PICTURES FROM JUSTICE CHUKWUDIFU OPUTA'S BURIAL

NEW WAVE OF AFRICAN WRITERS WITH AN INTERNATIONAL BENT

-The New York Times Takes A Look At The Growing Popularity Of African Writing 

More than a decade ago, when the young Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was struggling to get her first novel, “Purple Hibiscus,” published, an agent told her that things would be easier “if only you were Indian,” because Indian writers were in vogue. Another suggested changing the setting from Nigeria to America. Ms. Adichie didn’t take this as commentary on her work, she said, but on the timidity of the publishing world when it came to unknown writers and unfamiliar cultures, especially African ones.

These days she wouldn’t receive that kind of advice. Black literary writers with African roots (though some grew up elsewhere), mostly young cosmopolitans who write in English, are making a splash in the book world, especially in the United States. They are on best-seller lists, garner high profile reviews and win major awards, in America and in Britain. Ms. Adichie, 36, the author of “Americanah,” which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction this year, is a prominent member of an expanding group that includes Dinaw Mengestu, Helen Oyeyemi, NoViolet Bulawayo, Teju Cole, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor and Taiye Selasi, among others.

There are reasons for the critical mass now, say writers, publishers and literature scholars. After years of political and social turmoil, positive changes in several African nations are helping to greatly expand the number of writers and readers. Newer awards like the Caine Prize for African Writing have helped, too, as have social media, the Internet and top M.F.A. programs. At the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, black writers with recent African roots will make up more than 10 percent of the fiction students come September. Moreover, the number of African immigrants in the United States has more than quadrupled in the past two decades, to almost 1.7 million.

And publishing follows trends: Women, Asian-American, Indian and Latino writers have all been “discovered” and had their moment in the sun — as have African-Americans, some of whom envy the attention given to writers with more recent links in Africa.

“People used to ask where the African writers were,” said Aminatta Forna, author of “The Hired Man” (2013, set in Croatia). “They were cleaning offices and working as clerks.”

Some writers and critics scoff at the idea of lumping together diverse writers with ties to a diverse continent. But others say that this wave represents something new in its sheer size, after a long fallow period. (There were some remarkable exceptions, like Wole Soyinka’s 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature and Ben Okri’s 1991 Booker Prize.) And it differs from the postcolonial wave, roughly beginning in the 1960s, which brought international acclaim to writers like Chinua Achebe and Nuruddin Farah, among others.

There are more women, for one thing. More important, the stories being told, while sometimes set in Africa, often reflect the writers’ experiences of living, studying or working elsewhere and are flecked with cultural references — and settings — familiar to Western audiences.


Ms. Adichie’s “Americanah” chronicles the lives of Ifemelu and her lover, Obinze, whose adventures take them from Nigeria to America and Britain. In the United States, Ifemelu writes a popular blog about her growing racial consciousness and finds love with American men, both black and white. Back in Nigeria, her friends use the word “Americanah” to tease her about her Americanized attitudes.

Ms. Adichie, who divides her time between the United States and Nigeria and runs a summer writing workshop in Lagos, has now written three well-received novels and a book of stories. She has amassed awards and has a movie adaptation this year of her novel “Half of a Yellow Sun,” about the Biafran war. She even made it into a Beyoncé song: “Flawless,” released in December, sampled several lines about feminism from a public lecture she gave.

The success of “Half of a Yellow Sun” (2006), after the critical embrace of “Purple Hibiscus” (2003), was a major factor in sending publishers scrambling to find other talented African writers.

The flowering of new African writers is “an amazing phenomenon,” said Manthia Diawara, a professor of comparative literature and film at New York University. “It is a literature more about being a citizen of the world — going to Europe, going back to Lagos,” he said. “Now we are talking about how the West relates to Africa and it frees writers to create their own worlds. They have several identities and they speak several languages.”


But for all the different themes and kinds of writing, the novelist Dinaw Mengestu said that he saw a thread. “There’s this investigation of what happens to the dislocated soul,” said Mr. Mengestu, 36, the author of “All Our Names” and a MacArthur “genius” award winner, who was born in Ethiopia but left at age 2 and grew up in Illinois.

The novelist Okey Ndibe, 54, said for his part, “My reflexes are shaped mostly by life in Nigeria, but so many aspects of me are in the American mode.” His second novel, “Foreign Gods, Inc.,” is about an educated Nigerian in New York eking out a living as a taxi driver. Mr. Ndibe, who arrived in America in 1988, said that as someone coming from a place where being black was the norm, he became fascinated by the experience of American blacks. “My protagonist’s life in America is as important as his life in Nigeria, if not more so,” he said.

Jonathan Galassi, the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, agreed that “there is a new, self-aware internationalism” and “a much more welcoming interest” in this country, too. Earlier generations, he added, “had it much harder.”

Breaking in isn’t getting easier for everyone, however. Some professionals in the book world say that too many literary publishers would rather put out work by writers from Africa than work by African-Americans because in the current climate the Africans are considered more appealing for what is seen as a “black slot.”

Marita Golden, an African-American writer who is a founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation, which supports black writers around the world, acknowledged that those sentiments exist but disagreed with them.

“Black writers operate within a small, culturally defined sphere,” she said. “That space is not defined by us, so with any shifts people may feel victimized or that they’ve lost, or they’re experiencing a deficit.”

Ms. Adichie said she understood those feelings, too. “In the U.S., to be a black person who is not African-American in certain circles is to be seen as quote-unquote, the good black,” she said. “Or people will say, ‘You are African so you are not angry.’ Or, ‘You’re African so you don’t have all those issues.’ ”

Publishers, not surprisingly, tend to disagree with the idea that African-American writers are being overlooked now. “Hogwash,” said Robin Desser, vice president and editorial director at Alfred A. Knopf and Ms. Adichie’s editor. “When the next Toni Morrison comes around I can say that publishers will go crazy.”

Given the inroads they have made and the new roots they have planted, African writers say they have proved they are much more that a trend.

“My hope is we all become part of the canon, not just here but internationally,” said Ishmael Beah, 33, who lives in the United States. His 2007 memoir, “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier,” about Sierra Leone’s civil war, was a best seller. His novel, “Radiance of Tomorrow,” about the aftermath of that conflict, came out this year.

“We all have a lot to say,” Mr. Beah said, “and we realize that we have to speak for ourselves about the diversity, the difficulties, the beauty of this continent.”

THE PEOPLE VOTED THEIR STOMACH- BLUES FOR AN ARRESTED RENAISSANCE BY NIYI OSUNDARE

A-RICE, oh compatriots
Your stomach’s call obey
Say, A-RICE, oh compatriots
Your stomach’s call obey
Hold out your bowls for the golden grains
Pawn your pride without delay

Grab your bribe and dance in the street
To the Riceman’s drum and venal command
Yes, grab your bribe and dance in the streets
To the Riceman’s drum and venal command
Bend your back for his heavy ride
Your golden rice is your sole demand


The Riceman is here, your lord and saviour
Pawn your vote for his golden gift
Say, the Riceman is here, your lord and saviour
Pawn your vote for his golden gift
Eat your rice and belch like a bull
And give your guts the forgetful lift


The passage down the gullet
Is the fastest road to heaven
Yes, the passage down the gullet
Is the fastest road to heaven
To those held hostage by their shameless guts
There is no nirvana like the seething toilet

The people voted their stomach
And the dunghill usurped their future
Alas, the people voted their stomach
The dunghill embraced their future
The wounds from this blind affair
Defy the magic of the cleverest suture

               II

The people voted their stomach
And the dunghill usurped their future
Alas, the people voted their stomach
The dunghill embraced their future
The wounds from this blind affair
Defy the magic of the cleverest suture

Cunning Riceman with bags
Full of tricks and daggers
Say, cunning Riceman with bags
Full of tricks and daggers
His first coming left us all
In ashes and fluttering rags

Brazen murders, strange disappearances:
His hands drip with unexpiated crimes
Yes, brazen murders, strange disappearances
His hands drip with unexpiated crimes
But he has an arsenal of cash and rice
Both so vital in these degenerate times


Rabble-rousing, clowning, scheming
Frightful intimations of Idi Amin’s pedigree
Yes, rabble-rousing, clowning, scheming
Frightful intimations of Idi Amin’s pedigree
Yesterday’s fruits still stir the leaves
On History’s bewildering tree
 

