At the time General Yakubu Gowon was overthrown in 1975, the most glaring evidence that he had lost control was the choking congestion at almost all Nigerian sea ports. Then, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, (the same PDP man of today) was the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Ports Authority.

The government had ordered more cement than the facilities at the ports could cope and as ship after ship kept coming without discharging its cargo, everywhere was blocked and other essential imports suffered. Nigeria was gradually coming to a halt.

Gowon complained loudly after his overthrow that he imported the cement on expert’s advice and it was unkind of Nigerians to hold him responsible for the mess. General Gowon never named the experts who advised him to flood the ports with cement but I am sure the culprits know themselves.

The problem with the President today is that he is resistant to fresh good advice. He is stuck with old ways and as the time worn saying goes – ‘those who refuse to learn from history are bound to repeat its mistake’.

The PDP has invented a novel formula of sharing public office. From the Presidency down to the office messenger, everything is done by allocation. This narrowly defined theory gives no room for health, competence, comportment and relevant experience for the beneficiary of the job at hand.

Not too long ago, the party allocated the Presidency to the north and it ended up in the bosom of a very sick man. Tragically, he died in office before the time allocated to his region was up. The north hoped that the southerner who held brief for him would follow the allocation formula and step aside. But believing in his goodluck, the man stayed put.

But for President Goodluck Jonathan, his legendary good luck does not appear to translate into good luck with his men and even women. After he won the 2011 presidential poll, he decided to set up his party structures. Everybody knows that even though he denied during his jockeying for the office of President that the PDP had an allocation formula for public office, he stamped his foot down that the chairman of the party was for the north. Coming to the north, he specifically insisted on allocating the office to Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.

Some of us saw wisdom in this allocation. Bamanga came around with a rich cv. Not only did he serve at the ports with a string of achievements, he had a vibrant three month stint as a governor; he was once a viable presidential aspirant, a cabinet minister at the federal level and an international business man. We saw in him the capacity to turn the PDP around from what one of his predecessors described as “a rally” to a vehicle for mass mobilization. We even predicted that he could bridge the yawning gap between the president and the north. Whether he has been able to achieve all the lofty ideals that those of us who support him said he would is left for the public to see. Personally, going by what I see happening in the PDP today and President Jonathan’s ranking with elite politicians in the north, I feel the Bamanga whom I served in the good old days of Gongola has discredited my credentials as a columnist and political pundit.

Even then, given Bamanga’s credentials, the president was right in his hope that the chairman would stabilize the polity so that we could share some fresh air with him. Things did not work out as we thought. Still, the president clings on to Bamanga – his man.

In certain cases however, the president inflicts injury on himself by allocating jobs to the wrong persons. Some weeks ago, the chairman, national Population Commission, Chief Festus Odimegwu resigned. That to me is not the news. The news is that given Odimegwu’s background, the president went ahead to allocate the job of national head count to this man. He had a first class degree. That is true. He distinguished himself as a brewer of intoxicating alcohol. That is true.

Nothing of this man’s background prepared him for the census chairmanship which is a high tension political office in Nigeria. In fact, his only national political act in life was to plunge his alcohol company in the campaign to change Nigeria’s constitution to ensure that Obasanjo became Nigeria’s permanent President. The company realized the danger in this gamble and shoved him aside.

The danger for Jonathan is that by the time Odimegwu left office as Chairman of the census commission, he gave many politicians in the north the impression that he was employed by Jonathan to wipe out whatever advantage the north has in the polity. He was the President’s man.

And then you cast your mind back to the late Gen Azazi. This is the General who was in command in Kaduna when the armoury of the Nigerian army there was burgled and the arms taken to Niger Delta militants who were waging a ferocious war against the Nigerian army. There was a security report to President Yar adua implicating him in the treasonable act. Yar adua retired him quietly but on his death, Jonathan appointed him National Security Adviser. How could a man with such a track record be relied upon when it comes to national security issues?

But it is not just his men that are heavy baggage to carry. When it comes to women, the President likes them rough. For example, what the hell is Stella Uduah doing with two expensive bullet proof cars? Is she on her way to war torn Damascus? Even Saul had a change of mind and name on his way to Damascus. He graduated from Saul to Paul. As a good Christian, Stella should confess her sins so that she will be forgiven.

After the disastrous House first public hearing by the House Committee, it is a surprise that instead of firing the liar, the President even took her to the holy land! From what transpired on that day, it is clear that the Minister breached all the laws in her bid to have the two cars.

