Clay Richie

  If you ever come across the phrase, “nasty, brutish and short,” then you would remember the book titled “Leviathan,” in which Thomas Hobbes expressed his views about the nature of human being and the necessity of governance and societies. Leviathan itself is a sea monster. Hobbes used it as a metaphor for absolutism, which is the political doctrine and practice of unlimited centralized authority and absolute sovereignty as vested in a monarch or dictator.

  Poom! And the man fell facedown, causing pandemonium, disrupting the bubbling sunny afternoon in Oshodi Lagos. A crowd gathered and carried him off to the roadside. They brought a bag of pure water (sachet water), and the people didn’t waste time emptying it on the man who’s now lying supine. He didn’t move a hand, only that he had a pulse.  

  Last week, I recounted my family’s twin ordeal of an armed robbery attack and COVID-19 infection in my column, ‘Gunman, COVID-19 and My Family’. Unfortunately, the publication came on the day we had to move my son to the National Hospital Isolation Centre where he spent Christmas and subsequent days before his eventual discharge. That was why I couldn’t pick (or return) many of the calls or reply to messages I received that day. I am grateful for them all. Paired in a room with a distressed man placed on oxygen, my son experienced considerable trauma and made life difficult for my wife due to his constant updates on phone. But there was nothing we could do to help him. His recall makes him eligible to co-author, with ‘Twitter diarist’, Mr Gbenro Adegbola, an interesting book that would put the fear of God in the hearts of all Covidiots!

  Let me paraphrase the holy prophet Isaiah who said: “For Jerusalem (Nigeria’s sake), I will not be silent until her vindication shines forth like the dawn…..No more shall people call you forsaken, or your land desolate, but you shall be called my delight and your land espoused.” (Is. 62:1,4).

  The 2020 challenge took the world by a storm and crashed economies around the world. The outbreak of covid19 otherwise referred to as “the pandemic” is a foretaste of the 2021 challenges and beyond. Conspiracy theorists would have you believe that covid19 was created by China as a response to Donald Trump’s trade war with China, but scientists have established the existence and occurrence of pandemic patterns over time since the Spanish flu of the 19th century.

  Who is Luis Farrakhan? That was the very first word that reverberated from an old TV set when justice was being done to a nice meal. Hardly do I get distracted when tending to a meal. But not on this occasion. Louis Farrakhan was a lousy brand, polished in eloquent language, but screwed up in bigotry. He was ekking a living and gaining global attention. 1998 was his loudest. He got paid from Nigeria's Oil money, without any value added to our nation and even got a street named after him. Eleke Crescent for that matter! In a bid to get even with the American Government who immortalised Kudirat Abiola's memory on American soil, the junta Government Buhari served threw our pearls to the swine. Little or nothing was known about Louis Farrakhan.

  Individuals, groups and sometimes nations often look above and from without causes to their economic predicaments; however, it is usually from below (neglect of things within reach) that economic predicaments emanate from. The situation in Nigeria is a case in point, as our problem did not as it were, fall from above; rather, the neglected, abused and raped Local Government System in the country gave space for the decrepit nature of the Nigerian state.

  On 28th October 2019, Pastor Tunde Bakare said the following, "Tinubu will give account for all his deeds. He should not be seen as a generous man, he is an integral part of the rot in Nigeria". 

  My favourite end-of-the-year quote, which I have shared with many others, is the following passage from Chapter 3 of the inimitable Chinua Achebe’s Things Falls Apart, a novel of monumental, evergreen relevance, translated into over 50 languages, a product of pure genius, a milestone in world literature. Achebe wrote:

  After what seemed like eternity, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) called off its nine-month old strike. At a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday December 23, 2020, Biodun Ogunyemi, President of ASUU, announced a “conditional suspension” of the strike. Nine months is a long time for students to be at home doing nothing – it is the equivalent of a full academic session and a baby can be born after nine months from conception. This is not the first time ASUU will embark on a long industrial action. In 1988 when the body was 10 years old, ASUU declared a nationwide strike that lasted for about 21 months which led to its proscription on August 7 that year by the military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida. Two years later, ASUU bounced back but another strike was again banned on August 23, 1992.

  Before 2015 like many Nigerians if someone walked up to me and said that Nigeria under the tenure of a President Buhari would experience the kind of desperate situation we are now in, I would consider the person a Looney and proceed promptly to give him a verbal roasting. And if another were to tell me that Nigerians would come to get so fed up with President Buhari as to call stridently for his resignation, I would probably be moved to deliver a solid straightforward answer to the bridge of his nose.