Here, once again,
The wild histrionics of a deadly actor
Say, here, once, again,
The wild histrionics of a deadly actor
Mindless applause from a captive audience
Chloroformed puppets of a wily victor

               III

They sold their birth right
For a kongo* of rice
Alas, they sold their birth right
For a kongo of rice
This mindless commerce
Will come at a heavy price

Erstwhile Knowledge Fountain
Overgrown with Ignorance’s malignant weeds
Alas, erstwhile Knowledge Fountain
Overgrown with Ignorance’s malignant weeds
The Book, once robust, resurgent,
Has been voted out of our daily needs

They sold us a lemon; we emptied
Our bank of virtues to pay the price
Alas, they sold us a lemon; we emptied
Our bank of virtues to pay the price
The will powerful guns could not subdue
Now lies suborned by a spoonful of rice

Poverty so desperate, so demeaning,
It consumed our pride, our primal worth
Yes, Poverty, so desperate, so demeaning,
It consumed our pride, our primal worth
The pride we once extolled is vanishing fast
From the face of our stunned, corrupted earth

The people voted their stomach
And the dunghill usurped their future
Alas, the people voted their stomach
The dunghill embraced their future
The wounds from this blind affair
Defy the magic of the cleverest suture

*Kongo: a small tin, plastic, or calabash container used for measuring peas and grains in market sales.

                  IV

Too good for us, far too advanced
The reigning King is too high above our rot
Say, too good for us, far too advanced
The reigning King is too high above our rot
Too much bound to Excellence and Honour
And a public garment without a blot

He expends state funds on the road to the Future
He never paves the way to our bottomless stomach
Yes, he expends state funds on the road to the Future
He never paves the way to our bottomless stomach
Whoever doesn’t know in the eating  world
That the gut is a grand, demanding monarch

We asked for rice, he gave us Reason
We asked for booty, he gave us the Book
Say, we asked for rice, he gave Reason
We asked for booty, he gave us a book
So we trooped all out to cast our lot
For the side of the dark and loaded crook

The Damaged Good has riced its way
To the top of the brand
Alas, the Damaged Good has riced its way
Right to the top of the brand
Our feet stand askew
On our dark and traitored land

Come again soon, oh brief Renaissance
This interlude forebodes a trembling twilight
I say, come again, brief Renaissance
This interlude forebodes a trembling twilight
Sow rainbow stars in our darkening sky
Divine another Dawn, new and bright

APC CALLS FANI-KAYODE A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR

-THREATENS LEGAL ACTION



The All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode to retract his comment alleging that the APC, through its National Publicity Secretary Lai Mohammed, condemned the Federal Government for proscribing the terror group Boko Haram or face a legal action.

In a statement issued in Lagos on Monday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said at no time did it issue a statement condemning the proscription of Boko Haram, and challenged Mr. Fani-Kayode to produce such a statement if he was so sure the APC issue it.

It quoted Alhaji Lai Mohammed as saying: ''I have caused my attorneys to formally write both Fani-Kayode and Channel television, where he made his allegation, to retract the statement and apologize, failing which I will sue for defamation of character.''

''Our position on Boko Haram has been well articulated for anyone who cares to know, but at no time did we condemn the government for proscribing it. When the state of emergency was declared on three northern states, we criticized it and we stand by that. But we did not condemn the proscription of Boko Haram. We are not Boko Haram sympathizers and we cannot be under any circumstance,'' APC said.

The party also condemned Mr. Fani-Kayode's description of Boko Haram as the armed wing of the APC, saying the statement is most irresponsible, uncharitable and without basis.

''Equally irresponsible and condemnable is Mr. Fani-Kayode's deliberate distortion of statements made in the past by Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to mean that he or his party is a sympathizer of Boko Haram,'' the party said.

It said Mr. Fani-Kayode's latter day castigation of opposition politicians, after he returned to his vomit and repudiated all the damaging statements he made publicly in the past about the PDP and the Jonathan Administration, is not based on any altruistic considerations.

''It is common knowledge that Mr. Fani-Kayode has been charged by the Federal Government with money laundering. The trial is almost ending, and he knows he faces a certain jail term if convicted.

''It is therefore not impossible that Mr. Fani-Kayode may be seeking to ingratiate himself to the FG by using various media platforms to destroy the APC through accusing its leaders of being Boko Haram sponsors or that the party is bent on fielding a Muslim/Muslim ticket in next year's presidential elections.

''Unfortunately, in his eagerness to please the FG and cut a deal to avoid going to jail, he has resorted to pathological lies aimed at calling the dog a bad name in order to hang it. Whatever evidence he has to prove that our party is a sponsor of Boko Haram, he should be prepared to tender such in court,'' APC said.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed
National Publicity Secretary
All Progressives Congress (APC)
Lagos, June 30th 2014

THE NANNY STATE BY SAM OMATSEYE

In his first term in office as the chief executive of Akwa Ibom State, Governor Godswill Akpabio paid a visit to The Nation newspapers to showcase his doings to the newspaper’s editors. In the midst of his characteristic flourish about his strides in infrastructure and education, I propounded a question. I asked him whether he was worried that his evident performance did not guarantee his reelection, as history had proved time and again.
The decibel of his oratory dropped a note, and he said every leader ought to pray that they should not suffer the fate of Jesus when the people chose Barabbas, an armed robber, in his stead. The next morning, Governor Akpabio’s picture blossomed on the newspaper’s front page, with a caption, “No to the politics of Barabbas.” He is rounding off his second term. 
Everywhere a performing leader has lost, it is choreographed as the people’s will. The people, some historians have argued, rejected Winston Churchill who is now regarded as perhaps the greatest leader the British ever knew, ranked by some only with Queen Elizabeth. The poet prime minister, who saved a nation from the ruins of its pride in the shadow of a hectoring tyrant, was swept out of power. They said he was a warmonger. When Clinton left office, the Americans chose a warmonger – they did not know it then - rather than Al Gore who worked with Clinton to give them the greatest economic expansion in history. They rejected Gore because Clinton, his co-traveller, had a dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. The election, it was argued, was about character. Ditto the case with Charles de Gaulle. The Germans did not vote Hitler to power to foment a world war or to exterminate the Jews. They embraced the mustachioed despot to reassert the German pride after the ignominy of the First World War. Hitler was the apotheosis of the martial spirit on the rise in Germany since the middle of the 19th century.
Sometimes we overcast the people either as villains or heroes. It is, to me, always about the elite. It is the elite who manufacture content. They flatter the people’s hopes and vanities. The people come to believe it themselves and act as though in consensus.
That has always been the danger of democracy. It is in that light I view the Ekiti vote that brought Ayo Fayose victory. No one can tell me that the civil servants in Ekiti State thought it was wrong to run a bureaucracy based on honour, where no forged certificates or ghost workers abounded. No one can say that even the teachers did not want a better education system in the state since most of them had PHDs in their families. It is hard to accept that all those who rode the state roads did not see the difference before and after Fayemi took the reins of office. The winner succeeded in telling them it was not good enough for them and they believed.
What happened in Ekiti arose from the ability of the opposition to take advantage of the weakness of the Fayemi style and recalibrated it as the people’s enemy. They abhorred his aloofness. De gaule was aloof when he fought for France, when they voted him in as hero, when they rejected him and when they reelected him. Governor Fayemi took bonds in billions of Naira, why did he not follow the patronage pattern, they asked. Why did he not spend the money on persons rather than principles? Why did he not build an infrastructure of followers who ran the politics for him? The money would go round, and even if you do not perform, you will have enough people, both in high and low places, in your party and outside, who love your deeply.
When election comes, they will concoct excuse for you where you fail, and exaggerate your doing where you pass. He would have done well if even within his party he understood that he was a politician in Nigeria and not in Washington. They knew him well, and they changed the narrative. They did not say he did not do infrastructure, or build schools or hospitals, but he did not touch them in their vital part: the stomach.
I have two stories. One, a woman said in Yoruba, “he built roads, he built schools, he built hospitals but he did not build the stomach.” Another woman, an elder who did not receive the N5000 social security benefit, went to the polls to cast a malice vote because her neighbor received it. The programme gave the money only to elders who did not have any support from either well-to-do children or existing sources of income. The woman in question was receiving support from a son who was a customs officer in Lagos. I call this elder envy. The ordinary folks, both young and old, who wanted largesse, envied the sort of life where government loaded them with free money. The young envied the elder who received N5000 and the other elders envied their neighbours.
It is the force of the spin we witnessed in Ekiti State. Would you say that they did not know that Fayose was in court over alleged murder and theft? They knew. Why did they not convict him in the polls? Because one argument defeated another. The same people who hailed Churchill also cursed him for being a warmonger. They forgot that at one time in the war, virtually every household had a gun in Britain. The same people who called Jesus messiah also shouted, “Crucify him!”
Those who spun the story of a disconnected Fayemi worked on a number of factors. One, Fayemi’s belief that when you do your work, you will get the praise. This did not work because they knew Nigeria had changed progressively over a generation of alienated leadership. Honour has been redefined in the culture of the people. Infrastructure is important in government to inspire dignity of labour. When government provides them, individuals work for their own profit, and so earn their own pride. But before their eyes, lazy men become billionaires and smart men work for them. Success no longer depends on the assiduity or the acumen but on indolence. They see the political elite buy all the lands, hold parties in Dubai and New York, and their labours lead nowhere.
It is to the credit of the cynical elite that they impressed the people that buying bags of rice for them which will satisfy them for a few days is more important that the bags of cement that make a school that can make them wise for life.
The election shows that we have bred a cynical citizenry because we have had a cynical political class. The people do not feel part of the system. They don’t want to be productive. They want to be receptacles, and that is what infrastructure of the stomach means. They don’t want to be cheated anymore. If the leaders steal, let them give us part of it, even if it is a bicycle, or a bottle of beer. It is that bad. The very currents of this election exposed the so-called National Conference in progress.
What the people are calling for, by this logic, is the nanny state. The nanny is closer to the child than the parent. The nanny does not own the house, the food, the furniture, or the car, but she is closer to the child than the parent.  Some have said we should meet the people halfway. Give them some pork, and develop a little. Just as Apostle Paul said, he is a sinner to the sinner. Maybe it is a model, but it is not a model of development.
What it means is that we have moved, as a people, from the hypocritical phase of our politics. We have, by the vote, agreed that we are a corrupt country, and only corruption can give us our leaders.
It will be tragic if this is true. Then what we might have are leaders like Coriolanus in Shakespeare’s plebian play where the man who fought and saved the people is forced into exile because he did not want them to see his wounds because they already know his story.
Our people need to be saved from themselves, and that calls for a more communicative elite. But then, when the people chose Barrabas over Jesus, was it because Jesus did not communicate well. Were his miracles not enough? His parables, his lofty morality and common touch? Jesus was no Coriolanus who said “I have not been common in my love.” But the people rejected him.
What happened in Ekiti was not the battle of ideas, but the triumph of corruption.

