History after all is man’s eternal quest for his foundation. The quest is to discover or reconstruct the broken pieces until we strike a narrative chord that tells the story of our past. Our successes and failures.

Applied to Nigeria, that quest often leads us to broken shards. It was colonial Britain’s idea that the hodge-podge of national entities should be forged into a single entity called Nigeria. Flora Shaw, Lord Luggard’s mistress, in her moment of poetic Eureka, decided that the disparate entities should be called Nigeria—a blend of Niger and River.

So ingenious, the two lovers must have felt. I guess they were.

But not surprisingly for anything forged out of romantic clouds rather than hard-headed realism, not enough thought was spared for the fundamental rubrics of making a national entity from so many divergent roots. Our nation then was hewn from a foundation of colonial convenience rather than our synergy of interests where everyone brings something to the table.

From this perspective, Nigeria then had remained a misnomer to many. But only a misnomer—fortunately—not incurably so.  There is strength and power in numbers as illustrated by China and India. In the wisdom of our founding fathers, the best way to extract our nationhood from the grips of imperial Britannia, despite our apparent fissiparous tendencies—cultural, religious, economic, political, social and otherwise—was to have a strong federalism.

At the beginning, such federalism was based on strong regional pillars. At least in those days, the regions were comparatively strong centres of power and development with a high degree of autonomy that enabled each of the major federating entities to develop at their own pace. Of course, it was not perfect and could never have been since it was to all intents and purposes, a learning process for all the operators at that point. The pioneers made pardonable errors.

But the impatient military incursion not only stalled that learning process, the famous Unification Decree 34 of 1966 imposed a unitary system on the country. At that time, it was forced by a national exigency. But this was a recipe for disaster in the years ahead.

Command and control works in a military culture—an environment with many zombies, according to Fela—but in a dynamic civilian setting, it is disastrously fraught with a lot of pitfalls. Command and control as have been demonstrated in Communist jurisdictions around the world, was and is a fertile ground for corruption, dictatorships, under-development, vast abuses of power and human rights, among others. From the collapse of Communism, fall of Berlin Wall, China’s resurgence  as an economic power arising from free enterprise to the Arab Spring hurricane, there are no shortage of living examples of what happens when the true aspiration of the people are suppressed by any sort of political hegemony.

Nigeria is certainly not an exception to these rules. The point of those who agitate for a Sovereign National Conference or a semblance of it has been that unless you redress the basis of our co-existence as a political entity or create a system that guarantees true federalism, you fertilize the ground for potential implosion. The symptoms of such implosion are already noticeable in the swathes of bloody ethnic and religious killings, especially the terroristic mayhem of the Boko Haram sects to whom the federal government now waves the white flag of surrender.

A ‘Somaliasation’ begins when a federal government whose first duty as a sovereign state is to protect lives and property now outsources that responsibility to ethnic militants as exemplified by the award of multi-billion contracts to some leaders of the Niger Delta militants and OPC to protect pipeline vandalisation. As an aside, one must wonder why such “chop, chop” as President Obasanjo described such contracts, is not yet extended to the leader of MASSOB, Ralph Uwazurike. Or are there no pipeline vandals in the Southeast or any federal facilities?

Back to our story, despite all the democratic pretensions to the contrary, it seems that successive civilian governments at the federal level had remained so enamoured of our warped version of federalism that allocates so much power to the centre as to make the states ineffectual vassals of an imperial federal power. In other words, our so-called federalism wears a unitary uniform!

I will illustrate this argument with two recent developments. The first, is a lecture by the Lagos State Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola at Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkin University, Washington, USA. He had pointed out the fact that whereas the federal government takes 52% of the federal allocation, all the 36 states take only 26% while the 774 local governments share only 20.2%. Using Lagos State as an example, he contrasted this lopsided revenue sharing formula with responsibility of each strata of the federation.

In Lagos State, he noted, the local governments have 6,415 roads; the state government has 3,028 roads while there are only 117 federal roads in Lagos State, a state which probably has so many federal roads in the first place only because Lagos used to be the federal capital. Yet, the federal government keeps 52% of the national revenue!

Such surplus fund translates into enormous powers. It has been said that the Nigerian president is probably the most powerful democratic leader in the whole world. It is because of this surplus fund at the disposal of the federal authorities that fuel so much corruption at the centre. Governance has become a big racket at the expense of the people.

Fashola raised other absurdities in our federation: “Although we have a ‘Federal Government’ the constitution was written by the military. So we have state courts where judges are picked by the Federal Government. We have state legislators but no state police to enforce the laws they make. There are no state prisons so we rely on Federal officers to police our states and keep convicted persons away from law abiding citizens.

“We have Federal Traffic Safety Officers to issue Driver’s Licences to drivers in the state and also seek to regulate municipal traffic inside the states. Many states cannot control the sources of their finance such as local taxes on consumption, lotteries and hotels. (City state taxes for drinks in New York).”

With so much power and resources to play with without commensurate responsibilities, the federal authority can afford to dispense with multi-billion patronages as in the example of pipeline monitoring contracts to ethnic militants which is probably a grand euphemism for bribery. We’ve become more creative in inventing new sources of corruption rather than services to the people.

With so much power at the centre, the federal government, often perversely translated as the president in power, can afford to abuse the power and get away with it. It is such power that creates the ground for the second example—the manipulation of the power of impeachment. Under the mercurial era of President Obasanjo, state legislators were compelled under duress to summarily impeach state governors who fell into Obasanjo’s bad books. Diepreye Solomon Alamieyeseigha, Joshua Dariye, Ayo Fayose, Rasheed Ladoja, Peter Obi, were thus sacked, despite the screaming public’s displeasure at the abuse of process. The end justifies the means.

The only reason the Governor of River State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, is in the danger of impeachment today, despite being one of the most successful governors in the country, is because the federal government has unlimited powers. In nursing alleged ambition to run for vice presidency pairing with some other candidates, he had made himself obnoxious to the president—enough grounds for impeachment under the cover of a federal might!

Amaechi might do well to read Dr. Peter Odili, his predecessor’s memoir, Conscience and History: My Story, for no sooner had Odili withdrawn from the presidential race than Obasanjo order the release of all Odili’s commissioners in the EFCC’s net. It’s then a question of whether Amaechi can stand the heat or wish to exit from the kitchen so soon.

President Jonathan had been guilty of many shapes and forms of non-performance, but nobody until now ever accused him of abuse of power. Such a meek and mild gentleman who does not even inspire fear in criminals. That such a man seems to be resorting to Obasanjo’s discredited methods to push his political objectives for 2015 says something about the desperation that is setting in the president’s camp. But when the chips are down, history would record such desperation as sign of weakness rather than strength.

Every Tuesday evening, some of the news junkies would gather in a cosy room within the USIS to watch American media superstars in action. Of course, I was sucked in by the wisdom, the deep and authoritative baritone voice of legendary anchors, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather, who competed from the two networks.

What we were watching really was the week’s American cum international news summarised into an hour’s package which USIS played to foreign audience. It was not just that the room where we watched the news was made exceedingly comfortable, the Americans supplied abundance of canned American Coke and beer – something we swore tasted differently from our local version!

I suppose, it was either the seed of my addiction to journalism started there – or was it really a case of an inherent junkie going for his weekly fix? Whichever the case, the fascination with the type of journalism I saw must have deeply shaped my future journalism career.

One word that stridently stuck out about the practice of journalism by American reporters was irreverence.

The reporters I saw feared no man, slaughtered any one that came within their radar. They were aggressive in their news drive, persistent, investigative, shoving their microphones and questions in front of willing and unwilling subjects – presidents or any news subject – insisting on answers.

They were news hounds or predators seeking for their prey -the public figures. I liked that. No sacred cows. No man is above the news – or the newsman! I liked the sound and meaning of that. As an added icing, the USIS library was fully stocked with books. It was the haven of researchers of all sorts, mostly from the media and the academia.

In those days, the USIS officials made it obvious that if there is any particular book we needed that they didn’t have, you could place request and the USIS would get it abroad for you to read and return.

Then, in 1981 or thereabout, USIS organized a special reception for Chinua Achebe. I was at the reception this time as a cub reporter reporting for my journalism teacher, Dr. Bimbo Osofisan – underscore the word, cub! After the formal presentations, the American Ambassador, Thomas Pickering -yes, the same Pickering who was the US special envoy speaking with Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola when he died after sipping some tea – was leading Achebe and other important people to the cocktail when this young man wielding a note book jumped in front of the team. Just like that. He was stammering and throwing nervous questions to Achebe. Something like, Sir, I am reporter, I want to ask you questions…how do you write…what are your tips for those aspiring to become a writer?… Well, wasn’t that how the great American reporters he saw at CBS and ABC did things?

Break protocols, ask questions, pester their subjects? If it was these days of Al Qaeda and Boko Haram, I guess the US marines hovering behind would have brought the intruder down instantly. But instead, wonder of all wonders, the great Achebe stopped to field the reporter’s questions! Behind him, the American ambassador stopped as well, bringing also to a stop the literati and other dignitaries following behind.

