Deconstructing Saraki's Judicial Triumph

8^th July, 2018

 By: Amir Abdulazeez

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fter enduring days of agonizingly having stories of killings dominate our public space, we now have some respite that we can finally discuss something other than violence. Many who were still mourning the plateau massacres never actually had the right emotions and state of mind notice when Argentina narrowly knocked Nigeria out of the 2018 World Cup currently played in Russia. While we are yet to fully digest the issues and intrigues around the splinter rAPC, the Supreme Court delivered a judgement clearing the Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki of all wrong doing, declaring that he has no case to answer.

The victorious judgement was so significant that even President Muhammadu Buhari was reported to have not only commended Saraki for having the courage and perseverance to prove his innocence but also making reference to his own past judicial travails to demonstrate the courts as the right avenues for seeking redress. To many, Saraki’s Supreme Court triumph was not as surprising as Buhari’s congratulatory dispositions, especially as the presidency is seen as his main traducers. May be, we now have an rPMB which in a few days may even congratulate Sambo Dasuki on the six or nine bails he has being granted by courts without been released. Who knows?   

The question we should be asking is whether this apex court judgment is the end game for both the Senate President and the polity. Saraki's acquittal by the Supreme Court may have taught, retaught or reminded us three things which we basically know anyway.

The first issue is on what it takes to prosecute high profile corruption cases in Nigeria as well as the hypothetical equity of everyone before the law. It is easy to commit a crime (corruption) in Nigeria, but it is sometimes even easier to get away with it. With our judicial inadequacies, you can be set free in spite of obvious guilt provided you have the wealth to hire a retinue of experienced lawyers like Saraki's. The Senate President's legal team had the war chest from all fronts to prolong the case to forever while the government is hell bent on timely p(e)r(o)secution; a stalemate the courts could probably not endure for too long and possibly took the safer course of acquittal. Can an ordinary Nigerian afford all these no matter how innocent? How many Nigerians have been condemned by the courts because they lack a proper defense system? Simply put, justice is only expensive for the poor, but not for the rich.

I think from the onset, this case had only three possible outcomes and timely convicting Saraki while still being Senate President was contrary to public opinion, actually never one of them. The hypothetical choices were; discharging him which they did, tactically abandon the case which obvious pressures prevented or prolonging for due consideration at a time when the case was no longer significant in a similar manner Jolly Nyame and Joshua Dariye’s cases led to their convictions after 14 years. The CCB/CCT route to prosecuting Saraki was an unfamiliar one, but it was perhaps the easiest considering the fact that his strong grip on Kwara State Government may not provide the necessary avenue to beam the searchlight on his 8 year tenure as governor.  

The second issue is the destructive threat of politics to our collective well-being. Politics is a deadly negative weapon in this country. You can deploy it to scuttle almost anything. The most tactical way to kill the substance of any serious issue in this country is to politicize it. You can commit virtually any crime and attract public and even judicial sympathy if you can successfully deploy politics especially if the prosecution itself appears to be politically motivated and executed. With the political maestro that he is, I don’t think you can win a contest with Saraki by politicizing it.

Some people were more interested as to what took the CCB/CCT over ten years to discover that Saraki had false asset declaration than knowing whether he indeed falsely declared his assets or not. Others were interested on why other people close to the president are not prosecuted more than whether the former governor had a case to answer or not. Head or tail, Saraki’s conviction or acquittal will still be subjected to politics and the case may never get the serious attention that it deserves; for this reason, Saraki's trial was apparently dead on arrival. Bola Tinubu was cleared by the courts in a similar trial, but many who may or may not be pro-Saraki believe he was ( or is) corrupt. That’s politics. 

The third issue is the most important which is the role of the public in all this. In any society, Nigeria included, two courts are the most important aside the law of the land; the Court of Conscience and the Court of Public Perception. Saraki may have cleared himself from the judicial court, but in the other two, it's very difficult, perhaps never. Ask any ten Nigerians at random, regardless of their confidence on the judiciary or not, whether Saraki is corrupt and seven will likely answer on the affirmative.

Atiku Abubakar’s consistent defense against corruption allegations all these years have been that no court has found him guilty. It is true that the former Vice President’s renown lawyers had ensured he won almost every court case including ones against a hostile Obasanjo who was hell bent on nailing him, but go to the street today and many Nigerians will still tell you they see him as symbol of corruption.

