Clay Richie

Everyone who loves Nigeria must be worried about two things that seem to define the character of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. One is the disgraceful level of incoherence and rivalry amongst agencies of government and the other, the President’s incredible seeming lack of concern about these rivalries and a number of high-levelisome things.

Of the three presidents who ruled Nigeria between 1999 and 2015, President Goodluck Jonathan appears, so far, to have been the subject of more controversial books than his two predecessors.

I knew from Monday morning that I was not going to write this week; not only because I feel mentally exhausted but also because the issues dominating the headlines are not particularly of interest to me. Unfortunately, when I asked Dr Chidi Amuta whether he would help fill this space today by writing, he was non-committal; and when by last night I got no feedback from him, I concluded that this is just one of those weeks. But to put my dilemma in perspective, let us look at some of the issues that I would have commented on, assuming I felt compelled to write this column today.

I have read through scores of articles in the last 365 days—unveiling some of the perceived enemies in the camp of Mr. President, but each time I read through those articles, it becomes clear to me as water that most of our people do not know the real masked-enemies in the camp of the strong man of veracity from Daura. When I climbed out of bed in the wee hours of today, the initiative to put some words together on this smoldering and disturbing issue walked up to me as a baby would walk up to his mother and I warmly embraced it even while I was trying hard to escape from the loving grip of sleep.

Atiku Abubakar is an intense political hunter who smells opportunity like a bloodhound smells rabbit. However, his resignation from APC last Friday and his impending return to PDP would immediately compound his image problem as a Nigerian rolling stone that gathers no moss. Since 1999 Atiku has serially been in PDP, then AC, returned to PDP, secretly sponsored PDM, then entered APC and is about to return to PDP. Sociologists often talk about push-pull factors that fuel social phenomena. Many push and many other pull factors jointly account for Atiku Abubakar’s latest party move, even though he said in 2014 that APC was his last bus stop.

The Dangote Group of Nigeria, one of the pre-eminent industrial conglomerates in Africa, in pursuit of its pan-African development and emancipation strategy, on November 23, 2017 formally launched its newest economic development industrial project, the Dangote Cement plant in Mfila, in Congo-Brazzaville. With this $300 million dollars, 1.5 million metric tonne per annum plant, the Group now has a presence in 10 ten of the 17 countries in which it plans to construct and expand cement plans.

Even days ahead of its unveiling, a new book by ace journalist and APC spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, is surely stirring the political waters already. Since teasers began to appear in Simon Kolawole’s TheCable last week, many can hardly wait anymore for tomorrow’s presentation in Abuja to grab copy and see what fresh angles “On A Platter of Gold: How Jonathan Won and Lost Nigeria” brings to Segun Adeniyi’s earlier blockbuster, “Against The Run of Play”.

This past week was a very interesting one in the most recent history of the Nigerian state. Politically, it was Atiku and all the news around his much-anticipated “move” to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). On the flipside, we were treated to a luxurious wedding in faraway South Africa — Banky W and Adesua.

The road to justice may be very long, especially if the process of delivering  it is long drawn out, but no matter how long it takes, justice is sweet when it is finally done. In a chat on the whatsapp blog of my secondary school, Ekuku Agbor Grammar school old students association, where we are currently contemplating what development project to embark on to help our alma mata, one of us noted that the last time that we were all together was school some 37 years ago.

Africa is estimated to have lost over $1 trillion in illicit financial flows (IFFs) within the past 50 years, with drainage of over $50 billion annually. These outflows, according to the African Union and Economic Commission for Africa (AU/ECA) High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs), refer to “money that is illegally earned, transferred or utilized”.

Yesterday, death occurred for 30 African migrants striving to cross the Mediterranean sea in search of greener pasture in Europe. This was reported by Agency France-Presse. More than 30 migrants died and 200 were rescued on Saturday after their boats foundered off Libya's western coast, the Libyan navy said. The coastguard conducted two rescue operations off the city of Garabulli, 60 kilometres (40 miles) east of Tripoli, spokesman Colonel Abu Ajila Abdelbarri said. He added that patrols had found 31 bodies and 60 survivors from one boat, while all 140 passengers had survived in a second boat.

“I hear say Atiku don port oh, from APC to God knows where…” “He used to be a Customs officer.  Going from one port to another should not be an issue or a problem for him. It is in the nature of Customs officials to go from one port to another. When they train Customs officials, they train them to just disappear to nowhere when the storm is tough and rough.  That is the reason why every Customs official is a prostitute… serving or retired. I know some of them. They are always disappearing and appearing. After oil and gas, customs is the other honey pot of Nigeria. My brother, if you taste a little of that honey pot, your tongue will come out. You will always want to taste more.”