THE CLEAR MESSAGE FROM EKITI VOTERS FROM SIMON KOLAWOLE

I was at work sometime in 2003 when I got a call from my wife. She said with a form of excitement: “There is this man called Ayo Fayose ─ he is going to win the governorship election in Ekiti State.” I was amused. Before I could ask her to justify her proposition, she said: “I just watched him on Channels TV distributing water and medicine to the people. The Ekiti people are so happy with him. Channels interviewed them. They said they didn’t have water and Fayose has been supplying them water every day. I saw a tanker discharging water into people’s buckets and bowls. He will win.”

I laughed. That easy?

“So you think people will vote for him simply because he gave them water?” I asked, cynically. I didn’t doubt her analysis whole-heartedly, but at the back of my mind I believed Ekiti was a stronghold for the Alliance for Democracy (AD) and there was no way the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was going to win there. I was, by the way, hearing about Fayose for the first time. I was using my heart; she was using her head.

But she had the last laugh when Fayose defeated Otunba Niyi Adebayo. It was one of the biggest upsets of the 2003 elections, and while people were complaining that PDP rigged, Ekiti people were saying Adebayo did not impress them in his four years in office. Fayose’s tenure from 2003 to 2006 did not transform Ekiti, in any case, but he “connected” with the people very well. He behaved like the guy next door. He would drive into a village market, buy roasted corn and eat with the people. In a country where leaders are gods, this strain of populism is a bestseller any day.

As the June 21 Ekiti governorship election drew near, I was hearing similar stories. I was told Fayose would defeat Dr. Kayode Fayemi because he “connected” with the people better than the incumbent. While there was a universal declaration that Adebayo did not do well as governor, everybody I had spoken with about Ekiti said Fayemi had done “very well”. Even though Fayemi is someone I admire and respect a lot, I never visited the state since he assumed office ─ so my assessment of him has always been based on what people say. Even some of Fayose’s supporters admitted to me that Fayemi is one of the best governors Ekiti has ever had.

All the complaints against Fayemi were not about what he did ─ but what he didn’t do. His aides are famously quoted as saying: “He is not building stomach infrastructure.” Another popular line was: “He is tarring the roads but he is not tarring our stomachs.” Although he distributed contracts to party members ─ as it is done in our country ─ the contractors were said to have fallen out with him because he complained about the quality of the jobs or the non-execution of the contracts. Fayemi was said to have been told several times: “Contract money is political money. You don’t render account!” In other words, contracts are not meant to be executed ─ just take the money and run!

Two more reasons given for Fayemi’s loss include: his decision to re-grade teachers after an assessment, aimed at improving the quality of teaching in Ekiti schools; and the increase in school fees at the state university. The re-grading of teachers, which delayed the implementation of the improved teachers’ salary scheme, united a critical mass of voters against him. The increase in school fees united students and their parents against the governor. His last-minute efforts at pacifying them did not yield good results. He lost. Despite his misgivings about the conduct of the poll, he gracefully made a concession speech ─ very unNigerian.

I have taken a hard look at the Ekiti election. I have analysed the message. I have reached my own conclusions. While not trying to be disrespectful of Fayose and his supporters ─ and I mean it ─ I would say that it seems short-term gains provide the winning tonic in Nigeria any day. When people are hungry, the answer to their problem is to give them fish. Teaching them to fish is a long process that nobody has the patience for. Of course, road infrastructure will create an economy that will last for centuries (the roads built by Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the 1950s are still the livewire of many communities today), but “stomach infrastructure” will instantly satisfy the soul.

To win elections, you may have to maintain the status quo. If teachers are not qualified to teach, don’t put them through any assessment. Let them continue to teach nonsense. Election is coming. Continue to produce half-baked students. Continue to produce unemployable graduates. Let the rich continue to send their children to schools in Ghana and Europe. Let the poor remain in their poverty and ignorance. If you award contracts for supply of textbooks, provision of water and construction of roads and the contractors fail to deliver, do not ask them questions. It is political money; it should not be accounted for. Good guy, the contractors will mobilise religiously for your re-election.

It seems also that your past does not matter. Fayose was accused of murder and corruption ─ and, in fairness to him, no court has yet convicted him ─ but the majority of Ekiti voters are not bothered by that. In fact, I asked a Fayose supporter shortly before the election: “Don’t you think these things might count against Fayose?” He fired back, with laughter: “Is he the first politician to steal or kill? Please tell me another story.” This is quite instructive. In Nigeria, we do not really care about someone’s records. People do not have to clear their names before standing for elections.

My conclusion, therefore, is that Nigerians who pontificate in classrooms, on pulpits, in newspapers and on the social media about democracy, good governance and development need their heads examined. The evidence from the pattern of elections in Nigeria, at least since 2003, is that most voters do not make decisions on the basis of some sophisticated analyses of candidates, their policies and their performances. Elections are won and lost on the basis of sentiments. It is how the voter “feels” not what the voter “sees”. To make the voter “feel good” about you, your political strategy must pander to their sentiments.

It is, however, uncharitable to reduce Fayose’s victory to just the bags of rice he shared. Don’t forget that he also shared rice in his senate bid in 2011 and still lost. All the talk about militarisation of Ekiti on June 21 would also amount to beating about the bush. This is the second time Fayose is defeating an incumbent. It’s more than a co-incidence. Maybe there is a message we are missing. Fayose probably knew something about practical politics that Fayemi didn’t know. Or maybe Fayemi knew and couldn’t handle it. The sociology of the voters may not be new, as Fayemi proposed. Maybe it’s the reform-minded politicians that. need a new sociology.

