As a writer, Olusegun Obasanjo has carved a genre for himself. From his many books-“My Command” to “The Animal Called Man” et al-there is a frightening tone of military fury.
His public letters fall within the same class.
His writings are evidently tall on justifiable anger but regrettably short on facts.
On November 10, 1999, President Obasanjo wrote a letter to Governor Alamesiegha of Bayelsa State, threatening to declare a state of emergency in the state. Part of the grounds he gave for his threat was a rape incident in Choba where soldiers had allegedly gone on a raping spree, accompanied by photographers who dutifully took shots of their animal acts. The obscene pornographic pictures-with soldiers in uniform doing their thing-were put in wide circulation.
Whether the whole thing was stage managed or true is outside our scope today. The fact remains that Choba is in Rivers and not Bayelsa State. So, our President was threatening to punish a Governor and a State for an act which took place outside its borders!
The Presidential anger over the incidence at Choba had not abated and may in fact have  been responsible for a full scale military invasion ordered by the President on a Bayelsa community that was accused of killing soldiers and policemen. As a result of that order, Odi, a tiny and sleepy community was completely razed down and many innocent civilians killed. That was late in 1999.
Two years after, in 2001, the President gave a similar marching order. This time a whole Senatorial Zone in Benue state was invaded.
Like in the case of Bayelsa, the Benue community was punished because of the death of some soldiers. But unlike in Bayelsa where the invading soldiers claimed they were pursuing unknown murderers, the identity of those who killed the soldiers in Zaki Biam was well known.
For, in a bewildering demonstration of criminal naivety, the murderers invited photographers and posed for photo shots with their victims and also of their butchering that followed!
At the National burial arranged for the murdered soldiers, Obasanjo announced that he had ordered security agencies to “fish” out the murderers. This was an easy task to perform since the identity of the murderers was exposed by the bizarre pictorial sessions they engaged in before and during the murders.
The truth is that the soldiers were not sent to fish out the killers as advertised. They were sent on a revenge mission.
The Nigerian media has wrongly termed what happened in Benue that year as the ‘invasion of Zaki Biam.’ The truth however is that Zaki Biam is just the headquarters of Ukum-a Local Government in a senatorial zone of six Local Governments. This whole zone was cordoned off by soldiers with an armada of armored tanks that were given air cover by helicopter gunboats.
The military juggernaut then proceeded to unleash systematic terror on unarmed civilians, a type that has not been heard of in Nigerian history.
The Human Rights Watch did a very detailed and painstaking report on the invasion. It includes the atrocities at Gbeji where soldiers gathered unarmed people in the market square, supposedly for a peace meeting and shot many of them at point blank range to death. Others at the gathering were shot in the legs, drenched in petrol and then set ablaze–incinerated alive! Over a hundred people died in this incidence alone.
A special target for the invading army was the country home of Obasanjo’s former Chief of Army staff General Victor Malu. A few months before then, he had disagreed with Obasanjo over military issues and was dropped. His family house at Tse Adoor in Katsina Ala local Government was raced to the ground; his mother of over 80 years was drilled and beaten while his blind uncle of over 90 years was thrown into a burning house where he roasted to death as his shocked wife watched. She was later shot to death.
Roadblocks were mounted and Tiv tribesmen who were travelling in vehicles brought down and shot. In fact, the damage done to human life at Zaki Biam was minimal because as news of the mass slaughter of Tiv men by soldiers spread, they all fled the town into the bush. Still the soldiers made sure they leveled all buildings in Zaki Biam, including that of Hon Benjamin Chaha, former Speaker House of Representatives.
Obasanjo never went to see the damage that was done by his soldiers but he allowed his Vice President Atiku Abubakar to go. The Vice President expressed horror at what he saw.  Chuba Okadigbo, then Senate President also went and in disbelief said the brutality used to destroy Zaki Biam was not used even during the Biafra civil war.
The first reaction of President Obasanjo was to deny the involvement of Nigerian soldiers in the massacre. Then as evidence became irrefutable, he argued that what happened in Benue is what people should expect when they kill soldiers.
Due to domestic and international pressure, Obasanjo’s reluctantly set up a panel under Justice Okechukwu Opene to investigate communal disturbances in Benue, Plateau, Nassarawa and Taraba states. It looked like a diversionary panel, still, people cooperated with it and by 2003, it submitted it’s report.
The report went the way many other panels set up by governments in Nigeria go–thrashed and forgotten.
It is believed that the government of Obasanjo refused to release it because it said one or two things in its conclusions that were not in favor of his government. This was reinforced by the fact that his successor, Umaru Yar’adua and his army chief tendered a public apology to the people of Benue for the conduct of the military during the massacre.
The massacre also attracted litigation. Dr Alexander Gaadi who claimed to have suffered physical torture, loss of property and relations during the invasion took the government to court and won his case. A Federal High court in Enugu granted him the over 40 billion Naira he claimed as damages.
The military invasion of Benue is one issue Obasanjo hardly talks about in public.
On January 1, 2003, he gate crashed into an obscure local church in Makurdi and apologized for the massacre. On February 14 2003, Valentines day, he told his audience at IBB square in Makurdi that he launched his re-election campaign on that day because he wanted to show the Benue people how much he loves them. He also wanted to ask for forgiveness over the massacre.
Strangely enough, in 2011 he traveled to Makurdi and announced that George Akume, the former Governor of the state–who has never been an army commander-should be held responsible for the massacre.
But, the greatest evidence that Obasanjo treats facts and figures with contempt is to be found in General Alabi Isama’s book-“The tragedy of victory.”
Large sections of the book are a point by point rebuttal of Obasanjo’s claims in his first book, “My Command.”
General Alabi argues his case with great details, illustrating every point with maps, pictures and statistics. This book has finally put a lie to Obasnjo’s pompous claim that the civil war came to an end because of his lone military exploits.
Of particular interest to me is the claim by General Alabi that Obasanjo was a blundering General who often led his troops to doom. After one particularly disastrous battle, he says, Obasanjo took to his heels and was shot in his buttocks by the Biafrans.
Obasanjo has, of course, denied the embarrassing charge. But whenever I meet Obasanjo, I will play the doubting Thomas and ask him to strip down and show me his buttocks. Just to be sure.

