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I stand with Buhari by Lasisi Olagunju

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The story you are about to read was published by the Nigerian Tribune 38 years ago. It was the lead story of its June 5, 1984 edition. Written by Joe Aladesohun, it was headlined: ‘Man commits suicide’ with a rider: ‘frustration at the bank’.

The report:

A middle-aged man committed suicide in Ibadan last Wednesday following what sources described as “series of hopeless visits to his bank for cash.”

The partly decomposed body of Mr. K. O. (I withhold the name), a 48-year-old civil servant of the accounts department of the Oyo State Ministry of Information, Youths, Sports and Culture, was found dangling under the ceiling fan in one of his rooms three days after his death.

A suicide note left on a stool in the room showed that he decided to end his life out of frustration.

The deceased was said to have collapsed twice in the premises of a bank and was rushed home on each occasion without cash.

Last Monday, May 28, two days before he committed suicide, somebody had given him N2 (two naira) after narrating his ordeal.

An ulcer patient, the deceased was said to have complained about taking only pap, his regular meal, since he couldn’t withdraw cash from his bank.

His remains were laid to rest on Monday at the public cemetery, Sango, Ibadan.

Contacted on telephone on Monday, the state Police Commissioner, Mr. Archibong Nkana, simply said: “I think there was something like that.”

The suicide note left behind by the deceased reads: “Do not forget that I have insisted that the receipt of the purchased stationery is in the steel cabinet. I’m sorry I have to end up this way but I think that is the only way open to me.

“Find the cheque and the cheque book in the cupboard. I have done all I can to maintain a fairly good standard.

“The keys to the cupboard are in my drawer. The payment vouchers are in the steel cabinet.

“My burial should be simple, no mourning, no wailing, no reason for that.

“Bye, comrades, I have beaten the gun.” (End of story).

I work in a place with a library that houses almost all editions of all newspapers that have ever been published in Nigeria. J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter fantasy series, said “when in doubt, go to the library.” I consult the library for the same reason the diviner goes to his crystal ball. “Journalism is history on the run…history written in time to be acted upon,” said Thomas Griffith in the January 1959 issue of Nieman Reports. There is always an answer in history – and in journalism – and in the library. Insights into questions on everything are there, always, if you bore deep enough. I did that after listening to President Muhammadu Buhari’s lamentation in Owerri, Imo State, last week about his not being appreciated for the great work he has done (and is doing) with our lives. “This administration has done extremely well. I have to say it because those who are supposed to say it are not saying it. I don’t know why,” he said. I listened to him and felt he was in too much of a hurry. He was here from December 1983 to August 1985. During his first coming, he did so much with Nigerians, one of which was the currency exchange exercise of April/May 1984 which killed the man in the above story.

Buhari as military head of state did so many things that made children of those days grow old suddenly. It wasn’t enough that you had money in your bank accounts. Access to what you had was at the whim of the potentate in Dodan Barracks, Lagos, the then seat of government. People queued for days to get cash from their banks and went home empty-handed. Some got thoroughly whipped by soldiers on a corrective mission. Today’s young people can’t believe such was possible. But they happened. He made a law that made it a crime for journalists to publish the truth if it embarrassed people in government. He used that law to jail two Guardian journalists for publishing the truth. There was a scarcity of everything, including fundamental freedoms and staple foods. Nigerians cried for justice and rights and queued for sugar and rice. Buhari did many more to groups and individuals from the sea to the desert. Then, he was sacked by his comrades on August 27, 1985. Ibrahim Babangida, the man who replaced him, summed his regime up in the following words: “The last 20 months have not witnessed any significant changes in the national economy. Contrary to expectations, we have so far been subjected to a steady deterioration in the general standard of living; and intolerable suffering by ordinary Nigerians has risen higher; scarcity of commodities has increased…. Unemployment has stretched to critical dimensions.” Buhari was removed and replaced and there were wild jubilations. He must have felt terribly let down by that attitude of ingratitude – exactly as he feels now.