Governments spend money on acquiring goods and providing services for the public. The spending is usually planned in an annual budget which is signed into law. However, there might be some off-budget spending that requires no legislative approvals. Such expenditures, known as public sector spending, can include education, healthcare, social protection, and defence.

  Some of the reactions to Senator Kashim Shettima’s recent explosive interview on Arise TV, which have been trending on social media, betray the authors’ faded memories of the former Governor of Borno state. At the time an echo chamber was built by the Jonathan administration to isolate the government from public opinion, Shettima’s was the voice that rippled through. He called attention to the costs of that dereliction of duty, which enabled persistent cycle of explosions in urban centres, indiscriminate and targeted killings, and loss of vast territories to the Boko Haram, as the decision-makers weaponized pedestrian conspiracy theories to polarize the citizens left for death. 

  What a year. WhatAyear. What. A. Year. Muddled and fragmented. Masked up and washed up. It was a tasteless year, the year we could barely smell the coffee, the year humanity was severely fatigued. It was the year that soaked our hands in an ocean of sanitizers and distanced us from each other. It was the year that mercilessly coughed up the sick and the elderly, raising their temperature and taking their breath away. We cannot even cough in peace; we will start suspecting we have caught the virus. Someone, or some people, ate bat in Wuhan, China, and the rest of us — who did not as much as have a bite of the weird mammal — started washing our hands all over the world.

  On Tuesday, December 23, 2020, General Muhammadu Buhari made what has perhaps become the most irresponsible speech of his presidency when he said, inter alia, that “we share more than 1,400 kilometers of border with that country (Niger), which can only be effectively supervised by God”.

  “He also noted that the President’s decision not to honour the House was due to the utterances of the lawmaker calling for his impeachment, and concerns that the President would be embarrassed If he honoured the invitation.”

  Joe Biden has pledged that one of his first acts as President will be rejoining the Paris Climate Treaty – which gives China a complete pass on reducing emissions until at least 2030. Even Biden’s designated “climate envoy,” former Secretary of State John Kerry, says the existing treaty “has to be stronger,” but then claims China will somehow become an active partner, instead of the competitor and adversary it clearly is. His rationale: “Climate is imperative, it’s as imperative for China as it is for us.”

  Pastor Tunde Bakare’s trending video on Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for which he is receiving caustic flak from the Nigerian online commentariat, isn’t the deodorization of Tinubu’s smelly underbelly that many people say it is. It is, on the contrary, an effective denunciation of Tinubu and a deep, lasting, strategic delegitimization of his “omo Eko” bona fides.

  It is a platitude to characterise the year 2020 as significantly abnormal. In this characterisation, Nigeria and the United States of America are in a class by themselves. For the latter, keeping bad company is the exception but it is mostly the rule for the former. This is the difference that one individual can make in the life of society. The peculiar lesson that Americans have come to learn in the past four years is that with a president like Donald Trump, that terribly abused country has no need of enemies especially Russia. What the 45th democratically-elected president represented for American democracy is the equivalent of a one man demolition squad. Of late, hardly a day goes by without the president committing or contemplating a felony often of the treasonable genre.

  It is December 24 -the eve of Christmas, but the usual merry of the season is lacking. Usually by this time, the festive feeling is in the air with preparations for Christian faithful’s symbolic celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.

  No one needs to tell anyone about what a year 2020 has been. Unprecedented. Unpredictable. Revealing. No country was immune to the biting effects of the global public health crisis on our way of life and means of livelihood. Adapting to the new realities was difficult in many ways for all but more difficult for some than others. We have had to deal with a health sector tested to its limits (thanks to COVID-19), an unstable economic situation, a worsening insecurity crisis, and worse still, a multi-tiered leadership failure. The depth of this failure was further revealed by the #ENDSARS protests which became a global phenomenon. The protests were a firm, creative, peaceful, and youth-led demonstration against police brutality, injustice, tyranny, and political wickedness in low and high places. 

  As I drove out of my office last Friday, I noticed a slight commotion on the opposite side of the express road. I sighted a truck belonging to the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, and soon enough, I saw this poor woman, begging on her knees as agents of the (AEPB) seized her wares and were about to empty same into the back of their wagon. Instinctively I just knew I had to plead for this woman. I had seen so many heartbreaking situations such as this and not been able to do anything about them, but this time I drove across the road and blocked the truck. I came down to intervene and asked the AEPB team what they had to gain by giving this middle-aged poor woman grief this afternoon. The team leader was a stern-looking rough guy and he made to challenge me. I told him I came in peace but there was no way I was going to watch them take the wares that may not have been worth more than N2,000 from this woman.

