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16 — Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2021 Orkar’s coup and agenda, a prophecy? I T was a Sunday morning as I came awake shortly after 6.00 am. As usual, I switched on my radio. In those days, it was Radio Nigeria AM and FM channels you were likely to tune to, or BBC Africa. I was just less than four months old as a resident of Lagos, having transferred my services from Minna, Niger State to The Sunday Magazine, TSM, published by Chris Anyanwu and edited by the late Ely Obasi. The sound of martial music met my ears. Radio Nigeria played classical music a lot. So, when you heard that sort of music you needed to listen for a little while to be sure it was classical music, not martial music, which Nigerian coup plotters delighted in using to announce the change of government. It was not long before the voice of Major Gideon Orkar came on. As a young reporter, I quickly dressed, jumped into the next available yellow bus (molue) and headed for Obalende to cover the coup live! Obviously, few of the commuters knew what was going on. At that time, Lagos was still the capital of Nigeria. General Ibrahim Babangida’s Federal Military Government was based in Dodan Barracks which is next door to Radio Nigeria and the defunct Federal Secretariat in Ikoyi. What interests me most here is the message that the coup plotters broadcast through Orkar. In terms of objective, it was mostly gibberish, obviously hurriedly cobbled. Three portions of that coup speech are of historical interest because they are very vividly playing out today. According to Orkar: “Another reason for the change is the need to stop intrigues, domination and internal colonisation of the Nigerian state by the so-called chosen few. This, in our view, has been and is still responsible for 90 per cent of the problems of Nigerians”. “…In recognition of the negativeness (sic) of the aforementioned aristocratic factor, the overall progress of the Nigerian state, a temporary decision to excise the following states, namely: Sokoto, Borno, Katsina, Kano and Bauchi from the Federal Republic of Nigeria comes into effect immediately until the following conditions are met… This clique (what we now call cabal) has an unabated penchant for domination and unrivalled fostering of mediocrity and outright detest (sic) for accountability…” For the sake of the “millennials”, Sokoto State still had Kebbi and Zamfara in it. Yobe had not been split from Borno State. Jigawa was still part of Kano State, while Gombe had not been carved out of Bauchi State. Instructively, these were 10 of the 12 states that unconstitutionally embraced full sharia law after Governor Ahmed Yerima of Zamfara State launched it in September 1999. This is the core of the Muslim North, Arewa- the territorial theatre of the problematic Sokoto Caliphate. The coup was not popular because you cannot just dissolve a country like Nigeria at that time with a mere radio broadcast. The students and the masses that Orkar called to come out in their support did not respond. Nigerians were complaining about Northern domination, but they were not ready to do more than that. Had the coup plotters succeeded in toppling Babangida and taking over, the chances were that internal disagreements alone (based on the analysis of Orkar’s indecisive speech) would have undermined them. Certainly, the excised states would have fiercely responded. In fact, the military governor of the defunct Northern Region, retired Major General Usman Katsina, was reported to have stormed a military facility in Kaduna and comically demanded the key to an armoured car. The coup was not popular because you cannot just dissolve a country like Nigeria at that time with a mere radio broadcast Whether this happened or not, there would have been serious bloodshed. It is 30 years since this speech was broadcast. What has changed? Was any lesson learned? Haven’t things not gone from bad to worse? Have the germs cultivated by those being accused by Orkar and his comrades not morphed into the monsters that are now destroying the “excised” part of the country from inside? Is Nigeria not on the brink of collapse, as acknowledged by even Buhari’s Minister of Defence, Bashir Magashi? Orkar hadn’t even seen anything, because now we are no longer just talking about Northern domination, we are now talking about Islamisation and Send Opinions & Letters to: opinions1234@yahoo.com Fulanisation of Nigeria. The sad thing is that a large chunk of the indigenous people being Islamised and Fulanised are still not ready to stand up and defend their lives, property and ancestral patrimonies. Armed strangers have seized their farmlands and forests. Rather than join in the efforts to get rid of these terrorist vermin, they are forming laughable security outfits to fight those who are fighting for them. As confused as Orkar and his colleagues appeared, they (for the first time in Nigeria’s history) dared to draw a map that vividly existed in the minds of all informed Nigerians but which most of us were too cowardly to admit. Nigeria was divided into the Muslim/Sharia North and the rest: the “Middle Belt and South”. That was long before the formation of the Northern