ReworkNigeria

Nigeria: An Adolescent At Fifty

2010-12-15T21:26:00.001Z

Written by Okey Ndibe
(Dated: Monday, September 27, 2010)

What meaning is to be assigned to the fact that, in three days, Nigeria will mark fifty years as an “independent” nation?

This question, or a variant of it, was the focus of the latest session of the Nigeria Peoples Parliament in Diaspora (NPPiD) that held last Saturday in New York City. The NPPiD is a group of Nigerians who meet periodically to discuss different aspects of their country’s problems and then offer some solutions. With an eye on Nigeria’s anniversary, the theme for the session was “Nigeria at 50: Problems, Progress, and Prospects”.

Judging by the tone of the contributions, there was little doubt that the mood was far from celebratory. Instead, the sense emerged clearly that, as an idea, Nigeria inspires in its citizens a profound feeling of dejection and disappointment. It is a nation that – as our two most famous writers, Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, have warned – is yet to be founded, much less realized.

At birth in 1960, Nigeria held out great promise. Despite the perniciousness of ethnic and religious divides, most Nigerians had that buoyancy of spirit borne of the confidence that they were on their way to actualizing a formidable polity.

Alas, fifty years on, it’s hard – some would say impossible – to recapture any vestige of that once exuberant spirit. The Nigerian narrative has become one of perpetual promise mocked by the desultory quality of the sum of our achievement. This nation that once encouraged grand dreams has remained, at fifty, stuck in adolescence.

In almost every index that matters, Nigerians’ aspirations have been discounted and undermined. Nigeria’s portrait is at once sobering and a study in failure. In healthcare as in education, there is vast evidence of a catastrophic state of affairs.

At the NPPiD session, a young medical doctor just returned from a visit to Nigeria told a harrowing story about a road accident he saw on his way from the airport to his hometown. A bus had veered off the road and rammed into a tree. As a well-trained doctor, he stopped at the scene and began to help the bleeding passengers who had sustained severe injuries.

His first shock came when he persuaded a man to phone the police. There was no response. Then a call was placed to members of the road safety commission (who happened to be some fifteen minutes away from the scene of the accident). They too were not in the least interested in leaving their post to come and help in evacuating the accident victims to the hospitals.

This doctor’s shock turned to frustration when he finally conveyed the wounded to a nearby hospital only to find that the alleged medical center did not have the most basic of equipment for stabilizing trauma patients. As he asked the doctor and nurses on duty for this and that absent tool, he had the sense that the hospital’s staff regarded him as some form of spectacle.

“You’re even lucky that we allowed you to bring them into the hospital without a police report,” said the doctor on duty, his manner one of icy nonchalance in the face of the groaning, moaning, dying patients. Later, a relative chided him for stopping in the first place to assist the injured. He was told that all you did when you saw an accident was to pray for the wounded – and then continue on your merry way.

The hall was riveted as this doctor gave us that first-hand account of a nation in which humans are routinely animalized. I have written elsewhere that Nigeria operates two different healthcare systems. The rich and well connected – many of them looters of the treasury – fly abroad for any form of medical treatment. The rest of Nigerians must make do with often fake, adulterated drugs and local hospitals that – in their lack of facilities – are caricatures, or resort to the futile ministrations of pastors, imams and “traditional healers” who hawk miracles and wonder elixirs.

Why has the Nigerian space become so dire? Instead of nurturing our best dreams, why has Nigeria morphed into some dream-aborting monstrosity?

There’s no question: we have been unlucky in our “leaders.” Lacking imagination, energy and discipline, most of the men and women who pass for Nigerian leaders mistake public office as, primarily, an invitation to gratify their greed. They and their proxies haunt foreign capitals and cities buying up swanky real estate. Incapable of shame and lacking any sense of irony, they fail to realize that the cities whose beauty they hanker after did not fall from the sky: they were planned and built by resourceful, visionary leaders.

Much as we blame – and should blame – the dim-witted charlatans who pose as leaders in Nigeria, we must also come to terms, finally, with the fact of our collective collaboration in our degradation. The truth is that our thieving rulers have stolen, and steal, with our implicit – and sometimes explicit – permission. If all the Nigerians who complain about police corruption were to resolve to resist the harassment to “drop something,” there’s no question that police-fueled corruption will decline dramatically. If a hundred enlightened citizens in every state formed a watchdog group and served notice to their governor that they would use the courts and other instruments to combat his looting, many a governor would develop the fear of wo/man (since they obviously have no fear of God).

This Saturday, Nigeria will begin the first day of its next fifty years. Is anybody in doubt that our current mode of operation cannot be sustained without doing irreparable damage to the body politic? As it is, Nigeria is a badly battered nation on life support. The best chance of saving her lies in a radical re-orientation of our attitudes. For example, let’s quit the lazy habit of describing men and women who are proven disasters as the ones who have “what it takes” to preside over our affairs. Instead of lulling ourselves to complacency with the credo that there can never be credible elections, why don’t we insist that such elections are not only possible but also a must?

And why don’t we organize to lobby European, Asian and North American nations – the destinations where looted funds are stashed – to blacklist as well as prosecute our thieving rulers? If Nigeria is to last another five years, much less fifty, then we better get the forthcoming round of elections right. And let us learn to make life hellish for those who steal our collective dreams – instead of giving them permission to thrive in their iniquity.

Okey Ndibe's email contact is: okeyndibe@gmail.com

Alternatives To A Violent And Bloody Revolution

2010-10-29T20:38:00.000+01:00

Written by Wahab O. Dosunmu

Eminent legal icon, Professor Ben Nwabueze, SAN, recently advocated a violent and bloody revolution as the only remedy for the ills confronting our thoroughly corrupt and abused country and its peoples. It is pointless detailing a cacophony of woes perpetrated and being perpetrated by all the sectors of our population, as these are well known to the average Nigerian.
My intervention in this article, is to explore other alternatives to Professor Nwabueze’s prescription, which retired General Theophilus Danjuma has dubbed as being blind to friends and foe.
One cannot but be sympathetic with the erudite professor in his exasperation, as all the known agents of peaceful change in civilized societies, are either comatose, complicit, or non-existent in Nigeria. The selected (not elected) legislative houses, at all levels, are riddled with corrupt practices that stink to high heaven. The judiciary is irredeemably tainted by its own rotten eggs, aided by the greedy so-called learned members of the Bar. Since its independence in 1960, Nigeria’s heads of government at state, regional or national levels were/are either corrupt and/or protected corrupt ministers/commissioners appointed by them. The advent of the military into governance in 1966, is now known to be a misadventure. Successive military rulers upped the corruption ante, save for Generals Buhari and Idiagbon, who showed some restraint in corrupt acquisition wealth and tried to instill some discipline in the polity.
General Babangida recently identified the dearth of enlightened and matured Nigerian Youth as justification for his determination to return to power, as a democratically elected president, despite the fact that he and others, committed a most heinous crime of annulling a free and fair democratic election in 1993. Where, one may ask, are the so-called “new breed” politicians that Babangida bred between 1985 and 1993? They must probably have matured into adept 419ers, drug barons, ‘do or die’ election riggers, who now populate our legislative assemblies and government houses as honourables, distinguisheds and excellencies.
Looking in the direction of our religious leaders and traditional rulers for liberation of the weak from the oppression of the powerful, one will quickly beat a retreat, as the weekly/daily sermons in churches and mosques, sound like ‘do as I say’ preachments, when the heads of these institutions are known to be very comfortable in collecting the stolen ‘blood’ money generously doled out to them, by corrupt public officials. Some traditional rulers even willingly collude with corrupt governors in their states, to the detriment of their people.
The last bastion for the defense of the people against corrupt rulers is the civil society, aided by a responsible press, as the fourth estate of the realm. We all know that the Nigerian press is not unlike the press in other countries, who do their publishers’ bidding. The publishing houses that can be said to be independent can be counted on the first three fingers of ones right hand. Corrupt public office holders own or influence ninety percent of both electronic and print media in our country. Those who pay the piper dictate the tune, as the saying goes. How about the so-called civil society? May the gentle soul of the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi rest in perfect peace. He was the quintessential sole civil society Nigeria ever had. The Campaign for Democracy and a myriad of others also showed up in the days of the late Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti. Unfortunately, since 1999, the civil society has been hijacked by politicians, who use their cronies, as fronts in these organizations. Even in the Save Nigeria Group, that came into being during the Yar’Adua succession crisis, there are people, on the payroll of known politicians, apologies to Pastor Tunde Bakare and Professor Wole Soyinka.
Aware of all the above, and the entrenched hold of corrupt officials on all levels of governance, Professor Nwabueze concluded that only a violent and bloody revolution can liberate Nigeria and Nigerians from the strangle hold of its inhuman oppressors. My plea is that the eminent Professor’s prescription, should be our last resort, if all other non-violent alternatives fail. General Danjuma’s laissez faire hope of waiting for the emergence of one ‘good’ leader is not an alternative worthy of consideration.
My suggested alternatives include a combination of the following in pursuit of specific objectives, targeted at correcting identified shortcomings in the polity.
Abatement/Elimination of Corrupt Practices:
The main reason why corruption thrives in Nigeria is due to the lack of certainty of the sanctions in our existing laws. All the organs of government responsible for enforcing sanctions are compromised, because they are also corrupt. What we are left with is to fashion a strategy for deterrence. We should find a way of making it unattractive to engage in corrupt practices. I suggest a simultaneous establishment of Assets Verification Commissions, by law in all the 36 states and in Abuja to accomplish the following:
A) Compel all public office holders since 1960, to submit in an affidavit, details of all their assets. Surviving children of those deceased should do the same on behalf of their departed parents.
B) Members of the public should be encouraged and protected to submit sworn affidavits in respect of any asset of any public office holder, of which they have information.
C) Each person should be given an opportunity to defend the legitimacy of his/her declared assets and those identified by others.
D) Any asset that can not be justified within the legitimate earnings of a public official, should be made to revert to the state or local government area in which the asset is situated, if fixed.
E) A public official not satisfied with the Commission’s decision, should have recourse to an Appeals Court for adjudication of the issues involved.
This alternative relies heavily on the political will of incumbent office holders, who will have to pass the necessary legislation at the National Assembly to set up the Commissions, if and only if, President Jonathan is willing to send a draft Bill to the National Assembly. It is any body’s guess as to whether, the National Assembly, as presently constituted will be willing to pass such a law, when they have refused to pass the Freedom of Information bill into law. Hence, the exasperation of Professor Ben Nwabueze. No blood will be spilled, nor will anyone go to jail. Thieves will just be made to regurgitate their ill-gotten wealth.
Revisit The Whole Concept of The Geographical Expression, called Nigeria
It is a well known fact that Nigeria is a nation of Ethnic nations. The ethnic nationalities bundled together by British Colonialists were politically co-joined with their neighbors without their consent. The allure of political independence submerged the centrifugal forces that tended to make regions drift apart. Immediately after independence, the centrifugal forces resurfaced; the Midwest was carved out of the Western Region, while the minorities in the Eastern and Northern Regions were ignored. Then came the elections of 1964/65, followed by the advent of the military and the civil war. One is amused when our military leaders beat their chests and proudly proclaim that they fought a war to keep Nigeria together. Who asked them to go to war? Were they not the ones who brought the war on hapless Nigerians? Enough of this bragado of fighting to keep Nigeria one, please! The time has come for Nigerians to reassemble in a constitutional conference to decide once and for all, the terms of our union and our engagement. The imminent ‘zoning’ crisis within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, makes it more imperative for us to go back to the conference table. The burden, once again, is on the incumbent office holders, the President and members of the National Assembly, who should take the necessary actions to convene a conference that is representative of all the ethnic nationalities.
The outcome of the proposed conference, if convened, will determine the way forward for Nigeria and Nigerians. To shy away from this task, is to bring into focus, the allure of Professor Nwabueze’s prescription. The alternatives above are bloodless and non-violent. All the noise about zoning or no zoning, about electoral reforms, about free and fair elections, are soothing balms that can not be expected to cure the monumental ills of corruption that imperil, what we now call Nigeria. Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable. I pray that Professor Ben Nwabueze lives long enough to witness the desired change.

Culled from www.saharareporters.com

Nigeria At Fifty: Our Independence Day

2010-09-25T01:31:00.000+01:00

Written by Azubuike Madu

The independence of a nation as it should apply to us is holistic and marks a steady and progressive growth in all indexes of civil development the nation must experience. October 1, 2010 should mark fifty years of this independence and we should celebrate not just because of the name and the chance that we may have grown a little from what we used to be before the ‘independence day’, but because we have broken up from colonialism and the tendencies of colonialism that have kept our true identity, strength, effort, ideals, character, principles and unique style from leading our fortune, destiny and life as a nation.

Every year, the series of events that mark our Independence Day celebration must include some tribute to the freedom fighters of our country. Only people of the era of Zik, Awo, Bello, Eyo-Ita and Macaulay are mentioned as freedom fighters. They fought against the strong hold of the colonial masters, the Britons. They had their motivation. Today every celebration of our Independence Day is more like celebrating Easter (of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) without knowing why the day was or who was on the day, let alone believing the story of the day. So long as the day turns out to be a public holiday and there are monetary allocations to mark the celebration, so be it; HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

I was at the British Council in Abuja a couple of days ago when someone in a group of five walked up to me for an interview. They wanted to find out, for research, the average opinion about development in Nigeria with 2015 as a year mark. I was asked, ‘What is working well in Nigeria?’ And I answered, ‘Nothing!’ Unfortunately that answer ended the interview prematurely because they needed ‘something to build on for further questions’. Only one interviewee out of ten got more questions than I got there because he said politics was working well. I wonder where he came from. To a question of where Nigeria will be in 2015, I answered ‘in West Africa, and we shall be far better than we are now.’ I believe this is the kind of sentiment many Nigerians carry. Every one is strongly hopeful that things will definitely turn around for our good and perpetual prosperity as a nation. The common man like me may not be able to explain how, but can say even at worst situations: Nigeria go better!

The generic concept of fighting for independence entails that the people are:

* Fighting for the sovereignty of their nation;

* Fighting against repressive policies and selfish leadership decisions that are unpopular and neither in the interest of the people nor for the good of the people, the land and posterity;

* Fighting to protect basic identity and principles of the people against foreign erosion and bastardisation.

It becomes a fight because the people under colonial rule become determined and earnestly seek the general good of their people in line with the generic concepts, without undue individualism. It is a fight because as much as they spend all their time, effort, spirit and material, they still maintain a strong hope for success. The story is history; most times they lose their lives in the struggle even when they know of the possibility. They pre-dedicate their struggle to posterity.

It is a fight because the colonial masters will not just leave. They must have spent a long time of their inhabitation to establish political, social and economic strongholds, and a system to perpetuate them in their colony. There must be a lot for them to lose if they just left. More than the habit of oppressing and lording over their subjects, they will lose politically, economically and socially as far as the colony is concerned. They will find it boring to account for their actions and decisions even in the service of the people. And their access to the resources of the people is unquestionable. I cannot agree less. It is fearful for a habitual bully to have a reason to negotiate at par with or be in the position to ask for help from his former subjects. This bully will therefore do everything within his reach to restrain and restrict his subjects from having or knowing anything about himself that might engender their independence. This is the fight!

Before 1960, there was concerted effort for the independence of our country. The independence fighters had their motivations. Their motivations were not far from the fact that they wanted a more people-oriented leadership that was indigenous with the full identity and character of the people. They wanted a more sensitive and responsive system that will account for the people’s resources and efforts. They wanted a system that will totally guarantee the protection of the rights, aspirations and interests of the people while promoting the collective fortune of the people and the land. Even though they inherited a political arrangement from their masters, the basic things they applied for, they got. They got our sovereignty, social, economic and political independence from the Britons. Thanks to them.

Over fifty years after the freedom fighters applied for our independence, we brashly consider ourselves as very unfortunate. We still have the attributes of colonial subjects. Some say our misfortune is that we skewed off from the dreams and aspirations of the freedom fighters; others say we benefited more from our colonial masters and would have had more development if they stayed on. Still there are ugly voices that suggest that we are incapable and immature to conduct a suitable leadership for our collective good, to sustain or even build on the dreams, ideals and aspirations of our freedom fighters. The truth is that just as our fore-fathers mismanaged leadership in their hands by giving in to slave trade, leadership after 1960 was mismanaged. Our country has been in the hands of local colonial masters, for long!

Fifty years is golden. Yet our fifty years has with it a lot of mixed reactions. The ordinary man has not seen a substantial reason to celebrate. The common suggestion even as government has budgeted for celebration is that we should mark it by debating or creative conferencing. After all, in the past three years our president always led us into anniversaries of purposeless sober-reflection. Who are the celebrants and how many Nigerians are happy? What has changed? What have we become independent of? What really is better and positively different from the ‘bad past’?

Just like our fore fathers, our colonial masters are not accountable to us. Their activities and decisions are to serve them alone even to the detriment of the people and the image of the entity they are identified with whose protection are entrusted to them. Our rulers in the past years have grossly abused us. They have done to us evil beyond what foreigners would do to us.

How can one explain, even in the name of corruption, regular heartless trade off of our rights and development, and constant exploitation and abuse of our resources and collective identity? It is bone-drilling to imagine the kind of oppression and stagnation forced on us by colonial masters we have lately preferred to call cabal. People who loot vital resources from their homeland only to build estates and business empires all over the world – in Dubai, UK, America, Jamaica, the Caribbean, South Africa, the Gambia, Kenya, Sao Tome, everywhere! They have consistently driven our economy and national social status to that of third world while promoting other economies. The incidence of their activities gives credit to foreign health care service and foreign education among other things at the expense of ours. They deliberately take out our economy and jobs to other countries while we remain unemployed or underemployed. Wherever you have the best of services anywhere in the world, they are widely acclaimed chief patrons. Yet beyond four hundred metres radius of their country homes lays poverty in stark nakedness. From north to south, east to west of Nigeria, the signs are the same.

They say our education system was better than what we have now. What happened? They better fund foreign universities and send their wards abroad. Even when schools are set up for them in Nigeria, they are out of reach. They better run abroad for catarrh treatment than put our health sector in order. Our refineries cannot work because they have chains of inter-related business in the energy sector. The cabal! ‘What is working well in Nigeria?’ Nothing! Nothing works in Nigeria because we have been held down by the cabal.

Our immediate past president came into office screaming, ‘the cabal!’ He left office creating a fresh breed of cabal members. A close inspection of our history would reveal that this cabal emanated from the barracks. Our leaders thus far have been indisciplined military coupists and their associates. The Babangida era was the period of rigorous recruitment and implantation of cabal members in our bureaucracy. Our richest men today were made in the alliance. Our mediocre bureaucrats and administrators were constituted then and they keep the trend alive by keeping the objectives of the cabal alive. How else can we come out of this? This describes the difficulty we have in making progress. You cannot talk of fighting corruption without dealing with the cabal. You fight the cabal by ensuring a free and fair election, stopping senseless importations, achieving self sufficiency in petroleum products and power supply, providing basic infrastructure, uplifting agriculture and education, reviving our industries and creating jobs, boosting our health system, and strengthening our security and judicial system. They do not want these!

2011 has come and it is obvious we want our independence and the cabal has come with its assertion that ‘we lack leadership’, ‘no zoning equals unity crisis’, no one else is ‘mature’ save for him to lead this country to the ‘promise land’….. I cannot stand those ugly voices.

One scary thing for the cabal, which is the main fight in the issue of the propaganda of zoning et al, is the fact of our impending independence. If we get our independence, we can determine our development. The threat this administration has posed is not throwing up President Jonathan as a presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections, rather it is its determination for a free and fair election. With all their money and connection, they are so badly out-numbered that a common man like Ribadu will beat the old war horses squarely. In all the debate, Ribadu does not come from a zone. (Not a campaign for Ribadu, he is just different. Jonathan might be better than him. I have my reservations).

Now they must have a plan to spoil our peace if they cannot have their way. Someone is weighing the Kenya or Zimbabwe option because of PDP ‘family’. The music on zoning et al has changed because there is the likelihood that if President Jonathan does not represent PDP in a free and fair election, Buhari or Ribadu will take the day. Our concern is our independence. We strongly look forward to our real Independence Day after which we will always have cause to celebrate.

When they say that the founding fathers (cabal grand masters) agreed on zoning to give every zone a fair chance, they fail to state their resolution to keep us bound for the next ‘sixty years’ through perennial rigging and rape of our dignity as a people. Their argument of zoning and fair chance has emboldened the common man to ask: ‘Are there no new names and faces that can lead us purposely apart from tested expired men who have been on stage for decades?’ Until a new addition, 2011 presidential election is between Jonathan, Buhari and Ribadu. Their biographies seem cleaner and more appealing to their recruiters, the Nigerian masses. We are taking employment rights from the cabal. We will stand against rigging and we must be determined to attain our long-awaited independence. The time has come for us to declare our Independence Day.

In UNITY WE STAND! We have always believed that our heterogeneous country will work and be the best if we uphold other ideologies of our alliance above our different socio-cultural backgrounds.

Azubuike Madu's email contact is zubymadu@yahoo.com

Multi-Ethnic Greed: Why There Can’t Be A Revolution In Nigeria!

2010-09-20T23:13:00.001+01:00

Written by Tony Ishiekwene

At a recent book launch, eminent legal icon, Professor Ben Nwabueze, SAN, advocated a violent and bloody revolution as the only way-out of the mess and indeed hell, successive Nigerian leadership and their ally- a tiny segment of the private commercial elite have turned the country into.
For the erudite professor, after ruminating over all the ills plaguing the nation, caused largely by corruption and greed of the ruling class, no law, edict or moral suasion is capable of dissuading the ruling class from their path of perdition taking along with them the entire nation of 150 million people.

To some extent the professor may be right. A bird’s eye-view of the going on in all political office holders, be it the local government chairman and the councilors, the state governors and their state legislative assemblies or the presidency and the bi-cameral legislative houses, all you see is monumental greed cutting across all the states, religion and ethnic groups. Nowhere is spared, and the result is a living hell for the vast majority of Nigerians, old and young, men and women who try to eke out a living but a denied the chance to do by a very rapacious, kleptomaniac group of leadership who think the wealth accruing to 150 million people could be shared exclusively by less than a million political office holders and their cronies.

Successive Nigerian leadership have run down the Nigerian Airways, Nigerian railway, Nigerian Shipping line, The Nigerian Steel Mills in Ajaokuta and Aladja, State governors have run down state corporations under their watch using their stooges, as chairpersons of these government parastatals, in stealing, asset-stripping and selling off remaining state assets to their close private sector friends and the rest allowed to decay as carcasses, and yet nothing has happened by way of punishment or sanction to these thieves who caused misery to hundreds of thousands of Nigerians who became jobless by the excessive greed of a few, sending many to their early deaths. It costs far more to undertake any government project in Nigeria than in US, UK and other EEC countries, where labour costs is sometimes triple that of Nigeria, because of budget corruption and the over-inflation of budgeted expenditure through budget padding and similar corrupt practices with legislative approvals, thereby legitimizing such corruption. And so Nigerian legislators at both national and state levels are mere rubber stamp of corrupt budgets, and for their troubles they get massively inflated allowances, perks and exotic car gifts from the executives and no one cares about the checks on the other as envisaged by the constitution.

And so millions of Nigerian are plagued by troubling poverty and disease, mass unemployment of its able youth who have now become so helpless that young ladies have turned to selling their bodies both in Nigeria and abroad, whilst young men and women who cannot go into armed robbery or other criminal behavior for survival are forced to find any means to leave the shores of Nigeria- many dying in the Sahara deserts and the ones who manage to get through Morocco die in ramshackle boats trying to cross the Mediterranean sea unto Canary Island, Spain or Italy- all in desperation to seek a means of surviving the hell that the political elites have turned Nigeria into. And all these misery happening 11 years after democracy was supposed to have taken root and the massive petro-dollar wealth that has accrued to the country in the last 10 years. The people have nothing to show for it. Education is in tartars; Health and health facilities are in shambles; Roads are dead traps as thousands of Nigerians are killed and maimed yearly in road traffic accidents occasioned by lack of road maintenance. Yet a tiny minority of its political elite, current and recent past wallows in shameless stolen riches and flaunts extravagance to the very face of the Nigerian people they have stolen blind.