Long before the governor of Ebonyi state, Martins Elechi dismissed the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC) as an empty noise maker that will get nowhere, I had been trying to put my thoughts together on the growing numerical strength of the party and the impact it is looking up to exert in the 2015 general elections.
Of course, there has been a lot of bitter cross-firing and pure insults thrown around by members of the two opposing groups-those in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and those in the APC, especially by the new entrants from breakaway PDP. As a matter of fact, anger and insinuations are the main stock-in-trade between the two groups.
So much have the two groups engaged in political mudslinging that most times, the realities are buried, even if they are contained in such insulting posturing.
Just before governor Elechi threw his jibe at APC, the Delta state governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan had come out with a sensible political postulation that in politics, anything can happen: people can change from one party to the other at the time one least expects.
Such are the issues in the nation’s political front burner that are actually trying to overshadow what seems to be the Governor Elechi’s matter-of-fact statement.
Yes, governor Elechi spoke out of pent-up anger, but does the reality on the ground show a different scene all together?
In other words, governor Elechi’s view about APC being an empty noise maker that will get nowhere (in winning elections) may appear as an extreme view by an angry and highly biased man, but, does the reality on the ground not pointing towards the direction the governor spoke?
If history is anything to go by, it would be recalled that in the second part of the second republic, similar political scenario, as it is now playing out amongst the opposition political parties, played out. That was when the opposition political parties, such as Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), Great Nigerian Peoples Party (GNPP), Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and, to some extent, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), formed an alliance against the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN). The alliance (which many political pundits saw then as a gang-up), was principally meant to stop NPN from winning the 1983 general elections after it swept the 1979 elections across the major parts of the country.
There are some similarities in the ways the PDP and old NPN emerged and being operated. The two were firmly rooted in grassroot and tailored to etch themselves in the consciousness of the people at the grass roots.
The founding fathers of PDP, like NPN, broadened their outlooks beyond just the existence of a body called political party; they wanted and built an enduring all-encompassing system, even if it lacked directional ideology.
As a mass movement conglomerate, PDP gradually turned into one big system, with presence in every home, in every hamlet and village. And, of course, these are where the winning votes always come from in any election.
Conversely, most of the opposition parties do not have the same type of penetration into the nook and crannies of the country. As a matter of fact, some of the opposition parties are regional-based, and try as they can to spread their reach across the country, they discover that they cannot go beyond their regions.
And, like it happened in the second republic, alliance for the purpose of wrenching power from the ruling party, in some cases, used to produce the exact opposite.
Even more dangerous is that the principal actors in the ongoing political re-alignment appear to have embarked on the exercise before they would begin to think of how to spread the party’s tentacles into the hinterland.
The gladiators in the new blocked opposition may not have realized that what, in deed, is remained of PDP still have enough muscle to flex for the simple fact that, at least, for now, they are confidence that the uneducated and old people in the remote villages have PDP running in their blood stream.
Chances are that, such people, innocently, may not have even heard of the exploits of other party or parties.
And, of course, the incumbency power, which, incidentally appears to be the object of the formation of APC and the current massive defection to same, still poses some kind of potency, especially, with the mentality of the leaders desperately insisting on clinging to power.
Opposition, or more appropriately, APC, therefore, needs to do more to gain an upper hand over PDP, especially, by spreading like wild fire in dry harmattan to the remote parts of the country other than receiving decampees from PDP around Nigeria’s big cities and making noise (empty or otherwise) about it.
Massive decamping by members of PDP to the party (APC) in the major towns and cities may look very attractive and humiliating to PDP, but, it may be deceptive and dangerous, for, as governor Uduaghan said, anything can happen in politics.
One cannot be so sure until the chips are down!

The myth and the controversy generated by the alleged letter written by Iyabo Obasanjo, daughter of former president Olusegun Obasanjo suggested that it is in the interest of the media organization to acknowledge the source of the information. To date, no one can say with absolute certainty whether the letter was genuinely written by Iyabo, or whether it is a political fabrication.

The second observation regarding the letter from Obasanjo is the growing rivalry between traditional and new media. Online publications have one major advantage; they can easily break stories, and continue providing update within a 24 hour news circle, not all the traditional media enjoy the luxury of having separate editorial boards for the online and traditional outfits, each taking independent decisions in running its stories while at the same time complementing each other.

