Lamentations of an Angry Man

Recently, I read an extensive interview – at least, it seemed like it – granted by former Aviation Minister (among many other offices) under the Obasanjo administration, Femi Fani-Kayode to Adewale Aladejana of mytestimonys.blogspot.com. Aside from Femi, some other former members of the Obasanjo administration have, through diverse fora, expressed disappointment at the course the nation has taken under the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan. They have repeatedly lamented what they see as a regression of the perceived progress made during their terms of service.

In reaction, the attack dogs of the current administration, referred to as today’s men, have,  in occasionally uncharacteristic manner, dismissed these concerns as the ranting of yesterday’s men who could not come to terms with the reality of their current lifestyle as just common ordinary Nigerians (like the rest of the 159.9 million of us). However, a quick reminder that today’s men, when tomorrow comes, could end up as yesterday’s men, seem to have put and end to such childish name-calling.

It is common knowledge the world over that former members of an administration would always have something to complain or criticize about those who took over from where they left off; look at all the former governors in cat-fights with their replacements who, ironically, used to be their assistants or political sons, over various reasons, ranging from the serious to the mundane. What struck a chord with Femi Fani-Kayode’s lamentations was the level of bitterness expressed therein, and the direct accusations and ominous pronouncements made against both the living and the dead. It reminded me of the bitter and curse-laced vituperations of the late Owelle of Onitsha, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, after the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) brazenly stole the 1983 general elections. Dr. Azikiwe, outrightly, placed a curse on the NPN, the Shagari administration, and elder statesmen who kept silent while the nation burned –at least, Ondo state did. By December of that year, three months after being sworn in, the second term of the Shagari presidency was violently terminated, and many prominent Nigerians found themselves cooling their heels in moldy jail houses, along with their political opponents.

Now, thirty years later, we have an ex-Minister, though not on the same level as the Owelle; however, a younger one, in a society where his friends and peers are busy devising ways and means to defraud the government in a more mechanized way than ever witnessed in the history of the nation; in a society where people serve in government to line their pockets and service their immediate families, someone this young, with years of fruitful (?) service to his nation still ahead of him, feels so wronged by his observations of the bungling of the current administrations that he would make doomsday pronouncements about the nation and people of Nigeria. He felt so frustrated by the slow pace of progress (if any) that he would, pointedly, accuse the president by name of being weak-kneed and running down the country.

Did Femi Fani-Kayode go too far? I have been pondering the answer to that question since I read the interview. Listen to him, though waxing spiritual, quoting bibles and making references to stories showing a Godly order of doing things: “there will be a change in Nigeria, whether anyone likes it or not. It will be a brutal change”. He went on to call attention to the high poverty rate, unemployment, crime rate, corruption which has grown exponentially under the current administration, and insecurity;  all perennial problems which are not particular to the Jonathan administration. He directly accused the president of incompetence, wishy-washy, weak, indecisive, and ineffective towards the security situation pervading the northern parts of the nation. He even placed the death of, according to him, 4200 Nigerians in the hands of Boko Haram on the feet of the president. All these are, unfortunately, appendages frequently tagged on the president by many Nigerians, regardless of party, gender, and ethnic origin.

At a point, the criticism takes a funny turn; at least in my opinion. H e accused the government of using the EFCC, SSS, and other security and regulatory apparatus to harass people who dared to criticize it; something which was the norm under the Obasanjo administration which he served. One is left wondering why Femi did not object then, even mildly, as he is doing now to the Jonathan administration. Many state governors, Ministers, senators and PDP officials are living witnesses to Obasanjo’s use of the national security tool to destroy people. I am sure Femi needs no reminding that what goes around comes around; also, that in some legal parlance, silence is akin to acquiescence. Or, closer to home, his brother’s famous statement in the novel, The Man Died, that evil thrives where good men keep silent – something like that.