Stella and some of the President’s men have served their principal very poorly. They are making him very unpopular. The President himself is not helping himself by keeping them on board.

In 1975, Gowon lost power because of developments on the high seas. In 2015, another man may lose power because of the happenings in the air.
(Views expressed in this and other opinion articles are strictly personal)

The controversy surrounding the purchase of bullet-proof cars by Aviation Ministry parastatals will be useless if at the end of it lessons are not drawn for the future.
In fairness to the government minister in the middle of it, Mrs Stella Oduah is not the first, nor the only one throwing her weight around, asking heads of MDAs under her to buy this or that thing. All ministers order the chiefs under them to buy them cars, maintain their homes and offices and at other times provide air tickets and foreign exchange whenever the need for foreign travel arose. Those who don’t do this must be ministers who preside over MDAs that are non-lucrative. But cash liquidity is feature aviation and transport parastatals.
The question then to ask is, is it right that they are doing this? The answer is absolutely “No!”
Those chiefs know that they are doing wrong things; they are in fact jail-able in accountable situations, yet they can’t resist the ministers because they live in constant fear of being fired. If you as chief won’t  oblige, there are many willing subordinates to show that with you out of way, they are ready to do the minister’s bidding 100 percent.
The epidemic nature of the malfeasance however notwithstanding, you will still find a few chiefs, here and there, who are ready to say “No” to the minister and damn all consequences.
More than 20 years ago, the Sunday Triumph which I edited at that time did a story on a heroic chief who fought his minister and won. The Minister of Mines and Power whose name I will not mention summoned Engineer (Alhaji) Hamman Tukur who was under him, serving as the General Manager of the defunct National Electrip Power Authority, NEPA and asked that cars be bought for him.
Tukur responded on the spot, asking the minister to name the sub-head ( meaning  which budgetary provision) under which the money would be obtained. The minister was furious. He did not expect a parastatals head under him would show such “impudence.” He looked at Tukur and asked him to retrace but the GM was adamant.
He looked at him again and said “is this the stubbornness or arrogance for which the Fulani are known?” Tukur, unmoved by this blackmail retorted that this was nonsense, asking the minister in return whether his tribe or ethnic group had been licensed by Allah, their maker to steal what belonged to the public. End of discussion!
Back in the Ministry, the minister embarked on a course of action to discipline the “errant” GM of NEPA.
The permanent secretary fired a query, delivered through the Director of Power. Now at this point, Providence decided to make an entry into the matter. As I try to recollect the story as told by the Sunday Triumph in an article headlined “WHEN THE WHEELS OF GOD TURN AGAINST INJUSTICE..”, Armageddon was let loose on the management of the Ministry of Power and Steel.
First, it was the Permanent Secretary. He suffered a major stroke and was rushed out of office and the country for urgent treatment.
The Director of Power in reality was no more than a go-between, conveying the minister’s angry words to the GM. He nevertheless had his own share.
In an attempt to cross the street to buy either bread or oranges, his wife was hit by a vehicle and died as a consequence.
The bullying minister had a plane crash barely a few days after this confrontation. He broke an arm and a leg when the small aircraft chartered to take him to Kaduna crashed on landing at the airport.
The big masquerade hiding behind the Minister in all of these going on, the Secretary to the Government, SGF at that time soon thereafter  had a ghastly motor accident between the airport in Kaduna and the township. He was fractured in five different parts of his body.
By this time, fear had gripped the entire government. But as Tukur said in a reaction, he had no hidden or secret power to use against anyone but the he knew that God or Allah was always on the side of the oppressed.
The story as told at that time was that the President, General Babangida, whose sense of humor no one could beat at any time called for a fence-mending meeting with Engineer Tukur.
The GM was then offered a year-long break to further his education at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS.
When he finished and returned to take over at NEPA, he was promoted to the post of Permanent Secretary, PS in the ministry.
Thereafter, he became the PS in Petroleum before he voluntarily retired.
Engineer Tukur belonged to a generation that had painstakingly laid the foundation of this federation. They opposed greed and theft. They believed that it was wrong for public officers to serve narrow ends as has become the norm these days.
From the cavalier and disinterested manner in which the Minister Oduah’s case is being handled by the government, it is clear that there is a disconnect between the administration and vocal segments of the society that inform public opinion.
Similarly, all that we are seeing in the parliament by way of inquisition may not be to provide solutions or sensible lessons to meet the  challenges but to promote drama and income for a few.
As a people and a country, Nigerians have themselves not displayed the kind of resolve required to make for the change that would pass on the country’s leadership to selfless and patriotic persons.
Today, if Engineer Tukur, Gen. Murtala Muhammed, Ahmadu Bello, the Sardaunan Sokoto, Prime Minister Balewa, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Azikiwe and individuals like them would dare to contest elections, they will not win any vote. Nigerian people mostly vote for GARRI.
In an ideal situation, Ministers caught in the on-going situation concerning the bullet-proof cars should have since resigned their position to limit the damage to their career as politicians and the government in which they  serve. Minister Oduah has no legacy anymore in that ministry. The success she claims to have achieved reforming the aviation industry has since been erased from the memory of the public by the on-going crisis. All they remember and talk about her is bullet-proof cars.
Officials like Hamman Tukur entered the public service to give something to the nation. They had commitment and they had character. That was why some of them could look at the face of a wrong-doing minister and say “no!”
Politics has now made public office a gate pass to money and power. Even in the parliament, the temple of democracy, a Senator stood there to announce that there were robbers and criminals in its membership. It is however known that he was forced later to recant.
Every country needs a committed set of people, a sense of purpose and pride. That is why small countries such as Japan, Singapore, Israel and United Arab Emirates have achieved national development. Nigeria has to put its leadership  beyond the hegemony of thieves masquerading as reformers. And to do this, political parties should search for potential Ahmadu Bellos, Ziks, Awos, Balewas-leaders who think, not of themselves alone but of the larger society.
Let this be an important outcome of the BULLET-PROOF BMW cars.
(Views expressed in this and other opinion articles are strictly personal)