Despite such grave impudence, Achebe took my questions calmly, patiently, as if there were the most profound questions in the world. How to become a writer? Achebe said something to the effect that the best way to become a writer is to start writing anything that comes to your mind.

A writer, he said, is licensed to write on anything, but he must keep writing. Then, you must read and read other writers without necessarily trying to be like them. “You must find your voice and never lose it,” he said. Must a writer go to a special writing school? You need not go to any school of writing to write, but if you have the chance to go to any, take it just as well, he said.

Our adventurous reporter had run out of questions, but he had made his point and scoop! I have merely paraphrased his responses, but of course, you know Achebe spoke in soft voice, but spoke with profound wisdom.

At times, as we would later come to see over the years, the softness of his voice does not mellow the thunder and steely will of the man behind the voice. No man, no power messed with Achebe and got away with it.

He was a man of great wisdom, authority, simplicity and integrity and neither money, position, honour or even flatteries could sway him to stoop beneath his moral compass. I might not have been wise enough to capture all his tips but the encounter did something profound for me. It marked my cutting of teeth as a writer, sorry, reporter. It opened my eyes to a profound fact: the power of the reporter.

As a reporter, you can make the powerful people to stop and wait because of your questions. Yes, you can ask any question, anywhere, to anybody. You can even ask foolish questions. Some of the questions I asked Achebe that day must have been truly silly but he fielded them calmly, respectfully, making sense out of all my nonsense.

He must have been conscious of the fragile sensibility of writers and all creative souls. It’s a challenge to tend a young talent, to nurture it to fruition but far easier for the reckless snub of an impatient superstar to snuff the life out from the vulnerable tendril of an incipient talent. Before then, I had read and re-read all his novels, from the classic Things Fall Apart, to Arrow of God, to No Longer At Ease.

In Things Fall Apart, the young Achebe set forth on the monumental task of telling the great African story, that we were a people with deep and fecund historical past, a people with rich culture that shaped our own cosmology, that we were not just discovered by some whites in existential vacuum. When some Western scholars suggested that the novel form is dead, Achebe dismissed that and profoundly countered that perhaps, the West had exhausted their story, but Africa’s story was yet to be fully told and until we tell our story, the novel form – which is the art of communicating people’s ethos is a story format – cannot be dead.

The novel cannot die until I have told my story! Well, through Things Fall Apart, a global classic listed among top 100 books in the world, the black man discovered his voice and identity.

The black man in Africa and in Diaspora. In Roben’s Island, Nelson Mandela, as disclosed in his memoir, So Long a Journey, found meaning that resonated with his titanic struggle as he read Things Fall Apart.

The blacks in Diaspora—in Europe, Americas and the Caribbean, always talk about Things Fall Apart, reconnecting with their root through the tragic hero, Okonkwo’s character and Achebe’s enchanting narrative. Incidentally, for me, it was the Arrow of God, rather than the Things Fall Apart, that I consider Achebe’s best novel. I was later to detect that it was also Achebe’s favourite—or perhaps, a book he sets out to better himself in Things Fall Apart, and perhaps, flatters himself into thinking he achieved just that.

As writers or reporters, we often tend to box with ourselves, compete with our past. I for one think that my best writings are in the past, not now that one is mellowed by age and responsibility, but some think otherwise.

Who is to say such things? When I discovered that Achebe wrote the classic Things Fall Apart at age 26, I also resolved that I must stun the world with my own novel at 26. I actually did—that is to say, I actually wrote a novel, The Innocent Blood. It was the toughest thing I ever did till then, perhaps, even afterwards. Whenever I suffered the inevitable writers block, it was to Achebe’s narrative I usually turned to for inspiration.

But the book was the Arrow of God, rather than the famous Things Fall Apart. Here was the powerful priest, Ezeulu confronting the judgement of his god with a profound sense of dismay. For me, this is an endless existential conflict people of all faith grapple with all the time, wondering why the supernatural occasionally seems to play poker with us mortals irrespective of what we do. Do you ever feel such agony from the inside?

Well, in the Bible, David, Asaph, Solomon, Prophets Jonah, Habakkuk and so on had their moments of dark emptiness when God just didn’t seem to make sense.

Where is the book, Innocent Blood, or the manuscript of it? Another story. But I got born again, decided the values I espoused in the book was no longer consistent with my faith. I sent it home along with my other books then. I was later to learn that one of my rascally relations found the sheets of the manuscript useful to wrap tobacco leaves he smoked!

End of the next great novelist or better still, the story of a failed novelist who ended up as a reporter—my original calling. When I read Simon Kolawole’s piece last Sunday which also narrated about Achebe’s book inspiring him to write an unpublished novel, I started laughing and wondering: Who know how many other people in Nigeria, Africa and the world had been inspired into literary or journalism career by Achebe’s books?

This then is a testament to the greatness of Achebe, a man who more than anybody else I know encapsulates the best possibility of an Igbo man, a great Nigerian patriot and fighter and renaissance African and certainly one of the world’s greatest writers. It is a pity that the Nobel committee decided to deny him of a Nobel Prize, but it is perhaps, not Achebe they snubbed but the African story which Achebe gave to the world. That, it seems, is a measure of the premium they placed on the African story as opposed to the white man’s version. Achebe didn’t miss the Nobel, they missed him!

The novel cannot die until I have told my story! Well, through Things Fall Apart, a global classic listed among top 100 books in the world, the black man discovered his voice and identity. The black man in Africa and in Diaspora.

In Roben’s Island, Nelson Mandela, as disclosed in his memoir, So Long a Journey, found meaning that resonated with his titanic struggle as he read Things Fall Apart. The blacks in Diaspora—in Europe, Americas and the Caribbean, always talk about Things Fall Apart, reconnecting with their root through the tragic hero, Okonkwo’s character and Achebe’s enchanting narrative. Incidentally, for me, it was the Arrow of God, rather than the Things Fall Apart, that I consider Achebe’s best novel. I was later to detect that it was also Achebe’s favourite—or perhaps, a book he sets out to better himself in Things Fall Apart, and perhaps, flatters himself into thinking he achieved just that. As writers or reporters, we often tend to box with ourselves, compete with our past. I for one think that my best writings are in the past, not now that one is mellowed by age and responsibility, but some think otherwise.

Who is to say such things? When I discovered that Achebe wrote the classic Things Fall Apart at age 26, I also resolved that I must stun the world with my own novel at 26. I actually did—that is to say, I actually wrote a novel, The Innocent Blood.

It was the toughest thing I ever did till then, perhaps, even afterwards. Whenever I suffered the inevitable writers block, it was to Achebe’s narrative I usually turned to for inspiration. But the book was the Arrow of God, rather than the famous Things Fall Apart.

Here was the powerful priest, Ezeulu confronting the judgement of his god with a profound sense of dismay. For me, this is an endless existential conflict people of all faith grapple with all the time, wondering why the supernatural occasionally seems to play poker with us mortals irrespective of what we do. Do you ever feel such agony from the inside? Well, in the Bible, David, Asaph, Solomon, Prophets Jonah, Habakkuk and so on had their moments of dark emptiness when God just didn’t seem to make sense.

Where is the book, Innocent Blood, or the manuscript of it? Another story. But I got born again, decided the values I espoused in the book was no longer consistent with my faith. I sent it home along with my other books then.

I was later to learn that one of my rascally relations found the sheets of the manuscript useful to wrap tobacco leaves he smoked! End of the next great novelist or better still, the story of a failed novelist who ended up as a reporter—my original calling.

When I read Simon Kolawole’s piece last Sunday which also narrated about Achebe’s book inspiring him to write an unpublished novel, I started laughing and wondering: Who know how many other people in Nigeria, Africa and the world had been inspired into literary or journalism career by Achebe’s books?

This then is a testament to the greatness of Achebe, a man who more than anybody else I know encapsulates the best possibility of an Igbo man, a great Nigerian patriot and fighter and renaissance African and certainly one of the world’s greatest writers. It is a pity that the Nobel committee decided to deny him of a Nobel Prize, but it is perhaps, not Achebe they snubbed but the African story which Achebe gave to the world.

That, it seems, is a measure of the premium they placed on the African story as opposed to the white man’s version. Achebe didn’t miss the Nobel, they missed him!

With advancing age, one is rightly assumed to have seen it all and cannot be taken easily by the desire to amass wealth or swayed easily by some flattering realities, especially where a functional social security system operates.

To be ideologically cast, one must go through the ideological crucible to emerge from it thoroughly baked and exuding ideological appeal.

It comes with advancing age and indoctrination; only such are fit to preside over the affairs of their nations (in all the tiers of government) and staunchly give their countries the needed sense of direction. This is necessary as people confront ideological sharks, who are ready to derail and devour their opponents at the slightest opportunity.

This does not call for the misguided optimism and thoughtless radicalism of the youth. • To stand for nothing, we end up with nothing. As a country without ideology (hoping naively to have the best of two worlds of ideological extremes) stands for nothing; ends up with nothing; is directionless;a joker; and a push-about, the pride of having a good sense of direction and national esteem can only be assured by a group that is ideologically cast and with an advantage of age.