Recent trends in journalism suggest that for the traditional media to compete with online news media, they need more investment in building new media platforms. The Washington Post, New York Times, Daily Mail are typical examples of how they use online news platforms to break stories. They understand that the 21^st century audience does not have the patience to wait for 24 hours before getting in-depth analysis and update on the story.  They do that with an eye on other online news competitors such as BBC News online that is run by separate editorial teams.

The issue of positioning also comes to mind here, a lot of the emerging online news organizations do not have adequate journalistic training, compared to those in the traditional media, therefore some of them are quick to break stories in order to solidify their market positioning, and increase popularity but do not always pay attention to following a rigorous editorial procedure in order to ensure the accuracy of the story.  The traditional media needs to make a decision between quickly jumping on the bandwagon to break a story, and ensuring the credibility of the information before making it public. I believe both the traditional and new media need to learn from each other.

The third observation the controversy generated is on ethics, originality and courtesy. There are a lot of ethical challenges faced by the media industry, some of which are universal and others peculiar to the Nigerian situation. This controversy has highlighted the inability of a section of the Nigerian media to live up to the basic standard of the journalism profession. There are a lot of factors responsible for this. First is journalism training itself. The institutions that train our journalists, from polytechnics to universities suffer from shortage of  the basic infrastructure required to train future journalists.

Second, the imbalance between academics who teach journalism, and professionals from the industry who train the students on ‘the field experience’ is so wide, to the extent that when students graduate from the college or university, they are not ready to go into practice, rather, their new employers have to retrain them, before they could be ready to function as proper journalists.

Third, journalism is a profession that goes with passion, and you have so many people who joined simply because they could not get job elsewhere. Therefore whatever comes their way; they append their names on to it and send to their bureaus.

The Nigerian Union of Journalists has an important role to play here by revisiting the code of conduct of the Nigerian media, and devise ways to address the future confrontation between sister institutions.  Media houses themselves, should create partnership among themselves which in practice even the global media industry pursues.

I do not see any reason why Premium Times will not establish partnership with the Daily Trust or Guardian or Blueprint newspapers, or Sahara Reporters with the Punch, Leadership or People’s Daily newspapers. Such partnership exists for instance between CNN and ABC News, with that kind of official partnership, if none exists already, the news organisations that publish purely on online platforms, and the traditional ones that produce both hard copies and publish online versions, can easily exchange stories, train staff, use the bylines of reporters, and even share offices in the areas where only one of the partners has a bureau. This could go a long way in solving the accusation and counter accusation of plagiarism, originality and ethics. What do you think?

The stunning take-over of the House of Representatives by opposition Action Peoples Congress at the expense of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party continues to flutter from last week when it occurred. All that the ruling party could muster in terms of action was to put out a ridiculous, no less a hypocritical call on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Speaker of the House to expel the decamping members by declaring their seats as vacant. The whole world has since been forced to sit up and take notice of the unfolding political developments in Nigeria.

The question everyone has been asking is: is this just a flash in the pan or a precursor of a major political shift in the country’s politics?

Thinkers in our country are already drawing comparisons between a much reduced and diminished PDP, wittingly carving itself into a party of the old Eastern Nigeria and the old National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons,(or Nigerian Citizens) NCNC. As a political party, the NCNC was set up to champion the interests of the West African sub-region but later came to be associated with the exclusive interests of the old Eastern Region. Even at that, the NCNC faced challenges from strong leaders such Wanike Briggs who associated with the old Action Group and Dappa Biriye who led the Niger Delta Congress into an alliance with the Northern Peoples Congress which  controlled the federal government.

If the President as the leader of the PDP and Alhaji Tukur, the embattled Chairman will remove their tainted lenses, they will see that the party once touted as Africa’s biggest now flounders and is whittled. With an absolute control at every level of government – local government and state, and an unbroken dominance of the two   arms of government at the centre, that is, the parliament as well as  the executive in Aso Rock Villa in the 14-15 years of the 4th Republic, PDP has essentially dwindled and is in danger of, not only of losing its majority control but becoming a party of a section of the country.

Until it changed its name in 1959, the NCNC had a West African vision. It included the Cameroons in its catchment not because of any hegemonic designs but a patriotic aspiration to capture the Southern part of that country for the East and for Nigeria through a process the United Nations would design.

Readers will recall that after the Allied Forces defeated Germany in the Second World War, they confiscated all German territories. These were then placed under the UN administration as Trust Territories. At a later period, a plebiscite was held, giving citizens the choice of either sticking with the French Cameroons or becoming a part of Nigeria.

As the ruling party in the Eastern Region, the NCNC lost their campaign to have Southern Cameroons in Nigeria but the opposite was the case in the North where the ruling NPC successfully wooed the northern half, the now Sardauna Province which voted to come to Nigeria.

In a way similar to what is happening to the PDP, the NCNC as briefly stated did not set out to become an Igbo, or a regional party. As a West African political movement, the NCNC was formed by a union of two massive organizations, the Nigerian National Democratic Party, and the Nigerian Youth Movement, NYM. Inside the NCNC you had a combustible potpourri of several nationalist parties, cultural associations and the labor movement. Like our own PDP at the beginning, it embraced different sets of groups including religious and trade groups as well as those that were cultural, such as the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and the labor-related including the Nigerian Union of Teachers.