In politics, it is better to avoid a bad reputation than to avoid a bad conscience if you cannot do both. This is more so that our nowadays politicians fear electoral loss more than they fear God. Our politicians are very lucky that Nigerians are people who many a time value sentiment over substance, otherwise many of them have enough scandals to keep them away from public circles for the rest of their lives. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, it is easier to cope with a bad conscience than a bad reputation; Saraki may have to cope with both, at least for the mean time.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

Heartless Killings; Senseless Perceptions

27^th June, 2018

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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here are possibly four things that motivate people towards criminality; being ignorant of the consequences of their actions, knowing but not caring about the consequences, knowing but thinking they can avoid the consequences and not even believing there will be consequences at all. People who are engaged in senseless killings in Nigeria and by extension, many parts of Africa are apparently motivated by all four factors; something the government and its justice system have largely failed to address virtually since independence.

If we analyse the nature and magnitude of senseless killings that have bedevilled Nigeria between let’s say 2008 to 2018, a period overseen by three presidents, one will be forced to reconsider relying on government exclusively as responsible for safety of citizens. Let’s take government not to mean Buhari, Jonathan or any state governor; let’s just see government as an authority and or an institution, and then we ask, does any government has the capacity to tackle the complex Nigerian security situation?

Let’s bear in mind the peculiarities, uniqueness and even absurd complexity of the Nigerian security challenges which makes it almost the most single one-of-a-kind isolated case in the world. Consider the fact that it is probably only in Nigeria that citizens comfortably see their presidents as direct sponsors of killings even without a shred of any tangible evidence. Many may attribute this to the permanent mistrust and suspicion that exists within Nigerian ethno-religious groups.

In the height of the Boko Haram crisis in 2014, a substantial amount of Nigerian Muslims believed whole heartedly that then President Goodluck Jonathan was directly responsible for instigating it, just to weaken Islam and the North. This is a view held by even by some of the most educated people you can think of despite it being as absurd as hell. Jonathan’s pathetic display of poor understanding and negligence of the crisis as well as corruptibly capitalizing on it as the Muslims aided, abetted and benefitted Dasukigate later proved notwithstanding, it was still completely senseless to accuse him of sponsoring Boko Haram for any benefit whatsoever; a conspiracy theory which was very popular before he left office.

We have many Christians that believe President Buhari is sponsoring killer herdsmen including their alleged recent massacres on the Plateau for Jihadist reasons. How this makes sense is unimaginable. One is forced to ask, is Buhari also sponsoring the banditry in Zamfara, Killings in Birnin Gwari and some other attacks in which the Fulani, his so-called kinsmen are the victims and for what motive? If he isn’t, who is? His inability to grasp the gravity of the herds-killers crisis, apparent disdain for grazing-regulatory laws and the indifference of his security agents towards the Miyetti Allah Group antics notwithstanding, it is not enough to accuse him of sponsoring the killings of the same citizen he is ruling? If we insist he does, how then does it actually constitutes Jihad, expands Islam, help the president’s kinsmen or adding to his political capital in an election year in which he is standing for re-election?

Despite all these perceptions being senseless, there is perhaps a more scientific reason than the sentimental ones we advance as to why they exist in the first place. First, the government have never failed at abusing the rights of its own citizens, which includes killing them extra-judicially whenever the opportunity presents itself. Furthermore, it never significantly and decisively care to investigate and serve justice whenever the security agents it controls commit atrocities. Simply put, the Nigerian state constitutes one of the biggest security threats to its own citizens. When things like these are rampant, people have permanent disdain over the leaders who preside these governments and at the end; they attach different narratives to events to suit their long established sentiments and prejudices.

About this time last year when socio-ethnic groups were busy issuing quit notices to members of other tribes living in their domain, the then Acting President Yemi Osinbajo held various consultative meetings with different groups. In one of the meetings, Osinbajo blamed the killing of some Biafran protesters on the dilapidated law and order structure of the Nigerian State which had degraded over time. For instance, from the killing of Chief Bola Ige in 2001, Harry Marshal in 2003 and so many high profile murders, how many culprits were brought to justice? Will those killers ever be uncovered? Do Nigerian security men kill base on tribe or do they just do that to the ordinary masses extra-judicially?  