• In a certain age-bracket, people must come to terms with the realities of life and done with frivolities. That makes them role models. If a country has the blessing of having such people in the helm of national affairs, leadership becomes something sacred and made to be truly representative.

• As infirmities of all kinds attend very old age, leading to a decline in fortunes, the perceived advantages of gerontocracy should not be overstretched. Given that old age is of immense blessing to a nation (as it posts a high average life expectancy) and not a crime and for their meritorious services to their nations, there is the need for an orderly transfer of responsibilities to those still within the age bracket to function well within the statutory provisions of the system otherwise, inability to attend to state functions, absenteeism from work, declining productivity and personality cult would set in and undermine progress and national esteem. If the problem were to be old age, those of them in both Chambers of the US Congress, who are bracketed with our gerontocrats would no longer be Congressmen.

They could only be in Congress for being positively creative on how to shore up the fortunes of their respective constituencies, in the broadest definition of that term and the scope of its jurisdiction;  not using their constituencies as a platform to line their pockets, leaving their constituents disillusioned, disgusted, impoverished and disempowered. The good and the bad, as they manifest, derive from our creativity or creative instincts and passion for innovation.

It is a matter of the aims and objectives we pursue; located within the broad categories of goodness and evil. To be positively creative is to be constructive. Such are builders. To be negatively creative is to be destructive. Such are destroyers. It is natural to perfect in what we have been doing over the ages. It is not in vain that the Bible enjoined us to be perfect for our Father in heaven is perfect.

The fact is that what we perfect in is that, by which we are defined. And to underscore the point that God meant well, He enjoined us to be holy for our Father in heaven is holy. This is to avoid misconstruing the admonition to mean to be perfect in all we do, even if our inclinations are evil and we do evil.

It is, therefore, very unfortunate if one is always singled out for very dishonourable mention and he deserves it. If, as one advances in age, he is not done yet with frivolities and is still singled out for dishonourable mention, then, he is not a role model; has been wallowing in vices and likely to have perfected his ways. As we perfect in anything, we are not only defined by it but cannot turn away from it all of a sudden.

This applies to all good and evil inclinations. Positions do not make people responsible; they demand a high sense of responsibility from all. Therefore, one could be adjudged responsible by his character and attitude to all that demand a sense of responsibility and the things by which he is defined.

If, for reasons of the evil of nepotism, a lower position is given to a man of honour, he could be counted to bring a high sense of duty to bear on the discharge of his assigned duties and turn the position into gold but if a position of responsibility is given to a thief, he will certainly make a mess of it, for his inclinations are evil.

Antecedents are very revealing and inform why such costly mistakes should not be made. And this is corroborated by the holy Bible, which says: “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy.” •Moshood Kalah, 08059957125, kalahmoshood@gmail.com

That appointment seems like a bold vote of no confidence on younger people by the ruling party. This funny circumstance was worsened by the celebrative mood of a section of this divided party.

By the appointment, some party stalwarts enthuse, the party would now be well-positioned to face the challenge of President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election campaign in 2015. So much ink has been wasted in media adverts, not to talk of millions of naira that went with the felicitations. But any sensible person ought to know that Jonathan needs more than old trickeries of the Anenihs of this world to win his second term. He needs far more tangible deliverables than just the incantations of an old political Balaam. Anenih’s appointment is coming on the heels of his appointment as the chairman of the Nigeria Port Authority, one of Nigeria’s most lucrative boards. It is said anytime you want to figure out how the nation’s coming electoral battles would be fought, look at who emerges as the chairman of the Nigeria Port Authority. The man behind these appointments is obviously trying to say something to Nigerians. It’s going to be business as usual – that is to say, money politics, then electoral abracadabra, the type an Anenih is capable of conjuring. Otherwise, an Anenih as a political strategist, I would have thought, had been effectively debunked and demystified by Adams Oshiomhole, who had twice trounced the old grandee in the Edo State, the last time winning him even in his ward. If Anenih’s magic didn’t work for him, why should the president and his men put so much stock on Anenihism as their magic wand for 2015? On the other hand, the fact that anybody could be building a political strategy based on the jaded old politics speaks of absence of creativity, fresh ideas and indeed, acute inability to read the signs of the time. In the last presidential election, President Barrack Obama built a massive innovative campaign machinery drawn from the youths, deploying state of the art communication tools and sophisticated data base. Are we likely to expect that from an Anenih and – lest I forget – the 75-year-old-Bamanga Tukur in 2015? The appointments of these grand old grandfathers speak volumes about our vision and methodology! Celebrating such political anachronism makes our situation even more pathetic. Is it to say that among Jonathan’s allies, there are no younger persons, who could be trusted and depended upon to do his biddings? Or that President Jonathan’s case is so bad that only a doddering fixer can do the magic in 2015? It is unfortunate that anything that has to do with this party, PDP, affects us, otherwise, it would have been better to leave PDP for PDP. But unfortunately, PDP has vowed to rule us for the next 60 years. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the party is of any progressive bent -progressive, not in ideological terms but in the context of progressively advancing the human condition in our polity. Anenih’s choice strikes me as rather odd, if not totally awful for two reasons. First, in adding the chairman of BOT to Anenih’s chairmanship of NPA, Jonathan seems to stack all the odds in favour of his South-South geopolitical zone at the expense of the other zones. So, you now have a South-South man as President, BOT and NPA chairs. Even if this is a game of cronyism, whatever happens to Jonathan’s former name, Azikiwe, which he used prominently while campaigning in the South-East? To thy tenths o Israel…until the next election! The second point is that Anenih’s visibility in the political scene in the last two decades, from the PDM days of Shehu Musa Yar’Adua to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s imperial days, has left us with a broken politics and earned him the dubious title of “Mr. Fix It”. In better societies, a Mr. Fix It title has the ring of below the table Mafiadom that should have earned the person a spot in the pantheon of dishonour. But in Nigeria, Anenih wears this title, even as a badge of honour of a man, who fixes all problems, even if by sleight of hand. Whether it was Sani Abacha, Obasanjo or Jonathan, Anenih has been found useful as a fixer. But that was until he got demystified by Adams Oshiomhole. But even though Anenih could not fix his state for PDP on two occasions, disgracefully losing even in his ward, Jonathan seems either too fixated with the old mantra to notice that or to read these defeats as evidence of an expired drug whose sale-by days are behind. But Anenih’s methods are not so much the issue here as his age. After the failure of third term on May 16, 2006, on my 50th birthday making it, as Aremo Osoba pointed out then, my birthday present to Nigeria, Obasanjo needed a soft landing. Anenih was the chairman of the BOT then, imposed as usual by Obasanjo, who from that perch – as official policy – presided over the third term gambit. Of course, it failed. Anenih, it seemed, was suspected of below-par performance in the third term project. In 2007, Obasanjo simply muscled Anenih out and took over as the BOT chairman. Then on April 3, 2012, he voluntarily resigned, which, for an Obasanjo of post-1979, is a novelty. He puts a sophisticated veneer on what was essentially a tactical ploy. According to Obasanjo, he wanted to “give some attention to mentoring across the board nationally and internationally in those areas that I have acquired some experience, expertise and in which I have something to share,” stressing that he needed “more time to devote to international demand on me.” That sounds so presidential and statesmanly for a man, who deservedly is an international statesman and had mentored different presidents. But people familiar with Obasanjo’s pedigree might be right to suspect that with the growing mutual hostility between Obasanjo and Jonathan’s administration, it is perhaps a plausible suspicion that in resigning, Obasanjo took the wind out of the sail of a possible presidential plot to cut him down to size through voting him out of the office. But herein lies the danger of Obasanjo’s resignation, for in voluntarily resigning in his own terms, Obasanjo has strengthened his capacity for mischief as a loose canon on the prowl. In moving against Obasanjo’s men in Ogun State politics, the PDP leadership is only fuelling the proverbial evil day when Obasanjo will visit vengeance on Jonathan’s inadequacies. If Obasanjo’s pedigree is anything to go by – starting from his acidic attacks of President Shehu Shagari regime to Buhari-Idiagbon and subsequently the Ibrahim Babangida regime – he usually first distances himself from the regime before he proceeds to attack when it will hurt most. I don’t think the evidently vulnerable Jonathan administration would be any exception, mark my word! One more thing. In recycling tired old bones, PDP is leading backwards rather than forward. In which case, if the party fulfils its prophecy of ruling Nigeria for the next 60 years with these old bones, it is anybody’s guess where such backward movement would stop.

Assuming that by some magic, the current administration were to deliver on that promise, that would have reduced Nigeria’s housing needs by less than 10 per cent! According to the experts, the nation is short on its housing needs by a whopping 16 million houses.

You will be forgiven if you’ve not heard of houses built by the federal government. That is because the Jonathan government has not been doing much of building – houses, roads or infrastructures. In those days, you heard of different Federal Housing Schemes, which many people, especially public servants, scrambled to acquire with various mortgage schemes, especially those under the Federal Mortgage Bank. As a middle level journalist in those days, for instance, Aremo Olusegun Osoba disclosed that his first house in Lagos was acquired through such a mortgage scheme.

