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38—SATURDAY Vanguard, NOVEMBER 23, 2019 It takes a lot to be an inventor. It takes a lot more to manage innovations and innovators. From Nigeria’s bitter and unfortunate civil war, we were only able to keep some of the relics at the Umuahia war museum. Nigeria could not seek to harness the skills and resources of the team that was behind the innovations in the civil war for technological development. The Biafran enclave survived on various petroleum products that were not imported for 30 months before the collapse. For almost 30 years now Nigeria has been surviving on imported petroleum products and now shopping for downstream investors in roadshows across the world. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, other G7 members and indeed other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD countries are out of our refining palaver but may be interested in supplying Nigeria petroleum products. We are now left with Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and some others in the Organisation for the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC and OPEC+ for refining talks. We may have been utterly profligate and not prodigiously stupendous in using the proceeds from crude oil. And we have consistently flared the gas component. Oil is an exhaustive commodity that its use is now being determined by the influential nonproducer-consumer nations that have started a countdown. These countries are heavily subsidising Plug-in electric vehicle as a veritable substitute for fossil fuels. In the words of the South African born Israeli statesman Abba Eban (1915-2002), History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. And the craze now is for renewable energy. When Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) foretold that renewable energy and not oil was the future, he was misunderstood because The challenges of innovat ator ors in global development of the cost outlay then. The quest for innovation and the dependence on fossil fuels drove him to think about solutions in natural energy that was not exhaustive. He developed a suitable storage battery that could Nigeria’s poor record in discovering and supporting innovators, patenting and protecting intellectual property rights may give out Obasanjo’s technology power what was the first electric car in 1912. The system Edison developed was abandoned for the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine which cost was half the price of his electric car valued at between US$500 and US$750. Edison’s thought on oil and solar (renewable) energy in the 19th century was that he would put money on solar, an inexhaustible source of power and hoped we do not wait until oil and coal run out before tackling the problem. Today, global demand dynamics and geopolitics of oil reduction is giving a policy shift to the electric vehicle that Edison had the breakthrough over a century ago. More governments are now committing to fossil fuel car bans to meet their Paris Agreement commitments. But we know that petroleum would still be relevant for more than a century to come even if fossil fuels are jettisoned. It is all about innovation to reduce carbon emissions. Nigeria’s case is becoming a matter of emergency. Necessity they say is the mother of invention. There are very many innovative minds like Thomas Edison in our country that are not given opportunities and right environments to express their endowments. Our survival as a nation is in the hands of the downtrodden masses that toil day and night to eke out bare existences. The Wright Brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright that had little formal scientific training, solved a problem as complex and demanding, which had defied better-known experimenters for centuries and invented the aeroplane in 1903. These seemingly ordinary bicycle repairers in the United States emerged to change the world. The Wright Brothers not only solved a long-studied technical problem but also helped create an entirely new world beyond measure. The account of Durojaiye Kehinde Obasanjo and many more may indeed solve Nigeria’s numerous problems. Obasanjo developed a sea craft or hydroplane but could not get funding. His jet car can run on the land, sea and in the air. When the CNN interviewed Obasanjo on April 12, 2017, he said: “We want the whole world to know it is possible to have a kind of machine that can move on land, on the sea and fly and perhaps move under the sea. That’s my ultimate goal,” he explained. Obasanjo was thinking about Lagos city’s heavy traffic and congestion woes to come up with this solution. In January 2019, he drove the amphibious car which runs on fuel and solar energy alternatively, for 15 hours from Lagos to Abuja to seek the attention of Nigerian authorities. Did he succeed? Nigeria’s poor record in discovering and supporting innovators, patenting and protecting intellectual property rights may give out Obasanjo’s technology. The KennyJet might have been produced about 10 years before the CNN traced him to Obadia in Yaba, Lagos for interview. Was it coincidental that Aerospace giants, Boeing in November 2017 acquired Aurora, which specialises in unmanned flight, established in-house autonomous flight research unit Boeing NeXt in 2018 to develop the autonomous passenger air vehicle? On January 22 2019, Boeing said it completed the first electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) flight that lasted less than one minute. Other aerospace and auto giants are now jumping into the market. Relevant agencies should pay attention to Durojaiye Kehinde Obasanjo’s innovations before other more developed countries take him away. For the past four weeks or so, I had cast a glance, over a gulf of more than a decade, at the preposterous claim Mr. Nuhu Ribadu, the founding Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, made and which Nigerians swallowed