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Tag: Azu Ishiekwene

  • Journey to Grenada and Reparations for Slavery – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Journey to Grenada and Reparations for Slavery – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Nigeria’s spectacular crises in almost every facet of its national life are inescapable. They cling like your skin. And for your sanity, you must detox from time to time.

    I hope this trip to Grenada, through Afghanistan, helps.

    Instead of writing about killings of the most bestial variety up and down the country, an economy on life support, insecurity, ASUU strike, men fighting for Allah and those defending them, the politics of 2023 that has left even politicians confused and enthroned delegates as royalty, I’ve decided to comment on a topic in which I recently renewed interest.

    In a recent special report, Laura Trevelyan, a BBC anchor and correspondent, visited her ancestors’ former slave plantation in Grenada. In that report, sights and sounds in the Caribbean Island reminded slave owners and the enslaved about the grim legacy of slavery.

    By the time Britain abolished African slavery in 1833, the British Slave Compensation Commission paid its 46,000 slave owners a whooping sum of £20million, or 40 per cent of its expenditure in 1834.

    “In a family email chain, I learned that the Trevelyans received about £34,000 for the loss of their ‘property’ on Grenada – the equivalent of about £3m in today’s money,” Trevelyan said.

    In America, after the abolition of slavery, the government, through the Homestead Act of 1862, created a new asset ownership model for white Americans but denied same to former slaves.

    In a book co-authored with Kirsten Mullen, William Darity, a professor of public policy, wrote: “Black families received no assets while large numbers of white families received substantial assets as a starting point for building wealth in the United States.”

    A system which compensated a people who had already profited from a brutal practice but left the actual victims of the cruelty impoverished, genetically sick, eternally oppressed and their region glaringly underdeveloped can only fuel the feeling of inequality and deprivation Black people suffer in many Western countries.

    For this reason, Caribbean countries are calling for reparations for the atrocities of the past. Thus, they have all set up National Commission on Reparations for Slavery.

    In a speech in London in 1992, late MKO Abiola told his audience, that the demand for reparation was based on a tripod of moral, historical and legal arguments.

    As a group, the idea of reparations for slavery is being championed by the Caribbean Community or CARICOM, a 20-member economic, cultural and political bloc.

    The idea of reparations for slavery is not new. Since the end of the American Civil War, there have been calls for reparations in one form or another. It also became one the passions of the late business mogul and politician, MKO Abiola.

    Arguably the richest black man of his era, Abiola was famous for his philanthropy. Not many, however, remember that he also deployed his enormous resources towards the campaign for reparation to Africa from its old colonial masters.

    Racism of all shades and forms is a direct fallout of slavery and although reparations will not undo the inhuman system of centuries ago, many argue that it will at least demonstrate remorse by the perpetrators and bring closure to the victims.

    Many are also calling on the US government and the British monarchy to lead the reparation process. And their cold shoulders on the matter have been met with condemnation and protests among Black communities in Africa, the Caribbean and Europe.

    In March, Prince William and Kate Middleton faced protests in Jamaica, the Bahamas and Belize during their Caribbean tour. In 2021, Barbados dropped the Queen of England as head of state in the presence of her son, Prince Charles.

    Jamaica is mulling a similar symbolic gesture.

    In the US, where 74 per cent of African Americans favours reparation while 85 per cent of white people opposes it (according to an Associated Press poll), the H.R. 40 bill which proposes to create a commission to study slavery and discrimination has been gathering dust since 1989. And although there seems to be a renewed interest in confronting systemic racism and inequality by the present administration, it is yet to be seen whether Biden’s fresh appetite has reparations for restitution on its menu.

    In 2019, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell admitted that slavery was America’s “original sin” but argued that slavery was abolished so long ago that no one currently alive was responsible for it. In response, journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates countered the lawmaker by reminding him that the US was still paying out pensions to the descendants of Civil War soldiers despite no one being alive who signed those treaties!

    Agreeing on reparations for slavery is already a contentious issue. However, the form or forms they should take is even more controversial. While some are pressing strongly for direct cash payments, others think reparations should come in the form of investment in infrastructure, education and health sectors of descendants and former colonies.

    Either way, agitators agree that the first step towards reparations is for the beneficiaries of Black slavery – US, Britain, The Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, etc – to own up, admit that slavery was a cruel act and tender an unreserved, unequivocal apology to former slaves and their descendants.

    No healing process kicks off without an admission of guilt and that first step, although the most difficult on the part of former slave masters, is the soothing balm former slaves and their descendants desire and deserve.

    If anyone is in doubt, they should look back at the decision of the UK government in 2013 to express “sincere regret” and offer compensation for the acts of torture that British colonial government carried out against Kenyans fighting for liberation from colonial rule which was greeted with jubilation in Nairobi and beyond.

    I think the West will eventually bow to the pressure coming from Caribbean countries on the issue of reparations for slavery in the forms of investment and cooperation. But without the zest of MKO and the eminent persons group, who is still bothered about reparations to the Africa?

    Not known for half measures, MKO convened and sponsored the first world conference on reparations at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, in 1990 and formally inaugurated the reparations campaign.

    In 1991 the Heads of State and Government of the defunct Organization of African Unity during the 55th Summit of the Council of Ministers passed a resolution recognising the injustice of slavery and demanded Africa’s right to reparations.

    Not much is heard about this legacy of MKO anymore, notwithstanding the fact that the continent needs such conversations more than ever before.

    Although there are many reasons the disparity in the median distribution of wealth in the US tilts significantly in favour of white families ($188k for whites compared to $24k for blacks), the lingering slave-related legacy is one of them.

    Analysts have estimated the cost of reparations within the US alone at between $10trillion and $19trillion, depending on model and excluding the demands of Caribbean countries.

    It sounds like a huge sum of money, but how much is enough to pay for the physical, emotional and medical loss of slaves and their descendants? If denominated in today’s currency, what is the monetary value of the forced, torturous labour Black slaves put up with in plantations in the Americas?

    However, beyond the big figures and arguments for and against reparations, individuals such as Trevelyan can take baby steps towards compensating descendants of slaves. In her case, she was able to trace descendants of some of her ancestors’ slaves in Grenada.

    When she asked if giving money to help Grenadian students with higher education amounts to empty gesture, she was told that it would be a great symbolic gesture. “Think of the impact if every one of the slave-owning families did the same thing,” she was told.

    Maybe we should start from there.

     

    Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

  • Ayo Adebanjo’s musings on power shift – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Ayo Adebanjo’s musings on power shift – By Azu Ishiekwene

    The statement by the leader of the Yoruba Cultural Group, Afenifere, Ayo Adebanjo, that the South East should get the next turn at the presidency has ruffled quite some feathers.

    This comes at a time when nearly half a dozen of his kinsmen have shown interest and almost nothing seems certain anymore because the two major political parties, having just discovered the virtue in merit, are now disposed to an open race.

    The only thing that is certain is where the presidency may not go: the South East. When you hear top politicians talking about power shift, and insisting that the president after Muhammadu Buhari should come from the South for the sake of “fairness and equity”, they are not talking about the country’s most excluded region – the South East.

    They are not talking about the region with the least federal presence, the least representation in federal establishments and the least number of states, all of which are a price for a war fought over 50 years ago.

    The advocates of power shift have managed to define a geopolitical South that excludes the South East. They speak only of equity in power shift insofar as it means power going to the South West or ‘South South’. Adebanjo bucked the trend, and Edwin Clark has also lent his voice.

    In a country where hypocrisy is a political virtue, the mindset of those who preach fairness and equity is governed by the Matthean principle: those who have will have more added to them, so that they can have even more at the expense of the disadvantaged.

    That’s why the South West, which in the last 23 years has had 15 years of the first two top positions, currently has six candidates aspiring for another eight years, while the ‘South South’ which has had four years at the top job, has lined up six aspirants as of the time of writing.

    And the North, which never fails to disappoint in the politics of benevolence is saying on the one hand that power should shift to the South, and on the other propping up its own candidates to join the race, after about ten and a half years of being at the helm since 1999.

    In the All Progressives Congress (APC), for example, the first sign from the North that all the talk about a Southern candidate meant nothing was when the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, shelved the idea of being a running mate potentially to a ‘South South’ candidate, fancied at the time to be former President Goodluck Jonathan.

