Clay Richie

Currently, there’s a lot of posturing amongst the major car manufacturers, as they jockey for position in the autonomous vehicle chase, with most of them predicting that there will be some form of self-driving vehicle on the roads by the early to mid-2020s - most likely as ride-hailing services (think Uber and Lyft) or commercial transportation (set routes, set times). Similarly, other industry voices chorus that autonomous vehicles are “coming soon,” with everyday people now becoming more accustomed to the idea, too.

If the government had invested quality thinking in coming out with 2004 stamp duty amendment act, it would have realized that “ N50 stamp duty” is not tax, but a charge government requires for witnessing a legitimate transaction within the territory called Nigeria. Yes, stamp duty is law, but certainly not tax.

In a manner of speaking, I sympathise with the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina. He appears to be labouring under the burden of the distress of a double barell syndrome.The first layer of the syndrome is that the more untenable and unpopular the government they serve gets, the more the media managers and promoters are stressed and prone to lose composure, driven to extremes and lapse into incoherence in defence of the indefensible -lashing out left, right and centre in blind aggravation.Their sense of proportion and ability to discern and respect the boundary between truth and outright falsehood, becomes ever so blurry and steadily deteriorate until they become a menace to the cause and Principal they serve.

If there is anything that points to the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari may not be getting a full brief on the security situation in the country, it was his expression of shock on Tuesday regarding the level of criminality across Nigeria. Incidentally, the president spoke 24 hours after Senate President Ahmed Lawan made his own lamentation about the growing lawlessness that pervades the entire country. But while it is encouraging that those in authority are finally coming to terms with the general climate of insecurity, any effort to address the situation must be holistic if it is to be meaningful. Such efforts must take into account what is happening within the Gulf of Guinea (GoG) that is strategic to our national security.

On Monday, January 27, Maryam Sanda was convicted of the murder of her husband, Bilyaminu Bello. Maryam, the mother of one, who was alleged to have stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife, was found guilty of the two-count homicide charge brought against her by the police. Justice Yusuf Halilu of the Federal High Court whom I consider a man of good conscience by the way, in imposing the mandatory death sentence on her, was quoted as saying ‘it has been said that thou shall not kill. Whoever kills in cold blood shall die in cold blood, Maryam Sanda should reap what she has sown, it is blood for blood”.

Under fire over the wickedly role he has played in the illegal arrest and detention of Agba Jalingo; Governor Ben Ayade of Cross Rivers State has come up to buttress many of our insinuation and perception.  Ayade has correctly shown that he is just the complainant, but Jalingo's is a sinner against both the state and the Federal Government.

Every Northerner opposed the creation of Western Nigeria Security Network Amotekun, though similar security outfits exist in the North. Various Northern groups like Arewa Youth Consultative Council and Miyetti Allah castigated Yoruba race with unprintable epithets because of Amotekun.

In a country where Nigerians are invariably losing their lives, livelihood and right to free speech, many government officials earn their paychecks propagating duplicitous commercial messages intended to deflect this truth. One of such officers is Presidential media aide, Femi Adesina. His response to questions in a recent interview with Channels TV concerning growing insecurity in Nigeria deeply exposed his romance with denial and embodies the grossest form of class solidarity.

Per Malcolm Turnbull, in economics, one of the most important concepts is the 'opportunity cost' - the idea that once you spend your money on something, you can't spend it again on something else. That’s why Igbos have a saying that a child that is consuming akara (bean cake) is consuming his money. People, therefore, for the most part, make decisions based on opportunity costs.

Pots of ink have been wasted posing and trying to find out who owns Lagos. Some of the answers have been: Nobody owns Lagos; Lagos is owned by the Yoruba; The Igbo own Lagos, The Benin Kingdom and therefore the Beni own Lagos; all Nigerians own Lagos; etc. And recently two “Lagosians” held court on the ownership of Lagos. They are Alhaji Olufemi Okunnu and Chief Layi Ajayi Bembe at Punch Newspapers. Each had his own views.

“You look so downcast. Everything okay? Cheer up, man. This one that you are looking as if a trailer just crushed your legs.” “I won’t deceive you. I am not happy at all. I am sad. Heart-broken.” “What happened? You lost a contract, or someone swindled you? Whatever it is, just cheer up. When there is life, there is hope” “I just look around and I wonder why this world is the way it is.”

They have been given too many opportunities, to lead Nigeria right. But look where we are today? Since 1999 this country has been flailing about, lurching from one disaster to another mediocrity. Today, that mediocrity, under achievement and underperformance defines an otherwise great nation; Nigeria. We have spent untold trillions trying to fix electricity, roads, and other mundane issues that other countries have since taken for granted. We have not been able to produce anything from scratch as a people. Between these two parties, they wrecked the nation. Yet people who should keep quiet in remorse, having eaten the future of the children of Nigeria regularly mount the rostrum and lecture the rest of us!

