14022018 - Workers flee as herdsmen overrun LG offices in Ondo

Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2018—31
sam@starteamconsult.com
PMB’s first official visit to the
South East & matters arising
LAST week President
Muhammadu Buhari
(PMB) visited the South East for
the first time since he became
President of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria two and half years ago.
Was he on a genuine state visit
or was he on a campaign
mission? Some people believe he
was on a campaign mission to
Anambra State to support the
gubernatorial ambition of his APC
party flag-bearer, Mr. Tony
Nwoye.
Such people believe that the
visit to Ebonyi State was an after
thought, a camouflage. To buttress
their view point, they remarked
that if a presidential visit was
actually planned for Ebonyi State,
the president would not just
mainly be commissioning fly
overs and laying foundation for
new fly overs! Nevertheless, that
this is the President’s first visit to
the South East geo-political zone
after 30 months in office tells a
lot. It emphasizes the ranking of
the South East in the priority of
Mr President.
I am aware that the President
had visited all the other five
geopolitical zones, some more
than once and only comes to the
South East last and essentially on
a campaign trip. This is in
synchrony with the way PMB has
treated the South East since he
came to office. Despite his
denials, the President has
discriminated against the South
East in many respects but much
more evidently in appointments.
He had said he would treat those
who gave him 97 per cent
differently from those who gave
him five per cent and he has
largely remained true to his
words. It is necessary to continue
to remind him that appointing
South Easterners as ministers was
not a discretionary matter.
He is compelled by the
constitution to do so. His
discrimination is evident in his
discretionary appointments -
Army chief, Navy chief, Airforce
chief, Chief of Defence Staff, IGP,
NSA, COS, SGF, head of DSS,
head of NIA, head of FRSC, Civil
Defence and all the key board
appointments and leadership of
parastatals of government -
NNPC, NPA, NBC, FAAN,
NCAA etc, etc. Most other
objective Nigerians including
Northerners and South
Westerners have pointed out this
glaring anomaly and it seems that
PMB is the only one who seems
not to see this patent
Despite his denials,
the President has
discriminated against
the South East in
many respects but
much more evidently
in appointments
discrimination against the SE
people.
What ever may have been said,
I believe that it was good that
the President visited the South
East. As a believer-in-chief in the
unity and indivisibility of Nigeria,
he needs to do a lot to practice
what he preaches. I have urged
him along this line endlessly. This
visit, though a small step, I
believe is a step in the right
direction. He himself said that his
presence in Ebonyi was ‘a
demonstration of my strong belief
in unity of Nigeria.” It allowed
him the opportunity to listen to
the needs and challenges of the
people which Dr. Nnia Nwodo,
the President General of
Ohanaeze Ndigbo amply reeled
out at the reception for PMB in
Enugu before he proceeded to
Abakaliki.
Dr. Nwodo added "these
problems predated your
administration but have reached
a quintessence under your
watch.” It probably also gave him
the opportunity to see some of the
problems for himself. Hence his
reassurance, that he has made
provisions in the 2018 budget to
address the issues of state of
roads, power, agriculture and
social services in the region just
as he had promised leaders of
the South East who met with him
in Abuja in October.
I do not know how PMB feels
after the visit. He had official
warm reception in Enugu and
Ebonyi states. The crowd was
there to welcome him. The
traditional rulers gave him two
chieftaincy titles: Enyi Oha 1
(friend of the community) and
Ochi Oha (leader of the people).
Governor Umahi was effusive in
his praise of PMB and gave him
a gift of 2000 bags of Ebonyi Rice
and 2000 tubers of Abakaliki yams,
mimicking if not bettering
Solomon’s sacrifice of 1000 rams
to God.
I hope that did not cause excess
luggage problem for the
president. May be there were
some Onitsha traders nearby who
could easily have monetized the
gift to solve the problem, that is if
there was any. But on reflection,
PMB would have realized that the
people of the South East do not
hate him per se. What they hate
is the way he has been treating
them. I can assure him that if he
changes his attitude to the
people, begins to treat them as
equal citizens of Nigeria, listens
to their complaints and takes
genuine measures to resolve their
problems, they would respond
positively just as some did last
week when he made his maiden
presidential visit to the South
East. Sending Python dancers to
suppress their complaints is
certainly not the best way to win
the confidence of the people.
PMB had often asked what the
Igbo wanted. I do not know if he
has now received the answers. I
am not an Igbo spokesperson but
I am Igbo and I do feel the pains
of the Igbo. But the truth of the
matter is that what the Igbo want
is not different from what other
ethnic groups want- justice, equity
and fair play. The day PMB
begins to demonstrate this in
action, that day, he will become a
hero and win back the minds of
many Igbo and indeed all other
Nigerians who currently feel
alienated. I hope he visits more,
fulfills his promises and
demonstrates true love for the
Igbo if at all possible.
What should the contradictions of
the Buhari presidency tell us?
Y now it should be very obvious to
BNigerians that the Buhari presidency
is totally off course and is probably beyond
redemption correcting its observable
deficiencies. Which may explain why the
Northern Elders Forum are already looking
beyond him and are actively shopping for
a possible replacement in order to retain
and get another northerner to complete
what is left of the Buhari presidency post
2019. The fact that more politicians
younger than the president are positioning
themselves on the sideline to replace the
fast ageing Buhari also speaks to the
situation. But it would take something equal
to superhuman agency to get the regime
back on course as it continues to wobble
along piling up one outrage upon another.
The visit last week of the Catholic Bishops'
Conference of Nigeria to the Villa reveals
issues that are very worrisome and should
begin to get us all more concerned about
the safety and state of mind of the president.
It takes courage and a good measure of
belief in the potential greatness of this
country to be as frank as the Catholic
Bishops were to the president. Those around
him almost always seem to be on egg shells,
falling over themselves to make him see and
hear only what he chooses or, in fact, what
they, his minders, choose to make him hear
or see. Which is why we should all be really
worried. But to go back to the Catholic
Bishops: they couldn’t have been more frank
than they were during their visit,which must
have confounded presidential surrogates to
no end. Next time, they would want to be
more careful about the kind of individuals
or groups they allow access to the president.
The Bishops' visit must have appeared to
them in retrospect as a terrible
miscalculation. But then, it has come and
gone. Not to the pleasure, however, of the
big-mouthed throw-up in Lokoja, a power
monger that has the unenviable distinction
of being the only Nigerian to occupy an
elective office in the present dispensation
without for a minute contesting and winning
the votes for the office. He opened what Fela
would call his ‘basket mouth’ once too
widely to say what even a basket would
consider too big to accommodate by casting
Can something be going
on in Aso Villa that is
beyond the power of the
president to resolve? Is it
the case that Buhari
cannot help himself in his
present circumstance in
which case he would need
Nigerians to come to his
rescue?
aspersion on the blameless clerics. Having
found himself in power through the
instrumentality of a president who was to
all intent and purposes also a creature of
circumstances, it makes sense for this ponce
of power to cling on to the man he believes
can ensure his bread is again buttered
without him ever breaking a sweat. So much
for all that talk about making room for the
youth in governance.
But the Bishops gave a good account of
themselves and ‘spoke truth to power’ in their
frank exchange with the president. Not even
former President Olusegun Obasanjo had
to tell the emperor to his face that he is
naked. Which is not to say that his letter was
a cowardly gesture. As a former boss of the
president and two/three times occupant of
the office Buhari
now occupies,
his letter or
reprimand of
the president’s
leadership style
is authorised by
his experience as
a former
president/head
of state. It’s just
an observation that he didn’t have or need
to visit Buhari to make his point. The
Bishops, with no experience of power, have
nothing beyond their moral authority. Yet,
they spoke the mind of most Nigerians to
the president. In his response to their
warning that his goodwill with Nigerian was
in overdraft, Buhari had said he had not been
sitting in his air-conditioned office, hands
akimbo, watching as Nigerians were left at
the mercy of murderous herders. No, the
president said such conclusion would be
dishonest. Before the bishops left, he
promised to do something about the naked
nepotism that has seen him filling most
important and available positions with
individuals either related to him by blood,
marriage, or from his state or other states
contiguous to his, or parts of the North-East.
But it is remarkable that on this very day
that the president was making this promise
to the Catholic Bishops Conference, the ink
was yet to dry on the paper on which he had
ordered the reinstatement of Usman Yusuf
as Executive Secretary of the National
Health Insurance Scheme. This, after Yusuf
had been suspended since last year, for
alleged fraud of about N1billion. That the
president could stand before the bishops to
make his promise about changes in his
appointments while fully conscious of what
he had done about the Yusuf case should tell
us he is either not aware of what goes on in
his presidency, what he appends his
signature on or is just having a good laugh
at the expense of Nigerians. But Buhari, in
spite of unsubstantiated claims by some of
his associates that he is very humorous, does
not look the part of a comic. He appears
genuinely convinced of all that is happening
around him. Which then means we should
be paying more attention to the possibility
that he is probably so much beholden to and
held captive by members of the so-called
cabal by whom he is surrounded to know
what is amiss with his government.
This leaves us with the moot question of
whether the president is in the right frame
of mind to know what is going on around
him. If the cabal around Umar Yar’Adua
could so hoodwink Nigerians to the point
they almost kept his corpse in Aso Rock while
executing power in his name, what could
the group around President Buhari not be
up to in order to make him do their will? Or
why would the president not see what is so
obvious to everyone else including his wife
except those men by whom he is surrounded?
Why would he continue to make promises
about errors he does not appear ready to
correct or complicate them with more
errors? While Nigerians were struggling to
make sense of the Babachir Lawal case, in
came the Maikanti Barau and Ibe Kachikwu
spat, to be followed soon after by the Maina
saga. While that was on ground, we had the
Munir Gwarzo/Kemi Adeosun debacle and
now it’s the turn of Usman Yusuf. All these
men had the president’s ear as they wrongfoot
the system. And the president continues
to make promises upon promises to put
things right. Is our president aware of his
situation? Can something be going on in
Aso Villa that is beyond the power of the
president to resolve? Is it the case that Buhari
cannot help himself in his present
circumstance in which case, he would need
Nigerians to come to his rescue?
C
M
YK