GOODLUCK NIGERIA, SAYS NEW YORK POST IN REPLY TO PRESIDENT JONATHAN

-As Jonathan’s PR Blitz Backfires

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s Washington Post ‘Op-Ed’ editorial received a rebuke from an unlikely source. The Rupert Murdock-owned New York Post shot-back at Jonathan with a sharply critical editorial of their own. Their rebuke, titled ‘Goodluck Nigeria,’ took aim at what they called ‘newspaper diplomacy.’
In a story that came to light in the Washington-based, and Congress focused weekly magazine called THE HILL, Jonathan’s $1.2 million deal with the high powered public relations firm Levick noted how the president was about to begin an international charm offensive. Within days of that disclosure the Nigerian president wrote the Washington Post Op-Ed that painted a sympathetic portrait of his ongoing ‘quiet fight’ with the Boko Haram. The Islamist group took credit for the kidnapping of nearly 300 school girls in Chibok last April, with an additional 90 kidnapped in a series of attacks earlier this week.
Below is the scathing New York Post editorial read by millions of New Yorkers, and other Americans, in the last 36 hours.
“When in April the Islamist group Boko Haram abducted nearly 300 girls from their school in northeast Nigeria, it commanded global attention and sparked a #BringBackOurGirls movement.
“But the girls are still missing. The campaign seems to have moved from hashtag demands to ‘newspaper column diplomacy.’ On Friday, The Washington Post carried an op-ed by no less than the president of Nigeria himself, Goodluck Jonathan.
“In it he wrote, “Something positive can come out of [this situation] in Nigeria.” He says, “Most important, the return of the Chibok girls, but also new international cooperation to deny havens to terrorists and destroy their organizations.”

“And he says he’s going to ask the UN General Assembly to establish and coordinate a system to share intelligence, etc.

“Remember, this is the same leader whose military initially claimed it had freed the girls, whose wife’s anger was directed at Nigerians protesting the government’s inaction, rather than the kidnappers, and who presides over Africa’s largest economy and fourth-largest armed forces.

“Meanwhile, this week Boko Haram kidnapped another 90 Nigerian children and set off a massive bomb in the heart of the nation’s capital.

“Apparently the government’s secret plan to get the girls back — which President Jonathan says he has to “remain quiet about” — isn’t much impressing them.

Nor is the New York Post impressed with President Jonathan’s contract with Levick, or first salvo in rehabilitating his international image. At press time, the Chibok students from Borno and now, an additional 90 women, remain missing in spite of the Washington Post editorial that appeared in Thursday’s newspaper.

KICKING OFF IMAGE LAUNDERING CONTRACT, JONATHAN'S FIRST OP-ED APPEARS IN WASHINGTON POST

President Goodluck Jonathan’s first ever known opinion article has surfaced in the Washington Post, after it became clear the president is splashing N195 million of public funds on a U.S. firm to whitewash his struggling image made worse by the Chibok schoolgirls abductions.

In an Op-Ed by the president and published by the United States-based newspaper Thursday, Mr. Jonathan delivered a poignant assurance to the international community that has scathingly criticised his effort at rescuing the kidnapped girls.

“My heart aches for the missing children and their families. I am a parent myself, and I know how awfully this must hurt. Nothing is more important to me than finding and rescuing our girls,” the president wrote in the 504-word article.

The president said he remained quiet about “continuing efforts” by Nigeria’s military, police and investigators to rescue the girls, to avoid “compromising the details of our investigation”.

He said his silence has been misused by partisan critics to suggest inaction or even weakness.

“But let me state this unequivocally: My government and our security and intelligence services have spared no resources, have not stopped and will not stop until the girls are returned home and the thugs who took them are brought to justice,” the president said.

For months, Mr. Jonathan has faced crushing criticisms at home and abroad for his lukewarm response to a bloody insurgency by the extremist Boko Haram sect that has killed at least 12,000 Nigerians since 2009.

International outrage at the Jonathan administration’s effort at rooting Boko Haram- including a largely ineffective emergency rule in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States- reached unprecedented levels after the abduction of nearly 300 girls from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State April 14.

While the girls remain in captivity two months later, news reports have shown this week how the president launched a blistering image rework, splashing $1.2 million on a U.S. Public Relations and lobby firm, Levick, to help change “international and local media narrative”.

Washington DC based newspaper, The Hill, which reports the U.S. Congress, quoted details of the contract including Levick’s promise to assist the Nigerian government in effecting “real change”.

“A more comprehensive approach using vehicles such as public diplomacy and engaging outside experts to enact real changes is how the advocacy industry is evolving,” Phil Elwood, a Vice President at Levick, told The Hill.

Levick will also be working with Jared Genser, a human rights attorney, who has worked for notable personalities such as South African Nobel Peace Prize winner, Desmond Tutut and Burmese pro-democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi in the past to publicise “President Goodluck Jonathan Administration’s past, present and future priority to foster transparency, democracy and the rule of law throughout Nigeria.”

The effort will cover opinion articles published by foreign media outlets, advertisements, video production and internet campaign.

The piece published by the Washington Post is said to be part of that effort. The article is Mr. Jonathan’s first ever known, and evidently, its appearance in a foreign outlet is not a coincidence.

Since taking office as president in 2010, the Nigerian president has not granted interview to any Nigerian news outlet beyond speaking to reporters at events, and holding a periodic interview with a panel of journalists drawn from varied outlets and beamed live on state-owned Nigerian Television Authority, NTA.

Some of his key decisions and pronouncements have been made public through foreign outlets, mainly the CNN.

Mr. Jonathan delivered his first public comments on late President Umaru Yar’ Adua’s health, in an interview with Ms. Amanpour in 2010, where he spoke of how the ailing president’s family blocked him from seeing Mr. Yar’adua.

The president has also yet to respond to a request for an interview with PREMIUM TIMES. The president did not even acknowledge receipt of the letter requesting the interview which was couriered to his office more than a month ago.

But long before the Boko Haram insurrection spiralled out of control, Mr. Jonathan maintained a fair appearance on foreign outlets, even paying to appear for interviews on foreign channels.

In 2013, documents showing how the president paid another American lobbying firm, Fleshman-Hillard Inc, $60,000 to help arrange these interviews with foreign channels including the CNN were obtained.

Fleishman-Hillard Inc. later explained that out of the stated sum, it received only $40,000 for fixing the president’s appearances on the foreign channels.

The company said the service was in support of the president’s trip to New York for the 2010 United Nations General Assembly.

This time though, the president manifestly has more to deal with, as he faces unrelenting criticisms over Boko Haram. He appears determined to deliver a heartfelt message to U.S. policy makers who have labelled his government corrupt and inept.

The president also seeks to shed light on Nigeria’s peculiarities, and make the international community understand the local challenges  allowing Boko Haram to fester.

“In Nigeria, there are political, religious and ethnic cleavages to overcome if we are to defeat Boko Haram,” he wrote in the Washington Post article.

“We need greater understanding and outreach between Muslims and Christians. We also know that, as it seeks to recruit the gullible, Boko Haram exploits the economic disparities that remain a problem in our country.

“We are addressing these challenges through such steps as bringing stakeholders together and creating a safe schools initiative, a victims’ support fund and a presidential economic recovery program for northeastern Nigeria. We are also committed to ridding our country of corruption and safeguarding human and civil rights and the rule of law.”




Source: PREMIUM TIMES

BEFORE WE RETURN TO 1983 BY DELE MOMODU

Fellow Nigerians, once again I’m inclined to take you down memory lane. In a country that has become completely reticent to both ancient and contemporary history, it is pertinent to refresh our collective memories once in a while. The danger of collective amnesia is grave. It may send us back to where we were decades ago. Only the blind would not see where we are headed. Without mincing words, we are not too far from the abyss.

Those who delude themselves that all is well should continue to live in denial. I was glad when our President himself captured the mood of the nation in his most profound analysis to date. Day s ago, after the latest bomb blast in Abuja, Dr Goodluck Ebele         Jonathan said the Boko Haram saga was worse than the Nigerian civil war that killed millions of our own brethren. For once, I felt our President has now seen the light and all that is left is for him to be truly born again.

And what does it take to be born again? The Bible says you have to profess Jesus as your Lord and Saviour. You must go beyond mere words and emulate Christ and walk in his ways. I do not have to tell our President what that entails. He probably knows more than me. We must love our fellow beings unconditionally. We must forgive our enemies. We must not steal what belongs to others. We must not covet. There so many other injunctions that we must strive to obey. If our leaders accept and heed some of these biblical injunctions, the world would be a much better place.