Constitutionally, the government is tasked with protecting and securing lives and properties. The Nigerian government has obviously failed woefully in that regard over the years. While no one expects the government to completely police and secure every house, street or domain, it is expected to at least overhaul the system and put in place a rejuvenated security architecture befitting of contemporary challenges. It is expected to constantly recruit, train and adequately remunerate security personnel, motivate them well with incentives, stop politicizing them and pay timely benefits to the injured and to the families of the dead.

The government is expected to constantly engage in reliable intelligence gathering in both periods of peace and conflict and use same to prevent crises rather than wait for it to happen. Where crisis inevitably occurs, governments humanitarian response to victims must be swift, comprehensive, adequate and convincing. Efforts towards preventing future occurrences must be seen to be genuine, serious and result-oriented.

The government is expected to deliver good governance, give youths education and employment so that many of them will find violence and killings unattractive. Government, which is populated by politicians must put national interest above selfish political ones thereby stop empowering thugs who perpetrate violence after elections. Government must be sincere and seen to be genuinely concerned instead of ignoring calls to dispassionately exhaust all complains and dialogue avenues or be seen to be concerned more with politics than governance.

All arms of government must work to reform and redeem the justice system to be able deliver trusted and timely justice. This will prevent jungle justice. Without mincing words, the Nigerian justice system has failed almost completely to the extent that ordinary people seek to find justice through their own ways, and in a society where majority of the people are hungry, angry, idle and ignorant, jungle justice can just be one out of different barbaric methods people can resort to in stamping their authority. For almost every problem in Nigeria, disadvantaged people have developed an equivalent of jungle justice to get solutions. For unemployment, some are into prostitution, stealing, begging and cheating; for a collapsed protective security system, some have resorted to attacks, counter attacks and retaliatory attacks.

But before we task it all on government, we must ask, have Nigerians been helping matters themselves? There is a limit to which government can enforce security. Peace can be imposed but not understanding and without understanding, peace is just illusionary and temporary. As a country with over 180 million people and a geographical area of 923,768.64km², the generality of citizens must want peace before government can be able to provide it. Government cannot man all the countless villages to prevent mid-night massacres or the entire over 32,000 km highway to curtail reprisal attacks which can happen anywhere and any second.

Senseless killings of innocent Nigerians have usually received less than unanimous condemnation from Nigerians. People condemn primarily base on their ethnic or religious and sometimes political affiliations to the victims and or perpetrators. What makes one confused is how Nigerians behave sharply differently on issues that require the same treatment with strict consistency; issues that revolve around humanity. One cannot say Nigerians are generally inhuman to behave as such, but it is more than obvious that our demographic differences and the determination to remain divided appear to have irrationally superseded our humanity.

We have all suffered so much from bloodshed and the choice before the ordinary Nigerian is between continuing like this or bringing an end to it. Do we want an end to senseless killings of all Nigerians or the killings of only our tribesmen? Are we ready to battle and defeat evil or are we willing to continue using our sentimental criteria to define it? Do we want our ethnic groups to live in harmony or are we striving to have our tribe dominate others? Shall we continue worshiping political affiliations at the expense of understanding each other? Do we want to continue as human or do we wish to be seen as animals? We must all make a choice and act, not the type of action proposed by General T.Y Danjuma but the type of action that will make the number of evil loving Nigerians drown in the ocean of peace loving ones.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

Where is the Democracy?

29^th May, 2018

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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or many years, I have developed a strong culture of reading a hard copy of at least one national daily every day; even this digital age with the proliferation of online media has not discouraged this culture of mine. This morning, when I left home in search of a Newspaper to begin the day with, I suddenly remembered it was Democracy Day and therefore just discarded the idea. Why? Because, today’s dailies would be filled to capacity with sycophantic congratulatory advertorials by favour seekers and politicians to their fellow politicians, many of which have little or nothing to do with true democratic ideals.

When I read some weeks ago that the Inspector General of the Nigerian Police reportedly refused to honour the invitation without any tangible reason of the Nigerian Senate, I kept wondering whether we still have a functional democracy in this country. If the Chief Law Enforcer of the nation can do that in a democracy regardless of the motive or justification, one must have every reason to be pessimistic. The parliament of any nation, no matter how bad it is, is the heart of its democracy and when it is so brazenly disregarded and disrespected, you can only wonder what future holds for such a democracy.