Elders Forum and Arewa Consultative Forum, both of which champion the cause of the old Sokoto Caliphate with pan-Fulani interests at the core of it. On the other hand, we now have the Southern and Middle Belt Leadership Forum, SMBLF, which now shares common views about the present and future of Nigeria, particularly the “restructuring” agitation. The North and South have continued to drift apart, particularly now that some Northern elements have gone beyond domination and are now claiming to “own” Nigeria as Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje recently told Igbo and Yoruba people. Northerners are claiming ownership of the resources belonging to the South, including their ancestral lands. When your land and resources now belong to imperialists masquerading as your fellow countrymen, it simply means you are now also their property – slaves! How much more insults are we willing to swallow? Aisha Buhari once asked: “Where are the men?” Good question! Censorship and freedom of speech: The Nigerian labour conundrum By CLARIUS UGWUOHA IT was the late Ugandan despot, Idi Amin, who was credited with the immortal but infamous dictum: “You have freedom of speech. But freedom thereafter, that I cannot guarantee.” This appears to be the guiding principle in Nigeria and most other African countries. The history of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, as a trade union with capability to sway labour laws in the country and advance the interest of workers, has been heavily vitiated by graft, intimidation and compromise. The current Nigeria Labour leader, Mr. Ayuba Philibus Waba, is certainly in a dilemma due to the peculiar operating terrain. The contemporary Nigerian reality is worse than military dictatorship and the autocratic reflex is evident in every tier of government-citizen engagement. There are no pretensions about the repression of workers. Labour laws, if any in Nigeria, are obeyed in negation. Pensioners cannot access their wages and the national minimum wage – a paltry US$74 - cannot be implemented in many states of the federation because they are not the priority. Therefore, Nigerian workers continue in sub simian subsistence, spiking crime and insecurity in the country. In the hey days of military dictatorship in Nigeria, organised labour was a strong democratisation voice. But nonviolent protests and strikes to stand down military rule, were met with escalating repression. There was crackdown on unionists and leaders. Many were dismissed from duty posts, leaders like Mr. Frank Ovie Kokori and Milton Dabibi of the oil workers union were jailed. Union offices were sealed off by troops and subjugation continued unabated despite Irrespective of anyone’s views or political leaning, it is indecorous to lay off workers without commensurate terminal benefits and in complete negation of enabling labour laws international outcry and sanctions. Trade unionism cut her teeth as a militant body to be reckoned with under the foremost Nigerian labour leader, Pa. Michael Aikhamen Omnibus Imoudu. Before then, trade unions were more like social organisations and not industrial movements. It was during the colonial era. Pa. Imoudu had become the President of the Nigerian Railway Workers Union in 1939, the same year that the trade union was registered under the enabling Colonial Ordinance giving them legal authority to seek communal bargaining with their employers. The fixation of the radicalised union was enhanced wages, decasualisation and better working conditions. Most of these were met, but crackdown on union leaders was the order, culminating in the dismissal from service of Pa Imoudu in January 1943 by the Railway authorities. Pa Imoudu later headed the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, which was the forerunner of the present Nigeria Labour Congress. It was a vibrant and radicalised body that sought workers' welfare as well as good governance in the larger society. Union leaders have constantly faced attempt by various despots at muffling their voices. From Pa Imoudu to Wahab Goodluck, from Hassan Sunmonu to Ali Ciroma; from Pascal Yeleri Bafyau to Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, from Abdulwaheed Omar to Ayuba Philibus Waba. All of them faced the heat from autocracy. Some were fairly successful in their stewardship, while others were accused of graft and compromise. Today, with the semblance of democracy in place, union leaders have largely shunned the anti-democratic tenets of governments, concentrating only on workers welfare, which is also not too effective as many anti-labour practices are firmly in place under the very nose of the unionists. Recently, in Kaduna State of the federation, local government employees above 50 years of age – a nonretirement age- were extraconstitutionally sacked in one fell swoop. The template also pegged the number of staff in each local government council of the state at 50. There was no recourse to any extant labour laws in the state before this illadvised muscle flexing. This prototype has been replicated in various states of Nigeria, citing government fiscal exigencies, employment irregularities, paucity of fund for salaries and whatever else. Under cover of COVID-19 issues, about 850 contract workers were laid off in the nation's refineries. This act, perpetrated by the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, was allegedly without consultations with the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers, NUPENG, and there were no terminal benefits for the victims. In another development, Chevron Oil company, a multinational in Nigeria, was said to have sacked about 175 workers without even the dignity of termination letters, via WhatsApp chat platform. The Waba-led NLC strongly condemned this anti-labour and condescending treatment. Recently, in Imo State of Nigeria, workers of Imo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission, ISOPADEC, received severe salary cuts and about 126 of them were laid off, allegedly without disengagement benefits. It is not clear if any union was consulted before this exercise, but knowledgeable sources fingered employment anomalies as reason for the sack. Irrespective of anyone’s views or political leaning, it is indecorous to lay off workers without commensurate terminal benefits and in complete negation of enabling labour laws. The subliminal reasons behind the current trend of repression of workers is deeply political. Workers of the state or federal service engaged during a given political dispensation risk arbitrary disengagement when a new faction takes over political centre stage. The solution to the myriads of problems faced by Nigerian workers is not only functional unions insulated from politics, unions prepared to go the whole hog but also a responsible government ready to obey the enabling labour laws and allow freedom of expression within all humanitarian context. •Ugwuoha, a labour activist/ analyst, wrote from Abuja. C M Y K
Between a wailing Godwin Obaseki and a hailing Zainab Ahmed ONE of the less aggravating things that happened last week, something that offered diversion if not comic relief from the now-humdrum news of mass abductions and murders whose economic dimension is often occluded by their bestial details, was the spat between two unlikely adversaries: the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, and the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed. It followed the release of an apparently private recording of the governor, lamenting the state of the Nigerian economy. In this age of social media and secret devices hardly anything is considered private. Not a locker room, or more precisely, beer parlour talk. Otherwise, Obaseki would probably have kept his musing to himself, or at least within the close circle of his associates. In the leaked footage, he condemned the country’s fixation on crude oil, a wasting and fast depleting resource, as the main revenue earner at a time many countries are switching to more environmentally-friendly means of energy. The culture of overdependence on the centre that sees state governors go, bowl in hand, to Abuja for their monthly allocation, a beggarly handout that discourages self-reliance and economic discipline and creativity, also came under Obaseki’s attack. The governor, in the course of his outburst, made the bombshell remark that things had become so bad and unsustainable that Abuja literally resorted to printing money to the tune of N60 billion in order to give each state its March allocation. The idea that government could on its own print money no doubt sounded strange and alarming to many Nigerians. This way of increasing cash flow and stimulating an economy already in or headed for recession, quantitative easing those who know call it, is not unheard of among economists or financial experts even while it may sound like the outcome of a child’s imagination. But to the rest of us civilians, it looked and sounded like a crude way of ensuring the availability of funds. If things were that easy, if it was that simple to claw one’s way out of debt, why is everyone not free to do it, some might ask? Obaseki’s aim was to warn of the impending danger of what he has since called "monetary rascality", while doubling down on his initial statement after the cold reaction of the typically sedate Ahmed. Since nobody else has addressed the authenticity of Obaseki’s claim or the refutation by the Finance Minister, who then should Nigerians turn to? Yet this is a serious matter that deserves more attention than it has received from official quarters. Not even the usually loquacious "presidency" that is quick to respond to even more arcane and extraneous matters has spoken. It’s been dead silence everywhere. We must leave God out of this very mundane matter. Perhaps only the devil knows the truth of the printed N60 billion as neither the Central Bank of Nigeria, nor state governors nor "the presidency" have chosen to speak. At the heart of this debate, however, is the increasing worry about Nigeria’s indebtedness to foreign creditors. Many Nigerians, less those presently in the All Progressives Congress-led government, are almost united in their fear about the unsustainability of Nigeria’s increasing debt profile. But Ahmed has denied money had to be printed, and all but called Obaseki a liar. Nigeria’s debt, she says, is within sustainable limits at 23 per cent of the GDP. The country under this present government has been seeking and taking loans from every available quarters, even dipping or attempting to dip its hands into other people’s coffers (read pockets)- pensioners’ funds, unclaimed dividends and sale of what it says are its own property. This is evidence, if no other, of a desperate, cash-strapped economy. Abuja harps on building infrastructure and insists there is nothing bad in taking loans. What matters, The President’s habit of relying on surrogates whose actions he does not appear to question or scrutinise is at the root of his government’s failure it argues, is what the loan is spent on. Which has the same ring as that claim often attributed to General Yakubu Gowon, who famously said Nigeria was so afloat with money its only problem was what to spend it on. That claim would explode in his face in less than five years following the oil glut of the late 1970s and the subsequent plunge into recession and "austerity measures" at the end of that decade. Time was when a president went out of his way to clear the country’s debt even when many felt there was nothing bad in the country owing a little provided there was justification for it. Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2021—17 Olusegun Obasanjo paid off Nigeria’s debt and won some relief from the Bretton Woods institutions in the early 2000s. Today, his successors are telling Nigerians that we can owe for as long as we are only borrowing to finance infrastructure. If only government words could be taken at face value! Not with inflation or prices of goods beyond galloping but perched as if on a flying carpet. Governments across the country (for this is not all about Abuja alone) have been fuelling inflation and taking loans to finance recurrent expenditure- paying salaries of and buying vehicles for outsized and unnecessary staff; furnishing the homes of surrogates and officials, fuelling their vehicles and meeting their daily expenses. These facts are concealed in the overarching claim of borrowing to fund infrastructure, including dead horses like our outmoded refineries. To clasp the hands of future generations in economic cuffs is not a way to secure the future or build infrastructure. There are too many crooks in the corridors of power that the very idea that they are encouraging the procurement of foreign loans for whatever purposes should worry everyone. Some of the leading lights and key decision makers of the present government have been too embroiled in accusations of corruption and lack of transparency to be trusted in matters like this. Muhammadu Buhari may be the face of this government and should rightly be held accountable for its successes and failures. But it is obvious that he only reigns where his aides/ministers rule. Whenever Aisha, the wife of the president, raises a ruckus that her husband does not know most of his own appointees, some may cite this as evidence of the President’s impartiality. But the backstory to this is more complex and what it implies is that the President’s lifelong habit of relying on surrogates whose judgement or actions he does not appear to question or scrutinise is at the root of his government’s failure. It should be concerning and is the reason Nigerians have to be wary of the dodgy busy bodies spinning yarns of reassurance around the country’s increasing indebtedness. 08055069060 (SMS Only) With Twitter, an indignation most uncalled for LIFE in Nigeria would have continued its new normal last week, not the new normal imposed by COVID-19, but the bizarre reality of waking up to stories of deaths and attacks and threats of war – yes – that is the new normal, only if Twitter did not decide, in a flash of corporate affront and effrontery to Nigeria, to take its African headquarters to Ghana. What a cheek! Nigeria is the giant of Africa with the largest economy and a population of over 200 million, compared to Ghana with just about 30 million people which can easily be accommodated by one and half states in Nigeria. So one could understand our entitlement mentality and why there is outrage in the land about how one organisation has decided to spend its money and in what location. We have the land. We have the people. We have the economy. So, nations must come to worship at our shrine and obliterate every little vestige of freedom of choice. Such expectations by indignant Nigerians punctured my little cocoon of peace and excitement which had started for me early in the week. I thought I was going to follow the nation’s rambunctious presentation on the preparation for the Digital Switchover, DSO, launch in Lagos, one little orchestration of government genius and intervention, that would bring economic and tech relief to the people of Lagos, at least, something to look forward to, if they survive the daily grind of traffic on their bodies! Somewhere, the apparitions of a previous life were emerging from their pantheons to haunt the life of a minister who now has the immediate responsibility of clearing his name, apart from the simple task of pointing to dangerous enemies hiding in the shadows. But there was also a breather, something to break a little smile on the face. Government has lifted, beginning Monday, April 