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[OPINION] Seven Habits/Attributes Of A Successful/Effective Lawyer In Nigeria - Kayode Ajulo
Written by AdminI am humbled and momentously surprised to have been bestowed the honour of delivering this speech at this august gathering. It is not an honour I take very lightly.
The topic I have been assigned to discuss is “the Seven Habits of a Successful Lawyer”. A topic which in itself presupposes that the person chosen to deliver it, is a successful lawyer! It is however my humble opinion that there are in this venerable body, in this esteemed company, many eminent lawyers and jurists who are much more qualified than my humble self, Kayode Ajulo, to mount this rostrum to do justice to this topic.
I am more than humbled by this honour and in accepting it, I stand upon the great and noble shoulders of those eminent men and I can only hope that by the time we are done, those solid and powerful shoulders upon which I stand would not have carried me in vain.
Let me quickly recognise those great and successful giants of our trade that the Akure Bar has been blessed with; Ifedayo Adedipe, SAN, Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, Olagoke Fakunle, SAN, Niyi Adegbonmire, SAN, Dr. Olatunji Abayomi, I.O.A Olorunfemi, Banjo Aiyenakin, and many others whose indulgence I crave to proceed.
Again, since the leadership of the Akure Bar has insisted that I present this speech, I crave the indulgence of all who is present to only listen to the message and discountenance any perceived inadequacies of the messenger.
As a lawyer, whenever one is privileged to deliver a speech, it is expected that one would speak from the position of knowledge and authority. And how does a lawyer get this knowledge and authority? It is usually from books. For example, if one is going to talk about Evidence, it is expected that one should read the Evidence Act, legislations, court decisions and books from great jurists who have espoused knowledge in the course over the years.
However, because of the peculiarity of this topic there would be no need to research on any statute or laws as all that needs be said must be from one’s experience gathered over the course of one’s practice as well as the examples laid by legal giants over the years. (Now you would understand my insistence that my noble seniors are much more qualified than myself!)
For the above reason, our authority therefore would be to a larger extent the styles and practice of the illustrious names I have earlier mentioned and many others. To fully and adequately deal with this topic therefore, it would make sense and would probably be downright unforgivable if one fails to mention the heroes past of this noble profession of ours; titans who achieved great success like FRA Williams, SAN, Richard Akinjide, SAN, G.O.K Ajayi, SAN, Ibrahim Abdulahi, SAN, Philip Umeadi, SAN, Okeaya-Inneh, SAN, Ajibola Ige, SAN, Bankole Aluko, SAN, Chike Chigbue, SAN, Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, Miskom Pueppet and a host of others, all of blessed memory.
Likewise, there are heroes present like Folake Sholanke, SAN, Afe Babalola, SAN, Ebun Sofunde, SAN, Gboyega Awomolo, SAN, Ebun Shofunde, SAN, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, J. B. Daudu, SAN, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, Kanu Agabi, SAN, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, J. K. Gadzama, SAN, E. C. Ukala, SAN, Yunus Ustaz Usman, SAN, Adetokunbo Kayode, SAN, Adeniyi Akintola, SAN, D. D. Dodo, SAN, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, Wale Babalakin, SAN, Emeka Ngige, SAN, K. T. Turaki, SAN, Chris Uche, SAN, Ajibola Aribisala, SAN, P. N. Ikwueto, SAN, Ifedayo Adedipe, SAN, Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, Mike Ozekhome, SAN, SAM Ologunorisa, SAN, J. S. Okutepa, SAN, Dayo Akinlaja, SAN, Prof Akinseye-George, SAN, Mahmud Magaji, SAN, Femi Falana, SAN, Olumuyiwa Akinboro, SAN, Dame Priscilla Kuye, Dr. Olatunji Abayomi etc. These eminent personalities are those whose lifestyles and work ethics one should study if one is to become an effective lawyer.
Without sounding immodest, I must give myself a pass mark because of all these great names I have reeled out; I have made it a point to have good relationships with many of them either directly or indirectly. Some of them are my direct mentors, while some are indirect mentors because even from a distance at times, I have taken pains to watch and learn from them. I am also fortunate to have started my practice at the Federal Ministry of Justice which indisputably is the largest law office in the whole of Africa whereat I was quite lucky to have interacted with the best lawyers, which has aided my training in the profession.
My brief is to interrogate the station of a lawyer, and with respect, not just any lawyer but a successful lawyer and the habits that characterize the life of such a lawyer, The Cambridge Dictionary defines “habits” as something that one does often and regularly, sometimes, something done so routinely that it even borders on the unconscious.
Let me state at this juncture that the legal profession is one of the most prestigious professions in the world and although in the strict sense of the word, practicing Law encapsulates more than just litigation, as it expands to cover areas such as Corporate & Commercial, Oil & Gas, Investment & Finance, Real Estates and the likes. However for the purpose of this presentation, the focal point must be in tandem with the general circumstance of Akure Bar, the legal practice that involves litigation and Court proceedings.
With your kind permission, I would like to rephrase our topic of discussion and say that we should not be talking about being a successful lawyer, but rather an effective lawyer because an effective lawyer will, in due course, be a successful one.
Success is quite relative. And success is not a destination; it is a journey, a process. What one lawyer considers as success might be radically different from what another considers as success. For example, the idea of success to Eyitayo Jegede, SAN might be when he becomes Governor of Ondo State, while to another lawyer, it might be attaining the rank of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
It is therefore best to talk about an effective lawyer, because effectiveness will keep you focused on characters required for utmost and quality productivity. And, to be effective is to be successful in producing a desired or intended result.
Becoming an effective lawyer in the profession may be quite an uphill task. It takes only a person who knows the secrets, qualities and skills required of a lawyer to become effective. The skills a lawyer needs for an ideal career are things he must be deliberate and intentional in working upon and diligently develop over time. As they say, practice makes perfect, and dedication makes dreams come true.
In my limited and humble experience, below are seven highly recommended habits a lawyer must possess if he aspires to be an effective attorney. I have however not listed them in any particular order of importance, as they are all important for an effective legal career.
I am sure we have all heard the popular saying that “language is the major tool of a lawyer”. There is no gainsaying that an ability to communicate clearly and unambiguously is a must-have skill for every lawyer. And this vital skill can be developed by engaging in public speaking.
A renowned Human Rights Activist and learned Silk is an example of a great orator with the ability to argue convincingly in the courtroom, even when he has a seemingly bad case. Frankly speaking, the way you communicate as a lawyer will go a long way to tell what you are capable of doing.
Additionally, in this era of front loading processes, lawyers must also be able to write clearly, persuasively and concisely, as they must produce a variety of legal arguments backed by legal documents. To be able to analyse what clients tell them or follow a complex testimony, a lawyer must possess good listening skills.
A lawyer will also have to convey important ideas in a variety of environments and settings, such as: private conversations, informal emails, phone calls, conference meetings, etc. This makes communication skill one of the most important habits a lawyer must cultivate if he really desires to get to the top of the legal profession.
Therefore, whatever means you have chosen to communicate, as a lawyer who wants to be successful, you must do it effectively.
DILIGENCE AND PERSEVERANCE;
“Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.” “He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.”
Therefore, another non-negotiable quality of an effective lawyer is diligence. Diligence is the combination of hard work and consistency. To become an effective lawyer, you must not lack this quality because it takes time for a young lawyer to be noticed. An Indian Judge said that “the success of a lawyer depends upon himself”. And, just as Walter Elliot put it, and as similar to success “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.”
Even studying to become a lawyer takes a great deal of perseverance and commitment – and that’s before you even start work.
When working on a case, you must be diligent and have the perseverance to complete a quality work, necessary to drive the case to a successful finish. Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, comes to mind when talking about a diligent lawyer who spends enough time on a legal problem until he finds a convincing solution.
This is not a profession for lazy people who wants to win without putting in the required works. Even the Good Book says “Seeth thou a man diligent in his ways, he shall dine with kings and not mean men”! What more can one add?
ANALYTICAL THINKING
Allow me to read this words of an educator, Neil Postman, to you on analytical thinking. He was, though, taking to readers but this cannot be truer for lawyers because it is what an effective lawyer should be.
“To engage the written word means to follow a line of thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and overgeneralizations, to detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weigh ideas, to compare and contrast assertions, to connect one generalization to another. To accomplish this, one must achieve a certain distance from the words themselves, which is, in fact, encouraged by the isolated and impersonal text. That is why a good reader does not cheer an apt sentence or pause to applaud even an inspired paragraph. Analytic thought is too busy for that, and too detached.”
This is simply to tell you that an effective lawyer cannot be lazy with his mind because the fate of many individuals (life and death, win or loss) depends on his thoughts. To win as a lawyer, your analytical skills must be top notch.
Reading large amounts of information, absorbing facts and figures, analysing material and distilling it into something manageable is a feature of an effective law career. Being able to identify what is relevant out of a mass of information and explain it clearly and concisely is vital.
At times, there will be more than one reasonable conclusion or more than one precedent applicable to resolving a situation. An effective lawyer must therefore have the evaluative skills in order to choose which is the most suitable. This skill can be honed by taking large documents or long news articles and making bullet points of the most important themes.
CLEAR SENSE OF JUDGEMENT;
To become a successful lawyer, the habit of drawing reasonable, logical conclusions or assumptions from limited information is essential. You must also be able to consider these judgments critically, so that you can anticipate potential areas of weakness in your argument that must be fortified against.
Similarly, you must be able to spot points of weakness in an opposition’s argument. Decisiveness is also a part of judgment. There will be a lot of important judgment calls to make and little time for sitting on the fence.
This is the point where the emphasis on the analytical skills comes in. It is where your must be able to combine clear, undiluted and and deep instinct with relevant knowledge and experience to form opinions and make convincing decisions. You must be able to deploy this at an unconscious level to produce an insight or recognize a pattern that others overlook.
And let me state that what can guide you here is the value you are set to give and the goal you are set to achieve. Once you keep these two in mind, your sense of reasonable judgement will come to life.
RESEARCH ;
Two things that I love most about research are captured in the followings quotes.
“Research is formalized curiosity, it is poking and prying with a purpose.” says Zora Neale Hurston.
And according to Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, “Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.”
Diligent and efficient researches also play a huge role in a lawyer’s day-to-day job. This gives an inkling to whatever situation a lawyer finds himself and also helps to activate other necessary requirements to deploy when faced with a situation. Research is unavoidably important especially when doing the background work on a case, drafting legal documents and advising clients on complicated issues.