The shocking arrest and detention of Ayoola Babalola in Ibara Prison over his publications on a campus newspaper in which he is the editor, is only a testament to the obvious and audible fact that the Nigerian Government has declared war against freedom of expression and thought in Nigeria despite the fact that the constitution already empowers every citizen to express themselves freely.

Certain facts in the Imo State gubernatorial election petition appear to be clear. Senator Hope Uzodinma  claimed that elections took place in 388 polling units and that his votes in those units were excluded from the results of the election. INEC claimed that elections did not take place in those polling units.

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” – T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) There is this popular Lagos saying that people have the tendency of looking for opportunities or valuables in Sokoto when in fact, those opportunities exist in ‘shokoto’ also spelt as Sokoto, but pronounced differently. Sokoto is the Capital of Sokoto State in Nigeria which is understood to be very far from Lagos.

Even when its blood-sucking soldiers slash the throats of captured Nigerians in audacious video recordings that periodically go viral on the social media, the truth is that Boko Haram, that deadly terrorist group, has left the consciousness of many Nigerians, especially the political elite. For example, as that eight year-old boy insurgent horrendously gorged out the last pint of blood in the veins of Daciya Dalep, the Langtang student of the University of Maiduguri who was abducted on January 9 as he returned to his University of Maiduguri school, President Muhammadu Buhari was apparently busy battling a mound of Tuwo Shinkafa, which he washed down his belly with a very cold fura.

  At the risk of exaggeration, I would say that the Supreme Court, on January 14, 2020, delivered its most controversial verdict yet in this democratic dispensation. By ordering the sack of Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha as the governor of Imo state and the installation of Senator Hope Uzodinma in his place, the apex court set tongues on fire. Protesters hit the streets, commentators spat venom and politicians cried blue murder over the verdict. The consensus among those opposed to the judgment is that the Supreme Court miscarried justice. President Muhammadu Buhari did not escape the missiles: he was accused of capturing Imo for APC as part of his “third term agenda”.

If there was anything that Buhari, the politician and presidential candidate understood, it was the depth of anger and frustration that Nigerian voters have against corruption. He perfectly understood the utility of this and cultivated an image of somebody who was stubbornly against corruption and tapped into this anger, garnering votes to make him be elected as President. Even when he took office in 2015 for his first term, he was still dazed with the magic spell of anti-corruption, prompting him to make his only other sound bite, which was “If we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us”.

Fellow Nigerians, let me confess that I used to have so much hope in the possibility and viability of one indivisible Nigeria, but that pipe dream has waned drastically and seems about to burst dramatically. Please, forgive my bluntness. When a man is fast approaching 60 like me, you begin to turn from an optimist to a pessimist. What haven’t we tried, to make our country greater and better than it was in the colonial days and possibly into the 1970’s and to ensure our leaders are far more responsible and responsive, but it seems that our collective efforts have always been doomed to failure and thus we have come to the sorry pass where we can only lament that we have failed.

The sound of “Amotekun” has drowned out all other issues in the Nigerian public space for many days, and there is a great likelihood that the Yoruba word will have meanings and connotations beyond the original meaning of leopard. Soon enough Wikipedia will include Amotekun. Maybe the word will also enter into the Oxford English Dictionary as was recently the case for several words of domestic Nigerian uses.

I am not in support of adding Nigeria to the ban list but I won’t really blame the United States because of some of the following that might have prompted them.

In December 2018, Boko Haram insurgents pulled a blitzkrieg on military formations in Baga, Borno state, sacking the headquarters of the multinational joint task force and taking over the place (briefly). The group steadied its onslaughts on military formations, killing many soldiers, weeks after.

Transparency International has rated Nigeria’s anticorruption crusade as very poor. Nigeria has dropped two points in the global Corruption Perception Index, becoming the second most corrupt country in West Africa. This is despite having the most elaborate anticorruption infrastructure in the continent. And being the only country in the world right now with a president or prime minister who won election on nothing else than over 50 years of manicured reputation as extremely honest and militantly anticorruption. Expectedly, Nigerian public officials talk down on the credibility and objectivity of the rating. Laughably, Nigeria even accuses the global body of a hidden agenda against it. Of course, we have gone this route before: Nigeria remonstrating its rating as a house of corruption or home of the most fantastic scammers.

Since 2004 when the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Professor Charles Soludo, carried out reforms of Nigeria’s financial infrastructure, the system has grown in leaps and bounds. The reforms have dramatically transformed the banking landscape from an unfit-for-purpose financial system with 89 fragile banks that could neither support the economic transformation of the country through private sector-driven initiatives nor compete with foreign banks into (22 as of now) bigger and stronger banks. According to Soludo, “Confidence in the system was very low. All the banks put together were smaller than the fourth-largest bank in South Africa, and none of them was in the top 1,000 banks in the world. If any private sector entity needed a loan of US$500m, it had to syndicate it from all the banks put together – or go abroad.”

I read the statement made by Pa Tinubu. It came, short of 24 hours after Alhassan, a violent cattle rearer -who ordinarily should not be found making statements in a sane world- reminded Tinubu he was a politically primitive being.

At long last, my daughter can now use the word ‘severally’ without my adrenaline surging unnecessarily, courtesy of the 29 Nigerian words and expressions included in the January updates to the Oxford English Dictionary. This is a big relief. Apart from having to correct her for repeatedly using the expression which she was probably convinced was right going by the number of people around her that boldly used it, I had another challenge of constantly editing the word in my brain each time I heard it. Unfortunately for me, there was hardly any public or private discussion in Nigeria where the word ‘severally’ would not crop up. And having been trained to always edit it to ‘several times,’ which used to be the proper English expression, you can imagine my ordeal and the attendant stress I went through in my bid to do the job of a self-imposed custodian of her Majesty’s language.

Therefore, a lion from the forest will attack them, a wolf from the desert will ravage them, a leopard will lie in wait near their towns to tear to pieces any who venture out…Jeremiah 5: 6

The headline in The Punch dated October 22 read: “FG disburses $103.6m Abacha loot to the poor”. Other papers had similar headlines. In the news report, it was explained that the poor in this regard were current beneficiaries of the National Cash Transfer Programme which is a component of the National Social Investment Programme. It went further to explain that the beneficiaries for that batch of recovered loot were going to be mined from a National Social Register collated by the National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office. These details were contained in an address by the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments.

News houses sometimes come with their own agendas as they shop for opinions. It is an irritating spectacle. This is my experience with the appointment of Muhammad Nami as the new Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). I declined speaking to a number of these news houses but granted one interview which the reporter cleverly edited to fit her or her editor/owner’s opinion. My opinion on the appointment remains that even though Nami was not a popular person, if he has leadership skills, and a vision, he could achieve good results at FIRS. You cannot judge a book by its cover, even though this is what we often seek to do in this country.

The Nigerian political elite behave like a colonial or Apartheid elite. They inhabit an island of opulence and extravagance in an ocean of encompassing poverty and mass suffering. It is an island governed by vicious exploitation of the system, crass contempt for the people and total indifference to the pervading misery of the masses. Therefore, it is not uncommon for the Minister of Education, in his mindless elitism, and unconcealed disdain for the educational system he administers, to have all his children studying in schools overseas. It is also not unusual for the Minister of Health, in his utter scorn for the health care system that he superintends, to travel to Britain, Germany or American, just for routine medical checkups.

It is no longer news that in line with last week’s decision of the Supreme Court, Senator Hope Uzodinma is now the Imo State governor. Having decided that the exclusion of certain votes in his favour during the collation of votes at the last governorship election in the state was illegal, the Apex Court went ahead to add the said votes which saw to the victory of the new governor.

Virtually everything in Nigeria no matter how well-meaning ends up getting ethnicized, or politicized, or religionized. So it is with Operation Amotekun: the Western Nigeria Security Network whose recent launch by the Governors of the South West, on January 9, has thrown up key questions at the heart of the Nigerian dilemma as well as the fault lines of the Nigerian state.

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common with unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” –Calvin Coolidge

I once described the Yoruba race as a people that relish their language and identity, reverence their culture and tradition with supremo glamour and, utmost conviviality in the spirit of ethnic solidarity as a media aide to the former Governor of State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, now Minister of Interior. The political leadership of Yoruba race and non-political actors have never betrayed their own people.

The presidential family anywhere in the world are one of power, privilege and limitless opportunities. But Africa remains an exception, a 'special' case for reasons of power abuse and absolutism. Take just four examples from Senegal to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon to Angola. Nigeria may not be among the four but that does not mean that the presidential offsprings in our homeland are immune from power abuse or corruption. Mohammed Abacha is 'eminently' qualified to be included in this list. The late tyrant Sani Abacha's son was notorious during his father's despotism for his brutality and cupidity. While the late maximum ruler stole in billions his son pilfered in millions of dollars!

The United Kingdom’s exit of the European Union is now all but certain. Only the passage of time will reveal what their new relationship shall be. But with this new arrangement, I – like many other Commonwealth leaders – also seek a new settlement: not only of closer relations between the UK and my own nation, but of unleashing trade within the club in which we together shall remain.

Since the introduction of Shari’a law in Zamfara state in January 2000, nothing else has tested the sanctity of Nigeria’s practice of federalism like the launch of the Western Nigeria Security Network (WNSN), better known as Operation Amotekun (the Yoruba word for leopard), by the south-western states on January 9, 2020. The stated aim of Operation Amotekun is to complement the efforts of the federal government in combating insecurity — particularly armed robbery and kidnapping-for-ransom in the geo-political zone. Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ekiti, Ondo and Lagos states have each procured 20 trucks and 100 motorcycles for Operation Amotekun, according to reports.

The feeling rife everywhere in Imo State currently is of rue; the dolour is palpable on almost everyone, as it concerns what many have described the biggest daylight fraud of the moment. That fraud and the basis of the feeling is the recent verdict of the Supreme Court ousting Emeka Ihedioha as governor.

I have often wondered why the Olusegun Obasanjo administration thought Nigeria would knock off say, Sweden, from its perch in 2005 as the world’s 20th staunchest economy in 2020. By 2005, Sweden had been industrialised for over a hundred and fifty years. Sweden’s developed export-oriented economy was feeding the world motor vehicles (such as Volvo, Saab, Scania), timber and news print, hydropower, and iron ore. It was and still is earning foreign exchange from telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, industrial machines, precision equipment, chemical goods, home goods and appliances, forestry, iron, and steel.

LAGOS, Nigeria — Fifty years ago, on Jan. 15, Nigeria’s civil war ended. Fought between the country’s southeast region, which seceded and called itself Biafra, and the rest of the country, which Britain supported and armed, the war was brutal. Over a million people died during three years of conflict. After being starved into submission by a blockade, the Biafrans surrendered and their leaders promised to be “loyal Nigerian citizens.”

“Òro se ni wò, ká lè m’eni tó fé ni.” – Yorùbá Aphorism Translation: “Be afflicted and know those who love you.” “Ká rìn gèrè, ká f’esè ko, ká w’eni tí ó se ‘ni pèlé.”- Yorùbá Aphorism Translation: “You know your true friends in time of trial.”

The Western Nigeria Security Network code-named Amotekun, established by the six states in the South-west, is all about self-defence and self-protection in the face of unending attacks by criminals. This is the truth that must be upheld. For me, a people under the servitude of armed robbers, kidnappers, ritual killers, killer herders and bandits have a right to self-defence.

In my column article of January 6 – a riposte to Isa Funtua’s prejudiced utterance on the Igbo — I wrote: ‘’Funtua’s statement reeks of corpulent arrogance, bigotry and acute sense of entitlement. It reinforces the stereotype that his section of the country bullies any region that does not kiss the ring of the caliphate.’’

Since Major General Muhammadu Buhari frauded his way into power with the integrity mantra, some of us, who supported him initially have been stoically beating integrity into his integrity-challenged head and government. Regrettably, all such laudable efforts, setting the agenda for his ethnically-induced regime fall into deaf ears.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power-Abraham Lincoln. Nasir El Rufai the governor of Kaduna State has repeatedly demonstrated the accuracy of this statement.

Before the official launch of Amotekun in Ibadan, Oyo State, last week, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Mohammed Adamu, held a meeting with South-West governors represented by Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State.

Finally, the chickens have come home to roost! The misdeeds of Nigeria’s leaders are coming back to haunt them. Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State painted a vivid picture of this during the week when he spoke about the horrors locked in the Northern forest, where anyone could get hundreds of armed men almost for free. He said that the children abandoned in the forest across the north were now coming back to fight the society as bandits. He didn’t stop there. He warned that unless the education of children in this region is addressed, the situation might become worse in future as the level of insecurity in the country today would be child’s play compared with what is likely to happen in another two decades from now. In the governor’s words: ‘’we have problems now with the forest people because they have no education of any kind. They do not have Islamic education and they do not have western education because they have been abandoned in the forest and forgotten. So these are t...

There is a famous scene in Tunde Kelani’s movie, ‘Ti oluwa Ni ile’, which speaks to a time like this in our country. At his meeting with the two young men who were trying to co-opt him into the deal to sell a piece of sacred land which belongs to the entire community, Oloye Otun (the inimitable Kareem Adepoju aka Baba Wande) felt he was being short-changed. He had been offered N50,000 out of the N200,000 he was told the land would be sold for. In assuring him that each would take N50,000 while the remaining N50,000 was reserved for a lawyer, it became very clear that the whole transaction was centred on the use of court process to legitimise what was not only fraudulent but also against tradition. And the community title holder who ordinarily should be a custodian of that tradition was central to the plot.

The question is “Should the South East not have South East Forest Guards Network or ‘Amaefula’ Operation?” Security and Welfare of the people remains the primary purpose of Government as enshrined in section 14(2) of the 1999 Constitution. Primarily, this means that security and welfare of the people is at the center of the entire concept of Government.