Granted that our National Assembly has sapped itself of so much honour and respect over the years to warrant such a treatment, but it is still constitutionally the most critical organ of our democracy and hence should still retain the minimum respect and power to summon even the president at any time, not to talk of any of his subordinates or appointees. Respecting the National Assembly is quite different from respecting the personalities that makes its composition. By the way, isn’t it a sign of a failed democracy that we continue to have doubtful personalities as legislators and without the trend appearing to be stopping any soon?  

One major activity that preceded this year’s Democracy Day commemoration was the ruling APC’s ward, local and state congresses. I didn’t pay much attention to be able to give a general verdict on the nationwide exercise, but I am privy to enough information to conclude that no proper congresses took place in my local government. The process was so undemocratic that there was no proper competition and organization; those who were favoured were simply returned 100%.

First, what happened in my local government is not something uncommon; infact, it is the regular practice in almost all other local governments across the nation. However, the worrying part of it is how we keep normalizing undemocratic practices across virtually all political parties in the name of democracy which we claim to be celebrating every year. One cannot actually recall when last a major political party in Nigeria actually held a proper, transparent, honest and competitive ward to national congresses devoid of impunity, imposition, interference and outright violation of party and INEC rules.

Sometimes, one wonders, how many of the Nigerian presidents, governors and legislators that served from 1999 to date would even come close to occupying those seats if true democracy was really practiced in Nigeria? If political parties operated on internal democracy, how many people would have emerged as candidates in the first place? How many true winners have been denied victory by the shameless elections of 2003 and 2007? If the rule of law was truly operational over that period, how many of them would have completed their terms?

As we celebrate our 19^th democratic anniversary, the Nigerian government is yet to decisively and satisfactory respond or tackle the local and international concerns of alleged military atrocities and excesses in their operations not only in the North East, but also across other locations in the country. We are still battling with allegations of state abuse and disregard of court orders in this celebrated democracy. Our prisons are seen as centres of human rights abuse with no consequences. These are some of the many things we ought to reflect on at times like these.

What exactly do we celebrate every year? Are we celebrating genuine progress towards democracy or are we just celebrating an end to military rule? From 1999 to date, how much have we improved in terms of freedom of speech, internal party democracy, transparency in governance, separation of powers, enduring electoral reforms, justice for the common man, equity and social justice and so many other democratic ideals? What parameters have we developed to assess ourselves and the progress we are making or not making democratically?

While we celebrate this so-called democracy, we must remember that it is still largely the amount of money you have that mainly determines your success in elections; people win elections without any manifesto; party officials at virtually all levels are not elected but selected; godfathers are still the movers and shakers of politics; majority of Nigerians are still largely politically ignorant without any effective mechanism for voter education in place for the foreseeable future; election offenders and fraudsters are still not punished; local government elections are still a sham; there is no level playing ground for non-incumbents against incumbents; our courts are largely seen not to be doing justice to electoral disputes; our electoral laws are still at the mercy of senators who are more partisan than patriotic; a theoretically independent electoral commission and so many other unaddressed issues.  

This year’s democracy day as usual has been all about elected and appointed officials and politicians reeling out their achievements in office which have been carefully crafted by aides. These are many of the achievements they keep repeating every year as if they are reading from the same speech. Though such a thing is not unexpected as the day coincides with their milestones in office, but the real spirit of revisiting our progress in upholding democratic ideals individually and collectively shouldn’t be completely neglected in favour of self-praise-singing.

Celebrating 19 years of consecutive civilian rule in a country with a history of long term military rule is not out of place, but it must go beyond declaration of public holidays, delivering lectures and speeches, organizing thanksgivings or sponsoring billions in the pages of newspapers. It must be a critical reflection of how that civilian rule has given people more equal opportunities, responsible freedom, timely justice, political hope, sustainable prosperity and a better future.

The reasonable expectation is not that our democracy should be perfect after just 19 years, but how much are we doing to fix the basics. What are the efforts made over these years and what fruits are the efforts yielding? If we are to be taken serious, we must start taking actions on how to truly minimize the undemocratic practices and principles in our nation before the next Democracy Day.   