In the same vein, being able to research quickly and effectively is essential to understanding your clients, their needs, and to preparing legal strategies. In fact, what differentiates a good lawyer from a bad lawyer is the level of research they put into their work.
PRO-PEOPLE;
I don’t know if this truth is popular or not, but I know it for a fact, through diligent studying, careful observation and detailed experience that you can’t go it alone if you want to establish a fruitful and fulfilling career as a lawyer.
Instead, staying connected to a robust network of your peers and definitely your seniors will help you have an edge in the field. Your network can give you advice, direct you to helpful resources, and even help you land new clients.
Almost anyone you meet can be a possible connection. From your law school classmates to your former clients, every professional you interact with can potentially provide insights, resources, and opportunities that could make a substantial difference in your career.
Law is not an abstract practice. Irrelevant of how well someone does academically, at the end of the day lawyers work with people, on behalf of people, and the decisions that are made affect people’s lives. They must be personable, persuasive and able to read others. In doing this, a lawyer in this present time must be conversant with the use of technology, particularly the social media as an effective tool for great networking.
CREATIVITY;
In one of my researches on the importance of being a creative lawyer, I read this statement and I found it appropriate to introduce this last habit I want to share.
“Law isn’t always seen through a creative lens, especially when compared to more artistic sectors. It’s often perceived as rigid, academic, and perhaps a little dry. Law may be built on precedent, but the profession is ripe for change and is ready for an injection of all-important creativity.”
Sincerely, many people may think that the legal profession provides little outlet for an individual’s creative talent but this isn’t the case. No matter what aspect of the legal profession you choose, you will frequently have to think outside the box to get the job done.
The very top lawyers are not only logical and analytical, but they display a great deal of creativity in problem-solving. The best solution is not always the most obvious and in order to outmanoeuvre your challenger. It is often necessary to think outside the box.
In actual fact, creativity is highly sought after by clients, even if it remains somewhat unacknowledged by most within this legal profession.
Who is then being creative if not a lawyer, who can read a sentence and interpret it in many parts to give various logically convincing conclusions?
Effective lawyers understand the importance of flexibility and creativity. Innovation is vital when developing effective solutions, but it also allows you to serve your clients better by discovering cost-effective and efficient processes.
CONCLUSION;
The great scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, said that “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Again, I implore any one that aspires to be an effective lawyer to study the lives of great lawyers not only in Akure Bar, but across the country. Listen to them. Read their books. And when the knowledge gleaned from studying their lives is combined with the seven habits enumerated above, such lawyer is on his way to becoming an effective lawyer.
Above all of these abovementioned habits, there is a G-Factor that I have observed working for every effective lawyer, even for these great ones I mentioned in this lecture.
Irrespective of your religion or belief, there should be an acknowledgement of a supreme being that has your back because there are many who have mastered the above stated habits as part of their daily living for decades but still struggle to call themselves successful.
Though, there is public acknowledgment of this notion in Islam, Christiandom and African Traditional Beliefs, I can bet that it does get to a point that even an atheist, in the corner of his heart, strongly desires to experience the guidance of a dimension that is higher than what he knows when his personal ability fails. That is nothing but a humble acknowledgement of a higher level-The God factor.
This I recommend highly to you as you sing the popular Yoruba gospel song to the Supreme One with me. He is the X-factor of my existence, my G-factor of whom I can say that if you walk with Him in faith, the world will hear the best of you:
“Gbemi Soke, gbemi dide
Fami lọwọ soke, ki n ga jù ayé lọ
Ògo ayé mi, jẹ kó yọ jáde
Fami lọwọ soke,
má ma jẹ kó pẹ”
It was always obvious to keen, disinterested observers that Bola Tinubu’s gamble in helping Buhari to ascend to power won’t pay off in the end; that his opportunistic political love affair with Buhari won’t be requited; and that the brittle, delicately thin thread that held their relational dynamic would snap sooner or later. I wrote countless columns on this.
Tinubu won the nomination of the APC not because of Buhari and the cabal of provincial power brokers that prop him but in spite of them. Tinubu was compelled to ventilate his famously impassioned “emi lo kan” outburst in Abeokuta (in the Yoruba language, no less) when it became nakedly apparent that Buhari and his cabal had perfected plans to edge him out of the APC presidential primary contest.
People who know Tinubu from his inchoate age in Iragbiji tell me that he is a dogged, rugged, never-say-die fighter who would rather die fighting than give up a fight. His contemporaries dreaded fights with him not because he was strong but because his fights were often brutal and never-ending until he won. Even when he was bloodied and beaten to a pulp, he would get up and continue the fight if not immediately then later.
The story I heard of Tinubu’s childhood in Iragbiji reminded me of someone I grew up with in my hometown whom we nicknamed Mohammed Shaytan. Mohammed was his given name, but his bizarre emotional investment in endlessly ferocious fights with anyone until he won earned him the name Shaytan, the Arabic word for Satan. We used to allow him to “defeat” us so we would have peace. Perpetual personal strife, which he thrived in, wasn’t physically, mentally, and emotionally sustainable for a lot of us.
When the cabal was plotting to exclude Tinubu from the APC presidential contest, I had an informal chit-chat with a higher-up who had some associational affinities with the cabal. I told him that based on what I’d learned about Tinubu’s childhood and teenage years (some of which I can’t disclose publicly) and which seem to have endured into his adulthood, he would rather be dead than give up the APC nomination.
After the “emi lo kan” blow-up, which shook Buhari and his inner circle to their roots, my older acquaintance called to tell me I was right. The speech—and, of course, the support of APC’s northern governors, and his deep pockets— caused him to win the battle, but he is now in danger of losing the war, if he hasn’t already lost it. Here’s why.
Tinubu’s fervent, arrogant, and vaguely vituperative speech in Abeokuta at once unnerved, humiliated, and alienated Buhari and his inner circle in ways they had never been since 2015. Buhari never forgives, but he is also diffident, hates direct confrontation, and evades taking responsibility. That’s why he is such an ineffective but dangerous leader.
All indications clearly point to the fact that Buhari is still nursing the hurt of his well-justified humiliation by Tinubu. His inner loop of advisers is also waiting in the wings to exact revenge against Tinubu, which is frankly inexplicably self-indulgent, even hypocritical, because they would not have supported Tinubu even if he didn’t humiliate them on national television, even if he praised them to high heaven from now till kingdom come. Well, they seem to be now out for Tinubu in full force.
This signal first emerged in the open when Alhaji Sani Zangon Daura, a former minister in Obasanjo’s administration who is very close to Buhari, Mamman Daura and members of the cabal, gave a sermon in his mosque in Kaduna where he importuned northerners to support their own. It’s entirely possible that this opinion is his alone.
Nonetheless, as many people have observed, Buhari has so far studiously refrained from asking voters to vote for Tinubu. He raises Tinubu’s hands on the campaign trail, but it’s as a mere ritual political gesture that he is required to perform. He also raises the hands of other APC candidates. But he has so far not directly solicited votes for Tinubu.
In a November 10, 2022, interview with Premium Times on the so-called currency redesign, which has gone viral in the last few days, Buhari justified the currency redesign by gratuitously invoking the specter of unscrupulous moneybags who use thugs to win elections, which many people, including Tinubu’s people, understood as an indirect attack on Tinubu.
“Nigerians should vote for whoever they like from whichever party. Nobody will be allowed to mobilize resources and thugs to intimidate people in any constituency,” Buhari said in what seems like a sneaky barb at Tinubu who infamously uses money and thugs to win elections, including elections that Buhari has benefited from. “This is what I want to go down into Nigerian history for.”
Of course, when Premium Times’ reporter pushed him to speak on his support for Tinubu, he uttered platitudinous, half-hearted, mealy-mouthed praises of Tinubu and Lagos and said, “the party was lucky to get [Tinubu to] accept to be its candidate.” We all know it wasn’t the party that got Tinubu to accept to be its candidate; it was Tinubu who fought tooth and nail against the machinations of Buhari and his cabal to become the party’s candidate.
In the aftermath of the renewed attention to and intra-party criticisms of Buhari’s failure to publicly urge his supporters to vote for Tinubu, Buhari’s associates organized a charade in Bauchi. During the APC presidential campaign in Bauchi, Buhari was asked to speak in support of Tinubu. Then, suddenly, the microphone mysteriously developed a malfunction—or there was a power cut—and Buhari left the venue of the campaign in a faux huff. It seemed all carefully choreographed.
Being the aggressively wily and perceptive political fox that Tinubu is, he has sensed all the Machiavellian political mischief that’s afoot. And he has had enough. So, he threw another pugilistic rhetorical blow at Buhari and his cabal in Abeokuta—and in the Yoruba language. When he is drowning and is fighting for his political life, Tinubu cries in Yoruba. English has no capacity to carry the full weight of his fury.
Unfortunately for Tinubu, his avoidably self-inflicted reputational injury in the Muslim North by his inability to recite the first chapter of the Qur’an is eroding his support. Salafi clerics in the Hausaphone Muslim North who used to preach that a vote for the Tinubu-Shettima Muslim-Muslim ticket was a jihad in the service of Islam have gone quiet. They can’t justify calling someone who can’t recite the fatiha a Muslim. In fact, the clerics have become objects of ridicule now.
This was completely preventable political self-harm. All he needed to do was continue being seen praying in mosques and going to Mecca for hajj. No one ever asks Muslims, not least wealthy ones like Tinubu, to justify their claims to their faith by reciting verses of the Qur’an. Most northern Muslim elites, including Buhari, know next to nothing about their religion. But it’s sufficient that they are seen in public performing the rituals of the religion.
Tinubu would have benefitted from having northern Muslims in his inner circle. They would have advised him against attempting to recite the fatiha that he has obviously lost because he doesn’t use.
The only silver lining in the cloud of political troubles for Tinubu in the Muslim North, which he needs to have a fighting chance, is that almost all APC governors in the region are solidly behind him for two reasons. The first is the embarrassment of betraying him after he stood with them in the 2015 and 2019 elections. Nasir El-Rufai is the arrowhead of this sentiment. He thinks it would be a treachery for the history books should the entire Muslim North forsake Tinubu.
The second reason is more selfish. Should Atiku Abubakar win the election, the dreams of another northern Muslim from the northern governors’ ranks becoming a president would be perpetually deferred. Even though Atiku has said he would do only one term, it would be almost impossible for another Muslim to succeed him after four years.