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything — Albert Einstein. In life, never say never. Nothing, really, is finite. On Tuesday November 14, I was discussing with a very senior journalist about why opinion writing space should be strictly devoted to public matters, how the columnist should focus on public issues rather than himself, how, after writing every piece, I deliberately re-read to rephrase all expressions bearing the First Person Singular Pronoun “I”.

Africa is a tragedy. In terms of natural resources, Africa is the world's richest continent. It has 50 percent of the world's gold, most of the world's diamonds and chromium, 90 percent of the cobalt, 40 percent of the world's potential hydroelectric power, 65 percent of the manganese, millions of acres of untilled farmland, as well as other numerous natural resources.

Nigeria is a nation sleep walking into economic disaster and the sad thing is that nobody seems to be aware of it. Not the government in power, not the opposition and not the fourth estate of the realm. Are we aware that the preeminent ratings agency in the world, Moody’s, cut Nigeria’s long-term foreign-currency bond from BA3 to B1? Not stopping there, Moody’s ruled that Nigerian efforts to broaden non-oil revenue have been unsuccessful.

Former vice-president Atiku Abubakar leaving the All Progressives Congress, APC, wasn’t supposed to make headline. When in 2014 he said the APC was the last political party he would be defecting to, it was not going to come as a surprise to many that he was likely to defect again; just like he has done.

There appears to be a lot more in common between former Zimbabwean First Lady, Grace Mugabe, and Nigeria’s present First Lady, Aisha Buhari, than immediately meets the eye. I don’t even know why few people have connected the dots before now, seeing as they are both almost always in the eye of a media storm.

I was in a phone conversation, on Friday morning, with a compatriot currently holidaying in Dubai when the news popped up on TV that one of the oldest cats in Nigeria’s political arena, Atiku Abubakar, has “resigned” from the All Progressives Congress (APC), ending what a commentator aplty captured as a ‘loan transfer’ from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

I don’t know if these statistics would interest you: the aviation industry alone directly contributes $664.4 billion to global GDP yearly — and that is far more than Nigeria’s entire gross domestic product. Every year, over three billion passengers fly the world’s airlines. Over 50 million tonnes of freight are airlifted across the world. The direct jobs from these are close to 10 million. In the larger picture, the air passenger business supports 63 million jobs globally and triggers $2.7 trillion worth of value in the world’s GDP. It is said that if aviation were a country, it would be the 21st biggest economy in the world, just marginally out of the G20.

“Mugabe destroyed Zimbabwean economy.” This is all you hear in digital and print media. But is this the whole truth? After listening to the various commentaries by fellow Nigerians on Mugabe and Zimbabwe, I conclude that my countrymen have watched too much BBC, CNN, Fox News and listened to much western propaganda.

Amina Mohammed came in 2015. The  trade was already flourishing. Ware houses in Lagos, Shagamu, Ijebu Ode were filled with logs of  rosewood (Kosso). Trucks plying interstate  roads sagged with heavy logs. Everywhere was all littered with wood.

Fellow Nigerians, these are not the best of times for the ruling Party, APC. It was a prophecy long foretold by me, though. As you all know, the trending news is that the serial “decampee”, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has done what he knows how best to do, decamping from one political party to another. Let no one say it is not a big deal. And even if it is not, it is still big news, and an even bigger embarrassment to a Party that coasted to victory on the wings of a major alliance of strange bedfellows and an unprecedented conspiracy that succeeded in unseating a sitting President in Nigeria. I therefore, wish to disagree vehemently with my brother, Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State, who said yesterday that Atiku’s exit from their embattled Party is a non-event.

You talk about vengeance. Is vengeance going to bring your son back to you or my boy to me? I forgo the vengeance on my son. But I have selfish reasons. My youngest son was forced to leave this country because of all this Solozzo business. Alright…now I have to make arrangements to bring him back here safely. But I’m a superstitious man, and if some unlucky accident should befall him, if he should get shot in the head by a police officer, or if he should hang himself in his jail cell, or if he’s struck by a bolt of lightning, then I’m going to blame some of the people in this room. And that, I do not forgive.” — Don Corleone

Yes, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has resigned from the All Progressives Congress (APC). I consider his action a deus ex machina. The caterwauling and refrain that Atiku is a political philanderer are hollow when put in the context of an amensal relationship. The former vice president had stayed long enough in a party he helped to nurture with corporeal resources and commitment, but sadly, there was no reciprocity of trust, goodwill and loyalty on the part of the APC.

When he was governor of Lagos State, Raji Fashola was notorious for collecting tolls. The joke used to be that if he constructed one foot of road, he would charge you for using it. So, when the news broke recently that he announced the return of tolls on Federal roads, some in my political orbit started to grumble. “Oh, this man will make us lose the election in 2019.” “Why do we want to add to the suffering of the common man now that we are getting ready for elections?” And so on and so forth.

Thursday last week, former Lagos State governor and the self-proclaimed national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, claimed that former President Goodluck Jonathan won a gold medal in corruption. Tinubu made the remark at the Banquet Hall of the State House while delivering the keynote address at the launch of a book titled, ‘Making Steady Sustainable Progress for Nigeria’s Peace and Prosperity,’ a mid-term scorecard of this administration, authored by the trio of Femi Adesina, Garba Shehu and Laolu Akande, the media aides in the presidency. I wonder what had been listed in the book as President Muhammadu Buhari’s achievements.

In 2019, young Nigerians who were born at the turn of the millenium (2000, 2001) will actually be able to vote. Those of us born within the 80s and 90s may be able to run for offices. It may yet be our time to stop being kingmakers and rise up to become kings, ourselves.

Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State was on Sunday declared winner of the November 18, 2017 governorship election in the state. It was a landslide victory that should not surprise any keen watcher of the electoral process in Nigeria. In this country, incumbents, especially in states, do not lose elections unless one of three things happens. The first is that the losing incumbent belongs to a party different from that of a totalitarian federal administration, ready to crush all opposition and establish the dominion of its own party, like we had under former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

A few years ago, someone said that he didn’t like spending a lot of time in Europe and America whenever he visited, and he actually used to make a lot of visits. His reason was that those places were too organised for his comfort. He would rather spend time in Nigeria with its confusion. He could get away with anything and did as he liked. Most people in leadership positions in this country are well travelled. While some went to school abroad others have lived there for a reasonable amount of time. It is, however, a shame that just like the citizen I referred to above, we seem to enjoy the confusion that Nigeria has become in different aspects of its existence. We seem to like the fact that most things don’t work here. In some cases, what is required to make things work may just be very little, but instead of fixing them we would rather wait for them to degenerate completely. This is true of our railway system that we left to rot and completely go out of business for several decade...

There is a temptation to hail the outcome of the ‘military coup’ in Zimbabwe that eventually led to the ouster of President Robert Mugabe as a triumph of popular will. That would be a myopic reading of the situation. While the resignation came amid popular discontent fuelled largely by the military and a faction of his own political party, there is an inconvenient truth that we should not shy away from: In Africa, power still does not belong to the people!

Chief Atiku, a few weeks ago, you arrogantly insulted the poor and millions of hardworking Nigerians with your cheap political rant in vowing “to fight corruption like never before.” The problem with you, sir, is that your greed is insatiable. Sir, you are a symbol of the past failures and the politically corrupt in Nigeria. With all due respect, therefore, I, on behalf of millions of Nigerians want to remind you that you should shut up when we are discussing anti-corruption challenges and the way forward.

Mr. Femi Adesina of late said that the 2018 Budget is expected to be quickly worked on by the national assembly, so that its implementation could begin early next year, 2018. When I heard that, I chortled frantically because I knew it was just a mere political statement. How do I mean?

If filters from the submission by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, to the Senate Committee probing the reinstatement of the fugitive former Chairman of Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, are real, then some people in government may just have completely lost their sense of ignominy.

In anticipation and in preparation for 2019, the presidency announced that the war on corruption ended last week with the arrest of Pius Anyim, former secretary to the federal government by the EFCC. The presidency has therefore decided to celebrate the milestone achievement with 180 million Nigerians.

Growing up, I was that somewhat rare teenager who loved Mathematics. In particular, solving inequalities caught my fancy, and I would curve my right or left arm, singing the “greater than, less than” rhyme, in order not to forget the correct direction of each sign. Inequalities brought the same thrill as a game of hide-and-seek; here we had to find “x,” which seemed to always go missing. To resolve the inequality, one had to add, subtract, multiply, or divide with a “value” such that a “variable,” which reveals what “x” is, emerges.

Tony Nwoye, the governorship candidate of the APC in the November 18 election may not have won the election in Anambra state, as Willie Obiano, the incumbent governor has received the mandate of Anambrarians to remain in power till 2021.

Regardless of who wins the Anambra gubernatorial election, the successful conduct of the election adds a great impetus to those who believe and work for the unity and progress of the country. What more, the election is one of the most hitch-less and well-conducted in the present democratic dispensation that started in May 1999. That an election could be conducted in Anambra State without widespread tales of violence, ballot snatching, killing and all other accoutrements of disorder is a huge credit to the present regime and its commitment to the conduct of free and fair election, bereft of the usual brickbats for which elections are known in Nigeria.

Since August, I have been the anchorperson of a program on television called ThisDay Live where we discuss political matters - local and global. The program is available on Arise News TV at 6pm, 9pm and sometimes at midnight every Sunday.  Two days ago, we discussed the situation in Zimbabwe, the elections in Anambra, Nigeria’s decision to hire Malaysian experts at a cost of N485 million to figure out new pathways for Nigeria’s economic growth (with all the experts in Nigeria oh!), the proposed expansion of President Buhari’s cabinet, the burial of 26 teenage Nigerians by the Italian authorities without Nigeria showing up, the sale of Nigerians and other Africans into slavery in Libya… But our top story was Zimbabwe and the travails of a once-upon-a-time Comrade Robert Mugabe. We started the program by joining the Arise News studio in London where our colleague Tham who has been on the Zimbabwean story provided all the updates.

"An Igbo proverb tells us that a man who doesn't know where the rain began to beat him cannot say where he dried his body. The rain that beat Africa began four to five hundred years ago from the 'discovery'  of Africa by Europe through the Transatlantic slave trade to the Berlin Conference of 1885."

In April, a former Nigerian public official lost his daughter under questionable circumstances. The young lady’s death was avoidable, and who knows, maybe her spirit is already haunting a UK hospital and another one in Nigeria. A hospital in Birmingham misdiagnosed her condition; the one in Nigeria performed surgery on her without having a life support machine. When her condition deteriorated post-surgery, the hospital could not artificially ventilate her heart. She died as a result.

The 2017 Anambra governorship election was the most anticipated state election ahead of the national election in 2019. Observed by Nigerians across the country, the election did not only throw up a winner, it also threw up the issue of party loyalty in supporting or opposing a party decision.

Despite the minor hitches observed in the just concluded Anambra elections, the election was adjudged by election observers as peaceful, orderly, free and fair and credible.

Nigeria is almost certainly the only nation on earth where citizens are ostensibly docile and are daily waiting for God to construct good roads, make electric power supply stable and build world-class healthcare centers for them.

With his ouster from the presidency of Zimbabwe last week, old man Robert Mugabe’s dream of dynastic reign in a republican setting came to a rude closure. His iron grip on power was broken and his hope of posthumous rule through forced spousal succession – what his former allies in the war veterans association dubbed “coup by marriage certificate” – was upended. 

At his incarnation, wise men gifted in astronomy came from the East, all the way to Bethlehem, in the south of Jerusalem, to worship Jesus Christ. They are today known as the Magi, who gave the newborn gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

In my primary four, the Yoruba text book we read was ‘Kola ati Kemi’ — a series of short stories depicting the “adventures” of two siblings: Kola and Kemi. Kola was the crafty one while his sister, Kemi, was the clever one. One day, Kola and Kemi followed their father to the farm. As they played around the farm, Kemi would announce: “Daddy, I found a snail!” And the father would reply: “Well done, my daughter.” Kola, not to be outdone, would also announce: “Daddy, I’ve found a snail!” And the father would reply: “Good job, my son.” It became a healthy competition as they went on picking snail after snail while their father kept himself busy cultivating the land.

Over the past couple of months, I have been talking to a particular set of women from whom I have learnt so much. Even though these women are all united by one single trade-filmmaking, I discovered in the course of the groundwork for the Ladies Calling the Shot, a book which was released in Lagos on Tuesday, that, as they say, the sky is indeed big enough for all birds to fly without any harmful happenstances.

“Your Excellency Sir, we are not sacking teachers in Kaduna. Rather, we are replacing unqualified people who are unfit to be called teachers to save the future of the next generation." That was Governor Nasir El-Rufai's response to his Ekiti State counterpart, Governor Ayodele Fayose who chastised him that the sacking of 22,000 teachers in Kaduna State could ignite climatic upsurge in crime wave and other ancillary social vices.

Fellow Nigerians, I finally caught up, and had a most productive meeting, with one of my favourite Nigerian leaders, Donald Duke, in Lagos last weekend. I have steadfastly remained his fan long after he left power ten years ago as Governor of Cross River State. Not even his most fastidious and vociferous critic would ever suggest that he did not leave a monumental mark in that fortunate State. It remains a mystery why, and how, Donald Duke, was abandoned, and wasted, by his Party, PDP, and nay Nigeria. I have written endlessly, and campaigned feverishly, that Nigeria desperately, and urgently, needs many leaders in the mould of Donald Duke. So, it was a pleasure not only meeting up with him again but having time to discuss a topic we both fervently and passionately believe in, Nigeria.

I am not surprised that the story on the former boss of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Alhaji Abdul Rasheed Maina is still running, after the Premium Times broke the story about his comeback to Government about seven weeks ago.