  The question does seem unreasonable, maybe even dubious. To ask if a nation, more than 60 years old, bountifully blessed in human and material resources, is jinxed is stretching incredulity. Jinxed from what? By who and for what purpose? Yet, when one recovers from the initial shock, the question does indeed warrant exploration, if only to compel Nigerians to review our history, be clear about what it is telling us, and take appropriate lessons for the future.

  An emergency family meeting was called to apprise all eight people in the house of our health circumstance and the precautions we had to take. The moment I announced a two-week quarantine and treatment, the house keeper who had been looking forward to travelling home to Akwa Ibom State at Christmas to bury his father muttered something which I didn’t hear. But my son, Oluwakorede, apparently heard him. “Can’t you hear what daddy said? We all have Covid and you say you want to go to your village to bury your father. You want your family to bury more people?”

  After years of outcries and calls for the notorious Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS) to be scrapped, with the rogue outfit purportedly shut down for the fourth time this year, a final showdown weeks ago brought matters to ahead leading to the fatalities of scores with the murder of unarmed, organised, civil protesters at the Lekki tollgate on 20 October 2020.

  How very ludicrous! Referring to the happenings in the telecommunications industry on Monday morning, a friend drew my attention to Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again, a play written by Prof. Ola Rotimi of blessed memory. It is not just that the husband is mad but that he had been mad before and is witnessing serious recidivism.

  “The initial border closure is not about restricting movement because that movement is natural but now that four land borders have been reopened, we must have the document of people entering from our borders, including Nigerians. For that, we have deployed technology which is called MIDAS (Migration Information Data Analysis System); with this technology in the four borders we reopened, it will register whoever passes, either a Nigerian or non-Nigerian, across our borders and once you have registered, it is for life.” –        Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, in Ilesa, Osun State over the weekend.

  I would like to thank the Institute of Directors Nigeria for deeming it fit to admit me as a Fellow of this esteemed institution. It is indeed a great honour. I remember when I was invited last year as a special guest of honour during the 2019 IOD Dinner; I announced that BUA Cement was preparing to list on the NSE. Since you all began this journey with me, please allow me to report back that BUA Cement listed afterwards and is now one of the most capitalized companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

  Insecurity in Nigeria has revealed the incompetence of General Buhari’s regime, so much so that no one is safe from any region in Nigeria. Kidnapping has become a lucrative business since the government failed woefully to create an enabling environment for industrialisation which ought to have resulted in job creation for citizens.

  The year of the virus is gradually winding down but the stubborn and deadly coronavirus is inflicting more pains around the world with increasing cases of infections, hospitalisations and deaths. With less than two weeks before we embrace another brand new year, the second wave of the disease is spreading like bush fire in the harmattan. But you know what, take heed and do not worry; coronavirus is just doing “shakara” – it will go away and dissolve like early morning dew under the blazing heat of the African sun. In an earlier article, I wrote that the days of coronavirus are numbered – they are still numbered because nothing lasts forever.

  Nigeria is a poor country and yet it does everything it can to repel investors. With a few exceptions, investors are treated with indifference, bordering on contempt, by both the political class and civil servants. The indifference displayed by our leaders when dealing with potential investors would have been laughable, but for the fact that it has been so damaging to our economic wellbeing.

  “If individuals can take from a common pot, regardless of how much they put in it, each person has an incentive to be a free rider, to do as little as possible and take as much as possible because what one fails to take, will be taken by someone else” – John Stossel

  For more than four years, government workers in Kogi state have never had the conviction that non-payment of salary was completely surmounted. Kogi state workers, especially those at the local government level didn’t know they would still be mauled by a man whose first tenure was marred with hardship, death and insecurity due to his negligence. During Yahaya Bello’s first four years in office, government workers were always in queer street-incarcerated in hardship and muzzled by Bello’s puppets. Just like his first, Yahaya Bello’s second tenure is an emblem of hardship, insecurity and oppression. His second tenure is almost the same as the first or even worse.

  Apprehension. Relief. Apprehension again. My emotions went full cycle in seven days. The abduction of 344 students of Government Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina state, had whipped up a frightened feeling of déjà vu in me. The Chibok schoolgirls in April 2014 readily came to mind. More so, I feared that these boys could be turned and recruited into the Boko Haram army to replenish the terrorist ranks. Their release seven days later brought me big relief. These are people’s sons, brothers, nephews, cousins and friends. But the euphoria was soon over as I remembered that the fundamental problem remains unsolved: insecurity. Their release would only paper over the cracks.

  Was it not strange that the abduction of Kankara boys occurred on the day President Muhammadu Buhari arrived Daura, his hometown, in Katsina State, on a private visit? It is even more curious that the abductees were released on his birthday. Buhari last visited the state in December 2019, when he inaugurated construction work on the N18 billion University of Transportation, Daura.