It remains to be seen if the support of the governors can reverse Tinubu’s lost ground in the Muslim North. But the fight is on, and it’s just getting started!
Tinubu pays, most people will tell you. I do not know whether, and to what extent, this is true; but it is a popularly held view. “We shall walk out of this electoral engagement with something substantial”, has been attributed to some of his supporters. In sum, it would seem that there is a larger population of carpet baggers and hunting dogs around the man, than convinced disciples.
An Igbo prover says that a man who has a house full of “friends” whose loyalty rests on the largeness of his purse and the venison on his dining table has no friends at all. Such a man will find out, sooner or later, that he is alone on the day of sacrifice when people are asked to make all manner of personal denials for him. No one will stake his life for him, because all his friends would like to live and enjoy their plunder.
A look at most of the campaign video clips of Asiwaju raises a fundamental question of propriety, patriotism, and dignity in adulthood for most of his backers. “How and why would anyone bring out this man, have the courage to stand behind him as a supporter in public, and then boldly assert that this is the best that the ruling APC can find for Nigeria, after eight years of unmitigated leadership incompetence? From the party’s performance on all fronts, it ought to simply apologize to Nigerians, withdraw from the elections and announce that it would go on a 24 months retreat; to learn about leadership.
But not only is the party contesting, it is fielding probably the worst in its park of elders. Possibly in response to overwhelming inducement, those who matter in the party lost the capacity for good judgment. Fielding a visibly competent person may have at least been an attempt to hoodwink inattentive observers into locating the APC’s existing proof of failure on an individual. But the party did not think in that direction, at all.
Which is, perhaps, why a video clip that is making the rounds has become the subject of more than passing attention. The clip in question is unusually clear. The image, and facial expressions, of President Buhari as he spoke was also clearer than usual. The man was, somewhat unlike him in his less coherent moments, quite articulate and forthright; as he declared that he would ensure free, fair and transparent elections. He said that that is the legacy he would like to leave, as he leaves for Daura, Katsina State in a few months’ time.
Add the foregoing to the growing suspicion, and perhaps realization, that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is being touted to have “tied its hands”, such that it cannot influence election outcomes because of the BVAS it procured, and is determined to use. Add, also, the general impression that there is a direct linkage between the drama surrounding the new Naira notes and the elections. This would lead us to the conclusion that individuals and groups planning, and hoping, to deploy unvarnished cash to influence the elections may find themselves upstaged. What then will Asiwaju Boal Tinubu, whom many believe is planning to “pay all payables” in order to emerge president.
The man’s political machinery seems to be densely supported by individuals and groups who are largely driven by the “cash value’” of their loyalty to their pockets and their inverted patriotism as Nigerians. And that brings us back to the personal, aspirational and existential crisis facing a Bola Tinubu in Nigeria today.
He was the architect of the convoluted processes that birthed the ruling party and the Buhari Presidency. So, he brought out the masquerade that has been dealing with him for eight years now. Do you recall “the article “Tinubu and His Egungun”, Which appeared on this page on August 30, 2016? Perhaps not.
Part of the article in question said: “Most of those who birthed the current Presidency are now confounded. The once most enthusiastic among them are quivering in the limited space allowed him by the very talisman they procured and celebrated. Their circumstance is proof that a politician may get into trouble more because of his own errors of judgment than from the evil machinations of his enemies and competitors. The lessons of the hour for the Lion of Bourdilon, Chief Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the APC`s hastily contrived coalition, are legion. These loyalists are all standing in public with bruises inflicted on them by their own, or their family`s Egungun or masquerade”.
The article went further, thus: “The very Opambata, or cane, with which they are being flogged was crafted by them. And this avoidable misfortune is all traceable to their inebriated and hasty grab at power, without close attention to some essential ingredients of political discretion. Look around you and you will see the truth of the saying that politicians can be likened to the spotted hyena, of which it is said: “Of all mammals, they are the most self-centred and most inconsiderate. They are also the most brutal to their kind”.
Not to run the risk of seeming well versed in the Yoruba pantheon, especially with a name like Okey Okechukwu, the article went on: “As explained to me by some Yoruba friends who are versed in some aspects of the Yoruba cultural traditions, an Egun (singular for Egungun) is always someone`s Egun. But `Egungun` in its more specific, common-sense usage, refers to masquerades connected with the ancestors as a collective force for communal unity, moral probity and economic betterment. (This makes the president our National Egungun). But even when the word is used in the broadest sense, wherein “Egungun” refers to all types of masquerades, or masked and costumed figures, (like Speaker, Chief Whip, Majority Leader, Committee Chair, Senate President, etc.), it is still dressed and `brought out` by its `owners”.
Do you see what I mean? Again, for the masquerade to come out, “An act of invocation (known as “Alapi”) must be performed by the Chief priest, ushering the Egungun, before the worshippers dance, drum and are possessed by the ancestral Egungun, or spirit. It was Tinubu who performed this ceremony, as Chief Priest of the APC. But contrary to the norm in the Egungun cult and Festival, wherein the Chief Priest and family members are not `flogged out of the way` by the Egungun, Chief Bola Tinubu and his co-travellers were soon in the line of fire. The spirit they summoned turned out not to be the one they intended, or expected”.
Consider this, for instance, as observed in the article: “Tinubu, as Chief Priest, had barely finished the “political Alapi rituals” before the Egugun came for his throat, intent on summarily asphyxiating him. He barely extricated himself and is still clearing his throat, after that unfriendly grip. Smaller masquerades, like Saraki, are still scampering for cover. The masqueraders have thus become victims of the distemper of the very masquerade they dressed up and brought to the village square. Their political calculations before the elections, including their fallback positions and their third level machinations, collapsed. The masquerade had shredded its leash”.
What has been clear since the commencement of the Buhari government is that: “No talisman can also prevent a man from carrying out harmful designs that his enemies would have loved, but which he personally inflicts on himself; out of folly, or in a temporary attack of un-wisdom. Your security man cannot prevent you from quietly killing yourself in your bedroom, behind doors you locked with your own hands. Thus, the talismanic code of service avoids presumptive interference with the free volition of its owner in matters of self-destruction; lest it be accused of exogamous talismanic insurrection”.
Seeking continuous validation in metaphors and proverbs, the article under reference here went on: “An Igbo proverb says that the person who goes to a heap of birds and brings home a vulture will be scandalized by the fact that his greed made him focus on the presumed quantity of meat, instead of the species of bird he was carrying home as booty. That is the issue for many of APC`s erstwhile promoters and supporters today. President Buhari, in all his phlegmatic, somnambulistic and incompetent wobble, shall be an essential instrument for a national winnowing and cleansing that is long overdue. Not because he designed it, or because it is a planned engagement, but because his bungling will make a conflagration inevitable”.
Look at Tinubu today. “Even the rainmakers shall fall victim to the elements; because they did not know the full implications of the incantations they were mumbling. They cannot even take full flight! They locked the gates before the incantations began. They arranged a funeral, while dressed for a banquette, such that. Baffled, besmirched, excoriated and roundly diminished by their masquerade`s aberrant and atavistic totality, they crouch; hobbled, as they huddle””.
And, finally, “Aquiver in little corners, they are now muttering “Olori buruku, ma ba temi je o! Enough said, as the dénouement of this drama is unfolding precipitously.
Kudos to Segun Adeniyi, Dave Umahi
An unlikely pair, right? I agree. One is my friend, the other is not. But both gentlemen did something commendable in two unrelated fields recently.
The back page of Thisday newspaper of January 12, under the caption, “How Far Can Peter Obi Go”, was a demonstration of courage, genuine patriotism, goodwill towards a friend and a deep sense of responsibility to tell the truth. He drew attention to possible potholes hon the road his friend was travelling. Let those who want lessons on objective commentary go take a read.
Umahi, on his part wiped the subsisting shame of Igbo cultural bigwigs, intelligentsia and political elite when, the other week, he and his people wore the correct “Isi Agu (Leopard head) outfit to a rally. Igbo leadership, including Ohaneze chieftains, received Buhari in Owerri dressed in the wrong outfit of “Isi Odum” (Lion Head), which over 90% of the Igbo population actually assume is Isi Agu. Enough said about Isi Agu – a scandal at Igbo cultural events today.
OVER the course of 400 years, 15 million men, women, and children were transported across the Atlantic as slaves, but the statistics for human trafficking, particularly the sex trade, are far worse.
Conservatively, 800,000 people are trafficked annually, with 80 per cent being women and half of these being minors. The global sex trade itself is worth $32 billion annually. The issue of what can be done to end human trafficking, in which 25 million people are trapped, was the theme of an international meeting on January 17, 2023 in Abuja.
Argentine Ambassador Alejandro Herrero, who set the tone, said human trafficking is one of the most horrible violations of human rights and has to be combated. The United States, according to US Ambassador Mary Beth Leonard, is a global scourge, a brutal and inhuman trade that violates human rights and robs people of their dignity.
The US says it is facing serious human trafficking challenges. Its Office of Justice Programmes, OJP in 2021, budgeted almost $87 million to combat it, provide support services to victims, and conduct research into the nature and causes of labour and sex trafficking. Ambassador Leonard said victims of trafficking must be assisted. She added that awareness of the signs of trafficking can help detect and prevent the act.
She pointed out that there are laws against trafficking, but the problem is their implementation. “The United States is committed to fighting it because trafficking destabilises societies, undermines economies, harms workers, enriches those who exploit them, undercuts legitimate business and most fundamentally, because it is so profoundly wrong,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the presentation of the 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report in Washington, DC.
Spanish Ambassador Juan Sell said fighting against human trafficking entails sending a message of hope to its victims and one of determination to bring the perpetuators to justice. He advised people to beware of offers that seem irresistible, adding that human trafficking and sex enslavement are real. His country, he said, is on the receiving end of the trafficking.
On November 29, 2022, Spain’s Council of Ministers approved a draft “Anti-Trafficking” law against ‘sexual exploitation, forced and arranged marriages, slavery, forced labour, organ and tissue removal, and situations where vulnerable people are forced to engage in criminal activity’. Its Justice Minister, Pilar Llop, said that the law will protect “people who suffer a lot in our country and also in other countries around the world” and “break the business chain that is generated using human beings as commodities”. Under this law, customers of forced sexual workers face fines and prison sentences of six months to four years.