On the late Yar, Adua, Chief Fani-Kayode practically called him an evil man, and appeared to gloat over his passing. He complained how the late president hounded and haunted his family with the EFCC and other state security apparatus, because he dared to speak out. According to him, Yar’Adua had no business being president of a nation like Nigeria. Ironically, this is the same man who admitted privy to all the manipulations that imposed the late president on Nigerians; it was the same Femi who, after the anointing, took Yar’Adua to meet with the late Libyan dictator, Khadafy. It was the same Obasanjo’s political manipulation that threw up an obscure Jonathan to the position of the vice presidency, thereby producing a weak president and a weaker vice president. In all this doing, good men like Femi who had front row seats in the Obasanjo administration, kept silent while this evil thrived.

In a way, the blame for the current state of the nation lays partially on Femi Fani-Kayode’s feet. He was there when Obasanjo took control of the PDP apparatus and weakened its leadership; he was there when the same Obasanjo selected a sick, weak man as president; he was there when the same Obasanjo hounded good men like Audu Ogbe, and Barnabas Germade out of the PDP, threw Olabode George into prison, sent Arisekola-Alao and Otunba Balogun to their knees, and ran many governors, senate presidents and House speakers out of office for daring to have a mind of their own. Yes, Femi Fani-Kayode was there when Obasanjo sought an unconstitutional third term, and he said nothing.

I am neither a historian nor as religious as Chief Fani-Kayode has proven to be in his interview, but I read something somewhere that went like this (I am sure Femi knows it):

First they came for the communist,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Yes, like every Nigerian, Femi has the right to complain and lament the current state of Nigerian affairs; what he does not have is the right to blame it wholly on the current administration, which many of us are not fans of. I also believe that one should always come to equity with clean hands; in this case, Femi’s hands are not clean. Though he may have, on his own, done his best to improve the lives of the ordinary Nigerian when he was in government, he lacked the same courage and decisive action he now expects from Jonathan and his lieutenants when his own boss was laying the foundations for the current state of our nation.

Felix Oti

Arlington, TX

felixoti@yahoo.com

Boko Haram, Yusuf Yakubu, and the Nigerian Family.

On December 25, 2011, a bomb blast in a catholic church in Northern Nigeria killed an estimated 25 worshippers, among who were parents and heads of households. Nigerians of every tribe and tongue, age, gender, and status reacted in disgust to this dastardly act of violence, primarily because it happened inside a church while services were in process, on one of the holiest of Christian days. That same day, in many parts of the country, many more Nigerians died of road accidents; a few pensioners died in their homes and on long queues; many families were evicted from their rental properties and a handful of young girls, thrust with the sudden responsibility of fending for their families,  took to the streets and hotel lobbies to make ends meet.

On October of 2012, a massive explosion killed another 25 Nigerians in another church up in the northern parts of Nigeria; again, many of them head of households. And, on December 25^th of the same year, gunmen killed 6 worshippers in a part of the same northern Nigeria. During the same period, some young, ambitious university students dropped out of school; a few more pensioners gave up the ghost; many civil servants could not participate in the festivities of the season; quite a few marriages ran into stormy waters, and a number of families found themselves homeless. As a consequence, somewhere in some Nigerian cities, young men took to crime, and their peers of the opposite sex took to the beaches of Eko and many other hotels at night.

“If your wealth is from people’s pensions, that is blood money” – Senator David Mark

In January of 2013, Alhaji Yusuf Yakubu was convicted of stealing in excess of N23 billion in pension funds over a period of years, and convicted to less than three years in prison, or N750, 000 in fines. Nigerians of all rank and files took to the streets to protest what was seen as a pat on the back, and a slap on the blind-folded face of lady justice. While Nigerians were reeling from the shock of both the enormity of the amount involved and the lightness of the sentence, somewhere in some ministry or department, a clerk was busy depositing pension checks in private accounts; in some agency in some state, a director elected to deposit staff salaries in his private account for six months. Consequentially, in some houses across the states, families hurdled around dining tables to deliberate on what essential amenities to cut; how many meals a day to provide, and the quality of those meals; who stays in school and who drops out; who gets clothing and others accessories, and who does not. Despairing of a future without hope and benefit, a young man joins a gang of kidnappers and robbers; a husband send his wife and children to the village to live with her parents “for a while” and, somewhere in Dubai, Qatar, and South Africa, a director of a Nigerian government agency acquires a property worth N10 billion.

