When preparation unites with expectations and opportunity – results happen. For every feat, there must be diligent preparation and effort. Nothing takes shape in disarray, grumbling and victim complex. We, the Igbo, cannot sit by the Rivers of Babylon and lament our way to the presidency. We cannot have what we are not ready or prepared for. If work had been put in by Igbo political leaders in the past six years — forging alliances and mobilising consciences — the right atmosphere would have been created for the zoning of the presidency to the south-east by the foremost political parties…
Author: Frederick Nwabufo
In the heat of the 2018 killings by criminals, I received a deluge of broadcast messages steeped in conspiracy theories of how the government was backing certain criminal groups in their festival of bloodletting. According to one of the well-noised fibs, the government was paving the way, through militias, for the occupation of Nigeria and for the domination of ethnic nationalities by the Fulani. One notorious conspiracy theory claimed the killings were the surreptitious agenda of a powerful clique in government who were working at conquering territories and forcibly converting Nigerian locals to Islam. Another canard said the government was…
Why do we seek angels in the realm of humans? There are no messiahs, angels or a Doctor Strange to magic our problems away. We are all humans – fatally flawed but blessed species. Politics is not a game of piety and leadership is beyond moral sanctimony. We have to get down to brass tacks and deal with the real issues of leadership as regards the personalities we throw up for elective office. The real issues of leadership as it concerns Nigeria are the capacity to bring about positive change in the system; initiate structural growth and development; build citizens’…
To whom do we owe allegiance – our tribe or Nigeria? The reality is some of us, if not most, define our existence and identity from a tribal standpoint. We think in tribal amplitude and act in protection of the tribe. Our tribe comes first; we steal, fight and even kill for the tribe. The nation as an entity is split into disparate collections of kinfolk with unrequited loyalty. This is the trouble with Nigeria. The state is perpetually slaughtered for the tribe. We must give up tribal allegiance. Like I said in the column, ‘Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba must surrender…
What does Nigeria mean to me? It means hope and promise of a greater now and future; it means resilience and courage to rise from dust and nothing; it means purpose in disarray, unity in diversity, brotherhood in divergence and love even in dangerous times. It will be a violent lie to say Nigeria is perfect or that it is all plain sailing for the country. Nigeria is perhaps in the throes of grating insecurity like never before; unemployment is soaring, inflation galloping and infrastructure decaying. The country is beset with problems all-around. But Nigeria does not stay down. It…
The unfinished business. Just as uncompleted projects line the arteries of Nigeria, inchoate probes and investigations afflict the system. It appears probes are exploited to keep Nigerians busy and excited in an elaborate conspiracy and to cover up official malfeasance – and in some cases to ‘’blackmail and extort’’ — as it is the case with national assembly investigations. I recall the probe of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) by the national assembly in 2020. After the pyrotechnics and theatrics, the very essence of the investigation was lost — or perhaps interred. Some federal lawmakers and ministers were accused…
The Africa Investment Forum, a conference where the finest melange of the continent’s leaders and policymakers on one side — and investors, big businesses, critical industry players on the other wing — converge to discuss, decide and transact deals on exigent matters affecting Africa such as healthcare, food security, electricity, and transportation will take place this year from December 1 to 3 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. The Forum which began in 2018 is a solution-primed initiative to create targeted investments and capital for the continent to meet its infrastructural needs. The Africa Investment Forum Market Days event brings together investors,…
In Nigeria’s politics, the north holds the trump card – an inconvenient reality. By the inexorable contrivance of the divine, the northern region is a chief decider of the nation’s leadership. Since the country’s independence in 1960, the north has had the political Midas touch. Although some Nigerians are of the opinion that the British contrived the political advantage the north enjoys, the region has over the years shown more purpose, singularity and direction on matters of Nigeria’s leadership. The north has never wavered or quivered about its interest in Nigeria. Ignore the north at your own peril. We can…
We hear ‘’strong man’’, and the visage of a rotund, bumbling African dictator in Khaki and jackboots comes to mind. But permit me to appropriate the word and re-contextualise it for the purpose of this column. In my context, a ‘’strong man’’ embodies discipline, audacity, courage, and character. Nigeria needs a ‘’strong man’’ as president in 2023 – one who is not afraid to be unpopular by taking critical reformist decisions and actions. The times are perilous. Nigeria needs a sanitiser, a vacuumer; one who is not afraid to dare the undared. Some people say: “We need strong institutions not…
The Economist, the international weekly newspaper, has been steadfast and dutiful on its pursuit of a solitary narrative about Nigeria. Going by this newspaper’s disposition towards Nigeria, it appears there is only doom and gloom in the country; Nigeria is a place where the sun never rises; there is always darkness, chaos, and an abundance of pestilence and starving children. If I may add, Nigerians live in huts and swing from trees like monkeys. I think this sombre colouring of Nigeria by the Economist comes from a place of complex. The newspaper founded about 178 years ago is respected for…