The French Embassy’s Deputy Head of Mission, Olivier Chatelais, regretted that, annually, hundreds of Nigerian women are trafficked directly to France. He added that a way out is to organise a worldwide solidarity alliance to fight international crime. France, is a party to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography. In November 2021, it announced a budget of $15.87 million to fight trafficking. It says it fights against human trafficking through the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC.
European Union Representative, Reuben Alba Aguilera, noted that Nigeria is richly endowed with human and natural resources, so there is a need to help the authorities check migration flows. Part of the EU’s announced strategy is to disrupt the online and offline businesses of traffickers by working with tech firms to reduce access to platforms. It also engages in protecting and empowering victims.
Sweden was represented by its Ambassador, Annikka Hahn-Englund. The country will spend $1.44 million to combat human trafficking in 2021. Beneficiaries include the National Support Programme, a civil society platform representing 20 non-governmental organisations. Its 2002 anti-trafficking law prescribes two to three years of imprisonment for those involved in sexual exploitation and forced labour.
Others on the platform of the meeting included Jarai Sabally of The Sisterhood is Global Institute, Taina Bien-Aime of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Jonathan Machler of the Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution, Esohe Aghatise of Iroko and Mickey Meji of the Survivor Empowerment and Support Programme.
The survivor, originally known as Nomonde Mihlali Meji, is a South African who campaigns for the rights of trafficked and prostituted women. Her engaging story began when she got pregnant at 16, dropped out of school, got into prostitution, crawled out, and became a fighter to get as many women as possible out of prostitution and rehabilitate them.
She had been assisted out of prostitution by an organisation called Sex Workers Education Advocacy Task Force, or SWEAT, and decided that one of the main things to do is to get the term “sex work” abolished and get the sex industry recognised as exploitative and oppressive. When the ruling African National Congress, ANC, at its 54th Congress in 2017 passed a resolution to fully decriminalise prostitution and recognise it as “work”, Meji fired a protest letter saying prostitution was not employment: “Women in prostitution do not wake up one day and “choose” to be prostitutes.
Prostitution is chosen for them by our colonial past and apartheid, persistent inequalities, poverty, past sexual and physical abuse, the pimps who take advantage of our vulnerabilities, and the men who buy us as prostitutes. Most women are drawn into prostitution at a young age, some as young as 13 years old. Women and girls in prostitution have almost no resources to help them exit the sex trade.
Some of the panellists at the Abuja meeting argued that the basis of sexual exploitation is a culture that sees women as commodities, disposable objects that can be bought and sold. They argued that prostitution is not a female problem but mainly that of the buyer who pays for the human body.
They pointed out that almost all the victims of prostitution and sex trafficking are from marginalised communities. The solution they posited, is to provide the victims with shelter, support and an exit programme while the perpetrators, pimps and customers are penalised.
They argued that unless there was a focus on cutting off demand, humanity would be bogged down with the problem for another thousand years because once there is demand, there will be supply. They pointed out that sex trafficking is not necessarily from one country to another, but that it can be from one room to another. On how to meet the cost of fighting the scourge, they suggested that money can be taken from the traffickers, pimps and sex buyers.
The highlight of the meeting was the screening of the 2019 film ‘Oloture’ which is based on sex trafficking.
I have noticed that each time a new management assumes duty at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), torrents of smear campaign, fabricated stories and fake allegations would be unleashed against the interventionist agency in the social media. In February 2022, a similar series of articles were written against the former management and, as a stakeholder, I had to do some rebuttals against the publications. Just this week, another fake and an obviously fabricated news item, headlined ‘’NDDC Chairperson aborts N25 billion payment as FG sets to domicile the Commission at SGF Office’’, was published in an obscure online platform, ‘’Sahara Weekly’’.
The story, credited to an unnamed source, made two spurious allegations: that there was an attempt in the Commission to pay N25 billion to a state government in the South East and that Hon. Lauretta Onochie would be confirmed as the Executive Chairman in a letter from the Office of the SGF.
It is obvious that the writer of this false story does not know the basic working of a statutory commission like the NDDC and its procurement process. Before a huge payment is made by the NDDC (and indeed any other government agency), such payments must be approved by the Management, Board, Supervising Minister of the agency and the Federal Executive Council. In addition, the Public Procurement Act has also stipulated stringent conditions that would have to me met before such an amount of money is moved from the coffers of a government agency. I can confirm that no request for such payment has ever been considered by NDDC since the new Board was inaugurated on January 5, 2023 – just three weeks ago.
I can recall that the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Mr. Umana Okon Umana, had in his speech during the inauguration of the new Board, admonished them to follow extant public procurement laws, guidelines and rules in all their procurements. The advice also ran though many of the papers delivered at the retreat for the new Board held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, last week. In fact, the first formal meeting of the Board only happened yesterday, several days after the false allegations were published. Clearly, this is just a piece of invented tale designed to damage NDDC.
On the issue of the new Chairman assuming executive function, I can confirm that this is not under any contemplation. The NDDC Act 2000 clearly states that the Chairman of the Board does not have executive status. The law specifies that the Board is made up of three executives: The Managing Director and two Executive Directors (for Projects and Finance & Administration). In fact, previous chairmen of NDDC, Chief Onyema Ugochukwu (a distinguished journalist from Abia State); the late Ambassador Sam Edem (a fine public servant from Akwa Ibom) and Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN (an erudite lawyer and legislator from Cross River) all served on parttime basis. At no time did they ever crave executive responsibilities. It is therefore ludicrous to expect that the Buhari administration, renowned for sticking to due process and rule of law, would issue a letter to controvert a law that has been in operation for close to a quarter of a century. The Chairman of NDDC could only assume executive roles if the law is amended. But that has not happened; and I do not even expect that Madam Onochie, the new Chairman of the Commission, would lend herself for a role that would cause rift and disharmony in the Commission.
I can discern that the ‘’Sahara Weekly’’ story is conjured to create a semblance of a rift within the Board and give an impression of an inchoate infighting in the system. My initial suspicion is that it was planted by those who lost out in the appointment, and would rather bring down the commission since they did not succeed. This was the same kind of publications that were churned out soon after the President ordered a forensic audit into the Commission in 2019. There were palpably fears among certain elements that the audit exercise was a witch-hunt. I wrote several articles trying to calm frayed nerves. I am happy to note that finally, the audit exercise has been concluded, and no witch was ever hunted or found.
The new Board and management are fully settled into their duties now, and they are fully aware of the responsibilities on their shoulders, and most of all, the laws of the land. I recently visited the Headquarters of the Commission and I could sense an aura of calm and confidence among the staffers. There is a strong feeling that NDDC is cutting a new path to achieve its set goals.
Worried about the increasing sex scenes in Nigeria’s movie industry, Nollywood, clergyman and filmmaker Mike Bamiloye has written an open letter to his colleagues in the industry.
In an open letter on his Instagram page, he castigated actors and actresses who kiss and act in erotic movies.
According to him, most of his colleagues act in such scenes due to the money and popularity benefits.
Speaking further, the sexagenarian said such ill scenes have led to many broken marriages and bred distrust between couples.
The founder of Mount Zion Television also accused directors and producers who encourage such acts as lustful.
The 62-year-old dramatist wrote:
HEAR ME, ACTORS AND ACTRESSES!
Dear Movie-Maker,
You think you are doing great movies?
You think you are making money?
You think you are getting popular?
Dear Movie Actor!
You have acted in many Movies in Nigeria and all your achievement in life has been that
You have Kissed several ladies and romanced many girls on film set,
The roles you love to play in movies are Roles where Men have to kiss you and where you have to play love roles.
My Dear Movie Actor!
Honorable Nollywoodian!
How many Ladies have you kissed on movie sets?
Dear Screen Goddess of the Nollywood Empire,
How many Actors have done love scenes with you in Movies?
Different Mouths have Kissed your mouth in the name of being Professional!
You have been Directed by Lustful Directors to romance Ladies on Film set before More than twenty people who are behind the Camera.
It is like playing love with a woman in the market place!
And your Moral Defenses are breaking down daily before your very eyes!
You can no longer control your lust!
Eh! You! Mr. Man,
You are a married Man, and you are kissing many ladies and your wife and children Are watching you in Movies in their homes and you think things will be alright with your wife?
And you think your Children will be OK in their mind?
They see their Mother,
Having hot Romance with other men in Movies they watch,
And they watch the reactions of their father
And you think they will be Alright in their Heart and Mind?
You want to be Professional!
You want to win Awards!
You want to be Nominated for OSCAR! Abi?
So you have to subject yourself to many disgusting actions on Movie set!
You have to allow many other men to climb on you before cameras because your want to be a Screen Goddess!
And your husband and children are also watching many of these Movies
AND YOU THINK THINGS WILL BE ALRIGHT FOR YOUR HUSBAND AND CHILDREN ?
How can your Wife be Alright at home while she watch her husband passionately kissing another lady in a Movie!
What will become of your Children later as they have seen their father kissing and romancing other women in movies.
YOU THINK YOUR WIFE UNDERSTANDS?
YOU THINK YOUR CHILDREN KNOW YOUR PROFESSION?
You console yourself that they know you are Acting as you fondle other ladies Breasts in broad daylight before the whole world!
A 26-year-old student, Victor Adegbulugbe, was on Friday docked in an Ogudu Magistrate’s Court in Lagos for allegedly stabbing another with a broken bottle on the head and back.
The police charged Adegbulugbe, who resides at Kazeem Street, Ojota, Lagos, with counts bordering on assault, a threat to life, grievous confrontation and breach of peace.
He, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The Prosecutor, Insp Donjor Perezi, had told the court that the defendant committed the offence on Jan. 19, 2023, at about 9 a.m. at Muwazani hotel, located on No 22 Ogudu road, Ojota, Lagos State.
Perez told the court that the defendant stabbed one Akeem Adebare during an altercation and threatened the lives of Sharon Eunkoroh and Ibrahim Adebare that he would kill them with a gun.
He said that the offences contravened the provisions of Section 175, 56 (1)(a), 168 and 173 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
According to Section 173, anyone found guilty of the offence will be liable to three years imprisonment.
The Magistrate, Mrs M.O. Tanimola, granted the defendant bail in the sum of N200,000, with two sureties in like sum.
She said that the sureties must be gainfully employed and show evidence of tax payments to the Lagos State Government.
Tanimola adjourned the case until February 15 for mention.
[OPINION] The Good, The Bad, The Ugly Of Oyebanji's 100 Days In Office - Segun Dipe
Written by Admin"Life isn't a matter of milestones but of moments" -Rose Kennedy
Over time, the idea of 100 days in office has been used to measure the success or failure of governments. How right or wrong is this?
