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.

In the late 1980s, I could vividly remember arguing with fellow school mates about the computer, most of us have not seen one physically except in some movies. “Duk Kano babu computer, sai dai ko a gidan gwamna” (there is no computer in the whole of Kano, may be in the government house), said one of us.

To the kid, computer was basically imaginary; it is associated with all sorts of myths. One day while passing by Kantin Kwari market, I overheard one mai waazin kan turmi (street preacher), talking to an assembly of youths, and he mentioned something that left me perplexed. He was talking about a computer that is used to catch fish. People were listening attentively, yet you could see clearly that he was describing a device he has never seen in his life.

But this has changed; we now live in the world where technology is as accessible as drinking water. In a 2001 lecture delivered by Professor Ali Mazrui at the Bayero University, Kano, he mentioned that there are more computers in some universities in the developed world, than in some African countries. Today, it is extremely difficult if such a statement will hold. If there is one segment of the society that has been affected today by the digital revolution, it is no more than our kids. They are growing in the age of laptop, iPad and iPhone.

One scholar who appreciates the changing nature of our kids is Professor Don Tapscott whose book “Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World” explores the attitude and culture of the 21^st century young people, whom he fondly calls the Net Gens. In a review written for the Economist magazine, Professor Tapscott stated that “Net Geners are more active. Almost 80% of them read interactive blogs daily, leaving comments and adding links. They multitask, watching TV while texting, talking on the phone or surfing the Internet. They’re more likely to use their cellphones as everything from alarm clocks to GPS devices. They may even use their phones’ cameras as a kind of instrument for social action, for instance, to document police misconduct. They see the computer as more than a tool, as a place to congregate with friends. Their safe communal spaces aren’t mainly in the physical world, but rather online, on social networking sites like Facebook. Rather than being antisocial, Net Geners are developing an entirely new set of social skills”

South Korea is one country that appreciates this changing nature of young people, and decided to come up with an educational policy that integrates the use of technology in education. As a result of that, children from South Korea are ahead of kids from other countries including European and North American nations.

Of course in developing countries, we are yet to reach a stage where our primary and secondary schools will be digitally revolutionalised, and it will be hasty to pull the trigger without working on some fundamental issues such as teacher training, child poverty etc. Yet for parents who can afford, there are so many useful applications to help their kids learn from their iPad and other devices. The Quiz up app is one example to aid the learning of your children. It can help your children especially with mathematics, history, geography, science, health education and other subjects. In fact your kids can invite children from other places around the world to compete in these subjects and see how far they have mastered the subjects in their school.

Of course supervision from parents will be useful, especially to educate your children on the content of certain subjects that might have cultural implications on your child.  It is important to understand the positive aspect of these devices by parents, so that children do not just use them for games and chatting unnecessarily, while gaining nothing in terms of their intellectual development.

There are many of you out there who are equally concerned as I am, about the leaders of the country continuing to behave like a stubborn mule, creating more problems for the country than solving them. Is all well as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC?

Anyone paying attention to the goings-on in the EFCC in the last couple of weeks should pray for an intervention, divine or otherwise, to free the anti-corruption agency from the shackles of government.

I am not in particular, talking only about the rising number of political cases, manifested by increased visitations to states controlled by the so-called “rebel governors”. Why should I make excuses for governors with sticky fingers? Some of them have some explaining to do.

While this is going on, the country continues its increasing reputation as Africa’s hotbed of scams. Africa’s biggest financial and drug crimes originate from here. The most horrific cases of kidnapping, robbery and piracy on the continent come from here. Except when it comes to football, few around the globe call Nigeria in glorious terms and greatness. Many just take us as corrupt and untrustworthy the moment you say here I am, a Nigerian.

It was against the fear of things coming to this sorry pass that they created those bodies – the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC and the EFCC, which is the body under discussion in this column.

The EFCC wasn’t at all a bad news at the beginning. Then, it had a focus, a vision, and a determination to make a difference. This was helped greatly by dedicated staff, adequate government funding and the boundless international support it enjoyed. A staff at the Nigeria Mission once informed me that from records known to them, the EFCC did not, at that time need government appropriation to carry out its job; they got enough from foreign donors to thrive on their job.

When they mentioned the EFCC at that time, the heartbeat of the guilty dropped by several beats.

As with everything in Nigeria today, EFCC’s problem is truly, truly the problem of the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party, the PDP.

The PDP has a great deal in common with the cockroaches. A cockroach tries to enter a territory using a countless number of ways – and it succeeds always at your own expense!

The Presidency and the party did not rest until they succeed in turning the agency into matchet held by the country’s ruler, a matchet he used to hack just anyone who fell out of his line. It became a monster run amok. They investigated politicians and opened files on them. If you acted politically correct, your file is rested on the shelves gathering dusts. If you run foul of the President, they dusted off and headed to the courts with charges upon charges. It was in those murky circumstances that the current Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde, a man said to have been the one who broke most of the success stories in those early days was appointed as Chairman. That thing gave hope to many that  a redeemer had come and the more glorious days of EFCC were set to return.

