On the Lord's day

THIS column went off readers’ radar months ago for what I will describe as operational reasons; last week the fog cleared and today we are back. My sincere apologies to the lovers of “ON THE LORD’S DAY” who experienced loss as a result; now that we are back, savour it as usual.

So much water, indeed torrents, passed under Nigeria’s bridge in the intervening period. Nigeria is never one to experience dull moments. Events happen at break-neck speed here; it does not rain, it pours instead.

Nigerians are tough people; a tenth of what they endure in just one month is enough unbearable life-time agonies for others. What we take in our strides casually have led to revolutions elsewhere; and when we chose to “protest” during the last hike in the cost of petrol, we turned everything into a mockery of what protests really are – we went dancing and frolicking!

Our rulers are the luckiest in the whole wide world; they get away with blue murder almost on a daily basis. No one can ask for a more docile citizenry. When you slap Nigerians on the right cheek, they gleefully offer the left.

Our people’s patience appears limitless; their docility is near incurable. If only we had been lucky to have averagely-okay leadership, these would have been great assets; but with cretinism firmly entrenched, virtues inexorably become vices.

Cast a look back many years and what do you see? The pomposity of the rulers grows by the day. When you think one ruler was the worst that could happen to the country, the next comes that surpasses it. Is it not true that Abacha was worse than Babangida?

Corruption under Obasanjo was worse than in the military years, the grandstanding of Nuhu Ribadu notwithstanding; so much so that Babangida, the “settlement” master, openly regretted that he came a little bit earlier. Obasanjo was a saint compared to Umoru, who abdicated to a cabal whose kingpin was Ibori, described in London as “thief in Government House”.

Today, it is obvious even to a blind Bartimaeus that Umoru is a saint compared to the present administration. It has been scandals right, left, and centre. We have not only lost count, we have also lost touch. Truth be told, we are already overwhelmed. “O ti sun wa”, as the Yoruba would say.

Now, what did Ibori do that some other fellows have not done many times over under the present dispensation? How much did they say Ibori steal that has not paled into insignificance already when placed side-by-side the pension’s scheme scam, not to talk of the fuel subsidy thievery? It only gets worse here; it does not get better. So, do not be in a hurry to show Jonathan the door; if the pattern persists, expect the next president to be worse.

Where, then, do we go from here? Gen. T.Y. Danjuma has pointed in the direction of Somalia: He may be right, except that push becomes shoving, we will not allow him exonerate self from the problem or distance self from commensurate punishment when Karma comes calling.

Nigeria a failed State: Not yet but the tell-tale signs that this may soon be so, are everywhere obvious, chief of which is the near absence of governance. The factors that make government to become unable to govern are many but they need not detain us here. The symptoms are when the minimum, legitimate expectations of the citizenry cannot be met, leading to loss of confidence in, and support for, the so-called government; when the government becomes so compromised that it cannot effectively wield authority or assert itself, leading to individuals and or institutions that are as powerful –if not even more powerful – than the so-called government; and when there are vested and or entrenched interests angling to forcibly radically modify or completely destroy the government and or the State as a whole.

The objective and subjective conditions for a failed State are here with us; they did not start overnight, so it is uncharitable of those hauling it all on President Goodluck Jonathan. Of course, he is contributing his own quota and as Nigerians continue to show the resilience that they have demonstrated over the years, Jonathan may “succeed” to fumble and wobble through and escape being the country’s undertaker. That may be a task for the next president.

The forces tearing the country apart are both centrifugal and centripetal: The Northern conservative elite want to capture the Centre at all costs. Those who are tired of the shenanigans would wish they could bail out. Having dominated the polity for so long, the North got so used to power that its loss since 1999 could be likened to Dante’s Hell. The Southern elites on the other hand, having tested power through the sacrifices of heroes they have all contrived not only to ignore but also to obliterate, if possible, are not willing to let go.

Whatever it is worth – actually it was worth very little, if anything at all – the South-west had Obasanjo’s eight wasted years; the South-south through Jonathan is right now in the saddle. If care is not taken – and I think that is what has suddenly dawned on the North and the reason why they are ready to scatter everywhere – Jonathan may well become the country’s longest ruling Head of state. Two years he “helped” Umoru to complete plus four years equals six years already. If he gets a second or “technical” third term of four or seven years of his pet single tenure project, do the calculation.

Boko Haram is not about poverty in the North; there has always been poverty in the North any way. Poverty is also everywhere else in Nigeria. National Security Adviser, Gen. Andrew Owoye Azazi, merely scratched the surface when he put the fault for Boko Haram with the ruling PDP. Appadorai in “Substance of Politics” said politics is the study of who gets what and how. We must add “when” and “why”. Is it when your kinsman is in office of and is it because of your fire power?  Of course there are sub-themes and undercurrents but the dominant factor in the conflict playing out is the politics of the cornering of resources.

In the quest to have power return to the North quickly, former military dictator, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has come in handy for the conservative, even feudal, North: So much for Buhari’s credentials as a progressive or reformer. They will use him, then, they will dump him. They are politically sagacious enough to know that Buhari is not electable; where will he garner the votes outside of the core North? Will the much-abused, repeatedly bombed Northern Christians touch him with a 10-mile long pole? He is only good at what he is doing – raising the red herring and playing the scare monger. They will use his head to try to crack the coconut but my suspicion is that whereas Buhari’s head will break in the process, the coconut may not crack. The North will need more than Boko Haram to reclaim power. Indeed, they will quickly have to move in a different direction to do so.

They said the “North” will be united in 2015: Which North are they talking about? The North will never be one again; conservative northerner leaders through decades of systemic and systematic abuse of the non-Muslim North have seen to that. In recent years they went public with their disdain for those whom they have historically exploited to cook up the figures, be it Census or election, to ride roughshod over the country. But today, the jury is out; the chickens have come home to roost.

One man who must also watch it is Gov. Muazu Babangida Aliyu of Niger State. Sir, make the whole of Nigeria your constituency; you have shown so much promise that one region of the country can no longer contain you. Nigeria needs your talent; the North will constrict you. Sir, how dare you support Buhari?

When the former dictator said blood will flow in 2015, whose blood? Those of NYSC members that will be sent to the North from the South, just as it happened last year when the same Buhari opened his mouth wide to call for blood after the April\May 2011 elections? Or is it the blood of Igbo traders and Yoruba doing legitimate business in the North? The blood of Christians, be they Northerners or Southerners? How many of Buhari’s children or grand-children died in the riots that his unguarded statement unleashed? The families who lost their loved ones are still reeling from the loss. May Buhari contest again in 2015! If the perennial loser comes anywhere in the South to campaign, he will come face-to-face with those whose joy he helped turn to sadness in broad daylight.

Buhari tried to hide under the canopy of free and fair elections to call for blood again two weeks ago; but come to think of it, how did Buhari expect to win the last election when he virtually limited himself to the North? The North is no longer monolithic and all its votes will never again go to a single candidate. Buhari has not done much to make himself sellable in the South; instead, he is making matters worse for himself. The Northern governors purportedly queuing behind him on this score are as pitiable as the former dictator himself. I doubt also if all of them are speaking all the truth they know about the 2011 elections.

Sometimes last year, I was in Abuja with a Northern newspaper publisher who swore that according to the information at his disposal, the PDP did not win more than one or two States in the whole North. Now, if that was true, and the elections were “systematically” rigged as Buhari alleged and the Northern governors purportedly concurred, who rigged the elections and who were the beneficiaries? Shouldn’t the PDP governors, if they admit that the elections were “systematically” rigged, also systematically vacate the offices they currently occupy for the rightful occupants? Or did the riggers rig for only Jonathan and not rig for the governors?

I abhor election rigging; in the last election, however, I am satisfied that in the South-west where I work, live and voted, the results reflected generally the wishes of the electorates.

LAST WORDS: Tell Gov. Babatunde Raji Fashola of Lagos to watch it; he should not allow the festering doctors’ strike land the hammer of state of emergency on his head. A word, they say, is enough for the wise.