100 is a number, it is a factor not a whole. 100 days in office is a tradition, a ritual that officeholders are wont to mark without any consideration for its significance or purpose. It says little or nothing about the landmark reached and it is not enough to determine efficiency or otherwise.
According to the famous American author, 100 days should not be the ideal yardstick to establish the success or otherwise of a leader or government. He further stressed that success or otherwise in 100 days does not really translate into an enduring success afterwards.
The marking of 100 days should not be blamed on Nigerian leaders as it did not originate from them. Like all else imported, they have so celebrated it in Nigeria that it has become jejune, naive, simplistic and superficial.
Pundits wait for an elected office holder's 100 days in office to analyse his high and his low. Rather than be object focused, they are subject focused. Rather than see it as a prism through which the mood in the environment is measured or the barometer to gauge or control certain influences to which the new government is responding to, wailers will see the 100 days as an opportunity to bash the office holder while hailers will see it as an opportunity to hail him.
Success is a process, nay, a journey, not a destination. Sometimes during that journey, there are stones thrown at you which you would have to convert to milestones. Nelson Mandela, symbol of African struggle for independence was of the belief that one must celebrate, not any particular day(s) but those milestones as one journeys through the road.
Milestone is a stone by the side of a road that shows the distance in miles to a specified place or an action or event marking a significant change or stage in development.
With increasing distance and challenges along the way, knowledge fades and fades rapidly and, sometimes, the leader reaches a dim boundary, where he is compelled to measure shadows and search among ghostly errors of measurement for landmarks that are scarcely substantial. This is when it would dawn on such leader that counting landmarks are more important than counting days.
Now, if we must count the first 100 days of Gov. Oyebanji in the Ekiti saddle, we should neither hail nor boo his strides. Rather, we should ex-ray the good, the bad and the ugly circumstances that have influenced the landmark.
The good:
The first good Gov. Biodun Oyebanji built upon in his first 100 days in office is the continuity factor. Continuity of democracy, seamless baton exchange and continuity of governance.
Had the transition been an unsmooth one as we had in the past before the last one between ex-Gov John Kayode Fayemi, JKF and current Gov. Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, BAO, the story would have been different from what we have today. We would have been talking of BAO still trying to navigate his way through and blaming his predecessor for false steps. There would not have been anything to build upon, but a lot to cry about. The succession was smooth and so the environment is peaceful today.
The second good is the activities Oyebanji quickly embarked upon. Because he is not looking for any vain glory, the governor made maintenance of existing infrastructure his low hanging fruit. He worked on roads and light up the highways. He looked at all the pacts in the critical sectors like education, health, agriculture, etc., and ensured that the tempo was sustained. He pushed the credit rating of his predecessor further with the development agencies and inherited not just all his friends, but converted his predecessor's perceived enemies to friends as well.
The bad:
First is the global economy. The economy refers to the wealth and resources of a particular area, and this time, we are talking of the entire world. The global economic instability heralded Oyebanji to government. Ekiti is not insulated from the meltdown the world economy is experiencing. Economic instability and inflation often go hand-in-hand. The factors that influence an economy are currently out of balance. When an economy becomes unstable as we have presently in Ekiti as the rest of the world, there is inflation, which is a decrease in the value of money. This leads to higher prices, higher unemployment rates, and general angst among the people who are trying to survive financially. In other words, people are naturally not happy with the state of the state, whereby people who are supposed to invest are not doing so and people cannot afford to buy much, either. This causes the economy to slow down even more.
The second bad is the rating of the State among the comity of States in the country in terms of all financial indices. Ekiti enjoys low credit rating and has no bragging right to financial independence. Ours is the poorest among the South Western States and second poorest in the country, talking about what we get from the federation account. The state cannot perform much in the area of internally generated revenue either, considering the low yield of investments at the moment. Ekiti, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has a total IGR of less than N7bn and a total GDP of $2.8 billion. This is the reality Gov. Oyebanji is contending with.
The ugly:
The first ugly to war with in his first 100 days in office is the perennially excruciating fuel crisis. It got so bad that a particular party in opposition had to accuse the governor of deliberately stopping the filling stations from selling petrol during its mega rally in the state capital. Place this side by side with the comparably lean pockets of the people in the poor state, then you will understand why the street is not smiling let alone laughing at the moment. However, like every ugly scene, it is a phase that will sooner than later pass.
The second ugly scenario is passing already. The poor security architecture, characterised by the spate of kidnapping. This is also a national malaise and when compared to other states in the federation Ekiti has faired well in curbing it. No one can blame the development on the governor, even if any had happened in the course of the first 100 days at all. But, if you ask me, it isn't increasing, it is decreasing in the state.
The BAO factor:
There is no denying that the person of Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, BAO is warm and affectionate. He is widely acceptable to all and sundry. He is a governor without boundary, spiritually inclined and gives assurances of better days ahead. He does not pretend to be what he is not, neither does he promise what he cannot do.
No sooner he mounted the saddle than he started engaging everyone on the way forward. He promised to chart a new course for Ekiti development through a six-pillar roadmap, which includes Human Capital Development, Agriculture and Rural Development, Infrastructure and Industrialisation, Arts, Culture and Tourism and Governance. Not in the first 100 days but during his four years in the saddle.
BAO quickly showed a transparent determination to boost the State's economy, by commencing talks with agencies of the Federal Government and development partners in Abuja, FCT. He attracted a boost in agriculture, he gave a midas touch to education and health by continuing from where his predecessor stopped. He may not have initiated new ideas yet, but he is putting enough energy into making a success of the existing ones. The infrastructures are receiving a boost. Government facilities are being well-managed. The workers have no reasons to grumble as they get their dues as and when due. BAO has started strong, he is going on strong and he will surely finish strong. No half measures. That, to me, should be his 100-days' rating.
-Segun Dipe is the Ekiti State Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
If today there is one thing that is profoundly certain, it is the incontrovertible fact that our country, Nigeria, has been besieged by anarchism, and has therefore become divisively dysfunctional and a dangerous enclave to dwell in. Our country is infested with the deadly disease of anarchism; a system of existence that is in direct opposition and complete conflict to the established order of things. An order that has continually become a blight, an affliction, and a scourge to its people, the state, its institutions and the foundations, destroying the ideals and ideologies that created, sustained, supported and glorified these institutions.
Anarchism in the simplest sense of it, is a sort of political philosophy or movement that is skeptical of all justifications and expectations for authority, and that which seeks to abolish the inherent institutions. Anarchy, derived from a Greek word that means “have no ruler”, panders to a system that rejects governmental authority in favour of self-governing; being synonymous for chaos, disorder, and the breakdown of civil order. These prescriptive definitions and variables, and more, are the state of anarchism besieging Nigeria today, revealing the moral nuances of the violence, that never reconciles with our existence.
On a daily basis, if not on an hourly rate, anywhere one turns, one is besieged by this anarchism. The form of this anarchism that has taken center stage in our land, is violence; a gross orgy of ugly carnage that churns one’s stomach enough to make one with even the strongest stomach, retch and throw up every single meal in the body. Our established order has been destroyed, creating unbelievable levels of human spontaneity that negates all sensibilities and sensitivities. Everything today points to a society of wickedness, of wanton lack of empathy; a people of ineptitude, of corruption, and of a rapid and declining value for life, for the sanctity of existence and humanity, and of knowing what is right and inimically refusing to do them.
You may call what is plaguing us; social, economic, political or religious anarchism, but its prevalence and portentousness have become enduring or perduring to the point of becoming impediments to our society. These abnormalities are about to destroy everything we are made of. There is not one day, that one does not pick up an item of news, be it from mainline news or social media news, that one is not confronted with misery, with the sad and gory news of wanton and savagery deaths of innocent Nigerians under the most bizarre circumstances and awkward situations.
An argument judiciously used, will point and trace the historical emergence of this anarchist trend to many periods and factors, both from within and without. This point however, looks and feels less contemptible only if one remembers that the origin of disorder and anarchy can be traced beyond and up to the period when bloodletting befell some of us from 1966 to 1970.
However, the emergence of the anarchy that has matured into a sustained national phenomenon today began right from the pogrom and massacre of the Easterners, predominantly the Igbo in the North and in other parts of the country from 1966 to 1970. Once the war ended in January of 1970, and Nigeria failed in properly reconciling the warring factions, and in rehabilitating the vanquished, leaving the Igbo and others adversely affected by that rancid war in desolation, despair and abandonment, the period and process of anarchism set in.
Anarchism was accelerated in the land, when the government of the day, and the Nigeria people invented, cultivated and executed the “scorched earth” doctrine against the losers of that war, and in so doing, got the better of their fellow citizens by refusing to be bound by the laws of reason and common sense, or by the immutable laws of nature. From this point, the Igbo and the others who suffered injustice from that war, began to express themselves in what one may term in a constipated manner; as a people refusing to be subjugated into slavery and struggling to gain dignity in an existence that should portray them as human beings.
Today, the known source of anarchism in Nigeria that can be traced logically to the sordid events of the civil war and its aftermaths, has left no stone unturned, and no area untouched in the challenge of all known norms producing harderned criminal elements both in the political and other spectrums of our lives. This has inherently, defied all standards of morality and decency in our land.
In my undergraduate years, we were taught in our Political Philosophy classes, and I was somewhat convinced, that violence through anarchism was a necessary tool needed in overcoming the obstacles erected by our political systems, and that it was beneficial for our institutional growth, stability and advancement. We were taught that some form of anarchy was needed by individuals and citizens to correct the ills in our society as it provides some form of release of energies for persons to realize the level of powers at their disposal. In other words, that anarchism is good for our society as it makes it possible for transition and fluidity of power to thrive in the instance where “the commander of yesterday can become a subordinate of tomorrow”.
This “Good Anarchy” prompted us university students in the 1970s to take the laws into our hands in enforcing what was deemed by us to be right in correcting the ills of our society. We caused real anarchy – the type that sought to change our society for the good. However, this is not the form of anarchism that we are witnessing in our land today. What reigns supreme today, is anarchism of rape, blind murder, kidnapping, and willful anachronism, causing us to drown in our own tears.
Let it be noted, incidentally, that Nigeria prior to our period of independence from Britain, maintained a relatively peaceful political atmosphere. The audacious criminality that prevails today is a result of the abhorrent ways the country has treated its citizens and the Easterners, especially the Igbo and executed that war in a manifestly ignoble manner and disdainful ways. To belabour these known facts may be an inexcusable burden on this part of our history. Therefore, as we must learn to move on from this somewhat otiose but hapless issue, we must also ponder the advent of the problems in our land and seek solutions.