Last week, the World Islamic Economic Forum in London, the first time such Forum took place outside the Muslim World, showcased how Islamic financing is growing around the world. According to the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, Islamic finance is growing fifty percent faster than conventional financing. Of course, more need to be done to strengthening what is gradually appearing to be an alternative to the conventional model.
But of more interesting from the speeches of different world leaders was a statement from the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr Nawaz Sheriff. Mr Sheriff who lamented the state of the Muslim world, and how far the Muslim world is left behind. He showed what needed to be done to revive its hitherto compelling spirit, which greatly contributed in scientific and technological advancement of the world.
According to the speech by Mr Sheriff, in the middle ages, Muslim scientists produced ninety percent of the literature the world over, yet at the moment, Muslim scientists produced just one percent.
The message of Mr Sheriff was clear, for the Muslim world to regain its position globally; it has to revert to what made it to be ahead of its contemporaries in the past.
Just a quick look at the list of Muslim scientists and their inventions as listed by the website
www.famousscientists.org, you would see the likes of Abu Nasr Al-Farabi, known as  Alpharabius, Albattani known as Albatenius, a famous mathematician and astronomer, Ibn Sina or Avesina famous for his contribution to medicine and philiosphy, Ibn Battuta, Ibn Rushd also called Averroes, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khawarazimi, famous for the invention of Arabic numerals and Algebra, Omar Alkhayyam, Abubakar Alrazi “considered one of the greatest physicians in history” according to the famous scientists website; Jabir ibn Alhayyan “the father of Arab chemistry known for his highly influential works on alchemy and metallurgy,” Ibn Ishaq Alkindi, also called Alkindus “who is known as the first of the Muslim peripatetic philosophers.” Ibn Alhaytham (Alhazen), “Arab astronomer and mathematician known for his important contributions to the principles of optics and the use of scientific experiments.”
The remaining scientists include Ibn Zhur (Avezoar) “Arab physician and surgeon, known for his influential book.
Al-Taisir Fil-Mudawat Wal-Tadbeer (Book of Simplification Concerning Therapeutics and Diet),” Ibn Khaldun, a historian, sociologist and economist and the author of Muqaddima, an important work thought to have influenced the work of later Western philosophers like Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Herbert Spencer, and Ibn Albaitar “botanist and physician who systematically recorded the discoveries made by Islamic physicians in the Middle Ages.”
These are just a selection of the famous Muslim scientists who contributed to the development of science and technology that is sometimes ignored or even assumed such contribution never existed. It does not even include such giants like Imam Attabari, who is both a scholar of Tafseer (Quranic exegesis) and a medical doctor, or the likes of Imam Al-Ghazali whose contribution would make you hide your face in shame when you see what some of our universities are producing as professors.
But this is the past; we have to think about the present. The Muslim world does not lack the people who will conduct research and regain the glory of the civilization that was once the leading light of the world. What the Muslim world lacks are the institutions that support the development of these scientists to produce the knowledge that our world will continue to desire.
The Muslim scientists of the past were successful because of the support they received fr om the State and through philanthropists who understood that for a civilization to stand on its feet, it has to be mounted on the pedestal of knowledge. Research has shown that the Muslim world led the way in the past, because of how endowment funds (Awqaaf) and other philanthropic activities supported people to study and produce the best literature without worrying about the hassles of life, which may take away their attention.