In 1985, Buhari believed he did very well; in 2022, he is convinced of his excellent pass mark in his current tour of duty. He has built roads and rail lines; he is building roads and rail lines. But he has also amassed debts enough to chew for ten centuries. And this is precisely where I am going. For his ‘excellent’ service as military ruler, the appreciation did not come for General Buhari in 1985 but it came thirty years later. Everyone who was his victim during his first life went looking for him to come back in 2015. Even Babangida supported him. Not many humans are that blessed. He is blessed. All his victims formed an armada of excuses to bring him back to power. They scented the septic in his tank and served it to the street as àmàlà and gbègìrì. He became a hurricane, the type that tore through woods and rocks. At least one of the jailed journalists, Tunde Thompson, openly campaigned for his election in 2015. “I have seen that time is a healer of certain wounds because people are still asking: ‘the man who jailed you wants to become president, what do you feel about it?’ They asked if I would vote for such a man. I want to say categorically that Buhari as the head of state at the time didn’t order the detention of Mr. Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor. He never did. Even Idiagbon did not. It was the head of NSO that ordered our arrest. That was the file my colleague saw when he was brought in to see Rafindadi after I had briefed him. And that was an order that they complied with. Buhari was not responsible for our arrest, so I do not see why at this time people are trying to make political capital out of what happened in 1984. Apart from that, it was an issue in the 2011 election. Between 2010 and 2011 people kept saying this over and over again. I think it’s now over 30 years, people should learn to be charitable; they should learn to forgive and let bygones be bygones, especially when we know the truth about who did what. I would like to say that Buhari didn’t order my arrest, so I bear no grudge against him,” the journalist said and added that he would vote for Buhari because he believed “that a person like Buhari at this time can call anybody to order and some people are afraid of that.”

I am sure that the man who killed himself in the above story, if he reincarnated and was around in 2015 as an àkúdàáyà, he would probably be one of the 15 million Nigerians who brought Buhari back. If it was a spell, it worked very well. It can still work again.

So, the president should not be angry in 2022 that we are hostile to the pangs and pains of his loving-kindness towards us. We will praise him tomorrow. He should ignore those who are supposed to sing the song of his excellence in power but are not saying it. The naira may exchange at a million for a US dollar; ASUU may be on strike for a year and universities closed forever; bandits and terrorists may continue to stop and shoot at moving trains; kidnappers may kidnap kings, governments and governors; the road to the farm may be shut to farmers; the path to the brook may be closed to fetchers of water; life may be generally brutish, nasty and short. Buhari should just calm down, eat and pick his teeth. All those won’t matter in the long run –which is not far away. We have a history of doing what abusive snail does to Òrìsà; it always goes back, shell and radula, with a rasping apology. If the world does not come to an end soon, every one of us abusing this president today may still beg him to stay here forever – or come back after his final round.

Do not just read the president; watch him. It is only by watching Buhari that you can read enough of his inscrutably opaque mind. Look for his Imo State video and watch how he looks as he says this: “This administration has done extremely well. I have to say it because those who are supposed to say it are not saying it. I don’t know why.” Who do you think he is referring to as the “they” who are “not saying it”? Lai Mohammed? No. Femi Adesina? No. Garba Shehu? No. Buhari does not have the character of a leader who throws his loyal lieutenants under the bus. Not at all. Those “who are supposed to say it but are not saying it” are the president’s party men; those who scheme to use his fingers to pull their chestnuts out of the fire of electoral politics without being seen with him. They are the ACN/ANPP people in the APC; the èmi l’ó kàn people. Bola Tinubu is ACN; his running mate, Kashim Shettima, is ANPP. Shettima campaigns with his Borno achievements; Tinubu flaunts his Lagos claims as proof of his leadership ingenuity. Neither is touching Buhari and his government with a long pole.