It is good that the President has made such a monumental confession. His supporters who have been treating this situation as a joke should wake up and encourage the President to do what is necessary without further delay. The reason the country is blatantly heated up is simple, our leaders have abandoned governance for politics. They are too desperately anxious to retain their jobs, and perks of offices next year, that they no longer give a hoot about what happens to the country. It is such a pity that they have refused to learn from our ugly past. So it behoves us to remind them of where we are coming from.

While I cannot contest the fact that Mr Peter Ayo Fayose won the Governorship election in Ekiti last week, we must still protest events that led to the victory. For the Federal Government, Ekiti was treated like a do or die affair. Everything and anything possible was thrown into executing that war. It was so serious that many Nigerians wondered if we would not have defeated Boko Haram by now if the menace was similarly attacked. The security in Ekiti was so water-tight that one wondered why same could not be achieved in other parts of Nigeria.

While PDP may continue to bask in the euphoria of that victory, they must try and resist the temptation of seeing themselves as conquerors. Now that their opponents have been alerted to what to expect in subsequent elections, PDP may not find it so easy to intimidate and harass with Federal might when next tomorrow comes. Instead of over relying on the use of brute and crude force, PDP should try to wear a new look and embrace a more responsible attitude. The recent all-out attack against the opposition in Ekiti should never be contemplated or repeated. To do otherwise is to push the people to the wall and invite their wrath.

This type of braggadocio led to the breakdown of law and order in 1983. The then National Party of Nigeria, at the peak of its infamous glory, had attempted to pocket the entire country in one fell swoop. They succeeded, or so they thought. The general elections of that troublesome year were recorded by political historians as a “moon-slide”, which was the hyperbolic description of what ordinarily should have been a landslide. The NPN was so self-conceited that it simply grabbed votes in broad daylight and dared anyone to challenge its open robbery. Prior to the elections, the Federal Government had armed the Nigeria Police Force to the teeth.   Headed by Inspector General of Police, Mr Sunday Adewusi, the stage was set for the Police to take on any recalcitrant politician. Everything seemed normal at first. NPN arbitrarily declared victory in most unlikely places goaded on by the enormous power of its security forces as well as street thugs. But they did not bargain for what happened in Oyo and Ondo States.

Dr Victor Omololu Sowemimo Olunloyo had managed to sack the legendary Governor, Chief Bola Ige from the Agodi Government House while Chief Akin Omoboriowo was also declared winner in Ondo State against his former boss and incumbent Governor, Pa Adekunle Ajasin. While Ibadan witnessed a feeble protest against the declaration of Dr Olunloyo, the people of Ondo State were incredibly ferocious. They attacked everything in sight and roasted human beings alive in an unprecedented orgy of violence. The mayhem was so widespread that the NPN hurriedly capitulated, dropped the stolen mandate in Ondo State like the hot potato that it had become and returned power to Pa Ajasin.

The dust of that election had not fully settled down when the fearsome duo of Mohammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon struck and brought Nigeria’s outrageous Second Republic to an abrupt halt. The cleaning up exercise that followed was blistering and pervasive. Politicians were hauled into prisons and many of them never recovered from that trauma. The country itself bled profusely and was engulfed in all manner of problems. It was obvious that the politicians had overstretched their luck through unbridled rascality. Had they managed their affairs very well, the stage would not have been set for a military take-over and there would have been no cast-iron alibi for the coup that swept everyone out of power. It took the intervention of General Ibrahim Babangida to relax the iron-grip of Buhari and Idiagbon on Nigeria. But the damage had been done.

One would have thought politicians would learn useful lessons from that unfortunate era but alas nothing seemed to have been absorbed. Exactly ten years after, in 1993, Babangida’s endless transition came to a crescendo. The election was so beautiful that we actually saw a glimpse of paradise. For the first time in the history of Nigeria, our people voted for a Muslim-Muslim ticket without anyone raising eyebrows. A Yorubaman, Chief Moshood Abiola received resounding votes from every part of Nigeria and no one cared to ask his birthplace. But tragedy struck when some co-conspirators sat on Babangida and forced him to terminate that handsome electoral process. Many could not believe the audacity of those who turned day into night.

A contraption called the Interim National Government was hurried packaged an assembled and the winner of that election was told to go to hell. Chief Ernest ‘Degunle Shonekan was handpicked to head the fragile institution. Our politicians thinking they had perfected their act soon discovered that what awaited us at the other side of midnight was not going to be palatable. Rather than deepen our democracy, it killed it again. And General Sani Abacha simply sauntered into power without firing a single shot in anger. Power was handed to him on a platter of gold. Nigeria would soon explode into another round of interminable suffering. This went on from 1993 to 1998. Some got killed, jailed or forced into exile. Both the military ruler, Abacha, and the winner of the wonderful election, Abiola, died within one month of each other under mysterious circumstances. No one bothered to ask too many questions not to talk of getting answers to what truly transpired. Life just moved on as usual.

General Abdul-salami Abubakar came on the scene and started his own sojourn in power. Unlike others, he had no plans to stay on permanently in office after the death of Abacha. The only problem was how Abiola suddenly died under what should have been his close watch. But life still moved on. Nigerians have infinite capacity to endure pain and insults. General Abubakar’s transition was apparently tailor-made to return General Olusegun Obasanjo to power. Before our very eyes Obasanjo became the first and only former military ruler to transfigure into civilian President. We expected Nigeria to become an Eldorado under the master of the game of power, Obasanjo. But our hopes were soon dashed again.

Obasanjo left in 2007 after an election that produced a critically ill President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and his very quiet deputy, Dr Jonathan. Before we could say Umaru, the President had virtually collapsed and was hidden for months by his acolytes. He eventually died and Dr Jonathan was thrown up by fate. It was one of the greatest miracles of our time. Again we thought our President would work assiduously to douse tension and restore glory to our nation. But our optimism seemed to have been misplaced as we waltzed from one debilitating crisis to another. Today, Nigeria is at its lowest ebb. Our country has virtually taken over from Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya and others as the headquarters of terror. While this senseless killings are going on our leaders seem incapable of ever being moved by human misery. Politics and winning elections are much more important to them.  They have studiously ignored the dangers ahead.

I’m very worried like many concerned Nigerians that our leaders are once again sowing seeds of discord and setting the stage for enemies of democracy who litter our political firmament. It is a great pity that we have not learnt anything from our bizarre existence.

We appear to have come full circle again. This is very dangerous and I will go on to give my free suggestions and solutions again. I hope those who can take the necessary steps would not dismiss this patriotic act as coming from an interloper. I do not want my country to go down again. It is our responsibility to ensure that those beating the drums of war are not allowed to succeed.

I believe the President alone can kill this fire if he finds the courage to ignore his self-appointed warriors. The President should alter his body language by showing that he’s not desperate for power. The reason his enemies appear to be getting more daring is that they see that he appears ready to sacrifice the nation for his personal ambition. The President as a true Christian should embrace the spirit of true reconciliation like Nelson Mandela. He should work actively for peace. Under him, Nigeria has become endlessly polarised. He should urgently bring the Governors back under the same Forum like it used to be. He should recognise the faction that won and encourage his own side to do same.

A good statesman would ordinarily bring his nation together and President Jonathan can do this by rising above politics to unite the country. He should recognise The Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, in the spirit of the Muslim Ramadan and pay a visit to his palace. He has more to gain as the father of the nation and nothing to lose by offering this olive branch. The President should set in motion the process of identifying those who can force the leadership of Boko Haram to the table for dialogue. These irrational killings and kidnappings must be stopped by any means necessary. Nothing is too much to sacrifice for the sake of ending this bloodbath. Even if he needs to sacrifice himself by not seeking a re-election and supporting someone else, the President should seriously consider this. I know what the reaction of those profiting from the present arrangement would be but the President is the one carrying all the pressure and blame. He should not allow people to use his head to break coconut because those who did so in the past did not partake in the eating.

The President should concern himself more with the work he was voted to do. To whom much is given much is always expected. The responsibility thrust upon him is heavier than an elephant. He would not be remembered by how long he spent in power but by how well he governed. The President must restore peace in our Polytechnics. How can students be at home for nearly one year? The Education Ministry needs a total overhaul and urgently too. The future of our kids is endangered with the lackadaisical approach to incessant closures of higher institutions.