It is difficult to say at exactly which point things began to go wrongly for the NCNC but the breaking point evidently came in 1951. The party won enough seats in the parliament in the Eastern Region to form the government and came second in the West. Historians say the NCNC would have formed the government here as well but for the alleged betrayal of an important ally, an Ibadan community party which crossed the carpet to back the Action Group.

Most historical accounts agree that this incident marked the formal beginning of ethnic politics in Nigeria. From here, Zik was to move to the East to remove the sitting Leader of Government Business, Eyo Ita, a non-Igbo to take over the government of the region supposedly for his Igbo kins people. This was seen to have set the stage for the ethnicisation of politics at the regional level.

Zoom to today and you will see a basis for comparison between the NCNC and the forlorn PDP which has completely lost support in the old West and seeing its support in the North gradually melt away. A party in the driving seat for 14-15 years with an absolute majority in the 774 locals councils; at one point in control of 28 of the country’s 36 states and, until a week ago in firm control of the two arms of the legislature and the the executive got the shock through its loss of majority in the lower arm of the parliament. A similar showdown is equally imminent in the Senate.

Before this time, five governors controlling states with  15-20 percent of the country’s voting population jumped ship, and more are said to planning to join them. The party continues to trumpet the view that those who leave won’t be missed. Its South-south and South-east planks go on swearing to the rest that it is either Dr Jonathan continues in 2015 or …To all who have  eyes to see and ears to hear, the times have changed. The oppressed and victimized peoples of Nigeria are speaking. They don’t see a future for the country in a communally divided Nigeria. They want to throw away the evil that is corruption and wish to have a government that is open and accountable, which the present government does not represent.

The people have sounded the bugle and come 2015, they want to build a new Nigeria with the PDP if they are willing to change their ways and certainly without them should they continue to minimize the  party into a deaf and  a regional or tribal Organisation.

TAIL PIECE

Kudos to Dr.Jonathan

Kudos to President Jonathan for what I consider a befitting response to President Obasanjo, the man who haughtily believes he made him. Someone likened the former President to the one who sold goats but won’t let go of the rope. He manipulates the system to make leaders, and wants to perpetually retain control.

Dr Jonathan impressed me by the “cool” manner of his remarkable response. As sat I  in Cairo cafe reading this brief and intelligent treatise sipping my tea, I could not but feel a deep sense of appreciation for how the President kept his calm to  effectively respond to Obasanjo’s  fire point-by-point without himself using fire. That  would have been a distraction. Jonathan destroyed Obasanjo’s credibility, assuming he had any left, showing him as an over-bearing master who vilified everyone in power before and after him- Murtala, Shagari, Babandida,Shonekan, Abacha, Abdulsalam, Atiku, Yar’adua and now himself.

Dr Jonathan was not cogent and convincing in everything he said. He chose word to escape precision in some of his answers. But he achieved something, which is that if the former President had irredeemably damaged him in his reputation as many now believe, he too has equally achieved the same or even worse effect without a resort to the crudity and indecency in language and presentation that Obasanjo manifested in his own letter.

As the two elephants go on  trampling the grass, one outcome is certain, and that is the attainment of Mutually Asured Destruction (MAD).

The second important lesson of leadership, according to Professor Gergen is what he calls “A Central Compelling Purpose.” According to him, “just as a president has a strong character, he must be of clear purpose. He must tell the country where he is heading so he can rally people behind him.”
If you look at successful leaders around the world, one thing that becomes clear about them is this sense of purpose. They know the direction they are taking their countries to. The message will be so clear that even those who disagree with them will have no option but to support their cause.
In contemporary times you will be talking of world leaders like Mahathir Muhammad of Malaysia, who made his vision clear about transforming Malaysia into a developed country and making sure that the ethnic groups in the country; the Malays, the Chinese and Indians agree to share the same country even if they have reservation about the union. The story of Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, Malaysia’s neighbour is another interesting story of how purposeful leadership can transform a nation. Within 26 years, Lee Kuan Yew transformed Singapore from a struggling third world country into a developed first world economy.
Within Africa, the vision of Murtala Muhammad, despite leading the country for only six months, showcases leadership with a ‘compelling purpose’. He has achieved in those six months what other leaders could not dream of achieving in eight years. It is not for nothing that the likes of Kwame Nkurma, Julius Nyerere, Thomas Sankara or even the likes of Jerry Rawlings are fondly remembered. Whatever their imperfection, they have demonstrated that leadership must be for a reason, and within the brief period they have been in office, they tried to make a difference.
The third lesson, according to Professor Gergen is “A capacity to persuade.” The absence of this quality could perhaps explain the failure of leadership in African countries. How many times did our leaders found it imperative to carry the followership along by trying to persuade them to buy into their programmes? A key ingredient of the third lesson is the ability of the leader to be a motivational speaker, one who can win the hearts of his audiences, and bring them to his fold even if they disagree with him.
It is quite surprising that under civilian administrations, various African governments will rather employ dictatorial approaches than working to convince their citizens to accept their agenda. Not even in political rallies during electioneering campaign would you see the power of persuasion at work in our continent. With television, radio, and the internet at our disposal, yet the energy of political office holders will be spent strategizing on how to rig elections, than convince people even in matters that they can easily swing public opinion in their favour.
The fourth lesson of leadership, according to Professor Gergen is “an ability to work within the system.” Different countries have different political systems. But whether in democracy or dictatorship, there are certain mechanisms for checks and balances. There is a procedure for doing business.
For leadership to be successful, it should respect these procedures, and never attempt to circumvent them. In fact, the ability to work within the framework of the existing political system, whether it is through the national assembly, the judiciary, or abiding by civil service procedure, is a sign of leadership that is well meaning, sincere in its intentions and ready to leave a legacy for the next generation to follow. Desperation from political leadership to bypass the political system and create its own procedures for short time political gain is a sign of weakness, and a leader that is surrounded by selfish and incompetent advisers.
The leaders that have succeeded in other countries did not descend from Mars; they are human beings, who just like each and every one of us, where born and brought up by fellow human beings. The difference, though, is that they possess some of the qualities we have mentioned, while others are battling to understand themselves, before they could even understand the people they lead.