  

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

TY Danjuma: Matters Arising

25^th March, 2018

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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bout two years ago when General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma (retired) celebrated his 78^th birthday, a magazine saddled me with the responsibility of writing a unique and ‘one of a kind’ feature to salute that milestone. After some consultations and research, I concluded that the man’s life, achievements and activities were so much public that you could hardly write anything unique without duplicating what many others are going to write. Eventually we had to agree on writing the same things anyone else will write about him but in as much a unique way as possible.

By the time I compiled some 10 things that many may not know about TY Danjuma and wrote the article, I had the Nigerian youths in mind, for they are mostly the ones who hardly know much of his history and that of the nation in general. We therefore agreed to prioritize its publication on the social media where many of these youths would have access to it. To our surprise, some of the reactions that followed the article were nowhere near positive. Infact, I was particularly disturbed by those appearing to come out from some Taraba youths. However, looking at the demographics of the responses, I quickly dismissed most of them as unfair especially as they had to do ethno-religious sentiments. Little did I know that many of them may have some element of validity in them after all.

Before that event, I had always given General Danjuma the benefit of the doubt concerning allegations of ethnic jingoism and religious bigotry that he has been constantly painted with for quite a while. My reservations about him notwithstanding, I used to believe that he is a victim of the Nigerian way of public judgement in which your bad deeds make the headlines ten times faster than any of your good ones. However, any critical observation of the socio-political terrain in the middle belt since after the return of democracy in 1999 cannot completely absolve the former Defence Minister of playing the wrong roles unexpected of a statesman of his own calibre.

The reports of how the 2015 gubernatorial elections became so controversial just to make sure a Muslim does not rule Taraba and the roles he was alleged to have played there-in were some of the events that made many to disturbingly give up on Danjuma. Prior to that, we have unprecedentedly witnessed how the incapacitated Governor Danbaba Suntai was allowed to rule for almost two years in an alleged bid to never allow any Muslim to ever become the substantial governor of the state. Before that, Danladi Baido, who supposed to succeed Ex-Governor Jolly Nyame who served for 8 years was controversially replaced as PDP candidate and replaced with Suntai. While allegations of Danjuma’s complicity in all of these have always been hypothetical, with recent events, the trueness of these allegations is now an unfortunate possibility.  

In July last year, General Danjuma was among some so-called Northern Christian Elders Forum who declared that “the real problem with the country is that Jihad has been launched in Nigeria and Islamists have been interfering in the governance of the country in a disguised manner; Jihadist have taken over the education and security apparatuses of the nation to foist Islamic Rule.” These were apparently NCEF’s response to President Buhari’s lopsided appointments of security heads and the proposed merger of IRK and CRK into ‘Religious and National Values’ Subject in our education curriculum.

Now, let’s forget the gravity and the unsubstantiated nature of these allegations and deal with the fact that General Danjuma, a man at the centre of Nigeria’s history is prominently part of such a divisive organization. We should remember that his status is not different from that of people like Murtala and Obasanjo. Other forum members like General Joshua Dogonyaro, Major General Zamani Lekwot, Shyngle Wigwe, Elder Solomon Asemota are much more less of national stakeholders like he is.

Just as many were thinking all previous episodes were just unavoidable accidents, Danjuma was just yesterday reported accusing the Nigerian military of colluding with armed bandits to perpetrate violence in his home state and other parts of Nigeria. As a retired general of the same army, ex-chief of army staff and former minister of defence, this is the lowest point you wouldn’t have imagined him to descend to. “The armed forces are not neutral, they collude with armed bandits to kill Nigerians and you will all die one by one if you depend on them to stop the killings. The ethnic cleansing must stop in Taraba and all states in Nigeria, otherwise Somalia will be a child’s play. I ask every one of you to be at alert and defend your country, your territory and your state. You have nowhere else to go.” He was reported as saying at the maiden convocation of Taraba State University.

Already there are too many unprintable allegations against Danjuma concerning the crisis in Taraba. As these allegations are yet to be adequately proven, the signals, body languages and utterances coming out of him are so much in contrast with the roles he ought to be playing in ensuring a peaceful and just Taraba and Nigeria. It is most unfortunate that his voice is heard condemning Fulani orchestrated attacks but never heard when they are attacked. It was in his home state that about 700 Fulanis including women and children were massacred last year and the passive nature with which the state and Federal Government approached the issue didn’t appear to bother the retired general. As citizens who ideally should be the ones learning from TY Danjuma, our major concern is not the ethnicity of the perpetrators or victims of violence, ours is to help ensure peace and security everywhere and for everyone as well as seeing the culprits punished.