The President still has close to a year to prove his mettle and achieve something monumental. It is sad that he has allowed himself to be sucked totally into this incomprehensible rat race that would end up doing more harm than good. There is so much to accomplish and I have no doubts it is doable if the President can spend more time at his desk working for Nigeria instead of a privileged few who wish to retain power for themselves at all costs and not for the people.

Let us pray.

THIS LIABILITY CALLED BOLA TINUBU BY TONI KAN

Liability (noun) a person or thing whose presence or behaviour is likely to put one at a disadvantage.

As a young boy living in the old Bendel state and one who had never set foot in western Nigeria, I already knew the story. Obafemi Awolowo was a saint and Samuel Ladoke Akintola was a turn-coat.

But with time and fresh insight, one is learning to interrogate every narrative, to parse the so-called facts for more.

I have just received published copies of my latest book, the biography project of a founding member of the Action Group which I co-wrote with my partner, Peju Akande.

In writing that book we spoke to many people, most of them in their 70s and 80s, people who knew the subject and Obafemi Awolowo and Akintola intimately as well as most of the key dramatis personae who played active roles in the Action Group and government of the Western region back in the 60s.

And to most of these respondents we posed one question: if you had one day to spend socialising with just one person would you choose Awolowo or Akintola?

All of them, from statesmen to political stalwarts, royalty to businessmen every one of them chose Akintola.

What does that say about what we have been fed? Simple, the victor always writes the history and what is history if not hagiography.

In the wake of the Ekiti election and re-emergence of Fayose as Governor, one must consider this; what lessons are there in this loss for the leader of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is clearly re-inventing himself in the mould of Awolowo.

The loss of Ekiti is clearly a black eye for Tinubu, it is also a wake-up call that he would do well to heed because Tinubu has been riding rough shod over the West as if it were a personal fiefdom.

Awolowo is universally acknowledged as a strategist and tactician. He built the best organised political party in Africa, gave Zik a run for his money in the West but failed to achieve his aim of ruling Nigeria but in achieving all he did, he relied on smart and intelligent young men who ran with his vision.

His acolyte and fellow visionary, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I fear, is doing the opposite. Having built up the APC as the most credible opposition party in Nigeria, Tinubu is busy squandering the goodwill he has built. The APC is looking more and more like a Tinubu project rather than a political party.

Opeyemi Bamidele’s defection and direct challenge to Fayemi should have sent warning signals but Tinubu carried on. How does a man whose wife and son-in-law are federal legislators and whose young daughter is Iyaloja hope to rally the troops when it matters?

What emerges from all this is a man on a quest to build an empire and history tells us clearly what happens to empires; they crumble.

Is the loss of Ekiti the beginning of the end for the Tinubu Empire? Only time will tell but the ‘Asiwaju of Bourdillon’ has made a series of mistakes he must begin to re-assess as we move to 2015.

He must check his own ambition. The Igbo people have two words; Ekwueme and Okacha mara. An Ekwueme is literally one who pronounces a thing and it comes to pass. He is a leader of men who commands not just respect but adulation and followership.

An Okacha mara finds his opposite number in the fabled Eze Onye Agwaram . The Okacha Mara is the ITK (I-Too-Know) of our school playgrounds, the Over sabi who believes he knows it all.

The Eze Onye Agwaram is on the other hand the King who steps out naked in his court but is so bloated with arrogance and ego that he will not listen to calls for him to cover himself.

This, I am afraid is where we have found our dear Asiwaju; he must pay attention to the voices of the people because as Roman Emperors of antiquity learnt to their eternal folly, the voice of the people is indeed the voice of God.

He cannot presume to know what is best for every one and secondly he must act more as leader rather than enforcer.

Then finally, Tinubu must rein in his tongue. How does a man who was recently alleged to have referred to Yoruba Oba’s with a pejorative epithet expect their subjects to vote for his party?

He is Asiwaju; he is not Oduduwa.

ARISEKOLA-ALAO'S WILL READ

-Family To Set Up Foundation In His Honour


The will of the late Ibadan business mogul, Aare Abdul-Azees Arisekola-Alao, has been read. The reading of the will took place at the Chief  Registrar’s Office, Room 30 of the Oyo State High Court, Ring-Road, Ibadan an Thursday afternoon.

Most of the children, who were clad in white clothes, except for three of them, males, who wore ash and brown colour, were  all seated in the lawyers’ hall by 2 p.m. At about 2.32p.m., the late Arisekola-Alao’s lawyer called the children one after the other and they all filed into the Chief registrar’s office according to their age, beginning from the eldest daughter, Fatimo Aare.

They were led by Mr Oba Otudeko, the administrator of the will and four male and two female members of the family.

A woman’s name was, however, struck out of the list, but she was not present in the  court.

At the commencement of the short meeting which preceded the calling of the children’s names, an official from the Chief Registrar’s office made it known to family members that members of the State Security  Service (SSS) and the press were in the court premises but that he had informed them that the exercise was strictly private.

By 3.25 p. m, the reading of the will ended and the children came out one after the other into the lawyer’s hall.

Alhaji Idris Alao, one of the children of Alhaji AbdulAzeez Arisekola-Alao, has announced that a Foundation would be instituted to immortalise the late Islamic leader, in order to continue his philanthropy.

He said the Foundation would be saddled with the responsibility of carrying on the philanthropic work of his father, where individuals and groups could go for assistance.

According to him, details of the Foundation would be made known to members of the public after the mourning period of the Aare Musulumi of Yorubaland and Deputy President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), who died on June 18 at the age of 69.

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I HAVE PERSUADED MUHAMMADU BUHARI TO RUN- EL RUFAI

Former Minister of the Fed­eral Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has said former President Oluse­gun Obasanjo cannot be absolved from whatever crisis Nigeria is going through.
Speaking on a radio programme, “Face the Nation,” broadcast on Rockcity 101.9 FM, Abeokuta, yesterday, Mallam El-Rufai, who served in the administration of Obasanjo from 2003 to 2007, first as Director General Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) and later as Minister of FCT, believes that the selec­tion of Umar Yar’Adua, as the presidential candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and his support for Goodluck Jona­than to emerge as a presidential candidate in 2011, was the root of the leadership crisis, the country is facing.
According to him, “the fact that he (Obasanjo) is the president that handed over to Yar’Adua and Jonathan, he cannot be fully absolved. Of course, he may have his reasons. Some people attribute bad motives, some think he made a big mistake. I think the truth is somewhere in-between but what Nigeria is going through right now is a direct result of decisions and actions, omission or commission by President Obasanjo, no doubt about it.”

“I think he is aware of this and that is why he wrote that long letter to try to begin to distance himself from the administration. He is consciously aware of this.”

However, El-Rufai, who is now a stalwart of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) believes that the blame game should be over by now and every Nigerian should begin to move towards finding solution to whatever problem Obasanjo’s act has caused.

Said he: “I don’t think at this point, Nigeria needs blaming him because we have a serious problem. I think we should move away from finger-pointing, but ask ourselves: ‘How do we solve this problem?’ With his years of experience, intelligence and con­tacts, how can people like him be deployed to solve this problem, to get us out of the ditch Jonathan has dragged us into?”

“I think this is a more relevant question than to say: ‘Oh! President Obasanjo has im­posed Yar’Adua and Jonathan and so, he is responsible for what is happening.’ He may have been the instrument but the decisions and actions taken while they are in office is theirs and they have to be held responsible. You can give a person power but you can’t teach him how to use the power. I think we should focus on how we can get out of the grand mess Jonathan has put this country into.”

Excerpts:

You made your mark, as one of the technocrats in President Obasanjo’s administration but today you are a partisan politician. Why did you de­cide to transform?

Yes, I think technocrat is someone, who is in government or public service but not involved in politics. It’s an oxymoron. After I left government, I realised that not get­ting involved in politics was a big mistake because politics either make or destroy everything. If you see a society functioning well, it is because of the quality of its politics and politicians. If you see a society not doing well, it’s because of the poor quality of its politics and politicians. When I left office, I reflected deeply on some of the things that went wrong in Nigeria. After we left, myself, Oby Ezekwesili (in particular) and, to some extent, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Nuhu Ribadu, we realised one of our mistakes. We realised that our disdain for politics was part of the problem. We refused to get actively in­volved in politics. Ngozi was involved more than all of us, but to a large degree, we kept away from politics and President Obasanjo protected us from politicians.