As I write this difficult essay, I see my job not only as a historian (which I am not), but whose job it may be to trace the chronicles of our problem, and in so doing, give a voice to the oppressed, the vanquished, and feel the past in ways that will genuinely liken its disturbing occurrences to our present uncomfortable lives.
It is glaringly evident that the evil that now besets our land flows from the past and present men’s purposes, desires and beliefs, and derives also from some fundamental wickedness and ignorance. The killings, the rape, the beheading, the kidnapping, the burning, the looting and all the senseless destruction – all occurring simultaneously all over our country, are clear signs of anarchism.
I am tempted to list a few of the anarchisms in our country, but where can one start and where can one end? Is it the case of the Chibok school children who were kidnapped and extinguished, the many innocent citizens in their hundreds of thousands who have lost their lives to senseless murderous anarchists, criminals and vandals, or the vandalization and sacking of prisons, churches, mosques, schools, markets? What about the kidnapping and beheading of a member of the Anambra State House of Assembly? They cut off his head, hoisted it on a pole and paraded it on the streets of this man’s hometown. What about the revered Head of The Methodist Church who was kidnapped or rather captured, as it appears that we are at war? They took the man of God into the jungle, tortured and humiliated him while extorting huge amount of money from his congregation. Again, what about the absolutely horrific recent incident of Catholic priest, Father Isaac Achi, who was burnt to death in his rectory – the sanctuary of God? These frightening occurrences are anarchisms of the highest order and dire consequences.
The most scary thing about this issue, is that government is helpless and hopeless. There are myths and there are dogmas, and there are so many other reconstructed views and contrasts about these ugly occurrences, but what is abundantly clear is that we are all in trouble. It appears that there is not a single answer to the catastrophe, and that no amount of any ingenious attempt of those who lead us now can resolve these problems of cataclysmic bloodshed and destruction.
Today, a groundswell of discontent and anarchy has become the prevailing norm of our life – it is now a moment of shame for every one of us as we stand at a crossroad, and witness a moment of great challenge. Our country is at war, a battle of lugubrious licentiousness, our economy is in turmoil, our planners are in peril, and anarchism rules the land.
An honest confrontation and reflection with our past history, I believe will liberate us, at least if from nothing, from the moral burden that should free us from the shackles of our many national tragic stories in order that we might create ourselves anew. Specifically, the senseless killing of Ahmadu Bello, Tafawa Balewa, Samuel Akintola, Okotie Ebo and other politicians in the January 15, 1966 military coup signaled one of the early waves of our deleterious and repulsive bloodletting. Then entered another perniciously and cowardly marked period in our bloody history; the gruesome assassination of Aguiyi Ironsi, Adekunle Fajuyi and scores of other military officers of mainly Igbo extraction and of Eastern Nigeria origin.
As if these killings were not enough, the entire North from Makurdi to Jos, Sokoto to Maiduguri, Kano to Katsina, Zaria to Zangon Kataf, Kaduna to Kafanchan, Bauchi to Malunfashi, performed the worst kind of holocaust in the history of mankind when the people from these zones conducted the pogrom against the Igbo and other Easterners maiming and killing hundreds of thousands mostly children and women – even pregnant ones and their unborn babies. What followed these sordid events became even more gruesome; the Biafra war, where the blood of over 3 million innocent people were used to irrigate the fertile land of Eastern Nigeria.
The rehashing of these tragic histories, should not be a recriminatory one, but should serve as a trace of the beginning of anarchism in our land, and should question if Nigeria is ready, or need to pursue the opportunity to shatter the myths and denials that seek to secure our innocence or guilt from these sins and evilness. In doing so, I reckon that we must all repudiate the injustices of the past, and face the consequences of our ignoble actions, otherwise we will all remain impaled on an unseemly history of deadly anarchism.
Try as I may to tell a different, better story about how we arrived at where we are today, we must exorcise the ghosts that will never leave us alone, because we have not atoned for our sins, and have refused to admit to, and confront our problems directly by working hard for a better Nigeria and by putting aside our old hate, our tired fears and the histories that justify them.
Our government’s infestation with cronyism, ineptitude and corruption encapsulate its error-proneness and its congenital incapacity, or its reluctance, one may think, to deal or cope decisively with these problems and the exogenous awe and shocks these anarchisms present. Averse to these tendencies that aggravate our vulnerabilities, our leaders hem in their ignorance and their overbearing inflexibilities in dealing with these repulsively grotesque killings and anarchy that have bludgeoned us into total submission.
Similarly, the impetuous inclination by our politicians to ride on the crest of these anarchists in furtherance of their mindless political agendas, has become part of these chronic instabilities. After all, we have been told that the deadly Boko Haram terrorist group was the creation of certain known politicians who are now, inconveniently, riding in the bilious bellies of the vicious tigers they created.
As I write about these inconvenient truths, I am sure that many, due to premodial reasons do not see any value or sense in my essay. Even for those who do not see the sickening evilness and vileness that have befallen us, can they not at least appreciate the catharsis my pacifist positions bring to our sepulchral situation in a country overtaken by anarchism?
Admittedly, there is statistical evidence to prove that our country has become a dystopian nightmare. We have lived to legitimize anarchy and treated this demonstrable destabilization of our fractured land like they are worthy of the same consideration as normalcy.
What is clear, is that after over 50 years of our consistent pharaonic decline, the Nigerian people earnestly yearn to recapture the civilizational glories of our past. But what is not clear, is who in our political landscape would do this revival, the reconstruction and the recapturing?
Nevertheless, my interpretive gaze at this situation, provides a perspectival shift that acknowledges that we have made our beds full of thorns and scorpions, but that our redemption may only come from our collective voice of conscience speaking from a universal point that is motivated and driven by love and kindness towards one another.
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[OPINION] President Buhari’s extension of the IGP’s tenure is patently unconstitutional and illegal - Mike Ozekhome
Written by AdminThe announced extension of the tenure and reappointment of the Lafia, Nassarawa State-born retired 20th Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed Abubakar Adamu is patently and outrightly unconstitutional, illegal, and even immoral. Adamu had served Nigeria for 35 whopping years, when his tenure expired on February 1, 2021, by effluxion of service years in accordance with extant laws. He had given his very best, which though hardly above average, was miles apart and far better than his disastrous and highly political and politicised Niger State – born predecessor, Ibrahim Kpotun Idris.
He duly retired on February 1, 2021. Is Adamu the only qualified Nigerian to be the IGP in a country of about 2010 million people? Didn’t the president and the presidency know very well before now that his term was due to expire by effluxion of time on 1st February? Why was this self-imposed sense of urgency that has now enlisted a fire brigade approach, which is patently unconscionable and unfair to servicing police officers, who look forward to occupying the now vacant position?
This was how they promoted and egged on Mr Ibrahim Magu, ex- Acting Chairman of the EFCC. They said only him could be EFCC Chairman and could therefore act in office forever, till kingdom come, in an acting capacity, notwithstanding his two- time rejection by the confirmatory authority, the Senate of Nigeria. The rejection was based on a damning report by the same Government’s secret Police report (the DSS), to the effect that Magu suffered serious integrity test.
It is now Adamu. The same forces, the sectionalistic, prebendalistic and nepotic forces are at work. They have already flown the kite that the president will appoint the next IGP simply on merit. Of course Nigerians now know that merit is a cruel euphemism for a Northern Moslem. Is this how to grow a pluralistic country? Didn’t they see the rainbow coalition and “Dolly Parton’s ‘Coat of Many Colours” represented by Joe Biden’s cabinet?
The law
Sections 214,215 and 216 of the 1999 Constitution and Section 7 of the Nigeria Police Act are quite clear that any action by Adamu after February 1, 2021, is null, void and of no effect whatsoever. Section 215 (1)(a) provides: There shall be- (a) An Inspector-General of Police subject to 216(20 of this Constitution shall be appointed by the President on the advice of Nigeria Police Council from among serving members of the Nigeria Police Force. The same Section, 215 (3) states that: The President or such Minister of the Government of the Federation as he may authorize in that behalf may give to the Inspector-General of Police such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order as he may consider necessary, and the Inspector-General of Police shall comply with those directions or cause them to be complied with.
Section 7(6) of the Nigeria Police Act 2020, provides thus: “A person who is appointed as the Inspector General of Police Shall hold office for four years”. Section 18(8) of the same Police Act 2020 states: ‘Every Police officer “Shall” on recruitment or appointment, served in the Nigeria Police Force for a period of 35 years or until he attain the aged of 65 years, which ever one is earlier. The use of the word “shall” by the statute makes it impossible for the tenure of IGP be extended by any person.
In IBRAHIM & ORS. V. AKINRINSOLA (2010) LPELR-4144 (CA) conveys a peremptory and compulsory meaning. See National Bank of Nigeria V Alakija (1978) 9-10 SC. 59, Achineku V Ishagba (1988) 4 N.W.L.R. Pt. 89 p. 411- Ishola V Ajiboye (1994) 6 N.W.L.R. Pt.352 p.506.” Per RHODES-VIVOUR, J.C.A (P. 5, paras. F-G).
The president cannot therefore administrately amend the Police Act, 2020, by extending the tenure of the IGP. The executive does not make laws.It executes laws made by the National Assembly, as provided for in section 214 (2) (a).
By the way, when last did we hear Mr president convey a meeting of the Nigeria Police Council as provided for in section 27 of the third Schedule to the 1 1999 Constitution? That council comprises of Mr president as Chairman, all the Governors of the 36 states, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission and the IGP.
What we have seen all along is Mr president solely appointing an IGP and also solely elongating his tenure in a most unconstitutional, illegal, unlawful, capricious, whimsical and arbitrary manner. We must learn to be followers of laws and not men, a country where we build strong institutions and not strongmen.
Chief Ozekhome (SAN) is a human rights activist and constitutional law expert
President Buhari jetted out to Senegal where he plans to participate in Dakar International Conference on agriculture after commissioning some landmark projects in Lagos State last Tuesday. That he was undertaking the trip even as fuel scarcity which started towards the end of last year bites harder once again confirms his failed administrative style of ‘delegation by abdication’, a euphemism for absence of governance. Probably humoured by his “loyal gatekeepers” serving other tendencies in his government, Buhari on whose table the buck stops as an elected president, has continued to behave like a feudal lord presiding over the affairs of his subjects. Unfortunately, this was the messiah his people craved and voted for only to be only to be left at the mercy of wild wolves who fraudulently swear by his name.