Was that how they started in 2015? No. Not even in 2019 did the current champions erect a Berlin Wall between their ‘ingenuity’ and Buhari’s ‘integrity.’ So, I stand with Buhari. Let the ACN/ANPP people stop running away from promoting his legacies. Ibadan people say those who dined with Salami Agbaje must compulsorily address him as Bàbá l’Áyéyé. “Truth always prevails in the end,” wrote Lord Acton, “but only when it has ceased to be in someone’s interest to prevent it from doing so.” What we have in the ruling party is a divorce without physical separation. It is like the candidates of the APC (top to bottom) want the party without its problem. The government is that problem; it is a floundering ship which no one outside the cockpit is willing to save. They campaign as an opposition with adversarial promises that should anger Buhari and his loyalists.

How is this likely to end? I have tried searching literature and history. I have read the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. The rogues lost everything, Ali Baba survived. I have read Treasure Finders – another tale of a band of thieves who abducted a man of charms and got him to rain for them the Seven Things of Price: gold, silver, pearl, coral, catseye, ruby, and diamond. The thieves here got their price but also lost it; they murdered one another; none survived, not even the innocent abducted man who rained for them the treasure. Those who fished out Buhari and made him their candidate in 2015 did not do it because they loved him or wished Nigeria well. He was retired and tired of losing repeatedly. But because they saw in him a shortcut to their life ambition to rule Nigeria, they went to Kaduna and told him: “come and contest again, we will back you and you will win.” They saw in his hand the magic wand to command 12 million northern votes. He surrendered to them and contested and won and the skies came down and collided with the earth. From top to bottom, the world went bad. Those who brought him now seek to be quiet on everything about his regime. Good or bad, they cannot now run away from drinking from the well of Buhari’s years. They should market themselves in Buhari’s tray. They swam with him in 2015 and 2019; they must swim and/or sink with him in 2023.

Strictly Personal

African Union must ensure Sudan civilians are protected, By Joyce Banda

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The war in Sudan presents the world – and Africa – with a test. This far, we have scored miserably. The international community has failed the people of Sudan. Collectively, we have chosen to systematically ignore and sacrifice the Sudanese people’s suffering in preference of our interests.

For 18 months, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have fought a pitiless conflict that has killed thousands, displaced millions, and triggered the world’s largest hunger crisis.

Crimes against humanity and war crimes have been committed by both parties to the conflict. Sexual and gender-based violence are at epidemic levels. The RSF has perpetrated a wave of ethnically motivated violence in Darfur. Starvation has been used as a weapon of war: The SAF has carried out airstrikes that deliberately target civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The plight of children is of deep concern to me. They have been killed, maimed, and forced to serve as soldiers. More than 14 million have been displaced, the world’s largest displacement of children. Millions more haven’t gone to school since the fighting broke out. Girls are at the highest risk of child marriage and gender-based violence. We are looking at a child protection crisis of frightful proportions.

In many of my international engagements, the women of Sudan have raised their concerns about the world’s non-commitment to bring about peace in Sudan.

I write with a simple message. We cannot delay any longer. The suffering cannot be allowed to continue or to become a secondary concern to the frustrating search for a political solution between the belligerents. The international community must come together and adopt urgent measures to protect Sudanese civilians.

Last month, the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan released a report that described a horrific range of crimes committed by the RSF and SAF. The report makes for chilling reading. The UN investigators concluded that the gravity of its findings required a concerted plan to safeguard the lives of Sudanese people in the line of fire.

“Given the failure of the warring parties to spare civilians, an independent and impartial force with a mandate to safeguard civilians must be deployed without delay,” said Mohamed Chande Othman, chair of the Fact-Finding Mission and former Chief Justice of Tanzania.

We must respond to this call with urgency.

A special responsibility resides with the African Union, in particular the AU Commission, which received a request on June 21 from the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) “to investigate and make recommendations to the PSC on practical measures to be undertaken for the protection of civilians.”

So far, we have heard nothing.

The time is now for the AU to act boldly and swiftly, even in the absence of a ceasefire, to advance robust civilian protection measures.