  How long will Femi Adesina “play the ostrich” and make a big fool of himself as the spokesman for the “SENILE” one in Aso Rock? Nothing in his narrative to celebrate Buhari at 78 justifies the bitter reality on the ground. It is indeed a contradiction of fact and a fallacy.

  Fellow Nigerians, it is difficult to ignore the helplessness and hopelessness which hapless Nigerians have suffered since the year of our Lord 2015, when our presumed Messiah descended upon our section of this planet. Before then, Nigerians had reasoned that there was only one saint standing and he is no other than Major General Muhammadu Buhari, our brutal disciplinarian and former Head of State. In our selective or collective amnesia, and out of an incredible frustration and pathological hatred for the ruling party, PDP, and the President fate had contrived to foist upon us, Goodluck Jonathan, it was generally assumed there must be a regime change, by all means. At that time, we believed that anybody was better than President Jonathan and his rambunctious PDP, and that things could definitely never get worse than it was. However, to make the choice easy and palatable for Nigerians, we believed that there was a godsent replacement waiting in the wings.

  The interest in Kaduna state's security is high because it is vital to the country's security stability. There is a sigh of relief as the abducted boys from Kankara were released, and state Governors must take further security measures are taken to mitigate any potential threat. As the chief security officers of their states, albeit, without aberration, Governors are expected to take the responsibility of all residents within their states.

  The judgment of the court of appeals in the case of Olisa Metuh should trouble Justice Okon Abang and anyone in government who sees him as the government’s judge who could be used in cases where the government has vital interest.

  In keeping faith with its commitment to absurd economic policy directions, the federal government recently said that it is working on the creation of a trust fund for unclaimed dividends and bank balances that are not being used.

  On May 22nd 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari set up a Presidential Task Force Team on Apapa gridlock, with the Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo as the chairman and Comrade Kayode Opeifa to serve as the vice chairman. 

  In a rare admission of incompetence, Nigeria’s Education Minister, Mallam Adamu Adamu, a few days ago gave a damning report on the quality of graduates produced by the country’s higher institutions. According to the minister, many of these graduates can neither read nor write.

  On Friday, hundreds of schoolchildren were abducted in Kankara, a community in Katsina State. As of the time of writing this, more than 300 of those schoolchildren were still reportedly missing. This shameful development is a recrudescence of the 2014 Chibok girls’ abduction in the same Borno State. About 125 of those girls have yet to return home. Only time will tell what has become of them. Then, there was the Dapchi abduction that happened in 2018 in Yobe State. Though those schoolchildren were recovered, one of them, Leah Sharibu, was left behind. As we are wont to do with all these deeply traumatising episodes, we repress the memory and move on.

  The Chairman of defunct Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, who reportedly collapsed in the court of Justice Okon Abang the other day, provides a good reason for the gang of Nigerian governors to resist the temptation of dipping their sticky fingers into the pension funds of poor Nigerian workers.

  Even Teribogo, the mutative character in Wole Soyinka’s Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth, knows that to survive in a country in convoluting decadence like Nigeria, one must adjust on-the-go to fit into the prevailing colours of the times and build up enough cash and connections to last beyond a life time. So, he is Papa Davina, Dennis Tibidje, and even the Guide; some kind of personality apotheosis in continuum. Teribogo is always on the move. No condition holds him down.

  When weighing critical choices, every president hears two distinct voices. One voice describes the president as a strong man surrounded, confronted and in fact being insulted by weak people who truly have to be dealt with through strong-arm tactics. This voice sees politics in everything: every action, word or silence that does not praise the president is described as originating from the opposition – which it also describes as the enemy. The voice praises the president’s strength and expresses boundless optimism in his ability to triumph in all situations if, and only if, he deploys scorched-earth tactics. In classical terms, this voice belongs to the hawks.

  Eight months later, the arteries of the economy are pumping once again. Airports have reopened, bringing in 5,000 to 7,000 passengers daily. Schools have resumed, as have formal and informal markets. Machines are humming again in hitherto shut factories.

  Sir Adam Smith, in his famous book, “An Inquiry into the nature and causes of wealth of a Nation”, discussed a topic that dragged the attention of some prominent scholars. The topic is titled as “Water-Diamond paradox”.

  It is perhaps not a matter of sheer coincidence that as Nigeria marked her 60th year of Independence from colonial rule, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, was also marking its two decades of existence. Recall that the agency was created by an Act of Parliament in 2000, a year after the country returned to democratic rule after long years of military dictatorship.

  "Political language is designed to make lies sound truth and murder respectable, to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind" George Orwell