Buhari’s unnecessary trip at a period many Nigerians were spending the night on queues while struggling to procure government’s N160 per litre subsidised fuel at between N184-N400, perhaps explains why he lost the goodwill of millions of his fellow compatriots. But then this has been the feature of Buhari’s close to eight years reign.
Miyyetti Allah wrote him a 72-page letter even before his inauguration in 2015, threatening to make the country ungovernable except their demands of free open grazing all over the country was met. Buhari left the fate of besieged Nigerians in the hands of Miyyeti Allah sympathisers and his “loyal gate keepers” serving other tendencies in his government. Even as they unleashed terror killing 72 in one day and confiscating conquered subsistence farmers territories, Buhari could not resist quoting his ‘loyal gatekeepers’ herdsmen sympathisers who had blamed the victims for being bad hosts and for altering the old colonial grazing routes.
Buhari’s “loyal gatekeepers” similarly had the last say on the issue of open grazing. Southern and the Middle Belt states banned open grazing. The Northern Governors Forum, according to Nasir El Rufai also “took a position on open grazing as not a sustainable way of livestock production”, adding that his own government had already embarked on a N10b ranching project, backed by CBN with N7.5b.”
Yet President Buhari ignored the National Economic Council (NEC)’s 2018 National Livestock Transformation Plan (NCTD), a N179 billion 10-year initiative, to embrace in May 2019, his “loyal gatekeepers’ controversial Rural Grazing Area(RUGA), most Nigerians believed was designed to compensate immigrant Fulani herdsmen involved in mindless killing and confiscation of victim’s landed properties.
It is also on record that Nigerians vehemently opposed rehabilitation and compensation of repentant killer herdsmen as proposed by Sheik Gumi and some of the president loyal gatekeepers. As it has turned out, the latter’s specious and iniquitous position has since become part of government policy thrust with disastrous consequences for the nation following coordinated and targeted attacks by terrorists on military formations and prisons.
Set in his ways, President Buhari has also adopted the above template for addressing the ongoing fuel crisis. He has since November last year left Nigerians at the mercy of those holding them hostage viz: the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN); the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
MOMAN attributed the lingering fuel scarcity in the country to high costs of vessels and inadequate trucks to deliver petroleum products from depots to filling stations across Nigeria. They claim ‘high logistics and exchange rate costs continue to put pressure on their operations with ripple effects on the pump price.’ They complain of “inadequate number of trucks to meet the demand to deliver products from depots to filling stations nationwide”.
Unfortunately, the marketers did not tell Nigerians what happened to old trucks in use or if there has been an increase in consumption despite head of Custom’s dismissal of current bandied figure of consumption as a scam. They complain about high cost of dollar making Nigerian consumers to wonder if naira has ceased being a legal tender especially since the product in question is in Nigeria.
The NNPC, perhaps Nigeria’s greatest scourge, on its part blamed the fuel queues in Lagos, Abuja and other states on some ongoing construction projects which caused diversion of vehicles. Since NNPC could not even maintain its depots, MOMAN’s chief executive officer, Clement Isong, claimed it was “working with the NNPC Ltd. to improve the distribution of petrol across the country by “doing depot to depot check-in and check-out to enhance efficiency, in addition to logistic supply meetings with NNPCL”.
And this is as IPMAN also linked the distribution crisis to the vandalism of depots belonging to the NNPC Limited. IPMAN president, Chinedu Okoronkwo also explained that since 80 percent of NNPC depots have been vandalised, the product is now being kept in the depots of private individuals, who bear the cost of transporting the product from the ports to their depots.
Spokesmen of these institutions have continued to speak from both sides of the mouth. For instance, while scarcity persists despite the government’s repeated claims it had enough petroleum products in stock, the industry’s regulatory body, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), spoke of insufficient supply. IPMAN also announced through its deputy president, Zarma Mustapha that the volume of products supplied to marketers at the loading points has dropped by about 50 per cent. But he then went on to accuse the private depots of contributing to the nightmare of consumers for “not giving the product as it is being regulated by the NNPC”.
Of course Nigerians are being swindled. How does one explain MOMAN’s apology to Nigerians for the pain they cause Nigerians, and their declaration that “Our members have again agreed to extend depot loading hours as well as keep strategically situated service stations open for longer hours to ease access to fuels for our customers”? Where, if one may ask, will the new supply come from?
But if anyone is still in doubt as to those holding us hostage and their long term objective, MOMAN provided that by declaring that “A final resolution to these challenges will be the full deregulation of the petroleum downstream sector to encourage liberalisation of supply and long-term investments in distribution assets…urging the government to work towards this end goal”.
For 15 years of PDP politicians’ reign, private depots were the major channels for defrauding Nigeria. Close to eight years of Buhari and his loyal gatekeepers’ government of change, Zarma Mustapha has also fingered them as biggest source of leakage. The difference however is that under the Jonathan presidency, we were treated as citizens while under Buhari and his “loyal gatekeepers”, we are being treated as subjects.
The objective of both regimes however is the same: fleece Nigerians while both suffer from the same affliction – absence of governance.
A leader like Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand doesn’t come in tens. Not even in twos. And so, it was such a bright day on October 26, 2017, when she took office as New Zealand’s Prime Minister.
She was 37 years old and also the youngest head of government at the time. What’s there not to love?
But now, more than five years later, she has announced the withdrawal of that special light as she resigns the position, stating that she “no longer had enough in the tank” to carry on in office.
“I’m leaving, because with such a privileged role comes responsibility – the responsibility to know when you are the right person to lead and also when you are not. I know what this job takes. And I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It’s that simple,” she said.
Leaving office citing burnout is not what politicians do often, but leaving office at 42 when you are almost certain to win at the next general election definitely leaves many of us from the continent with a certain level of bewilderment.
When Ms. Ardern said politicians are human and should therefore know when it’s time to quit, one was glad, for her sake, that her audience was far from Africa. A number of our leaders would have laughed her off.
Home to the oldest and longest-serving presidents and heads of government, African leaders and even the followers will probably never be able to understand what Ms. Ardern meant by burnout.
Burnout means, for example, that 89-year-old Cameroonian President, Paul Biya, should have been long gone and spared himself and his country that pathetic performance at last December’s US-Africa summit where after being towed on stage, and wired to speak, he was still asking himself where he was.
“I didn’t ask to be here,” Biya told a bemused gathering, and then added drowsily as the boom mic was being fastened, “I’ve become a celebrity!”
Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, reported as one of the first African leaders to ever resign voluntarily from office, stepped down only after 21 years, and he was about 63 years old. With that, Ms. Ardern would have done four terms and more.
Another, of course, was Nelson Mandela, who without even the slightest pressure from any quarters declined to run for a second term. But then one can also argue that age was no longer on his side, and that the tank was inevitably empty.
We can also mention one, two or even more scattered on the continent’s political landscape but the rarity of it all makes Ardern voluntary resignation our own modern-day unicorn.
Nigeria’s former President and Mandela-wannabe, Olusegun Obasanjo, became military head of state at 39. Twenty-three years later, he ran for office as civilian president and won. He ran for a second term and won. And then after exhausting his constitutional two-term limit, deployed foot soldiers who splurged nearly $500m in a futile bid to secure a third term, according to the book by Chidi Odinkalu and Ayisha Osori, Too Good to Die.
Of course, the world has also seen outliers like Winston Churchill who became British Prime Minister at 66 and was re-elected at 77. The Ardern message is not necessarily about age, else Liz Truss who became Prime Minister nearly 20 years younger than Churchill wouldn’t have been such a disaster. Nor is physical condition necessarily a barrier as the extraordinary record of US President and paralytic, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, showed.
It’s about moments, about knowing when to say, enough, for the greater good.
Ardern’s resignation caught many unawares, especially when all she has come to represent in the past five years is weighed in.
In 2017, at a time when the United States of America’s 45th President, Donald Trump, was inspiring the rise of far-right leaders such as Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, a different type of leadership sprung up in New Zealand.
She joined the Labour Party at the age of 17. After graduating from the University of Waikato in 2001, Ms. Ardern worked as a researcher in the office of Prime Minister Helen Clark. She later worked in London as an adviser in the Cabinet Office during Tony Blair’s premiership.
In 2008, Ms. Ardern was elected president of the International Union of Socialist Youth. She was first elected as an MP in the 2008 general election, when Labour lost power after nine years. She was later elected to represent the Mount Albert electorate in a by-election on 25 February 2017.
As her tenure as prime minister ends on February 7, it appears that Ms. Ardern has become a victim of her own success.
And, yes, she has had an amazing run as a leader in today’s world.
But perhaps, her handling of the COVID-19 crisis will continue to separate her from many others. When the pandemic broke out, she listened to science and locked down early and strictly. And when vaccines became available, New Zealand’s vaccination drive was matched by only a few countries. These measures made New Zealand record one of the fewest transmission rates and COVID-related deaths.
She left the hyped super powers gasping and trailing behind her and her country as they dealt with increasing body-bag numbers.
But the world we live in is a strange one in that Ms. Ardern’s exemplary leadership during a global health crisis also earned her more than a few new enemies.
Quoting data from Newhub, The Guardian wrote in June 2022 that threats against the outgoing prime minister almost tripled over three years. The data showed that she received 18 threats in 2019, 32 in 2020, and 50 in 2021.
The threats, police records show, were mainly from conspiracy movements and anti-vax groups.
These people went to the extent of occupying and attacking parliament and calling for Ms. Ardern’s public trial and execution. One fellow even posted on YouTube that he had a legal right and obligation to assassinate the prime minister!
When she was confronted with the Christchurch Mosque attack, a mass shooting committed by a far-right extremist in March 2019, her deft and quietly revolutionary crisis management skills earned her global accolade.
Her handling of the Christchurch shooting got noticed around the world, especially her ability to articulate a form of leadership that embodies strength and sanity while pushing an agenda of compassion and community which she herself termed “pragmatic idealism”.
Ms. Ardern’s effort to regulate firearms since the Christchurch attack has been met with vehement, bitter and bigoted opposition by far-right rebels and their co-conspirators.
Every of Ms. Ardern’s actions, including when she retreated to the back of the room to breastfeed her three-month-old child, has been dangerously blown out of proportion with unnecessary scrutiny by a section of the New Zealand media loyal to the extreme right wing.