So in a sense all the conditions that should trigger a very violent revolution persist in Nigeria, indeed over the past twenty years or more, a revolution had been overdue. But yet, I am afraid to sound contrary to the distinguished law professor, that there will not be any violent revolution in Nigeria! Why won’t there be one? Because of multi-ethnic greed! Nigerians even those dying of the mass poverty and hellish conditions Nigeria has become- and these mass of deprived and impoverished Nigerians cut across all ethnic, religious and geographical zones- feel their chance or turn will come for the selfish “chop-I-chop” that turn-by turn “rulership” (for what we have in Nigeria is not leadership) of looting otherwise referred to as Zoning of political offices. The political elites across the country have so manipulated the minds of the ignorant Nigerian into believing that retreating into their ethnic cocoons and shouting “marginalization” of my zone or ethnic group would ensure their salvation. They convenientlyforget or refuse to understand that their state governors and local government chairmen and legislative bodies are stealing all the allocations meant for them, and that their enemies are more within than outside their ethnic zones!

You can see the hue and cry of a segment of Nigeria- the northern elite and their handymen thugs whipping war drums that “zoning” must be respected out of fear that the circumstantial president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan may contest the 2011 election and “win” it whether by hook or by crook. For them Jonathan should not throw his hat in the ring to contest the election in the banner of PDP- where “election” win is guaranteed or any other party for that matter as he could use the power of incumbency to snatch a “presidential election win.” Why would a political party zone a political position to an ethnic group or geographical zone for two terms of election? Whilst a zoning arrangement for a disjointed federation like Nigeria may serve some purpose in ensuring unity and bottled-up peaceful co-existence, it is an affront on Nigerians for a cabal in one political party- the PDP- to insist on one zone having two terms at a stretch. Implicit in this arrangement is the disrespect the ruling cabal has for the Nigerian voter who should decide who rules them; they are saying that the Nigerian people’s vote will never count, and that rigging and fraudulent imposition of their “chosen” ones will continue without let. Put this way, they argue, Obasanjo ruled for eight years, through two term of elections (1999 and 2003) largely via rigged elections and late president Yar’ Adua should have two terms of rigged election? What right has any group of persons, in whatever party, to inflict one incompetent, inept and corrupt leader over the people of Nigeria or a state for that matter because of a convoluted arrangement of zoning by a few equally corrupt and greedy party cabals?

I disagree with the views of former NBA president Olisa Agbakoba in the Guardian opinion column of 28th July, 2010 that “Federal character” requirement in public institutions to avoid cronyism and nepotism equates with “Zoning” of Presidency, or Governorship in the case of State governments. The essence of the quota system (Federal character) is to ensure that no one tribe or geographical zone predominate any public institution so that we do not have President, the Vice President and possibly the Senate president from the same geographical zone at any one time. Section 14, subsection 3 of the Nigerian constitution both in letter and in spirit was never about zoning of political offices to any particular zone at any point in time. Zoning is undemocratic and is part of the corruption deal that the ruling Nigerian elite have adopted to cheat the ordinary long suffering Nigerians from getting credible, competent and honest leadership.

Yes there cannot be a revolution in Nigeria so long as the monies to be stolen by the political class and their private sector collaborators continue to flow in by the pumping of oil from the Niger delta and the petro dollars goes into the federation account for sharing among the indolent, inefficient and corruption ridden three-tiers of government- Federal, State and local government councils; and also as long as multi-ethnic corruption is allowed to thrive and things like zoning of political offices are endorsed by the ruling elites.
A transformation of Nigeria where the people get justice and a fair deal is still possible, without recourse to a violent revolution. I have changed my mind that we need a violent revolution, even though I would have welcomed one- (see my writing over a year ago, where I said a Revolution was inevitable for Nigeria: http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/tony-ishiekwene/nigeria-why... What I think may eventually change Nigeria for the good is pressure from both Nigerians and the international community, where the later are doing a good job of insisting on good governance and transparency and accountability in government. They have not just been talking but also acting in helping arrest irresponsibly greedy Nigerian rulers like Ibori, Alameasiegha, Dariye and their associates in looting state treasury. Also Information and Communication Technology would play its part in ensuring that there is nowhere to hide by rogue leaders that currently predominates Nigerian leadership.

Eventually a credible election where the people of Nigeria, through one-person-one-vote that counts, decides who their leaders become at all levels of governance will ensure that competent people with ability and integrity gets into government and will put the people first- ordinary Nigerians- before their wallets and those of their god-fathers and cronies, as has been the case in the past 50 years of independent Nigeria. Nothing lasts forever and the current field day the political elites are having will soon come to an end. It will not be by a bloodletting violent revolution however, it will be by a blood-less, quite revolution of ideas, innovative thinking and brain power!
tonykwene@aol.com

Journey To Bloodshed

2010-08-30T01:37:00.000+01:00

Written by Sonala Olumhense

I am a Christian. My faith does not approve of murder, although history has indicted many a Christian for murder and sundry mayhem. There are many ways in which faith in God is truly special. One of them is that it teaches the sanctity of human life. A man is only as wise as the extent to which he realizes that his life is not his. Life is so special man cannot create it. But while religion may be categorical about the sanctity of life, it does not seem to teach respect for it so well. That may partly explain why the poor hesitate to take even the life of their oppressors, even when those victimisers are ruthlessly sucking the very blood out of them..

The difference may be that the poor still have access to a certain inner little voice. It is probably no more than the echo of hunger in that cavernous no-man’s land between the stomach and the small intestine, but when you have nothing, you have plenty of pauses between thought and action. Those pauses, those rumblings, are often quite clear: you do not take life.

The same rule, curiously, does not apply to the rich, for whom that little voice seems to have been paid off. They take what they want and move on lest they miss the next opportunity to take what they want.

Nowhere in the world does that seem to be a clearer case than our Nigeria. If wealth is the reward for industry and creativity and investment and management, there are no real wealthy people in Nigeria.

What we have is a class of people whose principal skill has been to sell their own country by selling her out. They have sold her to the devil and placed the few pieces of silver in their pockets.

That is not wealth, but it has also made Nigeria the poorest nation on earth. If Nigeria is assessed according to her size and population and natural resources and educated people, we ought to be one of the world’s richest and one of the best places on earth to live. Instead, we are often reviled and laughed at because while a few of us own those pieces of silver, it is in exchange for hell.

Nigeria is a triumph of the greediest. We have no statesmen and no industrialists. Our most prominent citizens—take a look at our 2010 National Honours List—are looters, pedophiles, forgers, political manipulators and debtors. Our nation’s former rulers do not scratch an itch in public because they know their corruption and their loot and their lies and their high crimes will pollute the headlines for months.

Think about it: how many of Nigeria’s former rulers and their hangers-on are actively engaged in the task of making Nigeria work, let alone great? How many support talented Nigerians, or charitable endeavors or education in the country? On the contrary, they are begging organizations and schools abroad for opportunities to endow expensive academic chairs or raise foreign children.

How many of Nigeria’s former rulers give interviews to the local press or defend initiatives they championed in office? On the contrary, they have agents begging foreign correspondents to speak to them.

How many of Nigeria’s former top government officials are involved in work designed to nurture local scientific or technical endeavor?

How many of Nigeria’s former government officials have investments you can see or assess? And yet they are our “wealthy” and powerful, desperately trying to make people believe they are the nation’s powerbrokers.

It is no surprise that while they continue to appropriate our commonwealth, the nation grows poorer and more anachronistic. Nobody takes Nigeria seriously any more: we are a nation that seeks the dizzying heights of veto power at the United Nations Security Council, without the responsibility of fighting poverty or challenging disease.

We want to be in the G20 and speak arrogantly of Vision 20-2020, but we do not want to find out why Benin Republic, next door, does not respect us anymore.

And now, the new humiliation: suddenly, our “war against corruption” is being fought for us by foreign countries. They send us detailed information about our citizens that have looted us blind and where the money is. We ignore them.

They prosecute our thieving former officials abroad and have begun to bar them from visiting their lands. They are naming people from previous governments and are set to name people from the present.

We ignore them.

When Nigerians vote, their votes do not count, because elections are predetermined.

When a Nigerian official says he wants to fight corruption, we know he wants his wife and his ministers and his friends to know they are safe.

When the United Nations and the African Union and our development partners set growth targets, Nigeria tells them the People’s Democratic Party is Africa’s largest.

When a Nigerian ruler proposes a budget, everybody knows the funds are going to anything but the projects it contains.

It is insulting for a Nigerian ruler to go to a local hospital. Their wives would rather die naked at the reception of a foreign hospital, any foreign hospital.

As a young man, I always thought these would change. Now I have proof they will because they have all deteriorated indescribably.

Things will change because Nigeria’s political elite is greedier and hungrier more irresponsible than it has ever been.

Things will change because we have lost every sense of community. Our preoccupation of eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage are not just symbolic, they are prophetic.

How will the change come? I am in little doubt now that this will end violently. Nigerian political irresponsibility was nurtured on the fertilizer of ignorance: 20 governors and their girlfriends could join an indicted felon in South Africa or Brazil or the United Kingdom for a weekend frolic and nobody would ever know. The people did not know; they could not know.

Only 10 or 20 years ago, every governor knew that State Broadcasting was never going to tell the people he was a thief. Today, there are credible people and institutions that will tell, and prove it.

Only 10 or 20 years ago, every Nigerian ruler knew nobody would call his wife a thief in private, let alone in public. Today, there are credible people and institutions that will tell, and prove it.

And yet the brazen looting and lying continues. The partying continues. All you have to do is be close enough to those who are powerful enough, and you can get into the party.

I think that bloodshed is now guaranteed in Nigeria; the kind of bloodshed nobody has seen since the middle of the last century.

Think about it: two weeks ago in New York, Nigeria was leading a Security Council assault on the Iran nuclear weapons programme; the same Nigeria, in Abuja, Nigeria was hosting the Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! Think about it: last week, Nigeria was leading a United Nations Security Council debate on preventive diplomacy.

These are the kinds of contradictions that make you throw up, and provide our critics with easy fodder. Nigeria should be helping the United Nations avoid the most debilitating and expensive peacekeeping challenge the world has ever known by engaging in preventive development. Instead, we have nurtured a hypocritical time-bomb. It will arrive because there is no further to sink and nowhere else to go.

People say a rebellion—nay, a revolution—is expensive because you never know how far it will go or how it will end. On the contrary, I think that is what Nigeria deserves. Nigeria, through the scorched-earth greed of its ruling elite, is heading for the kind of chaos that will end in rivers of blood. It is guaranteed to eliminate the guilty without necessarily sparing the innocent.

Maybe that was what the poet saw when she wrote, “Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace by written in the sky.”

That would be fertilization, not murder.

Culled from www.saharareporters.com

Nigeria: Who are the criminals?

2010-07-29T17:39:00.001+01:00

Written by Clement Muozoba/Codewit News

Many years ago, in one of his albums, the late Reggae exponent, Peter Tosh asked this question, ”Everybody is talking about crime, tell me, who are the criminals?” This becomes more relevant in our life as a country today. In a media chat with some selected journalists, which was transmitted live by the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) a few weeks ago, the President of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, admitted that kidnapping had become a national issue. Again, he admitted that it had become a lucrative industry and that there were some ‘big men’ behind the small boys in the field. He also said that his government was after those big guys. He specifically pointed out that kidnapping had paralysed commercial activities in the South-East in particular.

Obviously, the president is not wrong. Kidnapping and its twin brother, broad daylight bank robbery, believed to be operated by the same syndicate, have held the South-East to ransom. Funny enough, a friend of mine described kidnapping as a nomad who went out wandering from the South-South. On reaching the South-East, he found a clement environment and settled there and began a flourishing business with headquarters in Abia State.

On the 11th of June, 2010, the Lagos State Chairman of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Wahab Oba, was kidnapped with three other journalists and their driver in Abia State. As if to show that kidnapping is not just a South-East problem, Hajia Labara Abdullahi, the mother of Sani Lulu, the impeached President of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), was kidnapped in Kogi State. Many questions have been raised on why this strange business has defied all solutions. The complications following some of the kidnapping incidents have raised no fewer questions. As at now, no answers have been provided. The one answer readily available is that there is lack of security in the country.

It will be recalled that apart from Lagos State, no other state has provided the Police Force with logistics than the South-Eastern states. I‘m sure that Anambra has been praised for providing the Police with not less than 150 operational vehicles, two armoured personnel carriers and other things. Yet, whenever kidnapping is mentioned, the state is not left out. It is true that some of the kidnapping incidents are mere political hypes, but some are also true and many of them are attributed to the ineptitude of the law enforcement agents, especially the Police. In Anambra State, which is fundamentally considered a business state, the Police have been said to find a haven for their own business. Hence, more often than not, they spend their time collecting the Nigerian ‘Green Card‘ on the roads and allowing the kidnappers and other criminals a free access. This has equally caused untold accidents which have claimed the lives of Nigerians and even some men of the Nigerian Police.

Many in the South-East now believe that some law enforcement agents must be involved in these violent crimes in one way or the other. Some people believe that some of them either engage directly in the business as kidnappers or as negotiators for ransom. This, according to them, is why kidnapping has refused to go. The popular belief is that on the days of the violent crimes like the bank robberies, the check-points are always deserted to pave the way for the criminals. It is also believed that the cases where the law enforcement agents are killed are largely due to improper arrangement, lack of information or misinformation between the security agencies and the criminals. That is why many never believe that the Police in their present form can provide security for the Nigerian citizens. The most horrible part of this is that on many occasions, the Police have turned their weapons on innocent citizens in ‘intentional‘ accidental discharges which have sent many to their untimely death. Why has reforming the Nigeria Police become such a Herculean task?

In June this year, Nigerians witnessed a horrible scene in the House of Representatives. It was a free-for-all fight between just 11 out of 360 legislators. People were beaten black and blue, clothes mercilessly torn to shreds and thanks to God that nobody was stripped naked. The cause of the fracas was allegations of fraud against the Speaker of the House, Oladimeji Bankole by the Progressive Group led by Dino Melaye. The speaker was accused mainly of misappropriating N11b capital vote of the House in 2008 and 2009 financial years. In the same vein, in a serendipitous discovery, our distinguished senators’ earnings per annum were uncovered as follow: Basic salary - 2,484,245.50; hardship allowance at 50 per cent of Basic salary - 1,242,122.70; Constituency allowance at 200 per cent of BS - 4,968,509.00; furniture allowance at 300 per cent of BS - 7,452,736.50; Newspaper allowance at 50 per cent of BS - 1,242,122.70; Wardrobe allowance at 25 per cent - 621,061.37; Recess allowance at 10 per cent - 248,424.55; Accommodation at 200 per cent - 4,968,509.00; Utilities at 30 per cent of BS - 828,081.83; Domestic Staff at 75 per cent of BS - 1,863,184.12; Entertainment at 30 per cent of BS - 828, 081.83; Personal assistants at 25 per cent of BS - 621,061.37; Vehicle maintenance allowance at 75 per cent of BS - 1,863, 184.12; Leave allowance at 10 per cent of BS - 48,424.55; severance gratuity at 300 per cent of BS - 7,452,736.50; Motor vehicle allowance at 400 per cent of BS - 9,936,982.00 (every 4 years); Total = N29,479,749.00; Senator‘s Salary per month = 2,456,647.70; Grand Total (109 Senators) = N3,264,329,264.10 (Newswatch, July 12, 2010, p.14). This unfortunately is happening in a country regarded largely to be poor and where an average Nigerian lives below a dollar per day. Folake Lebi, a US-based consultant lamented this situation in the same magazine thus, ”I wonder why these thieves in the National Assembly talk of economic saboteurs in Nigeria. I wonder if they have the sense to introspect long enough to see themselves as worst robbers Nigeria has ever encountered.” By this, Lebi means that the condemned criminals in Kirikiri are saints.

Election rigging is now regarded as normal in Nigeria and no serious punishment is meted out for the systematic robbery of the people‘s mandate. One can boldly say that many of our political office holders are with stolen mandates. It is only just a handful of the states of the federation especially those who claimed their mandate through the courts that can be said to have elected governors. Even the immediate past president admitted that the process that threw him up with the incumbent president as his vice was marred by irregularities. That was where it ended. But if we still think correctly, is there any crime greater than the theft of the people‘s mandate? We now have a new electoral umpire, Professor Attahiru Jega. Before him, Nigerians had witnessed sham in the name of elections and the professional riggers boasted openly, always sure of rigging and none had ever been brought to book. Can Jega move beyond his predecessor, Professor Maurice Iwu? Can he withstand the politicians‘ enormous financial inducements?

We have heard of billions upon billions recovered by our anti-graft agencies where they were stashed away in foreign banks. Where are the monies and who stashed them away? On many occasions, the leadership of the anti-graft agencies has been accused of complicity. In fact, many believe that some of the leaders of such agencies were planted to protect the sacred cows. As a result of that, no serious cases have been made against some of the obviously corrupt ex-governors and other politicians, except to settle some scores. Many are of the view that some of their case files have mysteriously been lost in the custody of the agencies while those with countless charges have surprisingly been discharged and acquitted.

Though kidnapping holds sway these days, it should not distract us from the fact that it is not the one and only crime in the country. If the truth has to be told, what Chinua Achebe pointed out many years ago as the problem of Nigeria is still there and is worse now. Ours remains a problem deeply rooted in corruption of our leaders and has given birth to a confusion of what crime is and who the criminals are. If the corridors of power can be swept clean, kidnapping will naturally solve itself. But there is the lack of courage to begin because many are involved.

Culled from Codewit News

The war in Igboland

2010-06-30T23:57:00.002+01:00

Written By Okey Ndibe

The June 15, 2010 edition of NEXT reported that a coalition of groups in Abia State had asked Governor Theodore Orji to resign on account of the level of insecurity in the state. It was not the usual partisan fare, with a number of opposition parties banding together to hound a state governor. Instead, the call for Orji’s resignation came from seven human rights and pro-democracy organizations.

There was no doubt that the groups – the Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation (HRJPF), Abia Peoples Forum (APF), Centre for Reform and Public Advocacy (CRPA), Popular Participation Front (PPF), Campaign for Democracy (CD), Centre for the Advancement of Children's and Women's Right (CACWR) and Centre for Human Empowerment, Advancement and Development (CHEAD) – were in deadly earnest. They set a deadline of June 30 for Mr. Orji’s resignation. And they promised to commence non-violent civil disobedience should he ignore their call.

My bet is that Governor Orji would not hearken to the ultimatum to resign. Nigerian politicians are not in the habit of giving up power, even when they have no idea how to deploy the resources of their office to solve problems.

The first duty of any government is to guarantee the security of the lives and property of its people. By this measure, Governor Orji has failed the people of Abia.

The groups demanding his resignation took care to offer a convincing narrative of Abia as “a failed state.” The dossier included a “spate of armed robbery, kidnapping for ransom, ritual killings and rape in Abia State, particularly Aba.” The groups decried “the spiraling wave of insecurity in the state.” They instantiated with gory, shocking details: “Between 14 May and 8 June, several banks have been robbed, security personnel brutally killed, trouser-wearing ladies raped, and innocent persons kidnapped for rituals and/or ransom under the nose of heavily armed security men, including the blood-thirsty Abia State Vigilante Services (Bakassi boys).”

Then there was this unanswerable indictment: “Armed robbers and kidnappers now give notice before they strike, as vividly shown by the invasion of First Bank Plc and Fidelity Bank Plc, both in Port Harcourt Road, Aba on Wednesday, 2 June. Recall that they had written to inform [the banks] of their intention to rob them and eventually did, to [the] chagrin of all.”

It’s a sweeping, bleak panorama of the state of insecurity in Abia. But the stigma of failure is not Theodore Orji’s alone. It is a humiliating admission to make, but sadly true: a cadre of greedy, visionless leaders has for too held sway in the Igbo-speaking southeastern states. Other past and current governors of these states have – by their corruption, lack of vision and absence of strategic intelligence – condemned Igboland to economic doldrums and moral degradation.

On June 5, I was in Toronto to give the keynote address at the annual Biafran War Memorial celebration. My talk harped on the current war in Igboland, a war characterized, above all, by a crisis of values. I tried to persuade my audience that, in sheer enormity and direness, the ongoing war dwarfs the effects of the Biafran war that claimed more than a million lives.

Let’s be clear: the triumph and veneration of morally virulent values is not an exclusively Igbo malaise. Nigeria as a whole has long been in the grips of a deformed ethos, the reign of a disorder in which absurdity is held to be sensible, impunity is exalted, and honor is mocked.

In my view, however, the Igbo have paid the steepest price for permitting these misshapen values to gain traction – and then to be embedded as the norm. The moral cancer metastasizing through Igboland is best detected in the music as well as social language.

For years, the fiercely republican Igbo carelessly allowed themselves to dance to lyrics that proclaimed “ana enwe obodo enwe” – roughly translated as “a community is owned.” At first glance, that lyrical claim would appear innocuous, even persuasive. Another lyric set out to name the Igbo’s “nnukwu mmanwu” – big masquerades. Any discerning person would be shocked by the questionable pedigree of some of the men advertised either as the “owners” of their community or big masquerades.

Wealth, whatever the mode and means of its accumulation, was the unmistakable criterion for “owning” one’s community or receiving recognition as a big masquerade. Bowing to wealth, some Igbo musicians shamelessly trumpeted scallywags, scoundrels, and charlatans. It seemed anathema to credit anybody for the quality of his or her public service, for exemplary moral conduct, or for proven distinction of mind. I have never heard any musician invite Chinua Achebe, the most globally well-known and revered Igbo man – a man of stellar intellectual achievement and stupendous ethical funds – to take a seat among the masquerades. Nor have I heard any musician suggest, in a lyric, that the outstanding novelist has a say in the ownership of his community. No pride of place was reserved for women and men whose stock came in the form of dedication to service, whether in the private or public sector, or self-sacrifice in the cause of advancing the common good.

It was inevitable that the habit of worshiping material possession would bring Nigeria to its present troubling pass. In Igboland, the consequence has been nothing short of tragic. One of the popular phrases in Igbo public speech is, “onye bu igu ka ewu n’eso” – or, the goat follows the man with the palm fronds. It is a disturbing statement in every particular. It reduces humans to the level and ethic of a goat. It dictates that every goat/human must follow the man with food, even where the food is stolen.

Such scant regard for sound moral values has had devastating effect. It has fed an anything-goes culture. It has enabled shady characters to sink roots in Igboland and criminals to make a cottage industry out of kidnapping their fellows. There are whispers that some traditional rulers, unscrupulous police officers, shady businessmen as well as “prominent” politicians – the kind often dubbed big masquerades – now organize, sponsor or run their own kidnapping cells.

The Igbo have never faced a more serious challenge than the current blight of kidnappers. We can no longer afford to dress up the ugly truth in fine garbs: the Igbo people are engulfed in a war for survival akin to Biafra, but more desperate, if you ask me. The only difference is that, in this case, the enemy is within.

The casualty is extremely high. Fewer and fewer Igbos resident in such places as Abuja, Lagos or Port Harcourt look forward to traveling to their home states. And when they go, they must arrange to hire several police officers to guard them. The prospects are even grimmer for Igbos who live abroad. For fear of kidnappers, many – perhaps most – traditional marriage ceremonies are now held in Nigerian cities far from Igboland. Imagine the economic and social costs of the flight of such ceremonies. How about investment in new businesses? They have virtually dried up.

Igboland is beleaguered, dangerously close to becoming a no-go area. Yet, the Igbo governors have disconcertingly shown little inclination to weigh any serious measures to remediate the situation. Is it that they fail to recognize the scale of the threat, that they are bereft of ideas for tackling the monster, or – as many people speculate – that some of them are profiteers from the crisis?

Equally indicted are those men and women who run around Abuja and Lagos, styling themselves Igbo leaders. Their pretension to the role of leaders is rebuked by the fact that they have not seen fit to confer and focus on strategies for winning the deadliest, costliest war facing their people. The Igbo’s cultural and moral crisis is exacerbated by a crisis of leadership.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the specter of kidnapping was germinated and fertilized by a permissive culture that, over many years, sought to blur the line between “alu” (sacrilege or profanation) and “ife zili ezi” (good conduct). Consequently, if we are to win the war we’re in, we need not just a diligent, sanitized, well equipped and highly trained police (a far cry from the corruption-ridden apparatus that has usurped the name of law enforcement in Nigeria), an attuned political leadership, and a judiciary that is awake to its sacred mandate. Above all, we need a fundamental re-orientation of values. We must reclaim that moral clarity that once enabled the Igbo people to be appalled at execrable conduct and to look at ill-gotten wealth and say, in fierce repudiation, “Tufia!” or “Alu!”

We must seek this moral rebirth, or we’re doomed.

Okey Ndibe's email contact is okeyndibe@gmail.com

The art of throwing money away

2010-05-24T22:33:00.000+01:00

Written by Okey Ndibe

It’s always deeply painful when Africa achieves another distinction in the wrong sector. This time, it’s in the foolish art of throwing money away!