In fact, other civilizations learned about the institution of Waqf fro m the Muslim world, a point that was made clearly by Tim Wallace-Murphy in his book:

“What Islam Did for Us: Understanding Islam’s Contribution to Western Civilization.” Wallace-Murphy explained how the West learned f rom the Muslim world on how to establish these endowment funds, a factor that critically contributed in the development of institutions like Oxford and Cambridge.

Unfortunately, the institution of  Waqf has been neglected or at best thrown to the background in the Muslim world, and reviving it, and making it to function in line with current challenges will contribute greatly in producing the Muslim scientists that can bring back the lost glory of the Muslim world.

(Views expressed in this and other opinion articles are strictly personal)

The recent formation of Nigerian Online Publishers’ Association (NOPA) in Lagos came at the right time when mushroom online publishers with jaundice knowledge of journalism are springing up daily, thanks to access to the modern communication technology, even by nincompoops.
As a matter of fact, at no time the popular communication dictum which says, “Comments are free” comes into play than now, especially as the society is not only free but reels in democracy.
The world has moved so fast and close-knitted that the instruments for the dissemination of information are at the fingertips of every other person.
All that is required by anyone to publish news and news items now is adequate knowledge of internet technology. In other words, many people, especially, highly mobile and bubbling youths who have acquired ITC knowledge from universities and other tertiary institutions, have suddenly found online publishing both lucrative and fun, and in some cases, an opportunity to do mischief.
One central truth that runs across this class of young energetic people is the fact that they know nothing about journalism and its tenets. It doesn’t matter that Journalism is regarded as an open, all-comers profession; some form of decorum need not be sacrificed at the altar of the openness.
These are the emerging publishers who mainly copy or lift stories and other news items from newspapers or professional editors running the same online and slam them on their sites. Indeed, it is common now to read, word-for-word from such junks, news items already published either in newspapers or professional online media. They don’t even know what is called editing or re-writing, to give new flavour to the news items so copied or lifted.
Even though the chairman of newly formed NOPA, Malachy Agbo, Publisher of The Citizen was frank to admit that the Association has no power to sanction erring publishers, but there is no running away from the advice of President of the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE), Femi Adesina that poor editing and disregard for journalism ethics should be discouraged in this new journalism technology.
If this category of junk journalists or online publishers is bad, the ones that do not have regard for truth, accuracy and balance as well as the ones that come out daily with poor, third-rate English, even among the ones published by some lazy Journalists, would be regarded as laughable.
While on that, there is this young man publishing an online simply because he can design website, but who cannot put together a simple sentence in English! He either lifts news items from newspapers or other social media and, if he is to write, he ‘spoils the language.’
Agreed, this form of journalism is still at the infant stages as all jack and harries go into it, the Malachy-led NOPA needs to start thinking beyond ordinary on how to weed out the junks and sanitize the journalism profession, irrespective of the instrument for the purveyance of information.
What the Association may insist on is the need for the practitioners not only to be professionals but to ensure strict observance to the journalism’s standard which makes truth sacred.

This is a very difficult period for many families, but it is even more so for the whole country, dealing with insurgency and kidnapping. I see a silver lining in the sky though, with Nigeria’s Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar now in the United States of America asking that this country be helped.

That is the right way to go. Nigeria needs international help because we just have been waffling and digging ourselves deeper and deeper into the hole.

Look at it this way. If we had spent the enormous quantity of newsprint and quality Radio/TV air time the country has used in the last two weeks discussing the ASUU strike, Boko Haram or kidnapping instead of the mismanagement of the Ministry of Aviation and the actions of one person, Ms. Stella Oduah, I  bet you some distance will have been covered in finding solutions. It’s clear to the world by now that we are not just serious.

I have a colleague who has not spent a night in his father’s house in the village for four years. This is a ritual he cherished a lot each time he came home from his the country of residency in Europe. Kidnappers would be happier with him in the village than family members if he goes there today.