Understandably, her successor-in-waiting, Chris Hipkins, has vowed to protect his family from what he called the “abhorrent” abuse that his predecessor received while in office. He told Ardern’s bullies that, although he would become “public property” as prime minister, his family wouldn’t be.
Ms. Ardern’s “sins” may never be forgiven by her adversaries and she may require a special type of security arrangement for herself and her family after February 7. The good news, however, is that New Zealand’s conspiracy theorists and their far-right anti-vax friends in the media would have to search for new prey.
Ms. Ardern said she was looking forward to finally getting married to her partner, Clarke Gayford, and also to later this year when her daughter, Neve Te Aroha, starts school.
Hopefully, her assistants and cyberbullies will allow her to enjoy her new life outside politics.
But head or tails, her immediate family – partner Clarke Gayford and daughter Neve Te Aroha – appears to be the biggest gainers of Ms. Ardern’s decision to relinquish the reins.
It will be a year in a few weeks since Russia stormed Ukraine in a war Ukraine did not want and for which it was least prepared. And when you would think calm was around the corner, as in the nature of all storms, the Russian storm began to rise and escalate. From usually a small almost inconsequential beginning, a storm gathers strength as it develops. The core storm and the supporting subsidiary winds are gathered into one force. Driven and thrown up. Empty drums are driven, first rolling at a terrific speed and noise, and like an aeroplane shot into the air. Sands and pebbles are blown in a blinding rage and demoniac velocity. Waters are muddied and polluted. Trees are shaken if not felled, and ripe as well as unripe fruits fall.
The picture of a natural phenomenon called storm in a desert or hurricane in the temperate region is the same as the seemingly artificially induced storm called war—in the present time Russia-Ukraine War: meetings and resolutions; war machine which includes propaganda, and the operation itself—soldiers armed to the teeth in war fatigue, and bombardment, destruction, casualties and fleeing into safety for dear lives, all encapsulated euphemistically described as campaign raids!
Let’s recall, Russia-Ukraine hostilities began when trigger-happy and ruthless war monger Mr. Putin massed 100,000 troops to Ukraine borders. He told the alarmed world that the troops were there only for drilling and he was going to call them back to their barracks. To the chagrin of the world, but more to the uninitiated, within a few days later, Russian tanks were driven into Ukraine with Putin giving all kinds of unconvincing reasons to fair-minded observers for the invasion.
I have been following the Russian-Ukraine War very closely and how I wished the protagonists knew what burden of guilt they have been heaping on themselves and the dire consequences awaiting the aggressors and their supporters. Threads of retributive justice bind all until every guilt is atoned for and the minutest dust is severed. In the operation of the self-enforcing Law of Reciprocal Action each person, or collectively as a nation in multiple measure of each party’s contribution, here or hereafter, in the dark region of the beyond or when back here on earth, pays severely for his part.
The airwaves and other media portals have been filled with stories of seeming gathering of powerful weapons of destruction to take on Russia in the defence of Ukraine. The United States and its allies sent heavy weapons to Ukraine. The US has $16.8 billion in weapons and other aids. With its allies, Canada and Australia, the US planned to send what they term ‘advanced M777’ howitzers which have longer range than Russia’s similar gun. On Tuesday it was reported that Germany was sending Leopard 2 tanks; the United Kingdom was deploying 12 Challenger 2 heavy tanks, its own brand of Germany’s Leopard. Dutch and Polish leaders have announced plans to do the same—the assembling of weapons undoubtedly signaling the pathway to the possibility of a Third World War. What with the times in which we are bringing to bear on her characteristics of acceleration and intensification of events, an unprecedented awakening pressure on and separation among mankind even in opinions. According to the enlightenment of these times, the unique Star, The Great Comet riding under the wings of the Holy Spirit, the Justice Arm of the Most High, is descending with its purification gale to sweep through the entire earth, the consequences of which will change the face of the world.
The frightening state of the world has been brought about by the often mentioned aberrant conduct of mankind. How can anyone hope to pass with the mindless destruction of property and lives being inflicted on Ukraine and in our own land remorseless killings, kidnapping and banditry. Since the behaviour of man has not changed a jot to the extent of being filled with utter disgust for the aberrations, respite may not be foreseen in the horizon. The scenario can be likened to the predicament of a man who is flung off a conveyor belt. Provided he makes every effort to regain his balance he will continue to be thrown off and will be harmed to the extent of breaking his arm, leg or back depending on the depth of the fall and the point of impact—that is unless he behaves himself on that belt; unless he cooperates with the conveyor belt by learning and adjusting to its rules. The conveyor belt will not be stopped on account of any person who ought to sit balanced on it and in cooperation with it, but chooses to disregard its rules. And pleading is not the answer. Ignorance of what is required, that is of the law, as lawyers would say, is not an excuse.
We are familiar with the workings of a conveyor belt at airports and belts in mills or plants. However, a majority of us do not recognize this in mechanism of life and we elect not to do so. Otherwise, how can we see our world as one without rules except those drawn up by us which in a majority of cases do not accord with the conveyor belt rules of life? The conveyor belt rules are permanent. They are points of reference; the yardstick by which all other rules must be judged. They are accessible; they are simple. In contrast, the rules we fashion are impermanent, subject to changes and amendments. They are inaccessible and complex, products of limited understanding. The rules are made for a world of which they are not its makers, and there is the assumption that its Maker has no need to draw up rules on how He expects His work to function. He is accorded less wisdom than the auto-maker who prints manuals to guide users of his automobiles.
In the Russia-Ukraine War as in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) we may not know enough and so it will be hard to apportion blame as such. Only observations can be made and these are even skin-deep observations. To be able to apportion blame, there must be a standard against which all happenings are gauged, a standard that is changeless; a standard that is universal and accessible, that is beyond the reach of political and economic changes, revolutions, upheavals, earthquakes or drought; it is absolute standard for all times. That the world is divided on what is right and who was wrong even if unequally, is proof that the world has not come to the recognition of that standard, and where it may have been recognized certainly by an insignificant handful, it has not been met. The standard has existed in all ages—eternally. It is the Truth Itself. Truth comes only from Above. Thus standards, virtues come only from Above. They cannot go from below up. They cannot emanate from mankind. Human beings can only receive virtues, recognize them, adapt them as their standards.
They cannot receive standards with their brains but their being, the true being, the true being within them, the ability they carry deep within them, ability which goes beyond the confines of this world, not being of this world. Man himself, is the animating core. This is why, because our schools and colleges are principally to develop the brains to impart skills to fend for oneself, these colleges cannot teach the truth. It can be recognized there as elsewhere because it is universal and accessible to all, including those outside colleges. Any wonder we are struck by deep and refreshing wisdom from even farm hands that never saw the walls of these colleges. The point being made is that since many a human being has neglected to grapple with truth, he has deviated from it, and is lacking in virtues. Consequently, he is brutalized, and unfeeling. So, he goes to war; he resorts to killings, kidnapping, terrorism and banditry. Since his misconduct even when expressed is attached to him, he is burdened by seeds of continual misbehaviour—wrong concepts, actions and statements. These, hitherto inactive in him, are now being driven into activity. All that is dead shall be awakened, it is said. That is, all that slumbers in a person shall be animated, unhinged so that its author can experience the consequences of his wrong actions and opinions. The experiences may bring him pains, sorrow, war, and when he does not, any longer, enjoy the experiences, he moves away from them, from the causes out of disgust. Will the Ukraine victims of the Russia-Ukraine War or the war in DRC (Democratic Republic Of Congo) not wish that an end be put to the hostilities in their lands not a day longer?
With our brains, we arrange, put together and elucidate what is discovered. What is discovered is already in existence. It is only uncovered. We may use the intellect to arrange, say through manufacturing, fashioning to facilitate our lives in what we call technologies. But technologies in themselves do not make man nor do they improve his character or quality of his worth. Thus technology without character leads to destruction, to a feeling of might being right. And we can read this from the arrogant conduct of Putin’s Russia. It brandishes its arsenals to exhibit might, and to destroy in apparent pursuit of expansionism. The only facility equipped to recognize what is right, what is noble and virtuous is the animating core of each of us—which recognition comes to it by its nature and relayed through the intuition, its voice. As this core is developed, it gains in clarity of recognition.
The stages of development are marked by epochs during which we are permitted new and higher revelations and recognitions of the truths of life. That core is man himself and is to direct our lives, itself the receptacle for guidance from On High. Our intellect being its instrument is to be directed by it. The reverse is the case today. Thus the primordial ordinance has been disarranged by we human beings and the intuition is no longer allowed its role; it has been cut off and with it its guidance. Consequently, mankind are wholly dependent on themselves and their limitations.
The whole world is standing in a new epoch, epoch of knowledge and one in which through the power of the Holy Spirit and its Messenger, The Great Comet, it is an epoch in which judgment is being released, in which cycles are closing, the end going back to the beginning. When frayed nerves are calmed and there is stock-taking, the magnitude of the devastation that is taking place will dawn on the world, particularly in Ukraine, the country most hit and which has a rebuilding to do. It is a pity! It is a pity–a great pity!
George Okoro and Ayo Olukotun
Two great men whose paths I had the fortune of crossing and who were very dear to me and to whom I owe a huge debt of grateful thankfulness have departed earthly life. They are George Okoro and Professor Ayo Olukotun. George Okoro was my teacher my boss while Ayo Olukotun was my close colleague. When I was publisher of National Compass, Olukotun was chairman of the Editorial Board. It was not at the Compass that our paths first crossed; it was in the Sunday Times at Kakawa Street. He was our reporter in Ibadan and I was a sub-editor, with Dipo Ajayi from Lagos Weekend in the saddle, holding fort for Gbolabo Ogunsanwo who was on vacation. Since I had the responsibility to gather stories in addition to my normal schedule of cleaning up copies and prepare them for the works, we had no choice but to relate very closely, sometimes with shouting from me. It was a short spell. So when we met at Compass we were no strangers to ourselves. That was where our interactions became enriching and impactful. Prof. Olukotun as is demanded of us by the profession, read voraciously, and this was reflected in his language. One could not but be struck by the freshness of his language and robustness of his thoughts. Never for him a tired word. He was cerebral. And he had those sunshine smiles to beam and could laugh effortlessly, the later an area in which we shared credentials and so drew closer still.
(Full tributes to both men next week as I had the deadline signal ticking).