    Insiders confided to me this week that, “It was after the Jonathan idea met the brick wall that Malami revived the idea of running for Kebbi governorship. The dead Jonathan project was a clear signal to Malami that given the large crowd of aspirants from the South a northerner might do better at the APC primaries and doom his vice-presidential ambition.”

    Let us return to the South East. What is it about the region that makes it so convenient to treat it with spite and malicious negligence?

    Some say that the region has to grow up and earn its place: no one hands over power on a platter. That sounds sensible and logical – that is, until we remind ourselves that the whole business of Federal Character, enshrined in Nigeria’s constitution today, was power redistribution served on a platter.

    The Federal Character Commission (an elevation of quota system) is a useless bureaucracy costing the country billions of naira. It was improvised by General Sani Abacha in 1996 to help disadvantaged states catch up with the others and to create a sense of belonging. I wonder why the beneficiaries, mostly Northern states, did not think it prudent to earn the privileges bestowed by this crooked system.

    How about the argument that the South East does not deserve a shot at presidency at this time because of the inability of Ndigbo to unite around one candidate and pursue a common agenda – that they are masters at the game of group betrayal and disassembling politics?

    Those who make this argument cite Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe and Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma, who appear to be inclined to candidates outside the zone, as examples of Ndigbo’s penchant for betrayal and backstabbing. Why can’t they rally around any of the 16 Igbo candidates in the race?

    If the South East is Nigeria’s capital of disunity, how do the proponents of this argument explain the ambitions of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, Governor Kayode Fayemi, and potentially, Pastor Tunde Bakare, who are not only from the South West, but are all members of the same political party?

    How do critics of the Igbo quest explain the fact that even though the South West has enjoyed the lion’s share of power in two decades, it is still in the race with a bigger sense of entitlement than any other region? Or why did three other Northern aspirants contest for APC’s ticket against Buhari in the party’s presidential primaries, despite the push for a consensus candidate at the time?

    Not done, there are others who would argue that politics is a game of numbers. If the South East does not have the numbers and cannot negotiate with others to its advantage as it did in 1959, why should it – or anyone – blame others for its current misfortune?

    That sounds logical, until you cross to other zones, like the ‘South South’, for example, that apart from producing a president, has reaped financial rewards and political benefits, from derivation to special commissions and an amnesty programme, far in excess of its numerical strength.

    In the mathematics of a federation, the cold abstraction of numbers sometimes deserves to have a human face. That was why Jonathan became president; that is why Quebec retains its distinct cultural and political identity, despite its union with Canada.

    Then, of course, there are those who argue that rotation is pointless because it is simply the crutch of the thieving political elite. Ordinary people up and down the country, North and South, hardly benefit. And when the elite are conspiring to steal, they hardly discuss tribe, religion or region. We should be concerned about what the candidate can – or has done – rather than where he or she is coming from.

    That is true. But that truism applies to all six zones in the country. I completely agree that there should be a broader definition of who benefits from power beyond zoning; a need to make power more inclusive, accessible and accountable. But why didn’t that begin in 2013 when Northern elders, determined to remove Jonathan, said, “power rotation was a mark of equity and justice”?

    If it’s not good enough to stop former President Olusegun Obasanjo returning to govern as civilian president for eight years after three years as military president, and it’s not strong enough to stop Buhari copying Obasanjo’s example, why should it be the albatross of the South East? In fact, the last time the Southern Forum led by Governors Peter Odili, Chimaroke Nnamani and Victor Attah pressed for power shift in 2007, they capitulated and allowed Obasanjo to hand over to Umaru Shehu Yar’Adua!

    In the current calculations about where the next president should come from, perhaps the biggest elephant in the room is the spectre of the separatist agenda in the South East, largely promoted by the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). Separatist-related violence in the South East has claimed hundreds of lives, ruined lives and left the region devastated.

    Those who oppose power shift to the region argue that an Igbo president after years of violent confrontations in the South East, with the political leaders looking the other way most of the time, would amount to rewarding rebellion, and who knows how or where it would end?

    That is frighteningly seductive. Anyone who has the faintest idea of what has been going on in the South East, especially in the last four or five years, should be worried. But perhaps we should pause and examine the conditions under which three Nigerian presidents – Obasanjo, Jonathan and Buhari – emerged in the last three decades.

    Obasanjo emerged on the back of widespread violent disturbances, especially in the South West, after the annulment of the 1993 election and the death of MKO Abiola. Obasanjo, a Yoruba president, was the North’s peace offering to the South West, as Jonathan was to the implacable ‘South South’ and Buhari to the North – all of this regardless of the near ungovernable state of these regions when these presidents emerged and allegations of complicity against one of the candidates.

    We can argue all day about being strategic, about optics or the need to avoid sending the message that violent rebellion pays and we would be right. But if “justice and equity” are the reasons why other regions have had their turn as tokens of good faith and reconciliation, then we cannot justify a different treatment for the South East. And I don’t have to have a dog in the fight to say so.

    It’s time to end the obfuscation and pussyfooting and to call this spade by its name: Nigeria must stop treating the South East as if it does not matter and still hope to find peace.

     

    Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

  • What History Says About How Buhari’s Successor Will Emerge – By Azu Ishiekwene

    What History Says About How Buhari’s Successor Will Emerge – By Azu Ishiekwene

    I think the most frequently asked question today is, who will succeed President Muhammadu Buhari? With over 35 aspirants openly declaring their interest as of today, a few still in the closet and more coming out, the field has never looked more crowded.

    And last week, the decision by former President Goodluck Jonathan to put one leg in the ring, while pretending that he is being dragged, got party and non-party members even more confused.

    Of course, those who are pressing him into the race – Governor of Yobe State and former All Progressives Congress (APC) interim Chairman, Mai Mala Buni; Kebbi State Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, and a few ministers from the North – wish it would happen. But they know it won’t. Buni once led a delegation to Jonathan, to explore the possibility of the former president running with the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, as his running mate.

    The strongest consideration is the potential four-year one-term limit of another Jonathan presidency. But the trap is that a post-election litigation over the 2017 constitutional amendment on “swearing-in”, could disqualify Jonathan and hand the position over to his running mate, if he wins.

    After the visit, Jonathan asked for time to consult. It was, however, clear from the criticism that followed that decamping from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and running on the ticket of the APC was a bridge too far.

    Even if the APC were to grant the entry waiver, which Jonathan requested, he would still have to face the party primaries. And more important, the APC will have to convince its members, and perhaps the larger public, that the same man it branded Jonathan the Incompetent and Jonathan the Clueless has now become Jonathan the Messiah.

    The renewed buzz about a potential Jonathan comeback, suggests that some elements in the APC still think that they can lead their party back to its vomit. And yet, they don’t think it’s an act of desperation. A number of insiders told me this week that nothing other than a desire to find someone who can preserve Buhari’s legacy is tempting the APC back to Jonathan. They obviously can’t imagine that the public will ask the APC, what legacy?

    The noise about a possible Jonathan return and concerns that it could be disastrous for other aspirants may be good political gossip, but it’s a waste of time. Jonathan will not return unless the 18 registered political parties adopt him as their candidate and the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, agrees to write the presidential election result and personally deliver the certificate of return to him in Otuoke.

    From his time as deputy governor to his tenure as Vice President, Jonathan has become so used to a life of ease, and well, good luck, that no matter how hard he tries, he can’t bring himself into this contest except the ducks are lined up for him in a row. Jonathan being Jonathan, unless the elements align again and fall on his lap, which is as likely as the appearance of a blue moon, he won’t try for it.

    But history, that is, the history of the two major political parties could at least give us an idea of who in the APC might get it. There are teachable moments in the journeys of three former candidates – Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Buhari – that could provide an insight into how the candidates in the major parties would emerge.

    One, there is something in the DNA of the power brokers that resents big political spenders. Although figures are hard to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests that MKO Abiola was probably one of the biggest pre-election spenders in the last three and a half decades. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar could also be in the league, but more so because of his repeat races. Abiola, a multi-billionaire friend of the rich and powerful and candidate of the Social Democratic Party (PDP), ran a campaign that was colourful and massively funded.

    His wealth was not only a source of envy, it was also a source of fear and resentment among the military elite who couldn’t bring themselves to hand over political power to a man who seemed to have it all.

    If the political transition under military president Ibrahim Babangida was an attempt to depart from the unspoken tradition of not handing over power to candidates who are both rich and politically influential, the power brokers took the lessons from the Abiola misadventure to heart.