Last month, the Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based research group, released a sobering report on the illicit outflow of cash from African nations. The report concluded that, in the four decades between 1970 and 2008, African nations lost $854 billion through illegal transfers of funds. And GFI suggests that it’s a conservative estimate. Actual outflows, the report states, may be as high as $1.8 trillion.

In case Nigerians are wondering – yes, our country (once again) topped the list. With $240.7 billion, Nigeria clinched a claim as the outstanding star in the league of exporters of cash. Nigeria’s closest competitor, Egypt, lost $131.3 billion. The other countries in the top five are South Africa ($76.4 billion), Morocco ($41 billion), and Algeria ($35.1 billion).

There’s little surprise about Nigeria’s stellar showing in this dubious league. It’s estimated, after all, that Sani Abacha alone pocketed more than $3 billion. Last year, a Swiss judge ordered the freezing of $350 million in assets “belonging” to Abba Abacha, one of the dictator’s sons.

The picture is dismal. Much of these stolen funds end up in European, Asian, and North American banks. And then comes the paradox: the same public officials responsible for frittering away the continent’s resources are quick to haunt the capitals of Europe and North America, bowl in hand, to beg – shamelessly! – for alms.

The GFI report illustrates the anomaly: what Africa has exported in illicit cash is at least double the official development aid that’s come to the continent. That’s one way of saying – forgive the cliché – penny wise, pound-foolish. Here’s the diagram of events. First, our rulers wire good money to the so-called big donor nations. Then they travel to the Western capitals to debase themselves begging for handouts. Often, they return, like triumphant fools, clutching the pittance they received – at best, half of the loot they “donated” to Western banks. And then they promptly privatize much of the aid – and wire it back to their Western sponsors.

What’s worse, foreign aid – unlike the cool cash we idiotically transfer – comes with strings attached. Often, it’s aid only in name, but in reality part of the scheme by donors to further impoverish African peoples. All too frequently, foreign aid is abracadabra, pure and simple. It’s often packaged as “technical” assistance that destitute African nations are coaxed to pay for – often at hideously inflated prices.

It’s a financial magician’s dream trick. One day, no questions asked, African rulers enrich the banks and economies of the West with looted funds. The next day, these same rulers show up in Western capitals on perennial begging missions. They look like miscast mendicants in their designer suits and handcrafted pairs of shoes. They mope, listening – with little or no sense of shame or irony – to Western “donors” give them long, stiff and humiliating lectures on the virtues of wise investment, sound economic planning, and financial discipline.

I invoke the words of Ayi Kwei Armah: Why are we so blest?

There’s no question that many – I dare say, most – of those who answer to the name of leader in Africa are in the mold that Frantz Fanon categorizes as “contemptible fools.” But there’s also, we must not forget, the issue of the hypocrisy of the world’s economic powers – the nations whose banks facilitate the thefts in Africa, and keep the proceeds. When the right crop of African leaders reclaim their nations from the depraved hands of those who steal for a living, then the issue of the West’s role in impoverishing Africa must be raised.

It would be comforting if we could say that the GFI report focused on a habit that African leaders have since been dropped. Sadly, that’s far from being the case.

Take Nigeria. Despite some modest gains made over the last eleven years against the scourge of corruption and money laundering, the culture of stealing public funds remains alive.

Last week, the president of the Nigerian Bar Association reminded the world that his country has not lifted a finger about the Halliburton bribe scandal. This, despite the fact that there’s no doubt that officials of Halliburton handed hefty bribes to high-ranking Nigerian public officials. And despite the fact that Mr. Umaru Yar’Adua promised that he would not shield any implicated officials, and made a “show” of setting up an investigation panel. Chances are that, had Yar’Adua not been hobbled by sickness, he would have bestowed national honors on some of the Nigerian recipients of Halliburton bribes.

Nigerians pay a steep price for a culture that garlands corrupt people with pompous chieftaincy titles and hollow honors. That price is that corruption has become as familiar as staple food; the stealing of public funds is so normalized, in fact, that those who reject the temptation to steal are often viewed as fools – or worse.

Nigerian officials are specialists in squandermania, the disease of throwing money away. Nigerians throw away money on power generators, neglecting to fix their country’s power supply. Too many government officials splash huge fortunes on high-priced cars, but won’t invest in road construction and maintenance. They dole out stupendous sums to foreign hospitals and doctors, but won’t provide a healthcare system worthy of human beings for their hapless fellows who are stuck in Nigeria.

Today, Nigerians are riveted by the scandal of the N64 billion-runway at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja. How did Julius Berger win a contract to construct a runway whose price tag surpasses the cost of building an entire airport? Nigeria has a Bureau of Public Procurement whose statutory job includes the carrying out of due diligence before signing off on contracts. Did the officials of that bureau go to sleep when it came time to vet this contract? How in the world did the bureau give a thumbs-up to a project whose cost – from all appearances – is so scandalously inflated?

The aviation committee of the House of Representatives has been holding hearings, but I doubt that its members are less puzzled than the rest of us. Numerous officials have appeared before the committee in Abuja, but none has given a coherent explanation. The runway saga is, I fear, one of those bizarre narratives that point up how Nigeria’s cash takes wings and flies away to foreign vaults.

Here’s a textbook case deserving Nigerians’ attention. The bar association, labor unions, student activists, the media and other civic organizations ought to use this case to advance the cause of accountability in Nigeria. Acting President Goodluck Jonathan ought to ask for briefing on this scandal. At the very least, he should send away the leadership of the Bureau of Public Procurement and demand that Julius Berger renegotiate the contract.

GFI’s director, Raymond Baker, stated that stemming the “devastating outflow of much-needed capital is essential to achieving economic development and poverty alleviation goals in these [African] countries.” It’s questionable that Mr. Jonathan has the will to play spoiler to those who profit by throwing away Nigeria’s cash. But he has a rare opportunity to rise above the limitations of his political career, and the forces that contend for his loyalty. If he acts to freeze the runway contract until the disturbing questions are resolved, and to dismiss procurement officials who seem to doze while Nigeria is being fleeced, he’d send a signal that the era of irresponsible fiddling with public funds is nearing the end of its run.

Okey Ndibe's email contact is: okeyndibe@gmail.com

Is Obama romancing Babangida?

2010-03-31T19:51:00.000+01:00

Written by Okey Ndibe

Last Wednesday, February 10, the Barack Obama administration made a move that’s likely to hurt its credibility among Nigerians. Johnnie Carson, the United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Robin Sanders, the US Ambassador to Nigeria, traveled to Minna to confer with former Nigerian dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, at his hilltop mansion.

That visit was, I suggest, a serious diplomatic gaffe – and one unworthy of the Obama administration.

That neither the American diplomats nor Babangida disclosed the subject of the meeting compounded the gravity of the misstep. For one, it raised speculation that the US government wanted to signal its tacit support for Babangida’s run for the presidency in next year’s elections. At the very least, the parley suggested that Obama’s team regards the retired general as an instrument for solving Nigeria’s myriad, and deep, political crises.

Either goal represents a serious lapse in judgment on the part of the Obama administration.

It would appear that Babangida covets the Nigerian presidency. Four years ago, he and his cohorts orchestrated what was tagged Project 007, implying that the former military head of state considered himself a shoo-in as President Olusegun Obasanjo’s successor. Nigerians, for understandable reasons, were disquieted by the prospect of another IBB presidency. Many heaved a sigh of relief when Obasanjo, for reasons hard to fathom, foiled Babangida’s ambition.

There’s no question: Babangida is one of the most enigmatic figures to have emerged in Nigerian politics. I have always found the man intriguing, but in a sad, even tragic sort of way. In 1986, on the first anniversary of the man’s rule, I wrote a column in the (now defunct) African Guardian in which I likened Babangida’s political style to the dribbling wizardry of Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona. That name, Maradona, stuck on Babangida and has become one of his more famous monikers. Evil genius, I understand, is a tag Babangida adopted. My argument, in baptizing IBB with Maradona in 1986, was that, while the soccer player dribbles in order to create scoring opportunities, Babangida dribbled as an end in itself. There was little or no sense of purpose to his statecraft.

In 1993, Babangida lost power in one of his costly, purposeless gambles. His annulment of the June 12 election, an act of supreme perfidy, precipitated his own political downfall. In characteristic fashion, he euphemized his fall from power as a decision to “step aside.”

Babangida introduced a structural adjustment program (SAP). The economy policy, as the propaganda went, was meant to endow Nigerians with the benefits of a free market economy. When Nigerians complained that the ostensible gains were elusive, Babangida counseled patience. But he and his cohorts were far from willing to be patient. As SAP sapped Nigeria’s poor and widened the blanket of misery, Babangida and his closest friends acquired mansions, private jets, and fat bank accounts. When he was done, IBB boasted a 50-room mansion and dizzying wealth.

Such a man has no business seeking to return to his country’s seat of power. Some of his acolytes have said that Babangida’s mission is to correct the mistakes he made the first time. Remediation is a nice concept, but he need not become president to make amends.

One hopes that the Obama who went to Accra and spoke eloquently about Nigeria’s leadership crisis has not permitted himself to be led into the contradiction of prescribing IBB as the answer. Or even as a factor in finding the answer to Nigeria’s quagmire.

Obama must guard against the Bill Clinton error. Even though former President Clinton is popular in Nigeria, many Nigerians are still appalled by his bizarre statement, in the heydays of Sani Abacha’s self-succession plan, that the US was open to recognizing the bespectacled dictator if he won an election. That statement came at a time when any neophyte knew that Abacha didn’t plan to hold a credible election.

In making such a public show of coddling Babangida, the Obama administration risked being perceived as wishing to forestall the ongoing mobilization of a progressive force to serve as a viable alternative to the grubby, visionless elements who have steered Nigeria to perilous waters.

If Washington doesn’t want to see a cataclysm befall Nigeria, with horrible consequences for Nigerians and the international community, then it must rethink its seeming courtship of the Babangidas of Nigeria.

Okey Ndibe's email contact is: okeyndibe@gmail.com.

Now Is The Time!

2010-02-15T20:22:00.000Z

Written by E.C. Ejiogu

Anyone who studied basic West African history would know how what exists today as the Nigerian supra-national state came into existence—it is an arbitrary imposition on the diverse nationalities that inhabit the parts of the Niger basin that the British called Nigeria. In the many years that I have researched and studied political evolution in and amongst these diverse nationalities, I’m yet to find or been shown a document that bears witness to a voluntary declaration made by their truly elected representatives that they surrendered their general will and allegiance to the supra-national state.

Elsewhere, including parts of Africa such as Tanzania, Botswana, and South Africa, the afore-stated scenario was the case. That, is one of the several reasons political stability prevails in them. Instead, in the case of the parts of the Niger basin in question, the archives are littered with all manner of documents under the label of “constitution” written by groups of actors who claim that they represent their distinct inhabitants. The latest of those documents was dated 1999. Its provisions proclaim the “legitimacy” that gave birth to the contraption that Mr. Umaru Yar’Ardua presided over in Abuja since 2007 until he voluntarily abdicated to an unknown destination since more than forty-five days ago.

I’m not a lawyer. But I’m sufficiently educated to infer from my research and studies to argue that there is logically no legitimate grounds for any of the nationalities that inhabit the Niger basin that finds itself capable, to waste another day before it disentangles itself from the Nigerian supra-national state. Politics is the act of the possible. Mr. Yar’Ardua’s abdication should be taken for what it truly is—a legitimate indicator of the ruse that has been used to frustrate genuine political development amongst the inhabitants of the parts of the Niger basin that were called Nigeria. If the latest inheritor of the ruse could take the liberty to violate vital
provisions of the instrument from which he claimed the “legitimacy” to wield power and authority over the nationalities, by way of abdication, it’s in deed rational and legitimate to argue that now is the time for the nationalities, any one of them that wants and is capable of to summon the nerves and walk!

●E.C. Ejiogu, PhD is a political sociologist.

(culled from www.saharareporters.com)

Nigeria, the unimagined nation-state

2010-02-08T00:06:00.000Z

Written by Ogaga Ifowodo

THE current issue of the BBC's Focus on Africa magazine features the debate, "Is Nigeria well on its way to being a failed state?" When contacted to argue the "aye," my willingness to do so belied my own "prickly nationalism," a condition that afflicts almost every fellow citizen I know. But the contrary view that sees Nigeria "far from being a failed state" was argued by my far more optimistic co-debater. Events of the last few weeks, headlined by the controversy over the relocation of the proposed University of Petroleum Technology from Effurun-Warri to Kaduna and Boko Haram's bloody jihad for illiteracy have heightened the failed state debate. Concerning the former, President Yar'Adua has sought to reassure the long-suffering people of the Niger Delta and the nation as a whole that nothing is amiss.

What will be sited in Kaduna is a College of Petroleum Studies to train, according to Alhaji Rilwanu Lukman, Minister of Petroleum Resources, "senior management personnel who are transiting to general management in NNPC." And it will be the exclusive privilege of the petroleum university in Warri to continue to train "middle level manpower for the oil and gas industry." These constitute "the right manpower" that our oil industry needs, according to Lukman, as opposed to the "higher level technical and senior management personnel" universities produce but whom "we don't need." President Yar'Adua himself endorsed this curious logic before hurriedly jetting off to Brazil, fleeing the burning streets and corpses that trailed Boko Haram's mayhem and the incandescent rage of the Niger Delta.

What neither Yar'Adua nor Lukman would admit is that the Kaduna college effectively supplants the Warri university, or that if we follow the logic then the college is a massive waste of scarce (oil) resources. Worse, by this display of naked power, Yar'Adua and Lukman, acting on behalf of the northern oligarchy, stick a finger in the eye of the Niger Delta. It is an act of provocation and belittlement by which power spitefully mocks the expropriated: "Amnesty, what amnesty? Do your worst! We will continue to take your oil and relocate every infrastructure save the very oil wells themselves from the Delta." Unfortunately, it is "a son of the soil" who articulated the cold calculation behind this ideology of blood-curdling dispossession. In a public lecture given twenty-nine years ago, Chief Philip Asiodu, no stranger to unaccountable power as a former super permanent secretary, paid the customary lip service to the predicament of the Niger Delta then thus: "Given, however, the small size and population of the oil-producing area, it is not cynical to observe that even if the resentments ... continue, they cannot threaten nor affect continued economic development." This view was echoed only two months ago by Bala Ibn N'Allah, honourable member of the House of Representatives, who called for the extermination of the 20 million inhabitants of the Niger Delta. There is only one snag, though.

While Asiodu, three decades ago could not foresee any threat to continued economic development, peaceful and armed insurgencies from MOSOP to MEND have since proved otherwise. What Yar'Adua, Lukman, N'Allah and their small-minded ilk of power-mongers must now devise as the final solution is the relocation of the Niger Delta land from the Atlantic shore to the edge of the Sahara, complete with the necessary population transfers. Nothing else will answer the sworn determination to set the nation ablaze in order to perpetuate the daylight robbery. It is clear to every patriotic Nigerian that the Niger Delta crisis is by now the National Question and tops the reasons why Nigeria seems set on becoming a failed state. I will conclude this piece then with my contribution to the BBC debate.

Most of the indices of failed states declare Nigeria well on its way to joining that disreputable league of nations. For a start, Nigeria boasts a government unable to deliver basic social services; is plagued by corruption so endemic and monumental it is hard to separate it from state policy; lacks the capability or discipline or both to prevent threats to public safety and national integrity; and is assailed by active challenges to its legitimacy. Besides, what passes for the Nigerian state simply cannot manage to conduct a credible election, whether into a local government seat or the presidency. The latest disaster of a gubernatorial re-run election in Ekiti state, meant to correct the errors of the first, proved an even greater show of shame. While Nigerians, notoriously prickly in their nationalism, may loudly denounce any suggestions from abroad of the imminent disintegration of their country, they nonetheless admit the unflattering truth of its possibility to themselves and each other. The inflammable Niger Delta, for long the booty of successive bands of political pirates and now also a seething swamp of untameable angst, points clearly to the dangerously frayed social fabric.

Anyone who may not have been paying attention and would need "objective" evidence might do worse than consult the Brookings Institution's Index of State Weakness in which Nigeria ranks 28 out of 141 developing countries. Co-authored by Susan Rice, Barack Obama's top diplomat at the United Nations, it places the self-styled Giant of Africa in the honoured company of Somalia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. As if to assert her unparalleled gift of settling for the worst even when the tolerable is within grasp, Nigeria sits happily in the cut-off position for countries termed "critically weak" as opposed to the merely weak states. But if the Brookings Institution takes a kind view of Nigeria, not so the Fund for Peace in whose 2008 Index of Failed States Nigeria is only two short rungs away from where she might, at the very least, have enjoyed the consolation of dissociation from Somalia and Zimbabwe. The irony is unmistakable that Nigeria has to look up the ladder at Sierra Leone and Liberia, two countries she spared no expense of life, limb and hard currency to bring out of civil wars and restore to democracy.

Yet none of this goes to the heart of the problem. For, to speak of Nigeria as a failed state is, in a sense, to put the cart before the horse. Never having been a nation to start with, the question of a legitimate state to handle her affairs proves redundant. We must, therefore, open the dusty archives for the radical cause of Nigeria's state of distress. And there we will find that what we have grown accustomed to calling a nation deserving of a state, what we take for granted as a nation-state, is - to quote one of her founding fathers - "a mere geographical expression." Nigeria is not a nation, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, with characteristic forthrightness, declared more than a decade before nominal independence from Britain. For saying the unsayable, and for championing constitutional federalism along the lines of Nigeria's multitude of ethnic groups, Awolowo was labelled a tribalist and unjustly maligned till his death in 1987. But events have more than vindicated him since, not least the spectre of dismemberment raised by the abortive Orkar coup of 1990.

The unwillingness to grapple with the trauma of Nigeria's stillbirth as a nation is the great political unconscious, the implacable repressed, that returns at will to haunt and mock the state-of-denial. This repressed truth, being political, hides as it were in the open. It can be seen in the headlines and by-lines of the newspapers. It is volubly declaimed in bars and every public forum where two or more Nigerians are gathered. It defines the so-called "national question," so cacophonous that the prodigious expense of political and psychological energy needed by Nigeria's self-appointed rulers to repress it produces such frightful spectacles as compel the verdict of a failed or rapidly failing state.

A mere geographical expression. Or, as another founding father from the former Northern Protectorate preferred to put it, "the mistake of 1914." That was the fateful year Lord Lugard merged by colonial fiat northern and southern protectorates and the colony of Lagos to enact Nigeria. The word, unknown to the "tribes and tongues" it purportedly described until colonialism, proclaims the malevolent mapping of imperial design. Meaning simply, people of the (lower) Niger area, it was as if the hallowed river possessed the magic to transform disparate denizens within its acceptable radius into nationhood by mere eponymous naming. This would be deemed superstition in any other context but the colonial. Unfortunately, this mistake has yet to be acknowledged despite repeated and increasingly strident calls for a sovereign national conference or some such other credible conclave of political re-engineering. For, if nations are imagined communities, as Benedict Anderson has shown in a book of the same title, Nigeria was clearly unimagined by its would-be citizens. And, perhaps, Nigeria is unimaginable for very long in her current state of existence.

(culled from the Nigerian Guardian of Wednesday, Dec.8, 2009)

Exploring the failed state

2010-02-01T23:55:00.000Z

Written by Edwin Madunagu

NIGER Delta rebellion, Boko Haram insurrection, mass poverty and alienation, armed robbery and kidnapping, state robbery and corruption, high-profile election rigging, institutionalised anarchy, industrial unrest, violent cultism, state delinquency, etc, etc. All these maladies - and many more - have led some people to suggest that Nigeria has become a "failed state", or a "failing state".

An essay I have just obtained from the internet defines a failed state as a state "that can no longer perform its basic security and development functions and that has no effective control over its territory and borders"; it is a state "that can no longer reproduce the conditions for its own existence". The essay then provides a number of explanatory notes: the opposite of a "failed state" is an "enduring state", but the absolute dividing line between these two conditions is difficult to ascertain at the margins - for "even in a failed state, some elements of the state, such as local state organisations, might continue to exist". The essay avoids defining the state - an exercise that can be very contentious. Rather, it provides some assistance to those who may be interested in the exercise. The essay's main concern is the exploration of a state that has failed, or is failing.

Still avoiding a technical definition of the state, we may however go around the problem by considering the central element of the definition of a failed state, namely, the "functions" of the state. This exercise has been performed several times in this column, but it is obligatory to repeat it here. The functions of the state can be separated into three broad groups, namely: coercive functions, ideological functions and social-economic functions. The group of coercive functions is what has been described in the essay under review as "security" functions. But we prefer to call a spade a spade: "security", as employed in the definition, is the use of force.

Let me quickly add here that we, the citizens, all need security and the state claims that it is concerned with security and is, in fact, often seen providing it, or trying to provide it. But there is an "optical illusion" here. The point I wish to make is that the security functions of the state are designed and carried out in a manner that shows very clearly that the main concern of the state is not the citizens but the social order and the classes and blocs that are ruling. The state provides security for the citizens only for the same reason that it provides means of livelihood, or permits or supports the provision of means of livelihood, for the citizens: the citizens must survive for the state to continue to exist.

Put differently, the state provides security to the social order and the ruling social classes and blocs for the status-quo to remain and be strengthened, while it provides security for the citizens at large (the "common" people) so that the latter can continue to serve the social order and the ruling classes and blocs. The former concern is maximum, while the latter is minimal. The coercive functions of the state - which the essay under review calls "security" - are primarily aimed at preventing or discouraging any threat to the social order. That is why - as some analysts have already observed - the Nigerian state confronted the Boko Haram insurrection with maximum ferocity.

We may introduce the ideological functions of the state with a passage which I took from Ernest Mandel's Late Capitalism. Here, Mandel remarks that "it was Napoleon, an expert in the matter, who coined the adage that one can do anything with bayonets except sit on them". What Napolepon, a military genius, meant here was that force could not achieve everything. Another author remarked that if the ruling classes used only coercive methods to maintain their power, then society would be perpetually in tumult. The state needs ideological weapons as well as coercive (or repressive) weapons to maintain and reproduce its power. By ideological weapons or apparatuses I mean ideas and the institutions that systematically disseminate them: schools, religious doctrines and institutions, political parties and social movements, cultural and traditional institutions and practices etc, etc.

Just as the state is not repression alone, it is also not (repression plus ideology) alone. The third group of functions (of the state) is social-economic. The state has to provide "those general conditions of production which cannot be assured by the private activities of the members of the dominant class", as Mandel put it. Even the fanatical "apostles" of privatisation in our country would agree that the ruling classes and blocs cannot privatise everything: roads, telecommunications, electricity, schools, industries, air transportations, etc., and still remain in power. The competition between the various fractions and individuals, and the extreme selfishness of most of them, will tear the state apart or grind it to a halt.

Even if you theoretically construct a state that divests itself of all social-economic undertakings you will need a state institution - a big and powerful one - to coordinate the activities of the most strategic of them or act as their "overlord" - in the interest of the ruling classes and blocs as a whole. The current global financial crisis and recession and the interventionist responses of various governments attest to this. We are then back to the starting point, namely, that the state provides those social and economic "conditions" of production that the members of the ruling classes and blocs cannot, acting as individuals, provide.

The internet essay under review recognises that if there is the concept of "failed state" and the concept of "enduring state", then there ought to be the concept of "failing state", that is, a state that is "becoming" failed, or a state that is neither a filed state nor an enduring one. This last concept, "neither failed nor enduring" state, happens to be the most important. If we dismiss tautological definitions such as "a failing state is a state that is failing", it becomes necessary to construct a scale for determining the location of any state in the advance to failure.

The internet essay does exactly this. Twelve indicators are provided to determine the location of any state. Four of the indicators are social, two economic, and six political. The social indicators are given as: demographic pressures; massive movement of refugees and internally displaced peoples; legacy of vengeance-seeking group grievance; and chronic and sustained human flight. The economic indicators are: uneven economic development along group lines; and sharp and /or severe economic decline. The six political indicators are: criminalisation and/delegitimisation of the state; progressive deterioration of public services; widespread violation of human rights; security apparatus as "state within a state"; rise of factionalised elite; and intervention of other states or external factors. The indicators are elastic enough to cover all known state maladies.

Employing these indicators, one may ask: Is Nigeria a failed state? I shall preface the answer to this question with further comments and observations on the essay under review. First, I think that "failed" is being confused with "delinquent" where "delinquency" is measured by the degree to which the state does not satisfy the ordinary (basic) existential needs of the people. When the "delinquency" element is removed from the definition of a "failed state" what we have left in that definition is a state's inability to be a de facto effective ruler of the whole polity - by coercive means, however concealed or mediated. The connection between the two categories - "delinquent" and "failed" - is that a delinquent state usually tends to a failed state because a delinquent state ultimately invites rebellions, insurrections, anarchy, "states within a state", revolutions, etc.