The issue is that, no one would say that dirty ethno-religious politics is not the norm in Nigeria, but the possibility of TY Danjuma being at the heart of it is enough devastation to a nation already in short supply of true statesmen. No one can deny the good works and sacrifices Danjuma has done and still doing especially in terms of historical patriotism, national unity and contemporary philanthropy, but why would the once revered general decide to end it all on a very low note, so low that even commoners find it disgusting.

It is also not a secret that ethnic and religious priority is imminent in anything that has to do with Nigeria. For instance, no one can say Obasanjo didn’t significantly favour his kinsmen when he ruled or even with the opportunities he gets now. The same is also true about President Buhari today. However, we see the likes of Danjuma as those who strike the balance between extremes.    

May be one may say that, considering all the sacrifices TY Danjuma has done for this country, is he not entitled to a licence to do whatever he wants with the remainder of his life? However, we should remember that it was Nigeria that first made them whatever they are and it is because of the opportunities it gave them that they are still what they are today; the sort of opportunities their generation have never been able to make available for the youths of today. In contrast, they are contributing to make matters worse.

The bottom line is that rather than conquering Nigerian challenges, it is the challenges that appear to be conquering us one by one. If people of the highest status, historical significance and with the biggest stake in a country are falling like a pile of cards, imagine what awaits a vulnerable generation like ours. The threat of the situation finally condemning and consuming all of us is real.

In all of these, Nigeria is the biggest loser. This is a nation where its only major stakeholders at any given time are those in power, even the Council of State is populated by helpless, relegated and even questionable personalities. The idea of past leaders in virtually all countries automatically transforming into statesmen after leaving power, has since been heavily defeated in Nigeria. First, many of our leaders leave in unceremonious and even embarrassing circumstances with little or nothing to cherish.

Babangida, Obasanjo, Abacha, Jonathan were virtually forced out of office after overstaying their welcome. Besides, many of them were accused of things that make it difficult to be truly accepted as statesmen by the majority. Others like Murtala, ‘Yar’adua and those from the first Republic died. Shagari, Abdussalmi and Gowon appear to be much more relatively accepted largely due to their ability to stay away from active politics and partisan controversies after office.

Before now, Danjuma belonged to a rare category of the few Nigerians who entered the respected statesmen club without ruling the country and even hitherto appeared to be more suited to the role more than those who did. However, it seems it has all fallen apart as recent events apparently proves that he has since renounced his national statesmanship in favour of ethnic championship.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

An Evening with Kwankwaso

12^th February, 2018

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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hen I intended but discarded the idea of writing an open letter to Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso few days before his botched visit to Kano, little did I know that I was few days away from meeting him for the first time. One of the reasons why I didn’t write that open letter was because many of my very good friends and associates who happen to be his followers mostly consider whatever I write on him as animosity towards him irrespective of my justifications. I don’t know of any political figure that has many followers among my friends, relatives and associates like the Kano Central Senator. 

I have often asked myself why virtually all Kwankwaso followers do not tolerate criticism or take it lightly, no matter how constructive and well-intended and even if from people who have proven to be neutral or something close to such. I got a clue to my answer when I finally and unexpectedly met him over the weekend in his residence.

Our group’s visit was official and not political but going to Kwankwaso without discussing politics is like going to the ocean and not finding water. Before the end of our short meeting, he discussed some very significant and current political issues.

My major takeaway was that Kwankwaso himself, like most of his supporters don not take criticism lightly, for he narrated to us how he had read newspaper articles completely critical of him and his movement; he referred to such criticisms as lies. Though he said, it was sometimes a political success to be in the news even for negative but not so damaging reasons, for it gives you the free publicity which others will kill to have, but I observed from his body language, the discomfort he has towards criticism. At a point, I was so uncomfortable myself that I was afraid he was going to make reference to me, only to be calmed when I was able to convince myself that I must have been too tiny for his notice.