More than at any time, the EFCC is today right there in the crutches of the President. Current reports say the five PDP governors who decamped to the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC are now priority cases. To be found guilty at all costs.

What is however even more worrisome is the fact that the Commission is itself deeply divided, having become enmeshed in crises engendered by regime interests and the interests of its managers. In the last two weeks, there were reports of violent confrontations between the main Commission and its subsidiary, the Financial Crimes Unit. Reportedly, armed policemen attached to the Commission seized the offices of the FCU, ransacked the place and removed documents. The EFCC has since denied this encounter but they gave themselves away when they removed the head of FCU and replaced him with another. Why did this happen? Nobody, I am talking in particular about the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation who supervises the Commission or the relevant Committees of the National Assembly exercising oversight, has deemed it necessary to talk to Nigerians about what is going on in that place.

In the last one week, we have seen online reports disputing stories that the dozen or so bankers held in EFCC cells, are being detained in connection with one of the political cases I mentioned – that of the children of the Jigawa State Governor. This new report says they are actually being detained in respect of cases to do with the EFCC top brass. Is this true? An accountable government has the duty of offering an explanation to the public on this disquieting situation.

It is obvious that to be an accountable, credible, and unbiased investigator in the fashion of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, the EFCC should first of all come out of the shadow of the PDP. It should enjoy an autonomous status, free it from successive Presidents, so that it could work without fear or favour toward any political entity.

The National Assembly should also find new ways of appointing the Chairman. A Chairman appointed by the President works for the President alone. This is not about Lamorde. Anyone in that situation will act in the same way. Like the Chief Justice, the Chairman of the Commission may be nominated by the National Judicial Council, NJC, to be ratified by the Senate.

But autonomy for EFCC should be balanced with transparency and accountability. Without this, whoever they put there as head, no matter his pedigree and standing in terms of preparation for the work will achieve nothing.

A starting point in this direction is for both the Attorney-General of the Federation and the relevant National Assembly Committees to open the doors and bring down the high walls of secrecy shrouding the inside happenings in the EFCC. What is cooking inside?

It appears like the Nigerian federal government, had, by its directive to Vice Chancellors to open the nation’s public universities for academic activities on or before December 4th, had drawn a battle line with the public university lecturers, operating under the canopy of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), who have kept the nation’s budding youths at home, via their nation-wide strike since July 1st this year. The build-up to such battle line can be illustrated by a personal experience I had as I was growing up. That was way back in 1983 in Kano.
I was driving a new beetle Volkswagen car which I bought a week earlier at the cost of N1,800, along the ever busy Gwammaja road when a young man, riding on a scooter, slightly brushed my car from behind. It happened when he wanted to meander through traffic hold-up. The dent on my car was not visible, but I was so infuriated that I wasn’t prepared to go easy with the young man.
A number of Hausa people, his own ‘Yanwa’ (people) gathered around us and were genuinely begging me to forgive him, with a few of the elderly ones among them even offering to take me to a good panel beater to spray the part of the car that was dented. But I remained adamant and insisted that the young man should pay for the cost of repairing the car.
All of a sudden, all those who gathered around us and who have been begging me to have mercy on the young man turned jelly: they were now insulting me and asking me to go ahead and do my worse. They even threatened to beat me up if I did not go away from there immediately.
I did not need anybody to tell me that I had allowed my over reaction and anger to turn me from aggrieved person to accused.
I left the scene with my bloated ego deflated and in shame.
Yes, members of ASUU had public sympathy and the sympathy of the students they were teaching when they started this strike in July. Even the government, in a way, believed that they were actually wronged and therefore, deserved to express their anger in the way they chose to.
And, in the last two or three months, the government had engaged them in some form of dialogue at various levels. Among the various layers of the dialogue sessions were the one with the Benue state governor, Gabriel Suswam, another one with education minister and yet, another one with Vice President of the country, Mohammed Namadi Sambo while the last one was with the President of the country, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
In all these dialogue sessions, one wants to believe that the central issue that ran through them was the promise by the government to address their grievances in more practical way with appeals that they should return to work.
But, while nearly the whole academic year has been wasted with the students sleeping and doing nothing at home, the lecturers appear to be enjoying their unending holiday, showing signs that they don’t care about the consequences of the seed of educational lethargy they are inadvertently, or even knowingly planting.
Nobody doubts that they have a strong case in their struggle for the establishment and promotion of quality university education, but pursuing such genuine case with stubbornness creates an impression that there is just more to the whole thing than an ordinary eyes can see.
Like the Hausa people in Kano who first started to beg me out of sympathy over the scooter young man that brushed my car and later turned violently against me when I became blindly obstinate and stubborn, the striking lecturers may not have known by now that even their ardent sympathizers when they started this course, are now highly disenchanted with them!
Of course, the government was wrong to have reneged on the 2009 agreement it signed with members of ASUU. And, ASUU too is wrong in remaining obstinate and stubborn in the pursuit of their right, per se, even when the ovation that greeted the commencement of their strike has not only died down in troubled silence, but has turned the students whose course they are fighting into weeping.
There is practically no way two wrongs can make a right!