19, 2021, the ban imposed on the registration of new SIMs since last year, but this must be done with your National Identification Number, NIN. Dear friends, in the situation we are in, you have to quickly hold tight to your half bread before it is taken away completely by the strongman. However, the Twitter decision was the most irritating intrusion last week. The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who should have been enjoying the fallout of a successful conference in Lagos on the DSO, couldn’t hide his anger when he blamed the media and those who speak ill of our beautiful nation for instigating such rash decision by a corporate international entity. Except, however, that Twitter was ready, knowing that there are countries in Africa who would like to dictate to owners of money where and how they would have to spend their cash. That is, irrespective of their business plan. “As a champion for democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate. Furthermore, Ghana’s recent appointment to host the Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement aligns with our overarching goal to establish a presence in the region that will support our efforts to improve and tailor our service across Africa,” Twitter said. No investor jumps into fire because it wants to do business in a big country; where there is chaos, structures and systems are broken And Nigeria is fuming! Or, at least, the government is hitting the rooftop in boiling rage!! How preposterous! We claim to be so much that we are not. We claim to be a democracy but it is a strongman that is in charge, not strong institutions, dispensing favour according to his state of mind. The strongman decides who to listen to. When citizens’ actions become too irascible, and voices too loud, the strongman wields the big stick and hit everybody into silence. There is nothing unusual there, so we have ventriloquists who wax oriki (chants) for the strong man. Unfortunately you cannot force the international community to take their eyes away from evil. Let’s do a little flashback. October 20, 2020, Nigerians saw an equivalent replay of happenings at Tianamen Square in 1989. In the night of that day, a group of men dressed in military uniform took advantage of the dark hours to attack a mammoth gathering of young people who had demonstrated for days under the #EndSARS, demanding for a reform in the Police Force. From all sides, as pictures would show, bullets rained on them, their only crime being that they demanded to be treated better by their government. The event played out on Twitter. Blood flowed at the Lekki Toll Gate before mayhem would spill all over the land; but government said nobody died. Twitter would still have the details. It would have been wishful thinking for anybody to expect that organisation to bring an office to a land that drank the blood of its youths. There is a hackneyed saying that investment goes to where it is needed. It goes beyond population and size of country. This is why at international fora, like the GSMA, there are usually sessions organised for governments to share ideas on how to attract and handle big businesses operating in their countries. Plus genuine democracy are the policies of government, whether they accommodate investors and guaranty their funds. Here we fall in serious deficit. One will only need to point to a few areas. The telecommunications and the broadcast industries are atrophying under inexplicable regulatory capture which is never an exemplary hallmark of genuine democracy. The Minister of Information and Culture is running the broadcast regulatory agency, the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, to the discomfiture of its workers, while his counterpart in Communications and Digital Economy, has guillotined the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, to his own advantage. The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning doesn’t seem to have the bravura to take on such a complex economy like ours. Oh, my God, just look at where we got the country by not playing a deserving first eleven! Government should listen to quiet whispers on the streets. Quite a few operators in the tech sector are unable to express themselves because they don’t know what government will do next. Some have expressed fears to this writer that this government is so unpredictable that its officials can withdraw their licenses. This is an information that will be circulating locally and internationally. And there are policy decisions and individual predilections to support their fears. Security is a major concern. Deaths are mounting in Nigeria as the country drifts towards anarchy in the face of strongman democracy. Yet government looks so incapacitated and nearly absent. No investor jumps into fire because it wants to do business in a big country. Where there is chaos, structures and systems are broken. The Nigerian system is fractured. We are too afraid to look at the mirror and tell ourselves the true image that we see. This government is abridging the future of Nigeria without claiming responsibility for such malfeasance. The world can only react by keeping away.
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