Another of my friends who lives in Abuja says among the many tricks he plays against kidnappers to go  to his mum and dad is to sneak into the village late at night. Early the following morning, he excuses himself to visit a nearby uncle. He sneaks out of the village because to say bye-bye means to put someone on notice that he is leaving. He could run into a kidnappers’ ambush.

If you notice it, most high society weddings and burials have moved from the East and the South-south and from Boko Haram ravaged states of the North-East to Lagos and Abuja.

Kidnapping for ransom and terrorism have taken a centre stage and are major factors in planning meetings and social events. They are key in deciding when and where you travel around the country.

I was in Delta State recently for this year’s  Editors’ conference and chose a tour group to the hinterland to see how much impact enhanced oil revenues had made to the life of the ordinary people. I was impressed by so much development activity taking place. I was however taken aback by the many well-built homes in towns and villages whose owners have moved to safer places in Lagos and the North. They make  a terrible eye-sight. Many local officials who can afford it hire houses for their mothers and fathers away from their villages and have them on internal exile in safer towns. Some traditional rulers have equally moved, ruling their subjects from  the safe distances  of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and other places.

A group of armed pirates last Wednesday attacked an oil supply vessel off the Nigerian coast  and kidnapped the Captain and Chief Engineer, both United States citizens and the debacle is still on.

In recent times, hostages takers in that volatile region and the sea boarder have virtually seized citizens of all nations-Indians, Phillipinos, Labanese, British, Russians, French- just about everyone. It is a sobering thought that the  kidnapping of ” high value” Nigerians has itself become  routinised; we have become so used to that aspect to the point that it no longer warrants the  type of  frenzy we are witnessing in dealing with the Americans.

When a Nigerian of value is taken, family members are taught the correct line of action, which is that they keep the police out of it and negotiate and pay. It goes without saying that this has angered the security services in many instances but but there are also reported cases where they are the ones who point at this line of action. They simply blindside it.

The difference this one makes is that Americans are involved and the United States isn’t just another nation: it is the world’s only remaining super-power. That’s why every arm of the security services, especially the Nigerian Navy has been all action. All nations around the globe know that no one is allowed to mess around with American lives.

As President of Panama, Manuel Noriega, a rogue leader had done so so much to anger the neighboring United States but the sharpest case of American ire was ignited by the kidnap and rape of a female citizen by a Panamanian soldier. This culminated in the invasion of the Latin American country by the U.S army whose biggest prize was the overthrow from power and seizure of that errant nation’s leader. Noriega has since completed a prison term upon conviction by the U.S  justice system and has been handed to France who had planned to put him under yet another trial.

The latest incident in the Niger Delta has brought into sharp focus around the world Nigeria’a widely-seen failure to effectively deal with violent crimes and acts of terror.

Apart from poor governance, it has indicated two other challenges this country faces: a lack of leadership and the inability of the country’s security agencies to impose their competence on the domestic issue of insecurity.

While this is going on, the administration is using ethnicity and religion to cover unethical behavior as we are witnessing in the recent scandal involving the Minister of Aviation.

From reactions to the recent kidnap and the fact of the Gulf of Guinea becoming the world’s most dangerous waters,there is the prospect of growing U.S- and global- impatience with terrorism, sea piracy and kidnapping scourges, leading possibly to bold, if not unilateral action in the event of this country’s continuing lethargy. This, as is being hinted, could include a go-it-alone effort to rescue their citizens.

In many ways, the situation at the sea border mirrors the state of affairs inside the country.

In spite of the huge cash pay-outs, mouth-watering contracts, oversea scholarships and jobs, ex-militants in the region have persisted with their violent agenda, targeting the army, police, foreigners, oil pipelines  and all facilities. The recent arson claimed by the militant group MEND at the Warri Refinery is a case in point.

It is clear that violence pays in the region as it does in many parts of Nigeria. If militants, extremists and criminals can get away with violence, there is absolutely no incentive for peace.

Only a resolute leadership determined to to purge the scourge of violence and extremism can save Nigeria from this state of destruction.

Considering the hell that civil society groups and the (new) media are giving the Minister of Civil Aviation, Stella Oduah and the agency under her, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, for ill-advisedly procuring two bullet-proof BMWs at inflated rates, it is hard to see how this, or any dirty government can be saved by a National Conference. The popular view is that this one has been called as a diversion, to get tribal, regional and religious groups sparring.