I think it was a mistake. So, this time I made a deliberate decision to be in active partisan politics, but I also chose to be in the opposition because I didn’t like how the PDP had deteriorated into what I considered a toxic party.

Are you satisfied with the quality of opposition that your party is offering, considering the fact that your party has not been able to manage its suc­cess and existence?

You see, a political party is not a perfect organisation. It is not a church or a mosque; so don’t look at a political party and expect everyone in the party to be a saint; okay? A political party is a collection of people, which reflects on how society is, but I am confident, without any doubt, that the APC is a much better political party for Nigeria than PDP. We have our problems and challenges. APC is a new party that is a conglomeration of three or four different parties; so there will be issues of how to reconcile all the various interests, but if you look at the quality of governance that is being provided by APC governments, you’ll see that the difference is quite clear.

PDP can only boast of maybe one or two performing governors. On the other hand, APC can boast of 10 or 12 really performing governors. So, the difference is really clear for me and in politics, as it is in most things in life, the issue is not choosing between good or bad or between the perfect and imperfect, but choosing between which is better. In my opinion, by every measure the APC is a much better party that has a much better plan for Nigeria and its future than the PDP of today.

What would you tell those who are saying APC is a conglomerate of strange bedfellows, who are just there with the sole aim of wresting power from PDP?

Yes, at this stage of our political develop­ment, every political party is a collection of strange bedfellows with the sole objective of getting powers; okay? The PDP is like that. APC could be said to be like that as well as any political party in Nigeria but the question is: Look at that collection of strange bird fellows and see whether they will make your life better. Go to Lagos and ask the people of Lagos: Has Fashola made their life better? That is the issue, not ideology; not just people sit in their living-rooms and offer opinions. Go to Ogun State and ask whether Governor Amosun has not performed in bringing in infrastructure that Abeokuta (and Ogun State in general) has not seen in 40 years. Go to Ibadan and see what Governor Ajimobi is doing there. Go to Nasarawa and see what Governor Al-Makura is doing. Go to Kano and see how Governor Kwankwaso is transforming the state or go to Rivers. I can go on and on. Go to Imo State, where Rochas Okorocha is doing great things; okay?

This is the point for me. When people pon­tificate about ideologies, I don’t take them seriously because what Nigeria needs is not ideological leaders at this stage but pragmatic leaders that will deliver on social services, that will give us good, free and qualitative education, health care, build our roads and provide infrastructure and create jobs for our youth. This is what we need. APC governors have proved that they have done these in their states to a reasonable degree. I went to Osun State to conduct the primaries and I was shocked at the amount of work Gover­nor Aregbesola is doing. What he is doing in education and social welfare and health is just amazing. I think this is what Nigerians should look at and not say: Oh! APC is a col­lection of strange bedfellows.

Every Nigerians are a collection of strange bedfellows, but for those that may want to know the difference between the APC and the PDP, go and look at our road map that we published in March 2014 and look at our leaders. I throw this challenge: Is there any­one in the PDP that can boast of the integrity credentials of General Buhari? There is none. We have people in the APC of such quality. There’s no one in the PDP that can claim to be as competent as Gov. Raji Fashola. There’s none. I can go on and on and give you examples, to show that we are not only different from the PDP but we are better and bigger and we have people of competence and integrity, people that have shown the competence to solve problems, not to sit and loot public funds, which is what the PDP is good at.

People are waiting for the first ma­jor test for the APC, the presidential primaries in particular. Permutations are on about who will get it and all sort. What should Nigeria expect?

Look, the APC is just conducting it congress to select its leader for its state and national offices. All these speculations about candidates are neither here nor there. It is a design by the PDP to distract us. The first time this story of Tinubu and Buhari thing came out was in THISDAY newspaper, which is known to be sympathetic to the PDP and Jonathan government. So, I will like to appeal to people to stop believing all this rumours. The truth is that today, there is no one in the APC that has declared for any office. Okay? General Buhari has not said he is running. Asiwaju Tinubu has not said he is running. None of the other names being mentioned has said he is running for any of­fice in 2015. It is all PDP-driven speculations to distract us and create crisis in the party.

As far as I am concerned, I want to see two people, one for presidency and an­other for vice presidency that would move Nigeria forward. If they are both Christians or Muslims or Buddhist, Hindus or Jews, I don’t care how they worship God. I believe in one God. I worship God in my own way. I don’t ask other people to worship God the way I worship God. I think religion is a private matter; it has nothing to do with one’s performance in public office.

Once upon a time, specifically from 1979, in the South-west, Alhaji Lateef Jakande was governor of Lagos Sate, his deputy was Alhaji Jafojo. Both of them were Muslims. In Oyo State. there was Governor Bola Ige. His deputy was S.M Afolabi and both of them were Christians. It was the same story all over the South-west. In Sokoto State, it was a Muslim-Muslim ticket and so also was in Kaduna State, even with its high Christian population, no one raised any eye-brow then but today, the situation is different. How did we get to this point?

I can even give you more examples. Throughout the years of the civil war, Gen. Gowon, the head of state, was a Christian and his deputy, Akinwale Wey, was a Chris­tian; nobody noticed. In the administration of Gen. Buhari, Buhari and Idiagbon, his depu­ty, were both Muslims; nobody commented. In 1979, Chief Obafemi Awolowo picked his running mate, Chief Phillip Umeadi from the South-east; both were Christians and nobody complained. In 1993, Chief Moshood Abiola picked Alaji Babagana Kingibe, another Muslim-Muslim ticket, and that’s the ticket that actually won the election. So, if you ask me where and how Nigeria got to this point, I will blame it pure and square on Goodluck Jonathan. It is Goodluck Jonathan more than anybody.

But Goodluck Jonathan has only ruled this country for about four years?

Yes, he started it! He started using religion, as an instrument of political division. It is in the Goodluck Jonathan administration that the president of Nigeria goes to churches and makes policy announcements. He is the only president of Nigeria that goes to religious gatherings and makes public policy announcements. It is deliberate and they are spending a lot of money in churches to bring division, to give the impression that PDP is the party for Christians, with the hope that he can buy Muslim political leaders in the North and they have a large amount of money to do that. All this religious divisions are contrived for political gains and it is unfortunate that leaders who have responsibility to protect and project the constitution are doing this, as a matter of deliberate tactics.

We have docu­ments; we have proofs to show that. That is the strategy of Jonathan’s administration, but they will fail because Nigerians are too smart for that. Nigerians know those that steal their public funds and claim to be religious on Sundays and Fridays. They know they (Ni­gerians) can no longer be fooled. Nigerians need jobs and whoever provides these jobs, whether he’s Christian or Muslim, they will take the job. Nigerians need good schools, good hospitals and good roads. They are looking for those that give them these things, whatever the religion. They (Nigerians) are going to defeat the bigots that promote these divisions in the next election by God’s grace.

You are known to be very close to Gen. Buhari. Please, tell us: Is he contesting for the APC primaries for 2015 presidential race?

I am almost one hundred per cent certain that Gen. Buhari will contest the next elec­tion but it is up to the APC members to make that decision. I am one of those who have spent the last few years, trying to convince him, asking him to contest again and I think I have almost convinced him. My hope is that he will throw his hat in the ring as soon as possible. You know he is my candidate and I have not hidden that from anyone.

Let’s look at Obasanjo’s ten­ure. Some people believed that he worked with good hands, like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nuhu Ribadu, Oby Ezekweseli and you. Now, you blamed Jonathan for some problems, yet Okonjo-Iweala is still the same person, managing the economy. What do you say?

Ngozi did not manage the economy then. It was an economic team and we are all members, we jointly contributed in manag­ing the economy. It wasn’t one person and I think that’s one of the things now miss­ing. The fact that now, there is no strong team; there is no team in the cabinet of Jonathan. We jointly contributed to manage the economy. Now, there is no strong team. They are not working together. Ngozi called herself coordinating minister; she is not coordinating anything. She has no control over what is going on in the NNPC and the petroleum ministry, the source of 80 per cent of what comes into the economy. If you call yourself the coordinating minister and you cannot control that sector, what are you then coordinating?