One other question I have kept asking since 2012 was how Kwankwaso keep getting more mass and organic followership amidst all odds. I got my answer the moment we were ushered into his waiting room. People from diverse demography, statuses and backgrounds sat there waiting for him. I don’t know of any elite of Kwankwaso’s calibre or even below it who accommodates close to that. May be there isn’t much or perhaps because I’m not used to visiting politicians, I don’t know. But the truth is that, Kwankwaso has long been known for giving the lowest of people access to him even amidst the busiest of schedules. The people who appear to be closest to him in Abuja are the same local politicians I see in the streets of Kano.

One good thing about people coming to him is that unlike in other cases, many of them are not coming to receive gratification, but rather coming to pay gratitude. While waiting to see him, we heard discussions with others who were beneficiaries of his scholarship programmes. One of whom we met in the room, who is now an Air Force Officer dressed in his uniform, was so excited and happy with Kwankwaso that he stood up and greeted everyone who came to see the Senator. When we spoke to Kwankwaso about the young lad, he grimed with smile, the kind of which expresses a deep sense of happiness and fulfilment. The former Kano Governor may have his flaws, but you can’t deny his passion for human development.

One thing I understood very well was that Senator Kwankwaso is no longer the local champion that his distractors may want people to believe. People of political influence came from different states to see him and even while he was attending to us, I saw notable personalities well outside his traditional political base waiting to see him. Besides, on my way to Kano from Abuja, I observed that at least one out of every four commercial vehicles from diverse locations had a sticker of Kwankwaso’s picture pasted on its back.

Sometimes, I use to imagine the level of success, Kwankwaso’s political movement will achieve if he had not made it very personalized and conservative. I used to believe that if he had been more concerned about people keying into his vision more than being interested in the type of clothes he wants to see them wear, his movement would have been stronger.

It was once told that, you don’t dare go to see him without a red cap on your head. Gradually, I believe his presidential ambition and his several months out of the Kano Government House must have soften that aspect of him; for the lack of red caps on our heads didn’t appear to give us any disadvantage as far as his attention towards us was concerned.

However, on our way out of his living room just at a time when I was filled with appreciation on how well he had received us even without white attires and red caps, I saw a dining table which was an exhibition of a sort. From table water to toilet paper, it carried most of the utilities you may think of branded in the Kwankwasiyya red colour. Almost every other thing in the room was either white or red. You may criticise the man all you want, but he’s not giving up on his Kwankwasiyya brand any time soon.

We were very cautious not to turn our visit into a political one, but there were two issues I had wanted to raise in my botched open letter which Kwankwaso directly and indirectly addressed. On his visit to Kano, he said it was carefully designed to achieve a win-win situation which it did. If they had allowed him visit Kano, he would have definitely demonstrated who actually has the people on his side. If they don’t, the world would know that they are afraid of him and the consequence of his visit. On his political future, he appears to be less concerned about it than most of us. From the way he appears relaxed, confident and determined, it is evident that he has a very good plan which may remain secret for a while.

May be, I was star stricken, but I must confess that Kwankwaso is not only a strong personality, but a political genius as well. Apart from Buhari, I don’t know of any politician in contemporary Nigeria who has more organic followership. What makes his even more impressive is the shorter time it took to achieve and while Buhari’s is more natural, Kwankwaso’s is more effort-driven. If he doesn’t get the presidency in 2019, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying.

One of his associates once told me that Kwankwaso’s 24 hours are virtually about politics every day. I used to consider it as an exaggeration ever since, but considering the fact that we left his house well after 12 midnight and he was still receiving people without any sign of stopping soon, I began to have a second thought. By the time I woke up in the morning after a heavy sleep and switched on my TV set only to see Kwankwaso already in Porthacourt after such a long night, my doubts were completely cleared.  

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez 

Before Obasanjo Erases History

25^th January, 2018

By: Amir Abdulazeez

W

hile writing on certain things is sometimes a complete waste of time, not doing so is sometimes a complete disservice. After all, there’s virtually no single socio-political problem in Nigeria you will comment on without repeating yourself or recycling the same solutions you offered before. This sadly signifies the little or no progress we are making towards national development. Many people had rightly advocated for the ‘take the message and leave the messenger’ formula whenever Chief Obasanjo speaks. The truth however is, the issue is far much more beyond that, for if allowed, Obasanjo will erase and rewrite history before our very eyes.