Secondly, the state is always a class state. There is no "state of the whole people". A state that is becoming a state of the whole people would have started to transform its character as a state; it would have started shedding some features of the state. Strictly speaking, it is illogical to use such terms as "the state is expected to..." or "the state ought to...", because the state is, and has always been essentially, a class weapon. The basic function of the state is not the satisfaction of people's needs. No. The state meets the basic existential needs of the people only to the extent that this allows it to continue to rule and protect the social order and the dominant classes and blocs, or because it is compelled to do so by the dominated classes and groups - through struggle, of course.

The last point can be put differently. The "performance" of the state is a statement about the state of class and popular struggles. In all these we should remember that there are inter-class and intra-class struggles, as well as struggles within the state itself. So, is Nigeria a failed state? My answer is that, with the distinction that we have made between a failed state and a delinquent state, and if we dismiss all illusion concerning the functions of the state, then Nigeria is not a failed state - even with MEND, Boko Haram, OPC, etc. At least not yet. The Nigerian state is still in full control. But Nigerian state is a delinquent state.

(culled from www.nigerialog.com/the Nigerian Guardian, Thursday 3 September 2009)

THE ORIGIN OF NIGERIA: GOD OF JUSTICE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH AN UNJUST POLITICAL ORDER. Appeal to President Obasanjo not to rewrite Nigerian History. {PART 6}

2010-01-31T14:13:00.000Z

Written by Prof. Omo Omoruyi

SOUTHERN DISUNITY NOT FACTOR OF ZIK-AWO RIFT

The southern disunity has for too long been associated for lack of rigorous scholarship with the rift between Dr. Azikiwe and Chief Awolowo. Unfortunately the followers of these two Nigerian leaders have since then attributed the southern disunity with the rift between the Igbo and the Yoruba at various stages in Nigerian history. It is deeper that these two rifts. In my view, if the two rifts were resolved at anytime in the past, the disunity in the south would still be there for obvious reasons.

SOUTH IS MORE THAN YORUBA AND IGBO

We constantly make the error as to what constitutes the south. We should appreciate that the south is not made up of the Igbo and the Yoruba alone. Even Dr. Azikiwe and Chief Awolowo in their various writing acknowledged that the regions over which they presided were not homogenous. They therefore knew that the south was more than the sum of Igbo and the Yoruba. Why did their followers make the error of believing that the south was made up of the two ethnic nationalities? The southern solidarity or unity or disunity is therefore not contingent upon the unity of the two political leaders. It could help. There are today six states with their claim to autonomy and independence of action whether the Yoruba and Igbo decide to work together.

What has not been emphasized is the colonial basis of the southern disunity that for too long gave the two majority ethnic nationalities power that they did not deserve. In fairness to the Yoruba or the Igbo, they did not lay claim to other peoples’ territories before the colonial creation of the three regions in Nigeria.

There was no reason why the Yoruba should be made to lord it over the Benin and Delta Provinces during the colonial period.

There was no reason why the Igbo should be made the overlord of the non-Igbo peoples in the old Eastern Region.

STATES IN SOUTH AS HOMES TO MINORITIES ARE FACT

In fairness to the Yoruba, they since 1964 accepted the fact that the old Bendel State was not part of the Western Region. They accepted the fact that there are two distinct entities the Yoruba States and the non-Yoruba States that could meet on the basis of progressive platform. This was why Chief Awolowo could use his Four Cardinal Program to rally the people Bendel to his party in 1979.

Unfortunately, the Igbo leaders since the end of the Civil War have not reconciled themselves with the fact that there are four states in the non-Igbo part of the old Eastern Region. Even when they accepted that fact, the Igbo leaders are still to accept that the non-Igbo States in the old Eastern Region are endowed with power to determine their future and who to work with in Nigeria.

The Igbo leaders are still unhappy that the non-Igbo people were ever excised from the old Eastern Region the way it was done in 1967.

The Igbo leaders are unhappy that the Igbo states are landlocked even though that would have been the case without colonialism.

The mistrust between the Igbo and the non-Igbo in the old Eastern region on the one hand and between the Igbo and the non-Yoruba sector of the West (Midwest) on the other is real. I experienced it during the campaign in 1979 when the former Premier of Eastern Nigeria Dr. Azikiwe became a candidate. The non-Igbo people rejected him and supported candidates from other areas.

While the Yoruba leaders are realistic enough not to promote a pan-Western Region plan in form of a return to the old Western Region, I find that Igbo leaders are unrealistic to me when they are bent on a union of Eastern and South-South, euphemism for the old Eastern Region.

IGNORANCE ABOUNDS ABOUT NIGERIA’S PAST

There is a lot of ignorance and gaps in Nigeria among the political class about the colonial aspects of Nigeria. Therefore when President Obasanjo decides to tell the cock and bull story about God and the origin of Nigeria, some members of the political class could believe him because they too have no independent source of knowledge. Let me use one case to illustrate this point.

THE CASE OF PORT HARCOURT

How many Nigerians know the origin of Port Harcourt? As a mark of gratitude to his patron, Lord Harcourt, Lord Lugard founded the Port town at the southeastern part of Nigeria and named it after his master, Lord Harcourt. That is the origin of the town named, Port Harcourt. Port Harcourt is named after Lord Harcourt, the oppressor and the creator of Nigeria.

It is sad that a Commissioner in Katsina State (Alhaji M. Shehu Maikai) like many politicians of his generation displayed his ignorance of this vital aspect of Nigerian history. I am referring to when he wanted Port Harcourt be renamed after Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe in place of the "British explorer". Lord Lewis Harcourt, a British Explorer! See Tell of June 19, 1996 p. 17. The distinguished State Commissioner genuinely thought that he was making valuable suggestions to how best to immortalize the sage, Dr. Azikiwe after his death. But he displayed his ignorance in the process.

If the Commissioner could be this ignorant, what do you expect of the school children under his charge? One wonders what is being taught in schools in Katsina State in the name of Nigerian history. Would the Nigerian schools be told to imbibe the new doctrine of the President, that God created Nigeria. Incidentally, Katsina produced one of the finest historians in Nigeria, Dr. Bala Usman. I am sure he would readily correct the Commissioner if he had consulted him before making what to him was a profound suggestion. One wonders how many mistakes are made from such ignorance? President Obasanjo is not helping the political class with his "godism".

As to the real purpose of the Port and the building of the Eastern Railway line, it was meant to make the north less dependent on the southwestern political leaders who from beginning were distrusted by the British officials. This distrust by the British was extended to the successive northern political leaders. Did the British trust the Igbo and others in the Eastern Region? Why did the British not trust the Yoruba and the Western Region? The northern political leaders saw themselves buying the British prejudice against the Yoruba and the British indifference toward the Igbo as a basis of the coalition behavior between the Igbo-led political parties and the Hausa-led political parties in the First and Second Republic.

NORTH AND SOUTH: SUPERORDINATE-SUBORDINATE!

Lord Harcourt was so happy that he appeared at a Dinner Party and made a profound statement, which has implications for the modern Nigeria. According to Lord Harcourt,

‘We have released Northern Nigeria from the leading strings of the treasury. The ‘promising and well conducted youth’ (North) is now on an allowance on his own and is about to effect an alliance with a ‘Southern Lady of means’.

Lord Harcourt went on

I have issued the special license and Sir Frederick Lugard will perform the ‘marriage’ ceremony.

For the interest of President Obasanjo, Nigeria in the plan of the founder was to be a marriage between the north (husband) and the south (wife). This was the plan at the birth of Nigeria when there was no oil. This has been the way the north saw Nigeria since 1914. From records this was the way successive Colonial Governors General from Lord Lugard to Sir James Robertson organized Nigeria and handed over to the north on October 1, 1960. This was the intention of the departing British colonial regime in the days leading to independence and finally at independence.

"The Lady of Means", the Wife (South) since 1958 had oil to the bargain in the marriage. "The Promising Youth", the Husband (North) is poorer since then. Since then the north and Nigeria have become more dependent on the oil than what was originally anticipated at the time of amalgamation.

The next issue, which became evident in June 1993, was whether the wife and the husband could alternate position in the conjugal power structure through the fact of a ‘one man’ ‘one vote’. The north did not see the husband becoming the wife by the fiat of an election. To put it clearly is the fact of a husband and wife not permanent? This means that the north as the husband and not the south, the wife would continue to be the permanent ruler of Nigeria.

Those who would be wondering why June 12, Presidential election, which through the democratic process produced a southerner (wife) for the first time faced annulment in the hands of the husband should read The Tale of June 12. This is an aspect of the issues in the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election.

We can see the conjugal power structure manifesting itself in the call for the north to be prepared to reclaim its rightful place (the Presidency) after the one term of General Obasanjo. I can see this challenge in the outburst of Alhaji Lawal Kaita, the former Governor of Kaduna in the Vanguard of July 10, 2000. He was emphatic in the highly provocative article that President Obasanjo was made the President on the voluntary decision of the core north and not through the Constitutional means or through force. The question one would ask is whether in the next time around the core north would claim its rightful place, the President?

CHIEF SD LAR AND GENERAL TY DANJUMA TO THE RESCUE

I can also see the challenge to the myth of divine rule of kings among the northern leaders. President Obasanjo is copying this when he keeps telling people that God made him President and would rule in furtherance of God on earth. The way the President is carrying on, he would not be able to challenge the Buhari Platform of returning Nigeria to what Allah wished for the country, an Islamic State.

Does President Obasanjo appreciate one important fact of politics that his frequent use of God by him (President Obasanjo) could be used as the basis of Buhari Islamic revivalism in the North? He should heed the warning of the Chairman Council of Ullama of Kano, Dr. Datti Ahmed that it is the Christian God that Obasanjo is referring to when ever he uses the name of God. The northern leaders even accused President Obasanjo for inviting US President Clinton in order to send to the West a message that Nigeria had become a Christian sphere of influence. That would be contrary to the view held during the period of past Muslim political generals who took Nigeria to OIC and gave the impression that Nigeria is an Islamic State.

Does President Obasanjo appreciate another fact of politics that his frequent use of God’s name is not only disturbing, but it would constitute a threat to the secular status of Nigeria? Secularism does not mean a "Godless State"; it means as we conceived it in the Constituent Assembly in 1977/78 that Nigeria shall not adopt any religion as State Religion. The word State here does not mean the public administration at the federal level of government. It means the conduct of Nigerian political life at all levels, federal, state and local government. The picture painted recently by the Minister of Defense, Lt. General TY Danjuma of the administration in certain parts of the north violates the spirit of the Constitution.

Where are the retired political generals from the north? If General Shehu Yar "Adua were alive and aspiring to politics as he did in the past, he would have dissociated himself from the policies of the northern states that openly discriminate against non-Muslims. I would have expected some of the retired political generals aspiring to lead Nigeria again through the process of one person one vote would frown at the Islamization of education in the north at the public expense and to the exclusion of other religions. Why should a state Government cancel the teaching of Christian Religious Knowledge, as a discipline while making the teaching of Islamic Religious Knowledge a compulsory subject for Muslims and Non Muslims including Christians? While the Islamic students are not be exposed to the world religions because it is a sin, I have Christian friends at Ibadan who did Arabic and Islamic Studies. That is why the Bible is a prohibited commodity in some Islamic Republic. I am afraid that this is gradually being extended to some parts of the north.

I would like to appeal to the leaders of the Middle-Belt, where Christianity is on trial in the north to educate the southern Christians who are actually "Chrislam" or believers of anything goes. They are in a position to redirect the President to face Nigerian problems squarely. In this context, I hope Chief Solomon D. Lar and General TY Danjuma who led some of us to appreciate the danger in the politicization of religion. This was why some of us fought to delete the Federal Sharia in the Constitution in 1977/78. Chief SD Lar and General Danjuma I pray and hope would prevail on President Obasanjo to appreciate the danger in the politicization of religion.

AS NIGERIA WITH POLITICAL PARTIES FACES 2003

Now that the country is faced with six political parties with the possibility of having six Presidential candidates, six senators and House candidates at the Federal level and six Governors and six Assembly candidates at the State level in 2003, a new behavior is demanded of all candidates. One would expect that all candidates would face electioneering politics without invoking the name of God or Allah or the African Traditional Religion in the campaign.

God ordains competition among politicians with contrasting visions for our people to choose from. What is common or should be common to all Nigerians is the quest for a Just Society. Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Religion sanction this quest. It should be pursued in our own way without forcing one’s faith on the other as the President unwittingly does from time to time. I leave this to Mr. President.

July 2002

(culled from www.nigerdeltacongress.com. First published July 2002)

*Concluded

THE ORIGIN OF NIGERIA: GOD OF JUSTICE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH AN UNJUST POLITICAL ORDER. Appeal to President Obasanjo not to rewrite Nigerian History. {PART 5}

2010-01-25T22:40:00.001Z

Written by Prof. Omo Omoruyi

BRITISH DESIGN AS A COMPLETE FRAUD

There is the opposite position about creation taken by Chief Richard Akinjide. According to him in the Vanguard of Sunday July 20, 2000

"the so-called Nigeria created in 1914 was a complete fraud". He continued, "It was not created in the interest of Nigeria or of Nigerians but in the interest of the British".

I was elated when Chief Akinjide confirmed the authorities I cited in my book, The Tale of June 12 to address the relationship between the annulment and the British Design for Nigeria. Chief Richard Akinjide would agree with me that Nigeria could not be the creation of God and at the same time, a fraud.

What is troubling to me is President Obasanjo’s notion of God that he parades at all public and essentially partisan political functions. God is perfect and He does not engage in anything fraudulent. Could God be the white man’s God or the white man himself? President Obasanjo seems to be equating God with the white man. With all the imperfections and injustices inflicted on many groups since the white man created Nigeria, how could President Obasanjo justify Nigeria as the work of God?

FOUNDERS OF NIGERIA

I had opportunity to examine the papers, which Chief Akinjide was referring to and more. I also examined some of the claims of the Nigerian leaders such as Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto on their notion of how Nigeria was founded. I did not see where the British or their successor Nigerian political leaders said that "God created Nigeria". I did not see where they spelled out "God’s purpose for Nigeria". Except the Sardauna who carried his Islamic religious practice to the public realm in the north with a threat of dipping the Koran to the sea, Dr. Azikiwe and Chief Awolowo, both products of Christian Missions schools saw religion differently. Their adherence to Christianity was taken as essentially personal matters that should not be at the expense of other religions. They did not engage in preaching to others in public functions. Dr. Azikiwe and Chief Awolowo were conscious of the multi-religious character of Nigeria and did not set out to offend others with their faith. On prayer, they did not want to be called hypocrites and adhered strictly to the Biblical injunction in Matthew Chapter 6 verses 5 to 7.

On the founding of Nigeria, the British and the Nigerian political leaders were all agreed on one issue that no Nigerian historically or in modern era could claim to be the founder or the creator of Nigeria. All of them are agreed that the founding fathers of Nigeria were the British. Let me use the work of the greatest exponent of them all on how Nigeria was founded. I am referring to Chief Awolowo. The apt expression of Chief Awolowo, the most versatile of the Nigerian political leaders that Nigeria is a "geographical expression" holds true for all time and was borne out of research and reflection. Was this, maybe what President was responding to? Did President Obasanjo read and understand the thesis of Awo? He should read again and again many books starting with the ground breaking one, Nigerian Path to Freedom (1947), which is still a classic on Nigeria. He will be able to understand how the revered exponent of progressive causes came to the apt expression associated with him that "Nigeria is geographical expression". Was this not what was put differently even though in a different context by Sir Ahmadu Bello that the Amalgamation was "the mistake of 1914"?

One should note that Chief Awolowo did not call himself or any of his fellow nationalists Dr. Azikiwe, Sir Ahmadu Bello and those below them as the "founding fathers" of Nigeria. Even Dr. Azikiwe hated the term, the "father of the nation". He rejected this term so strongly in 1978. He said the title came from the northern leaders who described him as such when he was the ceremonial Governor General during his official visit to the north. I still recall his response to critics of his decision to return to the "orbit of partisan politics" in December 1978. I knew this from my position as the then Protem National Secretary of the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), when he was reacting to the accusation from some quarters in the north that as "the father of the nation", he should not have come back to partisan politics. They were unfair to the old man, as was confirmed in Shagari’s memoir, the same northern leaders wanted to recruit him to their party but lost to the NPP. Kicking him "upstairs in 1959" was seen by Dr. Azikiwe as one of the greatest fraud that was inflicted on the Nigerian political class. He did not want a repeat of what happened to him 1959 to happen in 1978 in the hand of the northern Nigerian leaders.

Chief Awolowo identified Lord Lugard as the "founding father of Nigeria" and put it succinctly in the following words:

‘To him (Lord Lugard)more than anyone else belongs the credit or discredit for settling Nigeria on a course, which Nigerian Nationalists and patriots feel obliged to pursue All be it with mixed feelings till the present day’.This is from Obafemi Awolowo The People’s Republic (Ibadan, Oxford University Press 1968) p. 17.

This is the popular story we tell our children in schools and not the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden as applicable to Nigeria. We never tell our children that Nigeria is the greatest masterpiece erected by God for the upliftment of the Black world, according to President Obasanjo. I have expressed my worry to some people who are in a position to know what I am talking about that the use of the name of God to justify many things the President is doing in the public realm is a source of disquiet in Nigerian politics. The name of God is constantly being used in vain by footballers in their communication with the President. The President invokes God’s name in his dealings with the National Assembly, even when the issue is the application of the rules governing legislation and the Executive-Legislative relation. All these are statutory matters. President Obasanjo freely uses God’s name in his dealings within the caucus of the ruling political party, the PDP when Christians and non-Christians attend it. It is sad that President Obasanjo even uses the name of God when the political will of the Nigerian people is being subverted.

Maybe Nigerian history is not a compulsory course in the Nigerian military institutions. I doubt that this is the notion of Nigerian history in the military academies. I once had opportunities to interact with many military officers in the Command and Staff College and in many settings including my stint at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS). I was not surprised that these officers happen to know the origin of Nigeria, that it is colonial and no one ever said that it was God that created Nigeria. Before now I have never read where officers of the Nigerian army ever said that Nigeria is the "creation of God"; they know that Britain created Nigeria for her purpose and not for the interest of Nigerians who inhabit the four walls of Nigeria. Certainly Britain did not create Nigeria for the Black people of the world, because that was not an issue during the colonial period. Even Sir James Robertson, the last colonial Governor General confessed 14 years after he left Nigeria that Britain underestimated the power of ethnicity. In order to support his claim, he quoted copiously from his diary of 1956. On the north and south in general, he had this to say:

The general outlook of the people (north) is so different from those in the southern Nigeria as to give them practically nothing in common. (underline is mine for emphasis)

Comparing two European countries and Nigerian ethnic nationalities, Sir James noted in his diary:

There is less difference between an Englishman and Italian, both of whom have a common civilization based on Greek and Roman foundations and on Christianity, than between a Muslim villager in Sokoto, Kano,or Katsina and an Ibo, Ijaw or Kalabari.

Posing a rhetorical question on the dilemma faced by him and the future Nigerian leaders who want to build Nigerian nation, Sir James notes in his diary, How can any feeling of common purpose of nationality be built up between people whose culture, religion and mode of living is completely different? (Underline is mine for emphasis) This is from Sir James Robertson, Transition in Africa,(London, 1974) p. 223.

It was obvious from what Sir James noted in his diary in 1956 that the Nigerian project was a failed colonial experiment. What would have been done by successive Nigerian political leaders a conscious plan to evolve Nigerian nation. The mode of governing Nigeria since 1960 should have been approached differently by Nigerian political leaders. How could President Obasanjo call {God's will} what the last colonial Governor General so described as lacking anything on which to build on?

What should be noted was that Sir James never blamed God for the ills of Nigeria. He never blamed the British or her successor in Nigeria for not realizing God’s Will in Nigeria.

Maybe the white man believed that later the political crisis would be resolved for and by Nigerians. Is President Obasanjo trying to run away from the colonial basis of Nigerian problem? He would have to rewrite Nigerian political science texts in Nigeria and abroad that associate Nigerian lingering political problems with the colonial origin of Nigeria. It is colonialism and not God that is at the root of Nigerian crisis. The danger in President Obasanjo’s thesis is that Nigerians should not make any attempt to change the Nigerian state as that would violate God’s purpose for Nigeria. To change it or to agitate for its change would therefore, in the view of President Obasanjo offend God.

WHAT GOD WANTS IS JUSTICE; IT IS ABSENT TODAY

My view is that God knows of the injustice in the land today since 1914. God knows that what was left behind in 1960 would not last. It would be in furtherance of God’s work on earth, if President Obasanjo could lead Nigerians to return to the path of justice and equity. Nigeria since 1999 should have made some attempt to address the mistakes of 1814 and 1960. This was what he should have doing since 1999 instead of associating God with his failure to find solution to the lingering political problems as Nigerians move to 2003.

General Obasanjo might not have read history of Nigeria from his High School days as the History taught then was mostly Empire History and of the Age of Discovery etc. But even then, under the Empire History the colonial exploits constituted the major part of the subject and the history of the peoples in the different colonies was de-emphasized. What about the military academies in the United Kingdom? That could not be true as Empire History is a compulsory course in all institutions in the United Kingdom just as Political Science 101 dealing with the US Politics is a compulsory course in the US institutions. Empire History was clear on one fact, the British creation of many colonies including Nigeria.

A lot of the account of how Nigeria was created is declassified in the United Kingdom and they can be found in reputable Universities in the United Kingdom and in the US. Distinguished Nigerian historians of the Ibadan School have copious documents on the origin of Nigeria. Nowhere is the issue of God raised as the basis of the origin of Nigeria.

I am aware that the colonial basis of Nigeria is taught in schools and that is what it should be. Nigeria should not hang on to what the President is telling Nigerians that God created Nigeria. God does not create an unjust setting, which is Nigeria. I had the opportunity to deliver a lecture before an African-American audience in 1996 that Nigeria is "A Case of Failed Colonial Experiment in Africa". Nigerians knew the basis of Nigeria; it is only the President who wants Nigerians to believe that the British for the upliftment of the African people worldwide-created Nigeria. Nigerians expect that when the President speaks, he speaks to them the correct thing. His plan is to rally the people of Nigeria to his plan of recreating Nigeria and bring justice to all. This is what God wants for Nigeria and for Nigerians.

The President should tell Nigerians and the children the truth that the creation of Nigeria was fraudulently put together by the British colonial rulers. He should blame successive Nigerian leaders, civilian and military that did not address the injustice in Nigeria at its creation. If dealing with the imperfection and injustice in the British design is what the President wants to do under his administration, he should tell Nigerians so and he would have the support of many Nigerians including me. Nigerian leaders have since 1999 been calling on him to lead in righting the wrong and injustice from colonialism the imperfections and injustices in the land.

REAL FOUNDERS OF NIGERIA

What Chief Akinjide was referring to when he called the Nigerian enterprise a fraud, was a simple question. What did Britain have in mind when amalgamation was considered as the proper policy in the first decade of the 20th Century? Here I would want to improve on what Chief Awolowo, Chief Akinjide and the popular literature on Nigeria told us in schools.

The real founder of Nigeria was not Lord Lugard as it is generally taught in Nigerian schools and in popular discourse. Lord Lugard was the architect of one north as the employee of the Royal Niger Company in the last decade of the 19th Century. His knowledge of the south and of the various states that made up the south in the 19th century and during the first decade of the 20th century was limited to what he knew from other British traders and British foreign representatives to these states. Whatever role he played during the time of amalgamation arose from his role as the messenger of Lord Lewis Harcourt, the British Colonial Secretary.

It was Lord Harcourt who discovered Lord Lugard from his work in the Northern Nigeria and wanted him to undertake a mission on behalf of the British Government. He therefore sent Lord Lugard on the mission to inquire into the prospect of amalgamation of the north and south of Nigeria and submit report to him on how it could be effected if he found the plan feasible.

On the receipt of the Lord Lugard’s report, Lord Harcourt rushed to the House of Commons with the plan that unification of the two "Nigerias" demanded both (a) a man and (b) a method. The man was to be Lord Lugard; the method was amalgamation.

Lord Lugard was elated with the prospect of going back to the two Nigerias, where he was to incorporate the disparate south into a united North. This is a matter, which history books should tell us as the root of the confusion in the south in its dealing with the core north. Since then, the south is fighting its disparate nature that has since mid 60s been complicated by the civil war and the creation of states. The north is still trying to make the north continue as one and indivisible entity despite the creation of many states since 1967.