October 2020 is a watershed in Nigeria’s revolutionary history. It is a time that evokes courage, trepidation, solemnity, and despair. Nigerian consciences across divides mobilised and made demands on the government – to end police brutality – with the #EndSARS campaign. Regime power succumbed to people power – but sadly in the end, the citizens’ action was commandeered and miscarried. Like most Nigerians, I was in support of the protest before it was seized and deployed for violence. Protests are only natural in a democracy. In fact, they are evidence that democracy is still kicking. But violence in whatever form…
Nigeria is not in short supply of true leaders. The country’s diversity and generous human resources offer a limitless pool of talents, skills, abilities and character. Nigeria is blessed with all that a nation needs to be a lodestar in the galaxy of nations. But why do misfits end up in the cockpit here? The recruitment process has a bias for ethnic and religious emotionalism. The enlistment process is the snag — fundamentally. The political recruitment process at the party level is fatally flawed. Candidates for election are selected not on the content of their character, antecedents, abilities, and verifiable…
How much money, property does a man need? I am compelled to believe that the faculty for primitive accumulation is a pre-historic flaw of the African species. From Mobutu Sese Seko, former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo; General Sani Abacha of Nigeria, to Teodorin Obiang, vice-president of Equatorial Guinea; Jacob Zuma of South Africa, and many others in the corruption phylum, African leaders and public officers appear to be the most afflicted by the midge of acquisitiveness. Why would any normal human entrusted with public funds, stash away millions of dollars in tax havens and buy sprawling estates…
Power. It excites and incites. It can excite hope and strength, or incite tension, hate and bitterness. Why should the regional background of the next president be a vexatious issue, evoking threats and recriminations? Why should brothers be at daggers drawn with each other over the geography of power? What happened to gentlemanly ententes, negotiations and trade-offs? What happened to the Nigerian agenda – if there was ever one? Brothers sheathe thy swords. If the principal interest of acquiring power at the centre is to steer Nigeria and all Nigerians to a path of peace and development, why should the…
Corrective leadership. Nigeria needs corrective leadership in 2023. No government has it all figured out. While a government may perform superlatively on infrastructure development, it could be a spectacular wreck on security and managing diversity. Progressive leadership is corrective leadership. It is expected that every succeeding administration should surgically address the malignant afflictions and infecundity of the preceding government. Insecurity and corruption were staples under the former administration. The Buhari administration rode on a messianic chariot to revise these malefactions. But these problems are still much alive today. In fact, they have been compounded by mass disaffection and ethnic…
‘’Restructuring Nigeria’’ is a quandary. There is no concord on the complexion or dimension which the re-engineering of Nigeria should take. There has been a cacophony of arguments, but one opinion which a good number of Nigerians hold is that the orbital states that make up the country should determine, manage and control their own resources. This is reasonable. It will be duplicitous to argue that the present complex is sustainable or rewarding. It is clearly not. We have been on this tenuous scaffolding for decades without measurable progress. Really, it makes no moral sense that the accruals from…
The fear of ethnic domination is as old as Nigeria. Mutual recriminations and suspicion have been the scourge of Nigeria’s cohesive development. The south-east says it is the north, and the north points the finger back; the south-west looks on its neighbour in the south with chariness, while the south-south is in perpetual trepidation of the south-east. A bartering of blames, mistrust and distrust. Before Nigeria’s independence on October 1, 1960, the country’s forbears were united in their resolve to give the British the heave-ho. They were called ‘’nationalists’’ because their cause, as it were, was for the emancipation…
It is my deduction that fake news is fecundated by prejudice; prejudices whether ethnic, political or religious. Nigeria’s social media dome is a hang-out for lies, malice and bigotry. Falsehood in this seemingly anonymous quarter is oxygenated by hate and bias. The canard of the Nigerian Army recruiting repentant Boko Haram insurgents, for example, has been rippling because it fits into the prevailing solitary narrative and slant. It is really startling to see well-certificated Nigerians gobbling and vectoring fallacies because they suit their bias. These ones advertise ‘’certificated ignorance’’ with vanity titles on their bios. How can anyone who…
National affability has much to do with what we think of one another; how we talk to one another, and what we call one another. As nugatory as this may appear to be, the content of our dialogues and multilogue – caustic and vile – in our cocoons on social media and interactions with other Nigerians escalate recriminations, and deepen stereotypes and contorted perceptions. Bala gets a raw deal from Emeka, and he gears into pejoratives, ‘’southerners are dishonest’’. Tunde’s relationship with Dahiru hits the nadir, and he goes, ‘’northerners are vicious’’. In these instances, ‘’northerners and southerners’’ have become…
We all detest dictatorship when we are the victims of its reverberations, but when we wear the jackboots and are handing down orders, censures; singling shots, cutting down, attacking and destroying other people we palliate our actions. In most cases, we subsume our venture in tyranny as ‘’activism’’ – a term that has now become nebulous and an umbrella for highwaymen clutching the banner of civil advocacy. There is a dictator in every Nigerian. We want to be heard, but we do not want to hear others. Even when we listen, it is not to understand but to muster ammunition…