It will take a political storm like the one released from Ota farm by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to displace the series of events marking the death of Nelson Mandela from the pages of Nigerian newspapers. The storm was so powerful it has arguably created the hottest debate in the polity and overshadowed other stories.

In this specific contribution, my interest is not in the letter itself, but the debate it has generated among various media organisations within Nigeria, particularly the acknowledgement of sources, which I believe has an implication in both the theory and practice of journalism. I hope students are following the debate with keen interest because I could see a lot of areas for postgraduate research which if pursued could contribute greatly in enhancing the quality of journalism in Nigeria.

Of particular interest in the debate is the exchange between Premium Times, an online news outlet, which got the scoop and breaks the story to the world, and newspapers like the Punch, an old timer in the field of traditional journalism, and Leadership, another newspaper that is gaining ground in Nigerian journalism.

Before discussing the issue of attribution which created the hot exchange between various newspapers, let me discuss some of the issues observed which would help us in understanding the underlying issues which contributed in the allegations and counter allegations between the various news outfits.

The first observation highlighted by the cold war between these newspapers is the challenge that online journalism is posing against traditional media. This challenge should not be seen in a negative way. While newspapers around the world continue to increase their online presence, the need to satisfy their audiences who rely on traditional means of communication still consumes their energy.

Online journalists are dealing with a set of new audiences who are hungry for news, prefer to access information from the internet and enjoy the interactive nature of the online news media. Despite the attempt of the online news outlets to break stories and give their contribution to journalism, there is still skepticism about the quality of journalism produced on the internet. That skepticism could partially explain the resistance of the traditional media to acknowledge stories they sourced from the internet.

I do not think the challenge posed by the online media will overtake the influence of traditional newspapers, it will simply require the traditional outlets to change their business models, which some are doing well, while others are still trying to adapt. This point was aptly captured by the French newspaper Lemonde Diplomatique, “that in the history of communications the introduction of new media has never succeeded in chasing out the preceding technologies”.

There are two key noticeable issues which need to be settled in this debate; lack of aknowledgement of sources and sometimes outright plagiarism, and secondly how far can you go in acknowledging the sources of the original story. Ethically speaking all sources of information should be attributed, and this is in the interest of anyone who lifts a story from a secondary source. The attribution enhances the credibility of the medium, but it also protects it from falling into legal disputes should the story be a fabrication or contains libel or defamation.

On the other hand when a story breaks, as many journalists know, serious media organisations would always make an effort to explore other angles from the story in order to make their own mark, but at the same time to outdo their competitors. Certainly some media organisations would have done that on the “storm from Ota farm”. I do not see any conflict here, its simply part of basic ethics to acknowledge the source of the story, and the same is expected from the media organisation that break the story to acknowledge its competitor, should it quote a different angle from its competitor.

With all its shortcomings journalism in Nigeria remains one of the most vibrant in Africa, at least the media is relatively free to bring such issues of national importance to public domain.

I have heard the legend of the no-nonsense king and the loose cannon in an unnamed kingdom. The loose cannon was so famous for his gaffes throughout the kingdom that the community had no option but to report him to their disciplinarian king. A man who would open his mouth to slander just anything and anyone had thus become a problem to everyone.

The king said “No problem. If it is a problem with a man saying too much, we know how to fix him”. He directed that the loose cannon to be brought to the palace to sit before him as did the courtiers every day. Whenever the loose cannon opened his mouth to utter the wrong things as he got used to doing all the time, the local Chief asked the courtiers to give him a severe beating. On this particular day, the king was about to end his sitting and the palace closing for the day when a courtier observed that Mr. loose cannon had said nothing throughout. “Mr. large mouth has said nothing today to warrant a beating. Surely, the king’s methods have worked!”

With all eyes on him, Mr. loose cannon looked at the king, cleared his throat to launch the biggest insult of his career saying “yes I am free of the king’s torture today. Let him have his mother to beat!”

Since the release of his letter to the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, President Obasanjo has come under intense scrutiny relating to his motives, rather than the message and this is for a good reason. Over the last three or so decades since he left the office as Military Head of State, the former President is known to have written letters to each and all of the governments that followed his own, with such letters coming at crises points in the lives of those administrations or, where non-existed, fomenting trouble of the sitting government. Governments are known to rise and fall with Obasanjo’s letters.