There have been only a few worse public relations disasters than the BMW saga in our lifetime. First they said no cars were brought; it was all fabrication. When documents surfaced, the Minister’s public relations person said yes, the NCAA bought them to secure the Minister’s life following relentless threats from powerful cartels she has offended with her “reforms” in the aviation sector. When they realized that they had only dug themselves into further trouble, the Managing Director of the NCAA took the microphone. He announced that the cars, bought at that cut-throat price were not for the exclusive use of the Minister but to be used transporting visiting dignitaries. More troubled followed. Who, is it NCAA or the Directorate of Protocol in both Foreign Affairs and the State House that is responsible for the visiting foreign leaders such as Ministers and Presidents? Who is ready to answer the question of the price of the cars, each bought at USD800,000 when a sales agent, says he can deliver them ex-Lagos at a unit price of between USD170,000 – USD200,000? Where is the difference of USD1.2M? Who pocketed it?

No conference, sovereign or restricted can get the people to stop talking about this.

That is why doubts continue to trail the so-called National Dialogue or Conference. The Northern thinking about it as expressed by the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF is that Arewa is just being made the target of a pillory. The idea is to punish the region because of their non-compliance with the President’s wish to do more than eight years in office.

This bias is evident from composition of the panel selected to draw up the conference modus operandi. They selected towering personalities from the first-eleven of some regions and gave the North a short-drift. A Professor here, a Senator from there but when it came to the North, they brought a Dauda Birma with a dubious constituency. Nobody as of yet knows who he represents. Some say the choice of two women from the North – the vocal women constituency is in the South – is a cynical statement to the effect that the region was uncaring, if not outrightly oppressive of its women. By this, the President is making an unequivocal electoral appeal.

The inclusion of a failed coupist, Col. Nyiam, unrepentant till this day, as a member of the planning committee defies logic, much also as it is a very cynical statement. He, Major Orkar and others announced a coup and a new Republic from which a number of Muslim-dominated Northern states were expelled. Shouldn’t they have also considered the inclusion of some mad men from the North? We have them here, too, and in good numbers. A local proverb says nobody desire to have a mad man in the family but there are times you felt it was right to have your own. Clearly this is one of such occasions.

Equally puzzling is the choice of a quality representation from Ohanaeze Ndi–Igbo, the Association of South-South – South-East Professionals and of course Afenifere, which has tactfully been handed the conference. Yet, from all that is evident, the Arewa Consultative Forum was not considered worthy of a representation.

These and other deficits seen from the very beginning, including the fact of non-consultation have convinced many that nothing good will come out of the conference. No one needs to look beyond the embarrassing withdrawal of Professor Ben Nwanbueze from the Committee to realize that the whole thing was a hurriedly, if not haphazardly put together that had not been properly thought out. If they had spoken to the erudite professor before going on the radio, they would have found out that he was too ill to be available for the job. This ineptitude is equally evident from the initial four weeks timeline given to the Okorounmu Committee to complete its job. Nobody at that high government level initially considered that a good percentage of quality Muslim intellectuals and leadership would, throughout the period be engaged, directly or indirectly with the Muslim Pilgrimage, the Hajj. The two weeks additional time given is, I presume, a make-up for the loss of Muslim participation. Of course the decision to call the conference is itself born out of expediency devoid of any national interest. They just stumbled into it as they groped for relief from the incinerating criticism and public scrutiny of terrible acts of mis-governance as currently symbolized by the aviation industry. This conference is not a product of national clamour but following the footsteps of vocal groups with a strong support in the media. It is a further confirmation of the existence of a virtual parliament in the country, by which every suggestion by Afenifere and Ohanaeze is policy; if the ACF says or proposes anything on the other hand, it is taken as being hostile and inimical and instantly dismissed.

But the ultimate anomaly in the whole thing is the unfolding dispute between the Committee which claims it has a carte-blanche and that their report will be subject only to a referendum on the one hand and the President on the other who says whatever they submit will be subject to the scrutiny by the National Assembly. The implications of the bi-polar positions should be clear to all. A national conference which decisions are to be debated and approved by the National Assembly is a monumental waste of time and resources, certainly unworthy of a minute of a serious person’s time. This thing is like the logic of the market. If you have the producer of goods selling directly in retail, why go through vendor, agent or middleman? Why waste time talking to Okorounmu when the house of parliament, the ultimate decider is receptive to your views?