(culled from www.nigerdeltacongress.com. First published July 2002)

THE ORIGIN OF NIGERIA: GOD OF JUSTICE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH AN UNJUST POLITICAL ORDER. Appeal to President Obasanjo not to rewrite Nigerian History. {PART 4}

2010-01-23T23:39:00.004Z

By Prof. Omo Omoruyi.

ALLAH or GOD: DIFFERENT THINGS FOR NIGERIANS

I do not want to start a controversy; there is definitely a contrasting notion of right and wrong and in the origin, purpose and end of the State in Christian and Islamic political thought on the one hand and between these two religions and the African Traditional Religion on the other. Every community in Nigeria has its own history. Every community has a clear notion of what is right and wrong with the Nigerian project. Also every ethnic community in Nigeria has a clear notion of creation and of the creator of Nigeria. Let me speak of my people, the Edo people.

EDO PEOPLE HAVE THEIR HISTORY

The Edo people to which I belong have a history of how the world began and of the position of the Edo people in it up till this day. I recall listening to the Oba of Benin addressing a crowd of people at St. Matthews Church compound in 1952 on the need for the people of Benin and Delta to reclaim their right in Nigeria. He was very emphatic that the people of Benin and Delta must have a state of their own. I recall this incident very well as that was my first time of hearing the Oba speak in public. This was the first time I heard of the betrayal of his people by the British. He told his audience that Britain never told his father that they would be substituting one colonial rule for another one. These were profound statements that didn’t dawn on me as they did not form the subject of discussion in my home even though politics was well discussed in my home. These were not issues that formed the subject of discussion in schools. The year 1952 was the beginning of a new system of government that brought in Ministers.

The following year, the Oba of Benin carried this campaign to the leaders of Benin and Delta Provinces. He was very definite that in dealing with the British, his people were never told through their traditional leaders that at some point they would be made to serve under the Yoruba. In a powerful address to the leaders of the people of Benin and Delta Provinces in Benin on September 18, 1953, the Oba of Benin made a case for a new State for the people of Benin and Delta Provinces because all want to get freedom, not only from the white man, but from foreign African Nation (YORUBA).

The Oba had in mind two forms of colonialism and therefore two forms of liberation. While Nigerians in general were fighting for liberation from the British colonial order, the different ethnic nationalities that found themselves in the artificial political regions (North, East and West) should also seek liberation from the "African Nation". This was a distinction never appreciated until later by other ethnic nationalities in the north and in the east. Today, at the national level, the minorities in the north and in the south are confused as to how Nigerian politics can be moved beyond the tripod. We tried to experiment with how the minorities in the north and in the south could form the Fourth Dimension and move the country beyond the tripod. This is the subject of my book, Beyond the Tripod in Nigerian Politics.

One would recall how the Oba of Benin challenged his people as follows: I hope everyone will pull his weight in this National Struggle, because at this critical time when all the Nations of this country called Nigeria are fighting hard to assert their National status, it will be unwise for Benin-Delta to do nothing about asserting its own".

The Oba made another profound statement as follows: The unity of Old Nigeria can only be maintained by the type of regionalization the London Constitutional Conference has recommended.

He went on: Benin-Delta was a sovereign Nation before the occupation of the country by the British; that is why Britain cannot annex it (Benin-Delta Nation) to the Yoruba State". The above is from Michael Vickers: Ethnicity and Sub-Nationalism in Nigeria (Oxford 2001).

From the above, the Oba of Benin was clear that the people of Benin and Delta Provinces were one people before colonialism created the two artificial Provinces. He further said that the Benin and Delta Provinces were sovereign people before the British occupation and that the British deprived them of their sovereignty. The Oba of Benin was very definite that this was made worse with the creation of the artificial region that placed the people of Benin and Delta Provinces under the Yoruba, another "African Nation".

What the Oba of Benin was saying was what Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo said later in books. According to the Oba of Benin, Nigeria was made of many Nations before the white man came to amalgamate the different parts into one Nigeria. As the Oba put it, amalgamation did not mean the process of annexing one Nation to another State as the successors of the British in different parts of Nigerian attempted to do in the old regions of the North, the West and the East.

The Oba of Benin was reacting to the statement of the Alake of Abeokuta during the opening of the House of Assembly on January 7, 1952. It should be noted that after the Speech from the Throne delivered by the Lt. Governor, Sir Hugo Marshall, the Alake of Abeokuta rose to speak and commenced his speech as follows:

"On my right sits the Oni of Ife….. On my left, the leader of our Government, Obafemi Awolowo…..The voice of the West is complete". (Hansard of the Western House of Assembly January 7, 1952)

Did the Alake appreciate that Nigeria was made up of Nations brought together in the three political regions by the British? Did the Alake know that beside the Yoruba Nation there was another Nation in the West? Did the Alake know that that his speech was offensive to the non-Yoruba in the region? Where did he place the Oba of Benin and the Olu of Warri? How could the Alake of Abeokuta say that the voice of the West was complete after naming three Yoruba?

Where were the Benin and Delta Provinces who were though part of the Western Region were occupied by non-Yoruba people artificially put in the same Region by the British?

Who would recognize them? For how long would they go unrecognized?

Arising from this incident, the non-Yoruba in the House of Assembly made up their mind to agitate for a home of theirs, a new Region that later became the Midwestern Region as the Fourth Region in Nigeria.

Reading the report of Lord Lugard’s visit to the southern states before he proceeded with the amalgamation, it was obvious that the issue of making one ethnic nationality to serve under another was never raised with the leaders of the communities in the south. But that was what Lugard proceeded to doing in 1914 and after; it was this injustice that formed the basis of the north-south relation after independence. Lugard’s plan was to make one part of the country to serve under another part. That was never raised with the leaders of the south.

What the Oba of Benin was saying was that the Edo people have a history of creation or of their place in history. The Edo people lived in an independent country with diplomatic relation with Portugal in the 15th Century before the British people ever stepped on any part of Nigeria. Even at the commencement of the amalgamation project, the British had a treaty relation called the "Treaty of Protection". In fact, when the British Governor General to the two "Nigerias" visited Benin he had this to say about Benin and its administration.

The Binis are intelligent and law abiding. They had like the Buganda established a regular form of government.

Lord Lugard went on: Benin must be an ancient kingdom dating back to 14th and 13th century and the home of the highest art discovered in Africa outside Egypt, I suppose.

Narrating the subject of discussion when he paid a visit to the Benin traditional ruler and the leaders during the time he was planning his amalgamation, Lord Lugard had this to say in his letter to his wife: Of course, we (he and the Benin leaders) talked much of the massacre and of the subsequent army under Dawson, which broke the power of Benin.

Appreciating the military prowess of the Benin military he had this to say in his letter to his wife: It took a strong upwards of 2,000 blue jackets with artillery etc. and they had heavy fighting. That was 1897, just when I came from South Africa to raise the West African Frontier Force.

Lord Lugard also acknowledged the level of political awareness of the Bini people and the development of Benin during his visit to Benin. According to him, The Bini Chiefs, who presented themselves stripped to the waist, only raised one question, the water rate as Benin had laid on water supply.

For the above, see Margery Perham, Lugard: The Years of Authority (London Collins 1960) p. 405.a

All the foregoing about the Benin attitude to the way Nigeria was formed by the British and the place of Benin in Nigeria during the visit of Lord Lugard contrast sharply with the notion of creation in the Bible and with the notion of creation of Nigeria in the theory of Obasanjo. I am aware that the Yoruba people of which the President is a part, have clear notion of creation and the place of the Yoruba in the past, the present and the future. These ethnic positions are not necessarily anti-Nigeria.

I still recall what Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the sage of Nigerian politics said that one has to be a good Yoruba before being a good Nigerian and not the other way round. Even Lord Lugard avoided the Yoruba elites in Lagos Abeokuta and Ibadan like a plague. Of the Yoruba of Lagos, Lord Lugard said in a letter to his wife:

I am somewhat baffled as to how to get into touch with the educated native…..to start with. I am not in sympathy with him. His loud and arrogant conceit are distasteful to me, the lack of natural dignity and courtesy antagonize me.

Of the Yoruba in Ibadan Lord Lugard had this to say:

You will see the class I had to deal with. They say that Lagos people will not be reduced to the futile condition of the north Nigeria without a protest and a big noise; they had emissaries all over Ibadan, Oyo and all the Yoruba towns stirring up the people to resist loss of their lands and taxation. They regard it with suspicion if I blow my nose, and think it means some deep-seated plot. I am beginning to think that they are hopeless and that any attempt to make any reform with their cooperation is impossible. The above is also from Margery Perham p. 389 and 390.

What should be noted was that at this time, the Yoruba could boast of many Lawyers, Doctors and Engineers, more educated than Lord Lugard and he knew so. He also knew that these Lagos educated natives who have been to Europe and studied in England had access to world news. He knew that they were conversant with the plan of the British to amalgamate the two "Nigerias" as they were able to read what was said in the British Parliament on the matter. This was why he wanted to move the Capital of the amalgamated Nigeria to the north, Zungeru or Kaduna, a plan that was later executed by General Murtala Muhammed.

The "Lugard’s children", as the northern political leaders were called by the Lagos elite, are still of the view of Lord Lugard today. This is Nigerian’s history; General Obasanjo did not tell us, which one he was referring to.

President Obasanjo is a Christian and a spirit-filled he professes. One should be of the opinion that whenever he refers to God, he actually means the Christian God. The interpretation in the north is that when Obasanjo says that God created Nigeria he is actually referring to the Christian God. The implication of this kind of reasoning is dangerous in a multi-religious society like Nigeria.

And that God is God of Justice and Mercy that saw him through the period in the Gulag. Why does the President not say so that the God he serves is God of Justice and Mercy that abhors what in the Nigerian military under General Abacha was blessed by Allah. Chief Obasanjo was a victim of what was dubbed "SET UP". The notion of "SET UP" is a special way of framing colleagues through suggestions For the meaning of set up phenomenon, see the copious instances in General Chris M. Alli memoir, The Federal Republic of Nigerian Army (Lagos Malthouse Press 2001) pp. 356-360. It is fascinating how it operated under the regime of General Abacha. When it leads to a successful coup not necessary bloodless or to the framing up of colleagues, it is characterized as receiving the blessing of Allah. But when it fails, it is also said that Allah prevented it. Allah worked both ways. This was part of the teaching of the military institutions and academies and in the barracks in Nigeria during this period of the military regime.

It was after reviewing the foregoing that I once suggested that the only solution to the politicization and ethnicization of the armed forces was total scrapping of the military and the starting of a new one all over again. It was my view that that was the only way we can have a representative and accountable armed forces in a democratic Nigeria.

One should have expected President Obasanjo to keep the above distinction in mind. He should have been in a position to say so in a gathering of his fellow believers as General TY Danjuma recently did. One would recall how General Danjuma spoke to a gathering of Northern (Nigeria) Christian Elders Forum on April 20, 2002 on the crisis facing the Christians in the North. According to the General, the Christian Religion was and is still under assault in Nigeria with the admission that the Muslims are planning to take over the country. See www. WorthyNews.com of May 24, 2002. He did not say so in the gathering of Nigerians in his office or in the barrack as President does in public function involving Christians, Muslims and practitioners of African Traditional Religion. General Danjuma spoke to the faithful in a Christian gathering and not in a public meeting of Christians and non-Christians. Does the President know that this is the proper thing to do?

STATE TO CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS

One should have expected President Obasanjo to refer to the original notion of the State in Christian political thought that it was created because of the original sin of man. He should have cited the works of the great theologians, St. Augustine of Hippo or Thomas Acquinas, who are the greatest exponents of the divine justification of the origin and purpose of state. He did not cite the link between this tradition and the later exponent of the secular nature of modern state. Only Israel of all the Judaic/Christian related states, that have religion as its basis. This is understandable.

But the President did not address the fact that the Islamic political thought is different from the Christian political thought. Does the President appreciate that in the Islamic political thought, there is nothing called the separation of the Mosque and State? Does President Obasanjo know that some key Islamic States in the world are organized according to the Koran except Turkey. Turkey has strict rules about secularism as a commitment to "Westernization". The Turkish political class must defend secularism as one of the Ataturk’s Imperatives. A government would risk being sacked if it toyed with it, as forcefully enunciated by the founder of the modern Turkey, Ataturk. Does the Nigerian President know that many of the key Islamic States are prefixed with the term Islamic Republic of this or that? This is the basis of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).

Nigeria is a full member of OIC. I recall that the Nigerian President found himself attending a D8 Meeting of Islamic Leaders that has nothing to contribute to Nigeria economic development, except join them in the anti-Western rhetoric. While the Islamic leaders were harping on their concern with the West, President Obasanjo used the occasion to sing his hackneyed song of "Debt Relief". Debt relief from Egypt or Bangladesh or what! This was why I tried to help President Obasanjo that he should not do what the former Islamic political generals of the past who got Nigeria into OIC would not do in public because they knew in their heart that "Nigeria is neither an Islamic nor a Christian State".

When President Obasanjo said that Nigeria is a creation of God, he failed to address his notion of the origin of Nigeria within the context of the debate about Sharia and the fears of Christian who want Nigeria to return unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods. This notion is alien to the Islamic notion of State.

(culled from www.nigerdeltacongress.com. First published July 2002)

THE ORIGIN OF NIGERIA: GOD OF JUSTICE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH AN UNJUST POLITICAL ORDER. Appeal to President Obasanjo not to rewrite Nigerian History.{ PART 3}

2010-01-21T23:44:00.000Z

Written by Prof. Omo Omoruyi

OBASANJO’S "THEORY" OF STATE

I was asked a question once by an American student what was the authority on which President Obasanjo based his "theory of state". I could not readily answer the question. His handlers are still to come to grip with this elementary question. Merely asserting without demonstrating how "God is a Nigerian" is not only dangerous for the multi-religious society of Nigeria, it is too simplistic and sometime borne out of laziness and maybe frustration. This is when one simply stop planning and thinking and relying on calling on God. We should pray that God should give us the ability to think plan and resolve issues. Why do we use God to explain many unjust acts of men?

What the President does too often in the name of God reminds one of the usual explanation of Muslim friends in the north that "Allah gives power to who so ever Allah wants and Allah can take that power away when He likes". I first heard of this from my former Chairman, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule in 1993 after the annulment. This was recently attributed to him Dr. Alex Ekwueme as the basis for Alhaji Maitama Sule’s decision to withdraw in favor of Alhaji Shehu Shagari in December 1978 presidential race. This kind of reasoning goes against all grains of democratic thought that is anchored on the wishes of the people of all faiths (Christians, Muslim and Believers in African Traditional Religion) at election.

Allah’s wish was unfortunately used as the justification of coups in the past since these successful coups had been an "intra-Muslim" affair or an "intra-clique" affair. Could this be true? What would be the interpretation by Christians? Those who offered this simplistic explanation or justification seemed to ignore the implication of coup. Did Allah bless the shedding of blood of fellow Nigerians, Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the name of power? This is what coup is about. It is about the violent seizure of power. It is about killing for power or blood letting for power, simple. The office holders and their supporters are meant to be killed if they resist. This is the conduct of military officers in the name of Allah in the past. Again this is a conflict of civilizations. Christianity would not approve of coups that involve shedding of innocent blood.

What is disturbing to me whenever I recall how many coups were conceived and announced in the past is the role of Christian political generals as the implementers of the Allah’s wish. I still recall the coup of 1975 and 1985 announced by Col. Joseph Garba and Col. Joshua Dongayaro both Christians respectively ushering General Murtala and General Babangida both Muslims respectively. Muslims take their faith seriously but Christians pay lukewarm attitude to their faith.

There is another disturbing aspect to the use of God to justify the unjust act of public officials. This is why it is disturbing for President Obasanjo to argue in this manner. It is dangerous and akin to the terrorists who justify all manner of killing in the name of Allah, if he is not careful with his rhetoric.

DOES ALLAH JUSTIFY COUP AND HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

Nigeria never heard of the hand of Allah or God in the emergence of Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon in 1966. We did not read of Allah/God in his overthrow by General Murtala Muhammed. Policy issues were used to justify the actions of the coup plotters in the coup speeches of 1966 and 1975 respectively.

One started to read of the work of Allah in the intra-Muslim affairs from the coup in December 1983 led by General Muhamadu Buhari. He had to find justifications in moving against a fellow Muslim who Allah gave power through the ballot box. Later what General Babangida did on August 27, 1985 in getting rid of General Buhari on a Sallah Day also had Allah’s blessing. One recalls on this occasion, the three Majors sent to arrest General Buhari met him before he commenced his prayer. On this occasion, the ram General Buhari killed was still to be eaten and the beneficiary of the coup was planning to go the prayer ground at Minna. Did Allah sanction these acts both in Lagos and in Minna?

Another disturbing issue was whether Allah blessed the catalogue of injustices in the land under these rulers? Alhaji Shagari’s account in his memoir did not attribute what he suffered in the hands of General Buhari to Allah. Allah could not have commanded General Buhari to inflict the untold human right violations on fellow Muslims in 1984.

We may also ask why did the same northern leaders who rejected what General Buhari did to them as the work of Satan and in 1993 justify the actions of the political generals when it came to June 12?

What happened to the June 12 and his winner in the hands of clique even though justified by those who preached Allah, did not have the blessing of God or the blessing of those who practice African Traditional Religion. The former Sultan of Sokoto and many Muslim clerics in the north appealed to their colleagues in the south especially in the Yoruba land that "if Allah wanted Abiola to be the President nobody would have stopped him"! The meaning of this kind of religious justification of annulment and of the detention unto death of the winner of that election and other human rights violations was in bad taste. Again there was a conflict of civilization never appreciated. What did God tell Preacher Obasanjo in Abacha’s Gulag?

Incidentally, God told Chief Obasanjo the opposite of this in Abacha’s Gulag and Preacher/Chief Obasanjo told Nigerians and the international community so in June 1998 that the issues in the annulment should be resolved so as to move the country forward. Why did President Obasanjo abandon what God told him in Abacha’s Gulag as soon as he stepped into the Aso Rock?

What the Muslims were telling the Nigerian voters when Muslim political generals were inflicting inhuman treatment on fellow Nigerians was frightening. One wonders if this could be true in Islamic political thought. Few questions will be pertinent here.

Are they saying that Allah used the annullists to deny Nigerians their democratic rights in 1993?

Are they saying that Allah used General Buhari to sack the elected President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari?

Are they saying that Allah used General Babangida to sack the military Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari in 1985?

Are they saying that Allah used General Babangida to cancel the presidential primaries in November 1992?

Is there some continuity in Allah’s acts between the act of annulment and the Address to the Nigerian people and the international community on the new transition program by General Abdulsalami Abubakar on July 20, 1998?

There was; one only needs to read the analogy General Abubakar drew between what happened in the past and the act of annulment as his basis for asking Nigerians to forget about the injustice in the annulment.

What Nigerians should have been asking is whether Allah inflicted on the country the most horrendous crime on the Nigerian people through the denial of their right to human dignity under General Abacha between 1993 and 1998?

Aren’t they concerned that Allah could be said to bless the reign of General Abacha?

In all the Churches I attended and in all the prayer groups I participated in Nigeria before I left the country in 1995, the reign of General Abacha was the subject of prayer. I was told that this practice continued in Churches after 1993 until General Abacha died in June 1998. Chief Obasanjo confessed to the power of God when he was in Abacha’s Gulag. In all the Churches he attended after his release, fellow worshippers told him of the power of God and he too confessed and danced because it was made manifest in his life. This is the way Christians see life in general and this was the way they saw the reign of General Abacha. To Christians, the reign of General Abacha was not of God even if it received Allah’s blessing. This again was a conflict of civilization. General Abacha sacked one Sultan and installed another all in the name of Allah. Just as the former Sultan was the representative of the former Muslim political general and led Nigeria to the assume the full membership status of the OIC, the new Sultan also assumed the same role as the representative of General Abacha at the OIC meeting in Iran.

Of course when the "prince of Kano", General Sani Abacha died in June 1998 through the intervention of God, Allah again appeared to the geo-ethno-military ruling clique counseling a new strategy.

Allah counseled the clique not to go for another member of the clique either from the military wing or civilian wing of the clique.

Allah told the clique not to go for an Igbo. We saw how Dr. Alex Ekwueme was humiliated in the party of which he was a part founder. We saw how the Igbo leaders were pushed aside in the APP, even though, they as former agents of the political generals who annulled the June 12 and sustained it between 1993 and 1998 under General Abacha, thought that they were the faithful allies of the clique.

We saw how Allah told the clique to go for an Egba Chief that was put in the Gulag according to the wishes of Allah.

If within-the-clique succession was not of Allah after the death of General Abacha, Allah told them that going for the Egba Chief to reign for a given period was seen as a tactical retreat within the overall strategy of permanent northern control of Nigeria. What was the given time frame, a period? This has become the question since 1999 especially when the important members of the clique are no longer happy with President Obasanjo. When and how will the clique come up with a scheme to inflict on the country another member of the clique? This was why I raised the question in the past, what did Chief Obasanjo promise the clique? President Obasanjo never answered this question. The question was as relevant then as it is today, when the key members of the clique such as President Shagari and other key leaders of the Arewa Consultative Forum openly started talking of marginalization of the north and the betrayal of the north and all that.

One would have expected President Obasanjo to respond to the northern assertion and accusation. Maybe he would do so as part of his campaign for the 2003 election. He has to as he faces so many competitors from the north on the platform of Sharia and on the platform of how to reverse the northern marginalisation.

President Obasanjo would also say what he did for other areas. He would also say how he responded to the problems of other areas such as the quest for resource control by the people of the oil producing areas. He would have to say what he did for the Igbo. Of course, Nigerians at large would want him to tell them the effort he made to resolve the lingering political problems since 1999.

(culled from www.nigerdeltacongress.com. First published July 2002)

THE ORIGIN OF NIGERIA: GOD OF JUSTICE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH AN UNJUST POLITICAL ORDER. Appeal to President Obasanjo not to rewrite Nigerian History. {PART 2}

2010-01-20T23:32:00.001Z

Written by Prof. Omo Omoruyi

NIGERIA, "A GEOGRAPHICAL EXPRESSION"

Arising from the way Nigeria was put together by Britain, the literature on Nigeria is replete with such terms as "Nigeria is a geographical entity" or "Nigeria is a geographical expression" or "Nigeria is an artificial creation" or "Nigeria is a colonial creation". Let us examine two issues that arose from the foregoing.

One, at independence, there was nothing original to the term, Nigeria as that term was conferred on the British "amalgamated real estate" by the wife of the first colonial Governor General, Lady Lugard.

Second, at independence, Nigeria was born but Nigerians were still to be born even up till today. What we needed since independence was a plan by her leaders, civilian or military to make Nigeria command the loyalty of her citizens from all the ethnic nationalities. Nigerians never did.

There are three senses in which the effort at developing Nigerians should have been met and how we fell short since October 1, 1960.

One would have thought that our political leaders would have striven to make Nigeria "a self-sufficient system of action’, as the Sociologist would say.

One would have thought that its leaders would have tried to create ‘a more perfect union’, as the American would say.

One would have thought that its leaders would have made it a nation in the tradition of the nation state in Europe.

Did the leaders who succeeded the British succeed in building a "self-sufficient system of action" or "a more perfect union" or "a nation state" since October 1, 1960? The answer to these issues should be obvious by now. They failed to create Nigerians up till today.

The military intervention in politics since 1966 did not only complicate the above issues, it further divided the Nigerian society into two classes of the permanent rulers and the permanent ruled and followers. Worse still the military created a new class of Nigerian leaders called in the country in general in the south in particular "militicians"? Consequently we now have in Nigeria a civilian political class that has a low self-esteem of itself and feels it cannot rule except with the leadership provided by the same retired military officers that "pauperized" the civilian political class, misruled the country and plundered the Nigerian oil economy since 1966. This is the level of political development of Nigeria today.

The so-called political class today should be embarrassed that no one is mentioning their names as potential presidential candidates. Aren’t they embarrassed that the only persons that are being discussed as potential presidential candidates and as competitors with President Obasanjo in 2003 are the same political generals of yesterday, Generals Babangida, Buhari and Nwachukwu)? I have nothing against any retired military officers who want to run for political office now or in the future. There are basic questions that should have been asked that are never asked by Nigerians. What do they stand for? We do not know and no one is asking. What are the visions of these former "political generals" for Nigeria’s future from their past? They have not told the Nigerian people the relationship between their past, their present and their plan for the future of Nigeria.