In discussing the contents of the last of these letters, many have said the one he has written to Dr. Jonathan which is the most acerbic only confirmed what everyone believed – that we have a government loaded with stupendous scams, corruption and double-talk. Under Dr. Jonathan, a government unwittingly manifests tribalism and religious discrimination against sections of the country; infrastructure has not grown significantly and corruption has engulfed the economy. Obasanjo’s letter also had the point that essentially and fundamentally, the President is working against the party that put him in office, and the nation.

For me, the biggest cause for immediate concern is the allegation he made that government was putting together a killer squad of 1000 snipers to go after perceived enemies. Nigerians are more inclined to believing the former President on this because the government of the day is found to be dishonest in more ways than the citizens can imagine. What are they doing with a suspected murderer in their bosom? Why would the President intervene and have a foreign government release a citizen, allegedly arrested in connection with weapons smuggling?

There are also all sorts of stories you hear concerning the re-mobilization and re-armament of the dreaded Abacha’s Strike Force. When they took over government upon Abacha’s death, the Abdul-Salami Abubakar-led interim administration considered the sort of sophisticated training received in Israel and North Korea by the hundreds of the operatives of the Strike Force and considered that it would be dangerous to release them into the civilian population. They therefore integrated them into the army as a measure of containment. It was later discovered that many of them used to money and the independence of action enjoyed under the Strike Force did not fit into the army and left. Now, the stories abound that even the few who managed to stay back have started handing in their letters of resignation to the army giving clear indications that they are headed back to where they came from.

When they criticize President Obasanjo for his letter, many say the former leader is merely shedding crocodile tears because he, as the architect of successive transitions since he left office, is solely responsible for bringing the country to this sorry pass. They say that he, in consort with his cronies such as Nuhu Ribadu and Nasir El-Rufa’i, and without the least consideration for national interest chose a sick man, Umar Yar’Adua and Dr. Jonathan Goodluck, a man they thought was an idiot and imposed them on the population in order to retain power and exercise it from his farmhouse at Ota. If Yar’Adua as governor could not govern well a rural state like Katsina, it is better imagined how he could deal with a complex setting that is the Nigerian federation.

It is clear from all of these things that Obasanjo and his gang have mortally harmed the country and morally speaking, there is no basis on which they can pontificate to anyone.

This obvious hypocrisy however notwithstanding, there are many national interest issues in that letter which ought not to be swept under the carpet. As a senior lawyer said in the press last week, take the message and cut the hand (of the giver). So far, the President and his people have only been personalizing the issues. We have only heard a reflexive response from Dr. Reuben Abati, the President’s spokesman, charging the former leader with insincerity and bad faith. The President has no option but to give a reflective response. He needs to show a full contextual understanding; have a correct reading of the mood of nation, and come clean before the citizens on all charges contained in that letter. That is the only way he can redeem the government he leads. A good and honest government will lend ear to good advice wherever it is coming from. If not, that government is doomed to fail. The latter ought not to become true of the Jonathan government.

As the nation waits for him with bated breath to know what next steps he decides to take, let him not make the mistake of putting Obasanjo to trial or detention. With Mandela just buried and therefore out of the way, there are many old men on the continent who would do anything to fill the vacancy. This letter issue is big, big issue. It calls for a response beyond the reflexes and rash abuse coming from the President’s camp. What the nation expects is a reflective, blow-by-blow, point-by-point account of why the government should not be held guilty as charged.

Africa had never been short of great people. But few would argue against the idea that in colonial and postcolonial Africa, the greatest son produced by the continent is Nelson Mandela.  Here is a man from a humble background, whose traditional name was “a trouble maker,” yet he translated the meaning of his name in a positive way, by making trouble against white minority rule in South Africa to ensure the emancipation of his people. Mandela was a natural fighter. As he told us in Long Walk to Freedom, “there was no particular day on which I said, from henceforth I will devote myself to the liberation of my people; instead, I simply found myself doing so, and could not do otherwise” (p.95).

The struggle of Nelson Mandela United the African continent, various African leaders from Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa who made one of the largest donations to the African National Congress (ANC), Mandela’s political party and the platform for fighting against apartheid, to Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe who supported the struggle against oppression in South Africa, to Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya, who became the Arab son of the struggle to free the people of South Africa, down to  the likes of Halie Selassie of Ethiopia, the sincerity of Nelson Mandela’s struggle united the continent, and the world at large.  Murtala Muhammad of Nigeria lost his life potentially one would argue, due to his stand on the struggle to free African countries like Angola and South Africa, although the failed coup that resulted in his assassination had the colouration of a domestic uprising.

The life of Nelson Mandela developed in phases. From that of a youthful freedom fighter working to emancipate his people, to a politician who has the dexterity to plan, coordinate, and negotiate the freedom of his country from prison, to statesman who lived above his ambition by sacrificing his desire to lead South Africa. One would argue that if there is one leader in Africa, who deserves to remain president for life, and would have secured the backing of his people, it would have been Nelson Mandela.

For with without doubt, the freedom and liberty for black and other coloured South Africans to live as equals to the whites is more important to them, than living the most affluent life as second class citizens under the apartheid system. Yet Nelson Mandela decided to quit, and by so doing, he has helped his country to consolidate the transition to independent statehood. The dream of Nelson Mandela to have a country where social class is irrelevant has not yet been achieved, but the hope to build a country where everyone is relevant remains alive.