If on the other hand the conference is to be of sovereign nature, then two sovereignties cannot co-exist in a single political entity. The government and the parliament must lose their elected seats to be replaced by a caretaker government or submit to interim administration by the United Nations. The UN mandate is itself not new. This is what they did, dealing with the Germen Cameroons in the 60s, half of which voted in a plebiscite to stay with Cameroon and the other half voting to be a part of Nigeria.

Instead of going for a conference to blind Nigerians to crimes such as the raging BMW scandal in the Ministry of Aviation, which is doomed ultimately to fail, government can legislate impunity by diktat, making Nigeria a crime-free country. No crime, that’s all!

In that case, no one has to worry about running a government increasingly coming to resemble a local version of the Mafia Inc.

Even a layman in legal matter would easily put some facts together and arrive at a conclusion that the promoters of the new Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) started their fight for a just leadership in the party from a wrong perspective and pursuing such course in the right direction.
As a matter of fact, even the top officers of the new PDP know or should know that they have been threading on shifty sand, irrespective of the reason for the breakaway.
The first thing that a clear headed analyst would query is the fact as to whether the solution to alleged arrogant leadership in the main stream PDP is the formation of another PDP.
Of course, there is nowhere in the history of any country in which a new party was formed out of the existing party for whatever purpose and such new contraption succeeded in pushing out the main body.
In deed, the obviously hurriedly formed PDP did not look like it would gather any momentum to fight the leadership of the party, right from the onset.
The chieftains of the new PDP ought not to be surprised when the law guiding the establishment of a party in Nigeria naturally box the new party into a corner, because, one expects that they should know better.
For instance, the law says that representatives of the nation’s electoral umpire, that is the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must be around to witness the election of the members of the National Executive Council of the party at a venue and date set for a period of time before the national convention.
And what happened in the case of the new PDP? It was not confirmed that any officer of INEC was present at a venue hurriedly chosen on that day where a new set of National Executive Council members were picked. The gathering where such new set of officers were picked was not good enough to be called a national convention, besides the fact that there was no prior notice, known to even ordinary members of Nigeria.
Also, the law, when it comes to this level of reducing serious party matter into a child’s play, requires that the court should queue behind INEC on which of the two it should recognize, for one thing that, when the chips are down, it is INEC that would conduct elections for the parties that are recorded properly after due process, in its book of register.
Having said that, the question still needs to be asked again: is the formation of a new party out of the existing one the solution to solving serious challenges of any kind in the party?
Of course, if the main grievances of the aggrieved PDP members that broke away are that the national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur is arrogant and high-handed in the way he handles the party affairs, and that he is not even a bonafide member of the party, the wise thing that should have been done is to rally support within the party to fight the chairman.
As a matter of fact, there are several provisions in the Nigerian constitution and even the PDP constitution through which aggrieved members can seek redress or the removal of the chairman from not only the seat but also the party without subjecting the party to an embarrassing balkernization.
It doesn’t look neat, on the face of it, for the aggrieved members of the PDP to jump out of the main stream PDP and form a new PDP, expecting that through it, they can take possession of the party.
Except if there is more to it than the ordinary watchers like us can decipher, those who floated the new PDP cannot claim not to know that they have been on the wrong side of the divide, fighting what, to them, is the right course.

The confirmed stoppage of the salaries of the Nigeria’s university lecturers, under the canopy of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has obviously set the stage for the final and real battle of wits between the government and the lecturers.
The position of the two combatants signals palpable danger in the nation’s education sector, especially at the university level. The danger becomes more pronounced as the lecturers have made it clear that the stoppage of their salaries would not be enough to make them to return to work.
As a matter of fact, for over three months now, the Federal Government and the nation’s university lecturers have connived, by default or whatever, to put students, the nation’s bubbling youths at home, away from the pursuit of education.
Of course, the two sides would give you good reasons why they think they are on the right path, but they may be shying away from the wise saying that two wrongs cannot make a right, or in this case, two blind rights are adjunct to dangerous fall.
What has actually come out so far from this long drawn face-off is the reality that the nation’s education is sinking. This is even besides the fact that before the strike, the university education had lost a lot of its clouts and relevance to the nation’s developmental needs.
The present and future generations of Nigerians would certainly not pardon whoever, out of commission or omission, let avoidable battle to degenerate into an eclipse or the fall of university education.
Everyone involved in the collapse of the university education as a result of the ongoing face-off between the two sides, even including those who are supposed to speak out but keep mum because their children are not in the Nigerian universities would, in one way or the other answer for their stubbornness, levity and big-headedness if not before men, but before nature and, of course, before God.
In other words, if there is any time the nation’s opinion leaders, traditional rulers and other well-meaning people with nationalist credentials should rise beyond political sentiment and regional cleavages to bring this unfortunate muscle flexing between the government and the lecturers to an end, it is now.