A physical protective presence, even one with a limited mandate, must be proposed, in line with the recommendation of the UN Fact-Finding Mission. The AU should press the parties to the conflict, particularly the Sudanese government, to invite the protective mission to enter Sudan to do its work free from interference.

The AU can recommend that the protection mission adopt targeted strategies operations, demarcated safe zones, and humanitarian corridors – to protect civilians and ensure safe, unhindered, and adequate access to humanitarian aid.

The protection mission mandate can include data gathering, monitoring, and early warning systems. It can play a role in ending the telecom blackout that has been a troubling feature of the war. The mission can support community-led efforts for self-protection, working closely with Sudan’s inspiring mutual-aid network of Emergency Response Rooms. It can engage and support localised peace efforts, contributing to community-level ceasefire and peacebuilding work.

I do not pretend that establishing a protection mission in Sudan will be easy. But the scale of Sudan’s crisis, the intransigence of the warring parties, and the clear and consistent demands from Sudanese civilians and civil society demand that we take action.

Many will be dismissive. It is true that numerous bureaucratic, institutional, and political obstacles stand in our way. But we must not be deterred.

Will we stand by as Sudan suffers mass atrocities, disease, famine, rape, mass displacement, and societal disintegration? Will we watch as the crisis in Africa’s third largest country spills outside of its borders and sets back the entire region?

Africa and the world have been given a test. I pray that we pass it.

Dr Joyce Banda is a former president of the Republic of Malawi.

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Strictly Personal

Economic policies must be local, By Lekan Sote

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With 32.70 per cent headline inflation, 40.20 per cent food inflation, and bread inflation of 45 per cent, all caused by the removal of subsidies from petrol and electricity, and the government’s policy of allowing market forces to determine the value of the Naira, Nigerians are reeling under high cost of living.

 

The observation by Obi Alfred Achebe of Onitsha, that “The wellbeing of the people has declined more steeply in the last months,” leads to doubts about the “Renewed Hope” slogan of President Bola Tinubu’s government that is perceived as extravagant, whilst asking Nigerians to be patient and wait for its unfolding economic policies to mature.

 

It doesn’t look as if it will abate soon, Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power, who seems ready to hike electricity tariffs again, recently argued that the N225 per kilowatt hour of electricity that Discos charge Band A premium customers is lower than the N750 and N950 respective costs of running privately-owned petrol or diesel generators.

 

While noting that 129 million, or 56 per cent of Nigerians are trapped below poverty line, the World Bank revealed that real per capita Gross Domestic Product, which disregards the service industry component, is yet to recover from the pre-2016 economic depression under the government of Muhammadu Buhari.

 

This has led many to begin to doubt the government’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund-inspired neo-liberal economic policies that seem to have further impoverished poor Nigerians, practically eliminated the middle class, and is making the rich also cry.

 

Yet the World Bank, which is not letting up, recently pontificated that “previous domestic policy missteps (based mainly on its own advice) are compounding the shocks of rising inflation (that is) eroding the purchasing power of the people… and this policy is pushing many (citizens) into poverty.”

 

It zeroes in by asking Nigeria to stay the gruelling course, which Ibukun Omole thinks “is nothing more than a manifesto for exploitation… a blatant attempt to continue the cycle of exploitation… a tool of imperialism, promoting the same policies that have kept Nigeria under the thumb of… neocolonial agenda for decades.”

 

When Indermilt Gill, Senior Vice President of the World Bank, told the 30th Summit of Nigeria’s Economic Summit Group, in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, that Nigerians may have to endure the harrowing economic conditions for another 10 to 15 years, attendees murmured but didn’t walk out on him because of Nigerian’s tradition of politeness to guests.

 

Governor Bala Muhammed of Bauchi State, who agrees with the World Bank that “purchasing power has dwindled,” also thinks that “these (World Bank-inspired) policies, usually handed down by arm-twisting compulsions, are not working.”