The spirit with which he fought, the conviction he had that no matter how long a journey takes, it will one day reach its destination has inspired others to fight for the freedom and dignity of their people. One lesson I learnt from reading the biography and observing the life of Nelson Mandela is one key thing, whatever cause you are pursuing, it is those little things that you do, those minor sacrifices that you make which will one day lead to greatness.

The struggle of Nelson Mandela to free South Africa was unique, it comprises of certain qualities that are rare in Africa today. The struggle involved Muslims, Christians, Blacks, Whites and the Coloured. In one hand you have the likes of Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and Raymond Mhlaba, while on the other end you have the likes of Ahmad Kathrada, Yusuf Dadoo, and Ismail Meer, coming together to fight a common enemy. It is not surprising therefore that the ‘rainbow nation’ reflects the coming together of these unique personalities for the dignity of their country.

The struggle led by Nelson Mandela has left a legacy, the legacy of forgiveness. As professor Ali Mazrui once argued, that one of the unique qualities of Africans is “short memory of hate” and he cited the case of Nelson Mandela’s ability to forgive his oppressors at a time when he had the chance to avenge for the wrongdoing he tested together with his people.

Of course Nelson Mandela is not perfect. He has his pitfalls. “one day, during this same time, my wife informed me that my elder son, Thembi, then five, had asked her, “where does Daddy live”, said Mr Mandela in Long Work to Freedom, “I had been returning late at night, long after he had gone to sleep, and departing early in the morning before he woke.” (p.119), Mr Mandela added. This is the sacrifice he had to make, but it was a feeling that his family had about him in the few years that he could stay with them.

Nelson Mandela is gone, his legacy will be remembered for generations, but the one billion dollar question is, who steps into his shoes? I looked around Africa, and even went on window shopping in other continents, I saw some leaders with potentials, but on a closer scrutiny, I realize that they are not like Nelson Mandela. I came back to Africa again, the picture is not looking good, but we shall never lose hope; if you have a name in your mind, kindly suggest it, for somebody needs to fill that shoe, now, tomorrow or in the generations to come.

The confrontation between the Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and the Governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido resembles the 1973 Arab-Israeli war in some respects.

In 1973, the Arab neighbours of Israel agreed to launch attacks on the Jewish State, meaning that battle fronts will be opened on Israel-Egypt boarder; Syria – Israel boarder; Lebanon-Israel and Jordan-Israel. The war began on all fronts, except that in the case of Jordan, King Hussein, the ruler at that time whispered to the Americans that Israel needed not worry about his own front. It is a fluke or fifth columnist war front. “We will not shoot at Israel. We will fire into the air. Israel should concentrate their energy on other fronts.”

My sense of what is going on between the Governor and the National Chairman amounts to no more than shadow boxing. It is the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, not Tukur who should be in the ring against Lamido and I will explain this shortly.

The latest face-off between Lamido and Tukur on the pages of the newspaper began the week before when the Governor called the National Chairman a “virus”, in fact he described him as a “virus worse than polio,” that stubborn, highly contagious virus that leads to paralysis and death.

The reading of Lamido’s criticism of the party leader is that under Tukur’s watch, the PDP had become weaker and characterized by lack of performance and the lack of commitment to the country and its people. Instead of giving good governance, the party and office holders have all become puppets singing lullaby of the President, ignoring the problems of the party itself and of the people such as security, jobs, education and so forth.

Tukur’s surprising reaction came by way of admission that he was indeed a virus.

In a statement by his Media Adviser, Oliver Okpala, the PDP Chairman said that “the virus is a necessary virus in any democratic political structure for sustenance and continuity of our nascent democratic dispensation”.

In trying to make light of the virus charges in this response, Tukur clearly showed a total lack of understanding of the seriousness of the charge and the actual meaning of a virus. There is no such thing anywhere as a positive virus. A virus, wherever it is found, in living things or in computers has a detrimental effect, such as corrupting the system or destroying data. The word virus is itself borrowed from Latin, originally meaning a poison or toxin. Without knowing it, Alhaji Tukur had further damaged his own reputation by accepting the charge that he is a virus in the PDP.

Having said this, it is a known fact that the political spectrum in the PDP is clearly divided between the President, with an eye on 2015, and those who want to succeed him through an election. The argument of those elements is that the nation has paid the price by wasting six years under Mr. Jonathan and that nothing under the sun justifies anyone fooling the country any more.

What this calls for on the part of Lamido who apparently wants to replace Mr. Jonathan is to know or identify your target/enemy and go after him. A party Chairman under the PDP has stopped being a respectable job since the forced exit of Chief Audu Ogbe and to an extent Vincent Ogbulafor. The PDP national chairman is no more than a personal assistant watching over Wadata House on behalf of the President. Obasanjo wrote this role.  The actual levers of control of the party are in the Presidential Villa. Any occupant of that position who is not ready to succumb to that will not last a day longer in that office. Party “Chairmen” like Mr. Tukur understand the way the game is played and that is why they are able to last in that position. It is true that the coming of Tukur has dirtied the social, political, communal and democratic atmosphere in the party but he is not the enemy to be fought. It is the President with divisive policies from which the country has been harvesting hatred. In that respect, Lamido is fighting the wrong enemy.  Alhaji Sabo Bakin Zuwo warned of the dangers of holding the bus conductor accountable for the actions of the driver. The wrong enemy is being fought.