It is the wisdom of good societies to recognise that the vast majority of the working class may never have enough bulk money to build or buy a house of their own, hence the need to devise mortgage schemes that would enable the average worker to own a house on a mortgage scheme spread over two or three decades. It is a conventional wisdom that the worst social and economic tragedy that can befall a worker is to retire from working life without a little corner of this earth planet that he can call his own.

On the other hand, the easiest way to hasten the death of a retiree is to hound him to pay an ever increasing rent at a time he could least afford it. There is no question about it that one of the greatest triggers of low scale corruption among the working class is the need to raise money to acquire land and build a home they can call their own.

This shouldn’t have been so if there was a well established mortgage tradition in the country. Perhaps, nothing, it seems, illustrates the tragedy of Nigeria’s housing deficiency better than the remark of Nigeria’s first female justice of the Supreme Court, retired Justice Olufunke Adekeye, in a newspaper interview that with her exit service, she now has the burden of looking for an affordable accommodation to rent after a 44-year career life! And some of her more conscientious colleagues, who refused to soil their hands with corruption during their tenure are in a similar situation.

That is why veteran journalist and former governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, whose “Jakande Housing Estates”, usually for low income class, scattered in all the major divisions of Lagos, would remain an all-time hero to many. Jakande houses are merely functional, to be sure, rather than luxurious but they were affordable to different categories of low income owners, who reside in those properties and are eternally grateful to God for enabling them break the housing jinx. Jakande was fulfilling his party, UPN’s four cardinal programmes, which included housing.

We never hear of PDP’s cardinal programmes! In those days, the NPN followed suit with Shagari housing estates too. Before then, the Federal Housing Authority left us with FESTAC housing estate in 1977, a legacy from our festival of masquerades that year as some Christian critics derided cultural renaissance called, Black and African Festival of Art and Culture. Those FESTAC houses range from the low end one bedroom, two bedroom, three flats bedroom to split duplexes and detached houses for the upper class.

There is no question that today, Nigeria is under acute housing crisis compounded by the upsurge in unplanned urbanisation. When, therefore, I got invitation from the chairman of Good Earth Power Nigeria Limited, Major-General Paul Toun, to the inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan Legacy City, in Abuja, I was curious to know what was going on.

It turned out to be a proposed ultra-modern 1000-unit housing estate outside Abuja initiated by Good Earth Power Nigeria, a subsidiary of the multi-billion dollar-family conglomerate, Zawani Group, based in Muscat, Oman, in partnership with the Federal Mortgage Bank. A newspaper report, suggesting that the project was a direct foreign investment attracted into Nigeria by President Goodluck Jonathan’s economic diplomacy is quite misplaced.

Rather, the group had to fight its way into the country, scaling multiple human hurdles, I learnt. Good Earth Power International co-founded by a member of the Omani royal family, Prince Alawi Zawani, is one of the companies under the Zawani Group with operations in Asia, Europe, America and now Africa. The Omani billionaire, Zawani, led a consortium of experts from Asia, Europe and America to the Abuja event, perhaps, a measure of the importance of the Nigerian market to their entry into the African market.

What Good Earth Power business model promises is not just a housing estate but really a futuristic modern city that, at times, sounds like a picture of El Dorado. Imagine a city on the outskirts of Abuja that promises you 24-hour uninterrupted power supply, using a modular power plant; which produces all its residents fresh food requirement from an underground farm that yields 100 times more food than conventional agriculture; that has its ultra-modern rail-track that takes away all your transportation problems within the city and to Abuja; that delivers the latest high-speed 2G, 3G and 4G Internet and satellite television to every home at a fraction of the conventional cost; that provides 1000 ultra-modern housing unit, using “advanced building materials, manufacturing methodologies and sophisticated erection methods”; that promises sundry women empowerment schemes and also create employment for youths and, of course, guarantees utmost security for residents and what you have is the proposed Goodluck Jonathan Legacy City.

The above picture was painted by the CEO of Good Earth Project International, Jason Rosamond, and for each of these Utopian promises, the group came with appropriate experts and companies from different parts of the world to demonstrate how it works.

The experts included Mott Mac Donald, from UK, Thomson Adsett, an architect from Australia, Carillion Alawi from Oman, Al Jaber from UAE, Beyond Forestry, from UK, Blue Technologies, France, British Borneo Holdings, Malta, Katana, UK, Common Wealth Business Council, UK, Origo Partners, China, RIBEC, UK, Credit Suisse, Switzerland, HK Capital, Hong Kong, Howden Insurance, UK, Global Cover Africa, South Africa, ZR Energies, Oman and Vantem Construction, USA. Such a wide cast of expertise also reflect some of the countries where Good Earth International had delivered high profile projects.

What perhaps fascinated the Nigerian audience more was a demonstration by the Good Earth International that their promise of clean and renewable energy power generation would be empowered by a recycled waste—solid or soft—from the environment. Federal Capital Territory Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed was so impressed by the technology that he asked the consortium to quickly expand their scope of operation to other parts of Abuja where he can guarantee them abundance of waste to work with!

What informs the unique business model evolved by Good Earth for dealing with third world nations like Nigeria, said Rosamond, is the realization that Africa lacked so much of the basic infrastructures that merely building ultra-modern houses without a basic infrastructure to support them would be like throwing a beautiful rose into a desert!

To operate in Africa, therefore, the company decided to leverage on “new technologies and business models to change the economics of investment in Africa, allowing us to generate sufficient returns to meet the needs of our investors, while creating revenue for significant, game changing community development initiatives.” According to this model, by leveraging on cutting edge technologies to drastically reduce cost, Good Earth is able to make enough profit to deliver high returns to stakeholders while reinvesting 50 percent of the profit into the community—building schools, hospitals and other infrastructures.

According to the organic agricultural model demonstrated later to select audience at Hilton Hotel, it was possible to generate as much as USD30 million return based on a USD500,000 investment! But watch it there! I like this agricultural investment deal, for instance, but common sense suggests to me that when a thing is too good to be true, then there is a catch somewhere.

Is there a catch anywhere? Chairman of Good Earth Nigeria, General Paul Toun, probably captured my thoughts when he declared to those congratulating him on the success of the outing that he would only feel happiest after the next 18-months when the project would have been executed for all to see. One of those even more anxious to see the project come to fruition is the excited Minister of Land, Housing and Urban Development, Ms A. I. Pepple.

With 16 million shortfall in housing need in the country and a 1 million housing promised by the Jonathan administration that has not even been scratched, the 1000 housing units of this private sector joint venture, she believed, would go a great step toward reducing the housing problem in the country.

But at the private briefing in Hilton Hotel an American expert told the audience bluntly that Nigeria cannot go far in attracting international housing developers who are quite willing to invest in our huge market, unless we reform our land and foreclosure laws to make it easy for developers to be able to recover their investments from defaulting customers. As things stand now, not many investors would be willing to risk their fund in the Nigerian market, period.

Surely, even if the government cannot build houses, it can at least look into our convoluted land laws, including the Land Use Decree which has remained a perennial source of conflict presenting land buyers with a double jeopardy of dealing with the government and the traditional land owners at the same time. “It always seems impossible until it’s done,” says Nelson Mandela. On this, you can hardly disagree with Africa’s legend.

The typically serious newspapers don’t do dramatic things. They prefer sober headlines with a lot of hard stuff and facts. They go for the generic rather than the individual. They avoid emotionalism often derided as sensationalism in favour of the sober and at times, drab.

They leave the tabloids to scream while their serious siblings make do with tepid sobriety! But like the exponents of human interest journalism have always argued, the poignant story of the individual is still the best way to capture the drama of news far more than the egregious splash of hard stuff and statistics.

That’s why the tabloids always manage to gain more readership than the hard papers. Secondly, in celebrating the unusual story of Victor Moses as its front page cover, The Guardian did it differently. The story was not stereotypical. They used Victor Moses to epitomize the much-maligned and vilified and derided Super Eagles, the underdog that turned, overnight, into a superhero.

About ten years ago, a teenage Victor Moses had gone out to play soccer when religious crisis broke out in Kaduna. When he rushed home for safety, what he saw was a gruesome mayhem. The place he called home had been razed by inferno and his parents consumed in the religious riots. An orphaned Moses was eventually taken to England by an uncle where his soccer talents blossomed as he played for various youth clubs, including England’s Under 21 until he ended up playing for Chelsea.

When England coach Fabio Capello dithered to include him in the England’s national team, Victor Moses registered to play for Nigeria. Now, as Nigerians, from the lowly to the high and mighty roar in whoops of ecstasy over our unexpected victory at the African Nations Cup, we must not forget that it was Victor’s two penalties against Ethiopia that saw us scale the Ethiopian mountain across our way to the Promised Land.

Without undermining the greatness of everyone else that made the team—lion-hearted boss, coach Stephen Keshi, a leader of leaders right from his soccer playing days in the national team; temporary captain and goal stopper, Vincent Enyeama, easily Africa’s best goal keeper today; Mikel Obi, who held the midfield and marshaled his teammates to demolish their opponents; Sunday Mba, the home-based lad from Warri Wolves who is a wolf indeed in the opponents’ goal-mouth and scorer of the winning goal of the tournament; Emmanuel Emenike, the top striker whose injury robbing us of his presence in the final clearly showed in the narrow margin of our victory; Godfrey Oboabona, captain of the Sunshine Stars who neutralized dreaded Didier Drogba—it was obvious that without Victor Moses on our side, the story might have been different. Now, everybody is celebrating, including, I expect, the Boko Haram fanatics, who only last week, mowed down nine health workers administering immunization against dreaded poliomyelitis in Kano.