 

What seems to be trending now is the suggestion that because these neo-liberal policies do not seem to be helping the economy and the citizens of Nigeria, at least in the short term, it would be better to think up homegrown solutions to Nigeria’s economic problems.

 

Late Speaker of America’s House of Representatives, Tip O’Neill, is quoted to have quipped that, at the end of the day, “All politics is local.” He may have come to that conclusion after observing that it takes the locals in a community to know what is best for them.

 

This aphorism must apply to economics, a field of study that is derived from sociology, which is the study of the way of life of a people. Proof of this is in “The Wealth of Nations,” written by Adam Smith, who is regarded as the first scholar of economics.

 

In his Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of “The Wealth of Nations,” Andrew Skinner observes: “Adam Smith was undoubtedly the remarkable product of a remarkable age and one whose writing clearly reflects the intellectual, social and economic conditions of the period.”

 

To drive the point home that Smith’s book was written for his people and his time, Skinner reiterated that “the general ‘philosophy,’ which it contained was so thoroughly in accord with the aspirations and circumstances of his age.”

 

In a Freudian slip of the Darwinist realities of the Industrial Revolution that birthed individualism, capitalism, and global trade, Smith averred that “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principle in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasures of seeing it.”

 

And, he let it slip that capitalism is for the advantage of Europe when he confessed that “Europe, by not leaving things at perfect liberty (the so-called Invisible Hand), occasions… inequities,” by “restraining the competition in some trades to a smaller number… increasing it in others beyond what it naturally would be… and… free circulation of labour (or expertise) and stocks (goods) both from employment to employment and from place to place!”

 

Policymakers, who think Bretton Woods institutions will advise policies to replicate the success of the Euro-American economy in Nigeria must be daydreaming. After advising elimination of subsidy, as global best practices that reflect market forces, they failed to suggest that Nigeria’s N70,000 monthly minimum wage, neither reflects the realities of the global marketplace, nor Section 16(2,d) of Nigeria’s Constitution, which suggests a “reasonable national minimum living wage… for all citizens.”

 

After Alex Sienart, World Bank’s lead economist in Nigeria, pointed out that the wage increase will directly affect the lives of only 4.1 per cent of Nigerians, he suggested that Nigeria needed more productive jobs to reduce poverty. But he neither explained “productive jobs,” nor suggested how to create them.

 

In admitting past wrong economic policies that the World Bank recommended for Nigeria, its former President, Jim Yong Kim, confessed, “I think the World Bank has to take responsibility for having emphasized hard infrastructure –roads, rails, energy– for a long time…

 

“There is still the bias that says we will invest in hard infrastructure, and then we grow rich, (and) we will have enough money to invest in health and education. (But) we are now saying that’s the wrong approach, that you’ve got to start investing in your people.”

 

Kim is a Korean-American physician, health expert, and anthropologist, whose Harvard University and Brown University Ivy League background shapes his decidedly “Pax American” worldview of America’s dominance of the world economy.

 

Despite his do-gooder posturing, his diagnoses and prescriptions still did not quite address the root cause of Nigeria’s economic woes, nor provide any solutions. They were mere diversions that stopped short of the way forward.

 

He should have advocated for the massive accumulation of capital and investments in the local production of manufacturing machinery, industrial spare parts, and raw materials—items that are currently imported, weakening Nigeria’s trade balance.

 

He should have pushed for the completion of Ajaokuta Steel Mill and helped to line up investors with managerial, technical, and financial competence to salvage Nigeria’s electricity sector, whose poor run has been described by Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of Africa Development Bank, as “killing Nigerian industries.”

 

He could have assembled consultants to accelerate the conversion of Nigeria’s commuter vehicles to Compressed Natural Gas and get banks of the metropolitan economies, that hold Nigeria’s foreign reserves in their vaults, to invest their low-interest funds into Nigeria’s agriculture— so that Nigeria will no longer import foodstuffs.

 

Nigerians need homegrown solutions to their economic woes.

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