Unfortunately the media columnists are not asking them some tough questions about the relationship between their past, their present and their vision for the future of Nigeria. I raised some of the issues in the past in my essay "After Obasanjo Who/What" and in my five-part essay under the rubric, "The Generals Are Coming: Should they be Welcome" and I do not want to rehash the issues in this medium. The points I made in these essays are still valid and I would call readers’ attention to the archives of www.nigerdeltacongress.com and in the Nigerian newspapers such as This Day, Vanguard and Guardian.

REEXAMINATION OF TWO THEORIES OF CREATION

Recently Nigerians are faced with the theory of creation of Nigeria advanced by the Nigerian President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo that God created it. This is in sharp contrast with what we were told in schools and what is still being taught in schools today in Nigeria and all over the world that attributes the founding of Nigeria to the British colonialism. It was on the latter score that Chief Richard Akinjide’s theory should been appreciated. Nigeria, according to Chief Richard Akinjide who paid tribute to me for being able to use the documents about the amalgamation to explain the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election. He was very blunt after examining the documents that led to the amalgamation that I used in my book, The Tale of June 12 that after all what Britain did in Nigeria was a "fraud".

Chief Akinjide, like other political leaders from the south wallowed in the same fraud for too long. They, as politicians suffered this fraud for so long; they accepted the status quo for so long hence one is amazed by their new position that everything should be done to recreate Nigeria so as to make it meaningful to all ethnic nationalities. This is the position I consistently argued for since 1993. This was based on my view from what I knew about the issues in the annulment that Nigeria would never be the same again unless these issues were resolved. One should acknowledge that this is also the position advanced by such eminent jurist as Chief Rotimi Williams leading the "Frontiers" and other eminent Nigerians, such as Chiefs Emeka Anyaoku and Ola Vincent and Alhaji Babantunde Jose. But our President dismissed these people in his usual language that I would not like to repeat here. He told Nigerians that he is the sovereign by virtue of the fact that the Nigerian people elected him in 1999. Hence, he argued that there was no reason for another body to be convened to discuss and resolve the lingering political issues afflicting the country since 1993. Time will prove him wrong. His legacy would be measured by the way he abandoned the need for bringing about the fundamental restructuring of Nigeria during his first term in office.

What is embarrassing is President Obasanjo’s new theory that he propounded on May 29, 2002, which is his self-proclaimed "Democracy Day" that "God is a Nigerian". To paraphrase him, he opined that God must have a purpose for putting so many black people under one roof called Nigeria and consequently, he further opined that God created Nigeria, a huge state for the upliftment of Black people in the world. I am surprised that up till now no one has called the President to order.

A content analysis of the pronouncements of the President and other members of the political class and the developments in the country since 1999 leads one to one conclusion. It should be obvious that God being a "Just God" could not sanction the "unjust political order" that characterizes what we have in Nigeria since 1960. The picture of what is going on in the various parts of the country does not show that God blesses the injustice all over the country.

As part of the Democracy Day activities, he attended the Special Lecture at Abuja. He was surrounded by Ahmed Salim of Tanzania, a non-believer in "one person and one vote" or in the "multi-party system" all his adult life as a politician in Tanzania and Chief Tony Enahoro who has no faith in the Presidential System that took some of us our political life in the Constituent Assembly in 1977/78 to evolve because it is good for the minorities in the country. Mr./ Ahmed Salim was the Keynote Speaker and Chief Enahoro was the Chairman of the occasion. Did President Obasanjo appreciate that while he was having his celebration at Abuja, the country was not in the jubilating mood? Some of them were openly asking what was their democracy dividend? The mood of the country as gathered from the content analysis of the various complaints in the media as summed up by the President in October 1 2001 is one of dismay. In fact, this was summarized by the Herald Tribune of February 25, 2002 that

Obasanjo is highly admired as an eloquent spokesman for African democracy and development. Regrettably, his record at home is far less impressive.

Shouldn’t one come to the conclusion that May 29 is not history but "histrionics", because they are playing games with a serious issue? This is why one should call May 29 the "DEMONCRAZY DAY".

I am aware of the many requests made to the President, especially on June 12 every year for the President to make history by recognizing June 12 and not May 29 as Democracy Day. Those who are making this demand on President Obasanjo realized how he quickly recognized General Shehu Yar’Adua immediately he assumed office. Without attempting to denigrate the life of General Shehu Yar’ Adua, I found many contradictions in the attitude of General Yar’Adua to democracy especially after the annulment. Did the President know that General Yar’Adua flipped flopped on his defense of democratic rights of Nigerians arising from June 12? Even though he supported Chief Abiola for the June 12 and immediately after, he colluded with the military President to sustain the annulment on the erroneous belief and assurance from General Babangida that an opportunity would arise for him to run for the office. This is the explanation for his sustaining the annulment and the evolution of the Interim National Government (ING). This is a matter of record and not of hearsay. This is what history would say of his commitment to democracy. He buckled under after sometime and he never explained the reason for this until he died.

The question one is still asking President Obasanjo till today is why could President Obasanjo not recognize Chief Abiola? Those who are asking this question are not just asking him to do the impossible. They are asking him to do what God told him to do that he confessed to after his release from the Abacha’s Gulag. To God everything just is possible.

Those who are demanding that President Obasanjo should recognize MKO Abiola ought to or should have appreciated the basis of Chief Obasanjo’s coming to power. President Obasanjo is of the view that for him to recognize June 12 would have amounted to a betrayal of the pact he entered into with the clique that brought him into office and could have amounted to a counterrevolutionary act. Would this have amounted to a conflict of religions or a conflict of civilizations as some would put it today after the 9:11 in the US? God told Obasanjo in the Gulag that solution based on justice should be found to June 12. On the other hand, Allah told the annullist that June 12 should be denied the winner of that election and that justice based on that election should be denied.

For Obasanjo to yield to what God told him in the Gulag could trigger a backlash from the anti-June 12 zealots in the military to force him out of office. In any case those who managed his election such as Chief Tony Anenih, the former Chairman of the party that gave away the June 12 in July 1993 was around to make him recognize the danger of non-recognition of the June 12. Of course, his security handlers and serving with him in the Presidency such as General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, the National Security Adviser to the President, who was in the clique that annulled the June 12 would cry foul if the President should attempt to recognize the June 12. The question is why should the distinguished Chief from Egba land agree to be the candidate of the PDP on the anti-June 12 platform?

What bothers me is not in his decision to accept the invitation. What bothers me is that the President does not seem to see the injustice in what he is doing in pretending that June 12 did not exist as a historical fact. He should have appreciated that it is odd for him not to accord recognition to June 12.

What bothers me is the hypocrisy in the profession of faith in God in whatever he does and failing to carry out what he told Nigerians as originating from God. The President who talks about God in everything he does, ought to or should have appreciated that it is not in furtherance of God’s work on earth to ignore the voice of the people as recorded in their vote of June 12, 1993. Is the President saying that what God blessed on June 12, 1993 should be ignored? Does the President not acknowledge the saying that the voice of the people is the voice of God? What is a better determination of the voice of the people beside their vote?

Nigerians are asking the critical question of when does the President acknowledge and do what God says? He seems to pick and choose events as when he likes.

Nigerians are asking the President if he forget what he told Nigerians on June 20, 1998 at the Baptist Church, Abeokuta? I am referring to what Nigerians once heard from the mouth of preacher Obasanjo himself before a packed Church in Abeokuta on June 20, 1998 immediately he was released from Abacha’s Gulag. He told Nigerians in a clear language what God told him in Abacha’s Gulag about serious issues.

God told Preacher Obasanjo something about the June 12, as follows:

Once again as God has given me opportunity I will comment on the election of June 12. I have always held the view that the non-resolution of the issue will remain an indelible blot on our body politic and a bad and dangerous precedent for political development in this country. It forebodes ill for the destiny of Nigeria.

Preacher Obasanjo warned:

Sweeping it under the carpet, and pretending that it does not exist does not solve it; rather it makes it to incubate and fester.

Preacher Obasanjo then warned:

Let it not be said that by act of omission or commission there are two classes of Nigerians as far political, economic and social participations are concerned.

Preacher Obasanjo then pleaded with the power of God on the pulpit in the following words:

Let all Nigerians have a sense of belonging and a stake in the affairs of Nigeria. Peace and unity, which are preconditions for development and progress must be founded on justice, equality of opportunity and equity.

Finally Preacher Obasanjo left his listeners with what God told him about the non-resolution of June 12 in the following words:

Without the resolution of the events of June 12, we may not have a firm and solid foundation to erect the structure of democracy on a lasting basis,apart from the implications for unity, and stability in the country.

On the military, God told Preacher Obasanjo to tell the Nigerian people the followings: Today we are all victims and eyewitnesses, Let me venture and to give another warning no matter what names I may be called or what threat or danger maybe involved. Our military personnel have generally become inured to corruption, lying, selfishness, lack of patriotism, avarice, and character and behaviour unbecoming of a good military.

On what should be done about the military in order to have democracy, Preacher Obasanjo had this to tell the Nigerian people:

They must change and be motivated by ideals of patriotism, nationalism, morality, and the good of the nation, rather than the good of themselves at the expense of the country politically and economically.

Making a case for the good ones in the military, Preacher Obasanjo had this to say about the bad influence of the bad ones:

In the recent past, the bad ones have gained ascendancy.

Preacher Obasanjo then appealed to the Nigerian people as to what should be done in future, if the military made that early morning announcement about taking over of government. Preacher Obasanjo told Nigerians what they should do in the following words:

Nigerians must resolve that any future military adventurism into our political life must be met with non-violent resistance and total withdrawal of services –public and private—-complete non-participation non-fraternization and non-cooperation.

Preacher Obasanjo then recommended to the future lawmaker what should be done in the following words:

Stiff punishment must be prescribed for those who covertly or overtly break this national resolve.

On the mode of resolving the lingering political crisis arising from the annulment Preacher Obasanjo had this to say:

I believe that it is never too late for patriotic men and women of goodwill in this country to get together and dialogue to find generally acceptable solution to this unnecessary problem.

For the above see Kayode Olarenwaju’s account in the Vanguard June 21, 1998 with such quotes from the Sermon by Preacher Obasanjo as "Fadile begged me in prison"; "No Democracy without June 12" and "God used me to save others".

Nigerians should ask their President some tough questions such as:

Why did he forget what God told him in Abacha’s Gulag?

What happened to his prophecies of June 1998 when those who made him President approached him?

Was he lying when he made those prophecies?

Why does he now believe that Nigerians who heard him in June 1998 say one thing about what God told him and abandoned it after he became the President and was in a position to implement the prophesy?

Does he not know that this is at the root of the credibility crisis facing him today?

Arising from the foregoing questions, I was forced to remind the President in a two-part essay in 2000 that he should go back to that sermon that I called in the essay, "Sermon on Olumo Rock". When President Obasanjo uses God’s name today in what he does in office, he forgets that he once used God’s name immediately after he was released from prison. How long would he be allowed to use God’s name in vain?

IMPLICATION OF OBASANJO’S THEORY OF CREATION

General Olusegun Obasanjo, the President in the Vanguard of July 19, 2000 opined, "God knows why Nigeria was created". He went on to argue that "God created Nigeria for Nigeria to be a great country where no tribe will dominate or subjugate others". Is this true? What is the President’s authority for this assertion, when Nigerians are feeling some kind of subjugation here and there?

Another very dangerous impression, in fact, a dangerous claim in the President’s theory is that his Presidency was ordained by God or that he was sent by God to save Nigeria from many years of misrule in the hands of bad leaders. Consequently he told Nigerians that since Nigeria was God’s creation and since God ordained his Presidency, he would refuse to be a bad leader. Finally he prayed to God "to take him away from this job if he became a bad leader". How this would come about is not made clear. He would never yield to public opinion because the opinion of Nigerian people may be at variance with what God is telling him. This is why his constant refrain, of all that call for "prayer fasting and seeking God’s face before announcing his "self-succession" was very disturbing to me. I am sure to many Christians, this was also disturbing.

It is my view that the issue is not whether one believes in the efficacy of prayer, fasting and seeking God’s face. The issue is how one goes about it so as not to become a "hypocrite" as defined by Jesus Christ in Matthew 6.5. I have no doubt that Chief Obasanjo knows what a "hypocrite’ is in the Bible. He ought to have known this from the lessons he received from various settings under the Baptist Mission in Abeokuta on how to pray. He should have known that how to pray is a serious matter in the Holy Bible. Does President Obasanjo know that he is daily breaching what Jesus teaches us Christians on how to pray in the Gospel according to St. Matthew 6: 5-7? Does he know that he is behaving like a "hypocrite"? Jesus defined hypocrites as those who

"Pray-------on the corners of the streets That they may be seen by men".

(Matthew 6:5).

Jesus also warned Christians about vain repetition……..for the Father knows the things you have need of before you ask him". (Matthew 6:7).

On what Christians should do if they want to pray, Jesus enjoins Christians to do the followings: Go to your room; And when you have shut the door, Pray to your Father who in the secret place; And Your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. (Matthew 6:6) It is after all these that we commence the Lord’s Prayer.

I recall another disturbing incident during the reconciliatory dance or exchange of partners or wives between the President and the former Senate President, Dr Chuba Okadigbo during the house warming ceremony. The President wanted to show off his knowledge of the Bible in a gathering involving Christians, Muslim and others. On that occasion, President Obasanjo likened the Official Residence of the Senate President that he was opening to a country and he then introduced the Biblical injunction that unless God builds a house all the work of the builders might be in vain. This is true; did the President know that this Biblical injunction also applied to the country? He should have alerted the leaders of Nigeria that Nigeria as was put together did not have the blessing of God. The only way to explain the lingering problems afflicting the country since 1960 is that since God does not bless the country at its creation, those who have been laboring in it since 1960 have been laboring in vain. God does not bless the country conceived in injustice/ Maybe what God has been telling the leaders of Nigeria, military and civilian is that Nigeria should be renegotiated and recreated and made a system of justice.

(culled from www.nigerdeltacongress.com. First published July 2002)

THE ORIGIN OF NIGERIA: GOD OF JUSTICE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH AN UNJUST POLITICAL ORDER. Appeal to President Obasanjo not to rewrite Nigerian History. (PART 1)

2010-01-19T23:56:00.001Z

By Prof. Omo Omoruyi

WHAT OUR BOOKS TELL US ABOUT NIGERIA

I once had the occasion to challenge the assertion of President Olusegun Obasanjo on the origin of Nigeria in my essay published by Vanguard. In the essay, I reviewed the contribution of Chief Richard Akinjide on the same subject. While President Obasanjo attributed the creation of Nigeria to God, Chief Akinjide called what the British did in Nigeria as a colossal fraud. I thought the President of Nigeria was just joking and maybe trying out an idea that he knew would have problem making it to stick. Why did he not drop the matter when everyone in Nigeria seems to be convinced that the Nigerian project since its creation is acknowledged as patently unjust to many groups in Nigeria? Should it not have been obvious that since God is a just God any unjust project like Nigeria should not have been associated with God? God is a just God and could not therefore be associated with an unjust act. But recently there has been a persistent attribution of God as the creator of Nigeria to the extent that anyone who dares to question the colonial basis of Nigeria the President quickly calls one all kinds of names. In fact, those who question the President mischaracterization of what Britain did in Nigeria are deemed to have committed a sin in the eyes of President Obasanjo. It is this persistent attribution that God is the creator of Nigeria that is making me to further do this essay.

This essay is not meant to question the fact that God is the source of knowledge and of human understanding and the giver of all things. But we see the "gilded tomb with worms in fold" and we call it the work of God! That is not fair. Which God, one may ask? I am arguing that God means different thing to different faith. But President Obasanjo is a Christian. As a Christian, I know what God means that revealed Himself to believers in three different ways through the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Christians do not invoke the name of God in vain so I was taught in my first day of being exposed to the Bible. This is one of the Ten Commandments. The Holy Bible is clear on this as

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Exodus 20:7

I am worried with the way the Nigerian President plays with God’s name in virtually everything he does.

WHAT WE ARE TOLD IN SCHOOL ABOUT NIGERIA

There are two senses when we talk about "Nigeria". In the first sense, we are concerned with the name, Nigeria, This is like all human beings that must be given names as a way of differentiating one from the other. Who gave us the name Nigeria? We should ask the President that tough question. Was it God? We could ask, how do we come about the name we carry in our daily lives?

The second sense is that we are concerned with how the territory that goes by the name Nigeria came into being? There is no doubt that the name has no meaning in various languages as far as I know. To many people the name does not invoke positive sentiments. In fact it invokes negative sentiments such as neglect, oppression in the hand of some officials that go by that name such as the Nigerian Police or the Nigerian Army.

NIGERIA AS A NAME

In the literature on the origin of Nigeria as a name, it first appeared in The Times of London on January 8, 1897 in an essay written by Miss Flora Shaw, who later became the wife of Lord Lugard. Was she sent by God to come up with the term in the word of President Obasanjo? Maybe she was but she did not say so in her essay.

In her essay she was making a case for a shorter term that would be used for the "agglomeration of pagan and Mahomedan States" that was functioning under the official title, "Royal Niger Company Territories". She thought that the term, Royal Niger Company Territories" was too long to be used as a name of a Real Estate Property under the Trading Company in that part of Africa. She was right. That has nothing to do with the people in that part of Africa. What is important in Flora Shaw’s article was that she was in search of a new name and she coined "Nigeria" in preference to such terms as "Central Sudan" that was associated with some geographers and travelers. She thought that the term "Sudan" at this time was associated with a territory in the Nile basin. She then put forward this argument in the Financial Times of London of January 8, 1897 thus:

The name Nigeria applying to no other part of Africa may without offence to any neighbours be accepted as co-extensive with the territories over which the Royal Niger Company has extended British influence , and may serve to differentiate them equally from the colonies of Lagos and the Niger Protectorate on the coast and from the French territories of the Upper Niger.

What is important in the name coined by Miss Flora Shaw were the following facts:

That Nigeria was to apply to the "agglomeration of pagan and Mahomedan States" meaning the North as we know it today;

That the term, Nigeria was to serve to differentiate the area of the Royal Niger Company from other areas. This means that Nigeria was not to apply to Lagos colonies and other Protectorates in the south, meaning the current southern states;

That the term Nigeria was to apply to the Royal Niger Company Territories. It should be noted that Sir Frederick Lugard was hired by the Royal Niger Company to bring together under his administration the "Pagan and Mahomedan States".

That the name later assumed by the collection of territories amalgamated in 1914 was actually an incorporation of the two system of administration in the south (Lagos Colony and Protectorate) into an existing entity put together under the Royal Niger Company called Nigeria.

That the use of a name that was already assumed by the British territories in the north for all the territories amounted to a colossal fraud.

NIGERIA AS A COUNTRY

In the literature on the origin of Nigeria as a country, we are told that it was of a colonial creation, meaning that it was created by the colonial power, the British. This is what we are all told as young people in schools. This is what we, as teachers, have been telling our students. This is what parents should be telling their children. How could anyone associate God with creation of Nigeria under the following circumstances?

The many unjust acts associated with the way the idea of Nigeria was conceived by the British officials;

The way the British ran Nigeria and eventually handed over to the preferred group at independence;

The way the successive governments ran this country since independence;

The way the government of the day is running the affairs of Nigeria since 1999.

Could all the foregoing be associated God? Could this be one way of punishing Nigerians? How could one associate Nigeria with the work of God? The widening inequality everyday ought to have been obvious to the President that it would be unchristian to associate God with an unjust economic or political order.

In a more sophisticated reasoning, we are told that following the "scramble for Africa" in the late 19th Century, Africa was "partitioned" into "real estate property" by and for the Europeans. After the "partitioning of Africa", the present area called Nigeria was allocated to Britain. Consequently, the area occupied by present day Nigeria was allocated to Britain at the Berlin Conference, Britain like other European powers, France, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Italy and Spain, set out after 1885 to establish "effective occupation" of her "real estate property". One could recall the many studies on this subject such as Saadia Touval, The Boundary Politics in Independent Africa (Harvard University Press, 1972).

"EFFECTIVE OCCUPATION" OF NIGERIA BY BRITAIN

The method of "effective occupation" by Britain varied from one part of the "real estate" to another. Some by outright fraud called "treaty of protection", some by "conquest" and other a mixture of both. Even though in international law there ought to have been a difference, the two forms of "effective occupation" were misapplied in the eventual colonization of Nigeria. What I am trying to say is that the method of "effective occupation" applied by Britain between 1885 and 1900 was different from one part of the "real estate" to another.

What is important was that in the exploitation of the "real estate", the different peoples inhabiting the different areas were taken as part of the real estate, materials and objects of exploitation. Eventually the people developed into the status of "British Subjects". The people inhabiting the British enclave called Nigeria were called "British Subjects" before October 1, 1960. It was under this status that Nigerians qualified to be Knighted and adorned with the tile of Queen Counsel. Have we forgotten that our Armed Forces were called the "Queen’s Own" Nigerian Regiment", etc., etc. President Obasanjo like many officers of his generation was not recruited into the Nigerian Army but into the Queens Own Nigerian Army. Those who were Knighted and given other Honors from London were proud to call themselves "Sir this" and "Sir that" or QC. They did not know or they ought to have known that they were being conferred titles as "British Subjects" and not as "Nigerian Citizens", because there was nothing so called until after October 1, 1960. Nigeria as an actor on the international scene commenced with the formal granting of independence by Britain to the people of the colony on October 1, 1960. A lot of ignorance abounds in Nigeria. Instead of trying to resolve the matter we are further complicating it by attribution of God to the origin of Nigeria.

I had to face my colleagues in the Constituent Assembly with this fact in 1978. The Murtala/Obasanjo military regime had passed a decree on disqualification of persons from the succession election and made it effective from January 15, 1866. I was shocked that this found its way into the Draft Constitution Bill that we were to consider in the Constituent Assembly. The date was discriminatory as the date January 15, 1966 only applied to the date of the first military coup in Nigeria. This was why I pushed for the amendment to the Section of the Draft Constitution on the argument that if the military was interested in cleaning Nigeria of whatever past conduct it found unacceptable, the date should be the date when Nigeria was born. I genuinely believed then and still do so today that the only level playing field in any legislation that purports to treat Nigerians as Nigerians should start from October 1, 1960 and not from any artificial date after then. I am referring to the military’s plan to bar certain persons from January 15, 1966 and my successful amendment in the Constituent Assembly on the ground that the military’s date was discriminatory and did not accord with the historical fact of Nigerians as Nigerians as commencing from October 1, 1960. By an overwhelming vote of 121 to 16, my amendment was carried and the effective date was moved from January 15, 1966 to October 1, 1960. See Volume Three, The Proceedings of the Constituent Assembly 1977/78.

Another important issue we should note was that the method of "effective occupation" of the British "real estate" by Britain did not lead to one British territory called Nigeria. What Britain had in her "real estate" in this part of Africa between 1885 and 1912 were many pieces of "real estate", territories. It should be noted that there was one huge British territory in the north, called the British Protectorate of Northern Nigeria and there were many British territories in the south.

What we should also note that the fact that we had one huge northern territory did not mean that there was one people. Rather there were many northern peoples that were to be made to be subservient to the Sokoto Caliphate with the Headquarters at Kaduna. Britain did not anticipate that a situation would arise where the non-members of the north would aspire to be of the same political status as the members of the Caliphate. The way Lord Lugard characterized the relationship between the Muslim north and others is intriguing. He paid tribute to the unity of the Emirs and the beautiful "dancers of the pagans". He did not see the possibility of the "pagan" i.e. the present day Middle-Belt aspiring to rule in the north. That the "pagans" took to Christianity was as a result of the fact Christian missions were barred from the Muslim north with the school system. In the Middle-Belt the Church was accompanied with the ability to read and write in English that was primarily required in the propagation of the faith. The Hausa/Fulani who took to Christianity along with the pagans became the light in the Muslim north such the late Dr. RAB Dikko and Professor Ishaya Audu.

The other unanswered question was whether the original object of "effective occupation" of the area was to make the Muslim component of the Sokoto Caliphate the only permanent ruler of the north. What about the Muslim component outside the Sokoto Caliphate such as the Borno area that could lay claim to Islam independent of the Sokoto caliphate? This was an issue in 1978 when Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim thought it was the turn of the Kanuri and not of the Fulani to assume the leadership of Nigeria as a candidate of the north. He referred to the pact between the late Sardauna of Sokoto and his father in law, Sir Kashim Ibrahim that leadership of the north would rotate between Sokoto and Borno. He told us in the leadership of the Nigerian peoples party that that was the basis of his decision to vie for the office of President of Nigeria. The then Sultan of Sokoto Sir Saddique Abubakar, was privy to this pact hence, Alhaji Waziri had so many supporters among the princes in Sokoto during the 1978/79 elections. In fact, one of the sons of the Sultan of Sokoto, Sarkin Fada who was the leader of Waziri campaign team in the north died in a motor accident during this period. This was why Alhaji Waziri’s party had a foothold in Sokoto during the 1979 election. I am saying this much to debunk Alhaji Shagari’s account in his memoir of why the north did not support Alhaji Waziri in 1979.