    From Obasanjo to Yar’Adua and Buhari, three candidates who emerged between 1999 and 2014, not one, at least as far as the public knew, could fund their own party primaries, much less their election campaigns.

    Obasanjo was broke when he left prison in 1998. His sprawling farm business was in ruins. He couldn’t rehabilitate his chicken coop much less fund the primaries of the PDP. Neither Yar’Adua nor Buhari was significantly better off financially. The party primaries and campaigns of all three were funded by interest groups that dragged them into the race.

    This appearance of inadequacy, a sort of political crutch if you like, is the IOU that ensures that at least in form, if not substance, the interest groups can maintain a leverage on the candidate.

    Two, the main parties would also be looking for political orphans – or at least those with a form of political naivety; that is, candidates who do not appear threatening, politically. All the talk about national interest is nonsense. If the candidate is from the South East, for example, “national interest” means public repudiation of the Biafra separatist agenda and disavowal of IPOB.

    If he is from the South West, it means rejection of “Amotekun”, state police, or restructuring. And if, at this time, he is from the North – that is anywhere outside the North West – national interest will depend on whether is he Christian or Muslim. Of course, for all regions, religion has increasingly become a dominant issue in the last 30 years.

    Nothing illustrates the obsession of the cabal with political control more than the story of the failed presidential ambition of former Rivers State Governor, Peter Odili. Just like Rotimi Amaechi did for Buhari in 2014, Odili put the treasury of the state at the disposal of the third term ambition of Obasanjo, under the notion that if it failed, he would benefit.

    The accounts of this gamble in three books – Obasanjo’s My Watch; Peter Odili’s Conscience and History – My Story; Chidi Odinkalu’s and Aisha Osori’s Too Good to Die; and Nasir El-Rufai’s 2009 essay on Umaru Yar’Adua, suggest that Odili was a front-runner, first as presidential candidate and then as running mate, till the eve of the PDP convention.

    From Obasanjo’s book, the screening committee dumped Odili despite the fact that he showed “a lot of commitment and loyalty to the party”, because “for some inexplicable reasons, he does not enjoy the support from other governors.” Of course, because they fund the party, governors were important and would still be important, even in the current race.

    But in a government where the President was famous for running dissenters, including governors out of town, to suggest that his choice was hindered by gubernatorial mushy-mushy is laughable. Not Obasanjo.

    The unstated reason appears to have been Odili’s “unacceptability to foreign missions because of spurious allegations of corruption”, not to mention the fact that he knew a bit too much and had done a bit too much with the President to be allowed to cash his IOU.

    Three, the history of presidential candidates also favours late, sometimes, unexpected and even unprepared entrants. For some reasons, the system appears to abhor preparation and readiness.

    Obafemi Awolowo, perhaps one of the most prepared for the office for which reason Odumegwu Ojukwu described him as “the best president Nigeria never had”, contested twice for the position. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, who is perhaps next to Awolowo, at least for resilience and organisation, also never got it.

    On the contrary, from Shehu Shagari to Obasanjo and from Umaru Yar’Adua to Jonathan, accidental candidates have had an edge, making you wonder if there’s something about the office that cannot coexist with preparation. Even Buhari, who cried a river after three failed attempts, only got elected at his fourth, when he was thought to have given up.

    Of course, there would always be room for surprises and outliers and any of the over 35 aspirants in the field could buck the trend. Also, it means little to the cabal that in spite of its best efforts and elaborate care to control the process, things still go wrong, sometimes consuming it in its own experiments. Babangida, for example, misjudged Obasanjo, both as candidate and later as president; the same way Obasanjo misjudged Yar’Adua and was already regretting his role in the late president’s emergence before he died.

    The selection default mode appears to be serviceability to the appointors. Usefulness to the country or the task at hand is incidental. Whatever happens in the next few weeks, just as surely as the apple doesn’t fall far away from the tree, it’s improbable that history would disappoint.

    Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

  • Chrisland’s Dubai Five and Our Digital Footprints – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Chrisland’s Dubai Five and Our Digital Footprints – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Most parents like to think that their generation’s burden was the heaviest. And that today’s children are too soft and spoilt by the easy life to be up to any good. Well, I disagree. Or let me put that a bit differently: I don’t agree completely.

    The debate about just how far astray today’s children have gone was sparked afresh by the juvenile sex video of students of Chrisland School, VGC, Lagos, who had gone for the World Schools Games in Dubai between March 8 and 14.

    Since that video was leaked a few days ago, the “Dubai Five”, the children involved, have taken a serious verbal beating. Deeply distraught members of the public have been holding up the video as proof that after many years of parental negligence, we may have succeeded in raising aliens who will succeed us.

    How can children sent on a special programme at great expense by their parents for only a few days and in the care of their teachers, turn a learning opportunity into a sex orgy? How can children enrolled in one of the country’s most expensive private schools and who may have been selected for this programme on merit, let themselves, their parents and school down so badly?

    Isn’t that video the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle which shows that years of namby-pamby parenting can only raise a generation of self-indulgent, grasping and self-absorbed children whose only interest is instant gratification at any cost?

    The short answer, is, not exactly. But the explanation is long and complicated.

    What happened in Dubai was a nightmare beyond description and even for a country so used to stumbling from one painful distraction to the next, this one would be hard to sweep under the rug. Yet, I think it would be a bridge too far to cite it as evidence of the final takeover of the wayward generation.

    Far from being lost and wayward, I think that today’s youngsters, particularly those belonging to Generation Z, the closest demographic cousins of the Dubai Five, are perhaps more vocal, more diverse, more socially connected, smarter and certainly curiouser than any generation before them.

    Interestingly, the smartphone, that pervasive device and perhaps the single most powerful force in the lifestyle of this generation is both an extraordinary source of pleasure and a huge source of misery for them. It’s their playground, of course. But sadly also, it’s their trap – the most intrusive tool ever invented since George Orwell’s Big Brother.

    That is not to downplay the gravity of what happened in Dubai. It’s simply an invitation to be a little less sanctimonious, a call to put aside the heart-breaking foolishness of the Dubai Five, and to reflect for a moment, on what might have been only, say, 40 years ago.

    If our parents had the benefit of smartphones to scrutinise and monitor us at school and play, would they have seen something dramatically different in our secret lives from what we see in the Dubai Five today?

    We should be shocked and outraged and sad that out of 76 children who went on a weeklong sport competition, what we’re being reminded of is not the laurels they competed for or the strides made, but a video that reminds us of how disastrously we’re failing in our duties as schools and parents.

    I’m appalled that Chrisland is once again at the centre of this scandal less than three years after a teacher in the school was tried and convicted for raping a two-year-old girl in the school and after it also came short of a public showdown with parent and actress Mercy Johnson-Okojie over allegations of child bullying.

    The school has explained that it went to extraordinary lengths to keep the children safe and away from mischief. That it kept them seven floors apart in the Dubai hotel where they were lodged. It also denied carrying out any pregnancy tests on the child as her parents alleged, saying what was done was the mandatory Covid-19 test on their return from the trip and actually named the laboratory where the test was done.

    On top of that, it has explained that the authorities went the extra mile to engage the mother of the child after the matter came to light in a post-travel review, but that she refused to cooperate and at a stage, threatened to “take the matter to social media,” because she believed that her daughter had been drugged and “raped” and that the school was trying to cover up.

    The school failed in its duty of care, even though the board insists that the authorities had been implementing a higher standard of child care and protection since the unfortunate incidents of the past and, in fact, awarded itself a pass mark that out of 76 children taken to Dubai only five let the school down.

    But the five, even one, is 100 per cent to the parents involved. Having nine staff members, comprising seven male teachers and two females, look after 76 students of 50 boys and 26 girls, was a recipe for trouble.

    But the parents didn’t do better. Listening to the recorded video of the mother of the girl, you would almost think her daughter’s fees was the price for outsourcing responsibility of parental care. And it breaks your heart to think that while her daughter was still nursing the trauma from the exposure, she had time to be coached by a social media influencer for a PR dogfight with the school.

    Part of the disease of the rich is that they not only boast of sending their children to big schools and also boast of paying hefty fees, they think that their money should buy them presence in their children’s lives. That is apart from payments for regular indulgences like a smartphone before they have left the crib and a trip to Dubai with Uncle T and the rest of the creche family while the parents are watching Zee-World at home. It’s not funny.

    In the blame game between the school and the parents, care for the Dubai Five – which should be the real focus of the unfortunate incident – is missing. The ego of the feuding parties makes them want to protect their own turf, while busybodies swoon with testosterone over the explicit video. In between the real question is lost: who recorded the video and how did it go out?

    Whether the sex was consensual or not and whether the juveniles had the cognitive capacity to recognise what they were doing, it is improbable that any of the parties involved would have authorised the sharing of the video, as part of the so-called “Truth or Dare” game. And that unauthorised sharing was a crime. It was a ghastly infringement on the rights of the children and can only deepen their wound.

    If we care about the children beyond nailing them to the cross of social gossip, we must come down from our high horses and refrain from tossing them out like a few bad apples. That would only further damage their esteem and impair their recovery. And here, I’m concerned not only about the treatment of the juveniles involved in the act, but also those present in the room and all 76 on that trip.

    Lagos State has to do better than closing the school. It has to investigate the source of the recording and leakage and provide a common ground for the school and parents of the Dubai Five to rehabilitate the children, perhaps with help from child welfare specialists outside government. It’s time to put the children front and centre.

    Though Lagos is considered perhaps the most socially responsive state in the country, its handling of the tragic death of Bowen College student Sylvester Omoroni who died under very suspicious circumstances leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Chrisland would be a good place for the state to redeem itself and to show that at least when children’s lives are involved it is not a captive to the mob or special interests.

    The story of the “Central Park Five”, a group of five teenagers in the U.S. wrongly accused and convicted of a crime they didn’t commit shows that where technology is rudimentary the state’s malicious incompetence could be exploited to ruin young lives and families.

    The story of the Dubai Five shows, however, that surrendering our lives completely to technology, in a race in which children are destined to lead, also comes with a heavy price. And our absence from their lives could sometimes make the price even heavier.

    Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

  • A Troubling History of Consensus Politics – By Azu Ishiekwene

    On March 26 at the Eagle Square, Abuja, the All Progressives Congress (APC), reinvented a version of consensus politics that ancient Rome and Greece would have been proud of.

    After years of in-fighting and decay, and fearing that the opposition might rebound, the ruling party finally called its overdue convention. It rounded up aspirants who were jostling for its executive positions and told them, at gunpoint, that it was time to try something new: consensus.

    Different tendencies in APC had run amok. President Muhammadu Buhari had to put his foot down and cut a deal with governors that conceded the chairmanship position to his candidate, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, without offering them anything in return.

    That is what the consensus entailed – all contestants grudgingly accepting that they had agreed to give up their quest, in favour of Adamu, a one-time secretary to the Board of Trustees of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP) and a significant contributor to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s stillborn third term agenda.

    It was a consensus that handed over the national leadership of the APC to prominent former members of the opposition PDP. They are believed to have repented and now, could go, and well, sin some more.

    All other aspirants were pressed, literally at gunpoint, to submit their letters of withdrawal in the wee hours of the convention day. As you read this article there is still a long line of broken and exhausted aspirants outside the party’s secretariat in Abuja, waiting to collect even the refunds for their nomination forms, promised nearly three weeks ago.

    Whatever its shortcomings, consensus appears to be the APC’s homegrown answer to the growing calls to self-democratise. Indications are that the PDP may also be heading in the direction of a consensus presidential candidate.

    For APC, a party that conducted its presidential primaries in 2014 through a delegate voting system, to resort to consensus in 2022, says a lot about how far down the road we have travelled democratically.

    Of course, consensus candidacy is not a new clown in our political circus. It’s been with us a long time and Buhari was a beneficiary of this rather crooked system when he first contested as presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Progressives Party (ANPP) in 2003.

    During the party’s presidential primaries in Abuja that year, Rochas Okorocha and John Nnia Nwodo, who were also aspirants for the ticket, refused to step down for Buhari. Nwodo, in fact, addressed the delegates.

    He gave a speech in which he said, among other things, that, “my heart bleeds for Nigeria.” He warned delegates that their party was about to be hijacked and later staged a walk out along with Okorocha and others. In response to the protest, Buhari, the beneficiary of that “consensus arrangement”, would later describe the walk-out as “an act of indiscipline.”

    But that was not even the first consensus arrangement. In 1989, the Babangida regime rejected the six political parties registered by the National Electoral Commission and in their place, created the National Republican Convention (NRC) and Social Democratic Party (SDP).

    The government not only funded these parties, it built secretariats for them in all local government headquarters across the country. It went on to influence the emergence of presidential candidates for the parties by eliminating winners of initial primaries and barring them from re-contesting. It was a brazenly militarised form of consensus which produced MKO Abiola and Bashir Tofa as candidates for the presidency. The rest is now history.

    General Sani Abacha also produced his own consensus. He registered five political parties (United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP); Congress for National Consensus (CNC); Democratic Party of Nigeria (DPN); and the National Centre Party of Nigeria (NCPN); the famous leprous fingers of one hand.

    All four parties later “adopted” and endorsed him as its “consensus” presidential candidate. Only the Grassroots Democratic Movement (GDM) had Alhaji Dikko Yusuf as its candidate – an obvious case of a defanged bulldog in a fight to give the appearance of a contest.

    By February 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo came through the PDP presidential primaries in Jos, winning 60 percent while his closest rival, Alex Ekwueme, got 20 percent of the vote, with the remaining split among the other aspirants.

    In opposition to PDP, the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and All Peoples Party (APP) merged and conceded their ticket to Olu Falae. Whatever the outcome of the PDP primaries, the military had decided that Obasanjo would become president. Everything, including the primaries, was pressed to achieve that outcome.

    In 2003 Obasanjo won the PDP presidential primaries by a landslide polling 75 percent. Rejecting the outcome as a “charade”, the first runner-up, Alex Ekwueme who polled 17 percent of the vote, said the voting system was not in accordance with the regulations of the PDP; his protest was futile because, again, the party had “adopted” Obasanjo.

    On his reluctant way out of office in 2007, Obasanjo had stopped all pretence of internal party democracy. He bullied all aspirants and forced all PDP governors to accept Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as consensus candidate during the party’s presidential primaries.

    But then came 2014, when APC, advertised as the party of change, came on the scene. In spite of pressures for a consensus candidate during the party’s primaries, voting by delegates went ahead. Even though there was more money than ballots to be counted at the convention venue in Lagos, the event retained a veneer of competition. That pretence has vanished.

    PDP is heading towards finding a consensus candidate at its May 28 presidential primary; and I’m told by people who should know that that is what Buhari wants for the APC, too.

    I don’t know how it would be achieved in APC. With a slew of candidates who has openly declared interest including the party’s national leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu; Governors Yahaya Bello and Umahi David; and potential aspirants like Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; Governor Kayode Fayemi; Ogbonnaya Onu; CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, and Rotimi Amaechi, how will consensus work?

    Tinubu will step down for Osinbajo and the others? Or all candidates, including Bello who is already being likened to Abiola, will step down for Tinubu?

    Except it is consensus for him, what does consensus mean for a man like Tinubu, for example, who has literally sacrificed himself for Buhari and the party? Or Osinbajo who believes that having been Number 2 for eight years, he should get the right of first refusal?

    For its part, PDP, the curator of consensus in Nigeria’s modern politics, is in turmoil, threatened by its self-made monster. And who knows? When all is said and done both the opposition and the ruling party may, against the run of expectations, produce Northern presidential candidates, as the fruit of “consensus”.

    One leading aspirant told me on Tuesday, “The country is on a knife-edge. If we settle for consensus without the benefit of articulating a vision of how to get the country out of its current circumstances, and allowing party members to judge, we might as well settle for a national unity government and not waste money on elections. A contest is preferable to any hallelujah chorus consensus manipulated from the Villa.” Aso Rock laughed in response.

    Of course, it’s entirely up to the political parties to decide how they wish to select their flag bearers. Bystanders who don’t like the process can wait to use their vote at the polls.

    Yet, if this is a democracy as I think it is, and the political parties still pretend to be essential actors in the democratic space, it is absurd for them to improvise excuses to dodge open and transparent contests within their ranks.

    Poorly run parties weaken and deplete themselves. They open the door to needless litigations, complicate the job of the election monitoring agency, and increase the cost of managing the electoral system. In the end, even bystanders bear the cost.

    How the parties handle the primaries may be their internal affair, but there is clearly evidence that the shambolic way they have carried on – and insist on carrying on – is partly responsible for voter alienation and apathy at elections. If they have decided to fix their primaries, they may as well finish the job by voting for themselves at elections.

    And the APC, in particular, should be concerned, if not ashamed. If Adamu and other PDP returnees thought their former party was the home of poor habits, they would find that their present house has borrowed and perfected the worst examples from the opposition.

    Everything PDP was notorious for, from corruption to incompetence and from fixing elections to fixing party primaries have now become a part of the APC’s DNA.

    The party is crumbling without even making an effort. That is why it cannot recognise the basic fact that consensus in a party primary to produce the country’s number one citizen, is an error of taste.

  • Turning the Other Cheek for Will Smith – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Turning the Other Cheek for Will Smith – By Azu Ishiekwene

    One week before Hollywood, Nigeria hosted a different kind of Oscar moment. At the swearing-in ceremony of Charles Soludo, former Governor of the Central Bank and new governor of the most commercially significant southeast states, the wife of the outgoing governor, Ebele Obiano, staged an unusual drama.

    Ebele, Nigeria’s modest answer to Kenya’s tempestuous Lucy Kibaki, floated across the dais to where Bianca Ojukwu Nigeria’s former ambassador to Spain was sitting to mockingly question what she was doing at the ceremony after years of being a thorn in the government’s side. What followed wasn’t as pretty as Ebele’s butterfly-sleeved pink dress.

    Right there before hundreds of guests and hundreds more watching on TV and following on social media, Bianca, a former beauty Queen and ambassador, landed the outgoing governor’s wife a slap and ripped her wig. Nollywood may have called it, Fury of The Fish Wives. But this wasn’t a movie; it was real.

    The solemn handover ceremony instantly became a footnote. It was supplanted by an excited public that obviously judged Bianca’s assault excusable recompense for a provincial First Lady whose contempt for the state apart from purchasing a pair of Gucci glasses worth $2,755, also included shopping for personal designer Covid-19 vaccines when the state could not afford a single jab for its citizens.

    Bianca’s slap rocked social media. Even though she responded by claiming she had acted in self-defence, questions are still being asked about what kind of example she had set, whether she did not go too far and whether, in fact, the public had not been unfair in judging Ebele‘s record.

    We had barely recovered from the Ebele-Bianca face off when Will Smith happened thousands of miles away, momentarily giving the impression that Hollywood had taken a leaf from Nollywood, except that even Woody Allen might have been hard pressed to script this. What was Will Smith thinking when he leapt to the stage and decked Chris Rock in reaction to the latter’s joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair loss?

    Some might say this question puts the cart before the horse. That the joke should not be on Will Smith but on Rock, who chose the Smiths’ day of joy to crack a poor, tasteless joke with no regard whatsoever for the misery that Jada’s hair loss (a medical condition), must be causing the family.

    Unfortunately, comedians, like most creative people, get paid to trade not only in others’ foibles, quirks or pet peeves, but in their misery as well. In his final days, Saddam Hussein served an Iraqi cabaret a death sentence for making him the butt of their jokes. For years, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma was the subject of scathing jokes, and was in fact crowned with a “shower head”, a cartoon caricature from the president’s testimony during his rape trial.

    Five years ago, American comedian, Katty Griffin, thought it was funny when she posed for a photo with the replica of Donald Trump’s tomato-splattered head. But the backlash was more than she bargained for. In spite of her apology that it was in the nature of her business to constantly “move the line” and then “cross it” and that she didn’t mean any harm, she lost her tour dates and endorsements apart from being fired by CNN.

    And a tasteless joke by popular Nigerian comedian, Basketmouth, in 2014 comparing dating experiences between “white girls” and “African girls”, with a primer on which variety required “a bit of rape” to straighten out, was filed away until 2019 when he was chosen as an influencer for an EU-sponsored campaign against gender-based violence. The joke came back to haunt him. In spite of his apology, it cost him his EU endorsement as well.

    I don’t think there’s too much disagreement about whether Rock’s joke on Jada crossed the line. Alopecia, a general term used for any form of hair loss, is not a laughing matter. While the disease is not medically serious, sufferers endure different levels of psychological discomfort, which like talking about periodontal disease or tooth loss in the presence of the elderly, can only compound their misery.

    Some have said that a balding man would have taken the joke on his chin and that, in fact, Will Smith laughed momentarily before he caught the joke. But Jada is not a balding man and didn’t need to be. She is an actress who has struggled with a medical condition. She has not been shy to acknowledge her condition and it was maliciously cynical of Rock to exploit it for a laugh.

    The relationship between the Smiths and Rock is also fraught. After Rock’s 2016 swipe at the Smiths that “Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties,” and his comment that the Smiths “went mad” that there were no Black nominees that year, you would expect Rock to make his mickey elsewhere. But not only did it have to be the Smiths again, it had to be Jada’s hair this time.

    Unfortunately, however mildly the Academy may have responded to this embarrassing moment of one Black man striking another on stage, it just feeds the prejudice of a few who would use the incident to justify sleepwalking on demands for a more diverse, inclusive Oscars.

    There have, in fact, been insinuations that the Academy’s reluctance to press charges, which is possible under California laws, is not necessarily for Smith’s sake but more for its own enlightened self-interest. How does going from #OscarsSowhite to #OscarsBlackfights help the Academy, for example? And would Will Smith have responded the same way if Rock was a Caucasian comedian? Or did the joke only suddenly become insensitive and bad because he was at the receiving end?

    Medieval literature is replete with fighting for love or chivalry, which not only ended in personal tragedies but sometimes in ghastly blood feuds like the Spanish succession wars. But the world has come a long way since. Jada didn’t need Will Smith to take us back to Lancelot or Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

    Rock’s joke was disagreeable and deeply offensive. But in taking the law into his own hands and responding in a violent way, Will Smith modelled the worst excesses of modern pop culture – broken, out-of-control and narcissistic. It’s part of the reason why we do our best to keep our children as far away from that space as we can. To watch, on live TV, one celebrity decking the other suggests that it’s OK to smash the next fellow if you don’t like his or her joke.

    Will Smith didn’t help Jada either. His action, like the unintended consequence of all chivalry, is to portray women as weak, defenceless and incomplete without male approval and protection, even when it is as foolish and needless as it was in this instance. In restraining himself after he was slapped, Rock looked the more admirable of the pair in the disgusting spectacle, somehow redeeming himself even in his moment of insane ribaldry.

    Will Smith would have better served himself, Jada and millions around the world watching, by taking the stage not twice, but once, to express his displeasure and demand an apology for Rock’s rotten joke. And even if Will Smith didn’t step up, Jada’s extraordinary career and sterling social work are legacies that cannot be diminished by the unguarded moment of a chatterbox.

    We see from the crime scenes – whether at the slapping drama at the Nigerian handover ceremony or at the Oscars in California – that politicians and celebrities are human and like most humans would in a moment of insanity say or do the wrong things in total disregard of their social status or the values we hold dear.

    Will Smith’s assault on Chris Rock won’t be the last unscripted highlight of the Oscar and other Hollywood big nights. Even if the world turns the other cheek, celebrities would deck it because they assume that their status entitles them to do so.

  • Triumph of the ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ Governors – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Triumph of the ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ Governors – By Azu Ishiekwene

    By Azu Ishiekwene

    In the midst of our current misery, the Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu thought we needed something to cheer last week, so he offered a joke, which was telling and disturbing.

    In the row between the Governor of Yobe and interim chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mai Mala Buni, and governors who wanted to overthrow him, Akeredolu, who was on the side of the protagonists, reached into the gutter for words to describe his enemies.

    He plumbed the depths, far below the sepsis reached by the sarcasm of Salihu Lukman, the former director general of the Progressives Governors Forum, and gave gutter language a new lease of life. Akeredolu called governors of his own party, yahoo-yahoo governors.

    Let me be clear. I have absolutely no interest in APC’s house of commotion. And if it is true, as is being alleged, that Buni procured court judgements to stall the party’s national convention for the third time since his inexplicably extended tenure, if it is true, as is being alleged, that Buni the referee plans to join the race, if it is true, as has been alleged, that Buni is offering the party’s primaries ticket for sale; in short, if it is true, as is being alleged, that Buni is the party’s problem, then perhaps Akeredolu’s description would be a fitting epitaph.

    But Akeredolu being not just a lawyer but a senior advocate and former president of the Bar, knows there is a difference between an allegation and a fact. It’s possible that he was overcome by the poor habit of politicians who hardly talk to make sense. To call governors of his own party yahoo-yahoo, deserves not only the attention of the party but also that of bystanders who should take more than a passing interest in this linguistic slur.

    After Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State made an unusual appearance on Channels TV and vowed that Buni may return as Alhaji Buni but certainly not as chairman of the APC, it is possible that Akeredolu may have seized on that premature funeral to make his own obsequies. But in doing so, he described governors of his own party in a language which even the opposition may have been reluctant to deploy.

    Are we really hostage to yahoo-yahoo governors?

    Yahoo-yahoo, a cruel twisting of the search engine, is Nigerian speak for con-artistry; a confidence trickster who earns a living – often outrageously flamboyant living – from transactions guaranteed to leave the other party with the short end of the stick, if not in premium tears.

    The ruling APC has 22 governors across Nigeria, but Akeredolu did not name names. He did not say which of them is yahoo-yahoo, but mocking fingers are pointing in the direction of three governors – one in the South east, one in the North central, and the other one in the South west, reflecting a federal character of sorts.

    As of the time of writing, Buni, the man who El-Rufai vowed publicly will not return as chairman for causing the inexplicable disappearance of APC’s manhood among other embarrassing misdemeanours is back in the saddle, riding the party’s horse with his team including John Akpanudoedehe the secretary who has resigned and has been reinstated swifter than it takes to say yahoo-yahoo.

    From a bystander’s point of view, it is not only Buni’s dramatic comeback and the potential resurgence of the so-called yahoo-yahoo governors that are concerning. Akeredolu’s mudslinging also says something about the ruling party and the political elite as a whole that is tragically true.

    And it is true for a good number of the progressive governors today as it for governors and politicians in the opposition. How, for example, do you describe a governor who upon falling out with his godfather on the eve of an election, goes on his knees just to trade his party’s broom symbol for another party’s umbrella and then after securing reelection, drags and beats his benefactors with the umbrella?

    Or a governor who after being elected on the platform of a party, decides in the twilight of his second term, that he must decamp to the ruling party to serve not those who elected and re-elected him in his state, but to ensure the success of his new paymasters in Abuja against whom he had been in opposition for nearly seven years? If that is not yahoo-yahoo, then what is it?

    How do you explain the ascension to power of a governor who was not first or second but third by 176,919 votes, but who in spite of that ascended to power through a rare process of judicial iberiberism (apologies to Rochas Okorocha, wannabe pilot and presidential aspirant), and is currently being paraded as the icon of the new politics in the South east?

    If it is not yahoo-yahoo, then how come a politician who once said a government that cannot fix power in six months is unfit for office now serves in a government that has been unable to fix power for seven years? And this same government is struggling to guarantee supply of petrol after the country spent $5.8 billion to repair refineries between 2015 and 2020?

    It seems that after the temporary relief from drug barons and their yahoo-yahoo cousins who took politics hostage in the 2000s, we’re once again returning to the era when con-artists ruled the roost. And what is more, between the accusers and the accused, it’s increasingly difficult to know who is yahoo-yahoo by politics or yahoo-yahoo by nature.

    There are many reasons this resurgence which Akeredolu said has taken hold of the ruling party, is worse than the current low-grade version popular among desperate, young people holed up in many hotels across the country today.

    While the police and other crime-fighting agencies can still hope to pursue and rout perpetrators of the low-grade version, what Akeredolu has described is a more dangerous variety.

    The perpetrators of yahoo-yahoo in Akeredolu’s class and party, not only enjoy immunity from prosecution while they are in office, they also have the security agencies at their beck and call. In other words, yahoo-yahoo politicians swindle you and yet reserve the power and resources to protect themselves from being held to account.

    If the governor insists that he used the phrase in a more general sense, perhaps as a rallying cry to save his party from falling apart, it would then be fair to insist that indeed not only those accused of backing Buni but perhaps a significant number in the current class of governors fall under this yahoo-yahoo group.

    We don’t have to go far for examples. After a week during which power supply has been at a catastrophic low, with many urban households going for days without electricity, not to mention the long petrol queues and run-away inflation, the memes of politicians who swindled voters by making empty promises have flooded the internet.

    It would be unfair to write politicians off, especially those in the ruling party, as all scam and no work. Some serious work has been done to rebuild infrastructure, which may take some time to show. But if, for a moment, we set aside Akeredolu’s passion for the regional security network, Amotekun, and for legalising the sale of Indian hemp it would be interesting to see what his five-year ledger in Ondo looks like.

    Even though the governor would like us to believe that con-artistry in his party is limited to Buni’s circle of supporters, the evidence is that it is far more widespread. If it is not political con-artistry, how can a ruling party which promised so much seven years ago leave the country struggling to secure itself, and its citizens bereft, poorer and more divided than they were when the government came to power?

    And see how even the management of the party’s convention has shown that yahoo-yahoo is not just an accident but a lifestyle for the party: in less than one week, the same man who was vilified as a political fraud unworthy of the progressive banner is back in charge, and his enemies, including Akeredolu, must now bow at his feet under strict presidential orders.

    It’s a Nollywood script written in a London hospital beyond anything that Akeredolu’s genius or sense of humour could have imagined. Yet to think that Buhari who hardly says a word has written two epistles in one week to save his party is proof that even the directors of this script are sometimes victims of their own con-artistry.

    A most humbling experience indeed. Or does Akeredolu still think it’s a laughing matter?

     

    Ishiekwene is Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP

  • APC Putting Everyone at Risk by Endangering Itself – By Azu Ishiekwene

    APC Putting Everyone at Risk by Endangering Itself – By Azu Ishiekwene

    By Azu Ishiekwene

    The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) looks determined to set itself on fire, even though the story out there is that the match box has been snatched from the hand of its interim chairman and Yobe State Governor, Mai Mala Buni. The danger still looms.

    After toppling the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) government of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015, the APC turned on itself, feasting on its own entrails. Of course, the winner-takes-all factor in a presidential system can tempt winners to lose their heads. In the case of APC, however, the party lost its head even before it was tempted. That head has been replaced by an echo chamber – and it’s not funny.

    Within days of winning the election, cracks surfaced on the post-sharing agreement among members of the legacy parties in 2015. The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) was supposed to take possession of the “crown” (the presidency), while the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) was, roughly speaking, supposed to manage the party.

    Positions were also supposed to have been shared on a prorated basis amongst members of the five legacy parties that contributed to APC’s victory to give everyone a sense of belonging and stabilise the government.

    That did not happen. After declaring that he was “for everyone and for no one”, President Muhammadu Buhari went on to appoint a transition committee (headed by Ahmed Joda) which froze out nearly everyone except anyone who contributed little or nothing to bring Buhari to power.

    It wasn’t long before the party began to fall apart. Buhari ruled a divided government for the first four years, with reverse defections that almost turned his majority party into a minority in the Senate. At a point, his wife and First Lady, Aisha, literally camped with the rebels, saying this was not the government the party rank and file worked for.

    The seed of the instability of that early beginning has produced a party that neither resembles a party nor anything remotely close to a collection of people with a shared political interest. It’s more like an assembly of opportunistic strange bedfellows, occasionally worshiping the god of kinetics at a shrine called Aso Rock.

    In seven years, APC has evolved into a party with no board of trustees, no governance structure, no idea of its past, or care about its future. It has now produced three chairmen who left at gunpoint after serious allegations of raiding state governors for money during the party’s primaries. The party has scores of wounded former and current members waiting, with long knives, to take their revenge.

    Of course, the APC has also attracted some big defectors to its fold, a number of them serving governors, who are at once the mainstay and biggest source of instability in the political parties. But by and large, these political refugees have their eyes firmly on one thing: how they can use what is left of the present system to help or perpetuate themselves. They know that the party they’re joining is not better than the one they’re leaving, except that it offers temporary shelter to their hope of grabbing power, entrenching themselves or escaping accountability.

    APC is a party of ironies. The same cane that was used to beat its former chairman, John Oyegun out of office and used again to beat Adams Oshiomhole only two years later, is now being unleashed on Buni, making his predecessors look like saints. Yet, it was not supposed to end this way. After the alleged corruption and inflexibility of the Oyegun years and the alleged multiplication of the sins under Oshiomhole, Buni was supposed to be a breath of fresh air.

    He was supposed to be the prince in shining armour recruited on a temporary basis to combine his day job as governor with that of being the party’s messiah. Two years on, the messiah needs a messiah. His adversaries are painting a picture of him that suggests that Oshiomhole should have been made life chairman. The Comrade must be laughing in Etsako.

    Not only has Buni, a first-term governor, been accused of deliberately stalling the convention even after three postponements, his accusers say he is doing so because he also wants to be nominated Vice President. In other words, he wants to be a player in a game in which he is supposed to be a referee and to secure his ambition, they allege, he has now procured a court injunction to postpone and postpone the convention until it can produce a consensus candidate of his choice.

    A source claimed that it was to avert this coup that Buhari changed his travel plans and returned to Abuja from Kenya first, before continuing to the UK. It would now seem that with Buni’s precipitous removal on Monday, the bomb has been defused and perhaps the worst is over.

    Perhaps. But the signs for the party are not looking good. Buni’s supporters who can’t understand why his enemies won’t let him get back home and out of his sick bed before plunging the long knives, have threatened to challenge his removal in court, as if his appointment and overstay were not a travesty which of course we were told was a necessity at the time.

    As of the time of writing, Buni, prince charming only yesterday, has become penny stock. Out of 21 APC governors he is left with only three – Dapo Abiodun, Yahaya Bello and Hope Uzodinma. Yet, there is a bitter struggle ahead, all of which shouldn’t be the business of bystanders if the ruling party has not only become a danger to itself but also a danger to bystanders.

    The nasty jostling for power among the various blocs in the party involving serving political appointees with disguised interest to run for office and aspirants who have openly declared their interest is matched only by Buhari’s indifference to the outcome of what promises to be a fight to the finish.

    A country that once despised President Olusegun Obasanjo for the sort of meddlesomeness that not only offered couples mat but also insisted on showing them how to lie on it, now has to deal with a president who has zero interest in what conjugal arsenal is deployed in the other room. The president’s aloofness even at moments requiring broadmindedness to define the party’s value and character is even more telling because other power blocs that could have provided a countervailing force have been frustrated out of the fold.

    The APC is now more or less reduced to an echo chamber, with folks engrossed in the kinetic science of decoding the president’s body language or where that fails deploying his name in fraudulent political transactions. It’s a dizzying turn of fate that has left a vacuum for hijackers and also taken a heavy toll on governance which, in the best of times, has been absent.

    While the public is pinning away on long lines outside petrol stations, chafing under shambolic electricity supply, teachers strike and rising prices, all that we hear of these days are politicians telling us why they deserve another shot at office without any need to account for their present record. We also hear incoherent assurances of progress by the president as he waves from the steps of his departing plane on his way to yet another medical trip abroad. It’s hard to ignore the echoes of disarray from the APC tent or to pretend that when the rains fall, it would be APC’s problem alone.

    The Third Force with a promise of political redemption so well-articulated early on, remains, well, a third force.

    And the state of the official opposition compounds our misery. PDP is not better and is not even pretending to be. The fight for the soul of the party will break out into a shooting war sooner than later. The casualties would not be found largely among politicians who have perfected the art of survival by defection, but among voters who wish in vain that after eight years in the limbo the party would become a truly viable option.

    I laugh at those who expect a dramatic outcome from Buni’s current travail. It won’t happen. Buni, like Oyegun and Oshiomhole before him, will survive the current turbulence, even if he does so with a few bruises.

    As for the party’s future, the answer is blowing in the wind.

    Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

  • Africa And Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Africa And Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine – By Azu Ishiekwene

    By Azu Ishiekwene

    War is messy and never fails to spread responsive misery. When Adolf Hitler asked for safe passage to East Prussia through the Polish corridor and also for the occupied port of Danzig, not many could have imagined that it would spiral into a world war that would cost 85 million lives and leave an unspeakable trail of devastation in its wake.

    More than one million Africans died. They were not in Danzig, Berlin or London. They had no idea what Hitler’s request was or why Britain refused to listen to him. They were enlisted for the war by force from Nigeria to Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta), and from Senegal to the Democratic Republic of Congo. On the 75th anniversary of that war two years ago, the few survivors on the continent still bore the scars like yesterday, yet not knowing the reason they went to fight in the first place.

    There has been nothing like that ever since. On the whole, large scale conflicts have declined even though Iraq, Syria, Darfur and Yemen remind us that the world is never too far away from the base instincts that invited the past atrocities.

    Exaggerated comparisons of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hitler have surfaced since the outbreak of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine. But let’s be clear, Putin is not Hitler.

    What is not in doubt, however, is that after decades of Russian humiliation following the collapse of the Soviet empire, Putin has been obsessed with the glory of a Russian past which Europe and America have not only stirred but inflamed by aggressively besieging the wounded bear.

    It’s a bit like the Treaty of Versailles all over again. After defeating Germany during the First World War, the Allies were not content to impose heavy retribution, including the excision of the mineral rich regions of Alsace and Lorraine from Germany. They went ahead to impose a financial penalty of £6.5 billion on Germany, which would have taken the country decades to repay. The victor wanted the vanquished vanquished, never again to rise.

    The crushing weight of that humiliation was too much for the Germans to bear. The result, of course, was Hitler and the Second World War.

    The West may not have imposed heavy financial costs on Russia after the collapse of USSR, but Putin, who was at that time an officer in the KGB, saw, first hand, the humiliation that followed the collapse of his country, the triumphalism of the West and its relentless efforts since to crush whatever is left of Russia’s pride and spirit.

    That is the source of Putin’s rage. Of course, to understand it is not to excuse or justify the current invasion. But to ignore it as the West has mockingly done, is foolish.

    Putin insists that after the former Soviet Union broke up into 15 states, there was an agreement between President Mikhail Gorbachev and the West that NATO will not expand East. NATO has denied the existence of such an agreement, but has barely hidden its subversive encouragement in bringing three countries under the former Soviet Union into its fold, virtually encircling Russia. For Putin, the invasion of Ukraine is his last stand, his push, after Crimea, for Russia’s modern-day Danzig.

    How is that any of Africa’s business?

    There have been noises here and there, including, in fact, the threat of sanctions against Russia by a few African countries. The strongest argument from Africa against the invasion is perhaps the one by Kenyan diplomat, Martin Kimani, to the UN: “This situation,” he said, “echoes our history. Kenya and almost every African country, was birthed by the ending of an empire. Our borders were not of our own drawing. They were drawn in the distant colonial metropoles of London, Paris and Lisbon.”

    Kimani was right about that historical fact. However, the truth now as it was in 1884 during the scramble for and partition of Africa, is that in spite of the significant progress that the world has made to establish a rules-based system, the strong, in pursuit of self-interest, will continue to lord it over the weak.

    African states are content to leave the colonial boundaries largely untouched not because they love good neighbourliness any less than Israel loves its Arab neighbours, for example, against whom it has waged one of the longest, bloodiest modern-day wars. Unlike Israel, however, perhaps many African countries do not feel sufficiently threatened by their neighbours or even where such threats may exist, the consequences of aggressive expansion far outweigh the benefits of remaining within their present borders.

    In short, Africa has remained what it is because of the lack of capacity among its state actors to exact any meaningful change in its border status however much they may desire it.

    In 2006, for example, Nigeria chose peace instead of war with Cameroun over the Bakassi Peninsula dispute not only because the judgement of the International Court of Justice was unfavourable, but more importantly, because it knew that the negative consequences of taking Bakassi by force far outweighed the benefits. Cameroun, just like the other Francophone states in the subregion, has a defence pact with France which might have been activated if Nigeria, or any other aggressor, attacked.

    It’s not because Morocco loves Saharawi Arabs or out of deference for the original Spanish-drawn boundaries that it has been unable to seize the territory after decades of a bloody conflict; no. It’s simply because Rabat has lacked the military capacity to enforce and maintain its will.

    What Putin is doing is insane, reprehensible and extremely dangerous but both Putin and those who oppose him in the West bear collective responsibility for the horror playing out in Ukraine today. At a time when Ukrainians ought to start getting their lives back after nearly 20 years of corrupt oligarchic reign, followed by a genuine yearning for change which brought Volodymyr Zelensky to power three years ago, the West has escorted Ukraine into a war it will not recover from in a long time.

    African speeches must not cut the US or its Western allies any slack. Cuba was exercising its democratic right as an independent country in 1962 when it permitted the USSR to place missiles on its soil. But President John F. Kennedy said it was over his dead body that this would happen in his backyard. He threatened war until Nikita Khrushchev removed the missiles and pulled back from what would have been the world’s first nuclear war.

    According to American historian, Christopher Kelly, and British historian, Stuart Laycock, the US has invaded or fought in 84 countries of the 193 countries recognised by the UN and has been militarily involved with 191 of the 193.

    A story in the Washington Post in March 2016 not counting America’s familiar atrocities, said the US government tried to change other countries’ governments 72 times during the 45-year-long Cold War, an average of more than one every year, possibly earning itself the title of history’s all-time meddler-in-chief. And of course, the consequences of the atrocities of the US and its allies whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya, have not always been pretty.

    But I’m concerned here about what Russia’s invasion could mean for Africa, especially thousands of students from the continent currently schooling in Ukraine. Although the statistics are scanty, there are reports of at least 8,000 Moroccans and 4,000 Nigerians studying in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities, a good number of them in the medical sciences.

    Unfortunately for these students, their leaders back home will not be in any of the major European capitals where the decisions already being taken to resettle refugees prioritise “Ukrainian Europeans” over other nationalities. Even before the shooting war started, other countries had taken advantage of intelligence and early warning systems to evacuate their citizens and minimise the disruption to their lives.

    Africa, with perhaps the weakest capacity for a nimble response, waited till war broke out before acting. And yet, this task, far less mundane than contemplating the redrawing of its boundaries, reveals just how hopelessly incompetent the continent’s leaders can be in figuring out their own self-interest.

    Russia knows why it is invading Ukraine, in spite of global condemnation and the unprecedented sanctions it must endure: it is self-interest. And the US and its allies know why in spite of their frustration and anger, they can only watch Russia invade from the sidelines: it is self-interest.

    As for Africa, the restriction of colonial boundaries is not the only reason it is often confused about its self-interest. Years of mental slavery, poor cultural attitudes, weak and heavily dependent institutions and poor leadership have combined to create boundaries of iron worse than anything that drawers of the geographical boundaries contemplated.

    What’s Africa’s interest in Ukraine? A bit more history could be of service in the continent’s quest for an answer.

    Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

  • Abba Kyari was a farce waiting to happen – By Azu Ishiekwene

    Abba Kyari was a farce waiting to happen – By Azu Ishiekwene

    By Azu Ishiekwene

    Abba Kyari’s response in July after the US Attorney General’s Office Central District of California issued a warrant of arrest against him following his indictment in a case of internet fraud involving Ramon Abbas, otherwise called Hushpuppi, was the earliest warning sign that the Nigerian end of this affair might descend into a farce.

    The US authorities might have taken the allegations against Kyari seriously, but his response suggested, without a doubt, that he knew his way around the charges, and he was going to get justice on his own terms.

    Abba Kyari, a deputy commissioner of police in charge of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT), reporting directly to the Inspector General of Police, was not called a super cop for nothing. He knew exactly where the fool’s button of the system was. And he knew how to press it. While most of his mates doing their day jobs are still two ranks below, he has left them by carefully cultivating an image with the press of the cop who did what Napoleon could not do.

    His reported role in the arrest of two alleged kidnap kingpins – Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, otherwise called Evans, in 2017, and Hamisu Wadume two years later, raised the testosterone of a hero-deprived press to crown him “super cop”.

    The National Assembly blessed the charade by inviting him to come and take a bow on the floor of the house. And to top it, he got a presidential award for courage. It was the type of adulation which CSP Kayode Unaneroro who died in penury after leading the police team that captured the notorious armed robber, Lawrence Anini, would have envied.

    By the time the story of his indictment broke, Abba Kyari had already accumulated enough in his favours bank. He responded to the warrant which also alleged that large sums of money from Hushpuppi had been traced to his account, by saying it was no big deal. The only transfer from the suspect, he said, was N300,000 sent to him for his tailor.

    Even by Abba Kyari’s own exotic standards of sartorial taste acquired from being regularly in the company of Nigeria’s A-list celebrities, that amount seemed quite high for any honest tailor. But after years of lounging in the celebrity zone, such minor details were hardly a concern for Abba Kyari who was happy to be Hushpuppi’s conduit to the tailor.

    In response to additional information by the US authorities of more suspicious transfer details into his account, Abba Kyari quickly returned to his teeming Facebook fans. He took down the tailor story, but stuck to his guns that he had done no wrong. He still maintained a surprisingly robust presence and engagement on social media, some say, in defiance of advice by insiders to slow down.

    It was not his fault. After a long career of making the system work for him, this did not look like a mountain too high to climb. The police high command appeared too confused and embarrassed. To its credit, however, within days of the announcement the police suspended Abba Kyari and set up two panels to investigate him – one by the Police Service Commission (PSC); and the second – Special Investigation Panel (SIP) – by the office of the Inspector General of Police. Nothing was heard again about the first panel, while the latter, headed by DIG Joseph Egbunike, was given two weeks to submit its report.

    That turned out to be the longest two weeks in the police calendar. While the PSC kept the outcome of its own internal investigation secret, the Inspector General of Police kept sealed lips on the outcome of the SIP investigation for nearly five months. During this time, Abba Kyari carried on living not just like the celebrated super cop, but also as the star guest at a number of social events, including the wedding of the son of the Inspector General of Police.

    Abba Kyari knew the Nigerian end of the whole thing would be a farce. He was not disappointed when, after the long wait, the Force Disciplinary Committee (FDC) “reviewed” the report of the Egbunike committee and recommended a reduction in rank which, in effect, meant that he could go and sin some more.

    Neither the Egbunike special investigation panel nor the FDC of which the Inspector General of Police is a member, saw anything wrong with over N200 million transferred to Abba Kyari’s brother nor were any questions asked.

    If the Inspector General of Police was remotely outraged by Abba Kyari’s conduct, we would never know. But the outcome of the recommendation of the FDC of which he is a member suggests that at best, he thought it was a misdemeanor deserving nothing more severe than the loss of a rank. If Abba Kyari had presided over his own internal trial, he would not have written a better script.

    But as we have seen, it’s not only about Abba Kyari; it’s also about what his alleged liaison with criminals does to the reputation and integrity of a system already beset by multiple malignancies. I cannot for the life of me understand how the Inspector General of Police feels comfortable to be called Inspector General of Police in a force where an assistant superintendent will openly call himself “Too much money” on his Facebook page; or why the Inspector General of Police is not outraged that an officer under his nose and head of the intelligence unit that reports directly to him posts pictures of himself hanging out with dodgy people.

    How can he be comfortable calling himself Inspector General of Police when a suspect in a criminal case that reports directly to him still has the same special unit lodged inside his in-pocket while he is supposed to be on suspension and wanted abroad? There’s no outrage, no fear of consequences, nothing. How can the Inspector General of Police be comfortable?

    Abba Kyari was always sure of his medicine and his medicine man, so, as they say, he could beat his chest with it. But beyond and above knowing that he had a boss in whose eyes he could do no wrong, he also knew there is a powerful chain of primordial allegiances he can call to return years of favours done at the expense of his duty as a police officer. And that is the real tragedy of this matter and the root of his audacity. Otherwise, how can an officer suspended and already facing serious charges still be involved in “negotiating” brokerage for a so-called whistleblower? How?

    He deserves his day in court and I have no intention, at this time, to comment on the circus which the malicious incompetence of sections of the press, PR agents and the police high command have turned the matter into. As you read this piece, neither the investigation of the PSC nor the recommendations by the FDC which the Inspector General of Police is a member of has been made public.

    The public perception of the sting operation by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) which has obviously complicated matters for Abba Kyari is that it was a coup d’etat, executed to save him from the greater peril of extradition to the US, where his tailor’s fancy cuts or decades of dubious favours may not save him.

    That perception may be wrong, and clearly the tensions between the NDLEA and the police – followed by clarifications and counter clarifications – showed that the police turned Abba Kyari over to the NDLEA at gunpoint, in a manner of speaking.

    Yet, the tardiness and inexplicable delay in investigating the matter in the first place, the drip, drip in the release of the police report, its inconclusiveness, not to mention the interagency rivalry, puts the government in a tight spot. It would be interesting to see how matters proceed after the drama of last week and Abba Kyari’s initial two-week detention on the orders of the court.

    Despite the NDLEA’s best efforts, the drama surrounding this case appears to be paving the way for Abba Kyari’s soft landing perhaps on grounds of press trial or such useless technicalities, followed by his passage into quiet oblivion. The farce couldn’t have been better scripted.

     

    Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP