Clay Richie

A serpent will ordinarily evoke anxiety. Fear is added if that nocturnal creature were found slithering up from the depth of a communal well. To the superstitious in these parts, such spectacle can only be indicative that the surrounding community had either come under a plague or arrived at its threshold.

It is undoubtedly a growing point of profound concern for those who genuinely care about the fortunes and future of the All Progressives Congress ( APC) that the party is unstoppably collapsing into a precipitous abyss.

The decision of the Nigerian government to proscribe the Shiite Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) and to declare it officially as a terrorist organization is a catastrophic blunder.  In the first instance, the decision is illegal and unconstitutional.  It is a blatant infringement on the freedom of religion guaranteed under the Nigerian Constitution.

Senator Ahmed Lawan is the Chairman and President of Nigeria’s 9thNational Assembly.  His emergence as Senate President was prefaced by a lot of politicking and brick-bats within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of which he is a member and between members of that party and the opposition parties particularly the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the country’s former ruling party, now the main opposition.

After several knocks and post-inaugural countdown by Nigerians and the media, President Muhammadu Buhari bowed to pressure. He sent 43 ministerial nominees name to the Senate for screening. This action relit the Buhari leadership competence debate. The Buhari apologists applaud the president for making such crucial nominations in almost two months of his second term; a radical improvement from the first term which took him six months. On the other hand, the opposition contends that Buhari’s ministerial nominees list is uninspiring and untimely. They knock Buhari for not imitating Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom who constituted their cabinets immediately after swearing-in.

When youth corps member Precious Owolabi and Deputy Commissioner of Police Usman Umar were felled by protest-ground bullets, we thought we had seen the anticlimax to last week’s clashes between the Islamic Movement of Nigerian (IMN) and security agents. Speaking in tangible terms, we were probably right. A budding journalist still trying to make sense of his profession and a senior force man well into his represent Nigeria’s future and the present, and perfectly capture the crudeness with which the government’s security miscalculations threatens to ruin the country’s peace and stability. But in intangible terms, the real anticlimax is the government’s success in convincing a federal high court in Abuja to proscribe the IMN and declare it a terrorist organistion. Relying on the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011, protesting Shi’ites will be arrested and jailed for varying numbers of years. This will spark more protests. There will be more bloodshed, too.

Ghanaian traditional Ewe poetry, reflected in My Song Burst, one of the poems in the anthology authored by Senanu and Nigeria’s Professor Theo Vincent, is an invocation of the god of war. It reminds me of the sudden burst of the spat and hitherto hushed fight between the duo of Godwin Obaseki, governor of Edo state and his ex-godfather, Adams Oshiomhole, National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Abubakar Malami’s screening on the floor of the senate was the most anticipated of President Buhari’s ministerial nominees. There were a wide assortment of questions spawning from his controversial four year tenure as Attorney General of the Federation for the senators to pick from. That there were quite a number from the opposition that had over time proven to be vibrant and fearless on the floor of the senate was supposed to guarantee Malami had no escape route.

In the mid-1980s, I became friends with a legendary Nigerian soldier known as “Black Scorpion.” His real name was Benjamin Adekunle, smallish stripe of a man who had acquired the reputation of a killer during the civil war. Tales abound about how he could reduce opposing military formations—and men twice his size—to dissolution and tears.

On Sunday 21st July, 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the killing of 37 people by suspected bandits in Sokoto State. “This frequent and large scale killings of poor villagers by gangs of mass murderers must be met with the fiercest force the government can mobilize,” President Buhari said in a statement by his spokesman Garba Shehu.

“Few people dey fat with biggy money and the rest dey hungry me Fela, I challengie Obasanjo na way he the all the time make him carry me go any court I go open book for am

Anybody who is interested in studying the quality of leadership in Nigeria and why our country is perpetually stuck in underdevelopment would have learnt a great deal from the screening of ministerial nominees by the senate. I don’t know where to start from. After the reign of speculation and anxiety, President Muhammadu Buhari finally sent a list of 43 nominees to the senate without attaching their portfolios — as usual. The PDP governments did that in their four terms over 16 years and we criticised them. Buhari and APC promised us “change” but they have continued with that tradition. If APC rules Nigeria for 16 years, we can expect the tradition to endure.

Having squandered the immense goodwill and opportunity that was invested in him, President Buhari will in a couple of years cease to be relevant to requirements of Nigerians. In rapidly growing numbers Nigerians now believe that President Buhari has lost both the initiative and the positive momentum to carry this country forward in the next four years of his second and last term. Indeed as it is now the president is in deficit of trust and confidence of Nigerians regarding his administration and governance of the country.

The last two weeks have witnessed a lot of commentary about the heightening insecurity in the country. The role of Fulani herdsmen in nationwide criminality and suggested solutions have been on the front burner of national discuss. Many politicians and elder statesmen have joined their voices and expressed their fears and concerns. From the content of their statements, it was relatively easy to discern their motivations. Although the 2023 elections remain four years away, it appears that responses to the ongoing insecurity in the country have become a barometer to know where politicians stand. Those who seek to remain in the good books of the Presidency, like Senator Bola Tinubu and Senator Orji Kalu, chose to either be diplomatic or prevaricate on the real issues. Former President Obasanjo and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka on the other hand, have been coming out caustic, as usual, as people ready to receive the unsurprising appellation of being unpatriotic, while daring other c

I was one of seven professors who facilitated a leadership training in my university here in Georgia for local government chairmen from a major Nigerian southwestern state. In the course of the training, I adverted to a January 13, 2018 column I wrote about how power literally damages the brains of people who wield it and causes them to be dissociated from reality.

Since the emergence of a photograph wherein the embattled Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki and the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole, were seen exchanging what appears to be a friendly greeting surfaced on the internet, there have been exaggerated claims of reconciliation in predictable quarters – with some even taking it a step further by asking commentators and critics to “sheath their sword” in the interest of “peace”.

The profile, pedigree and track record of many sons and daughters of Imo State is such that the state should not have gone through, or borne, the sustained leadership misfortune it went through in the last eight years. The story is the same for many other states of the federation, where the people stagnated, or retrogressed, under political leadership of doubtful competence, questionable goodwill and reprehensible inclinations.

In 2015 after Buhari won the elections, friends with whom I had supported his quest were so excited to get invites to Eagle Square for his inauguration. I didn’t get any such invite and I am usually not excited about ceremonies anyway. For me it should be all about the substance.

On Tuesday, the first democratic Governor of Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande, turned 90! This is a milestone that seems increasingly unattainable in a country where life expectancy is put at 54 years by the United Nations Population Fund.  That is when war-torn countries like Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria have 65 years, 58 and 73 years respectively! Such a sad irony!

It is in conversations between generations like this that the young ones benefit from the experience of the aged. And it is said that the old are only wise because they have lived the life of the young. The fraternity of ideas between the generations is therefore important in fostering socialisation and imparting values and experience.

The High Court of Akwa Ibom State, Uyo judicial division is scheduled to deliver a judgment on Thursday in respect of a case which has been ongoing for the past nine months between the Atheists Society of Nigeria (ASN) VS. Akwa Ibom State Government.

On Monday, right in the precincts of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, there was a clash, between protesting members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, otherwise known as the Shiites, and men of the Nigeria Police Force. The clash as reported claimed more than six lives, amongst who were a deputy commissioner of police and a corps member with Channels Television.

Reinforcing failure is trying to solve a problem with the same washed-out tools, methods and live-ware. A president is as good as his cabinet; this is the reason competence and character, and not political value, must take precedence over every other item in a detailing list.

The population of my home state, Bayelsa is two million and we all live in single digit Local Government Areas of 8. Two million people are not too many people. Eight Local Government Areas are the fewest Local Government Areas in any state in Nigeria. How difficult can it be to administer two million citizens living in a paltry 8 Local Government Areas, compared with Lagos and Kano with 44 Local Government Areas etc?

Nollywood has become a most significant manifestation of Nigeria’s popular culture. In its local dimension, it has continued to be the staple entertainment form which most Nigerians have got used to. Africa Magic is a 24-hour channel which streams Nollywood movies directly into people’s home and offices. But Nollywood’s feat is no longer as a local movie industry. Apart from being the second largest producer of films after Hollywood, Nollywood has also achieved a global status that ensures that movies made in Nigeria are seen from Ghana to Barbados, and from the United States to Brazil. And all this from a phenomenon that started as a cottage industry with a very lean budget, and by individuals with the determination to transform how we relate to the cinema.

The political tussle of supremacy in Edo State, for those of us who are concerned citizens, can best be described as an attempt by some retrogressive forces to truncate the hardworking governor’s populist agenda.

Every right-thinking Nigerian knows Buhari did not win the 2019 presidential election.  Nevertheless, at the very least, some 10 million Nigerians must have voted genuinely for him.  In view of the extent to which the situation in Nigeria has deteriorated dramatically over the few months since the election, we need to ask the president’s supporters if they don’t now regret voting for him.  Is the Nigeria of today really the Nigeria they voted for?

The imagery of the ‘amukun’ is popular among the Yoruba. ‘Amukun’ is the Yoruba adjective for the knock-kneed. Knock-kneed is the turenchi for the pidgin expression, K-leg. K-leg is K-leg; an abnormal curve of the legs that causes the knees to touch while the feet are apart.

‘‘A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within’’ – Will Durant “There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.” Newton Lee.

Any good student of Nigerian politics can see the looming expulsion of the All Progressives Congress from the south-east and south-south geopolitical zones. Although it currently boasts one elected governor and a few lawmakers from the two zones, APC as a force may be smothered in both zones by 2023. And, no matter the judgement of the courts on the 2019 presidential election, the party’s fortune in the four other zones is likely to plummet so long as it has Adams Oshiomhole in the driving seat.

I had already penned my article, titled: “A case for unity government in Edo state”, before the reports that did the round in the media in which the Oba of Benin, Ewuare II, was quoted to have said that he tried to resolve the Edo Assembly crisis but that it kept escalating.

Something took me to Abia state on Friday. Actually, I didn’t plan for it but I had to. The last time I went to Abia state was in 2015, Aba to be precise. We got to Aba and it was like a no other place in filth, bad roads and ‘I don care’ attitude of the people towards their environment. I remember asking people at least 3 times if they have government at all. It was terribly an eyesore to behold.

On a visit to my mum years ago — this should be in 2009 — I saw an improvised battery-powered lamp on her table. It was mounted on a wood, probably six-inch long, with space for two AA batteries. There were several energy-saving bulbs mounted on the low-tech device. “What is this?” I asked her, bemused. She told me it was called “Oju ti NEPA” (“shame on NEPA”). It was a cheaper alternative to torchlight and generator in the face of stable blackouts. My first instinct was to laugh, which I did. And then I began to shake my head. Nigerians are so creative: they always make sense from nonsense. We can adapt to any situation. Push us to the wall and we will dig our way through.

A trending video clip of the senate confirmation hearing of Chief Justice of Nigeria Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad which shows him betraying mortifying ignorance of the meaning of the term “technicality” aggrandizes the point I made in my April 20, 2019 column titled “Atiku’s Citizenship and Buhari’s Illiterate Lawyers” about Buhari’s love affair with incompetence and mediocrity.

It is so unfortunate that insecurity is still waxing strong in our polity despite all efforts of the government to bring the menace under control. Day in, day out, people are being slaughtered like chickens and there is palpable fear in the heart of the masses.

Fellow Nigerians, I know some fanatical supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari and his ruling party APC will likely dismiss this intervention as coming from an alarmist or Prophet of doom, but so be it. History has taught me a lot of lessons and so has Literature done as well. Anyone familiar with Literary appreciation would have encountered what is often referred to as “tragic heroes”, an oxymoron of sorts. Many leaders usually end up as tragic figures because of their proclivities for obstinacy and obduracy. They are haters of criticism and truth who see enemies in every critic.

Without any shade of doubt, President Muhammadu Buhari is the most admired politician in Nigeria today and the admiration is unprecedented. He is admired by both friends and foes alike. His friends, followers and supporters love him to no ends for spoiling them rotten- abundantly more than they can ask or imagine. And his foes wish they can have leaders who can think and govern selfishly on their behalf-and to hell with Nigeria!

True to our character of re-inventing the wheel, there are already some whispers across Nigeria, asking that we should hold yet another confab in the nation. This is not unrelated to the general atmosphere of insecurity pervading the country and the incessant killings by the so -called killer herdsmen, who going by what the government admitted are actually foreign invaders who came from neighbouring countries, essentially to steal our land, to kill our people and to destroy our country. This is barely contestable, when you see the level of brutality being displayed by these criminals. They are not killing like a “kinsman should kill another kinsman”; if ever there was anything like that.