I was privy to why Alhaji Waziri decided to run as the candidate of the north in the 1979 presidential election. He genuinely believed that it was the turn of the Kanuri with the Muslim North in accordance with the pact between Alhaji Ahmadu Bello and Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim on the way the northern leader should rotate between the Caliphate and Borno. As noted above, the north was further complicated by the emergence of Christianity in the non-Caliphate enclave in Plateau, Adamawa, Benue and Niger. Later there were attempts by successors of Britain in the north to make the land and the people of the north into "one north", "one people" and with "one destiny" especially in their dealing with the rest of Nigeria. I was a witness to the way the non-Muslim elements in the north in these States asserted themselves in 1977/78 in the Constituent Assembly and after in the name of the Council of Understanding and Solidarity (CUS) led by Chief Solomon D. Lar.

(culled from www.nigerdeltacongress.com. First published July 2002)

A weak state‘s response to Yar‘Adua‘s AWOL

2010-01-18T23:51:00.001Z

Written by The Punch/Adebolu Arowolo.

For those who often contest the ranking of Nigeria among weak, poorly governed and distressed nations of the world, the response of the various institutions of government to President Umaru Yar‘Adua‘s protracted absence without official leave (AWOL) should serve as an eye opener. They should now begin to see Nigeria as a nation that requires to be salvaged from the stranglehold of a few people who have effectively hijacked the apparatus and resources of the state to serve parochial interests. Look at the way a clique has deployed state powers to further private and sectional political interests since Yar‘Adua left the country for Saudi Arabia about eight weeks ago.

Using religion effectively as the opium of the people, the cabal started by telling the people not to worry about the yawning power vacuum created by Yar‘Adua‘s absence, but that they should instead go into prayer sessions and vigil for His Excellency‘s good health. Nobody knows how much of public fund was frittered in this evil attempt to buy time and divert attention from official paralysis imposed by Yar‘Adua‘s absence. They were deceitfully using the prayer sessions as a way of escaping from doing the right thing.

As various groups of prayer warriors were being mobilised to Abuja, the office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice moved immediately to handle the legal aspects of the logjam, making statements that conflict with commonsense and the people‘s interest. For Mr. Aondoakaa, the President could stay outside the country and rule indefinitely from any part of the world. He could set up a new desk in his clinic and relocate the nation‘s headquarters from Abuja to Jeddah or anywhere on the face of the earth. Those who expressed views contrary to Aondoakaa‘s curious stand were dismissed as unpatriotic elements. And as if to prove his point, the 2009 Supplementary Appropriation Bill was taken to Jeddah for the President‘s signature. That only hinted Nigerians that the Presidency had gone offshore and that it might take sometime for Yar’Adua to return home.

Now, more and more crucial state institutions are being sucked into the plot and compromised. We have all heard the case of an Abuja High Court where hearing and judgment were concluded within a record time of three days in favour of a clique that does not want Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan to fully exercise the power of the President. Just like the satanic judgment procured one midnight in 1993 from Bassey Ikpeme‘s court to scuttle a free and pro-people election, the Dan Abutu judgment, which says Jonathan can perform the duties of the President without formally assuming power as Acting President, seems to me like a judicial endorsement of Aondoakaa‘s controversial position on the matter. It is aimed at scuttling the widespread demand for an Acting President.

I laugh whenever I hear people say that, with Abutu‘s judgment, Jonathan can take all decisions on behalf of Yar‘Adua. Are we saying a man whose orders were openly flouted by some ministers only a few weeks ago has changed and become more powerful by that judgment? By these new powers, can he remove ministers and appoint new ones? In case of external aggression or internal upheaval such as the Boko Haram uprising or Jos mayhem, can Jonathan act as the Commander-In-Chief and call out the military to quell sectarian violence or external attack? The plain truth is that Jonathan cannot perform duties not directly assigned to him by Yar‘Adua.

Section 5 (1) of the 1999 Constitution says the President can exercise his powers directly or through the Vice-President and ministers. Section 148(1) also says the President may, in his discretion, assign to the Vice-President or any minister responsibility for any business of the government.

I see no room in these sections where the Vice-President can take independent actions or responsibilities except those assigned to him by the President. Even with Abutu‘s judgment, Jonathan‘s situation has not changed. He still has to take orders from the President. From his BBC interview, Yar‘Adua is still a long way to recovery. With his frail voice and fragile health situation, it is obvious that orders cannot always be proceeding directly from the President. I am not sure his doctors have allowed him to receive calls. Jonathan will therefore have to depend on sources close to the President for directives, as he has done in the past 55 days.

Naturally, the closest person to Yar‘Adua under this dire situation is his wife. It seems to me that the Abutu judgment was arranged to rubber-stamp the presidential-directives-by-proxy system. Abutu himself did not mince words when he said Jonathan would only continue to serve as Vice-President and not as Acting President. But the question remains: why is this cabal running away from giving us an Acting President?

What has revealed the weakness and vulnerability of the Nigerian State is the poor response of the legislators, who are supposed to be the people‘s representatives, to the logjam. Instead of fighting on the side of the people, those in the legislative arm have largely become tools in the hand of those manipulating the polity for selfish reasons. For a long time, the legislators went to join the prayer warriors. When the National Assembly finally found its voice, its decisions failed to defuse tension. The House of Reps. took a laughable decision to take a get-well card to the President in Saudi Arabia. Let them not waste taxpayers‘ money on a frivolous trip abroad

Without giving a time frame, the Senate decided to invite the Secretary to the Federal Government, Yayale Ahmed, to brief it on matters relating to Yar‘Adua‘s health. All we need is a resolution by both chambers, asking the Federal Executive Council to determine Yar‘Adua‘s fitness for the job. I doubt whether they will ever do the right thing. They are rarely found on the side of social justice.

Thus, we have seen a complete paralysis of all the arms and institutions of government. From the Federal Executive Council to the National Assembly and the Judiciary, the response to the power void has been weak and disappointing. All the state institutions have failed to tame tension and arrest the drift. The reason for this, I‘m told, is about who becomes President in 2011. If Yar‘Adua decides not to run owing to ill-health, his camp wants to remain firmly in control in order to pick a successor. If Jonathan becomes Acting President, he may use government machinery to tilt political fortunes on the side of his own anointed candidate. It is the evil cabal behind this crude and predatory political calculation that has been holding the nation to ransom. But this is not altogether unexpected in a country where the public office is largely used as a pathway to wealth.

As owners of the political powers being abused, it is the responsibility of all patriotic citizens to join hands to rebuild the nation‘s institutions. A strong civil society has always been behind every nation that has made progress. That is why it is said that a nation deserves the kind of leadership it has. The easiest way to lose the struggle for a better society is for the people to fold their arms and do nothing. Those who are benefiting from the decay in the land will never voluntarily surrender power. Freedom, as they say, is not something given; it is taken.

Unfortunately, the nation‘s civil society has become especially weak and fragile in the past 10 years. More than ever before, Nigerians are now fragmented along regional, ethnic and religious lines. The “Enough is Enough” rally held in Abuja was spearheaded by aging patriots such as Wole Soyinka. Those committed to the struggle for a better society are well above the age of 50. Where are the youths who are at the receiving end of bad policies? Where are the students of tertiary institutions who will graduate into a huge and congested unemployment market? Where are the workers‘ unions? Where are the farmers? Where are the Okada riders and other victims of bad governance?

The fragmentation of the civil society has made it possible for a few unpatriotic people to corner the state and its resources for their own selfish use. The civil rights movement made America the great nation that it now is. When are we going to come together to build a great future for ourselves and generations yet unborn?

(www.punchng.com)

Yar’Adua’s Obituary

2010-01-17T19:51:00.002Z

Written by Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo

Just like you and I, Yar’Adua will die. Someday. I want to be the first to write his obituary. It is the greatest honor I can give to the man. Yar’Adua should be able to read it while resting comfortably in his hospital bed. Not many people will have such a privilege. So here you go, Mr. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua:

There lies a sick man stranded at the presidency. The damage he wrecked could only be accessed posthumously. Beneath his grave is the bile of our epilogue.

Mr. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the second president of Nigeria’s fourth republic, was tied to the presidential stake by the devil himself. (Yes, there is a devil. And his name is Olusegun Obasanjo).

Yar’Adua spared nobody of any pretension to leadership, so we should spare him no pretension to polite tribute.

Yar’Adua’s era had no poetry. His days had no imagination. If not for his sickness, he could as well have been an anonymous president. I can bet my last naira that no parent named their child Umaru or Musa or Yar’Adua as a consequence of his sojourn at the presidency.

Yar’Adua subverted whatever remained of the Nigerian spirit. He never had a cult. He never had a worshiper. He was an unfinished failure. He was a god that did not make it.

As the governor of Kastina state, Yar’Adua instituted the sharia law that sentenced Amina Lawal to death for adultery. She was to be stoned to death. Later an appeal court freed her. No appeal court could free Yar’Adua’s daughters from being auctioned to the highest bidder.

If Yar’Adua only stole the cup of invincibility from Nigeria, it would have been pardonable. But he dropped it into a latrine. The adventures of Yar’Adua would make for a bad children’s coloring book. His gargantuan body of achievement dwarfed those of the legendry turtle. Yar’Adua proved that if you change the clothes without changing the diaper, what stinks will continue to stink. He distinguished himself as an arch-Nigerian- ignoramus hanging on the wing of inaction.

He whetted no man’s appetite. He brought no smile on any citizen’s face. His posture was uninspiring. His program was invisible. He was too pathetic to be laughed at. Our eternal respect for him was in his complete lack of comic value. There was no distinction to be made between his government and the government of a dash.

Before Yar’Adua, the universally acclaimed mantra was that, “Nigeria is the only country in the world where the best is impossible and the worst never happens.” But after Yar’Adua, Nigeria became a country where the worst is impossible and the best never happens. In essence, Nigeria hit the bottom after Yar’Adua.

Before Yar’Adua, Nigeria was governed by two kinds of leaders. It was either “a fool surrounded by idiots or an idiot surrounded by fools.” It was Yar’Adua that first established a government led by a dead man surrounded by vultures. What comes after Yar’Adua will be a government of vultures surrounded by dead men.

I have often argued that the problem with Nigerian leaders was that they forget that they were mortals. Yar’Adua proved that men who are conscious of their mortality will not necessarily perform any better. While Yar’Adua daily knocked on the door of hell, his wife, Turai, was busy stuffing oil blocks inside her bra.

Yar’Adua will forever live in one mythology – his was the definitive proof of how not to be president. He performed so woefully that if Nigerians were people who valued excellence, they would staple a tail to his corpse. So that when he reincarnates and aspires to a leadership position, he will be promptly identified and quarantined.

Yar’Adua studied Analytical Chemistry at ABU but had no understanding of the law of Thermodynamics. On its own, heat cannot flow from an area of cold to an area of hot, says the second law. Yet, Yar’Adua’s Vision 2020 hoped to go from an area of cold to an area of hot on its own.

Faraday's Law states that “the weight of any element liberated during electrolysis is proportional to the quantity of electricity passing through the cell and also to the equivalent weight of the element.” What Yar’Adua did not grasp at school was that this law means that the moral authority of any politician following an election is proportional to the amount of fraud that took place during the electoral process and also to the moral state of the politician.

Yar’Adua was the last “Nigerian” president. Hundred years from now, when the history of that territory formerly called Nigeria is written, historians will note that it was Yar’Adua who finally brought an end to the farce. They will note that his physical ailment was a reminder to the people trapped in that dead and dirty pond that they, too, were sick. The predicament of Yar’Adua was the predicament of the Nigerian lot - an incapability to know when to quit.

If the tears of the downtrodden did not make him raise a finger against corruption, nothing else would. If the histrionics of the vultures around him did not make him question his reality, nothing else would. If an obituary like this did not make him rethink his legacy, nothing else would.

May his soul, and the soul of all those who die, unnecessarily, every day, in that occupied territory, rest in peace.

In lieu of dancing in the street, play squash in honor of the dead president. In lieu of flowers, send assault weapons to his gun-loving son.

(culled from www.saharareporters.com, Wednesday, 02 December 2009)

Restructuring the (Nigerian) Federation (2)

2010-01-16T23:24:00.000Z

Written by Edwin Madunagu

IN the first part of this piece, I posed four related questions: One: What type of federation is currently being operated in Nigeria? Two: What type of federation is prescribed by the 1999 Constitution? Three: What type of federation is desirable in Nigeria? Four: What social-political forces currently exist, or can be created, to fight for the realisation of a desirable federal system? Having looked at aspects of the first two questions we may now turn to the last two.

In lieu of preface, let us briefly review relevant experiences in five countries - three of which no longer exist: the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Somalia and Rwanda. In 1922, the Soviet Union was constituted as a Union of 15 constituent republics. The Constitution granted each republic the right to self-determination up to, and including, the right to secede from the Union. The ruling Bolshevik Party was serious about the secession clause and, to demonstrate this, the Union was constituted in such a way that each Union republic shared borders with at least one foreign country. This made secession, if decided upon, practicable. A "land-locked" republic, completely surrounded by some other Union republics, would find it impossible to secede. The same principle and practical approach informed the constitution of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

The first two of these three countries - the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia - disintegrated peacefully in the early 1990s partly because none of their constituent, or federating, republics was "land-locked'. Yugoslavia, with six constituent republics, could have gone the same way but for a factor which we in Nigeria must ponder seriously: Serb nationalists within and outside Serbia - the largest constituent republic - did not want the break-up of the country. But when disintegration became inevitable, Serb nationalists responded with two alternative strategies: to create a Greater Serbia by incorporating, into Serbia, ethnic Serbs outside Serbia, or to create independent Serb enclaves in constituent republics dominated by non-Serbs. We know the result.

Somalia has no "ethnic problem" as such. Beyond that the country is a Muslim majority nation. What happened in 1991 was that an attempted coup d'etat led to a break-up of the country into armed clans that descended into parallel civil wars and anarchy. Somalia has had no central government since then. And the country is today a model of "failed state". The tragedy of ethnic-divided Rwanda is still fresh in our collective memory: An armed struggle to remove a government in 1994 led to the assassination of a president and triggered the slaughter of almost a million people. Nigeria has profound lessons to learn from the experiences of these five countries - that is, if the lessons of our (1967-1970) Civil War are not sufficient.

Now to Nigeria. I subscribe to a geopolitical restructuring of the country as an immediate task. As basis for this particular discussion we may turn to the Draft Constitution proposed in August 2006 by Peoples' National Conference (PNC). In place of the present 36-state structure, the draft Constitution proposed a federation of 18 ethnically-based regions. Twelve of the regions are mono-ethnic and six are multi-ethnic. A map of Nigeria's ethnic nationalities sharing the 18 regions is shown on the cover of the document.

The proposed mono-ethnic nationality regions, each of which is proposed as a federation, are, in alphabetical order: Ibibio, Ijaw, Igbo, Urhobo, Edo, Yoruba, Tiv, Nupe, Fulah, Gbagyi, Kanuri, and Hausa. The six multi-ethnic nationality regions, each of which is also proposed as a federation, are: South East, East Delta, West Delta, West Middle Belt, Central Middle Belt, and East Middle Belt. According to the draft Constitution under review, the federating entities in the Federal Republic of Nigeria will be the regions. State creation will be the responsibility of the regions and the states will be responsible for the creation of local government areas.

My first observation here is that the People's National Conference actually took pains to list Nigeria's ethnic nationalities in the Draft Constitution. This should be commended. This level of thoroughness and seriousness has set a standard for what has to be done to produce a new Constitution for Nigeria. It also reminds me of what Chief Tayo Akpata said recently in an interview, namely, that the task of reviewing or re-writing the Constitution is too serious to be left entirely in the hands of the National Assembly. Chief Akpata, the Ima of Benin, is a veteran progressive politician and administrator and - before then - an activist nationalist. Yes, a new Constitution which is as inevitable as it is desirable - if the country must survive and remain one - cannot be, and must not be, the exclusive task of the National Assembly.

The second observation is that going by the proposed restructuring based on the Ethnic Nationalities Map of Nigeria on the cover and last page of the document before me, some of the 18 proposed federating regions are actually "land-locked" in the sense the term has been used in this piece. The "land-locked" regions, as I can see, include: Edo, Igbo, Central Middle-Belt, Nupe and Gbagyi. Maybe there are more; but that is what I can see. The point is that the Draft Constitution includes the secession clause - which I endorse completely. But it does not provide for the practicability of secession by ensuring that no federating region is "land-locked". To this I object - also completely.

The third observation strengthens the main fear I have concerning restructuring along ethnic nationality lines, or rather, along strictly ethnic nationality lines. Drawing the boundaries in some areas will be almost impossible through conferences - whether national or not, whether sovereign or not. It can be done only through war or other forms of armed imposition. Let me say here - with all responsibility and humility - that I was one of the first to propose the (regional) restructuring of Nigeria and I was also one of the first to introduce the term Sovereign National Conference (SNC). This was as early as 1992. But I knew, and still know, the limits of conferences in dealing with the question of power - especially when rapacious, selfish, oppressive, anti-people, capitalist-oriented and utterly unpatriotic classes and blocs, as in Nigeria, are in power.

We may summarise the three points so far made: the listing of ethnic nationalities is a commendable undertaking; some proposed regions are "land-locked", and this is problematic, to say the least; and there are limits to what conferences can achieve in drawing up boundaries between ethnic nationalities in Nigeria. But having said this, I have to re-state my belief that Nigeria has to be restructured and reconstituted, through appropriate constitutional arrangements, along lines that eliminate ethnic domination, enhance self-determination at the grassroots, promote popular political participation, radically raise the quality of life across the whole country and radically reduce regional disparities. This is a big agenda.

Adopting current political language, I support resource control, fiscal federalism and true federalism. In particular, I see no difference between Regions collecting revenues and paying taxes or making contributions to the Federal Government and Federal Government collecting revenues and sharing with the Regions. All provided, of course, that the principles are clear and just and, more importantly, provided, that popular-democratic and pan-Nigerian forces are in power.

Yes. The social forces that can fight for a just and democratic restructuring must be popular-democratic (and in the present historical context, also radical and revolutionary) and pan-Nigerian. Any social forces that already believe that Nigeria must either break up or be restructured strictly along ethnic nationality lines cannot fight for the type of restructuring that I believe is desirable and realisable. I am not afraid of disintegration. I am only afraid of the inevitable bloody process - given the history and experiences of Nigeria and the level of national integration. Why should one be afraid? If the ruling classes and blocks continue to behave as if Nigeria is their property and Nigerians are their slaves - to exploit as they wish - and if popular-democratic and pan-Nigerian forces cannot remove them from power, then a fate worse than disintegration will befall us.

We now come to the question of governmental structure at the centre. I shall be sketchy and will draw from the interview, earlier mentioned, that was recently granted by Chief Tayo Akpata to The Guardian and published in the paper's edition of Sunday, July 5, 2009. Modifying Chief Akpata's suggestion, we may proposed two possible systems - each of which is a mixture of presidential and parliamentary systems of government. In the first system, a newly elected National Assembly meets to elect members of the Presidential Council - one member for each federating region. The Council is chaired, in rotation, by its members.

The Collective and Rotational Presidency described above may either be an executive one or share executive power with a cabinet headed by a Prime Minister. Each alternative produces a different system. Finally, for any new system, the measure of its desirability, in the final analysis, is the degree to which the working and toiling people, together with all other oppressed segments of the population, including women, liberate themselves and assume control of their lives and the means of reproducing their lives and, by so doing, liberate the society as a whole. In other words, without a promise of popular liberation neither the present Nigeria nor a restructured one is desirable.

* Concluded.

(culled from www.nigerialog.com)

A CALL TO ACTION

2010-01-15T22:42:00.002Z

ATTN: ALL NIGERIAN CITIZENS RESIDENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND.

NISRRA wishes to invite all progressive minded and action conscious Nigerian citizens at home and in diaspora to ORReN, a citizens' International Action Forum on Nigeria.

Theme: Rescuing and Reworking the Nigerian State.

Date: Friday 29 and Saturday 30 January, 2010.

Venue: Conference Center, D12, Dublin, Ireland.

STRICTLY BY INVITATION

You are invited to send in by email, interest notifications containing VERIFIABLE CONTACT ADDRESS/TELEPHONE NUMBER AND OCCUPATIONAL/PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION REFERENCES, to: transnigee@yahoo.com

All interest notifications must be received on or before Saturday, January 16, 2010, for invitation ID to be extended to such interested participants.

Sponsored by NISRRA.

More Sponsorships, Welcomed. Please email your interest to: transnigee@yahoo.com

Restructuring the (Nigerian) Federation (1)

2010-01-14T21:49:00.000Z

Written by Edwin Madunagu

FRONTLINE nationalist and elder statesman, Chief Anthony Enahoro, was recently reported to have said that those of them who fought for Nigeria’s independence devoted more energy and time to the struggle to expel British colonial power than the time and energy they expended in laying the foundations for a democratic and just independent Nigerian nation. He was speaking to some reporters in July 2009 on the 86th anniversary of his birth. I salute this living legend for his humility and modesty. Were I present at the press briefing I would have made some exceptions – which would have included him. But Enahoro did not make any exceptions and this made his statement more profound.

Chief Enahoro was referring, in particular, to the enduring ethnic nationality question and the present geopolitical structure of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. For more than two decades he has been campaigning, on several platforms and in combination with various people and groups, for a fundamental geopolitical restructuring of the country. Briefly stated, according to my own understanding, Enahoro has been campaigning for the restructuring of the federation along ethnic nationality lines where the federating entities will enjoy more powers and exercise more responsibilities and control of their affairs than the existing states-relative, of course, to the Federal Government.

It is also my understanding that the restructured Federal Republic of Nigeria will operate within the framework of liberal democracy, expanded human rights, and what some Nigerian feminists would call “empowered womanhood”.

The present piece is inspired by the formulation given above. The following simple questions may be posed: What type of federation is currently being run in Nigeria? What type of federation does the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria prescribe? What type of federation is desirable for Nigeria? What socio-political forces currently exist in Nigeria, or can be created, to fight for the desirable federal structure? The last question is of critical importance because for a political programme to be taken seriously it has to prescribe, identify or propose the social forces that can fight for it. Even if we are drafting a programme for future generations, and not as an immediate political task, intellectual responsibility demands that we envisage some historical agencies. We all know that these agencies cannot be constructed arbitrarily, but must be linked to the nature of the programme and the (political) history of the country.

The first question, namely, what type of federation we are currently operating in Nigeria, is the easiest to answer. The simple answer is that no one knows. In particular, no one knows the entities that are “federating”. Is it the states that are federating or the states and local government areas? Do you still call Nigeria a federation – even with this uncertainty? The classical federal principle recognises two levels of government: The Federal Government and federating Regional Governments. K.C. Wheare, in his classic, Federal Government, put the relationship between the two levels of government like this: “What is necessary for the federal principle is not merely that the Federal Government, like the Regional Government, should operate directly upon the people, but, further, that each government should be limited to its own sphere and, within that sphere, should be independent of the other”.

The federal principle has, of course, developed in time and in space beyond what K.C. Wheare and other classical writers formulated and prescribed. But, the two levels of government should “operate directly upon the people”. If not, what we have is a confederation and not a federation. This has to be borne in mind by many of our compatriots who formulate the question of restructuring in a way that suggests that the Federal Government should “hands off” almost everything. Secondly, for each level of government, there should be clearly defined powers and responsibilities, and clearly defined “spheres” where these powers and responsibilities may be exercised without interference from the other level. If not, what we have is not federation, but unitarism, or anarchy, or “Somalia”, or something worse.

Now, what type of federation does the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria prescribe? The most charitable answer is that it is unclear. We may illustrate my response with what the Constitution says about the local government system. Section 7(1) stipulates: “The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the government of every states shall, subject to Section 8 of this Constitution, ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils”.