For the first time in many years, Nigerians are united in fraternity of shared brotherhood and joy, ethnic and religious differences totally swept aside. Once again, we are brothers in shared humanity and nationhood.

It is good to see Nigerians laughing again, not because a politician paid them to generate laughter and excitement, but because the laughter is flowing from the river of joy inside their being. Victor Moses then represents a living metaphor of the superabundant talents, manpower, natural resources which God has blessed this nation with, but which our system, like Victor Moses’ parents, had killed and are still killing and destroying in orgy of violence, religious differences, political failures, leadership failures, organization and of course, the ultimate national monster, corruption. Once again, the Super Eagles triumph left us with a load of lessons. I expect that students of leadership in business schools, corporate bodies and as individuals should be drawing critical lessons from the team.

First, the team leader, Stephen Keshi’s daring courage. Everybody recognized that it is a classic definition of madness to do things exactly the same way, to recycle exactly the same kind of people to lead team Nigeria—football, politics or economy— picked through the same kind of processes and yet expect things to change, but it took coach Keshi to actually change the paradigm. Instead of fielding the old, professional superstars who are overused, underperforming, stereotypical, self-indulgent, over-careful and acutely risk-averse, preferring the comfort zone of returning to their foreign clubs to make good retirement income, Keshi dumped them for the hungry, daring, energetic, under-exposed home-based boys who packed raw energy, skill, bravery and hunger for recognition in their boots.

Away went bulky striker, Obafemi Martins, the unpardonably reckless Yakubu Aiyegbeni who frittered away Nigeria’s quarter-final chance in front of an empty goal net in the World Cup final in South Africa a few years ago and even English boy, Osaze Odemwingie in favour of the more enterprising newcomers.

Team Captain, Joseph Yobo was benched to make room for fresh legs. In the Bible, when Saul offered David his armour coat and weaponry in the battle against Goliath, David turned them down because “I have not proved them” or tested them. If Drogba was expecting the familiar boots, weaves, twists, turns and feints of Yobo, he met the unexpected and unpredictable wizardry of the fresh legs of Oboabona, a complete mystery that ultimately slayed Ivorian Goliath with a local sling! At first, Keshi was on his own, disowned by the Nigerian Football Federation, who while the games were still crucially on, put out the message that the coach would be sacked if Nigeria lost against Ethiopia.

If that was NFF’s peculiar idea of motivation, it must be a cruel and macabre model akin to putting a man through the guillotine in order to get the best out of him! Of course, those of us spectators and the media had long decided that Keshi was a useless coach, except that now, he is the best coach—after all! Nothing, it seems, succeeds like success and failure, damned failure, is always an orphan. The success of this five-week old team is perhaps, a wider message to Nigeria.

When are we going do away with the old cows on the stage and replace them with fresh legs, the abundant talents in the land who can take Nigeria out of the present wilderness? When would our own Keshi, a man of courage flying on the wings of change land in our clime? Second lesson; the team. You must have noticed that there was no “superstar” in this team, only players.

Enyeama was content to hold the forte as a captain for a benched captain, Yobo, only to withdraw for Yobo to take the glory of a captain when victory was won. Like Keshi in 1994, in his declining days, Yobo’s career is crowned with glory of winning the African trophy, even if he won it from the bench! (Yes, I understand he was fielded twice ceremonially for a total of 7 minutes!) If change must come, the old order must give way to the new with a promise of change and freshness. For the country, the lesson is equally obvious.

We need a fresh first eleven at the various spheres of power to move this country forward. At the states, we need a fresh first eleven made up of people with energy and fresh ideas. At the federal level, we need fresh first eleven—men and women who love Nigeria the way these boys love their country and demonstrated it in South Africa. For Nigeria to laugh again, we need fresh first eleven who can score the goals. The old order must give way for a new order. It’s about time!

It’s a drama that throws up the nature of man and power and what power can do to people. On Janurary 16, the cat and mouse game pitching the former governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu and some of the state’s PDP leaders led by his former chief of staff and anointed successor, Governor T.A. Orji, came to a dramatic peak when Kalu outwitted his traducers to make his way back to PDP, a party he was one of the founding fathers in 1998.

Against all odds and the wish of Governor Orji, former Governor Kalu was issued a PDP membership card with number 9787945 by the Chairman of Ward A, in Igbere, Joseph Chika Emeri, defying the threat of the governor not to do so.

If you were from Igbere, it would have remained an infinite wonder to you why anybody would ever think that an Igbere indigene would not issue a party card to Kalu simply because some party chieftains somewhere said not to do so! Governor Orji had purportedly sacked the ward chairman, but that in the manner of PDP politics, is the usual thunderstorm that would soon clear the way it came, leaving Kalu and his opponents, as you can imagine, to slug it out over the control of the party’s vital structures soon.

This week, I am turning over the column to a Guest Writer, Chukwuemeka Eze, whose analysis of the imbroglio I found quite instructive:  “It is the interest of Ghana to take consideration of Dr. Danquah’s age and his health. He suffers from asthma – a choking sensation when the patient finds it difficult to breathe; when I think of him having an attack in that narrow cell without the asthma powder to inhale I feel I am in a way responsible….Now, Mr. President, I close this letter with the full hope that my appeal will not be in vain….”   – Yours sincerely, Mabel Dove. (Excerpts from J.B. Danquah’s former wife’s letter to Kwame Nkurumah in December 1964, begging for Danquah’s release from prison). “Dear Miss Dove, I have only received today your letter dated 6 December. The appeal you make in this letter does not move me a bit. It rather incenses me.

I am glad you are not a politician – I am sorry that I am; but remember that I am a human being.”   (Excerpts from President Nkrumah’s reply to Mabel Dove’s letter.)  Danquah and Ofori-Atta were founding members of United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC).

They were based in the United Kingdom in the 1940s. In 1947, they invited Nkrumah, who was a Pan-African vibrant student in America, back to Ghana to become the first full-time secretary of UGCC. Nkrumah later left the Party to form his Convention Peoples Party (CPP) with which he became the first Prime Minister (and later, President) of Ghana. Danquah and Ofori-Atta found themselves in opposition.

They were eventually thrown into prison by President Nkrumah, where they were subjected to inhuman treatment and harsh prison conditions that necessitated Danquah and his former wife and journalist, Mabel Dove, to write Nkrumah separately to release Danquah from prison.

As seen in Nkrumah’s response to Mabel’s letter, President Nkrumah was not moved and Danquah eventually died in prison. This is a true life story contained in the book, “How Nkrumah Fell: OPERATION COLD CHOP…the inside story by Peter Barker.”  There seems to be a resemblance of the above story with what is currently playing out in Abia State PDP between Gov. T.A. Orji and his mentor, Orji Uzor Kalu. Although I am not a supporter of either of them, I feel obliged to comment on this matter that has occupied eminent space in public political discourse.

This piece is not intended to justify Kalu in his political struggle with his chief opponent, Gov. T.A. Orji, but to highlight the transient nature of playing God over one’s benefactor even when the benefactor is no angel. mah played God and Danquah paid the supreme sacrifice by laying down his life in prison for Mother Ghana. Kalu’s case with T.A. is not expected to lead to such tragic end but it should be noted that death may be metaphorical.

Death may be emotional, psychological, physical, physiological, political, financial, etc. Death is death!  Although Danquah’s death might not be the only cause of the fall of Nkrumah from his exalted position, it contributed, even if remotely, to the cause of the first military intervention in Ghanaian politics. History is replete with situations where those who refused to show benevolence to their benefactors, while in eminent positions, suffered disgraceful exit or later found themselves or their scions at the mercy of these benefactors or history.

It could also be the reverse of the case. It is not news that T.A. Orji was Uzor Kalu’s Chief of Staff while Kalu was Governor of Abia State. Amidst great opposition, Kalu hand-picked T.A. Orji to succeed him. When EFCC charged T.A. Orji to court and he was remanded in custody, Kalu campaigned for him throughout the nooks and crannies of Abia State. T.A. won the governorship election but the swearing-in was about being scuttled but Kalu, the “political strategist”, deftly maneuvered his way and the rest became history. Granted that there might have been misunderstanding and quarrels between the duo arising from the display of god-fatherism on the part of Kalu and rebellion on the part of T.A.

But, these, I think, are not enough for T.A. to throw decorum to the wind by leading Abia PDP Stakeholders to Wadata House, Abuja last year to plead with and threaten PDP not to admit Uzor Kalu. T.A. Orji’s conduct is certainly against the spirit of section 40 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which, in part, provides: “Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interest.”

From this provision, one need not be a saint before he can join a political party of his choice. Going down memory lane, one can boldly say that majority of persons who call themselves PDP stakeholders had had open romance and identification with other parties before they returned to PDP. Of recent memory are Atiku’s return to PDP despite the initial opposition of Gov. Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State and Ayo Fayose’s return to Ekiti State PDP despite some pockets of opposition. I think the essence of PDP having “umbrella” as its symbol is that an umbrella is meant to accommodate those that come under its cover in order to save them from rainfall or sunrays.

In any case, even if anyone should oppose Kalu’s return to PDP, that person ought not to be T.A. Orji except where one wants to replay the act of Brutus against Caesar in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (where Caesar told Brutus, Et tu Brut). It will also amount to a replay of Nkrumah’s heartlessness against Danquah.   Granted that Kalu is not a saint, yet there are rules – legal and moral – even in the animal kingdom. Although, Mahatma Ghandi has written about politics as a game without principles, politicians should still retain a modicum of decency in their dealings.

This reminds me of the words of Robert Kennedy, a former U.S. Attorney General and brother of President J.F. Kennedy in a speech he delivered at the Union of South African Students’ Day of Affirmation in Cape Town, South Africa on 7th June, 1966: “There is a Chinese curse which says, ‘May we live in interesting times’.

Like it or not, we live in interesting times. And everyone here will ultimately be judged – will ultimately judge himself – on the effort he has contributed to building a New World society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.” Certainly, the practice of politics of exclusion will not boost our effort to build a New World society.

Nigeria as a country has been calling on our citizens in Diaspora to return and invest in their fatherland. If returning back to your base in the above circumstance can be recognised as an act of courage, why should a return to a political party be treated differently?

Returnees should be accepted in joy and where they err, they should be punished. Leaving Kalu in “political Sahel” will not improve the fortunes of PDP, rather it will dwindle it. The argument that Kalu’s return will lead to return is self defeatist because PDP has always thrived in troubles in the past. How many state chapters of the party are without rancor?

As we move towards 2015, especially in the face of the proposed merger of major opposition political parties, the concern of PDP in Abia State should be how to co-join hands to retain the State rather than dissipate energy on Kalu’s return to PDP. Verbum sat sapienti est. (A word is enough for the wise).       Chukwuemeka Eze, a legal practitioner contributed this article from Ikeja, Lagos, ezeassociateslaw@yahoo?

Granted that Kalu is not a saint, yet there are rules – legal and moral – even in the animal kingdom. Although, Mahatma Ghandi has written about politics as a game without principles, politicians should still retain a modicum of decency in their dealings.

This reminds me of the words of Robert Kennedy, a former U.S. Attorney General and brother of President J.F. Kennedy in a speech he delivered at the Union of South African Students’ Day of Affirmation in Cape Town, South Africa on 7th June, 1966: “There is a Chinese curse which says, ‘May we live in interesting times’. Like it or not, we live in interesting times. And everyone here will ultimately be judged – will ultimately judge himself – on the effort he has contributed to building a New World society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.”

Certainly, the practice of politics of exclusion will not boost our effort to build a New World society.  Nigeria as a country has been calling on our citizens in Diaspora to return and invest in their fatherland. If returning back to your base in the above circumstance can be recognised as an act of courage, why should a return to a political party be treated differently? Returnees should be accepted in joy and where they err, they should be punished. Leaving Kalu in “political Sahel” will not improve the fortunes of PDP, rather it will dwindle it. The argument that Kalu’s return will lead to return is self defeatist because PDP has always thrived in troubles in the past. How many state chapters of the party are without rancor?

As we move towards 2015, especially in the face of the proposed merger of major opposition political parties, the concern of PDP in Abia State should be how to co-join hands to retain the State rather than dissipate energy on Kalu’s return to PDP. Verbum sat sapienti est. (A word is enough for the wise).  Chukwuemeka Eze, a legal practitioner contributed this article from Ikeja, Lagos, ezeassociateslaw@yahoo

Their wives are COWS OF BASHEN as they cannot rise in defence of Ms. Oteh. Okay, when has SEC become a personal property of the woman? Why did they personalise it? What of the women in the chambers? Have they been cloned like Hembe and co for them not to see that a fellow woman is being dishonoured because she pledged to do her work the way it is supposed to be done?

Chikere, 08163709070

Oteh has courage, qualification and experience to do this SEC job. To sanitise SEC, she must step on big toes. This is expected. Exposing of Herman Hembe is why they are after her. She was not found enriching herself. Another reason is that she is courageous, intelligent and qualifies for the job. She needs all our support.

Chucks Ubiaru, 07035005262

This shows us how callous our elected members of the National Assembly are to the general public.Are there no women among those members to protest in favour of Oteh? Or is it a matter of dog, eating dog.

Mafe, AJ. 08098949479

Pastor Dimgba, I am disappointed in you. For SEC and workers not to suffer, advise her to resign. Qualification to head SEC is never first class degree.

Akwasa, 08179331331

Your write up on Oteh and the legislature is nonsense. You mean Oteh is right in spending so much for breakfast and running the affairs of a corporate body like a personal estate?

07064492343

Na wao !! No be small thing! This is to show how far some, if not all Nigerian leaders, could go in furthering selfish instead of national interests. Well, to our dearest Oteh, God pass them.

Obinna, Umuahia, 08097827278

Dimgba, thank you for your views on Ms. Oteh and the National Assembly. The legislators cannot fool all of us. They should allow the lady to do her work.

Arc. M.A. Okoro, 08033967537

Dimgba, SEC DG job is not for a novice with a capital market and Human Resource Management experience. Sacking DG, NSE is the beginning of her problem.  Other DGs have served and quit, why should hers be different? Chief J.O.Sanusi, George Akamiokhor, all served and are no more. Is this position Oteh’s birthright? Let her do the right thing. In other climes, she would have long been gone.

08054461074

Now, it becomes clearer to me why all corruption cases, involving our legislators are being handled with brazen levity by the courts, to avoid their allocation from being suspended. I ask: Is this democracy or demonstration of craze? Na wah ooo!

Chief J.J. Ibeka, 07065773998

Thank you, Dimgba. You see this action spans beyond the immediate. How can respected legislators treat a citizen of Nigeria (and more others) that way?  I couldn’t believe “Honourable men and women” could descend so low. Somebody somewhere should tell them that they don’t have the support of those they are representing in the way they are handling this Arunma Oteh saga. What happens to SEC for the time being? Talk of killing a fly with a big hammer. They should repel that bill. Haba!

08037322449

You are a great writer and no doubt about your authority in Queen’s language. You must be commended for the yeoman’s job you have done on behalf of your client, Oteh. You are a Barrister personified. My worry is that I don’t know where and when Oteh will get resources to part for all your unsolicited legal services, most especially as she cannot reap off from the budget now strangulated by the erudite National Asssembly men. The only option for Oteh is throwing in her towel or going to India for spiritual assistance or women right activists come to her rescue. The caveat is never you  offend a Northerner unless you want to dig your own grave. Boko Haram is case study.

Idris  08030583696

Re: Oteh and Legislative Bullies.

Commenting on the action by the National Assembly to deny the Securities and Exchange Commission budgetary allocation this financial year, Thisday columnist Ijeoma Nwogwugwu, had this to say: “But from internal memos that were later to emerge from SEC, it turned out that Ms. Oteh, under oath, had made a false representation against members of the committee and perjured herself.” That assertion has not yet been contradicted. Perhaps, that’s what your lengthy article is meant to do. Nwaogwugwu went on to declare that SEC DG owes them and the National Assembly unreserved apology even as she decried the sanctions against SEC.

The national Assembly was not ab initio against Oteh, otherwise her nomination would have been scuttled at the confirmation hearings. Nobody then, or now, questioned her qualifications. It is her competence that is in question, her ‘cross-functional financial and capital market experience”- whatever that means – notwithstanding. It is the usual thing to claim a new leadership is criticised or opposed because it wants to bring changes, but surely her abrasive relationship with former executive board members did not show ability to build consensus or inspire. It is ridiculous to see gender bias in Oteh’s  travails. This administration has the largest number of female ministers and the all faced National Assembly confirmation hearing. Having scaled that, they are ensconced in office interacting with the National Assembly, mostly, harmoniously, but sometimes acrimoniously.  No such excuse has been advanced for the later situation.  The reason for the dispute over Oteh’s continued stay in office is that public office is viewed as a trophy in the geo-political zonal contestation that has hobbled governace in the country since 1999. Otherwise given the findings listed against her she would have honourably resigned long ago.

Tukur  Usman   08180641462

My love for the Sun national dailies springs from the back page columnists of the likes of Dimgba Igwe, Funke Egbemode, Mike Awoyinfa, et al.

I always reserve the back page and make time to read them even at a later date. This column gives me satisfaction, knowing that there are Nigerians, who still stand for the truth and have not joined the band- wagon of the fearful and compromisers.

Mr. Dimgba Igwe, your write up “Oteh and the Legislative bullies” of Daily Sun, Tuesday January 8, 2013 ended with an exclamation of ‘Na wao!!!’, I personally think should go deeper than mere ‘na wao!’

to an American exclamation of ‘yak!’. We must refrain from using a more foul language of ‘Bullshit’ or ‘cowdung’ because whatever we say or do, we must apply decency and stay refined, you know.

I am ignorant about politics and happily so because it is not always true that ignorance makes you naïve, it can also be protective.

I am not a politician and do not really know the intricacies of politics nor have I ever reacted in writing to any news on the media but the ill treatment of the Lady of the Security and Exchange Commission by the National Assembly got to my heart.

Once an executive is given a commission, he or she ought to be given the full capacity to function in such office.

And do we know something? Because of personal or individual disgruntlement, a public office worth trillions of naira will simply go with the winds with resultant disintegration and rottenness. There is bound to be wastage when people in office are not able to perform boldly and efficiently due to ‘fear’.

How on earth can there be a functional ministry without a budget allocation? Since when has budget allocation in Nigeria become a matter of the face of an individual? Did this woman create by her own power this office she is presiding over? If the answer is no, then why is she paying a personal price of absolute humiliation along with all those working under her? What is the problem? This is what Nigerians see on almost all the seats of power.

To get your appointment, you are expected to lobby, to keep your appointment, you continue to lobby, to get the required budget to run the office, you lobby. You just need to live your life lobbying to survive your lobbied tenure. With all these, I cannot but wonder where Ms. Arunmah Oteh got deficient with the legislature for it to come down with a visible sledge hammer such as this on her head. Does Oteh deliver? If yes, then she must have stepped on some giant toes (positively though, but painful).

Whatever we do or instigate others to do, as long as it is in the negative, we must remember this singular fact—JUDGEMENT. Even in how we treat an Oteh.

Power should be used to serve and not to oppress and humiliate.

Any office we occupy today ought to be seen as an opportunity to make things better, leave things better and not merely to be satisfied with personal gain, which, in the long run, leaves us vague and empty. True satisfaction comes from positive service. True service to one another and the larger community.

Roselyn Ojone Igbokwe, Kaduna, roselyn_1960@yahoo.com

Thanks for your piece on Oteh and the National Assembly bullies. It is better for the courageous and intelligent Oteh to die standing up than to die kneeling down. There is no peace for the wicked.

Uzomba Kanu J. Calabar, 07051926518

Just read your article. I thank you. Some men cannot stand women who do not need their “assistance” to succeed.  Oteh has refused to succumb to their tantrums so SEC is to pay for these ‘sins”. Where are we heading to? I thank you for standing up for your mother, your wife, your daughters, your sisters and all women.

Ethel Agbeyegbe, 08033314611

Very excellent piece, Dimgba. Very excellent.

Ephraims, NAN, 07037561399

Mr. Igwe, why do you under estimate the power of NASS to make and unmake laws. The same NASS approved her appointment, the same NASS she ignored its invitation. No public official should be sacked without fair hearing. Why must she ignore NASS? I perceive arrogance right away. She should leave, SEC is not her personal thing.

08103824725

Mr. Igwe, I gaadi o. Thanks for standing up for truth: Oteh & NASS issue. It shows that the NASS is like a cult where ‘members” are protected. It has nothing to do with her gender but with the fact that she dared to accuse Hon. H. Hembe of impropriety. We hapless Nigerians have not been told though that Hon. Hembe didn’t collect the money as alleged. The President can’t withstand the NASS that is why though for of goodwill he does not perform. He belongs to the same party.  SEC was not allotted anything in the in the 2013 budget, nobody said anything. This can only happen in Nigeria. Any Salvation from NASS? Not soon.

Obi N. Chukwukere, 08065333651

Dimgba, good write up on Oteh and NASS. What about 30million hotel bills or is that part of the reform? She is corrupt and should just go.

08033123591

Dimgba, how much were you paid that you just decided to abuse every male in the country. Are you saying Oteh is greater than Nigeria? Nigerian laws must be obeyed whether they are archaic or not. How much did you collect for the story? Tell us. You are so biased and blind. Her behaviour does not portray her as somebody that has seen the four wall of a university not to talk of maturity.

08137000097

Dimgba you are right about what you wrote about Oteh’s problem with the NASS. Nigerian law makers have told the whole world who they are.

Engr. Enn. Anolue, Aguata, Aguluezechukwu. 08037114167

Dimgba, the confrontation between Oteh and NASS, from your analysis in Oteh and the Legislative Bullies, which was fair coupled with television coverage of the impasse between the two parties show the caliber of Nigeria’s legislators. How, for heaven’s sake, can legislators of a country deny a parastatal of its budgetary rights, just because they have an axe to grind with the head of such outfit? It is an unimaginable act and an insult on 160million Nigerians who elected them. How do they want to prove now to Nigerians that the unspent N44million Hembe collected from SEC, which he did not return, was not shared by the house members; hence a consensus of the House  to fight Oteh to finish; without a dissenting voice on the axe unleashed on statutory budgetary allocation to SEC? I think that the matter should be taken to court by Oteh on behalf of SEC. This act by NASS is preposterous.

Lai Ashadele. 08053007531

That was how a Nigerian economist in 2010 summed up the challenges ahead of the newly appointed Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, Ms Arunmah Oteh, few months after she was appointed in a story by BBC’s Caroline Duffield.

Today, it’s difficult not to see that quote as prophetic. In a rare commendable feat in this clime, the National Assembly had passed the year 2013 budget before the end of last year. It was one of the few occasions that National Assembly lived up to their promise. But then, the Assembly fouled the air with a bitter vendetta against a hapless woman by refusing to appropriate any fund for the Security and Exchange Commission.

Following a public hearing on the capital market, the National Assembly had demanded that Oteh be relieved of her post at the SEC, a position President Goodluck Jonathan had respectfully disagreed with. It was not the call of duty of the legislature to dictate whom the executive employs or sacks, even though their right to pass resolutions against any public official is not in doubt.

They should have done a better job at the state of confirmation of appointment, not after. If anybody is in doubt that the National Assembly intended vendetta or blackmail, the doubt was removed by a unique, perhaps unprecedented clause inserted in the appropriation bill passed by the Assembly which totally freezes out fund from SEC.

The satanic clause states: “All revenues, howsoever described, including all fees received, fines, grants, budgetary provisions and all internally and externally generated revenues, shall not be spent by the Securities and Exchange Commission for recurrent or capital purposes or for any other matters or liabilities there from incurred, except with prior Appropriation and Approval by the National Assembly.” Meanwhile, the National Assembly had refused to admit Oteh to defend SEC’s budget like other government agencies. So we are reducing the matter to a personal quarrel between the National Assembly of Nigeria and a woman! A Nigerian citizen just like the legislators! Perhaps, Oteh’s problems started from the beginning.

Oteh had tried valiantly to reform the apex supervisory body, SEC, which had been so supine while the Nigerian capital market was raped by corporate buccaneers. In the face of such roguery, the Nigeria Stock Exchange, that had either been complicit in the multiple scams or afflicted with severe corporate governance issues, had not done much to protect the investors’ interest. Oteh’s first battle seems to be sacking the powerful DG of the exchange, a corporate Amazon in her own right who, in any case, was on her way out on retirement. Perhaps, Oteh should have allowed her to go quietly since she was due to go in a matter of months. But we might not be fully privy to her motive and reason for sacking Professor Ndy Okereke-Onyiuke, so we weigh the benefit of doubts in her favour until proved otherwise. Oteh’s sundry efforts at reforms ultimately put her at odds with her executive management. In regime of change, this is normally, hardly surprising. Who wants change, anyway? Well, certainly, not in a government parastatals that had been used to business as usual for so long. When the change is driven by a young, brash, strong-willed woman from outside the system, Oteh’s sins were compounded and a clash inevitable.

In the labyrinth of bureaucratic allays, there were bound to be banana peels carefully set up by her in-house foes, and Oteh seems to have slipped under some of them. One instance of such slippery traps was that she was accused of outsourcing a couple of part-time staff from Access Bank, one of the numerous companies under the regulatory purview of SEC. A mortal sin? Hardly.

But, an infraction, if that is one, is as big as those who want your head on a silver platter wants to make it. In the eyes of the National Assembly, this is one of the capital offences for which Oteh must be sacked! Yes, sacked—the last resort in administrative measures which is usually compared with capital punishment in judicial proceedings.

Ah, yes, lest I forget, the National Assembly listed some other infractions: that she was not in good terms with some members of the executive management, meaning, those rebellious and ambitious directors who staged a coup against her at the public hearing in the manner of Brutus and Julius Caeser; that there were questions about her qualification for the job in the first place, despite earning a first class degree in computer science from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; an MBA from Harvard plus being a Vice President African Development Bank, where she was headhunted from, after a long career that saw her loaded with cross-functional financial and capital market experience!

Perhaps, those who question her qualification for the job must have been educated at the universities located in Mars and would come to the job with far better experience other than those accumulated in internal bureaucratic manipulations! May God deliver us from persecutors who turn our achievements into ashes. But, of course, Oteh, must have her shortcomings. She must have been brash, broken some useless and archaic rules that had kept our society in the Dark Ages all these years and violated the orthodoxy.

If the truth were to be told, it seems that the real offence of this woman is her fall out with the chairman of the House Committee on Capital Market, Hon. Herman Hembe, whom she accused of demanding a total of N44 million from SEC, to fund the public hearing and collecting a business class ticket and estacode for a conference in Dominican Republic, which he never attended nor refunded the money. Oteh’s allegations forced the resignation of Hembe, the constitution of a new public hearing team which resolved that Oteh should be sacked. But asking for her head leaves a tale of a witch crying in the night and a child dying in the morning—any doubt about the killer?

President Jonathan is not only bound to ignore such churlish petulance of the legislators, the problem with bullies whether legislators, kidnappers, blackmailers or Boko Harams is that once you cave in to bullies, you empower them for the future.

But there is also a unique angle to this Oteh matter—the gender angle. From Nasir el Rufai to Lamido Sanusi, the National Assembly never foreclosed their budget. So, why is Oteh’s case different? Perhaps, gender bias?

The only thing the Nigerian alpha male hates more than plague is the prospect of a strong woman poking fingers in their face. In civilized settings, every man vows that they don’t mind intelligent woman competing equally with the male folk, after all, what a man can do, a woman at least can also do. But in reality, it is just a mask we wear to save face, to look contemporary and civilized.

Behind the scene, it seems men just don’t like strong women. The woman of our popular imagination, educated or not, is the cowering, subservient, beautiful creature below the sheet, who looks up to her superman—husband, lover or customer—with simple gratitude in her eyes. It is difficult to see the implacable stance of the National Assembly in their conflict with the executive over their demand for the sack of Ms Arunmah Oteh beyond the psychoanalytical dimension.

Starving SEC of fund is an unprecedented measure that would deny salaries to thousands of workers and rob even more thousands of their dependents of food, school fees and medicals. And our National Assembly is ready to descend to such an ego trip just to tame the sharp tongue of a bullish woman? Na wao!!!

In his days, former President, Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe never recovered from the loss of his rare and precious books burnt by federal troops at Nsukka during the Civil War. For people like Zik or Obasanjo, loss of assets or millions of naira is recoverable, but loss of precious artifacts, records, documents, pictures and other little memorabilia are irrecoverable. Permit me therefore this little prayer: In 2013, may God never allow fire or the locusts to consume our lives’ works and things that we hold dear, in Jesus name! Amen!!! Now, to the business of today’s column. In those days, when General Olusegun Obasanjo spoke, some earth tremors followed his voice.

When the government of President Shehu Shagari floundered so badly in the early 80s, Obasanjo’s voice rang out in rare newspaper interviews condemning the profligacy of the ruling National Party of Nigeria, NPN. Perhaps, Obasanjo’s trenchant criticism of that regime was one of the signals that prompted the military takeover of that government led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari on December 31, 1983.

But then, Buhari’s anger at the purported excesses of the politicians burnt so fiercely that he dumped all the active politicians into jail, some of them condemned to several hundred years of jail term! In simple terms, that meant draconian, retroactive and anti-media decrees.

When you were detained under the famous Decree 2, not even the Supreme Court had the power to order your release, thanks to the ouster clauses which meant that no court had the power to inquire into matters done under those decrees. With Decree 4, for instance, every media story has to be true in all “material particulars”, a short hand way of saying that any news report in print or electronic media which a government official found embarrassing was a good ground to put the reporter away in jail.

Again, in those days, Obasanjo’s voice rang out, condemning the excesses of the regime. It’s not particularly that Obasanjo himself is a model of human rights civility. Or an apostle of press freedom for that matter. Oh no, he liked the media only to the extent that he used them to his own devastating end. As a retired head of state in the ‘80s, Obasanjo was literally above the law. In the gate of his Ota home and farm, dogs and reporters were warned to stay off! In our Sunday Concord days, Mike Awoyinfa, in search of exclusive, went to Obasanjo’s farm in 1984 to request for an interview.

Obasanjo welcomed him to his home and when Mike thought the interview was about to begin, Obasanjo emptied a cup of palm wine he was drinking on the reporter’s head. Mike escaped before worse things befell him! In the Western media, such an affront on a member of the fourth estate of the realm would provoke a global outrage, but in those days, it merely registered in the anecdotal list of Obasanjo’s eccentricities and irascible temperament. But, perhaps, no head of government in Nigeria endured more caustic attacks from Obasanjo than President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida.

When Babangida was pushing a case for an IMF-induced structural adjustment programme, SAP, Obasanjo panned it as a “SAP without humane face”, a famous attack that all but buried the programme all-together, leaving the government raging.

Babangida’s endless political permutations ostensibly in the guise of transition programme to usher in democracy prompted Obasanjo to declare that the time had come when every Nigerian needed to check their time again if Babangida said good morning to you, for it might well be evening! But Babangida, a devotee of the cult of military discipline, resisted pressures to respond to a senior officer—a tradition he seemed to have broken in recent times with his public spats with his former boss. With Abacha, criticism landed Obasanjo into a life imprisonment, accused of treasonable felony along with other alleged coup plotters. Obasanjo’s recent rebuke of President Goodluck Jonathan, his political protégé, for weak response to the menace of Boko Haram, seemed like the mildest criticism from Obasanjo to any of Nigeria’s past leaders.

The Obasanjo whose voice invoked thunder in those days seems buried in the past. The present Obasanjo has been deeply demystified. Not only do we have Jonathan’s aides tackling him, even political minors from Ogun State had been irreverently taking him to the cleaners. As many would say, he partly deserved it. When a leader of Obasanjo’s stature continues to dip his fingers into local politics, what do you expect? This probably explained why these days, Obasanjo’s voice on national issues is hardly recognized or distinct from the babble.

In those days, an Obasanjo interview shook the government in power and often led to national security meetings! Today, his voice no longer guarantees front page like before, perhaps, a testament to a waning personal political brand cycle. Is Brand Obasanjo outliving its shelf life? Just before you cast your final vote, something near the vintage Obasanjo spoke to Sunday Guardian last week in an interview by a veteran journalist, Basil Chiji Okafor. Probably because the reporter went to him not with the typical pedestrianism of some typical reporters who only scratch the surface of trending issues, but with some sense of context and historical perspective, Obasanjo opened up, revealing things that should generate discussions.

In the interview, I was intrigued by Obasanjo’s insight into how Governor Ahmed Sani Yerima engineered a Sharia movement in the north, turning it into a potent political tool that shook the very foundation of Nigeria’s corporate existence. In some past interviews, Obasanjo had confessed that containing the Sharia fever in the north was the greatest national security challenge of his regime. Obasanjo had been asked by his interviewer why he didn’t crack down on Sharia movement as he cracked down on Odi and Zaki-Biam revolts. In the case of Sharia, Obasanjo claimed that the matter was “different.”

In the days when the EFCC was beginning to bite, it turned out that Governor Yerima was under security heat, ostensibly from the supporters of Obasanjo’s national security adviser, who were collecting documents (invoices and receipts) that could have been used against the governor. After repeatedly pleading with Obasanjo to tell his men to back off him, Yerima threatened to make himself “untouchable.” Obasanjo must have thought that making himself untouchable was in the manner of a local abracadabra or mere shakara from a desperate man, so Obasanjo asked him to go ahead. In turn, Governor Yerima inaugurated Sharia law in Zamfara State which soon spread like a wildfire throughout the northern states. Inaugurating Sharia law in most of the northern states became a matter of political expedience—something you either do or risk a loss of power.

But to Yerima and fellow governors, it was a political Sharia, rather than the religious Sharia. At the heart was not a devotion to tenets of Islam, but a political cover to escape the menace of EFCC and other political threats! Obasanjo added this clincher: “Look, this young man think I’m a fool. He wants to lure me into a killing ground. I won’t fall for that. And, as I said publicly, ‘if this is genuine Sharia, well, it will survive, but if it is not genuine, it will fizzle out.’ And it fizzled out without my raising a finger.”

It is likely that President Jonathan is waiting for the menace of Boko Haram to fizzle out too. Since the dormant waiting game earned him power during the President Umaru Yar’Adua’s ailment, lucky Jonathan must have concluded that doing nothing is a surefire strategy in management of power. He must have picked his lessons from the Zamfara rather than Odi and Zaki-Ibiam model. But this choice betrays an obtuse diagnosis from perhaps, a poor—or a timid and risk-averse—student of history.

A tragic failure to understand that in power game, anything permitted grows. If he had consulted even dovish former President Shagari, he would have told him this, citing the example of his crushing blow against the impudence of Maitatsine zealots that he stamped out in his time—the forerunner of today’s Boko Haram. Whatever became the future of Boko Haram, history would record that under Jonathan’s watch, what started as a simple tumour that could have been promptly surgically excised by a decisive leader had since metastasized into a monstrous malignancy spread all over the north, destroying lives of Christians, churches, houses, shops and ultimately, the entire economy of the north.

Even though this seems to be no longer news, as I write this, I am looking at a plaintive SOS to CAN leaders from Borno forwarded to my phone on Christmas Day, pleading, “Sir, am a woman who is troubled concerning the slaughtering of Christians in Borno (and) no one is saying anything, not even CAN.” The “slaughter” allegedly claimed the lives of six persons, including a pastor with “twenty churches burnt”. This is a raw field report, no doubt, subject to official verification, but it signals that tougher days are ahead for us all.