In January of 2013, as is the case in many other Januarys of many other years past, a group of pensioners queued on line in many offices across the country to be re-verified, as they have been verified and re-verified many months and years on end, before payments of their entitlements. On this day, in this month, as has been the case in many days in many months, a few pensioners did not make it back to their homes alive; those who did, went home empty-handed to ponder the future, to wonder how much longer they could go on, and what other excuses they could give their creditors for non-payment of their debts. Somewhere, in some bedroom, in some homes, parents hurdled with their daughters to make a difficult decision; husbands and wives nodded in agreement to a decision that has been in abeyance for some months. Their sons conversed with their friends in the same situation and made pacts on the alternative lines of action.

In January, as in many months before, and many more to follow, an Imam, a Mullah, Pastor, and Rabbi preached to his faithful about the values and virtues of family unity and progress. About how a family that stays together progress together; how a progressive family results in a progressive community, and how a progressive community results in a progressive state and nation. How children who grew up in a united family raise one of such, and pass on the values and qualities of such families to their offspring. How we are important to each other in our societies, and how it is our responsibility that each other survives. Somewhere in the audience, a widow, a widower, an orphan, and a pensioner sigh in resignation and unbelief; in recollection of what was, what is now, and what would be.

The continuous death of Nigerians in the hands of Boko Haram leave a lot of families devoid of their main providers; it forces remnants of such families to rethink and re-assess their future, and make life-changing decisions that affect the future of the children forever. The death of the head of any and every household alters the economic and social standing of that family forever; only very few families continue, albeit on a scaled-down level. For many, it all goes downhill to a life of poverty, crime, and prostitution. Some children are pulled out of school, so their siblings could continue; those who elect to stay in school are left to seek ways to remain in those schools, thus leaving them open to crimes like prostitution, kidnapping, or armed robbery. Even the widows/widowers are susceptible to temptations to keep the family going. The attendant effects of the loss of the head of a family, man or woman, tears at the seams of the fabric that holds the family together. And, as the family goes, so goes the community.

Unfortunately, non-payment of staff salaries and pensions has the same destructive effect on families as terrorist acts from Boko Haram. It kills the will, spirit, plans, and hopes of the head; when those things die, the head dies. With the demise of the head, the rest of the body wags aimlessly. It causes the cutting of corners, the adjusting and scaling down of plans and elimination of others. When staff salaries and pensions are delayed, or not paid, families are deprived of means of existence; children are pulled out of schools; daily meals become harder to come by; clothing and other accessories take longer to replace; illnesses are left untreated, leading to premature deaths; the debts pile up, and families are left without roofs over their heads. In families where the spiritual bond is loosened due to difficult situations, marriages disintegrate and, just as with the death of the head in acts of terrorism, adult children are left to find means to fend for themselves – and, in some case, the entire family.

So, whether the root cause is a bomb blast in a catholic church on Christmas day, or the diversion of staff salaries and pensions to private accounts in Europe, US and the Middle East, the effects on the Nigerian family remains the same; devastation. While one method may cause physical death and the other spiritual and emotional death, the end is the same; death. This brings up the question: why are Nigerians not violently and physically repulsed by the diversion and, sometimes, outright withholding of staff salaries and pensions, as they are by the fatal results of terrorism caused by Boko Haram bombings? Could it be because while no one benefits financially from the bombing death of families and their heads of household, a great many Nigerians, though inadvertently through extended relationships, do benefit from the theft of other people’s salaries and pensions by their uncles, aunts, etc? Could it be because while the world could see the lifeless bodies of Nigerians killed by Boko Haram bombs, the same could not be said of the many that died of starvation, illnesses occasioned by malnutrition, and suicide borne out of hopelessness?

Like the senate president rightly said, getting fat off of someone’s hard-earned salaries and pensions is blood money; because, just like in acts of terrorism which leads to death and destruction, depriving others of their livelihood by pen results in the spilling of blood, destruction of the family, the community, and the nation. The sooner Nigerians understand and appreciate the negative impact of this relationship, the sooner they will begin to react the same way to incidents of non-payment of salaries and pensions to deserving Nigerians as they do to acts of terrorism by Boko Haram.

 

Felix Oti

felixoti@yahoo.com

Arlington, TX.