We shall return to this statement, but let us briefly look at what Section 8 says. The relevant subsections empower a State Government to create new local government areas, and adjust boundaries between existing ones, within the area it governs. But the subsections also prescribe the conditions to be met and steps to be taken before this can be done. This is clear enough. But since the local government areas currently existing in the country together with their headquarters, are listed in the Constitution, the process of creating new local government areas cannot be completed until some parts of the Constitution are amended. This is again clear enough and the Supreme Court had said so. However, since the power to amend the Constitution is vested in the National Assembly, the final picture is that new local government areas cannot come into existence until the National Assembly performs its own part of the task, namely, amending the relevant parts of the Constitution.

Now, what happens if the National Assembly, for some reasons or for no reasons at all, refuses to amend, or “unduly” delays the amendments of, the Constitution as required? The logical answer is that the State government concerned either drops the matter, that is, forgets the creation of new local government areas, or goes to the Supreme Court to request it to force the National Assembly to do its work. On the other hand, what happens if a State Government, having completed its own part of the process of creating new local government areas, goes ahead, without waiting for the national Assembly, to conduct council elections, inaugurate the new councils and put them to work?

The logical answer is that the State Government can be dragged before the Supreme Court. But by whom? The National Assembly? The President? Any Nigerian citizen? Should the matter be “forced” by the Federal Government? Definitely No. Does there not emanate the need for a particular “watchdog” of the Constitution empowered to receive complaints of violation of the Constitution from governments, institutions and citizens and bring same to the Supreme Court – if convinced that a case has been made? I think this system exists in Turkey. It is not a dormant law, but a constitutional provision that is vigorously enforced.

We may go back to Section 7(1) of the Constitution. I know that in Natural Sciences and in Mathematics, in particular, authors try to ensure that there are no ambiguities in the formulation of rules. It is not sufficient to argue that “common sense” will assist us to attach correct contextual meanings and implications to phrases and words. We should be explicit where doing so costs little or nothing in space consumption. When, for instance, subsection 7(1) says that: the Government of every state shall ensure the existence of local government councils under a Law which provides for… “common sense” may indicate that it is the state that is empowered to make the Law. But there is nothing in the formulation of that subsection that compels that interpretation.

A local government council within a state is empowered by Section 7(1) to participate in economic planning and development in its area of authority and, for this purpose, the subsection prescribes the establishment of an economic planning board by a Law enacted by the State House of Assembly. But it is not states explicitly that local government councils will be represented in the “economic planning board”. But should they not?

Finally Section 7(1) states that: “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the National Assembly shall make provisions for statutory allocation of public revenue to local government councils in the Federation; and the House of Assembly of a state shall make provisions for statutory allocation of public revenue to local government councils within the state”. A simple but critical question is whether the money flowing from the centre to local government councils should pass through the State Governments or go straight, undiminished, to the local government councils. The answer is again left to “common sense”.

The Fourth Schedule to the Constitution lists the “main functions” of a local government council. In others, the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria stipulates the minimum functions to be performed by local government councils. The list is really long, and includes “participation in the Government of a State” in some critical areas of people’s needs. The question is whether the councils have the material and human resources capacity to perform even the “minimum” functions. My answer is No.

The conclusion here is that the type of federation we are currently operating in not clear, and the Constitution does not make the situation any clearer.

(culled from www.nigerialog.com)

REWORKING THE NIGERIAN STATE (1)

2010-01-12T23:45:00.000Z

Written by Ugochukwu Ogbonnaya

Nigerians are expected to be patriotic and to work hard or even give their lives in efforts towards preserving the entity presently known as Nigeria. But I want to shock you with this statement: Nigeria, as we presently know it and has known it since 1914, is not worth preserving. Similarly, Nigeria is not worth any self sacrifice by anybody who is truly African, in any effort whatsoever towards its preservation.

The country, Nigeria, is presently steeply immersed in a whole lot of dreadful morass and quagmire, politically, economically, socially, culturally, name them. To the rest of the world and to the majority of her citizens, Nigeria has been and regrettably continues to be a huge failure in progress. And this failure is almost reaching a state of perfection or absoluteness. The most updated diagnosis of this country's ailments will show that at worst, Nigeria is now what even prominent Nigerians have identified as a failed state, while at best it is a perfect, societal example of the word, stagnation. The reasons are not far fetched.

So why is Nigeria failing? It is because in this society, there is a now deeply entrenched and hallowed culture that prescribes that problems are never meant to be solved but only to be indulged and got rotten in. And the people of this country for decades have followed this prescription with a most amazing and intense religious fervour. Nigeria's greatest problem is this believe by Nigerian citizens or particularly the few citizen elements in Nigeria who currently have a near monopolistic access to power within this 'somewhat' sovereign polity, or rather the pretence by these elements to believe that a state carved out, established and forcibly being sustained by an entirely non-African and a complete colonial and later imperial vested interests, can and need to and must be preserved by the people presently seen as Nigerians. Subscription to this misplaced believe culture in Nigeria goes, of course, all around but with very few and yet significant exception.

Nigeria, as everybody knows, is a British creation. One man called Frederick Lugard did it for his country Britain while working for their colonial interest over the territory that presently constitute Nigeria. His girlfriend and later wife, coined the name Nigeria, as we are told, and the colonial power wasted no time afterward to slap the name upon all the peoples found within this marked out territory of Nigeria located along the eastern edge of what is now known as West Africa. And almost a century later, we the indigenes found within this territory which is now an independent and sovereign political state, are being expected by the territory's contemporary rulers and local overlords (who remains more or less the colonial and imperial representatives in this former British colonial territory) to be proud of and proudly wear around this garb beautifully made for us by the Briton called Frederick Luggard and his girlfriend Flora Shaw; and if and when called upon, to sacrifice our lives as “patriotic” Nigerians towards preserving this 'sacred' creation by Britain.

Of course we don't see this as a problem at all in Nigeria presently. That is why in an era when the consequences of centuries of wicked exploitations by the old colonial powers of Europe, as well as the consequences of the post colonial and ongoing exploitations by the modern and advancing imperialistic powers of North America, Western Europe and Asia, are all being laid bare globally for judgement as they are telling heavily on the exploited continents and countries of Africa and of the rest Third World; and in a time when the souls and spirits of the peoples of these exploited continents are crying and yearning and demanding for justice and liberation, we in Nigeria are still being deeply immersed in an indoctrination to be proudly Nigerian and be patriotic enough to give our lives and all to defend and preserve Nigeria just as the British created it. Good people, great nation with the status quo intact. Incredible! But here is exactly where the Nigerian morass and quagmire of the moment actively lies.

Name some of the key Nigerian ailments of the moment about which the majority of this country's citizens are lamenting to high heavens, albeit passively, and see if you can't trace their roots to the greatest folly ever in the world that is presently going on in Nigeria in the name of running a country along a more or less colonial status quo and trying hard to make Nigerians believe it is all working out well or going to be fine despite the glaring outcome that says otherwise. Inter-ethnic strives; religious fanaticism; self enthroned and self perpetuating, greedy, and devourer ruling cabal; governmental corruption and fraud; dearth of values and norms in the society; continuous erosion of indigenous culture, traditions, and customs of the people; social, economic and political stuntness and retrogression; infrastructural precipice; and perpetual vulnerability to imperialistic vultures of the world; etc. These are phrases that best describes Nigeria of today. And they all have direct roots in the kind of country structure that Nigeria inherited from its colonial foundation and has since inception strives to maintain with an bewildering manic intensity folly never seen before in history.

A CALL TO ACTION

2010-01-11T23:20:00.000Z

ATTN: ALL NIGERIAN CITIZENS RESIDENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND.

NISRRA wishes to invite all progressive minded and action conscious Nigerian citizens at home and in diaspora to ORReN, a citizens' International Action Forum on Nigeria.

Theme: Rescuing and Reworking the Nigerian State.

Date: Friday 29 and Saturday 30 January, 2010.

Venue: Conference Center, D12, Dublin, Ireland.

STRICTLY BY INVITATION

You are invited to send in by email, interest notifications containing VERIFIABLE CONTACT ADDRESS/TELEPHONE NUMBER AND OCCUPATIONAL/PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION REFERENCES, to: transnigee@yahoo.com

All interest notifications must be received on or before Saturday, January 16, 2010, for invitation ID to be extended to such interested participants.

Sponsored by NISRRA.

More Sponsorships, Welcomed. Please email your interest to: transnigee@yahoo.com

Nigeria's President Yar'Adua is MIA!

2010-01-10T11:11:00.004Z

Nigeria's President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is Missing In Action. He was last seen on the 23rd of November, 2009. America has finally got the message. But in a sarcastic manner. How sad. Nigeria is now an object of pun and ridicule in the American media. Should we blame them?

The Nigeria State Rework and Revolutionary Alliance (NISRRA) as a group, and as it is with other well meaning Nigerian groups and individuals, have been very concerned about the unknown whereabout of a serving President of our country. All we know was that the president took ill around that time of November 23, 2009, and has been very ill even before his coming to office as the President and Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria, through a very controversial election which bogged down his government with the issues of illegitimacy and immense ineptitude.

Following his disappearance, there have been massive calls, both in Nigeria and from international quarters for his resignation or outright removal from office by the National Assembly of Nigeria, a call that NISRRA fully supports.

However as a visionary and revolutionary group, our interest is beyond Mr Yar'Adua's resignation or removal from office as Nigeria's President. Rather, ours is composed of a vision to urgently recreate a viable sovereign state out of the present British colonial mis-creation called Nigeria. We are poised to launch the creation a new and truly African envisioned and willed sovereign nation state where people like Goodluck Jonathan, the current Vice President of Nigeria, other members of the current government of Mr Yar'Adua, and most members of the present National Assembly of Nigeria will be unfit to be even amongst the least public servants of the new Nation State.

(Written By NISRRA)

Have Turai Yar'Adua, Yakubu Tanimu-Kurfi, Michael Aondoakaa and other members of the Over-Failed Yar'Adua Government the right to deceive Nigerians?

2010-01-09T17:00:00.002Z

Written by Ugochukwu Ogbonnaya

We know exactly what is going on in Nigeria today. It is a situation where few individuals, who in any case ranks amongst the lowest of the “dumbest” and most daft people in Nigeria, now thinks they can outsmart the rest of Nigerians - a population of over 140million according to the Nigerian government's official figure on the country's population. These “dumbees” are not just thinking but are doing everything within their really large muscles to prove themselves capable of fooling the rest of us that are foolish enough to go around with this tag of being Nigerian. And I'm afraid, they are really doing a good job. They are winning, and we are becoming more foolish and stupid by the day as a result.

But have these people the right to do what they are doing, making a mess of an entire country, of a whole nation state, of an internationally recognized sovereign? It is unbelievable what we, the various peoples and ethnic nationalities that constitutes this political entity presently called Nigeria, can really put up with.

No! In my own opinion, the likes of Mrs Yar'Adua, Tanimu-Kurfi, Aondoakaa, and other members of the failed President Yar'Adua's kitchen cabinet have no right whatsoever to take an entire country and its peoples on a dummies ride. These individuals for even thinking of - not to talk of acting out - the course of action they are on at the moment, deserves to be slammed with the highest charge of treasonable felony ever known in history.

But looking at the whole issue closely, who actually handed over the power to these individuals to do to Nigeria what they are doing at the moment? To answer this question, let's go to Honduras, a small country which it's people recently proved more intelligent than Nigerians and that such rubbish going on in Nigeria today can never happen in their country.

According to a report dated July 7, 2009 by the news website, www.telegraph.co.uk, in June 28, 2009, the Honduran vainglorious President Manuel Zeleya was “bundled out of bed at gunpoint by his own soldiers, and sent into exile, following a bitter dispute with the country's establishment over his controversial push for Venezuelan-style constitutional reform. But that his administration had taken a radical turn in the first place was something of a surprise. After being elected by a slim margin in 2005, as the candidate of the centrist Liberal party, the moustachioed six-footer with slicked-back hair made headlines for his flamboyance... Admittedly, he courted controversy by singing along with troubadours, lionising drug traffickers, and calling for such narcotics to be legalised as a way of controlling the drugs trade. But what really alarmed conservatives was his dramatic move Leftwards, into the orbit of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president who uses his country's oil wealth to fund a regional bloc of protégés.

Mr Zelaya had initially persuaded many Hondurans, even members of the business community, that he was merely signing up for the economic aid and subsidised fuel that Mr Chavez lavishes on friendly states. But over the past two years it became increasingly clear that Mr Zelaya had bought into the political package, too. Earlier this year, during a pilgrimage to Havana, he was pictured listening reverentially to Fidel Castro. It was an image that sent shivers down the spine of many Hondurans. At home, Mr Zelaya boosted the minimum wage by 60 per cent, a populist move that forced thousands of small businesses to lay off workers; picked fights with the country's top entrepreneurs, while fending off persistent accusations of crony capitalism; and was constantly at loggerheads with the media magnates. As a result of this increasingly confrontational and unpredictable behaviour, there were widespread fears over his proposed constitutional reforms. Mr Zelaya's plans, which would enhance the president's power and remove the term limits on his tenure, seemed to be modelled on those adopted by other Chavez allies, and he was pressing ahead with the vote despite it being ruled illegal by the courts. It was, for his enemies, the last straw.”

The simple observation here is that if a small country like Honduras can be so intolerant to nonsense to the extent that they rose to bundle their serving President out of office because of the President's insistence on pushing forward with a controversial constitutional reform in addition to other previous excesses of his, what is wrong with Nigeria and Nigerians where an obviously arrant nonsense is going on, a kind of nonsense that will be very difficult for a people like Hondurans to even comprehend.

Here is a country where it's very clear that the president is “dead” and the immediate family and close associates of the dead man have vowed to keep the information away from the rest of the country in a very criminal bid to hold the entire country hostage and bring it to a wicked halt in the fashion of a dog in a manger. And yet there are people who are in the position and have all the required resources and power to do the right things, to rein in these criminals and bring them to justice while causing the country to continue again in the vital forward motion. But these individuals have refused to do anything.

When ex President Manuel Zeleya was given the booth by his no nonsense countrymen, he was subsequently replaced by Roberto Micheletti who was serving as the chairman of the Honduran parliament, or the Tegucigalpa congress, before the removal of Zeleya. Micheletti was no doubt amongst the arrowheads and Honduras elites who championed the riddance of the bad rubbish called Zeleya from the body politic of Honduras at that mattering moment. He was a political leader who was courageous enough to use his position well to the service of his country which he believes so much in. The most interesting thing about the Honduras case is that both Manuel Zeleya and Roberto Micheletti are from the same Liberal Party of Honduras.

According to the report by the Telegraph website, Mrs Zeleya went into hiding following the deposition of her husband as President of Honduras. And this is exactly where Turai Yar'Adua should be now – in shameful hiding – if we the so foolish Nigerians hadn't given her the power to be doing what she is doing at the moment: attempting to run, on behalf of some dead men, a country which her “dead” husband was incapable and has failed woefully to run.

A CALL TO ACTION

2010-01-08T17:07:00.002Z

ATTN: ALL NIGERIAN CITIZENS RESIDENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND.

NISRRA wishes to invite all progressive minded and action conscious Nigerian citizens at home and in diaspora to ORReN, a citizens' International Action Forum on Nigeria.

Theme: Rescuing and Reworking the Nigerian State.

Date: Friday 29 and Saturday 30 January, 2010.

Venue: Conference Center, D12, Dublin, Ireland.

STRICTLY BY INVITATION

You are invited to send in by email, interest notifications containing VERIFIABLE CONTACT ADDRESS/TELEPHONE NUMBER AND OCCUPATIONAL/PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION REFERENCES, to: transnigee@yahoo.com

All interest notifications must be received on or before Saturday, January 16, 2010, for invitation ID to be extended to such interested participants.

Sponsored by NISRRA.

More Sponsorships, Welcomed. Please email your interest to: transnigee@yahoo.com

Nigeria: The Arrival of the GRAND SCAM.

2010-01-07T03:48:00.006Z

Make no mistake. I'm not talking about the Grand Slam or the Grand Prix! I'm talking about notorious crime of fraud and SCAM, and the country that can now be most certainly pointed at as the Land of the World Greatest Champions in Scam acts.

Nigeria's notoriety as a haven of scammers, as least in the eyes of the West, has never been in doubt. But what the West has never known all this while is that the Champion of Champions in Nigerian Scam talent and expertise, are yet to arrive. But one can now tell the world right away and very categorically and without any fear of contradiction that the World-class Scam Champions that Nigeria has ever produced have finally arrived. Unfortunately, they didn't arrive as private citizens that worked so hard all by themselves and by their sheer talent to rise to the very top. Rather they coasted to the top and are recklessly and vehemently plying their trade through the vehicle of the Government of a Sovereign Nation State presently called Nigeria.

Who then are these just unveiled Nigerian, world class SCAM Champion of Champions? They are the immediate family and close associates of Nigeria's current but very sick President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua whose location is presently unknown to the general majority of the population of the country which he, the President Yar'Adua, and his family and cronies claim to be serving.

In Nigeria, Scam or Fraud of whatever kind, has a better name. It is called 419! The name was taken from a similarly titled section in the Constitution of the Republic of Nigeria where punishments are prescribed for the crime of scam or fraud perpetuated by any individual or group against another. But ironically, rather than scare people from the horrible crime of scam and fraud, the section and it's titular became, especially for those Nigerians with much dubious access to the government, a fashion code that must be subscribed to, albeit in the opposite sense, with all ferocity imaginable. Over the years the Nigerian government officials have only been successful in most hypocritically bringing to book private citizens engaged in the 419 crime, a very marginal success indeed because the 419 culture is so much embraced by these government officials themselves. But this so religiously made subscription to this culture by the government officials has somewhat been wrapped well under pretence in something that the Nigerian public do very well know as an open secret. However, this has just changed.

Recently, the Nigerian government, because of the extreme greed of Yar'Adua's family and his close cronies, became finally stripped of all its pretences and self-deceitful open secrecy veil; and its true image as an ultimate 419 machine has finally been laid bare before the entire world. No. Before now, the Nigerian government has never been the ultimate 419 machine. It has only been a 419 machine. But this “Ultimate” dimension was just added by Mrs. Yar'Adua, her children and in-laws and the cronies and very crooked friends and government cabinet members of the dying President, including one Michael Aondoakaa, who parades himself currently as Nigeria's Minister of Justice. You can call them the “Yar'Adua Ultimate Scam Team.” And this team members, whose population is not even up to one hundred in number, are winning against an entire population of a sovereign country numbering more than 150million. A grand shame!

(Written by NISRRA)

A CALL TO ACTION

2010-01-05T01:01:00.004Z

ATTN: ALL NIGERIAN CITIZENS RESIDENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND.

NISRRA wishes to invite all progressive minded and action conscious Nigerian citizens at home and in diaspora to ORReN, a citizens' International Action Forum on Nigeria.

Theme: Rescuing and Reworking the Nigerian State.

Date: Friday 29 and Saturday 30 January, 2010.

Venue: Conference Center, D12, Dublin, Ireland.

STRICTLY BY INVITATION

You are invited to send in by email, interest notifications containing VERIFIABLE CONTACT ADDRESS/TELEPHONE NUMBER AND OCCUPATIONAL/PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION REFERENCES, to: transnigee@yahoo.com

All interest notifications must be received on or before Saturday, January 16, 2010, for invitation ID to be extended to such interested participants.

Sponsored by NISRRA.

More Sponsorships, Welcomed. Please email your interest to: transnigee@yahoo.com

NISRRA Series on Nigeria's Culture of Religious Stupidity and Fraud. Nos.1

2010-01-04T02:38:00.003Z

New Year Prophesies And Promises

Written By Casmir Igbokwe.

It's the time of the year again when we make predictions, promises and projections. As has become my tradition every New Year, I will take a cursory look at some of these prophesies and leave you to draw your conclusions.

First, let‘s examine the predictions of the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye. At the church‘s cross-over night service at the Redemption Camp for the New Year, Adeboye reportedly urged Nigerians to pray fervently against suspension of the constitution this year. He also solicited intensive prayers against backward sliding for the country in 2010.

The RCCG GO urged Christians to pray against outbreak of diseases and natural disasters in the world. Last year, he similarly predicted that floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes would come globally. But only concentrated prayers, he said, would reduce their frequency and intensity.
On the positive side, however, he enthused that some people would experience miraculous deliverances, unexpected promotions and open doors this year. I‘m sure some are claiming these goodies already.

Last year, the President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, also prophesied that the year 2009 would be very fruitful. He had said, ”Number nine signifies fruitfulness. A good Bible student would discover that God does a lot with numbers. The number nine is the number of fruitfulness. For example, we have nine gifts and fruits of the spirit. A woman carries pregnancy for nine months; so, that number in the calendar and programme of God speaks of fruitfulness.”

Fellow Nigerians, we all are witnesses to the lot of the majority of our people last year. Some fell into the traps of kidnappers and armed robbers. Economic meltdown melted the spirit of many who invested in the capital market. Some banks‘ phoney buoyancy crumbled. Thousands of workers became jobless as their companies laid them off. Millions of others died of preventable diseases. Hunger and other deprivations took hold of many citizens. About 70 per cent of Nigerians are classified as being poor. Are these the look and feel of fruitfulness?

Keep your answer to yourself first. To the General Overseer of Inri Evangelical Spiritual Church, Lagos, not all the senators and House of Representatives members would finish their term in 2009. According to Primate Babatunde Ayodele, there would be a coup against the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2009. Five speakers of state Houses of Assembly, some state governors and three secretaries to state governments would be removed last year. How many of these things happened?

Early last year, President Umaru Yar‘Adua promised that with the systematic planning process his administration had put in place, ”we will forge ahead with our agenda for rapid improvements in critical areas with greater vigour and total dedication…” Which critical areas received these rapid improvements in 2009? Health? Education? Roads? Power sector? Even the 6,000MW the Federal Government promised to deliver to Nigerians by December 2009 failed woefully.

This year, the Vice-President, on behalf of the ailing President, has come with more promises. ”As we enter the New Year,” he said, ”spirited efforts and resources will be mobilised to address the challenge of power supply and ensure higher generation as well as more effective transmission and distribution.”
He also promised far reaching measures to curb rising youth unemployment, improve infrastructure, reform electoral process, protect lives and property and stem the pain and stress Nigerians suffer at fuel queues.
Just as the VP was promising to reduce unemployment, more employees of some banks are being relieved of their jobs. Media reports indicated that Finbank Plc sacked about 700 workers on New Year‘s Eve. A total of 4,000 workers have reportedly lost their jobs since the Central Bank started reforms in the banking sector. Another report noted that the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria planned to lay off over 1,000 workers in the first weeks of 2010.

As if to put a lie to the promised protection of lives and property, a police corporal, Ismaila Mohammed, allegedly killed a 25-year-old accountancy student of Osun State Polytechnic, Adewunmi Adelowo, on New Year‘s Eve. The student was reportedly riding his motorbike to Osogbo to collect a gift from somebody when the policeman allegedly shot him at a checkpoint.
To be fair to the police, they tried this festive season to maintain law and order. I drove down to the East last Sunday and was impressed by the large number of policemen on the road. This apparently scared away robbers, who usually waylay travellers on the road. The only snag was that at each checkpoint, the police asked me to ”do New Year for us.”

Since we are a prayerful nation, one of our prayer points this year should be to have a police force that is well taken care of such that it will protect citizens without asking for anything.
Other prayer points are as follows:
* To have an end to all manner of fuel crisis in the country
* To end Boko Haram, Bauchi Haram and all other religious harams harassing our lives in Nigeria
* To have a free and fair elections in Anambra State in February and in Nigeria generally in 2011
* To have a strike-free academic sessions and a crisis-free health system this year
* To have improved infrastructure
* Above all, to have the wisdom to be able to decipher truth from falsehood, and to take most of the prophecies and promises of the New Year with a pinch of salt.
( From the Sunday Punch, Jan. 3, 2010. www.punchng.com)

A CALL TO ACTION

2010-01-03T11:36:00.003Z

ATTN: ALL NIGERIAN CITIZENS RESIDENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND.

NISRRA wishes to invite all progressive minded and action conscious Nigerian citizens at home and in diaspora to ORReN, a citizens' International Action Forum on Nigeria.

Theme: Rescuing and Reworking the Nigerian State.

Date: Friday 29 and Saturday 30 January, 2010.

Venue: Conference Center, D12, Dublin, Ireland.

STRICTLY BY INVITATION

You are invited to send in by email, interest notifications containing VERIFIABLE CONTACT ADDRESS/TELEPHONE NUMBER AND OCCUPATIONAL/PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION REFERENCES, to: transnigee@yahoo.com

All interest notifications must be received on or before Saturday, January 16, 2010, for invitation ID to be extended to such interested participants.

Sponsored by NISRRA.

More Sponsorships, Welcomed. Email your interest to: transnigee@yahoo.com