In my little years as a trained media and Communications professional, I had scanned international political arena for great leaders. My conclusion is it will be unwise to say our world lacks supposedly great leaders who can turnaround things. But major problem of such individuals are sycophants around them.

The possible breakup of Nigeria brings on the bone-shaking shivers doctors call rigors. Many writers have detailed how Nigeria is bursting at the seams with ethno-religious, political and economic problems waiting to explode. However, the apostles of one Nigeria have repeatedly denied or dismissed the notion and tried to nudge us out of that zone.

For the right effect, this intervention must restate the fact that Nigeria needs a very urgent revolution if it must survive. Things are going totally south for this country and not all the prayers or wishes that the 200 million citizens can muster would save it unless there is an instant revolution!

It was a simple tweet but what followed is a sad reminder of the loss of values that has made our country what it is today as we continue to build what my friend Bolaji Abdullahi described as a “nation of hustlers”. First, the tweet: “I lost my teaching job today (32K) where I teach (Maths and F/Maths), because I refused to assist the students in the exams hall (during NECO) having taught them very well…”

Less than three weeks after His Excellency, Governor Emeka Ihedioha, assumed office, a columnist in an Owerri-based newspaper queried why he was yet to flag off a “major project”! A few days later, another commentator in a rejoinder argued that while “projects” are important, they must be distinguished from “edifice mentality” which, according to him, was the bane of governance in the state for eight years; and wherein the people were made to see halls and squares as the hallmark of development. Today, if we are talking of edifices, Imo would likely rank the first among the 36 state. But unknown to the hapless citizens of the state, the buildings and squares are standing on top of a massive financial and procedural filth.

Even before the ballot for the November 2019 gubernatorial election is cast, the All Progressives Congress (APC) is already on its way to losing Kogi state.

Calls for the rebirth of the defunct Republic of Biafra have been increasingly heard on the streets of Nigeria in recent times. Following the reunification of Nigeria and Biafra in 1970, the world looked forward to a new Nigeria without the ethnic-tinged political injustices that had alienated one of the most important ethnicities in Nigeria - the Igbos and their near-kins to the point of seeking a country of their own by force in 1967.

Generally, in party politics, there is only one thing worse than being badly talked about; that is not being talked about at all. Every political party needs the oxygen of publicity to stay afloat and maintain its relevance. Conversely, for an anti-corruption agency such as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, there is only one thing worse than being loathed by the corrupt elements in society; that is not being feared at all. Such was the position of the agency in this country prior to the appointment of the current acting Chairman of the EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Mustapha Magu. No one has been more deserving of the coveted position of Chairman of this towering organisation since Ribadu (its pioneer chairman, Nuhu Ribadu) than the current acting Chairman. This remains so despite his own numerous missteps since his appointment. Nonetheless, it is clear to this column that Magu has brought the ‘fear factor’ back into the posture of his office and the organisation itself. How?

Over the weekend, Mrs Funke Olakunrin was killed along the Benin-Sagamu Expressway in Ore, Ondo State. It was alleged that she was killed by “herdsmen” who blocked the road to abduct people for ransom. Three vehicles were attacked: two private vehicles and a commercial bus. According to the police, two people were killed and eight people abducted. Incidentaily, seven of the abducted were rescued.

Since President Muhammadu Buhari surreptitiously shot his way back to Nigerian politics, Nigerians knew no peace. Dictatorship is synonymous with military regimes. But this is not always the case. Some democracies, like Nigeria's democracy under Buhari, are worse than military dictatorships.

A couple of days ago, Nigerians were treated to some incredible news, the type we used to hear from very distant jurisdictions some years ago. It was about the non conviction-based recovery of stolen assets and public property under the official fight against corruption. Nigerians were regaled with the recovery of jewelry including watches, bangles, chains, etc., worth the sum of $40m by the estimation of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The jewelry was stated to have been recovered from the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke. This recovery raises a lot of issues that need to be addressed for the enhancement of the struggle for transparency and accountability in Nigeria.

The recent warning signal raised over Nigeria’s ever escalating debt profile by the President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, should be food for thought for our policymakers and those who implement them. According to Adesina, Nigeria is currently using 50% of its revenue to service its debts, compared to the average of 17% for other African countries! This is unsustainable. But this is just part of an economic malaise that has consigned millions of Nigerians to “multidimensional poverty” even as a few favoured ones continue to enjoy the nation’s wealth.