There is a clear difference that there is no team now. The team is not together. Secondly, in our time, we had the advantage of strong leadership. President Obasanjo understood the issues. He provided strong leadership. He provided strong leadership in economic matters and gave us, the techno­crats, a free hand to do the brainstorming and policy formulations and once we sell the idea to him, he moves on with you for the imple­mentation. He protected us from politics and politicians; this is non-existent now. Jonathan neither understood the issues nor capable of providing that strong leadership to support the economic managers. This is the problem. Look at what happened to Sanusi Lamido, the former Central Bank Governor (now Emir of Kano). He was one important leg in economic management but just because he complained that revenues were leaking and going where they shouldn’t go, he was removed. Sanusi was probably the most credible person in that government but look at what happened to him.

You cannot have even a functioning economy when you do not have a solid team and those that are trying hard to get things done get threatened and intimidated out of office while those that are presiding over the looting of the treasury are the ones that are celebrated. In the president’s live media chat, he spent minutes defending the petroleum minister. One tree cannot make a forest. It is the whole content, the teamwork and quality of the leadership that goes in to provide the result. All these do not exist in this govern­ment under Jonathan; it is zero.

Sanusi Lamido is believed to be close to some of you in APC leader­ship and sympathetic to the party. He was accused of leaking documents and information about government to your party?

That is absolutely nonsense; those that say that about Sanusi Lamido do not know him. I have known him since we were teenagers. He is a fiercely loyal and dedicated public servant. He is a grandson of an Emir, so he is brought up to understand the dynamics of power and the meaning of loyalty. He is not a member of APC; he’s never sympathetic. I do not want to go into details but those that are accusing him of that know what he has done to help them. The problem with this government is that anytime you look at them and tell them the truth or what they do not want to hear, they will tag you, they smear you; they will give you names. The easiest one is that he is APC sympathiser, he is an opposition, and they will say he is Boko Haram’s sympathiser. They have all kinds of tags; they blame everyone, except them­selves; yet, they are the most incompetent, most incapable, most corrupt administration we have ever had in Nigeria’s history.

I am as old and even older than Nigeria. I have never seen anybody that is so inca­pable of doing anything to further the public interest like this kind of collection of people that constitute this government; yet, they are quick to blame others and tag them and frame them instead of facing the reality that the business requires you to spend sleepless night working for the people. Instead, they spend nights sleeping and stealing and the moment anybody says: ‘you are not doing well’, they are quick to give you names and use anonymous people on the internet to at­tack you as if that will change the fact.

Shortly after leaving office in 2010, people like you, including Nuhu Riba­du, began to have problems with the Yar’Adua administration up till now. What do you think happened and did you feel you stepped on toes?

Look, it is the nature of public service in Nigeria; once you go in and you want to do the right thing, you will step on toes because there are vested interests that do not want Nigeria to make progress and if you want to make Nigeria to progress, you have to con­front those vested interests. Certainly, I am sure we stepped on toes. I don’t care which toes. I don’t remember which but we had all kinds of problems when we left office. I have had more problems than Ribadu, who has worked with this government. I have never had anything to do with this government because I think it is just a toxic, corrupt and non-performing government. I choose to go for the opposition. I was not expelled from the PDP. I looked at the party and realised that their interest was to destroy this country; so, I left. It is in the nature of political life in Africa that if you are in the opposition, you are harassed, threatened and tagged but I have made that conscious choice and I stick by it.

Whether we step on toes or not, every Nigerian that knows what we did when we were in government knows that we tried to do what was in the best interest of Nigeria. Yes, some people will not be happy and that’s their business. I will do it again and again if given the chance.

How can former President Obasan­jo be absolved of the present situa­tion Nigeria finds itself?

No, he can’t be absolved. The fact that he is the president that handed over to Yar’Adua and Jonathan, he cannot be fully absolved. Of course, he may have his reasons. Some people attribute bad motives; some think he made a big mistake. I think the truth is somewhere in-between, but what Nigeria is going through right now is a direct result of decisions and actions, omission or commis­sion by President Obasanjo; no doubt about it and I think he is aware of this and that is why he wrote that long letter to try to begin to dis­tance himself from the administration. He is consciously aware of this. I don’t think at this point, Nigeria needs blaming him because at this point, we have a serious problem. I think we should move away from finger-pointing, but ask ourselves: ‘how do we solve this problem?’

With his years of experience, intelligence and contacts, how can people like him be deployed to solve this problem, to get us out of the ditch Jonathan has dragged us into? I think this is a more relevant question than to say: ‘Oh! President Obasanjo has imposed Yar’Adua and Jonathan and so he is respon­sible for what is happening.’ He may have been the instrument but the decisions and actions taken while they are in office is theirs and they have to be held responsible. You can give a person power but you can’t teach him how to use the power. I think we should focus on how we can get out of the grand-mess Jonathan has put this country into.

Is it also right for President Obasanjo to distance himself from the PDP and Jonathan administra­tion?

It is his choice. No matter how close you are to a person, no matter how friendly, even if he is your blood relation, if you advise him once, twice, three times, 10 times and he refuses to take your advice, it is your pre­rogative to say: ‘I have given up, you don’t take my advice, you don’t listen to me, you want to do things your own way and we are being seen together, people will think we are doing this things together and you decide, it’s time to put a distance between us.’ I think that is what President Obasanjo is doing. It is legitimate because his letter clearly showed that he has given President Jonathan advice on many fronts – political and otherwise, and Jonathan has ignored that. So, are you just going to stick around and be considered to be part of the problem, I think President Obasanjo is doing the right thing by washing his hands off Jonathan.

Nigeria is said to be at the brink of collapse, as the Boko Haram crisis is threatening the country and some people have blamed the Northern elite for this. You are one of the elite; what do you think?

It is absolute nonsense, absolute nonsense, whether you are looking at the root of Boko Haram, which we believe is as a result of poverty, unemployment and lack of educa­tion. The current situation is that government has failed to provide security. There is no way you can blame Northern elite for this; rather it is military and the Nigerian elite that are culpable for this situation. The current situation emerged because this government of Jonathan refused to address the issue of Boko Haram early enough before it became a serious problem. They refused to do so in­tentionally because they believe that it’s okay for Northerners to kill Northerners. They believe it is a Northern problem. There is no way you can blame Northern elite; every Nigerian elite is culpable in this case.

So, the current situation emerged, as I said, because this government refused to address the issue early enough before it becomes this serious and they refused to do so intention­ally because they believe that it is okay for northerners to kill northerners. They believe it is a northern problem, which will not affect them. In fact, an adviser to the President said this in June 2011, that if northerners want to kill themselves, the government will do everything to help them. So, there is a deliberate effort to allow this thing to go out of control because Jonathan govern­ment thought this is a northern problem. They don’t know that if your neighbour is hungry and he cannot sleep well at night, the fallout of his hunger and sleeplessness will affect your own peace. Since we are one country, these things have a way of affecting everybody.

When a Boko Haram bomber explodes a bomb in Kano or Yanyan or Maiduguri, it is not only northerners that get killed. It is any­body that happens to be there that get killed. This is what the Jonathan administration did not realise in good time. Boko Haram has been around for a long time. They never attacked. They didn’t fight anyone until the Yar’Adua administration killed their leader Mohammed Yussuf. They were a fringe Islamic group with an interpretation of Islam that is weird to many of us Muslims but they were doing their own thing and were never a threat to anyone, but when government confronted them, instead of arresting and putting them in court and properly convicting him (Yussuf); they decided to extra-judicially execute him, along with his in-laws and two others. Of course, the Boko Haram remnants decided that since the government cannot even obey its own laws, they would take the laws into our own hands. That was the begin­ning of the whole problem.

The Jonathan government refused to do anything and now they are turning round to blame northern elites. Anytime anyone of us suggest to government: ‘address the problem this way,’ you are tagged a Boko Haram sympathiser. What do you expect us to do? We folded our arms, left them to solve the problem their own way and now it has got to a point whereby it is clear that they are incapable of solving it. They are disgracing this country by inviting foreigners. I think it is a shame that Nigeria, the biggest country in Africa with one of the most potent armies that went to other countries to established peace, from Sierra Leone to Liberia, Rwanda, Congo and so on, cannot defend itself against a ragtag collection of untrained people called Boko Haram. It is a disgrace.

Can the Boko Haram we have now still be called a local insurgence when other known established ter­rorist groups have joined them?

Perhaps! Perhaps!! But this was not the situation three or four years ago when it should have been nipped in the bud. It was the incompetence of this government that allowed it to grow and fester.