In an age of “transformation” the quick change from the proclamation of “National Conference”–now a dead issue into a “national conversation” should not cause shock to anybody.
It is doubtful if such a conference, whatever is its nomenclature will positively impact national politics. The President reminds you of the parable of the person screaming from a roof top threatening to jump.
A huge crowd gathers, not such to prevent the man from doing something stupid. The swelling crowd was waiting excitedly to actually experience the fun of seeing the man jump. Of course, nobody in the crowd would admit it. It’s all theatre.
That’s why serious people had no difficulties dismissing the conference out of hand. As many have stated in the last couple of days, the President’s reason for calling for a national conference is far from being altruistic.
It was a natural reaction by a leader buffeted by criticism from every conceivable direction, including the party that put him in office.
Before him, others have reacted in more or less the same manner. The one that is recalled with immediacy is the conference called by President Obasanjo in 2005.
That one had a dual purpose as this one: to divert attention from the administration’s ineptitude, massive corruption and opportunistic design to extend tenure, in this case, towards the election in 2015. Obasanjo’s hidden agenda was of course for a third term in office and once it became clear he wasn’t going to get it, he lost interest in the conference that he himself had convened. He refused to honour the delegates with a farewell dinner at the end of their sittings and the report submitted ended up being trashed by the National Assembly.
In addition to his need to distract the increasingly critical population and an expressed desire to serve for ten years as President as opposed to the constitutional maximum of eight year, Dr. Jonathan a real reason for a mandate to restructure the country may be his own way of staving off the dramatic shifts in the political environment that are bringing the Northern states and those of the South-West into a political alliance. Some say it is a strategic move at a time when the feeling of anti-incumbency is mounting and change is in the air.
It is not a hidden fact that the power calculus of the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP towards 2015 has greatly been unsettled by the discernible shift bringing the South-West and the North into an alliance. Everyone knows it is a tough task, if not an impossible one to coral the 19 Northern states, with a voting population of over 36million registered voters to vote in a particular direction because by tradition, they had never done so.
The South-west on the other hand, with their strategic pattern of voting have used the political power to vote with near-unanimity. But the thing that makes the prospect of having a significant percentage of this huge vote bank residing in the North, coming together of 51 million voters, that is, including the South-West’s 14 or so million voters, even in theory, is significant as to make the President’s strategists shudder, considering that the South-East and the South-South where the President exerts the most influence can only command less than 25 per cent of (16 million) of the nation’s registered voters.
Pundits are already pointing the way, saying for this total change in Nigeria’s political system to materialize, all you need is for the New Peoples Democratic Party, nPDP, the Peoples Democratic Movement, PDM and the All Progressives Congress, APC to form an alliance or merge and create a win-win situation for both themselves and the nation.
It may look like a strange idea, given that this is a departure from the known political alliances but that could be what is needed to free this country from corruption and the unabating theft of its natural resources.
Gauge the mood of the North. The people are (save for a few beneficiaries of the existing order) are resentful of the government’s official policy of rampant discrimination and strategic marginalization of the Northerners. I have heard at least Kebbi and Kano governments say that there are no on-going federal government projects in their states at present. The condition of the average Northerner today is pathetic. Northerners are living on the margins economically, socially and educationally, such that even foreign governments are calling for the creation of a Ministry for Northern Affairs to close the ever-increasing gap in the development of the North.
Northerners would not have objected to a conference called with the interest of the federation at heart. They, like all the others are yearning for new leaders who must be consensus builders and skillful managers fully cognizant of the fact of Nigeria being a unique federation. There are indeed few countries that have this extra-ordinary mix of diversity in religion, ethnicity, language, geography and cultures. I am conversant with a lot of young educated men and women in the region who are clamoring for a conference, sovereign or otherwise, in their search for genuine equality, just their rightful share and not any special favour from anyone. Everyone is tired of the religious and ethnic violence in the North-both inspired and engineered for the purpose of polarizing the region.
The problem of the Jonathan conference or conversation as he now calls it is that it is devoid of credibility and lacks acceptance because signs are that he is basically interested in an extended term but more importantly, to forestall the change sweeping across the political landscape which began with the installation of Aminu Tambuwal as Speaker. It is a serious change process which status-quo writers may not digest well.