, this particular one becomes a law of the land in as much as it is consistent with the constitution of the country.  So if the governors affected by the ruling forfeited their “awuf” period, it is only rational that Jonathan should also be affected by the ruling seeing the similarities between sections 135 and 180 of the constitution, our grund norm.  This is without prejudice as to whether he promised our mercenary governors that he would not contest in 2015 before they “endorsed” him and rig him into office in 2011.

On the other hand section 135 subsection 2b of the constitution makes it clear that a person’s tenure ends from such a time that the last person so elected into such office will have taken another oath but for his death – meaning the tenure of the dead person might have elapsed and he may seek for a renewed mandate but for his death.  Jonathan took over from ‘Yar Adu’a whose first term would have expired by May 29^th, 2011 and might have taken another Oath of Allegiance and Oath of Office were he to have contested and won the election but for his death.  And the second tenure will come to an end by May 29^th, 2015.  

So taking the relevant sections and subsections of the constitution and the supreme court judgment regarding the five governors in (Marwa V. Nyako), Goodluck Jonathan will spent nine years as the president of Nigeria.  One year more than the constitutionally stipulated period.  If this is the case, and that is my understanding, then Jonathan doesn’t have the constitutional right to contest for the office of the president of Nigeria, irrespective of how bloody his campaign is going to be (bloody according to one of his closest lieutenants).  The doctrine of necessity doesn’t have a room here or any element of good luck.  In anticipation of this constitutional roadblock, Jonathan appeared to have deployed his uncouth campaign co-ordinators to launch verbal missiles and threats against those who may have the guts to call for the application of the right things.  The likes of Edwin Clark, Ahmed Ali Gulak and Asari Dokubo have been throwing threats like confetti at the same people they want to garner support for their dozy candidate.  Spent forces like Abba Gana and Ameh Ebutteh have been recruited to give the campaign a touch of national spread.

Goodluck Jonathan and his handlers believe because of the good luck in his name, is born to lead us whether we like it or not.  Ali Gulak went to the ridiculous extent of saying God has packaged Nigeria and Nigerians and handed us over to Goodluck Jonathan.  Gulak also in a recent press conference said nobody should stampede Jonathan into declining to contest in 2015 because the constitution guarantees him the right to contest.  But my reading of section 135 appears to suggest otherwise.  The constitution can ‘stampede’ Jonathan into bowing out.  The refrain by the Jonathan campaigners that northerners claimed to have been born to rule doesn’t hold water anymore because with the campaign of brimstone by his supporters, Nigerians are beginning to know those who claimed to be born to rule.  With gerantocrats and creek riff raffs threatening that there will not be Nigeria if Jonathan isn’t given a second term, with the security agencies looking the other way, they have the right to claim the sobriquet of being to rule.  The fact that no northern politician ever raised the spectre of violence on account of his perception that he may be barred from contesting should effectively put to rest this fallacy.  In a civilised society anyway.

Instructively while Edwin Clark, Asari Dokubo and Ayo Oritsejafor are beating the drums of war and no security agency deem it necessary to even slap them on the rest, Senator Sani Ahmed Yerima was arrersted from the Radio Nigeria Kaduna during a phone-in programme in a commando style operation with the Kaduna state Police Commissioner leading a posse of men in five trucks.  His offence?  He was said to have threatened that the leadership of the then yet to be registered All Progressives Congress (APC) will take to the streets in the event Jega’s INEC refuse to register their party.  Yerima had to write an undertaking before he was released.  No such treatment for Clark or Dokubo.

If it is alright for those in Jonathan’s corner to be sending barbs in the direction of those who opposed his style of administration and the undisguised ambition of contesting in 2015, why is it a gargantuan security issue when any opponent of the presidency voice his disagreement to Jonathan? Case of different strokes for different folks?  If it is okay to block the passage of an elected governor, the chief security officer of a state according to the constitution, then Jonathan’s people shold be ready to either throw more people in jail or kill them.  If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

If Goodluck Jonathan and his horde of Gulaks have honour (though I doubt they have) he shouldn’t contemplate contesting, constitutional right or not for the simple fact that he promised at four different occasions not to go for a second chance when voted for in 2011.  The promise that stands out to me was the one made in Addis Ababa.  I pray his handlers may not tell us he made the promise while in the toilet since the president’s stomach have something against Addis.