Every leader who came after Obasanjo had his doing and undoing, but fundamentally speaking, all our contemporary problems can be traced back to his own undoing. I once thought that Obasanjo had carefully designed his exit from power in such a way that Nigeria and Nigerians will dearly pay for denying him a third term in office. He apparently engineered it in such a way that any other situation apart from his tenure will, with the passage of time, look inferior; and then he would have a point to prove over and over. All what I thought is now coming into play. 

Lest we forget, many of the problems we are witnessing today are the systematic invention of Obasanjo’s regime and its subsequent influence. This is without prejudice to the numerous successes recorded during his time which he himself boasts of. While he is trying hard to not only absolve himself of blame, but also pretending to proffer solutions out of them; the irony is that the true answers to our problems lies in permanently relegating Obasanjo and his likes to the distant background.

In 1999, Nigeria had the opportunity to start afresh and get away from its past. Unfortunately, Obasanjo navigated us into some of the same old critical problems we have been facing; division, corruption and underdevelopment. He may be given credit for marginal progress recorded in specific but isolated areas, but as a whole, the Otta Chief didn’t move Nigeria to the next level or significantly farther away from where he met it. In some specific areas, he even moved us backwards. That he constantly accuses his successors of not doing same is not only an attempt to absolve himself of the bigger responsibility of doing same as their predecessor, but to bury his own shortcomings in that regard.

Apart from vengeance, Obasanjo’s first and major action when he came to power was destroying democracy, the very process that rode him back to relevance and prominence. There was never a time in our democratic history when our legislature and judiciary were abused and bullied by the executive like during his time. National Assembly presiding officers were handpicked and removed at will. All these set a bad precedent for many of the things we are seeing today.

He made a monster out of the Ruling Party and then destroyed opposition with impunity. It was during his time that our electoral process became the worst in the world, a process which returned more than 100% voter turnout including dead people. It was during his time that a state governor can be abducted and the seat of an elected Vice President was unilaterally declared vacant. No matter how bad his successors were, none of them attempted anything close to this.

Rampant political assassinations and the unilateral withholding of Lagos State Local Governments’ allocation by the Federal Government against the Supreme Court order are still fresh in our memories. The very successors that Obasanjo is criticizing are those who restored the democratic process and the rule of law. ‘Yar’adua initiated it, Jonathan actualized it and Buhari is now consolidating it. It took more than 10 years of Obasanjo-less leadership to restore democracy back to its normal senses in Nigeria. He blamed Abacha and other predecessors, but he doesn’t want to be blamed.

Obasanjo is been credited with revamping the economy. How revamped is an economy which billions of dollars were invested without power supply? In fact, his regime left power supply worse than it met it. It took the decent efforts of the same Jonathan and Buhari he is criticizing for us to now have significant improvements in power supply. He may have raised our foreign reserves, but our economy didn’t move to the next level under Obasanjo, for he still left a crude oil-dependent economy. Despite Jonathan’s government been seen as the most corrupt in the history of Nigeria, but never in his time have we seen money-containing ‘Ghana Must go’ bags openly shared to remove a serving speaker. Many of us only knew of Transparency International during Obasanjo.

Ok, Obasanjo is patriot and nationalist, right? That was why he installed a dying incompetent ticket whose failure he is trying hard to distant himself from. He even tore his PDP card because of his self-acclaimed non-partisan patriotism. One thing we have not forgotten though is how he divided Nigeria along ethnic and religious lines because he wanted a second term in 2003. Never in our history have we seen such a skewed, manipulated and rigged election. He was once a patriot but many of his actions between 1999 to 2007 are completely unbefitting of a true patriot.

It was in 2003 that Obasanjo and PDP sowed the seed of electoral hatred watered by ethno-religious sentiments. It is the fruits of such seeds that we continue to reap today.  His government and that of his successors didn’t reform our security architecture well enough to be better than what we have today, neither was it repositioned to tackle the past and contemporary challenges he is complaining about. That he is the one dictating to us how or what our future should look like is because we haven’t really moved forward from where he left us. And in case you don’t know where he left us, you just need a short lesson in history.

We have all agreed that we are not happy with the kind of Nigeria and Nigerians we have today as well as the efforts of those at the helm, and Obasanjo as a role model in different aspects of life other than democratic leadership definitely has a role to play in changing some of that, but that cannot be achieved through his apparently self-glorifying and blame-absolving criticisms.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez