Karma is a bitch. Poetic justice is a bastard. Both have combined to wrong-foot the incumbent Buhari administration to make it look like a big mistake and an act of misjudgment by the Nigerian electorate.  If Buhari had been disallowed from taking power in 2015, and those who advised President Goodluck Jonathan not to give a damn had their way, and Jonathan had remained in power and all the current problems had surfaced, it would have been said by Nigerians that Goodluck Jonathan truncated Nigeria’s destiny.

In 2015, the refrain, which was reaffirmed recently by those who authored it, was that Nigeria could only move forward with anybody but Jonathan. If Buhari was prevented from taking over power, Nigerians would have been very aggressive towards the Jonathan administration.  It would have been said that the messiah was robbed of victory. It would have been argued that the man who would have saved Nigeria was prevented from doing so. It might have even been argued that under General Buhari, Nigeria could have become the greatest country on the surface of the earth.

Such was the impact of the propaganda. Such was the nature of the politics of the time. The Buharideens would never have allowed a post-2015 Jonathan government to work. Even if it did, the opposition would have imagined a greater possibility. But here we are, three years down the line: the messianic propaganda has failed. Their Saviour is not the Jesus Christ they imagined him to be. The country remains unsaved. Their promise of change has been no more than scaremongering. When the question is asked: are you better today than you were three years ago?, no ordinary Nigerian can answer that question positively: change has brought him or her nothing but agony and anguish.

Should they offer an answer, it would be a response marked by regret. The biggest tragedy that has occurred therefore is the demystification, the unmasking, the unveiling of a man who was thought to be a god but who has since danced naked and is dancing naked in the market-place. Strikingly, the Emperor is without clothes. Some of the most vociferous critics of old have also been exposed. Nasir el-Rufai deployed all the heights of his intelligence to demonise the Jonathan government on social media. No one else has been able to match the quality of his vitriol. Today, the same Nasir is busy demolishing the houses of anyone who dares to make a negative comment about him, or he takes them to court and threatens them with Armageddon. The same rights that he demanded for the Nigerian people, he now tramples upon.

There was also our beloved kinsman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed. He was the scourge of the Jonathan administration. He could issue five anti-establishment press statements in a day. There has been no one like him in Nigerian history doing the job of opposition spokesman. He was ruthlessly efficient. Nobody in the current opposition parties has demonstrated his capacity as an opposition figure, in part because all the opposition spokesmen have been harassed, blackmailed, dehumanized, and intimidated, but called to do the job, on the other side of the fence as Minister of Information, Alhaji Mohammed remains a study in self-contradiction. His five minutes of fame in the Nigerian political sphere has since ended.

He used to be creative and dynamic, but now faced with the challenges of the real thing, the only thing that comes out of his mouth is the dumb argument that Goodluck Jonathan is the source of all the problems of Nigeria or similar inanities. When the matter is not so phrased, we are told that the Jonathan administration stole the country blind. And yet whereas the government of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) borrowed the sum of N6 trillion over a period of 16 years, the APC government has borrowed more than N11 trillion in 3 years! Is it possible all the oil wells have dried up and Nigeria no longer makes money? What has happened to the country’s revenue stream?  The absurdity of the situation is further explained by the fact that when a gas cylinder malfunctions in the house of an APC member or there is a crisis in their other room, the man that is blamed is Goodluck Jonathan or the previous administration. They defend the impossible and the unintelligible. But that trick is no longer working.  The other tragedy of the Buhari administration is how it has allowed itself to get involved in a Nigerian version of the popular “one-corner-dance”, a downward, self-denigrating choreographic exertion. The result is that right now, people have now moved from the anything but Jonathan corner to the anything but Buhari corner in Nigerian politics. Karma is a bitch. Poetic justice is a bastard.

Nothing illustrates this better than the title of this essay, the entry into which has been deliberately delayed, to prepare a setting and a mood for the crisis that Nigeria faces.  One of the reasons the Nigerian electorate voted out the previous administration was because of its perceived inability to rescue the abducted Chibok girls. There was an international outcry about this. Bring Back the Chibok girls even became the most popular hashtag on international social media, and Jonathan, who had also signed the anti-same-sex bill into law became a villain in the eyes of the international community. The various interested forces, local and global joined hands together to pull down his government.

During the 2015 political campaigns, General Muhammadu Buhari was packaged as a morally upright statesman who would put an end to the impunity of the insurgents and terrorists. Jonathan was considered weak. Buhari was regarded as strong. And so on and so forth- let me just put it like that in order not to be accused of comparison given my own antecedents.  But here is where the rub lies: President Buhari has failed the people in their expectations.  He has frittered away their goodwill.

He promised Nigerians that Boko Haram will be defeated, and somewhere down the line, we were told the Boko Haram had in fact been “technically defeated.” The President even received a captured flag of the insurgents, together with the personal Quoran of Ibrahim Shekau, the leader of the group. Today, the Boko Haram gang continues to show that they have not been defeated. The Federal Government negotiated with these same insurgents and gave them money to secure the release of over 100 girls, some Boko Haram leaders were released, but the other Monday, Boko Haram abducted over 100 girls in Dapchi in Yobe state. This is sad and tragic. Whatever the government may have gained has been lost. The girls that have been released have been replaced. The fight against Boko Haram is back to square one.

The clay feet of those who thought they knew better than everyone else has thus been exposed. For President Buhari, this must be a personal tragedy. His strongest promoters indeed believed that under his watch, the problem of insecurity will be solved. But under him, more money has been spent on national security, with poor results, and the security situation has only worsened. The previous government had the Boko Haram to deal with, this government has its cup full: the herdsmen-farmers conflict, the low level insurgency in the Niger Delta, the crisis of self-determination in the Eastern region, the nationwide proliferation of small arms and ammunition, the notorious Boko Haram and the angst of a disappointed public. On all fronts, the government is found wanting.

Yes, it has been found wanting and in a suspicious manner too.  It is in fact curious that security forces were withdrawn in volatile areas of Benue state, just a week before the criminal herdsmen struck. Who ordered that withdrawal? The Inspector-General of Police has also reportedly withdrawn the Special Forces sent to secure the same areas. The Benue Governor, Samuel Ortom is so incensed he is now saying he is willing and ready to pay the supreme sacrifice for his people.  In Yobe state, soldiers were also withdrawn from high-risk areas just before the Dapchi 110 were abducted. The military has since defended itself. It has no capacity its spokesman says, to protect all schools in the Northern part of the country. And we can’t blame the military, can we?  It is a sign of the calamity that the country faces that soldiers are the ones now protecting virtually every inch of the Nigerian space, internally and externally. Our soldiers are tired and overstretched, over-used and over-abused. The police are also similarly overwhelmed. It has never been this bad.  Fact: the government of the day has been humbled. I once argued that Nigeria is a very difficult country to govern but when you claim to know it all, you are bound to face the contradictions. Every problem solved generates other problems.

People choose their governments and leaders because they believe they can lead and protect them.  When that trust is betrayed, the legitimacy of the government is in question. In more than 20 states, salaries have not been paid for months.  And it is a stupid point to say that the previous government stole all the money.  How about all the money that has been earned and borrowed since then? Missing? What is responsible really for this drift, this cluelessness, this self-abuse,  from a know-it-all team that took over Nigeria in 2015? My other concern is that beyond all the propaganda and the hypocrisy and blackmail, President Buhari’s team may not really love him at all; they may in fact have truly, set him up for his downfall.  Buhari’s biggest stake is the legacy he leaves behind. The little I see of that legacy is not good at all. I once published a piece in which I alleged that Nigerians had hopped into a one-chance bus; I want to modify that and add that it is actually President Buhari who boarded a one-chance bus, and for that he has my heartfelt sympathy. Whatever bus brought him to power is a one-chance bus.

What has happened so far merely vindicates the Olusegun Obasanjo and Oby Ezekwesili groups. The former is asking for a Third Force, a Coalition of powers and forces. The other is wielding a Red Card. Both are united in this regard: they consider the two political parties that have ruled Nigeria since 1999, useless and ineffectual. They want a new dawn for Nigeria. They want a discontinuity of hypocrisy and opportunism. They acknowledge one significant point: that Nigeria has remained at one spot. Nothing has changed, the change agenda has failed, everything remains the same.  Whether these groups are able to achieve, or motivate the real change the people desire is another matter, but the honesty with which they have reversed themselves is telling, and good for our democracy. You need not raise the point that both Obasanjo and Ezekwesili belong to the same elite that they now repudiate.

I sympathise with the parents of the Dapchi 110.  It is sad that their only hope is in God, and the possibility of a miracle.  Students get killed in the United States, due to gun possession issues in a psychotic society, but to send a child to school and have him or her abducted by terrorists is the grievous pain ever possible in Nigeria. What is clear is that the Nigerian leadership elite has failed the people. This is not a political party matter; it is about capacity, political will, leadership and commitment.  This is probably why a body of opinion has developed to the effect that the two major political parties in the country – the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have both failed the country. But can extant or any political parties, in their present shape, save Nigeria? I doubt, and that is my thoroughly non-partisan opinion.

The political party system in Nigeria has to be rebuilt, reformed and reconstructed.  Beyond that, we need a new crop of leaders. The solution may not lie with Obasanjo or Ezekwesili or the Nigeria Intervention Movement but they have thrown up ideas about the national dilemma that cannot be ignored.  Such ideas cannot be ignored because the biggest victims are not the ten per-centers or the men and women in high places who succeed not through talent or excellence, but mere opportunistic “faith”; the victims are young Nigerians, the same people we call the leaders of tomorrow – that tomorrow is already postponed, because that generation of the future is led by analogue leaders whose glory is trapped in the past.  Nigeria needs to rescue tomorrow from the past and the present. Nigeria needs fresh energy, new ideas and a leadership revolution.  Wherever they may be, may God protect the Dapchi 110, who have been failed by the Nigerian state. If Buhari rescues them, he may well succeed in rescuing his government a little from the devastating and ruthless onslaught of poetic justice. [myad]

I do not like cats. This started with my experience as a young lad way back in 1966.

In that year Nigeria was in a huge political upheaval. A coup took place to upturn the first democratic government that came to power after independence in 1960. There was a feeling in the northern part of Nigeria that the coup was ethnically motivated and that the slanted pattern of killings did not reflect our federal character.

The Ibos became game in northern Nigeria – hunted and killed everywhere. I was at the time with my maternal grandfather, Rev J E I Sai who brought me up. A muscular and fearless Christian, he was the first ever Tiv man to be ordained a Priest. As the killings spread so did his anger. He delivered several sermons condemning the mass murder of Ibos, arguing that as children of God, they like every human being were entitled to the life freely given by God.

He did not only preach, he acted. His episcopal home at Harga – a village located halfway between Katsina Ala and Takum – became a rehabilitation camp for internally displaced Ibos. Working with his collaborators – The Revs Ralph Baker and Eugene Rubing – both American Missionaries, they transported many Ibos at night to Takum where they crossed over to Cameroon and then found their way to Eastern Nigeria.

News about his humanitarian efforts soon spread and the number of Ibos at our home grew. But it was also risky. Soon he started receiving threats from the roving murderous mobs that since he loved the Ibos so much, our family would soon be wiped out with the Ibos.

As little children it was our duty to take food to the Ibos who were hidden away from public glare. We soon fell in love with Gabriel an Ibo photographer. He was an artist of sorts who mesmerized us with some funny sketches. He it was who taught us how to sing the melancholic hit song “Take a message to Mary”. We loved him. Three times, our old man took him over to Cameroon and three times he found his way back with some cock and bull story. I remember the last time he came back; the threats by the mobs to attack us were not silent whispers again but loud,scary andmenacing.

We followed Gabriel and our old man as he walked him to the little bush near our house and repeatedly asked him why he still came back at this time when the situation on ground all over the north was bad for the Ibos. He replied that he had left the north so suddenly that he forgot to carry along his pussy cat. “Pussy Cat”? our old man thundered in disbelief. Gabriel was told to go and look for his pussy cat elsewhere since he did not bring it to our house. We were very sad to see him walk into the bush at night to an uncertain fate.

After the war in 1970, many of the Ibos our old man saved and who survived the war came back to Harga to say thank you to him. “Where is Gabriel, where is Gabriel?” we the children chorused.

Gabriel was born in the north. His father, also a photographer, introduced him into the business but never took him to his ancestral home in the east. He spoke the Tiv language fluently, more fluently than his native Ibo. At the outbreak of the crisis in 1966, his father was already late and it became very difficult for him to trace his village. He fell victim to some criminal Ibo gangs in the east who beat him up, robbed and taunted him calling him all sorts of derogatory names. That explained why every time our old man helped him back to the east, he found his way back. The story of a pussy cat was a clumsy explanation of his predicament. We were told by the Ibo survivals that when he was walked out of our house, he could no longer make it to the east again. A cruel mob lynched him to death.

The mention of the word cat or the sight of it draws sad memories in me since then. I hold cats responsible for the death of the handsome and creative Gabriel.

I don’t know who gave the army the idea that its current exercises in the States that make up the Benue Valleyshould be code named, AyemAkpatema, which translates from Tiv to English as Cat Race. Apart from my ingrained hatred of cats, I had other doubts about the success of this exercise.

My knowledge of the military and their operations is limited to the introductory course I was taught in Civil/Military Relations in the 70’s at the University of Ibadan by one of the best brains in that field – Professor BayoAdekson. For the military to have a successful operation in a given environment, it needs to cultivate the friendship of the civilians living there, he argued.

Unfortunately, since the new year opened with mass killings in Benue, the affected people have been treated to a babel of unfriendly voices from the military high command. The IG of Police Ibrahim Idris told the world that it was an ordinary communal clash. When the Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom led a powerful delegation of his people to see President Buhari in search of succor, the Commander in Chief instead of sympathizing with the bereaved peopledemonstrated a high level of insensitivity by telling them to go back and be more accommodating of their compatriots. Meanwhile the DSS said the new year massacre was carried out by foreign invaders. To the Minister of Defense, Mansur DanAlli, the massacre was justified because the grazing routes of the herdsmen were blocked.

These statements from the people who are in control of our security machinery have left the Benue people who were worsted by the invaders to keep asking whether this is the kind of protection they should get from a government they elected.

Equally frightening is the contribution to the debate on the violence by one Professor Labdoand AngoAbdullahi, the former VC of ABU. Labdo argued in a newspaper interview that the killings on new year day were justified because Benue belongs to the Fulani by conquest. AngoAbdullahi similarly sees nothing wrong in the mass murder of women and children who were asleep at home.

Despite initial misgivings about the outcome of the Cat Race, this itinerant reporter wasat its Operational Base, the LGEA Primary School, MbabeghaGuma local government area of Benue State for its official flagging off. At the event,Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General TukurBurataiassured that the exercise that started on February15 lasting till March 31would address the security challenges facing parts of Benue and neighbouring states.
On his part, Governor Ortom urged the people of the state to extend support to the military personnel in order to ensure the success of the military exercise.
Also speaking, his Kogi state counterpart, Yahaya Bello in whose state the operation would be extended promised that his state would extend support to the operation to ensure its success.In his speech, Governor TankoAl’Makura, represented by his Deputy, Silas Agara lauded President Buhari for granting the exercises which would be extended to his state stressing that it came timely as the farming season was fast approaching. Senator George Akume, Chairman Senate Committee on Army was also there to give legislative support to the exercise.

I also dropped my historical hatred for cats and cast my support for this cat race. The alternative to its success will be a return to the horrors of 1966. [myad]