The quota system in Nigeria was conceived to address an inequitable system, but the prevailing “unjust system” betrayed the purpose for which the quota system was ideated and actioned. The quota system, principally, is not an unjust system. And it does not confer advantage on the north against the south. Much of what has been said about the quota system is jaundiced. Quotaism became a principle in Nigeria in 1958, essentially, as a response to fears of marginalisation and ethnic domination in education and government. Rightly so, the system was contrived to resolve the atavistic misgivings. The federal character principle…
The advancement of any society revolves around its politics. A system, putrefying and governed by chaos, tells much about the politics of that set-up. A society cannot rise above its politics. Human, economic and social development begins with the right politics. Where politics falters, the country fails. In ‘The Partitioning of Nigeria ahead of 2023’ of July 7, 2021, I said: ‘’Avarice and prejudice drove European conquistadors to carve up much of Africa like cake. With the gradual end of the transatlantic slave trade spurred by the industrial revolution in Europe, the trespassers, possessed by capitalist fiends, sought sources of…
Those plunking for secession and advancing hate for the north may not know that the region was once a convenient political ally of the south-east. The political establishment of the 1960’s was governed by the north and the south-east in expedient nuptials — before the January 1966 coup which opened Pandora’s Box. The north and the south-east have had a crossed destiny. The politics of the Igbo has not always been suffused with emotions and native prejudices. A good case is the pragmatic entente Nnamdi Azikiwe’s NCNC forged with Ahmadu Bello’s NPC in the 60s – despite the two parties’…
The Yoruba are an exceptional people; precocious, tactful, urbane and temperate. They are about the most sophisticated of the ethnic groups in Nigeria. They know when to pounce, when to retreat, and when to negotiate. For the Yoruba, it is about the collective. It is always about the whole. Group interest does not succumb to the sway of individual ambition. They live by the winsome ‘’kparapo philosophy’’, and the ‘’omoluabi element’’ is never musty. Let me detour. A united Nigeria remains the most operational means of preserving and protecting the variegated interests of those within the territory. While the ‘’big…
Insecurity and political crisis have beneficiaries and sponsors. For the political class, it is fair game to exploit and deploy every instrument in the combat repository for provincial ends. The enormity of insecurity and crisis in Nigeria does not happen without some partisan instigators. Our ruinous politics is at the heart of many of our problems. The insecurity we are experiencing now is exploitable ammunition for the 2023 political contests. So, why will those kindling the fire stop? The pattern of banditry in the north-west and the attacks in the lower Niger area lately shows a ‘’mighty hand’’ working the…
The media naturally should serve only the public interest. What determines ‘’public interest’’ may be amorphous, but safety and security are principal elements of communal interest. The security of the nation and its people can be said to be a staple of shared interests. Therefore, national interest is a subset of public interest. To serve the public interest is to preserve the nation’s interest and security. Nigeria’s constitution delineates the place of the media in the country. Section 22, chapter 2 of the canon says: ‘’The press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media shall at all times…
Avarice and prejudice drove European conquistadors to carve up much of Africa like cake. With the gradual end of the transatlantic slave trade spurred by the industrial revolution in Europe, the trespassers, possessed by capitalist fiends, sought sources of raw materials for their industries and markets for their manufactured products. These encroachers considered Africa as ‘’terra nullius’’ – a vast land belonging to no one –, so they struck, usurping natural boundaries and turning brothers into strangers. All for greed, prejudice and arrogance. But nothing changed after the European raiders left Africa. Only the skin colour and facial features of…
The vocal minority will always have their say, but the silent majority will have their way. Nevertheless, it is capricious to let the pesky minority govern and dominate the narrative. A solitary story by a negligible decimal could be held as the belief and view of the bulk. This is why the silent Igbo majority who are opposed to the secessioning of the south-east from Nigeria need to speak up. We cannot discount the perils, ills and concomitants of the civil war. But it has been 51 years since the end of the war, and the Igbo have built back…
No man is too great for a nation to conquer. Nnamdi Kanu came into reckoning after the Buhari administration breasted the tape of victory in 2015. Before this time, he was only a cipher who trafficked in hate, conspiracy theories and supremacist ideas on the fringes of social media groups and broadcast channels. But the disaffection of a section of the south-east with the government provided him the ammunition to take his pernicious pursuit to savage heights. As he fed his sheep with ridiculous conspiracies of how the Fulani are out to exterminate them, his flock swelled in numbers and…
The quickest way for a public officer to lose puissance is by maintaining public performance. Having the spotlight on your head could be capricious – because soon you become addicted to the thrills and frills of the centre stage. You speak for excitement and adulation; you become a show horse; a lone actor in your own film. And you must keep performing. Abdulrasheed Bawa, chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), is a decent young man. He is obviously bubbling with the zeal and commitment to wrestle corruption to the ground. I watched his appearance at the senate…