On a final note, it is instructive from here that Lamido and all the Governors fighting Tukur, be they 5, 7 or 14 are just raising unnecessary emotions and wasting everyone’s time. No PDP Chairman under the present circumstances of the party will be better than Tukur, even if that Chairman answers the name of Governor A or Governor B. The virus they should be talking about is not embodied in individuals but embedded in the structural defect that vests ownership and control of the party in one man, the President. It is too much power that is open to abuse not just by this President but anyone that inherits those powers. Without changing that structural defect, things will continue to get worse for the party.

As a northerner, I detest the present crop of northern governors. Most of them are greedy and corrupt – this has become an essential ingredient of governance in Nigeria anyway. But I detest them the more because they have formed the un-Godly proclivity of exercising power without the inconvenience of responsibility.

For effect, they have elected one of them, Dr Aliyu Babangida of Niger State as their leader. A Phd holder and street orator, this man pretends to be an authority on every topic in the world. Everyday on TV, I see him delivering lectures in different, far flung cities in Nigeria on every conceivable topic, ranging from rocket science in America to rat hunting in Tivland. But when you go to Niger state of today as I frequently do, what you see on the ground is a comprehensive report card on what good governance is not. This itinerant pedagogue spends so much time and energy on his lectures that there is none left for the job he was elected in 2007 to do.

As a northerner educated in the South West, I do not hide my admiration for what the South West governors are doing in their individual states and for their geo-political zone. Just go round their states from Lagos to Osun and you will see evidence of good governance everywhere. I cannot swear that these governors are not pilfering their state’s treasuries since this is an accepted National culture. They have however won me over with their attitude to the welfare of their people and state duties.

We are back to the good old days when the South West claimed and was in fact the ‘first’ in everything in Nigeria. The governors there are not asking for cheap oil money, as our own Babangida Aliyu is always doing. Lagos state has demonstrated that oil is not the only source of wealth. They look back with nostalgia to the days of Awolowo and they want to integrate the old West so that it becomes more viable for the economic, social and political challenges ahead.

The greatest injury state creation has done to federalism is that we now have a multitude of states, few of which can raise the revenue to finance their budgets. They depend on federal allocations for almost everything. This type of federalism is found only inNigeria.

As a northerner from the North East, I have my reservations about the performances of some of our six state governments. Last week I was happy to be an observer of the 2^nd North East Economic Summit. The first Summit which was held in Bauchi last year was poorly attended.

This year, my zone – the North East, took me closer to South West, the zone that educated and still gives me pride. Held in Gombe, the conference attracted who is who in the North east and beyond: Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, PDP national Chairman, Malam Adamu Ciroma, former Minister, Hajia Amina J Mohammed, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General on post 2015 Development Planning, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Governor of Central Bank, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and man others.

If the success of any such summit is to be judged by attendance, there couldn’t be a greater one than the Gombe summit. The President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was there on hand to give an address. Amazingly even after his departure on the first day, the conference hall in the governor’s office, venue of the summit witnessed a full capacity turn out for the two days it lasted.

But the real value of this year’s summit goes beyond mere attendance. There was deep substance in the contributions, sometimes beautifully laced with majestic humour. For instance there was the debate, even competition between participants from the North West and the North East as to which was the most wretched zone in Nigeria. Speaker after speaker from the Norwest, led by the former Minister of National Planning, Dr Samshudeen Usman stood up to proudly declare their zone as the poorest while the Wazirin Bauchi Alhaji…led the North East contingent in the race to wrestle the trophy of poverty for the Nortwest zone. The debate got so animated that President Jonathan had to intervene.

The summit, a well organized event spoke not only of poverty; it also provided a platform for advertising the potential prosperity of the North East zone. One by one the six governors stepped out to give details of the unexploited resources in their turfs.

There was Murtala Nyako of Adamawa telling the world that his state is a land of limitless investment opportunities in agriculture, (crop production; animal production, agriculture); mineral resources and commerce. Mal. Isa Yuguda proclaimed his Bauchi state as the “pearl of tourism” because of such tourist attractions as the Yankari National Park, Tafawa Balewa Tomb etc.

Mal Kashim Shettima, governor of Borno said his state is a “haven of tourism and investment” even in the face of the Boko Haram scourge. The host Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo declared Gombe his state as an investor’s real destination. To Garba Umar, Taraba, the state where he acts as Governor is nature’s gift of investment potentials, just like Ibrahim Gaidam said Yobe, the state he governs is a place where investment opportunities abound.

Explaining the focus of this years summit, Muhammad Kabir Ahmed, Chairman of the organizing committee said “This second North Eastern Economic Summit was elected to be with a difference in many ways than one, among which are hosting Pre-Summit conferences on at least two of the three issues it intends to address in the event proper. This turned out to be true. For two days running, we were treated to informed discourse with experts mesmerizing us with information on investor’s forum, agriculture, education, infrastructure and framework for regional cooperation.

The conference has come and its resolutions have been put before the public domain. What is left is the implementation of these solemn and pious proclamations. Fortunately both President Jonathan and Dr. Samshudeen promised to help with the way forward. The future does look bright for the zone.

But the governors of the North East must take one more step. The South West governors are way ahead in this business of regional integration. Nothing stops the North East governors from going to the South West to learn. About forty years ago, I enrolled into a university in the South West to learn and I am not regretting that move.