most credulously, like crazed simpletons. Years down the line, with books having been written (where that claim received some comments), and sundry events have taken place that opened new vistas of looking at that obvious but audacious falsehood backed by no iota of evidence anywhere, I have felt the time was ripe to take on all those who pledged themselves to work as knights in the service of Satan, by replicating that obvious whopper. Always, I used Police Statements made by Ribadu himself, his second – incommand at the EFCC, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) staff that was seconded to the EFCC, to prove the incorrectness of their pro- Ribadu claims and to the politics behind such stances – calculated fabrication to harm the person Ribadu and the Obasanjoists were up against; James Onanefe Ibori, the former Governor of Delta state. I wanted to also link it with the newspaper with the old Bendel state area that may be buying a used printing press masked as a new one and more shenanigans in Daily Independent. This time, I had tasked myself to remain focused on just one man and his one book; PROF WALE ADEBANWI AND HIS A PARADISE FOR MAGGOTS – THE STORY OF A NIGERIAN ANTI-GRAFT CZAR. But then, several things intervened; first, I saw the video where that lady who was kidnapped with her husband and nine – year old daughter while they were visiting Nigeria from Britain, recounted her family’s ordeal. That video arrested my attention. No, it was not just that she offered to be raped instead of her teenage daughter and her husband or that her daughter is still being haunted by that experience and would wake up at night screaming as though she was still a prisoner of the kidnappers, or that she claimed that her family has agreed never to set foot on Nigerian soil again, Who Protects Nigeria’s Interest? and that not even their dead bodies would be returned to Nigeria for burial as they had irrevocably broken every relationship with Nigeria – a country that broke every covenant or responsibility she had for and towards them. I was still trying to come to terms with debating whether it was realistic for a citizen to expect his country to offer him adequate security or any other service, when I remembered that Lagos had been ranked as one of the most dangerous cities to be a woman in and that Nigeria as a whole came in for strong reckoning when nations as a whole were considered. Thomas Reuters Foundation, not the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did the ranking. The news that followed that is that Nigeria was also adjudged the third Most Dangerous Place To Live In The World Anyone would be right to argue that the indices that led to such abysmal rankings accumulated during the years preceding the All Progressives Congress (APC) ascendancy into political power, and that person would be right. I don’t want to argue that such reductionist arguments have their limits, or should have or they would invariably touch on a year like 1984/ 85 when a Major-General Buhari was in power inside Dodan Barracks. What really got Prof Adebanwi off my sights this week was the reported killings that trailed the governorship elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states. Is it not the fifth year a messianic party, the APC, and its more messianic flag-bearer, President Mohammadu Buhari were voted into power? If yes, how many years should it take to organise free, fair and peaceful elections? Some people had made us believe that if only Prof. Maurice Iwu was removed, Nigeria would change. Now, that man has been gone from that office for almost a decade. So, why does the electoral problem continue? Why is it that though the APC came into power in 2015, by November of 2019 it has not been able to provide something as ordinary as electronic voting? Instead, election times have been turned by hoodlums into times of blood-letting. The part that really frightened me was that the Inspector General of Police was quoted by some newspapers as saying that some criminals in fake police uniforms tainted the election. Really? How many of them were arrested? If criminals could wear fake Police uniforms to maintain their own version of order during an election in which security personnel were adequately mobilised, then all hell has broken loose in Nigeria. And that election took place in just two out of 36 states of the federation! Please, has anybody noticed that it took just a matter of days into the life of this present Republic for some heroic PDP members of House of Representatives to have formed an opposition arm of the party, as it were, and began to rein in an Obasanjo who had little regard for either the constitution or the National Assembly? Former Govs. James Ibori, Uzor Orji Kalu, Victor Attah, etc opposed Obasanjo as they called for internal democracy. Ghali Umar Na’Abba led the gallant Representatives such as Nduka Irabor, Chidi Duru, Sadiq Yar’Adua, etc. Then a power drunken PDP, annexed by Obasanjo himself and Obasanjoists ensured that people like Na’Abba and Irabor did not return to the National Assembly. Irabor narrowly escaped assassination attempt; someone shot a bullet through his roof and into his bed – at night! Well, the PDP character of internal opposition to their strong men continued when people like the immediate past Senate President, Bukola Saraki, rather than surrender their staunch beliefs, joined the opposition APC and helped it into power. Then, when APC proved as dictatorial to them as PDP, they raised their rebellious flag once again. But this time, to no effect. They received the treatment the Irabos and Na’Abbas got in 2003. They could not retain their posts. Ibori and Kalu, for instance had to barely scrap by to retain their posts in 2003. And since then, they have been faced with constant battles. Well, Nigeria has had a STRONG President in Obasanjo, and she has one now in Buhari. What happens when a RENEGADE president gets into Aso Rock? Perhaps we don’t even need to get such a man for disaster to strike. James Bryce visited USA in the 1880s and concluded that the real danger to American democracy may not even come from a renegade President as the real danger to the constitution would come when “A bold President who knew himself to be supported by a majority in the country, might be tempted to override the law. He might be a tyrant, not against the masses, but with the masses”. Some Americans fear that they have such a President in Donald Trump. But to guide against our getting there, some Nigerian politicians must think Nigeria first – above their ethnic groups and political parties. They must begin to rally together as patriots - for Nigeria’s sake.
SATURDAY Vanguard, NOVEMBER 23, 2019—39 PDP And Failure of Leadership Shamsudeen Abdallah The palpable anger and frustration expressed at the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by its members and concerned Nigerians in recent times, peaked following the avoidable electoral disaster and humiliation in Bayelsa State to the All Progressives Congress. Bayelsa is not like any other State. It is PDP’s enclave and home of former President Goodluck Jonathan for that matter. It is not as though PDP’s leadership crisis started today. PDP’s problem began when the party was snatched from accomplished statesmen and political thinkers behind it’s founding. Substituting eminent personalities like the highly cerebral Dr. Alex Ekwueme with a chain of PhDs, Chief Solomon Lar, Chief Sunday Awoniyi etc. with a band of fortune-seeking political hustlers was PDP’s entry point into troubled waters. But for a successive reinforcement of a regime of impunity, disrespect for party constitution, internal party democracy, and key principles like zoning/rotation, the PDP may have remained in power till date. Unfortunately, Prince Uche Secondus, current party Chairman, who has been part of the PDP national leadership structure since 2008, when he was first elected the National Organizing Secretary, has failed to translate the vital lessons of the past for the much-desired self-re-invention. Clearly, the Secondusled PDP leadership has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. In fact, never in PDP’s history has its leadership been this lethargic, rudderless, conceited, lawless, self-destructive and bereft of strategic political sagacity to confront the electoral challenges of contemporary times. Following the resignation of Adamu Muazu as National Chairman in the aftermath of PDP’s loss of power at the centre, Uche Secondus, his then deputy, stepped in as Acting National Chairman. He was the Acting National Chairman when Governor Nyesom Wike and former Governor Ayo Fayose (to some extent) unknowingly imported alleged to be APC mole, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, to complete what remained of North East’s tenure despite protests. This political misadventure cost the PDP the Edo and Ondo governorship seats. Again, the Secondus-led PDP had an opportunity to re-launch itself back to the national reckoning in the 2019 presidential election. However, that was not to be as a result of the flagrant display of lack of responsible thinking or better still, the outsourcing of its leadership responsibility. Party veterans, who fought from the trenches for PDP’s survival after it lost power at the centre in 2015 were shut out. The emergence of Peter Obi as the Vice Presidential candidate was so poorly handled that the party never recovered from it. Rather than an honest effort to assuage feelings and build bridges, those who expressed genuine concerns over their contemptuous treatment and revival of politics of exclusion were automatically fenced off, denied their rightful place in the Presidential Campaign Council, and condemned to peeping through the windows. All these contributed to PDP’s loss to APC. While Secondus did not introduce the evil of anointment of candidates and trading of party’s tickets to the highest bidders, commonsense dictates that PDP should not fiddle with such luxuries again as opposition. Yet we saw the manipulations and political bulldozing that threw up Olusola Kolapo as PDP candidate in the 2018 Ekiti gubernatorial election. Former Governor Ayo Fayose was allowed to tear Ekiti PDP apartliterarily. PDP lost the gubernatorial election and until the recent return of Senator Biodun Olujimi to the Senate through the courts, Ekiti PDP couldn’t boast of a single National Assembly seat after the 2019 election. Interestingly, Fayose openly campaigned against her candidature. The electoral robbery in Osun 2018 governorship election notwithstanding, PDP leadership didn’t demonstrate the hunger to win. It was more of individual efforts of the Adeleke family and allies. For instance, when the rerun in Iyola Omisore’s stronghold became the game changer, APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomole, mobilised several APC governors and chieftains to Omisore’s country home to court the beautiful bride. But Secondus stayed put in Abuja. Only Dr. Bukola Saraki flew to Osun as the Chairman of the Osun Governorship Campaign Council to persuade Omisore. Why should anybody blame Omisore for cutting deal with the more serious suitor? The violence, manipulations, and abuse of federal power that happened in the November 16 Bayelsa governorship election was a child’s play compared to the election that returned Governor Seriake Dickson for a second term. Yet PDP prevailed because they were of one mind. But the primary for the last election was a sham dogged by allegations of trading-off to the sitting Governor against popular wish of party faithful. Defections and resignations from Dickson government followed. Also, Secondus was aware of the frosty relationship between Jonathan and Dickson and their supporters. But the party leadership appeared more interested in the proceeds from the nomination forms/primaries than in brokering peace and strategies to win the election. A fragmented PDP gifted a very symbolic, strategic, rich, coastal, and agelong PDP stronghold to APC on a platter of gold. The scenario was not exactly different in Kogi where the primary was marred by gun battle, but only for PDP to announce Musa Wada as the candidate. Senator Dino Melaye, who was initially nominated to head the governorship campaigns, declined in obvious protest. Commonsense should have told the party leadership that a credible primary was a prerequisite to boost their chances against a volatile and desperate Yahaya Bello backed by complicit INEC and security agencies with a N10 Billion windfall to boot. Some key political players believe PDP could still have won had Wadata Plaza rallied everyone that was supposed to be involved to fashion the right strategies to counter the APC. PDP couldn’t even mobilise its national youth wing to campaign in Kogi. Secondus was not seen on national television and radio talk shows. He didn’t mobilise the conscience of Nigerians and the international community against the well-anticipated electoral banditary in Kogi. He couldn’t lead peaceful protests in Abuja before the forged results were announced. Secondus wasn’t even at the post-election media briefing by PDP candidate at Wadata Plaza. Instead, while APC was running riots in kogi, some PDP NWC members were allegedly holidaying abroad, obviously on the proceeds of the The electoral robbery in Osun 2018 governorship election notwithstanding, PDP leadership didn’t demonstrate the hunger to win •Secondus Bayelsa and Kogi primaries. Also, while Rome burnt, Secondus was busy granting interview against Minority leaders of the House of Representatives in a matter that he is so straightforwardly wrong. Secondus wrote to the Speaker on 21st June 2019 appointing Hon. Kingsley Chinda, Hon. Yakubu Barde, Hon. Chukwuka Onyema and Hon. Muraina Ajibola as leaders of the Minority Caucus. But over 100 of the 147 opposition lawmakers elected Hon. Ndudi Elumelu, Hon. Toby Okechukwu, Gideon Gwani, and Adesegun Adekoya and all signed a letter presenting them to the Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila. Rather than find solutions to the issues, Secondus hurriedly suspended the four lawmakers and a few others. Conversely, Chinda and the three others were made to begin to sign statements as Minority Leaders and Whips. It was only when their parliamentary actions recently became a subject of legislative inquest that the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Olagbodiyan, issued a statement claiming they were just PDP Caucus Leaders- which is still wrong because leaders of Minority/Majority Caucus also head their respective party caucuses. Meanwhile, Section 60 of the 1999 Constitution unmistakably provides that “Subject to the provisions of this Constitution, the Senate or the House of Representatives shall have power to regulate its own procedure”. Order 7 Rule 8 of House Standing Rule unequivocally provides that “Members of the Minority Parties in the House shall nominate from among them, the Minority Leader, Minority Whip, Deputy Minority Leader, and Deputy Minority Whip”. So, the House Minority Caucus, comprising nine political parties (PDP, APGA, ADC, LP, SDP, PRP, AA, APM, ADP) acted legitimately. Parties’ role is limited to zoning the various minority/majority leadership offices, not to appoint. APC’s attempt to impose leadership on the majority caucus in 2015 was successfully opposed by their Senators. Ironically, Secondus, who was PDP Acting National Chairman at the time, attacked APC over what he termed lawlessness and breach of legislative independence. But today, behold the same party Chairman traveling the same road he spat on and also branding his party faithful as disloyal for obeying the dictates of law rather than those of a clearly overreaching party Chairman and his overbearing godfather. Meanwhile, it is puzzling that Secondus leadership has refused to consider the reports of the various panels set up by the PDP to investigate the matter even after four months. The report of the Committee comprising former Senate Presidents/ Deputy Senate President like Adolphus Wabara, David Mark, Iyorchia Ayu, and Ibrahim Mantu should be able to settle the matter because they are authorities in legislative practice. But Secondus doesn’t appear to be interested in solutions. Leadership should be about proffering solutions, not winning arguments; it should be about building bridges, not breaking them. It is about dialogue, negotiation, and settlement. Or what does Secondus leadership stand to gain from creating opposition within opposition? He criticised APC in 2015 for impunity for trying to impose majority leaders. Now, have the 1999 Constitution, House Rules, and parliamentary traditions changed? Why the desperation to foist Chinda on House Members? Shouldn’t the imposition of a fellow Rivers man as Minority Leader when he (Secondus) is the party’s National Chairman make Secondus feel morally uncomfortable? Lastly, no democracy prospers without a formidable opposition. The steady decline in PDP leadership should therefore, concern all Nigerians because the emerging one party system, more so an incendiary party like APC, will spell doom for the country. Where are the elders of the party? Where is the conscience of the party? The National Executive Council (NEC) has not been convoked to review the 2019 elections and also receive account of the billions raked in from sale of nomination forms. The position of Deputy National Chairman (North) has been vacant since January 2019. It means the 19 northern states and FCT are not fully represented on the NWC? Isn’t it high time PDP was repositioned to save Nigerians from APC misgovernance? But how can PDP remove the straws in the eyes of APC when they have not removed the log in their own eyes.
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